It struck me early this morning that for the last few edits
of my novel Doleful Creatures (fantasy, about 80,000 words, I’m looking for
beta readers), I’ve focused on two things: First, making the story better.
Second, making the characters better
with the story. I want to talk about the second thing in this post.
Revision Seven has been the Revision of Aloysius, the
badger. In previous revisions, he’s been merely a cranky foil to pretty much
everyone else in the book. However, I hinted at his crankiness rather than made
it clear why he was so cranky. So in this revision, I brought the crankiness
into focus. In doing that, I brought in a lot more of the backstory which now
seems critical to the entire story, and also helped flesh out two other
characters who had also been hinted at and are now much more pivotal, even
though we only learn about them in flashback.
Revision Six was the Revision of Magda, the crow. She
emerged as the true leader of the crows rather than her more laid-back and more
juvenile hubby Chylus – and that’s okay. She’s become the glue that’s keeping
the novel – and all the other characters – together.
What this tells me is that I’ve probably got another
revision to do, this time focusing on Jarrod, the main character. I have done
some with him as I worked on Aloysius, because their characters are somewhat
intertwined, but it’s clear I need to do more.
What’s prompting all this?
Why, teaching at Brigham Young University-Idaho, that’s
what.
First came a student discussion on poet Gregory Carr’s “ThisI Believe” essay, in which he says the following:
When I write a poem, I process experience. I take what’s
inside me — the raw, chaotic material of feeling or memory — and translate it
into words and then shape those words into the rhythmical language we call a
poem. This process brings me a kind of wild joy. Before I was powerless and
passive in the face of my confusion, but now I am active: the powerful shaper
of my experience. I am transforming it into a lucid meaning.
My Pathways 106 students have latched onto this statement
this week, hoping to use it to remind them to process their own feelings and
memory as they write their own belief statements. As I read their comments, I
came to realize that’s what I need to do with my characters in Doleful
Creatures – I have to help them take the “raw, chaotic material of feeling or
memory and translate it into words, and then shape those words” into the
rhythmical language we call a novel.
I’ve been hounding students all along that it’s stories that
help us remember points and concepts – now I need to remind myself of that very
thing as I try to turn a fictional world into something that can get a point
across.
Then let’s move on to my English 101 class this semester,
where we’ve had a lively discussion on S.I. Hayakawa’s Ladder of Abstraction.
They were struggling to understand the concept until I found this website
(geared toward public speaking, but it easily applies to writing as well).
Having a concrete example of the abstract helped my students
a lot – and in explaining the concept to them, it hit me: How much ladder
climbing (and descending) am I doing in Doleful Creatures?
So I stop to check myself, near the end of the seventh edit:
Not as much as I need to. There are instances, in flashback, where it’s clear
to me what’s going on. But the abstract has to meet the concrete of the
reader’s reality – and I’m not yet succeeding at that. If I want to get across
the abstract concept of the book – what would have happened if the sixth day of
creation stopped before the introduction of mankind – I have to get to the
concrete of the matter: How do animals react to man in the world today, and how
might they react if there were no men around at all.
I find myself missing the mark (but that’s okay; the
concrete reality of what I’m trying to do with this novel only arrived in the
seventh revision. So – sigh – more revisions to follow.
But in helping these students see the value of adding these
concepts to their writing tool chest, I’m reminded myself of these tools’
intrinsic value to me as a writer.
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