Let me tell you about first drafts. At least, my first drafts. Or at least this particular first draft.
It’s a mess. It feels like a hopeless mess. I started out one way, shifted my focus, wrote scenes that can’t possibly work with the first idea, wrote some more scenes that can’t fit with the second idea…
And so it goes.
I never used to have the courage to put a single word on the page until I was sure it belonged there. I had to learn to be recklessly, carelessly wrong. To be willing to do violence to the Muse’s first inspiration so that in the end there could be a story.
This story still hasn't decided
This story and I haven’t yet agreed on what it’s going to be.
Maybe I don’t know whether it’s Josey or Matty who’s going off to war (I’m leaning towards Matty now).
Maybe the back-and-forth between two locations is hazy (I might abandon the Leicestershire hunting box and make it a townhouse in London or something).
Maybe Matty dies. (And MAYBE he doesn’t, dammit.)
But I can tell you this: I’ve wrestled about 800 words of ending payoff out of myself in the past couple of days, and I’ve made myself cry.
This is a good thing: my goal is to make the reader cry.
Tips and Tricks
My most effective writing trick when I’m stuck is the sprint.
Friend and fellow author Xina Uhl and I challenge each other to half-hour writing sprints first thing in the morning. We set a timer and go, and report back 30 minutes later to brag or moan about how many words we cranked out.
Some days that is the only thing that makes me face my creative writing.
Similarly, my Super Hardcore Editing Group (SHEG) has a deadline for submitting something every other Tuesday. Sometimes on a Tuesday afternoon, the thought of being the loser who didn’t submit anything makes me at least try.
Both methods have helped me face this damn story at least a few times a week.
(Everybody should have a SHEG of their own, and I’ve got just the webinar to show you how.)
Next Steps
So what’s next? Should I de-tangle my timeline and my geography? Or should I just keep filling in missing beats?
In the past I’d have said the former: definitely get things all straightened out before trying to write anything more.
But today? Writing those ending payoff beats without being sure of the timeline or the geography gave me a glimpse of the story as it should be—maybe as it will be.
So I’m going to treat each of the remaining unused beats from Brokeback Mountain as writing prompts—which is what Shawn Coyne intended.
I’m going to write little scenes starring Matty and Josey and Betsy and the Honourable-but-nasty Richard Dauntry and the Fradleys and whoever else I need, and let the beats tell me where the story needs to go.
It grinds slowly, but I’m getting somewhere at last.
Meanwhile, check out the weekend intensive I’ll be presenting with Pages and Platforms this winter.
