Writing Process 3 | unobtrusive lucidity

What’s In A Name?

There are weeks in which your to-do list gets the better of you. Then there are weeks in which you don’t deal with your to-do list because you’re actually too busy with everything else. This week has been the latter. I started classes on Monday and a new position on Wednesday evening, and things have been a bit of whirlwind since.

Last weekend though, Karen and I were out of town with family, and I managed to steal some excellent and uninterrupted writing time. The end result was that I finished writing the middle section of Part II of my novel-in-progress. That means that I have the final section to outline, and then only about 100 pages or so should be standing between me and a finished rough draft. I’m pretty happy about that. It feels quite nice to write that, actually, and I think I’m going to post more frequent updates here to mark my progress.

All that said, as I reviewed my writing to-do list for the week (none of which had gotten accomplished, of course…it seems to come in waves and leave just as quickly, this progress thing), one of the items was to re-evaluate the name of my protagonist.

That’s sort of a big deal.

Sometimes, us writerly types choose names for our characters carefully and methodically. Other times, the character sort of comes into existence in our heads complete with name and all. This particular character was just that way, and I’ve never even considered giving her a different name. The issue is that, apparently, it’s taken. I discovered a few months ago that a certain extremely popular novel that was recently made into an extremely popular film stars a major character with this same name. I had never read the book nor seen the film, as they aren’t really my style, so I was quite surprised. The name, you see, isn’t at all a common one.

So, my concern is this: will someone reading my novel after publication encounter this character literally on page 1, and think that I’ve copied her from a book I’ve never read, or a movie I’ve never seen? Or will they think that I’ve copied the name simply to gain a readership? Will they think that I’ve copied the name at all, or will they just roll with it? A name, after all, is never really original.

I’ve looked through some alternate names, but nothing has really connected with me, because, as I’ve gotten to know the character, naming her something else just seems to be forced. Not naming her something else, though, seems logistically problematic.

So, what would you do? Leave your character with the name with which she appeared, or arbitrarily change her name to something that may at least be close? I’m really stuck on this one. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Special Edition: The “Lucky Seven Challenge”

For your weekend reading pleasure, I’m doing something that I don’t usually do. This is a meme in which I was tagged by fellow-author and blogger Michelle Davidson Argyle. The deal with this is that she tagged several writers to do the following: select page 7, line 7 from your current work-in-progress, and then post the next 7 lines of dialogue.

You’d think that would be fun and easy, but I pulled up my manuscript on the iPad that evening and found the selected passage, and it would have been…well, awkward. So I re-visited it this morning, only to find that the canonical soft-copy on the desktop version of Pages calculates page numbers differently than the iPad version of Pages. This time it would be…well, not awkward, but…

In any case, I’m bending the rules a bit, but here’s something from page 7 of the work-in-progress:

“I was going to give the lady’s purse back. That was my whole point. But it scared the hell out of me that I did that. So I just ran. Left him screaming in the alley.”

“I think anyone would have done the same thing.”

“Yeah, well…I haven’t done any super-heroing since.”

Interested? I hope so! I’m still 100 + pages away from finishing the project, so I should get back to work on that. Happy Saturday, and thanks, Michelle, for tagging me in this!

A “Facepalm” Moment

For someone who has a self-proclaimed dislike for routines, it occurs to me that I have a lot of them.

When I get up in the mornings, I have a routine born of the need for survival (have I mentioned that I’m not a morning person?). Wake up, make coffee, drink coffee, etc. If anything happens prior to the “drink coffee” stage, I can’t be held responsible for how it turns out.

When I get home in the evenings, there is an order to how I do things…get the mail, load the dishwasher…you get the idea.

I tend to be very process-oriented creatively, as well…to have a routine, of sorts, depending on the project. For example, when I’m directing a play, I have that out-of-the-box creative spark in the beginning, and then I follow the same process from read-through to performance, although slightly customized, every time. Karen tells me that I’m a technician in this regard. And, when I’m problem solving, I tend to work through a very orderly checklist…that is, when my friends call me for unofficial tech support, I walk them through “have you tried this? And this?” until the issue is solved. Its very similar when our daughter starts crying: I work down the list of the most likely things that could be wrong until she’s content again.

For some reason I’m normally a little looser with processes when it comes to writing. Maybe its because each project is so different. When I open a new blog post, I start typing stream-of-consciousness, then move things around into the order I want, then edit for grammar, and then I always open it in preview mode and give it one last read before posting. I don’t follow a specific process with short stories, however, even though I’ve written a lot of them. And now that I’m literally in the middle of a novel, I have some ideas about how the process has worked, but it’s my first, so I can’t say that I have a process yet. The one thing that is consistent across the board when I’m writing a creative project or an article or whatever, though, is this: when I have a rough draft and its been edited somewhat, I shelve it for a few days or even a couple of weeks, so I can return to it with fresh eyes.

I learned a hard lesson in the last few weeks, a lesson that tells me that I need to adhere to what little consistent process I have in writing. I had a great new idea for a short story spark in my head right after the birth of our daughter…one of those times when you wake up after a bizarre dream and realize that the dream would be really cool on the printed page. It took off from there, and I had a rough draft in three days. Then I edited, but I felt a time crunch for some reason…I’m not sure why, it’s not like I was on any sort of deadline other than what I had imposed on myself. In any case, I didn’t shelve it. I edited, rushed it by a couple of beta-readers, gave it a few final passes even though I couldn’t focus on it any more and registered it for copyright in record time. I think its because I had already researched and found a science-fiction journal that I was convinced was a great fit for this story. It’s exactly the kind of piece, I thought, that they print. This was going to be an instant success, I knew. I just knew. So, I hurried through the editing, and submitted, instead of following the process.

Then I sat back and waiting for the good news.

And, three weeks later, the rejection slip arrived in my inbox.

Now, they were kind and offered strong editorial feedback on the piece, which is exactly what a writer wants when their work is rejected. Part of the feedback was that the language was “clunky” is places. Like any writer, I’ve received more rejection notices than I have acceptance notices. Writing is, by nature, the definition of insanity. This one stung, though. It took me a few hours to shake this one. Then, at least, I made a smart decision. I didn’t touch the piece for a week and a half.

Then, the words “clunky language” resonating in my head, I delved into it again with fresh eyes for a new round of edits. I found clunky language. I found obvious grammatical errors, an unforgivable oversight when submitting for publication. I actually found inconsistencies in the facts of the story! In short, this is a manuscript that I had proudly submitted, convinced of its pending success, that screamed amateur!!!

The worst of it is that all of these errors and problems are things that I quickly discovered after shelving the manuscript for a couple of weeks, looking at it afresh, and doing a systematic edit. In other words, had I followed my process, the manuscript would have stood a much better chance at publication.

I think the lesson I’ve learned here is about patience. I need to acquire some. Being creative takes time if the project is going to be done correctly.

Lesson learned.

Photo Attribution: stofiska

The Nature of a Hero

Image of Batman and Robin shadows on a sign. Image used under Creative Commons.

Just before our daughter joined us a couple of months ago, I finished Part I of the novel that began brewing in my head during a train ride about two years ago. It began as an interesting idea about a dystopian future scenario, and blossomed from there for a year or so, percolating slowly in the back of my head before it became a workable idea. Then came the mind-map. Then the plot outline. And, finally, I finished the rough draft of Part I this Fall. If all goes according to plan, now that I’ve let it sit for a while and I have an idea of what adjustments I need to make to the overall plot, I’ll pick the manuscript up again next week.

I was procrastinating picking it up again, though, I have to be honest, because the weight of the project feels overwhelming at times. Sometimes, when a project begins to feel that way, you have to shelve it temporarily until you can re-discover what made you passionate about it originally. I have managed to re-discover that, fortunately, a couple of times over the last week or so.

Its no secret that I tend to be a sucker for police procedural dramas. Probably because I’m convinced that I could never write in that genre, and so I respect those who do that much more. Karen and I watch The Closer together, and were just finishing the second disc of season 6 late last week. In one episode, Brenda is forced to give a suspected murderer immunity for his confession in order to catch another murderer. During the confession, the first suspect admits to a brutal double homicide, but Brenda and her team have to release him because of the immunity agreement. At the end of the episode, Brenda finds a loophole in the immunity agreement clause about police protection for the suspect. She and her team drive him to his home, a notorious neighborhood for gangs. The other gang members know that the suspect has broken their rules by the murders he committed. Brenda and her team leave the suspect alone with the gang members, who are obviously about to administer their own form of justice.

This sparked conversation with Karen and myself. Initially, I commented that I didn’t think I had a problem with it, because the suspect was unrepentant of committing the worst of crimes (one of his victims had been a little boy), and thus justice was being carried out, despite the system.

However…

Over the weekend, Karen was watching an episode of CSI (who knows which sub-series…this isn’t one I watch with her). She expressed that she was troubled by one of the characters, because that character had an opportunity to save a criminal from falling to his demise in an episode, but let the criminal fall instead. She expressed that this was done with a similar motivation as Brenda had in leaving her suspect behind in the episode of the Closer. Justice, in its most succinct and complete form, was done. The law, however, was not upheld. This bothered her.

I remember the Batman being confronted with the chance to let the Joker fall to his death in the Dark Knight. Despite knowing that the Joker was the most terrifying and calloused of homicidal maniacs, Batman tried to keep him from falling.

Of the three examples, Batman seems more the legitimate hero to me, because he acted under the assumption that any life, even that of the Joker, is worth saving. This presupposes that no human being is beyond redemption…that we all deserve one more chance. As noted elsewhere by my fellow-blogger Katherine, Batman frequently acts under this presupposition, at the expense of himself and his own reputation (hence his decision at the end of the Dark Knight, in which he tells Gordon that he can be whatever Gotham needs him to be). This is acting counter to heroes who are functioning more as anti-heroes, such as Moore’s The Watchmen. Early in that graphic novel, Rorschach imagines a scenario in which the depraved public beneath his watchful gaze will look to him and cry for help, to which he decides, “…and I’ll whisper, ‘no.'” Rorschach has taken on the role of administering justice himself.

It seems that being a hero involves giving grace, acting beyond what normal individuals can do to preserve all life, trusting that the system will judge, and not taking it upon oneself to administer justice. That is the difference between a hero and an antihero, a self-sacrificial, mysterious savior and a vigilante.

The reason that this connects with my novel is that the nature of a hero is what I’m attempting to explore. Its a complicated question, but one that I’m passionate about, and, with these discussion points having been brought to my attention over the last few days, I’m ready to launch back into the manuscript now.

Being excited is a good thing.

Image attribution: Brett Jordan under Creative Commons.

To Twist, or not to Twist?

I wasn’t planning on expanding on my last post, but I just found myself inspired.

When I say inspired, I’m talking about my work in progress, which is a science fiction novel. I met my self-imposed deadline, and finished Part I just before the new addition to the family arrived, working under the assumption that I would only have to time to edit for about a month after she was born, if I had time to do that. So far, I’ve squeezed out about an hour to tackle some editing, only to discover just how enormously monumental a task this is going to be.

When I say “rough draft,” I didn’t realize just how rough it is.

Tonight, though, I was finishing playing catch-up on Haven, which I blogged about at the beginning of the week. This season has ended with some excellent plot twists that I just didn’t see coming. I respect the writing a great deal, and I’m very much anticipating next season (we had to wait for season 2 after a cliffhanger, and they’re using the same approach between seasons 2 and 3).

I remember these sorts of plot twists in Heroes, as well…back in its first two seasons when it was still an excellent program. Unfortunately, it didn’t survive the writer’s strike, but the show was known for outstanding and inventive teasers and plot twists that kept you hooked from week to week. In that way, it left me in mind of the comic books to which it paid homage.

And, since those comic books inform my own work in progress, I’m wondering if that specific type of foreshadowing and twisting is even possible outside of a serial. That is, since I’m writing a novel, I wonder if its possible to include that in a novel’s format? Certainly, there are writers of various genres that have reputations for keeping the reader guessing as to what’s really going on. Yet, when I think of the great writers of speculative fiction…the Asimovs and Henleins…I don’t really see these types of plot twists in their work.

Not that I’m thinking that I could even possibly be at the level of those writers. I’m just inspired with these sorts of surprises in story arcs, and I’m left wanting to re-visit the ideas that I formulated for the second half of my work in progress. My concern with this project from the beginning has been that the plot is interesting, but not gripping. I’m inspired to explore the possibility of twisting the plot around a bit. Yet, I don’t want to impose something onto the story that doesn’t belong there. That is, I don’t want to try to make it something its not, but I don’t want to hold it back from reaching its potential, either.

Decisions, decisions. And that, of course, is assuming I have to time to explore any of this any time soon as I’m busy exploring my new role as “daddy.” Here’s to the weekend!