Quote of the Week #4: Karen Miller

With no ado at all, for the very reasons that I sadly haven't been able to review anything this week: all the Time has disappeared! ;)

Picking this week's Quote of the Week: Karen Miller

Karen Miller is probably a name you will of heard of by now. She was the UK's bestselling début fantasy writer of 2007, and her duology, The Kingmaker, Kingbreaker series is doing brilliantly well in the USA, following the hugely successful launch of another wing of the Orbit World Empire. She has a fantasy trilogy being published in her native Australia, so it shouldn't be too long before get a look at those books over here, I'd hope!

“How do you eat an elephant? One mouthful at a time.”

I don’t know the source of the above quote, but it’s become one of my mantras as I really settle down into this writing gig. Writing novels is a major commitment of time, of energy and most of all, of faith. Sure, if you’re looking purely at word count, one average novel of 30 chapters is the same as someone writing 30 short stories. And there are lots of people out there who’ve written 30 and more short stories, so … there’s no difference, right?

Wrong.

Short stories (which are an unbelievably demanding art form in their own right) usually contain a single central idea that drives the action. No subplots. No multiplicity of themes. No sprawling cast of characters. No elaborate backstory. No complex worldbuilding. Elegant simplicity is the key to short fiction.

Whereas even a standalone non-spec fic novel contains some of those elements. And the minute you move into spec fic territory and especially fantasy, which is (arguably) the most elaborate of the spec fic sub-genres, well … that’s where the fun starts. Particularly since the trend for multi-volume series of fantasy novels continues strongly in the major fantasy novel markets. This means you’re not actually trying to eat one elephant, you’re sharpening your knife and fork to tackle a whole herd!

No wonder a lot of aspiring writers run out of steam, of faith, and put their projects aside. I did a lot of putting aside myself, in the early days, before I found my way through the minefield and proved to myself that important first time that I could do this.

I’ve got a few more novels under my belt now, and I still struggle with the overwhelming nature of creating big, complicated, multi-themed and multi-volumed stories. There’s just so much to remember! Sometimes it feels like my life depends on successfully juggling twenty-seven live hand grenades. Drop one and boom! My writing career is over, almost before it’s really begun. If that’s not a confidence killer, I don’t know what it.

So how do I – how does any writer – overcome the sometimes paralysing fear and sense of inadequacy that can strike while contemplating a major novel project?

By eating the elephant – or elephants -- one mouthful at a time.

All big projects – building a house, completing a triathlon, losing 100 pounds -- appear daunting and impossible from the outset. When you consider the totality of what you’re trying to achieve it would be strange if you weren’t floored and flabbergasted by the enormity of the challenge. It’s the same when writing a novel. All those words! All that plot! All those characters! All that backstory, worldbuilding, foreshadowing, subtext, thematic unity …. arrrgghhhhh!

So you don’t think about it. Mainly because the greatest writer in the world can’t address all of those issues simultaneously. Novels aren’t written wholesale, they’re written piecemeal: one layer at a time. They are a whole constructed from many, many, many different parts … and as a writer all you can do is work through each layer, each part, one at a time. That means the actual writing process is horribly messy, unbalanced, out of kilter. There are gaps. Icky bits. Wrong turns. Dead ends. Plot threads are left dangling. There are times when your novel sits there looking like a mutant amoeba, or something.

But that’s just the process. When you bake a cake, you don’t start out with a triple layered double iced Black Forest gateau: you start with eggs and flour and baking soda and stuff. Just a bunch of ingredients with no cohesion. And when you smoosh them all together the result looks ghastly and ew, nobody’s going to eat that! But after it comes out of the oven and all the finishing touches are added, wow. That’s one damned fine cake!

And so it is with a novel, or series of novels. Mouthful by mouthful you tackle each element, slowly but surely chewing your way through the first draft and then the rewrites until all the elephant is gone … and in its place is a completed story.

This is where many writers go wrong. They allow themselves to become disheartened and defeated by the inevitable messiness of the process that takes them from first idea to finished manuscript. They know what they’re looking to achieve, and because they try – and fail – to achieve it perfectly in the first five minutes, they give up. Of course! Because that’s like trying to swallow the elephant whole.

You can’t do it.

I shudder to think how many brilliant novels have never seen the light of day because their authors tried to eat the elephant in one bite and, upon discovering they couldn’t, gave up.

Novel writing isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon. It requires patience, dedication and a willingness to suspend instant gratification. A short story can be written in one day. A novel takes weeks, usually months, sometimes years. Day after day, word after word, mouthful after mouthful … and yes, there are definitely times when it feels as though the meal will never end. Truthfully? With every novel I write there comes a time when I feel as though the meal will never end.

But it will, provided you don’t down your knife and fork and walk away before you’re finished. That’s what I keep reminding myself when I get bogged down in the middle of a project and it feels like it’s going to start raining hand grenades any second.

Just keep going. One word at a time. One mouthful at a time. You’ll get there. And when you do, you’ll feel fantastic!

Elephantine (is that a word?!) thanks to Karen for taking part, and offering some great advice, with a fantastic quote :) Karen is wonderfully efficient and had the QotW essay back to me in record time, something she's well know for, along with doing some wonderful interviews:

• With ... Me!

• With Graeme, (Graeme's Fantasy Book Review)

• With John, (Grasping For The Wind)