On Writing The Breakout Novel

[elfs]

I'm posting this here because I know if I posted it to rasfc (rec.arts.sf.composition) a flamewar would break out, the composition and arc of which could be predicted as certainly as a Paris Hilton press spree. Anyway, one of the regulars there has posted about the book Writing the Breakout Novel, in which it is suggested you go to your own shelves and pick out three books you liked highly, and you will find the books all have the same characteristics (and by extention, any story you write should have these characteristics as well):

• The book takes you to an unfamiliar and somehow dangerous world,
• The memorable characters in the book are larger than life,
• What happens to the characters is unusual, dramatic and meaningful,
• The book is about something. It has an overarching theme.

The author then goes on to say that when he's looking for a valuable premise to a story, it has to have the following characteristics:

• plausibility
• inherent conflict (needs to be strong and difficult to resolve)
• originality
• gut emotional appeal

My first reaction upon reading these bullet points was straightforwards: Is there really anyone out there writing who doesn't understand this? That the story has to be interesting, and that includes both the characters and the setting? That the book has to be about something?

The other day I was sitting on the bus and watching the young man across from me. He was reading a book called Writing the Fire: Unleashing the Writer Within You or some such nonsense. I just smiled and wrote another thousand words.

Comments

[rapier.livejournal.com]

Heh, that guy might as well have been me. I'll do a thousand writing-related things before I sit down to write.

"Research," for instance. Yes, I just laughed when I wrote that. Let's say a story might peripherally involve a cavalry trooper in a world with 1870-ish technology (for instance). I feel insecure because maybe I don't know a lot about how a cavalry unit might operate, so I start to read and read about American cavalry equipment, tactics, operations, history, et cetera, in the late 19th century. I tell myself, "Maybe the story won't include all this stuff, but I want to at least know what I'm talking about and not write something totally unpractical or implausible and get laughed at by some theoretical reader who knows more than I do."

So I abuse what little writing time I allot myself for "research." Or tormenting myself over a single sentence, a single phrase, the right word. Or run some old paragraph from page 3 through the mill again, tightening it up again. But god forbid I actually "write another thousand words."

I'm a little envious. Can you tell?