Write for that Someone Special
By Jim Dempsey | February 14, 2023 |
I probably shouldn’t reveal this as it’s something close to me and my partner, but since it’s Valentine’s day, so maybe the spirit of romance will forgive me. It’s nothing very intimate anyway, and I mentioned to her that I was writing this article and she seemed OK about it. So I guess it’s all right if I tell you. Just you.
So, here goes: I write letters to her.
Not a huge revelation, I know, but no one else knew about this until now. And now you know too.
They’re not really what you’d describe as love letters. I don’t think I’ve ever used the L word in them (I’m sticking to that “show don’t tell” advice). Without giving you too many details, the letters are more about how I felt in specific moments we shared (a walk along the beach, a sunset) or, when I have to travel, what I miss about her.
And I usually write these letters when she’s not around, when I have a quiet contemplative moment to myself. Sure, I could tell her all these things. And I do. But, as I’m sure you will appreciate, there’s something just that little bit more special about putting your thoughts into words.
Here though, for the purposes of this article, it’s not the content that’s important but the process.
I traveled recently, on a trip where unfortunately she couldn’t join me, and it was when I was writing my letter to her that I noticed the process.
I realized that I usually write a first draft on my phone, in a memo app. I almost always have my phone with me, so it’s more convenient than a computer. Plus, when I have my laptop open, I’m usually busy with work and emails. I can have my phone with me when I’m in the plane, on a train or having a coffee or eating lunch on my own.
A thought arises, something I want to tell her and, before I know it, that leads to another thought and another until I’ve written a couple of pages.
But I find the phone a poor writing tool, and, being an editor, I can’t help but tinker. So I send that text to myself as an email and then open it on my laptop and go over the text once more. Draft number two.
That special touch
The first time I wrote one of these letters, I wanted it to be a little different. I wasn’t going to email it to her and have my email lost among all her work stuff. And I wasn’t going to print it off and hand it over. This letter had to be more special than that. So I bought a pad of nice paper, colored envelopes and even a pen that would write nicely – this letter had to be handwritten, of course.
So, with my corrected text on the computer screen in front of me, I take my pad of nice paper and that beautiful ballpoint pen that writes so smoothly, and copy out the letter by hand.
This last time though, I realized that I don’t copy the letter exactly. I make changes as I go, and these have to be careful changes because I don’t want to scrub out words or strike through a whole line of text. If I’m going to all this effort, these letters have to look good too as well as carry the right sentiments. They have to look like I know exactly what I want to say to her.
I do, of course, make mistakes. They usually happen when I’m more than halfway down the page. I then take a new sheet of paper and rewrite from the top of that page (they’re small A5 sheets).
I might then still change the text from the page I’ve now thrown away, so I’ll be on draft 3.5 or so by now.
When I’m done and satisfied it looks good and says what I want it to say, I carefully fold that crisp paper and pop it into the colored envelope, seal it and write the address.
That’s when the doubts creep in. Oh no, I think. Wait! I could’ve said it better. But, as Leonardo da Vinci is reported as saying, art is never finished, only abandoned, so I take the letter in its imperfect state and send it off for the postal worker to deliver. Having it delivered is part of the charm of this process, even if it arrives a week after I’ve returned from the trip.
Individual attention
I think I was more aware of the process this time because I’d been talking recently with a couple of friends who’d learned to touch type on old manual typewriters. They’d learned in the days of smooth-motion electric typewriters, but their tutors had made them hammer away on old Remingtons first.
This, they both said, was an incredibly tedious process, especially if you made a mistake, and doubly so if you were making carbon copies. There is no Ctrl-Z on those machines.
And this got me thinking about novelists in the days before computers. Many would write out their first drafts by hand, then type – or often have someone else type out – the manuscript, then correct the typed version and have the revised draft typed out again. This could, in the case of John le Carré’s The Tailor of Panama, go on for a reported thirteen drafts. Huge credit then to his wife, Valerie Jane Eustace, who was his typist.
Others, like Henry James, would dictate their novels to stenographers, but still go through a similar redrafting process of retyping much, if not all, of the manuscript.
Some contemporary writers embrace the old technology too, like Don DeLillo who feels a typewriter gives “a sculptor’s sense of the shape of the words,” while Will Self uses one precisely because he doesn’t want to go through the laborious process of retyping everything. Instead, he says an old typewriter forces him to slow down, think harder and get it right in the early drafts.
And that’s the point here. It’s not that it’s impossible to write a carefully considered and well constructed novel with a word processor, although it can be tempting to get to THE END and think you’re done.
It’s also not that we should go back to writing by hand or use old manual typewriters. The point is that we should make the time to consider our words. What do we want to say exactly? And how?
It might not take thirteen rewrites. It might take more. But it will definitely take more than one draft to write something that readers will appreciate and care about. And I think that’s what every writer wants, for someone to care about their work. That’s only going to happen if you care about your work too.
It’s a daunting task to write the 80,000 or so words of a novel without facing the prospect of rewriting it many more times, even with modern day technology. But it really pays to write like you’re always writing for someone in particular, a cherished loved one. It helps to give your work and your readers the care and attention they deserve.
What’s your writing process? How many drafts to you typically go through? How do you make it that little bit more special?
Jim Dempsey (he/him) is a book editor who specializes in detailed analysis and editing of novel manuscripts through his company, Novel Gazing. He has worked as an editor for more than 20 years. He has a master’s degree in creative writing and is a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading and is a trustee of the Arkbound Foundation. Jim is fascinated by the similarities between fiction and psychotherapy, since both investigate the human condition, the things that make us uniquely human. He explores this at The Fiction Therapist website. If you have a specific concern with your novel, send an email to jim [at] thefictiontherapist.com, or visit the website to ask for a free sample edit. You can follow Jim on Instagram @the_fiction_therapist.
We set things to paper that we wouldn’t say aloud. Isn’t that strange? Even weirder, for me, is that certain purposes are best served by pen and others by keyboard and screen.
For fiction, it’s the keyboard. Too many words change too quickly. For thinking-of-you notes left for my wife when I quietly depart at a dark early hour for the airport, it’s pen. The words flow just right the first time. Shouldn’t that be the other way around?
Odd stuff, though his relationship we have with words and the implements we use to write them. I don’t think I’ll experiment. Words are the chocolates on Valentine’s Day. Don’t care how they get into the box.
Just last night we watched a movie starring Bob Odenkirk called Girlfriend’s Day. He played a greeting card writer (specializing in Romantic themes) and he suffered writers’s block since his divorce. All he needed, it turned out, was someone to write the card for. The story was over the top. Very funny for a writer to watch. But the point that the words must be true and specifically for someone was the central message. It pairs well with your post today.
I write poetry with pen. It feels more authentic. Novel writing is on the laptop, although I do use Notes app on my iPhone to capture a snippet of a scene or dialogue in my head. It will be on my laptop Notes app and I can cut and paste it into Scrivener, later.
Jim, you’re singing my song! Thanks for sharing your process. I love letters, not just to the special people but also as a writing tool to capture voice. We write differently to the people in our lives, what we share, the voice we use. I often write letters in the morning as a way to warm up, get into a flow. My best writing is actually all for that audience of ONE. Very special. A happy St. Valentine’s day to you and your sweetie.
Here’s a short piece I archived: https://vijayabodach.blogspot.com/2016/07/write-letters-for-fun-and-writing.html
I’ve used pen and paper for novels, and computer for love letters, and vice versa. I think different methods can unlock different parts of us at different times. There’s no right or wrong.
And though this doesn’t follow the main thrust of your post, I will say, one thing the pandemic helped me realize is that the writing I do privately — correspondence to friends and family — is possibly the most important and meaningful writing that I do.
Doesn’t change my passion for the “public” writing, but was just an interesting thing to learn about myself.
Jim, the hand-written letters are a nice touch. I write notes for stories by hand, but have to turn to the keyboard to get any distance. Today I gave my sweetheart a tiny, ribbon-bound book (10 pages) on a heavy paper squares of a running poem of sorts, written in pencil. However, my handwriting is a cruelty, so I’m not certain if this was an act of love or not.
Love your letters – have stored it away to steal some day. And it reminds me I save every written word my husband has ever sent me, because there are so few of them. Different strokes (lit.).
My process is different from most writers I know, in that I don’t do novel ‘drafts.’
I plan (extreme plotter here) everything, and then arrive at each scene in a linear sequence, with a whole bunch of appreciations (Dramatica terminology; bytes of character, plot, theme) already assigned to the scene, an unbroken story back to the beginning of FINISHED scenes, and precise knowledge of where I’m going to end scene, chapter, volume, and trilogy.
I then go through an elaborate list of steps, alternating deliberately between logical and intuitive, using all the background information, constructing the scene itself. The construction involves as much listening to the Mac robot voice read things – lines to paragraphs to scene – as necessary, and as many passes through Autocrit’s counting functions ditto, until, in the voice of the pov character, the scene is as perfect as I can make it.
When a chapter’s worth of scenes are gathered, the epigraphs added, and a few final steps completed, I create the version my beta reader gets – and off it goes. When that brief back-and-forth is finished, that chapter is forever finished. I don’t go back.
It’s liberating rather than constraining to have all the background information compiled and decided before writing past the incredibly rough first draft that was part of the original planning process, but it means I’m always working with 5-12K words per scene – and no more. My brain is damaged by chronic illness – I used to be able to keep huge computer programs in mind – so this I can handle, and the process has produced two 20-chapter novels for my mainstream trilogy which will be around 500k words. I’m working on the third. It’s been twenty-two years since I started.
So far, so good. And by this point in my description, most other writers are gasping in horror, but it works for me. It sounds mechanical but produces literary fiction. And I pantsed the trunk novel, back last century, so I know how. You do what you gotta do.
Jim, this should be a marketing tool for your editing services – a blog post on your website, or “this is how I work” About Me. Because your attention to getting it just right is an impressive recommendation. I admire your dedication to the craft of love letters, because of course they are just that, but not sure that I could ever take that much time for perfection in that particular area. I’m a letter writer, and I do want to say succinctly what I couldn’t express verbally, so I edit until I feel it’s working, but all that text to document to paper to paper! I can barely reread my own manuscript drafts I get so bored with them after many revisions.
Beyond emails to far flung friends, which are frequent and long, I confess, my personal letter writing is born mostly from frustration that I wasn’t being heard. So I write it out in a dispassionate attempt to communicate without the confusion of misinterpretation and emotion. It usually works, and my partner of 28 years knows this is me trying to find a common ground. He is not a communicator, so the heartfelt messages on his cards are all the more appreciated and cherished for the intention and I keep every one.