Advice for Writers: Combatting Boredom

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is somewhat cryptic, at least how it's noted on our calendar: Long books - how not to get bored.

It's not entirely clear to me who's attempting to avoid boredom here. The writer? The reader? 

Hopefully not the reader! Most of us readers who love to read long books are totally in it for the long, for the full immersion into another world, living other lives. I suspect the principles for writing a long book that won't bore readers are the same as writing *anything* at all. We never want to bore readers.

So, I'm going to assume we're asking about getting bored writing long books. How to avoid that?

You can't.

Sorry, but... sometimes writing is boring. Sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's agonizing. Writing novels, especially very long ones, requires a particular skill set of paying attention to, and working incrementally on, a work that takes a very long time to complete. 

The whole point is not to try to avoid boredom with the process. The point is to revise your expectations. 

Writing is work. This is why there are so many people who SAY they always wanted to write a novel and such a vanishingly smaller percentage who have. An even smaller percentage of that subset ever write more than six books. It's hard work and there's a reason we distinguish work from fun. Writing may be occasionally fun, but it's always work.

What's important to keep in mind is that the experience of writing is not the experience of reading. Don't conflate the two. One of my least favorite pieces of "writing advice" is the saw that "if the writer is bored writing it, the reader will be bored reading it."

NOT TRUE.

Writing takes vastly longer than reading. Every one of us who has spent months writing a book that releases at midnight and then wakes up to comments from readers who read it overnight understands this truth viscerally. Writing a novel, especially a long novel, requires patience and attention over a long span of time. 

So: don't worry about finding ways to not get bored while writing long works. Accept that boredom is part of the process. It's part of the price we pay. 

 

The Long and Short of Striving for Simple

It should come as a surprise to no one that my brain is a messy, disorganized place. I do my damnedest to tidy up. It just does not take. File cabinets explode. Accoutrements pile up in a heap. Yes, this photo really did happen and not just in my brain. All the alphabetized things in my best intentions get flung all over in a mental tornado of "Ooo! Look at all the cool stuff!" Complication and intricacy intrigue me. I suffer from the conviction that everything is related and intertwined. This makes me an everything plus the kitchen sink writer.

This is the long way of saying Ye Gods, please don't make me write short.

There's a reason I have only two short stories and one novella to my name. While I have 5 novels - 4 of which belong in series that are 5 or more books long. Long arcs come more naturally to me. I die a little inside each time flash fiction comes around on our topic calendar. Which isn't to say it's not worth doing - it is. Because while I strongly favor long form (novels), I think there's value in getting kicked out of my synaptic rut. Challenge the status quo and step outside the comfort zone. You know. All those pretty sunrise photo inspirational quote memes you scroll past on Facebook. Fact remains, writing short does not come at all naturally and I dread it every. Single. Time.

There is no plot so simple that I cannot complicate it past all reason. My favorite word while plotting is 'AND'.  It is for that reason that it's worth forcing myself into short form from time to time. You bet it pinches. But the practice of reining in my woeful tendency to run off at the computer keyboard and pruning ideas waaaaaaaay back is a good (if ouchie) reminder that sometimes it really is best to keep it simple, stupid. Even if I have to force it.

Long vs Short Stories: Size Totally Matters

I'm all about the length and the width, baby. The longer the better. Oh, and when they're nice and thick too?

Books, folks, I'm talking about books.

I write novels. Not shorts, not novellas, not that gray area of a short novel/long novella. I'm lucky if I can keep 'em to a mere 100,000 words. LARCOUT rings in at 145,000 words. My CP challenged me to write an Urban Fantasy with a mere 70k. I failed. I kept it light at 85k, but added another 7k after the first round of professional edits. It's in the throes of second-round edits now that'll probably tack on another 3k minimum.

Hey, I tried.

Thing is, as a writer and a reader, I like to spend quality time in a world. More than a drive-by or a quick cuppa. I want to escape and exult in the refuge of imagination. In spending my creative capital, if you will, short stories don't provide the necessary ROI.

Sadly, in the world of self-publishing where I own all the costs, the longer the novel the more expensive it is to produce. Plus, longer novels take longer to write, so there's risk of falling off the reader's radar if you don't release a book a "timely" manner. What is "timely" is up for debate, but it's definitely more than once a year. Think more along the lines of quarterly.

Yes, I fail miserably at the "ideal release schedule" too. 

Stop snickering.

Novellas are commonly used as a marketing tactic among series indie-writers. Releasing two to four novellas a year, the authors buy themselves time in-between novel drops. The theory is the novellas maintain a spot in the reader's awareness, provide a sales boost, and can be discounted for promotions without hurting the net revenue of the series. That puts the minimum production of a barely successful indie author at four novels a year, plus two novellas, and at least one anthology contribution.

My head explodes at the notion.  

Now, when we here at the SFF Seven take our turns at writing flash fiction for you all, that's the only time I write short. And, people, I'mma tell ya, it's HARD. I have to keep repeating, "Focus on the moment. This only about the moment."  My creative brain is all, "Yeah, but, the world we could build around this..."  "FOCUS ON THE MOMENT, DAMN IT."

~clears throat~

Words, I has them in abundance. Sometimes, they're even the right words.

On Trying to Write Short(er) Again

I'm on my way to New York City today, to read at Lady Jane's Salon, hang with Ron Hogan and Megan Hart, and have lunch with my editor.

As one does.

All of this means that my post is going up a little late. Airplanes and blogging don't always play nicely together.

Our topic this week is why we prefer to write long or short.

I actually like both, which should come as a surprise to no one, since I'm always the fence-sitter in all things. I started out writing short - essays and short stories  - and these days I write long. Sometimes I write *really* long. The Talon of the Hawk came in at over 130,000 words. All of my Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books are at least 110,000 words.

Writing short was great for me, especially to begin with. I'm not capable of pre-plotting, so writing short let me write and entire story in one sitting, while I held it and all its threads in my head. I also had little time to fit in writing back in those days, so shorter was better.

***INTERRUPTION***

So, as I sat typing this in the Dallas airport, I got the announcement that my flight to La Guardia was cancelled. Worse, they can't get me there for two days, so I'm just going home again. Nothing like a day jaunt to Dallas for lunch!

What was to be a long trip has become a short one. Sometimes it works out that way.

At any rate, in writing those fantasy novels, I discovered the great joy of writing long. I even think of it as VERY long, because it's a long wending tale across the series at this point.

Conversely, with my new Sorcerous Moons series, I've been trying to write shorter again. The first book, Lonen's War, is about 65,000 words and it's looking like the next two in the series will come out about the same. The thing is, part of why I wanted those to be shorter is that I really wanted to write a long-term, slow-burn romance. In some ways that series of three will be like one 200K book.

Or longer. I might not be able to tell it in three books. We'll see.

I try to be flexible.