Approaching Draft Three

            I knew I wanted to come out of the week with a visual representation of the story, like a web, or the mobile discussed in prior posts.  It helps me hold the whole story in my head, and I suspected I’d see where things were out of balance and needed adjustment.  Even though I had out my big paper, I felt leery of making a mark.  What bothered me was I didn’t want to make a drawing of what Draft Two looked like –that felt like making a tedious record; I wanted to make a drawing of what Draft Three should look like.

            So I backed off of the drawing and did something I always do when I start to study a young adult novel.  I made a chapter outline.  I noted the chapter and then just jotted down the major events.  Whereas this is sometime a tedious way to begin the study of a young adult novel, I’d never done it for my own novel, and it was kind of amazing to see what it revealed.  In four typed pages I had the whole thing in front of me, and I could see right off why my readers kept saying the relationship between the two main characters moved too quickly –almost all the scenes where their relationship develops where stuck in Chapter Three!  Did I do that?  Apparently.  So I got out my trusty notecards, jotted down the scenes of the relationship’s progression and started sorting.  I learned the second half of the book was fine; I just needed to focus on the first half.  I got away from the demands of plot and theme and just let myself be with those two kids and how they would see each other.  (In the book I just read called Dark Water, Laura MacNeil does a fantastic job of parsing out the development of the main characters' relationship.)  Then I went back to see if I could insert the new relationship progression into the Chapter Outline, and it fell in place pretty easily!  I had to make a few adjustments for plot logistics, but this revealed that switching the focus of Chapter Three and Four would help and give more space where things were crowded before.  I was grooving on this success!

            Then I drew a picture of how Draft Three should look:

In designing this web or mobile, I was interested not only in mentally holding onto the big picture, but also examining the cause-effect drive from event to event and section to section.  I realized that back during Draft Two revisions I had organized things thematically, and that helped me in the right direction.  But now the connective tissue or the wires that hold the parts of my mobile together needed to be of cause and effect, problem and solution.  I need be able to draw the wire that connects section one to section two and write along that wire the question in the character’s / reader’s mind that is driving him to turn the page.  I also realized that I didn’t want to impose questions like that onto my drawing and write to them.  I want to go back into the scene, where the magic happens, and, aware of where I am in the structure, be present with the characters and hyper-aware of the questions that are driving them forward.  I think I can do this best back in the scenes, in the writing.  I think it will be most organic.  And I’m excited about the balance between having a visual grip on my structure and trusting the discovery of the words coming down on the page where the magic happens!
             While we're talking about revision, I HAVE to pass on to you the following fabulous discoveries.  Check out the following links where YA authors dissect their drafts!
http://maggiestiefvater.blogspot.com/2012/01/from-rough-to-final-ten-dissections.html
And don't miss my favorite, added later by Gayle Forman:
http://www.gayleforman.com/blog/2012/02/29/before-and-after/

Causality & Chapters

             So that was nice, using the mobile metaphor to take one thing at a time in my first chapter.  It really worked, but sometimes all my over-analysis of how a story’s working can rein things in so tightly the story doesn’t get a chance to run.  So I have to swing back and forth from one metaphor to another depending on what my story needs.  Mapping mobiles and covering my dining room table with color-coded indexes cards helped me get a handle on things.

            However, I’m feeling uncomfortable about the way I ended up dividing my story into chapters.  I ended up with ten, long chapters that group elements of my story thematically –Emergency, Boundaries, Mothers, etc.  For a while that was working for me; it helped me see how theme was holding the story together.  But readers confirmed my nagging fear that these hulking chapters are not agile enough.  They are beautiful and they make an aesthetic mobile, and for a while they really helped me, but when it comes down to it I need to loosen the reins and let the forward motion of the story carry it forward. 

What I’m getting at is what makes a story a story is that is moves forward.  Each thing that happens causes the next thing, or it should.  Even if I build a beautiful mobile, at some point, I have to hang it up and let the wind blow through it.

            I remember one of my best writing teachers saying, a poem is not an essay.  And as prettily as I can structure a story, it is not a poem.  A story has to move forward.  As E. M. Forster memorably put it: if we write, “The king died, and the queen died,” we have a narrative, but if we write instead, “The king died and the queen died of grief,” then we have a plot.

            Right now, I’m reading Laini Taylor’s new book, Daughter of Smoke and Bone.  I am literally propelled through the story.  Her chapters are fairly short, they’re lean and nimble, each chapter causes the next one.  And though Laini titles each with a meaningful phrase from that chapter, she merely numbers the chapters and lets the story go as it must.  She has 60 chapters.  Sixty!  How freeing!  (She also groups her chapters into three or four large sections, the way you would group scenes in a play into the major acts.  She does this by slipping in a page with a changing refrain to introduce each act.)  But by and large, she lets each scene emerge from the one before, and I turn the pages like I’m slapping the story-horse I’m riding to go, go, go as fast as it can!

            So I am inspired to loosen my reins on this next draft.  Now that I understand the structure of my story (thanks to mobiles), I’m going to try something different.  Instead of guiding my horse through a tightly designed equestrian jumping course, I’m going to loosen the reins and just let the story run, run, run.  One short chapter causing the next.  Yee-hah!

            Are you still struggling with chapter division and its effect on the story?  I’d love to here what you’re trying!

Mobiles

            So while I was studying my Sara Zarr books, I made another great discovery –Hunger Mountain, Vermont College of Fine Arts’ journal, and it includes a rich section for Young Adult Literature.  This is where I read Lindsey Lane’s essay, Out on the Bendy Branches.  In this essay, Lane compares stories to Alexander Calder’s mobiles.  She says:

I started to see a correlation between scenes dancing on a fulcrum, balanced, telling a story, casting shadows, catching light, moving, resting and moving again. The pieces and shapes of a mobile have to be perfectly balanced as they move in concert and opposition, suspended at varying lengths from the spine, the arc of the story.

That’s what Sara Zarr’s doing, I thought!

            My overriding impression when I started How to Save a Life was that she was laying her story down one piece at a time.  Whereas the feedback I’d gotten on my own first chapter was: You’re stuffing so much in here I can’t figure it out and get my bearings, with Sara, I really had a sense of being able to take in one thing at a time.  First, there is Jill asking, “Who am I without my Dad?”  Then Jill goes into what’s hard about living without her Dad.  Out of that she pulls that the hardest thing is loving her mom, in particular understanding her.  Then she arrives finally at the specific challenge of understanding her mother’s decision to adopt, and we land in the train station waiting for the birthmother with Jill and her mom.  One piece at a time, like the pieces on a mobile.

            As I read, I was aware of each piece in relationship to the others, but Sara allowed me to be present in each moment without author anxiety about showing me right away how it was all going to fit together.  That’s what I was doing in my chapter one –rushing in and confusing the readers with too much before they even had all the pieces.

            There was another benefit to this.  The pages were never overwritten.  Because Sara is just laying down one piece of her mobile at a time without stopping to explain connective tissue, she gives the writing lift and forward motion.  As Lane explains:

I thought about how much these writers leave off the page—but what they do leave on the page shows us enough that the world is created and the heart of the story beats….The overall arc is there. The voice. The characters. Even the back-stories are there. But there isn’t a lot of connective tissue. There isn’t a lot of telling. The reader supplies it. The reader actually holds the story as a whole. Each scene makes sense on its own and within the context of the whole but it allows the reader to make leaps.

What’s left off the page raises questions that propel me, the reader, forward.

And so I imagined Sara Zarr building her chapter one like a mobile.  I actually drew it out:

Suddenly, I was getting very excited about my first chapter again.  I could do it this way, I thought.  Though a tapestry with different threads running through it is sometimes a useful metaphor for me, the mobile metaphor appealed.  I get easily lost in a tangle of threads, but I could build a mobile.  And for chapter one, I just have to introduce one major branch of the mobile and the pieces that dangle from it, one at a time.  They move, they pick up the light, their shapes and colors harken to other branches of the mobile with which they are in balance, but for chapter one, I just have to build this one branch.  I think in pictures so after I meditated on some different places to start in the marrow, I picked one and started sketching.

Consider drawing your story as a mobile.  It just may be a useful mapping strategy!  Let me know how it goes!

Threads

Sometimes the idea of holding an entire novel in my head seems overwhelming.  If my draft-three novel were a tapestry, I just know there would be a lot of dropped threads and holes!  So when I’m reading some of my favorite YA authors, I marvel at how intricately each story thread is woven through.  They know just when to go back and let us know how the relationship with that supporting character is going.  They know just where to pull an old thread into the scene I’m reading.  They leave me breathless… beautiful how they tied that in right there!  And, sometimes, they leave me doubtful that in my own story I could ever possibly remember to pull the subtler threads through and tie them in at just the right spots.  So, I did what I usually do in these cases.  I took my latest favorite –Sara Zarr’s How to Save a Life, and I studied it, closely!

            First I took two days to reread the novel.  As I read I took notes.  For each chapter I jotted down in order the major events.  Admittedly, this was a little tedious.  I would never want to do this on a first read.  But it gave me so much good data to work with, and it made it very easy to flip back through the story and study it.  Warning: spoilers ahead!

            Second, I reviewed my notes and jotted down what I saw as the major threads.  Here’s what I came up with:

            Jill                               Jill & Mandy                                                  Mandy           

                                                adoption

loss of dad                                                                        baby’s father?/pain from abuse

                                    relationship with mother

                                    (trust/home/family)

Dylan & Ravi                                                                                       Christopher & Kent

                                    who she will be

                                    (relationship with each other)

Then, I literally went back through my notes shading them with colored pencils to color code these threads.  Here’s an example of what my notes look like for one of Mandy’s chapters:

Mandy:           While buttering toast, Mandy recalls mother’s incessant talking,

her need to breathe, and Robin’s e-mail

                        She thinks, Maybe I could be a mother.

                        She tells Dylan about her missing father & her mother

                        Dylan tells her, Your mom got a lot too = me, Mandy!

            Here’s what I learned.

            In interviews of some of my favorite authors, they refer to the 13^th draft, the 20^th, and I’ve thought, What on earth are they going over so many times?  After this exercise, I could totally see how it would be VERY useful to take an entire pass over the novel for each thread or character.  It really is too much to hold in my head otherwise!  What I think I will do is chart the threads in my own manuscript as I did with Sara Zarr’s novel.  Then, I will take a day to read through it pretty fast looking at just one of my threads.  I will be asking myself questions like:

1) Where do I see opportunities to weave that thread back in,

     in order to deepen the story’s meaning?

2) Where do I need to slow down and explore this thread more?

3) Is the development of this thread moving along fast enough?

Then I’m going to go back to he beginning and do it all over again for the next thread, and so on.

Something else I noticed about threads: when I was color coding, there were some events in the story that just couldn’t be considered one thread, no matter how I looked at it.  For example, at one point Ravi gets Jill to open up about how she’s doing with the death of her dad and Jill ends up totally insulting him.  On the surface, this could look like a Ravi thread.  A closer look tells me this is more to do with Jill’s loss of her dad, but it also has a lot to do with the kind of person she wants to be.  Those three threads just can’t be separated here.  What this taught me: the threads affect each other.  If the story is working, at some points the threads become so intertwined that they cannot be extricated from each other.  It reminded me that, when I do these passes over my manuscript, I can be looking for opportunities where one thread has an impact on the others.  It’s something I knew, but when I tear things apart to see how they work, it’s nice to see the bits naturally returning to the organic whole.  It’s nice to know that intertwining threads may be a sign my story is deepening.  It’s also a good reminder that sub-plots which don’t affect the central conflict need to go.

I kind of hate the idea of picking apart some of my favorite novels like this, but at the same time it’s like opening up a watch and discovering how the clockworks function inside.  The clockworks are their own kind of artistry.  In a way, understanding them makes these stories even more beautiful.  And the big bonus –it’s helping me fine tune the machinery of my own story!

Chapterness Conclusion

            Studying chapterness in Wintergirls, freed me to see how each of my chapters could grow organically.  To assume there is a formula for chapter structure would be a misinterpretation of this little study.  There are all kinds of chapters: short one-scene chapters, chapters that start with some exposition and build into a scene and then another scene, chapters that frame a flashback in a present scene to forward the character’s journey.  The possibilities are endless.   

            At least now, I have some tools with which to prod my chapters to see if they’re actually functioning as chapters: 

       1) Is my character moving forward inside and out?  

       2) Does my character face choices, and do I take him far enough?  

       3) Does a complication cause a rise in tension that lands the character in a new place?   

       4) Do the smaller arcs clump to form a larger one?   

These questions helped me shift around the note cards on which I'd outlined my novel, as well as, add some cards that were missing.  I’m sure I’ll re-see my chapters as I write through my second draft.  I just feel glad to not be falling back on mere intuition about where the chapters should begin and end.  It helps to have a thoughtful understanding of some actual mechanics of chapters.
            Special thanks to one of my personal YA goddesses, Laurie Halse Anderson, for writing such an artful book.

            What are your thoughts on chapterness?  How do you structure your chapters?  What kind of chapters do you like to read the most?  When you read, do you hold onto each chapter conceptually in your memory or do you sort of get lost in them?  I’d love to hear your thoughts on chapters too.  Thoughtful artistry means exchanging ideas and refining the way we see our art.

Chapters: Arcs Clumping Together

            In the case of Wintergirls Chapter 11, one arc made a complete chapter, but arcs more often than not clump together to form chapters.  In Chapter 35 of Wintergirls, after attending Cassie’s funeral, Lia arrives at her mother, Chloe’s, house to spend the night.   

            Arc 1: Lia pulls into the driveway observing the cars for the wake parked across the street, and she observes her mother pull up next to her seemingly upset.  Lia searches the house for her mother who’s gone in first and finds her crying in the shower.  This arc establishes a rich ambiguity for the chapter: Chloe could be crying over Cassie’s death, over the danger Lia is in, or over a patient who’s died.   

            Arc 2: Lia cooks a meal for Chloe, asks about Cassie’s autopsy, and when Chloe takes a call from the hospital zones out remembering how the negative voices of this house got in her head.   

            Arc 3: Lia takes her mother’s deal –Lia will eat, and Chloe will tell Lia about Cassie’s autopsy.  

            Each arc has its own rise and landing in a new place.  But they also function together to depict how this daughter and mother get what they need out of each other.  The chapter also continues the through-line of the novel –Lia’s battle with Cassie; she has to know what happened to Cassie and whether she will follow her down the same road or defeat her.

Chapters: Arcs and Complications

            So I get that a chapter has to move the character forward, and I get that choices and going far enough are ways to do that.  But when are my chapters supposed to end?  I mean, how far forward do you let the character move before making a break between one chapter and the next?  The answer seems to be explained by arcs.

            I feel like I get arcs.  I drew a bunch of little arcs to help me understand the chapters I studied, but explaining the specific arcs of each chapter in words was harder. These concepts helped:

• An arc is a small beginning-middle-end in a story.

• Tension rises in the middle.

• The character lands in a new place.

• That rise in the middle is caused by a complication. 

Chapter 11 of Wintergirls, a short, two-page chapter demonstrates how an arc can work.   

Beginning: Lia is in bed, unable to sleep, sure Cassie’s ghost is right outside her door; she even spins herself an imaginary cocoon for protection.   

Then middle: the fragrance of ginger, cloves, and burnt sugar which Lia’s come to identify with Cassie infiltrates the room, and Cassie appears addressing Lia in ghost form for the first time.  “Come with me,” she says to Lia.   

Finally end: Lia spends the rest of the night locked in Cassie’s gaze.   

The complication:  Cassie not only appears, but makes her demand propelling things forward.

Chapters: Choices and Going Far Enough

            Wintergirls Chapter 9 is an excellent example of how Anderson gives Lia choices and takes things far enough emotionally.  Lia arrives home having made it through the day in which she learned her friend, Cassie, died alone in a motel room after leaving Lia thirty-three unanswered messages.   
            Anderson gives Lia choices: she eats a rice cake instead of Thanksgiving leftovers; she turns down sister Emma’s invite to kick the soccer ball around in favor of retreating to her room and digging out a pill to help her cope; and when her dad comes in at the end of the night to suggest they talk, Lia pretends she’s asleep.  With each choice we see her retreat further from her family.  
           Perhaps more importantly, Lia would also like to avoid the thought of Cassie and any responsibility for Cassie’s death, but the idea dogs her until her father finally gets up and leaves her for the night.  At this point, Lia is not just sad she’s lost her friend, or frightened she may be on the same path.  Lia is, in fact, plagued by the idea that Cassie’s death is her fault.  This is Anderson going all the way emotionally.

Chapters: Moving Character Forward

A really good example of how a chapter moves a character forward in her inner and outer life is Chapter 46 of Laurie Halse Anderon's Wintergirls.  In this chapter Lia’s dad finds her dozing on the couch and decides she needs to eat.  A phone call from Lia’s friend, Cassie, now dead of her own eating disorder, prompts Lia’s dad to wonder how Lia really feels inside before announcing she will be reevaluated for inpatient care.  Then the two spar hurling issues at eat other, the fight ending when Lia stuffs a sandwich in her mouth asking him if that’s what he wants.  The chapter makes it really clear that the external struggle for Lia is food –will she eat?  However, internally, family issues like divorce, infidelity, and attention to relationships are boiling.  By the end of this chapter, Lia makes the decision to confront her father –is this all you want?  me stuffing a sandwich in my mouth?  Subtext: there is more to this eating disorder and we both know it.

So there is the external struggle: food, and their is the internal struggle underlying it: the unaddressed family issues.  The characters challenge each other to take the next step forward in both of these conflicts.

Four Things that Make a Chapter

            I went back and raided my notes from Patti Lee Gauch’s Highlights Founders Workshop called Starting Your Novel, and I pulled out four statements about chapterness.  At the time these statements had seemed obvious enough, but now with my novel spread out in note cards, they were real food for thought.  Laurie Halse Anderson’s Wintergirls had was also out on the table, and I decided to study her book using these four statements:

1)    A chapter moves the character forward in his/her inner and outer life.

2)    Going far enough (emotionally) and giving the characters choices moves the story forward.

3)    Arcs in the story rise in the middle because of a complication.

4)    Arcs clump to form chapters.

Wintergirls is not one of those books with short, pearl-like chapters, nor are the chapters consistent in length or structure.   I was going to have to really analyze what Anderson was doing with her chapters.  So I read Wintergirls a couple of times, took a lot of notes, and made a lot of little drawing to describe the chapters.  These were chapters that developed organically, each with its own needs, and many providing great examples of the principles above. 
            Watch for my next post in which I tear apart some of Laurie Halse Anderson's expertly crafted chapters to see how they work.

Chapterness

            I was sitting in Cynthea Liu’s Revision 911 workshop avidly scrawling notes when she pointed out that the end of a chapter does not occur just because you’ve reached the end of a scene.  Of course not, I thought joining the writers around me in their nodding, but uh, so, what exactly is a chapter then?  I put chapterness  on my list of writing stuff to investigate, but didn’t face it directly until this summer when the first draft of my novel  was spread across the dining room table on one hundred note cards.

            So what makes a chapter a chapter then?  I’d always like books with those short two or three page chapters strung like pearls on the string to make a story.  A spotlight flashing on each vignette and then fading quickly out, leaving the audience to consider what the collage of short chapters said as a whole.  But I rarely wrote that way.  The note cards on my dining room table were arranged into ten chapter groups.  I’d just kind of intuited what held together.  Some of my chapters even had a titles that held their scenes together thematically.  But there were a lot of scenes in each chapter.  Did I really have ten books in my story (Book I, Book II, etc) that should each be divided into smaller chapters?  I just kept coming back to what makes a chapter?  And how do chapters build one upon the other?
            I'll be following up on these questions in a short study of Lauris Halse Anderson's Wintergirls over the course of my next several post.  In the meantime I'd love to hear your ideas on what makes a chapter?