Elizabeth Bear

People get awfully heated about writer’s groups and workshops–either as vocal advocates for same, or as critics. I suspect that this has more bearing on the writer’s personal experience with the usefulness of critique than whether writer’s groups, in general, are useful.

There are those who will tell you that the whole process is a time sinks. The only way to write is to sit down in a room alone with whatever devices you use to convert your ideas into black and white and scrape your brain out on the paper. Don’t talk your ideas out with anybody else. Don’t show people unfinished work. Sit down and write. A writer’s group or workshop is either going to process your work into pablum, or it will be a mutual admiration society that will tell you nothing but how good your book is so long as you return the favor.

And then there are those who will tell you that critique is indispensable, that their wise readers are responsible for them having publishable books at all, and that they can’t write without an ear to bend about the stories gelling in the back of their heads.

So who’s right?

Well, they both are.

A bad writer’s group is worse than useless. How do you tell if your writer’s group is bad? Well, if it consists of people sitting around telling each other how wonderful they are, it’s probably bad. If somebody in the group is determined to undermine everybody else, it’s a bad group. If nobody is consistently writing new things, it’s probably a bad group. If everybody keeps workshopping the same stories they have been working for the past ten years? Bad group. If people who leave the group start making strides towards getting published, it may be a bad group.

And so on.

A good writer’s group is worth its weight in gold, however. It consists of people who will kick your ass when it needs kicking, question the flawed spots in your work, and–most importantly–give you stories to read critically. You see, the big dirty secret of writer’s groups and workshops is that it’s not the critiques you get that teach you to write. It’s the critiques you give.

People come to writer’s groups and workshops hoping to get their stories fixed up and made publishable, and honestly, that’s not what happens. Because the vast majority of those student pieces are not salvageable. They’re broken, and they’re going to remain broken.

I’m sorry, but it’s true.

Which is why, once you’ve workshopped a story once and revised it, you should stop. Because running that damned story through every workshop in the country is not going to make it better. Nor are you going to learn anything new revising the same story over and over again. You hit the point of diminishing marginal returns very quickly, and painting the same student portrait over and over again is a really good way to make sure you never advance.

I’m sorry, but that’s true too. You have to learn to let go.

But what a workshop can do is teach you how to recognize flaws. The hardest skill for any beginning or intermediate writer to learn, I think, is reading critically, and accepting that yes, their work can be full of suck. (It was hard for me to accept to, honestly.)

Reading the work of other student writers, which is probably also full of undisguised suck (pros have usually learned to kick some leaves over the suck, so it’s not as obvious, and therefore harder to learn from) will help you learn to diagnose your own suck. Because you know what? No matter how convinced I am of my own brilliance, those crappy POV shifts aren’t honestly any better when I do them then when my crit partner does.

I know. Sad, isn’t it?

And there’s no shortcut to learning to do that. You just have to read a lot of broken stories, and a lot of brilliant stories, until your brain starts to see the differences in the pattern of a broken story and a brilliant one.

So I’m learning to climb the walls.

It’s simple, you see. You just don’t fall off. The problem is, as my friend Hannah says, that simple does not equal easy.

Believe it or not, the wall-climbing is work-related.

You see, there’s this young man in a long-term project who likes dangerous, strenuous sports. I am not taking up parkour, so he’s stuck with rock-climbing. Thank God he doesn’t BASE jump anymore, because unlike him, I do have a sense of self-preservation. I’m also drinking a lot of soy milk chai and eating my veggies, because I am a method writer, I’m afraid, and my characters’ personal habits infect my life.

But wait, you say: that’s crazy!

Yeah, probably, but it’s true. And it works. When I let my characters infect my life a little, they feel comfy in my head and move in. They bring their tics and quirks, and writing those character details becomes almost automatic. I know all sorts of things about them that never make it onto the page except in that they inform their kinesthetics and their personal behavior. Cathoair has a stiff neck; he rolls his head a lot to ease it. Jenny’s favorite color is purple and she loves scratchy wool sweaters and heavy blankets and boots. Michelangelo’s a borderline sociopath. The reason nobody ever freaks out over Jeremy mentoring an orphaned sixteen year old girl is because he’s gay. Isolfr can spit water between his teeth a good ten feet.

And Chaz, the current boy? He’s about a half-inch from clinical attachment disorder, and he knows it. Also, his clothes never fit quite right, because of his build. And he loves to climb things, and he’s good at it too. His climbing friends call him The Gecko, for his manner of scurrying across the rocks. They don’t know what he does for a living, or that it’s terrible, and while they’re a bit awed by the sheer volume of food he puts away, they also don’t know he’s a superhero.

And the reader, honestly, may never know that he spends three nights a week in the climbing gym during the winter, and goes bouldering with the gang on weekends in summer. Just like they may never know that Sol has a Harley Softail he takes out to Virginia on Saturdays in good weather, or that Reyes can cook.

But I have to know these things, because these are the things that inform the character’ voices, the metaphors by which they process the world.

Which is why I spent the evening falling off walls. Well, one reason: to better inhabit my character. To pick up a few bruises the same way he picks up his bruises. (My friend Marna says, “A day without a bruise is wasted.” I think Chaz probably says that too.)

Another reason I spent the evening falling off walls is that learning to do a thing helps one write it. The kinesthetics of climbing are not easy to understand just from watching somebody else do it. It’s not CGI. It’s got weight and strain and the shoes hurt. When you’re balanced between two tiny footholds and one inadequate handhold, straining for that second handhold, and you have to shift your weight over a deeply flexed knee and somehow stand up on it and then lunge to grab that hold that’s just an inch out of reach, well, that’s a practical problem, an intellectual problem, a problem of courage, a problem of mechanics, and a problem of physical strength.

Having real knowledge of things helps; wearing (or swinging) a sword is not what you might expect. Nor is wearing a medieval gown. Or a pair of stilts. Or shooting a gun. Or lossing an arrow. Or doing any of the myriad other things a fictional character might do. It’s that difference between reality and CGI, between the Hollywood swordfight and a real, bloody swordfight where you are wary of that flashing metal thing, because it can hurt you. (The movie Rob Roy, if you were wondering, has pretty good swordfights. The part where the combatants fall back and circle each other and pant? That’s dead-on.)

That’s a second reason that learning new things benefits one as an author. Here’s a third: you never will get to that handhold you’re trying to reach unless you commit. You have to have the courage to push off, release the secure place you’re standing on, and trust your ability to hold onto that tiny little crack in the rock that you can’t see or even touch from where you are standing.

And the funny thing is, you have to stay close to the rock to maintain balance. If you lean back, you’re supporting your weight on your arms, and you wear them out. But you have to lean back to see where to put your feet, especially if you are a girl, you know, with girl architecture. (Or if you have a little bit of a belly.) And you have to lean back to see what might be over your head for holding on to.

On the other hand, the closer you are to the rock, the more stable you are.

That’s a lot like writing. You can’t see the story when you’re too close to it, but you have to be in it, immersed, up to your neck to write it well. So there’s this routine where you jump in, cling it, push, climb, struggle–and then fail and fall back and stand at the bottom and stare and make faces and go “Hmm.” And then you try again, with this new path you’ve charted, which never survives contact with the wall.

Our brains are very good at modeling reality. However, reality never acts exactly like the models.

And there’s a fourth thing.

Because I think in pained metaphors most of the time, one thing I am learning over and over again is that writing is just like everything else I try. (Writing is like archery, and horseback riding, and paying the bills, and–)

Writing is like climbing because art is about failure. Art is about taking the big risk, the big jump, and wiping out–and trying again until you get it right.

And so is climbing walls. You cling precariously, you stretch, you jump, your foot slips and your fingers don’t quite reach and your balance is off and you wipe out over and over again. (Ideally, there is either a crash pad under you or a rope holding you up, so no permanent harm is done.) And eventually you get there, and manage to stand up on the next foothold, and you confront the next small problem. Meanwhile your hands ache and your strength is failing, and you think you probably got your feet in the wrong places getting past that last bit. Which means you will never get up to the next handhold unless you can somehow switch them on the fly.

So you cling, and you think. And you chew your lip and make those faces and go “Hmmm.” And you try something else.

And you fail.

And eventually you learn to climb this wall. Or write that book.

Well, maybe. I hope. I still have not made it to the top of even the easiest climbing wall at the gym I go to, so I am not speaking from experience.

And what you learn does in fact help you climb the next wall, because you have picked up technique and strategy and strength along the way. But it doesn’t teach you how to climb that next wall, because every wall is different. And every one is something you have to figure out along the way, and then get strong and crafty enough to handle.

And if you’re working honestly, each one is probably a little bit harder than the last.

I am writing this essay on the deck of the inn at which Viable Paradise is held. The workshop finished last night, and the students are leaving. The last survivors are gathered around eating muffins and emitting a sixty cycle hum.

It was seven exhausting and rewarding days, and some of the most fun I’ve ever had with a bunch of writers. And I cannot wait to go home and sleep in my own bed.

Of course, I now have twenty-one days to finish the revisions on 1160 pages of novel (Ink & Steel and Hell & Earth, due to the publisher Nov 1), and so when I return to Connecticut, I will be in my hole with my rock pulled over the entrance.

It also means there’s no way you’re getting a podcast out of me.

Instead, you are getting a painful metaphor.

Writing is like everything else. It’s a truism, a kind of running joke–one can spend endless hours comparing one’s art to one thing or another.

And today, writing stories is like baking bread.

It’s an interesting process. First you have all the ingredients, and you put them together kind of by feel, and hope you get the percentages right. You proof the yeast (is it a good idea?), you set up the sponge (combining characters and conflict), and you maybe then walk away for a while and let it come together. Then you come back, construct the dough (adding more flour… er, characters, salt, and whatever else goes into the bread.)

At this point, what you have is a messy sticky pile of poorly integrated material that glops to your fingers, sticks to your ring that you forgot to take off, and generally is lumpy and adhesive and disgusting.

And you work and work and work and add flour and add too much flour and have to add water and then it needs a little more salt and so on and you mix and mix and knead and knead. And eventually, you find that it’s smoothing out.

And you work and work and work and then suddenly, magically…

It pulls away from the side of the bowl.

It’s coming together. It’s turning into dough. It’s pulling the sticky bits off your fingers.

And that’s when you walk away fro a while and let it rise, once it’s formed into a tidy soft ball.

You give it time–as much time as it needs, and it depends on how warm the kitchen is–and you come back and do it again. You punch it down and knead it. And let it rise again. Then you cut it in half to make loaves, and you go through the rigamarole all over again.

But the magical thing is, it’s bread now. It’s happened. All that mess has unified and turned into one thing.

Which is the part where it’s like a story.

Do you know what consolatory literature is?

Simply put, consolatory literature is the kind of story that makes the reader feel better about things, in a sort of uncomplicated fashion. A consolatory story confirms the reader’s preconceptions about the world; it does not challenge him to think or even to rearrange his prejudices.

And it’s satisfying and popular for that reason, and a lot of people like it. They want their good guys good and their bad guys bad. They do not want to be asked hard questions without yes or no answers. They want good to triumph over evil and hero to bed heroine.

But that might not be what they need. Because stories that uncritically accept that paradigm aren’t teaching us anything.

Not that I approve of didactic literature, either. (By didactic literature, I mean literature that takes a position and attempts to convince the reader that its position is the correct one–or worse, literature that cannot conceive of any reader having a valid sense of ethics that differs from the writer’s. Stories, in other words, with morals, other than ironic or complicated ones.)

Now, what works for me may not work for anyone else, but in my own work, I strive to ask questions that do not have good answers. That may not even have acceptable answers, because it seems to me that life is a series of unholy compromises and devil’s bargains, and often we find ourselves in positions where there is no good answer. And it’s something I see tackled so rarely in fiction, that when I find that kind of moral complexity, I am willing to forgive a lot.

The thing is, your consolatory literature tends to be what sells better. It’s comforting; it’s pleasant; it doesn’t involve a lot of emotional risk for the reader. Formula fiction is not going to disappoint, because it adheres to the formula–unless, of course, one is the sort of reader who finds formula fiction disappointing by its nature. In which case, nothing will save it for you.

Me? I’m grateful to those profoundly dis-satisfied readers (though I suspect they may be more prone to angst and unhappiness, due to this propensity for asking questions with difficult answers). I’m grateful to those readers because they make it possible for me to write the kind of stories that I like to write, even if they aren’t the most commercial stories in the world. If it weren’t for them–

–well, I’d probably go find a job that offers health insurance. Because, as a friend who was an emergency medical technician once told me, if you’re going to lie to somebody, make it one you can live with later. (His example was that he never told a casualty “You’re going to be okay,” unless he was sure of it. What he told them was, “We’re doing everything we can.”)

I may tell lies for a living, but there are lies I’m comfortable telling, and lies I’m not comfortable telling. Because books do matter, as much as anything matters. And if the contents of a book can be that centering truth–”we’re doing everything we can”–rather than a comforting lie, well. I feel like I owe it to the reader and to myself to get it close to right.

The internet, as I am wont to say, is full of things. Some of them are interesting things. Some of them are horrific things. Some of them are funny things, or useful things, or OMG-my-eyes-are-bleeding-just-can’t-look-away-trainwrecky things. And if you are a writer, online, one of those things is likely to be… your blog.

So, how does one write an interesting weblog, anyway?

Well, it’s actually pretty easy. First, one gets passionate about something.

And then one talks about it.

Let me explain.

I read or have read blogs by people who are bespoke tailors, video store clerks, strippers, middle-aged weightlifters, doctoral candidates, medical researchers, ER docs, horror movie junkies, librarians, soldiers, housewives, disaster survivors, artists, Hollywood scriptwriters, cooks, citizens on the ground in war zones, and so on.

Some of these blogs are focused on a topic. Some are online diaries. Some are broadcast media. Some are, eclectically, all of the above–in parallel or in sequence.

But they have something in common: they really care about what they’re doing. Some of them hate it, and some of them love it, and some take turns. But they all care, and they all write with passion.

And that’s what makes them readable–compulsive, even. Because they’re committed. They’re there laying it on the line. This is what I do, and this is how I do it.

And that? Is interesting. And it’s interesting in ways that apply to fiction writing, too. Because characterization counts. I mean, let’s be honest here: Shakespeare couldn’t plot his way out of a wet paper bag. And he knew it, too, which is why he lifted stories from everywhere and anywhere, with the peculiar light-fingered pickpocket’s touch of his. But the man could write characters–people–better than just about anybody.

A good weblog is about character. I’m seriously unlikely ever to become a tailor, for example, and my suit-wearing opportunities are exceptionally limited these days, as I have chosen a profession that lends itself to work in one’s pajamas. (On a dress-up day, I put on jeans even if I don’t have to go to the store.) But man, I actually find myself doing a little happy dance in my chair when Thomas Mahon updates his blog, English Cut, because I always learn something from reading it. And his love of what he does shines through.

There’s another way one can apply that knowledge to fiction writing. Which is to say, one of the things that allows any art to successfully connect with an audience is that same commitment. The ironic pose is all very nice, but after the first couple of iterations, one inescapably tends toward the suspicion that the writer is holding back because he doesn’t actually believe what he’s writing about. Either that, or he’s too scared of being naked in public to strip and get on with it.

Whereas, one of the things great writers have in common is that they have abandoned themselves to their work. Which does not mean confessional writing, necessarily. Nor does it mean giving up on artifice and art and craftsmanship and all the skills that go into storytelling.

But it does mean that they’re not holding anything in reserve; they’re extending themselves to the fullest, like a runner driving for the tape, and if they get hurt in the process well, that’s part of the game. It’s what you risk. In life as in art, if you don’t put it on the line–if there’s nothing at stake–then there’s no interest in the story.

If we wanted to protect ourselves, to stay within our limits, we should have chosen a different field of endeavor.

I’m doing one of my least favorite things in the world. Revising. And I will be doing that for the foreseeable future.

You see, I have two books due in the first week of November. This might seem like kind of a terrifying thing, but really it could be much worse. Because both of them are written.

That’s where things get complicated, though.

Because one of them needs a complete ground-up rewrite, including an entire new middle, plot and all, which I am about a third of the way into. Or, more precisely, I’ve just hit the part where the existing draft (which I have already rewritten about seven times) fell apart. Now, the rewrite involves turning this novel (All the Windwracked Stars) from first-person single-narrator noir into third-person with five POV characters, because part of the reason the original version was so broken was because Muire (my protagonist) missed a great deal of the plot, hearing about it–eventually–third-hand.

And I had to machine ways to get her into other portions of the plot, which could as easily be handled by different characters.

Not such a great thing.

The complication on the other one, which is Promethean Age #3 and currently Between Titles, is that I have no idea what it needs, because I am also currently Between Editors at that publishing house. You see, my former editor has accepted a position elsewhere and her replacement has not yet been hired. So, um.

I have a sensation that I might just wind up making the changes I know need to be made, and hoping a little direction arrives at some point. Because I don’t want to lose my July slot in the roster, and of course I’m a little interested in finding out who my new team-mate will be and if I will be able to work effectively with him or her or it, or if it’s going to be pitchforks and Frankenstein rakes.

So one worries.

Perhaps unduly.

(Bears, we will note, really suck at enduring suspense. I loathe surprises. Anticipation gives me panic attacks. Just either tell me, man, or don’t, and if you don’t tell me, don’t be surprised when I lose all interest in the proceedings and go off to do something else. Except, you know, that particular self-defense mechanism doesn’t really work when it’s your job under discussion.)

But first, I need to revise this other book, the Edda of Burdens book, the one with Muire in it.

And you see, that’s a conundrum. Because it really needs the revisions. It’s not very good, as it is, and I want to make it as close to brilliant as I possibly can. But man, by this point in the process–well, unless you’ve done it yourself, I can’t begin to describe how bored I am with this novel.

And this is also the point where I can’t remember what thing happens in which version, which is a problem I still have with Blood & Iron.

(Which is my most-rewritten novel, comprising twelve drafts, three of them massive gut-and-retrofits, including adding new POV characters and ripping out a third of the existing book.)

Yeah. Like that.

This is the part where it stops being about art or inspiration or even a Puritan work ethic, and becomes about nothing more than sheer bloodymindedness.

This is, in short, what we fondly* refer to as the glamour.

And for me, this is the hardest part of the process. It’s not any fun. It’s not revelatory. There’s no rush of creation, no euphoria, no dance of discovery. There is only the exhaustive working over and over of every damned sentence and line and idea, trying to make sure they make sense, trying to make sure they fit.

Most books I write have at least three drafts before an editor ever sees them. This one will have had eight. Maybe nine, because as I am doing such a complete rewrite and so much of it is new, it needs to be gone over with the fine-toothed comb reserved for new prose.

And then, after my editor sees it, I will be revising it again, at length and painstakingly.

Meanwhile, I need to do the final revision pass on Dust, which that editor just sent back to me, and get that returned to her by the end of the month.

At least I’ve only been over that one three or four times, so it probably won’t be quite so boring.

And I am visiting my dad in North Carolina right now, and driving all over the Eastern seaboard, and attending a writer’s retreat starting Saturday. And the purpose of these things is supposedly to buy you more time to write, or give you a break from writing, and give you a chance to bond with other writers, and to learn by critiquing their work, and… something?

And mostly right now I’m just stressed out about it as one more thing I am supposed to be doing. (Of course once I get there it will be whoosh! Nothing but fun! Because I love these people. But still. Aiiieeeee. To put it softly.)

…still sure you want to be a writer?

*Where “fondly” means “ironically.” – Ed.

The only thing I really care about is characters.

I know. Isn’t that an odd thing for a science fiction writer to say? But it’s true: good characters will carry me through almost anything.

A really good character actually contains the other elements of a narrative–arc, plot, theme. The problem is, good characters are not thick on the ground. And I think, through observation, that it’s because most writers–and possibly even most fans–have no idea what makes a compelling character.

And it’s not a lot of the things that many writers aim for.

A lot of writers tend to create very generic protagonists. I suspect this is a Hollywood influence, actually–these protagonists often remind me of TV characters. Characters who may be one step above stereotype–caricatures, delineated in broad strokes. Often, they not only don’t have much personality: they never really do anything morally questionable or personally ambiguous (or if they do, the narrative seems not to acknowledge it). If they ever do step over a line, it’s portrayed and perceived as something gritty. And the lines are very bright.

Their motives must be clear, and their causes must be just. They also mustn’t betray too much compassion for the bad guys, who must be clearly identifiable, because that might make the reader uncomfortable, or lead him to question his own catharsis in seeing the villains brought low. Their conflicts are easily defined and easily resolved: everybody who’s seen a standard Hollywood movie knows that the character flaw established in the first reel will be overcome in the last.

In other words, they’re awfully boring.

Which is not to say that really effective characters are more like real people. Because real people are sort of a muddle. We’re lacking in narrative. We sort of muddle through, doing what we do for motives we may not understand until years later–if we ever figure it out.

That might not work so well in terms of art, either. That stuff needs to be pruned out, so the structures can be seen clearly.

But what does work is a kind of hyper-reality, an enhanced cross-section of character. A good character, a memorable character, not only has conflict and history and issues and an agenda. She makes mistakes, and (potentially) experiences triumphs (if it’s that kind of a book). She had quirks and passions and consistency.

And inconsistency. Because often, fictional characters seem two-dimensional because they are utterly predictable, and that’s no good at all. Ideally, the character will react in ways that surprise the reader, and yet seem inevitable in retrospect.

I know. Easier said than done. But there are ways to do it.

And the most important of these is to get to know people. To understand them, and observe them.

Most of us don’t do this. We may project, by which I mean that we assume that other people are just like we are, or we may judge, and assign actions to “good” or “bad” without contemplating what they look like from the inside. We may symbolize and romanticize, by which I mean, we imagine people are like the symbols we construct, that they will behave as the two-dimensional characters do, that they will behave the way Hollywood characters are supposed to. That they are easily comprehensible, that they can be compassed. That they’re easy.

It’s comforting to think so, but it’s just not true.

So that’s the writer’s homework for the year. Watching people. Really watching them. Stepping outside out own heads and trying to appreciate what it looks like from inside theirs. And then trying to compass their contradictions, with compassion and with an artist’s eye.

To see what is there, rather than what we are trained to expect to see.

Because everything about art is seeing what is actually there, rather than what you expect to see, and then pruning away the distractions so other people can see it too.

It’s not the sort of thing you learn in a week.

First there’s the whole during part of the novel, where your head is packed full of all the things you need to remember, the plot developments and the character arcs and the themes and layers and leitmotifs. And you have a tendency to stare off during dinner as if, at any moment, you might start building a scale model of a rock formation out of the mashed potatoes.

But then, once you’ve survived that and the book is in the can, there’s the stage afterwards, a state which I refer to as “post-novel ennui.” At least, in polite company.

Edward Gorey does admit of this part of the process in his book The Unstrung Harp, or, Mr Earbrass Writes a Novel,, which might be the only honest book on writing for a living in existence. He writes, in part:

The next day, Mr Earbrass is conscious but very little more. He wanders through the house leaving doors open and empty tea-cups on the floor. From time to time, the thought comes to him that he really ought to go and dress, and he gets up several minutes later, only to sit down again in the first chair he comes to. The better part of a week will have elapsed before he has recovered enough to do anything more helpful.

This description is, in my experience, exactly and precisely true. Except in my case, it’s also coupled with the deep and abiding belief that one ought to be doing something. Starting the next book, say. Or catching up on one’s research. Or cleaning out the refrigerator.

And thus, in this household, the post-novel ennui takes on a character of fitful and desultory activity. Or sometimes, obsessive activity that peters out somewhere in the middle. For example, I handed in a novel in late March. And then promptly rearranged my entire living room and started a massive spring cleaning project…

…which has now turned into a massive spring ignoring project, as I wander around, unable to concentrate on a book or even a TV show or computer game, prone to fits of insomnia and making lists of things I really ought to be doing and yet, somehow, am not.

In this state, I’m pretty much unable to write anything coherently. Talking to friends, answering email and IMs and answering the phone seems like a tremendous chore. It would probably be safest for everyone concerned if I could withdraw to a 10×10 cabin in the Montana woods and wait it out.

Alas, life is demanding.

It can also be a little panic-inducing to live through, because one does, long about the fifth or tenth day of this state, start to wonder if one’s brain is broken. If one will ever regenerate the necessary strength of will and coherence of thought to carry out one’s daily tasks, let alone write another book. Fortunately, experience is a great teacher, and over the course of years and novels one discovers that the ennui inevitably does break, if one gives one’s self time.

It doesn’t make it any more enjoyable when one is in the middle of it, checking livejournal for the seventy-fifth time in an afternoon to see if anybody has posted anything, and realizing that one is still in one’s pajamas and hasn’t managed to feed one’s self today. There is, under those circumstances, a certain aura of despair that can begin to surround one, as it sinks in exactly how much time one is wasting and to how little effect.

And there appears to be nothing one can do to speed the regeneration process. It is simply, like grief and driving long distances, a matter of allowing enough time.

But it does make it more endurable, the knowledge that the fallow period eventually ends.

And in the meantime, there is always spider solitaire.

That is, if you can muster the span of attention.

I was going to start this column by saying that I am not a mystery writer. And then I realized that that would be disingenuous, because I am a mystery writer.

I’ve written several, although the only novel-length one (written with Sarah Monette, my occasional writing partner) is as yet unpublished. And honestly, many things that I do write, in the fantasy or science fiction genres where I make my living, use a thriller plot. They’re beautiful machines, done right, and they provide a very handy framework upon which to hang ideas and exposition and character.

So, with that in mind, I’d like to talk about some related ways to construct a plot, and how they differ. First, I’d like to talk about the Whodunnit and the Thriller, two frequently confused plotting techniques. And then I’d like to move on to the Procedural and the Caper.

The basic difference between the Thriller and the Whodunnit is not how much information the protagonist has, but how much information the audience has. To illustrate this, I’d like to borrow from a movie that uses both plot techniques to counterpoint each other. If anybody is upset by spoilers for a 14-year-old film, this would be where to start skipping.

The movie is The Fugitive. The Thriller plot (please excuse my Portentuous Capitalization) is whether or not Kimble will escape Gerard long enough to prove his innocence. The Whodunnit plot is how he goes about proving his innocence. It’s often been said that a story walks better on two legs (by which is meant, strands of plot, so that an A plot and a B plot can each pick up the slack in the other); this is one of the clearest examples I can think of of using not just two plots, but two completely different plot structures to balance each other.

Without giving away too much about the movie, let me point up some of the distinguishing characteristics. In the Thriller plot (the pursuit of Kimble by Gerard, and their clever clever cat and mouse games) the audience has far more information than Kimble does. We know where Gerard is, what he’s doing, how he’s going about finding Kimble. This heightens audience tension, because we can watch the two of them on collision courses, scoring narrow misses and occasional hits.

In the Whodunnit plot–the search for the one-armed man and then, eventually, for the man who hired him–we have exactly as much information as Kimble does. We can put it together along with him, and have the joy of attempting to deduce the right answer. A good Whodunnit plays scrupulously fair with information, while a good Thriller supplies or withholds information as necessary to heighten the reader’s tension and suspense.

Sometimes this can be done poorly–Anonymous Killer POV is a particular pet peeve of mine, and I have been known to lob books for that alone–and sometimes it can be done well. Daniel Silva (The Kill Artist) excels at this kind of plotting, and I commend him to you for the purpose of studying same.

A related  but not identical form of plot is the Procedural. In its really classical form as a mystery plot, the audience actually knows in advance who the suspect is. You see the crime committed on page one. The interest in the story comes from watching the story unravel, rather than from trying to outsmart the detective.

Now, it’s perfectly possible to marry the procedural to a whodunnit or thriller plot–this is done successfully in television a lot, where one of the major issues these days is extreme time compression, and telling a story in the most efficient manner possible.

Last but not least, I’d like to visit my own personal favorite school of plotting, for the viewing rather than for the crafting: the Caper plot. A Caper is a con game. It’s actually a dual con game, done perfectly: both the antagonists and the audience are conned. (The original Mission: Impossible relied heavily on caper plots, as does the BBC television series Hustle. The recent remake of Ocean’s 11 was a very successful caper; the sequel, Ocean’s 12, was an example of a failed one. A recent Criminal Minds episode, in which a terrorist was tricked into relinquishing information, also relied on a caper plot disguised as a ticking-clock thriller.) The way a caper works, structurally, is that at the beginning of the storyline, the audience is presented with a seemingly impossible task. Over the course of the story, information is revealed in a carefully metered flow, and a certain amount of that information passes unexplained, or occluded by misdirection. Ideally, at the end of the story, the audience thinks he’s been watching one narrative, but, in the end (usually when it seems as if everything is about to go disastrously wrong), the second narrative is revealed like a magician producing a dove.

To be successful, however, the information to solve that mystery has to have been present in the narrative. It can be explained, but new clues cannot be introduced. In other words, we have to have seen the trick take place, and simply failed to understand it.