On the latest episode of Writing Excuses the gang challenged us to review what we learned or accomplished in 2014 and state what we are hoping to learn in the coming year. Since this smacks of “blog post”, I’ll actually do this one.
One thing I learned was what works for me from an outlining point of view. It’s entirely possible for me to “over-outline”, and so I shouldn’t try to create a detailed outline. Instead what I need to do is set goal markers; a cluster of key elements or destinations I need to include to get the book I’m hoping for. If I get much more detailed than that I get bored with the story because I feel as though I already wrote it. Instead I need to leave the terrain between the peaks unexplored so that I can enjoy the journey. The corollary to this is that I also need to be prepared to move the goalposts. If, in the process of getting from Point A to Point B I find out that Point C makes more sense and makes for a better story, then dump Point B and head for Point C.
The main accomplishment from last year was to take a novel I was nearly ready to abandon altogether and rewrite it into something I believe is my best work to date. This time last year I was stuck. I was barely writing at all, and I didn’t know why. Now I know why. I’d outlined myself into a novel I didn’t like writing. But rather than give up I was able to take steps (albeit drastic ones) and fix the problem. I have now finished my fourth novel, and perhaps because of the effort and sheer willpower involved, I’m the most proud of that effort.
So what’s up for 2015? It’s with great satisfaction that I don’t feel it necessary to put “write novel #5” as a goal. I now trust myself enough to keep writing that I don’t feel that’s a necessary goal anymore. No, this year’s goal is to work on characterization. I don’t feel my characters have enough differentiation or enough depth to them. They’re too homogenous for my liking. So this year I’m going to explore what I need to do to really feel like I have a grasp on a character in order to make them stand out as a distinct person–and how to write them as a distinct person.
I also hope to learn to turn up the heat on my characters a little. I don’t believe in beating the crap out of my characters for no reason, but I don’t think I put my characters through enough. The stakes aren’t high enough to keep the reader turning pages. I don’t mean that they always have to be facing the “end of the world”–high stakes can simply be losing a spouse’s respect if it’s important enough to the character and if it’s told right. I just need to find ways to make failure costly and make it by no means guaranteed that the character is going to succeed.
I feel okay about taking on two goals because I suspect in a way they are interrelated. If I can figure out what makes my characters tick it should be easier to raise the stakes. If I can figure out how to raise the stakes I should have more chances to really discover who my characters are.
There you have it. And I’m excited.