posted
Bernard Cornwall, author of the "Sharpe's" series of historical fiction (great read if you like the genre; kind of a Horatio Hornblower on land, set in Wellington's army rather than Nelson's navy), described on his web site the way he went about structuring his first novels:
Suppose you decide to build a better mousetrap. You would begin, surely, by taking apart the existing mousetraps to see how they worked. You must do the same with books. When I wrote Sharpe’s Eagle, never having written a book before, I began by disassembling three other books. Two were Hornblowers, and I forget which the third was, but I had enjoyed them all. So I read them again, but this time I made enormous coloured charts which showed what was happening paragraph by paragraph through the three books. How much was action? And where was the action in the overall plan of the book? How much dialogue? How much romance? How much flashback (I hate flashback)? How much background information? Where did the writer place it? I already knew what I liked in the books, and I was determined to provide more of that in my book, and I knew what I disliked, and wanted to use less of that, but the three big charts (sadly I’ve lost them) were my blueprints. It was not plagiarism, but it was imitation. I learned to start with a fairly frenetic scene, and to keep that pace going before I slowed it down to provide necessary information. I learned, if you like, the structure of a best-seller, and then I imposed that structure on what I was writing. These days I do not think about it any more . . ."
Any thoughts on this method?
Mr. Cornwall also suggested the following technique to evaluate style:
"Style seems to be a stumbling block for many first novelists, and the only advice I can offer is to tell you how I overcame it. Which is not to claim that I have a fine style, only that I no longer worry about it. But when I was writing Sharpe’s Eagle I spent hours reading and re-reading the typescript, and every time I got hopelessly depressed thinking that it was no bloody good because the style was so clumsy, and so finally I tried an experiment. I typed out three pages of a Hornblower novel, substituting Sharpe’s name for Hornblower’s, and then I put the pages into a drawer. After three days I read those three pages (which looked exactly like my own typescript) and, to my relief, discovered that I was just as critical of Forester’s style as I was of my own. But he was published. More, he was successful, so clearly I was being too critical."
posted
His method for learning structure sounds like something out of an OCD case history, but the fundamentals are correct, learn from the books you like, with modifications to fit your own taste as a reader.
The style exercise isn't something that would work for me, though I suppose some people might find it fun. For me, if the text says what I want it to say without saying things I don't want it to say, then that's good enough.
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The two examples you cite are interesting. They probably do work but only if your own work is similar in content to whatever author(s) you use. The SF/F may not be the same kettle of fish! Personally I would not do what Cornwall has, but that is just me - somebody out there may already be in the process of mimicing that method, if its for you - do it! Best Wishes John Mc...
Posts: 140 | Registered: Jan 2006
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posted
I have been sore tempted to do that with some of my favorite books and stories, but I've been too hog lazy to do it in any systematic way. Just a note here and there about how I liked how this was done or hated that.
I *have* typed out several stories and parts of several novels, to see if going over them word-for-word was helpful. It was, to an extent.
The only major notes I've made on the "what makes something what it is" involved an attempt at a Harlequin Romance novel. (The resulting novel was rejected everywhere, thank God...)