Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

by Donald Maass

  At the last minute, a final bit of apparent treachery by the Blackthornes almost saves Callie from Trace. Blackjack's foreman is apprehended by Owen and charged with stealing Callie's horses and murdering her father. Blackjack must have been behind the crimes, Callie reasons. But then the ultimate culprit is revealed to be Trace's mother, long jealous of Callie's mother and her hold on Blackjack.

  Rats! There's less and less reason for Callie to reject Trace, either on his own terms or because he is a Blackthorne. Finally, Trace rescues Callie's daughter in a mesquite brushfire and lands in the hospital himself. This is too much. Callie must admit defeat: She loves him. Three Oaks is saved with Trace's money, and the feud comes to an end—or does it? Only Johnston's two sequels will say for sure.

  In a strict sense, how things turn out for Callie Creed doesn't make any difference to the world at large. But Johnston makes Callie's story everybody's story by relentlessly raising the stakes. The worse things get, the more Callie is determined to save her family from disaster, and her ranch from those who would take advantage of their misfortune. In a way, isn't that story universal? Doesn't its outcome matter to us all?

  Let's look at another example of public stakes and their escalation in a story that has no immediately obvious public consequences. In Mary Alice

  Monroe's Skyward, Ella Majors is a burned-out ER nurse from Vermont. She accepts a position as live-in nanny to a South Carolina preschooler, Marion Henderson, whose single dad, Harris, is overwhelmed and unable to cope with Marion's childhood diabetes.

  Quickly, plain-looking Ella falls in love with tall and visionary Harris, the head of a rescue clinic for birds of prey. More slowly, she brings discipline, order, and compassion to both the Henderson household and, later, the clinic itself. Harris gradually discovers the wonder of Ella and falls in love with her, too.

  This happiness cannot last, right? Right. Just as the inner obstacles and past hurts that each carries have been overcome, outside obstacles crash down upon them. Ella learns that Harris is married. Marion's mother, Fannie, beautiful and younger than Harris by ten years, is a drug user who has walked out on her family several times for extended periods. Harris has not sought a divorce, however:

  "I've known her since she was a kid, Ella. I've always looked out for her and she's done a lot for me. And for my mother. It's been hard but I'm no saint. I've asked myself, what if she was injured in some accident. Left paralyzed or in a coma. Would I divorce her then? Or what if she was schizophrenic and in a mental institution? Would I leave her then? The answer is always no. The vow says for better or worse."

  Ella's newfound happiness is dashed. Still, there is hope. Harris might change his mind about Fannie. Shortly thereafter, Fannie indeed returns.

  How would you handle this? It would be easy to show Fannie as a bad mother and drug user. That is what a category romance writer in a rush to meet a deadline might do, perhaps, letting Harris's exaggerated sense of duty drag out a modicum of suspense over the outcome of the marriage. Monroe, however, uses this moment to raise the stakes; that is, to make Ella's problem still worse.

  Fannie turns out to be on the wagon and hoping to change her life and regain her family, as she has every right to do. Marion, her child, clings to her. Fannie, however, doesn't know how to manage Marion's diabetes and makes a dangerous mistake with candy, angering Ella, but leading to a turnabout:

  "You know something?" Fannie asked, stopping once more in front of Ella. "I'm mad, too. Not at you, but at me. Because I screwed up. Screwed up good. I hurt the two people I love most in the world. And I hurt myself, too. I've done some pretty horrible things. Things I'm not proud of. But I want to change."

  "I've heard that before."

  "I do," she repeated. "That's why I came back, see? I haven't used in months. I'm clean. Really I am. And I want a chance to

  make it up to Marion. I don't know about Harris. He may never forgive me. But Marion . . . she has so much room for me." . . .

  "I want to be a good mother," Fannie said to her, shouting to be heard over the storm.

  "Then be one."

  "The fact is, I can't do it alone." She released Ella's arm, crossing her own. "I ... I need to learn to take care of her. I need to learn about this diabetes stuff, her diet and her shots. There's so much I don't know. I've seen you with her. You're good at it. So sure of yourself. Look, I know I'm the last person you want to help, but I have to ask. If not for me, for Marion. Please, Ella, teach me how to take care of my child."

  Now Ella is really in trouble. Fannie's appeal for help and a second chance, for the sake of her child, is simply too good. Morally, Ella has no choice but to help her.

  Can this situation get any worse? Yes, as it turns out, Fannie learns well and turns into a model mother, caring for Marion and conscientiously managing her tests and shots. Now Ella faces the unthinkable—failure, losing out to Fannie. When Fannie appeals to Harris, Ella overhears the result:

  She leaned forward to take his hand and hold it tight while her eyes pleaded. "Harris, honey, I'm still your wife. I still love you. And I want to make it up to you. I may not deserve much, but I deserve a chance. It's my place to be here. To care for our child. This is my home," she blurted out before succumbing to tears....

  "Sorry," she said when she brought herself back under control. "I've been holding that in for so long I guess it was like the dam just broke." She sniffed and wiped her nose and eyes with the handkerchief. "I'll give this back after I launder it," she said with an attempt at a laugh.

  "Mama!"

  It was Marion, looking for Fannie.

  Fannie laughed, more brightly than before. "That child does flash about. She's going to wear me down. And I love it," she added quickly. She looked up at Harris expectantly, waiting for some answer. "She's our child."

  "Marion comes first," he said to her, moving toward an inescapable decision.

  "Of course," she replied, her eyes opening wide with anticipation.

  "I'll give you this one last chance, Fannie. For Marion's sake."

  Defeated, Ella realizes that she must leave Harris and Marion—and she does, taking a new job at an emergency room in Charleston. Monroe raises the stakes—that is, deepens Ella's problems—so far that Ella actually fails. What? Is that it? you ask. Ella loses out. The end?

  Well, let me ask you: How would you pull an ending out of this bleak situation? What resolution would you find for Ella? Is there any hope for her happiness? Of course, though it may not be exactly the form of happiness that we would like her to have.

  How does Monroe handle it? Read Skyward, and see for yourself. Meanwhile, I think you will agree that Monroe's tale of love, change, forgiveness, and loss is one that anyone can identify with. The birds of prey that are rescued and rehabilitated at Harris's clinic might seem to lend the novel an environmental theme. I would argue that they are, rather, a metaphor for Monroe's injured human beings.

  What gives Skyward its public stakes? First, as with Johnston's The Cowboy, the problems that are imposed on protagonist Ella Majors are from the outside: conflicts not inward and circumstances not of her own making. Second, these problems deepen to a degree that finally makes them so big that they attain a universal scale.

  Everyday problems presented in an ordinary way, problems that anyone might have on any given day, do not have the power to become universal; that is, to resonate within us and remind us of all humanity and its eternal struggles. But when stakes rise to a high enough order of magnitude, a protagonist's problems will become the problems that we all have. What was personal becomes public.

  What about the outward, or public, stakes in your current novel? How far do they rise? How deep do they cut? How bad do they get? Take them higher and deeper. Make them worse; much worse. Your novel can only get better.

  _______________EXERCISE

  Raising Public Stakes

  Step 1: As briefly as possible, write down your novel's overt and outward central conflict or problem.
r />   Step 2: What would make this problem worse? Write down as many reasons as you can. Start writing now.

  Step 3: When you have run out of ideas, ask yourself, "What would make this problem even worse than that?" Write down still more reasons.

  Step 4: When you have run out of steam, ask, "What are the circumstances under which my protagonist(s) would actually fail to solve the problem?" Write those down.

  Step 5: Have your novel conclude with your protagonist's failure. Can you pull some measure of happiness from this ending? Make notes.

  Follow-up work: Incorporate into your story four raisings of the outward (plot) stakes. Make notes for revision.

  Conclusion: A common failure in novels is that we can see the ending coming. The author signals his preferred outcome, and guess what? That is how things turn out. The only way to keep an ending in doubt is to make failure possible. Even better is to make failure happen. Maybe what's actually at stake isn't what you thought at all.

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  Public Stakes

  Complications

  Every protagonist has a goal. That means that every protagonist has problems, because no goal is achieved without overcoming obstacles. (If a goal is easily achieved, then it isn't much of a goal, is it?) Those obstacles to a goal are important; indeed, they are the essence of plot.

  To put it another way, what is plot if not an account of the many complications thrown in the way of your hero? What kinds of complications might serve? That depends on your story. Complications can be inner, psychological, and private, or they can be external, unprovoked, and public. Or they can be both. It doesn't matter. What matters is that wherever your hero may be going, it isn't easy to get there.

  Whether internal or external in origin, it is important that obstacles be believable. If your reader is thinking, "Oh, come on!" then your complication isn't going to help your story. Is your hero afraid? Why? Does he face an antagonist? Who? And what makes that antagonist formidable?

  Have another look at your favorite novels. You probably will find that a significant number of pages are filled by the business of making the opposition, who or whatever it may be, real and credible. That's as it should be; that is good storytelling.

  The simplest-looking way to provide opposition to your protagonist is to create an antagonist; that is, a villain. Actually, villains are the hardest kind of opposition to put across. I know, because most villains I encounter in manuscripts are cardboard cutouts that do not frighten me for a minute.

  Why? I suspect it is because most authors are not evil at heart. They are not familiar with the compelling reasons that real-life villains do what they do. Criminals rationalize their crimes. They feel justified. The same goes for anyone who deliberately hurts someone else, whether committing a crime or not: They always have good reasons. Thus, motivating the villain is an essential breakout skill.

  Erica Spindler's Cause for Alarm is a women's thriller with not one, but two villains. The obvious villain is a deranged CIA hit man, John Powers, who stalks all four of the novel's main players: adoptive New Orleans parents Kate

  and Richard Ryan, their baby's birth mother, Julianna Starr, and the friend the couple turns to for help, author Luke Dallas.

  The less obvious villain—and the more interesting one, to my eye—is the birth mother. Julianna, you see, becomes obsessed with adoptive father Richard, seeing in him the caring man she needs in her life. Indeed, for fulfilling Kate's wish to have a baby, Julianna thinks it is a reasonable trade-off for her to get Richard. So far so good, or bad I suppose, but how does Spindler go about making this obstacle active in a way that is real and believable?

  First, Spindler removes potential guilt that might inhibit Julianna from stealing another woman's husband. Riding a streetcar, pregnant Julianna daydreams about how things will fall out with the adoptive parents that she already has picked for her baby:

  Julianna turned to the window and gazed out at the waning afternoon, trying to ignore the greasy smear on the glass. This wasn't forever, she reminded herself. Soon she would have all the things she loved and needed. Soon, she would feel like her old self again.

  Richard.

  And Julianna.

  She closed her eyes and pictured her future, imagined her days, how she would spend them, what her life would be like. Her life with Richard.

  It would be perfect, everything she ever longed for.

  She smiled to herself. Last night Richard had come to her in her dreams. He had whispered in her ear. That she was his everything. His lover and partner. His best friend.

  He told her he couldn't live without her.

  And they had been together. Sexually. Spiritually. Two souls made one, bodies entwined in an act of love so pure, so perfect, it defied the physical plane of existence.

  Kate had come to her as well. She had been smiling. Holding a baby in her arms. Completely content.

  This young woman is delusional, obviously, but by reinforcing her delusions Julianna is making them more and more real for herself. At the adoption agency, Julianna sneaks a look at Kate and Richard's address. She watches them, realizing that to win Richard she will have to become like Kate. She visits Kate's coffee cafe and practices speaking like Kate. After delivering her baby she befriends a lonely secretary in Richard's law office and learns through her of an opening as Richard's assistant. She then gets the job, goes to work on Richard, seeds doubt in his mind about Kate's fidelity, becomes his confidant and, finally, his lover.

  Julianna is not a deep psychological study. The sources of her sickness are as obvious as can be: an inadequate mother and her mother's sexually abusive boyfriend (John, the CIA assassin). But what Julianna lacks in subtlety, Spin-

  dler makes up for in deliberate, determined, step-by-step seduction. Julianna knows what she wants and goes after it with enough cunning to become a CIA operative herself. As a villain, she becomes formidable by her actions— and Spindler spins a formidable number of scenes making this opposition credible.

  What happens after that? Suffice it to say that Richard's problems are only beginning. Julianna's sick abuser, John Powers, is after her and everyone whom he believes is corrupting her. He is a professional killer, too—and sets about proving it. Spindler's complications keep coming.

  Is there an antagonist in your current novel? Or is your protagonist her own worst enemy? It does not matter who complicates your protagonist's life, so long as someone does it—and does it actively, deliberately, and for solid reasons. Put your people into play, and let them mess things up. Have a ball. The better the complications, the better your story.

  ______________________EXERCISE

  Making Complications Active

  Step 1: What is your novel's main conflict? Write that down.

  Step 2: What are the main complications that deepen that conflict? (This list should have gotten longer in the last exercise.) Write those down.

  Step 3: To each complication, assign the name of the character who primarily will enact it. How will he do so? Make notes, starting now.

  Step 4: Work out the primary motives for each character who introduces a complication. Then list all secondary motives, and underline the last one you wrote down. Pick a scene involving that character and reverse that character's motives, as you did in the Reversing Motives exercise in chapter six.

  Follow-up work: For at least three complications, work out who will be hurt the most when it happens. Incorporate that damage into the story.

  Conclusion: Most authors underutilize their secondary characters. Adding complications is a way to get more mileage out of your cast.

  Plot Layers

  In understanding how breakout novels are built, it is crucial to grasp the difference between a subplot and a layer: Subplots are plot lines given to different characters; layers are plot lines given to the same character. Contemporary breakout fiction makes extensive use of plot layers, which reflect the multitiered complexity that most people feel is the condition of life today.


  Think back to our earlier discussion of Dennis Lehane's mystery novel Mystic River. In the story, Boston detective Sean Devine's two boyhood friends Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle both have subplots: Jimmy struggles with the murder of his teenage daughter and his belief that Dave killed her; Dave struggles to suppress the homicidal urges of The Boy, an alter ego that surfaced in him following his abduction by child molesters years earlier.

  What gives the novel its resonance, though, are Sean's own three plot layers we looked at earlier: (1) He is the lead detective in the investigation of the murder of Katie Marcus, and, although he owes his childhood friend Jimmy his utmost efforts, he struggles against a debilitating emotional numbness. (2) His wife has left him, taking with her the baby daughter who may or may not be Sean's, and he doesn't how to get her back.

  Then there is the final layer: (3) Because the case reconnects him with Jimmy and Dave, Sean must with them face again what happened to them all one afternoon as they argued about whether or not to steal a car. Another car with two men inside stopped, Dave got in, and his two friends did not. Guilt over this random event haunts Sean powerfully in the present:

  "Like this Dave Boyle stuff," his father said. "What does it matter what happened twenty-five years ago to Dave? You know what happened. He disappeared for four days with two child molesters. What happened was exactly what you'd think would happen. But here you come dredging it back up again because . . ." His father took a drink. "Hell, I don't know why."