In Post-November NaNo, Work With What You've Got---Even the Zucchini
Last summer, my family joined a community-supported agriculture, or CSA, group. For you nonfoodies, a CSA membership is like Farmer’s Market 2.0. You pay upfront in the spring. Then, throughout the growing season, you get a weekly share of whatever’s in season, from strawberries to garlic, from tomatoes to potatoes.
Most people join CSAs because they want to eat healthier or support the farmers. I joined for novel research.
If the other reasons materialized, that was fine, but research was primary. The protagonist of my WIP, written during NaNoWriMo 2013, runs a CSA. I interviewed our CSA proprietress, visited her farm on delivery day, gathered all kinds of great scene-setting details, even signed her on as a beta reader for the finished manuscript.
There was, however, the not-small matter of the food. Each week, mid-June through mid-October, an overflowing black bin appeared with our name on it. Sometimes the contents were easy to use, like carrots and salad greens. Others had never darkened my kitchen door—like kohlrabi, eggplant and zucchini. Lots of zucchini.
Maybe I was channeling my research, because I actually was keeping up with it through August. Since writers are always told to show, not tell, here you go:
But by September, I was getting a wee bit sick of that weekly black bin, taunting me with its perishable contents. Beans. Cabbage. Parsley. Zucchini. Stuff I never would have chosen, but was stuck with and determined not to waste. (I’m thrifty like that.)
My point? After the glow of NaNo victory fades, this may be where you find yourself with your novel, as you enter Revision Stage.
Unlike the CSA box, you should let your manuscript sit undisturbed for a while. At least a week or two. Stephen King recommends six weeks, but especially if it’s your first novel that may feel impossible. Still, try to enjoy the interlude. Resume your pre-NaNo routines. Send out holiday cards. Read a book or two.
Then, print out your manuscript and sit down with reasonably fresh eyes. I do recommend reading a printed version, not on-screen, to reduce the temptation to make the easy copy-editing tweaks instead of the tough work of real revision.
Revision is where you get to confront the senseless scene you wrote on Nov. 27 at midnight when you were 5,000 words off the pace. Now, you can’t discern even a tangential intersection with your plot. But just like the zucchini in the CSA box, it’s there, and you’ve got to figure out what to do with it.
Maybe your scene needs to dive deeper into the motivations of the characters. Alternatively, maybe it needs to be pared back because it slows the story’s momentum. Maybe you cast it completely differently. I got tired of waiting an hour and a half for the zucchini bread to bake, so I made muffins, which took twenty-five minutes. With my manuscript, I switched some scenes into another character’s point of view. That new perspective both improved and salvaged some scenes.
Maybe research can save you. Even after making both babaganoush and pesto, I had plenty of eggplant and basil left one week this summer. I Googled eggplant + basil and got a pretty nice dinner out of it.
If you’re truly stuck, maybe a third party opinion is in order. At this early stage, choose readers with utmost caution. Before subjecting your story to criticism, you want to feel confident enough about your manuscript to weather it. But eventually, third-party feedback will be invaluable. (Critique groups of peer writers, objective beta readers and hiring editors are three ways to get it.)
At worst, some of those zucchini-esque scenes can be frozen—that is, saved for a future manuscript. (Head start on NaNo 2015, anyone?)
In his classic On Writing, Stephen King also suggests the use of original simile and metaphor allow writer and reader to participate “together in a kind of miracle.” So here goes. Revision is like a big bag of zucchini. Welcome to this inglorious stage.
Cari Noga wrote the first draft of her debut novel, Sparrow Migrations, during NaNoWriMo 2010, and published it independently in 2013. It is now under contract to Lake Union Publishing, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, for rerelease in spring 2015. She is still revising her 2013 NaNo novel, Piñata Tears. Read more at www.carinoga.com
Cari Noga
