Hooked

Les Edgerton knows what he’s talking about. His eBook, Hooked, lays down the law about how to begin your novel—and how, most likely, your beginning could be much, much better. Making things worse, he doesn’t just expect you to take his word for it. He gives plenty of examples that buttress his point, like Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore, a book now on my to-read list. Look, here’s the deal: I know my writing has been changed for the better as a result of having read Hooked. I now approach everything differently.

Having said all that, it’s not that Edgerton’s research is the last word on how you should write your novel. After all, that’s up to you, and he doesn’t pretend it should be anything otherwise. What he offers is a kind of road map on story—a little like Bickham did—except with far more emphasis on the opening bits, which are, at least in the sense of one’s writing being a commercial endeavor, the most important.

At first the terms are a bit overwhelming (especially when Edgerton talks about the ten core components of an opening scene, blasting you upside the head with shoptalk terms you’ve probably never dreamt of), but as one reads on it becomes clearer. In fact, I highlighted the crap out of my Kindle edition because Edgerton constantly drops in these little nuggets of truth and profundity that sit up and beg for it. Examples? Sure:

“The first time a scene ends in success, the story is over.”

I’m like, WHAT?!

“A protagonist should not gain anything easily.”

Okay, yeah. I knew that. No really. I did.

“Summary doesn’t convince anyone of anything. Write that down.”

Hey Les, look: I wrote it down. And now I have a bunch of fluffy crap I need to go and delete elsewhere. Thanks a lot.

In fact, Edgerton’s book is so chock-full of great resources, you should stop what you’re doing right now and download it. Seriously. If you fancy yourself a writer, if you’re an indie author, if you’re published and agented and signed and successful, you should read it. It can only help you, and Edgerton points out other excellent resources too, like Bickham’s Scene and Structure, and like another I haven’t quite gotten to yet, On Writing Well by William Zinsser (I’ll just take Les’s word for it that it’s going to be outstanding when I finally do get round to it).

I’m not joking, this book will change your professional life as a writer. What I found most alarming as I read through Hooked is that I’d been trading mostly on instinct and raw talent. The emotional quotient to that, at least as an author, is pretty much just stark terror. I was ignorant of the structure, the rules, the order of Story. And I called myself an author?! Now that my mind has been peeled open a bit, I’m soaking this stuff up like crazy. I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Go get yours now.

Firestarter

From what I can ascertain from the merry cobble of information out there in Webland, Stephen King never wrote a sequel to Firestarter. And right from the get-go, I have to say that’s “a bummer, man,” as Jeffrey Lebowski might say. While this book had its moments, it never really got going. It dragged along and teased me, and I realized about two-thirds of the way through it that it wasn’t going to deliver the knockout blow I was hoping for.

Mehh…

And it’s weird. It sure seems like a great setup for a great story. There are so many ways to move the plot forward, it’s surprising King doesn’t ever really give it full throttle.

I read it with a plan, though. I purposed to read something from King’s early days, because I wanted to see if he’s always been amazing or if he developed along the way. The answer was mostly that he developed along the way. Firestarter was a decent story, sure. But it’s no Duma Key; it’s not King’s best. I’ve read somewhere that he isn’t particularly proud of his early stuff anyway, and that’s why I sought it out. I wanted to see what kind of writer he used to be.

Firestarter was like the patient whose wife waits in the hospital lobby, the doctor walking gravely in with the ma’am-I’m-afraid-I-have-bad-news line. The bane of all rookie authors—passive voice—isn’t just a rash in this book. It’s not just an outbreak. It’s riddled with it. Sure, it’s fixable, but only by re-making the patient. And maybe I got an early edition; it’s copyrighted 1980 and there are no edition numbers on the copyright page. Perhaps some of that stuff got fixed later on. I don’t know. It’s stunning, though, that it went to press in such bad form. These are the professionals, or so we’ve been told.

What I do know is that I was encouraged by this book. One of my literary heroes, King had teething problems too, just like me. He turned out a halfway decent book that got made into a movie. And he launched into a career as an author that was very rewarding. Sure, the world’s a different place now. But it’s good to know that one of the master storytellers of our time had his own early issues.

Now…I’ve got things to write.

11/22/63

Stephen King is one of the greats, for sure. I was completely transported by 11/22/63, a novel based around this one question: what if somebody had been able to stop the assassination of JFK?

King explains a little about it here.

I love that when I read one of his books, I’m completely unaware of the shoptalk side of novel writing. I’m just taken in and along for the ride. I think that’s a mark of excellence, if there is one. I had to force myself to notice that it’s written in the first person, that he juggles tenses, that he uses fragments, that he has lots of subplots going on in the background. I loved it all.

I was telling a friend that King must have done scads of research, because he completely nailed it. It wasn’t just the socio-political climate of the late fifties and early sixties, which was much closer than we are to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, World War II, the Cold War, segregation in the South and Jim Crow, and the kind of relations between the sexes that one can see in an episode of Mad Men. Not to mention the boozing and the smoking. Plus, it was before all those major watershed moments that have defined our contemporary world: the civil rights movement, Vietnam, the eighties obsession with materialism, 9/11, Y2K, the internet age, and digital this and that.

There were good parts to the fifties and sixties as well, and King nails those, too. Not that I was there. But I felt like I was. There was real root beer in real glasses. Ice cream made from real cream and sugar. Bicycles and paper boys. Telephones on kitchen walls, their numbers with the exchange letters as a prefix. Cars without any plastic in them or on them. Libraries with card catalogs. Banks without security cameras. And a whole bunch more that was implied or left to the reader’s imagination; another mark of excellence.

It was a world more innocent. It was delicious to linger there. It reminded me of my childhood a little, of low sunset light streaming in through single pane windows in a farmhouse kitchen that always had a certain aroma to it. It was like sinking into the perfect easy chair.

There was also, though, the lingering aftertaste of…well…dissatisfaction. If I could wish for anything, it would be a more tightly wrapped ending. There were a lot of questions left dangling out in the breeze because of one little detail at the end of the book. It didn’t cancel out the magnificence of the work, though. I’m more and more inclined to think lately that the great novels are like the master works on canvas: there’s no disputing the touch of a master’s hand, but one has to account for tastes and preferences in the reader too. After all, a story is an expression of the storyteller, and if the beholder doesn’t connect, he doesn’t connect. Authors spin a good yarn, but we're not magicians. I can amend that by saying some of us appear to be wizards. That would be King.

I connected with the vast majority of this book. King is still a little too broad-brush chummy with leftist Democrats and their assessments for my taste, but then again, he’s always been that way and I've liked him anyway. He managed to pull off a story centered on politics with reasonable poise and balance. He did it better than I probably could. But another thing I didn’t like: the love scene sections that were full-bore erotica. It was an endearing character study on humanity, sure. But it’s not my cuppa. And I thank God we don’t have a meddlesome federal government trying to protect us from books yet. The last thing I want is for my books to carry labels for content; I’m not complaining. “Just an observation,” as James May might point out.

What he wrote, and the skillful way he wrote it, is food for thought for me for the next little while. He managed a large cast of characters really well. Much better than another book I tried to read recently, which introduced ten characters on the first two pages; yikes. Nope. King is really good. This book was masterfully paced, clearly thought out, and a heck of a lot of fun to read. Good fiction is so hard to find these days. But not when it has these four letters on the spine.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

I just saw the Swedish version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Subtitles and all. It took me a couple of weeks to muscle through it—there are some shocking scenes in there that have to do with rape, sodomy, bondage, grisly serial murder, and other horrifying aspects of life on earth. I’d argue that these potentialities have little to do with most of us, but the simple fact is, whether graphically rendered in the imagination or not, all of us have given safe harbor to these ideas before, in one intensity or another. For some of us it may be quite tame; an episode of road rage that provokes us to violent or murderous thoughts. For others it may be full-blown deviant sexual fantasy or worse. Whatever the case, Steig Larsson’s book tackles some of the worst of our potentials without fear. I find that striking, because we all play with fire from time to time, ignorant of its full potential or not.

I’d heard, of course, of the Girl books. I was curious about them, but was too busy to follow through. When the Swedish version of the film popped up on Netflix, it was easy to get at. I watched the film not for its entertainment value, but for its value as a kind of case study. I read fiction that way, too. I know I’m weird. Though I may be a couple of years behind the power curve, I finally got curious enough about the Girl stories to give this one a look.

I had to look away from the screen at several key points, because the scenes were just too intense for me. I got the point, though. I don’t know from experience what rape is—though I’m sure there are those who will read this who do—but it was real enough for me as acted out on screen. It was unspeakably awful. I couldn’t watch.

And I mention it because I’m conflicted about the inclusion of those elements in the story, in the movie.

See, I think Larsson was quite brave to plow directly into the issue of these manifest evils in our society, God rest his soul. Part of me asks, “Why would he write this into his story?” And another part of me knows already that authors and writers and other artists have a responsibility to address—and not ignore—those parts of our culture that shock and appall, and speak truth: that after all the evil that enshrouds every one of us has been cut through, we are still invaluable, we are still God’s image bearers. It’s a great mystery that these things that are in violent opposition to each other can exist in the same vessel.

Part of me felt some of these scenes were gratuitous. That was the part that questioned why a man should write—why a movie should be produced—about rape, about sexual torture, and so graphically. What would be the purpose? Do we not already have enough saturation in our culture, in our society, of these greasy and dishonorable things? Detestable, I should say. But as the movie played out, I realized the purpose, the design of the writer, the producer, the director.

Those elements of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo didn’t just occupy space in the narrative. The writer was trying to tell a story. As it happens, it unfolds slowly and we discover at the end just why all that bone-chillingly horrid stuff is in there. It’s a central part of Lisbeth’s character and identity. Though I can’t relate to what the Girl went through literally, I can relate to feeling used, abused, to having issues with authority, to feeling fragile, to having a need to be guarded.

I realized that there are universal aspects to things, even to pure evil like that. And while that may make for a bit of an awkward read on my blog, it makes good food for thought in regard to Story. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo isn’t what I’d term a recommended movie, especially the Swedish version (I have a feeling the American version was toned-down a bit; less graphic, but I don’t know for sure). But it had an effect on me. What’s interesting is that I had no idea what I was getting into with it. I didn’t know what the story was about, what it centered on. If I had, I wouldn’t have watched it. And though it was beyond shocking, I’m glad I did. I’m certain it will make me a better writer in the long run. That doesn’t mean I’ll be mindlessly copying ultra-graphic elements into my stories. No. It means I’ll be taking a more considered approach to my characters, my plots, my stories. It also means I’ll be reading Steig’s Girl series soon. 

Stirrings on Storytelling

It used to be, not so long ago, that I lived a dull existence. I would read stories quite passively; I would watch TV and movies as a spectator. Not that it’s possible really to be anything other than a spectator while doing that, but I think it’s possible to sit on the forward portion of the seat a little, if you know what I mean.

In other words I was just along for the ride, never thinking ahead of the story in terms of plot. Now that I’ve had a little practice constructing such things myself, I find I take in stories differently, whether in print or on the screen. It’s not that the surprise and delight are both gone; far from it. It’s that I’m a more active and aware participant in the stories I digest. I can appreciate a good subplot.

I recently had two bits of feedback on my own writing that jumped out at me. One was for Airel, and it’s been a sort of ongoing criticism of that book for about a year; that it starts slowly. Aaron and I have always responded with the idea that, yeah, it starts slowly, it’s the beginning of a pretty big story and we needed to take our time setting it up a little. But I also recently heard back from a Twitter friend about K: [phantasmagoria] and that it, too, started slowly. I suppose I can see where he’s coming from on that score, because while chapter one in that book does have a bit of a shocker in it, it’s not as explosive as what happens, say, about a hundred pages later, on I-84, which was the original beginning of that book. I felt I needed more context when I was revising. What can I say.

But that brings up the subject of Explosive Beginnings, or the somewhat tired and a little well-worn Attention Getter at the front of our contemporary stories. I’m having trouble thinking of a single movie I’ve seen or book I’ve read lately that didn’t have something big and shouty at the beginning of it. While these are cool from a certain point of view, and they probably make for better sales and better reviews to boot, the artist in me resists. I don’t want to be required to write to a formula, and I think it could be true that the Big Bang Beginning we’re seeing in our storytelling of late is a passing fancy. Well. One can always hope.

Jane Austen didn’t seem to feel the need to write that way, and her stories are intensely satisfying to read. Sure, a guy could argue that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote his Holmes adventures with some manner of an explosive attention getter at the off. Certainly Stoker’s Dracula starts off with a hair-raising first three chapters, so it’s not like grabbing the reader by the collar is a late phenomenon. But those stories have a certain kind of class to them. Most pop storytelling tends to follow a formula, and it’s so exciting that it’s boring. I’m not saying explosions up front are a bad thing. I’m saying that a slavish obedience to the Big Bang Beginning is, well, a little mindless, and I’d like to push both myself and my readers to something more.

So while it’s true that we authors have got to give the reader something to bite into right up front, I think it’s also true that we don’t need another end-of-the-world CGI tour de force kind of story. I’ve grown tired of that kind of thing. Much like the villain unseen is far scarier than the one described in exhaustive detail, the spare and trim beginning of a story, at least if well written, should entice the reader even more by the information it denies him. The trick is to make him want it. That, my friends, I’m still trying to figure out, and I can imagine I’ll still be trying to perfect it when I die.

The Adjustment Bureau

If you want to know how to present the Christian faith in stealth mode, this is it. If you want to know about how to place hope in a package and deliver it to people in writing, study this movie. If you want a lesson in consummate skillful storytelling, look no further. I was blown away.

The Adjustment Bureau is a movie I would have boycotted, because I’ve grown frustrated with Matt Damon’s idiotic political sentiments and I’ve had quite enough of all of that. But it came highly recommended one night when some gents and I were gathered round for cigars and conversation.

Our conversation touched on many topics, but one of them was the paradoxical relationship between predestination and free will. Naturally, in hindsight, talk turned to this movie. I tend to think of movies like a visual story when they’re good, and this one was. And I think that one of the things that makes a story good, visual or not, is that it asks questions and provides some leads for some possible answers, leaving it to the audience to decide the answer—if indeed the question has an answer. Sometimes it doesn’t.

In the case of the questions this movie poses, it’s pretty clear that none of us have the answers. We can speculate, and better yet we can run through various illustrative scenarios, which is stimulating. The basic premise is this: Can a man change God’s mind? And if so…what would it take? Interesting ideas, yes? It’s the stuff of which good stories are made. Foundationally simple yet profound ideas. I love food for thought, and that’s what The Adjustment Bureau is. I recommend it.

Inception and a Bit About Stories

I saw Inception in theatres last year. I recently re-watched it on Blu-Ray because it is one of the most powerful stories I can remember having ever enjoyed. Much like The Prestige, it’s a movie that bears multiple viewings on the merits of its story. And by the way, good stories aren’t just in books—that’s why my company isn’t called C.P. White Publishing. Stories today come in all kinds of media, and Inception is an incredible example. That story just rips me apart.

Maybe it’s because DiCaprio plays a distant father. It’s not by his character’s choice that he’s been removed from his family, not directly. But as we discover near the climax, he can be blamed for it pretty squarely. The flaws of fatherhood are something that speak to me deeply, because I am one—a flawed father, that is.

Or maybe it’s because the story is about dreams, and we all have them; we wonder at the mysterious universal. The idea of a dream within a dream within a dream begs the question of what’s actually real, much like The Matrix did when it broke onto the scene years ago.

Maybe, though, the story of Inception affects me simply because I like stories that pose hard questions and then lead the audience or reader in a certain direction only far enough to allow us to make the final connections on our own. Inception does this masterfully, and I plan to watch it again, studying it so that I can learn more about how to craft a proper story.

So much has been done already at this point in human history; it’s difficult to innovate. Mary Shelley arguably invented the horror genre in the mid 19^th century with Frankenstein, but it’s difficult indeed for any of us to produce such literary shockwaves today. To use another example, just tune into pop radio and listen for a bit and see if you can identify a single song that is truly unique. It’s a tough time in creative media; everything looks or sounds almost identical. It seems we’re resigned by necessity to produce works that are similar to what’s already been done yet just different enough to be able to be called “new.”

Inception is a story that will be talked about for a long time to come. It is different in a sea of sameness. This is the kind of story writers, or creative artists of any kind, ought to study. Sure, it has familiar elements…betrayal, deception, the ubiquitous thuggish baddies that could have starred on the A-Team. But God, it’s a good movie…and a fantastic story. 

Archetypes

I just finished with a book. Notice that I did not say I "finished" it, but instead that I finished with it. Such is the plight of the borrower at the public library. One can always try.

And try I did. The book I'm talking about is The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker. While it was amazingly helpful, I couldn't get through it, and it's not the first book I've failed to finish. I've been known to be a bit of a book whore, truth be told--I'll take five of them home with me on a given day and be faithful to one or none, I don't care. If they don't grab me right, I have better things to do with my life.

And this one grabbed me right. It's just that I ran out of time on it. It would be a great addition to my reference shelf, even with the obscene amount of copy errors it contains, because it resounds so deeply and truly in regard to story. Capital S Story, actually.

Given my lifelong immersion in Biblically sourced values, to include my perspectives on philosophy and religion, I came away from this book with a rather large exclamation mark over myself. Mr. Booker makes a case for the existence of seven basic plots, or archetypes of story, that define every book ever written, every fireside ghost tale ever told. But he also makes a case for these seven being types of each other, and gives examples of books that are exemplary of all of them at once.

Tolkein's Lord of the Rings is one fine example. While this work is monumental (and I would argue remains as a singular representative of the fantasy genre), there is another story that resounds as The Archetype of all History.

That, in my opinion, is the Gospel. The story of creation, the fall, the flood, the giving of the law of Moses, exiles, ongoing redemptions, prophets, priests, judges, kings, and the innocent babe born right into the poverty of the midst of all of it, that hearkened back to a time before time, and the plan of redemption that we can see from here near the end has been interwoven throughout all of it--stuns the imagination and challenges any denial of its veracity. It actually takes a lot more energy to deny the truth of the Gospel than to accept it as the simple truth it is.

To me, Booker's work on the archetypes of story is yet another witness to the Glory of God, among millions of others that, wittingly or not, have verified the truth of the Original Story. One of the most amazing parts of it is that 1) the story is ongoing, and 2) we are participants. And what else can be said? I am intensely warmed and encouraged by all of it.