Week 6: Contact with the Enemy

General Eisenhower warned us that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. So what do we do when the pen hits the paper, causing our careful plans to tilt and spin?

The post I had planned for week six was about point-of-view. I have this theory that there are six vectors that define POV, like the X, Y, and Z axes in a Cartesian space. That’s going to have to wait for week seven, though, because right now I want to talk about something else. [Note to future me: Put the link here!]

On February 1, we were looking at a blank page, and a blank page is exhilarating like nothing else. A wide open space, where anything could happen. Brilliance, innovation, wilderness — magic! When no words are written, the novel exists in your mind as a perfect crystalline thing, rotating in a shaft of light, faceted with possibility. It could be the best novel anyone has ever written. It could fall out of your hands like gentle rain, perfectly puddling into scenes and story! You could be the first person in the history of time who has found novel-writing easy and revision unnecessary.

But then there’s page two and three. You used that awesome first line you dreamed up. You burned through that dramatic first paragraph. And now you’ve made first contact. And here’s what I want to say: the plans can change. But because this is art, not war, that doesn’t mean the plans no longer matter.

Yes, some things about your plan can change and probably should change. But some things about the plan are going to stay the same. Here are the elements that are very likely to wobble and weave as you get your bearings, along with one element that I want you to hold onto for dear life.

Point of View: Change!

You planned to let your main character talk, but on page three you realize that if she talks, she’s going to reveal her secrets. Or, you planned for a distant third, but the main character won’t stop grabbing the microphone. Sometimes we decide which point-of-view to write in based on what we imagine is popular or marketable right now, or based on what our favorite novelists do. Or by default. But when we really get into writing it, the mechanics clunk and grind and we hate it. Here’s permission to gleefully leap from one POV to the other until you’ve tried them all. It’s fine! If it wants to be something else, let it. Experiment and find out. One of my favorite little tricks is to write a scene in first person, and then switch it to third, like some kind of criminal.

Verb Tense: Change!

Most people start by writing in past tense. Past tense is conventional. It’s safe, and feels so normal that when you read it, it disappears. But my god, isn’t present tense sexy? Present tense is like a game that you’re playing, and makes the writing and reading an experience to live through. The immediacy is kind of addictive. My most recent writing project before this Novel by Numbers was a collaboration with two other writers, and we decided for good reasons that the novel would be in past tense. Yet every damn time I would start a new section, I found myself crying on the heaving breast of present tense, yearning for a future we could share. I wanted it so bad that I ended up writing mostly in present tense anyway and then switching it to past, or even worse making one of my other collaborators switch it into past.

Tone: Change!

If whimsy is invading your grim, or formality is intruding on your casual, lean in and follow it. Eventually, you will work out the parameters inside which your story will be told. What jokes are too silly, how the narrator handles painful topics, the level of detail, and all of it. Smoothing out those choices so the style is consistent and the voice sounds like itself? That’s a job for later. If you try to do it now, you’ll be stuck in the first three page forever. Experiment, make moves, feel around for what hits and sticks.

You are allowed to experiment, fail, adjust, and carry on. And chapter one is the best time to do this.

In fact, did you notice that at no point in the 30 days of planning did we plan for point-of-view, verb tense, or tone? What we did focus on was character. And the ideas you had about your characters — those are the things I want you to hang onto, and defend against all doubt.

Characters: Don’t change!

Your characters were chosen for a reason. They’re part of you, they’re the heart of your story, and they’re worth pursuing, even if it feels hard. Probably especially if it feels hard. You may not understand the reasons yet, you may not have all their layers, but with work and pages, you will get that depth. Mechanical things like tense and point-of-view, stylistic things like tone and diction — these you can change like putting on outfits. But characters are, you know, like limbs and organs. Don’t leave them on the fitting room floor. At least not when we’re still in chapter 1.

When you’re evaluating the elements of your fiction and you’re in the middle of writing, it’s hard to discern what’s actual self-awareness (that’s the good kind of hold-on-wait-a-second), and what’s self-doubt (that’s the bad kind). Experimenting with options is part of the process, and it’s good to try things. But there’s also going to be that voice in your head that makes you want to change things around because what you’ve chosen to do is hard. Hey. Writing is hard, but it’s worth it to work and dig, and keep trying. If you bend to doubt, you’ll be letting yourself down. If it’s terrible, drop it. But if it’s just hard, go harder.

My Progress

I am the absolute worst at sticking to this word count pace! Pure toilet. I’m writing in little blips and blorps and changing scene and POV all the time. I stand up from my desk having written more words than I should, and as I wander away, I think of and forget a bunch more stuff, so when I sit down again the next day I just blithely start something different, about a different character, as if I had just been born, and it doesn’t matter. So I’ve pushed out a handful of bite-sized scenes, slipping in and out of time, and I’m still way over count.

My favorite writing pace is 1000 words in thirty minutes. I like to mull and stew and torment myself for days, and then sit down and thrash out 1000 words fast. Then I go back over it and blow it up to 1500 words by filling in blanks and connecting dots, and then I go on to the next period of tortured mulling, and so it goes. This measured, linear progress is weird! I’m not sure what the result is going to be — many little pebbles, rattling around in a shape no one sane would call chapters? Or will I figure out how to string them together at some point?

Q&A

Question: The spreadsheet date for today doesn’t really match up with the numbered weeks, and you don’t put out the weekly lesson on the same day each week. Are you living in an alternate timeline? Are you alright?

Answer: I am alright, but sometimes months start on Wednesdays but weeks seem to start on Sundays or Mondays, and then thirty-one days happened in January, skipping one, plus twenty-eight days seem likely in Fenbrunarny, skip Thurnsdorgs, mornings count double, knit one, purl one, Francis Bacon, hegemony. Know what I mean?

Tell me your word count in the comments. Mine is too high. And I don’t know whether to be sad or proud!