Kitchen sink plotting
Sep. 23rd, 2009 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pjthompsonAs I'm stumbling through the first draft of my novels, trying to find the line of the narrative, I have a tendency to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into the story to see what sticks. This is enormously inefficient, and I wind up having to cut many scenes when it comes to the next draft. But I can never quite seem to see what should stay or what should go until revisions. I'm confused and afraid to throw anything away lest I might need it later.
Classic hoarder mentally. Fortunately, some scenes are so glaringly out of place that I wind up deleting them—but I put them into an "off" file just in case. It's sick. And I suspect it's a big failing because I wind up with big, bloated first drafts that require a lot of rewriting. Although these days they aren't as horribly bloated as they used to be, so maybe I'm learning. Maybe.
In the moment, though, as I'm writing, everything seems vitally important. No one could possibly understand this book without that scene. How can I throw it away? I've gotten a lot better at trusting the reader on the scene and sentence level—really, people can infer quite a bit and "get it" just fine—but I've yet to whip that demon on the plot/book level.
Venus in Transit is having that problem now. Even though I'm writing new material to supposedly replace some of that kitchen sink material, I find it very difficult to throw out the old elements of the structure, characters that could probably be skipped for the sake of streamlining and the drive towards the climax, and etc.
It's a gall-durned cussed streak, that's what it is. Like I said, probably a big failing. I'm working to get beyond it, but I fear sometimes I may need an intervention or a 12-Step program to unlearn these bad habits for good.
Two steps forward, one step back.
Nah—just Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Classic hoarder mentally. Fortunately, some scenes are so glaringly out of place that I wind up deleting them—but I put them into an "off" file just in case. It's sick. And I suspect it's a big failing because I wind up with big, bloated first drafts that require a lot of rewriting. Although these days they aren't as horribly bloated as they used to be, so maybe I'm learning. Maybe.
In the moment, though, as I'm writing, everything seems vitally important. No one could possibly understand this book without that scene. How can I throw it away? I've gotten a lot better at trusting the reader on the scene and sentence level—really, people can infer quite a bit and "get it" just fine—but I've yet to whip that demon on the plot/book level.
Venus in Transit is having that problem now. Even though I'm writing new material to supposedly replace some of that kitchen sink material, I find it very difficult to throw out the old elements of the structure, characters that could probably be skipped for the sake of streamlining and the drive towards the climax, and etc.
It's a gall-durned cussed streak, that's what it is. Like I said, probably a big failing. I'm working to get beyond it, but I fear sometimes I may need an intervention or a 12-Step program to unlearn these bad habits for good.
Two steps forward, one step back.
Nah—just Keep It Simple, Stupid.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 02:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-24 04:09 pm (UTC)So, yeah. It's just getting to the point of cutting it that's the problem. :-)
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Date: 2009-09-24 03:36 pm (UTC)I have never thought about it in this light before!
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Date: 2009-09-24 04:10 pm (UTC)Note: I'm not one of those people who can't move through their house because of holding onto stuff, but I do have an inordinate amount of crap.