Point Counterpoint offers differing opinions on literary topics. This one is on writing with inspiration vs calculation.
Inspiration versus Calculation
While there may be any number of reasons why an author writes a novel, there are generally many accepted ways of writing one. This is important. Don’t ever let your 11th grade English teacher tell you there is only one way of writing: that it has to be this way or no way. There are probably millions of fabulous writers who have been destroyed by (I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt) English teachers trying to be helpful.
SL Kotar and Betsy J. Bennett have written many novels, but they have different approaches to writing those works of fiction. In this column, we’d like to disagree publically with each other. This first column we’ll discuss spontaneity vs. plotting.
Point
by: S.L. Kotar
Most would agree that “calculation,” or the careful constriction of plot, is integral to the process. I disagree.
My theory is that Roman numerals, small abc’s under capital letters and innumerable subsections deprive the writer of spontaneity. When I sit down to write, I want my characters to do the figurative walking through the white pages. I don’t have a plot in mind, or at least I haven’t worked one out. The solution and all the twists and turns leading up to the dénouement are the responsibility of my protagonists.
When characters start talking in my head, that’s when I know it’s time to type: not my words, but theirs. They already know their backgrounds, their relationships (or they think they do), their likes and dislikes. Looking through the eyes on character (and I hesitate to use that word, for they’re real people taking shape before my eyes), I see a scene. I identify what they’re wearing. That establishes a general time frame. I listen for a dialect, study their word usage. That tells me if they’re a hillbilly or a lawyer. He or she has something on his/her mind. And off I go.
Telling a story is living a life; or more accurately, many lives. Once a writer starts forcing the issue to fit a plot or a timeline, the characters fade into the background and become cardboard cutouts. They’re not alive anymore, they’re Playdough. They become images of my mind instead of assuming their own personalities. But if I let them go their own ways, then I’m translating the actions of living, breathing souls.
My main character is sitting in a room; someone comes in. They have a conversation. That leads to some thought, action, the introduction of other characters. On the way home, the character stops in for a bite to eat. He hears something; somewhere down the line that’s going to work its way into the plot. How? I don’t know but I trust my instincts and my ears. If I’m writing a Western and I’m taking my hero home, I don’t know his horse is going to stumble, and when it happens I’m as surprised as anyone. For me, that’s the pure joy of the entire process: not knowing what’s around the next corner or how the chapter is going to end. I’m interested and that, I trust, keeps my readers interested.
It’s also what keeps me writing. I want to know what’s going to happen next. How often have you heard it said (or said, yourself), “If I knew how my life was going to turn out, I wouldn’t have bothered.” But you didn’t know and between Page One and Fade Out you’ve built an entire history. One, incidentally, that was worth participating in because all along the line you’ve touch people. Each and every one of us is the ripple in the pond.
That’s the way writing should be. Intriguing, mysterious, quirky, happy, sad and occasionally unresolved. All the ingredients of a good novel.
Inspiration versus Calculation
Counterpoint
by: Betsy J. Bennett
I don’t mind spontaneity in my writing, but I’ve learned, one, I can’t depend on it, and two, it doesn’t always lead to the best novel.
Waiting for inspiration can be painful. A writer can stare at a blank screen (or piece or paper) for hours/days/months/years waiting for that spark to start the creative process. You can waste your entire life waiting for inspiration to strike. You may want to write, you may find it excruciatingly painful that you’re blocked, but no words that sound so intelligent and clever in your mind ever see the light of day in your novel.
Please! Writing doesn’t have to be that way. With a little work up front, called plotting, you can write your novel from the beginning Dark and Stormy Night to the final kiss good night with no problems, no getting lost in the details, no ten thousand other faults that plague a beginning novelist.
When you “just go with the flow” of your novel, you can have too many things going on at once, your plot (what there is of it) can wander and frequently get lost altogether. Your characters can get in their own way without doing or saying what the novel needs to move it toward a successful conclusion. You might find yourself making fifty different versions, trying to make everything fit.
It’s so much easier to do everything right the first time. Think of it this way: say you want to drive from Detroit to St. Louis. You know it’s kinda south, so you start happily driving south. You could end up in Miami or Louisville or even Dallas. Sometimes that makes a better novel, but you want to end up in St. Louis, so you’d better start listening to your GPS before you start going in circles wasting time, or having to backtrack for hours or days.
You’re afraid of the concept of plotting. The very thought of it makes you fear Mrs. English Teacher who pounded it into your head over and over again.
Here’s a truth you don’t know. Plotting is easy. Since you don’t believe me, I’ll say it again. Plotting is easy. And far easier than trial and error writing of most people who call themselves “novelists” or “writers” and have yet to put a single cohesive sentence to paper.
Think of a basic XY graph. The X axis is time. It could be Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3…
It could be Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Freshman year, Sophomore, etc. It doesn’t matter. The Y axis I call “happiness.”
At the beginning of your novel, page 1, paragraph one, your character has to want something. He has to want it desperately. It doesn’t matter what he wants. It could be love, money, saving the planet from zombies. So, he has to keep getting closer and closer to his happiness as the novel progresses.
But here’s the important thing: For every two steps forward, he has to take one step back. He might think he’s not getting any closer. And your reader might think he’s not getting closer (this is good) but he is.
Think Wizard of Oz. Miss Gultch gets Toto. Toto escapes. Dorothy runs away, looking for a place where she can be understood. She finds a “wizard” to feed her. There’s a tornado. A Good Witch helps her. A Bad Witch threatens her. And so it goes on.
Take ten minutes and plot out your favorite movie. I promise it will have this give and take plotting. Now take a day and do it for your novel. It will save you hours, and make your novel cohesive and far easier to write.