|
WRITE AWAY - EXCERPT - PREFACE
Baby
Steps First
Creating characters is rough. Sometimes I think I have nothing new to
say about anyone. I worry that I’ve already created these people before,
in one book or another. . . The truth is that we can only write about
that which we understand or have experienced or can project ourselves
into, and I have been more skilled than a lot of other writers at doing
this latter trick. But my personal experience has been limited. . . So I
wonder if I 'm capable of truly delving into the human heart and mind.
Anyway, all I can do is my best. I can take the necessary steps one at a
time. And that’s it.
Journal of a Novel,
June 8,2001
Every writer has to develop her
own process: what works for her time and time again. Having no process
is like having no craft. It leaves you dangling out there over the
abyss, a potential victim of writer's block. Having no process puts you
at enormous risk because writing becomes a threat instead of a joy,
something that you are terrified to begin each day because you are at
the mercy of a Muse that you do not understand how to beckon. If I had
no process and no craft to fall back on, I would be paralyzed with fear
every morning and, frankly, I see no fun in that. Because I have both
process and craft to guide me, I approach my daily writing with
anticipation, joy, and delight. Really.
I cannot force my process upon you, however. What I can
do is tell you what it is, what I believe about it, and how it works for
me. Your job is to discover your own process by trying this, that, or
the other: whatever feels right to you over time. (Note that word
feel again. Your body will tell you when you're doing what's right
for you.)
So what follows is the process I use when I'm writing a
novel. These are the essential steps that I've developed for myself over
the creation of twelve books.
I don't begin until I have an idea. But this idea is
more than just a glimmer, more than a potentially evanescent wisp of
inspiration. For me, what the idea is is a complete thought that
contains one of three elements: the primary event that will get the ball
rolling in the novel, the arc of the story containing the beginning, the
middle, and the ending, or (and please note that word or) an intriguing
situation that immediately suggests a cast of characters in conflict. If
I have one of those three elements, I have enough to begin.
Consider the story idea for my novel In the Presence
of the Enemy. I knew I wanted to write about a kidnapping because I
wanted to see if I could tackle the challenge. I needed a high-profile
kidnapping in order to involve my Scotland Yard crew. .I chose to kidnap
the child of a Member of Parliament because the other apparent choices
for a high- profile kidnapping (like a member of royalty or the child of
a well- known entrepreneur) didn't excite me and because I'd not yet
written about Parliament. Thus I had the chance to learn something new
in the course of writing the novel, which always energizes me. So my
story idea bee: "This is a novel about the kidnapping of the child of a
Member of Parliament."
This was well and good because it continued two of my
three requirements for a story idea: primary event (kidnapping) and an
intriguing situation suggesting A cast of characters (if we have a
kidnapping, we must also have a victim, a kidnapper, the relatives of
the victim, the police, the suspects, etc.). But since I wanted to in
the novel some of my continuing characters who are not police
professionals, I had to add to the initial idea a reason why the police
could not be involved at first in order to involve my nonprofessional
investigators.
Why then, I wondered, would the Member of Parliament
not want the police involved since, certainly, she could -- by virtue of
her position in the Government -- call upon the best police officers the
Met had to offer? Ah, I thought. If the child was illegitimate and if
the identity of the father of the child was a secret that could destroy
the career of the M P should it be revealed . . . Now I had something
that felt even more exciting to me than the kidnapping alone,
Consequently, the idea became: "This is a novel about the kidnapping of
the illegitimate child of a Member of Parliament,"
What was good about this idea was that it immediately
prompted a number of questions that I had to answer before I could
write. Those questions and their answers created for me the next step in
my process: the expanded story idea.
The most obvious question to me was not "Who is the
kidnapper?" but rather "Who is the father of this child, the revelation
of whose name would destroy the career of the Member of Parliament?"
Answering this question and the questions that grew from the answer
expanded my simple idea into the more complicated story idea that
follows:
"The illegitimate daughter of a female conservative M P
(touted to be the next Margaret Thatcher) is kidnapped, The ransom note
is sent not to the M P but to the child's natural father, a married,
antigovernment, left- wing tabloid editor whose identity has never been
revealed by the editor or by the M P to anyone, The note he receives
says, 'Acknowledge our firstborn child on page one, and Lottie will be
freed,' which leads the father to realize that his (and the mother's)
most closely guarded secret is known by someone else. Because nothing
the police will bring in the media (who will in short order destroy the
M P's reputation in best British tabloid fashion) and because the M P
believes that the editor himself is behind the kidnapping in order to
bolster his newspaper's sales with a front-page confession of the affair
he and the M P once had, Simon St. James (This is my forensic
scientist.) is prevailed upon to get involved against his better
judgment. Big mistake. The child is murdered, which triggers the
involvement of the police. Next, the tabloid editor's legitimate
son is kidnapped and the ransom is the same: 'Acknowledge our first-born
child on page one.' The editor does this (to the M Ps furious protests
and to the tabloid-reading public's delight) but his son is not
released. Instead he receives a message saying, 'You got it wrong,'
Thus, he learns he has another illegitimate child, one older than the
kidnapped and murdered Lottie. This other child is the kidnapper,"
This paragraph answered all of the relevant questions
about the initial idea. It gave me the sense of direction I needed to
move onto the next step in my process: the research.
Return to Main Excerpts Page
Return to top |
|