In writing a novel, I try to go
through the
following steps:
1) write brief notes about the
the
mythic/historic context -- make explicit important elements
about everyday life
that I might take for granted (e.g., common religious beliefs,
motivations)
2) write the complete story -- everything that
happens, in sequence; the actual story will Istart and end
somewhere in the
middle, but you need to know everything that happens before and
after
3) write everything I know about the
characters -- their backgrounds, their ages, their looks, their
motivations,
their interactions
4) pick the starting and ending points of the
story I want to tell directly (a subset of the complete story)
-- I might tell
more of the complete story indirectly
5) decide what I will show or tell, what I
will hint at and what I will leave untold
6) decide on the point of view
7) begin writing the novel
For me, the beginning stages are toughest. That's
where I need the most advice and discipline.
Then, when I'm lucky, there comes a time when
the characters come to life in my mind and start talking and
acting, and I am
more recording than creating, and they take me sometimes in
directions that I never
intended. That's the fun time.
The reactions of the characters to what
happens and to one another can make a story three-dimensional --
like shadows,
reflections, and shading in visual art. The better the reader
knows those
characters, the more profound the effect -- ideally making me
feel like I am there
myself.
I typically start with the main characters,
usually with major life changes, and try to sort out the
motivations and the
interactions of the characters. For me the plot comes from the
characters. I
know a few things that must happen (the basic idea behind the
book). Then
understanding the characters leads me to understand what must
have happened
before and what must happen after.
While some writers have to "flesh
out" the characters once they've firmed up the plot, I typically
need to
"flesh out" the plot once I've firmed up the characters.
Dialogue comes easily to me --
too easily. I
wake up at night hearing my characters talk to one another. That
works fine for
plays and movie scripts. But when trying to write a novel, that
presents
problems.
Actors can, through facial expression,
intonation, and gesture, convey a character's emotions and
thoughts. But in a
novel, you need to use perspective to do that -- letting the
reader
"overhear" the character's thoughts. It's a bizarre convention
that
characters think the same way they speak. (Only experimental
novels, like
Ulysses and the works of Virginia Woolf, try for a
"stream-of-consciousness", which tends to be less readable than
straight text, and probably isn't much closer to
the reality of how we actually
think).
After the characters have come alive in my
imagination enough to start talking to me, I need to go through
another stage
of composition, when I add their thoughts -- what they think but
deliberately
choose not to say, and what they think of and how they react to
the other
characters. And I need to do that with discipline -- only moving
into the mind
of one character in each chapter or major section of a chapter.
(You lose your
reader very quickly if you switch perspectives too quickly and
too often). And
that's how the elements of the plot (which comes after
development of the
characters) get woven into the narrative, setting up
expectations, inserting
foreshadowing, adding a sense of tension through the thoughts of
the characters.
I'm sure that many writers put the words down
the way they want them the first time around -- like painting
with broad
confident strokes of color. If I were a graphic artist, I'd
begin with line
sketches, and after lots of tries and erasures, add shading, I'd
add color. And
it would probably take me so long that I'd starve before the
painting was done.
No one can find the theme of
your novel but
you. It must be something that fascinates you. When
you sense the beginnings of such an attraction (that might turn
out to be first
love, that might be like discovery of magnetism affecting your
own personal built-in
compass), start scribbling whenever anything the least bit
associated with this
topic comes to mind (but especially when you wake up remembering
your dreams).
Then keep these guidelines in mind:
1) When asking friends for
reactions, push
back hard when someone balks at a tiny detail. That detail could
be symptomatic
of a larger problem. Try to pinpoint exactly what elicited such
a response.
2) The role of fiction is to make the
improbable seem inevitable. All the details should feel natural
given the
circumstances of the characters -- natural enough to not need
explanation. The
reader to be able to make accurate
assumptions
about the characters what iss mentioned. That means the details
have to be on target.
3) Sometimes takes some digging to determine why
a particular reader has negative reactions to what you have
written. The reader
may have unique personal peculiar associations with certain
words or phrases or
situations that you used.
4) Sometimes, unintentionally, your writing
may be therapeutic -- you may be caught up writing this story
you need to deal
with a personal issue. The
story may be the
vessel into which you are pouring your blood and guts -- making
exterior what's
interior, so I can look at it and try to make sense of it. In that case, it may
be very important to
you, but meaningless to anyone else.
5) A good line can be a hazard. You can like a
line so much that you keep it, even though it wrecks the flow of
the lines
around it and of the story as a whole.
6) If you are writing a play, and in a reading
with actors the actors stumble, that may not be the actors'
fault. It could
mean that the words and the rhythm
don't feel natural.
7) The creative phase of writing is very
different from the polishing and editing phase. To write
something new or to
significantly rewrite, I need to find a "generative" phrase -- a
line
that implies a whole character; a line that leads to another
line and another
and that generates a rhythm that carries the story forward.
8) When a story comes alive, the final edits
(to take care of inconsistencies and weak plot points) depend
not on invention
and creativity, but rather on recognizing and bringing out the
potential that's
already there. If the story has legs, at some point the
characters start to
walk and run and dance on their own and the writer simply
records what he/she
sees and hears.
9) One measure of the power of an author is
how little needs to happen to show the characters undergoing
life-shifting
changes. Inexperienced authors often have cataclysmic plots and
have the main
characters die. The best authors can tell a story with both
subtlety and
passion, where a look or a word has the narrative power of an
earthquake. By
that measure, Penelope Fitzgerald is one of the finest novelists
of all time.
10) If you need to write because that’s who
you are, keep at it and don’t give up, ever. The satisfaction
comes from the
writing itself and from the reactions of readers. If your aim is
to get rich
quick, forget it.
11) Writing a novel is about 5% of the job.
50% is building a network of contacts in the publishing world
and fine-tuning
your marketing pitch. The other 45% is rewriting again and again
and again,
until the story finally becomes what it can become (not just in
your mind, but
in the minds of your readers).
12) Read thousands of books/stories and try
contacting the authors/agents/editors of those that resonate
with you.
13) Submit stories and novel excerpts to
magazines, regardless of how small they are and whether they
pay. Try to get
your work to readers, try to build an audience, solicit
reactions, and learn
from the feedback you get.
14) Start reading The Writer and Writer’s
Digest and Poets & Writers (your local library probably has
back issues of
those magazines) for advice on writing and marketing, and use
the directories
they publish for lists of agents and authors. If you can afford
it, try some of
the many writers’ workshops that are held in the summer, and
take advantage of
the opportunities there to meet and get to know published
authors, agents, and
editors. When you go to college, take creative writing courses.
Maybe even go
to graduate school for an MFA.
15) Lightning may strike. But be prepared for
a long journey.
My ebook publishing business
isn’t about “great” books,
chosen by authorities and to be read with a sense of obligation.
I’m reminded of my childhood reading
explorations.
My grandfather, who lived in Silver Spring,
MD, had an attic stacked high with books, many of which I
checked out during
visits, and some of which now adorn my own shelves — authors
like G.A.Henty.
Those were my grandfather’s books when he was a child. My father
(now in his
80’s) didn’t read them as a kid, but he’s now borrowing my
Hentys and savoring
those historically accurate adventures.
Later we moved to Plymouth, NH (a small town
very much like Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town”),
with party-line telephones and
a town calendar published every year with everybody’s birthdays
and
anniversaries noted. The town library was a red clapboard
building where Daniel
Webster had pled and lost his first case. They had very little
shelf space. So
for every book they boought, they had to throw an old one away.
I remember
seeing the pile of rejects ready for the dumpster, including
works by Mark
Twain, George Eliot, William Prescott. That felt like a
sacrilege. I “rescued”
many boxes full of them. Even if I couldn’t read them all, I
felt the need to “save” them.
I also went to estate auctions when they were
held nearby, and bought for pennies works by Stanley about his
explorations in
Africa, an account of Shackleton’s voyage to Antarctica,
complete Plutarch, the
works of Richard Harding Davis and Hornung.
During summer vacations, I’d read
omnivorously, delighted by books and authors I had never heard
of before. (I
particularly remember “The Prince of India” by Lew Wallace —
the life of a man who had
insulted Jesus and was condemned to live forever; and “La
Marche des Civilisations” which
convincingly described the possibility of vast cycles of
history, stretching
back hundreds of thousands of years, civilizations rising and
falling to be
replaced by new civilizations, with no memory of what had come
before).
At some point the thousands of printed books
I’ve accumulated over the years will be more a burden than a
treasure. I won’t
be able to take them with me when moving into smaller quarters
(my father
recently went through that trauma, moving into an assisted
living community).
And I’m sure my children will have no room for them all. And
libraries will
have no room for them either. If a libary accepted them as a
donation (an
unlikely possibility) it would only be to sell them like rummage
at a quarter a
piece and to throw out what didn’t sell. A sad fate.