Turning the Haphazard Approach into a Full Narrative

Narrative

Turning the Haphazard Approach into a Full Narrative

In the last post, I suggested that you might want to try the haphazard approach to writing. There will be a point that you have written all the component parts of your story or memoir but they’re not in an order or form which would make sense to a reader. This post is about taking all the bits and bobs of scenes you have and whipping them into a full narrative.

Building into a full narrative

Read over all the pieces you have related to this story. In doing this, you get a shape of the story. Then ask yourself the following questions:

What is the rough order of the scenes? How do you want to tell the story? Sequence the scenes in a way which feels right to you.

What scenes are missing? Sometimes (often), you need a transition from one event to another. Or you might think that the reader needs to understand the motivation of the mother better to make the rest of the story work. Note the ones you need to add.

What are redundant? If an event is especially important, you may find that you’ve written more than one piece covering more or less the same ground. Actually, this is good. It allows you to consider the different ways you handled that scene (e.g. different point of view, told rather than shown, etc.) to decide which fits best with the shape of the story. You may even find that combining the scenes works.

Are all the scenes building to where you want to go? Sometimes, you write scenes which don’t fit. This makes sense. Creating the body of writing gives you a feel for the type of world you created. It is only at this point that you understand the shape of the story enough to know which scenes contribute and which take it off in another direction.

This is where writers can get unnaturally attached to pieces or scenes they love. You need to keep the whole story in mind and cut or change ones to fit its flow.

Where does the story start? On reflection, you may find that the story starts later than you thought. This is often because you have scenes which give background or do set up. Try to start the story as close to the beginning of the plot as you can.

Does your original ending still work, given the rest of the story? Might, might not. But it’s worth considering whether the originally planned ending fits with how the story has evolved.

You’ve still got editing

This may feel like editing but it’s not really (okay, maybe it’s a kind of substantive edit). You’ve still got to go back to fill in missing scenes and ensure the story builds in a way which engages the reader. This is the point where you need to check the name of Aunt Mary’s third cousin by her second marriage.

Writing with Energy: The Haphazard Approach

energy

Writing with Energy: The Haphazard Approach

In the last two posts, I discussed why starting a writing project at the beginning of the story or at the end, can have unexpected challenges. In this post, I’ll discuss what the haphazard approach is and why I think it produces works with more energy.

The haphazard approach to infuse energy into your writing

Seems a bit silly to call this an approach but it’s the only term that comes to mind. And being haphazard, it also seems a bit odd to be listing the steps to follow. But here goes:

  • Close your eyes. Think about your story or memoir. What comes to mind? The day you found out there was no Santa (I hope I’m not giving anything away)? When the heroine finds out she has been betrayed?
  • Whatever comes up, write about that. Just start typing.
  • Keep going. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the middle of the narrative you want to tell or if you’re unsure of the exact surname of Aunt Mary’s third cousin by her second marriage. Make a name up and keep going.
  • Write as much of the scene as you can, investing all your energy and creativity into making this the best scene you can.
  • When that scene is done, repeat the process with a different scene. Doesn’t have to be the prequel or sequel to the scene you’ve just written. Just anything that interests you at this moment.

It can’t be that easy

It isn’t easy, in fact. It’s very hard work to get down the emotions, action, and settings in a way which reflects what you want to depict. But it ups the chances that you are writing from a place and about a subject which energizes you and your writing.

So, you continue this haphazard way, not worrying about continuity of story, possibly changing the name of your hero half-way in, perhaps writing a scene which is very similar to one you have already written. Doesn’t matter. This is all stuff you can fix later. Just get down as much as you can in as vivid a way as you can.

One problem

I am basically advocating separating the creative process of generating the story from the equally important but different process of developing a narrative which hangs together and makes sense from the first page to last.

But the astute among you will have figured out that, while this haphazard approach helps get the story down, there is a point where you have got all the component parts but not in a form which others would recognize as a story. Next post.

Not the only way

Naturally, this isn’t the only way to tackle a writing project. One writer I know has to have the first line before he can start. Dickens had to have all of his characters named before he could get going. Other writers plot the whole thing out before they write a word (I’ll have more to say about this in another post). You can even actually start at the beginning or end of your narrative if you take into account the caveats I’ve outlined previously. But I encourage you to give my method a try. I have found it works not just to write the story but occasionally, even allows magic to strike.

Do I Start the Story at the End?

end

Do I Start the Story at the End?

In the last post, we discussed some of the disadvantages of starting your story at what seems like the natural beginning. So if the beginning has problems, the obvious question is What about starting the story at the end?

What is it?

Although this seems oxymoronic, it can be effective. Stories Told Backward? gives examples of novels which use this device.

Basically, your opening scene is the end of the novel or memoir. Where the protagonist triumphs or goes down to worthy defeat. Where the boy gets the girl or they part with a memory that lasts forever.

From there, you can start at the beginning of the story and unfold the story as you would normally. If you are really tricky, you can move backward in time so that the second scene is the event immediately prior to the ending, and the last scene is the introduction of the characters. If you can do this, more power to you. I’ve never been able to figure out how.

But there are downsides to starting with the end

I want to make a distinction between starting your initial writing with the end and, after much thought and editing on your final version, choosing to start with the ending. The latter may be an excellent decision but I’m discussing the first draft here.

You give away the end.

Obviously, the reader knows what’s coming. This can work if you can infuse the story with a sense of an impending and inevitable doom. Readers will keep reading even if, or perhaps especially if, they dread the outcome. However, if you can’t keep up that level of engagement, your readers may lose interest as they know (or think they know) where the story is going.

And of course, the resolution is no surprise. An exception would be if you are able to change the meaning of the ending. For example, when the reader experiences the ending as a first scene, they might conclude the main character is getting the comeuppance he deserves. Writing skillfully, you might weave the story so the reader realizes by the end that the protagonist has been wronged. The ending stays the same, but its meaning changes.

There may be an impatience to get to the end.

This can be true for you as well as the reader. Because you present the end first, you may be tempted to take a straight line route to it and thereby perhaps miss out on the interesting byways and character development which you might otherwise be open to.

It can have the same effect on the reader. Readers who don’t know how the novel will end are more likely to follow you wherever you want to go (within limits). But if they know what has to happen, they may be impatient with scenes which, at least on the surface, don’t seem to be building to that ending.

You pre-determine where you are going.

To my mind, this is the biggest drawback to this approach. I believe that a story which unfolds as the situation, characters, and your creativity dictates has a much better chance of being compelling than one where you go in with blinders on.

Next post: My preferred way to start a writing project

Do I Want to Drag up the Past if I Write My Memoirs?

past

Do I Want to Drag up the Past if I Write My Memoirs?

I get it, I do. Do you really want to drag up your awful past? I went through the same struggle when I was working with my writing teacher, Barbara Turner-Vesselago. She encouraged me to turn my semi-autobiographical writing into a novel. This is how I recollected it, looking back on that time:

I walked up the steep hill at Kimbercote. I remember climbing the hill, the reluctance as strong as my panting. I wasn’t sure there was enough there because mostly what I had was a feeling of a vast and terrifying darkness. Unrelieved abyss from which, on entry, one might never return. I remember the dread of willingly consigning myself to years back in the hell from which, I thought, I had escaped. But so strong was my wish to write that I ventured in. And found, to my growing delight, that it was not entirely a place of shadow and terror. That is was also a place of light and laughter. That in the wish to escape the night, I had forgotten the day.

And also, in a bastardization of Shakespeare (since I can’t remember the exact quote and in addition, it’s about jealousy), as I say, in a bastardization of Shakespeare—that the remembering fed upon itself and I remembered more and more.

So, in the long run, it was a gift. It gave me back who I was. Not all darkness, not all light. But me.


I think that you might find the same—that your past is more nuanced than you might think.

Remembering the good things of the past

So your past isn’t all dark, no matter how you might feel at the moment. Going back lets you remember the kind neighbor who always had a sympathetic ear and a cookie for you. Or the feeling of safety leaning into the soft leather of the policeman’s jacket. Or the teacher who gave you extra art lessons after class. The kindness of strangers and acquaintances is kindness nevertheless and worth remembering.

Even better, it allows you to recall the bright, warm, and touching moments that made you love the people you think so poorly of in the present. It fills out the picture which might have gotten telescoped into a caricature without gray tones.

Remembering the hard past

As a mature adult, you can look back on a scary or sad incident and provide the context that your younger self was incapable of. That Dad’s temper was more about mental illness than anything you did, no matter what you thought at the time (and might be lingering into the present). That Mother’s lack of care was not because you were unlovable but because of her alcoholism.

Something happens when you give yourself the space, time, and permission to revisit in detail incidents from your past. It opens up closed spaces or even ones you had forgotten were there. It makes writing a memoir worth it even if no one ever sees it except you.

This is not about forgetting, down-playing or even forgiving. You need to remember accurately and whether or not you forgive the people is an entirely different issue. This is about capturing who you were and looking at the hard times from a long enough distance to get a perspective.

For more on this, read Susan Shapiro’s interesting article, Make Me Worry You’re Not O.K.

Won’t I Hurt People If I Write a Memoir?

hurt

Won’t I Hurt People If I Write a Memoir?

Some people are prevented from writing what they really feel about events or people in their lives (i.e. their memoir) by the fear they will hurt people they care about in doing so.

The difference between hurt and interpretation

In my semi-autobiographical novel, Kimono Spring, this is how I depicted my sister:

When we got home, Mommy cleared the pepper and salt and napkin holder off the kitchen table. She brought out the package she had gotten at Ogilvy’s.

Diane held the paper bag the package had been in. “Go away,” she said, turning to me.

“Won’t!”

“You’d better!”

“Oh yeah, says who?” I said bravely.

She took a step towards me and I backed up involuntarily. “Says me,” and she stepped even closer.

“Enough,” said Mommy in a tired voice. “Julie can see, too.”

“But it’s mine.”

Mommy folded back the tissue. “It’s just looking, Diane. It doesn’t matter.”

I bustled past a molten Diane and pushed myself right against the table, just to show her.

I depict my sister as overweening, superior and mean. Obviously, she would not agree with that interpretation. But I wrote the novel from the point of view of a seven-year-old, dealing with her ten-year-old sister. As an adult, even I might agree that the portrait is very black and white but that is how a seven-year-old would see the world and therefore, the people in it.

What you write is always going to be from your view. How can it be otherwise? You’re not trying to write your life story from someone else’s perspective.

And anyhow, unless your memoir is populated with saints—never angry, vindictive, destructive or sly (boring memoir, by the way)—nobody will agree with your characterization of themselves. Despite your efforts to be honest and even-handed, you’ll still get I never said that. You started it, not me. My son is not a bully. I don’t have a big nose. Etc.

So what others might read as hurtful you may see as interpretation of what happened.

How to deal with the fear of inflicting hurt

Still, you don’t set out to hurt people in writing a memoir. But writing with this fear in mind will restrict what you record even if you’re not aware of it. Unconsciously, you might gloss over an important event because it puts your mother in a bad light. Or soften the impact of an action by your brother so that its hurt doesn’t look as if it stung as much as it did.

The answer?

Write it as if no one will ever read it. As if it is a very extensive diary. Not meant for anyone but you. That way, you can tell your truth and not somebody else’s or worse, how you think they want you to think/believe.

When you’ve got the whole thing, revisit the issue. You may be surprised that over the course of the entire work, your depiction is more generous or even-handed than you had thought, even when writing it. But it is a question to pose once you’ve recorded what you want to say—not before.

I’ll do a post sometime on how to handle reactions when you do release your memoir to a larger audience than your computer.