Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the 20th Century’s Biggest Bestsellers, by James W. Hall, performs a group autopsy on the biggest blockbusters of the last century.
From Gone with the Wind to The Da Vinci Code, a dozen mega-novels reveal their common story elements:
- The heroes are mavericks.
- Forget about characters’ interior dialogue.
- The novels all contain a secret society…
- And a clock ticking down to disaster.
- An extreme sexual act of some kind, etc., etc….
I’ve tacked the list to my wall. And as I begin my new blockbuster novel…something’s wrong. It’s false start after false start. These tips are short-circuiting the inspiration that normally gives my story its unique shape.
Writing manuals — do they really help?
When I published my own writing manifesto, Story Structure to Die for, I doubted its efficacy for the same reason. My super-simple story overview reduces the dramatic thrust to its most basic idea…and yet…
Writing to formula is no way to proceed.
James A. Hall agrees. In a “Bonus Chapter”, Hall warns writers against forgetting their “honest passion”. Knowing the rules of fiction is not enough. In Hall’s own experience…
“I had to figure out how each [rule] expressed a deeply rooted emotion of my own.” Hall quotes the American poet, Robert Frost:
“No tears for the writer, no tears for the reader.”
In other words, says Hall, “It had to matter to me before it could matter to anyone else.”
So, regarding all these “how-to” writing manuals, here’s MY ADVICE TO MYSELF:
- Read them.
- Forget them.
- Write a first draft.
Note to PJ!—revisit your own blog post of Sept. 10, 2010: “Don’t Get it Right, Get it Written”.
And re-visit Brenda Ueland’s If You Want to Write (it never leaves my bedside table):
“Everybody is original, if he tells the truth, if he speaks from himself. But it must be from his *true* self and not from the self he thinks he *should* be.”
Amen.
All right. First draft written, now read Hit Lit again.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t really give advice on the surefire way to write a bestseller because I’m new to this craft. I have not published any novel. ButI know what a best book is when I read it. What I can say, based on what I’m doing and hopefully this is effective, is to write the ideas (ie: on a notebook, index card. I use index cards like post it notes so I have rolls of scotch tape at home.) and visualize them (just like doing a kanban, only, instead of to-dos they are ideas): post the idea (ie: chapters, characters, scenes) on a wall, board, or notebook). Keep writing. And look at the posted notes. I’m a slow writer and visual person. I need to see to remember it. I don’t trust my memory.
I’m drawn to reading how-to books but I don’t necessarily follow them coz if I do, I get lost. I just write, do that kanban thing. Somehow I get the picture. Then again, writing is about revising too. Arggg… I know I shouldn’t but I’m beginning to dislike the word “plot”. I always wanted something different. A story. Characters that are not archetypes. Storylines that are not predictable. And I noticed that some story ideas I have connect with other story ideas that date 5 years back; that was when I was in college.
Then my realization: writing, it seems, is like playing chess. First you need to learn the so called “rules”, read recommendations. After that, you just forget about the rules and make your first move coz the more you think about the rules, there is a great chance you get paralyzed. I played chess and I hate it when someone insisted I do that move because the book says so or that’s how this grandmaster did it.
Geraldine, you seem to have a fertile mind for ideas and notions you want to be part of your work in progress scattered around your view on index cards with an intention to play them like moves on a chess board, but not by any established method. This sounds very interesting. You’ll never be at a loss for options to consider and keep or discard. When Joseph Heller wrote “Catch 22″ he used an approach that had similarities to your developing method. I remember how it appealed to me when I read about Heller. He scribbled notes on pieces of paper, with some apparent randomness, and dropped them on the floor and anywhere else around his dwelling. From all these random words on pieces of paper he eventually created “Catch 22.” If you can staple, tape, and idex card your story to a point of some satisfaction, perhaps cut and paste will bring a conclusion (until you start a rewrite). It makes sense to me.