This Year You Write Your Novel Read online

  The banker balks, but then the thought of all that money steels him. He nods, and the old woman gently cups her hand around his most delicate place.

  The moment she touches the banker, the lawyer faints dead away.

  “They are truly not square,” she says with certainty. “I suppose I must pay you.”

  “What’s wrong with him?” the banker asks.

  “Oh,” the old woman answers, “yesterday I bet him two hundred thousand dollars that you would willingly let an old woman like me caress you in this most intimate way.”

  This joke uses a kind of sleight of hand to distract the audience’s attention. While we are concentrating on the sexual element of the tale, something else is happening. We have all the information to figure out the punch line, but most of us miss it because of the subterfuge.

  The plot in many stories often works the same way. We are waylaid by bright lights and whistles while the real story is unfolding under our noses. When we see the truth of the situation, we are both surprised and delighted—that is, if the method of revelation seems natural and unforced. If the reader feels that they have been tricked, the structure of the plot will backfire, and your reader will turn away, unsatisfied.

  final thoughts on plot and story

  I’m very happy to be on the other side of having to write about story and plot, the most abstract and complex interconnected components of fiction writing. These two elements are so closely related that they are very hard to separate. And even now, when I look back over what I have written, I wonder if it has been enough.

  So let me leave you with an image that might give you another way of looking at these wedded notions.

  If we personify the novel, make it into a being named Marissa Novella, for example, I believe that we can see the complex interworkings of story and plot.

  The story is the whole person of Ms. Novella—her voice and smile; her confusion and brilliance; her walnut-colored eyes and red shoes. Every step and action Marissa takes is what we see as the unfolding narrative. But underneath the flesh is the skeleton that gives her the ability to move. This hidden system, along with many others (including her unconscious drives), informs and empowers Marissa. The plot is invisible to us and to the characters that populate the novel, but at the same time it propels the story, or Novella, that we are enjoying.

  And we must remember that there’s more than one story and plot in every novel. There are at least as many stories as there are main characters, and each of these stories has to have multiple plots to keep it going—blood and bone, nerve and tissue, forgotten longing and unknown events.

  the uses of poetry in fiction writing

  Poetry is the fount of all writing. Without a deep understanding of poetry and its practices, any power the writer might have is greatly diminished.

  This truth I hold to be self-evident.

  But I’ll try to explain anyway.

  Of all writing, the discipline in poetry is the most demanding. You have to learn how to distill what you mean into the most economic and at the same time the most elegant and accurate language. In poetry you have to see language as both music and content. A poet must be the master of simile, metaphor, and form, and of the precise use of vernacular and grammar, implication and innuendo. The poet has to be able to create symbols that are muted and yet undeniable. The poet, above all other writers, must know how to edit out the extraneous, received, repetitious, and misleading. A poet will ask herself, “Why did I use that word, and how will that usage affect meaning later in the poem when that same word is used again? A similar word?”

  The poet seeks perfection in every line and sentence; she demands flawlessness of form.

  If the fiction writer demands half of what the poet asks of herself, then that writer will render an exquisitely written novel.

  When I studied creative writing at the City College of New York (CCNY) in Harlem, I took a poetry workshop every semester. Out of a total of six semesters, I took five with the great departed American poet William Matthews. I don’t think I missed any of Bill’s classes, but I still can’t write even a passable poem.

  I am not a poet. My sensibilities do not lie in that direction. But in those three years, Bill taught me how to appreciate the subtleties of language in a way no fiction writing workshop could have addressed. He talked about rhyme, alliteration, assonance, repetition, meter, the music of language, and the need to rewrite again and again until not even one word is out of place.

  Bill, and my fellow students, showed me how deeply one could get into an arcane subject with just a hundred words, maybe less.

  If you have the chance and the time, I suggest you begin reading poetry. If there’s an open evening, join a poetry workshop. You don’t have to be good at it. Your poems can be bad. But what you will learn will include all the tools that can stand you in good stead when it comes to writing that novel you intend to finish this year.

  3.

  Where to Begin

  congratulations

  You now have all the information you need to write the first draft of your novel. You may have to reread the previous pages a few times. You may have to go out and take a run or get a massage (whatever it is you do to work off anxiety), but you’re ready.

  Now let’s get on with putting your book down in words.

  first words

  Probably the highest hurdle for the novice novelist (and many seasoned veterans) is writing the first few words. That beginning is a very emotional moment for most of us.

  There are all kinds of ways for people to cajole themselves into starting their book. Some get a special pen or a particular desk set at a window looking out on something beautiful. Others play a favorite piece of music, light a candle, burn incense, or set up some other ritual that makes them feel empowered and optimistic.

  If this is what you find you must do to write—well. . . okay. Rituals frighten me. I worry that if I need a special pen or desk or scent to start me out, what will happen when I lose that pen or I’m on vacation or a business trip and my window looks out on the city dump?

  My only ritual for writing is that I do it every morning. I wake up and get to work. If I’m in a motel in Mobile—so be it. If I am up all night, and morning is two o’clock in the afternoon, well, that’s okay too.

  The only thing that matters is that you write, write, write. It doesn’t have to be good writing. As a matter of fact, almost all first drafts are pretty bad. What matters is that you get down the words on the page or the screen—or into the tape recorder, if you work like that.

  Your first sentence will start you out, but don’t let it trip you up.

  If you are the intuitive type, just sit down and start writing the novel:

  Lamont had only enough cash to buy half a pint of whiskey at Bobo’s Liquor Emporium, but he knew it wouldn’t be enough. Ragman was dead, and that was at least a quart’s worth of mourning.

  What does it mean? How should I know? Those were the first words that came out. I’m not going to worry about it; I’m just going to keep on writing until either something clicks or I lose momentum. If it doesn’t seem to be working, I’ll start with a new first sentence. I’ll keep on like that until something strikes my fancy and I have enough of a handle on the story to continue.

  The next morning I read what I wrote the day before, making only the most superficial changes, and then continue on my way. This is all you have to do. Sit down once a day to the novel and start working without internal criticism, without debilitating expectations, without the need to look at your words as if they were already printed and bound.

  The beginning is only a draft. Drafts are imperfect by definition.

  If you are the structured kind of writer, you might start by getting the outline of your novel down on paper. You know the story already, but now you have to get it down scene after scene, chapter after chapter.

  Every day, you sit down, just like the intuitive writer, writing what it is you think your story is about. Y
ou discover new characters, add little thumbnail sketches of them; you make notes about the feeling you want to get here and there. You create the whole book out of bulleted phrases and sentences, paragraphs and maybe even flowcharts.

  Finally the day will arrive when you come to the end of the outline. The story is set, at least theoretically, and now you must follow the road that the intuitive writer takes. You sit down with your outline somewhere in the room and start writing the prose. You begin with a sentence and keep on going. Maybe you will follow the plan assiduously; maybe you will be diverted onto another path that will lead you far from your original ideas.

  Whatever the case, the work is the same. Some days will be rough, unbearable; some will be sublime. Pay no attention to these feelings. All you have to do is write your novel this year. Happy or sad, the story has to come out.

  Stick to your schedule. Try to write a certain amount every day—let’s say somewhere between 600 and 1,200 words. Do not labor over what’s been written. Go over yesterday’s work cursorily to reorient yourself, then move on. If you find at some point that you have lost the thread of your story, take a few days to reread all you have written, not with the intention of rewriting (though a little editing is unavoidable) but with the intention of refamiliarizing yourself with the entire work.

  Using this method, you should have a first draft of the novel in about three months. It won’t be publishable. It won’t be pretty. It probably won’t make logical sense. But none of that matters. What you will have in front of you is the heart of the book that you wish to write.

  There is no greater moment in the true writer’s life.

  Your first draft is like a rich uncultivated field for the farmer: it is waiting for you to bring it into full bloom.

  the midlands of the novel

  The beginning of the novel is hard, but it’s only a few sentences and you’re off on your tale. The end is also difficult because it has to make sense out of all that’s gone before. In the rewriting phase of your process, you may spend weeks worrying over a satisfying end point.

  But despite all this, it is the middle of your novel, that great expanse of storytelling, that is the most difficult part. How, you ask yourself, do I keep the story going for all those hundreds of pages?

  What you have to remember is that a novel is the one and the many. There is an overarching story, and then there are all the smaller narratives that come together to make up that larger tale.

  So in the case of Bob, Ramona, and Lyle, we have many bases to cover before we can come to a satisfying conclusion. Ramona must come into sync (through conflict) with Bob and Lyle; the same is true for Lyle and his father. We also have the police, the criminals, the judicial system, and Bob’s in-laws to understand. Each character and element involved in the circumstances of this tragedy must be plumbed for us to understand and feel the evolution of that character—especially Bob’s.

  Keeping these notions in mind, you will find that the novel in some important way writes itself. You know the characters; you know the circumstances—now you must make sure that the reader is aware of every factor that makes up the tale.

  You will find yourself in the cell with more than one murderer. You will find yourself in Bob’s and Lyle’s memories of their lost family members. You will experience the police officers’ exasperation with Bob’s apparent cowardice. You will come to understand Bob’s loveless life, and then you will see how, in a very different way, Ramona has always sought after love.

  And with each one of these substories, more of the larger tale will be revealed. Is it a story of forgiveness or retribution, a slow death or a rebirth?

  The midlands of your novel can be treacherous, but the map is in the beginning of your story, where the characters are introduced and the conflict occurs. How this conflict is resolved is the content of your tale. There are many strands that must come together into a whole cloth—this is your novel.

  research

  There will be moments when you will want to dally over details. Do Georgia geese fly south in April or June? Is it physically possible for Bob Millar to hear the cult leader yelling from a mile away—even in a desert? Would the police arrest Trip if the women were allowed into the bar and were served by the owner?

  All of these questions are valid. Before the book gets into print, you should have the answers. But many writers allow questions like these to help them procrastinate. They tell themselves that they can’t go on until these questions are answered.

  Nonsense. Put a red question mark next to the place where you have questions and get back to it later.

  I almost always do the research for my books toward the end of the last draft. By that time I know the book is written and that my creative energies will not be sapped by needless fretting.

  I have to admit that I’m not the best source when it comes to research. It’s not one of my strong suits. I write books about places I’ve been and people I like to think I understand.

  I’ve known writers who have spent years in libraries and foreign lands researching the topics of their novels. There’s nothing I can say about that. If you need to go to South Africa for a month (or five years) to get the feeling for your book, then do it. When you come back and you’re ready to write, my little how-to book will be waiting for you. Then you can take the year necessary to write the novel.

  4.

  Rewriting, or Editing

  the first draft

  This section marks the borderline between the potential novel and the actual work of art. You have spent three months or more getting down the words. Every day you have planted your backside in a chair for an hour and a half or more and written this novel of yours. Now that you have come to the end of the book, you are ready to write it.

  The pages you have stacked neatly in front of you represent what is commonly known as a first draft. It’s probably not very good, but that’s to be expected. Without a first draft, there would be no novel, so this is without a doubt the most important accomplishment of the writer.

  the second draft

  Now read your book from first page to last. If you find that you must make pencil markings, correct spelling, add missing words, retool sentences. . . be my guest. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as you read the entire novel.

  This exercise is a very important moment for the novelist. It is a time of discovery. You think you know what you’ve written, but you find—all through the text—phrasings, words, metaphors, notions, and even evolving themes that lead you to wonder about developing these ideas further. You find mistakes that seem to make sense. You see ideas you once thought profound that now seem petty or trite.

  The reason you find so many new things in the draft you have just written is that two people were at work on your book. The first one was you—the person who sat down every morning with coffee on the table and birds chattering outside the window. You wrote this novel, every word of it, but still you find surprises and glimmers of things partially forgotten or maybe even ideas that are wholly foreign to you, as if someone else were suggesting them.

  That someone else is the you who lives inside, a shadow being that has been brought partially to consciousness by that daily exercise of writing—an exercise, when done in an unrestrained manner, that exhorts unconscious materials. This other side of your awareness may have left vestiges of thoughts, ideas, and feelings long forgotten. These treasures will be scattered among the pages of the draft you have only just completed.

  When you have finished reading, you have finished the second draft of your book. Yes, the mere act of reading makes a second draft. Now you have seen what it is that you created. The book has become something more than you ever expected and something less than you intended. You are aware of problems in structure, language, and character development. Good. You are beginning to see other ideas that might be exploited. Even better.

  How long should this reading take? I don’t know exactly. You will read your own draft faster than you would
something wholly new to you, but it will still take time. Let’s give it a week. Your work schedule will remain the same, the same amount of time at the same hour—every day.

  This is a good time to reiterate the importance of the writer’s schedule. You should write every day, Monday through Sunday. If you finish the first draft on a Tuesday, then you should begin the second draft (which is reading the first draft) on Wednesday. And, while we’re at it, there are no vacations from writing. If you find yourself on holiday in Bermuda, work on your novel every morning instead of reading someone else’s book. If you have a toothache, put your protagonist in the dentist’s chair. If you fall in love, make that love an aspect of a character in your book. Don’t stop writing for any reason. Don’t stop writing. Don’t stop.. . . Don’t.

  You have spent around twelve weeks writing the first draft and now another week acquainting yourself with the work, and its writer, as a whole. Thirteen weeks—one-quarter of a year exactly.

  The time is getting short.

  the many drafts that follow

  Now begins the hard work. Now you have to go through your book idea by idea, character by character, chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, and finally even word by word, submitting it to many, many levels of analysis and critique.

  In the early rewriting drafts, you will make notes about the problems you perceived in the novel in that first all-important reading. Does the story engage you? Does the story make sense? Have you set up a pattern of revelation (the plot) that moves the story along? Is there any discernible change in the main character(s)? And how do the ideas that manifested themselves in the second draft affect how you see the story now?

  The first draft of the novel may have been written in many different ways (e.g., typewritten, entered on a computer, scribbled in pencil), but now you need a printed version of the book (preferably double-spaced) and a pencil with a fresh eraser. You need a stack of blank paper that you will use to make notes, lists, internal schedules, and longer insertions. You will need that time each day and absolute silence because now is when you become Sisyphus rolling that impossible weight up the hill. Any distraction might well cause a misstep, and you will lose control.