Writing the Novel_ From Plot to Print - Lawrence Block [11]
Years ago, I took it for granted that a writer had to have both of these storylines fully worked out in his head before putting a word on paper. I’ve since learned that it’s occasionally possible to write an elaborately complicated mystery novel without knowing the identity of the villain until the story is almost at an end. In Burglars Can’t Be Choosers, I was within two or three chapters of the finish before a friend’s chance remark enabled me to figure out whodunnit; I had to do some rewriting to tie off all the loose ends, but the book worked out fine.
Suppose I spend a year writing a novel and it proves to be unsalable. I can’t risk wasting that much time, so wouldn’t it be safer to stick to short stories?
Would it? Let’s assume that you could write twelve or twenty short stories in the time it would take you to write a novel. What makes you think you’d have a better chance of selling them? The nature of the market is such that you’d probably have a better chance placing one novel for publication than one out of twenty short stories. And, assuming you wouldn’t sell either the novel or the short stories, why would a batch of unsalable short stories feel less like a waste of time than an equally unsalable novel?
Nevertheless, the fear of wasting one’s time keeps a lot of people from writing novels. But I don’t think the fear is justified even when it proves true.
So what if a first novel’s unsalable? For heaven’s sake, most of them are, and why on earth should they be otherwise?
Any of several things may happen to the person who produces an unsalable first novel. He may discover, in the course of writing the book, that he was not cut out to be a novelist, that he doesn’t like the work or doesn’t possess the talent.
I don’t know that it’s a waste of time to make this sort of discovery.
On the other hand, the author of an unpublishable first novel may learn that writing is his métier, that he has a burning desire to continue with it, and that the weaknesses and flaws which characterized his first book need not appear in the ones to follow. You might be surprised to know how many successful writers produced hopelessly incompetent first books. They were not wasting their time. They were learning their trade.
Consider Justin Scott, whose first novel I read in manuscript several years ago. It was embarrassingly bad in almost every respect, and hopelessly unpublishable. But it did him some good to write it, and his second novel—also unsalable, as it happened—was a vast improvement over the first.
He remained undiscouraged. His third novel, a mystery, was published. Several more mysteries followed. Then he spent over a year writing The Shipkiller, a nautical adventure story on a grand scale which brought a six-figure paperback advance, sold to the movies for a handsome sum, and did well enough in the stores to land on several of the bestseller lists.
Do you suppose Justin regrets the time he “wasted” on that first novel?
Maybe I haven’t started a novel because I’m afraid I wouldn’t finish it.
Maybe so. And maybe you wouldn’t finish it. There’s no law that says you have to.
Please understand that I’m not advocating abandoning a novel halfway through. I’ve done this far too often myself and it’s something I’ve never managed to feel good about. But you do have every right in the world to give up on a book if it’s just not working, or if you simply discover that writing novels is not for you.
As much as we’d all prefer to pretend our calling is a noble one, it’s salutary to bear in mind that the last thing this poor old planet needs is another book. The only reason to write anything more extensive than a shopping list