I’ve been thinking a lot about how my writing process has changed. If I record the development of my writing, maybe it will help someone else the way it helps me to read about other writers. Here we go!
I didn’t grow up convinced I was an author. Sure, I dabbled in stories and poetry, but they were either for school assignments or my own personal pleasure.
Then I had kids. Children change your life in so many ways. My middle child changed my writing life when she found some old paragraphs from a non-existent story and asked for the rest of it. I had to tell her that’s all there was.
That was purely unacceptable, so she quizzed me for at least an hour about my characters, world, and possible plot. When she thought I had enough for a story, she ordered me to write it. I protested I didn’t remember all my answers. She wrote them all down. Nope, no excuses.
So I “plotted” all six chapters of the short story I had in mind, and I started writing. From the beginning. One very slow paragraph at a time, starting in July 2013. Most of the time, I wrote strictly in order, following the simple notes I called a plot. On rare occasions, I’d skip around a bit to avoid difficult parts, then circle back to fill in the blanks.
At this point in my writing life, I had no intention of EVER going professional. In fact, I didn’t even tell my friends I was writing. This story was for my daughter, that’s all. Okay, fine, my husband and other children could read it, too.
As I wrote, I had to keep bumping plot notes from one chapter to the next as the middle of the story expanded. Pretty soon, I had eight chapters, and I wasn’t even finished. Then twelve, fifteen, twenty! It was now March of 2015, and I had myself a complete novel clocking in at 104,000 words.
Somewhere in the middle of 2014, I finally told a few select friends about my book. Then in late 2015, months after I finished, I decided that I ought to join a writer’s group and get some real critique. Just to make the book as good as possible for my daughter, you understand. I still wasn’t going pro.
So I found a group and shared my first half-chapter (word count limits), feeling like I was baring my soul. Sharing a creative baby is scary! It didn’t help that the guy who was critiqued right before me was told to kill his chapter and go back to the drawing board…
I shared anyway, shaking in my chair, and sure, I got LOTS of comments to fix things, but the readers also said they liked the story. I took their suggestions home and revised almost every day until the next meeting. Then I took in the next half-chapter, with similar results.
After several months, I started noticing trends in the comments. One frequent comment was “head-hopping.” It seemed I didn’t really understand point of view (POV). Oh. Okay. Hello, library, let’s do research. (I love the library.)
After a lot of reading and discussing and thinking, I decided I needed to split my chapters and stick firmly to only one POV per chapter, with the POV character named first.
One very long and tiring revision later (read “weeks”), I had thirty-three chapters that I thought were now single-POV. So now the big revision was over, and I could just work on the minor edits. Right?
I bet you experienced writers out there are now shaking your heads…
I’ll stop there and pick up next time.
M. C. Lee
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