Narrative and Writing a Compelling Story

Please note that if you are currently in the stages of holiday shopping, books make a fine gift and several books composed by me are available for your reading enjoyment. You will find them all with purchase links, cover art, and blurbs/descriptions on my previous blog post, so click here and be happy!

Pardon me. I awoke too late after not getting a good sleep. I'm doing the best I can to fulfill my obligations to what I imagine are throngs of blog readers anxiously sitting before their screens in eager anticipation for what words of wisdom or whimsy I might offer to them. And, to tell the truth, I seldom have any idea what will come from my keyboard until it does - and then it may be too late to prevent the ruination of my typing skills or my pedantic bent. In most cases, I prefer to confer everything I think about practically everything through the pages of a novel.

First, however, we must invent a compelling story - a narrative so bold and beautiful that none can resist following it to its end. You got to hook 'em and cook' em, a professor in my MFA program was wont to remind us plebes - mere word cobblers to him. I've written previously in blog posts about the abuse we endured in those hallowed halls. Suffice to say, the vaunted professor preferred one and only one kind of story and all others were dismissed outright or ridiculed to the point where the poor young author had to flee in tears.

I learned a few things nevertheless. One: put the characters first. That is, craft an interesting character your readers will want to know about and want to follow through the story no matter what happens in the story. At the time of that MFA program, I felt my protagonists were compelling characters; they were, after all, largely modeled after me. That seldom was a delicious recipe, as you can imagine, because seldom would my protagonist act as I would act. Communication between us was unsteady and I was frequently frustrated. Still, we carried on and came to certain understandings about who does what and what the terms of engagement were to be.

Two: what is interesting to readers (caveat: most readers, although the adage came at us as every reader) is not what happens in the story but what happens to the character because of what happens in the story. That may seem an infernal circle yet it does make a crude kind of sense. If we are "caring" about the hero/heroine then we "care" what happens to them - almost as though they were real people who we actually know and worry about, like Kevin who lives down the street. I came to realize I did treat my characters as though they were real, and I worried about them, waking in the mornings wondering if they would get out of that predicament I'd let them slip into, or whether they would still obey me after I helped them escape a conundrum I'd set up for them.

For a story to be compelling - a word this professor used - it must involve a primary character we care about and a situation that is not immediately disturbing but has the hint of great disturbance to come. Nuances and subtleties. Like laying out a puzzle. Will readers catch it, or should I bash them over the head with the idea? Bread crumbs here and there along the dark forest path or a nicely paved way with neon signs? I think I've learned the art of nuances, as intended by that professor. Of course, I can never know  - short of a book review, perhaps, or an angry tweet - whether a reader catches the subtle clues or not. I can only try my best to tip-toe through the daisies along the primrose path and up Strawberry Hill to Mary Sue's house.

Sorry. I slipped into a purple prose paragraph again. It happens on these kind of late mornings when I haven't slept well yet need to produce a blog post to let the world know I remain alive and verbose. So, I suppose I've achieved my goal. Actually, my goal was the notice at the top to potential readers of my library. Simple as that. But then I kept typing and, well, this is the result. I'm not ashamed; I enjoy typing although the number of mistypes and the corrections increase with each passing day.

Did I mention I have a new novel out now? It's Book 1 of a series called FLU SEASON. The first book is titled THE BOOK OF MOM, a kind of memoir. It's a near-future (almost contemporary) story of a teen boy and his single mother who try to survive the chaos of a pandemic and its worsening society by fleeing the city for what they hope will be relative safety at the grandparents farm, only to find that life in the country isn't much better and they must come up with Plan B, then Plan C, until they reach a small coastal island where the family previously vacationed and have a house - but the survivors there have set up their own strange community and the teen son and his mom must decide whether to stay and obey or hold off the strict requirements until it is safe to leave for a better place. It is a tale of survival, of family relations, of dark secrets, and a teen romance - as well as the dystopian undertones of an odd collection of characters trying their best to get by in the new normal. And Mom plays her tuba quite a lot, I should add.

Book 2 THE WAY OF THE SON is complete and coming in late spring.
Book 3 DAWN OF THE DAUGHTERS is started and the writing continues. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------- 

(C) Copyright 2010-2022 by Stephen M. Swartz. All Rights Reserved. No part of this blog, whether text or image, may be used without me giving you written permission, except for brief excerpts that are accompanied by a link to this entire blog. Violators shall be written into novels as characters who are killed off. Serious violators shall be identified and dealt with according to the laws of the United States of America.