Fleshing out a story

The first book I ever shared with my writing group in full was Machine.

By that time I’d already been editing it and buffing it for at least five years, so a lot of my work process at the time was just posting the next chapter and taking notes.

I’ve learned a lot about editing since then. A good analogy I’ve stumbled on to describe the process is drawing. Because similarly to writing, it takes time, progress and order. Both must be done in stages.

Now, because it’s fun and I wanted to draw something, I’ll walk you through what that process looks like.

Idea

This stage is pretty straight forward. It’s just deciding what you want to create. As my friend Alma says, it’s like a seed. For me, it could be a concept I want to explore, a moment I want to have between characters, a setting, a plot point, hobby, or even just a character by itself. For the purposes of this blog post, I posted an intensely brief survey on Facebook (first comment takes all) to choose. The winners were Ara and Hoyt, a husband and wife from my book Equilibrium (poor book doesn’t get a lot of attention on here or in my editing schedule, though it probably should for its strengths), so we’ll go with them sharing a tender, family friendly moment.

Basic shapes

This stage can look different for everyone, especially depending on if you’re an outliner or a “pantser.” In either case, this is where you start to feel out the basic shape of your story. I like the idea of describing it as a shape, because it suggests there really is a way it should go. You just have to find it.

For me, as a pantser, this means writing everything out (rough draft), then cataloging the plot. Working with my second (or sometimes rough if I know something is really off) draft and that plot, I then make adjustments, working my way through until the story is nice and tight and the shape I want it to be. If you’re an outliner, the process is similar, but with a lot less work upfront.

And since I’m drawing this while I write, a few other similarities I noticed are as follows:

1. Both involve a great deal of structural work up front. This makes a giant mess, but cannot be skipped or assumed. Even though a lot of it won’t shine through in the final image directly, and would actually make the work worse if it did, it is crucial to the success of the piece. The artist must know what’s going on underneath.
2. Sometimes you have to start over. It took me three drafts to get a foundation I liked, the main problem being, of course, the bones.  If the anatomy is wrong, if the bones really don’t fit, sometimes you really do just need to start a new page. It hurts if you’ve sunk a lot of work in already, but believe me, you will be happier in the end. Hold things loosely and remember, the faster you learn to let things go, the faster you’ll improve.
3. Write what you know. Anatomy is really hard to draw well (as is writing a story). Sometimes you need a little help from real life to show you what something feels, looks, or sounds like. For this project, for example, I used my mom (thanks Mom!). We hugged, I worked out the anatomy of how arms and shoulders work, and boom, I was better equipped to draw.
4. Changes cause ripples. Just like bones in the body, plot points are connected. If you change one thing, you are going to have to change another. Also like in the body, you (and your reader) will notice if the structure is out of joint. It’ll be obvious and it will hurt. Fix it until it doesn’t.

Attempt 1.

Attempt 2.

Final “draft.”

Detailing the structure

Once you’ve got your bones in place, it’s time for cleanup. In drawing this looks like refining your shapes, making your first attempts at line art, and getting rid of the extra structural lines you used before.

In writing, it means massaging those last few story tendons into place; erasing extraneous scenes, background structure, and exposition; and doing your first cleaning of the writing itself, such as making sure your point of view is correct, your tenses match, and you aren’t cluttered with adverbs. You can start adding more character and voice too, laying on your first layers of style. I’ve left a few structural pieces in the drawing to show changes I made to the overall structure, but ideally by the end of this stage all of those would be gone.

A few notes from drawing:

1. Even though most of the structure is nailed down, there will always be those tricky spots you have to restructure and redraw again and again. In this drawing, Ara’s left arm and head had to be redrawn several times to get right. It caused more ripples that went all the way down to her legs. That’s okay.
2. This is a good stage to start showing the work to others. Whether writing or drawing, at this point there’s enough there that I can show them what I was going for while still allowing for feedback. You should be careful who you show it to, sticking to people who are more familiar with you or your work/know the kind of feedback you’ll need, but it is helpful to show them now before you’re too much farther/committed. It can save you a lot of work later down the line.
3. Not everything has to be perfect. I’m not good at drawing hands, so at this stage, I left them as vague paw shapes. The people I showed this to know I’m not good at hands, but trusted I would get to it later. Don’t waste time mastering details that may change anyway.

Polish, polish, polish

After doing a nice rinse and repeat of restructuring, minor detailing, and getting feedback for a few drafts, it’s time to start adding in the final details. This should be the stage where the structure is fully set and where you really start to nail in details word by word. If there are areas you left for later, go back and fill them in.

Also, if there are any messy smudge-marks or words leftover, get them out of the picture. Adverbs, resting words, sentences that don’t add value. If they don’t have a reason to be in your story, kick them out, especially if you think they’re pretty or witty.

Lessons from drawing:

1. This is usually where fatigue comes in. I’ll be honest, at this stage I even had to take a break. That’s okay. Rest if you have to and don’t be sloppy just to finish.
2. Tackle your weaknesses. It’s painstaking and frustrating to have to erase and redo the same set of fingers or paragraphs over and over again, and it’s hard to feel like you aren’t improving, but believe me, you are! Artists get to where they are by practicing. Writing is the same way. Get feedback to help you find those weak spots and tackle them head on!

Finish

I didn’t have a picture for the last step, because I realized once I was finished polishing, I was done. Writing is the same way. You can edit forever. But if you really want to succeed, at some point you’re going to have to decide if it meets your goals or not. If it doesn’t, keep going or begin again. If it does, stop. For example, with this drawing, I don’t need to ink it, I didn’t want to add color, and I’m okay with having some anatomical flaws. I wanted to have a decent picture of two folks snuggling, and I do.

This can be the hardest part for a variety of reasons, but I’ve found a few tips that help me move on.

1. Know that it gets easier with time. As you grow in feeling out structures, your style, and what details you need to include, it will get easier to know when a story is done.
2. Have goals. Know what level of quality you want to achieve, for whom, and why, and stick to it. Knowing your audience and purpose can help with this.
3. Be okay with process. Learning how to write or draw takes a long, long time. If your skills can’t reach your goals yet, keep trying. Modify your goals in a way that gives grace and space to grow, and, if you really can’t modify your goals for your current project, work on something else until you can reach them. Don’t give up.

So, that’s all I’ve got for now. Thank you for sticking with me for such a long post. I hope adding the pictures helped break it up for you, and as a reward, the final product: Hoyt and Ara sharing a cuddle. Questions for you, dear readers, posted after the photo.

Ara and Hoyt Longmar copyright Abigail Morrison, 2018.

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So, what do you think? Does the analogy work or no? Have you found better ones to describe your process? What does it look like and why? If you have answers to that or pictures of your own characters, feel free to post either below! If you’d like more content like this, feel free to follow the blog or the social links on the sidebar.

Writing by faith: content

Hi All,

This is part two of a series I’m doing on how to pair faith and writing in what I hope are practical ways.

This time I’m going to talk about content in two different ways, inspiration and process.

Inspiration

I hesitate to use the phrase “inspiration” here because I don’t want to get this confused with the idea of divine inspiration, or for those who aren’t fluent in Christianese, the theology that the Bible is divinely inspired (with a varying spectrum of views on how exactly that was achieved), but it would also be dishonest to say that my ideas come from myself. In my last post in this series, I even talked about God providing exactly the ideas I needed at just the right time. It would be easy to argue that was just my subconscious pulling through at the last minute, and it’s possible that that is true, but I don’t want to take away from God the fact that whatever I use to create ultimately does come from him, whether that’s my mind, grit, subconscious machinations, or a divine bolt straight from the blue.

I’d rather not spend a ton of time describing how that works (since I don’t know), or its merits (of which there are many), so for now I think I’ll leave you with a couple examples of how, on a personal level, this works for me:

1. I’m listening to, thinking about, or watching something and God gives me an idea for some kind of art to make, usually paintings or drawings, sometimes writing. For the non-writing pieces, they are usually very specific, even down to the medium sometimes, and are usually tied really closely to faith-related matters. They frequently feel urgent, like I want to get them down right away, though not always.
2. I invite God into my work either when I begin or when I finally get stressed out/crazy enough to realize I forgot to, and my writing gets easier, either by a simple smoothing of the process, pieces suddenly clicking, or a brand new idea out of nowhere. This is a lot more of a common, day to day experience, and a habit I try to get into.

There are of course other ways that God inspires me, or catches my attention to things, but that’s not the main thing I want to talk about today. That goes to process.

Process

I think this relates more to how writers work in general. I’m reminded of a Facebook post I saw once that said something to the effect of “I’m not sure how I think/feel about it, let me write about it and get back to you.”

And it’s true. I think many writers would say that they process through issues best when they write about them. I know I’ve seen this in my own life as I’ve struggled through both personal and abstracted problems and ideas, this blog being the prime example.

So, what makes this a faith issue?

A lot of that ties to morality and what I understand as Truth. As a Christian, I believe God’s word is true. I believe His understanding of good and evil is better than mine, as well as that of justice, love, truth, honor, etc., and as I process through what I believe about those things, as I process through telling stories in general and the shaping effect that that back and forth process has on my mind, I want God to have a defining and guiding hand in all of it.

What does that look like on a practical level?

Well, a couple of things. First, I think it means not just telling neatly wrapped moral stories with completely tied up strings. Jesus told parables of course, yes, but life is also a lot more complicated than strict black and white, and the Bible often tells rich, complex stories that don’t provide straight answers. I think as writers we are free to explore those as well and use similar techniques, and, personally, I wish more often we did.

Secondly, I think it means doing the work, whether that means research, thought, or understanding. Anne Lamott talks about this in her brilliant guide on writing, Bird by Bird. I don’t remember any specific quotes, unfortunately, but the basic idea is that to write someone well you have to understand them, spending time in their minds, feelings, attitudes, beliefs, etc. This understanding naturally lends itself to compassion and humanity, a crucial ingredient when processing any issue, in writing or otherwise.

As a side note, I think we have to be careful not to spend too much time in the minds of certain characters/beliefs, but that’s rather a larger topic, so I’ll leave it at using discretion and being careful if we start to see dangerous reverse effects of getting in people’s minds.

Thirdly, I think it means agreeing with God and being careful of what we promote. As a Christian, I believe God is true, that He is love, and that He knows more about any of the topics I mentioned above as well as, well, anything else. Whatever I write, regardless of genre, length, or anything else, I want it to line up (as best as I can understand) with what He thinks about it. That doesn’t mean condemning and judging sinful characters, removing them, or simplifying things down to straight good and evil. That, like in real life, is not my realm. It does mean, however, that if my villain does something villainous, I write about it in such a way that makes it clear, with compassion, that it is villainous.

The best example I think I have of this is in Frederick Douglass’ autobiography. He talks about the wife of his former master. Once kind and willing to teach him to read, he details her transformation into one of the crueler women he knew as a result of the dehumanizing effects of slavery (both on slave and master). I remember while reading being astounded by his compassion. He understood the effects of evil in her life, saw her with compassion, and wrote truthfully about it as a result.

The more we process through these issues (as well as our own personal ones) with God, the easier this becomes. In this sense, I believe I will never become the writer I want to be without God’s transformative power both inside and outside my work.

Fourth, I think it means inviting God in. There have been times when I’ve been writing something and just sensed something wasn’t right. It could just be my attitude that day, feeling like something else needs to happen in my life before I’m ready, or even just the prodding to go deeper or research more. Of all of these tips, I believe this is the most important. I’ve been trying to get better at discerning them. So far, none of them has led me astray.

A final thing I’ll mention is that there’s another, more surprising way that God has worked with my writing, and it kind of goes in reverse. Normally when I’m writing, I’m pursuing something, whether that’s the story, sorting my thoughts, or whatever other goal I might have. But sometimes, God will use my writing to show me truths about Him, myself, or others. Even when I haven’t realized it, there have been times when God has lined things up in my writing to show me things I never expected to discover, one such example highlighted in great depth on this blog. In this sense, it’s like co-writing, a partnership, and it’s super awesome.

It’s rather a larger topic though, so perhaps its best to end here.

Thank you for reading. I hope to have more for you soon!

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So, what do you think? Have you ever encountered or noticed different worldviews in stories before? Have you approached content in your work differently than what’s listed  here? In what ways and why? Let me know in the comments below and if you want to get more content like this, follow the blog or my social media accounts in the sidebar links.

 

 

Rediscovering process

Hey all,

For Christmas this year, it happened to work out that I was able to take off the whole week with a few extra days added on for New Years and weekends. I was feeling pretty peopled out at the time and running inches ahead of schedule for writer’s group, holidays being what they are (delightful, much needed, and very busy), so I was pretty excited to block off most of that time just for me, family, and my writing.

What I was not expecting was to rediscover the process of writing and why I love it so much.

Let me back up.

I love writing. I always have. I love the sound of words together, the way they look on a page, and the idea of telling stories that people love and follow and are changed by has been a dream of mine for ages.

And back when I was in high school and just out of it, there was almost nothing I loved more than the simple process of writing itself. I remember spending hours working on my books, working until my brain turned to jelly, thinking “this is what I was meant to do” whenever I put words to page.

There was frustration in there too, of course, there always is, but the pleasure I got out of just doing it, writing, editing, whatever, was so fulfilling.

Except, somewhere along the way, I feel like I lost that joy. Somewhere in those years, disappointment and frustration took over the contentment of growth, of process, of putting letters in rows in blank spaces.

I’m sure working on Machine for so long was a key part of my mistake. Putting so much time and effort into something that just isn’t going to work is a sure fire way to lose some of your spark.

But there’s another element to this, one that I think is perhaps even more profound.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before on this blog, partnering work and faith has often been a struggle for me. Whether running from God because I didn’t want him to make my work boring (a lie), running from God because I didn’t think my work was good or Christian enough (another lie), or any of the myriad other reasons I’ve had for not wanting to let Him come alongside and help or guide, it’s never been particularly easy for me to join my passions and dreams with God (or at least who I thought God is or wanted).

He’s working with Me daily on that, but that’s a whole other world of posts.

For now, I’d like to focus in on a specific problem I think I’ve had, which is mainly the idea that if I’m truly writing what God wants me to write, He’ll somehow just give me the words. And I don’t mean that in the sense of general guidance or sparks of inspiration, I know and have seen Him work with me in these ways. I think mentally, at least until recently, I just had a more verbatim sense of His help. Like if I was really listening hard enough, God would just tell me what to write down.

Or, worse, if I was really listening hard enough/doing what He wanted me to do enough, everything would just fall into place and I’d have been published by now.

And there’s nothing wrong with saying He could, and I believe in some cases, He might or does. It’s certainly seemed that way with many of the people I’ve seen around me that I’ll admit, frankly I’ve been jealous of (certainly wrongfully so).

But as evidenced by, well, to my understanding, the entire Bible, that’s simply not how God works most of the time. More often than not, He works through process.

You wouldn’t tell an athlete that if they’re following God’s will they don’t have to work out. You wouldn’t tell a politician if it’s God’s will they don’t have to campaign. And while there’s certainly an element of blessing and divine intervention that can and does come into our lives when we partner with God, that doesn’t mean we still don’t have our part.

That’s something I rediscovered on my vacation.

Spending time with my work, writing it, rewriting it, sensing what works by feel and error rather than hope, it was something that, between my busy schedule and misunderstandings of God, I had forgotten. I’d lost my sense of adventure, of courage and growth with my writing, and with it, I’d lost my joy.

I don’t often give myself very much grace. It’s another area in which I believe God is helping me to grow. I believe that writing, and the process, is a part of this, and I hope it helps you too.

So if you’re feeling frustrated with your writing, wishing it would just be good already, just remember, it’s a process, and that’s part of what makes it worthwhile.

Tom Cruise, bringing it home.

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What are some areas in your life where you’ve had to go through process, creatively or otherwise? Have you found more joy or pride in the end product because of it? Where do you think you could continue to grow? Let me know in the comments below and if you want more posts from me, feel free to follow me on the blog or on social media!

Starting over, a novel approach

Hey all,

So, I’ve got a huge, slightly scary, but mostly super exciting announcement to make.

Are you ready?

I’m going to re-write Machine.

What? That’s crazy! I’ve been working on it forever!

Yeah, I know.

But the problem is, for the longest time, I’ve been working backwards. Terrible first draft aside (kind of hard to miss that step), first I was polishing, then in stages I started making small changes, then larger ones, and even larger ones until now where I’m finally willing to admit that maybe the bones I’ve been trying to jam together for so long just aren’t meant to work that way. And I’ll admit that’s kind of frustrating (and significantly more embarrassing for as much as I’ve run my mouth about my little monster), but now that I’m starting to let go of it a bit more, now that I’m more willing to admit I was wrong and to let God and the advice of others in, it’s actually getting a lot more exciting, not only because I’m rediscovering the potential of something that I’ve increasingly been seeing as hopeless, but also because I’m finding some of the bones that do stick together (and where some of the other ones that don’t might actually go).

And it’s great.

So, if you’re looking at a massive rewrite like me, what does that actually look like?

Well, let me tell ya. Basically, (or at least at a first stab since this kind of edit is still new to me) I’m actually doing my work in order.

First, I’m going to do world-building. That’s the stage I’m in right now, figuring out weather, politics, education, creatures, etc. I’ve made some progress on this front already. Several problems I’ve had basically since the beginning have started to shift and crack, others resolving completely. I’ve also made some surprising discoveries, both about the world itself and the characters that live in it. Honestly, though it’s been daunting sometimes, it’s also been really fun. I used to be afraid of locking anything into solid fact because I was so worried about getting it wrong, so afraid someone would question me and I’d have to change things (if you’ve ever had to deal with my unwillingness to edit before, I am so sorry. I’m getting better!), but now I’m really discovering how much fun research can be. It’s exciting to see how these different aspects can lock into place, and even though it doesn’t always work like I’d initially expected or hoped, it’s also been fun to start deconstructing story elements I’ve (sometimes needlessly) clung to, to ask the important questions about how things relate to make sure this story becomes the best it can be, which brings me to my next point, which is…

…taking a good look at my plot. Before I plunge ahead with a rewrite, I want to take time to think about what this story really is, what it is I’m really trying to say. God is helping me a lot with that (when I listen, which is still hard), and I’m trying to take the time, though I’ll admit I’m not super far on this one yet. I am asking a lot of questions though, and taking advantage of some advice I just read from Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird. Speaking about the first stories we tell, she says, “Beginners … always write blatantly about themselves…even if they make the heroine of their piece a championship racehorse with an alcoholic mother who cries a lot.”

And while Machine certainly hasn’t been about either of those two things specifically, it is a lot about my story (something I’ve mentioned before on this blog), my testimony, and when I consider that, it helps me to figure out not just what Machine is about, but where I want it to go, where I want to go. Because the fact of the matter is, if you’re writing about yourself and your main character gets hit by a bus or winds up a hermitic alcoholic, that doesn’t bode well for your own personal outlook, and as I’ve been looking at how Machine reads, I’ve been finding more and more telling things about how I perceive myself, especially when I look at the arc of it over time. And that’s not to say that I’m going to make this truly autobiograpical, even in an allegorical sense, but as I keep pushing towards more love, compassion, grace and especially hope for myself and others–especially the others I want to reach with this book, I think it’s going to show.

The other half of this step is to take a close look at my structure, what works and what doesn’t. Machine was the second-ish book that I wrote, the first in even more dire need of a rewrite, so I’ve learned a lot about plot in the books I’ve written since then. I’ve also heard a lot more from other authors, agents, etc., on what publishers are looking for, and gotten feedback that I think I’m finally ready to start taking into account. I’ve started taking better notes with my critique group and will soon be ready to get feedback from them on the whole thing (well, a few months down the road, but soon for the book publishing world, haha). I’m also considering taking some classes, or at least getting some extra books from the library about things like structure, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Step three is going to be, rather obviously, writing it. I don’t know yet if it’s going to be a full re-write or if there are going to be pieces I’m going to be able to keep, but hopefully after steps one and two I’ll have a clearer picture.

After that, I’m going to take a look at it, see what needs to be fixed, fix it (rinse and repeat those maybe a couple of times), and then polish and scrub. You know, all of the steps I’ve already been doing out of order for the last eight or nine years, haha.

So, I’m not sure yet how long all of this is going to take. Life has been crazy, and though I’d like to say I’m going to be determined enough to plow through this all by next spring (or at least have a first draft), I just don’t know that that’s true, and with another book or two that are not in such desperate need of makeovers, I might be switching gears to start working on them while Machine takes a backseat to simmer. As ever, time and the Lord will tell.

In the meantime, I’m going to be working on some short stories, gathering feedback, researching, working on some other projects (like Twice Born!), and of course, blogging. As to the rest, we’ll find out! Tally-ho!

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So, do you have any advice? Any times you’ve had to start over or do a lot of back work on a big project? What did that look like? How did you do it? Did you have other things that inspired you or kept you going on the way? Tell me all about it below and if you’re not already subscribed, follow me here, on Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch.

Thank you!