After a far-too-long sabbatical that ended several years ago, I seem to have developed a new way of writing short fiction.
Novels, frankly, are hopeless. They are too long and keep me silent for lengthy periods, after which smart-as-paint kidlets tell me they’re not in love with my fiction, or it’s not for me to be writing XYZ character, or they simply ghost.
A short story isn’t the horrific and monumental effort it takes me to do a novel, and once it’s finished, I can send it out in the hopes of finding a compatible editor, and then I get to start another.
To my astonishment, it is much easier for me now than it was before my “sabbatical.” More on that later, if I have the courage.
For now, I want to talk about how my writing organization has changed. I need three things to prepare for short fiction: a character, a setting, and an idea.
Once I have them, if the character or setting requires historical research, I do it. I cram files into my document file. I add a few pictures so I know what I'm dealing with. If something looks particularly useful, I bold it.
I do this in short bursts of energy, and frequently open the file many times a day.
Gradually, ideas come to mind about character, setting, and idea. These are the ideas that I use to create a plot outline. Actually, it’s not so much an outline as blocking out possible actions. If X, then Y. If Y, then possibly Z. And then, if I'm on the right track, I realize what I need to do. Frequently, it involves realizing that the character is not static, does not merely act, but has a whole psychological arc that drives their action. These actions must fit into the context of the history or the setting (if not historical). They need to go with the main idea, or the main idea needs to change.
Gradually, I start blocking. Then I go through the research-crammed file and delete what I realize I don’t need. I add what I might need more.
I start to assemble plot points as if they were camps along an 8,000-meter peak. When I get enough plot points listed, I start to write. It usually goes quickly. It’s more economical than it used to be: People prefer much shorter pieces than I used to write, and I’m learning to deal.
After I get a draft, I let it sit. Then I go over it, back and back and back. Gradually, I get the sense that it is ready to be seen.
At this point in the game, it’s what I call a “naked” manuscript. I don’t use beta readers. I don’t inflict things on Russ (that’s not fair). I don’t hire editors. My manuscripts tend to be quite typo prone because my typing speed, once I get rocking and rolling, is upwards of 100 words per minute. I do spell-check. I do proof. But it is hard to proof your own work.
Why not use a beta reader or three? Time. And money. And distrust of readers and editors who tell me what they want me to write, not what I want to write. There was a point in the course of a trilogy where I was getting it from a collaborator and an editor alike. The collaborator was pretty sloppy. Their manuscripts were cleaner than mine, but they were skimpy in terms of plot, character, and texture. However, this was what the editor wanted. Actually, what the editor wanted was to bestow their idea upon the hapless writer, then micromanage until correct text was produced.
I don’t work that way. I have spent a lifetime being feedbacked by popular kids and head kids and bullies, but there are two things—apart from protecting people I feel need me to do so—that will cause me to attack: my wardrobe and my stories.
The wardrobe is a sign system. I distrust people who go after it for reasons of sumptuary laws or an aesthetic that conflicts with my own, and yes, it’s happened.
The stories—like my Uncle Jack, the painter, I regard art as a solitary thing. I was ruthlessly feedbacked my first year at Harvard for not liking study groups. I don’t. I hate them. To me, they create a least common denominator of acceptability, groupthink about what is suitable, and social pressure to conform. They establish a pecking order in which some people are anointed to shine. And they punish people who are lousy at collectivity.
I’m much better on my own. Naturally, this means I have few allies among the beta readers and editors once I get done. It really is the only way I can write, even when the pressure is on and I am called sloppy, careless, or intellectually dishonest.
People can be quite ruthless in trying to control a writer who prefers to go her own way.
When it’s working, it’s like nothing else on earth, except maybe listening to superb music.
When it’s not working, I have to stop, sometimes for years. I have done that twice: once when I was a child and my mother would watch me and choke that I was not a hap-py child, I was writing My Heart Out, and was it about her? So I stopped until grad school to give her the opportunity to have a hap-py child. Then I started again.
The second time I stopped was in 2006. I had just been fired twice by Mr. Morden at Citi. He had done his damnedest to make me feel incompetent, and he had succeeded nicely. At the same time, I was getting the sloppy-and-intellectually dishonest crap.
As I saw it, I had time and effort and finances to do one of two things. I had three proposals for trilogies. My then-agent loved them until sales forces didn’t, and then the agent didn’t love them anymore. Suggestion: Write a whole novel on spec under a pseudonym. After all, it wasn’t as if I were an Anointed Writer, a fashionable one. What did a name matter, especially if it was mine?
It didn’t suit. A problem on Wall Street was I have always had tremendous ownership of my work. I did have at least six months of funding from my severance package. I used it to find another job. Yes, I was going to be a serious Wall Streeter.
It worked for 11 years, until I got a new asshole boss. I floundered, and then my life changed completely. And the writing came back.
It’s still not succeeding at the level I want but it’s there and it’s solid, and it matters less how Saint Others do it than how I have to.
I may never be fashionable. Probably won’t. It’s late in the day.
But when the writing is going well, it’s damned good.
Susan Shwartz is again writing fantasy, science fiction, and horror. She is a five-time nominee for the Nebula and a two-time nominee for the Hugo, with nominations for the World Fantasy Award, the Philip K. Dick, and the Edgar.
Susan has published around 30 books and 100 short stories, novelettes, and novellas. Stories scheduled in the next year are on subjects as diverse as the Soviet space program, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Himalayan-level climbing, and the Battle of the Bulge.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susanshwartz/
https://www.facebook.com/susan.shwartz.9
Grail of Hearts, I own the original Dennis Nolan Art
