Author Challenge

Laura Highcove

So a few weeks ago my DIYMFA mentor suggested I do an author challenge. In it, I picked an author in my genre (fantasy) and read three of their books. One of their earliest, one of their most recent books, and one that is right in between. This process is to help me see how an author has evolved as a writer from the first book they published, forward by giving a wide sample.

At first I was going to choose Brandon Sanderson (because Brandon Sandersonā€¦), but then I decided I would choose my first favorite fantasy author, Mercedes Lackey. I read her gryffin series (The Black Gryphon, The White Gryphon, The Silver Gryphon) what feels like a million years ago. I didn’t read any of her more famous books about the Companions until much later. I am also such a fan of her Joust books and the 500 Kingdoms. I just love most everything this woman writes (not that I’ve read it all, she has written a lot).

So I went and found a list of her books. Her first book was Arrows of the Queen which was published in 1987. I chose that one. Right in the middle were two books that I already owned. I decided to choose the one I had enjoyed reading more, called Brightly Burning. Her most recent book is part of the Elemental Masters series. I have not read any of that series, but I chose it anyway. It seems pretty stand alone. It is called Steadfast.
So I started off with Arrows of the Queen. I have to say that the plot for this book was rather rough. The story jumped around and didn’t really focus well and when we got to the big bad conflict at the end I was left a little lost. However, I could see the care and detail she put into her characters and her world. Foreshadowing for books she wouldn’t write for years were all in this first book, and the characters were alive and real and I cared about them.

Since it was my second time reading Brightly Burning, I was able to look into it with a bit more detail. What really got to me is I got about a quarter way into the book before the actual plot started. I just felt that there didn’t need to be quite so much back-story. Once the ‘actual’ story started, the story and plot worked well. Again, the characters and world are wonderful.

I am about halfway through Steadfast and so far it is proceeding in standard Mercedes Lackey fare, though I feel like the ending is pretty well-dictated at this point and I’m not anticipating a twist. This doesn’t mean I’m not enjoying it.

When I read and immerse myself in a book, unless there’s a major issue, I just read it and enjoy it. Now that I’ve learned to read more like a writer I can see that authors are not gods. They are good at certain things and not as good at others.

The book can be entirely enjoyable without being perfect. That was something I knew logically, but it’s different having read the books and seen the imperfections.

It gives me more confidence in my own writing not needing to be perfect. Now I still have to figure out what my strengths in writing are, but baby steps.

Writing Process

Laura Highcove

I have been writing for a long time. When I was young, I would pound out stories that only amounted to a couple hundred words each. I evolved and the stories got longer. Then I began to come up with more ideas and so I had dozens of stories floating around.

My process worked thus:

1) Work on a story from the beginning. If it was already partially written, I would edit and tighten and add new ideas. If it was brand new I would jump in and start writing without any more planning than maybe my main character’s name.

2) Get a new idea. This could either apply to the story I was currently working on, or any of the others. In either case the result would be going back to step one.

My process did not contain a lot of focus. I would jump among my projects all the time. The only way I would make any headway is when I stayed interested in a project long enough (and didn’t have any shiny new ideas) to get to the end. This did not happen very often.

However, over the years, due to sheer number of hours, the cream steadily rose. The stories for which I had ideas continued to get better and develop. The stories that weren’t as great fell by the wayside.

Then three years ago, I had an experience that started me down the path to serious self reflection. One of the many things that came out of that was a desire to gain mastery of writing.

I picked one of my stories, Shifting Winds, and I worked on it exclusively. I read articles, I read books, I struggled with my free time and my other obligations and I eventually found my DIYMFA mentor.

I struggled a lot with my process. October and November of last year I started over with a brand new story, The Storyteller, which I worked on ‘revising’ from January to June of this year. Through mostly pure grit, I kept with it through figuring out that I didn’t really have a rough draft, to realizing how underdeveloped the world and the characters were and trying to figure out how I was going to get this story from where it was to publishable.

I am still adapting my writing process. When I started The Storyteller, my plan was to force myself to focus on the story and just write through to the end. Well over the period of six months I came to realize that that process didn’t work for me. Since I develop my story as I write, writing straight through to the end just gives me a lot of scattered thoughts and rewritten scenes.

So I had to stop over this month of downtime as I let The Storyteller sit, and think about how I could improve my process. What worked for me in the past was writing and then going back and cleaning up, and then writing a bit more, then going back and cleaning it up, etc. What didn’t work about that back in the day was my jumping around among stories, but I don’t have that problem anymore now that I decided to be more focused.

I’m still working on accepting the fact that I am just going to be slower in turning out books than other writers. I am annoyed by this fact. That’s okay. I can be annoyed. I just have to keep writing, which thankfully has become a habit at this point.

Gender Bending

Laura Highcove

One of the things that I am playing around with in The Storyteller are gender roles, because it’s something I’m interested in. I’ve always been a tomboy and unlike many girls, I never really grew out of it.

Both of the main characters in The Storyteller do not conform to standard gender roles. Tabitha was raised as a Prince Charming. She is dashing, brave, and kind, the ideal prince. She just happens to be a girl.

Wildrose is In Touch with his Feminine Side. He is a man who does not play to typical masculine traits, and is just as comfortable playing the role of a woman as a man.

Wonderfully enough, TV Tropes (which I introduced you to last week) has a page for discussing gender roles. (It is a long read, just warning you.) The article exists to help people write characters of opposite genders, and as such is a neat compilation of the differences between genders, with the necessary disclaimer that it’s hard to make blanket statements about genders.

What gender roles do you like to bend or break, and which do you tend to conform to?

Getting Tropey

Laura Highcove

It occurs to me that since right now I don’t have any writing stuff to talk about, that this is a perfect time to talk a bit more about the story I’m working on itself, as opposed to the process.

If you’ve visited the “The Stories” link over on the right, you may have noticed the line under The Storyteller heading: “I have always wanted to do a story in a fairy tale world where the characters are genre savvy (ie, they know the fairy tales are stories and respond accordingly.)”. Being genre savvy involves a knowledge of expected outcomes based on stories similar to the current situation. These expected outcomes are also known as tropes. Click on that link. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? I’ve been known to get lost for hours on that site.

Basically, all of the things that you expect to happen in tv, movies, books, etc. because you’ve seen them before. You know it is a bad decision to go down into the basement when there’s a serial killer or scary monster somewhere in the vicinity, but the person in the situation has no idea that they’re in a scary movie.

Part of what I’m playing around with in The Storyteller is that the laws of magic in this world are tropes, and fairy tales happen over and over in different places to different people. These people have no idea they’re in a story. My main characters are Storytellers, and it’s their job to be Genre Savvy. They have to know the laws (tropes) in order to make sure the world stays stable through the successful completion of the tales.

Think for a moment about Cinderella. It doesn’t matter if you think of the Disney version, or any other version. There are certain things you associate with the story. Cinderella is treated as a servant. Her ball. She meets a prince, loses her slipper, and is identified by it.

There are many tropes associated with this story, and tons of re-tellings of the Cinderella story that use different tropes. Some tropes are less necessary than others. Would it still be a cinderella story if she started out rich? If her stepmother loved her? If there is no prince? What about if there were two princes?

In The Storyteller, the Storytellers have to make sure that certain tropes (laws of magic) happen properly within the tale or the magic can go completely wild. As such, I’ve had a lot of fun playing with what tropes I can put into stories, and which I can take out without losing the essence of the story. And that doesn’t mean that my Storytellers don’t have tropes of their own.

Tropes are not good or bad on their face, they’re just a tool. A way of creating and possibly subverting expectations in the reader quickly and easily. If you find any tropes on TV Tropes that you particularly like, feel free to share them in the comments section or post to my wall.

Retrospective

Laura Highcove

So here I am, after spending a week not working on The Storyteller. That doesn’t mean I don’t have anything to write about for this post, however. I figured this would be a great time to sit down and figure out what it is I’ve gotten out of the past five months. I just went back and read all of my posts, and I cannot even believe the ups and downs I managed to get through. It’s sort of mind boggling that I got anything done.

Major things I learned:

1) I am starting to hammer out what my process is.

I am not a writer who pounds out a rough draft and then edits it a few times. I’m not convinced I pound out a rough draft in the first place. I don’t do much planning at all before I sit down and write, so all of my planning is done as I write. That makes me believe that my first and second drafts are nothing more than active planning.

I always assumed that the way I used to write (writing until I had a new idea, then going back and editing and writing a little more, then repeat) was no good, mostly because I rarely had the discipline to stick with one story long enough to actually finish it. I have now accepted that that is likely part of my process. My first ‘draft’ is more ‘getting all the ideas on the page’ (whether I get to the end of the story or not), I let it rest, then sit down with everything I wrote and expand on the characters, the magic system, the world, etc. Then I write another draft, which is still not a completed rough draft, but at this point I should get through the entirety of the story. (So I have a legit ending.)

This is as far as I’ve gotten in the process thus far with The Storyteller. I know I am missing at least one subplot and many more details that need to be fleshed out. After this rest period, I will likely hammer out a few more details, and then turn the draft into an actual rough draft. As much as I want to compare myself to people who can just hammer out beautiful rough drafts ~cough~ #branderson ~cough~ I’m just going to have to keep working on what my own process is.

2) I am not as much a beginner writer as I thought

I am finding that I actually do have processes and good habits as a writer that I just didn’t recognize. SUBLIST!

a) I can hammer out words. I mean like seriously.
b) I can write most anywhere with most anything. Laptop, desktop, notebook, back of an envelope, whatever.
c) My ideas develop as I write them. I can only do so much sitting and thinking. (Not that it doesn’t help)
d) I am hella stubborn. As many times as I have thought about abandoning my story, I really am more stubborn than I thought. It basically comes down to the fact that I know I’m never going to stop writing, so abandoning a specific project is just losing a way to improve.

3) Other writers suck too

I have had a lot of problems with comparing what I write to other amazing stories out there. (This includes novels, movies, tv shows, webcomics, etc.) And I am actually starting to take a step back and look at the fact that everyone has stuff that is trash along with the stuff that is good. Or they started out and weren’t all that great and developed over time. Even well-written stuff can drop the ball in a serious way.

So as I work my way through my two months of not working on the Storyteller, it does allow me to take a step back and look at things objectively. I made a deadline and I met it. I succeeded at some things, failed at others. I even have comments on my last two blog posts! I want to thank everyone who has followed me this far. I’m not done yet. Stick around.

Completing a Draft

Laura Highcove

As you may remember from posts past, my overall plan was to finish this write through of the story by June 6th, which is a Saturday, and when I would start playing my video game reward. I worked on writing the end of the story, while reminding myself it is all rough draft to keep from over analyzing, from the outline I made a while ago. I stumbled around the final fight scene, then I started in on the final scene and I just started writing and things were just coming together. It was making sense, and I was really happy with it. I tweaked the epilogue (which I had written before as a goal point) and then I sat back and thought ‘Wow, this might actually be good, like not just ‘I got through it’, but good.’

I gushed to my husband about how happy I was that the story was good, even though the first half and second half were not the same length. So my husband asked how long they were. I told him. Then he said, “You know that means your story is only 55k words, right?”

Of course I didn’t know that. Who the heck just adds two numbers together in their head? Suffice it to say, I very quickly went from being proud of myself to realizing I didn’t have a novel length draft. (Much less a fantasy novel length draft.) And while my draft is rather rough in some places, and will need some scenes added in and such, the idea of being able to add 35k words did not seem plausible.

This is what having a mentor is for. She suggested that after letting it rest for a while, I should read through it again and find a subplot that could be expanded on. That sounded like a perfect idea to me, reminding me that sometimes seemingly horrible problems have simple answers.

So since Wednesday, my draft has been sitting, and I keep feeling like I should be writing, and then I remember that I’m taking a break. It’s a surreal experience as always. Sort of like the first week after I graduated from college when I realized I would never have to go to school again. Like ever. šŸ˜€

Worry not, as I am currently alpha reading my husband’s book (which I’ve been promising to do forever) so I’m not completely out of the writing game. I also started playing my reward game.

Feeling Guilty

Laura Highcove

So this past week I was on vacation. I decided that I was not going to restrict the activities I would have time to do by scheduling more writing time than normal. Instead I gave myself a flat hour of writing per day on my current wip. I then found that with my extra time, I wanted to work on another story that has been poking around in my head for a while.

I still got a good amount done, but was glad I didn’t end up making my vacation feel like a job. Vacations are for relaxing and riding roller coasters.

I am now working my way through the ending of the story. I have an outline for it and am now just writing it out. I am, however, reminded of how poor I am at writing fight scenes. They usually end up no more creative than: “He swung his sword in a wide arch and his opponent blocked it.” unless I get my husband’s help.

I feel guilty sometimes in getting help with my writing. I’m not talking about the overall skills, or getting feedback from critique partners, but when I need help with specifics in the actual story itself. Such as when I (always) need help from my husband for fight scenes, or when I run into a plot hole that I just can’t fill and get suggestions from him. I mean I know I can’t do everything myself, but I always feel like I should be able to. I mean don’t ‘real’ authors just write rough drafts and then have critique groups and/or editors that help them tweak?

Anyone else out there feel guilty asking for help with things (anything, not just writing) that you feel like you should be doing on your own?

Drafting: Scene Roadblock

Laura Highcove

So first off is an assessment of my limiting my hours. First off, it did certainly help with my level of guilt. If I did my scheduled time for the day, then it was easier for me to relax and do other things. (like reading one and a half Brandon Sanderson books)

I also set a timer on my phone for the scheduled amount of time, which helps a bit in keeping me focused. Something about the time there actually counting down makes there be a sense of urgency that I don’t have when I sit down and glance at the clock and plan to write for an hour.

Of course travel for vacation is making my timing a little rough today and tomorrow, but I’m getting it in. It makes me realize that my plan on writing two hours each day on my vacation kinda puts a time crunch I don’t want to deal with on my vacation, so I’ll probably limit my time to an hour a day, meaning I won’t have the extra time I thought I might.

I don’t want to stress myself out during my vacation. That’s not the point. Even now I’m feeling a bit resentful that I have to spend time writing this post instead of relaxing.

Something else I ran into: A very important scene that exists to garner sympathy and connection with a particular character is a complete and utter roadblock. I basically had to skip it after spending two days on it with no progress. The story flows before and after it. I don’t know what to make of that. My first instinct is that the scene is in the wrong place, or unneeded, except I need it, and there’s really no where else to put the scene. No idea what to do about that yet.

And now I am on to new stuffs. I am going to plow through it even if it goes really slowly. I really want to get the second half of this book hashed out. I keep running into contradictions with my world or plot that grind me to a halt. It happens every time I get to this level of revision on a story and it’s quite the confidence killer. I am scared and frustrated and I have no idea if I’ll ever be able to fix the issues.

Yes, I’m ending on a down this week. May as well own it.

Drafting: Limiting my Writing

Laura Highcove

I have no idea if this journal is helping or hurting me. On one hand, I have someone to be accountable to, even if there’s only one or two people clicking through from my facebook, or coming here of their on volition. It also makes me look at what I’m doing on a weekly basis, so I don’t get stuck in stagnation.

On the other time, it’s something else to eat up time, and I feel much guiltier about not getting done what I say I want to get done. Then because I don’t have time and am more scared to fail, I am hesitant to make any changes to my plans.

I know focus is a hard thing for me. Even when I was in college and I would work on my programming projects, I had a habit of banging out a section of code, getting it to a working place and then getting up and taking a walk around before coming back. The nice thing about getting up and walking around in a dorm room, is there’s not much to it. It’s easy to land back in my desk and then continue with the project.

Now my ‘get up and walk around’ ends up being going to a website of some variety and then I look up a half-hour (or longer) later having not gone back. Barring that is getting up and walking around my house, where I get distracted by a messy counter, a dusty TV, or something else to procrastinate with.

For the second week I feel like I worked pretty hard on my writing, and yet I still didn’t get all the way through what I said I would. I guess I could blame it on my not being good at planning how much I can get done in a week, but I also worry that I’m just not focused enough on it.

I want to get through the rest of Bluebeard and do the Headquarters section, which will drop me out in front of new content just in time for my vacation. That will give me four weeks to finish off the book by my deadline.

I think I might even try and limit my writing this week. I know that sounds a little counter productive, but I have been in a state of near constant guilt. Any time I am not writing I am feeling guilty about not writing. So let’s see:

Sunday: 2 hours + 1 for blog/facebook
Monday: .5 hours
Tuesday: 1.5 hours
Wednesday: 1 hours
Thursday: 0 hours
Friday: 1 hours
Saturday 2 hours + .5 for blog

That is: 8 hours of writing a week. And 1.5 for social media. I think that’s pretty good.

Drafting: An Ah-HA! Moment

Laura Highcove

So I had a bit of a revelation this week. As my DIYMFA Mentor would say, an “Ah HA!” Moment. I was listening to a recent DIY MFA podcast on making plots without a formula, and it occurred to me that a lot of what the guest was saying was something that I was already doing in a form. It was a moment where I realized how far I’ve come from when I just wrote all day long, and figured out some things through trial, error, and grit, but never came out from under my rock.

My learning about new writing techniques and methods are now more about filling in the blanks, tweaking technique, and looking at things from alternative angles as opposed to filling in huge chunks. And that’s not to say that I don’t still have a ton to learnā€¦

Like this week I learned that 19k words was a little too much to revise in a week. I worked on it for more hours than I usually do, but still didn’t get through everything.

I did, however, hammer out a much better ending to the Cinderella section than I had before. So it was still a productive week.

I also have a vacation coming up in the middle of may, which will allow for a lot of catch up, even though my husband has told me I am not allowed to spend the entire week writing like I did last time.

So this week, my specific measurable result will be finishing the next two sections. I don’t want to set myself up for failure by adding in that third section. It’s 15k words for editing.