How Do You Build A Story?

Riffing Off David Isaak's TOMORROWVILLE BLOG (Again)

The illustrious (and published, I might add) David Isaak is at it again: posting yet another awesome series of posts on a topic dear to all writers, that I wish I would have executed so well here on my blog.

Hey--it's nice to have a role model!

His question: "How do you build a story?"

He's asked other writers to leave their answer in the comments of his blog, or post a response on their blog, so he can link to it.

OK, David, here's mine... 

WARNING: The Appearance Of Order Which Follows Is An Illusion!

STEP ONE: Determine what genre I'm going to write in.

Sometimes I have no clue until I write a chapter or two. Other times, it's obvious before I start. I enjoy reading thrillers, dark fantasy, horror, and a little science fiction. And on occasion, I'll pick up some mainstream fiction. So my work will usually fall into one of those categories. The only sure thing, is that some "weird shit" will happen relatively soon in the book. Because I am weird.

STEP TWO: Find the seed of the story.

An interesting character. A twisted premise. A personally meaningful theme. An unshakable image. A unique way to tell a familiar story. It could be anything.

STEP THREE: Once I find the seed of the story, I'll typically start asking "what if?" a lot.

The first answers that come to mind are almost always weak, cliche, and overdone. So I'll keep applying the what if? question to every aspect of the story iteratively (premise, characters, settings, etcetera), until something makes me say: Oh yeah, baby, I gotta write this! It might take a good 25 to 629 iterations. It's really all just luck. By step three, I've probably taken about a page of notes. Personally, I really like MindJet's MindManager Pro for note taking. It's badass in a way other geeky tools can't touch. Maybe I'll review it in a future post. For now, go check out the free trial.

STEP FOUR: Find the "voice" of the novel / characters by writing something.

Often times, this is really step one. I think finding the voice of a book is the most challenging aspect of writing something others will want to read; except those times when it just comes to you--when a voice just starts talking in your head. Usually though, I have to do some channeling. Music helps. Loud music.

STEP FIVE: For some reason, what I start writing is almost always a beginning. So if step four yielded anything useful, in step five I'll hone it a bit.

What I try to do is imagine my ideal reader actually wanting to flip pages. I figure, if I can't persuade them to continue 5-10 pages into the story with what I already have, then why bother working on the rest of it?

This is a good way to write several uncompleted novels. But then, I don't often finish reading other people's books either.

STEP SIX: Revisit steps 1-5 until I've gotten far enough into the work to feel like a moron if I were to give up on it. The psychological term for this is cognitive dissonance. The more time I put into something, the more I'm telling my brain (through my actions) that it's important to me. The brain will usually agree, and if my psych med cocktail is in order, it will continue to provide me with a stream of barely intelligible hack work, which can I then rewrite 50-60 times until it turns into something readable.

Usually.

Other times I just drink a bottle of two-buck Chuck and watch my cat chase the laser pointer.

By the time I've written fifty or so pages, I'm of course totally lost. This is when I convince myself I like outlines. For my current work in progress, I convinced myself that I like outlines for sixty days.

I do not like outlines.

But then, I don't like road maps either, and I have not one, but two GPS programs on my laptop. Both of which get me good and lost on a regular basis. Now that I think about it though, "GPS vs. Road Atlas" ain't a bad way to look at the whole "outlining debate" we neurotic writers like to get caught up in. Everyone knows E.L. Doctorow's quote [paraphrasing] about how writing is like driving at night...you can only see as far as the headlights, but that'll get you the whole way… Well for me, writing is like finding your across the country with the aid of a GPS. You don't need the damn thing until you hit some road construction, but then it's nice to be able to "zoom out" a couple hundred miles, and reroute if needed. MindManager Pro comes in handy for this kind of "planning," too. I figure, if it's important enough to stop writing the actual draft, might as well write down my little trail of breadcrumbs in case I get lost again.

Other times I'll just blatantly write a chapter conforming to The Hero's Journey. Good enough for George Lucas, good enough for me. [Actually I never do this.]

STEP SEVEN: OK, by now, I'm not following any "steps." If I ever was. But blogs are supposed to feature top-ten lists, and three reasons why, and manifestos against breath holding, and stuff…

So this step is really just a list of "tricks" I've learned to help me write draft better / faster:

• Before you draft a scene, sketch out the essentials in long hand: setting, characters, goals, conflicts, resolution / disaster--about one or two sentences a piece. For some reason, that helps me focus on the prose instead of the plot when I'm drafting, and I write much faster when I remember to do this. [update 10-11-2007: I do this less and less. The more I write, the more I subscribe to Hemingway's one true sentence leading to the next approach.]
• I've done a lot of fuzzy math recently, and determined that I can write 6-8 pretty polished pages in 3-5 hours if I rely on a free countdown timer. Here's how I make use of the timer… [update 10-11-2007: this is sheer madness. I don't really do this. Timers are for bombs. Fact is, I don't give a rat's ass how fast I write as long as it's the best I can write at the time (where "best" is an utterly subjective, personally defined, and therefore extremely useful standard)]
  • configure the timer so that it makes an audible "tick" at t-minus 15 seconds for each second remaining until time expires
  • configure the timer to countdown from three minutes
  • configure the "time expired" noise to sound like a nuclear bomb going off (which is already the default setting)
  • OK, the useful part: when you're writing your draft, reset the timer every time you write a new sentence; the timer should be set for 3 minutes
  • take as much time as you'd like writing that sentence, but when you start hearing that ticking noise at the 15-second mark, it's time to write down a "placeholder" and move on to the next sentence (don't forget to restart the timer)
  • by "placeholder" I mean something like: ***a bit of description about the girl's facial expression when I rolled my eyes at her*** or, ***explain what the POV character was thinking when he learned his friend was cheating at poker***
  • then, come back the next day, and fill in your placeholders as a warm-up to the that day's drafting
  • you can adjust the timer up or down from three minutes to suit your individual pace / deadline requirements; for me, 3 minutes per sentence = 20 sentences per hour = approximately 1 double-spaced manuscript page in 12-point Times New Roman (Courier SUCKS)
    
• Before you write, drink a cup of coffee and start listening to your favorite music. I like Pearl Jam, Eminem, Linkin Park, Metallica (pre makeup), Beastie Boys, Ministry, NIN, System Of A Down, and Kid Rock; country music will not work for this, so don't even try [update 10-11-2007: THIS is the secret step]

STEP EIGHT: Since I've found a really good critique group (which Mr. Isaak also participates in), step eight is getting feedback from other writers who know more than I do about what works in a story.

I submit up to 50 pages twice a year to this group, and it really helps shape the final product. [update 10-11-2007: it's been awhile since I followed this step. I'm not so sure I'd recommend it anymore. Part of what fuels me to finish a piece of fiction is the desire to share it with others. Sharing along the way can diminish this desire.]

STEP NINE: Read your work aloud.

This is my personal pet peeve, but if it doesn't sound good when I read it aloud, then I'll rewrite it. Part of this is that I want people to listen to my books in audio during their morning commute. Some people's style is an exception to this--usually stuff with long descriptive passages, or dense technical detail.

STEP TEN: There are no rules!

Nothing I've ever written utilized any of the above in the exactly the same way twice. Writing is the kind of process you can only make sense of in hindsight.