The 7 Points of Write: An Essential Guide to Mastering the Art of Storytelling, Developing Strong Characters, and Setting Memorable Scenes (2 page)

T
HE
B
IG
Q
UESTION

T
HE
B
IG
Q
UESTION

T
O BEGIN, I
ask you, dear reader, “What is the purpose of a novel?” This is not necessarily related to another question, “Why have you decided to
write
a novel?” The second question can have various answers, many, if not all of them, involving some personal agenda on the part of the writer or writers in question. But the answer to the first question, and in all truth, there really is only one true answer (which many may debate), is to entertain. Let’s face it: storytelling has always been a form of entertainment, well before books, movies, and television. People, since the dawn of time, have entertained one another with tales. The novel form was invented to continue this tradition and make it available to the masses.

Keeping in mind that a novel’s main—and in most cases nowadays,
sole
—purpose is to entertain, a writer should be able to approach a book with this singular agenda in mind, abutting it and supplementing it with experimentation, lofty artistic objectives, or other personal goals, so long as the primary agenda remains in full frontal view. A lot of writers, when setting out to write a magnum opus of some kind, or the
Great American Novel
, lose sight of this singular agenda, placing everything before it, thus leaving their readers scratching their heads at the ridiculousness they’ve been mercilessly beset by.

During my brief stint as an anonymous blogger, I dedicated what little time I could spare from my career duties to review books published by mostly amateur writers, usually via print-on-demand. During this time, I happened to criticize one writer for having published a few stories that were absolutely vapid and lacking plots. His best and only defense was that James Joyce was more or less accused of similar literary crimes—particularly those that concern stories without plots. This could have led to a lot of heavy-handed rebuttals on my part, but I decided to digress, because I had no intention of belittling struggling writers, as it is neither my desire nor place to.

I said that to say this: Joyce, Faulkner, Nabokov, Pynchon … contemporary writers can use them as an excuse to apply their own brand of experimentation to literature all they want—as though these souls, by so doing, gave contemporary authors license to do so as well—but bear in mind that all of them experimented in various novels with the goal of entertaining their readers. And I believe all of them succeeded.

All of the aforementioned authors understood story dynamics, character, and language; they attempted to make every detail of their narratives interesting, despite the sometimes mundane nature of the action being described. James Joyce’s books, for instance, contain many passages that are pumped full with lyrical prose and vivid imagery, even with terse clauses and seeming half-phrases applied. This is not to say that these writers will appeal to everyone. I raise the point simply to say that, given their skill and despite their experimentation, each of them managed to write at such a high level that their material was vastly entertaining to a certain class of readers, while those whose literary predilections led them in a different direction could appreciate their great abilities. That said, while none of these writers are among my favorites, I also admire their literary skill and have to point out that their books are still being discovered and enjoyed by a new generation of readers today!

As regards the topic of entertainment, I understand that what might be entertaining to one reader may not be so to another, but good literature is good literature, and the majority among us can agree on what constitutes a bad book. And when I use the word “entertain” I’m basically implying that your story must be written in a way that it not only grabs hold of your readers but also keeps them flipping the pages. That is not to say that you have to write a suspense novel or action-thriller, you simply have to write enthralling material, despite the genre. To give you an example, I am equally enthralled by Dashiell Hammett’s
The Maltese Falcon
as I am by Pearl S. Buck’s
The Good Earth
, and these books operate in two totally different arenas. It doesn’t take action and suspense to enthrall a reader; it takes powerful storytelling, whether that story involves an outlaw being hunted by government forces armed to the teeth, or an old Chinese woman bent on reaping a vast harvest on her own despite the sudden death of her farmer husband.

Bear this in mind: aside from the occasional school assignment, religious study, or other like purpose, the attraction we hold for books in general is based, foremost, on the fact that we view them as a source of enjoyment. In addition to the usual reasons offered by some—you know, the pursuit of intellectual stimulation or growth; spiritual enlightenment, what have you—people mainly read fiction to be entertained.

We want to be swept into a story—be absorbed by it, if you will—by the sheer elements involved. We want to be drawn in by compelling characters, be they rogues or savants, jaded spinsters or ruthless businessmen, or valiant warriors. And even if it’s a self-help book or lengthy exposition of nanotechnology, the information has to be presented in a manner that is conducive to holding our interest—meaning it has to entertain in some way.

Y
OUR
F
OUNDATIONAL
P
URPOSE

What I’m attempting to do here is get you to wrap your mind around the main objective of storytelling, so that you will understand your foundational purpose as you work toward bringing whatever vision you have in mind to life. If you forget that your main purpose is to entertain your readers, then you may become engrossed in aspects of your story that defy the conventions of the novel form, resulting in the alienation of your readership.

What’s more, writing a novel should be fun, and so should reading one. Granted, it will take a great deal of work on the part of the writer, but the actual process of crafting the story itself should be fun and rewarding. If you are writing something that is completely burdensome to you, especially with regard to subject matter you’re not thoroughly familiar with, the average reader will immediately pick up on that, as passages will be laden with unnecessary information and complex descriptions that do not allow for easy absorption.

My philosophy is this: if the material your story is concerned with is of great interest to you, and you’re really passionate about it, and you place the same passion you have for whatever subject you’re intent on chronicling into your writing, this will be transmitted to any reader with a proclivity for that type of material; they will be as infected by it as you were when you were writing about it.

You’ve heard the old saying: “Write what you know.” Whether you believe or adhere to that or not, or how you interpret it is your concern. But my advice is this: you should write from a place of experience. If you long to write in a genre that you love to read but have never attempted to write, then do so by injecting personal experiences into the narrative; infuse those experiences into the characters and situations. Write from a place of experience. Simple as that. We have all experienced things via hobbies, vacations, excursions—the list is infinite. If you’re writing a fantasy novel and you love sailing, send your characters on a voyage that will set your hair on fire as you write the scene. Say you’re not familiar with medieval terminology; it’s not your strength. Don’t rely heavily on this.

Do your research, learn what terms were used for what (the names of swords, the ranks of knights and castle servants, etc.) but stick to your guns. Don’t try to write like George R. R. Martin when it comes to chronicling medieval times. You can write in any genre if your narrative is infused with material that is written from a place of experience. You love adventure? Well and fine. Write through the eyes of a boy with an adventurous spirit. Since he is a boy, he doesn’t have to understand the particulars of his medieval world in every detail. He’s a boy! Readers won’t expect him to know the king’s business on any intimate level. But he might sneak around the castle grounds and overhear conversations that can be formed from your research. Then take him back on an adventurous journey away from all that and show us things you’ve experienced: exotic lands, the joy derived from discovering the hidden beauty of a foreign culture, what have you (of course you’ll throw this in amidst some kind of plot that involves traditional fantasy themes). Lovers of fantasy fiction will be able to enjoy a fantasy epic from your point of view, with your particular spin on it. And this is true for any genre you choose to write in.

H
OW A
N
OVEL
F
ULFILLS ITS
P
URPOSE

The simple fact is, people are entertained by novels mainly because, through them, they are allowed to enjoy vicarious thrills and experiences. Many people will actually “live,” in a sense, through fictional characters and situations. Therefore, you have to allow for this by filling the pages of your book with things you’ve experienced firsthand. Please note the definition of the word “vicarious,” which is taken from
The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition
:

Take a look at the first sense: “Felt or undergone as if one were taking part in the
experience
or
feelings
of another.” In other words, your readers are supposed to feel or undergo things in your novel and take part in them through your characters. How can you properly convey those experiences or feelings via characters and situations if you have not truly experienced them firsthand? It is nigh impossible. No one’s imagination runs that deep. You have to really dive a coral reef in order to powerfully convey that particular experience through your writing. Researching the marine life that is found there is one thing; describing the feelings that are derived from the actual experience is quite another.

Even someone who is not a writer can more powerfully convey what they felt when they experienced a robbery firsthand than an experienced writer who has never been robbed! Say you love skydiving, but you weren’t always free of a fear of heights; well, you have a compelling character arc right at your fingertips. (We’ll go into the subject of character arcs and character building in greater detail in
Point Four
.)

Put another way, people love to live vicariously through the experiences of others. But nothing allows for that better than a novel (though film, television, theater, and other forms of entertainment run a close second, in my opinion). A novel gives a reader direct access into the minds of the characters depicted, be they womanizers or alcoholics or victims of abuse. Have you ever been a womanizer? Are you a recovering alcoholic? Have you ever experienced any kind of abuse in your life? My word! You could churn out rich material at the stroke of a pen by channeling whatever pain or suffering you’ve experienced, while others would have to spend months researching the things you’re already bottling up. Be reminded that your personal experiences should be your primary literary strength, as no one else can chronicle those experiences as accurately and effectively as you can. Even the books I mentioned above, which were written by Hammett and Buck, were written from places of experience. Dashiell Hammett had been a private detective in real life, and Pearl S. Buck, an American novelist, actually lived in China for most of her life. They both infused their material with personal experiences, which lifted their writing to another level, giving it immense power.

Writing from a place of experience is extremely critical in creating impacting moments; and really, all you want to do is string a long series of impacting moments together to form your story. In essence, each scene you write should result in a delightful vicarious experience for the reader. They shouldn’t feel like they have to breeze through one scene in order to get to more exciting or stimulating aspects of your story. To keep your readers riveted, you have to completely inhabit each scene you write, even if it involves two people sitting in a living room conversing over drinks. Your goal is to make that conversation something worthy of taking part in, and remember that this is one of the goals of your novel: to allow the reader to take part in the experience of your characters.

You’re not going to reach into your bag of experiences and pull out something mundane; the conversation, as I said, has to be worthy of our time; it also has to make us
want
to be a part of it. Plotting your book in a way that will force you to place two characters in a room to have a conversation that contains elements you yourself have never experienced, or that includes things you’ve never fully invested in, will result in weak, stilted, and forgettable material.