Manual For Fiction Writers by Block, Lawrence (classic books to read .TXT) 📗

shifts to the wilderness, where their quarry goes on a hunting trip along with his son and the two henchmen who violated Ms. Newman. Our trio is in pursuit, and it is in the wilderness that Hood is able to indulge his passion for war games and strategy sessions. His skills have never been more valuable, yet paradoxically he becomes a liability here, missing opportunities for an easy kill because he cannot bear to see the game end.

Hood dies, finally, in a skirmish with the hoodlums. At the same time, Newman is recognized; again the stakes are raised, in that their opponent knows Newman's identity and will not rest until Newman is dead. And Hood's death has disarmed the Newmans. They have to rely on their own resources now, on resources they may not in fact possess.

At this point?yes, Rachel?

Ê

Don't spoil the story for us, Mr. Block.

Ê

I wouldn't dream of it. I don't know that I could, even if I were to carry this plot summary to the book's conclusion, because the excitement in Wilderness lies not merely in what happens but in how it happens, and in how the characters act and react and how they are affected by their actions and reactions.

I see our time's almost up for today. I hope I've given you a glimmering of the way an author's ability to motivate his characters affects the reader's response to the story, not merely creating suspense along the way but making us care what happens to these people. There are other elements of the book I'd discuss if we had more time?the cameo relationship between the hired killer and his woman, for instance, which is a provocative contrast to the Newman marriage. I hope you'll read the book and see for yourself.

I hope, too, that I've answered your question, Arnold.

Ê

What question was that, sir?

Ê

Why buy hardcover suspense novels? And I'm sure you won't have too much trouble uncovering my motive for so doing. My own most recent hardcover suspense novel is readily available wherever good books are sold. I expect all of you to go right out and buy it.

CHAPTER 31

Think You've Got Problems?

WANT TO hear a terrific idea for a story? Just listen to this. After a war, a whole bunch of guys are anxious to get back home to their wives and sweethearts and aged mothers. So they get on board their ship, have a nice smooth voyage, and the next thing you know they're all back home, safe and sound, and everybody's happy.

You don't like it?

I don't know why not. It worked pretty well a while back, when a guy named Homer wrote it and called it The Odyssey. It's worked well any number of times since then, its latest incarnation being Sol Yurick's recently filmed novel, The Warriors. Homer was writing about veterans of the Trojan War, Yurick about members of a teenage gang, but the problem in both stories is the same?i.e., getting home safe.

And problem, after all, is what a story is about. To one extent or another, every story or novel involves a lead character's attempt to cope with a problem. If the lead is well drawn and human and believable and sympathetic, if he's the sort with whom the reader can strongly identify, then the reader will want things to work out for him. And, if the problem is believable and significant and urgent, the lead's successful resolution of the problem becomes important to the reader.

You couldn't ask for a better hero than Odysseus, and returning safely and swiftly to Ithaca is a fine central problem, whether you're a bunch of Greek soldiers or the Cornell football team. But what has made that voyage a memorable one for readers down through the millennia is the fact that it was never smooth sailing, not for a minute. From the time they left Troy, Odysseus and his merry men were constantly in hot water. They no sooner stared down the Cyclops than they had to steer between Scylla and Charybdis. If the Sirens weren't calling them, Circe was turning them into swine. The tension never stopped.

The title characters in Yurick's novel don't have it much easier. Their central problem is returning safely from the Bronx, no easy task for any New Yorker at the best of times. It's especially difficult for the Warriors because members of dozens of other gangs are dogging them every step of the way, determined to kill them. For Yurick's Warriors, as for those ancient Ithacans, life is just one damned thing after another.

Pay attention.

Because we are about to fasten upon an essential truth.

Fiction is just one damned thing after another. If your hero, however likable he may be, confronts his problem, however desperate it may be, and just plain goes ahead and solves it, you have not got something Publishers Weekly is going to call a real page-turner. But if he keeps dodging one menace only to rush headlong into the jaws of another, and if his prospects keep getting worse, and if he winds up with more perils than Pauline, then you just might be on the right track.

Understand, if you will, that I am not just talking about adventure stories. A problem, in fictional terms, need not to be quite so heart-pounding an affair as a voyage through hostile waters. It might be obtaining a master's in comparative linguistics, or coming to terms with one's sexual identity, or getting out of a bad