The Allure of Tools

Why is it that writers who seem most obsessed with the tools of the writing trade — word processors, flowcharts, computer technology, special pens, etc. — never seem to write anything?

I've met quite a few "writers" like that. One guy, who was part of a writer's group that I attend until he finally admitted that he never actually wrote anything, seemed particularly fascinated by computer programs that supposedly help novelists do their thing.

How on earth can a piece of software help a novelist do his thing? I'll never know. The best help that I ever got was from a clean, sharp rule on a white piece of paper. It was just begging me to put something on it, and I was helpless to resist.

That's why my current best friend is my moleskine, which is a small notebook of thinly ruled, off-white paper. My second-best friend is a gel pen, because it doesn't make my fingers tired. And my third best friend is a little 12-inch notebook computer that I got for about $75, although it would have cost only $50 if I hadn't asked for a special battery and a case. It also came with a bunch of Atari stickers on top, but my friend didn't charge me for those. I love it because it has a very clear screen, it weighs almost nothing, and I doubt that anyone will steal it.

But these three gadgets combined comprise only about 3% of my tool set. The other 97% involve my senses of seeing, tasting, touching, hearing, and smelling (say, 25%), and my gray matter (say, 70%). The remaining 2% remains unaccounted for at this time.

New Propaganda

I happened upon a quote by Terry Goodkind from his novel Phantom, which I have not read. It inspired my comments below. If you can't bear to read the whole thing, then you should be able to get the point from reading just the first few sentences:

Like all irrational beliefs, it was also unworkable. To live, those beliefs had to be ignored to accomplish goals of domination, which in themselves were a violation of the belief for which they were fighting. There were no equals among those of the Order, the torchbearers of enforced equality. Whether a Ja'La player, the most professional of the soldiers, or an emperor, the best were not simply needed but sought after and highly valued, and so as a body they harbored an inner hatred of their failure to live up to their own teachings and a fear that they would be unmasked for it. As punishment for their inability to fulfill their sanctified beliefs through adherence to those teachings, they instead turned to the self-flagellation of proclaiming how unworthy all men were and vented their self-hatred on scapegoats: they blamed the victims.

Through an act of deep magic, I have developed my very own literary crystal ball, and here is what my probing vision reveals: The "philosophical novel" is going to be the next genre. (Or, at the very least, the future of New Romanticism is going to be burdened with too much dense, quasi-philosophical prose.)

Pray, let this not come to pass.

We writers, by and large, are nothing like real philosophers. Few of us have integrated -- or will ever integrate -- enough particulars to write competently about the sort of broad, philosophic themes that Ayn Rand deftly tackled. And when a writer wants to tackle lofty themes but lacks particulars to draw upon, he will always resort to bald reporting. That's why this new genre's guiding principle -- or so I gather -- will be to tell and not to show.

This should never happen to an Objectivist.

More than any other literary theory in history, Ayn Rand's romantic realism respects the mind, both the reader's and the writer's. The romantic realist illustrates his ideas primarily in the form of images using words, which themselves primarily denote action, to which the reader responds via an active and deeply familiar mental process -- the process of looking at "reality" and perceiving it. The effect of this kind of transaction between writer and reader is an enormous commitment to story, and a sense of traveling on an emotionally complex thrill-ride.

Clearly the most engaging fictional imagery emerges when a writer draws upon his own observations and integrations in the real world, by which I mean, from that which he knows in fact, not just in theory by means of reading other people's books. Qua romantic realism, Atlas Shrugged is not a boilerplate. It couldn't be even if it wanted to be, which it doesn't. (For Rand's view on this, see especially the taped version of her course "Fiction Writing".) That's because no writer living today even slightly resembles Ayn Rand. (Please forgive me if I have overlooked a budding genius among us.)

At the very least, by reading this passage by Goodkind, perhaps some of my readers may now understand more clearly why I have, at least in part, placed some psychological distance between my work and the explicit tenets of Objectivism. I don't wish to write in a philosophical genre. For that matter, I don't wish for anyone to -- unless they can do it the right way, which is to say, the very same way that I plan to write an adolescent adventure story.

Do What You Do Do Well

In an introduction to Stephen Brust's novel To Reign in Hell, author Roger Zelazny has this to say about the many types of writers:

"Most good writers have one or two strong points for which they are known, and upon which they rely to carry a tale to its successful conclusion. Excellent plotting, say, can carry a story even if the writing itself is undistinguished. One can live with this. Good plotting is a virtue. Fine writing is a pleasure. A graceful prose stylist is a treat to read — even if the author is shaky when it comes to plotting or characterization. And then there are the specialists in people, who can entertain and delight with their development of character, their revelations — even if they are not strong plotters or powerful descriptive writers. And there are masters and mistresses of dialogue who can make you feel as if you are witnessing an engaging play, and you can almost forget the setting and the story while trying to anticipate what one of the characters will say next."

After having read many stories over the years, I long ago discovered that readers can be very forgiving. What makes a reader stay with a story partly depends on the reader. Some will get wrapped up in well-written, highly dramatic dialog even if they have no mental image of the setting, characters, or even the point of where the story is going (e.g., social dramas). Others will stick with a story so long as it has enough eye candy such as fascinating space ships and weird aliens (e.g., hard SF). And so on.

Every story must convey at least something that's particularly compelling — after all, it must attract someone. Still, I think that no tale can utterly and completely ignore all of the other aspects of story. For example, even hard SF must have a believable character or two and a discernible plot, even if it's as shallow as a teaspoon.

So here's a liberating truth for struggling writers, one that I personally need to be reminded of from time to time: Don't worry yourself sick over getting every aspect of story right the first time. Just "Do What You Do Do Well", as that happy song by Ned Miller instructs. Who cares if you're not the best character writer or the most thematic? Just write what you like, have as much fun as you can doing it, and never stop learning as you go, for as Stephen King so famously advised, it doesn't work to do it any other way.

Keep Moving

When I asked for great plot stories or page turners from my readers, I purposefully meant to ignore certain other aspects of great stories, such as characterization, style, themes and premises, and so on. I didn't actually want great stories, but merely fun, exciting ones. Why? Because I thought that by reading a series of very basic page-turners in quick succession, I might see more clearly what makes a plot tick.

I went into this exercise assuming that even basic novels would employ techniques that the masters used (knowing that they might do so less artfully, of course). I assumed this because I know that A is A, which is to say that stories work as they do because of the nature of the reader and the medium.

Happily, now five novels into my stack, my bet may be paying dividends. I may have just discovered an indispensable technique for making a page-turner, well, a page-turner. Every exciting story appears to use it. Even Victor Hugo uses it.

I'm not going to try to teach it to you, because I can't. Suffice to say that it's about always keeping things moving. Even the descriptions have to feel like they're moving. Nothing ever stands still (or if it does, the writer uses such a moment for a specific effect).

Yes, yes, I know. Every one who has ever read a "how-to" book on writing knows about this technique already. Sure, I've read the same books. So why didn't I get it the first, second, or even third time that I read about it?

I suppose I didn't fully understand its value until I could really see it done so many different ways, by so many different authors. Or perhaps I only now need it enough for my mind to grapple with it and integrate it -- that is, to value it. I don't know why I couldn't see it clearly until now, except to say that now I can't not see it.

(There's something to be said here about the process of learning. It's definitely iterative. You have to cover the same ground over and over again until the pieces start to fit. But since I'm no education scientist, I'll let someone else dwell on this interesting epistemological issue.)

I have about ten more of these novels to read. What more will I learn? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'll answer that question in my next post.

On Naming Characters

As you can see from the length of this post, I have given the subject of naming characters a little more thought since it was discussed in the comments of a previous post. I've recorded here some of my preliminary recommendations for naming characters — subject to revision and addition, of course.

I mentioned earlier that Rowling does names well. My partner happens to be a devoted fan of the Harry Potter series, and he tells me that Rowling has been collecting names for years. It's one of her passions. Well, that explains things a bit. I'll take her cue and try to be more aware of the names I see and hear every day. That's my first rule of naming: collect them.

In general, I think that a name should not try to do too much. For example, had the hero of The Fountainhead been named, say, Remington Holloway VI, readers would assume that he is privileged, well-raised, well-educated, and driven by family to succeed. However, the theme of The Fountainhead demands that the hero make the name, not the other way around, so the name Howard works fine. It's neither distinctive nor mundane. We remember the name only because the character is so powerful.

Conversely, sometimes a name does in fact convey something about the character. The name Dumbledore, for example, perfectly conveys the gentle, paternalistic, maybe a little mysterious and unconventional head wizard in Harry Potter. Dumbledore lives up to his name; thus, the name aptly conveys the man. We could even say that the name itself helps to characterize him right from the start, and it does so very economically.

However, I think that overt connotations are best avoided. The word “Mal” and its variations, for example, have been used to death in Fantasy as the name of the Big Bad Dude. Because the word obviously comes directly from the Latin word for “bad”, this is just cheating. That's why George Lucas gets an “A” for coming up with such creative names as Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine but only a “C-” for Darth Maul. For the same reason, no architect should ever be named Steel, no hunter Remington, no teacher Miss Apple, and so on. Such obvious allusions work only in porn films—and even there I'm not sure they work.

Also, names shouldn't interfere with (or undercut) the story. For example, a hard-boiled detective could only be named Terrence if the writer wanted to undercut his character—unless of course the character goes by a more appropriate nickname most of the time, and so long as that nickname isn't Dirk.

There are some names, like Dirk or Hammer, that have been either used to the point of exhaustion or have become almost a franchise. No detective should ever be named Hammer again except in a parody. Likewise, no architect can be Howard. No villain can be Vader. No mouse can be Mickey, nor even Mick. To use these names is lazy and probably borders on copyright violation.

Also, watch out for runaway exoticism. (Ooh! What's that?!) I mean that a reader should never have to parse out some alien words as if he were reading a text book in a phonics class. The need for verisimilitude is not a license to create alien words that trip even the most imaginative reader.

Imagine, for example, that your alien pronounces the letter “X” the way we pronounce the letters “sh”. A name like “Xunxor” would make perfect sense in his world; it would be pronounced “Shun-shor”. However, how is the reader supposed to know this? He can't. Ten-to-one he'll read it as “Ex-un-ex-or”, which is a perfectly awful name even for an alien. That's why sf writers created the idea of “Galactic Standard” or some other common language. Best to stick with that convention as much as possible, or at the very least, honor your reader's phonetic expectations.

Which brings me to my next point: Foreign names, if you must use them, should be distinct and recognizable. In Star Wars, for example, there is only one Yoda and no Doda, Yoma, or Yamoda. There is only one Obi Wan Kenobe and no Obi Sonn, Abi Jan Jenoke, and so on.

I'll illustrate this problem with an anecdote from my life. My partner and I recently spent several weeks traveling around New Zealand. It so happens that many of Zealand's geographic features are named in Maori, and like many Polynesian-style languages, Maori uses a limited number of diphthongs and consonant-vowel combinations in a highly repetitive and sing-song way. Place names sounded something like “mapuoto”, “wapuana”, “mapuatu”, “wapuoto”, “wapuano” and so on.

You can see the problem. After a while, our Western ears could not distinguish among so many similar words. Part way through our trip, we realized that we could no longer remember any of the names of the places that we'd visited – except for the English place names or those that happened to be very distinct from other Maori names. I could imagine this same situation arising in a book that's chock full of alien names. They would all get mixed up.

So here's a summary guideline for naming characters:

• Collect names from the real world.
• Don't make the name do too much work for the character. Avoid overt allusions, in other words.
• Don't undercut the character with the wrong connotation.
• Be original, but not at the expense of using simple names.
• Keep the phonetics close to the English language.
• Keep every name reasonably distinct from other characters in the story.

[Edit: Minor improvements.]

Status Update: Giant Creatures and Naming Characters

First the good news: If I'm not posting a lot on the blog, it's probably because most of my spare time is spent eating and sleeping. (In other words, I don't have much spare time.) Which means I'm either working on my current novel or reading and studying the plots of other novels (see my last post for more on this).

That leads me to the other good news: My current novel seems to be coming along quite nicely. I'm having a lot of fun with it. It has some fascinating heroes (yeah, more than one), some businessmen who make Bill Gates seem like small potatoes, big creatures, and lots of action (maybe too much; I'm not sure). Oh, and there's some space candy, too.

I have a broad vision for this story, but I'm trying very hard to keep it small. After exploring where I could go with it, I'm coming back to the one spot where the heat really gets turned up. I want this first novel to be about a narrow series of events in the main character's life. Some great backstory in the character's life gets skipped, which is hard to do, but I know that the story has to begin where the present conflict really takes off. Besides, I can't let it scale beyond my skills the way I did last time.

Oh, and I'm trying very hard to avoid flashbacks. That would be cheating.

One interesting challenge has been the naming of characters, especially the protagonist. It's a lot tougher than it sounds. How does Rowling do it, anyway? She makes it seem easy.

An Update and a Request: Who is Your Favorite Plotter?

I've been making steady progress after my little writing crisis, and things are beginning to look up.

My regular readers probably know that I dropped my last novel nearly six months into its development. I promise you, that felt much worse than having all four of my wisdom teeth removed. Anyway, I decided that I need to write simpler novels for a while, at least until I get the hang of writing a plot inside and out, forward and backward, and upside down.

This means studying plots by other writers. I've done this with A Wizard of Earthsea by Le Guin, Casino Royale by Fleming, and Captain's Courageous by Kipling. But to meet my goal, I have to study at least ten more books. Upcoming novels include one more by Fleming and Le Guin, and at least one by Parker, L'Amour, Tolkien (The Hobbit), C. S. Forester (Hornblower), Harold Lamb (Wolf of the Steppes), and possibly Mickey Spillane and Agatha Christie. Notice that all of these are genre writers. I'm not going for grand here.

That's where you come in. If my readers know of any other well-plotted but simple stories, I would be most grateful for your suggestions. The authors I'm looking for can be as shallow as a teaspoon and as repetitive as a music box so long as they write page-turners. In fact, the more accessible the story, the better for my purposes.

So in fantasy, who's the best plotter you know?
In sci-fi?
Action & adventure?
Clandestine spy thrillers?
Westerns?
Or whatever floats your boat...

Kate Chopin

I've come down hard on naturalism around here, so I thought that now might be a good time to offer a wider perspective. If you happened to read my last post, perhaps you noticed that I spoke rather kindly about some of the better (early) naturalists like Tolstoy and Lewis.

It's true. Some of them were absolutely brilliant in terms of style. Here's one of my favorite passages. It was written by Kate Chopin, a naturalist who happens to be one of the most evocative stylists in all of literature:

"The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation.

The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace."

From The Awakening, chapter VI.

Her prose would be purple if she wrote this way often — she doesn't — but this single, isolated passage appears at just the right moment in the story and for all the right reasons. One can almost feel the solitude and hear the waves coming in...then going out...coming in again and breaking...going out. Brilliant!

Chris Miles: How I Work

It can be tough for newbie writers to "see" what the process of writing really looks like. Someday I'll be in a better position to blog intelligently about that, but not yet.

So for now, here are some lessons to be learned by way of analogy. Check out this interesting view of a painter at work. Notice that artist Chris Miles is not just engaged in a sensuous dance with his on-again, off-again muse. It's also a lot of damn hard work and learned skill. Take a look.

Over the Road Bump

To sum up my last post, here's what I think the school of hard knocks has been trying to tell me: Before a novelist should attempt to create slowly rising conflict by means of subtle emotional dynamics — slowly rising conflict being the core of what makes a novel a novel — he had better first learn to do it by means of murderous plots, crooks, kidnappings, and so on. In short, he should start his career by writing melodrama.

After all, what skill is not acquired this way? Witness: every young apprentice first takes the basic jobs and does them over and over again until he feels as if he can't bear to do them even one more time. For example, the son of a blacksmith must pump the billows and shovel coal. He may see his father creating fine works of craftsmanship, and he may wish that he could do the same, but he will face many years of drudgery before his father will finally hand him his own set of tongs and a raw strip of iron for the first time.

As a practical matter, then, a burgeoning writer should first practice what he learns from reading simple novels, like those of L'Amour and Le Quin. Only when he can write a novel at least that well is he ready to move on. Next, he should practice what he learns from Agatha Christie and Tom Clancy. After that, maybe Dumas and Kipling. Perhaps some day he will even be able to employ the tricks of the masters, say, a Rand or a Tolstoy, but he will never live to see that day if he doesn't first persevere through more basic stages of learning.

So here's my strategy: First, I need to learn how to distinguish more clearly between melodramas and higher forms of literature. Then, I must study simple melodramas until I can see a novel's basic structure forward and backward. Meanwhile, I must sort my collection of story ideas based on how difficult they would be to write, then choose a simple one to write next. Then after I write it, I will repeat the process, taking great pains to avoid letting my literary senses outpace my skills.

I know how to write literary short stories. That I have learned how to do fairly well. Also, my one and only completed novel is fairly literary although it is also fairly simple and short. Even so, it is time for me to go back to my roots. No more high or even semi-high literature for me, at least not until I have become an expert at pumping the billows and shoveling coal.

Road Bump

So you want to know what that “road bump” I mentioned here is all about?

Several months into my current novel, I have come to realize that I can't write it. It's too complicated for me given my nascent novel-writing skills.

Now, doesn't that explanation sound up-front and professional? Maybe I should be a little more direct about it. How about this: I overshot my skills, and it sucks like nobody's business. In fact, I've been off-and-on miserable for months.

Since this blog is partly about “the synaptic anatomy of a struggling writer”, I'll let you in on some of the inner workings of a writer who wonders sometimes what the hell he got himself into.

(By the way, if I hadn't already developed a plan to solve my problem on my own, I wouldn't be posting this information, so take it as an interesting set of experiences.)

Here's a selection from my personal journal, which, like this blog, is solely devoted to discussing my work:

“I think it's time to move on. I can't get this story started the right way. I can't figure out what's wrong with it. I'm buried in questions, and I'm buried in even more answers. Which ones do I choose? What's the matter? God, I wish I new!

It's too conceptual for me, too touchy-feely, too emotionally complex, not concrete enough. It needs a simpler plot, like one of those guns and bombs novels. It needs fewer emotional denouements, more crashing cars. It needs a “thing plot” not a “thought plot”.

But you thought you had plot. It was beautiful. Glorious. Original. Moving.

Oh, yes! Plot, plot, plot! More like plodding.

“The seagull appears in the fog...blah, blah, blah.” Jesus Christ!—no, a story about Jesus Christ would be much more interesting. This story feels more like: "Nice Joe Smith and his pet mutt go to the beach for a pleasant vacation. Joe gets a sunburn, his mutt swallows a crab and nearly chokes to death, but overall they have a good time."

Will somebody please wake me up from this nightmare?

No, Toiler, that's your job. Wake your own damn self up. Get your own act together. What the hell good can come from your plan if you aren't getting a damn thing done that's worth doing. Snap out of it! Repeat after me: Get something done! Get something done! Get something done!"

This entry continues along the same depressing vein for a bit, but I think you get the general idea. It was dated August 22, 2006. Yes, I've been developing ulcers for going on two months now. Of course, what writer hasn't ever felt that way? This is nothing new. Just ask any serious writer, artist, or intellectual anywhere. Even so, it's gut-wrenching when it's happening to you.

So I was sweating bullets one day in my office when I looked up at my shelf and — God have mercy! — I see a book entitled How to Write a Damn Good Novel by James Frey. This little book is currently one of the hot sellers among "how to" guides. I don't know why I hadn't read it yet. Maybe I thought I didn't need it. If so, I was wrong.

As you may gather from the book's title, it is aimed at teaching the practical nuts and bolts of writing basic genre fiction, not high literature. Frey breaks a novel down into a set of rules, and he does so in simple terms using straightforward examples. It's a remarkable little book in that regard. His advice reminds me of the still lifes and musical scales that were discussed in this thread. He makes writing novels sound easy.

Well, in fact, it ought to be much easier than I'm making it out to be. And that, I believe, is the root of my problem. I'm once again trying to run — nay, leap into outer space! — before I really know how to walk, by which I mean, before I really know, know, know how to walk — and that kind of knowing can only come from learning, learning, learning, then doing, doing, doing, and then repeating, repeating, repeating!

The last thing I should attempt right now is an emotionally complex novel. If I'm going to write a novel, it ought to be another simple melodrama — a James Frey novel — then another simple melodrama after that, and then another. Like playing musical scales, I won't come to know how to write a novel merely by slogging through one once (which I have). I must become an expert at each level of writing before I move on to the next.

Isn't that what a real skill is after all? It's not just a point-in-time discovery; it's a continual state of acting by means of both automated and conscious effort — mostly automated. It's a state that can only be achieved through practice.

I see now why Frey and several other editors and writers, including the authors of Self-Editing for Fiction Writers (Browne and King), counsel young authors to avoid serious literature altogether. Unless a new writer is a budding genius, then there is no other logical place for him to start than by writing the very simplest tales (and perhaps even if he is a budding genius).

In my defense, I do in fact know how to write literary short stories. That I seem to have figured out well enough. But I don't want to write short stories. I want to write novels.

"No problem," someone may say, "just write a very long short story." Not so! Short stories are to novels what cookies are to wedding cakes — totally different ingredients, totally different recipe, totally different methods all around. No one would ever claim that a wedding cake is just a great, big cookie. Likewise, those who only ever write short stories generally know precious little about how to write novels.

I do still believe that my current project is profound and wonderful. I have no doubt that a better writer could make magic with it. It has all the potential to be the next Chocolat (the movie, not the book). In fact, several days ago I extemporaneously narrated the opening scene to my partner. He put down whatever he was doing at the time, walked over, and sat down in front of me, never taking his eyes off of mine, and his eyes were wide with fascination. He was hooked — hooked well! I know there's magic in this story — but I'm not Gandalf yet.

This is also part of my problem. When I peruse my stack of ideas for stories, I see that most of the best ones are literary. In other words, I have a mind that is able to imagine stories that I can't yet write. Coach Toiler says, "Pace yourself!" But it's not that easy. Knowing what makes a story difficult to write is not obvious to a beginner, at least not to this one.

So there you have it: a big, ugly road bump. But it's not the end of the road. It's not even a crash in the road, though it feels like one right now. It's just a big bump, and maybe I hit my head on the ceiling and got a bruise. It'll heal. Pick up that pen and keep moving forward.

Who knows? Maybe one day I will have earned the skills that I need to tell this wonderful, lyrical story of mine. Until then, it's back to writing about guns and bombs.

Get to Your Story Through Character

Elizabeth George says that story is character. I think she's on to something, although I might put it slightly differently. I might say: a writer gets to his story through character.

Yes, I know, the official party line at Literature Headquarters is that theme is the ultimate standard of selection for a story. I think that's true. But a standard of selection is one thing; how a writer actually goes about developing a story in his own mind is quite another.

If you begin with a theme, for example, the next best thing to do, I believe, is to think of a character who would embody that theme, build that character up in your mind, and finally let that character lead you to the right plot and setting. If by chance you begin with a plot idea, which probably already includes some kind of heroic character, stop right there with the initial plot idea and develop that character further in order to find the right theme and to flush out your plot more thoroughly and accurately. What's happening here is simply that your character is acting as a vessel for your theme.

Witness that most stories are ultimately about people: what they care about, what aspect of their nature makes them care, what actions they take, and so on. Interesting stories are never about guns, bombs, and volcanoes, except insofar as those guns, bombs, and volcanoes impact a human being. Does a man use a gun for good or evil? Will he drop the bomb even if he knows it will kill someone he loves? Do villagers react to a volcanic eruption with courage or fear? What will they do, and why will they do it?

Likewise, interesting stories are never about an abstract theme like politics, except insofar as those politics impact a human being (or group of beings).

I don't mean to sound like an emotionalist here, but a writer has needs. His mind has a certain nature which can't be ignored. And it just so happens that holding an abstract, disembodied idea clearly in one's mind can be difficult to do.

That seems to be why my mind holds a thematic idea most clearly and most usefully when it's lodged firmly in the form of a character, not an abstract statement, not a setting, and not even a plot element. Sometimes when I can't move forward with those other elements of a story, it's because I don't know my main character. As Elizabeth George explains, how can you possibly know what your character is going to do — the plot — unless you know who your character is: what motivates him, worries him, what strengths he possesses, what weaknesses, etc.

In this sense, I suspect a writer is very much like his readers.

Artistic Choice: Is Nothing Sacred?

A writer friend of mine claims that when a writer plans his story, all of the elements should be open to debate. The writer must scrupulously scour every inch of his idea for inconsistencies or extraneous content and be prepared to cast aside whatever does not fit. Nothing is sacred. He says that the final product may look nothing like the original idea, and that's okay.

I'm not so sure.

I should state up front that his ideas and mine are more alike than different. For example, I agree that most of the hard work in writing a story is in planning it. I also agree that a writer must be scrupulous about consistency. Everything must fit within the theme, and whatever does not fit should either be cast out or changed. But a couple of dangers lurk here in these murky waters, dangers that I am only beginning to understand as I spend more time in the craft. I'm talking about dangers that can actually kill your story.

First, there is the risk of being wrong. Planning a difficult story can sometimes seem analogous to performing brain surgery on a fetus in utero. Your mind's child is still just a potential. If you do something wrong now, it may not live to be any more than that.

"No problem," you might say, "just think very carefully about what you're doing." Yes, but therein lies the difficulty:

One of the greatest challenges for a writer is that the real engine of his productivity is not his conscious mind but his subconscious. Notice I said engine, not architect or captain. I'm talking here about the specific faculty that must be relied upon to produce 90% of his output. While the conscious mind queries, suggests, waits, and prods, at the end of the day it is the subconscious mind that must actually deliver the goods. This is important for the writer to understand, not just for practical reasons but also for spiritual reasons (which I'll explain in my second point).

The practical difficulty here is that the writer doesn't always know why his subconscious has delivered what it has. The writer may come to believe that an inspired idea does not fit within his story when in fact it does (or should). Sometimes his subconscious is actually giving him a very important clue and he's not listening to it. In other words, the captain, or the conscious mind, remains unswervingly committed to a plan despite his subconscious's realizing (implicitly) that it will not work. In such a case, he would do well to pay closer attention to what his "heart" is telling him before he starts snipping out pieces. This is not to say that the captain should ever abdicate his responsibility to discern between one idea and another, only that he might learn something by listening more carefully to his own responses to values.

This brings me to my second point, which is the greatest danger of all: that of not caring about the story anymore. This is where I have reservations about my friend's ideas. I do believe that some elements of an idea are in fact sacred. Some aspects of an idea should never be cast aside. Why? Because they represent the very reason that the writer fell in love with the story in the first place, and if a writer does not love his stories, then he'll either die an unhappy martyr having failed to write anything worthwhile or he'll quit writing altogether.

Consider these two interesting drawings over at Rational Art. The first sketch represents an idea for a painting (maybe a late revision of an idea, but an idea nonetheless), while the second represents a noticeable improvement over the first: the man's posture is more prideful, the woman more elegant, their relationship more dramatic, the champagne glass angled more appropriately, and the city sized to evoke more of a distant view rather than an imposing presence. There's even a bit of commentary about improving the piece by adding fireworks instead of snow. But notice something important: The spirit of the piece remains intact, and by spirit, I do not mean something floating in abstract space like a disembodied idea. I mean the stylized idea in concrete form. Specifically I mean a loving couple staring at some kind of cityscape on a special occasion.

I am willing to bet that if this artist were to cast aside these key elements, he would probably just as soon slavishly illustrate the cover for some technical manual as complete this painting. (I do not know this as a matter of fact, so don't quote me on that.)

Writers and other artists are not just theme. We are mind and body. Our values are inextricably tied to what we know in fact, not just in theory. For this reason, we should not be too quick to discard particular elements of a story on the basis of theme alone. At the very least, great care should be taken to understand the purpose and value of each element before we make a change.

Here, then, is some advice that I myself must follow more carefully: When evaluating an idea for a story, ask yourself what it is about the idea that you love most and why. Do you love the main character? Do you think he's especially sexy, smart, or courageous? If so, don't be too quick to run away from these notions just because they seem "shallow" or non-thematic. Your interest may be a clue to what your theme ought to be.

Did you first come to this story by imagining a single, glorious sentence that appears at the very moment of the climax or perhaps some little vignette that happens in an epilogue? Hmmm, I wonder: Could this be the one, key element that will make you care more about this story than anything else for the next three years? If so, then by god don't snip it, or your story just might die on the vine.

How to Deal With the Slushpile

So you finish your masterpiece, then you hand it over to an eager agent who gushes, "This is a slam dunk!" He assures you that publishers will fight for the rights, and they do. Overnight your salary quadruples. Soon you find yourself struggling to find time to write in between trips to see your new pals who live and work near a lovely beach in Antigua.

But before that inevitability comes to pass, you may want to check out this podcast from Poets & Writers magazine [the one titled "How to Publish Your Short Story"]. It's a panel discussion between several editors of lit magazines and a live audience of aspiring writers. The results are sobering, but also insightful. You get to hear from several bigwig — and probably slightly jaded — editors (The New Yorker and Paris Review) and from a few who seem to be a bit more hopeful and enthusiastic. A theme that runs through the dialog is the vast, vast, vast ratio between manuscripts they receive and manuscripts they print — basically the dreaded slushpile. [Speaking of, thanks to Slushpile for the link.]

But before you listen and weep, I'll offer my own perspective on the chances of getting published:

When I was in college and I told my father what I wanted to do for a living, his response didn't make any sense to me. The words that came out of his mouth didn't even process in my young-adult mind, as if he were speaking a foreign language. He said, "How many people get jobs in that business?"

"Well, I don't know," I said. "Probably not a lot."

He was nonplussed.

So I asked: "Do you think that's important?"

He looked at me like he'd suddenly discovered that he'd raised a stupid child. Well, I'm not stupid. I could see that this conversation wasn't going well, so I decided to take a bold approach. That usually works better with good old Dad, anyway. So I said: "I know that some people make money in the business. Probably not very many, though. In fact, probably only a tiny handful actually make enough money to live on." — I paused. — "Only the very best make it, I think."

He looked cautiously interested.

"I'm going to have to be the best, Dad. That's all there is to it."

He smiled. Nothing more was said. It didn't need to be.

Habits and Discipline

What does a writer do when his daily routine shows a lack of discipline? First, panic. Second, read Don Watson's essay on The Character of Habits (Parts I&II) over at Anger Management. I'll comment more here when I have some time (say, after Christmas).

This seems like a good segue to post one of my favorite quotes on this subject. It comes from the sharp mind of Elizabeth George, a successful mystery author and Writing teacher extraordinaire:

     "Here's what I tell my students on the first day when I teach one of my creative writing courses: You will be published if you possess three qualities—talent, passion, and discipline.
     You will probably be published if you possess two of the three qualities in either combination—either talent and discipline, or passion and discipline.
     You will likely be published if you possess neither talent nor passion but still have discipline.
     But if all you possess is talent [and/or] passion, you will not be published."

Discipline is king—no, he's more like a dictator. Anyway, he should be. Mine is sometimes about as assertive as Winnie the Pooh.

No Thought Whatever About Yourself

Isn't this the most ironic statement in Objectivist history: Ayn Rand writes in her journal, "From now on—no thought watever about yourself, only about your work. You don't exist. You are only a writing engine. Don't stop, until you really and honestly know that you cannot go on.... Stop admiring yourself—You are nothing yet." (Journals of Ayn Rand, Pg. 48).

Well, it is and it isn't. It certainly sounds ironic, but that's only because Ayn Rand was not being precise. After all, she was writing in her personal journal, not on a public forum. I can remember being amused by that statement myself. I thought I understood it. At least I assumed that her words made sense in some way consistent with Objectivism. But only now do I really understand what she meant.

After writing fiction for almost two years solid, that is to say, after being up to my navel—no, more like my nostrils—in the confusion, uncertainty, frustration, excitement, disappointment, enthusiasm, doldrums, self-directed anger, unbelievably poor time management, success, failure, and general malaise of the in-betweens, I can say with great confidence that I know exactly what Ayn Rand was talking about. As you wade through the trials of becoming a writer, almost all of them inside your own mind, you simply can't afford to think for even a second that you are farther along in the process than you really are. You can't afford to think that you are worthy of being on headlines, top-ten lists, interviews, book signings, or publicity stunts of any kind. You can't afford to think that someone will actually enjoy reading your stories until those stories are really and truly worthy of publication. And unless you have some really honest friends (which I do, happily), you shouldn't even give their opinions much purchasing power.

If the concept worthy is to mean something in the real world, it has to mean that you won the race—at least one of the many races, anyway. It has to mean that you overcame most of the initial obstacles to your success. You must not only have in your hand the physical proof of your success (a story), but you must absolutely know that the work required to achieve that success came about, not mainly because of luck, talent, fortune, or a happy muse, but because of hard-earned skills. A skill is something that doesn't evaporate when you finish a book and begin to prepare for the next one. It's right there with you from that point on, ready to be put to use again and again and again. It's a tool that did not arise by mysterious forces in your soul; it's something you acquired only by thinking very hard on a problem.

This is an important identification: If you don't know a writing problem inside and out, how can you possibly know that you have acquired a skill to overcome it? Only by understanding the problem will you recognize it the next time and know to reach for this particular solution. This is how a skill is like a tool.

When Ayn Rand wrote those words in her journal, she was struggling with what I think every writer probably faces: the hopeful prospects of youth racing downhill faster than its feet can manage. That orientation might work reasonably well for a young athlete (I don't know), but it's deadly for anyone in a very long-term, mind-intensive career. Brain work is not for Helium-people.