Tag: writing

Craft Advice, From Me to You, Writing Craft

It’s a Process

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The other day on Twitter I was asked about my writing process, and realized that I’ve never really talked or written about it before. Mostly because it’s always been less scientific than intuitive for me, but I’m going to try to list some of the things that are constants.

The Initial Spark


One of the first and most common questions writers get, both from other writers and non-writers, is “where do your ideas come from?” My ideas come from what I think of as an initial spark–something that sets off a chain reaction of “what ifs” in my brain that all coalesce to form a scene. That’s always how my books start–with a particular scene. It’s not always the opening, or the end. It can be anywhere in the story. But it gives me a glimpse of the world and characters and their dilemma, and serves as the thing I build around.

For instance, with The Light Between Worlds, the initial spark was reading a tweet where someone in publishing wished for a book about Susan Pevensie post-Narnia. I started thinking about what Susan’s life would have been like, and how a story like that could be framed–it couldn’t be about Susan herself, given that Narnia’s copyright hasn’t expired. But it could be about someone like Susan–someone in similar circumstances. At that point, the first scene struck me–of a lovely, put-together girl being approached by a stag in the middle of Trafalgar Square. That scene occurs at around the 75% mark of The Light Between Worlds, but it gave me the basics I needed to build the story–I had Philippa, her longing, her world in London, and the character of Cervus the stag, as well. Everything else grew out from that meeting.

With A Treason of Thorns, the initial spark was, of all things, a Twitter bot (I promise not everything I write starts on Twitter). It’s a fabulism-type bot which generates tweets about a mysterious, somewhat Gothic English garden. On a whim, I wrote a microfiction based on one of the tweets, about a girl in a sentient garden, waiting for suitors with a very odd friend. That scene became the basis for Violet and Burleigh House and Wyn.

Other sparks have been walking my dog and coming up with a scene in which a character is traveling on foot to a distant mountain, inhabited by a fearsome being her community views as a god. Nursing my oldest as an infant and imagining the first meeting between a queen and the wet nurse who would tend her children. Considering how I could reframe the fairytale The Wild Swans and being struck by an image, of a girl with black hair walking into the sea to beg for the lives of her missing kin.

The sparks that can kindle a story are all around us, so long as we view the world with curiosity, an openness to possibility, and consider that all-important question, “what if?”

Building a Framework


Once the concept for a story exists, I build the framework, or structure. This is where the well-known authorial designations of pantser, planner, and plantser come in (a pantser is someone who makes up stories as they go–flying by the seat of their pants. A planner plots everything prior to writing. A plantser does a combination of the two, planning some of the framework of the story, but leaving room for adjustment and embellishment).

I myself started out as a pantser. I’d use the instincts for story we all have, as individuals living in a media-saturated world, and craft a narrative that just felt right. Now that I write under deadlines, I’ve become that combination of a planner and a pantser. It’s easier at this point, to revise the structure of a story before I’ve gone to the trouble of writing the whole thing. I do, however, still write at least a few opening chapters before planning out the entire story. This lets me get a feel for the characters and world and central problem, which gives me a better grasp of the different forms the narrative could take. How much of the story I write before plotting can vary–anywhere from three or four chapters, to the entirety of the first act, though getting the whole first act done is my preference.

While I plot somewhat in advance now, I still do a lot of the creative work organically–I come up with the narrative in my mind, usually on country drives or walks–and then write a synopsis that covers all the key plot points I devised. My favorite resource for plot structure is the Save the Cat beat sheet, which you can find here. Once the framework of the story is complete, I revise the synopsis about eleven billion times with my agent and editor, until we come up with something that feels true to my initial concept of the book, while being sufficiently fast-paced (pacing is my Achilles’ heel, I would write books with no plot to speak of if left to my own devices!) After this, I draft the remainder of the story, staying more or less true to the synopsis. There’s still lots of room for filling in the blanks and finding surprises within and between the planned scenes, which appeals to the former pantser in me.

Research Rabbit Holes


I write primarily historical fantasy, which is absolutely wonderful because I get all the trouble and frustration of ensuring historical accuracy AND crafting a consistent magic system and mythos. I am, if nothing else, a glutton for punishment.

In order to make life somewhat easier, I tend to choose historical settings I have at least a passing familiarity with. This usually allows me to do an initial first draft with minimal research–just some fact-checking along the way to be sure of dates and distances, etc. But sometimes, I run into areas that need deeper study. Thus far, my most research-heavy book by far was The Light Between Worlds, thanks to my decision to set much of the second half in London’s National Gallery. I spent hours upon hours studying the Gallery’s history and learning the nuances and process of art restoration. At one point, I even reached out to a wonderful archivist at the Gallery, who provided me with floor plans for the Gallery in 1951, when The Light Between Worlds is set. When researching, feel free to go deep if that’s your preference–there are always details I know I can fudge because of the unlikeliness of any readers realizing I’ve done so, but for me, the knowledge that I’ve been as accurate as possible is a great feeling. I’m willing to put in the work for that.

The Disaster Draft


Once a story is fully drafted and the research primarily done and incorporated, I get feedback. Depending on what I wrote a piece for, this can be from critique partners or my agent or an editor. I always hope not to have to make massive structural changes–that is, after all, why I now write a synopsis to be critiqued and revised in advance. But even without overwhelming changes to structure, there’s always a lot of work to be done in the Disaster Draft.

The Disaster Draft feels like ruining your book.

There’s really no way around it. You take your first draft, which felt good and exciting and new and relatively cohesive, and tear bits of it out and Frankenstein other bits in, and it gets clunky and stops flowing nicely and you lose all perspective and spend a lot of time lying on the floor in despair, convinced you’ve wrecked everything and are a failure and will never meet your deadline.

……………………………Or at least I do.

However, the Disaster Draft is not ruining your book. I like to think of it this way–when the Old Masters painted, they created beautiful sketches to work from. The sketches were lovely and works of art in their own right. And then the Old Masters ruined them. They put blobs of paint on. They blocked in color. Everything began to look messy and unfinished and like a disaster, as they filled in the framework they’d created. But once the color was blocked in and they began to add detail, the painting took shape and became Art again. It never would have got there without that messy in-between stage.

So persevere–this too shall pass, even if you need to spend a lot of time on the floor to get through it.

The Magic Draft


For me, the Magic Draft is where everything finally comes together. All the Frankensteined bits and pieces are ready to be smoothed together, the stitches hidden, the details added. The Magic Draft is when I start to think, again, “Hey, I did pretty good! This is actually a great story!”

Depending on where you are in your growth as an artist and especially depending on the book, you may need multiple Disaster Drafts before you get to the magic. That’s okay, and normal. If you still believe in the story at hand, keep pressing on. Eventually, it will all come together. I have one concept which is incredibly dear to me that I’ve been trying to shepherd through the initial framework-building stage for *checks calendar* seven years. Obviously if you have a hard deadline to work through, you can’t let things breathe forever, but if that’s an option, take the time you need.

Eyes on the Horizon


One thing that will help maintain your forward momentum is to always have ideas on the backburner. I keep a file of story concepts, which I write out as three paragraph pitches built out around that initial spark and scene, and save for when I need them. At any given time, my preference is to have a minimum of one story being drafted, one being revised, and one for which I’m doing the cognitive work of planning–developing the story framework in my head. If the publishing fates smile, this allows for a seamless transition from one project to another, as you just move things up the list/to the next stage of development as progress is made. This is a practical application of the old adage about eggs and baskets–don’t pin your hopes to a single story idea. It’s not one story you’re building, it’s yourself a writer. There are always more concepts, even if you have to lay a dear one to rest.

And I think that’s all! Hopefully some of this was enlightening or helpful! If anything stood out to you in particular, or you have questions, feel free to let me know in the comments.

From Me to You

Thoughts on Turning Inward

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It is autumn. The air is cooler, and often scented with rain, and we’ve already found the first few gloriously gold and orange leaves from our spreading maple trees. Autumn is nothing if not a season of transition and contemplation and turning inward, and I’m trying to find ways to honor that. By making time for rest and leisure (a thing my achievement-oriented brain sometimes strenuously resists). By teaching myself to say, come nightfall, “today I have done enough”. By learning not just to say it, but to believe it.

The thing is, for the last few seasons of life, and for the first half of the pandemic, I’ve been very outward-focused, at least when it comes to work and the internet. In a bid to feel a little less out of control during a time when we’re all out of control, I seized at every opportunity that came my way, worked punishing hours, and poured myself into a variety of different online platforms. Unsurprisingly, none of it worked. It didn’t leave me feeling as if I had more agency over my job or my online presence. Instead, it left me feeling like Bilbo after his many years of bearing the Ring–that is, “like butter, scraped over too much bread.”

Obligatory bread picture. You cannot simply mention bread and not *show* bread

So I took August to regroup, and to think about what would actually give me the agency and feeling of security I’d begun to crave when working online. The internet can be a minefield, where ill-wishers wait for you to say the wrong thing, and where, in spite of yourself, you demonstrate the worst of your own personality in the heat of the moment, or in the course of a few thoughtless keystrokes. I’d rather not fall prey to any of the above.

Whenever I’m feeling harried, my first and best instinct is to slow down and turn inward, my own personal rhythms shifting towards a quiet and rejuvenating winter of the soul. So what would that turning inward look like online, I wondered? It would look like finding spaces where I can spend more time contemplating what I’d like to say before I say it. Where I manage the space and the narrative and the tone. It would mean being less present in many places in order to be more fully present in a few.

So I thought over my priorities, and what it is that I really love to do online. I love to write. I love to connect with people. I love to share glimpses of my life. And I know the readers and writers I’ve built friendships with online appreciate those things too. The things I don’t love are feeling pressured to respond to things the moment they happen, because it takes me a long time to process. I don’t love interacting with people who enter a conversation without goodwill and good faith. And I don’t love (or know anyone who does) feeling as if my words might be taken out of context, or twisted to mean something I never intended them too.

So I decided that this fall and winter, and for the foreseeable future, I’ll spend more of my time and energy on platforms that I control, and where I can move more slowly, and choose my words more carefully. Hence the website makeover–this is going to be my primary online home, and I wanted a new, simpler look and to be able to alter and update and keep everything current all on my own. I’m hoping to blog here more often–if you were a follower of my Patreon, it’ll be shutting down, and the sort of content you enjoyed there will now be available here, for the low, low cost of free 🙂

I’m planning to revisit my newsletter, too–during the last year I’ve let it slide, while chasing other forms of engagement. But I enjoyed composing it for all of you. It will now be releasing seasonally–on October 30th, January 30th, April 30th, and July 30th. (If that’s something you’d like to subscribe to, you can do so here.)

A little peek at what’s coming in October’s newsletter!

As far as actual social media goes, I’m limiting that. I’ll still be on Twitter a little, but not to the same extent as before. Goodbye to Facebook (which I hardly used anyway). Goodbye to Instagram (which was always more stressful than enjoyable). But I’m definitely keeping Pinterest, which I really love and find relaxing.

Yes, I have an entire row of boards that are just puns and cute animal pictures, I refuse to apologize for that

And that’s it. That’s the lineup I’ve come up with that feels best, and like I’ll be able to cultivate a balance between my own health and security, and the personal connections I enjoy making with other writers and readers. Besides that, I’ll be spending the fall as I always do–crafting earthy soups, baking yeasty things, writing wistful books, and teaching two little people that there is magic in the world if you only know where to find it.

If you’re interested in any or all of the above, I’ll be here, telling stories at the edge of the forest.

Short Fiction

Nothing Noteworthy

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So I’ve been wanting to do something for all of you. Something above and beyond just goofing around on Twitter, or recommending my books as quarantine reading. I don’t have a whole lot of mental energy at this point, though–between homeschooling the girls and just keeping abreast of the state of the world, I’m pretty tapped out by the end of the day.

But the one thing I always have, and can always dredge up energy and enthusiasm for, even when I’m running on fumes, is writing. It’s my refuge and my solace and a light for me in dark places. I thought about serializing one of the novellas I have underway in my folders, but I’m not sure what my follow through would be like on that. I thought about posting an old manuscript, chapter by chapter, but frankly, that would just be embarrassing.

Instead, I decided I’d share some free short fiction here on lauraeweymouth.com, as I have time and am able to come up with new things or polish old ones. I’ve got a bit of a backlog of short fic at this point–I love to write it, and occasionally submit it, but it never really gets anywhere. Which is alright–I think in a lot of ways, both in long form and short form, the market and I have dissimilar tastes.

But maybe some of what I’m going to post will be to your taste.

The following story is one that’s been with me for a lot of years. I’ve written it over from scratch probably four times now, but the characters and concept and setting remain the same. It’s about the moments of brief connection that change us; about the fundamental importance of reaching out to others; about how we can be our best selves and do good even in the midst of despair, even when the right actions we’re undertaking seem too small to be important. It felt appropriate for this present moment.

I hope you enjoy it, and that it offers you a little glimmer of hope.

I love you all, and wish you health and happiness today and every day after.

Anyway, here’s Wonderwall Nothing Noteworthy. As always, it comes with a content warning for readers who’d like one, which you can view by highlighting the following:

(Nothing Noteworthy comes with a content warning for potential suicide, but I promise you everything turns out alright)

Monochrome Photography of Bridge

Nothing Noteworthy

By Yours Truly

It was like breaking through the surface of clear water and hauling yourself up onto dry land after spending hours of weightlessness. Everything felt muddled and heavy, all at once too loud and too indistinct, too sharp and too soft. As if the world had become a vapor, and you were the only solid thing in it.

Or so Traveler had always thought. He thought it now, breaking through the surface of yet another time and place and waiting for everything around him to learn the trick of being. To grow substance, and meaning, and heft.

Was that right, though? Perhaps it wasn’t the world that needed to become more, each time he Traveled. Perhaps he was the one who needed to become less. His Temporal Therapist would undoubtedly have numerous pithy things to say on that score, but she was elsewhere, or elsewhen, or both, and Traveler wasn’t meant to be thinking of her now. She was the one, after all, who’d told him he needed a holiday. In retrospect, she might have meant a trip to somewhere warm and sunny, but this was all Traveler knew. This constant shifting through space and time.

Everything rippled in front of him, and he began to make out an astonished face. Whoever it was, they were much too close for comfort, and that was no good, he wasn’t meant to materialize in front of people like this. The proximity scans must have glitched, or the technician had overlooked a life sign.

Traveler attempted to say something reassuring, aware that he must appear quite alarming as he wavered in and out of focus. But the words came out all wrong, sounding like nothing so much as whale song. That was the problem with the newer subcutaneous translators—they worked marvels once you got somewhere (somewhen), but they malfunctioned in the in between.

An unbearable weight settled over Traveler, and he let out a sigh, of both relief and resignation. There. Everything would solidify now, and he could stop feeling the seasick elation Travel always brought with it.

The relief lasted only a moment, though, before being replaced by acute embarrassment. Because in front of him, and somewhat above him, stood a young woman. Bewilderment was etched across her face, but notably, none of the shock or horror Traveler had found in Bystanders on the few occasions he’d been involved in a Temporal Incident before.

“Please remain calm,” Traveler said, as he was supposed to. He glanced briefly down at his shoes before resolutely forcing himself to maintain eye contact. Doctor Eileen, she of the Temporal Therapy, had told him he spent too much time looking down and away. Well, he was certainly looking up now. Perhaps too far up, he realized with a dull shock as his surroundings grew less muddled, cohering into a sense of vast space.

They were standing on a bridge, he and his inconvenient Bystander. It was the sort of soaring steel construct favored in the mid-twentieth century. Beneath them was a moody grey harbor and above them, a moody grey sky, and the Bystander wore a moody grey, calf-length dress, the sort that could only be a uniform and that was, in and of itself, rather a timeless thing. The bridge gave him more of the sense of groundedness he looked for than this wide-eyed, unexceptional woman.

“Hello,” Traveler tried again, deviating slightly from the approved script as he grew painfully aware of how this Bystander stood, bare-footed, toeing blank space on the safety rail of the bridge, one hand resting gently on a steel girder for support. Without that broken bird’s wing of a hand, a single gust of the salt breeze might topple her, sending her over into the foaming breakers and cut-tooth rocks below.

“I’m sorry about all this,” Traveler went on. “You’re not supposed to see me, usually. At least you’re not supposed to see me if I’ve done my job well.”

He was rambling. He had a hard time with Bystanders. Well, not just Bystanders, but unexpected circumstances and potential conflict in general. Which was an unfortunate trait in a Traveler. A liability, the Bureau had called his anxiousness; hence the Temporal Therapy.

The woman looked down at him and at his words, recognition sparked in her, replacing the bewilderment.

“No, I know,” she said with a gentle nod. “If I do my job well, you’re not supposed to see me either. I’m meant to be invisible.”

A strong eddy of wind surged over the bridge, and she swayed. Traveler caught his breath.

Carefully, he cautioned himself. Carefully.

“I know it’s upsetting, what you just saw,” he told the Bystander, trying to sound as reassuring as possible as he returned to the script. “It’s the sort of thing that could cause no end of trouble for you. But I can make it so you don’t remember. I’m…I’m supposed to make it so you don’t remember. So if you come down, I’ll sort things out and you’ll be much happier having forgotten all this.”

It was Temporal Protocol, and normally, Traveler believed fiercely in it. But now, for the first time, the words tasted like a lie. And the woman above him, her bare feet gone blue with cold, obviously did not believe him.

“I don’t know what happy is anymore,” she confessed, the words like a waterlogged thing dredged up from the depths of the harbor below.

Traveler faltered. Every Bystander he’d met before jumped at the chance to forget. No one ever wanted the complications remembering an Incident would cause.

“Maybe not happier then?” Traveler offered. “But you’ll go back to the way things were, just a moment ago, before I turned up.”

The woman, standing on the rail of the bridge, suspended above that breakneck drop to the harbor, only looked at him.

Guilt uncurled in Traveler’s stomach. The sort of guilt he wasn’t supposed to feel, because he wasn’t meant to identify with Bystanders—they were only set pieces, after all. Just little chips to move across the vast gameboard of time, to be born and reborn, snuffed out or brought into existence with the wave of a Technician’s hand.

“I’m so sorry,” Traveler whispered, his words nearly eaten up by the wind. He spoke the apology in earnest, not as a matter of habit. He was sick with guilt, and that was more than half his problem. You’ve got to find a way to distance yourself, Doctor Eileen always said. Put up some walls, Traveler, or the stress will kill you. “It’s just, those were the things I’m meant to say. I don’t…I don’t know what else to tell you.”

The Bystander was still looking at him, dark circles like bruises beneath her eyes.

“Tell me something honest,” she said. “Tell me something true.”

And then,

“Please,” she added.

There was a world of longing in the single word. A fathomless yearning for real connection, and Traveler knew it at once because it was the thing that lay at his own center.

“I’m tired,” Traveler told her.

And he was. Tired to exhaustion, tired to despair, tired of the endless succession of wheres and whens, the distance and the separation and the need to never identify, because to do so would be to shatter, and what good was a broken Traveler? It was his job to stay the course, to do what he was told, to rearrange the building blocks of history until they came out as something better, and maybe, possibly, someday, as something perfect.

“I’m tired, too,” the Bystander said softly.

And she was. Tired to exhaustion, tired to despair, tired of the endless succession of days filled with worry and hardly getting by, with working till her head spun and her body cried out but never letting herself really feel any of it, because to stop moving might mean never getting up again. It was her job to say nothing, to do as she was told, to rearrange the inadequacies of her life until somehow the eternal conflict between rent and the need to eat and the desire for even a hint of joy resolved themselves into a happier whole, into the sort of dream worth striving for.

But they never did. They never did, and so here she stood with blank space above her and blank space below, and nothing but this moment between her and an ending.

The Traveler swallowed. Inside him, all the many conflicting voices of Technicians and fellow Travelers and Temporal Therapists were chattering away. For once, he shut them off, and out.

“Come with me,” Traveler said, and held out a hand to the woman above him, with the bruises beneath her eyes and the emptiness beneath her feet.

A siren shrilled somewhere in the city beyond them, its sound a high, wild whine. Far across the water, the rhythmic thrum of a helicopter became audible, and grew closer bit by bit.

“Where will we go?” the woman asked. Traveler shook his head.

“I don’t know.”

“Will we be alright?” she pressed.

Traveler put his free hand into one of the pockets of his long, Temporally-Benign coat. “I don’t know that either. I’m not…I’m not supposed to be speaking to you. Not really. You’re supposed to agree to forget, and then it’s like I’ve never been.”

“I want to remember you,” the woman said, her chin jutting out stubbornly, and Traveler couldn’t breathe. No one had ever wanted to remember him before.

“Come with me,” he offered again.

And then,

“Please,” he added.

There was a world of longing in the single word. A fathomless yearning for real connection, and the Bystander knew it at once because it was the thing that lay at her own center.

Without a word, she reached out, and before the wind could take her, Traveler caught her hand in his own and held it tight. He could not remember the last time he’d felt another person’s touch. She could not remember, either.

“There,” the woman said a little breathlessly as she stepped down onto the firmer ground of the bridge’s walkway. Her socks and shoes were nearby and she bent to pull them back on, a small prosaic detail that the Traveler locked up inside himself, for safekeeping and for further reflection.

When she straightened and looked at him, there was still a lostness in her. Still a sense of groundlessness and despair. But she’d reached out, and that was something.

“What’s next?” she asked Traveler.

He held out a hand again because he wanted that touch, that wordless and indefinable connection, and half-eagerly, she stepped forward, twining her fingers through his own.

“I’m not sure,” Traveler told her honestly. “I’m meant to be on holiday. Do you want to come?”

The woman wrinkled her nose, taking in their less than beautiful surroundings. “On holiday? Here?”

“Mm,” the Traveler said, as they stepped off the bridge and onto solid earth, still hand in hand. “They told me nothing noteworthy happened this year.”