A journalist writing a novel

What's the biggest different between writing journalism and writing fiction?

Since the publication of Kill the Quarterback, I have been asked that question more than once.

For an old line journalist like me (when I started in the business, they still used typewriters and pastepots), writing a novel had one big advantage:

You could make things up.

I suppose I had always wanted to do that but, like every other good journalist, I had suppressed the urge -- suppressed it to the point of never thinking about it. My mind was imbued with accuracy, verification, getting the facts, finding out what really happened, points of view, getting direct quotations right, getting paraphrasing even more right.

That's what make journalism hard work. That's what gives it value.

But in writing a novel, I didn't have to worry about that so much. I had to be more-or-less accurate within setting and time period, but I could make sources sound like they should sound. I could make the "facts" what they needed to be to fit the story. I could even twist things around a bit and make people act out of character if I wanted to.

The other side of that coin, however, is the dilemma of every novelist:

You have to make things up.

As a journalist, if you are good enough, you don't have to worry much about how the story will come out. Get enough facts, information, quotations, et al, and the story will speak for itself. It ends where it ends. You don't have to go beyond that.

But as a novelist, you have to make things turn out a certain way. You have to resolve the major conflicts and story lines. You have to make it all fit with no gaps that even unclever readers will discover and inevitably point out. The reader, having suspended disbelief and invested some time, needs to be reasonably satisfied.

That's what makes fiction work. That's what gives it value.

______

The novel is Kill the Quarterback. Don't be shy. Buy a copy for yourself and a dozen more for your friends (here at Amazon). It's not about football.

Aristotle figured out the storytelling 2,300 years ago

An article in the March issue of The Writer magazine lays out what Aristotle thought about storytelling about 2,300 years ago. The article, written by William Kowalski, points out that the Greeks didn't have the novel, but they did have theater. From that, Aristotle decided to outline what he thought made a compelling story:

• All stories are made up of five elements: setting, character, plot, dialogue and thought (intentions/motivations).
  
  
• Plot is everything.
  
  
• Characters come second.
  
  
• Keep the audience interested by making reversals.
  
  
• Use discoveries to move the plot.
  
  
• The perfect plot is simple, not complex.

Kowalski adds some excellent commentary to each of these points, including this one:

By the way, was it smooth sailing once our ancient student of writing achieved the goal of all literary hopefuls -- publication, or in the case of dramatists, production? Not quite. "Because there have been poets before him strong in the several species of tragedy, the critics now expect the (writer) to suprass each of his predecessors," Aristotle intones.

In other words, 25 centuries ago, authors were already awaiting their reviews with butterflies in their stomachs. Some things never change.

(The Writer magazine article is not available online.)

Elmore Leonard: Rules for writing

• Lots of people seem to want rules for writing -- as if that makes the process easier. (It doesn't.)

Still, these rules make for interesting reading and are sometimes good reminders. They are the habits that writers should develop. Elmore Leonard works in the genre of fiction, but his rules are worth noting for any type of writing:

1. Never open with weather.

2. Avoid prologues.

3. Never use a verb other than said to carry a dialogue.

4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb 'said'.

5. Keep your exclamation marks under control.

6. Never use the word 'suddenly'.

7. Use regional dialects and patois sparingly.

8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.

9. Ditto, places and things.

10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.

These come from a site called Everything2, which is where a lot of the links above will take you, and there is a short explanation for each if you need explanations or examples.

Leonard likes dialogue to tell his stories and tends to think that everything else is extraneous. Not a bad approach.