Deplotting

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

As I charge forward more or less on A School Of Many Futures, I find myself feeling constrained at times. I have these awful moments of feeling trapped in my work, weighed down.

You may recognize a similar experience in writing my first novel, where I talked about how Big Rocks, ideas I was afraid to abandon. This is a similar feeling, but more distributed, not quite as bad as last time. So what happened?

The more I looked it over the more I realized that this time around there were less big constraints, but a kind of feeling of being confined. It wasn’t that I was attached to anything particularly, but more that as I wrote I’d wonder if I should change something, or redo something. Every change made me worry more about six little things, and I wasn’t sure how to respond.

So in true Steve Fashion I decided to analyze what was going on and apply (you got it) Agile methods.

I had a pretty good book outline, created iteratively (I applied a mix of my own methods, Agile, and the Snowflake Method that is slowly evolving into my own method). I had my arcs thought out, from big pictures to character trends, and it felt very “alive.” I could have written the thing as I plotted it and had and a decent book.

But as you know, writing always reveals changes and new trends and flaws. Even nonfiction results in discoveries, and fiction writing usually involves all sorts of surprises and inspirations. Writing is engaging and you don’t just find flaws – you find new ideas. Those still produced discomfort as I had to change things – but I wasn’t butting up against Big Rocks, more . . . the whole plot in general.

So Agile to the rescule.

A plot is essentially a backlog – which in most Agile practices is a prioritized list of “stuff to do.” In Agile practices you keep a backlog and take the most important things off the top and do them. At the time, you’re always reshuffling and modifying the backlog as you find things out.

There was my answer. I had “over-structured” the backlog, with scenes and elements locked down and I wasn’t willing to change or reshuffle them. I had them broken down pretty good (thus no Big Rocks), but I wasn’t ready to make changes. I was clinging to a structure, not parts of the structure.

So what I did was Deplot the novel, making the plot outline “lighter” and easier to shuffle and modify. Here’s what I did.

  1. As I had plotted the novel interatively, I had outlines of it at different levels. I took “one step back” from my master outline to an outline of arcs paced to chapters. Imagine a spreadsheet that has chapters listed horizontally, arcs vertically, and rough ideas of what happens for each arc in each chapter.
  2. I treated each chapter as a collection of elements to include, but did not plot individual scenes. I used my old full outline as a guide for ideas, but it was mostly “get from A to B within this chapter.”
  3. As I wrote a chapter, I would make notes on other chapters to look at in a second pass, and as things changed, I’d make notes and modify my various arcs.
  4. I made sure the scenes fulfilled certain purposes and arcs, and reviewed how well they did their job.

This was liberating. Last novel I escaped my “Big Rocks,” being dragged down by giant plot chunks I refused to modify. This novel I was stuck stepping on little plot bits here and wasn’t willing to reorder my big pile of small parts.

So simply, I deplotted my book. I made my goals a bit more abstract. I gave myself room.

This was really liberating. I started writing a lot faster. I had a good note system to review. I rethought major arcs easily. All I had to do was step back a bit more.

The big takeaway here, I think, is that you may indeed need detailed ideas and plans to write. But there’s a level of asking how much you need to plot out the order and sequence and elements. In my case I found that the book was best broken into chapters with arcs, and that would contain elements of other arcs – but as I wrote I’d find the best way and took notes on other insights for later.

So when you plot out your books and lay out your books, ask yourself when you stop defining the level of detail of your work. Leave yourself the room for discovery that you need. It may differ between different books (my nonfiction works far differently) but find what works for you when.

There are other insights to discuss later, but this is one I wanted to address.

P.S. An additional note, I also found certain scenes and elements were very definitely not changing when I stepped back – not so much Big Rocks but things that just felt “right.” When blocked I wrote them out of order to get my mind going – these were things that were “just right” and I probably ought to explore them more.

Steven Savage

Steve’s Update 11/15/2019

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Hello all. Last time I was trying to catch up – so how are we doing?

So what have I done since last time?

  • Way With Worlds: The Gods and Deities Book is going OK, though I’m trying to pace writing it differently. As opposed to doing a bit each day the idea is to bingewrite once a week – and it’s been a busy week. I’ll know more in a few weeks.
  • Chance’s Muse: Editing done and the print book is formatted!
  • A School Of Many Futures: I’ve written out to Chapter 4 (as well as other stuff like some scenes and all of the last chapter) and done some “Deplotting” to loosen the plot up so it can evolve.
  • Seventh Sanctum: Not much, just ideas. Man I miss this . .
  • General: The new time management is actually helping. This was a brutal week and I’m still going to get most everything done if not more.

What’s next?

  • Way With Worlds: Keep writing – and see how things go.
  • Chance’s Muse: Do the cover and get a beta print copy out.
  • A School Of Many Futures: Review the plot outline, polish chapters 1-4, and then tear into writing more!
  • Seventh Sanctum: Do something so I can stop complaining 😛

Steven Savage

Stop Being The Writer You Are

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Let me ask you a question – imagine someone is basing a character on you as a writer. How would they portray it, what “writer archetype” would you easily map to?

My guess is that answer came a bit too easily, or that once you examined it, you found the choice was not quite right.

Our culture provides us many ways to think about being a writer – roles and tropes and ideas of who we should be. Lately I’ve been aware of just how often writers (and indeed creatives) slot themselves into various cultural tropes. I think it’s actually holding us back.

How often have you met people describe themselves as “X kind of writer?” How many people have said “I’m trying to be like X?” Have you ever met someone who seemed to be playing a “role” as an author like Unappreciated Creator or Self-Depreciating Writer or Calculating Opportunist? Culture provides us many ways to think about ourselves.

How do you think about yourself? And is it healthy? I’ve come to wonder if the roles society gives us aren’t that healthy.

There’s so many negative ideas of authors and all creatives. There’s the inevitable Sad Failed Author, or the Unappreciated Auteur. There’s the Has-Been, and the Never Will be. If we’re not thinking of ourselves in bad ways, we worry others may fit us into the tropes.

There’s also so many limited ideas of author. How many people “Just Write X?” How many people “Want To Be Like Y” – the way so many movies are “like A plus B.” How many roles, even positive, are constraining?

So here’s my challenge to you. I want you to rethink yourself as a writer. Come up with a way to describe yourself that’s your own. Define yourself.

Perhaps you do it like a Fantasy Class. Are you a Fantasybender? Are you a Priestess of Promotional Advice?

Maybe you do this in a simple evocative way. You’re the Hard-Bitten Humorist. You’re The Worldbuilding Guru.

Another way to do this is put it as a role. Supporter of Cosplayers. Crafter of Sarcasm.

Try any of those, but I challenge you now to come up with a way to describe you, as a writer, that’s yours.

Steven Savage