A writing observation

[hmpf]

One thing that is extremely important to me in my writing is... I don't even know if there's an 'official' term for this... 'rhythm'? 'Sound'? 'Flow'? I spend a lot of time listening to what I write - rereading sentences and paragraphs and just listening to them, not for aspects of meaning but for things like... I dunno... sound, or sequencing, maybe? The sequence of long and short sentences and phrases; the pauses caused by commas, semicolons, full stops. I can spend months deliberating on the placing of a comma. I've just removed an 'and' from a sentence, purely for 'rhythm' reasons, for what feels like the hundredth time. I'll probably add it back in tomorrow, or even later today. And then maybe remove it again. And add it back in. Until I've finally figured out whether it should be there or not.

I never really *decided* that this was the way I wanted to go about writing. I just can't seem to do it any other way. I read a paragraph I've written and I just *know*, sometimes, often, that it doesn't 'flow' as it should. And that's when the endless editing and rewriting begins; that, perhaps more than coming up with the actual 'meat' of a story, is what's taking me so frelling long. A lot of the last year out of the three years I spent working on the barely eight pages of Normal was spent on problems like that.

Likewise, when writing something new, I often know the 'rhythmic structure' of a sentence long before I know what that sentence will say. That is to say, I know "the next sentence needs to be long, and read fast and a little breathless", for example. It can be very, very difficult to find the appropriate 'content' for the predetermined 'shape' of a sentence. A lot of my difficulty with Möglichkeitssinn right now is of that sort. Most of it just doesn't read right yet - purely in terms of sound/rhythm/whatever you want to call it.

My problem with the first sentence of 68 Wives is related to this. I often get fixated on certain rhythmic structures for certain parts of my writing, and once I've got the idea of what a sentence should sound like lodged firmly in my head, it's hard to dislodge it again. This is what's happened to me with the first sentence of 68 Wives. The sentence doesn't make sense in its current form, but I can't imagine it *sounding* any different; and that, of course, makes it very difficult to change the content of the sentence, because any new version will also *sound* different. This whole complex of issues is also one of the things that made it impossible for me to rewrite Epilogue. Epilogue has a voice problem, and voice is created by variations in rhythm etc., among other things. (I've recently put that story back online in its old form, because I'm thoroughly stumped as to how to improve it, although it really is a shame to leave it in its present state. It could be really good; currently, though, it's just a good idea that's been very badly executed.)

Comments

[loz]

It's funny, I was just thinking about this yesterday - that one of the reasons I write vignettes is that I am obsessive about fine details of the sentences - how they sound, how they flow, how they fit together. Short, then long, short, short, long, too long, deliberately long. I've easily spent an hour rearranging one sentence (though, often, I say 'ten minutes' as it sounds less anal - and this is still less than you, but still quite a lot.) I thought I was the only one who did this, too, so thank you for that.

Just one hour? ;-)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I'm not kidding when I say that with some particularly problematic sentences, it takes me months before I settle on a final form. Which may just differ from the original form by the position of a comma, or the replacing of a comma with a semicolon. It drives me crazy, but I can't let it go before it 'feels right'.

Glad to know I'm not the only one who consciously works on this aspect! :-)

This is probably also why I've gravitated towards (prose-)poetry-like forms in recent years, either for whole fic(let)s or even just for parts of fics.

I find my writing process strikingly different for different types of fic, though - as a rule, the more plot there is, the less I seem to obsess about stylistic details and such (and the plainer my language gets, too). Fics that are built entirely on an idea, or on introspection, though - those I work over with a fine-toothed comb, sometimes for years.

I've also just realised something else: editing and rewriting is a bit like translating, isn't it? Well, at least it is for me. (It's also like weeding and pruning, of course, but those are the obvious analogies everyone think of when they think about editing.) I always start out with a lot of triteness and banality, and then, in successive revisions, 'translate' the trite, banal placeholder sentences into something else. Sometimes I don't manage that with every sentence, of course. There are a few sentences in the bit I posted above, for example, that have resisted translation so far.

I really wish the more 'striking' ways of phrasing things would come to me in a less laborious process, though...

[sylviavolk2000.livejournal.com]

Hey, the same thing happens to me. I often know what I want the sentences and paragraphs to look like, what rhythm I want out of them, before I know the actual words.

Hm, maybe it's a normal writer thing!

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Or maybe we're the same type of writer in that respect.

I've also noticed that in some writers' works I'm more conscious of these issues than in others. Ray Bradbury, for example, clearly pays attention to this kind of thing.

I always wonder about writers whose fiction just kind of flows very, very evenly. Is that a conscious effort, too, or does it just come naturally?

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know the feeling. There's a Sam/Annie fic I've had in the works for months and has so far undergone no less than 10 almost complete rewritings... just to return to its original form later on. But I'm usually more obsessed with grammar rather than rhythm, and with the fact that I never seem to 'capture' the right feeling I want to convey to the reader, and this is pretty irritating.

Re: rewriting

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

I've been working a little bit on my fic nearly every night for the past few days, and noticed something: *something* usually happens. It may not be much, it may just be a moved comma - but so far, I've solved *some* little problem, every night. So, it seems as if keeping at it pretty regularly actually does help.

Re: rewriting

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

You know, maybe I should try that technique, too. A more regular approach may be useful to even out my writing and take it to a better level.

If only I actually had the time to work on my fics every night!