Lots of Trouble, A Few Solutions

So, as I sat reading my How to Write and Not Suck books the other day, I got the urge to sit down and start doing something, dammit. This always happens when I read books about writing, buy stationary paper and pens, or see someone else writing. I won't necessarily say that they inspire me, because that sounds a little to grand. They just incite jealously. They make me think, "Oh, wouldn't it be nice if I could be that cool? If I could sit down and write pretty little letters on pretty little pages, and have them come to life? Create a world of my own on paper?" I don't think this qualifies as inspiration, because nothing ever comes of it. Maybe I'll sit down to write, but nothing ever comes out. I still haven't mastered the act of writing. I'm awful good at thinking about it, though. I think the main problem with me is that I am too abstract. Just look at this blog. Look at what I'm writing now! I live in a world of thoughts, not actions. I imagine the things I would like my characters to feel. I find it hard to write, in any detail, the events that bring about that feeling. I dwell so much on the internal reactions of the person whose perspective I am writing from, that I never really have scenes. I have monologues. Streams of consciousness. Everything is too loose and wordy. This might, might be okay if I could write a little better. But, somehow, even when I'm dallying, everything feels rushed, because I always feel like I'm just writing through this part to get to the next scene. This is often how I live my life, too. I'm always looking ahead, anticipating. I usually can't live in the moment until I shut off my thoughts completely. And I can only do that by doing something completely inane that I can lose myself in. Watching TV, watching my friends play video games, playing DDR, or reading an easy book.

Whatever. I'm rambling. Maybe this isn't why I have that problem with writing. Maybe I'm rushing because I want to get to some kind of climactic scene, something I've actually been looking forward to writing. And I'm so slow in getting started that I usually give up before I can actually get there. I know I need to just get through the beginning, but self-discipline has never been my thing. Other people would say that if I find a scene boring to write, that I should not include it, and certainly not have it in the opening. The book should grab the reader from the very first sentence and not let them down until the very last. I don't necessarily agree. An
Ocean Between is at least partially an adventure story, that is true enough, but I don't really think of it as a page turner. It's more of a psychological study of the main character, Bernard, and the people he encounters. It's a commentary on society. It's a satire that sometimes (too often, I think) sounds like a farce. It's a mystery and a tragedy. It's... hard to pin down, but not a page turner in the sense that there is some kind of action going on all the time. I like to take my time (yet I always sound rushed?... it's days like this that I feel hopeless...) I don't know, dammit. I've just always liked books that start out in a kind of provincial setting, with small problems that get left behind when the main character leaves for bigger and not-always-better things. In this way, I think that Bernard's story, at least the first half, fits nicely in the the bildungsroman genre. Then a wrench is thrown into things when the Miranda is shipwrecked.

I'm sorry that my thoughts are going all over the place here, but this is how I think. And therefore write. Which I don't think is necessarily a good thing. There is an underlying structure and patter to my thoughts. There is. I just don't know if anybody but myself can see it. We often think that we are making sense, because we fill in our logical gaps and see the tenuous connections between our thoughts when we really are jumping all over the place, at least in the eyes of others. I know I have this problem. I just have a really hard time fixing it. On the one hand, I don't want to completely lose my way of thinking, because I think it can be really interesting as long as people are following it. But I just can't tell when my stuff is going to lose people. I'm always surprised to find that my readers have lost me in a section where it never even crossed my mind that I was being obscure. Ugh.

Having been sidetracked again, I will now make the point that I was apologizing before when I said I was jumping all over the place. The prologue, yeah. I've always conceived of An Ocean Between starting with a prologue that takes place after the main action of the story, showing Bernard in the depressed state he reaches after the sinking of the Miranda, falling in love with her, bla bla bla. I liked this idea, because I've always been keen on keeping this portion of the story connected with the main part of House of Orange, and the prologue takes place during the action of Glenore, the third portion of the trilogy and the book where Bernard makes his appearance. I've read several successful books that have been written like this, with the reader seeing the main character first at their lowest point, and then being reintroduced in the first chapter to a person very much unlike the one in the prologue-- happy, if a little naive. The reader wonders, What happened to this person to transform them into the one that we just met in the prologue? It's a different kind of suspense, and I think it works well in tragedies and character studies. Yet, despite these advantages, there are setbacks to this structure, which is why I'm considering ditching it. Even if I gain the kind of suspense I described above, the fact remains that I am giving away the ending. This changes the kinds of feelings that the audience experiences when reading the story, and I'm not sure whether I want that or not. Plus, I feel like my own prologue is weak, a combination of what I feel is bad writing, and the fact that I don't want to give too much away, either about the endings of An Ocean Between or House of Orange.

I seem to have an attraction to these kinds of beginnings. Why? To a certain degree, it puts the reader in the main character's mind. The are introduced to him in the "present" and are allowed to look back in time with him, remembering all the things that went wrong. It gives the book a bittersweet quality, heavy on the bitter. When characters are on the ship with Bernard, when he thinks about his budding romances with Doll and Faina, we are reminded of the tragedy that awaits them all. It gives more weight to even the seemingly unimportant interactions, and the lighter moments in the book. Readers wonder if there is any way that their favorites will survive; if they can leave the ship before it reaches the end. They also are forced to look at Bernard with a critical eye and wonder, "What is it about him that leads him to crash his ship in a way that makes him blame himself? Is it really his fault, or is he self-loathing?" They pay attention to Bernard's character. Same with any other character that is introduced in this way. The more I think about it the more I think that the "flash forward" prologue is the best way to approach this story. It fits. But I don't like the one that I have now. I think the best thing to do is start from Chapter 1, write logically until the conclusion, write an epilogue, and then stick that epilogue onto the beginning and make it the prologue. That way I will know the full extent of what Bernard's journey has done to him psychologically, and be able to write the thing more accurately. It's worth the risk of giving away some information. Just the same as this entire book risks giving away surprises about the first two portions of House of Orange.

This book is to the trilogy as The Hobbit was to The Lord of the Rings. It's coming out before the trilogy, serving as an introduction to the world, in a more digestible form than the trilogy itself. But The Hobbit took place before The Lord of the Rings not towards the end of it, like my book. It didn't risk giving too much away concerning the plot twists of the main book. It gave Bilbo's back story, introduced the audience to some important locations and characters, and set up the mystery about the ring. That's about it. An Ocean Between is inevitably going to do much more. To a certain degree, this is good, because it will let readers have some "Aha!" moments, when they realize the significance of certain events in the first book. On the other hand, I could easily give too much away and spoil the surprises of the trilogy. I walk a fine line.

Going back to my problems with getting the ball rolling with the first chapter. Some people would say that if I don't feel like writing this part now, I should skip to one that I do feel like writing and start from there. Write that scene that's been dancing around in my head. Put it on paper. Get something solid done. Something I'll like. I do think this is good advice, and I wish I could take it. That's just not they way I work, unfortunately. I have concepts of scenes, of characters, and problems I would like them to have. Unfortunately, I think only in shadows. I have clear glimpses of maybe one line I would like to write, one tender, blazing glance shared between lovers, the heartbreaking childhood of a villain. But they lack detail or reason, because I don't know how I arrived at this scene. The rest of the writing is supposed to fill in the blanks. I can't just skip to the scenes and write them, because I don't know how they got there in any specific terms. I'd be left with something like my prologue. Okay, but missing something. I need to start from the beginning, because I'm all about building. Taking a situation and a couple of characters, and piling on the complications. Every event, every conversation, has an effect on how each character behaves and thinks, so I can't just skip ahead and write something without knowing everything that lead up to it.

Okay, I think that's enough mush-mush for today. You see now why I need organization and structure. Otherwise, I just go off willy-nilly saying anything.

So, in the spirit of discipline and organization, I am going to make a tentative agenda for myself. Tomorrow, I am going to write about my obsessions. I've been reading Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Something (I'll look up her last name later). A lot of what she says in that book resonates with me, and I'll be doing exercises from that book here, because she has a lot of cool ideas. One that I really thought would help in organizing my thoughts for blogging and novel-writing is to write about my obsessions. I'd get a concrete idea of what I value and what I like to think and write about, so I could maybe identify some important themes for my book-- like Bernard's fatal flaw, important for any tragedy. I'm thinking indecisiveness for now. That sounds like him. Very Hamlet. Very cool-- and just things to include or focus on that will make writing more enjoyable and Natural! (the thing that's hardest for me).

After that, I am going to write down everything I know about An Ocean Between so far, and nothing more. Just my vague thoughts about what's happening with each of the characters, their motivations, etc. The structure of the plot. It's probably going to be very confusing, and very poorly conceived. So, when I'm finished, I'm going to identify the gaps I need to fill in. Those will be the subjects of my blogs in the future, one blog per gap. I'm not going to get super-detailed, I just want to have a good idea, when I'm writing, the next major event that I'm building towards, so I can keep the pacing good. I need a sense of direction, otherwise I go in circles. I'm also going to make a list of major and minor characters. I will dedicate one post each to the backgrounds of each of the major characters, and their roles in the book. I'll get an idea of their arch. For the more minor characters, I might blog about two or three per post. I vow to write every day. That's another suggestion from Natalie, and one I desperately need to take. You see how I am. I get enthusiastic, write in gushes, get discouraged/lazy, and setting back into my laconic state. I will not do this anymore. If I do, barring some major emergency, please: slap me.

I have my mission. Now all that's left is to do it!

Yours in Death,
The Incorrigible Mei-Mei