Writing a Novel or Short Story? Sweep Your Readers Away!

What are your three favorite novels?

Literary agent Donald Maas asks prospective writers this question in Writing the Breakout Novel. Maas says that “a great novel is like a great love affair” because it’s so vivid and intense, and leaves you with a lifetime of memories. Your three favorite novels will be like this. One way or another, they will sweep you off your feet with larger than life themes, characters or settings.

If you’ve read The Lord of the Rings or, more recently, seen the feature films, then you know what Maas is talking about when he says: “Probably all of your favorites are novels that swept you away, whisked you into their worlds, transported you to other times or places, and held you captive there.”

The world must be convincing, writes Maas. When I read such movels as The Lord of the Rings, The Night Circus, The Tiger’s Wife, The Shadow of the Wind, and The Prince of Tides, I feel that I am in a real place—even if it flowed completely out of the writer’s imagination like Tolkien’s Middle Earth. Whether it’s the remarkable scenery in Peter Jackson’s films or the descriptions of the Shire and Mordor in the original books, The Lord of the Rings definitely transports readers to a place that’s very different from their own neighborhoods and their morning commutes to work.

More Than Name Dropping

When languages are taught through immersion techniques, students are plunged right into them rather than trying to learn by making lists of handy phrases and frequently used nouns and verbs. Likewise, place settings in novels work best when the author imagines a fictional place (or remembers an actual location) and figuratively stands in the middle of it while telling his or her story.

Sadly, I have seen a fair number of stories set in exotic locations fall a part because the author gave me no sense of being there, opting instead to resort to name dropping. That is, s/he either picked up a guidebook to, say, Paris or Rome or London, and started listing the names of famous streets, restaurants, and tourist attractions.

Or, perhaps s/he looked at the travel itinerary from a recent trip to that place. This is the easy way out and it doesn’t really work because it’s really just a laundry list of words that will give readers a lightweight impression of an exotic locale without taking them there.

When I traveled to Europe many years ago, I used an earlier version of a Frommer’s travel guide. It kept me from getting lost and reminded me of some great places to visit that I may have otherwise forgotten. For a writer, such a guide is beginning. By itself, it’s not the kind of source book you need to transport either your characters or your readers into the place where your novel or short story is set.

In his comments about Jan Morris’ book Destinations in a feature article that appeared in The Telegraph last fall, Pico Iyer wrote: “Suddenly you’re not just seeing but hearing, feeling, sensing Washington,  Panama, South Africa, as they look today but also as they may seem a hundred years from now. How many writers have been able to take a place and weave a thousand details and feelings and moments into a single near-definitive portrait, which almost seems to stand outside of time?”

This close-up love of a place that reaches all the senses is what the novelist needs if s/he hopes to sweep readers away. When the story is told from the perspective of a believable place, then perhaps the reader feels a bit of culture shock or jet lag when s/he stops reading and puts down the book for the night. S/he appeared to be sitting in his favorite chair or propped up in bed. In reality, s/he was in a faraway place and for a short while that place was more real than the reader’s real life location.

Getting Back to Your Favorite Novels

When you look at the characters, plots, themes and places in your favorite novels, it’s not for the purpose of mimicking them. As you consider what story you want to tell and just how and where you will tell it, your reasons for being attracted to certain novels are a clue to where your passions are. What inspires you? What stays on your mind long after a story has been told? When you know this, then you’ll be able to internalize your characters and settings in such a way that they will flow out onto the page with the power to sweep readers away.

–Malcolm

Post Script – Several Examples of Places That Come Alive

The Prince of Tides: “Behind us, the sun was setting in a simultaneous congruent withdrawal and the river turned to flame in a quiet duel of gold….The new gold of moon astonishing and ascendant, the depleted gold of sunset extinguishing itself in the long westward slide, it was the old dance of days in the Carolina marshes, the breathtaking death of days before the eyes of children, until the sun vanished, its final signature a ribbon of bullion strung across the tops of water oaks.”

The Shadow of the Wind: “As I walked in the dark through the tunnels and tunnels of books, I could not help being overcome by a sense of sadness.  I couldn’t help thinking that if I, by pure chance, had found a whole universe in a single unknown book, buried in that endless necropolis, tens of thousands more would remain unexplored, forgotten forever.  I felt myself surrounded by millions of abandoned pages, by worlds and souls without an owner sinking in an ocean of darkness, while the world that throbbed outside the library seemed to be losing its memory, day after day, unknowingly, feeling all the wiser the more it forgot.”

The Night Circus: “The ship is made of books, its sails thousands of overlapping pages, and the sea it floats upon is dark black ink.”

The Fellowship of the Ring: “The chasm was long and dark, and filled with the noise of wind and rushing water and echoing stone. It bent somewhat towards the west so that at first all was dark ahead; but soon Frodo saw a tall gap of light before him, ever growing. Swiftly it drew near, and suddenly the boats shot through, out into a wide clear light.”

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