I have been working on my novel, Reflections of Us, since around October of last year, but I didn’t officially begin and complete the true first draft until February. Actually, I completed that first draft in roughly two to three weeks. How did I do it? No idea. I just obsessively wrote every day.
You may be thinking, “Shawn, that’s nice and all, but why the hell are you writing a blog post about flexibility?” I’m glad you asked! I’m writing about it because it has been a vital part of my process and I don’t think my book would be what it needs to be if I didn’t allow myself the flexibility to explore ideas and possibilities.
If you need an example, let’s use my book’s evolution. I mentioned in What inspired my novel? that my book started as a near copy of a My Hero Academia fan fiction that I wrote. My main character, David was meant to be like Katsuki Bakugou and my other main character, Lucas was based on Izuku Midoriya.
Plot Point 1: In my fan fiction, we begin with following Izuku around school as he struggles to get over the loss of Katsuki, who was kidnapped by the League of Villains two years prior. Spolier: In the manga and anime, Katsuki is rescued a few days after being kidnapped, but in my fan fiction, the heroes’ efforts fail.
Plot Point 2: We eventually switch to Katsuki’s perspective as he struggles with being captured and the League of Villains stealing his quirk. Finding him to be no longer a threat, the League leaves him alone and he is allowed to escape. He eventually meets up with a kind trucker who helps him heal from his situation.
Plot Point 3: Izuku and Katsuki find each other again, confess their love, and reconcile. There is some smut interlaced with the sweetness of true love. 😉
There is more to it than that, of course, but you get the idea. With all of that in mind, my novel originally was going to be similar in vibe and plot, but set in the United States in the modern world (no super powers, sadly). Instead of Izuku in high school, I began with Lucas in college, haunted by the sudden disappearance of his friend years prior. When we finally switch to David’s point of view, we learn that his parents had him secretly sent to a gay conversion “therapy” program where he was abused. Eventually, he escapes and meets a kind trucker who helps him heal (sound familiar?) and piece his life back together, though he never forgets Lucas, the boy he loves but never had the chance to tell. Later, Lucas and David are reunited, confess their love, and reconcile (no smut this time, though – it’s YA, after all). Again, sound familiar?
So why did I pretty much end up scrapping the entire plot and starting over? I think it was several reasons. First, I realized that my fan fiction wasn’t portable to an original novel because I had to build my own world with my own characters and backstories. In many ways, fan fiction is much easier to write because all of that is built for you. I already knew Katsuki’s and Izuku’s histories. Sure, I made some things up, but for the most part, it was all right there for me thanks to the creator of My Hero Academia, Kōhei Horikoshi. Second, no matter how hard I pushed, my characters were not conforming to my plans for them. And to add to that, the more I pushed on the plot, the worse it got. After months of writing and thinking and overthinking, I was no closer to a finished novel than when I started.
Now here’s where the flexibility comes in. I started thinking about the basics of the plot and once I settled on that, it slowly came to life on its own with small nudges from me. Before I knew it, the story I actually wanted to write began to take shape and it didn’t take long to get myself to a first draft. I spent time editing and adding to it to flesh it out a bit before having my brother make the first editing pass. On the second draft, I beefed it up and added around 24k words because there were more ideas that came from some of his comments. For the third and, what I thought would be, final draft, my goal was polish. In the second draft, I had added new characters, tied up loose ends, added a bit more drama so now, I want to make the writing pretty.
I finished about a chapter of polishing when it happened. My brother said he had an idea that would probably require some big changes, but he wanted to mention it just in case. And damnit, it was a good idea! It involved adding yet another character who would actually be critical to the story. Of course, I don’t have to accept the idea. I could continue polishing and it would probably be a good book. But it wouldn’t be the best book it could be. The change would give the story more depth without adding too much complexity. Sure, the changes are significant, but if it tells a better story, I need to do it.
I have barely started making changes and one of my main characters (David) is already becoming a different person because of those changes. It’s beautiful to witness and I’m thankful that I have the honor of writing his story. I imagine other characters will change as I go along, and I hope they do. I want to see who they become and where they take me.
If you walk away with anything after reading this post, let it be this: give your plot and characters the room to grow. You’ll leave your writing sessions in awe of how much your plot and characters will change if you let them.