Writing the Novel_ From Plot to Print - Lawrence Block [62]
What about the Sikh? He works for somebody, the Saudi or the Maharajah, who cares?, and he learned that Bernie had stolen the book....
This process of talking out loud goes on for another couple of hundred words, with more possibilities brought up and discussed and set out for inspection. Then I wrote an outline of the next three chapters to be written, and then, unblocked and a little bit clearer, I sat down and wrote them.
That wasn’t the end of my problems with The Burglar Who Liked To Quote Kipling. The plot was a complicated affair and it continued to work itself out as it went along, and twice more I rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter and did some thinking on the keys. Both times I managed in this fashion to shake something loose and I was able to continue plotting and writing the book, carrying it through to completion. I not only finished a book that at one point looked unworkable, but I wound up producing a novel I’m pleased with.
If instead I had put it on the shelf to sort itself out, I’m certain it would still be there, gathering dust and serving as the source of monumental guilt. Snags and dead ends don’t sort themselves out, I’ve come to believe. They get sorted out, and it takes work, and you have to do it yourself.
You don’t have to do this sort of thing on paper. Some writers find it useful to talk this sort of a problem into a tape recorder. Later they play back the tape and find out what they’ve got in mind. Others work things out by discussing things with a friend. Not every friend will do for this process, and you have to experiment to determine which of your acquaintances serves you best as a sounding board. Some people—well-meaning, certainly, and often creative themselves—serve only to stifle your imagination. Others prove enormously helpful, perhaps because they’re capable of listening so attentively. The person you select may be an agent or an editor. It may as easily be someone unconnected with the business, someone who doesn’t even read much. You can try different people to see who does you some good, bearing in mind the distinct possibility that this is a process you can only handle on your own.
Sometimes my difficulty in writing Chapter Eleven is directly attributable to the way I wrote Chapter Ten. If I take a wrong turn in a book, that can fence me in further down the line.
The answer’s clear enough. You drop back fifteen yards and punt. In other words, I go back to where things took that wrong turn and start rewriting at that point.
The problem lies in knowing when that’s what’s hanging you up. Happily enough, the solution sometimes works even when this isn’t the real problem. Maybe you’re blocked because of atmospheric conditions, or phases of the moon, or what you had for dinner last night. Even so, redoing a chapter you’ve already written may start the juices flowing and unblock you all the same.
When John D. MacDonald goes stale, he props open somebody else’s book and starts copy typing. After a few paragraphs or pages, he finds himself changing a word here and a phrase there, improving what he’s copying. Pretty soon he’s ready to get back to work on something of his own.
Perhaps you’ll find this approach useful should you go stale in the course of writing your novel. There are a few other suggestions that may or may not prove helpful.
Read what you’ve written. Suppose you’ve had to spend a week or two away from the manuscript, not because you’ve been avoiding it but because something else came up. The danger here is not just loss of momentum but that the book slips out of mind. Take your time and read it over before plunging back into it. You may even want to read it more than once. Remember that, important as it is for us to stay in the now while we write a book, a portion of our mind deals with the past and the future—i.e., what we’ve already written and