I went to Main Street Bagels this afternoon to write, as I occasionally do. I’m beginning a new story. I love this part of the writer’s life and always have.
Typing my name and address in the upper left-hand corner, then spacing down the page to my starting point is as magic to me as the nine seconds at the start of the first Star Wars movie, when the theater is quiet, after the 20th Century Fox music quits playing. A blue message floats on the screen: “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . .”
The nine seconds ends when the crashing chords from John Williams’s score introduces the text scroll, and we are off and running.
That’s how I feel about writing.
Because I write short stories, I’m at the beginning more often than a novelist (but potentially less often than a poet!), so I get to revisit first page magic frequently. And it is magic.
I imagine some jobs have that same moment, if you really love your job. The thirty seconds before the first bell calling kids to class felt that way when I taught English.
My crashing introduction to today’s story started with the title, “The Mucking of Fowlford Stables: A Swords and Sorcery Murder Mystery.” And then my opening sentences: “Gil the stableboy found Brother Edwy the book steward face down under a pile of hay in the stable’s last stall, a pitchfork protruding from his back. Not just any pitchfork. It belonged to Gil.”
I’d like to tell you that the title and first sentence took nine seconds, but it didn’t. The idea of trying a swords and sorcery murder mystery occurred to me in between when I ordered my bagel and they called my name to pick it up.
Right now, there are twenty-one open tabs on my browser, all for information I decided I might need. What years encompassed the medieval period? What time within the medieval period will my story take place (I chose 1485, the year Henry VII defeats Richard III, ending the War of the Roses). Could a medieval castle have a library? Could a medieval castle library have a librarian, or would there be another title for that role? What books might be in such a library? Would the stables be inside the castle walls? What are the parts of a castle called? Turns out the stables are in the “bailey,” which is within the castle’s outer defensive wall.
Finding stuff out like this is a part of my process, which explains the open tabs.
Why a S&S murder mystery? I write short fiction. No one has any expectations on what I’ll produce next. There aren’t hordes of readers chomping on the bit for the next Van Pelt story. My freedom is total.
See, best job ever.
One marvelous part of writing fiction is leaning into invention. Although frequently attributed to him, Hemingway did not say, “Write drunk. Edit Sober.” Actually, he disciplined his writing habits so that he wrote early in the morning until lunch. He partied in the evening, believing that writing required focus.
The quote, though, makes sense. Write with abandon. Write unfettered. Ray Bradbury said, “Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun at it.”
I don’t have a story in mind for the Fowlford stables story, except that right now I want it to be sword and sorcery, a mystery, and I want it to be in a castle.
Castles are fun. They carry tons of culturally inspired weight, and they can be inspiring, imposing, and/or spooky. For me I see heavy wall hangings, oak furniture, huge fireplaces you could park a car in, secret passages (and secrets in general). In my mind, they’re drafty, subject to seepage in the lower chambers, replete with high places that don’t have guard rails, and echoey. Fog rolls in at night, wrapping the ramparts until a soldier standing guard feels adrift at sea. I like castles that were built to be defended. They are practical first and ornamental second.
My main characters will be low-born and the people castle stories are hardly about: a stableboy, Gil, and a scullery maid (hold on while I find a name for her) . . . . Maleen. They will be my detectives.
Are they literate? How could they be? What happens if they don’t solve the murder? Who are the suspects? What’s my next sentence?
Inventions abound!
Mostly what I do at this point is cast about mentally for my early steps, but what’s really going on is a host of strategies.
Investigation of the topic. Remember all those open tabs on my browser. That’s investigation. I’m throwing myself into the story’s world. The more I know about castles, castle libraries, medieval librarians, sorcery, stables, sculleries, etc. the more I’ll have to work with. Also, I find investigation leads to plot points and characters.
Brainstorming (by myself). I’m spinning off ideas as fast as I can. I’m not choosing one. Instead, I’m building options. At this point, nothing is off the table. What if the murderer was a witch, a knight, a noble, or a ghost (that fits the associations within the era), but what if it was an alien, a time traveler, or a shape shifter? The goal in brainstorming is to broaden the options.
Also, it’s good practice for me, whenever making a choice, to consider other choices. My first choice is the one that came to me most readily. That makes it suspect. I don’t want to make the same move readers might anticipate because it was the obvious one.
A mind map, which happens later when more of the story is on the page. This is doodling the story elements on a piece of paper so I get a visual of who is involved and the scenes. When finished, it will look somewhat like a spider web. Who is connected to who? At this point I might also start to see what’s at stake for the characters.
Oh, and freewriting where I write about the story without writing the story (although inevitably a scene or dialogue exchange arises while I do it). The intent of freewriting is to let myself explore what I’m thinking about the story with writing that no one will ever see. It’s private conversation with myself. Generally, I time these. Ten minutes is a good stretch. The goal is to not stop during the ten minutes, not self-censure, change direction whenever I want, and see where it takes me. Oftentimes, a line or image comes from the freewriting will work its way into the final text. Think of it as a kind of brainstorming on the page. I can’t stress enough the value of freewriting at any time in the process.
Freewriting is also the best use of time when I’m stymied about my next move. It’s so much more productive to write for ten minutes about my problems than to stare off into the distance with my hands paralyzed above the keyboard while trying to come up with something, anything, to write.
If you want to know more about freewriting, I frequently recommend Peter Elbow’s Writing Without Teachers.
For me, good writing is about surprise. At any point in the text, surprise can happen. Most people think about a plot twist as a surprise, but it should be surprises all the way. The author controls what’s revealed and how to word it. That’s managing the readers’ expectations. The writer can fulfill readers’ expectations, deny them, or offer a weird alternative that is neither fulfilling nor denying but still works.
Think of bad poetry to understand this. When I sponsored the high school’s literary magazine, the student editors gathered together regularly to read the new poetry submissions. One of the editors would read the poem out loud, and then the editors would discuss what they thought of the work. The first time an editor read a poem, the respect for the work was palpable. After all, the poem might have been written by someone in the room!
After the editorial board had read a couple dozen poems, though, the respect dropped away. That’s all it took. Even with that small number, the editors recognized familiar moves, familiar topics, familiar tone (and nondescript language). The obvious way they displayed their familiarity and loss of careful respect was in how they responded to rhyming poetry. When the editorial group started to call out the coming rhyme, they clearly were not being surprised.
This is a problem. The writer’s challenge is to offer novelty and surprise, not just in plot twists, but in the tiny steps too, like the unexpected word in a rhymed poem.
Opportunities for surprise exist everywhere.
And that’s why writing is the best job ever. Writing is not like many professions where the expectation is to deliver a standard product in a standard way.
But enough of this.
While I’ve worked through my thoughts on how a story can start, my stableboy, a scullery maid, and the poor, murdered librarian have been waiting for me to relate their next steps.
I have a job to do. Invention is required.
James Van Pelt has been selling short fiction to many of the major venues since 1989. Recently he retired from teaching high school English after thirty-seven years in the classroom. He has been a finalist for the Nebula, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award, Locus Awards, and Analog and Asimov’s Reader’s Choice awards. Years and years ago, he was a finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He still feels “new.” Fairwood Press recently released a huge, limited-edition, signed, and numbered collection of his work, THE BEST OF JAMES VAN PELT. He can be found online at his website or on Facebook.
Thank you. Inspirational with clear methods included.
Clear methods for practice!
Hi, Gayle. Thanks for the feedback!