What Can Computer Programming Tell Us About Fiction Writing?
This is a reprint from Gather, I believe.
In another life long ago I was a computer programmer, on mainframes, near the end of the era when computers were hulking things that sat in air conditioned rooms with mysterious attendants. I came in as that style of computing was getting shoved aside by more agile, more capable desktops. I still dink around with programming a little, though it has been over a decade since I last did it professionally. The programming years were a good time, and I brought a few insights away from that era that help me as a writer, if I let them, which I don't always do.
The more upfront planning you do the less cleanup you have to do at the end. Computers are unforgiving if you're programming them, far more so than even the harshest, most judgmental editor or critic. Unlike a harsh or judgmental editor they are also almost always right. As a programmer, I always found that if I rushed into programming before I understood the problem thoroughly I had to take up far more time at the end, cleaning up the logic problems and other messes caused by not thinking things through. I find the same thing in writing. More work, more planning up front equals less wasted effort, less cleanup at the end, and overall more done in the same amount of time.
In all honesty I should add that both as a programmer and as a writer I find myself starting the actual process (programming or writing) before I'm ready almost every time. Planning doesn't feel like progress. Writing code or story does. The point is that the earlier in the process I give in to the urge to just start writing, the longer the overall process takes me.
I understand that I'm stomping into a longstanding battleground here. There are writers who just start writing with no conscious idea how the story or even the novel is going to come out. They write the story to see how it ends. That works for quite a few people. It works for me with short stories, and recently I’ve written two novels that way. If I try writing a novel totally seat of pants though, I end up writing into a dead end and having to scrap big chunks of novel to get back on track.
I suspect that people who just start writing have the story in their subconscious mind at the beginning and work through as they write. In any case, as far as novels go I usually do better as a planner and the more I plan the less work I have to do at the end, just as the better I planned my programs the less debugging I had to do at the end.
Debugging computer programs and problems is great practice for writing mystery fiction. Computers are sneaky. They always seem to find the one combination of circumstances that you didn't think of. If there is a way a program can fail it will fail, usually at two in the morning during a blizzard and in such a way that you have to drive in to fix it. I would pit some of the best of the old mainframe programmers against the best fictional detectives in terms of ingenuity and analytical skills in tracking down a problem.
It wasn't always a matter of dealing with computers. In a lot of cases it was dealing with people, walking them through the events that led to the problem, figuring out when they were forgetting to tell you something important or deliberately leaving something out because they were afraid they would get blamed for the computer not working.
The foibles of computers and the way people interact with them are a fertile field for fiction, though writers can date their fiction if they’re too specific, because of the speed computer technology changes. Want to suggest that your hero has a top end computer? A decade ago, you could have said that he/she had a 486-based machine. Now, if people even remember 486s, having one in your computer says you’re way behind the curve and probably should donate the beast to a charity that doesn’t know enough about computers not to take it.
Computers and writing are unlikely fields to cross-fertilize, but they do to a surprising extent. I need to experiment more with my writing. How much planning up front produces a finished, polished story or novel in the smallest amount of time? What is the best amount of planning time for you?