{"id":3085,"date":"2013-10-21T10:00:17","date_gmt":"2013-10-21T14:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.old.caraghobrien.com\/book\/?p=3085"},"modified":"2013-10-21T10:00:17","modified_gmt":"2013-10-21T14:00:17","slug":"listening-to-voices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/writing\/listening-to-voices\/","title":{"rendered":"Listening to Voices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-3086\" alt=\"Woods\" src=\"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/Woods.jpg\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" \/>Looking over my shoulder the other day, my son asked me if the scene I was revising was the scene I\u2019d revised most in the entire novel, because, according to him, every time he looks over my shoulder, that\u2019s the scene I\u2019m on.\u00a0 Frankly, at this point, I have no idea which scene I\u2019ve revised the most.\u00a0 All I know is the scene needed more work.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s how one of my scenes evolves through revision.\u00a0 At first, the characters say somewhat random things that I write down, just grateful to get something on the page.\u00a0 If the scene doesn\u2019t end up cut, I revise so that the characters convey information and emotion I need to build the plot, connecting to elsewhere in the novel, regardless of how heavy-handed the questions and answers can be.\u00a0 The scene still might get cut or moved, so I use the tinkering as part of the process of getting to know the novel.<\/p>\n<p>Then, eventually, I reach the point where I know a scene is staying for good.\u00a0 We\u2019ve reached a new level of understanding now, my characters and I, so when I slow down to listen to them, they speak like themselves.\u00a0 They\u2019re direct in some places and sarcastic in others.\u00a0 The silences land where someone is taking time to figure out how to reply to an uncomfortable question.\u00a0 I hear the thinking of my narrator, and how her thoughts are different from what she says aloud.\u00a0 Sometimes her thoughts needs to be spelled out, but more often I pare back the thinking so that the pace of the conversation can reach my ear at the right tempo.\u00a0 I take risks with the humor, and experiment with those off-hand pings when a character accidentally drops that something matters more to him than he can say.\u00a0 I keep revising and fine-tuning and rereading until the scene feels right.\u00a0 Then I leave it for another time when I can come back to it with fresh eyes and ears.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an interesting phase of revising, this time when I\u2019m listening to the voices closely.\u00a0 I really do sit there, staring at the words, testing the different effects of replying \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d or \u201cIt\u2019s remotely possible.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve always liked this phase, fortunately, because there\u2019s a lot of it to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking over my shoulder the other day, my son asked me if the scene I was revising was the scene I\u2019d revised most in the entire novel, because, according to him, every time he looks over my shoulder, that\u2019s the scene I\u2019m on.\u00a0 Frankly, at this point, I have no idea which scene I\u2019ve revised [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[246,326,37],"class_list":["post-3085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-project-next","tag-revising","tag-writing-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3085"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3091,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3085\/revisions\/3091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.caraghobrien.com\/book\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}