WHERE IS THE STORY?

I'm rewriting an old unfinished novel called THE PAINTED SUN.

What I usually do, when I start a novel, is begin with the voice of a narrator in my head, or an image, or a character, without knowing where I am going. It's a matter of exploration, following the characters, letting the voice lead the way. But sometimes, too often, no story emerges.

With "The Painted Sun," I started with a man in real life, a guy who lived across the way in back, on the next street. I could see him from my deck, over the tops of two garages. He looked about 60, and was lean and muscular, unusually fit for a man his age. No fat on him.

Gray hair, a thick mat of curly hair on his chest. He would come out onto his second-floor balcony and look around, shirt off, like a man who was under house arrest, or waiting for something, or someone. He wore well-cut gray slacks. Not a bum.

He never seemed to go anywhere, and I never saw anyone come to visit him. So of course my fantasy was that he was a retired hit-man waiting for his next job.

I didn't want to meet him, didn't want to know anything about his real life. It would spoil my fantasy.

So anyway, as novels do, this character evolved into an old horse trainer from Kansas, who was looking for his daughter who had run away ten years ago, when she was 16.

I followed the character and I guess you could say he led me astray. He comes to L.A. and meets a young woman who moves in next door. Her boyfriend beats her up and my guy rescues her and leaves the boyfriend with a broken arm.

What did this have to do with the daughter? Well, nothing. An interesting beginning, but leading nowhere. There was no story. He finds out the daughter went to Mexico with a rich racehorse owner who lives on a big ranch. Here I used a true story, told me by a friend, about an American girl who lives a racy and risky life on a big rancho.

But this novel of mine wasn't working. I wrote about 200 pages and found myself down a dead-end street with no action in sight. No consequences. No causal chain. No theme. What was this novel about? Who the hell knew?

I still like the main characters, so I'm trying to stir up a new pot of stew and see if I can create a situation or story problem or dilemma that will come alive again and lead me somewhere interesting.

I have some ideas, and I have the feeling these characters are out there somewhere, and they are breathing, and waiting, chomping at the bit, waiting for the story to come along and sweep them away. Waiting for their next job.

Kind of like that old man on the balcony.

Wish me luck.

-- Roger

Copyright © 2012, Roger R. Angle

GORILLA 2

It takes courage to wrestle a big gorilla like my novel, but you also have to have a plan.

So I came up with an idea that seems to work, so far anyway: Cut the thing up into sections and make each section work.

Hurray, another breakthrough, apparently. (Don't count your chickens.)

I even named the sections, put titles to them, and it already seems to make it easier.

Whew, what a relief.

Now, we'll see how it goes.

So far, there are 11 of them. Easier to hold in your head than 46 chapters. Hope that makes sense.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

WRITING: RAISING THE STAKES

I think I've said this before: Writing is a series of problems that you try to solve the best way you can.

Hemingway said you never really master the craft of writing. You are always up against new problems.

My current perceived problem, which may or may not be the real problem, is keeping track of what is at stake and constantly raising the stakes, so the story builds.

In many of my favorite stories, the main character gets himself or herself into trouble trying to do the right thing. As he or she struggles to get out of trouble, they get in deeper and deeper.

An example might be a man in a rowboat who goes to rescue a pretty girl from sharks in the water. He gets there, but she is so scared she turns the boat over trying to get in.

Dum-dee-dum-dum. More danger, for them both. This is a story hook, a melodramatic example, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I felt bad writing so much about Che Guevara and thought I'd do a post on my novel, which is going well. I'm on Page 183 of "The Prince of Newport," and I'm pretty happy with it. But I haven't gotten to the hard part yet. I'm not sure what to do with a character named Isabella. Hmm.

Another problem I've had is deciding how much to show of the main character's inner thoughts. My favorite writers do a seamless job of presenting both the external and internal world at the same time. It isn't easy.  

Anyway, back to work. Next, Chapter 12, where I bring in a new character, Derek. 

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

ANGER IN CHARACTER

Now I'm on Page 157, writing my novel, The Prince of Newport, and I realize that I wasn’t taking my characters seriously enough. My protagonist Link thinks the antagonist, Walker Lang, killed his friend Jeannie, whom he loved.

I was forgetting that and allowing Link to joke around with Walker, not to put him at ease, but just because I forgot his anger and fear and suspicion. I got to thinking that the character feels the same way I do. I could learn something from the pop-fiction writers in this regard. Their characters are usually very consistent.

When the character is angry, he needs to stay angry, I think, until something happens that changes his state of mind.

BTW, this novel is going fairly well, although my eyes get tired staring at the monitor all the time.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

WRITING LOG - PRINCE OF NEWPORT - Page 159

I'm going to try something new today--a writing log, about what my writing problem is today and what I do to solve it.

Writing a novel for me is not only trying to write well, line by line, it's also solving a series of problems. Who is the main character? What is his problem? How does he solve it? What is the problem in this scene?

As my old writing teacher Oakley Hall used to say, there are long lines and short lines in a novel. In other words, there are little problems and big problems to solve. 

Today, I'm on Page 159 of The Prince of Newport, a mainstream novel with crime elements. This is about the 20th draft of this novel. It's a complete rewrite of a novel my old agent, Eric Simonoff, would not represent. It used to be called The Garden of Bliss. This time, the good guy is more sympathetic, and the bad guy is more despicable, which is something Eric wanted. In a way, it's more fun.

The characters include a scary con-man (like two men I worked for many years ago, only much more dangerous), a young reporter (as I once was), and several interesting women, most of whom the con-man has seduced. 

So it's a power struggle, truth vs. lies, good vs. evil, weak vs. strong, a man with little physical strength but with truth on his side against a ruthless, tough man who will do anything to win. So it's a contest. Much like the UFC, I suppose, only with a larger setting and more at stake.

Hmmm. Sounds good to me. Let's see how it goes. More later. 

-- Roger 

(Below is a link to one of my favorite stories.)

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

(Link:)
http://www.randomhouse.com/boldtype/contest/0999/sstory1.html

HEART AND SOUL

Now that I am apparently over my computer virus, I can once again focus on the novel I am writing. It got screwed up, but I think it's OK now.

Since I've been back at the actual writing again, yesterday and today, I think I've found the center of the story, the theme or premise, which is its heart and soul.

This premise has to do with a core belief of mine, and I don't want to say what that is, for this novel. I want to work it out in the book first, and I'm only on Page 115.

I always think a story has to have a premise, in Lajos Egri's terms, and the premise should be something you truly believe. You have to prove it in the book, and that is easier to do and more meaningful if you really believe it. (This is different from Hollywood, seems to me. And different from most pop fiction.)

To explain how the premise works, let me use an earlier novel, "The Disappearance of Maggie Collins." The premise was, The perversion of love brings destruction and death.

The main character was a killer who became a monster because of his demented mother who abused him. It was her way of expressing "love." So when he grew up, he expressed "love" by kidnapping a woman and holding her captive in a kind of home-made dungeon.

This all seems pretty routine now, but 20 years ago, when I started the book, it didn't.

Anything supporting or developing the premise went into the book and anything that didn't went out. This method became a good way to organize the writing and keep it on track.

Anyway, I think I have found the center of the new book I am writing now. Of course, this new one is different from the old one, but the center seems to be working, holding the story together and keeping it on track.

We'll see how well it works. I've only got 500 or 600 pages to go.

As always, wish me luck. If it was easy, anybody could do it.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle

NOVEL TROUBLE

Novels always give you trouble. Right now, I'm about 90 pages into the current rewrite, and it doesn't seem suspenseful enough or mysterious enough.

For suspense, you need to have dramatic questions that drive the story. For a sense of mystery, you need to have important things that need explaining.

I'm feeling like I don't have enough of either one, so I'm introducing a new character who is going to go up against the scariest character I've ever invented and see what happens to him. He's just a college kid, too. Poor guy.

I think of Hamlet, who comes home to find his father dead and his uncle married to his mother. He suspects his uncle killed his father. Dum-dee-dum-dum.

Raymond Chandler said that when he had trouble, he would just bring in a new character with a gun in his hand. This may be just the opposite. A gun implies power, and this kid has little of that.

Wish me luck. And him, too.

-- Roger

© Copyright 2011, Roger R. Angle