Follow the Flow, Baby--by Reb MacRath
One way or another, all writers must solve one great challenge: tracking and pacing the flow of their work and timing the release of essential information. Fiction or nonfiction, mystery or history, hack work or high art...All afford plenty of room for writers to bring their singular talents to bear. Tell a tale in reverse or jump cut back and forth from the present to the past. Interweave philosophy with a gripping narrative as in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. The sky's the limit, baby. But know this when starting out:
Timing is still everything. And no matter how many chapters you have, the book's structure must be solid and efficient. The release of clues or key insights must be impeccably timed. And, ultimately, your work should have its own symmetry. I'm in trouble if my book has three distinctive parts, but the opening movement runs for 150 pages, while the middle runs for 90 and the ending stops short at 50. Just as bad, I doomed if I give the book's big reversal away too soon or withhold key intel for too long.
I know that many writers do all their work on their computers, from first to final drafts. And I'm sure that some of them start off with first drafts more polished than mine. I salute them. But I question whether they're faster or more efficient at tracking the pacing and flow than a computer caveman. When I've typed and printed my second draft, I like to lay out the pages as you can see above. Since my novel is structured in 50-page blocks, I can gauge the pacing at a glance, I can see that something's been revealed too soon or that something should be clearer now. When the whole book has gone through this process, then I'll find a conference table and lay out the entire 300-400 pages. And I'll be sure to tag the parts with Post-It Notes, comparing the proportions.
I'd love to hear your thoughts and special strategies--unless you're literary Mozarts who get it all right in one go.
This is my report.
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Comments
My writing process, which was just starting when I read your blog, is to walk up home through a wooded road with thoughts occurring to me, and the writing them down, handwritten, or on my i-phone or sometimes the main computer. I leave it and then return to write the substance, choosing illustrations as I go. I loved your bath one by the way.
Thanks for the blog and hope you're well after all the changes you've chronicled here on the site.