Plot Twists & How to Get Them

I don't usually compare my books with other authors' books. It's not that there aren't good comparisons. I tend to read other novels while writing my own, sometimes of a similar theme or at least in the same genre; other times completely different. Either way, I find that reading a story (or seeing a film) pushes the part of my brain that I need pushed in order for me to write. I feel like writing after I come out of a movie theater or finish reading someone's novel. It seems to have always been like this.

Recently, as I work on my latest novel, a sequel to my FLU SEASON trilogy, I noticed something interesting about a pair of books I read by author Maile Meloy: Liars and Saints (2003) and A Family Daughter (2006), both about the same family. I also read a collection of her stories, Half in Love (2002). Her style is lean, like mine in my trilogy, yet paints deep portraits of the principal characters, all members of the same family in a saga beginning in WW2 and continuing up through the 1990s. I also saw an indie film, Certain Women, by way of a Netflix DVD before they discontinued DVD-by-mail service. Several of the stories in Half in Love were used in the film.

Here is what happened. Looking for a good movie to watch - even as I was working on writing my own novel - I found Certain Women, which was about women in Montana. I had just visited Montana earlier in the year as a vacation and I also know a woman in Montana (a friend / book cover artist) although I did not visit her as she was traveling outside of Montana at the time. The DVD arrived and I watched it, enjoyed it, wanted more. So I ordered the book of stories credited in the film. When the book arrived, I skimmed through the stories to find the ones made into the film. A couple were obvious, others not so much. One interesting aspect of the film was one of the four interwoven stories starred Lily Gladstone, playing a ranch hand, the actress who was about to become famous in Killers of the Flower Moon - which hadn't yet opened.

My FLU SEASON trilogy involved a family during and following a long pandemic, heavy on the family drama and just enough of the sci-fi/apocalyptic feel to keep it interesting. I was trying to keep it realistic, more to the plausible (basic survival) than to the fantastic (zombies, etc.). Seeing that film on DVD pushed me to get the first novel by Meloy, Liars and Saints, based on reading the opening pages on Amazon. The understated telling of the young couple marrying before the husband ships out to war drew me in. I enjoyed reading the unfolding drama of a family living mostly in California in the decades after WW2. I can't say I got any ideas for my own family drama from Meloy's novel but, as I stated at the beginning, my reading prompted my writing.

Then I got the second novel, A Family Daughter, based on me learning that it was about the same family but more focused on one important character of the first novel. I assumed this second novel would fill in gaps in events in the first novel. I was reading along happily, as much as one can with dramatic episodes happening, and then, close to half-way, I find myself wondering what was going on. What I was reading in Family did not match events in the first novel, Liars. In one example, a major character dies at a different point in the timeline of the second book than in the first book. I waited to read that it was actually a dream sequence of some kind. I returned to the first book several times to crosscheck episodes. I convinced myself that it was perfectly acceptable for an author use the same set of characters to write a completely different story. But that was not the answer to the mystery of the sharply diverging plot lines.

By the end, I'd figured it out. I won't say in detail what happens because I wouldn't want to leave any spoilers. I will say that the second book, Family, is apparently the "true story" and the first book, Liars, is the "novel" the character in Family writes. That the "novel" written by the character was published first (in real life, as they say) is another odd feature. What I took from this discombobulation was an idea for the perfect plot twist in my own work-in-progress novel, FLU SEASON 4: The Book of Dad, the sequel to the trilogy. Stuck in a crucial scene, I got the answer how to continue. And that answer came, thanks to Meloy's twin novels. (*I do prefer the version of the story in Liars to the one in Family, to be honest; if you are reading both, I recommend reading them in the order I did: Liars first, Family next.)

In a work of fiction, everything is made-up. It's difficult to have characters lie because everything is by definition a lie. But what if the story is going one way with its set of assumptions, truths, and facts - until the plot runs up against a character who doesn't believe those assumptions, truths, and facts? That should be a plot conundrum. But if you read the right books you will find a way through the conundrum and go on to greater and greater twists. So, in this sequel to my trilogy, the story of events laid out in the trilogy is suddenly questioned. Is that really what happened? Was the pandemic simply mass hysteria? The civil war merely border skirmishes between states? How could the protagonist in FLU SEASON 4 not see the truth? The writing is right there on the wall - the same wall with the poster of Big Sister glaring down at the citizenry.

I continue writing on this novel because it's what gets me up in the mornings. It has now passed 80,000 words and looking at 100,000 for a complete first draft (less than the other books, if you're keeping count). Editing should cut it back to 90,000 for the finished version. I hope to have it out in Summer 2024. Meantime, I highly recommend the aforementioned books by Maile Meloy although they are not in any way sci-fi or apocalyptic.

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(C) Copyright 2010-2023 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.

The Schizophrenic Nature of the Writer

FLU SEASON - a pandemic novel, part 3

As I prepare my latest novel for publication, I consider each revision pass with different eyes. In fact, I'm forced to see each scene and the characters in it in a new light. Partly this is simply the product of an additional reading. It is also an opportunity to revisit an invention and reflect on where and how the parts of that invention originated.

I'm talking about the characters who inhabit this story of a teenage son and his mom (and her tuba) and their escape from a pandemic-ravaged city for what they hope will be relative safety in the country. I can sit back and know where I got bits of each character. The son is not based on me, however, and the mother is not in any way based on my mother. They are composites: part of this person I knew and part of that person I know. Other characters begin as stock figures, perhaps, but as their role in the story expands, they take on other traits borrowed from...wait for it: people I have known.

A common aphorism for writers is "write what you know". That may end up as an autobiography, or turned into a work of fiction by changing the names. Many writers' first novels are thinly veiled autobiographies, we understand. I think the idea is to write about things I know from direct experience. I may be an expert on those experiences, of course, but how can I say that people want to read about my exact episodes? Sure, we believe anything can be interesting if written in an interesting way...but really? You want to read about my tuba lessons? Don't worry, I can embellish them to make them fun to read. I'll admit it is a lot easier to write about something (or use it in a work of fiction) if I have experienced it myself. But a good novel needs more and that requires borrowing, inventing, or straight-up guessing (if access to research isn't available). But that could get a writer in trouble.

If we do not write about only what we know directly, we could be accused of borrowing (or "appropriating" in certain contexts) details we may include in a work of fiction. There are many easy examples. How can a male writer write a female character? is a common question, less so the reverse about how a female writer can write a male character. Usually I can answer both questions thus: writers are professional observers. We observe, describe, borrow from people we have known. The same goes for writing characters of different races or ethnicities from the writer. Or any of a number of categories like these. In most cases, I don't think the writer is trying to portray a different character in a deliberately offensive way, though it may result in such. Rather, the writer gives the best effort possible in depicting the character realistically within the context of the story.

So what we have as a bottom line is the writer is either writing from direct experience or writing as a phony. Let me suggest another answer: the writer is an actor, and inhabits each character as needed, essentially becoming that character for the purpose of acting in a given scene. I can understand that not all writers welcome this schizophrenia - recognizing the mental health condition as a serious malady and not to be used jokingly, of course. My usage of the term is merely to suggest the multiple personalities a writer may operate within in order to create believable and compelling characters. We want readers to welcome a character, no matter how close that character may or may not be to the author's true self.

In my forthcoming sci-fi novel FLU SEASON, I've realized how each major character is an act: me playing that character, seeing the world through that character's eyes, speaking through that character's mouth, acting in that character's body - as though I was indeed a puppet master pulling strings. That is, naturally, part of the fun of creation: I become this character for a while and rather enjoy it. It's often exhausting being that character, suffering bad things but also sharing in the joy of good things. It's really the reason writing a novel is an enjoyable endeavor, no matter how much I then need to work through plots and edit and worry about the details and whether anyone will want to read it.

If readers wonder how I know how this or that character would think, well, I'm imagining, certainly, but not absent any knowledge or experience. For example, the teenage girl character in the novel is based on the appearance and personality of a girl I knew in high school. The mother character has the spunkiness of the mother of a friend of mine during my high school years. Some of the townsfolk in the second half of the novel are based on people I have known, borrowing both their appearance and their way of speaking - which reflects their way of thinking. The story the vagabond in the pine forest tells our protagonists is actually my own experience with the virus. And the teenage son, although not based on me, I have let borrow some things from me and my experiences: for example, the tales of the Schnauzer and the bunny, as well as his Asperger's traits. Another 'borrowing' is when one character tries to set up their new society based on the society portrayed in a famous novel.

A good writer is a good actor, let us agree. Then comes the translation of the acting into words on a page. The story telling then the story writing. The idea then the craft. But it is all made easier when it's the same person doing all of it. I often feel lucky in having my particular set of quirks, which both entertain myself as well as, I hope, those who read what I put together as novels. Thank you for your continuing support; it makes the acting worthwhile.

UPDATE: The revision stage has come to an end and the cover art is starting. Publication is expected in mid- to late summer. Next post, I'll break down some of the events in the novel.

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(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.