Drafting - An Exercise

Yesterday at RavenCon, I joined the writing workshop.  Unable to join the second session today, I still followed through with my homework.

The assignment was to write an intro to a short story, 100 words or fewer ("not 'LESS' - and if you don't know the difference, you should not be here" ... fantastic), providing the reader with a character, a setting, some kind of action, and a hook to lead in to more reading.

Here are my two drafts:

She ran from him at last, weeping.  Childeric rolled onto his back, peering into the darkness, seeing more from memory than with light the long grain of the wooden roof.  His bed was redolent of her.  Of him.  Of all the remembered women, girls.  Those who had wept, and those who cried out with pleasure.
Still he could not sleep.  Even with drink, even slaked with the release before the girl’s desertion.
And the night wore on.
When his eyes were creeping across the wood in morning light, Cholwig came to push the king back to the work of the day.
“Dominus, the men are angry with you.”
“One too many wives? Or one too many daughters?” Childeric drawled.

***

She ran from the king’s house, weeping.  Cholwig stood in the stockade yard, watching the small building from the deep shadow within the wall.  He waited only a couple of minutes, then went and knocked at the door.
“Your men are angry,” he said without emotion, but an unmistakable warning.
Childreric lay across the bed from which he’d just released the reluctant girl.  “One too many wives?” he drawled, “Or one too many daughters?”
Cholwig fought his frustration with his king, with his lifelong companion.  “It’s all the same.  And they are weary enough to betray you.”
Childeric was curiously sluggish to the alarm.  Yet he would have to leave, if he were to survive.  The question was whether he cared to.

The feedback I received went along these lines:

• That (of course) introducing a rapist as the central character is a bit of a trick (as you who've been here before will know, that was born of this bit of musing).
• Tighten or focus the POV - my solution to this, oddly enough, was to remove the omniscient somewhat from Childeric, though he will remain the MC.  When the MC is offputting, distance seemed a wise solution.  This being only draft #2 - and this being only the first 100 words - this too may change.
• Provide a reason to care for Childeric ... I may not have done this, but I provided a conduit to him in Cholwig's eyes.

The work is nothing anyone would ordinarily ever see.  It's draft, in no way fit for public consumption (even an appealing MC is still not presentable at this stage) - and a lesson in the profundity of editing.  In a simple 100-word snipped the entire piece changed radically, even though the same story is being told.  The action did not change whatsoever, though the timing was altered a little in version 2.

I'd be interested in any kind of comments these snippets might produce.  Content, process, effectiveness, tangents - all are welcome in the comments.  Please don't be shy!

"Diane L. Major, You Get In This Story Right Now!"

Some years ago, I read a friend's MSS, in which every chapter opened from the point of view of another character, and each one was introduced by their full names.  One chapter, quite fatally, involved that scene that always boils my nerves - the woman spinning off a musing mental exposition of her own character - while looking at herself in the mirror.  And describing her prettiness.

Ugh.

The MSS, I know, got that note more than once, and the author revised - and I hope he's seeing success.  The work was a fascinating slice of WWII history.

Today, in the writing workshop at RavenCon, we were introduced to at least four characters by their full names.  As a writer who refuses to indulge in much description (and who is blessed with characters little burdened by middle or given names - it's not like Clovis was called Clovis Lee Meroviginus), the full-name thing drives me bazoo.

There are ways to provide full names without their showing up in stock dialogue.  Mothers or friends stipulating every formal syllable of a character's full given name, even if she doesn't go by "Henrietta" but only "Henny" - soldiers saluting with full titles - clunking chunks of woodblock exposition, not cooling the drink, just taking up space in the cocktail of one's writing.  Give me ice, or serve it neat.

How do you provide your characters' full names - or do you ?

Getting Limber as A 'Nartist

It was gratifying for me, in the workshop yesterday, when they began by asking a few questions of us - who has completed a work - who has *submitted* it - etc.  I've accomplished a good deal, even if I'm not yet published, and it's nice to sort of be given permission to be proud of that.

The assignments we had started with this:  write down a word.  Where it came from, who the heck knows or cares, but I put down Anglophilia.

When it was time to use that in a six-word story, I went to "My Anglophilia is unsatisfied, staying home."  I'd written "at" home at first - so there was that minor edit.  But I got the thing done well within our brief time limit.

Next it was time to round-robin our six-worders to the next person over, and we changed one word of each other's works.

I tended to stay within the rules pretty rigidly, and it was nice to see the way the rest of the class worked within the limits.  They seemed to suit me, which is an instructive realization.  Naturally, such structure wasn't comfortable for everybody - but everybody produced, and I was so impressed.

The 55-worder was our "big" assignment, and with five minutes, fifty seconds to do it, I finished in probably three or four minutes.  Faced with the job of inspiration on speedy demand, I found the sentence "I must, and am paralyzed" - and refused to take that to The Writerly Place (I really need to get my "Writerly" post written some time soon), so when perhaps the ultimate tale of conflicted "must" occurred to me, it was just a matter of placing Isaac before Abraham and bringing the ram onstage at the last, conflicted moment.  Angel ex machina, sure, but in fact, the story got a good response in the room at least.  I hated the overwrought dialogue, but it met my central criterion, which was not to write about sitting in a room where I was forced to come up with a short story.  Hitting the word count well within time limits was good enough for me to stay my editorial hand, so the work came out and remained essentially un-edited.



The weekend was good, but like last weekend, I've been so occupied I feel ready for a weekend.  Boy is the 20th looking good already.

I did actually complete my taxes, got a lot of bills done - RC was not my sole focus for the past three days.

But it will be a pleasure, next go round, to get back to my ordinary round of housecleaning, getting all the sleep I need, and ordinary amusements once another work week is under my belt.

RavenCon

This weekend was not good for me in the direct, applied way JRW's conference is, but even if only for the Wordsmith's workshop, I got a lot out of it for my writing.  I'm histfic, of course - not fantasy nor sci-fi - but the disparity in genres can be thin enough to become irrelevant.

I don't tend to do a lot of writing exercises, but the 55-word story was one of a bunch we did yesterday, which limbered up the muscles.  Equally as stimulating was the fact that I was lucky enough to attend with Leila.  It was she who gave me the 60-page cut late last year, and it was in a brainstorming session she and I were having I found at least two characters to cut entirely.  The 'smithing workshop also inspired me to tighten the opening scene right to a key event which should not be delayed by any intervening scenes.

So great stuff, and more inspiration than domestic sanitation or much of anything else this weekend.  Heh.  The house is a sty, but I did get some hand laundering done, and there are still socks and underwear enough to get me through the week.  Maybe even a few bits of actual clothing too, of course.

Inevitably, I kept comparing RC to JRW, and of course JRW is my nearest and dearest authorial event.  BUT, though RC needs to build in small improvements in timing/transition, and I'm dying to see attendance improve over the next couple of years, there are actually some things JRW could pick up from RavenCon.  Such as:  the workshops.  JRW doesn't offer the short bursts of creativity like that, and it was invigorating to actually *write* at an event which, for me, centered so much on that aspect.  It doesn't have to be innovative stuff; we worked on The Six Word Story before taking five for the 55-er, and it's not like The Six Word Story or flash fiction is widely unknown, but writing exercises survive because, even for contrarians like me, tools are worth picking up sometimes.

Plus, as a break from fairly static Q&A panels, they provide a great deal of relief.  I was entertained by everyone's work, surprised by the pieces we read, inspired, pleased.  The laser focus on *language* was incredibly appealing.  More than anything, having an active role in a session, which we tend not to do apart fro Q&A at JRW, was hugely engaging.

For me - for my writing - engagement is so deeply important.