The Novel = A Search for Feelings

 It’s a truism that to succeed at accomplishing a goal, you first have to be clear on exactly what the goal is. So, let’s get down to basics. What are we trying to do when we write novels? What makes readers love them? How do we know when we’ve succeeded? It’s important to know this and keep it in mind as a goal when we write.

Here’s the goal: Ultimately, novels are a search for feelings.

Mystery readers enjoy a feeling of intellectual satisfaction when they solve a puzzle. Romance readers enjoy the heart-warming euphoria of true love overcoming obstacles.  Thriller readers enjoy being scared out of their wits and surviving.  But don’t just take my word for it:

In Techniques of the Selling Writer, Dwight Swain says:

“Your goal is to elicit a particular reaction from the reader. You want to make him feel a certain way… suck him into a whirlpool of emotion. To do this–to make your reader feel the way you want him to feel–is your story’s whole and total function.”

Heather Sellers concurs in Chapter by Chapter:

“Readers want to experience life to the fullest, with all stops pulled out, without a net, with their patooties swinging in the breeze, guns blazing, tumbling down a cliff, sunk in passion, enraptured beyond recognition–because in their real lives, they cannot.”

Assuming that one agrees that making the reader feel a certain way is the purpose of a novel, how does one go about doing this? If an author explains that ”He was sad,” does that automatically make the reader feel sad?  Uh…no. Not at all.

To produce feelings and emotions in readers, the writer must make them live through a scene right along with the character. If the reader is one with the character, hearing what he hears, seeing what he sees, smelling what he smells, reacting to the events, only then can he feel what the character feels. The great Hemingway put it this way:

“If anything gave you a feeling, you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling. Put down what really happened in action–what the actual things were which produced the emotion that you experienced … The problem was one of depiction and, waking in the night, I tried to remember what it was that seemed just out of my remembering and that was the thing that I had really seen, and, finally, remembering all around it, I got it. When the matador stood up, his face white and dirty and the silk of his breeches opened from waist to knee, it was the dirtiness of the rented breeches, the dirtiness of his slit underwear, and the clean, clean, unbearably clean whiteness of the thigh bone that I had seen, and it was that which was important.”

So producing feelings should be the prime goal when writing novels. Not telling background information on a setting. Not heights of fancy poetical phrasing. Not commentary on a historical event. Sure, these all have a place.  But focusing on the main goal–eliciting feelings–will simplify things, give you a goal, and put you way ahead in the game.

Brainstorming Book Ideas

In critiquing novels (and even in writing my own), it’s usually obvious that the would-be authors have good writing skills. They can write acceptable sentences. They have pretty setting descriptions. Some of their scenes are  intriguing. So why don’t their books succeed or sell?

Invariably, it’s because the authors haven’t developed a strong idea or “spine” for the book. As a result, the novel flounders. Here are five tips to come up with a strong novel idea:

(“So, what’s the conflict?”) Start with characters in conflict. A workable story idea is one in which the conflicts are clear and present in the basic premise. Give your main character an objective—what he wants—and then throw roadblocks in his path. Who or what is trying to prevent him from achieving his need, goal, or want? The conflicts between the hero/heroine or hero/villain are of two kinds:

1.EXTERNAL CONFLICT:  This is the external situation. It’s what the book is about:  stalking, Cinderella, arranged marriage, amnesia, serial killer, etc. What is my fresh take or twist on this situation/External Conflict? (Could come from a fun world like horseracing, a setting like medieval Scotland, a dynamite plot surprise, etc.) This is what gives the book many of the plot points as the story evolves.

2.INTERNAL CONFLICT:  This is what makes this serial killer book different from all other serial killer books—the characters. This conflict comes from inside them, their personalities, their histories. It creates emotional turmoil between them. Where’s the emotional heat? Where is the pain? The abrasiveness? This is what gives the book depth. It’s what readers will remember long after they’ve forgotten plot point details.

3.MAKE SURE THAT THE EXTERNAL/INTERNAL CONFLICTS MESH: They can’t be random or unrelated. One leads directly to the other.

4. RATCHET UP THE STAKES: How can I make this idea even more exciting? Are these conflicts a matter of actual life and death? Spiritual or emotional life and death?

5. GET OFF TO A STRONG START BY SHOWING THE EXTERNAL CONFLICT IN THE VERY FIRST CHAPTER. In Writing the Breakout Novel, agent Donald Maass says:

“The number one mistake I see in manuscript submissions is a failure to put the  conflict in place quickly enough. In fact, it is the primary reason I reject over 90 percent of the material I receive … 

Taking your idea through all five points before writing will remove much of the difficulty in producing a novel. It might also produce a novel that sells.

 

Happy Easter

St. Patrick’s Day

   Of course, I’ve always been an Anglophile, loving everything British. I’m also a Celtophile, loving everything Irish. Not being intimately involved in “The Troubles,” I can be both. I’m with the Irish Catholics on this one, however. The English had absolutely no business marauding in Ireland, beating down the land and the people for centures.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, I’ve been re-reading For the Love of Ireland, edited by Susan Cahill. It’s a literary companion with excerpts from great Irish writing and the places that inspired them.

  W.B. Yeats recorded what Oscar Wilde once said at a dinner table:  “We Irish are the greatest talkers since the Greeks.” This captures the lovely and whimsical spirit of a people who live in a wild and beautiful place–an “Emerald Isle,”–a place “of saints and scholars.” But why, beside their own nature, are the Irish so gifted and loquacious? Why are they such “scrappers”–willing to fight with words and fists at the drop of a hat?   Because they have suffered:

In Ireland: Presences, Pete Hamill says, “The Irish, like the Jews, are a people To Whom Things Were Done. They were a people warred against, a people invaded, a nation shredded by the iron will of others. So they have the blarney, the shamrocking of history, the gossamer inventions, the dark murmur of an antique past, when the Irish learned to lie in order to live…disguising feeling, using charm and double-talk to live another hour…Those skills were fashioned to protect a people against a crime.”

   I also love James Joyce’s goal for his writing about Dublin: ”… converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own…showing the significance of trivial things.”

Some of my other favorites: Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, A Terrible Beauty and Trinity by Leon Uris, How the Irish Saved Civilization by Susan’s husband, Thomas Cahill. Movies like Far and Away, My Left Foot, The Quiet Man, Ryan’s Daughter, The Commitments, and The Boxer.

  So, Happy St. Patrick’s Day.

Ireland! What a land. What a people. What a love.

Writers — Add “Contact Me” to Your Social Media

 I’m currently reading a great book, CREATE YOUR WRITER PLATFORM, by Chuck Sambuchino. I highly recommend this book for all writers. As Chuck defines it, “Platform is essentially your visibility as an author.” It helps potential readers find and interact with you and your work. It helps everybody understand who you are and what your work is all about.

Even if you aren’t published yet, it’s never too early to begin building your brand and your platform. If/when you sell a book, you don’t want to have to start from scratch in building a social presence. It would be way too much work all at once–at a crucial time when you should be focusing on that next book. Done a little at a time though, platform building is fun. It also helps you keep your own focus–reminding you of what you’re trying to accomplish with your writing.

The basics for a platform would be a web site/blog, Facebook, and Twitter. And here’s the first tip I’m using from this book: You should add your Contact Information to your social media. I hadn’t done this. I was afraid to. Chuck allayed my fears:

“I have no idea why people make themselves difficult to contact. I think it comes from some sort of outdated fear that if their e-mail is online, someone in Chechnya will steal their identity or they’ll be deluged with spam. Take it from me–this will not happen.”

Yeah–I think he’s right. So I’ve added a new Page to my blog–”Contact Me.” You can see the results above. It was fun to do. And who knows? Maybe a new writer friend will start following me. Or an editor will e-mail me, begging for my work.

I’ll let you know if anyone in Chechnya starts bugging me.

Grand Canyon Anniversary

Today in News History: President Theodore Roosevelt made the Grand Canyon a national monument on Jan. 11, 1908.

Happy New Year!