New Book, New Writing Process? Why Changing it Up Works
By Heather Webb | April 27, 2017 |
https://bit.ly/2pdI8E6
I have this weird habit of tracking patterns in my head. When I worked on my Master’s degree in Cultural Geography, I suddenly realized I was a social scientist at heart, watching people do their thing and examining why they did it. How they shape their environment and how their environment shapes them—their habits, their beliefs, their cultural norms, etc. It should have come as no surprise to me that I would follow market trends in publishing as I discussed a couple of months ago (HERE), or that I would examine my writing process (and those of others) so closely. Why people write the way they do, their methods, their tics and preferences, their successes or failures. Could I have luck employing their process, too?
After a lot of thought and plenty of practice, the most profound thing I’ve discovered in all of these examinations about process is that each book requires a new set of “rules”. Process is transient. It’s fluid. It begs to be made relevant after each new start.
For my first couple of novels (historical fiction biographies), I worked with a detailed outline and character maps and filled in the flesh, heart, and soul of the book from there. For the short story I wrote for a WWI anthology, I had three major concepts in mind—a mother’s grief, revenge born of pain, and a character with dual citizenship who grappled with belonging nowhere—and I pantsed the entire plot from this premise.
For my third novel, I worked with a well-known set of characters and the canon associated with their story. I had to create new plot threads, breathe new life into these characters. A retelling, if you will. The character maps didn’t help me one bit here until I had already written a full first draft. I needed to understand why the original author created the characters the way he did in the first place, then deconstruct them, and give them an entirely new dimension through their backstory.
My latest that’s releasing this fall, is in an epistolary format with a framing story. A new style, still!
With each book, there were pieces of my process that didn’t change, regardless of the structure. I had to discover who my characters were by exploring their backstory. I needed to know where the story began—that inciting incident—and how it would resolve itself, as well as the stakes driving my character to change. I needed a pitch, a feel for the themes I would explore, a general idea of how these pieces would fit into a three act structure, at least loosely.
But the process I used to write each of these works changed. I think this is the reason why:
Each book baby has different needs. I can’t help but compare a manuscript to a child. The metaphor works on so many levels. For example, I have two kids. They come from the same household with the same parents, and the same set of rules and expectations. Yet they are different people completely, with different internal lives and, therefore, different needs. I try to treat them fairly, but fair does not equal SAME. Each of your manuscripts will have different characters. plotlines, structures. Different needs. This will undoubtedly affect your writing process. This is not only okay, it’s GOOD. It means you’re probably doing something right. It means you’re growing. If this isn’t the case, perhaps you’re writing books that are too formulaic in nature.
Don’t mistake order for boxing yourself in. On the flip side to all of this “go with the flo” talk, it’s important to understand that it doesn’t mean you should discard WRITING TOOLS. Backstory prompts, character arc maps, outlines, visual plot charts, three or five act structure charts, storyboards, note card outlines, etc. These tools exist to help you make sense of you protagonist and supporting cast, therefore the story’s structure, and then, therefore, the themes and big truths. There are no rules about which of these you should use always, or, when you should use them. Sometimes it’s before you begin drafting, sometimes after the first draft (which I like to call the discovery draft). We all work differently. (As an aside, I will say that most client books I’ve worked on that were pantsed entirely tend to need a lot more editing. I think this comes from the misbelief that tools hinder progress and therefore their process. To which I say bullocks. The trick is to know WHEN to use them and which you truly need for each manuscript. As I said above, some writers should use them before they begin writing, others should after their discovery draft.)
Relax into the fluidity of your process. As I mentioned above, it’s important to understand how much of your writing process comes from practice, but also, how much of it comes from the needs of each book. Rigidity gets you absolutely nowhere in your fiction or in the business of publishing. Unfortunately, this knowledge (often learned in a painful way) tends to come about after you’ve written several books.
In short, create order in your writing life to maintain a steadily increasing word count, and body of work, but listen to your instincts carefully. Shoe-horning yourself into a specific process just because it worked before may be the worst thing you can do for New Book. Maybe it needs something unique, something you’ve never tried before. Above all, be kind to yourself. Chastising your “meandering” or “lack of progress” or “disarray” doesn’t help. It cuts you off at the knees. We aren’t robots, after all. Moving in new directions–exploring–is what living the life of the creative is all about.
Is there a ritual or part of your writing process that remains a constant? What, have you noticed, changes with each new work?
Heather Webb is the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of historical fiction. As a freelance editor and an adjunct in a MFA in Creative Writing program, Heather has helped many writers sign with agents and go on to sell at market. When not writing, she feeds her cookbook addiction, geeks out on history and pop culture, and looks for excuses to head to the other side of the world. To date, her books have been translated to seventeen languages.
An excellent post. So many authors sound the same, especially if you read a bunch of their books in a row. They’re forcing the story to be what they want it to be, rather than letting the story tell them what it wants to be.
As a result of listening to the story, my writing process, like yours, changes with every book, at least in some ways. I’m always a pantser, that doesn’t change, but the type of story I’m pantsing always changes. Mostly I’m creating new story structures (Braided Story, Hero by Proxy, and Villain by Proxy) as I go, as I’ve been trying to describe in my blog for the last several posts.
Thanks, Marc. I’m with you- many books by the same author sound identical because they tend to choose the same kind of characters over and over as well as the same story structures. I’d be bored silly.
Happy writing and thanks for your insightful comment.
Cultural Geography? Wow, like me you do enjoy finding patterns in what from the outside seems disorderly. (Do you teach? You should.)
And here you are all relaxed about the always-different process of writing fiction. Huh. You are right, though. Each project has to be written in a different way.
I have plotted and pantsed, but now I’m into a project the process of which is neither. It’s a love story in which a boy falls in love with an angel (maybe), finds her, loses her, saves her (maybe)…or does she save him?
It’s a story in three phases, and each one has a different inner drive. The overarching tension derives from a question: Why must the ones we love sometimes leave us? Each phase is driven by its own sub-questions, too. 1) How do our loves complete us? 2) Why does love never truly die? 3) How do you reconcile love and its ultimate expression, letting go?
This time around, plot springs from an urgent need to answer questions, to explain something. For me this is a new approach. I like it. The bad news in your post today is that having perfected this process, I’ll have to chuck it out next time around!
Oh, well. When that day comes, I’ll return to your post and remind myself it will be okay. Thanks.
Hi Benjamin,
I taught high school French for a decade, geography briefly at a local college, and then really became engrossed in my writing and publishing so I trnsitioned to just teaching adult ed craft courses at a college as well as conferences, here and there. I really enjoy it. 😊
To address your comments, I can’t say I’ve always been relaxed about my changing process. Quite the opposite, in fact, until my current novel. My third book, and the one where I probably went through the biggest push of growth, was EXTREMELY painful to write. I really had to drag myself through it. I’m proud of what I achieved, though, because the difficult definitely acts as a catalyst for change, just like in our characters’ lives, right?
I’m intrigued by this method you’re currently using for your WIP: “This time around, plot springs from an urgent need to answer questions.” I think I may need to give this method a whirl for my current project, in fact. Thanks for the tip!
I love your “Relax into the fluidity of your process … listen to your instincts carefully.” This reminds me of Robert Olen Butler’s advice about listening to the character’s voice and getting ‘the feel” for the character as he or she comes forward within the story. I’ve been listening to his “Inside Creative Writing” webcasts (17 episodes and I’m totally absorbed these days). My writing ritual usually involves music and little objects on my desk (leaves, flowers, crystals, pine branches) from nature.
Oops, I forgot my last line on the desk objects that work as a set up … different kinds of music and variety of flowers or leaves change for each story.
Paula, thank you for the tip on the podcast! I’m absolutely going to check this out. I had the pleasure of hearing Robert Olen Butler speak a few years ago. He’s a brilliant man.
Thanks for your comments
Thank you! I’m in the process of plotting the third book in my series and it’s not chinking nicely into place the way the last one did. I plotted the last novel by dictating the story into my phone on a long walk with my dog. Easy-peasy. The whole thing – minus a few twists – arrived in my head at once.
This new book is showing up like the dwarves in the opening chapters of Lord of the Rings. Every time I think I’ve got it all, another bit of story, a new character, a dilemma I have to solve pops into my already crowded mind. Yikes!
I’ve been worried. It’s such a relief to hear that not every professional author finds their recipe after a book or two and can churn out stories after that like batches of cookies.
Thanks for the encouragement!
The dwarves! Lol. That left me with quite an image. Yes, don’t beat yourself up for not having this all figures out immediately. It sounds as if you need to approach the book in a different way. Try a storyboard and maybe a journal in your character’s voice. Ask them questions and have them answer. Sometimes you just need to “write through the doubt” so the mc and the story can reveal themselves to you. Good luck!
Heather, thanks for sharing your thoughts on your evolving processes for each book. When I began my second novel, I found myself wanting to follow the rules more than I did with my first novel. I spent more time on character development and did some outlining, a breakthrough for a pantser like me. After five years, though, I found that the revision process was just as daunting when I followed the so-called rules of writing. My experience shows that learning the craft is a lifelong commitment and writers must be open to new approaches with each book. Can’t wait to read your new book.
It IS a life-long commitment! You said it. If you feel like you’ve done all you want or can or that you’re at some exalted level now with nothing to learn, you probably shouldn’t be in a creative pursuit. 😊
Great post, Heather. I write short fiction, but I think your philosophy/approach applies to short stories as well as to novels. It’s liberating, which increases the flow of creativity whatever the genre.
It absolutely does. Shorts and novellas still need characters and story, and in fact, in some ways need them far greater than something written in a longer form. Happy writing!
Thanks for sharing your own processes, Heather. I’m not certain I will ever find just one. As a pantser whose book continues to evolve and change, I now am editing and rewriting using notes to flesh out ideas, make every page better. And you just helped me–I looked for and found an idea I wanted to use and so here I go, back to the novel, remembering to smile and be positive, be “kind to myself.”
Yes! Be kind and you will get there. Best of luck as you go forward.
“Rigidity gets you absolutely nowhere in your fiction or in the business of publishing.”
So wise, so true. Great post!