VBT Day 4 Discussion
May 10th, 2007Today, mystery authors, Peter McGinn, Marjorie Abrams, Susan Waller Miccio and I, Cheryl Hagedorn, will be discussing:
Susan: Good heavens, no! My first draft is always “stream of consciousness.” The whole time I’m thinking – quick! get it down on paper before I forget it. Then I rewrite it. In fact, I rewrite every passage at least a dozen times. I’m constantly trying out different arrangements of words. Imagine trying to do that with paper and pencil! It would take me for-ever to write anything. I also need to be able to see my words in typeface to form an impression of them as a reader would.
Peter: I almost always handwrite my first drafts. I do this for a few reasons. It feels more like writing to me and less like typing, plus the computer screen can make me doze sometimes. I like the flexibility also. I can write out on the deck, on the couch, at a bluegrass festival, etc. Plus, by the time I type it in, editing on the fly, it seems cleaner to me, more like a second draft than a first draft. Finally, I am on a computer in my day job, so I am more likely to get on a roll and keep going writing by hand, rather than wanting to take a break for the sake of a break at the keyboard.
Susan: Word processing also comes in handy in other ways, too, like when I decide to change something. I often change my mind about things. Sometimes, I’ll start out with a placeholder name (of a character, place, or thing) until I think of a better one. ‘Search’ helps me find all the names that I need to change. In Dog Star, for example, I changed Abby’s car from a VW to a BMW.
I also change plot points as they develop. For example, as I write or review, I may come to the conclusion that a scene isn’t realistic and I’ll decide to change the details. ‘Search’ then helps me find all the affected passages and avoid contradicting myself. I also paste facts-and-figures or quotes copied from my research on the internet right into the place in the draft where I’ll be using them – that way, I don’t have to jump back and forth or risk mis-quoting.
That said, I do produce reams of handwritten notes in a pocket-size spiral notebook that I carry around at all times. I’m “working” almost all the time – outside of my day job – everywhere I go. I take the notebook when on my bike, to the beach, on long drives, wherever. In the car on long drives is a very productive time for me in terms of imagining scenes and practicing dialogue orally. When I was younger, I might have been able to remember my musings. Not anymore. If I wait, it’ll be gone. So, I scribble the essence of the scene or dialogue in my notebook until later.
If I pay a visit to someplace where I know I’m going to set a scene – a hockey game, a subway station, a fishing village – I always have notebook in hand to record observations. I used to carry a tape recorder, but invariably the batteries would give up. The notebook is more reliable. Besides, fewer people take note of someone making notes than someone talking into a tape recorder. Back home, I prop myself in my favorite chair, laptop on knees – transcribe all the scribblings and draft away.
Cheryl: Marjorie, any thoughts? Do you ever handwrite your drafts? In what setting do you do most of your writing?
Marjorie: In my office on my computer.
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Susan Miccio |
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I like to write my first drafts by hand. It’s easier for my creativity to flow plus it slows me down. I think of things I might not have thought of if I had been zipping away on the computer. Like Peter I found that when I type it in, I start the editing process and have a second draft by the time it’s all typed up.
Comment by Shawna R. B. Atteberry ? May 10, 2007 @ 2:58 pm
Well of course I am pleased you work the way I do, Shawna! I never thought of handwriting as slowing me down. Hmm. I’m not sure it does slow me down. Not that I am a slow typer, but sitting in front of the iMac doesn’t always spur me on creatively: sometimes I nod off staring at the screen, other times I just have to check my e-mail . . . so even when I rewrite I am apt to print off pages and write in on the pages. Thanks for responding, Shawna (and for writing the “right” way!)
Comment by Peter McGinn ? May 10, 2007 @ 4:24 pm
Unfair! Let me tell what’s right about writing on the computer by quoting Paul Wolf who said, “I am so absolutely so modern, hip and cool, that I do not write by hand. (Actually, the truth is, I tried it and could not even read my own writing. All was lost. Really.)”
Comment by Cheryl ? May 10, 2007 @ 4:36 pm
I’m kind of ambidexterous and ambivalent and delightfully torn between handwriting and composing at the keyboard, with a taste for both spread over a long career in writing.
When I graduated with a degree in newspaper journalism, “selectric” typewriters were state of the art technology, and phones that you could put in a purse or a pocket were as much the stuff of fiction as teleportation devices in Star Trek. My first writing job was stringing for a large Milwaukee daily newspaper–little writing involved actually, as the stories were called in on evening deadline to the copy desk using a…if you remember these…pay phone! (I think there was a thriller a few years ago with Colin Farrell involving one of those prominently in the plot.) Still, there were the occasional feature article assignments, and those I could take my time with. Typically I composed those longhand–often with a fountain pen–and then took my notes into the newsroom and typed them in on the computer. That system lasted until my editor walked past, looked over my shoulder, and said “you’ve got to learn to do this on a VDT.” That’s ancient Latin for “video display terminal.” Very trendy new stuff back in the early 80s.
More reporting and composing followed, then a freelance career from home with a home computer. Working on deadline to meet the FedEx driver on time while juggling several kids made sitting down with a pen and a legal pad and processing words twice when once would do a luxury of the past. Composing on a keyboard became second nature–ease of editing, the ability to start in the middle if you were stumped for a lead and then move paragraphs around, speed in delivering the finished product. But…the grass is always greener, even if you don’t recognize it right away.
Some years later, I finally had some free time on a regular basis and sat down to play with writing some fiction. And for some reason, curling up in a corner of the sofa with a legal pad again became a tangible pleasure. In addition to cocooning in a comfortable seat with a cup of tea and a good view out the living room window, another thing I found was that I had to slow down my thoughts because they no longer sped like sparks from my brain to my fingertips to the screen in front of me. Sentences became more nuanced, ideas became more intricate, patterns of language because more richly textured. Wow!! Who knew?
So these days it’s kind of a horse apiece. With my blog, I find that I’ll often just take a few free minutes sitting in my car or by the lakefront with a small pad of paper and start letting words rip freely, connected by loops and arrows and hash marks and scratch outs, looking much more like an actual work in progress than any Microsoft Word file on a screen ever did. At work as a prosecutor on the other hand, with letters and appellate briefs and motions to file at a dead run, it’s writing at the keyboard all the way. Though every once in a while I’ll still pull over to the side of the road as an idea hits me between the eyes at seventy miles an hour, and then write it down by hand on a spare Dairy Queen napkin so I don’t lose the thought!
Comment by Mary Wagner ? May 10, 2007 @ 9:33 pm