The Process

I had a post written and all ready to go, but I deleted it. What the hell. Right?

Been writing on Summer Shade. More then I thought I would. On Thursday I was still in Chapter Nine. Now I'm in Chapter Twelve and building fast to the climactic fight scene.

Not all of my stories have a climactic fight scene. The Sweet Girl didn't. Neither did Shadow People. But they had their climactic moments. There just wasn't a fight to mark it.

Summer Shade did not go as well as Shadow People, or The Sweet Girl. I attribute that to getting involved with word counts. Word counts are important, but they should be left to the editing process. That's when they matter. When writing a draft what difference does it make if you use 1,000; 10,000; or even 100,000 words? The story's the thing. Even established Authors agree that getting the draft out is the most important first step. But some required (and actually enjoy) the pressure of word counts during the drafting process.

For me, it's all about storytelling. I come up with an idea. I suppose you could call it a "What If" scenario thing. That's how Shadow People and The Sweet Girl came into being. It's how virtually all of my stories come to exist.

Sometimes the idea is nothing more than a character or two. That's how Summer Shade came to exist. I spent several days thinking about the two people and wondering what they were like. What was their conflict. Having decided that, I wondered what they would do about it, and how it would ultimately be resolved. This gave me my "Ending". I knew how the story was going to end.

Now my problem was - how did it begin?

The problem I have with beginnings is that stories don't begin at the place where the teller begins. They begin in the background. The history. It's history that influences, or even dictates, the present and the future. So finding the beginning is virtually impossible. But that's not the challenge anyway. The challenge is where to begin telling the story. (Yes, I know you're supposed to show the story, but you know what I mean.)

How much of that history and background needs to be revealed up front? Can some things be shown later? Can some things be left out entirely?

Determining where to start the tale (not the story) gives me a beginning and ending. Now I begin the journey. I start writing.

Sometimes I have milestones between the beginning and ending I wish to reach. It's like taking a trip from Minneapolis to Duluth. I can take the freeway and be there in four hours or less. There isn't a whole lot to see which is interesting driving up Freeway 35, but if I'm in a hurry it works.

But perhaps the goal is more than just arriving. Perhaps I am hoping to enjoy the trip as much as the destination. In this case I take the so-called back roads. These are the roads which expose the details of the land and communities which span the space between my beginning city and my destination city.

Of course, in a story, there has to be a purpose in these back roads. Yes, Forest Lake and Pine City are nice cities, but why are we there? What makes stopping at Hinckley necessary to get to Duluth? Well, for one thing, it's about halfway and that's where we refuel.

What I find in writing stories, is that if I give the characters enough freedom they will show me the reason why the story must go to this place or that. Why does this event have to happen? And if I finish a draft and never do find a reason then I dump that scene.

Story writing is fun. I'm never wholly sure about what is going to happen. The ending I had originally planned for Summer Shade has been changed by the addition of a character I hadn't known was going to show up. Two characters, actually. That's what makes it so fun. It's as much a surprise to me as to the Reader.

But that's what a draft is for. It's the honeymoon process. Editing comes later.