Jaime Callahan

It’s no secret that I have commitment problems, at least when it comes to writing. In fact, (honesty time) I haven’t finished a rough draft of a novel idea since I did NaNoWriMo in 2006. The closest I’ve come is 10K words on a WiP that was lost when our hard drive crashed in 2011. (At least I’d already abandoned it. Always back up your work, friends.)

I tried every which way to overcome this problem until I reached the point where even trying to write or thinking about writing made me sad and tired. So I took a break. I’ve done this before by going on a complete hiatus from writing, but this time I assigned myself a Goof-Off Project. I’m writing something that no one will ever see and has no hope of being adapted into something professional. And you know what? IT’S WORKING.

At this point I’ve written over 20K words, which breaks down to about 9K of background scenes and 13.5K of actual novel-like story. And I’m not to the end yet.

Is this a waste of time? I don’t think so. Like Lilith Saintcrow says,

“The first million words are practice. They can be as bad as they want to be while you’re learning. It is not important WHAT you write. It is important THAT you write, and write consistently, and keep looking for ways to make your writing better.”

I’ve learned all kinds of things about what my writing strengths and weaknesses are, I’m relearning that I CAN do this, and I’m starting to get a picture of how I can do this again when it counts. I couldn’t ask for more at this point.

“The problem with research, of course, was knowing when to stop. ‘One must stop before one has finished,’ she advised, ‘otherwise, one will never stop and never finish.’ ‘Research,’ she explained, ‘is endlessly seductive, but writing is hard work.’”
– Robert K. Massie, quoting Barbara Tuchman, in the forward to THE GUNS OF AUGUST

I’ve mentioned vaguely on twitter that I’m resurrecting an old project, and one of the things I’ve found is that, although I’ve done a lot of generalized worldbuilding research, I need to do some more specific research before I have anything like a well-drawn setting for this WIP. And so I’m gathering up the materials I already own, working up a list to borrow from the library, and generally trying to figure out what is missing that must be found before full-scale writing can commence.

It is so easy to get off track with research. I’m a believer that inspiration can be found in a multitude of places, but it’s a bad sign when I’m debating whether to spend time reading a book that sounds fascinating, but isn’t strictly useful for my WIP. I say this because I recently realized I had a couple of titles on my use-for-research list that weren’t exactly related to my project. Yes, I could probably find something useful in either of them, but it’s not a sure bet. So I moved them to a personal reading list instead.

Like getting lost in Wikipedia, it’s easy to become distracted while doing research. The desire to keep chasing after new bits of information can be “endlessly seductive”, after all. The key is to remain focused and regularly assess whether you’re using your research time in the most efficient, worthwhile manner possible. Save the unrelated books for recreational reading instead, even if it means waiting a little longer to get to them.

Way back in an entry from September, in which I pondered what type of fiction I saw myself writing, I mentioned that, in terms of fantasy, I was interested in “stories that dealt with localized events in the lives of one or two main characters”. At the time, I didn’t know what to call that kind of story, so I settled for defining it instead of relying on a specific term. Today, reading over a review that Jo Walton wrote about Mary Robinette Kowal’s SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY, I found the right term: “small scale fantasy”.

To paraphrase somewhat, Walton defines the term as being a story told “on a deliberately small scale”, with “nothing like as much peril” as a typical fantasy novel, and with “worldbuilding … kept in the background of the story”. It seems like such an obvious term, now that I know it, but I couldn’t come up with it before.

Anyway, I’d say that “small scale fantasy” pretty much fits the bill of what type of fantasy novel I could see myself writing, if I ever write one, and it’s definitely a type of fantasy that I love to read.

There have only been a few times that I can think of in which I’ve written with any kind of plan or outline. I did it for my last speculative fiction project (and I praised the joys of planning at the time), but usually I am what’s called a “pantser” instead of a “plotter”. If you’re not familiar with the term, it means that I fly by the seat of my pants, without any kind of guide to tell me where I’m going.

Both methods have their ups and downs. Plotting can be awesome because, by the time you sit down to write, you’ve got a road map for the story. You know the characters, what’s going to happen to them, and how they’ll react. The flip side of that is it can mean burning out on the story before you’ve even put words on the page. The pantser method, or writing by discovery (as it’s also called), means that you’re always surprised by where your story goes, which can be kind of fun at times. The down side is that, without that map that plotting gives you, getting lost can mean getting REALLY lost.

I wouldn’t say that I’m lost yet (though I’m sure that will come), but right now I am still trying to get my footing. The little prep work that I do leaves me with quick character sketches and a vague idea of what I want to happen. As a result, it can take me a few tries to get the tone of the story right. Does my main character have a cynical voice or not? Is her narrating style funny or weary? It can take a few tries to hit on what feels right.

This week I’ve been working on just this kind of thing. For some reason I keep defaulting to a false kind of wry, self-deprecating, and slightly sarcastic tone that’s all wrong for what I’m trying to write. I’m not sure whose style I’m subconsciously copying, but it’s something I’m working to get away from.

Writing without a map is kind like Anne Lamott says in BIRD BY BIRD: “Writing a first draft is very much like watching a Polaroid develop. You can’t – and, in fact, you’re not supposed to – know exactly what the picture is going to look like until it has finished developing.”

Are you a plotter, a pantser, or both? What methods do you use to prepare to draft?

(image adapted from an original by Emm Enn)

I think that everyone who wants to be an author has an idea of the story they want to tell, whether it’s their own or one they’ve made up. At the very least, they have an idea of what type of story they want to tell: horror, fantasy, romance, historical, etc. For a long time, I was certain that I wanted to write in the fantasy genre. Fantasy was what I enjoyed reading, so it was naturally what I wanted to recreate on the page.

My earliest plot ideas all centered around epic fantasy, but I quickly realized that I was more interested in individuals than countries. What I became focused on were stories that dealt with localized events in the lives of one or two main characters.

In my quest to improve my writing I read widely, until I got a bit burnt out on the fantasy genre. So I went further afield, exploring genres I had previously derided, like women’s fiction and literary/commercial fiction. In a short time, I was hooked, until I was reading very little genre fiction at all.

Around the time this all happened, I quit blogging and tweeting. The more I read outside my longtime favorite genre, the more ideas I started to get outside of that genre. I panicked over what to write and hit a wall of confusion. All of a sudden I was asking myself what kind of writer I wanted to be, when the answer had always seemed so clear before. And if I wasn’t a fantasy writer, what was I? It was time to take a step back.

Now I’m on the other side of this self-imposed break, and I can’t say I have a cut-and-dried answer for what shape the future of my writing will take. My only plan is write the kind of things that I want to write and nurture whatever ideas I have, regardless of where they fall in the broad spectrum of fiction. So what will I write about? In short, whatever compells me. Right now I’m brainstorming a piece of commercial fiction, but who knows what the future will hold.

How do you decide what you want to write about, or what type of writing you do? Do you just pursue whatever ideas you find interesting, or do you focus on a certain type of story for a specific reason? I’d love to hear about how you chose what to write.