I had a nice exchange with a writer friend on Twitter about choosing an idea to pursue for longer works, such as novels.
When writing short stories, the time investment is low, so you don’t have to triage ideas. You can, in principle, pursue most of them because the investment is something like 1-3k words per story. However, when we get to the realm of a novel, the commitment is much greater; a typical novel is about 90k words; horror and category romance tend to be shorter, 70-80k, while secondary-world fantasy can be longer, 100-120k words, with higher word counts allowed for established authors while newbies are expected to keep it lean. Many people say and I concur that you can have a full draft of a novel in three months (about 1k words per day, which is the length of a good letter of reference; it’s not an onerous word count). I drafted about 65% of the novel last summer; over winter break, I wrote the remaining 35% and did two comprehensive edits; I went through three additional edits before I actually started querying in late April/early May. I am not one to write 1k words/day; it’s more like 2.5, 3, 3.2, 1.2, 0, 0.4, 2.4, 2.2, 3.7, 0 in thousands of words per day. As you can see, I can hit 8-10k per week, but the daily allotments are all over the place and I definitely take breaks. I don’t write every day, because work, life, internet, boredom, etc. I also like to binge-write when I can, and I can’t when the semester is in session, plus binging isn’t sustainable for longer than two or three weeks at a time (ask me how I know).
My first novel is done and currently out with agents; so far, I’ve received one request for a partial manuscript, and still waiting to hear back. The whole querying business is pretty disheartening, but my skin has been thickened by decades of applying for grants, so I’m pretty sure I’ll live. Also, I have Plans B through Z if Plan A (for agent) doesn’t pan out.
Anyhoo, I was DM-ing with this writer friend, who asked how to pick the right idea to pursue for a novel. Like most creative people, he has far more ideas than he can pursue, and I am the same. Those of us who write short fiction sometimes get told by readers that a certain short story would be great if expanded into a novel, but there are still at least half a dozen of those at any given point in time.
How do you pick which idea to pursue for longer work?
I shared my philosophy (backed by personal experience), which is that it almost doesn’t matter which idea you pick. As long as the idea is halfway decent, it is the execution of the idea that creates value in the novel. You can get a great book from a bare-bones plot but with enough texture from characterization, interpersonal conflict, setting, etc. Or you can ruin a clever and original plot by lackluster writing.
I completely understand the anxiety over making sure you’ve picked the right idea, but I believe it’s the enemy of improvement and achievement.
Here is the tale of how my first novel came to be. I originally had an idea for a completely different novel, and it was great, and serious, and fleshed out in terms of secondary and tertiary subplots, and everyone to whom I showed the outline said it would be great… And then I kept dragging my feet. I was scared to start, scared because that novel needed an author I definitely wasn’t and probably still am not. I made it into such a huge deal in my head that I was completely blocked.
So I said f*ck it and wrote a completely different novel instead.
Of course, I didn’t start the second one as a novel. I basically picked a throwaway idea that seemed lighter and easier to write, and I said I would try to write a novella. Not as long, not as serious, much lower stakes (for me). I started writing, and in the process of writing the characters and the conflicts deepened, and a whole tapestry unfurled. Before I knew it, I had a novel. Is it the world’s most original novel? I am sure it’s not. But I really think it’s good, and so do a bunch of other people. It did what it needed to do. I finished it, and learned a ton doing it, and I don’t even hate it. I am also in much better shape to write harder stuff now because I am more aware of what I can and cannot do.
So my advice is to pick any idea that seems kind of cool and makes you excited (as opposed to terrified) to write, and just run with it. Whatever it becomes, it becomes.
Another bit of wisdom, and, again, I don’t think I’m alone in this, is to not write the stuff you dread writing. A boring chapter bookended by two great chapters? You can probably omit it and trust the reader to fill in the blanks. A scary/difficult/off-putting chapter? Maybe you don’t know enough about your characters or conflict yet; skip it for now and get to it later, once you truly know what needs to go there.
There is a chapter about halfway through my book that is the last thing I wrote. It was an important chapter resolving a huge gridlock, and I wasn’t able to come up with a satisfactory way to do it until I finished the whole book. Only then, in hindsight, it was clear what had to have happened, and when I wrote it, it came out perfect.
Why I am writing about this for an academic audience? First, I think some people might enjoy these craft notes. I know I am always a sucker for craft notes, even if it’s not my craft. Second, there are parallels to technical writing and academic science.
Some of my best technical work didn’t come from the shiniest ideas. It came because we picked a matte (as opposed to shiny) problem and did really good, deep, thoughtful work on it. The resulting papers were much better and more insightful and more impactful than one could’ve imagined when we first started out.
And when you are stuck on a technical problem, you should ignore it for a while and go do something else. Sometimes it works itself out in your subconscious. Other times, in the process of moving on to other stuff, you learn enough new skills that you’re able to tackle the problem much more efficiently and successfully than before.
In science, as in art, you can’t force things. You have to allow for things to fall into place, and you have to trust your gut (the mouthpiece of your subconscious) that things don’t fit or that they aren’t where or when they should be. Always listen to the gut.
How’ve you been, blogosphere? How is summer treating you?
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