I’ve been fortunate to have had an audience for about 30+ years—-in workshops, classes, from magazines, from blogs, from published books, from mentors nd from friends—-which equals about 10 million people. Now a very small number of that give me direct feedback which is both detailed and useful—-about 10% of that first 10%—-less than 10,000, maybe 1000 people over the years so far. A decent number for a good sized theater but not a stadium, yet.
What I try to do, what I’m thinking about when I’m writing fiction or non-fiction or even poetry (which I insanely won awards for and have done lots of readings, including at the Nuyorican Café! Pinero!) and also I’ve written and filmed a screenplay. I therefore think about yes, making a work accessible—-does this make sense? Can a reader follow where I’m trying to go?
But that’s generally secondary or farther done the list of goals in a piece.
First I’m trying to get the line of an idea out of my head and reasonably onto paper.
Stay With Me was a BIG book that came out of 125 pages I’d written 20 years ago and then infused and expanded into a 700 page novel. In the revising and editing—-12 to 16 Drafts before Final Edit and publication—-I was able to explore, yes, my idea of sexuality through a love triangle between two men and a woman. One of the men essentially in the closet and hiding his identity from his girlfriend. The first version, simply titled Stay, the girlfriend existed but she wasn’t a full character and fleshed out.
In the updating I saw that her space/character was valid and useful for seeing her boyfriend, into his mind and motivations.
About halfway through, seeing that there were so many permutations of identity and choices and there was a metaphysical angle—-I decided to situate the entire novel as being about a multiverse examination of the same people, in the similar situation but with slight different, life altering choices. This allowed ne to hold the magical realism I wanted to play with and at the same time treat the characters like diamonds with whom I would examine multiple facets of. I was in no way thinking about the reader at this point other than I have to design the chapters to be one world and another and figure out some way of that being obvious beyond the narrative.
The story, the characters, their permutations came first and foremost as I was trying to figure what kind of story I was telling, why and to what conclusion. Now those things are written in a linear narrative timeline but they were not designed/written that way.
Once I knew I had all of these narratives to explore I then decided on the format of the book itself and therefore the “chapters” changing from one standard form—-1, 2, 3, 4 and so on—-to Chapters and sub-realities of that chapter. The chapters then became 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and so on through 4.1 to 4.4, with 5 being 5.0 thru 5.5. The chapters ultimately being refractions of the same events in the chapter group time and then having 0.0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, 0.4 as my main BIG metaphysical/magical realism chapters that we may do something with even bigger in years to come.
What I’m doing there is yes, a form of design so that a reader-audience can follow my theme/narrative but it wasn’t as much for the audience as it was for me to express the idea and being able to follow it, design it for myself for the story. There are even chapters Un, Deux, Trois, Quatre titled in French but illustrating the elements and people involved in relationships. Again design for the narrative and myself BUT yes, it does help an eventual audience understand each chapter is a different person, headspace and perhaps even reality.
I finished the novel, all of my novels in multiple parts because I handwrite them first o by the time I am halfway through I’ve begun the typing process so it starts becoming multiple forms of racing, production Type, Write, Type, Write and so on until I literally catch up to myself. But by the time I type the last written pages I’ve generally finished the story in Draft 1–3 of what will be as many as 12 to 16 Drafts.
When I finished SWM Draft 12—-I had decidedly different ending then I had typed in Draft 9 or so. But then I had chapter from another novel, Myriad: The Orisha Wars, playing with magic and the multiverse and I saw a way to do a crossover of that chapter, at the end of SWM, that would answer-hint at other things occurring in both books and allow me to play a little bit. Myriad: The Orisha Wars’ chapter closing SWM is what made me directly complete SWMs ending. I toyed with leaving the resolution up in the air or open ended.
Now when I go back and I’m revising—-first for basic grammar, then narrative continuity, then character continuity then to shave out unnecessary or repetitive text then to further ruthlessly shave out unnecessary text—-that’s when I’m transforming into clarifying it for the reader-audience. Because I am now making it a thing for public presentation, dissemination and reading. Then it must be accessible. The further editing process by others then reflects back to me—-ooh, look at this, does this make sense, what did you mean here, this must be clearer…..etc. etc.
Amateur Writers
This is where amateurs get messed up—-they want/need constant validation from the beginning so they second guess every damn page or to the furthest extreme ignore all feedback.
You must instead use all of your ideas and tricks and bits and bobs and pull it together, fix it to work as a story, then submit it to first a handful, then dozens, then thousands. for feedback.
And listen to and integrate all of the feedback. The invent of the internet——allowing everyone to write their pedantic thoughts and disperse them to every corner of the Earth doesn’t make you a writer. Pulling together most of it, 90% of it, whether that’s a 3 page short story or a 700 page novel and revising it a dozen times—-until it is different than what you began with—-if it resembles the original too much, you haven’t done enough work to it.
It should be noticeably different, tighter. I call it from my own blink-ability—-”cleaner”. Published work that has been well edited looks visually and stylistically cleaner. When I read amateurish work, it “clunks” to my inner ear and visual eye.
What I’m doing in my 12 Drafts minimum of revisions is I’m getting rid of my own clunks.
#KylePhoenix
#TheKylePhoenixShow
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