Conscious Incompetence
It's hard, having been telling stories and writing for twenty-five years now, to stumble upon a form of storytelling or a part of writing that I am not good at. And at this point, it almost feels like I'm regressing, which is another not-so-good feeling. But it's not really regression, it's more coming out of unconscious incompetence and into conscious incompetence in this area, and I'm seeing more of what I'm lacking.
Two days ago I took a nap after work and had a very vivid, story-driven dream, which doesn't happen very often. Every time I have a dream like that, I end up writing something from it. Last time, I wrote a nine thousand word horror novelette before chopping it down to a short story.
This time, it feels like an urban fantasy novel. At least the opening inciting incident part. I've written about five thousand words so far in a very loosey goosey zero draft, and I can almost see something amazing coming of this. The problem? Urban fantasy (to me) is a fantasy+mystery genre, and while I'm pretty good with the fantasy portion, I'm not so good with the mystery.
My solution? I've pulled the first book in my favorite urban fantasy series1 and have been speed-reading it, making notes in the margins on plot and what happens in each chapter. Things like "CLUE!" and "Debate?" and "Backstory and worldbuilding." I'm just about halfway through now, and I might be able to finish tomorrow, and then I might start it over and take some different notes, or I may pick another favorite UF2 to dissect. But my hope is to be able to see better how mysteries are put together in this kind of novel, which would then allow me to do better in my zero draft, which is already messy and will get more messy the more I write.
But it feels good to be back in creation mode. I have something to work on, I have a learning goal, and I am back in my favorite genre. Time to get crackin'!
The October Daye series by Seanan McGuire, if you are curious. Highly recommend.↩
Options include The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher, The Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka, and the Easter Diamond series by Laura Resnick, with The Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne and the Alex Craft series by Kalayna Price as runners up. Also maybe the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman, The Walker Papers by C.E. Murphy, the Greywalker series by Kat Richardson, the Vicki Nelson series by Tanya Huff, and the InCrypted series by Seanan McGuire. Can you tell yet this is my favorite genre?↩