Structuring Your Novel: From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript
by Robert C. Meredith, John D. Fitzgerald
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HarperPerennial (New York): 1993. Trade paperback: 240 pages. ISBN-10: 0-06-273170-X Suggested retail price: $14.00 (US) Tags: characterization; Editing; novels; rewriting; style; Writing Tactical strength: [7/10] |
Meredith and Fitzgerald take a practical and formulaic method to producing a novel. They emphasize that over the history of the novel most works follow a traditional structure, and that they will help guide a beginning writer through the process of producing a first novel. Structuring Your Novel begins with a discussion about generating and testing an idea, developing the basic conflict, and choosing the right viewpoint. The authors then move into more advanced topics on theme, exposition, characterization, symbolism, and style. Each chapter provides a series of exercises that if followed would lead a writer to have written at least the first five chapters of a novel. The authors then promise that if you have a sound concept you cannot help but finish the novel that you have well underway by following their instructions.
In addition to advice, Meredith and Fitzgerald draw concrete examples from seven novels: James Jones's From Here to Eternity, John Steinbeck's The Pearl and The Grapes of Wrath, John le Carré's The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary, and Henry Fielding's Tom Jones. Many writing advice books offer made-up examples of the author's advice, but by using examples from recognized classics you can see that Structuring Your Novel provides advice that renowned authors have followed in the past to produce successful novels.
Structuring Your Novel makes a very precise distinction between a novel with a plot and a novel with a story line. The authors claim that in a novel with a plot, the action drives the story and the characters remain basically unchanged. A novel with a story line would then follow the changes in a character. Even with the examples Meredith and Fitzgerald provided, they didn't convince me that novels must have just one or the other, action or character development. In most novels, I think you need to have a successful combination of both action and character development. Also, the authors tend to refer you back and forth to other chapters. In the middle of chapter 3, you read, "We suggest that the reader now turn to Chapter 11 and read the discussion" (43). It seems to me that if you need the information from chapter 11 to understand chapter 3, than the authors should have done some reorganizing of the material to have their ideas flow in a more linear manner.
Clearly, Structuring Your Novel focuses on advice for beginning writers who have never completed a novel and provides excellent advice that helps focus attention on the work of writing and producing a saleable novel from the ground up. Anyone with a college-level English literature background will probably find much of the discussion rudimentary but may find the book useful as it provides a reading list of excellent novels for studying the points developed.
