Lawrence Block - Writing the Novel

For some writers, a notebook comes close to being an end in itself. They approach the notebook as an art form, using it as a sort of creative journal and devoting an hour or so at the end of the day to ruminating therein. I’ve never been able to do this, perhaps because of a constitutional incapacity for sustained work at something without at least the possibility that what I’m doing will be publishable. Then too, it’s my own feeling that the writer who puts too much energy into notebook entries is like the athlete who overtrains, like the boxer who leaves his fight in the gym.

That’s just personal prejudice. Once again, writing is an utterly individual matter, and your notebook ought to be whatever you want it to be. Whatever works is what is right.

It’s generally better, if rumination is your thing, to confine it to a notebook rather than to discuss your plot notion with friends. Sometimes this sort of discussion is useful, especially if the friends are writers themselves. When people in the business bat plot material around, the brainstorming process often results in clarifying and strengthening the ideas. All too often, though, talking about an idea winds up serving as an alternative to writing about it, especially if the people you talk to are not writers. I can lose enthusiasm for ideas if I talk them out at length. Perhaps the ideas I’ve gone stale on in this fashion are ideas that would have withered on the vine regardless, but my experience in this area has made me superstitious and secretive on the subject. I tend now to sit on my better ideas like a broody hen, letting them hatch as they will in their own good time.

One thing that I’ve learned, occasionally to my chagrin, is that it’s not enough for an idea to be a good one. It has to be a good one for me.

It’s easy to fool oneself in this area. Just because I’ve thought of an idea for a novel, and just because it’s the sort of idea that could be developed into a viable book, is no reason in and of itself for me to write that particular book. It may not be my type of book at all. But sometimes, overawed by the commercial potential of the project, I lose sight of this fact.

I recently had a painful lesson in this regard, and it was a long time coming. Some years ago I was reading something about Case Barbarossa, the Nazi invasion of Russia that was the beginning of the end for Hitler’s Germany. I got an idea — specifically, that Hitler had been manipulated into attacking Russia by a British agent who had penetrated the Berlin government. I thought that was a neat premise to hang a novel on, and discussed it with my friend, novelist Brian Garfield, figuring it was the sort of book he could do a nice job with.

Brian was intrigued, but not quite captivated enough to do anything with the notion. Time passed, and the idea lingered in my subconscious, and two or three years later on a flight to Jamaica an idea struck me out of the blue, tying the original notion I’d dreamed up with Rudolf Hess’s inexplicable flight to Scotland. A whole bunch of quirky historical elements would not fit themselves into the context of my little fiction, and the book which might result might just have the stuff of which best sellers are made.

There was only one problem. It still wasn’t my kind of book. It wasn’t really the kind of book I’d be terribly likely to read, let alone write. I might have recognized this, had I not had my judgment clouded by pure and simple greed. (Then too, I didn’t have anything else to write, and there were no other ideas hanging fire that did much for me.)

I had a terrible time with the book, and the first draft of it, certainly, was at least as terrible as the time I had. The whole project may well turn out to be salvageable, and I may indeed wind up entering this particular book on the profit side of my ledger, but I hope I never lose sight of the fact that it was a mistake for me to write this book. If I’ve learned that, and if the lesson sticks, then I’ll really have profited from the experience regardless of how it turns out financially.

For the beginner, a certain amount of experimentation in this regard is both inevitable and desirable. It takes a lot of writing to know with any degree of assurance what you are and are not capable of doing. Furthermore, at the start of a writing career any writing experience is valuable in and of itself. But as you grow to develop a surer sense of your individual strengths and weaknesses, you’ll be better able to decide what ideas to develop, what ones to give away, and what ones to forget about altogether.

Some ideas come from other people. I’ve had both good and bad experiences writing books based on the ideas of others. Years ago Donald E. Westlake got an idea for a suspense novel — a bride is raped on her wedding night and the bridal couple take direct revenge on the bad guys. He wrote an opening chapter, found it didn’t seem to go anywhere, and he put it away and forgot about it.

A year or so after that I called him up and asked if he had any plans for the idea. When he said no, I requested permission to steal the notion — it had been percolating on a back burner of my mind ever since he first mentioned it to me. He graciously told me to go ahead, and Deadly Honeymoon became my first hardcover novel, a fair success in book form and ultimately the basis of a film, called Nightmare Honeymoon for reasons I wouldn’t presume to guess.

Agents and publishers have come up with other ideas and given them to me. Sometimes I’ve written the books their ideas sparked, and sometimes they’ve turned out well.

On the other hand, I’ve had several experiences where ideas originated by other persons led me to books that proved ultimately unwritable, or books which gave me a great deal of trouble, or books which simply failed for one reason or another.

It can be quite difficult, for example, working from a publisher’s idea. The temptation to do so can be considerable, since one is not working on speculation; the publisher, along with the idea, generally dangles a contract and an advance in front of one’s eyes, and the more attractive the contract and the larger the advance, why, the better the idea is going to look. Thus you find yourself bound to an idea you might have dismissed out of hand if you’d thought it up all by yourself.

Sometimes — and I’ve had this experience — the publisher has only a vague idea of what he wants. In order to produce a book you’ll be able to write effectively, you have to transform this idea and make it your own. If the publisher’s got an open mind, that’s no problem. Occasionally, however, he’ll be struck by the discrepancy between what you’ve produced and the sublime if hazy vision with which he started. If the book’s good enough in its own right you’ll sell it somewhere sooner or later, but it doesn’t make for the best feelings all around.

What it boils down to, then, is that you really have to be sure you like another person’s idea before you use it. Remember, your own ideas bubble up from your own mind; when you work on them, that bubbling process will continue and the idea will develop. When you’re working on another person’s idea, you’re adopting it. It has to be the sort you can love as if it were your own or you won’t be able to bring your subconscious fully to bear upon it. It won’t grow organically the way an idea must if it is to become a fully realized book.

How well developed does an idea have to be before you can start writing the book? It depends.

The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep took a couple of years gestating until various plot components fitted themselves together. By the time I sat down to write the book, I had a very strong sense of the character of Tanner and a pretty good grasp of the book’s plot. I didn’t know everything else that was going to happen by any means, but I had the general outline of the book pretty clear in my mind.