Hello Grammarian
This is like déjà vu all over again. Last year, one of my resolutions was to edit, revise, rewrite and finish “Goodbye Grammarian”, the novel I wrote for NaNoWriMo 2010. While I made extensive notes for how it needs to be revised, by the end of 2011, I had only gotten about halfway finished with the first round of revisions. The notes are good—they show how plot holes can be fixed or avoided, how character motivations can be clarified and improved, how subplots and supporting characters can be moved from red herrings and walk-ons to truly integrative and meaningful parts of the story.
However, notes for revisions are not revisions.
A series of unavoidable demands in real life forced me to move writing down the priority list, but that’s not the whole story. I continued to write stories for FridayFlash and wrote for other venues and outlets. So what happened with my novel WIP, the thing that should be my highest priority? Good question.
“Goodbye Grammarian” is a science fiction novel, about a superhero (the Grammarian) whose powers derive from amplified substantiation of meme-constructs. Memes are sort of like ideas, but they are shared cultural ideas, not those of an individual. Memes are sometimes so integrated in our culture that we don’t recognize them. For example, the understanding of childhood as a distinct phase of human development is a meme that took hold in Western society about a hundred years ago. For centuries before that, children were seen as small versions of adults. The concept of general or universal education as a means to improve society is a meme that replaced the older meme of education as a way of training the next generation of elites to take over from the current generation of elites.
Communication of abstract concepts via oral language is a meme, one that is almost a hundred thousand years old. Written language is also a meme, perhaps twenty thousand years old. A newer meme is punctuation of written language to improve efficiency of written communication; that meme is only about a thousand years old in Western phoneme-based alphabets, somewhat older (as typographic arrangements) in idioform-based languages.
What does all this have to do with my superhero, the Grammarian? He is able to make memes, which are powerful in the abstract, into projections of energy, powerful in the physical sense. By using the language-processing centers of his brain to augment the performance of his own body and to project language-based meme-constructs. Wrists bound by thick ropes? A cutting remark takes care of them. Need to dodge a bullet? A parenthetical aside allows him to sidestep it. Motorcycle tires skidding on the wet pavement? A sticky metaphor improves their traction. He also has a lot a nifty techno-goodies to augment his innate superpowers. There are downsides to using the powers, of course, but he’s learned to strike a good balance. He’s one of the best crimefighters in Lexicon City.
However, he’s struggling. His arch-enemy, Professor Verbosity, has something big cooking, something REALLY big. The Grammarian is trying to find out what it is, but a second-rate superhero wanna-be, the Avant Guardian, is trying to make a name for himself and keeps interfering with the Grammarian’s work. All of this takes place just as the Grammarian has met a smart, beautiful, creative, and accomplished woman who is… well, let’s just say that even though the Grammarian is far too intelligent and rational to believe in something as silly as love at first sight, he finds himself putting his would-be love life ahead of everything else. Then, when she turns out to be even better (and much, much worse) than he ever could have believed, he has to fight like he’s never fought before to prevent catastrophe for Lexicon City and for himself.
As I write that last paragraph, the story sounds pretty good. So what went wrong?
The trouble was that, during the course of the last year, I lost my faith in the story and in my own ability to tell it.
It was the story
“A superhero who throws semicolons at people? Seriously?” I got cold feet about 60,000 words in. What if, I said to myself, what if this idea is too thin to support a full 90 or 100K book? Isn’t the idea of a language-powered superhero a bit… silly? Won’t these gags get old or too forced? Besides, will anyone really see the interest or the humor in these grammar jokes? After all, this is like the nerdiest, most obscure kind of humor ever, isn’t it? With an audience of, like, 50? Nationwide? Wouldn’t it be better to just junk all the punctuation and grammar-based powers and give him “regular” superpowers, make him a more normal superhero? More… mainstream?
No, it was me
Once you lose faith in the core of the story, the whole writing experience turns to ashes in your mouth. All the jokes that used to be funny are now just dumb. The clever twists and leaps in the plot become jerky and jagged. What isn’t mainstream will be too weird and what IS mainstream is boring.
These concerns have nothing to do with the story itself, of course, but have everything to do with the author.
As I lay in bed, pulling the covers up to my chinny-chin-chin and asking the fearful questions, “But what if they don’t like it? What if they think the story is dumb?”, what I was really asking was, “But what if they think I’m dumb for having written this? What if they don’t like me?”
My Big Project for 2012 is to stop worrying and just write the damned thing.
Look, in the last couple of years we’ve had Elizabeth Bennett as a zombie hunter, Abraham Lincoln as a vampire hunter (soon to be a major motion picture), sparkly vampires in high school (already major motion pictures) and talking dragons… again. It’s not about the characters! It’s not about the setting or the specific superpowers or even the plot or lack thereof.
It’s about the story. Can I tell this story in a way that’s funny and exciting and engaging? Can I make the characters act and move and talk and interact in believable, compelling ways? Can I deliver a story that rises and falls? Goes here and there and back again? Puts people in danger, saves them and puts them in danger again? Sure, I know I can.
However, can I also get out of my own way? Can I stop thinking so much about a theoretical audience and just tell the story? For me, this is what 2012 will be all about. I’ll be working on a novel, but I’ll also be doing brain surgery on myself.
It seems like to me you’ve got a really good idea and, like you said, put pen to paper. Good luck!
Thanks, Kittie!
Losing faith in the core of the novel is a terrible fate. I can appreciate worrying that the Grammarian’s gimmick would wear thin over 100,000 words. That’s a lot of page space if the Grammarian’s powers are the only original element, though I can’t imagine you going into the book with just that one element in mind. Furthermore, like all gimmicks, it’s about execution. There are a lot of nutty things you can do with turning ideas into physical constructs, and there’s a lot of leeway you can earn with the appropriate sense of humility and humor. I can’t help thinking of Pixar’s The Incredibles, which by the end had some very obvious, saw-it-coming drama, but with how much investment they earned over characterization and their semi-humorous handling of action, no decent person minded. If you were me, you loved it.
It is indeed a terrible fate, which is why I brought it out into the open and discussed it with as much honesty as I could summon. The problem here is not the story… it’s me. Far thinner plot ideas have been spun into complete novels. What I’ve been struggling with is knowingly exerting lots effort to write a book that I’m dubious of. See my response to Peter Newman for further thoughts on this.
I did love the Incredibles, primarily for how they interwove all the crazy powers and devices with very human fears, hopes and desires.
There are lots of other superhero gimmicks in this book, for the main characters as well as the supporting cast. Mostly, though, they are there to help tell the story of his balancing superhero obligations with much more normal concerns about life, work, friendship, love and ambition.
What fun it must have been to just sit around and come up with examples of The Grammarian wielding his superpowers!
You know I’ll want a copy of this when it’s done. Or earlier, if you need beta readers.
It has been a lot of fun, actually. A cloud of obfuscations protects him from stab wounds, a coating of irony makes a wall slick and hard to climb, a special weapon blasts doors off their hinges with Dramatic Impact, etc., etc. Good stuff. However, I’m trying to integrate all these gags so that they aren’t just a string of silliness, but are believable in context.
I’ll put you down for the list of beta readers!
The Incredibles is wonderful! I love the bit where…oh hang on we’re here to talk about The Grammarian.
Warning: The following is just my opinion. Feel free to disagree, kick my ass, etc.
To be frank, I don’t want to read about your story ideas because I’d much rather read your story.
I’m in no position to judge but it seems to me like these posts are displacement activity. You’re clearly a talented writer and more experienced than me. So get to it dude!
It sucks that you’ve lost faith in the work. Is it your writers instinct telling you there’s a problem? Is it just a writing wibble? I don’t know and neither do you cos it isn’t finished yet.
When it’s finished then you can worry about it, tweak it etc.
Sorry if I sound abrupt but I feel really strongly about this. Go and finish it. Right now!
Peter, I appreciate your frankness. There are plenty of times when I recognize that I’m writing *about* my WIP instead of actually writing it. While in my darker moments I berate myself for this, in more forgiving times I recognize that this is a way for me to remind myself of why I wanted to write this thing in the first place. It re-invigorates my desire to finish it, re-excites me about it.
Please see my reply to John Wiswell, above. As it happens, I almost abandoned this book in the latter part of NaNoWriMo 2010. To my mind, it had become hackneyed, ponderous and silly. Thanks to the encouragement of some fellow writers, I hit the 50K mark with it to win NaNoWriMo, but there has always been a mixed bag of emotions here. Is this book too strange, the superhero powers too academic and obscure?
If it’s funny to me, I’m comfortable telling a throwaway joke that I know hardly anyone will get. Writing a book that no one gets would be a much greater amount of effort tossed away. This makes me hesitate.
So: is this just a querulous wibble from my pervasive writer’s insecurity (which I can safely ignore)? Or is it a red warning flag from my keen writer’s instincts (which I ignore at my peril)? Who can tell?
I’ve been going through something similar with the novel I’ve been wanting to write for… (the rest is in my post). I think you explained both the doubts and the way out so well.
I’m doing my best to be honest about the mental journey here. You and me, Paul… and perhaps this resonates with others, too.
Certainly resonates with me. You could have pulled your text right out of my skull. Aside from the details of your particular novel, it was as if I’ve had this same commentary in my own head for a long, long time.
I must add… I may very well be Professor Verbosity.
I must warn you: things don’t turn out well for Professor Verbosity.
I’ve been looking forward to your novel coming out, and I have complete faith in your ability to tell the story… even if you don’t.
(
OTOH, I know exactly what you mean, because I’m experiencing the same thing with my (coincidently) 2010 Nano YA fantasy novel. I’m 80% through my 2nd draft and know it still has things I need to fix in at least a couple more drafts- mostly because I’ve added and changed some things. When you start to lose momentum, and you’re reading all these great novels, you start to wonder if you’re good enough. I can’t speak about myself, but I’m POSITIVE you are.
Btw, if you ever need a beta reader, I volunteer!