One of my hobbies is working jigsaw puzzles. One of my husband’s hobbies is finding a puzzle to make my life difficult. He has given me puzzles with no edges, puzzles with little or no contrasts – like a baby seal in a snowbank – and puzzles within a puzzle that had 16 corners and 650 edge pieces. He smiled a lot when he gave me that one because I am a fanatic about doing edges first and he couldn’t wait to watch me twitch.
On the other hand, my husband didn’t think this round puzzle with a mere 440 pieces would be much of a challenge for me, but he didn’t take into consideration the shape of the pieces. They are all curved. And some of them connect by matching the outer edge of the curve into the inner edge. Until I found a few pegged pieces that could hold those pieces together, they would separate at the slightest touch. Imagine what happened when one of the cats decided to jump up on the table and slid across the puzzle.
I am a horse lover, so my husband buys me puzzles that feature horses. At first glance, this puzzle looks like it could go together fairly quickly and easily, but since there are only two major colors, pieces could fit anywhere. Which painted horse does this brown piece go to? And is this white piece part of the snow or a patch on a horse?
While working that many-edged puzzle recently, I started to see a correlation between jigsaw puzzles, writers, and stories. We all have different approaches to story. Some of us like to get all our edges – plot points and an outline – in place before trying to put scenes together. But what happens if we can’t do that? In my current WIP, the sequel to Open Season, I never have had all my edge pieces in place, and have been writing scenes as they come to me and going back to tie them all together.
That is probably not the most efficient way to work, but I remember what Diana Gabaldon once said at a writer’s conference about how she writes. She said she writes in one continuous flow, often jumping from scene to scene without a clear transition and smoothing it all out in the rewrite.
So I guess it is okay to write without all the edge pieces in place.
And sometimes those scenes don’t hold together until you get a pegged piece to anchor them.
As for contrasts, we need to make sure we have plenty of them. Don’t leave a reader holding a piece of the story and wondering if it is in the right place.
And when the writing is not going particularly well, you can always take a break and go work on a jigsaw puzzle.
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Thanks so much for your post today, Maryann! I know Maryann through the blogging world and she’s always got fantastic posts on the Blood Red Pencil blog as well as her own. And, when I read bios like Maryann’s (see below), I realize that I need to diversify more as a writer!
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As a journalist and author, Maryann Miller amassed credits for feature articles and short fiction in numerous national and regional publications. The Rosen Publishing Group in New York published nine of her non-fiction books including the award-winning, Coping With Weapons and Violence in School and On Your Streets, which is in its third printing. Play It Again, Sam, a woman’s novel and One Small Victory, a suspense novel, are electronic books available on Kindle, Nook, and other e-book reading devices. One Small Victory was originally published in hardback.
A mystery, Open Season, is a new release in hardback from Five Star Cengage Gale. A young adult novel, Friends Forever, is her first book for BWL Publishing Partners. She has also written several screenplays and stage plays and performs in community theatre in venues around East Texas. You can find Maryann on Facebook and Twitter, on her blog and on her group blog, The Blood Red Pencil.
Elizabeth – Thanks for hosting Maryann.
Maryann You’re so right about the comparison between writing and jigsaw puzzles. I’d never of thought of that!
I think one of the great things about writing is that we all go about it differently. Each of us has his or her own way of going about the task, just as we have different ways of going about the larger puzzle that is the story we write. We can learn from each other because of that, I think.
Thanks so much for hosting me today, Elizabeth. And maybe you are just fine without diversifying. LOL Sometimes we need to rein ourselves in as much as we need to rein in characters.
Hilary, someone has to admire our puzzle masterpieces when we are finished.
Margot, you are right about the fact that we all go about the writing differently, and I don’t think any one way is the right way.
Jaleh, I agree that it would be so much easier if we could solve the “where does the piece go” question in our writing as easily as we can with a jigsaw puzzle.
My college roommate said she was fed up with how fast I’d finish a puzzle, so she gave me a Jackson Pollock. That was a challenge!
Terry
Terry’s Place
Romance with a Twist–of Mystery
Hi Elizabeth and Maryann .. love the story round jigsaw puzzles .. and how each writer plans differently or edits their work later on ..
Interesting – jigsaws and me .. love looking at them!
Have good weekends … Hilary
Thanks so much for coming by today, Maryann! Great post. :) It’s so true that we can all approach our writing in different ways (start at the edges, start in the middle) and end up with a beautiful finished product.
Too funny that your husband likes to keep you busy! You’ll have to find a complex hobby for him, too. :)
What a fun post! I used to do jigsaw puzzles, but was always stumped with what to do with the finished product. I didn’t want to glue it and put it up on a wall, unless it was unique in some way, and putting it back in the box seemed sad after all that work.
Good analogy. I definitely need all the edges done first.
Gosh Terry and Laura, talk about challenging puzzles. I would be horribly lost without the picture to help me, although I am not sure a Jackson Pollock picture would help.
Stephen, I first got hooked on puzzles working them with my mother. My kids don’t enjoy them much, but I have one granddaughter who is pleased to find a puzzle in progress when she visits.
Elspeth, I have often just left a finished puzzle up on the table for some time after I finish it. It hard to just take it apart right away.
I love jigsaw puzzles. They drive my hubby nuts. But he doesn’t buy me more puzzles; he says I have plenty. Too bad I’ve been teaching my son to do them. ;) He’s ready to take on 100 piece puzzles now.
Great correlation, by the way. I often feel half crazy if a piece of my story doesn’t seem to fit right. I either have to toss it aside or figure out what is missing. Too bad I can’t work with my stories as tangibly as the jigsaw puzzles.
Great analogy.
And it is funny that so many readers and writers of mysteries also love jigsaw puzzles, crosswords and sudoku.
I prefer doing the edges first, but I have learned to work my way around it if I can´t.
L. Diane, I think working puzzles is a great way to spend New Years Eve, but then I am way past the party til you drop stage of my life. LOL
Dorte, I did not realize until I did this post how many mystery writers do like jigsaw puzzles. Do I dare… yeah… maybe it’s because we like to puzzle things out.
Okay, I can hear the groans already.
I love jigsaw puzzles. Used to do them with my dad and I’ve handed down the tradition to my kids. Now I want to go out and buy some big complicated puzzle.
You said it well: each writer approaches the story in different ways! Every write is different, every story is different.
I have a puzzle that’s different than the cover on the box! So there’s nothing to look at to help me. I haven’t done it yet, but all this puzzle talk makes me want to give it a go now! :)
My mother-in-law looks for the most difficult puzzle to give us every year because she knows that’s what we do on New year’s Eve. (Exciting, huh?)