Flogging the Quill

Process: goals, write every day, etc.

If you've read as many books on writing as I have, or even half as many, you've come across all kinds of advice about the process. Some common ones:

• Outline your story.
• Write every day.
• Have a page or word-count goal.
• Have a specific place to write.
• Write character biographies.

But do you have to do those things in order to successfully write a novel? Even more, is it possible that, for certain types of writers, those guides would be counter-productive?

I think so. The reason I think so is, however, pretty much me-centric. Below is how they work/don't work for me. I'm addressing these issues because writers ask about them, and many writers who are working hard to learn how to do this take the advice of "experts" seriously. But writing is so idiosyncratic that one author's aid can be another's handcuffs.

Outline your story.

Not me. I'm an "organic" writer. A "strapper," pulling my story up by its bootstraps. For this writer, outlining sucks the juice out of the mystery of what's going to happen that energizes my storytelling. If I already know what's going to happen, the joy of discovery is gone, and so is much of my motivation for doing the work.

Okay, I don't just shut my eyes and write. Before I begin writing a manuscript, I know how the story opens and how it ends. As for plot, that's about it. I will have 30 or 40 single-spaced pages of notes about scenes and events and characters, but no particular structure. Then I start with a character in action and see what happens. And, in the process of discovering what's going to happen, I also have the fun of finding out how it happens.

I know I'm not alone, thanks to a link I found on Paperback Writer to a post on Tess Gerritsen's blog. Scroll down to the entry for 8/11/2005.

Write every day.

Not me. Actually, I do write every day, but that's my day job. But not necessarily on the novel, although this depends on part what you mean by "write." I do think about the story every day, and sometimes make a note. That's writing. But there are times that time and/or energy just don't permit me to put words on a page. I've learned not to stress about that. It'll be there when I get to it.

Or not. Just this last week I'd written most of a dandy chapter in one character's point of view, and then switched to another's to finish it. But the second section just didn't feel right. Rather than sit and stare at it, I let it brew, coming back from time to time, rereading what I had, and asking the question -- what's not right, what's missing? I refused to try to force it. And, after a couple of days, it came to me. Growing out of character and what had happened in the past, the flesh missing from the story's bones at that point came in a flash and was easy to write. So, for me, and perhaps for you, maybe there's a time when it's good to not write.

Have a page or word-count goal.

I keep track of word count as a measure of progress and as a gauge of how far there is to go -- I target a length of 80,000 or so words. But for me, with the day job and other life exigencies, it would be a mistake to set an arbitrary production goal. I'd fail, and who needs to set up default failure? The result of my don't-sweat-it approach is a relief of pressure and a feeling of pleasure when I do manage to sit down and add 250 or 500 or 1,000 words. It's win-win for me, and I make steady progress. What does it matter if I write 700 words one week and 3,000 the next as long as the result is good storytelling?

Have a specific place to write.

I can see how this can work for people, but my primary place to write is in my head. And sometimes one physical place isn't comfortable or harmonious. Most of my writing is at my home computer in my home office. But sometimes it feels cramped and restrictive. So I go to a comfy rocker and work on my laptop. The change of location sometimes frees my thinking. Or maybe I'll do a little writing/thinking during the lunch hour at the office. I find that long drives are a great time for the headwork part of writing, and I keep a tape recorder handy to record thoughts. Although I'm really lousy at rewinding the tape and transcribing the notes. But, once said aloud, most of those thoughts stay with me.

Write character biographies.

You've seen the lists that call for a character's politics, religion, verbal tags, place of birth, and on and on. I can't do that. Or maybe it's that I won't. Whatever, I begin with a few notes on characters. Names are vital for me, and a part of characterization. The sound and look of a name give character. I'll know a little more -- what they look like, what they do for a living. And, most important, what their "ghost" is, the thing in their past that haunts them, that affects their behavior at a deep level. I discover character just as I discover plot. For this writer, facets of character are revealed by the story, and vice versa. What I need to know about a character comes to me as needed. True, sometimes I'll discover something about a character that requires backpedaling a little to seed it in the narrative, or a change in the story, but that works for me.

So rules and techniques that work for some writers are anathema for others. I say try them all and then go with what works for you. There is no "right," just write.

Drop me a note and add your thoughts -- maybe you do something that I need to try.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.

© 2005 Ray Rhamey

Avoiding disaster: a new "marketing" article by an author

For the second time, I've received an article by the author of a newly published book, sent by a publicity or marketing agent. The purpose is, of course, to promote a book, but I like receiving a window into another writer's process. I thought you might too, so here 'tis.

I scanned the excerpt at the link below and, while the writing was interesting and engaging enough, I still itched to tighten it just a tad. But that's the curse of an editor. There were some punctuational lapses, too, but that could be from inputting text into a web page. Just shows  how careful you need to be. See what you think. And now, meet Kris Saknussemm.

Five Tips to Avoiding Total Disaster as a Novelist from a Poor, Wretched Fool Who Had to Learn the Hard Way

by Kris Saknussemm, author of Zanesville: A Novel

The problem with should advice is that it's either something you already know, i.e. your diet should include more fruit and vegetables than cheeseburgers and martinis -- or it's something really difficult (like consuming more fruit and vegetables than cheeseburgers and martinis). So, based on my own stumbling, fumbling experience, I offer the following list of things I would strongly advise aspiring and despairing writers not to do. I doubt that simply by avoiding these pitfalls you will be guaranteed international fame and fortune, but I'm confident that you will at least escape many unnecessary frustrations and defeats, so that you can be fresh for the really poignant failures and setbacks that will either make or break you -- and with any luck will do a bit of both.

First Tip. Do not spend years gathering interesting material -- odd quotations, overheard remarks, colorful phrases, bits of trivia, weird statistics and obscure facts in the hope that you will one day find a story to contain them. I ended up with a literal warehouse of such stuff and I can tell you now with considerable confidence that the larvae of the human botfly bore into the skin and gorge themselves, emerging as centimeter long maggots, while a Joshua Hendy nine-thousand horsepower steam turbine delivers a cruising speed of 16 knots at 78 rpm. There is nothing wrong in knowing that if left underwater for years brass gives off a bright verdigris stain or that the first Birds of Paradise shipped back to Europe had their legs chopped off to facilitate packing, but the collection of details is like any acquisitive habit -- potentially obsessive. You can end up with a novel that reads like the Gospel according to St. Matthew translated into the Duke of York Island language and a response from the publishing industry reminiscent of a deserted poolroom on the shore of Sheepshead Bay. Put bluntly, burn your notebooks and clear your head.

Tip #2. Do not spend years experimenting with different forms of writing and various intellectual follies such as cut-ups and verbal collages, intricate multiple person narratives, dream stories, recipe books, anatomies, imaginary academic theses and the like. Yes, it's true that some of the world's most interesting literature has elements of these forms -- but that was then and this is different. If you are serious about getting a work of fiction published today you need quick sharp answers to the following questions. In what section of a bookstore or retailer's website will your book be found? Which authors can your work be likened to? In three sentences or less what's your novel about?

Tip #3. The Puritans believed in covering the body for modesty's sake. Yet they developed a sexualized fascination for the ears of women and the noses of men. My point? (See Tip #1) In apparent restriction there is unexpected release. Dickens created over 800 individual characters and laid down some of the most intense cultural satire in English -- but his writing really came into focus when Wilkie Collins hipped him to the detective story. I struggled for years trying to find a form for my writing, flitting around like a Ulysses butterfly. The moment I gave myself permission to write an action/adventure story, things started falling into place. Modern art has provided artists with unparalleled and some might argue paralyzing freedom. Don't waste time trying to create a new form. It's given to very few people in any medium to do that -- and many of their achievements end up looking like legless Birds of Paradise later. A seemingly simple repetitive musical style like the Blues has proven capable of expressing the full spectrum of human experience and has inspired countless variations and mutations. Give yourself over to an established structure and follow its guidelines, and suddenly interesting points will emerge to surprise you.

Tip #4. Read your work aloud, to some willing victim ideally, but at least to yourself. Storytelling began as an oral form and the ear (however erotically appealing) has a trueness to it that will reveal what's working and what's not in a more immediate and decisive way than simply scanning the page. This discipline will also slow you down psychologically and bring you into more intimate contact with your story. In the end, it will take no more time than reading back a page silently.

Tip #5. Ignore all reasonable sounding advice like "write about what you know," "read as much as you can," or "try to write every day." If you need to hear this advice you are in the wrong game. But more importantly, reasonableness won't get the job done. One day in an ice-stricken back alley in Boston I saw a fat little Irishman beat the daylights out of four larger, stronger assailants. When it was over, and it was over astonishingly quickly, he brushed himself off and said simply, "I had to get unreasonable with 'em."

Unless you are willing to face the unreasonable in yourself -- unless you are willing to entertain some strange notions (and deal with them when they stick around) -- unless you are willing to get lost, confused and even terrified -- then what you're doing won't have any meaning. The famous device of conflict upon which all stories are supposed to hinge starts within the writer. You are all the characters in your dreams and so too with a novel. You can't put your creations into jeopardy or into embarrassing or miraculous situations without going there yourself, and that is not a sensible ambition for a grown person to have. As a writer who has made more mistakes than most, my goal above all else is to be very, very unreasonable.

Copyright © 2005 Kris Saknussemm

Kris Saknussemm grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area but has for a long time lived abroad, in the Pacific Islands and Australia. A painter and sculptor as well as a writer, his fiction and poetry have appeared in such publications as The Hudson Review, The Boston Review, The Antioch Review, New Letters and ZYZZYA.

Zanesville (Villard; October 2005; $14.95US/$21.00CAN; 0-8129-7416-6) is his first novel and the first in a series of books called The Lodemania Testament.  For more information, please visit these websites www.saknussemm.com or www.zanesvillethenovel.com.

For what it's worth.

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.  © 2005 Ray Rhamey

Chapter endings: do they have to cliffhang?

Bernita asked this:

"How about chapter endings? Must they always end with a cliff-hanging, hyperventilating, page turning, stomach churning, my-God-I-ripped-the-pages-trying-to-find-what-
comes-next? I just realized my ms is structured chronologically and some chapters seem to end naturally with everyone going to sleep at the end of a day, and I'm looking for excuses to leave it as it is."

Darned good question, Bernita, and super-sized thanks for responding to my appeal for questions.

I know what you're facing. The story is moving along. A chapter seems solid, it advances the plot or characterizes or both. It feels good. But your mental knuckles aren't clenched at the end. Is that a problem?

Agent Cherry Weiner once took a look at a period mystery of mine. Her rejection letter told me that "the characters were good and the story was interesting. But I could put it down."

From all I've read and heard, that's what both agents and acquisition editors are looking for -- something they don't want to put down. How hard is that to do, if the story is interesting and the characters good?

I know I haven't answered the original question yet, but context is important. An agent has requested a manuscript based on a query letter, so it's sorta screened (a great query letter does not always lead directly to a great read). She's received hundreds of submissions, many of which are interesting or have good characters. The brain cells the woman uses to evaluate fiction have calluses. What do you think it's going to take to create a story she doesn't want to stop reading?

And she knows something you don't -- the fiction market with acquisition editors right now is so tight and so tough that many editors are turning more and more to nonfiction just to find something they feel they can recommend for publication. Your novel has to be something that keeps these equally jaded readers from setting the manuscript aside.

Keep in mind that this blog is about "compelling" storytelling. I think that to succeed with fiction in today's market that every chapter must compel the reader to turn the page because they gotta know what happens. Heck, in the opening chapter, I think every page has to do that.

Does this necessarily mean that every chapter must " always end with a cliff-hanging, hyperventilating, page turning, stomach churning, my-God-I-ripped-the-pages-trying-to-find-what-comes-next?"

What every story must do, whether at chapter beginning, middle, or end, is raise story questions that are so provocative, so engaging, so rife with intrigue, that the reader is compelled to keep reading. When I reread the novel that Cherry Weiner rejected, I came to places where I felt I could put it down. She was right. I sent it to my current agent a few months ago and, even though he loves the two novels he's currently representing for me, he can't seem to finish reading this one. I haven't spent the time to figure out how to fix it yet, but that's the tough truth.

But story questions can be cumulative; they can add up to create an overriding level of tension in the reader. It's that level of tension that carries readers through exposition and description. And I think it can effect the reader's take on a fairly benign chapter.

I hope so, because that's what's going on in my work in progress. One protagonist has just escaped torture and death at the hands of a not-so-ethical Homeland Security agent. The reader knows that he will continue to be pursued. He can't return to his life to care for his autistic son. He's lost his job. He's on the run. The reader also knows much more about the character that makes her want him to be okay.

The reader also knows that the man who helped our hero escape has a nefarious use for him that will lead to the deaths of many people. In this context, the protagonist reaches a safe haven with his rescuer. He is cared for and, even more fun, is seduced by a beautiful, provocative young woman. The chapter ends in the midst of their love-making.

So the chapter doesn't literally end with a cliff-hanger, but I feel that the story questions in the reader's mind are so powerful by now that putting those questions on hold for this moment of peace actually increases the tension in the reader because she knows that trouble is coming, bigtime.

And therein lies the best answer I have for Bernita's question. It may be fine for a chapter to end without people dangling over the edge of a precipice if the reader knows that terrible trouble is inevitable and coming on strong. In that case, surely the tension is increased. But I think this technique must be used with care.

The non-cliffhanger chapter must still be riveting in its own way, with unanticipated twists and turns that keep the story questions coming. And I don't think you can defer getting back to the white-knuckle part for too long, else the reader will become frustrated.

In some texts on screenwriting it's suggested that, if act one ends on a negative (for the protagonist) note, then act two should end positively. It is the contrast that helps create tension. Stories must have rising tension, but along the way there should be brief respites. Without valleys, there are no peaks. Something to keep in mind.

However, all that said, I'm going to work darned hard to make sure that every chapter I write (and edit) does end with a clear sense of compelling tension.

Bernita, I think you owe it to all the work you've done on your novel to step back, take a hard look, and use your talent as a storyteller to make sure the tension crackles throughout the narrative. I'll bet you can end those going-to-sleep chapters with tension quivering. If it's difficult for you to see where the narrative needs injections of pressure, I suggest you find informed, story-smart fresh eyes to help you see. We all need fresh eyes to make judgments about tension and story questions because we just can't totally trust our own. We know too much, and we love our stories too much, to see the saggy places.

For what it's worth. Any more questions out there? Discussion?

Ray

Free edit in exchange for posting permission. You send a sample that you have questions about and of which you'd like an edit. I won't post it without your permission.

© 2005 Ray Rhamey