Bother.
It’s hard to write about not following your own advice, isn’t it?
In the last post, I made very true remarks about the importance and necessity of daily writing. Slogging ahead. No matter what. Right?
Well…I got off my routine. I realized that my July 4 deadline for Lords of Askalon was incompatible with producing a quality product. Could I get it written? Yes. Would it be worth much? Probably not. Leaving myself no time to work it over, to edit, to mull, to contemplate, to tweak…not good. I think this really hit me when Brandon Sanderson tweeted that he planned 9 revisions for his new book. Nine. And he’s Brandon Sanderson. And I wasn’t going to give myself time for one?
So there’s the reason for the new release date. But on to the inevitable, awful consequence of this decision: I stopped writing. I got caught up in other things. Meaningful and necessary things, to be sure, but not writing things. I let myself get caught, too, by the self-criticism monster that paralyzes all it touches.
The horror.
Today, for example, when I opened up my manuscript and got ready to write, I caught sight of the last scene I had written. I promptly closed the window and wrote a journal entry instead.
One could make the argument that any writing is better than no writing, and I think there’s something to that. But I don’t particularly have writer’s block…my huge and beautiful butcher-paper outline of this novel is pinned to the wall right beside me. I know where I need to go, what I need to write. But that last scene is so…flat. Ugh.
Having a clear plot outline isn’t the same as having a strong sense of the characters, of their purpose, of the dynamics that guide their interaction.
Before I can come back to the story, I need to establish those things clearly for myself. And work out nagging details like timeline issues. For me, simply pushing through won’t do the job. Will that method get the plot written? Yes, probably. But it will be as lifeless and sketchy as the outline on my wall.
So sometimes, when the going gets tough and your narrative feels flat, it pays to take a step back and consider a few things about the deeper structure of your story in general, and the characters inhabiting your world in particular. Ask yourself:
- Do you really know your characters?
- What are their personal conflicts? (A character’s personal conflict is not necessarily the overarching conflict of the book.)
- What drives your characters in their interactions with other major/minor characters?
- How do these interactions meaningfully reveal their character arc?
- How does each character arc intersect with the plot? What events need to happen for that character to develop?
Once you find the answers to these questions and have a clear sense of each character’s purpose and role, you’ll see the life flowing back into your bloodless plot structure.
So…I’m off to reacquaint myself with my characters. How will you move your story forward today?
