I couldn’t wait for the two chapters in Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel that changed from the focus of the already-written novel to the one inside you, the one you want to write. The next four posts are dedicated to just that: A Novel of Your Own. And we’ll begin with Beginnings.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed all of 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel. It was fascinating to learn about the novel in relation to art and history and psychology, but more than anything, a writer wants to know how to give life to a novel of their own – and Jane Smiley didn’t disappoint.
So where do you start?
According to Smiley, “As you write the first word, you are embracing the novel’s greatest tradition, that of obscure beginnings.
The first part of this chapter is simple but it’s the simplicity of it that makes tackling the very idea of writing a novel seem manageable. At the heart of it is just this: write words. That’s all you have to do to start.
“Writing a novel is easy because there is nothing simpler than adding word to word, sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, and then going back and reading and writing it over again.”
“It is in the nature of thoughts to follow upon one another.”
Then what happens after you have begun and you’ve started writing those first words? You have to keep writing.
“What you are aiming for is willing suspension of disbelief, and the first person who must suspend disbelief is yourself. The only way to suspend disbelief is to keep adding sentences to the ones you have already written. Sheer length persuades, at least to some degree, because it builds an object in the mind.”
Smiley then encourages us not to worry about the all of other stuff (at least not yet).
“Originality is automatic, and so is flow, energy, influence, and some sort of larger purpose. The trick is to make your material so fascinating that you cannot stay away from it, so intriguing that you ignore negative feelings and second thoughts, so rich with interest that the concepts of ’good‘ and ’bad’ hardly occur to you.”
In tomorrow’s post we’ll dive into Jane Smiley’s pyramid of writing skills where we build upon those words we start with as we continue to explore writing a novel of our own.
All quotes are from Jane Smiley’s 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel.
lara
My Story Writer
www.mywritingsoftware.com
Miss a post from the 13 Ways series? Find it here:
Kickoff: The 13 Ways of Looking at the Novel | The 13 Ways | I Hate Introductions | What is the Novel? |Who is the Novelist? | Origins: Where did the Novel Come From? | The Psychology of the Novel | Morality of the Novel | The Art of the Novel | The Novel and History | The Circle of the Novel