It's occurred to me that only after I’ve finished a novel can I confidently say that I know how to write a novel. And then I forget.
In trying to write the next one, I find I know next to nothing. Each book is her own beast, with her own set of problems, and I have to learn what to do all over again.
Yes, there are conventions that must be applied to every work of fiction, such as
setting matters up with enough tantalising mystery to keep the reader intrigued from the start
showing and not telling
giving each character their own distinctive voice
utilising those cunning literary devices such as pathetic fallacy or the 'rule of three'
a plot that builds over a rough three-act structure to something that becomes more exciting (hopefully) as it goes along
making your characters likeable enough that when they reach the ‘point of no return’ in the last third of the book you genuinely feel for them
taking out every unnecessary 'that' and firing them into the sun
And, yet, a sucky first draft always surfaces that bears all the hallmarks of an amateur who hacked their words out under a duvet. Sadly, the books don’t write themselves and, though it sounds as though there’s a formula involved in writing, they’re more organic and slippery and downright evil than that. The exceptions to the 'rules' are too egregious, and the lacunae between the written words and your intended words are as vast as the Sargasso Sea and as potentially becalming as its horse latitudes.
It doesn’t help that I tend towards being a pantser in my writing, one of those idiots who flies by the seats of their trousers and scribes without a roadmap. And, even when I do try to plot it all out beforehand, it’s gone to bollocks by the end of the first chapter and my garden overflows with weeds that think they’re flowers.
This approach, quite obviously, makes it hard to break through certain blocks in the narrative and a crazy amount of retconning has to occur in later drafts to fix the evolving or devolving story. But it’s a method I prefer for a simple reason: If I know 100% where the story’s going to go, if there’s not a chance of a surprise coming for its author, I worry I'll lose interest in the book, procrastinate or give up on it. In the past, I’ve tried to write detailed plans and the book has ended up rigid, full of clear ‘story beat’ markers that stood out as forced or inauthentic. Far better to give the work the kiss of life and then sit back and watch it breathe by itself.
In a nutshell, being a pantser is difficult. Being a plotter is difficult. It’s all bloody difficult.
Is it disheartening that I feel as though I've forgotten what I’ve learned every time I try to start again, or that the 'rules' seem to change with each book? Not really, because the journey is its own discovery and I'm also being massively melodramatic: I retain *some* of what fooled me the time before, of course I do. That area between knowing and not knowing does shrink with each work, even if it feels like it doesn’t. The fact is, I judge my work now against what I know about how a piece of literature should look, feel and smell. The more a writer learns, the more it appears there’s more to learn.
Essentially, a writer starting out is blissfully unaware that what they’re churning out is - quite probably - crap. But after they’ve scuffed themselves round the block a few times, the mistakes are easier to spot, but errors will still be made. Any work of art requires an element of groping in the dark. When we learn a new skill, we become exposed to a better way of doing things and our tastes, we hope, refine themselves. As time goes on, our skillset races to catch up and we compare ourselves to the best work out there, to others who’ve been in the game forever, or to the version of ourselves who fluked upon the answer once or twice before, and we feel amateurish and lumpen in comparison.
But every first draft is kitty litter-tray lining, and represents the work at the worst it's ever going to be. And a bad first draft is still better than no draft at all. It’s impossible to edit a writing-bereft page, but you can polish and cut and reorder a page full of words until they bleed an approximation of poetry.
So stick with it, he tells himself. It will come good, once you’ve hauled it over the line, in a year, maybe two, sometimes five.
Oh yeah, that’s why I forget. Because books take such an unfathomably, mercilessly long time to write.
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