Lilith Saintcrow

Cross-posted to The Midnight Hour

Let’s talk about structure. Or more specifically, dear Reader, let’s talk about writing a novel to specifications (“to spec”, like a category romance or a specifically-genre book) and writing what I call an “organic” novel*.

One is not inherently better than the other. They’re different, and serve different purposes. I write both, and I think any writer has to know those different processes.

Let’s talk about writing to spec first.

Writing to spec means you’re given a specific project. For example, right now I’m working on a category romance (lovingly titled Weasel Boy) with a pretty tight length and subject requirement. In order to effectively write this book, I have to both:

* Know the things the editor/publisher/readers are going to expect
* Make myself comfortable within those strictures/structures

And I also have to perform the hat trick of writing to spec, which is knowing which rules I can break. Which is just another way of saying I have to find something new within those strictures/structures, something all my own.

Writing to spec requires a fierce discipline. I’ve always said that romance writers, and category romance writers in particular, are some of the most disciplined writers on the planet. They have to be. They have an incredibly tight structure which includes length requirements, genre convention, aiming within their subgenre, nookie level (as in, how much nookie the reader/publisher expects), and particular expectations about the ending (an HEA, Happily Ever After). You can find comparable discipline in the Western genre and also in the category-suspense (think Mack Bolan) genre as well, though the romance genre has the blessing of being bigger business with a fair number of interesting backwaters/subgenres.

The length requirement alone will give some writers kittens. Say you have a length requirement of 70-75K. You don’t have a lot of room for subplot, long-winded description, dead weight. Every word needs to tell, and you’re going to get better at making every word pull its own (and its neighboring sentence’s) weight. Working within those constraints teaches a writer a lot.

Then there’s convention. You need to know the conventions of the genre you’re working in when you write to spec, and know them thoroughly. You need to know how much convention-breaking you can get away with, which requires a sense of your audience’s needs and expectations when they pick up the book. This requires not just reading within the genre, but reading critically within the genre–looking under the hood of the popular books, seeing why they work and where they don’t, what you would do differently, what unspoken assumptions and expectations are part of that genre or subgenre’s mythic “set”.

It’s learning a language, if you will, so you can break its grammatical rules effectively.

I write the Watcher books largely to spec, because they are intended to be identifiably paranormal romances. They have a specific pattern and a specific language, and they require a different set of mental “muscles” than, say, a Kismet book or the Valentine series.

Growing a novel organically is different. A major difference rests in the idea of genre. Writing to spec means you’re aiming at a genre, which is really just a collection of story markers to help readers find your book in a bookstore. Gestating an organic novel means you often don’t find the genre it belongs in until after the damn thing is born (and sometimes not even then).

For me, writing to spec is like following a blueprint. Producing an organic novel is like excavating an archaeological site. I have very little control over what the characters decide to do, and the structure of the novel follows its own dictates. If writing to spec is an act of sensitivity toward one’s audience, then writing organically is an act of submission to the creative process. I may have an idea of where I’m going to end up, just like I know I’m eventually going to die, but the intervening journey is largely a surprise.

I can knock out a to-spec book topping at 80-85K in a month and a half, taking into consideration the time needed to do a couple drafts and pass it by a beta. I don’t need more than a week’s (or so) worth of “cooldown” between them. On the other hand, an organic novel has a definite gestation period before I sit down to write it, and it takes four to five months to produce a workable rough draft, of whatever length the story demands. Then there’s the snapback–a considerable period of recovery, because I don’t just write an organic novel, I experience it on an emotional level. It takes a heavier emotional toll.

I think the emotional toll/involvement is the reason “organic” novels tend to be cross-genre or hard to fix within the constellation of genres. Feelings are messy, and organic novels tend to be complex, both on a thematic and an emotional level. (At least for me.) That “messiness” tends to situate the “organic” book in weird crossdrifts between genres.

I think the key to working to spec is wordcount and structure. You’ve got to think about what you’re doing, and why, and why it works in the confines of the story. You have to know what each scene is intended to accomplish, which genre/subgenre “markers” you need to hit, and you need to get a consistent wordcount out each day to keep momentum.

Conversely, the key to working an organic novel is wordcount and “fuel”–you have got to keep your emotional/artistic well full in order to cover the withdrawals you’re going to be pouring into the story. An organic novel tends to require a lot more “artistic” fuel–those things that feed your Muse so she can work. (For me, it’s schlocky action movies, or knitting, or low-light photography, or reading a book I’m not picking apart for structure.) Those things that make you feel renewed, no matter what they are.

Wordcount is important for spec work because you have to produce a disciplined product. It’s important for an organic novel because the dry “hump” in the middle-to-last quarter of the book can literally kill the work if you don’t keep chewing at it in little bits. It can be distressing, to say the least, to reach that point in an organic novel where you just have to trust the work not to fail you, and if your well is dry you might end up just throwing your hands up in despair.

And that doesn’t get the book done.

The joy in writing a to-spec novel is performing within a set of rigid constraints, like interpreting and performing a piece of classical music–there’s a set of rigid expectations you have to find freedom within. The joy of writing an organic novel is following the creative process for the hell of it, like a freeform jazz jam session–the rules are still there, but you’re playing faster and looser with them. It’s all good music, and both are satisfying to pull off well, but they require different types of effort.

There’s a tradeoff between the two. Writing to spec will strengthen your discipline and force you to really, really think about plot, structure, reader expectation, and lots of nuts-and-bolts things that will make your implementation of organic novels that much technically better. Writing organic novels will teach you all sorts of weird stuff about characterization and your own creative process that will inform your spec work with that stamp of originality it will need to become more than just a potboiler. It’s totally possible to botch either a spec novel or an organic novel, and fixing botches in either will help you fix botches in the other, for a variety of reasons. I think both processes are necessary for a writer, though each writer may have a personal preference about the type of novel they prefer to write. Myself, I tend to alternate–I don’t feel right if I’m not producing at least some spec work, and spec work gets awful, awful tedious if I’m not producing an organic novel at the same time.

And of course, this is my opinion. Feel free to take with grain of salt, and to tell me below what your creative process is like. Do you prefer spec work or organic work? Is there a writing process you have that doesn’t fit either bill? What is it like for you?

* I’m writing about novels because that’s the form I’m most comfortable with. You can subsititute “short story” or “poem”, etc., if you like.

I took the Princess to see Prince Caspian last night. The movie held up amazingly well on the second viewing, and I amused myself by spotting CGI, looking for the indicators that the centaurs were people on stilts, and taking notes on Ben Barnes, since he looks so very much like what Tristan d’Arcenne looks like in my head. (Especially during the temptation scene. Whoo. *fans self*)

So that was a good time, and the Princess loved it. She’s still talking about it this morning. We had the discussion about hubris, and about how war is a horrific waste. God, kids are COOL.

So, random Thursday. Which means a bullet list, since I’ve got a serial to revise and Weasel Boy to work on.

* Speaking of Weasel Boy, I’ve broken 35K and got everyone to their first kiss. SCORE.

* Over at FFF, there’s a discussion about teen protagonists and immortal love interests (more specifically, teen girl protags and immortal, much-older love interests.) I am kind of squicked out by that dynamic in a YA unless it’s handled pretty carefully. But I also remember being fifteen and wanting very much to date men twice my age from books I’d read. (Like Harlan from Anne McCaffrey’s Restoree, for example. Or Mr. Rochester.) I’ve always been attracted to people much older than I am, mostly because they have a greater chance of being mature and a lesser chance (statistically speaking) of young bullsh!t. So I can see why the books mentioned in the thread are popular with teen girls–who are, let’s face it, the majority of the YA audience. Which leads me to wonder:

* What are the stats on when boys stop buying books? I’ve noticed that boys and girls tend to buy (or ask for) books pretty evenly until the 14-16 age group, when girls pull ahead and women tend to be the largest consumers of books. So what stops the boys from buying?

* And now for the first thing that righteously torques me off today, the right-wing pundit flap over Rachael Ray’s fricking scarf. GOD. The stupidity of conservatives apparently knows no bounds. They’re barking about this crap because they can engage their base this way–and that’s the sad thing, that there is a significant portion of the population who will view this as News and who will send Ray hatemail calling her a terrorist.

Those of us in the reality-based community, however, will just shake our heads at how stupid Michelle Malkin has proven herself to be AGAIN, only this time over a stupid paisley scarf.

* And now, for the grand prize, the Thing That Makes Me So Mad I Can’t Even See Straight.

The banished child is 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism. Not uncommon to his condition, Alex has had some behavioral issues and as a result, spends a lot of time in the principal’s office.

After returning to Ms. Portillo’s classroom after a recent visit with the principal, his teacher decided to punish him with humiliation. She had Alex stand at the front of the class while his fellow students listed off what they didn’t like about him. After informing him that they found him “disgusting” and “annoying”, the class was instructed to vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed to stay in the class. By a 14 to 2 margin, they voted him out. Parentdish

HOW IN THE HELL DID THE TEACHER EVER THINK THIS WAS APPROPRIATE? (By the way, those two kids who voted not to kick him out of class are more mature than their so-called teacher.)

Now, kids are kids, and kids are cruel. I remember elementary and junior-high and high school, and I KNOW kids are cruel. Adults are supposed to have better impulse control and rationality, but apparently this teacher has none. It was the teacher’s job to keep things sane in the classroom, not to turn it into a f!cking Survivor episode. I am JUST BOGGLED.

The thing that hurts my heart is a quote from the mother, saying she’s heard her kid–already having a tough time because of Asperger’s, which is no picnic–repeating “I’m not special, I’m not special,” over and over again.

GodDAMmit. If we spent a fraction of what we spend on “defense” (i.e., killing people) on education instead, we’d be able to attract the best and brightest to teaching jobs–people who would presumably have better impulse control, people who are less likely to scar a FIVE-YEAR OLD for LIFE by treating him like a piece of meat on a “reality” show.

Jesus. Can you imagine your kid–who you’re already dealing with significant emotional issues with, as a result of Aspergers or something similar–being treated like a reality-TV spot? Can you imagine your kid coming home crying and repeating “I’m not special”? Can you imagine how sick and furious and hurt and terrible you might feel? How you must beat yourself up because you weren’t able to protect your little one when he was–five years old, for Chrissake–put up in front of a crowd of his peers, as if he was a “class enemy” in Mao’s China, and yelled at for a considerable period of time? Five years old–THIS IS KINDERGARTEN, FOR GOD’S SAKE! Not a television show!

That “teacher” needs to be severely disciplined. There’s still a chance for her to say, “I was wrong” and to teach the other kids in the class that the way to deal with people you have problems with is not humiliation and the rampant abuse of power. (Christ, maybe someone could teach the Bush Administration that.) She could, for example, apologize to the kid she’s wronged and his family, and spend a while talking with her class about why she was wrong to do what she did. She could invite the kids to think of better ways to handle whatever problems they have with the little guy they just emotionally maimed.

It’s a damn ugly world when teachers treat their classrooms like those frocking “reality” shows–and this is yet another reason for me to home-school my kids. At least here I’m certain they’re not being emotionally abused.

In case you can’t tell, this seriously curdles my nurnie. I feel for that little guy and for his mother, who sounds just about at her wit’s end. Personally, I think firing and the revocation of a teaching license is too good for the “teacher” who allowed, encouraged, suggested, and presided over this. I’d like to grab that “teacher’s” lapels and give her a good shake and a smack upside the head to boot.

But that would be the sort of behavior I’m taking issue with, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be very adult of me. So, erm, I’ll settle for blogging. And for inviting discussion. Dear Reader, what do you think?

There’s nothing quite like waking up out of a sound sleep at 7AM with your six-year-old announcing, “Mum, I’m gonna puke.”

He’s not sick and it’s not nervous stomach. I think it’s a touch of food poisoning–worrisome with a kid under 12. Apparently his dad took him to noodles last night after kendo, and the stuff he’s throwing up is noodle-y and fish-y. *sigh* We’ve talked about fish and the kid before. I guess we need to talk again.

Poor little Sir Pewksalot. He’s a little bit glassy-eyed. I guess re-tasting fish in the morning will do that to one. The UnSullen One got up and made me coffee. “When you wake up to puke,” he said, “you need something nice to counteract it. I’m going back to bed.”

What a nice kid. He’ll make someone a fine wife someday. *grin*

I am making chicken noodle soup today. Before you ask–the chicken yesterday was a SOOPER WIN. I added a little broth to the crock pot at the beginning, then halved some russet potatoes and put them in skin-down after a while. The potatoes were mashed later on, I steamed some peas, and pure deliciousness resulted. After dinner the skin and bones went back into the crock pot for stock, and I’ve got two whole crock-pots full of stock out of the deal. Soupmaking shall proceed apace, once I skim the stock that’s in the fridge. Chicken noodle is probably just the thing to soothe a troubled tummy.

I feel compelled to note that the chicken was free-range, cruelty-free, and fed organic. It was still very cost-effective to feed a family of five for a couple days (I have plenty left over for soup and sandwiches, even). I do try to buy organic when I can afford it, and the only reason I’ve gotten into cooking roasts is because that’s where the price break for cruelty-free meat becomes reasonable.

I feel like raising my fists and saluting the four winds while announcing “I AM THE CHICKEN MASTER!” But that would be hubris, for I know there are many, many ways of screwing up the chicken-cooking. One good dish does not a Chicken Master make. And since I had the discussion trying to define “hubris” with the Princess last night, I am determined to be humble about any Cluck Luck I have had. (The discussion was to prepare her for Prince Caspian. She’s going with me to the movies tonight, the little angel.)

All right. I’m kind of at an impasse with Weasel Boy, so I’m going to throw more vampires in. When in doubt, as Elizabeth Bear noted, send in the man with a gun. (She also says more roller derby, less girlfriend, but as this is a romance novel, I can’t have less girlfriend. I guess I’m just going to have to rework the girlfriend I’ve got.) I guess I’ll just throw more vampires at Weasel Boy and his Lady Fair and see what happens.

After, of course, I drain the crock pot and put the soup together. Wish me further Cluck Luck.

So, web stuff might be a little spotty for a while, on account of the website redesign. Bear with us, we’ve got some great folks working on the site to make it easier to access, even cooler-looking, and not so incidentally, to make sure I can update WordPress without nuking the entire carefully-constructed house of cards. *headbonkety*

Yeah, web stuff is about as fun as getting bit by a Nichtvren. (More about that later…)

EDITED TO ADD: The forum is temporarily down while all the settings and stuff are transferred. It should be up in a little bit.

First things first, though: there’s an interview with me over at Jennifer Rardin’s place. Jennifer is the author of the Jaz Parks series, the first one of which I swallowed whole in less than a day last year. It’s so refreshing to see a human heroine save a vampire’s ass, you know?

Also, the crossword puzzle contest for UK folks is over and done with, but the contest to win an ARC of Night Shift through my website is still going.

It was a long busy weekend here at Casa Saintcrow (I now have a proper kettle and teapot to show for it, though), but I did get a lot of writing done while I was haring off all over hell and creation, including a respectable breaking-of-30K on Weasel Boy. Now I know what happens next, the only trouble is choosing how to tell it to come in under word count. GUH. And trying to do this while Tristan is shouting filthy Alternate-1600s-France slang in my head is a challenge, to say the least.

Now, for the chicken! I am, dear Readers, indulging in an Experiment.

I’m cooking a chicken.

The Selkie told me about something easy and fun to do with fowl. (Hee.) You buy yourself a whole chicken, dot its surface with butter and sprinkle with Mrs. Dash or something (I chose garlic, basil, and a sprig of rosemary from the bush out front) and cook it on high in your crock pot for an hour, then turn it down to low for about seven or eight hours. I’ll pick it apart for dinner (probably with rice and steamed veggies) and have leftover chicken plus stuff to boil in a stock pot for stock. It’s supposed to be ZOMG the best way to cook chicken!

Further bulletins as events warrant. I’m really nervous–this is the first time I’ve cooked a chicken. A virgin poultry voyage, you might say. Just buying the chicken and contemplating cooking it was interesting and terrifying, in equal measure. Not the least because Trader Joe’s was a complete zoo when I was there to buy the, ahem, sacrificial fowl.

What is it about people whose time is so much more important than mine? I mean those people who barge in front in a crowded grocery store, or yell from behind at a stop sign*, or–and here’s my big beef–pay no attention to their fricking kids and let them run wild while the parent (who doesn’t deserve that name, IMHO) is busy yapping on a cell phone to someone named Cathy. At the top of their lungs. While their kids knock things over, run out into the parking lot, scream Mommmymommymommy! at the top of their lungs, and almost get creamed by several shopping carts. My kids would never dream of acting that way, in public or in private–even the 18-year-old. What is WRONG with you people? Just because I’m polite and moving at a slow clip doesn’t mean you need to hit me from behind with your shopping cart, scream at me at a stop sign, OR assume that I’m going to watch out for your little hellspawn (that you haven’t bothered to raise properly) and keep them from being run over when they bolt out into the parking lot while you can’t be bothered to get off your bloody cell phone.

GAH. In other words, I’ve had about enough of mass humanity for a while. Maybe I’m a misanthrope, but that kind of behavior just irritates me to no end, and I’d rather work from home any day of the week so I don’t have to see it. The thing that boggles me is the parents not watching their children. I can’t count the number of times I’ve collared a kid about to run out in front of a vehicle because the parent is too busy yapping on a cell phone to pay any bloody attention. And the parents are invariably mildly thankful but mostly irritated that their call is interrupted. *headbonkety* Jeez. What am I supposed to do, let a six-year-old get hit by a car so you can continue yammering? Don’t you people understand that little ones don’t have the “look before you cross” reflex yet? Don’t you understand that they’re small and hard to see? Don’t you get that it just takes a split second for Something To Happen?

I hate that. I really, really hate it. The advent of the cell phone seemed to transform a lot of people from just mildly annoying to ZOMGWTFBBQLLAMA STOOOOPID and self-centred. *sigh* Or maybe it just made that human propensity easier to spot?

Enough. I’m going to go check on my immolated chicken. And then I’m going to write Weasel Boy and forget about the outside world.

* By the way, you jerkwad in your huge compensating-for-a-little-weewee-Chevy, I stopped because otherwise I would have gotten T-boned by those kids in the Camaro. I saved four or five lives by laying on the brakes, so don’t fricking yell at me from behind. I HOPE YOU GET PILES.