To the finish

On the evening of Thursday, October 25th, I’m going to give a talk at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. Here’s the link, where they ask you to reserve your seats: http://www.carnegielibrary.org/teens/events/programs/behindthebook/. I would be delighted to meet any of you in person.

Just want to say I’ve been listening to the lectures by Brandon Sanderson and finding them helpful and informative and delightfully geeky. He has my number when he talks about discoverers.

On May 30, 2012, Lark wrote, Gail, have you ever done a post on the motives of writing something? I was reading an article in The Writer’s Digest Handbook to Novel Writing (superb articles in there, btw) about what your motives are in writing a novel. It struck me that the only 2 stories I’ve finished I’ve had specific motives behind them– i.e., my short story last year had to be written for writing club (which is a weak motive) and a parody I wrote for the Hunger Games was for my best friend’s birthday– I wrote 7,700 words in 2 days. Whew! (Slightly better motive.) I wasn’t thinking about publishing, or writing a certain number or pages/words/etc. And when I did NaNo last year my motive wasn’t finish my novel, it was write 30,000 words. (That’s probably the reason why I didn’t finish my NaNo novel). When I set out writing a story and I think, I want to get this published, it is guaranteed that I don’t finish it.

And two days ago, flowerprincess wrote in a similar vein, I write historical fiction, and I usually start a story with tons of fire and energy (and very little research) as soon as the idea is developed enough. But by the time I’ve reached what seems to be the beginning of the middle, it flops. I just can’t write anymore. Sometimes it’s because I realize that I didn’t research enough, but sometimes I just find that I have absolutely no workable plot (I’m definitely a character writer). To put this problem in perspective: I am sixteen in a month, but I haven’t finished a draft of a story since I was nine! What can I do so that I don’t keep stopping before the story actually gets started?

I read two questions here, one about finishing and one about writing in the first place. They’re both mysterious.

To get philosophical: People are like locked doors and we may spend our entire lives looking for the key – to ourselves! We have more access to our innards than anyone else. We know what we’re thinking and feeling, and yet… We may have no clue about why we can’t lose a few pounds or quit smoking or not get angry when a certain person says almost anything or finish a story, or why we even start a story in the first place. Sometimes our friends and family can diagnose us better than we can – and vice versa. We may understand exactly why our friend Pamela bites her nails, although she has no idea.

I can tell you why I write: to tell myself a story, because I love books, because I have an itch to be creative that I just must scratch. And why I finish: because I am stubborn and because it feels too awful to fail – it’s intolerable (although at some point I may have to tolerate it). But I can’t come up with answers behind these. I have no idea why I want to tell myself a story or why I’m so stubborn.

So here’s an early prompt: Ask yourself the same questions. Why do you write? Why do you finish your stories or fail to finish them? Why do you finish some and not others? Your responses, regardless of how confused they are, may help you, may guide you in your revisions and your new stories. I would appreciate it if you’d post what you come up with, too, because your answers may help other writers who read the blog.

I’ve finished every book I started – sort of. In thinking about this post I realized that the skeletons of unfinished stories pave the length of almost every one of my books. When I started Fairest, for example, I thought it was going to be about the unrequited love of the gnome zhamM for Aza. Couldn’t do it. There isn’t even a ghost of this in the published book. So the specter of that story is haunting the ether somewhere. In an earlier version of what used to be called Beloved Elodie, Elodie’s mother falls under a spell that makes her totally greedy, that makes her prefer a golden statue of her daughter to the living, breathing girl. I loved it. It was powerful and horrifying. But I couldn’t do anything with it, so it’s hanging out with love-smitten zhamM.

If the problem is that your main story thread peters out, you may find it helpful to assume that wasn’t your real story. Look at what you’ve got. Think about where else you might go with it. Some story choices narrow the future possibilities, which is good when you’re near the end but not at the beginning or the middle. Did you choose directions that limited your characters’ options? Can you see other paths that excite you? This is not failure! This is finding the actual story.

In my case, I always have to simplify to write the book I can write. In my dark hours I feel bad about this and disappointed in myself. But the rest of the time I’m proud and happy that I finished, and I think my books are pretty good.

Obviously we’re all different. Some people do better with a stick and some with honey. Lark, you seem to do best when you set goals for yourself. So do it! NaNoWriMo is coming up. This time make it your goal to type “The End” when the month is over. If it helps, you can say that I demanded it. Write stories for the birthdays of all your friends and relatives. And your pets! Write a story for the major and minor holidays. (Halloween is coming up.)

flowerprincess, in the cases when more research would get you going again, I’d suggest undertaking the research. What you discover may give you a detail that will move your story forward, as has happened to me more than once.

Lots of us work well with small time goals and rewards. I’ll often tell myself that if I write for half an hour I can take a break. Not too much later I demand another half hour of myself. I also have a time goal for the day’s writing. In doing this, I’m not thinking about finishing my book, but underneath I know that if I put in enough time and write enough notes and think enough, I’ll get there. In fact, worrying about finishing may be a distraction. Just write. Just follow the story. Face the ending when you close in on it.

I see two options if the idea of being published gets in the way. One is, don’t think about it; don’t make that your goal. The other has two parts. The first is to imagine yourself published. Imagine a call from your agent to say that your book has been accepted by a publisher and the editor wants to call you to talk about how wonderful it is and how it could become even greater. You can go on to imagine all the stages that follow, the editorial letter and the edited manuscript, you revising, the book in bound galleys, the early reviews, the book in bookstores. The second part is to imagine your book rejected. Think about how bad you feel, how you wallow in misery for, maybe, a couple of weeks. And then you recover (I did, many times) and find that there’s Life After Rejection. And you send the novel out again and resume writing your current project. Then you can return to the first image of acceptance. The idea with this approach is to take the fear and trembling out of the publishing notion. If you live with it, its power will diminish.

Here are two prompts:

∙ Write a ghost story. A life cut short is like an unfinished story. Imagine a character who dies young and have the story be about the life he didn’t have. Bring him in as a ghost.

∙ An unsolved mystery is also like an unfinished story. Dr. Ellen Imoldo is a veterinarian who, in the 1980s, claimed to have discovered a serum that would significantly increase intelligence in dogs. She disappeared along with her notes and her vials. Your main character has found a clue. Solve the mystery of her disappearance and the serum.

Have fun, and save what you write!

  1. I took on your early prompt and got some very interesting results! But, since it turned out to be almost half a page long, I won’t post it here. Just wanted to say I learned some things about myself!

  2. Thank you for the advice, Ms. Levine, it was very thoughtful, and that early prompt is going to take a lot of thinking on my part. However, the way I worded my question took away from my real problem, which is that once I start writing a story and get to a dead end (which is not always because of a lack of research), I don't even attempt to finish it. I just end up putting it aside and eventually restarting, and re- restarting it, and so on until I have a bunch of beginnings, each seemingly better than the last but leading nowhere. I was wondering how you manage to avoid doing this and push through the story, no matter how flawed it is at the time, to the end?

    • When my story isn't working at all, I start over, too, until I find the right thread. What often helps me is to have a glimmer of an idea about the end, which is what I'm writing toward. So you might try that, imagining an end to your improved (or unimproved) beginning.

  3. As to why do I finish some (projects) and not others, and why do I fail to finish:

    I have found that I'm much more likely to finish a project for another person than I am for myself. For example, when I was expecting my first child, I crocheted a dress for my cousin's baby with a similar due date, but got nothing so elaborate made for my own. :)I noticed a similarity in Lark's situation.

    My difficulty in finishing, or even progressing, in a book is the fear of not getting it "perfect."

    I know those are two of my hurdles, but I haven't quite figured out how to gracefully sail over them yet.

  4. Lately I've been having the problem of just getting little spurts of inspiration at a time. I write for a paragraph or two, and I'm happy with it, but I can't write more than that at a time. My writing comes in disjointed snippets, and I can't find the patience or energy to connect them.
    Does anyone have any tips for pushing through and writing more than half a page in one sitting?

    • Hmm, that is frustrating. Sometimes that's just a season that goes away on its own. But while you're still in the middle of it, try this: When you come to the end of that burst of inspiration, make yourself sit there for just a bit longer and try asking yourself what comes next (eg. what your characters would naturally do next or at least one way the current event could go wrong).
      If you're losing interest – and I can't tell if you are or not – then figuring out ways to make things go wrong can help keep things interesting and definitely keep the conflict coming.
      I'm a novice, so I don't claim to have expert advice, but I hope this helps a little!

  5. Sorry, this has nothing to do with the post, and not really about writing, but I need advice.

    This is my senior year in high school. I was considering going to college to become a vet tech, but, well, I stink at math and science. Not going to happen.

    So, I'm trying to figure out what careers there might be for writers. Can anyone help me? My sister suggested journalism, but when I think of that I think of writing newspaper articles…which does not sound appealing to me. What other careers are out there for writers (and are there any other uses for journalism)? Any comments would be GREATLY appreciated!

    • I'm only a sophomore but I've known for a few years that I want to go to college and become a children's book editor. I did a little bit of research but there doesn't seem to be a major prerequisite for it- some editors have had English majors, creative writing, or neither of those and became an editor. I'm planning on majoring in English/Lit but that's just my two cents. I don't feel like journalism would be great for me because it is mainly nonfiction (definitely not me…) but that's one of the great things about writing… you don't need a degree for that 🙂 I would say look up some of your favorite writers and see what they studied.

  6. Can't say I have trouble with this… I've finished my first novel and am 160ish pages into the second… but I can tell you that if you have a really excellent idea, you'll have to write it out. The only motivation I've ever had is that I simply must finish the story because it must be read, because it is simply too good not to be shared. You'll feel that way when you have the perfect story.

  7. If you truly loved the idea of being a vet tech don't give up on it completely, at least not right away. It may very well be that you didn't have a good set of teachers in math and science, or a week basis that you haven't figured out how to fix yet, and you might still find your way in college. You might see if you could shadow a vet tech or get an internship (probably cleaning and feeding animals) to see what it would really be like.

    I think lot of writing jobs are in flux right now because of the development of the internet. I would guess that I journalism job is undergoing a changing definition daily. That being said, there are a lot of jobs in writing that we don't usually even think of. Someone has to write the copy on the back of the cereal box! The only one I personally have experience with, though, is text book writing and editing (science). You can work directly for a text book company, but also a lot of their work is hired out to companies that hire freelance writers. Often the writers have degrees and have worked in education. I also know that companies still hire technical writers to write manuals etc. This makes me think that human resources might use writing skills to write press releases, but really I am just guessing at that point.

  8. Also, there are editors – both content and copy editors. Editors don't necessarily do the actual writing but they have to know how to write to do their job. (Although when I was an in-house text book editor I did end up doing some of the writing. I would imagine that happens with other editing jobs as well.)

    Some editors look at the overall structure of the writing. Copy editors look at grammar, spelling, uniform style for different publications, etc. and really have to be good at detail. As far as I know they are hired by trade and textbook companies, magazines, and newspapers. Anyone know of other places that hire editors? With the rise in independent writers there is also a rise in freelance editors that are hired on a per-job basis.

  9. The nice thing about writing skills is that they're useful no matter what you do.
    The sad thing about writing fiction is that it doesn't pay much (or come with health insurance) Most of the writers I know, pros included, have day jobs (or a spouse with a day job.)
    Some also start out writing on the side, and as they get more successful, switch to writing full time.

  10. Thanks so much for answering my question, Gail! I was so excited I got my mom excited too, and she came and read the post as well. 🙂
    Right now I've really been needing motivation… my current WIP is more of a fanfiction story than anything that could become anything. It uses the characters Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, although I imagine those are public domain so it wouldn't be a big deal… but I still have no end goal in mind AND it has been requiring a little bit of research, so I'm sort of puttering down. I'll put it away for NaNoWriMo (which unfortunately I don't have an idea for yet… O_O ) but it's sort of become my baby, I can't imagine trashing it. I may continue it just for me, but as a writer that's not good enough motivation. I can't wait to start NaNo though… it should help that you demanded it. 🙂 Is anyone else here doing NaNo? I'm on both of the sites- I'm attempting 50k this year!- and my username is The Writeress.
    On another note we just returned from the Southern Festival of Books. I think I've asked Gail to come once before, it would be really amazing 🙂 This year a big author was E.D. Baker, author of the Frog Princess series (the ones the Frog Princess Disney movie was based [very loosely] off of). I got her to sign mine ^.^ But I wish that you would come Gail 🙂
    Anyway thanks again!

  11. E.S. Ivy – Wow! Thanks for the advice – it really helps! That definitely gives me a lot to think about!

    Lark – interesting! I'll have to research that field.

    Carpelibris – I know! I especially wouldn't make very good money at being an author, considering the fact that I'm too afraid to try to publish anything I write:)

  12. I used to be scared to try to publish things, but eventually I figured "Why not? The worst they can do is say no." I got 3 rejections in a row and got so discouraged I quit for a year.

    I have a writer friend who says "Rejections are trophies. They're proof that you're trying." Now I have over 500 "trophies," and although I'm a looong way from rich + famous, because I got more into writing I've met friends (including some of my favorite authors), been on panels at conventions, seen my name on a magazine cover and even made a little money. Rejections still sting, and I still get them more often than not, but it's worth it. If you ever decide to give it a try, I'll share my favorite market lists.

  13. Hmmm I think my greatest motivation to write is when I'm feeling a strong emotion. When something is unfair or I'm particularly elated, I write. It's my way of releasing extra energy through words and it makes my writing better I think than when I just sit down and make myself write. I find it much easier and faster when I am in a strong mood, though because that is not all the time I must find other motivations besides.

  14. I'm so glad the link was helpful! I actually attended the college where he teaches but didn't know who he was until after I had graduated. Thank goodness for the internet, now I have access to his class and this blog and so many wonderful writing resources!

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