My writing

The Plot

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I was thinking, the other day, about the process of developing a plot for a novel.   When I looked up the subject up on the Internet, I found all sorts of rules which struck me as simplistic.  These rules covered such things as structuring a novel like a three act play, with a beginning, a middle and an end.  The plot should have lots of action to keep the reader interested, and it should have a central character with whom the reader relates, and who has difficulty achieving his/her objectives. Also, it was pointed out that the tension should steadily increase.

All my novels started with an idea, rather than a plot.  Four of my five published novels started with a central character in mind, and in each case he starts out quite well toward his objective, but, at some point, disaster strikes.  He is able, by the end of the novel to recover from the disaster – more or less.  In the fifth novel, Sin and Contrition, there are six central characters who react in different ways to different human temptations. I, as the author, interview each of them as they reach advanced years, and ask them about how they have lived their lives.

There is the classical structure of a plot involving a central character: she/he:

  1. Is challenged
  2. Refuses the challenge
  3. Accepts the challenge
  4. Goes through the adventure
  5. Fails to meet the challenge
  6. Succeeds!

I have never actually written down a plot.  Rather the details of the plot tend to develop as the writing progresses.  Usually, I’ll write an outline of each chapter before beginning it, but I don’t stick religiously to the outline.  What happens for me is that the characters, themselves, tend to steer both the plot and the action which takes place in each chapter.  Not infrequently, when I wake up early in the morning, I’ll have a new idea about the evolution of the plot and its supporting action.  So, for me, developing a plot is an organic process.

More recently, I have begun to pay considerable attention to the ‘message’ or the point of the story.  For me, a ‘message’ is an idea: philosophical, spiritual, or social.  It shouldn’t be obvious; it may be controversial, but at least it should engage the reader at a different level than the story itself. The message tends to affect the action in the plot, and the characters themselves.

Some of my ‘rules’ about a plot are:

  • It has to be credible.  I’ve never tried to write science fiction or fantasy, but even in those genres, it seems to me that if the author steps outside the bounds of what the reader can believe, the reader is lost.  Credibility is a multi-dimensional measure: it applies to characters, to the setting and to the action.
  • Action is important, but it doesn’t have to be non-stop or physical action, only.  Action can involve emotional, intellectual or spiritual tension, as well.  In fact, physical action without an emotional response, may strike the reader as dry.
  • Characters need to have balance.  Good guys have to have defects and bad girls should have redeeming features.  We can relate to people’s redeeming features or to their defects.  All good or all bad characters do not exist in the real world.
  • Elapsed time is another vital dimension.  If events unfold too quickly they lose credibility; too slowly, and the reader may lose interest.  There are various devices one can use to slow down the pace of events: scene setting, inserting a new action that is minor but relevant, inserting a flash back, etc.

In looking over the rules on the Internet, there is one item worth adding: “Every scene and every chapter must keep the protagonist off-balance – things may get better for him/her, or worse, but they need to be constantly changing.”  (This from The Writer’s Workshop.)  This is a good point.  The reader is living vicariously through each page; if nothing’s changing, why read on?

Judges’ Commentary: The Iranian Scorpion

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I submitted The Iranian Scorpion to the Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Awards.  It did not win an award; there were 2,800 books submitted.  But, I did receive the judges rating which is as follows:

On a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is “needs improvement” to 5 “outstanding”:

Structure & Organisation: 3

Grammar: 3

Product Quality & Cover Design: 3

Plot: 3

Character Development: 3

The judges commentary is:

While this is an interesting package overall, there is room for improvement.  The cover image itself is striking.  The typography is strong and the contrast is good.  The layout works well as does the color palette.  The title on the spine would be easier to read, as would the author’s name, if the map were screened back more (this is also true of the cover).  The back cover copy is well-written and intriguing, as jacket copy should be.  The author bio on the back cover is well-written, as well.  Paper quality is good, especially on the interior.  The interior design is practical and appealing, and the text is very easy to read.

The Story:

This novel has a lot to recommend it.  The writing is good; the voice is strong.  The Middle Eastern setting is fascinating, as is the drug trade milieu in which the story takes place.  Most important, the author has a great story to tell and he tells it in a way that gives the story the ring of authenticity.  The hero is likable, as is the heroine.  The supporting cast is colorful and well-drawn.  The plot is fast-moving.  That said, the author slips in an out of point of view.  He also tend to write in elemental chunks: Here’s a chunk that’s mostly all description, followed by a chunk that’s all narrative/backstory; then a chunk that’s all dialogue/action, etc.  When the author masters the art of writing fully imagined scenes that balance character, dialogue, action, narrative, inner monologue and setting – all the elements woven together seamlessly – he’ll be a writer to watch.  A final note: Using different font to indicate a foreign language does not work and it is very distracting to the reader.

My response:

I would have appreciated some differentiation in the numerical scores.  Everything as a three doesn’t tell me where the strengths and weaknesses are.  I take the point about writing in chunks.  I acknowledge that I have done that in the past, and the point about weaving all the elements together is a good one.  I’m working on it!  I’m not so clear about what is meant by ‘slips in an out of point of view’.  There is the narrator’s point of view (which, in the case of this novel, I’ve tried to keep neutral and factual) and a character’s point of view (which may be biased and subjective.)  Does it mean that there is ambiguity about the point of view?  In which case, I’ve got to watch out not to let that happen, because it would be confusing to the reader.  I think I may present differing points of view of two (or more characters) in a single passage.  I do this to better define the characters, and the issues between them.  I see nothing wrong with this as long as it is clear who owns a particular point of view.  I still have a bias in favour of using a different font for different languages – particularly where the language expresses a very different culture.  I don’t think I would use a different font for French or German, but somehow it seems right to distinguish a Middle Eastern language (like Pashto of Farsi with all its cultural baggage) from English.  I have to admit, though that more readers prefer a uniform font.

Sable Shadow and The Presence

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My fifth novel, Sable Shadow & The Presence, has just been published.

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The publisher’s press release says the following:

“Is the Voice You Hear Your Conscience, Or Is It Something Else? 
From an early age, Henry Lawson hears voices. He attributes one to the Sable Shadow, a confidant of the devil, and the other to The Presence, a representative of God.  He believes his life becomes a “board game” between these two powerful influences. 
Sable Shadow & The Presence is the fictional autobiography of a bright, but introverted and slightly insecure young man, one who studies the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre.  He begins to see life in existential terms, although this does not infringe on his rudimentary Christian beliefs. Upon Henry’s entry into the business world, he receives vital guidance from Sable Shadow, and advances to a high corporate level. With his career nearly at its peak, Henry suffers a series of devastating tragedies and attempts suicide. With the help of his wife and a psychiatrist, with whom he engages in philosophical dialogue, he constructs a completely new identity to overcome his past.  But will this identity escape the influence of Sable Shadow? 
This thought-provoking, psychological novel is rich in triumph and tragedy, success and failure, good and evil. It is a modern day look at Paradise Lost.”

I would recommend it, if:

  • you like biography (this is a fictional autobiography)
  • you are interested in philosophy (layman’s level, not academic level)
  • you’ve wondered what existentialism is all about
  • you are interested in what it takes to get ahead (and fail) in the corporate world
  • you have a layman’s interest in theology
  • you think you might be interested in Henry Lawson’s theory of how to succeed in life

or

  • if you’re just interested in a good story

 

Getting Started

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I’ve found that writing the first chapter of a new novel is the usually the most difficult.  By way of contrast, when I’m approaching the end, I know almost exactly what’s going to happen, I’m full of energy, enthusiasm and motivation, and I can easily write ten pages in a day – not that those ten pages don’t require some major editing before I consider them complete.  But finishing a novel, for me, is the easy part.

The place where a new novel begins is in my head.  I get an idea.  For example, in the case of Sin & Contrition: wouldn’t it be interesting to write about six characters who grew up together – three boys and three girls.  They live different lives but they continue to interact, and most importantly, they do some things that they shouldn’t have done.  Sometimes accidently, sometimes on purpose.  And it would be interesting to reveal their reactions to their ‘sins’.   Are they sorry or not; how do they justify it?  What are their feelings about it later in life?

Usually after getting an idea, I’ll mull it over for a couple of weeks.  I think about how the story would unfold and develop ideas for making it more interesting.  If I’m still keen on the idea, I’ll prepare an outline of the story, of the characters, and of the messages that I hope the reader will take away.  At that point, I’ll get started. 

Some weeks ago, I started on a new novel.  It was to be an allegory set in the Middle East, and it would feature a professor of philosophy and a Saudi princess as its principal characters.  I had done some outlining, and I was definitely ‘up for it’.  But when I started writing, it was a chore instead of a pleasant task.  My enthusiasm wasn’t there.  I still thought it was a good idea, but I just couldn’t develop the creative energy.  I decided to put it aside.  It may be that the currently confused environment in the Middle East was a contributing factor to my hesitation.  Anyway, about half of chapter one is written, and I like what I’ve done, but it will have to wait.

I had a somewhat similar experience with Sable Shadow and The Presence, my fifth novel which is about to be published.  In that case, I wrote several chapters, but I lost my way.  What’s the point of this book?  Where’s it going? In the meantime I wrote The Iranian Scorpion.  When that was finished, I revisited Sable Shadow and The Presence, and I began to develop a comprehensive vision for the novel.  I re-organised and re-wrote big chunks of it. Then the enthusiasm began to come and I finished it.  I’ll tell you when it becomes available.

Probably something similar will happen to my Middle Eastern allegory about the Saudi princess and the professor of philosophy.

In the meantime, I’m writing a sequel to The Iranian Scorpion, and I’m half way through the first chapter.  Robert is back in the States, and he has met up with Mary Jo (his father’s young fiancée).  They are working on solving a crucial problem from her past: her relationship with her father.  I can tell you that his next assignment will be in Peru, and that will take him into a dangerous region of north Africa.

The Character: Kate

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Kate Conway may seem like a minor character in The Iranian Scorpion, and she is in the sense that she does not appear often in the novel.  She is a single, free-lance journalist in her mid-forties: an attractive, bright, well-connected woman with her own accommodation in a hotel in Kabul, Afghanistan. 

What is she doing without a man?  She tells Robert Duval, the central character, when she meets him in the hotel bar, that she’s tried long-term relationships and they’re not for her.  However, she’s not necessarily opposed to short-term relationships, and she evidently has a weakness for younger men.  Robert is in his early thirties.  Not surprisingly, they become lovers, and very good friends.  He is the man she needs, and she becomes his mentor/guardian angel.

Early in the story, Kate connects Robert with her key contact in the Taliban: Vizier Ashraf, a high-ranking elder.  It is Vizier Ashraf who provides Robert with access to Azizullah, a large-scale opium farmer.  And it is the Vizier who gives Robert the phone number of the Taliban’s ‘agent’ in eastern Iran.  (The Taliban have conflicted views on drugs: on the one hand they are opposed to drugs for religious reasons; and on the other, drugs are a convenient source of necessary funding.)  The Taliban’s man puts Robert in touch with The Scorpion’s man.

Kate also provides the essential telephone link between Rustam, who knows where Robert is, and the Drug Enforcement Agency.  The DEA brings pressure through diplomatic channels on Iran; this ultimately turns out to be unsuccessful.

Finally, Kate writes the charge sheet against The Scorpion via a syndicated article on Robert and Rustam’s adventures in Iran, with photographs taken secretly by Robert.

So, Kate provides several essential links in The Iranian Scorpion.  She is a tough, savvy, libidinous woman!  I hope you like her.

The Character: ‘Rustam’

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I thought I would tell you about some of the characters in my novels: how they came to ‘life’, and something about their personality and the role they play in the book.  I’m going to start with the character ‘Rustam’ in The Iranian Scorpion. 

Rustam appears for the first time as the boy who lays out a carpet for his father, Wahab, and Azizullah to sit on while they negotiate the price Wahab will pay for the cakes of opium which Azizullah has brought with him to Wahab’s opium-to-heroin conversion ‘factory’.  I hadn’t planned that an Afghan boy would have an important role in the novel: he just grew into it.  At first, it seemed logical that Wahab would have his two sons working with him at the ‘factory’.  It is an important element in the story that Robert, the Drug Enforcement Agency operative, understands how opium is converted to heroin in rural Afghanistan.  I had planned that Azizullah, the opium grower, would have a falling out with Wahab and would capture the ‘factory’.  But what adult male Afghan would be willing to leave Wahab’s village, relocate to Azizullah’s village, and manufacture heroin there?  The solution: the boy Rustam is taken prisoner when the adult males are killed in the fire fight during the capture of the ‘factory’.  Rustam is saved from execution by Robert (in disguise as Abdullah, an Afghan field hand).  Robert questions Rustam and finds that he knows the conversion precess, which is unknown to Azizullah and his field hands.  So Rustam is taken prisoner, and to prevent him from fleeing back to his village, he is chained to Robert, who has every incentive to treat Rustam well.  The boy begins to trust the disguised DEA agent, and a psychological bond begins to form between them.  Rustam tells Robert about the girls of his village and discloses his sexual longings.

Robert wants to enter Iran, illegally, to trace the flow of heroin.  Once again, Rustam has the knowledge: he has entered Iran several times with his late father, and knows that someone called The Scorpion is the principal buyer.  But how can a chained boy be brought into Iran illegally?  Robert decides to persuade Azizullah to unchain the boy and give him a powerful incentive to stay with Azizullah’s team: a wage and a wife.  Rustam becomes engaged to a 23 year-old war widow.  He is overjoyed, but he lacks the mahr, the mandatory gift from husband to wife in an Islamic wedding.  Robert provides a ruby ring, and the wedding takes place between Padida, the 23 year-old widow, and Rustam, the very eager young man.

Rustam accompanies Robert into Iran, and having learned his true identity, travels with him to meet The Scorpion, to attend a celebratory orgy arranged by the Scorpion, to travel secretly to Kerman (where the heroin is packaged for shipment) and on to Bandar Abbas (where the shipment leaves for New York).

Rustam grows from an insecure and frustrated boy to a knowledgeable family ‘man’ whose wife is expecting a child, and who is facing important decisions about his future.  His relationship with Robert is vital in the story.  It is Rustam who discovers the method of packaging the heroin for shipment to the US, and it is he who saves Robert’s life.  He can be naive, as when he asks Robert, at a fast food restaurant in Bandar Abbas: “What kind of animal is a ‘burger’?”  He can be deadly serious as when he foils a robbery attempt by slashing a thief with a concealed knife.  And he can be whimsical as when he jokes with Robert about working with him “on the Rio Grande”.

I hope you like Rustam as much as I do!

Writing Skills

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This is a post which I put on the Blogging Authors’ website a couple of weeks ago:

Having read plenty of good and bad literature, written five novels, observing myself as a writer, and thinking about the craft of writing, I have formed some opinions about the skills that good writers have.  Not all the skills below are mine; some are still aspirational.  But, I’ve progressed (somewhat painfully at times) from being a story-teller to an award-winning author.

First of all, a writer has to enjoy writing.  Writing is a lonely, unsociable business – perhaps best suited to introverts, and it isn’t always fun, but one has a special feeling of creative accomplishment when a passage seems just right.  Though, of course, one can feel pretty frustrated when one can’t seem to get it right.  On balance, one should enjoy the work.

Perhaps it goes without saying, but one has to have a good command of the language in which one is writing: grammar, vocabulary, syntax, spelling.  I think that, by definition, good writing is good literature which makes the most effective use of language.

I know that there are some writers who don’t bother to plan a novel: they have the whole thing in their heads at the start.  That wouldn’t work for me.  I have to create a time line, define the characters, their personalities, strengths and vulnerabilities, their interactions.  If there is a message I’d like the reader to take away, I have to plan how I’m going to let him or her find it.  Then there are settings and events; some of them should be surprising to keep the reader’s attention.  And the whole package has to be completely believable to the reader, even if the synopsis sounds a little far-fetched.

A fertile imagination is essential to a writer of fiction, and it comes into play at every stage of the writing.  The plan, the characters, the principal events should all be imaginative.  The descriptions of particular events and characters’ actions should be slightly unexpected.  It is the unexpected which keeps the reader’s interest.  A novel where every turn of events is predictable is boring.  But at the same time, the unexpected must be credible: if it’s not, the reader loses interest.  I use a technique I call ‘leap-frogging’ to build up to what would otherwise be an incredible event.  For example, in my latest novel, there a catastrophic fire in which several hundred people are killed.  But before that catastrophe, there is a related fire in which only four people are killed, and before that, there are major concerns about safety violations.

The writer has to have real empathy with his characters – even the evil characters.  As one writes, one has to feel what his/her character is feeling.  Not just imagining the feeling, but actually feeling it.  If one actually feels it, one can describe it more accurately.  I remember that recently, my wife came home from work, and found me sitting at my PC with tears running down my cheeks.  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Henry’s son was just killed,” I explained.

Finally, I think the author needs to think about leaving the reader with multiple levels of messages.  If one thinks about examples from great literature, it is seldom just about human nature; there may also be sociological, philosophical, and religious messages, as well.  One has to plan the development of those messages so that the reader gradually picks them up.  Gradual assimilation is far more effective than being told at the end, “And the moral of this story is . . .”

Marathons

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My son and his family came to London this past weekend.  We had a very pleasant family reunion, and he ran the marathon.  His time was 3 hours and 19 minutes, which I think is a pretty good time, considering that he’s 43 – about twice the age of the leading marathoners.  It was a beautiful day, and he enjoyed the run.  He said that one distinctive feature of the London marathon is the huge turn-out of a very supportive crowd: “There was hardly any place where the crowd wasn’t shoulder-to-shoulder on both sides, cheering encouragement!”

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 I noticed no apprehension in the crowd or among the runners for a repeat of the tragedy of the Boston marathon: everyone (except a few tired runners) was having a very good time.  I’m certainly glad that both Tsarnaev brothers were found before they could do more damage.  And I find it hard to understand why someone leaves his home country to find a better life elsewhere, and then, when he’s settled in the new country, he finds so many faults with it that he wants to destroy it.  If he doesn’t like his adopted country, why doesn’t he go back where he came from?  We have the same problem in the UK, where Muslim fanatics leave the Middle East for a better life in the UK.  They become disillusioned and they (strangely) believe that their religion gives them the right to kill people.  I find it encouraging that the Canadian train bombers were turned in by members of the Muslim community – a community which is beginning to recognise its responsibility to police its own members.  I understand that the Tsarnaev brothers were ethnic Chechnyans.  Incidentally, there is a Chechnyan character in Efraim’s Eye who provides Efraim with the high explosive he needs for his attack on the London Eye.

 

All this thinking about marathons got me to reflect on the parallels between running a marathon and writing a novel.  Both activities require a lengthy effort, and some participants never finish.  It would be fair to say that both activities require a fair amount of training or practice.  A few participants win prizes in both cases.  And some people feel their spirits sag at some point during a marathon, and during the creation of a novel.  For many runners, their low point comes at the 15 to 20 mile mark, where they are starting to tire and they recognise that they still have a long way to go.  I have a similar experience when writing a novel: I start out with a burst of enthusiasm, eager to put words on paper.  Toward the middle of a novel, I find it a bit more difficult to motivate myself: there’s a lot more writing to be done.  As I approach the end of a novel, my enthusiasm returns, particularly when I have a clear idea of the conclusion, and I become very productive again – eager to complete the project.  Apart from the facts that running a marathon is a physical activity while writing a novel is largely mental, and that the time frames are quite different, there is one other major difference.  During any given marathon, a runner has only that one opportunity to product a good result during the race.  A novelist, however, can re-run his race many times: changing, correcting, editing, re-writing to produce a better result.

Fiction Writing Tips

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Melissa Donovan has 42 Fiction Writing Tips for Novelists on the website “Writing Forward”.  You can view her entire list here: http://www.writingforward.com/writing-tips/42-fiction-writing-tips-for-novelists.

I have picked out my top ten of her tips, and give my reasons for the selections below:

  • Don’t lock yourself into one genre (in reading or writing). Even if you have a favorite genre, step outside of it once in awhile so you don’t get too weighed down by trying to fit your work into a particular category.  (This particular piece of advice appeals to me because I haven’t selected ‘my genre’.  [See the post on Genre.]  I think this advice is especially appropriate for reading.  Reading different genres can definitely open the mind.)
  • Don’t write for the market. Tell the story that’s in your heart.  (This advice is related to the item above.  It seems to me that some writers have a genre which the market – and readers – recognise.  Sticking to that genre and their market can make them financially successful.  Think J K Rowling.  But even she has branched out with an adult story she wanted to tell.)
  • Make your characters real through details. A girl who bites her nails or a guy with a limp will be far more memorable than characters who are presented in lengthy head-to-toe physical descriptions.  (This is a very good point.  I think that what the writer should try to do is to stimulate the reader’s imagination, and a small, but telling detail is probably the best way to do that.)
  • The most realistic and relatable characters are flawed. Find something good about your villain and something dark in your hero’s past.  (In Efraim’s Eye, the villain has a  past which distorts his view of women, and one tends to feel sorry for him.)
  • Avoid telling readers too much about the characters. Instead, show the characters’ personalities through their actions and interactions.  (To this I would add, what the characters say.  The words a character chooses and the way they phrase their opinions can say a lot about their values.)
  • Every great story includes transformation. The characters change, the world changes, and hopefully, the reader will change too.  (I think that we’re all interested in important change – as long as it doesn’t hurt us.  We like to see how and why others change, and the effects on them.  In Efraim’s Eye, Naomi goes through a major change: from being an unfulfilled nomad to setting down nourishing roots.)
  • Aim for a story that is both surprising and satisfying. The only thing worse than reading a novel and feeling like you know exactly what’s going to happen is reading a novel and feeling unfulfilled at the end — like what happened wasn’t what was supposed to happen. Your readers invest themselves in your story. They deserve an emotional and intellectual payoff.  (Very true!)
  • Let the readers use their imaginations. Provide a few choice details and let the readers fill in the rest of the canvas with their own colors.  (I think this advice is particularly appropriate for sex scenes.  I used to think I had to paint a complete picture; now, I believe that a few brush strokes are sufficient to engage the reader’s imagination.)
  • Appeal to readers’ senses. Use descriptive words that engage the readers’ senses of taste, touch, and smell.  (To this I would add the reader’s sense of hearing.  Sometimes it’s appropriate for the reader to hear what’s going on.)
  • Apply poetry techniques to breathe life into your prose. Use alliteration, onomatopoeia, metaphor, and other literary devices to make your sentences sing and dance.  (This is about engaging the reader’s brain at another level.  Ms. Donovan has another point about ‘crafting compelling language’.  When we surprise the reader, we get him/her thinking.)

There are plenty of other excellent suggestions on the website!

 

Literary Award!

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My third novel, Efraim’s Eye, has been awarded second prize in the category General Fiction by Reader Views Literary Awards – 2012.  The complete list of winners can be found at http://www.readerviews.com/Awards2012Winners.html.  I notice that three books from Strategic Book Publishing (my publisher) won awards.  Although it is the author, not the publisher that has to submit the entry to the competition.

This is the first time I have submitted one of my novels into an awards competition.  A full description of the awards and the submission process can be found at http://www.readerviews.com/Awards.html.

Reader Views is a company based in Austin, Texas that provides a wide range of services to self-published authors, and authors who use small publishers.  (The latter is my category.)  Reviewers who judge the awards are independent, professional readers and critics.

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