For a little over a year now I have been exploring the world
of fiction writing – specifically novels.
I’ve studied structure, characterization, conflict, and plot. I’ve worked on character studies. I’ve even started a few pieces, and have developed
an organizational system that works for me.
NaNoWriMo 2012 saw me finish my first draft of the first novel I’ve ever
worked on. Still I am frustrated, and
find myself stymied by the process of writing, and the advice that is given.
Writers appear to come from two main camps. First is the NaNo system, where you rush to
put the story down as fast as you can, with a minimum word count goal. You can fill things in later. Now, if one writes 50K of crap, one can
reasonably expect to remove around 20%.
This leaves the frustrated writer with a novella at best, unless they
are able to add to their manuscript in the revision process. The second camp appears to plan everything
out carefully, artfully crafting perfect sentences that say only what needs to
be said, devoid of embellishment. Much
of the detail is left to the reader to fill in, relieving the author of the
responsibility for painting the picture.
This relegates the author to the role of narrator, indicating action and
dialogue.
What if there is another way? What if we can allow ourselves full creative
license? What if we write it all? Free ourselves from the constraint of word
limitations and economy of prose? What
if we can do what we intended to do: write and tell the full story?
Here is what I’ve gleaned, on a grand scale:
- Show, don’t tell. Great idea. I get it, less exposition, more action. The character didn’t cry; tears rolled down her cheek in a torrent.
- Know your characters, all of them. Have you ever met someone, gone to lunch with them once, and been able to proclaim that you know them? Me either. It takes years to really get to know someone, in most cases a lifetime. It can take a whole book to get to know your characters.
- But what about this nonsense about not using adverbs? In my opinion, if it exists in the language, it is fair game to use. Why use and adverb? Consider for the moment the verb sigh. One can sigh exasperatedly, fitfully, contentedly, impatiently, fearfully, absently, or passionately. Each conveys emotion, with precision.
So here is my suggestion: write what you need to write.
Your first draft should contain all of the
words you need to say what you are trying to say, to convey what happens in
your story, to describe as fully as possible the world and experiences of your characters.
Allow yourself to write the
characterizations as they occur to you, you can fix continuity errors
later. Who cares if your first draft is 50K or
150K? It is your first draft. Writing is revision. We all go into this, in some part, knowing
that we will have to revisit the manuscript, repair plot holes, find timeline
gone wild, embellish some parts, remove others, fix grammatical and
typographical errors. We can worry about
word count, page length, and economy then.
Now is for writing, for discovering the story, meeting the characters,
and putting it all down in writing.
So forget about writing the bones. I want to write the whole enchilada, sour
cream and all. I can change the recipe
later. The point isn’t to write a final
draft the first time. The point is to
write a first draft that has meaning.
And sometimes meaning can take a while to show up.
