Can You Guess Who Wrote These Endings?

I can't wait to write the end to my book--mostly because that means I will be at the end and and ready for those heady few days before revision sets in. I know it's a way down the road for most of us, but let's think about that last line. It's your big chance to package your theme in a shiny prose package. Consider writing it first. Here are a few examples, culled randomly from my shelves. Can you guess who wrote them? I'll tell you the answers in my next blog. Then we'll get down to the business of how to write one.

1) "She kisses his sleeping back and falls asleep."

2) "Write to me, she said. Write to me. I have written."

3)"Ten minutes after we were airborne a woman asked me for my autograph."

4)"And the truth of it had, with this force after a moment, so strangely lighted his eyes that, as for pity or dread of them, she buried her own in his breast."

5) "But Farid was still standing on the same lonely road. In the wrong world."

6) "Their heavy shots had splashed into him, and they had followed all the way, firing as they did, with that contagious passion peculiar to hunters."

7)"Whatever we had missed, we possessed together the precious, the incommunicable past."

8) "She says nothing at all, but simply stares upward into the dark sky and watches, with sad eyes, the slow dance of the infinite stars."

You know, you're right. That's too hard. Here are your choices: James Salter, Neil Gaiman, Willa Cather, William Gibson, Don Delillo, Henry James, John Banville and Cornelia Funke. It's probably still too obscure, but aren't those great lines?

What We Can Learn from Art Garfunkel

I was intrigued to read in Terry Whalin's blog "The Writing Life" that Art Garfunkel was not only an avid reader, but a meticulous record-keeper of each book he has read, according to the New Yorker article "The King of Reading" by Nick Paumgarten. Whalin suggests that this would be a good habit for writers to pick up and I couldn't agree more. Great books are a wonderful resource. Find a notebook you can use and allow yourself a page at least for each book. After each chapter write a quick summary and anything you found particularly memorable, good or bad. When you're finished you'll have a plot outline that you can study and a few examples of effective writing. If you keep it up, you'll have a notebook full of plot outlines that can help you structure your own book. I like the idea so much, I think I'll try it myself. (I put a clip of Whalin's post in the left-hand column. From there you can click to the New Yorker article, if you are interested)

A Cautionary Tale of a Very Bad Novel

If you've been following along, you remember from my earlier blog, "Is there a draft in your closet?" that I am one of those writers who is guilty of the "out of sight, out of mind" type of revision. I would like to pretend that I never wrote such a bizarre novel, but in the spirit of openness and trust that blogging inspires (and the knowledge that even if you laugh I can't hear you), I will tell you how I described it at the time:
"It's a romantic suspense novel. It's first person, except for a few flashbacks to a supernatural horror scene, which are in the third person. Don't trust the main character. Come to think of it, all my characters are unreliable. Oh, and tell me who you think the murderer was, since I couldn't make up my mind, so I left it hanging. It's a really sad story, so I threw in lots of puns and jokes to liven it up."
Ouch. The miracle is that a few agents actually thought it was redeemable with work, but unfortunately, I had written myself into a corner, so instead of revising---into the closet it went and stayed for the next ten years. In short: Don't write anything that even remotely resembles that description. Next post, I'll list a few tried and true techniques so you can keep your closet for your shoes.
Extra credit: How many of the techniques that I warned you against yesterday did I mention in my description of my first novel?

Tried and True techniques

Naturally, I need to follow up with a few tried and true techniques. Use these to ensure that you encounter the fewest problems with your book.

1) Use one point-of-view. Choose one character as the main focus and keep him or her "on camera" at all times.

2) Use the third person. It's much easier to describe a character's thoughts and reactions in the third person. The same thoughts in the first person tend to sound narcissistic. Try it--write a paragraph with "I" and then rewrite it with "He" or "She." See what I mean? Don't be seduced into attempting the first person by John Banville's sinuous novels, unless you have a personal voice that enraptures all that wander near. Not for beginners.

3) One genre at a time, please. Readers get cranky if you mix them too much. Readers feel betrayed if they think they're enjoying a romantic novel, but zombies wander in by chapter six. Not to mention the risk of ruffling the feathers of publishers and booksellers who won't know where to place your book.

4) Plot twice, write once. And then cut by a third.

I'll have more tried and true later. Tonight I am thinking about an article I just read in Wired magazine that asserts that all the deep questions have abandoned general fiction and taken residence in Science Fiction. Maybe we should take that up tomorrow?

Who is this book for?

If your answer is that you want to publish it for everyone to read, then you haven't answered my question. Let's dig deeper. In your heart, who is this book for? Are you writing for yourself, to create a life or world to escape into, or to explore your secret fears and hopes? Are you writing for your parents, either to prove them wrong when they said you couldn't do it--or to give them something wonderful in return for their faith in you? Are you writing for a child who loves to be enchanted by words? Are you writing for your partner or friend or teacher? Are you writing for another writer, either long dead or contemporary? Picture someone reading your book. Who is it? That is your ideal reader. Make friends with him or her because you'll need to be well-acquainted when you begin writing. Why? Well, you'll know just what kind of words to use to reach your reader if you know exactly who they are. Tomorrow you'll need a notebook or some paper, so get ready!

How do you decide what kind of book to write?

Now, I am assuming that if you are here, you are starting from scratch. So we must begin at the beginning. What shelf in the bookstore would you find your soon-to-be book? Probably nestled beside the books you like to read. Write what you want to read! After all, you are going to be reading it everyday! Now, some of you will know exactly what they have in mind, but the rest of you, like me, will find yourselves in even worse a fix! You like LOTS of books! Oh, you lucky gourmets! It may take a bit longer, but your possibilities are endless. Here's what you need to do:
1) Go find six or so of your all-time favorite books.
2) Get a sheet of paper and a cup of something delicious and find a comfy seat.
3) For each book, write down what it is that you love. Use the following choices: The story, the characters, or the feeling the book gives you. You may wind up with something like this: The Da Vinci Code: the story; The Pilot's Wife: the characters; and Stardust: the feeling. In short, a high action suspense book with poignant female characters in a fantasy world.
4) Think of this as a treasure hunt. What do your favorite books have in common? What makes them different? Is there a type of situation that you enjoy seeing characters get into? What do you really hate to read about? Write it all down.
5) Imagine you are in an enchanted library and you have just found the perfect book. It was written just for you. What is it about? This is your book. And I'm going to help you write it!