FROM SHORTS to a NOVEL and who’s really in charge

Since I began writing in earnest, either pounding the keyboard for hours at a time or in a cloud somewhere working out a plot mess I’d gotten myself into—all of which in my mind counts equally as writing—it’s been a passion akin to breathing air. It’s hard to imagine I half-lived through so many other occupations. THIS is what I should have done during my entire life.         

My writing started with short stories (and some non-fiction stories, as well). A lot of writers tell you to write what you know, so I did. Some of the stories morphed into working out events more to my liking than the real endings. Next came the explorations into real-life characters whom I could never fathom…trying to imagine the inner workings of their lives to discover why they did the things they did. Sometimes stories came from a fragment of a sentence in a news account or a phrase that intrigued me with its possibilities.  Finally, after accruing a  substantial body of work in the short story genre, I had the courage to think about taking on a novel. The idea grew out of a short story entitled “The Token Collector”, which won a place in Volume VII of Short Story America.  I could not put that story to rest (more on that in a later blog post) and needed to see where it went.

Just like the old saw that says to take a huge job and parse into do-able pieces (or is it a big meal and small bites?) I thought how I could cut the looming job of a novel into bite-sized pieces. And I thought about novels I especially liked. Besides the obvious attachment to fine characters or a great storyline, one feature of those struck me consistently: that the storytelling was brisk and that the chapters were short.  AHA! Being a short story-teller, this was how I would do it! And the process would be perfect for my attention span. Thus began the manuscript I call To the Next Home Run, and the next almost seven years of my life.  

I’ve always been chaotic in my approach, though I try for some organization. Once I had a general idea of my novel, I just started writing chapters––short stories, really. No outline, just having fun. Every day I came to the keyboard, a new character would present him- or her-self and off we would go. Sometimes I had no idea what connection a character had to the overall story, and it might not be apparent for many weeks. But they always were connected. Some would even turn out to be characters on whom whole sections of the book depended.  After a while, I realized I wasn’t really in total control of the process or the project. The characters were.  At the risk of sounding certifiably nuts, something else was at play… and was, until the very end of this book. I just kept my fingers on the keyboard and found out how the story ended the same way readers will.  Sure, I did the research to keep details of the time period correct and avoid anachronisms, painted in the background setting, yada yada. I punctuated, helped put some words in their mouths, even gave some of them a bit of Boston dialect (the book’s setting).  But, there were times I felt like the hired typist with a knack for grammar and vocabulary! 

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I have a fantasy that I meet Steven King, whom I idolize for many reasons, some day.

Here’s what he says to me: 

“For Pete’s sake, Jayne. You’re just figurin’ out now that that IS the writing process? Tsk. Now, pull up your big-girl panties and learn to make an outline next, will ya? Took ya, what––more than six years to do this one book? Ya think you’re Donna Tartt?”