This Year You Write Your Novel (6 page)

This device is an example of the blending of different elements of fiction writing. Initially, we have the frightened character traits and the responses of Bob and Lyle to the big event at the beginning of the story. Lyle is blind. Bob is half blind and unable even to look at his torturers. Lyle wants sweet chocolate because it is something that gives him solace. Bob wants to rid himself of his bitterness against life.

Later, Bob comes to see that he has abandoned Lyle, whom he has raised as a son even if they aren’t related by blood. He uses his intimacy with the boy, made concrete by the chocolate and the layout of their house, to reach him. This action allows Bob to see himself. And maybe it allows Ramona to see something deeper in this taciturn, seemingly cowardly man.

From this point Bob at least understands what he has to do about his fainting spells at the jailhouse and in the court. Will he do it? That will have to come later.

So here we begin to see how the various elements of fiction writing come together in plot. We have started a story with a horrific event that engages the reader’s interest. We have gotten to know the main characters through their responses to that event and their relationships to one another. What we have learned about these characters later allows us to understand their struggles with their physical and psychological wounds.

How, and at what moment in the story, these character and story elements are revealed or advanced makes up the plot of your novel. Without this structure, your story may well be flaccid and uninteresting.

There is another important component to plot that you must always consider: with plot you always have the potential for the element of surprise. You give the reader all the constituent parts of the tale, and then you add these factors together, coming up with an obvious but wholly surprising piece of knowledge or event.

The best way to understand this potential strength of surprise in plot is to look at the structure of most jokes. In a joke you are given a great deal of storylike information up front, but by the end that information comes together in an altogether unexpected way. For example:

A poor woman, with a great big bag of money, goes to a bank officer wanting to make a deposit. When the handsome and arrogant banker asks her how she made her money, she says, “By making bets.”

It is a great deal of money, and the banker is dubious. He asks, “What kind of bets?”

She says, “Well, for instance, I might bet you one hundred thousand dollars that you have square testicles.”

“You would make that bet?” the banker asks.

The old woman nods.

“For a hundred thousand?” The banker reaches for his zipper.

“Wait,” the woman says. “Anyone knows that for a bet to be valid, you have to have a witness.”

“I’ll call my secretary,” the bank officer offers.

“No, no, no,” the old woman says. “She works for you. We must have someone beyond reproach. Do you know the lawyer across the street? The man named Morton?”

“Why, yes,” the banker says. “Frank Morton is the most respected jurist in town.”

The old woman smiles and says for him to call Morton and have him in his office tomorrow at nine.

The next day the three meet in the banker’s office. The old woman says, “Okay, let’s see what you got.”

The banker drops his pants and grins.

“Pay up,” he says.

“Oh,” the woman says, a little dismayed, “yes. They seem to be. . . round.”

“You better believe it!” the banker confirms.

“Then let me touch them to be sure that they are flesh. Let me hold them in my hand.”

The banker balks, but then the thought of all that money steels him. He nods, and the old woman gently cups her hand around his most delicate place.

The moment she touches the banker, the lawyer faints dead away.

“They are truly not square,” she says with certainty. “I suppose I must pay you.”

“What’s wrong with him?” the banker asks.

“Oh,” the old woman answers, “yesterday I bet him two hundred thousand dollars that you would willingly let an old woman like me caress you in this most intimate way.”

This joke uses a kind of sleight of hand to distract the audience’s attention. While we are concentrating on the sexual element of the tale, something else is happening. We have all the information to figure out the punch line, but most of us miss it because of the subterfuge.

The plot in many stories often works the same way. We are waylaid by bright lights and whistles while the real story is unfolding under our noses. When we see the truth of the situation, we are both surprised and delighted—that is, if the method of revelation seems natural and unforced. If the reader feels that they have been tricked, the structure of the plot will backfire, and your reader will turn away, unsatisfied.

final thoughts on plot and story

I’m very happy to be on the other side of having to write about story and plot, the most abstract and complex interconnected components of fiction writing. These two elements are so closely related that they are very hard to separate. And even now, when I look back over what I have written, I wonder if it has been enough.

So let me leave you with an image that might give you another way of looking at these wedded notions.

If we personify the novel, make it into a being named Marissa Novella, for example, I believe that we can see the complex interworkings of story and plot.

The story is the whole person of Ms. Novella—her voice and smile; her confusion and brilliance; her walnut-colored eyes and red shoes. Every step and action Marissa takes is what we see as the unfolding narrative. But underneath the flesh is the skeleton that gives her the ability to move. This hidden system, along with many others (including her unconscious drives), informs and empowers Marissa. The plot is invisible to us and to the characters that populate the novel, but at the same time it propels the story, or Novella, that we are enjoying.

And we must remember that there’s more than one story and plot in every novel. There are at least as many stories as there are main characters, and each of these stories has to have multiple plots to keep it going—blood and bone, nerve and tissue, forgotten longing and unknown events.

the uses of poetry in fiction writing

Poetry is the fount of all writing. Without a deep understanding of poetry and its practices, any power the writer might have is greatly diminished.

This truth I hold to be self-evident.

But I’ll try to explain anyway.

Of all writing, the discipline in poetry is the most demanding. You have to learn how to distill what you mean into the most economic and at the same time the most elegant and accurate language. In poetry you have to see language as both music and content. A poet must be the master of simile, metaphor, and form, and of the precise use of vernacular and grammar, implication and innuendo. The poet has to be able to create symbols that are muted and yet undeniable. The poet, above all other writers, must know how to edit out the extraneous, received, repetitious, and misleading. A poet will ask herself, “Why did I use that word, and how will that usage affect meaning later in the poem when that same word is used again? A similar word?”

The poet seeks perfection in every line and sentence; she demands flawlessness of form.

If the fiction writer demands half of what the poet asks of herself, then that writer will render an exquisitely written novel.

When I studied creative writing at the City College of New York (CCNY) in Harlem, I took a poetry workshop every semester. Out of a total of six semesters, I took five with the great departed American poet William Matthews. I don’t think I missed any of Bill’s classes, but I still can’t write even a passable poem.

I am not a poet. My sensibilities do not lie in that direction. But in those three years, Bill taught me how to appreciate the subtleties of language in a way no fiction writing workshop could have addressed. He talked about rhyme, alliteration, assonance, repetition, meter, the music of language, and the need to rewrite again and again until not even one word is out of place.

Bill, and my fellow students, showed me how deeply one could get into an arcane subject with just a hundred words, maybe less.

If you have the chance and the time, I suggest you begin reading poetry. If there’s an open evening, join a poetry workshop. You don’t have to be good at it. Your poems can be bad. But what you will learn will include all the tools that can stand you in good stead when it comes to writing that novel you intend to finish this year.

3.

Where to Begin

congratulations

You now have all the information you need to write the first draft of your novel. You may have to reread the previous pages a few times. You may have to go out and take a run or get a massage (whatever it is you do to work off anxiety), but you’re ready.

Now let’s get on with putting your book down in words.

first words

Probably the highest hurdle for the novice novelist (and many seasoned veterans) is writing the first few words. That beginning is a very emotional moment for most of us.

There are all kinds of ways for people to cajole themselves into starting their book. Some get a special pen or a particular desk set at a window looking out on something beautiful. Others play a favorite piece of music, light a candle, burn incense, or set up some other ritual that makes them feel empowered and optimistic.

If this is what you find you must do to write—well. . . okay. Rituals frighten me. I worry that if I need a special pen or desk or scent to start me out, what will happen when I lose that pen or I’m on vacation or a business trip and my window looks out on the city dump?

My only ritual for writing is that I do it every morning. I wake up and get to work. If I’m in a motel in Mobile—so be it. If I am up all night, and morning is two o’clock in the afternoon, well, that’s okay too.

The only thing that matters is that you write, write, write. It doesn’t have to be good writing. As a matter of fact, almost all first drafts are pretty bad. What matters is that you get down the words on the page or the screen—or into the tape recorder, if you work like that.

Your first sentence will start you out, but don’t let it trip you up.

If you are the intuitive type, just sit down and start writing the novel:

Lamont had only enough cash to buy half a pint of whiskey at Bobo’s Liquor Emporium, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Ragman was dead, and that was at least a quart’s worth of mourning.

What does it mean? How should I know? Those were the first words that came out. I’m not going to worry about it; I’m just going to keep on writing until either something clicks or I lose momentum. If it doesn’t seem to be working, I’ll start with a new first sentence. I’ll keep on like that until something strikes my fancy and I have enough of a handle on the story to continue.

The next morning I read what I wrote the day before, making only the most superficial changes, and then continue on my way. This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound.

The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.

If you are the structured kind of writer, you might start by getting the outline of your novel down on paper. You know the story already, but now you have to get it down scene after scene, chapter after chapter.

Every day, you sit down, just like the intuitive writer, writing what it is you think your story is about. You discover new characters, add little thumbnail sketches of them; you make notes about the feeling you want to get here and there. You create the whole book out of bulleted phrases and sentences, paragraphs and maybe even flowcharts.

Finally the day will arrive when you come to the end of the outline. The story is set, at least theoretically, and now you must follow the road that the intuitive writer takes. You sit down with your outline somewhere in the room and start writing the prose. You begin with a sentence and keep on going. Maybe you will follow the plan assiduously; maybe you will be diverted onto another path that will lead you far from your original ideas.

Whatever the case, the work is the same. Some days will be rough, unbearable; some will be sublime. Pay no attention to these feelings. All you have to do is write your novel this year. Happy or sad, the story has to come out.

Stick to your schedule. Try to write a certain amount every day—let’s say somewhere between 600 and 1,200 words. Do not labor over what’s been written. Go over yesterday’s work cursorily to reorient yourself, then move on. If you find at some point that you have lost the thread of your story, take a few days to reread all you have written, not with the intention of rewriting (though a little editing is unavoidable) but with the intention of refamiliarizing yourself with the entire work.

Using this method, you should have a first draft of the novel in about three months. It won’t be publishable. It won’t be pretty. It probably won’t make logical sense. But none of that matters. What you will have in front of you is the heart of the book that you wish to write.

There is no greater moment in the true writer’s life.

Your first draft is like a rich uncultivated field for the farmer: it is waiting for you to bring it into full bloom.

the midlands of the novel

The beginning of the novel is hard, but it’s only a few sentences and you’re off on your tale. The end is also difficult because it has to make sense out of all that’s gone before. In the rewriting phase of your process, you may spend weeks worrying over a satisfying end point.

But despite all this, it is the middle of your novel, that great expanse of storytelling, that is the most difficult part. How, you ask yourself, do I keep the story going for all those hundreds of pages?