Commitment (or: How I Got Published, Part 3)

Note: this post presumes general knowledge of discovery writing vs. outlining, but for those who aren’t familiar, here’s a brief explanation: discovery writers (aka “gardeners”) write without the structure of an outline or any ending in mind, letting the story/characters develop organically and dictate what they write next. Outline writers (aka “architects”), obviously, use an outline, and plan their story (and, usually, characters) from beginning to end before they begin writing the prose. Keep in mind that this is a sliding scale, and writers can (and usually do) fall anywhere between those two extremes. For more info just google “discovery writers vs. outliners” or “architects vs. gardeners” and you’ll learn a lot more.

After my post last week about desire, let’s follow things through to the next logical progression: beginning a novel.

I’ll be honest with you: at least for me, *beginning* to write a novel is a pretty easy process. Ideas are a cheap commodity in this business—I have an evernote folder with literally hundreds of ideas for stories, novels, plot points, characters, etc., and I’m constantly adding to it.* Writing those ideas out—turning the flint and tinder and smoke into a candle flame (or a bonfire, or a MASSIVE EXPLOSION [why not follow through with that metaphor?])—is the real work.**

That’s why beginning with any given idea is so easy for me—the idea’s already there, or at least some inkling of it. Unfortunately, this is also the reason why many beginning writers (myself included) make the following mistake: we write the first few chapters, but then get distracted(by a new character or concept that comes up)/bored(by where the idea ends up going at first)/frustrated(by where the story should or is going from that point)/or otherwise disillusioned by the catalyzing idea, scrap the whole thing, and move on to another project that strikes our fancy. That, generally, is the problem that discovery writers face when they want to begin a project: they love to start projects because the idea is what drives them, but often have trouble finishing things because they get distracted/bored/frustrated. They’re stuck writing infinite first drafts.

Outliners aren’t exactly immune to this sort of malady, however—it just affects them in a different way. Outliners, predictably, tend to get stuck in the outlining phase of projects (a phenomenon known as “worldbuilder’s disease” in many writing circles). Their outline grows and grows and grows, they create character ID sheets and maps and histories and magic systems and plot twists and turns, but never actually begin writing.

I’m a discovery writer, and as I mentioned in my previous HIGP post, I’ve started many different novels. At least a dozen were intended to be actual novels, but if you expand that number to include short stories, novelettes, etc., it triples—at least (and that’s a pretty mild manifestation of this problem, based on some conversations with writers I’ve had). But I’ve also seen the worldbuilder’s disease side of things.

The first draft of Duskfall began as a project for a class I took from Brandon Sanderson. It was not the first novel I’d begun writing; I’d say it was maybe my sixth or seventh. I wrote about 20K words of that draft, but then stopped working on it when the class ended. When I graduated and didn’t get into any MFA programs, I suddenly had time on my hands and chose to return to Duskfall, but I knew immediately that it had too many issues to continue writing without major, major revisions. So I decided to scrap all I’d written, and do some worldbuilding first. I created some magic systems. And some governments. And some religions. And wrote some history. And created lots and lots of characters. And, before I knew it, six months had gone by and I hadn’t actually written anything in the novel—I hadn’t even begun it. I realized at that point that I had a problem, and resolved to sit down and just plow through Duskfall, come what may.

That, it turns out, was the most important decision I made. I’d done a good share of worldbuilding and I’d already written a beginning to the novel, but when I sat down to start Duskfall anew, I had to commit. And now, for me, that’s what beginning a novel means: it’s a commitment. I need to make that clear to myself when I begin any project, because if I don’t, the temptation to jump to something else or get stuck worldbuilding is too strong for me to handle!***

So if you’re a discovery writer stuck continually writing first drafts of first chapters, commit to finishing a project. Hold yourself responsible to that idea. Follow through with it, and don’t allow yourself to jump ship to the first fancy idea that comes along. Your first chapters do not have to be good. More often than not, I make serious changes to my first chapters when I revise, if I decide to keep them at all. Just get through them, and then get through the middle, and then get through the end. Trust me, it’s worth it. And if you’re an outliner, let go of the worldbuilding. Some of it is necessary, of course. But at a certain point you, too, have got to commit. Make your outline and stick to it (Or don’t for all I care, I’m a discovery writer! But at least keep writing forward.), and just start writing!

Trust me, it’s worth it. I mean, it’s fun to worldbuild, and it’s fun to pursue all the pretty ideas racing through my head, but there’s not a lot of fulfillment there. Finishing a novel, though—that’s something. And that’s what I’ll talk about next week.

* Only slightly depressing is the fact that I will never get even close to fleshing out every single one of these ideas in my lifetime. It would be impossible in the most literal sense of the word. But I mean it with the “slightly.” Having too many ideas is a pretty nice problem to have as a writer. Way better than not having enough time to write, for example.

** Incidentally, this is why most writers scoff when people say “hey I’ve got a great idea, you should totally write a book about it and give me x amount of the profits!” Ideas really are cheap. If you have a phenomenal idea that you just can’t wait to share with the world, good for you! Go write it yourself and you’ll find out what I mean when I say that writing the thing is the real work.

*** For the recored, I’m still not perfect at this. But these days, if I set aside a project I’ve already begun but haven’t finished, it’s most likely because there’s some other more important project calling my name (in terms of agents/publishers/monies), and I usually have every intention of returning to said left-behind projects in the near future.

Outlining and Story Structure

I'm a discovery writer, aka gardener, meaning I generally don't do a lot of outlining before I jump into writing.  I prefer to start with a situation and some characters, and then see where things go from there.

But that doesn't mean that outlining has no place in my writing process.

In my current project, for example (my novel [very] tentatively titled Before the Dark), I've already discovery written the first draft.  I didn't have an outline when I wrote it.  I had a vague idea of where I wanted things to end up, but even those ideas were blown out of the water by what actually ended up happening pretty organically.  But, now that I'm tackling the revisions and trying to produce a coherent second draft, I'm running into some difficulties.  Most of those difficulties are of an organizational nature.

So, I've turned to outlining after-the-fact.

This may seem completely backwards to many of you (and for many of you, it probably is--writing is relative, after all), but for me this technique often solves many of those organizational issues.  Getting my ideas out there, in the first draft, is often the easy part compared to organizing them into some sort of recognizable story in the second draft.  The same was true for me when writing academic papers as well, and I used this outlining technique often when I was in school, for research papers and short stories and even with some of my essays.

I was actually pretty resistant to using this technique this time around, though.  And, now that I think about it, I usually whine a bit or put up some sort of pathetic, pouty fight before succumbing to the idea.  A part of me still wants to believe in the purity of the muse, I think, and keep that dream alive.  But the pragmatist in me knows how silly that is, and knows how much more important hard work and tenacity are than what little inspiration my muse has ever really given me.

I'll admit, I've never outlined anything remotely this large before (my novel currently sits at 190k words).  I had to approach it a few different ways before I finally found a method that worked for me.  But when I finally found a method that worked, things really took off.

I'd heard the folks over at Writing Excuses* mention a 7-point outline before, but hadn't put much stock into it because, hey, I'm a discovery writer and should despise outlines by nature, right?  Wrong.  At least I was.  So I realized my transgression, repented, and took the 7-point story structure idea for a spin.

I've been very pleasantly surprised by the results.

A bit about the structure itself:  Dan Wells is the one who has sort of commercialized the form, it seems (although he admits he stole the idea from a role playing game manual ... O.o).  He has a brief explanation and a link to a great power point presentation here, and I'll also post the first video in a youtube series, in which he presents said outline, below.   All in all it's great stuff, but here's the basic structure of the outline:

1. Hook - where things begin (usually the polar opposite of the Resolution)
2. Plot Turn 1 - introduce conflict
3. Pinch 1 - something goes wrong, bad guys attack, general peace is destroyed
4. Midpoint - where character decided to start ACTing instead of REACTing
5. Pinch 2 - apply more pressure:  a plan fails, mentor dies, bad guys seem to win, etc.
6. Plot Turn 2 - the "final piece to the puzzle" of the character's struggle
7. Resolution - where things are, well, resolved--it's what the story has been working towards the whole time!

I won't go into a lot of detail because Mr. Wells explains things much better than I could (check out the links if you want more info!  Seriously!).  It's pretty elementary stuff, and honestly it seemed a bit too rudimentary for me, to begin with (I don't know why I thought that, other than my own stupid pride).  But as I applied it to my story, things sort of just fell into place.

Of course, my whole novel doesn't boil down to one simple 7-point outline.  Each of my main characters actually has one 7-point outline to themselves, and some characters even have more than one outline addressing various conflicts.  So even though the form itself seems simple, things can get complicated pretty fast, which was good considering Before the Dark is much more complicated than I ever intended it to be.

The good news is that I'm pretty much finished with the outlining process at this point, and I feel pretty good about it.  I already feel much more direction and purpose regarding my revisions.  I'm excited to get back into the swing of things and make this thing into a real, cohesive novel.

I'm also a full advocate of the 7-point story structure form, now, which is something I never thought I'd be.  But there you go.  Something new every day!

*  A phenomenal podcast about writing.  If you're at all interested in the craft, you should check out a few episodes.

Here Endeth the Hiatus

I won't gush about how its been SOOO long since the last time I posted, nor will I make any promises about when I'll post again next.  I think it's safe to say that there is hardly anything safe to say when it comes to that sort of thing.

All that being said, here is a list of what's been keeping me busy this summer:

• Graduate Thesis, or, more accurately, my "Thesis Proposal" for what will one day be a collection of short stories.  Or so I'm told.  Or so I keep telling myself, anyway.
• Going to Hawaii.  Mostly Kauai, to be specific, which happens to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.  And also Oahu.
• My wife's sister getting married in LA.
• My sister getting married in Alaska.
• Family Reunions...ish...es.
• Reading books.  Unfortunately, not as many as I would like.  I've read about 25ish books this year--woefully short of my goal (around 60).
• Getting ready for Renovation--my first Worldcon, which I'm pretty excited about.
• Starcraft II.  For the swarm, indeed.
• Watching Alias.
• Getting a new computer.  (Which I'm hoping will up my productivity--or, again, so I keep telling myself.)
• Teaching freshmans how to write good.

So there you have it.  Will I post again in the near future?  Only time will tell.  I may talk about my first year of grad school.  I may talk about how my writing is going.  I may talk about Zerg strategies in SC2.  I may even talk about ballroom dancing.  Until then--keep it real, and keep it simple.  Keep it real simple.

on beginnings, and my own personal NaNoWriMo

So I'm back to work on my YA (young adult) novel--a project I started briefly in April on a whim, and then set it aside, as most of my time and energy was going into finishing The Rising.  I wanted to flesh the idea out enough that I wouldn't forget it, but put it aside to resume work on TR.

Things are going well.  I already had about 2.5k words done, and now I'm working on pushing that up, slow and steady.  At my high points while working on TR, I was writing 4-5k words/day.  I would love to get back into a groove like that with this YA project (as yet untitled), but I've forgotten one thing . . .

How FREAKING HARD BEGINNINGS ARE.

For the most part, I'm a discovery writer.  That means that, although I'll do some world-building and some very vague and sparse outlining, I really just start with an idea and run with it.  I generally have an idea of where I want things to end up, but more often than not that idea gets blown out of the water by other, bigger, better ideas as I'm writing.  Its a very organic process, and I love it.  But it also makes beginnings very difficult.  I can write a first chapter, no problem, but then I am strongly tempted to go back and revise that chapter, change it, make it better, or whatever.  Sometimes I even completely re-write the first chapter(s).  And then go back again and revise, change it, make it better, whatever.  And then rewrite them again . . .

It can be a very tedious and, more importantly, a futile process.  It doesn't get me anywhere.

So my biggest challenge in starting a new project is to just keep going.  I can't allow myself to go back and worry about whatever crap (and, for the most part, it is usually crap) that I write in the beginning.  I just have to persist and push myself forward until I start getting to the really good stuff (or, at least, the better-than-crap stuff).

Then, when I finish the whole project, I go back and start revisions.  (Anything [almost] can be fixed in post.)

Of course, I could dedicate an entire blog-post to my writing process and quirks--and perhaps I will--but right now I won't.  I just want to let everyone know that I am working on a new novel, and so far its going well.  I'm really excited about the crisis I have to start the thing out, and then, well . . . we'll see where it goes from there.

Also, in order to motivate me to press forward in the process and not worry too much about what I've already done (and, probably, screwed up), I'm declaring the month of July my own personal NaNoWriMo.  NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month.  Its a challenge and/or contest held in November, where writers all over the US attempt to write (the first draft of) an entire novel in one month (here's the official website).  50,000 words is the general word count consensus, which aligns quite nicely with the word count goal I have for my YA project.

So . . . I'm taking the challenge!  50,000 words in a month!

Think I can do it?  Thats quite a few words to write in one month, if you aren't aware.  About 1.6k words/day (although I'm planning on writing only 5-6 days a week, so it closer to 2k/day for me).  Nothing I can't do, as I've demonstrated with TR, but I just have to get into the groove.

So here goes NaNoWriMo, July edition.  Wish me luck.