Shawn’s Question
In the Comments to an earlier post in this series, “Using Your Real Life in Fiction,” Shawn wrote:
Steve and Shawn at the Noho Star at Bleecker and Lafayette, NYC
My question, which I think a lot of writers will have is this …
Do you deliberately think of this stuff re: characters and their thematic roles, before you write your first draft?
Or do you save this analytical/editor thinking for later? And then go back and tighten it all up?
Great question, pard. Lemme answer with a confession of exactly how dumb I am.
A few years ago I wrote a novel called Killing Rommel. (No, it was NOT one of the Bill O’Reilly series with “Killing” in the title.) Killing Rommel was a WWII story about a British commando expedition during the North African campaign of ’42-’43. Kinda like The Guns of Navarone, only set in the desert, with “Rat Patrol”-type jeeps.
The story was about a raid whose aim was to kill Gen. Erwin “The Desert Fox” Rommel, the German commander of Panzerarmee Afrika.
Here’s the confession: I had been working on the book for eighteen months (seven or eight drafts) before it occurred to me, “OMG, I’d better have my commandos actually have an encounter with Rommel.”
In other words, I had left that little item out.
So, to answer your question, Shawn: “No, I don’t always plot all that stuff out in advance.”
How about in The Knowledge?
On this one, I’d say I planned it to about the 50% level. I had the interior story down cold—and most of the elements of the exterior story. I knew what “Stretch” (the character that was me) represented thematically, and Nicolette and Marvin Bablik and Peter and Marty my agent and Teaspoon my cat, sort of.
But again, the most important piece of the story eluded me.
I’m talking about the relationship between Stretch and Bablik.
This may be a pattern with me. Maybe it’s common to a lot of writers. I tend to miss the element that’s right in front of my face. It’s like a fog or a blank spot.
I was maybe three months in to writing The Knowledge when it began to dawn on me not only that a friendship was developing between Stretch and Bablik, but that this was the most important element in the book.
In that instant, Shawn, I did pull back, as you say, to the “30,000-foot view” and ask myself
What does this friendship mean?
How does it play thematically?
Is it just an accident or should I jump on this and really beef it up?
I decided that this element was happy serendipity. I lucked out. I stubbed my toe on gold.
I suddenly realized that a huge architectural element in the story was that Bablik, like Jesus, was going to take on Stretch’s sins and, by his own self-immolation, atone for them, at least partially.
Suddenly The Knowledge became a buddy story. At the center, I realized, was an unlikely pair like George and Lenny in Of Mice and Men or Ishmael and Queequeg from Moby Dick. One was going to save the other.
In other words, the narrative element originated with instinct (I was just writing scenes and letting characters talk), but then I pulled back, figured out what the element was, and deliberately went forward trying to enhance it.
I asked myself, “How can I make these guys bond with each other in a way that’s not sappy or treacly?”
Chapter 13, Bablik gets furious with Stretch for having sex with a girl in the back seat of his taxi cab. “You’re like a son to me. Stop with these skanks! Have some respect for yourself!”
Chapter 21, Stretch’s uncle warns him for the third time to stay away from Bablik. “He’s a gangster. And his brother’s worse.” But Stretch doesn’t listen. Chapter 15: “I like the guy. He’s in the shit. He’s suffering.”
Bablik cooks eggs for Stretch at his hideout in Westchester. “He cuts the omelet in half with a Case pocketknife. He gives me the big half and slides the smaller onto his own plate.”
Why did I have Stretch sleep with Bablik’s wife? Partly because it was a fun scene, but mainly to deepen the bond between them, when Bablik finds out and forgives Stretch. Bablik offers Stretch his AK-47 for protection. Stretch declines. “Too bad,” says Bablik. “You were this close to becoming a gangster.”
In the end I loaded up the story with a number of asides (and no few overt statements and acts) that showed that each one of these characters cared for the other.
More than that, I strengthened their parallel arcs. Each character was dealing with extreme guilt over a crime he had committed, which only he knew about. Each one was desperate to redeem himself. Neither one knew how.
For the entire second half of the story, Stretch is trying to save Bablik from a headlong rush to his own extinction. In other words, he’s trying to save himself.
Like I say, Shawn, I missed this parallel story completely at the start. I was months into the writing before I felt the first glimmer.
So what’s the answer to your question? I guess my method is to do both—to plan from the start as much as I can, but not too much … not so much that I don’t leave room for instinct and for happy accidents.
And when those accidents happen, I try to be alert for them and to pull back at once to 30,000 feet and ask myself the left brain/editor-type questions:
What does this accident mean?
Is it important? Is it on-theme?
Should I drop everything and focus on this alone for a while?
P.S. My favorite moment in The Knowledge comes near the end, the last words that Stretch and Marvin Bablik exchange, at the Waldorf-Astoria before Bablik heads onstage to collect his big award, after which (and he knows it) he will be killed.
“What’s your first name?” he says. “I’m sorry, I never asked.”
“Steve.”
“Steve.” He holds out his hand. “I’m Mordechai.”
That wasn’t planned.
[P.S. As this post hits the air, Shawn and I are indeed having breakfast at the Noho Star. I’m in town from LaLa Land. It’s great!]
DO THE WORK
Steve shows you the predictable Resistance points that every writer hits in a work-in-progress and then shows you how to deal with each one of these sticking points. This book shows you how to keep going with your work.
THE AUTHENTIC SWING
A short book about the writing of a first novel: for Steve, The Legend of Bagger Vance. Having failed with three earlier attempts at novels, here's how Steve finally succeeded.
NOBODY WANTS TO READ YOUR SH*T
Steve shares his "lessons learned" from the trenches of the five different writing careers—advertising, screenwriting, fiction, nonfiction, and self-help. This is tradecraft. An MFA in Writing in 197 pages.
TURNING PRO
Amateurs have amateur habits. Pros have pro habits. When we turn pro, we give up the comfortable life but we find our power. Steve answers the question, "How do we overcome Resistance?"
Sorry Steve, but you’ll never convince me you’re dumb when it comes to this stuff. You and Shawn have a great breakfast, and Happy New Year!
I love the way you describe snapping back and forth between hemispheres in your brain. Scientifically, women can supposedly do it much faster and easier than men . But you are getting pretty good at it! This post really helps us see how the inner editor is NOT a critic… He’s more like a coach, right? I gotta work on that now.
Love the post! Keep ’em coming!
Happy New Year!
You don’t know me Steve, but I consider you my mentor.
Thanks for that. All the best in the new year.
Matt
Me, too, Matt. Good thing we can share him here! Happy New Year to you, too!
An interesting thing happened to me on the way to the circus.
I published a book.
It got throttled by reviewers (not all, but enough) so I un-published it and began re-writing the thing.
Wow… I realized things I never knew before about these people inhabiting my story (oh, and I’d done my 75 point Global Story Foolscap outline on book two so I had foreknowledge of things I didn’t know before during the original writing process).
What I’ve learned from this process: There is something to be said about re-writing (I’d bucked against this before) and there is something to be said about the help received from happy mistakes, serendipity, the Muse, and how life sometimes happens to spill into art like a sauce on your plate gets into a side dish.
I’m not sure how to replicate mistakes, but at least I grok now why going back over a story and really trying to figure out why the Muse put something in there is important and why trying to understand what you should do about it is important, too.
Maybe others are different, but I have a hell of a time trying to write rough draft and also edit, re-write, think, or analyze on the same day… Or even in the same week…
Right on, Michael. Totally agree. There’s something inside my psyche that is just oh-so-sure my first draft of anything is not only error-free but also more powerful and inspired than the Sermon on the Mount and War and Peace combined, almost like it’s a sin to re-write it (ironically, I “pride” myself on possessing neither arrogance or self-deception…yeah.). It’s like watching kung fu movies and thinking I’m a martial artist. In one of his Gunslinger books, Stephen King put it this way (paraphrased) “…because deep-down I know I’m the champ, the A-1, the best of the best”.
To sum up, the law of Resistance says if it hurts or scares me then that’s what I should be doing.
Good post, Steve. Welcome back from LA. We leave Rome for Atlanta Friday. Been a blessed blast the past month in the Eternal City, writing 7-10 hours daily. Happy New Year.
Well now I know for sure the reason I am not a writer/author. I could never figure it all out in what is needed to become a Pro…Incredible how it works for you and for Shawn. Happy New Year…
Excellent question and answer. I dont
Remember ever reading such a clear description -and honest- about the back and forth between writing and structuring.
One lesson I personally get from this is “ya gotta be writing, regularly, and a lot, to learn this stuff.”
Cheers and thanks again
Steve– Once again you resonate with my experience in other fields.
I have several certificates tacked on my wall, but the best one is for 8000 hours of classroom and hands on training in carpentry. I have several academic degrees, but the Carpenters Joint Training Council taught me the most. I learned the value of making the same damn mistake over and over until you give up trying and your muscles forget how to do it wrong. I’ve been waiting a long time for that one to kick in on writing.
But I think the most important lesson was that pickup carpenters just build and hope it comes out right, advanced apprentices build to spec, pros build to spec, but know when and how to request a change order and get it approved. And how do you get a change order approved? By seeing a better way that an architect, engineer, and yourself can all see is a true improvement and not a half-baked variation. It took me five years and 10,000 hard hours to reach the pro stage.
Then the bottom dropped out the construction industry in my region and I went into software.
Happy holidays and Happy New Years, guys! Steve, that ending scene where the commandos actually come face to face with Rommel was excellent. Interesting to know how it came about.
And Shawn, the Story Grid is best book on craft written in eons. Love it and your podcasts!
So keep on rockin’ in the free world, boys!!! And thank you for continuing to do what you do!
Best,
Virlana
Thus, boys, keep on rockin’ in the free world! And I appreciate super mario bros you keeping up your good work!
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