If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here.
(Quick aside for those of you looking to dodge existential depression: Don’t go away! Despite the title, this is going to be an optimistic post.)
You know who drives me apesh*t? Stephen King.
I have nothing against Mr. King, and regular readers may know I am in fact a big fan. I think he’s often desperately underrated as a writer because he writes popular fiction. He writes very good fiction, and nonfiction too for that matter, but it’s his fiction I want to take issue with.
Stephen King novels generally set up very clear classic battles of good (or goodish) versus evil, often true evil. And what I love about his stories is that for the most part, Our Heroes triumph over the evil they have been facing.
The scary terrorizing forces are neutralized or defeated and good wins out—which may not always spell good things for the central player in the story (I’m looking at you, Jack Torrance in The Shining), but it usually spares the truly innocent.
Until—damn you, Stephen King!—just when you think things are wrapped up and characters we care about are safe, it turns out this was just a skirmish, not the war. The Big Bad is still out there, lying in wait for its next victim.
When I was younger I read an awful lot of Stephen King, but even then I began toying with the idea of stopping reading before that final chapter that grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory. That was the one that left me wakeful at night, thinking about that final chilling indication that all may not be well after all, until sleep finally came and then nightmares got the better of me.
It’s mean…but it’s good storytelling.
How This Applies to Story
In King’s case it’s a strong choice because even if the evil is conquered and the story’s central battle resolved, that little coda is unsettling, which makes the story haunting as well as satisfying. That suits his genre. Try doing that in romance and see how quickly readers of the genre excoriate you.
But you don’t have to leave your readers on that disturbing a loose end to harvest the storytelling benefits of happy-for-now and gray-area victories. Story isn’t usually presenting a character’s entire life, neatly tied in a bow. It’s a portion of their journey, a time when they faced great travail or challenge (hopefully, if you’ve developed strong stakes and conflict) and learned from it, grew, were changed in some material way. You’re not leaving them all nicely wrapped up and “fixed.” You’re simply showing how they faced this impactful slice of their lives, and how it affected them that may shift the course of the rest of it.
One of the many little mantras I often repeat about story is that smooth sailing is narrative dead space. As soon as things are going consistently well for your character and they easily surmount obstacles and beat down challenges, readers grow bored and begin to disengage.
Smooth sailing is narrative dead space.
It’s not that we’re sadists (although kind of we’re sadists). It’s that we crave in story much of what we desperately want to avoid in life. It’s a safe way of experiencing big emotions, the same way going on a death-defying roller coaster is a safe way of experiencing the adrenaline rush of actual danger (although chances are excellent you’re not going to catch me on one of those coasters because you just never know).
Keeping in mind this daunting little mantra from the title of this post is a great way to remind you not to let your heroes rest on their proverbial laurels, not to send them coasting smoothly down the road of the story, but bumping crazily along it, out of control; careening around corners so sharp they threaten beheading; rising slowly, slowly, tick by tick up the steepest inclines, but knowing that waiting at the top is a death-defying plunge.
The ride twists and turns but it never stops, and every smooth stretch is just the calm before the coming storm. That creates story levels and narrative interest, and that keeps readers riveted.
Read more: "Lucky Breaks and Tough Shakes"
How It Applies to Your Writing Career
You can keep this same metaphor in mind for your writing career. No author I’ve ever known has had a straight-line path to success. There are endless ups and downs, sometimes severe ones where you hope you don’t vomit and doubt whether you may even survive (as you can tell, roller coasters aren’t really my jam).
But again: The ride may twist and turn, but as long as you don’t get off it need never end.
It’s so easy to think about our careers as a racecourse with a clear finish line, but they’re not. They’re more of a Mobius loop, where sometimes you’re on the way up and sometimes you’re on the way down, but you just keep moving forward, around and around.
That agent who finally signs you? Not a finish line. More a hydration station along the route, where you stop and get some necessary fuel and then get right back out on the track and keep going. That big publishing contract? That huge-selling book you published? That year you made six figures from your writing? The crazy good reviews you had in major publications with one of your stories? All just hydration stations.
You get back on that track and you keep running, and maybe you hit another hydration station, or maybe you stumble and fall and have to limp slowly in. Maybe you fall out of the race altogether and you’ve got to sit out a few laps, but if you want to get back in you have only to set foot on the track and start moving again, headed toward that next hydration station.
It never ends. You never arrive. You just decide when or if you want to stop, or else you just keep going until you drop dead there on the track, relishing the trip you’ve had.
Read more: "The Longer You Last, the Better It Gets"
None of this should be discouraging, but just the opposite. If there’s no finish line and there’s no race, then there’s no need to worry about whether you’re far enough along to meet some arbitrary external or internal standard. There’s no need to worry about your “competition,” because there isn’t any. Everyone’s just running their own Mobius loop, and there’s room on the track for all. There’s no need to suffer from impostor syndrome or self-doubt, because if you are on that track and moving forward at any speed at all, you’re in the race.
How It Applies to Life
But often I also find this metaphor to be a good reminder in life.
It’s so easy, especially lately in the world of current events, to imagine that the forces of good are locked in battle with the forces of evil, and if only we could vanquish them once and for all, we’d all live happily ever after.
But if you look back at the course of human history, that ain’t how it works. Good and evil have been locked into conflict since time immemorial. Sometimes the good guys win and sometimes they don’t, but all of it is a skirmish, just another waystation on the Mobius loop where we may be on a downward curve, but we just have to keep going, keep fighting, and one day we’ll be back on the upswing.
We just have to keep going, keep fighting, and one day we’ll be back on the upswing.
This idea—that there’s no magical time coming when there will be peace on Earth and goodwill toward humankind universally, everyone equal and free and love for all, no one hungry or suffering and all of us working together as one big community—that’s an illusion. A beautiful one, but it’s not how human nature works, at least not in all of recorded history.
We just keep fighting the good fight and hope that little by little we move the needle toward the good. Historically that has proven to be true, and even when things may sometimes feel bleak, looking back through the spectrum of history quickly reminds us how much better off most of us are than millennia ago, a century ago, a generation ago—even five years ago.
And so lately I’ve begun to take comfort from this idea: that there’s no ultimate battle to be won, no magical finish line where all will be right with the world, either my individual world or the world on a broader scale.
In my day-to-day life that lets me accept all the stress and challenge and worry that all of us face on the regular and not see it as an anomaly, but as the fabric of life. Sometimes you’re up and sometimes you’re down, but there’s no magical moment coming where all is smooth sailing—until you’re dead.
When I find myself feeling overwhelmed and imagining some mythological time when I will be all caught up and everything is fine and I can get back to ” normal life,” I have a new mantra for myself: This is life.
All the joy and all the sorrow, all the ease and all the difficulty, all the triumphs and all the painful losses, all of it—life. It lets me remember to savor the good times, knowing they won’t last forever. But it also gives me the fortitude to get through the bad times, knowing they won’t last forever either.
That lets me live—really fully live—in the moment, even when the moment is hard. It’s also temporary, a waystation, and I’ll be on my way again before long.
See? I told you this post was optimistic.
Over to you, authors. What gets you through the night (the dark night of the soul, that is)? What keeps you motivated in your career, even when you face setbacks and challenges? How to you use this idea—that there’s no smooth sailing—to add levels to your stories?
If you’d like to receive my blog in your in-box each week, click here.
25 Comments. Leave new
What gets me through the dark nights is — you’ll never guess — books.
And essays like this, which I’ll print and keep. Thank you!
❤️🌻
Ha–I WOULD guess! 🙂 And me too. And thank you. <3
Couldn’t have said it better, Anmarie. Another framable essay by Tiffany.
Thanks, Nathan–that’s nice to hear!
I know by now that starting is something difficult. It is much easier for me to come up with a plot for a piece than to actually write it. By now I also know that I am not allowed to talk about my idea, because I also know by now that if I put my idea/plot into words by speaking, it will miraculously melt away like snow in the sun and I will no longer be able to write it down the way I ‘wanted’ it (I don’t think the word want is the right word, I have already experienced that if I ‘want’ something too strongly, creativity no longer has a place). So: if I ‘want’ to see it become reality, I go -sighing- to my writing desk, put on some very loud music and write. I also know that I will not like that first version, but then that one word jumps out, that one sentence, like a magnifying glass, and that starts to lead me through a tunnel to the ‘other side’ of my story, the parallel world that is behind my first version, and which I experience as ‘the real world’ of my story. If I can suddenly find it, see it, and connect with it, participate in what’s happening there. Well, that’s the most wonderful feeling I can have as a writer. And the confidence that it will happen keeps me going.
Greet, I love so many things about this comment. This approach you’ve developed to your writing–and how well you’ve come to know yourself and your process as a writer–seems like it would be not only helpful to your creativity, but more effective too. Finding what works for each of us is a big part of finding our style and voice, I think. I also love that you’ve developed the knowledge and patience to keep digging past that first “vomit draft” version down to the beating heart of the work–and the faith to know that you will get there eventually. All such valuable traits and skills for authors to develop. Thank you for sharing this!
❤️Thank you so much, Tiffany!
Wow. So well stated! I feel the same!
What gets me through is knowing that time is to my advantage because it aids perseverance. I didn’t always think like this. Partly, it’s aging. Partly, it’s experience.
In May 2010, after a year suffering a misdiagnosis, I ended up in the ICU, a third of my lungs ravaged, continual oxygen and doses of Prednisone pumped into my body to keep me alive. Even after, I couldn’t walk without assistance. It took me seven years of determined searching to find Dr. Bekemeyer (RIP) whose treatment changed my life.
Last week, I went on my longest hike since then, 9.9 miles and almost 1,400 feet of altitude gain. Halfway along, at the trail’s apex, I took a break with three doctors who were mountain biking.
One of them had worked with Dr. Bekemeyer for twenty years. “I’m guessing he saved your life.”
I choked up. “He did.” I keep the man’s picture on my refrigerator. It reminds me that time is on my side so long as I’m breathing.
This applies to writing. Bad first drafts are insignificant. Editing and revising aren’t about fixing, they’re about improving. Inspiration always comes if I foster a positive environment for it. The road ahead might be messy, and I might (probably will) make mistakes, but mistakes can be remedied—and then they pay you back with learning.
Even in politics, if I’m overwhelmed I ignore the news for a day or two and it’s okay (wow, is that ever true this year!). 😂
This is why we let drafts sit. This is why, yes, stories are a rollercoaster. This is why my HFN endings are painted with weather brushes where the sun is still shining, but there’s a chance of rain in the afternoon.
Christina, this story brought tears to my eyes: your suffering, your fortitude, the expertise of Dr. Bekemeyer that saved your life. Love your ongoing gratitude for that–and for being alive. I’ve heard friends say, after a travail like yours, how it changes the way they see the world and their lives: more connected, more appreciative of every moment, every gift. Jeremy Renner talks about this in a recent SmartLess episode too, how it altered his whole life so radically, and the way he sees it and lives it.
And I love that you’ve translated that to your writing. You’re so right–there’s nothing to judge about our early drafts–they are necessary steps en route to better drafts. We just have to keep at it, and have faith that we’ll get there if we do.
And yeah, I hear you on news breaks. I’m on one now–and doing what I can in its absence to make a difference in the world, while still accepting how much of it is beyond my control. Thanks, as always, for your heartfelt comment.
What keeps me going, concerning writing, is part of a line in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida.
“joy’s soul lies in the doing”
That’s beautiful, Steve. Really resonates for me too. Thanks for sharing. <3
Lovely post, Tiffany, and such beautiful comments.
The more I write and self-edit, the more I learn about the world and myself. There is both good and bad in each of us, there is so much to learn, so much to share, a balance to discover. That keeps me going. I can’t imagine not writing, it’s like dreaming at night, not really something I can turn off.
Thanks, Ada. That’s so true–my own writing does the same, deepens my understanding–of the world, of myself. Sometimes I think it’s how I think about things, you know? I have to work through them on the page. Thanks for sharing this!
What I love about complexity science and chaos theory (bet you didn’t predict that opening line) is that good and bad are hard to quantify at the time and are known only from their consequences seen from the future looking back. This sh*t we’re going through right now – maybe good, maybe bad, maybe both. Writing is about POV – so again – good and bad according to which and whose viewpoint? And we dabble in the juicy stuff with the unreliable narrator and the sympathetic villain who mess up good and bad. The comments show how adaptable writers of your community are. We wade through sh*t, bleed it onto the page, twist characters in complex shapes, flay their hearts, and call it fiction (when it’s closer to therapy).
I love that, Deborah–it’s basically the parable of “good news, bad news–who can say?” That comforts me too: that we don’t know what either might ultimately lead to. Some of my biggest progress has followed what seemed like unrecoverable setbacks. You just never know, and the pendulum swings perpetually.
And yeah. Therapy indeed. 🙂 Thanks for the comment.
What keeps me going is I can’t think of anything better to do than write. Maybe that’s because I have to feel and think in order to do it.
I’m almost through the next to last book in Will and Ariel Durant’s Story of Civilization, which has done a great job of improving my perspective on how things were, are, and probably will be. I think some things are better in some ways in some places, and there’s plenty more room for improvement. The world is not likely to end on our watch.
Based on what you’ve had to say about the ongoing struggle, I’d like to welcome you to the ranks of those of us who will be grateful if we make it to heaven–grateful for maybe two weeks. We will then be looking for another great adventure.
Isn’t that the truth, Bob? Hit one milepost…and immediately start looking to the next.
That’s quite an ambitious read you’ve tackled! But I can see that this kind of perspective would be comforting in recent times. Write on, friend.
An endlessly fascinating topic. The ups and downs of life, what comes, what goes, what stays . . .
I believe our brains are still largely those of our ancestors of twenty thousand years ago. Wired for survival. We seek those things that improve our chances. And we find value in doing those things. The hunter gatherer enjoyed the process way more than the result of having hunted and gathered. That person had to. If come late November that person was weeks into fat and happy at having laid in provisions for an average winter, his bliss might cause him to miss the signs that the months ahead were looking colder and bleaker than recent winters. His survival required doing more. So to this day our minds mute our ability to fully appreciate what we’ve done and achieved. There is no stopping place. Not in a world that keeps on spinning.
And yet we stay more or less sane.
For most of us, work in one form or another is part of how we do that. For some of us that work is creative. Our personal port in the storm.
And sometimes we explore motivations and night lights that cut the darkness via our stories and characters. Often at deeper levels than we’re aware of. I have a character in my last manuscript who is a firefighter. He responds to a restaurant fire, pushes through suffocating smoke and blistering heat to confine the fire and save the business. When the restaurant reopens with a banquet for the firefighters he makes an excuse to leave early. It’s not imposture syndrome or modesty. He knows what he’d done, the difficulty and the dangers. But he’d welcomed it. The adrenalin of racing to the fire. The challenge of confronting the dragon. The satisfaction of slaying it. But now he is being thanked for things that hadn’t been in the forefront of his mind. Saving something loved by the family who owned it. Preserving jobs of the employees. Better for them if there’d been no fire at all. But there had been, and at least the outcome was way better than it could have been.
But he knows that never has he woken in his fire station bunkroom after sleeping through a quiet night and thought ‘it was a good night. Nothing happened to anyone.’ The nights he remembers vividly, the ones he prepares for as he arranges his gear by his bunk, are the ones when the alarms blare and the lights flash, jerking him awake with the knowledge that there is trouble somewhere. He rationalizes the rush by reminding himself that trouble will always exist. Better that he wants to fight it than be unmoved by it. But would that be easier to accept if he knew he relished the outcome more than the fight?
My fight is on the screen, words that aren’t right, structure that isn’t maximizing impact. There’s no moral equivalence. But I’ve infused him with my love of the process. That and the role of trouble. I do best when I approach the keyboard with a task in mind. Be it fixing a mess I’d left the day before. Or knowing I’ll need to bring order to some half formed series of ideas. Yeah, flow is cool, and I love those times when everything comes smooth and right. But the best starting point for me is always knowing there is something to fix.
And that comes through in my story itself. Even if I’m in the zone where all seems to come easy for me . . . somewhere there needs to be trouble brewing for someone. There’s a Springsteen line, from ‘Something in the Night’; ‘You’re born with nothing / you’re better off that way / soon as you’ve got something / they send someone to try and take it away’
Yeah, tempo matters, can’t have 100k words of nothing but roofs caving in. At some point we gotta be made to care about who the roof threatens to fall on, or the builder who’ll get sued when it does. It’s not just coincidence that serenity and stakes both start with the same letter. In these fun house worlds we create, isn’t showing serenity really just establishing the stakes?
Garry, you sum up a central tenet of my thoughts about writing and writing careers: that the root of sustaining and deeply enjoying what we do has to be the process, not the product. It’s the only thing within our control, and the part of this pursuit we spend the bulk of our time and creative energy on, the heart of it. Focusing on product compromises that part of us that may actually achieve whatever goals we have for our writing in the work itself.
With our characters, it’s not that they can never enjoy a bit of serenity–but in my experience maintaining some kind of underlying tension throughout, which can often include microtension as opposed to roofs caving in, tends to be what creates the most compelling stories and keeps readers hooked. Serenity comes at the very end, in that delicious denouement, the hero’s well-earned happy ending–or, I suppose, the other way around in a tragedy: at the beginning, before events are set in motion that destroy all the hero holds dear.
But you know my feeling about “rules”–there are none. If it works, it works! Thanks for the thought-provoking comment, as always.
Beautiful post and subject matter that has been occupying my mind both in my manuscript and my own life.
Thanks, Kimberley–glad it resonated.
What gets me through discouraging times as a writer are responses to my blog posts in which someone says the article contained just what she needed. Or another person says he no longer feels alone. Or somebody says she’s been trying to figure this issue out and finished the post with some strategies to try. As you encouraged writers in July to Write for the Person who Needs Your Story, my motivation is juiced when I see that my writing helps or matters to someone.
That’s lovely, Lee–and I can relate. The comments in these posts mean a lot to me too–it’s really rewarding to feel that connection with folks, to know that you’re connecting with people. Thanks for sharing this–and offering that to me today!