. Spinning .

With about a third of the original wording cut out of A Bottle of Beer, it’s time to look at the changes and how and why they work.  Not indiscriminate slicing of adjectives, nor cutting of necessary incidents of story, but a total word by word reading, often aloud, to determine voice, flow, pace, impact, tone, and all the elements of story that are the result of words put together into sentences, paragraphs, story.

Here’s another before and after:

Old Version:
Herve was hot, tired and drained from the journey.  The last of the water was gone.  He’d had to take the long path through the hills to avoid the patrol at the border where he usually had no problem getting through.  But for three days the company did not budge, had tents set up and laid out campfires at night. (below him)

The smell of greased pork fried with beans came up through the night to Herve and a tear for his Yolanda rolled down his dark cheek just in thinking of her. (and he missed his home and his wife) Clinking and clanking of tin cups and soon, the strong scent of hot coffee wafted up to Herve, now shivering in his little space in the rocks where (teased him) (Starving, his tongue swollen with thirst, his eyes cracked open with fear,) he dare not light a fire to warm himself or cook a meal if he had something left to cook.  Or even make coffee if he only had water.

Herve finally fell asleep to the singing of the men down below, and the happy playing of a guitar. (the flickering campfire lighting their stage) He dreamed of his sweet plump Yolanda, safely under the care of his great friend Carlos who was a brother to him and he trusted more than anyone in this cold desert world.
(200 words)

New Version:
Javier was cold and spent and the last of his water was gone.  For four days the border patrol sat camped below him.

The smell of pork grease fried with beans came up through the night and he missed his home and his wife. Clinking of tin cups and the strong scent of hot coffee teased him.  Starving, his tongue swollen with thirst, eyes cracked open with fear, he dare not light a fire even to warm himself.

Javier fell asleep to their singing, the flickering campfire lighting their stage.  He dreamed of his sweet plump Yolanda, safely under the care of his amigo.  (104 words)

This is a Shard, an extra bit of information for the curious that needs to be clicked upon to reveal itself from the main Fragment.  In A Bottle of Beer, I’ve used the Hypertextopia format of linearity blessed with small intuitions and dots of memory to infuse warmth and understanding into the simple story of a woman sitting on her porch drinking beer and watching a man coming down the road out of the sunset.  The Shards, therefore, should be  recalls of memory,  metaphors  of life that are  stored, not vital to story but relevant and interesting.  It’s the half-listening to someone’s tale versus encouraging the details that make it a more common and yet unique experience.

I’ve cut much out of the Fragments–the main story–as well:

(Old) A WOMAN ALONE
Leaning heavily on the railing, she rested. Her breathing smoothed to a low rattle, her heart an occasional thump.  Yolanda opened the beer with a quick twisting-yank of the cap and without taking her eyes off (She stared at the man advancing towards her, as she lifted the beer and gulped down three good swallows.

There was something that held her attention, that made it almost impossible to look away from the runner.  Something was familiar and yet it was not something (im)precise.

She backed the three steps into the rocker, and lowered herself (sat) down, still holding the beer.  She dared look(ed behind her, saw) around for the rifle, saw it  leaning against the wall close within reach.  Though she had a very odd  (an uneasy) feeling about the man, she knew (that) the gun would be of no use to her. (133 words)

(New) A WOMAN ALONE
Her breathing smoothed to a low rattle, her heart an occasional thump.  Yolanda opened the bottle with a quick twisting-yank.  She stared at the man as she lifted the beer and gulped down three good swallows.

Something held her attention, something familiar yet imprecise.

She backed up to the rocker and sat down.  She looked behind her, saw the rifle within reach.  She had an uneasy feeling that the gun would be of no use. (76 words)

These words didn’t form a tighter rank all in one read-through.  It’s almost a constant thing until, over and over until it says what it needs to say.  There’s room for imagery, for beauty but there’s more  beauty in matching the words to the story.  With sentence length we pick up pace, show Yolanda’s stark world for what it is.

Do I do this automatically after so many years of writing?  No.  I had to be reminded.  For a writer is a lover of language and to his ears, his words are the laughter of his children.

Sometimes it’s the rhythm, the semantics, the grammar. Reading and reading and reading again will point out problem areas.

From A Bottle of Beer:

“He thought that it slept, unconscious in the blistering noon sun. So the mouse scurried forward, first a few paces, then a foot and another. The snake did not move.

Cocky and no longer cautious, the mouse darted in front of its nose, squeaked a curse in gleeful retreat, and then its whole world turned black.”

A simple change:

“He thought that it slept, unconscious in the blistering noon sun. So the mouse scurried forward, first a few paces, then a foot and another. The snake did not move.

Cocky and no longer cautious, the mouse darted in front of its nose, squeaked a curse in gleeful retreat, just as its whole world turned black.”

Last sentence, “and then” has been changed to “just as” because “then” is a telling word, answering the action question of “then what happened?” but also because it’s a stalling phrase. “And then” indicates happening after something that already has happened. “Just as” indicates simultaneous action.

This time I’m adding in–not much, and it’s still a bit heavy, but I just felt the end should be a bit more wrapped up. 

Throughout the linear part of the narrative, the sun is setting, the runner is approaching, and Yolanda’s getting pretty well soused on beer.  The only thing left without conclusion in the last box is the transition as metaphored by the sunset.  Hope I didn’t make it too obvious–as I tend to do–or too dramatic, but I did change the lighting (I can imagine this happening on a stage or in a film clip) via words to make a more complete ending, a more satisfying one I would think.

Another small example of annihilating ‘lazy’ words:

Original:

A scorpion skittered across the porch, stopped in front of the rocker, fled from Yolanda’s sandal as she lifted her foot to annihilate it.  It had noticed the change in light, the shadows, the movement of air in the motion. It lived by its wits and it now smiled in its victory of simple survival.

A safe distance away, from the dangers of the leathered foot and the long swoop of the rocker
curve, the little scorpion recovered its grace. It held its tail curled up proudly over its back and sallied past the lesser bugs and beetles who watched in admiration from crevices in the walls and floors of Yolanda’s house.   (111 words)

New Version:

A scorpion skittered across the porch, stopped in front of the rocker, fled as she lifted her foot.  It had noticed the change in light, the movement of air in the motion.

A safe distance away, the scorpion curled its tail high over its back and sallied past the lesser beetles who watched in admiration from crevices in the walls and floors. (62 words)

Is it a matter of how many words?  Though it would seem so as I’ve put the word count here, that’s not the case.  It’s more a realization of what is necessary and what just isn’t.  Imagery may not sound like it’s a necessary thing in story, but it is, and that’s why it’s not just an O/D of imagery I’m cutting out.  It’s repetition of action that needs to go for one thing, since it lessens the impact and often goes so far as to imply that the reader isn’t going to ‘get it’ without the pounding in. 

The blue threads of links in A Bottle of Beer are bits of instinct, contrasting with perhaps the green threads of how human beings screw up their lives in following their emotions instead.  These "blue" bits then, are necessarily as quick and to the point as instinct is

These postings, here and on Hypercompendia or Spinning, are not the ‘how-to’s’ of writing from a pro; they are the discoveries of a writer.

Old Version:

Joe felt the knife with every hot slap of his feet against the hard packed dirt.  Remembered standing there and pain urging its way into the numbness that had immediately followed the strikes of blade that froze him in his place before they broke the barrier of time and oozed deep red.

He’d stumbled back a step, another; looked at his Cheri with little understanding. Disbelief even as pain from twenty holes in his body hit his nerves all at once.

He dropped down to his knees, his doubled belt fell from his right hand to the ground.  With both hands now he tried to stop the flight of life that simpered out of him.  He looked up from his wounds, reaching out, his hand open as a cup seeking an answer.  Cheri stepped back from the spreading red stain on the earth.  She laughed and dropped the knife and turned and walked off into the eastern desert.  (158 words)

New Version:

Joe felt the knife with every slap of his feet on the road.  Remembered standing there and pain urging its way into the numbness that followed the strikes of the blade.

He’d stumbled back a step, another; looked at Cheri with disbelief even as pain from twenty holes in his body hit his nerves all at once.

He dropped to his knees, his belt fell from his right hand to the dust. He reached out as if seeking an answer.  Cheri laughed and dropped the knife, turned and walked into the sun.
(92 words)

Except reading, of course, and I think it’s time to put Tropic of Cancer back on the shelf; I’ve made little progress towards learning to like it and it has inhibited my starting something else.

But writing it’s been, to the near exclusion of everything else.  And it’s rewriting at that–finetuning the Hypercompendia A Bottle of Beer so that every single word, if called upon, can justify its being. The weight has fallen upon me as author, of course, though I manage to weasel some free advice from one of
the best though Lord knows I’d hate to have to pay for this abuse of my literary ego.  The piece has been workshopped in our Creative Writing class so that helped a bit and among friends and strangers (or friends who soon become strangers for this very reason) only two out of seven would read it as asked.  I haven’t heard from the rest since and they’ve likely changed their email addresses as well.

So that’s what I have been up to, and will continue on that path until I make a left at the corner.

In A Bottle of Beer, there is really no dialogue.  I’d realized this early on, kept it in mind as  I wrote, but found little reason to call it into the story.  Afterwards, I wondered why.

Dialogue is an excellent vehicle to progress story  and feed information that might otherwise be what is called "info dump,"  that is, getting the necessary background information to the  reader that is necessary for comprehension of the action and characters. Example:

John and Mary made arrangements to meet at the library at seven o’clock that evening.

versus:

"Tonight at the library at 7:00?"

"See you there," she replied.

In BoB, though Yolanda has had seven siblings, three husbands, and a multitude (maybe) of children, at this point in her life she is basically alone.  She is waiting to meet one more man.  That is the story. While conversations could have been useful in some of the backstory, it would bring these characters to life while in the immediate linear narrative, Yolanda is alone and therefore silent.  There is no conversation between her and the runner because there is no need for it.  Both know what they’re there for. 

I’m hoping that this was the best way to do this, and if in fact, it’s a major reason why the editing is consisting of so much cutting: the weight of the telling must not show.

The Mac was tuned to the Hypercompendia station all day while I wandered between editing A Bottle of Beer and everything else I do in life with the everything else taking a back seat. 

It is amazing how much I see and how much I overlook in writing and rewriting.  I seem to live on little and mighty and great and serve it to others like popcorn. It’s the error of an amateur and something that should have been worked out of habit by now.

I keep going over the same text boxes over and over, never getting beyond the first half of the story.  Tomorrow I’ll try to remember to start at midpoint.

Per gentle suggestions from The Grim Reaper, I am slashing at sentences, eliminating words that mean nothing, phrases that may sing, yet they are merely refrain.  It has dawned on me that if I saved into story all that I’ve cut, that with the amount of repetition I’d likely have another second story.  But that is a useless muse since it should merely be marked as a poorer rendition of the intact original.