writing advice
Instant rice.
Instant fame.
Instant coffee.
Instant messaging.
We live in a world of immediacy. Takeouts and drive-thrus. Accelerated learning. Microwaves and ready-to-eat meals. Information provided in a split second, via Google.
With an attention span of a ferret on Pixie Stix, we demand instant satisfaction—NOW!
Overnight Celebrity
I would love to wake up tomorrow—much, much thinner and with a best-selling novel. But instant weight loss is as unlikely as an instant novel.
I am lucky enough to be able to write a first draft of a novel in a single month. I participate in NaNoWriMo every year and I always win—cranking out a 50,000 utterly crappy first draft.
But I have never shown a first draft to anyone. They are truly awful. I plot obsessively before November so the directions are there. But the draft rambles about, the characters repeat themselves and act out inappropriately, and the language is cliché, flat and boring.
Starting January 1st, I start editing. I read through my first draft, making notes and trying not to cry. I keep the secrets my characters accidently told me in the first draft and remove the personality straightjacket I tried to put them in. I star my favorite sub-plots and prune out the ones I plotted. I create charts, maps and profiles so I can keep it all straight.
Then I go through every page, working from the beginning until the very last page, creating a cohesive second draft—which is sadly, as lousy as the first draft.
Because even though, I have spent two months editing the draft it took one month to write, I am still not done. I’m not even half way done. After draft two, I start again at the beginning. There will be many more drafts, as I do more research, fix more words, polish more dialogue and get more reader input.
I know writers who quickly crank out a first draft, take a few months to edit and then publish by the next year. It would be nice if the process worked that way for me. I admit fast sounds better than slow.
But I am not a microwave. I am a crock pot. It’s the only way I can write. I’d hate to think what I would produce if I tried to be something I’m not.
What do you want NOW? What will you do today to work towards it?
Tomorrow’s post is on Joss Whedon.
writing advice
A girl who is early in her writing career has been corresponding with me, asking wise questions. I try to give her answers that walk the fine line of realistic and encouraging. Here are some of my answers:
Nothing New Under the Sun
After reading Hunger Games, my young friend was concerned with some strong parallels between her work in progress and Collins’ series.
I know there is nothing new under the sun, but how do you know if you what you are writing has been done before? I don’t want to be like another book. We all want to have a truly original idea, but is that even possible?
The short answer is no. There are no new stories to be told. But there are always new perspectives. So many stories fall into archetypes that seem to be overdone–yet new, compelling stories are told every day. The Hunger series is not new or even unique. It is retelling of the Minotaur. Harry Potter is a Messiah story and Titanic is Romeo and Juliet.
I highly recommend reading How to Read Literature Like a Professor. Even with formulas and archetypes, there are still individual ways to tell a story. This book does a very good job of showing you the commonality of different stories but never once suggesting that they rip off another first told story.
It matters very little that your IDEA has been written about. There are hundreds of books with public floggings (such as in the Hunger Games.) And rebellion and suicide and dystopian flavors. The goal is not to find a plot or a concept that has never been addressed.
Instead your task is much harder. You have to create characters (more than one) that are REAL. They are motivated, well rounded, flawed, perfect and they do your bidding. We have all read books that tell of government rebellion. But if you can make us care that your characters are risking life and limb—then we are seeing something new. If you can make us feel–you have a gift.
The things you do to the characters are rather limited. They can win…or lose. They can risk…or play it safe. In most action scene, they can go one way or another. As the creator, you can choose their reaction and the fallout.
But the recipe for a well developed character is endless. As endless as all the people in world. What are they scared of? What do they want? And why? What will they pay to get it? What is in their way? How do they get past it? These motivations plus the extras that make us unique–the likes, dislikes, quirks, appearance, hangups, history, etc. all add to the recipe.
And only YOU can create those characters.
Please know that you are not alone in the writing endeavor. Every early writer laments that all the good stories have been told. But a true writer–the one who sits in the seat at the keyboard and does the hard work of writing–knows that they have a story to tell. So they write it.