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Writing
+ Rewriting + Revising + More Rewriting = Writing
by Robert W. Walker
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The
feeling among all the detectives in the department was that
the missing child would not be found alive by authorities.
Passive Voice Alert! A passive voice can kill a dramatic moment.
Where is your stage? Who is your actor? What does he or she
think? How does he or she feel? We don't know because the information
has not been filtered through the main character's five senses.
A better sentence would read: Inspector Alastair Ransom feared
what he knew—that when a child went missing from Chicago's
streets in 1893, it was unlikely anyone would ever see her alive
again.
As a writer of over forty novels, I have never given up on an
idea about which I've felt passionate. A great part of not giving
up on a story and a character is a successful rewrite-or two-or
three. Writers are like mediums, like psychics. Just like John
Edward, we have a continual flood of characters "coming
through." We have to pay attention to the one dominant
voice-the one that becomes the main character. If we do, often
the narrative voice will be handed to us by the lead character
and his or her world view. |
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For
me, the dominant voice in my novels City for Ransom,
Shadows in the White City, and City of the Absent,
turned out to be that of Inspector Alastair Ransom's. The centerpiece
of this trilogy won the Lovey Award, a Reader's Choice Award,
at this year's Love is Murder conference in Chicago, Illinois.
This win validated the three thumbs up I'd gotten from the toughest
critics in the world—Chicago historians, and the wonderful
blurbs I'd received from award-winning authors. A Chicago Tribune
review said that it was "a mix of Twainian witticisms,
Dickensian social consciousness, and the ghoulishness of Poe."
I mention all of this not to brag, but to demonstrate as baseball
great Roger Clemens recently said, "Hard work pays off."
And no, I didn't use steroids throughout the creation of my
Chicago City Series!
So often these days, young people in every field seem to want
awards, acclaim, jobs, whole careers handed to them. In the
fiction writing classes I teach, I ask my students what they
would do if they were to be awarded a full four-year scholarship
to any writing program in this country. Would they accept it
as an opportunity to learn their craft? And short of a scholarship,
would they be willing to work full-time on writing for four
years? Writing is an activity. It does not get done by thinking
about it, talking about it, or even writing about it, but by
doing it. And then revising it.
I promote rewriting one's work in my classes in several ways.
One way is by urging, if not insisting, that a young author
write a mystery. It is the fastest, easiest way to learn how
to plot a novel, and requires that a lot of rewriting be done.
Often a clue or a twist that wasn't laid down in the first draft
must be added. Another way is by asking my students to rewrite
a first person story so that it becomes a third person story,
so that they can hear the same story told in two different "voices."
I also urge students to rewrite from the point of view of a
lesser character in the story. Lastly, I insist that novel and
short story writers "live" with their characters long
enough to fully realize their world view, their psychology,
religious beliefs, and emotional state. What makes them happy,
upset, at peace? What are their goals? How do other characters
relate to them? Knowing what is at the bedrock of a character
will let a writer know what challenges to present to them.
Revision is the hard-won secret behind every successful novel
and nonfiction work, including biographies and autobiographies.
It is achieved only through rewriting, unless you are a prodigy
of some sort, and were born with the ability to create a world
on paper without rethinking, editing, revising, seeing your
work edited by others, taking suggestions in stride, and working
with corrections. There are maybe two people on the planet don't
need to revise. Are you one of them? For most of us, the writing
process is a simple equation: Writing + Rewriting + Revising
+ More Rewriting = Writing. Even after years of honing my craft,
it is rare that I create even a single page that does not require
revisions. However, if you live long enough with your characters,
over time and through rewriting, they become the whole, layered
creatures they want to be.
When I began the first book in my Chicago City Series, City
for Ransom, I became so charmed by my characters Dr. Tewes
and Inspector Alastair Ransom that I wrote 140,000 words. The
contract to which I was bound called for 90,000 words. I was
so enthralled with the work that I assumed my editor wouldn't
notice the 50,000 extra words. She did notice. I was told I
must get the book down to 90,000 words. After swallowing hard
and readjusting my thinking and my seat, I rewrote City for
Ransom not once, but three times. Boom! Boom! Boom! I pulled
out unnecessary prepositional phrases. So many are absolutely
useless and repetitive, as in: She stood up and shrugged her
shoulders, then she sat down on her behind on the couch and
looked around the room, which had always been her safe place
to relax and to just be herself. Once revised, the sentence
read simply: She stood and shrugged, then sat and looked around
the room, which had always been her safe place.
I cut hundreds of prepositional phrases out of my novel, along
with overblown speeches, and bloated dialogue, so that sentences
like "Why don't you please sit down?" became sentences
like "Why don't you sit?" I also located a pivotal
point in the novel where I could end it sooner, which allowed
for the sort of cliffhanger that elicited both praise and displeasure.
Thousands of words and hundreds of pages were cut from City
for Ransom. The good news is that seventy percent of what
was cut became the opening of Shadows in the White City.
Some authors write the last chapter first and write to that
end. I admire such forethought and planning. Myself, I write
chapter one first, without any clue as to what will come next
or how a story will end. Chapter one dictates or suggests where
I go in chapter two, chapter two dictates chapter three, and
so on, until an episodic tale unfolds.
I also do a great deal of research. For the Chicago City Series,
I purchased $300 worth of hard and soft cover books that Chicago
Historian, Kenan Heise, urged me to purchase in order to do
justice to 1893 Chicago, the World's Fair, and to my characters
living in the era, both historical figures and fictional. I
marked up the books with yellow highlighter, and as I wrote,
I tried to use any and all the material I highlighted. I didn't
always get it all in, and had to use careful salt and pepper
techniques throughout the dialogue, narrative descriptions,
and inner monologues of various characters, but I made a point
to do my best to make sure that my novels were historically
accurate.
Research is important, but ultimately, revision is necessary
if a story is to have "legs." While revising, you
can see the "legs" take form, and eventually, that
the story is running by its own volition. Few stories come into
the world complete and without the need for judicious rewriting.
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