Don't let Rules of Thumb give you Writer's Block

The Mars Strain - getting technical

 If you’re bored writing, the reader will be bored reading - 

true or false?

Hmm, false? 

Truth time: this often mentioned rule-of-thumb paralyzed me while I was writing The Mars Strain. I was deep in the cinematic climax with Jules racing the clock to find the right phage, but I kept fizzling out because I needed to keep the science grounded and I felt like I was doing a lot of technical writing—which translated to me being bored!!

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love science, it’s part of me and always will be. But trying to bring enough technical aspects to keep it real for the reader without overwhelming them is soooo difficult. It’s a balancing act and my mind kept fast forwarding to the emotional arc which was the only thing I wanted to write at that time! That, and the phrase “if you’re bored writing, the reader will be bored reading” kept looping through my mind…putting up writers block after writers block.

Torture.

If I knew then what I know now… Well, then I’d have written that section a lot faster! Yes, I was bored and wanting to move onto more exciting parts, but I’ve had readers tell me they loved the amount of technical aspects that brought Juliet’s lab work to life. So for this instance, FALSE!

To my future writing self, I now know not to let myself be derailed by nailing down details. I also know that if I pick a story that doesn’t excite me and is just blah, I can expect that anyone I have to pitch the book to will pick up my vibe and be less inclined to get excited about it. So I’ll stick to my rule of thumb to only write the stories that I can’t get out of my head for months on end, which rings TRUE to our question of the week! Don't pick a premise that bores you.

How about you, dear readers? When you get bored reading and either skip ahead or DNF the book, do you ever wonder if the author was born writing it? 

Here, Let Me Bore You

That writing advice about if you bore yourself writing something, you're probably also going to bore the reader? Could have a point. I mean, as a reader, I get bored a lot. I'm a really picky reader, and if a story hasn't captured me from the get-go, it's probably not getting a lot more from these eyeballs (unless I am being forced to read it, like for a contest or a class or something). This is a horrible habit on my part, I know. Yes, yes, I know that particular book gets better at the midpoint or has this really great 3/4 twist or the third book is when the series really starts to shine or .... you know what? Don't care. I've already noped right past that book.

Now, having read all that, answer me honestly, does my snootpicky opinion really make you want to change your book? Are you worried about my opinion of your opus-in-process?

Of course not. You're a writer.

You want to write a book that opens with a seventeen-page description of some fancy vegetable garden at sunset? Do it.

Or open a book with someone waking from a dream or observing themselves in a mirror or picking herbs by the river or talking to a handsome stranger who is offering to change their flat. If that's the book that's speaking to you, don't you dare sit there and wonder if reader-me is gonna be bored. 

Because who are you even writing for? A rando reader you'll never meet?

Or are you writing for you?

If you're writing for you, do the thing that entertains your own brain. You'll know if you're boring yourself. So stop that. Entertain yourself. Make yourself cry, make yourself crack up, give yourself all the feels.

Readers will agree, or not, and there's nothing that you can do about them. Readers are wildly unpredictable. The only thing you have control over, writer-you, is the story and everything in it. Make it something you are proud of, something you want to re-read over and over and tell everybody about. Then and only then should you share your creation with the world. 

When the Adage Doesn't Apply

"If you're bored writing it, the reader will be bored reading it."

~blink, blink~
~rolls on the floor laughing and groaning~

Here's the thing about writing advice (okay, okay there are many "things" but this ONE thing is...), it spans the humungous pool of all types of writing. From journalism, to academia, to tech writing, to memoir, to screenplays, to speculative fiction, to romance, and all the niches and crevices therein.

Methinks the boredom adage, along with its cousin "Write What You Know," is bleed over from the non-fic world. There's a lot of advice from that sector that simply doesn't apply to fiction. Think about it. Unless we're being paid heaps to ghostwrite something tedious, why, oh why would we waste our time writing something boring? Why, when most of us have hundreds of story ideas clamoring for the sustained attention required to write a novel, would we punish ourselves with the dull and uninteresting?

That's not to say that every word, scene, chapter, and revision is on-the-edge-of-our-seats exciting. It is work. Sometimes we have to force ourselves to get through a scene, but it's not because of boredom. We've got a long list of better excuses for those moments. 

While the Iron is Hot.

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week takes a look at the oft-quoted advice for writers: “If you’re bored writing, the reader will be bored reading.” And we're asking is this true or false?

Well, that's not exactly the easiest question to give an answer, now is it?

So we will answer yes. And thenwe will answer no.

If you are bored writing the first draft of your story,or novel, then the answer is yes. For me at least, the first draft is almost pure exploration and fun. I write as a pantser. I don't often outline anything except in yhead, and that outline is discarded usualluy within the first ten minutes. it simply does not do the job any longer, as the story often takes chrge and pushes said outline to the side while it moves in a very different direction. The frist draft is often written at a furious pace, though as I get oldef that pace slows a bit. I am deicdedly NOT boreed when writing the firt draft.

^=The second and third drafts re very different stories.

The best example I can give is BOOMTOWN, my weird western novel starring recurring character Jonathan Crowley. Listen I knew the book was going to go all over the place. Most of my stories have multiple POVs and characters that range from mostly decent to absolutely reprehensible. I'm okay with that. As far as I'm concerned, that reflects the real world pretty darned well. There are few people who are all good, and few who are all bad, because what I've seen n the real world runs a wide spectrum and I try to reflect as much of the real world as I safely can in my tales.

But BOOMTOWN was different for another reason. It was the first time I ever started a novel and then put that novel on hold for years before finishing it. when I was originally working on BOOMTOWN my wife was in the final stages of kidney faiure. Most of my writing took place on a laptop cpmputer while I sat in the waiting room of the clinic where she had dialysis. Beeive me, it was a very different experience. I was worried about my wife constanty. I was tworking a full time job, writing full time, tking care of my beloved and sleeping rougly half as much as I needed to. I was living on coffee a lot of the time.

When my wife passed away, I dropped BOOMTOWN like a hot potato. i couldnt even look at the manuscript, becuse all I coud think of when I did was my wife, and her pain, and her hopes for the future before those hopes were dashed and crushed by reality. I moved on and srote different things. I had enjoyed what I'd written of the novel, loved iit, in fact, but there was no place in my life for those thoughts and memories, not right then. I moved on and pushed BOOMTOWN into the corner of my mind where I was least likely to look.

And a few year later, I stumbled across that partial manuscroipt and I gave it a read, considered whan I had planned to write and decided enough time had passed for me to safely continue the book. I went back to the simple joy of writing a weird western.. The manuscript was bleak and b=dark, exacty as I had remembered, onoy m0re so, because it brought to mind mmories that I did no0t want to consider.

I did not approach the book the same way the second time around. Despir=te my desire to drive the tale forward in my usual fashion, the novel decided to make me pay a different kind of attention. I found myself reading and rereading every ppassage I'd written, contemplting why I had written what zi had written and debating whether or not I shuo lightnen the tone of the book. Ultimately I decided to trust my initial instincts, and eft the darkness that permeated the whole manuscript alone.

Let me be clear here: BOOMTOWN is one of the darkest things I've ever written. There is a lack of redeeming chracters here, but i can till say that I was never bored when writing the first draft.

Te second nd third drafts? Those got a bit boringl you can onoy look at the same words so many times before the desire to walkaway from the computer gets strong enough to distract.Unlike what I type here, I cleaned up the typos and misspellings to a level I seldom achieve. It was likely the cleanest manuscript I ever turned in, because I needed the extra time to move through my grief, ad to work through the darkness in that tale. Was it exciting work?no, but it was necessry to get that story told and that's what I did.

was it boring No0w and then. But not often. I am blessedly lucky in that I a seldom bored by my chosen career, even the stuff that shoud be boring is interesting to me. RThat doesn't mean it's always exciting. Just that the process is something akin to playing with cly. Not really sculpting anything, just makeing new shapes and seeing what comes of them. Words can be like that, Sometimes you write a perfect sentence the firt time around but mostly I thonk you rehape those sentences a fe times ntil they are at leat moderatey comfortable.

So, no. I do not get n=bored with wr=hat I am writing.

And yes, sometimes the words can bore me to tears, but happily not often.

Was that enough of a ramble? I certainoy hope so.

One last bit for you to consider: if you re never bored with your job, you are truly blessed. I am mostoy =lessed, though now and again I get so busy I don't have time to consider the ramifications of that thought. That's when I worry less baout boredom and more about getting words on papaer as quickly as i can. I love my chosen career. It doesn't always pay the bills as well as I'd like, but i always manage to ahve a good time with the process, even in the darket times.

keep miling,

Jom Moore

Does Boring Writing Mean Boring Reading?

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week takes a look at the oft-quoted advice for writers: “If you’re bored writing, the reader will be bored reading.” And we're asking is this true or false?

Okay, I'll confess: it's me asking. This was totally my topic suggestion because this advice really irritates me - I think it's wrong, even dangerous - and I want to know what everyone else thinks about it.

So, I feel a little bad kicking off this topic, as I know I'll be setting the tone here.

But... whatever!

The reason I think this advice is flat wrong is threefold. 

First of all, the process of writing a book takes HUGELY longer than reading a book. Let's say it takes 5 hours to read a novel. (It seems like my Kindle often reports something in that neighborhood when I open a new book.) I'm a fairly fast writer, and I keep track of my numbers, so let's use my writing time for an example. It takes me, on average, 55 working days to draft and revise a novel. In general, I spend 3 hours/day actively writing to get that book finished. That's 165 hours of writing, at a conservative estimate. That means it takes a reader approximately 3% of the time to read what it takes me to write. And I'm a fast writer! The percentage will only go down from there. 

Put another way, a reader will read at least 33 times as fast as we write. Comparing the two experiences is ridiculous, particularly when it comes to a subjective quality of feeling bored, which is time-sensitive.

Secondly, the experience of boredom is entirely subjective. What I find boring is not what you may find boring. I get bored with fight scenes, in books and movies. I know that's a me thing, but they don't hold my attention. Lots of people love fight scenes, which is cool. But there is no objective qualifier of what is "boring."

Finally, writing is a job. It might be an awesome job - it is! - but it's also work, which means it can be a slog. Especially writing novels. Working incrementally for ~75 days (my total time to produce a novel, including days off) on one story can get dull. Some days I'm tired. Sometimes I'm writing stuff I already know, like backstory from previous books, or stuff that isn't particularly exciting, like transitions, but that I know the reader will need to understand the story. I don't know ANY writer who is 100% excited and invested in what they're writing every moment and every word. Sometimes, people, it's going to be boring - and that has nothing to do with how the reader perceives it.

I promise you this. Test it for yourself. Make note of some part of your work in progress that you found boring to write and find out later if any of your readers find it boring to read. I'm sure they won't.

That's why I find this advice dangerous. It implies that only the writing we find exciting in the moment is valid - perhaps even suggests that anything we find boring to write should be thrown out. This is bad for getting words written, which is our primary job. If a section of the story is boring to read when you revisit it? Sure, edit that puppy! That's what revision is for. But don't let feeling unenthused in the moment stop you from moving forward in the story. 

Neil Gaiman says that writing a novel is a process of laying bricks in a long road. Some days the sun will be hot, the work mind-numbing, the process slow and grueling. But the bricks have to be laid. Do the work and don't worry about how you feel. 

No Such Thing as Perfect

 

Raina Bloodgood ~ from The Witch Collector by Charissa Weaks

This week here at the SFF Seven, our topic is Characters Who Aren't Perfect Specimens: Do you make the conscious effort to include characters with physical limitations?

I do. Could I do better?? Absolutely. Always.

In The Witch Collector, Raina Bloodgood, my heroine, is a voiceless witch in a land where magick is created by song. And yet this doesn't stop her from creating magick. From the moment the book begins, she's dealt with this her entire life, so she's learned to translate the ancient language that others sing into a hand language that allows her to create magickal constructions. I also offer a novella on my website that includes a heroine who is blind. And yet again, I think it's important to show how people with disabilities adapt or have already adapted, and so blindness doesn't define her. I also do not make disability something to be cured via magick. 

There have been people with disabilities in my life since I was a very young child, especially girls and women. My mother also taught special education for 25 years--I still have one of her sign language books. Disability, in many forms, has always been a part of my life. It obviously impacted me, more than I think I realized until I found myself writing my second heroine with a physical disability.

HOWEVER, all that said, it's important to remember that being a person with a disability does not render someone imperfect because there's no such thing as perfect in the first place. Also, we should strive to reflect our world--even in fantasy--meaning that our character list should contain diversity of all forms. If you hold up a mirror to the world, the reflection you get is not all white and it is not all non-disabled people. I know people who have physical disabilities, mental disabilities, and intellectual disabilities--they deserve to be represented in fiction, too. 

We writers have to do our best to be inclusive while doing no harm, being willing to listen, and striving to do better. 

XOXO,

Inclusion, Diversity, and Respect

Including disability in stories should be about helping everyone see themselves in fiction. I'm afraid that when I write, though, that's not usually top of mind. I'm far more interested in who people are. Why they are they way they are. As you delve into that kind of analysis, you run into the places and ways that people and bodies break -- or the way bodies have many ways of being in the world. 

Since I usually write around themes of alienation, otherness, and finding love and acceptance no matter who you are, it absolutely makes sense to write about differently-abled people. Not because I want to play ableist bingo at someone else's expense. When I wrote Edie, who was born deaf, I did not want her deafness to be her defining trait. This is not the source of her brokenness. Being deaf does not in any way equate to broken and I wanted that to remain true for Edie. Her wound had to do with her part in an old war. She's also an addict, and she's prejudiced. To heal herself, she has to put prejudice aside, kick her addiction, and come to terms with everything she'd ever done in the name of freeing her world. 

Deafness for Edie only mattered because it impacted how she experiences the world, the hero, and the conflict. Let me explain how many times I realized I had used hearing words in reference to her when she clearly and distinctly could not hear. 

Another character starts her story full of fears and unhappiness. She's still recovering from being nearly starved to death as well as from multiple broken bones. She has a raging and dangerous case of PTSD. 

So here I am saying what should be the quiet part out loud: I do not believe that love can cure anything. You might have to come burn my RWA card over it, but I don't. I firmly hold to the notion that love cures nothing. Ever. All it can do is make you want to be  a better version of yourself. That's mighty power, but it's not a panacea. 

In each of my characters, I insist that they be the ones to put themselves back together. Their partner can support or even inspire, but they cannot do the work. They cannot make the change for the character who needs to change. 

My goal is the literary equivalent of the Japanese practice of kintsugi - repairing what is broken by gluing it together with gold and creating something new in the process. Only my characters do that job themselves. Their hero or heroin may inspire them, but that's as good as it gets, and never ever do we disrespect who these characters are by 'fixing' something inherent to them. Certainly there's more work to do. And I'm going to get things wrong some times because while I live with disabling chronic illness, I can't presume to comprehend the lived experience of someone with a disability I don't suffer. But yes. Show me where a character is hurt and how. Then let's break out the gold dust and glue and knit some stuff back together again.

I need to do better, like these examples.

I, um, need to do better regarding disabled representation in my books. There is some discussion on the ethics of using cybernetic implants to "fix" folks born with disabilities, and I suppose my AI character Chloe starts off with impairment to all her senses since she's a computer with no physical body, but both of those angles are reaching. The truth is that I've dropped the ball. 

As these books did not:

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle -- Main character Meg wears thick glasses, and her adventure is altered when she finds herself without them. One of the most poignant scenes features Meg and Aunt Beast, who is an alien creature without any visual sense but who is so incredibly beautiful despite. The disability representation here is deft, but my daughter who has eyesight similar to Meg was profoundly affected and appreciative.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo -- Kaz, the criminal mastermind and all-around badass, walks with a cane and has PTSD. Both of these conditions affect him differently but never stop him or slow him from protagging all over the place. As Alaina Leary wrote, "Kaz is a disabled character who is complex, badass, and decidedly attractive."

And one animation: Kanan Jarrus in Star Wars Rebels is in my top-three all-time favorite Jedi Knights, and he is so freaking amazing, not despite his blindness but because of who he becomes with it. He perceives the Force in a whole new way and brings fans along for that ride. 

Also, I'm really looking forward to Lillie Lainoff's One for All, "a gender-bent retelling of The Three Musketeers, in which a girl with a chronic illness trains a Musketeer and uncovers secrets, sisterhood, and self-love." It comes out next year, and as Lainoff is the founder of Disabled Kidlit Writers, my guess is the representation is going to be pretty awesome.

So, at least I have some models for how to do this right. Feel free to suggest others in the comments.