This week we’re talking about becoming a better writer through your reading, and yesterday I talked about a college class I’m taking on that very topic. So far we’ve read How to Train Your Dragon, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, The Cinderella Deal, and First Lady.

I don’t really read much young adult fiction, but How to Train Your Dragon was a lot of fun, and Jeremy Fink was surprisingly heartfelt. As far as those last two, genre romance…well, if you’ll recall, yesterday I talked about learning from books whether you like them or not. Let’s just say I learned a lot from the romance novels.

How Genres Work

Just two genres in, and neither of them my genres, I’m learning a lot about genre writing. One of the big benefits of that study has been learning why we have genres, and how they work.

Genres as we think of them were invented by bookstore owners. Booksellers wanted to know where to shelve new books, where to send customers looking for new material. They eventually flexed their financial muscle and made publishers cooperate, labeling books (and, ultimately, selecting books to publish) based on a handful of arbitrary category designations.

Over the last hundred years, those categories have become so entrenched that publishers now deal exclusively in certain categories, editors and agents specialize in just a handful, and writers — by and large — restrict themselves to working in just one or two.

Readers use the categories, too. They learn which ones they like, which genres run the right length for them, which ones have the right kind of endings, which ones offer the right balance between character and plot.

Those are all book-specific elements, and they’re all very subjective. There’s no right way or wrong way to do any of them, but the industry has settled on standards within each category, and a reader can expect most thrillers to run 90,000-110,000 words, and most fantasy novels to focus on adventure over character development.

Finding Your Genre

Those standards are all arbitrarily limiting, but readers have learned to make the most of it. And, unless you want to spend your career wrestling with editors, publishers, and your readers’ expectations, you should probably do the same.

Chances are good you’ve already got a genre. I had one, when I started. Without ever so much as considering it I dove right into high fantasy, and it startles me when I look back now at Taming Fire and even The Poet Alexander — despite the technical weaknesses in my early writing, I mostly got the genre conventions perfect. Courtney did the same with her high fantasy Triad.

But for the last few years I haven’t been writing high fantasy. As soon as I started on Gods Tomorrow, I was in unfamiliar territory. It’s sort of science fiction, sort of mystery/suspense, sort of thriller…it’s even got elements of romance. And I barely know any of those genres at all!

Writing Your Own Story

That didn’t stop me writing the story, and I’ve been told it’s the best story I’ve ever written. The problem is that, as I’ve spent the last month trying to get the book published, I’ve found myself slamming against those arbitrary walls again and again. I’ve done a lot of work trying to perfect my promotional material to manage reader expectations, but if I’d written my story according to the genre rules I wouldn’t have to mess with any of that.

And even as I’m finishing up that project, I’m starting from scratch on some urban fantasy and classic science fiction, in addition to the ongoing cop drama series. And, for her part, Courtney’s writing Christian urban fantasy and she’s tried her hand at humorous metafiction. Chances are good, no matter where you start, that you’ll eventually want to strike out and try something new.

It’s fun. It’s an adventure! I strongly encourage you to do that sort of experimenting (and NaNoWriMo is a great time to do it), but as your writing coach, I also encourage you to save yourself some trouble.

Any time you delve into a new genre, do yourself a favor and spend some time reading like a writer. Explore the category, compare and contrast, and figure out what’s consistent within the genre. What’s the standard length? What’s the plot pacing? Are the endings light or dark? How much time do the characters spend thinking? Talking? Traveling? Fighting?

You’ll save yourself grief if you can stick within those guidelines, but you might also be surprised to learn it’s not all limitations. Once you learn the rules, you can put them to work for you — just like readers do. It can simplify the writing process every bit as much as it does the sales process.

Try it out and let me know what you find. And for my part, I’ll tell you how things work out with Gods Tomorrow. We’re always learning, every step of the way.

It’s time for another post about my dad. Before we dive in, let’s have a brief review:

• He’s an accomplished debater, and wins every fight with sheer Dadness
• He’s always been a natural storyteller
• He spent a long time wanting to write a book, and I spent a long time telling him he should

Today’s post isn’t about debate at all, but his novel was, and the fact that he ever wrote a novel emerged directly from the second and third points. I understand why he was hesitant — writing a book is a huge endeavor — but he’s a born storyteller so how could he fail to write a great book?

That was my thinking when I bullied him into doing NaNoWriMo. He succeeded, as I already said, and when he finished the month with a fresh-written rough draft, he did the natural and obvious thing: he gave it to me to review.

And, of course, I immediately started worrying. How could I possibly criticize his book after I was the one who’d made him write it? Before I ever glanced at the first page, I started giving him my disclaimers — every first draft needs work, every first novel has some weaknesses, and my style isn’t his style.

I belabored the points, trying to make it clear that he should expect lots of critique from me, but it certainly wasn’t a criticism of his writing ability. He assured me (time and again), that he’s a grown man, and he could take it.

So, finally, I started reading it…and I was amazed. There were problems — some of the same unforgivable sins I was talking about last month — but the story overwhelmed me. The characters were rich, their problems engaging, and the plot moved exactly where it needed to. In short…it was a fantastic first novel.

I wasn’t so greedy as to keep that information to myself, of course. I put praise in my feedback right along with notes of typos and the sort of writing advice that would ultimately grow into blog posts here at Unstressed Syllables. And I tried to be just as detailed in my praise as I was in my criticism, telling him why his good characterization was good, and how the effective scenes achieved their effects.

A lot of the value in that came from some basic audience analysis. I read his book as an interested reader, but whenever I stopped to give feedback, I spent some time considering things from my dad’s point of view as a writer. If he had a misstep inspired by too much time watching movies, I could figure that out and use it to clarify not only what he was doing, but also why.

When it came to the praise, though, I found myself going back to the same source again and again. Virtually everything he did right, he did because he reads. Voraciously.

Every Page Counts

Dad’s a great storyteller. I’d never deny it. But his magic with spoken story comes from subtle use of voice and pacing and an understanding of nonverbal communication theory — stuff that’s completely lost on the page (or achieved in a very different manner). No, most of his skill as a writer comes from the sheer number of pages he’s read in his lifetime (and he’s read a lot).

If you’re a writer, you should be reading too. You probably already are, so I won’t bother trying too hard to sell the recommendation, but I can tell you some of the best things I’ve gotten out of my reading, and how to read as a writer (instead of just reading as a reader). Come back tomorrow, and I’ll dive right in.

Photo Courtesy Shannon Iverson.

I talked yesterday about my amazingly successful first NaNoWriMo — in terms of word count, anyway. It’s hard for me to give myself too much credit for the book, though. It’s still in its first draft state, and sitting in limbo as the third book in a four-part series that’s still missing a decent introduction, and is probably never going to see the light of day.

It’s a shame, too, because I made some awesome characters and told precisely the story I wanted to tell. Still, as they say, every page counts. There’s no way Katie would be the strong, empathic woman she is today if Sarah hadn’t first been the oft-helpless, always-caring ingenue she was way back then.

All of that is beside the point, though. This week I want to talk about needing to write. That was my story for 2007, and it has propelled me in some fascinating ways directly to the place I am today. I felt the need to write, and I fed the hunger.

Capturing What You Can’t Tame

In yesterday’s story, I mentioned a desperate desire to get started right away — in October, when I first started working through the story idea — even though my main inspiration had come from a desire to do NaNoWriMo.

That’s a pretty artificial limitation, but it’s one several of us are wrestling with again right now. I know Courtney’s really chomping at the bit, and honestly I feel the same way. SEATAC is screaming at me to start putting words on paper, and I refuse.

Well…that’s not quite right. I refuse to put narrative on paper, but there are a lot of sci-fi action/adventure words getting saved to my Google Docs account. I’ve talked about my prewriting before, and I will again — most of the way I do things sprang directly from those exercises I prepared for my sister and my dad in our first NaNoWriMo.

Those exercises are a fantastic way to channel the need to write when you can’t actually write. Sometimes you can’t write because it’s not 00:00 November 1 yet, but far more often you can’t write because you’re already busy working on three other works-in-progress, or you don’t have enough details yet, or you’re juggling too many other projects to give writing a decent effort…or there’s just not enough time to scribble down a whole chapter before the light turns green.

Whatever the reason, it’s part of the writer’s experience that, from time to time, you’ll end up with a burning passion to work on a book and yet completely unable to do so. I hate to see that energy lost, though, so I’ve developed a handful of practical exercises that tap into the storytelling without actually storytelling. They’re things like mock ToCs, character bios, synopses, and that Conflict Resolution Cycle worksheet.

The purpose of prewriting exercises like that isn’t necessarily to come up with material for a story, but to pin it down. I’ve found from lots of good experience that if I channel genuine inspiration into these particular vessels, I can come back to it years later and pick up right where I left off.

Saving Some for Later

Sometimes starting on the story isn’t the problem so much as it’s making yourself stop. I’ve certainly been there. When I’m in the zone, I can generate 2,000-4,000 words an hour, and I’ve been known to do 11,000 at a sitting.

That can make short work of a 50,000 word target, but it can also make for some pretty sloppy storytelling. Doing that much on pure adrenaline can be a thrill, but (take it from me) it’s also a good way to trip over your own ingenuity.

Worse yet, it’s a surefire way to get burnt out. Taking it slow, though — pacing yourself — can pay huge rewards.

That’s one of the most valuable things I learned in the summer of 2007, as I was publishing three scenes a week to my blog while I finished up The Wolf . I figured out that if I stopped writing every night while I still had something to say, excruciating though that was (especially as I approached the climax), it made it a lot easier to pick up writing again the next morning.

I definitely recommend that method. Save some for later, pace yourself. Even when you’re in the throes of inspiration, on fire with your story, manage that energy. With a little bit of direction, you can keep it going for months instead of days.

Writing When You Don’t Want To

Eventually, though, you’re going to run out of steam. We all do. It’s just another part of the writing experience.

Feast or famine, though, it’s your job to keep doing the best you can to improve your writing. That can be hard, but the agony is just as manageable as the ecstasy. Come back tomorrow, and I’ll talk a bit about how to write when you really don’t want to.