Novels

When to Give Up

Author: September 15, 2017 0 Comments

We’re all gonna die someday. I know, I was pretty shocked when the reality of this hit me around age 28 or so; before then on some level I’d assumed I’d live forever through some fortunate combination of science!, the preservative qualities of alcohol, and my own specialness. Realizing that literally none of those things was going to apply was sobering, in the sense that it was the exact opposite of sobering in that I immediately launched a three-year bender.

But I digress: You’re going to die. And before you die, there’s a chance of a lengthy period of dotage. Which means you only have so many useful creative years in you, and there’s no way to know how many—which in turn means you only have so many books and stories in you. That means the biggest decision you have to make every day is what to work on, because your creative energies are a limited resource. And that leads to the big question: When should you give up on a book?

The answer is, you’re asking the wrong question.

Change the Conversation

We’ve all been there: You’re six months and tens of thousands of words into a new project, and it isn’t working. Or you’ve finished a draft, and no one likes it. The question looms: Should you spend another year trying to make it work? Or cut your losses and move on to something new?

There’s no need to be so final. A rough draft will remain just as rough if you let it sit in a drawer for five years, and it will have the same potential to be great and marketable a few years later. A draft that gives you the fits because it’s 60% awesome and 40% confusion and failure will still have that 60% awesome part if you come back to it. And a book that everyone likes but no one wants to buy might surprise you with a sale before you know it.

So the question should never be “Is it time to give up on this book.” Instead, ask if your time would be better spent on something else right now. Leave yourself open to going back to a book. It might seem silly, but the psychological impact can be huge. Tell yourself a book is dead and on some level your brain stops working over the problems. Tell yourself you’re just switching focus for a while allows the invisible hand that controls you (otherwise known as your muse) to keep sweating over that problematic story while you do other, less-frustrating things.

In other words, go full Winston Churchill and never surrender. Also, drink heavily and smoke cigars, and cultivate a speaking voice that is 50% lava and 50% sneering disdain, also like Churchill.

career, General, Novels, Writing

Leave Room for the Swerve

Author: September 6, 2017 0 Comments

A few weeks ago there was a leaked letter from George R.R. Martin to his publisher detailing his original outline for A Song of Ice and Fire. As Martin still has two enormous novels to go in his series and the HBO adaptation Game of Thrones has become quite alarming in the insane plot department, there’s a lot of speculation regarding Martin’s most famous fictional universe, and aspiring novelists who want to craft their own fantasy worlds are paying close attention—or should be, because this is basically real-life writing craft spooling out right before your eyes.

The main lesson from the leaked letter is that whether you consider yourself a Plotter, Pantser, or Plantser, you should be ready for the swerve, because the best laid plans of mice and men and all that.

The Swerve

Put simply, it doesn’t matter how meticulously you plot your books, or how in control you feel or how in tune with your instincts. George R.R. Martin is a pro, and his outline for ASoIaF demonstrates his sharp, professional approach to planning a series of fantasy novels. At the time he imagined the series as a trilogy. This was in 1993 or so, you know, twenty-four years ago. How innocent it all seems now.

The point is, Martin got into his story, and it swerved on him. The Swerve happens, and it happens when you least expect it. Simple stories get complex, stories you initially think will require sixteen dense volumes peter out after 30,000 words. The Swerve is something any novelist has to be ready for, because you’re never as in control of your story as you think you are. There’s a Shadow Writer inside all of us, living in our subconscious, and the Shadow Writer is always busy churning things in unexpected ways.

Putting in a ton of work and then watching your novel swerve out of your grasp is just the cost of doing business. Sometimes the Swerve works for you, sometimes it works against you. All you can do as a writer is accept the fact that it’s coming, and try to be ready.

Me, I’ve always been good with the Swerve because a similar thing happens every time I walk into a bar thinking I’ve to have three beers and no more.

General, Novels, plot, Writing

The Story Behind the Book: Lifers

Author: August 9, 2017 0 Comments

People often ask me about the process of writing and selling a novel, so I thought it might be useful to walk through the stories behind my published novels (and maybe after that a few unpublished ones that involved withcraft, spycraft, and being banned from several government buildings). So let’s start at the beginning with my first published novel, Lifers.

I wrote the first draft of Lifers when I was twenty-six years old, which means we’re traveling back to the mid-1990s, a magical time when people had aol.com email addresses (mine was linknull@aol.com) and I was still writing everything on an old-fashioned manual typewriter. I was pretty broke, so I rarely changed out the ribbon on that sucker, either, so the original first draft of the novel is written in type so faint it’s almost invisible ink.

The inspiration for the book was simple: I was spending a lot of time drinking in bars, hanging out with friends, and hating my job. So I wrote about that. Any time you’re lacking in inspiration, you can use this one weird trick: Imagine your life, then imagine something strange happening in it. Meteor strike? Future You appearing in a ball of energy and warning you not to eat that sandwich? Doesn’t matter. I imagined my life but with me deciding to commit grand larceny, and a novel was born.

I wrote the book pretty fast; it’s not a very long novel, clocking in around 40,000 words, which people will tell you is too short to sell. I revised it once—exactly once, mainly to produce a clean typewritten copy since back then you didn’t have to submit electronically, and often couldn’t. I didn’t really change any of the story or even the actual words—I just typed out a clean version making minor fixes as I went. That was it for revision (until the publisher asked me to add a sex scene, that is), so the published novel is about 96% the same as the first draft.

I thought it captured something about that moment in my life even though I resisted every urge to have anything dramatic happen. No one gets the girl, no one gets arrested, and no one’s life changes in the story, on purpose. At the time that sort of non-dramatic story felt powerful to me—and to be honest remains one of my worst habits, opting for a non-event climax to a novel. So, impressed by myself, I started submitting it to agents and publishers.

I’ve told the story of how I sold Lifers elsewhere, so there’s no need to repeat it her verbatim. It was the end result of a lot of submissions, though, which is the important bit. I worked my ass off mailing that manuscript out to the world, and two years after finishing it I sold it, and two after that it published. And I got some polite reviews and low sales and that was that, really, until 2011 when I re-released it as an eBook.

So what are our takeaways here? One, selling a novel takes a lot of grunt work, not even counting the actual writing. Two, selling a novel might not change your life in any way. And three, I need to get out that old manual typewriter and start working on it again. That thing is a monster.

Novels

Write a History

Author: July 31, 2017 0 Comments

There are times in every fiction writer’s life when they fantasize about writing one of those experimental novels that boldly go against all literary tradition—for example, a novel without characters, because characters are difficult, complicated imaginary beings. They often arrive in our stories flat and empty, and stubbornly refuse to become interesting no matter how much effort we put into them.

Sometimes characters fill out and become interesting through the organic process of telling the story and giving them something to do. Sometimes they never rise above the mechanics of their plot roles. When the latter happens, you can end up with a terrific story that has a surprising and interesting plot but no believable people to make your reader care about that plot.

Or, sometimes, you have the opposite scenario: Characters who pop off the page or screen as living, breathing personalities you’re certain your readers will want to spend time with, but your story meanders pointlessly. In either case, one way to jolt things into working order is to step away from the main plot and write up some history.

The Secret Histories

Recently George R.R. Martin broke hearts and shattered minds when he announced that he might not get The Winds of Winter out the door this year, but 2018 would see the publication of 2 Game of Thrones-related works, one being a history of Westeros called Fire and Blood. While fans tore their shirts over the steady delay of the sixth A Song of Ice and Fire book, I wonder if Martin needed to step back from his story to write that history as an exercise.

A history of your fictional world, or biographies of your fictional characters, don’t ever have to see the light of day. But they can clarify motivations, codify patterns of behavior, and give you heaps of material that inform your characters, fleshing them out, and give you hints as to where your story needs to go. History repeats, so if your secret histories yield up some interesting Noodle Incident, maybe bringing it into the main plot will move your story past your block.

A secret history or biography could be a few paragraphs jotted down, a complete other book-length work, or something in-between. I used to write lengthy histories of my epic fantasy universes, often with a brusque, academic tone, simply seeking to get ideas on paper, and it worked wonders for convincing myself that my fictional universe was real, and the characters I’d populated it with were living, breathing folks.

Next time you’re struggling, step back and write a history. And then pour yourself a drink. Not for any particular reason, just because drinking is fun.

characters, Novels, plot, Writing

The Insanity Button: One Approach to Plot

Author: July 10, 2017 0 Comments

There are as many ways to plot a novel as there are, well, novels. Anyone who claims there’s one way to do it is lying, or very confused, or possibly selling you something. Fact is, once you have the premise the rest is just coming up with a reasonable series of steps that take you from the beginning to the end. Like life, a novel is just one goddamn thing after another.

Okay, okay, it’s a little more involved than that. How to work out a plot is one of the most common questions I get, which of course led to the whole concept of Plantsing (a hybrid approach combining the best bits of Plotting with the best bits of Pantsing), but sometimes you need to get a little more granular, and sometimes you have to just get nuts. Sometimes, for example, you get stuck. You’ve boxed yourself into a corner and can’t see the way to the next plot point. There are a lot of ways to handle this, but one I like to use from time to time is a lot fun: I hit the Insanity Button.

Pick-a-Path

You can look at your novel as a Choose Your Own Adventure, in a way; at the end of every chapter or sequence your characters are in a certain situation, and must make decisions that drive the plot. Now, in any scenario there will be decisions that could be classified as rational, and then there are decisions that could be classified as Pantsless Crazy. For example, if I’m sitting in a restaurant and I realize I’ve left my wallet at home, I can discretely call for the manager and work something out, or I can take off my pants and feign food poisoning, loudly threatening to sue.

Why do my pants have to come off in this scenario? If you have to ask, you’ll never know.

You can try this in your plotting, too. If you’re stuck, if you have your characters in a spot and can’t see how to move them forward it’s possible you’ve unknowingly restricted yourself to rational decisions. Consider something crazy. Something self-destructive. Unexpected. Irrational and maybe even inexplicable.

If it works, your plot will suddenly rush forward, pushed on by this crazy energy you’ve unleashed. It will take your story in directions you didn’t foresee. If nothing else, it might entertain you and divert your brain long enough for a more sensible solution.

If it doesn’t work, in my experience there is always heavy drinking. It will never let you down.

Novels

What to Do When a Vengeful Universe Robs You

Author: June 12, 2017 0 Comments

This topic was suggested by Jon Gawne.

Writers, by and large, are simple creatures who live their lives according to a collection of old wives’ tales and myths, including a firm belief that you can turn magical thinking into a paying career and a firm belief that writing is a paying career. Ah, such innocence!

Another cherished belief many writers have is that their ideas are somehow wholly unique and original. I am reminded, ironically, of Paul McCartney’s story about writing the famous song Yesterday. He says the melody came to him and he was convinced he must have heard it somewhere else and nicked it unconsciously (something that would bite bandmate George Harrison in the ass years later) because it was too good. Only after spending months humming it to people and asking if they could identify it did he finally accept that he’d come up with it.

Writers should never do that with novel ideas, because if you’re looking for prior work that has more or less the same idea, you will almost certainly find it. Because there are no new ideas.

The President’s Dead!

A few years ago I wrote a novel about the designated survivor during the State of the Union Address—the member of the cabinet who is secured someplace just in case the entire line of succession is murdered in a terrorist attack or something. It was called Designated Survivor, which is also the title—and premise—of a TV show. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly a new idea when I wrote the novel, and my treatment of the premise went in a weirdo SF direction.

Still, the TV show kind of kills any hope I might have had of publishing the novel. This stuff happens, though, because ideas are constantly being recycled, and half the battle in publishing is timing. What do you do if you’ve been working on a novel and suddenly someone else publishes something with a similar premise? Here are your steps to work through:

  1. DON’T imagine they somehow stole your idea. Put down your phone and step away from the lawyers, because your idea just isn’t that unique. Trust me on this.
  2. DO keep working on the story if you’re still excited about it. You might find ways to twist things and set it apart from your new competition, and even if you don’t, you’ll enjoy finishing the story and maybe learn something.
  3. DON’T start pestering the other party on social media about stealing your ideas. Also, don’t mention how you had the same idea years earlier at every goddamn party and gathering, because trust me: No one cares.
  4. DO chalk it up to the fundamental perversion of the universe, hit control-N, and start writing something new.

That’s it. This shit happens, there’s no defense, and you can’t do anything about it. Well, that’s not 100% true—if you write a version of that idea that is so wildly better done than any other version, you might yet sell it. Accept that challenge or move on to your next idea. It’s that simple.

ideas, Novels, Writing

Taking a Break from Butt-in-Chair

Author: June 1, 2017 0 Comments

When you start talking about writing a novel, you’ll eventually hear a variation of the phrase “butt-in-chair.” This is generally pretty good advice: You can’t write a book if you don’t make yourself, you know, sit down in front of a keyboard and write it. So making sure you get (and keep) your butt in the chair for good long intervals is sound advice.

Like a lot of advice or best practices or rules, the whole point of learning them and understanding their benefits is so you can break them judiciously.

Take a Nap

I always refer to Mad Men when I discuss creativity, because one thing that TV show brilliantly handled was creativity. Don Draper is a writer, a creative guy. And the show goes out of its way to show Don goofing off—or, apparently goofing off. Don goes to the movies in the middle of the day. He drinks in his office. He naps. He goes home. You would be forgiven for asking what, precisely, Don does aside from wear the hell out of a suit and be charming.

The point is, Don’s creativity often resembles goofing off. Creativity needs discipline, so butt-in-chair works. But creativity is also chaos and anarchy, so sometimes when it’s just not happening you really do need to just get out of the chair. Take a walk. Take a nap. Drink a half bottle of cheap bourbon and go running through the neighborhood shouting about flat-earth theories. Whatever it takes.

The point is, you can’t take advice too literally. Butt-in-chair is a good rule of thumb, but it doesn’t mean you force yourself to sit there until you’ve written some arbitrary number of words. It just means you have to get into the habit of working or you’ll never actually work. It doesn’t mean the occasional half bottle of bourbon and arrest for public intoxication isn’t just as good for your soul.

Novels, time management, Writing

The Daemon

Author: May 31, 2017 0 Comments

I’ve always had an affinity for computer programming, but I lack the discipline and math comfort required, or maybe I just didn’t get the right encouragement when I was younger. I dabbled in programming, mainly in BASIC, and I enjoy the creative aspect even as my bug-ridden code always reminded me that my attention to detail is … lacking.

I always think of programming and chess in similar ways: Deep oceans I’ve poked a toe into, knowing that if I try to swim out too far I’ll just drown, because my brain is about as deep as a puddle. I get very interested in things and for short periods of time learn everything I can—about programming, about chess openings, what have you—and once I have a superficial and minimal mastery of them I lose interest and wander off. The upside is, I know a very little about a huge number of things.

In operating systems, there are what are known as daemons, small programs that run constantly in the background, checking on things or providing data. And here, a hundred words in, we get to the point: Your creativity is a daemon process. It’s working all the time, even if you’re not.

Walk Away

This is why you have to take breaks. Writers often try to force themselves to achieve arbitrary goals, like 5,000 words in a day or a first draft of a novel in four weeks or something like that. And all well and good if that works for you, but keep in mind the typing is the tip of that iceberg. The real work is buried deep inside your head, and it goes on 24-7. And if it’s not producing anything, all the typing in the world won’t help.

That’s why sometimes the best thing you can do for your novel is to walk away and stop writing it. And why sometimes it doesn’t make any sense to worry about stuff like word counts or progress. That creative process is going to be chugging along in the background no matter what you do, so waiting for it to start pushing ideas to the front of your head isn’t wasted time; often it’s necessary time. That’s one reason creativity often looks like doing nothing, just like your computer looks like it’s not doing anything even though there are dozens of processes running in the background all the time.

Of course, this is also a convenient excuse for me to day drink, because when someone catches me sipping whiskey on the deck instead of writing, I just tap my head and wink and say “Creative process!”

Novels, time management, Writing

There are No Rules

Author: May 30, 2017 0 Comments

If you talk to new writers, or lurk around Internet forums dedicated to writing like some sort of weirdo listening in on other people’s conversations, or do panels or give presentations at writing conferences and the like, you’ll find something kind of strange: Writers, as a group, seem to think there are a lot of rules out there. They always want to know if you “can” do something in a story—is this idea too weird? Is that too many characters? Is this plot twist too crazy? Can you actually write a novel in the second person from the point of view of a dog?

Here’s something that isn’t all that shocking: Sure. You can do all those things.

We’re We’re Going We Don’t Need Rules

Look, writing is imagination committed to paper (or pixels). Writers have been pulling off novels that seem, on paper, at first blush, to be completely ridiculous. Novels have been written in stilted, theatrical ways, with oddball characters, and with only a glancing relationship with logic. And many of these novels have failed, sure, but not because of the crazy ideas or overly ambitious approach. They failed only because the writer failed to sell it.

That’s the secret: There are no rules. No idea is too crazy, too stupid, or too clichéd to be successful. All that matters is whether you have the skill and the acumen to pull those ideas off.

I sometimes think writers are looking for excuses not to tackle those big, crazy, complex ideas, or that they’re thinking way too hard about selling and marketing that book before they even write it. There are no rules there, either. Anyone who tells you that you can’t sell a book with a certain theme or in a certain genre is wrong—you can sell anything, if it’s good enough.

So, write your novel. Be crazy. Get crazy. Throw everything in there. Write from the dog’s point of view and then decide the dog is a Venusian time traveler. Write it without using the word and just to see what happens. And if it doesn’t work, don’t blame the idea—blame the writing, and start over.

Well, blame the writing, have a few stiff drinks, then start over.

Novels

Don’t Look Back

Author: May 29, 2017 0 Comments

There’s very little in this world as humbling as writing a novel. Anyone who says it’s easy hasn’t actually tried writing one—no, it’s not hard labor, so bellyaching about how difficult it is is just First World problems, but it is challenging.

For me, every novel starts off easy. The premise is clear, the plot is easy to see in the basic outlines. All I have to do, I tell myself, is write the damn thing! Meaning that I approach each novel initially as a time management problem. And also a whiskey-drinking management problem, a binge-watching management problem, and a hey-look-a-butterfly-let’s-chase-it management problem.

I lead a rich inner life.

Anyways, what always happens is things get complicated. I lose track of the plot, I get lost in the weeds and everything slithers out of my grasp, and there is usually a point where I realize I’ve forgotten something. Sometimes it’s a character I forgot to introduce much earlier, or a clue, or a sequence that’s vital to the comprehension of the story or the back-story. I realize with dismay that the next bunch of words I’m about to write just won’t work in the larger whole unless that earlier work gets done.

I take a deep breath, pour a fresh drink, and then I don’t do it. I don’t go back to fix things up. I just plunge ahead.

That’s What the Revision is For

It’s almost irresistible, that urge to go back and fill in the blank space you’ve just noticed. But you really ought to resist. Sure, that means the draft you’re writing is flawed. It won’t make sense, things get introduced in clunky, awful ways. Anyone reading it will throw your manuscript across the room, enraged.

But, that’s just it, isn’t it? No one will read this version. You’re going to revise it. You’re going to let it sit in the drawer and marinate for a few months and then go back and start re-working it. So you’ll have time to fix everything—and you’ll see even more that needs to be fixed.

The urge to stop forward momentum to go back and fix something you’ve just thought of is a powerful one, but trust me: Don’t so it. It will just stop your train of thought and ultimately slow you down and make the story worse. If it’s really a problem, it will still be there when you revise. If it wasn’t really a problem in the first place, you just saved yourself weeks of unnecessary work.

I like to use the time I save by not wasting time doubling back on myself to drink a little more. What will you use the time for?

Novels