A couple weeks ago I blogged about a new novel in the early stages of development, and the frustration of coming up with a coherent plot. I’m happy to report I did come up with a nice plot skeleton that I can definitely work with, but there was another question I needed to answer after that: what point of view to use?

I wanted to write the story in first person. My initial conception of the novel suggested first person, so I sat down and wrote the opening chapter—and I didn’t like it at all. Partially, this was because I didn’t feel like I had the character’s voice right, but more importantly there was a structural issue of how and when to introduce information.

After experiment and consideration, I realized that if I opened in the main protagonist’s point of view/first person, he would either have to withhold key information to maintain the intrigue, or I would have to give up on intrigue and engage in lots of info-dump to get the reader up to speed. Of course neither option was acceptable.

So I re-wrote the opening from the point of view of another character, and I think it works much better. So it looks like it’s going to be third person, multiple viewpoint, which is what I’ve used for most of my novels.

In contrast to these struggles, last week I outlined a short story and then set out to write it—in first person. I was deep into the story before I realized that I hadn’t even thought about what point of view to use. The story simply demanded first person, and in this case it worked out fine.

In a comment to a recent blog post, J. Daniel Sawyer suggested flipping a coin to make plot decisions and thus keep things moving. Today I’ve been attempting to firm up a short story idea, coming up with a list of characters and deciding on the specific setting. At first I was having a hard time making decisions–should the story be in setting A or setting B? should the antagonist be male or female? etc., etc. At this point in story development, when everything’s still wide open, it’s hard for me to make firm decisions on which way to go, because each decision narrows future possibilities, and if it’s the “wrong” decision, I’m writing myself into a hole.

So to keep things moving I fetched a coin from my purse. It’s sitting on the table next to my laptop, but I haven’t used it yet. Evidently my muse doesn’t like the idea of deciding things on a coin flip, because ever since that coin showed up, I’ve been able to make decisions that eluded me before.

But the coin continues to sit there, just in case. Writing is so often a series of head games.

So, maybe ten months ago a scene popped into my head and I was intrigued—enough to keep thinking about it, figuring out how this situation had come to be, deciding what would come after, coming up with more characters and, eventually, more worlds because if the plot hasn’t quite emerged the solution is to add more stuff. Right?

Imagine you’re putting together some crazy Lego sculpture. Every tower is a nifty worldbuilding element. Clip some Lego bridges in between to connect them. Sometimes those towers need to lean a little right or left to make those bridges fit. Sometimes the bridges start to look a little spindly, but never mind that! Keep building. It’ll get more solid as more stuff is added.

But all the while an uneasy feeling is building that maybe this is getting a little out of hand?

Hesitantly, you step back, gaze at the whole, and think, WTF? There is no shape to it, no solid structure, no pleasing design, no sense of direction. A sort-of storyworld has been snapped together, but where is the plot? Whose story is this? What’s it about? Why should the reader care?

So the whole thing gets shoved into the closet because there are other projects going on anyway.

Later, you take it out again. Pull down several towers, rebuild many of the bridges . . . after a while it’s not utter chaos anymore. In fact, this has turned into a cohesive, interesting storyworld, and yet . . . where is the plot?

How is it possible to have this much storyworld without also having an obvious story? There are lots of subplots, but where is the big one?

This is where I am right now. For years I’ve had a personal rule that I need to know how a story ends before I start it, and I have no idea how this story ends, because it can go in several different directions and I’m entirely undecided which one is right. Despite this, I’m tempted to start, just to get a feel for the work, to see what suggests itself, and just maybe to uncover an answer to that essential question: Where is the plot?

Hepen the Watcher is the novel I’ve been working on over the summer. It’s the sequel to The Dread Hammer, and Draft 2 is now done.

Here are the statistics:
Started: May 1
1st draft done: July 19
2nd draft done: September 7
Length: 81,000 words

I note the dates because a year ago I would have laughed at the idea of me writing an almost publication-ready novel in a little over four months. This is a new way of writing for me–see my prior post here–and I like it a lot.

For Hepen the Watcher, the first draft included the entire story from beginning to end, but with unpolished text, some incomplete sections, and notes or to-do’s embedded in the manuscript.

Draft 2 is a much cleaner affair, and ready for beta readers to look at. I’m dangerous when I get a nearly finished manuscript in my hands, and left to my own devices it would be a quick re-read away from publication–but I’ll attempt to be grown up and get some feedback on it first.

But it does feel nice to be done.

If you’ve ever had a manuscript professionally edited, you’ve seen a copyeditor’s stylesheet. Among other things a stylesheet is a list of character names and place names, and serves as a key to how these should be spelled. What’s the need for this? Well, it’s not uncommon for a writer to wander from the path and start using different terms and different spellings over the course of a 200-500 page manuscript.

For the last two novels I’ve started putting together my own stylesheet, and it’s been extremely valuable. My stylesheet does a lot more than serve as a spelling reference, though. I copy character and setting descriptions into it, write notes on the society, and include whatever else might be useful to help me develop a consistent story world. Categories that I’m currently using include characters, place names, expletives (very useful, this one), society, and available-character-names (used if I have to name a new character on the fly).

I don’t do a whole lot with the stylesheet during the first draft because everything’s so fluid at this stage. Even so, the stylesheet is hugely useful when I find myself thinking “What did that uniform look like again?” or “How did I describe that character?”

During the second draft I get much more consistent about adding terms and names, along with the page numbers of first occurrence.

Draft 3 is the “polishing” draft. I go through the manuscript and add to the stylesheet any names/terms I missed before, noting where they originated. This way it’s easy to see if the character or concept is launched later in the novel than it should be, and if so I can go back and layer the idea in earlier. This is also the time when I skip through the manuscript, tracking certain concepts to make sure they’re consistent throughout.

Sidebar: the other advantage of skipping through the manuscript is that seeing the parts out of context can expose awkward phrasing or things that just don’t make sense.

So if you’re working on your own novel, consider a stylesheet. Don’t obsess over it or spend loads of time on it that would be better devoted to your novel, but if you’re like me, you might find this a valuable organizing tool. And you’ll get extra use out of it if you’re writing a multi-volume work.

I saw three great blog posts this week on writers and publishing.

First, Tobias Buckell explains why writers are crazy, and makes a few suggestions on how to hold on to what sanity remains to us.

This failure to pay attention to what we can control as authors and what we can’t leads to a form of Cargo Cult neuroses in writers out of a desire to recreate milestone successes that were never in their primary power to recreate.

If you’re a struggling writer (and how many of us aren’t struggling?), read this post. It will give you an entirely new way to look at things.

Second, Chuck Wendig has some very useful thoughts on social media.

You are not a brand. Social media is not your platform… see it instead as a place where you can bring all the crazy and compelling facets of your personality to bear on an unsuspecting populace your audience. People want to follow other people. People don’t want to follow brands.

I’ve come to this conclusion too, mostly because there’s no way I can “act” as a “brand” no matter what social media gurus tell us we should do. Read the rest of the post if you have a chance. We all need to do self-promotion, and Chuck has a lot of suggestions that make sense to me.

And finally…

A few people have asked what I think about the “agency model.” This refers to a requirement by certain large publishers that their ebooks shall not be discounted by retailers such as Amazon. So if a publisher specifies that a new ebook by a big name author shall be priced at $14.99, that ebook will be sold for $14.99 and not a penny less.

So what do I think of the agency model? I love it! Because it’s surely helping to keep ebook prices from dropping through the floor. Mike Shatzkin feels the same way. Here’s part of what he has to say on the subject:

All writers, whether they’re among the fortunate ones that have a publisher pushing them or whether they’re trying to do it themselves, should be grateful that publishers are doing their damnedest to maintain prices and the perception of value for writers’ work.

Very, very few writers will ever make a living selling 99-cent ebooks. Personally, I want to make a living writing so I can keep writing–and the agency model makes my books a really good deal, while still allowing me a reasonable profit on each sale, as well as “a perception of value.”

When I’m revising and polishing a manuscript, I read it aloud. Not just once, either. I’ll go through it paragraph by paragraph, and when something gets changed, I’ll go back and re-read the changed section along with the preceding and following sentences. If I’ve done a lot of changes, I’ll re-read the whole chapter again, aloud. (Obsessive? Moi?)

Hearing the words lets me hear the rhythm, and usually makes the clunky repetitions really stand out. It also reveals the sentences that are fine if they’re read with the correct expression, but which don’t work so well if one is just “reading through.” Those usually get changed.

Being curious how many other writers are read-alouders, I did what anyone in the modern world would do: I queried twitter.

Writers: when revising & polishing, do you read your work aloud?

Only one of those who replied confessed to not reading aloud at all. Most who answered read aloud to some degree or in some way. Here are some samples:

* Only reading dialogue aloud

* Only reading dialogue and difficult passages aloud

* Reading aloud to a significant other. (This one boggles me: to have an SO with such patience!)

* Having a computer read back the manuscript.

I’m intrigued by this last one. The way I work, I would need to read and re-read with my own voice, because I go over the same words so many times, but I can definitely see the advantage of hearing a computer reading back the manuscript on the last go-through. First, because its “eye” isn’t going to skip over the repeated words or incorrect verb tenses, so you will hear them. And second, because a good human reader can make bad writing sound decent, but I don’t think the flat voice of a machine is going to do that.

I’ll read expressively when I start revising, but at some point I try to go over things in a flat, non-expressive voice to see if the flow is still there.

Thanks to all those on twitter who responded! I’m heading off now, to read and revise.

One of my goals in writing The Dread Hammer was simply to write a short novel. I aimed at 60,000 words, and ended at 65,000. This was very satisfying, because up to this point every adult novel I’d written had been longer than the last one, with the one exception of Limit of Vision, which still managed to be significantly longer than my first two novels.

The sequel to The Dread Hammer is called Hepen the Watcher, and I’ve been working on it over the summer. I wanted it to be no more than 70,000 words, but my basic nature is reasserting itself, and so far I’ve exceeded that by 8,000 words. As I do the revision I find myself reluctant to add scenes, background, or more explanation because that will make it longer (gasp!).

I think it’s a matter of pride, and a need to believe that I can write short, but worrying about length is slowing me down. So, stop worrying right? And just do the thing right.

I’ll console myself by knowing that even if it goes to 85K (and that’s not at all likely), it’ll still be 11K less than my shortest adult SF novel–and less than half of a lot of epic fantasies.

Word Counts for the SF Novels
The Bohr Maker – 96,000
Tech-Heaven – 111,000
Deception Well – 121,000
Vast – 130,000
Limit of Vision – 118,000
Memory – 132,000

A good day revising is when

* you don’t care how many times you’ve read a passage; you’re willing to read it again and play with it some more until it’s right.

* the gaps get filled in and the story starts taking on a respectable shape after all.

* you cast warning looks at anyone who dares to interrupt you.

* you can’t be bothered to spend any time online.

I don’t know how many times, during out usual post-movie analysis, I’ve turned to my husband and said, “Why didn’t they explain [insert current subject here]? It would have taken like two lines of dialog to let us know /why/how/a reason for/ this seeming silliness, but as it stands, it makes no sense.

Movies seem to commit this sin more often than books, but maybe that’s because when a book starts seeming absurd I just drop it and start another.

Madeleine Robins has some great advice on this very subject that’s definitely worth reading for those who are writers:

A little handwaving in those first scenes, a sentence of dialogue to smooth over the issues that snagged me, and I would have eased right into the story and enjoyed it. If there’s something that you think is going to snag your audience, address it in some way, then go right on past (“move along, folks. Nothin’ to see here.”)

Read the whole post here.

Sometimes, just a few lines of explanation can make all the difference.