Novel hypnosis

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I finished reading Room by Emma Donoghue last night. I can't recall a reading experience so intense: I didn't move—literally—for two and a half hours, not until I'd come to the end. And then I stumbled around for a bit, stunned.


The novel is told from the point-of-view of a five-year-old. I've read in an interview that Emma Donoghue studied the language patterns of her own five-year-old child to create the voice for this story. She profoundly succeeds, but what is her true accomplishment, in my view, is her ability to see (or appear to see) from the point-of-view of a child—a child born and raised in captivity.


Room has garnered a bouquet of raves from fine writers, such as this one from Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours: 

"Room is that rarest of entities, an entirely original work of art. I mean it as the highest possible praise when I tell you that I can't compare it to any other book. Suffice to say that it's potent, darkly beautiful, and revelatory." 

I agree. It is also charming, as well as enchanting.

As a writer, it reinforced, for me, the importance of the imagination, of imaginative penetration into the world of ones characters. The first enchantment must be the author's own.


*****
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Donald Maass on The Elements of Awe

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Agent Donald Maass is always worth reading. These two essays on Writer Unboxed are thought-provoking:

The Elements of Awe ...

"What is the strongest emotion you want your reader to feel? Search and delete that word everywhere it occurs in your manuscript. Now, how will you provoke that emotion through action alone? Got it? Good. Next write down three ways to heighten that action." 

And The Elements of Awe, Part II:

"High story impact does not come from length alone. It occurs when every character in a novel embarks on a profound journey and every plot layer and sub-plot becomes a novel unto itself."

On figuring out characters: What's Wig-Girl doing here?!

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My husband and I have been at the beach for a week. Every morning I have been reading and editing the first draft of The Next Novel. Some days I was pleased, other days the verdict was more "Hummm." The last pages, which I read yesterday, made me shed a few tears (always a good sign). All in all, I think it's a good first draft, and I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and dig in.

There is one character (Wig-Girl) who puzzles me, an invented character I haven't figured out yet. (Most of the other characters in the novel are based in history.) She popped into the story early on. I like her, but I'm not sure what she's doing there. While writing the first draft, I kept trying her out in various roles: as a maid to the dying mother, as a romantic interest of the heroine's brother. None of these really worked, and so I'll cut those scenes, but it was amusing (and surprising!) to see her pop up and then disappear, only to pop up yet again in another guise entirely. It's as if I was auditioning her, trying her out.

Today I'll have another look at my character notes, and especially at the notes I took from Christopher Vogler's wonderful book, The Writer's Journey, on the basic characters that are typically part of any story. (I've put my notes on Docs, here — or here, at: http://bit.ly/5uqIA7.)

How does Wig-Girl fit in? What's her role? I've never followed Vogler's template closely, but I do love it, and I find it helps clarify characters and their purpose, their function in the story. It's one of my favorite books on writing.

*****
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