The Trilogy Effect

Writing is turning out to be a never ending learning process it seems, and the fun fact for today is: Trilogies are damn hard!

It has been a little while since I finished the rewrite/second-edition of The Keepers of the Key and so I have set-to with working on its sequel.  After finishing writing Book 1, I thought that Book 2 would be an easier, more carefully thought out process and that I would not fall foul of all the pitfalls that I did first time.

Wrong.

Ever since I settled the plot for Book 1, many years ago now, I have had the “grand plot” reasonably straight in my head.  I knew what would happen in the next 2 books, what the over-arching themes would be and which of the characters would return where and for what purpose.  With all that in mind I finally got about 50% of the way through writing Book 2 when, thanks to the input of my unpaid, unofficial (though much loved!) editor, I realised that I was going nowhere.  My plots were riddled with holes and failings of logic, certain characters lacked any depth or real function within my world and were being tagged along simply out of habit and, generally, I was on a hiding to nowhere.

So, before Book 2 is even anywhere near complete, I am starting a rewrite.  About 50% of what I have so far written is being scrapped and I am now pitching at a very different set of themes with a  tweaked cast and rather different end-game.  How I came to be quite so lost in the wilderness is genuinely beyond me.  The notes I have made for this book are 5 times larger than those of Book 1 and while Book 2’s plot is far more complex, I really though I had a handle on it and would be able to just push through, but all that I had thought to be cut, dry and set in stone is rapidly coming undone once I get down to the actual writing.

I know Book 1’s legacy was going to leave me with work to do, as several of the “main” characters were under-formed due to there being simply not enough space to really give everyone their day in court, but I thought the familiarity of already known and liked characters would balance that out.  What it in fact has done is made everything ten times harder.  When brainstorming for Book 2, this familiarity has essentially bred laziness in me, leading me to conjure nebulous ideas that sound great in theory, but lack actual substance or depth when I came to write them.  It is as though I have written the trailer for a film without actually having any clue how the envisioned scenes link together.

To say that I am starting to see why so many writers bemoan series and complain about the difficulty of actually getting them done is a wild understatement.

Anyway, time to go and write chapter 10.  Again. =/

A return

Well this blog has been silent for 2 months.  I was away for a reasonable chunk of it and ill for another part but mostly I had run out of things to say.  My writing was not going well (not going at all most days) and I was getting more than a little bent out of shape about it.

Writing a second book is tougher than I thought.  In some ways you are afforded a few liberties as you are freed from the confines of defining your characters but other things have had me tied up in knots.  The Keepers of the Key was heavy in both story and characters, with Jonathan and Dowd scrabbling their way through increasing weird and wonderful scenarios.  With The Keepers of the Fire I have even more characters but a plot that is far more emotional and personal (to the characters, not me) while still retaining the scale of the first book but it far less a journey of discovery and takes place in an even tighter time-frame.  Weaving the individual stories together and changing styles between fantasy (ok – not really, but this is the closest description I can think of for one of the threads), crime-thriller and the style of the first book (whatever that was – I am still unclear) is turning out to be quite a challenge.

For the longest time I was stumped, convinced I didn’t have enough actual plot, convinced that more needed to happen within each of the narrative threads.  The realisation that simply returning a reader to familiar characters can be an entertaining thing in and of itself helped and I have begun to write more freely, letting myself be immersed in the characters and just enjoying their interaction.

I just hope now that I can maintain the momentum I have found as I push forward into the real meat of the plot.

Making it up?

Continuing my theme of “things that drive writers quietly insane”, it seems I have grown bored of the usual pitfalls and foibles and begun making up a whole new pantheon of insanities to keep myself distracted:

While writing away the other day, happily banging out a few more pages of the next book, I noticed an upcoming problem with what I was working on.  A decision I had made in the planning stages, months before, had now, now that I had actually come to write the story and let it unfold as it needed, turned out to be inappropriate.  What I had planned for this particular moment simply didn’t make any sense when I finally arrived at it.  I needed to rethink my plan.

Sensible idea no?  Your plan needs altering, so you alter it?  But no.  My brain go completely stuck, like a gearbox with a chainsaw through it.  I could not find anything that worked.  Every idea I had was rejected before it had even fully formed, thrown aside with sneer of contempt for daring to infringe upon my consciousness.  I worked and worked, making notes, performing all the usual menial chores that jog my creative centres, but after a week I was no further along.  I could not find an amendment to my plot that I could accept.

And then I saw it.  I caught it out of the corner of my eye and slowly tracked it around to the front of my vision.  I stared at it open mouthed, unwilling to believe it existed. But it did.  My problem was not that I could not come up with any good ideas but rather that I could not accept the thought of any changes!  I was mentally blocking myself from, and I actually caught my mouth about to frame these exact words while talking to my partner, “making stuff up”.

I was so committed to the plot I have, so entrenched in it, I forgot that I had, at the beginning of it all, made it up.  In one form or another, The Keepers Trilogy has been with me for nearly 20 years.  Its characters are constant companions, its world comfortable and familiar – so comfortable in fact, that I had almost forgotten they were imaginary.

Within ten minutes of realising this, of working out what was  really preventing me from moving on, I had solved my plot problem (with very minor changes as it turned out) and was merrily writing again.

Writers have enough things working against us.  Could our minds at least  pretend they are on our side?

I wrote that, right?

There are many psychoses that afflict writers but the weirdest I have yet encountered is the Unfounded Sensation of Unintentional Plagiarism.  Its very bizzare, very annoying and tends to screw with my writing schedule no end.

What do I mean by USUP (pronounced “you-sup”)?  The overwhelming  feeling you sometimes get upon finishing a section of work that the idea you were so proud of a few hours ago is not your own.

You plow through the writing, all pleased that it is going so well and that you finally got passed that bit you were stuck on, but then, as you stop, a feeling creeps over you…

“Wait…this is my idea, right?  It seems bloody familiar…”

I’ve had this a couple of times now and each time I have been frantic with worry, desperately trying to remember where on earth I read the idea in question before.  I Google myself silly, cut out sections of it and mail them to everyone I can think of, asking if they recognise it.  Every single time though, I have come up empty.

“Never read this before in my life” they say, staring at me blankly “How much coffee have you had today, exactly?”

Hmm…

So is this just generic paranoia leaking into a startling specific mold?  Who knows!  We writers have paranoia to spare I should imagine, but here I sit, netbook in hand, reading the chapter I’ve just written and for the life of me I cannot shake the feeling that I have ripped it off some other author….

Maybe I could start a charity drive? “USUP is a serious problem.  Parents: speak to your children.  We need to let sufferers know that they are not alone…”

Till then, I am sure another espresso will help…right?