Craft and Caveats

Following up after various conversations related to my last post re the Rabbit and the Hare. Which, no, was not a simple “fast beats slow and steady” but rather a simple “the original moral is not actually slow and steady beats fast” type deal. It’s called a tangent, people. Keep up.

So again, I don’t consider myself a multi-wip girlie, despite the great trio situation aforedescribed and despite the two works I am in progress thereof. Firstly, because I was 100 pages into the Absurdist before I wrote the now-100 pages of the Churchianity Horror, and therefore I don’t get a sense of concurrently writing so much as:

It’s called variety. Rotation. Side effects can include unintentional savoring and sharpening of voice and perspective during project switches.

But anyway and back to the various conversations, all of which revolve around unintentional project-hopping resulting in various unfinished projects. This is an issue with something seeming related that actually isn’t. Writing (to completion) multiple projects at once is actually not relevant to a person struggling to finish any project. There appears to be a similarity there, I understand, but I don’t think there is. For one person working on two things at once is a strategy or even a happy accident, and for the other person, it’s an impediment or a symptom. So, that’s the first thing.

Both the Absurdist and the Churchianity Horror will get finished. There’s a Publishing reason why the second wip overpowering my imagination and attacking me physically isn’t a problem, but there’s also the fact that I know how to finish a story. Sometimes aspiring authors are project-hopping because they feel energized by the part of the story they know how to write, and once they hit the spot where the craft level doesn’t align with the task, they get discouraged and are easily distracted by new ideas. This is very understandable, especially because I’m not sure everyone knows this is happening.

There’s also the issue of Productivity. I have whole lectures on the whole “writers block” thing, and how a misunderstanding of the writing process will lead to a feeling of being stuck when sometimes you’re literally in the middle, if an unfamiliar part, of the process. Because the popular concept of productivity is measured in word count. So as soon as an aspiring author isn’t churning out a word count, they think the project is a flop and they move on to a new idea where word count will once again come easy. For a time.

Baked into that is yet another issue. Craft isn’t actually something that is suddenly required at page 50, or after the first act. Craft strategizes from the first sentence. It prepares. It builds a foundation. If you’re getting to page 50 and don’t know what to do, the problem is present in those existing pages. It’s not just evident in the absence of new words, it’ll be visible in the ones on the page, I’d wager.

As mentioned, I do this for a living. Or an allowance anyway. The talking about craft and mentoring and leading workshops is best accomplished in person, with time and a limited number of participants. So instead of turning this into a 200k word something-or-other, I’ll just leave you with the thought I’ve had most often in response to these inquiries: You need to know why you’re stopping. That sounds so easy, just like writing a saleable manuscript sounds easy until it’s attempted.

What I really mean, though, is there are multiple reasons why an aspiring author might stop and what to do next depends on the reason. If it’s a craft issue—getting to the point where you don’t know how to tell the story anymore—that requires work you’re likely not gonna do by hopping to the beginning again. If, for instance, it’s a wrong story issue—starting a story you’re not excited about and invested in telling—that’s something else. In all cases, the answer begins with Questions. Knowing what questions to ask is valuable, and no this is not where I link you to an e-book where I list them, because I genuinely think they’re endless and they’re also adaptable. Beware the Facebook ads that promise that you, individual person, will have the exact same level of success as the other millions of people I’m targeting by spending the exact same amount of money on the exact same information.

Concrete advice: There’s a lot you can glean simply by teaching yourself to be unprecious about your work. Endeavor to see it critically, editorially—which is helped by reading in your category and genre, and attending craft talks, and watching any number of the archived virtual events that happened at the start of the pandemic. Prepare to invest. If it costs nothing else, it’s gonna cost you time.

tl;dr Yes, it is true that you have to learn to finish a story. Yes, there are some stories which you, as an individual artist, will more successfully finish. Yes, ever-evolving craft and critical assessment of your strengths and weaknesses will increase the number of stories you can finish.

Yes, I do speaking engagements.