Procrastination is the bane of a fiction writer. It's worse than writer's block, it's worse than running out of ideas, and it's worse than random visitors when you're trying to finish a chapter. And, since fiction writers tend not to be accountable to anyone but themselves, it's so easy to procrastinate. There's no one to tell you to get back to your desk and work, so it's easy enough to not get any work done. But procrastination will only get in your way and prevent you from finishing your novel (or short story, or whatever). So, as a writer, you have to learn how to get over procrastination.
Why Do We Procrastinate?
In order to stop procrastinating, we have to figure out why we procrastinate. For everyone the reason is different. Perhaps you're tired, or overscheduled, or perhaps you just forgot. Yes, these are excuses for not writing, ways of justifying your own procrastination, but you have to understand what your own unique excuse is.
In my case, procrastination tends to occur when I'm overwhelmed. I'm a natural introvert and get more than a little stressed if I've been exposed to too many people over too many days. I'm so stressed that getting anything done seems like a pipe dream.
But ultimately all of these excuses are just a mask. For the part, the underlying reason is the fear of failure. Failure is no fun. It makes us feel terrible about ourselves and it sets us back (though failure can teach us as much as success if we're paying attention).
So if your bouts of procrastination stem from fear of failure, try believing in yourself and your work. Maybe you're not the best novelist in the world and maybe the story you're working on isn't perfect, but even the most famous writer was there once. You can learn and hone your craft. Believing in yourself can help overcome procrastination.
If you're procrastinating for other reason, you'll have to do what I do when I think I'm so overwhelmed that I'll get nothing done: Place butt in chair and write anyway.
What to do About Procrastination
Most people who suffer from procrastination need more than the above statement to get things done. If you're one of those people who need a plan for everything, start by setting some goals. Get a piece of paper (don't do this on the computer) and jot down all your goals for the year. All of them. Not just writing goals, though I focus on writing goals. If one of these goals has a specific end date (such as getting your son ready for kindergarten), write the date beside the goal.
Now that you have your list, go through it carefully. Pick the top 3 or 5 things you'd really like to get done in the next year. Hopefully, that novel is pretty close to the top. You are going to make a committment to finish these top 3 or 5 things. The rest may or may not get done depending on your ability to procrastinate.
Take a look at those things on the top of your list. Break them down into smaller tasks. If you're looking at a novel, you might break it down into chapters. Perhaps you can complete each chapter in a week. I can tell you from experience that a chapter is less intimidating than an entire novel. When you break the novel down into smaller chunks, you stand a better chance of getting the nagging voice in your head that tells you you'll never get it done to shut up for a little while.
Scheduling Writing Dates
Once you've broken your novel down into smaller tasks, assign each task a deadline. Don't do this arbitrarily. Truly think about how much time you'll need to complete each chapter (if you've divided your novel into chapters). If it's going to take you 2 weeks to complete a chapter, then that should be your deadline for each chapter. Don't try to squeeze in more than that, at least on paper. If you can get ahead of schedule, great. If not, you can at least stay on schedule by being realistic.
Now here's the real trick: You have to stick to your deadlines. Schedule time to write. Make a writing date (or several writing dates) with yourself and keep it. And none of this "I can only write when I'm feeling creative" nonsense. That's one of the greatest excuses for a fiction writer to procrastinate that I've ever heard. If you're making a schedule, then you already have the idea for the novel. If you don't have the idea, you're getting ahead of yourself and need to spend some time coming up with the plot and the characters before you can schedule your work.
Deadlines are the difference between a novelist and a wanna-be-novelist. And in case you wonder if I practice what I preach, I wrote the day after major surgery. I might have written the day of major surgery, but I was under general anastetic for most of the day. The rest of the day I was having hallucinations. But, 18 hours after surgery, I was writing again, though from the bed instead of at the desk. I had deadlines and I stuck to them. This is why, as of this post, I have completed 3 novels, 2 short story collections, and 3 non-fiction books in the past 18 months. Deadlines and writing dates. Got to love them.
Most of my posts these days are based on e-mails I receive or questions asked at book signings and other events. Lately I've been asked mainly about the different genres and how to tell them apart. Hence the many posts about fiction genres in the past few weeks. The other day, however, I received an e-mail asking me a question I never thought I'd see.
"I was reading your site the other day and saw the post about reading a lot. I'm hoping to write adventure novels, but I don't have many in my collection and my town doesn't even have a bookstore. Where can I find good fiction so that I read more books in my genre and study other great writers?"
At first I thought it was a silly question, but upon reflection I decided it wasn't. In this world of computers and digital technology, I think perhaps we overlook some things. So if you don't have a local bookstore and you don't have a credit card (so ordering books from Amazon is out of the question) what exactly can you do? The answer will either surprise you or appear frightenly obvious.
Before giving you the answer, I'll tell you a quick story that will illustrate part of the problem. I an often asked to speak to young students at the local university. Most of these students are English majors, usually with a focus in creative writing. So recently I was asked to speak to a class and we got to talking about the books everyone is reading. So I posed a question: Where do you get your books? In a group of 50 students the answers varied. Bookstore. Mom's house. Borrowed from a friend. E-book on my e-reader. But out of 50 students, one answer was conspicuously absent.
Library. Why did no one say the library? The library is your greatest resource, so find your local library and get to know it. Not only do they have many books, but they can usually get books on loan from other libraries. There are very few books that cannot be attained through a library. Not only do they have a wide variety of book available, but they come with a resource your local bookstore and Amazon simply do not have -- a librarian. Librarians know what is in their collection and they have read many of the books they acquire. A librarian can help you locate the genre your looking for and even pick out the best and the brightest from that genre. Not to mention that you can simply borrow the books instead of shelling out thousands of dollars and cluttering up your own home. A good librarian is your best resource.
But not your only resource. Don't ignore the Internet. Search engines such as Google can help you find the books you're looking for. Try a search for "best romance novels" or "best adventure fiction" or whatever genre you're looking for. Be specific or you'll get lists of books without any specific genre. Of course, this might be what you're looking for. Either way, you'll have lists of books that you might want to read. You can probably get most of them from your local library if you don't want to purchase them.
And then there's Amazon. Amazon has its own lists and even allow users to create lists using Listmania. Browse these lists to see recommendations and read reviews for the books you're interested in. You don't have to order from Amazon in order to use it to your advantage.
If you're looking for popular fiction, check out the New York Times Bestseller List. You can see what other people are enjoying and maybe find something that you'd like to indulge yourelf in. Almost all of these bestselling books can be found at your local library or bookstore. And it's likely that someone you know has at least some of the books on this list, so you can probably borrow them from family and friends.
If you're still in school, you can try asking teachers and professors. English professors especially are well read and will have a long list of books they recommend to students. If you're looking for a specific genre, mention that. They can probably steer you in the right direction.
The bottom line is this: there is plenty of good fiction in all genres out there. You just have to look for it. Use the resources you have and remember that the computer is not always the best solution. Some of the best fiction you'll ever read will come at the recommendation of family, friends, professors, and even librarians.
I've had a remarkable number of e-mails lately about epics and how to write them. There is certainly an interest in epics of all kinds, from historical novels such as War and Peace to fantasy epics such as The Lord of the Rings. And writers are constantly penning their own epics, so the epic novel isn't going away any time soon.
But writing an epic is a monumental task, mostly because it's easy to think you're writing an epic and then end up not doing so. So if you're going to write an epic novel of any kind, you have to start by understanding exactly what an epic is. And of course, you have to understand what it is not.
First of all, an epic, whether it is fantasy, adventure, or any other genre, focuses on heroic characters. The characters don't necessarily start out as heroic, but they do have to develop a sense of heroism as the story progresses. Accidental heroes are fine. Characters who are simply forced to go along with the story are not heroes. They might be protagonists, but they're not heroes.
You also have to have some idea of scope before you begin writing an epic novel. An epic is not a story that happens in a small down at the edge of the ocean, with the characters never leaving their own little town. The action in an epic must take place on a grand scale. Across an entire world or at least across an entire country is best. Science fiction epics tend to take place across galaxies. Your epic should capture struggles that are almost majestic in their scope and take place across vast stretches of time. An epic cannot take place in just a few days. Months, at the very least. Sometimes years, as is the case with Pillars of the Earth.
Now you come to the meat of your story, the question of what to write. Many epic stories focus on tales of war or the struggle against good and evil, but this doesn't necessarily have to be the case. You could write an epic about the struggles of a traveling minstrel in medieval times, and war certainly doesn't have to be the focus here. Adventure should be a part of any epic, but it doesn't have to be adventure associated with war.
An epic novel can be of any genre. Fantasy, science fiction, horror, literary fiction, or really any genre you want can serve you well. Just make sure that the genre fits your story. Or better yet, write your epic without worrying about genre and let the genre come from the story itself.
When attempting to write an epic, keep in mind both the heroism expected of your characters and the general scope of your novel. Don't lose sight of these basic principles and you'll be well on your way to creating an epic story.
Nonsense literature, often called literary nonsense, is a sub-genre of absurdist fiction. To be considered nonsense literature, a book must use sensible and nonsensical elements to defy language conventions or logical reasoning. Nonsense verse is the most common form of literary nonsense, but it can come in just about any form of fiction.
It is important to not that literary nonsense usually consists of an excess of meaning and not a lack of meaning entirely. It is also usually amusing, if not outright hysterical, though this humor is derived almost entirely from the nonsensical nature of the language used. A good example of nonsensical fiction is The Cat in the Hat, written by the now-famous Dr. Seuss, but there are dozens of modern (and not-so-modern) authors who use this genre of literature to express themselves.
Writing Literary Nonsense
If you are hoping to write a piece of literary nonsense, you'll have to become familiar with at least some of the techniques used by authors of this genre. Some of the more popular techniques you may wish to explore include:
- cause and effect that doesn't make any real sense
- portmanteau (combining words together to form new words that often don't make any sense at all unless you know the root words)
- neologism (making up words, sometimes by the dozens)
- reversals and inversions
- imprecision or deliberate vagueness
- simultaneity
- picture/text incongruity (if your book uses pictures or images)
- arbitrariness
- infinite repetition (which isn't as annoying as you might think when done correctly)
- negativity or mirroring
- misappropriation
- nonsense tautology
- reduplication
- absurd precision
To be considered literary nonsense, your work must employ more than one of these techniques. In fact, you have to use more than two. Your work must be full of these techniques and you must use them well. Your job, while writing nonsensical literature, is to allow your readers to find meaning in every corner of your writing, even if there is no true meaning at all. That is the heart of literary nonsense.
But that doesn't mean everything goes. You can't simply writer gibberish. This can happen when using certain techniques, especially portmanteau or neologism. When making up new words, the meaning has to be easily derived from the context of those words or you must use word play to associate what might be gibberish with more familiar words. As an example, Lewis Carroll coined the term "mimsy" to mean flimsy and miserable. This is a great word, but it would have been rendered meaningless if you could not derive the meaning. Nonsense needs at least the appearance of meaning. Gibberish doesn't bother.
Nonsensical literature is not fantasy, though there may be elements of fantasy in your work, such as is incorporated in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The difference is that in a work of fantasy fiction, things make sense. Plot and all its devices follow a system of logic. When the impossible comes up, magic is used to explain it. Literary nonsense doesn't bother with explaining things at all. If magic is used, it doesn't explain anything. It simply is, and usually contributes to the chaos rather than alleviating it.
Essentially, you want your work to be cohesive but not make any real sense. If you want to create a nonsensical work but aren't sure how to go about it, study the creative works of Lewis Carroll , Edward Lear, Roald Dahl, Edward Gorey, or Flann O'Brien. These authors create a universe that is both hysterical and fun in the most nonsensical way.
