Realisms

Every novel is a bargain with the reader – an agreement that says the author is going to package up and deliver certain types of descriptive detail, and in exchange the reader is going to accept it as a real world. It’s what we love more than anything else about the experience of reading fiction – that willing self-immersion in a made-up universe. Given the importance of sealing this literary contract, it’s surprising that readers are so flexible over what they’re willing to accept as ‘real’. By that, I don’t mean they’re willing to accept fantasy worlds as well as more familiar worlds. I mean they’re willing to accept rather vague and undetailed worlds as well as highly specific and detailed worlds. You could, no doubt, come up with numerous examples from your own reading to prove that point. But, allow me to focus on two books: It by Stephen King (the novel I’m currently writing about) and Killing Floor by Lee Child (the last novel I wrote about).

This may sound odd, but Stephen King’s novel, for the most part, comes across as ultra-realistic. You can open it at almost any page and find a passage that would make a very good case study of descriptive technique for a creative writing class. It’s specific but economical. It covers all the senses, but always focuses on the most evocative sense for a particular situation. One of the defining characteristics is the large number of popular cultural references. King gives us everything from TV shows to kids’ insults – the whole fabric of young lives in the 1950s. By contrast, as readers of my book on Killing Floor will know, Lee Child is very sparing with his description. The world of the novel feels thin, like a stage set. While the details are conveyed just as vividly as Stephen King’s, they are nothing like as varied or plentiful.

Don’t misunderstand me. Both writers are equally great. Their respective styles of realism are not indications of superior or inferior skill. They’ve simply made different creative decisions that affect their style of realism.

Those creative decisions are, to a large extent, determined by the genres that the two authors are writing in. In King’s case, he is telling a supernatural thriller story. Like many supernatural thrillers, it  contains elements of wild fantasy – stuff that is totally beyond our real experience. Strangely, that makes it necessary to first establish with absolute clarity, a world that closely resembles our own. If you think for a moment, you’ll realise that the episodes of supernatural horror in It would be much less shocking if they weren’t shattering a fairly humdrum world.

That’s the most obvious reason for King’s ultra-realism. There’s also a slightly less obvious explanation. Basically, King  needs us to empathise strongly with the main characters in order to get worried about them. Worry is an essential part of a good thriller. And one of the best ways of promoting concern for literary characters  is to show us how much we have in common with them. Most readers will see some TV programme or comic mentioned in It that they’re familiar with – even if it’s only the ‘Lone Ranger’. If they were born in the mid-twentieth century, they might even remember using the same kind of playground language as the kids in the novel. With that kind of kinship, it’s inevitable that we’re going to be anxious for them when they’re in peril.

The need to make us empathise as much as possible with each of the various fictional children is particularlyurgent because there is no one ‘hero’ in It. There are lots of characters whose thoughts we enter and follow for a while. Sometimes we barely get to know them before they die horribly. As a result, King does whatever he can to make us rapidly connect with them. That includes providing an in-depth guided tour of their popular cultural preferences as well as their physical and psychological environment.

Lee Child presents us with just one hero – Jack Reacher. Consequently, there’s nothing like as much personal detail supplied. We barely know five facts about his biography by the end of Killing Floor. It’s true that we receive a drip feed of information about his military skills throughout the novel, but those titbits are only ever provided to drive the narrative forward. Contrast that with the waterfall of colourful details that serve no narrative purpose in It. The evocation of Reacher is not only thinner than the description of the kids in It, but also a  less anchored in the real world. He’s not a superhero or a creature of pure fantasy, however. He’s a sort of  hybrid – a filtered, simplified and somewhat enhanced collection of human traits.

The world that Reacher inhabits has a similarly hybrid realism. It references familiar things, but only those things that can be exploited for their for symbolic resonance. The town of Margrave exists to make us reflect on aspects of wealth and power. The description of its semi-real landscape of political statues and posh suburbs is honed to achieve that effect. Lee Child deliberately withholds all detail that doesn’t contribute to it.

As you can see, different types of realism can serve different literary purposes. If you’re working on your own novel, think about the type of realism you’re evoking. Does it help to convey meaning or hinder it? Should you increase or decrease the level of detail? Have you thought about the particular types of detail you should be focusing on?

The No. 1 Obsession of Creative Writing Teachers

If you’ve ever attended a creative writing course of any kind, whether a short workshop or a degree programme, the chances are you’ve encountered a particular idea about ‘good’ writing. Obsession is probably too strong a description of this idea, but it’s not far off. It’s the idea that good writing must have a narrator with consistent viewpoint, and the viewpoint must be very closely associated with the consciousness of a character in the world of the novel – at least for a sizable section of the story.

Sound like gobbledygook? Let me illustrate this commonly taught notion with examples. In 19th-century novels, it was deemed acceptable for the narrator to float above the world of the novel like a god. So, for example, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens famously begins with the following sentence.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the season of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Three things strike one immediately about this.

1) The narrator is located in a specific period, but not the period of the novel’s events.
2) The narrator is very closely aligned with the author. He refers to ‘now’ – presumably the time of the novel’s writing.
3) The narrator adopts a sweeping overview of an entire epoch and an air of magisterial authority.

This kind of writing was all well and good in the Victorian period, say many creative writing teachers – a strongly hierarchical world in which people were willing to accept all sorts of authority figures – but not today.

Now my second example. It’s the first sentence of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 novel The Remains of the Day.

It seems increasingly likely that I really will undertake the expedition that has been preoccupying my imagination now for some days.

Again, three things stand out.
1) The narrator is a character in the novel talking about events that may form part of the story to follow.
2) The narrator is not authoritative. He is speculating that something will probably happen.
3) We are immediately immersed in the character’s consciousness through his distinctive vocabulary and phrasing. It comes across as long-winded and a little pompous.

This, we are told, is the modern conception of ‘good’ writing – writing that is suitable for a period in human history when authorities of all kinds have been thoroughly debunked.

This kind of thinking is so general that you can scarcely find a voice to question it among creative writing teachers – especially in universities. However, outside of the lecture room, authors of popular fiction have been busily getting on with narrating stories in a variety of different styles, selecting the tool that’s most suitable to their particular need.

A third example will illustrate my point – this time it’s the first sentence of It by Stephen King.

The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years – if it ever did end – began, so far as I know and can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain.

Here are my three observations about this third example of an opening sentence.
1) As with Charles Dickens’ narrator, Stephen King’s narrator is located in a specific period beyond the novel’s events, and looks back in order to give a sweeping overview. But, unlike Dickens’ narrator, he or she seems to have lived through the novel’s events.
2) It’s not clear from this sentence, but the narrator of It, like the narrator in A Tale of Two Cities, is not a character in the story. However, he or she is clearly not the author, given point 1 above.
3) Stephen King’s narrator, like Ishiguro’s, is not authoritative. He or she cannot be sure about the truth of the events.

So, what do we take from all this? Firstly, it’s clear that Stephen King is aware of the off-putting nature of authoritative voices for modern readers. He deliberately avoids giving the impression of an all-knowing, god-like persona. This is achieved by making the narrator part of the fiction, and giving them a specific viewpoint that imposes limits on their knowledge. However, in some ways, King’s narrator is highly reminiscent of the one in A Tale of Two Cities and other 19th-century novels. He or she is not in any way involved in the fictional action, and provides a sweeping overview.

Stephen King is clearly giving his narrator precisely the characteristics that best serve his storytelling. He is not afraid of breaking the taboo against narrators with a panoramic overview of the story. Furthermore, he is not afraid to change the narrator’s characteristics as the novel proceeds, if it serves the storytelling. For example, he allows the viewpoint to drift in and out of the characters’ heads (so to speak) with incredible rapidity.

This pragmatism is really only possible in popular fiction, away from the judgmental eyes of creative writing purists. And Stephen King pushes the range of narrative possibilities wider than practically any other author. That is why I have chosen to make It the next novel I’ll be discussing in the Popular Fiction Masterclass series.

Openings

It’s a fact of modern life that most literature is treated more or less like a throwaway commodity. Of course, people value literary experiences – a great novel can change the way people see the world. But, these days, they make their decision about the value of a novel increasingly quickly.

The publishing industry has been incredibly good at creating opportunities for people to start reading a book on impulse. It requires no investment of money to read a few pages using the preview feature on Amazon, and if you’re a subscriber to Kindle Unlimited, you can read as much as you like without paying anything on top of your monthly subscription. This kind of thing has made us voracious starters of books. But it has also made us ruthless abandoners. As a result, it is more important than ever for authors to grip their reader from the word go.

To grip a reader at the start of a novel you need to think on three levels: first sentence, first paragraph and first chapter. Below I’ve provided tick lists for each level, trying to make them as relevant as possible for all genres of popular fiction.

Sentence

  • The first sentence should launch straight into action that is appropriate for the genre.
  • It should not be dialogue or description.
  • It should have an emotion associated with it that relates to the emotional journey you will be giving the reader – that could be fear for a thriller or loneliness for a romance, for example.

Paragraph

  • The first paragraph should not be about waking up or walking into a room or other such inconsequential transition moments.
  • It should introduce the main character.
  • It should set the tone of voice – this is a big part of what readers get hooked by.
  • It should evoke a problem or challenge that is appropriate for the genre, although it doesn’t have to be the one that’s going to preoccupy the main character long term.
  • If it doesn’t directly relate to the challenge that will preoccupy the main character long term, it could foreshadow it.

Chapter

  • Forget prefaces – they are a way of avoiding starting the story.
  • Forget retrospective episodes as this will misrepresent the novel to potential readers; try to carry out exposition more subtly.
  • By the end of the chapter, your reader should have fallen in love with the main character.
  • The first chapter should at least suggest the nature of the main task or problem that will preoccupy the main character.
  • Try to end on a cliffhanger – in other words, leave questions in the reader’s mind.
  • Ebook – Write Like Lee Child

    Hot on the heels of the paperback edition, the ebook version of Write Like Lee Child has appeared on Amazon.

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    Just like the paperback, it contains a link that allows you to download a free set of exercises.

    I like to think of my Popular Fiction Masterclass books as a sort of sketching class – in other words, the equivalent of the traditional education that art students undertook in past centuries. They would patiently sit in front of Greek and Roman statuary in the galleries of Europe, drawing the great works of the past. The idea was to learn all the gestures and techniques that made for great art, and then apply them in your own original work.

    That’s what you will be doing when you work through the book Write Like Lee Child and complete the creative writing exercises. At the end of the process, you’ll have a deep understanding of how the amazing Jack Reacher novels work, and you’ll have a whole load of material that will feed directly into your own novel, including a well-worked-out plan.



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    Launched!!!

    At last, publication day is here for Write Like Lee Child, the first book in the Popular Fiction Masterclass series.

    The paperback is on sale right now.

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    And the ebook will be available in a day or two, so keep an eye on this blog for an update.

    I first trailed the book a long time ago, and I’d hoped to have it published sooner, but, believe me, there were a whole load of obstacles to overcome in the publication process. More about that in a future post. Right now I’m just absolutely delighted to see it in print, and I hope you’ll check it out.

    Remember, you can get a 35-page book of writing exercises absolutely free if you buy Write Like Lee Child and then sign up for my email newsletter. Used together, the book and the exercises will not only give you a deep understanding of what lies behind the amazing Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child, they’ll also leave you with a detailed plan for your own novel and give you experience of using key stylistic techniques.

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    Whodunnit?

    Think of your favourite crime novel. Is it a whodunnit, a whydunnit or a howdunnit? We assume that whodunnits are the be-all-and-end-all of crime fiction / crime cinema, but that’s far from the truth. Some of the most well-known novels and films fall into the other two categories.

    Afterthought on Killing Floor

    A couple more insights gleaned from my analysis of Killing Floor by Lee Child.

    1) The chapters nearly always begin where the last one left off. The result is an unbroken flow of action. Is this intended give the reader a more movie-like experience?

    2) The number of scenes in each chapter increases as we approach a dramatic climax. But at the climax itself, there is a single long scene that takes up most of a chapter.

    Jack Reacher

    The Jack Reacher novels by Lee Child are a phenomenon. They shoot up the bestseller charts like a rat up a drainpipe as soon as they’re released – I always have them on preorder. So what the hell makes them tick?

    Most critics agree that their stellar success is largely down to the highly charismatic hero, Jack Reacher. It’s certainly difficult to imagine a more mouth-watering premise for a character – a retired US military policeman who wanders the world, applying his own rough justice, armed only with a toothbrush. He personifies the kind of freedom and integrity that most of us aspire to, and readers love to spend 400 pages in his company.

    Unsurprisingly, these mega-successful thrillers have spawned an army of excellent imitators: Mark Dawson’s John Milton novels and Stephen Leather’s Dan ‘Spider’ Shepherd series are personal favourites of mine. They’ve also found their way to the silver screen – unfortunately with Tom Cruise hopelessly miscast as the giant ex-soldier.

    I’ve read most of the Reacher novels over the years, but recently I decided to go back to the very first in the series, Killing Floor, to try and identify some of the key success factors. I surprised myself by finding a whole load of techniques that I hadn’t noticed the first time I read it – Lee Child really does know how to make you turn the pages. I’ll be sharing the fruits of my analysis in a forthcoming book, but here’s a few insights to be going on with.

    1) The chapters are long. It’s a myth that short chapters make popular books. Really the narrative just moves along in a continuous flow with each chapter picking up where the last left off.

    2) Reacher is an anti-hero. That means his values hover somewhere between the sadistic villains and the whiter-than-white cops who often appear alongside him. That instability and uncertainty is fascinating because he is pulled back and forth between good and evil – like the rest of us.

    3) Reacher treats women with respect. Most readers of thriller fiction are women.

    Character – Something to Try

    Character-based plotting workout …

    1) Take a secondary character from any novel you like. Imagine that the events of the novel never happened to them. What is the biggest challenge imaginable for that character? What would be required to give them an emotional response so big that it would carry them, and the reader, through the challenge?

    2) Using the character and situation you just imagined, create a sequence of 3 major events that would advance or hinder their progress in overcoming the challenge?