HOW TO WRITE FICTION – Lesson 1: The Truth About Fiction

Introduction

In the Fiction writing classes at Gotham Writers’ Workshop, it's not necessary to spend a lot of time in the first class defining what fiction is. The answer is fairly obvious: fiction is made-up stories told in prose form. Fiction usually consists of novels, novellas and short stories. There, fiction has been defined. Easy enough.

But it is helpful for fiction writers to gain some understanding of why people like to read fiction. If you have some understanding of this issue, you'll have some idea of how to satisfy your readers when it comes time for you to dream up your own fiction. So let us dive into this question and see what pearls of wisdom we may discover.

Reasons to Read

So, why do we read fiction? Actually, the answer to this isn't going to be so simple. In truth, there are probably as many reasons as there are readers. Nevertheless, we should be able to pinpoint a few of the most prevalent reasons.

Many of us read so as to be transported to different times and places, be it the nineteenth-century London of Charles Dickens or J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth. Have you ever been so literally "transported" by a book that you forgot where you were, with the result that you missed your bus stop or allowed a pot of something to burn on the stove, setting off the smoke alarm?

Others read to improve themselves, to expand their knowledge of the world and how it works. If you wish to understand what life was like on the front lines of World War I, you could read Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms. If you're curious about New England's long-gone whaling industry, you could sail through Herman Melville's Moby-Dick.

Of course, some stories primarily offer an entertaining escape. Think of Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park with its earth-shaking dinosaurs or the legal thrillers of John Grisham. Though these stories might seem to be a contemporary phenomenon, escapist literature has been around a long time. In the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island was a popular tale of escapism. Ever hear of a little thing called The Odyssey? Homer offers penetrating insight into human nature in his epic poem, but he also gives us the proverbial thrills, chills, and spills.

The very best stories offer something else to each of us, regardless of our reasons for reading them. That something else is intensity. "How fascinating!" we think, shaking our heads in wonderment while turning page after page. Or: "Damn! This is so exciting." Fiction can make us laugh, cry, or check the lock on the front door -- despite the fact that it's "just pretend," and we know it.

That's why we can't put down the books we love. We don't want to abandon their especially intense worlds for the low-key vibe of daily living -- driving to work, paying the bills, or hosing down the patio furniture.

Real life can, of course, be intense (sometimes too intense), but even then, it tends to lack organization, focus. It is illogical, sprouting dozens, maybe hundreds, of loose ends over the years. Life is messy. A properly told story, on the other hand, has a clear beginning, middle and end. This focus makes the experience of reading a story all the more intense.

Still, it's certainly possible to write a story that meets some or all of the above criteria and to fail utterly as a storyteller. Surely you've read a story like this, or at least started to before closing the thing and putting it back in your bookcase or returning it to the library. All the pieces of such a story seem to be in place. And yet you, the reader, don't really care. What is it about fiction that makes us care? The answer is simple: characters.

Characters Are What We Care About

Characters are quite literally the human element within stories -- the living, breathing, laughing, crying part. There's no such thing as a story without at least one character, even if the character is a horse, as in Bruce Jay Freedman's short-story "Post-Time" or the computer HAL in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey.

When we fall in love with a story, most of the time it's the characters that we love, not the details of plot, the sparkling dialogue, or the author's original style. Characters are what we remember about stories, and why we return to them. We empathize with their fundamental condition, because it is exactly our own. They are people and we are people. We can relate.

Thus perhaps the very best reason we read fiction is to meet characters. By reading about people in fiction we gain insight into human nature. And, strangely enough, fiction can provide this insight a little better than daily life.

For example, your coworker's behavior may not make sense to you, since you can't know exactly how she grew up, much less what she's thinking at any given moment. Yet it's possible to understand a character as complex as Sethe in Toni Morrison's Beloved, precisely because we are offered access to her past and to her inner life. That insight can, in turn, help us to comprehend and sympathize with our fellow flesh-and-blood human beings more fully. Even that puzzling coworker.

Have you ever read J.D. Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye? Do you remember it? (Of course you do. It's one of the most beloved books of all time.) Okay, now what do you recall about the novel? Can you summarize its plot? Probably not. Can you describe Holden Caulfield? Yes! Perhaps you remember his red hunting hat (he wears it backwards), or how he calls everything "phony." Remember how he relates to his little sister, Phoebe, and Holden's intense feeling of aloneness, expressed by his identification with the ducks in Central Park? Many readers feel as though they actually met Holden Caulfield once. Maybe you do, too.

Even if you've read Wuthering Heights two or three times, you may be hazy about what goes on, exactly, especially in the complicated second part. But you will never, ever forget the fierce love between Catherine and Heathcliff.

We mentioned Dickens earlier. Next to the playwright Shakespeare, he's probably responsible for more memorable characters than any other English-language author. Think of Great Expectations’ Miss Havisham, haunted by her would-be wedding day. Or Madame Dafarge, famously knitting as the French Revolution is born, in A Tale of Two Cities. At least one Dickens character has inspired a generic term; if you've ever worked through your office holiday party, you know what it's like to be called a "Scrooge."

This attraction to characters is why successful writers of detective novels bring their main characters back again and again. The intricate plot of any individual mystery fades fast, but we remember Sam Spade, Kinsey Millhone, and Easy Rawlins -- and we want to spend more time in their company.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald satisfies in a multitude of ways, but for the majority of readers the characters are the most entertaining and memorable aspect of this great novel. In just the first three chapters, you meet a parade of characters that you may like or dislike but are unlikely to soon forget.

Then there is Jay Gatsby, one of the most unforgettable characters in all literature. If you've made it through Chapter 3, chances are the man has already made a strong impression on you, even though you've only had a few fleeting glimpses of him. As you continue reading this novel, notice how dimensional and fascinating this character grows, chapter by chapter. He is likable, but somewhat untrustworthy. He is richly detailed, but never completely knowable. He is very human, yet somehow larger than life. We can also recognize Gatsby in the world around us. He is an American legend -- the self-made man. Nowadays, it's hard not to think of Gatsby when one hears about such celebrities as Ralph Lauren or Martha Stewart or Bill Gates.

When you finish reading the book, even then Gatsby will not fade. He lingers in the memory, standing on the lawn, stretching out his arms toward the green light at the end of the dock, dreaming about the infinite possibilities of the future.

Characters Are the Source

However, the purpose of this class is not to wax philosophical about fiction. We are here because we want to learn to write the stuff ourselves, right? So let's get down to business.

It has been said that there are three elements of fiction-writing to concentrate on above all others. Here they are:

·        Character

·        Character

·        Character

The truth is: fiction is about people. If you can write interesting people, chances are you can write interesting fiction. It's (almost) as simple as that.

Not only do characters tend to be the most memorable aspect in fiction, but really everything in a story -- plot, point of view, setting, description, voice, etc. -- emanates from the people. You might say that characters are the source of fiction, the thing from which everything else flows.

If you ask ten fiction writers how they begin writing a story, nine of them will tell you, "I start with a character." It's not written in stone that you too must do so. But it is undeniably a great way -- perhaps the best way -- to start.

Discussion

After reading the lecture, try answering some or all of the following:

1.    Why do you like to read fiction?

2.    Do you agree that characters are usually the most memorable aspect in a work of fiction?

3.    Why do you want to write fiction? Have you written much fiction previously or is this a new thing for you?

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Source: 2005-2006 free online courses at http://bnuniversity.com/