Writing the Novel_ From Plot to Print - Lawrence Block [86]
When I finish a book nowadays, I take good care of myself. For a couple of weeks I take plenty of time off. I read fiction—something I often can’t do while I’m writing it. I take long exploratory walks, recharging my batteries for the next book. I buy myself a present. If I can afford it, I try to get away for a week.
During this period, I recognize my own emotional frailty. I’ve learned not to be surprised if my eyes begin to tear while I’m watching reruns of the Mary Tyler Moore show, I make it a point to eat properly, to get plenty of exercise, to keep reasonably regular hours. Sometimes I even try fasting for a few days.
Before very long, my mind begins to remember that I’m a writer. It starts sending up signals, playing games of What If?, knitting little plot fragments like a subtle wife turning out tiny garments. I can’t avoid knowing that, to strain the metaphor, the honeymoon is over. It’s time to get back to work on the next one.
You write the second book the same way you wrote the first one—hatching an idea, shaping it into a plot, outlining or not outlining as you prefer, and turning out the book itself one day at a time. In a sense, every novel’s a first novel—because you haven’t written it before. You’ll be ever so much more at ease the second time around, and you’ll probably display considerable technical proficiency compared to your maiden effort, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be a piece of cake. Listen, it’s never a piece of cake. No matter how many books you’ve done.
Should your second book be similar in type to your first? Having written Trefillian House, would you be wise to embark on another gothic while Ms. Wimpole’s reading your first one?
That’s your decision to make. And it’s possible your unconscious mind will make it for you. After I wrote my first novel, years passed before I was to write another lesbian novel—not because I wouldn’t have been delighted to do so, but because my mind didn’t produce any ideas in that vein. If I hadn’t been so goddam young and stupid I might have cudgeled it some, but I guess I just figured I’d exhausted the subject and ought to go on to other things—which may have been the right decision for me at the time.
You may find that Trefillian House was your ultimate statement in the world of gothic novels. Or you may decide that you’re simply ready for something else; while you had fun writing the book, you now regard it as a warm-up exercise for something more ambitious and artistically satisfying. On the other hand, you may have found your metier, and your mind may be teeming with ways to write the same book different—and better this time around.
Remember that the choice is yours, and that it doesn’t involve signing any long-term contracts. You can try something else with your second book, then return to gothics at a later date. Conversely, you can write a second gothic without typing yourself irreversibly as a writer of gothics and nothing else. Your second book is just a second book. It’s not a career.
Even if you do write a second gothic, it’s not too likely that we’ll be seeing more of Trefillian House’s young widow. Gothic novels don’t run to series heroines. Their lead characters are generally well supplied with house and husband by the time the book is over.
Series characters, however, are frequently met with in some other fiction categories—suspense novels, first and foremost, but westerns and science-fiction novels as well.
I’ve worked with three series characters over the years—Evan Tanner, Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr. Obviously, I enjoy doing this sort of thing, developing a character over several books, learning more about him as he makes his way through plot after plot. When I get hold of a character who really engages me, I’m loathe to let go of him.
Should your second novel feature the same character as your first? Again, that’s up to you. If you find that