Book Report, Luther Lovelace

[LutherLovelace]

Books on Technique Utilized in The Novel Writing Program

 

â—¾"The Art of Fiction" by John Gardner (a great primer for this commercial program)

 

â—¾"Writing the Breakout Novel" by Donald Maass (another good primer)

 

â—¾"Write Away" by Elizabeth George (a no nonsense primer, and humorous)

 

â—¾"The Writing Life" by Annie Dillard (a look at the struggle)

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As you've noted on the novel writing program website, the above books are listed as must reads for this program. And that can't be closer to the truth. Therefore, the purpose of this forum is to cajole you into taking what you've learned from these four books and relating knowledge gained to your own novel-in-progress.

 

As with the other forums, you need to post a topic in this forum that addresses three questions you must answer with regards to each book:

 

1. How did the book help you as a writer? What overall aspects of it taught you something?

2. What two or three major lessons did you learn from the book that you can apply to your writing and/or your novel?

3. Was there anything in the books that obviously conflicted with lessons and readings in our novel writing program. If so, what were they?

 

The Art of Fiction

• Book Contributions to Writer Development

 

One section of this book, in particular, helped me to crystalize my subplot. I refer to the section where the central character , An Apache Indian named Jim has to convince the Twin Oaks University staff that he is a specialist in Asian Indian studies. I transfer parts of this setup to one of my protagonists, The Mime Killer, who has to convince his new boss and the people around him that he is an upstanding citizen, as he attempts to get his life in order.

 

• Major Lesson Number One: Plotting: Gardner touches upon an important point: the reader must be shown through dramatic events, not told. That it is not enough that we be informed that a character is vicious beyond belief. We must see him slit a baby’s throat.The character must for some reason feel compelled to act, effecting some change, and he must be shown to be a character capable of action. In my first chapter, Randolph Abramov is compelled to defend himself when confronted by two carjackers. The reason he ends up murdering both attackers, humiliating one of them in the process, becomes clear as we progress through the story. He is merely defending himself.

 

• Major Lesson Number Two: Point of View: I began writing my novel using the first person after reading The House of Sand and Fog, a novel which I found so engaging that I sought to replicate its tone. I then began to realize that the protagonists’ speech patterns were the major vehicles driving the plot forward, and that perhaps this could not be duplicated employing typical American speech patterns. I’m now in the process of revising the entire novel to reflect a third person authorial omniscient point of view, which allows me to speak as, in effect, God. I’m able to see into all my characters’ hearts and minds, present all positions. with justice and detachment, and occasionally dip into the third person subjective to give the reader an immediate sense of why the character feels as he does, with judging.

 

• Major Lesson Number Three: Plotting: Gardner reminds us that successful novel-length fictions can be organized in numerous ways: I’ve chosen to organize this novel energetically, that is, by a sequence of causally related events.

 

• Conflicts: Book vs. Novel Writing Program

I found no conflicts

 

Writing the Breakout Novel

 

• Book Contributions to Writer Development

Chapter 7: Contemporary Plot Techniques: The author highlights the fact that a more flexible and frequently employed form of the character-driven plot is the journey of self-discovery. Like Sarah in Jennifer Chiaverini’s 1999 debut novel, The Quilter’s Apprentice, my protagonist, Samantha Huntsman—an old-fashioned Catholic girl—is adrift. She is at sea following the discovery that her husband had been cheating on her with her recently-deceased best friend, Emily. In the end, she befriends a psychotic killer to help solve Emily’s murder. She becomes the swashbuckling heroine. My novel is more plot-driven, but the element of self-discovery is present.

Chapter 5: Characters: As a writer, I’ve always been uneasy constructing group scenes. This book has helped me focus on developing techniques in “Building a Cast” How does one orchestrate a large cast? What are the guiding principles? The technique involves creating such a strong group identity that the group itself becomes a single character. This was an eye-opening revelation and is helping me to improve on group scenes.

 

o Major Lesson Number One

A major lesson addressed in Chapter Three “Stakes” where the author states that the stakes in a novel should escalate, locking my protagonist in his or her course of action with less hope of success than before. My female protagonist is running for her life and the reason we care about her in her situation is because we care about her, period. She is a principled person at risk. There is something gripping about her inner struggle to remain loyal to a passionately held belief.

My male protagonist (The Serial Killer), on the other hand, is running from his inner demons and the reason we care about his situation is because of what he suffered as a child. He has his own principles and is driven by his inner struggles.

The author mentions that a combination of high public stakes and deep personal stakes is the most powerful engine a breakout novel can have. He mentions plots revolving around serial killers, and that by broadening the impact of the novel’s events, its public stakes rise. In my novel, Randolph Abramov has a particularly gruesome MO: He paints the faces of his victims to look like Mimes. This shocking, visceral and easily visualized means of death is meant to rivet public attention.

The stakes should rise due to more than mere plot mechanics. They must be deepened by deepening my principal characters’ personal stakes, taking the reader inside the minds of both Abramov and Samantha. The Mime Killer’s driving agony begins to surface when he discovers a photo of a young altar boy sitting atop his father’s table:

Abramov couldn’t picture the old woman forgetting she’d borne him from rape. For a moment, he was crestfallen. But once past the initial shock, he turned his attention to the photo of a fat man standing next to a young boy dressed in a cut-off suit. The boy looked to be about 5 years old. Abramov studied the picture carefully, comparing the undersized waif with his current self. He smiled, eyes filled with pride. And then, something caught his eye. A Polaroid snapshot lying face down amid a pile of books. He picked it up, held it up to the light, eyeing it as an artifact with one eye closed, carefully comparing it to his own reflection. He looked at his father, then back at the photo, and finally at the first photograph.

“It’s been cropped.”

“Do tell.”

A look of shock, or pain, or perhaps both, briefly distorted Abramov’s expression. Another minute had passed before he spoke again. “Who’s the pixie?”

A pause. “He resides here in the rectory.”

Abramov’s eyes started to burn. It was all he could do to keep from defacing the photograph by any means at his disposal. “What’s his name?” he asked again, placing the picture back on the table.

“Don’t recall.”

“You in the habit of decorating your apartment with photographs of boys whose names you can’t remember?”

The monsignor frowned. “You ask too many goddamned questions for someone who visits his father only to extort him out of his hard-earned pension.”

 

For a moment, the reader is given a window into the private hell of Randolph Abramov. His simple desire to be loved by his father is meant to tweak our sympathy for the monster. At this point Abromov’s personal stakes rise, and thus, so do the novel’s stakes overall.

What finally brings the novel’s stakes to their highest level, however, is Samantha Huntsman’s powerful need to investigate the reason for her friend’s murder, to clear her name. So powerful is this need, she is willing to pay a high price, willing to compromise her integrity, by aligning herself with a psychotic killer.

 

o Major Lesson Number Two

 

The author suggests that marshaling detail and learning the art of writing in nouns and verbs as opposed to adjectives is essential in a breakout novel. I present two versions of the same scene as it appears in my novel, the first representing Samantha’s impression of the Hungry Pole strip club prior to my reading this book, the second, a revision which takes the author’s suggestion to use nouns and verbs to paint the scene.

Example 1:

 

When the road warrior finally gave up, she slid the Prius into the contested handicap spot, got out and walked the half furlong to the front of a red brick building with Greystone accents and coach lighting. It was a beautiful evening, warm but humid, slight drizzle, the sky a silver band of steel and the air smelling of cheap perfume, female genitalia, and Buffalo wings.

It was a beautiful evening, warm but humid, slight drizzle, the sky a silver band of steel and the air smelling of cheap perfume, female genitalia, and Buffalo wings.

She spotted the Dawson sisters standing in line under the building’s green awnings, two links in a human chain, sharing a curiosity and passion for a fantasy world where male exotics ruled. Emily smiled. Samantha nodded and joined the sisters in line beneath the green awning.

 

Example 2:

 

So after the barest hesitation, the disabled veteran (if that’s what he was) finally ceded victory to Sam in their little dominance battle, lowering his head and sitting there like a bump on a log, engine idling, looking down at his knees, the light drained from his eyes.

One small step for woman; one giant leap for womankind.

“Righteous!” Sam, right hand on the steering wheel, pumped a fist in the air in a victory salute, feeling a new version of herself she wasn’t even sure she liked.

Through the open window she watched him squelch his eyes tight and pinch the bridge of his nose. For what felt like an hour—and Sam would never know how long she sat there exactly—she regarded him through the curls covering her eyes.

And then she attempted to loosen her seatbelt, but the exertion was enough to remind her of the innocence growing inside her uterus, and that whatever the outcome—boy or girl—her decision not to abort would be hers to own forever.

She raised her fist again. It should have been easy, her opponent vanquished, the man probably cursing himself right at this moment, wishing he’d chosen a less assertive woman. All it would take was one more fist pump to consummate her victory. She’d shown no hesitation a moment ago. So why now?

Her resolve wavered and she lowered her fist again.

This was a battle not worth waging. It would be better for her to throw in the towel right now, grant him this small concession.

“You win!” she said, and then she threw the Prius into reverse.

The vet tipped his Vietnam era camouflage cowboy hat and slid his pickup into the contested handicap spot.

“Might kindly of you,” he said, and then he coaxed his legs out of the pickup—swimming against the tide of his own misfortune—in the wake of this gesture of repentance.

So …

She watched him hobble half a furlong through the dust and down the narrow alley running between two red brick Greystones. She wanted to run after him. Offer up an apology in exchange for him granting her clemency. But suddenly she felt glued to her seat, her own legs liquid; she couldn't move. She was now the spectator of a weird drama enacted in her own body in which an immensely active and powerful vital force had taken over. She could only watch as he strained through a patch of uneven concrete and mud, eventually disappearing through a metallic green door that opened and closed as if by the hands of an invisible doorman.

It was only now, with the dirt lot illuminated by a few strings of bare bulbs, that she was discovering a world full of vacant parking spots. So she found one and got out of the Prius. It was a beautiful evening, warm but humid, slight drizzle, the sky a silver band of steel and the air filled with cheap perfume, a hint of female genitalia, and Buffalo wings. She would walk the same path to the front of a red brick with Greystone accents and a long green awning.

The stench of armpit and throwup and rotting food eventually gave way as she exited the alley, emerging finally onto Red Snapper Lane, and immediately she spotted the Dawson sisters standing in line beneath a large LED moving message sign that read: LADIES NIGHT AT HUNGRY POLE. SILKY SMOOTH NOW PLAYING.

Built as a hotel in 1923 and converted into rentals during the mid-fifties, The Hungry Pole, like all storefronts along this little stretch of commercialism, owed its survival to the gentrification crowd, themselves links in the upward mobility chain, those gathered here tonight sharing a curiosity and passion for a fantasy world where male exotics topped the menu. Emily smiled. Sam nodded and joined the two sisters in line beneath the moving message sign.

 

o Major Lesson Number Three

 

The tool that holds out attention throughout a 100,000 page novel is Conflict.

 

o Major Lesson Number Four

 

When to introduce backstory? The author states that backstory delivered early crashes down on the story’s momentum. Breakout novelists hold it back, which can sometimes be quite late in the novel. In my novel, Abramov’s feelings for a mother who denied him are disclosed in the first chapter. I wonder if this information is revealed too soon and am seeking suggestions as to what might be a better time to introduce parts of this backstory.

 

• Conflicts: Book vs. Novel Writing Program

 

The author emphasizes the point that a novel is not a film. From what I’ve gathered as a participant in the novel writing program, it is beneficial to construct the novel as a film as much as possible.

 

Write Away

 

• Book Contributions to Writer Development

One device used for plotting involves the process of using both a step outline and a running plot outline. This process will allow me to make sure that every scene advances plot, subplot, develops characters, or addresses theme.

Abbreviated Example of my step outline:

1. The Fairfax District of Los Angeles. Abramov is involved in an ATM transaction, and is running late for a very important meeting with his father, Monsignor K.J. Griffin. He comes across a situation with two carjackers that just might make him even later.

2. Monsignor K.J. Griffin’s apartment (rectory). During their discussion, Abramov discovers the photograph of a young altar boy lying on the table. Unstated jealousy.

3. Carbon Canyon Condo of Samantha Huntsman and husband Kyle Mathis. He’s home late again. He’s bought her a bouquet of flowers as a peace offering.

4. City Hall. Samantha’s workplace. She arrives early to find a bouquet of roses sitting on her desk.

The book brings into better focus what I’m trying to achieve with my novel as it is currently structured. It even gives a name to my plot structure. It gives it the name Hourglass plot, which follows two sets of characters whose importance bears equal weight in the novel. In this particular structure the two plot-lines run separately like two parallel lines for a portion of the novel. Then they converge at one point, after which they separate again.

• Major Lesson Number One:

The first draft of my novel was written in shifting first person, where each alternating chapter of the novel was told by a different first-person narrator. I followed the technique used in House of Sand and Fog, where each narrator had a distinct tone and syntax. I abandoned this technique and am now revising the novel from the viewpoint of shifting third person, a technique which allows me to show my readers what everyone is up to whenever it suits my purpose.

• Major Lesson Number Two:

A writer achieves suspense simply by making the reader care about something. When we care, we continue to read. In my novel, I strive to make the reader care about Samantha, and to some degree, Randolph Abramov. One turning point: Samantha discovers that the man her husband hired as a chauffeur is also a serial killer. The discovery puts her in jeopardy; knowing that she knows his secret, builds suspense when Abramov is faced with the decision of either eliminating her or allowing her to live. This is a suspenseful scene in the novel.

 

• Major Lesson Number Three:

Effective use of THAD (Talking Head Avoidance Devices) elements of the scene that illustrate character or illuminate his state of mind at the same time as they obviate the possibility of a scene’s becoming nothing more than he said/she said.

• Major Lesson Number Four:

How to research setting, the advance reading, the use of photographs in establishing setting.

 

The Writing Life

 

Book Contributions to Writer Development

Looking at one’s creation with a critical eye and not being afraid to expunge cherished passages. If one finds something that is false or fatal, you must learn to accept the finding, and it will sometimes mean starting again. This process is part of the writing life: writing and rewriting.

• Major Lesson Number One:

A good novel takes years to write. There are exceptions, but one should not berate oneself if the pace of his writing seems slow. Less is so rare as to be statistically insignificant.

• Major Lesson Number Two:

 

Write about winter in the summer. Know no boundaries. Let your imagination be your guide.