Keeping True to Your Vision
July 12, 2020
I have always had a dream of building a small wooden boat, especially once I discovered that every aspect of the writing craft and the publishing voyage seems to have a useful analog in the nautical world. When I had a full-time corporate job, I had the money but not the time to take a course in boat building. When I left my corporate job committed to making a career as a full-time writer, publisher, and podcaster, I had neither the time nor the money.
As an alternative, I have found two resources from which to draw nautical concepts that I can plumb to explore the worlds of writing and publishing. One is the Acorn to Arabella project, in which two young men, Stephen Denette and Alix Kreder, build a 38’ sailboat “from stump to ship”—a boat they plan to sail around the world. The other is a subscription to WoodenBoat magazine, whose photos of elegant and graceful boats is a balm to my creative soul.
Although I recognize that gaining my boatbuilding experience via a YouTube channel and a magazine does not have the same cachet as gaining it through the actual construction of a boat, it does have the benefit of enabling my fellow landlubbers to join me on my voyage. If you’d like to dip your toe in the water, check out Acorn to Arabella’s YouTube channel and WoodenBoat’s Facebook page.
In these articles, I share with you some of the concepts that I have benefited from considering in the context of my writing craft and publishing voyage, and invite you to join this journey with me.
As an alternative, I have found two resources from which to draw nautical concepts that I can plumb to explore the worlds of writing and publishing. One is the Acorn to Arabella project, in which two young men, Stephen Denette and Alix Kreder, build a 38’ sailboat “from stump to ship”—a boat they plan to sail around the world. The other is a subscription to WoodenBoat magazine, whose photos of elegant and graceful boats is a balm to my creative soul.
Although I recognize that gaining my boatbuilding experience via a YouTube channel and a magazine does not have the same cachet as gaining it through the actual construction of a boat, it does have the benefit of enabling my fellow landlubbers to join me on my voyage. If you’d like to dip your toe in the water, check out Acorn to Arabella’s YouTube channel and WoodenBoat’s Facebook page.
In these articles, I share with you some of the concepts that I have benefited from considering in the context of my writing craft and publishing voyage, and invite you to join this journey with me.
I read the following in an article by Milo Stanley in the July / August 2020 issue of WoodenBoat magazine, where Stanley describes preparing his sailboat Promise for a single-handed trans-Atlantic crossing.
The first stage of the renovation involved removing every bit of equipment that didn’t have a place in my vision of the completed vessel … . Though this removal of old gear was one of the least-important stages of the project, the psychological value of making immediate and rapid (if destructive) progress, and creating a blank slate with which to work, cannot be <overstated>. Most of this material found its way into a dumpster, but some I was able to sell for a bit of cash or save for reuse later on.
“Rime of the Youthful Mariner” by Milo Stanley, WoodenBoat, July / August 2020
This passage offers several valuable lessons for the writer.
The first is the idea of having a vision for your work. What is it that you want the reader to experience from your story? What impact do you wish to have on them? What is the measure against which you can hold each part of the work to determine whether or not it serves your vision and therefore deserves a place in your vessel?
For one of my novels, my vision for the work was to explore how an ordinary person responds when faced with an extraordinary challenge. As I wrote, I needed to assess characters, their actions and motivations, the components of the plot, even the language I used to ensure that it supported this vision.
The second idea from Stanley’s article with a clear analogy in the writing world is stripping away unneeded material. As carefully as you have tried to assess the degree to which your material supports your vision for the work, some unneeded material will inevitably slip through … or your vision may change as you write. You must assess each component to ensure it supports the voyage you want your reader to take. If not, you must jettison it.
In a standalone novel I wrote after I completed the Lizzy Ballard Thriller Trilogy and before I returned to the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels, I wanted to provide justification for why the protagonist, Faith, doesn’t contact the authorities when she encounters an alarming situation that could have an innocuous explanation. To address this, I wrote a flashback scene of a teenaged Faith babysitting a neighbor’s small son. She hears what she thinks is an intruder in the kitchen and calls 911. When the intruder turns out to be a pair of raccoons, she’s embarrassed, and angry at the amused and patronizing reactions of the police and her father. I worked hard on that scene, and was pleased with the result when I assessed the scene on its own, but I eventually decided that it was extraneous. In fact, I found a better way, a way more compatible with my vision, to achieve the result I was looking for.
The third idea from Stanley’s quote that is applicable to the writer as well as the sailor is the idea that not all of the material that you strip away is wasted. Like Stanley, you may be able to sell it “for a bit of cash.” For example, a sub-plot removed from a novel might be the perfect basis for a short story or novella that could be sold directly to readers or to a short fiction publication. (See my book Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction for other ideas or making a bit of cash from such short fiction works.)
Similarly, a scene you remove may be material that you can “save for reuse later on.” Perhaps it’s the basis for a sequel, or the foundation for an entirely separate work. My decision to remove the scene of Faith’s babysitting experience from my novel was made easier by the fact that I knew I could use that deleted scene as an additional offering for subscribers to my email newsletter. The work wouldn’t be wasted, it would just be used in a different way than I had originally envisioned.
Stanley comments that “the psychological value of making immediate and rapid (if destructive) progress, and creating a blank slate with which to work, cannot be <overstated>.” He did his assessment of the contents of his vessel at the beginning of his efforts to prepare it for its journey, but no matter where in the process of creating your work you apply these lessons—determining your vision, removing the components of the work that don’t support that vision, and then assessing them for possible use elsewhere—you can gain the psychological value of knowing that the end result will be a smooth and engaging voyage for your reader.
The first is the idea of having a vision for your work. What is it that you want the reader to experience from your story? What impact do you wish to have on them? What is the measure against which you can hold each part of the work to determine whether or not it serves your vision and therefore deserves a place in your vessel?
For one of my novels, my vision for the work was to explore how an ordinary person responds when faced with an extraordinary challenge. As I wrote, I needed to assess characters, their actions and motivations, the components of the plot, even the language I used to ensure that it supported this vision.
The second idea from Stanley’s article with a clear analogy in the writing world is stripping away unneeded material. As carefully as you have tried to assess the degree to which your material supports your vision for the work, some unneeded material will inevitably slip through … or your vision may change as you write. You must assess each component to ensure it supports the voyage you want your reader to take. If not, you must jettison it.
In a standalone novel I wrote after I completed the Lizzy Ballard Thriller Trilogy and before I returned to the Ann Kinnear Suspense Novels, I wanted to provide justification for why the protagonist, Faith, doesn’t contact the authorities when she encounters an alarming situation that could have an innocuous explanation. To address this, I wrote a flashback scene of a teenaged Faith babysitting a neighbor’s small son. She hears what she thinks is an intruder in the kitchen and calls 911. When the intruder turns out to be a pair of raccoons, she’s embarrassed, and angry at the amused and patronizing reactions of the police and her father. I worked hard on that scene, and was pleased with the result when I assessed the scene on its own, but I eventually decided that it was extraneous. In fact, I found a better way, a way more compatible with my vision, to achieve the result I was looking for.
The third idea from Stanley’s quote that is applicable to the writer as well as the sailor is the idea that not all of the material that you strip away is wasted. Like Stanley, you may be able to sell it “for a bit of cash.” For example, a sub-plot removed from a novel might be the perfect basis for a short story or novella that could be sold directly to readers or to a short fiction publication. (See my book Taking the Short Tack: Creating Income and Connecting with Readers Using Short Fiction for other ideas or making a bit of cash from such short fiction works.)
Similarly, a scene you remove may be material that you can “save for reuse later on.” Perhaps it’s the basis for a sequel, or the foundation for an entirely separate work. My decision to remove the scene of Faith’s babysitting experience from my novel was made easier by the fact that I knew I could use that deleted scene as an additional offering for subscribers to my email newsletter. The work wouldn’t be wasted, it would just be used in a different way than I had originally envisioned.
Stanley comments that “the psychological value of making immediate and rapid (if destructive) progress, and creating a blank slate with which to work, cannot be <overstated>.” He did his assessment of the contents of his vessel at the beginning of his efforts to prepare it for its journey, but no matter where in the process of creating your work you apply these lessons—determining your vision, removing the components of the work that don’t support that vision, and then assessing them for possible use elsewhere—you can gain the psychological value of knowing that the end result will be a smooth and engaging voyage for your reader.
