On Writing is one of those wonderful books that unfortunately didn’t exist when I started. I wish it had. I held off writing my first book far too long out of sheer intimidation. The process looked so scary. So huge. So full of 3×5 cards and plot outlines. (Don’t even mention the hero’s journey or GMC. My head will explode.)
Where to begin? I’d always written shorter works first and then done the obligatory outline (or whatever a class required) afterwards. With a book, it looked like I would be forced to reverse the process. But there’s a problem with that. My brain doesn’t work that way.
I finally just came to the point of “now or never, just do it” and leaped in. I figured I’d never been an outliner so I shouldn’t expect myself to become one. If I could finish short pieces my way, why not something longer? I studied the construction of novels intensively before trying to write one and I had years of voracious reading to draw on so I knew roughly what a finished novel should look like. And I had an idea that I thought would support a novel.
My first novel was not a thing of beauty, but it was far from the worst piece of trash ever created and it gave me courage. I did it. There it was, hundreds of pages of proof that it could be done. In my second novel, if I ever felt doubt all I had to do was look back at that five pounds of paper to see the physical evidence. At the end of my second novel, I breathed in relief; the first one had not been a fluke. I could do this. I really could. And I could do it the way that worked for me.
I’m having a lovely email conversation with another author about the writing process right now and she brought up something that’s made me think hard. Could I teach somebody else to do it the way I do? I’m honestly not sure because it seems intuitive to me. I start with X and write that and then I know Y and I go from there, but from my point of view there’s an intuitive leap in between. Underneath intuition there’s always logic, though. So I ought to be able to work backwards and figure out how I got from X to Y and from there to a finished book.
My method, by the way, is using theme as my road map. I have a core idea, I identify the theme, and then I have the story’s map. I can’t write a step-by-step plot outline at this point. I just have the map and until I’ve made the trip I don’t even know all the landmarks I’m going to see, but I can see them in the distance as I approach them. I know what kind of country I’m travelling. I know where I’m going and I don’t get lost.
How do I know what my theme is? Um. Well, I’m thinking about it. Like I said, I ought to be able to work backwards and find the logic. “I just know” can’t be the whole answer. I might be an intuitive, instinctive writer, but there is underlying logic to the process. If I can figure out the logic, this might be something that’s useful to somebody else. Because “I just know” is not particularly useful.
I’ll continue to think about this, and if I can come up with something beyond “I just know” I will blog about it.
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