To Spec vs. Organic
Cross-posted to The Midnight Hour
Let’s talk about structure. Or more specifically, dear Reader, let’s talk about writing a novel to specifications (”to spec”, like a category romance or a specifically-genre book) and writing what I call an “organic” novel*.
One is not inherently better than the other. They’re different, and serve different purposes. I write both, and I think any writer has to know those different processes.
Let’s talk about writing to spec first.
Writing to spec means you’re given a specific project. For example, right now I’m working on a category romance (lovingly titled Weasel Boy) with a pretty tight length and subject requirement. In order to effectively write this book, I have to both:
* Know the things the editor/publisher/readers are going to expect
* Make myself comfortable within those strictures/structures
And I also have to perform the hat trick of writing to spec, which is knowing which rules I can break. Which is just another way of saying I have to find something new within those strictures/structures, something all my own.
Writing to spec requires a fierce discipline. I’ve always said that romance writers, and category romance writers in particular, are some of the most disciplined writers on the planet. They have to be. They have an incredibly tight structure which includes length requirements, genre convention, aiming within their subgenre, nookie level (as in, how much nookie the reader/publisher expects), and particular expectations about the ending (an HEA, Happily Ever After). You can find comparable discipline in the Western genre and also in the category-suspense (think Mack Bolan) genre as well, though the romance genre has the blessing of being bigger business with a fair number of interesting backwaters/subgenres.
The length requirement alone will give some writers kittens. Say you have a length requirement of 70-75K. You don’t have a lot of room for subplot, long-winded description, dead weight. Every word needs to tell, and you’re going to get better at making every word pull its own (and its neighboring sentence’s) weight. Working within those constraints teaches a writer a lot.
Then there’s convention. You need to know the conventions of the genre you’re working in when you write to spec, and know them thoroughly. You need to know how much convention-breaking you can get away with, which requires a sense of your audience’s needs and expectations when they pick up the book. This requires not just reading within the genre, but reading critically within the genre–looking under the hood of the popular books, seeing why they work and where they don’t, what you would do differently, what unspoken assumptions and expectations are part of that genre or subgenre’s mythic “set”.
It’s learning a language, if you will, so you can break its grammatical rules effectively.
I write the Watcher books largely to spec, because they are intended to be identifiably paranormal romances. They have a specific pattern and a specific language, and they require a different set of mental “muscles” than, say, a Kismet book or the Valentine series.
Growing a novel organically is different. A major difference rests in the idea of genre. Writing to spec means you’re aiming at a genre, which is really just a collection of story markers to help readers find your book in a bookstore. Gestating an organic novel means you often don’t find the genre it belongs in until after the damn thing is born (and sometimes not even then).
For me, writing to spec is like following a blueprint. Producing an organic novel is like excavating an archaeological site. I have very little control over what the characters decide to do, and the structure of the novel follows its own dictates. If writing to spec is an act of sensitivity toward one’s audience, then writing organically is an act of submission to the creative process. I may have an idea of where I’m going to end up, just like I know I’m eventually going to die, but the intervening journey is largely a surprise.
I can knock out a to-spec book topping at 80-85K in a month and a half, taking into consideration the time needed to do a couple drafts and pass it by a beta. I don’t need more than a week’s (or so) worth of “cooldown” between them. On the other hand, an organic novel has a definite gestation period before I sit down to write it, and it takes four to five months to produce a workable rough draft, of whatever length the story demands. Then there’s the snapback–a considerable period of recovery, because I don’t just write an organic novel, I experience it on an emotional level. It takes a heavier emotional toll.
I think the emotional toll/involvement is the reason “organic” novels tend to be cross-genre or hard to fix within the constellation of genres. Feelings are messy, and organic novels tend to be complex, both on a thematic and an emotional level. (At least for me.) That “messiness” tends to situate the “organic” book in weird crossdrifts between genres.
I think the key to working to spec is wordcount and structure. You’ve got to think about what you’re doing, and why, and why it works in the confines of the story. You have to know what each scene is intended to accomplish, which genre/subgenre “markers” you need to hit, and you need to get a consistent wordcount out each day to keep momentum.
Conversely, the key to working an organic novel is wordcount and “fuel”–you have got to keep your emotional/artistic well full in order to cover the withdrawals you’re going to be pouring into the story. An organic novel tends to require a lot more “artistic” fuel–those things that feed your Muse so she can work. (For me, it’s schlocky action movies, or knitting, or low-light photography, or reading a book I’m not picking apart for structure.) Those things that make you feel renewed, no matter what they are.
Wordcount is important for spec work because you have to produce a disciplined product. It’s important for an organic novel because the dry “hump” in the middle-to-last quarter of the book can literally kill the work if you don’t keep chewing at it in little bits. It can be distressing, to say the least, to reach that point in an organic novel where you just have to trust the work not to fail you, and if your well is dry you might end up just throwing your hands up in despair.
And that doesn’t get the book done.
The joy in writing a to-spec novel is performing within a set of rigid constraints, like interpreting and performing a piece of classical music–there’s a set of rigid expectations you have to find freedom within. The joy of writing an organic novel is following the creative process for the hell of it, like a freeform jazz jam session–the rules are still there, but you’re playing faster and looser with them. It’s all good music, and both are satisfying to pull off well, but they require different types of effort.
There’s a tradeoff between the two. Writing to spec will strengthen your discipline and force you to really, really think about plot, structure, reader expectation, and lots of nuts-and-bolts things that will make your implementation of organic novels that much technically better. Writing organic novels will teach you all sorts of weird stuff about characterization and your own creative process that will inform your spec work with that stamp of originality it will need to become more than just a potboiler. It’s totally possible to botch either a spec novel or an organic novel, and fixing botches in either will help you fix botches in the other, for a variety of reasons. I think both processes are necessary for a writer, though each writer may have a personal preference about the type of novel they prefer to write. Myself, I tend to alternate–I don’t feel right if I’m not producing at least some spec work, and spec work gets awful, awful tedious if I’m not producing an organic novel at the same time.
And of course, this is my opinion. Feel free to take with grain of salt, and to tell me below what your creative process is like. Do you prefer spec work or organic work? Is there a writing process you have that doesn’t fit either bill? What is it like for you?
* I’m writing about novels because that’s the form I’m most comfortable with. You can subsititute “short story” or “poem”, etc., if you like.
