Writing a book part 1: Looking for a ship
Whenever someone tells me they want to write a book but they’re not sure quite what it’s going to be yet, I think of Captain Washburn in John McPhee’s Looking For A Ship:
When you get close to a big storm, you can feel it. For some reason, the ship takes on almost a little uncertainty. She’s almost like a live thing—like they say animals can sense bad weather coming. Sometimes I almost believe a ship can. I know that doesn’t make sense, because she’s steel and wood and metal, but she picks up a little uncertainty, probably something that is being transmitted through the water. It’s hard to define. It’s just a tiny little different motion, a little hesitancy, a little tremble from time to time.
When first starting out with a book, writers can spend a lot of time treading water. Is my idea the right idea? What if I have a few things I’m excited about right now, and any one of them could be a book?
When you’re struggling defining the book you’re going to write, try to be finding your book instead—all possible versions are out there, they already exist, waiting in dock for you to board and give them purpose. Many are seaworthy. Your job is to find the ship you want to captain—the live one. That means priming your mind for creative wandering and test riding different ideas. In the next few posts, that’s what we’ll do—starting at the beginning, with an exercise below, and ending up with an outline for your next book.
What Do I Know?
Questions are information, and doubts are questions. When you feel like you don’t “know” anything, list all of the questions you have:
related to process and put these aside—they’re really valuable for later, but you don’t need them now. These questions are things like, “How do I do the outline?” and “How do I write the chapters?” (If easier, you can write, “I don’t know…” instead of forming questions.)
related to the craft of the book, like, “How do I do transitions?” and “I want to write literary nonfiction but I don’t think I can.” Put these aside.
related to practice, including how much work it might take, how you’re going to show up, and fears or worries like, “Will anyone care about this?” and “Is there any point to this?” and “Can I do this?” Gather and put aside.
Now that you’ve cleared your mind of concerns that won’t help you right now, write down the big idea you’re considering for your book. If you have a few competing ideas, write each of them down.
Then, summarize the idea with what you know and don’t know.
For example, “This book is about my dogs. It will include stories about all the people who stop to meet them, and it’ll be literary and descriptive. It’ll be deeply researched and I have a list of books already that I want to read. I don’t know what the larger meaning of the book is yet, but I know I want it to be a universal message.” Your summary can be this long or might be much longer than this.
You may also make a list of ‘things I know’ and ‘questions I have.’
Do this summary for each of the competing ideas you have.
That’s enough for this week. Sorting out your questions and what you know about your idea or ideas will relieve you of the pressure to solve too much at once. You can’t ask process questions before you have an idea you’re really excited about, and doing so will keep you from starting. Then, listing what you know and don’t know about your ideas will help the possible ships come into view. Maybe already you know which one is not seaworthy or belongs to someone else.
For the promising ship or ships that remain, let yourself daydream. One by one, take them out of the harbor. Think about the characters you’ll pick up along the way, the name you’ll emblazon on the butt, the statue you’ll carve at the nose, how you’ll lay out the starmap for your friends and family and point to the destination—here is where this ship can go. Here is where I took it.
You’re not looking for the most solid, noble craft that everyone will understand and admire—that one might sink with one unexpected complication, and is full of the ghosts of past captains. Instead, you’re looking for the nimble craft you can steer yourself, that will keep you afloat for many months and isn’t so strong it’ll wear you out. You find your ship by taking a few promising ideas out of the harbor, standing barefoot on the deck, and feeling for which one is alive, which one trembles.
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Come back here next week for more thoughts and exercises to help you scope your book idea :)
Happy writing!
