Book #3 in the Mallory Caine, Zombie-at-Law series.
Lines I Wish I’d Written
I love writing that contains what John D. MacDonald described as “unobtrusive poetry.” I go for that in my own writing. I wish I’d written these:
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I’ve been in front of X-ray machines that didn’t get as close to the bone as that woman’s eyes. (Dan J. Marlowe, The Name of the Game is Death)
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The sun that brief December day shone weakly through the west-facing window of Garrett Kingsley’s office. It made a thin yellow oblong splash on his Persian carpet and gave up. (Robert B. Parker, Pale Kings and Princes)
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She sat up slowly, looked in turn at each of us, and her dark eyes were like twin entrances to two deep caves. Nothing lived in those caves. Maybe something had, once upon a time. There were piles of picked bones back in there, some scribbling on the walls, and some gray ash where the fires had been. (John D. MacDonald, Darker Than Amber)
5 Things Writers Must Do Every Day
Here they are:
1. Write
2. Think about what you wrote
3. Be nice to someone
4. Read something
5. Don’t whine
Are All Novelists Moral Philosophers?
I’ve been reading Ayn Rand’s writing reflections, The Art of Fiction. You may not know this, but she started as a screenwriter and playwright. This gave her an appreciation of structure, without which I don’t know that her success as a novelist would have been possible.
Anyway, in talking about theme, which she emphasizes, she makes the point (rightly) that any story is going to have a worldview (she doesn’t call it that), even one that seems to have no point…because that is a worldview, too. You can’t escape leaving something for readers to ponder. The only question is how well you do it.
According to Rand, all novelists are, therefore, “moral philosophers.” Some are just not very good philosophers (in that they haven’t thought through their themes enough to know how to integrate them to the writing).
I like what she says about proving the theme through action. It’s what the characters do, how they respond to or activate the plot, that proves the theme (or premise, as it is sometimes called).
Atlas Shrugged, BTW, is 640,000 words long. And every word is there to support her premise, because she absolutely knew what it was.
Her editor, Bennett Cerf, made the mistake of suggesting a bit of editing to her.
“You vould not cut zee Bible, vould you?” she said.
The book was not cut.
It still sells tens of thousands of copies a year, some 55 years after publication.
So does On the Road, BTW, which was published that same year, 1957. In part, I believe, because every word of THAT novel supports Kerouac’s premise that the point of life is the pursuit of “beatitude through experience.” Kerouac knew the premise without articulating it as such, in a Randian way. But he was feeling it all the way through the writing.
You don’t have to agree with the philosophy of a novel, Rand says, to appreciate the success or failure of the writer. She deems Sinclair Lewis a failure and Mickey Spillane a success.
Fascinating.
Feel free to respond via Twitter.com/kbennettbooks
More Demons, Less Filling
I love this tagline for THE YEAR OF EATING DANGEROUSLY, Book 2 in the Mallory Caine, Zombie at Law series. Coming February 7!
Some Writing Advice
“I’ve always believed the greatest rock and roll musicians are desperate men. You’ve got to have something bothering you all the time. My songs are good because … it’s like in art and love, hey, one and one makes three. In music, if it makes two, you’ve failed, my friends. You know, if you’re painting, if all you’ve got is your paint and your canvas, you’ve failed. If all you got is your notes, you’ve failed. You’ve got to find that third thing that you don’t completely understand, but that is truly coming up from inside of you. And you can set it any place, you can choose any type of character, but if you don’t reach down and touch that thing, then you’re just not gonna have anything to say, and it’s not gonna feel like it has life and breath in it, you’re not gonna create something real, and it’s not gonna feel authentic. So I worked hard on those things.” – Bruce Springsteen
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If you boldly risk writing a novel that might be acclaimed as great, and fail, you could succeed in writing a book that is splendid. – Leonard Bishop
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One needs natural talent, much physical energy (which calls for a strict regimen of diet and exercise), and the resilience to bounce back after the most shattering disappointment and frustration. – L. Sprague de Camp
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You have to evolve a permanent set of values to serve as motivation. – Leon Uris
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Get the motor running in the first three pages. – Sol Stein
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At every significant juncture in a story, consciously look at the situation from the viewpoint of every character involved – and let each of them make the best move they can from his or her own point of view. – Stanley Schmidt
