For the Mass Grave of My Darlings

How far will you go, what will you kill for your story?

I can be a ruthless murderer of darlings. Or so I thought. Ha. Not so fast, bucko!

I've killed off beloved characters, hacked away paragraphs of lyricism, dumped whole sections if they didn't earn their keep. Sure, I've had moments of remorse. I've even resurrected a couple of characters, only to have to re-kill them. Nothing was too sacred for my killing fields.

I've written before how, to be a good gardener, one must learn to be ruthless. In writing fiction (in any writing), it's a given. We bleed and vomit all over our first drafts, only to go back with scalpel, hatchet, or blunderbuss.

But eventually we get to an end point. Or so we think. I'd finished a first full edit with my editor, sent it back, got suggestions for the second and final edit, and, piece o' cake, bushed it up, polished the few bumps, and sent it back. One final step before proofing hard copy: beta readers.

First response from a new (to me) but experienced reader: one paragraph where she had no clue, after several readings, what I was trying to say, and several "too big" words. Only 27, out of over 91K words, but still.

I balked. I talked to my editor/publisher, who said I needed to really get that our audience for genre fiction reads at an 8th grade level. 8th Grade! No, says I, not possible. But I'm not writing literary fiction here, so why argue. Why not meet the challenge of "dumbing down" the vocabulary while conveying the same sense?

Because it goes against my nature. We should be smartening up, not dumbing down. Right?

Or do I accept that I'm not writing to teach, but to tell a good story well.

So I run my frustration past another who's read the book and has a good ear and eye. Surely, with the same background, he'll see that many of these words we learned in grade school.

Wrong.

Yeah, he said, but...

So I began going over the words with him. Simple words. Subjugate. Tenuous. Edifice.

Nope, he says. Most wouldn't know those words. I think of a recent discussion thread in an online writers' group about just this. Do we write down or not? Or is it writing down to cut out "showoff" words (and none, I thought, were showing off.) A highly regarded author has said if you're tempted to use a multisyllabic word and there's a simple, little word you can use instead, use it.

So, now it's time to murder those darlings. I didn't even know they were. I'll see them for what they are next time!

What's your take on this? I'd love to hear.

Spring, The Ruthless Season.

It's been a long and brutal winter, but Spring has arrived, and with it, a time for new beginnings.

Pushing up through last week's snow, the snowdrops are blooming in my garden. The first sign of renewal. Outside, just now, in a browned butterfly bush, a cardinal sits, a tiny splash of bright red in a tawny landscape.

It's been a human gestation period since I've visited this blog. I'm obviously not a dedicated blogger. I read so many writers' blogs, all writing about writing. I don't know more than they. Sure, I have a decent critical eye and a fair mastery of the craft, but I have little more to offer than the thousand other offerings.

So chances are, when I blog, it will be more about being creative. Not just with writing. I don't have any formulae. I just keep working at whatever creative activity needs doing, and aren't they all, in some way, the same? Taking our sense, our vision, putting our personal touch to it, and sharing it?

I've had people chat me up when I'm working my gardens to tell me that they drive from other parts of town for their morning walk just to walk past my home to see my yard and gardens. They have no idea how many failures have gone into it, failures that took serious revision. Digging up and moving plants. Replacing ones that just didn't work. Subtracting and adding.

Not unlike what a draft of a novel requires. Or a painting. A sculpture.

So here it is. A new season. Who knows what will have survived this winter? No doubt there will be plenty of pruning, cutting back, moving, and replanting.

I'll be going through edits on my (soon to be published) novel as I renew and plant in the gardens. Not so much different. What will the editor see that I've missed after a hundred edits? I look forward to it, with a bit of trepidation, as I look forward to what will need fixing up in the beds around our home. Each little thing has to work with the whole.

And that's the thing about doing anything creative, meaning anything that needs your personal sensibility to bring it to life. You get it all out there, make mistakes, and some things don't work and need to be moved, revised, changed, or completely deleted. But you stand back, look at the whole, and realize that to "get it right," you have to cut, move, and replant.

Sometimes that takes ruthlessness. I read once, it might have been Gertrude Jekyll, that to be a good gardener, one must be ruthless. So must all artists.

So here we go, into a Spring that may reveal some serious damage to correct. And how different is that from the novel you're working on, or your garden, or your painting, your sculpture, your song? An artist in any medium has to embrace ruthlessness.

But it's Spring. Ahh. Enjoy what's good and beautiful and then fix what needs fixing. I'm loving the snowdrops. The rest will come, and my shears are ready.

Are yours?