Know Where the Story's Going?
In Today's Journal
* Know Where the Story's Going? Grousing a Little
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Know Where the Story's Going? Grousing a Little
Yesterday I was blessed with a visit from a dear cousin/brother's son. I would adopt him in a heartbeat. The guy's a modern-day real cowboy and horseman. He works for a railroad, but during his weeks off, he serves as a guide and hunter in the Sacramento Mountains in New Mexico. Livin' the life.
At one point during our conversation, he asked how I started writing fiction. Between the two of us, we wandered off-topic and I never got around to answering him.
If I had, I would've shrugged and said, "Easy. I write down what happens and I write down how the characters react to what happens."
Of course, that can't possibly be all there is to it, right?
Wrong. That's all there is to it.
But that imaginary exchange put me in mind of a widespread and much more entrenched problem: an almost collective, almost required lack of confidence among fiction writers.
Almost every writer I know has said at one time or another that s/he either knows where a story's going or likes to know where the story's going when s/he [fill in the blank]:
gets up to take a break or
leaves for the day or
finishes a scene or
finishes a chapter or
finishes a sentence or a paragraph.
Many of them even "make a few notes" or "make a partial outline" or "lay out a few major points" or "write a note or two" in order to ensure they know where the story's going.
Some even say they can't write a word of a short story or novel unless they've "figured out" the ending in advance.
And almost all of them say they do that because "I want to write quality stories." Never mind that "quality" is the reader's call, not the writer's, but that's a topic for another time.
So some writers write that way, and that's fine. I'm not dissing them or their process. How they write doesn't affect my time off or my paycheck, so what do I care?
Been there, done that, and I know there's a better, more fun way that produces better "quality" (in authenticity). That's the whole reason for the existence of TNDJ: to spread the word about that way.
Some writers even write a lengthy, fully realized outline before they write so much as a word of the actual story.
But all of that—all of it—comes from not trusting themselves or the characters or both.
All of it comes from fear that what they write (which should be the characters' story) won't be 'good enough' unless they know every step of the way what's going to happen next.
In other words, it might not be good enough unless they intervene and control what happens next.
Many of them justify their fear by saying "Sometimes if the characters go off in another direction than what I expected (meaning "a direction I didn't foresee and note") I let them run and go with them" or words to that effect.
Those writers are So Close to breaking free of the myths. So close.
All they have to do is let go of that final little bit of control-freak fear. They only have to let go and
Write Whatever Happens whether it makes sense at the time or not, and then
Write the Characters' Reactions, in dialogue and in the characters' own actions, to whatever happens.
That's it.
In other words they only need to Trust the fiction writing and storytelling chops they've built up over the months or years they've been writing.
I know at least three bestselling authors who are right there in that same morass.
One of them is a writer who doesn't outline but "erects signposts" and turns out two 50,000 word novels per year. The actual writing can't take more than around 100 hours. I guess the other 8,660 hours are taken up with sleep, eating, revisions, rewrites, editing passes, and critique groups and beta readers who comment on (and plea for changes to) the actual story.
Another outlines religiously and does in-depth research, just as if what s/he writes isn't fiction at all. Plus revisions and rewrites, of course. I'm not sure how many novels that writer publishes per year, and I'm not aware of whether s/he employs beta readers and critique groups.
Another writes about as prolifically as I do, but still leaves little notes and ideas so he'll know where the story's going.
Again, they do all of those things, they say,
so they can "get right back into the flow of the story" (or write "quality"). As if they can't continue breathing in their own life if they haven't already scripted the next several breaths.
Again, all of that's fine. I certainly can't argue with success, nor do I want to.
I freely admit, I usually know how a sentence will end when I've written two-thirds of it or so.
But I seldom know what's going to happen even in the next sentence of narrative or dialogue, much less in the rest of the paragraph or scene.
As for "getting right back into the flow," when I come back from a break or the next day, I read over the last few paragraphs I wrote, then start writing again. Easy peasy because I don't have to make anything up. I don't have to invent anything.
I write what happens, and I write what the characters say and do in their reaction to what happens. That's it.
Let me be clear:
If, as a fiction writer and storyteller, I was told I either have to do any or all of the above or toss my laptop into the trash and go fishing, my jeans-clad butt would be on the bank of a pond or lake or river, sunscreen on my nose, a fishing rod in one hand and a sweating bottle of Negra Modelo in the other, before anyone had time to wonder where I'd gone.
The conscious, critical mind has no place in storytelling or fiction writing, folks.
If you ever take the plunge and learn to just trust yourself and your characters 100%, you will be amazed at what wonderful fun fiction writing can be and what wonderful stories you can tell.
Of Interest
Troy Lambert and Vin Zandri I'll be talking about this anthology over the next couple of months.
How (and Why) To Define a Strong Author Brand
5 Things You Need to Include on Your Author Website
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 1110
Writing of Blackwell Ops 42: Sam Granger
Day 1…… 2873 words. To date…… 2873
Day 2…… 1873 words. To date…… 4746
Day 3…… 3717 words. To date…… 8463
Day 4…… 2353 words. To date…… 10816
Fiction for April……………………….. 58985
Fiction for 2025………………………. 325935
Nonfiction for April………………........ 12300
Nonfiction for 2025…………………… 93830
2025 consumable words…………….. 413255
Average Fiction WPD (March)……... 3470
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 8
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 19
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..... 112
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 289
Short story collections……………………. 29
Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
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Questions are always welcome at harveystanbrough@gmail.com. But please limit yourself to the topics of writing and publishing.
Good ideas from the link on branding!