It's not about the map

[skip.knox]

In my current WIP (Beneath the White City) I have four human kids who are deep under ground in a tangle of tunnels, some built by dwarves, some by a lindwurm (very nasty and dangerous). They are currently split up, two here and two there. I had to get all four of them to a cavern where they have an encounter with a wizard and that lindwurm.

I spent some considerable time sketching maps and working out timelines, and this was not wasted effort, but nothing was clicking. I was just moving chess pieces and I wasn't happy lost in the Great Swampy Middle.

So I took a step back and considered my characters. What does this person want, where is his head at right now? How about this one? I soon realized that one boy was terribly disappointed he'd not been able to work any magic yet. The other thought he should be the leader of the group, but nothing was turning out right and was it his fault. One of the two girls is hurt and the other has to help her, but to do this she must deal with her deep terror of darkness.

That let me see that the one girl, Lyse, was going to have to face her fear and lead the other (Hille) forward no matter what, for to stay in one place was to die. As for the boys, Reichert the would-be magician gets a stone that suddenly makes him powerful, so of course the first thing he does is go overboard, inadvertently tipping off the evil wizard. Who, in turn, sets out to find the source of that power surge.

Suddenly, my characters were in motion again. Not in order to get from Point A to Point B, but in order to do, or to avoid. With actual motivations and weaknesses driving them, I began to shape the tunnels in order to present hurdles for them to cross. The map began to re-form, but this time with reason and purpose behind it.

I relate this because it rather took me by surprise. It's terribly obvious now I type it out, and that's my real point about writing advice. I can read it and nod my head, but the only truly meaningful lessons are the ones I experience myself. Stove hot. Characters drive story. Does anyone have an extra thirty years lying around I can borrow? I got more to learn.

 

[BWFoster78]

and that's my real point about writing advice. I can read it and nod my head, but the only truly meaningful lessons are the ones I experience myself.

Amen...to an extent.

It seems to me that I learn best by:

1. Editing a piece until I think it's perfect
2. Having people tear it apart telling me everything I did wrong

I think that writing advice plays its role, though. It gives me the foundation to understand the comments I'm getting.

 

[ThinkerX]

I spent some considerable time sketching maps and working out timelines, and this was not wasted effort, but nothing was clicking. I was just moving chess pieces and I wasn't happy lost in the Great Swampy Middle.

So I took a step back and considered my characters.

Which is kind of sort of what I ended up doing with 'Labyrinth' - though I never attempted to make an actual map of the place.

 

[Penpilot]

I relate this because it rather took me by surprise. It's terribly obvious now I type it out, and that's my real point about writing advice. I can read it and nod my head, but the only truly meaningful lessons are the ones I experience myself. Stove hot. Characters drive story. Does anyone have an extra thirty years lying around I can borrow? I got more to learn.

IMHO you never stop learning. The minute you start thinking you know it all is the moment you stop really trying. I learned a similar lesson, so when ever I'm stuck on something, I go right back to the question, what does the character want? Everything in the story should revolve around that question.

 

[BWFoster78]

Skip,

Going back to the original subject (kinda in a roundabout way):

I think what you learned is an incredibly important piece of the puzzle (assuming you wish to write character-driven novels). It's important thoughout your process as well, not just during the first draft.

Having paid someone for content editing, I'm trying to produce my (pre)final draft at the moment. My first pass for each chapter is the major changes to address my editor's comments on character, plot, and tension. After that, I do multiple passes.

In each of those, I find lots of stuff to correct, and I'm happy whenever I can strengthen the writing by deleting or changing a word or phrase to make the narrative cleaner or clearer. I feel that those kind of changes can overall have a fairly substantial impact on the quality of your work.

On an individual basis, however, getting rid of an adverb or redundant word isn't going to make all that much difference. If one or two a chapter slip through, it's not going to kill my work.

What really makes an immediate impact to the quality of the work:

1. Finding a way to Show something that I told or figuring out how to more effectively Show something
2. Getting more inside a character's head

 

[Jabrosky]

I don't pride myself on my characterization ability, but it does seem that having a particular character arc in mind facilitates the storytelling. A few years back I managed to complete a ~7,000-word short story set in predynastic Egypt, and even though I never wrote a detailed outline for it, the main character's coming-of-age arc helped immensely in seeing the story to the end. This experience would lend support to the OP's statement that character should drive story.

 

[Helen]

In my current WIP (Beneath the White City) I have four human kids who are deep under ground in a tangle of tunnels, some built by dwarves, some by a lindwurm (very nasty and dangerous). They are currently split up, two here and two there. I had to get all four of them to a cavern where they have an encounter with a wizard and that lindwurm.

I spent some considerable time sketching maps and working out timelines, and this was not wasted effort, but nothing was clicking. I was just moving chess pieces and I wasn't happy lost in the Great Swampy Middle.

So I took a step back and considered my characters. What does this person want, where is his head at right now? How about this one? I soon realized that one boy was terribly disappointed he'd not been able to work any magic yet. The other thought he should be the leader of the group, but nothing was turning out right and was it his fault. One of the two girls is hurt and the other has to help her, but to do this she must deal with her deep terror of darkness.

That let me see that the one girl, Lyse, was going to have to face her fear and lead the other (Hille) forward no matter what, for to stay in one place was to die. As for the boys, Reichert the would-be magician gets a stone that suddenly makes him powerful, so of course the first thing he does is go overboard, inadvertently tipping off the evil wizard. Who, in turn, sets out to find the source of that power surge.

Suddenly, my characters were in motion again. Not in order to get from Point A to Point B, but in order to do, or to avoid. With actual motivations and weaknesses driving them, I began to shape the tunnels in order to present hurdles for them to cross. The map began to re-form, but this time with reason and purpose behind it.

I relate this because it rather took me by surprise. It's terribly obvious now I type it out, and that's my real point about writing advice. I can read it and nod my head, but the only truly meaningful lessons are the ones I experience myself. Stove hot. Characters drive story. Does anyone have an extra thirty years lying around I can borrow? I got more to learn.

Thing is, it's never been about the map. It's always been about change, the theme and so on. The journey has always been constructed to teach the lesson, so to speak.