GENREALITY

I got a question last week, and I’m afraid the answer I gave might have disappointed the person asking.  So I’m going to put it to you all, and see what you think.

The question was about what computer software and platform I use to write, specifically if I use Scrivener.

My answer:  I don’t use Scrivener.  I use Microsoft Word on a PC, same as I have in one form or another for a very long time now.  It must make me seem very old fashioned.  I always start a project by opening a Word file and just going for it.  I may have a few other files stuck in a folder for notes and things.  But really, the basic word processor program does everything I need it to do — saves my stories, and lets me format them so I can send them to other people.

The question did make me curious about how many people use some kind of software dedicated to fiction writing.  What about you?  Has Scrivener changed your life?  Or are you even more of a Luddite than I am by using Notepad, or even a (gasp) typewriter?  What tech do you use to help your muse along?

We talk a lot about pacing on a novel-length level — when the major events in a story happen, how to keep the reader turning the page.  But we also should think about pacing on a paragraph and sentence level.  These are the building blocks that keep readers with us to the end of a page, much less to the end of a book.  Do the words flow?  Do descriptions  create strong visual images?  Does the dialog sound natural?  Do these pieces draw the reader in?

I bring this up, especially in terms of dialog, because of a piece of rough writing I encountered this week.  It’s something a lot of beginning writers do, it’s something I see in published books, and it’s something I have to constantly watch for myself.  The scene was dominated by dialog, but it was the business surrounding the dialog that threw me out of the writing.  As usual, this isn’t a specific example, it’s something I made up off the top of my head.  But I’m sure we’ve all seen examples like this:

“I’m not here to discuss my preferences,” he said.  He walked across the room and leaned against the desk. “I’m here to discuss yours.”

She crossed her legs and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear.  “Are we, then?”

He stared hard at her.  “We are.”

“Well then.”  She stood and tapped her foot.  His eyes followed her movements.  “I suppose I’ll have to tell you.”

“You should.”  He cracked his fingers nervously.  “I’m waiting.”

“Fine,” she said, tilting her head and looking up at him.  “New York Super Fudge Chunk is my favorite flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream.”

Okay, what’s going on here:  Every line of dialog is punctuated with a physical action.  This is one of those things that seems like a good idea while we’re writing, because it sets up a rhythm and flow, it breaks up the lines of dialog, gives the reader a chance to absorb what’s being said, maybe ramps up the tension.  We want to give the reader a visual picture that’s more than two people talking.  So we write two people talking and doing things.

But look at what’s actually going on here.  Picture what’s happening as it’s written.  These end up being the two most nervous, twitchy people in the world.  They can’t say something without doing something, and many of the individual gestures — messing with hair, tapping with fingers, various kinds of glaring — don’t make any sense in context.  String them all together, and they start to feel ridiculous.

The real trouble with this kind of description:  it doesn’t actually reveal anything about the characters, except that they’re twitchy — which is probably not our original intention.  It doesn’t add to the story, or to the picture in the reader’s mind.

Another problem to watch for in the business that happens around dialog:  repeating outside of dialog what’s already been said in dialog.  Often an alternative to twitchy movement is telling the reader what the character thinks about what is being said.  Or having the character make a decision internally, then state the decision externally.  Make sure that the character isn’t just repeating within dialog what’s she’s thought about outside it.  It’s repetitive and slows the pacing.

Something we often forget:  it’s perfectly fine to have dialog without any tags at all.  If we want to focus the scene on the conversation — by all means focus on the conversation.  Have faith in the reader, that they don’t need all the physical business to be able to picture a scene, if the dialog is strong enough.  Then, when you do include a piece of physical movement, or an extra description, it will stand out instead of being lost in a collection of vague description.

A couple of examples of really great dialog — tiny pieces from the scenes, but I think they get across the idea of letting dialog stand on its own:

From Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison:

“Coffee, then,” said Milkman.  He sat on the bed with the heaviness of a very old man.  “How long you gonna keep that up?”

“Forever.  It’s over, man.  No booze.  How about some tea?”

“Jesus.”

“Loose too.  Bet you thought tea grew in little bags.”

“Oh, Christ.”

“Like Louisiana cotton.  Except the black men picking it wear diapers and turbans.  All over India that’s all you see.  Bushes with little bitsy white tea bags blossoming.  Right?”

“Gimmee the tea, Guitar.  Just the tea.  No geography.”

And here’s a genre example, from the epic fantasy novel Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson:

“You’re too protective, the man said.  “Surly says it’s your greatest weakness.”

“Surly’s the Emperor’s concern, not mine.”

A second grunt answered that.  “Maybe all of us before too long.”

The commander was silent, slowly turning to study his companion.

The man shrugged.  “Just a feeling.  She’s taking a new name, you know.  Laseen.”

“Laseen?”

“Napan word.  Means–”

“I know what it means.”

“Hope the Emperor does, too.”

Ganoes said, “It means Thronemaster.”

The two looked down at him.

The wind shifted again, making the iron demon groan on its perch — a smell of cool stone from the Hold itself.  “My tutor’s Napan,” Ganoes explained.

So, I wrote up an entire post for today, then decided not to post it.  It’s full of whining and insecurities.  Completely irrational insecurities.  I went back and forth, telling myself that this blog is about the reality of being a working writer, and insecurity is a big part of that.  Moreover, I think it’s important to tell people that being a NYT bestselling writer doesn’t make those insecurities go away.  In some ways, it may amplify them — high expectations mean spectacular ways to fail.  I really want people to know that landing on the NYT list doesn’t solve all your problems.  It’s nice, it opens doors, but it’s not a finish line.

Early on in my career, I frequented a listserve for writers.  I had only sold a few short stories at the time, but that still made me one of the most published writers on this particular list.  One day I posted a heartfelt warning, discussing how hard the business was and continued to be.  I don’t even remember exactly what the topic was that instigated this.  But one of the responses I got back was, “What do you have to complain about, you’re published.”  Yes, people really do say that.  My posting to that list slowed way down after that, since I felt like a lot of what I was saying was coming across as over-privileged whining.

That’s partly why I decided not to post my original rant.  Because it was kind of a whining freakout.  I’ll try to say the same thing, but more objectively, with less emotion:

I’m worried about the new Kitty book.  It’s gotten good professional reviews but Amazon reviewers don’t seem to like it.  Or rather, they like it but not as much as previous books.  I’m trying to tell myself that this doesn’t mean it’s a bad book, it means I’ve generated very high expectations, which is good, except that eventually I’m bound to disappoint someone.  And as my friends keep telling me, I’m always worried about the current book.  I go through this every single time — same fears, same worries, everything.  I forget how bad it is, every single time, until it hits me again.  So, there’s no reason to worry, right?

Really, I shouldn’t read reviews at all, but I’ve said that before, and I yet keep reading them.

Here’s one of the other realities of being a NYT bestselling writer:  the anxiety of wondering what happens when I’m not anymore.  I mean, I’ll never not be.  That’s just how the marketing works.  “NYT bestselling writer” will be in my obituary.  But what happens if the next Kitty book doesn’t hit the list?  Does it mean I’m done?  It’s that problem of expectation again.  My definitions of success and failure have changed. How strange is that?

I’m trying to remember that my anxiety is normal.  What I really need to keep in mind:  there are things I can control, and things I can’t control.  How people respond to the book, whether it ends up on the list, are things I can’t control.  All I can do is try to deal with my anxiety in a sane manner (Wine?  Knitting?) and move on.  I think I wrote a good book, and I’m trying to make the next one good.  That’s all I can do at this point.

Last week in Part 1, I talked specifically about the Kitty books, and how they evolved from the first book that I pessimistically assumed would be the only one, to the nine-volume series, with several more on deck, that it is today.  (The ninth book, Kitty’s Big Trouble, is out tomorrow!)

This week, I’m talking about general lessons I’ve learned over the course of writing the series.  Keep in mind, I’m specifically addressing ongoing, open-ended series here, which is different than a series that tells a story over multiple volumes.

I think the most important thing to remember about writing an ongoing series:  the guidelines for how to write a good book don’t change.  Each novel needs to be a novel, with a plot, characters who grow and change, interesting writing, and a cohesive narrative.  You don’t get a free pass just because you’ve written about these characters eight or ten previous times.  You can’t assume your readers will be sympathetic and let you get away with sloppy writing, plotting, characterization, etc., just because they love you and your characters.  Some of them might.  But the chances are too good that this eighth or tenth book will be someone’s first introduction to your world — to your writing, period.  What then?  Do what we all should be striving to do, all the time:  write a good book.

I consistently get two questions about writing series, and both of those I think are critical issues to consider:  how to make sure each book has a stand-alone story, and how to deliver backstory.  As I mentioned, I’m working on the 11th Kitty novel.  How do I bring new readers up to speed, or remind old readers of what came before? (Since not everyone can do what the really obsessive fans do, which is reread every book when the new one comes out.)  And how do I make each book interesting in its own right?

First Issue:  Making sure each book stands alone.

This one’s very important to me, because I’m sensitive to the plight of the person who habitually picks up a series in the middle.  Because I’m one of them.  Plus, I really want readers to feel like each book is a satisfying experience.  How to do this:  I pull in stories from outside the characters or ongoing storylines.  I’m always, always looking for new ideas to bring in.  I can’t keep going over the same internal and relationship plots over and over again.  It’s one of the things that drives me crazy with other series, and I try not to do things that drive me crazy.  Love triangles, endless on-again off-again relationships — I get bored.  I get to a point where I just want the characters to get over themselves.  This doesn’t mean neglecting the characters’ personal stories and arcs entirely.  I have to stay true to the characters, no matter what happens.  But I can explore the personal stories through a variety of external conflicts.

You might have noticed, this is how TV drama and thrillers do it.  American TV series episodes often have an A plot and a B plot.  The A plot is the Enterprise meeting an all-powerful alien who Picard has to convince that humanity is worth saving, the B plot is Data learning how to paint.  On Castle, the A plot is the murder mystery, the B plot is Alexis’ secret admirer at school.  Sometimes the plots relate to each other, or the solution to one offers the solution to the other.  But having two tracks gives me a chance to tell different stories in the same book.  The relationships are always going to be there.  But I can better illustrate the relationships by having the characters respond to outside stories and conflicts, rather than focusing on them and inventing false-sounding conflicts.

I also follow The X-Files model to an extent:  some episodes are mythology episodes, some are monster of the week.  House of Horrors and Goes to War are essentially monster-of-the-week episodes — self contained stories that don’t really advance the over-arcing series plot, but were still fun, interesting, and advanced Kitty’s personal story.  Big Trouble and Steals the Show are more mythology episodes — I give away a lot of information about the big baddy and focus more on the series arc.  (I think The X-Files was brilliant for its first four seasons.  Definitely a model to follow on how to write a series.  But it lost its way about halfway through — it lost track of its own mythology, its own endpoint.  I stopped believing there was an ongoing story.  This is what I’m trying to avoid.)

Second Issue:  Backstory

In May I went to a writers workshop/retreat, and we held an informal lunchtime symposium on writing series (a good portion of the writing excerpts brought in for critique were chapters of second and third novels in series).  I want to share something participating author Paul Witcover said during this discussion:  Even first novels, or stand alone novels, have a backstory.  It’s just that we don’t worry about including it all.

I think this is incredibly important to remember:  When you’re writing subsequent books in a series, you don’t have to tell a new reader everything that came before.  You only need to tell them what they need to know to understand what’s happening right now, and you can do it in a sentence or two.  Don’t explain everything that happened in every previous book.  Don’t spend paragraphs explaining anything.  Remember — the same guidelines for writing a book, any book, apply here.  Keep the story moving, don’t get hung up on irrelevant details.  You may think the reader needs to know every detail of the back-and-forth in the epic love triangle.  But really, the reader doesn’t.  They’ll be able to figure it out.

Example:  Cormac is one of the most important secondary characters in my own series, and he and Kitty have a huge, complicated backstory.  But I try to limit his introduction in each book to a couple of sentences.  Here’s his introduction in Kitty Takes a Holiday, the third book:

A job.  With Cormac, that meant something nasty.  He hunted werewolves — only ones who caused trouble, he’d assured me — and bagged a few vampires on the side.  Just because he could.

Here’s his intro in Kitty Goes to War, the eighth book, after a lot more history has happened:

Cormac had saved our lives and ended up in prison for it. He’d had to put his life on hold; we hadn’t. Cormac and I had had a thing, once upon a time. Then he’d brought Ben, his cousin and victim of a recent werewolf attack, to me. I’d taken care of him, Cormac went to jail, and Ben and I got married.

My goal with these short bits of backstory is to get as much information into as short a space as possible.  This reminds long-time readers what’s happened.  But new readers get only the basics:  Cormac has spent time in prison, he and Kitty have unresolved issues, these three characters have a complicated history.  That gives a new reader a basis for understanding what happens moving forward.  They don’t need a complete summary, just the foundation.  They’ll be able to see the details in how the characters behave with each other.  There it is again, show don’t tell.

A corollary to this:  make sure you’re starting the book in the right place.  I’ve read a couple of first-in-series urban fantasy novels recently that started late.  The first chapter showed me what the heroine’s life looked like after her traumatic introduction to the supernatural, and related that traumatic introduction in a paragraph or two long infodump.  This made me furious — that traumatic introduction should have been the first chapter, told in visceral terrifying immediate detail.  The mundane reality after should have been the second chapter.

Third Issue: Continuity

Keep a series bible.  I didn’t, because as I said I didn’t think this was going to be a series.  Since then, I’ve been slowly building one up.  I have files for the in-world chronology of the series so I can keep track of what happened when, I have a file listing everyone in Kitty’s pack, I have files to keep track of descriptions of people.  It’s the little things like that I have trouble remembering.  Continuity’s a bitch.  

Conclusion:

I know that “write a good book” is a terrible piece of advice.  Of course we all want to write good books, that’s the point, isn’t it?  But if there’s one thing writing ten books in a series has taught me, it’s that this is the guiding principle I go back to time and again:  what makes a good book?  How can I make this book that I’m working on right now a good book?  Do that, and the series will take care of itself.

Putting my notes for this post together, I decided I’d better break it up into two parts.  The first will be about the evolution of the Kitty series specifically:  how I set it up, what I was thinking, how it turned into the ongoing series it is today, what my process is for continuing.  The second post will be more general:  what I’ve learned about writing a series, what I think is important in building an ongoing series.

I’ve mentioned before, Kitty and The Midnight Hour was the fourth book I tried to sell, and I didn’t have an indication it would generate any more interest than the three books I tried to sell before that.  So I wrote it to be complete on its own, just for my own satisfaction if nothing else.  That said, I’d already written four short stories featuring the character and had an outline for the second novel ready to go.  But while I was shopping it around, I went to work on a completely different novel that turned into Discord’s Apple.

Well, Kitty and The Midnight Hour sold, and so did its sequel.  The first book was successful enough my agent and I anticipated getting an offer for two more books, and we did.  I was still working on the assumption that I couldn’t count on writing any more books, and I needed to not get too ambitious.  I had the ideas for the next two books nailed down.  More than that, though, they formed a series arc — the four books together would tell a satisfying story of Kitty learning, growing, leaving her pack, then coming home a stronger, more confident person ready to take charge.  The end of Kitty and The Silver Bullet (Kitty #4) doesn’t leave any serious loose threads hanging. Except I had a few more ideas. . .

Then Kitty and The Silver Bullet hit the New York Times list, and I knew that I’d be writing more books in the series.  By this time I’d quit my day job and Kitty was paying my bills.  Makes me sound really mercenary, doesn’t it?

But I kept getting more ideas, and I don’t think I would have been able to keep up with the series if I hadn’t.  This was also the point when I realized I could conceivably keep writing Kitty books as long as I wanted to, and what was I going to do about it?  I really started thinking hard about what makes a good ongoing series, and what makes series fail.  I had examples of both, in books and TV, and so I made a list of what a good series needs.  I wrote about what I learned in an earlier post.

It’s the last point on that list — creating an overall series arc and ongoing goal for my main character — that I suddenly had to confront.  For Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan, the series arc was him finding his place in his conservative patriarchal society — would he ever find respect among his own people?  Would he find someone he could marry and start a family with?  For most of the series, those questions are always on his mind and drive many of his decisions.

I came up with a couple of things to drive the Kitty series, and they both show up in Silver Bullet.  First, the personal:  her conflict with her werewolf self and whether or not she’ll ever be able to have a “normal,” stable life, including having children.  Second, the external:  a huge, save-the-world type conflict in the concept of the Long Game, a political conspiracy among the world’s vampires.  By this time I had also come up with a big bad guy to go along with the conspiracy, but Roman doesn’t make his first appearance until #6, Kitty Raises Hell.  I’ve purposefully left both these story threads open ended, because I can fit any number of different plots into them.  And when I need an antagonist, I have one built into the series.  I know where I’d like the series to end up — that gives me a direction, a guideline, and will hopefully prevent any X-Files Season 5-type stumbles where I’m juggling so many balls that they all drop.

I’m now almost a quarter of the way into writing Kitty #11.  No one is more shocked than I am, because I had no idea the character would take me this far when I was shopping Midnight Hour around back in 2003.  I still have that last book in mind — I know what happens to Kitty, I know what happens to Roman, I know how that conflict resolves (mostly).  But I gotta tell you, I’m not sure I’m any closer to that ending than I was when I wrote #6.  I think this comes from really wanting each book to stand alone, and wanting to write a different book every time.  This is what got me Kitty’s House of Horrors and Kitty Goes to War — ideas I really wanted to deal with, that are perfect fits for Kitty, and they work because the plots grow out of Kitty’s reactions to the ideas.  When I start to get lost, I think:  Go back to the arc.  Go back to the Long Game and Kitty’s place in the world.  How can I fit that in?  I’m hoping that when it’s all said and done, the series-long story will look like I planned it from the start.

Where I’m at now:  #10 is in copy edits, I’m working on #11, and I have the idea seeds for #12 and #13.  I have a couple of other ideas brewing that I don’t want to say too much about until they become sure things.  So, the pattern I’ve followed so far is holding steady.

Some things I’m noticing:  the books feel more episodic, in that I’m dealing with several smaller stories in each one instead of one big story.  The earlier books feel more cohesive to me, because they had such a strong, single arc; but that may just be my perception.  At this point, I have dozens of secondary characters and lots of past stories I can revisit, and those are always on the table.  It’s a blessing and a curse — if I need a temporary ally or villain, chances are I already have one set up.  At the same time, I can’t touch on all the possibilities in every book.  I really can tell that I’m juggling more balls than I was when I wrote #3.

I once said that I imagined 4-5 Kitty books and no more.  The trouble is, I keep getting ideas.  Every book has had a plot line that didn’t fit, that’s formed the basis of the next book.  If the pattern holds, the series may never reach the natural end I have in mind for it.  All I can do right now is keep thinking two books ahead and see where the road takes me.

It’s worked so far, so I can’t complain.

Next week:  Lessons Learned