I'm losing my novel.

[CWatson]

After a lot of thinking, I've pinned it down to one particular issue.

I've written a lot of identity crises before; more often than not that's a core element of my work. My characters have problems like, "I want to be myself, but nobody wants to let me" or something like that. I have plenty of experience with living out this dilemma.

But the problem Anna is having is completely different: "I don't have an identity. I don't have a self. I don't know who my father is and because of that I don't know who I am." This is something I have never felt--or, if I have felt it, it was so long ago I've forgotten what it was like. (I'm also doubting whether it's even true to her person. Anna's an outcast like me; our identities are long list of Things You Are Not. So when we finally get something to put on the list of Things You Are, we cling to them in a way that even teen angst doesn't shake. But let's not worry over that.)

Even worse, Anna's arc--finding out who her father was, starting to follow his footsteps--is the story's main structural feature. All the other characters (her mother Helen, her father Keith, Sam Rieder who is Helen's love interest) and their various beats hang off Anna's journey like Christmas ornaments. If I can't get her journey right, I have no novel. And I can't get it right because I've never taken that journey.

So, help. Any single parents, or children of such, or even just people in general, feel like sharing? All I need to know is ideas and thoughts on feeling like you don't know who you are. (Having a father who was executed for murder is not a prerequisite. Besides, Anna thinks that's cool. Hence the footstep-following.)

~CWatson
(trying not to panic)

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This sort of thing happens when mama or papa wanna suppress/bury their own history. And a child is inconvenient fruit from the past. Consequently friends & family conspire with the parent to keep the child ignorant, and some children join the conspiracy to keep mama or daddy on an even keel. But the pressure is always there to find out.

 

[sr71plt]

I've lost a few novels. Sat down to write the novel I want and the novel decided it wanted to be something different.

 

[Miss_Pixie]

I've been working on the same novel for 3 years, when ever I stop working my brother almost literally kicks me in the ass to make me go back to work lol, but I've lost the concept a few times. Whenever that happens I step back and work on a short story, or go back into my novel and reinvent parts of it until I get back on track.

 

[sr71plt]

I've been working on the same novel for 3 years, when ever I stop working my brother almost literally kicks me in the ass to make me go back to work lol, but I've lost the concept a few times. Whenever that happens I step back and work on a short story, or go back into my novel and reinvent parts of it until I get back on track.

Could it be that it's gotten to be a chore and you don't really want to write it anymore? That would be OK; no law against it. And slogging away at what doesn't hold one's fancy is preventing them from forging ahead on what does.

 

[3113]

Selfhood exists with or without a history

Could it be that it's gotten to be a chore and you don't really want to write it anymore?

sr7 makes a very good point. Maybe you need time away from it, to remember why you wanted to write it and what excited you about the story.

But the problem Anna is having is completely different: "I don't have an identity. I don't have a self. I don't know who my father is and because of that I don't know who I am."

People who say this are lying to themselves. They do know who they are--orphans who never knew their parents aren't blanks, people with no personality at all. All this means is that we want to belong to some history or tribe, we want to hang some part of our identity on something or someone that came before us. We want an element that will make us feel special as well as a part of something larger.

So, if the orphan finds out that daddy is Irish, then they'll maybe study up on Irish culture and go Irish crazy. It will add to their identity--but it won't give them one. They have one. We all have one by the time we're out of our teens. It may be soft and malleable, but we've got it. We're just sad or whining about the fact that we don't know which group we belong to...and we want to belong to a group. We want to say, "I'm Irish!" or "I'm descended from royalty." That group gives us direction, ethics, friends, tribal affiliation, etc.

Putting it another way: Imagine she was told "You dad was a murderer--" and she said, "Well, I outta be one too..." then a week later she's told "Oops, sorry. Wrong dad. Actually, your father was a doctor who saved lives and was considered a saint..." Does she now change directions? What if she was good at being a murderer but no good at being a saintly healer? Do you see? What we are is what we are, with thanks to DNA. What our parents were doesn't affect that if we weren't raised by them. So finding out about who they really were does nothing to us...unless we want to make use of it. Unless we want to explore our Irish roots, or investigate why people commit murder, or act like an aristocrat. And the only reason for doing that is (1) because it suits and gives our personality--our "self" the right niche, (2) because it makes us feel part of something larger (united with a tribe, like the Irish)--and (3) because it makes us feel special (I'm Irish and you're not!).

So. What is Anna's identity, personality, self. What would suit her as her "niche" tribe or affiliation? Why doesn't she feel special enough that she needs to know about dad? And what about dad makes her feel special when she didn't before? Why is she hinging her "selfhood" on dad at all? Doesn't mom matter? And why is his murder all there is to him and to finding a niche for herself? Did he do nothing else? Was he nothing else?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Research time!

I feel ya pain; My current bout of "huh, I wonder if I have this right?" led me to spend Saturday afternoon with a bootblack.

I came home with boots that had gone from old and decrepit to strong, supple, and positively glittering new, and black wax all over my hands.

And yes, it totally gave me the insights I'd been missing, both in the mindset of the craftsman and in the process of shining shoes... Which led me to change two entire sentences in the story, because we do not need the infodump ...

But it's good to know.

 

[Miss_Pixie]

Could it be that it's gotten to be a chore and you don't really want to write it anymore? That would be OK; no law against it. And slogging away at what doesn't hold one's fancy is preventing them from forging ahead on what does.

it's not a chore really lol it started as project to keep myself sane and became a poorly written habit So it's not uncommon for someone to look at me if I get grumpy or anxious,and tell me to go write something

 

[Firebrain]

Teenagers generally "find" themselves - whatever the problem - in a couple of things:

Alcohol
Sex
Drugs
Music
Books

I was the latter. I would have appreciated a bit more sex, though.

I don't honestly think this is your problem, though. Sometimes, characters are a bit like a chocolate orange - you have to keep whacking them against the table until they crack open. I certainly had to do this with one of mine - he'd been in my head forever but it wasn't that he didn't know himself; I didn't know him. And I was so fond of him that I was forever paranoid that I wouldn't write him well enough.

In other words, keep plodding along. Give Anna lots of opportunities to talk things through with friends/family, even if this is in a veiled fashion or she has to get drunk to admit things. Let her have great, wittering monologues; then cut them out if need be.

You can listen all you like, but you have to make her talk in the first place.

 

[CWatson]

Thanks to everyone who's replied. Definitely some food for thought.

JBJ: hit the nail on the head. Helen (Anna's mother) is not embarrassed about Anna herself, but... Well, she's a single mother and her daughter, even at a young age, was prone to troublemaking. Plus, the big theme of the novel is whether the sins of the father become the sins of the son -- whether we are doomed to making the same mistakes our parents did. Helen very much wants Anna to take a different path than Keith (Anna's father) did, and her feeling is that not telling Anna about Keith will help with that.

So. What is Anna's identity, personality, self. What would suit her as her "niche" tribe or affiliation? Why doesn't she feel special enough that she needs to know about dad? And what about dad makes her feel special when she didn't before? Why is she hinging her "selfhood" on dad at all? Doesn't mom matter? And why is his murder all there is to him and to finding a niche for herself? Did he do nothing else? Was he nothing else?

Well, it's a small town. I think in a larger one Anna wouldn't have as much trouble fitting in, but... It's a small town. And Helen Swift is the official town sinner, the once-perfect virgin who suddenly got knocked up out of nowhere and then refused point-blank to tell anyne who the father was. And the daughter of the town preacher, too!--who of course wasted no time in distancing himself from this wayward progeny of his, and told everyone to shun the unbeliever. If it were possible to get away from that... But it's not, and both mother and daughter Swift carry that stigma wherever they go.

As to Helen, she's working two minimum-wage-type jobs to keep food on the table, so she doesn't get to have as much presence in Anna's life as she would like. But even more than that, Anna takes after her father: rebellious where Helen is a follower, critical where Helen is compassionate, tomboyish where Helen was a girly-girl. She has a lot of his talents: sleight of hand, ease with lies, an instinctive control and understanding of body language. Anna is a daddy's girl even though her father is dead; with her mother, there's... clashing. (Part of Anna's journey is to find things to value in the legacy of her mother, but at the start of the novel she's mostly dismissive of such.) And finally, Anna's 16; she feels like it's time to get out from under her mother's shadow and go her own way. The fact that Helen has been trying to shield her from her father just makes his path all the more enticing.

And yes, there's more to Keith than shooting a seven-year-old girl. But that would be a spoiler.

You can listen all you like, but you have to make her talk in the first place.

I know. And that's where I'm having my problems. She's so different to me. In some ways, Anna is my polar opposite. What I'm searching for is ways to link to her--ways to take my extant experiences and say, "Okay, we have THAT in common, and I can use that doorway to get into her shoes (or put her in mine) and go from there." But even that I'm having trouble with. I may just have to brute-force it. =(

 

[Firebrain]

I think you need to stop focusing so much on Anna's conflict. There will be other important things in her life too and in exploring those, the rest will come together.

 

[SweetWitch]

Perhaps you're looking at this from the wrong point of view. Maybe Anna's trying to take you on a journey. She doesn't want to be told what her life is. She wants to be the one to lead.

 

[3113]

So, she does have a "self" even if she doesn't know it. She's tomboy, independent, etc. And her curiosity to know who Dad was makes perfect sense because mom never said and the town has speculations and she feels like she doesn't fit in. She's looking for someone to identify with and someone who can "understand her" even if he isn't around in body (in spirit, if you like). Sounds like you've got her down.

Which makes me think the problem isn't with her. It's with knowing her Dad. And making sure he's a fully fleshed out character so he can be there (in spirit) for her to talk to. I assume you have her finding journals, letters, his voice on tape? A photo? If you haven't already done so, you should have her find such as early in the story as possible so she can have imaginary conversations with him (a photo first, then letters, then tape). Each new leg of the journey, and each person she meets who knew him, each place he visited that she explores, every new discovery (letters, diary) gives her a clearer and clearer picture of him and of what he might say to her. This makes him more real to her and to the reader.

It also makes sure that she always has someone to talk to, argue with and get advise from on her journey. What would Dad do/say? Something like that?

And yes, there's more to Keith than shooting a seven-year-old girl. But that would be a spoiler.

Um, well, actually no, it wouldn't be a spoiler. A spoiler implies a big secret that will ruin the story for us....but we're not your readers, breathless to know what will happen next. We are your fellow writers, and our aim is to help you with this story. I don't think we need to know the big bad secret of dad being a vampire hunter or spy or angel sent to earth, so you can keep that spoiler to yourself. But don't ever let the fact of it being a "spoiler" keep you from revealing such things to your fellow writers, not if it matters to solving the problem you're having with the story.

In many cases that big, bad, amazing secret turns out to be the problem with the story. Fail to let us in on it and the problem remains hidden. It's like saying, "What's wrong with this picture" and only letting us see half of it. The problem might not be in that half.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The SECRET is the axle the story revolves around, and its the central conflict Anna must resolve.

Several years ago I met a sister I'd never seen before. I was the 1st child of my dad's 1st marriage, and she was the 1st child of his 2nd marriage. And he had lied to her about his past to explain and justify some of the nutty things he did.

She told me all about it and how she reconciled it all based on his history. Well, his history was bullshit cuz I was there and it never happened. He invented things to mask some bad decisions he made when he was young, then he used it as a crutch in the present. IT AINT ME, ITS THE WAR.