It always amuses me when people talk of their One True Way, because I am more like Chuck Wendig (on whose blog this post started)–I have none. While that book had to be planned to get anywhere at all, this one will shrivel and die, staring with betrayed eyes as it does, if I so much as take out note cards near it. Or the novel falls in the middle, and I must figure out (before I go too far!) exactly how much planning is the right amount. As Elizabeth Bear likes to quote, “we don’t learn how to write novels. We can only learn how to write this novel.”
In the beginning, when all was chaos and darkness, I planned nothing. “Pantser and Proud!” I proclaimed. “Outlines? We don’t need no stinking outlines!” As you may expect, my first completed novel draft was 295,264 words. It had what is known as the “kitchen sink plot.” As in, everything but. Oddly, though, my second–still unplanned–was about 65K. Third–69K. Fourth–umm, 130K.
Here’s what I eventually realized–when the editing process increases your wordcount by 50-100%, what you’re really writing that first time probably isn’t a draft–it’s an outline. Huh, I thought. So I am an outliner. Sort of. Fine. It’s just about the most chaotic and fancy-free outlining process I can imagine, so I was okay with that.
Then one day I was working on my list of original fiction, tracking projects, and I noticed that this…thing…kept happening to me. My unfinished works had something in common–I hit the pre-ending stall in novel after novel. I would come close to the end, perhaps right before the climax, and get stuck. Even if I knew what I wanted to do. I could not finish the novel. I would have to drop it and come back to it a few months later.
All right, I thought. This is my process. Write madly, drop it, come back and edit from the beginning and write the ending. Hey, that’s not bad. It makes the novel more coherent, and the end fits the edited beginning and All is Right With the World.
Except that doesn’t always work either. I wrote In the Forests of the Night in two and a half glorious, mad weeks. Yes, it’s an outline-first draft–it’s not even 60K–but I did write it start to finish. And Damsel–same thing. Beast I tried to plan, but I didn’t really have a plot, just a lot of interesting bits. I struggled through maybe 10K (can’t recall, but definitely not much) before I had to drop it. It didn’t help that NaNoEdMo came along.
My pattern is that I have very little pattern. Each novel I have to figure it out all over again. And that’s okay with me. I write for discovery. Discovering my process is just as much fun as discovering my story.
I’ll tell you, though–it’s very good I went through those phases. If there’s one thing I’ll be happy to never see the dark side of again, it’s not knowing if I’ll ever be able to figure out a story. Those phases have given me the tools for the job. I have writing confidence now–and it’s a beautiful thing.
“Here’s what I eventually realized–when the editing process increases your wordcount by 50-100%, what you’re really writing that first time probably isn’t a draft–it’s an outline. Huh, I thought. So I am an outliner. Sort of. Fine. It’s just about the most chaotic and fancy-free outlining process I can imagine, so I was okay with that.”
That has been my experience — if you write without prep, which is fine, you end up executing a first draft which is more an iterative step: a very big, occasionally bloated outline.
Again, that’s fine, but for me, the economy and efficiency of the thing is important: I’d rather spend two agonizing weeks writing an outline than three to six agonizing months fumbling through a novel draft.
Though, once more, every book has its own cruel demands.
— Chuck
I’m definitely finding my way. When I was young and stupid I wouldn’t take a writing course, and I wouldn’t read a writing book–what could they teach me about how I write?
Ahh, the foolishness of youth…
The current novel is tentpole-outlined, and I’m filling in the plan here and there when I find a chance. It’s possibly the most planned of my WIPs so far, because I’ve planned the structure–something I’ve never done before. Because yes–when your first draft is an outline, the first edit/rewrite is really hard.
thanks for stopping by in the midst of the mad packing!
I’m still trying to find my One True Way.
That is – I know what the end result looks like. I know that if I have a list of scenes or a bunch of scene cards, that is the way that will, each and every time, get me to the end of the first draft. It doesn’t matter how I have those scenes – whether it’s a spreadsheet, or scene cards, or just a list – if I know what every scene in the novel is, I will finish its first draft.
The problem is, I’m still trying to find out how to *get* there.
I found out that scene cards work better than spreadsheets and stuff for aesthetic value, but I also found out that the scenes were poor so now this time I’m trying to find a way to make better scenes that I don’t struggle through to make the second draft easier. The problem is, I don’t know how to get THERE, and I generally flail around a lot. With my latest project I’ve spent a year planning the entire thing and I tried to start, but couldn’t get far. I can’t finish a project that doesn’t have a scene list. But I need to find out how to get my scene list!
I can’t recommend Save the Cat! strongly enough for that. The link I sent to Alexandra Sokoloff will help too–once you can identify the beats you need, you can figure out how they happen for your story. I’ll talk more about Save the Cat! in a post today, I think–you’re not the only one I want to share this with. 😉
I found Save the Cat! so handy, that when I saw he’d written two more books, I bought them both new because I couldn’t get them used and I had to have them.
“If there’s one thing I’ll be happy to never see the dark side of again, it’s not knowing if I’ll ever be able to figure out a story.”
I’m so glad you’re there. Please tell me I’ll hit that point one of these days…
*HUG* You will. You really will. Or I’ll run smack into a story I simply can’t figure out EVER. 🙄
But I have faith it’s the first.