Nicky Penttila

So, after a sluggish start and some mild howling about the first draft of my Manchester story, I managed to build a weekend’s-full of space to get down to reorganizing and shaping this behemoth.

This is the revised sentence-for-scene outline, all 15.5 pages of it. It took me 17 hours over two days and the night in between (after I’d done two months of on-and-off analysis). I ran out of “meditation” candles in the middle of the night, so had to resort to our REI emergency candle-lantern, at back, to remind me to focus. To further distract my busy-mind, I listened to Mason Williams’ “Classical Gas,” acoustic version, on continuous repeat–more than 300 times. Usually I don’t need candles or tunes; at most I listen to recordings of rain in the forest or waves on a beach. But I wanted to tap those dormant, under-the-consciousness vibes, and it was really a reach this time.

This desk forms the new “fiction corner.” The old desk and closet have been transformed into my work office now that my office office has closed, and it’s easier for me to keep my day job and my night job separate if I am in a separate space while I’m doing them. This has made the room where I keep all this stuff rather cozy. The notes on the left, in the photo below, are taped to the back of a bookshelf.

Here I am going scene by scene through the first draft, comparing it with the new outline (propped up on the right) and reviewing all the plot, scene, setting, conflict, and character notes I’d taken, as well as the actual manuscript (in front). This part took the night shifts over three days (and counting).

The sharp new ideas I was getting during the weekend continued to flow, so I changed some stuff on the fly. I expect more will change in the next few weeks, as I go through the remaining steps to sharpen the characters and make sure every scene has conflict and is driving the story forward.

After I figured out how much would need to change in each scene, I wrote new, color-coded cards, one for each scene. Red is for massive change or a new scene altogether, orange shows one major part is changing but much remains the same, yellow a little less change, and green is for scenes that don’t need much structural change at all. Usually I keep them on a ring (unless I’m shuffling them around); here I spread them out to get a big-picture reading. Scene One is on the left; Scene 93 on the right.

First off, as usual, I began in the wrong place in the story, so it’s all red cards to start. First draft was in summer, with my heroine on her way to a house party; now it’s winter and she’s going to a very small social gathering. I was a little surprised to make this same mistake; I’d done a lot of plotting and character play, and roughed out a pretty-solid sentence-for-scene outline before I started. Que sera sera.

A lot of the red also is thanks to a new, kicking antagonist, who sort of amalgamated himself out of three mildly antagonistic characters in draft one. He is an excellent and formidable foe, but that meant that any scene with the old antagonist or with one of the two other characters in it became at least an orange card, and usually red.

BUT, good news, the middle looks pretty solid. In the past couple of manuscripts, the second and third acts have been textbook examples of “sagging middle syndrome,” where the plot meanders and the characters just talk, talk, talk until the events of the climactic ending finally get rolling. No such problem here, though you can see that my antagonist change has led to a clump of reds at the second turning point. So here the initial rough outline seems to have helped me as I barreled through the NaNoWriMo “just-get-it-down-on-the-page” first-draft marathon.

And then we get to the end, which involves the same time and mostly the same events, but still has massively changed. I realized my people were too passive, riding the waves of major changes and reacting to them but not making any waves themselves. Boring! So I rethought the kind of people they would be and what kind of choices they would make earlier in the story (like around that second turning point) that would roll down the hill and make big boulders crashing here in the fourth act. Now I’m thinking this story could be a real tear-jerker; I might make it a goal to make the reader cry. Twice. For different reasons.

This is a lot of work, and I felt a little bummed when I saw all that red. But this second draft is already so much better a story, I can’t wait to tell it (in the evenings, after I do my day job). The goal with all this analysis, pages, and cards, is to get the story where I want it in one step: a “one-pase revise.” I’m following the system devised by writer Holly Lisle, who is far more organized than me–and far, far more prolific.

I wasn’t as analytical or organized when I revised my other stories, and they went through draft after draft after draft. I think one of them lost all hint of energy from being reworked so many times, and when one of my beta readers reacted to a certain part in one draft, I couldn’t remember if that part was still in my current revision. And it was a sword fight!

Because this one has so many red cards, I’m pretty sure there will be a third draft, but if I can get this one structurally sound, then the third draft can be a quick edit and polish, and I’m still ahead of the game. My goal is to have this ready to submit by December.

How the reading is going: Not well. My head is full of multiple scene possibilities, and I haven’t kept up on my reading. I did get through HOUSEKEEPING, by Marilynne Robinson, which I have opinions about I may share soon, and I got swept into the “Song of Fire and Ice” saga, after reading A GAME OF THRONES for class. Next book-club book: THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver.