Trevor M Davison

You may remember that, way back at the start of August, I decided to write a second first draft. I decided to start from scratch, to see how my story would re-unfold, all with the hope that it would turn out even better than the first time through.

The biggest thing that drove this decision was one character. Sure, I’d done a lot of discovery about all of my characters, but one in particular had changed so dramatically that I couldn’t just slip all of her added depth in through editing. I had to rewrite the novel to make it work.

But then just recently, she changed again. And this time she didn’t just gain more depth. Her entire reason for being changed. Oh sure, her main story line remained, but there’s now so much more behind it, and an entirely new set of complications tangled in with it. What’s more, she has to be a completely different person inside to make it work.

Now one thing that writers often say — and that I fully agree with — is that a writer’s job is to listen to the characters, and to let them evolve on their own. Our creative process is more of a “discovery” or “unearthing” of living, breathing characters. This complete change may sound like I’m trying to force her to be something she’s not, but I don’t think it is. Instead, I think of her as an entirely new character stepping into the original character’s place. Sure they share the same name, and sure their story line starts off similarly, but she is an entirely new and infinitely more interesting person.

The only problem is, I don’t know her. Not one bit. Yes, yes, I know her in very broad strokes, but not in the way I know any of my other characters. I’ve only just met her, and I don’t know what makes her tick. So while all of my other characters are marching along proudly, she’s stumbling.

I love the scenes where my protagonist thinks about her. There’s so much turmoil in his head, so much struggle, and the writing flows out of me. But when she’s actually there, in the flesh? Dull. Now luckily, she’s a character who isn’t due to be around a lot at first, and only gradually shows up more as the story progresses. She’s only actually been present in two scenes so far. But since I don’t know her, she’s hollow. I don’t know how to write her, what kind of personality to give her, or how much to reveal about her motivations. She’s just “there”, and there’s nothing more to it than that. *sigh*

So before I go much further, I think I have to take a little break and do some character discovery again. Whether I rewrite her two scenes right away, or leave them for now and do them again later, doesn’t matter. What matters is that I know her better before letting her limp any further. Only then will I be able to write her scenes with confidence.

But this makes me so excited! I can’t wait to find out what lurks inside her, and what she’s really capable of. This will be fun!

When I first started writing my novel nearly a year ago — rather, when I was gearing up to start writing it — emotions terrified me. I didn’t think I had a hope of writing them realistically, or of delving into a character’s inner self in anything more than a superficial way. I thought that emotions, if anything, would be my downfall as a writer, and that the only thing giving my novel a chance was that it was an action-packed science fiction romp. Sure, more depth would have been nice, but since I felt incapable of producing it, I could only hope that my genre would be forgiving.

But as I wrote the first draft, I noticed something. I really enjoyed writing that emotional stuff. Exploring the character’s deepest thoughts, their fears, what drives them, was a blast. Not only did I enjoy it, but those scenes flowed like I couldn’t believe! I’d gone into this project looking forward to writing the exciting action scenes, but found that I actually struggled with them. It was hard to make them fit my mental storyboards and actually come off as exciting as I’d imagined them. But the inner stuff? I’d fly through it, and it was good.

I found that in my first draft, I looked forward to those scenes, but still only included a few of them. This is a plot-heavy story, after all. But now that I’m writing the novel over from scratch, I find that I can’t just stick to plot-only scenes. They’re too much struggle, and are so empty and unsatisfying. Whenever my writing feels stuck, I look back at what I’ve been trudging through and realize, “hey, it’s pure plot, that’s why.” All I do is add some inner turmoil and the wheels start turning again.

This second time round, I’ve already written far more introspection into the scenes, but with this realization, I think I’ll add a lot more. The story is still full of action, don’t get me wrong, but if I’m successful there will be so much more feeling behind it, making the action actually matter. And that’s the beauty of it all. This is the kind of stuff that actually makes a story good. And now that I realize how easily it comes to me, and that I should be doing it more, I love it!

Case in point: I just finished writing a scene. In the first draft, it was a tiny scene that hardly had any reason to be there, just barely more than half a page long. This time, though? It’s four pages long, it’s riveting, and I stormed through it in under 75 minutes. That’s almost twice as fast as I usually write. Wow! And the next couple scenes coming up will probably be just as good. I’m so excited!

Yes, my writing is continuing to mature. I wonder what the next step will be?

From very early on in this writing venture, I realized the value in allowing myself to write less-than-perfect prose. The creative side and the critical sides are completely at odds with one another, and if I try to write “well”, my internal editor will bog my creator down so much that nothing will ever get done. I know full well that when I get to the editing phase, I’ll let my critic out and I’ll refine things as well as I am able, but when I’m actually trying to tease creation out of myself, I just have let that part of me play, without any silly constraints like “quality”.

But after letting my conversation with Rob Gray percolate a bit more, I just realized something else. I think I have to let go of more than just the quality of my early writing. I also have to allow myself to write pure throw away junk. As strange as that sounds, I think it’s key to keeping myself in a positive frame of mind, particularly while writing parts of my novel that aren’t fully planned out.

You see, there have been several times recently where I’ve been down in the coffee shop, struggling through a scene and just feeling useless. The writing’s not flowing, the scene feels forced, and the whole thing just seems utterly uninspiring. I really let it get me down. The scene sucks. I’m not enjoying writing it. How do I ever expect anything to happen with my writing when I’m doing such a bad job? I leave the coffee shop after an arduous, unproductive, dispiriting session, feeling like I’d just wasted one of my few, precious evenings that I actually get to write. Worse, the first thing I do in my next writing session is delete everything I’d written on that bad night, because it was so awful.

Up until today, I always viewed those nights as failures. The time available to me for writing is so scarce that I wanted to make every writing session as productive as possible. I needed to make progress every time I sat down at my laptop. How else did I ever hope to get this project finished?

But I’ve realized now that I was looking at it all wrong. Why? Because either later that night, or sometime the next day — without fail — I’d think of a way to fix it. Sure, I’d invariably scrap that entire evening’s worth of writing, sometimes rewriting it better or just dumping it in favour of something entirely different. But I always managed to get past it and end up with something good. And isn’t that the more important thing?

I think this is another phase in taking the pressure off of myself, and allowing my inner creator the freedom to do what it needs. Not only can I write a good story with crappy writing, knowing that I’ll come back later to polish it to a shine. But when I’m struggling through a tough part of the story, where I don’t know quite which direction to go, I have to have permission to write absolute junk that I’ll just toss out the window the next time I’m at my computer. The mere act of writing is getting the creative juices flowing, and even if it doesn’t produce something I like this time, it will set my mind in motion to solve the problem for the next time. I’m not so much writing junk. I’m doing a practice run for the real thing. And in that, it’s a complete success.

Realizations like this are happening all the time, and being surrounded by and introduced to inspiring, supportive people is such a big part of it. I just met Allison Mack today, and wow, she really impressed me. Pursuing her creativity in order to do something that matters to her, rather than staying within the safe bounds. Doing so much work to break through her own personal boundaries to find what her real dreams and true potential is, rather than just sticking to the easy answers. And all that wrapped in such a warm, open, and caring package. I left feeling so positive and encouraged, as if this all really can work out in the end. I hope we get to chat again soon.

I always hear that you’ll never get a novel published if you don’t already have publishing credits, like from short stories. That’s all fine and good, since I actually like writing short stories. The only problem is, I’m so focused on getting my novel written, that I don’t want to set any quality writing time aside to write shorts.

Well, I have a solution. Until I’m finished writing this draft, I’ll stay focused on the novel, and only the novel. But I’m gonna have to take a break at some point, between writing and editing. That’s the perfect opportunity to take on small projects. I’ll be able to distance myself from my novel, so that I’m more objective when editing comes, but I’ll still keep my writing muscles exercised. Even better, I’ll get to finish some stuff fairly quickly, and maybe get some of those all important publishing credits. *fingers crossed*

Besides, I’m sure there are some people out there who would actually like to read some of the stuff I’ve been working on. Wouldn’t that be a novel concept?

So I had a great chat with my friend Rob Gray the other day. We talked about creativity, expectations, the pressures we put on ourselves, and all sorts of other things. He’s so encouraging and helpful, and the night ended with me feeling rejuvinated and energetic, itching to get back to writing. But for the right reasons this time.

Pressure

You see, I’ve been putting a lot of pressure on myself with this novel. It must get published. It must be of “literary” quality. It must be a roaring financial success. And it must achieve all these things quickly, because I don’t want to wait any longer.

I’ve been pinning so many of my dreams on this thing, and all the while I’ve been dragging myself down with it. It has to get published, even though I know that most books — particularly from first-time writers — never do. It has to have the depth of character and prose found in some of the “great novels” by the masters, even though I’ve only just begun, and even though my book won’t be competing against them. It has to bring in enough money to comfortably live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, even though it’s understood that most writers barely make anything from their writing. And all this stuff has to happen soon, even though I have limited time at my disposal, limited energy left after a mentally challenging day at work, and an industry that isn’t known for its lightning fast turnaround.

Yup, it’s time for a reality check.

Changes

One of the first things I have to let go of is that schedule I’d made for myself. Now, I’m not saying it’s completely out the window. I think the small-scale goal of about a chapter per week is just fine. But the long-term goal of getting the entire story written by the end of February was just a little insane. I don’t even know how long the story will end up, let alone what kind of road blocks will spring up along the way. I’ll strive to keep up with my weekly targets, maybe even besting them sometimes, but if I can’t achieve them I won’t beat myself up over it. I need to have goals that push me, but that are also achievable, and that won’t cause too much anguish when they slip. Remember, this is supposed to be fun, right?

I’m also getting my body moving again, which is paying dividends already. I’ve been out running several times, and I’ve been hitting the gym nearly every day. I sometimes forget just how much my mood and self-image depend on getting exercise. You wouldn’t believe how much I missed seeing the veins popping out on my forearms. And now with the mountains getting a healthy dose of snow, cross-country skiing and snowshoe running are right around the corner.

Writing

I’ve had a few good writing days in a row, and just finished chapter 6 last night. More than that, I’m seeing just how much value is coming out of doing this rewrite. The story is changing even more than expected. New scenes are being added that fill in much needed detail; scenes I’d never really liked are getting dumped or rejigged to the point where they’re unrecognizable; characters are morphing into fantastic new life.

In fact, one of my characters is becoming an entirely new person. The changes to her were one of the reasons I decided to do a rewrite in the first place, but now I’m taking it to an entirely new level. The reasons for her behaviour are actually good now, and she’s tied more directly into the main story, rather than just being a complication for the protagonist to deal with.

And even better, the protagonist gets even more entangled in that complication than before. He no longer realizes his mistake early on and backs off before things get too serious. No, like a good character in a novel, he runs headlong into trouble, only realizing after the fact that holy crap, he’s really screwed up this time! I jumped ahead and wrote that scene on the weekend, and it made me all giddy.

Breakthrough

And last night, I had a little breakthrough. There were two seemingly unrelated things in my story that had bugged me the first time through, and I can solve both of them with the same solution.

First, I had that annoying cliche of a scene where, soon after a disaster occurs, a whole bunch of important, nameless people that you’ll never see again gather in a room to discuss what to do. Granted, it gives the characters “permission” to proceed with their plans. But most importantly, it’s a lazy way for the author to do a bunch of exposition, and to pass it off as a scene. It lets the author say, “See? I’ve thought of all this stuff. I’ve done my research, and I want you to know it.” But really, it just bores the reader to tears. I know. I’ve been there.

Second, one of the really important characters has a complete change of heart part way through the book, in a way that has a profound effect on the protagonist. Awesome, right? Except I couldn’t think of a good way to make this happen The first time through, she changed her mind soon after a heartfelt discussion with the protagonist, and I convinced myself that this was enough to send her off in the new direction. But deep down I knew that the discussion was neither anything earth-shattering, nor something she hadn’t heard a thousand times before. It just didn’t make any sense.

But I’ve figured out a way to fix both of these problems. Rather than having “important people” talking about “important things” that the reader doesn’t care about and will forget in two seconds, these topics will be transformed into intimate conversations between the characters we actually care about. I get rid of an annoying scene I never liked; the discussions gain emotional punch, and will likely stick with the reader longer; these new discussions could easily lead someone to change their mind about something; and best of all, I no longer feel like I’m copping out.

All in all, things are going pretty darn well again. Yay!