as small as a world and as large as alone

8:27am September 25, 2014

Hmm, that’s interesting.  I wonder if it’s true.  I’m going to be participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time this year.  I’ve got a fairly good idea what I want out of the novel, even if I don’t actually know the plot yet.  (Plot is low on my list of priorities.  Characters and setting are far more important to me.  And the book I’m reading on how to do all this, says to go with your own priorities, regardless of how odd they are.)  But I’m not sure how much tension there’s going to be.  Given the characters, there could be a lot, there could be a little, and there could be a variable amount.

I’m also not sure if I’m going to be using a conventional plot structure, at all.  I understand the point of the conventional plot structure.  But I’m firmly committed this time to writing the kind of novel I personally would want to read, rather than writing the kind of novel everyone else says to write.  In fact, I think that’s the only way I’ll ever be able to finish a novel, is if I do it my way, regardless of how conventional or unconventional it is.  (And I won’t know how conventional or unconventional it is until I write it.  And I can’t start writing until November 1st.  I’ve written out some character sketches and the like, and some vague ideas, but no real writing writing.)

And I’ve been feeling like I have to take advice of this type with a grain of salt.  Because it all depends on the type of book you’re writing, and why you’re writing it, who you’re writing it for, and what the point of it is.

I remember giving one of my favorite ever books to my mother to read (The Book of Night with Moon) and she ended up trying to read it but putting it down, saying it was moving too slowly.  She says that about a lot of books, which suggests to me that tension and plot are really important to her.  For me, setting and character are the most important.  Tolkien once said that he and his son used to sit around making up random stories about hobbits doing random hobbity things, but that the public would never be interested.  I think he underestimated how much the public would love his work and want any scrap of it preserved.  But also, he was right, in a way – those random hobbity things were mostly character and setting more than plot, and people seem to really like lots of plot.  I like lots of character and setting and can even read books that other people say “have no plot” and be perfectly content with them as long as the characters and settings are interesting enough to me.

So my story is mostly about one character, and her interaction with two other characters.  Well actually, her interaction with one other character, and then her interaction with an entire setting that she views like a person.  I don’t know what the plot is going to be.  I don’t know whether the plot will be linear or nonlinear.  I don’t know how strong of a plot there will be.  I don’t know how much tension there will be.  And I don’t know how much conflict there will be – I’m sure there will be some, but I am not sure it will be the driving force of the book the way it’s “supposed to” be.  I’m pretty sure there will be no antagonist.  There are only four characters so far plus the setting-as-character and any inanimate objects that may sort of become characters because of how the main character views them (similar to the setting).

The point of the whole book is not the plot, though.  It’s to convey feelings and experiences that I can’t convey easily in nonfiction.  I’m not sure how well they’ll come across in fiction, either, but I just have a good feeling about this.  Like if I can manage to accomplish it, then I’ll have something really good on my hands.  Maybe not really good by anyone else’s standards, but really good by my own, and that’s what matters in writing this particular story:  I really want to get things outside of my head that I can’t normally get outside of my head.  And whether anyone else considers it a good read is a bonus.

But I’m finding myself looking at writing advice differently than I did before.  I used to assume that writing advice from good writers was always good writing advice.  Now I’m starting to feel that writing advice depends a lot on context.  And keeping tension constant is a good thing when you’re doing embroidery, also a good thing when you’re writing certain kinds of fiction, but it could also absolutely destroy the wrong kind of story.  Some stories need gradual, slow movement that doesn’t have much tension at all, because they’re more about painting a picture than watching a movie.  And I’m starting to trust that there are many, many ways to do things that can all be right in their particular context.

Of course as someone who’s never written a book before, I’m sure that people will say I don’t know what I’m talking about.  But I’ve read tons of books, and I know what I like to read.  And I’m trying to write the same kind of book that I’d love to read but that I rarely actually see written anywhere.  Because I’m sure there are other people who would like to read the same kind of books I like to read.  And if I can actually do this, which is a huge if, then I’m going to be excited beyond belief.

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