The How-To-Write-A-Novel Meme
Sep. 7th, 2006 05:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
greygirlbeastI just saw this in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
matociquala's LJ, the "How-To-Write-A-Novel" meme, and I thought no, no no, don't even go there. Because whatever it is that I do, I think I've yet to find someone else who does it quite the same way, and I rankle at the suggestion that writing can be approached with anything like a formula. But. Then I thought of a scene from Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life (1956), in which Georges-Pierre Seurat pedantically explains to a mystified Vincent Van Gogh how he, Seurat, has reduced the art of painting to dry mathematics. Which is pretty much how all "how to" approaches to writing leave me — mystified. But, also. I must admit that, while my own method of writing, in as much as I can claim to have a method, falls much nearer to Van Gogh's approach to painting than to Seurat's, I am quite fond of Seurat's paintings. So, regardless of how I may feel about applying scientific and/or reductionist philosophies to art, I must admit that at least Seurat's method worked for him. Which, I would hasten to add, is the one and only great "how-to" truth of writing a novel: What might work for me probably won't work for you. Or, to quote the Bear quoting John Gorka: "What once worked for you will not work for me." Anyway, because it seems to me that both Van Gogh and Seurat were capable of great things, I figure I can bring myself to give this strange meme a shot (behind the cut, because I know you might have better things to do):
First, note that there will be no bullet points. Nor will there be any mention of spreadsheets. Or slide rules. Or trigonometry.
Ahem.
How I write a novel.
First, I am seized with the desperate realization that it's time to write another novel, unless I want to starve and face eviction. That's almost always the first step. It is attended by stomach aches, cold sweats, and bad dreams.
Secondly, still reeling from the above realization, I begin to cast about for an idea. Any idea in whose company I can imagine spending the better part of a year or two. Sometimes, the idea takes the form of a character, and sometimes it takes the form of a scrap of plot, and sometimes it's more abstract. I might say, "Ah, I want to write a novel about a punk band," or "Wouldn't it be interesting to write a novel about the consequences of whatever it was happened in the last novel I wrote?" Something like that. Nothing fancy.
Now, at this point I might do some research into the settings and predominant aspects of the aforementioned idea. Or I might not. It just frelling depends. For Silk, I had to learn to play bass guitar and to be a barista and exactly how one might go about procuring peyote. But, I should note, I was already writing the novel before most of that research was done. For Threshold, I did virtually no research whatsoever, as I came to it knowing pretty much everything I'd needed to know to write the novel.
Er...what next? Umm...yeah, well, I sit down and start writing. My novels are without exception written in strict chronological order (unlike some of my short-story cycles, such as Tales of Pain and Wonder and Alabaster). First, the prologue. Then Chapter One. And so forth. I work without a net...or outline. Honestly, I've attempted the whole outline thing one or twice or maybe even three times, but it a) gets in the way, b) annoys me, and c) gets ignored anyway. Usually, after about Chapter Three, I have to make up some sort of synopsis for my agent and publisher. But there's an unspoken agreement that the finished novel will bear about as much similarity to that synopsis as a swordfish resembles a giraffe. I proceed word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence. Any given sentence may be rewritten ten or fifteen times, but if so, it is generally rewritten before proceeding to the next sentence. Make it more or less perfect, then and only then move on. I suppose this is why I have been accused of "sentence-level writing," though I've never been quite sure what was meant by the accusation. But. Usually, I only know what happens next because it seems the most logical consequence of what's just happened. Sometimes I know where I want a scene to go, or how I might like a character to behave, or I might even have some very definite wish for how it's all going to come together before THE END. But I know that if I get too attached to these attempts at prescience, I'm only going to get hurt.
During the writing of the book, this period of actual composition, a sort of rhythm emerges. I begin a chapter. It gets interrupted numerous times while I stop to write a short story or get stuck or have a long dry spell or take a trip or whatever. But eventually, I finish that chapter. I read over it with Spooky. I make a few, usually very minor, edits, then proceed to the next chapter. I repeat this process until, finally, months (Low Red Moon) or years (Daughter of Hounds) later, I reach THE END.
This begins what I call post-production. Principal photography has wrapped. I read the whole thing through with Spooky. She might read it back to me. We find more errors. I fix them. I might add a little something here or remove a little something there, which is always annoying because, by this time all the actors have scattered to the four winds and the sets have been struck and my favourite foley is busy on another project. But I muddle through. This usually takes me two or three weeks and produces what I laughingly refer to as a "first draft" (knowing, as I do, that the "final draft" will be almost indistinguishable). Used to, at this point, I'd print out a clean manuscript, stick the whole thing in a ms. box, and mail it away to NYC. Now that part's done by e-mail. Also, I used to have first readers who weren't Spooky, as recently as Low Red Moon (2002), but I never listened to what they said, which tended to irritate them, so I chose to streamline the process by dispensing with them altogether. At this point, I consider the novel provisionally finished. There will be minor edits later on, usually only line edits, and maybe the addition or deletion of short bits of scene, but really never anything major. For example, my agent thought that Emmie Silvey cursed too much in Daughter of Hounds, so I considered it, decided she was probably right, and toned it down a bit.
And that is how I write a novel. To me, it seems a very organic approach. No one ever taught me how to write a novel, and the closest I can claim to ever having come to trying to learn how it's done was by a) reading lots of novels and b) writing them. Mostly, I feel like it's something I've always known how to do, telling stories at length. Oh, I've definitely improved with practice, but that's just the way of any endeavor, I think. So, whenever the "talent vs. craft" debate comes up, I always wind up in the "talent" camp by default (though it's a pretty dumb debate, and generally I try to avoid it). Mostly, I strive to steer very clear of anything which smacks too much of tedium. I believe that art must be hard, but that if it's tedious, you're probably doing something wrong. Tedium and passion, at least for me, do not go hand in hand, and passion is they key. Oh, and this isn't at all how I wrote comics. That's another story, but not one I wish to go into any time soon.
I know I've left stuff out, mostly the crazy emotional crap, the screaming and yelling, the throwing things. But, give or take, that's how I do it. Don't try this at home.
matociquala's LJ, the "How-To-Write-A-Novel" meme, and I thought no, no no, don't even go there. Because whatever it is that I do, I think I've yet to find someone else who does it quite the same way, and I rankle at the suggestion that writing can be approached with anything like a formula. But. Then I thought of a scene from Vincente Minnelli's Lust for Life (1956), in which Georges-Pierre Seurat pedantically explains to a mystified Vincent Van Gogh how he, Seurat, has reduced the art of painting to dry mathematics. Which is pretty much how all "how to" approaches to writing leave me — mystified. But, also. I must admit that, while my own method of writing, in as much as I can claim to have a method, falls much nearer to Van Gogh's approach to painting than to Seurat's, I am quite fond of Seurat's paintings. So, regardless of how I may feel about applying scientific and/or reductionist philosophies to art, I must admit that at least Seurat's method worked for him. Which, I would hasten to add, is the one and only great "how-to" truth of writing a novel: What might work for me probably won't work for you. Or, to quote the Bear quoting John Gorka: "What once worked for you will not work for me." Anyway, because it seems to me that both Van Gogh and Seurat were capable of great things, I figure I can bring myself to give this strange meme a shot (behind the cut, because I know you might have better things to do):First, note that there will be no bullet points. Nor will there be any mention of spreadsheets. Or slide rules. Or trigonometry.
Ahem.
How I write a novel.
First, I am seized with the desperate realization that it's time to write another novel, unless I want to starve and face eviction. That's almost always the first step. It is attended by stomach aches, cold sweats, and bad dreams.
Secondly, still reeling from the above realization, I begin to cast about for an idea. Any idea in whose company I can imagine spending the better part of a year or two. Sometimes, the idea takes the form of a character, and sometimes it takes the form of a scrap of plot, and sometimes it's more abstract. I might say, "Ah, I want to write a novel about a punk band," or "Wouldn't it be interesting to write a novel about the consequences of whatever it was happened in the last novel I wrote?" Something like that. Nothing fancy.
Now, at this point I might do some research into the settings and predominant aspects of the aforementioned idea. Or I might not. It just frelling depends. For Silk, I had to learn to play bass guitar and to be a barista and exactly how one might go about procuring peyote. But, I should note, I was already writing the novel before most of that research was done. For Threshold, I did virtually no research whatsoever, as I came to it knowing pretty much everything I'd needed to know to write the novel.
Er...what next? Umm...yeah, well, I sit down and start writing. My novels are without exception written in strict chronological order (unlike some of my short-story cycles, such as Tales of Pain and Wonder and Alabaster). First, the prologue. Then Chapter One. And so forth. I work without a net...or outline. Honestly, I've attempted the whole outline thing one or twice or maybe even three times, but it a) gets in the way, b) annoys me, and c) gets ignored anyway. Usually, after about Chapter Three, I have to make up some sort of synopsis for my agent and publisher. But there's an unspoken agreement that the finished novel will bear about as much similarity to that synopsis as a swordfish resembles a giraffe. I proceed word by word, line by line, sentence by sentence. Any given sentence may be rewritten ten or fifteen times, but if so, it is generally rewritten before proceeding to the next sentence. Make it more or less perfect, then and only then move on. I suppose this is why I have been accused of "sentence-level writing," though I've never been quite sure what was meant by the accusation. But. Usually, I only know what happens next because it seems the most logical consequence of what's just happened. Sometimes I know where I want a scene to go, or how I might like a character to behave, or I might even have some very definite wish for how it's all going to come together before THE END. But I know that if I get too attached to these attempts at prescience, I'm only going to get hurt.
During the writing of the book, this period of actual composition, a sort of rhythm emerges. I begin a chapter. It gets interrupted numerous times while I stop to write a short story or get stuck or have a long dry spell or take a trip or whatever. But eventually, I finish that chapter. I read over it with Spooky. I make a few, usually very minor, edits, then proceed to the next chapter. I repeat this process until, finally, months (Low Red Moon) or years (Daughter of Hounds) later, I reach THE END.
This begins what I call post-production. Principal photography has wrapped. I read the whole thing through with Spooky. She might read it back to me. We find more errors. I fix them. I might add a little something here or remove a little something there, which is always annoying because, by this time all the actors have scattered to the four winds and the sets have been struck and my favourite foley is busy on another project. But I muddle through. This usually takes me two or three weeks and produces what I laughingly refer to as a "first draft" (knowing, as I do, that the "final draft" will be almost indistinguishable). Used to, at this point, I'd print out a clean manuscript, stick the whole thing in a ms. box, and mail it away to NYC. Now that part's done by e-mail. Also, I used to have first readers who weren't Spooky, as recently as Low Red Moon (2002), but I never listened to what they said, which tended to irritate them, so I chose to streamline the process by dispensing with them altogether. At this point, I consider the novel provisionally finished. There will be minor edits later on, usually only line edits, and maybe the addition or deletion of short bits of scene, but really never anything major. For example, my agent thought that Emmie Silvey cursed too much in Daughter of Hounds, so I considered it, decided she was probably right, and toned it down a bit.
And that is how I write a novel. To me, it seems a very organic approach. No one ever taught me how to write a novel, and the closest I can claim to ever having come to trying to learn how it's done was by a) reading lots of novels and b) writing them. Mostly, I feel like it's something I've always known how to do, telling stories at length. Oh, I've definitely improved with practice, but that's just the way of any endeavor, I think. So, whenever the "talent vs. craft" debate comes up, I always wind up in the "talent" camp by default (though it's a pretty dumb debate, and generally I try to avoid it). Mostly, I strive to steer very clear of anything which smacks too much of tedium. I believe that art must be hard, but that if it's tedious, you're probably doing something wrong. Tedium and passion, at least for me, do not go hand in hand, and passion is they key. Oh, and this isn't at all how I wrote comics. That's another story, but not one I wish to go into any time soon.
I know I've left stuff out, mostly the crazy emotional crap, the screaming and yelling, the throwing things. But, give or take, that's how I do it. Don't try this at home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:41 am (UTC)You can fit a whole book in your head?
(Admittedly, I only use spreadsheets to track wordcount.)
Somebody just recommended this to me, and it looks like an absolute nightmare.
http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html
Oh, look, more things to manage....
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:45 am (UTC)Would my answer terrify you?
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:49 am (UTC)I have to make lists of things that have happened and keep track of what people know and don't know and so forth and so on. Which is why I outline the things I *have* written, so I know what the unresolved plot threads are.
Because I definitely do the E.L. Doctorow thing. I know my destination, and I have an idea of the lay of the land, but I write books by groping around the edges until I figure out what shape the thing is, and then chiseling it from the living rock. And when I'm writing, I'm immersed in the character and the moment, so my focus tightens down enormously.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:45 am (UTC)Well. Yeah. Sort of. I mean, since the novel is happening as I write it out, and since I have only a rough idea of those things that haven't happened yet, I only have to hold the present in my head. I do manage to hold most of it in my mind the whole time, but I don't have to. because the past has been written down and can be searched, and the future hasn't happened yet.
Or something.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:52 am (UTC)This may be a symptom that I have short term memory issues. *g*
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 03:48 am (UTC)This may be a symptom that I have short term memory issues.
I think possibly this is why I sleep so damn little. Crowded brain.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 02:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-07 11:29 pm (UTC)That reminds me of the Apple commercial where the PC is telling the Mac that he doesn't need iPhoto to show people how their family vacation was... he could use a pie chart.
Then again, my dad never understood my last gig since he couldn't wrap his head around using a computer and not using spreadsheets. Pixel-pushing is foreign to him. Spreadsheets is what I do with the newspaper for the puppies.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:22 am (UTC)This sounds very like the way I write both stories and poetry, actually. I start pieces without knowing how they'll end. I have senses of characters, but that doesn't mean I can predict their movements. I don't use outlines, and I can't plot ahead: even vague attempts in that direction seem to convince my brain that the story has already been told, so what's the use of trying for the right words, and the whole thing folds up and dies. (I have half-dead stories all over my computer.) It's not always linear, in that sometimes the scenes that spark stories turn out to come three-quarters of the way through, and there are all sorts of fragments and lines that arrive out of order and will be assimilated into coherence as I come to them, but I always have to write the last scene last. Otherwise, death.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 12:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 04:49 am (UTC)ptbh.
Seurat reduced colour theory to dry mathematics, maybe. the whole of painting? doubtful.
pedantic was probably the right word.
i'm with (the mystified) van Gogh.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 05:21 am (UTC)Yes, this. I know there are writers who map things out in advance, that have spreadsheets and whatnot, but I just can't wrap my head around that. The idea of NOT writing something sentence by sentence, the idea of already knowing what happens before actually sitting down and writing it is strange and somewhat unnerving, and it baffles the hell out of me.
Btw, I just finished reading my copy of Alabaster. As always, I am in awe of your way with language, and of all the tantalizing hints and half-mentioned things in your work that leave me wondering. If I can find some free time in the next few days (and if I don't spend that free time working on the next GCS lesson), I plan on writing a glowing (and no doubt rambling) review of Alabaster in my LJ.
no subject
Date: 2006-09-08 08:18 am (UTC)I loved the concept of "The Cryomancer's Daughter." I loved the intimacy created by having one character speaking in italics and the other in quotes. It made me wonder if it was a ghost in the narrator's brain. Once again the main attractions were the moods created by words and imagery, which were very fine.
I loved the title of "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul." And the way its characters interacted was somehow to me the most easily engaging of any two characters in any of your other Sirenia Digest vignettes. Generally the relationships are so intimate that exchanged words are in a sort of harmony, and the dissonance comes entirely in a sort of interplay of textures. Whereas in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul," there seems to be more tension in the way the characters communicate--they feel more removed from one another. So there was a different sort of excitement than usual. For some reason, the narrator seemed more innocent--and less resigned than I seem to remember Sirenia Digest characters usually being. Or maybe it's just because I had just read "The Cryomancer's Daughter."
Vince Locke's illustration for "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ghoul" is the best Sirenia Digest original illustration so far, but maybe that's just because I dig pictures of cute naked dames.
I thought
"Faces in Revolving Souls" was brilliant. I kept thinking about the Comic-Con because of the convention atmosphere you employed in the telling, and I was reminded of the Con-goers in their costumes and it seemed an apt metaphor. Far more apt than X-Men, which is another thing I thought of. Because unlike the X-Men, Comic-Con goers and the Posthumanists you describe are groups of people who choose to make themselves appear strange to others. It brings up the, what I think is, more compelling story, and one probably more germane as a metaphor for alternative sexualities; the conflict over whether or not the strange people are truly different on the inside or are really immature or insane. That's why I'm surprised you were unhappy with the ending, which I thought was so perfect. It painted the uncomfortable picture--by showing Sylvia's body rejecting the modifications, it's made clear that the real malady is fear of what's different and what fears from others can do to the outlook of an innocent girl like Sylvia.
Anyway. Good Sirenia Digests.