Fiction: Pending
ph. by Louis Trinh
I purchased: “The Everything Guide to Writing a Novel” by Joyce and Jim Lavene, “Self-Editing for Fiction Writers” by Renni Browne and Dave King, and “Best-Selling Secrets from Top Agents” by Rick Frishman and Robyn Spizman.
All of which deterred me from the most important thing: writing my story. I suddenly became concerned with who my audience was and how to write query letters. It would ultimately cost me three years before I could forget everything I had read and begin writing.
My first failed attempt at a novel had been untitled. After five months of drafting and a week in Jeju Island for research, I dropped it. There was no “I” actually, the draft dropped itself. It wasn’t going anywhere eventful, it wouldn’t budge.
My second attempt was more successful. I finished the book. It took two years to draft and seven months to write. I sent it over to a few editors my mentor had recommended. They tore it up. Problem 1: I was not talking enough (my 200 pp could have easily been 400). Problem 2: the draft was over-planned.
I decided to start all over. I went back and signed up for an Intermediate Fiction Workshop, meeting twice a week. To progress more quickly, I consulted with the instructor an extra hour each week about my new draft. This one contained the same basic themes as my last attempt but I was starting without a plan or direction. One of the valuable lessons I had learned: “Don’t write something meaningful, let the scholars pull meaning from your work. Just sit down and start to write about real people.” I am now two chapters in after eight weeks.
I guess it took me more than three years to write these two chapters (24 pp). Even now, I wonder what would happen if my third attempt ended up going nowhere. How do I continue to commit myself to such long term projects? I think I persist because my characters have become as real as the world around me. I am not willing to let them go, let their lives go because I am not a good enough writer. I’ll just have to get better.
novels are such long projects, but worth it in the end. well done on persisting – you’ll get there!
thanks j-a, hope i get there soon !
I am so incredibly (originally, I wrote “increatively… what?!) excited for you. I just got Mary Oliver’s “Rules of the Dance”, and combined with our workshop… I’m starting to really feel myself getting back together in a new and (I hope) better direction.
Keep it up girl <3
(PS- I love your shirt in that picture. Teach me your ways!)
I borrowed some of her books from the library, she has some great stuff. Congrats on moving forward, it’s always tough to gather yourself again and get going.
Actually, I didn’t even get to talk about poetry in this post and how significant it is to my progress. It really is a way for me to escape fiction for a while and wind down in-between chapters. Poetry was my first encounter with creative writing and will always be a priority. It’s great to be in the advanced workshop with you, Carly.
Let me know how “Rules of the Dance” turns out,
angela
There’s no way THE author writes. You need to keep that in mind. Some authors plan. Others sail blindfolded. Some do a combination of both. An editor should never tell you HOW to write but rather what is in your piece and what is missing. If they are telling you how to write then I would probably worry about trusting my work to their judgement. They probably know how to write but might be lacking the aesthetic understanding to actually help YOU improve at writing like YOU. You need to learn to see through criticism. If someone told you that your novel was over-planned then what they really mean is that your themes were too obvious, and/or, your characters were too rigid, and/or plot too predictable. I wouldn’t destroy a good story for the sake of craft. You probably need to make the characters less movie like. Avoid a 3 act structure, which you might have picked up from a shitty “How to Finish Your Novel” book which are little more than traps for housewives in need of a hobby and techniques more suitable for screen writing rather than an artistic literary endeavor.
I’ll be frank. If you’re writing to sell-out, to be a best-seller. You might need to reflect upon the idea that you might not be writing for the “right” reasons. I’m not going to lecture you on being the Christ-like bohemian starving artist sacrificing for their work. What I’m saying is you have a voice. You obviously haven’t found it yet. You never will if you’re worried about marketing trends, who might enjoy it, and if there is a publisher who wants it. Markets will surprise you, people are human beings not demographics, and publishers will surprise you. As a humanist, the dynamics of the human creature should be something you have a firm understanding of. It’s a bad sign when you look at people as numbers and trends. Anyone who tells you otherwise might be a successful writer but probably isn’t an artist.
My advice to remedy that problem is something my grandmother told me back in Wisconson, “The key to an adventurous life is to befriend strange people.” I feel this also helps with fiction. They don’t care about the norms or what’s trendy. They are themselves.
Hi Stephany Daedelus,
Thanks for taking the time to share all of that. Sure a lot of us could benefit from it.
Novel writing is haarrrrrd.
But after you finish your first one it gets a hell of a lot less daunting.
Everyone has different modes of planning and outlining your story, but even if you’re one of those free spirit “I’ll make it up as I go” writers (which is totally cool, if you can rock it) I find it’s best to know the beginning, end, and a few points you’d like to hit somewhere along the way.
Also, whoever told you that 400 pages is better than 200 pages, I’m not sure what they’re talking about. Agents and editors will always choose the 200 page book over the 400 page book. Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that. Make your novel as long as it needs to be, and not a page more. Every single sentence, every single word should be necessary. Keep it lean.
As for guidebooks and such, the best thing you can do is just buy a bunch of really good books recently published in the genre of your current project. Read them, devour them — but read them as a writer. Note what works, what’s not working. And then come up with ways to do it better.
Hope that helps! Good luck. Whatever you write, I’m sure it’ll be great. I’m looking forward to reading it!
-Shaun
I sense a bit of intended irony but there is truth to what you say.
About the 200-should-be-400 pp issue, as absurd as it sounds, I agree with the editor as much as I agree with you. I began as a poet and still mainly deal with poetry. Even though it shouldn’t matter because authors like Barthelme show how much concision still plays into fiction. But at the same time, I wasn’t aware of the function of the paragraph as I was aware of the stanza. I definitely can’t expand my work to 400, but what I could do is allow myself to spend more time with each character, etc, under-the-iceberg logistics instead of breezing through. Then, after I can go back and cut out all the unnecessary fat you guys have been talking about!
Also, thanks for commenting–you guys really bring a level of intellect and thought to create a interesting discussion. I always like to take something away from it.
Best of luck
angela
That was a really interesting post, I enjoyed reading it. You are dead right!
Terrific work! This is the type of information that should be shared around the web. Shame on the search engines for not positioning this post higher!
I get distracted by books that promise to help me do things, learn things, understand things, too. I love to plan, to list, to dream about what could be. It’s great to realize those are distractions, but I think there’s something important about the journey you took: you still got where you needed to go, and it’s hard to predict what would have happened if you hadn’t taken those detours. Hope that the story you started still intrigues you now.
Dear Rose,
Thank you for taking the time to comment. I got an opportunity to browse your illustrations, fashion posts, and photos–it’s a beautiful blog. Also, now that some time has passed I’ve gained more insight into this post. And I agree with you. Though it might have seemed like backtracking (with reading this books, etc) it helped me step forward and get to “where i needed to go.”
Good luck on all your projects and I hope we keep in touch,
angela
Thanks for your nice reply, Angela! And thanks for taking a look at my blog, too. Nice to be in touch here and on Twitter. Looking forward to reading your poetry and fiction!