Last time, I offered suggestions on possible story fixes based on audience needs and expectations. My aim was to provide a toolbox for easy repairs to stories that were, essentially, in good working order. "Almost there" stories may be the result of careful preparation or blind luck. I've had it turn out both ways.
In most cases, upon the completion of the first draft, there are likely to be bigger problems that can't be fixed quickly. Note: This is not the result of the story being bad. Some of the absolute best stories emerge from the first draft process as shambling monsters. So, love your baby, however it turns out – and get to work.
Returning to a reader-centered guide…
Diversion. That great premise you started with? You may have recognized a concept that had something more promising within it than came out in the telling. A fresh look might show that the full value of the concept didn't come through because of laziness (settling for clichés) or the terrifying nature of the full expression of your connection with the concept.
In the former case, it's a matter of raising the bar for yourself and finding fresher ideas and challenges for your characters. In the latter case, it may mean a full (but amazing and delightful) page one rewrite. What can push you into taking on such an enormous task? Knowing it's worth it. Having the couraged to take the risk. And sharing the astonishment of a high-wire act with your audience.
Knowledge/perspective/humor. Stale information is usually the results of someone thinking they know the answers (because they've seen that world in news reports and movies) or chasing a topic that has people excited but doesn't have the writer engaged and committed.
On a fundamental level, that means digging in and doing enough research to unearth surprising facts. (I even do this for worlds that are familiar to me.) Beyond interviews, library research, visiting locales, and such, knowledge enters a new space when received wisdom falls away and new pictures emerge. If you can, for instance, imagine a compelling alternate history without changing any established facts, that's intrinsically valuable.
I have, on occasion, totally transformed stories by changing the point-of-view character. Often, this involves a deeper understanding of the risks each character faces. But it also can be a simple recognition that one of the characters has a truly distinct perspective on life and on the events that transpire in the tale.
On humor, I had the good fortune of taking a course with Danny Simon, who worked on a lot of television programs and with golden age luminaries. One point advice he had was to get rid of the "joke jokes." These were the funny bits that did not fit the characters or the story.
The best humor — which comes out of who the characters are – is undercut by these jokes. Humor is tied to insights, quirky perspectives, and obsessions (especially blind obsessions). It's also frequently daring and antisocial. So, looking toward truth, authentic characters, and a recognition of human frailty will naturally improve the humor in your writing – provided you're funny.
Lessons/rehearsal for life. I think what gums up this part more than anything is not having anything to say. My assumption is that any story worth telling touches the writer in some way. It includes specifics that add dimensions to themes about life. It illustrates, often through candid disclosures, the struggle for wisdom. It respects the structure and tone of the myths that live in our bones. And it strips away those elements, no matter how entertaining, that obscure meaningful models for making difficult choices.
Understanding what you have to say often only emerges with a full draft and a discovery of the theme. And it's a big deal for revisions because, minimally, cutting, reordering of scenes and reconceiving situations in the story will be necessary. Just going through bit by bit looking for alignment is a major task -- but the payoff is a story that works on a higher level.
Promises. One thing I try to do is keep genre commitments to readers in unexpected ways. Nothing is staler than a first kiss you seeing 20 times before. Sex scenes? Most writers hate committing them to paper and mocking the failed attempts of well-considered authors has become an annual sport.
Those scenes that the genre promises require special attention because it's so easy to fall back on the familiar or to slip when trying something new. Of course, the answer is to look at each one closely, respond honestly to what is written, and rework the whole thing (including scenes that lead in or follow) when necessary. How do you know you need to do this? If you didn't tell the truth. If you didn't find what makes you connect with the scene. If you fail to find something that's valid and that you never saw in a genre scene before.
It's demanding, but it should be. You have promises to keep.
What all this comes down to is having a level of openness to major revisions – to the attention they require, the exploration they demand, the daring and management of fear with which they must be approached, and the work. Sometimes, when your head is full of other stories to tell, that last – the work, the page one rewrite – can overwhelm you. Think of the time. Think of the possibility of putting in all those hours and still failing. Then forget about all that.
I probably can't prove this, but my strong suspicion is that most great works challenged writers to go into places that went beyond uncomfortable to the limits of intolerable. I certainly have found that with some of the things I written about which I'm proudest this was the case. So keep this in mind:
If you pull off facing the toughest challenges that come up in writing, you have a good chance of creating the best work you can do. If you do not succeed and end up creating something that doesn't quite come together, you will certainly become a stronger, more insightful, more interesting, and more competent writer than you ever imagined you could.
I see that as a win-win, and I think it's a good argument for taking on the biggest challenges.
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