The Plunge

Discovering the story behind the story

Here it is, I have been writing. And not just writing, I have been writing fiction. I visit a world not too far from our own, and I’m getting to know new people with hopes, dreams and fears. I get a look inside their heads and see them in front of me as clear as day. I study the structure and prose and pacing and conflict as if my life depends on it. My Google algorithm is filled with questions of what dying with onion skin smell like and what colour is lividity. I’m doing something I have never done seriously before; I have taken the plunge.

I have been terrified and excited at the same time. To have an idea for a story is one thing; to pound it on screen with words is another. I’m used to clean writing, formulating an argument, researching relevant literature, exploring the literature and data from all possible angles and perspectives. I have an outline, I know before writing what I’m going to say, and then I write it out. If I’m feeling particularly whimsical, I write what comes to mind, and then edit that flow of consciousness to match the clean and crispy style required to deliver a scientific argument and evidence in 6000 words.

But now I’m swimming in the ocean of words, and I’m loving it.

Learning what I am

During the last two weeks, I have written 16 655 words for a novel manuscript, and those 16 655 words have taught me a lot. Not necessarily about writing, but about who I am and how I write when I have all the avenues open to me.

I have always considered myself a planner, someone who thoroughly maps out what needs to be said before saying it (at least in writing; in real life, the filter between my mouth and brain has always been severely malfunctioning). And of course, when I got the initial idea for the novel, I did what I always do: I jotted the idea down in my notebook and promptly forgot about it. Or so I thought.

I had a really good idea (and I still think it is a good idea) for a short story that I had developed, making notes and doing some preliminary research on the topic I wanted to explore. But no matter what I did, that one sentence, “water really runs upstream”, written with hasty scribble while standing in the snowy woods holding two tugging and pulling miniature schnauzers’ leashes around my wrist, never left me alone. When I was trying to figure out the main character of the other short story, that sentence rang in my head. When I was folding laundry (yes, I finally got to it!), it tickled my insides.

And finally, I unleashed the stream that was pounding against my fingertips and sat down and wrote the very first chapter. I intended to write a short story, but the moment I finished the opening scene, I knew I was either in it for the long run or not at all.

A truly profound surprise was that ease, no plan, no outline, no meticulously crafted points or beats I wanted to hit. The story just started, and I knew how it needed to continue. I had a rough idea about the conclusion of the story and some events I wanted to cover, but the characters, how they look, what their names are, and what kind of people they are - all of that I’m finding out as I go. And suddenly I had three pages of text, an opening for something new.

With a whirlwind of panic and excitement, I sent that first chapter to my dear friend, begging for brutal and honest feedback, and teared up when she wrote back: “I think you have to write this”

Holding on

Like I previously said, I have already learned a few things during this escapade: first, I need to know where I’m going, second, I can’t let go for too long, and third, Stephen King is not an idiot after all.

I think that my years of learning academic writing have engrained to my spine the need for some structure, but when telling a story, the structure can hold me back and sever my ability to imagine. I have (now!) a rough outline, some moments in the overarching story I want to have. However, I’m learning to think of the outline like a security blanket. It makes me feel cosy and toasty, and gives me the illusion that I’m in control of the story, even though I’m slowly realising that the story has a mind of its own. Far more important to me is the painfully learned habit of documenting everything: when I learn something new about the world, I’m writing it down. It helps me feel organised and helps me to remember which character had sandy brown mousctace and who had a crown of brown tight curls tied up to her head.

Also, I’ve noticed that leaving the manuscript for too long makes it harder to come back. After seven days of back-to-back-to-back writing, I took a break, and the edges of the story and the characters started to feel fuzzy and hard to reach. So I’m realising that I’m going to be married to this project for the next whoever-knows, I need to hold on tight before letting go.

When it comes to Stephen King, I love his books and his way of enveloping the reader in the place with visceral details, smells, and sounds. I love his prose. But I thought he was one of the biggest idiots when he talked about discovering the story while writing. How could you NOT know how your story ends? How can you NOT know what kind of person you’re just describing to me? It defies all common sense and worldly logic that you just start typing, and these vivid and fleshy characters jump to the pages, alive and breathing, with no prior planning or consideration.

But I understand it now. I’m no Stephen King, far from it, but I get it. I didn’t know who my protagonist was before I started to tell her story. I didn’t know that her relationship with her recently passed mother would be so poignant and complicated. I didn’t know how a close-knitted community carried on their rituals of bereavement and burial, or how they consoled each other and remembered their dead. It is as if I’m reading a book while I’m writing it.

I don’t understand how it works, and maybe I don’t need to. I just want to know how the story really ends.