Immediate Fiction

by Jerry Cleaver

  Many opportunities for drama, excitement, and expression of character are missed simply because the author didn't have characters come in contact with each other. Considering a possible scene doesn't mean you'll do it. But not doing it because you thought about it and decided against it is a lot different from not even thinking of it in the first place. By not considering each character having a scene with every other character, you often miss an opportunity to discover something about your characters, your story, human nature, and yourself.

  Now, there are exceptions to everything I say. It's conceivable that there could be a story in which the dangerous character and the weak character wouldn't meet. But there must be a good reason for it not happening, a story reason. What would such a reason be, and how do you make such a decision? That reason has to do with the very purpose of story itself, and you get to it and make your decision by asking, always, which way is more dramatic, which way reveals more of the characters?

  So, in this case, you would have to work it so that it would be more dramatic and more exciting and more revealing if the dangerous character didn't meet the weak character. That would be difficult to accomplish. Doing (meeting and confronting) is almost always more dramatic than not doing (avoiding). But then, it doesn't have to be one or the other. In this game you try to consider everything. It's possible that it could be both—not meeting and meeting. If you create excitement by having them not meet but come close, you can still go on and have them meet. It's often possible to have it both ways and get a lot more out of the characters than by just doing one or the other.

  I find the idea of not meeting being more dramatic than meeting hard to imagine, but this is not science, so we need to allow for it (and anything else that might pop into our heads). Just remember that the way you make such decisions is to ask, "What's more dramatic?" and "What reveals more character?" Those are your main considerations—always.

  So, the number of possible scenes skyrockets as you add characters. It more than doubles with each additional character. When you add repeat scenes between characters and scenes with characters alone with themselves, you generate enormous amounts of material. That's exactly where you want to be when you write a novel. You want to have so much material that you feel you're going to have trouble fitting it all in and not feel that you have to stretch and push and pad everything to have enough. If you don't feel you have enough to begin, that doesn't mean you can't start without it. You simply need to keep in mind that you can generate as much as you need by adding more characters where you can as you get into it.

  Some writers start with little or nothing and expand the story as they go. Those writers (who are in the majority) like the adventure and surprise of not knowing where they're going. They solve problems when they come up. Other writers (a substantial number) plan the story ahead. If planning ahead works for you, do it. Just watch out that you don't get paralyzed worrying about problems ahead of time. That's another reason why the majority of writers tend to plan less. If you do plan, do it on the page. Working in the head is a bad choice for almost all writers.

  Also, it's not that you're either a planner or not a planner. You don't work in the same way on every story. Sometimes you might plan because a particular story comes to you that way. The next time you start with no plan. You may plan some parts of the story and not others. The main thing is not to lock yourself into a single approach. Do what feels right, and don't get tangled up in how you should do it. The only should when it comes to creating is, you should do what works. No matter how strange or weird or illogical it seems, if it works, do it—and don't waste time trying to figure out why. Just go!

  That's the novel, but there are a lot of different kinds of novels, different genres—science fiction, mystery, adventure, crime, spy, fantasy, romance, historical, etc. Which kind should you write? That depends on a lot of things. It depends on your taste, what's in your heart, your skill, what you want to achieve (publication, money, prestige), the marketplace.

  First, at the time of this writing, the book market is great. Agents are being very creative in approaching publishers and getting huge sums for their authors. Publishers often seem willing to bid on a book that they have seen little or none of but whose concept attracts them. All of this drives prices up. Money for some of these not-so-well or even poorly written novels is in the millions.

  David Baldacci's Absolute Power got five million dollars. It was his first novel and not well written by any stretch. It's worth checking to see how little it's possible to get away with. OK, but what did it have going for it? It had a hot idea and perfect timing and a sharp agent. It was about a president of the United States who gets into a fight with his mistress and kills her. The Secret Service is there, and they have to cover up the murder. Now, with Clinton in the White House and Sexgate in full swing, what better idea could you have had for a novel?

  OK, you're deciding what kind of novel to write. You certainly can't count on the kind of thing Baldacci's novel had going for it. But knowing what gives you the best chance is what's important. So, what's the most salable kind of novel? It so happens that the most salable is also the easiest to write. Any idea what it is? Often half to two-thirds of all novels on the bestseller list are this type of novel. It's the mystery.

  The mystery has its own built-in drama and energy. Any time there's a dead body, everyone's interested in who did it, why, and how. It's human nature. So, the audience is there. Also, you don't have to write so well to pull it off. Check the writing in the mysteries at the bookstore next time you're browsing. It's pretty mediocre. Now, there are some really classy writers writing mysteries. Mysteries in that class are called literary mysteries. So, even though there are a lot of shabby mysteries around, we shouldn't be looking down our noses at the genre. (I'm including crime novels with mysteries. In a crime novel you usually know who did it from the beginning.)

  So, you don't have to write beneath yourself to write a mystery. Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov was a mystery. Your story and characters can have as much depth as in any other kind of writing. One way to write a mystery is to create a murder that seems impossible to solve. Then you and your characters work like hell to figure it out and catch the killer. You don't have to have any idea who did it to begin writing. The famous mystery writer Ed McBain says he starts with a corpse or someone who is going to become a corpse and from then on he has to go on the same clues as the cops do.

  It's possible to turn any story into a mystery. Know how? Kill someone. A dead body gives us instant drama, suspense, mystery. We identify with anyone who's been murdered as long as he or she is not a villain. Let's try it. Take the boy/girl romance we just went through. Who's our victim? Who shall we kill off? Well, it can be anybody except the boy, because it's his story. He's the main character. So, who's a prime candidate for murder? Whom we kill will cast suspicion on different characters and push the story in a different direction.

  Without dragging it out, I'll give you my version. Yours will be just as valid if you see it differently and murder someone else. Personally, I would kill the girl's father. If we murder the father, who would be the prime suspect? For drama and suspense and tension I would have the boy be the main suspect. The father didn't like him, he's threatened him, and he was in the way of the boy winning his daughter. And if he's the prime suspect, that almost always means he's innocent. Who might be the killer?

  It could be the ex-girlfriend trying to get revenge, knowing the boy would be blamed, especially after she leaves some incriminating evidence at the crime scene. She could have something of his with his fingerprints on it and use it as the murder weapon. She might or might not be in cahoots with the ex-boyfriend, who would have a similar motive and who would have easier access to the father since he knows him. Also, since the ex-boyfriend is stronger than the ex-girlfriend, he would be better able to do the father in. A plot complication could be that the ex-girlfriend has also set the ex-boyfriend up as the fall guy should the police come aft
er her. Or the ex-boyfriend could have masterminded it on his own and recruited the ex-girlfriend to help, setting her up to take the fall if he got cornered. Or each could have set the other up to take the fall. Or he could be in it alone, but have set it up to look like the boy and ex-girlfriend did it. He could testify that they were still lovers and were in cahoots from the beginning to win the girl, marry her, then kill her for her money, but the girl's father discovered their plot, and they had to kill him. That's a complicated one, tricky to follow, but the kind of story that makes for dramatic unraveling.

  Or it could be the girl's mother, who'd discovered her husband had been cheating on her and planned on leaving her. She saw the opportunity with the new boy on the scene whom the father disliked, and she made it look like the boy did it. It could also be either one of the boy's parents. That would bring in a whole other set of motives that would have to be worked out. All of these choices are equally good, depending on how you work the characters and the story.

  None of these characters, however, are my personal choice as murderer. I would choose the only remaining character, the daughter. I would have her do it because her father is disinheriting her out of hatred for her first boyfriend. The girl and her original boyfriend are in it together. She never loved the new boyfriend (our main character, our hero), and she saw him as nothing more than a fall guy from the beginning. I like that because that makes her more diabolical and the story more shocking and painful for the hero.

  So, the mystery is the easiest kind of book to write and the easiest to sell. It's ready-made, with excitement and drama built in. And there are no limits to how deeply you can develop your characters or how strongly the book can be written. If the mystery is the easiest, what's the hardest?

  The hardest kind of novel to write is the one more beginning writers pick to write than any other. It's a very personal story that relies heavily on the internal world (the mind) of the character and on the character's internal growth as a person. For that reason, I call it the internal novel. There are some great ones, and all writers are capable of doing it successfully since every one of us has a dramatic and complex mind, but it requires the most skill. That's why I'm pushing the mystery as the choice for your first novel. By making your mystery as personal as you can, you can learn the skills you need to wrestle successfully with the internal "serious" novel. But if you can't stand the idea of a mystery, don't bother. The mystery is easier, but only if you're drawn to it. If you're dying to write a personal, internal novel, if you have your heart set on it, then do it.

  "Personal" doesn't necessarily mean the book is autobiographical. It often is, but it doesn't have to be. How much the story depends on the character's relationship and struggle with himself, how much it hinges on or is about internal growth and insight, are what make it personal and internal. It's a type of story. It tends to be autobiographical, often about the author's big lessons in life, but it doesn't have to be. It's what would often be called a "sensitive" novel. Silence of the Lambs has plenty of sensitive writing, but it's not what comes to mind when you think of sensitive novels. Sensitivity is part of Silence of the Lambs, but not its outstanding quality.

  All novels have to be sensitive enough, or we won't give a damn about the characters or the story. Also, it is not that a novel is one thing or another. The different elements blend together, and how they do so depends on the story. All literary novels (mysteries or not) have a major personal, internal, sensitive dimension. It's where the strongest connection (see chapter 6) is made to the character. So, you've got to have that dimension, always, but the whole novel doesn't have to hinge on having a lot of it and doing it really well unless it's what I'm calling an internal novel. The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger and Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham are both internal novels.

  It's this sensitivity to the character's internal world that makes the internal novel so difficult. It's a lot more about how the character feels (self-esteem, adequacy, irrational fears, etc.) than about what's going on outside. The internal struggle in the character is much more difficult to figure out and express dramatically than what would be going on in the character if he were being stalked by a maniac slasher. In the slasher story, all of the character's internal energies would be mobilized and focused on survival. Personal and internal issues are being played out, but they're more a response to the external threat and don't have to get deeply into the character's personal struggles. When a mystery or crime novel goes more deeply (a character might have strong beliefs against raising his hand against anyone even to save himself or his loved ones), we're getting into the areas of quality mysteries or literary mysteries. The mind is a dramatic place, but it's complicated, many leveled, and it's the trickiest of all to get right on the page. See chapter 6, on emotion, for a fuller examination of this.

  When you write an internal novel, the biggest problem, beyond creating the character's internal world, is keeping the drama going outside the character. Fiction is never a head game only. It's about how the world affects our head and how those internal effects influence how we relate to and affect the world. To write an internal novel you have to do both the external and internal well to succeed. The beginning writer's biggest failings are (1) focusing too much on the internal world while not having the skill to do it well, and (2) not creating enough external drama to move the story.

  My concern with what kind of novel you choose to tackle first is based on my thirty years of work with writers and the high risk of discouragement and quitting that comes with trying an internal novel first. My advice is to realize that you're a beginner and pick the kind of novel you're going to learn the most from and have the most pleasure writing and the most chance of success with—the mystery. If you're set on doing an internal novel, the story craft is identical. It does not change from genre to genre or form to form (novel to movie to stage). But be sure to pay attention to keeping the external drama and excitement going. The novel has to be about big trouble outside as well as inside. If you have an idea for a personal, internal novel and you're in love with it, but you decide to do a mystery instead, you're not deserting your big story. You can do it later when you have the skill.

  Speaking of skill, it's time to do some writing.

  EXERCISES

  A search for a lost or stolen priceless object. It could also be something intangible like a lost reputation. Setting out alone to seek one's fortune. The search can take place on home turf (small town, big city, school yard, health club), in a strange foreign land, or across the globe.

  A character sets out to find someone, seek revenge, get information. To catch a bad guy or rescue someone from himself (drugs) or from another person. Again, the story can take place within a single family, within one room, or across the globe.

  A characters romantic adventures and misadventures.

  You can find a lot of material by outlining your own life—the high points and trouble you had at each phase. How you accomplished your developmental tasks, starting with childhood, at home with family, in elementary school, high school, college, and with friends and enemies. Make a list of all the schools you attended and the places where you lived and what happened there. List your friends and enemies—those you loved and those you hated in your family and outside of it. Most families are a mess. There are loads of material there. However, that doesn't mean you should use it if you're not drawn to it. Some writers do well by writing about themselves (autobiographical novels), such as Hemingway, Maugham, Roth. Others need more distance and stay away from their own lives. Neither way is more valid, creative, or valuable.

  [15] Hitting the Wall

  BLOCKING AND UNBLOCKING

  When Rex Harrison was on the stage, he timed it so he barely had enough time to rush into his dressing room, throw on his costume, put on his makeup, and race out onto the stage just moments before the curtain went up.

  When Laurence Olivier was on the stage, he got there early like most actors and got into costume with some t
ime to spare. Then, when the house was full, but the curtain was still down, he would go out onto the stage and stand behind the curtain facing the audience on the other side and say to them, but so only he could hear, "Not one of you lousy bastards can do what I'm going to do here on this stage tonight."

  Harrison and Olivier, two great actors—what were they up to? Why all the antics? What were they struggling with? Performance anxiety. Fear. Stage fright. Harrison was trying to distract himself by making himself frantic about something else—something he could manage easily (costume and makeup). Olivier was trying to psyche himself up, trying to overcome his fear by turning it into something else.

  Do writers have stage fright? Yes, they have a kind of performance

  anxiety that can be just as terrifying. They have page fright. Unlike stage fright, where you must go on when the curtain goes up, ready or not, writers can sneak out, put off the performance again and again. Because of that, page fright often lasts longer and grows more disabling the longer the writer puts off writing. Some writers have been blocked for years.

  Blocking is the writer's affliction, so we're going to treat it like one. We're going to look at the nature of the disease, determine the causes, and then put together a treatment plan. Diagnosing the disease and its causes helps, but diagnosis is not a cure. Understanding alone will not solve the problem. Understanding is not mastery. You have to know how to treat the ailment (what to do) if you're going to cure it. That's where we'll wind up—with an aggressive plan of action to get you onto the page and back up to full strength.