The Fundamental Things Apply...

June 25, 2008

I recently completed a draft of my YA novel (or is it not YA, hmmm...) and asked several of my writer friends and some teenagers to read it in the interest of getting it right.

My writer buddy Erica, was apparently so giddy with enthusiasm that she spent a big chunk of her day reading the manuscript instead of doing work that might actually earn her a living. (She claims it was procrastination; I typically use blogs and YouTube for that. Scratch Erica, find a saint).

Erica's insights were trenchant, precise and, unfortunately, fully supportive of every doubt I had about the work--and then some. (She said, "Don't hate me," and I thought, "God, I'd much rather hear this from you than have some NYC editor say, "Not quite right for us.")

There were essentially two major issues, one of which I won't go into today because it involves a possible major reworking of the story and I have to think about it and hear what other readers have to say.

The other major issue was she suggested the story felt flat because the emotions weren't there.

Sigh.

First, a little bit in my defense, let me say that this was not a final draft and my final drafts often involve tweaking emotions as much as smoothing out the writing. I tend to "tell" emotions too much (or not at all) in early drafts and in the final draft have to do things like delete "she got angry" to "her fists balled into knots and her face flushed the color of a ripe plum."

Still, one of the recurring themes, if you will, in my rejection letters is something along the lines of, "Mark Terry is a good writer and the story's good, but I just can't connect with the main character." (And again, in my defense, sometimes one editor says "loved the story, hated the character" while another editor a week later will say "hated the story, loved the character.") Still, this character issue is a major concern of mine.

Let me break things down as broadly as Australia's outback, okay? I think there are two fundamental aspects of writing. One is to transfer information. This can be getting a character from A to B to C all while indicating what the environment is like and the other characters are like. I'm quite successful in nonfiction and I think it's because I'm pretty good at taking complicated information and transferring it to the reader in a clear, organized fashion. Nonfiction thrives on this.

The second is the transfer of emotion. Readers are expecting to feel something from fiction. They're expecting, at the very least, to be entertained and to relate to the characters. They typically do this through a vicarious sharing of emotion. This is, I think, the primary difference between success and failure in fiction--the ability to transfer a character's emotions to the reader. Say what you will about Robert James Waller and "The Bridges of Madison County" but what he and that book did very well was transfer emotions.

(Let me say something potentially sexist here, though: this is a bigger deal in women's books than in men's. That is to say, action-adventure, the key emotion transferred may very well be an adrenaline rush and fear, whereas the so-called chick-lit's emotional demand is significantly more complicated and necessary. Still, for any fiction to be successful, readers need to feel something).

One of the things I've been pondering since reading Erica's comments though is whether this is a fundamental I just plain lack. I'm not drawn to books with a huge emotional churn, if you will. And let me also add that thriller author David Morrell once said the same thing about his earlier novels, commenting that he was more drawn to intellectual novels and action, but it was only when he realized that what readers were looking for was "romance" and by romance he meant high motions and drama and chivalry and heroes, etc.... romance not as in "love and kisses" but in everything related to the "romantic era." Also, after a point in your writing career, you have to wonder if you aren't just better suited for certain types of writing than others.

That isn't to say I'm giving up on this book, just that Erica gave me a great deal to think about, all of it good, all of it rather fundamental, and I'm very grateful.

But I think it's something that all aspiring novelists and perhaps even successful novelists need to ask themselves from time to time--what am I fundamentally good at and what am I not? And is there anything I can do about it?

Cheers,

Mark Terry