In his dream state the world around him was a bouncing ball on a rubber highway; the sky above and below obscenely blue—or was it green?—and his pain the pain of all men, good and bad, wise or not. But then, dreams are only as good as the glue that holds them together…
Okay, so the above paragraph is a little over the top, but you get the drift. No POV (Point of View) other than omniscient, no action, other than a bouncing ball, and simply no sense of place—setting. Other than that, it ain’t bad.
What’s important, or should be as you start your very first novel, is to remember that you are a communicator. The reader wants to be grounded in reality, wants to know who’s narrating the story, at least at this point, and they want to actually hear those people speak. Remember, dialogue is a great way to show and not tell.
They’d been in the air for about twenty minutes, conversation limited because of the noise from the C130’s engines. Kelly looked around, at faces that shone like fool’s gold in the gray light. These guys were about his age, a few older. It was almost a hundred inside this flying metal cylinder. And the rain wasn’t going to stop any time soon. Monsoon season. Heat and humidity that could take your breath away. Mud everywhere.
“Your clothes cling like they were duct tapped to you,” a master sergeant said before they boarded at Cam Ranh Bay. Older guy, back for a third time. Bucking for a promotion or a pine box. “Whatever comes first,” he’d said with a grin.
“Hey, Sarge,” a soldier to Kelly’s left said with a hint of uneasiness. Face belonged in the Vienna Boys Choir.
“Yeah?” Kelly said.
“How’s a guy like you get all them stripes?”
“Guy like me?”
“Yeah, you know. What’re you, twenty maybe, Sarge?”
“Look, man, I’m following orders, okay? I just wanta put in my year and get the hell outa here. Just like everyone else.”
“Whoa, Sarge, take it easy. I didn’t mean nothin’. Name’s Shimkonis. PFC Joey Shimkonis.” He stuck out his hand. Kelly reluctantly took it. “Infantry. You’d be infantry, too, huh, Sarge?”
See what I mean? POV is established—Sgt Kelly. The Setting is a C130 flying over the ‘Nam, and people are talking, having a dialogue. So forgot everything you heard about writers having to impress everyone with their mastery of the English language — unless it makes you feel important knowing that your reader has to run for the dictionary every twenty seconds. Communicate. Involve the reader in the story from the outset. Don’t flashback at the beginning. It’s okay to do it sparingly, but keep it for later.
So now that you’ve got that opening nailed, a POV you can live with, a setting that shows people it’s raining and not just tells them, and good minimal dialogue, what do you do now? Well, you keep writing, that’s what. If you’re like me, you’ve got to write about 25,000 words before you have a clue about what the story is about. But have no fear, that’s just the way I work. If you feel uncomfortable not knowing the plot then go ahead and work it through, chapter by chapter, character by character before you write word one. I have friends who’ve published tons of novels who work that way. Then write till your fingers bleed. And don’t worry about the wife standing behind you wondering where you’ve been for the last five hours. If you’re totally involved in your tome, you’re completely unaware of anything or anyone around you. The scene–the story has you wrapped around its finger. It’s controlling you much more skillfully than sex or a good steak ever could.
So there you have it. Simple, huh? Write a story you’d like to read—communicate. Establish POV, use action and dialogue and save the introspection for just the right occasion, and get the book out of you. When you’re done, when you put THE END on that thing, you’ll feel like a giant. But don’t stand up and scream platitudes about yourself because you’ll just ram your head into the ceiling.
Happy communicating.
Originally published in Writer Online
T. Lucien Wright has published five novels, short stories and nonfiction and he has taught the craft of writing to people of all ages for the last thirteen years. Until recently, he was the Director of Adult Education at Writers & Books, a not for profit literary organization in Rochester and he has lectured at all levels, grade school, high school and college. He’s working on a novel about Vietnam, simply entiled, ‘Nam. He lives in Rochester with his wife of 35 years, two aged dogs, and four cantankerous cats.
