A BIT ABOUT THAT WRITING THING...

It would help fiction authors a great deal if readers would learn one important thing about how a novel gets written. These readers who aren’t authors need not try to write a novel to learn this one important thing, especially if they don’t understand the process. That would be like trying to make a soufflé without ever having seen a recipe for one. The result in both cases would almost certainly be an indigestible mess only worthy of the garbage disposal. No, all they need to do is listen to a writer talk about the process. Therefore, I am here to do just that, and I strongly encourage anyone who has a desire to write a review of a book online to read this. It won’t take long.

When people find out I am a novelist, they usually say something like, “I don’t know how you do it. I couldn’t write a novel if my life depended on it.” Well, this is how we do it, as well as why these people couldn’t write a novel “if (their) lives depended on it.”

It’s been said that fiction authors have to be a little bit crazy to write good fiction. I will admit that this statement is absolutely true. You see, what good authors do is watch what their characters do and listen to them talk, and then they write it down. This all takes place in the writer’s brain, but it’s almost a subconscious act. The writer does not control what is said or done. Granted, on a rewrite, I have often realized that what the character says or does in a particular scene in the book is not correct for that character and needs to be changed. What I realize when I see these moments is they typically occurred when I inflicted myself onto the action or dialogue, rather than watch and listen. This is known as a type of “author intrusion” in the field of writing and is a bad thing. Furthermore, the bad fiction writers I’ve known are the ones who constantly intrude. So, if you read a book by a good writer, and a character uses the “F” word, we as authors are just writing what that character said. If on rewrite we decide yes, that character would definitely say that, we leave it there. Yes, I know. That sounds insane. Please re-read the first two sentences of this paragraph.

Stephen King has said, “A good novelist does not lead his characters, he follows them. A good novelist does not create events, he watches them happen and then writes down what he sees. A good novelist realizes he is a secretary, not God.” Mr. King is 100% correct. Therefore, if you are reading a book or short story, and the character says or does something offensive, please understand that this is not something the author consciously did. He or she just wrote down what the character(s) did or said. The author, as Mr. King said, was the secretary.

Allow me to use one of my own books to illustrate what I mean. For example, I know at least one reader was upset that I included a rape scene in Hell is Empty, in which a man kidnaps a fifteen-year-old girl he’s been obsessed with. First, I don’t think he kidnapped her to have tea. Second, he is not a nice person, though it turns out he has presented himself as a nice person to the rest of society. Most people in the world are nice. This man was, in the fictional reality of the novel, the furthest thing from it. In the scene in question, I mention some details of what is happening (not every detail since I don’t write erotica regardless of what I see my characters doing). The young girl forces her mind to carry her out of the heinous situation she is in and remember something good from her past so she can deal with the horrible violation that is happening to her. The scene becomes a contrast of good and extreme evil through the juxtaposition of her beautiful daydream with his severe brutishness. Did I plan this scene? Well, I knew it would happen somewhere in the book because, as I said, he wasn’t kidnapping her to have tea with him. Furthermore, it is part of who he is to rape the young girl. And yes, her daydream and its meaning within the context of the scene was created as the juxtaposition on purpose. However, it must be remembered that part of who my antagonists are in my crime fiction involves their tendency to commit the acts I find most reprehensible, and it can be very disturbing to see the world through one of my antagonist’s eyes. I’ve been known to put a story aside for a few minutes so I can think of some nice things in the world before continuing with what one of my evil characters says or does to another person. I suppose in that situation, I am a little like my young heroine in Hell Is Empty. Frankly, if one can’t write the truth, one needn’t bother writing at all.

So, dear readers, keep in mind that we are just following the story that unfolds through the characters’ eyes. Most of our job is to make the story plausible within the framework of the genre in which we are writing and to fashion the story’s elements in such a way that theme and meaning become part of the fabric of the story. While perhaps not all authors are like this, I’ve not met any yet who aren’t.

That said, we authors are required to stick to the various limitations of the genre in which we are writing. For example, it would not fit for Jack in Floating Twigs to time travel to deal with a past problem. That book is not science fiction or fantasy, and having him do something like that in the middle of that book would instantly cause whoever was reading it to set it aside and wonder who I thought I was calling myself an author. However, if something happens you find distasteful, blame the characters, not the author. We have no more say in what happens than you do.

And we don’t have a say because the process is what the process is, and it seems even to us writers to happen in some nether world within our brains, a nether world that those who don’t write stories either do not have or cannot locate and dwell there, thus the “I couldn’t write a novel if my life depended on it” statement from so many people I meet. My books and short stories are basically the result of asking myself a “what if” question. This generates an idea, and that idea grows in that nether world to a point that I have to start writing it down to prevent true madness from taking hold.

This brings me to my copyrighted slogan, or whatever you wish to call it: I write because if I didn’t, the Muses would haunt me. I capitalize the word Muses, even though it’s not supposed to be, because they are truly in command when I am writing and deserve the capitalization. Besides, when I wrote that line for the first time, they told me to capitalize it.

See? Madness. But it’s a madness that can produce art through words. So, be kind, dear readers. I never feel so sane as when I am in that nether world, watching the movie my characters put on for me while typing what I see and hear on my keyboard. Ask any novelist, and they will tell you I am completely correct in what I’ve said here. If they don’t, there is likely a character in their head telling them the story to give you.