Didgeridoo, Pt. 2: a.k.a. About Delays · 3:43pm Nov 20th, 2017
Blog Number 32: "Laugh and the Whole World Laughs with You" Edition
I apologize in advance, but this is going to be an unhappy post. Specifically, it's about the mismatch between starry-eyed hopes and disappointing realities, made worse because the cause of the disconnect is not obvious to me.
To be honest, this post amounts to little more than an admission of frustration. But I've been trying to solve this without inconveniencing casual passersby for years. On this, my most productive year yet, it somehow got worse, throwing the lurking shadow into sharper and darker relief. So - such as it was - I no longer feel comfortable maintaining that silence.
To put this into perspective: a mere five years, three months, and nine days after announcing my successful six-thousand-word foray into a Daring-Do-meets-ponified-Australia adventure story, my greatest follow-up is... to publish the prologue. Sigh.
It's particularly apt because both the writing and the publishing occurred during NaPoWriMo. This month, NaPoWriMo continues. By now, I've given up the 100,000-word count because that would require a sudden burst of inspiration, and I've had plenty of opportunity to have one of those since I started writing fiction. Barring extremely rare occurrences, it flat-out hasn't happened. It certainly isn't a stable strategy.
So far this month, I've written 38,645 words. Since we're two-thirds of the way through said month, it's not that difficult to imagine I'll make the official target of 50,000 words. Heck, with a little more effort for the last run, I could boast an average rate of 2,000 words a day, which is nothing to sneeze at. So I won't sneeze.
And I looked at Didgeridoo, and I dug out my old notes, and some time after publishing it, I thought, Maybe, just maybe I could actually revive this. I could continue it. I've got ideas. I've got characters. I've got a story plan. My actual writing isn't too bad once I stop trying to be pretentiously flowery. That seems to cover the essentials.
It hasn't happened. Not even close.
To put it frankly, I'm convinced I'm going to ruin it.
More generally, what's frustrating is that it feels at times like there's enough material (behind the scenes, so to speak) to create not just one novel, but lots of novels. If whatever's getting in the way wasn't, and if I was confident I could produce something entertaining yet instructive, that would not be a bad idea. Prolific, delighting, and respectable. What an attractive proposal.
Yet the actual output fails. It either falls short in terms of actual word count, or none of the work qualifies as a complete novel, much less as "lots of novels" at all. Specifically, the word count total for my published stories is 655,321. Shared over 60 fics, that's an average of 10,922 words apiece (approximately). Decent, but not a good sign of productivity, especially after six years. Heck, at a measly 1,000 words a day, I should be well into the millions by now, and all from a regular one hour of work between sunrise and sunset.
The question I'm constantly left asking myself is: Why isn't this working out, then?
So while today's blog entry is going to feature the incomplete Didgeridoo from time to time, it is not exclusively about that fic. It is about the much broader system of translating potential into actual.
The problem is that, while there's a lot of material here and there, it doesn't add up to a novel. Let me give you a few examples.
For starters, look at the character tags listed under the Time Action Glory Challenge purview. A lot of those character tags I've actually worked out personalities, histories, and scenarios for. By way of example, Lily Valley of the Flower Trio is a histrionic doomsayer to the point of being a conspiracy theorist, a show-off within her social circle, and a pegasus descendant. This isn't pulled (entirely) out of whole cloth, but is largely extrapolation from in-show appearances, supplementary materials, and admittedly superficial starting points (for instance, the pegasus affinity was an early joke-explanation for why the only other ponies with her hairstyle were pegasi). She is the perfect candidate to throw into a wholly inappropriate Hero's Journey and watch as she stumbles about looking for the police or the army or even a Princess to save her from all the monsters and from - worse - the weird, quirky allies trying to join her quest and give her plot trinkets.
For another, I had worked out a (now probably obsolete) historical timeline for the gap between Nightmare Moon's banishment and Twilight's cutie mark acquisition, largely for the now-neglected fic Redstreak Jack: Orchards of Time. The general structure was a series of ups-and-downs, wherein disasters and purges alternated with periods of exploration and prosperity. For instance, a hundred-year period of national mourning and stagnation after Nightmare Moon's banishment - as told from the POV of a Leonardo da Vinci style of character trying to invent mechanical wings - is followed by a vaguely Renaissance-inspired period of expansion and exploration - as told from the POV of what was supposed to be a pony's "real-world" equivalent of Daring Do, with cues taken from real-world Roy Chapman Andrews, on the hunt for the First Horned Face, a mysterious monster apocryphally connected to griffons.
Lastly, there were also trivia and running gags intended. In Didgeridoo, for instance, one intended running gag was that even the natives confuse Coastal City (a Sydney-esque city) for the capital, and not Cranberry (a Canberra-esque city), leading Daring Do to keep correcting them and for them to suspiciously ask "Where?" Trivia intended for that fic were the introduction of Devil Frogs - paralleling the Cane Toad invasion - the abandoned opal and gold mines - dangerous enough to be deathtraps in and of themselves - the near-religious obsession over cricket, and the observation that applying, ahem, hydrated urea onto a jellyfish sting is not a good thing to do.
This is just a small sample. My point is that it feels like I should have everything I need to get cracking. I even have complete story plans for many of these fics.
And yet every time I sit down with the Microsoft Word document open and waiting in front of me, a feeling comes up that there's something crucial missing. Some one thing that, because I've neglected it, is going to bring the constructed edifice of words crashing down in a useless heap.
That feeling is not a pleasant one, but it's frequent and persistent, and I've never found a technique that keeps it at bay for long. There's this consistent sense that, were I to proceed with the story material as it is, the result is going to have a big hole somewhere. Worse is the accompanying suspicion that, well-intentioned as I am, unbiased as I hope I'll be, this glaringly obvious hole will hide right behind some blind spot, some psychological kink that won't even let me know of its existence until someone points out the result in a comment.
In short, I have this horrible feeling that I don't get writing. Not at its core.
And that leads, inexorably, to the conclusion that the material I have might not actually be story material. Sure, I've got a worked-out character with specifications for a potentially good narrative arc, psychological study, and social commentary, but that's not a fic. I could write a fictional chronicle of the major events and their key players for a made-up country, but that's not a fic. There's a load of picked-up trivia here and interesting little details there and wonderful grace notes all over the place, but that's not a fic either.
I bring them together. That's still not a fic. It's this final stage that really worries me, because on their own one could at least claim: "Well, obviously, those are ingredients. The cake's the bit with the bowls and the mixing and the oven and the leaving to cool for ten minutes." But here, it feels like I've done all that and I still don't have a cake. At its worst, it feels like I don't have anything edible.
Am I just being paranoid or is this normal? If it is normal, how do I distinguish it from evidence that writing is, just maybe, not something I should be doing? How do I tell? It's frustrating and confusing as all heck. And that's during a normal month, when I'm not trying to break a record for NaPoWriMo.
I think I'll end it there. A nigh-anonymous bit-player like me is in no position to take up too much of your time. In fact, I mostly wrote this hoping that, by doing so, it might kick-start some kind of corrective mechanism. Although admittedly, it's not a strong hope.
Entering the final run of NaPoWriMo. For those that may be reading: Impossible Numbers, out. But, if all goes well, not for long. I just had to get it out there.
Statistics
NEW: List of Reviews
Nothing to add.
Fics Accepted By Equestria Daily
Transient was turned down, largely because it was deemed too openly confusing. Now while I won't pretend it wasn't one of those murkier fics that's a bit cloudier than usual, some of the interpretations I received in the feedback struck me as bizarre, to the point of contradicting what was actually in the fic. I wrote back indicating as much, but I don't believe for a second that's actually going to change anything.
Polite and neutral as I tried to be in the reply, some psychologist somewhere might make a causal connection between this rejection and my blog's content above. As the obvious biased party, I wouldn't even know where to begin challenging such a claim, though I'd like to think the two aren't necessarily connected.
In the meantime, I'm seeing if The Web Untangled will have any better luck.
New Stories? Technically, Didgeridoo.
New Updates: Plenty of new chapters for Magical Deathmatch, which have earned a particularly enthusiastic response. That brings me some considerable delight.
Story Count: 60
My Total Story View Count: Rendered obsolete due to new site changes.
Age: 2,169 days, or 309 weeks and 6 days.
Working: 19 days in December 2011, 2x366 days for 2012 and 2016 leap years, 3x365 days for 2013 and 2014 and 2015 combined, and 323 days so far in 2017 up to today.
My Follower Count: 147, though that's because one dropped out just before another opted in. I don't pretend it's all that mysterious why this happens, especially not on a site with enough rewards elsewhere, but it's still not much fun to watch.
My Followed Count: 87. I really need to expand this.
I have lots of thoughts about this, but I'm going to need to type them up this evening. In the mean time, some questions so that I don't spend a lot of words explaining stuff you already know:
Are you familiar with act structure (either three or five) and if so, how much do you pay attention to that?
Have you ever heard of the MICE quotant?
4730693
Many thanks! OK, to be clear:
1. I've heard of three/five-act structures, especially in the context of theatre, but that's about it. In terms of actual planning, I'm more used to subdividing according to chapters, scenes, and what I call "scenelets". In terms of word count, that's (respectively) roughly many thousands reaching up to 10,000, then 1,000-4,000, and then a few hundred. Very occasionally I consider a higher division I call an "episode" or "book", which is many tens of thousands of words.
Apart from the broad "introduce characters and triggering event" beginning, the "exploration and development of complications" middle, and the "solve, conclude, fulfil, or otherwise stop the scenario" ending, I don't know of any deeper meaning to said structures. Of course, there's also the alternation of good development (for the characters, usually some success) and obstacle (usually the result of an antagonist or some inner demon), and the need for an escalation to a climax, but that's it. By and large, I usually don't want to risk getting too formulaic.
2. Vaguely familiar with the term "MICE", but that was years ago and I've never used the concept. In fact, I had to Google "MICE" after you posted that comment (Milieu, Idea, Character, Event).
That's not to say I haven't used divisions for constructing stories, such as "character", "social development", "society power/politics", "inner thoughts", "environmental obstacle", "myths and legends", and so on. Mostly cobbled together from anthropological and social sciences, I'll admit, but that was just in case I missed a topic or field. I just haven't used that particular "MICE" division.
I hope that helps to clarify my position and to answer your questions. I'd be fascinated to hear back.
4730882
You've got it in one: a paralysis. That's exactly it! And a subtle one, at that.
As to your response to the paralysis: that's me too. I've repeatedly done what you did and kept away from writing for a few days, though in my case it was mostly in case it just needed time to "incubate". You might have seen it differently. I don't know if you had better luck than me either (track record is spotty), or at least if you experienced it as a pleasant break and relief from the frustration (that is definitely it for me).
In all honesty, not when I'm in a rational frame of mind. At other times, I get metaphorically drunk and think 100,000 words is a perfectly good target to aim for. Trouble is - and I don't know if you have this problem, but I guess many people might - that it really does sound beguilingly possible. After all, I have managed that rate in the past, though in short bursts rather than sustained over a month.
Mostly distracting, with a dose of head-bashing. I don't set out to do either, but after setting down to work, that's what ends up happening more often than not.
I'm not sure what that would look like, to be honest. Could you clarify this statement for me, please?
On the subject of the Snowflake Method, I didn't know it by name, but I have tried that a few times, yes. Remarkably well, on occasion. But there seems to be a specific point when it fails: once I've got a scene cut down to "scenelets" (brief synopses of what the next few hundred words should be) and then simply have to write the actual prose. It's around this point that it becomes hard.
Another minor point is that I'm actually OK once I've started a scene. It sounds hackneyed, but the material really does write itself once I'm into it. The trick is getting to that stage. Getting into the zone: some of my best times in writing happen here.
That is a very generous suggestion. Thank you!
I shall definitely keep your offer in mind, though for the moment I'd like to see what bookplayer has to say. You'd be more than welcome to drop a PM if you like. It'd be nice to exchange ideas with someone in the same boat, if only because a large part of the problem is not having many people at my end to talk to about writing specifically (virtually no one in my family is interested, for a start).
Lastly, on Transient: the weird part is that I can broadly see their general point regarding the mystery being too unclear, since a lot of detail is dropped in later on, but the specific examples? Not so much. I'm confused as to how, for instance, a pre-reader interprets it as "Maud and Sweetie died in a cave-in, and Pinkie and Rarity are in denial" until the last chapter. The sisters and the cave-in are not even juxtaposed, much less implied to be linked.
Huh. So it goes, I guess.
4730706
This got very long, and I apologize in advance, though some of it is Neil Gaiman's fault. I’m going to split it up into two comments.
Part 1: How to make sure you have a novel
This looks to me like you’ve done a lot of thinking and understanding how the details work in writing, without much in the way of really considering the theories or schools of thought in story structure. You do have a general concept of it, which is great, but what it feels like you’re describing is that you have a lot of well thought out, considered ideas for characters plot, and worldbuilding, and you’ve looked at your writing and understand a lot of the common ideas of what makes good writing, but then you have no way of figuring out if these things will hang together as a whole. And what tells you that is story structure.
Now, this is only one way of thinking about it, the way I use, but you might find it useful or it might give you a place to start. It’s a combination of two things:
The best piece of writing advice I ever read is from the Writer’s Digest series of books on writing, and specifically from Orson Scott Card (whatever you think of his politics, good advice is good advice.) And that is “finish the story you began.”
This is part of the MICE quotient.
The first aspect of the MICE quotient is that a story should start with a question the audience will ask, and ends when the story has answered that question. And the story must answer that question. That’s what “finish the story you began” means. Answer the question you asked, and then stop.
What that question is about determines the kind of story you’re writing. That’s where the acronym comes in. Now, all stories have Milieu, Ideas, Characters, and Events, and all of those can be important and have related arcs even in the same story, but since you started with one question, you’re primarily telling one story.
If your question is about a setting, you’re telling a Milieu story. These stories begin when a character is introduced to a setting and end when they leave (or decide to stay.) They’re about the interesting things shown by the setting itself, like in Gulliver’s Travels or Alice in Wonderland.
If your question is about a puzzle or concept, it’s an Idea story. They start when your primary character is introduced to the question and end when he’s figured out the (or an) answer. These will follow characters piecing together the concept, whether it’s a mystery or a scientific problem or a philosophical problem.
If your question is about a character, it’s a character story. They start when a character has a problem that makes them unable to function normally in their world, and end when either the character can function normally again, when they find a new way to function that makes them happy, or in sad endings when they accept that they’ll never function the way they want.
If your question is about a problem in the world, it’s an Event story. It starts when the problem starts affecting characters in the world, and ends when it’s solved or the characters can’t fight it any more.
To demonstrate, Star Wars (A New Hope) is an event story. It starts, first thing, by showing the Empire capturing Leia and her sending off the plans for the Death Star. It’s about trying to destroy the Death Star, and the protagonist happens to go through a hero’s journey arc to do that. It ends with a ceremony celebrating that the Death Star was, in fact, destroyed, and there's only one scene in the whole movie that doesn't show you some piece of how the Death Star will be destroyed (Han shooting Greebo, which actually kicks off Han's character subplot.)
Guardians of the Galaxy, on the other hand, is a character story. It starts with Peter’s mother dying, and him losing his place in the world. He might also have to go through adventures and save the day, but the story is about him finding a family. It ends with Peter and his new family flying away, and Peter finding another cassette tape left by his mom. Sure they saved the planet and stopped the bad guys but, as opposed to Star Wars, that wasn't the point of the story.
Now, what I love about this way of looking at stories is that it really helps with those insubstantial bits of storytelling like focus and theme. If you know you’re telling a character story, you know that the important thing is to keep the focus in the characters’ heads, and on their reactions to events. What happens isn’t going to be as important as how they feel about what happens and what it means for them. In an event story, the opposite is true, character moments aren’t as important while showing how all of the pieces come together to stop the problem is the focus.
So, that helps you figure out if what you have planned out is actually what you need to tell your story at an individual scene level.
For the bigger picture of how it hangs together, I’m in love with three act structure.
Now, you mentioned not wanting to seem formulaic. Don’t worry about that for two reasons.
The act structure is really just a map to make sure you’re going in the right direction for a satisfying climax.
(I should mention here that three act structure and five act structure are secretly the same thing. Five act structure just assigns a whole act to what three act structure calls the turning points between acts.)
Just to break it down so we’re on the same page, what I’m talking about goes like this:
Act 1: We have a problem.
Turning point: ...no, we really have a problem.
Act 2: Let’s figure out how to deal with this problem.
Turning point: Now we will try to deal with it in the worst way possible. (Ideally, this should literally be the worst way possible. Whatever key ingredient is going to make the ending work is totally missing or subverted.)
Act 3: Let’s figure out what that didn’t work and try fixing this again.
Now, there’s no rule for how long or short any of that needs to be. But if you can look at your outline and pick out those parts, and they’re in the right order, I can just about promise that you’ll write a satisfying story.
And that’s the point of me going over those two things. If you can look at what you have, and identify your question, your story type, and your acts and turning points, you can rest assured that you have no reason to be worried about whether it’s a novel, because it is. You still have to worry about the writing, the pacing, the world and character building and all that, but your book is there in front of you.
But that might not be your problem anyway.
Part 2: Not writing, and how to write anyway
Your problem might just be that you don’t want to write it right now. And you know what? That’s just fine. Everyone in the world has stories in their heads, and almost none of them will get written. Most writers have more stories than they could physically ever write if they wrote every minute of every day. And just about any story that gets written down will be special to someone, so you can’t ever really pick the “best” stories to write, just the ones you want to tell right now.
And if you don’t want to tell any, you don’t owe the world a story. It’s no reflection on your worth as a person. And really, all of the ways I see you contributing to fandom are a lot of the time more valuable than most of the stories that we all crank out.
On top of that, just because you don’t want to tell a story, or a particular story now doesn’t mean you’ll never tell it. I wrote an original fiction book. I started writing it when I was 18. I got it published when I was 33. Most of those years, I didn’t even think about it. But when I was around 28 it suddenly hit me and I got it written. And I almost wish it had taken me longer, because I continue to improve, and it would be a better book if I wrote it knowing what I know now.
But, all of that aside, I do have a piece of advice if you really do want to write right now, and you did the stuff I mentioned and you know intellectually that you have a good novel and all the pieces, but you can’t get your emotions on board.
Write something. Nothing you write can’t be edited later. Prereaders will tell you if it sucks, and help you make it not suck. If you need to, write the whole 100,000 words before you publish so you can fix the whole damn story.
Neil Gaiman said it better but longer:
And, finally, if you need more tips on actual things you can do to make sure you write, I came up with some a while ago and put them in a blog post, which I’ll link here just in case.
Anyway, sorry to write you a book on the subject. I hope something in there helps some!