Architecture and design - Building a book, finishing a book

The art of slow writing - Louise DeSalvo 2014

Architecture and design
Building a book, finishing a book

When I talked about my first memoir, Vertigo, with my editor, Rosemary Ahern, she asked me, “What’s the shape of the book? How many words do you plan to write?” Ahern had asked me to write about my Italian American working-class childhood in Hoboken, New Jersey, and the unlikely story of how I became a Virginia Woolf scholar. I’d written an essay about it. I had a list of subjects to cover, a seventy-page piece called “White on Black,” and a statement of purpose. So now it was time to plan the book.

Before I started writing Vertigo, I picked a few memoirs off my shelf that were about the same length I intuitively wanted mine to be. I counted the words in sample pages, calculated these books were from ninety to a hundred thousand words, and decided my book would be roughly a hundred thousand words, long enough for my story.

After I determined the length of my book, I made a provisional outline. By the end of a few hours’ work, I had a list of chapters and a tally of about how many words each chapter would contain. I recalled from my previous books how much detail is needed for a reader to understand a narrative, so I decided to jettison a few chapters so I could write more fully about fewer topics, taking that age-old advice that it’s best to write more about less. When I thought about the narrative’s structure, I decided I wanted the book to resemble a spiral—a dizzying structure that circled round and round the same material.

Stephen King has written that, although writing a book involves a certain amount of magic, we shouldn’t forget that a book is also an object in the world. Hold a book in your hand, and you’ll realize “words have weight” and that producing a book is as much a “matter of commitment” as it is about inspiration. King has compared the process of building a book to that of building a house. A writer builds a book “a paragraph at a time,” and we can “build … whole mansions” if we “have the energy.” Still it’s important to ascertain the shape of our projects when we begin lest our work seem jerry-rigged. A work of art isn’t so much written as it’s constructed.

I like the comparison King makes between writing a book and building a house. Building a house requires a well-thought-out plan, although that plan can change. Although I know many writers who work without knowing much about the architecture of their books, I find that I work best when I’ve settled certain issues beforehand—the book’s length, and its provisional structure, among them.

Years ago, when I was reading Virginia Woolf’s handwritten draft of To the Lighthouse, I learned that, before she’d written a word, she’d thought out her design. “The plan of this book,” she wrote, “is roughly that it shall consist of three parts: one, Mrs. Ramsay (?) sitting at the window: while Mr. R. walks up & down in the dusk.… 2) The passing of time.… 3) This is the voyage to the Lighthouse.” Woolf also determined that the style she’d use would employ “an everyday sentence,” “less emphatic & intense” than those in Mrs. Dalloway. Woolf wasn’t yet sure about the style of the middle section, but she’d attempt “an interesting experiment … giving the sense of 10 years passing.”

I’d written a few books without determining their structure. But that caused me tremendous anxiety, even panic. I never knew where I was in the process, how much I’d accomplished, how much more I had to write. In writing my Virginia Woolf biography, I had a provisional outline but hadn’t determined my book’s parameters or its structure. I discovered, to my horror, that I’d written more than three hundred pages about Woolf’s sisters’ childhoods before I’d even started writing about hers. Her sisters’ lives did become a part of my narrative. But I had to stop and think about the design for the book, which I realized was about the effect of Virginia Woolf’s childhood upon her work, and sweating down those three hundred pages to incorporate them into my book was agonizing and time-consuming.

Because I knew the structure of Vertigo beforehand, I could gauge my progress throughout the writing process. Instead of feeling lost while continuing to write an indeterminate number of words, I knew where I was. If I drafted five hundred words a day, I could write a draft in two hundred working days, or about ten months. And this plan could be flexible if I added two months to my deadline to account for illness and emergencies. This realistic plan would permit weekends off and time off during the week if necessary. And I could ascertain whether my work was meeting the criteria I’d established in terms of style and subject matter.

As I worked, I regularly calculated my progress. I always knew how much I’d written and how much more I needed to write to produce a first draft. I found it comforting to know I’d written, say, 40 percent of that draft. I’d also planned to revise that draft four or five more times so I knew I could work provisionally—I’d have future drafts to make hard choices and tidy things up.

I still decide how long a book will be, write an outline indicating how many words each chapter will contain, chart the progress of my work, determine roughly how long a draft will take, sketch my design, and determine my intentions for the project. Paradoxically, as rigid as this process seems, it permits me to write freely.

The book I’m now writing about my parents during World War II will be 80,000 to 90,000 words. I’m 37,197 words into my current draft (the penultimate, I think). I know that I’m about 41 percent finished with this draft, and that makes me happy. I know the book will be eleven or twelve chapters long; I know each chapter will be about 7,500 words. I’ve decided the book will begin with the last years of my father’s life, then move chronologically from his enlistment in the navy through when he returns from the war.

I’m not saying that having a design, counting words, calculating how much we’ve done, is a cure-all. The writing process is still a mystery. But I need some idea of where I’m headed, as did Woolf. And knowing something about my book’s design provides me with a profound sense of comfort. I might not know everything about a book. But this much, at least, I do know.