Novels

I had one of those moments the other night. No, not one of those “oops I drank a bottle of High West Double Rye and wet myself” moments – or, well, yes, one of those moments too, but that’s not the subject of this little essay thank you very much. The moment I’m referring to was a spine-tingling idea I had to solve a plot problem in a novel I’ve been writing for approximately 75 years. Which is actually a merging of two novels into one. Which has been slowly driving me insane. But let all that drift, because I figured something out, and it was to take a tiny detail alluded to a few times throughout the current draft and bring it back as an awesome but somehow perfectly obvious twist.

To celebrate I drank a whole bottle of High West Double Rye but I think I already told that story, so let’s let it drift.

After I woke up, went to the desert to dry out, and had a few starvation-induced hallucinations, I realized something: The only reason the twist came to mind or even worked at all was because I’d previously put in a couple of throwaway details. The thrill I experienced when I thought of a way to leverage those details into brilliance was pretty much the same thing I would have felt if I’d been reading a book and an author suddenly promoted what had seemed like an unnecessary detail to a plot point. In other words, I was writing like a reader.

Frankly, I think that’s important.

Here’s how it works, at least for me. In chapter one, I give a character a gewgaw for some color. Then I forget about it. Then in chapter 10 I realize I need that character to do something amazing and for that he needs an implement. And I realize with a thrill that I can just resurrect the gewgaw. I stand up, tear off my shirt, and scream IT’S BRILLIANT while the universe recreates the crane shot from The Shawshank Redemption. I could have given the character the gewgaw right then and there and retconned it into the story later, but because I used something I’d already added to the story and then forgot, I have the same experience (hopefully) that the reader will have.

It’s artificial, of course. I can do anything I want in my story – I can just make shit up any time I want! Yet when I have that moment when I’m just thrilled by a twist because it seems natural, it usually means I’m onto something. For a second there, I wasn’t a jaded, slightly inebriated writer trying to fool people into spending $8 on his books. I was part of the audience, and I was excited.

Of course, I’ve enjoyed some terrible films and novels in my time, so none of this means the story I’m working on is any good. It’s just the religious experience of occasionally shocking yourself with your own writing that gets me every time.

I wrote a novel in possibly the hardest way possible.

Years ago, I wrote two novels. Well, both were short – one very barely qualified as novel-length and one was absolutely a novella, really. I liked both very much, one a bit more than the other. The longer one I sent to my agent with that special feeling of doomed hope and suggested it might be the next thing we go out on. I loved the longer one because it had a sense of poetry to it, a dreamy atmosphere. Plus, I loved the longer one’s creation story:

The Duchess had forced me to attend the Broadway show Mama Mia. I was reluctant, for obvious – lord, I hope they’re obvious – reasons. But I am a dutiful husband, so I went. I had this central concept for a novel in my head at the time, but couldn’t get it to coalesce into something coherent. And then, as the lights went down in the theater, I had an epiphany. I saw the first line of the story in my head: “This is the story of my father.” And it was off to the races. I wrote the longer piece quickly, easily, after that point.

That’s no longer the first line of the book. That line isn’t even in the book any more. But it’s there, nonetheless, even if only I can see it.

The shorter one I held back, because while I loved a lot of it even I couldn’t convince myself that a 30,000-word “novel” with a lot of padding had any chance at book publishers. The novella had a bit of juvenalia to it, but it had a clear throughline that held it together nicely.

My agent, god love her, read the longer one and sent back her notes, which made a crucial point: There wasn’t much of a story arc. No real conflict, no climax. It was a story, sure, but it was kind of a flatline if you plotted the events.

So, I pondered. Other stuff happened.

Recently, I revisited the longer work and now it was apparent that my agent, whose sulfurous fumes still clung to the digital pages, was absolutely right: I had written a novel in which very little happened. Then I considered the shorter work from the same period, which had stayed in my imagination. It was a a bony, skeletal thing, which was about 1/3 padding as I meandered about the universe I’d created trying desperately to find details — but it had a definite plot, a mystery and a climax. It had a point.

I re-read both and had an epiphany: Written so closely together temporally, they were actually parts of the same story. They shared elements and atmosphere and, if I’m being honest, characters as I recycled them from one to the other. I had a longer, fleshy piece that was all character and setting and backstory, and a shorter, bony piece that was like a fucking plot outline. The answer was obvious: Combine them.

A lot easier than I would have expected. I really had written a novel in two parts, months apart, without even realizing it. I’m either a genius or a drunken moron, take your pick. They fit together so seamlessly if you didn’t know the story behind the new novel you’d never guess. You can’t see the scars as the stitching healed. The slight limp as it walks about on two legs of microscopically different lengths just give its gait some character.

I have no idea if we’ll ever sell this beast, but regardless I’m pleased. And also amazed at the way the brain works. And once again reminded of the value of a great agent.