Waiting For The Good Stuff

Currently listening to: Give Me A Sign by Breaking Benjamin

Alexandra Bracken (Brightly Woven) said once in her blog that she won't let herself skip ahead to the "good" scenes—the ones that she's dying to write.  She'll force herself to build up her story properly, and savor the tension like the reader must do.  It provides some motivation to make every scene interesting in its own right.

But you've got to admit…some moments you just want to skip ahead for.

I don't consider myself one of those writers that will write ahead, but I don't really think of myself as a chronological writer, either.  This goes along heavily with the fact that if I don't write it down, I won't remember it.  Period.  That's what The Notebook is for.  (No, I am not Nicholas Sparks moonlighting as an aspiring teen writer.  Calm down.)  But if something doesn't get written down—a scene, some reams of dialogue—its awesomeness will be lost forever in the depths of my imagination and never see the light of day again.

This seriously makes me envy authors that follow the path of Patricia Briggs (Moon Called).  She said in an interview once that she almost never writes down her story ideas.  She keeps it all in her head.  And if she forgets something, she knows she'll just think of something better.

Such an envious talent.

So which am I really?  The chronological writer like Alexandra Bracken who forces herself to write in the proper order so as to appreciate the good scenes better?  Or the skip-ahead writer who goes right for the good stuff and fills the Other Stuff in later?

Most times I don't write down the whole scene, which is why I don't consider myself a skip-ahead writer.  But I will go ahead and write out the really good moments as not to forget the exact words that I want.

Hmm…am I just outlining?  What the heck AM I doing?

Let's put those questions aside for now and simply cast them away into the worldly abyss for later examination.

You know how hard it is not to unload all the good stuff in the beginning of your story?  I'm in the first three chapters and I sometimes stop myself, backspace furiously and say to my empty room, "No, I can't write that because it's too much too early!"  And then I sink into a pitiful funk because, like a child, I want it.  Now.

My character is totally awesome with her telepathy and fighting and general awesomeness, and my secondary character is witty and hilarious, so it's hard not to unload all those really funny lines up front because then I'm just digging myself a hole.  Like, if all my secondary character's witty lines come in the beginning, the middle and end will suck, or become lackluster because the jokes aren't as good.

So this premature unloading also interferes with character development.  Especially in a series.  I think it's hard, once you figure out who your character is going to become, to write them as ignorant and childlike compared to the wise, kickass adult they'll later become.  That subtle shift in personalities is hard to write.  I think it's easier for seat-of-the-pants writers who have no idea what's going to happen so they won't be influenced by prior knowledge.  People who outline know that the shift is coming and in what form, so they have to make sure that they aren't exposing it prematurely.

J.K. Rowling couldn't have had Harry acting like the Chosen One at age eleven, now, could she?

*sigh*

Let's go briefly back to my notebook—it's awesome, isn't it?  I get this particular kind of notebook from my dad who has to order them in bulk through his job.  He gets roughly fifty at a time and so I've siphoned a few of them off of him from time to time whenever I start a new story.  (I hate putting multiple stories in one notebook.  Makes my skin itch.)

They have this great feature: the page is divided into what they call "Project Planning Notes" and "Project Action Notes".  Basically, a neat little sidebar that lets me add additional notes as I think of them instead of having to cram into tiny little places in the text itself.  It's absolutely wonderful for me.  It's also smaller than an 8.5" by 11" notebook—I can fit it much easier into my backpack and purse.

 

just how awful is it not to unload the good stuff early on?

There's characters, and then there's dictators

And quite frankly, I can't see much difference between the two.

Here I am, listening to "Breaking the Habit" by Linkin Park and puzzling over my next coo to ambush my characters with.  They've proven to be deceptively cooperative lately.  Andi (the MC) sits quietly in the back seat, ignoring my pleas for help and then takes a knife to my throat when I decide to go ahead and make that left turn off the highway.  J.D. goes from sulking to happy go lucky and Charlie…well, I don't know what is going on with that guy.

In summation, I feel more like the unfortunate cousin who is too nice to say no to an unpaid babysitting job.  I am feeling royally screwed over with these characters; like I signed on a contract without reading the small print.

And yet, I am so emotionally driven to tell their story (whenever I'm not feeling like I'm walking on eggshells trying to actually write their story).  I like these people, despite their tendencies to set off bombs outside their friends' windows instead of using the phone to say "wake up".

There's this great book I always have on the bookshelf next to my desk that has a great quote on characters.  (I copied it onto a post-it note and stuck it to the bottom of my second screen.)

You are going to love some of your characters, because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.

- Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird)

I love this quote because it's so true.  When writers tell you that they are emotionally tied to fictional characters, they aren't just bucking for the great food they serve in the asylum.  Most of those high and mighty authors who's names you can never remember and yet they say a lot of profound stuff—they say that writers write to tell the truth.  So no matter how different our main character differs from us (for example, I cannot make someone twice as big as me kiss the pavement, but I can fold a crane in forty seconds flat) they will inevitably share some of the same views that we do, no matter if it's your preferred pelican-shaped coffee mug or the rights of women in the 1920's.  And when you spend so much time contemplating a character, you learn what they can and cannot do—their strengths and most importantly, their weaknesses.

I think we become attached to characters because of their weaknesses and how they turn them into strengths.  As humans, we all share similar weaknesses and yet, we believe those weaknesses to be specific to the individual.  For example, I would never have dreamed that one of my friends—the most confident person I've ever met—would have had ever had a problem with body image, just like me.

I recently watched a video about Darren Brown—a "cold reader".  He went to many different countries, gathered people of different sexes, nationalities and social backgrounds and had them trace their hands on a piece of paper.  Their hand would then be analyzed and a print out made of their personalities.  When Darren Brown came back with their profiles, they were all shocked at how correct it was.  Then they discovered that they all had the exact same profile.  Darren Brown had given the same sheets of paper to people in Britain, Spain, and the US and everyone responded the same way: "I can't believe how accurate it is."  And as one girl pointed out, it's nice to know that so many people share the same insecurities.

That type of vulnerability is something, I think, is key when it comes to book characters.  If a character doesn't share some of the same basic insecurities as the rest of us, they might as well be from Mars, and people from Mars are cool, yeah, but…they don't act like us, so where is the connection?

Andi is particularly tight-lipped about her weaknesses and insecurities.  I try to change the interview environment—from a nice office to a playground where she can move around while she talks—but she's stubborn and exceptionally clever.  She won't give away her secrets so easily.  So as I'm writing, I find myself growling in frustration: Andi doesn't want to show herself as weak because then where will she get respect?

She doesn't want to listen when I try to explain to her that we have to show her weaknesses so people won't slam the book cover closed.

Lot she cares.

I think the fact that I battle with her at all shows how willing (and determined) I am to get her story down.  I.  Want.  It.  Written.  I do not want to give up on this story the way I've given up on so many other stories—some really good ones that I couldn't continue with because I didn't have the heart to push the characters.

I need to push Andi, too, but I'm scared.  She's glaring at me from the back seat and keeps toying with her knife.

Pushing characters has always been an issue for me.  I have such little understanding about their weaknesses that I don't know what buttons to push in order to get them to grow as a character.  When authors talk about their characters, I am envious.  They make it sound like the ideas just popped into existence when it's taking me weeks to get a single thought together.

 

any thoughts on how you probe your characters' weaknesses?