UP and DOWN

People tell me they could write a book but don’t know how. In my last posting, my bona fides as a novelist were clearly established and, based on this great track record, I’m going to tell you in one sentence the great secret of how to write a novel. MAKE IT UP AND WRITE IT DOWN.

I’ve read more books on how to write novels than anybody I know and probably more than people paid to tell you how to create the great American novel. The answer is always the same: UP and DOWN. For those of you that are among those included in the first sentence of this posting, you should already be at your work station and working right now. You’ve already made it UP so now write it DOWN.

You’re skeptical? Don’t be. If you really want to write a novel you have to have story. It could be a Tom Clancy knock-off, a bodice ripper, a private eye story, or, like mine, a story from history, whatever. Tolstoy went to a coroner’s inquest on the suicide of a young woman. It seems she threw herself under the wheels of a train after an adulterous affair ended badly. Voila: Anna Karenina. Hemingway went off to the Great War as an ambulance driver. Enough blood and gore to turn his stomach and he produced A Farewell to Arms.

I’m not advocating that you have an affair or join the marines and go off to Iraq. My point is that inspiration is all around us. It’s up to you. J.D. Salinger went to a museum and got an idea, and people are still reading about that little snot, Holden. I museumed too and wrote my novel, Au Revoir, L’Acadie, about ethnic tensions during the Great Depression.

How the bodice rippers do it is beyond me, but they do. And so could you.

The experts, those that have written books explaining the process, can’t make it any simpler or say it more clearly than this: MAKE IT UP; WRITE IT DOWN. You got your story from this morning’s newspaper. Eureka!

So now it’s down to business, and, as you write, you just have to figure out what makes it interesting to others. There’s where the experts come in. It really is just technicalities and tricks that great writers like Tolstoy, Austen, Hemingway, Dickens, Alcott, and hundreds of others have discovered and applied, and you can use them too. But not now; for now, just write your story down.

Obviously, the enemy is inertia. Hemingway, when asked how he went about writing a best seller, replied as any honest procrastinator would, “First you clean the refrigerator.” Okay, so you’ve cleaned the fridge, cut the grass, and put the dog to sleep. No more excuses? Go!

It’s as simple as that. UP and DOWN.

Remember your high school English class; write your topic sentence. Done? There, you’re already crawling, and, in future postings, I’ll describe more baby steps you can easily take. Goodness, before you know it you’ll be racing to the climax of that great novel. Your grandkids deserve pizza as much as mine; do it!

Remember: UP and DOWN. Till then,

Blog on!

Wild Bill