Why I Outline: A (Short) Case Study

by
Scott D. Parker

Thirty-six days ago, I made a commitment: write some amount of prose everyday. And, to date, I have a 36-day writing streak. Some days, I crested one thousand words, others, a mere paragraph or two. I wanted to create the habit of writing, to create that yearning to know that, even if it's 11pm at night, I still have one additional item on the to-do list. So far, that impetus has succeeded.

I also wanted to test out something: could I write a short story (or novella as the word count is expanding) with only knowing how the story starts and, more or less, how it ends. Many writers write their tales this way and I wanted to give it a go in a smaller, contained piece. While the story does feature my railroad detective, Calvin Carter, I am consciously trying something different: a more traditional style of story. Less of a shoot'em up and more of a brain thing. Who knows how it'll turn out. Maybe I'll go all pulp in the rewrite and strip out all the boring parts.

During the writing, I've struggled with how the story should play out. In the first week, I even changed narrators and that was an interesting experience. It was the only day in which I went "backwards"--that is, did some rewriting--but I have not done any since. Forward, march, as they say. More than once, I wanted to stop the writing and plan out the rest of the story. For this story, I resisted. I wanted to see how it played out.

The time to write has varied. The week between Christmas and New Year's was great. I was on vacation and each morning I'd get up at my usual work time (6:00 am), grab the coffee, and start typing. Once the usual workdays started up again, that went out the window as did the nice large chunks of word counts. I also miss my morning writing times, being forced, by all that the day requires of me, to start writing around 10:00 pm.

And here's where I get to my issue with outlining versus "just seeing where it goes." I start getting tired around that time even though I usually stay up until midnight. My day job blew up this week and has required me to work into the night, including participating in conference calls. The last thing I want to do is write a few lines or pages. I have, and it is in these times I've struggled the most.

You see, when I outline and map out the story, I put all the information on notecards. When it's time to write, pick up the next notecard and just write that scene. Easy as pie. Now, on some nights, while I don't experience writer's block--I know generally what's coming next--the flow isn't there. While I know what to write, I don't always know what to write. Yes, that does make sense. Additionally, with the structure in place, when life throws you for a loop, you can hang your writing self on the structure and use it to get your writing habit back in order.

I'll finish this story in the manner in which I started it: just seeing where the story leads me. Or: since I have this idea for an ending, I'll see if I get there or not. But I'm pretty confident that once I type "the end" on this story, I may go back to the structure that I know.

Do y'all ever try to write something in a way definitely different that your usual method? Have y'all had success?

Finding "The End"

by
Scott D. Parker

I did something this week that I have not done in a long time: I wrote "The End" on a story.

Long-time readers might remember me discussing my feeble explanations to my extended family last Thanksgiving when I had to explain "what was I working on". The year 2010 was not a good year for me writing-wise, and I have been working hard to turn that around in 2011. One of the things that has been hanging over my head is a collaboration I'm working on with another writer.

Let me clarify "Hanging over my head." I have thoroughly enjoyed this project and I've learned something about my character (literary as well as myself) that I didn't know. It's just that when it came time to write, the words didn't flow as freely as I would have liked. Or expected, to be honest. I had this grand vision of myself blazing away through multiple stories at a time, maintaining a high word count/day, and just being this prolific machine. Some of my own past personal success has inadvertently led to a part of my writing brain to think that this is easy work. It isn't, a point made all to clear to me throughout my lengthy and unprofessional struggle to "get it right the first time."

My part of the project had gone so long that I had forgotten my original ideas. You see, I'm a note taker and a planner when it comes to stories. So, naturally, I thought I'd wing it with this one. Wrong choice. I should have blocked out my scenes and then I would have made more steady progress instead of the fits and starts I ended up doing.

It's also taught me some personal lessons. Among them is this obvious little nugget: Do not let rejections get under my skin. It's a natural course of this profession to be rejected. Everyone gets rejected. Get over it.

Through all of my self-imposed struggles, my writing partner stuck by me. I'm thankful for his patience and his faith in the project. And getting to "The End"--something our own Joelle Charbonneau recently reached as well--is a thrill. To be honest, I had forgotten the feeling. We writers are a curious bunch. The mere act of writing two special words can send us to cloud nine. Weird that.

But it also supercharges us, or, at least, me. Finally getting past that sisyphian hurdle was a marvel. It was the little thing that made me remember why I write in the first place.

Joy. Joy at at story told well (to me). Joy at reaching the end. Ain't nothing like it in the world. It has made me already start another tale because I don't want to go too long without experiencing "The End" again.

Song of the Week: John Renbourn's "Palermo Snow." Never heard of him until NPR put up this song on Thursday. He's a guitarist from the early 1960s, says the write-up of this tune. He is new to me, but I've listened to this song at least 10 times since I first heard it. That he pairs his finger-picking guitar with a clarinet makes me even more curious to discover more of his music.

Writing For Fun And Profit

By Jay Stringer

A change is as good as a rest, and other cliches.

It's good to change things up. I've written on here my views on mythical writers block, and it boils down to this - follow your brain. Just before Christmas I turned in the latest draft of my second book to worlds best agent. I was on a roll, and brimming with ideas for the third book. I jumped headlong into writing it, and asking myself questions; Would this be the final book in the series? Would all the pieces tie up? would I learn to spell?

I got three chapters in and wrote a great mini-cliffhanger, one that would leave the reader asking, what the hell is going on? And then....I didn't know what was going on. So I turned to some of my favourite writing techniques -

I stared at the wall

I rode my bike

I pretended to own a dog and go for long walks

There comes a time when your imaginary dog is tuckered out, and you've had as many showers as you can have in a day without shrinking, when you have to accept that your brain is not ready. It's still picking away at the problem, letting all the pieces fall into different places and seeing how the picture looks. At that point you can PANIC BECAUSE YOU HAVE WRITERS BLOCK or you can follow your brain and go work on something else.

I really don't see writers block as a brick wall. I see it as the door to a safe, or a magic eye puzzle. Just wait, play around with the combination, and it'll come when it's ready.

So I turned to project B. The stand alone, and one that I was putting great pressure on myself to write. This is a story that's been kicking around in my head for awhile and I always intended to tackle it four or five manuscripts in, when I would be in a better position to take on the structure. I was coming to it ahead of schedule, but I had a few ideas for it and I took a running jump. Sent worlds best agent regular (well, my version of regular, which tends to be faster than an ice age,) updates about the research, the structure, the title (because thats the important part, kids.) And then once again, I hit that fake-brick-wall.

That book is closer to being ready for me to tackle, but it still wasn't quite there.

Step three, stop pressuring myself into writing anything and catch up on some reading. I started into my epic TBR pile. And then hit the wall again.

Readers block? WTF.

I looked back on what I'd been reading. And for longer than I realised I had been reading crime. Normally I keep an eye on my pile and keep things changing, keep things fresh. But somehow I'd let that slip, and my brain was yelling at me to change things. I couldn't read or write crime because I was sinking in it.

So, change as good as a rested cliche, or something like that.

I re-read a couple of old adventure books, and that loosened something, then I binged on comics, and that loosened something further. Then I sat down to write, and boy was that loose.

Everything I'd been writing for the previous year had been with the knowledge that I was going to be sending it to worlds best agent, or submitting to a magazine/ezine, or sending them to Professor Weddle and saying, squeal at that, piggy.

I never write for an audience. I write for myself. But even then you'll find pressures creep in and styles change, you're writing something that you know others will read.

I went back to square one. I have a pulp adventure character, someone I mucked around with a few years back in some very bad stories. But action and adventure play to my weaknesses as a writer, and they're a good chance to play with some other things that obsess over, like structure and character.

So with myself as the only intended audience, I gave myself a month off from writing to sit and write. And two months later I'm still there, in the closing stages of what threatens to be a novel. And it's still probably not something I'll be looking to publish, but it's been a great experience. A writing holiday.

****

The next episode of the DSD podcast will be out very soon, featuring Mr Tony Black, Russel and my own self. Keep an eye on that feed. And if you're thinking, yeah, all of this talking is good, but when do we get to hear you chat with Mr Seth Harwood? Well, that one's coming soon too.

And Now for Something Completely Different

by Dave White

Scott Parker often talks about his experience reading Shutter Island. He says when he sat down with it, he expected Mystic River Part 2. He wanted Lehane to give him another version of the same book. (And now, he says, he can't wait to read SI again. I think he's gonna love it, knowing what he's been reading recently.)

I've been thinking a lot about his statement though. Being disappointed in a book because you expected the same type of book as the one that came before it. I used to be the same way. I could read several Ross MacDonald or Robert B. Parker books in a row and not get tired of them.

Now, I look for something different.

I love that Lehane went out and stretched his writing muscles to give us a private eye series, then a small town Greek Tragedy, then a gothic horror novel, then a huge historical melodrama. I could sit here and argue that all his novel fall into crime fiction somehow, they are all tied to the genre, but they're like balloons tethered to the same banister--each string leads to the same place, but at the end of each you'll find a different color.

Anytime I email Duane Swierczynski that I'm about to start one of his books, he writes back something along the lines of "Just so you know, it's NOTHING like the last one." (By the way, his forthcoming novel EXPIRATION DATE is fantastic. I just received and ARC.)

That's one of my favorite things about Duane's books, much like Lehane. I never know what I'm gonna get. I could get a spy novel that makes Pepperidge farm cookies frightening. Or a book about a sexy blonde who poisons a drink. But each goes off in a different direction.

You want something new from an author. You don't want to read the same book over and over again. If you like that, then you also want to be able to recognize who the killer is by page 50.

But I like most of my writers to stretch their writing muscles. I want to do that too. Even in a series, I often don't want to see the characters going through the same thing over and over again (certain characters aside).

The book I'm working on now is different. There are things in it that I've never done before. It's surprised me at times as well. It has been hell on my writing muscles. What I have planned after this book is even more different.

(Also, if you want to see something really different, you can read about Band Bashes at my own blog. See? I can stretch my muscles.)

Just like the authors I love.

And each time I start, I'm excited to see something new happen.