Montgomery Burns syndrome

[Venusian Broon]

I've been finding a rather irritating writers' block hit me over the past month or so. Maybe calling it that is a bit bit harsh - writer's stumble is perhaps a better description.

There was a Simpson's episode where Montgomery Burns goes off to get his health checked. There, despite having every disease known to man, he was healthy because they all 'blocked' each other and cancelled out (cue loads of fluffy toys getting jammed and caught in small door...)

Well I'm running into a similar sot of situation with my WiP, 'cept the effect is negative. A good 18 months worth of notes and world building are behind it, so the ideas overflowth...and yet that's the problem. Especially when writing scenes where some serious exposition is completely necessary to the plot, there have been (growing number of) moments when I have paralysed with how to put everything that needs to be put down. (Perhaps better to put it as how to put it down in a clear and concise way/order. And to do it in an entertaining manner...) Just too many ideas competeing for primetime in the WiP.

Well my solution was to 'man up' and just splurge it all out and get over this knot of information and info dump to my hearts content. If it is dialogue (which I prefer to do exposition to be in for a number of reasons) let the characters lecture each other and speak in massive paragraphs.

It's only first draft, I can get back on it with the multiple re-drafts and edits and craft a much better version later.

Anyway, I'm girning and moaning just to let out steam, but would feel a tiny bit better if someone else had been irritated by this

 

[Kylara]

Oh my yes...I will just write it all out, in bullets, paragraphs, dialogue, until all of it is out. My brain then calms itself, knowing nothing will be forgotten and then I get to play with it and sort it all out. I do that in little bits, then organise it all later, who cares if scene 57 is before scene 8, I can fix that later, what's more important is getting it out and done, then I can sort out order and editing and tightening and scrapping...you are not alone :wink:

 

[Vertigo]

With what little experience I have got: yes, a huge problem. I have in my head a massively complex backdrop to my world. But if I put it all in, it would read like a text book. Intellectually I know that I need that level of detail in my head to ensure consistency but must only write what is needed for the story. That's the hard bit. I'm now taking a similar position to yourself and splurging it all out. Then I'll come back to it in a month or two and savage it with the editing scissors. Problem is, emotionally I want to put it all in 'cos I think it's all wonderful stuff, but then I would, wouldn't I? What I need is reins and maybe a bit as well.


Hmm not sure I like where that could be going

 

[Venusian Broon]

With what little experience I have got: yes, a huge problem. I have in my head a massively complex backdrop to my world. But if I put it all in, it would read like a text book. Intellectually I know that I need that level of detail in my head to ensure consistency but must only write what is needed for the story. That's the hard bit. I'm now taking a similar position to yourself and splurging it all out. Then I'll come back to it in a month or two and savage it with the editing scissors. Problem is, emotionally I want to put it all in 'cos I think it's all wonderful stuff, but then I would, wouldn't I? What I need is reins and maybe a bit as well.

I suppose it's one of the reasons I like the hard core exposition of very complex issues to be done in dialogue, because it puts a really tough constraints on how the information comes out - especially if you have well defined characters. How a character would convey something and how his/her/its beliefs act on this, plus what the knowledge bases of all the characters involved in the discussion is, adds loads extra information that can be great for illuminating character and story at little (word) cost, so it's a win-win situation.

Plus the fact that generally in 'naturalistic' conversation it's going to be condensed - no long hour long lectures from one character to another! So it's a great way of condensing your world-building into a few pithy lines and some landmark ideas.

It's not always the best way, sometimes it good to get a bit 'technical' and 'text book', but I think it's a great discipline for conciseness.

 

[Bowler1]

I'd go with writing it and editing later. Getting an idea down is hard enough without you, the writer, making a rod for you're own back. It even generate more ideas in the writing. Try and remember, we're doing this firstly for fun, a buck may come later but for now challenge yourself in a fun way!

Vertigo mate, keep going, some of us like pinching you're world building ideas...

 

[Vertigo]

Vertigo mate, keep going, some of us like pinching you're world building ideas...

He he you do know all the ones I post up here have hidden gotchas in them don't you.

 

[MemoryTale]

I would just write it with infodumps galore. That way your ideas are in the book, and you can get on with the story. You can always tidy them up in subsequent drafts.

 

[Jake Reynolds]

Focus on what the reader needs to know in order to understand what is happening to the characters he or she is reading about.

You may adore your detailed timeline of the political intricacies of 1412 when the Bogmen led an insurgence against the Hootenanny Tribe, but if it's irrelevant to what's happening, cut it. The reader won't miss what they don't know was there. It's obvious when a writer is trying to enrich a world by elbowing their world-building scrapbook into the novel. Not to say you shouldn't get it all in there, just try and look at exposition from a reader's point of view. And by Reorx's beard, never, ever, have a character start a sentence with 'Well, as you know...'

And remember, there's no book that can't be turned upside down and have thousands of words shaken out of it.

 

[Venusian Broon]

It's not so much intricate details that cause the 'stumble' - I'm more than happy to leave hours and days of worldbuilding as a single enigmatic sentence (if the story asks for something like this...)

So to take your example Jake, I'd just put something like:

'Garth raised his glass to his colleagues, "Remember the Bogmen" he said. The rest silently toasted the ancient and solemn oath.' And leave it at that with no explanation

No, I'm really talking about when you need to get information points A,B,C,D,E... (I,J,K??) across so that the plot/characters is understandable! I also can write it quite tightly (I hope) but depending on what you focus on first, then second, then third etc... you can write a huge number of different dialogues/passages. I see it as an occasional unavoidable complexity problem.

 

[Brian G Turner]

My WiP has been an absolute nightmare to work with, because I had such a body of badly over-written work to begin with (700k).

For nearly a year I've been applying basic writing principles to it, and still feel like I'm very much learning. Which means the huge cuts (now to 250k) and a big rewrite I'm still finishing will likely need to be followed by another rewrite, though hopefully not so severe.

What I found I ended up with this time is:

1. Write loads of description and dialogue
2. Rewrite to have a balance with character POV

Now moving to:

3. Make character POV central and reduce description and dialogue accordingly.

I plan to be far more organised and structured with the sequel.

 

[prizzley]

when you need to get information points A,B,C,D,E... (I,J,K??) across so that the plot/characters is understandable! I also can write it quite tightly (I hope) but depending on what you focus on first, then second, then third etc... you can write a huge number of different dialogues/passages. I see it as an occasional unavoidable complexity problem.

I wonder whether your plot/characters are unnecessarily complicated. That's unnecessary from the reader's POV. I've got bogged down reading many books, where I've been drowning in tidal waves of info. And I don't mean info dump. Have you written a synopsis/plot outline? It might help you keep off the "20 points the reader absolutely must know in order to follow the plot".






[FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

[Aminar]

There is no unnecessarily complex... Only how difficult you want your story. If you haven't passed Malazan you aren't unpublishable unless you've gone beyond your skill.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I wonder whether your plot/characters are unnecessarily complicated. That's unnecessary from the reader's POV. I've got bogged down reading many books, where I've been drowning in tidal waves of info. And I don't mean info dump. Have you written a synopsis/plot outline? It might help you keep off the "20 points the reader absolutely must know in order to follow the plot".

Being new here you'll have not noticed my previous pronouncements, that no doubt I've bored the pants off loads of others here, on how I've got a detailed scene-by-scene treatment (a document 'one higher' than a plot outline, I'll have you know!) and have been carefully crafted the whole plot. So I'm way, way ahead of you

To be fair, I don't know if my plot is complex or not. I am currently sitting far to close to it to really know. But I always strive to keep everything short - and everything seems to be target length-wise.

But to give an example of the sort of scene I'm talking about and what we probably both know: Gandalf sitting down with Frodo and explaining the ring, or the Council of Elrond in LotR. (They're not totally great, but I'm sure we've both read 'em). You need to set up why on earth they are going to trek all the to Mordor and drop the ring off...

 

[Jake Reynolds]

To be honest Broom, in that case lash it all down. I;m not the best person to ask since I'm a discovery writer (i.e. I put my characters into a situation and then say 'Ha! Let's see you get out of that one!') so I may not be the best person to advise on your dilemma, but often I find myself having ideas, losing the run of myself and then realising that I need to go back and write some bridging chapters. I'd say find a fixed point and go, then see what happens.

 

[prizzley]

Oops, sorry!

ps I'm impressed with your detailed scene-by-scene treatment!

 

[Venusian Broon]

Oops, sorry!

ps I'm impressed with your detailed scene-by-scene treatment!

You wouldn't be impressed if you saw the state of the current main copy!

After a years and years of abortive efforts to start and continue a novel length work, I found breaking it down into ~72 (for this WiP) short stories - which is how I view a treatment - has finally got me on the road to completion. Whatever works I say.

Jake - yep that's the way forward. Despite being dreadfully well-prepared plot-wise, I already know that there'll be loads of changes for the 2nd draft, so I don't see the point of worrying overmuch right now about something that may be total re-worked or completely cut out in 9 months time.

Just get in what I think should be in, in the best manner I possibly can, right now today. Redrafts will occur (many times probably) much later .

 

[James Coote]

You want to keep your powder dry for later sequels and stories and not use up all your ideas in one go. The LotR started with the hobbit before fleshing out more parts of the world in later books.

 

[Venusian Broon]

You want to keep your powder dry for later sequels and stories and not use up all your ideas in one go. The LotR started with the hobbit before fleshing out more parts of the world in later books.

Unless of course you have no desire to write a sequel at the moment and ideas come very thick and very fast.

I'm not a Tolkien hyper-fan but my understanding is that he didn't have any idea he was going to write LotR when writing the hobbit, so I don't really agree. However I think he had his world in place, more or less.