Today, I want to talk about writing and self-discovery. I’m a firm believer that the core of story and character, and even knowing if we’re plotters or pantsers, comes from understanding ourselves. The better we know who we are, the more powerful (and more efficient) our writing becomes. Here are a handful of ways I believe self-discovery and writing are intertwined:

• Theme: Discovering what you’re passionate enough to spend months (or years!) writing about is powerful fuel. Many times, themes are unveiled as you go along the first or fifth drafts, but once you find them…latch on and use it as the thrust. But if you set out to write a book on the “nature of evil” and you really don’t care all that much about it, well, maybe a theme around “getting the boy” will work better.
• Plot: What’s affected your life surely comes into play in your writing. It’s not necessarily ‘write what you know’ in the traditional sense (though it can be), but examining the plot of your life is a gold-mine for a story: First loves. Fitting in. Growth. Death.
• Character: This is a fairly large and obvious part of self-discovery and writing. As a writer you must tap into your own emotional well to provide your characters with their reactions.
• Mechanics: We all have ‘literary tics’ especially in early drafts. I love words like ‘wobble’ (it’s just funny) and so it ends up many, many places in my writing. Now that I’m aware of this, I can be on the look out and make sure it shows up only a few times.
• Process: Knowing how you operate won’t necessarily make writing easier, but it will make the dips more bearable. I always wear grumpy pants when I’m shifting gears between drafts. Some people have to write 10 chapters before they get to the start of a story. Again, this self-awareness doesn’t mean that you will be able to avoid writing those pages, but it ensures that you won’t hold onto them too tightly when it’s time for the cutting room floor.

See what I mean? Just a little look on the inside can reveal huge rewards in many aspects of your writing.  

Right now, I’m in the midst of drafting Book Three of the UNDER THE NEVER SKY Trilogy, as well as developing a new series idea.

I should say, discovering a new series, because that’s what it really is.

Developing implies that I’m manipulating something. Molding it to fit my purposes. My vision. And the same thing applies to the term creating.

I don’t create stories. I listen to what interests me. I think about characters and how they behave. I consider the things that made them the way they are, and then the things that will occur in the story to make them who they’re destined be.

The same thing is true for story. I have an impulse. A compass heading. I’ll know that I want to go North, and so that’s where I point myself. I might think about the things I want to see along the journey, but I don’t force them.

I think Beth hit the nail on the head earlier this week. We need to learn to trust our story instincts. I’m an avid studier of story craft. I have, probably, twenty books on writing fiction, creating characters, writing compelling first pages and last pages and everything in between. But when it’s time to sit down at the computer, that all needs to be forgotten.

We’ve been telling stories for thousands of years. We know stories because we live them. We know characters because, well, we are a character. It’s somewhat humorous to think that we devote so much time to looking at how characters should be multi-faceted. Honest liars. Evil do-gooders. Complex. Shaded. Nuanced. That our fictional settings should be detailed and vivid and specific. We work so hard to find that which is everywhere.

Take a look in the mirror. Take a look at the world around you. What do you see?

Now rest your fingers on your keyboard and tell me what you saw.

Discover it for me.

Nothing is more fun to me as a writer than discovering a new character and uncovering his or her story layer by layer.  And nothing is more torturous.

Because even the most vivid characters hold back on me.  I will think I know them, understand them, and that I'm ready to write them, but then somewhere in the first draft they will reveal a secret or personality trait that I had no idea existed.  And it usually is a game changer that will require me to revise or rewrite large chunks of the manuscript.

This happens to me whether I plot or pants my way through a first draft.  It has even been known to happen in draft seven or eight.  I think this is because as the characters come to life on the page, they become more three dimensional. And the more time that I live with a character, the less obvious aspects of their personality start to come to life.

I attended a conference last year where one of the brainstorming exercises was to make a list of ten to fifteen things that could happen in a scene, and then to through out the first eight or nine you came up with, and focus on the later ones.  Why?  Because the less obvious stuff will usually be the most interesting.  I think that's true of character development too.  The less obvious stuff bring the characters to life, and often bring the stories to life.  And sometimes, that stuff will shape and explain other aspects of the character in ways that make everything fall into place.

First drafts are painful me to write, in part because I know I don't know the characters well yet, and I don't always know what happens.  It is hard for me, a linear and analytical thinker, to sit down and stare at a blank page.  But some of my favorite moments have come when a character does or says something completely unexpected while I write.  Something that helps me to understand them in a new way, or explains the last fifty pages of anarchy. 

I'll admit, that sometimes the discovery never happens.  Occasionally a character just lays lifeless on the page, and I can't coax out his or her secrets.  That's what second drafts are for.  Those characters can be cut, and other, more interesting characters can step in and fill those roles. 

I am learning to live with the fact that there are no shortcuts to developing characters.  All the character worksheets and brainstorming sessions in the world are not a substitute for long hours of trial and error as you write the scenes where these characters come to life. 

Go ahead.  Open that blank page.  Then listen.  Your characters might surprise you with what they have to say.

Your Best Book Workshop

Everybody do the SKINNY

Well, Donna's SKINNY is out in the world and she hosted a wonderful event on Saturday in Fort Collins, CO to celebrate. (Though the weekend started out a little sad, since Katherine had to cancel due to a family emergency, but we felt her spirit there in spades.)

Fort Collins is an awesome town and despite the snow (you read that right, SNOW) there was a terrific crowd for the party. The first hour was devoted to book signing, mingling, and mini-cupcake eating. Then Donna read a hilarious excerpt from the novel as well as a couple heart-wrenching emails from fans that the story has already touched. To round out the event (and being the classy lady she is), Donna then gave a champagne toast.

So THANK YOU, Donna, for being the hostess-with-the-mostest! We had a fantastic time.

GO SKINNY!!

Here are some pics:

(Most) of the Muses

Debbie Leland, Donna, SKINNY, and Kathi Appelt

Such a natural 

Quite the party

***

NOW, in case you have yet to click the link above, I wanted to share the info about learning from the Muses live. 

Your Best Book Workshop

Guess what?!

The Muses will be leading a session and chat on October 24-25th, 2012 during the fantastic, week-long YOUR BEST BOOK Workshop hosted by Free Expressions. We're super excited about this opportunity since many of the YA Muses' successes are closely tied with Lorin Oberweger and the Free Expressions' team.


If you're at all interested in upping your writing game quickly and efficiently, we highly recommend this workshop for writers at any stage. Take a look at the following for details:

Webpage

Brochure

As you can see, the other staff are world class: Agents Josh & Tracey Adams (Adams' Literary), Executive Editor Nancy Conescu (Dial Books for Young Readers), Editor Emma Dryden (drydenbks LLC), Roman White (acclaimed music video director/writer), and Free Expressions' Brenda Windberg and Lorin Oberweger.

We'll also be doing a school visit (10/24) and book signing (10/25) in Charlotte, NC.

Here's the details on the book signing:

October 25th
4:30-6:00pm
ImaginOn (hosted by Park Road Books)
300 East Seventh St.
Charlotte, NC 28202

Hope to see you there!

In the spirit of Columbus, who discovered an entire continent that was already here and already inhabited, I’ll talk about a discovery that is also quite large and obvious. Maybe as large and obvious as North America, maybe not. It depends on perspective, I suppose, like whether you’re a native American or a Spaniard in the fifteenth century.

What starts as only one bossy gopher...

So here’s the thing: I was one of those goody-goodies in school. I aced spelling tests—I aced the “pre-tests.” The other kids raced to see who could finish their math problems before I did. I wrote the longest, rambling-est stories in fourth grade writer’s workshop, believing page count to equal gold stars. I raised my hand to answer questions, I read every page of every book (except Moby Dick and then I very obviously voiced my refusal through creative quiz responses), I would never have considered not turning in a piece of homework. I obsessively followed directions. Did not deviate. Stayed on the path.

When I abandoned angsty teen poetry and turned to fiction, I operated in much the same way. I attacked books on craft and followed their directions. Plot your story. Don’t plot your story. Answer these ten questions about your character. No, pretend to be your character and ask her questions about the story. No, write the story from your character’s dad’s childhood pet’s point of view. Only work on one project at a time. Work on lots of projects at once. Write in third person. Write in first person. Write in the morning. At night. With music. Without. Past tense. Present tense. Experimental. Revise as you go. Revise only after the whole thing is done. Even the advice on what to do once I finished my book was contradictory. Start your query letter with the pitch. Start it with why you’re querying the agent. Query agents. No, publishers. No, publish the book yourself.

 ...soon turns into two bossy gophers...

It’s hard starting out on any new venture. Tennis, rock-climbing, parenting, writing. Everyone under the sun knows what worked for them, or they know what worked for their friend, or they know what worked for the character in that movie, or the Baby Whisperer, or E L James—and guess what? For the price of a book, or even free of charge, they will tell you what they think. And look out, because they will hound you, even if they are just voices in your head.

So no matter which way I wrote my stories, a small part of me was convinced I was wrong. Sure, Stephen King says this, but Anne Lamott says that. And heaven forbid I think of something on my own, because if nobody said to do it that way, it must be completely wrong.

...and before you know it, you have a whole infestation of bossy
gophers telling you what to do. Do you want to listen to gophers? I thought not.

It took a lot of time, and some definite growth in my self-confidence, to silence the voices enough to discover that there isn’t one way. There are many ways. Sometimes many ways for one person, with different ways that work for different books, different scenes, different pages. 

There is more than one way. That was my discovery, and one I believe everyone needs to figure out. Or, you know, not…whatever works.