1.
Read like mad. But try to do it analytically – which can be hard,
because the better and more compelling a novel is, the less conscious
you will be of its devices. It's worth trying to figure those devices
out, however: they might come in useful in your own work. I find
watching films also instructive. Nearly every modern Hollywood
blockbuster is hopelessly long and baggy. Trying to visualize the much
better films they would have been with a few radical cuts is a great
exercise in the art of story-telling. Which leads me on to . . .
2. Cut
like crazy. Less is more. I've often read manuscripts – including my
own – where I've got to the beginning of, say, chapter two and have
thought: "This is where the novel should actually start." A huge amount
of information about character and backstory can be conveyed through
small detail. The emotional attachment you feel to a scene or a chapter
will fade as you move on to other stories. Be business-like about it. In
fact...
3. Treat writing as a job. Be
disciplined. Lots of writers get a bit OCD-ish about this. Graham Greene
famously wrote 500 words a day. Jean Plaidy managed 5,000 before lunch,
then spent the afternoon answering fan mail. My minimum is 1,000 words a
day – which is sometimes easy to achieve, and is sometimes, frankly,
like shitting a brick, but I will make myself stay at my desk until I've
got there, because I know that by doing that I am inching the book
forward. Those 1,000 words might well be rubbish – they often are. But
then, it is always easier to return to rubbish words at a later date and
make them better.
4. Writing fiction is not
"self-expression" or "therapy". Novels are for readers, and writing
them means the crafty, patient, selfless construction of effects. I
think of my novels as being something like fairground rides: my job is
to strap the reader into their car at the start of chapter one, then
trundle and whizz them through scenes and surprises, on a carefully
planned route, and at a finely engineered pace.
5.
Respect your characters, even the minor ones. In art, as in life,
everyone is the hero of their own particular story; it is worth thinking
about what your minor characters' stories are, even though they may
intersect only slightly with your protagonist's. At the same time . . .
6.
Don't overcrowd the narrative. Characters should be individualised, but
functional – like figures in a painting. Think of Hieronymus Bosch's Christ Mocked,
in which a patiently suffering Jesus is closely surrounded by four
threatening men. Each of the characters is unique, and yet each
represents a type; and collectively they form a narrative that is all
the more powerful for being so tightly and so economically constructed.
On a similar theme . . .
7. Don't overwrite. Avoid
the redundant phrases, the distracting adjectives, the unnecessary
adverbs. Beginners, especially, seem to think that writing fiction needs
a special kind of flowery prose, completely unlike any sort of language
one might encounter in day-to-day life. This is a misapprehension about
how the effects of fiction are produced, and can be dispelled by
obeying Rule 1. To read some of the work of Colm Tóibín or Cormac
McCarthy, for example, is to discover how a deliberately limited
vocabulary can produce an astonishing emotional punch.
8. Pace
is crucial. Fine writing isn't enough. Writing students can be great at
producing a single page of well-crafted prose; what they sometimes lack
is the ability to take the reader on a journey, with all the changes of
terrain, speed and mood that a long journey involves. Again, I find
that looking at films can help. Most novels will want to move close,
linger, move back, move on, in pretty cinematic ways.
9.
Don't panic. Midway through writing a novel, I have regularly
experienced moments of bowel-curdling terror, as I contemplate the
drivel on the screen before me and see beyond it, in quick succession,
the derisive reviews, the friends' embarrassment, the failing career,
the dwindling income, the repossessed house, the divorce . . . Working
doggedly on through crises like these, however, has always got me there
in the end. Leaving the desk for a while can help. Talking the problem
through can help me recall what I was trying to achieve before I got
stuck. Going for a long walk almost always gets me thinking about my
manuscript in a slightly new way. And if all else fails, there's prayer.
St Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers, has often helped me
out in a crisis. If you want to spread your net more widely, you could
try appealing to Calliope, the muse of epic poetry, too.
10.
Talent trumps all. If you're a really great writer, none of these
rules need apply. If James Baldwin had felt the need to whip up the pace
a bit, he could never have achieved the extended lyrical intensity of Giovanni's Room.
Without "overwritten" prose, we would have none of the linguistic
exuberance of a Dickens or an Angela Carter. If everyone was economical
with their characters, there would be no Wolf Hall . . . For
the rest of us, however, rules remain important. And, crucially, only
by understanding what they're for and how they work can you begin to
experiment with breaking them.
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