Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (42 page)

Can a story premise get even more unexpected? If you don't think so, then you have not yet discovered the loopy, inside-out novels of Christopher Moore. In titles like
Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story, Island of the Sequined Love Nun,
and
Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal,
Moore more than amply demonstrates his gift for originality. In
Fluke, or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings,
Moore introduces Nate Quinn, a researcher of whale squeals.

Nate is swallowed by whale. What is original about that, you ask? Nothing, except that the whale has "Bite Me" scrawled on its fluke, phones a delicatessen to order pastrami on rye, and is part of a huge organism called the Goo. You cannot say you have read that before, can you? With Moore, it is not the basic premise that feels original but its zany and unexpected elaboration.

Every working novelist must come up with ideas, but beyond the premise is its development into a full-fledged plot. The process by which that happens is brainstorming. Step by step, the logic and progression of the story is worked out until something like a novel comes into focus. No one expects an author to stick precisely to the original outline; indeed, some authors cannot work with outlines at all.

It doesn't matter. Whether following a map or making it up as he goes along, every novelist sooner or later spins a basic idea into a full novel. Too often in manuscripts, however, I watch the original inspiration become dissipated. What started out as an original-feeling premise turns into a set of ordinary characters and rote complications.

The key to keeping a novel lively and surprising is remembering the principle of reversal. When mapping out a scene, toss out your first choices and go the opposite way. Why? Because first choices tend to be the safest choices. We shape action in the ways that we think it ought to go if our novels are going to be accepted by agents, and later by editors. Meaning that they become predictable. Scenes that go in unexpected directions can be more difficult to work out, but they are more engaging to read. (See the Reversing Motives exercise in chapter six.)

The secret of going the opposite way can be seen clearly in the Breakout Novel Workshops when participants and I together brainstorm a story in about fifteen minutes. We start with basic choices about setting, protagonist, and problem, and then riff. Each time it is the less obvious choices for character or plot that engage the group's interest. There is usually one unexpected (read: original) element that requires a lot of discussion. In the end, though, everyone agrees that this path is more interesting to take.

So, when cooking up ideas, look for new twists on old ideas. Combine stories. Go for gut emotional appeal, and reverse the expected. Then work out a full story but not in easy and obvious ways. Remember the power of reversal. Take your first impulses, and go the opposite way. That is the secret of brainstorming.

Will you always be original if you follow this advice? Probably, though sometimes lack of originality cannot be helped: Certain ideas and motifs enter the collective unconscious, and so one year we may find ourselves with a surfeit of novels about, say, coming of age in Eastern Europe. That is what happened in 2002, in fact, when four novels on that subject were published: Arthur Phillips's
Prague,
Gary Shteyngart's
The Russian Debutante's Handbook,
John Beckman's
The Winter Zoo,
and Jonathan Foer's
Everything is Illuminated.
In cases like that there is nothing to do except to make one's novel as original, and tense, as possible. That will almost always put it ahead of the pack.

Mostly, though, originality is within everyone's reach. Practice the techniques of brainstorming: new twists on old ideas, combining stories, gut emotional appeal, and reversing the expected. Those techniques will steer you to some challenging, and definitely interesting, choices for your story.

____________________EXERCISE

Developing Brainstorming Skills

Step 1: Pick a time and place. Pick a protagonist. Pick a problem. Start brainstorming a story.

Step 2: Every time you write down an idea, reverse it. Go the opposite way. See where it takes you.

Follow-up work:
Go through your folder of story ideas. Put a check mark on those that offer a new twist on an old idea, or that have gut emotional appeal. Try combining ideas. Also try tuning them upside down and inside out. Reverse them. See what happens.

Conclusion:
Whatever you do, push your premises and plotlines further. Do not be satisfied with just a good story. Be satisfied only with a story that is original, gut grabbing, unexpected, layered, and complex. In other words, stop working only when your story is great. How will you know? I cannot tell you, but I can say this: It will take longer than you think. Keep pushing.

The Pitch

W
hether we're aware of it or not, we all pitch stories all the time. Did you see a movie last weekend? Did you tell your co-workers about it at the office on Monday morning? Your quick take on that film is the kind of pitch that either turns on or turns off your co-workers. You are selling it. (Or panning it.)

In the book publishing business everyone must pitch: author to agent, agent to editor, editor to sales rep, sales rep to buyer, bookstore owner to customer. The worst pitchers by far are authors. I know. I get those pitches in the form of query letters: 250 of them per week. The majority of them are ineffective, full of hype and needlessly long plot synopsis. Some rattle on for pages in microscopic fonts, lines crammed together and spread out to the outer edges of the page.

In response, most queries get from us form rejections. A smaller number get a personal response from me, and only a handful (two to six a week) inspire me to request a portion of the manuscript to sample. That is a low ratio of success. Some of the manuscripts on which I pass may be brilliantly written—who knows? The letters pitching them are not.

Why not? I have talked with authors across the country in pitch crafting workshops, and several answers consistently emerge. In pitching their stories authors feel anxious. They do not know the agent to whom they are writing, or the agent's taste. Will their novel appeal? What about it will appeal? What if the crucial detail that would appeal to a particular agent is the detail that is left out?

Then there is the problem of boiling down a 450-page story, say, into four punchy lines. How can one possibly do that? Isn't it better to put in as much of the plot as possible?

From the receiving end of these pitches, I can tell you that it is not. Long plot summary overwhelms the person getting the pitch, and hype has the opposite of the intended effect. Sometimes at writers conferences I sit in rooms where authors are meeting one-on-one with agents and editors. Again and again, I watch my colleagues' eyes glaze over as nervous writers launch into

rambling plot summaries or spew empty hype about the impact their novels are certain to have and about the gigantic size of their likely audiences. Query letters along those lines produce the same numbed glaze.

So, what does work in query letters? First, brevity. With 250 queries arriving each week, that is appreciated. Second, writing in a straightforward and businesslike way. This is, after all, a business transaction. Third, just enough about your novel to tell me whether I would like to have a look.

Ah. That's the tough part. What is "just enough"? Think about it: In the office on Monday morning, how much does it take to suggest to you that you might like to go see the movie that opened last weekend? Not much. The same is true in queries. All I need to get hooked on a story is to know its category, the setting, the protagonist, and the main problem. Add to that one unusual detail that makes this story different from any other like it, and you've probably got me.

Start with category. Keep it simple: Mainstream? Literary? Mystery? Thriller? Women's? Romance? Science Fiction? Fantasy? Historical? Western? Horror? Young Adult? You can get more specific than that, I guess, but why bother? The category only locates your novel on a mental map of the publishing business, telling me to which group of editors I might submit it and the section of the bookstore in which it ultimately will live and find its readers.

Setting and protagonist? Those are easy, and again, keep them simple. You can flesh out either one, but only a little coloring is needed. Is there inherent conflict in your setting? Is it a world of clashing values? Fine. Done. Is your protagonist conflicted? Okay. A snippet about that is enough.

What is the main problem? After doing the exercises in this book that should be easier to say simply. Some query writers find a reduction of the central conflict too frightening. They prefer to start with the inciting incident, the moment when the problem begins, and let the story blossom from there. That approach can work, but it is tricky and dangerous. Once cruising down the highway of plot summary it is tempting to stay on it. My advice: Exit immediately.

The detail that makes the story different usually is lacking, even in letters that go on for pages. So many novels sound ordinary and unoriginal, like I have read them before. Probably I have. There are no new stories, after all, just new ways of telling them. And
that
is what I am interested in. What is different about the method of detection in
this
mystery novel? What makes
that
romance heroine's desire more aching than any other's? How about the era portrayed in your historical? What is your new angle on it? What is the twist or turn in your mainstream novel that no one sees coming? Yes, give it away! Why are you saving it?

Can a query letter truly persuade me to request a manuscript based on so little? Yes, and they do. It doesn't take much. The best queries are confident. They put across the essence of the story in one hundred words or less. I have seen it done in forty words and fewer. That is hard to believe, I know, but why would I lie? Take it from a pro.

I must pitch every day. Knowing how little is needed by the editors, sub-

agents, scouts, and producers with whom I work, I keep my pitches short. A certain amount of enthusiasm in my voice can help, and maybe is necessary, but that is because I am an objective third party. From a self-interested author, enthusiasm sounds like hype. It doesn't work.