"Takeover" is getting some heavy critique. Which I want. Really I do.
Sometimes the story and the writing come together, like in "Snaked," and the editors help me get the rest of the way there.
But other times I run into roadblocks.
I usually feel disappointed for a a day or so, and then I mull it over, and then I try to come to terms with it. It reminds me of when I was in group therapy, and something the shrink or a group member would say would strike home and I'd go away upset but by the next meeting, I'd internalized it.
If I'm going to become a better writer, I need to have my weaknesses pointed out. (As long as it's constructive.) One of the editors came back with a critique that included exactly the same weaknesses I've identified in myself; which is both validating in a strange sense, but also a little discouraging.
I'm aware that I don't always have the characters respond to emotional events, aware that I lack "action tags" and mostly use "dialogue tags."
I usually address this by concentrating on "telling details" in the rewrites. Trying to bring in more character movement and description, more senses than visual, more reaction to important moments. I've also tried harder to add these elements in the first draft.
I've accepted that rewrites are especially important for me. I think I need second-parties to point out where I've fallen short.
I tend to want to get that first draft down, not tarry, then try to go back and dress it up. I purposely try to add 10 to 15% to the second draft. Perforce, this usually addresses at least part of the problem.
"Your strength is in the concept and the buildup to the conclusion, not so much the tiny details."
This too, I agree with, as well as my simple, straight-forward style. (Which I strive for.)
These are problems that can be addressed--that's what rewriting is for.
It's the structural problems that give me fits, and those are much harder to fix. I've found that messing too much with the structure is problematic, and yet...if I don't...the book might not work. Sometimes I just have to accept what I've done and move on.
The problem is, I discover plot by writing, and I tend to meander for a bit before I find the story, and then I have hard time tightening up the meandering. Yes, outlines would be helpful. But I repeat: I discover plot by writing.
So...going forward.
More attention to "telling details," more reaction to events, more streamlining the early parts of my plots. I've written 35 books, and I still feel sometimes like I'm trying to write my first book.
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"In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit."
If you read my last comment, you'll find that that is all Tolkien wrote for years before he, drew a map (Thror's Map) and then wrote the story The Hobbit.
He too, it would seem, discovered *some* of his plot while he wrote. But where he stretched his writing over years (if not decades: it took tens of years to fully write LOTR), you, on the other hand, compress the writing process into months. Trying to create a broad, cohesive plot in such a tight timeline, simply by following your nose, would be difficult for anyone.
Now, I know I'm nobody when it comes to writing, or *gasp* give writing advice, but it's taken me 5 months so far writing the scant 40k words for the Gribble's Eye. But in that time, I've explored myriad plot turns, story arcs, character intrigues, and as I've not had the time to write as quickly as you, I've let these story factors macerate, stew into a more rich and intertwined story.
My point is, maybe if you stretched out the storytelling -- creation-time wise -- you might discover your plot, by meandering, but, by allowing a marination to occur, you would have the opportunity to revise your plots into a more full-featured experience.
(I would imagine your Tales of the Mirror God are stewing along nicely about now...)
I think waiting between drafts is most beneficial.
I've just figured out a new first fifty pages to "Deadfall Ridge," which as you suggested, I'm going to call "Bigfoot Ranch."
Much cleaner, clearer motivations, gets right to the action. Much improved. Maybe too late to save the day with my publisher, but I'll give him a shout.
I'm hoping you'll read them, Dave, and tell me if I've hit the mark.
Of course.
Here's what I dream of:
I design the story concept, the implied and explicit concepts that make the plot, both momentous and endearing. Sketch out a broad "we start here with these assumptions", "move to here with these altercations and complications", "and end up approximately here, with these threads and story tendrils throttled into a tight, satisfying package."
While you write the components. You dream up the characters. You discover their dark histories, their strange habits, their unexpected loves and disgusts. You extract from them their courageous moments, you pound them into the ground with their crushing defeats.
And between us, mostly you, we create a thoroughly satisfying epic tale of love, loss, conspiracy and conquest.
A story take so much time, 100,000 words, and I don't have it in me. While you seem to be able to slot the quarters and grind out 1k bundles of storyline day after day. The one thing I find missing in your stories is the big picture. While I have so little ability to produce the faces and foibles, the fantasies and fratricides that just dribble off your finger tips like Scott Joplin tunes.
(You'll have to excuse me; wife just dropped a bottle of Jim Beam in my lap... Yeah, good wife.)
I just need to be patient. I can do the big story if I give myself time.
Dave, if you write something, you don't lose it. If you haven't sent it off, all you've done is create part of the world. You go off and do something else, then come back and you will always find things to add, but if you haven't created anything yet, you really are starting from scratch. You build on what you do, not on what you think you're going to do.
I encourage you to quit thinking you're going to figure it all out BEFORE you start.
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