Taking a Moment to Set the Scene

Sometimes I stumble across something I've written and wonder, just what in the most honored name of Bob Saget made you think that would work, you blithering putz?

Ok, perhaps I'm not quite that harsh, but when a piece or segment seems slapped together, well, I know I was just in too much of a hurry to get from point A to point B.

I couldn't be bothered to set the scene. And perhaps, in a POV piece, the character isn't taking much notice of the scene. Or he's fiddling around in some sort of reverie that we the reader are about to partake of as well. But even so. Even if this character is dismissive of everything around him, disdainful, or outright oblivious... it pays to spend a few words on the scene.

Here's a bit I stumbled across in my revisions, and how I changed it.


-------------------Version The First-------------------

It had been years since he’d set foot in the Capital. And he hadn’t wanted to come back this soon.

Devlan scowled with the visible half of his face. It was true what they said.

All roads did run through Dezaran.

Now, let's be blunt. This is thin. really thin. We learn Devlan's setting foot in Dezaran for the first time in awhile, and he's none too happy about it. Great. The words serve a function. That's about it. But who thinks about what part of their face is visible, even if the purported "invisible" half is a badly scarred ruin?

I won't even touch the dreadful cliche that somehow worked its way in there.

Facing facts, this is a very small part of a very large piece of work that can really do some damage to the whole. If I'm reading this, I totally fall out of the story, and the author (yes, I call myself that when I'm having "me" time) has to do some serious work to make up that ground. Even worse, it's at the start of a chapter, so that makes this flub at least triply inexcusable. But no worries! That's why we do the rewriting, folks. So the fancy hardcover doesn't end up on the bookshelf with poo smeared all through the pages.

-----------Version The First Point Zero Five-----------

People swarmed around Devlan, wayfarers drifting into the gates with packs slung over shoulders, caravaners driving out. All of them jabbering on about mindless things in their mindless tongue.

It had been years since he’d set foot in Dezaran. Just not enough of them.

Devlan scowled with what was left of his face. What was it these Imperials said? Some business about absence, and warming the heart…

It was a load of scat, far as he could tell.

So what did I do? Well, I had to add a few words (37, as it happens), loathe though I am to do it, and I had to change a few others. In those words I needed to establish a specific image and reinforce a few choice traits about our boy Devlan here (because like I said above, it's the beginning of a chapter, and we haven't seen Devlan for a while).

Here you learn Devlan is standing at a rather busy gate into Dezaran city. He doesn't refer to it as the Capital. It's no capital to him. You can see from this that Devlan has a marked distaste for all things Imperial, all the way down to their language, and you get the idea he's something of a cynic. And he is. Without giving anything away, believe me, he has every possible reason to be. Woe to me if he were to come across me in a dark alley after all the things I've put him through.

A different cliche is there, but it's hinted at rather than slammed over the head, and the result is Devlan gets to sound a little more sarcastic, a little more hardened.

Of course the redux is far from perfect as well, anyone can see that, but few would argue that it isn't better. And better is the name of the rewriting game. At least when I play it.

That's why I get to go through it again and again until I finally get it to Version The Second.

Then maybe it will be ready for some editor to stab it to death with his bloody pen.

I can only hope.

Until then, sports fans.

On Editing

Ah, editing. Or perhaps we should call it rewriting. Either way, the process is about shaping. Working a piece, getting in between the lines, smoothing out the wrinkles to make it that much closer to perfect, even if it can never get there.

And, as all of you writers out there surely know, nothing ever can.

But still. We have to try.

See the two versions of the same passage below. Neither are perfect, of course, but one hits a hell of a lot harder. Yet they are practically the same; a written-word version of those goofy find-the-difference-between-these-pictures games you sometimes find on the gambling machines in bars.

Just goes to show you. The changes don't have to be huge to make a huge difference.

--------------------Version A--------------------

Devlan drew his sword with the metal hand and joined the fighting. They weren’t even paying attention to him.

He came down on one with his back turned and ran him through, the blade horizontal, straight through the spine like Claive had taught him.

It got their attention, but only enough so that Claive could take advantage of a few new openings. Devlan pulled his sword from the man he’d just killed, and for just a brief moment, he caught sight of Claive’s eyes.

He froze for a moment, unable to help it. They were bloodshot, almost pulsing with crimson. Claive’s mouth was open, teeth bared. His breaths snarled out through flared nostrils. The expression didn’t look like it should ever belong on a human face. It was the most horrifying thing Devlan had ever seen.


--------------------Version B--------------------

Devlan drew his sword with the metal hand and crashed into the fight. The Keepers hardly seemed to notice.

He came down on one with his back turned and ran him through, the blade horizontal, straight through the spine like Claive had taught.

It got the guards' attention, but only enough that Claive found a few new openings. One turned at Devlan, only to have a blade explode through his head before Devlan could even pull his sword free. Devlan blinked as the blood hit his face. Then he caught a flash of Claive’s eyes.

Devlan froze and stared, trapped. The eyes were wide and bulging, dark as blood around those pale pricks of grey. Claive’s lips stretched back, his teeth bared in a monstrous smile. Hot breath snarled out through flared nostrils, the vapors clouding like smoke around a burning head.

It was the most horrifying thing Devlan had ever seen. A face that didn’t look like it could ever belong to a man.



Excerpts taken from drafts of The Seed of Desolation.

A Little Freewriting

Perhaps this mostly dead blog will see some revival as I delve further into writing and get the gears turning on either a) an exciting adventure for next year or b) an exciting foray into publishing with the 600-page fictional adventure farting around on my hard drive.

Until then... here's a taste of something completely different.

---------------------Looking Back---------------------

When you look back, what’s there to see? Is it a chance lost? An opportunity wasted? A whole mess of them? What is it you feel, when you look in the mirror and see that sagging face with its lightless eyes, that shadow framed in a wreath of steely hair that looks nothing like the person you thought you were? What is there?

Life is not full of time, even though that’s really all it is. Maybe you wanted to do something, or be something. Maybe there was hope in you. But you sat. You didn’t do. You never did.

Or maybe you were something, once. Maybe you found it, but you lost it. Like the athlete who lets go. That warrior. That fighter who wakes up at 3 am sweating liquor and needing a piss, all popping knees and aching back. He leans over the toilet, an arm braced against the wall, and he has to crane his head around his gut to catch a glimpse of his dick. What do you think he’s thinking?

How did I get here? How did this happen? How could it?

But that’s the trick. No one took you to this place, this state. It’s not like you got all dressed up and got into his limo to go to the dance. No one brought you. You brought yourself.

Even if you just sat there and watched life happening around you, even if you decided it felt safest to stay in one place and spin your wheels, you decided. You made a choice. Choices. And every time you look in that mirror, the reflection of those choices will be etched in whatever image stares back through the glass.

I sure wish I’d known that before. When everything was wonderful. When everything was ahead. When I ran my fingers through her hair, and didn’t think I could ever love anyone that much. When my parents called to say they loved me, and I’d say I love you, too, and hang up the phone so I wouldn’t have to talk anymore.

You always seem to realize too late the things that really matter. It’s usually once they’re gone.

The last time I spoke to my parents, I couldn’t wait to get them off the phone. Big date planned, really big. Always thought of that night as a pre-engagement-engagement. Or something. My phone rang during dinner. Once, twice. I turned it off. This girl, nothing was more important than her right then. Still nothing more important than her, if I’m honest.

But after the date I get the messages. All of them. About my parents.

A drunk driver took them from me. I took myself from everyone else.

When I look in the mirror, the face scares me. The eyes mostly. There’s something in the eyes that changes when a man kills.

They died twelve years ago.

I made choices.