Don’t let yourself off the hook with excuses.
Jason Fried, Rework
No matter how many times you do something, there’s always more to discover. Take, for instance, writing a novel. You can be the kind of person that takes years to complete a draft only to throw it out and start over, then move on to another story altogether and finish that, and then throw that one out and start over again, finish that, and realize it needs a pretty sizeable overhaul. Who could that be about? Anyway, say you’re this mythical individual and say you’re still trying to figure out your style of the craft. Are you an outliner / plotter, or are you the type that builds the story as you go / planner? Maybe you’re somewhere in the middle, and in doing this exploration you decided to build an outline for your current work which was instrumental in getting that through to completion. Nice, a point in the outline’s favor. Great.
Well, here I am, that outline and draft in hand, thinking somewhere in the back of my mind that it meant I had things at least marginally figured out. Now I’m looking at the notes of my review and realizing that I’m going to need another outline for this new draft. But, this one’s going to be different. I have the story already. I have its throughlines and major beats and, for the most part, none of these bones are going to change. They work, and I’d rather not make things more difficult for myself than they need be. It’s the connective tissue that needs restitching.
Honestly, I’m a bit at a loss on this style of outline. Obviously, I know the basics, but should I be considering only what I’ve identified as those permanent bones and building that connective structure without considering my existing work at all? Should I be taking the current work and trying to stretch it to fill the gaps I’ve discovered? Or is this something different altogether, where I should pull out each individual scene that leads us from bone to bone and build each out individually? Like most things, the answer probably lies somewhere in the middle of those options – the Venn diagram of story repair.
All this being a long-winded version of saying, in the end, there’s good news and bad news on the Residuum front. Yes, I’ve opted to push forward with revisions. They’re certainly needed and I can’t in good conscience put forth a story to agents that I don’t feel represents something near my best. However, it’s not like everything is a mess. It’s got the direction it needs and a lot of what it needs to do it’s already doing. The changes it does need, however, are going to be fairly substantial. A tonal shift in the second quarter to prevent reader whiplash, a more vibrant, lived-in world, more salient relationships, and a more sensical time table.
It’s a lot of work, certainly, but it all has to start somewhere, and that’s this outline. I’m giving myself a week, maybe two, to get that done so that I can spend the rest of the year if necessary (It likely is) revising the manuscript to be ready for a second wave of beta readers. I’ve got a lot of rust to chip off, so there’s no time like the present to get to work. I need to get the creative muscle back in shape. This flabbiness is unbecoming.
As for the rest of you Dwellers, I hope you enjoy / have enjoyed your Labor Day weekend. I’ll be back next week with a progress report.
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