DISCOVERY WRITERS NEED TO USE THE SKILL AND ART OF DISCOVERY
Writing a novel is like a journey. When you get to the end of it, the actual final-draft, last-word end, you’ll think back on how you got to that point and it will all be a little sketchy. You have gone through a lot and you’re a little surprised you made it and happy too and a little sad. It’s the process of finding your way that is most exciting and engaging. Creating something from nothing. Well, that’s magic. We writers do that. We create magic.
My last two posts have been on how to build a novel—generally. Read those before reading this one.
Here are a couple of ideas to help you work on building a novel.
Discovery. It’s what you’re doing when you start writing if you’re someone who writes without an outline. You are discovering your plot, characters, setting, voice and so on. You’re discovering something new every day. You’re a discovery writer. I don’t like the sound of pantsing. It implies you are flying by the seat of your pants. It makes the process seem random and without a clear plan. OK—it’s a little random and the actual plot is not planned BUT the process to writing a book is. You are discovering your story as you go along in your first draft. Own that. Know you will revise your way to a better novel.
Anyway, you find your way as you find your way
Approach this “finding your way” as fearlessly as possible. You’ll get there, wherever there is, if you just keep writing. The most important thing is that you finish the draft. You need to write THE END at the end.
A few points about getting started when writing a discovery draft:
I said low expectations are very helpful to the discovery writer’s first draft. Here’s what I mean. You have to make your discovery draft full of true discovery. Take chances. Be bold. You won’t be sure in certain places what you want to do with a scene or chapter so you just write a few sentences about what you think you want the scene to do and then whatever bits that come to you. Maybe a little dialogue or a description of a character. NEXT draft you’re going to fill it in. Next draft you will have the benefit of a story that has a beginning and an end.
You need to let things go in that first draft. Be thinking big picture. Make little notes to yourself but don’t worry about details. Get on with the main story or stories ( I always have a main story and a couple of sub-plots but you do you). Get it down in some form you can work with—that’s the goal of draft 1 for a discovery writer.
An important part of my becoming a good discovery writer is learning to recognize when I’ve discovered something that I can develop that will enhance the story and not discovered something that is kind of cool, but will take my story in the wrong direction. Learning this is key to success. It takes a bit of practice to recognize good discoveries sometimes. Keep writing and use your intuition and you’ll be fine.
Use the tool of reverse engineering. So let’s say you discover an important something late in the novel. You’ll need to use an essential tool to any writer who writes fiction: REVERSE ENGINEERING. Reverse engineer your story from the end back to the beginning. Like you figure out you want your characters to be able to do something together at the end that saves the day. That can’t just happen out of nowhere. You have to build it, showing a progression from the beginning to the end of the manuscript. Work your way back to the beginning. You’ll likely find three or four points to reverse engineer as you work through your drafts.
Hope this give you some specific ideas of how to build your novel’s first draft.
Brian
