Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (2 page)

Then
write.
I do not care whether you work through all the exercises then revise, or whether you go back to work on your novel for a while after you complete each section. You will find the right pattern for you. I am concerned, though, about this: Do not rush. You are about to expand your mind and open up the possibilities in your current novel. Let them sink in, collide with each other, multiply, and dance. Enjoy the process. Writing fiction is supposed to be fun, remember?

Above all, aim high. Do not be satisfied with two or three positive changes for your novel; not even ten, twenty, or thirty. I expect that the exercises in this book will give you not just scores, but hundreds of new ideas. Use them all.

Do not be afraid. In the live Breakout Novel workshops, the part that produces the most resistance is the exercise I call "Tension on Every Page." Every experienced fiction writer knows that conflict is the essence of story; tension is necessary in all dialogue and in every scene. Well, everyone knows that in
theory.
Putting it into practice is something else.

As we pick pages at random and discover ways to create more tension in them, participants begin to get restless. Finding a change that puts more tension on one page that you thought was fine is a revelation. The second time. the discovery feels uncomfortable. The third time, panic can set in. It is around then that hands begin to shoot up. The question is always the same, "Can't there be
too
much tension in a novel?"

No, there can't. You think there can. You imagine you are exhausting your reader. (You certainly are exhausting yourself.) The novel can begin to feel to you over-laden, artificially juiced up, dumb. Nonstop
action
can make a novel feel pulpy, but if you closely examine the novels you most admire with a tension-sensitive eye, you will find that your favorite authors find subtle ways to infuse tension in every moment. Tension can be apprehension, a question, an inner need, uncertainty, contrasting desires, hostility hidden in humor—so many things.

When you get to this exercise, you will find that it asks you to make an improvement on every page of your novel. That's a lot of pages. That's a lot of work. Your heart will sink. I guarantee you will not want to go to all that trouble.

It is, however, utterly necessary. The big problem with 80 percent of the novels we reject at my agency is not too much tension; rather, it is too little. Indeed, not once in twenty-two years has the problem ever been too much tension. (The other 20 percent, in case you are wondering, lack truly sympathetic characters and, occasionally, have other problems.)

If you don't buy what I am saying, consider the manuscripts you read in your critique group. If you don't belong to a critique group, think about published novels. Next time you plow through a weak one, pay attention to the movement of your eyes. Watch how they skip down the page. Feel your inner impatience.
Nothing is happening,
you think.
C'mon, move it along!

What you really mean is,
make that paragraph matter. And that one.
There is only one sure way to do that: to make it contribute to, deepen, or elaborate the conflict, problem, or complication at hand. When tension is present, the words matter. When tension is absent, our care diminishes on a curve.

I mention all this to advise you that at a certain point in working with this book you will want to put it down, work into your novel all the neat stuff you've come up with, and get it out the door to an agent. You will feel like you've done enough. You will feel proud and satisfied. After all, you have taken your fiction to levels it has never before achieved.

Resist the impulse to quit early. Do it all. Writing a breakout novel is a journey, an awakening, an education. Get the full benefit. You don't expect to get a B.A. after just one year of classes, do you? Here you're going for your Ph.D. Give yourself the space you need to achieve true mastery.

It takes time.

Once you have discovered what breakout techniques can do for your fiction, I believe that you will never want to go back to your old way of writing. Never again will you be satisfied with characters who have only one dimension. A single-layer plot will feel to you lightweight. You will put words together with a more demanding eye, pay attention to the effect of a setting on your characters' moods, think about how time has changed your characters' views of others and themselves, and more. You will be building the skills and honing the techniques that will make you more than a story hack.

In my observation, genre novelists may have the hardest time making the switch from straight ahead genre novels to breakout-level fiction. Romance writers who churn out three or more books a year, as well as book-a-year mystery novelists, often long for the freedom of the stand-alone novel. They feel frustrated: stuck at a level of sales and advances that is below their potential. I understand their frustration. This workbook is designed to reveal the techniques that will lift their writing, and sales, to new levels.

What about those embarking on their first manuscripts? They should not congratulate themselves prematurely. It takes time to master the fluid and complex art form called the novel, longer still to construct one on a breakout scale. Some have done so with their first efforts (Diana Gabaldon, Terry Brooks, and John Saul come to mind), but the fact is that writing at breakout level is demanding. It takes time, and not everyone has the necessary staying power.

Does three to five years, maybe ten, sound like a lot? If you depend on quickie advances for a living, it probably does. If that is your situation, what can you do? Keep writing your category romances, your series, or your work-for-hire novels, but set aside a disciplined period of time—a few hours a day or a few months per year—to develop your breakout novel. Get support. Make sure your agent is on your side. Let your critique group cheer you on. Keep your eye on the prize: The book that truly might make you a brand name.

If you are still early in your career, I hope that the principles in
Writing the Breakout Novel
and in
Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook
will inspire you to elevate your craft and not be satisfied with merely being good enough to get published. I hope that your measure of success will be not the gratification of getting an agent or seeing your name on a cover, but putting together a novel of real depth—of having something to say and saying it in a story with lasting power.

In fact, your prosperity as a writer may depend on it. Take a lesson from the story hacks: If you can churn out minimally acceptable fiction, you may get published but you will not become a brand name. In today's world of publishing, you may not even survive beyond your second, third, or fourth book.

I created
Writing the Breakout Novel
for many reasons. One was to show angry and frustrated midlist writers that the problems with their careers are only in small part due to corporate publishing and its dearth of support for anyone less than a best seller. The secret of success is dazzling readers—spinning them a story that they will never forget. Those readers will pretty much take care of the rest, spreading the word-of-mouth and coming back to buy each new title as soon as it comes out. You do that, don't you? It does not take a tour or a full-page ad in
The New York Times Book Review
to convince you to buy your favorite author's latest title.

Write on a breakout level and you will not feel dependent on capricious-looking promotional bucks, either. You will be secure in your fan base and in your confidence that you can keep your readers spellbound book after book.

Enjoy the journey. I have enjoyed bringing these exercises and observations to you. I hope you will enjoy using them as you create your breakout novel and all the wonderful novels that will follow it.

—Donald Maass

From Protagonist to Hero

W
hy would we wish to read about characters whom we do not like? The fact is, we don't. We stick with characters we like, admire, and cheer tor; we abandon characters we dislike, disapprove of, and don't care about. It's that simple. That is not to say that protagonists can't be flawed, troubled, torn, haunted, unhappy, hapless, or in any other condition that makes their situation ripe for drama and action.

But that is not the same as a protagonist who is downbeat, depressed, hopeless, bitter, stuck, or in other ways in a condition that makes us feel fed up. Have you ever known someone who couldn't shake off self-pity? How much tolerance did you have for that negativity? Not much, I bet. It is the same in novels. That is why lifting your hero above his circumstances—indeed, above himself—is so necessary.

How do you do that? It starts in your opening pages, when your protagonist gives us some reason to care; that is to say, identify with him or her. Why should we? Well, why do we feel sympathy for anyone? I believe it is because we see ourselves in them. Indeed, when we see in others ourselves
as we would like to be,
higher admiration sets in and with it deep concern and abiding hope. We want our heroes to win.

Quickly evoking that kind of identification with a protagonist is one of the secrets of breakout fiction. Most manuscripts do not manage it. It is as if authors are afraid to push too far too fast; they fear, perhaps, that if their protagonists immediately are strong they will not be credible.

Nonsense. Heroic qualities are highly desired. No one disbelieves in them. Everyone seeks them, and in their absence feels disappointed. Furthermore, it doesn't take much to endow a protagonist with qualities that we like and admire. A small show of gumption, a glimmer of humor, a dab of ironic self-regard can be enough for us to hang onto.

In Tess Gerritsen's thriller
The Surgeon
, ER surgeon Catherine Cordell has

every reason to be fragile. Two years earlier she was the only victim to successfully fight off a brutal serial killer whose method involved tying women to a bed and performing surgery on them without anesthetic. But Catherine Cordell is strong. We first meet her in the emergency room:

Dr. Catherine Cordell sprinted down the hospital corridor, the soles of her running shoes squeaking on the linoleum, and pushed through the double doors into the emergency room.

A nurse called out: "They're in Trauma Two, Dr. Cordell!"

"I'm there," said Catherine, moving like a guided missile straight for Trauma Two.

So far we know little of Catherine, yet we are drawn to her. Why? I think it is the strength inherent in the phrase "moving like a guided missile." This woman is focused. She knows what she is doing. That becomes even more evident a page later as she prepares to operate on a hit-and-run victim right in the ER rather than the more usual OR:

"All rooms are in use. We can't wait." Someone tossed her a paper cap. Swiftly she tucked in her shoulder-length red hair and tied on a mask. A scrub nurse was already holding out a sterile surgical gown. Catherine slipped her arms into the sleeves and thrust her hands into gloves. She had no time to scrub, no time to hesitate. She was in charge, and John Doe was crashing on her . . .

"Where's the blood?" she called out.

"I'm checking with the lab now," said a nurse.

"Ron, you're the first assist," Catherine said to Littman. She glanced around the room and focused on a pasty-faced young man standing by the door. His nametag read: Jeremy Barrows, Medical Student. "You," she said. "You're second assist!"

Panic flushed in the young man's eyes. "But—I'm only in my second year. I'm just here to—"

"Can we get another surgical resident in here?"

Littman shook his head. "Everyone's spread thin. They've got a head injury in Trauma One and a code down the hall."

"Okay." She looked back at the student. "Barrows, you're it. Nurse, get him a gown and gloves."

"What do I have to do? Because I really don't know—"

"Look, you want to be a doctor? Then
glove up!"

Catherine's command of the situation is hard to resist. In a short time, Gerritsen has us cheering for this gutsy doctor. Catherine's bravura is a facade, though. We soon learn that the trauma of her brush with the serial killer known as The Surgeon has left her brittle and afraid. Indeed, when a new killer begins to imitate
modus operandi
of The Surgeon, so tightly controlled