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Aragorn Books
LEARNING TO WRITE

Creative Composition

by Christopher Leadem

Introduction

This will be a work in progress.  There is no cost, and I will not copyright it.  If someone chooses to publish it without my knowledge or consent, I make only one condition, though it is non-negotiable.  Publish it in whole, without addition or subtraction, so that whatever it is I know will be passed on to the next generation of writers.  I want to share what I have learned, one beating heart at a time.

Neither will it be strictly linear.  This is not a theorum, a blue-print, a treasure map.  As one lesson leads into another, I will address creative composition as it comes to me, hopefully, to you.  There are no shortcuts, no magic formula.  But I will try to make it intrestesting, with excerpts from other writers' works as well as my own, and (to keep the lawyers happy) do it for educational purposes only.



Beginnings

Everything in life must have a beginning.  What I was taught, and would encourage, is to keep a journal.  Life is full of changes, confusion, emotion.  Try to write a little each day:  about something that happened, or something you're trying to understand.  But most of all, write how you feel, without worrying about style or structure.  Writers have to write, plain and simple, and this is as good a place to start as any.


Reading

The other essential exercise for anyone who wants to be a writer, or simply a better writer, is to read.  See how other writers tell their stories.  Don't be afraid to imitate them, consciously or subconsciously.  Those authors who go deepest inside you will remain a profound influence all the days of your life.  So read good books, whatever that means to you.  The best writers, to you, are the ones who touch and inspire you.  Don't let anyone tell you what you should or shouldn't like, should or shouldn't read.  What do they know about your inner workings?  Nothing.  Just read.



Building Blocks

Every art form is different, and every art form is the same.  All seek to create beauty and meaning through the medium of self-expression.  Each use different tools to accomplish this.  Music is based on notes.  Painting is based on color and brush strokes.  Writing is based on words.  And while words would seem a solid foundation for self expression, there are so many of them!  Shakespeare is said to have had a vocabulary of roughly ten thousand words.  For most of us it's about half that.  Given that the average novel is somewhere around 100,000 words, a little math will show you that the combinations are endless.  So don't push yourself too hard, too fast. 



Composition

Once you're ready to tackle something more structured, you need to know the basics:  grammar, punctuation, composition.  Many people are intimidated by this, and almost everyone I knew in high school dreaded Composition class.  If you get a rough teacher he or she can grind you into dust, without teaching you anything at all about writing.  I'm not a teacher, and the subject is far too large to be adequately covered here.  The best thing I can recommend, if you're still in school, is that you take as many English, Composition, and Creative Writing classes as you can.  One strong book recommendation, whether or no, is "The Elements of Style," by William Strunk and E.B. White.  Strunk, E.B. White's former teacher, tackles composition, while White describes the creative writing process.  Together it is priceless, to the point, and not intended to judge or intimidate the new writer.  It simply is, a jewel for the taking.

Also, don't be intimidated by hard and fast rules.  Everyone comes to writing in their own way, and Dickens is said to have had the equivalent of a sixth grade education.  Obviously he had something -  instinct - the inate ability to tell a story, with characters as dynamic and familiar as our own families:  Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchet, Tiny Tim, and these from but a single, short novel.  Here is an example of Dickens doing things his own way.  I'm hoping you all have heard or read the opening passage from "A Tale of Two Cities":


"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair," etc.

Technically speaking, all these phrases form complete sentences.  Therefore, by strict grammar, he should have separated them into pairs using a semicolon:  "It was the best of times; it was the worst of times."  Or into individual sentences:  "It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times."  The first would seem better, as these are in fact couplets, parodoxes, whatever you want to call them.  What Dickens does instead is turn it into one long and glorious sentence, probably the most familiar in all of literature:

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only." 

What's the lesson?  Do it your way.  There is no right or wrong in art.  So long as you are able to convey what is in your soul to another human being, that elusive communion with your readers, you have more than succeeded.

There is another lesson here, and one which should save you a good deal of time and frustration.  Punctuation, beyond the basics, doesn't matter.  As long as the reader understands when someone has started and finished speaking, as long as they can access and organize the information you're putting out, people read right over it.  I learned this not as a writer - agonizing instead over the exact use of punctuation to make the writing perfect - but as a reader.  Try it yourself.  Open any good book and start to read.  Even if you're looking for the punctuation, pretty soon you'll forget about it.  People read words, not colons or semicolons, periods or exclamation marks, apostrophes, italics, etc.  Just make your writing clear, keep it simple, and tell a good story with characters your readers care about.  All else is vanity.

The way I learned to write was by forgetting rules, and using the building blocks of words like literal blocks from my childhood:  moving them around, seeing what fit and what didn't:  writing out a passage, then going back and sensing, through instinct, and the experience gained by reading, what was wrong, or what could be better.  If it just didn't feel right, I tried to find a way to make it so.  I told the stories I wanted to tell, in the way that seemed most immediate and powerful to me.  I wrote.  I made mistakes.  I learned from those mistakes, and kept going.


Before going further, here are some elements of composition which apply specifically to creative writing. 




The Basics of Prose


As stated previously, perhaps obviously, the building blocks of writing are words. The basic units of literary prose are words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, chapters (if it's a novel), short stories, vignettes and novellas if it's not.  As I'm sure you're all familiar with words and phrases, and have some idea of baic grammar, let's touch on sentences. 

Sentences, in my opinion, are the most important element of writing.  They are written, and read, one at a time, and they either engage the reader or they don't.  So write directly, clearly, using strong nouns and verbs, rather than endless adjectives and adverbs.  Be active, rather than passive.  Here is an example of both. 

Active:  'The giant hurled the stone.'  Passive:  'The stone was hurled by the giant.'  Add weak verbage:  'The giant tossed the stone.'  Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs:  'The huge giant threw the gray stone angrily.'  Even using a better verb, adverbs and adjectives can water down a simple, powerful sentence. Again, write with nouns and verbs, active voice, and no nonsense.  The only time this does not apply, is in creating literary distance.

This on that.  Literary distance means how closely the author wants you to be to the present actions, as opposed to others on which he or she will place more emphasis.  An example of literary distance:  seemingly innocuous actions and descriptions, to set up what is truly meaningful, active, direct.  Think of a boxer, using his left jab to feel out and set up his opponent, for the sudden right cross that lays him out.  Think Muhammed Ali:  "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."  Or think of a camera, regarding something out of focus or from a distance, then suddenly zooming in on what is really important:  location, character or action.

Another place where adverbs rarely belong (and frankly, drive me crazy), come when a character has finished speaking.  Here is an example of a popular, professional writer of many years experience, who still hasn't learned this.  Anne McCaffrey:

'"You'll get left out for thread for sure," Lexey whispered hoarsely, pressing his sturdy body as close to the wall as he could, well away from the dragon's tail.'  Aside from far too many words, and far too much information after the fact, what is the primary problem here?  The reader, who has already read the quote, now has to go back and apply the adverb to it.  "Lexey whispered hoarsely," should describe the dialogue beforehand, so we know how it was spoken.   Also, instead of clearly understanding the information given, we have to mentally regroup (and possibly re-read) to make any sense of it. Much simpler would have been:  'Lexey whispered hoarsely, "You'll be left as thread for sure."' Then the description of his sturdy body pressing against the wall, avoiding the dragon's tail.  You're already asking the reader to suspend his or her disbelief; don't make it harder by muddy writing.  A character's speech should be clear and to the point, not form the beginning of an interminable sentence.  State the quote, as simply as possible, then go on with whatever follows.

When I was first starting out I did such things, if not to this extent, using too many verbs to describe the preceding speech.  You'd be surprised how often a simple 'said' (or its equivalent) will do just fine:  '"How have you been?" he asked.  "A little down," she replied, then blushed at her own honesty.'  No adverbs, no adjectives, no reason to go back and re-read the quote.  Of course it doesn't have to be quite so bare; this is just and example.  An example of bad verbage:  You're too aggressive," the man implied/exhorted/whispered harshly/whined abrasively, etc.  Any one of these choices, unless there's a real need for it, give the reader too much to think about.  "You're too aggressive," he said flatly.  Done and done. 

Where and how did I learn this?  From Tolkien, a great writer, translator and professor.  I first noticed it after writing in the awkward way described above, then suddenly realizing in the middle of a long and powerful dialogue that Tolkien had used one simple word, 'said', and let the dialogue, quite literally, do the talking.  You'll find this in Hemingway, too, and other writers who've learned that less can be more, and embellishment can detract from rather than add to, good meat and potatoes writing.  A little spice, a little gravy, fine.  Only you know how much.  Just don't smother the cogent meaning of your prose with a lot of unnecessary description, and information after the fact. 

Now some thoughts on style. 

Of those usually held to be the three great stylists of the 20th Century - James Joyce, William Falkner and Ernest Hemingway, but for Hemingway that same style is as often confusing as illuminary.  I must be blunt, or be dishonest.  I find "Ulysses," by James Joyce, to be a lot of self-indulgent, egocentric nonsense, and anti-Semitic at that, describing a Jewish man masturbating, defecating, along with a description by his wife of his strange, perverse lovemaking.  This is great literature?  Similarly, "The Sound and the Fury," by William Faulkner, called by some the great American novel (I have no idea why) is all but unreadable - I've tried three times - and his "Light in August," is the most racist and therefor repugnant book I've ever read.  Hemingway, whatever you think of his life or his outlook, could write, creating, as a friend of mine put it, "intense, photographic images," and scenes of unbelievable power.  He himself said he wanted any dolt to be able to understand his writing.  This dolt certainly does.  F.Scott Fitzgerald, his close friend, wrote one great novella, "The Great Gatsby," then slowly drank himself to death.  But it's style, too, was clear concise and elegant.

These are personal opinions, my friends, and you're more than welcome to disagree.  I just have to relate what I know and feel, or I'm no kind of teacher at all.  My best English professor (literally), Keith Carrabine of Kent, once threatened to strangle us all with his bare hands.  Over the top, certainly, but he got our attention.  So.....

A quick note on Faulkner, and others like him.  To me it is of the first importance not to let racial, cultural, age or gender prejudice into your writing.  While no writer can be completely free of the prejudices of his time - Shakespeare had his Shilok and Othello, Dickens' his Fagan (though the ultimate villain in "Oliver Twist" is Tom Sikes), Faulkner is undoubtedly the worst, with his murderous milato, and the underlying message that interbreeding of the races is an abomination, and can only lead to awful, unnatural consequences.  To quote Joyce (whose "Dubliners," and "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man," are brilliant), Faulkner can kiss my royal Irish ass. 

I think it's extremely important to examine our own belief systems before, during and after writing, and be able to spot prejudice when it occurs, even dismantle it through our writing, and therefore in society, to the best of our ability.  My personal prejudice, I realized long ago, was that women were manipulative, disloyal, and made horrendous decisions about which man to marry, and which to send away.  While such women do exist, they are not in the majority, and bad choices are as much the fault of a male-dominated society as they are of a woman's far more complex instincts.

As such I consciously set out to create strong and loyal female characters, though I personally have not found such a mate.  What am I to do, condemn the entire sex?  There are religious and other prejudices to do that without my help.  So I try to find the good in women, which definitely does exist.  Without pregnancy, childbirth, and the tender care of the helpless babes we all were, you and I aren't having this conversation, because we don't exist.  Yes there are bad women, and we must be truthful about them.  But there are good women, too.  Also, while I don't understand homosexuality, it clearly does exist, with the same emotions of love and conflict that the rest of us try to make sense of.  So, as previously, I created specific characters who did not fit the gross prejudices. 

An artist's power comes from the truth, but his purpose comes from trying to enlighten his or her readers, when possible.  Ironically, Mark Twain is accused of racism, in a novel as strongly against slavery and racism as you are likely to find:  "The Adventures of Hucklebury Finn."  He referred to the dynamic and infinitely believable character Jim as 'Nigger Jim' because that was what he would have been called at the time.  Huck eventually realizes that Jim is as good a man as any, and as such, deserves to be treated with respect, whatever the terrible prejudices he was surrounded by growing up.  The book ends on a similar note, with Jim being set free to rejoin his family.  So look deeper, be positive when the situation calls for it.  Enlighten the world by one candle-flame, and you have done your job.



Style


If I have somehow led you to believe that style doesn't matter, then I have done you an injustice.  Style without substance doesn't matter.  Style with substance does.  Your own style will develop over time.  No one can tell you how to get there, or what it should be when you arrive.  This is your personal stamp, your literary signature, your art. 

Style is so complex that, like many other passages in this book, it will be covered in more than one place.  Here let us look at style and emotional distance, among other things.  Somewhere among this pile of papers (metaphorically speaking), I have already said something about literary distance, like the focus of a camera, and like a boxer lulling his opponent to sleep, then putting him to sleep.  Let us here have a look at one of Hemingway's most innovative and powerful tools, his use of the word 'and'. 

 

 

A Farewell to Arms, Chapter One


In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves."

(Temporary) end of excerpt.

 What is Hemingway doing here, and what is he not doing?  He is giving a vague description of the countryside without introduction any solid information.  We don't know where this is, who is speaking, just a lot of this and that and the other thing happening and it all adds up to nothing:  is meaningless, as much of life is meaningless.  Later he will introduce the love story, which is anything but.  Next:

"The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming."

Not the feeling of a story coming?  A bit of irony, no?  Anyone who knows even a little about World War I knows that a terrible storm is coming.  Next:

"Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes of ammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor trucks that carried men, and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too that passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river.There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare-branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn. There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and the trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of the belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5 mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child."


Here Hemingway goes from bare description (like the road), to the much heavier literary traffic to match the traffic on it.  Something is happening, something real, and menacing.  Now we're in a war zone.  "Six months gone with child?"  Have you ever heard of pregnancy being referred to as gone with child?  Something is not right here.  And finally:


"There were small gray motor cars that passed going very fast; usually there was an officer on the seat with the driver and more officers in the back seat. They splashed more mud than the camions even and if one of the officers in the back was very small and sitting between two generals, he himself so small that you could not see his face but only the top of his cap and his narrow back, and if the car went especially fast it was probably the King. He lived in Udine and came out in this way nearly every day to see how things were going, and things went very badly."


At last we have individuals, officers who, "splashed more mud than the camions even."  They are very small, and seem to be observers rather than participants in the slaughter that is to come.  And lastly,

"At the start of the winter came the permanent rain and with the rain came the cholera. But it was checked and in the end only seven thousand died of it in the army."

I'd tell you what Hemingway is doing here, but aside from the return to the indifference of war I really have no idea.  I've said it before and I'll say it again:  Hemingway could write, with great power, and so far as I can tell, primarily from instinct.  He once said that intelligence was the least important part of writing.  While I don't entirely agree, I must repeat my theme:  instinct.  You've either got it or you don't.  Let me agree with Hemingway this far.  Formal or extended education is not the kernel of great writing.  That has to come from somewhere else.  From you.

There is a great conversation on writing and writers in "The Green Hills of Africa" if I can find it.  Nope.  Stupid copyright laws.  Fifty years after I'm dead you can do whatever you want with my writing.



Sentences Revisited

There are endless varieties of sentence structure, and again, I'm not a good enough teacher to lay them all out for you.  When in fourth grade (something good had to come out of Catholic School), we used to diagram sentences:  article, subject, verb, object, along with the afore-mentioned adjectives and adverbs, which have their place, but are secondary to the nouns and verbs.

Again, be active in your writing, rather than passive.  If you go back over Tolkien's poems, or read "The Lord of the Rings," you'll see what I mean.  The words, like van Gogh's brush strokes, seem to vibrate right off the page. 

Sentence length is another aspect of framing sentences, length in general an important element in telling your tale.  Remember this about sentences:  you want to convey one thing at a time, and, unless you're Hemingway, or have some other reason to have your sentences run on and on (a good example follows), write exactly what you mean to say, however long or short.  You can also set up a short and powerful sentence by a longer one before it.  For example.

"The sun was high and the ground was hot, dusty and pale, except for the blood that still flowed indifferently from Jason's ear and temple, congealing in the shadowed space beneath his neck.  His brother was dead."  Guess who.

 

Paragraphs

Okay, we've touched on length, one of the most important elements of writing.  It can create emotional distance, and/or draw you near.  More on short stories, chapters and novels later.  Right now let's examine the length of paragraphs, and how they effect the reader.

I was taught that each paragraph should convey one thought, then another begin.  Also, that every time a new speaker talked, it must begin a new paragraph.  I find both these rules restrictive.  Hell, I find all rules restrictive and unnecessary.  They are for people who can't create art themselves, and so tell others how to do it.  "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach."  Sometimes those who have done, but are slowing down because of age and writer's burn-out, try to pass on what they know.  They coach a little, like me.  But I am no professor.  Anything I say you don't agree with, don't agree with.  You're the up-and-coming writer.  You're the one who counts. 

But back to length, and its effect on your readers, think of it this way.  Every paragraph is like diving into the water to search for something:  that something your story, your meaning.  If the paragraph is brief, or simply of moderate length, the reader can come up for air, take a deep breath, and dive right back in again.  It is for this reason that I try to keep my paragraphs and my chapters fairly short.  That, and the fact this comes naturally to me.  The reader is much better able to take in detail if not asked to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.  Do I exaggerate?

"Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad, is at times one enormous paragraph.  There is a reason for this.  He wants the reader to feel smothered, oppressed and overwhelmed, just as the character Marlow does in the story, just as he did himself, in his own horrific excursion up the Congo.  Okay.  Dramatic, powerful, but I was forced to read it three times in high school and college, and to this day I can give you only the briefest details, because I while I may have felt breathless and hopeless, like his descriptions of the jungle, the details almost wholly escape me.  While the primary dramatic moments stand out ("The Horror!  The Horror!" has to be one of the greatest lines in literature), so much of the rest is just a blur.  An unbelievably powerful writer, don't get me wrong, "Heart of Darkness is like being kicked in the stomach:  powerful sensations, not something you ever want to feel again.  At least not me, times three.

Let me give you an example of shorter paragraphs, how they allow the mind to breathe, take in more detail, and truly settle in to the story.  John Knowles, from "A Separate Peace":


Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking:  I must have made my escape from it.

I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky.

There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them. So after lunch at the Devon Inn I walked back toward the school. It was a raw, nondescript time of year, toward the end of November, the kind of wet, self-pitying November day when every speck of dirt stands out clearly. Devon luckily had very little of such weather—the icy clamp of winter, or the radiant New Hampshire summers, were more characteristic of it—but this day it blew wet, moody gusts all around me.


Can you see how the shorter paragraphs allow you to take in each new one fresh, unburdened, and most of all, not slipping into that bored state of mind when your eyes pass over the words without the mind taking them in?  It is the opposite of Knowles, those poorly written or simply too lengthy books that have this effect on me, and tell me I'm reading a bad book.  I have simply lost interest.

Notice also another rule broken.  The second paragraph consists of exactly one sentence, another supposed taboo.  Why?  It was Ursula LeGuin with her "Dark Sea Trilogy," who taught me something even more sacrilegious, even more powerful:  the short, one sentence paragraph.  Here is an example:

 

Duny laughed and shouted it out again, the rhyme that gave him power over the goats. They came closer, crowding and pushing round him. All at once he felt afraid of their thick, ridged horns and their strange eyes and their strange silence. He tried to get free of them and to run away. The goats ran with him keeping in a knot around him, and so they came charging down into the village at last, all the goats going huddled together as if a rope were pulled tight round them, and the boy in the midst of them weeping and bellowing. Villagers ran from their houses to swear at the goats and laugh at the boy. Among them came the boy's aunt, who did not laugh. She said a word to the goats, and the beasts began to bleat and browse and wander, freed from the spell.

"Come with me," she said to Duny.

 

A world of meaning, in seven words.

 

 

Storytelling


A writer is, first and foremost, a storyteller.  Whether this is in the form of a poem, short story or novel, it is the story that draws our readers in, because they want to know more about the characters and what is going to happen to them.  George Lucas once said:


"Story and characters are the two feet upon which any successful film stands." 

Remember this.


He hit the nail on the head, and the same applies to writing.  If our readers don't care about the characters, if the story isn't told in an engrossing way, they will lose interest.  The greatest compliment any writer can receive is, "I couldn't put it down," the greatest insult, "It was okay," or still worse, "I didn't finish it."  Tell an interesting tale, with characters the reader can identify with.  There is so much more to say on this that I will have to return to it later.  Just remember:  story and characters, story and characters.




Finding your Medium


To express a personal opinion, based on my own hard-learned lesson, I think it's a bad idea to start out writing novels.  As Ray Bradbury told me in correspondence, they never seem to finish themselves.  Fresh out of high school at the age of eighteen, I tried not only to write a novel, but an epic novel, which would plumb the depths of human existence, and look into the face of god.  Pretentious, yes, but also self-destructive.  All I accomplished, like Icarus, was to fly too close to the sun, melt my wings, and plummet into the cold indifferent sea.  It was literally two years before I could write, or even read anything of a meaningful length again.  I wish I was exaggerating.  So take your time, and start smaller.

As intimated, I corresponded with Ray Bradbury for nearly ten years, a very good and generous man, a vivid writer who taught me a lot.  I only hope that I can pay some of it forward to you.  His first lesson was not to start out with novels, but short stories.  He even shared that "The Illustrated Man," and "The Martian Chronicles," were really collections of short stories put together to look like a novel.  He suggested I write a short story a week for five years.  And while I didn't have five years to give, I did leave off my epic novel (I still have not finished it) in order to pursue a more realistic goal:  short stories.

More on that in a bit.  First, something a little easier, and another way to get your mind used to expressing itself with words:




Poetry


Poetry is as good a place to start serious writing as any.  It is the shortest of verbal disciplines, and it teaches something very underrated in writing:  the rhythm of words.  Free form poetry is great for pouring out emotions without constraint, but poetry with rhythm and rhyme is the great teacher, or certainly was for me.  An example from Tolkien:



Over the Misty Mountains Cold

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien


And this is but an excerpt.  It goes on and on, a small epic in itself.  This poem, taken from "The Hobbit," was the first to really light a fire under me:  such imagery, such passion, such storytelling!  But what drew me in in the first place, was rhythm:

Far over the Misty Mountains cold: 

The emphasis on the words of each line are the same:

To dungeons deep and caverns old, 
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.

To count it out musically (I played the drums, and had taken lessons):  a1, a2, a3, a4.  There is no doubt a technical name for such verse, Iambic Quadrameter or some such, but the important thing is not the name, but the effect.  It's like listening to a Paul McCartney bass-line from an early Beatles song:  you may not even realize it's there, but it gets your feet tapping, your body moving, and your mind ready to take in whatever comes after.  "Can't Buy Me Love," is a prime example.  The use of rhyme also stabilizes a poem, and enhances the experience.  It teaches fitting words and sounds into a particular form.  It's well worth the effort, and brings about art of and by itself.  How good that art is depends on how hard you work at it.  Now:




Short Stories 


I'm going to reject something else I was taught, at least in the beginning.  I was taught in college that, because of their brevity, short stories had to be taut, concise, no superfluous acts or details, and technically nearly perfect.  When you're an accomplished writer, sure; but not when you're just starting out.  In my opinion a young (or simply new) writer's first short story should be simple, relaxed, and easy to get your head around.  It doesn't have to be perfect, just as good as you can make it without driving yourself crazy.  Prose is a difficult medium, for my money the most difficult, and just like climbing a mountain, you're not going to overpower it, find some magical shortcut, or speed your way to the top without falling clean off. 

As JFK said, "We choose to go to the moon and do these other things not because they're easy, but because they are hard."  Just don't make it harder than it has to be, by expecting to be a great writer overnight.  What you need are patience and desire, patience and desire.

All right, your first short story.  Don't try to make it a miniature epic, just a story about one or two main characters, and the problem or conflict they face.  To borrow the model from screenplays: 

Introduce the characters; introduce the conflict; expand upon characters and conflict; bring the conflict to a head; resolve the conflict and end the tale.  As with music, good literature is based on tension/release.  A musical example would be the lead guitarist bending the string, raising the pitch, and then letting it return to the unaltered note. 
If the above model doesn't work for you, just write a story about one or more characters you care about, interacting in a way that will be interesting to your readers and yourself.  Another gem from George Lucas is that he made the kind of movies he would want to see himself.  Or, as E.B. White puts it, "Every good writer writes for an audience of one."  Do it your way. 

There is no right or wrong here, only conventions you can accept, or reject.  Modest Mussorgsky, the great Russian composer once said words to the effect, "I only want to know what the rules are so I can break them.  You might want to start out simple, learning the forms before you start deviating from them.  At least then you'll know what those conventions are. 

Now I get to play the great man, and use one of my own stories both to illustrate, and reject the precepts above.  Most of the conflict within takes place in the mind of the main character, the outside reality.....  But no more hints.  Here then:



Nederland


The place was as big and empty as its name, an unboundaried sprawl of huge hills and long deep mountain valleys. And in the near distance, the snow-capped giants of the Arapahoe Range. In the winter the thin air came down from them with the bite of ice and freezing streams; in the summer the winds could rip like thunder, or sigh in the pines like the souls of ten thousand Sioux.

The young man had come here to escape: he did not fear the vastness. It reminded him that there were still places where man was not yet master, and the primal rock forests still lived, among great hills like the backs of dinosaurs. And the stars at night, hard and sharp and clear, undimmed by pale city lights, and paler lives.

Only it made him lonely sometimes. To feel his own smallness against the loom of the land. To soak the earth with tears as he lay upon the new grave of a dog, while a weathered mountain woman watched in silence. To drink white wine and sit out at night, listening to the slow, sonorous wine of a mountain bluegrass fiddle. To walk alone through forests of pine which hardly seemed to know him, and to feel the hard struggle to survive in the rare glimpse of a rabbit, a black squirrel, or the night cry of a coyote. He had come so far, these twenty-seven years, and come to so little. To write honestly, endlessly, without once tasting the fruits of his labors, and send the innumerable queries, chapters, and whole manuscripts to men who did not read them. To offer his heart to a woman who would not take it. These things, he knew, were inherent in the life of a man—the desert, the failed hunt, the empty searching. He did not fear this place. Only it made him lonely sometimes.

He sat in an old chair on the wooden porch of the Sundance, two rows of joined, plank faced cabins, in which others more or less like himself made their stand. His dog lay beside him, peaceful but restless, as both breathed the free air and began to feel the day drawing to a close. The sunset would be beautiful but brief, like a farewell kiss. But for now the sky only deepened its blue, framed by the Arapahoe peaks, as the road before the lodge dropped quickly into the sunken spaces before them, winding out of sight. In three hours time not ten cars a night would disturb its gray stillness, cutting the forests in half, but only as a snake splits high grasses.

A small pickup truck approached, left the smooth asphalt for the rutted dirt and scattered stones of the Sundance. Pulling up to an adjacent cabin the truck door was opened and a familiar face emerged, and then another. Francis, who worked in the tungsten mines and had lived here half his life. Rick, his friend from New York. A dog in the back whom they had given shelter. Once beaten and abused, it trusted no one else.

“Francis. What’s up.”

“Going fishing at Rollins Pass. Want to come?” He thought for a moment of the unfinished pages lying on his desk, and of the girl who might visit but probably wouldn’t.

“Yeah. What time?”

“Right now.”

“Can I bring my dog?”

“Of course.”

He went inside to get a jacket, turned off the light, locked the door. Down the three steps and across the way to Francis’ cabin. He helped carry out the lantern, canteen, tackle box and other fishing gear. The tailgate was let down on the truck bed for his dog to jump in. The two animals sniffed each other briefly, settled in opposite corners. The three men packed into the front, closed the flimsy doors. Francis restarted the engine, pushed the stick over and back, and they were off.

Rollins Pass was a narrow, green grass, flat divide that ran straight across the first high ridges of the Colorado Rockies. For more than a hundred years it had been split down the middle by the steel rail and blackened ties of the railroads, carrying the fruits of the prospector’s labors, or taking his weary flesh and broken dreams back down to the lowlands and the great Kansas prairie, back to the east, back to defeat.

The road passed over the burrowing tracks at a small rise. Francis turned right just beyond it, onto a little used dirt road. The sun continued to set and the colors around them lost their hue and the truck bounced on the uneven roadway, as the dogs spread low to brace themselves, and the men bounced against one another. On both sides was the grass vale, then the darkening pines again as the land began to climb. The road wound first left, away from the tracks, then right to cross them. Here they were stopped by the rust brown steel cars of a freight train, empty, stopped dead, blocking their path.

“Son of a bitch,” said Rick, but Francis knew it would move again soon. The other said nothing, lost in his thoughts. Nothing else to do, the three got out, loosed the dogs, and began climbing on, or throwing stones with a dull clang, at the row of cars stretching out of sight. To the left, he knew, its head must be buried in the long tunnel that pierced the next ridge; to the right all was lost in the gloom and the narrowing distance.

At length there came the wail of a horn, the strain of couplers pulling tight, and at last the slow movement of the train. The dogs were put back and now, in near darkness, the three men watched the train move past, then the way open suddenly before them, then the last cars moving out of sight.

They crossed the tracks and the road bent left again, running parallel to the stream. It was neither broad nor deep, and the young man wondered if there really were fish here to be taken. But a mile further up there was a pool, formed as the waters came spilling through an enormous, spiral edged metal pipe, which carried the stream through a bridge of earth constructed for the road. It did not look entirely natural, but Francis said this was his spot, and they stopped the truck and got out and climbed down the rocky bank. Here there was a sandy clearing, bounded by smooth stones, and at the edge of it the pool. Its waters broadened again after the narrowing pipe, calming in a roughly circular expanse perhaps forty feet at its widest point.

They lit the lantern, to see by, and also to attract the fish. They would think it was the moon, and come up for night feeding. In the tackle box were the baits, salmon eggs and worms. The young man waited his turn, then stooped to examine them. It had rained fairly heavily the day before, so on a hunch he took out a worm, lanced it on the hook, and went to choose a place. Francis and Rick, who had been here before, had already taken theirs. The night was still and quiet and you could hardly see the pipe, except to feel the seclusion that its earth bank and the two sloping sides gave to the place, seeming a world apart, lost in the deeps of time, and in the heart of the Wild. There really was a moon, bright and nearing the full and streaked now and again by the clouds, dark gray and white against it. The songs of locusts throbbed gently, and the men did not speak.

After standing dumb in the same place without success, he tried to think. This nothing, was like all the failed hunts, the empty searching, and the men who would not read..... But that was not what he wanted to think. You are a fish, he said to himself, and you are hungry but also wary. How would the food come to you that you trust to be real and not a trap? It would come naturally, with the current, came the answer. Like the Tao, his mind echoed: the undercurrent, unseen, old as the earth itself, subtle and deep. He was not sure he believed it, but a worm that had been forced out of the ground and washed down by the rains, must come through the pipe, follow the swirls, and settle at last in the still deep water a short way farther down.

He reeled in his line, checked the worm, threw it into the water and got another. This he placed on the hook so that it was doubled and knotted in the middle, covering the bend of barbed steel, but with a length of body at each end to move freely and look alive. He walked up toward the noisy clear waters of the pipe as they spilled down, and let out a short length of line. Then he lowered the hook into the current and walked with it, slowly and carefully, as it swirled behind a boulder, came toward him, out again and down a shallow incline, then slowed into the calming waters of a second, hidden deep. The current had not brought him to the place his mind imagined, but that hardly—

He felt something hard strike the line, and the end of the rod dipped sharply. There was little time to think, but this was not a thing which required thought. Instinctively he pulled back on the bending rod, reeled in line, and brought the fish closer. Francis had already set down his pole, and was moving closer with the net.

“Keep him off the rocks,” he urged calmly.

“I know,” the young man said.

Still the fish pulled and jerked madly, trying to wrench itself free. Too much pressure, or too sudden a pull, and he would do just that.

But now he was very close. The man stepped back and raised his pole high. Francis plunged the net and swept it below him, and lifted out the struggling fish. He reached in, took firm hold of it, and removed the hook. The he put it into the fisherman’s bucket, filled with the clear cold water, and together they examined the prize.

A ten inch rainbow trout, weighing more than two pounds. Hardly a monster, but in these shallow, unstocked and unmanipulated waters, quite a catch. Its gills opened and closed rhythmically, and at intervals it would give a burst with its powerful tail, churning the water and spinning quick circles in the steel enclosure.

“Nice fish!” said Francis, his normally reserved face breaking into a broad, unhesitating smile. He held out his hand, which the young man took heartily, then turned away, wondering why large tears were forming in his eyes. He sat down on a stone, and let out a breath that seemed to have been caged in his body for years.

Later that night both Francis and Rick took a fish. But they were smaller, brown trout, and the young man did not even try to fish again. He just sat at a distance, watching the fire they had made with the dog nestled beside him, stroking its ear and breathing the fresh, free air. Alive.


*                             *                             *


Okay.  Remember what I said about not being afraid to imitate?  This story is not unlike the works of Hemingway, in a number of ways:  the landscape is powerful, the lives of the characters small in comparison.  This happens and that happens and nothing really seems to come of it until.....  Pow!  The fish strikes the line, and all which seemed meaningless becomes meaningful.  And the sentences ramble and you feel the emptiness and frustration (I'm imitating Hemingway's sentence structure here) and though the main character may not have achieved all his lofty goals he has at least felt that success is possible.

For what it's worth, the story is true, another way to ease yourself into prose.  By writing about an actual event you don't have to make anything up, though you do have to write it out, and learn how to do so in a compelling manner. 

 


A Brief Recap


Understanding we all have our own path to walk, and that what I've suggested, in whole or in part, may not work for you, here again are my suggestions.

Start small:  a journal, poetry, short stories, whatever comes most naturally.  Then (I cannot stress this enough):  read.  Art does not exist in a vacuum, any more than we do.  Reading will give you an instinctive sense of how good writing sounds, feels, connects with the mind and touches the soul. 

Go at your own pace, find your own length, and (something I wish someone had told me), give yourself a break.  As Ben Bova once wrote to me:  "Don't put your life on hold waiting to become a successful writer.  It takes years to develop the skills necessary to be a professional writer.  Some of us never do."  But if we stay with it and do it our way, we achieve something far deeper:  a communion of souls, the sharing of our deepest emotions, experiences, hopes and fears, yearning and disappointment.  We contribute to the sum total of human understanding, among which self-expression is far from least.

 



 



Extended Prose


All right.  Hopefully by now we've done whatever it took to build up to extended prose.  I won't yet say the 'N' word (novel), because that's the final leap.  And unless you've climbed the foothills, the mountains are out of reach.

If and when you're ready, you might want to consider the novella, or short novel.  This is an interesting form in that it combines the precise skills of short stories with the greater length and depth of the Novel.  Oops.  It jumped out anyway.  Not to fear, your time will come.

When I first began writing in earnest, my father used to tease me that I was trying to write 'the great American novel'.  American literature professors (and others who should know better) are always trying to decide what that is and who wrote it.  I've heard everything from "Moby Dick," to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," to "The Sound and the Fury" (don't get me started).  But for me the two best candidates are not novels at all, but novellas:  F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," and Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea."  Even Faulkner, who had something of a feud with Ernest, said of the latter, "Every word is perfect."

This should tell you something about length.  "It's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog."  It's not the number of words, but the quality of those words, and how they fit together to form a graceful, powerful whole. 

The Basics of Prose

As stated previously, the building blocks of writing are words.  In prose (non-poetry), there are several more.  While to those with a certain amount of education and experience this may seem like elementary school, it's worth going back over.  For as someone once said, "Truth is simple, lies are complex."  An oversimplification perhaps, but no more wasted words.

 

The building blocks of prose are words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, chapters (if it's a novel), and the novels themselves, if you go on to write a sequel, trilogy or series.

 

Sentences:

 

Sentences are the most important element of writing.  They are written, and read, one at a time, and either engage the reader or don't.  So write directly, clearly, using nouns and strong verbs, rather than endless adjectives and adverbs.  Be active, rather than oblique. Here is an example of both.  Active:  The giant hurled the stone.  Passive:  The stone was hurled by a giant.  Weak verbage:  The giant threw the stone.  Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs:  The tall giant threw the gray stone angrily.  Even using better verb, adverbs and adjectives can water down a simple, powerful sentence:  The mighty giant hurled the rough stone angrily.  More information than necessary, more words, less direct, decisive action.  Strong nouns and verbs, active voice, no nonsense.

 

Another place where adverbs rarely belong (and frankly, drive me crazy), are at the end of a character speaking.  Here is an example of a popular, professional writer of many years experience, and yet she still hasn't learned this.  Anne McCaffrey:

 

"You'll get left out for thread for sure," Lexey whispered hoarsely, pressing his sturdy body as close to the wall as he could, well away from the dragon's tail.  Aside from way too many words, and far too much information after the fact, what is the problem here?  The reader, who has already read the quote, now has to go back and apply all the other junk to it.  Why not:  Lexey whispered hoarsely, "You'll be left for thread for sure," then the description of his body pressing against the wall, avoiding the dragon's tail?

 

When I was first starting out I did this, too, if not to this extent, using too many different verbs, when a simple 'said' would have done just fine:  "You're too aggressive," the man implied/exhorted/whispered harshly/moaned abrasively, etc.  "You're too aggressive," he said.  It contains all the same information, and in relation with the rest of the dialogue, will tell you if he implied it, exhorted the other speaker, whispered, moaned or threw a fit.

 

Where and how did I learn this?  From Tolkien, a great writer, translator and professor.  I first noticed it after writing in the awkward way above, then suddenly realizing in the middle of a long and powerful dialogue that Tolkien had used one simple word, 'said', and let the dialogue, quite literally, do the talking.  You'll find this in Hemingway, too, and other writers who've learned that less is more, and embellishment can detract from rather than add to good, meat and potatoes writing.  A little spice, a little gravy, are fine.  Just don't smother the cogent meaning with a lot of unnecessary description, and information after the fact.

Sentence Structure


There are endless varieties of sentence structure, and I am not a good enough teacher to lay them all out for you.  When in fourth grade (something good had to come out of Catholic School), we used to diagram sentences:  article, subject, verb, object, along with the afore-mentioned adjectives and adverbs. which have their place, but are secondary to the nouns and verbs.

Again, be active in your writing, rather than passive.  If you go back over Tolkien's poem, or read "The Lord of the Rings," you'll see what I mean.  The words, like van Gogh's brush strokes, seem to vibrate right off the page.  So don't diffuse your meaning with endless parentheses, unnecessary adjectives, and most of all, write powerfully, and tell a powerful story.  Otherwise we're all just spinning our wheels.

Sentence length is another aspect of framing sentences, length in general an important element in telling your tale.  Remember this about sentences:  you want to convey one thing at a time, and, unless you're Hemingway, or have some other reason to have your sentences run on and on (a good example follows), write what you mean to say, however long or short.  You can also set up a short and powerful sentence by a longer one before it.  For example.

The sun was high and the ground was hot, dusty and pale, except for the blood that still flowed indifferently from Jason's ear and temple, congealing in the shadowed space beneath his neck.  His brother was dead.

 

Paragraphs

 

Okay, we've touched on length, one of the most important elements of writing.  It can create emotional distance, and/or draw you near.  More on short stories, chapters and novels later.  Right now let's examine the length of paragraphs, and how they effect the reader.

I was taught that each paragraph should convey one thought, then another begin.  Also, that every time a new speak spoke, it must begin a new paragraph.  I find both these so-called rules restrictive.  I find all rules restrictive and unnecessary.  They are for people who can't do a thing themselves, and so tell others how to do them.  "Those who can, do, those who can't, teach."  Sometimes those who have, continue to do but are slowing down because of age and writer's burn-out, try to pass on what they know, though with the pedantic rules.  Anything I say you don't agree with, don't do it.  You're the writer.  You're the one who counts. 

But back to length, and its effect on your readers, think of it this way.  Every paragraph is like diving into the water to search for something, that something, your story, your meaning.  If the paragraph is brief, or simply of moderate length, they can come up for air, take a deep breath, and dive in again.  It is for this reason that I try to keep my paragraphs, my chapters fairly short.  The reader is much better able to take in detail if not asked to read the Encyclopedia Britannica.  Do I exaggerate?

"Heart of Darkness," by Joseph Conrad, reads like one enormous paragraph.  There is a reason for this.  He wantsthe reader to feel smothered, oppressed and overwhelmed, just as the character Marlowe does, just as he did, in his own horrific excursion up the Congo.  Okay.  Dramatic, powerful, but I was forced to read it three times in high school and in college, and to this day I can give you only the briefest details, because I felt all the things he may have wanted to feel, but didn't help me as a reader, a writer, a person.

Let me give you an example of shorter paragraphs, how they allow the mind to breathe, take in more detail, and truly settle in to the story.  John Knowles, from "A Separate Peace":


Looking back now across fifteen years, I could see with great clarity the fear I had lived in, which must mean that in the interval I had succeeded in a very important undertaking: I must have made my escape from it.

I felt fear's echo, and along with that I felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky.

There were a couple of places now which I wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, and that was why I wanted to see them. So after lunch at the Devon Inn I walked back toward the school. It was a raw, nondescript time of year, toward the end of November, the kind of wet, self-pitying November day when every speck of dirt stands out clearly. Devon luckily had very little of such weather — the icy clamp of winter, or the radiant New Hampshire summers, were more characteristic of it — but this day it blew wet, moody gusts all around me.


Can you see how the shorter paragraphs allow you to take in each new one fresh, unburdened, most of all, not slipping into that bored state of mind when our eyes pass over the words without the mind ever taking them in.  This is how I know I'm reading a bad book.  I have simply lost interest.

Notice also another rule broken.  The second paragraph consists of exactly one sentence, supposedly taboo.  Why.  It was Ursula LeGuin in her "Dark Sea Trilogy" who taught me something even more sacrilegious, even more powerful:  the short, one sentence paragraph.  Here is an example:

 

Duny laughed and shouted it out again, the rhyme that gave him power over the goats. They came closer, crowding and pushing round him. All at once he felt afraid of their thick, ridged horns and their strange eyes and their strange silence. He tried to get free of them and to run away. The goats ran with him keeping in a knot around him, and so they came charging down into the village at last, all the goats going huddled together as if a rope were pulled tight round them, and the boy in the midst of them weeping and bellowing. Villagers ran from their houses to swear at the goats and laugh at the boy. Among them came the boy's aunt, who did not laugh. She said a word to the goats, and the beasts began to bleat and browse and wander, freed from the spell.

"Come with me," she said to Duny.

 

A world of meaning, in seven words.

 

To be continued.....

 

 

 



Short Stories II 


I was taught, and whole-heartedly believe, that because a short story contains fewer words, those words have to be more tightly crafted:  no tangents, no excessive description, no plot line loose ends, no story too complex to tell in a five- to twenty thousand word short.
 
So how do you do this.  Unlike the novel, where it is sometimes better to start a journey whose ends are not known to you (like "Lord of the Rings), you pretty much have to know where you're going from the start.  You've also got to be willing to rewrite, as many times as it takes.  Ken Keesey's one and done prose simply doesn't work for me.  It's not creativity, but laziness.
 
So, if you're ready, here we go:
 
Beginnings are very important.  You've got to create a mood, even as you do the main character.  What is happening in his or her life?  What is the conflict - not long and drawn out - which will tells us if this main character is able to overcome.  And most of all, with far less time, we have to make the reader care.
 
How do you do this?  A condensed version of the novel.  You have to create a character that the reader can identify with.  You have to get inside his mind and reveal his motives.  You've got to show how these personality traits put him at variance with others around him, embroil him in the conflict, etc.  And please, no hard-boiled detectives or super-heros, in any way, shape or form.  If you want to sell your audience on a masturbated power trip, have at it; but I won't read it.  I want to be shown someone who shares the same feelings of loneliness, frustration, and even despair, but gets off the deck to prove he's still willing to fight.  Paul Simon's ballad, "The Boxer" comes to mind.
 
If you're into happy endings, fine.  If you're more of a fatalist, also fine.  But what you shouldn't be is predictable.  I hate films in which I know the outcome:  good guy beats bad guy, bad guy dies, good guy gets the woman, God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.  I also hate endings that are going to be black every single time.  That would be Joseph Conrad.  For all his wealth of experience and unbelievable talent, he was, to me, never able to overcome severe depression.  He has my deepest sympathy, but I'm tired of being beaten up by "Heart of Darkness."
Back to short stories:  whose do I like?  Ray Bradbury.  His sparse, even stark description doesn't cheat the author, but invites him or her in to take a closer look.  His characters are quickly identifiable, and the.....  What?  STORY is so engaging, surprising and varied that you're never sure.  And his settings are glorious, from Mars to Depression Era midwest and California.  Pick up any collection of his short stories, and  see for yourself.
 
What techniques does Bradbury use to create the overall effect.  For one thing, commas.  How does this help with vivid character, setting and story.  It slows the reader down, doesn't give them long sentences to labor through, with the chance for attention to wander.  This is something I use in (some of) my novels.  Where did I learn this?  From Bradbury, but also from a famous composure.
 
Eugene Ormandy, a true mistro, who conducted the Philedelphia Orchestra (one of the world's best, for years, used to do something I didn't understand at first, even disliked.  But when I finally figured it out, or learned how it applies to writing, I learned a valuable lesson.  Don't rush the music, or the writing.  If you do it goes by in a blur, without the chance to savor the composer's work, most notably Beethoven's.
 
So once I got this, I combined it with Bradbury's techniques (and others) to create a narrative that didn't rush through the action, like rapid cutting in a film.  Take your time, and let the reader take his.  How?
 
As mentioned previously, shorter paragraphs give the reader a better ability to take it what you're writing.  They don't feel they have to take a deep breath, and plunge into interminable sentences and paragraphs.  They can come up for air any time they want, and take in the character, setting, storyline, mood, etc. at their own pace.  The writing is clearer, more concise, and far less likely to turn off the reader, the Cardinal sin of writing.





Novels
 

"Those who have considered writing (novels) ought to, take a tip from those smart enough not to."  -Anonymous
 
We come at last to the foot of that awe inspiring, and will devouring Mount Olympus, which, according to Greek mythology, ordinary men were never meant to climb.  And for those few of us who stick to it long enough to create true art..... 
 
Well, the work must be its own reward, unless you're that one in ten thousand whom the publishers actually read before rejecting out of hand.  Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for online writers like myself, the Internet makes it possible to bypass them completely, and get our message, the way we want it, to anyone who wants to read it.
 
But that's putting the cart before the horse.  I can teach writing; I can't teach selling.  Never had the knack, was too easy to overlook, whatever.  So let's have at that mountain, and not listen to those who say we'll never make it.  Writing is a lonely business.  No more talk.  Seize hold of that rock, find a place for your foot, and let's get going.
 
Hopefully by now you've had some experience with short stories and/or novellas.  You're going to need it.  Novels are stories on a larger scale, and the ability to step back from your work, like a painter eyeing his, is critical.  The difficult thing about novels is that you never can take it in as a whole.  You can only look at small parts at a time:  a sentence, a paragraph, a sitting, many months and even years.  It's not a pretty picture.
 
So how do you do it? keep from creating Frankenstein's monster, or trying to herd cats?  I wrote, and kept my first true novel organized, by getting it all straight in my head first, then writing out a precise outline:  "Part One, Chapter One.  Kalus is banished by the hill people for saving the life of Akar, the starving wolf."  Some more information, the entire novel plotted out like this, and then I started writing in earnest.  This way you can deal not with a complete novel, but parts of the novel, one progressing into the next.  Bricks and cut stones are much easier to assemble together than great, uncut monoliths, however awe inspiring they can be.


So what is missing?  The characterization, the plotline, the conflict, the resolution.  Try to keep these simple the first time, and with enough emotional distance not to pour your whole heart and soul into it just yet.  The one editor who took the time the read "Within a Crimson Circle," told me kindly, and from her perspective, truthfully, that I had tried to do too much with it.  The truth hurts, but there it is.  While I still love the book as the first I completed, making all the others possible, in retrospect there was too much of me, however refracted by the prism of a creative story line, and not enough of other characters who did not merely reflect a part of myself.
 
I once told an experienced writer that, "Everybody writes about themselves."  His cutting (and true) reply was, "Until they grow up.
 
So here it is.  You've got to piece together your chapters in a way that engrosses the reader, engages his or her interest, and makes them want to keep reading.  How?
 
The best quote on this I ever heard was from George Lucas, the filmmaker.  It also applies directly, bull's eye, to writing.
 
"Story and characters are the two feet upon which every successful film (novel) stands.
 
Story and characters.  Story and characters.  Vital, essential, game, set and match.
 
Where do they come from.  From experience and imagination.




So.  I divided the book into three parts, writing one at a time, as if they were a novella.  My chapters were (and are) fairly short, so they were easier for me to manage.  Then I wrote it again, starting from page one, tying together loose ends, taking out what did not fit into the whole, or was merely superfluous.  To compare it to track and field, I ran laps and miles, which in the end came to a marathon. 
 
Michelangelo did not paint the Sistene Chapel in one day, month or year, nor did he do it all as a single portrait.  It took as long as it took, with many separate paintings coming together to form a glorious whole.  Don't try to overpower the mountain.  Climb it a little at a time.  And if you make it to Olympus, tell Shakespeare I said hello.



There are, of course, other ways to write a novel, other ways to do anything.  The above is my suggestion to help you get that first novel under your belt, that monkey off your back.  Once you know you can do it, there are many other approaches.  I will discuss several of them here.
 
One method I would not recommend, though I've done it (and nearly killed myself in the process), is telling the story through multiple viewpoints.  In "Oberheim" I wrote about a war in Space, from its early, racist beginnings to a full-scale galactic war.  And while this allowed me to do it in segments, those segments were difficult to bring together into a cogent, compelling whole.  You're asking a lot of your readers (and yourself) to jump from one scene, one set of characters to the next, and understand how the one leads into the other.  While a lot of people have read it, it remains, not unlike "Within a Crimson Circle," too intense, too personal.  The reader has to see where you're going with the story, my main complain with "Ulysseys."  If the reader doesn't know what the heck you're talking about, it becomes work instead of pleasure, confusion rather than wisdom.  I love the book, like all my literary children, but am aware that it's not an easy read, and many might become confused, especially by the ending, a metaphorical tale of Hemingway's life.  Now you know.
 
 

The next technique I'm going to go over quickly, both because there's not much to it, and it's not my favorite approach, to say the least.  Ken Keesey and others of his era created (at least in part), stream of consciousness writing.  This I like.  Get inside a character's head and just follow his thoughts, his actions.  Or, simply narrate this way, writing whatever comes to mind, following out the chain of human thought.
 
That's the good part.  What I don't like about Keesey is his philosophy of only writing things once, as if the subconscious knows where it is going, and you don't want to lose any of the original spontaneity, intensity, whatever.
 
My prejudice:  this latter is a load of crap.  You don't just pick up a paint brush and start painting without mixing your colors, choosing your subject, or having a basic idea of what goes where.  His novels aren't bad, but they're not great, either.  Neil Peart, the great drummer and novelist, said he had a problem with spontaneous music.  Probably overstated, especially as he loves to travel Africa, where much of the music is just that.
 
The basic point here is that writing takes work, whatever form you choose, and writing something once and leaving it that way is lazy, lousy and uncoordinated.  Sorry Ken, I think it's bullshit.



A form of spontaneous writing I like much better, and now that I've been doing this for thirty years, employ myself, is to start a narrative with being sure where you're going:  set a strong character in a dangerous place, then gradually find out who he is, how he got there, and tell the tale from there.  Rather than linear writing, January 1, 2, 3, etc., I start in the middle, then go both forward with the story, and flash back into the past.  I did this with my "Dark Trilogy," the best thing I will ever write.  Let me give you an example.
 

There are, of course, other ways to write a novel, other ways to do anything.  The above is my suggestion to help you get that first novel under your belt, that monkey off your back.  Once you know you can do it, there are many other approaches.  I will discuss several of them here.
 
One method I would not recommend, though I've done it (and nearly killed myself in the process), is telling the story through multiple viewpoints.  In "Oberheim" I wrote about a war in Space, from its early, racist beginnings to a full-scale galactic war.  And while this allowed me to do it in segments, those segments were difficult to bring together into a cogent, compelling whole.  You're asking a lot of your readers (and yourself) to jump from one scene, one set of characters to the next, and understand how the one leads into the other.  While a lot of people have read it, it remains, not unlike "Within a Crimson Circle," too intense, too personal.  The reader has to see where you're going with the story, my main complain with "Ulysseys."  If the reader doesn't know what the heck you're talking about, it becomes work instead of pleasure, confusion rather than wisdom.  I love the book, like all my literary children, but am aware that it's not an easy read, and many might become confused, especially by the ending, a metaphorical tale of Hemingway's life.  Now you know.
 
 
The next technique I'm going to go over quickly, both because there's not much to it, and it's not my favorite approach, to say the least.  Ken Keesey and others of his era created (at least in part), stream of consciousness writing.  This I like.  Get inside a character's head and just follow his thoughts, his actions.  Or, simply narrate this way, writing whatever comes to mind, following out the chain of human thought.
 
That's the good part.  What I don't like about Keesey is his philosophy of only writing things once, as if the subconscious knows where it is going, and you don't want to lose any of the original spontaneity, intensity, whatever.
 
My prejudice:  this latter is a load of crap.  You don't just pick up a paint brush and start painting without mixing your colors, choosing your subject, or having a basic idea of what goes where.  His novels aren't bad, but they're not great, either.  Neil Peart, the great drummer and novelist, said he had a problem with spontaneous music.  Probably overstated, especially as he loves to travel Africa, where much of the music is just that.
 
The basic point here is that writing takes work, whatever form you choose, and writing something once and leaving it that way is lazy, lousy and uncoordinated.  Sorry Ken, I think it's bullshit.

A form of spontaneous writing I like much better, and now that I've been doing this for thirty years, employ myself, is to start a narrative with being sure where you're going:  set a strong character in a dangerous place, then gradually find out who he is, how he got there, and tell the tale from there.  Rather than linear writing, January 1, 2, 3, etc., I start in the middle, then go both forward with the story, and flash back into the past.  I did this with my "Dark Trilogy," the best thing I will ever write.  Let me give you an example.
 
When I started Ariel, I had only a single sentence:
 
"The man rode slowly toward the crest of the hill," a line which raised more questions than it answered.  Who is the man, why is he riding, what is at the crest of the hill.  Well, let's see.  I had always been fascinated by Rome, and had always wanted to write about the Dark Ages, which Catholic school history (something of a contradiction of terms) never dealth with.  So.....

"He was in no hurry, for the sounds beyond told him what he would find there:  rapine, murder, a town in flames."  All right, he lives in an age of chaos, to which he has become indifferent if not immune.  "It was the same tale told by a madman, over and over again."
From these bare beginnings came the great work of my life, THE DARK TRILOGY, of which "Ariel" is the first book.  Here's the first chapter, and you'd better believe I rewrote it over and over again.  The first chapter of any novel is paramount, and the first fifty pages should be as tight and cogent as the best short story.  What the hell?  Here's the first fifty or so.
We all want to believe we are descended from poets, philosophers and kings. But the common thread of human ancestry, whether we accept it or not, is that at some point in our racial or cultural past, we are descended from barbarians. The hunter, the killer, the atavism lives within us all. It is merely a question of whether we take that initial, primal urge and turn it into something noble and meaningful, or whether in the name of some higher, ‘spiritual’ aim, we revert to the barbaric.

PART ONE

One

The man rode slowly toward the crest of the hill. He was in no hurry, for the sounds beyond it told him what he would find there: rapine, murder, a town in flames. It was a sight he had seen far too often, the same tale told by a madman, over and over again.

When he reached the dry, sparsely wooded hilltop he dismounted, and hid his weary horse in a small recession by a fallen trunk. After taking the last bitter draught from his drinking skin he lay down a short distance from it, and waited. His back against the hard ground, his arm held painfully beside him, he closed his eyes and tried not to think.

But the sounds from the valley beyond would not let him rest: the screams of the women, the rough shouts of cruel men, the crack and hiss of flames on the thatched roofs. For with them he heard the echoes of his own tragedy, and was galled by bitter memories of the fall of Rome. Half consciously he reached beneath the rough tunic and ran his fingers along the length of the terrible scar he bore. Beginning just above the left shoulder, the sword had crashed across his chest, breaking bone, severing muscle, nearly ending his life. Would that wound ever heal? He did not know, only that it made him useless, even as a mercenary. And vulnerable. Now he was nothing more than another scavenger..... He let out a scowl, and rolled onto his undamaged side, and forced himself to sleep.

When he awoke he instinctively scanned the rough undergrowth around him, then rose and moved soundlessly to an outcropping of stone at the edge of the steep incline. He looked not at the town far below, but across the vast expanse toward the horizon, where the sun was setting among bars of smoky cloud, red and somber and indifferent.

In less than an hour it would be dark. Already the pillaging horsemen had begun to gather their booty and be off. The few women worth keeping, screamed as they were bound and thrown across horses’ withers. The few men left alive were hunted out of the bloody corners into which they had crawled and finished by a blade through the heart, or a slash across the throat. The fires burned less thickly now, and something of the silence of night tried to gather in the shadows.

Massing at the ruined gate, the useless walls, the barbarians gave one long look at the stark countryside around them. For they were not the only band of marauders on the prowl. But finding themselves unchallenged, they let out a defiant cry and rode off in a turmoil of dust.

Cassius watched, and waited.

All the long, starlit night he kept his vigil, senses trained for sight or sound of intruders upon the smoldering village. But none came. And with the first light of morning, he descended.

He guided his horse carefully down the trackless hill, among the barren stones, toward a place in the wall where he could be seen only from above. Leaning forward, he wrapped the reins about the branches of an olive tree growing hard by it. Then urging his mount closer, he stood up on its back, and pulled himself over the rough stone. Then let himself drop into the shadows of a blind alley.

All was quiet and still. From blackened roofs and doorways the smoke still seethed, and throughout the dirty streets his eyes showed him the cruel thoroughness of the invaders. Nothing human moved: the bodies scattered to left and right were cold and stiff. A few goats wandered aimlessly. A red-brown dog, licking the dried blood from its master’s face, caught sight of him and ran off whimpering, its tail between its legs. Somewhere farther in he heard the bleating of sheep in a pen. That was all.

He began to search the stone houses for coins, weapons, anything of value that had been left behind. It was a grim and largely fruitless task. Coming upon what must have been the home of a prosperous trader, he entered its more grandiose ruin to find the very ringlets torn from his dead wife’s ears. She had been too old and corpulent to warrant much attention, and remained with the broken shaft of the spear pinning her to a heavy oak chair. And even as he stood regarding her a blackened beam, eaten slowly by creeping embers, collapsed from above and swung dangerously close to his head.

“Christ!” Look too long at a corpse and you become one yourself.

He did not find the soldier’s superstition amusing. He believed it.

He was about to give up in disgust, when entering again the sunlight of a broader street, he saw a long building largely undamaged by the fire—its roof was of clay tiles instead of thatch. Perhaps a meeting place or storage house, it seemed the only thing left worth checking. Skirting the featureless wall closest to him, he followed a recessed dirt track about the corners, and entered through a broad double door on the far side, gaping wide.

As always he moved silently, his short sword held at the ready. The light was poor beyond the doorway, and as his eyes adjusted he could just make out something lying on a long table: the body of a woman, her torn clothes beneath her. She had been repeatedly raped, then stabbed through the heart. A woman, perhaps his own age, in her way very beautiful. He felt again the sick clawing at the pit of his stomach. He stood very still, feeling acutely the presence of death: hers, already accomplished, and his own, surely not so far behind. Then turned to walk away.
From somewhere above and behind him came a start, and he whirled back again. A half defined movement in the beams overhead caught his attention, as something backed trembling into the corner from which it had begun to crawl. A child it must have been, a girl, because he had seen a flash of long dark hair. He remained as if frozen, listening as she tried to silence her terrified gasps, in vain. What else could he do?

“Easy, girl, I’m not going to hurt you.”

But the sound of his voice, and the knowledge that she had been seen, only drove the girl to still deeper trauma. She breathed rapidly, exhaling in desperate sounds more animal than human. Cassius hung his head and walked slowly out the door, trying to think what he must do.

Don’t be a fool, said his mind, there’s nothing you can do. But his heart had been stirred to pity. You can barely keep yourself alive, came the voice, and he knew that it was right. But the thought of that young life, and all that she had seen..... And something else stirred in him as well, less noble, but no less strong.

“Curse me for the fool I am,” he muttered, then turned and went back inside.

Taking off the braided leather thong he wore as a necklace, he untied the joining knot, and wrapped its length about his left hand. He mounted the table, then struggled to lift himself onto the main ceiling beam, which ran the length of the enclosure.

Steadying himself, and taking stock of the crossing rafters, he saw that at one end several boards had been laid across them to form a floor, and large clay vessels stacked for storage. These the girl sent crashing to the floor below with frightened kicks, as she tried to dig herself more deeply into the narrowing corner.

“No!” she grunted fiercely. “No, no!” The man advanced steadily through the gloom, knowing that words would be useless. And that if he left her there, she would die.

As his foot touched the first board she gave a harsh cry and rushed at him wildly. Cuffing her he knocked her unconscious, then caught her about the waist as she was about to slough over the side. He could not entirely suppress a feeling of latent desire and possession as he bound her wrists, and brushed back the thick hair from her face to be sure he had done her no serious harm. Then lifting her over his good shoulder, he made his way back along the beam, and lowered her as best he could onto the table. At that he had to let her upper body slither down unsupported, where it came to rest beside the lifeless form of the other. This double view removed all doubt. The dead woman was her mother.

He still had no clear idea what the girl herself looked like, beyond the dark hair and olive skin, the slender form so like her mother’s. So half lowering himself, half leaping to the floor, he came and studied her more closely. And as he watched her beginning to stir, he had to take a step back in spite of himself, and released a bewildered breath. The girl was beautiful.

She was older than he had imagined, perhaps twelve, seeming more childlike because of her slight, lithe body and smooth unblemished skin. Her face too was slender, with full lips and smooth, rounded cheekbones. And the eyes, as she opened them slowly, were so striking..... Now more than ever he realized they must both be gone, and quickly. A girl like this would not last long in the cruel anarchy of northern Spain. The best that could happen to her was to be sold, or kept, as a slave: the short and treacherous life of a concubine. The worst..... He need look no further than the tortured form beside her.

At that moment he heard the sound of approaching horsemen beyond the walls. And with that nightmare sound the girl seemed to recover her senses fully, and to remember where she was, and with whom. She struggled wildly against the bind at her wrists, and was about to cry out when he clasped a strong and calloused hand across her mouth.

“Now listen to me close,” he whispered harshly, and in an unfamiliar accent. “There are riders outside the gate, maybe the same that did this to your mother. You can take your chances with me, and walk out of here, or end up like she did.”

But there was no reasoning with terror. In her eyes he was the same as the men who raped and stole and killed without purpose. Freeing her face just enough, she bit hard into the side of his hand, and kept biting until he jerked it free and struck her backhanded, dulling her senses once more.

“Curse you!” he scowled, sucking away the blood. “I am trying to help you!”

But even as the thought came to him to leave her, and save himself, something else made him tear a long strip from her mother’s ruined garments, and gag her securely. And putting her over his shoulder as before, he held her legs tight to stop their squirming, and made his way to the door.

Stealing out into the street, he moved quickly from shadow to shadow, intensely aware of the sound of hoofbeats, spreading out and drawing closer. He made his way back to the alley, and climbing atop a stack of empty wine barrels, threw the girl roughly over the wall.

She landed poorly, the side of her face striking hard earth. She was dimly aware of a startled horse, the base of a wall, and of something large leaping down beside her. Then darkness closed again, and she knew no more.



Two

The girl regained consciousness to find herself lying on her side, a thick dryness in her throat, and an ache and immobility of the wrists for which she could not account. Opening her eyes, she saw before her a swift flowing stream. A man was bathing in a backwater pool near the bank, stripped to the waist. She felt no fear of him, only wondered who he was, and what she herself was doing there.

I must have had a bad dream, she thought. It was terrible. Strange men from the north were attacking the village. They broke down the gate, then I ran with my mother to the council chambers. She boosted me up into the rafters, and told me to hide among the jars in the corner. There was a sharp banging on the doors, and as she climbed down from the table she said I must keep very still, and not cry out no matter what I saw or heard.

Then they broke in, and dragged her by the arms..... Why did they do those terrible things to her? She never hurt anyone.

The thought was too much, and to escape it she studied the man. He was of average height and strongly built, though for some reason his right arm seemed more heavily muscled than the left..... As if feeling her eyes upon him he stopped, and turned to face her, planting his feet firmly against the current. He said nothing, only returned her gaze steadily. His hair was dark and wet, and clung to the sides of his face. He had a short and irregular beard, a hooked nose, and eyes very dark and serious.

Only then did she notice the scar, beginning just above the collarbone, which seemed irregular beneath it. The mark sliced downward across his breast, which was also laced with dark and dripping hair. She saw now that his whole left side seemed affected—stiff, less agile—and that the skin to either side of the whitish gash was sunken and discolored.

Strange to say, this sight alone seemed to jar her back to something like reality, and to tell her that all was not well. For the wound spoke of the violent and incomprehensible world of men, of burning and fighting and killing. And all at once her panic returned.

“Who are you?” she demanded. And suddenly she understood the reason for the pain in her wrists—they were tightly bound by some kind of braided leather. She was trapped! She struggled to her feet as the man climbed heavily out of the water and came towards her. “Don’t touch me!” she cried, with a vehemence that startled her. What was happening?

“I’m not going to hurt you,” said the man, stopping a few feet away. “I only want to be sure you do nothing to hurt yourself. Or me.” And he looked around him at the high, encircling hills. “These mountains are safer than the valleys, but not much I fear.”

“Where is my mother! Why have you brought me here?” He looked at her strangely.

“Don’t you remember?”

“No.” The realization stunned her, and something like a plea for help showed itself in her large, hazel eyes. “Where is my mother?” she repeated. And she felt a strangling lump clutching at her throat. “What have you done to her!”

Again Cassius felt the stirring of emotions long forgotten. He did not know what to say to her. There was nothing else but the truth.

“I did nothing to her, or to anyone in the village. But the Vandals did. Your mother is dead.”

And with this, like the breaking of a dam the memories came flooding back, no longer wrapped in protective amnesia. But still she fought against them with all her strength.

“You’re lying. That was only a dream.”

Cassius hung his head. “It was no dream, any more than I am.”

“You’re lying. My father..... It’s not true, it’s not true!” And she sat down in a heap on the rough, uneven ground, and wept bitterly.

Night was falling, and the man had not returned. The girl remained where he had left her, hidden by a jutting shelf of rock halfway up the high slope. He had not refitted the gag, telling her that if she cried out she would only bring danger on herself. But neither had he loosed her wrists, and the pain in them was growing desperate. The gnarled bush he had bound her to, by an added length of cord, had proven too tough and deeply rooted. She could not unearth it, or break its branches to slide the unyielding loop upward and over the top. Failing in this, she struggled first with the knot at its base, then with the bind itself. Its harsh leather tore her skin, increased her pain, but would not let her hands pass through, no matter how she squirmed and fought. His strength, like the crushing strength of a world without compassion, was just too much for her.

At first this realization brought only despair, and the fear of being helpless and alone as night closed in around her. But in another way..... She could not explain it. Yet somehow the feeling of being bound by the will of a man, a strong and unyielding man, brought with it a sense of security. She still mistrusted him, still feared him, but there was no denying it. The way he looked at her, the way he took such pains to keep her from running away, or hurting herself. Though the feeling confused her, she realized that she was important to him. She mattered.

But fear remained by far the stronger voice. He was still a man, and all her awakening experience of men told her they were treacherous, and cared not at all for the feelings of a woman. She told herself she hated him.

But where was he now? How could he just abandon her? Had he left her there to die? Unable to stand, she planted her feet firmly against the thick roots and pulled again at the cord, as long and hard as the pain would allow. Useless. She let out a plaintive moan, and leaned over her hands to cry.

Several minutes later she heard a sound, and looking up, saw him standing over her. In the last dying light of the day, his face looked more stern than ever. But something else, unreadable, played in the fierce eyes beneath tightly knitted brows. She had not the age or experience to understand the conflicting emotions at work in him, but instinctively she noted the expression, and locked it away in her memory.

“There is a cave,” he said, “a short distance from here. There we will have fire, shelter and food. But I have not the strength to carry you, nor the patience for any more games. Will you walk with me now, or spend the night here with the wolves?”

She found herself incapable of answering, but only drew up her legs protectively beneath her. “What are you going to do with me?” The shadow of his eyes grew darker still.

“Nothing I haven’t had the chance to do already. Damn you! There is no time for this.” The man drew a long knife from its sheath, bent down and cut the cord with a single, angry jerk backward. Wrapping the frayed end tightly about his right hand, he turned away and began to walk, half leading, half dragging her behind. The pain in her wrists forced her to go on, though what else she would have done.....

She followed.


Three

He had not lied about the cave. It was dry, the floor of dirt level and soft. And with the fire burning steadily, the small entrance partly covered by a blanket, it was also warm and bright enough to dispel the chill in her bones, and the feeling of naked exposure to the night. Nor had he lied about food. A butchered lamb lay beside him as he worked to construct a frame of stakes on which to roast it.

But the pain in her wrists had become all consuming, and dangerous. “Please,” she said, with tears of vexation in her eyes. “Untie my hands. I won’t try to run away.”

Cassius stopped. These were the first words she had spoken since they set out from the ledge. For the first time he left off his labors long enough to study the cruel work of the bind: the leather cuff was darkened with blood, the soft skin beneath it discolored and torn. He needed no further prodding. Taking a long wooden needle from his pack on the floor, he came closer and set to work untying the double knot.

But no sooner had he released her hands than he immediately seized her sandaled feet, brought them together, and with the very same leather and cord, bound her tightly about the ankles.

The girl was almost too stunned to react. But after he returned to the makeshift spit, and she had slowly massaged some measure of feeling back into her hands, she looked over at him in confusion. The same question that had troubled her since she first found herself in his power, returned with the added force of resentment. She tried to suppress it, fearful of his wrath. But a rising bitterness goaded her on, and gave her the courage to speak.

“Why?” Her voice was at first the rich and womanly tone she had inherited from her mother, almost defiant. But as he glared back at her, unmoved, her youthful despair returned. “Why are you doing this to me!”

He seemed to take this in, but did not answer. Instead he lifted a sharp stone, and with it pounded the two Y-shaped stakes into the ground on either side of the fire. Then with a strength and stubbornness that were unnerving to watch, he impaled the lamb on a third, and set the stripped carcass in place. The exposed flesh hissed and popped as it was licked by the flames. Then with an abruptness that startled her, he came and sat cross-legged directly in front of her.

“Do you mean, why did I save your life? Why did I go back to the village, despite the danger, to be sure we both had enough to eat? Why don’t I let you run out into the night, where if the wolves don’t get you the barbarians will, or maybe even one of your own countrymen? Is that what you are asking?”

And though she struggled against them, the tears came again. “No. Yes..... Why are you hurting me!” Cassius eyed her steadily, subduing the pity that tried to well up inside him.

“Don’t you understand?” he said finally, looking away. “I am trying very hard not to hurt you..... I am trying to protect you. Listen to me. You are so young. . .you don’t realize the dangers all around you.”

“The most dangerous thing in my life is you!” And in a blind fury she seized a handful of dirt and small stones, and flung it at the side of his face.

With this the man turned sharply, took her shoulders in a crushing grip, and lifted her straight up. And as they stood, so close, she felt the hatred of his eyes burn through her.

But Cassius’ hatred was not for the hapless girl, and slowly he remembered it. More slowly still, he loosed his grip on her. “Well,” he said quietly, and with strange emphasis. “At least you know something of the hearts of men. I was beginning to wonder.”

With his hands no longer supporting her and her feet thus bound, she quickly lost her balance and sloughed to the ground. Raising herself on one arm, she brushed away the dirt from the shoulder of her dress, and with her fingers, pushed behind her ear the thick and straying locks of her hair.

“I hate you,” she said bitterly, fearing to hear herself speak. But the man did not respond, only continued to turn the lamb on the spit. And in its utter helplessness, she saw herself. She leaned heavily on her hands and watched him, unable to feel anything but a kind of battered bewilderment. And the throbbing pain in her wrists.

Lying down again forlornly, she rested her face on her arms and stared blankly at the fire, till she felt her eyelids droop heavily. She turned away and closed her eyes, trying to block it all out. All was weariness and pain.
She fell asleep.

 


The man watched her, feeling so many things. And though he told himself a true Roman could never be drunk, the wine he had brought from the village was not without its effect on him. But of all the things he felt, sitting empty and worn before the fire, the strongest was a kind of dark wistfulness. He knew that all must end in death and ruin, and that life was therefor hopeless and meaningless. He knew the girl was not his own, and that she herself felt nothing for him but fear and loathing. He knew, and yet this night it struck him as terribly sad. And while he had always viewed such emotions as weakness, there in the sheltered cave, with the beautiful child so close. . .the knowledge did nothing to lessen the pain.

In her sleep the child stirred, moaned something that sounded like, “No, don’t leave us.” Cassius wondered vaguely to what phantom of her past she spoke. Then reaching blindly down, she made as if to wrap the hem of her dress more tightly about her exposed ankles. But the impulse faded partway, and instead she only drew her knees more closely to her body, rubbing the side of her leg for warmth. All unconscious, all innocent, and all, for reasons she could not know, a silent torment for the man.

In the smoky light of the fire, the distorting heat of the flames, Cassius felt his eyes losing focus. His mind too seemed to lose its anchor and drift backward, into a past still too recent, and a place that would never be far enough behind. And all the while the girl was there before him. But as an owl spoke hauntingly somewhere in the night, ancient messenger of death, his spirit yielded at last to the melancholy spell. And in her place he saw other figures, other forms. He tried for a moment to fight off this, most bitter of memories. But he was so tired, so damnably tired.....

He saw his wife, lying on the wooden floor of what had once been a home, cradling even in death the body of their young son, trying to protect him. Both were covered with gashes and gaping wounds, garments slit by the blows and thickly stained with blood. As the moon rose silently, and wolves gathered on the outskirts of the town. While in the near distance, the Rome of his forefathers, burned. And the single, terrible question had hammered him to his knees, strangling him with merciless tears as he leaned over and cradled them both in his arms, broken. He spoke the word aloud.

“Why?” In the name of Heaven, Why?

With this he came back to the present, and he shook his head angrily. But the question remained, a bludgeoning and pitiless foe, destroying all he believed, cared for or understood.

But since that mortal night he had vowed never, never to weep again, and did not now. Instead he rose, pacing back and forth like a caged animal. He looked over at the girl, restless and aching.

Then for a reason not altogether clear to him he went to the entrance. He took down the blanket, and walked with it to the place where the girl lay sleeping. And though the words, “Damned foolishness,” played in his mind, nevertheless he knelt down beside her, spread the blanket over her, and gently tucked the folds of thick wool beneath her legs.

Then he returned to the fire, and closing his mind, finished roasting the lamb.

Four

In the soft light of first waking the girl felt a strong hand on her shoulder, and a husky voice speak her name softly.

“Ariel.”

Oh! The sound and feel of him came as such blessed relief, contradicting all the dark images of the dream—of abandonment, loneliness and death. She turned towards him warm and grateful, eyes closed contentedly, putting her arms around his neck and drawing him close.

“Father. You’ve come back.”

But there was something unnatural in the unyielding stiffness of his body, and in the rough beard that scratched her cheek..... In sudden revulsion she remembered and pushed him away, throwing off the blanket and trying to run. But the bind still held her ankles, and she could not. Half crawling, half rolling away from him she searched frantically for some kind of weapon, or large stone to hurl at him. But there were none to be found. As the dawn peered in through the entrance she saw nothing but the cave, the fire, and the man who held her life in his hands. And now it was her ankles that throbbed.

Seeing that escape was futile, and that the man himself made no move, she sat up abruptly and pulled down the hem of her dress, which had ridden dangerously high in the struggle. Still he made no move. Her sense of desperation faded, but her anger did not.

“Why did you do that?” she demanded. But then another thought came to her, and her expression changed to one of bewilderment. “How do you know my name?”

“I didn’t, until just now.”

“But how— ”

“If I tell you will you stop torturing yourself, and promise to eat something?”

She eyed him suspiciously, trying to gauge his motives. But she wanted to know so badly..... “Yes, I promise!”

The man moved back to the fire, which had fallen to graying charcoals, lit red from within, the roasted lamb golden and still above it. He sat down and pulled closer to him the deerskin pack. He reached inside and fished about for a moment, then drew out a locket on a fine silver chain. But the chain itself was broken, and the engraved cover no longer fitted shut.

“You have seen this before?”

“You know I have. It belonged to my mother.”

“Yes. Then you know that inside is a miniature portrait, the head and shoulders of a little dark-haired girl. And on the inside cover are the words: ‘Closest to my heart, closest to my breast, Ariel.’”

“How could you?” she cried, burying her face in her hands. For until that moment the smallest part of her still clung to the belief that somehow her mother was alive—that the attack on the village had not happened, or if it had..... But this was worse than any nightmare. It was real.

Cassius eyed her evenly. “Do you mean, how could I steal from the dead? Or do you mean, how could I force you to see things as they are?” The girl turned away, trying not to listen. “Well, in the first case I will confess it is something I have done in the past. But on this occasion the locket is for you, a remembrance of the woman who gave her life for you. And as for showing you the hard truth, don’t you think it is time you started facing it? Your mother is dead and your village destroyed. And if I read the signs right, your father has betrayed you both.”

“Stop it! Stop it!” And again she flung handfuls of dirt at him. But as her aim was blind, and the fury short-lived, he did not respond in kind.

“Your mother is dead,” he persisted. “But you are not. You can hate me if you want, but that won’t bring back the past. It won’t bring back those you loved, rightly or wrongly. Listen to me! You are in a country, nay, a continent, overrun by barbarians. There is neither law nor reason to fall back upon. You had better start thinking how you are going to protect yourself.”

The girl said nothing, only hung her head mournfully. And when he tried to make her eat, she refused.


 

A short time later they descended, down from the high cave to the place where Cassius had left his horse, a level clearing on the long hillside, among the shelter of pines. The big grey stamped impatiently when it saw him, raising and lowering its head, though it made no other sound. The man walked right up to it, freed it from its tether, and patting the neck, bent over to examine its hooves. He moved all around the animal, stroking its flanks, checking both muscle and coat.

Ariel watched from her distance, trying to remain aloof. The bind at her ankles had been replaced by a shackle of rope— she could walk but not run. But she could not help noticing that the rough man took good care of his horse, and that it seemed to feel a kind of affection for him in return.

“Where did you get him?” she asked plainly. For she had slowly reasoned—

“Keep your voice down.” he whispered harshly. “Take a lesson from my horse if you must. Noise brings attention, and attention brings death.” Her face colored, and she looked down at the cold ground beneath her. Still, she repeated the question.

“This is not your native country,” she said. “And to judge by your accent you cannot have been here long. How did you get the horse?”

He started to answer gruffly, but there was something appealing in her childlike stubbornness. And now that she spoke more quietly..... “The same way a man gets anything that is lasting. I took it in my own two hands.” He could not entirely suppress a feeling of pride as he gnarled its long black mane in his fingers, and slapped its strong chest with the opposite hand.

“But how did you train him in so short a time?”

“I bought him from an old man who kept him tied to a rusted plow, scraping day after day a dry field full of stones. He had sense enough to appreciate the change of fortunes. If I must say it again, you could take a lesson from him.” Cassius felt a pang of remorse as he said this, but it was not lasting.

“What do you want from me!” she cried, stamping her feet in vexation. He came closer to silence her, but the outburst was already fading. “What are you going to do with me?” And she hung her head, feeling utterly lost and abandoned.

Now it was Cassius who pawed the ground, angry and agitated. For he himself did not know, had no answer to give her.

“I don’t know,” he said finally, gazing obstinately at the crown of her head, from which the curling locks hung seductively.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“Of course not.”

“Will you. . .rape me?”

“I haven’t yet.”

She released a heavy breath, almost a sob. “Will you sell me as a slave?”

“No.”

“Then why? Why won’t you let me go?”

“Because I can’t. At least not yet.” He looked away, as if speaking to himself. “I know the last thing you want right now is to be alone with a strange, bitter man. I understand your contempt. But what you have to realize is that the life you knew is gone, and that it can never come back. Ariel,” he said emphatically, turning back to her. “I am not the one who ended it. I didn’t sack your village, or rape and kill your mother.”

“But you were there, after, to steal from the dead!” His eyes narrowed at this, glaring at her with some fierce emotion that was beyond her experience.

“I make no apologies, to anyone, for what I must do to survive.” He began to pace back and forth, growing angrier with each step. “I spent half my life trying to protect the frontiers from these animals. And when Rome fell..... Aahh. This is pointless.” And he moved off to sit on a stone, trying to gather his thoughts.

Ariel stood silent, till the morning cold began to creep up her legs, the sleeves of her dress, like a frozen blade making for her heart. She gave a shudder, a sorrowful groan, and moved closer to the horse for warmth. Blindly she put out her hands, and tried to lean against it to cry. But the animal was growing restive, and only moved away with a snort and a shake of the head.

Cassius, who had seen all this, and who now saw the girl fall to her knees as if in prayer, finally felt something give inside him. He rose, came beside her, and put a hand lightly on her shoulder.

“Ariel. Come.”

“Where are we going?”

“To bury your mother.”



 






All right, readers, what have we just done here?  The story isn't linear because there are flashbacks:  the action moving forward, the memories reaching back, using the present as a center point, as the story continues to unfold.
 
Simply, rather than starting the story at the beginning and moving steadily forward, we start it in the middle, looking forward and back.  Obviously the future is coming, though the characters are largely shaped by their pasts.  The reason for writing this way is to let the story evolve, and flesh out the characters as you go and tell itself.  It is also, in my opinion, the way that life unfolds.  The only true beginnings and endings come through birth and death, with everything else somewhere in the middle, a work in progress. 
Another way of thinking of this kind of characterization is this.  My father used to say, "You are where you were, when."  Meaning, we are the people that life and circumstance have made us, along with our own free will.  The internal conflicts - another important aspect of characterization - are endless.  We want to hope for better things, but our past says they will not come.  We have had bad romantic experiences, but want to believe that this is the one.  The battle between faith and disillusion, despair, and the need to continue, are constant, and something everyone can identify with.  Are you happy all the time?  Do you have no hope left?  Is life good or bad?  Is there a God?  Where did these people come from, and why are they the way they are.
 
Again, when I started the novel, I knew very little about Cassius, in many ways the main character.  I knew he was a Roman soldier after the fall of Rome, no more.  How did he get to Spain, what was it like to fight so long and fruitlessly for a failing empire?  What were the defining moments of his life?  Why is he so rough, self-righteous, even abusive.  Why does he not want the beautiful flower he rescued,the act itself a terrible conflict?
 
I asked myself these questions, then did some research and began to answer them.  The soldier class of Rome was (before the addition of mercenaries) truly made up of the sons of the sons of soldiers.  So from an earlier age he was taught to fight, and be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice to Rome and to its gods.  His imagination was fired by tales of Julius and Tiberius Caesar, great generals who carved out the largest and longest-lasting Empire known to man.  Then he had to watch that Empire crumble, the golden tales run with the blood of his friends and comrades, and everything he loved or cared about ripped from him.  Thus four powerful words, which would shape him throughought:  the disillusioned Roman soldier.
 
That leaves a lot to work with.  We're all disillusioned to a point, and battle the loss of faith every day of our lives.  The Roman Empire, for good and bad, is a cornerstone of modern history, and fascinating to a fault.  And aren't we all soldiers, in one way or another, battling perceived evil?  Or, conversely, do we become twisted soldiers, mercenaries,  even murderers in one sense or another?
 
This is how I began what would become the Dark Trilogy (or Quartet, haven't decided yet), set in a time and place that history barely records, and the Church would like to bury, along with its other horrors, or simply make Saints of those who altered and all but destroyed the message of Christ.  I'm a survivor of Catholic school.  Tell me not to go somewhere, historically/geographically speaking, I'm there:  The Fall of Rome, the Invasion of Europe by the Barbarians, Christianity slowly spreading among violent (and in the case of the Vandals) vicious warriors and pillagers and rapists.  Throw in an innocent Jewish girl, that disillusioned Roman soldier, and the possibilities are endless.  Do some historical/geographical research, use your imagination, and you've got something truly unique.
 
Now you must find your own time and place, past, present or future, science fiction, modern fiction, historical fiction, it's up to you.  Get motivated, and get going.  And above all, do it your way.

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