Authors: Jerry Cleaver
Without dragging it out, I'll give you my version. Yours will be just as valid if you see it differently and murder someone else. Personally, I would kill the girl's father. If we murder the father, who would be the prime suspect? For drama and suspense and tension I would have the boy be the main suspect. The father didn't like him, he's threatened him, and he was in the way of the boy winning his daughter. And if he's the prime
suspect,
that almost always means he's innocent. Who might be the killer?
It could be the ex-girlfriend trying to get revenge, knowing the boy would be blamed, especially after she leaves
some
incriminating evidence at the crime scene. She could have something of his with his fingerprints on it and use it as the murder weapon. She might or might not be in cahoots with the ex-boyfriend, who would have a similar motive and who would have easier access to the father since he knows him. Also, since the ex-boyfriend is stronger than the ex-girlfriend, he would be better able to do the father in. A plot complication could be that the ex-girlfriend has also set the ex-boyfriend up as the fall guy should the police come after her. Or the ex-boyfriend could have masterminded it on his own and recruited the ex-girlfriend to help, setting her up to take the fall if he got cornered. Or each could have set the other up to take the fall. Or he could be in it alone, but have set it up to look like the boy and ex-girlfriend did it. He could testify that they were still lovers and were in cahoots from the beginning to win the girl, marry her, then kill her for her money, but the girl's father discovered their plot, and they had to kill him. That's a complicated one, tricky to follow, but the kind of story that makes for dramatic unraveling.
Or it could be the girl's mother, who'd discovered her husband had been cheating on her and planned on leaving her. She saw the opportunity with the new boy on the scene whom the father disliked, and she made it look like the boy did it. It could also be either one of the boy's parents. That would bring in a whole other set of motives that would have to be worked out. All of these choices are equally good, depending on how you work the characters and the story.
None of these characters, however, are my personal choice as murderer. I would choose the only remaining character, the daughter. I would have her do it because her father is disinheriting her out of hatred for her first boyfriend. The girl and her original boyfriend are in it together. She never loved the new boyfriend (our main character, our hero), and she saw him as nothing more than a fall guy from the beginning. I like that because that makes her more diabolical and the story more shocking and painful for the hero.
So, the mystery is the easiest kind of book to write and the easiest to sell. It's ready-made, with excitement and drama built in. And there are no limits to how deeply you can develop your characters or how strongly the book can be written. If the mystery is the easiest, what's the hardest?
The hardest kind of novel to write is the one more beginning writers pick to write than any other. It's a very personal story that relies heavily on the internal world (the mind) of the character and on the character's internal growth as a person. For that reason, I call it the internal novel. There are some great ones, and all writers are capable of doing it successfully since every one of us has a dramatic and complex mind, but it requires the most skill. That's why I'm pushing the mystery as the choice for your first novel. By making your mystery as personal as you can, you can learn the skills you need to wrestle successfully with the internal "serious" novel. But if you can't stand the idea of a mystery, don't bother. The mystery is easier, but only if you're drawn to it. If you're dying to write a personal, internal novel, if you have your heart set on it, then do it.
"Personal" doesn't necessarily mean the book is autobiographical. It often is, but it doesn't have to be. How much the story depends on the character's relationship and struggle
with himself,
how much it hinges on or is about
internal growth
and insight, are what make it personal and internal. It's a type of story. It tends to be autobiographical, often about the author's big lessons in life, but it doesn't have to be. It's what would often be called a "sensitive" novel.
Silence of the Lambs
has plenty of sensitive writing, but it's not what comes to mind when you think of sensitive novels. Sensitivity is part of
Silence of the Lambs,
but not its outstanding quality.
All novels have to be sensitive enough, or we won't give a damn about the characters or the story. Also, it is not that a novel is one thing or another. The different elements blend together, and how they do so depends on the story. All literary novels (mysteries or not) have a major personal, internal, sensitive dimension. It's where the strongest connection (see chapter 6) is made to the character. So, you've got to have that dimension, always, but the whole novel doesn't have to hinge on having a lot of it and doing it really well unless it's what I'm calling an internal novel.
The Catcher in the Rye
by J. D. Salinger and
Of Human Bondage
by Somerset Maugham are both internal novels.
It's this sensitivity to the character's internal world that makes the internal novel so difficult. It's a lot more about how the character feels (self-esteem, adequacy, irrational fears, etc.) than about what's going on outside. The internal struggle in the character is much more difficult to figure out and express dramatically than what would be going on in the character if he were being stalked by a maniac slasher. In the slasher story, all of the character's internal energies would be mobilized and focused on survival. Personal and internal issues are being played out, but they're more a response to the external threat and don't have to get deeply into the character's personal struggles. When a mystery or crime novel goes more deeply (a character might have strong beliefs against raising his hand against anyone even to save himself or his loved ones), we're getting into the areas of quality mysteries or literary mysteries. The mind is a dramatic place, but it's complicated, many leveled, and it's the trickiest of all to get right on the page. See chapter 6, on emotion, for a fuller examination of this.
When you write an internal novel, the biggest problem, beyond creating the character's internal world, is keeping the drama going
outside
the character. Fiction is never a head game only. It's about how the world affects our head and how those internal effects influence how we relate to and affect the world. To write an internal novel you have to do both the external and internal well to succeed. The beginning writer's biggest failings are (1) focusing too much on the internal world while not having the skill to do it well, and (2) not creating enough external drama to move the story.
My concern with what kind of novel you choose to tackle first is based on my thirty years of work with writers and the high risk of discouragement and quitting that comes with trying an internal novel first. My advice is to realize that you're a beginner and pick the kind of novel you're going to learn the most from and have the most pleasure writing and the most chance of success with—the mystery. If you're set on doing an internal novel, the story craft is identical. It does not change from genre to genre or form to form (novel to movie to stage). But be sure to pay attention to keeping the external drama and excitement going. The novel has to be about big trouble outside as well as inside. If you have an idea for a personal, internal novel and you're in love with it, but you decide to do a mystery instead, you're not deserting your big story. You can do it later when you have the skill.
Speaking of skill, it's time to do some writing.
EXERCISES
A search for a lost or stolen priceless object. It could also be something intangible like a lost reputation. Setting out alone to seek one's fortune. The search can take place on home turf (small town, big city, school yard, health club), in a strange foreign land, or across the globe.
A character sets out to find someone, seek revenge, get information. To catch a bad guy or rescue someone from himself (drugs) or from another person. Again, the story can take place within a single family, within one room, or across the globe.
A characters romantic adventures and misadventures.
You can find a lot of material by outlining your own life—the high points and trouble you had at each phase. How you accomplished your developmental tasks, starting with childhood, at home with family, in elementary school, high school, college, and with friends and enemies. Make a list of all the schools you attended and the places where you lived and what happened there. List your friends and enemies—those you loved and those you hated in your family and outside of it. Most families are a mess. There are loads of material there. However, that doesn't mean you should use it if you're not drawn to it. Some writers do well by writing about themselves (autobiographical novels), such as Hemingway, Maugham, Roth. Others need more distance and stay away from their own lives. Neither way is more valid, creative, or valuable.
[15]
Hitting the Wall
BLOCKING AND UNBLOCKING
When Rex Harrison was on the stage, he timed it so he barely had enough time to rush into his dressing room, throw on his costume, put on his makeup, and race out onto the stage just moments before the curtain went up.
When Laurence Olivier was on the stage, he got there early like most actors and got into costume with some time to spare. Then, when the house was full, but the curtain was still down, he would go out onto the stage and stand behind the curtain facing the audience on the other side and say to them, but so only he could hear, "Not one of you lousy bastards can do what I'm going to do here on this stage tonight."
Harrison and Olivier, two great actors—what were they up to? Why all the antics? What were they struggling with? Performance anxiety. Fear. Stage fright. Harrison was trying to distract himself by making himself frantic about something else—something he could manage easily (costume and makeup). Olivier was trying to psyche himself up, trying to overcome his fear by turning it into something else.
Do writers have stage fright? Yes, they have a kind of performance
anxiety that can be just as terrifying. They have
page fright.
Unlike stage fright, where you must go on when the curtain goes up, ready or not, writers can sneak out, put off the performance again and again. Because of that, page fright often lasts longer and grows more disabling the longer the writer puts off writing. Some writers have been
blocked for years.
Blocking is the writer's affliction, so we're going to treat it like one. We're going to look at the nature of the disease, determine the causes, and then put together a treatment plan. Diagnosing the disease and its causes helps, but diagnosis is not a cure. Understanding alone will not solve the problem. Understanding is not mastery. You have to know how to treat the ailment (what to
do)
if you're going to cure it. That's where we'll wind up—with an aggressive plan of action to get you onto the page and back up to full strength.
AUDIENCE AS ENEMY
Fear of the audience. How would Olivier and Harrison have felt if they had no audience, if it were just a rehearsal? They wouldn't be panicky if there were no audience. Do you have an audience when you write? Readers are your audience, but do you have an audience while you're actually performing the act of writing? Yes, you do. The audience is yourself, and that's
the toughest audience in the world.
No one can terrorize you like you can terrorize yourself. Actors often perform without an audience, but can you write without an audience? Can there be
no you
there?
Have you ever heard someone say, "He was lost in his work," or, "She was so absorbed she didn't know what was going on around her." That's what we're talking about when we say writing with no audi-
ence. The difficult, frightening audience is gone. You're aware of what's happening, but you feel as if
you are the process, you are the story.
Now, that's the ideal state, what keeps us going, what we hope for, but certainly not the state you must be in
before
you can begin writing and definitely not what you wait around for in order to start. Waiting would only compound the problem.
THE AFFLICTION
You're blocked. OK, where does it hurt? How does it hurt? What's the experience of it? Exactly what happens when you're blocked— what goes on inside you?
You sit there in a knot staring at the wall or your computer or a blank page or something you've written, thinking,
Writer? Who do I think lam trying to be a writer. I'm wasting my time. I'll never publish. I have no ideas. I have no talent. I used to think I had
it.
I wrote a couple of decent pieces once. But that was long ago. They weren't that good anyway. Now I can't think of one thing worth writing about. I can't even bring myself to put a single word down on the page. If I had what it takes, I wouldn't be having all this trouble. I might as well forget it. Who needs this misery? Who cares? Why put myself though this?
And on and on and on, totally out of control, attacking your talent, your character, your moral courage, your worth as a human being. It often turns into all-out character assassination.