A Writer's Retrospective: July 2021
Great sacrifices were made to the altar of over-planning (i.e. writing anxiety).
Photo by Jorge Caetano on Unsplash
June was a bit of a wash—I spent a lot of time engaging in “newly single” behavior, which was every iota as fun as I expected it to be. I’m happy to have started buckling down this month.
Last Month's Action Items
Last month, I pivoted from writing my novelettes to preparing to write the novel. (I still want to write the stories—I just don’t want to further delay the novel itself because I basically spent the first half of the year on planned procrastination.)
Outline Iriseed (Book 1)
After dragging my feet for a bit, I finished the outline. I feel like I completed the assignment, but didn’t totally understand it. I have the notion that I should be more excited about my story than I am. After all, if it doesn’t thrill the writer, why would it entertain anyone else? I think I’m just looking for a reason not to put myself out there. Put differently, my fear is starting to manifest as inflexibility—an unwillingness to move forward without a perfectly-mapped, airtight story. But that’s not how creative ventures work. And I won’t give in that easily.
The feedback I received on the outline was generally positive. There are a couple things that seem to happen (in a specific way) because the author said so, but otherwise the flow of the story seems logical to those who critiqued it.
Write Chapter 1
You would think, given a complete outline, that one would find the story easy to write—assuming acceptance of typical first-draft deficiencies. It took me a week to write one page. One. I feel like every word was written in my own blood considering the effort it took to get them out.
Upon reflection, the friction mostly came from being unsure what the first scene was supposed to accomplish. In Save the Cat! Writes a Novel, Brody describes the first scene as the “opening image,” a visual snapshot of the protagonist’s life and flaws. Yet, I find myself puzzled about how to demonstrate these aspects in an interesting way. I suspect already that there is a larger problem with my protagonist’s relationship to the events of the story—I wonder if he drives enough of the action in the story.
Draft May and June retros
As spoiled above, it didn’t happen. Now I’m just praying I don’t end up having five of them to do over Thanksgiving break.
Writing
Outlining - Save the Cat! Writes a Novel
The beat sheet provides a great framework in which to think about and develop my story. I had more issues with Act 1 than with anything else. The story I have in mind begins with the “Catalyst” event. So, what am I supposed to write before then?
This seems difficult to me because my protagonist, prior to the Catalyst, has very little agency. It’s not the problem I would make it out to be, however; there are many well-known protagonists who start out with minimal agency, then develop it through the story (or the series, when applicable).
The “Fun and Games” segment is pretty vague right now, too. Granted, this is where the B, C, and D stories take off, but I would need to be in the weeds or closer to it to figure that stuff out. (I suspect that more diligence in brainstorming would alleviate some of this—my problem would then become, “what do I cut out?” which is arguably a better problem to have.
Scene list
To alleviate my newest set of concerns, I started developing a scene list. As usual, I have a spreadsheet for it. I discovered something interesting upon tackling the scene list: I cannot articulate what constitutes a “good” scene. So began the next phase of my research.
A few days later, I managed to cobble together a spreadsheet with columns like “Summary,” “Purpose,” and “High Moment,” among others. Strangely, I can point out where I checked these boxes in each scene of my first story, Savage Politics. I don’t know why this seemed somewhat intuitive then—compared to the organizational labyrinth I’m currently navigating.
Marketing
I haven’t mentioned (or visited) my website in quite some time. This month, I went back and redesigned the section where I promote my own writing. Despite the anxiety surrounding my outline, I was able to come up with a working title for this first segment of the planned trilogy based on what I have: Iriseed: Shadow of the Anhuret.
Achievement Summary
Finished outlining my planned novel.
Developed a working title for said novel.
Started writing a scene list for Iriseed.
Redesigned part of my website.
Reflection
The scene list is regarded by many as an excellent tool for high-level revision, since the prose itself becomes impossible to read with any measure of objectivity (recency bias). I think it is good that I take the time to plan further, even though I am often (correctly) accused of over-planning. There is a limit to how much I can kick the can down the road if I ever want this project finished. I don’t want to wait until I’m retired.
If I finish the scene list and still am not generating prose, then I have a real problem (and will have to address it, as there will be nowhere else to kick the can).
Action Items
This is essentially a last-ditch effort to resolve my anxiety about writing this novel.
1. Develop a comprehensive scene list.
2. Write the first 2-4 scenes.
3. May, June, and July retrospectives.
Final Word
Unsurprisingly, my story continues to evolve in spite of my best efforts to pin it down. After ideating a few scenes and beginning to write, I found that the first scene I’d planned wouldn’t work—it was too introspective (not to mention infodump-y). So now I have a marginally better opening scene, which I’m finding easier to write than the original first scene. I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. I’m still learning; I have so much more to learn.