Year: 2020

And here we are once again. Or maybe we never left. Maybe we’ve been here all along, obsessively reading news articles and checking on friends in hotspots.

No? Just me? Really?

I find that hard to believe…

Anyway, it’s back to the A2Q, this rambly, sprawling series about how to write a book from bare-bones idea to finished manuscript. And it’s the day you’ve all been waiting for. We’re going to start writing. Finally! I mean, this is what the whole A2Q thing was supposed to be about, right? Writing a book. And yet, for some reason, we’re not getting to “writing the book” until part eight. EIGHT? What the freakin’ hell?

Hang on, though.

There’s a reason we took the long path. Well, I took the long path and just sort of led you along with little bread crumbs and Reece’s Pieces and maybe shots of whiskeys. Trust me, I lured you out this way for a reason.

Remember how I compared outlining to road trips? We can make a very loose, bare-bones plan or we can map out the whole thing and schedule every stop along the way. There’s plusses and minuses to both of these, but for the moment I want to flip this idea a bit and compare it to something else.

Have you ever needed to go somewhere you’ve never been before? Not wanted to go—needed to go? Maybe a doctor’s office or a job interview or a bar where that person is waiting for you and you really want to be there and make a good impression? And that place is… six or seven miles away? Maybe ten? Google gives two or three routes and it doesn’t seem quite sure where you’re going but you’ve memorized the names of a couple cross streets and maybe two stores that are supposedly nearby.

What’s that drive usually like? Overly-focused? Watching the clock a lot? Maybe a bit nerve-wracking because you thought you left early enough but you still haven’t found it and you’re watching the clock tick closer and closer to the time you’re supposed to be there and now you’re doing mental calculations about how far you think you’ve still got to go and find parking and… look, you know this feeling, right?

Compare that to the last time you drove to your significant other’s place. Or the grocery store. Or the mall. Did you think about street names? Did you even notice any of the stores along the way. No, of course not. It was familiar and easy and you barely thought about it at all. You just did it.

That’s why we’ve been talking about all this stuff up front. So you’ll have the characters and the setting and the plot and the story solidly in your mind. Heck, maybe you’ve got some bare-bones thoughts about theme. And because we talked about outlines and you moved things around a bit on paper—or even just in your head—you’ve got an idea how all these things fit together. Most importantly, you know what happens next. You’ve got an endpoint you’re aiming for, which means you can always keep going.

So, let’s get writing.

No, seriously. That’s it. Dive in. You’ve got the story in your head, so start writing.

Okay, fine. Here’s some more advice. Just because I like you.

First, dump any idea you have about art. Throw out all those books. Don’t even mention your muse. We’re not making excuses, we’re writing. The only way this happens is you pick up a pen or sit down at the keyboard. That’s the biggest thing. You just need  to do it.

Second, think of this a lot like NaNoWriMo, just without the time limit. If it takes you six weeks or three months or half a year to do this… so what? You work at your own pace. You’ve probably got other stuff going on in your life and sweet jeebus there’s a lot going on in the world. Right now you’re under no time limit and nobody’s expecting anything from you.

More importantly, just like NaNoWriMo, absolutely nobody’s going to see this. Seriously. It’s a first draft. It’s going to be messy, you’re going to change a bunch of stuff as you go, and it’s definitely going to need editing. So much editing. Don’t worry, we’ll be getting to that point soon enough.

If it makes this easier, I forbid you to show it to anyone. Just like that. Forbidden. It’s going to be awkward to explain to your friends, I know, but it’s a little bit of a relief, too, isn’t it? Now you don’t have to worry about it being perfect. You can just put a bunch of words down on the page. And then do it again the next day. And the day after that. Are they all the right words? Probably not. Good thing you’ve been forbidden from showing it to anybody.

Third, don’t judge your process off anybody else’s. Some people can do a first draft in weeks, some need a few months, but like I just said up above—none of them are you moving at your speed. Don’t worry that he turns out great first drafts or that she claims she doesn’t even do drafts(that’s usually a bit misleading anyway). This is your book. It’s just about you. I absolutely, hand-on-my-copy-of-On Writing swear your editor or readers will not care in the slightest how long you did or didn’t spend on this. Unless I tell them I wrote my six-hundred page masterpiece in a week, in which case… they’re going to go into it a little leery.

Fourth, because it bears repeating, please remember nobody’s going to see this. You can’t disappoint anyone. No one will know about those typos. That big plot hole is going to go unseen. You can’t even disappoint yourself. It’s all my fault. I forbade you from showing anyone, remember?

So for now, forward motion. Just get it done. We’ll clean up that other stuff next time. Honest.

I’ve got nothing to back it up past my own gut, but I think readers can tell when the writer is bored. If I’m not enjoying writing it, they’re not going to enjoy reading it. My lack of energy for a character or a point of view or a sequence is going to be clear. Again, just my opinion, no hard research behind it, and there are always exceptions to the rule. But I really think it’s true.

So for now, just write. You’ve got the story in your head. Put it on the page “good enough” for now, we’ll make it better later.

That’s a rough, first-draft, off-the-top-of-my-head page and a half. It’s not great, I’m probably going to tweak the dialogue, and I already have some thoughts on word-choice. But the point was just to get it out.

I’m a big fan of exploring and learning stuff in a first draft. But I think a lot of people get caught up because they don’t have a good sense of their characters or the world, and they don’t know where they’re going. They’ve got too much to explore, and so a lot of their first draft gets eaten up dealing with… well, all that stuff we’ve been  going over for the past few weeks.

But when you’ve got enough of it in your head, you can just go.

Will it be perfect? Definitely not. But that’s okay, because we’re just doing a first draft.

So get to it.

Next time… should I keep going with the A2Q? Or should we take a break and I could talk about something else for a bit? Let me know what you’re thinking.

Until then… go write.

Write like nobody’s going to see it.

Random post with some thoughts. So very sorry about the title, but it was too perfect not to use.

A friend of mine got in touch lately. Should I say friend? Someone I talk to fairly regularly and have met in person? I don’t want to put too much pressure on anyone… Anyway, she got in touch because she and a few other writers she knows have hit a problem with their stories. Essentially, they’ve all become a little too on the nose. Possibly even questionable.

There are folks right now who are in the middle of books and stories about pandemics. I don’t mean they’re rushing them out, trying to take advantage of current events. They’d been working on their stories for months and suddenly there it is on the news, getting shoved in their faces every time they go online. And there are folks writing stories about deadly genetically-engineered monsters coming out of China, maybe even specifically out of Wuhan. There’s somebody writing a story about health care professionals dying as they try to save patients and probably a few somebody elses writing about corrupt politicians who ignore a threat as they try to consolidate power and enrich themselves.

These aren’t specific from the writing group, by the way. This is just me riffing on things based off the general problem. But you get the idea, don’t you? Sometimes the world conspires to dump a ton of extra baggage on your story, and now people are going to look at it–and maybe you–with a much  more critical eye.

Here’s a 100% true story that’ll help get it across.

As some of you know, I used to work in the film industry, and about twenty years ago I was working on a SciFi Channel show called The Chronicle. It was about the reporters at a tabloid newspaper that actually printed true stories about vampire Elvis impersonators, alien diplomats, demonically-possessed ovens, and so on. One episode we did was about a very low-level telekinetic who wants to be a superhero, so he stages crimes and accidents across Manhattan that he’ll be able to stop with his meager powers. His big one that our heroes rush to stop is he’s planted a bomb in a New York skyscraper, and they have to stop him and also stop the bomb before it blows up the building.

I’ll always remember this episode ’cause we finished filming it on September 10th, 2001.

Dead serious.

Look… the world sucks right now. It’s sucked for a couple of years, but the past month has thrown everything sideways. And it sucks even more if it’s spilling into your writing. This should be our chance to escape a bit, as writers and readers, and suddenly we’re finding out that the thing we’ve been working on for weeks or months is… well, it’s very topical. Not in the good way. In the “people point at you and scream like body snatchers” way except they’re all just screaming “Too soon!” and “What is wrong with you?!” and “J’accuse!”

And let’s be honest. It’s tough to write now without imaginary people shouting at you. It’s so much easier to crawl into a bottle or a bag of Doritos or that little thatch roof cottage Tom Nook loaned you money for. I’m not going to lie—I’ve lost more than a few days recently just reading news articles and texting friends and building little toy soldiers because… well, you know. I’m sure a lot of you are there, too. So once you add in that extra pressure of an idea that’s suddenly super-topical (and may be for a while)…

So. What do we do? I’ve written what I thought was going to be a really cool/creepy/thought-provoking story about a super-virus sweeping across the world, and now I’m sitting here staring at the screen thinking “…am I the baddie?” Do I toss it? Do I keep going? Do I tone it down or change a couple key elements?

Okay… look, I wish I could reassure you and give you a solid answer. I think we’d all love some reassurance and solid answers these days. But the truth is, what I do when I find myself at a point like this is going to be a very personal choice. It’s going to depend on how confident I feel about my abilities. The parallels between my work and the real world events. Honestly grasping how people will view my work in light of those events. How much conflict I want to deal with. How much of my artistic vision I’m willing to compromise. And probably more things. This is just what came to me while I’m writing in a sort of train-of-thought manner.

In some ways, this is like dealing with any similar idea cropping up. It doesn’t matter if it’s another writer or, well, reality. The way I deal with something and talk about it is going to be unique to me. My story isn’t going to be like real life because it’s my story.

And I’m not so sure about changing things. I mean, if you’re honestly inspired to alter some aspects of your story, cool. But I think forcing a change is always going to feel… forced. Especially if I’m kind of doing it under duress. I wrote this story this way for a reason, and if I compromise that reason it’s going to show.

Ultimately, this all comes down to an art vs. business discussion. If I’m just writing for me, I shouldn’t worry about what’s going on in the world. I should just tell the story I want to tell. The story I, hopefully, needto tell. Don’t compromise, don’t bend at all, just be bold and brave and beautiful and let that story out into the world.

However… if my long-term (or maybe even short-term) goal is to sell this story, I may need to keep a few things in mind. Like I mentioned up above, there are those writers who leap on every trend and news event, so there’s a good chance the market will be glutted with pandemic stories in the next month or three. They may be rushed, they may be bad, they be self- or traditionally-published. One thing we can say for almost-certain is they’ll be there.

Also… geeez, am I an insensitive monster or what? People are dying from this. Right now. And—sad to say—there’s going to be a lot more dead people by the time I get my book out. Do I want to be rubbing it in people’s faces? Do I want to profit off their pain and suffering?

This one’s tough, and how I deal with it’s going to be personal, again. What I’d ask you to keep in mind is that people wrote war stories during pretty much every war fought at any time. They’ve written disaster stories during every natural disaster you can imagine. They’ve written AI stories during all three (failed) robot uprisings. People tell stories. Storytelling is art. Art reflects life.

But that reflection brings conflict. There are always people who want to comment on stories, and a topical story is going to get more comments than most. Some people don’t want to have current events pushed back at them, even in a fictionalized form. Some folks don’t want to be reminded of what they’ve lost. And, in all honesty and fairness, some publishers would prefer to avoid that conflict.

And I know nobody wants to hear this but… there’s a time issue, too. Maybe I’ll finish my story and just need to put it aside for a while. Things that are horrifying and taboo today will be mildly scandalous in a year and blasé two years after that. I mean, twenty years after WWII we were making sitcoms about Nazi prison camps. Actual sitcoms. That ran for years.

And that episode of The Chronicle I told you about? They put it on the air. Just five months after 9/11. My story might feel inappropriate now, but in a year or so… people might smile at the idea that I felt nervous about it.

We’re going to get through this. You’re going to get through it. And—if you want it to—your story’s going to get through this. So be true to it where you need to be, change it if you think it needs to change, and write the story you need to write.

Thursday I’m going to continue the A2Q and talk about first drafts.

Until then… go write.

And wash your damned hands.

Hey, everybody. Hope you’re all safe and, y’know, not bored out of your mind. Social distancing can be a pain, but it’s better for everyone in the long run.

Time for the A2Q again. Thanks for following along so far. At this point, we’ve talked about plot, story, characters, and setting. I want to go over one last thing before we dive in.

And that thing is theme.

Yeah, you just felt a chill, didn’t you? I think we all have a kinda instinctive revulsion to theme because of high school classes where it was sort of parroted out to us and not really explained. Or explained very poorly.

I’ll also be honest—I almost didn’t include theme in this little series or workshop or whatever we’re calling this. Theme is tough. It can be hard to grasp. It’s also one of those things that sometimes happens even if we’re not thinking about it. Likewise, some folks think about it too much and end up driving their story into the ground.

So… how to explain theme?

Okay, look at it this way. You know how I’ve talked about plot versus story? It’s a topic that’s come up here once or thrice before, and I’ve discussed both of them in earlier parts of the A2Q. Plot is outside your characters, story is inside.

Simply put, in the Venn diagram of plot vs story, theme is where they overlap. It’s the common bond between external and internal that ties things together in my manuscript. If you asked me what my story’s really about, my theme would be the answer that covers the most bases.

F’r example… some of you may have heard of Solomon Kane, an old Robert Howard character who’s been in books, comics, poems, and even a pretty solid live action movie—which is what I’ll talk about here. Kane’s a bloodthirsty pirate who finds out he’s actually damned to hell, repents, and ends up becoming a devout Puritan with a vow of pacifism. Problem is… he keeps finding himself in situations where the good guys really need somebody nightmarishly violent and ruthless on their side. So he has to go back to his old ways to try to stop assorted bandits, warlords, evil sorcerers, and even full-on demons.

So we can say the theme of Solomon Kane (the movie) is “fighting evil,” or maybe a better way to say it would be “fighting against the darkness.” Kane is constantly battling evil in the world, in all its many forms. But he’s also battling the evil within himself, trying to redeem himself and not fall back into old habits and attitudes.

Of course, it’s easy to identify themes in things that already exist. Trying to make them from scratch, to weave them into this story I’ve been planning… that’s a lot tougher. I mean, this is serious writing stuff now.

But it really isn’t. Honestly, I think one of the reasons we all kinda fear theme is because it’s been made into this sort of literary boogeyman—this thing that looms over the story , and also over the author. What themes is the writer trying to explore? Does this book have a simplistic, common theme? Should we discuss the novel’s theme? At length?

Deep breath. It’s not that bad. Really. In fact, it’s a lot easier than your sixth grade English teacher made it seem.

(yeah , that’s right Mrs. Goodell—I’m calling you out)

Here’s a couple things I think we should keep in mind while we’re talking about theme.

First, at this early stage, it’s okay to only have a general idea what my theme—or themes—are going to be in this book. It shouldn’t be too hard to come up with one or two. Just look at a lot of the elements we’ve been gathering up so far and see what the connections are between them.

In fact, doing this as an exercise can be kind of a test. Or maybe an early warning system. I might have a bunch of really cool elements, but if I can’t find any connections between any of them… well, that means I’ve got a bunch of unconnected elements. Which is, y’know, sort of the opposite of a book. So I might want to reconsider some things.

Second, I should be aware my manuscript might have multiple themes. Not a problem. I mentioned before that there may be multiple stories within my book, so it only stands to reason they’d all intersect the plot in slightly different places on that Venn diagram.

Look at Solomon Kane again. It has the theme of fighting against darkness, but there’s a good argument to be made that it also involves the theme of redemption. It’s an active plot element as Kane tries to make up for his past, and it’s also a story element as he realizes that A) he needs to redeem himself to save his soul and 2) his redemption may need to take a more aggressive form then normal. And that plot-story overlap is a theme, so… hey, there it is.

Third is kinda the flipside of that first one.  Again, just my opinion, but… don’t worry about theme too much right now. Definitely have it in mind. Don’t willfully ignore it. But also don’t stress over it. Just write your first draft. Worry about balancing the plot and story you want to write. When I put a lot of advance work into my theme, I run the risk of structuring things to the theme. The plot and story stop being neck and neck out front and the theme becomes the priority. Which is when my theme starts turning into more of a message. And messages can get awkward and heavy-handed really fast.

Again, just my personal opinion, your mileage may vary.

Once that first draft’s done, guess what? The manuscript exists now. And it’s easy to identify themes in things that already exist, remember? I can look back over my first draft and I’ll probably see a theme or three poking out.

Now, again, I don’t like to do too much beforehand, but… let’s look at our werewolf book.

I can probably guess survival is going to be a major theme in the book, or perhaps “what are we willing to do to survive.” After all our main character, Phoebe, hunts werewolves for a living. And her little sister Luna is a werewolf, a fact she’s trying to hide from Phoebe and their lodge on the off chance they, y’know, kill her. And there’s also survival in the larger sense, that both of them have been doing a lot of things to try to hold their lives together, as individuals and as a little family. And we’re probably going to find out that the lodge is thinking about what they’ll do to survive, too—in the sense of both humanity’s ongoing struggle against werewolves but also the lodge itself as an institution.

Phoebe and Luna are also both going to be dealing with the idea of family a lot. It’s a motivation for them and a regular thing they’re dealing with—something they’re acting on that’s also acting on them. There’s also this family legacy hanging over them, and the fact they the two of them are the broken remains of a family since their parents’ death.

Which leads me to one last possible theme. The idea of moving on with your life, of getting past things. Both of my main characters want their lives to progress—Luna wants to head off to college and Phoebe wants to get her own life back on track. As I’ve mentioned before, Phoebe’s struggling with a lot of repressed resentment, too. And they’re also going to need to get past a lot of the baggage and preconception their parents left them with if they’re going to deal with Luna’s ahem condition and how it affects both of them.

Again, though… I’m not going to worry about this too much up front. I’m just making the observations now for the A2Q. I’m probably going to worry more about plot and story on my first draft, and later I may come back, look at these early thoughts, and see how they may shape later drafts.

And if you want to think more about these things now, that’s cool, too. As I’ve often said, we all have our own way of working, and what works for me may not work for you. The important thing, for now, is just to be aware of it and have it in that pile of ingredients in your mind before we start cooking.

Speaking of which… it’s probably time we start arranging all these ingredients and get ready to start cooking. So that’s what we’ll do next time. Yeah, next time—let’s just go straight to the next part of the A2Q (unless somebody has serious objections and wants to see something else first)