Novel Excerpt 5

I'm making myself finish a novel on Fridays.

Excerpt from chapter 1
Excerpt from chapter 2
Excerpt from chapter 3
Excerpt from chapter 4
____________________________________
...Then ensued the intricate détente of two people who are intrigued by each other but don’t want to let on too much so that they don’t get embarrassed. By the time it was all over, with a careful exchange of smiley faces and cautious advances, we were meeting at Friday's at 6 and then advancing to a movie called, No Win Situation, by 7:40.

"So what have you been up to for ten years?" It seemed like a reasonable enough way to start off a dinner conversation.

"So you're going to make me go first," she answered.

"Well, you know what I've been doing since you left," I jokingly said. "I've been working at Cafe D'
Espoir" about forty hours a week.

"Wow, full time. Are there many people who work there full time?"

Notice how she had managed to shift the conversation from her to me?

"There are four of us who work full time, including the manager. I do afternoons and evenings mostly."

"If I remember right," she said, "you weren't much of a morning person."

"So that's me. What about you these last ten years?" I tried to shift the focus back to her.

"One more question," she stubbornly continued. "Did you ever graduate?"

"Of course I did," I protested. "It did take a few more years than you did."

"Weren't you actually a year ahead of me?"

"I don't remember," I jokingly said. "I think I was still a junior when you graduated."

"Didn't your father die that year or some time around then?"

"Yeah, but I was already about a year behind then. I had to slow down and shift to part time. I actually didn't do too badly with one or two classes a semester."

A small pause and I tried again. "So did you start working at a hospital after you graduated?" It seemed like she would have to answer that.

"Yes, I live about four hours from here, so I moved back home and took a job at the local hospital in town."

"But you're in a doctoral program now, right? Doctor of Nursing Practice or something? So you must have done a master's degree somewhere?"

She had. She had moved to Chicago for a couple years and finished her master's at a teaching hospital associated with a university there. Still, I felt like I was pulling teeth to getting any information from her.

"So what made you decide to come back here?" I finally asked, not getting very far with her time in Chicago.

"I always liked it here, at least until Charlie dumped me..."

Yeah, I wasn't going to bring that one up. I knew what it was like to see a relationship derail when you were engaged. They were only two months away from the wedding when he cheated on her.

"... so when I had to get out of Chicago, I considered my options and coming back here to do a doctorate seemed like a good choice. I'd stayed in touch with my old professors, and they kept trying to get me to come back. There was an opening at the hospital. It all just clicked. I'm calling it a God thing."

"So they kicked you out of Chicago?" I joked.

"That would be what you heard in all that. You know what I mean. I needed a change of scenery."

...

Friday Novel (excerpt, chap 2)

As a discipline, a novel exerpt from this past week (meaning, last night ;-)

Excerpt from chapter 1
_____________________________
"We've got to do something," John said to Brad. "He's headed straight for Sarah."

Sarah was right behind a corner pillar, where the fourth floor walkway turned to the right, around the large open space in the center of the library. The young man with the gun was headed toward her.

"Yeah but he's coming right toward us too," Brad said. "We've got to get out of here." And with that Brad took off down the hall the opposite direction.

But John stayed. He was only going to get one chance at the guy with the gun, who would pass him as he headed toward Sarah.
 
Just as the young man passed by, John launched himself straight toward the gunman. A little startled, the man turned as fast as he could toward John with his gun. But John was already on him. He rammed into the man and, together, they both tumbled over the walkway wall and down four floors to the bottom of the library.

Sarah rushed as quickly as she could down the stairs to the bottom floor, where both John and the gunman lay on the floor. John had apparently landed on the other guy, who seemed to be dead. John was also hurt very badly, and Sarah rushed over to him.

"Why in the world would you do that?" she asked him, completely puzzled.

"You didn't deserve," he managed to get out.

"Deserve what?"

"T' die," he finished.

"But neither did you," she exclaimed in desperation. But he was now unconscious, or worse. She vainly looked around for someone to help. People were slowly emerging from hiding, surveying those who had not been so lucky. Looking down over the second floor railing, she spied Brad.

Suddenly she felt really foolish. She had invested so much time in Brad. He had seemed so strong, so much the man. But where had Brad been when she was in trouble? It was John, the one she hardly noticed, hardly thought about, who had come to her rescue...
___________________
That was the first novel. Well, it was really a short story I wrote for a class in high school. It's also the only story I ever finished...

How to Write a Novel

So many of you have been asking how I go about writing my novels... NOT!

I reckon I have started over thirty novels over the last thirty years... never finished a one, although one is at 100 pages. But in the process I figure I've learned a thing or two about writing novels, not to mention the fact that my doctoral dissertation was on the story substructure of Hebrews.

My novel starting-but-not-finishing bible has long been How to Write a Movie in 21 Days. So here is how I would go about writing a novel if I were to finish one.

Viki King looks at a movie from the standpoint of the pivots. Here's my novelized version:

1. You have to start in a way that grabs attention. That means in medias res--start in the middle or at least in the middle of some action. This is especially the case with a first novel because you have to sell it to an agent or publisher.

By the way, the days of sending things to publishers are mostly over. You have to have an agent to get anywhere. It's a little better in the Christian world, but even that is closing up for open submissions. Best bet is to go to a writer's conference and pitch directly to someone there.

Basically, keep your day job at Starbucks.

2. I pulled some of my family's favorite novels off the shelf (not mine, of course). The later novels always seem to get longer so I'm just going with the first in the series. Hunger Games is 374 pages, Twilight 498. The first Harry Potter was 309. So 300 pages on your normal Microsoft Word format is reasonable.

Of course the publishing world thinks in terms of words rather than pages. I figure the first Harry Potter is about 85,000 words. No sweat. My dissertation was 104,000 (don't tell Durham... there was a 100,000 word limit). So let's aim for 100,000 words for the novel.

3. So, converting from Viki King's movie template to word count, here's how it might play out:

• Act I - the first fourth of the book, 25,000 words.
• Act II - the middle half, words 25,000 to 75,000.
• Act III - the final fourth, words 75,000 to 100,000.

Here's the way she lays out these acts:

• In this scenario, Act I sets up the story. Frankly, it might be less than a fourth of the story for a novel. King is only thinking of a two hour movie and a 30 minute set up.
• Act II then involves the protagonist overcoming obstacles that stand in the way of the plot reaching its appointed goal.
• Act III is then the resolution of the story, the achievement of the goal (comedy) or not (tragedy).

In the structuralist model of analyzing a story, a plot basically begins with an unfulfilled goal and ends with the achievement of that goal (or not). To achieve the goal, the hero of the story needs to overcome obstacles in the way. This three act model corresponds well to this model.

4. Within Act I King suggests several key phases to the set up. Here is my novelized version with some of my additions:

• Beginning: The first couple pages need to grab the reader's attention somehow. I prefer short first chapters to hold attention. 
• Keep reading: A key moment is at the end of the first chapter. Will the reader start the second chapter or not? You need to compel them to the second chapter. Each chapter at the beginning has to get them to the next. So it's best to leave something unresolved at the end of each of the beginning chapters.
• Direction: In the first 20 pages, the reader should have some sense of direction. Is this story going anywhere? They should at least feel like it's moving somewhere and they want to know more.
• Problem: By 10,000 words (35 pages), the reader should have a good sense of the problem that the story is trying to resolve... or they should at least think they do.
• Pivot 1: At 25,000 words (80 pages), the first major turning point should happen. A change of setting. The hero is majorly set back in some way. A secondary quest opens up that the hero or someone has to pursue to get back the main task.

5. Act II involves overcoming the obstacle(s) that arose at the end of Act I.

• Pivot 2: There might be some minor change around 38,000 words (130 pages). Perhaps the hero begins to grow in some way that opens up the possibility of forward movement, a change of heart, a change of mind, a new set of skills.
• Pivot 3: Around 50,000 words (170 pages), the hero is in trouble. Will he, she, or it be able to achieve the goal of the plot? But s/he emerges from the struggle successful and with resolve. 
• Major Crisis Pivot 4: At the end of Act II, around 75,000 words (240 pages), it looks like all is lost. Then, as King says, "something happens that changes everything" (43).

6. Act III then takes us down the final slide to the end, the resolution of the plot. The hero prevails (or not) and we all cry or shout.

7. So here's a process:

• Get a novel idea, a basic concept that you could describe in a few paragraphs.
• What is the problem and the solution, the beginning and the end? What's wrong at the beginning that drives the plot? What is the final conflict at the end that resolves the story?
• How does it start? What grabs the initial attention and keeps them going for the first 20 pages until they're into it and have a general sense of its direction?
• What is the end of Act I? What happens a fourth of the way through the novel that completely changes the setting and sets up the long haul of the story, trying to get back on track?
• What is the end of Act 2, the point when it looks like all is lost? What happens to resolve the middle section and enable the slide to the end?
• Early in Act 2, what change happens in the key characters' mindset or skill set that allows them to move forward with new force?
• Late in Act 2, what major crisis does the protagonist face that gives him or her the resolve to finish the main task of the story?
• Fill in the details.

What do you do with thirty minutes?

It's settled.  In 30 minutes we're going to watch Unknown.  So what to do with thirty minutes?  Not a thing on TV I'm interested in.  How about start my 31st novel (I don't actually know how many I've started... I know I haven't finished a one...)
________
I must have nodded off, but the majestic voice at the front of the room jarred me from my nap.  Where was I?  It was obviously a university class room, like the ones I had in college.

The room was packed--I venture to say not a single seat was empty.  The crowd was full of people from all sorts of places.  I swear half of them looked familiar, like I had seen them somewhere before.  I would have looked more but the voice from the front was so captivating my attention immediately fastened on it.

"Everything is quite out of sorts," he said.  "I could fix it of course but this is my day off.  You all think you're rather smart.  At least that's what you've all been telling people.  Let's see how well you do with it."

I couldn't quite see the figure speaking.  I for one didn't remember ever telling anyone I was quite that smart.  Well, maybe I told my younger sister that once to trick her into getting in trouble.

"There's plenty of stuff lying around the building to get everything up and running again.  So, good luck.  I'll check back tomorrow to see how you've done with it."

And with that I assume he'd gone.  At least it wasn't as bright at the front of the room as before.  I looked around to see what the crowd would do.  Most were looking around a little bewildered like I was.

But soon a bald headed man in a skirt--or was it a toga--jumped up on the stage.  "Now look," he started in.  "Before we can get going on this thing we're going to have to plan it all out in our heads.  Only then can we begin to put the visible cosmos back together.  I'm going to go contemplate it out.  Just wait here until I have everything ready in my head."

Then he disappeared off the stage to the left, and the room resumed chattering as if he hadn't said anything.  But hardly a second passed before another man, also in a toga, jumped on stage.  "Right, just ignore him.  I for one am going to take a look around the building and see what I have to work with."

There were a number of nods, a cadre of assenting tones, and a little more than half the room got out of their seats.  The others seemed rather deep in thought.  I still was quite uncertain exactly where I was or what was going on, but I followed the people near me out a side door and into a hallway.

Countless other hallways seemed to branch off from the hallway I was in, and they in turn seemed to branch off into countless other hallways.  I tried to remember how I'd come to where I was, so I might get back.  But to be honest, I'm not sure where I had been in the first place.

I chanced upon several arguing over something or another in one of the hallways.  "There must be a switch somewhere," she said.  "We cannot even begin to do anything unless there is something instead of nothing."

"But there already is something," someone responded.  "He told us there were lots of things already here in these halls.  We're not completely starting over.  It's just all discombobulated and needs put back together."

"So we have something from nothing," she said, as if moving down a checklist.  "And I suspect that zero was the first thing he created."

"Yes, yes," another impatiently said.

"Then he probably made 1."

"Very important."

"And from that you have all the integers," she continued.

It was a very interesting discussion, but I continued on my way.  I came upon another group very busily putting together a series of lines going in three different directions...
_________
Ok... movie time...

Novel Excerpt

I couldn't think of anything to say today.  I decided I needed to take some time off.  But I did write a couple pages on one of some 25+ novels I've started.  I'm actually 30 pages in, which puts this one in the top five already in terms of holding my interest ;-)
___________
“Do we need to turn our backpacks on?” I asked. “And will we survive a fall from such a great height?”

“My dear, what great height? You are smaller than the proton we were on, which itself is only something like one, ten trillionth of a centimeter.”

I could tell that was rather small, but I was too embarrassed to ask exactly how small that was. But I could not seem to stop myself. “And what is that in scientific frustration?”

“In scientific notation, the nucleus of an atom—itself usually made up of many protons and neutrons—is about 1 x 10^-14 meters. If you took a meter and divided it into ten parts, then divided one of those parts into ten parts, and continued to divide one of the ten parts fourteen times, then you would have something about the size of the average nucleus of an atom.”

“That’s rather small,” I said.

"We may fall for hours and yet will never come close to the smallest fraction of a millimeter, hardly a big enough fall to get even a bruise”

Again, I knew that was rather small, but I was much more comfortable talking in inches and feet than in meters, centimeters, and millimeters. But I still could not stop myself. “And exactly what is a millimeter?”

“Oh dear,” Feynman said as we continued to fall. “I had hoped by this time that America would do a better job of moving its people into the scientific age. We tried, you know, to get kilometers on highway signs in the 1970s, like the rest of the world, but people just don’t like to learn new things. I can only imagine that by now that there are other countries about to surpass America scientifically.

“In any case, an inch is about 2.54 centimeters, and a millimeter is one tenth of a centimeter.”