Story-telling

When I began my novel I hadn't read anything about writing. I just got on with it. But it wasn't very long (an hour or two) before I found myself thinking about the art of story-telling.

"Ok," I thought, "here's my heroine stuck in the office for a typical boring day. I want her to hang out with all the main characters and establish their motives before the murder happens. But this is supposed to be a suspense story. What's going to keep the reader interested?

Enter Harold; dashing, enigmatic and handsome. "That'll keep them going for a minute or two," I thought. Harold was a natural, and soon became my heroine's love interest and a possible villain.

I was actually wary of reading writing guides at first in case my inspiration would be tainted (bless). I was right in the sense that any distraction is bad news when you're doing a brain dump. But when the first flurry of activity was over, I turned eagerly to the how-tos. I was delighted (and stunned) to see that my instincts hadn't led me astray. The main theme of every text out there is how to hook the reader and keep them turning the pages. Don't, for example, wait until page 30 to start your story. (Ok my murder happens somewhere around there, but that's not germane to this blog entry).

My favourite how-to so far, incidentally, is "Don't Murder Your Mystery". I recommend it even if you're not writing crime fiction.


Yesterday I had occasion to re-read "Guests of the Nation", a short story by Frank O'Connor. Instantly I was a precocious teenager again, sitting in English class in Secondary School. I can clearly remember the textbook questions.

"Hawkins claims that in the same position he would act differently. Do you believe him?"

"Belcher's character is established very early on. How is this done?"

I can also remember my utter contempt for the author of the textbook. They had clearly not 'got' the story. At all. "This is a story about the meaning of life," I remember thinking. "Don't they understand that? Ok, we can answer the stupid questions but that's so not what this is about."

Two decades later, having tried to write short stories myself, I know how pertinent those questions were. When I first read "Guests of the Nation" I couldn't imagine it being written differently. I believed every word of it. I assumed it had appeared in the world fully formed, like a pearl.

But really, a pearl is assembled slowly and gradually over many iterations. Now I realise that that is how "Guests of the Nation" was probably constructed.

And as I found out, it is not diminished by analysis. You can pick out each perfectly-crafted piece and examine its beauty from all angles. When you've done that and you read it again, the story is enhanced.


Those unappreciated textbook writers, whose questions I never really connected with, lived in my head when I started writing seriously. "You've already told the reader this; can't you find a way to avoid going through it again?" they would ask. And a hundred other questions that make my writing less pedestrian than it would otherwise be.


PS "Guests of the Nation" is only ten pages long, and can be found in every half-decent anthology of Irish short stories. You should read it. Everybody should.