Trust the Novel Writing (and Rewriting) Process

 

Two years ago, in March of 2022, after finally completing a sixth novel (set in Pompeii about an unusual friendship be­tween an American backpacker and a British expatriate widow re­siding in Malay­­sia), I got the idea to rewrite a couple of my other novels (to give them a fighting chance in a tight US/UK market).  While I was at it, I did all five novels, plus two col­lections of short stories (in­clud­ing Lovers and Strangers Revisit­ed that I blogged about), and a play, a comedy based on the short story “Neigh­bors”. 

I knew that a quick read wasn’t going to do them justice, so I decided to give each novel what I came to call the 9X treatment.  First, after printing them out, I would line edit each manu­script 3X (three times)—in black, in blue, and in red.  Then on the com­puter, I would go through each chapter 3X—making additional corrections and tightening the writing by cutting and rearranging sen­tences, paragraphs.  (Never assume your writing is good; assume you can make it better!)

Then for the final 3X, I would go through each manuscript beginning to end.  The first pass is straight forward and gives me a good feel for pacing, structure, chronological order, inter­nal logic—is it working or not?  For the second pass I would start with the last chapter, then the next to last chapter, working my way to the first chapter.  Editing chapters out of sequence is power­ful.  It makes you think…wait, did I mention this detail earlier; then double check those early chapters and make the necessary changes.  A good way of catching those errors of omissions!

If I add new details at this stage, I would immediately go back and reference those details, if neces­sary, in the earlier chapters (lest I forget later).  Of course, I would do the same while editing the manu­scripts in var­ious colors, scribbling in my notes and reminders to add in or move around various para­graphs or a shift a scene to a more effective lo­ca­tion.  Then I would go through the manu­script one more time from beginning to end to com­plete the 9X process.  For the short stories, since each story is complete within itself, I would stop at 6X. 

Early during this novel rewriting process, I got a great idea for a seventh novel.  Not want­ing to be distracted, I began shoveling notes (and eventually note­books) into a loose folder.  By mid-2023, I added my Pompeii novel back into the mix to help cut the length and improve it with fresh eyes, impressed by what I had accomplished thus far with the other novel re­writes.

I also created a progress chart for all eight manuscripts since their progress ov­er­lapped, and would then check off each completed step in the 9X process.  No skipping steps along the way just because no one is look­ing!

True, it was a lot of work.  It's also a nice feeling knowing that I followed through the entire proc­ess, thus keeping my commitment to myself.  When I started, I didn’t think it would take two years!  Nor had I planned to do all five novels, let alone redo that sixth novel, plus both collection of stories and that play that had been sitting idle for nearly a dec­ade.  I kept think­ing, while I’m at it…

And while I’m at it, I’ve started a new progress chart for 2024 and the remainder of this decade (and the next—I’m being ambitious!) for future novels, beginning with that seventh novel, having accumulated over 400 pages of notes these last two years.  Plus, I have several previous novels on hold for one reason or another, some with com­plete rough drafts; others, a third of the way through the first draft; or with hundreds of pages of notes already in the computer, including sequels to the other six novels.

Itching to get started, I’ve already begun writing that novel number seven.  In the meantime, I’m hoping one of these six re­written novels will open the door for the others, making all the hard work pay off.  Or maybe it will be this seventh novel… You have to trust the novel writing (and rewriting) process.

       —Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with other Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.

“On Fridays” UiTM Google Meet That I Almost Missed!

May of last year, I was up at 5:15 a.m. to get my son off to school.  Not feeling well (lack of sleep, perhaps), I went back to bed.  A phone notice woke me up, informing me that my story “On Fridays” from Lovers and Strangers Revisited, which I recently rewrote and blogged about, was being discussed in a Collaborative Teaching at Universiti Teknologi MARA or UiTM—Penang (Bertam campus), led by Associate Professor Dr. Mohamad Rashidi Pakri of USM (discussing the literary aspect of the story) and Nazima Versay Kudus of UiTM. 

Previously, during Covid lockdown, I had been invited by Nazima to join Google Meet to answer questions about my short story "Neighbours" also from Lovers and Strangers Revisited for her Faculty of Health Science students.  This time around, since it involved about sixty students from several classes from Health Science, who are learning about narrative writing, it was more practical to record and share the session among the students than to get them all together at one time, even online.

Surprisingly, I had not been forewarned, or was I a last-minute inclusion—hey, let’s wake up Robert to see if he’s available!  Either way, I was too late for the discussion, but I did manage to join the Q & A session.

 

“On Fridays,” the first story from Lovers and Strangers Revisited has been published over a dozen times in seven countries.  In 2003, it appeared in The Literary Review (USA) and Frank (France) in a joint publication.  I had sent the story to the editor of Frank, unaware that he had been asked to be the guest editor of The Literary Review, so he chose “On Fridays” for their joint issue on Expat Writing.  The story, about an expat living in Penang, Malaysia who sits beside a crying woman in a taxi, later appeared as a reprint for Cha: An Asian Literary Journal in 2010.  Since then, the story had been revised several times in my effort to finally get it right… 

I would like to have listened in the session, to hear what the students thought of the story since they would be freer to discuss it without the presence of the author—for fear of embarrassing themselves or offending him—so why did we have to read that stupid story in the first place?  It nearly put me to sleep!  Hopefully, no one said that or felt that way!

            

By the time I came on board, or online, (freshly showered and wide awake) some students may have already left (is he coming or not?)  The questions they did ask me were straight forward.  Why did he, the unnamed first-person character, feel com­pelled to hold her hand instead of just speaking, “Hi, how are you?”  Was it im­portant that she wore traditional clothes?  Did the story really take place?  Was it a true story?  More than once, in the past, I had been asked, “Have you found her?”  “Are you still looking for her?” Many of these ques­tions I had discussed in the Story Behind the Story (which I wrote for all seventeen stories for the MPH publication), about how the story came to be written, how the story evolved after its initial publication, what significant changes I made to the story (and why) that led to subsequent publications overseas… 

Having wrote the story in 1988 (first published in the March ’89 issue of Female in Singapore), I feel honored that the story “On Fridays” is still being taught in 2023, 35 years later, and it still resonates with university students who can identify with the characters, even a lonely expat inside a share taxi on a rainy day sitting beside a crying Malay woman reading a letter on blue paper…

       —Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with other Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.

Rewriting Lovers and Strangers Revisited

                                                     

Every few years I get this urge to rewrite the 17 stories from Lovers and Strangers Revisit­ed.  No doubt that seems silly and a waste of time for most writers since the book has already been published.  Had I not done so, it wouldn't been published a second or a third time!  Originally published in Singapore as Lovers and Strangers (Heinemann Asia,1993, Writ­ing in Asia Series), I revisited the stories in 2005 when a Malaysian lecturer requested to use the collec­tion for a course on Malaysia and Singapore literature.  The book—after consulting with an editor and going back to the original inspiration for each story, vis­it­­ing many of the ori­gin­al settings and over­hauling the stories, adding new scenes, back-stories, and endings—was repub­lish­ed as Lovers and Strangers Revisited (Silver­fish Books).

                                                   

In 2008, a third revised ver­sion with two additional stories was published by MPH, which I wrote about in a blog about publishing in Malaysia and Singapore, that later won the 2009 Popular-The Star Reader’s Choice Awards and was translated into French.  To complement the MPH edition, I wrote a blog series, The Story Behind the Story, about the devel­op­ment and the sig­nif­i­­cant changes of each story that led to their various mag­azine/lit­erary journal publica­tions—often used as writ­ing/teaching aids in schools, colleges, and uni­ver­sities.  The main char­acter from the story “Neigh­bors”  was featured by an expat teacher in the New Straits Times, “Are You Mrs. Koh?” 

So why revise the stories again?  I’ve always felt that Lovers and Strangers Revisited, based on its publishing track record, deserves a wider audience both inside and outside of Ma­lay­sia/Singapore.  For example, the collection is still available in French by Editions GOPE as Trois autres Malaisie.  In fact, the publisher will be exhibiting the collection along with his other Malaysian titles at a French book fair in Kuala Lumpur on 24 March 2024, which should translate into more sales!.

                                                          

So far, thanks to rewriting those published stories, the individual stories have been published 82 times in 12 coun­tries (11 stories in USA and UK); taught in Malaysian secondary school literature for six years (“Neigh­bors”), as well as in Cana­da and USA (Ohio University); and several stories have been taught for years in various Ma­lay­sian universities and private col­leges.  Film stu­dents at Ohio Univer­sity found the original collection in their library, came to Malay­sia, and filmed, “Home for Hari Raya.”  

Maybe because of this persistent belief that these stories (individually and as a col­lec­tion) are still relevant—they are still being taught in Malaysia as of May 2023 and are still being published in the USA (“The Stare” appeared in Thema, Spring 2021).  As I began editing again (clarifying details, cutting need­less words or phrases, tightening the writing), I could see significant improvements in each story.

Also, the process feels like a trip down memory lane, both as a writer and as an expatriate living in Malay­sia.  “Mat Salleh,” for example, was my first published story, a non­fiction short story, 28 January 1986 (New Straits Times) and my first published story in the UK (My Weekly).  "Teh-O in K.L." was my first published short story is USA (Aim). The other stories, all published but one, are all loosely based on my early ex­peri­ences or on my ob­­ser­va­tions of kam­pong and modern-day life in Malaysia.  Not all the memories are good—a failed mar­riage for me (“Dark Blue Threads”) and a neighbor com­mitting suicide (“Neighbors”); nevertheless, these stories are my Malaysian roots, so to speak, having lived in Penang as an expatriate for twen­ty-one years and taught creative writing at USM for ten years, before moving to Sarawak to grow new roots.

The real payoff, of course, is that these revised stories now have a chance for future publica­tions in the US or UK or Australia or elsewhere—the main reason I do it.  Or the collection, fingers crossed, is republish­ed to a wider audience.  Or the play that I added as a bonus, “One Drink Too Many,” a comedy adapted from the short story, “Neigh­bors,” is produced in Malaysia or Singapore.  Preferably, all three!

What helps me to keep the faith in Lovers and Strangers Revisited (and the individual stories) is rereading the MPH back-of-the-book reviews and other review snippets that I include while marketing the collection to agents and other publishers: 

MPH Publisher’s synopsis and reviews from the back of the book:

In this collection of 17 stories, Robert Raymer portrays the traditional in modernity, the unexpected in relationships both familiar and strange, the recurring theme of race even as contemporary Malaysia finds ways to understand its multicultural milieu.

In the title story, a selfish writer gets more than he bargained for when two former lovers haunt him in more ways than one. In another story, a man's loneliness turns into obses­sion when he shares a taxi ride with a Malay woman. A Clark Gable lookalike is a bar­rister wannabe with a shocking secret and gossipy neighbours reveal more about them­selves than the man who commits suicide. Elsewhere, expats cross the border to Had Yai to experience a good bargain in the Thai flesh trade before going home to their wives in America.

In this republished edition of Lovers and Strangers Revisited, Raymer's snapshots of scenes from various walks of life provide an insider-outsider view on love, family and culture, and urges a second look at ourselves in the mirror of self-awareness.

Praise for Lovers and Strangers Revisited

'Raymer not only writes from his own viewpoint as a foreigner and observer, but also delves into the minds of desperate Malay woman, a young Indian girl, an adulterous Chinese couple, and an old Chinese man who survived the Japanese occupation... He has an uncanny ability to hold a mirror up to the people of his adopted country, not as a for­eigner but as one of us. His stories are full of personalities that you know, you work with them, or live next door to them, or eavesdrop on them at the kopi tiam.' The Borneo Post

'This account ("On Fridays") of a crammed ride with strangers in a taxi may well stand as a metaphor of Raymer's own experience of living among Malaysians... He imbues each of the characters in his stories with a realistic, genuinely believable voice even as he tempers it with the valuable perspective of an observer.' New Straits Times

'Raymer gives a lushly and rich and multi-layered rendition of the Malaysian way of life as colored and influenced by his own experiences from his twenty years as an expat here... These stories are some of the few authentic portrayals of the inner workings and inner plays of the average Malaysian's life in all of its robustness and unique cultural settings.' The Expat

A little ego boost for sure, something all writers need now and then.  Also, it’s good to touch base, like stretching before exercising.  Awfully glad I rewrote those stories.  Now that 2023 is over (having rewritten eight books—six novels and two collections of stories—in two years), I’m ready to embark on new writing projects for 2024 and beyond... 

—Borneo Expat Writer

 My interviews with other Malaysian writers:

Ivy Ngeow author of Cry of the Flying Rhino, winner of the 2016 Proverse Prize. 

Golda Mowe author of Iban Dream and Iban Journey

Preeta Samarasan, author of Evening is the Whole Day, finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize 2009. 

Chuah Guat Eng, author of Echoes of Silence and Days of Change.

Malachi Edwin Vethamani, author of Complicated Lives and Life Happens.