So You're A Hack Writer, Part 3

So what’s a hack writer to do?

I have to be clear.

Because it came to me Monday, November 18, 2019, during the second hour of a two-hour long technical writers’ meeting on end notes, that some aspects of my story aren’t clear at all. And without that clarity, the driving force of the story and its main character are a bit on the weak side.

Behold the notes I took on my story when I should have been thinking about end notes in technical documents (I’ve learned that when inspiration strikes you, you write it down. “Be a collector of good ideas, writes Jim Rohn, author and speaker, quoted at the blog Write Tribe. “Keep a journal. If you hear a good idea, capture it, write it down. Don’t trust your memory” (Write Tribe).

They appear simple. And they probably won’t result in much more writing, word-count wise, in my novel. But the ideas captured on this bit of paper will be essential – I hope – in fixing my story and getting it ready, once again, to send out to publishers.

Writing, I’ve learned, is a dangerous business, if I can paraphrase Bilbo Baggins. In fact, I’m going to quote him: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to” (Tolkien).

If I’m not clear in my storytelling, in establishing the motivation of my characters, the story wanders and much like the warning to Frodo, he who follows it will end up in places I as the author probably didn’t intend, because I was not clear enough.

And if I’m not clear enough, publishers may look at my muddled mess of a manuscript and pass on it, figuring it would be too much work to work with me to make it better.

Make it better now, and I’ve got a better chance.

Wish me luck.

Works cited (cumulative)

Benwitz, Lisa, personal interview by the author, October 2, 2019.

King, Stephen, “On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft,” Scribner, 2000.

Parker, Dorothy, “Inventory,” The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker, Penguin Classics, April 2010.

Rhodes, Richard, “How to Write: Advice and Reflections,” William and Morrow Company, Inc., New York, 1995.

Rodrigues, Corinne, “Capturing and Storing Ideas When Inspiration Strikes,” Write Tribe, Nov. 18, 2017; writetribe.com/capturing-and-storing-ideas-when-inspiration-strikes/ .

Schultz, Robert, personal interview by the author, September 30, 2019.

The Rescuers, directed by John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Art Stevens; Buena Vista Distribution, 1977, flim.

Tolkein, J.R.R., “The Fellowship of the Ring,” Allen & Unwin, 1954.