I’ve been
dipping into three books recently. I’ve also started writing again (yay!) after long
periods of staring at the blank computer screen or, Shh, don’t tell anyone,
playing Solitaire.
I think
the two are connected. The beginning to write again and the dipping into books
that is, just to make that clear, in case there’s a misapprehension that
playing Solitaire awakes creativity. I assure you it does not.
One of
the books is a self-help book called Writing
the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass, published by Writer’s Digest Books
in 2001.
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Apologies for blurry cover |
Donald Maass is a New York agent with a long list of authors. He wrote
Writing the Breakout Novel to help
writers identify faults in their work, improve their writing, and say things
more effectively, all with the aim of achievement, of writing a best seller.
The book is divided into chapters such as Premise,
Time and Place, and contains a
checklist at the end which sums up the contents. For instance under Characters the checklist states:
· All stories are character driven
· Engrossing characters are out of
the ordinary
· The
highest character qualities are self-sacrifice and forgiveness
And so
on.
Some of
the chapter headings don’t come up to scratch. For instance there is nothing on
setting, only time and place. Now, for me, setting is one of the most important
parts of a novel. It’s the backbone of the book. I would have loved to have
more on setting.
Some of his statements are obvious. Stuff we’ve all heard before. My point is that
dipping into this book and rereading what makes a great novel is inspiring.
Well, I found it so. You can never hear too often what makes a successful
sub-plot or how to keep the tension on every page, and one of the ways Maass
does this is to use successful novels as examples to illustrate his point.
The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve, published in
1999 by Little, Brown and Company, is one of these novels. As it happens it's one of my favourite books, and I have my own copy.

It goes
on, but you get the idea. When you read something like this, you see how it’s
done. I find it very helpful.
The third
book I’ve been dipping into, which is not one Donald Maass utilises, is The Lost Dog by Michelle de Kretser
(published by Allen & Unwin in 2007).
I’ve been rereading this because
the protagonist is a male and de Kretser is a woman and I wanted to see how she
does it. I read this when I was at uni as part of a unit called Australian
Literature, and was very grateful because it’s not something I would have
picked up to read. It’s a beguiling read. On the surface it’s one thing but
just underneath it is quite another. The first time I read it I didn’t really
get it; it wasn’t until I pored over it later for an assignment that its true
beauty came to life. What isn’t hidden under the surface is its beautifully
crafted language. I’m going to give you one sentence – just one because less is
more – the first in the book: Afterwards,
he would remember paddocks stroked with light. I don’t only love the sound
of that sentence, I love the way it looks. The repetition of “o” and “k” in paddocks and stroked; the back-to-backness of “i”, “t” and “h” in with and light.
Sigh.
I feel like I should say, "Here endeth the lesson" or something along those lines, but I'll simply finish as I began. Inspiration - take it where you can get it.
I feel like I should say, "Here endeth the lesson" or something along those lines, but I'll simply finish as I began. Inspiration - take it where you can get it.
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