The Formula for Writing Success
If E = MC2, what is the formula for writing a successful novel? Something that will land you an agent, a book deal, a best-seller.
If you blog hop long enough, you will see writers who say the formula is actually very simple--sort of like, "take one three-dimensional fascinating character, add one great hook/plot, make every page a true page-turner . . . and voila."
Which in the end is rather like all those self-help gurus who say nonsense like, "You have to learn to love yourself before you can love others." Believe me, there is great wisdom in that. It's quite true. I have loved men who didn't love themselves and the results were train wrecks. BUT, saying something like that, spouting it, is useless. Because what people REALLY need to know is how do you love yourself? What does loving yourself look like, feel like? How can a person mirror it? Telling someone the "end result" doesn't get them from point A to point B in the formula.
Same with writing.
As an editor, I remember editing an 800+-page book by a household-name author. And I could barely force myself to read it. Even though I was getting PAID to read it. It was torture. Because what SHE thought was a compelling, marvelous, romantic figure, someone three-dimensional and so on, I thought was a great, big bore.
What she thought was a compelling plot . . . seemed so far-fetched that I started to laugh--like those disaster flicks in the 70s. Remember them? They were campy. That's how this plot was.
There are some people, to be honest, that you can hand a so-called "formula" to, break it down into the pieces, and put it together again, and it won't amount to a great book.
There is an X-factor. Something that you can't quite put your finger on but you know it when you see it. I know another multi-published author who has had maybe two dozen e-books published and fifteen years later in her writing career (she was getting lots of rejections over the years, until she managed to land with a now-defunct e-publisher) I still bang my head against my desk when I read her books. She has taken a formula and made it formulaic. I almost know, before I read it, that the hero's eyes are going to "flash in anger" and the heroine is going to notice his hunky chest. And she cannot figure out why she can't get an agent. For some people, the formula just will never translate.
In the end, hone your craft, try to do all the things every writing coach will tell you to do. But in the end, there is just an element of magic. And no one can give you the formula for that. There has to be heart and passion. You have to FEEL it.
Thoughts? Do you think there is a secret formula?
6 comments:
There is a secret formula... but the reason it is secret is that you can't explain it, show it, describe it. Like you said, it is the "it" factor.
You practice your craft, and practice and practice and practice... until you hit that stride where what you are riding just flows and you can 'see' that it works, that it flows.
I think it is much like love: you just know. If you are unsure then maybe it isn't.
Or maybe it is like surfing... you can master all the mechanics, but when that wave hits and you are in the right place and it picks you up and you are sliding down the face of the big blue mountain there that "x" factor that has you turn the right way just a the right time, stand at just the right spot on the board to get the best lift to make the ride s spectacular moment in time.
You can teach the mechanics, how to read a wave, how to paddle, to turn, and all of that. How do you tell someone to pull it all together into an effortless experience that is life-changing in it's beauty and grace?
The simple answer is that you can't.
But practicing takes you a long way toward getting there. Watching the masters is a good bet as well.
Just like reading the great writers of the day, or the past, can give you the clues you need for turning a sentence into a discovery.
Is that a formula? Maybe, but I was never good at math :)
Ewoh:
Brilliant comment. Thank you! Yes . . . I think the surfing analogy does it for me. You practice and practice and hone your craft, you write every day, you study the great writers . . . you do it all and keep on writing, and when you get that perfect wave, you're "ready." Of all my books, The Roofer was my perfect wave. Not that I didn't like the others, but that one felt different. Now, I am working on one that has that same feel. Like love, I just know it . . . but can't tell you why. It's elusive.
E
I think heart is a huge part of it, or at least the ability to translate the heart and enthusiasm of the author on to the page, with some level of competence and with a compelling story.
I'm just finishing Meljean Brook's Demon Angel, and it's a joy to read because it just feels like it was written by an author who loved every second of the writing of it. I just know she's going to be on the shelves for a long time. The latest Nora seems back to her old heart, and I think it's my favorite (couldn't read the last HC).
Just to prove that no answer is the right answer, I loved Rowling's earliest books in the series, because her love for her world just seeped into every sentence. I could tell she was delighted by it, and I was, too! I felt the last few books lost that delight, even though they were still good.
Hi Spy:
I agree . . . there is an unbridled joy in some writing . . . I remember reading one of the first John Grisham books and thinking, this is a really FUN book, like he had a ball writing it. Maybe I was projecting, but . . . I don't know, it just felt that way.
E
i agree with spyscribbler. sure you need a good plot. you need characters the audience can relate to. but more than any of that, fiction needs to jump off the page with passion. rich imagery - or dialogue - insightfully woven with feeling.
sure, this can be detrimental if left unchecked. i'm reading a book right now that may tend towards excess in this department but my god. the prose is so beautiful, the characters so intricate, i just have to keep going. and after reading a few books that've been a little flat in that department, this new book feels divine.
heather:
Definitely. That's why I think most editors, after a time in the biz, say they can spot something they might buy within four or five paragraphs. Some will give it a chapter. Maybe two. That's it. You either get that essential passion or you don't.
E
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