Clutter

Writing is great for cleaning out drawers. And for arranging files, returning phone calls, catching up on e-mail, etc. In fact, sitting down to write is good for almost anything – except writing. Most computer programs require regular maintenance. Staring at a blank page is an excellent inducement to scour the internet for required updates.

These last few days I’ve been trying to map out a new project. My drawers have never been so organized. But I’m trying to avoid one of my regular faults by starting to write before I’m ready. I have to know the story, scene by scene, before I get started, or I’ll wander off on some tangent and this will become another project that never gets done. It’s necessary to do a little planning before you get to work.

Screenwriting, it’s been said, is about dialogue and scene, and novels are about prose and description. I’m trying to adopt what I’ve learned from my time with screenwriters in Los Angeles and write this new novel with an eye toward cinematic structure. Focus on the individual scenes and build them, one upon the other, to move the story forward, getting rid of a lot of the interior monologue along the way.

It’s an approach that I think would help a lot of writers who are struggling to get their story down. They find themselves overwhelmed with backstory and character motivation and wonder how to get it all in. The answer is, you shouldn’t. A writer needs to know each of his character’s stories, of course. But a good writer will determine which of those facts, that he knows about his characters, really need to be told. The reader needs only those details that are specific to the progression of your plot. The rest is distraction.

Sure, there are authors, great authors, that thrive on distraction and the rambling aside. But those are the exception to the rule. Most writers would do well to remember that they are writing for an audience, not for themselves. Give your readers what they need without putting them to sleep.

Screenplays have to tell a lot about a character in a very specific number of pages. Little quirks and eccentricities become the way that the audience learns about the characters interior life. The writer works with nuance and implication. Screenwriter’s have to be concise because they simply don’t have the space to ramble.

Novelists assume that they have the luxury of length that screenwriters are not allowed. Unfortunately that very lack of a standard format becomes many a writer’s downfall. Screenplays are one hundred ten pages long, give or take ten pages. The trend is toward shorter rather than longer. The assumption is that each page equals about one minute of screen time. So a ninety minute movie gets ninety pages of script.

No such rule exists for the novelist, he or she is free to use up as many pages as they deem necessary to get the job done. But what often happens is that many great two hundred page novels are published, hiding inside four or five hundred overwrought pages. That’s devastating for a budding writer’s career. And with editors doing less and less editing, it’s up to the individual author to work to keep their prose lean and directed. It’s one of the tasks that separates the professionals from the wannabes.

So I’m trying to get my project underway with an eye toward keeping it tight and telling only those parts of the story that really must be told. It’s a good way to keep focused on the task at hand. Then when I get down to it, I’ll be prepared. And I’ll have some very organized drawers.

— Ric Hess, Mar 11, 07:09 PM

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