discovery writer – Kara Jorgensen

I have a confession: I hate starting a new book.

This probably sounds weird from someone who loves writing, their characters, stories, etc., but the actual starting part is the absolute worst for me. I’m not one of those writers who gets an idea and immediately dives headfirst to bang out 10,000 words in a few days before hitting the wall when they get to the middle. No matter how hard the spirit of inspiration strikes, I never get that sort of burst at the beginning of a story. The beginning is always the slowest part of the writing process for me. I’m constantly having false starts, stalling, reworking or clarifying things. The beginning of a book is about feeling things out and trying to get the shape of it in my mind before I get too far. My process is probably closest to a sculptor using a piece of a marble. They have to inspect the veins and natural curves and weaknesses of the rock before they get too far, lest they ruin it.

I’ve said it previously in other posts about my writing process, but I hate mess. I’m not the kind of person who can speed-run through a draft and deal with the problems later. If I have a super messy draft, there’s a 90% chance I will just chuck it in the bin and move on instead of dealing with it. Because I am mess averse, I tend to be a slower writer but a quick editor. My writing has been gone over so many times by the time I reach the editing stage that the draft is fairly clean. At the same time, I don’t have hyper-productive days with astronomical word counts because that would mean cleaning up a lot of mess later. Occasionally, I do have these days, but they’re often toward the very end of the story when I know exactly where I’m going and what needs to happen.

The beginning of a book is like standing at an eight-way intersection. I have too many choices and I haven’t puzzled out where they all lead yet, so I get decision paralysis. Some people will say just pick something and deal with the consequences. Yeah, no, I’d rather take a few hours or days to figure out what won’t work before charging down a certain path and making a mess for myself. I’m a careful writer, and the fact that the slow start is part of my process is something I need to remind myself each time I start a new project.

I often scare myself when I start a project because I am so slow at first. There’s a little, panicked voice inside of me that’s like, “At the rate you’re going, it’ll take two years to finish this book!” and then, I freak out more and freeze up. This time, I’m trying to remind myself that the speed at which I write exponentially goes up the further along I am in the book. The first five to ten thousand words are the slowest because my brain is still grappling with all the setup and moving pieces that need to be nailed down early on. This is part of the process, even if I don’t like how it feels, and at some point, I need to make peace with that.

The beginning of a book is like a road with nearly limitless paths, and the further I get into that draft, the more side streets are closed to me. The path becomes clearer, and the chance of getting lose diminishes. For now, I will keep going, albeit slowly, and try not to get lost.

Something I greatly enjoy is learning about other writers’ processes for coming up with ideas and actually writing their books. What fascinates me most are writers who can seemingly research everything they need before starting a book. Every time I think about it, I laugh. That is certainly not my process.

The problem is that I am a discovery writer who plans their books out only a little at a time. For people who are more consistent outliners and planners, researching in advance might come far easier since they, generally, know what’s going to come up in their stories. I have no idea beyond broad strokes of what’s going to come up. For example, when I was working on “An Unexpected Question,” I knew I needed to research Coney Island, the amusement parks there, and 1890s men’s bathing suits since I knew the characters were going to Coney Island for vacation. What I didn’t realize was I would also need to research restaurants that were there in 1897, the ocean life around Coney Island, whether horseshoe crabs would be on the beach in August, street food in the 1890s, bathing machines, and a bunch of other minor stuff I hadn’t anticipated.

This is typical of what happens when I start writing a story. I have some very general idea of things that I need to research either because I know I will need the info or because I need to nail down what I think I want to do and have to eliminate things. While working on each of the Reanimator Mysteries books, I’ve read up on various occult things or aspects of medical cannibalism in order to decide the direction I wanted the books to go. Research is not strictly clarifying what I need to know but closing paths the story will eventually take.

The true issue is that I enjoy doing research. Someone once asked me, “How do you know when you’re done researching for a book?” My answer: you aren’t until the book is done because something will always come up that needs to be double checked, especially in historical fiction. As someone who is an eternal student and hoards special interests like a dragon hoards treasure, I’m okay with that because research is one of my favorite parts of writing, so I will do it the second I have an excuse to do so. I have gone down ridiculous rabbit holes over minor details that ultimately added up to one or two sentences.

The thing is, it’s probably only going to be a sentence or two, but some of the best ideas I’ve ever gotten came from doing random research. Knowing these minor details, especially in a historical context, helps to enrich a story and create greater depth than if I did all the research upfront. Even if the majority of readers have no idea, I know and some astute readers will pick up on it. It’s like throwing in Easter eggs, and it brings me joy.

This past week I decided to write a scene that involved a horse. I did not anticipate writing a horse scene and have actively avoided having horses in my stories by moving up the timeline for steam powered cars. The problem with horses is that it is very easy to screw them up. Horse enthusiasts will happily tell you that you royally screwed up a scene involving a horse, and I did not want to get an F in horse rep from the horse people. So what did I do? I did a deep-dive on horses in the 1860s for a 3 page scene because I was not getting it wrong. Then, I ran the idea past several people who confirmed I did not royally f up the horse in my book. If you’re a writer, horse people and historical gun people will happily tell that you messed up, and from my experience, the horse people are more than happy to help you get it right.

Some of you might be intimidated by having to do research for a book, but the time and effort it takes is worth it when you can put out a book that feels well constructed and thorough. It’s basically world-building, just world-building based in deep research or the past rather than constructed in your imagination. If you thinking about doing research for a book, I highly recommend not just looking at what you definitely need to know but things you may not use, and of course, read widely by getting works from scholars who are of marginalized backgrounds and/or research about people of those backgrounds. In regards to historical research, there are chunks of history that aren’t taught in schools, and it’s important to remember that when constructing your own books/worlds, so do you homework.

Tag: discovery writer

The New Book Blues

Research & the Discovery Writer