Writing in Layers

Painting takes time. But because of the magic of video, it doesn't have to take a lot of time anymore. Four minutes and fifty five seconds to be exact.

In the above video the artist creates a great mood piece of a forest. It's pretty simple, but you'll notice a few things. The artist starts out by painting some background colors. She shades them and blends them until the background is done. Then she paints over the top with some trees. Great. Ok. The trees look nice. But she's not done. She adds more. And each thing she adds covers up something else. It takes away (just a bit) our ability to see the previous layer, but by covering up the early layers she adds to the picture and lets us see her entire vision.

Do you like it? Doesn't matter. I do, but that doesn't matter either.

Here's what does matter. The layers.

When you write through your story the first time you've got a LOT to think about. Sometimes it might be useful to think of your work in layers - adding new elements with each pass. Here's how it has worked for me before:

Many times when I get ideas for a book or scene, I really only get a piece of an idea. I see a character doing something interesting, I think of a great line (or a few lines), maybe a dramatic moment stands out. Sometimes that's all I have. So as I think about the scene I try to fill in the blanks. (David Farland compares it to putting together a puzzle.) Often I'll write an entire scene with only dialogue. To a reader it won't feel complete, but I've managed to frame the whole scene just by writing what my characters say. And I did it all while the iron was hot.

But of course, it's not finished. I go back over the scene adding descriptions, actions, what each character thnks, etc. Then I read through it again making another pass at emotions, or sensory details.  The end product is not what I started with. If you read through the initial pass, you may have expected something completely different (just like the painting). But the end product is what really matters to your reader. They'll love to hear about how you got there, but only if they like where you got. So don't be afraid to take it in steps. And in the end you may come up with something that is much more than anyone expected in the beginning.

Bored

I had a friend tell me recently something to this effect.

When I get bored of writing a story I just stop writing. I figure that if I'm bored writing it, then my readers are going to be bored reading it.

I admit, there's some truth to this statement, and I'm sure that the way he meant it was true, but I'd like to compare it to something I learned in acting. When a play is emotionally moving, it's not because the actor is feeling sad, or angry, or happy, or brave. It's because the audience members feel that way. An actor could feel like they are just going through the motions, they could have a stomach ache, and if the audience felt the right emotions then the actor's performance would be a success. I can't tell you how many times I've told someone that their performance was very moving and they'd respond with, "Really? I felt like it was really weak this time."

It is a somewhat disturbing truth that an actor learns certain skills that allows them to portray emotions and invoke certain responses. A talented actor can literally control your emotions (much more so when you've placed yourself as a willing audience*). And very often the actor relies on those skills rather than actually feeling an emotion. This is especially true in stage plays where an actor might be asked to perform a death scene hundreds if not thousands of times. It doesn't matter one iota what the actor is feeling when they perform. It matters what you feel as an audience member.

The same is true in writing. You will often feel excited about your work, especially at the beginning. There's a reason it's called the honeymoon phase. But there will also be times when you are anything but excited about what you're writing. It's when you're not excited that you'll begin to rely on the skills that you are developing as a writer. You'll push through until the next moment when you are excited. There are some tricks to get excited (I'll put that it another post), but sometimes you just aren't. Sometimes you just don't feel like writing, but the only way an audience will know that is if you stop. They'll know because the story isn't finished. Here's a quoty way to say it, I'll even put it in italics: If you don't feel like writing, write until you do.

You could test this. As an experiment, write consistently, every day for a month, no matter how you feel. Then at the end of the month read over what you wrote and see if you can tell your mood from the writing. I bet you'll be surprised with the results. You might even find that you produce better work when you're not excited about writing.

(NOTE: It is entirely possible that you are bored of the story and that is a sign that the story itself is boring. Keep it in mind as a possibility, but it's just as likely, if not more, that you just need to push through. Developing the skill to understand why you're feeling hesitant about writing is a post for another day.)

(*NOTE AGAIN: As a writer you will also develop this creepy ability to manipulate other people's emotions. Novelist Mary Robinette Kowal, on the Writing Excuses podcast, has even called it mind control from a distance. Be careful with this power, it is super cool.)

The Value of Finishing Something

A while back I had the opportunity to speak with James Christensen, the artist. He had taught art classes at the college level (I believe at BYU) and he mentioned something that I've found useful.

James Christensen liked to teach with water colors, and he found that water color painting was one of the best ways for his students to improve. Now I've seen some great watercolor paintings, but generally I don't think of watercolor as the ultimate artistic tool. It's what you give kids to paint with because it will wash out and it's not too expensive.

But his reasoning was insightful. Why is watercolor so great? Well one reason is that you can't fix watercolor (Bear in mind that I'm talking about actual paint, not digital). Once you draw a line and it dries, there's really no going back. When you're making a watercolor painting you are forced to keep going or start over. One corner of one painting would turn out well, maybe another corner in another one. Each painting would help hone their skills in one area or another. James then said that he would tell his students something like this, 

You've got to make a million pieces of trash before you make your first masterpiece.

There's a similar saying among writers.

You've got to write a million words before you're ready to be published.

This is why I find this anecdote useful as a writer. I have a friend who has some aspirations to write. I personally believe that he has great talent. But he told me recently that he'll often write something in a short snippet of time and then when he comes back to it he just rewrites it. This is not uncommon.

My suggestion for any writer who wants to really get better is to just write. Write something, and don't go back to fix it until you've finished the entire project. Don't let yourself. Imagine that you just put those words down in watercolor and you can't go back to fix them. 

I can imagine many arguments against this exercise, but here's what you gain:

1. You get the experience of writing through the entire shape of a story.
2. You're practicing writing.
3. You know what it takes to push through the difficult parts of writing.

There is great value in learning how to revise, but a perfect first paragraph is not as useful as a mediocre full story. Patton said it this way, "A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week." The point is that if you're always planning and tweaking your idea, you'll never be doing - never actually get something finished. You'll be stuck with a really good first paragraph, but then you won't know how to write the rest. Experience completing a thing makes you a veteran. You may have things to learn, but at least you know that you can see it through.

So go finish something. Write a complete story (short or long). Write a dozen. You'll get better with each one. And then one day you'll look back at one of your pieces and you'll realize that it's actually worth revising.

"The Next Generation of [Writers] Will Fail In Public"

This post is a response to this video.

The video in question is about film makers (that's why the blog title has the brackets), but I think it may have some crossover value for writers.

The main point I want to bring up is the idea of failing in public. The speaker in the video (Elle Schneider I believe) makes the point that the film industry has been run on the "wunderkind" idea. The publishing world has been run in a similar manner. Here's what I mean.

Imagine you are a publisher. You want to sell books. Maybe you love them, maybe this is just a business. In the first case you want people to buy books to share in what you love and in the second case you want other people to buy the books because of the money (but let's be honest, you want the money in both cases). So ask yourself this question Mr. or Ms. publisher: What kind of books are you going to spend thousands of dollars to print? The answer is of course "good" books. Books that you like or think other people will buy. (You won't always make the best choices, but you'll do your best.)

Out of necessity and out of business practice, you have become the gatekeeper. People who want a book come to you because they're pretty sure you'll give them something polished and worth reading.

With e-publishing and youtube it's easy to put your stuff up for everyone to see. The cost is so low that it's almost laughable (or cryable if you wasted your life savings trying to publish a book 10 years ago).

So many new writers will write and share their early works. Years ago no one would ever have seen the early works because the writer would have been rejected a few dozen times before anything even had a chance of seeing the light of day.

Of course even if you do put your stuff out there as a new writer now, chances are that it will still not be seen by many. There's just too much out there. But like youtube films and indie games, writers will have a chance to put there stuff out there and get feedback from the public earlier. This will end some careers and bolster others. Ultimately, the end result will be similar. Successful writers will keep writing until they have built an audience.

But hopefully the myth of the wunderkind will pass away and writers will see that the real way to succeed is to keep writing. Failing is part of the process, and success comes to those who are diligent.