So, I tried again, and after twenty-two letters of thanks but not for us, somebody actually made an offer for my second novel. It was a small paperback house, the money wasn’t great, but I was on my way and I’ve never stopped. I don’t believe I can now.
While getting down your first draft, don’t fret about whether you are creating a great piece of writing. The first draft is the time to dive into your theses, your character development, your plot. It’s in your subsequent drafts that you fine-tune.
Tom Parker again: “First you build the house. Then you screw down the boards.”
Many authors express surprise (and delight) at how their characters instruct them; tell the writer how to write their lines. Many writers report that their characters dictate their words and actions.
Being open to all kinds of surprises when you sit down to write is part of being a winning writer. You might have the plot down cold, but a twist might unfold as you are writing—go for it.
It is exactly this element of surprise that will delight your reader. As Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author of Walking Light, Stephen Dunn, writes: “If the writer is not surprised by the ending of a poem, they haven’t done their job.”
In Walking Light, Dunn’s collection of essays on writing, he addresses the importance of surprise, especially when writing on political topics:
“To complain, protest, register outrage, are familiar impulses in most of our lives. And what occurs in our lives inevitably is reflected in poetry. Yet Robert Frost wrote that ‘grievances are a form of impatience,’ and went on to say that he didn’t like them in poetry…. Yeats told us that quarrels with others produce rhetoric.”
Later, in the chapter on “Complaint, Complicity, Outrage, and Composition,” Dunn targets exactly what causes rhetorical or dogmatic poems to fall flat. After analyzing several successful and unsuccessful poems in the vein of “complaint,” Dunn writes: “In any of these poems we could speculate on the varieties of inspiration which spurred them, though, I think, it’s safe to say that the linguistic discoveries in the act of composition were at least as inspiring as the events or attitudes which preceded them.”
To rephrase, Dunn is teaching that you can write a successful poem of complaint or outrage if you allow it to unfold, as any other good writing does. If you allow the poem to lead you, to surprise you. “Locate a poem’s first real discovery, and often you will find its motor, if not its ignition key.”
Writing stories and novels is a different process, yet the basic elements are similar. In all forms of creative writing, “something has to change.”
In a novel, it is your protagonist’s change that keeps your reader turning the pages. The “big reveal” is the element of your story that you might subtly hint at for the first section. What skeleton does your character hide in his closet?
Another key element to keep your story moving is timing. The minute your book opens, the clock is ticking. As we will read later, Tinkers, a first novel that won the Pulitzer Prize, is all about clocks ticking!
Narration: Who’s Talking?
Crafting a winning book is the art of crafting a reliable narrator. Is the person telling the story consistent? Are they likable? Trustworthy? Snarky might be trendy, but think about whether you want to read an entire book sustained by a snarky narrator.
Other issues to consider on narration are point of view—first person or omniscient narrator. Would you like to create intimacy with your reader, or keep a cool distance? Italo Calvino, in If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler, has what is called a “close voice.” You feel he is in the room with you, speaking directly to you. That is a writer with an “intimate” voice. On the other hand, Charlotte Bronte, in Jane Eyre, maintains a cool distance.
Jonathan Franzen on narrative voices and gaining the reader’s trust:
“Every writer is first a member of a community of readers, and the deepest purpose of reading and writing fiction is to sustain a sense of connectedness, to resist existential loneliness; and so, a novel deserves a reader’s attention only as long as the author sustains the reader’s trust.”
In the classic book Novel Voices, edited by Jennifer Levasseur and Kevin Rabelais, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Ford talks about writing in first person. The interviewer inquires whether Ford feels more comfortable writing in first person, and Ford responds: “I have a much harder time finding redemptive language for events and characters if I am not writing in first person.” The stories written (in third person or by an omniscient narrator) “are harsher. The moral quotient to those stories tends to be a more negative kind. They tend to be stories that indict their characters more than the first-person stories. Why? I don’t know. But I’d like it to not be so.”
In the same book, Ann Patchett talks about how The Patron Saint of Liars is told by three first-person narrators. Patchett explains: “I spent a year putting that book together before I started writing it.” And, “The last two things I do when I start a book are naming the characters and figuring out the narrative structure. Those are the hardest things for me, and so I put them off as long as possible.”
There are many ways to start. Many ways to tell a story. Map it in advance or simply start writing. You will find your way, the way that opens the doors to page after page. The way that allows you to empathize with and understand your characters. There is no one right way.
Construction
Umberto Eco, author of Name of the Rose, told an interviewer about his practice of building the architecture of his books. He would not begin writing until all the plot elements were in place, the character’s quirks and personalities fully developed.
Like Tom Parker, he also compared writing to building: “First, the foundation, then the framework. You design the rooms and the lighting. Then you decorate.”
Like many other writers, the Beat poet and novelist Jack Kerouac wrote his iconic On the Road in one long sweep. So did Pearl Buck, who won the Pulitzer Prize for The Good Earth.
Trust
Trust is the first part of growing confident in your work. You may have heard the adage: “Trust the process.” What exactly does that mean?
The writer Joan Didion addressed the topic of trust in the wonderful Netflix documentary The Center Will Not Hold. When asked to speak about her writing process by her nephew (the producer and director of the documentary), Didion replied: “When I sit down to write, the work unfolds.”
Didion, a prolific writer who published two novels, a seminal memoir, and countless articles and screenplays, maintained a daily eccentric practice. She would wake up, drink a Coke, eat a few almonds, and set to work.
All writers begin with the germ of an idea. A plot. Characters. But it is only when you sit down to actually flesh out that plot or character do the ideas flower into a beautiful, mysterious garden, fit for a long, leisurely visit.
Be ready for your words to flow. Be open to your own new ideas.
Michael Jackson, the musician, lyricist and creative artist, said “I am just the channel.”
The source of your work might be hard research. It might be a mystery. Whichever it is, making the work readable still remains a process and that process is art.
Winning writers are ready for the flowering, to be the channel, and to discover who they are through their work.
As a keynote speaker once pronounced: “Always remember that you writers are in the entertainment business.” Employing surprise, delight, bringing your reader to new worlds, fantasy, imagination, and incorporation of the five senses will bring your writing from first draft to winning writing!
“Writing a book is like crossing a stream. Now I’m on this rock. Now I’m on