As I said yesterday, sometimes the world intrudes, but when the intrusions come from people who love you and extend themselves at every opportunity to help you, you roll with it. You behave as a good son and brother and offer a hand to others. And do it gladly.
Meanwhile back at the keyboard: A primary character connects with a secondary character to further her aims. This, of course, is a set-up often found in fiction. The user develops unexpected affection for the person being used. But I like to write against convention, so I don't think that's going to happen, at least not in the expected way.
You mean, you may be saying to yourself, I don't know everything that's going to happen in my own story? No, I don't. I have a general idea of what's going to happen, but if I adhered rigidly to my outline, I'd leave no room for creativity or surprise. I like to surprise myself; I love to surprise the reader.
In another part of today's work, speaking of surprises, I wrote a scene that extended the understanding of two primary characters while setting up a scene that will be paid off later. If you're going to spice a story with incidents that are figuratively or literally explosive, you have to show one but not necessarily two booby-traps being built.
Despite the interruptions, my energy was good and my interest remains high. I added another five-and-a-half pages to the story.
Day 9 of writing my new novel is done.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Monday, April 5, 2010
Day 8, April 5, 2010
Sometimes you change your plans; sometimes the world intrudes; sometimes both things happen. Today, I started taking an extreme exercise class at my local health club. It began at 5:45 a.m. Over the next hour, I did more chin-ups, push-ups and dumbbell reps than I care to remember. As my wife, who worked out just as hard, and I were heading home, she said to me, "I hope you're up to using your keyboard."
Turns out I was. A little lactic acid buildup wasn't going to stop me. The main part of today's work was to move the main story line from being a closely held secret to one that is shared with the novel's protagonist, thus burdening him with resolving the problem. To make things more interesting, we see the beginning of mixed feelings in the protagonist's mind. Does he really want to solve this problem or should the people who created it, though inadvertently, be left to deal with it?
In another corner of the story, an important, though secondary, character makes a discovery that could change the course of the action, but for reasons of personal interest he chooses not to.
All of this was accomplished despite having the world intrude in the form of a sudden thunderstorm. The writing was humming along this afternoon when a T-cell, complete with thunder, lightning and torrents of rain swept through. In my area, this means there's a good chance of a power outage and a slim chance a lightning strike could run through my power lines and fry my computer. Not wanting to take any chances on losing either my computer or unsaved writing, I backed up the work I'd done, shut down the computer and pulled its plug.
Then since I was tired, anyway, I lay down and closed my eyes, knowing that my muse might have moved on for the day. But I got lucky. Lightning did not strike, me anyway, and my muse lingered.
I wrote six pages today, still pushing the pace.
Day 8 of writing my new novel is done.
Turns out I was. A little lactic acid buildup wasn't going to stop me. The main part of today's work was to move the main story line from being a closely held secret to one that is shared with the novel's protagonist, thus burdening him with resolving the problem. To make things more interesting, we see the beginning of mixed feelings in the protagonist's mind. Does he really want to solve this problem or should the people who created it, though inadvertently, be left to deal with it?
In another corner of the story, an important, though secondary, character makes a discovery that could change the course of the action, but for reasons of personal interest he chooses not to.
All of this was accomplished despite having the world intrude in the form of a sudden thunderstorm. The writing was humming along this afternoon when a T-cell, complete with thunder, lightning and torrents of rain swept through. In my area, this means there's a good chance of a power outage and a slim chance a lightning strike could run through my power lines and fry my computer. Not wanting to take any chances on losing either my computer or unsaved writing, I backed up the work I'd done, shut down the computer and pulled its plug.
Then since I was tired, anyway, I lay down and closed my eyes, knowing that my muse might have moved on for the day. But I got lucky. Lightning did not strike, me anyway, and my muse lingered.
I wrote six pages today, still pushing the pace.
Day 8 of writing my new novel is done.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Day 7, April 4, 2010
It's Sunday, but I didn't rest. I did take it easy, though, writing only three pages, bringing the total for the first week to forty-three page. That's eight better than I set for my goal. I'm happy with my productivity and I'm having a very good time writing the story.
Today, I had one of my principal characters make a decision that will kick one story line into a higher gear. In another area, I dropped in a transient character whose fleeting presence provides the reader and a second principal character with a clue to the motivation behind the main action of the novel.
Bits and pieces coming together.
A short post on Sunday.
Day 7 of writing my new novel is done.
Today, I had one of my principal characters make a decision that will kick one story line into a higher gear. In another area, I dropped in a transient character whose fleeting presence provides the reader and a second principal character with a clue to the motivation behind the main action of the novel.
Bits and pieces coming together.
A short post on Sunday.
Day 7 of writing my new novel is done.
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Day 6, April 3, 2010
Today, I want to mention a couple things about storytelling that are part of most good novels but should rarely if ever call attention to themselves: backstory and plausible convergence. Backstory gets mentioned by non-writers a lot more these days than it did prior to the last few years. Remember, I mentioned in the first post on this blog that I wrote biographies for my principal characters? Biographical information is part of a backstory. So are actions taken by the characters in the story or actions incidental to the character, e.g. Jack robbed a bank or Jack was in a back that got robbed and he saw who did it. Information from the backstory can be crucial to character development, plot development or both. Thing is, backstory should not be delivered by the truckload, especially not at either the beginning or end of the story. That is clunky writing. Backstory should be assembled piece by piece in the fashion of a mosaic, so the reader can see a picture taking shape.
The other thing I want to mention is plausible convergence. One character should not make a sharp left turn just as another is making a sharp right turn. A collision like that in quaint movie vernacular is called a meet cute. Again, it’s just clunky writing. Much better to have characters intersect at the end of two arcs, smooth long lines drawn from believable circumstances. A discerning reader still might see it coming, but he or she won’t object to it, will believe in the inevitably of it.
I was working in backstory and plausible convergence today. Wrote 1,800 words. Not bad for a Saturday with other demands on my time. Up to almost 12,000 words for the past week.
Day 6 of writing my new novel is done.
The other thing I want to mention is plausible convergence. One character should not make a sharp left turn just as another is making a sharp right turn. A collision like that in quaint movie vernacular is called a meet cute. Again, it’s just clunky writing. Much better to have characters intersect at the end of two arcs, smooth long lines drawn from believable circumstances. A discerning reader still might see it coming, but he or she won’t object to it, will believe in the inevitably of it.
I was working in backstory and plausible convergence today. Wrote 1,800 words. Not bad for a Saturday with other demands on my time. Up to almost 12,000 words for the past week.
Day 6 of writing my new novel is done.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Day 5, April 2, 2010
Dialogue is one of my favorite parts of writing, and I wrote a lot of it today. The best way to get good at writing dialogue is to listen, really listen, to the people you meet every day. Listen to people who are just walking by, too. You'll hear the way people really talk, and sometimes you'll hear things that all but stop you in your tracks.
My wife and I were walking in the park near our house one evening, just enjoying the mild air and each other's company. Darkness wasn't far away and the park was mostly empty. Coming our way, though, were two middle-aged, nicely dressed women, and just as my wife and I passed them by one of the women made an extraordinary statement without any regard to our presence.
She said to her companion, "Did I tell you George hired someone to kill me?"
Well, you have now, I thought. I wanted to turn around and follow her to get the details. But that would have been rude. And if George's hitman was lurking nearby he might not want to leave any witnesses.
You rarely get to overhear something that dramatic, but you do learn people's vocal cadences, you pick up on accents, you learn there's a general ignorance of how verbs are conjugated, you tune in on verbal tics, you know. All of these things are useful to novelists, playwrights and screenwriters.
Dialogue, like exposition, must advance the story, but compared to exposition, it is a light lift. Today, I covered the same number of pages I've been doing the past four days, but I needed only 1,700 words to do it.
Day 5 of writing my new novel is done.
My wife and I were walking in the park near our house one evening, just enjoying the mild air and each other's company. Darkness wasn't far away and the park was mostly empty. Coming our way, though, were two middle-aged, nicely dressed women, and just as my wife and I passed them by one of the women made an extraordinary statement without any regard to our presence.
She said to her companion, "Did I tell you George hired someone to kill me?"
Well, you have now, I thought. I wanted to turn around and follow her to get the details. But that would have been rude. And if George's hitman was lurking nearby he might not want to leave any witnesses.
You rarely get to overhear something that dramatic, but you do learn people's vocal cadences, you pick up on accents, you learn there's a general ignorance of how verbs are conjugated, you tune in on verbal tics, you know. All of these things are useful to novelists, playwrights and screenwriters.
Dialogue, like exposition, must advance the story, but compared to exposition, it is a light lift. Today, I covered the same number of pages I've been doing the past four days, but I needed only 1,700 words to do it.
Day 5 of writing my new novel is done.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Day 4, April 1, 2010
There's a great rush in writing a story that has you excited. It's a similar feeling to reading a book you can't put down, only better, because you're seeing the story from the inside, and when you're really immersed in the writing, it's all around you like 3D from 360 degrees.
I sometimes criticize my daughter's writing for using overly long sentences, and then I write something like the line above. Oh, well. Sorry, my dear.
The other thing that's different from reading a book you can't put down is writing wears you—or at least me—out a lot sooner. People who don't know better think writing is not hard work. Doesn't look like much, just pecking away at a keyboard. But creating and populating your own little world is hard work. This is certainly in sync with Christian theology, what with God taking a break on the seventh day—and seeing what he had done was good.
I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished so far, too. Some new story lines were begun today and previous ones are picking up speed. If I'm judging things right, I think readers who have enjoyed my previous books will be well engaged by now. I've kept up my 2,000+ words pace per day and only four days into the work, I estimate that I'm approximately 5% finished with the first draft. Might seem like there's a long way to go, but working at a steady pace—and getting a good night's sleep—makes the project less psychologically daunting.
Right now, everything's well in hand.
Day 4 of writing my new novel is done.
I sometimes criticize my daughter's writing for using overly long sentences, and then I write something like the line above. Oh, well. Sorry, my dear.
The other thing that's different from reading a book you can't put down is writing wears you—or at least me—out a lot sooner. People who don't know better think writing is not hard work. Doesn't look like much, just pecking away at a keyboard. But creating and populating your own little world is hard work. This is certainly in sync with Christian theology, what with God taking a break on the seventh day—and seeing what he had done was good.
I'm pretty happy with what I've accomplished so far, too. Some new story lines were begun today and previous ones are picking up speed. If I'm judging things right, I think readers who have enjoyed my previous books will be well engaged by now. I've kept up my 2,000+ words pace per day and only four days into the work, I estimate that I'm approximately 5% finished with the first draft. Might seem like there's a long way to go, but working at a steady pace—and getting a good night's sleep—makes the project less psychologically daunting.
Right now, everything's well in hand.
Day 4 of writing my new novel is done.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Day 3, March 31, 2010
The new characters keep on coming. Two more supporting roles. With principal characters, I rely on the biographies I've written for them. With supporting characters, I rely on intuition and experience. As I see the supporting characters emerge on the page and listen to them talk, I get a sense of who they are. When I started out as a writer, these spontaneously drawn characters were sometimes—well, quite often—at odds with the principal characters and distorted the story lines they inhabited. I'd have been better off if I'd sketched out who they were in a paragraph or two before I dropped them into the story. But I see that now with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, I muddled through and went back and fixed things in the rewrite(s).
By doing things the hard way, though, it seems I've developed a facility for getting supporting characters right the first time. But the question arises: Why bother having more than a bare minimum of supporting characters in the first place. It's simply a matter of taste. I enjoy reading and writing about principal characters who have personal links—supporting characters—to the world around them. Crazed loners don't do anything for me.
Which raises another point. People often say that writers are solitary workers. Not me. When I sit down to write, I'm surrounded by a cast of characters. In my mind's eye, I can see what they look like. There must be a mind's ear, too, because I can hear them talk. Sometimes, they tell me to turn down the music I have playing in the background.
I wrote another 2,000 words. If writing a novel is comparable to running a marathon, I've started out by running three 4:30-minute miles.
Day 3 of writing my new novel is done.
By doing things the hard way, though, it seems I've developed a facility for getting supporting characters right the first time. But the question arises: Why bother having more than a bare minimum of supporting characters in the first place. It's simply a matter of taste. I enjoy reading and writing about principal characters who have personal links—supporting characters—to the world around them. Crazed loners don't do anything for me.
Which raises another point. People often say that writers are solitary workers. Not me. When I sit down to write, I'm surrounded by a cast of characters. In my mind's eye, I can see what they look like. There must be a mind's ear, too, because I can hear them talk. Sometimes, they tell me to turn down the music I have playing in the background.
I wrote another 2,000 words. If writing a novel is comparable to running a marathon, I've started out by running three 4:30-minute miles.
Day 3 of writing my new novel is done.
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