A fine Minnesota writer, William Kent Krueger, plans his mystery novels out in detail, I’m told. He is well known for going to a diner each morning and writing. His stories are detailed and coherent, and his prose is clear and finely balanced. His Ordinary Grace won the 2014 Edgar for best novel. Clearly, he knows what he’s doing.
Kent Krueger was one of the founders of one of my Minneapolis critique groups, Crème de la Crime, although he has left the group under the pressure of success.
One of my several conceits when I began writing seriously several years ago was that writing is an organic process. We plant the seed of a character, and the character grows through the story. The story must have an arc, and main characters must grow through the arc. Ahem. Like many of the other conceits, that one is true but not sufficient to justify waiting for inspiration to carry me away on its gassy clouds.
I’m not a person who thrives on having a regular schedule. I feel guilty about that in a number of areas of my life, but I always have excuses: those immediate quotidian issues and tasks … groceries, dentist, car service, getting the books back to the library … seem to jump in front of writing.
I mention all of this because I am realizing how important regular writing is. The more complicated the story, the more important regularity becomes. In my third novel, of which I’ve drafted perhaps a third, the plot has, as they say in the bi’ness world, a lot of moving parts. If I were clever like Krueger, I’d be writing every day, which would keep the plot details in my head at all times and prevent the egregious plot mistakes I’m trying to backflush.
Too late for a true New Year’s resolution, but I hereby resolve to write on a more regular schedule.
I applaud your new resolution. If I sat down to write every morning, I would never do anything else. That doesn’t mean I would write tremendous amounts of material, though. I can edit a piece to death and then go back to the original.