Spreadsheeting as a Dirty Word

I’ve decided that spreadsheeting is a verb, a dirty, dirty verb. If like me, you’re using the Story Grid methodology to evaluate your writing, spreadsheeting may also be a swear word. I’m now officially one-third of the way through my book and right now, I’d very much like to hide in bed until everyone has forgotten that I ever attempted to write a book.

So why is it so hard to fill in a simple spreadsheet? I’ve thought about it often when I’ve felt reluctant to do the work. Here’s what I’ve come up with.

1. Resistance. There is something which feels almost physical that prevents or tries to prevent me from doing the work. I used to think that resistance was the same thing as procrastination, but now I think procrastination is a symptom of resistance.
2. A badly written scene. There, I’ve admitted it. When I find myself stuck on a particular chapter, it’s often because I can’t fill in the answers. This usually arises because I’ve neglected to construct the scene with adherence to the five commandments of storytelling.
3. Conflicting Roles. The spreadsheeting exercise requires you to slip into your editor-self. The trouble is, as soon as I identify that there’s a problem with a chapter, my writer-self immediately starts to problem solve and argue for a way to fix it.
4. Overwhelm. When I think of editing with the big ‘E’ I start to spin a little. I start to tick off the tasks until it feels like a monumental piece of work. This is where I really start to doubt the process.
5. Story Structure. I’ve done a lot of reading about story structure and as I work through my chapters, I’m seeing all of the places that my story doesn’t ‘work’ from a macro level which is disquieting.

So now what? I’ve read a number of articles where writers talk about the slog of the middle, how they will start to hate their book and doubt their ability to finish the thing. Other, shinier ideas start to wave and they will often abandon the book to chase the new idea. I didn’t have that feeling while writing the first draft, but I am facing it now that I’m working toward my third draft.

With that in mind, here’s how I’m trying to work through the above.

1. The only thing I’ve come up with so far to deal with Resistance is tough love. I say, “Hey Me! If I don’t do this work, the book will never be published. So which do I want more? An excuse to quit the work or a finished book?”

   Funnily, I’ve found that I’m more productive if I have a limited amount of time to do the work. If I work over my lunch break, I’m much more focused on trying to finish as much as I can than if I have all day to devote to the task. So I may try giving myself a time limit to do the work at any one point to also help me get focused.

2. Academically I knew that I would have some badly written scenes. But that doesn’t mean a part of me hoped this book would need only a few minor adjustments. Sometimes when I think about the chapter with the five commandments in mind, I can easily identify a small tweak that will bring my scene in line. Sometimes, it’s much harder. To keep myself from completely stalling, I’ve begun to highlight the cell in red and write NEED when I come across one of these that I don’t know how to answer. I have found that moving onto the next scene can sometimes help clarify why the previous wasn’t working.
3. I find I struggle with this dual-role issue almost every time I sit down to work on the spreadsheet. I have to remind myself to take a step back think about the intention of the exercise. It is the editor’s job to point out where there are issues. It’s the writer’s job to figure out how to fix those issues. I do let myself write suggestions in one column of how the writer (see what I did there?) could approach the chapter.

“I’ve found the best way to revise your own work is to pretend that somebody else wrote it and then to rip the living shit out of it.”  ― Don Roff

4. I’ve decided to only print out ten chapters at a time. Sometimes, it still feels like too much to do at one time, but it’s better than thinking about the whole book. If I keep struggling with this, I may try printing out two at a time instead of ten to see if that helps limit the overwhelm. I’ve also found that stepping away and going for a walk can help tremendously.
5. To combat the anxiety caused my growing knowledge of story structure, I tell myself that my current assignment is to look at my book at a chapter or micro level. Once I’m done with this task, the next in line is to look at the story from a global or macro level. I remind myself that I will look at the structure of the story in whole after I have a good idea of how each chapter is moving; to do so before I finish my present undertaking is premature.

Working the steps above will help keep me moving through this spreadsheeting effort, even if I have to mutter ‘spreadsheeting’ while glaring at the screen. Who knows? Maybe the last seventy chapters will fall delightfully in line and my writer-self and editor-self won’t need to pull out the pistols at dawn. Do you have any tips or tricks that have helped you get through the slog of editing?