I really like what you said about Invisible Cities. It reminds me of the Invisible Seas story in Metallic Realms (unsurprisingly, and as I write this and look at the two titles...well done). It could easily be boring to read about four planets that don't exist. But one was about adaptation for survival. Another about the cyclical nature of an eternal fall.
I'm struggling with my manuscript because my characters are all (intentionally) isolated people. They don't stray from their core group often, and it feels...boring. Things change throughout the book, but the way I talk about them doesn't. This makes me think that it's less that my story isn't right as the telling isn't correct yet.
Thank you, and yes that was an intentional homage!
I'm not sure if this is useful or not, but for a book like yours I sometimes think about sitcom dynamics. Not that the work needs to be funny but that much of the interest and drama can be generated from seeing how different personalities clash in different scenarios. Sitcoms often stay close to a very core group but mix and match the personalities and situations.
Thinking about it, there are definitely some sitcom dynamics at play. They're all con artists who have to convince each other to be on the same team. That's a really interesting way to look at it, thank you!
You know how they say that everything comes to you at the right time? I don't think I believe that, but I do believe that you might notice people or ideas at the time that they are needed. And I feel that way with writing advice. This substack has been so helpful, (particularly the plotting series, but really all of it, and all the writers you've referenced) and I just wanted to let you know that!
I also have a question- when you send your work out, do you feel like you've done everything possible to make it the way it should be? Even when you send it to writer friends? I feel like my thinking can be very black and white and I've been sitting on a piece for a long time, and continually finding new ways to fix it.
Honestly, I don't know many writers who ever feel confident about when things are done. It's normally a mix of self-doubt, overconfidence, feedback, and deadline panic. At some point you just have to call it done even if it never feels DONE done.
Thanks for your liberating and enabling comments re not having a plot.
I wrote a 20K-word, deeply detailed outline for a con/heist novel of sorts, then realized that I'd only need 50K words total to detail the action and the characters amidst it like crime novels from decades ago, but the current fiction market would want an addition 30-50K words on the doomed marriage and family dynamics at the heart of the story, and I just didn't care, however unhappy the characters were in their own way. I wanted to write a crime story, not essentially a suburban romance with a crime. So I put it aside. Then, to my astonishment, the con/heist happened in real life!
Wondering what I should do instead, then I happened to read Renata Adler's SPEEDBOAT, which made me think, Wait, a book can be this fragmentary? Then I happened to read Latronico's PERFECTION, which I hadn't heard about until LitHub included it in a year-end review. It made me think, Wait, a novel doesn't really have to have a plot? And these books and several others in translation, such as THE HOLE, made me think, Wait, so novel can be only 50K words nowadays? So I went with that and enjoyed writing a fragmentary, plotless novel that's deeply weird and wicked fun, at least according to my sensibilities. Maybe there's no market for it--the reason why I'm scared to send it to my agent and waste her time--or maybe it's not good enough to publish, being more literary than the trending horror audience wants and too weird for the LitHub-ish literary audience, but I don't care. It is what it is, I had a blast creating it, and so the effort was entirely worth the ten months it took.
I really like what you said about Invisible Cities. It reminds me of the Invisible Seas story in Metallic Realms (unsurprisingly, and as I write this and look at the two titles...well done). It could easily be boring to read about four planets that don't exist. But one was about adaptation for survival. Another about the cyclical nature of an eternal fall.
I'm struggling with my manuscript because my characters are all (intentionally) isolated people. They don't stray from their core group often, and it feels...boring. Things change throughout the book, but the way I talk about them doesn't. This makes me think that it's less that my story isn't right as the telling isn't correct yet.
Thank you, and yes that was an intentional homage!
I'm not sure if this is useful or not, but for a book like yours I sometimes think about sitcom dynamics. Not that the work needs to be funny but that much of the interest and drama can be generated from seeing how different personalities clash in different scenarios. Sitcoms often stay close to a very core group but mix and match the personalities and situations.
Thinking about it, there are definitely some sitcom dynamics at play. They're all con artists who have to convince each other to be on the same team. That's a really interesting way to look at it, thank you!
right, variation is what keeps a pattern from becoming a formula.
You know how they say that everything comes to you at the right time? I don't think I believe that, but I do believe that you might notice people or ideas at the time that they are needed. And I feel that way with writing advice. This substack has been so helpful, (particularly the plotting series, but really all of it, and all the writers you've referenced) and I just wanted to let you know that!
I also have a question- when you send your work out, do you feel like you've done everything possible to make it the way it should be? Even when you send it to writer friends? I feel like my thinking can be very black and white and I've been sitting on a piece for a long time, and continually finding new ways to fix it.
Very glad it was useful!
Honestly, I don't know many writers who ever feel confident about when things are done. It's normally a mix of self-doubt, overconfidence, feedback, and deadline panic. At some point you just have to call it done even if it never feels DONE done.
Thanks for your liberating and enabling comments re not having a plot.
I wrote a 20K-word, deeply detailed outline for a con/heist novel of sorts, then realized that I'd only need 50K words total to detail the action and the characters amidst it like crime novels from decades ago, but the current fiction market would want an addition 30-50K words on the doomed marriage and family dynamics at the heart of the story, and I just didn't care, however unhappy the characters were in their own way. I wanted to write a crime story, not essentially a suburban romance with a crime. So I put it aside. Then, to my astonishment, the con/heist happened in real life!
Wondering what I should do instead, then I happened to read Renata Adler's SPEEDBOAT, which made me think, Wait, a book can be this fragmentary? Then I happened to read Latronico's PERFECTION, which I hadn't heard about until LitHub included it in a year-end review. It made me think, Wait, a novel doesn't really have to have a plot? And these books and several others in translation, such as THE HOLE, made me think, Wait, so novel can be only 50K words nowadays? So I went with that and enjoyed writing a fragmentary, plotless novel that's deeply weird and wicked fun, at least according to my sensibilities. Maybe there's no market for it--the reason why I'm scared to send it to my agent and waste her time--or maybe it's not good enough to publish, being more literary than the trending horror audience wants and too weird for the LitHub-ish literary audience, but I don't care. It is what it is, I had a blast creating it, and so the effort was entirely worth the ten months it took.