Ep 252: What If I Can’t Fit Everything Into My Book?

In this bonus mini-episode, Rachael talk about when to have multiple POVs, and also tackles the question, What if I can’t cram everything I want to into this book?

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Rachael Herron: Welcome to “How do you Write?” I’m your host, Rachael Herron. On this podcast, I talk to authors about how they write, what their process is and how their lives fit together. I’ll keep each episode short so you can get back to writing.

[00:00:18] Well, Hello writers! Welcome to episode #252 of “How do you Write?” I’m Rachael Herron. This is a bonus real quick mini episode. I am still in the bathroom in Auckland, New Zealand in our managed isolation still on day 10 of 14. This is coming. I’m recording this right after I recorded the last podcast. So I’m still in the same place. Still with the same lipstick on that could use a refresh if you’re watching on YouTube. So let’s get into a couple of questions from people who pledged to Patreon at the $5 a month level. I am your mini coach. You can ask me any damn thing you want. I will probably respond to anything you ask, unless it is absolutely outside, how do they say that outside the pail, but otherwise I’m going to answer it and I’m going to answer it on the air. So let’s go. 

[00:01:10] This one comes from Lamar Dixon, hello Lamar. Okay. So Lamar says, so my question is I have this story I want to do. But it’s been so long since I had to actually write for school or college. And I feel as if my skills have diminished and I’m not competent. And as for my story, I don’t know if I should write or make a comic out of it. I can’t draw, but I can do the writing part. But for the book aspect of it, I feel like I can’t cram everything into it, but I don’t know. Thank you for your help. Okay. So Lamar, I love this question because it is really broad and a lot of people are going to be feeling exactly like you are. And there is a simple, simple answer. You just have to start writing. If you are the kind of person who is listening, who needs a plan of action before they write, that’s absolutely fine, but give yourself a time limit and don’t let yourself have more than a week of maybe an hour and a Monday and an hour on a Friday. There you go. There’s your week. You’ve thought about it, you planned, now start writing, or you could use the whole week. You could use every day to do a little bit of plotting and planning, but don’t give yourself more than a week for me. I don’t give myself more than two days to do that because I will get into a loop in my head and most writers do. We start spiraling. We start wondering every single thing we think of is a great idea until we think about it a little bit harder and write about it a little bit more, you know, for journaling about it. And we realize, no, that’s a terrible idea. And here’s why I need to start all over. And I thought it was, this was great, but, it’s the worst thing that’s ever been thought of. And we can do that for days, weeks, months, years as we try to come up with the absolute best plan of action. 

[00:02:55] So give yourself a time limit. One week is good. And then after that, you just start writing and you are not ready, but here’s the thing: you never will be ready. We will never be ready to write the books we want to write or to write the essays or to write the memoir, whatever it is that you were writing or to write the graphic novel, we’re never going to be ready. We just have to write a terrible first draft. And I mean, Terrible first draft. I think it is at rachelheron.com/SFD, which stands for a Shitty First Draft. If you want to look at an example of a page of mine, that is a first draft. It is terrible. I’m missing whole words and ideas. I’m talking to myself on the page. That’s all that first draft is, is it’s us thinking about what we might wanna do, putting it on the page, realizing it’s awful, getting confused, and being kind to ourselves anyway, continuing to move forward into continuing to put more direct onto the page. That’s our job as a writer. So the worry that you have, that you have too much stuff to put into one book, you might be right. Another really common worry is that, I don’t have enough to put into a book and you might be right about that too, but you will never know until you write the book and when you write the book and it has too much stuff, guess what? Then you get to choose what to take out. And if you write the book and it’s not long enough, and it doesn’t have enough substance, then you get to figure out what to add, but you cannot decide those things before you write the book and it tells you what it wants to be.

[00:04:34] Because no matter what, no matter how smart we think we are about our books, they have different plans and they would like to tell you about them. And the only way they are going to be able to do that is if you let them, if you put down some terrible sentences, let them be terrible and learn from them. And come back to them later and fix them and change them and move them and delete them and add to them. But the terrible writing has to be done first. So thank you for asking the question that I love to answer over and over and over and over again. I don’t think we can talk about it enough that we have to lower our expectations for our own writing and right down to the floor and then dig a basement. We have to be comfortable with the bad writing. The good writing will come later. I promise, but the bad writing has to come first. Even if you’ve written 30 books still has to happen in that order. So thank you for that. Next question is from, here it is from Michelle. She says I, is there a sort of pro versus con to having two points of view in a story? I’m trying to write two points of view, but sometimes I get annoyed at books with more than one point of view because I like a certain character best.

[00:05:46] And I just want their point of view. I know it’s author’s choice, but what are your thoughts on when it’s good to have or not? This is hard, hard question because I feel the same way and then sometimes I’m reading a book. This is the best case scenario for me in a book. And this happens quite often to me when I’m reading books and I hate it and I love it. If we’ve got two or three or more points of view and say I’m reading, Sophia’s point of view, when we come to the end of the Sophia chapter and we move into the Charles chapter. If I have a moment of resistance, a moment of annoyance that I don’t want to leave Sophia, now I’m going to go to Charles. I’ve forgotten about, who’s Charles? I don’t care about him anymore. I just want to do a Sophia, but then I get back into Charles’ point of view, I’m reading Charles’ point of view, and at the end of Charles’ point of view, we’re going to move back into Sophia’s. And if my reaction is annoyance again, like, now I have to go back to Sophia’s. I really want to stay with Charles. I think the author has done a great job. That’s a beautiful annoyance for a reader to have, for a reader to love being with a particular character, and not want to move out of their head to go into another head. 

[00:07:01] So, what we want as writers is to create that experience for our readers. We want them to maybe have a little bit of resistance every time they switch points of view in the head, because they’ve loved being with that last person for the last 5, 7, 10 pages and then once they get into the next person’s point of view, which they’ve already been in a few times, they already know this person and they love being in there. They don’t want to switch again. So how do you do that? And when do you do that? The how is simply revision. And I know that let’s see I’m guessing Michelle, that this is your novel, in which case I will reassure everybody. Actually, it would work this way in memoir, too. When I’m writing anything kind of book, there is a character that I am more fond of and that I want to spend more time with, and the other ones get short shrift. And I know that that is a revision pass for me that I need to go back and shore up those characters who aren’t as strong and make them just as interesting and just as compelling and equally stick-with-able. As the character that I am most in love with. And by the end of my book, when I have revised it umpteen times, and I’m going to send it out to my editor or when I’m working with my editor on it, I want to make sure that all the characters are interesting, as interesting as the others. Sometimes that doesn’t happen. And you mentioned you hate books when one point of view is more important than the other one. It just happens. That’s a problem that occurs. Sometimes we don’t fix it as well as we want to, but it is one of those beautiful things to try for, but your real question is what was your question? I go back to it.

[00:08:47] When is it good to have, or not in terms of one or two or three or more points of view? It really is author’s choice. It really, really, really, truly is in terms of romance, I would say there are some genres that conventions will dictate. A lot of romance, not all romance, but a lot of romance really watch the two main characters who are falling in love or three for that matter, so we want to be in both of their heads. Let’s see what other, thrillers often have, but it is really what you want to do. If you are finding that you are truly resenting writing another point of view, perhaps it is time to stop right there and try moving through the book. We never go back, right? When we’re writing a first draft, we keep going forward. And if we’ve been writing Andy’s point of view off and on, and we decided we don’t like Andy, we can stop halfway through the book and just write ourselves a big note that says, “No more Andy’s point of view” and you move forward as if you’ve never written Andy before and later in revision, you’ll take them out. Don’t go back and take them out now because you might decide in a week that you actually did need Andy’s going to be needed to bring him back. So you can change your mind at any time. And if you hate writing that point of view, then you can stop. But do keep in mind that revision is a cure all for most things.  

[00:10:07] So, give that some time. For most writers, I like to advise that you do what you love best. So Michelle, if you hate reading two points of view in a book and you care for one point of view more, do you, ask yourself, do you like reading books with two points of view and you care equally about them? Do you like moving back and forth then? Do you like that moment of discomfort? When you have to leave one behind to pick up the next one, is that delicious to you? Then yes. Then if you love those kinds of books, then try writing it for yourself. But if you’re really a one point of view gal, and that is the kind of book you love to read, then do that. It even works in romance sometimes you can make the, I know you’re not writing romance, but I’m just saying for everybody. So I hope that that helps, but for both of these questions, let’s remember that revision is the best tool in the toolbox and get a crappy first draft out with characters you can’t stand because that is all fixable later. All right. That is, Rachael’s Swan song. I didn’t notice Swan song is. I think that might be something you do before you die. So, and hope it’s not my Swan song, but that is the song I will always sing. That is my constant motif. That’s my motif, let’s call that my motif, is writing and rewriting later. Okay my friends, thank you for the questions. I’m out of questions. So mini coach people, please send me more questions. I would love to answer them. Right, happy writing to all of you.

Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of “How do you Write?” You can reach me on Twitter, twitter.com/RachaelHerron, or at my website, www.rachaelherron.com, you can also support me on Patreon and get essays on living your creative life for as little as a buck an essay at www.patreon.com/rachael spelled R, A, C, H, A, E, L and do sign up for my free weekly newsletter of encouragement to writers rachaelherron.com/write/

Now, go to your desk and create your own process and get to writing my friends.