On Reading Well

Finally got around to reading Malcolm Gladwell’s fantastic little book, Blink. Highly recommend, and want to share this one bit with you. Made me howl with vindicated glee: I KNEW IT!

I mean, I didn’t know this factoid at all, but I’ve always suspected—well, I’ll tell you what I’ve always suspected in a minute. This is a long quote, but bear with. It’s interesting:

One of [Vic] Braden [one of the world’s best tennis coaches]’s digitized videotapes is of the tennis great Andre Agassi hitting a forehand. The image has been stripped down. Agassi has been reduced to a skeleton, so that as he moves to hit the ball, the movement of every joint in his body is clearly visible and measureable. The Agassi tape is a perfect illustration of our inability to describe how we behave in the moment. “Almost every pro in the world says that he uses his wrist to roll the racket over the ball when he hits a forehand,” Braden says. “Why? What are they seeing? Look—” and here Braden points to the screen— “see when he hits the ball? We can tell with digitized imaging whether a wrist turns an eighth of a degree. But players almost never move their wrist at all. Look how fixed it is. He doesn’t move his wrist until long after the ball is hit. He thinks he’s moving it at impact, but he’s actually not moving it until long after impact. How can so many people be fooled? People are going to coaches and paying hundreds of dollars to be taught how to roll their wrist over the ball, and all that’s happening is that the nunmber of injuries to the arm is exploding” (pg 67-68, my emphasis).

Interesting, right? The world’s best tennis players might be able to ace it every time, but they sure can’t tell you how they do it. They just do it. Their bodies and subconscious minds just know. By years of practice and some innate awesomeness, they just know.

The reason this thrills me is because I’ve always sort of avoided those ten thousand books on how to write well that people are always foisting on you when they hear you want to write.

Don’t misunderstand me: there’s a lot of good advice in writing books. Especially the really factual ones about how to format a synopsis, how grammar works, and what the difference is between a “crime novel” and a “mystery.”

And, sometimes they’re just interesting or fun. Like Stephen King’s book On Writing. Or Daphne Du Maurier’s autobio. I had a lot of fun in those pages.

But that shelf in Barnes & Noble with ten thousand titles on writing fiction and plot techniques and how to make your writing SEXY… Yeah, I go to that shelf like I go to the funeral home. It’s not exactly a cosy hang out spot for me. Seems sort of vampiric, actually. I mean, if they knew how to write a bestseller every time, don’t you think they’d be writing bestsellers? Surely there are more beach readers than frustrated novelist readers? I sincerely hope?

Writing books can be helpful, but when it comes right down to it, even listening to Andre Agassi all day might not necessarily make you a better tennis player. He might not even really know what makes HIM a better tennis player.

I’m not saying there’s not a measure of laziness or self-justification or ego in my opinion. I’m just saying:

Malcolm Gladwell thinks I’m right.

First Read-Through

Day of truth!

After finishing up the first draft in March, I set the crime novel aside for a few weeks to revise another project (again) and send it out to a third batch of agents. It’s getting to the point with the Lilies novel where I’m starting to get ambivalent about selling it. There are some things I continue to love about that book, but time naturally changes my perspective. I see all the things I would have done differently. And, of course, the mind races on to new and better things.

Today, howev, I’m finally free to sit down with a giant mug of green tea and read through the crime novel. It’s going to be hard to resist the temptation to line edit, but I want this first read to be quick. Just a pad of paper and the internal note system in Word to jot down all the big changes.

I’ve been trying to work on a 3 draft system: First draft is rough, second draft is for major plot/character changes, third draft is for language.

Still negotiating the tradeoff between efficiency and quality. Great writing is incredibly important, but I can’t afford to take five years for each book either. Life is way too quick for that.

Anywho. The tea is brewed and the words await.

… Wish I felt less like crap. Couldn’t fall asleep until after 4am this morning, and woke up with a jolt at 9. It’s a long story, but I’m pretty sure it’s my BCP acting up. I’ve never looked forward to a dr’s appointment before, but this year’s check up can’t come soon enough. I have some questions that want answering.

In the mean time, we do what we’ve always done: write and feel a mood boost simply because the sky is blue today.

POX on the POV

Just got some feedback from a friend in my online writer’s group, and yes, it was a rookie mistake. Apparently, I’m guilty of head-hopping, the bane of the third person omniscient point of view (or POV if you want to be all writerly and in the know (henceforth ITK. I could get used to this. (ICGUTT))).

So, head-hopping, as everybody knows, is when the narrative gives you intimate, in-the-head insight into different characters all at the same time, ergo leading one to utter confusion about WHO the main character is and also whiplash from switching directions in the middle of the game. The reader needs a single character to identify with… which is impossible when we know what every single character is thinking. We don’t know who to listen to anymore.

Alternate metaphor: this reader ain’t no player. She wants a loving, committed relationship with one character.

Ok, well, I love the third person omniscient, so I guess the best I can do is serial monogamy, but you know what I mean (YKWIM).

I’m actually not very adventurous when it comes to choosing a POV. I love a good third person omniscient and basically always have. It’s the LBD of fiction, no? Come on! Tolstoy, Austen, Dickens, Trollope. Third person limited is too, you know, limited. I love all of my characters and can’t wait to explore their individual personalities and desires and schemes.

Serial monogamy, hm?

I think I need POV rehab.

I’m still committed to keeping Lilies in the third person omni ballpark—the plot demands more flexibility than a third person limited approach would give me—but I definitely need to be more intentional about keeping myself focused on one main character per scene. To be honest, probably the biggest reason for this with Lilies is that in my first major revision I ended up changing my lead character. I tried to change the focus, but I missed a lot of little pieces, and therein, as they say, lies the foul odor.

I read a great intro article on POV by Rob Parnell today when I was looking for some confirmation of my fears. Best bit of advice in there:

We should already understand that in any given scene we should identify with one character at a time – but which one? The best advice I ever received was that scenes are most effective when told from the POV of the person with most to lose.

The suckiest thing about getting great advice?

Revision.