We began a series of guest blog entries last week with Susan Meissner on “Writing 300 Pages in 30 Days.” Susan and I have both done that, and it’s hard, but it can be done if you’ve done your legwork first. In today’s entry, Susan talks about what she does BEFORE she starts writing.
Susan writes:
I loved the comment by Shruti (in the last post) which I will paraphrase here: Writing a good book in 3 years beats writing a bad one in 6 weeks. I wholeheartedly agree. In fact, writing a good book always beats writing a bad one. Always, always. If you’re going to write a bad book in six weeks or bad one in three years, may I suggest you save yourself the time and trouble and do the thing you are good at instead.
You can indeed spend years tirelessly massaging your novel and end up with a great book but I don’t think it’s a given that a slow write always produces a good book. It’s not use of time that guarantees the best book; it’s use of talent. I don’t strive to write a book in six weeks. I strive to write a good book. I think we all want to do that. You’ve got to write at the speed that allows your story to flow out of you. Speeding it up for the sake of speed alone is not a good idea. And neither is slowing it down for sake of speed alone.
Because of the amount of pre-writing I do, (and quite a bit of it is mental preparation, which is fabulous because that means I can pre-write while I am doing other things) I’ve found that I very quickly gain momentum once I begin the actual writing. The words just fly out. To insist on slowing them down would be like shifting my car into second gear when I’m flying down the highway at 65 miles an hour. Not a good idea. If the destination is the same (writing a good book!), it’s conceivable that you can get there in a fast car in six weeks or on roller skates in three years. It’s getting there that matters, not how long it takes.
I promised to tell you how I become intimately familiar with my story (the people, the place, the plot) before I begin writing. The key for me is creating fully fleshed-out characters that already have layers of personality before I start writing. Here’s what I do when I’m in pre-write mode.
First, I create a biographical sketch for each of the main characters. It’s like an expanded resume or CV for each character. I include all personal data like birth date, parents’ names and occupations, siblings’ names, schools attended, jobs held, favorite food, music, books, movies and the least favorite of each of these. I include the kind of car they drive, the name of the street where they live, the style of house they live in, their pet peeves, their favorite color, and who they hung out with in high school.
Once I have all the superficial stuff down, I interview my characters. I pretend I am sitting across from them, I pull out my reporter’s notebook and I ask them about the stuff that really matters. What do they fear more than anything else? Do they have trouble trusting people? Why or why not? Who is their hero? Who has let them down the most? If they could change one thing about their past, what would it be? I have a list of questions I ask; and I sometimes add to the list depending on where our “conversation” goes. I also “invite” my characters to hang out with me for the day, one character a day, making them experience everything I am experiencing, so that I can decide how they would react and peek even deeper inside their mind.
Every minute I spend with my characters adds to my familiarity with them, which in turn enables me to write about these people like I already know them. Because I do. And the great thing is, I can do this character-building while I am going about my day-to-day life. I use my thinking time when I’m driving to work, making meals, cleaning a bathroom, and errand-running to build my characters, to give them dimension and depth. I mentally engage them in conversation with me all throughout the day so that I can pick their brain, so that I can decide what brings them pleasure, what motivates them, what inspires them and what drive them to their knees.
I may spend several weeks getting to know these people before I actually begin telling their story, so I suppose I have to then expand the amount of time I say it takes me to write a book, even though I haven’t started writing it yet. But the great thing is I am able to do this bit of pre-writing while going about the real world, where I have responsibilities that have nothing to do with writing. I haven’t had to make sacrifices yet. That time is coming, but not yet.
And still I have more to tell you. . . .
Randy sez: Yes, we’ll want to hear more tomorrow. Thanks for all you’ve told us so far, Susan! I agree that getting to know your characters is essential to fast writing. In my current book, one of the tools I’ve been using is to write a few pages from the journal of each character. The character is allowed to disagree with me and even criticize me, so long as he or she is in character in doing so.
The great thing about writing journal entries is that you quickly find your character’s voice, and once you find it, you can’t lose it. Once you get it, you’ll be hearing that voice in your head. Fiction writers are the only people who believe that it’s GOOD when you hear voices in your head.
Those of you with questions for Susan, feel free to post them as comments. She can then incorporate her answers into her next entry.
I’ll start with a question of my own: Susan, can you post an example of part of an interview with one of your characters? (Doesn’t have to be for your current project. It could be for one of your published novels.)
A while ago, people kept telling me that they loved my writing because “I knew the characters I was writing about.” I wondered how that was possible, because I invented most of my stuff on the spot and let things flow how they would naturally flow. I then came to the conclusion that I knew these characters so well because they were all based on people I knew or knew about. They weren’t exact copies, in fact most of them had been mixed and matched. But this I think made me write about them in a way that felt natural to me, and then I guess also felt natural to read about.
Susan, have you ever written about people you knew? Or wrote characters based on people you knew? And if you did, how did you do your pre-writing in those cases?
Thanks for the wonderful information. I’m learning a lot thanks to you!
I would think that the ability to write at least 1 good book a year (minimum) would be considered a positive sign to an agent and a publisher, especially if you are proposing a series of books.
Is that true? Would a publisher look askance at you if you told them it took you 2 or 3 years to write your first book–even if it is good?
One other question, Susan. I am assuming the speed you are talking about is for the 1st draft. How long does it take you to edit it into presentable material?
Ah, so I’m not crazy, that’s good to know!
Susan, I really liked what you said about inviting your characters to hang out with you–I’m going to try that. Except–well I might have to make some adjustments as they’re science fiction characters. But they might like to see earth for a day or so, who knows? I might have to explain the PB and Js.
Quite honestly, I’m surprised at what you call pre-writing. Everything I’ve ever heard called pre-writing involves long dissertations on research to form arguments…which I have a natural aversion to. But what you are suggesting, what a liberated approach! Is this like what you call composting, Randy?
This part of writing is actually my favorite part. I love getting to know my characters. I do sometimes base them loosely on people I know — at first. I will say something in my notes like, “she is like Virginia” to remind me a little bit of the direction I want the character to go in the story. But as I continue to create the character, they really do become their own unique creature.
I love the idea of the interview and “talking” to them. I hadn’t thought of that! And I’m going to try the journal entries, too. Thanks! See, this little bit here and little bit there is good for me as a working Mom with three kids with disabilities at home. I can work on this while I’m tending the home fires. I can do things a little bit here and a little bit there as time allows, and eventually all the little bits will come together. These are wonderful tips. I appreciate them!
You know, I’ve done the whole “character interview” before and it is extremely helpful in getting to know them on a much deeper level. Sometimes, they’ve even surprised me in their answers. Maybe I HAVE lost it, huh?
What’s frustrating is when I get to know them, and then find out that they are completely wrong for the story. One time, I needed my MC to have a love-interest, so I started forming a girl for him. Well, once I got to know her better, I found out that she was completely wrong for him. He would not even give this girl the time of day…ha!
Anyway, I’ll have to try letting my current MC hang out with me. I know you said to only do one at a time, but could you imagine the interaction I’d get from letting all three of my major characters hang out at the same time?
You know, I’ve done the whole “character interview” before and it is extremely helpful in getting to know them on a much deeper level. Sometimes, they’ve even surprised me in their answers. Maybe I HAVE lost it, huh?
What’s frustrating is when I get to know them, and then find out that they are completely wrong for the story. One time, I needed my MC to have a love-interest, so I started forming a girl for him. Well, once I got to know her better, I found out that she was completely wrong for him. He would not even give this girl the time of day…ha!
Anyway, I’ll have to try letting my current MC hang out with me. I know you said to only do one at a time, but could you imagine the interaction I’d get from letting all three of my major characters hang out at the same time?
Oh please oh please, I’d love to see a sample of a character interview and a journal entry. I don’t know why, but I like to see a person’s thoughts in print. (those pesky visual types)
I’m having fun learning a little about my characters as they exchange letters on behalf of two old ladies. I hear you need to be careful when including letters in a novel, so I’ll be sparing with them since there are several over the course of the story, but I like the hero’s first letter, and how the reader will see a slightly sardonic side of the hero through this letter that the heroine is too gracious to see.
Camille, I’m a big Orson Scott Card fan. In his Ender’s Shadow series, all the chapters open with an email or short exchange of emails so you see what the characters were doing behind the scenes. Sort of like Randy’s sequels. Some of the best lines in Shadow of the Giant were in the emails.
This is a great post, because this is what I keep planning on doing. I have made journals for a few of my characters, but sadly I’m not sure how to start them. I feel like it needs to be what they would think or say, and I still haven’t quite found their voice yet. My MC has multiple personalities. It’s kind of like every littler personality that only she would know about if she weren’t so out-going was being released into public, but at the same time, she is very secretive. I like the idea of hanging out with a character. So how do you find the voice of your character? Especially when they’re so hard with those multiple personalities…the kind of characters that stand out from most of the others. The problem is making her unique and unlike most characters written without making her seem inhuman….as with no faults. She drives me nuts! She’s a fantasy character as well, so how do you deal with that? What kind of questions do you ask to non-Earth people? (She is human though…just try adding pointy ears. 🙂 )
Anna