oliver yeh

From Gretchen Rubin’s, “Problem With Procrastination? Try This: Do Nothing.”

[Raymond] Chandler set aside at least four hours each day for writing; he didn’t force himself to write, but he didn’t let himself do anything else. He wouldn’t let himself read, write letters, write checks — nothing. He summed up: “Two very simple rules: a.) You don’t have to write. b.) You can’t do anything else. The rest comes of itself.”

Allow me to pack your pipe with an idea that might help you tighten your scenes, and possibly, rid yourself of useless characters and details.

In photography and cinematography the term “depth of field” refers to focal distance. The easiest way to understand it is to examine a portrait of someone shot outside — the face is usually sharp in focus while the background is blurry (this is “shallow focus”). An image shot with “deep focus” has everything sharp (foreground and background). By changing the depth of field, you draw a viewer into what details are most important.

Be thoughtful about how you compose your scenes and how deep the field you create. If you utilize too shallow a focus for too long, you risk sufficating the reader by leaving him inside a character’s or narrator’s head. If you leave the reader out in deep focus for too long, you may lose his interest and attention to details that may or may not be relevant to the characters involved or the overall story.

I think in either case, but maybe especially in deep focus, the temptation of overwriting looms. Just remember there’s always a balance.

This dawned on me when I was looking over some old photos from a trip.

When you pay to take a tour bus around a city, for example, you want the driver to take his time when showing you the sights revealing the reason why those sights are interesting, and how as a whole they create a larger fabric. You would be pretty cheesed off if he floored it at every spot and spoke at light-speed like a radio commercial’s terms-and-conditions. But then you also wouldn’t be happy if he stopped at a spot for too long driving you to count the number of flattened, overchewed gum-wads on the street and sidewalk.

With regard to writing my first draft, I found myself jumping out of scenes as quick as I could. Now, part of the reason this occured is because of my process: I write in one go for the first draft. Gaps appear because I’ve built a framework and left a good amount of the meat for later. But I think an even larger factor was my fear of pace. I was afraid that if I lingered too long in a scene the pace would slow. Even when I edited through the second time, I still found myself jumping out perhaps to get somewhere with the editing, but mostly fearing I might bore the reader. I should’ve lingered more, lounged with a drink, let things develop, plant some seeds, allow a character’s ticks to come through, build tension. For all we struggle with as writers, why would we forego the opportunity to have fun messing with things? Of course, one can overstay his welcome, drench the page with overwriting, and slow the pace to a dead man’s crawl.

But on the whole, don’t let fear of pace take away what you want or need for the story. Worry about that later. The more you allow to flow onto the page, the more you have to work with. If we gloss over details, if we shoot past an important part and “tell” what it was, we’re basically picking up a reader and dropping them off. No one will pay for that. Not only that, by speeding we’re at risk of forgetting or losing that vital piece of inspiration we said we would get back to later — once a rider is off the bus, they’re gone and there’s no second chance.

How many times have you read a book and thought, “Where did that come from?”, “I want to know more,” “This jumps around too much.” Slow the bus down.

But then again, I could be talking out of my tush. As you were.

Funny thing happened today that, in retrospect, paralleled a major event that occurred in my writing life last week.

I had to travel down to my parent’s beach house in Maryland to check on a roofing job.  On the way down, on Route 113 just before the sign that says that I’m entering Sussex County, I approached a traffic light that had just turned green.  I drove in the left lane of a two-lane road about to pass under the light.  In the right lane a line of cars sat motionless.  And in the turning lane to the right of that, a woman ran back to her car (the first one in the line).

Read More