File this post under: FANTASY. And, per comments, TRADITIONAL PUBLISHING
So, going by the title of this post, I can say right away that if you’re still unpublished you probably have a dayjob and there’s a good possibility that you have health benefits. So you got that going for you right there. Go kiss your HR person and then schedule a $25 copay visit to your doctor just because YOU CAN, you healthy motherscratchers.
The other day Chuck Wendig posted 25 THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT OUTLINING and as usual it really hit home. I’m a more recent convert to outlining. Traditionally there’ve always been “plotters” and “pantsers” though I prefer George R.R. Martin’s more elegant dialectic of gardeners vs. architects. When I first started writing, I clearly fell on the side of the gardeners.
Southern Gods, This Dark Earth, The Twelve-Fingered Boy were all written without outlines. Or, I should say, were written with only the barest of outlines usually half-way through the story. The Twelve-Fingered Boy was short enough where I held the whole of the plot in my head throughout the process of writing it without ever putting any sort of roadmap down.
The Incorruptibles, The Shibboleth, The End of All Things, Infernal Machines… all of these books of mine have, if not in depth, then comprehensive outlines spanning the whole of the narrative.
Why this change?
Necessity. All of these books that I’ve outlined extensively, it’s been done to keep me on track toward deadlines, to prevent me from meandering. I’m due to finish a book every nine months (or so). Publishers expect the books. That allows me no time to woolgather or explore subplots that go nowhere.
So, as I was reading Chuck’s wonderful post and nodding my head in agreement, I started thinking of what it was like before I was published and certain things occurred to me. I was always in such a mad rush to get SG or TDE into print, I took for granted the strength of my position as being unpublished. I know that might sound weird but there are great benefits to that time before you’re published. And now, while I love Southern Gods, my first novel, there are things I would change in it. Flaws I would fix. But, they say perfectionists never get published – they’re always working on the latest draft of their unpublished masterpiece. At some point you have to let go.
However, when you’re unpublished, you have the luxury of exploring every rabbit hole. An unpublished writer can take a decade and write a perfectly wonderful and sprawling masterpiece. An unpublished writer can become expansive, can throw pacing to the wind, can introduce thousands of characters, and (in fantasy) develop convincing flora and fauna and magical species to fill this world. Massive unexplored terrains. In essence, the unpublished author knows no constraints.
And that is a position of strength.
Why?
Because if you have the juice, if you have the ability, the skill, the artistry, you’re going to get published. It’s going to happen. You’re not going to let anything stop you. And nothing CAN stop you. Despite the flux of crap self-published books and cheap pulp novels, people are always starving for thoughtful, exciting, well-wrought entertainment.
But right now, before you have your big deal (and all contractually-based schedules appended to said deal), it will (most likely) be the only time in your career that you have the luxury of exploring your own literary world in a leisurely fashion. It’ll be the only time you’ll be able to write a book as big as you’d like. To create massive landscapes and fill them with interesting people. To construct intricate plots. To explore every rabbit hole.
Some of you might be saying “Bullshit. Books like that never get sold.” I say to you Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, The Name of the Wind, and The Blade Itself. I say to you A Shadow in Summer and The Lies of Lock Lamora.
I say to you The Hobbit.
So, if there’s a piece of advice I could give to myself five years ago when I first started writing, it would be, “Slow down. I know you’re thirty seven and feel like you don’t have a lot of time, but… ease up. Make the book bigger. Include the subplot regarding Rabbit and Alice. Develop the world more. In the end it’ll pay off.”
Keep your chins up and keep writing.
That’s all, folks.
ADDENDUM:
Interesting discussion on the Twitters regarding this post with Chuck Wendig, Thomas Pluck, and yours truly. https://twitter.com/tommysalami/status/335109247685763075