How to Write a Novel

by Melanie Sumner

  “The other thing we could do is get between two semis,” Max said as we turned. “Then, when she’s not looking, roll over in a ditch.”

  “Plan Yankee,” said Penn.

  “Hang on, everybody!” called Diane as we took another quick left into the parking lot of a warehouse.

  “Oh no,” said Max. “There she is again!”

  “She caught the first turn,” said Penn. “I don’t think there’s another way out of this parking lot. Y’all should let me out. I’ll handle this.”

  “Nope,” said Diane.

  “I’m serious,” said Penn. “This isn’t a car chase.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Max.

  “You can’t compete in today’s contemporary fiction market without a car chase,” I said.

  “Diane?”

  “You’re with us, Penn. You always have been.” Her eyes shined at him, and I felt a surge of hope. We were a team of four.

  “Well, all right, then. Diane, I think we can squeeze between two Dumpsters back there. Back in, if you don’t mind, and if she does find us, we’ll accelerate onto the hood of her car and do a roof jump.”

  “I think you need to get a new battery for your truck,” said Diane, backing in between the Dumpsters with her headlights off.

  “Naw, I can fix it,” said Penn.

  Cynthia failed to see us hidden between two Dumpsters in the warehouse parking lot. Apparently, she gave up. Penn said she has a short attention span. Then, of course, we took Penn home.

  It was a dark and foggy night with a smudge of moon in the sky when we pulled into the gravel driveway of the house where Penn lived with his mother, way out in the country. A dog ran out, barking at us until Penn got out of the car. “Walk me to the door?” he asked Diane.

  “I’m coming!” called Max. “Wait for me!”

  “You stay in the car,” said Diane. I didn’t wink or anything tacky like that, but I wanted to. A light came on in the upstairs window. I hoped to God the old person wouldn’t come out. Penn is old too, I reassured myself. At least middle-aged, like Diane. Surely they know how to do this. I decided that the kiss/rejection that took place on our back porch the night Diane lost her job didn’t count. Billy and I had gone through that stage early on in our relationship. Wow! Yes, I’m attracted to you [insert make-out scene] … but now that I think about it, I can’t do relationships. As Diane had pointed out to me, Penn had a few dings. Who doesn’t? We aren’t talking about freshly minted human beings here. Penn and Diane have done a lot of living, and they have some things to work out. This might take a couple of camping trips, some meditation, and a hot bath for Diane.

  “What’s taking them so long?” asked Max as he craned his head over the seat to watch them. He tried to open his window, but the engine was turned off.

  “They’re falling in love,” I said. “It takes a few minutes.”

  They had stopped by a garden hose. Penn was slowly rolling it up while the silhouette of Diane petted the dog.

  Come on, come on, I thought, forget about the hose. Kiss her!

  Write a Novel in Thirty Days! says that every love story is a story of frustration. As soon as the reader thinks the lovers will finally hook up—bam! Obstacle. Readers love to be tortured like this in love stories. It’s sick, but what can a writer do? We just deliver the merchandise.

  A light came on in the downstairs window. The dog ran to the door. Suddenly, Diane stepped closer to Penn. In the pale moonlight, she was a queen, standing tall (for her) and proud. Her hair was all out of the bun now, falling around her face. When her shoulders began to shake, I thought she might be sobbing, but she lifted her chin, and in the light from the window of the house, I could see her laughing. What was so funny? In one step, he was beside her, his arms encircling her waist. Her hands moved up his arms and then along his broad back as they kissed.

  It went on for a while. Snogging, playing tonsil hockey, interfacing passionately with each other, making out, creating a field of physical obsession and focused arousal, Penn being Mack Daddy and Diane the Lady of the Night. I began to wonder if I might be having a little brother or sister. Where would it sleep? What would I name it?

  Finally, an old woman stepped out on the porch and called, “Buddy? Is that you out there?”

  On that dark, delicious drive home, while Max slept and Diane played love songs softly on the radio, I envisioned my new life with a complete set of parents. I’d wake up in the morning to the smell of bacon frying. I’d find Penn in the kitchen, wearing plaid flannel pajamas, flipping buttermilk pancakes. He’d become a lawyer or something, so Diane wouldn’t have to be a maid. In the evenings, he’d fling the door open and call out, “Wasup, Lab rats?” Would we hug him?

  He and Diane would kiss, husband and wife.

  When people asked me about my dad, I wouldn’t say, “He died.” Instead, I’d say, “Oh, he’s a lawyer. He springs innocent people.” Because that’s the kind of lawyer Penn would be. He’d represent people like Charles, after Miss Octavia stopped being mad at us. Quoting Eugene Debs in the courtroom, he’d revolutionize the South. After Penn changed things, we might not even mind living here. Should I call him my step-dad? Do you hyphenate that? There were so many details to work out. So many things to do. It was like Christmas.

  FALLING ACTION

  But words are things, and a small drop of ink,

  Falling like dew, upon a thought, produces

  That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.

  —Lord Byron31

  According to Write a Novel in Thirty Days!, writers begin to have nightmares about their novels as they near the end. Mine started coming on Day 25. I dreamed that the book floated away in a sewer, that someone dropped my laptop in a bottomless mailbox, that Hiroshima ate the manuscript, page by page. My worst dream, of course, was about the critics.

  They are sitting at a polished table in an office at the top of a tall building in New York City, with windows all around, although there is nothing to see but gray sky and other buildings. They are all thin, dressed in black, and verbally gifted. One of them sips from a glass of sweet iced tea with a bright green sprig of mint from Diane’s garden. A woman wearing a tailored suit and a small gray hat with a squirrel tail holds my manuscript in her hands.

  “It does seem to strain for attention,” she says, “but there are moments—”

  “Hasn’t pedophilia been done this season?” asks a young Nigerian with a British accent. He nods to the corner where I stand butt naked, not knowing what to do with my hands.

  “The question remains,” says another woman, suddenly sitting up very straight, “how is she going to handle the grandparents?” They all look over at me.

  Here’s the missing sex scene. That’s right, it’s MISSING. We are on Day 26, with four days left to finish the novel, and no sex scene. Did Penn MacGuffin pull that lame excuse about not being ready to be in a relationship AGAIN? I mean, dude, wheelchair is waiting. No, of course not. My PMI was ready to bed and wed and be the new father of a bouncing 12.5-year-old girl and an eight-year-old whirling dervish. I’m sure of it.

  Diane, however, decided she likes her independence.

  “You are ruining my novel,” I told her when she made this announcement at our Ad Hoc Thursday Night family meeting.

  “You can’t control everything, Aris,” she said.

  “I saw you kissing,” said Max as he unwrapped a Dum Dum for his new collection. “In Penn’s front yard, after the car chase.” When he dropped the sucker on the floor, he quickly picked it up and licked it clean. “It was gross,” he said.

  “It was beautiful,” I said. “The perfect prequel to an ideal sex life.”

  “Aris, really! Use your boundaries.”

  “The human brain is wired to follow patterns,” I said. “I read about this in Write a Novel in Thirty Days! The reader doesn’t just want to follow a plot; she has to do it. We have evolved into creatures who are programmed to connect the dots, and when we find
a dot missing, we freak. My readers are sinking into a plot hole here. My thirty days are almost up, and I STILL DO NOT HAVE A FATHER.”

  “Also, Mom doesn’t have a job,” Max pointed out.

  Diane picked up her clipboard and checked something off. I can’t imagine what she just thought she had accomplished. She smiled patiently at us. “I know this is frustrating to you two,” she said. “I know how much you like Penn, and I like him too. I like him a lot. He likes us—all three of us. In a way, he is a part of our family. However, he is not going to be my husband. He is not going to be your stepfather. No, Aris, I am not going to sleep with him.”

  “Ew,” said Max.

  “Penn and I have talked about this. He has still expressed some concerns about his ability to be in a mature relationship—Aris, I saw your little face in Max’s window that night, so you probably heard our conversation. His marriage didn’t work out, and he has some issues to resolve there. He’s not ready to move on.”

  “But you kissed him AGAIN,” I said.

  “It was the car chase,” said Max, shaking his head. “I’m sorry I ever mentioned it.” He leaned back in his chair, tipping it off the front legs, then remembered that he would fall and bust his head, and came forward again.

  “In a traditional family, children would not be grilling a parent about her romantic life,” Diane said to no one in particular.

  “We are not traditional,” I reminded her, “and this is a family meeting, where we discuss whatever is on our minds.”

  “Right,” said Diane. She took a deep breath. “I told Penn that I didn’t want to be in a relationship.”

  “Why?” Max and I said at the same time.

  “I like my independence,” she said. She shrugged. “I like sleeping alone in my bed. I like making all the decisions about money, and everything else, by myself. I like farting freely and not having in-laws.”

  “A husband could work,” said Max. “Then you could be a housewife and stay home with us.”

  “That is so fifties,” I said.

  “I do want to spend more time at home with you,” said Diane. “My new job will allow me to work from home. I’ve been meditating about my purpose in the world, my role of service to the community. I’m still revising my mission statement, but I know that I want to be a full-time mom while helping people find space in their lives so they experience the present moment more deeply.”

  “Decluttering?” I asked.

  “Yes, you can call it that. We’ll start on the physical level, addressing the whole underlying issue of chaos to design a streamlined space and a calendar with elbowroom. Then we’ll be free to move on to the tangle of issues represented by that clutter. We create the environment that reflects our mind, and the mind itself is an environment reflecting the metaphysical landscape of the universe. So we enter into the realm of spiritual consciousness.”

  “She’s going to be a maid,” I told Max.

  Diane gave me a hurt look.

  “What about our playhouse?” asked Max. “It’s not finished. It’s still a shed, mostly.”

  “Penn will finish it,” said Diane. “He’s still our PMI. Actually, I think Charles is going to help him. They seem to be friends now. Anyway, Charles said he would drop by tomorrow.”

  Max drew the empty sucker stick out of his mouth and examined it. “Two men in the backyard doesn’t make a dad,” he said.

  At that moment, every single light bulb in the house blew out.

  “Sometimes we go through a box of light bulbs a week,” Diane explained to the electrician the next afternoon. Papa had brought him to the house. His name was Danny. He had a watermelon belly and wore stiff new overalls.

  “You’re spending a fortune on light bulbs,” said Papa. “A light bulb should last six months or even a year. I hope you’re not leaving lights on when you aren’t using them. If you are, you’re just throwing money away.” When Papa imagines Diane throwing money away, he looks like he is in physical pain.

  “Let me check your voltage meter,” said Danny.

  While he and Papa were checking the voltage meter on the side of the house, Charles knocked on the door.

  “Come in, come in,” said Diane, wiping her hands on her apron. “I was just making black bean brownies. Hiroshima, be quiet! You know Charles.”

  “Black bean brownies?”

  “You can’t even taste them,” she said, which is true.

  Charles leaned down to pet Hiroshima. Then he had to pet Lucky. Then Hiroshima again. Then Lucky. The dogs get insanely jealous of each other. When he stood back up, he towered over Diane. Even in jeans and a T-shirt, he looked like an important person.

  Diane lit a candle and set it on the table beside the couch. It was daytime, but dark and gloomy. “Have a seat,” she said.

  “Did your electricity go out?”

  “It’s just the lights,” said Diane. “The electrician is checking them now with my dad.”

  Her face was so pretty in the candlelight—I wished Penn was here to see her. He would change her mind. That’s how it is supposed to happen. She says no. He says please, please, please. Then she says yes, and we live happily ever after.

  “Any word from the court?” Diane asked Charles.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Charles. “I’ve decided to do my time over our spring break, which starts in two days. Might as well get it over with. I wanted to come by and tell you in person.”

  “I wish the judge had let you read your statement at the trial,” said Diane. “It was beautiful. With every manuscript, your writing grows more powerful.”

  “Thank you,” said Charles. “I thought writing was going to get me out of trouble, but it’s gotten me into trouble.”

  “Charles, I’m sorry about my part in this. If I led you to believe you could write yourself out of that jail sentence—it’s because I believed it. It never occurred to me the judge wouldn’t allow you to read your statement.”

  “We all have our blind spots,” said Charles. “It’s natural for an English teacher to expect people to read. Honestly, writing that statement helped me see the situation more clearly. And the freewrite! If my mama ever saw that …” He shook his head, whistling softly. “I’m sorry she lashed out at you after the trial. She doesn’t want to hear one word about my father. She doesn’t want anybody to know about him. To Mama, what’s in the family stays in the family.”

  Diane nodded. “Also, she’s a mother. She wants to protect you, especially right now. You are in a vulnerable position, and she feels threatened by the idea that you are exposing secrets.”

  “Maybe she’s right?”

  Diane thought about this. “Secrets are heavy to carry, but they aren’t armor. The act of revelation requires courage. Drawing on that courage in the continuous exercise of expression—that is what makes you strong.”

  “Ms. Montgomery-Thibodeau, I don’t mean to disagree with you, but—”

  “Please call me Diane. I’m not your teacher anymore.”

  “Diane—” He smiled nervously. “Diane, I agree that exercising courage makes you strong, but I’m not entirely comfortable writing personal things. Frankly, I don’t see myself as a writer.” Leaning toward her on the couch, he said, “You, on the other hand—I can envision a book with your name on it.”

  “I don’t write anymore,” said Diane.

  “Don’t teach, don’t write. What do you do, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “I’m breathing,” said Diane. “It’s harder than it looks.”

  Papa and the electrician came back in the house shaking their heads as they talked. When Diane introduced Charles to Papa as one of her students, a look of recognition flashed through his eyes, but he just said it was nice to meet him.

  “Yep,” Danny was saying as he turned a bulb over in his meaty hand. “See how this bulb has got thick filaments?” He passed it to Papa like an egg. “You’ve got a name-brand bulb here. It shouldn’t burn out so fast. Wiring is good. Switches good. Voltage
at one-twenty, like it’s supposed to be.”

  “Come over here, Diane,” Papa said. “You need to learn about these things. I may not always be around to help you.”

  Just then, the timer on the oven went off, and Diane slipped off to put the brownies on the table.

  Danny took a long look at Charles. “I seen you somewhere,” he said.

  Charles raised an eyebrow, then went to the bathroom to wash his hands.

  Danny said in a quiet voice, almost to himself, “I seen him somewhere. Maybe in the paper …”

  Papa looked straight at him and then continued to look at him with a pleasant expression on his face, letting it be known that in this circumstance, he was as deaf as a stone and only a fool would keep talking. He had a lot of practice doing this with Grandma.

  “Papa,” said Max, “come outside and see the playhouse we’re making out of the shed. We’re going to paint it purple with the paint Mom bought for the shutters. You don’t mind if we paint the playhouse purple, do you? No one can see it from the street.”

  “That reminds me,” said Diane. “Charles—Penn texted me and asked if you could pick up a couple of paint trays. He forgot to buy them at the store.”

  “I’ll get them,” said Charles, pulling his car keys out of his pocket. I think he was relieved to get away from Danny.

  “Purple?” asked Papa as he followed me and Max out to the playhouse. “Where did you put the lawn mower?” he asked as he opened the door to his former shed. “You can’t put the lawn mower in the garage. That thing has gasoline in it. Your house will blow up.”

  Max and I played dumb on the whereabouts of the lawn mower and the gardening tools.

  “Who is doing this for y’all? Penn? Where is he?”

  Again, we were helpless to respond. He walked around the shed, poking at the unfinished second story, my office. Despite himself, he was interested.

  “How do you get up there?”

  “Penn is building a ladder,” I said. “And a dumbwaiter.”