The Finality Of Revisions

I'm a day or two away from delivering the final revision to Below Zero, the sequel to Rise Again.  With every revision, the work gets better.  Hence revisions.  But the hard part is with every effort to improve the story, I'm better able to see over the top of the mountain to the next mountain.  I envision ways to strengthen the narrative, but they would take ages to mull over and implement.  They represent another revision.

There is a professional aspect to writing books that helps propel you toward the finish.  Bills to be paid, obligations to meet, an audience, with luck, to supply with stories.  Ultimately one draws a line and says 'it is done', regardless of how much untapped potential there might be.  It would be nice to have the power to go back and change things and make them better once the public has had a chance to respond -- to end-run critics and make one's personal canon better by hindsight.  But that's a rare opportunity.

In the past, the first edition might be revised in subsequent printings.  The Hobbit  is an example -- Tolkien changed the scene in which Gollum and Bilbo exchange riddles in order to reflect material in the more recent The Lord of the Rings, and made further revisions years after the original publication, in order to incorporate ideas from The Silmarillion.  These days, such alterations are seldom performed.  It's seen almost as heresy, in fact.  If JK Rowling went back and altered any aspect of the Harry Potter series, fans would probably react badly.  Even if the changes objectively improved the narrative.

Now, I'm not writing Harry Potter or Hobbits.  This is zombies, and a ruined America, and conflict-ridden people struggling to survive the worst that nature (and their own natures) can fling at them.  There aren't further books in the series to consider later on.  When I finish this draft, it's more or less done forever, unless my wise editor has suggestions to make.  No writer wants to make a thing and have it be less than perfect.  But we must move on.  Books must be published and read and new ones written.

So it's back to the manuscript, and searching for those things that could be better right now, with the understanding that posterity gets the material hereafter.

Busy Is Good

Been busy.  Am rewriting the first bit of Below Zero, the sequel to Rise Again, to add in some character stuff I missed; working on illustrations for the upcoming fantasy trilogy, also outlining the second and third books, and was just in Munich, Germany with my lady friend -- where we were doing story work on her TV series that Canal + recently picked up for development.

Other than that, basically just chillaxing.

The Stakes

Screenwriters, please remember this: it's not how big the action that matters, it's how big the stakes.

The most powerful scene is the one that raises the potential for success or failure -- bigger rewards, worse odds.  When it comes to what is happening in the scene, you can have planets collide or you can have two people talking.  The two people talking will always be more powerful.  That's how it is with humans.  You can claim the survival of the planet is at stake and it won't interest audiences.  But let us come to know just one person on that planet very well, and the suspense will be unbearable.

It's not how big the action that matters, it's how big the stakes.

Rewrites And Revisions

The difference between a revision and a rewrite is whether, once you've made the revisions, you have to change everything else as a result.

I seem to be in the midst of a rewrite.

Poetry

Desperately reworking the sequel to Rise Again, so nothing to say on the craft of writing lately -- too busy crafting it.

But because it's always sharing time on the interweb, I offer this little poem that someone, possibly me, scrawled on the back cover of an old screenplay:

If I can't have you in this life
I'll have you in the next
That's why god gave little girls
Such very slender necks.

Nothing creepy about that.

Moments of Doubt

A novelist friend of mine was recently wondering if all writers get to the point in a project where they're plagued by self-loathing, a total lack of inspiration, and an overwhelming hatred of the story; if every word is painful to write and the entire enterprise is obviously a waste of time.

Yes.

Notes On Sequel

Just got notes on the first draft of my sequel to Rise Again from my tireless editor, who fortunately for me had electricity after the hurricane.  There's always something terrifying and liberating about an edited manuscript.

On one side, it's passed a test; it's become a book-in-the-making rather than a really huge text file.  It's in the world.  On the other side, what wasn't working, what needs to change or improve, is revealed by someone who does this for a living.  So it's painful to let go of the self-flattery that got the first draft written and move on to the rigorous work of making a novel out of a manuscript.

Onward!