Anatomy of a Novel #11

Here I am again, looking for the way back inside

I’m stuck on the outside, looking in. How do I get back inside?

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I went into my office today with all good intentions. Time to turn back to Beatrice Pfennig and figure out what happens to her.

So what have I been doing as I think about how to proceed? Working at the Seminar, preparing for the workshops, and listening to Robert McKee’s lectures on STORY.

It’s absolutely epic and far too complicated to try to summarize, but essentially McKee says that all “stories” share common elements - stories as opposed to premises, incidents or anecdotes.

I would define “story” here as something that people will pay to see or read (a film or book, for example) that offers readers a satisfying arc, holds their attention for hours and engages them emotionally.

You can, of course, subvert these story elements or play around with them, but ignore them at your peril. You must not bore people with a film or novel that has little or no emotional resonance, that does not interrogate values, expose weaknesses and strengths, offer surprises and, ultimately, meaningful revelations.

Writers of story must invite audiences to experience unexpected and eye-opening insights into the author’s core values or those of the larger world.

None of this is new to me. As a writing coach I’ve read many, many manuscripts that are well written but do not actually go anywhere - they’re more for the writer than the reader. They are too predictable, or not emotionally resonant or engaging. Nothing really happens - either on an active (action) or psychological level (emotion).

To hear McKee (now 83 years old) spell out the details - over hours and hours of lectures - is kind of fascinating and boring at the same time. His book is a bible for screenwriters, and I’m listening to him in the hopes it will jumpstart something in my mind.

According to Amazon, I bought this book in 2011. Did I read it? No I did not. Well, I’m making up for lost time lol

“There’s a form to story, but not a formula,” Robert McKee says in response to questions like, but how do I do it???

Writers are often looking for rules and solutions - that one key that will open the lock for us so that our story will ‘write itself’ (preferably while we’re in flow - I wrote about that here).

It’s happened to me a few times and it’s magical - I was working on Madame B. and one day, tired of struggling, I said to myself: Just keep it MOVING!

That was the key I needed right then: I wrote nonstop for

six weeks and finished the first draft. I kept escalating the action and raising stakes and moving forward and the wheels were greased - that momentum carried me through to the end.

Now what I’m looking for is a not so much a key as a doorway (a window through which I can climb will do).

Finding a different way in

Today I experienced two failures off the bat. The first was that after 50 pages of Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, no less), I think I’m going to stop reading.

It’s engrossing, the voice is masterful, and I badly want to know what happens. But, man, it is so depressing. I cannot make it through hundreds of pages of this poor kid’s life going from bad to worse.

I give up.

So I moved over to my desk and opened my laptop, and my computer screen was black. I was out of juice and had forgotten to bring my charger.

So here we are. But think I may have found a secret doorway.

Research tips from novelist Garrad Conley’s lecture at 2024 Muse & the Marketplace

What is my angle?

I’m back to my research, and this time I’m broadening the scope. My obsession with Jokichi Takamine and his history must shift to include other interesting angles on immigration and class in the early 20th Century.

The problem is, a novel - while complex - cannot hope to tell the entire story of a house like Sho Fu Den. You have to pick and choose your plot points, and they must relate to each other thematically in some way.

As Robert McKee says, readers are curious and they want to learn, be surprised and feel emotionally invested. That won’t happen if I have ten different overlapping stories, each equally interesting. Next week, I’ll consider the real history of Sho Fu Den, and how to use it as a jumping off point.

In the meantime, something a bit more fun

I found my next painting project - a cardboard tag from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, for which Sho Fu Den was built.