The Writer's Junkyard

I've started a new manuscript and to my surprise, it was a challenge putting words on the page. I found myself struggling with the perpetual dilemma--either going forward as a panster or as an outliner. For the last few years I've been a ghostwriter and prided myself on churning out prose like a machine. In order not to waste my client's time, we'd discuss the story and I'd put together a chapter outline. I cautioned the client that an outline was a place to deviate from but at least the narrative had direction.

If this worked well for me as a ghostwriter, why not an outline for my book?  Honestly, I tried but my story became a jumbled mess. I had several challenges, the first being world building. Although I'm writing about modern Denver, a place I'm very familiar with, the issue was, what to tell? How to capture the ambiance of the city without bogging down into a travelogue? And the plot involved characters from a social environment outside my experience--conniving politicians, treacherous gangsters, and overworked, cynical police officers. Writing a thriller set in space or one involving vampires and werewolves, no problem. Readers in that genre are quite willing to suspend disbelief. But write a story, even in obvious fictionalized form, about the contemporary world and the bar to hold the reader's trust is much higher. Plus, writers often talk about the "white room," a scene where characters are little more than disembodied voices. I had the opposite problem, the creative space in my head was like a junkyard, crammed with pieces of research and ideas that I'd accumulated. There was so much detail that I got overwhelmed and my word count stalled. 

I tried the technique of writing chapters as separate episodes instead of chronologically. I found myself wrestling with the story timeline and the risk of devoting too much attention to secondary characters in a way that would derail my original plot. So I took the advice that we published writers give to newbie scribes, and to quote Pablo Picasso: "Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working."

Thus self-chastised, I returned to my proven strategy of sitting at the keyboard and proceeding from beginning to end. Before I knew it, I was ten chapters in, a quarter of the way through this new book. Spoiler alert. Expect lots of murder in the near future.

Inspiration

I love to read the recent posts of my fellow Type Mers, especially when I'm searching for a topic to write about. The perspectives and interests of other writers are a great source of inspiration. I have been doing this blog for a long, long time, and sometimes I feel as if I have nothing new to say under the sun.

The same thing can be said of writing itself. I've written dozens of short stories– although none recently due to lack of time (so I say)– as well as four short novels and sixteen full-length crime novels. I am not a fast writer, nor do I have an easy system for coming up with new ideas for plots and themes. Each book takes a lot of thought, research, and stumbling, bumbling drafts. I read about prolific writers who have fifty or more books under their belts and I am astonished. I don't know how a writer can create twenty original and powerful books about Detective X or Miss Y the librarian. After ten Inspector Green novels, I really want a change. I was afraid I would start creating the same book wearing different clothes, and frankly, I wanted to spread my wings. Hence Amanda Doucette. She gave me a refreshing change and a new writing style, settings, and characters to explore. After five books living with her, I was ready to go back to Inspector Green. With a new, updated twist.

Charlotte Hinger's post about the Masterclasses intrigued me. I'd seen them advertised but, like her, I had always dismissed them. But the four authors she described are all prolific writers with dozens of books to their credit. I was struck by the drive, professionalism, and passion they seemed to convey. I decided that I would try to track down their classes and listen. You don't get to be a successful writer by writing a book or two, and then dusting off your hands and sitting back to savour the results. You write the next book, and the next, because the stories are clamouring to come out. Most of us writers don't write for the money - you're better off being a plumber. We write because words and stories are our way of connecting. With others and with ourselves. 

I've never been a fan of "how to write" books. There are many different ways to write and to tell a story, and each of us has to find the way that works for us. Maybe outlining would make my life easier, maybe I should know where I'm going before I start, but that's not how my creative mind works. But over the years I've learned a lot about the craft of writing from other writers and from various workshops, panels, and discussions, as well as from my own bumbling. I like hearing what works for other writers, because most of the time, I find more similarities than differences, and I feel a kindred connection. I pay particular attention to writers whom I regard as exceptional. I look at their use of language, structure, character development, etc. How they weave the story together. 

Most writers always want to be improving the quality of our prose and the power of our stories. Inspiration is not just one ahah! idea that galvanizes a story; it's a hundred little ahah ideas along the way that lift an ordinary character or theme into an extraordinary one. Ideas that make the story sparkle and infuse it with passion. 

Which is something I'm not sure a robot can do.

Now I am curious enough that I am going to check out some of these masterclasses, starting with the ones Charlotte mentioned. To see where their passion comes from and how they capture it.

Bouncing Back and Forth

Frankie here. It's end of semester and in between reading my students' papers, I am working on a couple of book projects. I missed Charlotte's post last Friday about the "cold, hard reality" of being a writer - that most of us need to have another means of support. 

Charlotte mentioned that I am a criminal justice professor. In the comments about her post, Tanya asked how I work on fiction and nonfiction simultaneously. I thought I would respond to her question today. 

Here's what I do:

1.  Look for connections. 

2.  Do double-duty research.

3. Keep notes and reminders.

4. Have separate writing spaces.

5. Divide the day into blocks.  

Because I'm a criminal justice professor whose academic areas are crime history, and crime and mass media/popular culture, my nonfiction writing has a built-in connection to my crime fiction. I always look for overlap. Am I doing research on a real-life crime or about a movie or TV show that might be useful for a short story or novel? For example, Old Murders, the third novel (soon to be reissured) featuring my crime historian Lizzie Stuart, was inspired by two sources. The first was the dissertation I had read about the real-life case of a young African American woman who was executed after killing the white widow for whom her family sharecropped. In my novel, the lawyer who defended her was inspired by Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird.  But Lizzie encountered this other fictional lawyer decades later, when he was in his decline, and the details of what happened in the murder case were more complicated. 

To do double-duty research, I made a trip to the Library of Virginia in Richmond. I was there to go through the papers about the real-life case that were archived there. I wanted to be able to write about the case and to include it in my classroom lectures. At the same time, since I was walking through what Lizzie was going to do in the book, I made a second set of notes about what she saw and her process (as both crime historian and sleuth). Since I was changing the facts of the case for my mystery, I also needed to make notes about that for my "Author's Note" to the reader about what was true and what I had made up.

In Old Murders, Lizzie has a young graduate assistant named Keisha (who is now a continuing character). Keisha is eager to tackle the injustices of the case. She has gotten Lizzie to make the trip from Gallagher to Richmond to go through the papers about the case. Lizzie is trying her best not to get involved in whatever is going on with the old lawyer and the now adult son of the woman who was killed. After going through the archived records, she sets some boundaries for what they will do:

    "All right," I said, hoping I wouldn't regret it. "But an academic paper, Keisha. An article, not a documentary. We leave Sloane Campbell [the son] out of this other than his role doing the trial. We do not climb fences to get onto his property. We do not try to interview him or Jebediah Gant [the lawyer] or any of the other still-living participants. Understand me?"

Of course, the boundaries don't hold. But Lizzie is saying what a real-life faculty member might say to an over-eager grad student. She is not plunging in recklessly. 

So, this is the process that I follow for drawing on my academic research for inspiration. Sometimes I move from the research for a novel to research for nonfiction. For example, I have been plodding along on my historical thriller set in 1939. I needed to know more about what J. Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI, was doing that year. That led me to several books that took me deeper into his life and career than I had gone before. In one book I found a marvelous description of how he dressed. That quote is going into the manuscript of my nonfiction book about dress, appearance, and impression management in American crime and justice. 

I always do research with a notebook close at hand to jot down anything that catches my eye. Or, that I happen to hear on NPR or while listening to music. A Kenny Rogers song inspired my first short story in an anthology. I have referenced that same song when telling my students about murder ballads.

As for the writing itself -- to avoid bouncing around to the point of losing focus, I try to create separate physical and mental spaces for my nonfiction and fiction. It was easier before the pandemic, when I could work at home in the morning than make the physical transition to my office on campus in the afternoon. Simply changing clothes -- from at-home casual to workday skirt and jacket -- began the transition that was completed by the time I had driven the short distance to campus. For the past year, that transition has required more mental gymnastics -- such as moving from my laptop on the dining room table to my desktop in my home office. I am really looking forward to getting back to my bookshelves and boxes in my campus office. 

I admit that my ability to bounce back and forth between fiction and nonfiction has a lot to do with my day job. I have flexibility about how I order my day and what I work on. But I am not terribly disciplined. What is most important for me is that I let my imagination have free play. I was able to do that -- to look for connections -- even when I had a dull job in the housewares section of a department store after I graduated from college. While I dusted china and tried to look busy until a customer walked in, I plotted more than one fictional murder. 

I also broke more than my share of plates, cuts, and other fragile objects. I'm still having trouble with that. A couple of weeks ago, I spilled half a mug of tea on my laptop keyboard while I was thinking about a connection that had occurred to me. Good idea, dead laptop. 

Getting back to work

Happy Monday to you from Douglas Skelton in a sunny but chilly Scotland.

As you know, I have been moving house. And if you didn't know, where have you been? Do you not pay attention when I'm talking? Yes, I mean you at the back there. Stop your giggling and behave!

I am now fully ensconsed in my new bolthole, having swapped the peace and quiet of rural Scotland for the excitement and traffic noise of the big city (the new place is Glasgow adjacent).

With the house now in some semblance of order. Books are shelved, pictures are hung, rugs are down and shampooed. Mickey the dog and Tom the cat are more or less settled.

Time now turn my mind to the day job.

That's writing, just in case you didn't realise. 

I have a new book to complete by July. I hit the halfway mark of the first draft just before all the moving madness began but now it's time to pick of those threads and see if I can weave them into something magical. Or at least readable. Or, at the very least, completed.

Halting a work in progress in the middle is a double-edged sword. On the one hand there is the danger that whatever muse was working to get me to the midway mark has flitted elsewhere and alighted on some other writer's brow. 

On the other hand, the break may help me see the piece more clearly and let me attack it with renewed vigor. Or something. (And I hope you noticed I used the US spelling there. I am nothing if not considerate.)

Time will tell, I suppose.

I've used the word time three times so far. Where's an editor when you need one?

I mentioned the muse earlier. People often think of such a thing in relation to creatives.

Here's the thing...

It doesn't really exist.

Writing is a job, at least it is to me. Sometimes it's a chore. It's something I do. It's how I (try to) make a living.

Inspiration - the muse - is that flash at the beginning of the process. In other words, the idea. The big 'What if...?'

After that, it's application. Sitting at the desk, thumping those keys. I'm a two-fingered typist and I tend to poke at the keyboard as if I'm trying to prod it awake. 

The work progresses one letter, one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. Sometimes it's as slow as molasses in January. (Yup, another US reference). Other times it flows like....like...

Oh, dear. I can't think of a simile. 

This does not bode well for getting back to work on Monday.

Writing is something you work at. Books do not appear as if guided by some unseen hand. It has to be written and rewritten, honed, edited, smoothed, manipulated. In our genre (crime, just in case you've wandered in off the street) clues have to be dropped with the kind of legerdemain that could give us membership of the Magic Circle. Twists have to be twisted so subtly that no-one sees them coming. Characters have to step off the page and walk around the room. Dialogue has to sing (not literally, unless you're pulling a Rodgers and Hammerstein. Or Cop Rock. Remember that? Steve Bochco's short-lived show which saw cops burst into song, literally on the beat.)

So by the time you read this on Monday I will have selected a suitable soundtrack and will be back in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Back with Rebecca Connolly and her friends. Back, this time, in a dark world of murder and magic.

Cover me - I'm going in...

Random Inspiration

When my granddaughter Leah was in high school she participated in Equestrian Vaulting Competitions. Not pole vaulting, but acrobatics on top of a galloping horse. The above picture was a practice session. During the actual competition the contestants are all blinged up in sparkly attire like circus performers.

These are thrilling events and easily my favorite to watch of all my grandchildren's equestrian activities. Reaching this level requires a lot of practice, awesome coordination, extraordinary balance, sure-footedness, and well-developed muscles.

Although any breed of horse can be trained, the most common is the Irish draught and Belgium draught horses. Horses selected for vaulting training must have a calm even temperament. They have to be really strong, with a broad back, and the ability to canter in a circle for an extended period.

At one time Equestrian Vaulting was an Olympic event and there has been talk of bringing it back, but no luck, so far.

At one event I dug out my camera and prepared to take pictures. Leah's father cautioned me that flashes were forbidden. The horses could tolerate any sound, but not sudden flashes of light.

Naturally I had an immediate idea for a short story. Although the germ was planted many years ago, I'm just now writing it.

One of the most frequently asked questions of writers is "Where Do You Get Your Ideas?" From everywhere. From nowhere. From the clear blue sky. From a desperate attempt to come up with something because we must. Random remarks might stick with me a long long time. When they do, you can bet a short story--or possibly a book will emerge eventually.

The surest foundation for a story or a book (for me) is an image that simply will not go away.

I love the blessing of random inspiration.

Following the Shiny Object

Yesterday I came home to find a package on my doorstep. A small box that turned out to be from friends who moved South. The package contained a souvenir from their new hometown and an invitation to visit. The package contained bubble wrap for Harry and inspiration for me. 

Struck by an idea, I rushed to Google to get more information about the city where my friends now live. I ended up on YouTube watching a video of a Ghost Tour of an old house. Someone on the tour had recorded the video. The lighting was bad, but the story told by the tour guide gave me an idea for a character's backstory.

The unexpected backstory of that character will add another layer to the plot. Because of this character's past, my villain will be faced with a dilemma. He will have to make a choice, and that choice will raise the stakes for him. 

And then I thought, "What if?" What if I followed the shiny object of this new city. The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that the city was perfect for the last third of my historical thriller. I now have an additional location to deal with -- but I do have that invitation from my friends to visit.

The need to make that research trip will help to keep me on track this summer. I have roughly three months to write full time. This is something I never have during the academic year. First, I need to finish the draft of my non-fiction book. Then while I'm having my various readers go through that manuscript and provide feedback, I will plunge in and work on the historical thriller. It will be a quick and dirty first draft, but I'll have the story on paper. That will allow me to see what I have and get to the part of writing I like best -- revising.

I have my calendar. I know how many pages I need to write each day. I've planned to spend every afternoon at my office standing at my vertical desk. A much safer place to be than at home where I both sit and would be tempted to watch soap operas and old movies on TCM.

This summer, I'm going to stick with my game plan. But first I need to send my friends a huge thank you for the unexpected gift of the perfect shiny object at just the right moment.

When you're writing, do you follow intriguing trails that lead you astray?

More on inspiration

Barbara here. In my last post, I wrote about inspiration on the road, specifically a three-week personal holiday travelling through India and Nepal. I am still on that trip, now staying at the final destination of Kathmandu before flying home later in the week. Throughout the trip internet access has been capricious and slow, so I will try to be short.

The trip has been filled with inspirational moments that make your spirit and imagination soar. Imagine the passion and enduring loyalty that drove a grieving emperor to build a tomb to his beloved dead wife, embarking on a dream that took 22 years, employed 20,000 workers, and cost an unimaginable sum. Clad in shimmering white marble inlaid with precious stones, perfect in its symmetry, set off by fountains and gardens, it is breathtaking. Humbling yet exalting.

Another inspirational moment was sunrise in a boat on the Ganges River, joining the many faithful who make a pilgrimage to this sacred river seeking blessing or fulfillment of a wish. Along with others I lit a candle in a tiny flower boat and watched it dance along the current with the others, bearing our wishes out towards the sea.

A third inspiration came at sunrise again, on a flight out of Kathmandu over the legendary Mount Everest. Despite the persistent smog that plagues Asian cities, the sky over the Himalayas was a fierce, crisp blue, and the sun lit the white glacial peaks in perfect detail. Everest is but one of dozens of jagged, terrifying peaks around it, but its power lies in the human dreams that it has inspired. Cold and solitary, it still carries with it those legions of climbers who have dared to dream big, who've fought and triumphed and sometimes died on its rugged slopes.

There were many other touchingly inspirational moments as well. Watching a young rickshaw driver who couldn't have weighed 100 pounds, valiantly struggling to pedal his large charges around the markets. Watching young mothers trim the excess silk from the scarves and fabric bolts in the silk factory in Varanasi, sitting on the floor in a circle with their babies and toddlers by their side.

As Aline said in her Monday post, writing is about stepping into another person's shoes and imagining their world. Travel not only offers us other shoes, but other worlds and lives beyond our own. Not only will that enrich our writing, but our humanity as well. I will carry the inspiration of these moments with me for a long time.

Getting Out of Your Own Way, or Inspiration on Its Own Terms

I have spent the past two months doing the requisite publicity campaign for The Return of the Raven Mocker, my ninth Alafair Tucker mystery. This entails guest blogging and running hither and yon making personal appearances. Early in my career, I spent a lot of money on out-of-state book tours and conferences, which don’t seem to produce a return commensurate with my outlay. However, it can’t hurt to get yourself out there, right?

For the past few years I’ve been forced by circumstance to curtail my out-of-state travel, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. So I flit about in Arizona, which is the best I can do right now. I had a short respite last week, when I was able to stay home and do nothing but write on my tenth novel for five days in a row. It was great. The rest of this month and the next I’m back on the road.

I wish I had the money, time, and freedom to travel for my own pleasure, like I used to. Europe was my playground when I was younger. Now I’d give anything to be able to travel to India and Vietnam like a certain couple of blogmates of mine, one of whom wrote about her adventures yesterday (see below). Barbara’s experience of having an entire plot line spring forth from her overtired brain is so familiar. Anything that screws with your thinking processes is really good for getting out of your own way. In my experience, if I start trying to figure story lines out as though they are math problems, I end up like B’rer Bear and the tar baby in the briar patch, all stuck and unable to find my way out.

I have had some of my best ideas while dropping off to sleep or coming slowly awake in the morning. Or when water is falling on me or otherwise making me wet—in the rain, in the shower, in the swimming pool. I’ve heard other artists say the same. What is the mystical property of water? Water muses? Ozone? It’s best not to try and analyze it, for success can’t really be duplicated. Even if you do feel like you have to wear your lucky socks every time you sit down to write.

Genius comes when it will. I remember a story that Lawrence Olivier told about a particular performance he did of Lear that was so brilliant that the audience was left gasping. After the play was over, he went to his dressing room and trashed the place, because he had no idea how he had done it and knew he’d never be able to do it again.

I’m still waiting for that to happen to me.

Wayward Words

A friend asked me recently if I read fiction when I'm writing and if that interferes with my own work. No, reading while writing doesn't affect the work in progress, and giving up reading when I'm writing just makes me cranky. Nevertheless, when I'm currently reading a book with great description or characterization I feel goaded to improve whatever is on my computer at the time. I also find myself giving more thought to details in my own work.

Most novelists have a horror of "unconscious plagiarism." So I was infuriated by Rick's recent blog on the outrageous blatant plagiarism perpetrated by a woman who copied a novel nearly verbatim and then posted it on Amazon as though it were her own book. She made quite a bit of money by doing this.

I feel so strongly about the issue of creative piracy that I won't even read books that expand on a dead author's characters or plot lines. I'm too cowardly to list all the books I refuse to read because I don't want to respond to readers who see nothing wrong with it.

To me, poaching characters is dishonorable! What's more, a line from an old Kipling poem, The Mary Gloster, comes to mind: "They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind, And I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind."

The out-and-out plagiarism Rick referred to is in a class by itself. It's criminal. But I've noticed the "legitimate" books built on another author's foundation don't stand very well. Because the original creative spark isn't there they flounder in the marketplace.

Creative energy is unique to an individual. The source can't be duplicated.

Nevertheless there is a great deal of craftsmanship involved with creating good books and much to be learned by studying the techniques of the masters. Especially when one begins to write.

I often turn to books that I especially liked to see how they did something. I went back to Love Let Me Not Hunger to see why I thought Mr. Albert's leaving the circus was one of the saddest events I had ever come across.

How do other writer get characters out of room and change scenes? Oh. They don't. They simply double space. Why do the pages in this book rush by? Oh. Short, short sentences. Short chapters. Mostly action. Why do I like longer books with more detail? Oh. It's characterization.

Most of us go to the masters for instruction and inspiration, but a pox on anyone who goes with the intention of copying material.