I’ve been writing for a long time. A much longer time, in fact, than I’m willing to admit. For most of that time, publication wasn’t even a smudge on the horizon. All I wanted was to see what might happen to those really cool characters who just stood in the doorway of my mind one day and demanded to be given life.
I wrote hundreds of thousands of words worth of vignettes; just occurrences in the characters’ lives. Imagine the worst of purple prose, stacked upon melodrama. A plot? A story arc? A character arc? WTF?
And that was fine. It was practice. Good, solid writing practice.
Then another character reared his head. His story was a lot more coherent. There was even (gasp!) the beginning of a plot. When I revisit that story, I don’t cringe nearly as much as I do when I’m brave enough to dip into the first story. Yet I know that that story will also never see the light of day.
It was great writing practice. And the practice continues.
Except now, it’s a much more dedicated, targeted practice. It’s not just about my own gratification anymore. It’s about craft and structure and plot lines. And, yes, expectations and industry standards, and marketability. The characters are still and will always be the main drivers of my stories. I never was much of a plotter, and I stand in awe of writers who come up with elaborate, twisting, and yet coherent plots. Big, bold novels that span empires and push armies like game pieces across sprawling boards. Brandon Sanderson is a master. So are Brent Weeks and George R. R. Martin. In my weaker moments I wish my mind worked like that, but it just doesn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I do write high-stakes stories. Only it’s not the survival of an entire world that’s at stake. What’s at stake is the character’s life. Their sanity. Their development and their fulfilment. I need to get into a character’s brain. Under their skin. I want to see what the story events do to them, what they bring out in them, and how they change. Everything’s intensely personal.
It’s the only way I know how to write.
So far.