Writing the Novel_ From Plot to Print - Lawrence Block [12]
I’m inclined to hope you will complete your first novel, whatever its merits and defects, whatever your ultimate potential as a novelist. I think the writing of a novel is a very valuable life experience for those who carry it through. It’s a great teacher, and I’m talking now about its ability to teach you not about writing but about yourself. The novel, I submit, is an unparalleled vehicle for self-discovery.
But whether you finish it or not remains your choice. And failing to begin a task for fear of failing to complete it doesn’t make abundant sense, does it?
Okay, I’m convinced. I’m going to sit down and write a novel. After all, short stuff isn’t significant, is it?
It isn’t, huh? Who says?
I’ll grant that commercial significance singles out the novel, and that long novels are automatically considered to be of more importance than short ones. I’ll admit that, with a handful of exceptions, short story writers don’t get much attention from literary critics. And I won’t deny that your neighbors will take you more seriously as a writer if you tell them you’ve written a novel. (Of course if that’s the main concern, just go ahead and tell them. You don’t have to write anything. Lie a little. Don’t worry—they won’t beg to read the manuscript.)
But as far as intrinsic merit is concerned, length is hardly a factor. You’ve probably heard of the writer who apologized for having written a long letter, explaining that he didn’t have the time to make it shorter. And you may be familiar with Faulkner’s comment that every short-story writer is a failed poet, and every novelist a failed short-story writer.
I’m not sure the desire to be significant is a particularly useful motive for writing anything. But length is no guarantee of significance and brevity no hallmark of the trivial. Sonnet, short story, thousand-page novel—write whatever it is you want to write, and that’s the long and short of it.
All right. Significant or otherwise, what I want to write is a novel. But what novel should I write? All I’ve got is a desk and a typewriter and a ream of paper and an empty head. What do I do now, coach?
Well, for openers, why don’t you turn the page?
Chapter 2
Deciding Which Novel to Write
You may not need this chapter. A certain proportion of novelists start off knowing pretty much what book they want to write, and you may very well be one of them. Although the precise shape of the plot and the structure of the book may be vague in your mind, it’s possible that you know certain things about the book. You know that it is a novel, for example, and you know what it’s about.
Perhaps the book you have decided to write is based upon your own life experience. Maybe you’ve endured something that strikes you as the raw material for a novel—a hitch in the military, a stretch in the slammer, or four years in a coed dormitory, say. Colorful or bland, anyone’s life can be turned into arresting fiction if it is incisively perceived and dramatically portrayed.
Similarly, you may be caught up in the notion of a novel that has nothing whatever to do with your visible life experience. Something from your reading or fantasy may have stimulated your creative imagination in such a way that you have a book to write firmly in mind. Perhaps your lead is a member of the Children’s Crusade, or an intergalactic explorer, or a contemporary private detective with a taste for Armagnac and a collector’s passion for oriental snuffboxes. Or your central character might as easily be a realistic contemporary figure with whom you identify on some inner plane—an abused child, an ex-athlete recovering from a failed marriage, a nun breathless with adoration. The possibilities are quite literally infinite; the only requisite is that there’s a character or conflict or fundamental situation somewhere along the line that makes you want to write a novel about it.
If this is the case, you have a slight advantage; you at least know what you