Graeme Simsion is the internationally bestselling author of The Rosie Project (sixty-five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list), The Rosie Effect, The Rosie Result and The Best of Adam Sharp, as well as Don Tillman’s Standardized Meal System and Data Modelling Essentials (in print since 1992), and the audiobook Creative Differences. He lives with Anne Buist, co-author of Two Steps Forward and Two Steps Onward, in Melbourne, Australia.
Today, to celebrate the recent release of his book The Novel Project, Graeme Simsion is on the blog to answer a few writing questions that regularly come his way! Read on …
Weird things people ask me about writing
I’m not often flummoxed by questions on writing. I’ve studied it, mentored other writers, written my own books, run seminars and courses and answered innumerable questions from friends and acquaintances who are sure they’ve got a book in them. Most of the time, I’m pushing the play button on something I’ve said before.
But on the ABC radio breakfast show a few weeks ago, Virginia Trioli threw me one that threw me. More of a challenge than a question. Talking about my how-to-write book, The Novel Project, she suggested that it would discourage aspiring writers, because it was so complicated. Nine stages, each with further step-by-step guidance, four chapters of stuff to think about before you even start … Was I saying that writing a book was really that difficult?
Well, yes. And what threw me was the assumption that it wasn’t. Who would think that? From my perspective, and, I think, that of most people who’ve tried to write a book, it’s a challenging undertaking, often overwhelming so, especially if your goal is a full-length novel or memoir that someone will want to publish and that people will want to read.
Here’s the sheer size of it: we may be able to tell a story around the dinner table, but we’ll be testing our listeners if it runs more than a few minutes. A typical novel is going to take eight or more hours to read aloud. We want to construct a plot that keeps our readers engaged and guessing for all that time, realistic characters who behave in psychologically plausible but surprising ways, evocative descriptions of places and people, believable dialogue. We want them to laugh or cry or think, maybe all of those. All in shimmering or at least workmanlike prose. In service of a compelling premise.
The only way I know to tackle anything so forbidding is to break it down. Then I can focus on one thing at a time, confident that if I do them all to the best of my ability, I’ll end up not only with the job done, but done as well as I’m capable of.
The alternative is to just do it: sit down, start writing, create all those things at once. If you have the talent to do that—and some apparently do—congratulations. But if your starting point is that it’s easy, I suspect you’ll be back asking about the nine steps.
It’s not the only question I’ve been asked that suggests that the questioner has a different set of assumptions about writing than the ones I subscribe to. Here are seven that have been put to me at interviews and workshops in the past week.
1. Should I do a course?
On the face of it, a perfectly reasonable question, but often it’s a front for a deeper concern: can writing be taught and learned? And behind that, is, I suppose, a romanticised—and defeatist—idea of ‘talent’. Some can, some can’t and that’s the way it is. No point trying to change it.
I find it hard to believe that this notion has traction. As in every other profession, trade and craft, natural talent can be enhanced by study, practice and criticism, and a lack of talent can be at least partially addressed in the same way. Yes, there are some people who will never be able to write a publishable novel, and some who appear to do so from nothing but the application of raw talent. But most can do it better, often much better, by working at it.
How would I know? Well, there’s my own experience. But I’ve also studied with other writers—lots of them—and watched them improve, often from unpublishable to publishable, a pretty important step for many of us. Some are already brilliant—at something. But nobody I’ve met is brilliant in all aspects. A consummate plotter may struggle with dialogue. The writer who can craft brilliant prose may not be so good at story (this article on David Foster Wallace by David Free is an example of how it applies even in the highest echelons).
As for enrolling in a course: you don’t have to, but if you accept that theory, practice and feedback, plus discipline, being stretched, having support and being connected into the industry are going to be useful, a course packages all these up. If I hadn’t enrolled in screenwriting and professional writing and editing programs at RMIT, I’d never have written The Rosie Project.
2. What’s your daily routine?
This is one we’re all asked, all the time. It only makes sense if you’re a ‘pantser’ – a ‘just do it’ person writing by the seat of your pants, and perhaps not even then. Even pantsers may have one routine when they’re drafting and another when they’re editing.
If you break your work into stages, the nature of the work for each stage will be different, and so will the most suitable approach. Your ‘daily routine’ will vary. In my case, and yours if you follow my process, it varies enormously. When I’m drafting (which is what many people assume I’m doing all the time), I have a strict and demanding routine that takes in everything from my morning coffee and creativity walk, through review of the previous days work and new writing to my 6 p.m. drink when I discuss the day’s problems with my partner (who happens to be a writer). When I’m brainstorming story beats, my day’s work may be done before I’m out of the shower in the morning, or time-shared with editing another book or walking a camino. Proofreading is something I fit into the gaps in my day …
3. How can I stay motivated through all this planning stuff while I’m waiting to get to the fun of actually writing?
Some stages of the writing process can be more enjoyable than others. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of creating that first draft, watching the manuscript grow in front of your flying fingers. And if you’ve done the preparatory work, that should be happening; the feeling of a stalled manuscript in front of frozen fingers is quite different.
But every stage has its rewards, especially if you see it as creative work requiring your concentrated energy. Some of the joys are intrinsic to the task: finding that perfect title; inventing a scene that will do three things at the same time; realising that two characters can be combined into someone unique and compelling … If your book’s plot-driven, then coming up with that plot is likely to be at least as important as the words you use to convey it. Screenwriters are accustomed to treating the generation of story rather than drafting as the central task—certainly the most valued.
And, at any stage, there’s always the satisfaction of moving forward, getting measurably closer to the moment you write that first sentence.
4. Doesn’t all this process kill creativity?
Creativity is magic. Don’t mess with it or it might disappear. The sentiments are understandable. Our best ideas often seem to come from nowhere. We’ve worked hard on a problem, got nowhere, then, a few weeks later, out of the blue … eureka! A creativity theorist would tell us that’s exactly what to expect: an example of the well-known ‘incubation period’ doing its thing.
So, first point: creativity can be managed. It’s been studied, and there are principles and techniques you can use. The first is to take note of the situations in which you have your ideas and think about treating them explicitly as creative time for your writing—perhaps doing them more often. Second point: The idea of process and techniques is to avoid wasting your creativity on re-inventing the wheel. How can I make my character more sympathetic? Try these seven techniques. Apply your creativity within those techniques or invent another one. Just don’t waste it on coming up with the seven all over again.
Finally: a good process recognises creativity and its role in all the stages—and makes provision for it to happen.
5. Does the midpoint have to be a high point in the story?
… and other questions about structure. The answer to all of these is a firm ‘no’. For a novelist, templates like the three-act structure (ubiquitous in Hollywood movies) are, at most, starting points. I think it’s essential that novelists understand the language of story structure, as they understand the rules and language of sentence structure. We need to be able to articulate what we’re doing, be conscious of the structure we’re creating, and know whether we’re deviating from norms—because readers will too.
I include discussion of structure in the first part of The Novel Project: the ‘stuff you should know before you start’ rather than the prescriptive ‘stuff you need to do’. In my own work, I’ve written novels that rigidly follow the three-act structure, and novels that don’t—but I’ve always been conscious of what I’m doing with structure. The book I’m currently writing with partner Anne Buist is episodic—nothing like the three-act structure, but every bit as much the result of conscious decisions about its shape.
6. Can the protagonist be dead?
Of course they can. The Lovely Bones and Jacqueline Bublitz’s Before You Knew My Name are out there to prove it. Death itself can be the narrator (The Book Thief). Originality is no bad thing. You can do what you like if you do it well.
But doing it well, particularly if you’re aiming for your book to have wide appeal, can be challenging. The way to do it is not to throw away the rest of the rule book along with the one rule you’re breaking, but to refer back to the deeper principles of good storytelling and writing. What problems will your rule-breaking create? (You may not be able to create tension around the possible death of the protagonist for example.) How can you achieve your goals within the scenario you’ve created?
And, at a technique level, you’ll find many of the issues have been tackled before (see earlier advice about not wasting your creativity on reinventing the wheel). Will your dead protagonist be omniscient? Or will they have a ‘camera view’ of events without access to characters’ thoughts? There’s plenty of guidance around on these topics.
Which is to say, principles and rules remain valuable, perhaps are even more valuable, when you attempt the unconventional.
7. What can I do to sell more books?
Write a better book. Trust me, I’m an ex-data guy. I want to sell more books too. The best way I know to do it is to write (and re-write and re-write and re-write) the best books I can.
—The Novel Project by Graeme Simsion (Text Publishing) is out now.
The Novel Project
A Step-by-Step Guide to Your Novel, Memoir or Biography
Save the drama for the story.
'Writing is easy- all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.' Variously attributed to Thomas Wolfe, Paul Gallico and Ernest Hemingway, the quote portrays writing as mysterious, romantic and, implicitly, unteachable. This book is about another approach, based on established theories of creativity and design-and on the experience of authors who have adopted a more structured and reliable process...
Comments
May 28, 2022 at 10:35 am
Just in case anybody is reading this… if you’ve got a question on writing–let’s say till June 14–you’re welcome to post it here, and I’ll endeavour to answer it.
May 28, 2022 at 12:19 pm
If you were a guest speaker in my writing class, what is the most important message you would give to my students?
May 30, 2022 at 12:26 pm
Probably the most important message I’d give to aspiring writers is to treat the job as a profession (not a business-publishing’s a business, writing’s a profession) and to expect to put in the same kind and amount of effort they’d put in to learning any other profession. If they’ve worked in another field or have friends training to be neurosurgeons or counsellors or plumbers, they’ll know what that means and perhaps be daunted. In my experience, people with that attitude have a good chance of being published – and being published again… If that’s what they’re aiming for, or course. Which gives me an opening to slip in another piece of advice: know what you’re aiming for. Publication? Critical Acclaim? A bestseller?
A book that the family will treasure? Therapy? The sheer joy of writing? Because then you can focus your efforts on your goal – and not complain if you achieve it but not some other goal…
And of course this is not hypothetical – I’d be delighted to be a guest speaker at your writing class.
May 30, 2022 at 1:36 pm
Great answer, Graeme. Thanks for this advice — I’ll share it with my writing classes. And I might just take you up on the offer to be a guest speaker …
May 29, 2022 at 11:29 am
Do you agree that a writer must have an online presence to get signed by an agent or publisher today?
May 30, 2022 at 12:39 pm
If there are any agents or publishers reading this, I’d love you to chime in. I was asked a question like this in a recent online (!) seminar for ACT writers, and offered my view that publishers and agents who take online presence into account in deciding whether to sign an author or book are not operating from an evidence base. This is Graeme the ex-data guy here, and I’ve really tried to evaluate the value of my own online presence and that of other spruiking my work. Illustrative example: Bill Gates (around 30m followers) tweeted praise for The Rosie Project – no discernable effect on sales. If that won’t do it, your self-interested tweet to your smaller number of followers won’t either. By contrast, a TV or radio appearance sends the books rocketing up the charts.
Back to the seminar…the facilitator was Sophie Mannix from Text, who hastened to assure the audience that Text has never rejected a book because of lack of online presence. And have a look at the online profiles of the top authors… Still looking….
My concern with this type of thinking is that you can put a LOT of time into social media, when you could be using it to write a better book. It’s fun and addictive…but resist the temptation and get back to that manuscript.
May 31, 2022 at 11:56 pm
Thank you so much Graeme, that makes me feel a whole lot more comfortable chasing my goal.
May 29, 2022 at 11:32 pm
Screenplay or novel. Do they present equal challenges? Have your experiences with both altered the way you approach telling a new story?
May 30, 2022 at 2:35 pm
My reply is there: it posted as a comment rather than a reply
May 30, 2022 at 12:51 pm
It’s a little like asking: running 100m or running a marathon? It’s definitely easier to run 100m at the level of ‘getting it done’ but once you get to the level of wanting to be competitive / a serious player, well, now you’re in the company of people at full stretch, doing their best.
In the first sense, I find writing a screenplay easier. A screenplay is not a finished product: it’s been called ‘an invitation to collaborate’. The final production will involve many more creatives (and both actors and directors will, rightly or wrongly, usually be given more credit than the writer). there will be changes made to the screenplay itself during that process. And the screenwriter may well be starting from an existing work – a novel or play with story already in place.
A novel is a complete work, typically a solo effort with help only in the later stages, from an editor. Personally, I find it’s a bigger deal to write.
BUT, the second issue: writing a good one. There, it’s tougher for the screenwriter, because, there are far far fewer movies / TV shows made than novels published – by a factor of about 100. I couldn’t get The Rosie Project up as an original screenplay – had no trouble getting the story published as a novel.
My experiences with screenwriting came first, and they had a profound influence on my novel writing. Screenwriting taught me to be aware of story structure, and storytelling in general. I haven’t done a lot of screenwriting since I became a novelist, so the impact there is more subtle. I have to remind myself that I can have scenes that don’t include the protagonist!
In that sense, writing a publishing novel
May 30, 2022 at 1:25 pm
Not sure about that dangling fragment at the end…But it gives me a chance to add a few other things that screenwriting taught me:
1. Show not tell – it’s essentially your only option in screenwriting
2. Dialogue – critical in most screenplays, and mostly direct.
3. Economy – Screenplays are short compared with novels (that’s another thing that makes writing a basic one easier, in the spirit of the 100m run). But you have to learn to be sharp: cutting dialogue to its essence, showing who a character is by one or two actions, getting into a scene late and out early.
May 30, 2022 at 4:49 pm
Wow, Graeme, thanks for the comprehensive reply, it’s really helpful. I have a finished novel (as yet un-agented) and another with a complete first draft that I am editing. I can’t help seeing the latter in my mind on the silver screen and do sometimes wonder if it would be better as a screenplay. There is plenty of dialogue. That’s a very interesting statistic about the greater amount of novels though.
Thanks by the way for your books – I read Adam first; as it happens, the theme of intense, remembered, long-ago love is a big feature of my first book – and loved the Rosie Project too.
Best wishes
May 30, 2022 at 5:26 pm
Good luck with it. The great lesson I learned (and should have realised much earlier) is that most movies are adaptations of novels. Rewriting The Rosie Project as a novel was one of the better decisions I’ve made in my life – and suddenly there was interest in the screenplay (well, actually, they said, ‘We’ll adapt your novel’ and I said, ‘Hang on..’). Not every novel can be a screenplay, but I suspect most screenplays could be novels.
May 30, 2022 at 8:33 pm
Thanks for your good wishes. A novel it shall be, but I will prepare myself for the movie première… Good luck with the film of Rosie, is it in production?