By Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
For someone who doesn’t think of herself as much of a speaker, I’ve been very busy with speaking engagements in the last few months. I’ve got less than two weeks before my next talk, this time at a North Carolina high school. An English teacher invited me (I have a very difficult time turning down high school English teachers…my father was one) to speak during lunchtime to a group of kids who were interested in creative writing.
I asked the teacher what she’d like me to speak on and she mentioned a variety of different topics. Then she said, “They mostly struggle with the how of it.”
Which I remember. I remember poring over writing books and thinking, okay, this is all fine, but how do I do this?
The sad thing is that now I’m in the same boat—the how is no longer a problem, but how do you explain how?
My tips are mainly on process. I have a series of best practices that typically work very well for me: wake up at the same time each day and before anyone else does. Think about my story before I sit down to write. Write one sentence at the end of each writing session to indicate where I left off and where I need to pick up. Use timers. Write in short sessions. Be flexible as to time and place for my writing so that I can squeeze writing into small openings in my day. Don’t edit as I go.
Those are, I think, good tips. But does this really address the how?
When I read writing craft articles when I was just starting out, they were definitely helpful for everything from character creation to pace to literary elements. But they didn’t seem to give me the general compass I was looking for. The how.
I read an interesting article last week by Courtney E. Martin called “How the Sausage Gets Made” about creating in life’s chaos. She makes a great point about progress occurring in “the invisible muck of creation,” the doing of it. The writing, in the middle of living. The article reminded me again that I think the most important trait for writers is stubbornness. But, still, what about the how?
At this point, for me, it’s automatic because I’ve written the same genre for over ten years (counting the time before I first got published). But how did I do it that first time? And the time after that? I had to sit down and reconstruct it.
One of the most glib bits of advice for new writers is “read a lot.” It’s essentially good advice. But it’s really too vague to be helpful.
What I did for that first book I wrote was to read a lot of the genre I felt most able to write.
I asked myself: what if this book hadn’t ended this way? What if Jim had been the killer instead of Ellen? How would that have changed the book? Would it have made it better?
I read cozy mysteries in great numbers and carefully noted patterns in each book. Did they start with dialogue? Action? Was there a body at the very start of the book? Was it later? How many authors introduced suspects one at a time? At once? How did they handle it so that it wasn’t confusing? What made their sleuth likeable or at least charismatic if not likeable? What was the pace like? Does the story work? What don’t I like about the story?
And, most importantly, what were the best parts, the most satisfying parts of each book and what were my expectations as a reader the more cozies that I read? How did I feel when these expectations weren’t met?
Then I read reviews of the books. The most helpful were the bad reviews, the customer reviews on Amazon. They offered scope to help me see what made readers pleased and upset.
And then, after a while, the rhythm of the genre became automatic. And I had to really figure out exactly how I’d figured out the how.
It was a lab. A self-created lab on writing this particular subgenre. And it helped me to pattern my own book after the more successful stories.
For me, this is the how of it. But I’m curious to hear yours. How did you figure out how to write your genre? Advice for high school writers?
Our first book--the 'how' of writing: Share on XImage: MorgueFile: hotblack
I don’t even remember how. With my non-fiction, I’d read a ton of similar non-fiction books and knew the pattern and basic outline. That must be the how.
That’s wonderful you get so many invites to schools. I love speaking at school, but it’s so hard to get into one around here. Not sure what the teachers are afraid of or if they’re just not interested.
Diane–I think patterns are key. They provide the road map for us.
It’s scattered, the invites. I’ll do an elementary school here and there (after assuring them I’m not going to talk about murder!) The occasional middle school career day talk (middle schoolers terrify me and those are nerve-wracking talks). But I’d say the biggest group asking me to speak are libraries. I get quite a few of those. And the odd conference here and there. Not like you…you do a ton of speaking!
I think you’ve brought up something that beginning writers often struggle with, Elizabeth. Just how do I get that idea and get it down on paper? I think part of why it’s so difficult to describe is that it’s slightly different for each of us. What’s more, it takes a spark of an idea, and you can’t always define how that spark happens. What I’ve done in writing workshops is helped young writers do some observations and then use them as the basis for their writing. My co-presenter and I had our writers observe in nature – just observe – for a few minutes, and then start by writing down what they saw. Then they used that as a basis for poetry and short stories. In other words, you do it – the getting of an idea for writing part – by really being aware and noticing how you’re reacting to it.
Margot–And I don’t even think I really considered the idea part. Good point. I like the idea of using observations as a catalyst. With a murder mystery, for me, it just seems super easy…the victim. Who is the victim and why would people want to kill her? For other genres, I’m not really sure how you’d get that first spark. I guess it’s genre-specific and falls in the same way it does for mystery writing.
Great topic. I’m going to have to reflect on this one a bit.
I remember getting “stuck” on some early screenplays. I couldn’t master the art of writing badly in early drafts and living with the fact enough to move along.
I’m going to have to think a bit on process now. All your fault.
Jack–Ha! Yes, it was my pleasure to distract you today and make you think about explaining process to high schoolers! :) I need help with my assignment, clearly!
I got stuck, as you put it, on 2 books in my twenties. Neither of which I was qualified to write. Not sure why I didn’t immediately choose mysteries, which I have more of a knack for.
I still don’t know how. I guess I just read the genre and started working on my own stories.
Alex–That’s exactly what I did.
I would also point kids to games like the Dungeons and Dragons (or any of the old pen and paper role-playing games). Just an extraordinary number of writers found the fundamentals of their storytelling within the frameworks provided by those games.
Just like fan fiction, role-playing games provide a setting and structure that allows a writing novice to jump start their story. And, the other people playing the game help with creating the characters for the story.
JR–Great point! I’ve found quite a few articles where authors have mentioned that they cut their teeth on D&D. It’s good to have a framework to have when we get started.
That is such an interesting question, Elizabeth. My process was so long. I knew I wanted to write my memoir, and did what y’all did – read a lot of them. But when I started writing, I started with going thru my journals, highlighting what I wanted to include. It was a series of steps after that, too long to put here in this comment. Perhaps you could suggest to them that they find something they’re passionate about and free write for a certain time period so they don’t censor anything. Then mention that there’s always editing to fix the problems. For me the how is always about just getting words down on the page.
Karen–Free writing…good idea. It’s so easy to halt the creative process when we’re censoring and editing ourselves.
Fab post! For me, the “how” starts with the people, and the problem one or two might have. What would happen? What could make it worse? How is it resolved? In what ways are they changed?
What remains the trickiest part for me – which takes me at least two drafts to smooth out – is the weaving in of clues and misdirections, and the pacing of the investigation. When will so-and-so learn this bit of info, which will take her down this path, and so on. A fistful of threads! ;)
Kathy–The “making it worse” part is always key! And easily bypassed, too, when we want what’s best for our characters.
Recently, I’ve had to struggle with the clues and misdirections, too…keeping track of them, mostly. I think it’s because I’ve been writing and stopping and writing and stopping so many times for this book that things are a little choppy.
I think the trouble is the HOW is different person by person. I think letting them know can be helpful. That some people work best with a detailed plan, some with a loose plan, some prefer to just start. Some follow formal story structure. Some like to work from character, others from an important incident. There is not a right and wrong way. The only WRONG way is to think you can just wait around for inspiration because that isn’t the way a long work will get done.
Hart–Very important point. Thanks. I’ll be sure to mention that to them. School usually lays out The Method and writing doesn’t *have* The Method. It’s whatever works.
Hi Elizabeth,
I’ve thought a lot about this topic, too, both as a high school English teacher and as a writer. Your tips about reading critically within your genre to figure out what makes the books work (or not work) is great!
But what surprised me most about writing a novel for the first time was just how much I needed to learn from the experience of attempting a story of this length. Part of the novel-writing process seems to be learning to stretch a story beyond what I can hold in my mind at the one time… while still forming a coherent story! For shorter stories and essays, it’s easier to plan how everything will fit together, in part because I can conceptualize the whole text at one time. I find novels are too complex (at least for my brain), though I do plot out the story as a whole, scenes, character developments and other aspects.
So the trick for me was to learn just how much I needed to know before I started writing and how much story ambiguity would solve itself in the creative process. Though I’ve taken creative writing classes in both undergrad and grad school, I didn’t learn anything about this piece. It strikes me as the kind of thing that varies from person to person, making it hard to teach.
Rebecca–You know, you just brought back a whole slew of memories for me. Yes! I *do* remember that…how can I get to 65,000 words with this wisp of a story? When do all the different moving parts come into play? When do I bring in the subplot and how do I weave it through the book?
And your point about developing confidence in our creative process and our ability to deal with issues as they came…most definitely. It may have helped (I wonder if it did) that I started out writing organically. I think successfully completing a book that way can really boost our confidence. Of course, 4 books in or so, I had a total and complete failure by pantsing and switched over to outlining. But by then I’d already built up that knowledge, that confidence, that I could do it.
And…I wish I could write short stories like you can! The short form is so tricky for me. Each word is important.
When I settled on writing contemporary romance, I read a TON of them – both good and bad (still do), absorbing what worked and what didn’t. I wish I could be more of a planner, but I still mostly rely on instinct and feel when I’m writing, but I definitely know the pattern I want to follow and that really helps!
Jemi–I don’t think following our instinct is a bad thing at all. I think it usually shows we’ve done our homework and have read a lot in our genre. :)
I’m still learning, so it’s probably too early to know the answer, but in my case, I tried writing a chapter in different ways and then letting my crit partners tell me what they liked and didn’t like. I’ve slowly been homing in on a style I think works. I’ve got a long ways to go though.
Ken–That’s a great idea…experimenting with feedback.
For me, it was very similar–the study of my preferred genre. I’d read what was most popular in that genre, then puzzle out what I liked/disliked about each book and why. If you want to succeed, you have to know your niche, eh?
Crystal–I think it’s important to nail what the standard is for the genre. Once we can mimic that, we can maybe veer off the standard a little. :)
Hi Elizabeth – great post, with some brilliant ideas from you and your readers. I’m sure the kids will be so pleased … the idea of flexibility in one’s approach is essential – I know I do most things ‘differently’ – why I’ve no idea … I guess I don’t like doing exactly what everyone else does. I’ve learnt by being in the blogging world – I doubt I’ll write a novel – it’s not simmering away, nor ever has … but memoir I may well do – again in a different style bringing in some of the family history … I think about that.
Cheers and yes – the formula helps hugely … something I still don’t do – I just remember the beginning, middle and tying the whole together. One post I wrote .. I added in a paragraph or two at the end as I realised I hadn’t done it and it was one of my longer posts (surprise, surprise!) – but someone commented they were glad I’d tied it down, as such. Thanks for this – it’ll be interesting to hear how the talk goes … it must be coming up soonish .. good luck – Hilary
Hilary–I hope you’ll write a memoir, Hilary! Pulling in some of your family history is a great idea.
The talk went well, thanks! I spoke to two different groups and they seemed to really enjoy it. :)
That’s good news – well done … all grist to the mill. Cheers H.
Thanks, Hilary!
As Rebecca said, when I decided I wanted to write a novel, I was surprised by how much I needed to learn. I mean I had to learn the entire craft of story structure, character arcs , dialogue, and so much more. I write mystery/thrillers, so like you, I don’t ever have to search far for a story idea. This is an excellent post. The “how,” has always baffled me. I’ve read just about every craft book I could get my hands on and I’ve taken numerous writing courses and attended workshops and seminars. It’s one thing to read the instructions, per se or have someone teach you how you should do something and quite another to actually do it. I’ve learned by doing. It’s been a long road of trial and error, but this is one profession, much like my day job as an attorney that you can only learn so much from others – the experts. At some point (sooner the better) it’s sink or swim time and you’re going to sink a few times before you swim and you’re not going to win any swimming medals until you’re willing to commit to swimming on a routine basis.
I’ve probably learned more from deconstructing novels written in the genre I write and hope to one day soon become published. It sounds very much like what you described. You picked through published cozies to see what worked and what didn’t. How many suspects were introduced at a time etc. That’s precisely what I’ve done. I like to see how my favorite authors hide clues and foreshadow events. How many possible suspects do they give readers. How well are the clues hidden. How do they use misdirection or sleight of hand. How is the protagonist’s fatal flaw tied into the crisis and ending. How did the author introduce the protagonist and how did the author show us the main character’s fatal flaw throughout the story and how it kept her from obtaining her goal. I read my favorite mystery and thrillers over and over making notes on how they do it.
Thanks for sharing how you finally managed to get the “how,” of it.
Have fun with your high school presentation.
Melissa–I’m so glad to hear that someone else faced this! The more I read, the deeper I got into the craft studying, the more I thought, “Sure, yes, character arc and conflict are important. But HOW do I write my story?”
Maybe it’s that some of us almost need a database to work from. Take the pattern for the commercial fiction genre we want to write, see how many successful authors followed it and where different elements were introduced and how. And *then* breathe life into the characters and the fun into the story. But first maybe we need that skeleton or those compass points.