Adventures in Drafting

Sometimes I wonder if I’m a writer, or a stenographer. More often than not, it doesn’t feel like I’m creating anything when I sit down at my keyboard; I just have a window into someone else’s life, and I’m recording it for posterity. It’s a strange, but slightly thrilling, sort of feeling. I’ve felt it before, but not for a while, now. I’ve missed it.

Image: officemuseum.com

I am almost 69,000 words into draft 1 of ‘Tider’, and the grand dénouement is not far away. I have plotted, and replotted, and replotted the ending, adjusting every few days as my characters get lairy and unpredictable and start doing things their own way, as they are wont; still, though, they are surprising me by taking the initiative. ‘Step back, puny author,’ they seem to say. ‘We’ve got this.’ Then, I can only watch as they roundhouse kick their way out of every sort of structure and narrative I’d tried to put them in, and my careful planning falls down in a heap around my ears. Really, I don’t know why I bother.

I had reckoned I’d be finished ‘Tider’ about 4,000 words ago, but the story has kept going and there’s a little more that needs to be told yet. I thought I had dispatched a ‘baddie’ quite thoroughly, too, but they reappeared in yesterday’s writing, determined to have one final moment in the limelight. I thought my heroine had faced all the challenges she was to face, but another decided to show up just at the most inopportune moment. Seriously, at times, I feel like I’m wrangling a bunch of monkeys, and they all live inside my head.

How are ya!?
Image: sodahead.com

My husband got a little worried when I told him ‘Tider’ was refusing to cooperate; I guess he was imagining another 150,000-word beast was about to come spewing out of my fingers again. I hastily reassured him that wasn’t the case. I’m pretty close to the end of this draft. I haven’t reached it yet, but I hope – really hope – that today might be the day. I know there’s huge work left to do on this first draft (it has more holes than a dairy full of Swiss cheese, and it needs more expansion and explanation at the beginning), but I think it’ll be pretty solid by the time I get to type ‘The End’. I’m looking forward to that moment.

I had always imagined ‘Tider’ as a duology, or a trilogy even. Now, I’m hoping it will be a stand-alone novel. In one way, I feel sad that my original dreams for this story are no longer going to come true, but in another I know that the way I’ve written ‘Tider’ now is the way it should have been from the start. This version feels more true, and more satisfying, and I’m much happier with it. I’m finally figuring out that a story doesn’t have to exhaustively detail how every tiny thread pans out; there has to be a satisfactory end to the plot, of course, but a little bit of mystery is okay, too, as is a hint of what might happen to the characters once we’ve finished reading about them. A book isn’t supposed to be a chronicle of a family’s history, a begat-list running to the end of time – it’s supposed to be an episode in that history, a snapshot taken at a crucial moment, or a turning point, or a time of crisis. Once the characters have passed that point of testing, and they’ve come through the crucible in whatever way they can, then the story can end without a reader feeling like they’ve been cheated. I’m not talking about leaving a cliffhanger ending, or deliberately holding back on explaining a plot point for the sake of it – what I mean is, a book can have a ragged, messy, organic ending, a true-to-life ending, and it can be the absolute best note to leave the story on.

That’s what I think, at least.

I also love it (despite all my complaints) when characters come to life and start dictating what they’re going to do. Not only does it make you feel like a real writer, who has created a bunch of ‘real’ people – i.e. characters with their own minds, motivations and aspirations – but it’s also an amazing thing to watch your plot twist and turn upon itself in a way of its own choosing. Of course, I can decide to completely undo it in a subsequent draft, but I feel it’s good to give a story the freedom to develop as it goes. If it’s taking me by surprise, I hope it will take a reader by surprise, too.

Anyway. I have a lot to do today, so I’d best push on and get cracking. The sooner I get this draft done, the sooner I can get to redrafting it, and the sooner I can usher it out into the world. Maybe, one day, other people will even get to read it…

Wouldn’t that be *wonderful*, Toto?
Image: songbook1.wordpress.com

Slaying the Dragon*

It’s strange how significant everything becomes when you’re facing a mortal threat. Every step, every breath, every thought, every decision becomes invested with new importance. Everything seems slow. Your breathing sounds too loud, and the rushing of blood in your ears makes you light-headed. The morning breeze ripples through the flags overhead as you make your way into the courtyard, already covered with an inch of sawdust, and you feel the weight of your armour pulling on every muscle and sinew in your body. A few yards ahead of you, a sword is placed, point-first, in the hard earth.

Your guts turn to solid ice as you hear the beast’s first roar, loud as a gash being torn in the face of the earth itself. It makes your knees want to bend of their own accord, and it makes your head want to bow. You have to fight the urge to crumple before it. Inside your metal visor, nobody can see you weep, so you let the tears come. Then you remember there is nobody here to see you, anyway; no friendly faces, nobody to guard your sword-arm.

There is only you, and the dragon, and the dragon is coming fast.

Image: john-howe.com

 

Sometimes, in literature, dragon-slayers live; most of the time, however, they die. Dragons are the ultimate enemy, the one true test of a warrior’s prowess. So powerful that they get the better even of men like Beowulf, the greatest hero of his age (and ours, arguably), dragons are not to be trifled with. At all times, they are to be taken seriously, and they can never be underestimated. Waking one is a complicated business, and slaying one more complicated still. It’s best to leave them unroused altogether, and let them get on with slumbering and you on with living.

Sometimes, though, they wake of their own accord.

Facing doubt, in many ways, reminds me of dragon-slaying. It’s just you and the dragon, eyeballing one another over a sheaf of paper or the thin film of a computer screen; you hear its hissing voice in your mind, laughing at you for having the cheek to think you are worthy of putting words on paper and joining the ranks of ‘those who write’. The dragon is bigger than you, more powerful than you, and far more frightening than you can imagine. ‘I have slain mightier than you,’ it gurgles. ‘I have devoured warriors who could snap you like a twig!’ There’s nothing you can say to this, because you know it’s true.

It’s all too easy to back down from the doubt-dragon, and let it live inside your computer or – worse – inside your mind for the rest of your life. It seems like the simplest thing to just give in and turn away from its jeering, toothy grin, to walk away while doing your best to ignore its taunts of ‘I told you so!’ It can feel like doing anything else is the height of foolishness, like you’re risking your life by engaging with it. The only safe option, you convince yourself, is to give in and move on.

But if you do that, the dragon wins. It doesn’t even have to lift a claw to defeat you – you’ve defeated yourself.

I feel a little like I’ve been swallowed by the doubt-dragon at the moment. I feel like I’m stuck somewhere in its gullet, not quite inside its foul and noisome stomach (where I will surely perish, prithee), but not far off. Everywhere I look, all I see are dead ends, and there doesn’t appear to be a way out.

Instead of giving up and allowing myself to be swallowed, though, I’m really doing my best to understand that I need to make my own way out. If you don’t see a way to escape, then you need to make one.

St Margaret slaying the dragon by attacking it from within.
Image: greenwichworkshop.com

My attack of the doubts has come about because I have to do some unpicking of ‘Tider’. I’ve managed to write myself into a place where the story is no longer interesting or holding my attention; it seems too flabby and far-fetched. As well as this, the setting is poor, the character motivations are illogical, and the structure is wrong. I know I’m writing a first draft, which gives you a bit more leeway to make errors like this, but if it leads to you losing yourself in a morass of darkness, then something has to be done before you reach a point where you can’t find your way back. It’s important to complete the first draft, no matter how hard it is, which means I have to rescue myself from the dragon of doubt before I’m lost forever in the labyrinth of its infernal intestines.

So, there’s only one thing for it. I’m hefting my sword, and I’m picking what looks to be the most efficient way out of this mess, and I’m punching on through. See you on the other side, with any luck…

 

 

*All dragons used in the production of this blog post were unharmed, and all dragon involvement was monitored by the Geatish Dragon-Lovers’ Association. Any encouragement to harm, slay, maim or otherwise interfere with the lives of ordinary, law-abiding dragons inferred through reading this post is unintentional, and regrettable.