Writer's Craft: Layering

Back in the 1980's I had an art teacher who told me that I couldn't just start in one corner of a page and paint my way across to the other side. I was young, stubborn and secretly convinced that I knew more than anyone else in the world on just about any subject. Yes, I was that kid. Fortunately I not only grew into a man who admits his mistakes, but learns to apply what he learns to other parts of life.

That blank canvas can be a deceptively intimidating thing. The key is to get something on the page. It's much easier to adapt something that is already there than to create something from scratch. Sketch it out and get a feel for where everything is going to go. Then start layering on more levels. Pile on the details until you can't see the sketch below any longer. If you do it long enough, it takes on a life of its own and even you might forget how it started.

My first draft of Haunting all those years ago was only 80 pages long, and it took me well over a year to get that far. However, I did have a clear beginning, middle and end. For the most part, the skeleton of the story it would be was all present in that emaciated version of the story. It just wasn't particularly pretty. Then I added another layer. In the beginning, Bruce was an only child. When I added Jade and Paul, I knew that I was onto something. Then I realized that the town itself felt old, but not particularly sinister. So I went back to the beginning and layered on a deeper setting. You get the idea.

So before I step away and work on something else for a while, I just wanted to assure the young writers out there that starting is hard. I've still got quite a few false start manuscripts gathering dust in the filing cabinet. Although the words they contain are different, their story is the same. I tried to write a novel in one giant marathon and fizzled around page 40. But here's the secret: every novel is ugly at first. Just knuckle down and power through. Get to the end. Beginnings are always messy, but it's what happens next that holds the potential for beauty. As one of my many teachers told me so long ago, the magic happens in the editing, not in the first draft.