Aya Katz's Blog - Posts Tagged "plot"
Form and Function Versus Man Hours and Word Count
I am working on a historical novel. I have been working on it on and off all year. The year before that, I was reading the material that gave me the background to write about it.
All that sounds very dry and mechanical and workman-like, but for me that's not how writing a novel is at all. For me it's an emotional experience, like falling in love, and wanting things to go a certain way, and hoping and praying that they will, and then slowly finding out that it goes some other way, because that's what fate ordained, and reluctantly -- fighting it all the way -- making peace with the new twists and turns, and resigning and understanding that there are bigger forces at play, and that I do not control this.
That is why I cannot put my writing on a strict production schedule and why it usually takes years and years of twists and turns before I have a novel finished.
Here is a video that illustrates this point:
Prophetic Element in Vacuum County
I have wanted my current novel to go a certain way. I had a vision for it. But I don't control this. So I keep writing, but I cannot say for sure, when I will finish. It's been going on all year, from January to the present.
November rolled around, and everyone started working on Nanowrimo, something I have only recently heard about. Apparently, they've made November the national novel writing month, and people try to write a complete novel in a single month. What they do is they count words and give themselves a word count goal, dividing the number of words for the complete novel by the number of days in a month, and they see to it that they write at least the minimal number of words for each day, in order to arrive at their word count goal.
That sounds crazy, but of course they already have all their research and outlining done when they start, so it's theoretically doable. As doable, say, as a building contractor having a goal of finishing the construction of a house by figuring out how many man hours it takes and hiring enough men to do the job.
If you've ever dealt with a building contactor -- or anybody who had to build anything in the real world -- you know how well that works! Nothing is ever ready on time, even though everybody has been working the requisite number of hours.
The thing is: there are structural requirements that have to be met when putting something together. And each site requires you to fit your pre-conceived structure to the reality of the ground you are working on. And without being flexible and bending your design to meet those requirements, you cannot accomplish anything, no matter how hard you work. The gods will not let you!
So even if you tell yourself, all I have to do is write 60,000 words and it will be big enough to be a short novel, when you arrive at that goal, but the castle hasn't been stormed, the virgin hasn't been deflowered and the enemy has not even arrived for the final battle, your novel is not finished!
A novel is not a list of words. It is not a list of characters. It is not a list of events. It is not a list at all!
This is what they are not teaching the young people in school: that structure matters. Even literature professors themselves, when they sit down to write novels, seem to forget that there are such things as turning points, climaxes and denouements. That a story is not a story unless there is tension, that a poem is not a poem unless there is contrast, that you can't just string together a series of sub-parts and count them and decide that you have enough.
I have had people ask me: how many syllables do I need per line to make it a poem, when the real question should be what sort of contrasts between weak and strong syllables does it take to build a meter? I have people ask, how many characters does a novel require? How many chapters? Instead, they should be asking what kind of conflicts are needed to build up the tension, and how should those conflicts be arranged? How do you pattern the repeated build ups and the releases for maximal pleasure?
Have you ever been to a concert where they played both classical and modern music? I have. And while I am not a musician and am very musically naive, I could tell right away that the difference between the modernist pieces and the classics was the absence or presence of structure.
Even in the worst classical pieces, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. You may or may not like them, but at least you know when to clap! With the modern pieces, it's not a question of liking or not liking. You have no idea when it's over. Even after they finish playing, you're still sitting there asking: is there more?
My current novel stands at 86,263 words as of today. In terms of word count, it's more than I expected. I wanted it to be shorter. But is it over? Hardly! The final conflict and resolution have yet to occur. The hero has not been challenged, defeated, and risen again despite heavy losses and disillusionment; the heroine has yet to face her darkest demons, and the final curtain cannot fall.
Writing a novel is like solving a problem: you don't do it on a set timetable, and you can't make it go faster by adding man-hours. The solution will come in its own good time, if at all.
I think it was Humpty Dumpty who said it best: the way to tell a story is to start at the beginning, continue past the middle and make it all the way to the end, and then... stop.
That's what I plan to do. I suggest you do the same!
All that sounds very dry and mechanical and workman-like, but for me that's not how writing a novel is at all. For me it's an emotional experience, like falling in love, and wanting things to go a certain way, and hoping and praying that they will, and then slowly finding out that it goes some other way, because that's what fate ordained, and reluctantly -- fighting it all the way -- making peace with the new twists and turns, and resigning and understanding that there are bigger forces at play, and that I do not control this.
That is why I cannot put my writing on a strict production schedule and why it usually takes years and years of twists and turns before I have a novel finished.
Here is a video that illustrates this point:
Prophetic Element in Vacuum County
I have wanted my current novel to go a certain way. I had a vision for it. But I don't control this. So I keep writing, but I cannot say for sure, when I will finish. It's been going on all year, from January to the present.
November rolled around, and everyone started working on Nanowrimo, something I have only recently heard about. Apparently, they've made November the national novel writing month, and people try to write a complete novel in a single month. What they do is they count words and give themselves a word count goal, dividing the number of words for the complete novel by the number of days in a month, and they see to it that they write at least the minimal number of words for each day, in order to arrive at their word count goal.
That sounds crazy, but of course they already have all their research and outlining done when they start, so it's theoretically doable. As doable, say, as a building contractor having a goal of finishing the construction of a house by figuring out how many man hours it takes and hiring enough men to do the job.
If you've ever dealt with a building contactor -- or anybody who had to build anything in the real world -- you know how well that works! Nothing is ever ready on time, even though everybody has been working the requisite number of hours.
The thing is: there are structural requirements that have to be met when putting something together. And each site requires you to fit your pre-conceived structure to the reality of the ground you are working on. And without being flexible and bending your design to meet those requirements, you cannot accomplish anything, no matter how hard you work. The gods will not let you!
So even if you tell yourself, all I have to do is write 60,000 words and it will be big enough to be a short novel, when you arrive at that goal, but the castle hasn't been stormed, the virgin hasn't been deflowered and the enemy has not even arrived for the final battle, your novel is not finished!
A novel is not a list of words. It is not a list of characters. It is not a list of events. It is not a list at all!
This is what they are not teaching the young people in school: that structure matters. Even literature professors themselves, when they sit down to write novels, seem to forget that there are such things as turning points, climaxes and denouements. That a story is not a story unless there is tension, that a poem is not a poem unless there is contrast, that you can't just string together a series of sub-parts and count them and decide that you have enough.
I have had people ask me: how many syllables do I need per line to make it a poem, when the real question should be what sort of contrasts between weak and strong syllables does it take to build a meter? I have people ask, how many characters does a novel require? How many chapters? Instead, they should be asking what kind of conflicts are needed to build up the tension, and how should those conflicts be arranged? How do you pattern the repeated build ups and the releases for maximal pleasure?
Have you ever been to a concert where they played both classical and modern music? I have. And while I am not a musician and am very musically naive, I could tell right away that the difference between the modernist pieces and the classics was the absence or presence of structure.
Even in the worst classical pieces, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. You may or may not like them, but at least you know when to clap! With the modern pieces, it's not a question of liking or not liking. You have no idea when it's over. Even after they finish playing, you're still sitting there asking: is there more?
My current novel stands at 86,263 words as of today. In terms of word count, it's more than I expected. I wanted it to be shorter. But is it over? Hardly! The final conflict and resolution have yet to occur. The hero has not been challenged, defeated, and risen again despite heavy losses and disillusionment; the heroine has yet to face her darkest demons, and the final curtain cannot fall.
Writing a novel is like solving a problem: you don't do it on a set timetable, and you can't make it go faster by adding man-hours. The solution will come in its own good time, if at all.
I think it was Humpty Dumpty who said it best: the way to tell a story is to start at the beginning, continue past the middle and make it all the way to the end, and then... stop.
That's what I plan to do. I suggest you do the same!
