Babel Clash

KATE:

My bad.  My spouse travels a lot — and I mean a lot — for his work, and he arrived home Tuesday evening from the Gilbert Islands (google the battle of Tarawa, if you’re interested in where he was) and I totally forgot to post.  So, here we go.

ON WRITING NOVELS

KATE:

Ken, you mentioned to me on the phone that because of various difficult life tragedies 
and stresses in your last couple of years that you have not yet had the chance to develop 
a “system” or “pattern” or “routine” for writing a novel.

As I recall, because I was transcribing your words as you spoke, you said that, “I don’t 
know how I write novels, I just write them,” and “you just keep trying something until 
you find something that works.”

As a writer, I find both these statements quite profound and true. They remind me of 
Somerset Maugham’s famous declaration: “There are three rules for writing a novel. 
Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

What’s been your experience in learning how to write novels?

KEN:

It’s been quite learning curve.  LAMENATION was written, without an outline, on a dare in a six week binge of writing in every gap of time that I wasn’t sleeping or at the day job.  CANTICLE was outlined and interrupted by the death of my Mom and the death of my nephew, leaving me a gap of months where I couldn’t find any words.  And the outline?  Well, I wrote it out and then never opened the file again.  With ANTIPHON, I didn’t work off an outline but again, Life — or rather Death — Happened and I found work stopped cold for another chunk of months by the death of my father.   With REQUIEM, my newest Bits of Life Happening — daughters Lizzy and Rachel — will no doubt inform and impact my process.  So there’s not been enough consistency  for me to know exactly how I do this.  And I still don’t often know whether or not I’m doing it well.  I really have to trust the mirrors and drive with my eye on them.  My first readers and my editor — the exceptional Beth Meacham at Tor — are my best guides for knowing whether or not the car is on the right road moving at the right speed in the right direction.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I do have a structural map that I work from in writing the novels and guiding the series as far as how much room to give the characters and the basic bones I’m adding the meat and muscle to.  But as far as the actual drafting — pacing scene by scene and tying it all together and laying down the words and suspense-building and character-development  — it’s largely organic and I’m writing it by ear in much the same way I’d learn a song for the guitar.  Pause.  Listen.  Write.  Pause.  Listen.  Write.

I find writing to be a heuristic process.  I try one thing and if it doesn’t work, I try another until I find something that gets me where I need to go.  For me, the act of writing is often the act of tricking my muse (Leroy) into doing his work.  I find ways to make it fun, make it a puzzle, make it a game.

What about you?  How do you tackle novels?  You’ve published 19 novels over the last 21 years.  How was it when you started?  How did it evolve over time?  Do you find now that you have a consistent process that works or do you still change it up from time to time?

Related posts:

• On Writing the Novel, Part Two
  KEN: What about you?  How do you tackle novels?  You’ve published 19 novels over the last 21 years.  How was it when you started?  How did it evolve over time?  Do you find now that you have a consistent process that works or do you still change it up from...
• On Writing the Series, Part 1
  KATE: Ken, I had a lot of trouble while writing my Crown of Stars series with the story growing 
longer and longer and turning, eventually, into a seven book trilogy, as I sometimes 
jokingly call it.  There are a lot of good things in that series that I’m really fond...
• On Writing the Series, Part 2
  KEN: How does your process differ from mine?  Is it more organic?  Do you work from outlines?  How much of the bones of the story do you have before you start adding the meat and muscle? KATE: First of all, your method of working is really cool.  And interesting.  And...
• The “third volume produces twins” Syndrome
  KATE: Ken Scholes and I have arrived here at Babel Clash to blog your second half of September. 
Ken’s second novel, Canticle (the second of a five book cycle called The Psalms of Isaak) 
is due out in October, and my own Traitors’ Gate (the third and concluding volume of...
• And our next guests are…
  Thanks again to Paolo for joining us on Babel Clash. For the second time in Babel Clash’s short history, we have two featured authors joining us for our next geeky debate.  I’m very pleased to welcome Kate Elliott and Ken Scholes.  Kate is the author of the Crossroads and Crown...