When in the course of revising your story you come upon an insurmountable impediment to the furthering of your plot, or to your characters movements, it may become necessary not to cut the ties which bind you and your story, but to write an outline.

I’m a pantser and pantsers naturally abhor outlines. Luckily outlines come in many forms. What I did was follow a very loose format that J.K. Rowling did for one of her Harry Potter books. Hey,why settle for anything less than the best?

Rowling took a sheet of lined loose leaf paper and made a grid. She listed the months of Harry’s school year down the left hand side of the paper and characters/incidents along the top. In this way she could fill in the squares and make sure Harry and Co. were led to the right place at the right time to meet with Voldemort, or whoever, when the story required it of them.

If outlining is not beneath J.K. Rowling I reasoned, then why not try it myself?

I took a sheet of poster board and graphed it into squares the same size as the post-it notes I planned to strew the whole thing with. My story currently in revision takes place in the space of one week, so down the left hand side of the board I put the days of the week. Characters and situations ran along the top. I went through the scenes I had most recently revised and plotted them on my board. Back story went behind the post-its onto the board and current events went onto the post-its so they could be moved as needed.

So, did it help? It did. I was able to see the story, as far as I had revised it, at a glance. Amazed at how easily I could tell where something needed to happen, I made it happen. Now only halfway through this revision, and the outline only halfway through that, I saw that the thread of a sub-plot could be made stronger and that character enlarged to amplify the denouement.

Changes were made right away onto the hard copy I had on hand to plot information onto my graph. That is a revision in itself.

I’m looking forward to more plotting on the outline as I go along with the revision. The outline will probably progress faster than I can revise my scenes, so whereas the scenes had defined the outline I can tell that the changes that I’ve made will help the outline to define the scenes yet to be revised. Hope that made sense. Somehow it does to me.

Added bonus, this exercise should make the following revisions easier.

Will I become a bona fide plotter? Well, I don’t think I can write a story by outlining it first, but at this point I feel an outline such as this one helps to find and tie up those loose and flimsy threads that run through the story. And that’s good.

After almost six years of meeting, the voices of my fellow Thursday Night Writers have become pretty familiar to me and easy to spot.  The vocabulary and cadence are like fingerprints that don’t seem to change.  However, it wasn’t until recently that I seriously considered what my own voice was.

About a month ago, we did a couple of writing exercises one night.  In one scenario, the instruction was to think of something we either liked or disliked, and then write a story as if we had the opposite feeling.  For the second exercise, the point was to think of a dozen details that could be used as description and then write two or three paragraphs using those details.  It was fun and I had no problem writing two short pieces.  Then we each read our work aloud and it was pointed out to me, and I immediately saw, that I had used exactly the same voice in response to two totally different scenarios.

My voice in both pieces was cynical, which actually seems normal to me because I am not a Pollyanna and believe that there are a lot of negative and malignant things in our world.  But, the more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that, if I’m cynical about the world then it is only fair that I should be cynical about myself, or at least about my writing.  I’m undertaking this appraisal of my writing with the idea that maybe I can somehow rub salve on my dark worldview and alleviate some of the aches and pains it gives to both me and my readers.

I hope this self-examination bears fruit.  When we did those exercises and then discussed them, it was an eye opener to realize that what had been so comfortable only minutes before suddenly felt foreign.  There it was, right in front of my face, challenging me to consider whether I like what I see and feel when I write.  Wish me luck.

I think my patch of dill is three inches high today, my tomato plant and two bean vines about mid calf and mid thigh respectively.

Well, I was slow to get the seeds in the ground, so what could I expect?

I also forget to water, until my scrawny little plants are banging their leafy fists on the ground and saying accusingly, “What kind of gardener are you?”

This is a blog about writing, and I’m writing about not writing. My pen, when I can find it, could say the same thing to me: “You never call, you never write . . .”

I admire Heidi and Karen and Eleanor for undertaking the writing of a novel—and following it through, untangling the snarls in the plots, deepening their characters with each rewrite, filling in the holes with some excellent writing.

I look at the characters in my pre-written stories, and they just glare back at me, accusingly. “Well, we’re not going anywhere while you just sit there and doodle in the margins!” Maybe I should just take up cartooning.

My live-and-let-live approach to gardening and writing hasn’t worked well (except for the weeds). Participating in the blog has been helping me get over my block—I’m writing and stretching that mental muscle that I’ve let atrophy for too long.

Most of us are familiar with Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs. Very basic needs form the foundation of his triangular hierarchy and only when they are achieved can one can move upward, one level at a time, through safety, security, belonging and self-esteem until finally personal creativity is realized. Then, voila, one achieves what Maslow called self-actualization.

The latest issue of Writer’s Digest (September, 2015), an article on revision equates Maslow’s hierarchy (loosely) to the problems we face when revising a story (okay, you knew we would get around to writing sooner or later. Well, we’ve arrived).

In The Great Revision Pyramid, by Gabriela Pereira, it is suggested that the shortest distance from first draft to a finished book is by systematically covering all the layers, in order, in a hierarchy of revision. One layer per revision.

Layer one, the narration. This corresponds to Maslow’s base level of food, water, shelter and warmth. In revision we must tackle voice and point of view first, and get them right, before going on to the next layer.

Layer two: the characters. This includes your protagonist, antagonist, and supporting cast. Know your protagonist almost as well as you know yourself. Know your antagonist as well.

Layer three: the story; plot and structure. I was glad to see that this layer was in third place. That’s where I am in my very long, very sporadic revision process. I’ve got layers one and two done (Maybe. Ask my writing group to verify that), only four and five to go!

Layer four: the scenes. Scenes include world-building, description, dialogue and theme. That sounds like a whole pyramid in itself.

Layer five: cosmetics. This layer includes spelling and word choice. They can be fun. It also includes grammar and punctuation; two banes of my existence. However, one writer’s bane is another writer’s raison d’etre, so I’ll not say anything further. If and when I get to layer five I have friends and family in reserve who can fix my shortcomings.

So, there you have it. In a nutshell. Revise, rewrite, one layer at a time, starting at the base layer, and you’ll soon be at the pinnacle. Soon is a relative term, as you know.

Ms. Periera’s article was a great source of inspiration. If you’re not a fiction writer there are also, in this issue, revision techniques for non-fiction and poetry.

Happy revising!

I’ve had the pleasure recently of visiting Ithaca, New York, and from my brief stay, I’m totally intrigued by the region. The Finger Lakes and the numerous and dramatic waterfalls themselves tell a story that goes back for centuries and centuries. The wineries and local food eateries that have sprung up more recently tell another, perhaps related, story of how people respond to the environment in which they live and work.

We talk a lot about sense of place when we talk about writing, and for good reason. If characters drive the story, then perhaps setting drives the characters. When I read a story that is set in no place in particular, I often feel that something essential about the people in the story is lacking. When the setting of a story or novel pulses with it’s own heartbeat, the characters within that story have more depth. And some stories couldn’t exist apart from their setting, as so many people are rediscovering this summer rereading To Kill a Mockingbird.

It makes me wonder how people can write about a place and the people who live in that place without having spent much time there themselves. I know that there are skilled writers who can do so . . . What are their tricks and tools for absorbing the essence of a place enough to capture not only in the descriptions of the setting, but also in their characters? This has long been a worry of mine, since I never felt that I came from anyplace. As a child I lived with my grandmother in Florida, who told me often enough “Kentucky is our home.” She’d lived more years in Florida than Kentucky, but she carried with her the traits of her birthplace in her speech, her cooking, her sense of propriety. I loved Kentucky, but it was never my home. My mother and I eventually landed in a college town after she got her masters—a town where no one was from. I don’t feel like I inherited a culture from the place; I always felt like an outsider. And in fact, I could not get out of that town fast enough when I graduated from high school. It’s only since I’ve been away from “home” for a good twenty-plus years, that I can begin to see how my own hometown shaped the essential me.

Extensive research about a place, rounded out with empathetic imagination—whether it is a storefront in a dusty, dying strip mall or a fierce and angry waterfall carving through shale and sandstone—are the essential things a writers must bring to the table when sitting down with pad and paper. A little local cheese and wine helps, too.

After I finished my last blog posting, I felt unsettled.  I was okay with the piece at the time, but there were some doubts banging around in the back of my mind.  After sleeping on it, I looked again and saw several things that I would have liked to change, but it was already out there in the ether, so it let it go saying “it is what it is”.  It got me to thinking about both self-criticism and the comments made by my Thursday night writing group, family members and friends.  I wouldn’t say that I enjoy receiving criticism, even in the best sense of the word, after all I’m not a masochist or glutton for punishment, but I do see its importance because I want people to enjoy and value what I write.  I understand that critical reaction from others can be a valuable gauge of the quality of my writing.

Our Thursday night group has waded right into the minefield of critiques pretty much weekly over the years.  John, our leader and the most diplomatic person I know, sets the tone with observations based on his many years as an editor.  No matter how constructively offered, in many instances the response to a suggestion for removing or altering, say, a character, storyline, scene or even a snippet of description, is a protest that the writer really likes it the way it is.  John refers to elements that are favored only by the writer and that they can’t bear to surrender as their “darlings”.

All of us have “darlings” in our lives that we will defend.  People involved in romance, parenting and, apparently, writing have this in common: it’s not natural for them like it when their “darlings” are criticized.  Most of us have the good sense not to make uncomplimentary remarks about another’s love interest to their face.  Many of us are tempted to make a remark about the five-year-old running around the tables in a quiet restaurant but don’t want to tangle with the mother who becomes a cat with her tail on fire if anything negative is said about her little “darling”.  But people in writing groups seem to have very few reservations to point out flaws in the submissions of others.  Defensive reactions are understandable when someone or something that generates love within your bosom is under attack, but let’s look at what is really at stake.

Lovers and progenitors both have an organically occurring loyalty that will cause them to defend attacked sweethearts and offspring to the death.  If, in addition, if they consider their own self-preservation, they will irrationally defend the indefensible, mindful that their enamored will be alone with them in the middle of the night while they sleep or that their children will, some day, decide their nursing home placement.  Even when it doesn’t make sense, it is understandable to circle the wagons in defense of loved ones against outside aggression and maintain life as you know it.

On the flip side, a writer’s stalwart refusal to change one of their “darlings” ensures only one thing: the writer will be the only one satisfied with the work.  No, the writer will be the only one reading his work.  In that light, it seems that writers who want to be read have to be truly open to honest criticism of their work.  This sounds so easy to see, but I guess that after you have reached deep into your soul and psyche, you form an attachment to the thing to which you have given life.  I might suggest that if you, a writer feel that strongly about your creation, you should create your own little private library for your own edification, but listen and positively respond to the wider world’s reactions.

Hmmmm, I wonder how I’ll react when some megastar Hollywood director wants to make changes to my story when it’s brought to the big screen.

I’ve hardly set pen to paper for ten days. It’s a weird feeling. For over five years, I’ve been writing regularly (not daily—I can’t claim that.) Just now, though, I’ve got a five-week trip to pack for, two home improvement projects under way, an elderly friend who’s ill and considering assisted living, and a sick cat. And poison ivy.

So much for the endless stream of whining complaint. Thank you for listening.

I have to find out how real (sc. published) writers get it all done. I know they have lives. At conferences, I’ve distinctly heard them mention spouses and children. Unlike me, they have to make the rounds of book fairs and do public appearances. They must eat: quite a number of them are plump.

I warn you, the first person to suggest ‘discipline’ as the solution, dies. The house, the spouse, the garden, the shopping, the cooking… getting all those seen to, over and over, feels like boot camp forever.

A schedule? I have one. My brain only writes in the morning. In the afternoon, it stares out from behind my eyes and refuses any but simple, repetitive tasks. So I should carve out several undisturbed morning hours. But the 86-pound black Lab, Nussi, needs at least two, spaced half-hour hikes up and down Cottonstone Mountain, where we live, to keep from ballooning to 100 pounds. I confess to having the same problem myself, marked up by a certain percentage. Did I mention plumpness? The spouse, when at home, requires computer assistance at startlingly irregular intervals. The man to fix the dishwasher will be here at 10. Or so.

It’s more complicated than that, really. Here’s an example. Somehow, back in the mists of time, a custom arose that the spouse has a medium-boiled egg for a mid-morning snack. The spouse literally cannot boil an egg. The writer boils it. And empties the dishwasher while the water heats. And flips the wash while waiting for the dirty dish.

I can hear Gloria Steinem screaming. Tough beans, Gloria. That isn’t just a boiled egg. That’s communion, read the word how you will. That’s ritual. That’s a very happy marriage. Sure, I could say, “Go make yourself some toast.” But would that be a good trade?

Here’s a thought: that five-week trip is about to take me to a little town in the Rockies, Redstone, Colorado, population 92. where we have very few friends. There is no garden. There is a Whole Foods – some distance away, granted – that sells pre-made food. We have a microwave. I need to go on a diet anyway. The spouse, bereft of his New Hampshire wood lot, will need exercise. Dog walking is very healthy.

So, maybe that’s a research project for July. Try out ways to free up time. Decide what is worth less than writing and can be lived without. Practice ways of condensing the simple, repetitive tasks.

So, whaddaya think? Will that work? Even if it doesn’t, I’m going to get some writing done.