The Good, the Bad, the Easy, and the Difficult

 

Two fer one Void Bois, speaking of who has it easy in this household.

The good, the bad, the easy, and the difficult.

We're questioning which scenes are better, the easy or the difficult. I assume we're talking about easy or hard to write as opposed to read. I've read scenes authors claimed were a breeze to write, but they were really tough to read. Then I've read scenes authors struggled over that went down like syrup, lovely and sweet.

Now that I think about it, it doesn't matter whether we're talking about writing or reading. Easy scenes have their place. Difficult scenes have their place. 

If you're writing, you may run across a treatise by someone who likes to claim that ALL scenes should be easy. That you should always be itching to get to write those scenes because they excite you so much. Maybe it works that way for some people. Maybe there's a medication I could take that would make it that way for me. But writing isn't that way for me and I'll argue it's not for most writers. We all have different strengths. As a result, we're all going to be drawn to finding different scenes more attractive than others. For me, the easy scenes are the volunteers - the images, dialogue, and action that come to me from out of nowhere. There's a duel scene in Enemy Within that happened like that. Popped up out of nothing as I was trying to go to sleep one night. Little sleep was had that night while I got that scene down. It wrote itself, I just showed up to the go between for scene and keyboard. And it's a good scene. At least, I adore it.

But then there's the tough stuff. These are the scenes we agonize over. Well, okay. *I* do. I didn't get to do emo teen angst, okay? I make up for it when I write. 

The tough scene came at the end of Enemy Within when I sat staring at the last (unwritten) quarter of the book wondering what on earth to do. It took a critique partner snapping at me to go away and make everything much, much worse for the final climax scene. It was just the kick in the brain necessary to really start digging into problem-solving those final pages. It was torturous and it took long, hard hours of writing and rewriting to make things as grim as they needed to be. But you know, a funny thing happened on the way to bloody and grim - I began enjoying myself. It was mighty damned satisfying to hack my way through the weeds and uncover something worthwhile. Hard as the scene was to write, I suspect it's an even better scene than the one that volunteered so readily.

And regardless. Both scenes were crucial to the arc of the story. So easy? Hard? Who cares so long as the end result is a finished novel.

When Writers Block Means to Dig Deeper

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: "The most difficult scene you ever wrote and why."

I'm guessing that's why was it difficult, not why we wrote it. Though I do think the why we wrote the scene in the first place is relevant.

There's a school of thought among writers and writerly-advice givers that if a story becomes difficult - if the writer hits a block and grinds to a stop - then that's an indicator of Something Gone Wrong. I see this advice a lot. Writers will say - often in response to questions about how they handle Writer's Block - "When I hit a block, I know I've done something wrong, taken a wrong turn somewhere, so I go back and rework the plot."

You all have heard a version of this, right?

Makes me cringe every time. I'll tell you why.

What I hear in this dubious advice is writers advocating walking away from the hard parts and looking for an easier path forward. Now, I know this isn't always the case. Part of becoming a professional writer is learning to decipher your own internal voices - to differentiate between laziness and being truly depleted. To separate painfully accurate critique from toxic attempts to undermine you. To know when resistance means you took a wrong turn - OR when it means you need to dig deeper.

{{{Important caveat: Sometimes writers block can mean depression. Or physical or emotional exhaustion. I'm talking about if those factors have been ruled out. That's a whole 'nother kettle of fish and Mary Robinette Kowal has a great post about it.}}}

For me, resistance has always meant I need to put my nose to the grindstone. Keep picking at that wall. Make myself walk through the fire. Pick your metaphor: in my experience, the best stuff lies on the other side of that wall. I've experienced it repeatedly.

My friend and SFF author Kelly Robson talks about not taking the Monkey Bypass. That's a great essay she wrote about it at the link. In essence, the Monkey Bypass is an opportunity to avoid filth and damage. Robson argues, and I agree, that you can't let your characters bypass danger. I think an author also can't allow herself to retreat from pain and difficulty.

Why have I persisted in writing those difficult scenes? Because the story required it.

I have never once been sorry that I kept pushing through those blockades.

I recently released THE FATE OF THE TALA, the climactic book in my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms series. Those who follow me regularly - especially those who listen to my daily (almost) podcast, First Cup of Coffee - know that I had a hell of a time writing this book. I'm not sure if I can point to a specific scene, because the whole freaking book was mostly picking at that wall. And kicking it, pummeling it, then collapsing in a sobbing heap and scraping myself together to try again.

At one point, my mom - who listens to my podcast with the loyalty of a mom - asked if I couldn't just put the book down, walk away from it and write something else for a while. "Isn't this supposed to be fun?" she asked.

Well... no. I don't believe that good art only comes from suffering, but sometimes writers DO need to hold their own feet to the fire to get to the good stuff.

I discovered a lot of things in writing that book - and not just that it's a bitch to write a novel that ties up a 16-episode thread (counting novels and shorter works in the arc). I realized I was working out emotional issues in my own life and marriage that I hadn't faced. And I discovered amazing things from the seeds I'd planted ten years ago, when I began writing THE MARK OF THE TALA.

Now I have readers coming back and telling me how they loved the way I tied this up. Here's one from this morning:

I am amazed at how well you brought it all together in this last book! It was so good; I cried several times. It got me through a very difficult week, when I’m not sure any other book would have held my attention. Thank you!!

— SonomaLass *Warren for Majority Leader* (@SonomaLass) March 8, 2020

Totally worth that slog through the monkey enclosure!