There are many ways for an author these days to get their work into the form of
a physical book. We are going to cover those soon, but it struck me that
in most articles I’ve seen about self publishing,
whether the final product is a physical book
or a blog of some kind, the actual process of writing a novel is often overlooked.
The down-side of easier access to publication is a reduction of signal-to-noise.
In other words, if everyone can publish a blog or a print-on-demand book, the chances
of that book being unrefined or even worthless increases exponentially.

Of all the often difficult and time-consuming steps that are
involved in creating and marketing a book, the actual writing part is the most
mysterious.
This is especially true when what you are writing is fiction, “experimental literature,”
or the like.

Granted, you can easily find hucksters that will give you their “101 steps to write a
a book,” but you and I know it’s more than likely going to be a bunch of tripe. It stands
to reason that there
is no right or wrong way to write fiction, and almost every author, published or unpublished,
rich or poor, has a different method.* Thank God for this!
If everything could be boiled down in such a way, all books would be the same.
Before we get into those tedious but easily mapped out steps-
editing, layout, distribution- I am going to share my writing method with you, not because
it is the only right way, but because it is a different way which you just might find useful.

* (Note: the idea that a book or movie is as good
as it’s profit margin is a really despicable outcropping of consumer culture. It can
be one indicator, but it isn’t necessarily the most telling.)

So, a little about me. I’ve published one novel, soon to be two. I’ve written or co-written
the scripts for several comics and graphic novels. Some have been produced, and
some are still lying somewhere in-between. I’ve been published
in quite a few anthologies, some of which I’m proud of, and many of which I would rather
never mention. All this is to say: I am not a rank amateur, but when it comes
to writing marketable books, I’m also not Stephen King. I believe some of my process
can help you as a writer, if for no other reason than that it is probably different from
your own process, if you have one. Take what you can use, leave what you can’t.

Let’s begin.

When writing a story, begin with the characters, not the plot.

When people ask me “what
is your novel about?” I get a little perplexed. A more valid question is who is it
about? After all, a story is about people and their interactions, rather than a litany
of their exploits, devoid of personality.
This is what makes all literature, from science
fiction in the 24th century to historic fiction accessible: the human condition is essentially
the same. We face the same fears and have similar desires. The plot is simply a record of what happened when the motives of the different characters
come into conflict (or accord.) Many (post)modern novels do away with the convention of plot
altogether, but it simply can’t be a story without characters.

So far most of the stories I write tend to focus around a small handful of characters.
In the case of my first novel, the entire story (including the other characters) occurs directly inside
the protagonist’s head, whether or not that particular passage is in first or third person. The term
protagonist and antagonist obviously arise from this convention, but there’s no reason
your story can’t really get inside more than one character at a time. I simply haven’t
developed the capacity as a writer to pull that off, and from what I’ve seen, very few
have. If you can, more power to you. More likely, especially with your first novel, you’re
going to have a small handful of living breathing characters, and a lot of foils or ‘extras’
that help move them along. Give your extras a breath of uniqueness if you can, but don’t let them take over the show.

Writing those extras and foils can be the hardest part. You may have a walking stereotype, but just under the surface a unique humanity is trying to express itself. Without that, they’re nothing. Oftentimes, these people fail tragically, usually
as a result of their emergent humanity.
We all encounter these people every day, in grocery stores, in police cars, on television.
But it is nevertheless a very difficult trick to paint someone as the cardboard
cutout that they are, and give that fleeting glimpse of something more.

Your first impression of your primary characters is also likely to be a stereotype. That’s fine,
but don’t let it stop there. The next step is to develop descriptive lists for your primary characters,
from physical characteristics, to fears, to desires, to their past.

Usually I begin this rough sketch of the character in my mind. It can begin with a small
detail. If you know how a character stands,
how they breathe or walk, through enough daydreaming riffing you can probably pull out
their entire
life story. I often put them in their natural environment and simply watch
how they behave when alone, when with other people. What they think to themselves
when no one else is looking. Notice how they talk, notice any particular
sensory hallucinations you may find there. Half the time, your characters will give you half of your story in this way. People are, after all, defined through their actions – and their thoughts, in the case of writing where we have a direct line to that inner world. In the end you can’t have your plot without your characters and vice versa, I just find that this isn’t a chicken-and-egg paradox, because you can find your action inside the characters through their interaction with the environment, and whatever situations you may toss them into.

Of course,
as you get into this process you’ll come to notice that there is very little that you can
imagine
that isn’t based directly on your experience. This is why “they” rather aptly say that all
novels, but especially the first one, winds up being autobiographical. Conversely, you cannot expect
a one-to-one relationship between an author and a work of fiction, or between the intention of the author
and the final work. You may pull from a snippet of conversation with one person in one situation,
and your experience on a particular beach three years later, and bring them to life through
characters that are Frankenstein creations of other past experiences.

A good writer is not necessarily a person who simply uses the language well.
That helps, certainly, and will make your editors happy, but the most crucial talent for a writer
is observation. Every experience, from the most painful to the most pleasurable, from the most
meaningful to the seemingly benign, is source material. You will need to cannibalize every
scrap of it to create a strong story.

God
willing, you won’t actually put all of these character details in the story in a literal way, except for when
it serves the story you’re trying to tell. In my opinion, description is often more about what you don’t
show than what you do. I generally have a perfectly clear picture of the character in my
mind at all times when I’m writing, but unless if they or someone else in the scene is
taking particular notice of how they are dressed, how they’re standing, or so on, I don’t mention it.
Maybe it’s a matter of taste,
but I always find myself cringing when an author drops in a physical description from out of nowhere.
If there’s no particular reason why we should know that Billy is wearing blue jeans, don’t bother
telling us. Even worse, don’t ever mention that he’s wearing blue jeans twice in the same paragraph, unless if you have a really good reason to do so.

That depth of character will still come through if you keep it in mind but hold onto the details like a miser. What are the characters seeing, smelling, thinking, feeling? That can come through explicitly. Everything else must occur between the lines.

So you have your characters. Now what?

When we return with this column in 2 days, I will talk more about the actual process taking these characters and turning a story out of it.