Becoming Familiar with Your Genre

I went to the San Francisco Writers’ Conference this past weekend and had a great time.  Picked up some new useful tips, met some other writers, and got an invite to send the first three chapters of my book to an agent on my wish-list when it’s ready.  So I am super stoked!  I ran into a guy there, fairly young, who had written a fantasy novel.  I think just finishing a manuscript from beginning to end is deserving of praise.  But what threw me off is though he’d written a fantasy novel, he’d never read one.

 My head exploded a little.  Is it possible to write a good genre book without reading the genre?  I’m sure it is.  Is it probable?  Not really.

 Without reading the genre you’re writing, how do you even know if your book fits there on the shelf?  You don’t know what people are buying, or what things have been done before – to death (*cough* vampires *cough*).  Yes, you can have a fresh new take, but how do you even know if your take is fresh if you haven’t read its precursors?

 Usually people do this the other way around – they read a genre they enjoy and then decide to have their own go at it.

 So here’s a suggestion, one that’s worked well for me.  Read a lot of books in the genre you’re writing in.  Take notes on the things you really liked and things that you didn’t think worked.  When you go to write your own novel, you’ll have a list of things that you may want to include in your own book, and things you want to avoid.

Here’s a snippet of my notes from Brent Weeks’ Night Angel Trilogy:

-Legendary characters that other characters hear about then actually pop up in person later -Keep making situations worse and worse – how is the character going to get out of this?  Then think of a way to get the character out. -Bargains made earlier that come back to haunt -Rising sense of dread that the characters can’t pin down, then follow-up with the reveal

Writing that Multi-tasks

I started watching Breaking Bad recently, and just finished the fourth episode.  I love it so far.  The writing is fantastic, and the premise is compelling (the moral degradation of a cancer-stricken high school chemistry teacher as he begins cooking meth in order to provide for his family). There was a line of dialogue in the episode I watched last night that made me think about efficiency in writing, and making your writing multi-task.

Jesse Pinkman, meth dealer and addict, ends up back at his parents’ house.  His younger brother, Jake, is a sweet, very intelligent kid, about 10-12.  They’re in Jake’s room, talking, when their mother walks in to check on them, and makes a point of leaving the door open.  Jesse is incensed at being treated like a criminal (which he is…), and makes the comment to his younger brother that their mom doesn’t want him influencing their “favorite son” (Jake).

Jake replies, “I’m the favorite?  Yeah right.  You’re practically all they ever talk about.”

I loved this line of dialogue, because it said volumes in only a few sentences. It does multiple things at once.  Jesse’s parents worry incessantly about him, and Jesse is oblivious to this (or, perhaps, can’t face how intensely his actions have influenced others).  Jake, despite his numerous accomplishments and straight-edge appearance, doesn’t feel like the favored son.  He feels some jealousy over the amount of attention focused on Jesse, the screw-up.  Because of this one line of dialogue, we understand, much more clearly, the dynamic of the Pinkman family.

It sets up the next scene perfectly, wherein (**SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER**) Jesse’s parents kick him out of the house for the umpteenth time because they find a joint hidden in his room.  It’s not Jesse’s.  It’s Jake’s.  The revelation surprised me, though not in a throw-the-book-across-the-room manner.  It made sense.

Although we get a lot more space to explain things in a novel than in a television show, efficient writing helps speed the reader along and doesn’t bog them down in overly wordy prose.

What if Breaking Bad were a novel?  The author could have shown Jesse’s parents talking about him worriedly.  Or perhaps even told the reader that Jake was envious of Jesse.  But neither of these methods performs more than one function.  And neither, I’m guessing, would blow the reader away.

The way we interact with the world and with other people is shaded in layers – layers influenced by our past experiences, personalities, mood, surroundings, and our expectations.  Efficient writing exposes more than one layer at once, though not in an as-you-know-bob-way.  It does so subtly, reflecting the way people actually interact with the world and each other.

Increasing Daily Word Count

I used to be the sort of writer that steadfastly followed that bit of advice you sometimes hear about writing.  Write every day, doesn't matter how much.  If you write every day you will one day have a novel. I soon found that this was a rather plodding way to get to THE END.  When I wrote Songweaver's Awakening (my now-trunked novel), I meandered through the first third or so of the book using the above advice.  I was attending college, painting, working - I was busy!  But I realized it gets embarrassing after a while to announce to friends and acquaintances that you are writing a novel, to have them ask you about it a year later - "How's that novel going?  You sell it yet?" - and then to respond, faintly, "No.  I'm still working on it."

So once I graduated, I decided when I wanted to finish it, divided the number of words I estimated I had left to write by the number of weekdays left until my deadline, and came out with 600 words/day.

That's actually not a lot.  I'd even given myself the weekends off.  But boy, did it feel like a lot when I started.

I think it helps to start with a small word count and then to push yourself, to see how much you can actually get done after that threshold.  And then, the next day, ask yourself if you can do it again.

When I wrote Lestoor's Chosen, I set a minimum goal of 1200 words/day, every day.  If I went over, I didn't stop writing or count that towards any other days.  If I failed to meet it, I made up for it the next day.  When I finished, I realized I'd written an average of 1500 words/day.

I read a blog post a few weeks ago, by Rachel Aaron, about writing 10,000 words/day.  I found I'd come to a lot of the same conclusions on my own.   Really, the advice she gives there is golden.

A few more things that have worked for me:

1) Don't have a quitting time.  I quit when I've reached my word count goal for the day.  Barring extenuating circumstances, of course.  I was surprised by how much I could write when I didn't give myself any excuses.

2) Tell friends/family/whoever about when you plan to have your rough draft finished.  I don't know about you, but I feel like an awful person if I don't keep my word.

3) Join an online or in-person group of people that are also striving to finish their books.  It helps to have encouragement and people that will call you out if you haven't been around in a while to update everyone on your goals.  I like the Finish the Damn Book Challenge on the Absolute Write forums, myself.

4) Keep your eye on the prize.   If I'm having problems getting down to it, I think about how happy I'll be when I've finished the book.  And I'm never going to finish a book by not working on it.

That's all I've got.  Hope this helps, and happy writing!