The Crap Cycle

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You know the routine.  You go to bed Sunday evening with a mind brim-full of ideas, itching to get up the next morning and write.  On Monday you roll out of bed and sit down at the computer; you've got an hour, maybe several, and you're ready to go - until you open up the document and try to start.  And then everything is awful.  You struggle through a paragraph or two and move on, frustrated, to something else.  Everything is crap!  Your writing is rubbish!  This story is nonsense!  The characters are stupid!  You will never write anything as good as your last book (or chapter)!  You should just give up now!

But on Tuesday you try again and the story flows better; you've got over that trying bit of dialogue or description and feel like you've found your rhythm.  Things are great!  You love this story!  These characters are the bomb!  You're the top!  You're the Colosseum!

And then Wednesday?  Boom!

Crap again.

In case you couldn't tell, this cycle happens to me quite a lot - especially when, as with the past several weeks, I'm given the mixed blessing of plenty of writing time.  The ratio of good writing days to bad writing days seems skewed and you become frustrated with both the story and yourself, insecure about everything from the characters to that sentence you just wrote.  I've dubbed it the crap cycle, where the scene that sounded great yesterday sounds horrible today and you can't seem to heave the story out of the rut it's inexplicably fallen into.  There are plenty of blog posts out there to encourage you through this artistic slough, to pump you up and get you running again, but I would like to point out one thing:

the crap cycle

is a good thing

The days when we feel like our writing is rubbish and we're forced to evaluate our work through somewhat jaded eyes are good and necessary parts of the process.  We need to maintain a healthy cynicism, a recurring recognition that we are always capable of doing better.  If all we're doing is gleefully throwing out words, happy with everything we write, never suffering from the frustration of not achieving all we have in our hearts to achieve - then maybe our goals are too low.  Maybe our desires aren't big enough.  Maybe we need to step back and reevaluate, and then step forward again and try harder.

a little perfectionism

is a good thing

We do need to write fearlessly.  We need to ignore the editor side of us.  But not all the time.  Execution is as important as the idea.  We should take time to make our sentences ring true, our dialogue cohesive, our descriptions interwoven and spot-on.  If we leave everything until the editing process, I do not believe our finished product will be as good - as finished  - as it could be.  Allow yourself time to concentrate on making what you write solid, and the work of polishing, the punch-list at the end of the job, will be that much easier for it.

realism

is not pessimism

All things in moderation.  Both of these principles can be taken to extremes: we can obsess too much over details, spending so much effort rewriting yesterday's work that we never get to today's, and we can become negative. Remember to forge ahead.  When you've finally gotten through a tough bit, give yourself a pat on the back and move forward; don't go back and fret over it again.  Never let your recognition that improvement is always possible become warped into an attitude of depression, envy, or defeatism.  Rather, let it spur you on to better things.  Enjoy the times when you are the top, and remember that the times on the bottom are there to keep us humble and still striving.

A Complex Simplicity

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Back in May, I mentioned being in the middle of a three- (or was it four? Hazy on that already) week course on Elizabeth I, Philip II, and the Spanish Armada.  I suppose that might sound rather dull; I was uncertain going into it, as Tudor England is not my favorite period (haven't forgiven them for Bosworth), but I charged in anyway on the strength of the professor.  Since the time span was so limited, we had to fit a lot into the days: three-and-a-half hour mornings of discussion, reading, presentations, research, the occasional lecture, and a great many movies.

Somehow movies never formed a large portion of my home school experience.  I remember watching PBS as a young kid, and I have particularly fond memories of "Theodore Tugboat" and some show featuring lion puppets, and less fond memories of "Teletubbies."  But after a certain period (maybe when we no longer had cable), TV-watching was limited to after five o'clock in the evening.  It always felt slightly wicked to begin watching something at four-thirty.  At any rate, watching movies for a class is a new thing for me; but since the main thrust of the Maymester was not so much the historical facts as it was the media portrayals of events like the defeat of the Armada, films played a key role.

In particular, we watched parts of the two recent movies starring Cate Blanchett as Elizabeth I.  They were very inaccurate.  They were very over-the-top.  They had beautiful cinematography, beautiful lighting.

They made me writhe.

It was not so much what Rachel calls the OSSs (obligatory sex scenes), or even the gross liberties taken with historical events and historical people.  It was certainly not the acting, since the films starred actors and actresses like Cate Blanchett ("...you shall have a QUEEN!"), Geoffrey Rush ("It's a pity the law doesn't allow me to be merciful."), and even my favorite Watson.  It was the fact that all those OSSs were filmed and liberties taken in order to water down history into a simplistic storyline: a pretty, naive girl is thrust into the role of queen and must overcome her insecurities (and all personal feelings) in order to rule her kingdom.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with a simple plot: there are only a few to pick from, after all.  What frustrated me was the complete lack of any nuance, any intricacy, any subtlety.  All Catholics are traitors.  Elizabeth is either completely incompetent or talking back like a skilled politician.  Robert Dudley is either Elizabeth's lover or plotting with the Spanish.  The story itself rode as much on the music and the relative scale of lighting as it did on the characters and their interrelationships. 

Folks.  Folks, this is not good storytelling.

People enjoyed the films.  Though my classmates and I mocked them, I think in the end everyone but myself was willing to shrug and excuse its faults because it was "entertaining."  Entertaining, however, isn't the same as good.  It isn't the same as worthwhile.  It isn't the same as saying that the director and screenwriter and all the many people involved in the production did their job with skill.

A skilfully-wrought story, whether historical or fantastic or literary or whatever, must have intricacy.  If what you see on the surface is all there is to find - if a girl becoming a queen is all there is to it - then the writer has failed.  Life is nuanced.  Life has grey areas.  Art should reflect this subtlety and depth, rather than loudly drawing attention to itself (as films do with exaggerated cinematography, or books do with meaningless but gorgeous prose) and lacking substance in the end.

The leopard in the picture above has very little to do with the substance of my post, but I chose it for a reason.  It's a very simple picture: the profile of a big cat against a washed grey backdrop is all you get at first glance.  But look closer and you see the fur blurring in the foreground, becoming clearer, more detailed, soft enough to touch along the neck.  You notice the tufts from the cat's ears and can count the whiskers.  You see the rim of light along the nose and the bristles along the milk mustache, and the contemplative, possibly malevolent look about the eyes.  Storytelling should be like this, from the Winnie-the-Poohs to the Bleak Houses of the literary world: making its point (leopard!), but also drawing in the attentive reader to notice the details.

The Two Rules of Life

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I had good intentions, back in June, of spending more time in the blogging world.  With a year of college and a Maymester behind me, my brain was beginning to turn again to slightly more literary pursuits: notably, blog post ideas and Wordcrafter.  Wordcrafter has got on fairly well.  My dad's emergency appendectomy and slow on-going recovery made a hash of the blogging schedule.

Before all that, I sat down and began to write a post on the process of raising questions - and offering answers - in a story.  This has much to do with another item on the summer to-do list that hasn't been struck off: that is, editing the climax of The Running Tide.  I finished this book over two years ago, back in June 2012, and spent a laborious several months editing it into shape, and I continue to be fond (and, let's face it, a little proud) of the end result.  But every completed book gives more perspective, and after bundling Tempus Regina off to a friend for a critical read-through, I noticed a flaw in The Running Tide.  In part, this stemmed from a self-imposed need to answer questions too quickly.

"Who was that character," I mused, "who would never answer a question straight? ...Oh, wait, that was Jesus." 

"That was Jesus," she agreed. 

Questions, of both great and small import, drive a story forward.  This is probably most obvious in romance: Will Jane Bennet get Mr Bingley, or will the Bingley sisters prevail?  Will the prince go on and kiss the girl, or will she - actually, I don't remember the "or will she."  I remember it was something dire.  At any rate, the large questions like these form the backbone of the plot, but smaller questions are constantly arising to add dimension and interest.  Most of these will eventually be answered, but timing, as always, is crucial.  If a question (especially a dramatic one) is answered too soon, the reader feels let down.  They barely even get to be really alarmed before the author (in the form of a character or event) rushes in to inform that no! wait! just kidding, it's all right after all!  They expected more from you.

 If you must answer a plot-question, it is generally best not to do it in the same page - possibly not in the same chapter - possibly not even in the chapter after that.  Keep the reader on his toes.  Leave him guessing with his heart in his throat for a while.  Let him squirm.

Not all questions, however, need to be answered.  In this case a principle of fashion also applies to writing: a little mystery is an invaluable asset.  Not everything needs to be stated.  It is my belief that the best, most memorable books are the ones whose endings do not explain everything,where not all the strings are neatly tied off.  Get the important ones, by all means; don't leave the reader suspicious or confused.  But by allowing some things to remain unanswered, you provoke the reader's imagination and leave him with something to chew on after he has put the book back on the shelf and gone on his merry way. 

there are two rules in life:

1. never give out all the information.

"make it strong."

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rising up, straight to the top 

had the guts, got the glory 

went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop 

just a man and his will to survive

- survivor, eye of the tiger

Maybe it's just me, but when I look back over the five novels I've written, I can trace a mental progression without a whole lot of effort.  Every writer takes a certain amount of time to get his literary feet under him, to grasp his style, to begin to understand the huge responsibility inherent in creating something with the intention of sharing it with the world.  This is particularly true of Christians who write, and who struggle with incorporating - or not incorporating - the gritty realities of life into their books without compromising their own beliefs.  No matter what you write, at some point in time questions - I suppose you could call them questions of ethics - will arise.  Do you write that sexually tense scene?  Do you show that that guy is in love, not just with the girl's "wonderful soul," but with her looks as well?  Do you write the word that comes into your mind in the middle of your characters' heated argument?  Are you (here's the clincher) making people stumble if you do any of the above?  And if you don't...are you just lame?

If you have been around Scribbles & Ink Stains for any length of time you already know how I feel about Christian fiction and the baggage that goes along with the label - but that is not at all to dismiss the struggles faced by individual Christians who also happen to be writers as they attempt to create a story that accurately addresses the world in all its fallen mayhem.  I see the above-mentioned questions frequently around Facebook and the blogosphere and I generally feel less than competent to respond to them, but I'm going to take a stab at a huge issue.

First off, I'll be honest: I am not an adventurous person.  There are certain things that I do not like reading; there are certain things that did not and still do not come easily to me in my writing.  But as I continue to write, and as my stories expand from the relative simplicity of The Soldier's Cross to the time-traveling tangle that is Tempus Regina, I grow more comfortable with incorporating elements that, frankly, some people may find offensive.  I've wrestled with it extensively, especially with the question of swearing.  When a word comes to mind as admirably suited to a piece of dialogue, do you go ahead and write it, or do you hurriedly shoo it out and substitute something that, let's be honest, is always rather stale by comparison?  I used to do that.  I have since come to the conclusion that that is not the best tack to take, that it in fact weakens the impact and believability of both character and story.

it is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.

We all know four-letter words.  Really.  We do.  When you write, "Go to...!" no one is going to wonder what the person was about to say before they were so fortunately interrupted.  We all insert the missing word, and we're not sinning by so doing.  God is not going to condemn us because we know a word, nor even, I do not believe, because we (or our characters) use a word.  Attitude is far more important, and when it comes to it, slamming a door can be far more sinful than saying "damn."  We can - should! - incorporate into our stories things of which we do not approve; we should not pretend that the world and its language do not exist.

your story will thank you.

There is a constant debate about whether characters control the author or the author controls the characters.  I don't think "control" is the right word.  We know our characters, and as we continue to write them we get to know them better.  We write them as they are, and the story flows from that.  So it seems to me that when you think a character would say this or do that, he should probably say this and do that.  Hastily diverting the stream of his or her personality will only create awkwardness.  The story works better when you allow them to be true to their characters.  Seriously.  It does.

honey, sometimes "fiddlesticks" just doesn't cut it.

There is a very ludicrous idea that a sanctified man is cut of monkish cloth: celibate, with a halo, speaking in King James English.  I challenge you to find a godly man in the Bible who fits that description.  David?  Imprecatory psalms, people!  Paul?  He was not very fond of the Judaizers.  Jesus?  He washed the feet of the disciples and called the Pharisees a lot of whitewashed tombs. 

Bad words are for bad things.  When your wife is murdered, when you come up against a blackmailer, when your rival's about to win the man you love, when you've just been played for a fool, "oh bother" is not the first thing that springs to your mind.  Maybe we as the authors don't condone it, but we don't have to sermonize about it (that's even worse than not using the word in the first place).  We ought to write with understanding and compassion for the nature of man in all his God-made glory - fallen glory, yes, but glory all the same.  That includes the imperfections and the red-blooded passion of the real world.  It includes those cutting words, that total love, the acts they regret when all's said and done.  If we don't write like this, who will?

All Who Are Wise-Hearted

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I finished reading Exodus several evenings back.  Several weeks back, actually.  It's one of those deceptive books of the Bible that start out easy enough and then BOOM! you hit the instructions for the tabernacle and immediately slow to a crawl.  I confess to occasionally wondering why and wherefore as I moved through the minutiae, but from time to time something would spring out at me - often something more or less tangential.

"And I, indeed I, have appointed with him Aholiab the son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan; and in the hearts of all that are wise hearted I have put wisdom, that they may make all that I have commanded you..."

exodus 31:6

The context, of course, is the construction and ornamentation of the sanctuary.  In the chapters preceding we see God laying out for Moses the blueprint of the tabernacle, then calling for "all who are wise-hearted" to participate in the actual building.  Two men were called out in particular and given special insight - Bezaleel and Aholiab - but it was the blanket description of all the craftsmen that struck me.  In other translations they're just "skilled artisans," but in this case I think the King James has hit on something.

all who are wise-hearted

That is probably the best description of real artists I've ever read.  You could argue that these men were wise-hearted because God especially blessed them, or that they were wise-hearted because they were the people of God, but I think it's far more basic than that.  These artisans were already wise-hearted; their work was the manifestation of it.  We've all read authors and found them unbelievably good - books where we reach the end and cannot fathom how a single mind could have held in all that complexity, let alone articulated it.  We've read poems that captured so much in so few lines.  We've seen paintings and statues and been left speechless by something.  

This isn't restricted to believing artists: we'd be foolish and bigoted to suppose it is.  Dickens very probably wasn't a Christian and I doubt Rosemary Sutcliff was.  I recently finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and that author gave me that wonderfully horrible feeling of inadequacy  every really great book should.  In the art field, I know very little about Bernini and want to know even less, but his "David" is one of the most amazing statues I've ever seen.  There's something in the heart of man that has this amazing capacity for beauty, even for glory, and I think that something is the wisdom of the artist.  It has little or nothing to do with form and rules, except perhaps in knowing how to break them.  I'm not sure I can put my finger on what it is, but I think that if you have some of it yourself, you know it when you see it in others.

wisdom is vindicated by her children.

Trinitarian Writing

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Some while ago, during her Friday Tidbits series, Anne Elisabeth Stengl wrote a post on the Rule of Three.  In it she talked about the frequency with which we see patterns of three cropping up in all forms of art: the triangle format in painting, drawing the eye in toward the main subject; the famous threes of literature, from three disturbing blind mice to Goldilocks and the three dinosaurs bears; and the three-pronged repetition in a story's theme.  She made the point that if something is mentioned only once in a story, it will seem of little importance; if it is mentioned only twice, it will seem a coincidence, a mistake on the part of the writer; but if it is mentioned three times, it becomes fixed in the reader's mind as a theme.

Since this is an aspect of writing I find particularly intriguing, her last point caught me most and has stayed with me longest.  Subconsciously, it was something I had recognized before; it appears in my own writing, both in themes and in foreshadowing.  And, upon consideration, it makes sense.  I have done several posts already on Sayers' The Mind of the Maker and won't bore you with yet another, but though I am not generally one for numerology or anything of that sort, it has occurred to me more and more since reading that book how often cycles of three do come into our writing.  Perhaps a very bold parallel cannot be drawn, but I do think there is a sense in which writing is trinitarian - little surprise, since we are made in the image of God. 

Anne Elisabeth's post and, more recently still, a reading of David Copperfield brought these thoughts out with greater clarity - for Dickens, consciously or not, was a master at conveying themes.  I can think of two instances in the book that followed the trinitarian cycle, the first exactly, the second with some latitude.  The first is when David tells his aunt how thoroughly he is in love with Dora, and Betsey Trotwood, knowing his foolishness, shakes her head and says, "Blind! blind! blind!" - which, of course, is also a repetition of three.  It springs to David's mind again at the end of that chapter.  It occurs for the third and last time when David, having lost Dora and being a little wiser now, realizes what he forfeited by his foolishness and recalls his aunt's words.

The second instance, I admit, is a little fuzzier.  There is a moment when the reader is given a glimpse of Steerforth asleep, "with his head upon his arm," as he used to lie at school - this is really a second-time occurrence, since it evokes the memory of the school-days.  It is brought home powerfully again after the shipwreck, when David is brought down to the beach and sees his old friend for the last time.

"But, he led me to the shore.  And on that part of it where she and I had looked for shells, two children - on that part of it where some lighter fragments of the old boat, blown down last night, had been scattered - among the ruins of the home he had wronged - I saw him lying with his head upon his arm, as I had often seen him lie at school."

You don't like Steerforth, since he's a cad, and yet the way the scene is evoked and the repetition of that line still manage to break your heart.  And that, I think, is one of the most interesting elements of a theme: if it is right, if it is true to the story and the characters, it gets down to the reader's heart.  It doesn't have to follow any particular rule - it's visceral, as most writing is - but I do find it fascinating how, in it, the pattern of three consistently reoccurs.  And I wonder, too, if it appeals to us so much because of that image of God. 

what do you think?  have you noticed the pattern?

When You Don't Want to Write

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We're writers.  Thus it is, or ought to be, a given that we write.  But we don't write all the time, any more than a farmer farms or a painter paints or a poet poems all the time: we have periods where we can't write, and we have periods where we just don't feel like writing.  In those latter times we tend to rattle around like a pebble in a can, not knowing what to do with ourselves.

What do we do, then, when we don't feel like writing?

And no, this is not going to be one of those cheeky posts in which the author says, "Just keep writing! SURPRISE!"  It is absolutely true that we should not give in every time, or even half the times, we feel the inclination to wander away from our work: if we have the ability to write and yet put it off over and over again, we're cultivating a spirit of laziness, which is no more acceptable for us than it is for a farmer.  But all the same, there are times when it is acceptable to take a break, to rest the mind, to gather creativity once more for another foray into our books.  So,

what do we do when we don't feel like writing?

1. Clean.  I think Jenny may have mentioned this at one point on The Penslayer, but there are few things that rejuvenate the mind as well as a good round of cleaning house.  As writers we tend to be fairly inactive - I know I do, at least - and it is good for the body and the mind to get moving and do something like scrubbing a bathtub or mopping a floor.  (I like bathtubs as well as the next person, I'm sure, but scrubbing them is horrible.  Its misery is only outdone by the task of formatting manuscript chapters in the body of an email.) 

But at any rate, no matter how clean your home or your writing area is on a day to day basis, you can always find something to clean: it's a law of nature.  If you find your creativity running dry, vacuum a few rooms!  Dust bookshelves!  Turn on a little music and scrub dishes!  Honestly, they could do a government study on the creative properties of suds.

2.  Organize.  This may come from being a fairly organized personality, but I find the practice of organizing helps to cheer me up and get my mind working again.  If you have a wardrobe or a closet, spend some time rifling through the clothes and sorting out things you don't wear: it is a productive task and has absolutely nothing to do with writing, which can be very nice. 

Or, on a more literary note, tidy up research material so it isn't tumbling all over the place.  This year I got myself a wicker basket - from Hobby Lobby; wonderful place, that - for some of the books that I use frequently and don't fit on shelves: The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady and W. Keble Martin's The Concise British Flora in Colour; an atlas of the ancient world; a Smithsonian Handbook of Birds of the World; a box of rejection letters.  It helps keep the room nice, and a clean room, I think, is far more peaceful than a chaotic one.

3. Exercise.  I'm pretty bad at this one: I find exercising incredibly boring.  But again, we tend to be inactive, and this is a good habit to inculcate no matter what your vocation is.  Turn on the music again - preferably sprightly tunes - and do some aerobics or some weight-lifting or whatever it is you prefer.  Go out for a walk, if you can, or just toddle out to get the mail (there might be books in it!).  It is not always much fun (though it can be), but it is good for you!

4. Read.  Some people find their reading increases when their writing is in a bit of a rut; I generally find that both flounder at the same time.  But at any rate, if you find yourself with more time on your hands, allow yourself to settle down with a good book.  Whether it is new or well-loved is not critical, although for myself I find that light reading is best.  I can't say David Copperfield has been terribly beneficial, but The Inimitable Jeeves seems to be doing wonders at present.  I think there have been splashes of Wodehouse in this post, actually.

5. Work.  Writing doesn't compose the whole of our work: there are other facets of being an author that can be turned to when the actual business of scribbling has slowed down.  If you have reached the stage of pursuing publication, take this time to work on query letters and research agencies or publishers.  (I know for myself I have no inclination to do this when my current book is coming along briskly.)  Spend a little while researching: more on that to come in a future post, I hope.  Respond to emails or think about marketing.  Edit a previous work, if you have the energy for it.  You can generally find some neglected bit of work that wants doing when your creativity is sparse!

Just because we aren't writing doesn't mean we cannot be productive in other ways.  There is nothing wrong with resting from one labor and turning to another for a time.  Laziness is not acceptable, but a timely break can be both well-deserved and helpful.

The Trouble with Imitation

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Back in September of last year - was it really that long ago? - I scribbled a post for myself and for others on writing as an art.  With so many blogs and self-help books inundating us with tips and keys and the essence(s) of story-telling (I think I saw two different essences in the same week), we can easily fall into the trap of looking at writing as a mechanical process.  Fuse this tricky piece called "a good plot" with this other piece called "good writing" and ta da! Bestseller!

This approach appeals to us because it seems at first blush to offer a quick path to perfection in our writing.  We all want to improve, and the idea that if we just follow three easy steps we'll attain to the literary heights is awfully tempting.  In my post, however, I talked about something we probably all know and must simply be reminded of: the fact that writing is not mechanics, but

a process of growing art.

This current post is something of an extension of that basic notion, for even after we're rooted in it, there is still the difficult issue of knowing how to encourage that growing art to grow. We get to the place where we realize, "Oh goodness.  My writing seriously needs help, doesn't it?"  Maybe the pieces we've written before aren't so bad, maybe they're total rubbish, but either way there ought to come a point sooner or later in time when we realize it is not the best that it can be.  We come to grips with the fact that there are writers out there who just frankly do it - or did it - better than we, and then we begin to wonder how to coax further growth out of our own writing.

"Learn from the best" ought, really and truly, to be trumpeted more often than it is.  Read the Greats.  Don't settle for mediocre writers, the ones who don't do it as well as you, or who write on the same level as you, or who are maybe a little better: digest those writers whose works amaze you, blow you away, and leave you inspired (and perhaps a little jealous) after you've picked yourself up and pieced yourself back together.  "A man of ability," wrote William G. T. Shedd, "for the chief of his reading, should select such works as he feels beyond his own power to have produced."  What ho, Mr. Shedd, you said it truly!

Unfortunately, even this excellent advice can be warped, and writers who do try to "learn from the best" frequently fall into another trap of believing that it is also necessary to copy the best.  I wouldn't say this is always conscious; perhaps the underlying reasoning is mere mistaken logic, where writers suppose that if this man writes this way, and is reckoned a Great, then to be great we must write this way as well.  We're told we are supposed to imitate these people, and to an extent - the extent of a child following in the footsteps of an adult, before that child has learned to walk and direct himself - that is true.  But we've got to be wary of taking the principle too far.

We learn from others, ones who have gone before and ones who are going along with us: true.  We glean ruses, tactics, and strategies from them: also true.  We are not, however, meant to piece together little bits and pieces of authors' styles into something we call "our own" (and if we do, it can only ever be a literary Frankenstein's monster - because no one can forge the original author's signature with the same flair).  Even less are we meant to pick one favorite author and imitate them in all things.  That is to say -

we should not try writing characters like Dickens

we should not try writing romance like Austen

we should not try writing emotion and description like Sutcliff

we should not try writing an allegory like Lewis

and we really, truly, for the love of peachy goodness shouldn't try writing fantasy like Tolkien.

For me, this meant a realization that I am not Jenny and should not try to write like her.  I do not share her poetry-prose flair, and to attempt it would appear forced.  I can certainly look up to her and try to write as well as she does, but always in my own style and what people call "voice."  I admire R.L. Stevenson's descriptions and the masterful plots of Dickens.  Austen's wit is positively hilarious.  Sutcliff can take your heart and wring it like a sponge.  Lewis and Tolkien were masters of their art.  We ought to read them, look up to them, learn from them (and never stop doing so!), but we must also find our own ground, plant our roots in it and say, "This is my place.  I'll gain nutrients from all the writers I come across, but I am confident enough in my own voice not to mimic that of others."

It's a growing art, this writing business.  But it is important to realize that it varies from one person to the next, and we're not meant to try to graft ourselves into some other writer's vine - so that when someone asks us, "Would you rather write like this author or this author?" our response should be, "Um, cake, please?"

Like Nobody's Reading

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I read a quote the other day.  It was probably on Pinterest - most quotes are - and I have not the least idea who said it.  (Which is good, because I'm going to disagree with it, and I hate disagreeing with famous people.)  I can't locate the quote now, but in essence it said

write like nobody's reading.

I thought, when I came across it, that is sounded good and pithy and like something we need to hear.  Most of us have had times where we get ourselves into a bind wondering if what we write will be appreciated. I know I've had panicked moments when I think, "What if people think I hate cats because Regina dislikes them?  What if they think I don't like to read because Tip doesn't?  What if people misunderstand these characters' relationships?  What if they twist my words and come out with something horrible?"  The questions range from the petty to the dire, and if allowed to grow, they could quickly become overwhelming.  In one sense, therefore, this "Write like nobody's reading" quote has a point.

But I believe there is another side to the coin, a side I had not particularly noted until reading Dorothy Sayers' book on the Trinity and the creative mind, The Mind of the Maker.  (I wrote something of a synopsis for this after I finished it back in September.)  In her work she draws a parallel between the economy of the Godhead and the economy of the mind of creative man - a reasonable object, seeing as we are made in the Image of God.  The first two "persons" of this imagining, creating mind are simplest to see and to explain; they are the Idea, that thing that exists in our heads before ever we begin to write, and the Energy or Activity, where the Idea is translated into something understandable to others.  But of course the third is rather more elusive, which to me makes Sayers' parallel more credible.

The third "person" deals, in essence, with the power that brings about proper communication and appreciation in the mind of the reader.  It is that thing which conveys the spirit of the Idea as expressed in the Activity.  It is that thing which, when present, creates the vital connection between the reader and the writer through the book.  And it is absolutely necessary.

In her book - which I continue to recommend for all writers - Sayers generally uses the example of a playwright, being one herself (as well as a novelist and an essayist, but that's beside the point).  It is critical, she writes, that when a man is penning his play, he keep in mind the perspective of the audience.  What is the audience going to understand by this wordplay?  How are these props going to appear?  Will the scene be conveyed?  She uses a humorous example of a play that failed to do just this; instead, the writer (who really should have been a novelist instead) substituted a long passage of "stage directions" - those sections in italics at the start of a scene in a Dover Thrift edition of Shakespeare.  Thunder.  Darkness.  Woman in bed, tossing and turning as if in pain.  Woman cries out, twisting sheets in hands.  End of Scene I.

This is an exaggeration, and yet it is an exaggeration that applies to all creative fields: whether you are writing a novel or a play, a failure to figuratively place oneself in the viewer's chair will result in a terrible disconnect.  At the heart of the matter, the fact is that mature writers, the ones not just starting out (and that is an important caveat), must write as though someone is reading.  Because isn't that the very thing we desire?

he that uses his words loosely and unsteadily will either not be minded or not understood.

- john locke, an essay concerning human understanding

We want to be minded.  We want to be understood.  And in order to do so, we have to be able to have minds in two positions at once: that of the writer, designing and creating; and that of the reader, following and learning.   That is why, while we cannot allow worries about what others will think to paralyze us, we also cannot ignore them.  They have their place in helping us to convey our story, and the vital spirit of that story.

Shadows and Echoes

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After reading books, blogs, and websites on writing for any length of time, there are certain phrases and bits and pieces of literary jargon that begin to be familiar.  It's not always clear what they mean, and sometimes they're downright unfortunate - internal conflict, for instance, always makes me wonder if the character had mayonnaise and pickles for lunch.  Some of them, however, are quite apt.  One rare example of this is foreshadowing.

Those of you who have followed Scribbles since pretty near the beginning are already aware that foreshadowing is one of my favorite aspects of writing.  It gives me a thrill to read a book, especially one familiar to me, and catch a new instance where threads of future scenes are woven into earlier sections; I love it when the first book of a series plants seeds for those that follow.  I am not sure why, save perhaps that, though (and perhaps because) I am a writer myself, it never ceases to amaze me that an author's mind can contain such a monumental and complete thought.  It is one thing to start at the beginning and bumble clumsily to the end; it is another thing entirely for the ending to be foretold by the beginning.

There are many different styles of foreshadowing.  One of the most obvious is that of premonition or deja vu, two phenomena we don't really understand, but that serve us well as writers.  They allow us to give the character a hint of whatever disaster is to come - not a vision, for that tends to ruin the suspense, but an unpleasant and indefinable taste.  And through the mind of the character, the reader feels it as well.

Foreshadowing can also be done in less obvious ways, ways that will probably not be noticed until the second reading when the ending is already in mind.  They can be as slight as a word that a minor character uses, a change in the weather, an insult, the writing of a letter or the killing of a moth.  It can be anything, really.  There is nothing so slight that the mind cannot latch onto it, connect it with an event and rethink it months or even years later.  The association needn't even be direct; it may be a connection may be only in the character's mind.  Personally, these are my favorites because of the detail and nuance they reflect - and because they're even more natural than a premonition.

As splendid as foreshadowing is, however, it is but one side of the coin of continuity.  Foreshadowing is what the writer does at the beginning of the novel; it is the darkness cast by the real event to which the author was looking.  But later on, especially in a long novel, it is necessary to harken back to earlier scenes and bring them clearly before the reader's mind again.  I call this echoing; like as not it has different names in different places. 

At any rate, for me these are usually pointed (often unintentional) repetitions of something that happened many chapters before.  Again, they're usually small things - the flipside of foreshadowing.  A phrase might be reused that harkens back to another scene; a character's expression might remind the narrator of someone else; a color might be tied to something critical.  Whether indirect or direct, it is an association that carries the mind back across the pages even more plainly than foreshadowing carries the mind forward.

However they are used, foreshadowing and echoing are wonderfully tantalizing ways of bringing together the pattern of a story.  And on a rambling side note, they represent to me one of the spectacular aspects of the Bible: no other book in the world so reflects the perfect continuity in the mind of its author.  Perhaps, after all, that is what we all pattern our own writing after.

Slightly Organized

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By nature, I'm a fairly organized person.  That's not to say I'm OCD, that I wouldn't rather put my shoes in the foyer than take them to my room, or that I color-code my wardrobe (though I have considered it, I admit).  Nor, for that matter, does it mean I quibble with "unsightly" stacks of books all over the floor.  They're not unsightly to me: they look like intelligence.

On the other hand, I'm really not a huge fan of chaos.  I like to straighten things - to clear off desks, and put pens back in holders, and file papers in assigned folders.  I like the feeling of getting books properly arranged on shelves.  I like to hustle clutter out of my room, because having it cluttered increases stress.  (Jenny remarked on this phenomenon a few days ago, so I don't think it's peculiar to me.) 

And this extends to my writing as well: if I can't keep myself organized, I get a most unpleasant and overwhelming sensation of panic.  I suppose that isn't an unreasonable feeling for a writer to have.  Here we are setting out to write a book that could be anywhere from 60,000 to 200,000 words long, with characters we're just beginning to know, plot twists we can't yet envision, an ending that seems incredibly distant, and more chapters than can be easily kept track of.  We may not start out with a map, but I know that for myself, if I don't at least have a few mile markers I will soon be hopelessly lost.

Some of us tackle this issue through outlines with varying degrees of detail.  For me, this has been different with every novel, but I find I don't like ones that are in-depth; they're helpful enough to follow during NaNo, when I'm rushing along much too quickly to keep track of critical points, but they leave no room for character and plot development in my own mind.  Besides, my chapters never end up following the arrangement I set up for them before I begin writing.  Still, this overarching outline can be useful as reference material as long as I don't follow it too closely.

The outline, however, is a pretty well-known means of organization.  Here are a few of the other things I do to try to keep my head above water as I dog-paddle through my novels.

corkboard and sticky notes

This is a new thing for me, and I stole the idea from Jenny.  It's a simple way of keeping tabs, not on large plot points, but on little things that are just as necessary.  Usually these are one-word reminders, just enough to spark my memory; they have to be fairly short to fit on the heart-shaped sticky notes. Sometimes I'll add a quote I want to use, or a snatch of dialogue I want to remember.  Anyone else looking at the notes for Tempus Regina would be able to make neither heads nor tails of them.  "Greek fire," says one; "abort," declares another; "smoke and mirrors," "sacrifice," blue stones," "Plato," and "The Great Exhibition," remark several others. 

Here I've also begun keeping track of edits I know I'll have to make, so I don't forget them.  I write these on different note cards to differentiate. 

notebook

I have a notebook for writing, but I also have a small, fat, spiral-bound notebook for a variety of Useful Things.  I write down blog post ideas, song titles, edits, and schedules here.  I keep track of agents queried and not queried.  I also scribble lists of books to find and notes on necessary research, like the phosphorescent qualities of zinc sulfide.  My notebook itself is not very organized, given my tendency to use up every spare bit of page until a single leaf has three separate lists crammed together.  But since I can navigate it well enough, and needful schedules, lists, and research are in one spot, it works very well.

chapter outlines

Unless I'm doing NaNo, I write each chapter of my novel in a separate Word document.  When it's finished, I copy it, add it to the main manuscript file, and then save both.  Writing from beginning to end in a single document is, for some reason, overwhelming to me.  Besides, finishing a chapter is much for satisfying this way.

The downside of this method is that it means I'm frequently faced with a blank page.  Every time I finish one chapter and begin another, I have an empty sheet of virtual paper - no words or snatches of sentences to spur me on.  And most of you know, I hate beginnings.  What I do to start myself off is to jot down quick notes in my writing notebook (not the Useful Things book) as a general outline of how the chapter will go.  I break it down into parts, rarely detailed, but enough to show me about how long the chapter will be and how many scenes it will contain.  It gives me a prompt and a starting place, and as I finish each section I can check it off.  (I love checking things off.)  This has been one of the most helpful flotation devices I've found for myself.

what methods do you have for keeping yourself organized?

Excitement or Plausibility?

Back during the blog party in November, Joy asked me to write a post on the balance between fact and fiction in historical novels.  The result was fairly brief, a quick summary of my thoughts on the matter; this post, and probably a couple to come after, is something of an extension of those ideas.

At the same time, though I identify to this most as a writer of historical fiction, the topic applies just as much to other genres.  Whether writing fantasy or mystery, historical fiction or romance, there's a constant tension between what readers will find exciting, and what readers will find plausible.  On the one extreme you have old DC comics - Superman beats up all the bad guys again! - and on the other you have "realism" - everyone dies, loses their minds, is crossed in love, or in some fashion meets a depressing end.

Most of us like to write stories that land in the middle, because while people are drawn to the hopefulness of a happy ending, they are also quite capable of picking out absurdities. The quote about truth being stranger than fiction is quite accurate; truth is certain, no matter how crazy it appears, but fiction is subjected to the grueling test of the reader's credulity and can get a failing grade.  To a certain degree, it doesn't matter whether or not a far-fetched detail in a novel is true, if the reader cannot be convinced that it is so.  This is something that has stood out to me while reading Operation Mincemeat, an account of an Allied effort to convince Germany that British and American troops were invading Europe, not through Sicily, but through Greece.  The deception hinged on truth, half-truth, and lies, but it also hinged on perception and bias; and as the enemy had to be manipulated, so, in a sense, must a writer manipulate his reader.  (It is not at all surprising that many top-ranking intelligence officers were also novelists - Ian Fleming, anyone?)

In this little work of espionage, the key is maintaining a balance between the plausible and the exciting.  If we tell the reader exactly what he wants to hear up front - that Superman defeated the bad guys by bashing their heads together and escaped without a scratch - well, that is all good and exciting, but is it credible?  No.  Is it credible that Odin should conveniently discover a way to send Thor to earth just when S.H.I.E.L.D. needed him most?  No.  Is it credible that Thorin should be able to defend himself from a large enraged orc while wielding only an oak branch?  Uh, well, yes, because he's awesome.  That's pretty self-evident.

These are all exciting scenes, but if we were making them into plausible stories, Superman would be captured, Thor wouldn't be in "The Avengers," and Thorin wouldn't be Oakenshield, he would be dead.  The question then becomes, would it be better to tilt the scale toward the other end, make the story realistic, and wipe out all this melodrama?  Would this be the right formula for convincing our readers of the "truth" (and in a way, as readers we should be brought to accept the reality of both characters and plot) of the tale?

We might convince a few people of the "realism" of the story (whatever that is supposed to mean), but I can bet you nine out of ten will still be severely ticked off.  These all have a common denominator: they're adventures and fantasies, and there are certain expectations attached to them.  The excitement-plausibility scale will tend toward the former, because they are by nature fast-paced and high-stakes stories.  Disbelief is more willingly suspended.

Matters are rather different with historical fiction, where fact and imagination mingle and readers can see the lines.  When the setting is real and limitations are clearer, I know I start to look more closely for elements that stretch credulity too far or snap it altogether.  We can say glibly that fact is stranger than fiction - but when something strange in fiction tries to pass itself off as fact, we still eye it with inveterate suspicion.

Still, even in historical fiction where we expect to see more strictures, I think it is accurate to say that the majority of readers will always tend more toward excitement - because the majority of readers approach books with something of an escapist mentality.  We want to see things through rose-hued glasses for a little while; we want epic battles and happy endings, we want Superman and Thor.  We do not want the boredom of reality.  In my case, this realization gave me the necessity of relieving the monotony of blockade duty in the Sea Fever books; it was, frankly, a humdrum sort of thing, and nobody wants to spend pages reading about it.  But back on the other hand, there are a half-dozen sticky points where a story's critical points must be made credible enough to convince a reader.

The success of espionage is frequently a matter of sticking oneself in the enemy's proverbial boots, seeing things the way the enemy sees, then crafting the deception to pander to it.  That is what writers do: stick themselves in reader's boots.  Perhaps it sounds underhanded; perhaps it is underhanded.  But I think it is also the reason why writers must also be readers, so that we get a feel for such tensions as these.

In the World? Really?

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Last Tuesday, I began a two-part series in which I attempt to communicate something of my philosophy concerning what it means to be a Christian who writes.  The first half, "Changing the World? Really?", primarily focused on the individualistic approach we take to our art, and the misguided notion that we are called upon to change the world.  I wrapped it up with this essential belief: the Church is a people, not just a society of individual persons.  Then I left off with a question:

"Is the pressure on us, then, to change the world as a whole people?  For the Church to rise up and take on the world?  For all believing writers to band together so their books are more like a rock in the ocean of literature than like a drop?"

And I told you my answer was no, which is something of a spoiler.

This mindset is nearly as prevalent as the individualistic approach I discussed before, and would seem to be more biblical (and more in line with my own remarks).  I said that the language used in Scripture is that of a kingdom, nation, priesthood - large words, significant words, and words that have been used to justify the Church shouldering her way into all aspects of the world's business.  "The Church is a powerful force," they say.  "We just need to realize our power, stand up and combat the world."  Political activism is a major avenue for this kind of militarism.

But since I am a writer, I prefer to question something closer to home and more innocuous, and that is the presence of a Christian label in the arts.  I've talked about it before, but the subject flows quite nicely from the first part of this series, and I could not leave off "Changing the World?" without adding this caveat.  It would be too easy to finish reading that post and infer that I find the introduction of the Christian book industry the answer to our individualistic problem.  In fact, my feelings are, to quote Lizzy Bennet, quite the opposite.  I believe the philosophy behind this labeling to be an error on the other side of the spectrum.

It is difficult to tread this minefield without stepping on one objection or another, for the phenomenon of Christian fiction has been around for several decades now and is pretty well engrained in many minds.  If you are a Christian, and your work has scriptural themes, you publish within the Christian book label.  By and large, it is now taken for granted that the industry gives Christians a voice (by bringing many pebbles together to make a rock, and then dropping it in the sea of literature) and allows us to stand out.  It marks our books as different - as soon as you see the publishing house, and sometimes as soon as you see the cover itself, you know the book is Christian fiction.  And there are a lot of such books out there.

It would seem that this is what I was advocating in "Changing the World?".  It isn't individualistic; Christians are uniting, bringing their works together under an obvious heading, not "putting their lights under bushels" and all that.  By banding together, we're seeking to impact the world.  Two fists are better than one, after all.  It's true that we can't hope to make any difference on our own, but once we get together...!

But this is not what I believe is advocated in the Bible.  We are not told to go into all the world, making our own genres and labels and whatnot; that is not being in the world at all, but is in fact a form of monasticism.  We pull back, wanting to be different not by what we think and say and do and live, but by the heading we live under.  We write our novels and tag them as Christian fiction, reasoning (when we do reason about it; I don't believe I did) that it makes sense because we are Christians and our message is Christian.  But our lives are not meant to be pigeon-holed in such a way.  Yes, indeed, the Church is meant to be united - but the Christian book industry is not the Church.

In creating this label, I believe we have lost a great deal of understanding when it comes to the Church's role, and individuals' roles, in the world.  If we are salt, we cannot keep ourselves in the container; we are sprinkled across a decaying world.  If we are leaven, we spread out to "leaven the whole lump."  If we are a mustard seed, we grow so that our branches cover the whole earth.  This is the work of the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is no room for monasticism in it.

The Christian's life is meant to be lived in the world, within sight of unbelievers.  Not after the same fashion as the world, certainly, but also not off in a cloister - or under a different label.  What impact does that have?  I think if we would be honest, we would realize that few unbelievers are likely to pick up a novel with a Christian label, unless it be by mistake.  (And then they seem frequently to be disgusted.)  Much as the genre as a whole may express a desire to stand out, have an impact, etc., the result is a far cry from the vision expressed by Jesus and the apostolic writers.

None of this is particularly easy to say or accept, because the Christian label is so prevalent; there is little we can do about it, even if we wanted to.  My own novel is technically a Christian novel.  If Christianity plays a major role in your story, it may be difficult to be accepted by a "secular" publisher: that is one reason for going the other route, and I freely confess that there are others as well.  This is by no means a condemnation of all Christian books.  It is merely my look at the idea of a Christian publishing industry, and a challenge to the philosophy that underlies it.

Changing the World? Really?

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When a person finds out you're a writer, and they feel any interest at all in the fact, generally the first question they ask is, "What do you write?"  It's less frequent that you get asked why you write, although it does happen occasionally.

The latter question has in fact cropped up a few times in the interviews people have been submitting for this blog party, and it's not an easy one to answer in just a paragraph or two.  So to give it the attention it deserves, I'm devoting a two-part series to pulling together an answer and presenting something of my own philosophy of life and writing.  Of course it hasn't wholly solidified yet; I'm much too young to have a concrete and immutable philosophy of anything.  But for the moment, this is my outlook on what it is that I do and am - as a writer, and as a Christian.  (A silly turn of phrase, that "as a whatever," but we'll leave it for Dorothy Sayers to debate.)

In the circles I run in, including those in the blogisphere, there is a great deal of pressure being put on believers in general and young believers, I think, in specific.  It doesn't really matter what field or vocation you call your own, because the pressure is the same whether you aspire to be a writer or a musician, a laborer or a manager or a whatever.  The pressure is nothing less than to change the world.  Sometimes it is couched in different terms; always it entails a kind of militancy, a combating of the world, an aggressive sharing of the Gospel to anyone who crosses our path.

In writing, which is obviously what I'm most familiar with, this most often takes the form of incorporating the Good News into every story we produce.  Isn't that we're called to do?  Aren't we supposed to go into all the world and make disciples?  And even if we can't, we can hope our books will - and we want to be sure that anyone who picks up our works will find the Gospel in them.  We want to rest assured that our "Christian fiction" - neatly packaged, all loose ends neatly tied off - stands in contrast and opposition to the mass of worldly stuff hitting the shelves right beside it.  We want our writing to change the world, because we think that's our purpose as writing Christians.

But we don't change the world.

Of course there are probably a few works of Christian fiction that have been used by the Holy Spirit to regenerate hearts; I can't imagine there are very many, but God does work in some pretty mysterious ways.  However, His common - but not common; His chosen method of saving men and women is through "the foolishness of the Word preached" (I Cor. 1:21).  We can't expect that through our novels people will be saved in droves and gaggles.  And yet we still have this idea given to us that somehow our writing, almost by the very nature of its being produced by a Christian, will change our society.

That's a pretty tall order, and a great responsibility if it is indeed true.  Consider for a moment how vast is the culture we live in.  Think of the heaps of books - Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey and all other more or less innocuous works - filling and shaping that culture.  And now picture yourself putting in your two cents, your drop into that ocean.  What difference does it make?  In the scheme of things - and remember here the scheme is that of changing the world - does your contribution matter?  Or does the world sit and laugh (if it even notices you) at your attempt to change it?

"Holy cow," you say now, "aren't you bleak today?  I think I'll just go read Dostoyevsky now to CHEER MYSELF UP."  But my point isn't bleak, once I actually get to it.  I'm pretty cheerful when it comes to my writing.  Because my philosophy of what it means to be a Christian who writes is not one of world alteration.  I don't expect The Soldier's Cross to be out there "winning souls," or even just stemming the tide of bad literature.  That's far too much weight placed on one little 92,000-word novel - far too much weight placed on one little just-barely-five-foot girl.  I can't change the world, and I don't expect to.  I don't think God expects me to.  If we could change the world, I expect He would just leave us here until we had finally converted everyone and the world was a happy place.

What it comes down to in my mind, as far as this part of the matter is concerned, is that God has not placed me as a sole individual with the purpose in His thoughts of me accomplishing all these great things.  He has brought out for Himself a people.  He stuck Israel smack dab in the middle of everything - in the sight of all the nations, in fact.  He has stuck His Church smack dab in the middle of everything, too, so that she should be a city set on a hill.  It is hard to grasp or even to say because of our mindset, but He has not called out for Himself individual persons; He has bought a people (made up of individuals, yes, but greater than the sum of its parts!) to be a witness, to be salt and light and leaven and a mustard seed that grows to fill the whole earth.

We lose sight of this; I lose sight of this.  But I think we must stop thinking about ourselves in such a personal and individualistic manner, stop thinking that we're set out alone with our own candles with the weight of the world - literally - resting on our shoulders.  The language of Scripture is that of a nation, a priesthood, a kingdom, a spiritual house.  The pressure is not, and should not, be on us as individuals to change the world.

Is the pressure on us, then, to change the world as a whole people?  For the Church to rise up and take on the world?  For all believing writers to band together so their books are more like a rock in the ocean of literature than like a drop?  Well, I'll sum up my answer as "no," but the rest will come in a later post.

There's a comic that features Moses holding the tablets of stone and telling the people of Israel, "Please hold your applause until I've read all ten."  Please hold your applause (or rotten tomatoes) until I've finish up the next installment, and then see what you think.  And, while you're waiting, don't forget to enter the novel giveaway.  Because you've only got ten days left, and Christmas is coming...!

The Creative Mind

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Last week I finished reading The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers, a contemporary of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien and best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey detective novels.  I can't say I'm much a fan of her mysteries, but this book I enjoyed so much that I gave it five stars and wanted to wave it in the face of everyone I ever met and scream, "Read this book, it's full of awesome!"  Which is not generally something I do; I try to keep my voice below a scream at all times.  Sometimes, however, I do feel that a higher pitch is justified.

The Mind of the Maker was once such instance.  It is a little hard to explain and do justice to it, for Sayers, with a kind of tongue-in-cheek, no-nonsense style somewhat typical of her generation, covers a great deal of ground in only 250 pages.  She is examining, or rather making a frank case for, the doctrine of the Trinity - and that right there is a monumental task.  She goes about it, however, not from the "top down," but from the "bottom up."  For she looks first at something very near and dear to every human artist, whether writer or painter, sculptor or musician:

the trinity within the mind of the human maker

This doesn't seem self-evident when stated like that, and yet it struck me because some time before beginning the book, I realized that in my writing I seem to have three different tracks or periods of thought.  There is the period where I seem to get the most concepts, where story ideas seem to be popping up frequently.  Then there's the time while I'm actively writing, where all my powers are concentrated on that single story.  And then I have my editing, as I polish and rewrite and convey what I want to convey, and during which I feel the need to edit everything in sight - whether it's mine or not.

These thought-periods very roughly correspond, I think, to what Sayers discusses in The Mind of the Maker, but outlining it her way is much more coherent and profound.  Her "trinity," based on experience, is that of Idea, Energy (or Activity), and Power.  Idea is comparatively easy to grasp: it is the overarching knowledge of the story, beginning to end, the story as it exists within the maker's mind.  It isn't always fully expressed even to the creator, not at first; but it is the guiding pattern of the work.  It is what allows you to say at the end, looking back at the beginning: "This is how the story was meant to be.  I didn't know it at first, but this is it.  Nothing else would have been right; this is the story."

This struck home to me, because it encapsulated my feelings as I stand at the finish-line of The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide.  I can't express how unprepared I was when I began the novel on November 1, 2010.  I had little more than the names of two main characters - Tip and Marta - and a setting, and that was all.  Charlie Bent and Josiah Darkwood came in of their own accord, one might say, but I found they were crucial to the story as a whole.  Lewis, only a bully at the beginning, appeared again to star as the villain of the piece - and it was right, though not wholly planned.  I look back over the story and I'm amazed at the unity of it, when I started with nothing more than fragments.  Sayers, I think, gives the explanation.  For The White Sail's Shaking and The Running Tide exist in my own mind as an Idea, and because the execution of it has matched that pattern, it feels right.

The execution, then, is the Energy.  I found the term a little odd, and hard not to confuse with Power; "Activity" works better, I think.  At any rate, this is the outward expression - in paint or words or music - of the Idea in the maker's mind.  For a writer, it's the act of writing.  It's taking the concept and giving it expression, so that readers can see that form and, through it, see the Idea in the mind of the maker.  Sayers comments that this is why it confuses a writer to be asked, "What did you mean by this plot twist, or that character?"  Because if the writer has done his work correctly, his "meaning" should be expressive in the plot twist or the character.  "Meaning" is part and parcel of the Activity.

This concept is mentioned at times, though not in these terms.  It is the same law that says that extraneous characters (no matter how vivid) and unimportant events (no matter how dramatic) damage rather than help a story.  Such goings-on are nothing but the Activity expressing itself, and not the Idea; for the whole purpose of the Activity is to present the Idea. 

Lastly in the trinity, there comes Power.  It is harder to explain than Idea or Activity, as Sayers concedes, but it is something like the conveyance of the Idea's spirit.  It is the invoking of feeling and understanding in the minds of readers - an exchange, as it were, from the writer's mind to that of the reader.  If this Power isn't present, then the expression of the Activity has failed and the Idea is not fully revealed.  I saw a quote recently (by Stephen King - go figure) that reminded me of this: "Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's."  I think you could accurately add to "description" characters, plot, foreshadowing, dialogue, and anything else that might spring to mind.  All must be planted in the reader's mind, or there is no Power.

I think by this point the analogy becomes quite clear.  For like the Idea, would not God the Father be, for all intents and purposes, unknowable if it were not for His self-expression in God the Son?  And does not Paul - and Jesus Himself - make it clear that the Son is the "image of the invisible God," that "having seen Him we have seen the Father"?  He does not do His own will, but the will of the Father.  And the Holy Spirit, proceeding from God the Father, then testifies of Jesus Christ.

It would be wrong, of course, to say this analogy is perfect; because of the Fall, the trinity of the human maker's mind is corrupted and tends to overemphasize one or another - as Sayers herself points out.  And yet, as God is the supreme Maker, is it not reasonable to see how we, made in His image, are makers after the same fashion?  I wouldn't say this is all that is entailed by the Imago Dei, but it is an integral part of human nature: the true, good human nature that God Himself created.  As we are all made in His Image, so we are all meant to be makers.  Not all writers, not all painters, not all musicians.  But all looking at the world and our work with the eyes of artists, expressing and taking pleasure in our creations.  Because if we don't, if we fall into the rut of ho-humming our way through life and taking no pleasure in our work (for God did design us for work), we are not living according to the pattern the divine Maker has laid out. 

And that's never a pleasant place to be.

in conclusion: read the mind of the maker.  end of story.

Growing Art

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We all want to improve.  

I make that a blanket statement, because while there are those writers who already think their writing is as good as it gets, us saner folk still have days when we look at our work and think, "Oh goodness.  I really, really stink at this.  Did I write that?  That is so stupid.  Backspacebackspacebackspace...!" and daydream of a time when our writing is polished to perfection.  (At least, I do.  On rare and not terribly lucid occasions.)

Our desire to improve in the craft of writing is what drives us to read the self-help books and writing blogs dedicated to the subject.  We dig through all the posts on fight scenes or dialogue, hoping to glean something that will make our writing in those areas shine and stand out from the crowd.  We fret and sigh over cliches like "black as pitch" and practically rip our hair out over stray adverbs.  We chew our nails as we wonder if maybe our fantasy world isn't as original, after all, as Patricia McKillip's.  And on top of all that, as Christians we often stretch our brains to amazing lengths to find out how we can fit the Gospel or maybe just a prayer into the plot - because that's what we're supposed to do, right?

Now, some of you know already that I'm not a huge fan of self-help books.  I'm not going to denigrate them, though, because I know that they can hold very useful information and have helped numerous writers work out difficult parts of the writing process; I know that for myself, I frequently store away the tips on such blogs as Go Teen Writers, to be implemented at some later date.  Nothing beats an extensive library and broad tastes, but it is nonetheless helpful for us to see things broken down, the parts examined in detail and then put back together again. 

All things in moderation, however, for this approach can be overdone, and then nothing so thoroughly robs a story of its life.  This self-help business often - necessarily, even - looks at writing in a mechanistic fashion: take it apart, look at the cogs and gears and gerbils, then assemble it and voila! a story!  It can fail to recognize that a story is much less a machine than it is a living organism, needing to be nurtured, not to have its leaves and roots pulled out and inspected.  We simply end up trying too hard.

That is a difficult thing to say without sounding as though I'm implying that writing is an easy flow of words onto paper every single day with no agonies whatsoever.  But of course that is nothing more than a fantasy, and not even a pleasant one when you start to think carefully: what, after all, is writing without any work?  We do have to labor over our stories.  We do have to make the plant grow, and we do have to get rid of all the bugs and the fungus and the what-have-you that distort it.  The point is not to sit back and clear your mind of all the wisdom of other authors and readers. 

The point is to have the right mindset.

Writing is an art.  It isn't the same as putting together the parts of car until when you turn the key in the ignition, the engine comes to life.  It's an art, a work of creation, a tying together of a multitude of thought-threads into a story that feels - and in some ways is - alive.  That is not something that can be taught.  And because of this, we cannot go into self-help books and the like expecting to be shown how to write.  We can be shown how to polish our words.  We can be shown how to spruce up dialogue.  We can be shown when to leave a cliche and when to reinvent one.  But in all that, we cannot be shown how to write.

We can't be taught this, and yet I do believe we can learn it.  We learn it individually in the process of our writing, and also in the process of our living.  Because being a writer is not just an expression of what we do, but of something we are.  I don't know that it is essential and I won't run off on a philosophical rabbit trail; it is enough to realize that writing is a necessary part of who we are.  And I think that perhaps the process of improving our writing is not, after all, so much the process of polishing grammar and the like (however important that is).  It's a process of growing.