Word-by-word
Here we are almost at the end of February, and I thought I’d do a little recap of my writing year so far. As of today, I have:
- Finished writing HELL BENT (although there will be revisions, copy edits and proofs yet to go)
- Finished page proofs for DEAD IRON’s release in paperback format (in June! Yay!)
- Finished the copy edits for COLD COPPER
- Written a short story that will be available in April 2013
- Cleaned up HANG FIRE (that online steampunk short story from last year) for epublishing
- Almost finished page proofs for COLD COPPER
- Started rewriting an old novel
Each project has been fun and challenging in its own way, but I thought I’d take a moment to talk about the last item on the list: started rewriting an old novel.
This is a novel I wrote almost ten years ago. Younger writer me had written several novels, but was still trying to get a grip on how to create tension, information flow, strong dialogue, plot arcs, and three-dimensional characters. Younger writer me thought she had most of that figured out, and in some ways, she had. The book isn’t *bad*, it’s just not *good* yet.
I’ve always liked this book, and since I had a week free (in the above bullet point schedule) I decided to see if the old book could be cleaned up a bit.
At first, I just messed with language flow, cleaning up descriptions, boosting verbs, and fiddling with dialogue. I wasn’t going to do a structural revision, I was just going to make this version of the book shine.
But after digging in a bit, I couldn’t help but work on the book on a deeper level. I kept wondering why younger me made this choice when *that* choice solved all the problems. I wondered why younger me seemed to back away from conflict, dropped dialogue cues, wasn’t pushing the protagonist to protag, and seemed determined to hint at things, but never just come out and put them on the page.
In my bewilderment, I realized this: the steps and process of writing a book that seem normal to me now, were not in the younger me’s writing toolbox yet. Younger me didn’t know she was/wasn’t doing those things, because younger me was just beginning to learn about them.
It gives me hope, really. It is pretty clear proof that I’ve improved (in some ways) and perhaps will continue to improve as a writer. Even more hopeful to me is how I’ve come by these improvements. Basically, the only difference between younger writer me and today writer me (besides a few extra pounds and wrinkles) is that today writer me has written more than a dozen books since the book younger writer finished.
That’s it.
Writing has gone a long way to improve my writing. And hopefully, in the coming years I’ll look back at today writer me, and see how much more I’ve learned by simply going forward, word-by-word.
2 Comments
Mashiara
I notice a lot of times, when I follow a particular author, whether it be though a series and different stand-alones, I like noticing an improvement in writing. In fact, I’ve come to expect it.
Nothing more frustrating than reading book #19 and thinking to myself, “this crap is never going to get better, is it?”
Andreea
Hi Devon – I started reading the Allie Beckstrom novels a couple of weeks ago and I’m currently almost halfway through “Magic Without Mercy.” I am thoroughly impressed with the way you succeeded to keep the story aggregated, without slipping into that “what should I add now in order to write another book” vibe. I realize that you wrote the books over a few years, but when I read them (with the exception maybe of “Magic to the Bone”), it feels as if I’m reading one book, which was written all at once and subsequently was split into separate books because the publisher asked so. And that it simply fantastic! I don’t know how you did it, but with one notable exception in “Magic to the Bone” (Allie lost her memory of everything that happened in that book although her father was dead at that time and couldn’t Close her) there are simply no holes in the story, which I find amazing. The world you’re creating with its politics is so convoluted, yet always unitary, that one can’t stop reading.
And above all, the way you wrote Allie is great: always vulnerable in one way or another, outstanding although never turning into a super-heroine on steroids. I find that the series of fantasy books fall in two categories: 1) the ones in which nothing changes from book 1 to book 10 except the bad guys (and by the 3rd book, the reader is utterly bored) 2) the ones where the main character keeps acquiring “power” after “power” till by the 5th book, not even the child of Superman and Wonder Woman can stand against him/her. But you succeeded so well in keeping Allie real, by taking away from her some skill every time when she gained another aptitude: first she lost her “soul magic” and what she gained in return was (seemingly) of lower value, then she lost her ability to use magic. And I found this last twist a strike of genius! Plus the fact that she didn’t lose this ability in a catastrophic event keeps the story real and without that “forced” feeling, but opens in the same time the door for new turns of events.
I guess this was a bit long, but I just wanted to say, thank you for writing such an marvelous series!