BY MEGAN OLIPHANT
Maybe I should have written this blog post BEFORE the Orson Scott Card Literary Boot Camp, because my mind is so full of all the information, it will take several days for it all to gel into something coherent in my mind. So much good information. But right now, my brain is a little bit mushy, more than usual.
I’ve been to writer’s conferences before, taken individual classes, listened to agents and authors tell me everything from how to write queries to basic novel structure. But I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Six days of my whole brain function taken up with learning and writing and learning some more.
I have to say, though, it was worth every penny, every tear shed, every second of staring at the computer screen thinking “I’m so tired, I can’t type another word.” (Okay, I didn’t really cry, but I did think several times that I couldn’t possibly put two more words together. And I did think about crying.)
The tools I came away with will be priceless for my writing. It was a whole new way to look at how to write, how to rewrite, and whether I should edit or start all over. That seems dramatic, I know, but having listened to him teach about it all week, it is clear to me what the difference is.
According to OSC, there is only a first draft. Doing a “second draft” is the way to kill the heart of your story. If you are having problems or writer’s block, it’s because your subconscious is trying desperately to tell you that something isn’t working, that you need to stop and figure it out. It usually resolves by adding more to the story, like a new character. But where writers go wrong is when they get that far, figuring out what needs to be fixed, instead of starting from the beginning and writing fresh, they try to go back and insert the addition piecemeal, like trying to weave a ribbon into a braid when the braid is already done and tied off.
Does that mean we don’t edit? Of course not. There will always be a need for that. But editing is for clarity, not drafting your novel to death.
This was so mind blowing to me. I’m thrilled to be able to start afresh on some of these stories I have that have stalled. I can’t worry about the perfect prose or the great scene I’ve already written. It’s about taking all that old information and rewriting from the beginning, but now those scenes and characters will be fuller, richer, more real.
And that is what will suck our readers in and make them want to take up residence in the universes we create.
Megan Oliphant has studied creative writing since college, taking classes from the founder of LTUE, Marion K. “Doc” Smith at BYU and attended Orson Scott Card’s Literary Boot Camp in late June. Her primary interests are in fantasy, ranging from dark urban to high epic, but she’s a sucker for a good mystery that she can’t guess the ending to before she gets there. She divides her time between reading, writing, and “familying” with her husband and five children in North Carolina.
Megan joined The X Team in May of 2014. Her first project, Accidental Apprentice, by Anika Arrington, is slated for release in September of 2014. She is project lead on Darkness Rising, a young adult fantasy by Elizabeth Lunyou, slated for release in 2015.