Well here we are again, at the beginning of a new manuscript.
So many options, so little time. These two constraints are both, of course, self-imposed.
Idea and story options – I'm never short on those. And time frame is important;
a quick, but well told, story shows in the writing. If I lose interest so will
my reader. Two little secrets: write fast and furiously on something you are
interested in. If you become bored so will the reader. Your reader will forgive
much – except boredom.
I have to my immediate right (as I pound away) more than
thirty books on writing (not including six dictionaries – some abridged - some
not, three thesauruses, an aged atlas, two books on quotations, one with
"last words of the great" on its spine, and a few on grammar and
punctuation. They expound on style, the art, the pain, the loneliness, and the
failures of writing. Don’t do this, don’t do that. Follow the leaden prose and
thick orders of John Gardner in
The Art
of Fiction and
On Becoming a Novelist
and you will soon turn to drink. Structure your stories like they were ancient
prophesies and you will have to swallow every word of James Frey and his
The Key. Hell, there are no "keys,"
only good stories. I get testy over all this. And to muddle the waters I'm
reading Elizabeth George's
Write Away,
a well-crafted book on one novelist's approach to fiction. I keep them near. As
in: Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.
They are all troubling, vexing, and confusing.
I start with an idea, and put it all in one sentence. Then
rework it until it sounds interesting; maybe twice the length of a tweet. This new
book will be the second in a series (first is in post production) so I have at
least the setting, the protagonist, his "Dr. Watson," and an idea.
I've found that a thriller/detective story needs to be economical – especially
in time frame, too long and the threads become strained, so be quick from start
to finish. Maybe a few weeks, maybe a month, longer gets tougher: too many days
to fill.
Then a quick outline begins, today on a large sheet of
butcher paper – I actually have a role of white paper 24" wide and 300
feet long, I mercifully don’t use the whole thing, just three or four feet; one
roll will last a lifetime. Thirty days (thirty columns in black marker) control
the pacing. This story will have its denouement around a specific date in time
– everything must be done by October 26, 1933, I post it on the right then push
left across the paper to the start. I drop in ideas along the timeline (some
will be used, others discarded), make notes, change colors of pens, never scratch
out an idea – maybe put a one line through it but leave it legible. I note
wants and needs – characters, information, places, threats, and especially
highs and lows of the story. It is chaos but a good kind of chaos.
After this exercise (which I may do again and again) I, like
a supreme being, create my characters that will populate this story. I look for
cool things that can be used, such as the name of the antagonist in this
pre-WWII thriller set in Chicago; it's Jager which is German for hunter – cool?
Other characters are formed, given histories, back-story,
they become real so when they die I will feel a loss – really and truly.
I don't do a lot of detail outlining, the day-to-day,
hour-to-hour stuff as Dan Brown must surly do. But I do write from beginning to
end (with occasional notes about the future). My research continues as I write
the manuscript from histories, photo books, and the Internet (which is getting
better and better for this sort of data mining). I keep notes in OneNote and in
Word. I print out what I need or copy out the text from a book; they all go
into a binder.
By this time my mind is whirling Dervish – actually more
like a blender on meth. I begin.
Here are the first 400 words of Chicago Jazz:
The limestone steps and
porch supported the front door’s frame and by way of the door the whole faded
street façade of the narrow wooden edifice of the near Westside Chicago
speakeasy. Every window had its shades pulled. Grotesque shadows of men and
women danced across the thin covering fabric, yet from the street their sex
indistinguishable. Their ghostlike forms flickered and jerked, alit within from
old cranberry glass oil lamps, on the thin translucent paper. A measured reedy
tenor saxophone moaned through a second floor window cracked an inch to let in
fresh winter air, all that escaped was a jazz laden thick, sweet, cigarette and
opiate fog.
The yellow taxi slid to a
stop in the slush at the foot of the steps to the grey tenement washed with the
pale light from a cracked streetlight. The first to leave the cab was a tall
angular man, formally dressed in a long black cashmere coat and black patent
leather shoes; his black fedora, with a wide black satin band, was pulled low
and hid his eyes in a shadow. His complexion had faded to a winter white and
his dark hair was cut tight behind his ears. His crisp and pencil thin mustache
was, like his nose, clipped sharp. His look favored a poor relation of the
actor William Powell. He reached, with a black kid gloved hand, through the
open car door and helped a lanky young woman exit who could have, under other
circumstances such as a cotillion, been mistaken for his daughter. Her long
silk stocking covered legs, the color of translucent alabaster, probed
tentatively toward the snowy sidewalk. Extracted, she pulled the borrowed mink
fur close to her chin; her faux diamond earrings and fitted jeweled cap
sparkled in the broken streetlight as the man helped her to the sidewalk. Only
the briefest black wisps of her stylishly cut black hair escaped. He paid the
driver through the window, took the girl firmly by the arm and escorted her up
the limestone steps to the paneled oak front door framed by two gas fired red
glass sconces. She nervously looked back at the street and the escaping taxi
and then turned and watched as he pushed a black button. A series of buzzes
could be heard through the open transom high over the door. More billows of the
sweet smog spilled from the tilted window like fog escaping over a mountain.
“You will love it my dear,”
the gentleman offered as he whispered in the girl's ear. “This is where the
good times are, all the jazz folks and finer people come here. You’ll see.”
More later . . . . . . .
