How I (Don't) Brainstorm

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At the end of the [very good] 2006 film "Miss Potter," Beatrix Potter (Renee Zellweger) notes, "There's something delicious about writing those first few words of a story. You can never quite tell where they will take you."  Personally, the first few words are never my favorite part of the writing process; I don't like not knowing where I'm headed.  I like the uncertainty about just how the path forward is going to shape up, and I love the way the flow of any given scene may take me away from what I originally intended or may present me with some new aspect I hadn't recognized before.  In that sense, I'm 100% behind Miss Potter (only I don't think she ever really said that; it still makes for a great quote).

Overall, though, I like to have a pretty clear idea of the plot and its main markers -- something a little more concrete than just a vague idea that This is Where We Start and This is How It Ends, although in some cases I'd be happy even to have those two things laid out.  It's frustrating to feel bewildered by your own story, uncertain how to make it all work.  Hitting a roadblock on the way from Point A to Point B is bad enough, but feeling like there's a massive pothole (or two or three) that you can't seem to bridge and being unable to progress until you do bridge it (or them) is even more frustrating.  The same goes for a vague story idea of which you have one or two elements, maybe a handful of characters, and...basically nothing else.  This is when writers start to talk about "brainstorming."  Sometimes they even talk about sitting down and brainstorming.

Confession time: I've never really figured out how this whole brainstorming thing works, and I am really, really bad at it.

I think best through the process of writing, and there have been a number of times when I have become so frustrated with a story idea for not taking shape or with huge plot questions for not resolving themselves that I have sat down with a pen and a notebook and tried to confront the problems head-on.  I wrote out the questions that had hitherto just been floating in my brain: Why don't the characters just resolve their problems by doing X?  (I've no idea.)  What is motivating this particular character?  (Don't know that, either.)  I know this character needs to be involved, but how?  To what purpose?  What even is going on here?  (Noooooo clue.)  The problem with this approach, I've found, is that I end up with a list of the questions that are bothering me and no answers.  Seriously, I've looked back at old lists from story ideas that are still embryonic and thought, "Yeah...  I still don't know what to do about that."

"Sitting down and brainstorming" is also generally ineffective, since unless I am in some way incapacitated, I don't like just sitting and doing nothing but thinking.  My mind also tends to drift, or to keep turning over the same questions again and again without producing viable answers; it's the same ineffective process as writing out the issues.  Pinterest is a nice idea for "gathering inspiration," but a) I don't ever use writing prompts, because they feel too inorganic; b) I'm very picky about which images fit the world of the story, so I rarely see things that just scream "Wordcrafter!" or "Tempus Regina!"; and c) pictures don't go very far toward inspiring me with words, anyhow.  At most they remind me of things I already love about the story.  They don't tend to help me moving forward.

I still haven't come up with a great way to plot, but generally the most effective course has been outlining.  I know I've already commented many times that I am a big fan of outlines, no matter what I'm writing; I charged into NaNoWriMo 2010* with nothing but the names of two characters and an idea that I'd be writing about the Barbary Wars, and while it turned out alright, it was not a pretty picture and I didn't like doing it.  Since then I've been a little smarter, or at least a little more conscious of my planner bent: Tempus Regina was still an extremely difficult book to begin writing, but I made sure I started with several pages' worth of outline; with Wordcrafter I thought I wouldn't need one, it being a rewrite, but I've revised my opinion on that in the last couple weeks.  (Translation: I was totally kidding myself.  I need outlines.  I need them so bad.)

Stumped by a number of points, unable to get resolution by writing out questions, I began by listing the plot points I was sure about in chronological order.  Then I started on an actual, handwritten outline, filling in the gaps between those plot points and forcing myself to put something down even if I wasn't positive about it.  This did lead to a number of question marks, but it also turned out to be useful on three fronts: it showed me that I actually have a clearer idea of where I'm going than I originally thought and reminded me of upcoming scenes I'm genuinely excited about; it got some clutter (useful clutter, but clutter) down on paper so that I will (hopefully) not forget it; and it forced me to make some choices in order to keep moving.  Just writing down questions presents me only with the things that have been frustrating me; it doesn't allow me to put those questions within the context of the whole plot, or to see the elements of the story that will actually hearten me.  Organizing all of my thoughts, on the other hand, lets me see the full story unfold -- even down to the minor elements of a scene I've already charted out in detail.  It's the short hand of writing the whole story, and I find that more thoughts come in that process of tracing the lineaments of the plot.  Even in outline form, the words can take you -- or at least they take me -- to unexpected places.

*Oh my word, how was it almost six years ago?  That's not possible.

Tell me about your plotting process!  How do you get past a roadblock in a story you're writing?  Do you ever get a story idea that just. won't. develop. properly., and how do you coax it forward?  I'm bad at it, so do tell!

Short and Snappy

pinterest: the white sail's shaking

There is something incredibly overwhelming about being asked, "So, what's your story about?" 

On the one hand, our egos just love to be tickled by the question (if the asker actually cares; when they're only being polite, it isn't any fun at all): I don't know about you, but for me there's always a giddy burst of adrenaline that makes me grin and look altogether idiotic.  Then I bumble around for a minute or so, trying to cram a 100,000+ word story into a respectable sentence, and in the end they put on their uncomprehending face and say, "Oh!  That sounds interesting!" Which is nice of them, but I'm pretty sure my performance wouldn't garner any enthusiasm from an agent in a similar circumstance.

That reaction is, I think, fairly universal - and understandable, since if you have a particularly intricate story, it's no easy matter to convey its plot succinctly.  But if you intend to sell your story, especially in a face-to-face setting, it becomes necessary to bring the bumbling up a notch or three.  You're no longer trying to explain to your aunt what you do with your time; you're addressing an agent or a publisher who you kinda-sorta-really would like to take on your book.  (Depending on your family, the latter might actually seem less daunting.)  You have to condense your story, preferably into a pithy one-sentence summary that in film-speak is called the logline and in novel-writing the elevator-pitch.

When I'm not called upon to use them, I find this sort of thing enjoyable, so I was most pleased to be asked to read a slim book on the subject called Finding the Core of Your Story.  It isn't a large treatise at all, and wonderfully to the point - and it has examples.  I love examples.  The author, Jordan Smith, is a filmmaker, but the subtitle of the book pretty well encapsulates its usefulness to all forms of story-telling: How to strengthen and sell your story in one essential sentence.

Smith coaches the reader through the ins and outs of logline-writing, starting with the basics of what a logline is and its importance, then moving on to the nuts and bolts.  A second skim-through of the chapters brings out the key points - things we already know, hopefully, but which are irritatingly difficult to squeeze into a single sentence.  Protagonist and goal; antagonist and goal; conflict; setting.  There is also the usefulness of irony in conflict.  His example here was a logline for Jurassic Park (which I've never watched), wherein a scientist who hates kids has to protect two children.  I think this tends to denote humor, though that is not the case across the board: sometimes it merely emphasizes the tension.

One of the book's most helpful points, I thought, was Smith's chapter on finding the main thread of a story.  Of all the hang-ups when it comes to explaining to a stranger what my story is about, this is the most common: trying to make sense out of the confounded thing.  I've got subplots, and I've got themes, and I've got a half-dozen characters "what need keeping track of" - and it can be deuced tricky deciding what to say and what to leave unsaid.  I haven't yet begun a synopsis or query for Tempus Regina, but I fought about six different versions of a logline for it after reading Finding the Core of Your Story and still don't like what I came up with. 

"Well, bother it!  There's a woman, and there's a watch, and there's Victorian England - and then there isn't Victorian England because there's time-traveling - and there's a dude and another dude and a third dude, but the third dude is less important than this other gal, and there's the White Demon (but you don't really need to know about him, so forget I said that), and there's alchemy and some STUFF and other STUFF and LEGENDS and the first woman's younger brother and then some DOOM and GLOOM and now you're going to represent me, right?"

All right, so that wasn't a serious attempt, but it's about how I feel.  Pulling out the main thread is a difficult business, but I did feel that the process of narrowing down the loglines helped to clarify my own vision of the story.  I don't know that I would try loglining a story before writing, as Smith suggests - my stories don't usually take on a proper scope until I've written three-fourths of the plot - but I have a feeling it will be helpful, not just in the querying process, but in the nearer work of editing.  You've got to know what your story is primarily about before you can bolster the weak bits.

Of course, after you do all that you still have to memorize the logline and practice delivering it.  I haven't worked up the courage for that last bit, though I did fiddle with a preliminary pitch for The White Sail's Shaking:

A bumbling young man's good intentions land him in the U.S. Navy, where his hopes of winning glory are turned inside out by the murder of a fellow officer - and the presence of the killer on board.

It is, at least, a start.  And once you have the basic structure in mind, and the tips to help you along, it's actually quite enjoyable.  You're inserting your monocle and peering at the story until you find its core (which helps with editing), then finding out how many ways you can succinctly express that core (which helps with pitching and marketing).  It is a little daunting, but also, in an egotistical way, rather fun.  And we are an egotistical bunch, aren't we?

A Troublesome Child

Several days ago, Rachel, the Inkpen Authoress, introduced readers to her story The Scarlet-Gypsy Song (and a fascinating introduction it was, too!). Not only that, but she invited several others to join in and give readers a glimpse into their works-in-progress through a number of questions. I'm still puzzling over some of them, but I will do my best to answer and to allow you to shake hands with and say how-do to my novel

the white sail's shaking

"Do you think I would have any bravery," Tip answered, "if I were not a fool?"

1. Who are the main characters?

The main main character is Tip Brighton, an awkward fellow tottering on the line between boyhood and manhood. The other point-of-view character is the headstrong, thoroughly Mediterranean Marta Rais, who finds herself under Tip's protection and isn't pleased about it. Those are the two from whose perspective the story is told, but there are other main characters: Charlie Bent, a proud young Southerner with a secret; quiet, cat-like Josiah Darkwood, whose Indian heritage has made life difficult for him; Lewis, the midshipman whose ambition far outpaces his companions'; and Lieutenant Decatur, debonair commander of the schooner Enterprize.

2. How did you get the idea for this story?

After reading Ian Toll's Six Frigates in 2010, my interest in Stephen Decatur prompted me to write a story set during the First Barbary War. The actual plot developed very slowly from that starting point, and didn't actually take shape until well into the writing of the story - indeed, not until after I introduced Charlie Bent. It's quite amazing how nebulous this whole thing was when I first began.

3. What genre is this story?

The White Sail's Shaking is straight historical fiction. As evidenced by the heaps of history books around the computer desk.

4. Describe your book in three thoughts:

A choice between winning glory and having true honor. A glimpse through the blood-shot, gut-wrenching times in life to the things that matter. Sometimes it takes a storm.

5. The bit that describes an obscure piece of real life best:

He went away, and Tip found himself not only alone, but lonely. He sat in the dim yellow light with his mother’s letter in one hand and the ribbon from Gibraltar in the other, and as he read over the paragraphs and the velvet brushed against his skin, the longing for home intensified until he found his eyes burning with it. There were damp blisters on the paper; he tried to brush them away, but another tear splashed and another watermark formed. He put his head in his hands and rocked himself back and forth, crying softly with homesickness that would not be denied.

Darkwood was right. How easily you despise the things you have, Tip Brighton—until they are lost.

6. The funniest line said by a side-character thus far:

Lawrence gave a rough laugh in answer. “A man after Mr. Decatur’s heart,” he said, and Tip could not decide how much mockery there was in the remark. “Well, then, let the fellow come ashore with the rest, but you’ll be responsible for him, Mr. Brighton—oh, ---,” he added languidly, glancing toward shore, “you aren’t allowed to come, are you? Deuced quarantine. There’s hardly a sick man on that ketch, but merely because it comes from Africa, it has to serve a quarantine. Governor What’s-his-face is a real stick in the mud, boil his guts.”

7. Your favourite piece of description:

For a moment Decatur was silent, and when Tip dared an upward glance, he found the lieutenant plucking at the ship’s rigging again. Did he keep it, Tip wondered briefly, just for times like this when he was irritated? The taut strings thrummed softly, wavering in and out of the shadows each time Decatur loosed them from his finger.

8. Your biggest fear in the writing of this story:

The next session of writer's block. And perhaps that I won't be able to convey the message that I want.

9. Last full sentence you wrote:

Tip had first watch that night, and he was glad of it; it was better than lying in his cot waiting for a sleep that would not come.

10. Favourite character thus far:

I am very fond of most of my characters. Darkwood is enigmatic, which makes him enjoyable to write, while Decatur, who is ever in the background just watching, is just plain fun. But I think I would have to answer "Charlie." This dandy of a Southerner came unbidden into the story, and since then he has managed to become so central to the plot that there would be no story if he were not there. A scene never fails to flow more easily when he appears.

11. What books have been written or have you read that are similar in style and flavour to your novel?

I have purposefully not read many sea novels prior to the writing of The White Sail's Shaking, because I didn't want Tip to be yet another Hornblower or Aubrey or Jack Easy. I do, however, want to read more for research when I am finished with the first draft. I have read The Tall Ships while deep in White Sail's, and it has some similarities.

12. If it was destined to become a book on tape, who would you wish to read it?

I'm afraid I am not much for audio-books - not that I have anything against them, but I don't own many. Therefore, I am afraid I can't answer this.

Thanks so much for the exercise, Rachel! It was splendid fun. I believe that, having finished this, it is my solemn duty to pick others to do the same thing. Therefore, I will choose

Keaghan of Whisper Above the Thunder
and
Gabrielle of The Ink Stained Parchment

After the War

It's December 1. That apparently simple statement has a world of significance behind it; it means that you NaNoers have survived one whole month of frenzied writing, and that I have survived one whole month of not participating in said frenzied writing. Whatever your wordcount may be, I hope you had a fun time.

The war is over. What now? You've got 50,000 words, maybe more, of a story that may or may not be worthwhile. I know the feeling of getting to December only to look back over those words and think, "Uuuuuugh. I wrote that?" or, if your story isn't complete: "I wrote that much, and I still have this much plot left? You're kidding, right?" Come NaNo's end in both 2009 and 2010, I was terribly burned out; both times, however, I tried to keep going. Bad idea. When the wordcount closed and December rolled around, I was tired and all my inspiration was toasted, while in the back of my mind lurked the knowledge that those 50,000 words would have to be seriously revised. December and January produced a whole lot of groans and whines, and maybe some tears and sweat (no blood), but not many words.

Probably the best thing to do when you reach the end is to take a break, at least from that particular story. Give yourself time to recharge. You might go back and look at the story you were working on before NaNo; if it is completed you can work on editing it, or if it isn't you can return to writing it. Time away might bring to light new inspiration or reveal things you want to tweak. In December 2010 I worked on editing Wordcrafter, getting my mind off the big problem that was The White Sail's Shaking, and didn't spend a whole lot of brain power on straight "writing". This isn't laziness. Editing and marketing are just as important as writing itself is; manuscripts once completed shouldn't just be discarded. So don't feel bad if you need to take a break and spend time on another story.

When I had gone through the initial edit of Wordcrafter, I returned with more vigor to the writing of The White Sail's Shaking. It's now too long ago (a whole year - dear me!) for me to recall exactly what my sensations were, but they were not pleasant. The rubbish that was the first 50,000 words tortured me until at last I gave in and started editing much of what I had written in November. Filling in holes, straightening out characters, and fixing botched details helped get me back in the feel of the novel, and when I had finished with the first few chapters, I was ready to return to actually writing again.

But what if you wrote your story just for fun and don't intend for it to go anywhere? I know some people approach NaNo as a time to just let the rules fly out the window and allow themselves to write whatever occurs to them, not worrying about whether or not the result is any good. I tried this in 2008 and it went splat at about 17,000 words, but hey, it works for some writers. Even if this is your perspective on NaNoWriMo, you can still glean things from those 50,000 words. Let the story sit for a while, then return to it, read over it, and make your assessment. If you find that it's actually not that bad, you might want to spin it out and make a proper novel out of it after all. If you decide that the plot is just as nonsensical as you thought at the end of November, then perhaps you can focus on picking out those bits of your writing that you still like - a description or a turn of phrase, a scrap of dialogue, a character. You may be surprised how many diamonds you find.

what was your wordcount this year? do you hope to make something of the story?

Tempus Regina

I was very pleased to get a couple questions on You Haven't Got an Appointment! dealing with my planned novel Tempus Regina. Melody Joy got the first one in:

What is the plot idea of Tempus Regina? I tried looking around here the other day when you posted The Dragon's Eyes but I couldn't find much about it.

As I said, I was very pleased. But at the same time, Tempus Regina is at that stage where it is difficult to talk about coherently, which is why I have not yet written a plot summary for My Books page; it is still developing, and right now it has just a little more than bare bones. However, I will attempt to formulate a synopsis.

First off, Tempus Regina involves time-traveling, so it does not have a set time period. It begins in London during the Victorian Era, probably in the 1840s or early 1850s. The main character, Regina, is nineteen; she and her little brother Tommy have been on their own since the death of their mother some five or six years before the novel begins. Regina's life revolves around taking care of her brother and earning enough money to keep them both alive in the London slums. A job as a temporary maid at the house of an eccentric gentleman is one of the less grueling tasks she has had to undertake, and she looks forward to it with relief.

When she arrives at the house on her first morning, the housekeeper informs her that she is to begin by cleaning out the garret - a very eerie, untouched part of the building, full of dust and curiosities. One of the latter is a wooden trunk inscribed with strange markings, and inside it Regina finds a beautiful gold pocket watch in the shape of a dragon's head and inlaid with garnets for eyes. Opening it, she finds it has stopped; she tries to set it to the proper time, but when she presses the dragon's eyes she finds herself thrown into the middle of London, circa 400 B.C. And the watch won't turn forward to let her go back.

Without the missing piece of the dragon watch Regina cannot return to her own time, and she made a promise to her dying mother never to abandon Tommy. The secret of the watch and the symbols inscribed both on it and on the old trunk in the garret lie in a place that exists only in legend, and to find them Regina is forced to seek the help of an assassin who knows more than simply how to kill.

Lilly asked what I could tell about the Assassin, who kindly featured in the excerpt "The Dragon's Eyes." Unfortunately, the answer is, "Not much." The Assassin is an enigma, and is meant to be so. Regina herself knows little about him, only that he is a hired killer and that he is disturbingly well-versed in lore and, she suspects, alchemy. Beyond that...well, the story will tell!

Moving On

A great deal is said, and a great deal deserves to be said, about the importance of perseverance in a writer's life. Some books need more than others (spoken with an extremely pointed glare at my work in progress), but it is a trait necessary at all times in the life of a writer, and, for that matter, in anyone's life; giving up at the first difficulty may be more common in our society, but it doesn't help in completing a novel.

At the same time, however, there is a place for moving on. I won't necessarily say that this point is ever reached because of difficulties alone, but there are other reasons for abandoning a work and continuing on to something else. One reason is stagnation. I spent about a year, and possible more, writing a mystery thingy (thingy is really the best description I can give it, looking back on it) that was very near to my heart, although my actual writing of it was somewhat sporadic and I didn't get far. Still, I toiled over it with great perseverance for a long while...and I believe I can safely say that my writing did not improve a jot throughout that time. It was not until I broke away from the Thing and began working on little bits of an incomplete story based around Stonehenge that my writing actually began to develop. Stonehenge was never a tight novel, per se, and likely never shall be, but it was a stepping stone, and after a while I deleted the Thing forever and moved on to write The Soldier's Cross.

Staying with a story is commendable, but there comes a time, especially if the novel is an early one or even a first, when starting something new is advisable. The comfort zone of the old has to be left for something different, and likely not as comfortable at first, if one's writing is going to progress. The same thing goes for such endeavors as fanfiction, which is another good experiment in writing to start off on, but which should give way to original works at some point.

Another time for moving on is when a novel is finished. In theory it doesn't sound as though this would be so hard - after all, the novel is finished - but it has its difficulties as well. Once a writer reaches the last page of a story he has been working on for months or perhaps years, there is a bond between him and the characters, and the novel has usually become comfortable for the author to work with. Thus it becomes quite easy to keep rewriting and editing and rewriting and editing, rather than starting work on another novel. (This is, of course, not to say that editing is bad; it is quite necessary, but can be taken to extremes.) Not being a fan of editing in general, I can't say that I would rather be editing Wordcrafter than working on anything else, but compared to the difficulties of The White Sail's Shaking, it doesn't sound like such a bad idea...

Attachment to a novel can also lead to series. Not the sort of series that are basically one storyline cut up into several books, but the Nancy Drew or Boxcar Children series that just. won't. die. This would be Disney, who makes one movie, sees its success, and promptly follows it with a sequel or two. This is a way of "moving on," since the writer is leaving one novel for another, but it can easily be as stagnating as staying with one story. The characters become so much a fixation that developing any others is more and more difficult - perhaps impossible - and the plots are often so familiar to the writer that they never bother to break out of the mold. Change, even for those of us who are not fond of it, is healthy.

Foreshadowing

Foreshadowing is one of the most interesting techniques to use in writing. It lends a story continuity, tying the beginning in with the middle and the end, and also serves to let the reader know that the author is conscious of where he or she is taking the story. In essence, it allows the writer to pull back the veil a little for the reader and give a glimpse of what is to come - even when the reader is unaware that this is being done until the event actually takes place. It can be a foreshadowing of something relatively small, or something grand and momentous; its fulfillment can be fairly obvious and only the circumstances be shrouded in mystery, or the hint may be so slight that the fulfillment comes with a shock. Either way, there is something about it (if well done) that gives a thrill of expectation to the reader.

Foreshadowing is used in many different ways, in many different stories. It is especially obvious in prequels, such as C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, a backstory for his The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe which tells Professor Kirke's story and that of the birth of Narnia. The whole story could be referred to as a foreshadowing, really, as it sets the stage the arrival of the Pevensies and all that follows thereafter, but there are also specific elements that are more noticeable; for instance, the poignant scene in which Digory Kirke encounters Jadis at the gate of the Garden. On the gate inscribed in silver are the words,

"Come in by the gold gates or not at all,
take of my fruit for others or forbear,
for those who steal or those who climb my wall
shall find their heart's desire and find despair."

Naturally, Jadis climbed the wall and ate one of the apples of youth, establishing herself as a permanent evil in Narnia, and that looks forward to the time when she rules Narnia as the White Witch. Not only does The Magician's Nephew answer questions that arise in the other books of the series, but it adds depth to the world Lewis created and to the events in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is the same for any series in which the author ties the books together, especially those where the plots are only loosely bound together, yet have similar threads running through them. In Rosemary Sutcliff's Eagle of the Ninth and its sequels, she links the novels together with the use of a family ring that passes down the generations of the Aquila family. (While this is not strictly foreshadowing, the principle is the same.) On the other hand, a series in which foreshadowing is not used would be Madeleine L'Engle's Time Quintet, in which the second book makes no mention of the events in the first and thus lacks continuity.

But one problem with this is that writers don't always know where they are heading with a story; after all, Tolkien had only fragments of ideas for The Lord of the Rings when he began The Fellowship of the Ring. When this is the case, it frequently shows in rough drafts as the writer's knowledge of the story increases. Thus comes the need for editing, and it is in this process that foreshadowing can be added as the writer weaves the two halves of the novel more tightly together (something that Jenny wrote an excellent post on a little while ago).

Another use for foreshadowing is to keep readers turning pages. It is not always the best option to drop the reader in the midst of an action scene on page one; sometimes a more "normal" setting is needed to paint a background for the rest of the novel and set up the plot, and so the beginning of a story often has a slower pace than the middle and climax. In such cases, hinting in the first chapters about what is to come later helps keep readers tantalized and waiting for the next twist in the plot.