by Laura Fischer
October 11, 2013
The Doctor’s Assistant is almost finished being posted as I write. Perhaps when you read this, it will be done. That will be the final marker of a long journey from conception, to outline, to rough draft, to editing and proofing, to final publication.
I very much enjoyed the journey of writing that book. As I said in my last blog here, this project succeeded in breaking a long dry spell in my writing. As of today, I have written more than 150,000 words this year, not all of them fiction and not all them worth reading, but certainly all of them worth writing. So here I’ll take a break from my other projects to reflect a bit on the journey behind me, just as Nyasha and Calea and Bron are now forced to do.
Working in a shared world is a great deal of fun. Some background on me–I’ve always loved to read and write fanfiction. In fact, my first story, before I even knew how to read, was a story about Link from The Legend of Zelda, which was then a game on the NES that I enjoyed watching my dad and uncles play. I scribbled in a notebook, making marks that I thought looked like my mother’s cursive writing, and drew pictures. Yes, I was an enormous, unbelievably gigantic nerd before I entered kindergarten.
The greatest draw for me to any story, or shared world, or fandom, is first the characters and second the setting. In The Select’s Bodyguard, Nick created excellent examples of both. I became very fond of the character of Bron, and I wanted to see his story continued. The world of Children of the Wells was interesting enough to me that I knew I would enjoy writing in it, but mostly I just wanted to know what would happen to Bron.
As much as I enjoy fanfiction, both writing and reading, my biggest turn-off is bad characterization. I’ve started plenty of stories, read a few paragraphs or a few pages, then clicked out of them when the way my favorite characters spoke or acted didn’t feel correct to me. When I write fanfiction, I do my best to make the characters seem like themselves. I freely admit that I don’t always succeed–fanfiction, is of course, self-indulgence in the first degree, so it’s difficult to avoid fudging things a bit in order to make them the way you want.
And that’s where writing fanfiction and writing in a shared world are different. Fanfiction is written for yourself first and foremost. Writing in a shared world, if you intend to do it well, is first about creating a cohesive universe with your fellow writers. You’re writing for yourself, yes, always, or you wouldn’t be able to write at all, but your co-creators have equal rights and must be respected. For me, that meant especially that I had to get the characterizations exactly right, while also expanding them and illuminating them in my own way.
It’s a daunting challenge for any writer.
I’ve mentioned that I fell in love with Bron. I felt like I understood him. I liked his stoic acceptance of adversity, his tenacity and courage, his single-minded protectiveness and simplicity of motive, and the hint of spiritual depths that lurked under his thug-like exterior. Calea, though, was a different kettle of prickly, imperious little amputee fish.
I leapt headfirst into The Doctor’s Assistant with wild abandon, creating characters willy nilly–Dr. Burdock, Nyasha Cormorin, grocers and butchers and doctors–and fleshing out the setting of Averieom. I dashed through the first few chapters with nary a pause. Then I started writing in Calea’s perspective.
And there I stuck.
How writer’s block feels?
Andrew Enright via Compfight
You could call it writer’s block. The popular imagery of writer’s block is of a writer sitting over a table with their head in their hands and crumbled papers all around them, occasionally scribbling a few words with a pen held in clenched fingers, then crying out in despair and crumpling the paper to throw it away. It wasn’t quite like that for me. I just…avoided the problem. I knew I needed to figure out where to go next, and I knew I had a deadline, but I chose to pretend it would go away. It was the same thing I’d been doing during my entire writing dry spell, not trying to chase ideas down, but letting myself remain in a funk. It’s a bad spot to be, and it was entirely my own fault.
Then, it came to a week before the deadline. I knew I had to break the block or I could not possibly meet it. The prospect of letting down my friends, especially Nick, weighed heavily on me. Tim sent me a Facebook message wondering where I was, if I was still working, and I told him I was.
I went back and re-read what I’d written, especially the paragraphs where I’d begun to write Calea’s perspective. I realized where I had gone wrong. It was the characterization.
Of course. Of course. Really, that should always be my first thought, the first thing I check. When I have trouble writing any project that’s been going like gang-busters before, it’s because something’s gone wrong. Maybe I dragged the end out too long and the story feels emotionally complete even though there’s still a boss fight to finish. Maybe I’ve written my heroes into a corner, plot-wise, and can’t figure out a fix. Maybe I’m boring myself, which means that readers will be bored, too.
Or maybe I started writing Calea as too nice.
I know, right? Who would make that sort of mistake with Calea? Well, I did.
I deleted all the dialogue I’d given her where she was acting like she already enjoyed Nyasha’s company, and I started over. (I’d forgotten that just because I loved Nyasha and thought she was sweet and funny and adorable, that didn’t mean Calea would. Quite the opposite.) I asked for feedback on my characterization in that chapter from my co-creators, especially Nick, who knew Calea best. And I figured it out.
After that, writing got a lot easier.
I can’t say, even now, that I love Calea as much as I love Bron. She’s a complex character. She’s not easy to love, even for those who have tried to put themselves in her shoes, as I did when writing from her perspective. But, like Nyasha, I’ve come to a place of respect and sympathy and a certain amount of understanding for her. I hope that my treatment of her character feels like a continuation of Nick’s and won’t have the jarring effect of bad fanfiction. I hope you, dear reader, didn’t wince and click out, the way I’ve done so many times.
Let me know if it worked.
Don't miss a single word of stories as they are published! You'll also receive first notice of special sales and behind-the-scenes information.
