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| Photo by Cleo Sanda |
It cannot be repeated often enough that there is no single
right way to write a novel (or to compose a symphony or design a house). All
these artistic endeavors require certain elements (plot, characters, tension rising
to a climax, or motif and variations, harmony, contrast, or foundation, walls,
plumbing, etc.) They vary in the point in the creative process at which those
crucial elements must be in place, of course. Within those parameters, there’s
a great deal of flexibility that allows for individual differences. What
matters is not when a writer nails down the turning points, but that they are
present and in balance with the rest of the book when it ends on the editor’s
desk.
Many writers attempt their first novels by the
“seat-of-the-pants” method, that is, writing whatever pops into their heads.
Sometimes they end up with dead ends (disguised as “writer’s block”) and don’t
finish the work. Other times, they do finish, only to discover (either through
their own perceptions or feedback from others) that the book has significant
problems. So they write another draft and go through the same process until
either the story works or they become so frustrated they give up, or they
refuse to accept further critiques and self-publish it.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with such a spontaneous
approach to the first draft. A good deal of the pleasure of writing is in
discovery, in not knowing what will come next as the adventure unfolds. This is
how children play. It does require a separate editorial, self-critical phase,
at least for most of us. That’s neither good nor bad, it’s just part of the
process. If you want to “pants” your first draft, you accept that you’re going
to have to revise. Maybe a little, maybe a lot. Some writers loathe revision. I
happen to love it.
At some point, it occurs to many of us that if we maybe
thought about what was going to happen in our novel and how we were going to
portray it, that we might save ourselves a bit of revision time. We might even
jot down a few notes, reminding ourselves that this is just a tentative sketch
and that nothing is carved in granite. We may and most certainly do change our
minds when we discover that the actual story has diverged significantly from
our strategy. I’ve been known to rework my notes, negotiating the borderlands
between spontaneous writing and ill-thought-out plan.
