Last Tuesday, I talked about restarting a stalled novel. Several of you offered opinions.
Ryan Freebern suggested:
I might try to write a short story or two set in the same world and maybe featuring some of the same characters, just as a way to make myself think about things from a different perspective.
I have, in fact, done this with another novel. It resulted in that recent sale to Asimov's... but did not result in further working on the novel, however (but part of that is because I haven't yet said, "It's time to work on the novel.") I think this could really work, actually; ideas burble when I contemplate it. Of course, those stories could easily lead into subplots and secondary characters, and it would probably be stuff to include in the novel at this point, so really, the whole "short story" thing would be a fib I'd tell myself to restart the engine.
But there's nothing wrong with lying to yourself to get the job done, right? Okay, not in my world, anyway.
Honestly, perhaps that is a better approach to novel-writing than the one I've been taking. I get so overwhelmed by the idea of holding all the threads at once, that it hasn't really occurred to me that a novel is, essentially, a series of interwoven short stories, one of which has predominating themes and plot points, with related characters and an over-arching plotline.
DUH.
I mean, as opposed to writing a novel without a mental working model of what one is, which is how I've been doing things for a while now.
So, thanks, Ryan. Very helpful!
And Steve Buchheit posed a really interesting scenario:
Or, is it you know what comes next and you just don't want to type/write it? I've been stopped by that. I tried to dictate to my characters and told them that what they wanted to do was "naughty." Well, they took their little read ball and went away until I relented. I still feel icky about what they did (and I question the characters' moral judgement), but I got the story going again. If this is the case you need to accept that the characters have to be themselves.
I can't say for sure if that's ever happened to me or not. If it has, I never figured it out.
This does touch on an issue of reluctance I have for The Tarot Book, however; mostly, my main character is making things so hard for herself--she's inflicted herself with magically-induced psychosomatic amnesia--and it's damn hard to get a handle on what she knows and what she doesn't. She's so willfully ignorant that I am, indeed, having a hard time writing her. I can't figure out why my secondaries are hanging out with her (other than they've made their oaths to her dead parents to take care of her), but it's hard. They keep yelling at her, and well, she's trying to learn but she's balky, and you know? Maybe I'm finding her tedious. I wonder if that's not a huge chunk of this. The worst part is, she's the only viewpoint character I have because the book is currently first person, and... gosh. I wonder if this isn't an enormous part of the problem. The main character drives me batshit. She's realistic in her stubbornness, but it's not pleasant.
And if I'm having this reaction, I bet readers would, too.
So, yeah, uh... I think I've maybe uncovered a pretty big piece of the problem here, thanks to Steve.
Ultimately, I think that there's more preparation I need to be doing here. I can get by with the aid of my wacky subconscious (the greatest of sidekicks) on a lot of things, but novels... novels may not be one of those things. I may need full involvement from my conscious mind here.
(No, I haven't actually picked up The Tarot Book this week. I did dive into some short stories I'd been missing, however, with my usual alacrity and non-finishing grace (let's see what happens tonight after I write this entry. I may yet finish something this month).)
Stay tuned for the next thrilling installment of "how to start a stalled novel."