Monday, July 17, 2006

GETTING TO WORK: THE SECRET TO SUCCESS

Previous postings have covered general ideas about who you are as a writer, finding your voice, and the three basic steps of the novel writing process. Before digging in for the details, the actual nuts and bolts, there is one more important topic to address. It concerns doing the hard work that is necessary. It concerns your work ethic, self-discipline, desire and willingness to succeed. It concerns having the correct attitude toward your work. It all adds up to one thing: transforming yourself from a "wannabe" to a professional writer. It starts with you, your self-concept, seeing yourself as a writer. You can do it. You have to believe that. And you have to commit to it. More than anything else, this is the secret to your success.

As the basis for this posting, I will draw from comments I posted nearly a year ago on a previous incarnation of this blog site. It was good advice then; it is good advice now. Note that the details below about the three steps of the novel writing process echo the same concepts in my more recent versions already posted separately on this blog, but they do cover some aspects I didn't go into in the more recent postings.


Adrian

SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION

For years I tried to complete a novel. I came up with several different novels during that time, wrote substantial portions of them, and spent a great deal of time rewriting what I had written, but time and time again I found that I just couldn't get the darned things done. This is not uncommon. Many other would-be writers can relate to this. I read a lot of books on writing, and articles online, seeking advice to help me overcome the obstacles. I finally found the way to get through this and get something done. Following are the key things I learned that helped me finally transform myself into a writer who can complete a novel-length manuscript.

1. THINK OBJECTIVELY: THIS IS A JOB LIKE ANY OTHER!

This means stop making such a big deal in your own mind about how meaningful or significant your story is, or how passionate you are about it, or how much people will enjoy it if only you can get it finished. Just see the job of writing a novel as being like any other job you have done over the years. It is work. So many hours of work, following a process and schedule, which will produce results. Of course, talent and a wonderful story and characters and all that passion and meaning are very important, too, but they're assumed: don't focus on them. We hope you have the talent and the story, but if you can't finish it then it's of no use to you or anybody else.

Focus on the process of writing as a job, and try to depersonalize it to some extent. Pretend that you are not writing your own novel, but someone has hired you to write a book for them, and your only job is to do that within so many hours of effort. If you shift your thinking like this, you take a huge burden off yourself and allow yourself to focus on the task at hand, rather than all the other emotional crap that comes with trying to write or "be a writer". Don't try. Just focus on the work and let things flow one step at a time. Be cool. Be objective. This is a job like any other and you will get it done.

2. WHATEVER YOU HAVE BEEN DOING THAT HASN'T BEEN WORKING -- STOP DOING IT!

If you beat your head against the door and the door doesn't open, it doesn't make sense to continue beating your head against the door hoping it will open. But, if you try turning the door knob just one time, it might open. I once heard that this is the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again hoping each time for different results.

Take a frank look at what you have been doing in the past, and whatever your "style" has been in doing your work as a writer, if it hasn't helped you finish a novel, stop doing it. Pretend you are a consultant brought in to give you some advice. An efficiency expert would study the task that needs doing, and develop a reasonable protocol for you to use in getting the work done. You need to understand the process of writing a novel, not from a deep, emotional, creative point of view (all that creative stuff is important, but it is assumed -- focusing on it won't help you get your novel done -- you need to be objective!), but from the point of view of someone who has a job to do and needs to get it done.

Don't keep doing what doesn't work. Instead, develop a fresh, new approach that you haven't used before and which you know is how it needs to be done. Then, have the courage to do it.

3. SEPARATE "CREATING" FROM "WRITING" -- THEY ARE TWO SEPARATE TASKS!

People can only process so much information at one time. If you try to overload them and make them do too many mental gymnastics at one time, they will make mistakes, take too long to produce results, or get confused and give up. Break down the tasks into manageable steps. Why work harder? Why not work smarter? It'll be easier and you'll get better results.

Applying this to writing, I realized that trying to create the story at the same time that I was trying to type it into the computer was too difficult. I'm really smart and I type really fast and I'm very creative, so I'm the last person who would think I couldn't do these two things at once. However, after more than a decade of trying it this way, I realized finally that I couldn't keep the creative flow of the story going (macro level) and also do a good job of writing (micro level) at the same time. I would get distracted with thinking of the story and creating new ideas and, lost in that mode, would stop writing, or I would focus on the writing and choice of words or how exactly to record the scene, or go back and rewrite and tinker with what I had just written and in so doing stop creating the story, or lose track of it, and paint myself into a corner. It was like building a bridge and I would get stuck somewhere in the middle and not be able to reach the other side.

Trying to "create" and "write" at the same time was a balancing act that, while possible, caused me to proceed slowly and expend considerable mental effort. In the end, I'd fall in love with the words on the page, and run out of ideas, and no longer be objective enough to know what to keep, what to toss, or how the story should proceed. I worked myself into a corner and got stranded there, time and time again. After a decade of just sitting down to write from inspiration, I hadn't yet produced a novel, so I realized I needed to stop doing what wasn't working and use my new insight. It's much easier to break down the work, separating out the "creating" and "writing" tasks as distinct processes instead of a simultaneous conundrum. For me today, creating the story is a separate act from writing the story. My work is so much easier and more productive because of it.

4. SEE NOVEL WRITING AS A THREE-STEP PROCESS!

The three steps are so simple and so obvious, too:

Step 1: Preparing to Write
Step 2: Writing
Step 3: Editing

It's a fact. You write better if you prepare before writing. You produce more, with more details, and it's of higher quality.

Step 1: Preparing to Write

First, do the creative work. Think up your story. Develop a really good understanding, in detail, of what you want your story to be about, who the characters are, what the main events are. Flesh it out in ever greater detail. This is easy. This is fun. You have a fresh new idea, an inspiration. Use it! Enjoy it! Play with it! You will find your idea grows over time, and you will learn how different parts of it are related, and how it all fits together, and whether it's as great as you think it is, and how your story is even better than you realized when you first came up with the basic idea. You can think about your story at any time, day or night, in any place that works for you. You can think about it off and on throughout the day, and dream about it at night. When you're bored, think about your story! When you're doing something tedious and repetitive, think about your story! It's fun! After all, your story is interesting, isn't it? If it isn't, drop it now and find a better one!

Key Concept: Telling vs. Showing

Before continuing, make sure you know the difference between "tell" and "show" when it comes to writing. In telling, you simply tell what someone did, or what they looked like or how they felt, or what happened. In showing, you don't describe it like you do when you are "telling"; instead, you bring it to life as if it's happening right now, and provide clues instead of spelling everything out. Examples:

Telling: Lisa was angry.
Showing: Lisa clenched her fists. Her pulse raced and her face grew red. The expression on her face changed. She was no longer smiling. The glare from her eyes left no doubt what she thought of the news about her ex-boyfriend and her sister (or whatever, as the case may be).

Telling: It was a bright and beautiful day.
Showing: The sun shined brightly on the little village. The birds were chirping, the breezes were blowing, and the flowers were in full bloom.

Telling: Lisa killed her sister who had cheated with her boyfriend when the two were still together.
Showing: When Cathy entered the room, she knew something was not right. The lights were out, yet she had left them on. The window was open, yet it had been closed ealier. She went to it. The lock was bent. "Hello?" she called out, reaching for the phone to call 9-1-1. (etc., etc.)

You can "tell" your story when you write notes to yourself, but when you actually write your novel you MUST "show". Bring it to life as if it is actually happening, with concrete examples of what's going on, to demonstrate the action. You can even demonstrate the inner life of your characters by showing the physical manifestations of their emotions, including what they look like and what they do. Voila!]

Back to Step 1: Preparing to Write!

In effect, in Step 1 you "tell" your story, but don't actually write it down in the form of a novel quite yet. Instead, write a summary. Some of us love to "tell" instead of "show" -- this is your time to "tell" and enjoy it without guilt! They're just notes, and "telling" is the fastest and most concise way to record them. Indulge yourself in the joys of "telling"! You should be able to express your novel in one sentence, as well as in one paragraph, and in a few short pages. That's three different formats for a summary, or three versions of your summary, each a different length. Write them all, starting with one sentence, then turning it into a paragraph, then writing a short essay of 1-3 pages summarizing the main action. Each of these can be of value when you market your book later, so this is not a waste of time. (Be smart! Do the work! You'll reap the benefits later!)

Then, you need an outline that would correspond to chapters and contain the major events. The outline doesn't have to be formatted in proper outline format unless you want to do that. A simple numbered list with chapter titles would suffice. This could be like a table of contents, if you prefer to think of it that way. Use the old-fashioned format for chapter titles, where the author would tell you what happens in the chapter: "Chapter 1. How John Doe Boarded a Ship for Madagascar. Chapter 2. How a Storm Almost Destroyed the Ship." The outline gives you a quick, easy reference to main points, the dozen or so main points, as you continue developing your story in greater detail. It's a great way to summarize even more concisely after you've written your summaries. If all this seems repetitive, IT IS! Intentionally so! By going over your story again and again you will get to know it well! You need to master it, more or less, before you start writing!

Finally, you need scene descriptions, the last stage and almost the most detailed one. Scene descriptions can be separated by chapter. I just make simple bulleted lists. Each bullet identifies a paragraph, medium-length or pages long, in which I summarize as concisely as I can what happens in that scene. I "tell", not "show", because it's easier and takes less space, and I'm not actually writing the novel yet, just writing notes and doing my thinking work before writing the novel. Sometimes I include snippets of dialogue, often with a character's name, like in a play: John Doe: "Gee, those waves really are getting big out there...." I separate a series of these bulleted notes with chapter titles ("Chapter 1" is all I use at this point...they show where the chapter breaks will occur between certain scenes...each chapter usually contains at least three scenes, sometimes five, no set number.

That's what you need in Step 1: Summary, Outline, Scene Descriptions!

You need to do the thinking, make sure you have a real story, before you commit to writing a ton of words down that you may need to throw away. Given the choice, I'd rather toss an outline, a summary, and even 20 pages of scene descriptions, a total of 20-25 pages of work in the form of notes, than have to throw away about 20,000 words that I've spent years polishing because I just don't know how to finish the novel. It lightens the load, reduces the risk of throwing away stuff later. Having been through this many times, trust me, you're better off to do the planning work first and have less to toss if you need to toss it.

Step 2: Writing

When you write, try to move forward. Set a word count goal, or page count goal, or chapter goal. Manage your time, using your time management skills. Use your outline, your summary, your scene descriptions. Refer to any of those pages, whether very briefly or in great detail, in order to guide you in writing.

Biggest objection: "But if I do that, then my writing won't be spontaneous and creative! It'll rob me of all my passion! I'll feel I already wrote the story by doing all that thinking, and note writing, and there won't be any creative energy left to CREATE while I'm WRITING!"

You can look at it that way if you want to. I did, too, for many years. I had to do a bit of work to find a way to change that perspective to one that allows me to work with an outline and not feel like that. I can do that now. The first idea that helped me was to realize that the outline, etc., were not imposed on me from without -- they came from me! I'm the one who invented them! I spend hours developing them, polishing them! They aren't "foreign" to me, but simply notes of what I want to write! What I choose to write! I can't remember all that in my head and write it from memory, so using notes to help just makes the work EASIER! This isn't about being a slave, but having done the creative thinking work ahead of time, and now sitting down coolly and objectively and asking "how can I best express that in writing?"

Example:

I know from my scene description the gist of my idea for a scene. Lisa is going to visit her sister, but her sister isn't home, so she uses her key and goes in to leave a note. While there she sees her sister's diary, and decides to open it, and then reads about her sister's having had an affair with the man that Lisa used to be in love with -- while she was still with him. Knowing all this, I can clear my mind of everything else. Remember the feeling of unloading a huge weight from your shoulders? I don't want to carry the whole novel in my head at once, it's too much and takes too much mental processing power. I just want to focus on one thing at a time, and this is my current scene. Knowing this scene, the gist of what is supposed to happen, I can now think in my writing of how best to write it. I'm not trying to create, I've already done that. I'm just trying to write something that I already know, and that's so much easier than having to come up with the idea at the same time.

So, I decide I can write it like this....

Lisa rang the doorbell three times. No sign of Cathy. "Where you at, sis," she wondered aloud. "Maybe I should leave you a note. It was a long drive over and you said you'd be here and this is getting annoying."

[Just made that part up! See...there's still room to be creative with details along the way, but I HAVE NOT deviated from the game plan!]

Lisa took out the spare key Cathy had given her last summer and let herself in. She headed straight for the kitchen, where Cathy kept the extra note paper. As she passed the living room, she noticed a notebook open on the coffee table. She had only seen this notebook one other time, when they were eight. She knew it was Cathy's diary.

[A hefty tome by now...that doesn't work. Can't be the same book from when she was eight. I need to fix that.]

She had only seen this notbook one other time...when Cathy moved in to this house. It had been a year, but she still recognized Cathy's diary with ease.

[That's better! Minor editing, no significant rewrites...just making sure whatever I write makes sense, follows the game plan, and is clear and easy to read. Whatever "art" or "passion" I may be able to instill in my prose is great, but at least I'm getting words on the page. I can always do more with them later when I'm editing!]

Etc., etc., etc.

Writing is so much easiser when you already know what you are writing. Then you can focus on the writing itself, and choosing your words, and style, and all that. You free yourself from creating the story to creating the way you are telling the story.

Claim Your Ancient Heritage!

Think of the storytellers of old, the troubadours, the bards, the minstrels. They knew the stories, as parents know stories they tell their children. How many times did ancient Greek poets perform tales from the Iliad? Many times, no doubt. Children often ask to hear the same stories again and again. So, if you are a storyteller, and you know your story, and you are telling it again and again, eventually you rise to a new level in telling it, a level where you are more in control of the telling, and you can choose your words and the way you build suspense and embellish with little details and so forth. Separating the enormous mental burden of creating an entire novel from the process of telling (actually, "showing") your story in words frees you to be much more creative in the storytelling process!

And, it makes it so much easier. You can focus on one scene at a time, and every time you sit down to write you know what scene is next from your detailed scene descriptions. You just have to bring the scene to life from your notes, which are in the form of "telling", so that you are "showing", or making it seem real, like it is happening this very moment.

Never second-guess or doubt yourself. Just press on. The time to think about the story was in the first stage, when you created the story. During the second stage, your only task is to write. Follow your notes and do your best storytelling of a story you already know so well and love because it's a great story. You saw to that when you did the creative leg work at the outset.

Step 3. Editing

Your job in editing is to take off your hat as writer and put on your hat as editor and become an editor! Again, think about the first piece of advice up above, about becoming objective in your thinking and seeing this as a job, not a creative process that you are passionate about. Pretend that you did not write this novel after all, but someone else did, and you have been hired by a publishing company to take this manuscript and do some editing to make it better before publication. You, as the writer, are doing the job of the editor, but you are doing it before you send your work to the editor at a publishing house. You MUST do this and make your novel as good as it can be. If you don't, and an editor actually reads it, they will notice all the problems with it right away and will refuse to work with it, or with you. You don't want a reputation as an incompetent! You must edit your work and make it the best it can be.

There are plenty of editing guides out there, both as books and as online articles. Find one or several that you like and that offer you detailed checklists, stuff to think about when you edit. That's too much information to include here and beyond the scope of this already lengthy blog posting. Suffice it to say that editing is where you can fix any problems, improve on your style, make sure details agree from chapter to chapter, and further hone your story by fleshing out some parts of scenes, or adding entire scenes when you realized you skipped over some information that should have been included, and you can also delete some scenes or edit out parts of scenes or chapters that are not important enough to devote the space to. Think of how they edit movies. You can view the "deleted scenes" in the extra features of a DVD. The essential scenes that they overlooked will have been included in the movie already by the time it is finished, so they won't stand out, but the deleted scenes are available as such. You want your story to be as complete as it needs to be, but also not provide too much information.

Read a bunch of books about writing, or online articles. Try some of the articles that you will find links to in the sidebar to the right. They are free, online, convenient, and very helpful. Do a search on Yahoo or Google or wherever for more articles about novel writing, or editing.

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, to get a novel done, you MUST have a plan ahead of time. The time spent developing that is not wasted, and the actual materials you generate (summary, outline, scene descriptions) will be invaluable to you and even useful as a cover blurb and a table of contents and the basis for a synopsis if a publisher wants one (your scene descriptions, or longest summary, can be revised into a 2-3 page summary called a "synopsis" which some publishers request). Writing should focus on "showing", not "telling", and if you follow your scene descriptions you will save a lot of mental energy to focus on how to show the action, how to bring things to life, how best to say it in words on the page. The quality of your writing will improve. The editing is something to approach objectively, and forget it's even your own novel you're editing. Use guides that give you checklists and ideas for editing, to be sure you are thorough.

All of this advice comes under the category of managing the work, establishing a process or protocol for getting your novel done. It doesn't say anything about being creative, or the many, many issues to think about in developing your story. Again, there are tons of books and articles out there than can give you that advice. For most of us, the creativity is not the problem -- it's getting the darned thing written and completed that is the problem! So, if that's your problem (as it is mine), then this strategy can help immensely. Manage your work. It's a job like any other. If you can add that dimension, you will find you can put all that other creative energy and effort to good use and actually get something done!

Ask yourself what kind of writer you are. You reflected about that already. Whatever you may have to say about genre, style, themes, subject matter, life experience, etc., I hope one thing every aspiring writer will also be able to say is: "I'm a professional writer!"

Don't be afraid of the hard work. Embrace it!

3 comments:

Debra Young said...

Great post! I certainly need to change my approach as I'm struggling a lot with A Lamentation of Swans. This post is making me think (again) about what I'm doing and why it's not working--and I know why. It's planning the novel while trying to write the novel--and by now I should know better. Thanks for the great advice. d:)

Adrian Swift said...

Glad to share what I've been learning. This past year has been a time of rapid growth for me after years of struggling.

I love the title of your novel! I can readily imagine a novel with such a title and a nice cover illustration sitting on the shelf of a bookstore!

Good luck with your planning!

Anonymous said...

Great article Adrian. I've posted a link to it in my Midweek Musings on my blog. I hope you are saving all these... they'd be a great resource to add to a website featuring your published books when the time comes.