For most authors, writing a novel is definitely a long and complicated process. Today's guest blogger, Justine Larbalestier, gives us a bit of insight into hers, explaining the nonlinear approach she took to penning her latest book, LIAR. Writing LIAR was a big departure from my previous books. Usually, like many novelists, I start at the beginning and keep writing until I get to the end. I call that my draft zero, which I write very quickly. Draft zero is always utter, utter, utter rubbish. (Seriously, if you read one of my zero drafts you would be horrified. I frequently am.) I then have to make the draft be not utter rubbish. That takes much much longer and involves rewriting the whole novel from start to finish multiple times.
LIAR was different. Because the narrator, Micah, is, um, not what would you’d call trustworthy --- she is, in fact, a liar --- her story took lots of twists and turns, and the book did, too. Micah backtracks, forwardtracks, sidetracks. I wound up writing her story completely out of order. One of the earliest parts of the novel is now close to the end. The opening was one of the last bits I wrote.
I also didn’t write the book in chapters. Something else I’ve never done before. I wrote it in small chunks --- some as short as 45 words. (A page is typically around 250 words.) The majority were around one or two pages, and only a handful were longer than four pages.
In some ways, it was more like writing poetry than a novel. I rewrote each one multiple times before the draft was completed, thinking about every single word, worrying about its placement on the page. At the same time, I was constantly moving these chunks around as if the novel were a jigsaw puzzle. Every time I moved one to another part of the novel, I had to rewrite it so that it actually fit there. Each move led to more rewriting, so that some bits of LIAR were rewritten twenty or thirty or one hundred times or more. (I lost count.)When I had a complete draft, it was way more polished than my usual zero draft. It was more like a fourth or fifth draft --- a miracle for me. I think my editor fainted when she read it.
Hmmm, I think I’ve made writing LIAR sound like a fiddly nightmare. But, it turns out I love writing like that. It’s made me a better writer. Having written LIAR, I now feel like I can write anything. Thus, I’m also writing my current novel out of order even though it’s way more conventionally structured than LIAR. I’m having a blast.
I will admit that I was very nervous about how readers would respond to my strange little novel with its many teeny tiny chapters (that aren’t chapters at all) and the more poetic style. I was worried it would bog them down. Instead, people are reporting that LIAR is a page turner. Who knew that shorter chapters make for a faster read?
Other than James Patterson and Dan Brown, I mean.
-- Justine Larbalestier
