Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook (8 page)

Follow-up work:
Select twenty-four more points in the story where you can heighten or diminish something that your protagonist does, says, or thinks.

Conclusion:
Larger-than-life characters powerfully attract us. Why? They are surprising, vital, and alive. They do not let life slip by. Every moment counts. Every day has meaning. How can you give that kind of life force to your protagonist? Turn up the volume on what she says, thinks, and does.

Character Turnabouts and Surprises

It's too bad that some novelists don't publish their early drafts. Or do they? Anyway, it would be interesting to compare early attempts at a given scene with what later is published.

Generally speaking we don't get that opportunity, but even so one can sometimes see in some novels scenes that do not play the way we would expect them to. The whole thrust is a surprise, or perhaps the scene turns in an unexpected direction, or a character does something that we do not anticipate.

Such effects come from trying different approaches to a scene. In essence, that is what Reversing Motives, the exercise that follows, is about: trying a different approach to see if it works better.

Now, how would you handle the following scene? In an ancient agrarian society, one that is tribal and polygamous, women look out for and support each other. One day, a dissolute and cruel husband gambles away his concubine. The women of the tribe are upset. They want to pay the gambling debt and save her. Lacking funds of their own, they must obtain the debt price from the wealthiest man of their tribe—but how?

What would your approach be? Would the women demand the money? Would they go on strike? Perhaps withhold sex? Would they trick or threaten or bribe the wealthy man in some other way? In Anita Diamant's
The Red Tent
this is the situation faced by the four wives of Jacob (who are also sisters) when their father's much-abused concubine, Ruti, is lost in a game of chance. The appeal to Jacob is headed up by the resourceful first wife, Leah, mother of the novel's narrator:

Leah's cheeks turned red as she approached her husband. And then she did something extraordinary. Leah got down on her knees and, taking Jacob's hand, kissed his fingers. Watching my mother submit like this was like seeing a sheep hunting a jackal

or a man nursing a baby. My mother, who never wanted for words, nearly stuttered as she spoke.

"Husband, father of my children, beloved friend," she said. "I come to plead a case without merit, for pure pity's sake. Husband," she said, "Jacob," she whispered, "you know I place my life in your keeping only and that my father's name is an abomination to me.

"Even so, I come to ask that you redeem my father's woman from the slavery into which he has sold her."

Leah's simple appeal for mercy works. Jacob pulls together enough goods to barter away the gambling debt. Leah's approach is a reversal of her usual way of working, and so takes us by surprise. Her appeal to her husband's higher instincts elevates both her and him; and, in a way, us as well.

The exercise that follows is one of the most popular in the live Breakout Novel workshops. A majority of participants prefer the scenes yielded from the approach over their original scenes. If you do too, why use it only once? Do the follow-up work and reverse motives in six more scenes. You just might like what happens.

_EXERCISE

Reversing Motives

Step 1: Pick any scene in your novel that features your protagonist. What is his main action in the scene? What is he trying to accomplish, obtain, or avoid? Write that down.

Step 2: Write a complete list of the reasons why your protagonist is doing what she is doing. Write down as many of her motives as you can. Do not look at the next step until you are done.

Step 3: Circle the last reason on your list, the last thing that you wrote down.

Step 4: Rewrite your opening of the scene, only this time, send your protagonist into action (or avoidance) foremost and primarily for the reason you circled. Start writing now.

Follow-up work: Reverse motives in six other scenes.

Conclusion:
You may wind up retaining the original motivations in many scenes in your novel, but it is likely that some of them will become more engaging after a motive reversal.

Personal Stakes

It is easy to dismiss the protagonist's
personal stakes
as just another way of saying what motivates him. But that is simplistic. Personal stakes are more than just what a hero
wants
to do. They illustrate
why
: Why this goal and the action that must be performed matters in a profound and personal sense. The more it matters to your hero, the more it will matter to yours readers, too.

Mystery writer Harlan Coben grew popular with his first couple of novels featuring sports agent/sleuth Myron Bolitar, but it wasn't until he made the leap to stand-alone novels with
Tell No One
that he broke out big time. His second stand-alone,
Gone for Good,
also reached
The New York Times
best-seller list, and it provides many lessons in the construction of breakout-level fiction.

Gone for Good
tells the story of Will Klein, a New York City counselor of runaway children. Will is haunted by the rape and murder of his high school girlfriend, Julie Miller, in her suburban New Jersey home one year after their all-too-typical breakup during their freshman year of college.

A detective haunted by the unsolved murder of his wife or girlfriend is one of the biggest cliches in mystery fiction. However, Coben gives this familiar element an original twist: Julie, it is widely believed, was raped and murdered by Will's older brother Ken, who disappeared that night and has been a fugitive for eleven years. The case was a media sensation and continues to revive with every purported sighting of Ken. Will and his family continue to believe in Ken's innocence—and that he is dead, or "gone for good."

As the story opens, Will learns from his dying mother that Ken is still alive, news that stirs in Will happy memories of his brother, including Ken's reaction to Will's first makeout session with a girl at a space exploration-themed bar mitzvah:

When Cindi and I stealthily returned to Cape Kennedy's Table Apollo 14, ruffled and in fine post-smooch form (the Herbie Zane Band serenading the crowd with "Fly Me to the Moon"), my brother, Ken, pulled me to the side and demanded details. I, of course, too gladly gave them. He awarded me with a smile

and slapped me five. That night, as we lay on the bunk beds, Ken on the top, me on the bottom, the stereo playing Blue Oyster Cult's "Don't Fear the Reaper" (Ken's favorite), my older brother explained to me the facts of life as seen by a ninth-grader. I'd later learn he was mostly wrong (a little too much emphasis on the breast), but when I think back to that night, I always smile.

With this memory of brotherly bonding, Coben begins to build Will's stakes. He has a lot invested in his image of his brother. Subsequent events will sorely test Will's faith in Ken's innocence, yet Coben keeps Will's conviction level high by frequently reinforcing Will's feelings with positive memories. Will's faith in Ken cannot be shaken.