Every writer has their own process, and the Six-Week Marinate is part of mine.
Before I had ever written a novel, I read Stephen King's On Writing where The Mighty King advised aspiring authors to let a book sit for six weeks in between the first and second drafts. He stressed the importance of getting distance from your story and returning to it with fresh eyes six weeks later, so that you could see all the things wrong with it. It sounded like great advice.
But when I finished the first draft of Creep back in January 2009, I was reluctant to let it marinate for six weeks. I had written what I felt was a really clean first draft. I had great characters, lots of tension, a strong arc, and a compelling ending. I was antsy to get started on the rewrites, because surely there wouldn't be much to fix. But King's advice stuck in my brain, and so, wanting to do things right, I put the novel away and tried not to think about it for exactly six weeks.
By the time those forty-two days passed, I was totally dreading opening up my Word files. I had sweaty palms and heart palpitations. A lot of time had passed, allowing all kinds of doubt to seep in. I no longer felt the draft would be clean. I was pretty sure my characters were one-dimensional. I was certain my ending was flat. And you know what? A quick read through – on hard copy, because I printed the whole damn thing out, all 550 pages of it – confirmed that my fears were TRUE.
My first draft was shit.
Right from the first page, I could see all the places where it was overwritten. I had way too much backstory (which maybe I needed to know, but my readers certainly didn't). I had a ton of repetitive phrases and cheesy clichés, and I had tried so hard to make my protagonist interesting that she came out completely unlikeable. The entire thing needed work, on both macro and micro levels. I pulled out my purple pen and started slashing.
I shudder to think what would have happened had I not let the manuscript sit for six weeks. Would I have revised it once and then queried it? Probably. Yikes!
What about you? Do you let your work marinate in between drafts, or do you jump right into revisions? What works for you?
12 comments:
I give it more like 3-4 weeks to gestate; since I work on other projects in the meantime, it usually feels like light years before I come back to it.
I usually send my first draft out to a first set of readers. These ones are busy people, so it usually takes a good month or more for them to get to reading my MS.
Once I have their general feedback, which is usually on plot and character development, then I sit down with those things in mind and do a true revision. (Prior to sending it to them I have polished it with some minor editing along the way.)
So I guess I do let it simmer in a way. Usually it ends up being about six weeks, but I don't time it. I've usually moved on to the next project while waiting too.
i let mine marinate too.
then ending up cringing my way through it, LOL.
now i've let it marinate for too long (6 months later) i just dont know what to do with it and if it's worth saving or if i should officially trunk it...
I try to let it wait 6 years ... by that time I'm pleasantly surprised that I had written anything at all.
I can honestly say, my first novel has marinated for about a year and half. I've recently been looking at it and want to puke. I want so badly to fix this story because it really is my first love, but there is so much wrong with it, I don't know where to start. It's amazing how much I've learned about writing since finishing that novel. It's full of adverbs and unnecessary dialogue tags, back ground info, cliches and everything else you could imagine. It doesn't help that the damn thing is 140K hahaha. Another beginners mistake. So, I'm a bit overwhelmed to say the least. But I know I can make something great out of that story. The bones are there and they're strong, I just need to flush the blood of the thing and get all those nasty impurities out that are making the damn thing sick.
6 weeks seems like a long time at first, but if you throw yourself into another project in the interim, it's time for revisions before you know it. The longer I let a manuscript sit, the easier it is for me to kill my darlings.
Write1Sub1
It depends. Sometimes I need space to be objective and other times I need to jump right back in because I have specific ideas on what needs fixing. Even if I wait, I don't think I necessarily need 6 wks, though. The way my brain works, I can usually forget the details and gain detachment after a couple weeks. :shrug: YMMV
In the first and second drafts I'm trying to get the story down as completely as possible, so there's no break between the two. By then I feel like I'm really in the voice of the manuscript. Putting it down would be severing that connection. Once I feel ready to hand it off to Hubby, though, I set it aside for a few weeks and then go back. That's when I can see things objectively. Usually one more edit/polish and then it's off to the hubster for ripsies.
MUST let it sit for a while but I admit to not being able to stand leaving it alone for six weeks.lol
I jumped right back in for just a few scene additions that needed to be in there. Then I did my best not to touch it for four weeks. It still needs even more work after the last rewrite, but I decided to let it marinate while I did NaNo and a totally new idea (dystopian is about as far away as I could get from fantasy). I'll be so ready to dive back into that forest...but my palms are sweaty just thinking about it!
Hope you're having a fabulous time!!
I let it sit for a while and work on something different for when I come back to it I see it fresh.
Marinating is a very important step for me. Maybe the most important. If I don't take the time to come back with fresh eyes, the result is just going to be worthless. Great advice!
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