Getting To Know You

Readers will sometimes ask me:  What's the most difficult part of writing a book?  Is it coming up with the plot and character ideas?  Writing the manuscript itself?  Editing?  Marketing?

Well, all of those phases of the writing process have their own challenges, but I think there's one phase that is harder than the others.  As I get started on book six, I'm in the midst of that phase right now.  It's the early chapters of the book.

I know where I'm going in book six.  I have a plot outline that I can't wait to explore in the draft itself.  I'm excited about the characters.  But now I have to start putting it all into words.  Once you're about a third of the way into the manuscript, the book begins to develop a momentum of its own.  The characters become fully formed in your head, and in an odd way, they help you with the writing itself, because their actions and dialogue start to seem natural.

Right now?  Not so much.  In the early chapters, you're still getting to know the characters.  They're still strangers.  I know some of their life stories, but I really don't know yet how they think, talk, act, and behave (or misbehave).  So it's a slow process, with lots of re-writes, as I start to put the first few brush strokes on the canvas.

It's been this way with every book, and I always say I'll remember it next year.  But I don't.  I still find myself in the early pages saying:  Why is this so hard?  Has it always been this hard?  Yes, it has, and I imagine it always will.  Soon enough, in the next couple of months, the people in this book will feel like old friends.  Now, I'm just finding out who they are.