Spark on the Lam

If writers are the stars in our own TV police procedurals, then drafting a novel is like hunting down a fugitive in a back alley. Okay, we're probably not as tough as cops, but bear with me as I try to flesh out the simile!

There’s always some inspiration (clue) that initially sparks us: an image, a bit of dialogue, a character already talking in our heads, a premise so irresistible that it tingles in our fingers as we type.

So we go after it. At the beginning of the chase it all seems so clear and so doable—it’s right in front of us…. Almost grabbable…

Of course, that’s usually when the fugitive ducks around the corner and disappears and we’re left holding onto his hoodie.

That’s the darkest before dawn moment, when the cop (writer) wonders if they’ll ever solve the case. When we're so mired in the uncertainty of the process nothing is obvious anymore and nothing seems to be working. It’s even more difficult to keep up the pursuit when we no longer know what we’re looking for. (If you really want to make my TV cop comparison complete, we’d probably also be coping with in some personal problems, a failing marriage or some other crisis here, because all the good characters have them…)

But here’s the thing. That spark we’re chasing turns out to be a red herring. It’s what we thought we were looking for until we discover something even better, something that’s right in front of our noses. When we stop going after that elusive thing and we work with what we actually do have, the cold hard evidence of what’s already on the page, the real story emerges. That's when we get our man (story).

"Now For a Little Personal Detective Work"

Harry Stephen Keeler's 1934 Dutton Clue Mystery, THE RIDDLE OF THE TRAVELING SKULL, "begins when a poem and a mysterious handbag lead a man to the grave of Legga, the Human Spider — and things just get stranger from there."

Based on that description, I would understand if you left the blog right now to grab a copy. Keeler's one of those "so bad he's good" authors. Here's a snippet from NPR: "Among the classic Keeler plots: A man is found strangled to death in the middle of a lawn, yet there are no footprints other than his own. Police suspect the 'Flying Strangler-Baby,' a killer midget who disguises himself as a baby and stalks victims by helicopter."

If you're still here -- bonus points if you happen to be a teacher or librarian looking for fun activities for students -- I'd like to show you a wonderful quirk of Dutton Clue Mysteries circa 1930.

Partway through each book in the series, a tear-away coupon invited the reader to "enter the story" and predict the ending by mailing their deductions and the reasoning behind them to the publisher. When three such correctly solved cards were received, the reader won a free Dutton Clue Mystery.

A friend sent me a postcard of the tear-away from THE RIDDLE OF THE TRAVELING SKULL, below (image reissued in 2005 by the Collins Library, an imprint of McSweeney's Books).

Next time your book club, summer reading challenge club, or literature class chooses a mystery, why not insert a similar card for extra credit or prizes? Readers will get the fun of analyzing clues, discussing possible answers, and laying out the method behind their theories.

You can follow this format:

Sarah Skilton lives in California with her magician husband and their young son. Her debut young adult novel, BRUISED, about a 16-year-old black belt in Tae Kwon Do who freezes up at an armed robbery, received a starred review from Publishers Weekly and is available now!

Demystifying Writing

One of the greatest mysteries I've struggled with as a writer is the mystery of my own darned writing process. How do snatches of conversation, fleeting glimpses of characters, and vague themes find their way to the page? How do the pages stack up? Panic: How on earth did I manage to write and publish an entire book? Is it even possible to do it again?

When I romanticize the writing process, thinking of it as something mystical and beyond me, I end up shuffling around the house, nursing endless cups of coffee, wondering things: When will these characters come to life? When will my random ideas cohere? Am are writing two different books -- or three? Or one? Are my plot problems even fixable? Will the solutions come to me in a dream, or if I walk around the block, or if I take another shower?

Then I wonder, at the end of the day, why the pages are not stacking up. And at the end of the day I'm paralyzed by self-doubt. Having Not Written.

As I am now deep in the writing of my second novel, staring down the barrel of a deadline, I've come to realize something. The only way I get any real writing done is when I stop being mystified by it. I have to understand my most productive work habits and take advantage of them. Mostly, I have to sit down at the desk and just get the work done. Instead of wondering how it's all going to happen, I have to make it happen.

I used to agonize over whether to bang out a whole draft and then revise (at the risk of scrapping hundreds of pages or entire characters), or whether I should outline carefully and write more slowly, revising as I go. I've come to accept that I'm neither a panster nor a plotter. I'm something in between: a puzzler.

My novel-in-progress. (Yep, that's Sponge Bob's eye).

Being a puzzler is like having a handful of puzzle pieces when I begin a project. Unfortunately they're not always the most useful pieces. I might have some sky pieces that don't quite fit, and part of a frame, and one corner, and somebody's eye. But the pieces intrigue me. I write a little, think, fix, brainstorm, write more. Before I know it, I have more pieces to move around: more sky, another corner, the second eye, and whoa, a dog.

And so I've found a middle ground in my writing process, where I draft in bursts of up to thirty pages (over several days). Then I go back and take stock, get information I need, brainstorm more, solve problems, and push the manuscript forward into another thirty-page burst.

Instead of sprinting to the end, I look more carefully at what I have after each writing burst. I go more deeply into scenes. I look for underutilized characters, overlooked objects that could become clues or plot twists. Does a character say "no" when someone asks him an important question or extends an invitation? If I make him say "yes" instead, might that propel me into the next thirty pages? Have I made things too easy for my characters? How can they work harder to get what they want? I also try to check in with my characters' emotions. Are they having any? Will their emotional responses propel the plot forward? Oh look, there's another piece of the puzzle, snapping together. Nice.

It's a tedious process at times. I am a fast writer at heart, and I know I'm capable of banging out up to twenty pages in a day. I want to bang out twenty pages in a day. But when I write recklessly, those pages may not all serve the story, and I may eventually hit a dead end. The slower, puzzling process -- which seems to work better for my plot-intensive mysteries -- means I may only have four or five pages at the end of a day. Yet they are better quality pages, and they set me up for more to come.

I recently reread one of my favorite books on writing craft, and I think it's particularly useful for puzzler-types. This slender but wise book is by Ron Carlson, a favorite writer of mine, and it's called Ron Carlson Writes a Story. It walks you through how he wrote one of his acclaimed short stories ("The Governor's Ball") -- what was going through his mind, how he thought through plot problems, how he dealt with uncertainty. It's also about he avoids distractions and "stays in the room." Reading this guide is like looking over his shoulder as he writes, and it makes me feel less alone in the process.

If you are working on a writing project or planning one, I highly recommend it.

What's your creative process like? Do you have a metaphor or image that explains your process? (Construction? Running? Cooking?) 

Do you have writing or other creative goals in 2013? How will you meet those goals?

Diana Renn grew up in Seattle and now lives outside of Boston with her husband and young son. TOKYO HEIST (Viking/Penguin, published June 2012) is her first novel, and she is hard at work on the next one, which is also a YA mystery.