Writing at the Macro Level

A few posts ago I tried to make the point that a story needs to work in the big picture—at the macro level—before tweaking at the micro level will improve the book.

What brought this on was Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, which worked on the level of story despite many instances of what a lot of people point to and make the (not always) whispering accusations of “bad writing.” As I try to progress as a writer, I need to look for what works, and why. Then do the same thing in my own writing.

How can I do this?

First, by remembering that story trumps all. I knew this once; really I did. There might not be any original ideas out there, and following the “no -ly adverbs” rubric isn’t going to turn an idea (that other people have also had) into a kick-butt story (that only I can write).

What makes an idea a kick-butt story? How it’s laid out in the bigger picture. The stories I like the most have seemingly unrelated things come together in amusing ways as the story plays out. Trick me. Tease me. Do that first then I might care whether or not you used saidisms in your dialog tags.

I have written five novels, only one published so far. Each one started off by me writing whatever scene came to mind and seeing where it went, even if I had an idea of the overall picture. But then I do two things once I get to about 20,000 words.

First, I write a draft of the query letter and answer four questions: What does the main character want? What must he do to get it? What gets in his way? What happens if he fails? This will tell me if I’ve got enough of a story to go anywhere with.If I can't answer these, then I don't have a story (yet).

Then, I start an outline. I take all the scenes I have, and plug them into a numbered list in chronological order. Not only does this show me where the holes are, it often gives me an idea of how to fill them.

Great! So now I’ve got a kick-butt story, right? Not so right, and here’s where my abilities to describe the process come to an end. There is no way I can describe how to put in (what I think are) the clever twists I see in other people’s writing. Don’t get me wrong, I can do them, and I think I can do them well. I just can’t say how that process happens in a way that other writers might be able to benefit from. All I can say is know your story, and let your mind wander off the page long enough to let things settle down to where they want to be. Then get writing again.

Once I have a story that works on the macro level, then it’s time to obsess on the micro level “rules.” And not before. 

Of Love and Squirrel Hunting

The Story Behind the Story: The Battle of Hutchinson’s Crossroads.

I write contemporary novels and short stories, mostly. That “mostly” is a fairly recent development, and represents the occasional deviation I take in my writing. Such as my story in Big Pulp Magazine “The Battle of Hutchinson’s Crossroads,” which is a Civil War historical.

So what prompted this diversion from the modern-day, everyman mild tragedies I tend to gravitate towards? Squirrel hunting.

I bought a little black powder .32-caliber squirrel rifle from a pawn shop back in 1998. I had some fun with it, ruined my hearing a little more, and the furry woodland creatures slept warm and safe knowing I’d have a better chance of giving them a chest cold than shooting them. For real; I’d shoot and miss (of course), and they would sit and watch me while I frantically reloaded then miss again.

Being the poor shot I am and not into hunting anymore anyway, I decided to sell that little squirrel gun in 2011. One prospective buyer was a coworker, and as I stood in his office while he hemmed and hawed about whether or not he was interested, a story idea came to me: a young man in a Civil War battle fires his first shot. What was he thinking as he pulled the trigger? Was it a planned shot? Or was he caught up in the moment and didn’t recognize what he’d done until later?

I tried to put myself in young Stretch’s position. Having never been in combat myself, there is a large mental disconnect between my trigger finger and a man dying across a field. I imagine this isn’t quite so disconnected in real life. Or is it? I don’t know, but I imagined my character wondering if he would know which man he had shot once the battle was over. I imagined what would happen if he had the chance to find out.

I am a fan of old-school twist endings. Hopefully the story stands on its own without the twist, but the story felt incomplete without it. Twists are hard to pull off, and I’ve gotten mixed reviews on this one.

“Hutchinson” is the maiden name of the woman I was dating when I wrote the story. Yes, I wanted to do the lovestruck puppy-dog thing and dedicate a story to her. Hey, just be glad I didn’t try to write a poem. [There once was a girl from West Yorkshire/ and being without her was torture/ So I wrote her a tale/ it published without fail/ she’s marrying another for sure.]  [Yeah, good thing I didn’t write a poem, huh?] Living in Mississippi at the time, the Civil War is never far from collective memory. Brice’s Crossroads was a small battle north of Tupelo, and was a sound defeat for the North. So, the name of the battle was not hard to come up with.

One final little extra. In my novel Paper Thin, go to the scene with Phil’s funeral and pay attention to the names on the stones in the graveyard.

*Pout* How come HE gets to break the rules?

I recently got comments back from a beta reader who didn’t much like some of my writing style. I’m also reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods. I imagine my beta reader wouldn’t like much of his style either, as he does many of the same things I do.

Mr. Gaiman’s literary offenses?

1. Telling with an –ly adverb in a dialog tag when it’s clear from the context what the speaker intends.

“You know,” she said, helpfully, “that doesn’t sound good.”

This class of adverbs has a rough enough go of it as it is. I suppose it might be helpful (he wrote, consideringly) to differentiate from other intents, such as if she was scolding him. But from the rest of the conversation, she’s clearly not angry.

2. Interrupting a conversation with incidental actions. This happens several times in the book, and is a common outrage committed by Douglas Coupland as well. People are often stopping their conversations to let other people pass, usually with the narrator making some sort of observation on the interloper’s hair, makeup, clothing, odor, etc.

3. Filtering. Lots and lots of filtering in American Gods.

He could feel her lips on his, and they were warm and wet and living, not cold and dead, so he knew that this was another hallucination.

Time after time, the rules say that filtering, especially when done too much, distances the reader from the action. Wouldn’t it be better to say her lips were warm and wet and living, not cold and dead? And telling us that he knew it was a hallucination; how does that help us to know that he knew, and therefore we knew, when we could be told directly it was a hallucination? Would we assume he wouldn’t know without being told?

The list can go on. It does actually, to include observations by the characters of incidental details that don’t add to the story, to head hopping and telling us what a non-POV character is thinking, and lists of adjectives where people’s lips are warm and wet and living.

So how come Neil Gaiman gets to break the rules?

Well, first off because he’s Neil freaking Gaiman. But once upon a time Neil Gaiman wasn’t Neil Gaiman; or at least he wasn’t Neil Gaiman as we now know Neil Gaiman. Once upon a time he was a hopeful writer, putting the products of his imagination onto paper and hoping someone, somewhere, would publish them and people would want to read them.

My list above only includes items and the micro-level of writing. Why Neil Gaiman can get away with breaking the rules is that he works at the macro level in ways other writers (myself included) struggle to, and he does it in a way that keeps people reading.

What are the rules for the macro level? Only one that I can think of: Write a damn good book that connects all the pieces.

Would American Gods be a better book if the micro-level rules were followed? Wow, that’s a tough question. I can say, though, that my enjoyment of the book does not depend on how “well” it is written. Following all the microrules does not by itself produce a damn good book.