A quick thought on writing. This is from a talk I gave a couple of years ago, but I've been thinking about it because of where I am in my current book, and I thought I'd share.
I guess it relates to the outline-or-not issue, the pantsers versus plotters, if you've heard that? Do you plot out your books in advance? Or fly by the seat of your pants? It's still a source of bewilderment to me that with the persnickety uptight JERK of a brain that I have, always craving safety and control, that I don't outline. It seems like I would outline. But I don't.
It's not that I'm against it. It sounds lovely in so many ways! To know what's going to happen and then just write it? Heaven.
But ... also not heaven. I'd like to make the same claim that I've heard other authors make (and have made myself, I'm sure) and which is not untrue, but also not the main reason. It's this: I don't outline because I like to be surprised. I like to discover the story as I go.
That's true ... but the fact is I'd probably cope with the lack of surprise and discovery if I could outline and be orderly and un-anxious.
The real reason I can't outline is very, very simple. It's this:
I don't know what's going to happen.
I try to know. It doesn't work out. The story laughs in my face. I cannot underscore enough: this is a perpetual source of terror to me. I have a general sense of where I want to end up, and in between, it's all a huge terrifying blur. My orderly brain is always on my clueless brain's case: WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS? HOW WILL IT FIT TOGETHER? I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!
And I don't. I don't know what I'm doing. I only hope. I hope a lot.
And I rewrite a lot.
A lot.
Anyway, with that preamble, here's a more fanciful (and alluring?) way of saying the same thing. It's a metaphor conceived from the safe side of a deadline, in the HA I TOLD YOU I COULD DO IT phase, and is accordingly lacking in DEAR GOD WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE! Here it is:
For me, writing is a dance between the Known and the Unknown.
I imagine it as one of those Regency pattern dances, and the Known stand on one side of the ballroom, sedate, secure, sober, reliable, their pins are all pinned, buttons buttoned. These are the folks you’d trust with your children. You know they’d put them to bed on time, a healthy meal in their bellies, and tell them a story, and a good story too, if not great. They aren’t drags, the Known. They’re my team. I couldn’t do what I do without them.
And facing them across the dance floor: the Unknown. Of course it’s dark, they’re in silhouette, and I might be wrong, but their silhouettes seem to be changing. Is that … a tentacle? What the hell is going on over there? I do not want to dance with that. Oh wait. Ooh. Pretty lights. Fireflies. That one has a fox’s head. A ballerina in a cobweb tutu. Ladybug wings. They’re eating … ice cream cones? I would not have predicted ice cream cones. They don’t know the dance steps. The Unknown never do. But they have moooooves ...
You would not leave you children with the Unknown. They might give them ice cream, or they might give them razor blade apples. Whatever it is, it will be wholly unexpected, and it will twist your story like a kaleidoscope.
You would not leave you children with the Unknown. They might give them ice cream, or they might give them razor blade apples. Whatever it is, it will be wholly unexpected, and it will twist your story like a kaleidoscope.
And stories need that. The occasional razor blade apple or serial killer monkey or tentacle or ... ice cream cone. YOUR KALEIDOSCOPE NEEDS TWISTING.
That's where the magic dust of Fascination comes from--from the Unknown. And in order for readers to be fascinated, I think first we must be. We must face death or failure by firefly or fox's head or come what may in order to achieve a state of fascination, or else our books are all buttoned buttons and healthy meals. And come on ... you know you want more out of life and fiction than that!
The Known and the Unknown dance.
And that, for me, is writing a book.
And now good night!
**UPDATE: Regarding plotting. In my midnight writing last night I stopped short of saying something very important, and it's this: I PLOT. I believe in plotting! I don't think it robs the magic from writing. I think there are a million ways to find a balance between the Known and the Unknown and I mean noooo disrespect to plotters! Maybe your Knowns have talismans to make your Unknowns behave. And maybe your Unknowns are ungovernable fey things impervious to magic and cajoling. I think your brain wiring determines this, and you have to learn to work with it.
While outlines exceed what I could possibly know about a novel at the outset, I *do* need to know some things. I need to have buoys to swim toward, these story beats that I'm making my way toward. In my notes and brainstorming, I am sooo eloquent about these buoys/beats, I tend to call them Things, capital T. Like this:
I need a Thing! What's my Thing??
And until I have a Thing, I generally tread water in distress or cling to my buoy and gulp down salt water.
A term I love for "pantsing" is "flying into the mist" (I think it's from Jane Yolen) and I love the sound of that, but have only found myself capable of genuine mist-flying with a short story or exercise. Not a novel.
Doesn't it sound so beautiful, though?
All right. That's all for now. **END UPDATE