What's required, I think, is a change in attitude. To write a novel you have to resign yourself to the fact that you simply can't prime yourself and knock it all out in a single session at the typewriter. The process of writing the book is going to occupy you for weeks or months?perhaps years. But each day's stint at the typewriter is simply that?one day's work. That's true whether you're writing short stories or an epic trilogy. If you're writing three or six or ten pages a day, you'll get a certain amount of work accomplished in a certain span of time?whatever it is you're working on.
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I'd love to write a novel. But I don't know how to begin.
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Page one's as good a place as any.
I'll tell you a secret?nobody knows how to start a novel. There are no rules, because each novel is a case unto itself.
Sometimes an outline helps. I've used outlines frequently and have mixed feelings about them. It's comforting, certainly, to know where a book is going, and an outline spells all of that out for you in advance and saves you worrying that you'll plot yourself into a corner.
On the other hand, an outline can keep a novel from developing organically. There's no way an outline can include absolutely everything, and the little elements of characterization and incident that crop up while you're writing can change the shape and direction of your novel. If you're tied to an outline, the book can't grow as it wants to; its final form is as predetermined as a paint-by-number canvas. Of course you can always modify the outline as you feel the need, but that's sometimes easier said than done.
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Even if you don't use an outline, isn't it necessary to know where the book is going?
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Not really. I know several writers who have written quite a few books by rolling a sheet of paper into the typewriter just to see what happens.
My friend Don Westlake's a good example. Some years ago he showed me a first chapter in which a surly guy named Parker stalks across the George Washington Bridge, snarling at a motorist who offers him a ride. When Don wrote that chapter, he knew no more about the character or his story than the chapter itself contained. But the book took shape and the character came to life, and Don's since written sixteen books about Parker under his pen name of Richard Stark.
The advantage of this particular novel approach, the Narrative Push method, is that you're by no means locked into a formula. I think it was Theodore Sturgeon who argued that if the writer has no idea what's going to happen next, the reader certainly won't know what's going to happen next.
For my own part, I've come to prefer to know a little bit more about a book than how I'm going to open it. I've written too many books in recent years that ground to a halt somewhere around page seventy because I couldn't think of anything to have happen on page seventy-one. But I don't have to know everything. I like to know where the book's going and what direction it'll take to get there, but I don't need to have the whole route mapped out for me.
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Suppose I spend a year writing a novel and it proves unsalable. I can't risk that much time?wouldn't it be safer to stick to short stories?
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Would it? Let's assume that you could write twelve or twenty short stories in the time it would take you to write a novel. What makes you think you'd have a better chance of selling them? And why would a batch of unsalable short stories feel less like a waste of time than an unsalable novel?
I think what keeps a lot of us from attempting a novel is simple fear. Fear that we'll give up and leave the book uncompleted, or the greater fear that we'll complete it and have produced something unpublishable. I don't think these fears are justified even when they prove true.
So what if a first novel's unsalable? For heaven's sake, the great majority of them are, and why on earth should they be otherwise? In every other trade I've ever heard of it's taken for granted that one will put in a lot of work before attaining the level of professionalism. Why should we expect our writing to be instantly publishable?
Writing a novel is an extraordinary learning experience. You have room in a novel, room to try things out, to make mistakes, to find your way. The writing of an unpublishable first novel is not a failure. It is an investment.
A few years ago I read Justin Scott's first novel in manuscript. It was embarrassingly bad in almost every respect, and hopelessly unpublishable. But it did him some good to write it, and his second novel?also unpublishable, as it happened?was a vast improvement. As I write this, his novel The Turning is Dell's leader for the month, and his forthcoming book The Shipkiller is shaping up as a strong candidate for bestsellerdom. Do you suppose Justin regrets the time he wasted on that first novel?
I'd like to write a novel?but I don't have a good enough idea for one.
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If you're having trouble coming up with ideas, you're better off with a novel than short stories.
Does that seem odd? You might think that a novel, covering so much more ground and so many more pages, would require more in the way of ideas. But it doesn't usually work that way.
Short stories absolutely demand either new ideas or new slants on old ones. Often a short story is little more than an idea polished into a piece of fiction.
I like to write short stories?I get more sheer enjoyment out of writing them than novels, if less remuneration. But each one requires a reasonably strong idea, and the idea's used up in a couple of thousand words. I've written whole novels out of ideas with no more depth to them than short-story ideas, and I've written other novels without having had a strong story idea to begin with. They had plot and characters, to be sure, but those developed as the book went along.
Ed Hoch makes a living writing nothing but short stories?he may be the only writer of whom that's true?and he manages because he seems to be a never-ending fount of ideas. Getting ideas and turning them into fiction is what gives him satisfaction as a writer. I sometimes envy him, but I know I couldn't possibly come up with half a dozen viable short-story ideas every month the way he does. So I take the easy way out and write novels.
Hmmm. Time's up, and I see a lot of you have your hands raised. Take a deep breath and go on to the next chapter.
CHAPTER 5
Nothing Short of Novel
IN THE foregoing chapter we had a look at the advantages of writing a novel rather than limiting oneself to short stories. We noted that novels are easier to sell, more profitable for their authors, and constitute a considerable learning experience for the novice writer. Now let's deal with a few more questions some of you have on the subject.
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I'm afraid to write a novel because I'm not that smooth a stylist. Don't you have to be a better craftsman to make a novel come off?
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I don't think so. Sometimes it's just the reverse?a novelist can get away with stylistic crudity that would ruin a shorter piece of fiction.
Remember, what a novel gives you more than anything else is room, room for your characters and storyline to carry the day. While a way with words never hurts, it's of less overwhelming importance to the novelist than the ability to grab ahold of the reader and make him care what happens next.
The bestseller list abounds with the work of writers whom no one would call polished stylists. I don't want to name names, but I can think offhand of half a dozen writers whose first chapters are very hard going for me. I'm overly conscious of their style?writing does change one's perceptions as a reader?and I find their dialogue mechanical, their transitions awkward, their descriptions vague. But twenty or thirty pages into their books, I'll stop seeing the trees and begin to perceive the forest?i.e., the story grips me and I no longer notice what's wrong with their writing.
In shorter fiction, the storyline wouldn't have a chance to take over.
So perhaps you have to be a better craftsman for short stories and a better storyteller for novels, but both are equally important aspects of the writer's art. Obviously, the finest novels are skillfully shaped, just as
the finest short stories catch up the reader in their narrative spell. But I certainly wouldn't avoid writing a novel out of lack of confidence in writing skills.
All right, next question. Are you trying to raise your hand back there? You keep putting it up and taking it down.
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That's because I'm uncertain. I have a good idea for a novel but I just can't seem to get started on it. Somehow it seems pointless to begin something that's going to take forever to finish.
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I know the feeling. I remember the first time I wrote a really long book. When I sat down to begin it I knew I was starting something that had to run at least five hundred pages in manuscript. I put in a good day's work and wound up knocking out fourteen pages. I got up from the typewriter and said, Well, just four hundred and eighty-six pages to go?and went directly into nervous prostration at the very thought.
The thing to remember is that a novel's not going to take forever. All the old clichŽs actually apply?a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and slow and steady honestly does win the race.
Consider this: if you write one page a day, you will produce a substantial novel in a year. Now writers who turn out a book a year, year in and year out, are considered to be quite prolific. And don't you figure you could produce one measly little page, even on a bad day? Even on a rotten day?
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Maybe it's not the length, exactly. But when I write a short story I can hold the whole thing in my head when I sit down at the typewriter. I know exactly where I'm going and it's just a matter of writing it down. I don't have that kind of grasp on a novel.
Of course not. Nobody does.
There are a few approaches you might consider. One involves writing progressively more detailed versions of your outline until you have essentially fleshed it out into a book, having outlined each scene in each chapter before beginning the actual writing. Writers who use this approach say it makes the writing a breeze. I would think it would transform what's supposed to be a creative act into a fundamentally mechanical process, but that doesn't mean it might not work like a charm for you.
As an alternative, you might come to realize that the control you seem to have over short stories is largely illusory. What you have is confidence?because you think you know everything about the story by the time you set out to write it.
But, if you're like me, you keep surprising yourself at the typewriter. Characters take on a life of their own and insist upon supplying their own dialogue. Scenes that looked necessary at the onset turn out to be superfluous, while other scenes take a form other than what you'd originally intended. As often as not, midway through the story you'll think of a way to improve the basic plot itself.
This happens even more markedly in novels, and that's fine. A work of fiction ought to be an organic entity. It's alive, and it grows as it goes.
Maybe it would help you if I said something about the novel I'm working on at present, an extremely complicated thriller set during World War II. I'm about halfway through the book as I write this, and I've been able to get this far solely by taking it One Day at a Time.
Whenever I project, whenever I start envisioning the novel as a whole, I'm paralyzed with terror. I'm convinced the whole thing is impossible and can't conceivably work out. But as long as I can get up each morning and concentrate exclusively on what's going to happen during that particular day's stint at the typewriter, I seem to be doing all right?and the book is taking form nicely.
One day at a time?that seems to work for me. And if you realize that you can only affect what you do now, things become a good deal more manageable.
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Maybe I haven't started a novel because I'm afraid I wouldn't finish it.
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Possibly so. And maybe you wouldn't finish it. There's no law that says you have to.
Please understand that I'm not advocating abandoning a novel halfway through. I've done that far too often myself, and it's not something I've ever managed to feel good about. But you do have every right in the world to give up on a book if it's just not working, or if you simply discover that writing novels is not for you. As much as we'd all prefer to pretend our calling is a noble one, it's salutary to bear in mind that the last thing this poor old planet needs is another book. The only reason to write anything is because it's something you want to do, and if that ceases to be the case you're entirely free to do something else instead.
You know, it strikes me that we may all of us be too caught up in the desire to finish our work. That has to be our aim, obviously, but it's easy to overemphasize that aspect of writing.
I do this myself. I became a writer because I thought I'd enjoy the process of literary creation, and in no time at all this urge transformed itself into an obsession with getting manuscripts finished and seeing them in print.
I suspect the business of writing a novel becomes less a source of anxiety and more a source of pleasure if we learn to concern ourselves more with the writing process and less with the presumptive end product. The writer who does each day's work as it comes along, enjoying it as activity and not merely enduring it as a means to an end, is going to have a better time of things. I suspect, too, he'll wind up producing a better piece of writing for his efforts; his work won't suffer for having been rushed, whipped like a poor horse to the finish line.
All that's required here is an attitudinal change. And if you manage it, I hope you'll tell me how?I have a lot of trouble in this area, yearning less to write than to have written.
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You've got me convinced. I'm going to sit down and write a novel. After all, short stuff isn't really significant, is it?
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It isn't, huh? Who says?
I'll grant that commercial significance singles out the novel, and that long novels are automatically considered to be of more importance than short novels, and sell better. And I won't deny that your neighbors will take you more seriously if you tell them you've written a novel. (Of course if that's the main concern, just go and tell them. You don't have to write anything. Just lie a little. Don't worry?they won't beg to read the manuscript.)
But as far as intrinsic merit is concerned, length is hardly a factor. You've probably heard of the writer who apologized for having written a long letter, explaining that he didn't have the time to make it shorter. And you may have read Faulkner's comment that every short-story writer is a failed poet, and every novelist a failed short-story writer.
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Well, now you've got me confused again. Maybe I'll write a novel, maybe I'll stick to short stories. One thing I know, though, and that's that I'm not going to accomplish anything sitting on my duff. I'm going straight to the typewriter. No more putting things off.
Congratulations. But I hope you'll take time to read Chapter 15. The title's Creative Procrastination.
CHAPTER 6
Sunday Writers
A COUPLE of weeks ago a friend of mine was nice enough to compliment me on something he'd read in a recent column. While I was basking in the glow, he said, It must bother you, huh? Sort of like taking money under false pretenses.
I asked what he meant.
Well, here you are writing this column, he said, and you know full well that the vast majority of your readers are never going to write anything publishable, and you're in there every month telling them how to improve their technique. Hell, you're just encouraging 'em in their folly.
I was really annoyed with him, not least because he was calling my attention to doubts I'd had myself. I once turned down an opportunity to teach writing in an adult education program for reasons along the lines of what he'd said. But after my friend and I had gone our separate ways, I gave some further thought to the whole question?and I wound up grateful to him for raising the point.
For one thing, he made me realize the extent to which we're all hung up on publishing what we write. Now that may look painfully obvious at first glance, but when you look at the other forms
of creative endeavor you can see the difference.
Every writer I've ever known has written with the hope of eventual publication. Contrast that with all the Sunday painters daubing oil on canvas for their private enjoyment, all the actors whose ambitions have never strayed beyond amateur theatrical presentations, all the folks taking piano lessons without the vaguest dream of a debut at Carnegie Hall. Millions of people snap pictures without hoping to see them published. Millions more make jewelry and throw pots and knit shawls, free altogether from the craving to profit from their craft.
I've known quite a few Sunday painters, including several in my own family. They're quite accomplished and they get enormous satisfaction from what they do. Some exhibit in local shows, occasionally winning a little recognition. But they don't sell paintings, they've never tried to sell paintings, and they don't consider themselves failures.
These painters are very fortunate?they don't need to prove themselves in the marketplace in order to get a sense of accomplishment from their work. They can produce a painting and either give it to a friend or hang it on a blank wall. Their artistic struggles may be rewarding or frustrating according to whether they do or do not achieve what they aimed at artistically. But, once a painting's finished, they don't succeed or fail if it does or does not sell.
Why aren't there more Sunday writers? Why don't those of us who write as a hobby find our work satisfying in and of itself?
I think there are some good reasons. Foremost, I suppose, is that communication is absolutely implicit in writing. If a story is not to be read, why write it down in the first place? An unpublished piece of fiction is an incompleted act, like a play staged in an empty theater.
We can't effectively hang our manuscripts on the wall. Some of us do give them to friends?by having our work privately published. But that's expensive, and in addition there's a certain stigma that often attaches to it. If it's really good, we and our friends wonder, why should we have to pay to have it published? And if it's not of professional caliber, why don't we keep it in the attic?
Manual For Fiction Writers Page 4