Man, so I got blasted over there on Miss Snark's last week with the first-500 story postings. You can check it out, if you like, and read all the agent comments here. Good way to learn from my mistakes, if you like.
It was good! I went through the standard stages of writer mourning, of course--confusion/denial, frustration, giving-up on writing for a few days--before finally sitting down and saying, "Dammit, I got it! I know how to redraft!" That last agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, left a comment that really did it for me, because she showed me specifically what exactly she didn't get, and through that lens suddenly the entire beginning became as confusing to me as it was to the agents.
And then I just deleted it.
My normal redrafting style involves taking the existing sentence and hacking away at it until it looks pretty. I learned last week, after staring at my beginning for hours and hours with no idea how to rework anything, that sometimes you just gotta destroy, build, destroy. Sometimes it's not a sculptor's tool you need, or even a jack-hammer. Sometimes it's dynamite.
And--holy crap, new Ben 10 show. I just totally forgot everything writerly I was gonna say.
NOOOOOOO NEW BEN 10 WITHOUT KEVIN AND GWEN NOOOO
AND WEIRD ANIMATION!
That is all.
It was good! I went through the standard stages of writer mourning, of course--confusion/denial, frustration, giving-up on writing for a few days--before finally sitting down and saying, "Dammit, I got it! I know how to redraft!" That last agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette, left a comment that really did it for me, because she showed me specifically what exactly she didn't get, and through that lens suddenly the entire beginning became as confusing to me as it was to the agents.
And then I just deleted it.
My normal redrafting style involves taking the existing sentence and hacking away at it until it looks pretty. I learned last week, after staring at my beginning for hours and hours with no idea how to rework anything, that sometimes you just gotta destroy, build, destroy. Sometimes it's not a sculptor's tool you need, or even a jack-hammer. Sometimes it's dynamite.
And--holy crap, new Ben 10 show. I just totally forgot everything writerly I was gonna say.
NOOOOOOO NEW BEN 10 WITHOUT KEVIN AND GWEN NOOOO
AND WEIRD ANIMATION!
That is all.
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