Inside The Cover is a series of editorials by Timothy Connor that looks at how he writes a novel from idea to completion. The first in this series, Inside The Cover #1: Ideas & Openings looked at the humble beginnings of ideas and how openings adapt to suit the vision of the original idea. For Timothy Connor, the next phase in the development of an idea is to let it rest. How does he do that? Here’s how.
2. Chrysalis and Gestation
Last week I called an idea a nugget of information. A nugget wrapped in shit and needing a lot of work. That holds true, yet how these ideas formulate and change is not an instantaneous process. I utilise a complex technique that allows me to change my ideas with a moments notice. This is the Chrysalis process.
It is a simple thing to do – all you do in this method is store the fantastic idea you just got in a cocoon with the rest of your fantastic ideas. The small space reminds of how atoms and subatomic particles collide. Each collision in the Chrysalis breaks off a portion of an idea and tries to match it with another fragmented idea. Think of it as a chemical reaction in your brain, because that is precisely what it is.
To go a step further, each collision is a taxing process on an idea. Every time two impact, the Idea Chrysalis needs to access your memory centers in order to see if the two have any relation. If they do, then the Chrysalis will determine if the two are compatible by way of elimination. Ideas share common elements, this is a given, so the Chrysalis will break down the ideas into the smallest elements and then compare the two strings together.
0010010010101010010101010010101010011
0010101010101001010100111100001110001
Take those two random sequences I did off the top of my head. Those represent two ideas that formulated from the same memory. The Chrysalis method breaks those into individual components. After the like elements are eliminated you will be left with two fragmented strings like the two below:
0010010010101010010101010010101010011
0010101010101001010100111100001110001
Now, the next step for the Chrysalis is to combine those two fragments to make a complete idea. Remember that in Binary 0 is off and 1 is on. The Chrysalis wants every portion of the string to be part of the “on” group. The string above ends up, by the end of the Chrysalis stage, looking something like this:
1111111111111
That is a simple string of 13 ones. Each part of the string represents a complete element of a story. The Chrysalis has produced a complete, if messy, idea by simply removing the unnecessary stuff. The Chrysalis method will then make a crude outline of what it envisions the idea to look like:
1: Prologue
2: Introductions
3: Complication
4: Conflict Between Characters
5: Break the Party
6: Loss
7: Despair
8: Revelations
9: Ulterior Motives
10: Forgiveness
11: Preparations
12: Climactic Sequence
13: Burn Off
I can use each of those ideas and apply them to any of my novels, because that is the general outline of each of my pieces of writing, though I am free to change around as I need to.
Yet, the above is by no means a complete story. Sure, it could work, but it is too formulaic and predictable. For me, when an idea is redesigned in the Chrysalis stage, it moves on to the Gestation phase.
In Gestation, the basic concept of your idea is challenged by everything. This is where your brain asks “Why?” over and over. That is the purpose of allowing an idea to gestate. By letting it sit so long, your brain will work out every single aspect and justify it. I will give a very crude version based on The Elder Ones saga.
- Why? Because it is an interesting story
- Why is it an interesting story? It is a deconstruction of standard fantasy conventions
- Why is it a deconstruction? Because it seeks to find and subvert as many clichéd tropes as possible.
- Why do you want to subvert those tropes? Because they are so ingrained in society, that any break from them will generate some form of interest and I want to write them.
- Why do you want to write about them? The nature of the books is such that, without touching on tropes, the whole concept of the world falls apart. In a world like the one I have created, tropes need to be present.
- Why did you create the world?
The questions go on for a lot longer and that is not the process I used during the gestation of The Elder Ones. I give it as an example of what most authors need to do in order to understand why they write.
The Gestation builds on from the Chrysalis findings and further works with the 13 plot points I sorted the Chrysalis idea sorting into. To gestate an idea is to play with order and discover what makes the story “work.” The elements are different for every story, if not evident on the surface. Each element has a host of interiors I cannot bother to list, for then I would be here forever and that is not what we want.
For Gestation, I will look at my novel, Crow, to help give a sense of how playing with the order can work. The typical order of my ideas, as I mentioned above, looks something like this:
1: Prologue
2: Introductions
3: Complication
4: Conflict Between Characters
5: Break the Party
6: Loss
7: Despair
8: Revelations
9: Ulterior Motives
10: Forgiveness
11: Preparations
12: Climactic Sequence
13: Burn Off
For Crow, I rearranged this simple order to formulate a new and unique idea for my brain to tackle as I wrote. For Crow, the plot points I have look something akin to the following:
1: Complication
2: Introductions
3: Prologue
4: Break the Party
5: Conflict Between Characters
6: Despair
7: Revelations.
8: Ulterior Motives
9: Loss
10: Preparations
11: Forgiveness
12: Climactic Sequence
13: Burn Off.
The only constant between Crow and The Elder Ones is that both have their burn off as the last plot point and while it is important, it is not designed to be a prevalent one. For the most part, the plot points are in more or less similar positions except for the Complication and Loss. Those two parts are the most important in any novel.
Pick a book – any book – and you will find that loss is itself a complication for the main character. In Lord of the Rings the loss comes when Gandalf the Grey fights the Balrog. From A Song of Ice and Fire, there are too many to count, but Eddard Stark is one that comes from left field. Here is what many assume to be the main character, and poof, he’s gone.
That is the kind of thing that needs to gestate early. With characters, never create a concrete ending for your character. Where is the interest in never harming a main character? Always cause harm to the main cast. Hurt generates interest because people can relate to it. When a reader relates with the plight of your characters, then the characters are the ones who drive the plot.
I have three rules I follow when I write anything and they remain relevant no matter what I do. The three rules are:
- Be unpredictable
- Never let the plot dictate character
- Experiment
The first point is pretty much self-explanatory. Twists are all well and good, but if you use them too much, the reader becomes wary about them. Vary up the style as you write so that it makes it harder for people to guess what is going to happen. I wrote Sea Spray in such a way that a major event in the middle of the novel was something no one could ever see coming due to the way I wrote the character.
The second is common sense: make the plot revolve around character actions. I can tell you that you will not write the next Lord of the Rings or Star Wars or Citizen Kane if you rely on the plot to tell your story. The story is a response of the characters to an initial event that sets the plot in motion. You are telling the characters story, not something people have read a million times before and will continue to read.
Experiment is related to the first point. Don’t be afraid to test different ways to tell the same section of your story. Play with structure, play with character, play with every aspect of every single letter you use. There is no wrong way to tell the story of YOUR characters.
Here’s a simple experiment you can do that will help you understand what I mean by experimentation. I’ve chosen a random excerpt from the second book in The Elder Ones, and all you need to do is play around with it. Change up character names, re order the sequence, and see if you can make it unique in your mind.
Leander gives another hearty chuckle to that comment. The Druyaan Monks are a very spiritual order and place little value in material objects, and so when any mention of gold or possessions hits their ears, they know that they are safe. A monk like Leander who travels between the hovels to bring food and blankets and other such necessities does not care for a brigand that attempts to rob them. You see, the heavy chests in his cart are not full of gold, but unrefined ores that the smiths of the monastery fashion into the finest tools and weapons across all of Kulvaan.
If you experiment enough with this, sure you might find a better way to say it, but The Elder Ones is such a well-formed idea and has gestated so long, it is impossible to make it read better without any other knowledge. If that above is all you knew of the The Elder Ones Part Two: Earth Splitter, would it be enough to get you interested? I say yes and no at the same time. There is little information given about the plot, if any, so there is no incentive to read further, but the subtlety of how I describe the Druyaan Monks is enough to incentivise the reader to peruse further, and that is what hooks a reader in.
I can sum up Chrysalis and Gestation easily: Experiment. Experiment. Experiment. That is really all your brain does when you let an idea formulate. Writing is a complex science, and science is nothing but experiments.
Don’t take my word for it: go and write. Then write some more. Don’t worry about how good or how bad the words are. Ideas will come faster and more formulated the more you write. Think of it as brain training.
Thank you for reading this edition of Inside The Cover. The next edition is a weird one, but also a more practical one. Next time I will cover why it is important to Sketch an idea down after it Gestates and how to Rework it into a workable form so it is easy to remember.
Fenrir's Lair 
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