In Defense of NaNoWriMo (Guest Post!)

This week we have a super-special guest post from my friend and coworker, Amanda. By day she wrangles late reviewers and herds books towards publication as an Editorial Assistant; by night she blogs about classic films at A Pocketful of Nickels; and for the entire month of November, she puts her nose to the NaNoWriMo grindstone and churns out 50,000 words with the best of them.

She took some time out from her NaNo novel (which is at 30,000 words, at last count—I'll give you a second for applause) to write this response to an article I tweeted at the beginning of the month. In the article, "Better Yet, DON'T Write that Novel," Salon's Laura Miller argues that a month spent writing novels in an already flooded fiction market could be put to better use by joining the dwindling numbers of avid readers who keep the publishing industry alive. The article spurred a lot of discussion at my office, where NaNo is popular, and I invited Amanda to share her response with us. So with no further adieu...

November is a time of leaves turning and pumpkin pie consumption, but for many people around the world it is also the time to dabble in to the art of writing. The article Rachel mentioned has stirred a lot of talk amongst those embarking on the adventure of spending a whole month writing a book. In fact, I’ve heard so much about that article and counter arguments to it, that what I really want to do in response is talk about writing.

I started National Novel Writing Month (or NaNo for short) last year and immediately fell in love. I had gotten away from my writing due to some difficult emotional times and then I just fell out of the habit and life; well, life just got too busy. At least that’s what I thought. But here this contest, involving this teeming mass of aspiring writers all pledging to write 50,000 words in the span of just 30 days, had a way of drawing me in. Suddenly I wanted to do it just to see if I could shake loose those writer’s hands and let the mothballs out of my creativity closet. And you know what happened? I wrote again.

I’ve been writing stories for as long as I can remember. It was part of a culture in my family, this telling and sharing of stories, and it was then as a little girl listening to my grandfather that I learned how storytelling is an ancient art. It connects us within our culture and allows us to share with one another our history and our dreams. It also requires both the teller and the listener; or in writing terms, the writer and the reader. Both are involved and both keep this culture of storytelling alive. We cannot have one without the other.

NaNoWriMo has helped me expand my writing life as well as my reading life. It was through the seemingly impossible competition that I met some great friends and also joined a book club. I’ve read more books since my first encounter with the contest than I had at any time previously. It’s wonderful! The more I write, the more I want to read. I found that I am continuously inspired by other writers, like my new favorite author, Richard Russo. I just read his book Empire Falls and fell in love with his ability to craft characters and such memorable depictions of life. To learn the writing craft, you need to study the masters. That’s a lesson true of everything from painting to music to really any of the other arts. Writing in a bookstore is perfect—what a wonderful way to connect with the masters who have made it to publication. While I’m there amidst the shelves of books, I pick up ones that I may not have otherwise noticed and read through them as I write. I’m engaging in both sides of the literary cycle.

Now, not everyone needs a competition like this to kick-start their writing lives, and I applaud those people who don’t (and envy them a bit). But what it all comes down to is the simple fact that writing is fun. Thousands of people sign up for NaNo every year. Do not judge their intentions, for one thing is common—they all have a crazy desire to create. That is the reason we write. Certainly we may all harbor a secret desire to one day be published, but that isn’t our driving force. Writing is a good way to channel frustrations, sadness, anxiety, whatever emotion that you might have trouble otherwise expressing. In some therapy centers, writing is even prescribed as a way to work out problems and understand emotions.

Writing allows us to be on the other side of the page, to appreciate what an author does to produce a work. I have far more admiration for writers after writing a few full length (and rather awful) novels of my own. And you know what? I have never met a NaNo writer who would willingly share his or her writing with me or anyone else. That doesn’t bode well for anyone with dreams of one day publishing their work, but does that really matter? I talk about my novel just as much as I write it; my friends and I are all familiar with each other’s plot and characters. The telling and the writing are part and parcel. No story is polished from the outset. Talking to readers and other writers will help, as will taking the time to revise and edit. As writers, we have to accept that there will be a lot of “crap” at first. Think of the first draft as a pile of cars in a junkyard and ask yourself if there is anything you can salvage. But we aren’t alone. Everyone goes through this process, even if we never see it: photographers, painters, choreographers, filmmakers, even journalists. In the ever-growing markets, it might seem bleak to think that your beloved novel may never see a bookstore shelf. People with poor writing skills have national bestsellers solely based on a brief brush with fame. Anyone who can make headlines can publish a book, but so many aspiring novelists cannot and thus will not. That is the grim truth of NaNo, and one we tend to put in a corner under a blanket to shut out of our minds. We ignore the fact that we are pouring energy into works that have little hope of surviving in this world.

So what should we do, we who want to write the stories as much as we want to read them? Do we take the philosophy that we should write for writing’s sake? Do we give up in desperation? Do we turn our backs on the cruel world of publishing and keep that blanket handy? Do we sit in a cruddy apartment in our bathrobe and stubbornly churn out two original stories a week that won't sell?* I agree that not everyone can be a great writer. Not everyone can be a great painter either, but should that stop anyone from picking up a brush to try?

I say we write. Yes, it is a selfish, lonely, narcissistic and sometimes maddening endeavor. But it can also be wildly entertaining and rewarding. For one month a year, let us give voice to our inner writers and set free all those thoughts, characters and adventures. Let us enjoy that freedom provided from being on the other side of the printed page. Most of all, let’s read and keep reading, to celebrate those who have made it to publication and to find the inspiration to tell our own stories.

*Yes, this is a reference to a movie because I’m pimping my own blog. Find out which movie here.

Thanks so much, Amanda!

Whether you're participating in NaNo or not, here are some great resources for both writers and readers:

• The NaNoWriMo webpage is a great source for NaNo resources, pep talks and community for participants. Use it to find write-ins near you, or meet fellow writers online!
• NaNoFiMo follows right on the heels of NaNoWriMo in December and challenges writers to finish long-untouched works in progress.
• Similarly, NaNoEdMo invites writers to commit 50 hours during the month of March to editing their novels—I can't say I know too many editors would would claim that time is wasted.
  
• The 10-10-10 Reading Challenge invites readers to tackle 10 books from 10 self-selected categories that they wouldn't normally explore before October 10th. Participants say it's a great way to broaden your horizons, find new favorite authors and genres, and support the industry.
• Plenty of writers and readers prefer to spend November (or August, in some cases) working on their NaNoReaMo goals and reading as much as possible.

On a Lighter Note... Let's Talk About Character Transformations

I think that one of the reasons humans have always been driven to tell stories, and to tell them in the particular way that we do, is because they illustrate how something came to be—how something changed irreversibly, and the new state of being came to be the only one that worked. A story is a series of actions and decisions, but what a story’s about is change. There are some exceptions to this rule, but as a human race I think we’re mostly interested in internal, character-based changes. That means that characters change and are changed by their circumstances.

But how do you create that transformation, and how do you make it believable? And how do you fit that transformation into a framework of external circumstances which are, most likely, also changing?

Most stories begin with the status quo, but few hold the reader there for very long. The impetus for the actual story is usually some small change—a new cropping up, or a new rule being established. This new circumstance presents an obstacle which will grow throughout the story, and which will force the character to change.

Again, there are some exceptions to this rule, but typically plots are most interesting if a flaw of the character’s—the exact trait you will transform through the story, ideally—contributes to or even creates the obstacle. Though the reader may be aware of this flaw and how it contributes to the problem, the character will be blind to that fault at first. Nonetheless, the flaw will keep the character tied down, while the obstacle creates something against which the character is pushing.

I think of character transformations—and thus plotlines—as working like a slingshot. Even after the need for change is established, the character will try to move forward by acting in the same way she always has. However, whatever it is that she needs to change is keeping her from making headway, and any attempt to go forward will only result in her struggling against that force. This struggle will build tension as the character goes as far as she possibly can—and as with a slingshot, the struggle to keep moving in that same direction becomes more difficult the further she gets. Finally, the character will have reached as far as she can possibly reach by struggling in that one direction, and the slingshot’s elastic will either snap or release itself in a powerful reversal of the story’s direction. In either case, the character will have no choice but to change, and that change propels her right into the climax. The more powerful the tension and then the snap back, the faster and more intense the climax.

As is true in real life, your character’s transformation will come gradually, and your plot arc will be comprised of a series of forward-backward strides. Similarly, in the very best stories at least some of the secondary characters also undergo transformations. You can apply the slingshot metaphor to the story’s subplots just as well as you can to the overarching plot. Vary the amount of tension and the amount of time spent building it based on how important a particular change is to the overall plot. Through each subplot, however, you want to always be pulling the slingshot that is the overarching plot tighter. Never allow the resolution of one subplot or struggle to release more tension than it builds.

The scope of different stories can vary widely, from an epic struggle or quest (think The Hunger Games or The Lord of the Rings), in which the entire world has the potential to be transformed, to more contained stories in which the world likely to change is that of one individual or family, as in Marcelo in the Real World. But in each case, the most essential change in the story is a character transformation. The Hunger Games is less about what happens in a violent arena than about a teenage girl learning to fight for the freedom of those she loved. The Lord of the Rings is, at heart, a story about several characters' transformations into heroes. And Marcelo is, perhaps more evidently than the other two, a tale about a boy finding the strength to stand up for what’s right and face adult decisions. Whatever the situation, these stories feel compelling to us because we can relate to and learn from the characters. And what we’re specifically relating to in these characters is the way in which they change in order to deal with their circumstances.

So properly building the tension around your character’s transformation will help you beef up your story’s emotional core. I strongly suggest taking the time to map out these changes so that you can devote the right amount of your story to each change.

And that’s where your input comes in! I’m curious: do you have any tried and true methods for mapping your characters’ transformations? How do you approach tension-building as you write?

I Swear, I Thought of Sparkly Vampires First!

In response to my last post, Robyn noted the near-impossibility of stumbling upon a truly original plotline, and offered voice and style as the necessary antidotes to a world already saturated with good ideas. The same day that I read Robyn’s comment, a friend and coworker asked me if she should change the plot of her work-in-progress since she’d discovered that it shared some vital plot elements with a bestseller she’d just read.

I am not a writer, myself, but after years of working with writers I’ve come to see that one of the first and most difficult challenges they face is the pressure to come up with a totally original premise. In an industry that churns out new hits at what can seem like an astonishing rate, that pressure can be debilitating. And maybe it’s too easy for me to say, “Don’t worry about it.”

But seriously, don’t. At least not right away.

First of all, there’s the time factor. The fast-paced industry keeps audience attention constantly shifting to a new hit. As long as your book isn’t about a boy going to wizarding school or kids killing kids, chances are good that by the time your work-in-progress finds its way into a publisher's hands and makes it all the way through the editorial and production processes, it won’t be compared to today’s bestseller at every turn.

More importantly, it’s not ideas that make stories; it’s voice and character. If ten skilled writers tackled the same plot, I feel confident that they’d write ten completely different stories, with ten different moods and at least ten different meanings. Their own individual styles would appeal to different readerships and convey different emotions. Perhaps even more noticeably, each of their characters would be their own, and thus each writer's ideologies and ways of looking at human nature would determine her characters’ personalities and choices. And those unique characters would make different choices in the face of the same challenge. The same basic plot could branch out into hundreds or thousands of unique stories.

There were books about Taliban murders before The Kite Runner. Before Marcelo in the Real World there was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. There were books about the holocaust before Everything is Illuminated. Before The Hunger Games, there were plenty of books about dystopia (even a few about the government forcing children to kill each other), and there sure were a lot of books about dangerous love before Twilight.

We are a species which tells itself the same stories of love, friendship, desire, tragedy, persecution, hope and redemption again and again and again. Almost any story, boiled down to its essential parts, is about the way people interact, the way they hurt and the way they heal. So it wasn’t plot alone that set these novels apart. The premise of a story is all packaging; the story's heart is its emotion. And a story’s emotional content comes from voice and character, not from plot.

True, there does come a point in the journey to publication at which it’s absolutely vital that you and your work stand out. Sometimes a house or imprint will turn a proposal down because the story is simply too much like something that the house recently published or a big competitor already on the market. And I do believe that the very best writers set themselves apart by marrying content and presentation, pairing a great idea with skillful writing.

But when you’re drafting a story, there are still so many directions it could take. Who knows how much of your original idea will even make it into the final story, or how it will read in the context of the finished work. So if you feel you have a good idea but worry about how it may be compared to what's already on the market, I'd encourage you to put that worry aside for now and see how far you can take your idea. Use your idea to explore what your strengths are as a writer, and I trust you’ll find a way to set yourself apart through them.

On Scene Endings and other Small Choices that Make a Big Difference

I hope by now you all have had the chance to see Jason Reitman's film, Up in the Air. (If you haven't, but want to, this might not be the post you want to read, as it will include mild spoilers.)

The film's concept, and the artistic director/writer behind it, have intrigued me since I caught the tail end of an NPR interview covering it. And the finished film really did not disappoint. Much like Juno, it's a very literary take on a basic premise that could have made for a very mainstream film. What makes it stand out is its thoughtful characterization, its skillful weaving together of multiple plot lines and character arcs, and the sincere attention to detail that's shown in its every shot. That last one, it struck me, is something you writer-folk can learn from.

There's a scene in Up in the Air that I found to be a particularly nice touch. Robert Bingham (George Clooney) has finally met the woman for whom he'd give up his "What's in your Backpack?," commitment-free way of life. He's traveled across the country to reach her, only to learn that he isn't a big part of her life -- that she, like everyone else he knows, has her own ties already, and she won't let them go. He's free to return to his earlier habits, uninhibited by the baggage people bring with them.

Scenes in film are even shorter than those in novels, so in a well-made movie they have to be economical in order to have maximum impact. So I was on the lookout for some good moves in the scene directly following this revelation. Bingham returns to the airport -- his home, his comfort zone -- and checks onto a flight. The music is quiet, and when he swipes his card (a card which cues the clerk to say "Welcome back, Mr. Bingham," and something in which he takes total delight), the scene cuts. There's no friendly clerk's voice. Just silence. It's a small decision on the director's part, but it's significant. It not only moves Bingham from point A to point B (literally, back to his apartment in Omaha); it moves the viewer to a better understanding of his mental state. In a very effective, yet very small way, the film conveys the fact that Bingham has lost faith in his free-wheeling philosophy. The airline's welcome isn't included because it's no longer meaningful to Bingham. That's smart, smart directing.

In many ways, writing is a lot like directing a film. When you've got strong, fully-developed characters and the beginnings of a plot in your mind, they have a tendency to take off with it. You can't control everything your characters do, because who they are and how they change has to determine the way their stories advance. But what you can control, completely and entirely, is how their story is told. And a truly great writer pays close attention to every detail, and uses it to artfully convey a story's theme and its characters' mindsets.

A lot of what I know about writing strong scenes, I learned from Cheryl Klein at Scholastic's Arthur A. Levine Books. She taught me that every scene, no matter how short, needs to advance the story told in a manuscript. It can do that in a number of ways: by building character, by containing clues or vital information for the reader, or by moving the story forward with action -- preferably more than one of those at a time. With that in mind, one of the most important choices a writer makes is when to end a scene. Ended too early, a scene doesn't convey everything it needs to and your manuscript feels choppy or scattered. Ended too late, a scene gives the reader everything he or she needs to know but lacks artfulness (a manuscript full of scenes like this will come across as long-winded, and will make it difficult for your reader to hone in on your character's growth and your manuscript's theme). But a good scene -- well, a good scene makes us Get It. A good scene gives your reader everything he or she needs to know, and conveys it in a way that's satisfying because it is purposeful.

Scene endings are particularly crucial in a book's most important scenes: those in which a major change or revelation is occurring or has just occurred (perhaps a good way to identify these things is to zone in on those which make use of all three of those aforementioned Ways to Advance Your Story). Important scenes often end with a clincher which nudges the reader's emotions, and thus their perception of the book, in a certain direction. For a very character-based film like Up in the Air, a quiet and very subtle clincher conveys the appropriate emotion perfectly by leaving the viewers' expectations unmet and allowing them to experience some of Bingham's disappointment. For an action-based book, a thrilling cliffhanger might be exactly what's called for. And for a supernatural romance, perhaps the perfect clincher is the long-awaited kiss -- or a close call that ends without a kiss, but with some sort of self-discovery.

Whatever your story, now might be a good time to think about how you're ending your scenes, and what the manner in which you tell your story adds to the story itself. Remember, your story belongs to your character, but its telling is yours and yours alone. You make the decisions: when to cut, when to go on, when to zoom in on your character's thoughts and when to move back for a sweeping view of events. Questioning those decisions in every scene, no matter how small, will help you strengthen your writing, develop a voice, and more powerfully convey both action and character development.

What Can a Job Interview Teach You About Writing?

My apologies, gentle readers, for the long silence! The many, many hours I have spent toiling over cover letters and sending job applications finally paid off in what amounted to an epic (read: long, very busy and absolutely exhilerating) week of interviews. That was enough to drag me (not quite kicking and screaming) away from the computer and my brand new baby of a blog.

I had another post planned, but I've got interviews on the brain. So with no further ado I submit, for your approval, what a job interview can teach you about writing:

1. Practice, practice, practice.
   I spent a lot of time talking to my mirror this week. Really. Yes, I am the resident expert in the subject of my life and times, but that doesn't mean I don't need to practice telling my story in the way that best serves my purpose.
   
   You should do the same with writing. Write the same story, write different stories, write from different points of view, write your characters' back-stories, write scenes you know you'll never use, write dialogue, write descriptions, write love letters to your characters, write hate mail to your manuscripts, write bad love scenes, write good combat, write until your fingers ache. And then, for Locke's sake, go back and delete or re-write most of it. Concert pianists rehearse every day. Major-league baseball players practice every day. Are you going to let people say those guys are working harder than you?
   
   
   
2. Hiring decisions are made in the first five minutes of the interview.
   Put your best foot forward right from the get-go. In an interview, this is crucial; it's all about appearance, presentation and engagement. I'm sure that, for an interview, you'd dress professionally, smile and shake hands firmly with your interviewer upon entering her office. And you'd highlight your best traits, using your strongest examples, in response to the first few questions asked.
   
   Are you doing the same in your writing? If your novel is an action-packed thriller, are you opening with an action scene that demands that your reader turn the page? If your novel is all about beautiful prose, are you opening with your most lyrical writing yet? If your characters are irresistible, are you showing enough of their personalities to make readers fall in love by the end of the first few pages?
   
   Editors are busy people, and readers are prone to increasingly short attention spans. It's crucial that you start strong and hook them early. Of course, you'll have to maintain that momentum once you build it, but you win half the battle by engaging your readers immediately. For instance, I knew I would let Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games take me anywhere when, by the twentieth page, it had already moved me to proud, fearful tears on the main character's behalf (and I am heartless, gentle readers, and rarely cry).
   
   
   
3. Tell the truth. Your interviewer knows when you're lying.
   Yes, interviewers have magic powers; if you stretch the truth, you can be sure the real story will always find them. And it's oh-so-tempting to tell your interviewer exactly what you know she wants to hear, but she's much more interested in your honest response to the questions asked.
   
   So how does that relate to writing? Well, you can write that one story set in a steampunk universe which pits angels against zombies in an epic quest/battle resulting in the angst-ridden teenage vampire confessing his undying passion for the quirky/carefree bisexual heroine with pink hair just before they save the world from the dark overlord... Or, you can stop worrying about what the market is doing right now, and you can write the story you know to be true.
   
   Yes, vampires are selling right now, and folks have a number of theories about what the Next Big Thing will be. But some of the best books of the year ignored the trends entirely and instead hit readers with deep emotional truths and with powerful, original voices that brought their characters to life. They resonate with readers because they feel true. Books like Marcelo in the Real World and Stitches and more can only come from writers who have spent time examining their thoughts and emotions, their reactions to the world around them, their collected memories and their sense of what is deeply true and universal to mankind: loss, love, heartbreak, heroism, humor. So take the hint from them, writers: know thyself. And know thy world. Which leads us nicely to this next tip:
   
   
   
4. A good candidate is as much a listener as a talker.
   An interview is as much a chance for you to evaluate the company as it is for them to evaluate you, and the only way to do that is to give your interviewer ample time to tell you about the role. That means talking only half the time, and spending the rest of it paying attention to what the interviewer has to say and asking insightful questions of your own.
   
   As a writer, you need to approach life the same way: you need to spend as much time listening to the world as you do writing about it. That means both reading voraciously (which of course you already do) and being constantly attuned to the world around you. What does your friend say when she gets good news? Bad news? When she stubs her toe? When she's just woken up in the morning and hasn't had her tea yet? (Yes, tea. Your friend is secretly a Britophile, like me.) How does your mom say those things? How does that woman from next door? And while you're at it, describe how they walk--timidly, like a sparrow hopping a bit closer for a handout, or maybe with a swinging gate and proud shoulders? What might that solitary passerby be thinking when he stops, knocks on the wood of a cafe's table, and then keeps walking?
   
   Lucky you, you get to do more than just live your life; you get to question everyone and everything you see. The more you do it, the more you'll come to understand the experience of being human, and the closer you'll get to that emotional truth.
   
   
   
5. It's all about the follow-through!
   Maybe your week, like mine, has been completely insane, and you've had to dash from interviews to work and then home to study and try to get a little sleep before doing it again. Sadly, that doesn't mean you get to slack off on following up with an email and hand-written thank you note. Whether you like it or not, nobody's putting in the effort to keep you at the front of your interviewer's mind but you. Job-searching is a full-time job and, like in an office environment, if you slack off you let somebody else down--in this case, yourself.
   
   Writing is a full-time job, too, and nobody else is looking for ways to give you more time to write. Life certainly isn't going to hand you a ticket to the mountain/beach/woodland/alternate universe where you can get your creative juices flowing and write to your heart's content. And if you let yourself use the excuse that you don't have time to write, then you will most likely never find the time. So find a way to make it. Personally, I love Johanna Harness's dedication: she wakes up before 5:00 am every morning to write before the day can get in her way.
   
   However you have to do it, find yourself some time to write and consider it non-negotiable. If you'd just interviewed for the perfect job, you wouldn't risk losing it by ignoring that vital thank you note, would you? You'd make time, somehow. So offer your writing that same importance. (But if you have a job, maybe try to hang on to it, at least until you sell a book that becomes a big hit. Unless you're Justine Larbalestier.)
   

Speaking of which, it's high time I get back to that full-time job-searching I've been doing. Thanks for reading!