Nope, Nope, Nope, and I Wish

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous  Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to September co-hosts:  Kim Lajevardi, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguirre, Olga Godim, Michelle Wallace, and Louise - Fundy Blue! To find links to other monthly contributors, click here.

This month’s optional question: What genre would be the worst one for you to tackle and why?

In real life as well as fiction, I stay away from anything that might lead to a sleepless night, which means no horror for me. I write because I love getting lost in other worlds (and words), not to increase my heart rate. Somewhere on this blog I wrote about a summer roommate who wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to read Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. About a third of the way through, I tossed the book across the room. It sat in the corner until we weren’t roommates anymore. As with my reading, so goes my writing.

As for other genres, well, erotica is out, I don’t feel like I have the voice in my head for YA and, being the ultimate panster, it’s unlikely I could write a mystery because that would require making a plan. (In high school I wrote my papers before the required outline since it was the only way I could figure out what to write.) Other than moon-to-earth big picture, I don’t have much of a clue as to where my stories are going until they get there. Once they do, I spend eons editing the the heck out of them, paring them to final form. Not the most efficient way to write, but here we are…

In that regard, I have the utmost admiration for authors of historical fiction. Most recently, I read The Rose Code, by Kate Quinn, whose story portrays British civilians trained to break German military codes during the war. If I dove into something that complex, I doubt I’d resurface from the research, never mind demonstrate the skill to write about it. It takes a lot of organization and confidence to embark on a story with such depth.  

Sometimes, I wish my wiring worked that way.

What would be the most difficult kind of story for you to write?

 

A Letter to Myself

I’ve never been an outliner.  In high school, when the teachers demanded outlines before we passed in our papers, I wrote my paper first then created the outline based on what I’d written.  I’m sure this indicates some kind of brain deficiency, a backwards way of thinking, but it was the only way that worked for me.  I couldn’t write an outline before I knew what I was going to write.

  

More recently, I’ve tended to write my stories in a similar fashion, although in order to avoid getting totally lost, I keep track of characters and locations in an Excel spreadsheet.  I keep it open while I write and each time I invent someone or something new, I add it to the table.   This helps me remember names and places…so I don’t call someone Simon in the third chapter, and Terrance in the 25^th.  Separate from the spreadsheet, I write detailed character descriptions, so I know what each character looks like and what they eat for breakfast, so it's all good there.

But while helpful, these practices don't do much for plot. 

I began writing what I hope will be a new novel several months ago, but struggled. I had a main character; an inciting event, some periphery information plus thoughts of how things will end, but no idea how to get there.  Even I recognized an outline would have helped.  But similar to my struggles in high school, I couldn’t figure out how to write one, since I didn’t know the story.

Last week, I mentioned my dilemma to one of my amazing critique partners and she suggested I write a letter as if telling her the story.  Growing up, I was an avid letter writer, so this felt more like fun than an assignment.  Imagine my delight when during the process, the stages of my tale revealed themselves to me. The next time I sat down to work on the project, I knew where I needed to go.  I've been writing ever since.

So, while I, II, III, a, b, c and i, ii, iii may not work for me, I’ve learned something.  Regardless of how it's structured, it helps to have a plan.  Once that's in place, following it makes the writing easy.

How do you organize your writing?