DEATH TO MUSES
I got a question the other day that needs an answer. I’ve gotten this question in many, many forms from many, many people—so clearly, YOU need to know.
It’s a very good question, Suvi, and one I have been asking myself as I write the hard bits of Suite Scarlett 2. Don’t get me wrong . . . I love Suite Scarlett 2. I am very happy about writing it. But even the best books like to REPEATEDLY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE while you are working on them. I believe the technical term for this is “work.”
Writing is fun. I love what I do, and I would do it no matter what, even if I had to scrawl my little stories on tiny slips of paper and leave them under your door at night. (I may do that anyway.) But it is ALSO work. If you are considering writing as a career (and bless you if you are), you should know this. Because I know that sometimes there is this misconception that writers spend most of their time picking olives out of the bottoms of martini glasses and waiting for the muse to strike.
I hate muses . . . I mean, with the obvious exception of Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu. This idea that all you have to do is sit around and a muse lands on your head, dances around your desk, and whispers in your ear and BANG! BOOK!
Forget that. Get yourself a can of anti-muse spray. The things are credit-stealing parasites.
I mean, if you opened your oven and found a loaf of homemade bread, you wouldn’t say, “THE BREAD FAIRY HAS COME!”* Because you would know that you spent the morning buying ingredients, kneading the dough, letting it rise, and baking it properly. You also took the time to learn how to bake, and probably burned a loaf or two in the effort.
When writing goes well, it feels magical . . . but there is no magic to it. Writing goes well because you have done some work. You have spent MANY MANY MANY HOURS sitting at your desk, written pages and pages and pages of useless crap, read piles of books, done a lot more wrong than you have right, questioned your sanity and talent . . . and just kept going. No muse involved.
I am getting to your question, Suvi. This is all relevant. Because I have two answers to your question—but first we have to dismiss the muse idea. The story idea may droppeth like a gentle rain from heaven, but the execution is all about work.
I say this as someone sitting here writing a book that I had ALL PLANNED OUT. All during the writing of Suite Scarlett, I was keeping a running file of book two. I never had so much at the start of writing before! I thought the book would write itself while I sewed sequins on my outfit for the ABBA museum opening. Nope.
Sooner or later, no matter how lucky and talented and wonderful you are (whoever YOU are in this particular case) . . . you are going to hit the Great Wall of Sucktitude. You’re just motoring along with your story, blue skies above you and clear roads ahead, so you step on the gas and . . . . BANG. The invisible force field.
You can’t see it. You don’t know why it’s there. You don’t know what it wants. But there it is . . . the thing that is keeping you from going forward and it’s all “none shall pass” for no particular reason except to GET IN YOUR WAY. The job now is to figure out how to get over/under/through/around/other prepositions this invisible barrier.
So what to do? Well, here are my two answers, finally. Oh wait . . . hold on. I have to finish eating this mango. (I am eating a mango.)
OK . . . here are my two answers.
ONE ANSWER
Okay, the truth is I don’t know what you should do in particular. I can only tell you that you certainly aren’t alone. Sometimes, just knowing that you are not the only person who has had a certain problem, and that other people have gotten through it . . . sometimes that is enough. This is the reason I went on and on about muses, because I think some people may have the idea in their heads that if they can’t immediately finish a book or story the very first time they try they should go and eat worms and die because they don’t have “it.” I just wanted to dispel that notion in a big way.
I have hit the wall more times than I could possibly count, and I am pretty sure it has flattened my face in the process. I have a small arsenal of tactics I employ in this situation, to varying degrees of success. They include:
- Sending long, rambling notes to friends, saying how I have failed completely (again) and am going die of writing mange (again) and how my brain is stalled never to restart (again). This is a pleasant time-waster. Also, my friends LOVE it!
- Going and doing some other, totally unconnected task, something I know I can complete. The book may not get done today—but the DISHES will! Turning off your brain and focusing on a completely automatic task seems to help. I once entirely repainted my apartment in a dizzying array of colors while “writing a book.”
- Physical activity works well too. I tend to find that while I am attempting some position in yoga class that I am certain will snap my spine in two . . . this is when I solve the problem that has been eating my brain for hours or days.
- Reading something in a style or with a tone and pace that I’d really like to emulate, to try to jumpstart the brain and crack the secret.
- Reading books about other writers and finding what they did when their brains died.
But the plainest, most annoying answer is . . . a lot of times you just have to sit there and keep throwing rocks at the problem. If you can master the art of just staying there, planted in front of the screen/notebook . . . then you’re getting somewhere.
You can also talk to your editor. Maybe you will have a conversation like this:
ANOTHER ANSWER, THIS TIME WITH SOME SCIENCE
In this particular case, it sounds like you might be lacking an inciting incident. I don’t know this for certain . . . it’s just a possibility as you say you are 15 pages in and nothing has happened.
Under every story, there is some kind of structure to get you from the starting point to the ending point.
Stories generally have a protagonist (main character) who faces a series of challenges in an attempt to achieve some sort of goal. The rising action takes the character to the climax, where he/she/it battles it out somehow and either wins or loses. Not every story has the same exact structure, but you can find many common elements at work. (This is not the same as being “formulaic.” No one would say to an architect, “You’re putting a ROOF on your building? HOW FORMULAIC!”)
The inciting incident is the moment in which the character really gets on the story path. Before the inciting incident, the character is presumably just noodling along, pressing flowers and updating his or her Facebook page, when all of a sudden life zooms in and takes him/her for a spin.
Let’s make up the opening of a story. Let’s say a girl . . . we’ll call her mj just to make things simple . . . is a poor orphan living with her hateful aunt and uncle, who force her to sleep in the space under the stairs. Her life is hopeless. Then one day, a sparkly letter arrives from HSH Princess Anni-Frid Reuss, Countess of Plauen, otherwise known as Anni-Frid, the dark-haired lead singer from ABBA . . . telling her that she has been admitted to Snogwarts, school of disco princessry. And then, in the next moment, Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters comes for her on a big silver Vespa to take her away.
The arrival of the letter marks a change of status for our little mj. She is not the poor orphan she has always thought she was—she is a disco princess. Her life has now changed course, and now she’s on the path.
So, Suvi, you may know where you want the character to end up (at Snogwarts, where she will do battle with P.K. Trowling, who is trying to steal the magic disco ball) but have no idea how to get her there.
Maybe take a moment and look over the openings of some of your favorite books. At what moment do things completely change for the main character? What sets the story in motion? What changes the conditions under which he/she/it is living? There are all kinds of tricks and devices authors use. A letter of invitation, moving to a new town, meeting a new person, a murder, a disappearance . . . something sets things off.
This incident could happen on page 2, or 15, or 20, or 40 (I’ve just noticed that Suite Scarlett’s is on page 40) . . . you may have to look around. It won’t be too far in.
If that fails, listen to “Dancing Queen” fifty times in a row and spin around a lot.
DEPARTMENT OF INDEPENDENCE
As I missed posting on July 4th, I thought I should make a gesture to show my patriotic spirit. I know that many of you are reading from places OTHER than the United States—but no matter where you are, have a little American History.
Here’s a little something about the 4th of July. It is a bit of a gross and biased oversimplification of an incredibly nuanced political situation, but what exactly do you want from a cartoon with a jaunty song? (And, despite the bias . . . the Continental Congress was full of mad geniuses, and signing the Declaration of Independence was a pretty bold act. We still love the British. Oh, and apparently it wasn't even signed on July 4th . . . but who cares? There is a lot of license taken with holidays anyway.)
And here is something about founding father Alexander Hamilton. (WARNING: there is a little profanity in this. Not a lot. There is also a lot of drunkenness. I wanted you to know. I consider it part of the service around here.)
DEPARTMENT OF GIVING OUT SUITE SCARLETT
You may or may not have noticed that I am running a tiny contest on the forum. A prize to anyone who can guess the title of SUITE SCARLETT 2. No one has gotten it yet. I will announce the title in the next post!
In the meantime, today’s book (signed by Spencer Martin) goes to Olivia. And, as ever, another book will go to another random commenter. What do YOU think the title of the next Scarlett is? What do YOU do when you can’t write? Would YOU like a mango?
* Unless you are a character in How To Ditch Your Fairy.
Suvi said . . .
I'd love to write things like stories and novels, but every time I try, some sort of invisible force stops me. I simply can't write. I've tried simply ignoring that force and keep writing, but it never works. No matter how awesome idea I have, no matter how far I've planned the plot, I can't write about it. I've sometimes noticed that after writing fifteen pages to a notebook, still nothing has happened in my story, and that's not good. Do you have any advice for me? How can writing be rehearsed, if the invisible force keeps bullying you?
It’s a very good question, Suvi, and one I have been asking myself as I write the hard bits of Suite Scarlett 2. Don’t get me wrong . . . I love Suite Scarlett 2. I am very happy about writing it. But even the best books like to REPEATEDLY PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE while you are working on them. I believe the technical term for this is “work.”
Writing is fun. I love what I do, and I would do it no matter what, even if I had to scrawl my little stories on tiny slips of paper and leave them under your door at night. (I may do that anyway.) But it is ALSO work. If you are considering writing as a career (and bless you if you are), you should know this. Because I know that sometimes there is this misconception that writers spend most of their time picking olives out of the bottoms of martini glasses and waiting for the muse to strike.
I hate muses . . . I mean, with the obvious exception of Olivia Newton-John in Xanadu. This idea that all you have to do is sit around and a muse lands on your head, dances around your desk, and whispers in your ear and BANG! BOOK!
Forget that. Get yourself a can of anti-muse spray. The things are credit-stealing parasites.
I mean, if you opened your oven and found a loaf of homemade bread, you wouldn’t say, “THE BREAD FAIRY HAS COME!”* Because you would know that you spent the morning buying ingredients, kneading the dough, letting it rise, and baking it properly. You also took the time to learn how to bake, and probably burned a loaf or two in the effort.
When writing goes well, it feels magical . . . but there is no magic to it. Writing goes well because you have done some work. You have spent MANY MANY MANY HOURS sitting at your desk, written pages and pages and pages of useless crap, read piles of books, done a lot more wrong than you have right, questioned your sanity and talent . . . and just kept going. No muse involved.
I am getting to your question, Suvi. This is all relevant. Because I have two answers to your question—but first we have to dismiss the muse idea. The story idea may droppeth like a gentle rain from heaven, but the execution is all about work.
I say this as someone sitting here writing a book that I had ALL PLANNED OUT. All during the writing of Suite Scarlett, I was keeping a running file of book two. I never had so much at the start of writing before! I thought the book would write itself while I sewed sequins on my outfit for the ABBA museum opening. Nope.
Sooner or later, no matter how lucky and talented and wonderful you are (whoever YOU are in this particular case) . . . you are going to hit the Great Wall of Sucktitude. You’re just motoring along with your story, blue skies above you and clear roads ahead, so you step on the gas and . . . . BANG. The invisible force field.
You can’t see it. You don’t know why it’s there. You don’t know what it wants. But there it is . . . the thing that is keeping you from going forward and it’s all “none shall pass” for no particular reason except to GET IN YOUR WAY. The job now is to figure out how to get over/under/through/around/other prepositions this invisible barrier.
So what to do? Well, here are my two answers, finally. Oh wait . . . hold on. I have to finish eating this mango. (I am eating a mango.)
OK . . . here are my two answers.
ONE ANSWER
Okay, the truth is I don’t know what you should do in particular. I can only tell you that you certainly aren’t alone. Sometimes, just knowing that you are not the only person who has had a certain problem, and that other people have gotten through it . . . sometimes that is enough. This is the reason I went on and on about muses, because I think some people may have the idea in their heads that if they can’t immediately finish a book or story the very first time they try they should go and eat worms and die because they don’t have “it.” I just wanted to dispel that notion in a big way.
I have hit the wall more times than I could possibly count, and I am pretty sure it has flattened my face in the process. I have a small arsenal of tactics I employ in this situation, to varying degrees of success. They include:
- Sending long, rambling notes to friends, saying how I have failed completely (again) and am going die of writing mange (again) and how my brain is stalled never to restart (again). This is a pleasant time-waster. Also, my friends LOVE it!
- Going and doing some other, totally unconnected task, something I know I can complete. The book may not get done today—but the DISHES will! Turning off your brain and focusing on a completely automatic task seems to help. I once entirely repainted my apartment in a dizzying array of colors while “writing a book.”
- Physical activity works well too. I tend to find that while I am attempting some position in yoga class that I am certain will snap my spine in two . . . this is when I solve the problem that has been eating my brain for hours or days.
- Reading something in a style or with a tone and pace that I’d really like to emulate, to try to jumpstart the brain and crack the secret.
- Reading books about other writers and finding what they did when their brains died.
But the plainest, most annoying answer is . . . a lot of times you just have to sit there and keep throwing rocks at the problem. If you can master the art of just staying there, planted in front of the screen/notebook . . . then you’re getting somewhere.
You can also talk to your editor. Maybe you will have a conversation like this:
ANOTHER ANSWER, THIS TIME WITH SOME SCIENCE
In this particular case, it sounds like you might be lacking an inciting incident. I don’t know this for certain . . . it’s just a possibility as you say you are 15 pages in and nothing has happened.
Under every story, there is some kind of structure to get you from the starting point to the ending point.
Stories generally have a protagonist (main character) who faces a series of challenges in an attempt to achieve some sort of goal. The rising action takes the character to the climax, where he/she/it battles it out somehow and either wins or loses. Not every story has the same exact structure, but you can find many common elements at work. (This is not the same as being “formulaic.” No one would say to an architect, “You’re putting a ROOF on your building? HOW FORMULAIC!”)
The inciting incident is the moment in which the character really gets on the story path. Before the inciting incident, the character is presumably just noodling along, pressing flowers and updating his or her Facebook page, when all of a sudden life zooms in and takes him/her for a spin.
Let’s make up the opening of a story. Let’s say a girl . . . we’ll call her mj just to make things simple . . . is a poor orphan living with her hateful aunt and uncle, who force her to sleep in the space under the stairs. Her life is hopeless. Then one day, a sparkly letter arrives from HSH Princess Anni-Frid Reuss, Countess of Plauen, otherwise known as Anni-Frid, the dark-haired lead singer from ABBA . . . telling her that she has been admitted to Snogwarts, school of disco princessry. And then, in the next moment, Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters comes for her on a big silver Vespa to take her away.
The arrival of the letter marks a change of status for our little mj. She is not the poor orphan she has always thought she was—she is a disco princess. Her life has now changed course, and now she’s on the path.
So, Suvi, you may know where you want the character to end up (at Snogwarts, where she will do battle with P.K. Trowling, who is trying to steal the magic disco ball) but have no idea how to get her there.
Maybe take a moment and look over the openings of some of your favorite books. At what moment do things completely change for the main character? What sets the story in motion? What changes the conditions under which he/she/it is living? There are all kinds of tricks and devices authors use. A letter of invitation, moving to a new town, meeting a new person, a murder, a disappearance . . . something sets things off.
This incident could happen on page 2, or 15, or 20, or 40 (I’ve just noticed that Suite Scarlett’s is on page 40) . . . you may have to look around. It won’t be too far in.
If that fails, listen to “Dancing Queen” fifty times in a row and spin around a lot.
DEPARTMENT OF INDEPENDENCE
As I missed posting on July 4th, I thought I should make a gesture to show my patriotic spirit. I know that many of you are reading from places OTHER than the United States—but no matter where you are, have a little American History.
Here’s a little something about the 4th of July. It is a bit of a gross and biased oversimplification of an incredibly nuanced political situation, but what exactly do you want from a cartoon with a jaunty song? (And, despite the bias . . . the Continental Congress was full of mad geniuses, and signing the Declaration of Independence was a pretty bold act. We still love the British. Oh, and apparently it wasn't even signed on July 4th . . . but who cares? There is a lot of license taken with holidays anyway.)
And here is something about founding father Alexander Hamilton. (WARNING: there is a little profanity in this. Not a lot. There is also a lot of drunkenness. I wanted you to know. I consider it part of the service around here.)
DEPARTMENT OF GIVING OUT SUITE SCARLETT
You may or may not have noticed that I am running a tiny contest on the forum. A prize to anyone who can guess the title of SUITE SCARLETT 2. No one has gotten it yet. I will announce the title in the next post!
In the meantime, today’s book (signed by Spencer Martin) goes to Olivia. And, as ever, another book will go to another random commenter. What do YOU think the title of the next Scarlett is? What do YOU do when you can’t write? Would YOU like a mango?
* Unless you are a character in How To Ditch Your Fairy.
Labels: Justine Larbalestier, muses, Spencer Martin, Suite Scarlett
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12:56 AM
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