You know about that guy who ate a car (or was it an airplane?) and when asked how he did it, he said "One piece at a time"? This so applies to writing a book. Heck, a chapter of a book.
Because writing a 20-page chapter bores me to tears. There's a reason I gravitate to James Patterson and Lisa Lutz and any other author whose books are snippets of the very, very best parts of a scene.
So for any of my writer friends out there bogged down under a 30-page scene, try cutting it down. In other words, try eating just the fan belt rather than the whole motor.
Let me know how it goes.
"This" is the following cautionary tale: don't write to what's trending well.
That was me, Ms. Writing to Trends. But I was excited by the trends. I was excited to get my foot in the door. I told myself this is what I was supposed to write, and as a girl with two books published, I knew I had the capacity to write to these trends.
But then I spent 1.5 years on a story that was so hard it made my brain snap, crackle, and pop in a way that happens to binge drinkers and acid users.
See, the trends aren't what I do well.
What I do well isn't popular. Well, it's popular, but only when done by well-known people already doing it.
But I know I can do it. I started out writing this way 6.5 years ago (the popular-but-only-when-done-by-well-known-p
MY VERY FIRST MANUSCRIPT
And yet I somehow expected that thing to be bought in a bidding war that would net me seven figures, a TV series, and action figures in every Burger King happy meal.
Yeah. But I think we already established I didn't have a good handle on reality.
So even though it's 2011, I don't think of this as the third day of a new year or even as the third day of the next decade.
I see it as the first day since I started writing fiction 6.5 years ago that I'm back to writing what got me writing in the first place.
You know, the popular-but-only-when-done-by-well-known-p
Deep breath in...
...
...
And out.
-Susan
I've been working on The Big Story for 1.5 years, and I'm still struggling with minimal forward momentum, even after 100,000 words.
And so I'm taking a break. Taking a breather. Letting go for a bit.
And I'm going to try to not feel guilty.
Courageously yours.
Susan
Well, I wrote 12000 words and I gave it to my critique group. And the critique group? It did what a critique group should do: tell you that you're so off course, you might as well be Gilligan.
And so I stayed at 12000. Or rather, I cut until I got to 1200 words, with another 10800 of crap that still needs to be deciphered.
But you know what? Gilligan's getting off this island. Yes he is.
Smugly yours,
Susan
What was this breakthrough? Orson Scott Card and his How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. It was my Holy Grail. My Precious.
Some sage words that particularly spoke to me:
IDEA Story: These stories are about the process of finding information. An Idea story starts by raising a question and ends when the question is answered. Mysteries follow this structure (a murder happens early and we're asking who and why). Outside the mystery genre, there is less leeway because the audience doesn't know the story will be about the process of answering a question. If you being the story by establishing character at great length and don't come to eh question until many pages in, readers will expect the story to be about character, not the question. And if you end the story at when the mystery is solved without resolving character, readers will be frustrated. You MUST begin the story you intend to end--unless you KNOW that the audience already knows what the story is about (sequels).
EVENT Story: In this story, something is wrong in the fabric of the universe; the world is out of order. The story ends at the point where a new order is established, where the old order is restored, or where the world descends into chaos as the forces of order are destroyed. The story BEGINS not when the world becomes disordered, but when the character whose actions are most crucial to establishing the new order becomes involved in the struggle. Most fantasy employs the Event Story structure. In Lord of the Rings, it takes many days and pages before Frodo stands before the counsel of Elrond and he says "I will take the ring, although I don't know the way." By the time a lengthy explanation is give, we have already seen much of the disorder of the universe. In other words, by the time we are given the full explanation of the world, we already care about the people involved in saving it. DON'T USE PROLOGUES because the reader isn't emotionally involved with any of the characters and we don't care yet.
Good sign that you're using the wrong structure or are beginning in the wrong place: bogged down after only a few pages or few chapters in
--
And that's just some of the amazing advice. I was writing an Idea Story when I should've been using an Event Story structure. Who knew. WHO KNEW??? (Mr. Card knew!)
- Sounds I'm Ruining My Hearing With:Comptine d'un autre ete, l'apres-midi (Amelie soundtrack)
As of now, though, I am free of all that muck. And, boy, does it feel like someone's taken the world off my shoulders and given me a string bikini and a little bit of beach to lay on in Aruba (or wherever that clear water is with the glass-bottomed huts over it).
I've revised my synopsis on my The Project. I've started the rewrites that have been a writhing mass of snakes and sinews and slime. And I'm feeling great.
I'm even doing Nanowrimo and I plan on this being the first year to "win." Because I plan on finishing Draft 3 of The Project, which will ready me for Draft 4 over December and a crisp, e-mailed copy to my agent by January. I'll be 120000_or_Bust if you decide you want to join and could use a little butt-kicking.
I can do this. Anyone else with insane goals this month?
- Feeling Currently Runnething Over:
optimistic - Sounds I'm Ruining My Hearing With:My daughter stickering & singing a made-up song about Halloween, cats & stairs
Because that's what my 58,000 WIP is--a pigsty of yuck.
Because that's the only way I'm going to move forward. To wallow, adding more mud and allowing myself to let the apple cores and pig droppings accumulate. Because at least something's accumulating.
I am now trying to become one with the slop--and to figure out how long I can hold my breath and have blinders on as I accumulate the yuck into the 100,000 word range, which is where the true first draft needs to end.
And when the accumulation of all things yuck ends, can someone please loan me their fairy godmother to make sense of it all?
Sloppingly yours,
Susan
- Sounds I'm Ruining My Hearing With:Pandora: Harappa by E.S. Posthumus
Because right now? That motivation would be really, really helpful in figuring out what the heck 60,000 words of mess are trying to say. See, I don't know where to go next in my story. There's an adage that says we write our books to figure out the questions that niggle us. So what is the question that niggles at me? Is it America's archaic views on sex? Is it teenage girls' naive view on relationships? Is it more of an everyman question, the one where we wonder how much do we need to be pushed before we would never, ever do something that we end up doing? (But I have a feeling that's more of a plot/climax question.)
What oh what do I want this story to be?
Oh, humidity, how you have foiled me!
Pissedly yours,
Susan
[Insert swear here.]
And so I have the questions asked, but not all the answers. Not even close to all the answers. Because, truly, there are a lot I don't know how to answer. Sure, I could put something down, but I'd feel like I'm throwing a dart at a dartboard while blindfolded and bouncing on a pogo stick.
So I figured I'm going to fill out what I feel adamant about and then fill out the rest as I come to it in the story. It will be sort of like homework at the end of each day's "getting down the draft." A sort of review, if you will. Because I don't know about you, but unless I'm writing a book with one character, a la Castaway, I don't do a good job remembering each character's exact psychological make-up.
And as I work on character sheets, I'm also polishing up my synopsis/3-act structure. And I'm thinking, "Do I want to start My Precious here, or do I want to start My Precious there?"
And I think I just figured it out. There. Definitely There.
Ponderingly yours,
Susan
- Feeling Currently Runnething Over:
bitchy
(That's right. My husband is an engineer [the Internet kind]. And surprisingly, the majority of my writer friends are married to engineers. Interesting how these two types of brains find each other, huh?)
Back to our story. So we're in the car and hubby asks how The Freakin' Hard Book is going.
"Freakin' hard," I sigh, with just the slightest tinge of defensiveness.
"There has to be a better way to write a book."
"I wish I knew." The defensiveness was gone, replaced with regret over the 80,000+ pages I've thrown away with this project.
"At work, we use flow charts..." He went on to talk about charts and diagrams. Maybe possibly Excel. My stomach cramped with the abhorrence of it all.
"Don't stifle my creativity, Bub." The defensiveness was back.
But then we really started talking. About how much work has to be done before a programmar "lays the bricks" for a program. About how if one sort of pre-planning was done, it would shave off hours from having to fix a mistake during the "brick laying" phase. And how if another sort of pre-planning was done, it would shave off days. Weeks even.
And that's how this talk became a bit of a breakthrough for me. See, I always felt that if I spent too much time creating a three-inch-thick binder of prewriting, I would never write the book (I've seen that happen to others).
But that's been the root of my problem--I didn't do enough pre-planning/pre-writing/thinking out the problems before laying down the bricks. And when it was time to "lay the bricks," I had a tree root cracking my foundation, a nest of termites eating half of my wood beams, and a flood on the horizon that would demolish the entire house because I hadn't first found out that my house was in a flood plane.
And so I've brushed aside the guilt of "too much" pre-writing. I am doing 10-page-long character sheets for each character that are in my book for longer than a chapter (there are nine such characters). I am rewriting the synopsis after that using 1) The Writer's Journey AND 2) The Three-Act Structure. I am creating timelines: the basic temporal timeline, the state of being timeline (what are these characters at in terms of emotional well-being), the romantic timeline, even the "what mood do I want my reader to be feeling right now" timeline. Even a "20 reasons why what cannot happen at the end cannot happen" and "20 reasons why what cannot happen at the end will happen."
And so I'm not writing at the moment. I am, instead, finally giving myself the leeway to pre-write, and pre-write well. Because I'm sick of building a house that the Big Bad Wolf can blow down.
And you?
Pre-writingly yours,
Susan
- Feeling Currently Runnething Over:
hopeful
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susancolebank- susancolebank
I get frustrated from writing. I get exhilarated from writing. I get inspired from writing. This blog details those feelings, with maybe the occasional cat-puke vent every now and again. And on Tuesdays, someone special will be here. Question is, is your definition of special the same as mine?
Books I've written and am awaiting Lifetime to call me about to option: BLACK TUESDAY (Dutton, 6/07) and CASHING IN (Dutton, 11/09).
You can also find me over here, talking about books (and as we know, books are a fantabulous, splendiferous thing:
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