How I Wrote a Novel in Four Months, Part Two
Hello!
This is part two of my blog post on novel-writing. See part one here.
Writing tips are in bold.
This work is free, in an attempt to help aspiring writers, but please don't share it without linking to it here/proper attribution!
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PART TWO
My biggest problem with writing was always "how to turn a plot idea into an actual full-length story." In academia, this isn't a problem. I write an outline and fill it out with content (from myself, from various sources, etc.). I just need the outline and I can proceed.
Fiction seemed like it might work that way too. I tried filling in the bullet-points of my painstakingly-written plot. I sat down and dutifully wrote every day.
And yet none of it worked...until I stopped worrying so much about the plot and started thinking of the story as a journey.
Plots are composed of milestones that must be met, and they must build momentum toward the ending. BUT...the point of the story is the story, not just having your characters make it from Point A to Point B. This may seem obvious, and on the surface it is, but it was a huge shift in how I thought about writing.
What made the difference was realizing I was pushing the plot forward to get to the end. But unless you're a truly exceptional thriller writer, that type of goal-driven writing often feels empty to me in the end. "Great, the characters accomplished something big. Who are they again?" Do we care about them? Would we want to read about something unrelated in their lives? Or would we put down the book and think "well, that was exciting, but meh"? Think of the last several novels you've read. Can you remember the characters' names? Why or why not?
Some novels you don't want to end.
Read that again.
Some novels you don't want to end.
I think there's a lot to learn from that. It's not just about the plot. I realized this when I got very into an online show that was about 150 episodes longer than I'd expected (no exaggeration). I just kept watching because it was so epic, and because I cared so much about the characters, including the villains. I could happily watch those characters for years. I would be okay with the show continuing throughout their lives, and on to the next generation.
On the other hand, I read a book recently - a bestseller! - and was hooked for several hundred pages by the staggering beauty of the writing style itself. The imagery was, for the most part, gorgeous. I aspire to write that beautifully. But I got to the end and...it fell flat. One of the characters I cared about died suddenly, no real closure of any kind. He just...died. I'd spent hundreds of pages getting to know him, and caring about him, and he was suddenly killed in an accident, I think, I can't remember exactly...and the author moved on.
That was it. Just another casualty of war. (I've only seen this technique used effectively once, and it was not in that novel.) As for the rest of the novel, it ended similarly. The richness of the detail, the very human emotion - it sort of faded and was wrapped up, and I didn't care if it continued. I ended up giving the book away, I think. And I rarely get rid of books, but I had no desire to return to it.
You should want a novel to keep going, at least in my opinion. Yes, you should build toward a peak and then wrap up the plot, but fiction books in my opinion are only half the actual plot, and half the fictional world and its characters.
That right there is the goal. Not only to tell an epic story, or a sweet story, or similar, but to make people feel like they're in their own little bubble for a while. To let them journey with the characters.
And to do that, I think you really need to focus as much on the journey - on the characters you're writing about - as on the things they go through, the milestones they must pass to get to the end of the novel.
(Also, as a reader, why would I spend hours and hours to get to the destination unless I am enjoying the journey?)
So slow down. Enjoy the little fictional world you're putting together. Enjoy the characters.
-
Click here for Part Three
© 2020 S.Z. Attwell
This is part two of my blog post on novel-writing. See part one here.
Writing tips are in bold.
This work is free, in an attempt to help aspiring writers, but please don't share it without linking to it here/proper attribution!
-------------------------------------------
PART TWO
My biggest problem with writing was always "how to turn a plot idea into an actual full-length story." In academia, this isn't a problem. I write an outline and fill it out with content (from myself, from various sources, etc.). I just need the outline and I can proceed.
Fiction seemed like it might work that way too. I tried filling in the bullet-points of my painstakingly-written plot. I sat down and dutifully wrote every day.
And yet none of it worked...until I stopped worrying so much about the plot and started thinking of the story as a journey.
Plots are composed of milestones that must be met, and they must build momentum toward the ending. BUT...the point of the story is the story, not just having your characters make it from Point A to Point B. This may seem obvious, and on the surface it is, but it was a huge shift in how I thought about writing.
What made the difference was realizing I was pushing the plot forward to get to the end. But unless you're a truly exceptional thriller writer, that type of goal-driven writing often feels empty to me in the end. "Great, the characters accomplished something big. Who are they again?" Do we care about them? Would we want to read about something unrelated in their lives? Or would we put down the book and think "well, that was exciting, but meh"? Think of the last several novels you've read. Can you remember the characters' names? Why or why not?
Some novels you don't want to end.
Read that again.
Some novels you don't want to end.
I think there's a lot to learn from that. It's not just about the plot. I realized this when I got very into an online show that was about 150 episodes longer than I'd expected (no exaggeration). I just kept watching because it was so epic, and because I cared so much about the characters, including the villains. I could happily watch those characters for years. I would be okay with the show continuing throughout their lives, and on to the next generation.
On the other hand, I read a book recently - a bestseller! - and was hooked for several hundred pages by the staggering beauty of the writing style itself. The imagery was, for the most part, gorgeous. I aspire to write that beautifully. But I got to the end and...it fell flat. One of the characters I cared about died suddenly, no real closure of any kind. He just...died. I'd spent hundreds of pages getting to know him, and caring about him, and he was suddenly killed in an accident, I think, I can't remember exactly...and the author moved on.
That was it. Just another casualty of war. (I've only seen this technique used effectively once, and it was not in that novel.) As for the rest of the novel, it ended similarly. The richness of the detail, the very human emotion - it sort of faded and was wrapped up, and I didn't care if it continued. I ended up giving the book away, I think. And I rarely get rid of books, but I had no desire to return to it.
You should want a novel to keep going, at least in my opinion. Yes, you should build toward a peak and then wrap up the plot, but fiction books in my opinion are only half the actual plot, and half the fictional world and its characters.
That right there is the goal. Not only to tell an epic story, or a sweet story, or similar, but to make people feel like they're in their own little bubble for a while. To let them journey with the characters.
And to do that, I think you really need to focus as much on the journey - on the characters you're writing about - as on the things they go through, the milestones they must pass to get to the end of the novel.
(Also, as a reader, why would I spend hours and hours to get to the destination unless I am enjoying the journey?)
So slow down. Enjoy the little fictional world you're putting together. Enjoy the characters.
-
Click here for Part Three
© 2020 S.Z. Attwell
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