Writing: There MUST be COOL!

[jpskewedthrone]

At the moment, I'm "between projects" when it comes to the writing. I've handed in the new book, Well of Sorrows, and I'm waiting for my editors suggestions on how to make the book better. But unlike all of my previous "I've finished the book and I'm waiting for my editor" breaks, I don't have another contract to fulfill, so I have nothing that I need to be writing . . . meaning something with a deadline looming.

So, what I'm doing, or what I'm supposed to be doing, is writing up project proposals so that perhaps I can sell something else and THEN I'll have looming deadlines. I know that most writers just fret and stew and say "WHOOOSH!!" when those deadlines fly by, but I find that I WANT a looming deadline, that I NEED a looming deadline. Yeah, I'm one of those people. The looming deadline kicks me in the ass and gets me motivated, gets me moving, lights a fire under my feet, even if the looming deadline is a year away.

Did you notice the "supposed to be doing" in the previous paragraph? I've been meaning to sit down and write some project proposals for THREE WEEKS now. pbray and I have an agreement that we'll tilapia each other into writing proposals. (It's an inside joke.)

So this morning, two days before the semester begins and I have to start teaching again, I sat down and asked myself why I can't get off my ass and write these proposals. Besides the usual things, like I needed to remodel the 4th floor and all that, I've decided the reason I'm not motivated to write these proposals . . . is because the two I have in mind just don't have the COOL factor yet.

Stories need cool. Or rather, SF and fantasy stories need cool. There has to be something in the story--magic or SF--that the plot and characters revolve around that make the story unique and different and special and yours and COOL. Something that gives the story a WOW factor. In my Throne novels, there were a few things: the White Fire (what the hell is it?), the Throne (OMG it's insane!), and the minor tweak I did with the magic that the main character Varis uses to survive. In the new book, Well of Sorrows, it's the Well itself (what the hell does it do?), the magic that the main character has (much more out there and up front than in the Throne books), and the setting to some extent.

In the two proposals I'd like to write up, I don't see the COOL factor yet. Oh, I think the stories are cool, as well as the characters. I can see the potential. But I don't have the White Fire or the Well yet. One of the stories is SF and I know a TON of the plot itself, but I haven't figured out yet what the COOL SF idea will be and how it will incorporate itself into the plot.

Now, for the other fantasy idea . . . I do have the COOl factor actually. So I lied. *grin* The problem with that proposal is that I don't have the main characters yet. So the COOl idea is overwhelming everything else in my head and that main character hasn't leaped out and seized my imagination yet.

It brings home the fact that a story is not a character, or a plot, or even the COOL. It has to have all of that, and more, in order to meld together and make a working story.

In any case, I need to get off my ass and start writing these proposals, because as I've pointed out before on this LJ, part of my process is to generate ideas AS I WRITE. So the fact that there is no cool yet in the SF story might be because I haven't sat down to write it and figure out what the COOL is in the process. And as for the fantasy story . . . I need to sit down and write a first scene, something where I have to place a character into a setting where the COOL will occur . . . and then perhaps that character and setting will take life and the COOl will receed into the background and allow the other elements to shift forward.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

It's weird, how some ideas just won't coalesce until you're witting down and performing the physical act of writing....

but other times, you can sit there till the cows sing, but the ideas will only come:

1) int he shower

2) while you're inching up the freeway, no pens or paper at hand

3)standing in line at the post awful, juggling boxes

[vcmorris.livejournal.com]

Yup, that's what I was going to say, time to sit down and just start writing out your scene and find out who wanders onto the set to see what's going on. :)

Character: Dude, what's that?
Writer: What's what?
Character: That thing over there? Can't you see it?
Writer: *as he squints across the landscape he's just created* What thing?
Character: *rolling his eyes because clearly Writer is blind* Oh, for Cripe's sake, let me go over there and look for myself.

And away we go................

[karenthology.livejournal.com]

The problem with that proposal is that I don't have the main characters yet.

I was in that situation once. Spin off the "what ifs" the the rest will follow! Can't wait to see what you have up your sleeve...

[karenthology.livejournal.com]

-and- the rest will follow. Gah!

[scbutler.livejournal.com]

Without the COOL factor, fantasy and sf/f are nothing, at least in my self-important opinion. Even great characters aren't enough. (Unless the characters are so great they are the COOL all by themselves!)

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Don't make me get out my mackerel stash!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

So the fact that there is no cool yet in the SF story might be because I haven't sat down to write it and figure out what the COOL is in the process.

I wuz just going to say that! Then, um, you said it.

*sighs*

*has nothing to say*

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

I smack you with a smelt! *whack* *whack*
Now, write those proposals! :-)

[writerknv.livejournal.com]

Sounds good! So, go write already! ;)

Maybe it's the teaching preparation that's got you down. I start back tomorrow and, while I've wanted to have my rewrite done, there's that little voice in my head screaming, "But wait! I'm still on vacation for one more day!"

[steve-buchheit.livejournal.com]

Figure it out at the keyboard. That usually best. Write out some of the COOL and I bet the main character is lurking right behind it.