Month: November 2022

Outlining a Novel

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A question I always wrestle with when I start a new novel is should I do an outline? There is an article on the Novelry website by Tess Gerritson, dated June 19, 2022 which deals with this question.

Before she started writing fiction in 1987, Tess Gerritson graduated from Stanford and headed to medical school at the University of California. In 1987, her first novel was published, Call After Midnight, a romantic thriller, followed by eight more romantic suspense novels before she turned her hand to medical thrillers with Harvest in 1996 marking her debut on the New York Times bestseller list.

Tess Gerritson

Ms Gerritson says, “The idea of outlining a novel is one that may strike dread, panic or even tedium in a writer’s heart. Are we really expected to have our entire novel outlined before we put pen to paper?

Years ago, I learned that a certain Very Successful (and Famous) Author would say so. Seemingly, he doesn’t start writing his novels until he has completed a detailed 50+ page outline. He knows in advance every twist and turn of his plot and every crisis, large and small, that his characters will face.

What a brilliant strategy, I thought. It seemed far better than the disorganized way I was writing my novels, with no clue where my story was going.

You don’t build a house unless you have a blueprint, right? What I clearly needed was a blueprint. Instead, I’d been the crazy builder who shows up with wood and nails and just starts hammering away. I’d build a room, decide I didn’t like the looks of it, and start building another room facing a different direction.

I was going to do it the logical way. I was going to become a Planner. So I set about outlining my novel.

In the end, my version differed from the 50-page highly detailed battle plan that the Very Successful Author writes. I wrote only eleven single-spaced pages with scene-by-scene descriptions of my story.

My outline had a really detailed beginning and middle, and just a semblance of an end; by the time I’d written those eleven pages, I wanted to plunge in and just start writing (which is the curse we plungers must deal with. We’re impatient people and we want to just get on with it).

With the outline of my novel in hand, I was ready to write. This time, I wouldn’t suffer my usual sleepless nights agonizing over the plot and my characters’ motivations. This time, the writing would be a breeze. This time, I knew exactly what was going to happen.

And it worked. For about three chapters.

Then the story took off in a different direction. I don’t remember if I was just bored because I already knew what was going to happen, or if some new plot twist popped up unexpectedly on the page. In any case, suddenly the characters weren’t doing what they were supposed to do. It’s as if they stopped and glared at me and said, ‘You really expect us to follow this stupid outline?’

The more I wrote, the more the story deviated from the plan I’d created while outlining my novel. Once I started down that different highway, my original route fell further and further behind me until it was just a distant puff of dust. I was writing an entirely different book, and I was doing it in my usual disorganised way, with sleepless nights and plot agonies.

I’d reverted to my bad habits. I was a failed planner.

But you know what? That book turned out just fine.

  • I still write my first drafts with pen and paper. The paper must be unlined blank typing paper, because seeing lines on the page inhibits my creativity. I’ve tried typing my first drafts on the computer, but seeing words on the screen turns on the editor in my brain. It makes me stop to edit and re-edit the chapter, and keeps me from getting on with the rest of the story.
  • Only after I’ve handwritten the entire first draft do I type the words into my computer. I have to type it myself, because no one else can read my handwriting.
  • I never stop to re-write when I’m on my first draft because it stops my forward motion in the story. This means my first drafts have lots of mid-plot corrections, as well as characters whose motives, names and even genders may change by the end. When those changes happen on the fly, I just slap a sticky note to the page reminding myself to fix this detail later, and I keep writing.

When I hit a plot wall and don’t know what happens next, I take a break from the book. Because of my chaotic method of plotting – in other words, decidedly not outlining the novel – this invariably happens, so it no longer freaks me out.

In fact, it turned out a lot more exciting than the story I’d originally outlined. It had twists I never expected and character revelations that occurred to me only as I was writing the scene.

Yes, I struggled as usual to make all the moving parts work together. Yes, I had to rewrite that manuscript seven times (as I always do) and I threw out about a hundred pages that didn’t fit into the final plot, but that’s the way I’d always done it. It’s the way I now believe I’m meant to do it.

Every writer has his or her own quirks. Maybe you can’t start your workday without drinking three cups of coffee, or lighting a scented candle, or turning on the theme music to Braveheart. I heard about a writer who would put on a chef’s hat when her children were young, as a signal that they were not to bother Mommy while she was working. Years later, after her kids were grown and out of the house, she still puts on that now-tattered chef’s hat to write because it’s become part of her process, and she can’t write without it.

I too have quirks I can’t shake:

I know that somehow, I’ll be able to figure my way out of the mess. I have a few strategies to deal with it: long walks, staring at the ceiling, maybe a long drive or mindless travel. It may take a few weeks of not writing, but I always manage to figure out what happens next, and why.

Is this an efficient way to write a book? Absolutely not. It’s stressful, it’s unpredictable, and it means I often take longer to finish a manuscript. But it’s the only way I know to do it. After writing thirty books, I’m too entrenched in my process to change it.

That’s the message I hope you’ll all take to heart: There’s no wrong way to write a book. Outlining a novel isn’t the key to its success – or the guarantee of its failure.

If your process works for you, no matter how crazy it may seem, just accept it. Embrace it.

And keep writing.”

I certainly agree with Ms Gerritson. I could never write a fifty page outline. Instead, I’ll write a description of the major characters which is reasonably detailed, and there will be a description of the setting and the initial situation. Then, I, too, will plunge in, letting the characters carry the story forward, adding new characters, and inventing new plot twists. I’ll have a general idea of the theme of the book, but the books never turn out as I might have expected. Once I’ve cleaned up the messy parts, the book is better than I had visualised.

A Banned Author Talks

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This week, I’ve decided to post the commentary from a black, gay author whose book has been banned from US school districts. The commentary is on HuffPost, 24 September 2022. I haven’t read the book, so I have no basis for deciding whether it should or should not be banned. But the author, George M Johnson, says he wrote it for 14 to 18 year olds, and it’s about his experience growing up, so, if I were a school librarian, I might discourage a ten-year-old from reading it on the basis that he or she probably wouldn’t have the life experience to deal with the book emotionally. But, I might not refuse a 15 year-old.

George M Johnson

“It was sometime during 2019, before COVID turned the world upside down, that I had the first meeting with my publisher. Her team and I sat in a room around a table and discussed the strategy — the marketing and promotion, mostly — for dropping my first book, which I’d recently finished. I was truly living my dreams. Amid the excited conversation, something in my spirit told me to ask a question: “What happens if you need security at an event?” They all looked puzzled. One of them asked why I’d need that. “I know this book will be banned, ” I replied. “I don’t know when or how widely, but I know that it will be.”

“A report from PEN America this week showed that my book, having survived various criminal complaints, was the second-most banned in the United States, with bans in 29 school districts. States’ continued efforts to ban my work is not easy to wake up to daily. For the past year, there have been constant Google alerts, messages on social media from people calling me a “pedophile or groomer,” and other unsavory attempts to deny my story and the very existence of Black queer people everywhere. I never thought I would be at the center of a political issue moving into an election — nor should I ever have been.

“My book, “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” is a young adult memoir about my experience growing up Black and queer in America. In my story, I discuss growing up in a Black family who loved and affirmed me; the good, bad and ugly truths about what teens really deal with; and my journey through gender and social identity. My life was and still is full of joy, but also include some painful moments involving nonconsensual sex, as well as my experience with losing my virginity. Unfortunately, my sexual experiences have been deemed “an issue” — pornographic by some. To be clear, this book is for ages 14-18 and it contains truths that many of us have experienced and are healing from.

“Books about our experience are not too “explicit” just because they discuss gender, race and other crucial topics that teen readers need to process as they learn about themselves and the world they live in.

“Our books (the banned ones, if you will) often tell stories that are uncomfortable and important. Book banning is nothing new in the U.S., but it has rarely been seen at this magnitude in recent decades. But we can’t just talk about book banning without discussing the suppression of storytelling. Books written by enslaved people, that described their reality, had to be written under pseudonyms to protect the authors. Some of the greatest literary icons of our time — Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and even Harper Lee — have had their books banned despite their works being part of the landscape and foundation for many generations of writers.

“But that is why writing and other types of storytelling are such revolutionary rights.They change lives, provide community, and serve as a lifeline for those who feel unseen, unheard and alone.

“When I first wrote my memoir, I kept reminding myself that this was not for the 33-year-old version of me. This was for my 10-year-old self who had important things to say and had been silenced for so many years. And as I wrote about my experience, I felt lighter. I felt freer. I felt I had tapped a power I never knew existed.

“And then I watched as reader after reader, from teenagers to people well into their 70s, discussed how this book made them feel — how the stories healed and informed them. I was told that my simple existence (me being out here and sticking to my intentions) was something that they could hold on to on their roughest of days. And that’s the truly revolutionary thing about art. Toni Morrison once said, “If there is a book you want to read and it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” That’s what I did. And while all the book bans are weaponizing my words, I know that they’re providing armor for those who have gone through anything I did.

“I have more books to write and more stories to dismantle this system. And I’ll be damned if anyone denies my right to write them.”

I say, “Carry on, George!”

Review: Life after Life

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This novel by Kate Atkinson won the Costa Novel Award in 2013. Her novel, A God in Ruins,which I greatly admired, also won the Costa. I wasn’t quite as taken by her third World War II novel, Transcription, but I was fascinated by the blurb on the back cover of Life after Life: “What if you had the chance to live your life again and again, until you finally got it right?”

Kate Atkinson

The novel begins in 1910 with the birth of Ursula Todd into an upper class English family in the London suburbs. There is a heavy snowstorm at the time and the doctor is unable to reach the house. The chord is wrapped around the baby’s neck, and unfortunately, she died. But there is another version where a 14 year-old maid recognises the problem, cuts the chord and the baby survives. And there is another version in which the doctor arrives in time. Similarly, when Ursula is a toddler at the beach with her older sister, they wade out into the sea and they are struck by a huge wave. Ursula drowns. No, she is saved by an elderly artist on the beach. Then, there is the time when she is taken advantage of as a teenager by the American friend of her brother and becomes pregnant. Or is she? No, she bats him away.

The story continues to the run up to the war. Ursula visits a family in Munich where she meets Eva Braun and her older lover, Adolf Hitler. Ursula’s family includes some remarkable and memorable characters, like her aunt, Izzie, who is a loose cannon socially, financially and romantically. Then there is Teddy the much-loved younger brother who becomes a bomber pilot and is killed in the war. Or no, he was shot down, parachuted, spent the remainder of the war in a prison camp, and finally made his way home.

Ms Atkinson’s descriptions of the London blitz of 1940 when Ursula worked as an area warden are astonishingly authentic, the settings devastating and the characters memorable. There are so many twists and turns in Ursula’s life, that one can’t be away from the story for very long.

There is a passage which occurs at the beginning and the end of the book in which Ursula assassinates Hitler in 1930 in a Munich cafe with a family handgun which she takes from her purse. She, in turn is killed in both versions, yet she lives to work into the 1950’s. Perhaps this is just her imagination of how the war may not have been.

For me, the idea of living one’s life again until one get’s it right is misleading and doesn’t actually happen in the book. Rather, it is a question of slightly different circumstances and reactions of the characters which make for a different result. So, the point for me is how a small bit of fortune – or misfortune – can dramatically change one’s life.

Questions for Harry

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In an email last year, Harry Bingham of Jericho Writers answered some questions about getting published. The answers are useful for many of us.

“But to get back to the deluge of responses to last week’s email, there were a few themes that stood out.

1. Small publishers

A couple of small publishers wrote to me, reminding me their universe constitutes another credible path to publication. They’re right. It does. And it’s a good route, too. For literary fiction, especially, there are some brilliant tiny publishers who have an adventure and enthusiasm you might find hard to find at a bigger firm. If you have troubles finding an agent (but have reason to believe your book is good enough), then definitely explore a direct submission to a small publisher in your area.

2. Is there a particular problem with literary fiction?

Those of you writing literary fiction seemed to think there was a particular problem in getting your work accepted. Well, yes and no. Yes: in the sense that literary fiction doesn’t generally sell a lot, which means publishers – and you – have to work harder to establish a commercial case for your book. As far as you’re concerned, that means coming up with an elevator pitch which is compelling, albeit literary. The exemplary case here is Hilary Mantel and her Wolf Hall trilogy. Before Wolf Hall, she wrote terrific, but small, books, that were widely respected but of minor consequence in terms of sales. Then an idea occurred to her with clear “tell me more” potential – and the result was the literary phenomenon of the decade.

In other words, if you’re writing excellent literary fiction with a strong elevator pitch, it’ll sell every time, I promise.

3. I’m a man, I’m old, I’m …

Yes, most literary agents are white, metropolitan, left-leaning, middle-class women with liberal arts degrees. But for one thing, they aren’t all like that. And for another, agents’ tastes range right across the market. My own agent represents high-end literary fiction, and serious non-fiction, and heart-warming women’s fiction, and crime fiction … and really any book that tells a strong story and tells it well. In the end, it’s the manuscript that makes the sale not you. One of the glorious democratic advantages of the slushpile is that agents don’t know your age, your background or a great deal else. If you worry (let’s say) that your age is a disadvantage, then don’t mention it. It’s the manuscript that matters. You – thankfully – are somewhat unimportant.

4. How much is personal taste a factor?

It is and it isn’t.

It is, in the sense that an individual agent needs to chime with your book. If your book is set at sea, for example, and a particular agent just has a dislike of the ocean, that’s probably a tough sell. But you’re going to get your book out to 10-12 agents, perhaps even 15. So those personal taste issues even themselves out. And in the end, agents are looking for assets they can sell at a good price. That’s a largely objective question. Any two agents will agree much more than not. Finding and selling manuscripts is their job.

5. Is there a self-pub market for X?

There’s a self-publishing market for pretty much everything, but especially any sort of genre fiction. t’s also a terrific way of selling niche subject-led books that address specific topics. So “How To Prune Fruit Trees”, for example, will sell – in small volumes, but constantly – to people looking for help on that exact subject.

The only area where I think self-pub is not likely to help you is with literary fiction. I don’t know of any contemporary example of successful self-published literary work.

It’s also worth saying that you can’t meaningfully self-publish without also marketing your work. Books very seldom sell themselves. But there are tools for marketing and a well-known, well-worn approach that works. Needless to say, Jericho members can get all the help they need there, and for free.

6. Can I make a living from genre X / publishing approach Y?

Probably not. Across the whole of publishing history, it’s rare for authors to make a living from writing. That remains true today. You can go into your local flagship bookstore and look at the books on the front tables. Most of the writers there, aside from the world’s major bestsellers, won’t be able to rely on writing income alone.

That said, the people who make the most money these days are successful and hard-working self-pub authors. If you’re happy with the marketing challenge, and write good quality genre fiction, then a regular six-figure income is within your grasp.”

I write literary fiction – at least that’s what most of it it. Some of it’s pretty terrible, some is quite good. It’s all self published, in spite my efforts at great elevator pitches. And I have to confess that I haven’t put anywhere near the effort I put into writing that I put into sales and marketing. I enjoy writing; for me, selling is a lot less fun.