BIC. Butt in Chair. Time to return to writing. This year with a shortened conference timeline~posting registration in May and selling out in July~ It seemed like I lost a couple of months of thinking, mulling, musing and writing time. I did. Back now!
I don’t get to many of the sessions at the conference, not because I can’t, but because I want to make sure that I focus on the conference and all that it entails. Sigh. I value multitasking, but that was in business where the thought was not deep, the stakes were not as high and the opportunity to use subordinates existed 🙂
I make up by reading the books recommended by the speakers [I use NC Digital Library when I can] and I stack them up against my own story-not the writing- but the story. What is the voice? What about the pacing of this novel. Can I chart the synopsis, the major crisis, show where the denouement comes in? I look at presenters website and follow their process. It is a personal journey that I recognize for some is shorter than for others. Who is their editor? Who is their agent? What are my possibilities?
So I am always attuned to how writers write. The Techniques of a Bestselling Writer, Five-Second Rule to Transform Your Life, The Writer’s Journey. Oh, there are many! They are great reads. Thank you. But no.
I remember at a NESCBWI conference in the last century Barbara Seuling said she never delivered a book to her editor where the editor kept the first two chapters, they were always cut! This gives me hope, but not. It is a different time since Barbara first penned her first manuscript and submitted. Today we talk about The Most Valuable Real Estate in Your Novel~The First Page & THE HOOK! Admittedly, our conference first pages session shows that editors and agents, tho they are not on the panel, also look for that indescribable ‘I’ll know it when I see it’ line or paragraph. How many of those books they accept? Who knows? But yikes, no pressure!
Anyone who knows me, like my own critique group, knows I start a book with the end scene. I know where I want the character to end up~ solving a mystery, finding family, accepting but still unhappy with the solution they themselves wrought, successful, improved, better than they were at the beginning. In that moment I know the character at that place in time. What they want, why, and how. I’m not always sure how to describe it [and mayhaps I have blown many a query in not being able to articulate it.] Then my only problem is to go back to the beginning and start the story.
And there you have it. START THE STORY. Full confession: while I did learn to diagram sentences [actually loved that] the outlining of an essay, chapter, story has never been in my skill set. I sort of consider it the same as not being able to get out of San Francisco heading south~ needing to go north to Marin county, turn around, head across the Golden Gate and then get on the right highway. Maybe now with GPS it would be different, but…. Sigh. It is just the way it is, I have accepted this. But always felt a bit backward and incomplete.
I also belong to Sisters in Crime. the quarterly InSinC magazine appeared in my mailbox on Saturday and as I leafed through I came across an article by Jill Kelly, author of six novels and a member. Defending the Rights of Pantsers. I laughed at the title. Truly! Yes.
Like most of us, being a pantser was not her choice. But she wrote. Every day. At least 300 words. [do emails count? Probably not.] After writing four novels she happened on a book Story Engineering by Larry Brooks. Yes, I may buy it, but not really sure why. As Jill says in the article about the main character in House of Cards: ”he is the god of his little world….he is the CEO and everyone does his bidding. I think this is how story engineers do it.”
And then she says, “my relationship with my characters is very different. We’re friends, collaborators…sharing a mutual experience, they are writing this book with me.” She names pantsing a ‘call and response tradition’ like jazz musicians improvising off one another. I so get that. I get emotional over my character’s problems and solutions. I feel, deeply, the points in the story where she is faced with choice. I worry with her over how this will end. While I cheer for her success, I can see how she could fail! I cry. I get angry. I am amazed when a character shows up to help or hinder. Where were they before? Should I know that? Why do I see them so clearly today but not even know they existed yesterday?
Ms. Kelly’s tips include: Write everyday. Write the first thing in the morning. Gather possibilities. Draft fast, rewrite slow. Be proud of how you work. Nice!
Maybe because of the thirty years spent in corporate America, being paid on the basis of goals met, her tips feel like a set of performance appraisal goals that are attainable, worthwhile and straightforward. There are four months left in the year! These are not strident, difficult or unmanageable goals.
So. Butt in Chair. Yes, Pantser! Officially, proudly, joining the club!