Catherine Fitzsimmons's Blog: Jinxed, page 19

At the end of all things

Nearly four weeks ago, my edits on my next novel Enduring Chaos reached the climax of the story. I have not progressed beyond there, but not due to procrastination or lack of time to complete it. In fact, I have spent nearly every day since trying to work on it. The notes I have taken on the climax these past weeks might in fact be longer than my original outline for the entire story.

The reason it’s taken so long to try to work out this part of the story is that the climax of this novel has proven particularly challenging to manage. I’ve plotted and re-plotted it, attempted to rewrite it twice, analyzed successful climaxes in movies I like, looked up advice on the Internet for crafting the finale of a story, and spent a lot of time thinking about it, both in general and specifically for this novel.

I have never spent this much time or effort trying to work out the climax of a story, or indeed any single event in a novel. Truth be told, I thought the finale of Enduring Chaos as I originally wrote it worked both for dramatic effect and for closing out the story. But I thought I could do better.

As I reconsidered and reworked it, however, one thing or another didn’t work, didn’t sit right, or just plain dragged. Trying to juggle several very different characters, some with very limited motivations, an almost insurmountable challenge that they are up against, and character revelations and growth in a structure that created maximum tension felt overwhelming, and usually something was missed as I tried to work it all together.

So how could I get all the pieces into place? Well, a lot of it has been self speculation or discussion with my husband, who has been heavily involved with the development of this story throughout its creation, but I needed more than that as well. So, I turned to ye olde Google for advice. A simple search for “how to write a climax” turned up a number of articles and blog posts on devising the climax for a novel, with more than a bit of very useful information, things that other people have already put together more effectively and/or eloquently than I could.

See the following to get an idea of what worked for me:

Writer’s Digest: 4 Ways to Improve Plot/Climax in Your Writing

How to Write a Book Now: Plot Development: How to write the climax and ending of your novel

Wordplay: Helping Writers Become Authors: The Secrets of Story Structure, Pt. 10: The Climax

Fiction Notes: Climax Scenes: Write BIG for BIG Impact

Creative Tips for Writers: How to Write the Climax – Thursday Tips!

Allison’s Bookish Life: How to Write a Good Climax

That last one is particularly useful for those looking for alternate tips on making a more memorable climax, as opposed to the more general – but still very useful – information provided by the other articles. While one may not get a complete idea of how to write the climax of one’s story based solely on that post, it does offer some excellent hints on adding more oomph to the finale.

To all these suggestions, I will only add the following pieces of advice based on my own observations of story climaxes I have thoroughly enjoyed:

1. Things go from bad to worse until the final shining moment when everything gets turned around. The heroes can achieve a minor victory in the middle of the climax to show perspective, but it must be immediately followed up by an even worse downturn to keep the tension.

2. The culmination of the main character’s emotional journey happens at the very peak of the climax; their response to the final challenge determines the outcome of the entire story.

After considering all this advice and trying to apply it to Enduring Chaos, I at last have the climax plotted out to my satisfaction. It’s taken nearly four weeks to get to this point, but now, I have an outline of what each character is doing at all times during the climax and a three-act structure of how the actual writing will commence which is, I think, both tense and dramatic and hits all the major points that it needs to and ends up at a climactic finale. It hasn’t been easy, but it is important, and ultimately, it will be worth it.

How do you approach the climax of a story? Do you write it first or work your way up to it? What is the hardest part about writing the finale?

It was a dark and stormy night…

Everyone knows that the beginning and the ending to a novel are the two most important parts of it. They are the initial hook to draw in the reader and the final payoff that the reader leaves with. If nothing else is worthy in the novel, they must be strong.

I will admit I tend not to give these parts their due attention. I love writing the middle; the gradual buildup of tension, the unveiling of story, the process of change the characters go through, putting pieces into place and assembling them together. To me, beginnings have always been a means to an end. Generally, I get an idea for how to open the story and once it’s written it changes little, because that’s not what I want to focus on.

I also perhaps don’t view novel openings the way I should; I am so immersed in my own world that I don’t look at it as a new reader would and try to see it from the point of view of someone who doesn’t have all the knowledge I do. The idea for the opening to a novel that gets lodged in my head often hits all the main points I need to address anyway, so usually only minor revision is required to clean it up to the point where I can call it finished. Of course, I also haven’t finished many novels, so I don’t have many openings that I can look at from the standpoint of a complete story and decide whether it suits the purpose effectively.

Halcyon was the first time an opening I wrote saw a drastic change from my initial idea. Upon actually writing it, I soon discovered my original idea for the opening might work well for a movie, but it lacked something for a novel. I suppose drastic isn’t necessarily the right word for the change I made to it, as I found merely starting the same scene a little bit earlier gave me the right opportunity to ease into the strange new world I created, which was perhaps the largest challenge to writing the beginning of the book, as well as giving me the chance to lay in hints that paid off later. Ultimately, it didn’t end up that different from my original idea, just a little longer.

Enduring Chaos, on the other hand, posed a much greater challenge with its opening. It has been rewritten several times as I tried to hone in on hook, relevancy, and character introduction, with much of my focus going toward the last, a tricky endeavor on its own, and losing the other points in the process. In my last attempt, I ended up resorting to a Google search on writing openings, and, after carefully considering the advice I found, decided that starting the story later served its purpose better.

It is, in fact, a pretty simple and basic piece of advice for writing the opening of a story: start it at the last possible moment. This was where I went wrong with the many attempts I made at the opening of the novel; there was so much history with the character and with the world that I was trying to portray enough to give the reader an idea of what they were in for, and I lost the hook and indeed the relevancy of the opening. I was trying to introduce the main character’s home life and ease into the story, things that don’t really impact the story, when all I needed to do was to show her leaving.

I still lament losing an exchange that provided some otherwise much more hidden character insight, as well as foreshadowing to a future book I would have loved to keep in. Ultimately, however, for the sake of the hook and relevancy, that dialogue had to disappear into the pre-story abyss. After that last change, I think I finally have the opening to a point in which I’m satisfied with it, but we shall see how it plays out when I reread the story after my edits are complete, as well as what others think of it.

Next time, because this post ended up decidedly too long to keep it together as I initially intended: endings.

How do you approach the opening of a story? Do you write it first or do you come back to it later? Do you find it particularly challenging?

Ad Astra 2013 wrap-up

I have been to numerous conventions now. I don’t just mean multiple visits to the same convention in different years, but I have been to at least half a dozen different conventions. The focus and topics of these conventions vary; some are geared toward comics, some toward anime, some toward science fiction. (All, of course, are based in some area of geekdom; I don’t try to pretend that’s not where my interest lies.)

Panels and workshops are a large part of these conventions, as anyone who has attended one will know. To tell the truth, however, largely I am not very interested in attending panels. I’m not overly interested in discussing or hearing discussions on pop culture or media, nor am I interested enough in things like sketch-offs or trivia games or other such events to want to spend time with them, and largely any panels that relate to writing or other interests of mine are either on very basic aspects of it that I don’t feel I need to spend an hour covering or otherwise just don’t quite match what I’m looking for. Part of it I think is the intimate nature of panels and workshops, being with a smaller group and therefore closer to and more directly involved with the people there, rather than the refreshing anonymity of the crowd of general attendees milling about. And, of course, these days I don’t simply attend conventions anymore; I’m there to sell, and even if I have assistance with doing so, I still usually don’t want to leave my table for a panel.

Ad Astra last year, however, was an entirely different matter. The sheer number of panels held at the convention that I would have loved to listen in on blew my mind, and I feel like I could have spent almost the entire convention going from one panel to another. It is, of course, a matter of focus. Ad Astra is a scifi/fantasy literary convention, so the entire event is largely centered around what interests me most. As a result, the panels went into more detail on aspects of writing than all other conventions I’ve attended, and offered a slew of very interesting topics. Alas, I was stuck behind my table with no one else to watch it for me for the weekend and didn’t have the opportunity to attend any of them.

This year, however, I had a second person manning my table and was talked into not just attending panels, but sitting on them. Having rarely even attended panels before, as well as for various personal reasons, I was quite nervous about the idea leading up to them. After having done it, however, I can say that it was a very positive experience. The panels were very thought-provoking and informative and it was an excellent opportunity to meet some very interesting people, both other panelists and attendees of the panel. I think they all went quite well and it seems that everyone there learned something new or got a new outlook on the topics covered.

I Love to Hate You: This was the first panel I sat on. This panel looked at villains and discussed both good and bad villains, as well as the difference between villains – the characters who command the basic conflict of the story – and antagonists – those characters who aren’t necessarily involved with the central conflict but still serve to get in the protagonists’ way. Examples of good villains included, of course, Darth Vader from Star Wars – though mention was made of diminishing his impact through overuse of the Force strangling technique in The Empire Strikes Back – as well as classic literature like Iago from Shakespeare’s Othello and Grendel from Beowulf. The idea of blurring the line between traditional notions of “good” and “evil” as well as not compartmentalizing characters and conflicts into such simplistic definitions was discussed, although some readers do prefer to have a clear idea of who the ‘good guy’ and the ‘bad guy’ are in fiction.

What to take away: Villains are an integral part to fantasy and scifi literature and they must be given as much care as the protagonists. An author must know everything about their villains, even if the details of their motives and history are never revealed in the text, and in fact that can be used to great effect when hints of the existence of those things are sprinkled throughout. When one does get into the reason why a villain is doing such evil deeds, however, one must be careful to avoid their actions becoming petty or obsessive as their backstory is revealed. Also, unscrupulous or villainous characters can be used as protagonists and keep readers from completely despising them as long as there is some nugget for them to like, even if it is something as simple as the character is nice to their pet cat.

Is the Stand Alone Novel an Endangered Format?: This panel addressed the place of standalone or one-shot novels in a genre dominated by trilogies and series. From an author’s standpoint, there is a clear advantage to writing or at least pitching series, both because readers want more of what they already know and like and because the sales teams for publishers are likely to sell far more books of an installment in a series to bookstores than a standalone novel, for the same reason. Publishers also put pressure on authors who write a successful standalone novel to extend it into a series, again to draw in those same readers who have already been sold with the first book. That said, authors should not feel obligated to extend a standalone book into a series for the sole reason of selling more books, and even discerning readers can be very satisfied with a really good standalone novel. Also, there was frustration on both sides of the table for the way publishers tend to handle series, in particular with how unclear it often is where a certain book takes place in a series.

What to take away: It is a tricky market to enter for authors with standalone novels, and ultimately publishers do not put out nearly as much effort to push standalone novels as series. But, there is still a place for standalone novels and one shouldn’t force a series. When writing a series, particularly a longer series, using the same words and terms to describe characters, while repetitive, can help keep consistency throughout the different books and allows new readers to understand the characters just as well as those who have been following the series from the beginning. Having a central outline for each character that one refers back to for each installment is also recommended, for while characters evolve throughout a series, one should not forget the basic roots of the character. Also, Robert J. Sawyer and Julie Czerneda have wonderful senses of humor.

Writing High Fantasy: This was such a fantastic panel that covered so many different areas of writing high fantasy that I’m not certain I can effectively sum it up. It began with a discussion of the definition of high fantasy and the various ways one can delineate high fantasy from other sub-genres. The “high” in high fantasy can refer to the stakes, which are often world-changing even if the events themselves are fairly small or the decisions made very personal; it can refer to the level of the fantastic in the story, e.g. the difference between a story like Lord of the Rings, rife with magic and dragons and other races and such, and a story like George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, which does have very fantastic elements but focuses far more on the politics of the world in a way that is much more like our own world; or it can even be a reference to the class of the main characters, as in “high” fantasy referring to high-born characters and the story concerning itself with kings and queens and nobility as opposed to the main characters being more common people.

The panelists were also asked to identify what one aspect of fantasy defines the genre to them, with answers ranging from the sense of wonder, otherness, and unknown that we all once held as children, to the world itself, a completely different place from Earth and distinguishes high fantasy from something like historical fantasy. Much discussion ensued on female characters and the often stereotypical way they are presented in fantasy literature, tough female characters either pretty much presented like a man with breasts or having very female-oriented motivations, i.e. rape or pregnancy/childbirth. There was also discussion on the diversity of setting and characters in fantasy – or, often, the lack thereof – along with some examples of recent titles that have explored different types of worlds or races of people, and by that I’m not referring to elves and dwarves. The panel concluded with some pet peeves in the fantasy genre by the panelists and a brief discussion on how a fantasy work originates.

What to take away: Fantasy is an immense canvas with which to explore the unknown but also to address the same issues that we ourselves face in our own world. As such, one should look to our own world to reflect the same level of diversity in an invented world and not be afraid to write stories based in other cultures aside from the much-used medieval Europe. However, when trying to create something new and fresh, one should not just flip an established trope on its head. A mirror image of a cliche is still a reflection of the cliche itself. Female characters should be given all the complex motivations that male characters, and actual human females, have. Ultimately, fantasy worlds, conflicts, and characters should all display the same level of complexity as our world does, and doing so makes one’s fantasy much more rich and believable. Also, when introducing a fundamentally different aspect of life into a fantasy world, careful thought must be given to the impact of that thing on the world in terms of technology and society.

Finally, I would be remiss not to mention the launch party for Brain Lag, my publishing company, and I want to thank everyone who came out to celebrate its opening. Overall, I had a really wonderful time at Ad Astra and I am certainly looking forward to returning next year.

Also, if anyone who attended these panels has anything to add that I forgot, please feel free to comment and add your input!

Calling

I have never held a permanent job for more than a year.

But perhaps I should start farther back.

I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I entertained a lot of ideas as a child, but nothing ever grabbed me, consuming my full attention, and made me say this is what I want to do with my life.

When I entered college, I studied computer repair, because, well, the best excuse I have now is it seemed like a good idea at the time. It wasn’t. I didn’t make it through the program. So, still living at home at the time, I entered the workforce instead.

I’d only ever held one real job through high school, which was at a movie theatre. Dissatisfaction with the job, and more notably the management, made me leave after about six months. When I needed to start making money after leaving college, having nothing of note on my resume at the time, I started out at a temp agency doing office work. It sufficed while I still didn’t know what to do with my life and I was good at it.

With a very lenient parent, I didn’t need a constant source of income, so I took jobs when they were available, which never lasted longer than two weeks, save one. I got in on a regular, twice monthly borderline light industrial position at a state agency operating a mail inserting machine for mass mailing. I got the evening shift, 4:00 p.m. to midnight, and I ended up enjoying the job quite a bit. I liked my coworkers and I enjoyed the work. The irregularity meant it wasn’t enough to live off, but it lasted for two years and I was glad to go back each time.

Of course, I was maintaining a long-distance relationship at that time, and the job had to end when I moved to Canada to get married. Once I was able to work here, with still little to show for myself on my resume, I started out the same way, at a temp agency.

Eventually, this got me in the door at the company where my husband works, which we had been trying to get me into for some time already, and I even ended up in the same office as him. After six months as a temp, I was hired on permanently.

Of course, no sooner was I beginning to feel unfulfilled with this position than I was laid off.

My experience there got me in another temp-to-perm job at a similar company in the same position. Once again, after a year there and just as I began to question whether this was what I wanted to be doing with my life, I was laid off. However, while I was there, I self-published my first book, Aurius, doing the cover art myself and using my experience in these two jobs with document formatting to take care of all aspects of the book creation myself.

And that’s when it hit me. I enjoyed doing that.

I enjoyed every step of the process. The editing, the interior layout, the cover creation, and of course holding my own book in my hands. And I realized, I could do this for other people.

I’ve read a lot of really good amateur/indie fiction posted online to websites like Fictionpress and Elfwood, and I know there are a lot – a lot – of manuscripts out there that have never left people’s drawers or hard drives. And I know that not everyone has the knowledge, or the interest, to turn a manuscript into a book. And the thought of doing this for others gave me great joy. It was a light bulb moment.

So Brain Lag became not only the name I published my books and my husband’s under, but the name of my burgeoning small press business. I still have a lot to learn, and I still have moments of feeling like a very small fish in a very big ocean. But I’m willing to stick it out and do what I can to get this business off the ground and publish books for other authors.

Because I found my calling. This is what I want to do with my life.

Have you found the career that you’re passionate about? How long did it take you to find out what you wanted to be when you grew up?

Ad Astra schedule

I’ve received my schedule for Ad Astra, Toronto’s original scifi/fantasy literary convention, happening April 5-7. I will be sitting on a few panels for the first time, and I am proud to announce that I’ll be hosting two panels alongside New York Times bestselling author and convention guest of honor Jim Butcher! For those who will be attending the convention, I hope to see you at any of my events that weekend:

Friday, April 5

10:00 p.m. – I Love to Hate You

Ed Greenwood (m),  Jim Butcher,  Fiona Patton, Gregory A. Wilson, Catherine Fitzsimmons

In this panel, examine what is involved in creating a truly great villain.  By discussing some examples of favourite well-written villains and what makes them memorable, you will gain a better understanding of how to make your antagonist someone that everyone loves to hate.

Saturday, April 6

11:00 a.m., Berczy A – Is the Stand-Alone Novel an Endangered Format?

Julie Czerneda (m), Robert J. Sawyer, Catherine Fitzsimmons, Jim Butcher

More and more books are coming out in series format. While this may be publisher driven, it is just as likely consumer driven.  In the face of this trend, it may become impossible to successfully pitch a stand-alone work, and the temptation to force a series may become irresistible.  Is there still a place in publishing for a stand-alone book?  This panel seeks an answer.

4:30 p.m., Berczy B – Autograph session

6:30 p.m., the penthouse (room 1401) – Brain Lag launch party

Come join us for the official launch of Brain Lag, the newest fantasy/scifi publisher in the GTA. Learn what we’re all about, meet the team, get a first sneak peek at an upcoming title, and celebrate our opening for submissions with OPEN PITCHES! Bring us your novel and you could be one of the first authors under Brain Lag. Prizes, refreshments, discounts, goodies, and more!

Sunday, April 7

10:00 a.m., Ellesmere East – Writing High Fantasy

Marie Bilodeau (m), Catherine Fitzsimmons, K.W. Ramsey, Gregory A. Wilson

Discover what makes a fantasy story epic, as well as the basic elements of high fantasy in this panel. Also, with fantasy TV going mainstream, now is the right time to focus on writing a fantasy novel, but the genre is littered with potential pitfalls and deadly clichés. Learn some should haves (and must avoids) when writing high fantasy.

2:00 p.m., floor 2 suite 2 – Author reading: Catherine Fitzsimmons

Come join me for an exclusive first look at my upcoming fantasy novel Enduring Chaos, the first book in the Sisters of Chaos trilogy, scheduled for release this fall.

Ad Astra looks to be an exciting convention for me this year. Hope to see you there!

Introducing Damian Sires

Character information and fanart has been available under the page for Enduring Chaos for a little while already, but let me use this opportunity to officially introduce the star of my upcoming novel.

Damian Sires is a young woman from the small town of Aether, where she lives with her father, a cloth merchant who has taken her on a trade route that crosses much of the kingdom of Faneria every year almost since she was born. She is a strong-willed yet shy girl who is close to few. Rumors abound at her home about her, heightened by the fact that she keeps her face covered with a veil at all times, though speculation over things even stranger than what she keeps hidden beneath the veil still linger among the townsfolk. She enjoys traveling and helping her father with his trade route and designing and making clothes, usually incorporating the latest fashions she observes while traveling.

Of course, no proper fantasy novel would allow her the luxury of such a mundane and easy life…

The above drawing was done entirely in ballpoint pen last weekend while I was at Con-G, largely for the purpose of creating new reference art with which I could use to commission a drawing from Artist’s Alley. I ended up receiving the following image from Daphne:

Huge thanks to Daphne for her lovely depiction of Damian.

Will more character art follow this? Hard to say, given the *cough* infrequency with which I draw these days, and my continued focus on editing the novel. However, I will admit I enjoyed drawing the above sketch of Damian, and even rather enjoyed working strictly in ballpoint pen, so perhaps I will manage to create more in the meantime.

On pulling teeth

When I told someone recently that I was busy editing my next novel, his response was sympathy, and he said, “I’d rather have my teeth pulled.”

This seems to be a common reaction to editing. Why is that? People who manage to get to the editing stage of a novel don’t seem to take as much issue with writing it, though undoubtedly that’s the more time-consuming part of the process.

A novel is a big project. It takes quite a bit of time to write it. As a result, most people simply can’t keep everything about it together while writing it, and mistakes are bound to happen along the way. I think many people accept this fact while they’re writing, quietly, perhaps even subconsciously agreeing that as long as they continue writing to the end of the book, those things can be fixed in editing later.

Perhaps that’s the reason editing gets such a bad reputation. It forces one to acknowledge one’s mistakes. Perhaps it’s just the snowball effect of realizing that fixing one issue can cause several more through the story based on how that thing affects future events. Perhaps it’s the rigid quality standards of editing, that nitpicky insistence that now everything has to be polished, which means it has to be sanded again and again and again before it attains its luster, as opposed to the freedom of simply writing. And yes, I’ve seen it happen – one can edit all the life out of a story.

Personally, I don’t really feel like editing is all that different a step from writing. It’s still the act of crafting a manuscript, even if that involves tweaking, readjusting, rewriting, and a lot of thoughtful consideration rather than actually writing. Though perhaps my current view of the process is warped, given that most of the editing I’ve been doing on my next novel has been rewriting, which is really just writing.

I’ve always edited my work, at least when I had something I felt like sharing. I’d reread it at least a couple times and polish it up, though usually that happened along the way, not in one fell swoop as I’m doing now. That, of course, leads to problems when one gets late in a story and those things one forgets along the way end up creating inconsistencies. Fortunately for me, I suppose, none of my attempted novels prior to Aurius ever reached completion, so I didn’t have to deal with that level of editing until then.

So how do I edit a novel? With Aurius, perhaps because it was written at the breakneck pace of NaNoWriMo, for the first time in my case, I actually was able to keep even minor details together while I wrote it. The story and characters were also fairly simple. As a result, the book was pretty near to where I wanted it to be by the time I finished the first draft, and it only took minor wording changes – and things like chapter breaks – to clean it up until I considered it done.

Halcyon was my first true taste of novel editing. I had to reevaluate plot points, research some setting concepts used, and improve some characters. Once I identified what needed to be improved and how, however, the process of doing so was a simple matter of writing, that step with which I am quite familiar. Overall, it was hardly a painful process, even if it took me three years to get to the point that I felt I could improve on the story with some fairly simple editing.

Enduring Chaos is, of course, a different beast again, both for reasons that I’ve mentioned in previous posts and for the fact that this story has gone through so many very different drafts already. It’s a very exciting project for me for a number of reasons; part of it is that it has gone through so many iterations already, that after three other full drafts it is finally coming toward completion. Part of it is also that it has become a much larger and more epic story than nearly anything else I’ve tried to write, this being the first book of a trilogy. It’s also very exciting because this is such an old story. Aurius and Halcyon were both relatively new, each written within a year or two of their conception, but Enduring Chaos is something I’ve been trying to write for nearly fourteen years.

Perhaps that’s why editing this particular novel doesn’t seem such a chore to me, because I’ve seen the story and characters change so much already over the years. More than that, though, I’m simply enjoying making the book better. For each scene that I edit, I feel better about the novel in general.

Generally, that’s how I feel when I edit. Because that’s what the point of editing is: to make the book as good as it can be. And even though I’m at the beginning of a plot point that I decided needed to be cut entirely, I’m anticipating the rewriting to come, since it will ultimately end up better than it was before.

How do you feel about editing?

Narration

I have not read much writing advice in my life. I started writing stories as a child and merely continued, learning along the way. There a few different reasons I never looked into how-to books or tips on writing. Part of it was arrogance, I’m sure, though more than that I just didn’t think of it. Besides that, by the time I might have actually looked up such information, I had already given up the idea of writing as a career and was doing it just for fun.

Thus, it was fairly late in my life that I stumbled across that quintessential piece of writing advice one can find in probably most books on writing: show, don’t tell.

Not to say that I didn’t already know that, subconsciously perhaps. But it’s stuck in my mind since then. Too much, unfortunately, as tends to happen when I read advice on anything. In fact, it’s become a part of my knowledge so much that it makes me hesitate while writing; how can I show this rather than tell it? How can I eliminate the need for narration?

Because ultimately, that’s the message I got when I read and tried to follow that advice: that narration is bad.

I realize now that that is wrong. Narration has its place and can be used to great effect. Sure, it may not be as dramatic, but to help round out a story it may be the only useful method. As an example, when I was writing the second book of my trilogy for NaNoWriMo last year, trying to show things with two characters in particular was very difficult, as they are each surrounded by people with whom they’re not comfortable discussing their problems.

And what about backstory? Trying to portray all that through dialogue is not only time-consuming and challenging, but would be very difficult for it to not come out as tedious. Personally, I like when a book draws me in with details of the world that aren’t necessarily relevant to the main story, even if told through narration rather than action.

With my current novel Enduring Chaos, there’s a lot of backstory. But with the advice of ‘show, don’t tell’ – read: narration is bad – firmly in my mind when I wrote it, I ended up simply leaving out a lot of that backstory, a lot of which filled out the second draft of the book. It sufficed as a story, but I regretted leaving so much unsaid, and even entire characters being edited out of this draft.

Now that I realize the error in my interpretation of that advice, however, in this round of editing I have added a lot more back in already. I’m barely 20% of the way through the story and have already added over 10% more to the final word count than when I finished the draft last fall. Admittedly, about half of the 12,000 words I’ve added so far have been fleshing out a different character that was not better developed, but the rest have essentially been adding back in events and details from the second draft.

Because ultimately, not only do I enjoy going into such things that aren’t necessarily relevant to the main story arc, I must admit that I do have a fairly narrative style. I’ve always tried to balance it out well enough, but to try to force myself to avoid it doesn’t help me or the story.

On writing… and writing, and writing

How long should a novel be?

One could ask a hundred different people and get a hundred different answers. Perhaps you would get answers by word count, or page count, or something even vaguer – longer than a novella. Some websites give their estimation of an ‘ideal’ novel length, some might simply give numbers to avoid going too long or too short. Some might cite Dickens or Tolstoy – or Martin or Sanderson, to use modern examples in my preferred genre – or they might lean more toward Stevenson or London – or Scalzi or Collins.

But the fact remains that all those authors were published. There is precedent for novels from 100 to 1,000 pages. Those vague answers, frustrating as they might be for someone who genuinely wants a guide for how long their novel should be, are more accurate.

Enduring Chaos, the novel I am currently editing, has always been a little on the lengthy side. Not, perhaps, for fantasy – I’ve read plenty of books I estimated to be over 200,000 words long, based on random page word counts – but in some way or another, each of the three drafts of this book have taken a bit longer to tell than my other novels. Admittedly, it has gotten shorter with each incarnation; the first, unfinished draft topped 150,000 words, the second was complete at 115,000, and the current sits at 109,000, although I’ll admit I’ve added 6,000 words already in this round of editing.

I don’t have much experience to say how long my novels tend to be, given that this is only the third book I have written to my satisfaction enough to publish it. While I’m not particularly interested in writing 600+ page epics, nor do I ever have quite enough story to fill out that much writing, I do like drawing a story out and taking its time getting where it’s going.

That is precisely what happened with my first published novel Aurius, which ended up being the second longest thing I’d written at 125,000 words. The book was about the main character Jake’s journey, and there was plenty of that to cover. My second novel, the scifi Halcyon, was notably shorter at a little under 80,000 words. It was a faster-paced story and got where it was going much quicker without quite so much character exploration along the way.

As for Enduring Chaos, it is a different beast altogether in that it is the first book of a trilogy. (However, each installment, of course, is a story on its own.) But it still has always taken a little longer to tell.

What made the first draft so long?

In short: meandering.

Truth be told, I created the main character and started writing the story on a whim without knowing where it was going. Several chapters passed before I even determined what the ultimate goal of the story was, and I spent much more time exploring the shared world in which I wrote it. Even when I did finally address the true conflict, it took the story a while to get where it was going, as the characters underwent various side quests along their way. Rather than a novel, it was more episodic, chapters like episodes – or occasionally scenes – of a TV show with a main story arc but more focused on the events that happened along the way.

The second draft of the novel was notably better planned, and although there was still a little meandering, it was a much more cohesive story. So why did this draft end up the length it did?

In short: filler.

I do like taking my time getting where I’m going with a story, at least with fantasy or any slower-paced novel. This was very much true for the second draft of this novel, which spent a bit of time either going into characters’ back stories or otherwise drew out the story to emphasize the length of the journey they undertake. I wrote in page-long descriptions of places or events that really had no relevance to the true story, partly because I wanted to draw the story out and partly because I was learning at the time how to let my characters dictate the story, rather than the other way around.

As for the current draft, it is better planned still, though that’s not why it ended up shorter. There is certainly a lot of story to fill out the current rendition of this novel, and with five separate points of view, there is certainly room for plenty of material. Brevity was the name of this draft. The reason why is another post entirely, but it is something I’ve abandoned in this round of edits, hence the addition of so much already. Although one particular plot point is going to be cut, I wouldn’t be surprised, with what I’ve been adding to the story so far, if it ends up longer than the previous draft in the end. I certainly don’t anticipate it surpassing the first draft, but it will end up a little on the longer side, at least generally speaking.

So how long should a novel be? Ultimately, a novel is as long as it needs to be for the story to be told.

A time for reflection

Interestingly, when it comes to new year celebrations/traditions, I am if anything less cynical than I was when I was younger. No, one shouldn’t need a calendar turning to reflect on one’s behaviors or attitude or resolve to improve oneself, but it does provide a useful milestone for doing so.

There are a number of things I should resolve to do for 2013. The common personal goals of exercising and perhaps losing weight. Trying to do more art, or any of the other hobbies/outlets I enjoy. Trying to be a better mother.

There isn’t much I want to or will resolve to do this year, however. For one thing, my daughter’s growth has me constantly reevaluating my free time and my priorities, so it’s difficult to plan for very large or general self-improvements. That also means that I have been modifying my free time and how to use it, particularly in the last few months.

A consistent problem with me is procrastination. Not necessarily that I don’t want to do something, but working myself up to doing it is often more difficult than necessary. I recently rediscovered a quote that sums up both my problem and the solution for it: “To think too much about doing something is often its undoing.” This is usually what causes me to put off what I should be doing, such as editing my next novel.

I’ve tried to reduce distractions in an attempt to help me focus on what needs to be done, like blocking time-wasting websites from my computer. But there are always other distractions to be had, which is something I’ve discovered with the latest attempt.

And so, in the past couple weeks, I’ve come to the realization that it’s not about reducing one’s distractions, but to just force myself to sit down and work on what needs to be done. It’s not easy to do, especially with a task as subjective and full of potential failure as editing. Ultimately, however, it’s not as difficult as I make it out to be in my mind when I just sit down and do it. So, I’ve made some pretty good progress in just the last week or so of December, compared to the rest of the month, and it’s momentum I intend to build on.

Truthfully, I’ve gotten a number of aspects of my life where I want them to be right now. I’ve started getting back into the convention circuit and put more work into my business. I’m getting better – at intervals – at handling being a stay-at-home mom. I don’t watch TV anymore and often don’t even spend evenings watching DVDs or Netflix. I am able to make myself get work done on my own projects.

Certainly, there are things that could stand to be improved upon. I would like to be able to devote at least some time to my other hobbies, and the number of books I read last year was dismal. But overall, I am pretty content with where my life is right now. I don’t see the new year as a time to make changes so much as an opportunity to reflect on the past and keep myself on track. And at the moment, I’m feeling pretty hopeful about it.

Happy new year, everyone.