EP02: Good Borrowing

I never would've told you my methods after writing my first novel. I was convinced that every reader needed to believe that this book was just divinely dropped into my hands from an inspo cloud in the sky. Not so.

Welcome to Episode 2 of Publishing Hypothesis!
Did you miss episode one? Read it here.)

Today, I will kick off this article with a classic callback to the show I grew up watching with my brother, Mythbusters. Just like the two nerdy guys on the show, we'll be testing widely accepted myths about writing and publishing! And, like on the show, we'll find that many of these myths are not as true as we once thought! Woohoo. Someone get me a fedora.

Myth One: Your novel is unlike anything that's ever been done before. There's absolutely nothing on Earth to compare it to.

It's easy to fall into the ego-feeding trap of assuming that your precious novel, the one you've poured all your blood, sweat, and tears into, is the first of its kind. It's never been done before. It's all you. No influence at all.

Pablo Picasso even claims that the best art is stolen (his words, not mine) and remade into something new. And that's a good thing.

So, let's save ourselves some time and agree on two things:

1. Your book is unique to you. It's like a little curio shop of all your personal experiences, favorite stories, and most impressionable moments woven into one single plot.
2. Your book relies heavily on the elements and influence from the outside world. Other artists and stories have a direct impact on you and thus your novel

Thrift stores will never go out of style. Our human nature craves repurposing. We love the idea of making an old thing new. It's a simple fact that keeps storytelling alive and well. Accepting it as such will help you improve your novel greatly.

Action Item: Make a running list of the influences that greatly impact the lens of your novel.

If you can't think of any, it's your responsibility as a writer to read and reflect more. But, trust me you have some. Here's an example list of what my list for my sophomore novel (an interactive mystery) looked like:

• Hunt a Killer Games: I have an obsession with these board games and couldn't help but notice how much reading material they have & how the design of the clues was often a unique vehicle to further their story.
• Stuart Turton Novels: I love weird mysteries with tons of unreliable and semi-unlikable characters. I was definitely influenced by some of Stu's work when writing mine.
• Agatha Christie Novels: Agatha Christie are extremely plot driven. The cause and effect is often coming up as a clue being uncovered. The clue will drive the next plot point rather than the character. So on.
• Nancy Drew Games: My fiance and I occasionally replay the old point and click Nancy Drew video games that I grew up on. They are still next level difficult, but there's always some sort of hidden passage or puzzle in the setting that the characters are in which really tickles my fancy.
• Humphrey Bogart Movies: While I was writing YBS, I was also in a phase of watching movies from the 1940s. The whole "aesthetic" of the era felt very influential to me. I really felt like I needed to bring some of it into my book.

If you put an element from all of these together, you'll have my novel. And whether you liked it or hated it, doesn't matter. It was specifically geared at a niche target market who loves the weave of all of these elements. And your book is going to have it's own unique texture of influence.

Myth Two: I know I am influenced by things. In order to have a truly creative novel, I need to fast from all other reading material.

Matt Bell, writer of Appleseed, says that keeping a "creative borrowing shelf" is one of the best things he does for his own work. When he's in a creative rut, he goes back to his borrowing shelf and thumbs through the stories, games, or influences there to see what pulls him in. This my friends, is a good strategy. Starving yourself the chance of gaining outside creative influence is not.

Good creative influence is meant to be studied. And that's exactly what we need to be doing. So, now that you've identified your list of creative influences (which can still be in flux) let's get into the dissection method.

1️⃣ Step One: Decide what your influences mean.

Each of your influences mean something. We want to drill them down into a single element of your story and decide which ones impact plot the most. Using my example from above even further:

• Hunt a Killer Games: Inspired the novels formatting (in a big way, but nevertheless, no matter how unique, this was not a plot driver)
• Stu Turton Novels: Inspired the unreliable characters.
• *Agatha Christie Novels: Inspired the unfolding flow of the plot (clue > plot turn > clue > plot turn)
• *Nancy Drew Games: Inspired the setting-reliant plot twists
• Humphrey Bogart Movies: Inspired the setting in general

2️⃣ Step Two: Pick out your plot drivers.

We have now identified two influences that greatly impact my novel's plot. (The two examples with asterisks.) While the other elements are important, we're going to focus on the main plot driver first. As a rule of thumb, since you are writing a novel, your main plot-impact influence should also be a novel.

3️⃣ Step Three: Study sessions! Homework! Yeah!

If you thought you finished homework when you got a diploma, you were very wrong. You decided to be a writer! We're going to take the influences that you selected as plot-driven influences and study them at their core. If a writer's body of work influenced you, select the novel that you felt the most impact from overall.

When I started doing this, I felt like I was cheating. But really, what I was doing was studying the greats. A master NBA player rewatches the games of the legends that came before them. They study their playbooks. Remember, this is what you're intended to be doing here.

I'll use the example of And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. And in any respectable study-session you must invite your best-friend from college: Sparknotes! (Pro-tip: Sparknotes is your BFF as an aspiring professional writer)

For me, the answer to the above question, is that the twist was SO good and it was always in front of my nose (A nursery rhyme that foretold everything). With that in mind, I'm going to go through the Sparknotes summaries (If your inspo book doesn't have Sparknotes, you can go analog mode and physically re-read and summarize each chapter yourself, which while tedious, can often be more beneficial. I won't lie, I've only attempted that once!)

Take this Chapter 5 of ATTWN for example:

4️⃣ Step Four: Summarize what each section did for the plot in a few sentences.

Here's what we're not going to do. We're not going to say: "Omg. A character needs to get poisoned in Chapter 5." No. That is actually stealing. We're studying.

We're going to summarize what each section did to drive the story in a few sentences.

⭐ KEY NOTE: We are NOT going to explain the cause and effect that happened in the actual plot (Exp: Poison led to locked door), rather how that cause and effect drives the story (Exp: Discovery led to Suspicion). ⭐

• ⬆️ (Cause) A clue is uncovered which leads to two things:
  • ↪️ Effect #1: Character suspicion is setting in. Things are no longer able to be seen as coincidence. There is a standout character we're going to focus on next.
    • (Taken from the locked doors and note about Rogers)
  • ↪️ Effect #2: The rose colored glasses about the situation are coming off.
    • (Taken from the statement about the house)

5️⃣ Step Five: Compare & Contrast

Once we have a few sentences of that for each of our chapters, we can use it against our novels outline. Now, I don't mean in the sense of "Agatha has character suspicion setting in at Chapter 5 and I don't have it until Chapter 7. I am wrong!" No, that's not it.

What we're doing is taking our plot outline that we made in Episode One & comparing it to the brief outline we just made of our plot-influence.

A key takeaway from this exercise might be this: "After the characters are introduced and the reader is made comfortable in the setting, Agatha uses an unexpected event to incite suspicion. We're going to focus on one character at a time as this suspicion builds further and further."

Notice we're not making any notes about poison, the house, or locked bedroom doors in this takeaway. We're focusing on how the author drove the plot forward at a mechanics level. This my friends, is good borrowing.

6️⃣ Step Six: Bring it back to the impact.

For our sixth step in good borrowing, take the answer you jotted down in "What made this story so impactful for me?" Was it that AHA moment? A character who became an unlikely hero?

Whatever it is, use that as a charter point for each part of the outline you make.

Using our Agatha example: As the suspicion builds and each character is zeroed in on, the answer gets more unclear. Yet, it's in front of the readers nose the whole time. For my own novel, keeping the lead in front of their nose is something I should come back to every time suspicion builds.

🤯🔥Boom. That's it! That's good borrowing. We are studying exactly what makes our influencer effective at a fundamental level rather than a scene-by-scene level. We're getting past the potatoes and into the meat.

7️⃣ Step Seven: Don't decorate the house before you build it.

When you walk into a house and say, "Wow I love how they did that with the wallpaper!" That's more like my Hunt a Killer Games influence (novel formatting) or my Stu Turton influence (novel characterization).

When you walk into a house and say, "This layout is amazing. I love how this hallway leads you into this room. The laundry room and the master connect! This is exactly how I want to build my house." You're then looking at the plot level. For me, that'd be the Agatha Christie example.

A key to good borrowing is delving into the plot influence first. Finding out what made that impact so big on you. After understanding the fundamentals, it's okay to incorporate the extras.

The "extras" might be influences like: "Perfect formatting. That's something I want to do." or "This 40's aesthetic is so intriguing, I want to put some of that in here." or "I love how this character has a sense of humor."

That's wallpaper. It doesn't need to be studied at such a deep level. Not the way the actual architecture does. All of that can be layered in. Thumbed through for influence here and there.

While all the influencers will live on your "Good Borrowing" shelf that you might revisit from time to time, only one or two should be town apart for their bones.

Myth #3: I don't need to understand my influences. I only need to focus on my novel.

TLDR: Good borrowing is imperative to writing a good novel. You're going to be influenced no matter what. Dissecting your influences in going to help you craft an amazing story. Bring back those study sessions!

TLDRx2: Writing a novel can be a lot like building a house. It's got to have good bones before it can have nice wallpaper and dining room lighting.

⏭️ EPISODE THREE UP NEXT

Missed recent episode?

• 01) Purposeful Drafts and Outlines: Read it here.
• Intro to PubHyp: Read it here.