Question of the Month

copyright 2001 by Alicia Rasley

 

Ask me anything.... about writing, that is. It's all I know.

More punctuation? Can you stand it?  But first, a question about
magic and craft and revision and all that.

Want some old questions? Click here for an archive.
 

uestion:
My critique group keeps telling me to revise and revise, and I'm afraid I'm just revising away all the magic that was in there when I first wrote the book.  Does improving the craft mean losing the
inspiration?

nswer:

Well, as someone who revises twenty times, and hopes that helps REVEAL the magic, no, I don't think we're crafting away magic.  I think it probably has more to do with the stages of the career.  When we're new writers, we write with a lot of exuberance and energy because this is all new and exciting and often this is a story we're dying to tell.
Trouble is, the novelty often comes complete with structure and prose problems.  It's not the dangling participles that make the new author's book fun (dangling participles drive me nuts-- I can't believe they could be good for more than inadvertent comedy :), but they are evidence that the author is probably pretty new and hasn't yet learned a lot about editing.  It's the newness, the novelty, that I think brings the freshness, not the poor craft.

Does that make sense?  As we grow as writers, we gain by learning more about the craft, and we do many things better-- I'll bet most of us are MUCH better about building in suspense and tension than we were early in our careers.  But we can't probably generate quite the level of exhilaration that we had when this was our new obsession.  Also, the 20th story is unlikely to be as "necessary to tell" as the first.

Maybe it's like (ahem) sex in marriage.  On the honeymoon, there's lots of energy and excitement and newness, but (unless, of course, you've been living together for years!) there's not much knowledge of each other's preferences.  Twenty years later, your "craft" has improved-- you each know exactly how to get the other off, and exactly what not to do-- but you can't pretend you've never done this before and that this time is really really really special.

But I certainly think that it's possible for new writers to have terrific  craft, and "old" writers to have terrific energy.  They're not mutually  exclusive.  I think when someone tackles a new genre, or even goes to a new publisher, you often see a new spark of excitement in their work. That might be a good reason to challenge ourselves to do something different and new with each book.

But one thing I'm sure about-- if revising is stripping away the magic of your book, then you're doing it wrong. :)  Or maybe (do you mind my saying this? It's brutal...) revising shows you that the book has major problems that you didn't notice until you started getting analytical.  Maybe revising didn't create those problems, but just revealed them to you.

In that case, it might be time to put that book away for a couple months, start a new one, and then, when you have some distance, go back to it with a fresh eye.  Then you might find that you can do that difficult revision, the one that reveals the magic within rather than wears it away.

That's easier said than done.  But here are things I do when I revise that I think enhance the magic-- (most of these are structural... revising prose is something I do constantly, as I write, so that's not what I consider real revision)

I try to find the theme and make sure that the book as a whole adds up to that theme.  For example, if decide my theme is "one honest person can stop corruption", then I probably don't want the honest person selling out in the end!  (I'd either change the ending or change the theme so that they matched
better.)

I look for little plot threads I didn't develop well.  In one book, I had the hero having to plan a party for the police chief while simultaneously investigating a bomber.  Duh.  It took a second go-round to figure out that the bomber should put a bomb there at the surprise party, or that party would be a wasted scene.

I look for motifs (repeated patterns and images) that I haven't followed through on.  Maybe I make a big point about how the heroine is "gambling" on something, and everyone around her is  buying lottery tickets hoping to hit the big jackpot.  If I only mention the lottery in one scene, I've missed my chance to
play with that "gambling" motif.  I should occasionally have her overhear a conversation about how high the jackpot is.  And maybe I should have her consider buying a ticket.  And finally, maybe she reads that the jackpot wasn't won this time, or was won by her neighbor... something to close that motif.

I check on my secondary characters and see if they're all needed.  Sometimes I'll combine a couple if they don't both have an essential purpose.  I don't like to clutter up the story with too many people.

I look at each scene and check to see there's something essential happening.  I tend to write way too long, so I am always looking for places to cut, and if there's no big event in the scene, I try to reduce it to a "narrative bridge"-- a short summary that leads to something more important.  ("After three weeks of sending out resumes with no response, Terry realized she had no choice.  She had to sell her Porsche" is a narrative bridge.  That's more concise, obviously, than a scene that shows her sending
out resume after resume, checking her answering machine every night, worrying about her bank account, and then finally deciding to sell her car.)

Revision is part of the making of magic.  It's actually what will transfer the magic from you to your reader-- making what was magical to write into what is magical to read.

Have fun!

Alicia

uestion:

How about another comma question.  Here's the sentence:
A regretful and much wiser woman, Terry sat by the fire considering her future.
Should there be a comma after "fire"?

What about a comma before the word and? Should there be one?
A regretful, and much wiser woman, Terry.....

Louis
 

nswer:

Louis--

This is a "discretionary comma"- use it if you like as long as it conveys the meaning you intend.

The major purpose of commas in a sentence is to set off "elements of meaning" so it's clear that the words therein (I've never gotten to use that word before :) belong together and not mushed in with other words in the sentence.

Phrases at the beginning of the sentence are usually set off by commas because otherwise they might sort of blend in with the sentence-proper and the meaning would be lost.
For example, "In 1815 Paris was recovering...."-- without the comma, the reader might for a moment think that 1815 modified Paris (In 1815 Paris), and then reach "was" and for
a second there be clawing, trying to find a subject to grab onto because the sentence's actual subject
has already been used up.  This only lasts an instant, but can spoil the coherence of the sentence for
readers.

With a comma there, it's clear that it's 1815, and Paris was doing something-- that Paris is the subject of the sentence and not the object of the preposition. ("In 1815, Paris...")

By the time she reaches the end of the main clause (that is, the major subject-predicate element), the reader has already usually gotten the essential bits of meaning and placed them in context, so the meaning isn't as fragile, and setting off elements isn't as important.

That's why, when elements like dependent clauses ("because the world is round") and participial phrases ("considering her future") are at the end of the sentence, they aren't generally set off by commas.

BUT.... these final phrases and clauses are still separate sentence elements (that is, you can distinguish them as a phrase or a clause -- they are a unit of meaning in and of themselves, though not complete enough to be a sentence), so it's only sentence position that says they don't need a comma.

So, in my opinion, a comma is always allowed there if you think the sentence needs that little extra bit of "traffic control", or if (this is all-important in my case:) you think the sentence SOUNDS better that way.

Try this: Write it both ways, and then read each aloud, pausing for an instant after each comma.

A regretful and much wiser woman, Terry sat by the fire considering her future.

A regretful and much wiser woman, Terry sat by the fire, considering her future.

Do you hear a subtle difference in meaning?  Without the comma, there's a sense of, I don't know, ease, almost, relaxation.  She sat by the fire considering her future.  No big deal.  Sitting by the fire is as important as considering the future to her right now.

In contrast, "She sat by the fire, considering her future" sounds more rueful, more contemplative. It sounds like that considering the future  is so important, it  needs to be set off by that pause.

Both are technically fine– which sounds more like you mean?

What about a comma before the word -and-? Should there be one?
A regretful, and much wiser woman, Terry.....

No, not unless there's some very good reason for it.  And then, actually, the comma would be there to set off "and much wiser" as a separate element, to be considered off by itself.  I could see this if you were setting up a contrast between the two adjectives, say something like "rough-hewn and handsome".

But then you'd need a comma afterwards, to complete the "setting off" of the contrasting element.  Try "A rough-hewn, but still handsome, man"-- the commas set off "but still handsome" to show the contrast between that and what the reader is set up to expect with "rough-hewn" (that is, not handsome)
Since "but" already does the contrast-marking, I'm not sure I'd bother, except when I really wanted the reader to get the contrast message-- maybe "A kind, but genocidal,
leader," would be a better example.

As you can see, where you place commas affects the meaning of the sentence.  When there's no obviously right answer, the best technique read each option allowed and really listen to hear the difference.  Your ear will tell you which meaning is the one you want.

Have fun!  (Well, I think commas are fun. :)

Alicia

 

 

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