Note to self: think about book X

Forgot to say, I finally made myself start reading a book I've been assuring people I was going to read for 2-3 years now. Recently I even had to fork over a self-imposed fine of five bucks to a fellow writer for yet again failing to read it as promised.

So I finally started it, this book everybody's read and praised, and boy, does it suck. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm absolutely fascinated by it. Because the writer makes it work. Through sheer force of plot and structure, the story moves along pretty grippingly, even though if you look very closely, you can see that nothing's actually there. There isn't anything going on but people moving around from here to there, and some mysteries that aren't very interesting because who cares if they're solved or not?

But, wow. The structure completely hides all that; it misdirects the reader's attention and gives the impression of being a gripping, excitingly wild ride. I can see that it partly does so through the way it uses hooks, and also by the way it uses alternating narrators.

This is exactly what I need to figure out how to do for my former GN.

What's really got me super-zeroed in on it now, though, is realizing that one of the two POV characters has a negative goal. I think part of what covers that up is the structure and the constant updating and adding of hooks, but there's also an announced strategy. And here's where it gets even more interesting: the announced strategy makes no sense. But it doesn't matter, because it works anyway. You don't even notice it has no reason to be either a strategy or announced.*

The only reason I noticed any of this is because I have a plotting disability and was bored, reading. I can see how gripping the story is, but I'm not at all gripped. It's sort of like the little kid who can't enjoy a great magician's trick because he isn't sophisticated enough to understand that he's supposed to be following the hand gestures. Sometimes there are advantages to having humongous blind spots.

Sometime when I have a chance, I want to really dig into this, maybe even go through and make a list of every scene. I bet I will find that it's extremely screenplay-worthy, with every scene carefully designed and set like a stage, and with actors hitting their marks right as the curtains go up. I also bet that nearly every chapter will have a deliberately imposed ramp-up of a ticking clock, and there's something intriguing about the hooks, too--like, maybe there's at least one new one introduced in the body of the chapter, and then another, different hook hits hard at the end?

Also need to look at:

• Which hooks are external stuff happening and which are internally-driven emotional cliffhangers.

• How the chapters cut in and out to hide the relative passivity of one of the storylines.

• How a passive character is given the appearance of being an active one.

• Beginnings and ends of chapters, making note of transitions.

• Beginnings and ends of chapter, for cliffhangers (I think some are actually dropped and never followed up on. But I'm not even sure! This is great!).

• Beginnings and ends of chapters, as read sequentially rather than alternately. I'm interested to know what the author has chosen to skip as not-ramp-up-able enough. Because, you know, I think s/he was probably right, since the book works so well.

Forcing myself to finish this thing is going to be a chore. But I think I can learn a ton of stuff when I go back to it once it's read.



*Something that's come up in discussion with writer friends is this theory: An announced strategy doesn't have to really do anything in the story; as soon as the actual story gets started, the announced strategy can just disappear, and be naturally swallowed up in the bigger, stronger, "real" story without you having to deal with it. But here, it seems to me, the possibility presents itself that the announced strategy doesn't even necessarily have to arise from story. Which poses the question: exactly how far can you go with the artificial pasting on of stuff to keep your story moving?

Note to self re: Beast or God again

"But he who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god."

Was watching FullMetal Brotherhood this morning (it seems to be nearing its conclusion), and was struck by a comment from Roy Mustang. He said that he needs Lt. Hawkeye in order to survive, because she keeps him from being reckless.

This got me to thinking about my WIP. One idea I'm loosely exploring is why you may be better off (in a survival/subsistence situation) with a mutually dependent community of caring people around you, rather than being entirely out for yourself--either needing no one, or aligning with a group whose members use each other on a strictly practical basis. I've been thinking mostly in terms of shared burdens, emotional bonds that make people protect each other and work together more efficiently to survive.

But now I'm also thinking that if you have other people around you whom you care about and trust, and who are equally invested in you, then you've also provided yourself with outside context for your own behavior and choices. Without that community you're essentially functioning in a vacuum, and are more likely to lose a sense of proportion about whether you're acting wisely or not. The people around you can keep you grounded by saying, "Hey, you need to calm down," or "That's a little reckless, isn't it?" or "Yes, you're completely justified in worrying about this situation," or perhaps most importantly, "Remember what's really important to you."

I'm thinking maybe a man who has no need of society because he is sufficient for himself isn't necessarily that way because he's a beast. Maybe sometimes trying to be that way is what turns him into a beast.

That actually dovetails very nicely with what's going on in the book, and I think it also may help me pin down the exact actions that'll take place in the climactic scene where my MC makes his story-capping choice. Whatever that is.

Note to self: entering the Sahara

Last night I sat down with a spiral and did some thinking. It was flat-out alarming. I quickly saw that I've set myself up: I now face an overwhelming mass of doled-out storyline setups and of motivation-establishing points that need to be made in scene. Most of these would read okay in a regular book, but not coming right after 150 pages of my characters hovering on the brink of death and destruction.

In other words, I'm in trouble. Big trouble. I've got a ms that's going to have a huge reader-killing, book-killing dead spot. Proportionally speaking, this dead spot equals the amount of Africa taken up by the Sahara desert. And if I actually write out every bloody scene that's needed to make this story work, it'll be like sand expanding to fill most of the African continent.

It was discouraging to look at my notes and realize that.

However, discouragement is like a kiwifruit, or Starbucks: I don't have to pay attention to it if I don't feel like it. And I don't feel like it. My writing time is so limited, it makes me sick to think of pouring any down the discouragement drain.

So. I've started breaking down the task at hand, and I think the thing to do now is stay flexible while moving forward under this general plan:

• Start writing out some of the scenes/dialogs that establish what I want established.

• Do side work from secondary characters' POV regularly, as a guideline. Because if I lose touch with those secondary characters, I am screwed.
  

• If a scene/exchange is recalcitrant, don't force it, drop it.

• Watch for anything that can be satisfactorily conveyed through summary/narration.

• Remember those big backstory dumps from the first half. They established information and emotion. It may be possible to peel the full meaning from some of them and make them more bare-bones. If so, their full, layered meanings can come to light here in the Sahara Zone, via exchanges with the new character whose story now must unfold. If the true heft of a backstory revelation happens here, it should also provoke tension and conflict-raising actions/decisions by the MC.
  

(Which overlaps with:)

• Keep a feeler out for scenes that can naturally double up. (Ex. dialog establishes one point while, via "background" matter like dialog tags and scene-grounding, another point slowly rises. As soon as the dialog has made its point, it ends and the "background" becomes the new focus and is dealt with. Or vice versa: in-scene action makes its point to the reader, and the second that point gets made someone starts talking to the MC re. another point.)

Things to keep in the back of my mind:

• The unused, already-established hook-y scenes that are going to help carry this part.
• The emotions that drive my MC. Especially the ones he is unaware of.
• The end confrontation I'm heading for.
• And always--always--the POVs of the secondary characters. Always.
  

Note to self: READ THIS BEFORE YOU START WORKING AGAIN

I didn't get to work on my own stuff the next week, after all. I need to stop even saying that.

Late last night, however, I set aside everything on my backed-up agenda* and wrote a couple of paragraphs, just for me. My long-term concentration is kind of shot right now, and there's no time to work myself into the flow of story anyway, so I just zeroed in on one emotion-laden action that takes place near the end of the book. I messed around with the words and structure, thinking the action through from various angles: what the MC is doing, what he sees, what he feels, what the reader needs to know. I ended up with a disturbing little pair of paragraphs that may not actually fit the ms or the character's journey.

It's interesting, though. This action--or rather, the character's realization of his action--is a key turning point that allows him to make his choice at the end. Only right now I don't see how it might do that, which is why I'm wondering if it even fits. It's possible that I need to rethink the entire sequence of events in the last quarter of the book (all of which exist only in my head right now)--or even the events themselves. Maybe the ending I'm heading toward is wrong? It's all part of the puzzle, and I'm looking forward to having a chance to figure it out.

Some of the puzzle's answers may lie in my separating the MC's inner and outer goals in my head. I need to think them all through individually--what they mean, what kinds of things might happen at the end to show whether a goal has been achieved, and if not, why that's okay. But I also need to be careful, because I can tell it's going to be very easy to focus on some aspect of the MC that's slightly beside the point, and if I do that it'll mess up the whole book. It's easy to ask yourself a question and think along the surface to arrive at an answer that makes complete sense, but isn't really the key emotional truth of the situation.

For example, I know that my MC wants to keep his "family" alive. At a glance, I could check that off (and I occasionally have) as a inner goal because it's about his feelings and desires. At a glance, his outer goal would seem to be about getting rid of a dangerous weapon and the people who threaten him. But this is all shallow thinking and not helpful to figuring out the story structure.

Actually, I need to stop thinking in limiting terms like inner goal and outer goal. A novel is more complex than that. When writer friends who read the first 50 pages noted that their goal for the MC was that he be relieved of some of his mental/emotional burdens, I immediately remembered: that's what I want for him, too.

Some of the things I'd like my MC to be able to do by the end:

• not hold himself so utterly responsible for everyone else's welfare

• accept that he's doing the best he can in a bad situation

• give himself credit for having good intentions; most people don't, as he knows

All of these tie into what's compelling me to write this ms: exploring the idea of mercy/empathy. I've been struggling a little with whether this guy admits to himself that he thinks mercy is positive quality. He clearly instinctively feels that it's good to have. I just haven't been sure whether he acknowledges this to himself, and if he does, how much.**

Other things I need to think about:

• When he goes back to his home in the very last scene, how is he different?

• In the final quarter of the book, how do events drive him to make the three changes above?
  

• Something has to happen in the climactic scene to force him to a knife-edge decision. That decision is the final dividing point between not-changed and changed.
  

• How do conversations and interactions in the book's middle increase the harshness with which he views himself?
  

• How do conversations and interactions in the book's middle allow him to relax the harshness for a few moments?

• How do all of these conversations and interactions add up to mean something to him at the crucial moment of choice?

• What are his choices?
  

• What happens at the climax that forces him to choose?***

• How do the events leading up to the climax (see "disturbing paragraphs," above) throw his options into sudden stark relief?
  

• Do the events leading up to the climax even fit? Do they need to be rethought, strung out earlier in the book, or cut completely?
  

Hmm, now I'm looking at that last point from the first list. Give himself credit for having good intentions. Why would he think that good intentions mean anything? He certainly has no reason to think they're of value. He'd have to come around to even considering that good intentions alone merit credit.

So...hmm, hmm. This speaks to the middle of the book (if it speaks to anything at all; it could just be a distracting detour). He'd have to see something that causes him to value good intentions. No, not just good intentions--good intentions devoid of practical payoff.

Triple hmm...and who is tailor-made to have a ton of good intentions with zero practical payoff? The inciting-incident of a character who made his appearance in the first line of the book, that's who. And who is also one of the three guys at the climactic confrontation.

The MC is the only one who can relieve himself of his mental/emotional burdens. He's surrounded himself with people who would willingly help him carry the weight. He hasn't purposely selected these people; the fact that they're with him now is a byproduct of his occasionally acting against practical benefit, but with good intentions.

The MC understands none of this when the book starts.

The new character is also tailor-made to cause the MC to unwittingly start shifting some of his (the MC's) worries away. The MC would be lessening the weight he carries just by talking about the decisions he has to make and the reasons he makes them.

Would the MC talk about any of this out loud? Yes, because the new guy is from a different culture; the MC would be explaining stuff and the guy would be asking lots of questions as well. I doubt the MC would even notice he was lessening his mental burdens by explaining stuff to the new guy.

Or...not until the big hassle with the messed-up love triangle and its misunderstandings. Then the MC would notice what he'd been doing, and that he'd come to rely on sharing some of his inner workings--because suddenly he couldn't, not anymore. Quadruple hmm. I've been wondering why the MC wouldn't just secretly kill the guy, post-messed-up-love-triangle, then hide his body in the woods and tell everybody he ran away. This may be why. I also knew my MC liked the new guy, but I couldn't quite verbalize the whys and wherefores thereof. Now I think I'm starting to get it.

This all seems promising, like it may very well be productive thinking, and therefore important to remember. However, I know I won't. (see "long-term concentration, lack of," above) By the time I'm able to pick up my ms again, I may not even remember that I need to look at this post. Perhaps a big ugly blog title will help.




*If you're reading this and you're waiting for something from me, sorry. I'm finding that if I try be a machine 24/7, what happens is that I work slower...and slower...and slower...and feel worse and worse and worse about it. Recent events compel me to cut myself some slack and quit trying to be a machine. Life is too short.

**The distinction is important, because if he doesn't acknowledge it to himself, the plot needs to drive him to learn it. Something needs to happen to open his eyes and make him decide, "I'm going to accept that this is how I feel, and quit berating myself for the few times I've gone 'soft.'" After he faces the fact that he values mercy/empathy even though they're pointless/dangerous, he needs to act on this self-knowledge at some point--and that tells me more about what happens in the plot. Whereas if he already knows he values mercy/empathy, most of the plot input probably comes from his figuring out how much weight he's going to give it as the stakes rise and change.

***I've got three guys at cross purposes in a high-stakes confrontation, and a gun with one bullet. I know something happens. I'm just not sure what, exactly.

Note to self: to get unstuck, rethink the concept of "scene"???

No writing of my own, and there will likely be none until after Jan. 20th.

However, as I think about the dystopian ms and the upcoming VCFA lecture, I'm suddenly not sure I even really know what a scene is, if you think about a scene as a discrete unit. As you're working on them, I mean. After the fact, they're easy to recognize.

It may be that you can understand a scene as a plot unit, or as an emotional unit (my go-to), or as a physical unit, and that the three don't necessarily have to have anything to do with each other.

It may be useful sometimes, when I get stuck, to back off and think from the outside:

1. Is there a plot scene here, and if so, what is it?

examples:

• what happens?
• how does it drive the story forward?
• what does the reader find out?

2. Is there an emotional scene here, and if so, what is it?

examples:

• What does the character feel/understand?
• What does the reader feel/understand?

3. What potential boundaries of a physical scene are here?

examples:

• change of setting
  
• characters come in or leave
• POV character moves, shifting his/her sightlines
  

It may be that coming at a stuck place from a slightly different angle can jog something loose and help me reconnect with the ms. Maybe coming at a scene from a different writerly perspective breaks it down in a different way than I've been used to looking at it, and forces me to slow down and really think through what everything on the paper either is accomplishing, or what it could accomplish.

Eh, I sense there's more to it than that, but no time to think about this anymore. Too much to do.

Note to self: look at pacing in Hunger Games

Something seems different about the way some of the chapters end. Like maybe they're cut at a slightly unusual place in the scene, or the last line is atypical for a cliffhanger? Maybe those last lines aren't concretely set in scene? The chapter ends are working, but something seems different about them.

note to self: re. gender diff. (warning: crude)

Son #2: Hey, [son #1] just texted me.

Me: Oh? What'd he say?

Son #2: He said, "You need to wipe your butt. I can smell you all the way out here in Lubbock."

Me: Well, when you text him back, you tell him I said "Don't make me have to come out there and whup you."

Son #2: (puzzled). Why would you want me to tell him that?

Me: Because when he's 300 miles away and hardly ever gets to see you, he ought be texting you loving messages of brotherly affection.

Son #2: But that's what this was.

Note to self: reread Elie Wiesel's Night

I need to get a copy of my own, too, at some point. But I guess the library will have to do for now.

I do not have time to work on this dystopia* ms. It's stupid to work on it. It's bad, bad, bad to work on it. But by g*d, I'm going to do it anyway. Just for a little while. Just an hour or two this morning. Even with two w-f-h deadlines tomorrow--in a few hours, I'll be good and close that file and open the ones I'm supposed to be working on, and behave myself. And meet the deadlines, even if it kills me. Which it might.

I also think next semester I might schedule my Vermont packets at two a week. I think most other people put them all together, five in one week. But I don't think that's going to be the optimum way of working for me. I don't even think the way I have it now--five packets spread over nearly two weeks--is going to be optimum. Maybe I have ADD, I don't know. I just don't seem to do my best writing-related thinking when it's just one thing straight through. It's like the back of my mind thinks better when the pressure's off and the front of my mind is doing something else--so long as that other thing isn't teaching (like math/English/reading), or yet another family crisis.**

Perhaps that's why--oddly enough--packets are not only not interfering with my own process (so far), but seem to be stimulating it. Of course, it's only been a month or so, so we'll see what happens with that. But I'm thinking it could be because the packets are just writing, and thinking about other people's writing has never really interfered with my process. However, we shall see.



*That's what I need to reread Night for. I want to play around with the idea of mercy, pity, compassion and empathy in a world where not only is there no upside to those things, they're also a flat out liability.

**I also wonder about the feeling-overwhelmed thing people keep telling me about. It was supposed to happen at the residency, but didn't all that much. Maybe they meant physically overwhelmed with exhaustion rather than mentally and emotionally.*** Or maybe it's still coming. Or maybe one good thing has come out of having a life where multiple urgent situations explode all over me out of nowhere: I'm immune to low-level overwhelm-ed-ness. Maybe now it's like a gnat I just brush away. But then again, this is still early days. Maybe it'll get worse when I find out I was supposed to be doing certain paperwork that is now late.

I have a terrible foreboding that I'm not doing some kind of vital paperwork required by the office, and at the end of the semester I'll be in trouble and people will either be hounding me or tsk-tsking and making me feel like sh*t.

However, notice that this foreboding is not quite terrible enough to make me contact any powers-that-be and find out if I am supposed to be keeping up with vital paperwork.




***I did hit the wall everybody told me about, the one halfway through. Except that everybody said "On X day about halfway through the residency you'll hit the wall, you'll be crying, but don't worry because everyone cries on that day, and the next day you'll feel better." And--this says something about me, I don't know what--I didn't cry at all, I just suddenly hated everybody and everything and wished an earthquake would swallow every person at the residency and replace them with other people who didn't yammer on and on about writing all the time. But that only lasted half a day or so, and then I was better. And I don't think I ever stopped yammering about writing while I was there.

Note to self: let it go; do your work.

Put other crap aside. Deal with it later. For now, do your work.

note to self re. point between loss and suitors

Emphasis at beginning is on family. Drive home the point that this is gone, that even with a house full of people, activity, noise, and things to do, it's still empty, lonely. The heart of it is gone--a hive, but hollow.

note to self: questions to remember

What is the MC able to do by the end of the book that s/he wasn't able to do in the beginning?

Why is s/he able to do it?

What has s/he realized?

Note to self re: Chap. 4

Don't undercut by softening the scene--stick with hatred and dislike, and leave the reader on that note.

Softening can come later, and will probably add layers to the characters.

note to self: R&J quote

"...turns deadly steel point to point and, with a martial scorn, with one hand beats cold death aside, and with the other sends it back.."

R&J, 3:1

Note to self: Stay the f*ck off the Internet

Stick to your work. Do not comment on other people's blogs. It pulls your mind completely away from your work. Don't do it! Period!

Okay. So. I copied and pasted the old version of about eight chapters into newest version of ms, cut out everything I know I can't use, and made notes about the new arc it ought to take. Now what? Must get back into gear.

La raison se trouve entre l'éperon et la bride.

Or:

Entre bride et l’éperon de toutes choses gît la raison.

Got family stuff done, will work on former GN tonight. However, while walking Tyson I was thinking about the swordfighting ms, and sort of taking in the fact that the plot might not actually get started till halfway through the book. I thought, "That's a lot of setup--half a book--and how on earth can it not be boring?" Then I thought, "The story doesn't start halfway through the book, because the story isn't about what happens." The story--including the stuff that starts farther in (that used to be the beginning)--is this about MC's maturation, disillusionment, etc. His father getting killed isn't setup that spurs him to later action.* It's part of what changes him. What I was thinking of as setup needs to be considered with the same weight as the plotline that kicks in later. Every event in the so-called "setup" needs to be given the same consideration as events that happen down the road. I need to look carefully at each piece as I work on it; I think some may still be transitional/informational, but now I feel that plenty of them are going to be more concrete steps on the character's inner journey.

Now, I may have been already halfway thinking this way in the back of my mind, but I probably need to be more deliberately aware. What I need to do--probably--is to keep the big picture of the character's arc in mind as I work on these things, and not focus so much on how he felt/thought last chapter and what changes now that so-and-so happens in this chapter and how it leads to next chapter.

I doubt I'll absorb this idea enough to put it in play for a while; knowing me I'll have to realize it several times before it sinks in. I can't word it clearly enough yet for my mind to internalize what it really means as far as hands-on daily work. But thinking it is a good start.


*Well it is, but I need to stop thinking of it that way because it's causing problems.

note to self: focus on MC, not reader

For now, think in terms of MC--what is needed to carry the story forward for the MC. Not what the reader needs to understand. That can come later. Forget the reader for now.

note to self re. backstory

ways to tell backstory:

1. narration (just outright tell it)
2. have characters bring it out in dialog
3. in scene, as flashback
3. in scene, but go back and make it part of the regular story in real-time order (no longer a flashback).

How to tell which one? This is a problem because sometimes the past info is presented properly, it's just not in the right place in the story. Maybe look at how clunky it feels? Also look at how much emotional engagement it requires from the reader? How much space does it need--how much story interruption is too much?