rules: four

Sundog Rising!

Reflections on living the life literary by the Urban Sundog

The Last Word on Rules For Writers

There's a rule being laid down to novelists I'm coming across more and more these days. Which is, have the most terrible things you can imagine happen to your characters.

Even Kurt Vonnegut said “Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.” Of course Kurt also said “To heck with suspense.”

I remember the first time I came across this bit of advice and thinking, uh uh, you've got to temper that one intelligently or you've got nothing but meaningless melodrama. You have to have conflict certainly, but develop it sensibly. No overkill.

I just finished reading the second novel in a new mystery series I'm interested in. The first one was really good, and I think the writer is quite a good writer. I would even go so far as to say the second book is very readable in its writing as well, I didn't have any trouble finishing it. But by halfway through the book, all I could do with her plot was laugh at it.

I may be leaving something out here, but the book featured at least three cases of incest, wife beating, sexual exploitation by a clergyman, rape, embezzlement by the same clergyman, homosexuality in another clergyman, abortion, arson, suicide, euthanasia, baby death and substitution, and at least four murders. All happening in a quiet little Cornish village, not even a large town.

Any one or two of these incidents done well would have been sufficient conflict to carry a book of this type. There is a brief note at the end of the novel stating much of the book was based upon “real events”. That I can accept. But I expect more plausibility from my fiction.

I started anticipating what was coming in the book long before it happened because it was always the worst. You don't want your reader reacting to the supposedly dramatic revelations in your story with "Oh good God, don't tell me there’s more …” It was probably the worst book I ever considered to be actually well written at the same time.

So yes, as a rule, I would say you can overdo it. And it's not a good thing. If the worst thing happens more than twice in a story it's not interesting anymore. The book had no drama left in it by the end.

Oops. I just remembered there were actually five murders. The older sister killed the brother she'd been sleeping with for years at the end, to make right the fact that he had killed the other four people. Before hanging herself. But it was all right because she killed her brother out of love for him, once she found out that he hadn't really raped their fourteen year old sister, necessitating the girl’s abortion by the village wise woman. That was somebody else. And the brother the sister killed is the romantic lead in the book. Because as the author assures us at the end, he was really all right, because he was kind to horses.

I’ll try the third book in the series by this author, but if it’s at all like this one, I won’t be reading any more.

So what’s my point here? Even advice from the greatest authors needs to be taken with a grain of salt and a healthy dose of common sense. It’s good to have these ideas in mind when you sit down to write … But.

When you sit down to write, write what feels right for that particular piece. Worry about applying the rules later. If ever.

I started off this series by listing seven principles I do tend to keep in mind when I write. There’s obviously a lot more to it than that. To get down to the real nitty gritty, given the way I turn out a manuscript, when I sit down to edit and really craft a story into something readable, these are the points I keep most in mind:

(in no particular order)

     smooth conjunctions

     eliminate unnecessary articles

     change static verbs to dynamic

     eliminate redundant phrasing (e.g. “round in shape”)

     clarify pronouns (I use a lot of characters)

     clarify exposition

     did I get my meaning across?

     strengthen vocabulary

     make certain there’s plot agreement: is what I say here consistent with what goes before and after

So at the end of all this, is there any one rule I’m surprised not to find in any famous author’s list, or barring genuine credibility in a source, something I haven’t thought to mention yet?

Yes! Absolutely!

Never — and I emphasize this again — Never! Ever! Trust your computer.

They might give the appearance of being useful, but in actuality they’re all just silently waiting to devour your best work when you least expect it. Always, always, back up your work on a separate drive from the machine you do the bulk of your work on, and be aware! Whatever word processor you’re using now will not be compatible with what you’ll be working on in three years! Constantly reformat your archives, or one day you’ll go to access something you’ll believe was safe only to discover you don’t have any software that will read it anymore. This does happen!

So there’s my final word on the rules of writing in the 21st Century.

Beware.

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REALITY FICTION AND BEYOND!

This week:

Theda Bara’s winning novelletta Thirty-One Across continues this Friday at:

http://realficone.blogspot.ca/

So far we’ve established she has a remarkably boring job, her brother is dying, and she likes a night out with the girls. Oh yeah — and there’s something really weird going on with the crossword puzzles she does at lunch.