Fuck You, Pay Me #21: How to Write a Novel About Porn Valley
This is part 21 of “Fuck You, Pay Me,” an ongoing series of posts on writing, editing, and publishing.
Currently, I’m writing a novel set in Porn Valley. For the sake of this post, let’s call it Untitled Porn Valley Novel. (In fact, the book has a title, but let’s deem it untitled for this post.) Since finding myself on an adult movie set for the first time nearly three decades ago, I’ve been searching for the best way to tell this story about this curious place. Here are a few things I’ve learned along the way.
Immerse yourself in your subject. I haven’t lived in Los Angeles the entire time I’ve been writing about the adult industry, but I’ve lived here quite a bit. Initially, I lived in Los Feliz, which is on the east side of Los Angeles, not in the San Fernando Valley. Now, I live in the Valley, which is more of an embed. When I’m writing something in the novel and I get stuck, I can drive to where that section takes place and get inspired. The novel is twelve chapters, and each chapter takes place in a different part of the Valley over the course of a single day. That said, the Porn Valley I’ve created is a work of fiction. It’s my Yoknapatawpha County.
See what you haven’t seen. As a journalist writing about the porn industry, I’ve seen a lot of things. Suffice to say, when Martin Amis described the porn business as a “rough trade,” he was not incorrect. Sometimes, the manufacturing of pornography is a space in which things get extreme. (Take, for example, “500 Men. 1 Woman. Get in Line.”) I can’t unsee what I’ve seen. So what am I to do with these scenes in my mind? These real-life experiences have shaped my work as a novelist. As a reporter, I bear witness. As a fiction writer, I recreate what I have seen anew. The process is alchemical. Something gets transformed.
Write it in pieces. The only way I was able to move through the manuscript productively was to write it in 500-word chunks. Each of the twelve chapters is approximately 5,000 words, and each chapter has 10 sections of approximately 500 words. Instead of “writing a novel,” I’m meeting a word goal. Attaining these smaller word goals was the way to write a book-length work. Maybe that method works for you, or maybe it doesn’t. But it works for me. Ultimately, I may merge those 10 sections in the chapter into one continuous whole for the chapter. Or I may not. That’s a question for revision, not for creating.
Do a bad job. As a perfectionist, I can get stuck on getting things right. The bar is set high, and I can get bogged down in trying to meet it. People always say to write a messy first draft; the idea of doing that makes me want to claw out my eyes. It’s almost intolerable. Eventually, though, I was able to realize that some chapters would be tighter than others, and some chapters would be more exploratory than others. Take it from Robert Frost: “the best way out is always through.” Or John Swartzwelder: “Since writing is very hard and rewriting is comparatively easy and rather fun, I always write my scripts all the way through as fast as I can, the first day, if possible.” Or William Faulkner: “The main thing is—is to get it down.”
Become someone else. I tried to write this novel in many different ways, and I could never quite get it right. For years, the main character eluded me. Then I wrote a short story about a character I fell in love with, and I realized that this person was the main character in my novel. This time around, the main character in my novel is a man, and that works for me. For as long as I am writing my novel, I am someone else: who is the opposite of me and very much me, who is totally lost and hoping to be found, who is wrestling with their demons and seeking transcendence. In reality, he’s my doppelgänger, but in the world of fantasy, he’s all mine.
About I My Book I Newsletter I X I Instagram I LinkedIn I Consulting I Email