We haven’t had an analogy to play with for a while, so I think we’re past due. Here’s one for today:

Writing a book is like gardening.

How so?

Well, deciding to create a garden is much like deciding to write a book. For creative reasons, you sign yourself up for a bunch of work, hoping that the result will be worth the effort.

Next, you need a broad plan. You need to figure out what you want to do. Will you have a garden like Sissinghurst, with only plants that have white flowers? Will you have an all-green garden? Will your garden be formal or casual? Will it have a theme? This is like deciding what kind of book you want to write – a romance, a mystery, a work of literary fiction.

Research comes after the broad plan. Once you decide to grow – for example – a medieval herb and flower garden, you’ll need to research what plants and varieties belong in that garden. You’ll also need to find out about your soil type, your climate zone, the amount of sun and shade in your garden, and modify your plan based upon those realities. This is similar to researching the market, learning what reader expectations are in your targeted genre. Just as you might visit successful gardens in your neighborhood, you might read popular books in your targeted genre to better orient yourself and refine your plan.

Then comes the heavy work. You’ll need to turn soil, plant trees and shrubs, add any hard landscaping (rocks) that you want. You’ll make paths through your garden, decide where there should be grass and set boundaries between the grass and the beds. You’ll pamper your new plants, watering and fertilizing them, with your gaze on the future of the garden. This, of course, is like writing the first draft of your book. You’ve got characters to meet, and character arcs to plan, a synopsis to write, a plot to tighten, conflict to heighten and emotional intensity to improve. Phew!

The next phase in the garden (often the second year) is similar the moment the book “comes to life”. There will be plants have died and left holes in the garden. There will be plants that have spread far beyond expectation, and “volunteers” from self-seeding plants will sprout in surprising corners. Essentially, the plants in the garden will have taken things into their own hands (leaves?) and grown in ways you didn’t necessarily predict. This is similar to what characters do to books, once they find their voices – they often run off and change the story. This would be a bad thing if they didn’t always have such good ideas of what should happen next. Just as writers learn to listen to their characters, a gardener listens to his or her plants.

Weeding a garden, especially once its shape and form is established, is a lot like editing. Some volunteer plants – like spontaneous paragraphs – work just fine where they’ve cropped up. Others have to be moved to a different place, or pulled out. Borders can be shaped and created as plants multiply. Plants can be moved when a fabulous colour combination appears – happenstance can become a planned feature, when it’s repeated over and over again. Editing makes the book a stronger expression of what it is. Weeding pulls a garden into focus, making the gardener’s vision more clear.

A garden is always in transition, always en route to becoming something different – just as a book will perpetually change. Trees will grow larger and cast more shade, making some plants unhappy (and others ecstatic). A big tree will fall or die, and the garden’s composition will change as a result. A garden, like a book, can always be tweaked and modified. But a garden, like a book, also reaches a fairly static point after it’s established, a point at which it can be maintained more or less the same with a minimum of effort each year. A book, too, reaches a point in which any modification will be minor and subjective – that’s the time to let the book go. It’s also the time to stop making radical change in the garden. It’s the time to enjoy them both for what they are.

So, what do you think of today’s analogy?

Or more importantly, do you garden? How does your garden grow? Mine is pulling out all the stops this year!