If you’re a fan of Cosmos or just an astronomy buff in general, then you’ve surely heard of the Drake Equation. Formulated in 1961 by Dr. Frank Drake, duly pictured here, it’s a mathematical equation designed to predict the number of possible extra-terrestrial civilizations out there. It’s fairly straightforward. First, figure out the average rate that stars are born. Next, figure what fraction of those might have planets. Now figure how many of those planets can support life. Next, how many of them do support life, and so on. Follow this pattern far enough and eventually the formula tells us how many Frank Drakes there might be in the universe.

Whatever number is produced by the formula is essentially meaningless, for many of the equation’s factors are based on pure conjecture. But the general principle is sound: start with a large pool and whittle it down until you have the finalists.

If you think about it, variations of this formula can be created and applied to almost anything. Take, for example, the one hundred thousand people who audition for American Idol each year. A small fraction of those make it past the scouts. A small fraction of those make it past the producers. A small fraction of those actually make it in front of the judges. Another fraction goes to Hollywood, and so on. Eventually, you get down to the season finale where one person, usually Frank Drake, is declared the winner.

This ‘whittling theory’ applies to essentially any discipline. Musicians, actors, athletes, and, yes, even scientists: all of them form vast pyramids where one superstar is supported by an exponentially large number of wannabes at the base and those with varying degrees of talent in between. And it has to be that way. You simply cannot have 100,000 American Idol winners. By definition, there can’t be 100,000 Number One radio hits on the Billboard charts at once. You can’t have 100,000 J.K. Rowlings out there simultaneously, because that would mean a LOT of people buying 100,000 books all at once. Mathematically speaking, the universe is fundamentally designed to support the against-all-odds theorem.

Funny I should mention Rowling just there, since this meandering essay is now at last turning to the point at hand: becoming a successful writer. So in this spirit, I’d like to offer my own variation on the Drake Equation:

It breaks down something like this:

H = The number of humans on the planet capable of writing at all.
f_pf = The fraction of these who have even a passing fancy of writing a book.
f_i = The fraction of these who actually come up with an idea for a book.
f_s = The fraction of these who start writing a book.
f_fd = The fraction of these who by some miracle finish a first draft.
f_m = The fraction of these who complete a final manuscript.
f_a = The fraction of these who find an agent.
f_p1 = The fraction of these whose agents manage to find a willing publisher.
f_p2 = The fraction of these publishers who actually publish.
f_$ = The fraction of these who make any money on the book.
f_$$ = The fraction of these who actually make a living off writing.
f_$$$ = The fraction of these who make a really nice living off writing.

I’ve spent the past few hours playing with some numbers and have accurately concluded there’s about a one in 3.79 brazillion chance that I’ll end up anywhere in the f_$ range. Yet for some reason, I keep at it. Though my higher order brain functions understand it’s against all odds, one fact sticks in my head: no one has yet ever become a successful author by never writing anything. Or, as the state lottery puts it, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

The current book project is, indeed, intended to be a series of books. When I first re-tooled the idea last summer, it looked like it would span five volumes. While writing the first draft and approaching what would have been the end of the first book, I realized the ending I had originally outlined was fairly lame. Okay, really lame. It would have been as if Tolkien decided to end The Fellowship of the Ring halfway during the Council of Elrond. Had by some miracle it been published, it would have received reviews from some extremely disappointed readers.

So I combined the first two storylines into one, then checked my original outline again. Hmmm… now the third book looked thoroughly pointless. Rejected. So how about the fourth and fifth? Hmmm… yeah, these really should be one book as well. And hey presto! just like that, I had a trilogy. I can live with that.

But after I (more or less) completed the first draft, I began the retooling phase. Writing with my head, as it were. Suddenly it started looking like an extra book might be needed after all. Which to the average person might not sound like a big deal, but causes me to channel the Knights Who Say Ni and declare, “There is one small problem!”

No, it’s not the lack of shrubbery. It’s the fact that four books is an even number. And I just can’t have that. I can’t tell you why, but it’s wrong. Two is bad. Four is bad. Six is bad. Forget the content: I just can’t deal with having an even number of books in a series. One is an awesome number. Three, of course, is absolute magic. Five is like three, but on steroids. Seven is how many years you go to Hogwarts. But four? Uck. Me no like.

If I had to put my finger on it, I believe it comes down to this: there’s no “middle” point. It somehow feels unbalanced. Kind of like when the solar system went from nine planets to eight. It just ain’t right.

Is it just me? Anyone else feel like this?

So I guess I’m going to try and stretch this to five books again. But if someday this whole thing gets published and you notice the middle book is triple spaced with two inch margins, at least you’ll be able to point back to this post for the explanation.

Two things amazed me about my writing progress last year: 1) that I was actually doing it; and 2) that I managed to write over four hundred pages without even the slightest hint of a plot. This is okay for forty pages or so, you know, just introducing the characters, setting, and what not. Maybe eighty if you’re particularly gifted with adjectives. Maybe even two hundred pages, if you have the luxury of forcing all your readers to enjoy your work at gunpoint. But never, ever four hundred pages.

Yes, yes, I realized I touched on all this in the last book update. Today I just want to dig into the whole concept a bit more.

Not every book actually needs a plot. Travel books, memoirs, dictionaries, — all of these have the ability to fill hundreds of pages without even the merest threat of a twist ending. However, unlike the other books I’ve written, this one is fiction. As I got to the point where I realized the book might never end, it dawned on me that I might not be the only one to notice the problem.

For one, books that never end are very expensive to print. But worse, books that never end are never read. And, like most writers, I’m definitely writing to be read. So what’s a struggling wannabe to do? Come up with a plot, of course.

Disclaimer: I’m not a complete idiot. I did know about this strange literary device called a plot before I started. And to be honest, I had one when I started. I wrote up an outline which looked okay when it was only seventeen lines. It wasn’t until I actually started writing, however, that I realized it was about as thin as butter scraped across too much bread. There was no way my piddly little idea could support the weight of an entire novel.

As I mentioned in the last post, I began work on a second book (or booklet). I worked on it for two days. It’s about ten thousand words long and told in the first person point of view. It fully fleshed out the backstory I needed to give the main story a sense of purpose. Once I had that, I officially abandoned the first draft and went back to the literary drawing board: the synopsis. (If you can’t tell a story in 500 words, you sure won’t do it in 500,000 words. Trust me.) This second pass of the synopsis is getting a lot closer to where I want to be. Still a ways to go, but closer (and in the right direction).

Even better — for you, that is — I may be ready to actually unveil some of this mystery when Update Three rolls around. Which means I’d better stop typing here and get back to the word processor.

I’m still surprised I made it as far as I did last year on the first draft of the manuscript. Back when I made my 2009 New Year Resolutions, I promised myself I’d finish the first draft by year’s end. And, back in January 2009, I actually thought that might happen. After all, I was already in my second month of writing and had a vast, expanse of time ahead of me. Twelve whole months! What couldn’t be done in twelve whole months?

Little did I know I’d be starting over during the year and wouldn’t begin writing again until August 1. Finishing a first draft by year’s end seemed mathematically impossible. NaNoWriMo helped me make up some serious time. By the end of the writing year (December 21) the draft hit 122,475 words. (I know that word counts can be a bit difficult to grasp: click here for a few reference points).

I didn’t begin writing again until January 5, when I added a whopping 159 words. The next day I did barely better, adding only 310 words. In short, things were getting pathetic: a far cry from NaNoWriMo days where my daily average was over 2,200 words. (And my most productive day was 7,453 words. Ahhhh, those were the days.)

The Heart of the Matter

The only thing more incredible than writing 122k words is writing 122k words without the slightest hint of a plot. About halfway through December, I changed the subtitle of the book to A Series of Uninteresting Events. The first draft was never intended to be close to a final anything. The characters are flat, which is okay. The imagery is weak; also okay. And I’ve held back on the frilly adjectives simply to make it through an entire story, which I could then go back and dress up later.

A particular someone I know is fond of making analogies to homebuilding. But there’s a good reason for that: building is a fundamental thing we humans do and building houses is easy for anyone to grasp. To use a homebuilding analogy for the book, think of my outline and synopsis as a blueprint. The first draft is the foundation and framing. At the end of this draft you have a pretty good idea of its shape, its purpose, and what the end product will look like. But it still needs drywall and paint and trim.

A solid frame without any paint and trim would be a terrible home. Similarly, a home with lots of nice paint and trim but a lousy foundation and frame would never be a place to live. A good book, like a good house, needs it all: it must be good through and through.

But when I wrote my 122,955th word on January sixth I realized the foundation and frame weren’t coming together. The book was more like a tunnel, aimlessly plowing into a mountain without any real purpose. I had to stop and rethink things. So I did something crazy over the weekend.

Something Crazy

What did I do? I started a second book. What? You heard me. And actually, it’s not as crazy as it sounds. What I began writing was a prequel, for lack of a better term. I realized that for the current story to come together I had a few too many unknowns to deal with. My synopsis simply didn’t have the detail I needed to explain what was happening. So I picked a character mentioned in the story, but not part of the story, and made him the first-person narrator in the prequel. In one day I wrote 34 pages, over 7,000 words, mapping out important pieces of the backstory in the detail I finally needed. It changed a lot: and in a good way. It was just what I needed.

It’s not done, of course, and I’ll likely never “finish” it. It’s simply an exercise. But a good one, and something I never saw coming. But in hindsight it makes sense. Because until I get down to the details, my brain just can’t properly formulate all the story elements. I have to create conversations and make people walk around. The bird’s eye view doesn’t work for me.

If all goes well, by the “Update Three” post my “Book Zero” will be behind me, my plot wall smashed down, and the first draft completed. If all goes really well, that will be long before December.