Breaking the Writer's Back - Bad Habits

It hadn't ever really occurred to me before now that I could actually be a published writer, much less be a writer trying to attack bad writing habits head on. I skated for too many years not examining how I work, or questioning if how I work is actually productive. About three years ago, that process began, so I still have plenty of bad habits to address, but these are the top few.

1. Running from that which should be embraced - Conflict. Hard emotional stuff. You know. All the things most people (including me) actually read books for. But, and this is serious social conditioning at work here, I'm trained to avoid conflict and hardcore, dangerous emotion like the plague. Lots of people are, though I wager more women in this society than men, simply because Western culture espouses the 'women are the bridge builders' thing. Saw someone suggest that view was a pile of BS and women avoiding conflict is a survival thing. Don't care where it comes from. I want it gone when it comes to writing. I want to wade in, flailing, because I want to see what my characters are going to do. Easier said than done. I have to catch myself avoiding, route back and redo a scene in order to wallow in the conflict and/or angst.
2. Distractions - like most writers with internet connections I have the attention span of a gnat. I've been working on that for the past year. Meditation - no seriously - it's training to keep your mind in a particular place or frame - and when it ducks out, you're learning how to bring it back. Writing sessions go the same way. Focus. When I duck out to look something up that could wait until after the draft was done, or a I sheer off to screw around on Facebook for no good reason, I recognize what's happening far sooner than I used to and I bring myself back to the story. (There's a spreadsheet and reporting system involved, too. Also, an internet blocker, like Freedom is helpful.)
3. Chasing the shiny - so you know I had a former life as a tech employee at a large Seattle area software company. I'm guilty of still lusting after the latest, greatest tech and software. My bad habit is putting this stuff on my writing box with all the cock-eyed optimism of a trusting 2 year old. That bit me right in the place where my productivity lives this week. Windows 10. If you haven't installed it, don't. Not yet. There's a pretty nasty bug involving the Start button (which means that when it fucks up, you can no longer get to your applications). Known issue. Under investigation. No ETA for a fix. Sooooo. Don't go there if you don't have to. Not until that fix gets rolled out. I'm going to have to rebuild the machine. There goes another entire day.
4. Taking what I do seriously - you know what Jeffe said earlier this week about priorities? I have a bad habit of prioritizing myself and what I want last. For a very long time, I waited for other people in my life to take what I do seriously. Then came the day that someone (specifically Jeffe) called me out saying that it didn't matter who else took me seriously - taking me seriously was my job. She was right. When I have a contract, my family bends over backwards to make sure I get writing time. But the rest of the time, when I'm writing on spec - it all goes away. I'm not *really* working, so I'm eminently interruptible, right? Only if I'm not sticking to my guns and making writing the priority I want it to be. That's on me. No one else has to understand. They just don't get to call me or bug me between 8am and noon.

Oh there are more. But behavior modification really is a one step at a time kind of thing. You declare a theme (productivity is mine this year) and you work on the habits surrounding that theme. It's better to work FOR something (productivity in my case) than to work against the bad habits. It is easier by far to displace the poor habits with better habits than it is to attempt to simply stamp the bad ones out. That's my story. I'm sticking with it.

How an Intuitive Gardener (Okay: Pantser) Creates Conflict & Outer Motivation

I'm lucky to have my crit partner and good friend, Carolyn Crane, visiting me for a few days. This involves much time spent writing, drinking and talking about writing. Perfection!

She's even going to help me plot my next series, which is awesome, because she's WAY better at plotting than I am. As in, she actually *does* it instead of my weirdly organic gardening method of plotting.

By this I'm referring to George R.R. Martin's analogy of how different writers work - either as architects or gardeners, or somewhere in between. I discussed this in detail a while back on Suzanne Johnson's blog. The TL:DR is that some writers like extensive blueprints before they start building the story, while others work more by planting seeds and coaxing along what grows from that.

I am really far down on the gardening end of the scale.

So much so that, when I see a topic like this week's - Development of character outer motivation and outer conflict - a kind of hysterical flutter burrows into my gut. This is akin to asking a gardener what will happen over the summer to keep her flowers from blooming lushly. Sure, I might have ideas - drought, then insect infestations due to drought stress, that sudden hailstorm, maybe a freak early freeze - but I don't know exactly WHAT it will be until I get there.

Yes, this is totally how I write and I know that it's the least helpful craft advice ever. Surely our more architectural Word-Whores will have THINGS to say about plans and scaffolding and so forth.

Meanwhile, here is the gardener's take:

My seeds are my characters. I know pretty much who they are when the story begins and I learn more about them as I write and they reveal themselves to me. Let me spend a moment on that. When I say I "know" who they are, I mean in a visceral way, more of a feeling for the person than anything else. For me, when I think of people I know, they're kind of an amorphous tangle of feeling and impressions for me. I'm not good at remembering faces and I sometimes think this is because I remember how a person *feels* to me on a non-physical level. Does that make sense? This is no doubt a huge part of the Intuitive aspect of myself that feeds into the INTJ.

I plant these seeds into the soil of my story - the general idea of where my characters are going when I enter their lives. I start slowly, watering, fertilizing, waiting for the first shoots of story to push up. Much like with actual gardening, it rarely takes long for trouble to arise. Those early challenges hint of the conflict to come. Which it inevitably does. I never feel like I have to develop the conflict because it rears up as inevitably as aphids, floods and flower-devouring wildlife. The world provides plenty of conflict - it always turns up, whether we want it or not.

Yes - I do go back and tighten my beginnings. Inevitably my major revision time will be spent on the first third of the draft. I move up the inciting event, I amp up the stakes and weave in hints of the conflict I discovered as the story spun out.

If I have any useful advice to offer for this method it's this:

Don't back away from the dark side.

This is really easy to do - in fact, I find myself doing it all the time and having to correct. I think we're programmed, as essentially nice, well-socialized human beings, to back away from the harsher aspects of conflict. We avoid ugly confrontations when possible and turn away from tragedies to poignant to bear. In fiction, we must do exactly the opposite.

Delve into the ugly, the awful, the extreme.

Let your characters suffer. Then intensify and make them suffer more.

Resist the urge to rescue them from the storm. Watch while the hail batters their blossoms into mud-soaked shattered petals, then go out and coax them into life again. The great gift of the gardener, the true miracle, is that ability to bring the destroyed back from the brink and make us all believe in the bloom at the end.

Send In the Clowns or Subplot: the Comedia del Arte Model

Subplots, up to this point, had always been all of the drama going on OUTSIDE of a book that kept me from finishing said book. Whether I was reading or writing.

However. I will echo KAK's appreciation of James's post because given the levels of complication I seem determined to pack into a single novel, I'm well acquainted with subplots. I just didn't know it.

Coming from an acting background, I had the Comedia del Arte definition of subplot fixed in my head. Comedia del Arte plays are structured around archetypical characters: the miserly old merchant, the gruff soldier who's really a coward, the fool, the lovers, ad infinitum. Usually, if a play followed the trials of a pair of lovers overcoming obstacles to being together, that couple and their relationship would be portrayed seriously (but it's Comedia and not opera - so HEA guaranteed there). However, the play would also likely include *another* couple as a subplot. They faced the same challenges to their relationship, but they're slightly ridiculous. The situations they face are silly. Comedic. Clownish. This couple isn't guaranteed an HEA. Depends on the show. The point is contrast and heightened emotional investment. The theory was that if we could get you to laugh at the silly couple, the plight of the serious couple sneaks up on you and wallops you over the head. Maybe that only worked in 16th century Italy and France.

It was from that standpoint that I'd been approaching subplots - that a subplot was a storyline that ran in parallel with my main story, but that didn't directly involve my main character(s). If that definition holds, I don't currently do subplots. I have my hands too full of ALL THE THINGS going on in my main plot. Hey. Do you think I could shoehorn this kitchen sink into the conflict?

But if James's definition of backstory = unresolved conflict feeding current drive = story thread to be resolved (or failed) in parallel with main story action, well then I'm there. That said, though, I'd like to try plotting in a secondary character's story. Just to see if I can pull it off.