Storytellersunplugged

Do You See What I See?

While attending the annual conference of the Horror Writers Association a few weeks ago, I participated in a panel discussion on getting that first break with a mass market publisher. One of the questions put to myself and my three companions on the panel revolved around what we thought was the best tool, process, or practice that we had learned in our careers to date. At the time, I answered that I had learned to write a great proposal, that my proposals were the kind of things that made editors sit up and take notice.

It seemed a fair response to the question.

But as time has passed, and I’ve had time to reflect on both the question and the answer I gave, I realize that there is something even more important that I’ve learned since I got into this strange business. Something, in fact, that every good writer has to learn in order to capture the attention of their readers. To draw them inside the pages of their books. To turn them from a passive observer into an active participant in the storyline that is unfolding before them.

We have to learn to visualize.

But we can’t just “see” it. We have to learn to “visualize” in four dimensions and in five senses, to be exact. And then, even more importantly, we have to teach ourselves to take that vision out of our heads and translate it, whole and intact, onto the page for another to experience in the same fashion that we have.

That’s the tool that’s made the most difference in my short career to date. And it’s a tool that I’m still very much learning how to use.

You see, I have an odd habit that drives my in-house editor nuts. Unlike the vast majority of writers, I don’t write anything in literal order. None of that “chapter one then chapter two then chapter three” stuff for me, thank you very much. I’m far more a slave to my muse than that. When I sit down to stare at the blank screen of my computer each day, I have no choice but to write the scene that I see playing out on the theater of my mind at that moment, regardless of where in the storyline it finds its home, the scene that my muse lays out before me like a treasure unveiled. If I don’t, if I dare ignore the signals she is sending out to me, I find my productivity severely stunted, my work less bright, less sure, less “there” in some strange fashion.

For example, my first novel, RIVERWATCH, started with what would later become chapter thirty-five. In that scene, two of the novel’s heroes are hiding beneath the half-submerged remains of a decaying boathouse on the shore of a fog-covered lake, while the winged creature that hunts them perches on the boathouse roof, unaware that its quarry is only inches away. I had no clue how the heroes had gotten there or how they were going to get themselves out of their predicament when I put pencil to paper (RIVERWATCH having been written long-hand on legal pads over the course of a college semester.) Nor did I have any idea why the creature was hunting them. Or even what the beast was called, for that matter. All I had was that crystal clear image before me. I could feel the cold of the water pressing against my skin, could hear its gentle lapping against the rotting pillars as I worked my arms in a slowly-failing effort to keep myself afloat, the sound itself oddly muted by the heavy presence of the low-lying fog. I could sense the nearness of the hunter, the sudden tightness in my gut as I waited with dread for the creature’s claws to tear through the decaying wood above my head and reach for my tender flesh.

I had no clue what it all meant or where it was going – but I was there, body, mind, and soul. And somehow I found the words to bring the reader right along with me.

I look back now and am amazed that that first novel ever made any kind of real sense. Chapter thirty five was followed by what would become chapter twenty two. That in turn was followed by what would later become the book’s epilogue and so on and so on. Somewhere along the way I stitched all of those major scenes together into a coherent whole, a Frankenstein monster made of words instead of reanimated body parts. That first draft would sit around in a shoebox for almost fifteen years before being rediscovered and the dreaded process of editing that enormous mess would begin.

I’ve gotten better, in the years since. But only because I’ve worked at cultivating that sense of visualization, practicing how I would approach different situations, writing the same scene over and over again from different perspectives, to capture the scene with an emphasis on different senses and then combining them into an integrated whole.

So if you were there that night, ignore what I said. Writing a good proposal is important, yes, but learning the art of visualizing – well, that’s a whole ‘nother ball game.

-Joe Nassise

PS – We’ve reached the end of our first month of activity here at Storytellersunplugged. Do us all a favor and drop us a line, tell us how we’re doing. You can email comments to me at author@josephnassise.com.