So I am writing a fantasy novel and the problem that I've had lately is that I can't make a fantasy novel realistic.
I know. That sounds really stupid.
But think about it: I'm writing a fantasy novel and I keep running into this problem where I can't make the physics work in the story.
Take this example: if I write a story that takes place underwater, then I have the problem that furniture floats, things like books can't exist, and if a person bleeds, where does the blood go? So many things just don't work and you don't think about it until you try to write it.
Now an easy solution to this problem is when the story is somewhat juvenile or silly. Take the Little Mermaid. No one questions the fact that Ariel hoards paintings and books and they never get damaged. Of course, that story is also about a girl selling her voice to an evil sea witch in order to get legs to win a man.
Not exactly realistic.
Another perfect example is Spongebob Squarepants. No one thinks it's at all unusual when Spongebob lights a fire, or that there is an underwater ocean called the Goo Lagoon, or that he lives in a pineapple. No one questions this because it's just silly and it isn't supposed to be serious.
So what do you do when you try to write a serious young adult fantasy novel? You can't just ignore physics because it makes the story sound cheap and silly. This is the problem I've been wrestling with. I'm trying to write this serious, intense, somewhat dark fantasy novel, but I just can't ignore the physics anymore. I've been trying to figure out what to do.
But then I realized something: What's the point of writing a fantasy novel if you can't bend the rules a little, so to speak? If I'm writing a story about a mermaid who is also a siren and is in a struggle for her life against her mother who wants to essentially change her race, then I am already suspending reality, so why not go all the way?
Go big or go home.
But seriously, why am I worried about perfectly following the rules of physics when I am already writing a story that defies the natural world?
So the conclusion I came to is that if one day this book is published and people choose to read it, they are already suspending reality to read a story about mermaid. It isn't too much to ask to expect them to suspend general rules of nature as well.
Of course, I'm not going to go as far as to light fires underwater or live in a pineapple.
That's just silly.
~KMG
So if you have done any writing at all, you have probably looked up writing advice. And if you've looked writing advice, I'm sure you've seen the suggestion of writing the ending first.
Here's my take on it: It's not necessary.
Thus far, I have written chronologically. Writing the ending scared me to death. I couldn't cope with the idea of skipping ahead in the story and writing the ending.
What if I changed my mind about the ending? I would have wasted all that time.
What if the ending is really bad and disjointed from the rest of the book?
What if I mess myself up in writing the rest of the story?
What if I can't focus on the rest of the story because I'm trying to make it fit with the ending?
If this is your problem, then stop reading writing advice.
If the idea of writing the ending first makes you feel crazy and nervous, then don't do it. No one controls how you write your story except for you. If going chronologically is working for you, then don't worry about it and keep doing what works. Why fix something that isn't broken?
But if you get stuck, then try this. I got a severe case of writer's block, and since I knew how I wanted the ending to go, I just wrote it. Now it's out of my head and it won't distract me. Now I just have to build a bridge from point A to point B. Writing chronologically was totally working for me so while it did, I kept doing it. When it stopped working, I changed my approach.
So do what works for you. And don't be afraid to experiment with other methods if you get stuck.
Because this picture is totally wrong.
A lot of times, avid readers will say something to authors along the lines of "Why do you always kill off the characters that everyone likes?"
Here's the answer: I don't know.
I'm more than halfway through a manuscript right now and I don't have plans for killing any beloved characters, but hey, stuff happens. Sometimes, you need the emotional devastation of killing someone for the protagonist to get motivated to do something. Or you need it to totally devastate them so that it's a struggle for them to keep going. Sometimes you just don't have a purpose for that character anymore and you kind of leave them in limbo, which is way meaner to the character than just killing them.
And sometimes, that character just wants to die.
The most difficult thing about writing to explain to someone who is not a writer is the concept that the characters, if created correctly, often have minds of their own. You might sit down and plan to write a scene a certain way and you write for a couple of hours and when you reread the scene, you realize that the scene went a completely different direction than you originally intended, just because one of your characters did something different from what you expected.
Characters really do begin to contribute their own input (whether invited or otherwise) of how they would act or how things are going to work out.
I know, I sound crazy. But every writer out there knows exactly what I mean. The characters really do begin to control the story.
So sometimes, it isn't up to the author whether or not a character lives. Sometimes, that character decides to die on you.
But keep this in mind when one of your favorite characters gets killed off: it hurts the author too.
Authors invest SO much time and effort into developing the story and the characters, writing it down, editing, and everything that goes into the publishing world (which is freaking scary), and often there are years of planning before a word was ever typed. So when a character dies, it hurts. It's like a close friend or relative dying. You know them so well, you know everything about them and have known them for years, and now they are dead. I know that I have had the idea for the manuscript I'm working on for at least 10 years, probably more. If after 15 or so years of knowing these characters and their stories and developing them and putting so much effort into their lives, I know I would be devastated if one of them died, and unfortunately, at least one of them probably will. It sucks. But it happens. Sometimes characters need to die to keep things realistic.
Anyway, I hope y'all don't think I'm crazy now that I was talking about how characters have a mind of their own. Or that I just said y'all.
Sometimes you have to step back and appreciate the "little things."
And other times, you have to tell the "little things" to shove it.
I have been working on this manuscript since high school, but have actively been writing it consistently since I've been in college, so about two years. Because I've had this idea for as long as I can remember and have been working on putting into words for approx. 5 years, I feel like I haven't accomplished anything simply because I haven't finished it.
That's unreasonable, I know.
It's hard to gauge how long your novel is when it's in the works because all you have is a massive Microsoft Word document that is double spaced. I read on WritersDigest.com (check out that site, by the way, it's great) that a reasonable length for a novel is 50,000 words. They even offer classes on how to write the 50,000 word novel.
I know what you're thinking: 50,000 words. That's a HECK of a lot of words.
That's what I thought too. I thought, "There is NO way I'm ANYWHERE near that. That's so many words! How many words am I even capable of writing?" In all my panic, it didn't occur to me to actually check my word count until later.
35,922.
35,922 words. Okay, so it isn't outrageous to expect a 50,000 word novel. But then a new fear overwhelmed me. I'm not even halfway through the content of my story and I already have almost 40,000 words! What if my book is too long? What if this is going to be like Moby Dick?
I know, I know, I overanalyze EVERYTHING.
I decided that instead of a phantom number from out of nowhere (which was at least helpful in the sense that it told me that I was capable of writing that much), I needed to know the word count of some books that I like that are similar in genre to what I'm writing. Since my novel is young adult fantasy/sci-fi, I turned to two of my favorite young adult series, The Hunger Games by the incredible Suzanne Collins and Divergent by the amazing Veronica Roth. I googled the word counts for each of those books.
Divergent word count: 105,143 words
The Hunger Games word count: 101,200 words
You see where I'm going with this? I'm not limited to 50,000 words either. I control my word count, and I can make it whatever I want it to be.
My point here is that I was seriously stressing myself out over something stupid. Yes, word count is important to keep an eye on because it helps you manage the length of your manuscript and lets you know on what part of the story you're spending the most words, but the story is beyond the number of words. If I write an absolutely heinous story, no one will care that it was 100,000+ words. Likewise, if I write a truly incredible story, no one will care that it was under 50,000. The part that matters is content. I have to focus on content and not get absorbed in numbers.
And I think this applies beyond the written (or typed) world. If I spend my life wondering how many years will I live, how many diplomas should I have, how many friends/colleagues should I know, how many credits should I take, etc., then I'll miss out on all the great things I could have accomplished and enjoyed, all because I spent my time worrying instead of just doing.
So take time to pay attention to the little things, but don't obsess over them (like I do). When it comes down to it, my word count isn't what's going to be on bookshelves someday (hopefully). What will be is my name on a book filled with an idea that came out of my head and that I put into words (again, hopefully). If I want that book on the shelves at Books A Million, then I'm gonna have to actually write the darn book, not spend all of my time worrying about writing a book.
Sidenote: If you haven't read either The Hunger Games or Divergent, then there is something severely lacking in your life. Check them out.
xo
KMG
Since I have just started this blog, I thought I would point you all into a direction that I think will help. Veronica Roth, author of the Divergent series, has a blog that is simply amazing. The URL will be posted below. I related to almost everything she has ever posted on there and found it really encouraging to read. Her helpful hints are great and her perspective is refreshing.
If you're looking for a young published writer's perspective, she's perfect. I know reading her blog really helped me.
URL: http://veronicarothbooks.blogspot.com/
Anyway, check her out in the meantime. She is lovely.
xo
KMG
Okay, so let's take this first blog post to explain everything.
I am a college student who is entering her senior year and I have a passion for writing. Ever since I could read and write (which has been as long as I can remember; thanks, Mom, for teaching me so early) I have been reading novels and writing silly short stories that actually make me die of embarrassment when I read them now. I love to write and I always have. In my free time in elementary school (and let's be honest, you have a lot of that in grade school) I was always writing either short stories, poetry, or very pathetically mediocre screenplays. I never considered it a serious career possibility, but as I get older, I feel more and more like it's something I should pursue more seriously, at least as a legitimate hobby.
Since about middle school, and maybe even earlier, I have had one book idea in my head that always stood out from the others, of which there are many. However, each time I sat down to write it, I felt like my writing wasn't good enough to actually put this story into words the way I wanted it. I can't tell you how many times I've given up on writing this same story in one form or another. The most recent attempt, at the end of my junior year of high school, proved to be different. I wrote maybe a chapter and put it away for a few days and when I came back to it, I didn't hate what I had written.
Hey, it's progress. Don't judge me.
So I've continued to write it since then. Throughout the end of high school, I wrote very casually, but since entering college, I feel like I should take it more seriously. I have since written 30,000+ words, which seems unnatural at this point and I really like the direction it's taking. As I write, I know how I want the book to end, and where I want the next two books to end.
So maybe I'm a little ambitious.
But that ambition is what is driving me to actually get this done. So as if I don't do enough writing, what with all the college papers I write (I'm a senior in college with a double major in the social sciences- essays are a way of life) and the novel writing, I have decided to further commit wrist suicide and write a blog to chronicle my journey as I pursue such a subjective hobby.
And who knows? This may turn into my career someday. I would love nothing better than to just write young adult novels for the rest of my life.
But until I can make that a real possibility (and I am determined to do so), I will content myself with just finishing a manuscript while I finish my bachelor's degrees.
Maybe after I actually get this story onto paper, my brain will let me write a different story. The story I'm currently working on is a young adult fantasy novel. More details to come regarding plot.
I hope you enjoy reading and maybe find this blog relatable in some way. I hope I can encourage others to pursue writing as a legitimate path, if that's what you want to do.
More to come,
KMG
