Nick Bryan

Archives for January 2013

Take Three! – How Many Manuscript Restarts Is Too Many?

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GOOD BETTER BEST NEVER LET IT REST

I am currently taking my third swing at the same novel idea. This one started as a short story during 2011, before I promoted it to novel status for NaNo 2012.And now, having written 25,000 words back then, I’m rewriting most of it yet again.

Three starts on the same story. My impatient younger self would’ve told me to give up and try something else by now. Does he have a point?

I’ve isolated three factors to blame for this third restart – oh yes, synchronicity. Let’s list them.

Editing – Almost Not Boring

Despite often struggling with editing, I’ve found it weirdly satisfying to usher this story into its better form. It helps that I’m not scrapping the previous version entirely (although I’m rewriting or refocusing almost all the text), thus avoiding blank page terror.

Of course, I could have forged on and written the newer version from where I’d reached, without bothering to change the beginning, if not for the second factor…

Sequence – Almost Not Necessary

I’m told learning to love editing is a big maturing step for a writer, and I’m getting there. For my next trick, I’d like to learn to write out of sequence. Currently, writing the last 75% of a draft whilst the first quarter contradicts it seems totally alien to me.I mean, why bother? I’m going to make so many changes, most stretching back to the start, so if I don’t sit down and edit those early scenes, I won’t know what to reference and will probably end up re-re-rewriting the later parts. I know a few writers who work out of order, and maybe one day I’ll understand them.

The Matrix – Can You Relate To A Spoon?

Finally, the influence of that Scarlett Thomas writing manual I reviewed a few weeks back. She had a lot to say about planning and structure, and it did get me thinking. I filled in the matrix she provided, mostly out of curiosity, and it did give me some new ideas. (If you’re curious, you can download it from her website here. Whether it’ll be much use without the context of the book, I’m not sure.)

In fact, even though I wasn’t entirely agreeing with her focus on “writing what you know”, it sums up many of the changes I’ve made. Making the lead character more relatable, grounding the whole thing more, hopefully holding my interest more.

So, all of those things happened, and now I’m on my third restart of the same novel. Will there be a fourth? Should there be a fourth? At what point do you give up? How many times have you restarted your projects? Did you do it for any of the same reasons? Am I trapped in an eternal loop? Thoughts welcome.

Turning Writing Into A Game – When Do I Win?

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I will settle for the kettle.If you enjoy the nausea-inducing November writing challenge of NaNoWriMo, maybe you’ve found yourself wanting to find other ways to turn writing into a game. Myself and a friend, both living in the Nunhead region of London at the time, once attempted a second 50k writing challenge in the month of March, under the name “NunheadWriMo”.

You may laugh, but it kinda works with the abbreviation. Without a forum to motivate us, we pushed each other by exchanging trash talk on MSN. For those of you without a kindhearted friend to hurl verbal abuse, though, how can you keep “winning” at writing?

Well, if a daily target and willpower aren’t enough, here are some other incentive schemes.

Camp NaNoWriMo – If It Ain’t Broke, Start It Up Again

Sensing an appetite for NonNovNaNo, the NaNoWriMo people have started Camp NaNoWriMo, where you can link up with other like-minded people to support each other through a 50k push outside of November.

There’s also some hut-based system that I don’t really understand, because they love that camping metaphor. Hopefully next feature is a campfire to burn unwanted writing. But anyway, 1667 a day is quite a lot, so let’s check out less masochistic targets.

750words.com – When 500 Is Too Little, But 1000 Is Too Much

The idea here is that you do 750 words a day, come rain or shine, and the website at 750words.com keeps track of them for you. This is based on a similar exercise called “Morning Pages” where you churn out a few pages of typing every morning, simply to get the writing muscles working.

So your 750 words could be journal dream-writey stuff, or they could be the mid-length building blocks of your novel. Personally, I have to do a thousand a day before I can relax, but 750 is pleasantly unintimidating, I can see the appeal.

Word Count Game – I Can’t Help It, I Have To Beat My Friends

If you want both the doable word counts of 750words and the satisfying friend-killing of NaNo, I’ve recently started playing a word count game with my writing accomplices Alastair and Claire. The aim here is to reward consistency as much as word counts –do at least 250 words a day, and you get daily points for your unbroken run of productive days (1 on your first day, 2 on your second, etc), plus points each day for words written (250 words = 1 points, 500 words = 2 points, 1000 words = 3 points, 2000 words = 4 points).

So producing intermittent huge amounts actually gets you less points than building up a long chain of days. It’s an interesting game, and 250 is definitely an achievable amount – it’s pretty small, in fact – I have to stop myself from clocking out after doing it. Still, this is the method I’m currently using to make myself write – the prospect of “beating” my two friends. (Currently boosting my points for said game by writing about it, and winning by 12 points as of this post, so feeling good.)

If you want to join this game, there’s a spreadsheet obtainable here. We’ve made our own copy and shared it between the three of us, rather than joining the communal pile-on. You may wish to do the same with your friends.

Has turning your writing into a game worked for you? Is there another scheme that has proven useful? Or does this kinda stuff cheapen the artform somehow? Thoughts welcome.

Monkeys with Typewriters by Scarlett Thomas – Timely Book Review

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Scarlett Thomas - Monkeys With Typewriters

Monkeys With Typewriters by Scarlett Thomas came out in October 2012, making this less untimely than most of my book reviews, and features the popular novelist and creative writing lecturer setting down, in a mere 400 pages (plus footnotes and appendices), her secrets to good writing.

There are, you may have noticed, a lot of books on writing out there. So, as someone who has already done a whole Masters on the subject, did I get anything extra out of Thomas’s contribution to the genre? Well, yes and no.

Part One: Shall I Kill Them And When?

Broadly, this book splits into two sections: one on how to structure a novel, another covering the nuts and bolts of writing it. The first of these is the more interesting – Thomas has a lot to say about story structure and plotting, her feelings on “basic plots”, etc.

You might get more out of this if you work in a genre similar to her – fictional novel, probably literary. For any story, though, if you’re struggling to crystallise your ideas into a story shape, this book provides a thorough exploration, including tables and the like.

There are sections where Thomas spends ages picking apart concepts, rather than ploughing ahead; I also don’t really agree with her about writing strictly “from experience” (and I’m not even a hard fantasy or sci-fi writer). Still, if you want to learn broad story shapes before playing with them, this is interesting foundation stuff, especially as my particular creative writing MA didn’t go into this material in such detail.

Part Two: How Do I Make Their Deaths Beautiful?

The second part, rattling through such piffling items as “sentences” and “characterisation”, isn’t quite as strong, and considering how fast we skip through such large ideas, I’m not sure Thomas is as interested in these aspects. The back half’s still worth a skim, and if you’ve never read any writing books/advice before, you’ll get more from it. But yes, for those of us who have reached the point of starting blogs about writing or doing an MA, a lot of this might sound familiar.

Still, Monkeys With Typewriters gave me a lot to think about in terms of broader plotting and working with themes, I may even try a few of her matrices. I don’t know if this is a single writing book to live by, exactly, but as a solid introduction, it’s intriguing.

Also, if you’re a huge fan of Scarlett Thomas and want an insight into her process, this book is obviously great. But if you fall into that category, you’ve probably already bought it.So, anyone else read this? Did it redefine your writing process?

Twenty Thirteen And All That

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So, happy new year! As you might notice, I’ve made some 2013 changes. As in, we’re now on Blogger (because Tumblr kept crashing), and the site has a new look. For anyone reading this on the RSS feed, why not go check out the new design?(And if you’re not yet on the RSS feed, why not subscribe? It’s easier than remembering to check the site. Previous subscribers should have come across.)

Anyway. Aside from a new look website, with added staring eyeball, what else is new?

Editorsomestow?

One big change, which I didn’t really plug on here much: I am now Editor of the Television @ The Digital Fix section! Yes, a promotion. I now get to write about whatever I want, or at least, whatever the TV channels dump in front of me. Also, if you desperately want to review TV for a website, get in touch.

Writers always welcome.In other news, I finished one novel, started another. I also have an array of short stories left over from my MA, which I am hoping to get out there soon.

Oh, and I moved out of South London to Walthamstow, home of East 17 and the dubious nickname “Awesomestow”. That might’ve been the biggest adjustment.

So, that was your new year news post. I might try and get the weekly writing posts going again next week, it seems a shame to have a new website with nothing on it except links to other websites. For now, hope you like the site, let me know if you spot a broken link. I have already spent quite a while trying to eliminate them, but Tumblr links are a tricky breed, they get everywhere.

Anyway. Hope the rest of you also had a fabulous new year, I know I did. May 2013 be good and joyful for us all.