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@morreafirebird

K.M. Small

Hi Khylie,

So glad to meet you…uh virtually…I mean. 😉

I have been writing for 🤭mmmrmrmh years…okay a number greater than 20.  [Don’t judge.] 😲

I’ve read and bought many books on writing, taken courses, follow writing blogs, attended webinars with famous and semi-famous authors and heard all of the techniques, and employed many.  But you know what I’ve found?

There are no one-size-fits-all, or magic formulas.  There are proven techniques that successful authors consistently employ, but in the end, it is about finding your own way to tease and coax out of the shadows your own creative voice.

You need to find what it is that awakens your God-given passion and compels you to formulate what you are learning into stories.  First, recognize that this is God’s unique gift to you.  He puts a particular spin on it that no one else can mimic.  Your gift has both your and God’s fingerprints on it.  You don’t have to be like anyone else but who God designed you to be.  Start by taking that load off of your shoulders and putting it back on God’s where it belongs.  A person designed to be a reflection of light must not stand in anyone’s shadow.  You are to reflect Your Creator and let Him infuse your gifts with His purpose.  He always gives with great intention, so be willing to surrender your five loaves and fishes into His design.  DO NOT let the journey scare you.  If God is for us, who can be against us, right? (Romans 8:31)

So, you’ve said a couple of things in your post that I find interesting.

1.      Oh, and for context, I write a lot of short stories. So I’m used to dealing with smaller-sized ideas

2.      I’m an outliner.

One of the things I have discovered is that writing a short story and writing a full-length novel are different skill-sets, even though they have some common properties.  The latter requires a greater degree of patience, time, and commitment.  It is the difference between a sprinter and a cross-country runner and involves steady pacing.  One of the perils of a short story writer trying to break out and become a novelist is that they will try to employ the same techniques as a short writer to becoming a long writer.  Pacing is the difference.  A short story mindset will soon lead you to impatience because you feel that the long story is not achieving the goals as fast as you are accustomed to.

We live in a larger culture that has lost the ability to appreciate “waiting”. We want everything right here, right now, faster cars, planes internet, cooking, etc. ad infinitum…

As a novelist, you MUST learn to slow those impulses down.  Patience is, after all, one of the Fruits of the Spirit. (Gal. 5:22)

The outliner side of you could be interfering with your plans.  Here’s why:

If your outline is very detailed, and not just High-Level blocks, you could be pouring all of the mystery of your story into the grand outline, but never letting the discovery process happen through the writing itself.

One of the reasons, God does not tell us everything that will be in our lives, is that He wants us to experience the faith walk through each moment.  How does that apply here? 😉 Glad you asked…
You are designed creatively to pursue the mystery.  If linear time were to cease, you would have no learning and no discoveries.  All mysteries would be fully revealed in a singular moment.  But that is a place of knowing only reserved for God Himself.  The BEST fiction follows the patterns of life, as frenetic and chaotic as they may seem, these patterns are relatable and your readers need to feel a realistic cadence to immerse themselves into your story.

You have to create believability for your worlds of fancy, but all of these must be grounded upon known patterns that give your readers a subconscious reference point that they can stand upon when they try to identify empathetically with your cast of characters.

An outline can create a too rigid structure for you to experience the mystery of a scene.  Always go into one with some questions and some answers that lead to other questions.  These can be around the characters, the circumstance, the perils, and the environment.  Your movement from one scene to the next must maintain the intrigue of discovery in the reader.  Think of it this way:

1.      Your readers are the guests that you have invited to a dinner party where you are the host.

2.      You have a large main meal that you’ve prepared and realize you have quite a bit of food that will spoil if the guests don’t eat it all.

3.      You know your guests may show up early at 5:30 pm to visit and schmooze, but the main course is not scheduled to be served until 7:00 pm.  You have some that will show up right a mealtime because they have further to travel or a flight delay.

So, under that scenario, what would you do?  Again, I’m glad you asked… 😁

You serve hors d’oeuvres to the early guests.  Lite snacks at controlled intervals that will not overly dull their appetite for the main courses.

This is what you have to do with novel writing.  Your chapters must build upon each other and provide small enough, bite-sized tastes to keep your readers hungry for the main course, the climax, and the denouement.

Play the long game.  A short story has a quick pay-off.  You cannot go for a quick pay-off to the central conflict, but you must give tastes towards or tastes of things that thwart it.  Some appetizers may require a drink of water if they are not suited to the palate of your guests, but that is okay.  Let them rinse, swill, and come back to the dinner plate refreshed.

So, if you know this method works for readers and diners, how about for you?  A writer is always the one who gets the first taste of the story in development.  Remember what it is that keeps you reading an “interesting” book.  The writer must go through the same path, but they get to blaze the untamed wilderness trek and cut through the jungle.

To be that adventurer, you need the same thing.  The mystery of discovery.  If you over-plan it, you will lose interest in writing it.  You will have glutted yourself on the hors d’oeuvres and not appreciate the main course.  You will have missed the fellowship you imagined having with your readers’ first experiences of your work.

If you must outline, do it as general as possible in large vague blocks.  Then build the walls between, brick by brick, and scene by scene.  The questions between each brick are the mortar and grout of the wall.  Those questions hold your story together.

Does that help you with a method?  If you are not “feeling it”, perhaps God will give you the guidance to find a way that does lead you back into the intrigue.

I have had some of my stories enter my head as a complete package, and then just set down to write them as fast as I possibly could capture everything before my memory clouded it away.  Then I reflected on and reshaped the clay and polished it.

Another story I did a long outline for, and followed it generally, allowing myself to deviate from it when I “discovered” a better turn or solution in writing the story.

Some stories are character-driven.  You imagine a character that intrigues you and then you mentally follow them around in your head chronicling what they tell you about themselves and what they’ve been through.

Be careful in all your planning, however, be open to God changing your plans.  He often does that.

Proverbs 16:3, 9 says:

Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans. … In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.

So, you and I have a similar dilemma.  I wrote a 600K story not realizing there were so many words because I wrote it online.  But God showed me how to break it down into Books.  Did you know Tolkien faced the same thing?  LOTR was ONE BOOK to rule them ALLL!!!! (Sorry, got carried away with myself. 😜)

His editor made him split it into the 3 books we have today.

It is doable.

Look for segments that solve a major plot point, but do not solve the overarching story dilemma.  Right there is where you might find a way to break it into a 1st part book.  Do the same with the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th, if need be.  The final book will solve the overarching dilemma and conclude the series.

Allow yourself to sit down and write with questions in mind.  See where the questions take you, even if they take you off of your planned outline.  All flexibility and give yourself a slower pace to think out the story without rushing to solve everything.  Ask God to give you the patience for the long game and not the desperate rush to complete it.  Don’t plant seeds and then dig them up the next day to see if they have sprouted.  Give them time (patience) and water (diligent writing input), and sunshine (allow others to see what progress you are making and keep you accountable).

God Bless you in your journey, Khylie.

Remember:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. [James 1:17 KJV]

Your Heavenly Father has INTENTION for the gift He planted in you.  Partner with Him in that discovery process.  Commit it to Him and you will be surprised at what He will do.

You are more than welcome to stalk me.  I am always glad to have shadow friends. 😉