Writing Process Problems
Terry Odell
I’ve finally reached the “I’m home” mindset. Dealt with all the administrivia, household chores, and feel like I’m back in my routine. Which means it’s time for serious work on the wip.
This one’s given me more trouble than usual. Normally, my “organic” writing process means I start at the beginning, let things unfold until I hit “the end.”
To quote E.L. Doctorow”
“It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
“Planning to write is not writing. Outlining, researching, talking to people about what you’re doing, none of that is writing. Writing is writing.”
Not so this time. I was approaching the 50K word count when I realized the “Bad Stuff” that I’d been writing about happened way to soon, at least for a novel-length work. Even a short novel-length work.
What to do?
I went back and looked at my plot threads and realized I’d left a lot of them hanging around waiting to be dealt with later. I figured I’d better deal with them sooner. Trouble was, fitting chapters (which turned out to be nine) into points well ahead of chapters I’d already written led to continuity inconsistencies.
I’d added the death of a character. That’s what you do when you get to the muddled middle, right?
Unless he shows up alive five or six chapters down the road.
I liked the new chapters and they were moving things along. Until I ran into other inconsistencies. I ended up having to look at my chapter summaries to see when and where things happened. Of course, as expected, things I thought unimportant when doing my summaries turned out to be information I needed later.
Then, there were the decisions to make. Move things around? Leave things where they were but adjust bits and pieces for continuity. Scrap things altogether?
Writing out of order has never been part of my process, but every book is different, and now I had to deal with going back in page time, write the scene, and deal with reweaving the changes into the book so that it would appear seamless.
Of course, the organic writer in me found that one fix led to an entirely new plot thread, which then had to be worked in, often going way, way back in the manuscript to lay some foundations, with slight detours along the way to research things for the new threads. The book covers quite a time spread, much of it not on the page, but accuracy counts.
Also, probably due to my Mississippi River cruise and my recent birding trip, my ability to recall details seems to have left the building. A character talking on the phone to another is noting facial expressions? A character appears riding in another character’s car after said character told him to meet at the house?
Other things I seem to have lost track of. Who said what to which character, and when? Who was in the scene when it was said? It’s as if when the text scrolls off the screen, it leaves my memory, too.
Could it maybe have something to do with time spent processing my birding images? That’s an entirely different skillset, and my brain can’t seem to handle both.
Nevertheless, I persevered, and over last weekend, I had caught up to where I noticed the structure failure and am now working to finish the book. I’m still dealing with the right time to wrap up each thread.
I know I’ll have to be very diligent when it comes time to do my first editing pass. There may be some serious restructuring going on.
And, because I promised to tell you about my birding trip, here’s a link to my Substack, where I did a brief recap.
And a “bird foodie” post on my blog.
If you’re interested in more pictures, you can find them (another work in progress) here.
Your turn. Has your basic writing process ever had to change? How did you deal with it?
New! Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings
When breaking family ties is the only option.
Madison Westfield has information that could short-circuit her politician father’s campaign for governor. But he’s family. Although he was a father more in word than deed, she changes her identity and leaves the country rather than blow the whistle.
Blackthorne, Inc. taps Security and Investigations staffer, Logan Bolt, to track down Madison Westfield. When he finds her in the Faroe Islands, her story doesn’t match the one her father told Blackthorne. The investigation assignment quickly switches to personal protection for Madison.
Soon, they’re involved with a drug ring and a kidnapping attempt. Will working together put them in more danger? Can a budding relationship survive the dangers they encounter?
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Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”
I’m intrigued by the term “organic writer.” Merriam-Webster defines “organic” as referring to growing food without chemicals, but secondarily as “having systematic coordination of parts,” which makes all writers, except experimentalists, organic writers. You aptly describe the pantser way to get there, which involves “losing track” and “going back” and “structure failure.” But that’s fine; you have to go with your brain wiring. I work out my system beforehand and leave room to maneuver and tweak and strengthen.
So in answer to your question…I started as a screenwriter, which means structure, and used the index card method of plotting. That’s why I love Scrivener. I plot with the index cards and look at them on the corkboard (I used to lay the cards on the floor). I designed a “signpost scenes” template to begin the process. The fun “discovery” part happens here. I have a “killer scenes” folder where I record ideas sent up by the Boys in the Basement. I get lots of these and later see if I want to drag them into the outline. I’m basically the same kind of writer I was at the start, just a lot more nimble which comes only from experience.
You need to go to the Galapagos and get pictures of the Blue-Footed Booby.
Thanks, JSB. Your process works well for you. I use Post-Its for scene ideas, details to include, things to go back and fix. It gets me away from the computer and gives my brain another way of doing things.
I DID go to the Galapagos! I DO have pictures of blue-footed boobies. And red-footed. And lots more. Check them out here.
Cool!
What gorgeous photos, Terry! Esp. liked the little skimmer chick struggling to swallow dinner.
This is the situation where outliners shake their heads at us pantsers and say “Told ya so.” But we gotta work the way our brains dictate.
When trying to pick up dangling threads, I reread and reread, catching a few more on each pass. On troublesome books, it may take 20 rereads which is time consuming and inefficient but eventually I find and fix most problems. My great beta readers catch any that slip past. Also sometimes my subconscious wakes me up in the middle of the night to bring another problem to my attention.
Sorry I don’t have any shortcuts to suggest but you’ll get there. You always do.
Thanks, Debbie.
“This is the situation where outliners shake their heads at us pantsers and say “Told ya so.” But we gotta work the way our brains dictate.”
So true. And then I think of authors like Jeffrey Deaver who spend 8 months on outlining and research, and I look at my wip and I’ve only been at it for 5, so I’m sticking with following my brain’s wiring.
I started out as a pantser and became an outliner. My challenge with mysteries is that there are so many moving parts it’s difficult for me to account for everything before beginning the draft. I lean into my novel journal and re-outlining parts of the book as I go forward. That worked well for my fantasy novels and my first two mysteries, but I ran into some plot holes and character motivation issues in my third mystery, which is my sixteenth novel, which will hopefully become my tenth published one. Interruptions have stalled the rewrite, but I eventually did put together a new beat outline with more unity, plot logic and character behavior. I find writing short, high-level summaries of the book can really help bring plot problems and solutions into focus.
Even as an outliner I come up with things in draft that can lead to inconsistencies, or I forget about a point and contradict it, so revision, and beta reader feedback are both crucial. The other thing I’ve learned the hard way is that these problems don’t solve themselves, I have to dig in like you are digging in and do the work. Like Debbie said, you’ll get there.
Wonderful bird photos!
Thanks, Dale.
We all find what works, but sometimes what’s worked a bazillion times before doesn’t work the same way. But, we keep at it and work through it.
Glad you liked the pictures. Another instance of dealing with a new process under those conditions.
“…authors like Jeffrey Deaver who spend 8 months on outlining and research…”
Okay, I feel better now! My new project might be done by my birthday…2-3 years hence.
Have a great day, Terry. Heading to your link now to view the boobies… 🙂
Not having deadlines as an indie author helps, but it doesn’t mean we can stop working. Detours happen.
Nice photos from your birding trip, Terry. I especially like the ones of birds in flight.
My process is similar to yours, but I take a more iterative approach. I have a general idea of the plot when I start writing, but things may go in a different direction once I get into the story. I may stop along the way and add some notes on the plot before continuing. The process goes back and forth between plotting and writing until I reach The End. Then I go back and start the rewrite, which will include throwing away a few scenes that don’t work—or at least moving them to a folder for use in another story. It may be messy, but it’s comfortable for me.
I have to quote my 10-year-old protagonist, Reen. When her cousin points out a smudge on Reen’s shirt, the youngster replies, “That’s okay. All authors are messy. That’s because we’re creatives.” I like the way that young girl thinks. 🙂
I like Reen!
Thanks for sharing your process.
Gaps throw me off, too. My usual process is to write scenes strictly in order, with a clean rough draft without placeholders, so the current scene can build on everything in all the previous scenes, even tiny things that would never make it into an outline. (I also reread my draft constantly to keep everything at my fingertips.)
A gap prevents the orphaned later scenes from dovetailing with the earlier ones. I often find myself discarding them, since it’s so hard to keep the stitches in a Frankensteined story from going all the way to the bone. I hate that!
I have two tricks to dodge this bullet: First, to declare the stuff that happened too soon to be, say, a false climax. Along the lines of, “We made it to Rivendell, but we didn’t find the right kind of patsy to take the Ring off our hands, so we can’t go home after all.”
My other trick is more about plot than pacing, but since it adds new scenes, it counts. Many authorial blunders can be magically converted into in-story conflict. Instead of cursing and beating my head against the wall because I’ve been blindsided or mystified, I let the characters do it. That is, I convert my own lapse into a twist such as the sudden need for a side quest. Done properly, it’ll look natural, even inevitable. I’m not saying it happened this way with Tolkien, but it wasn’t fully in character for Bilbo to conceal the Arkenstone in spite of the distress its absence caused the Dwarves. But an uneasy truce between the Dwarves and the Elves and the people of Dale needed to be in place before the Battle of Five Armies began, which required a McGuffin. The Arkenstone provided one.
Thanks, Robert.
It sounds as though we have similar processes. At least until this book! I love finding the shiny things my characters point out along the way. More often and not, they belong. Sometimes, they’re even foreshadowed. The subconscious does wonderful things.