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ravenna_c_tanSo, my “unexpected dragon book,” working title “Windmark,” has just passed 70,000 words in the first draft and all hell is about to break loose, as it should when act three arrives! This is the fun part for me because, I’ll be honest, I do not actually know where this book is going.
That’s right. I do not know the plot.
It feels like a high fantasy trilogy, which means this book is setting up two more. But at this point I only have the same guesses a reader would (probably) have about what’s coming. It sounds nuts, but I’m finding out this is a far more productive, faster, and less painful way for me to write a book than plotting it out in advance.
To me, it feels more like “art” and less like “work.”
Let me explain.
You may have heard writers referred to as either “plotters” or “pantsers”—a plotter plans stuff in advance, maybe even in great detail. Some map out relationship beats, reveals, and twists. A pantser, on the other hand, writes by the seat of their pants.
Back in my MFA program pantsing was more delicately termed “writing for discovery.” The first time I heard that term, my ears perked up. Oh, is that what I’m doing?
Yes. For me, writing fiction is a continual process of revealing my subconscious to myself (and the reader). What gives me joy and energy and drive is figuring out what happens, what comes next, and why it matters.
Some plotters I know figure that out in the planning stages. Some know their three-act structure and which incidents will mark the transitions. They might even do stuff that isn’t strictly speaking “plot,” like writing out extensive character sheets, so they know their characters’ hangups and childhood traumas.
I, on the other hand, have to wait until my characters feel like telling me, and sometimes that isn’t until halfway through the book. (But they tell me when the vibe is right to find out, you know?)
In a fantasy setting, of course, all the advice out there on worldbuilding is that you should figure out stuff like the rules of your magic system, and where the food comes from, and map how far it is to the citadel of evil, and so on, before you start writing. And I have done that, sometimes.
Before I started writing The Prince’s Boy I set down some rules about what the languages of the two main regions sounded like, and I made up a whole page of proper names that could be applied to people or places.
Before writing Magic University I created a whole cast of characters for Kyle to interact with—both students and faculty—complete with reference photos and background bios. I worked out which magical departments conferred degrees, and I even named some buildings.
Doing pre-work like that makes sense, right?
Right?
Well, maybe. The pre-work I did on Windmark was… nothing.
I sat down with a blank page and the bare spark of an inspiration, and just wrote a first chapter without knowing anything.
I didn’t even know the names of the characters until someone had to say them aloud. By the time I was done with the first paragraph, I knew she was a healer, and he was a warrior, and that they were exes, and that they each blamed the other for their downfall.
Oh, and by a few sentences in, I knew they both hated a third person, the prince of the realm, even more than they hated each other. That just sprang out.
By the end of that scene I knew a lot more. I knew the name of one kind of dragon. I knew a bunch about the judicial system. I knew a bunch about three different cultures.
No, I didn’t plan any of it. It’s just coming, almost like the story is coming through me instead of from me.
I’m moving so fast that I’m just leaving blanks all over the place. I need names for gods and goddesses. I need names for dragons, and foods, and musical instruments. And I’m literally leaving sentences with a _______ to be filled in later. And some places where I’ve invented a word, I’m probably going to replace it later with something I like better.
This is probably NOT the advice you’d give an aspiring writer about how to do it, would you? This is not the kind of technique they teach classes about at RWA. This is not what any of the how-to books tell you.
No one tells you to just fly blind without checking your flaps and filling your gas tank first… or don’t even get in the plane, just leap into the sky.
But that’s what I’m doing. And it’s working.
By the way, when I say it feels more like art for me to write this way, I am not implying that plotters are somehow less artistic. All craft is artistry!
But I feel a lot of the writing advice out there is about demystifying the process. What I’m doing for myself is re-mystifying it. I’m going to let it be a mystery how stuff gets from my subconscious onto the page. I’m enjoying that the plot is a mystery to me. I can’t wait to find out what happens!
This is the opposite of the experience I had writing Slow Seduction and Slow Satisfaction. I thought I jinxed myself with those titles because writing them felt so slow! The Secrets of the Rock Star series also felt slow, and of course nothing could have been slower than The Vanished Chronicles (although most of the nearly 10-year long delay was Tor being slow, not me). What did all those books have in common? They were all sold on proposal—including plot synopses—the norm when selling to a big publisher.
And they all felt like an uphill struggle to write. I thought it was menopause. I wondered if genre expectations were stifling me. I blamed the cognitive load of politics and the pandemic. All those things might have been factors. But a mere 24 hours after I declared I wasn’t going to chase big publishing anymore… this book started pouring out.
This book which is still flowing into act three. There was no “soggy middle” this time! Usually the advice for avoiding getting bogged down is to plot it better/more, right? Wrong! The cure was to have no clue at all, and to be constantly hungry to find out.
This book has dragons, and palace intrigue, and a love-hate triangle, and gladiators, and at least three genders, and (almost) everyone’s bisexual.
There’s systemic sexism and oppression, and a rebel movement against the crown. There’s a drunken scholar, a wisecracking nonbinary power bottom, and a king who might be insane.
Oh, and longing, and unresolved sexual tension. Which means there is much less sex on the page than usual for one of my books. But I think—I THINK—it means that we’ll be getting to it eventually.
Write for discovery. It’s so exciting! I’m discovering interesting cultures, and characters’ hidden motivations, and being spun through some wonderful twists. The complexity of the story keeps blossoming like a fractal, like the entire story is contained in that first chapter and I’m just diving deeper into the design with each successive writing session.
I can’t wait to share the world of Windmark with everyone… but it’ll be a while. After all, I have to finish the draft, and then I have to go back and fill in all the missing names!
---
(Ahem. If you’re interested in being a beta reader, though, I’ve put up a signup form: https://forms.gle/ERQgNbNkgVJT1TEFA)
That’s right. I do not know the plot.
It feels like a high fantasy trilogy, which means this book is setting up two more. But at this point I only have the same guesses a reader would (probably) have about what’s coming. It sounds nuts, but I’m finding out this is a far more productive, faster, and less painful way for me to write a book than plotting it out in advance.
To me, it feels more like “art” and less like “work.”
Let me explain.
You may have heard writers referred to as either “plotters” or “pantsers”—a plotter plans stuff in advance, maybe even in great detail. Some map out relationship beats, reveals, and twists. A pantser, on the other hand, writes by the seat of their pants.
Back in my MFA program pantsing was more delicately termed “writing for discovery.” The first time I heard that term, my ears perked up. Oh, is that what I’m doing?
Yes. For me, writing fiction is a continual process of revealing my subconscious to myself (and the reader). What gives me joy and energy and drive is figuring out what happens, what comes next, and why it matters.
Some plotters I know figure that out in the planning stages. Some know their three-act structure and which incidents will mark the transitions. They might even do stuff that isn’t strictly speaking “plot,” like writing out extensive character sheets, so they know their characters’ hangups and childhood traumas.
I, on the other hand, have to wait until my characters feel like telling me, and sometimes that isn’t until halfway through the book. (But they tell me when the vibe is right to find out, you know?)
In a fantasy setting, of course, all the advice out there on worldbuilding is that you should figure out stuff like the rules of your magic system, and where the food comes from, and map how far it is to the citadel of evil, and so on, before you start writing. And I have done that, sometimes.
Before I started writing The Prince’s Boy I set down some rules about what the languages of the two main regions sounded like, and I made up a whole page of proper names that could be applied to people or places.
Before writing Magic University I created a whole cast of characters for Kyle to interact with—both students and faculty—complete with reference photos and background bios. I worked out which magical departments conferred degrees, and I even named some buildings.
Doing pre-work like that makes sense, right?
Right?
Well, maybe. The pre-work I did on Windmark was… nothing.
I sat down with a blank page and the bare spark of an inspiration, and just wrote a first chapter without knowing anything.
I didn’t even know the names of the characters until someone had to say them aloud. By the time I was done with the first paragraph, I knew she was a healer, and he was a warrior, and that they were exes, and that they each blamed the other for their downfall.
Oh, and by a few sentences in, I knew they both hated a third person, the prince of the realm, even more than they hated each other. That just sprang out.
By the end of that scene I knew a lot more. I knew the name of one kind of dragon. I knew a bunch about the judicial system. I knew a bunch about three different cultures.
No, I didn’t plan any of it. It’s just coming, almost like the story is coming through me instead of from me.
I’m moving so fast that I’m just leaving blanks all over the place. I need names for gods and goddesses. I need names for dragons, and foods, and musical instruments. And I’m literally leaving sentences with a _______ to be filled in later. And some places where I’ve invented a word, I’m probably going to replace it later with something I like better.
This is probably NOT the advice you’d give an aspiring writer about how to do it, would you? This is not the kind of technique they teach classes about at RWA. This is not what any of the how-to books tell you.
No one tells you to just fly blind without checking your flaps and filling your gas tank first… or don’t even get in the plane, just leap into the sky.
But that’s what I’m doing. And it’s working.
By the way, when I say it feels more like art for me to write this way, I am not implying that plotters are somehow less artistic. All craft is artistry!
But I feel a lot of the writing advice out there is about demystifying the process. What I’m doing for myself is re-mystifying it. I’m going to let it be a mystery how stuff gets from my subconscious onto the page. I’m enjoying that the plot is a mystery to me. I can’t wait to find out what happens!
This is the opposite of the experience I had writing Slow Seduction and Slow Satisfaction. I thought I jinxed myself with those titles because writing them felt so slow! The Secrets of the Rock Star series also felt slow, and of course nothing could have been slower than The Vanished Chronicles (although most of the nearly 10-year long delay was Tor being slow, not me). What did all those books have in common? They were all sold on proposal—including plot synopses—the norm when selling to a big publisher.
And they all felt like an uphill struggle to write. I thought it was menopause. I wondered if genre expectations were stifling me. I blamed the cognitive load of politics and the pandemic. All those things might have been factors. But a mere 24 hours after I declared I wasn’t going to chase big publishing anymore… this book started pouring out.
This book which is still flowing into act three. There was no “soggy middle” this time! Usually the advice for avoiding getting bogged down is to plot it better/more, right? Wrong! The cure was to have no clue at all, and to be constantly hungry to find out.
This book has dragons, and palace intrigue, and a love-hate triangle, and gladiators, and at least three genders, and (almost) everyone’s bisexual.
There’s systemic sexism and oppression, and a rebel movement against the crown. There’s a drunken scholar, a wisecracking nonbinary power bottom, and a king who might be insane.
Oh, and longing, and unresolved sexual tension. Which means there is much less sex on the page than usual for one of my books. But I think—I THINK—it means that we’ll be getting to it eventually.
Write for discovery. It’s so exciting! I’m discovering interesting cultures, and characters’ hidden motivations, and being spun through some wonderful twists. The complexity of the story keeps blossoming like a fractal, like the entire story is contained in that first chapter and I’m just diving deeper into the design with each successive writing session.
I can’t wait to share the world of Windmark with everyone… but it’ll be a while. After all, I have to finish the draft, and then I have to go back and fill in all the missing names!
---
(Ahem. If you’re interested in being a beta reader, though, I’ve put up a signup form: https://forms.gle/ERQgNbNkgVJT1TEFA)
