Question about novel organization

October 25, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 10 Comments

I’m pulling together the “final” draft of my old novel to send on for proofreading, and discovered, to my dismay, that there is a scene in one of my chapters (8) that actually chronologically happens in the evening *after* the events of the entire chapter after it (9, which happens over the span of the afternoon).

The wayward scene was tucked in with the rest of the chapter it’s in because they are cause and effect. But I feel like, in a book where every other scene is ordered chronologically, it needs to go where it happens in time, not where I put it–where there is that interesting contrast of (1) character A finds out something about character B and (2) we see the consequences to character B that we know the reason for and she doesn’t.

I can’t mess with the timeline of the chapters by saying the events of chapter 9 happen the day after everything in chapter 8, because we see events in chapter 7 that are the same day as 9, only earlier, and heck, even characters from 9 in chapter 8 getting ready for the events of 9.

The alternative is to move that one little scene into its own chapter and proper spot in the timeline, and renumber all my chapters to make room for it. Which kind of rankles me, given my exponential chapter count already. But that out-of-sequence scene, happening in the evening of that same one day, represents a shift of the weather and mood from earlier in the day, and it’s just weird to then cut back to earlier in the day in the very next chapter.

Any thoughts? Would an out-of-sequence scene like that bug you? Or would you even notice it?

Vanity, vanity, all is vanity

October 20, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 23 Comments

Somehow, in the midst of my preparations for NaNoWriMo, I got caught up in the eddy of a tangent to return to what remains undone on my old novel. When last we saw aforementioned novel, I had just finished my final edits and was hunting for a freelance proofreader to give it the professional eyeball. Continue reading “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity” →

NaNoWriMo and me

September 13, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 2 Comments

It’s that time of year again. People on my flist are starting to talk about NaNo. Every year, it seems, November is just the wrong month for me to dive into a heavy-duty writing project. Not because of holidays or anything; for me, Thanksgiving weekend is typically just a four-day vacation where I can do as I please. But some years, life challenges (like looking for a job) have gotten in the way. In others, NaNo doesn’t work out because I’m not in a position vis-a-vis a story I’m writing to plunk out 50K new words–for example, if I’m editing a nearly-completed manuscript, it needs more words like I need swiss cheese for brains. Usually, though, I just don’t have story inside me that I can coax 50,000 words out about, not in that short a span of time.

And last year, I had just finished the final episode of my 41-episode fan fiction story on October 31st and was too tired to plunge right into NaNoWri-MoRE.

But, prior to all that, the coming of NaNo only inspired me to shrug and then grumble about how “the rules of NaNo themselves just seem a bit ridiculous to me!” Starting a new story, fresh, and pulling 50,000 words of it out of your head in thirty days like a crazed maniac? Yeah, sure; assuming you have a fruitful enough idea that can be sustained the entire month, you then spend the next year trying to figure out if there’s actually really a novel in that gobbly-gook you wrote. Word counts just don’t equal progress in my style of writing.

Well, they don’t.

But what I’ve learned over the years from my flist is that the rules of NaNo are less important than the social energy surrounding the event itself. Your friends are participating, they’re journaling about their progress and their writing process during that time, and you just want to go out and play with them. So you make NaNo your own by breaking the rules strategically. Like committing to only 30,000 words. Or writing fan fiction. Or working on a story you already started months ago. Or working on multiple stories, none of which would ever total 50,000+ words by themselves. Or just saying, “I will spend an hour a day doing nothing but plunking out new, fresh words, regardless of the actual word count.”

The year I actually “won” NaNo, I was in the middle of my lengthy fan fiction story that averaged about 14,000 words per episode, and I used NaNo to write rough drafts for three new episodes, which technically isn’t a “novel”, even of the fan-fiction variety. but between my discarded story-bits from the episodes and the three rough drafts, I “won” NaNo (and then I spent the next month doing an “un-Nano” where I trimmed down those rough drafts of their excess words into postable episodes of my fic).

This year, I have a work-in-progress original fic that is (a) in an early enough stage for word counts to help, rather than hinder, and (b) is developed enough that I have some idea what to write about, and (c) that is in dire need of me just buckling down and banging on it. Ironically, I will also be in San Francisco for Thanksgiving, so those days will be busier than usual, but I don’t see myself running around with friends and family all day long for four days straight. I could, potentially, do something NaNo-ish. Maybe not 50,000 words NaNo-ish, but something. And I kind of want to, ’cause I haven’t played NaNo for four years now.

Unamused

September 4, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 9 Comments

Main characters are my muses, the spark that drives my desire to write a story. One reason I have such difficult time starting a new story is I don’t know my main character well enough to feel that necessary passion for them, yet. It’s a catch-22, because you can’t feel passion for them until you start writing, and write long enough to find something in them that sparks your passion, but if you can’t write until you feel passion, well…. That’s why I have to find other ways to motivate myself to write until that passion can take over. In the case of my old novel, my early writing was simply a way to distract myself from my doctoral dissertation. That story started out as a big, fluffy soap opera with no particular plot or lead character. And then, gradually, one of the characters emerged as someone who could carry my interest in the story herself.

Different case with my fan fiction epic. I developed a passion for the character while watching a television show–an unanalyzable fascination and emotional investment that demanded I continue to tell his story when there was no more television show to tell it.

The issue with my new story is that I don’t have a muse yet to motivate me. So I rely instead on the obligation to do these weekly updates and to send them to my writing coach, whom I am paying, to be a substitute motivation. And of course, there’s also that deep down hope that I will reach a place where I am writing with passion, and the belief that I can get there if I keep pounding at it long enough.

But so far, I am un-aMused. I have all these characters, and none yet is emerging as the character that sustains my interest in the story. I suppose that, so far, none of them is emotionally screwed-up enough to be interesting. Not that I think that’s the definition of “interesting.” It’s just, looking at my own track record, that’s the sort of character that gets under my skin–infinitely vulnerable, emotionally volatile, angry, and with major parental issues. Don’t ask me why. Those are not words that describe me, just what I’m drawn to. Which…okay, let’s just skip past the psychoanalysis of yours truly.

Writing is hard

July 24, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 9 Comments

This week, I finally got done all that “big picture” sorting of what-happens-next ideas, and it was time to start writing again. Which I did. I plunged into the POV of a new character, someone who should be interesting and engaging, but was a little on the alien side, so the potential for discontentment with what was coming out of my fingers was high (not alien enough! Too alien!)

Shortly after plunging in, I realized there was a bit of prose I had already written for another character that suited this one better, and all writing came to a halt as I tracked it down. During the tracking, I found a lot of other old blurbs of writing that I had stored away for when and if they became useful, and realized, well, gee, I need to go through these and see if any of them match up to my list of story ideas. After all, nothing gets the writing going like already having a little something to jump off of.

So I started poking through my back-up prose, sorting what was useful and what seemed too far afield. I felt this palpable sense of relief; “Yay! I can procrastinate writing some more!”

Writing is hard. It’s always hard. Editing a written draft is tedious, composing a first draft is like coaxing blood from your pores and dribbling it on the page (who was it that said something like that once?) It’s a magic moment when the words flow freely, or, alternatively, when you are ridiculously pleased with the words you’ve produced. But it has happened to me enough times I keep chasing that feeling like an addict.

I write too much

May 29, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 10 Comments

I write too much. This is one my biggest flaws as a writer, and cutting things down becomes one of my biggest (and most tedious) chores. This is the lesson I learned (and am still working my way out of) in my old novel, and the thing I have been trying so hard to avoid in my new one.

Maybe too much. I wanted to try to stick to just a few character points of view (like, oh say, four), rather than ten, like my old novel. I think showing a peripheral character’s POV on a situation can really shed light on the situation and showing a peripheral character’s POV on the main characters can really give depth to the main characters. The problem that arises is that when you write from a third person subjective stance and want to enter the head of a peripheral character, you have put “padding” around their thoughts with scene-setting and action.

In other words, you have to increase your word count exponentially for each new perspective you bring in.

That paid off beautifully in my first novel, although it made the length prohibitive for publishing. And I’ve been trying to avoid doing it in writing this new one from scratch.

Except for the part where I’m finding that I can’t avoid it, at least not upfront. I don’t know the overall situation in my new novel well enough yet to do that. I am finding it extremely useful to add in new scenes (::ca-ching::, ::ca-ching:: word-count register adding up those words) from the POV of characters whose POV I have no intention of leaving in in the final draft, just to understand their motives.

And it’s necessary that I do this. I am discovering all sorts of interesting things about the characters whose only purpose in the story is to make things more complicated for my main characters. I am discovering their motives, and *why* they are making my character’s lives more complicated, and in the end, when their POV scenes drop back out, I will have a richer story for it.

But right now, for right now, it’s giving me a bit of anxiety. Because I’m editing my old novel at the same time I’m writing my new one, and the goal in the first case is to cut out words (>36,000 at last count), while the goal in the second case is to write my brains out until a story starts emerging.

It’s no wonder sometimes I put the computer away and escape to paint brushes and power tools.

Writing question du jour

May 13, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 18 Comments

I’m trying to think of the legal term for stealing someone else’s unpublished ideas, specifically in a science context, but the same term probably applies generally. I don’t think the term is “plagarism”, because that’s really about stealing actual text as well as the ideas themselves.

Original fiction project – week of 04/11/2010

April 17, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 4 Comments

Another big-picture planning week, in which I tried my hand at something that I am not as good at as I’d like to think I am: plotting. Plots are important. Plots make the story. How many great premises with great characters end up suxx0ring due to weak plots? Too many to count, as we all know.

As I well know. And yet, I have difficulty with plots, one of the most obvious being that when I’m writing the first draft of a story, I don’t want to know what’s going to happen next. I want it to “come to me”, and then I write it, and then wait again.

And before anyone starts wagging a finger at me for this, let me just say that this has been successful for me. This is not a pie-in-the-sky style of writing for me. The plain fact is, my right brain has better ideas than my left brain. My left brain is the top-down, before-hand plotting organizer, my right brain is the “let me stew on that, and I’ll get back to you when you’re in the shower covered in soap.” And almost invariably, the ideas I set out before hand are not as good as the stew-and-soap ones, because those come from somewhere deeper, the part of me that actual yearns to write.So I’ve always written this way, at least during the years when actual words got written, as opposed to the years where I just planned out stories and never wrote them.

So there’s that. The other thing is, when I sit down to draw out a general outline, a fuzzy watercolor version of my story, I can never think of anything. I do my best, but….

One of the things that was helpful to me when I was working on The Destroyer, where story-telling with an active audience demanded I have some CLUE where I was going, was to borrow from the classics in plotting out a seasonal arc. Season 1 of The Destroyer, for example, was a retelling of the myth of Odysseus, except from Telemachus’ (Connor’s) POV, rather than Odysseus (Angel). The bad guys of the season–Penelope’s (Faith’s) “suitors”–were demons trying to take over L.A. in Angel’s absence, which I renamed the Syndicate. Having the basic outline of Telemachus’ attempt to find his lost father and Penelope’s struggle against the Suitors gave me the basic idea for the season, including its climax, and the details could be made up by me as I went along, which worked well.

Similarly, season 2 was based on Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, and I used the different phases of that journey to plot out various episodes.

I picked the stories I picked for those two seasons based on what I wanted to go with Connor. In season 1, I needed him to fully reconcile and develop a relationship with his father. And I did that by giving him a mission to find his lost father, who was in hell after the battle in the alley in NFA. In season 2, I needed to turn a young man who was still traumatized by his early years and overly-enamored with “being normal” (as a result of his implanted memories) into a hero.

So I am doing something similar with my original characters. Figuring out who they are and what their basic situation is was something I had to do through writing. I wrote as much as could of the actual story before it stalled out due to a lack of a plot, and now I am revisiting the stories that I love, seeing if I can borrow from them to give an actual spine to character journeys I am writing now.

Too many stories

April 10, 2010June 1, 2012 ~ Nancy E. Shaffer ~ 9 Comments

One thing I’ve realized this week is that there are too many stories I want to tell all at once, and I am trying to tell them all in one novel. Now, the simple reply to that is, “Concentrate on one character, one story, and write a book series for the others.” Except that all of the stories occur simultaneously and are interconnected. Gee…just like my last novel. Now one idea I had was to write a series that tells the same story, each time from a separate point of view. Or, write one long story in such a way that it has convenient stopping points in mid-stream, so that book one is part one, and then the story continues in the next novel.

Then I smack myself and say, “You haven’t even scratched the surface of the first one, and you’re planning a series? Get back to writing.”

It’s just…I can’t stop myself from writing all of them at once. I can’t.