I love quotes. Especially quotes about writing. And I’ve just found one that pertains to writing (or just about any other human endeavor), but comes from a man who found his success in advertising. First, the quote, then a few remarks.

“If I have gone higher than others in advertising, or done more, the fact is not due to exceptional ability, but to exceptional hours. It means that a man has sacrificed all else in life to excel in this one profession. It means a man to be pitied, rather than envied, perhaps.” Claude C. Hopkins, My Life in Advertising

From a practical standpoint, Mr. Hopkins is right. Many mediocre writers succeed because they are tireless and persistent in reaching for their goals. Other more talented authors remain unpublished because they gave up too early or became bored with the process or because some other more alluring activity captured their heart.

So, yes, practically speaking, it is mostly true that to be successful as a writer, it will mean “exceptional hours” and it will mean “sacrifice.”

However, the end result should not be, as it was with Mr. Hopkins, that success should warrant pity. Christians who pursue writing are doing so because they feel compelled by God to write—and to succeed. And so when success is attained, the person should simply feel satisfied that he or she has seen the fruit of their calling. Others should neither envy or pity the successful writer, but should look to that writer as someone who is joyfully doing what God wants them to do.

This brings me to another brief observation—and one I’m still learning (especially this week). When you feel you have a commission from God to do a specific writing project, it’s vital that all through the process you turn to Him for counsel and keep your own grubby hands off the work. My own example is that of a book I feel compelled to write (and no one feels compelled to publish….YET). The book proposal has gone in fits and starts as I’ve plundered and blundered along. More than once I’ve wanted to throw up my hands and give up. But as many of you have no doubt experienced in your own writing, this is “the project that will not die.” It won’t leave me alone, no matter how flustrated I get. (Did I just coin a new word there?).
And today it occurred to me—again—that there is no reason for me to be so distraught over this book. If God has commissioned it, then I just need to be faithful to that commission and keep my ears open for His voice telling me, “Go this way, not that way” or “Don’t write the story like that, you dunderhead” (okay, God does not call me a dunderhead…just in case you wondered).

What I’m getting at is that once I began this particular book, I had a vision of what it was to look like. But guess what? That’s not God’s vision for what the book is supposed to look like. And whose vision do you think must change? Every so often I catch myself working on the project in such a way as to match my vision….and that’s when I have to catch myself, back up, and do it according to God’s vision.

Here’s an assignment: if you’ve never read Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby and Claude King, I want you to do so and to do so with your writing talents in mind as you read. I think it will help you. Especially if what I’ve said above doesn’t seem to make sense.

Here are the responses from those who most agreed with this statement regarding their writing: I begin with a certain vision for the book, but when the final draft is finished, I’m astonished at how different the book has turned out from how I originally envisioned it.

As I mentioned in part one above, if an author was unclear on their response, I put them in the group that seemed most appropriate to their answer.

Jerry Jenkins (fiction and non-fiction): I’m closest to answer 3. I find myself in the Stephen King school of novel writing. I try to put interesting characters in difficult situations and write to find out what happens. I call it writing by process of discovery. If it is serendipitous to me, it should not be predicable to the reader.

When fans write and say, “Why did you kill off my favorite character?” I write back, “I didn’t kill him off; I found him dead.”

Of course, publishers want to know the story before you write it, but I always contract with the caveat that fiction is by nature organic and that the characters need their own voices and heads, and the story needs to go where it wants to go. So the result is often surprising to me.

BJ Hoff (fiction): No. 3 would most closely apply for me. However, after writing so many novels over the years, I’m not actually surprised at how much the final version changes by the time I complete the manuscript. I’ve learned that the final rendering is almost certain to be vastly different from my original conception. That’s just the way it works for me. I imagine the fact that I’m not an outliner has something to do with that.

Mindy Starns Clark (fiction and non-fiction): Depends entirely on your definition of “original vision.” My process is to start with some internal brainstorming on a few basic ideas, do a little research to get my head around the necessary and most important facts that I’ll be working with, think on it some more, then finally sit down by myself or with John and sketch out the whole plot using pencil and a giant pad of paper. (lots of arrows and stick figures, lol, but it makes sense to me!) Immediately after that, I put the whole thing into 1-3 paragraphs of something like catalog copy, a general description that I can refer to as needed. If that initial copy is what you mean by my original vision, then the answer is #3. My final book will have evolved pretty far from that original description/plot session.

My next step is to go into more detailed research, do serious character work for the heroine/hero/villian (usually with the help of Myers-Briggs), and also sketch out a full description of “what really happened” (a tedious but painful necessity when writing a mystery) that includes motives, the causes of red herrings, the murder method, etc. Once that part of the work is all finished, I have a much fuller idea of my book and so my answer would be #2.

After that, I sit down and hammer out an outline of the story itself, which is different from the What Really Happened version. That one is about the crime, this one is about how my heroine goes about solving the crime. This outline is about 20-40 pages, sort of shorthand version of the final thing. By the time my outline is finished, the hardest but also the most fun part is finished as well. The tedium of the actual page by page writing comes next. There are some differences between this outline and the final book, but not a ton. So the answer would be #3.

T. Davis Bunn (fiction): This to me is not a simple question. If I take my current work as an example: ‘Lion of Babylon’ is the first time I have ever based a story upon my experiences of working and living in the Middle East. I wrote the outline over a six month period, coming back to it time and again between other projects. Then I just sat on it for months, knowing I needed something more, but not sure what it was. Finally I showed it to Carol Johnson and Dave Horton at Bethany House. It was only when I received their feedback that I felt the book begin to genuinely solidify.

Generally when preparing the outline, I focus upon my weakest areas. In this case, my desire was to have half the story told from the pov of an Arab Christian. What does it mean to live as a member of a minority faith? What are the current circumstances faced by such a person and their family? In order for such issues to NOT get in the way of the overall story, I need to grow utterly comfortable with this man, his world, and his ‘skin’, at the outline phase.

In the first draft, the aim is balance. All the various elements of the story need to be molded into a smooth orchestral arrangement. With this story, my aim was to reveal a deep complexity in a simple fashion, much like what I did with ‘Great Divide’. The more complex and emotional the issues, the simpler the structure needs to be. I have always found this to be a vital truth of good storytelling. Like in ‘Divide’, I wanted to go beyond the basic components of a good thriller, and tell a story with heart.

In general, the crucial change between outline and first draft is the climax. I have never had my first vision of the climax actually become the book’s culmination. ‘Lion of Babylon’ is no exception. As usual, what I envisioned as the climax actually became one of the crucial moments LEADING to the climax. I find I like this uncertainty, this unexpectedness. If I don’t know, the reader normally can’t anticipate.

At the same time, I need to have some sense of the ultimate goal. Where is the story headed? Having a climax in mind is crucial. Having it change is part of the fun.

Lauraine Snelling (fiction): My response is somewhere between two and three. My assistant is convinced that a couple of books I wrote were so far from the outline that I could write thole books now and give readers a whole new book. I outline and work on the characters but when great ideas appear half way through, I am thrilled. That’s the story at work and I am the servant to the story.

Stephen Bly (fiction): I have NO IDEA where a story is going when I get started, so everything is a surprise. Sometimes I have a vague idea how it might end . . . but I’m never bound to that. I build strong characters and a dynamic setting, then put my characters into the scene and see what they do. Every day I write is a surprise. I love it. I just let the characters tell their own story. They are much better storytellers than I am, after all . . . it’s their lives.

Colleen Coble (fiction): I would choose number three. That’s the beauty of the writing process for me. I love seeing where the characters and plot are going to twist and change. I love seeing the spiritual theme come out in ways I never anticipated. I’ve tried forcing the characters and plot to conform to my original idea but it wasn’t fun for me. So I’ve never done it again.

Greg Smith (fiction): So far this is my answer – at least for the last two books.

Yvonne Lehman (fiction): My final draft turns out differently than how I originally envisioned it in that the initial idea and overview are like a flat balloon. Having written several books I’ve learned to expect the unexpected. That’s the exciting part of writing for me. My characters take on a life and as in real life, do astonishing things. When I first begin my story I’m concerned that my characters will remain as flat and dull as I first envision. However, to me at least, they take shape, become several dimensional and interesting.

Linda Clare (fiction): I’m definitely a “3” but hope to be a “2” as I gain experience in fiction.

Nick again: This was fun! I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you glean from this that there are many different ways to succeed at writing. Find the method that’s most comfortable to you. If the way you’re doing it now isn’t working, try another way. Keep experimenting, keep growing, keep writing!

Oh, and one more thing. If you’re unfamiliar with some of the writers in the survey, check out their works on Amazon. These people are succeeding at their craft. I’m learning from them and I hope you are too.

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I recently sent out a survey question to several prominent writers of fiction and/or nonfiction, most of whose names you’ll recognize. There were three choices from which to choose, and each of the following three blog entries are based on those three answers.

I enjoy hearing HOW writers work. As you’ll see, different writers have different ways of writing a successful novel. Some like BJ Hoff do not outline. Others, like Mindy Starns Clark find outlining crucial to their story. And yet both BJ and Mindy chose answer number three below. Go figure. That’s what’s so fun about hearing how writers work.

Most authors were clear about their choice, however when they wavered or were not clear, I chose for them, based on the entirety of their answer.

Here was the question and the answers follow.

When you’ve turned in a final draft of a new book, how different is it from your original vision for the book when you began?

3. I begin with a certain vision for the book, but when the final draft is finished, I’m astonished at how different the book has turned out from how I originally envisioned it. Comments from authors who chose number one follow:

Cecil Murphey (primarily non-fiction): I’m between one and two, but I’d say, FAIRLY close because I do extensive research first. I remain open and generally I add only illustrations to explain what I’ve already planned

Brandilyn Collins (fiction): #1 for me. I tend to write differently from a lot of my colleagues. I write each page the way I want it as I go along. No quick first draft for me, then fixing it. So my “first draft” is the draft I turn in to the editor. Yeah, I go back and read through and do a little editing before turning in, but it’s minor sentence structure stuff.

Bill Myers (fiction): Coming from a screenplay background where you only have 110-120 minutes to tell a story, every scene is crucial, particularly in suspense thrillers. No time to head down rabbit trails or meander . . . so for better or worse, I’m #1 guy. I work from a detailed, scene by scene outline.

Camy Tang (fiction): There are small things that might change, like I might change a minor character or add a couple scenes to reveal a clue to the reader, or delete a scene that I later decide is redundant, or alter a scene in order to make it work better logically with the events of the story.

Before I begin writing I usually have an extensive synopsis and sometimes I have a detailed scene index that lists out what each scene should be and what I need to accomplish in each scene. The synopsis and scene index usually takes more time to create than the actual writing of the manuscript. However, my editors appreciate the detailed synopsis because they know exactly where I’m going in terms of pacing, plot, and character, and I don’t deviate much from the synopsis.

P.K. Hallinan (non-fiction): I usually change my books about 10% from the original draft.

Ellen Gunderson Traylor (fiction): I am close to Number 1. However, sometimes the characters take over and direct the book in unanticipated ways. Since so many of my books have been historical novels, the plot is predetermined, to a large extent. The surprises happen more in the contemporary or more fanciful stories.

Clint Kelly (both fiction and non-fiction): Of course there are twists and turns I never anticipated – a manuscript needs to be a living, breathing thing so as not to come off rigid and immune to improvement. But typically I’ve carried the essential framework in my head for several months before ever putting words to paper. By then, it has become “the story” and my job is to stay true to that story before it has a chance to evaporate.

Colleen Reece (fiction): I plan carefully so the story itself usually remains pretty much on course. However, knowing where I am going permits me to make intelligent decisions when the story or characters want to deviate. If new events and insight fit the overall plan, I include them and enrich the story If they detract, I reject. The difference between the two versions is that the final is much deeper and meaningful.

The key word here is usually. Once in a long a plot idea or character clamors so strongly to be written that before doing outlines and character charts, I simply start. Note: I’ve also discovered I need to draft the first chapter before brainstorming the rest of the book.

You will get a laugh out of what happened with my first published novel, The Heritage of Nurse O’Hara. I couldn’t see taking months to write a book that might never sell so I dashed off the first chapter and sent it to Avalon Books. Biiig mistake. Three days later I got a letter from the editor praising it and asking for the whole manuscript! There was a happy ending. I told her the work was “in progress,” as it was. Avalon published it and years later it was picked up for a LP Library Edition hardback.

Now I threaten dire consequences to my students or anyone who even considers taking such a shortcut. Good did come out of my experience– a “Write Smarter, not Harder ” workbook; i.e., “pre write, don’t rewrite.” Lauraine Snelling and others have used the motto and method in their writing and teaching for decades.

Authors who chose number one without comment include James Scott Bell (fiction) and Mary DeMuth (for her non-fiction).

Read on to part two below.