Revising and murder

[truepenny]

Catchy title, isn't it?

In this case, though, I simply mean that valuable piece of writing advice, "Murder your darlings." In other words, just because a sentence is cool, doesn't mean it improves the story.

I have a series of short stories ("Wait for Me" is one) which feature the same narrator and actually have a sort of continuity. Six of them have been published (in venues of varying repute), one is in press, and one is in serious editorial consideration. The ninth seems determined to be my bête noire.

It started out as a story with heavy atmosphere but no noticeable plot. Then there was a sequel, which had all the plot, but was so dependent on the set-up in the first story that there was no point in pretending it could stand by itself. So I smushed them together into a two-part novella, and thought I was fine.

The most recent rejection letter on that novella, however, made me start thinking about the story again, because the editor had genuinely liked the story, but felt it was too slow. Now, reaction #1 to any editorial criticism is always "They don't understand my genius! Waaaah!" Sometimes that's the truth of the matter, and in that case you pick your story up, dust it off, let it blow its nose, give it a hug, and send the little bastard right back into the fray.

But there's also reaction #2, which is, "Oh hell. They're right." I tend to get #2 either when the editor has pointed out something blindingly obvious which I somehow managed to miss (mortifying much?), or when the story's been out making the rounds for a while and I have some distance on it, enough at least to pretend to objectivity.

So I started thinking about this story again, in and around the 1,654,420,749 other things competing for my attention, and a couple days ago I realized that I'd done something I often do, both in fiction and nonfiction. heres_luck and I actually developed a shorthand for it when I was writing my dissertation: quack! in the margin meant I was waddling in circles like a duck with one foot nailed to the floor. It's not merely that I repeat myself; it's that I state an idea once, move away to another idea, then circle back and say more about the first idea. Or, in fiction, that my characters get into a situation, get out, and then later return to what is essentially the same situation to talk about it some more. Same problem, come to think of it, that I'm having with another pair of short stories that need to be revised into one.

Both narrative and argument work better if you put all the relevant material together--unless, of course, you're doing something deliberately with repetition and re-iteration, which in this case, no, not so much.

So I'm compressing a 9,500 word novella. It's down to 7,300 words, and I know I'm not done. But the problem--and here I circle back to my original topic (quack!)--is that the re-iterated material fights with itself. I've said the same thing twice, but not in the same way. Thus, in trying to combine these two scenes into one, I'm finding myself saying, But I don't WANT to delete that paragraph! It's perfect! This tends to cause mental gridlock and general malaise.

But.

The wonderful thing about the wordprocessor and the Information Age is that taking words out of one story doesn't mean they're lost forever. I keep a file for almost every project I work on where I can put excised paragraphs. Partly, this is because sometimes I can use them somewhere else--and sometimes in fact I need to use them somewhere else (there are a couple paragraphs I took out of Kekropia that belong in The Mirador, and I'm very grateful that I recognized that). And partly, I keep these files because they placate the Word-Hoarding Ferrets that can't bear to throw anything out. (Shinies!) And thus, having these files makes it easier to admit that no, these words, beautiful though they may be, do not belong in this story. They are not helping.

Murder your darlings.

Comments

[batwrangler.livejournal.com]

>Word-Hoarding Ferrets

That explains all these little pieces of paper ... Thanks!

(They part of matociquala's Writer's Bestiary?)

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

ooh, word-hoarding ferrts. They should be. We should adjust the icons.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Jodi provides the ferrets.

There's room in Icon #2, I think....

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Word-Hoarding Ferrets

Do ferrets hoard? I thought that was squirrels. But nevermind because I love the idea; it appeals to my inner packrat. So I will no longer Murder any Darlings I will simply hoard them carefully against some possible future Darling shortage. *g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I do not myself own or know ferrets, but my understanding (which is based mostly on the Bad Ferret List (http://www.badpets.net/BadPets/BadFerret.html)) is that they hoard madly.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

Thank you. That's a wonderful list. My knowledge of ferrets has just increased a thousand fold. I knew virtually nothing about them previously, despite there being a one-eyed ferret in our Small Animal Care department

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I keep a file for almost every project I work on where I can put excised paragraphs.

Me, too, for the same reasons.

[stillsostrange.livejournal.com]

I keep a file for almost every project I work on where I can put excised paragraphs.

I try to do that. I usually fail somewhere mid-book and start flailing. What was that sentence? What was that telling description? What was that perfect transition?

[larryhammer]

Always save the murdered corpses. Many can be used again in another story.

The writer's mantra: Reduce! Reuse! Recycle!

---L.

[katallen.livejournal.com]

::nods:: the dump/dip files. When I finally admit to myself that there's no room to push something back in elsewhere. Not even if I twist it round a bit and really shove hard. I'm even worse at dumping ideas.