Robert Lamb, Writer

So you’d like to write a novel. Then here’s Dr. Lamb’s prescription: take two aspirin and lie down till the desire goes away.

Just kidding. Truth is, if you’re really a writer, you will write, no matter what. And if  you’re not, well, I hope you’re at least a reader. Writers need readers and readers need writers, n’est-ce pas?

But I brought up the subject because an aspiring writer, a young girl, teenager, asked me the other day how to go about writing a novel.

I don’t think she was happy with my answer, but it was the truth: There is no one way to write a novel; in fact, there are about as many ways as there are writers. That’s why you won’t get much help from the advice of other writers.

James Clavell, author of Shogun and other novels, said he simply wrote one sentence after another until he’d written 100,000 words, which is about the length of the average novel.

Maybe so, but that probably is no help to a clueless beginner – which is what I was at one time (and I still consider myself a Work in Progress).

Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany’s, bragged that he simply “threw words into the air and they landed on the page in the right order.”

He lied.

Joseph Heller, whose first novel was the runaway best seller Catch-22, said he had to have “the perfect first sentence” before he could begin.

Don’t follow his example, either. He didn’t publish another novel for 20 years! Moreover, he titled his second novel Something Happened, and critics panned it, saying, “Nothing did.”

Ouch!

What was the book’s “perfect first sentence?”

It was: “I get the willies when I see closed doors.”

The sentence is only so-so, I think you’ll agree, but its lesson is first-rate: Don’t waste your time waiting for perfection. If you’re going to write a story, no matter what, try this instead:

Start with The Day That Was Different, e.g. the day you decided on a career or path in life; the day you met the person you wished to marry; the day a doctor said you had but six months to live – in other words, the day after which nothing was ever the same again.

Next, decide on a point of view from which to tell the story:

*First-person POV (“I did this”) is easiest and is a reader favorite because there is no intermediary between the author and the reader.

*Third-person POV (“He/she did this”) allows the author wider range and scope;

*Second-person POV (“You did this”) is seldom used because of its obvious limitations.

Now resolve to write a minimum number of words per day. (Stephen King’s goal, 2,000; Hemingway’s, 250)

Then apply the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair and write.

But while you sit there waiting for something, anything, to get you going, you might try a superstitious ritual of a famous writer or come up with your own.

*Steinbeck sharpened 12 No. 2 pencils to a perfect point before he could summon his muse.

*Capote wouldn’t begin or end a piece of work on a Friday nor would he write in a hotel room numbered 13.

*Victor Hugo wrote in the nude.

*The poet Dame Edith Sitwell liked to lie in a coffin before beginning her writing day. Her critics urged someone, anyone, to shut the lid and seal it.

Now you’re ready. Keep going until you reach THE END.