Dear reader,
It recently took me two months to write a single chapter.
What I’ve learned since dragging myself out of this slump and gaining momentum in my newest project is that it turns out I’m not as much of a plotter as I thought I was.
The writing experience for this book has changed compared to the previous three I’ve written. I’ve spent the last few years talking a lot about how and why I’ve plotted my books so thoroughly, and yet, many of the writing habits I’d formed are not working for me this time around.
The more I write, the more I have to accept that process and style will never be set in stone. (And why would I want it to be? That’s no fun.)
I’m not God. (I’m just a girl.)
Writers sometimes talk about how when you’re writing, you’re essentially a god of the world you create. At the same time though, you may find yourself getting caught up in logistical questions while world-building. Like: “I want XYZ to happen in my story. But how do I get there? Does it make sense for this world and my characters?” etc etc.
Wanting to know everything all at once, as if I’m literally an omniscient higher power, is probably what paralyzes me the most during a first draft. After coming out of a roughly six-month revision on LOCAL HEAVENS (my queer cyberpunk retelling of a book you’ve definitely never heard of before /j), I became so used to staring at prose edited 1000x, an established world and tight character arcs. I was in the end-stage of a story I’d spent so much time living in, and by the time you’re just moving commas around on a fifth draft, you sort of forget what it feels like to be flailing around on a first draft.
You forget that the flailing part is what writing actually is, like, 90% of the time.
It was almost as if, coming out of that revision, I had to teach myself how to be a writer all over again and how the actual act of stringing together a plot and prose is not even half of what writing truly entails. The biggest thing that has helped me push forward in these last two months since throwing myself into a new book is to find solace in the mantra:
“I’ll figure it out.”
Maybe I won’t figure it out today, tomorrow, in a month or even in this draft. But when the time comes, I will figure it out. And if the whole plot has to be excavated and rebuilt, I’ll figure out how to do that too.
I feel comfortable not holding the first draft sacred anymore. There will always be another draft and the story never has to be read by anyone else until I say so.
I still need to know my destination so that even if I can’t see the entire road, at least I know that somewhere along the way, I’m not going to drive myself off a cliff.
Get in the car, loser. We’re writing a book.
In true writing advice fashion, I recently saw a video of a writer quoting another writer about how they view writing. I then proceeded to forget to save the video for reference. My bad. I will now try to quote it again.
To paraphrase: writing is like driving alone at night on a dark road with your headlights on.
I like this analogy because I think it’s the simplest way to make sense of what the process really is, and it’s reassuring to tell myself that even though I can only see three feet ahead of me, as long as I follow the road, at some point I’ll get to the end.
I’m well into drafting the first act of an adult fantasy work (nicknamed THE FLOATING HOUSE—this is not its real title) and the minute I started not worrying about my 10,000 word outline/plot notes, the minute the spark for this book reignited for me.
The idea that the first draft is a space for you to find the story, not to know it immediately, is very freeing. At first, I felt like a failure for not being able to dive headfirst into this draft the way I was able to on my last book, but since I’m committing to this gut-first approach, I think a big reason it’s working better for me this time around is because I’ve had the time to hone my intuition better. Now I know that writing with my gut is okay, especially since I’ve learned how to develop a gut instinct that I actually trust.
Why I can’t abandon plotting completely.
It’s important to note that I’m not writing this book totally off the cuff. To stick with the driving analogy, I still need to know my destination so that even if I can’t see the entire road, at least I know that somewhere along the way, I’m not going to drive myself off a cliff.
Even though I’ve somewhat abandoned the chapter by chapter outline method which worked for me before, I didn’t abandon my world-building or laying out a general structure. I know the major events of each act, the rising action, the climax and the ending. The in-between of key plot points is what I’m figuring out as I go.
Brainstorming is a process that usually takes me months because I need time to slow cook my ideas, and the first draft is just as much a part of this brainstorming process. For instance, I was only two chapters into TFH when I realized I needed to pause and build out my magic system way more than I thought I did. It wasn’t a plotting obstacle (“what should happen next?”), which I could usually hand-wave away on a first draft, but a question of thinking deeper about the heart of the book (“why is this happening?”).
The magic system of a fantasy must speak to the story’s core theme and I wanted to make sure the messaging of the narrative—and by extension, the way magic operates in this world—made sense to me.
That pause takes another week or two because as I get new ideas about the magic, I get new ideas for scenes. I’ve reorganized the first act of this book countless times by now in order to balance exposition and action, but I’ve since made progress that I’m really proud of. I hope, in choosing not to rush myself with these opening chapters, that I’ll lay a strong foundation for the rest of the story to come.
Getting to know my characters. (Again and again)
You may or may not know that the world of TFH is actually a repurposed version of the second book I ever wrote, another fantasy project nicknamed NIGHTWARD, which I finished a couple years ago.
NIGHTWARD is similar to TFH in that it takes place in a secondary world inspired (loosely!) by early twentieth-century Manila. This is pretty much where the similarities end. The cast, plot and magic are completely different.
But one other element from NIGHTWARD that remains in TFH is the dual perspectives—two central characters from opposing social backgrounds whose narrations alternate. One of the biggest changes I made was that I decided to make these characters already acquainted from years before, and by the start of the book, have ended up in totally different places in their life.
In NIGHTWARD, I had started the book in the perspective of the wealthier, privileged main character (the female MC), but TFH instead begins with the male MC.
I have always found his character to be the easier one to write. I’m not sure why. I think some of it comes from the fact that my FMC, who I'll talk about below, has always had to have the more info-dumpy opening chapters whereas the MMC gets more tense action sequences by virtue of his “job” in this world. But I think more than that, I feel as though the beats of his journey and the threads of his internal conflict came together faster, versus my FMC who I had to dig deeper to understand. I’ve come to love them equally but it took some time.
The male MC is a character who is born fighting. He has a bleak past, an even bleaker outlook on his future, and his present is loaded with responsibility as he navigates a minefield of conflicting duties.
I’ve since realized that I have a huge soft spot for these kinds of characters — someone who is lost and cynical, but whose eventual quest for purpose is intertwined with the love they didn’t know they could feel, as well as the love they didn’t think they deserved.
The student and revolution.
While TFH is not a dark academia, one of my main characters is a scholar who begins the book at a difficult point in her career.
I didn’t feel equipped, or all that interested, in writing a book inside of a school setting. Also I was less drawn to writing about what it’s like navigating academia as I was on what it’s like to give so much of yourself to an institution that doesn’t actually care about you, not realizing until years later, and finding yourself buried under the repercussions of that. The “years later” is where this book starts.
Still, I can’t help but think about the strangeness of the relationship between the student and the institution—how academia stimulates curiosity and criticism. But only curiosity and criticism of a certain shape. The kind that doesn’t look inward at the institution itself.
My parents passed on to me a deep appreciation for education, but in that appreciation, there is also the awareness that its accessibility, especially higher education, remains a terribly imperfect cocktail of luck and privilege.
I think part of why I find myself drawn to write this main character now is because of this chance to explore what that privilege means to her — how she stands between two sides of a revolution that she doesn’t even know exists because of her narrow perspective on the meaning of revolution. Originally, her arc was going to be different than what I had planned but the more I struggled with her, the more I realized I, too, wasn’t looking inward enough.
Particularly, what privileges come with being diaspora. What things have I internalized? What do I need to unlearn? What have I never had the chance to learn about my ancestors due to stolen lands, and more than that, stolen narratives? TFH deals heavily with intergenerational trauma and what is, physically and spiritually, passed down in a culture, against all odds and despite the forces that would seek otherwise.
I’m excited to get to know this character as I drive her car down this book’s dark road, and in doing so, I’m reminded that revolution is ongoing. It lives beyond black and white photographs.
I’m inspired by the revolutions we are living through right now — the cyclical nature of history we are bearing witness to in this moment, as university students are once again upholding the long legacy of campus resistance in their advocacy against war, occupation and genocide.
Everyday I think about Noor Hindi’s “Fuck Your Lecture On Craft, My People Are Dying.” I think all writers should. I know the fiction I write will never be more important than the real world. I hold this in my mind’s eye as I continue to write, to interrogate my relationship with craft, and to imagine the full-colour lives and stories of my ancestors whose many revolutions brought me into this world.
Thanks for reading.
Much love,
Kris
I can't wait to read your novel one day! I'm a fellow Filipina writing a Philippines-inspired fantasy and following your journey encourages me as I go on my own. Thank you!
I always love the way you put things in your newsletters! And this book sounds just as amazing as your other! I can't wait to someday read both!