Learning from the Masters: Dean Koontz’s Tips for Plotting the Best-Seller

Copyright 2010 by Gary L. Pullman

 

In 1981, when Writer’s Digest Books published his How to Write Best-Selling Fiction, Dean Koontz had 25,000,000 copies of his books in print and had earned several million dollars as a writer. Today, he has sixteen times that number of copies in print, or a whopping 400,000,000 --a copy for every man, woman, and child in the United States, with some left over. It’s safe to assume that his fortune has enjoyed a corresponding increase. Koontz is nothing if not (a) prolific and (2) commercially successful. It should go without saying that, when he counsels aspiring writers as to what and how they should write for publication, others should pay attention. Among other topics (or tips) that he supplies in How to Write Best-Selling Fiction, prolific, best-selling author Dean Koontz insists upon the importance of the narrative hook (an opening to the story that captivates readers and makes them want to read further) and plot. He supplies numerous examples of the former and a formula for the latter (although he prefers to call the formula a “pattern”). His example of the narrative hook is the beginning of his own novel The Voice in the Night, in which the antagonist asks the protagonist (both of whom are adolescents), “You ever killed anything?”

This question, asked of Colin by Roy, leads the boys to discuss the killing of “bugs” (Roy admits he likes the way bugs “squish” when he kills them and enjoys watching praying mantises “try to walk” after he has ripped “the legs off” them. Finally, Roy asks, “Ever kill anything bigger than bugs?” and admits that he has done so, “lots of times,” which prompts Colin to ask, “What’d you kill?” (67-68) One must admit that this opening is captivating! Koontz defines the “classic plot” for fiction of all types as being comprised of “four steps”:

1. The author introduces a hero (or heroine) who has just been or is about to be plunged into terrible trouble.
2. The hero attempts to solve his problem but only slips into deeper trouble.
3. As the hero works to climb out of the hole he’s in, complications arise, each more terrible than the one before, until it seems that his situation could not be blacker or more hopeless than it is--and then one final, unthinkable complication makes matters worse. In most cases, these complications arise from mistakes or misjudgments the hero makes while struggling to solve his problems. Mistakes and misjudgments which result from the interaction of the faults and virtues that make him a unique character.
4. At last, deeply affected and changed by his intolerable circumstances, the hero learns something about himself or about the human condition in general, a Truth about which he was ignorant, and, having learned this lesson, he understands what he must do to get out of the dangerous situation in which he has wound up. He takes the necessary action and succeeds or fails, though he succeeds more often than not, for readers tend to greatly prefer fiction that has an uplifting conclusion (74-75).

Coming from one of the world’s most prolific and best-selling authors, these tips are ignored only at one’s own peril, especially since, according to Koontz virtually every successful writer, from Robert Ludlum to Ernest Hemingway, himself and Stephen King included, employs them (75). Koontz also identifies the five goals he has in mind for “the first scene,” or opening, of “every novel” he writes:

1. I wanted to grip the reader immediately.
2. I wanted to introduce the lead character.
3. I wanted to plunge the lead character into terrible trouble.
4. I wanted to let the reader know that this was going to be a fast-paced story with lots of suspense. . . .
5. I wanted to create a strong sense of reality. . . . (84-88).

Koontz also recommends that aspiring writers try to break into the market with a novel, as opposed to short stories; find an agent to represent him or her; write for a mainstream, rather than a genre market; include lots of action in the story; and disbelieve all the rumors about publishers who are no longer seeking quality writing from first-time writers or who refuse to consider anything sent to them over the transom. Of course, How to Write Best-Selling Fiction is almost 30 years old, and a good many things are apt to have changed since those days, but one thing seems to remain clear: if one doesn’t write at least a synopsis and the first three chapters of a novel, one will have nothing to sell, regardless of the vagaries of the marketplace and the economy.

Formula for the Haunted House Tale

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

As an adjunct to my "How to Haunt a House" series, I am adding this summary of the formula for the haunted house tale that Dale Bailey offers in American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. Setting: a house 1. with an unsavory history 2. with an aristocratic name 3. disturbed by supernatural events unusually unrelated to human ghosts Characters: 1. a middle-class family or family surrogate, skeptical of the supernatural, who move into the house 2. knowledgeable helpers who believe in the supernatural 3. an oracular observer who warns of danger Plot: dual structure: 1. an escalating series of supernatural events which isolates the family physically and psychologically 2. the discovery of provenance for those events climax:

a. the escape of the family and the destruction of the house

or

a. the escape of the family and the continued existence of the house b. a twist ending that establishes the recurring nature of evil

Themes: 1. class and gender conflict 2. economic hardship 3. consequence of the past (especially unpunished crimes) 4. Manichean clash of good and evil 5. clash of scientific and supernatural world views 6. cyclical nature of evil Source: Bailey, Dale. American Nightmares: The Haunted House Formula in American Popular Fiction. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1999. Print.

The Calm Before the Storm

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

In previous posts, we have advanced the claim that the general formula for the horror story consists of three phases:

1. Bizarre incidents occur.
2. The protagonist learns the cause of these incidents.
3. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to end the incidents.

What we omitted is that the first phase presupposes a period of quiescence or normality to contrast with the bizarre incidents. Although the bizarre is apt to be seen as such even without a preceding period of serenity or normality, it is also true that a prior state of peace and order will make the subsequent pandemonium all the stranger and more horrific than it might be otherwise. We might call this period of quiescence or normality the calm before the storm.

This period of calm can be presented in almost any terms, as long as the terms are commonplace and ordinary. The everyday will be the state of affairs that is disturbed by the eruption of the bizarre. Most writers take the opportunity to characterize their protagonists and, sometimes, other characters during the calm before the storm, making them likeable, or at least understandable, to their readers before imperiling them, as Dean Koontz does in The Taking and most of his other novels and Stephen King does in Carrie and may of his other works. Writers may also take advantage of the peace and quiet to show the reader around town, as it were, as King does in ‘Salem’s Lot. Of course, writers also establish the story’s basic conflict, although, in doing so, they may also introduce a red herring, as it were, to distract from the true conflict that will later be revealed. Koontz takes this approach in The Taking, implying that the forces of evil represent an advance force of aliens who have come to Earth to reverse-terraform the planet, making it hospitable for their species’ invading army, which is on its way. In reality, the aliens turn out to be Satan and his army of demons, come to destroy humanity. The calm before the storm, in effect, equals the story’s exposition, during which, while things have yet to get out of hand, writers lay the groundwork for the grand story to follow, providing much of the background information that makes the story as a whole intelligible to their readers.

Horror Story Formulae

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

I. General Horror Formula

1. A series of bizarre, seemingly unrelated incidents occurs.
2. The protagonist (and, sometimes, his or her friends or associates) discover the cause of the incidents (often, it is a monster).
3. Using their newfound knowledge, they end the bizarre incidents (perhaps by killing the monster).

Examples: It, Summer of Night, The Exorcist

II. Specific Horror Authors’ Formulae

H. G. Wells

1. An ordinary man lives an ordinary life.
2. He is confronted by extraordinary circumstances.
3. He has trouble fitting back into an ordinary life.

Examples: The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr. Moreau

Edgar Allan Poe (1)

1. A man and a woman fall in love.
2. The woman dies.
3. The grieving man seeks to survive the woman’s death.

Examples: “Annabelle Lee,” The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe (2)

1. A villain insults the protagonist or the protagonist’s beloved.
2. The protagonist executes revenge.
3. The protagonist and/or the protagonist and his beloved escape.

Examples: “Hop-Frog,” “The Cask of the Amontillado” Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (3)

1. A madman becomes obsessed with another person.
2. The madman kills the other person or violates him or her in some way.
3. The madman succumbs to his madness.

Examples: “Berenice,” “The Tell-Tale Heart”

Stephen King

1. A fairy tale is reduced to its basic narrative elements.
2. The fairy tale’s conflict symbolizes a contemporary issue or concern (theme).
3. The fairy tale is retold in contemporary terms, in a small-town setting.

Examples: Carrie, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Misery

Dean Koontz

1. A guy meets a girl.
2. The couple encounters a force that tries to kill them.
3. The couple, surviving, fall in love.

Gary Pullman

1. Neglected or abused children face a common threat.
2. As a team, they fight their common threat.
3. They overcome the threat and become friends.

Examples: Saturday’s Child, Mystic Mansion, Revelation Point, Wild Wicca Woman

III. Christian Formulae

Christian (1)

1. People enjoy paradise.
2. Paradise is invaded, or the people give in to temptation.
3. Paradise is corrupted or destroyed or the people are exiled from it.

Example: Adam and Eve

Christian (2a)

1. People displease God.
2. God warns the people to repent.
3. When the people refuse to repent, God destroys them.

Example: Noah and the ark; the curses against pharaoh and the Egyptians

Christian (2b)

1. People displease God.
2. God warns the people to repent.
3. When the people refuse to repent, God curses them, and they suffer the consequences of the curse.

Example: Moses and the Israelites’ wandering in the wilderness

Christian (3)

1. A people is oppressed by a tyrant.
2. God elects a leader to rescue them.
3. The people are rescued from the tyrant.

Example: Exodus

Christian (4)

1. God promises a people that it shall have a land in which to build a nation.
2. Through leaders, God seizes the land from its inhabitants.
3. The people occupy the land and build a nation.

Examples: Judges and Kings

Christian (5a)

1. A chosen one is called to undertake a mission.
2. The chosen one performs the mission.
3. The fortunes of a tribe, a nation, or the human race is improved.

Example: Moses, David, Israel, church

Christian (5b)

1. God promises a Messiah.
2. The Messiah arrives, performing his ministry.
3. The Messiah redeems humanity.

Example: Jesus Christ

IV. Another Formula

Hans Christian Andersen

1. A character is rejected by his or her peers or community.
2. The character accomplishes a great deed on behalf of his peers or community.
3. The character is accepted with praise by his peers or community.

Examples: "The Ugly Duckling," "The Littlest Christmas Tree," Revelation Point

Stephen King’s Horrific Fairy Tales; Dean Koontz’s Variations on a Formula

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Stephen King has claimed that he buys his ideas for stories at an out-of-the-way, secondhand bookstore.

However, in Archetypes in 8 Horror and Suspense Films, Walter Rankin identifies the fairy tales that he believes underlie several of Stephen King’s novels:

"Little Red Riding Hood" is the basis of The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, in which a young girl is lost in the woods and encounters a monster.

"Sleeping Beauty" is the basis for Christine, in which a teenage boy falls in love with his car.

"Rapunzel" is the basis of Carrie. In the former story, “a girl is locked away in a high room by a woman who fears the girl’s maturity and interest in men, which are symbolized by remarkable changes she can’t control.” Carrie is locked away by her mother, a religious fanatic who bore her daughter as a result of having been raped, fears and hates men and sex, and, like the woman in the story of Rapunzel “fears” he daughter’s “maturity and interest in” boys, in not “men.”

"Snow White" is the basis for “Apt Pupil,” in both of which stories “an older, seemingly normal person is revealed as an evil, deadly foe by a younger person with remarkably similar policies,” and the older person dies, survived by the younger one, his or her protégé. In “Apt Pupil,” the older person is a Nazi war criminal, while his protégé is a sadistic American teenage boy.

"Cinderella" is the basis of Firestarter. In both stories, a girl is exploited by a group who adopt her as their own, but, aided by a fairy godmother (in Cinderella’s case) or her own developing pyrokinesis (in Charlie’s case), vanquishes her foes.

"Hansel and Gretel" is the basis of Silver Bullet. In the former, siblings alone in an enchanted realm must fend off the attacks of a “villain who appears in two forms, one normal and one otherworldly and powerful.” In the latter, a brother and sister, aided by their uncle, resist the assaults of a character who is the parish priest by day and a werewolf by night.

"Rumpelstiltskin" is the basis for Storm of the Century. In both stories, a mysterious man appears demanding that he be given children before he will leave the townspeople in peace. The citizens seek to uncover the stranger’s secret and prevent him from abducting their children.

According to Rankin, the fairy tale’s prohibition-violation premise structures the plot. The audience understands (and expects) the character or characters to violate a prohibition and to suffer the consequences of their doing so. The prohibition may involve almost anything--opening a closet, investigating a strange noise, believing that a killer is dead when he or she is not, wandering off alone, opening a locked door. The consequences, at some point, will likely include one or more (or all) of the characters’ meeting an untimely and gruesome end.

What about the West Coast Stephen King, Dean Koontz? Where does he get his storylines?

In Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear, edited by Stefen Hantke, Richard John Hauser is credited with having identified the “five basic plots [that] Dean Koontz uses over and over ad infinitum. Actually, it seems that Koontz uses but one plot and four variations on one of its parts. The blank indicates the part that changes (slightly) from one employment of the formula to another: “Guy meets girl and they stumble across _________________. The _______________ tries to kill them. They survive and fall in love.” With this in mind, these are the five plots that Hantke identifies; the parenthetical examples are his as well; the underlining is added:

1. Guy meets girl and they stumble across a government experiment gone wrong. Government forces try to kill them. They survive and fall in love (Watchers, Strangers).
2. Guy meets girl and they stumble across a non-government experiment gone wrong. Non-government forces try to kill them. They survive and fall in love (Midnight).
3. Guy meets girl and they stumble across a supernatural horror. The supernatural horror tries to kill them. They survive and fall in love (Twilight Eyes, Darkfall).
4. Guy meets girl and they stumble across a psychopathic killer. The psychopathic killer tries to kill them. They survive and fall in love (Watchers, Strangers).
5. Guy meets girl and they stumble across a horror that doesn’t quite fit one of the above categories. The horror that doesn’t quite fit one of the above categories tries to kill them. They survive and fall in love (Watchers, Strangers).

Sources

Fairy Tale Archetypes in 8 Horror and Suspense Films by Walter Rankin; McFarland and Company, Inc., NC, 2007. Horror Film: Creating and Marketing Fear, Stefen Hantke, ed.; 2004.

Presto! You Have a Plot!

Copyright Gary L. Pullman

 

It’s fairly easy to plot a contemporary horror novel if you know the formula, which is also fairly simple--quite simple, in fact, consisting of three phases:

1. A series of bizarre incidents occurs.
2. The main character discovers the cause of the bizarre incidents.
3. Using his or her newfound knowledge as to the cause of the bizarre incidents, the main character (usually assisted by others) puts an end to them (often by killing a monster).

With this formula in mind, all a writer has to do is to:

1. Establish the cause of the series of bizarre incidents; if the cause is human or humanoid (for example, a monster with a will and personality), give it a plausible motive for its actions.
2. Make a list of the bizarre incidents that will occur.
3. Establish the means by which the main character learns the cause of the bizarre incidents.
4. Have the main character use this knowledge as to the cause of the bizarre incidents to put an end to them.
5. It helps (but is not mandatory) to associate the monster or other cause of the bizarre incidents with a real-life horror.

In a nutshell, that’s all there is to plotting the contemporary horror novel.

Let’s conclude with an example (Stephen King's Desperation):

1. Establish the cause of the series of bizarre incidents. The demon Tak escapes from the caved-in mine in which he has been imprisoned for several decades and battles God, seeking to demonstrate its superiority to the Christian deity.
2. Make a list of the bizarre incidents that will occur. In Nevada, a dead cat is seen nailed to a highway sign. An abandoned recreation vehicle (RV) sits alongside a lonely stretch of highway, its door flapping in the breeze. A sheriff, acting crazy, arrests a couple on trumped up drug charges, threatening to kill them on their way to jail. The nearest town, Desperation, seems abandoned, except for the corpses that litter the streets. The sheriff has arrested several other individuals, also on false charges; among his prisoners are the members of the RV family, whom he supposedly rescued from (non-existent) gunmen. Vultures, scorpions, wolves, and other animals, under the sheriff’s telepathic control, attack people. A preteen prisoner, David Carver, miraculously escapes from jail, afterward performing additional miracles (using a cell phone with a dead battery and multiplying a supply of sardines and crackers). The demon Tak, who is behind the series of bizarre incidents, serially possessing the sheriff and others as he wears out their bodies, fears the preteen. Strange idols cause sexually perverse thoughts and feelings in those who touch them.
3. Establish the means by which the main character learns the cause of the bizarre incidents. A character who has witnessed several of the bizarre incidents that befall his town tells David and the others in their party about the demon that has escaped from the caved-in mine and how it possesses one person after another.
4. Have the main character use this knowledge as to the cause of the bizarre incidents to put an end to them. Assisted by others, David reburies Tak inside the collapsed mine.
5. It helps (but is not mandatory) to associate the monster or other cause of the bizarre incidents with a real-life horror; for example, the monster of cause may symbolize such a real-life horror. Tak could represent social anarchy and its consequences.

Presto! Flesh out the skeleton of your story, possibly adding a related subplot or two, and you have the plot for one scary horror novel (especially if you happen to be Stephen King.)

Motivation as Explanation

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

In earlier posts, we have considered the nature of evil as various horror writers have defined it. Some have seen evil as sinful; others as indifference on a cosmic, worldly, or local level; and still others as destructive of one’s local community.

These considerations of evil can be considered as being metaphysical. They deal with the very nature, or character, of evil. They delve into the heart and the soul, as it were, of wickedness, seeking to penetrate the depths of the mystery of iniquity.

More than many genres, horror cries out--one might say, given the nature of the genre, screams--for an explanation of evil on such a level. Moreover, horror fiction, to work at all, must also offer an explanation for the particular evil--the specific monster or other adversary--that threatens the protagonist of a particular tale. The very mechanics of the horror story demand this of its authors, and those who fail to supply such an explanation or whose explanation is not all that explanatory or plausible within the context of the story in which it is offered tend to perturb their readers.

Elsewhere, we laid bare the bones of the horror story’s skeleton, or formula:

1. A series of bizarre incidents occurs.
2. The protagonist discovers the cause of these incidents.
3. The protagonist uses his or her newfound knowledge to put an end to these incidents.

The second stage of the narrative is our topic in this post, for the cause of the bizarre incidents in a particular story is the antagonist’s motivation, and this motivation is the explanation, on the immediate and narrative, if not the metaphysical and universal, level, for the evil that occurs, although, often, the former is a consequence or, at least, a parallel, of the latter. An example of these two levels? In Christianity, the nature of evil is pride (“pride goeth before a fall,” as Satan learns), whereas Satan’s individual and personal motive in corrupting humanity is his blasphemous attempt “to be like the most high God”:

How art thou fallen, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit (Isaiah 14: 12-15).

Likewise, the apostle Peter, although he protests that he would never betray Jesus, even if his loyalty to the Messiah should cost him his own life, betrays Jesus, an act which stems from the greater love that he had for himself than that which he had for God (a sort of pride), but is, more immediately, directed at the saving of his own life, in the here and now.

This chart shows some of the explanations that are provided for the series of bizarre incidents that unfold in several well-known horror stories; again, as the motives of specific antagonists within particular narratives, they are causes in the immediate sense and within the contexts of the stories themselves, not in a universal and cosmic sense, as definitions of the very nature of evil itself:

These example could be multiplied ad infinitum, but the point is that, in the horror story that accommodates itself to the formula we identified, the antagonist’s motive is the explanation for the horror--the series of bizarre incidents that unfold in the first part of the tale, whatever the ultimate, metaphysical nature of evil itself may be.

Therefore, the horror writer’s first task is to determine what the antagonist’s motive shall be, to identify, in other words, what the antagonist wants and hopes to accomplish. Having done so, the author withholds this explanation for the bizarre incidents that occur in the story until the middle of the tale, wherein, discerning or learning the antagonist’s motivation (i. e., the cause of the evil events that are taking place), the protagonist is equipped to put an end to these incidents (and, possibly, the monster that is causing them). It’s extremely doubtful that the protagonist will ever but an end to the nature of evil, to sin, or pride, or indifference, or threats to the local community, or whatever this nature may be.

Despite the chaos, there must be order. Despite the madness, there must be a method. Despite the bizarre series of incidents, there must be a motive to the monster’s behavior which causes these incidents. Writers who do not provide a plausible motive for the bizarre series of incidents that result from their antagonists’ actions do not fare well with readers and critics, and otherwise good, or even superior, novels suffer as a result of such failures as well. Although Stephen King’s motives usually suffice to make his villains’ actions believable, he drops the ball in a big way with It, and Bentley Little, despite having written nearly a dozen novels and many short stories, has yet to pick up the ball or, perhaps, even to notice that it exists. The effect, upon It, is to all but ruin a potential masterpiece of the genre. The effect, upon Little’s reputation, of not yet his career, is sustained disappointment and, most likely, eventual oblivion.

Some motives that horror writers have used to explain the bizarre incidents that unfold in the first parts of their stories include:

• Demonic possession in an attempt to bring about a person’s damnation
• An alien’s mission (for example, conquest or mating with a man or a woman)
• Vengeance upon a wrongdoer
• Eruptions of a past or future events into the present
• Pollution
• Humans’ encroachment upon a monster’s habitat
• An effort to steal or control dwindling food or other resources
• Behavioral control or modification
• Recruitment or testing
• Eugenics
• Efforts to survive a plague or the aftermath of a nuclear holocaust
• Genocide
• Punishment, individual or wholesale
• Colonization
• Commerce
• War

Write What You Know (But What Does That Mean?)

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Aspiring writers are often advised to write about what they know. This is sound advice. However, those who would heed it often put too narrow an interpretation upon this counsel. By “write about what you know,” the advisor is not suggesting that, for example, a bricklayer write only about laying bricks or that a chef write only about preparing meals. Let me quote from a not-always-reliable source that many would advise you (and well) not to use, Wikipedia, a free, online encyclopedia the fault of which lies in the fact that anyone is allowed to “edit” almost any article at any time, concerning Hans Christian Andersen.

Plain in appearance and painfully shy, especially around women, this ugly duckling longed for a life of love, but had to settle for one of fame. I quote the article concerning Hans Christian Andersen and the pathos of his life:

Andersen often fell in love with unattainable women and many of his stories are interpreted as references to his sexual grief. The most famous of these was the opera soprano Jenny Lind. One of his stories is “The Nightingale”, [sic] was a written expression of his passion for Lind, and became the inspiration for her nickname, the “Swedish Nightingale”. [sic] Andersen was often shy around women and had extreme difficulty in proposing to Lind. When Lind was boarding a train to take her to an opera concert, Andersen gave Lind a letter of proposal. Her feelings towards him were not mutual; she saw him as a brother. . . . A girl named Riborg Voigt was the unrequited love of Andersen's youth. A small pouch containing a long letter from Riborg was found on Andersen's chest when he died.

At one point he wrote in his diary: “Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!” Other disappointments in love included Sophie Ørsted, the daughter of the physicist Hans Christian Ørsted, and Louise Collin, the youngest daughter of his benefactor Jonas Collin.

Unlucky at love, Andersen was happy to find friendship with Charles Dickens, but, alas, during a visit to the English author’s residence, he overstayed his welcome, and Dickens never answered his fellow writer’s and former houseguest’s subsequent letters:

In June 1847, Andersen paid his first visit to England and enjoyed a triumphal social success during the summer. The Countess of Blessington invited him to her parties where intellectual and famous people could meet, and it was at one party that he met Charles Dickens for the first time. They shook hands and walked to the veranda which was of much joy to Andersen. He wrote in his diary “We had come to the veranda, I was so happy to see and speak to England's now living writer, whom I love the most.”

Ten years later, Andersen visited England, primarily to visit Dickens. He stayed at Dickens’ home for five weeks, oblivious to Dickens’ increasingly blatant hints for him to leave. Dickens’ daughter said of Andersen, “He was a bony bore, and stayed on and on.” Shortly after Andersen left, Dickens published David Copperfield, featuring the obsequious Uriah Heep, who is said to have been modeled on Andersen. Andersen quite enjoyed the visit, and never understood why Dickens stopped answering his letters.

As unlucky in friendship as he’d been in the pursuit of love, Andersen was a lonely man who longed for continuous companionship, which led, perhaps, to the many hours he spent in writing the stories for which he was famous, many of which deal with characters who, like Andersen, made unhappy attempts to establish lasting and meaningful, if not intimate, relationships. In other words, in a larger sense than our bricklayer would write only of laying bricks or our chef who would write only of preparing meals, Andersen wrote what he knew: the heartache of loneliness and rejection such as make up the themes of such of his tales as “The Angel,” which is “about an angel and a dead child gathering flowers to carry to Heaven where one flower will sing when kissed by God”; “The Fir Tree,” which “was cut down for a Christmas tree. . . . bought and decorated” and “expected the festivities to go on,“ but, instead, “was was burned and the happiest day of its life was over”; “The Match Girl,” which is “about a girl who dies selling matches on a wintry New Year's Eve,” soon after seeing “a vision of her deceased grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness”; “The Little Mermaid,” which is “about a young mermaid willing to give up her life in the sea and her identity as a merperson to gain a human soul and the love of a human prince”; “The Nightingale,” which is “about an emperor who prefers the tinkling of a music box to the song of a nightingale“ and “is believed to have been inspired by the author's platonic relationship with opera singer and fellow Scandinavian, Jenny Lind”; “The Ugly Duckling,” which is about “a cygnet” who is “ostracized by his fellow barnyard fowl because of his perceived homeliness,” but “matures into a graceful swan, the most beautiful bird of all”; and others in the same vein. It is not difficult to see how these stories might be derived from the author’s own feelings of rejection and loneliness.


Another example of a writer who seems to have written many of his short stories, if not so much his novels, from what he knew is that of H. G. Wells, who, John Hammond, founder and president of the H. G. Wells Society and the author of the “Introduction” to The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells tells us, suffered “several ‘false starts’ in life” before winning “a scholarship to the Normal School of Science at South Kensington (now part of Imperial College) where he studied biology under T. H. Huxley,” graduating in 1890, only to have “his subsequent career as a teacher. . . cut short by ill health” and “a breakdown” that occurred in 1893. While “convalescing” from this “breakdown,” Wells “began articles and short stories and was soon earning his living as a journalist.” The victim of ill health and other setbacks, Wells wrote stories that followed a set pattern, or formula, Hammond observes:

In each case the central character is an ordinary person whose life changes in an unforeseen way and who finds it difficult to return to normality.

. . . [His] stories are undoubtedly entertaining and are meant to be read for pleasure, but of course Wells had a more serious intent in mind. They are designed to stimulate thought, to suggest possibilities of behaviour and to alert the reader to the immense role of chance in human affairs. The typical Wells hero is a person going about his everyday affairs whose life is turned upside-down by a random event or
encounter. . . .

--much in the same manner, we might add, as his own life was turned topsy-turvy by his “ill health” and “breakdown,” which diverted his career from one of science to one of “journalism” and the writing of fiction. In other words, like Andersen and many other writers, both of horror and other genres, Wells wrote about that which he knew--about “an ordinary person whose life changes in an unforeseen way and who finds it difficult to return to normality” and about “the immense role of chance in human affairs.”

In most people’s lives, there is a defining moment, “a random event or encounter,” as Hammond characterizes such a time, that transforms one, making him or her what he or she becomes. If one aspires to write, it is of this moment that one should write, letting it give shape to narrative after narrative. It is this that is meant by those who counsel aspiring writers to “write about what you know.”

Sources

“Angel, The,” Wikipedia
Complete Stories of H. G. Wells, The, ed. John Hammond. J. M. Dent, 1998.
“Fir Tree, The,” Wikipedia
“Hans Christian Andersen,” Wikipedia
“Little Match Girl, The,” Wikipedia
“Little Mermaid, The,” Wikipedia
“Nightingale, The,” Wikipedia
“Ugly Duckling, The,” Wikipedia

Frustrating Formulaic Fiction

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Genre fiction is formulaic fiction. It must be. There’s an unwritten law somewhere that requires it to be. (Or maybe it’s a written law.) Formulaic fiction fails to entertain after a while, because most people get tired of reading yet another variation on the same tired and tattered narrative formula, especially when the formula is fairly straightforward and simple. Formulaic fiction fails because it is predicable. A reader pretty much knows what to expect from the beginning and pretty much every time before something happens. Formulaic fiction is unimaginative, unoriginal, predictable, and boring. It’s a cliché. Actually, it’s a series of clichés strung together like so many faux pearls. There are no surprises, shocks, chills, or thrills because everything that happens is seen coming way before it actually arrives. Familiarity breeds contempt, and formulaic fiction, whether it’s adventure, detective, horror, fantasy, romance, science fiction, Western, or otherwise, is all too familiar to its readers. In a word, formulaic fiction is frustrating, but there are ways to frustrate formulaic fiction. In this post, we will consider a few techniques for doing so. Mostly, though, these methods boil down to this: become a Boy Scout. In other words, as a writer, expect the unexpected--from yourself and your characters. Formulaic fiction is formulaic largely because it is routine and repetitive rather than exploratory. It follows the same path over the same ground, leading around and around in the same concentric circles. To frustrate formulaic fiction, a writer must become a stranger in a strange land. He or she must choose the little-worn over the well-worn path. Better yet, he or she should choose from one of several other possible paths. Just as some moviemakers now make movies with one official ending, as it were, and several “alternative endings,” a writer should have several pathways (and possibly a few byways) from any major (or even minor) incident of the plot. Stories are, by and large, linear, but the any point from “B” to “Z” can end up as point “B.” Only after it is chosen, does it become the chosen one. Until then, several other incidents should compete for the honor and distinction of being this second incident. The same is true of incidents “C,” “D,” and so on, all the way to “Z” (or however many incidents make up the chain of actions, events, and situations that form the story’s plot). Let’s try an example. A man finds a love letter, in his wife’s hand, addressed to another man. Oops! What might he do?

• Confront his wife about the affair.
• Confront his rival about the affair.
• Confront both is rival and his wife about the affair.
• Leave his wife, without divorcing her.
• Divorce his wife.
• Kill his rival.
• Kill his wife.
• Kill himself.
• Kill both his rival and his wife.
• Kill both his rival and himself.
• Kill both his wife and himself.
• Kill all three parties--his rival, his wife, and himself.
• Show the love letter to his (and his wife’s) children.
• Show the love letter to his wife’s parents.
• Show the love letter to his own parents.
• Pretend he never found the love letter.
• Write a “love letter” of his own to his rival, signing his wife’s name (or using a photocopy of her signature).
• Do two or more of these options.

Of course, there are many other possibilities, some much more imaginative than any that we’ve listed, and some may suggest still others. The point is that, by listing these alternatives, the writer will have expanded his or her options considerably. If he or she chooses the more imaginative, even if it is also the more unlikely, option, his or her story will be correspondingly less predictable and, therefore, that much less formulaic.