Nuke The Site From Orbit

The topic for this month’s Ramble is Best Revision Techniques. What are the most effective ways to revise your writing in order to make it stronger, clearer, more concise, or more engaging? Honestly, this is something I’m still learning about. And while most of my colleagues will be focusing on specific edits, such as noun or verb changes, I’m going to take a broader approach, looking at the overall picture of your story.

So you write a story, or a chapter, or whatever your little heart desires, and you send it to friends, colleagues, coworkers, neighbors, and everyone under the sun who is willing to look at it. They read it, mark it up, and send it back. A lot of those revisions will be line edits; typos, pronoun confusion, misused words, etc. But, if your readers are really paying attention, they’ll have other comments about your characters, plot, motivations, or settings. They’ll tell you what didn’t work for them, and why. Maybe they’ll give suggestions on how to fix, or maybe you come up with the solution yourself. Either way, you then go back into your story or chapter, cut out the junk, and insert your fresh new ideas.

This is where the problems begin. Because as it was, the chapter had a certain flow to it, a feeling of cohesion and order. As you go back, cutting stuff out and shoehorning new ideas in there, the chapter starts to take on more of a Frankenstein’s Monster feel. In the same way that the monster’s shoulder may not match the arm that’s attached to it, your story may suddenly has these jarring changes of flow or voice. Maybe when you wrote the first draft you were in a poetic mood, so the writing was more flowery, whereas now you’re adding more functional components that just don’t jive with the current language. Even though you’ve made the correct changes to improve the story, now the writing itself feels clunky and mismanaged.

So what to do? Like adding a clump of clay to a sculpture, you can go back over it repeatedly, smoothing out the seams and trying to force it all to blend together, or, as the title of this post suggests, you can start over.

"I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.” –Ellen Ripley

Sometimes, and I would even go as far as to say, most times, if there are major structural changes that need to be made to your story, the best approach is to start over. Which sucks, obviously, and this is not advice that I, myself, follow often. I’ve already put so much time and effort into what I currently have, why would I want to go back and do it all again?

Writing is like making cookies. Maybe you accidentally use baking soda instead of baking powder, (because who can ever tell those two apart, right?). Obviously, this is going drastically affect the flavor of your cookies. So, you have two choices. Try to pick out all the baking soda, which won’t be easy if you’ve already added flower, or eggs, or anything else that the soda will mix easily with. Or, scrap the batch and start over, making sure to use the correct ingredients on the second go.

It’s the same as your writing. If something doesn’t work for your readers, you can go back and try to pick out the offending parts, hoping to get out every grain so it doesn’t spoil the taste, or you can start over with a new recipe that includes the right ingredients. You already know what worked in your first draft, so you know what to write again, and now you know what needs to be included to make it a better story. Starting fresh with both of these in mind means you’ll get your chapter or story right, and it will all flow smoothly and naturally.

It may be extreme, and like I said, I rarely do this myself, but if you want your writing to flow like the lazy river at a water park, smooth and seamless, trust me, this is the way to do it. 

Hunting Treasure

As the last of the cannibals collapsed to the ground amid the blood spattered weeds and coconuts, his tattooed head bounding away down the hill as if fleeing for its life, Captain William "Cutlass" James roared in victory. All around him the bodies of both friend and foe lay mangled and lifeless. As the old crone had said, to fight the cannibals would cost a terrible price, that of all of Cutlass's men, but in the end the battle would be his.

Cutlass jabbed his sword into the dirt, leaving it standing tall like the palm trees scattered across this tiny island, and withdrew the torn and faded map from his pocket. The symbols, drawn in dried blood, had led him to this isle and now directed him to the trio of drooping palms at the crest of the small hill atop which he and his ten best men had faced the cannibal tribe. 

Snatching up the shovel lying beside his first mate's dead body, Cutlass made his way to the  three trees, seeking the "King Paw" as the map named it. The old crone back at Beggar's Port had deciphered that clue for Cutlass, pointing out that that "Paw" could also refer to "Palm", meaning a tree, and"King" would mean the "top" tree, or the northernmost tree on a standard map. So now Captain Cutlass stood before the Top Tree, shovel in hand. Normally Cutlass would make his men do the manual labor of digging up the chest, but as he'd sacrificed them all on the word of an old witch, it was left to him.

Thirty minutes of digging resulted in the uncovering of a moderate wooden chest clasped shut with a rusty old padlock. Cutlass's dagger snapped the old device off in a heartbeat. Taking a deep breath, Cutlass reverently opened the lid...


Why do I write? The million dollar question. Also the topic for this month's Writers Ramble. In short it's for the hunt, like a buried treasure. But in order to truly answer this question I have to start from the beginning.

I was born on November 16, 1978...

OK, not that far back. Maybe high school... See back then I did a lot of drawing. I loved to draw. Specifically I loved to draw comic book characters. I didn't draw comic books--although I did dabble a few times--I just drew the characters. And not just comic book characters. Anything Marvel, Star Wars, GI Joe, various TV shows, all went down on paper. Later, when I started playing RPGs with my friends, those characters went down on paper, too. And I was always making up my own superheros as well.

During my senior year I got into computer art and 3D modeling. Again my focus was on fantasy characters and sci-fi ships and weapons. This led to a brief attempt to break into video game design without any formal schooling. It only lasted a few years.

Then I was in a band. I play the guitar and some friends and I started writing music together. I can't sing to save my life, but I loved writing song lyrics for Mike to sing. I would write all sorts of crazy songs like one entitled "Cereal Killer" which focused on Wendell of the three Cinnamon Toast Crunch chefs and how he murdered his two partners in order to be the sole CTC chef and hoard all the money.

In college I started out as a psychology major, but ended up in a science fiction literature class for an elective credit. It was there that I finally realized what I'd been looking for all those years. From drawing to modeling to music writing, the one thing that they all had in common was this: The telling of a good story.

That's what I'd been looking for in each of these pursuits; the story. All the characters I drew, all the ships I modeled, had stories behind them, either someone else's or my own. The music I wrote all told tales, usually twisted or deranged, but always complete.

That's when I decided if I wanted to tell stories, I needed to quite hiding them in other mediums and just focus on the source. I changed my major then from psychology to English studies and started putting my stories down on paper. And the first short story I completed as a final project for my last class in college was awarded Honorable Mention in the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future contest. At that point I was hooked.

So when asked the question of why I write, what I love about writing, I always say the same thing: It's the quest for a good story. I live for this quest and it will likely spend the rest of my life in pursuit. Because even when one good story is found, like my HM story, there's always another, better, story waiting to be found.

And I will find it.