A Novel Idea Part 3: Your Writing Road-map

My Fellow Contributors,

The novel is progressing and the characters are inviting me into their world. I am currently done with 30 frames of my 50 frame goal.

And with that I reach the topic of my blog this week: Having a plan of attack for your novel. Establishing a series of goals and checkpoints that allow you to mark tangible progress in your novel writing process.

But before I get into my writing road-map, I wanted to discuss how I am breaking away from the social norm of how most authors think about writing a novel. Where most authors see themselves as writing a book, I am going about it as though I am writing a screenplay.

A screen play has limited narration, simple stage directions and thus is mostly dialogue. This allows the director more freedom to create the film how he sees it and not how the writer envisioned it himself. Which sounds more user friendly given that in the Novel-land, the director is analogous to the reader and the screenwriter analogous to the page-writer.

When writing your first draft, I find this approach, putting less attention on the details and more attention to the character-narrative, not only more desirable but also healthier.

It is more desirable in the sense that you are able to get through many different frames without being bogged down in one particular part of the story. By not being concerned with every little detail of your narrative the first time through, you don't have to worry about contradictions that will inevitably show up through out the frames of your first draft as you get deeper and deeper into the local narrative. This type of drafting is also healthier than the traditional A to Z appoarch because you are able to amass a large amount of clay from which you can shape subsequent drafts. You don't get lost in a narrative and then end up giving up because you can't decided whether your heroine is wearing all black, or white lace and how this will impact the rest of the novel. You don't feel like you have to answer all of your Narrative's questions or tie up all of the loose ends in a given chapter.

REMEMBER:

Always leave more to write.


So now on to my road-map.

Like any long, continuous project, it is important to have goals. Not only does it give you a sense of accomplishment but it also gives you a way of holding yourself accountable. By giving yourself steps, you are more likely to make it to the next level, no matter what the endeavor.

My first goal is to get to 50 frames.

Why 50?

I chose 50 for several reasons. First, it gives me a large amount of clay to work with and shape. Second it was a large number that, while obtainable, would require dedication and commitment to reach. It should be noted that my novel will more than likely consist of more than 50 frames.

Frames are awesome Bermuda, but how long is it going to be? How many words do you have written?

A friend asked me these same questions and you know what, I told him this:

I have no idea.

And you know what else, I particularly dislike that way of thinking for a lot of reasons but the major one is because thinking about writing length in terms of word count is very demoralizing and limits yourself in the early stages of your writing process. I would much rather think of a goal in terms of writing frames rather than writing words. The smaller number of frames relative to the tens of thousands of words in a novel makes me feel like I can achieve my goals and makes the project seem less daunting. Another reason this way of this is detrimental is that it limits you. Don't worry about length, about making it this long or this short, just write until the narrative tells you she's all done.

Alright, Respect. So, what do you do when you have all your frames?

After I've finished the 50 frames, I am going to type all of them into my computer. As I mentioned in Part 2 of this series, the act of typing is in essence a revising step. Once all of the frames have been typed/revised, then each of the frames gets a title.

The title will then be placed on an index card. Much like a story board I will then place frames out until I have a straight forward narrative. This step is important because I don't write the frames in a linear fashion. Frame #23 and Frame# 24 for example are not apart of the same local narrative. By laying out each local narrative, I am able to see the holes or rather gaps in each of them. Once the gaps have been identified, I can begin the third draft which will consist for the most part of me filling the gaps in each of the three local narratives I have in the novel and shaping smooth transitions between frames of a given local narrative.

Once the local narratives have been laid out and frames have been added to plug the holes, all of the frames now get put on another round of flash cards same as before. Each with a title for the frame. This is where the magic happens. This is where you weave the three local narratives into your main over-arching narrative. This is where you will spend most of the time editing; moving this and that in an effort to create a tempo for your novel that maximizes the meaning.

Well that's it for this week, my Fellow Contributors.

REMEMBER: set goals for yourself that are obtainable and challenging. By breaking up your writing process into steps, you'll be surprised when your standing on top looking down on the world as they read your finished novel.

Next week I am going to be posting a picture of my actual notebook and going over the structure of a Frame. What should it include, what the structure is like, how long it should be and how it should function in relation to the local and main narratives.

As Always

Undoubtedly Your,

Bermuda

You Are What You Drink

As John Cusack's character says in the wonderful High Fidelity, "what really matters is what you like, not what you are like." To some extent, the same can be said of drinks and authors; as much as they are what they drink, they often write like they drink. Let's take a look at some examples:

"After the first glass of absinthe you see things as you wish they were. After the second you see them as they are not. Finally you see things as they really are, and that is the most horrible thing in the world. I mean disassociated. Take a top hat. You think you see it as it really is. But you don’t because you associate it with other things and ideas. If you had never heard of one before, and suddenly saw it alone, you’d be frightened, or you’d laugh. That is the effect absinthe has, and that is why it drives men mad" - Oscar Wilde.

Absinthe. If you've had it, you know what it's capable of; if you haven’t, you've probably heard something similar to what Oscar detailed above. Here's the lowdown: the average bottle of absinthe, and there are countless varieties, is 70% alcohol. That's pretty high and with the fun belief that absinthe either does, or once did, contain hallucinogenic components, the wide-spread appeal of absinthe is not difficult to understand. The ethos of absinthe is strongly based in its association with creativity, freedom, and insanity. Many writers and artists at the turn of the 20th century had a strong affinity to the drink as a result of those associations. But everything about absinthe is perfectly suited to Wilde like it is to no other. Just as his writing is an examination of the eccentricities of life and beauty, absinthe entices the consumer to follow the mysterious green fairy on whatever dalliances she fancies. Who knows what you could experience if you just go a little crazy.

Hemingway liked absinthe too; he supposedly drank it everyday while living abroad, and that was even after it was outlawed. The law never stopped old Ernest anyway. But, according to an article on npr.org, Hemingway's perhaps favorite drink was the mojito. This surprises me because I like to think that Hemingway was too much of a man to drink anything with light rum in it. But, alas, this further reveals the sensitive person that seemingly hit beneath the bravado. I like to picture my Hemingway drinking a whiskey neat. But that's because I believe the drink makes the man, and Hemingway was simply not a man made by mojitos. But, what really mattered to Hemingway seemed to be one thing: that he became intoxicated by whatever means necessary, and in that regard he and Jack Kerouac would have gotten along splendidly. "A man does not exist until he is drunk" - Hemingway. Ah. Gotta love that man.

In the literary bar of my mind, Fitzgerald just walked in, took a seat next to his buddy Hemingway, and ordered a gin neat. Supposedly, Fitzgerald preferred this drink because it could be easily concealed with little odor to reveal its presence. It must also be noted that Fitzgerald was a beer drinker if for no other reason than he was Irish. An Irishman is not an Irishman if he doesn't drink beer. Now it may seem a little unfair to in anyway judge Fitzgerald on his drinking habits being that it is widely noted that he was a true lightweight. However, just as Fitzgerald's prose is like a lighter, more easily consumable variation of Hemingway's more harsh and sometimes off-putting constructions, so too can their drinking styles be compared. And Fitzgerald's lightweight nature never stopped him from trying; as determined as he was to be the greatest writer who ever lived, he was equally set on consuming beyond his means. He once said, "In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning." I imagine there's more literal truth to this statement than we may initially recognize. After all, most of Fitzgerald's life was a perpetual 3am party on the verge of becoming a hangover.

Last, but not least, the absolutely insane life of the party just walked in. If no one has gone running through the night breeze with a shotgun in their hands just for the sheer exuberance of it, that will be happening soon. Of course, I'm referring to Hunter Thompson. That stir-his-drink-with-his-bare-finger madman. And that finger was normally being inserted into (please ignore how dirty the first part of this sentence sounds) a glass of rum on the rocks. Thompson was a true outlaw, living outside the bounds of any kind of conventional society, so what else would he choose but the drink of a pirate? For Thompson, the connection between living life and the consumption of large amounts of intoxicants was undeniable: "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

These drinks, and no doubt the other substances that they were often consumed with, may have very well played major roles in the demise of these men. Oscar Wilde and Scott Fitzgerald both died because their bodies ultimately fell apart in their forties. While, Hemingway and Thompson may have lived to be older men, they eventually chose to take their own lives, a choice that shows a deterioration of mental health if not physical, a process that is no doubt aided along by the over-consumption of alcohol. But, as Thompson seems to allude to in his quotation above, what would these men have been without these substances? This question is not meant to imply that these men were only great because they drank and/or abused drugs; nor is it meant to diminish the signifance of health, happiness, and well-being to any human's life. All of that said, the answer to the above question is undeniably, "they would not have been the same." We would not have A Picture of Dorian Grey, "A Clean Well-Lighted Place," The Great Gatsby, or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas if these men didn't drink. This is not to say that drinking is what fueled their brilliance, but it is to say that it's inseparable. Each of these men were in their own way tortured by what they saw in the world, and that same torture is what led them to drink and to write.

Until next time,

Leena

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6624971