I’m Stuck

One thing writers are unfailingly good at—finding reasons not to write. Whether it’s lack of time, fear of hurting someone, being convinced every word is junk, blanking, experiencing writer’s block—you name it, we can come up with it. And here is another variant: you are writing but are stuck. That is, you faithfully put bum in chair but the results are discouraging.

Varieties of being stuck

This one even comes in variants on the theme.

The story isn’t going anywhere. You know where you want to take the plot but your writing feels meandering and worthless. You can’t seem to make it as exciting and involving as it should be.

What I’m doing isn’t working. You want to put across a feeling, an action, a meaning and what you’re doing isn’t cutting it. Maybe you don’t have the skill?

The next scene turns out flat and boring. Your mind is numbing just in reading the scene over. You need this incident to move the plot forward but you’re sure the reader will toss the book at this point. If you can’t stand it, how can your reader?

Thoughts of junking the whole thing are raising their ugly heads.

Remedy to being stuck

First of all, you know, this can be a form of writer’s block, so reread that post and see if any of the suggestions feel right.

Luckily, although there are a variety of ways of being stuck, there is a remedy which can help all forms.

Choose something exciting to write.

Might be a later part of the novel which will be fun to write. Might be an action scene just to see if it works for your characters. Whatever it is, pick something which will entertain you.

Then write it. Fully engage your right brain. Suppress or ignore any demons lurking and go for it. Don’t stop until you have either finished the scene or gotten back your mojo.

This often works for me because it forcibly reminds me why I love to write. It has the added advantage of taking you away from drudging on with a tedious but necessary scene or even one which, in the edit, you decide you don’t need.

Bad news—sometimes you’re stuck for good reason

The remedy suggested usually works but sometimes you are stuck because the novel really isn’t working. But don’t throw in the towel immediately.

I know that you feel that it isn’t working, but feelings can be unreliable companions. Great for writing, not so good for analysis. You need to let your left brain kick in. Write down where the problems are specifically. Might be too much background, too little, too much build-up, not enough, etc. Actually write them down. If you just think them, the feelings may take over the exercise.

With the list, decide how to fix the issues, including getting help for techniques or approaches you don’t know how to do.

Look over list and remedies. If you did that, would the novel start working for you? Now, this is different from this is a lot of work. It undoubtedly will be. I’ll address that in the next post. Right now, stick to would it be good with the fixes?

August 14, 2020June 5, 2020

The Mystery Novel Versus the Character Novel

Whether it be romance, mystery, fantasy, or character-driven fiction, getting feedback on your writing from those who are also in the same genre, can be useful. They understand the conventions of that genre. A friend once wanted me to read his murder mystery novel. I did my level best to get out of it because I knew that even though I would try not to, I would tend to use the rules of thumb I use in my own writing.

This post discusses the differences between writing a murder mystery and a character-driven novel. (At least from my point of view—there are lots of books on writing for your genre.)

The mystery novel

The plot is all and a very standard one at that. The required components of a mystery:

Murder
Suspects
Detective
Identification of murderer

Now, as you know, good mystery writers can weave their way around this formula to make entertaining fiction. But if you remove any of these elements, it’s not a murder mystery (or an unsatisfying one if the murderer isn’t identified).

The characters

The characters are in the service of the story. So you’ll always have a detective of some kind and also usually a sidekick (think Dr. Watson to Sherlock Holmes, Hastings to Hercule Poirot) to whom she can confide her amazing conclusions. There have to be at least two and maybe more people with motives to kill the victim.

Given this relatively rigid structure, character sometimes gets subordinated to plot so that characters get pushed around to show up at the right place and time so that the next step of the mystery can unfold.

Character-driven fiction

The characters

Character-driven narratives tend to take a character and let it roam where it may. Unless the deviation is explained, characters’ actions and thoughts usually need to be consistent with the personality given.

Typically, at least the main protagonist has to grow or change in some way before the end of the novel. He has to be different in some way at the end compared to who he was at the beginning.

The plot

The plot to some extent gets its shape from the needs of the character. So asking questions like Is the protagonist credible? is much more important for a character-driven novel than a mystery. If the main character isn’t credible, then the plot which unfolds is likely also to be incredible.

Character driven novels might not have endings which tie everything up and still be satisfying but mystery novels must get to the who dun it.

So, this is just an example of how different genres have different conventions which you violate at your peril. You need to understand the particular requirements of your genre to satisfy the readers of that type of fiction.

August 7, 2020June 5, 2020

Should You Turn Your Idea into a Novel?

Usually, new writers gravitate to short stories to try out their wings, so to speak. However, the short story is an art form with quite a different set of expectations from the novel. So, if you are contemplating writing a novel, you might want to reflect on the following points. They are not about the novel form, but considerations before making the commitment.

Is your idea suitable for a novel?

Because novels are longer pieces, you need to be fairly (you can never be completely sure off the top) that your idea has at least some of these characteristics:

Has legs. Clearly you’re interested in your idea, but you’re better off if you’re thinking “I’ve always been fascinated by…” rather than “Seems like an okay idea; might work.”
Can be expanded. Any idea can be expanded, but is it relatively easy—not necessarily easy but possible—to think about where the narrative might go? Doesn’t have to go there in the long run but at this stage, can you envision your protagonist engaging in a series of actions all of which have their own climax and/or resolution or do you envision more of a short, sharp crisis?
A whole world can be created. That is, what you want to write will have the feel of a fully realized world where the reader will be able to imagine how it works even beyond the confines of the novel you are writing. Think of good science fiction. Good science fiction writers can create an alien society which all makes sense within its own context. You need to do the same even if your novel is taking place on Earth in the present day. I realize that this might not be enough so I have more in a post called Creating the Fictional World.

What doesn’t matter so much

Geography. Your novel can be confined to a room in a house or cover the great outdoors.
Breadth of the canvas. Like geography, you may concentrate intensely on the internal life of one character or plan a whole cast of them. Both can work for a novel.
How long it’s going to take to write. Novels generally take longer to write than short stories, if only because there are more words, but don’t make this a determining factor. If the material lends itself to a novel, then give it a try.
Novels sell better. Well, they do.But a novel is a significant undertaking in time and effort. And there is no guarantee you can sell it after you’ve invested all that blood, sweat, and tears. I’d be careful about choosing the novel form with future sales in mind—you might be getting into much more than you bargained for.

It’s a personal decision

As with everything else in writing, rules are made to be broken and there is no right answer. As you can see from the examples, there are few if any ideas which demand the novel rather than short story form (okay, sweeping family sagas maybe being the exception).

Make your choice and get cracking.

July 31, 2020June 5, 2020

Plot—Where the Real Story Begins

I’ve done a post on whether to start at the beginning of your memoir or story, but here I want to talk about where the real plot begins. See the classic diagram of a story above? Although the plot may be said to encompass the entire story arc or triangle, I think that where the plot actually starts to engage the reader is in the phase of rising action—that is, where the characters start to do things which will affect their fate.

The plot doesn’t start at exposition

But I find that writers tend to spend more time on the first phase of exposition than necessary or advisable. This can be a particular challenge when writing memoir. Exposition is the background you provide the reader on the setting and characters, and where you can highlight facts or events which will be important to the plot/story later on (if you don’t know what these are when you start writing, you can always go back after you’ve finished the whole narrative to add these).

Exposition is where writers can be led into the following errors:

Too much scene setting. This can include an exhaustive description of the physical setting or defining the time period. If the novel is historical, you certainly need to do some scene setting just as you would in science fiction. But this is not an opportunity to show off how much research you have done, or how expert you are in the family tree. Use the research and expertise to inform the exposition but not to the point of cudgeling the reader with more information than she needs to start the story.

Too much characterization. If, at the beginning of your narrative, you give the reader the full dope on the character (tall, determined, insightful, greedy) before you start engaging the character in events and scenes which illustrate these qualities, you have done a sort of ‘tell’ and make the subsequent show less interesting. Also, doing this can be a way of forcing the reader to judge the character the way you want rather than allowing him to come to his own conclusions.

Why does it matter?

Novels which start with a long exposition phase tend to lose the reader. Because exposition is not plot, no matter how necessary to the final story.

The typical reader starts to perk up when there are events which contribute to the unfolding of the story, i.e. the phase of rising action. You need to start your novel as close to there as possible.

How to get in the background bits

I realize that may leave some of you distressed that you can’t use all the research or background that you know. Get over it. The point is to tell a good story.

And, remember, the reader doesn’t need to know everything you know about the setting or characters before she starts. If a piece of exposition is needed during the story so the reader understands the succeeding event, stick it in close to that event. Thus, you can get the background in but when it is relevant to the reader.

In summary, do as short an exposition as you can and get to the plot—rising action and beyond—as soon as you can.

July 17, 2020June 5, 2020

When to Break Literary Law

In the last post, I featured another author, Muriel Spark, whose novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie thumbed its nose at literary law. Having already discussed why to be wary of Breaking the rules, I now want to discuss when you might want to.

Unfortunately, I fear this post is going to be pretty wishy-washy. I can’t tell you with certainty when to take the plunge or what form it should take. I may not even be able to give you examples from other writers. Because this is an idiosyncratic and personal phenomenon.

But I am pretty sure of (maybe) that sitting down, thinking, Right, I’m writing an iconoclastic novel, doesn’t work. The result is likely to be forced and false

Breaking literary conventions

I think the time to break literary laws is when the fracturing is required because of the needs of the story or because it is the nature of your voice as a writer.

You may get to the point that following the normal story arc just doesn’t suit or support where you want to take the novel. You might want to interject fantasy elements in an otherwise reality based tale, the significance of which will only become evident at the end. You might have drawn a protagonist who is so out of touch with who he is that the most effective way to show it is to omit any kind of inner life. These might be times when you dump conventions and go with what best serves the story.

I also accept that some writers can best express who they are, i.e. their voice, through elliptical, non-linear, and even chaotic novels where the joy comes from going along for the ride and not from following a strict story line. So ignoring rules may be what is needed to truly capture your spirit on the page.

So, if either of these (and probably others I haven’t thought of) fit you, then by all means, give it a go.

Some caveats

There are, however, some issues which might arise from these approaches which are worth paying attention to.

As I have discussed before, in order to feel true and realistic to your audience, writers must know that the readers’ expectations from fiction which are largely unconscious but which you ignore at your peril.

You might decide that your ending should be vague and even confusing in order to fit with the rest of the novel. However, since readers by and large expect some kind of resolution, you may confuse and even anger them. While you might be going for the latter, do you really want to confuse them?

I’m not saying don’t do it but I think you need to be cognizant of the possible outcome. Because not only are you violating their normal expectations, you are asking them to conform to your new rules, however unspoken. Even if that rule is that there are no rules.