Ideas are easy. Conviction is hard.
Or, how to stay true to your novel when the plot keeps changing.
Recently, at a writing course, each of us said what we were struggling with. I said, “Conviction. I’ve been chipping away at this idea for four years, and I keep doubting myself and changing the plot.”
Then, I was talking to a friend who can’t focus on reading anything for more than twenty minutes, and realized that stamina is something both readers and writers need to train. It doesn’t just come for free. In fact, our steady diet of tweets and threads and espresso-and-subway-length reading material means that if we do nothing, our reading ‘muscles’ atrophy.
I’ve been on a lot of long-haul flights recently. I love them because I can finally get through some massive novels uninterrupted. I find it hard to read a novel in pieces every night, and would rather finish any book in a single sitting. I want to live in the character, not read about them. That takes mental and emotional stamina (and ideally a business class seat so I can bawl like a baby with someone giving me an endless supply of free Baileys, thank you JetBlue).
With writing, it usually takes me a day of vacation to stop thinking about work. Another day to get into my characters’ headspace. And then whatever’s left of my weekend or vacation to actually write. This isn’t conducive to finishing a novel any time soon, especially an epic fantasy trilogy.
So I’m trying something new. I’m spending a week at a time inhabiting a particular character, trying to imagine them living my life. What would V do if she were in this work meeting instead of me, trying to convince a bunch of people not to go to war? How would she react to that comment (given her past trauma with false praise)? It doesn’t just help me stay in my novel over a longer period of time, it makes me a lot more emotionally and situationally aware at work. Oddly, it’s as if being in a more imaginative state of mind (rather than a practical one) unlocks creative solutions in both arenas.
From time to time I return to that famous and controversial statement that Flaubert is said to have made about his novel: Je suis Madame Bovary. To the extent he could, Flaubert tried to be Madame Bovary. How else is a novel supposed to ring true unless you couldn’t find in every single character something of yourself, your siblings, your parents or your friends?
So, this week, I am V, a character who has been raised to believe she has great musical talent, only to discover people were flattering her because of her politically significant father. Now that she knows the truth, how does she trust what anyone says?
Probably not the healthiest mindset to take to work. We’ll see what happens.