Novel Struggles

Desire More for Your Characters

Desiring to write a novel is not enough. Your characters need to have a deep desire -- and their quest for this desire should fuel the plot of your book. Robert Olen Butler calls this "Deep Yearning." (More on this later.)

I just came across a great post with a good exercise to help us all discover our character's deep desires. It's at The Lost Saga: An Aspiring Writer's Journey.

What does my character desire? Some of my brownies! I think I need to work on this a little more. What does your character desire?

How to be a Plotter and a Pantser at the Same Time

Plotters plod along writing their books until they get to type "The End." Can you tell just how jealous I am here? Trouble is, for me, being a Plotter would be a plodding experience -- I write to find out what happens next. If I already know, there's no excitement in my writing (or my life). If I already know the ending, it's hard to keep  writing.

But isn't it always hard to keep writing?

Actually, Plotters know what's coming and if that's their nature, that's the right way for them to write. And when I said they "plod along," that was out of jealousy. I promise. Plodding along would be a very speedy pace for me and my writing right now. Plodding is much, much faster than going backwards, or nowhere. So, to all my Plotting friends, I envy your map. And your dizzying progress!

Rebecca at The Writer's Round-About is doing a great series on this very thing and the pitfalls of each approach. She calls them something different, but she's from Australia so what would you expect? And since she's a plotter, it's all organized and tidy and in six parts.

Since I'm a Pantser, no telling when I'll decide to write about this subject. Right now I'm trying to get some vague ideas going about my novel, because I'm going to start writing it on, let's see, let me pick a date here. How about October 15 for a random number?

I'm going to Pantser it, which means I will take to drink and probably eat a lot of brownies. (Actually, I don't drink because it makes my heart race and is NO FUN at all. Used to be my hobby, too. And you know what? I don't miss it a bit and spend the money on roses for me since the idea would never, ever occur to my husband, though he has bought me rose bushes so I can grow my own.) But I do eat brownies. They help in the encounters with the deep darkness inside where my best writing comes from. It is a most scary place in there. Sometimes I don't even have a flashlight.

There are two sources of fear when you're a Pantser: one is the fear of what you'll find coming from that place where you dream, and the other is the fear that you won't find anything. You might call this a no-win situation. I call it writing a novel and why I experience novel struggles.

But here is why I think it is valid: We all dream. Our minds can create amazing dreams. These same powers of creativity in us can dream a novel. I want to write from there, and I've found a teacher who reinforced this idea, although I was never his student.

I heard Robert Olen Butler speak once (I'll be talking more about one of his books soon). He didn't want to tell us this, but we forced him suggest how to get organized as if we were plotters without killing the dream. Here are the notes I took from his answer to that question. It's essentially his suggestion for how to write from the place where you dream and still have some structure (a life raft) to cling to. I call it How to be a Plotter and a Pantser at the Same Time.

• Come to your work FIRST THING in the morning. Do not skip a day as you could lose the dream.
• Before starting your novel or short story (your dream will dictate which), spend eight-12 weeks watching your characters in different scenes. Write six-to-eight word descriptions of what you see, but don't break out of the dream.
• Write these descriptions on note cards. Keep the ones that feel authentic.
• While in your early morning dream state (when you work), order these cards to come up with the order of the scenes in your book.
• Take the first card and start writing.

The cards can be re-ordered, added to, subtracted from or ditched altogether. And when you critique or edit your work, don't do it as a literary critic, but from the dream state. Don't rewrite. Re-dream.

If I haven't made sense, I'm sorry. I don't truly understand it either. But I believe it.

What's more, it's from this place that I believe that you can hear God's voice. I pray he gives me a story.

How to find a writer's group

Terry asked how to find a writer's group. Good question -- thanks, Terry! I hope these ideas help you -- and others -- find the right group. And please, if anyone has more ideas, I hope you'll join the discussion.

You might start your own group with people you like and whose work you respect. Every group has to start somewhere....

If you're looking for an existing group, you might:

• Contact writing professors at local colleges and universities and ask if they know of any groups (we got some of our members that way);
• Ask local writers if they know of any groups;
• Get in touch with local book reviewers for the nearest newspaper (they are frequently writers themselves and know of existing groups);
• Go to writer's conferences and network (you may even find writers who live near you);
• Go to readings and get to know your local writers and local writing community (they should be able to put you in touch with different writer's groups);
• Find out if your local bookstores have affiliated writer's groups;
• Contact your library, and
• Search or advertise on your local Craigslist. (This last one is scary to me -- there are crazies out there.)

There are writers everywhere, and where there are writers, there are writer's groups.

If you write in a particular genre, you may find an online community. Although I am not a romance writer, I used to lurk on a romance writer discussion board because I happened to find it. They were extremely kind and helpful to each other, which is what I guess I should have expected from romance writers. (I just don't like romances unless they are dressed up as literary fiction or something else.)

Blanche DuBois might have always depended on the kindness of strangers, but I'm not sure that depending on the literary advice and guidance of strangers is a smart strategy.

What works for you?

Join or start a writer's group

Shame can be a great motivator. Envy, too. So can wonderful support.

Join or start a writer's group, and you get all three.  First, it's just plain down embarrassing to show up week after week at your group meeting empty handed. Writers write. If you're not writing, why do you keep showing up?

At least that's what you think that the other members are thinking. Which is as good as them thinking it, although the truth is more likely that they are thinking, "Good! Since she didn't bring anything there'll be more time to work on the piece I brought," or "The poor thing is truly blocked. I wonder if we gave her some of this wine if that would help shake some words loose out of her?"

Then, though writers would never envy one another, if somebody just got her third novel published and you are still perfecting your opening sentence, you might experience something like envy, only much more evil. Please do not take out your failures on your successful friend. She got her book published. If you don't write your book, you can't blame anyone but yourself. So bring her a bottle of champagne and buy copies of her book to give all of your friends for Christmas. Also, write good reviews on Amazon for her. And then, put your butt in the chair and write your own book. It doesn't even have to be good. Just write it.

The third thing is that writers are very supportive of each other. Keep showing up, and they'll keep telling you to write. Bring something you've written, and they'll help you make it better. You'll get into a rhythm that might look like pulling an all-nighter the night before the meeting just so you won't be empty handed, but at least you wouldn't be empty handed -- and you'll be making progress on something.

You'll also learn a lot from the discussion about other people's work. And, you'll get to read some great stuff before it's published!

Finding -- or starting -- the right writer's group is probably a matter of trial and error. Four friends and I started a writing group long ago and called it "Deadline Club" because we had all found out we wrote better with a deadline, so we imposed one once a month. We would mail out our submission for the month one week in advance, giving people time to read and critique it. Then we would give each person's work fifteen minutes of discussion. That group grew and lasted almost 20 years! Unfortunately, as the membership changed, we got the inevitable lunatic who managed to be offended by everyone and offend a few of us, so people quit coming. The truth is, the group had run through its life cycle. For everything there is a beginning, middle and end. Those were my most productive years, though, because if you didn't produce something three meetings in a row, you were OUT.

I got invited to join another writer's group and went for a while. These people were hostile. (One was a therapist and one was a minister. Go figure.) Or maybe that was their form of humor. One woman (a teacher) told me that she didn't like one of my stories because she didn't like people like the main character. Bad chemistry, irrelevant comments. I moved on.

Tonight I'm going to a different writer's group that has been kind enough to keep inviting me. These people are fully engaged in their novels, showing up week after week with new chapters, revisions and more stuff. One woman just ditched her first draft and is re-writing in first person. I can't keep track of who has had books published, but several have. The meetings start on time, end on time and are very focused -- and full of laughter. I feel privileged to be included. And very motivated, too.

What's your experience with writer's groups?

Seven ways to commit blog suicide

I'm always happy to find a way to procrastinate instead of writing my novel, painting a room, working out or just about anything that would result in making money, losing weight or cleaning up the house. So, when Rebecca Laffar-Smith tagged me for "Seven ways to commit blog suicide," I thought, hmmm. Finally. A worthy distraction.

Now, I haven't been blogging very long, as all you millions of Internets haven't noticed, yet for the 40,000 or so regular readers I've managed to scare up in the past six weeks, I'll take the bait. As for the other millions of Internets, I've probably already committed blog suicide and you'll never have the joy of meeting me.

For you 40,000 Internets who have fallen down the rabbit hole and landed here, welcome! Come back and join in these novel struggles. Even if you're not writing a novel, that's all right. We're not really writing one, either. We're planning to plan to write one. Or something like that.

So, here's my contribution to Seven ways to commit blog suicide:

1. Post a cartoon caricature of Mohammed. No, wait. That's how to commit regular suicide. It would actually drive up your blog traffic.
2. Don't post very often, as though you were in hiding somewhere. What little traffic you have will go elsewhere while you wait out the fatwa.
3. Post really boring, detailed stories about your cat. Even better, put up a video of your cat sleeping or contemplating a roach.
4. Brag about how wonderful your husband is and all the places he takes you and all the thoughtful things he does. Who can stand reading that? If it's true, you may be the object of another fatwa.
5. Give detailed instructions, including illustrations, of how to fold socks. For extra credit, include detailed instructions and illustrations on how to iron a pillow case.
6. Write all your posts in relentlessly bad rhyme. Force it!
7. Be a hypochondriac with a disease du jour. Go into details about your symptoms and how unsympathetic your doctor and medical staff are. Make people wish you really would get sick.
8. (Since #1 would actually build traffic) Talk about how hard it is to find clothes that fit when you have a perfect body, and that you're tired of people asking if you've had surgical "help."
   

Now, I gather I'm supposed to tag some other folks.

Kathy C.
Anwyn

Your turn!

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged and am supposed to do something! Once I finish my paying work, I'll figure out what I'm supposed to do and do it. Be back soon.

What to do when you can't find the right word

This is a cross-post from persuasivewriting.net. Though it applies more to copywriting than to novel writing, I thought you might enjoy it.

There are many ways to be at a loss for words. The best way is to know that the word is out there, to almost be able to grasp it, and just not be able to bring that word up. Perhaps you should upgrade your memory. When that happens, a good solution is to leave a blank and keep going. Or, if you have time and are haunted by not being able to retrieve that word from your little pea brain, go take a shower or a walk or drive around for a bit. The word will come out of hiding when you are not looking for it.

A worse predicament is to know that what you are writing about it pretty much BS, so that there are really no words to use because what you are writing about is really camouflage for something else. For instance, your client has goofed in some large way. Say, your client has clear-cut thousand-year-old trees in a National Forest when actually they meant to cut the trees that were on the other side of the highway, or something like that. So now they are going to run a full-page ad in the newspapers about how environmentally friendly they are.

This leaves you with two words, and only two words. These words are "committed" and "dedicated." If you know more and other words, please let me know because these are the two I am stuck with. You will be forced to write, "We are committed to the environment and dedicated to the communities we serve...." or some variation thereof.

You can interchange "committed" and "dedicated." It really doesn't matter. And it really doesn't mean anything, does it? Talk about a cheapening of the word "commitment." Yes, I played my part. I'm sorry. I did it only in desperation.

And now, when I read about some entity's commitment or dedication to something, such as children's health, I figure that they must have been responsible for poisoning a whole kindergarten somewhere. That's how cynical this business can make you.

Then, there's the last situation you may find yourself in when you can't find the right word. You have simply run out of words. There are no words left, and both you and I know it. You have used them all up. There is nothing more to say. Yet your ad (or whatever) is due at 2:00. I feel for you. I've been there. And I'm sorry to tell you, but you are doomed. When you have used up your words, they are gone.

I've seen what you've done when that's happened. We've all seen the ads on TV and elsewhere where it is clear that the writer has simply run out of words. It is painful to watch, because we know the pain that caused this travesty. But don't beat yourself up. Sometimes even the best surgeons have a patient die on the table. You're just in advertising and PR. If you run out of words, you might be fired, but no one will die.

I know that this is what must have happened to the creative team that gave us the Volkswagen "Fahvergnugen" campaign. Those people must have really been out of words. What were they thinking?

I just hope that the same doesn't happen to any of us.

Plotter or Pantser?

Sorry it's been quiet here! I was on the wrong side of a deadline (it had passed) and I was knocking myself out to get  a paying piece out of the door. It's gone now, and though there are others in the in-box, this blog -- and my novel -- are important and so here I am.

I need to pick a date and post it at Novel Goal for when I start writing, and also exactly what my goals are. Baby steps! I tend to be too ambitious and then it shuts me down.

And I need to get in gear here with my pre-novel planning. I said I would have a month for that. Time is passing. What is my pre-novel planning?

Are you a plotter or a pantser (seat of pants writer)? (And is that pantser or pantzer?)

My friends in my writer's group all seem to be plotters. They have colored sticky notes on boards posted on their walls. I'm not sure how their systems work, but I'm sure I could turn it into a great procrastination tool. As a disorganized person, I also think I would get stuck trying to remember which sticky note color meant what and make a mess of the whole thing anyway.

I think writing  would be a much less harrowing task if I had plotted my novel all out before hand. I've tried this. And there are a couple of reasons why this method doesn't work for me.

First, writing from an outline is like work. Here's what you have to say, now say it. I get paid to do that, and though I do it well enough to get paid to do it again, there's not much room for my soul in this process. I have never been good at writing from an outline. In school, when they try to teach writing by teaching you to outline first, that was always a disaster for me. I can't write to an outline. I usually would end up writing the piece, then outlining what I had and turning that in. Very useful, huh? That whole outlining exercise.

I sometimes have clients that want me to do an outline first. I'll do one, with the warning that what they get may not fit the outline. But I promise that it will be much, much better -- and it is.

Then again, a scratchy, sketchy outline can be a good prop to keep me from running off into some kind of panic that puts me in a fetal position. I'll be 30 pages along and I don't know what happens next! So just kind of a sketchy thing (for some reason it has to be really disorganized looking -- handwritten with none of the lines running straight so I don't feel trapped) with a few possibilities for if I get stuck is what I use. Just to keep going for the next day or so. This sketchy thing doesn't take me all the way to the end and in fact only covers the next couple of events.

But the most important thing, for me, on why outlining or advance plotting doesn't work is that I can't write deeply from an outline. When I was in my MFA program, I spent one semester mentoring with Sharon Sheehe Stark. Now, when you mentored with somebody, you had to send them a packet every month containing two short stories (one could be a revision, the other had to be new) and two novel reviews, plus an explanation of what you were trying to accomplish and whether or not this was working. I was working full time and had had suffered a miscarriage. I was a mess but was so committed to my writing (and the program) that I pushed on. But I was afraid. I didn't know what I would find in that dark place inside me that was screaming with grief. I couldn't write from there. It was too soon, it was too bloody. So, I thought I would try something different. I came up with a story, plotted it in my mind and then on paper, and wrote the thing. Not too bad! I thought I had found a new way to write. Little wear and tear on the author, either.

I will never, ever forget Sharon's response to me. I don't even need to refer to it. "Very clever, Anne, and I don't mean that as a compliment. Every part of this story read like you knew what was going to happen from the beginning, except for one part."

And here I'll interrupt Sharon. There was one part where the story deviated from the outline and my heart took off running, spilling out words and images that were actually thrilling and authentic, perhaps even original. Sharon spotted this right away. My hair stood on end as I read her note. How could she tell? How did she know what part was pre-plotted and what part had spilled out on its own? They didn't look that different to me.

But she knew. And she was right. She told me that I didn't care about the characters, was not in touch with their deep emotions and that I was forcing the story. (How else to get them from point A to point B?) She told me to throw away everything but the one, spontaneous part of the story. Wow!

Then she went on to say, "You are stealing from your own excitement. You have taken the heart out of your story."

I thank God I had her that semester, and that she was gifted in seeing the truth of my writing and the truth behind my writing. It's much more difficult to write this way because it is scary. And there are many dead ends and false turns along the road. I will kill more trees than my plotter friends.

But this is what it takes. I need to trust that the mind that can dream such vivid and interesting dreams while I am asleep can dream vivid and interesting stories while awake. I'll try to help it along, but I'd better not try to tame it. I just hope I have the courage for this adventure without a map.

What about you? How are you going to write your novel?

Update: A wonderful, detailed post about this very subject -- and more to come -- is at The Writer's Roundabout. Well worth a visit!

This blog is to help the part of your that wants to write fool the part of you that doesn't want to write

Pardon the partial duplication from a post at Novel Goal, but I think it will make sense.

Why not combine Novel Goal and Novel Struggles?

First, a quotation from Maria Irene Fornes, a playwright:

"You must always keep changing your process. Because there are two of you, one who wants to write and one who doesn't. The one who wants to write has to keep fooling the one who doesn't."

Novel Goal is for the one of you who wants to write. This blog is for the one who doesn't want to write, to let that side talk and vent and get over it and for Pete's Sake get out of the way! And then help the one who wants to write figure out how to fool the one who doesn't.

We'll strategize and vent here.  In both places, we'll try to outrun the one who doesn't want to write.

Maybe I'll end up combining the two, but my initial vision is that Novel Goal is pure hope (and progress) and Novel Struggles is "is anyone else having this struggle?"

We can learn from each other, and fool that part that, for whatever reason -- fear, sabotage, laziness -- doesn't want to write.

What went wrong before

Why do I have two unfinished novels? Why didn't I finish? What went wrong before, and how can I change it?

1. I put too much pressure on myself. I'd had some successes with short fiction and had won a fellowship, so I thought every word I wrote had to be really good. As a result, I kept from failing by writing no words (or not enough). So, this time I will only have pressure for production or time spent on the keyboard. It's about process, not perfection.
2. I abandoned one novel, even though I had a publisher who said she would publish it (a big house, too), because I was trying to write what I was not. It was a Chick Lit, Sex-in-the-City, very funny book. And every chapter made me feel cheaper and cheaper. This book might have made people laugh, and that's a good thing. But it was not what I was meant to write. So, this time I will be authentic. I won't write to what I think somebody else wants to publish. I'll write the story I want to read. Publishing is secondary. I let go of worries about publishing.
3. I haven't really abandoned the second novel. In fact, I'm going to spend time re-imagining it over the next month. I hope I can find the notes I took once at a conference where I was greatly moved by Robert Olen Butler's vision of the writing process. But the reason I stopped was that it mattered too much to me and I was forcing it. There's a difference between forcing yourself to sit down and forcing your story. I don't know how to prevent that right now. If the story's not going, what do you do? One friend told me not to do it if it isn't fun. I think I'll aim for a more playful, fun attitude. That doesn't mean every day or every week has to be fun, but it needs to have that feeling of pursuit of the things I don't know.
4. I wasn't disciplined enough. I didn't show up for work. I procrastinated. This time I will block out time devoted to my novel only. Six days a week.
5. I was really hard on myself. I will do this in babysteps, keeping focused but adjusting my work habits and expectations.
   

I probably did a whole lot more wrong than this, but if I can make these changes, I'll be light years away from where I was.

What about you?