Writing Update: I might be getting good at this!

Last week I attended Futurescapes again. I’ve now attended the March workshop three times, plus one of their longer-format workshops. It’s always fun and informative, and has definitely been worth my time.

As with any writing class or workshop or whatever, I usually get something different out of it than either I or the instructors expected. One of the things I took away this time was the real understanding that I am getting better at writing.

Not that this was a complete surprise, I’ve been working really hard to improve and I was pretty confident it was paying off. But Futurescapes gave me a reference point to really compare where I was one and two years ago to where I am now. I’ve always received supportive, positive feedback from my workshop critique groups, but their specific reactions to my writing have gotten a lot closer to what I intended.

I also got confirmation that I made it onto an agent’s “maybe” pile on the strength of my query letter, which, query letters are really hard! Even if it doesn’t pan out, it’s nice to know I can write a decent one.

Now I’m back in the word mines, pushing forward with my current work-in-progress. I’ve hit a point where I need to regroup a bit and look at my plan for this story. I’m not stuck, but I’ve been swimming in molasses for a bit. While working on that today, I inadvertently proved to myself that I know what I’m doing.

There’s a bit of backstory here. When I started my first novel, I didn’t know what I was doing (didn’t even know it was going to be a novel) and after a while, I got stuck. I didn’t have a plan, and I really needed one. I researched story structure a bit (a lot) and eventually found a method of structuring a novel that I liked. I modified it a bit and put it to work.

As an experiment, I took some short stories I had written and used the structure to outline novels around them. It worked! I laid out my existing novel on it and saw exactly what was wrong. But I didn’t know how to fix it. I needed more experience before I could take that on.

I took one of my expanded short-story outlines and wrote the novel I am now querying. Diligently following my structure got me three-quarters of the way there, and then I just needed to write the rest in a way that worked. It proved to me that I had a system I could use, but like all systems, I needed to be flexible about using it.

I looked at my first novel again, made some changes, and decided I still wasn’t ready. Besides, I had a new shiny idea! My story was inspired by something with a different structure and I didn’t know if my plotting tool was the right fit. I spent a lot of time test-writing points-of-view and voices, and started writing without much of a structured plan. Then life interrupted me, and I didn’t get to work on it for two months.

When I came back to it, I assumed I already had a plan, but I didn’t go and look at it. Everything progressed well, with only a few hiccups. I made a note where it felt like a bit of a leap from one chapter to the next, but that’s the kind of thing I can fix later. Predictably, somewhere in the 20-25K word range, the story became hard to manage. It got too unwieldy for a single document with more moving parts than I could track in my head. I needed to clarify my plan.

I looked at my outline and not only had I never finished it, but since writing it I had changed everything but the central concept. I hadn’t even given the characters names yet. I effectively had no plan other than what was in my head.

It was time to go back to what I know works, and plan with intention. I broke out my story structure grid and dropped the chapters into it in the order they came. I would use that as a starting point, then rearrange everything to fit and fill in the blanks.

They mapped one for one.

The only outlier is exactly where I have the note that there’s a leap between chapters. That’s where I did not fully resolve the disruption of the introduction before introducing the resolution of the introduction.

Apparently, I’ve internalized this writing tool sufficiently that I was using it without being conscious of it. I struggled when my conscious brain told me I must be at a different part of the story than where I am. Now that I see the plan, I know exactly where I am and where I’m going. I was trying to write in a structural element that already exists, and it felt wrong because it was wrong.

When I teach swordplay, I tell my students that they need to practice their preferred techniques until they are internalized and they do them without conscious thought. “You need to get your conscious brain out of your way and let yourself do it,” I say. I guess I’m getting there.