Would I Like My Own Novel?

I'm reading a novel that I'm not enjoying as much as I'd hoped, and one of my complaints falls into the category of "wanting to read a different story than the author chose to write." I consider this a less valid or useful type of criticism than commenting on, for example, problems with pacing or believability, but it's a common reason that readers fail to connect with a book.

In this case, the story starts with a big disaster, and my complaint is that so far I haven't learned much about how the general public experienced the disaster or how the city is coping with the event. The reason I don't know these things is that the story is about one specific person and the unusual things that happen to him as a result of the disaster. It's not a flaw that the other stuff is backgrounded, because that's not the point of the story, but unfortunately, I'm feeling like I'd rather be reading about the other stuff than about what the author chose to focus on.

Even more unfortunately, as I was thinking about this problem I'm having with the book I'm reading, I realized that what I have described is exactly the problem a reader could have with the book I'm writing. How does the description of my novel start? "When an earthquake devastates the Bay Area." How much does my novel focus on the disaster scenario of the earthquake? Not a whole lot. The protagonist of that other book at least faces obstacles that originate in the disaster, whereas my characters mainly ignore the earthquake and whine about their family dysfunction.

Would I find my own novel supremely irritating? This isn't the first time I've been gripped by this fear. These are some reactions I've had lately to novels I encountered descriptions of and decided not to read: "Oh, it's about someone going home to see their parents, so of course they have to uncover some deep dark secret." "Ugh, it's misery heaped on misery. That sounds way too depressing." If you're not sure why I'm feeling like a big hypocrite, take another look at the description of my novel.

One thing that frequently annoys me in stories is when a problem could be easily solved if people would simply communicate. I'm one of those people likely to yell at the TV, "Just tell them what's going on!" And yet I've written a novel with a plot that revolves around people keeping secrets from each other, lying, misunderstanding, and repeatedly failing to divulge the crucial piece of information that would make everything okay. I'm in the middle of a bit right now that's all about Character A believing that Character B agreed to something that B didn't understand he was agreeing to. Just communicate better!

I would like to think that in all cases I've sidestepped these peeves and written something that transcends the potential flaws. I would like to think that as a reader, I would enjoy my own novel. But sometimes I'm afraid that I'm writing a story I couldn't stand to read.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ On the Office of Letters and Light blog, Susan Bell sings the praises of the revision stage: "Editing is not the clean-up, it's the meal. Look forward to it, because when you edit, the discovery of problems is cause for celebration (where else in life is that so?). Rejoice each time you find a sentence or character or chapter that doesn't work, because if you don't find a flaw, you can't fix it."

Any Day Now

ANY DAY NOW is a novel by Terry Bisson, who will be one of the honored guests at next month's FOGcon.

At its core, this is a coming-of-age story about living in a particular time and a particular subculture. Clay grows up in 1950s Kentucky and develops an interest in the beat poets. After a short attempt at college, he moves to New York City, where he briefly encounters Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol. He does a bit of demonstrating against the Vietnam War, but it's Clay's friends who are more immersed in the various youth movements of the 1960s. Eventually Clay winds up living in a hippie commune in the southwest. The political events and cultural changes of this tumultuous period of U.S. history unfold in the background of the story, occasionally coming to the front as they impact Clay's life and friendships.

The writing style in this novel appealed to me. It's straightforward, with simple sentences and lots of dialogue. Some might imagine this indicates a lack of sophistication, but they would be mistaken. Bisson has masterfully crafted every paragraph.

There's another major thing to mention about ANY DAY NOW, but I've been avoiding it so far because I think it's better to encounter it unexpectedly. If what I've said already is enough to interest you in this novel, then stop reading this review and go pick up the book. If you're not convinced yet and are willing to forgo the surprise, then keep going.

Everything I've described so far is accurate, and for about the first third of the book, it really is just a story of a young man's life. The occasional references to current events are exactly what you'd expect from anything set during this time, especially once Clay and his friends start becoming politically active. The big spoiler is that the current events in the story start to become disconnected from history as we know it. This may have started with more subtlety than I had the knowledge to notice, but it soon becomes clear to any reader that Clay's world is taking a different historical path than our own. It's fascinating to see what happens as a result of the changes. It's also fascinating that even as this novel evolves into a different genre than it started as, it remains primarily a personal story about the life of one young man.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Chuck Wendig covers 25 Things You Should Know About Narrative Point-Of-View: "How intimate is the reader with the story, the setting, the characters? Once we begin to explode out the multiple modes of POV (objective, subjective, omniscient, etc.) it relates to how intimate the reader gets to be -- is she kept close but privy to the confidence of only one character? Is the reader allowed to be all up in the satiny guts of every character in the room?" (Thanks, Book Riot!)

Where I'm At

I heard back from Lit Camp, the juried writing conference I applied to in December. I wasn't accepted, but I did get a place on the wait list. That means if some accepted writers have to turn down their spots, I may get to attend after all. I'll know within a few weeks. It also means that my writing isn't so shabby. Making the wait list is a nice bit of recognition, even if it's not the great news I was hoping for.

I can still look forward to attending FOGcon, which is less than a month away. This year I'm going to be moderating two panels, something I've never done before. One panel is about dystopias, and the other will be a discussion of the book SLOW RIVER by Nicola Griffith. I'm reading it now, and so far it's an exciting story about a woman who is forced to go into hiding and change her identity. It's also about wastewater treatment facilities, which I think is pretty cool.

Revision has been coming along nicely since the start of the year. I'm sure I've said this too many times, but the end is in sight. At this point I've shattered my narrator's life, and now I get to shake up all the pieces and see how they come back together. Fun times.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Benjamin Nugent ponders the Upside of Distraction: "I tried to make writing my only god, and it sickened my work, for a while. The condition endemic to my generation, attention deficit disorder, gave way to its insidious Victorian foil: monomania." (Thanks, The Millions!)

World War Z

I like zombie stories, but I like them in a specific way. I'm not into monsters in general, and I don't especially care about action sequences in which humans fight the zombie horde. My interest in zombies is all about my fascination with and terror of epidemic diseases.

From my perspective, a good zombie story focuses on the science of how the zombie disease spreads and the sociology of how humanity responds. Mira Grant's NEWSFLESH trilogy pays a lot of attention to these topics, and that's why I was absorbed by the story despite my complaints about the writing. ZONE ONE by Colson Whitehead doesn't have much science in it, but it's heavy on the societal response, so I found it a satisfying read.

As soon as I started reading WORLD WAR Z by Max Brooks, I could tell it was going to be exactly what I wanted from a zombie story. I suppose there were plenty of tense action scenes in which people fled from zombies or armies faced down the approaching horde. But this book is almost all epidemiology and sociology. It starts with a physician's account of a local Patient Zero and continues with stories of how different governments around the world react to the growing threat.

The novel, which is subtitled "An Oral History of the Zombie War," is presented as an organized collection of transcribed oral accounts chronicling the epidemic and war. Because of this format, the story doesn't have any main or frequently recurring characters, other than the almost invisible reporter who conducts the interviews. Writing a novel in which each character only appears for five or so pages is a major dramatic challenge, but Brooks pulls it off well. Every speaker has a strong, specific voice that's perfect for their background, and each detailed experience comes at the right time to answer the reader's questions about what happens next.

Brooks clearly did substantial research for this book and spent a lot of time imagining how events might play out. The story is packed with both explicit and subtle examples of what the zombie war does to society. The political ramifications are huge, leading to changes in the world's map and balance of power. Most of these repercussions never would have occurred to me, but it all feels utterly believable.

WORLD WAR Z is a gripping read and a well-considered, plausible look at how a disease spreads and the effect it has on the world. I highly recommend it.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ My blog buddy Christopher Gronlund, a regular commenter here, has launched a new podcast with fellow writer Shawn Kupfer. The first episode of Men in Gorilla Suits is great and is all about growing up geeky. (Future episodes may have a writing focus.)

Getting Short

Inspired partly by Books on the Nightstand's Year of the Short Story, I've been reading more short fiction lately. (As it happens, this month's read-along story is "In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel, which I've loved since high school and would recommend to everyone.)

Reading short stories from various authors and genres is an interesting and useful experience, but I just can't get into short stories the way I do novels. Maybe that's an obvious statement, because there simply isn't as much there to get into. But what I mean is that usually I don't find the short story length satisfying. Either the few pages of the story leave me wishing I could read a longer work focusing on those characters, or there's not enough there to make me care very much.

I know I have read short stories that are rich and well-crafted enough to feel like the perfect length -- "In the Cemetery...", for example, and probably many of the other frequently anthologized stories I read in classes. But it's a rare thing. I remember that after first encountering the Hempel story in the anthology we were using for an English class, I got the collection it appears in, and every other story by the same author left me disappointed.

So I feel as though I'm somewhat lacking an appreciation of short stories as a literary form, which is one reason I've been reading them. And I'm definitely lacking the ability to write short myself. Lately I can't even think up a story idea that would be interesting and short, let alone execute it well.

When I was a teenager, I wrote short stories all the time, though in retrospect many of them were more like opening scenes of novels. I don't know if any of the stories were any good, but at least they must have been based on ideas. I guess now my brain is just too busy generating novel-related ideas to think about unconnected characters in unrelated situations.

Last time I posted about short stories was two years ago. In that post, I resolved to revise and share my most recent short story, from two years before that. I never did get around to that project. I still haven't even looked at the story (which continues to be my most recent). Maybe I'll get to this eventually, but I'm not promising anything this time.

I do promise to let you know about any especially good short fiction I read as the year goes on. And I'd love to get your short story recommendations.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Alan Levinovitz looks at the challenges of making books into movies: "And so, if we accept that books aren't formally superior to movies and adaptations aren't necessarily ruinous, a new question arises: what is it about the process of adapting a book that so often leads to disappointment?"

Everyone's a Hero

The latest episode of Writing Excuses features a great discussion of side-character arcs. This is a topic I find especially interesting, and I've written about it before. I pride myself on making secondary characters real by hinting at pasts and presents that unfold beyond the pages of the novel.

Do I create a detailed backstory and arc for every character who appears? No, although for the first novel I wrote, I had a detailed character database which included where all the main character's friends' parents went to college. Some of the parents of some of the friends only had a few lines of dialogue, so this was probably overkill. I'm no longer quite so unnecessarily thorough.

For example, one character in my current novel with no arc is a coworker who my narrator flirts with in a few scenes. I've given this woman a name and a little bit of a personality, but nothing about her changes over the course of the story, and I don't know anything else about her. I don't think my narrator knows anything else about her, either, and I imagine that the scenes she appears in are approximately all the interactions they've ever had -- these are two good indications that a character doesn't need an arc.

On the other hand, a character who has an ongoing, complex relationship with the protagonist should appear to possess an ongoing, complex life of their own. If the best friend doesn't seem to have anything going on besides serving as the ever-faithful best friend, readers will notice that one-dimensionality. This is true even if the main character is too wrapped up in their own problems to ever directly ask the friend what's up in their life.

My narrator and his wife have best friends, another couple in their neighborhood. This other couple appears (together and individually) in a large number of scenes, and it's established that my main characters interact with them even more frequently than that. These are characters who need arcs.

I've indicated a bit of their backstory (no, I don't know where they went to college), and some stuff happens to them that's independent of the main characters. The arc of their lives during the story involves making choices that contrast with the choices of the protagonist. Additionally, their arc impacts the arc of the main character's family, creating obstacles and complications that have to be dealt with. These are good ways to develop a side-character arc: find points of connection with the main plot, and highlight differences.

As they say in the podcast, everyone is the hero of their own story. Let your secondary characters have lives of their own.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ On the Amwriting Blog, Jason Black discusses the language of world building: "Easily the single biggest problem I see with world building in my clients' novels is characters who live in places that are different from modern-day America (sometimes radically so), but whose English is indistinguishable from that spoken here, today."

Start Here, and Continue All Year

START HERE: READ YOUR WAY INTO 25 AMAZING AUTHORS is a fantastic guide to approaching potentially intimidating literature. The book, edited by Jeff O'Neal and Rebecca Joines Schinsky of the great site Book Riot, is a collection of essays from contributors who each champion the work of a different author.

Every essay offers a reading sequence through three or more of the author's works. A best known or most ambitious novel isn't always the best starting point, so there's a suggestion for a first book that serves as the ideal introduction, then a progression for continuing that will provide a solid foundation. The reading pathways take various approaches, with some building toward a major work and others offering samples from different parts of a wide-ranging career.

It's a wonderful idea, and it's very well executed. The START HERE page at Book Riot lists the 25 authors featured and includes ordering links. The book is currently only available as an ebook because the initial small print run sold out, but there may be another print run in the future.

As I was reading START HERE, I found myself thinking that one could use it to structure a reading plan for 2013, if one were the sort inclined to do such a thing. I might be, but I also had another plan in mind for the year, which was to make some serious headway on reading the many unread books on my shelves. My collection is arranged alphabetically by author, so I thought I'd go through them in that order. I really don't expect to get through the whole alphabet, especially since I'm sure to also read a whole bunch of other books that come to my attention, but it would be a start.

Well, as it happens, START HERE is also arranged alphabetically by author, and there's a certain amount of overlap with books already on my shelves. So, I thought I might combine the projects. Again, I don't expect to get through all of START HERE this year, and I'm not necessarily going to do the full pathway for each author, but I'll try the first suggested work for each author I get to (or another one, if I've already read it).

Anyone else want to join me in Starting Here?

Good Stuff Out There:

→ At Beyond the Margins, Dell Smith offers an Anatomy of a First Chapter: "I knew I had to approach the first chapter in a new way. I started by reading it over, and making a few small changes. Nothing major, just getting my feet wet. Then I broke down the structure of it. It's only 11 pages, but it needs to introduce the main character, show his roadblocks, let us know what he wants, and set him in motion."

Talk About Random

Earlier this week, I made a vague resolution to go through my blog idea files and turn some of these notes into posts. As I mentioned, many of the ideas don't lend themselves to any further elaboration beyond the brief note I made, but I found some of these still interesting enough to share. So, miscellaneously:

→ For a while now, it's been the case that when I think of some detail or bit of dialogue I should add to one of the storylines I've already revised, more often than not I discover it's already in there. This seems like a good sign.

→ A while ago, I was talking to a friend who teaches music. She said many of her students don't like having to repeatedly practice the same section of a piece. They're only interested in playing the whole piece through. She has to explain that in order to improve, it's necessary to keep working on a section until it's right. "It's just like revising!" I said. (I say that a lot. Also, as a piano student I never had any patience for practicing either.)

→ In other analogies, writing a first draft is like packing for a trip in a station wagon: There's plenty of room, so you can throw in everything you might possibly want. Revising is like packing for a backpacking trip: You'd better make sure you're only carrying stuff you really need.

→ Recently I saw a movie that had a tense conversation between two characters before one drove away, accompanied by overdone music. "We really didn't need those dramatic strings to know that was a dramatic scene," I said aloud. (I'm annoying when I watch movies at home.) I've noticed I have a bad habit of doing the equivalent thing in my writing: My narrators frequently have a moment of emotional reflection about what's just happened. In trying to underscore the significance, I'm accidentally weakening the scene. Time to get rid of those dramatic strings.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Alicia Rasley at edittorrent looks at the difference between subtle and obscure exposition: "The more sophisticated the writing and plotting, the less obvious the exposition. But that doesn't mean there's no exposition, only that it's done subtly and carefully through the characters in a way that is consistent with the way they think, speak, and interact."

This Is Just To Say

I leave a lot of notes for myself. Occasionally the notes are on paper, stuck places where I'll see them ("Car needs gas!"), but mostly they're typed into my computer in a ridiculous number of applications and files.

I make detailed to-do lists and use them to plan my days. Because of all my lists, I more or less accomplish what I need to, and I rarely forget stuff.

I write down ideas for my novel whenever they occur to me. I keep these carefully organized so I can consult the notes and incorporate the ideas when I get to the right place in the story.

All these notes get to serve their purpose in life when I eventually act on them. But I've also been creating a very large body of notes that sadly never get to progress to the next stage of existence. These are the ideas for future blog posts that I record and never look at again.

I have multiple files containing notes for blog posts, I guess so I can feel organized as I type things into the appropriate black hole. Obviously I'm posting to my blog on a fairly regular basis, but it's never thanks to these notes. Most of what I post (besides book recommendations) is sparked by some thought I get inspired to write about immediately. That's just fine, but I'm curious about all those other topics I wanted to explore.

I've started looking through my notes, and there's some decent stuff in there. The ideas I've noted for later are mainly either too big (they'll take a lot of time and maybe multiple posts to cover well) or too small (I may not have more than a sentence or two to say). It's the medium-sized ideas that most often make it to actual posthood.

What with it being the beginning of a new year, I thought I would try digging through my idea files and turning some of them into posts, even if the writing situation that provided the original spark is now lost to the mists of time. I think I'm sometimes reluctant to go back to the old ideas because they feel too random if the topic isn't currently on my mind, but since I'm sure that for you the readers, this whole blog is pretty random, that's a silly concern.

That said, if there's any particular subject or type of post that you the readers would like to see here, please let me know. I'll make a note of it.

Good Stuff Out There:

→ Evan V. Symon presents 10 Deleted Chapters That Transformed Famous Books: "Bram Stoker's iconic novel is by far the most influential horror book. But what many don't know is that the final chapter was taken out by Stoker at the last minute. In the deleted chapter, Dracula's castle falls apart as he dies, to hide the fact that vampires were ever there." (Thanks, Louise!)

Benighted

BENIGHTED by Kit Whitfield has an intriguing premise: Most people in the world are lycanthropes (werewolves, though the book avoids ever using this term). When the moon is full, they change into violent beasts, but the rest of the time, they carry out normal human lives, and as the majority population, they control pretty much everything. Those who don't transform, due to a rare birth defect, make up less than one percent of society. These people are considered freaks and are treated as second-class citizens, but they perform an important, if despised, role because they are the only ones able to keep the world safe on full moon nights.

The narrator of the story is a non-lyco named Lola. She works for DORLA, the Department for the Ongoing Regulation of Lycanthropic Activity. In fact, all nons are recruited into DORLA at an early age, which further alienates them from their families and other potential peers. This is one of many reasons that Lola has a chip on her shoulder.

Lola works as a legal advisor to lycos caught out on moon night. The story opens with one of these cases, and the situation soon turns into a murder investigation. The deeper Lola digs into what's happened, the more disturbing the case becomes. It's an exciting plot that kept me reading and always curious.

I enjoyed the world-building in the book, especially passages that discussed the history of the relationship between lycos and nons. While I was never entirely convinced that the arrangement of society made sense, I was willing to go along with it, and it was clear that Whitfield had thought it out in a way that was plausible for her. Ultimately I was disappointed that the scenario of the world wasn't explored in even greater depth, which might have answered some of my remaining questions. Still, I recommend this book, and I'd be eager to read another story set in this world (alas, the author isn't currently planning a sequel). Thanks to Lauren for the recommendation!

Good Stuff Out There:

→ On the Guardian Books Blog, Imogen Russell Williams dreams about the fantastic food in children's books: "CS Lewis's Narnian food, too, remains among his otherworld's most seductive characteristics. From the datelike toffee-tree that grows from Digory's planted bag of sweets, to the eel stew served, with gloomy predictions of its toxicity, by Puddleglum, the familiar is transmuted into the exotic in much the same way that a wardrobe becomes a doorway to a forest -- where fauns serve Edwardian afternoon tea, complete with boiled eggs and sardines."