novel advised me to cut all the stuff about Detroit and go right to the story. Maybe that was a mistake?
Thursday, January 03, 2008
New Hope for the Dead
One of the pieces of advice that comes to beginning writers (especially those of crime fiction) is to refrain from too much description of setting or character. Dive right into the plot and stay focused on it. Maybe things were different twenty years ago, but one of the things I most enjoy about the three Willeford novels I have read is that he doesn't do that. The plot can take a long time to develop and he spends time on Florida real estate, politics, etc. He also spends time on Hoke's personal life. Does only a master get to break the rules or were the rules different then? What do you think? Early readers of my attempt at a
novel advised me to cut all the stuff about Detroit and go right to the story. Maybe that was a mistake?
novel advised me to cut all the stuff about Detroit and go right to the story. Maybe that was a mistake?
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I can't understand the whole body by page 3 adage. But I guess it depends on what you want to write. Entertainment? Page 3 is a must. Literary Genre? Develop the characters and build the story. I think of the books that have really impacted me and they build slowly. And I absolutely love the Hoke Mosley books.
Me, too. And the non-Hoke ones too.
Funny, most of the authors on my favourite list have a strong sense of place in their work. Rankin's Edinburgh, Lippman's Baltimore, Billingham's London, what Sallis does in the Turner series. I don't want something that goes off on tangents that are completely self indulgent and irrelevant, but at the same time, you need an anchor.
I just read a book and I had no idea where it was set. I don't even think it says. Toward the end you get some kind of clue, and maybe if I was American I'd recognize the other town names, or maybe they're made up. I don't know. Fell into one of my worst reads in recent years for other reasons, but that didn't help.
I ran into the same issue with my novel. I ended up cutting a lot of character backstory, which did slow the story, and even though I tried to put in setting, it didn't come out right... more like driving directions than setting, as one critiquer put it! At this point I'm going to need more concrete help on how to accomplish that, I think.
It's funny because what I ended up doing were things I had questioned in Theresa Schwegel's debut, Officer Down. I won't say "criticize" because I did like the book a lot - it was excellently written, just short on backstory, which surprised me a little. I found out later that she had cut most of it out for the sake of pacing. I do think it would've been a different story had she left it in.
All in all I think it depends on what the writer wants to do with the story, what she is trying to say, as much as how badly she's trying to sell it!
The agent who has read it said he'd like to know more about her childhood, so go figure. I am crafting him his own version and I like that version a lot but doubt other agents will. Again it moves it more toward a literary novel. Sigh. I love setting and those SR mentioned do it so well.
Well, pacing doesn't necessarily mean less. Each story has its own pace, but the trick is to find the appropriate pace for the story.
An example: an early cut of The Godfather (the movie, not the book) was about an hour shorter than the final movie - and it was supposedly excruciatingly slow, while the version that went to theaters, and into film history, tacked on that extra hour and the film flies by.
Another great example: the films of Victor Nunez (sorry about all the film references). RUBY IN PARADISE is nothing if not really deliberately paced, but the first time I saw that film I was so engrossed in the story that time just flew by.
The body on page three "pacing" is pretty superficial when you think about it. It's like George Lucas when someone said that his movies (before American Graffitti) were heartless and lacked any sympathy, he simply said that sympathy was easy, just film a puppy and then put a gun to its head. Superficial.
If I were an actual intellectual, instead of pretending to be one with the MFA initials after my name, I'd love to write something that compares film editing and pacing to writing techniques. Walter Murch wrote a fantastic book on film editing theory called IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE.
Ruby in Paradise was just wonderful. The director created a mood that allowed us to go anywhere with his character. I guess that's the key. Tone, place and character can do so much. Who needs plot?
And RUBY, the only good Ashley Judd film I've seen (but I'm going to see all of BUG any time now), has the oldest plot of them all...She learns better.
Too true. But that one makes up for a lot of lesser ones. Terrific ambience in the shop she works in.
I think that how much setting, and how it's put into a story, is going to be a somewhat personal preferance. Too many big blocks of setting description may turn off some readers, but not all. If readers feel there's too much setting, it may just be that it's interuppting the story. There may be just enough setting, but the plot stops to hear about it? Sometimes it's not what it is, but how's it's used.
And as I read farther into this book, I am amazed at how little crime there is and how much description of Hoke's home life and that of his female partner. I don't think you could get away with this 30 years down the road, but I love it. Hoke Mosley is one of the most clearly dilineated characters ever.
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