The Fork in the Road

When last we met at this spot on March 22, Dear Reader, I (Donis) wrote about reaching the middle of my work in progress. I was feeling like I had veered off into the weeds and was having to slog my way around a bit in order to find my way back onto the road. In the two weeks that have passed, I have managed to get back onto the highway and get moving again. So here I am, speeding along nicely, when much to my discomfort I come to a fork in the road. Which way should I go?

You may wonder why I don’t have a map. Well, I did, once. Kind of. But my map no longer leads me to where I want to go. I was told once by a mystery author (who also happens to be a lawyer - a significant detail, I think), that before she begins writing, she outlines each and every one of her novels to the tune of at least one hundred pages, and never deviates therefrom.  One Very Big Name of my acquaintance never outlines at all, or even has much in mind when she begins her mammoth novels.  She writes dozens of seemingly unrelated episodes, then arranges them in some sort of order and cobbles them together with new scenes and segues.  This technique may sound pretty slapdash, but it seems to work for this woman, since she could buy and sell us all.

I have done both.  Each book seems to be a whole new order of creation for me, and demands its own unique method of coming into being.  I’ve been known to outline before I begin when I think that would help me clarify the direction of the plot in my own mind.  I have also simply started writing, usually at the beginning, but I’ve started in the middle and the end, as well.  More than once I’ve begun a novel on the fly, and then gone back and created an outline because I’ve gotten myself into a muddle and can’t quite figure the way out. It’s not like this has never happened to me before, and I must remember that miraculously it always works out. As I write the first draft, my beginnings never do match the end, for somewhere in the middle of the story, I changed my mind about this character, or this action, or this story line. I try not to waste time by going back to the beginning and fixing it to fit my new vision. No, no, that way lies madness. I can get (and have gotten) caught up in an endless merry-go-round of fixes and never reach the end. I just have to keep going until the book is done.

When I was a pre-teen, I spent several summers at Girl Scout Camp, way out in the woods outside of Locust Grove, OK. One of our activities was something called a Penny Walk. We would hike down a long, maze-like path through the woods, and every time we came to a fork in the trail, the point-girl would toss a penny to decide which way to go.  Every walk was different from the one before, yet we always found our way back.

So I hope to construct this new novel like a penny walk, and every time I come to a fork in the road, I’ll make a decision which way to go, and trust that it will lead me home.

In the Weeds, or Keeping the Reader Interested Through the Middle of Your Novel

I, Donis, was fascinated by Barbara’s entry, below, on writing about sex. How much is enough, how much is too much? When do you cross the line and offend your reader? Myself, I usually skip over the graphic sex scenes, mainly because they tend to bore me. There are only two people in the world whose sex life interests me at all—mine and my husband’s. As for the rest of you, enjoy yourselves but leave me out of it.

I’m working on the the middle part of my WIP right now. The beginning flowed right out of me. I knew exactly what I wanted to say to set up the novel. I have a great idea for an ending, if I can pull it off. But getting from here to there isn’t as easy as I hoped. I know which direction I’m going, but I seem to have veered off the road a little and am finding myself a little bit lost in the weeds. Long ago I learned that one way to keep the middle part of your book interesting and not get bogged down is to have at least one interesting side story going. And as long as they are interesting and add depth to the novel, I don’t even mind two or three side stories. You just need to keep people reading. Maybe I need a sex scene…

The only problem with that idea is that graphic sex really wouldn’t fit in this particular series about a married mother and grandmother in 1919. My long time readers would definitely be surprised, to say the least. Of course, we all keep our target audiences in mind, and try to write material that will not offend them so much that they won’t buy our subsequent books. We don’t want to be killing any kitties or puppies unless we absolutely have to for the integrity of the novel. Nor do we wish to go too far beyond the language/sex/violence parameters set by our publishers or agents or editors lest they decide no longer to publish us.

But there are times when the story you are telling just calls for something shocking, or it won’t ring true. My self-censorship problems have to do with the mores of the times and the place I’m writing about in my current series. In 1910s Oklahoma, there were a lot of common and wide-spread attitudes that we in the 21st Century would find unsavory in the extreme – casual racism, even among people of good will who would never knowingly harm another person of any color; assumptions about women and people of other ethnicities; the treatment of children. Can you imagine what would happen today if a parent took a belt to a whiny child in the grocery store? In 1919, it would be expected. Language, too. Words that today would give the hearer a stroke were tossed about with abandon and nobody batted an eye. And I don’t mean just epithets, either. My grandmother, a farm wife with the straightest laces you can possibly imagine, used all kinds of what we would now call scatological words. In her society, crude words for excrement didn’t have nearly the cachet they now have, probably because farm people were up to their knees in it every day of their lives.

But I don’t want readers to judge my characters by modern standards and thus think less of them. Nor do I want to present early 20th Century societal shortcomings in a way that makes light of them or seems approving. So how do I deal with the reality of the time and place? Very, very carefully, let me tell you.

Writing as chess

Barbara here. I was entertained by Aline's post about the French award for Page 112.  In truth, I think all of us should receive an award for getting to, and past, Page 112. There is a point in the saggy middle of every book when all the brilliant plot ideas that propelled us into the story have been used up, but the end looms nowhere in sight. We still need to dream up material to fill at least 100 more pages before we can bring the wretched thing to its much deserved end. And I don't mean just flabby, meandering prose that limps down one blind alley after another, nor an endless series of contrived crises that pass for tension and suspense in some circles. When I read "action-packed" books like that, I think "Oh for Pete's sake, not another explosion!"

I've often heard story telling, especially mystery story telling, being described as throwing a bunch of balls up in the air, juggling them, and then miraculously catching them all and bringing them safely back to earth by the end. There is a certain truth to this analogy, especially when you are at the page 200 mark, with dozens of balls in the air, and you're terrified of forgetting some ball that will drop on your head at the end, or remain suspended in the ether until some astute reader points it out, long after the book's release.

However, I actually think the closer analogy, at least for my writing style, is more like a peculiar chess game in which the pieces are introduced one at a time until there is a full board, and then they move strategically, each move being dependent on the one made before, until the final checkmate. I use a variant of the "pantster" method of writing with some "plotter" mixed in. I don't outline or plot ahead of time; rather, the next scene grows out of the one that came before. Thus I can't anticipate the end, nor even very far ahead. In the beginning, perhaps the first 112 pages, I am introducing elements of the story, developing the complexity of the situation and unfolding the conflicts of the characters. This is pure fun and creativity. After that, in the saggy middle, the challenge of working with those elements begins. Characters make moves and counter-moves. Each character's moves are determined by what they would do next. I am always asking myself "At this point, with this development, what would be this character's next step?"

I'm actually a very poor chess player, so perhaps this analogy is quite wrong for the master chess player who envisages his whole sequence of moves ahead of time and knows exactly how he will win. But the analogy works for me. When I play chess, I try to think several moves ahead, or at least line up my possible moves in my head. But I can't see how the game will end until it's very nearly upon me. So I am with advancing the plot, by seeing only a few scenes ahead at any time.

I am aware of two storytelling devices as I move my story forward. First, that each step has to move the story forward towards uncovering the solution, even if I don't know what that is. The second is that things must never get boring. Plod work is skipped over, back-to-back scenes of similar content–such as inner monologues, interviews, phone conversations, etc.–are avoided. And every now and then, I ask myself what would really shake things up? What would be the most unexpected thing to happen to a character? I like surprises that slam the character, and the reader, off course.

In practice, what this style means is that I write for awhile, hit a wall, brainstorm the next few scenes, write them, hit another wall, etc. In this fashion, I inch towards that magical checkmate. Often the brainstorming occurs on long drives or walks, when I have lots of uninterrupted thinking time and no distractions. Yesterday I was driving home from a research trip and used to time to brainstorm my way through the next section of my current novel. The problem with brainstorming while going 120 kph is that I can't write down the brilliant ideas as they come to me, but have to rely on my sometimes capricious memory instead. Fearing the ideas might completely vanish by the time I arrive home, I have on occasion pulled off the road (once into a liquor store parking lot) and jotted the whole sequence down on the back of whatever paper was at hand. Yesterday I pulled off the highway and sat at the stop sign to record my ideas on my iPhone. Hurray for technology!

Now I am all set to write the next small section of the book. I am curious to know what other writers do to get from Page 112 to the end of the book. What tricks do you have up your sleeve?

The dreaded middle

Barbara here. So we are two weeks into the new year, or more specifically, two weeks past the overindulgence of December. Overwhelmed by a feeling of sloth, we are frantically making promises – to exercise more, to eat less, to drink less, to cleanse and purify and meditate our way back to balance. And if you're a writer like me, to dig out that long-neglected work in progress and get back into the groove. For me, the deadline for my next novel, once blissfully away, is creeping inexorably closer. During December I laughed off the small niggles of pressure and the sheer blankness of my mind and the paper before me. I assured myself I had all the time in the world to figure out where the novel was going and to pull a brilliant plot out of a hat.

I don't plot ahead of time, nor do I outline. I provide the publisher with a vague synopsis of "this is what I think the novel is about, these are the characters that will probably be in it, these are a few things that might happen, and somehow it will all work out in the end, even though I don't yet know how." And then I pick up my pen and pad of paper, and I jump into the first scene. This 'by the seat of my pants' approach has served me adequately over the past eleven books, and is as entertaining as it is terrifying. I like not knowing what is coming next. I like the suspense, and the delicious surprises that my subconscious springs on me mid-book.

I guess I like the terror too. Like an actor about to go on stage, a doctoral student facing her thesis defence, a courtroom lawyer about to address the jury, there is a thrill in that adrenaline rush that makes all my senses come alive and my neurons go into overdrive. Some of us do our best creating when we are perched on the edge of the abyss. I was a crammer all through school, and I guess the habit dies hard.

As always, however, there can be too much pressure and too little preparation. A courtroom lawyer who hasn't even read the brief will face disaster, an actor who hasn't memorized her lines will fall on her face. An author who has only a hundred pages written one month before deadline is in big trouble. No amount of brilliantly firing neurons and flooding adrenaline can pull a perfect novel out of a hat in that time. Now I am not one month from my deadline, but I am staring at a very saggy, dismally out of shape novel. The myth of the dreaded middle is very real. Usually at the halfway mark of a first draft, the writer hits a wall. She's no longer sure how the novel will end, or how she's going to get there. She needs a new direction and a new sense of drama. Characters have to make unexpected changes or move in surprising ways. They need to stand on their heads.

Cliches abound about midway twists. Throw in another body, have someone confess, threaten the main character's nearest and dearest... The only thing worse than a flabby middle is a predictable twist. So when you're staring at that blank page and trying to brainstorm that EXCITING NEW TURN, you have to reject the numerous cliches that crowd helpfully into your mind and wait until that little gem pops up. You will know it when it comes to you– that ureka moment that cries out 'brilliant!'.

My flabby middle problem in this novel has some peculiar qualities. First of all, I'm only one third of the way through the book, not halfway. This is disconcerting. Will there be another flabby middle moment at the two-thirds mark? Or God forbid, more than one? Secondly, not all the plots in the novel are flabby. My work in progress is a braided story with three POVs; although Amanda Doucette is my main character, she has two sidekicks who have their own stories to unfurl. I have a lot of ideas about what those two sidekicks will be doing for the next hundred or so pages. They will be digging into the story, uncovering evidence, and pushing the intrigue forward.

Amanda, however, is stuck. Not only is she the main agent of the story, she's also physically right at the centre of the intrigue. She's a passionate, resourceful, independent woman who would jump in at the first sign of trouble or injustice, but right now in the story, I can't think what she should be doing. She, like me, is stalled. I have spent hours daydreaming about it while driving on the 401 and walking the dogs, so far without that ureka moment. I know she and I will eventually figure out what she should do. Maybe during that four-day winter camping excursion I am taking next week. Amanda is winter camping, too; perhaps she will speak to me.

So stay tuned!