Mentor Monday: De-Blurring a Story/Picture

/ Tracy Abell

    


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So I’m at about the halfway mark in my revisions
and am very pleased with the changes I’ve made.
I met with Claudia the day before I left for Florida
and went over the chapters I’d revised plus
mapped out a strategy for the next chapters.

Claudia said many nice things about my work
and pumped up my enthusiasm for pushing ahead.

I took my trusty notebook and pages on the plane the next day,
and worked and worked from those notes
(plus had a delicious margarita with my pb & j sandwich).

And I realized something:
I wasn’t wrong to love CLOSE TO HOME as it was written before;
it’s a great story with complex characters.
I really had created a good picture.
The problem was, the picture was slightly off.
Blurry and confusing in places.
But with Claudia’s help, I’m bringing the picture/story into focus.

So my big epiphany is that we should never say our manuscripts suck
(I’ve said that and other awful things, and am going to try hard to never say such things again).
The truth is, when you write a book, you’ve created a unique word picture.
A picture that no one else in the whole wide world could paint.
And while it is possibly true that you could have employed better word choice,
or maybe used those same words in a different order,
or given more thought to how and when your characters speak their words,
that stuff is all fixable.

Writing novels isn’t like photography.
If part of our stories seem out of focus,
we can go back in there to bring clarity.

I’m really, really glad I didn’t give up on CLOSE TO HOME.
          

18 thoughts on “Mentor Monday: De-Blurring a Story/Picture”

    • I’m glad it inspired you, Lorraine. You don’t strike me as a writer who ever beats up her work or herself, and I want to be that way, too. I know I’ll always suffer doubts but I hope to keep personal attacks out of the mix. 🙂

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  2. Maybe revisions are like Photoshop–bringing out the best in the (word) pictures we’ve already taken?

    I’m so glad you didn’t give up. You inspire me to keep moving forward!!

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    • Revision Photoshop! Fortunately, words can be changed while photo images can only be altered to a certain extent. I love both but writing/revising allows me more room to make “mistakes.”

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  6. Wow, your post hit home because I’ve said that my manuscript sucks way, WAY too many times.

    So okay, consider me included in the ‘Thou shalt not dishonor thou manuscript’ pact. 🙂

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  7. focus!

    So true. I was just talking about this in class last night (while reading student poems out loud….”the camera gets blurry here…”) And they got it.

    Congrats on pushing forward!

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