During my tenure as an amateur writing struggling to get my first novel in publishable shape, I’ve observed a number of…funny characteristics dealing with what some writers refer to as their “process.”
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| Pictured: my process |
1. My inner editor is a sniveling bitch who has no confidence in my abilities and does everything in his power to undermine me. Granted, this isn’t unique to just me; as far as I can tell, every single writer has one of these whining dicks constantly whispering in their ears, telling them all sorts of variations to a central fear: that what we have to write isn’t good enough and no one will ever want to read it. I believe Frank Herbert had something to say about fear.
2. The process in which I plot is not very efficient. Giving myself the benefit of the doubt, I’m going to blame it on my lack of experience as a writer rather than a general lack of creativity on my part; plotting, like editing and grammar, is a skill that is learned over time. And what I’ve learned is I need to work on this plotting thing.
When I first get an idea for a story, it almost always starts as a random scene, not connected by any other plot point. More of these lone scenes will blip into my head, and again, there will be almost no connection between them other than a character. The problem is, I can never seem to weave them together into a coherent story plot. They just drift there, each independent of the other, stubbornly refusing to make sense.
This causes my story ideas to be loose, unstable things with no foundation. It’s not unlike a game of Jenga played by a group of drunkards in the middle of a mosh pit. The story inevitably comes tumbling down. And then one of the drunks slips on the pieces and stumbles into his friends, causing a small domino effect of people tumbling to the ground. And then everyone in the Jenga group gets trampled by proper mosh pit participants who were actually paying attention to the concert instead of playing a damn game.
| The inevitable results of my writing attempts. |
3. Like a kid with A.D.H.D, I have a very hard time keeping focused on what bits of proper story survive the mosh stampede, because there are shiny things not related to my story littered about. Especially other story ideas. I generally like my ideas and want to focus my attention on them—until a new idea unrelated to the previous one slaps me in the face and yells “pay attention to me now!”
The previous story idea is still cool and intriguing, but this new idea is fresh out of the packaging and still has that new concept smell. Suddenly, I have a more difficult time keeping momentum on the original idea because the new idea is prettier and wearing a really hot miniskirt. It’s like wandering eyes for my brain, except story concepts rather than nubile ladies.
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| "Damn, look at the plot idea on her!" |
4. The biggest problem, in my opinion, is what I call the Steak Dinner Conundrum. Let's compare my writing prep to a chef who is making a delicious steak dinner. As a writer, I tend to get distracted by all the little odds and ends-- the presentation, if you will. I'll spend a week worrying about what style of dinnerware to use, if the plates are flattering, and if I have enough salad forks. What I ignore, nay avoid, is working on the damn steak. I let it sit there, a raw slab of meat untouched as I fuss over what kind of butter to use on the potato or if the wine should be red or white. Never mind that the most important aspect of the meal is the steak.
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| Look at how fucking delicious this story looks. |
I tend to get distracted by things in the story that are not the main entree rather than taking the time to get the steak prepped first and foremost. As a result, I usually never have an actual plot or character developed as well as they should be. Rather, I have some tasty croutons ready for the salad and some napkins that will look amazing under the right lighting. But no meat.
Now obviously, the potato, salad, and wine are also important to the meal. But they aren't as important as that steak. I'm almost certain that if I were a chef instead of a writer, Chef Ramsey would have my balls in a salad shooter within a day of my setting foot in the kitchen.
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| "You call this a story? Your write like Donald Trump looks: like shit!" |
Together, these four issues combine and effectively stall the majority of my writing efforts. With the exception of writing blogs bitching about my writing, I tend to get very little done.
