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opera142I am at the fun point of a draft-- revision. I love words! I love rooting out dull over-used words. I love swapping in zesty words. My new game is "Find It". I run a search for "it" and try to replace most of them with whatever "it" represented.
Sometimes "it" is a good choice: avoids repetition, aids sentence flow, etc. But, I'm learning more and more that using "whatever it represented" makes for way livelier writing. Especially if "it" in combination with a dull verb stood in for an active verb. A lot of a sentences that I thought were good became so much better just by replacing one little word.
The only problem I'm having with this is, finding the "perfect" word has always been a drag-down point for me in my process. I get a ton of joy and a big, fat self-esteem push from finding perfect words. And likewise, I angst and self-berate when I can't find the perfect word. And, because I eventually do land on the perfect word, I've created a work process that grinds to a halt when I can't immediately find a perfect word. In my current draft, there are two spots awaiting their perfect words, and I've been stuck on them for two weeks. I can make myself revise other portions of the story, but honestly, I got about it kinda half-assed.
It's like I can't move on until I get those two damn sentences right. I don't mind waiting on the perfect word; I don't mind scouring theasaurii and mind-mapping and all the other first-worldy writer games. I don't mind auditioning 4 dozen sentences to find my one superstar. But, I dislike everything else gumming up in the meantime. I need to teach myself that it's okay to let some of my writing be wrong for a bit.
Sometimes "it" is a good choice: avoids repetition, aids sentence flow, etc. But, I'm learning more and more that using "whatever it represented" makes for way livelier writing. Especially if "it" in combination with a dull verb stood in for an active verb. A lot of a sentences that I thought were good became so much better just by replacing one little word.
The only problem I'm having with this is, finding the "perfect" word has always been a drag-down point for me in my process. I get a ton of joy and a big, fat self-esteem push from finding perfect words. And likewise, I angst and self-berate when I can't find the perfect word. And, because I eventually do land on the perfect word, I've created a work process that grinds to a halt when I can't immediately find a perfect word. In my current draft, there are two spots awaiting their perfect words, and I've been stuck on them for two weeks. I can make myself revise other portions of the story, but honestly, I got about it kinda half-assed.
It's like I can't move on until I get those two damn sentences right. I don't mind waiting on the perfect word; I don't mind scouring theasaurii and mind-mapping and all the other first-worldy writer games. I don't mind auditioning 4 dozen sentences to find my one superstar. But, I dislike everything else gumming up in the meantime. I need to teach myself that it's okay to let some of my writing be wrong for a bit.
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Date: 2011-04-10 12:01 am (UTC)It's like I can't move on until I get those two damn sentences right. [...] I need to teach myself that it's okay to let some of my writing be wrong for a bit.
Fzzt, I totally feel your pain. It's easier with longer works, I think, where you can skip sections and come back without entirely arsing the flow, but in short stories, oi. I find it difficult, too, to just say all right, that's not what I want this to sound like, but I'm going to move on and fix it later.
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Date: 2011-04-10 03:34 pm (UTC)