Sunday Snippet: The I’m Still Learning Edition

It’s been a tough week for me, for the country, for the world, and I debated long and hard about what my column for today would be. I could so easily rant here–it’s my space, I can say what I want.

But I don’t want this to be a political platform. I prefer to keep this about my writer life, my editor life, and some things about just being Nan.  If you follow me on Facebook or Instagram or Bluesky, you know where I land, so I opted to talk writing instead, because as my friend and fellow author Anne Stuart so aptly puts it:

“Everything in my life is filtered through my writing. There is no me without it.” 

Here we go… I wrote for several hours yesterday, trying to finish the book that is due to my editor next week. I just wrote—didn’t stop to edit as I often do, didn’t take any breaks, didn’t even get up to go to the bathroom. I simply sat at my computer and the words poured out of my fingertips.

Well, this morning, I reread what I’d written and about a quarter of it is worth hanging on to. The rest? Meh. Kinda demoralizing, but those couple of thousand words that won’t be included in the book led me to the next scene in the story. They brought me to the pivotal place where Beth realizes what she wants her life to be. This is the grand finale, the happily-ever-after, and I want to get it right.

So even though those words aren’t going to show up in the story, the writing of them served a purpose, as do all the words that are written and later cut during first drafts, edits, and revisions. Most writers know about killing off our darlings—the pages of scenes that get cut or rewritten during first draft or revisions. Just because a paragraph, a scene, or even an entire chapter gets cut doesn’t mean it’s not good writing. Truthfully, almost all my discarded scenes are good writing, they’re just unnecessary to the story.

My editor, the amazing Sinclair Jayne, always tells me to focus on the story—does the scene move the narrative along, does it serve the story? If not, it needs to go. Backstory generally doesn’t serve a purpose, even though I know ever-so-many readers who really love backstory. But flashbacks and info dumps don’t move the story forward, and sometimes, they make the story go backward or cause it to simply sit and spin its metaphorical wheels in the mud.

I think, of all the lessons I’ve learned at the knees of my editors and my critique partners, the one that’s been hardest to put into action is the no info dumps, limit backstory and flashbacks message. I don’t over-describe settings or characters, I don’t get bogged down in pointless dialogue, I don’t wander off into a tangent that has nothing to do with the scene at hand. But I do give my readers way, way too much information about my characters’ pasts and the situations that brought them together.

I believe I do it because I want my readers to understand exactly what’s going on in the story, but honestly, they do not need me to hold their hands as they read my books. If the story begins when the action starts, then they’ll pick up whatever they need to know as the narrative goes along.

That’s a tough one for me. How about you? Writers, do you kill off a lot of your darlings in revision or do you write a pretty clean manuscript from the very beginning? I’d really like to know.

Gratitude for This Week: Sis is home and I get to see her on Monday! Husband got a good report from his oncology checkup. My Christmas cactus is still blooming (I’m not going to tell it that it’s only March). I sprinted with some fellow SOCO members and it was wonderful to have that support. Several sunshiny days to walk in the ‘hood. 

Stay well, stay informed, choose kindness always, and most of all, mes amis, stay grateful!