There really is such a thing as ‘too tight’, or Dammit, I’ve lost my voice!!!!

It should come as no surprise to my regular readers that I’m knee deep in revisions... some days better than others and I thought I was making a good deal of progress... okay, I’m getting a little loopy, and I keep changing tracks to include some short story and essay time (oh, came up with a good essay for a particular publication that I love, hopefully it’s as good when I go to edit it next week)... are you all still with me? Sorry I’m a bit scattered here and I keep losing the damn point....

It’s a constant state of writing that you’ll look at the very same piece one day and think you’ve really hit it, but at another time you’ll want to hang it up for good and pick a more sensible career path. So, I’m barreling through revisions, cut a character, found a running theme that needed pulling out, am thrilled with the way some previously more cardboard than flesh and blood characters have come along... yada, yada... but I decided yesterday to start at the beginning and give it a quick read through – what did I find? There is such a thing as ‘too tight’.

I revised and re-revised my first two chapters in light of much research and some great commentary from both a critique group and my regular writers circle. I spent a good deal more time on those two chapters than the whole, as I was gearing them for final publication while still working on some major points throughout the rest... and the crits were good, don’t get me wrong. I do have a habit of including too much back story, I do break into a bit too much telling at certain passages, and of course there’s always room for improvement. But now, reading through those same chapters – my voice is absent.

I knew there was something wrong immediately, and the voice I’m getting in the first chapter is, well, staccato... and I’m not partial to staccato. In the aim of cutting out the unnecessary back story, I seem to have left a good deal of my own voice on the cutting room floor as well... and I like my voice – it’s got a good beat, I can dance to it...

I think it’s important that I pay attention to criticism, because there’s only so much you can see when you’re that close to your own work – and I don’t think the crits were wrong, I think I went too far over one way and lost some of the flow of my own writing in the process... I’m leaving off on those two chapters for now – I don’t want to get stuck obsessing over the first pages of my manuscript forever – so I’ll keep going where I am and see if the fix pops to light by the end of the journey.

How about you guys, have you ever gone so far in revisions that you lost a bit of your own flavor? Have you ever revised so much that you can’t see the glaring mistakes? Have you ever eaten an entire spice cake in sheer frustration? (Okay, two big pieces, but it might as well have been the whole thing). Feel free to vent if you’d like.

Spoon Feeding = Bad

I’m currently embroiled in the process of editing my novel. I think a lot of new writers, and non writers, underestimate the importance of the editing process... so when you say, “I’m editing”, they think, ‘oh, checking the spelling and punctuation...’

The largest part of this, for me, is concentrating on keeping it active and getting rid of the dreaded back story... Back story is the enemy, and I, my friends, am a rampant spoon feeder. I know, in my head, everything that’s brought them here (my characters, that is). I know the intricacies of how, when, where, what and why... but I’m impatient in the first few drafts and have a tendency to tell you exactly how it works.

Writers hear things such as, ‘show don’t tell’ and think they have it locked if they just eliminate the passive verbs... it helps, but that’s not the only factor. Telling information in an active way is no better than telling it in a non active way... It’s all passive.

So, currently, I’m removing all back story which is moving the story faster, but in spots it’s also hard to do... When I’m done with this revision, I may have to go back and add some foreshadowing to beef up the descriptive passages... it’s also a balance where to drop these little nuggets of information, so that the reader maintains a good understanding of the characters’ motivation...

But here’s my philosophical thought for the day. Back story in a novel is often part of the characters’ history – it’s in their past with respect to this telling. It will also completely stop the movement of your story and take the reader out of the action... Just like your own memories and history can take you out of the motion of life today... Spoon Feeding = bad. In fiction and in life.