There are writers who answer questions about what happens in their book by saying they don’t know, because it hasn’t happened yet, so they haven’t found out. Such authors would probably say that ingenuously, because they don’t know to avoid using adverbs. Maybe they’d bleat that answer, because you’d have to be as dumb as a sheep to write that way. You’d have the same chance of getting a good book out of that sort of continuous car crash as the thousand monkeys with typewriters scenario.
I’m sure there are other writers who have their entire book all set out on a detailed step sheet, and who adhere to their plan with the zeal of monks chanting morning prayers in a freezing cell. I have a composite approach that avoids all freezing and still keeps much more focus than floating about with the butterflies, wondering what might happen next. Start with an idea, develop it, talk to patient supporters, discard the bits that are boring and stupid, then do a step sheet to write to. Then realize the step sheet is a starting point, and off you go into the forest, but with the rudiments of a plan to provide some guidance.
For decades as a commercial lawyer, I wrote strictly to plans, but a story isn’t susceptible to that logic. Like a painting, it is animate and involved in its own development. As a little daughter tells her daddy trying to dress her no, I don’t want the red one, I want my daisies dress! the story wants to go its own way. Damn my lovely plan. In the book I’m writing, several of the principal characters have turned out to be completely different people from my original conception.
That’s quite exciting for an author, because if the story sits where it was first conceived, writing it might be pretty boring. But having characters telling you what they’re thinking and surprising you with what they intend is worrying. In the early stages of this evolutionary process, the new life appearing on your screen without invitation is thrilling and full of promise. Sadly, that doesn’t last. Like charming children reach adolescence and spend their time sulking in bear pits called bedrooms, your wonderful new characters turn into stubborn rebels who demand behavior that threatens what you thought were immutable fundamentals of plot and structure. Isn’t that a great word? How are you today? Immutable, thanks.
Of course I could always abandon any pretense at sticking with logic and rational behavior, as do many successful thriller and fantasy authors. In The Knife of Never Letting Go, we’re told the nearest river crossing is two days ride away, so it will be four days before the bad guys can attack our hero, who has just destroyed the bridge he crossed. Patrick Roth, though, manages to get the bad guys over the river by the next morning. Good work, Pat! If you like saying what the hell? that one’s a real page turner. The central plot idea is the bad guys decide to kill all the women. Why is never explained. Now there’s a plan that will set them up for generations to come. Oh, wait, no it won’t.
Unlike Pat’s legion of fans, I demand stories that stick to the rules of their world, human nature and common sense. There might be dragons and magic, but they have to behave according to the rules established. If the dragon suddenly can’t burn up the good guys like it’s been doing for hundreds of years, there better be a good explanation. So there’s the difficult and sometimes boring part of crafting a convincing, consistent story. Good start to it, characters coming along nicely, but how do I explain events and people so they all make sense? Currently I have a plot problem concerning the reactions of two teenage children to the disappearance of their father and their relationship with their mother. I could just write them out of the story, or I could have them both killed in a tragic accident. Authors have enormous power. George Martin has murdered numbers of the obvious heroes in his saga. I’m more humane, though, and am trying to find a way to save the children.
One author on the craft of writing sais characters come alive partly through contradiction and uncertainty. It might have been the same guy who said that writing is to live with doubt – to be ignorant and inelegant until the characters can get up and walk around. What I’ve found after more than a year of working on my current novel is they don’t just get up and walk around, they move in. I find myself adding Steven, Penny and Alistair to the list of people whose reactions to real life questions should be considered. They’ve shouldered their way in beside relatives and friends, and now I know what their views are on almost everything. Having redeveloped them time and again, and seeing their steady improvement, I’m starting to wonder if I can rewrite sections of some of our friends and relatives as well.