Failed Writer's Journey: Structuring By A Failed Writer

I haven’t done one of these for a couple weeks, largely because there hasn’t been a ton of literary news that interests me, nor has their been a ton of movement in my own writing journey. I have several rejections from the tech abortion play I sent out late last year/early this year to contests and festivals. And I suppose that is movement, but its not especially enlightening movement. While failure can be instructive, it isn’t necessarily interesting. I did, however, get asked by readers (well, one) how I feel about plotting versus what is usually called pantsing. So I thought I would spend way too many words explaining how I create stories, at least at this point.

I am now, though I have not always been, a fan of plotting before writing. Before the last six years or so, I did what is usually called pantsing — writing the story without an outline or a plan. I hardly ever finished anything that way. I would get too caught up in thinking about what had to come next and eventually spin my wheels into the metaphorical ditch. Since I started working from outlines, I have finished five novels and three plays — pretty much everything I set out to write, I finished. The one exception was a historical novel where my ideas outran my research. But even that got converted into a script. With an outline, I can concentrate on the writing without worrying about what happens next, allowing me to get though the material. Plotting ahead of time, for me, works.

Now, I do not use a specific recommended process or strictly adhere to a given method. I work in a much looser fashion, using various techniques that make sense to me. I do try and maintain two thing rules, both courtesy of Graig Mazin: tension should steadily increase, and it should increase because of what characters want. I do use, as a basis, the kind of beats that people like Syd Field and Larry Brooks suggested because it helps maintain that tension. But they are not hard and fast rules — the latest play I am working on (kids who can be cloned back to life deal with school shootings and their parents complicity in allowing those shootings to happen) has a more spiral structure (at least, that is the intention) but Mazin’s rules are still the basis for all my work.

The planning comes to life in a kind of living document. I start with hashing out the general rules of the story and the kinds of things about the characters and mechanics I want to ensure I keep top of mind as I write. It is mostly just me talking to myself, but the process of recording these musings helps refine them. An example from the Encyclopedia Brick graphic novel script is below (apologies for the length and size — the newsletter software won’t let me block quote it):

General principles

1. Find a title that does not make people want to kill you

   1. Still a problem

2. No longer a murder required, so no fridges needed.

   1. Though, killing Alice, if she is friends with Ginger, would have a good reason for Ginger to change.

   2. Nah, it works better with her as more load bearing – gives a nice parallel with Isaiah and Calvin, her and Ginger

3. Synopsis too event-y not enough character arc in it.

4. Paulie older to show recruitment chain

   1. This means Ginger need a rejection moment

   2. Ginger clueless racist, Alice not

5. Single POV – tight noir-ish style

   1. Maybe first person? Not sure that works in a graphic novel

   2. And if ginger is the rejection, then is this really a dual POV piece? Do we need to see her pov?

6. Make sure ending fits noir but not hopeless – Calvin cannot succumb, but others can or get killed, etc

7. Do I need the patsy role?

   1. I think I don’t.

8. NO FRIDGING!!!!!!

   1. People can die, but we either have to know them or it has to happen in a way that does not provide a cheap excuse for emotion from Calvin

9. Don’t do a synopsis for planning, do one just for the char arcs

10. Maybe give Isaiah a name I can spell.

    1. All characters will now have one letter first names ….

11. What do these little fuckers want

    1. Calvin: to not be such a fucking loser and do some good

    2. Ginger: she wants love and falls for Paulie because he love bombs her

    3. Isaiah – impact character so he doesn’t need to want anything? If he does, he wants to be taken seriously as himself, not as a stereotype

    4. Alice – same I think she’s an impact so she may not need anything in that sense. If she does, she wants out for her and her friend Ginger to get the fuck out of cape may

12. Table below assumes Calvin is the POV, so everything mentioned should be something he sees, even if the mechanics are not present or obscured.

As you can see, I was getting moderately frustrated with myself over the character arcs. And the lack of a title my writing group didn’t hate. And the fact that I cannot spell. And obviously this is me talking to me. No one else could build a story out of these notes, I do not think, since there are assumptions and already made choices that I understand reading the notes back, but are likely not useful to anyone else. (And no, I am not worried someone will steal the idea. Ideas are easy — execution is what makes a story worth reading) But writing all this out allowed me to work out where I wanted the main characters to start and then end up.

Next, I lay those journeys out for each character, tied to specific beats. That way, I can make sure the character beats work across the story, influence each other at appropriate moments, and ensure that character driven tension actually exists and rises throughout the story. An example for one beat is below:

Marvel at the many typos. Not every beat/section is going to have character instructions or movement for every major character. The inciting incident does, here, because all the main characters have some measure of change or arc to them, so it made sense, at least to me, to have them kick off in roughly the same place. These work in concert with the general principles to tell me what has to happen. I know, for example, that the party is where Calvin is going to get drawn into the main plot by choosing Ginger and her group of “activists” over Isaiah and Alice’s commonsense and misgivings. So the shorthand here works for me.

Next, I create a list of scenes. The process is similar, in that I create a table tied to the beats. But obviously different sections/beats can have many scenes in them. And since I am working with scenes, the plot mechanics matter in a way that they did not in the character arcs. People have to get from A to B reasonably, and their emotional arcs have to play off each other in a way that can be seen, foreshadowed, and derive from their individual personalities and failings. And since this is a living document, the scenes often change, expand, or emphasize something in the character arc grid, as you can from the example below:

More typos. It’s kind of impressive how poorly I type. As you can see, this is one beat focused on Ginger and Calvin — not everything that was in this section in the character arcs table makes it here. Those items follow this moment — you will see them in the party, so they are in the same general story geography. But this is the scene where Calvin is pulled into the story proper, where he is exposed to the recruitment process that eventually leads to him having to choose between belonging or his morals.

Does this result in good stories? I mean, it does say Failed Writer’s Journey on the door, so: no. At least not from me, at least not yet. I wrote a lot of words about a process that is probably only useful to me and has not resulted in a seller, much less a best-seller. If you are struggling to finish works, however, working your way into a planning process that fits you is likely to help you actually get projects done. This process does allow me to focus on writing as I write, not planning as I write. And that, in turn, helps me complete works. And if I complete enough works, who knows? I might eventually cross the line into not sucking.

My typing probably won’t get any better, though.

Weekly Word Count

After the table read, I re-wrote the entire fist act of the cloning/school-shooting play, about fifteen pages of new material. I didn’t have a valid first act, according the people at the table read, and I think they were correct. I now have, I hope, a better setup and a better propulsion into the main story with seeds planted well enough to ripen as the play progresses. Or, you know, it still sucks. But iteration is one way to progress, so iterate I do.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.