Writing Fearlessly

One of the biggest challenges I face in writing fiction is the temptation to doubt my own intuitions. As someone with an organic writing process, giving in to that temptation to doubt my intuitions can be crippling. I typically start out with only the vaguest idea of where the story is going and, most of the time, a wildly and painfully wrong idea. I know this and know it well. Yet, recently, I’ve found myself struggling with that doubt. Some 20,000-ish words into my new novel, I’m still waiting for that clarifying, ah-ha moment where the major plot points crystallize into something like a plan. By this point in my last two books, I knew where things were going and a lot of the why things were going there. I had a handle on the major themes and even a pretty clear idea of how long the books were going to be when they were done. This time, I know none of those things.

Here’s the weird part, when I can get past all those niggling doubts about my intuitions, the words keep flowing from the subconscious vault where I apparently store them. Scenes come together, characters interact and the story moves forward. Perhaps the problem is one of trust. The first two Sam Branch books followed a general sort of pattern, which is fine. The conflicts in those books were substantively different and if I leaned on a pattern to get from point A to point Z, I find it doesn’t bother me. Going into this novel, though, I knew that the structure of the story would be different. It had to be. This meant that I would be charting new ground in terms of process and couldn’t rely on my old tools to see me through. It was a leap into the unknown and one that I made willingly. Like all such leaps, it does come with a healthy dose of terror.

I know my old process would result in a finished book. It would probably result in one that entertained my readers. It would probably even be one that I was proud of in a shallow way. Writing a book, any book, even a formulaic book, is a feat of endurance. I’d know it was a cheat, though. As a writer, you only have a few choices. Stagnate and work with what you know, quit, or evolve. Evolving as a writer means ruthlessly pressing forward against that terror we all feel when faced with change. It means testing your ability to tell a different story or a different part of the story in a different way and trusting your readers to take that ride with you. In the end, it means writing fearlessly and accepting that your intuitions are not leading you down wrong paths, at least most of the time.