Students Question, Ancient Author Answers
• A while back a lovely teacher whose class was reading some Crusie got in touch, and I told her I’d answer any questions her students had.
• I’m behind on everything this week and need an Argh post.
You can see where I’m going with this.
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1 Since the ABC story is focused on Zoe (even though Quinn is the narrator) what made you decide to focus the novel on Quinn vs continuing the story of Zoe?
One of the ways you know who the story belongs to (the central character or the protagonist) is who changes?
Zoe is very sure of herself, always knows who she is, and is never at a loss as to what to do next. Zoe’s a lot of fun, but she can’t own a story because she’s not vulnerable. (This is why Superman needs Kryptonite.)
Quinn, on the other hand, is really vulnerable. She loves Zoe, she’d like to be Zoe, but she defines herself as Not-Zoe. That means that Quinn is in trouble (vulnerable) and in conflict (she loves Zoe but she wants her gone), which means that she’s going to act, fight to get what she wants (Zoe out of the house so she can have some space), and the fight is going to change her. Her character is going to arc.
If you’ve read The Great Gatsby, it’s the same story dynamic. Gatsby is larger than life and fascinating, but he never changes. Nick, the observer narrator, changes radically because of his relationship and experiences with Gatsby.
The person who owns the story is almost always the person whose goal moves the story and who is most changed by it.
2 Why/how did you know to put the novel in 3rd person, instead of 1st person?
Point of view is almost instinctive; the story often tells you what it needs to be. For me personally, not as a general rule of thumb, my novels are usually in third person because I can’t take the claustrophobia of a first person narrative for that long. I have one novel in progress that’s in first person, but I’m having a tough time with it, and it might be that I just can’t do novel-length first person.
3 How many rough draft “darlings” did you kill before you got to the finished version of your novel?
Many, many, many. It’s hard to tell because I revise on the computer, but I revise over and over and over again. I’m about to post a later draft of a book I’m working on so people can compare it to an earlier draft, and I’ll send the links so you can compare the two next week. I’d probably done two or three drafts before the earlier draft, I’ve done at least four since then to get to the current draft, and I’ll do at least a dozen more. But every writer is different, so it’s basically, do as many as you need.
4 Are there still things in the book you would like to change/fix?
Oh, hell, yes. There’s always more to do. But you get to a point where you start rewriting all the spirit out of it. In the beginning, it’s really hard to get into a book, to make it come alive in my head, but once it starts to glow, then I can’t stop writing it. And then the glow starts to fade and my window closes and I know it’s not perfect, it’s never going to be perfect, but if I keep going, I’m going to ruin what I have. So I let it go.
5 How do you make sure each character has a distinct voice and they don’t blur into each other?
That’s a big problem for me because I’m all about the snappy patter. I go through in the rewrite and make sure the rhythms are different and they’re using different expressions, swear words, and so on, but I can also track people growing closer by how they start mimicking each other’s speech patterns and word choices. Mostly though, I just have to conceive of them as very different people so that I know that while X says this all the time, Y wouldn’t dream of it. It’s part of revising.
6 You used short stories to as a way of planning for your first novel. Do you still follow/recommend that approach?
I really don’t use short stories at all. I had to write them because I was in an MFA program. The ABC story was a class assignment, and then I fell in love with Quinn and wanted to know what happened to her when she grew up. I think that a lot of writers are born with the kind of story they’re comfortable with. My creative writing prof was great at short stories and novellas but couldn’t write a novel. Mostly, I just write the novels. So nope, I don’t recommend that approach.
7 How do you decide your major plot points?
I start with a character talking in my head and I do a lot of writing stuff down as other people join her and they banter and argue. No story, just a lot of people talking. And as I listen to them, I can see their relationships and I can see what they’re upset about, the places they’re vulnerable, and that’s when I try to isolate the conflict: what war is this woman fighting and how is it going to escalate? And from that I have to figure out who’s on the other side of the battle. That gives me protagonist and antagonist and conflict. I make sure they’re in a crucible, a conflict that neither can escape from, and then I figure out how they’d fight that war and escalate it. But mostly, I’m just writing down what I hear in my head and I order it later. I know a lot of people who outline first, and that’s good, too. For more about conflict, go to the Writing Romance website where I’ve broken this down into short posts. It’s a lot clearer there:
The Conflict Unit
8 When you have lots of different paths you want to go down in a story, how do you choose which to follow?
I follow my protagonist. I go inside her head and think, “What would she do now?” Your protagonist and antagonist determine what happens; they can only do what they’re capable of physically and emotionally, and they push each other to the next level of the conflict by fighting back in the best way they know how.
9 What advice do you have for creating believable characters? Do you decide how your characters will interact with each other before you write them or do you make it up as you write?
Keeping in mind that there is no one right way and this is just my way, I listen to my characters. I write pages of them just talking. And then I build them as I discover their speech patterns, their thoughts, their actions (actions are always the best clues), the way other people react to them. You have to listen to your characters as they swim up from your subconscious and then rewrite the raw first drafts to focus them. I think if I decided what they were going to do before I knew them, I’d kill the things that make them feel alive on the page. But lots of writers outline first and then put their characters through their paces. It really is your choice.
10 How do you deal with cliches when you encounter them in your writing?
My favorite thing to do with clichés and stereotypes is to turn them on their heads. Start out with a grim, brave, relentless, highly skilled spy and then make him helpless in the hands of his mother (Burn Notice). Start with a brilliant, beautiful, perfect med student who has the perfect job and the perfect boyfriend and make her a zombie (iZombie). If you don’t flip clichés and stereotypes, they flatten the story, and readers get bored, so there’s no point in using them. If you can flip them, people are surprised and become more invested in the story. I’m writing a story now about a no-nonsense cop who doesn’t believe in the supernatural, she’s a Scully for her twin brother who wants to believe. That’s been done. But then she finds out she’s not human. Okay, that I can have a good time with, and so, fingers crossed, can the reader.
11 What is your revision strategy?
That’s so nice, that you think I have a strategy. Basically, it’s write, think about it, rewrite, think about it, rewrite . . . . Once I’ve got a significant chunk of text, say 50-60,000 words, I look at structure and use that to shape the story: Structure Unit.
Then I send the polished draft out to beta readers who scribble all over it and send it back and I rewrite again. Then I send it to my editor who sends me an editing letter and I rewrite again. Then I get the copy edits and I rewrite again. Then they take it away from me and I get the published book and wish I could rewrite again. Okay, not really because by then it’s DONE, but it’s never perfect and I always find things I’d change.
12 How much do you write in a day?
Some days, not at all, some days eight or nine hours straight. Usually somewhere in between, although sometimes I have to walk away from a book for a week or two just to be able to see it clearly.
13 How do you deal with writers’ block?
Okay, you’re talking to a writer who hasn’t published in six years, so clearly I don’t deal with it. I think it’s fear that shuts us down mostly, plus the imposter syndrome: I’m a fraud, I’ve lost whatever I’ve had and I probably never had it, the first twenty books were flukes. The biggest thing for overcoming writer’s block is trip over a story that won’t let you go so that you have no choice but to write it just to get those damn voices out of your head. A good book for this is Ralph Keye’s The Courage To Write, mainly because by the time you’ve finished it, you know that almost every writer ever in print has felt that way, too.
14 Is it possible to be an author but still have a regular job, too?
It’s not only possible, for most authors it’s essential. There’s not as much money in publishing as most people think, so the majority of writers keep a day job. In a lot of ways, it’s a good thing because you’re interacting with a lot of people and learning a lot more about the world which you can’t do in front of a computer.
15. What’s the most enjoyable thing for you in the writing process?
Moving into that world and discovering the story as I write. All kinds of things happen as I write and the story changes even as the words appear on the screen. I always have a fairly good idea of what the story is about when I begin, and that’s never what the story is about when I’m finished. It’s like reading a book I’ve never read before. It’s wonderful.
ETA: For those of you curious about the stories, there’s more here on the website: Crazy People
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