There’s an analogy that’s been around for a long time – I’ve been using it myself for years – comparing writing a novel to a long-distance road trip, usually at night. The comparison goes, in the car, you can only see as far as the headlights light up, but you only need to see that far at any given moment. You can get from New York all the way to San Francisco without ever seeing the whole road at once; in fact, you can’t see the whole road at once when you’re in the car. You can only see it all at once if you’re in a satellite, which doesn’t do you a lot of good if you’re driving.
It’s the same way with writing; you don’t have to have a detailed plan for the whole book, you just need to know where you’re going and have a clear idea of the next chapter or two. As long as your planning stays a chapter or two ahead, you can get to the end of the book that way.
It occurred to me recently that this analogy makes two really key assumptions that aren’t necessarily the case. First, it assumes you know where you’re going (and that you care where you’re going and whether you get there). A sizeable minority of writers don’t work that way. Their writing “road trip” is more like driving around for a day or two and then looking at their surroundings and going “Hey, we’re close to Denver! Let’s go there.” And it works fine for them…but that brings me to the other key assumption, the one that really matters.
And that’s knowing where you are. If you’re trying to drive to Chicago, and you don’t know whether you’re starting in New York or San Francisco, you don’t know whether to head west or east. If you’re trying to drive to Chicago, and you’re starting in Honolulu or Beijing, you’re going to have a serious problem when you get to the Pacific Ocean. And if you don’t know where you are, you certainly aren’t going to be able to figure out what interesting places might be nearby to visit or even to finish off an open-ended road trip in.
Knowing where you are is something that’s so basic that most of us do it unconsciously, which is why the original analogy doesn’t usually address it, but only looks at where you’re going and how you get there. And most of the time, this works just fine. Every once in a while, though, someone I know gets stuck or runs into trouble because they’re doing the equivalent of trying to cross the Pacific Ocean in a car, or driving east from Chicago in hopes of arriving in Los Angeles in a day or two.
Invariably, when this happens, it takes forever for the writer to sort out what the problem is. Once the person finally takes a look at where they are and what they’re doing, it’s usually a head-banging moment – “Dang! How did I not realize that I need a BOAT?” or “Geez, I’m in Pennsylvania, not Colorado! No wonder this doesn’t look much like the Rocky Mountains.”
What I mean by “where you are” in the writing sense is basic stuff, like what kind of story you’re actually telling, as opposed to the one you may think you’re telling (a friend recently got tied up for months because she was trying to write action-adventure, when the part she’d already written was clearly comedy-of-manners), who the protagonist and villain really are (they may be different from the ones you started off thinking they were), what the real problem is that the protagonist and friends are currently facing, and where facing their problems is likely to lead.
It’s not easy to do this, because it requires backing off from one’s preconceptions about what one has been doing and where one has been heading, and taking a long, hard look at where one actually is. And, sometimes, admitting that one is completely lost, and even the map is no help, because one can’t figure out where to go next to get back on track if one isn’t aware that one is in Pennsylvania and not Colorado.
Crit groups and editors and first readers can make a reasonably good analogy for asking directions at the local gas station, but one still has to listen – and also, one has to remember that the directions aren’t always totally correct. Still, it’s often a lot easier for someone else to see where a book is than it is for a writer to let go of what they thought they were doing…though one does need to remember to ask, and not everyone is good at that part.
It is a great pity that there isn’t a writing equivalent of a GPS system (preferably one that marks out all the road construction and missing bridges up ahead). Until someone invents such a thing, however, we all have to muddle through the hard way.
Funny that you were writing about GPS today–I’m midway through a second read of Across the Great Barrier and I was just wandering around your site looking for a map of North Columbia. It’s easy to work out many of the parallel locations based on the names you kept the same, but it would be fun to have a map, just the same. Do you think they’ll include one in The Far West, or perhaps put one up online? Thank you! (I’ve loved the series so far!)
Kate – There was SUPPOSED to be a map in the book. I still haven’t got my copies, so I didn’t know it wasn’t there. I’ll get a proper map up on the web site soon, so there’s at least SOMETHING.
Great analogy! I’m in the process of planning my first project right now so this post is really helpful. I have an end point in mind and a few plot points in the middle I want to hit, but I’m not sure where to start. I’m also kind of terrified that the points won’t actually all connect. So I’m hoping that if I map out the entire plot ahead of time I’ll be able to catch major problems and avoid getting lost when I start writing. I envy people who have such great sense of direction they can just trust their guts to find their way!
With my current WIP, a four-book series (I think), I knew where I was going, but I started out in a different place. It wasn’t until I’d written the story as a single book that I realized where I really was starting from.
Instead of being frustrated, however, I saw it as a trial run – a virtual road trip before setting out on the real journey.
Thank you so much! I actually flipped back and forth in the book a few times; I was convinced that a map had to be in there somewhere!
(Side note: The internet is amazing. I read the Enchanted Forest series back when I was in middle school, adored them, bought myself the whole set as an adult a couple years ago, still re-read them when I need something fun, am loving Frontier Magic, and 15 years ago would never have imagined that I could just ask you a question and have you answer it *like that*!)
linda – Some people can plan and stick to it; others can’t; still others find that planning kills the story. Planning is good if it works for you, but don’t grab onto it too hard just because you think you should.
Alex – First drafts are like that sometimes. 😉
Kate F. – You’re welcome. Yeah, I love living in the future. Except they still don’t have flying cars…
I love the GPS analogy. I just realized that I plan road trips the same way I plan novels. I like to know my end destination, and have a route in mind. But even the most detailed map in the world can’t help you if you can’t figure out what road you’re actually on. (Especially if your goal/destination becomes a moving target like “that thunderstorm over there.”) Getting your current location from GPS: Best. Feature. Ever.
Oh I’m so glad there will be a map. I was looking through my book hoping for a map too. Although it wasn’t crucial to the story I was curious about how far west they were traveling and the relative size/latitude of the territories.
Elizabeth: Basically, look at a map of Minnesota. Mill City and West Landing are Minneapolis, east and west banks of the Mississippi (Mammoth River), respectively. The Red River is as far west as they get, and it’s…the Red River, out along the western border of the state. They don’t get any farther west than that until Book 3.
I love the analogy! It makes me think of waking up as the passenger on a road trip. There’s always that bizarre moment when you look out the window to find the prairies have mysteriously given way to a dense forest. Disorienting, to be sure, yet also weirdly wonderful.
“[…]who the protagonist and villain really are (they may be different from the ones you started off thinking they were)”
ohmygoodness, THIS. This happened to me with my last ms, and shame on me, I didn’t see it coming. Is this event the road-trip equivalent of a deer on the highway? If so, I’m afraid I hit the poor thing broadside, but ultimately managed to make a nice sculpture from the wreck of my car 😉
If we ever get a GPS for writing, we’ll find it only produces The Cat in the Hat or The Lord of the Rings (or Files)
“As Gollum lunged at him, Frodo put the ring… Recalculating!”
Even the amended metaphor seems to assume that the writer is on a road trip. When I go on holiday, I have a goal: I want to enjoy myself. A large part of that is achieved by investigating new places and photographing them.
I’ve done a number of holidays now that were based on catching a flight to somewhere, looking the place up on Flickr to see what I absolutely MUST see, and then wandering around discovering and often changing my plans on the day. ‘Catch bus to next town over and investigate’ is a perfectly *good* way of spending a day.
With writing, I know that I can produce _a_ good story. I don’t need to find *the* story, or *the best* story – as long as it works, I have a good tension pattern and interesting stuff happens, I’m happy. And while I get that bit in the middle where I wobble and think this will never go anywhere, my backbrain is pretty good at creating complex stories. It’ll all come out in the end, so I can just drive around and follow the road and see where it leads me.