I have been struggling lately, as I have said, with many things in regards to my writing. I hate to be a constant start-and-stopper, but I still don’t feel like I have my approach quite right. I’ve been too focused on having written, with getting to the end and having some kind of complete draft, without focusing on the pieces I need to get there. And I think that’s doing me more harm than good right now.
So I went back to my list of the five books that have been my biggest influences. Taking out the first two, which are childhood books and on the list purely for nostalgic purposes, I took a look at what the final three novels had in common. It was more than just good characters (which, as we all know by now, is my first love) or exciting plots. It’s all about the worlds in which the stories take place.
Writing speculative fiction is different than writing something with a contemporary setting because everything is made up. If you’re writing a mystery in a city you’ve never been to, you can research it — read books, look at maps, scour the internet, examine photos, take a trip. You can’t do that for a world that you’ve made up. The speculative fiction writer has to come up with all the details of the setting on their own — history, politics, religion, economics, geography, fashion, architecture, etiquette. In other words, every single facet of a culture that we take for granted. They not only have to figure out what all these things are, but they also have to figure out how to express them so that the reader, who is completely in the dark about all these things, can figure out what’s going on and what’s important. It’s, frankly, overwhelming.
I don’t write contemporary fiction, but I’m sure that those who do feel just as protective of and attached to their writing as speculative fiction writers. I’m not saying that they don’t. But spec-fic is, in many ways, a labor of love. Otherwise, why would you go to all the bother? World-building isn’t something that can be figured out in a day and, despite my preferred method of writing, I’m not sure it’s something you can do on the fly. At least, I haven’t been able to do it so far.
What this means for me is that I will be taking some time off from drafting, which also means a break in my regular project status updates. I’ll still be working, but I don’t know how measurable it will be. I also won’t be working on my current project at this time because I think I have a higher chance of succeeding if I’m working on something I really love. There’s a story that I’ve been wanting to write for a long time, but I haven’t done anything with it because I was afraid. Afraid that I wasn’t good enough and would “ruin” it with my inexperience. Well, I’m not going to wait anymore. What I’m doing right now with stories I’m not as interested in isn’t working.
Watch this space for updates. I’ll be blogging as I go.
(image adapted from an original by Gabriela Camerotti)
