In Today’s Journal
* Stephen King
* Quotes of the Day
* A WITD Experience
* Of Interest
Stephen King
In my previous post, I kind of featured crime writer Michael Connelly and got some great writing advice from him. Today, I’m doing the same thing on steroids with Stephen King from the Quotes of the Day to Of Interest.
I’ll also outline “A WITD Experience,” especially for those who haven’t yet been able to pull the trigger on trying it yet.
Quotes of the Day
“I’m a total child about this. The only thing I really want is for you to want to know what happens next.” Stephen King after a live reading of the first four pages of The Dome
“I feel like you have to follow the characters and you have to follow the story where it leads. The last thing I want to do is spoil a story with plot. I think the plot is the last resort of bad writers, as a rule. I’m a lot more interested in character and situation and you follow it where it goes. ” Stephen King
“You explore the room to the corners but there’s always stuff under the rug.” Stephen King on whether or why he revisits or expands an idea he’s written before
“I just record these things as they come through my head.” Stephen King on his process
A WITD Experience
I understand those who say they can’t write into the dark. And hey, they’re right. If you figure you flat can’t do something, then you definitely can’t do it.
I also understand those who refuse to even try WITD.
After all, when you even consider WITD, you’re considering stepping into the complete unknown, and away from the security and seeming certainty of a routine that practically everyone says will end in success.
And by practically everyone, I mean high school teachers, college professors, friends, relatives, the characters in movies and TV shows, and even a lot of other writers.
So especially with all those entities pulling for and promoting that secure routine, stepping into the unknown and writing into the dark is a scary proposition.
We face the same fear every time we encounter any major change in the way we do things, and I was absolutely no different than you are right now.
In my own early days of wanting to be a serious fiction writer (only 14 years ago in 2012) I was constantly glued to Dean Wesley Smith’s website. I’d met him a couple of times at conferences where we were both presenting sessions.
One day in February 2012, I looked up his website, and through his posts, Dean did two massive favors for me:
- He introduced me to Heinlein’s Rules, which made complete sense to me. Well, except that No Rewriting thing. That seemed a little extreme.
- Then he introduced me to writing into the dark, which completely changed my life.
But at the beginning, I was skeptical to say the least.
I even thought (as I suspect many of you have) that WITD was fine for him because he’d written so many novels and short stories over the past several decades.
After all, he’s used to coming up with new characters and plots and descriptions, etc. He must know story structure forward and backward. It must be second nature to him and easy for him to do.
But No Way would WITD work for me or any other aspiring writer. Better to keep character-sketching and world-building and planning and plotting and outlining and thinking things through.
After all, those are the approved and accepted steps everyone puts forth as how to succeed as a fiction writer. And especially revision and rewriting. There are a ton of pundits out there who say rewriting IS writing.
Only Dean kept insisting, in his blog and in emails to me, that he never sold a short story until he “dared to be bad” and started writing into the dark.
So eventually I realized, you know, I can believe whatever I want to believe about any situation or any process. Any of us can.
But the only way to know for sure whether WITD would work for me is to try it, see what happens, and let the results speak for themselves.
That was a watershed moment for me.
Still, my mind kicked into overdrive with various fears and questions:
- Ooh, I don’t know who the character really is. I don’t know his personality or background or what he might say or do. I’d better do a character sketch before I start writing a story into the dark. Or
- I don’t know enough about the story world enough yet. I need to develop and build and maybe expand the story world.
- And what if it doesn’t work? What if the story I write into the dark sucks?
- What if even trying it’s a complete waste of time? and on and on and on.
I had so little faith in WITD and in myself that I never once thought to ask What if it does work?
But no matter what question I asked, the answer always came back the same: If it doesn’t work, I can always go back to planning, plotting, outlining, etc. One thing isn’t necessarily exclusive of the other.
That gave me a ready path back to the safety net of my routine (and the myths) and helped ease my fears a little.
I finally was able to shove my fears and questions completely aside by reassuring myself that I’d only have to write one short story into the dark. That attempt would no-doubt tell me WITD wouldn’t work for me, and the safety net would still be there when I returned to its loving, routine folds.
So I took a deep breath, shoved the planning and plotting and outlining aside, and wrote a short story called “Consuela” into the dark. I started with a middle-aged female character in a kitchen, preparing breakfast. Her problem was that despite her calling for him repeatedly as she worked, her husband hadn’t come out of the bedroom.
It worked. (Trust me, you don’t know how it ended.) I loved the story, and I knew others would like it.
But I also figured it was probably a fluke or beginner’s luck.
So I tried it again. Then again. Then again. After I’d written 8 or 10 short stories into the dark and sold all but one of them to few different magazines, I was finally satisfied my initial success with WITD wasn’t a fluke. WITD actually worked.
Then another realization came to me:
The “safety net” and routine of the writing myths existed only to enable me to put off having to sit down and actually write even though I could still feel like a writer by doing writing-related things. In fact, the safety net of the myths might keep me from writing at all, ever.
After all, as long as I was bowing to my fears of
- not knowing the character (by constructing character sketches)
- or the story world (by world-building)
- or my lack of knowledge (by researching) and
- not knowing where the story was going and how it was going to turn out (by meticulously outlining),
I might never have to actually write the story.
And if I never wrote the story, it would follow that I wouldn’t have to write a query letter or find an agent or a publisher and do all that submission stuff.
Or if I planned to self-publish, I wouldn’t have to design a cover or write sales copy or even publish because I wouldn’t have anything to submit or publish.
And the biggest bonus of all, if I never wrote and published a story, I’d never have to risk rejection from agents or editors or publishers or readers.
The myths are not designed to help you write, folks.
It’s true that lightning strikes for a few, but by and large, the vast majority (like 9999 out of 10,000) of those who follow the myths will achieve only two purposes:
- They will remain hopeful and continue buying nonfiction “how-to” books on the writing craft from those who promote the myths,
- They will feel like writers and call themselves writers without having to actually write either at all or regularly, and
- Eventually they’ll stop writing altogether because lightning doesn’t strike for them.
Any questions, I’m wide open. Leave a comment or email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
Of Interest
Stephen King, His Books, and Their Origins at Lisner Audiotorium