Tag Archives: creative-writing

The Hard Parts

— Mark Paxson

A few weeks ago, I saw a few writers on the Tweeter express that the beginning of a story is always the hardest part for them. I thought that was interesting because the beginning is the easiest part for me. By far.

I’m a pantser, so I don’t have an outline. I just have an idea that I think may make for a good story. I typically don’t have any idea about anything beyond the idea.

For instance, a guy has a consensual one-night stand and is accused of sexual assault. That’s the idea, but as I started to write it, I had no idea how it would end, or how I would get to the end. Or, a clerk at a store catches somebody shop lifting and offers him a deal to avoid the consequences. Same thing, an idea, but I had no idea where it would take me. As I started writing that story, I didn’t even know what the deal was.

Part of this is because my stories frequently begin with prompts that I find on the various writing websites. Prompts that spark something in me and I just start writing. If the idea seems like a long story, I can typically churn out 10,000 – 25,000 words relatively easy.

The way I describe this is at the beginning, the world is wide open for me. I can go anywhere, do anything. I am exploring the idea as I write and that is a freeing experience for me.

But once I get to a certain point, I start to see the rest of the story. I start to ponder an ending, and everything just suddenly stops. Those first 25,000 words may take a month or two. The next 25,000 words may take years as I struggle with a couple of things.

First, if I’ve figured out the rest of the story, won’t the reader also. And if that’s the case, what’s the point. I become bored with the idea because I now know how it is going to end and I’ve figured out most of the in between points that will get me there. The exploration ends and the slog begins.

Second, and contradictory, is this … what if I get it wrong? The piece I’m working on now could have many endings. I’ve considered a lot of different things and landed on one that may be too much for some readers. But, to me, it fits the whole feel of the story … which is weird and quirky and full of things that don’t really make sense. So, an ending that matches that is an ending worth pursuing.

But again … what if I get it wrong?

Everything slows down at this point. Putting words down slows to a crawl. I can sit in front of my laptop for an afternoon and be fortunate to pull 200-300 words out of my head. And I really start to let the distractions distract me because anything is better than sitting there and noodling over every single paragraph, every single bit of dialogue, every everything.

This doesn’t always happen. A couple of years ago, I published a novella. A domestic thriller of about 30,000 words. For some reason, I was able to write the thing completely within a couple of months. There was no stalling, no delay, it just all came out in an orderly fashion.

Oh sure, there was one point at which I decided I wanted to change the voice and started to go through that process and then changed my mind after going through the first 1/3 of the book. But beyond that, that novella just flowed out of me.

As near as I can tell the reason for this is that the story was a surprise story. One that I never knew was in me until it just showed up one day. I never really took that story too seriously. Not in the sense that I didn’t want to do a good job on it, but it was a bit of a lark to write it.

Here’s another thing, the more I write, the more complicated my story ideas become. That domestic thriller novella — a really simple, basic story. My first novel, the same. But the piece I’m working on now (may be a novella, may just barely reach the 50,000 word mark to be a novel) is more complicated. It is somewhat dystopian, a bit bizarre, in some respects it kind of creates a whole different world, and there are elements to it that I just need to make sure are consistent and complete and carry through the entire thing.

So, here are my questions for you…

What’s the hardest part of a story for you? What’s the easiest? When it comes to those hard parts, are there any strategies you follow to get over the hump, to get past the difficulty and ease into the better parts of the story?

Your Recipe for Writing

I’ve identified five ingredients that go into creative writing; talent, education, examples, practice, and life experiences. I wonder if and how everyone’s recipe for writing is different. So I am wondering, what’s your recipe for writing?

A talent for writing is an ability you’re born with enabling you to put words, sentences, paragraphs and stories together in a coherent manner. It’s the wellspring of inspiration, as well as the steel spring that drives you to write. Many people have stories in their head, but it takes a special talent to bring those stories out, find the words to fit them, and then, set them down – all the way to the end – without it being a class assignment.

Education can be a university MFA degree, college or night school courses taken, seminars attended in person or online, and/or reading and studying how-to-do books or articles on writing. Education offers a tool set of established conventions and techniques that can enhance, expand, and shape one’s intrinsic talent to write.

Examples are what I call the books, movies, and TV shows we’ve read, viewed and enjoyed which have informally informed our concepts of what storytelling is all about. These are sources of education and inspiration that we unconsciously absorb and inform the way we write. While we may absorb certain aspects of styles and subjects, they are not read as text books, though I suppose one can study them as such.

Practice is simply what we’ve learned about writing from writing, writing, writing, and writing over the hours, years, or decades we’ve done it.

Life experiences are what we bring to our writing from what we’ve experienced in living our real lives. It may also include the experiences of others that we have observed in our life. I’ve also placed mundane real world considerations, like having the place, the time, and the energy to write, as well as the tools to write, under this heading.

If you can think of any other ingredients that contribute to your ability to write, please feel free to include them. The question I have for you, dear readers, is what’s your recipe? Can you estimate the share of each of these ingredients in your writing? I expect that it varies from writer to writer and I’m certain other writers would be interested to see the different approach we take to do the one thing we all do.

To get the ball rolling, I’d say that, for me, I believe that talent accounts for 50% of my writing. I’m a big believer in talent. I had the desire to be a writer from the time I started reading. When I started college, I signed up as a journalism major. I wanted to learn to write, not read old books. But I realized that I was too shy to interview people, and decided that if I had the talent, I could write, and if I didn’t, education would not make up for the lack of it. So I switched majors and took my chances. I feel the same way today, some 50 plus years later. Talent is king.

For me, education only accounts for 5%. I took an agriculture journalism course in college, and later, a written communications class in night school when I was thinking of getting a certificate in technical writing. Neither of them had any influence on my writing. The 5% comes from just one class, the most useful class I ever took; my high school typing class. Learning to touch type on manual typewriters has been something I’ve used all my life. Of course you can write novels by hand, or by hunting and pecking, but being able to touch type makes getting ideas into words almost seamless. It’s only 5%, but It’s an important 5%.

Examples accounts for maybe 20% of my writing. I’ve read several thousand novels over the last 60 years and while they have certainly influenced my writing style, I don’t consciously try to imitate any particular writer or style. However, I do think they form the basis of what I think a story should be. Plus, some books, TV shows, and genre fiction have inspired me to write my own versions of their themes.

Practice probably accounts for 15% of my writing. I find it hard to tease this factor out from talent, as it is a direct expression of one’s talent. On one hand that number seems low, but on the other hand, for better or worse, I don’t see a lot of evolution in my writing over the years. Little things have gotten better; but I think I’ve always had a certain voice, and that goes back to my first adult work, some 40 years ago.

Lastly, there’s life experiences. I’m left with 10% to allocate to my life experiences. I don’t think I’m skimping too much in this category. Thankfully, I’ve lived a nice uneventful life, so my real life plays no part in my writing. The 10% in this category comes from the tools and time of life that I now enjoy; which is to say the time retirement has given me to write, and the computer – with spell checking, – that I use to write, as well as the internet, ebooks, and the self publishing opportunities that living in the 21st century has provided. All these things have made writing so much easier. I’ve written a novel and a long novella on a manual typewriter, and when I was working, so I know it is possible to do without all these modern inventions, but they never got published, and it is unlikely that I would have written what I have published, without computers, ebooks, and the prospect of self publishing my work, making effort worthwhile.

So my recipe is 50% talent, 5% education, 20% influences, 15% practice, and 10% life, which should add up to 100% if I got my math right. Now, what is your recipe?