PhiSlammaJamma, all three of those are interesting, but yeah, the first one is spectacular. Write it. Or put together a screenplay----the story is very cinematic. It would sell. Seriously, I'm impressed. Too much of "serious fiction" these days is obsessed with language at the expense of plot. Screw that. People like stories. And you've got a great one.
Delete this post. Work on the first one. Make sure it stars Nicole Kidman and NOT Tom Cruise. I expect my cut and an Assistant Executive Producer credit.
Assistant Executive Producer. Aren't there enough producer titles already without making up a new one?
Good feedback. I'm inspired now. Thanks. One question tho' for my future producers, would you start the novel in the courtroom with the trial lawyer slowly revealing the story piece by piece. Which leads to the big suprise ending revealing the true murderer. Agatha Christy style. This would probably be told through the eyes of the lawyer. Or would you start the story in sequence and then end with the trial. This would be told 3rd person or through the eyes of the woman who killed her husband. More emotional drama. It's so hard to know which way to go. Cause I think I could do both equally well. But which one is better?
Tough call. These days, it's trendy to go for a non-linear style of flashbacks. (your first option, the trial). And that can be wonderful--think Pulp Fiction or Memento or 21 Grams. But I wouldn't go that route. Yeah, if it's done right, it can be amazing. But I think that constructing some elaborate non-linear structure is often just a shortcut. Smokes and mirrors that desguise weak characterization or a skimpy plot. But you don't need those gimmicks. You have a good story. And think about how you wrote the story in your post. You gave it to us straightforward, telling a story, letting us see, chronologically, how one event causes the next. That's the way we live our lives, chronologically, so unless there's a damn good reason for it, I think stories are best told chronologically, too. You're right--the emotional impact would be much more powerful if we see the whole thing unfold from the woman's eyes. Because you establish the emotional stakes at the beginning, we grow to care for the character, we feel her tragedy, we connect with her needs, we thirst for justice. That's the emotionally honest way to tell the story. In the first option, you're just playing games with the reader/viewer, and you run the risk of having them feel cheated. One more thing -- while I cited some recent examples of great films/books that are non-linear, MOST tragedies are told linearlly. Go back to Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Melville, Eliot, even super-modern stuff like Tom Wolfe. (He has lots of point of views, like you might choose to, but the action always moves forward). Hell, think about a tragedy near and dear to all of us, Bills/Oilers. That hurt so much because we saw the action unfold, we saw them build the 35-2 lead and then we watched it crumble. Think how less dramatic that would be if we knew the score from the beginning, but gradually we learned which players were at fault. (Duh duh-duh! It was Moon who threw the interception!) I know, I know, this analogy is faulty. But you know what I mean. In general, I'm a big, big proponent of telling a story chronologically, unless there's a very compelling reason not to. And in most cases, there's not. Eh. What do I know. Sorry for rambling on and on --- definitely tell the story however you see fit. The important thing is that your premise rocks! So many books, so few good stories . . .
Thanks! That helps to clear my thoughts. I was having a tough time with that decision, but I think you hit the nail on the head.
Glad to see so many other writers out there. I've got my first novel in the hands of a (crappy) agent. It's a baseball novel, and I had a hard time even getting a (crappy) agent for it. I guess sports fiction isn't selling these days. I've just started my second novel, which has nothing to do with sports, and I'm sure it will take me two years to finish like the last one. I didn't study creative writing in college (anxious for a paycheck, I went to business school, which hasn't been that bad to me at all). Writing novels is not something that you need a degree for, just need a good story with some writing ability (oh, and publishing credits wouldnt hurt). I suppose I've gotten this far on whatever ability I've got (and some self-study), but I wonder how helpful it's been for others...?
Everybody has different methods that they respond to. For some, being in an environment like a school can release their creative energy and allow them become better writers that they otherwise would have been. Some people need the structure that schooling can create, etc. But there are a lot of people who are self-taught who would not have responded well to a more formal schooling. It's just like the differences in how people approach writing. Some people sit down and simply "let 'er rip" while others carefully work out the plot ahead of time before sitting down and doing the actual writing. And others start by fleshing out their characters and then letting the characters dictate the story. In terms of screenwriting, I'm amazed at what small, unformed ideas can turn into. I mean, North By Northwest basically came from Hitchcock telling Lehman that he always wanted to do a movie with a chase across the face of Mount Rushmore. But what Lehman wrote to get to that chase is near-masterpiece. All from that little germ of an idea. The speed that some people write is amazing, too. I know people who do spend years on a screenplay. If I spend two weeks on it, I feel like I've spent way too long. I wrote my first feature screenplay in six days. Since then, I've written a feature-length screenplay in a single day. Usually, though, it's a couple of weeks (and even though you'd think I couldn't write anything worth a damn in a couple of weeks, people who aren't even related to me seem to like my screenplays. I'm not sure why, but they often do. The movies that come from them aren't very good, but the writing at least starts out decent a lot of the time).
It's never too late to become a writer. My sister had been reading romance novels for several years as escape from her job as a teacher (she was burnt out after about 20 years), the kind one can read in a couple of hours. One day she thought, "Hey, I can write this crap!", and just started doing it. Today, she's published 4 and has an option on another she's completing. She started out with the short novels you see at the grocery stores and Walmart and now she write long, historical romances. She's 57. And everyone thought I was going to be the writer of the family.
PSJ, Rasselas gave good advice on how the novel should go. I was just chipping in m own humble advice and would like you to consider possibly making different "chapters" of the book be told from different perspectives, a section of the book devoted to the women, a section devoted to the lawyer, etc. Maybe even one devoted to the Confederate army men. Just my .02.
One of the teachers at my high school started writing romance novels. She got her first one published when I was a junior or senior (back in 1988 or 1989). She's written something like 20 romance novels since then.
Pretty wild, isn't it? My sister has a Masters in English. When she went to college, teaching, nursing and the like were the fields that seemed to be open for women. She just missed "Women's Lib", a real shame, because she could have been anything. She realizes that now. (she realized it a long time ago)
I wrote a long manuscript while in the Corps about an immortal man who is over 450 years old and has been a part of every major historical event, but who views it with a rather historical viewpoint. He suggests to Columbus that pretending he can make the sun disappear will get them out of a jam, assumes the identity of a fat college freshman at Florida State and becomes a rock star and has amassed a great fortune. I wrote another manuscript while in the Corps about the Civil War battle of Mobile Bay, which gave us the saying "Damn the torpedoes," and the Mobile Campaign in a historical novel-type format. It was quite interesting, but both of them sit in zip discs waiting for the attentions of an editor and I haven't looked at either in years. Guess it is like my watercolor painting, it is something that I might pick back up in a few years.
Good points, mrpaige. As for the whole grad school thing -- there's a good deal of debate on whether it makes sense to get an MFA. It can cost a lot of money. And do you really learn more than you would if you just put your butt in your chair and wrote? For me, the decision was simple. I studied finance at UT; I had absolutely no writing background. I hadn't written a short story since 10th grade at Klein Oak. I knew that if I really wanted to give writing a shot, I'd need some help. So I guess you could say that my decision was driven by inexperience and insecurity. (In other words, if I had any writing background in college, or if I'd been writing for years, I probably wouldn't have done it). The sad thing is that most people who get an MFA don't do a damn thing with their writing. The work is lonely and jobs are scarce. Plus, you can argue that when a classroom of ten people "workshops" your material, and if you listen to their feedback, you end up flattening the story to please everyone. Boo. (That's a big, big complaint about the whole grad school workshop process). Very few good novels have come out of a grad school program. There's a reason. So I guess this is a long-winded way of saying that most novels, screenplays, or whatever come from people like us, people that have other jobs and have families, people that are passionate about things like the Rockets and drink too much Shiner. Faulker wrote "As I Lay Dying" when he was working at a power plant. I hope this helps, Ming Dynasty. Given what you said about your background, it sounds like you hands-down made the right call. A couple of my fellow students in the program had already written a couple of novels (or drafts of novels). I think they got less out of the program than I did. You were already motivated, had already written a ton on your own . . . I think you would have been dissappointed. Good luck on the novels! Oh, I forgot to mention, the one really good thing about the MFA program is that you meet a group of friends that you can share work with. But is that worth the steep price of tuition? Tough call. Deckard -- I know this sounds corny and all, but your sister's story is down right inspirational. Wow.
bamaslammer, those manuscripts don't belong locked up, nailed in a wooden crate like the arc of the covenant. Bust 'em out and dust those suckers off! I'd read those novels. And even if you don't find a commercial payoff, I guarantee that revisiting those manuscripts would be personally rewarding. (Frustrating, yes, but in the end rewarding). A couple of years away from the material could give you perspective, not to mention a second burst of creative energy. Btw, have you read a book by Tom Robbins called "Jitterbug Perfume?" I think you'd like it. It's about a dude who decides he doesn't want to die so he becomes immortal. (Doesn't have the same historical richness you're suggesting, though).
