Ask the Writing Gods!

Hello, and welcome to this week’s column of “Ask the Writing Gods.” As usual, we, the deities in charge of writing, revising, inspiration, ideas, and all things authorial, will answer callers’ questions about their works-in-progress and — oh god, not you again.

ME: Hi!

WG: *pretend not to hear, clear throats* Er, anyhow, we will be opening our lines now. If there are any questions you mere mortals need to ask our divinity, we’ll be waiting to take your calls at 1-800-ASKGODS.

*crickets chirp*

ME: *waves hand frantically*

WG: *sigh* Yes, Sarah?

ME: Okay, so, I was writing this big scene, right?

WG: Uh huh.

ME: And I mean, like, a big scene. Like, one I’ve been planning since I started this project years ago. One I wrote into a short story before I realized that it was part of a much bigger writing project and also stopped trying to pastiche Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, which I realize is almost like a cottage industry since it’s so much fun but —

WG: This big scene?

ME: Oh, right. Anyway, because I added a new key concept between short story blueprint and main MS, I had to rework this whooooooole sequence to make everything make sense. And I ended up ditching a lot of the short story stuff that I liked, but I figured it was all “kill your darlings,” you know?

WG: *ahem*

ME: But the kicker is, no sooner had I killed all those darlings, so to speak, and finally muddled my way through the whole thing — which, by the way, saw me adding solar panels to the roof of an Ottawa high school just to make things make sense, even though I don’t really think that’s something they’d have, or, at least, my high school definitely didn’t, and —

WG: ARE YOU SURE YOU KNOW HOW TO KILL YOUR DARLINGS?

ME: You sound stressed; maybe you should take a break. After helping all us writers finish our MSs, though, ell-oh-ell. Well, long story short, no sooner had a finished this scene, built on a foundation of my blood, sweat, and tears — or at least, my energy, motivation, and frustration — and suddenly I realized that I should have kept a lot more than I did and now I’ll have to rearrange the whole thing in revision.

WG: … was there a question?

ME: Well, I *am* a trained academic in the humanities.

WG: *eyelid twitches*

ME: Haha, just kidding. Basically, I wanted to know: how come you do that? Why can’t we know the right scene right away? Another example: just today, I deleted about a thousand words from the same WiP because I finally realized the conversation my characters were having was boring and repetitive and didn’t move the story forward. No, actually: I knew all that as I was writing it, but I couldn’t figure out anything to write instead, so I kept with it until the new version hit me. Not, like, literally. But, seriously, Writing Gods, why do you do that?

WG: So that the children will ask why.

ME: That was a very specifically Jewish joke, Writing Gods.

WG: So sue us. Look, your question assumes that the solution to your writing problem exists before you start to work on the story. Some magical Platonic ideal scene that is shining somewhere in Narnia that you just have to get to so you can write it.

It doesn’t work that way. That scene idea doesn’t exist until you build it. And you build it from trying stuff out and seeing what doesn’t work, and more importantly, why.

ME: … so you’re saying writing is like a science? Hypothesis, observation, analysis and all that?

WG: That’s overstating it, academic in the humanities. But, yes, observation and iteration are important parts of the artistic process as well as the scientific method.

ME: But what if instead of writing increasingly good things several times, I write one perfect thing once and then go have gelato with the time I save?

WG: If you don’t have time to eat gelato without decimating your writing time, that’s not on us.

ME: Okay, but what is on you is how much time I spend banging my head against the keyboard in frustration because even though I know what happens next, I somehow can’t figure out how to write what happens next. Or what happens beat-by-beat to make that overall scene happen.

WG: Yeah, about that… do you know how boring it is to watch writers stare at their monitor, day in, day out? Sometimes we hold out for you to go do something more interesting. Talk to people. Play a sport. Go to the gym. Read a book.

ME: How is it more interesting to watch me read a book?

WG: We can read along over your shoulder.

ME: … that has a lot of unpleasant consequences, particularly if, like many, I occasionally read while on the toilet, but moving right along, so you’re saying that if I get stuck, I should go do something else for a while?

WG: We believe someone mentioned gelato?

ME: But, see, I can’t go do something else, because you’ve made me fixated on a scene that comes way later in the story, but I can’t write it until I get to it, and I can’t get to it without writing the scenes that come in between, and I can’t do that because I’m stuck, which is all your fault.

WG: Right. And where exactly did we say you couldn’t write things until you get to them?

ME: But then what’s my motivation to write the rest?

WG: That’s on you.

ME: I guess I can’t show the scenes to anyone else until I get the whole story down to give them the context I have in my head. That’s… motivating. And I do love to spend time with the characters.

WG: See? Now run along and get to it. Unless you’d rather procrastinate, as usual.

ME: I don’t procrastinate. How do I procrastinate?

WG: By spending over an hour, cumulatively, using fake deities to talk to yourself about the writing problems you’re facing instead of writing through them?

ME: Touché.