{"id":31160,"date":"2017-06-22T07:49:15","date_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/?p=31160"},"modified":"2017-06-22T07:49:15","modified_gmt":"2017-06-22T11:49:15","slug":"linda-nagata-five-things-i-learned-writing-the-last-good-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/2017\/06\/22\/linda-nagata-five-things-i-learned-writing-the-last-good-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Linda Nagata: Five Things I Learned Writing The Last Good Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

Scarred by war. In pursuit of truth.<\/em><\/p>\n

Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big data, and artificial intelligence are all tools used to augment the skills of veteran warfighters-for-hire. But the tragedy of war is still measured in human casualties, and when True makes a chance discovery during a rescue mission, old wounds are ripped open. She\u2019s left questioning what she knows of the past, and resolves to pursue the truth, whatever the cost.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201c…a thrilling novel that lays bare the imminent future of warfare.\u201d \u2014Publishers Weekly starred review<\/em><\/p>\n

Some novels are hard to write and some novels are really, really hard. The Last Good Man<\/em> was the latter type, hard-fought from beginning to end. It was also my fourteenth novel. You\u2019d think I would have learned how to do this by now\u2014but every novel presents a different challenge. These are some of the lessons I picked up from The Last Good Man<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look too far ahead.<\/h2>\n

I\u2019m a plotter. Before I start a novel, I\u2019ll create a rough (really rough) outline that includes some way of ending the story. So when I say, \u201cDon\u2019t look too far ahead,\u201d I\u2019m not talking about the bare bones of plot, but rather about all the shiny details that will put flesh on those bones.<\/p>\n

This is a lesson I have to relearn with every novel. I think for some novelists, the great blank canvas at the start of a project is thrilling in an anything-is-possible way. But for some of us the knowledge that the blank canvas needs to be filled in with great story, compelling characters, and scintillating descriptions is overwhelming and intimidating. So I try not to look too far ahead. I try not to think too hard about all that will be required of me between the beginning and the end because that will only conjure fear: the fear of not living up to the project\u2019s potential, of not being up to the task of bringing to life the work I want to create\u2026 and fear is debilitating. Far better to focus on the immediate task, the simple day-to-day accumulation of words.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s easy to say, of course, but often it\u2019s hard to do. That\u2019s why…<\/p>\n

Sometimes it helps to lie to yourself.<\/h2>\n

My persistent lie as I was writing The Last Good Man<\/em> was that this novel was going to be 100,000 words, no more. That\u2019s a good length. Not a doorstop, but plenty of room for story. It\u2019s also easy to measure progress\u201410,000 words? Hey, I\u2019m already 10% done! (Wow<\/em>, now that\u2019s a lie so extreme\u2014ignoring all the revision to come\u2014that I shiver.) Still, if bogus cheerleading gets the job done, then cheer away! That\u2019s my philosophy, even though, deep down, I knew this novel was destined to shoot right past that handy 100K mark.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible to start over while still moving ahead.<\/h2>\n

Hard-fought, remember? From the start, I was scrabbling through literary badlands, hunting for good words, gathering them up into paragraphs and chapters\u2014but it all felt thin, inadequate, and bland. So, thirty thousand words in, I started over. Sort of.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been writing in past tense, but one day I shifted to present tense and decided I liked the energy of it. So I stuck with it\u2014and that meant I needed to rewrite everything that had come before. In other words, start over.<\/p>\n

But I didn\u2019t start over at the beginning. Instead, I spent my mornings writing the new parts in present tense, and then, at the end of the day, I dropped back to the most recent past-tense chapters and rewrote those, working backward toward the beginning.<\/p>\n

Why did I work backward? I have no idea! But it worked, and I was far, far happier with the tone of the novel.<\/p>\n

Escaping the clutches of the past takes time.<\/h2>\n

Writing a novel is an emotional process. It\u2019s like being in a relationship. You think, this one is special<\/em>. You give it your all. You just know it\u2019s all going to work out. Your early readers agree. The reviews come in and it\u2019s all great. Maybe you write another book or two, make it a series. But at some point, it\u2019s over. You have to let go, you have to move on, and that\u2019s not always easy.<\/p>\n

My project prior to The Last Good Man<\/em> was the Red trilogy and I was proud of those books. For a while it looked like the trilogy would be my breakout work…but somehow that didn\u2019t quite happen, and like a bad breakup, it took time to really accept that and to move on, and to let myself connect emotionally with another project. I was over 65,000 words into The Last Good Man<\/em> before I reached that point. So keep going! It will<\/em> happen.<\/p>\n

Every novel is different, so be prepared to break your own rules.<\/h2>\n

Every writer is different, for sure. We all have our own methods, our own rules. Since the beginning of time, one of my rules has been don\u2019t show a partial draft to anyone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Okay. I admit that when required\u2014and it\u2019s been rare in my career\u2014I\u2019ve sent a synopsis and maybe a few thousand words to editor or agent. But I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever shared partials with writers groups or critique partners, partly because I\u2019m shy about my unfinished work, but more importantly, it\u2019s my belief that an early draft is a fragile thing. Sharing it is a risk. If an early beta reader tells me that the-story-so-far is boring, or silly, or incomprehensible, or whatever, there\u2019s a good chance I\u2019ll believe them. Self-doubt is always lurking, ready to grow more powerful with the least encouragement. So my philosophy is to finish the story first, then face the beast. Er, I mean my very helpful beta readers.<\/p>\n

But with The Last Good Man<\/em> I reached a point where I was stuck. I\u2019d been struggling with it for months and though I had over 70,000 words I also had two contending protagonists and I still didn\u2019t know whose story it really<\/em> was\u2014which meant that I didn\u2019t know how to end it. So I broke my rule and sent what I had to my freelance editor, Judith Tarr, who\u2019d worked with me on the Red trilogy. Judy did a terrible thing. She read and responded to the partial in about three days when I wanted to take at least a week off! But her feedback proved to be the turning point. It made me consider more deeply what the novel was about and what the ending might be, and from then on I made swift progress through to the end\u2014which I reached just shy of 140,000 words.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

Linda is a Nebula and Locus-award-winning writer, best known for her high-tech science fiction, including the Red trilogy, a series of near-future military thrillers. The first book in the trilogy, The Red: First Light<\/em>, was a Nebula and John W. Campbell Memorial-award finalist, and named as a Publishers Weekly<\/em> Best Book of 2015. Her short fiction has appeared in Analog<\/em>, Asimov\u2019s<\/em>, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction<\/em>, Lightspeed<\/em>, Nightmare, <\/em>and several anthologies.<\/p>\n

Linda has lived most of her life in Hawaii, where she\u2019s been a writer, a mom, a programmer of database-driven websites, and an independent publisher. She lives with her husband in their long-time home on the island of Maui.<\/p>\n

Linda Nagata: Website <\/a><\/span>| Twitter<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The Last Good Man<\/em>: Amazon<\/a> <\/span>| Kobo <\/a><\/span>| B&N<\/a><\/span>\u00a0| iBooks<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scarred by war. In pursuit of truth. Army veteran True Brighton left the service when the development of robotic helicopters made her training as a pilot obsolete. Now she works at Requisite Operations, a private military company established by friend and former Special Ops soldier Lincoln Han. ReqOp has embraced the new technologies. Robotics, big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-31160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-theramble","8":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pv7MR-86A","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31163,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31160\/revisions\/31163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/terribleminds.com\/ramble\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}