Integrity and ideas

As a beginning writer, I would occasionally think silly things like “I don’t have any ideas for what to write next! Maybe I’ll never have another story idea, ever!” That’s in the same category as when I broke up with a guy at age 18, and thought “I’ll never find anyone else to date, ever!”

While there are certainly plenty of positive things about being single, thinking that I would never find anyone to date again was ridiculous – kind of like thinking that any story idea is the very last one ever. I learned that there were – shockingly – a few other men in the world who I found reasonably interesting, just as I learned that I can always come up with new stories – even when I think I can’t.

In February I took an online short story writing workshop taught by Dean Wesley Smith. One of the assignments was to write a story about solitude. I thought and thought and thought, and after 6 days had two ideas, neither of which I liked. I picked one and started writing it. After a few pages I realized it wasn’t going to work at all. So I went to plan B and started writing the second … and it soon became clear it wasn’t working either. The assignment was due the next day, I couldn’t think of anything else to write about, and I was very, very frustrated. I finally gave up and decided I just wouldn’t have a submission for that week.

After making that decision, my thoughts kept going back to the assignment. Even though I wasn’t going to finish it, I wanted to understand why I’d had so much trouble.

Story idea #1 had been intended to be a scene from a novel I’d like to work on someday. The story is set in a small steel town in Pennsylvania around 1910. A young immigrant girl whose husband recently died is being pressured by her family and friends to get remarried, but she’s still grieving. The ‘solitude’ concept fits in theory, but not enough to justify this story fitting into the parameters of the homework assignment. So I tried to make her feel more sad and alone, and that stifled the story. Trying to force my idea to fit into a box was not working.

Story idea #2 was supposed to be about a man whose wife died but he doesn’t realize it – and nor does the reader until the end. The problem was that I just didn’t want to write that story. I’d read it if someone else wrote it (and if you like creepy and compelling stories along those lines, I highly recommend A Prayer for the Dying by Stewart O’Nan – it’s all in second person, which makes it even more disturbing). My story felt like I was trying to add creepiness just to achieve the goal of the assignment.

The next day at work I kept thinking about idea #2. If I took out the unsettling parts it could become a decent story. It wouldn’t fit the goals of the assignment, but at least I would feel good about finishing something. After work I rushed home, wrote a little over 2,000 words, and sent it in. To my tremendous surprise, Dean’s feedback was the best I’ve ever gotten from him. I reread the story, made a few minor tweaks, and am planning to submit it somewhere as soon as I have the time to research where somewhere might be. (It’s set in the 1880s in the American West, so it’s kind of historical fiction.)

I learned several things from this experience. First, and most important: never try to force a story to be something it’s not. Once I removed the artificial restrictions I’d placed on myself, I wrote something that actually fit the goals of the assignment much better. Second: I can write a good story from a prompt, no matter what. I’d learned this a few years before, but when I gave up the night before my homework was due I thought maybe I couldn’t work with just any prompt. I was wrong. Sure, my writing is going to have my essence, and it might not fit what everyone would expect based on the prompt. But so what? As long as I’m true to myself, I will be happy with what I create.

Over the past few years I’ve written a lot of stories I would never have thought of if I hadn’t had the assignments I’ve had from the various workshops I’ve taken. Every single time I’ve enjoyed the experience – at least by the end. 🙂 So I decided I would come up with a list of pretend story/anthology names and occasionally pick one off the list just to see what happens. I found a few online story name generators, took a few names from real anthologies, and came up with this list.

  • The Endangered Piano
  • The Dark Bicycle
  • The Perfect Hammock
  • The Haunted Train
  • The Secret Train
  • Falling Destruction
  • The Year’s Mage
  • The Invisible Visions
  • Smooth Thief
  • The Lost Search
  • The Ashes of the Fire
  • The Servant’s Slaves
  • The Dream of the Window
  • Green Girl
  • The Secrets of the Silver
  • The Seventh Door
  • The Dreaming’s Touch
  • Tears in the Cloud
  • The Last Danger
  • Years in the Soul
  • Forgotten Doors
  • The Dangerous Voyager
  • The Fairy of the Game
  • Splintered Thief
  • Gift of River
  • For the Nowhere
  • On the Moonlit Metronome
  • The Mechanical Third Boy
  • The Fall of Yesterday
  • Bad Witch
  • The Selfish Book
  • The Thief
  • The Queen by a Battleship
  • The Unusual Undertaker
  • The Cup of Thoughts
  • Fortification of Whispers
  • The Legend of the Lime Undergarments of Yesterday

I’m sure it’s clear that some of these might prove to be a little challenging to write … but I will have fun!

Jasper and Rosie having fun
Jasper and Rosie having fun

The best laid plans

The urban fantasy novel I’m working on started as a short story (ha) I wrote for a writing workshop taught by Dean Wesley Smith. The assignment was to write an urban fantasy story having something to do with “many worlds.” I was stumped. I kept thinking: urban fantasy means vampires, werewolves, zombies … creatures I’m not opposed to (as long as I don’t meet any personally), but I’ve never written about them, nor had writing that type of story ever even occurred to me. My mind was a blank. One day I talked with three of my friends about the assignment and how I had no clue what to do. By the end of our conversation I had written this.

"Pond Girl" initial notes

That might not look like much to anyone else, but I was super excited. Not only did I finally have an idea for my homework assignment, I knew this story would be really fun to write – and it has been!

I tend to scribble notes like this when I start a new story. This example is pretty straightforward and, to me at least, describes most of chapter one. I added a few things – like the guy doesn’t find a flower, he finds the girl’s pet frog, Douglas. But still, this was a great outline for the opening of the book.

Sometimes my notes are a little rougher. Take a look at this one for my selkie novel. I scribbled it on the back of a boarding pass.

Midsummer - some initial notes

This one is a little more cryptic – even I had to take a minute to figure out what it represents. I have no idea what “TPM” stood for, although I’d have to guess one of the four viewpoint characters since I recognize the code names for the other three (M, K, and MCù). (When I drew this I hadn’t named the fourth character yet, so TPM presumably stood for something meaningful.) Obviously this is not as detailed as the first image – or is it? To me, there’s actually a ton of information in this drawing. It’s just in a form of graphical shorthand that makes no sense to anyone who doesn’t know the story – which is pretty much everyone except me at this point.

Notes and diagrams like this help me a lot, but once I get going I need something a bit heftier. I’ve been experimenting with Scapple, which is a mind-mapping-like tool made by the folks who make the writing application Scrivener. (For the record, I still use Word to write, but everyone I know who uses Scrivener loves it.) I’ll write a more detailed post at some point – for now, here’s a snapshot so you can get a feel for how I’m using Scapple for outlining. I’m experimenting with using different colored shapes to indicate which character is the viewpoint character.

Scapple - experiment

The left side is the outline; each box represents a single scene, and the black bars indicate chapter breaks. Notes about the setting or characters are scattered off on the right side. This is still very much an experiment, but so far it has been helpful.

I’m a much more efficient writer when I have a plan ahead of time, so I’ve been trying to improve my outlining process. I don’t do much (if any) outlining for short stories. I might have a scribbled picture like the one above, but because of the length I don’t need a detailed outline like I do for longer works. I tend to write sparse outlines for novels, with big gaps where I haven’t figured out what happens yet. That’s worked okay up until now, but when I have to fill in those gaps I tend to spend a lot of time thinking and/or researching, which is fun but not very efficient.

I do like having outlines more on the sparse side, probably because often a story will change while I’m writing it. But I find it significantly less disruptive to have a plan change than to reach a spot in a story where I have no clue what happens next.

Here’s a photo of my writing assistants from this morning. They always have a plan … there’s a pine cone on the ground in front of Jasper, and they’re both waiting for me to throw it. Note that they’re also blocking the trail…

Border collies with a pine cone plan.
Border collies with a pine cone plan.

Formalized curiosity

I love this quote by Zora Neale Hurston:

“Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.”

Researching is one of the most enjoyable things about writing for me, but it’s also one of the most dangerous. It doesn’t sound dangerous, does it? Who wouldn’t want to research how mail order brides were ordered in American West in the late 1880s? Types of pottery found on the Aeolian Islands dating to 1500 BC? Mythology relating to black dogs? Magical properties of herbs? Abandoned subway stations around the world?

I certainly would!

And therein lies the rub. I can – and do! – happily research for hours. Days! Weeks!!! If there’s something I’m unfamiliar with that is related to a story I’m working on, I want to learn enough about it to make sure I’m using it correctly. If it’s something mythological, I want to know that I’m following the standard tropes – or I want to know that I understand them well enough to veer off course, like I did with Emma the ghost in With Perfect Clarity, where I gave her the ability to read the thoughts of living people she came in contact with. Sometimes it’s fun to break the rules – but it’s a lot easier when you know what the rules are.

Right now I’m working on an urban fantasy novel in which mythological people are living in today’s world. For example: pretend you’re a dryad. You like hanging out with trees, but you might also enjoy eating pizza, or going to the movies. I have to guess that spending your entire life hanging out with your tree – no matter how much you love it – would eventually get boring. So … what happens when a normal person’s life crosses paths with someone like this?

I’m having a great time writing this story, but I need to research to make sure I’m getting the mythology correct (at least those parts I choose to use), that the setting is realistic (it takes place in – and under – a made-up city almost as big as New York), and that I correctly describe normal details that are unfamiliar to me (one of the protagonists is a barista). Here’s my list of what I’ve researched so far:

• How to make good coffee. So far this has been used in a single coffee-related sentence.
• Types and characteristics of mythological people. This turned out to be surprisingly less useful than I’d thought, so I’ve made up most of the qualities these characters have in the story.
• Images of underground tunnels. Wow. Who knew I would find this so fascinating? I originally thought I’d find a few pictures that would help me visualize the setting. Instead I’ve spent so much time looking at photos (you can see my Pinterest board) that I finally had to force myself to stop and get back to writing.
• Images of the outdoor patio of a restaurant I went to a while back in Palm Springs (Le Vallauris). I’ve started a Pinterest board for this as well. There’s one scene set in a similar restaurant (and yes, there is a dryad), and I wanted to look at photos to make sure I was setting the scene well.
• Mythology about black dogs. I looked this up after writing the first scene with a mysterious black dog. To my surprise, I’d followed the mythology without even knowing it. 🙂

I’m sure there will be more by the time the novel is finished … I’m on chapter six right now so there’s a ways to go.

So, what’s the problem?

Time!

I have to squeeze this research into nights and weekends, and while I truly believe it makes my stories better and richer, I also have to be careful to find a balance between researching enough for the story and researching just because it’s fun.

I had a great lesson on this topic last year, and I’m glad because I keep thinking of it as a reminder to (usually) not spend too much time researching. I was working on a short story set in about 1500 BC in the Aeolian Islands. They’re volcanic islands off the coast of Sicily. Here’s a picture of Stromboli, which is an active volcano.

Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campora_San_Giovanni
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campora_San_Giovanni

And yes, finding that single image for this post took an inordinate amount of time.

Researching the Aeolian Islands was a huge help for my short story, but I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at pictures, reading about the different periods of history to make sure my story was plausible, looking at recipes to describe realistic local food (I used lots of capers), and so on. My guess is that the total research time added up to multiple days – for one short story. I rationalized this by saying that I’d write something else in that setting – it’s a fantastic setting. And that’s great, but I don’t have any other ideas for that setting yet, and I do have a lot of other active projects. So … I learned a valuable lesson about how to balance time spent on research. And I’ve added a new location to my list of places I’d like to visit. 🙂

In the meantime, it’s been way, way too rainy here in Colorado…

Playing stick in the mud.
Playing stick in the mud.