Questions and Answers part 2
Dec. 6th, 2004 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
msagaraI had a lovely weekend in Montreal, and got to visit with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
papersky and zorinth again, this time with family in tow (mine, that is). It was warmer there than in Toronto (which is unusual), and there was snow here when we arrived. In our shoes. More later.
Cassandra Chan asked, downthread, a question which I'm posting the answer to here because I don't want it to get lost. At least, I'm assuming it's Cassandra Chan. She's a mystery writer, whose first book will be out in 2005, and I'm really looking forward to it -- although I'm not sure under what name, or even title <wry g>. It's with St. Martin's, though.
You've spoken earlier about needing lead time before you actually start writing, time to let the project percolate in your mind before you set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, whatever). But once you do start, are the characters fully-formed, or are there parts of their pasts (and thus their futures) which still come along to surprise you as you're writing? Take, for example, Meralonne, about whom there has been so much speculation among your readers. When he first appears in the Hunter series, did you just have in mind a mage with a certain personality, or was everything that has since been hinted at in later books all in place by then?
One reason I'm curious is that I was dumbfounded when I was reading Christopher Tolkien's books to find out that JRR had absolutely no idea who Strider was when the hobbits first encountered him at Bree. He'd gotten the hobbits there, and this unexpected character had cropped up and for some time thereafter his notes are peppered with comments like WHO IS STRIDER?!! Very amusing as well as surprising.
I think I found this surprising when I read it as well -- it was a while ago.
But the brief answer is: No.
The longer answer -- because, of course, I'll go long regardless -- is less definitive. In Meralonne's case, the world was still taking shape; I knew about Evayne, of course, and about Kallandras; I knew about the Empire. I had in mind two things: a mage with a certain personality, but also, this particular mage in this particular set of circumstances. His was one of the early roles that I knew about. The big surprise in that book was Jewel and her den; I hadn't expected them to so thoroughly run off with their section of book. I wanted a way of showing what was happening in the Empire when Stephen and Gilliam arrived, and that was best shown with her. But… she wouldn't let go of me, or the book, and she became entwined in the politics & the conflict almost immediately in ways that I had not only not planned, but hadn't even considered when I was building world.
This frequently happens, both to me and to other writers I know; characters sometimes have a vivid intensity that doesn't let go, and it becomes a large part of what the book is about in ways that the book wasn't about before the words hit the page. Or the screen. The only thing that suffices for writing a book is … writing a book. At this point in my life, I was trying to follow a personal (as in, nothing I submitted) synopsis of events, but I gave up entirely with DEATH because I spent more time reworking the synopsis than I did writing. (Okay, that's a significant exaggeration, but it's also based in fact; I really did have to go back and rework it so many times I gave up on it entirely).
pameladean mentioned elsewhere that she loathes outlines because they require what the book requires without being the book itself, and I agree with this profoundly.
But even so, in the back of my mind, there are things I know.
They just don't survive the initial knowledge unchanged because, like any knowledge of people one meets the first time, the knowledge itself is superficial. The world itself is strong enough (in my mind) that it will hold any deviation of character, any change, any revelation; my novels are a series of actions, and reactions, and the plot and characters are tightly enough intertwined that I find it impossible to separate them. The farther away the text is from the characters, the less deviation there is. In Meralonne's case, because he's so seldom a viewpoint of his own (but not never), my initial concept and his current role aren't that different.
In Black Gauntlet this may change. Which is to say, I'm almost certain it will. What I know of him is true; how it's true, and how that truth deepens or changes, I don't know yet. Because I'm not certain.
Arg. Let me try this again.
There are ways in which story and plot are not the same. The story -- for me -- hasn't changed, and usually doesn't; the plot always does. But it changes not so much in substance as in form. It's kind of like growing bonsai trees; the work isn't in getting the tree to grow; it's in the stunting and the shape of the tree itself. What I'm working with is organic; the way the branches twist, the way the roots burrow -- I know that these things will happen, but I can't predict in which ways, or how; I can try. The many attempts to do so don't change the fact that what I'm dealing with is a tree -- but it does make the tree something I couldn't -quite- control or envision in and of itself.
The characters of import to me are like that, in miniature; the directions in which they grow, the areas in which they deepen, aren't things I can entirely predict, and they aren't things over which I exert conscious control. I write the way I write because I assume that my subconscious has a clue, that it will pick up and lay down things that will become significant later in ways that my conscious mind hasn't yet seen clearly. So there are things that will tie together in ways that I didn't see coming until they suddenly interlock, and once they're interlocked, I can't separate them without uprooting the whole thing and starting over.
Also: the emotion always gets laid down in the writing of the actual book words, and only then. I give my intellect free rein when I'm laying down the initial garden beds, but that's what it is -- it's laying things down. It's not, in and of itself, a living thing; it's meant to contain things that will live, in as much as text does, and if weeds end up being persistent and important, I absorb them and keep going. It's almost an act of blind faith. I didn't have a Strider, in these novels; I did have Jewel, for instance. And, say, Avandar. This is not to say that there won't be one later, because the later of BG is probably the most mythic of the arcs.
Oh, wait -- BROKEN CROWN example: I realized the significance of Yollana's gift to Ashaf much after the fact. I realized the significance of Diora's role in the Voyani lives, as opposed to Valedan's or her own, only in Shining Court. But Evallen realized it long before I did. And paid.
I know that some writers have trouble with this approach; that they end up in dead ends and blind alleys. It's something to be afraid of, because time is not exactly a writer's friend when it comes to things like, oh, deadlines. Or taxing the patience of readers. I have tossed an entire book over my shoulder, so I'm aware that there are pitfalls here, and I'm also aware that they're to be avoided if at all possible. Because I know no one who works exactly the way I do -- and no two writers who work exactly the same way, period -- I'm comfortable with this approach. But I'd have to be; I haven't figured out a cleaner or better way of getting a book to work for me.
I have a different question, though. I've always wondered about writing mysteries because I have a sense that things have to be known in advance to make things work out in the end. Do you find that you outline ahead of time, that you know who your characters are? Or do you lay out the motivations and characterizations that are relevant to the mystery structure in advance, and then let things unfold as they will?
papersky and zorinth again, this time with family in tow (mine, that is). It was warmer there than in Toronto (which is unusual), and there was snow here when we arrived. In our shoes. More later.Cassandra Chan asked, downthread, a question which I'm posting the answer to here because I don't want it to get lost. At least, I'm assuming it's Cassandra Chan. She's a mystery writer, whose first book will be out in 2005, and I'm really looking forward to it -- although I'm not sure under what name, or even title <wry g>. It's with St. Martin's, though.
You've spoken earlier about needing lead time before you actually start writing, time to let the project percolate in your mind before you set pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, whatever). But once you do start, are the characters fully-formed, or are there parts of their pasts (and thus their futures) which still come along to surprise you as you're writing? Take, for example, Meralonne, about whom there has been so much speculation among your readers. When he first appears in the Hunter series, did you just have in mind a mage with a certain personality, or was everything that has since been hinted at in later books all in place by then?
One reason I'm curious is that I was dumbfounded when I was reading Christopher Tolkien's books to find out that JRR had absolutely no idea who Strider was when the hobbits first encountered him at Bree. He'd gotten the hobbits there, and this unexpected character had cropped up and for some time thereafter his notes are peppered with comments like WHO IS STRIDER?!! Very amusing as well as surprising.
I think I found this surprising when I read it as well -- it was a while ago.
But the brief answer is: No.
The longer answer -- because, of course, I'll go long regardless -- is less definitive. In Meralonne's case, the world was still taking shape; I knew about Evayne, of course, and about Kallandras; I knew about the Empire. I had in mind two things: a mage with a certain personality, but also, this particular mage in this particular set of circumstances. His was one of the early roles that I knew about. The big surprise in that book was Jewel and her den; I hadn't expected them to so thoroughly run off with their section of book. I wanted a way of showing what was happening in the Empire when Stephen and Gilliam arrived, and that was best shown with her. But… she wouldn't let go of me, or the book, and she became entwined in the politics & the conflict almost immediately in ways that I had not only not planned, but hadn't even considered when I was building world.
This frequently happens, both to me and to other writers I know; characters sometimes have a vivid intensity that doesn't let go, and it becomes a large part of what the book is about in ways that the book wasn't about before the words hit the page. Or the screen. The only thing that suffices for writing a book is … writing a book. At this point in my life, I was trying to follow a personal (as in, nothing I submitted) synopsis of events, but I gave up entirely with DEATH because I spent more time reworking the synopsis than I did writing. (Okay, that's a significant exaggeration, but it's also based in fact; I really did have to go back and rework it so many times I gave up on it entirely).
pameladean mentioned elsewhere that she loathes outlines because they require what the book requires without being the book itself, and I agree with this profoundly. But even so, in the back of my mind, there are things I know.
They just don't survive the initial knowledge unchanged because, like any knowledge of people one meets the first time, the knowledge itself is superficial. The world itself is strong enough (in my mind) that it will hold any deviation of character, any change, any revelation; my novels are a series of actions, and reactions, and the plot and characters are tightly enough intertwined that I find it impossible to separate them. The farther away the text is from the characters, the less deviation there is. In Meralonne's case, because he's so seldom a viewpoint of his own (but not never), my initial concept and his current role aren't that different.
In Black Gauntlet this may change. Which is to say, I'm almost certain it will. What I know of him is true; how it's true, and how that truth deepens or changes, I don't know yet. Because I'm not certain.
Arg. Let me try this again.
There are ways in which story and plot are not the same. The story -- for me -- hasn't changed, and usually doesn't; the plot always does. But it changes not so much in substance as in form. It's kind of like growing bonsai trees; the work isn't in getting the tree to grow; it's in the stunting and the shape of the tree itself. What I'm working with is organic; the way the branches twist, the way the roots burrow -- I know that these things will happen, but I can't predict in which ways, or how; I can try. The many attempts to do so don't change the fact that what I'm dealing with is a tree -- but it does make the tree something I couldn't -quite- control or envision in and of itself.
The characters of import to me are like that, in miniature; the directions in which they grow, the areas in which they deepen, aren't things I can entirely predict, and they aren't things over which I exert conscious control. I write the way I write because I assume that my subconscious has a clue, that it will pick up and lay down things that will become significant later in ways that my conscious mind hasn't yet seen clearly. So there are things that will tie together in ways that I didn't see coming until they suddenly interlock, and once they're interlocked, I can't separate them without uprooting the whole thing and starting over.
Also: the emotion always gets laid down in the writing of the actual book words, and only then. I give my intellect free rein when I'm laying down the initial garden beds, but that's what it is -- it's laying things down. It's not, in and of itself, a living thing; it's meant to contain things that will live, in as much as text does, and if weeds end up being persistent and important, I absorb them and keep going. It's almost an act of blind faith. I didn't have a Strider, in these novels; I did have Jewel, for instance. And, say, Avandar. This is not to say that there won't be one later, because the later of BG is probably the most mythic of the arcs.
Oh, wait -- BROKEN CROWN example: I realized the significance of Yollana's gift to Ashaf much after the fact. I realized the significance of Diora's role in the Voyani lives, as opposed to Valedan's or her own, only in Shining Court. But Evallen realized it long before I did. And paid.
I know that some writers have trouble with this approach; that they end up in dead ends and blind alleys. It's something to be afraid of, because time is not exactly a writer's friend when it comes to things like, oh, deadlines. Or taxing the patience of readers. I have tossed an entire book over my shoulder, so I'm aware that there are pitfalls here, and I'm also aware that they're to be avoided if at all possible. Because I know no one who works exactly the way I do -- and no two writers who work exactly the same way, period -- I'm comfortable with this approach. But I'd have to be; I haven't figured out a cleaner or better way of getting a book to work for me.
I have a different question, though. I've always wondered about writing mysteries because I have a sense that things have to be known in advance to make things work out in the end. Do you find that you outline ahead of time, that you know who your characters are? Or do you lay out the motivations and characterizations that are relevant to the mystery structure in advance, and then let things unfold as they will?
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Off-topic question
Date: 2004-12-08 11:34 pm (UTC)I've been reading lately about a new Canadian drive for aggregated book sales information, including from independent bookstores. (One article can be found at:
http://www.itbusiness.ca/index.asp?theaction=61&sid=57531&adBanner=eBusiness )
What do you think about this? Do you think it will help Canadian authors with Canadia sales? Will it make a difference.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Re: Off-topic question
Date: 2004-12-09 12:04 am (UTC)You're right; it is <g>. I've clipped that, and I'll respond to it at length, because it's the perfect opportunity to segue into a similar system in the US.