Competing Narratives

 I'm starting a new novel. With as much experience that I have as a published author and as a creative writing instructor, it would seem that the words would flow like honey from my fingertips and onto the digital page. But no.

I realize that the first draft is exactly that, the first draft, a place to start from. And that the second draft of the manuscript is where the story is close to what you're trying to tell. And that you won't really know what to say in the first chapter until you've written the last.

Still, when I started this manuscript I was frustrated in that the narrative didn't congeal. The story ideas swirled about like puffs of smoke, defying my attempts to create solid components of prose. Part of the problem was that I didn't understand the main characters. They had names and descriptions but they all seemed like plot devices meant to advance the story, rather than the projections of actual people. Another obstacle was that of world building, even though the setting is Denver, Colorado, a place I've lived in for over twenty years. Again, it seemed like a fog enveloped everything. 

Another concern that mired my efforts at word count was that of style as I was intimidated by what I've recently read. Pretty much every book I've finished lately are superb examples of writing craft. Two in particular ring in my head: Wonder Valley by Ivy Pochoda and The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson. Though both books focus on very damaged and dangerous people, they are quite different in writing style and story structure. Pochoda's book is a layered narrative that ricochets from character to character and from scene to scene. Thompson's style is pulp, in the same first person throughout, brisk and matter-of-fact, sometimes lapsing into cliché. Even so, his characters pop off the page as vividly and with as much personality as those depicted by Pochoda. Another contrast is how Pochoda illustrates her social environment in long, eloquent sweeps while Thompson presents his world in quick, visceral jabs. Yes, I know that my style will show itself and I hope my story will be as compelling as either from these two masters.

My Take on Character

All right, I (Donis) am so far behind in both work and daily life that it isn't funny, but I have to weigh in on the character question, the subject my blogmates have written so skillfully about over the past few days. I’ve read many books with clever plots that delighted me at the time, but no matter how skillfully a plot is constructed, months later I don’t remember the story nearly as well as I remember the characters. And if I liked the characters, I want to keep company with them again.

Reviewers and the literati elite seem to go all breathless over dark and tortured characters in hopeless situations. This isn’t a new phenomenon. This kind of book can be a brilliant art form, as it is with noir novels, when it’s full of dark humor and a thoughtful, perhaps cynical, exploration of human nature. I find that even though I still love a good dark novel, I can’t take a steady diet of self-destruction and hopelessness any more. As the English say, I think I’ve had enough of both in my real life to be going on with. If I’m going to spend many hours of my life with these characters, I damn well want to like them.

So I’ll happily while away the time reading about Bertie Wooster’s pointless night out, because it’s a lot more fun than sitting in a hospital waiting room pondering unhappy possibilities.

Speaking of which, until a couple of years ago I had never read anything by New Zealander Ngaio Marsh, but during one of my husband's many hospitalizations, I picked her up because one of his nurses was also a Kiwi, and she and I spent quite a while discussing mystery novels. The one book I have read is called A Man Lay Dead. It’s a typical 1930s style English country-house mystery, full of upper class ladies and dandies and stalwart servants. The plot is convoluted beyond belief, involving an antique dagger, a gong, a game of Murder, a single calf-skin glove, a bannister, and a mysterious Russian secret society. And Marsh’s writing style is adverb-y to the max.

The sleuth, however, is a humorous, upper-class, Oxford man. None of the other characters can figure out why someone with his background and breeding has deigned to become a common detective. Turns out he’s so brilliant that he simply has to have puzzles to occupy his feverish mind. Sort of a Sherlock Holmes with a sense of humor.

He entertained me. However, though I finished reading the book before I went to sleep one night, by morning I had already forgotten why the murderer did it. One of my favorite examples of the importance of character versus plot is Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep. The plot is so complicated that Chandler himself couldn’t quite figure it out. But the characters, setting, and dialog are so compelling that nobody cares.

More elegant variations

Aline's post this week touched close to home, because I am in the midst of rewrites on my latest Amana Doucette novel, and am very attuned to the style, quality of language, and word use in the text (along with fixing all the plot holes, gaping inconsistencies, and other large failings). It takes many eyes to catch all the word repetitions and find good quality alternatives. First I try to catch as many as I can, and then I pray the copyeditor and proofreader catches even more. But sometimes they sneak through even the most thorough editing, and I only spot them while doing a public reading after the book is out, and the horse has truly left the barn. I've been known to change the offensive word on the fly in these cases.

Reading aloud is very useful not only for catching those pesky repetitions, but for listening to the overall flow of the sentence and the rhythm of the words. Rhythm affects readability and pleasure. Elegant variation can refer to much more than single words. It can refer to sentence structure, sentence length, syllables and accents. Too many long sentences draw out and slow down a story. Too many short sentences make for a jerky ride. Although short vs. long sentences can be effective to vary tension and pacing, in general a paragraph works best with varied sentence length.

Starting three sentences in a row with the same word or structure sounds clumsy. eg. He picked up the book and began to read. He wasn't sure he liked it. He would have preferred a more exciting tale. (Forgive the clunky prose, it's late and my imagination is fried). An elegant variation would be: He picked up the book and began to read. Would he like it? A more exciting tale might be better. Mix up the syntax, create subordinate clauses, invert sentences, etc.

In another elegant variation, I try to mix up long and short words. Some combinations create pleasing rhythms and others land like a thud. I have often resorted to the thesaurus in search of a one-syllable word to replace the existing two-syllable one, because there were already a couple of two or three-syllable words.

There are times, however, when repetition can pack a powerful punch. It makes the message stand out. Alliteration is one example. So is parallel construction – using the same word, phrase, or sentence structure in a series of sentences. Dickens' famous "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times", etc. is a memorable example of this technique. Once again, reading the section aloud is useful in determining whether the effect is powerful, clunky, or just plain silly. Here as always, a little repetition goes a long way.

So I return to my rewrites, trying to keep all these ideas in my mind at once, and sure that I will miss some clunker.s When that happens, I can only hope the copyeditor is there to make the catch.

Writing as chess

Barbara here. I was entertained by Aline's post about the French award for Page 112.  In truth, I think all of us should receive an award for getting to, and past, Page 112. There is a point in the saggy middle of every book when all the brilliant plot ideas that propelled us into the story have been used up, but the end looms nowhere in sight. We still need to dream up material to fill at least 100 more pages before we can bring the wretched thing to its much deserved end. And I don't mean just flabby, meandering prose that limps down one blind alley after another, nor an endless series of contrived crises that pass for tension and suspense in some circles. When I read "action-packed" books like that, I think "Oh for Pete's sake, not another explosion!"

I've often heard story telling, especially mystery story telling, being described as throwing a bunch of balls up in the air, juggling them, and then miraculously catching them all and bringing them safely back to earth by the end. There is a certain truth to this analogy, especially when you are at the page 200 mark, with dozens of balls in the air, and you're terrified of forgetting some ball that will drop on your head at the end, or remain suspended in the ether until some astute reader points it out, long after the book's release.

However, I actually think the closer analogy, at least for my writing style, is more like a peculiar chess game in which the pieces are introduced one at a time until there is a full board, and then they move strategically, each move being dependent on the one made before, until the final checkmate. I use a variant of the "pantster" method of writing with some "plotter" mixed in. I don't outline or plot ahead of time; rather, the next scene grows out of the one that came before. Thus I can't anticipate the end, nor even very far ahead. In the beginning, perhaps the first 112 pages, I am introducing elements of the story, developing the complexity of the situation and unfolding the conflicts of the characters. This is pure fun and creativity. After that, in the saggy middle, the challenge of working with those elements begins. Characters make moves and counter-moves. Each character's moves are determined by what they would do next. I am always asking myself "At this point, with this development, what would be this character's next step?"

I'm actually a very poor chess player, so perhaps this analogy is quite wrong for the master chess player who envisages his whole sequence of moves ahead of time and knows exactly how he will win. But the analogy works for me. When I play chess, I try to think several moves ahead, or at least line up my possible moves in my head. But I can't see how the game will end until it's very nearly upon me. So I am with advancing the plot, by seeing only a few scenes ahead at any time.

I am aware of two storytelling devices as I move my story forward. First, that each step has to move the story forward towards uncovering the solution, even if I don't know what that is. The second is that things must never get boring. Plod work is skipped over, back-to-back scenes of similar content–such as inner monologues, interviews, phone conversations, etc.–are avoided. And every now and then, I ask myself what would really shake things up? What would be the most unexpected thing to happen to a character? I like surprises that slam the character, and the reader, off course.

In practice, what this style means is that I write for awhile, hit a wall, brainstorm the next few scenes, write them, hit another wall, etc. In this fashion, I inch towards that magical checkmate. Often the brainstorming occurs on long drives or walks, when I have lots of uninterrupted thinking time and no distractions. Yesterday I was driving home from a research trip and used to time to brainstorm my way through the next section of my current novel. The problem with brainstorming while going 120 kph is that I can't write down the brilliant ideas as they come to me, but have to rely on my sometimes capricious memory instead. Fearing the ideas might completely vanish by the time I arrive home, I have on occasion pulled off the road (once into a liquor store parking lot) and jotted the whole sequence down on the back of whatever paper was at hand. Yesterday I pulled off the highway and sat at the stop sign to record my ideas on my iPhone. Hurray for technology!

Now I am all set to write the next small section of the book. I am curious to know what other writers do to get from Page 112 to the end of the book. What tricks do you have up your sleeve?