Part 9 (2/2)

”These new shoes are not going to get broken in if I sit around the house.”

We had been married for three years when, one Sunday, Tom dressed, as usual, in a s.h.i.+rt and tie, slipped into his handsome jacket, put on his best cordovan shoes, and left the house without his pants.

What conclusion can the reader come to, that Tom suddenly went crazy? Or is this going to be a wacky comedy about an eccentric? Could Tom be so concerned abut something else that he forgot to put on his pants?

Readers are seldom interested in truly crazy people. It is hard to be moved by their actions because some seem so unmotivated. It is not credible that someone, otherwise all dressed up, would forget to put on pants before leaving the house. We are left with the possibility that this is going to be a farce in which actions are not required to meet any tests of credibility. If this were a story about an eccentric who behaves unpredictably, Tom's strange conduct would require planting. If Thomas's action is not to seem ludicrous, he would have had to have been characterized as someone who could do something as zany as going out dressed up without his pants. Readers will not readily accept the unlikely. Can this character's action in going out without his pants be made to seem credible? Can Thomas's aberrant act be prepared for so that it will seem credible when it happens?

Think of ”planting” as preparing the ground in a garden: Tom and I had been married for three years when, one Sunday, he dressed, as usual, in a s.h.i.+rt and tie, put on a handsome suit and his best cordovan shoes, but forgot to put on his socks.

I decided not to say anything, but the next Sunday he dressed in the same handsome suit, put on his socks before he put on his cordovan shoes, then tied his tie over his unders.h.i.+rt and left the house before I could catch him.

I said nothing. But the third Sunday, he remembered to put on a s.h.i.+rt before putting on his tie, then put on a handsome jacket, and left the house without his pants. I thought I'd better speak to him.

This revision is funnier, and more credible despite the zaniness of the action. Thomas's forgetfulness was planted.

The worst mistake that a story writer can make is to have unconvincing motivation for actions that are central to the story. A married engineer with a well-paying job notices a momentarily unattended carriage in a supermarket and kidnaps the baby. What is the reader to think?

The reader has to guess. Is the engineer childless and desperate? Does his wife refuse to have a child? Still, kidnapping is a contemptible act for which the punishment is severe. What in the engineer's background would have made it possible for him to pick a stranger's child out of a carriage and take it away? How does the man's wife react when she learns of the kidnapping? When he is apprehended, what excuse does he give? There are too many unanswered questions, which makes the reader feel that this comes across as a ”made-up” story that the events described didn't happen. Clearly, the kidnapping of a child is a major action that must seem motivated at the time that it takes place.

Coincidence is enchanting when it happens in life. A friend we haven't seen for years walks out of the same darkened movie house as we do, we go for a coffee together, and have a gabby reunion. If this happened in a story, the skeptical reader would say that the author is responsible for the coincidence and that it isn't believable.

Here is an example of how to diminish the appearance of coincidence: Problem: Sally and Howie are ex-lovers who have not entirely gotten over each other. The author has arranged for Sally to run into Howie in the shopping mall. The reader smells coincidence.

Solution: The reader learns that Sally has been avoiding a particular store she and Howie used to shop in because she's afraid of meeting Howie there. But Sally wants something at that store-and no other store in the neighborhood-carries. Before entering the store's revolving door, Sally peers through the window to make sure Howie isn't in there. She goes in, finds what she wants, and hurries to the revolving door, a smile on her face, only to see Howie in the other compartment of the revolving door on his way in. They both register surprise, then laugh.

A coincidence still? Yes, but the way the author arranged it with detail-the special store, Sally peering in to avoid Howie, the revolving door-all help to make their coincidental meeting a true surprise.

There are many other ways of diminis.h.i.+ng coincidence. For instance, a third character can arrange for Sally and Howie to meet ”accidentally” at an event staged by the third character.

The most dangerous place for a coincidence to occur is at the climax of a story. The protagonist has his head on the chopping block. Suddenly the deus ex machina, the G.o.d in the machine, comes down for the rescue. Those devices fool no one. They exist for the author's convenience because he can't figure out a credible way of rescuing the protagonist.

It is so difficult for a writer to gain objectivity about his own work, and in no area more so than in judging coincidental matters. I'd like to offer a peculiar strategy that seems to work. You can sometimes get objectivity artificially by making a new t.i.tle page and replacing your name as author with the name of an author whose work you admire especially. Then read your ma.n.u.script with that author's eyes to see if you can catch any action that is insufficiently motivated or that smacks of coincidence.

If that doesn't work for you, try preparing a new t.i.tle page and replacing your name with the name of an author whose work you dislike. Go at the ma.n.u.script with a vengeance to root out unmotivated acts and coincidence. It's astonis.h.i.+ng what a change of perspective will do.

Above all, remember that the main actions of your work are like great flowering plants. Put the seed down well earlier and admire the harvest. Leave coincidence to the hacks and the G.o.d in his machine.

The secret snapshot technique is designed to help writers whose fiction doesn't touch the emotion of readers, who write from the outside looking in, whose stories are uninteresting to experience because they seem ”made up.”

The characters and themes that lie hidden within each author are the source of work that strikes readers as original and real. How do we jog the author to write from the inside, in touch with subject matter and feelings that will enable him to brush the reader's emotions?

I've used the secret snapshot method in individual conferences with writers and in seminars. In the latter, the author whose work is being discussed comes up front and sits in the ”hot seat.” The two of us talk. Everyone else is eavesdropping.

I ask the author to think of a snapshot of something so private he wouldn't carry it in his wallet because if he were in an accident, he wouldn't want a paramedic to find it. The snapshot we're looking for is one the writer wouldn't want his neighbor or closest friend to see. Not even a family member. Especially not a family member.

I call them snapshots because I prefer that the writer start with something visual. Some people jump to the conclusion that a secret snapshot is of something s.e.xual. Wrong. In practice many are not. In one that worked for its author, her snapshot was of a rose in a one-flower vase that was put on her office desk by someone whose ident.i.ty she never learned. In another, the author's snapshot was of an audience he addressed years ago. The image remained like grit in his memory because all the while he talked his undershorts kept slipping down. Later in this chapter I convey in detail how a writer of detective stories turned her book around successfully by a snapshot of her two-year-old sleeping in his bed.

Some writers squirm through the process, s.h.i.+fting uncomfortably in their seats. That's a good sign.

If your reaction to this exercise is ”my secrets are n.o.body's business,” that's understandable. But if you want to write something that will move other people, you have to come to terms with the fact that the writer is by profession a squealer. He learns by starting to squeal on himself.

If you're thinking that you may not have the courage to be a writer, I can tell you that's what most writers think when confronted with this a.s.signment for the first time. Few people have the natural ability to open themselves up to strangers. The writer learns how. One of the ways is to write down what you see in your most secret snapshot. If you're tempted to fudge, don't. If you've decided to give us a made-up snapshot, you'll serve your writing better by changing it to the snapshot you're hiding.

n.o.body's going to see it. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. What they will see is the result of your finding the right snapshot.

Is your snapshot such that any of your friends or neighbors might have one just like it? If so, change it to one that only you have. Your writing is going to be yours, not writing that could come out of anyone else's closet.

Do you think other people would want to see what's in your snapshot if they heard what's in it? If not, you'd better try another.

Please answer truthfully: would you carry that snapshot in your wallet or purse? If your answer is ”yes,” perhaps it's not so secret. The snapshots that work best are embarra.s.sing, revelatory, or involve a strong and continuing stimulus to memory.

If you're feeling, ”Hey, I didn't bargain for this, all I wanted to do was write stories,” I remind you that the best fiction reveals the hidden things we usually don't talk about.

The stories and novels that get turned down are full of the things we talk about freely- the snapshots in your photo alb.u.m that you show to friends, family, and neighbors. Readers don't want to see your photo alb.u.m. They have their own. They want to see what's in the picture you're reluctant to show.

You say, ”Why can't I start with other people's secret snapshots?”

You can. It's a longer route to success, but it gives you a chance to build your courage. A writer needs the courage to say what other people sometimes think but don't say. Or don't allow themselves to think.

If you elect to conjure up someone else's secret snapshot, it has to be one that you wouldn't be allowed to see under any circ.u.mstance. Can you describe that snapshot? What interests you in that picture? Would your interest be shared by lots of other people if the person involved were a character in your novel? If not, you'd better change the snapshot. Or improve it.

If you're stuck, try this. Everyone except liars has at least one person he truly dislikes, maybe even hates. What kind of snapshot would he carry that he wouldn't want you to see? Don't tell me the first thing that comes to mind. Maybe the second.

Would your enemy pay to keep you from seeing that snapshot? If not, try another that's really private.

How much would you pay to see a snapshot from your actual enemy? Nothing? Not much? Then it's not a good snapshot. If you'd pay to see it, maybe people will pay to buy your book.

Here's a snapshot you probably know. It's your best friend's secret snapshot. He or she may have confided in you about it. Or you may have guessed what it might be from a bit of evidence here and there. Or because of your insight.

While you're collecting other people's snapshots, how about one of someone you knew who is now dead? Does it make you feel safer?

This method may seem a bit offputting or uncomfortable at first, but experienced writers will tell you they love this exercise because they know how rewarding it can be. Probing secrets is a key to writing memorable fiction.

A writer submitted for my consideration the early part of what she hoped would be a thriller about the hazardous work of a policewoman who works as a decoy, pretending to be a hooker in order to trap a killer.

The students in the seminar liked the plot, but the story had not involved them emotionally. The author moved into the hot seat at the head of the table. The others all listened while I asked questions and she talked.

It became evident that the writer had been on a police force but no longer was because of something that had happened in her line of work. Interesting. But not as interesting as her revelation of what she felt was the worst moment of each day. It wasn't her hazardous work. It was when she tiptoed into the bedroom of her sleeping two-year-old son to pat his hair before going off into the night to work. That was her secret snapshot.

Hazardous conditions frighten us all. The possibility of premature death haunts our lives. The thought of not seeing a loved one again causes pain. And what love is as binding to a woman as her child, asleep in his innocence, his mother going off to a night's work from which she might not return?

In that snapshot lay the emotional root of her book. After our session, the writer started her novel with a scene in which the decoy was patting the sleeping head of her child before going off to her hazardous work. As a result, the tone of the book changed from an ordinary though suspenseful story told from the outside, to one readers could feel strongly. From that first scene, the reader wanted to say to the woman, ”Watch out! Be careful, come back to your child.” With every danger the decoy faced, the reader thought of the sleeping child. The reader, full of emotion now, read the novel not as an interesting plot but as a moving experience.

Soldiers have to be brave. So do policemen, firemen, miners, and construction workers who walk on the skeletons of high-rise buildings. Test pilots have to be especially brave because they are flying equipment that hasn't been flown before. Perhaps the bravest test pilots are the men and women who fly into outer s.p.a.ce. They see the earth differently than we do, as if they were people from another planet.

Writers who do good work learn to see things with the innocence of visitors from outer s.p.a.ce. Their bravest journeys take place when they fly into inner s.p.a.ce, the unexplored recesses in which the secret snapshots of their friends and enemies-and their own-are stored.

<script>