Fly by the seat...

By: Joelle Charbonneau

I have no idea what I’m doing every time I sit down to write.  Okay, technically that statement isn’t completely factual.  I know how to turn on my computer, open my word document and format the manuscript so that my editor, agent and anyone else reading it won’t loose their eyesight from tiny fonts or really wonky margins.  I also had to take a class in high school on how to type—so I’m pretty quick at getting words down on the page.  The problem is, I rarely have a flippin’ clue what those words should be.

Some people outline.  Outlining sounds divine.  I mean, how awesome would it be to sit down, write step by step everything that is going to happen in the novel and then sit down at the keyboard and follow the map you’ve created.  I would love to be able to outline.  So much so that I’ve tried it.  Not just once, but multiple times.  I love the whole process until I hit somewhere between page 50 and page 70 and I realize that nothing that I’m writing really works.  Oh – the first chapter does, but beyond that everything feels forced.  As if I’m herding the story along the path as opposed to it flowing where it is supposed to go. 

Sigh…when that realization hits, I have no choice to go back to where the story stopped feeling fresh and fun and started feeling like a group of ten-year-olds behind forced into a cafeteria line filled with Tofu-Brussels sprout surprise. 

Since I have learned that only chapter one benefits from the wisdom of my planning, I have stopped outlining.  All I know when I start the book is where chapter 1 starts and where it ends.  The rest…well, you got me.  This makes starting a new book feel a lot like walking a tightrope without a net.  You hope you don’t place your foot wrong and go plummeting twenty feet to the ground.  If you do, you cross your fingers that something will catch you at the bottom.

Fun, right?  Actually, yes.  Because while I am terrified with each new book that this will be the story that falls off the tightrope – it never does.  I always get to The End.  Why?  Because long ago, no matter the fear I felt walking that high wire, I refused to look down and forced my feet to take each small step across until I reached the other side.  I got to The End of the book and taught myself that no matter how scary the journey, I will succeed in finding the finish line.  I have written fourteen manuscripts and the most important lesson I learned was that I CAN finish.  That I WILL finish if I keep putting one foot in front of the other.  No matter how confused I am or how certain the story sucks. 

This week, I finished GRADUATION DAY – book 3 of The Testing Trilogy that will debut with THE TESTING from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on June 4^th.  This entire series is a departure for me.  Not only is it Young Adult, these are the darkest books I’ve ever written.  I was scared I wasn’t doing the stories justice and that I would never make it to THE END.  But I did.  Tomorrow I will open a new document.  A new book.  I will be excited to begin and terrified that I will never get to the final pages.  But I will because I have taught myself that I can finish what I start.

Whether you outline or you fly by the seat of your proverbial pants…finding out that you can finish a book is the most important lesson an author can learn.  No matter how many books I write, when the story feel sluggish or stilted or I think it just plain sucks, I know that the storm will pass and I will find my way. 

Tomorrow is a new day.  A new book.  A new adventure.  And if I falter on that high wire, know that I can get across no matter how many times I fall.

It's A Process

by: Joelle Charbonneau

Okay, I know that everyone has been posting about their writing workspaces this week. The thing is – I’ve been on the road a lot for the past couple weeks, which means my workspace has been my android phone. And while the keyboard is great for texting or typing out a short e-mail – it isn’t all that great for writing. In fact, I haven’t had a great deal of time to write which is starting to make me a little nuts. (Yeah – I’m always nuts, but the lack of writing if making more wacky than usual.)

However, this week at Bouchercon I’ve had a great time talking about writing. More to the point, talking about the process of writing. The one thing you learn while talking to lots of other writers over a short period of time is how similar and also how very different we all are. Yes – we all write stories. Some of us write on the lighter side of crime fiction while others (and by others know that I am pointing at the other seven writers of this blog) create the darker, more intense crime fiction.

However beyond genre or publishing experience, we are also all different in our writing process. Some writers create an outline and write using that as a map to get them to the end. This sounds fabulous and organized and should be something I do. But I can’t. I cannot write from an outline to save my soul. I figure out what the end of chapter one is before I start typing. Once I have that I put my fingers to the keyboard and wait to see what happens. Yep – I write by the seat of my proverbial pants and hope to God that I manage to create an interesting and readable story along the way. Getting to the end is often fraught with “What happens next?” and a lot of head banging, but eventually I get to the end.

Now, the bashing my head against a brick wall and scratching my noggin to decide where my plot is supposed to be going doesn’t sound like much fun – even to me. On the days where I haven’t a clue what I’m supposed to be writing next, I long for the ability to write from an outline. Too bad every time I try it, my writing comes to a screeching halt and my story no longer wants to go into the direction the outline says it should.

This Bouchercon, I learned I’m in good company with my lack of outlining skills. Reed Farrel Coleman and I talked about our process (or what might seem like a lack thereof) after hours in the bar. We both write without outlines, but other authors swear by them. Each author has a way he or she needs to work to create a story. What is right for one author will get another author stuck in the mud. Process is intensely personal for each author. Reed believed that it is easier for an author to change their routine (such as the time of day they write or their workspace – see there is the workspace theme!) than it is to change their process. I agree. Do you? What is your process? Have you tried to change it? And if you did try to change your process, did that change work for you?