Hello everyone,
It’s been six months almost to the day since my last update on my writing, and while I have made progress, I am not loving what I am creating. Not enough to keep doing it right now.
Back in December I spoke at great length about my idea for a series of Roman books revolving around the military career of Julius Caesar told from the perspective of a soldier who —twist— did not want to be a soldier and spends every book with a side hustle or caper revolving around his true calling as an entrepreneur. I said at the time I feared it would become too much of a ‘boy’s book,’ and while I do enjoy what I’ve written so far, I find myself really struggling with tone. I am part of a monthly writers’ group —none of whom read military historical fiction or know much about the Romans— and so it seems like each month’s submission was as much either sounding out their level of interest or educating them on something that enthusiasts of the genre or the history would already in all likelihood know. Every ranging shot that flew wide of the mark had me wondering, ‘Who exactly am I writing this for?’ and I also still wrestle with the idea that if this first book works, my next several books will be continuations of these same characters, characters who have not taken on a life of their own yet in my mind.
In the last few weeks, I have put down the Roman soldier book and reviewed my half-finished medieval murder mystery that I announced I was setting aside basically a year ago today. There are a lot of great things in that muddled first draft, but I am not in the right headspace to polish up what needs polishing and finish the rest of the piece. It’s too big. Too complicated. There are too many missing pieces, and a lot of what is there probably needs to be rewritten anyway once the first draft is finished. I said I’d pick it up again maybe in a few years. I was wrong to try and do it in a few months just because I am mentally no longer spooked at the thought of writing about a pandemic. Let it sit and stew a little longer in the back of my mind, I guess.
So where does that leave me? It leaves me thinking that my mistake all along has been trying to pick up old ideas. There is a reason I didn’t finish my medieval murder mystery. There is a reason I didn’t finish my Roman soldier story —a story I’ve been kicking around mentally since my early twenties. I need a new idea that I can start from scratch and write with enthusiasm whenever I have time. What does that look like?
My first thought? I should write in the first person. Inca, Beginning, Middle, and End all have a narrator, and all of them were a joy to write. Zulu has an ensemble cast written in the third person, and it is kind of exhausting keeping everyone straight in your head and how they feel about each other, and how much the reader knows about each one, and balancing out showing versus telling to let the reader see how the characters relate to one another. Both of the book ideas I’ve now set aside in the last year were written in third person, and I think that was a major factor. You need to work on the project constantly to keep it all straight in your head, especially while trying to establish a steady tone that is interesting, engaging, and entertaining. A first-person narrative you can start each day thinking, “What do ‘I the protagonist’ want to talk about today?” and then if you’re honest with yourself, at least that day’s effort starts from a clear place.
If my struggle over the last six months —and perhaps the two years before that— has been third person narratives making picking up and putting down a project as I have time a struggle, then there is a simple answer to address that concern: Write in the first person. I think if I go back far enough I wrote one of these updating essays talking about wanting to challenge myself by writing my sixth novel in the third person. Well, it was too challenging. I am not in a place in my life where I can write every day or even every weekend; trying to pick up where I left off in third person just isn’t working for me, so the next idea should be told in first person.
What else? Well, the same two things that encouraged me to pick up my Roman soldier idea are still true. They might even be more true now than they were six months ago. I want to try to traditionally publish this next book, which means it has to be commercially attractive to a known audience of existing readers, and I don’t want to spend a few years researching before I start the project, which means it should be something I already know in great detail. Roman historical fiction sells, and I know Roman history. Whatever my next idea is, I can start writing it from the moment of inspiration forward with confidence it will find an audience on the far side if I work in that space.
Now let’s talk about that audience. I worried about writing a book more interesting to men than women, and I still worry about that. Now I do read military historical fiction —a lot of it— but I also read all kinds of things. My mother, sister, fiancée, and writer’s group do not read military historical fiction. Why would I write something the people who read my first drafts don’t like? This next book will almost certainly be dedicated to my by-then wife. Why am I dedicating a book to her that she would not recommend to her friends?
So, not a Roman military story, although of course things written in times of conflict can have action set pieces. I’m not a crazy person.
What then? When I discussed this in a broad brainstorming session with my fiancée, she said the stories that most interest her are about people and families and their dramas and how they get through difficult situations. She also mentioned she’s interested in stories where women achieve greatness in a world that isn’t interested in having that happen.
I didn’t bore her with the ‘small story inside the big story’ theory of historical fiction, but I am sure I can write a dramatic story about individuals —men and women— caught up in a larger historical context. If that’s the kind of book she wants, I can write that. No problem.
Another thing to put on the wish list, as long as I am conceiving my next project before the idea itself comes into sharp focus? It needs to be short. I don’t mean a short story or a novella, but it can’t be another Inca where we get the life story of a man in his seventies retelling the decline and fall of his civilization. I can’t be signing up for a two- or three-year writing project five months before my wedding day. There are just way too many things that are going on in my world for me to say, “Today’s ten pages put me 1% of the way towards finishing the first draft.” I need to shoot for a 200- to 250-page manuscript, which coincidentally is going to be a much easier sell to an agent when I try to get traditionally published anyway.
So not a big sweeping nose-to-tail historical epic. Something intimate. Something that happens in a reasonable timeframe of days and months instead of years and decades. Maybe even what might be called a mood piece.
To expand upon what I mean by ‘mood piece,’ I think a lot of great fiction is a reflection of its time. Do you think people are generally happy with the way things are going right now? There is a conversation starter among Roman history enthusiasts that often goes something like, “Do you think people in the decline of the Roman Empire knew it was in decline?” Twenty years ago I think there were a lot more people on the side of, “No, they were born into a world of turmoil, and they lived their lives in that world,” whereas today I think most people can say, “I was happier twenty years ago than I am today, and I don’t think things are getting better. The world is a darker place today than it was in the 90s.”
Isn’t there a way to write something like that into Roman history? Lord knows they had their dark times. How did people ride out the storms? What was life like not on the high points but on the downward slopes? Where are the family stories—especially families with important parts played by women— that would make a satisfying read that reflects how we see ourselves all these centuries later?
I’m chewing on it. Clearly, I’m chewing on it. I won’t wait six months to do an update. I’ll let you know when I find the story I want to share.
Anyway, that’s the news from me today. Cheers!
–Geoff
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