By Kathleen Sawisky, Esq.
There wasn’t always a sister. Wasn’t always a foil to my main character, to illustrate her alienation from family, her transition as a young girl to a young woman. Then one day I asked myself “What if Natalia has an older sister?” I couldn’t get the concept out of my head, and Beth was born. It was monumentally frustrating on many levels; everything had to be rewritten, and I mean everything. The inclusion of a character who had not existed in the ten, twenty, even thirty previous reincarnations of the story.
I can’t deny it. The addition of Beth has made the story stronger and, more importantly perhaps, made Natalia a more rounded character.
That’s what I’ve always tried to achieve. A richer, more vivid world that my characters and prance merrily around in while simultaneously avoiding numerous explosions, and for a solid three years I thought I had it down to a science. It was only when I turned, maybe 24, 25, when I looked back on my writing and it felt thin, watery. Oh sure, lots happened. Explosions, murder, death, love, gun fights, and just a ridiculously amount of bloodshed. I had it all, but none of it resonated with me. I can’t speak as to what happened or how I mentally flipped the switch to begin the transformation into a rich, carefully detailed world. I assume it has something to do with maturity which, yes, I know, is highly ironic given the number of poop jokes I can level out at a person during an average conversation. Still, something changed. It wasn’t the way I wrote, necessarily, but the way I understood how I wrote things. I can only assume that is a by-product of my own understanding of the world altering. Even at 24, knowing that my writing was flimsy, I couldn’t create the proper voice that reflected my own vision.
Once again, I blame my time at University for educating me on what was going on in my own head. I’m less stubborn now, but more importantly, I think less of my own previous writing. I’m not looking back at what I wrote and thinking to myself, “Ah yes, this is perfect. I am brilliant and all will bow down to me. Bring me the head of Cussler and Frazen on two silver trays so I may kick them about the throne room like a football.” What I haven’t edited is still thin, watery, weak, and the editing process is grueling. Still, just like the addition of Beth as a foil to Natalia, making her a stronger, more vivid character, so too will each and everyone of these changes. The moral of my post? I don’t think any of us can claim we are so perfect that we can claim our writing to be flawless. We need to be willing to take a step back and say, “Hey, I’m acting like a fathead. I’m not THAT good, but with practice, I just might be.”
Unless you are Cussler or Franzen. Those guys will always be fatheads.
Crackin' The WIP 