Brilliant author and philosopher Robert McCrum, journalist for The Observer, has forgotten more about writing than most of us can claim to have learned over a lifetime. His fascinating article in the June 2002 edition of this publication is one example of exactly how to organize your thinking before attempting to write a best selling book.
“First, make sure you attempt fiction rather than non-fiction. Fiction is just one genre, non-fiction runs the gamut. The public's appetite for novels of all sorts is far broader and potentially more commercial than the market for, say, history or popular science.
Yes, megasellers such as Antony Beevor's Berlin: The Downfall or Dava Sobel's Longitude can be adduced in refutation of this rule, but for every Longitude (a freakish and brilliant one-off) there will be a dozen Pratchetts, Coopers or Hornbys.
Second, having chosen fiction, don't forget to tell a good story. Grab the reader by the throat on page one, get your narrative fingers round his or her collar in the first chapter and don't let go until everyone's living happily ever after, burying the dead in a wintry twilight or driving off into a better and a finer future.
And don't be too original. Shakespeare himself did not disdain well-tried tales. There are various theories about the number of basic plots in the world. Some people say three, some seven, some ten. There's no harm in having your fiction conform to a fictional archetype.
But don't - my third law - become too calculating. If one thing characterises the writers of bestselling books, it is that, to a person, they believe in their star. Every line they write is scratched in letters of fire. Next to the bestselling writer, Napoleon had an inferiority complex.
And, finally, if you decide to put sex into your work: beware. This is the most difficult kind of writing, and almost always makes the writer look ridiculous. In fact, to avoid embarrassment in the bedroom department, you would be well advised to make a careful study of American novelist Elizabeth Benedict's excellent handbook, The Joy of Writing Sex (Souvenir Press) which, despite its come-hither title, is actually a wise and down-to-earth guide to the mechanics of fiction, from soup to nuts.”
Robert McCrum
No comments:
Post a Comment