Writing update for May

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Well, I’ve been madly reworking the last half of Prophecy of Power: Werewolf, my epic fantasy, in the hope that Angry Robot will ask for the full manuscript some time in the next month or two.

I’m not planning any major changes, but I think the tension needs to escalate more, particularly in the last four or five chapters.

With a few minor structural changes – basically having most of the main characters come together at the end, I should be able to achieve that.

As it is, two of them don’t really do much, but if I could bring them together, elevate the angst and have it all culminate in a final fight scene, it should work much better.

I’ve got about six or eight thousand words to do it in. Fingers crossed.

How do you write?

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Talk to any writer, and each will have a different process for writing – more so with longer works.

My preference is to do a complete pass and then give it a break – doesn’t matter whether I’m doing a first draft, final polish, character pass, or whatever. I find that if I start but stop halfway through, it’s hard to go back later on, and the longer I leave it, the harder it gets.

What’s more, I find the more I focus on the one story, the more I want to return to it, and that seems to translate into a bigger, better, and more effective effort.

For me, that’s when the magic starts. Ideas, thoughts, and story twists come almost unbidden. Problems resolve in directions I didn’t see coming. The story ‘flows’.

What’s your process? How does writing work for you?

What’s your Big Hairy Audacious Goal?

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At the Commonwealth Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), they sometimes call for BHAGs – Big Hairy Audacious Goals that researchers are keen to aim for.

Put simply, if the Powers That Be think a big, multi-discipline research proposal has merit and it aligns with the organisations research goals, it gets funding. There’s a hint of criteria (well, a whole lot actually, not to mention reams of red tape), but the point is, the organisation is encouraging Big Ideas – and supporting them.

Which got me thinking about my own BHAG. In fact, I didn’t even realise I had one until I gave it some thought.

Lion licking his mouth.
He's got a BHAG - you!

So here it is: It’s intertwining most of my novel ideas into a huge overarching story – about 12 novels all up; some standalone, others part of a 4-part saga – all linked in some way.

I figure that if I can get one published and it does well, I’ve got a dozen more books with a ready market.

If it doesn’t do well, then I’ve got a dozen other books that don’t need the first one to work. Win-win.

I guess it’s hardly World Domination, but it’ll do as a first step.

What’s your Big Hairy Audacious Goal? I’m keen to hear!

On being critiqued

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Last night, a critique group gave my recently finished novel a well-deserved roasting.

Don’t get me wrong – I’d expected it – and the feedback was very constructive.

I wrote the story without a solid idea as to what it was going to be about – letting it unfold and change as I went. 

I don’t know if that was a mistake, but the story I began writing certainly became something entirely different by the end – and it showed.

There were plenty of opinions about all sorts of aspects of the story, sometimes even coming from opposite directions. It told me about the problems even if the proposed solutions varied.

One of the most useful things I found was that people sometimes saw things in a different light from what I’d intended.

I was surprised two or three times when I realised what I thought were minor points had such big impacts for different people – things I plan to fix (or use better).

What I didn’t anticipate was the encouragement I received for a totally unedited first draft.

Although it has (some fairly big) problems, it was largely regarded as a very readable, fast-paced story with enough going on to make people keen to know how it ends.

With any luck I can keep that aspect when I rework it.

Overall, I came away with a lot of new ideas and a fresh view of a story I was otherwise too close to look at objectively.

I’m not entirely sure I’d throw a first draft at a critique group again, but I’ve got no regrets either.

What’s the worst thing that could happen next?

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Ever hit the wall and have no idea what to write next? Maybe you’ve just reached that point where nothing exciting is happening and you’re losing interest. And of course, if you’re losing interest, forget about your readers.

You might call it writers block. You might call it all kinds of blue-coloured words. You might simply take a break in the hope that inspiration strikes.

Worst scenario: you might give up.

Don’t! If you give up, you could be losing a fantastic story.

Instead, try this exercise:

“What’s the worst thing that could happen at this point in the story?”

Write it. Now. I’ll wait.

Very possibly, I’ve led you astray a little. The worst thing that could happen is all your characters catch a rare form of the flu and die, or an asteroid strikes the planet and they all die, or the sun explodes and they all die… you get the drift.

Okay then, lets peg it back a bit.

Your character tells a white lie – he’s had a fight with his wife, so she’s left him alone to deal with the business of running their ice-skating rink (or maybe something as simple as organising a dinner with friends). He’s too embarrassed to admit it, so he tells everyone she’s sick – caught a chill, and is resting up in bed.

What’s the worst thing that can happen? Someone’s got some medical qualifications and insists on helping.

Of course he could admit to the lie, but…

He tries to cover his lie and convinces someone to ‘play sick’ (maybe an employee, perhaps a neighbour), which not only deepens the lie, but draws someone else into it – and now you can see the snowball effect. “Oh no, it’s VERY contagious…”

And the worst thing that could happen at that point is…?

Okay, lets get back on track. We’re not actually building a story.

However, that sort of thing works particularly well with comedy, but also translates quite well into most genres.

Genre, you say.

Yes

Imagine you’re writing an action story – two tough cops go into a den of drug lords to rescue a kidnapping victim.

It’s time sensitive, and they make the call to go in early. What’s the worst thing that can happen – maybe one gets wounded and has to be dragged out – and the mission fails.

And of course, there are consequences.

Because they went in early and without backup, the kidnapping victim gets killed – and they get the blame. Suddenly they’re off the force, leaving them with the only option available – prove they did the right thing. Yet one of them is in hospital recovering…

You see where I’m going?

More than likely you’ll want to discard the first option (or four) that comes to you, but if you ever get stuck, if things slow down, or you simply can’t figure a way out of the mess you’ve created, ask yourself: “What’s the worst thing that can happen next?”

Writing plan for April

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Well, I can’t say I’ve got a lot of plans for writing this month, though I do have a lot of editing to do.

Last month I managed to edit about 30,000 words, which leaves me with another 80,000 this month. Unfortunately, the second half of the novel needs more work than the first. Much more.

I’ll also have a novel to critique, which will cut into my editing time.

So that’s my plan for this month. Editing and critiquing. Bit of a boring update, but there you go.

Update 4 – Writing plan for March

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Only managed about 400 new words this week, but I did do quite a bit of editing – 11,500 words worth, or about six chapters.

I’m aiming to improve on that this week. Got the Angry Robot submission coming up soon. It’d be great to have the whole thing ready on the first day of subs, rather than just the first 10-15,000 words in the hope of getting the rest of it up to scratch in the following weeks (just in case they ask for it).

If they want it, I don’t know how much time they’ll give me to get it to them. Better to be safe, and even if they don’t want to see the rest, it won’t exactly be a wasted effort.

Only thing I’m currently struggling with is how much to send in – where to cut it off. There’s a perfect spot just after the 15,000 word cut off, but if you ignore guidelines they’ll just reject you out of hand.

Bit of a tough call.

Update 3 – Writing plan for March

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Well, it was another rather lame week where I failed to hit most of my goals. I wrote practically nothing new, and didn’t do half the editing I should have.

Still, I did do some editing, so it wasn’t a total loss, and I wrote quite a bit for the blog. Writing what I shouldn’t be writing is better than no writing at all – lame justification. A better excuse is that I was busy with organising and running a book stall at the local fete, but even so, I should have hit a few more marks than what I actually did.

Hopefully I’ll make up for the last couple of weeks over the course of this week.

Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

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Cover of Mistborn I first heard of Brandon Sanderson soon after he was given the task of finishing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga.

I doubted anyone could finish the series and maintain a similar voice to Jordan’s, let alone continue the story as well as Jordan had, but I hoped for the best.

After reading Sanderson’s first Wheel of Time book, I assumed most of it had probably written by Jordan before he died, it was that similar in style.

Sanderson’s second installment suggested otherwise (surely Jordan couldn’t have written most of the rest before he died), and convinced me he was a damn good writer. After listening to a podcast interviewing him about it, I decided to look up more of his works. I’m glad I did.

I came across Mistborn first, and I wasn’t dissapointed. It’s an epic saga, and though it maintains many of the fantasy tropes – “young orphan with special powers rises from obscurity and challenges the evil overlord” – it’s also quite original and compelling for the most part.

There are quite a few point-of-view characters, but it’s Vin, the abused and downtrodden young orphan who we empathise with.

Early on, Vin is rescued by Kelsier from her dangerous life as the youngest member of a gang of petty thieves. Recognising her inborn talents, Kelsier instructs Vin in the use of Allomancy – the ability to ‘burn’ metals to gain amazing powers.

Like Kelsier, she’s also among the rarest allomancers, a Mistborn, able to burn the full complement of metals, not just one.

From there it gets a little more complicated, as only full-blooded allomancer nobles are tolerated by the Lord ruler. As Vin’s both an allomancer and the bastard child of a noble and a skaa (peasant), she quickly finds herself on the Lord Ruler’s hit list.

Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy.
Mistborn Trilogy

Kelsier, however, has other plans for Vin. He intends to take down the Lord Ruler despite the fact the Lord Ruler is known to be a immortal God and the world’s savior – and Kelsier needs all the help he can find.

With Vin tasked to infiltrate the nobility, Kelsier and his crew begin plans to set the noble houses to fighting, to build an army, and eventually to bring down the Final Empire and the Lord Ruler himself.

And so begins Mistborn – a very good read.

How I wrote a novel in 60 days!

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One of the most common questions/problems I come across, and one that I find is a problem for myself too, is how to find enough time for writing.

Back in my student days I had all the time I needed to write, but rarely took advantage of it.

Fast forward a few (cough cough) years and there’s far too many demands on my life to allow me the luxury of writing when I want to – job, family, social life, house/yard work etc.

So how did I manage to write the complete draft of a novel in under two months (November/December) – about 90,000 words, with so much else going on in my life?

Well, here’s how it happened.

  1. I did Nanowrimo (and decided to do it to write a new novel, just just to finish).
  2. I kept the pace up afterward and finished what I started.
  3. I told my wife I was doing Nanowrimo, and asked for a little slack.
  4. I got up half an hour early and wrote before work.
  5. I wrote after work whenever I could.
  6. I wrote on weekends when the opportunity presented itself.
  7. I aimed for an average of 1667 words a day, but wrote more if I could in order to make up for the times I couldn’t.
  8. I still did everything else I normally would.

Essentially, I stopped wasting time and used whatever spare time I had for writing.

  • I got up when the alarm when off instead of lazing in bed.
  • If I wanted to watch a show on TV, I recorded it and watched it when I’d got ahead (as a small reward) or when I was too wiped out to write.
  • If I had to do housework or yardwork, I tried to get through it faster.
  • If I had to run the kids to sports training, I took the laptop or a notepad.
  • I did simple things like turning the computer on when I got home so that when I had a spare ten minutes I could write a couple of hundred words.

And the funny thing is, the more I did it, the easier it got.

I started thinking about the story all the time – planning ahead in spare moments so that when I sat back down again I was ready (and keen) to write the next scene or chapter.

I didn’t go back to ‘fix’ things. Just soldiered on, making notes of things I wanted to change later.

As often as not I didn’t have a clue what I was going to write next – but when the time came, I wrote anyway. Apparently, Muses are overrated.

It was a little tough at the beginning – there was a certain amount of discipline I had to develop. Inspriation only took me so far.

After that I relied on discipline, and from there it all changed.

Find out more about novel structure.

Update 2: Writing plan for March

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I barely managed a few hundred words and a spellcheck for a novel last week.

About half of it was due to camping (and getting organised for it), but I should have done much more than I did.

Hopefully it’ll come together this week – I aim to write 1500 words and spellcheck a different novel, as well as continue to edit it.

I’ve only got about a month left to get it into top shape so I can submit it to Angry Robot.

Update 1: Writing plan for March

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So far I’m on track.

Last week I made a bunch of edits to the novel I’m going to submit to Angry Robot next month.

I added 1400 words to the novel I started at the beginning of last year. I also restructured it to add in three new sequences and a new major plot, while relegating the former main plot to a secondary plot.

Finally, I did some planning for the next novel I’m going to write – worked out the two main characters’ wants and needs and wrote a brief overview of each section (beg, mid, end).

When planning goes to… something starting with S.

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I prefer writing to planning. I just want to get on with it. Sometimes, even stating what goes in the Beginning, Middle and End is too much effort.

However, to write something more complex than a single POV story I’ve got to plan out the storylines and how they fit together, otherwise I’ll stick with one or maybe two.

For the Welcome To Earth novel I’m in the middle of, I’ve got five Points Of View, and I developed them all pretty thoroughly.

The problem is, once I start writing a story, it almost always takes an entirely fresh turn from anything I’d planned. Sometimes lots of turns.

That can be good. I love finding out what happens as I write it.

But that doesn’t work with multiple storylines that need to interconnect.

Problem is, I never planned this story as a novel. I planned it as a pilot television script, and that’s how I originally wrote it.

And that’s why it all fell apart – it wasn’t suited to becoming a novel, but I thought it would be. I didn’t do any more planning to flesh it out.

And so there it was – forty-five pages of outline in script form, ready to be drawn from, and it wasn’t filled with enough detail.

The big divergence happened when I added an entirely new beginning, changing it from sets of two sequences to three (ie, three for the Beginning, Middle A, Middle B, and the End).

That means I now have to find and develop three entirely new sequences spread out over the entire novel – about 30-40,000 words.

Obviously, I got ‘writers block’. Or, in this case, ‘what the heck do I do with this mess now?’.

The only way I can see to fix it is to shift the main plot to a sub-plot and bring forward the story I’d intended for the sequel, and overlap them. Two storylines, one story. There simply isn’t enough happening in the original script to fill an entire novel.

If only I’d seen that before I began and reworked the outline/script.

The question now is, will it work? Is it even what I really want to do?

I guess I’ll find out.

If you liked this post, you might like my post on creating a writing/editing plan for your novel.

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