{"id":1155,"date":"2020-05-06T08:19:53","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T12:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/?p=1155"},"modified":"2020-05-06T08:19:53","modified_gmt":"2020-05-06T12:19:53","slug":"burrowing-into-the-blur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/2020\/05\/06\/burrowing-into-the-blur\/","title":{"rendered":"Burrowing Into the Blur"},"content":{"rendered":"

Before I start, the countdown is on to the release of A Ceiling Made of Eggshells<\/em>, on May 12th, six days away!<\/p>\n

On December 5, 2019, Kit Kat Kitty wrote: How do you write past the beginning? The farthest I\u2019ve ever gotten in a novel was 15707 words. (Yes, I failed NaNoWriMo. After a little I hated my story so much, I had a hard time looking at it.) Once I\u2019m done with the beginning, I tend to get stuck. Every time I think about it, I can only imagine the climax\/falling action\/ending. Everything between the Inciting Incident and climax is a blurry haze of no ideas and wanting to slam my head against a wall.<\/em><\/p>\n

A few of you weighed in.<\/p>\n

Writing Ballerina: There\u2019s no rule that says a book has to be written chronologically. Write whatever part excites you. Then you can go back later. Writing the climax and ending might actually make it easier for you to know where you\u2019re going. It also might help for you to plan that part you get stuck very in depth so you always have a place to go. And if you\u2019re having a really slow day, you can throw in some silly things like sea monsters nibbling apples, or a random cat into your scene to get things moving. I did this a couple times during Nano.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kit Kat Kitty: This is really helpful! (I love cats, and when I was younger they were in my stories all the time.) But I think my big problem is I\u2019m not really sure what\u2019s supposed to go in the \u201crising action\u201d place. (I don\u2019t know what else to call it, I\u2019m going based off of what my English class has taught me.) I think if I could figure out how to write something interesting that moves the plot forward without being so crazy and over the top it doesn\u2019t make sense.<\/em><\/p>\n

Writing Ballerina says: Plot is driven by tension more than action, so focus on events that will build the tension of the story. I really recommend the book Story Trumps Structure by Steven James. He has lots of great tips on how to build tension, write plot twists, and a bunch of other stuff. You can probably get the book on your library, or even google excerpts.<\/em><\/p>\n

Melissa Mead: I learned by writing short stories first. They give me experience with writing stories all the way through.<\/em><\/p>\n

future_famous_author: You could skip the beginning, or you could just keep exciting things happening the whole time to keep you–and the reader–excited. My current WIP is about a princess, and she is eventually going to get captured, but I have to wait until I have about twice as many words as I have now to get to that part. So, while I wait, I try to keep the tension high. And, when there is a boring conversation, I try to throw in important information, or maybe even foreshadowing, so that it isn\u2019t boring. Just because you haven\u2019t reached the climax does not mean that there can\u2019t be problems. My MC\u2019s biggest problem will end up being that she gets kidnapped, but for now, there\u2019s an awkward love triangle going on, and so she has to deal with that.<\/em><\/p>\n

These are terrific!<\/p>\n

Before sheltering in place and after, I hope, I work out with a trainer named Tony, which makes me a very strong old lady. When I tell Tony something like, \u201cI\u2019m worried I\u2019ll drop this fifty-three pound kettlebell on my toe,\u201d he always answers in all caps, \u201cDON\u2019T DROP THE KETTLEBELL ON YOUR TOE.\u201d So, with Tony in mind, I say to Kit Kat Kitty, \u201cDON\u2019T SLAM YOUR HEAD AGAINST A WALL.\u201d !!!<\/p>\n

Writing Ballerina\u2019s first comment–about writing out of order and writing scenes that excite us–is along the lines of what I said in the most recent post. Likewise, my ideas about being stuck, so Kit Kat Kitty and others may be helped by rereading that.<\/p>\n

Before we progress beyond our beginning, let\u2019s talk about beginnings themselves and take a look at one of the most famous first lines ever, by Jane Austen in Pride and Prejudice<\/em>: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.<\/em>\u00a0What does this beginning do, in addition to making us smile?<\/p>\n

Well, even though it\u2019s lighthearted and ironic, it lets the reader know that the book is going to tackle something big\u2013love and matrimony. There will be the two sweethearts and all the circumstances that separate them, which will have to involve other characters, probably friends and family, and a milieu in which they move.<\/p>\n

Here is a sampling of first lines I found in a Google search. I\u2019ve read all but the book by Anne Tyler (but I\u2019ve read others by her), and they\u2019re all, except, I think, for The Red Badge of Courage<\/em>, best for high school and up.<\/p>\n

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person<\/em>. \u2014Anne Tyler, Back When We Were Grownups<\/em><\/p>\n

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.<\/em> \u2014F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/p>\n

Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital; my keeper is watching me, he never lets me out of his sight; there’s a peephole in the door, and my keeper’s eye is the shade of brown that can never see through a blue-eyed type like me.<\/em> \u2014Gunter Grass, The Tin Drum<\/em><\/p>\n

The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting.<\/em> \u2014Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage<\/em><\/p>\n

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.<\/em> \u2014George Orwell, 1984<\/em><\/p>\n

(An aside about copyright: Most of these books aren\u2019t in the public domain, but quoting such a small bit is okay, covered by something called the Fair Use doctrine.)<\/p>\n

I want to be clear here: I don\u2019t mean we should agonize over our first sentence. A big deal is often made about the need to have a knockout first sentence or first page for queries or agents. I hope that\u2019s not true, and I\u2019m not talking about that. I\u2019m talking about how to think about our beginnings so that they set us up to move into the rest of our story.<\/p>\n

Each of these first sentences suggests big things to come, maybe thorny problems or complex worlds or complicated characters, or all of the above. We can look at the beginning we have, that we\u2019re feeling hopeless about, and ask what we\u2019ve suggested in it. We know the end, but what else did we put in the beginning that we can use, that hasn\u2019t occurred to us before? We can write notes, ask questions, make lists. Who are the characters? What can we do with them in the course of our story? How can we use the world we\u2019ve hinted at? What do we have that will make our ending richer when we get there?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m with future_famous_author on developing exciting scenes to get us from dot to dot along our storyline. We can ask, What will be very hard for our MC? Is there a hint of this in our beginning? (If not, we can add.) Who will put her in this tough situation? How can we bring it about? Will she learn something, or fail to learn?<\/p>\n

I like the rule of three, which I\u2019ve talked about here. It\u2019s used repeatedly in fairy tales. The evil stepmother in \u201cSnow White\u201d tries three times to do in Snow White and seems to succeed only on the third attempt. Cinderella goes to three balls. The wolf blows down two houses before he comes to the third, the brick house. We can consider how we can bring three tries at something into our story.<\/p>\n

Each try can be fleshed out. At each of Prince Charming’s balls, events happen; characters behave characteristically; feelings may be hurt; unforgettable things may be said. What’s wrapped up in each ball can fuel the rest of our story. The evil queen may spend days figuring out her next ploy, while Snow White compulsively replays the last one in her mind, and the dwarfs whisper among themselves about how best to protect her.<\/p>\n

Since I find plotting so hard, I like to have something external I can follow, one reason I use fairy tales, which provide steps to get me where I need eventually to go. I elaborate on the steps and turn each one into dozens of pages or more. Right now, I\u2019m writing a version of the Trojan War. I start with the moment when Apollo gives Cassandra the gift of prophecy but curses the gift so that no one believes her. The story runs through the incidents that lead to war, the war itself, and ends soon after the Trojan horse deception. Those steps are laid out in Greek mythology, so my job is to drape my own, new story over them. This is another strategy for finding our way from our dynamite beginning to our great ending.<\/p>\n

Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Take one of the famous beginnings above, preferably from a book you haven\u2019t read, and use it as a starter for your own story. You can copy it right into your first draft and then insert something else or cut it when you revise. Or\u2013you\u2019d need to check on this\u2013you can keep it and acknowledge the source in a note or an Afterword. Think about the problems the beginning hints at. Write notes and lists about how you can use them. Imagine an ending and write your story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Look at headlines in a newspaper, in print or online. Do not read the articles that follow, at least not yet. Pick one and make it the beginning of your story. Think about the issues it raises and the characters you\u2019ll need. Imagine an ending. Jot down three or more events that will get you to the end. Write the story.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Imagine the three little pigs are three human sisters orphaned in a kingdom after their parents, the duke and duchess of Mewks, have died. These young women are rich and they don\u2019t get along, so they each set up a separate establishment. But they\u2019re all threatened (you decide how) by the evil Baron Spythe. Write a story about the choices they make and how they all come together in the end to defeat the mustache-twirling Spythe. (You don\u2019t have to give him a mustache!)<\/p>\n

Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Before I start, the countdown is on to the release of A Ceiling Made of Eggshells, on May 12th, six days away! On December 5, 2019, Kit Kat Kitty wrote: How do you write past the beginning? The farthest I\u2019ve ever gotten in a novel was 15707 words. (Yes, I failed NaNoWriMo. After a little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,15,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1156,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1155\/revisions\/1156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}