Assembling a Story Scene by Scene
M&D#171
1. Latest News from the Desk of Sooz:
February 2022 —
I recently read Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman, and I can safely say that book changed my life and my perspective on my work.
I highly recommend.
But one of the things I keep going back to from the book (so much so that I wrote it in big letters for a post-it on my desk) is something he says about when things get hard:
Maybe that's the point.
He's specifically referring to creative projects that are difficult and uncomfortable...and that many of us then fail to finish because they are difficult and uncomfortable. In today's age, it's so easy to avoid difficulty and discomfort with the slightest swipe of a finger.
I am guilty of this. Whenever the book gets hard, I find myself grabbing for my phone in hopes of a hit of dopamine.
It's not just distraction-seeking that is the problem, though, but the false belief that if something is hard, then we must be doing it wrong.
Even though I say all the time that "there is no silver bullet when writing a novel," I still find myself searching for one. Any time I get stuck, I devour every new craft book or workshop I can find. PLEASE, give me something to make writing easier! 🥴
Are there tools to improve craft and home your own creation skills? Absolutely. But I fall into the trap of thinking that "feeling a lot of pain" means "I must be doing it wrong."
It's not true, though. Sometimes, books are just really really hard. (As is everything else in life too.)
And obviously, it's only human nature to want to erase the pain. We only exist as a species because we are good at avoiding things that kill us — and usually what kills us also hurts. So, avoid hurt, avoid death. Easy peasy!
Except...sometimes not. Sometimes, you have to endure more than just a little discomfort and pain to actually reach the end state you're aiming for.
So...
Maybe the hard stuff is the point.
Maybe, instead of fighting the difficulties that sequels always pose for me, I should instead accept my current discomfort. I mean, fighting it and wishing I had a silver bullet sure isn't making things easier for me...
Meanwhile, accepting that this particular book is very hard right now and it will likely remain very hard, removes some of the friction in my path right away. Suddenly I'm no longer existing in a make-believe future state where the project is done and life is suddenly made of roses. Instead, I'm just here. Now. Working on this book, even though it's really a brain-twister and making me wish I hadn't paid Freedom to prevent me from getting online for that precious dopamine.
So all of this is to say, read Burkeman's book. It's great. It has changed my life for the better, and I'm in a much happier place right now with my writing. Am I faster? Nah. Not really (more on that below). But happier? Oh, absolutely, even with all the discomfort that this sequel is flinging my way.
2. Writing Prompts:
STORY PROMPT
Every night for the past week, a horrible, inhuman scream has comes out of the woods behind a woman's home. Tonight, though, the scream sounds very human.
JOURNALING PROMPT
In Four Thousand Weeks, Burkeman asks something that I just can't stop thinking about, so I want to pose a similar question here: Where in your life are you holding back because you're worried you're not prepared enough? And what would you do differently if you were to accept you will never be prepared enough and actually, you're as ready as you'll ever be?
3. For the Daydreamers: Building Lego Castles
As I discussed last month, I opened 2022 by tackling Luminaries 2 (real title TBD) with a new approach.
The approach was, I can say, effective. It got me a respectable 35,000 words into the book...before the story went off the rails again.
I'll admit, this was not what the outcome I'd been hoping for, lol. I had these visions of just PANTSING MY WAY TO THE MOST GLORIOUS FIRST DRAFT EVERRRRR! By ditching plans and asking for outside help, there would be NO FRICTION EVER! The story would burst forth, and suddenly I would be a speed demon of drafting.
Sequels would never be a problem again! Mwuhahaha!
Ah, Sooz, my sweet summer child. Alas, this is not how your brain is wired.
Fortunately, rather than despair when I got stuck again, I decided to take my lesson from Four Thousand Weeks — that sometimes the hard stuff is the point, and to just accept it.
Luminaries 2 doesn't want to be pantsed. It doesn't want to be outlined. It doesn't want to be created via any of the tools I've used before or any the tools I've found in all the many craft books and workshops I've taken (in pursuit of that aforementioned silver bullet).
Turns out, Luminaries 2 wants to be built like a Lego castle.
Remember that picture I shared last month of the tens of scenes I'd written? Well, I have obviously written many more since then. The weird thing is, a lot of them felt right, but I could also sense they were in the wrong order.
In other words, I was feeling as if I had alllll these Legos (scenes), but I had no clear vision of what I was building...so even though I liked the Legos, the castle kept toppling over before I could ever finish a single tower.
No amount of pantsing was going to save that. Until I could figure out why my tower was falling, I was going to get nowhere.
And look, I won't pretend that I didn't try to find this solution before February rolled around. I did, and many many times over too, since I started working on this book in November 2021. But I guess my brain needed a lot of time sitting with all the Legos before I could see exactly what was missing.
Sure enough, the answer came suddenly two weeks ago — the missing piece. And once I had it, then whoa. Suddenly the castle stood up no problem. In fact, suddenly it was just a matter of taking all my Legos and rearranging them into a structure that accommodated the no-longer-missing piece.
I literally assembled this book. Piece by piece, scene by scene. And within a few days, I had almost 45,000 words of a book that was Lego-castled-together.
I have never done anything quite like this before. Have I written lots of scenes out of order? Certainly. Have I rearranged story points and thanked the heavens that Scrivener exists to make it easier? Oh yes.
But never have I written a hundred scenes, essentially creating my own Lego starter kit, and then combed back through those until I found the ones I needed to build the castle I could finally envision.
It's honestly such a weird way to write a book. Likely because it doesn't even feel like writing! I am "assembling" in every sense of that word.
And yes, the 45,000 words I assembled are pocked with a lot of holes and a few Legos that don't quite fit like they should. But if there's one thing you all know I'm good at (and love doing), it's revising — so fixing some tiny flaws doesn't scare me at all. In fact, I'm looking forward to it. I've got the structural integrity I need finally, and that is always the hardest part of the drafting battle for me.
All of this is to say, that there is no right away to write (or assemble) a book. This is hardly a groundbreaking revelation, but I don't think it can be repeated often enough.
There is no right way to write a book. And just because it feels like maybe you're doing it wrong — or your process doesn't look like your friend's or this particular story's method of creation is way different from the last one or oh my god, this book is extra extra hard — doesn't mean the actual creation process is wrong.
I wanted to be a pantser because it sounds so free, so joyful, so exhilarating. And I have been a successful pantser for a few of my books...but not sequels. Never my sequels. They have honestly each demanded a different approach to come to fruition — and that is okay.
One thing I know is that I have a clear sense of right in wrong in a story. I know, deep in my gut, when something isn't working, and I cannot push through it. I have to figure it out now and fix it now — because if I don't, the emotional dominoes that come later won't be right. I'll cut everything and be forced to start over with the entire book (see exhibit A: almost every NaNoWriMo book I've ever written).
This is just my brain and how it operates. I love finding problems and fixing them. (It's why I love immersive sims more than any other type of game in existence. It's why I love revising too.) Is it annoying to be this way? YES, when I want to just finish a book, it is very annoying.
But if the hard stuff is the point...
And if I'm trying to no longer exist in a future state where the book is done...
Well, what if I instead just sink into what this book demands of me right now, no matter how frustrating and seemingly unsolvable it is?
Ah, lookie there. I see a castle and I see exactly how to build it with the Legos already in my Scrivener file. Amazing. Here we go. Snap, snap, snap. My, how very satisfying it feels to watch my castle grow...
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