September 2016

The Curse of the Soggy Middle

I’ll start with this one, because no-one else ever seems to – other commentators usually start with something sexy and angst-ridden, like writer’s block. Not dissing writer’s block, but I think the curse of the soggy middle deserves to be the headline act, just this once.

I get rather tired of people obsessing about their word counts. Oh, they will patiently explain, but this genre requires me to write between 80,000 and 90,000 words, so these words have to stay. Actually, no. We can edit, tighten up our script, and use any ‘left-over’ word count to write more interesting words, can’t we? Editing is like a gift, when seen this way.

We can, literally, edit our way to more interesting, compelling material, and use the space we create either to hone a new, exciting minimalist style, or to put more plot in. I vote for that.

The curse of the soggy middle seems to be the result of two things. Firstly, editors who like their authors, trust them to write well, and invite them to submit fifty pages of their next manuscript. The fifty pages are fantastic, and the darling editor says, ‘Yes, lovely, fire away, send me the rest when it’s done…’ but with the end of the incentive, the rest of the book may turn out woolly, vague, and not easy or fun to read.

Perhaps editors really don’t see the end result, or maybe they assume that readers will be forgiving, or even, perhaps, that readers never read beyond the first fifty pages; there are probably reams of stats somewhere which demonstrate that it is more cost effective to write a woolly book – with a brilliant first fifty pages – by a reputable author who is guaranteed to sell enough copies, than spend the time it would need to write a book that is compelling from start to finish.

The other thing that seems to add to soggy middle purgatory is this notion of optimal word counts, the obsession with hitting the target at all costs. But, what if a third of the words are tautological? What if they are repetitive, written in the passive voice, too flowery, too vague? Shall we keep them in, just to stay afloat at ninety thousand words, or shall we cull to sixty-five thousand, say, and write more interesting stuff? I say, go for the cull, every time.

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To develop reading techniques

Since I am an author writing books, I find it very useful to develop reading techniques, so that I become accustomed to reading something a hundred times, as if I have never read it before.  Hard, some might say pointless, impossible…. But I find it essential.  How else to spot the grammar error, the missed comma, the spell-check error that slipped under the automated net?  Each time we read, we have to pretend that the material we have written is virgin, unseen, new to the world.

Which lends my writing technique a certain capriciousness.  I can be writing Stage One stuff at the active end of my book, wondering about how to tie up the latest loose ends, and then, chance to spot some part of of the late middle section that my mouse happens upon, thinking, Eeek! I hardly recognise this.  What’s going on here?

Or I might notice a couple of ends that I left dangling last time, ideas that I jotted down, needed to mention, because I need to remember them and knew I would come back and find them: the modern invention of the word-processing function does make this kind of back and forth easier, and allows us to collect up ideas, so I like to take advantage of that.

I like jumping back and forth, occasionally.  I need that, to leaven the loaf of a daily writing commitment, to add spice to the morning, and to make my dancing around on the keys feel useful.  (‘Hmmmm, maybe I didn’t achieve much today, but…hang on, I must have, because I found that spelling mistake, I corrected a timeline error, I went and checked that all my dates tied up – and they did!’)

If I have an idea to check something, it’s probably a good idea to do that, whatever other plans I may have made.  If I am prompted to use my ‘find’ function to locate the number of times my characters have said, ‘Well, I’m not sure about that…..well, well, well….’ there is probably a good reason.

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Using writing tools

I used to feel that using writing tools in our word-processing applications was like cheating. If, in the throes of creative frenzy I could not summon to mind the best, most apposite word, then I had no right to go looking for it.

On mature reflection, and knowing how much else there is to do in an average day, I now accept that’s a bit like saying we should refrain from using Caps Lock, or that we have no right to indent, tabulate or use double spacing.

There are two writers’ tools that I use a lot, for reasons that I hope will become obvious. Well, I sincerely hope they will.

• ‘Find’

The ‘Find’ function, which is located at the extreme right hand side of ‘home’ on my WP panel, is a most useful tool, helping us to eliminate unconscious repetition of repetitious and pointless words that we are not even aware of typing. I write a lot of dialogue; well, I usually do, and people use lots of pauses in speech, so we feel it is only right and realistic to mimic that. Well, up to a point.

In these last two paragraphs, the word will appears twice in the same line. And in this post, the word well appears five times. Using the ‘Find’ function, we can locate and remedy this with a bit of judicious culling and replacement with more interesting words.

All sorts of words can be culled, especially those that appear in speech. Some of my favourites, are sometimes, always, never, because, of course, well, it, perhaps, so, maybe, occasionally, in fact, of course…. I especially like to find more interesting words for what it might be and I do my best to eradicate the passive tense.

In the process of editing and refining, we all collect and recognise our own favourite bugbears. Rather than despair, I take this as a good sign that we are becoming more alight to the dangers of complacency. Readers expect entertainment, and varied vocab is part of that.

The thesaurus is useful too, helping us to find fresh and perhaps more interesting ways of saying the same thing – it helps to get off the beaten track, occasionally, and, without being prolix, deploy words we don’t often encounter, perambulating easily around the niceties of the written word.

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Almost finished writing a book

While I have almost finished writing a book, and can begin to see glimmers of light at the end of this particular line – I wouldn’t call it a tunnel, as any writing that isn’t fun will probably be edited out – I focus on reducing my word count.

For lots of reasons, I find that, once I have what resembles a plot, with all the bones in the right places, I want to double check that it all fits, and so culling anything that looks suspicious, unfinished, half-baked or awkward helps to refine the lines and make the reading clearer. This process also helps us to locate loose ends that need answering, (‘There was a coiled spring inside him ready to burst one day. Not yet, but soon… ‘) So what happened there, then?

We have a beginning, a middle and an end, and as we read long sections over again for the umpteenth time, hopefully, we almost won’t recognise that we wrote this. We might say, Hmmmm this is good, or laugh, because we are reading now as a reader would, and reading our words differently.

So, are we finished? Not quite. This last bit of writing is, for me, the best. At the stage when all the plot lines are worked through and on the page, when we have written THE END and more or less know what the characters intend, then I feel freer from the challenging of actually finishing the book, and can go back.

Recalling the original enthusiasm which sparked the project in the first place, and which may have got buried in the business of keeping going, I go back and add a bit more spice, humour, a few more light-hearted or dramatic human touches.

Of course, we want the whole process to be fun, but inevitably some of the gloss gets wiped off in the business of grammar checking, close reading and fixing chronology.

So adding that finishing gloss adds a kind of fiesta attractiveness to the last lap of what will have been a long, intense journey. Enjoying the polishing and teasing of the final manuscript puts into concrete form a thought process which says, Now that I’ve finished building the main project, let’s go back, relax and have a party….

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How I keep writing my books

Sometimes, I wonder how I keep writing my books.  It is hard, after all, at the end of the day to say, ‘darling, look what I did!’ and point to a keyboard, which looks the same as it always does.  But to keep my motivation alive, I find certain recurring features help.

I don’t use plot outlines, because most of my characters tell me where they want to go, and insist I go there with them.  It is thrilling, and gives my writing unexpected gifts of energy and added realism.  Out of no-where, the most intriguing twists will surface, and it then becomes my job to decide which twists I will follow up, and which I had better prune back for the sake of the narrative flow – not every development can be followed up.

For example, my latest MC, Lisa Somerville, has a boss, Evelyn, whom Lisa finds difficult to work with.  Circumstances throw them together, and Evelyn finds herself flirting gently with a hospital doctor.  Evelyn might decide to take it further, but should I?  Or would doing so detract from the main focus?

Unless I want Lessons in Matrimonial Law to be the length of ‘War and Peace’ regretfully, I’ll have to put that new wrinkle on the back burner for now.  It will come in very useful when I write Evelyn’s own story, but for the moment I have put it to one side.  As dishy Doctor Fields might say, ‘This is neither the time nor the place, darling…’

I once announced on FB that I had by then written something like 64,000 words, which felt fantastic.  Editing reduced that figure significantly, but I really didn’t mind.   (Between writing, then editing, then writing some more, I see-sawed for days around the 62,000 mark.  It got quite comical.  At one time my daily word count was 2.)  I take the view now, that if a word can be pruned, that gives me space for a better word.

When I first edit, I am fairly ruthless, taking out anything that is woolly, overstated, or which sounds boring or unconvincing. I don’t mind slimming down a piece of work to about two thirds its original size, because I believe there is no shortage of better words and ideas to take its place.

If I find an intriguing new wrinkle, I might put it in, just to see what I think of it, and might do with it, when I come back to writing in the detail and attending to close editing.  And, especially as I near the end, if I have an idea, I will sketch it out quickly, perhaps putting it into a separate chapter, so that I can come back to it.  I leave mistakes and blanks on pages, unfinished sentences, knowing I can add in an idea, a quirk, a little piece of humour or bright repartee, and leave it, to reconsider when I come back for a re-write or edit.

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