When does something go from being an event to something more?

We all have events in our lives - the kids need to be picked up from school, time to worm the animals- you know the every day in and outs of living. I've been to lots of events. Marketing meetings, seminars and fund raisers. I've seen some of the shows that redefined Broadway productions.Sometimes what we expect to be an event with the little "e" becomes an Event, capital "E." The capital E moments are the ones that leave their impression long after the incident is over. There are good Events - graduation day, wedding days, the moment your child is born - that often are the culmination of lots of small events. There are the horrible Events that steal your breath away and fundamentally change you - September 11, the death of a parent or child, the diagnosis of cancer or the loss of innocence.

But when does an occurrence cross the line from just something that happened to an Event?

For me, the crossover happens when there's a fundamental change in how I see or interact with the world. Sometimes we're lucky enough to realize when an Event is happening. Other times we only recognize the paradigm shift in its aftermath.

 The first time I heard Tracy Hickman tell his story about how one of his stories touched a soldier was one of those moments. The first time I heard James A. Owen tell his story and draw his dragon was another.

I spent the year between the 2012 Superstars and 2013 Superstars in professional turmoil for my day job. My law firm of 5 years was splitting up. I could join the D.C. office, but my title of "partner" would be just that - a title. Rather than do that, or go out on my own and face the uncertain income stream that entailed, I decided to join a firm that promised to treat me like an equal, and in six months we'd renegotiate my compensation (base salary plus a percentage of the collection) and my status in the hopes of making me a full equity partner.

That situation didn't work out like I'd hoped. After the managing partner blew off yet another meeting about my future with the firm to get a haircut - yes, you read that right, he left to get a haircut, or at least that's what he told me-, I had a decision to make. Having the managing partner skip out of a meeting with me for a haircut was a wake up call. Now what was I going to do about it?

The firm offered me insurance and a regular paycheck. I wanted those things for my family. My husband has run his own firm or been part of a two partner firm for most of his career. There are months where he won't bring home any income, followed by a month with LARGE checks from his court appointed work. Right now he's working on a case that, if he's lucky, will pay him in February 2014. Yup, you read that right too - 9 months from now. So, I thought about James.

James has a saying, "Never give up what you want most for what you want most right now."

What did I want most - to be part of a firm where what I could do and who I am was valued. Where I didn't feel like the partners were sabotaging me.

What did I want most right then? A paycheck so I could keep my kids in their school and keep their life somewhat stable.

When I thought about it that way, the choice was clear.

So, because the managing partner refused to meet with me, I quit by e-mail and gave him ten days' notice.  That decision caused about three months of hassle with the old firm and I still have a target on me as far as they are concerned. But, it was the right choice for LOTS of reasons.

Anyway, I hung out my shingle on February 1, 2013. I agonized about taking a week off for Superstars 2013, but then I'd already committed to Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta to help out. What I want most is to be a person of her word. Again, the choice was clear.

Superstars 2013 was an EVENT. Not just for me, but for lots of people.

I could quote all the blog posts about it., but it's better, I think, just to send you to them.

Nathan Barra wrote - Expectations and Hope Rewarded - you can find his post at:  http://www.nathanbarra.com/2013/05/expectations-and-hopes-rewarded-superstars-writing-seminar-2013-in-review/

Sam Knight wrote "A Lightning Strike on Your Writing Career: Seriously you NEED to read this one." You can read it.here.  If you've read my short story collection, Paths Less Traveled, you know lightning strikes has a special place in my heart.

Terry Odell shared her insights from the seminar in a multipost blog starting here.

Mark Leslie wrote - Top 10 Takeaways from Superstars Writing Seminar. You can find that post here

To Mark's quotes, I'll add the following:

"It does not matter if you are published, it matters if you are READ." - Tracy Hickman.

"It's the bad books that make you a better writer." - Joan Ann Johnson.

Superstars  is an Event for me. Not only did I get to see lots of friends from previous Superstars and meet fabulous new people. I got to look behind the curtain and make Kevin and Rebecca's life easier. As part of the non-session outing to Star Trek, I met a lovely family and got to talk to a young man about his dream about being a writer. And discovered that his father also harbored the dream.

Like Sam, I saw the lightning sparkle and strike for many people this year. Sure, some of those strikes won't ignite the rocket Sam refers to, but surprising number will.

Really, people. Why weren't you there? I hope I'll see you next year.

Backwards Outlining or How I Kill My Darlings

I've said it time and again on this blog and elsewhere, I'm  a pantser or discovery writer. I often start my stories (whether short or novel-length) with the main characters, the main conflict and a proposed resolution, and that's it. I love the joy of taking the trip with them. The downside, of course, is when the characters get distracted, so do I. I tend to write FAR more than I really need to as a result.

I've floundered around a lot with how to take a 200,000 word novel and cut it down to something that's traditional NY publishable. Note, I say traditional NY publishable. Electronic publishing, theoretically, has changed what we can sell as completed novels since the cost issues are radically different when you don't have to print the text on paper. Still, the NY houses still set the guidelines. Will that change? Probably, but for now, being publishable means sticking within "normal" word counts for your genre until you reach a certain level of success. No one is going to tell Stephanie Myer, or Brandon Sanderson to cut 80,000 words of their novels to meet the "guidelines." Given the caliber of those writers, it's really unlikely there are 80,000 words that could be cut from a 200,000 word story without harming it. Sadly, I'm not there yet.

Where does that leave me?

Cutting words and strengthening the ones I do use.

Since going to Dave Farland's Novel Rewriting Workshop in August, 2012, I've become aware of a new metric I can use to edit my novels in a way that doesn't harm the story. I've talked about Dave's Million Dollar Outlines and Blake Snyder's Save the Cat before.  It's these tools I'm using to "outline" my completed novel as part of the editing process.

Right now I'm working on the novel I took to Dave's workshop, The King's Falcon. Let me give you

a bit of background so this makes some sense.  I've been working on it for far too long. Originally the first draft was a whopping 300,000 words. Yup. That's not a typo. I realized that I'd actually written 3 books and started breaking them up. The first story was heavily character driven so while technically fine, I'd get comments back that "nothing happened." Not a good comment. So, I took the second book, which focused on the civil war and started merging it into the first so the looming battle actually occurs in Book I. I wasn't really successful at doing this on my own. Enter Dave's workshop. I knew going into the workshop that I had, at least, a pacing problem - too much of the character stuff still happened at the front of the book and too much of the action was stuck in the second half of it. Dave showed me how to pull the two story lines through each other and merge them.

Guess what? The end result of that process is a story that needs its word count trimmed, again. But what to cut? What's a "darling" and what's really necessary?

I've started a process that I call "backwards outlining" using Dave's Million Dollar Outlines and Snyder's Save the Cat, I'm outlining the completed story. Each scene must justify it's existence. What conflict is there? Do the characters change emotional beats within the scene? What information is being imparted that is critical to the forward motion of the story. Am I hitting the right emotional beats or story turning points at the right time?

Let me give you an example:

There's a story beat that Dave labels the "Call to Action" and Snyder calls "The Catalyst." Regardless of what you call it, it's that moment when your hero's world changes and propels him into the story. It happens at the 12 minute mark in a 110 minute movie according to Snyder (he's right, by the way).  That's just a bit shy of the 11% mark. In a 120K word novel, its approximately word 13,200 or page 52 (250 words per page). 

Again, I know my story drags. I'm going to be missing beats somewhere and adding them other places they don't belong. So where did my "Call to Action" fall?

Page 32. 

But wait. I'm 20 pages early, that's good right? Nope. It means my next section (the "Debate") drags on far too long because my midpoint is spot on half way through the text. Now I know where at least one of my pacing problems is. I can go back in and fix it. So, I'm moving a scene from the "Debate" section that doesn't fit forward to the set up phase where it belongs.

Let's go back to my "Call to Action" scene again. Here's the diagram of that scene:

Location: Interior, Sabryna's chambers
Falcon learns that Sabryna is dying. She wants Falcon to marry her widower to reclaim the throne and unite the kingdoms.

Emotional Beat: +/- Falcon starts curious as to what mission Sabryna will send her on, and ends up devastated by news of Sabryna's terminal illness.

Conflict >< Falcon wants everything to stay the same; Sabryna needs Falcon to be more than she is and accept her responsibilities.

That works, I have emotional change and a conflict. I also impart a lot of plot relevant information in the wrestling with the conflict. It's a scene I can probably leave alone other than to punch up verbs and tighten the prose.

What about a "darling" that I need to cut then?

"Coffee Clach" with Leesan and Iestyn
Location: Interior castle kitchen
Falcon catches up with her foster mother and best friend, and learns more about Mordent.

Emotional Beat: +/+  Falcon starts content and ends up curious.

Conflict: Ahm, I don't have one. Lessan wants the veggies cut up, Falcon and Iestyn do that. Leesan and Iestyn want to hear information about Falcon's trip, she tells them. Falcon wants to catch up on Court politics and they tell her. Everyone gets along too well.

Yawn.

So while there is needed information here and I love the relationship between the three of them. I can do a quick two or three line recap of the information needed in the next scene. This is a darling, not a required beat. It needs to go or it needs a major rewrite.

Anyway, that's my new take on editing. I'll let you know how the process works for me.