I was reading some writing blogs yesterday and boy, do those things make me anxious, especially when I'm in the middle of completely restructuring my own story.
I guess I keep expecting them to say, "Hey! You! Yeah, you! You suck. You can't write and here's why." Or maybe I worry they'll just make it completely obvious that I'm going about the whole thing wrong.
I am, actually. One really is supposed to plan out one's plot and setting before writing; it saves one a lot of work.
I've been wrestling with this idea for as long as I've been writing, but lately I've been doing a lot of thinking about it. Naturally.
The thing is, I'm just not a formula writer, I'm an intuitive writer. If I plot things out in advance, it's just a big waste of time, because the act of writing is what shows me where I'm going.
The only story I ever really plotted out in advance, I stopped writing after not even the first chapter. It was dead on arrival.
If I had just taken the one scene that I wrote because I had to write it, and then followed that scene and that character out and into the rest of the story, I bet it would have stayed alive.
I think this is because, for me, plotting in advance is like trying to draw a map of a territory you haven't laid eyes on yet.
It's like that quote-
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware."
-Martin Buber
Only, of course, it should read, "All stories have secret destinations of which the writer is unaware."
If you, like me, struggle with a lack of formula, I have a word of hard won advice for you- be fearless.
Namely, be fearless in two things.
The first thing is to be fearless in searching out your instinctive reason for writing. Write out your gut. That's what the first draft is for. It's to get past the flotsam and jetsam and right to the heart of the thing that makes you write in the first place, the things that gets you, the thing that won't let you rest until you've pinned it down to the paper in words like a net, and then it's yours.
In the first draft, style be damned. Who cares how you are writing; you won't be able to see it anyway. Just write. The more you write, the more clearly you will be able to see your style and the most conscious control you'll have over it. But that comes with experience, and is never the point of the first draft.
Secondly, be fearless in deleting. That's what the second draft is for. Slash and burn. If it's really painful, you can do as I do and put it into another file, thereby saving your ego. You might even use it again somewhere. But if it's not necessary to the story, then it must go, no matter how good it may be.
This gets easier after a while, because you begin to understand that you can always write more of the same. There is no piece of your writing so charming, so descriptive, or so humorous, that you can't replicate it, if need be.
Basically, find the thing that drives you to write and than pare the story down to that one thing. It's an inexact and painful science, but it will get you to the heart of your story. Eventually.
Now I will stop talking about writing and actually write. Or try to.
