Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook

by Donald Maass

  Pressing a photograph in a volume of poetry might not seem terribly dramatic, but in Sebold's hands this small action heightens the inner turning point that Ray Singh has reached: the time when he must put away his feelings for a girl who is no more.

  Take a look at the turning points throughout your manuscript. Are they as dramatic as they possibly can be? No—I guarantee it. Go back to work on them. Use stronger words, handy objects, dramatic gestures, more evocative settings—whatever it takes to wring out of them all that they have to give.

  ___________EXERCISE

  Heightening Turning Points

  Step 1: Pick a turning point in your story. It can be a major change of direction in the plot or a small discovery in the course of a scene.

  Step 2: Heighten it. Change the setting in some way. Make the action bigger. Magnify the dialogue. Make the inner change experienced by your point-of-view character as cataclysmic as an earthquake.

  Step 3: Take the same moment, and underplay it. Make it quieter. Take away action. Remove dialogue. Make the transition small and internal, a tide just beginning to ebb.

  Follow-up work: Go through your novel and find the turning points in twenty scenes. Find ways to heighten (or pointedly diminish) them.

  Conclusion: Most manuscripts I read do not feel dynamic. The stories do not stride forward in pronounced steps. Many authors are afraid of exaggerating what is happening, of appearing arty. That is a mistake. Stories, like life, are about change. Delineating the changes scene by scene gives a novel a sense of unfolding drama, and gives its characters a feeling of progress over time.

  The Inner Journey

  Plot developments create easy-to-see turning points. Less easy to identify are your protagonist's inner turning points: the moments when self-perception changes. Call it growth, call it exposition, call it whatever you like. It is when we get inside your hero's head and find out who he is right now.

  In City of Bones, Michael Connelly's protagonist is homicide detective Hier-onymous (Harry) Bosch. Harry, as I discussed earlier, is Connelly's series hero, but Connelly does not keep him emotionally frozen. Harry evolves. Toward the end of City of Bones, Harry finds himself again in hot water for a serious breach of police department regulations. He expects to be forced to retire. Instead, he is given an unexpected promotion and is moved to the downtown Los Angeles precinct. Although this is so that he can be watched more closely, it nevertheless is an unexpected boon:

  Now it was Bosch who was having the drink and falling asleep in his chair. He sensed he was at a threshold of some sort. He was about to begin a new and clearly defined time in his life. A time of higher danger, higher stakes and higher rewards. It made him smile, now that he knew no one was watching him.

  Harry does indeed begin a new phase at the end of the story, though not the expected one. (See chapter twenty.) Paradoxically, because Connelly is so careful to pinpoint his hero's inner turning points along the way, we are never sure where those turnings of heart, soul, and mind will lead. Unchanging characters cannot surprise. Dynamic characters take us on journeys, and journeys necessarily involve surprises. Think about it: When did a lengthy trip in your own life ever go exactly as expected? Not often, I bet.

  In Mystic River, Dennis Lehane tells the story of three Boston friends, Sean Devine, Jimmy Marcus and Dave Boyle, who, as we know from earlier excerpts, were present together at a childhood tragedy: Dave's abduction by two roving child molesters. In the present day the tragedy assumes Greek proportions as Jimmy slowly becomes convinced that Dave has murdered

  Jimmy's teenaged daughter, Katie. He kills Dave, but immediately learns from Sean that he was wrong: Dave has committed a murder, but not Katie's.

  Lehane now has the problem of providing a resolution for this instrument of backward justice, which he does in the novel's final pages:

  [Jimmy] left the window and splashed warm water on his face, then covered his cheeks and throat with shaving cream, and it occurred to him as he began to shave that he was evil. No big thing, really, no earth-shattering clang of bells erupting in his heart. Just that—an occurrence, a momentary realization that fell like gently grasping fingers through his chest.

  So I am then. . . .

  In the paragraphs that follow, Jimmy weighs his past crimes and finds that some of them, in some ways, worked for the good. He decides to commit to his neighborhood and pay attention to some of the kids he knows there.

  He finished shaving, looked one more time at his reflection. He was evil. So be it. He could live with it because he had love in his heart and he had certainty. As trade-offs went, it wasn't half bad.

  I am not sure that all killers achieve peace as easily, but in changing Jimmy Marcus's heart Lehane orchestrates an inner turning that allows Jimmy—and us—to go on. Jimmy's mistake is worst than most, needless to say, but, because he can forgive himself, we ultimately can forgive him, as well.

  Let's again look at Robert Hellenga's literary novel The Sixteen Pleasures and see how the author takes his heroine, book conservator Margot Harrington, through a number of inner turning points. One of the more elegant points occurs early in Margot's affair with Florentine art scholar Sandro Postiglione. It is 1966, and Margot has gone to Florence to help preserve books damaged in the flooding of the river Arno. One day she finds herself in the Lodovici Chapel assisting Dottor Postiglione (or Sandro) in applying solution-soaked bandages to four filmed-over frescoes of the life of Saint Francis. Sandro's practical artistry and his cheerful advice to the abbot to "pray without ceasing" put Margot at ease:

  I've always felt intimidated in the presence of great art. I've always felt that my responses were inadequate. "Just sit quietly and look," was Mama's advice. But sitting quietly and looking always made me nervous. Like many people, I'd rather read about a painting than look at it. Or I'd rather hear someone talk about it. But working with Dottor Postiglione gave me a new perspective. The pressure was off. There was no need to work up an intense spiritual experience. No one was going to quiz me to make sure I'd appreciated them properly. The job wasn't to appreciate them but to keep preparing the compresses. I saw the frescoes as things, pieces of this world rather than venerable icons pointing the way to some remote metaphysical realm called Art, physical objects that could wear out, like a shirt, and then be mended, and as things I found them easier to like. Like old shirts. Saint Francis dancing before the pope, Innocent III, who has just given him permission to found a religious order. What a wonderful image. I'd seen it a dozen times before, but this was the first time it made me want to dance, too.

  Margot's changed outlook on great art mirrors an inner change in her. Through her restoration of a rare book of erotic sonnets, her sexual self is coming alive. What formerly had been remotely passionate, elevated, and intimidating is now becoming a practical possibility. Soon after this Margot is intimately involved with Sandro. In a sense, he applies salve to her spirit. Margot comes to enjoy the physical object that is her body, a piece of this world under heaven. The turning described in the passage above is a small one, but in Hellenga's hands its effect is large.

  Take the time to demark the inner turning points in your current novel. We want to know about your characters, particularly how they are changing. Show us. A sense of the rich inner lives unfolding is one of the hallmarks of a breakout novel.

  ____EXERCISE

  Inner Turning Points

  Step 1: Choose any turning point in your story other than the climax. Who is the point-of-view character?

  Step 2: Wind the clock back ten minutes. How does this character feel about himself at this earlier moment?

  Step 3: Write a paragraph in which you delineate this character's state of mind or state of being at this earlier moment. Start writing now.

  Step 4: Now write a paragraph in which you delineate this character's state of mind or state of being ten minutes after the turning point. Start writing now.

  Step 5: Use the material you generated in the steps above to pull tog
ether a single paragraph detailing this character's inner transition at this moment. As a starting point, try this framework: Ten minutes before, she had been . . . but now everything was different. Now she was . . .

  Follow-up work: Find six more inner turning points to delineate in your novel, and repeat the steps above for each.

  Conclusion: Most fiction writers carefully research such story elements as their novel's settings, their characters' professions, and whatever else makes the world of their novel real. However, few fiction writers do emotional research; that is, finding out how real-life human beings think and feel in the circumstances that occur in the novel. Is your hero shot at? How does that really feel? Ask a cop. Does your heroine get a makeover? Do its effects last? Interview a makeover artist. What does it feel like to be a child? Find out from a five-year-old. Psychology texts are useful, but real experience is best.

  High Moments

  I don't know about you, but I love it when a novel makes me suddenly suck in my breath and go, "Oh!" I shake my head and lower the book for a second, admiring what the author has just made happen. These are the high moments, when the story soars above itself and awes or inspires me in some way.

  How are such effects achieved? It is simpler than you might think. Indeed, there are certain types of story events that are, if not guaranteed, at least more likely to produce eye-widening reactions. What are they? Check out some examples.

  The morality tales of novelist Jodi Picoult show us the best and worst in contemporary humanity. Notice that I mention the "best." Many fiction writers revel in what is wrong with us; Picoult is generous in showing us also what is right.

  In my earlier discussions of Salem Falls, I noted that Picoult employs a large cast of point-of-view characters. One major point of view belongs to Addie Peabody, the proprietor of the town lunch counter, Do-Or-Diner. At the novel's outset, Addie has two main problems: her alcoholic father, Roy, and her unwanted wooing by the town sheriff, Wes Courtemanche. These two problems converge one day when Wes locks up Roy for drunken driving: Roy was, Addie learns, motoring a lawn mower to a liquor store.

  Picoult uses this incident to demonstrate Addie's forcefulness, Roy's intrac-tableness, and, most important, Wes's wisdom. Addie, who doesn't need the extra problem of Roy's arrest, confronts Wes:

  "I think you've done enough, Wes. I mean, gosh, you arrested a man joyriding on a lawn mower. Surely they'll give you a Purple Heart or something for going to such extremes to ensure public safety."

  "Now, just a second. I was ensuring safety . . . Roy's. What if a truck cut the curve too tight and ran him down? What if he fell asleep at the wheel?"

  "Can I just take him home now?"

  West regarded her thoughtfully. It made Addie feel like he was sorting through her mind, opening up certain ideas and shuffling aside others. She closed her eyes.

  "Sure," Wes said. "Follow me."

  In this passage, Picoult is up to more than just painting a warm picture of small-town tolerance in the form of an Andy Taylor-style sheriff. Later in the novel, Wes will be caught in the middle of a relentless witch-hunt aimed at Addie's love interest, Jack St. Bride. Wes's conflict—whether to crush his rival, Jack, or to be true to the principles of justice as evidence of Jack's innocence grows—is beautifully prepared in this early moment of small forgiveness. We now know that Wes is, essentially, a decent man, and, when his actions later become hard and unfair, we will not forget.

  Forgiveness, in fiction as in life, is powerfully redemptive, even when, as here, the forgiving act is small and everyday. Acts of forgiveness create high moments because they elevate the characters who forgive—and so elevate us all. There are larger moments of forgiveness to come in Picoult's complex novel. She knows that the human spirit can be as generous as it can be mean, and she shows us that spirit at work.

  Salem Falls also contains an example of another type of high moment. The novel's protagonist, ex-convict Jack St. Bride, finds work washing dishes in Addie's diner. One day he finds Addie's father, Roy, drinking in the basement food storage area when he should be manning the cash register. Jack takes pity on Roy and decides not to alert Addie, then takes his protectiveness a step further:

  "Have you seen my father?" Addie demanded, hurrying into the kitchen. "We've got a line a mile long at the cash register."

  Delilah shrugged. "He's not here or I'd have tripped over him. Jack, you see Roy in the basement?"

  Jack shook his head but he didn't meet Addie's eye. Then, with impeccably lousy timing, Roy sauntered through the basement door. His face was glowing, and even from across the room Jack could smell the cheap alcohol on his breath.

  Addie's face went bright red. Tension filled the confines of the kitchen, and Jack tried to ignore the fact that someone was going to say something any moment that he or she would regret. Words, he knew, could scar.

  So he squeezed the base of the potato he was peeling, then watched it fly in an arc over his shoulder toward the grill. Then, taking a deep breath, he grabbed for it, deliberately pressing his palm to the burning plate of metal.

  The distraction that Jack creates with this small, if painful, act of self-sacrifice does indeed distract Addie from the hurtful outburst that she was getting ready

  to let loose. The moment passes quickly, but the effect of Jack's self-sacrifice lingers through the rest of the novel. It is a high moment made of humble elements: a drunk, a dishwasher, a slippery peeled potato, and a hot grill. Picoult knows that self-sacrifice does not have to be grand to be good.

  Creating an effective reversal of direction for a character may be a matter not so much of sending him down a new road, but of convincing the reader that it is a road this character would never go down in the first place. Earlier I mentioned Erica Spindler's Cause for Alarm, in which a triangle is set up in the novel's backstory. Kate, Richard, and Luke were good friends in college. Unfortunately, both Richard and Luke loved Kate. Even worse, Kate slept with Luke the night before accepting Richard's proposal of marriage. As you can imagine, Luke is bitter.

  Ten years later, Richard is a successful lawyer who is planning to run for public office. Kate owns a New Orleans coffee cafe on Lake Ponchartrain. They have adopted a daughter. Luke, meanwhile, has become a best-selling author. One day, missing her friendship with Luke, Kate attends Luke's book signing at the Tulane University bookstore. They talk, but the conversation is a disaster. Luke still can't believe Kate accepted Richard's proposal, especially since at the time Richard had recently dropped Kate yet again, for yet another blonde. Kate tries to explain:

  "The next morning, Richard came to see me. The way he always did, tail tucked between his legs. I told him we were through, that I'd had enough. He begged me to forgive him, Luke. Begged me. And he cried. He loved me, he said. He wanted to marry me. He wanted us to be together forever."

  "And you crumbled?" Luke snapped his fingers. "Just like that?"

  "I love him, had loved him for years. Marrying him was what I'd dreamed of for so long. How could I not forgive him?"

  "How?" The word roared past Luke's lips. "By remembering where you'd spent the night before. By remembering the promises you made to me."

  The rest of the conversation does not go well; in fact, it ends disastrously. Luke accuses Kate of marrying Richard not because she loved him but because of the cushy future she would have with him, as opposed to an uncertain future with aspiring writer Luke. "I won't trouble you again," Kate tells Luke. In one terrible instant, their friendship is over and done.

  But trouble him again she must. Much later, after Richard has an affair with his young blonde assistant and is fatally shot by the man stalking her, Kate herself is stalked by the killer and now has only Luke, a writer of mysteries and thrillers, to turn to for help. Help her he does, and eventually their college passion is rekindled. But is it only the circumstances? In a major reversal of direction for Kate, Spindler opens her up toward the novel's conclusion in a direct parallel to her earlier conversation with
Luke:

  "Why did you marry him, Kate?"

  "Because I loved him." At Luke's expression, she shook her head. "I did, but not for the right reasons. I didn't see it then, but I loved Richard because he made me feel safe. And secure and cared for."

  "And I didn't?"

  "Not hardly." A smile tugged at her mouth. "You made me feel out of control. Uncertain. Of the future, what it would hold." She turned her gaze to the ceiling, remembering. "You made me feel like I could do anything, if only I'd try. If I would just go for it."

  "I always believed in you, Kate. I still do."

  Tears flooded her eyes. In all their years together, Richard had never said that to her. "That's just it. It wasn't you, Luke. I believed in you. In your strength and character. In your talent. It was me who I didn't believe in."

  He opened his mouth to comment, and she laid her fingers gently against it to stop him. "I wanted to be an artist, but I was afraid. That I'd end up like my parents, scrambling to pay the rent, sacrificing my children's comfort for my art. I went to school wearing other people's castoffs and shoes with cardboard stuffed into the soles to cover the holes. I promised myself I wouldn't do that to my children. Or myself."

  "Oh, Kate ..." He threaded his fingers through her hair, fanned across the pillow.

  She caught his hand and brought it to her mouth. "I was scared," she whispered. "Too scared to go after what I wanted."