For me, the most difficult part of writing is the “what do I write next” part. When we compound that with my firm stance that there is no such thing as writer’s block, just writers not willing to err, then the situation is ripe for creative conflict. In my current bout of creative log-jam, I have the basic elements of the story I want to use that will frame what happens…it’s just that I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what happens, or what needs to happen to get me there. In short, I’m in search of my McGuffin, which also means that I need to employ “The Process.”
For those who don’t know, the McGuffin is basically a plot device that gets your story going. It doesn’t matter if it’s something scrawled on the Mona Lisa, a carrot-on-a-stick like the Arc of the Covenant, or some silly looking object of desire such as small statue of a raptor. The specifics aren’t important, just that it’s the right sort of device to motivate your characters into action.
Since I already have in mind my protagonist, several ancillary characters, as well as important parts of my antagonistic elements, you’d think my McGuffin would be obvious. But it isn’t. Not yet.
To help me, I’m employing what I lovingly refer to as “The Process.” This is a disciplined, but creative method I use to help me develop all of those things that don’t depend on a McGuffin to such a point where it’s relatively easy to see what little thing I can do in order to screw up every one’s lives for a while (after all, that’s what fiction is all about: screwing up other
I’ve written before about what a wonderful tool wiki software is for my creative process. It balances structure with freeform. It allows me to make lists of details in my story, but to interconnect them so that I have reams of notes waiting for me when it comes time to rewrite. It serves not only as a great creativity tool, but also the best continuity tool I’ve ever used (and let’s face it, when you create worlds, as SF/F writers are wont to do, continuity becomes a major headache). Using my wiki, I’m able to fully dive into The Process.
This is basically the nuts and bolts of writing. This is part of the discipline as much as kata are for martial arts. This is sitting down with each character and making them (metaphorically) living and breathing souls. It’s more than simply age, sex, and occupation. It’s whether they had a pet when they were five, and if it died. It’s about the knock-down drag-out fights they had with parents/siblings/friends/lovers…and the make-ups afterwards. It’s about the coworker who sabotaged them at their second high school job. It’s all of those details that make a life…and it’s about the details that go into the lives of all of those other characters that had an impact on their lives—these characters need their own work-ups, too.
I think that thing about The Process that takes a while to learn is that most of it isn’t going to end up in your story in any obvious way. After all, this is The Process, it isn’t “The Writing.” The Process is all about getting to The Writing. The writer (or, at least, this writer) needs to be able to become any one of several people when I do get to writing the text. I need to know how they will view the world based on their own experiences. What choices my characters make is totally colored by their pasts, but that doesn’t mean I have to present my readers with a litany of this past. In many cases, it simply won’t be necessary. As long as I know their past, and have made it part of me, then the character’s actions will flow naturally onto the page without me having to get much involved at all.
So, that’s where I’m at right now, boys and girls. I’m in The Process. For my previous novel, I spent about a month-and-a-half learning about my created world and characters before I started writing the narrative. This gave me over a hundred pages of notes. The result was that all that came afterward was easy (well, relatively easy).
I encourage others learning the craft to learn how to do a writer’s work. It’s not always fun (in fact, sometimes it’s drugery), but its oh-so-important to take the responsibility not to cheat your readers. Take the time to go through The Process. Please.
