Deep Dive: Organizing the Madness (Part 2)

Zeroing in on "The End"

Howdy, howdy, word soldiers!

I am packing for Spain, already dreaming of warm weather, sangria, grilled calçots, Cava, boquerones en vinagre, and endless tortilla Espanola, but please allow me to first share the final part of my Organizing the Madness essay, where I complete my thoughts on reaching the midpoint of a novel and setting eyes on getting to “The End.”

Maybe next time, I’ll talk about two books that are pounding my heart right now: Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden and Emily St. John Mandel’s forthcoming Exit Party. By God, amigos, I LOVE BOOKS! Are they not the best? Please, tell me what you’re reading—if it’s great—by leaving a comment or responding via email.

Anyway, let’s go…

For you just joining us, I’d recommend you read Part 1 and 1.5 of Organizing the Madness before continuing. And as a reminder, you are in my head right now, seeing me bring a story to life. I am offering you a “making of”-style documentary that will hopefully give you readers—and writers—a glimpse under the hood.

I must admit I felt a sense of urgency to complete the back end of this essay, so that I might get back to drafting my WIP. I do have a deadline and a family to feed. But after a nice walk in the snow, I realized that I was exactly where I was supposed to be. By exploring these thoughts on the page, I am writing; I am working.

So get off my back, you pig-nosed voice in my head, you who try to wedge your way into my psyche and tell me that the only thing that counts as work is hitting my word count. Not so, dipshit! Every book has a different path to “The End”, and I’m no doubt on it now, knocking down tall weeds with my machete—er, keyboard. This is me being fluid. I can guarantee you that by finishing this essay I will have inched closer toward success. “Measure twice, cut once,” they say.

One realization while I was writing Part I hit me hard. I was teasing out the idea that yes, I want to step back and examine what I’ve done before moving forward, but there’s more to it than that. A voice in my head is suggesting I not only recalibrate but also take a stab at a proper outline to light my way to the finish line. I have a stronger sense of where I’m going, so why wouldn’t I? It’ll give me a chance to add more complexity and also some clear, razor-sharp momentum. And it’ll save me time, which I’m big on.

After writing out the scenes and pondering what’s happened so far in the mess of the first half of my work-in-progress, it’s time to visit a few topics that might not have been clear at the outset.

Thus far while drafting, I’ve learned that Cara’s WOUND was an occurrence that happened when she was seventeen while summering on Salvation Isle. It could be argued that the first blood was drawn by her mess of two parental figures far earlier in Cara’s life, but it’s what happens on the island that really messes her up and leads to a series of huge mistakes that will become festering secrets.

Her FLAW, which is really a symptom of the wound, is that she is always trying to run away—from her past, her secrets, the hard conversations, even her current life. As I touched on last time, the GOVERNING VERB of the entire novel is running.

I have a PREMISE: What if a wildfire pulled back the veil on a series of secrets that a woman had kept hidden for thirty years?

My LOG LINE needs some work, so we’ll hit that in a minute. Same with her GOAL(s). Though I wasn’t sure what she wanted when I started hammering away, it’s become more obvious.

I had no idea where my MIDPOINT was till I was staring at it in the face. It’s like how Justice Potter Stewart described the threshold test for pornography in the 1964 case of Jacobellis v. Ohio. “I know it when I see it.” The midpoint must dazzle, shock, ignite, refuel. As I hover over it now with my WIP, it feels like the second half of the story is an arrow and the midpoint is pulling back the bowstring, ready to send the whole thing off with renewed force. For Salvation Isle, the midpoint is the moment we realize the extent of her wounds. I want my reader’s jaw to smack the floor.

I don’t know the ending yet, but I’m betting my THEME—or one of them—is something like: You can’t run forever. Or, the past will eventually catch up with you. Conversely, if she’s able to keep running by the end, if she hightails it from her family and her secrets, the theme might be: You can always outrun your demons if you don’t stop moving.

But I’m thinking Cara’s in trouble. All her secrets must come to light. And she must pay the consequences, which promise to be severe. If we go that route, then we already know where we’re headed. The CLIMAX must be that Cara will finally stop running and come clean. That gives us a huge story beat to add to our cork board. Now we can work backward from that climax to fill even more spots.

Of course, the RESOLUTION of the story must be the fallout of her secrets coming to life, filling out even more index cards.

In addition to the obvious story beats that we can add toward the end, there are plenty of other scenes that need to be included, scenes that were given birth by an earlier scene that I tackled while drafting in a free fall. I hit plot points that required explanation…or left tremors.

For example, I wrote a scene early on where Cara finally accepts that she and her family have nowhere else to go but Salvation Isle, and she knows then that she’ll soon have to see her ex-boyfriend, Davin, who was part of the horror that took place when she was seventeen. Even worse, she knows that Luke will actually meet Davin; they will soon shake hands. And she can’t imagine anything worse. You can bet those future scenes need to be in there. I could give you fifty more examples.

Allow me to throw one more spice into the soup. Whilst doing a writing sprint a few weeks ago, (I am of British descent, so I’m allowed the occasional whilst), a phrase leapt from my unimpeded imagination that seized me by the throat. I wrote (from Cara’s POV):

Never in my wildest imagination did I think Luke and Davin would come face to face. Two handsome men who once captured my heart, only to learn that this bird does not do cages well.

I’ll likely edit the above till it bears no resemblance to its firstborn form, but that bit about cages…this bird does not do cages well. Thank you, deep brain and muse and mystic guide, for such a remarkable image. I wasn’t trying for that. It simply appeared whilst I was hammering away at the keys under the pressure of a twenty-five minute timer. This, by the way, is exactly why flying away unencumbered in first drafts pays. We get out of the way and tap into something far more powerful than ourselves.

So. Cara doesn’t do cages well.

Hating cages is additional color to the idea of running away. She hates being pinned down. So we keep her from running by not only breaking her legs and cutting off exits, but actively putting her in as many cages as we can conjure. And stealing the idea from Star Wars, having the walls of the cages close in on her.

Can you see that we’re roping all the wild ponies, bringing some serious left-brained, analytical, accountant-type energy into the writer’s room? That’s part of the magic.

Pete Townshend and Keith Moon of The Who are a wonderful example of how both our analytical and creative parts must work together to make art that matters. Pete was an infamous taskmaster, a highly organized go-getter who was constantly composing complex pieces, whereas Keith Moon, the savant drummer, was an agent of chaos, a wild stallion if there ever was one. It was best to simply steer Keith toward his stool and let him go wild. Together, they became a force of nature, an essential part of one of the greatest rock bands that will ever live.

So Pete’s now in charge of Boo’s brain. Let’s see if he can make sense of Keith’s mess…

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Now is a great time to talk about GOALS. As I’ve said before, writing a great book does not require having one measurable external goal. You can argue with me as much as you like, show me every craft book that disagrees, but then I’ll throw a hundred epic literary achievements at you that debunk the rule. I will indeed concede that a protagonist with one measurable goal might make writing the story easier, but since when was easy right?

I do believe, however, that DESIRE is required. A character needs to want something (or multiple somethings)—even the vaguest of somethings, as it’s the obstacles standing in that way of the desire that creates CONFLICT. Even Hallmark has conflict! Inward and outer desire are canvases begging for obstructions.

Fortunately for me on this project, Cara does have measurable external goals. It’s not as clear cut as Sherlock Holmes going after a murderer, but they are there.

1. Cara wants to keep her secrets in the bag.

2. Cara wants to get her daughter off to college before her marriage to Luke falls apart—or she loses her mind.

3. The moment her daughter is gone, she wants to finally leave Luke and her work and go chase a new life, one that makes her feel young again.

See how neatly the goals fit with the idea of running away? She’s running away from confessing secrets and from letting her daughter in on how much she’s struggling (though we all know that children are highly perceptive), and she’s prepping for her biggest escape yet, leaving her marriage and work and everything that’s currently caging her in.

Are each of the goals measurable? Yes! I’ve had plenty of books that don’t come with such easily determined goals, but this one’s cut and dry-ish. And hell yes, she can have more than one goal. I do that all the time with characters, as do thousands of other writers that are far more capable than I. She also has internal goals, and let’s just state the vaguest of the vague now, just to upset a few people: she wants to be happy! Oh, and she wants to be fulfilled inside. What she doesn’t know, the wall she must climb, is that she needs to find peace with the terrible things she’s done.

How do I fill out the rest of my book? With obstructions that apply exactly to those goals! That’s how we break her.

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Before I started drafting, I had a log line—that elevator pitch you need to have ready to drop when you happen upon Ridley Scott in a hotel in Paris and he asks you what you’re working on.

Here’s what I had from way back when; let’s see if it needs tweaking.

When the cushy life of a family of three implodes in California, they retreat to an island house in Maine that they inherited from an aunt, whose only stipulation was that they can’t sell it. Can the island and this house be their salvation?

Not bad, actually. I’ve stayed in this lane, but it’s become clear that I’m telling Cara’s story. Luke and Lainey are soldiers in the fight to help Cara realize her true potential. What if I rewrote my log line specifically for Cara?

When the life of an unmoored wife and mother implodes due to a devastating fire, she and her family retreat to an inherited island house in Maine, where she will be forced to stop running and dig up the bones of her past.

Not bad! They really go together, don’t they? The first applies to the overall concept, which includes her family, then we drill down to what is happening to the point-of-view character.

I’ll write the new log line on my white board, knowing that this is my Northstar.

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I’m eye-to-eye with one more choice that I’d like to share, and then I’m going to spare you and go sneak off and do the rest of my brainstorming in private. As I face the second half and flesh out my best effort of an outline, of which I’ll surely deviate, I must decide whether I should first take a stab at polishing the first chunk of lit dung, that first 45k words, or forge ahead.

For most of my books, when I reach the midway point—or even before, I do like to run a comb through what I have so far, smoothing sentences, expanding on descriptions, deleting unnecessary chunks, adding details that I only learned later. A run through can help you reinforce what you’ve written, firming up the characters in your mind, solidifying the protagonist’s voice. And it can help get your runaway train back on the right track.

Or I can keep plowing ahead. I prefer this option if I can stand it. It depends on how far off the tracks I’ve run. Or if I want to change it up. I suppose my rule of thumb is that I want to chase after “The End” till I have no choice but to return to the beginning and start into a second draft.

I’ve no idea which way I’ll go right now, but it’ll come clear after a few days attempting to outline the second half, and more importantly, as I carve out some quiet time to let all the voices in my head get a word in.

There you go. You’re all caught up with me and my WIP. See you soon.

boo