Comments on Spontaneous Derivation: Writing on the Stage: Improvising for a Better Wri...

Ah, Pete. We don't appreciate you enough. ;) Tho...

2008-01-03T12:12:25.768-08:00

Ah, Pete. We don't appreciate you enough. ;) Though I admit I listen to John Scalzi before most anyone else. Our world views just collide too often: writing, politics, and otherwise.

Plus some of my writing friends did the same thing throughout NaNoWriMo. I was amazed. And so when I read Scalzi's book, that was the part that rang true to me.

I still think rewrites are sometimes necessary. Eventually, a work will come along so complex that you know that to do it justice you need to rewrite. He acknowledges this, and I think some of King's works, for instance, could have done with some more parsing. American Gods... I don't know how THAT was written. Certainly not in the same was as Odd.

But for the most part, learning to forge ahead will help even in such situations.

:pokes Pete about his Rome novel:

Gene Wolfe, yes. His work is definitely nuanced in ways that would be inhumanly possible without rewrites.

To tell the truth I was wondering if your novels also merit rewrites. You certainly are trying to do much more complex structures, at least with your Rome book.

Also, more writing experience helps immensely. I plan to work my way up to more complex stuff.

It's amazing how much of the stuff I talk about ev...

2008-01-03T10:59:23.153-08:00

It's amazing how much of the stuff I talk about everyone declares is Utter Bunk & Blasphemy, and then sooner or later...everyone comes around, and we all find out I was right. And I just smile and shake my head and fail to say "I TOLD you," because it won't help any. And it's why I'm patient when I offer a view on something and it's called nuts. I know I'll have you all in the end.

With short stories, there are no re-writes. There's a read-through, I clean up my unclear sentences, I spell-check, it goes out. That's it. If it doesn't work for whatever reason, usually it doesn't get re-written until years later. I don't do second drafts.

With novels, I'm the same way. A first draft, some additions and polish, and then it's out the door and away from me. Since you mentioned Neil Gaiman, I'll point out that he says that you should write until it's "good enough for jazz," and then send it out. He's right. I always came at it as "good enough for blues," and it's more or less the same idea.

Isaac Asimov also did not do second drafts of any sort. Nor did Bradbury, Stephen King sort of does a second draft. I know little about John Scalzi (nice guy, I'm sure, but I've never meshed with him well), but I can rote off a list of authors who don't particularly do other drafts.

On the other hand, Gene Wolfe admits that his first drafts are terrible, shallow things, and he layers them up into Gene Wolfe Novels in the following drafts. There is always a flip-side, as surely as I am almost always right. :)

Hi Pete!I remembered Harlan Ellison's "writer in a...

2008-01-03T10:19:19.459-08:00

Hi Pete!

I remembered Harlan Ellison's "writer in a bookshop window" performances. He even did it with Neil Gaiman once; I think the story is somewhere in Fragile Things, in fact. I'd get so nervous on the other hand.

Serial writing so far has been both fun and freeing for me. I still go ahead with a vague--very vague--plan, but there's enough time between each piece to come up with something coherent, even if you're not as experienced at writing. Of course, you shouldn't have so much time that you never get anywhere.

I hope to build up to the point where NaNoWriMo or Nin90--or even simply just a long work--aren't so difficult anymore to do with a sane story, within a short time frame.

The only problem I can see with serial writing is that you might not get to the end of a story for a long, long time, and that might get discouraging. I know that Sluggy Freelance takes care of that by having, by now, hundreds of endpoints that still segue into the next arc--a large part of its popularity these days.

And of course TV series that focus on story arcs, like Babylon 5, are also serials. (B5 was a sad example of what happens when a serial gets rushed towards the end by means outside the creator's control. Le sigh.)

Ultimately my goal is to get to the point where I can write long works quickly and not need a rewrite. I may not like Stephen King, but I do adore Mr. Scalzi and his non-need for rewrites. And I'm pretty sure that Neil Gaiman also doesn't need to do much in the way of rewrites, though sometimes his stories may take years (Coraline took nine, I think? Possibly even more). The way he wrote Odd and the Frost Giants makes me suspect that this is so.

Of course, they still need to edit, but massive rewrites aren't their thing.

I recall that you follow the same philosophy. I thought 'twas blasphemy at the time, until I started doing stories and podcast scripts in single takes.

Harlan Ellison has been doing literal performance ...

2008-01-03T06:02:36.322-08:00

Harlan Ellison has been doing literal performance writing for years now, where he sits down in a bookshop window, someone in the crowd gives him a title, or the first word, or the first sentence, and off he goes to write a story. As he finishes each page, he tapes them up in the window.

I did it once, without any particularly big crowd, in a bookshop window, taping up my pages. It's a delight.

As for serial writing...I did that for years and years. Most recently, with my shot at doing God in the Machine. I adore serial writing. I write best for an audience, for an immediate crowd. Not really because I want the feedback -- I never cared, one way or the other, honest -- but because it's an audience, and it's right there.

If I could write on a stage, in front of an audience, and hand my pages to someone when I was done (George Guidall, perhaps) who would then read the page to the audience, I would go for it like a shot. I'd be scared witless, but I'd go for it.