Day Seventy - 129,525 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

The Bryony sections always seem to be the easiest for me to write. I've spent longer in her voice than any other character's, and I believe it is one of the more distinct voices. That being said, I've often discovered that there are unexpected challenges that come from writing about events that Bryony doesn't have direct knowledge about.

As an author, I want to be able to hint to the reader what is going on, as well as to Bryony. The reader has information she doesn't have, and can draw conclusions she cannot. Sometimes those conclusions are correct, and sometimes they are not. As a reader myself, one of my favorite surprises is the feeling I get when I'm sure I'm smarter than the author, or at least the author's characters, and discover that I'm not.

But back to today's section. I've already established that the ducal city of Eldercroft is several days away from the capital, so this is not a trip that they're going to finish in one night. Let's see how I can pull this off.

*****

Oh, the old "attack the stagecoach" ploy. You have to love it. In case you're wondering, here's what the dialogue said: "Is that the girl?" followed by "Quiet! They might speak (name of language)."

(A note on grammar for linguistic types. "Menodg" is the command form of the verb "menod" meaning "to look (at)." In this form, it has the basic meaning of "behold," but when made a question becomes something more like "is that ____ that I see?" "Gar" means girl, but not in a nice way, and "hekl" is a reflexive, something like himself/herself. In this context, it means something like, "the actual one."

"Heine" is not a command form; it is a noun, meaning "silence." "An" is a clause initial particle that indicates the information following it is not factual, something along the lines of "what if". "Turtenag" is the name of the language. "Dramachelin" is composed of the elements "dramach," meaning speak, and "-elin," a suffix that agrees with "an.")

I hadn't intended to end the chapter at this point, and in fact, I believe that there is one more short scene to finish up Chapter Eleven. Even so, I believe Chapter Twelve will begin tomorrow as well!

Today's Total: 1,738 / 1,689 words (102.9%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 16,220 / 15,201 words (106.7%, 0.6 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 16,220 / 33,780 (48.0%)

Day Sixty-nine - 127,787 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Finally a switch back to Bryony's point of view. It hasn't been long since we left her, exiting Tynofast's room with visions of magic in her head. It's time we caught up with her to see what she's been doing lately.

*****

The chapter has only just begun. There's nothing like a late-night carriage ride under mysterious circumstances to get a story moving. As to why they're leaving in such a hurry? Well, that's an answer for another time.

Today's Total: 1,789 / 1,689 words (105.9%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 14,482 / 13,512 words (107.2%, 0.6 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 14,482 / 33,780 (42.9%)

Day Sixty-eight - 125,998 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Today I resume Gideon's investigation into the attack on Bryony. There is a certain amount of information he needs to find out before a certain other event occurs, and as that event is rapidly approaching, it's time for another Gideon scene to move us closer. In fact, this scene should reveal all that is needed for that portion of the plot, at this time.

*****

Okay, so I go a little mired in this one. As in, it has taken several days for me to get started again. But I plan on making up the lost ground over the next few days, and throughout the weekend, if I can manage it.

The problem with the original Gideon scene was that it was empty. There was nothing more to it than Gideon sitting in a chair and thinking. I couldn't get into writing it because there was simply no substance to it at all.

As I've rewritten it, there is some good character substance for Gideon, some dialogue, a bit of a twist at the beginning, and what's more, some direction for this character as I go forward. In other words, everything that had been lacking has been made up now.

I've also planned out the remainder of Book 2. I'm currently on scene 16 out of 46. Or thereabouts... there may be some juggling and rearranging, and perhaps an added scene or two, but that gives you the idea that we're about a third of the way through the book at this point.

I need to decide what to do about the previous day's section of writing that included some now-discarded material from this scene. There were 332 words in all, and I think I'm going to redo my count for that day as if I didn't write it at all.

*****

Thus concludes Chapter Ten. Chapter Eleven begins with a different POV and perhaps an interesting turn of events. We shall see!

Today's Total: 1,911 / 1,689 words (113.1%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 12,693 / 11,823 words (107.4%, 0.5 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 12,693 / 33,780 (37.6%)

Day Sixty-seven - 124,087 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

I think part of what made yesterday's writing selection so difficult was the lack of a clear way to get Devan to the testing room. I hadn't really spent a long time visualizing that section, and looking back, it was done a little jerkily. Now that he's actually there, I expect things will go a bit more smoothly.

After that I've got another POV shift, but I don't know if I'll manage to get to it today. Either way, that shift should finish out Chapter Ten.

*****

I like that I've gotten the chance to talk about the way people think about the marks when they grew up with it. It's a totally different perspective than Bryony's, and that's important.

I did manage to get to Gideon's section, although it didn't end at a good stopping place for the day. That's all right--tomorrow, I should manage to finish out Chapter Ten, and perhaps make it to Chapter Eleven.

EDIT: Gideon's section has been rewritten, and today's part of it removed. The totals below have been updated to reflect this.

Today's Total: 1,434 / 1,689 words (80.3%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 10,782 / 10,134 words (106.4%, 0.4 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 10,782 / 33,780 (31.9%)

Day Sixty-six - 122,653 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Of all the scenes I've written since I resumed the story, today's scene that ends chapter nine is the one I've been looking forward to the most, rubbing my hands and cackling when I think about it. Now that I come to it, I'm trying to figure out the best way to carry it off. It's a cool moment, after all, and I don't want to spoil it by doing it badly. But I can always fix it later, can't I?

*****

I finally got the opportunity to use the term "the veil," which I've had for a while now, but had no way to introduce. It's about time!

I found it hard to switch gears and get back involved in the Devan story. We just had a nice long three chapter swath of Bryony time, plus a little Tynofast coda that should have been a surprise--it was a surprise to me when I thought of the idea. Now we're going back to the market and watching Devan test. We've already seen Bryony test. Well, this is more what it's supposed to be like, with the candidate well aware of what's coming.

What helped me get into the scene was the idea of seeing the testing from a different point of view. Essentially I've got Devan walking the same path that Bryony did, but noticing different things. It's not every story that lets you do that.

It's hard to believe that I've already crossed the 25% mark for the month, though of course it is a short month. Tomorrow I'll hit the 10,000 word mark for the month, and in a few days, I'll top 125k for the grand total. Things are actually moving along!

Today's Total: 1,807 / 1,689 words (107.0%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 9,348 / 8,445 words (110.7%, 0.5 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 9,348 / 33,780 (27.7%)

Day Sixty-five - 120,846 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

I'm so tired this morning. It's really, really hard to get motivated to write right now. But we can't leave Bryony hanging, can we?

I think I need to talk a little more about Bryony's emotional state through the early part of all this. She's just been through a hell of a time, after all.

*****

Oh, I'm laying the groundwork for soooooo much right now. I knew this would be an important scene, but I didn't realize it would be such a pivotal one. Now all that build-up I've written over the last few days seems much more justified.

I don't know how well I managed to carry off the emotional roller coaster that Bryony endured in this section. That's going to take some distance and feedback to see it objectively. I needed to put her in a place emotionally to justify the action of the next part of the story arc.

Bryony's part of the chapter is over, but the chapter itself is not. There is a slight coda, on which I will begin the section for tomorrow. After that, I should have room to begin Chapter Ten!

Today's Total: 1,813 / 1,689 words (107.3%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 7,541 / 6,756 words (111.6%, 0.5 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 7,541 / 33,780 (22.3%)

Day Sixty-four - 119,033 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Today. Today it will be, I promise. I absolutely guarantee. In fact, I'm about to do it right now.

I admit, I've got a little trepidation at finally reaching this scene, which I've been building up to for so long. I think I'm a lot better at the build-up than the climax. (Out of context, that would mean something entirely different.) That means that when the time comes, I often find myself struggling to make the payoff mean as much as the buildup that led up to.

I'm going to try to treat this as just another scene, or perhaps the build-up to a bigger payoff down the line, and see what happens.

*****

Such hard going today! Every word has been a struggle, which is surprising, since I know just what's going to happen. It feels like I've got a kink in my writing hose, and it just won't come no matter how much I turn up the pressure.

*****

Well, I got the kink out, but it took most of the night to do so. I think a scene this important, with such emotional highs and lows, deserved a bit of extra time. The scene continues tomorrow, with what I hope will be a bit more in the realm of interesting revelation. He chuckled deviously.

Today's Total: 1,750 / 1,689 words (103.6%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 5,728 / 5,067 words (113.0%, 0.4 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 5,728 / 33,780 (17.0%)

Day Sixty-three - 117,283 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

This is shaping up to be a long chapter. In general, most don't go beyond two days of writing, or perhaps three. This one might just reach into four, which I believe will be a record. There's nothing wrong with a long chapter, now and then, but in general I think 3,000 - 4,000 words is a decent length for a chapter.

This one may be in the 6,000 - 7,000 range, and that might make it a candidate for cutting or splitting later. But that's in the editing process, not now. Now time is composition time.

*****

I've finally gotten Bryony and Illiantine to meet, an event that I've been intending since Illiantine was introduced way back in Chapter Eight of the last volume. Okay, so it's not a meeting with the Patroness, but it's important for the story.

So as it turns out, this did conclude chapter eight, although I did about a third more than I had to, just to make it there. So it's a long chapter, but not an immense one. And I don't see any more distractions ahead between Bryony and the Patroness.

Chapter Nine will be another Merona chapter... just kidding. I wouldn't do that.

Or would I?

Today's Total: 2.220 / 1,689 words (131.4%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 3,978 / 3,378 words (117.8%, 0.4 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 3,978 / 33,780 (11.8%)

Day Sixty-two - 115,063 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

The music selection is much better this morning. I just got through rocking out to "Chain of Fools" a la Eva Cassidy with the Starbucks crew. We have fun here.

So yesterday, we left Bryony with an impending appointment with the Patroness and the whole morning at her disposal. Gessica's letter essentially gave us an idea what to expect as the chapter goes forward--a little exploration, followed by a meeting with the Patroness.

I've just finished adding index cards to the chain, so I've now got the next eight scenes lined up and ready to write. I'm thinking that will probably last me all the way through the end of December, based on my current plan.

Now, it's time to start writing for today. I believe there will only be one important meeting in the library, and it's not a new character.

*****

I'm suffering from a case of the shes in this section. In narrating the action, I'm starting to fall into the pattern of "She did this. She did that. She did the other thing." The problem is, I'm having a hard time figuring out what else to do when I'm dealing with the actions of a single character by herself, who isn't really thinking about anything other than what she's doing. I don't want to throw in lots of extraneous description for the sake of description, so until someone else arrives, I guess I'm stuck.

I wonder if this often happens, and I'm just not aware of it?

*****

I just keep finding more things for Bryony to do, don't I? I know where Chapter Eight ends, and we're not there yet. We should be tomorrow, and I might even begin Chapter Nine. We'll just have to see what happens next!

Today's Total: 1,758 / 1,689 words (104.1%)
Dec. Progress to Date: 1,758 / 1,689 words (104.1%, 0.0 days ahead)
Dec. Total Progress: 1,758 / 33,780 (5.2%)

The State of the Novel - December, 2009

Wow! It's been a long month... or rather, thirteen months, since I did my last State of the Novel post. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to pretend that the last month of writing was contiguous.

That being the case, I had a very productive month, at 58,248 words. That's more than in my first month, and I'd like to do the same with December, but because of the holidays, that's just not going to work out.

So instead, I'm proposing to do 19 days of writing in December, plus a bonus day at some point thereafter. That's a total of 33,780 words. If I stick to the letter, will put me around 147,000 words; more than likely, I'll hit the 150k mark around December 17th or 18th.

How much text is that? Well, if I look at the first book, that's about eleven chapters of text, at my usual chapter length. It took Bryony all the way from her appearance out in the snow, to her conversation with Jorik about her reading ability. As for how much further those 34k words will take me this time, I really don't know. I haven't been awfully good lately at predicting how quickly I'll get to certain things--after all, Chapters 7 and 8 were originally supposed to be just one scene, and now I'm wondering if it will bleed over into Chapter 9. The answer is looking like a yes.

The important part is that I'm making progress. This isn't a race where I know how many miles there are to run. But it is a race where I know the finish line, and whatever path I take to get there, I intend to finish.

Day Sixty-one - 113,305 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

It's an odd feeling, getting back into my writing after so long away. There is so much that is identical to last year, and so much that's different. I find myself falling back into the comfortable rhythm of composition, and I wonder why I ever stopped.

But those are thoughts that I can save for State of the Novel post tomorrow. For right now, I've got to get started on composing a scene that I've had in my head for quite some time: Bryony's meeting with the Patroness.

The trick here is to both meet and counter expectations. I want the scene to be satisfactory, but at the same time surprising. Also, first impressions being important, I need to make sure to give the Patroness a good one.

*****

Oh, this Christmas music is killing me. I'm going to have to start bring headphones to listen to my own music, because it's making it really hard to concentrate.

*****

Well, the Christmas music ended, which is good. I'm hoping that at my normal time of the day, it won't be on at all.

I'm happy with today's section, although I do wonder if the story is moving fast enough at this point. I've decided to take advantage of Bryony being where she is to introduce a couple more characters, but that won't happen until tomorrow, as I continue with Chapter Eight.

Today's Total: 1,774 / 1,689 words (105.0%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 58,248 / 50,670 words (115.0%, 4.5 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 58,248 / 50,670 (115.0%)

Day Sixty - 111,531 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

So yesterday, I got Bryony and Merona up to the gates of the ducal city. Today, they go inside.

I'm never quite sure how much of the ceremony to go through. I had to give a taste of it when the Kindelbrys came to the market in the last book, and there too I felt like I was doing too much. Here again, I could probably write several chapters if I went into complete detail about the kinds of ceremonies that are part of ducal life, but what boring chapters they would be. Instead, I want to give the flavor of it and then gloss over most of the actual content to get to the action.

*****

I liked hitting the note about Bryony's past here. I like to keep that plot thread in mind every so often, and this felt like a natural place to put it. It will also motivate some of the drama that happens later on in the chapter.

I hope the end of the section, which also ends the chapter, is something of a surprise. I promise, an actual meeting with the Patroness is coming soon, and will take place in Chapter Eight, but for right now, I think stretching out the tension is a good thing.

Chapter Eight begins tomorrow!

Today's Total: 1,899 / 1,689 words (112.4%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 56,474 / 48,981 words (115.3%, 4.4 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 56,474 / 50,670 (111.5%)

Day Fifty-nine - 109,632 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Now I'm finally up to the scene where Bryony meets the Patroness, although that meeting may not occur until late in today's section, if at all. There's lots of preparatory work to get through before I get there.

I did a bit of misdirection in the earlier scene with Lord and Lady Chasset, so I hope this will be a surprise of sorts. Enough putting it off! Let's get to it!

*****

Well that's it for today! I didn't get as far in the action as I expected, but it's because Bryony and Merona had more to say to each other than I thought. The action continues tomorrow as Chapter 7 continues.

Today's Total: 1,710 / 1,689 words (101.2%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 54,575 / 47,292 words (115.4%, 4.3 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 54,575 / 50,670 (107.7%)

Day Fifty-eight - 107,922 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Now I'm up to another Devan section, which should round out Chapter Six. It's going to end with a bit of a cliffhanger for Devan, although not too too much of one. Still, it should be enough of a hook to pull us into the next chapter... in which Bryony finally meets the Patroness.

*****

I'm happy with the content of this section, though I'm not awfully happy with the writing itself. It felt clumsy to me, and I think it's going to need considerably revision to make it tolerable later. Still, I'm past it now and can get to the next scene along the line.

Tomorrow begins Chapter Seven. Six was a long chapter with three different viewpoints. I rather think that Seven will be just as long, but with only one viewpoint--maybe two, depending where I draw the line.

Today's Total: 1,955 / 1,689 words (108.6%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 52,865 / 45,603 words (115.9%, 4.3 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 52,865 / 50,670 (104.3%)

Day Fifty-seven - 105,967 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

How do you pick up from the place where you left off one year ago? Pretend you're picking up from yesterday.

That's what I'm doing today. When we last left our heroes, Bryony had just been told off by Merona for being awesome, and then she asked a very important question about magic, which has not yet been answered. And I think it's time.

*****

I think the following question is one I'm going to be asking myself constantly, at least at first--how would this scene have gone if I had written it last year? I don't think it would have gone back to that mantra of Merona's, but it arrived there very naturally this time. In fact, for the first time I think that I'm happy about how it turned out right now. I don't think I could have done better a year ago, and might have done it less well.

In other words, I now have confidence that the author I am now can finish this story as well as the author I was then.

I hadn't intended to do a Gideon section here, but it's been a while and I think it's a good point to do it. The audience already knows that Carver is Tynofast, but Gideon doesn't know that. So this section really only accomplishes one thing--to move Gideon's plot forward. But I've also made it give us some more description of the Avenue, and some insight into Gideon's character, both of which help texture out the novel.

Today's Total: 1,834 / 1,689 words (108.6%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 50,910 / 43,914 words (115.9%, 4.1 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 50,910 / 50,670 (100.5%)

Day Fifty-six, Part 2 - 104,133 words and counting

I'm writing a novel. All my progress can be found on my private blog. The commentary for each day's work can be found below.

Okay, so I'm going to just try to pick up where I left off.

The 1,689 words post for today is everything I've done on Book 2 to date, with a few text corrections and the addition of a new prologue. I have reworked the total word count at the top, because when I checked it today I came up with a tally that was quite a bit lower than I thought. It doesn't matter. This is where I'm starting from.

Tomorrow is Day Fifty-Seven. So what if there's a one year gap in there, right?

My percentage totals below have been updated based on the new word count. Hey! I'm almost done for November! Good for me!

Today's Total: 1,775/ 1,689 words (105.1%)
Nov. Progress to Date: 49,076 / 42,225 words (116.2%, 4.1 days ahead)
Nov. Total Progress: 49,076 / 50,670 (96.9%)

How Much More Is There?

So one question that I'm having a hard time answering is how much story I have left. For the most part, the story beats I planned from the beginning are the beats I'm using now, but they've been fleshed out significantly in the mean time. The thing is, I've developed more the scenes that I'm closer to writing.

It's like in a video game, where the background objects may only be a few pixels high, but up close they're rendered in exquisite detail. The result, however, is that I have a hard time judging how much story there is left. As I get closer to future plot points, they get more developed, and it turns out there's more story to tell than I expected.

I can't say that I'm the only writer to have this problem. It's almost a cliche for the fantasy author to start out writing one book, that becomes a trilogy, that becomes a longer series, and seems like it's never going to end. The author swears to his audience that he does have an ending in mind; die hard fans believe him, detractors say he's making it up as he goes along.

But he does have an ending, it's just further away than he planned, and he really, really wants to get there because it's such a cool ending. Well, that's the position I'm in now.

I'm trying to ask myself now if I'm really in Book 2, or if I'm still in Book 1, or if that even matters. Are there three books in the series? Four? One giant one? I have no idea at this point, and I think that's okay.

So what I'm going to do is this... go on as if I'm writing Book 2, and when I get enough of a word count and reach a point of closure, move on to Book 3. If that ends the story, great. If not, I move on to Book 4, or whatever it takes. Then I can edit together the text into whatever volumes seem appropriate.

More Preparation?

I'd love about an extra month to prepare. But at the end of that time, I'd probably want another couple of weeks of preparation. I kind of think that if I ever got to the point that I felt I was perfectly prepared to write a story, it would be because I had already done so much that the actual story-writing would be pointless.

There are some things I haven't figured out yet, connections I haven't made, details I haven't devised. But I know what my next scene is going to be, and the one after that, and the one after that. I'm fully prepared to show up this morning and write.

In the words of E.L. Doctorow, "[Creativity is] like driving a car at night. You never see farther than your headlights, but you make the whole trip that way."

Well, there's no point staying at home until the sun comes up, because even when it does, you can't see over the horizon.

We come to it at last...

Though it won't be apparent for a few days, I am now about to begin to write new material for Bryony's Market. I'm anxious that I won't do it well. I'm afraid of messing up a really good story. I'm certain that I'm going to write myself into a corner I can't get out of.

But I'm going to try anyway. Because otherwise, it won't get done at all, will it?

Secret Asian Man

Here's another character sketch from Starbucks. There's this guy, Asian in appearance but completely American in voice, who comes for coffee on a regular basis. He stays for a while, though not as long as me, but spends most of his time at the counter chatting up the staff. I call him "Secret Asian Man," both because of his deceptive voice and the suave, debonair attitude he gives off in his flirtations.

My guess is that he works the usual day-wage type of job, like me, but has lots of stories about what he "really" does for a living. He hacks into corporate websites as an independent contractor to test security systems. He's a professional sharpshooter, and will be competing for South Korea in the 2012 Olympics. He's a hand model. He designs detailed miniatures for independent movies. He restores antique automobiles. He trains Lipizzaner stallions. He was a performer with Cirque de Soleil until The Accident.

Here's something I just realized... for each of those things, there is a person in the world for which it is true. Maybe some of them even come here in the mornings.

Index Cards

I've decided that I need index cards. Preferably in different colors, because I'd like each color to represent a single plotline, or perhaps a time period - not sure yet. (Both? It'd be nice to have different related colors for each timeline... light and dark blue, light and dark green, etc.)

The idea is to map out the chronology. Step one is to put everything in chronological order by plotline. Next, shuffle the plotlines among each other so that their relative chronology is set. Some of these scenes will actually be the same scenes, and in those cases, I'll have to decide on which POV to use. For some, the chronology isn't really set, so I'll intersperse them where it feels good to do so.

But I can't forget that my timeline doubles back on itself. So once I'm done with that, it's time to set the two timelines side by side and integrate them again. It's an important note to remember that no matter what my timeline does, chronologically speaking, the reader is learning all these things linearly, one scene, one page, one word after the other.

When this is done, I want to tape my cards together so that they fold up in a big stack. As I write, I can check them off, note which chapter is which. If I need to rearrange or add or splice, I'll do with scissors and tape.

I'm looking forward tpo having this writing aid next to me. I think it will work very well, once it's finished.

My goal is to accomplish this tomorrow (Saturday) and begin to write on Sunday. I think that's totally doable. I just have to do it.

Final Assembly

Right now, I'm at the final assembly stage of the various plotlines I've been working out. I'm struggling with it a bit more than I thought I would, and I think it's because for the most part, the plotlines don't really intersect. There are places that they do, but for the most part, they don't form a unified whole in this book.

I think I'm just now discovering what all fantasy authors who write multiple book series eventually find--when a story is larger than just one book, it can take some work to hold it all together. Imagine three ropes that are tied together at both ends. If they're kept in one piece, they can stay together without a problem. If you cut them into, say, three pieces, then there is nothing holding the middle together.

So what I need to do is to maximize the binding that holds them together. If I braid my plotlines together, then it doesn't matter so much that they're nothing tying them together... the friction of the braids accomplishes the same thing.

To make the metaphor plainer, I want to interweave the plotlines together so that each scene leads into the next really well, even if they're not strictly related. And that's taking some effort to figure out.

Perhaps I should just start writing--i.e., making the ropes--and worry about how I weave them together later.

Verizon Lady

Sometimes you have to look for a bit of crazy to bring into your life, and sometimes it lands in your lap.

There are lots of familiar faces that come through Starbucks in the morning, people who are regulars like me, but who don't typically stay for any length of time. Today, one of them approached me, pointing at my netbook.

"Is that yours?" she asks.

A number of sarcastic comments pop to mind, but they're all too obvious, and besides, that would be rude. So instead, I simply reply in the affirmative.

"Is it Verizon?"

Now there's a question I hadn't expected. Does Verizon make netbooks? I say that no, it's an Asus Eee PC, and in no way affiliated with Verizon.

"Well!" she says, and launches into a sales pitch. Apparently you can get a free netbook with a Verizon Blackberry service plan and it's a great computer and all you have to do is sign a two year commitment but then again everyone has you sign a two year commitment these days and if you have to you can get out of it, but look! You get a computer just like that one you have there, only it's even smaller and it does everything you need a computer for these days like Internet Explorer and email and....

I stared politely at her until she wound down. I had ample opportunity to study her as I did so. She was somewhere in her late forties, perhaps already tipped over into the precipice of the early fifties. She wore a white zip-up hoodie, glasses with heavy black frames brought to a tip at the ends, hair that had been dyed blonde at some point in the prehistoric past, but which now had deep brown roots. She wore black sweatpants as well, but on her feet, fancy strappy sandals with little rhinestone buckles.

So what's her backstory? I figure that it's not only college students who do the walk of shame, but adults plan for it better. Why go home in the dress you wore to the 40+ mixer last night when you can bring along comfy sweatpants? But dammit, she always forgets the shoes. But that's okay, no one will notice if she just stops into Starbucks for a few minutes.

Or maybe she works from home, for Verizon of course, but she has to go out and get her morning coffee. And you know, she'd really prefer to put on comfortable shoes, but she saw these last weekend and just had to get them, and her husband said she'd never wear them, and she said that just showed what he knew, except she really didn't know where she would wear them, but now she had to wear them all over the place just so he would shut up about how she always wasted money on shoes.

She concluded her pitch by saying that she was looking for ten people who were on Verizon to send a text message to a certain number and then she'd save $60 on her bill. I have Verizon, but I kept quiet. I had no interest in participating.

"Enjoy your laptop!" she said as she left, and as a parting shot, "Sorry you had to pay for it!"

"Call of Duty"-Pants Man

So there's this guy who comes into the Starbucks where I write, every morning. He's wearing a burgundy hoodie, a pair of moccasins with white socks, and a pair of fleecy, camouflage pajama shorts emblazoned with the "Call of Duty" logo. He buys four venti coffees and leaves.

Now see, that's the sort of detail I'd like to be able to make up for a story! There are lots of little character-revealing things there. I don't know anything about him other than his appearance (and his unsuccessful attempts to flirt with the staff), but I feel like I could write his entire story. There he sits in his mother's basement, playing computer games and drinking coffee. Once a day, he sallies forth into the world to purchase a the morning's supply of coffee. In the afternoon and evening, he switches to Mountain Dew. He could write essays on the proper way to line up a shot in Call of Duty. He has, and it was well received on the message board where he spends all of his non-gaming time....

I like this exercise. Tomorrow, I'm going to do it again with one of the other regular patrons here.

Outlining Redux

This is post number 222... how cool is that? If your answer was "not very," then stop reading now.

Yesterday presented a very interesting discussion at my writing group, Writers on the Verge, regarding the topic of outlining. There were as many opinions on the subject as there were people in attendance.

Some of us outlined by major themes, and let the details come as they would. Others focused on a detailed backstory of characters, defining the relationships between them, and let the drama emerge somewhat organically. Others just started writing to see where it would take them.

It occurred to me as I was listening to the different techniques that they were all, for the most part, suited for the particular type of story that each person was writing. My personal style is to give myself a roadmap so that each day when I sit down to write, I know where I'm going that day. But I tend to write stories with somewhat complicated plots, and without that outline I'd be lost entirely. I also do character backstories, but I use that drama to drive the outline before I start into the actual plot.

It makes me wonder whether the type of stories that people enjoy writing determines their outline style--or whether it is some aspect of their personality that both brings out a certain style, and makes them want to write a certain type of story in the first place.

Mixed Timeline Techniques

So I've pretty much decided (surprise!) that a mixed timeline is the way to go. Now what remains is to brainstorm the best way to carry it off. In order to keep this blog spoiler free, I'm going to speak in generalities about my thought processes in dividing up my timelines.

The basic question is what gets revealed when in each timeline. I don't want my future timeline to be a spoiler to my past timeline. However I do want it to hint at my past timeline, to provide clues about my past timeline. In the context of this book, the difficulty I'm running into is the need to do a character POV set in the future that would, by its very nature, give away the climax of the past timeline.

And so I think I know what I need to do. I need to divide the book in half. The first half of the book is going to alternate between those two timelines, past and present. Each of these will reach a climax at the same point, and the climax to the past timeline will coincide with a climax to the future timeline.

In the second half of the book, I can start to include that character POV I was talking about. The past timeline will continue, and bring me up to the point where the future timeline began, way back at the beginning of the book. Meanwhile, the future timeline will have another climax of its own at the end, which sets up the third book to continue on from that point.

If I were writing the story chronologically, it would just go straight through; in this way, it will double back over itself. By the time the book ends, that entire stretch of time will be dealt with, without gaps. As I indicated before, I may choose to compose the story chronologically and reorganize it later. That still remains to be seen.

As a result, the story will have two slow builds to four big climaxes. They will hit two at a time, in the middle of the book and at the end. Otherwise, the result would be four builds to four climaxes. The best reason not to do it this way is because I'm not certain that two of those climaxes are big enough to stand alone. By coincidence, one of the lesser climaxes is in each timeline. So by layering the story, I'm maximizing the effect of those big moments.

Time for Chronology

As I write, I've been toying with a couple of different possible chronologies--either I could stick to strict chronological order, or mix it up, and have a future and a present (or present and past) timeline that go on simultaneously.

So in deciding which I want to do, I believe it will be helpful to list some of the advantages and disadvantages to each approach.

Chronological

Advantages:

• Straightforward - the reader learns what's going on in order, at the same time as the characters (more or less)
• Less confusing - no need to spend any time establishing which setting we're in.

Disadvantages:

• Possibly boring, or at least just very vanilla
• Reader may not have the context to understand the significance of the events they're reading.

Mixed Timeline

Advantages:

• "Cause and effect" storytelling - it is possible to move forward immediately to a consequence (perhaps unforeseen) of what just happened
• Narrative inevitability - The question changes from "what's going to happen?" to "how does this happen?"
• Parallelism - It is possible to show directly parallels between events in the past and present.
• Context - An event which seems insignificant at the time may be very important. The reader, having already seen the consequences, will understand whether the characters do or not.
  

Disadvantages

• Confusing - It is even more important to establish the setting of each scene. This is easier in film than in a book
• Narrative inevitability - The question changes from "what's going to happen?" to "how does this happen?"

If you notice, I put narrative inevitability as both an advantage and a disadvantage, and I believe it is. I believe this is a technique that should not be overused because it changes the entire impact of the story. If nothing else, it is difficult to put a character in mortal danger in the early section when it is obvious they are okay later on.

But if you notice, I came up with more advantages for a mixed timeline, and since I keep going back to that, I think it's the way I need to go.

In that case, the question becomes this--how to carry it off without having any of those disadvantages?

Sleep...

What's the best way to deal with the fact that characters need sleep too? I've seen it handled several different ways, from ignoring it completely to making it a driving motivation for the story.

Often, it feels like an inconvenience. We tend to ignore several of the more visceral human urges in stories, except when they're important for moving the plot along. In general, it doesn't matter that the main character is hungry or thirsty or has to go to the bathroom... unless it does matter that the main character is hungry or thirsty or has to go to the bathroom. Like many details in a story, only the relevant ones get mentioned.

When I'm writing a first person or third person restricted POV, I sometimes have to remind myself that I'm not trying to replicate precisely what that person would be thinking in that particular set of circumstances. I want to create the illusion that's what I'm doing, while instead using those thoughts to move the action and characterization along.

For that matter, is dialogue any different? I want to maintain the illusion that my characters are just chatting away, each pursuing his or her own reason for being part of the conversation, but really I'm the puppet master putting them to work.

But I digress. If it is incumbent upon me to only bring up those details which are important to the story, then I suppose it's okay to occasional neglect to take care of my characters biological needs. At least, so long as that neglect doesn't become a plot hole. Perhaps it's a good idea, in general, to leave open spaces of time in between scenes to allow for a little alone time.

Padding

I've heard authors accused of "padding" their books to make them thicker. At first I didn't fully understand what the problem was--if you're getting more of your favorite series, why does it matter? And in general I still believe that to be the case. In fact, I think a lot of books could stand to have a bit more padding.

Think about it like weight. Some books are downright anorexic, so sparse that the story barely holds together as a cohesive whole. Others are fit, trim, and athletic, fast reads that step on the plot accelerator and never let up. Still others are morbidly obese, where the actual story is so bogged down in digression and purple prose that it can't move.

But there are options to that, and it's what I think of as a Normal Guy story. He's not immensely athletic, but he can walk up stairs without getting out of breath, and run when he has to. He eats healthy, but doesn't have a problem with an afternoon snack every now and then.

And that's the point! Reading a book without any "padding" is like maintaining a perfectly healthy diet--good for you, I'm sure, but not nearly as much fun as indulging sometimes. The trick is to maintain a good balance between lean prose and the fat that makes a story tasty.

The Big Finish

I spent a significant amount of time yesterday plotting out the climactic finale of the third book. I find myself in an interesting position of knowing how all the major players fare, but debating among several different ways of getting them there.

Part of it is because I don't yet have a clear picture of what those people are going to find in that place at that time. The answer to that question is going to drive the action. Perhaps I should work backwards. Once I know what action I want to happen, I can figure out what would cause that action to develop naturally, and choose that.

I think writing is a lot like calculus. You can take the derivative of any function. That's the analog to introducing an element and then pursuing the consequences of it. If you have a starting place, you can write about what comes next based on your knowledge of your characters and of human nature in general.

The opposite is much harder. That's like integration in Calculus, the inverse operation of derivation. Integration is not possible for every function, and even where it is, it can be fiendishly difficult to accomplish. That's like starting with a consequence and trying to find a setup that would cause that consequence to happen naturally. Some consequences just don't have any possible antecedents, and even when they do, they can be very hard to find.

In general, I prefer derivation to integration. But sometimes you just have to work backwards in order to achieve a certain goal.

Parallel Structure

I'm a big fan of parallel structure, and I'm noticing it creeping in at the edges of my plans for the novel. There's going to be a long arc for one character that parallels another arc for another character, one that has already taken place. I think it's going to wind up adding lots of additional power to the story because of it.

First, it's going to be interesting to see two very different environments compared with each other. The similarities will be surprising. Second, it's going to be interesting to see the differences in the way the situations are handled. What the reader unconsciously expects to happen will be turned on its head. By using the expectations that get built into the parallel structure, I can provide a storyline that is both surprising and satisfying.

What I don't want to happen is to go all George Lucas on it. There is a limit to what parallelism can and should accomplish, and I don't want to drift into the realm of repeating myself. So long as I make the effort to set up expectations and counter them where appropriate, I think I'll be okay.

The Big Picture

Most of my brainstorming lately has been about the big picture of the story--the motivations and character arcs that stretch across the entire series. We've seen only bits and pieces of that so far, although I've discovered that I did manage to seed a pretty good number of hints to start us off. I think the main purpose of the second book is going to be to establish that overarching plot.

I think of it like this--the first book established the characters and the world. We've met, or at least heard about, most of the major players. (There is one exception that you haven't heard about yet, but that won't be too long awfully long in coming.) Some, like the Patroness we've only heard about, but will be meeting very soon. I can't WAIT for that.

But I'm starting to wonder if I've structured book 2 properly to accomplish this. Currently it's bopping back and forth between two time periods. I like that in general, but I'm not sure if it's clear from the story just where everyone is. I kind of think I need to restructure it in this way.

Prologue Part 1: The new section I wrote the other day.
Prologue Part 2: The existing prologue to Book 2

At that point, I should pick up from where Book 1 ended and go through to... to where? I really like the juxtaposition of the end scene of that arc with the end scene of the future arc.

How about this... I could pull a Tolkien and do larger chunks of time together. Follow the earlier time period Bryony arc for a while, then follow the later for a while too? Hmmm... but that would restrict my ability to do certain very important POVs until the third book.

Of course, that raises another point that I've been avoiding even thinking about... is this a trilogy? Is there enough of interest in the earlier time arc to make an entire book of just that? In that case, would the prologue of book 2 become the prologue of book 3 instead? Then book 4 would be the end game? Of course, what about the material that I've developed that comes after the end I had planned? There's so much to explore there, and a natural progression of raising the stakes, too. Would that be book five?

And then there's the possibility of rearranging everything into fewer volumes, or even a single volume. The more ideas I get, the more choices there seem to be about what the future can hold.

I suppose the thing I really need to decide is this: when I start writing again, what section am I going to write? And I think the clear answer is chronologically the simplest. I'm going to write the story in the order that it happened. If I later decide to rearrange for artistic effect, I can do so with only minimal edits. Anything that happened earlier and gets held over for a while becomes a flashback; anything that happened later and is brought up is a flashforward. What could be simpler?

Get your umbrella, it's a brainstorm

After an initial bout of despair that I could ever hope to pick up all the threads, I've come to the conclusion that yes, I actually can do this. Here's how it's been working:

For three chapters now, I've gone through and make notes of every outstanding question I've introduced. Then, I write down the answers, and make note of where and how I plan to reveal it.'

I've been surprised at how often I had a general answer to the question, but nothing really specific. As a result, I've done a lot more writing that I anticipated, just in providing answers to these questions. But the real exercise is pinning down the reveal--it makes me figure out story beats, which in turn drives the scenes I write.

This makes me think that from now on as I write, I should maintain this sort of list. Early on in the story, I'm making it bigger and bigger, then later on I start checking more and more off. By the end of the story, everything should get tied off. That doesn't mean there will be no loose ends at all, but the loose ends will be left loose because I choose to, not because I forgot them.

This may be a long process, but it's one where I know what the next step is, and that's important in a project this big.

Hey... Remember Me?

I used to do this blog every day. What happened to those days? Those were good days. I want 'em back.

And the best way to do that is to start today (carpe hodie?) and begin as I mean to go on. So... here's the plan.

I want to get back into Bryony's Market. Even more--I want to finish it. I just completed a reread of everything I've done so far, followed by a reread of the blog posts I wrote concurrently. So to start my marathon NYC-based writing session today, I'm going to give my thoughts on that reread.

First, I enjoyed the story. Nearly a year's distance allowed me to examine the story with more of a reader's eye than a writer's, and I found myself laughing at some of the jokes, flipping pages to get to what happens next, and feeling tantalized by the little hints that I left behind. This tells me two things--I've spent insufficient time editing the story, and it's better than I was afraid of.

Second, the computer problems ended it at a bad spot. In my memory, I had written much further than that unanswered question in the carriage, and I was intensely saddened by the fact that, as of yet, the story went no further. I know I'm the only one who can do something about that, though, and I plan to do so. That's why I'm here.

Finally, the pace is better than I was afraid of. Several times throughout the course of the blog I was afraid that the story was getting bogged down. Reading through it, however, I discovered that on the contrary, other passages felt rushed. In the course of editing the series as a whole, I may augment several scenes, or even add entirely new ones in order to tweak the pacing.

I have developed a plan for resuming the dropped threads of the story:

• Reread all text, notes, and blog posts - COMPLETE
• Second reread, taking notes on plot threads
• Scene brainstorming
• Sort scenes into basic outline
• Start writing where I left off.

And when I say where I left off, I mean it. The first new section of story will take place at my usual 10pm update on November 26th, which is the one year anniversary of when that section should have been written. It's still Day 57, if not the one I had originally intended. That's not to say that I won't be writing at all before that, but that's when updates will begin. Anything else is a buffer, and there ain't nothing wrong with that. If at all possible, I want to build up a nice long buffer for Christmas.

And then I just start cranking out the daily 1,689 like I used to back in the day. As easy as that.

Well, I've spent the last hour talking about it. Now it's time to actually do it!

What is "Good"?

In yesterday's post, I threw around the term "good" a lot. The definition of "good" literature is one of the most subjective things imaginable, and I'd like to spend some time trying to draw out what, if anything, is objective about writing.

Here are the assumptions that I'm making.

1. Good stories are about people.
   
   I'm extending the definition of people to include aliens, talking animals, gods, dwarves and elves and orcs and anything with sentience enough to be able to participate in a story. Hell, if you want to anthropomorphize nature, go right on ahead. Write a story about the East Wind and the West Wind getting into a fight.
   
   The thing is, there has to be some element of intensionality in a story. If you remove the intention, then all you have left is a bare description of natural phenomena. There's nothing wrong with that if it's what you're after--but it's not a story.
   
   
2. Good stories are about change.
   
   They're about starting in one state and ending in another state--that's what change is. Perhaps the characters learn something. Maybe they don't, but the reader does. The important thing is that the action or inaction of the characters brings about a change or lack of change.
   
   Sure, that's impossibly broad and general. So? You can write an interesting story about someone trying to keep things the same just like you can about things changing. But since without that struggle, things would have changed, there is a net difference between the potential and the actual. The story doesn't like on those endpoints, but in the difference between them.
   
   
3. Good stories are about struggle.
   
   "John went out to get his mail." Where's the story in that? It's just right outside. If there's no struggle, there's no story.
   
   Ah, but what if John is agoraphobic, terrified to go outside. Then you've got a story. Or what if there's a letter he's dreading, so every day he finds it harder and harder to go to the mailbox. Or perhaps there's a flood or a snowstorm, and John desperately wants to go get his mail, but nature is keeping him from doing so.
   
   See, anything can be a story as long as there is inherent struggle. Assumption 2 was about change. But that change is worthless if it is easy to achieve. Where there are obstacles, and therefore something to struggle against, there is a tension between the potential and the actual.

These seem all pretty self explanatory. So how is it possible for stories not to have these? Here are some examples.

Stories without people

Well, technically there are people. But instead of real people, they're cardboard cutouts. They're one dimensional, single note players who are manipulated like puppets to serve the whims of the author. They can usually be described in a single word, and cater to stereotypes.

The rich guy. The blonde bimbo. The scientist. The jock. The accountant. Each of these conjure up an image of a character. You know what they're wearing, what they'll do in a given situation, the way they talk. And they're not real. You'll never meet someone whose life and personality is encapsulated in a single personality trait. But stories are full of these.

Stories without change

Look no further than network television for this. Don't you ever get pissed off by TV shows that seem to hit a reset button between every episode? You can watch the episodes in any order because there is never any character development. Maybe the guest stars reach a new point, but the main characters, the one that you watch the show for, they are constant. It's clumsy and frustrating.

Stories without struggle

Genre stories are really bad about this, as are action hero movies. When the purpose of the story is wish fulfillment, everything just comes too easily for the main character. It's like the entire plot serves to illustrated how ABSOLUTELY AWESOME they are. It's unrealistic, the hallmark of infantile Mary Sue fan fiction. You can write a character that anyone can relate to without making them Superman.

--

So, when I talk about good stories, I'm talking about stories that meet these minimum qualifications. I'd love to hear some counterexamples!

In Defense of *gasp* Genre

In the scale of guilty pleasures, genre literature ranks somewhere in the second quintile. It's more embarrassing than, say, gourmet coffee, but less embarrassing than boy band fandom. And that's a shame, because unlike boy bands, there's nothing wrong with liking genre literature.

Good genre literature, that is. It would be disingenuous of me to say that all sci-fi, horror, romance, action, or fantasy stories are good. In fact, I would say that there is probably more bad writing in genre that there is in literary fiction. That bad writing wouldn't exist (at least not for sale) if people weren't willing to buy it. So why does bad genre writing sell?

You see, although the writing is bad, there must be something that those authors are doing well. For each genre that's different. In fantasy and sci-fi, it's creating a world. Booksellers are used to the fact that these worlds are pretty similar in a lot of ways--that's why they're shelved together. The biggest difference tends to be the values that are perpetuated by these worlds--whether the things that are worthwhile in society come from what we build or what we are.

In romance writing, the relationships between characters are brought to the fore, often at the expense of plot. In action thrillers, the opposite happens--intricate plots are woven, but the characters can be nothing more than shadow puppets.

I think of these kind of novels as single-flavor stories. Let's say you have a taste for chocolate. Bad genre stories are kind of like the Hershey bar of literature--inexpensive, mass produced, readily available, pretty much forgettable.

There's nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

But after you've had your fifth or sixth Hershey bar, maybe you're looking for something more. Something with some subtlety, something that hits more than one note. You can get more expensive chocolate, or chocolate blended with other flavors. There are cakes and cookies and all sorts of exotic and complex combinations. Here, chocolate is the theme of the dessert, but there's a lot more to it than that.

That's how I would describe good genre literature. Yet the denigrators of genre seem to think that anything that uses chocolate is nothing more than mass produced garbage. They neglect to notice the wide variety and quality that is available, even if it's harder to come by.

What is Pride and Prejudice if not a romance novel? What is 1984 if not sci fi? Hell, Shakespeare's The Tempest is fantasy, complete with a wizard and its very own Gollum. Somehow, somewhere along the line, certain works get a free pass. They're promoted from genre into the ranks of Literature--note the capital. But to try to divorce them from their genre underpinnings is to excise an element that made them popular from the beginning.

The genre of a story is only one flavor. It's probably the dominant flavor, but it's still only one among many, at least if the story is done well. And it's a shame that stigma would be attached to a novel just because it's genre. That sort of literary racism has no place in our culture.

Dialogue vs. Description

As I've mentioned in the past, my stories tend to be pretty heavy in dialogue. To me, there's nothing more frustrating than encountering a giant, unbroken, rectangular block of text on a page. I don't care how vivid the description is--if nothing's happening, I'm not interested.

However--I feel the same way about long expository sections. It's the same feeling I get when someone describes a movie to me in excessive detail. Why isn't that the same as seeing it myself? Because we don't see a movie to learn about a specific plot. We go to see that plot unfolded before us through the actors' portrayal.

In that case, what do I like? For me, that's character. A story is only as interesting as the people who are participating in it. If you don't believe me, consider this.

Did you hear that Ellen just started going out with Jim? What do you think Larry will do when he finds out?

Ah, gossip. There's nothing more interesting... if you know the people being gossiped about. Otherwise, you might as well listening to static and watching a television test pattern. It would take an unusual event to get you to start listening to gossip about people you don't know, and even more to keep you listening.

But really, that's what storytelling is. It's gossip about people you don't know. Over the course of the story, you may come to know them, which is called becoming invested in the characters. If you don't get to know them like that, one of the biggest motivations to keep reading is gone.

Now, the point of all of this was dialogue, as opposed to description and exposition. The function of dialogue is character interaction, which is the heart of what drives plot forward. Just try to find a story with only two characters in which those characters don't interact. (Yes, they can interact without speaking. I'm saying that dialogue is a kind of interaction, not the only kind.)

But dialogue has other effects too. When a person speaks, he's not just getting across his message--he's also revealing things about himself. Through dialogue, you can move the plot forward in a way that doesn't rely on huge paragraphs of exposition, and you can shine a light on character in a way that engages the reader.

Dialogue has one other side effect that's all thanks to the way English grammar works. The typical rule is one speaker per paragraph. So when there's dialogue, those huge blocks of text get broken up into smaller pieces, and the eye can fly down the page. You want to write a page turner? Then stop spending six pages describing the sunset. If it's important, get a couple of characters talking about the sunset. Then we learn about those characters based on the way they describe the sunset, their reaction to it and each other.

The Lifestyle

There are a lot of reasons why I want to be a professional writer. The most important reasons include my love of reading and storytelling, the need I feel sometimes to get ideas on paper, the sheer audacity of creating something that didn't exist before. These are the things that drive me forward into this career. But there are other aspects of a writing life that I enjoy, the icing on the cake.

One of these is the writing lifestyle. If you ask ten different authors how they write, you're likely to get eleven different answers. Some adhere to a strict 9 to 5 schedule; some write only in the mornings, in the afternoons, at night, weekdays only, every day. The point is, this is a career that does not require a set schedule. In some ways, it doesn't even require a set amount of progress, although there are Deadlines. The work is entirely up to the individual, and the results are what matters.

There was a time in my life that I had all the free time I could have wished for. But I accomplished very little writing. I think the reason is because at that time, I had never really worked a standard 9 to 5 job. I didn't have the discipline that comes from needing to meet deadlines, from being responsible for a certain amount of work, and not getting time off just whenever I felt like it.

Now, I'm balancing my writing with a day job--one that I very much like, and one that I devote a lot of time and energy to. Yet I'm getting more writing done than ever. I get up at 4:30 every morning and get to Panera at 6am for ninety minutes of writing, every weekday. That's not a lot of time every day, but it's more than I was doing when I had no responsibilities.

I always regret having to leave the restaurant and return to normal life. I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be responsible only to myself and my writing on a daily basis. I picture myself in Manhattan, maybe, showing up at the door of an East Village coffeeshop the minute it opens and writing until noon. Then I take a walk, do some reading or some revising, get caught up on the clerical side of writing by doing submissions, blogging, and (dare I dream?) maybe answering fan mail. The evenings would be my own.

But I see myself spending a little time in the evenings too, and I see the writing encroaching into my weekends. Or maybe I'll have a hard time filling the days. What I've done over this past year is to build up the pressure to write, and then stuff it into a 90 minute container. The question is, what will happen if it's let out of that container? Will it expand to fill all available space? Or will the pressure die off?

Either way, that time is far in the future, and by then, I'll have probably built up even more pressure. Years ago, I had a little taste of what the lifestyle could be like, but I didn't have the discipline to make use of it. Now, if I want it back, I'm going to have to earn it.

Editing: Black Pudding

In approaching this story, I go back to one of the times that I workshopped it, and people mentioned how many exclamation points there were. Okay. Fair enough. Most of my stories use virtually none, but this one used them all over the place.

I think the reason goes back to Covey's personality. For her, everything is worthy of the exclamation point. At least, that's how she would be saying it if she were actually narrating. One thing that I've noticed about my writing is that my punctuation adheres more to the way something is read aloud rather than to the precepts of grammar. In a way, I'm actually sticking to the original purpose of punctuation, and that's fine for a first draft. But I know the rules of punctuation, and that means that on a revision, I need to fix them.

So in other words, to reserve the power of the punctuation, I need to use fewer exclamation marks. I can handle that.

I also got a lot of comments about the ending of the story. Some people liked it the way it was, others wanted to make it more overt. Honestly, I think it would eviscerate the story to change the ending. Everything that needs to be implied is there.

The final comment was my description of the food being "safe." Although most people figured it out right away, there was some vagueness at the beginning that could make it tough to interpret. It shouldn't take much of a change to fix that up.

I picked this story to start my revisions because I think it's pretty closed to a finished version. Some stories take a lot of polishing, and others just come out polished. I like the way this one turned out.

The Omniscient POV

I hate it. I hate the omniscient POV. There, I've said it.

It just... feels like sloppy writing to me. I know that's not true. You can offer counterexamples all day long. But I really just can't make myself do it.

Now the first person I like. There is so much you can do with it! I mean, you've got a built-in way to disguise the identity of the narrator, since they only have to refer to themselves as "I" and "me." If you want to, things like age, race, even gender can be left vague or revealed as necessary. Plus, you've got this window into their mind that is just so intriguing to me. Not to mention, you can start to play around with the conventions of grammar, even turning the exposition and other functional grammar into the character's own voice.

Sometimes that puts you too deep into a character, or you want to be able to more easily switch POVs. For that, I like the 3rd person limited. You get a lot of the same attributes of the first person, although you do have to give the character a name. But when written well, you can get into a character's head and see everyone through their eyes. Both of these are great for the unreliable narrator, which is one of my favorite tools.

But the omniscient POV, well, it strikes me as lazy. It's just not something I can relate to, dipping into one person's head, then another, describing their emotions in objective terms. Because the omniscient narrator is always right. That POV is the God of the story, and He knows all.

Maybe it's just that I'm not so sure of my characters to be able to state in absolute, objective terms what they must be feeling. I'd much rather hear their own thoughts through the filter of their subjective perceptions, or maybe just watch how they react. It seems purer somehow.

If I have to keep myself out of a character's head, give me the third person objective. It's like the omniscient, only without the omniscience. That is, the narrator can go anywhere and see anything that would be available to an observer, but no thoughts and feelings. It's kind of the voyeur perspective.

I don't know what it says about me that in the worlds I create, I'd rather be a voyeur than God. But I do know what is says about me that even more than that, I'd like to be inside the story.

Character Moments

Sometimes as I'm editing, I see a scene that I've written, but doesn't seem to have a place in the plot. Yet I have a hard time cutting it, and I wind up leaving it in, saying that it's a "character moment."

What does that even mean? I think what I'm trying to get at is that sometimes, a scene doesn't advance the story, but does deepen the reader's appreciation for or connection to a certain character. When it comes to our friends, we can always come up with examples of, "Oh, that's exactly something she would do." Character moments in writing are how the reader learns about those very traits.

So I guess what I'm trying to figure out is this: is it sloppy writing? Ideally, those character moments would be included in a scene that also advances the plot. It's a two-for-one deal. Other times, learning that character trait is so vital to the later events that it cannot be cut--it sets up the plot, even if it doesn't advance it.

In any other case, though, I should think about the length of the story before I decide whether to leave it in. For a short story, everything has to serve a purpose, maybe six or seven purposes. If it doesn't, then the length of the story outstrips its worth, and that kills it. For a novel, you can get away with more digression.

Think, for example, about Harry Potter. There are lots of scenes that serve no purpose other than to show off the world in which the stories are set. Gnome hunting in the Weasley garden, for instance. That scene did not communicate anything that could not have been added into another scene, but it gives us a connection to that magical world. Plus, it contributes to Harry's character, because we see the delight he takes in something that others around him consider a thankless chore. The series is richer because of it, even if it had nothing to do with defeating Voldemort.

(I just accidentally spelled that Voldemart. Like he's a convenience store. Heh.)

My general rule of thumb should be the longer the story, the more pure character moments I can get away with. But genre comes into play as well. Emotional stories can get more character moments, whereas more action-oriented stories need less to keep up the pace. Fantasy stories should get world-defining moments--what's the point of a fantastic setting if you never get to see it?

That being said, clever writing should do as much as possible to layer in extra in these scenes. A character moment can occur just before a plot point, or during a world-building scene. It can change drab exposition into something vivid and interesting.

Chronology

During yesterday's post,I started thinking about the different orders in which a story can be told. Chronological is the first and easiest choice, and often the best. The reader is experiencing the events in the same way that the characters are. I think a chronological method of storytelling is preferable when you want to really draw in the reader and make him relate to the character. "That could be me," the reader thinks.

The trick here is that in a lot of ways, the character treated in that way needs to be a vessel that the reader pours himself into. In other words, it's hard to really relate to a character who is hugely different from yourself. That's not to say that such a character isn't attractive to read about--they can be--but in terms of really getting inside someone's head, the more different that head is, the poorer fit it will be.

That all seems pretty self-evident, but what does it have to do with chronology? I personally think that readers are very clever about filling in the gaps in a character's history. The author does not have to specify that the character grew up in a small surburban town, had a sister, was on the swim team, liked the Orioles, etc., unless those elements are vital to the story. The reader has the remarkable ability to fill in those details with details from his own life. In other words, the reader assumes unless told otherwise that the character had experiences different in particular but identical in form to his own.

When I, as an author, want to override those assumptions, I've got to do it by supplying the details. To some extent, I can do this through exposition, but isn't the first rule of writing "Show, Don't tell"? If a major event happened in a character's past, I may need to go back and show that to the reader. Hence the flashback.

Of course, nothing says I have to tell the story out of order. I could make all of the events chronological, even if there are big skips of time. The danger here becomes getting the reader interested in the story in the first place. I personally think that the reader should have an idea what kind of story he's reading within a page or two of starting a short story, and within a chapter or two of starting a novel. If every story starts with the childhood escapades of the hero, what kind of story am I reading?

It's much better to engage the reader on the right level to begin with. Once we care about a character and the situation he's currently in, then we can go back and figure out what motivates him. At that point, we'll want to know about his childhood because we like him.

Anything more complicated than the simple flashback is done to construct a puzzle of some sort. The character in the present day knows something the reader does not, and we gradually uncover the larger picture as we gain more information. That kind of story can be very, very satisfying--but it makes it difficult to get inside the character's head. After all, the more the character knows that we do not, and are not allowed to supply from our imaginations, the less we can relate to him.

I'm not saying that one type of story is better than any other. I think that most stories are on a continuum between the direct, straightforward, relatable character and the mysterious, complex character-with-a-past. The attempt to blend both of these together is why so many stories have a young, naive, relatable character (e.g., Luke Skywalker) who is brought by a mysterious old mentor (e.g., Obi-Wan Kenobi) into the larger world of the story.

The Way I Write

Story ideas tend to come on me all at once, not necessarily fully formed, but at least in their broad strokes. In fact, I tend to have more ideas than I write down, and of those I write down, only a few get a full prose treatment. That doesn't mean that the other ideas are any worse than the ones that I write, only that some strange confluence of the stars arrived so that I actually bothered to write it.

The obvious question is this: why don't I just write them all? The answer lies in the stage in between an idea and a finished draft, when the story idea is changed into a story plan But to get there, I'm going to take a step back and look at an idea that I got yesterday and the development I've done up until now.

1. The Spark
   
   I'm sure there's dozens of words for this part of story generation, but I always think of it as the spark. It's the one question, concept, person, setting, or whatever that starts the process of brainstorming. Think of it as the grain of sand in the pearl--the pearl is built up around it so that the grain of sand disappears. I like to distinguish the spark from the thesis of the story. Sometimes the spark is the thesis; more often it's not. Sometimes, the spark disappears altogether and the story goes into a completely different direction. Either way, the spark is the starting place.
   
   
2. The Thesis
   
   The spark usually launches me down one direction or another, and I start to understand the structure of the story--again, in broad strokes. Is it a love story? Does it have a sad or happy ending? How many characters? What POV do I use? Reliable or unreliable narrator? Not all of these questions get answered at this point, or even asked, but they're there in the back of my mind.
   
   As these elements come together, I start to pick up on what I'm trying to get across with the story. I call this the thesis. A love story might be about acceptance, or it might be about loneliness. A story might be about trust, or fear, or self-realization, or courage, or cruelty, on the permanent or transitory nature of relationships.
   
   I try not to write stories that really whack you in the face with the thesis. I don't like reading stories like that, and I think that for adults, they're an insult to the intelligence of the reader. (For kids too, really.) But here's the thing--the exact same plot might be written in wildly different ways with two different theses behind it. I want to show precisely those scenes that advance the thesis, and to write them in a way that compliments it.
   
   
3. The Threads
   
   When I say "thread," I'm talking about two different things. One is the chain of events that take place in the world of the story, chronologically as the characters themselves experience them. The other is the chain of revelations that are revealed to the reader, chronologically as the story is read.
   
   You might think these are the same thing, but they can be vastly different. Any time there is a flashback, for instance, the reader is experiencing something in a different order than the character does. But you don't need a complicated time structure for the character-thread and the reader-thread to be different. Any time the significance of an event is inherent to a character but not to the reader, or vice versa, the threads are different.
   
   Why do we even want them to be different? We do this because there are certain elements of narrative structure that readers expect from their stories. You remember the whole introduction, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement setup you learned in school, right? That's not a prescriptive requirement in a story--in other words, no one says you have to--but it describes a very definite way that the reader can experience a story in a satisfying way.
   
   Remember, you have to get the ideas of your story across to a reader who may not remember or even pick up on every detail. It's important, then, to make the vital details jump out at the right time in the reading of the story. And that may not be the time when the detail first appears chronologically.
   
   As I'm writing, then, I need to figure out how the characters view their own lives at that moment, and then translate that into a thread that works for the reader.
   
   
4. The Beats
   
   If the thread is a continuous line, then the beats are the points on that line. A story that described every moment of every day would be hideously boring, or would describe someone with an unrealistically interesting life (see television's Jack Bauer on 24 for an example).
   
   A beat is the smallest unit of story, the point at which something is revealed. That revelation could be about character or it could be an event that drives the plot along. Really, when you get down to it, that's what most stories are--how events affect people, and how people affect events.
   
   Typically there is a strong correspondence between beats and scenes. A given scene can have a single beat, or it can have many beats. And since all good scenes should have a climax, we often find the most important beat at the climax of a scene. But not always! In fact, one clever thing to do is to misdirect the reader by putting the beat that's really important to the story earlier in a scene, where the reader will process it without understanding the true importance. That way, when the importance is revealed later on, it won't seem like a deus ex machina.
   
   Can there be a scene without a beat? Well, yeah, but why would you? If a scene doesn't advance the plot or contribute to character, why is it in your story in the first place?
   
   
5. The Outline
   
   There don't have to be Roman numerals for it to be an outline. Let's get that out of the way.
   
   My outlines are usually either a terse listing of beats, broken up by scene, or else a bulleted list. The point of an outline is to put each element of the story structure in the right order and the right place, as a guide to later writing. For example, the following is an outline to a story I'm working on right now.
   
   

   Goes off to college. Gets a girlfriend—the same girl he went to camp with that time. Asks about his sister. He lies to her, and she starts to figure it out. He confesses, but she is repelled by it and runs away. Later on, refuses to talk to him, and when he insists, refuses to admit that anything happened. When he tries to force her, she threatens to report him, so he backs off.

   Here we have both background and story beats. I don't need to show the main character arriving at his first day of college or meeting the girlfriend for the first time. A lot of that I can handle through reflection or exposition. The important conflict here come from certain words, which I've gone back and bolded.
   
   This hasn't been fully developed yet, but I think I would write this as two scenes. In the first scene, the main character and the girlfriend would be in a non-confrontational, comfortable situation that illustrates how things had been going. Then the conversation changes, and suddenly the comfort flees. The main character manages to patch things up, but the reader is aware of the lie, even if the girlfriend isn't. The scene ends with the confrontation delayed, but the comfort and good feelings gone.
   
   In the next scene, we see the main character's inner turmoil, and join him as he makes the decision to confess. Lots of good conflict here in the lead up to the confession, plus the discomfort as he does. We get a strong reaction from the girlfriend with no immediate resolution. The main character is left hanging, and so is the reader.
   
   The last scene of this section would pick up in the middle of a string of unanswered phone calls. The main character is at the breaking point, so he does something exceptional to finally get in contact with the now ex-girlfriend. He succeeds, but nothing goes as he plans. He faces her to confront his confession, but finally understands that there can be no going back to the way things were before. Finally there is resolution, if of a tragic sort.
   
   Each scene offers several story beats, a climax that elevates one of those beats to the foreground, and a hook that leads into the next scene. By the end of this set of scenes, we have learned about our main character, what he's prepared to do and where he's prepared to go. And we now know that in the future, he will be less likely to confess--we expect him to be a less open person.
   
   
6. The Draft
   
   All that's left is to write the story. At this point, I just have to construct the scenes, use brilliant description, realistic dialogue, beautiful metaphor, and sparse but detailed prose. Easy, right? Of course not. That's what multiple drafts are for. But at least I have the feeling that the story that I'm writing and revising is worth the time I'm putting into it, because at this point I should have the confidence that the story makes sense and gets across my thesis.

My original question was this: why don't all my story ideas get turned into stories? That's because the story idea might just be the spark, or perhaps a spark that has burned into a thesis. To do that idea justice, there is a lot of work that needs to be done to make it into a story, and if the thesis doesn't inspire or motivate me, maybe I should invest that energy into something else.

The Three Month Plan

I've decided I need a bit more regularity in my writing life (no fiber jokes, please). So yesterday, I came up with a three-month plan, intended to be repeated over and over. The details are intended to be mutable so I can form into to what actually works for me, but here's the idea:

Week 1: Revision of Old Stories
Week 2: Revision of Old Stories - Submit to magazines by end of this week
Week 3: Refresher on long project / plotting and outlining
Week 4: Refresher on long project / plotting and outlining
Week 5: Write long project
Week 6: Write long project
Week 7: Write long project
Week 8: Write long project
Week 9: Write long project
Week 10: Write long project
Week 11: Brainstorm new short story ideas
Week 12: Write new short stories
Week 13: Write new short stories

And... that's it. Rinse and repeat. Note that these tasks take into account weekdays only. Weekends are left free to work on whatever writing projects I feel like. That includes the audiobook versions that I had been talking about before, editing and commenting on other people's stuff, working on the anthology, etc.

I think six weeks at a time is just about right for working on a novel, at least at this point in my writing career. Any longer, and the ideas get stale. Plus, when I'm working on something long term, I get lots of little ideas that crowd up at the back of my mind, and have no outlet. If I know that after a six week period I can develop them, I'll be a lot happier.

This slots into my current plans pretty organically. By the way, writing the long project can turn into revising that same project if I wind up finishing. Still, I want to get the first draft completely done before I start on revisions--at least as long as I feel that I'm going in a good direction. If at any point I feel like I've completely fallen off track, that's the time to regroup, get the target in my sights again, and start over.

Anthology Timeline

In yesterday's post, I described the justification for a self-published anthology of the stories of my writing group. Today, I'm going to talk about how all of that will come together.

Let's work backwards. We want this thing ready in time for Christmas. In fact, we'd like it to be able to ship by Thanksgiving, just so there won't be any time problems. Given the 6-8 week lead time for getting everything listed in the appropriate distribution databases, that means we would want to have the finished product uploaded by October 1st. Let's say it takes a month to do all the editing, so that puts us at September 1st to have all the finished and approved content. Which means that authors need to have the two months before that for revisions, so any requested revisions go out by July 1st. Based on that, I think a June 1st submission date is warranted.

So, here's the proposed timeline:

• June 1st: Deadline for submissions
• June: Editors read stories, send them back to authors for revisions
• July 1st: All revision requests back to authors
• July - August: Authors and editors work on revising stories
• September 1st: All revisions due
• September: Layout
• October 1st: Layout completed, submitted to publisher. Order galley copy for final revisions

The book would be available for purchase from the Lulu website pretty much as soon as it is uploaded, but we'll have to wait 6-8 weeks for the full listing on Amazon and the like.

The Anthology Project

One thing that my enforced hiatus has given me is a chance to think of new projects. One of these is related to a new writing group that I've joined. We've decided to put together an anthology of our writing and self publish it using Lulu.

There has been a lot said about self-publishing, both good and bad. Check out the latest issue of Writer's Digest for a far more astute discussion than I can give. There are certain ways, though, that this project sidesteps the bad parts of self-publishing and seizes on the good parts.

The question is, what would we want to get out of an anthology? The most tangible element is the thrill of seeing our work in print, even if it did not go through a traditional publishing house. That thrill is more acute for the various parents, relatives, and friends who have supported us, and have been waiting a long time to hold that volume in their hands. We're anticipating twenty entries; if each one distributes a book to five friends, that's 100 copies. Is it worldwide distribution? Of course not. But it's a start.

Doing an anthology results in cross-pollination as well. Sure, moms are gonna buy this thing to see their own darling's stuff, but they might just read some of the other stories too. In other words, the audience for 95% of the book is going to be an audience that could not have been reached if the book was sent only to friends and relatives. This cross-pollination extends to another field--promotion. Any time one of these volumes is distributed to a potential agent, it serves to promote the entire group.

The least important aspect is fundraising. I don't anticipate sales to be very high, but whatever money is made would go to the group. These funds could be used for group events, meeting space... or to fund the next year's anthology.

One of the greatest things about Lulu is how you can use your own publishing imprint. Essentially, our group becomes the publishing house. In later years, we accept outside submissions, accept and reject manuscripts, publish and promote the finished product--in effect, we become the publishing house. Recognition takes time, but if we consistently put out a quality product, then the name of our group becomes associated with quality.

Tomorrow, I delve into exactly how this will all come together... hopefully.