Oops apparently I for got to post this…
Dang that seems like a long headline! But, I want to share with you a new mindset I have decided to develop. Having finished my latest book’s first draft, I’m setting out on the mammoth task of reviewing, revising, and rewriting. Now, it’s not that I absolutely hate this task, it’s just that it has felt tedious, time-consuming and tiresome. I have always felt, well, there that’s finished, brush hands together and get onto the next one. However, I know it will get better after the beta readers, editors etc., but before I send it to them I want it to be the best I can achieve without help. It’s my story, my responsibility.
I have, therefore, given myself a good talking to and am trying to look at my work with new eyes and attitude. If I slow down the narrative long enough for the reader to establish the character in his/her setting, if I make the reader feel the feels, sense the smell, touch the texture, hear the accent/music/forest sounds then they get a much more immersive experience.
I love it when I get lost in the world of whatever book I’m reading (which, at the moment is Boy Swallows Universe – what beautiful writing). Isn’t that what I want for my reader? Aren’t they supposed to say, as they close the book, ‘Man, that was good. I was right there!’
There is a lot of advice, out there in the media-verse, to just get on with relaying the story. don’t use too many adjectives, don’t take to long in the telling, action is everything, move, move, move…
Well, I beg to differ…I say balance all that action with explanation and explication. You can’t ‘show not tell’ without taking time out to trace the feelings, smell, noise, taste sights. Sometimes those things are so overpowering, so amazing, so awe-inspiring that they deserve an adjective or two. They deserve the deep breaths and appreciation.
Let’s stop dissing adjectives and adverbs, but using them wisely build our worlds, however small and seemingly insignificant, into places our readers can fully inhabit.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? How do you go about your re-writes. Do you toss out all those words and start again? Or, like me, go back and build little by little, more truth, strength and realness into what you have already accomplished? After all, I wrote a book! I mean, that’s no small task. Why would I bury it, when it can be re-vitalised, brought back to radiant new life?
Let me know how you’re doing,
Percy Rose - Author 