plot

Episodic Writing

Author: September 11, 2017 0 Comments

Every writer knows the feeling: You have the idea, you can feel its potential. You have a vague structure for the story, you have characters, you have an endgame. Whether you’re a Pantser or a Plotter, you start work on the book and suddenly find yourself in a dark wood, uncertain of how to proceed. You have everything except a clear way forward to the bulk of your plot.

This can happen no matter what your process is, or how well-developed your idea/universe is. Sometimes writers think if they spend a year building the backstory, character bios, and universe they’ll be in a better position to write the story—and sure, that sometimes works. But no matter how well you know the universe of your book, you can still find yourself stuck at any point in the actual writing. Your characters stand around impatiently, waiting for you to figure out what’s next.

The problem sometimes lies in the need to always advance the plot. The advice that all the action in your story should in some way move your plot forward isn’t bad, but it can be misleading. Because sometimes the best way to advance your plot is to not advance the plot and engage in some episodic storytelling.

A Very Special Episode

Episodic storytelling is when you put aside the overarching plot and just have your characters interact with the universe you’ve built. It could be a series of self-contained stories, or even a longer mini-arc, or possibly a series of vignettes that don’t necessarily resolve into a coherent narrative. The point is to step away from your main plot and just explore.

In role-playing games and sandbox video games, there’s the concept of the Side Quest. You play the game and non-player characters (NPCs) will approach you with a mission. These side quests aren’t necessary to win the game, and don’t necessarily push you through the storyline of the game, but they allow you to experience aspects of the world, gain experience and capabilities, and extend the playing time.

That’s what episodic writing can do. Spend some time just wandering with your characters like the A-Team, getting into scrapes and learning about your universe. It’ll surprise you how it leads you back to your plot when you’re ready, and when you’ve finished a draft you can easily excise the episodes because they’re unrelated to the plot—or keep them in, possibly linking them up to the main plot. Worst case scenario is you have a lot of sections in your book that need to be removed—but chances are these episodes will contribute something to the overall story while enabling you to get there in the first place.

plot, worldbuilding, 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

Leave Yourself Hanging

Author: August 23, 2017 0 Comments

Inspiration is a tricky thing. I think every writer has had the unfortunate experience of having what seems like a fantastic idea that then melts like an ice cream in the summer sun—the more you try to pull it onto the page or screen, the less solid the idea becomes, until it’s gone and you’re weeping while sipping from an unmarked jug of homemade wine.

It’s bad enough when this happens at the outset, and you can’t even get a story going. What’s worse is when you’re deep into a story and suddenly the ideas run dry. For me, this happens most often after I tie off a Big Moment or a challenging sequence in the plot; I hit CTRL-ENTER to start a fresh page for the next chapter or scene and … nothin’.

One little trick I’ve developed to guard against this is simple enough: I always stop writing when I still have one idea for what happens next.

Peeking Around the Corner

I have a need to finish things. It might be a mental disorder, the science is unsettled, but when I begin a story I have a burning need to finish it even if it’s terrible. This compulsion starts off weak and gets stronger as I progress; I can quit a story easily enough when I’m 300 words in, but when I’m 10,000 words it’s almost impossible, because I know that with some shitty writing kung-fu I can turn it into a half-assed novella and call it done.

When I was a younger writer, living off of lite beer and hot dogs, one side-effect of this compulsion was that I would keep working at night until I’d finished a scene, finished however far into the future I could see on that particular story. And then the next day I’d wake up hungover and pantsless in some dumpster, creep home and try to pick up the story again, but since I’d in a sense “finished” the night before, my brain would deliver up a succession of flatlines.

Today, I always stop just shy of “finished.” In other words, I stop working on a scene when I still have a button that I know will go on the end, or before I’ve written the final exchange with some revelation. In short, I stop while I can still see the path ahead of me, even if for only a few steps.

The effect is simple: When I start working next, I can immediately dive in and start working. I don’t have to come up with my next move, because I already know it. This doesn’t guarantee that the inspiration will just flow from there, but my track record has been a lot better since I started to leave myself hanging a bit every night.

My improved inspiration may also have something to do with the introduction of leafy greens into my diet, of course, but no one’s done any studies on the effects of scurvy on creativity so, again—the science is unsettled.

General, ideas, plot, Writing

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