Sunday, May 9, 2010

Flexibility for Writers

An author must be willing to be flexible.
An author must be willing to be tenacious. 

The word flexibility comes from the Latin flectere, meaning to bend.  If you don't bend, then when enough force is applied you break.  But the definition of flexibility also encompasses the concept of repeated bending without injury.  In this life we're not asked (or persuaded, or pushed, or compelled, or forced) to bend just once.  No, we have to do it over and over again.  Writers risk injury -- emotional injury -- if they're inflexible, but they also risk it every time they bend.

Emotional injury sounds bad, but that's not so.  This type of injury is completely within our own power to allow or disallow.  Not that wounded pride, or the loss of your sense of personal worth is easy to prevent, but no one can do these things to you but yourself.  A thief can't break into your car, grab an armload of self-worth and make off with it because it's not that kind of a thing.  You make it for yourself, and it's never taken from you -- you choose to give it up.  You're not even giving it to anyone else, you're just dropping it in the wastebasket.

Why would you ever do that?  Why would you choose to reduce yourself?  Most of us don't choose at all because we miss the moment of choice.  All too easily, that moment can fly by without our noticing, without our acting.  We choose loss by default, and it diminishes us.

Open yourself up to your choice.  When a character does something that you didn't anticipate, what should your response be?  When your story takes a sudden turn and you have no idea how it's going to turn out, what do you do?  When early reader feedback conflicts with your understanding of your story, what is your path forward?  When an agent or editor requests revisions that reach deep into the soul of your novel, how do you deal with it after you stop screaming?

The most important thing is to think, to decide.  It doesn't have to be an overtly rational decision -- it's okay to use your intuition or your gut.  Honor the request, refuse, or work toward a compromise; however you respond, do it consciously.


  1. Hi John!
    I am smack dab in the middle of this dilema! I like stories with a full cast of characters. I like to document the relationships between them, and how each member of a person's life impacts that life in a particular way. Unfortunately, the publisher considering one of my manuscripts wants me to remove most of the secondary characters and focus on the romance of just two. It's frustrating, but if I want to be published in category romance I will have to adapt or change my goal. And right now the market for contemporary single title romance novels is very tight and virtually impossible for a new author to break into. Not that that would stop me if I'd made that my goal. So I'm going to give my manuscript one last (hopefully) major revision during which I will try to maintain my overall story while whittling down my characters. I'm not convinced I can do it, but will try my hardest.

  2. I see this (well lack of this) all the time. Last year, one of my roomates was so afraid of failure, that she wouldn't even try. Namely, was she supposed to be applying to grad schools, but didn't for fear of the rejection letter. Compare that to my reaction to the couple of rejection letters I got this year, "Oh well, you don't get the honor of saying I graduated from your school. Your loss." Fundamental difference. I hate showing my games to people for two reasons: 1. I always dislike something I've made right before I present it. 2. They always say nasty things (whether they meant to or not) about it. Key thing is, feedback is what checks that you've done things right, in either books or video games.

    I have to ask Wendy, how many secondary characters are we talking about here? I also like well rounded characters and knowing their background. But, are we talking ten secondary characters? Or fifty, or a hundred? Dad and I (tried) to listen to The Drawing of the Three by Stephen King on CD during a road trip. The reason we couldn't get through it was because EVERY single character was introduced with probably two pages worth of background. It might help to know that this crime lord was abused as a child, but I don't need to know how his tenth birthday went, or that he's on his fifth marriage, and how all the previous ones ended, and how he likes his martinis, and how... I think you get the point. The problem is you halt the story dead when you do that.

    So, if you have ten or so secondary characters, I'm on your side all the way. But if you have much more than that, and spend a lot of time (all at once, it's not so bad if you spread it out) with each character, then I'm afraid I'll have to side with your publisher.

  3. Wendy,
    Your second revision request (which you worry is whittling away at the core of your story) triggered this post. That, and a friend's FaceBook status that I just loved: "Women are Angels ... And when someone breaks our wings, we simply continue to fly...on a Broomstick. We are flexible like that..."

    Good luck.

  4. Tyler -- I'm surprised you remember the name of that (horrid, IMO) book. About all I remember is the crabsters and the door and the changing eye color. I've never been able to read one of his books through (and I can read ANYTHING), though I've only tried a couple: I don't go for the horror genre from anyone. It seemed to me (and you, from our discussions at the time) that there were numerous problems with that book, including the backstory / pacing issue you alluded to, and a whole herd of cliches.

    I like the Jack Nicholson film of The Shining, and I treasure King's book On Writing. I'll just be happy with that.

  5. Hi John!
    I love your friend's Facebook status. Don't be surprised if you see it on my blog at some point!

    Glad to have you on my side Tbiz! My story takes place in a hospital. Hospital's are busy places. (Think Scrubs, ER, Gray's Anatomy.) I don't go into detail on most of the secondary characters but there's a best friend, two nursing friends, a grandfather, and a neighbor that get page space. I'm working on a new prologue now. The hardest thing is, the more I work on my manuscript and move things around, and delete and add and blah, blah, blah, the more I get tired of thinking about it and I actually dread having to work on it.

    My Mother's Day dinner is ready. Gotta run!