Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (25 page)

"The next morning, Richard came to see me. The way he always did, tail tucked between his legs. I told him we were through, that I'd had enough. He begged me to forgive him, Luke. Begged me. And he cried. He loved me, he said. He wanted to marry me. He wanted us to be together forever."

"And you crumbled?" Luke snapped his fingers. "Just like that?"

"I love him, had loved him for years. Marrying him was what I'd dreamed of for so long. How could I not forgive him?"

"How?" The word roared past Luke's lips. "By remembering where you'd spent the night before. By remembering the promises you made to me."

The rest of the conversation does not go well; in fact, it ends disastrously. Luke accuses Kate of marrying Richard not because she loved him but because of the cushy future she would have with him, as opposed to an uncertain future with aspiring writer Luke. "I won't trouble you again," Kate tells Luke. In one terrible instant, their friendship is over and done.

But trouble him again she must. Much later, after Richard has an affair with his young blonde assistant and is fatally shot by the man stalking her, Kate herself is stalked by the killer and now has only Luke, a writer of mysteries and thrillers, to turn to for help. Help her he does, and eventually their college passion is rekindled. But is it only the circumstances? In a major reversal of direction for Kate, Spindler opens her up toward the novel's conclusion in a direct parallel to her earlier conversation with Luke:

"Why did you marry him, Kate?"

"Because I loved him." At Luke's expression, she shook her head. "I did, but not for the right reasons. I didn't see it then, but I loved Richard because he made me feel safe. And secure and cared for."

"And I didn't?"

"Not hardly." A smile tugged at her mouth. "You made me feel out of control. Uncertain. Of the future, what it would hold." She turned her gaze to the ceiling, remembering. "You made me feel like I could do anything, if only I'd try. If I would just go for it."

"I always believed in you, Kate. I still do."

Tears flooded her eyes. In all their years together, Richard had never said that to her. "That's just it. It wasn't you, Luke. I believed in you. In your strength and character. In your talent. It was me who I didn't believe in."

He opened his mouth to comment, and she laid her fingers gently against it to stop him. "I wanted to be an artist, but I was afraid. That I'd end up like my parents, scrambling to pay the rent, sacrificing my children's comfort for my art. I went to school wearing other people's castoffs and shoes with cardboard stuffed into the soles to cover the holes. I promised myself I wouldn't do that to my children. Or myself."

"Oh, Kate ..." He threaded his fingers through her hair, fanned across the pillow.

She caught his hand and brought it to her mouth. "I was scared," she whispered. "Too scared to go after what I wanted."

Well, what do you know? Given their history, it is astonishing to hear these revelations from Kate. Kate and Luke have a future after all, which feels all the more remarkable because Spindler has led us to believe that any further
contact
between Kate and Luke, never mind future, was impossible. It is a gigantic change of direction, and adds a moment of high drama to Spindler's novel.

Now if only real life college girlfriends reversed themselves like that!

In
City of Bones,
as we know from earlier discussions, mystery writer Michael Connelly brings us inside the investigation of the chronic abuse and murder of a boy whose buried bones are unearthed after twenty years. In the course of the novel homicide detective Hieronymous (Harry) Bosch begins a love affair with a rookie cop, Julia Brasher. Julia is older than your average rookie, having entered the academy after fleeing from her father's law firm. When he meets her, she is already cynical but inexperienced enough to still be awed and excited by the job.

Their love affair goes against department rules (Harry is supervisor rank), but there is something undeniable and lovely about their relationship. Harry feels lucky to be with her. It is obvious that he is falling in love with a good woman.

And then she dies, shot while a witness is being detained in a parking lot.

At first we think she will be okay, since she is shot in the shoulder, but the bullet hit a bone—bones again!—and ricocheted inside her body, piercing her heart. Harry's own heart is pierced through, too, as we see at Julia's graveside:

He grabbed a handful of dirt from the mound and walked over and looked down. A whole bouquet and several single flowers had been dropped on top of the casket. Bosch thought about holding Julia in his bed just two nights before. He wished he had seen what was coming. He wished he had been able to take the hints and put them into a clear picture of what she was doing and where she was going.

Slowly, he raised his hand out and let the dirt slide through his fingers.

"City of bones," he whispered.

This passage not only captures the pathos of a love lost too soon, but sends echoes of the sacrifices it takes to be a cop reverberating through the rest of the novel. In a way, we are not surprised by the decision that Harry makes at the end of the novel when, getting ready to move offices due to a promotion, he ruminates as he is cleaning out his desk drawer:

When the drawer was almost clear, he pulled out a folded piece of paper and opened it. There was a message on it [written by Julia].

Where are you, tough guyf

Bosch studied it for a long time. Soon it made him think about all that had happened since he had pulled his car to a stop on Wonderland Avenue just thirteen days before. It made him think about what he was doing and where he was going. It made him think of Trent and Stokes and most of all Arthur Delacroix and Julia Brasher. It made him think about what Golliher had said while studying the bones of the murder victims from millenniums ago. And it made him know the answer to the question on the piece of paper.

"Nowhere," he said out loud.

Harry puts his badge and gun in the desk drawer, locks it, and walks out, Code 7, done with police work. It is impossible to be unaffected by the death of a lover, and Harry is no exception. Connelly does not duck out on the consequences of the high moment he created in Julia's fatal shooting. He brings those consequences down full force on his detective—and on us.

There you have it, story events that create high moments: forgiveness, self-sacrifice, reversals of direction, moral choices, and death. Do any of these occur in your current manuscript? If not, is there a place for them?

_EXERCISE

Creating High Moments

Step 1: In your novel is there one character who can be forgiven by another? What is being forgiven? When? Why? Write out the passage in which that happens.

Step 2: In your novel is there a character who can sacrifice herself, or something dearly loved, in some way? Who is it? What does he sacrifice? Note it now.

Step 3: In your novel is there a character who can change direction? Who is it? What causes the turnabout? When does it happen? Note it now.

Step 4:
In your novel is there a character who faces a moral choice? Who? What choice? How can that choice become more difficult?
Make notes.

Step 5:
In your novel is there a character whom we do not expect to die, but who can nevertheless perish?
Kill that character.

Follow-up work: Using the notes you made above, incorporate each of those high moments into your novel.