I was thinking yesterday of books on writing technique. Specifically I was thinking of those I've read in the past and remembered a technique I once read about in Lawrence Block's Spider Spin Me a Web, his book on writing a novel. I recall that he mentioned a technique in which you deconstruct someone else's novel by writing a synopsis of each chapter on index cards. You might also mention the characters introduced in each chapter and then the story points introduced in each chapter (I might have added some of these myself; I can no longer find my copy of the book). In this way you can see how the novel was constructed. Not a bad idea, I think. Time consuming but not a bad idea. So I'm doing it with Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem. I am reading the book at the moment anyway. I'll let you know how it works out.
Bill Browning, writing from Starbucks/Ansley Mall. Thursday, 8 April 2010.
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Sounds interesting, albeit time consuming, like you said. I wish I'd had a really good plan in place before I started mine. I used the "Willy-Nilly" method. I think I'll patent it and write a book about how NOT to construct a novel. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Bill--Just discovered your blog thru Writer's Plot. I'm another "not wanting to be a wannabe" novelist. My motivator is the LongRidge writing correspondence for novelists. (I already did the LongRidge correspondence for short stories.) I like the deconstructing another novel idea, and I'm interested in seeing how your blog goes, but more importantly on your getting through that novel! Take care. Dawn
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