Kirby Larson Interview

Believe in yourself.

I Solemnly Promise . . .

I had a meltdown yesterday.

Working on a particular section, I needed to confirm something (I can't remember what) and skimmed some upcoming scenes.

Suddenly, it appeared that the character I'd just written about, who was standing up and everything, was in the hospital with a concussion. What!? I panicked. I looked again. Yep. There he was. All banged up and not a doppelganger. Crud.

My rewrites screeched to a halt while I tried to figure out the best way to proceed. Forcing myself to take some kind of action aside from pacing and gibber-jabbing, I sat down to organize a plan. I read through the hard copy carefully and discovered I wasn't whacked, just wicked. My poor character. {evil smile}

The barest of outlines would've saved me so much time and frustration.

Thanks to my new Twitter friend (I cannot call them tweeps), Glynes O'Connell, I was reminded of something I should have paid attention to. I wrote about a wonderful method for putting a manuscript together, and then promptly buried it. Sheesh.

Next time? At the very least, there will be an outline. I swear.

CR: Prime Time by Hank Phillippi Ryan.

It's all better with friends.

Seat-Of-The-Pants Plotting

Sounds kind of like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Actually, it's a pretty good description of the way I've learned to put a manuscript together.

This is how I stumbled onto something that works for me. You will find your own way. It could be very simple--you plot. Or it could be you'll develop your own blend of things that get your from Point A to Point Z in a logical and orderly way.

For what it's worth, here's my input.

I can think an idea to death. One will come into my head with so much promise and excitement and potential. But if I push it too much by planning and plotting, I kill it. I sit around with this dead thing stinking up my office and wonder why I can't pick up a fresh scent.

Other writers can plot like crazy from the very beginning and still love their projects--and it shows in their writing.

When I first started writing seriously, I had a story idea and a few characters brewing around in my head. I planted my behind in the chair, put my hands on the keyboard and began typing away. Thank goodness it wasn't suspense--which requires clear, concise direction. My initial effort didn't have much of any of those qualities. Thanks to some gentle coaching by my critique partners, my writing improved enough to win an award, but the story left me lifeless. Like cookie crumbs in the bottom of a glass of milk. Blick.

Now what?

I took my major characters, tweaked them a bit and threw them into a suspense story that energized me and kept me interested. Phew! What a relief to be excited again.

Now what?

I began with a general idea and coaxed it along. The slightest massaging without heavy-duty plotting. I knew a couple of plot points and a twist or two. Fun. But that's all I knew. What I ended up with, for my first draft, was not much more than a fat outline--mostly dialogue and scene titles. I had created an outline without knowing it. That works for me.

Now what?

I needed clarification. Tight pacing and focus. Some . . . er . . . suspense stuff. Creating a detailed, traditional outline didn't excite me. I figured I had one I could work with--why do two? But I needed to also keep things straight. I'd played a little with 3x5 cards in the past, and they were okay, but not visually stimulating. After all, I'm a product of television and movies. Tactile is good, visual would be better. I heard about using colored sticky notes to help the plotting process. My first attempt was a mess:

It was pretty, but a mess nonetheless. I felt productive and creative while I was putting the little pieces of colored paper up, but in the end I couldn't keep them straight. Or move them around very easily.

Susan Lohrer shared the idea with me to have a little more color-coded consistency in my approach. The top photo shows my timeline in blue, different scene POV's in their own character-colors, with the plot points for each scene listed on purple. You can see a couple of little "adds" (and now there are more of those), that represent things I need to make sure and incorporate because of changes I've made elsewhere.

By jove, I think I've found something I can work with.

It's all better with friends.

Not Exactly a Walk in the Park

I love living near a groomed city park and a wilder state park. I take frequent walks and enjoy myself, playing with dogs in one, and watching deer in the other.

But some parts of writing are not exactly a walk in the park.

What's the hardest part for you? Is it coming up with an idea? Strong characterization? Dialogue? Staying in a consistent POV or resisting spilling backstory on every page?

Mine is the first draft. Accomplishing that is like giving a long, agonizing and emotional birth. And at the end? Well, for me, what I end up with is not much more than a fat outline. One that needs diapering, and feeding, and nurturing.

What comes next is filling in the scenes, shifting the plot where it needs to be shifted, and creating something that works and is exciting. Way easier said than done. But way easier--for me--than the first draft.

What's a suspense novel without pacing? That means I end up with a lot of Nobel-prize winning words on the cutting room floor. (You'll have to trust me on that one.) Even with just a fat outline, I can overdo what should be underdone. I live for the day when I can write pretty much straight through with very little leftover.

In the meantime, I think I'll go for a walk.

It's all better with friends.