Writing the Novel_ From Plot to Print - Lawrence Block [10]
What’s required, I think, is a change in attitude. To write a novel you have to resign yourself to the fact that you simply can’t prime yourself and knock it all out in a single extended session at the typewriter. The process of writing the book is going to occupy you for weeks or months—perhaps for years.
But each day’s stint at the typewriter is simply that—one day’s work. And that’s every bit as true whether you’re writing short stories or an epic trilogy. If you’re writing three or six or ten pages a day, you’ll get a certain amount of work accomplished in a certain span of time—whatever it is you’re working on.
I remember the first really long book I wrote. When I sat down to begin it I knew I was starting something that had to run at least five hundred pages in manuscript. I got a good day’s work down and wound up knocking out fourteen pages. I got up from the typewriter and said, “Well, just 486 pages to go”—and went directly into nervous prostration at the thought.
The thing to remember is that a novel’s not going to take forever. All the old clichés actually apply—a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, and slow and steady honestly does win the race.
Consider this: If you write one page a day, you will produce a substantial novel in a year’s time. The writer who turns out one book a year, year in and year out, is generally acknowledged to be quite prolific. And don’t you figure you could produce one measly little page, even on a bad day? Even on a rotten day?
When I write a short story I can hold the whole thing in my head when I sit down at my desk. I know exactly where I’m going and it’s just a matter of writing it down. I don’t have that kind of grasp on a novel.
Of course you don’t. Nobody does.
The chapter on outlining will offer some suggestions in this regard. Meanwhile, there are two things to keep in mind.
First of all, recognize that the total control you have over short stories may be largely illusory. What you really have is confidence—because you think you know everything about the story by the time you set out to write it.
But, if you’re like me, you keep surprising yourself at the typewriter. Characters take on a life of their own and insist upon supplying their own dialogue. Scenes that looked necessary at the outset turn out to be superfluous, while other scenes take a form other than that you’d originally intended for them. As often as not, midway through the story you’ll think of a way to improve elements of the plot itself.
This happens to a much greater extent in novels. And it should. A work of fiction ought to be an organic entity. It’s alive, and it grows as it goes. Even the most elaborately outlined novel, even the product of those authors who write outlines half the length of the final book, must have this life to it if it is going to live for the reader. The writing of fiction is never purely mechanical, never just a matter of filling in the blanks and tapping the typewriter keys.
A second thing to realize is that you do not have to grasp the whole book at once because you are not going to be writing the whole book at once. Novels are written—as life is lived—One Day At A Time. I’ve found that all I really have to know about a book in order to put in a day’s work on it is what I want to have happen during that day’s writing.
I get in trouble when I find myself starting to project. As soon as I step back and try to envision the novel as a whole, I’m likely to be paralyzed with terror. I become convinced that the whole thing is impossible, that there are structural flaws which doom the entire project, that the book can’t conceivably resolve itself successfully. But as long as I can get up each morning and concentrate exclusively on what’s going to happen during that particular day’s stint at the typewriter, I seem to do all right—and the book takes shape, page by page and chapter by chapter.
Many of the books I write are mystery novels of one sort