My 37 pages
Hi everyone,
I’ve finished going over the 37 pages that I blitzed through and erroneously concluded that they all had enough micro-tension. Going back over them after, re-reading about micro-tension* and looking at my old and new notes, and re-examining the pages SLOWLY, I found that I can add micro-tension to 17 of them.
A shocking number, yes, and proof that I can only do a proper micro-tension draft SLOWLY. And I can’t multi-task while doing it. I was, also, deleting words to make room for the micro-tension. I’ve since concluded that cutting words should be done on a separate pass through the manuscript.
Were all 17 pages devoid of micro-tension? No. Maybe three or four of them had very little but the other 13 had some micro-tension but not a lot and not enough.
Writing down what my main character was feeling really helped. Sometimes these feelings weren’t on the page, so even from an emotional draft point of view, they needed to be revised.
I’m still reading the other 5 books, I mentioned yesterday, with an eye out for micro-tension that catches me and makes me feel uneasy.
Before permanently adding the extra words to my manuscript, I need to know my taste. What micro-tension raised the hair on my arms? What makes me unable to put the book down? What makes me read on?
Ultimately, when authors are writing books, they are books that they would like to read themselves. Well, that’s the theory anyway. So I’m exploring what I like.
For example, I really like repeating a phrase throughout a chapter. Not sure where I can use that. And maybe I won’t be able to use it in this book, but I do feel tense each time a phrase is repeated. So one day, it will make its way into my books.
I don’t have time today to go into my analysis of the pages I read in the five books. I have a crazy weekend ahead so I’ll summarise what I liked next week when I’ve more time to write in the diary. I’ll be focused more on my work over the weekend. What micro-tension gaps, I found. Any epiphanies I have.
I love it when I have epiphanies. It feels like the hard work is paying off and I’m LEARNING something.
Anyway, I have to sign off now.
Talk to you tomorrow,
Happy writing,
Joanne.
* If you want to learn more about micro-tension see Donald Maas’s, The Breakout Novelist: How to Craft Novels That Stand Out and Sell. Chapter 17.
He’s also given webinars on it which can be bought from the Free Expressions website I linked on my courses recommendations page. Here’s the link directly to the webinar recordings. https://www.free-expressions.com/webinar-recordings
