I have been known to go off about my commitment to and need for preparation. As a working novelist chasing deadlines, I hate when I accidentally go down the wrong direction for too long. I wrote my first book, Lowcountry Punch, in first person, then switched to third, then back again. In the early drafts, the second half of the story took place in Bolivia. Deciding to keep it in Charleston, I trashed forty thousand words. You’re damn right I learned a lot, but that book also took me a few years. These days, I don’t have such a luxury.
Or do I? Is that my fear talking? Am I taking myself too seriously?
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Now, if you’re just getting going with your first novel, digest my words knowing that I’ve been working toward breaking the rules for many years. I highly recommend you first study the art of telling stories. Read all you can find on the craft. And get curious about how the fiction you read works or fails.
Traditionally speaking, the way a budding storyteller should go after it is to create a sympathetic character who has a goal that he or she will achieve by the end of the novel. There will be complications in achieving it, and that’s the plot. Another essential element is that the character will grow during the pursuit of this desire. Stick to that and you can have a healthy writing career.
I’m a craft junkie. If there’s a book on writing, I’ve probably read it. That includes all screenwriting books too. For one, it’s so wonderful to see how other writers think. This is a lonely profession and reading books by other creators is like pulling up a stool at a bar full of them. I adore being a part of the conversation, finding my people, those drawn to words. I could talk about a semi-colon for an hour and be happy.
Aside from reading to feel less alone, I want to improve my craft. Even after publishing close to two million words, I want to keep growing. I love finding new tricks, new apertures to peer through. I especially cling to books on structure, maybe too much. My left brain, the guy who wrestles with fear, loves to seize control of a novel.
More than anything, I fight my obsessive rumination over the supposed importance of characters having measurable external goals. The vast majority of structure books harp on the idea. It’s far easier that way, for sure.
If you’re reading a book about an underdog football team seeking a title, then it’s clear what their goal is, and the reader can measure exactly when and if they succeed. The payoff is easily satisfying for the reader, especially in this day and age of shorter attention spans. But what about the folks reading and writing in my upmarket genre? (Okay, fine, some call it book club or women’s fiction. I’m still trying to find the right term, but for now, I’m okay with upmarket or high-impact—as coined by Donald Maass.)
My characters’ external goals often change throughout the novel. Or they might be balancing three or four that carry equal weight. Sometimes internal goals are the sole driver. I’ve wondered countless times over the years if that was okay, or if I was killing the momentum of my book. Why can’t I trust my instincts? What am I worried about?
I don’t want my novels to lack page-turning propulsion. Whether they actually do is up to the audience, but I assure you that giving my readers paper cuts is high on my priority list. Am I making it harder on myself as a writer by ignoring such a basic law of storytelling? Yes, maybe. Is that okay? Absolutely!
So many wonderful and successful novels are missing clear external goals. The proof’s in the pudding, baby. (Forgive the cliche, I couldn’t resist the low-hanging fruit. At least I’m self aware.)
I read The Dutch House by Anne Patchett a few years ago, and it was during a time when I was especially caught up in mulling over the necessity of goals. It’s about a pair of siblings wrestling with their past as they move through their lives. Please read it and tell me if you can name anything other than the most vague of external desires, like: learn to move forward despite their past. How dare her!
Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall is currently a darling of the New York pub world, an international hit, and a Reese book-club pick. Again, there is no external goal. Yes, there are desires. The protag wants love. She’s balancing men. She wants the court case to go a certain way, but the character doesn’t have a clear goal that guides her movements through the book in the same manner that a spy in a thriller series is trying to thwart the latest bad guy by the end.
My Friends by Fredrik Backman just won Goodreads novel of the year in the Fiction category. I challenge you to find a clear, measurable goal for the main characters. They’re damaged people growing with each other as things happen to them. It’s quite passive, actually. Okay, I suppose one of the goals is to reach the seaside town where Ted grew up, but it’s not a driver in the novel; it’s a way to create some movement while Backman explores the two characters’ psyches.
What we have in all the cases above—the elements that make us want to read—are captivating writing, wonderful characterization, and continuous clever story questions that tease our curiosity.
There are countless supporting examples, and the data proves to me that you don’t have to follow the rules. Especially once you learn them.
How about Jackson Pollack. Look at his earlier work—before he started slinging paint onto canvas like a madman. He was showing off deep skills with Picasso-esque paintings. And then he kept pushing to liberate his voice.
Write a book or three or ten by following what the great teachers suggest. Stick to one point of view, set one measurable external goal as the engine of the story, and make sure your sympathetic character gets it in the end. Most readers like for the character to realize their desire. As I get older, as a writer and reader, I enjoy when some of my characters fail, so long as there is still an arc.
But then, dear artist, stop doing what your mommy told you. Let instincts drive you. Remember that we are nothing more than storytellers carrying on a tradition that existed long before the written word. The only rule, at least in my head, is to captivate the reader. If they’re on the edge of their seat, who cares if you’re following rules? I’m not sure if anything matters more than simply being true to you.
For the record, seriously: abandon measurable external goals at your own risk. I have great luxury in that my readers give me a bit more slack (so far) in how I tell stories, in what they expect. I suppose they have more patience than the readers who only have time for a chapter or two a night as they’re climbing into bed. In that case, short chapters and one clear goal make reading in sleepy bursts far easier to follow.
I use the external goal example because it’s been the one that haunts me the most, the one for which I continually seek a final answer. And I write this piece, not as a teacher who has mastered the art of writing, but as a soldier also in the word trenches being fired upon by the enemy. I’m still trying to figure it all out. What I keep returning to is that to realize your potential, you must let the rules go. I’m like a child testing the boundaries of the family property each year; I go a little farther with each book.
In the project I just wrapped, which is set in Bologna and currently lacking a title, I have four main characters, all of whom carry equal weight in the story. Guess what. Three of the four don’t have a clear external goal. There are some vague goals, the “I want to be happy” kind. One character has no desire at all, other than to be left alone. But the story is working! I mean, let’s see if my readers enjoy it, but the experience of writing it was highly rewarding.
It’s dangerous to learn what you can get away with. I have ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), as diagnosed by my saintly wife, so I love doing the opposite of what I’m told. If I can get away with defiance, and if I can potentially elevate my creative game by leaning into resistance, then watch out!
I’m on my sixteenth novel now, the Maine island one, and Cara doesn’t have a clear goal right now. She has a few desires (keeping the truth buried, getting her daughter through her senior year, and finding a way to reset her stalled life), but she’s not consistently moving toward a specific goal in every scene. And it’s working, I just know it.
Okay, let’s move on. If I say the g-word one more time, I’m going to jab myself in the jugular with a pen. Here are other ways in which I’m letting my ODD run wild:
* The Hero’s Journey
You really do need to understand the ins and outs of the hero’s journey, as first presented to us by Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces. This structure is deep in my bones by now, and it’s going to leap from my fingers whether I like it or not.
But what’s interesting is that if you study Campbell’s vision versus those of more contemporary takes, such as Save the Cat or Into the Woods, where the three- or five-act structure and specific beats are also explored, you’ll see how craft books have narrowed the recipe. We’re told we have to hit certain beats at exact percentage spots in our story. We’re told the setup needs to be before the catalyst. What we may have forgotten is that Campbell didn’t quarantine us in such a way.
With my Maine island book, I started with Act II, so take that, book police. I jump into Act II in the first scene and then ease back into the setup and catalyst later. Who's going to stop me? Okay, if you bump into me in five years and I’ve hung up my career and now shoveling snow in Siberia, disregard all advice. It’s not even advice, really. This is me sharing my evolution—or devolution.
* Author Intrusion
I had editors early on who would steer me away from breaking the fourth wall, which is the invisible barrier that stands between the author and the reader.
But I love author intrusions! I actually had a cameo in my own book in An Echo in Time. Yes, I pulled the reader from the story, but I don’t care. The reader got to enjoy a little wink from the author. And if Tarantino can do it, so can I.
What about Anthony Horowitz in The Word is Murder? He’s written himself, the author and screenwriter, into the story as one of the main characters. But wait, he can do that! Um, yes he can, and it’s flipping awesome and creative…and he’s having fun!
Nelson DeMille wasn’t afraid to break the wall. I first read Plum Island when I was seventeen, and by the time I reached the end, I knew I wanted to take a stab at writing a novel. His John Corey character will say something absolutely ridiculous, something to get a rise out of the reader, but then Nelson would write through Corey’s internal dialogue: “No, I didn’t say that. What I really said was:” That is classic wall breaking, but it worked to great effect. I would laugh out loud, thinking, yeah, Nelson, I love having your lovely personality as part of the ride.
I’ll even slip into second person these days. I might write: You can’t imagine what it’s like to lose everything in your life, to watch it all burn. One of my more hardcore editors of yesteryear might suggest I write: One can’t imagine. The YOU pronoun, however, often feels more personal, kind of like I’m spinning a quick tale at the dinner table to friends. So sue me!
Mr. Horowitz does that too, by the way. You try spending four months on your own, he writes in the aforementioned novel, from the perspective of the protagonist, who is himself! Ha!
* Narrative Distance
As a younger writer, in an effort to stoke suspense, I used to sneak in some foreshadowing, something like: He would only realize later how much that decision would impact the rest of his life, but my editors would smack my wrist and say, “You’re leaving deep third-person. Your protagonist can’t know that information. You can’t do that.”
Oh, is that right? Maggie O’Ferrell, a writer of immense skill and talent, widens the lens from deep third to a limited omniscient point of view whenever she damn well pleases in Hamnet.
A couple of examples:
Unbeknown to him, he passed the maid, both his grandparents, and his older sister on his trip to the physician’s house.
It will lie at her very core, for the rest of her life.
Both full on breaks from deep third!
She might be stoking suspense, offering historical context, or simply painting a broader vision of the scene than the protagonist would be privy to. It all works! Is she allowed to? Who cares? But yes! She’s Maggie O’Ferrell, a writer’s writer drowning in literary awards. Hamnet soared to the top of the charts. And they just released a movie. In other words, if she’s doing it, then it’s green lights for you too.
While we’re at it, Mr. Horowitz does this too. You can bet I will no longer worry about forcing a fixed lens upon myself while weaving a tale—no matter who discourages it.
* Strikethrough
Here’s a potential lit crime I’m toying with now. In my book set in Bologna, I have a character named Harold, who's a real mess after being dumped. Foolishly, he decides that if he becomes an altered version of himself, he might get his girl back. (Harold is the one main character with a measurable external goal.) In pursuing it, he creates an alter ego, a handsome and confident Italian stud named Aroldo. To that end, he tries to forget that he was Harold, even calling himself Aroldo, forcing the change.
I’ve never used the strikethrough device in a novel, but I so want to. I kept putting it in and my dev editor would remove it, but she might have thought it was a stylistic error. When my copyedits come back next month, it’s the one thing I intend to change—so long as my publishing team is okay with it.
This is a close representation of the sentence:
Harold Aroldo tore off his shirt in front of the mirror, raised his arms, curled his muscles, and said to himself, “Harold is dead.”
What do you think? Can I get away with a strikethrough? For me, it comes from being deep into his point of view, a guy who catches himself calling him Harold but then zaps it. He’s not Harold, he’s Aroldo! But I’m also still on the fence.
What a minor rule break, but a fun one, nonetheless. These all can add up to a wonderful experience for the reader. I’m letting my freak flag fly, folks!
* Playing with Time
Emily St. John Mandel should be doing time for all the laws she breaks. She’ll kill off her protagonist at the midpoint, start all over with a new protagonist—maybe switch from third to first. She’ll even switch from third to first with the same character! She’ll break up the narrative with a chapter that reads more like an interview. And don’t tell her she can’t go omniscient for a moment.
And I adore how she plays with time, spitting in the face of telling a linear story. It’s not: this happened, then this, then this, in chronological order. She’ll arrange scenes in a way that answers the questions you need at the time, without heeding to a clear timeline. The reader must do the work of stitching the scenes together.
I couldn’t resist testing such waters in my WIP (work-in-progress). I start in June of 2027, then go back to March, then jump into November of 2002, then go to May of 2027, then to September of 2002, and so on. I promise I’m not trying to confuse the reader. I think using this format, for this particular story, actually serves the reader best.
* Other random examples:
- Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden breaks an epic rule! This book soared to the top of all the charts, and more importantly, hit people hard, filling them up and enriching their hearts. Guess what? The main character does not have an arc. He’s totally static, enlightened from day one. It’s the characters around him that grow. Find me a craft book that would allow this!
- Amor Towles doesn’t use quotation marks. He’s not the first. I don’t know about you, but I was taught from early on that quotation marks should wrap around dialogue. But if Amor skips them, you can too. On that note, do you need periods, commas, exclamation marks? Where can you omit them? I’m drooling as I think about all the rules we could set ablaze!
- James Frey, America’s most notorious novelist, gives zero fucks. He doesn’t always use quotation marks, loves to rub lazy words in the readers face, and certainly doesn’t follow comma rules. He’ll not only use the word very or ever, he’ll use it multiple times and not even put a comma in between them. My English teachers would explode! And yet, I absolutely love some of his writing. I could read one page of any of his work and know it’s him. That’s when you know you’ve found your voice. Like him or not, he’s sold over thirty-million copies, so someone does.
On Writing Songs
I also write songs, and if you study music and rely too much on theory, you might get stuck using only the allowed chords in a particular key when creating a new tune. You’re in the key of A, so the six chord, the F#, “should be” minor. The two chord is also “technically” minor. But what if you threw all that out? Imagine the first time a musician made the two chord major? Mind blown! Tie him to a stake and let him burn! I can tell you this: the great songwriters don’t care what you’re supposed to do. They’re letting their ear—and soul—lead the way.
Getting Older
I’m getting older. I have less fucks to give. I won’t even apologize for my cursing; I’m a proud product of HBO. And I’ve thrown out all the rules with my WIP. Not only to satisfy my ODD, but because we as creators need to let shine more and more of our true selves, and that might mean removing the barricades.
If only it were that easy, right? Next time, I’ll get more introspective and detail exactly how I’ve been working to break free on an emotional and spiritual level. Let’s be clear: like my new project, I’m also a work-in-progress. This journey is far from over.
Stay tuned for next time; I won’t hold back.
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