When writers get together, sometimes we talk about which we like better: first drafts or revisions. It seems that most of us like revising more, and there are many good reasons for this. I personally have a "grass is always greener" response: I like whichever one I'm not doing.
Currently, I'm in the midst of a revision on one YA novel and the first draft of another. While it feels and sounds somewhat schizophrenic, it kind of works for me.
I really love first drafts. Maybe everyone does. I mean, it's usually a fairly new idea, which means exciting, intriguing, fresh, not yet muddied with many critiques and different ideas about where it should go. You can experiment with voice and format, structure and characters. It's play time. No one can take their first draft seriously. And that's why I like it so much. I allow myself to be completely free to write crap, to not make sense, to not censor my ideas, and to just let it all be so very messy. How much fun is that? I can leave large gaps in narrative with just a note to myself that I need to add a scene here that is interesting. I don't actually have to write the interesting scene. I am getting to know my characters and their back stories. I get to create the world they will inhabit.
The hard thing about first drafts for me is that you have to create something out of nothing. While I find this creatively fulfilling and stimulating, it's also extremely hard. It's like being pregnant. You have to create one cell at a time until the whole being is there. It's exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. Sometimes the creative spirit is there and the writing seems to fill the page almost magically. Oftentimes, the writing feels like concentrating on each single breath you take in a day, as if you have to make yourself breathe instead of it being an involuntary act your body does automatically.
But when all is said and done, you have a mess of a first draft. Ugh. Now you have to make it into something that other people might want to read. This is really hard work. It's so natural to look at this beautiful baby we've created and think it is just perfect and needs no additional work. But we all know that's not true at all.
However, revisions can be a playful time as well. I love to get critiques from my writing group, from editors at workshops, from my daughters who are also writers. There are so many wonderful ideas and possibilities. I get to look at them all and decide which ones fit the story I'm trying to tell. It's a collaborative time for me. A social time.
The comforting aspect of revisions for me is that at least I have something already there to work with. However, much of it will be cut by the time I finish revising. I always save those sections, just in case I decide to use a certain turn of phrase or save the scene for some other book. So I never really delete things--just save them for another day. For example, one of the characters in my current revision project came to me more than 25 years ago, and waited around patiently until her turn came. Sometimes I cut several chapters completely. Less experienced authors sometimes gasp when I tell them this, but I never regret having written those scenes--or having to cut them. They were a piece I needed to write in order to know something important about my characters or my story. It just doesn't work in the storytelling.
Usually, for me, the first draft is fast and dirty. I just want to get the whole thing out so it's all there on the page. I rush too much and don't include enough detail. Structure and meaning often fall by the wayside. And I skip a lot of internal and emotional plot in order to get the bare bones set up.
So revision is my change to go back and add the rest of the parts to that skeleton, the sinew and the connective tissue. The guts and the muscle. It's often a layering process. I usually end of up a layer of skin first to keep it all held together, and then I add the internal organs to keep the life force flowing. Bit by bit, until I get the teeny nerve endings in there in the final revision, the ones that help it all make sense and transfer imagery and meaning. This part is more like raising the child you gave birth to--it takes a long time and a lot of work (hopefully not 18 years, though). Eventually, you launch it into the world.
My favorite part of all is the having done it. Being done, knowing I put my best into it. It's such a satisfying feeling to see what I have made. Just like the baby I raised into an adult--it is so amazing, beyond my imagination actually, what came from my efforts.
What happens after that is out of my hands.
by Neysa CM Jensen
(in Boise, Idaho)
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Blog: Utah Children's Writers (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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By Julie Daines
Blog: Day By Day Writer (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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My husband and I braved the crowds and caught the movie adaptation of Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief last night, and I’ve got some words of advice for writer Craig Titley and director Chris Columbus: Look over Angela Ackerman’s seven deadly sins of novel writing; they’re important for screenplays too.
Percy Jackson in the book
Now, I’m a big fan of Rick Riordan’s novel series, but I know that movies and books are too very different mediums, and each has different needs as far as storytelling goes. But that’s just technique. Books and movies both need plot points that flow logically from one to the next, dialog that sounds authentic and characters that are unique and real. In the case of The Lightning Thief, the book has those, the movie doesn’t.
It’s nothing new that Hollywood makes changes to books for the movie versions, and if it works for the storytelling on the screen and keeps the intention of the book’s story, I’m all for it. For example, Peter Jackson’s The Lovely Bones begins differently than the original novel (although, Alice Sebold’s brilliant original beginning is used in the movie, just at a different time) and this change works better for the movie. It keeps with the spirit of the novel but introduces the characters in a way that works better when the story is being told visually.
NOTE: Spoilers ahead, so if you haven’t seen the movie yet and want to be surprised, come back to this post after you’ve seen it. Otherwise, read on…
Titley and Columbus made many changes for the Lightning Thief movie, but unfortunately, they don’t seem to be for the good of the story. Instead, and this is just my opinion — I, of course, wasn’t in the room when the Hollywood suits made these decisions — many of the changes seem to be for money. There are the obvious changes, like Percy using the reflective back of an iPod to battle Medusa instead of a glass orb and Annabeth dialing up Luke on her Apple computer for instructions on the flying shoes instead of using an iris rainbow message, which was the preferred form of long-distance communication in the book. But, I don’t think a glass orb and an iris rainbow would have yielded the studio much money in product placement fees.
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8 Comments on Percy Jackson and the movie, last added: 2/16/2010Blog: Day By Day Writer (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Manuscript update: Three fellow writers have very graciously agreed to read my latest revision, which I finished yesterday. Thank you, to them. Once they’re done, I’ll do one more read-through, going through their notes and fixing anything else I see, then I think it will be ready to send out. So next week’s goal will be to get a good query letter written.
I’ve written before about the benefits of being part of a critique group. There’s the camaraderie, the support in an otherwise lonely activity, the comfort in being with others in the same boat as you, and, of course, there’s the critique itself.
That last one is the most important benefit of a critique group, but only if the members are really critiquing.
Good critiquing is priceless, but good critiquing isn’t always pretty. By that, I don’t mean writers should be nasty about their criticism. We all want to strive for constructive criticism. But what I mean is that identifying flaws is a part of good critiquing.
Andrea Brown Literary agent Mary Kole has a great post on her Kidlit.com blog today about the need to grow a thicker skin. She points out that some critique groups meet only to hear how wonderful each others’ writing is. I like to hear good news as much as the next guy, but as Kole says, no one learns if they’re not told what they have to work on.
Now, sure, some critique group members are going to have less experience than others and might not be able to pick up on problems as easily as more experienced members. But that’s why it’s good to be in a critique group with members with all different levels of experience.
But even less experienced writers are readers — or should be if they’re writing books — and as readers, they should be able to contribute criticism as much as any book fan.
The important thing is that critiquers critique. If you’re part of a critique group, you’re making a pact to help others make their writing better, and to do that, you have to point out where they’re going wrong. If you don’t, you’re wasting their time and yours.
On the part of the critiquee, it’s important to just listen and write notes when getting your critique. Don’t let emotion, pride, stop you from listening. And don’t let emotion let you take the critiques for anything other than what they are: someone else’s opinion. Some of the notes you get are going to help you make your work better, some won’t. As the creator of the work, you can make the decision of which is which when you go over your notes later.
It’s always tough to hear people criticize your work, but without that criticism — constructive criticism — your work will never get better. No writer can see every flaw in their own work by themselves — that’s why there are editors. And if an unpublished writer can’t listen to the opinions of others, digest them and figure out which will make their work better, they’re going to have a hard time being published, because published writers work side by side with editors — who give their own educated, knowledgeable, experienced criticisms.
Oh, and by the way, when I say that critiquers are doing their job when they point out the flaws, I don’t mean critiquers shouldn’t point out the good parts too. We all need encouragement as much as we need to know how to improve. The best critiquers are those who can find both good and bad things to say about another’s work, and saying the good first is always a great way to help someone grow.
Got any other critiquing tips? Tell us in the comments.
Also, I’ve had some great questions about ghostwriting sub
I am so glad I found this post! I just got back from the movie and I am just so sad for poor Rick Riordan.
I have never in my life seen a worse movie adaptation. As you say, almost everything from the book has been changed, and along with it, the magic of RR’s writing with it. The humor, the layered plot line, the fantastic scenes in which RR weaves greek myth into the 21st century (with a very few exceptions), all of these have been lost.
I was especially disappointed that the makers decided to up the ages of the cast and spoon fed Percy all the info he needed. I found I didn’t root for him as I did in the book–there was no identity crisis over which God was his father, no sense of being adrift and not fitting in. It was all so rushed.
There are just so many brilliant scenes from the book that got the axe. Getting into the underworld? Easy-peasy. And suddenly the plot is all about getting these pearls? A Hydra instead of a Chimera? And I really wanted to see that chihuahua turn into a Chimera, too!
Whew. Sooo glad I could get that out. Thanks for letting me rant. And thanks so much for mentioning The Bookshelf Muse!
U r right, i have loved pj series because of its good plot, modern greek mythology, i was really disappointd with the turn out of movie, i think 70 to 75% of the story was changed, from the claiming of percy as son of poseidon, the cabins of camp in u shaped, (movie only showed percy’s), where is clarisse?, the capture the flag game was very different as told in the book, where is the oracle? (wherein the movie, a map is given by luke), where is ares? Tartarus was not shown, to give a hint for kr0nos, and chimaera, and others, these are some of the impt parts of the story they missed, u r very right, this is one movie adaptation that is too bad, at first i was too excited to see the movie, but i was wrong and not contented, i just hope they will give justice to book 2, which is one of my 2 favorite books in the series, if they wil b producing book 2
I know, Angela and Ian. A very disappointing movie.
My husband hasn’t read the books, but even he was disappointed with the movie as a movie. He enjoyed the action scenes and special effects — I did too — but he felt that the movie came short, and when I spent our ride home telling him about the book, he said, “That would be so much better!”
I understand that movie adaptations are rarely the same as the book plot point for plot point because of time. Generally, subplots have to be cut to keep the movie within a two-hour timeframe. I get that. But there’s no reason to change the whole story, especially when you’re going to whitewash it into something far less interesting.
Ian, they are planning to produce the other books, I suspect as long as they continue to make money. Judging by the sold out showings at our theater, the movie will make money. The studio suits have probably already greenlit the next one. The interesting thing is whether the movie’s success will continue next week after fans of the book hear about other fans’ disappointment. I’m predicting a big drop-off in week-to-week box office revenue, because it was the popularity of the book that built this opening week’s success. The strength of the movie itself will have to propel it on, and I don’t think it will. That said, this opening week revenue will be enough for another movie.
Angela, my pleasure on mentioning The Bookshelf Muse. Your seven deadly sins of novel writing posts are fabulous. I’m following you on my Google Reader now and have put you in the blogroll here. If only those studio folks had read your blog, maybe Percy Jackson would have been a better movie.
Of course, Chris Columbus should have known better. He did the first two Harry Potter movies. I’ve heard a lot of criticism about the control J.K. Rowling wields over how her books and characters are used, but I say good for her. Those movies are far better and far more respectful of the books than this one.
Oh, and I would have loved to see that chihuahua turn a Chimera!
Also, Dionysus. He could have been hilarious.
Well, I take back what I said about good box-office revenue. Despite sold out showings here, Box Office Mojo is estimating that Percy Jackson made only $31 million over the weekend, which isn’t that great for a movie like this. Maybe the bad reviews prior to release stopped some people from coming. Valentine’s Day made $52 million, and I know it was Valentine’s Day, but still. I think Percy Jackson should have done better based on the popularity of the books.
Another thing to consider with box office sales is how they are billing it as ‘the next Harry Potter’. While I agree the book series is just plain brilliant and could be compared in some ways to HP, the movie isn’t even close.
I was shocked to read your comment on how they are planning to continue to roll out the rest of the series. After how they butchered the end, not mentioning the Kronos angle at all, I figured they were planning on only the one movie.
It will be interesting to see how it does in the box office in the coming weeks. Boy I would love to know how RR feels about his movie on the big screen.
I know. I’m with you, Angela. I’d love to know how Rick Riordan feels about it. Rick, got any thoughts?
It’s hard to say how much he was involved. Usually writers aren’t very involved in the movie adaptations. J.K. Rowling pushed for it, and I applaud her for that. I was pleased to read in Publishers Marketplace that Suzanne Collins is writing the screenplay for the movie adaptation for Hunger Games. She’s bound to stay true to her own story.
I’ve read that the studio is planning to do another Percy Jackson, but who knows if it’ll stick. It all depends on how well this one does. But, you’re right. With the changes they’ve made, they’re going to run into trouble with future adaptations. If they ever get enough movies to use the prophecy, they’ll have to either have the characters the same age in all the movies or change the prophecy to 21 or something, which just seems a bit silly. Sigh.
Me and my wife saw it tonight with the kids. None of us have read the book, but we are big Herc/Xena fans so we’re familiar with a lot of the Mythological tropes, so we had fun waiting for each disaster to unfold.
I think it worked pretty well for me, but Act I definitely seemed rushed to me. The kids really liked it though. We’ll have to get the book now and see what we missed
That’s great, Iapetus999. Yeah, try out the books now. They’re a lot of fun.