• Write in "tight compartments." Instead of seeing your whole novel, just see the immediate scene you're working on. Anne Lamott calls this the
"one-inch frame" method. Just concentrate on the little scene within the frame, and nothing else. You'll find your revision tasks are not so daunting as they seem when viewed this way.
• Be strategic. Learn to identify the most important tasks for revising your manuscript, and start with the most important ones. This book will help you make those identifications.
• Get inspired. One of my favorite movies is Rudy. It's the true story of Rudy Rudiger, a kid who had the dream of playing football for Notre Dame. But he was too small to make the team. So he got on the practice squad and worked his heart out. He was rewarded by getting into one game before he graduated.
Yes, it's a familiar enough plot, the underdog who triumphs by guts and grit, but the story was well told and acted.
Sometimes, needing a mental lift to get to my work, I'll play the football theme from Rudy. It's a trick, like getting a pep talk from the coach before running out on the field.
Why not? This writing game is hard enough without brain meltdowns.
• Repeat this often: It can be fixed. Neil Simon was once watching a new play of his in rehearsal. It was obvious something wasn't working. The director of the play knew it, too. In the darkness Simon wrote something on a piece of paper and passed it to the director. The note said, I can fix it.
That's a phrase worth putting up in your writer's space. Because any writing problem can be fixed. All it takes is tools and experience, and you get both the more you write and revise.
Remember that. Any problem can be fixed.
Some fixes will be more painful than others, of course. You may have to tear up a lot of your book and start over. That's all right. Because ...
• Remind yourself that all this work is making your book better. Imagine the look on an editor's or agent's face. They are hoping to find that next great manuscript. Let it be yours. Anticipate that it will be.
STORY SELECTION
The first editing decision you need to make is, Which story do I select to turn into a whole novel? To write from start to finish?
You're going to be spending a long time with your novel. Months. A year. In some cases more. I don't want you to wake up twelve weeks from now and chuck all that work.
So here are a few keys to self-editing in the story selection phase:
1] Get lots of ideas. The key to creativity is to get lots and lots of ideas, ironically without any self-editing at all, then throw out the ones you don't want.
It's a little like how lawyers choose juries. In reality, they don't select jurors; they deselect them. The potential jurors who are seated in the box are drawn randomly. Then, through a questioning process called voir dire, the lawyers probe and ponder, then exercise challenges. They try to get rid of those jurors they believe will not be favorably disposed to their case.
So, too, you as a writer face your box of ideas and, through probing and pondering, toss out the ones you won't be writing about.
But first you gather, and as you do, let your imagination run free.
2] Look for the big idea. A novel-length story has to have a certain size to it. Not length of words, but potential for a large canvas of emotions, incidents, and high stakes.
This is something you need to feel in your writer's spirit. Think about the novels that moved you most. What was it about them that got to you? If it was an unforgettable character, what made her so? If it was a turning, twisting plot, what were the stakes?
If it was a quieter novel, it had some simmering intensity about it.
Think on these things as you look at ideas to nurture.
3] Write your back cover copy. There are several questions to ask yourself about your idea, but at some point you need to see if it holds together, if you can get it in a form that both excites you and will excite publishers and readers.
One of the best ways to do this is to write your own back cover copy. That's the marketing copy on the back of the book (or on the dust jacket) that's intended to get readers to buy it.
When you do this, concentrate on the big picture. You'll need to write and rewrite this several times, but doing so will serve you well for the entire writing project.
Take a look at some examples and try to get the same effect for your project:
Long Lost, by David Morrell
Brad Denning's brother Petey is long lost. Frozen in time as a skinny nine-year-old bicycling away from his uncaring older brother, Petey haunts Brad's consciousness. To this day, within his prosperous life, Brad knows with certainty that he was responsible for the boy's disappearance. He knows how much his mother and father suffered and
that nothing can ever bring Petey back again—until a stranger walks into Brad's life.
Suddenly, Brad is confronted by a man who claims to be his brother and is telling a tale of wandering, pain, and survival. As Brad gradually puts aside his suspicions, his alleged brother makes himself at home in Brad's life. Then everything is shattered. Petey is gone again. Only this time, he's taken Brad's wife and child with him.
Now Brad must struggle with a harrowing mystery. Was the man who knew all the intimate details of their childhood truly his brother or a vicious con man? Where has he taken Brad's family—and why? As the days stretch into weeks, the baffled police and the FBI are forced to end their search. Brad's only recourse is to put himself into the mind of the man who claimed to be his brother and hunt him down himself.
White Oleander, by Janet Fitch
Astrid is the only child of a single mother Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery—but their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man and is sentenced to life in prison.
White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid's journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.
Bleachers, by John Grisham
High school all-American Neely Crenshaw was probably the best quarterback ever to play for the legendary Messina Spartans. Fifteen years have gone by since those glory days, and Neely has come home to Messina to bury Coach Eddie Rake, the man who molded the Spartans into an unbeatable football dynasty.
Now, as Coach Rake's "boys" sit in the bleachers waiting for the dimming field lights to signal his passing, they replay the old games, relive the old glories, and try to decide once and for all whether they
love Eddie Rake—or hate him. For Neely Crenshaw, a man who must finally forgive his coach—and himself—before he can get on with his life, the stakes are especially high.
Never Change, by Elizabeth Berg
A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinski is reasonably content with her quiet life, her dog, Frank, and her career as a visiting nurse. But everything changes when Chip Reardon, the golden boy she adored in high school, is assigned as her new patient. Choosing to forgo treatment for an incurable illness, Chip has returned to his New England hometown to spend what time he has left. Now, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence, and longing.
CREATIVITY AND MARKETING
At some point, you're going to have to decide how earnest you are to sell and market your writing.
Publishing is a business. The corporations that run book companies do so to make a profit. A large profit. Which means that fiction that appeals to a large commercial audience is more likely to be published than fiction that doesn't.
This doesn't mean tha
t quieter, more literary-style fiction—which doesn't sell as well as commercial fiction—doesn't deserve to be published and won't be.
This book deals with aspects of the fiction craft that make a story more readable and enjoyable and entertaining for the reader. Even if your bent is toward high style and more complex stories, these tools will help you realize your vision.
FICTION FORMULA
Is there a formula for fiction?
Yes. And I'm about to give it to you.
Knowing the formula alone won't guarantee your novel success. You'll still have to learn the elements of the craft in order to flesh out the whole novel. But I give it to you as an overview, something to keep in mind at all stages of writing and editing.
Here it is:
CONCEPT + CHARACTERS X CONFLICT = NOVEL
Concept is the big idea, the basic premise, the one-liner that will explain your story.
Every successful novel has a concept. It can be a "high" concept, one that has dollar signs, like many movies do: "What if a killer shark terrorizes a beach resort at the height of tourist season?"
It can be a smaller, more intimate concept, such as, "A troubled prep school kid journeys to New York to find out if life is worth living."
Characters are, of course, essential to fiction. No characters, no story. Conflict is the blood of fiction, the heartbeat of narrative. Without conflict, the novel doesn't live and breathe. Alfred Hitchcock's axiom, which I quote often, states: "A great story is life, with the dull parts taken out." No conflict = dull.
Now, knowing this, can you guess the formula for a great novel? Here it is:
CONCEPTx + CHARACTERS x X CONFLICTx = GREAT NOVEL
Where x represents some factor beyond the average. You take each element and make it more. Stronger, better.
Pause every so often and let your imagination play with each factor. Ask such questions as:
• What could make the situation worse for my Lead?
• How can I take that beyond worse and make it worse than that?
• What part of my concept is familiar? Has it been done before? How can I freshen it?
• What if I tried a completely different setting?
• What trait could my Lead possess that hurts her?
• How can that trait be made potentially deadly?
• How can I make the characters in conflict hate each other?
• How can I make the characters who love each other have to be on opposite sides?
• Are there relationships I can create that up the ante for each character?
• If my novel were rendered in a movie trailer, what would it look like? Would I want to see that movie? If not, what can I do to make it a must see?
A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE FIRST DRAFT
So you're writing away, trying to get that first draft done, and right in the middle it has become tough slogging. Or maybe you've finished the first draft but the story just sits there, like Jabba the Hutt, mocking you.
Don't despair. All you need is a good zap to get yourself, or your book, back on track. Here's how to recharge your battery.
Sometimes writing a novel feels about as rewarding as turning a spit in the fires of hell. Worse, you may not feel you can turn the spit even one more revolution. Don't give up! There's always a way out.
Start by asking if this is writer's laziness as opposed to writer's block. Most often the parking of butt in chair, and the pounding of keys by fingers, is all you need. No mercy here. Just do it, like the ad says.
What's stopping you may be your inner editor, yelping at you as you write. Shut that voice off. Give yourself permission to be bad. Write first, polish later. That's the golden rule of production.
A more insidious form of blockage is loss of confidence, the feeling that everything you're putting on paper is a foolish waste of time.
This is The Wall, and it should help you to know that most novelists hit it at some point in their first drafts. For me, it's around the 30,000-word mark. I get there and suddenly think all the worst things about my novel: The idea stinks and is beyond redemption; my writing is lame, the characters uninteresting, and the plot virtually nonexistent. I can't possibly go on. Career over. The anxiety is only magnified when there's an advance already half spent. Here's a simple prescription I've come up with:
• Take one whole day off from writing.
• Try to spend some time at a peaceful location—a park, a lakeshore, a deserted parking lot. Anywhere you can be alone.
• Spend at least thirty minutes sitting without doing anything. Don't read; don't listen to music. Breathe deeply. Hear the world around you.
• Do something for pure fun. See a movie. Shop for hours without buying. Eat ice cream.
• In the evening, drink a glass of warm milk and fall asleep reading one of your favorite writers.
• First thing the next day, write at least three hundred words on your project, no matter what. Don't edit, don't slow down. Just write. You'll start to feel excited again.
• Push on until you complete your first draft.
And know this: Your first draft is never as bad as you thought it was at The Wall.
I hope this book becomes a reference to help you break through The Wall and every other challenge you face in the writing of your novel.
[ CHARACTERS ]
In the classic Universal horror movie Frankenstein, Colin Clive, overacting as Dr. Frankenstein, shouts, "IT'S ALIVE! IT'S ALIIIIIIVE!" He's thrilled to the core when his creation takes on real life.
The doc was onto something. That's how it feels when a writer creates gripping, rounded characters. Cardboard cutouts don't excite you or your readers. Living, breathing characters do.
It has been said that all fiction is "character driven." This is true. Even in a novel that is heavy on plot and action, it's only through characters that the reader connects with the story.
Fiction is the record of how a character faces a threat or challenge. It may be an outward threat, such as physical death, or an inward, psychological challenge. Whatever the danger is, readers will respond if they are connected, bonded in a way, to the Lead character.
"The first thing that makes a reader read a book," wrote novelist and teacher John Gardner, "is the characters."
Plot is important. Theme deepens the story. But without compelling characters, readers will not connect with any of it.
Character work is also the key to originality in fiction. As the great writing instructor Lajos Egri put it, "Living, vibrating human beings are still the secret and magic formula of great and enduring writing."
TYPES OF LEADS
There are three types of Lead characters:
• The Positive Lead. This is what has traditionally been called the hero. The mark of the hero is that she represents the values of the community. She is representing the moral vision shared by most people and is someone we root for as a result.
Most fiction uses the Positive Lead because it's the easiest to bond with, and to carry an entire novel. Note that by positive we don't mean perfect. Leads, to be realistic, must also have flaws and foibles.
Further, those flaws must have a basis for existing, due to something in the character's past. A flaw alone is nothing. A flaw explained is depth.
• The Negative Lead. Naturally, this is the hardest type of Lead to do, because the reader may not like him. Why read a whole book about somebody who does not care about the community? Who is, indeed, doing things we find reprehensible?
There are ways to do a Negative Lead that are explained later in this chapter.
• The Anti-Hero. This is a Lead who doesn't seek to be part of the community, nor actively oppose it. He is, instead, living according to his own moral code. He is the loner.
Like the classic anti-hero Rick, in Casablanca, he "sticks his head out for nobody."
A powerful story motif occurs when the anti-hero, because of the unfolding events, is forced to join the community.
In Cas
ablanca, Rick is dragged into anti-Nazi intrigue. Will he continue to keep his neck out of trouble? He doesn't, and at the end of the film he rejoins the community by going off to fight with his new friend, Louis.
Ethan Edwards, the character played by John Wayne in The Searchers, joins the common enterprise to find his niece, captured as a child by Coman-ches. But at the end of the film he doesn't come back into the fold. Back turned, he walks poignantly away from his family, returning to his own world.
*
For purposes of this chapter we'll concentrate on the Positive Lead. But note that many of these aspects can be incorporated for the other two types as well.
So what makes a great Lead character?
GRIT, WIT, AND IT
Lead characters must draw us in. When we think of great works of literature, we flash to the main characters: Huck Finn. Gatsby. Tom Joad. Scarlett O'Hara.
Commercial fiction works the same way. Think of the staying power of Raymond Chandlers Philip Marlowe or Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum.
What is it that makes these characters unforgettable? In analyzing hundreds of memorable characters, I believe three factors prevail above all. I call them grit, wit, and it.
Grit
Let me lead off with the one unbreakable rule for major characters in fiction: No wimps!
A wimp is someone who just takes it. Who reacts (barely) rather than acts. While a character may start out as a wimp, very early on he must develop real grit. He must do something. He must have forward motion.
Grit is guts in action. It is as described in Charles Portis's True Grit. Rooster Cogburn is the lawman who helps young Mattie Ross track down her father's killer. Cogburn is said by another character to be "double tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking."
All well and good, but grit in fiction must always be shown in action. Portis does this at the climax when Cogburn rides out to face Ned Pepper and his gang, reins in his mouth, firing guns with both hands.
Another gritty character is Scarlett O'Hara in Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. While not entirely admirable, especially early in the novel when she overplays the coquette, Scarlett faces many challenges with courage. She is the one who has to help Melanie "birth" her baby, and later hold Tara together during Reconstruction.
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