Getting to Chapter 2
I'm a linear person. I cannot write "out of order" and the second I realize I'm in the wrong place, I have to go back to where I should be to fix it. It's my writing style, and I have learned to embrace it, but no two authors have the same writing style. We're all different fish.
In one of my writing groups, someone recently asked, "How do you get past chapter one? Every time I sit down to write, I just re-edit it trying to get it perfect."
The responses have varied because we're all so varied, but oddly many of them were "skip to a different scene and come back later." That advice would lead to my abandoning my project. It would not have worked for me, especially in the beginning. Even during a novel I'm super excited and caught in, when time jumping, I have to outline what my characters did during that interim. Skipping would have overwhelmed and destroyed it.
"Skip it and come back later" must work for many, because those comments have dozens of positive emojis, but if you're like me, here's the advice I found more useful:
#1: Remember first draft = Vomit Draft. It's supposed to be junky. It's supposed to suck. Just keep swimming.
Just Keep Swimming!
#2: Use TK.* See footnotes below for details. I'm sure I've blogged this, right? TK is my favorite editing trick / tip / writing advice bit ever. It's fully stopped me from the "rewind and fix it" mentality.
#3: You may not be a Pantser! (Someone who writes by the seat of their pants.) You might be a Plotter, and that is 100% okay! Remember what we've said about different fish in the sea?
As a pantser, I just simply sit down and write what flows-if it doesn't flow, I chat about my problems with my husband (my muse) until it breaks and I can continue pantsing, but there are definitely plotters out there, and many people do not realize they are plotters until they've slammed their head into a brick wall 200+ times.
If you keep re-reading, trying to perfect, editing, scrambling for some forward projection, or getting caught up in a big ole knot, you might be a plotter.
You're probably thinking: Great, Letia, how do I fix that? And my response is: you don't! You embrace it!
Sometimes our projects are so big that in order to be excited about our next step, we have to step back and consider the big picture. If you get caught up in a thousand little details, maybe you need to write those down in a free-form list. If the story is too complex, maybe you need to start with an outline, a plot map, or a structure monster. (Wonderbook, by Jeff Vandermeer, is a phenomenal guide to playing with structure, but there are dozens upon dozens of sources for 3-Act Structure outlines, Hero's Journeys, etc.) I've met writers who have to fully research their projects before they can write a word. I've read about people that must have mood boards in place, or character sketches, or musical playlists.
#4: Throw out the chapter numbers! I'm a very intuitive writer. When drafting, I stop chapters where I feel like. I don't worry about whether I've followed the proper structure of the chapter, or whether I'm starting or stopping on a hook. Those are all things I worry about when EDITING. One of my college writing friends did the other extreme. She never put a chapter or scene break into her work at all. She left them for the end. That would never work for me, but as we've established before, all writers are different. Maybe removing that number will help you realize you've already written into chapter 3.
And finally:
#5: Be consistent. Writing takes time, and if you only steal 30 minutes every month to write, you're going to spend most of that time rereading what you have because no one can remember where they were that long ago. Schedule yourself a check-in every single day for a month, even if it's only five minutes a day. If you do it every day, eventually you'll have to move on, or you'll get so bored with chapter one that you'll cry.
Writing is a big experimental game, and finding what works for you, inspires you, and guides you is a huge part of that game, maybe even the key. So embrace your weird little fish-self and be the lion-hearted writer you are meant to be.
Footnotes:
*TK isn't found in the English language. Which means we can do a search and find easily. While you're drafting, leave yourself a note at any point simply using this format: <TK: And your memo goes here.> I have done TK's that change names, add bad guys, shift character's motivations, question how I spelled something, ask how many days it's been since X, etc.
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