My Style Part One: Where to Start

I first realized that I wanted to be a writer back in the second grade. It took over twenty years for me to actually get started. Part of that was, of course, learning the basic language and grammar skills necessary to produce work ready for publication, but part of my delay was from not knowing how to get started. Sure, I had a computer, word processing software, and even if I hadn't had these things I would have had pen and paper, but what should a prospective author write about? How much time each day should you spend writing? What should you do if you get "writer's block?" How do you keep yourself motivated through all the pages and words and revisions? I didn't know the answers to these things, and I allowed them to delay my entrance into writing for far too long. Some sort of an easily accessible guide would have been invaluable back then, but the Internet was in its infancy during my teenage years of navigating basic bulletin boards using 28k modems that tied up our house land-lines, and the idea of surfing the web for information was still unknown to me; I considered it a triumph that I could reserve books at the local library online!

Today there are lots of sources of information for prospective writers. Visit almost any author or literary agent's website or blog, and you'll discover articles providing tips to new writers. This isn't a coincidence. Writers want to help their fellows tell their stories and improve their craft. Sure, it helps create competition, but if you love books that isn't a bad thing; you get to read the new stories other authors produce, and maybe you'll see something that sparks a new idea for you, a different take on a scene that spins a whole new story. Maybe you simply get to read an awesome book. That's a treasure all on its own.

But there's another reason writers write about their craft. It gives us an opportunity to examine what our techniques and methods are, to think about why we do things the way that we do. If someone else benefits from our introspection, that's well and good too.

This isn't the one and true way to do things. It isn't even necessarily the best way to go about things, but it is the way that I do things. My style. My method. If this helps someone who is trying to get started, wonderful. At the very least, I hope that this article is interesting to read.

 Where Do The Ideas Come From?

Let me paint a scene for you. You're seated at your workspace; the dining room table, a desk, your bedroom dresser… wherever. You've got your computer booted up in front of you, the word processing software of your choice loaded, a fresh document waiting for you on the screen, cursor blinking. There are a couple of pencils neatly lined up beside you next to a legal pad so you can jot notes to yourself down as you write. A fresh mug of coffee wafts its delightful aroma into your nostrils, or perhaps a cool glass of iced tea sparkles tantalizingly nearby. You're seated comfortably, and all of those distractions are put away or turned off. You crack your neck from side to side, enjoying the satisfying pops as you work the kinks out. You lace your fingers together over your head, stretching your back while cracking your knuckles. You're all ready to go. This is the day. Today, you start your first novel. You lower your hands so that the pads of your fingers gently rest on the home row of your keyboard…

Then you stare at the blank screen, waiting. And waiting. After yet more waiting, there's still nothing. Your fingers aren't magically auto-typing words onto the page like some sort of digital-age Ouija board. Your story isn't spewing forth from the nether recesses of your brain. You've got bupkis. Jack.  Holy shit, you're screwed.

Sound familiar? Teeth clenched tight as you remember living a scene very much like the one above? Me too. I think that everyone who writes experiences this at some point. We want to write, and it doesn't sound like such hard work when you get started… but it is. It takes effort, and thought, and at least some small degree of planning. Ideas don't come from nothing, no matter how many times we say "It just came to me one day!" It didn't. There was an origin. Maybe you didn't realize it at the time; your subconscious was crunching the numbers and putting things together for you, but didn't clue you in until the idea was formed. Maybe you know the source. It was that old couple you saw sitting in the park, clearly upset with each other after some kind of argument, but unconsciously holding hands because that's what they've done for the last forty years. Maybe it was something you heard on the news the other day. There are story-worthy events all the time in the news. Three women were recently rescued from a house in Cleveland; you think that no one is getting inspiration from their story? Heck, it's not my sort of genre, and even I'm getting ideas!

So where do our ideas come from? Where do we get our inspiration? The answer is that it all comes from the world around us. We can't control it. We can't help it. If a storyteller hears about an interesting story, they want to tell it. It's who are, you know?

So if we can't force ideas, what can we do when faced with that blinking curser that refuses to form letters behind it? Are we stuck, finished, doomed? Of course not. We just need to go back to basics.

Basics

First thing's first: Do you know what kind of genre you want to write in? That might seem like an obvious duh of a question, but anyone who has worked tech support for computers know that the first questions you want to ask are whether all the cords are plugged in, especially that damn power cord. So have you thought about it at all? If you haven't, and nothing comes to mind right away, consider this: What do you like to read? Good authors don't just write stories in their preferred genre(s). They read those genres. They love those genres. They can tell you the names of other authors in that genre. 

Why?

If you can't stand fantasy, how are you going to enjoy writing it? If you don't enjoy writing it, how will you make your reader enjoy it? No matter what you think, no matter how formulaic you find a genre, you need to enjoy the genre to treat it well. I'm not a fan of mysteries. I solve them quickly but spend half the book hoping that I was wrong. After going through this a few times, and feeling like I'd cracked a special "code" I gave up on the genre completely. Not my cup of tea.

I'm reasonably certain that if I wrote a straight mystery thriller, it would be crap.

Another reason to pick a genre is that genre will provide you with some conventions and common elements to get started. If it's fantasy, there are probably guys running around with swords at some point. Western family probably bears a passing resemblance at medieval Europe. Maybe there's magic. That's something to start with, right? Now think about the fantasy you love; did it have those common elements? Were there any plot hooks the author left dangling and never came back to that can give you a start for your own ideas? It isn't stealing, it's borrowing, and don't worry – you'll make it your own soon enough.

Sometimes looking at genre can display things you don't like, things you wish wasn't in every novel of that genre. Maybe you think your favorite genre would be better with elements from another genre blended in? Have you ever read Alloy of Law, by Brandon Sanderson? The book is fantasy, but it has a sort of steampunk vibe to it, mixed with a little western. There's magic (Sanderson has some awesome creativity when it comes to magic systems), guns, outlaws, nobles, high society, and a fight on a train. There's some genre-blending going on there! The best part? It's a sequel to Sanderson's Mistborn Trilogy, a series that was spawned by Sanderson wanting to write an Oceans Eleven-type crime story, but blending it with fantasy. Heh. There's a lot of twists to those stories, and they're great for it.

Sanderson's books prove how you don't need to feel limited by your genre, but you can use them as a framework to get started. Learn from that example.

An Exercise

Here's an exercise for you. I'm borrowing it from Donald Maass, a distinguished literary agent who has some writing credentials of his own. In his book, Writing the Breakout Novel, Maass presents an exercise that I happen to love. Take a moment to think of the books you've read, and pick your top three. You know the ones. You've read them countless times. Maybe you've had to buy them again because you ruined the bindings on your originals, or they got lost in a move and you couldn't bear the thought of being without them. You can probably quote lines form them. Yeah, those three. Got more than three? Limit it down to just that. We don't want too many books at the moment.

Now go get them. Lay them down in front of you. Now think about them. What are they about, who are the characters, where or when do they take place, why do you love them so much? After you've thought about each one, start looking at the ways in which they are similar.

You might be protesting: "But, Grant, Eat, Pray, Love is nothing like The Hobbit! And neither one is The Stand!" I'll give you that. On the surface, the story of one woman's inner journey from a loveless life with a career she no longer felt fulfilling to a place where she discovers the joy of living life and finds true love doesn't sound much like the story of man who protests the call of adventure as a wizard and a group of dwarves recruit him to be a thief for them as they attempt to reclaim their home from a dragon. A post-apocalyptic struggle between God and the Devil doesn't fit with those books either. But these are your favorites, the books you love best in all the world. Don't just look at the surface! Dig deep! Think about the characters and their qualities. Are there any in common? What about themes, setting, verbage… the list goes on and on. Maybe the elements of the books don't have anything you can codify so neatly, but certainly the books elicited a type of reaction from you. Did they draw you into the world? Make you care about the characters' conflicts? Did they make you laugh? Cry? Cause a variety of emotional responses within you? What triggered these responses? Those are the things you should be paying attention to.

Take some time. This isn't something that should come all at once. This is preparatory work for your idea, your inspiration, to spring forth. You laying some groundwork to build the foundation of your story.

An Example

I did the above exercise when I first read Writing the Breakout Novel (Maass goes into further, wonderful detail about it in the actual book, which I highly recommend you read). Here were my three: The Belgariad, by David Eddings (Yes, I know that The Belgariad is a series, but I read it in compilation editions rather than the individual books, so I don't tend to think of the series in terms of five books); Dune, by Frank Herbert; and The Eye of the World, by Robert Jordan (The Wheel of Time I do think of in terms of separate books, and the Eye of the World is my favorite, though Sanderson's books are running close seconds).

My three picks might seem pretty easy compared to the examples I listed above. I'm a fantasy/sci-fi boy through and through, and always have been, so my favorites do happen to come from similar genres. However, it's what I drew from them that is important.

The Belgariad is a series focused around a young farm boy named Garon, who turns out to have destiny far greater than his humble upbringing would imply. He is the many-times-great-grandson of the first sorcerer, Belgarath, and is a sorcerer himself. Further, he is the Rivan King, leader of the western world. He is destined to face the god Kal Torak, and defeat him as the battle between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark continues as it has throughout the ages.

Dune is the first book in a classic sci-fi series which has spawned video games, a movie, television mini-serieses, and prequels and sequels galore, long after the death of Frank Herbert. It is the story of Paul Atreides, son of Duke Leto Atreides. Paul learns that his mother, the concubine Jessica, was never meant to give the Duke any sons, only daughters who could have been married to further a genetic program that has been going on for generations. An anomaly, Paul has the potential to be the Kiswatz Haderach, a messiah and superbeing whose coming is foretold in the Bene Gesserit prophecies. Politcal maneuvers work to eliminate House Atreides, propelling Paul into his role and leading him to overthrow the Emperor of the Known Universe.

The Eye of the World is the first book in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It tells of three young men from the village of Emmond's Field, whose lives are upturned when the forces of the Dark One attack their village in search of one or all of them. One of the young men, Rand al'Thor, is the figure of prophecy known as the Dragon Reborn, a man able to channel the one power in a world where all such men go mad. The Dragon Reborn will save the world… or he will break it completely. The three young men must survive a harrowing journey from their homeland, diverting north to the Blight to stop the Dark One's minions from obtaining the power of The Eye of the World, and consequently revealing Rand's destiny… whether Rand wants to be the Dragon Reborn or not!

Each of these books has a fantasy theme that is fairly important to the book. Yes, Dune is technically science fiction, but let's be honest for a moment: If you're familiar with the Dune franchise than you recognize that there are strong fantasy themes running throughout it. Knife fighting, "magic" (more oracular ability than anything else, but some of what Paul manages at the end is definitely magical), the fantastic locations, and a feudal nobility system. It might be sci-fi, but it has strong fantasy elements within it as well. So, clearly, fantasy is the genre that appeals most to me. Not a surprise, so let's look a little more closely.

Did you notice how all of the main characters have certain similarities? Each harbors magical power that they are unaware of at the beginning of the book. Each has a potent destiny that they must face no matter how much they resist. As they pursue their destinies, they rise socially through their setting (you can argue that Paul descends when his House is destroyed, but I think his ascension through Fremen society more than makes up for that). So clearly one of the things that appeals to me is a main character with a destiny, who discovers hidden magical potential even as he struggles against his destiny.

What we have there is the kernel of a story premise. Now we just need to build on it, which is what we'll do next time.