Letting others have their say but counting them for me
A lot has happened since I posted a month ago. The biggest accomplishment is that I've hit about 25,000 words in my rough draft. That's in the vicinity of 25% completion, although with all the cutting and editing I'm going to have to do, it could be considered less.
One thing I'm noticing is that I'm using a lot of quotes from primary and secondary sources. A LOT. This sometimes makes me feel a little guilty because I wonder if I should count them toward my daily goal of 1,000 words. After all, all it takes is some copying and pasting of a paragraphs-long firsthand account and suddenly I'm the most efficient writer in Berkeley! A thousand words by lunchtime! But is it a cop out to take someone else's words and add them to my count? For instance, here's a paragraph I wrote about the service in some early Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. Keep in mind this is a rough draft with no editing. "Gwai-lo" in the first line is a Cantonese word for "foreigner" or "white person." Also keep in mind that 1840s writers were not exactly politically correct in their names and descriptions of the Chinese (or any minority).
It's an okay paragraph, somewhat well constructed. Another glance at it, however, reveals to me that it's almost entirely a collection of other people's words. How much work am I really doing if I'm relying on other people to tell the story for me?
When I get rid of that naysayer voice in my head, I think it's actually a lot of work. First of all, it took forever to find and gather these quotes. They were hidden in books and journals that were scattered far and wide and locating them - not knowing they even existed - took hours and days.
Second, I had to make sure the quotes fit what I was trying to portray, and if too many quotes were saying the opposite of what I wanted to portray, I had to change my viewpoint.
Third, I couldn't keep going on and on with unceasing quotes, because how much do you, the reader, really want to read about service in a Chinese restaurant? I had to get back to the story at hand, which meant there were many quotes I could not use, which further meant I had to do some evaluating and select the ones that sounded best, fit the topic best, and wasn't the fifth quote in a row I used from the same author.
And last, if someone who was actually there in San Francisco in the Gold Rush can tell it better than I can, who am I to stand in his or her way? Tell it! I'm not going to order Abraham Lincoln to sit down because I'm going to write about the Gettysburg Address, I'm going to let the man say it!
So when I'm done with this whole thing and the book is sitting in the bargain bin ready to read, don't be surprised if you're reading a lot from the people who lived in that time. They're the storytellers, not me. It's my job to point them in a direction, get out of the way, and add it to my word total.
One thing I'm noticing is that I'm using a lot of quotes from primary and secondary sources. A LOT. This sometimes makes me feel a little guilty because I wonder if I should count them toward my daily goal of 1,000 words. After all, all it takes is some copying and pasting of a paragraphs-long firsthand account and suddenly I'm the most efficient writer in Berkeley! A thousand words by lunchtime! But is it a cop out to take someone else's words and add them to my count? For instance, here's a paragraph I wrote about the service in some early Chinese restaurants in San Francisco. Keep in mind this is a rough draft with no editing. "Gwai-lo" in the first line is a Cantonese word for "foreigner" or "white person." Also keep in mind that 1840s writers were not exactly politically correct in their names and descriptions of the Chinese (or any minority).
The service in Chinese restaurants also got gwai-los’ attention. Servers weren’t rough and crude like many in the restaurants around them, and being a conspicuous racial minority, the Chinese restaurateurs took extra care to treat their customers generously. Noah Brooks found, in a fancier Chinese restaurant, that “the Chinaman is liberal and bountiful to his guest; champagne flows freely; the skill and taste of the cook is exhausted to tickle his palate and gratify his eye, and a more changeful variety of courses prolongs the banquet than is ever found on the tables of any other people.” John Frost was just as impressed. "I once went into an eating-house,” he recorded in his history of California, “and was astonished at the neat arrangement and cleanliness of the place, the excellence of the table, and moderate charges.” This was a positive experience that he wasn’t expecting. “As I had always been given to understand that these people were of dirty habits, I feel it only right to state that I was delighted with the cleanliness of this place, and am gratified to be able to bear testimony to the injustice of such a sweeping assertion.” On the lighter side, James O’Meara recalled a waiter with a sense of humor he found amusing. Dirty water had been set on the table, and when a customer “refused the muddy looking liquid, the compliant waiter asked, ‘Too muchee land, eh?’ and then grinned clear across his usually imperturbable face.” That drew “laughter around the table.”
It's an okay paragraph, somewhat well constructed. Another glance at it, however, reveals to me that it's almost entirely a collection of other people's words. How much work am I really doing if I'm relying on other people to tell the story for me?
When I get rid of that naysayer voice in my head, I think it's actually a lot of work. First of all, it took forever to find and gather these quotes. They were hidden in books and journals that were scattered far and wide and locating them - not knowing they even existed - took hours and days.
Second, I had to make sure the quotes fit what I was trying to portray, and if too many quotes were saying the opposite of what I wanted to portray, I had to change my viewpoint.
Third, I couldn't keep going on and on with unceasing quotes, because how much do you, the reader, really want to read about service in a Chinese restaurant? I had to get back to the story at hand, which meant there were many quotes I could not use, which further meant I had to do some evaluating and select the ones that sounded best, fit the topic best, and wasn't the fifth quote in a row I used from the same author.
And last, if someone who was actually there in San Francisco in the Gold Rush can tell it better than I can, who am I to stand in his or her way? Tell it! I'm not going to order Abraham Lincoln to sit down because I'm going to write about the Gettysburg Address, I'm going to let the man say it!
So when I'm done with this whole thing and the book is sitting in the bargain bin ready to read, don't be surprised if you're reading a lot from the people who lived in that time. They're the storytellers, not me. It's my job to point them in a direction, get out of the way, and add it to my word total.
You just simply have to somehow force yourself to use a whole heck of a lot more adverbs and, yes, adjectives if you're truly, honestly trying to perceptibly increase your all-important, furshlugginer so-called word count.
ReplyDeleteI suppose, if I may say so, that you are incomparably, inarguably and hopelessly correct, from both a logical and creative perspective from which we both seem to be happily discussing.
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