WRITING THE NOVEL

A six-part master class series

JACQUELINE JACKSON

Part 2: Plot and Style

Remember the exercise we did in the first part of this series – a checklist of 10 or 20 points, mapping out your story? That, in effect, is what a plot begins as. We start here, and then this happens, then that happens, then the story ends. Is a plot really so simple? Well, yes, it can be in rare circumstances, but usually it requires further thought. Dianne Doubtfire, a novelist, says in her book Creative Writing :

'I dislike the word 'plot' – it suggests a contrived situation – but your book must have a strong backbone. One of the most common failings in amateur novels is a looseness of construction which allows the storyline to be lost in a welter of irrelevancies.'

from Teach Yourself Creative Writing, Hodder & Stoughton, London 1983.

Many successful novelists admit that they rarely worry over the finer details of their plot – they let the characters and situations shape it as they go along. But they all admit to having a plot – however loosely constructed – to help them to stick to the story. The checklist you did as an exercise in the first of this series is your story. To make it into a plot, you must use causality, something that causes change . Causality is the way to make your story into a plot and ensure that it works. In the first part of this series, I asked if your character had a problem. A character with no problem is a character without a plot. A series of events or incidents through which your main character changes, whether outwardly to the world, or inwardly - by adopting a new attitude, for example – is the right way to plot your novel.

Here's a very simple example, from the checklist example in the first part of this series. The bare bones of this story can be simplified into a single sentence. 'A woman is having an affair with a colleague at work.' That's what the story is about. The plot , however, will read differently. 'A woman is having an affair with a colleague at work because: her partner is infertile and she's nearing 40/ she feels neglected/ her partner had an affair in the past...'

Do you see the difference? Here are three possible reasons for the story - the problem facing this character – her body clock/ her sense of worth/ vengeance. The beginning is the affair; the middle is a discovery, and the end? What are the consequences of this or that action, and the series of events that may follow?

Nigel Watts, in his book, Teach Yourself Writing a Novel , says:

' A plot involves change in the life of the hero or heroine, and change which is something other than random… the character should be a different person at the end of the tale – if only sadder and wiser.'

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, London 1996

He goes on to say that the main 'ingredients' of a good plot are at least two characters, protagonist(s), an issue that involves conflict and a resolution of that conflict. Think about the story you are going to tell in this way. Does your plot have these four main ingredients? Take a closer look at that checklist you've written and make sure that your story is indeed a plot, not just a series of related incidents - and that it involves causality.

Every writer's style is different, unique. Study the readers' letters in any magazine or newspaper. Some are humorous, others chatty or serious, or morose, or informative... They give a flavour of the writer, the style they are written in shows that particular writer's personality, likes and dislikes, attitudes and so on. In classes with my students after only a short time, I can identify who's written what simply from the style of their writing. (It's also the way I remember my student's names – they are memorable by their own style!)

Let's compare the style of some modern writers and see if we can identify some of the ingredients of their particular style.

'By seven thirty they were ready to go. Martha had everything packed into the car and the three children appropriately dressed and in the back seat, complete with educational games and wholewheat biscuits. When everything was ready in the car Martin would switch off the television, come downstairs, lock up the doors, front and back, and take the wheel.'

Weekend by Fay Weldon. From The Secret Self/2: Short stories by women . M Dent & Sons Ltd, London, 1987.

It's the opening paragraph of a short story, written in the third person. It gives the reader a first impression of the main character, Martha and her husband Martin. What about the style of the author? Fay Weldon's words are chosen carefully. Note the words 'appropriately dressed', 'educational games', 'wholewheat biscuits', 'front and back'. The paragraph as a whole is designed to gain the empathy of the predominantly female readership towards the character of Martha. The style is almost hurried – only three sentences, but around 60 words.

Compare this with another style, that of Alice Munroe.

' What was Jill to make of such a lover? She was nineteen when she met him, and nobody had ever claimed her before. She couldn't see that nobody else could understand it, either. She was a puzzle to most people of her own age, but a dull puzzle…'

My Mother's Dream

This example is written in the first person and the narrator of the story asks the opening question. Set in and around 1945, Alice Munroe uses a calm, detached way to describe her main character. It's unhurried; there are many pauses (commas) in the punctuation. The author takes her time, using simple everyday language to delineate character, demanding that the reader slows down and takes everything in.

One more example.

' There's so much to worry about. The 'presentation' of the baby: has the head engaged or will it be a 'breech' presentation (feet first), with the baby coming out screaming, 'a horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse'? Luckily for Anna and me, the only 'abnormalities in the passage' we experienced during Stanley's birth were me having a quick cigarette in the hospital corridor.

A Good Enough Dad

This is a humorous, first person account of what it's like to be a first time father, written from personal experience. The style differs here; Nigel Planer uses quotations and brackets to explain and enlarge technicalities. His sentences are mostly short. This passage says, I'm in a panic here – my wife's about to give birth. His style is the way he gets that feeling across to the reader.

Good style, very different in each case, is there on every page of every novel published. In order to develop your own unique style, study other, modern writers' work, particularly those whose style you admire. Ask yourself what it is about their style that makes you enjoy their writing? Don't try to emulate it, but learn from it. Then practice and develop your own style – it's you, it's who you are.

In Part Three of this series, we'll be looking at Characterisation and Dialogue.

Technical Ways to Improve your Style

1
Spelling, punctuation and grammar: A spelling and grammar checker on a modern word-processing package will sort out most of these errors for you. Beware the use of colons, semi-colons, dashes and exclamation marks – and long, complicated sentences with too many clauses.

2

Always use a short word in preference to a long one: Watch out for verbosity - it makes reading tedious. Edit out every word and phrase that has no other use except taking up space on the page.

3

Limit your use of clichés: for example, 'springs to mind', 'the test of time', 'at the tender age of', 'too much, too soon', etc. Avoid also clichéd situations; someone fainting on hearing bad news is a classic. Find an alternative situation/reaction/phrase.

4

Don't use stilted speech or phrasing: "I have told you that I did not do it" is stilted. A real person would say, "I've told you I didn't do it". Make your characters appear to be real, believable people.

5

Find the best verb and limit your use of adjectives and adverbs: ' He talked loudly' could be made much more effective by writing instead, 'he shouted', 'he yelled', 'he screamed'.

6

Show, don't tell: Remember the rule, 'make a scene of it'. It's easy to fall into the habit of describing an event, rather than showing it. For example, 'The young girl stood up and began to sing sweetly to the people, who gradually became quiet and stopped what they were doing to listen…' becomes instead, 'Tara leaped onto a chair, threw back her head and sang. The shoppers gasped, entranced by the sound of the clear young voice.' Always prefer the active to the passive.

Back to Master Course Index

1	Spelling, punctuation and grammar: A spelling and grammar checker on a modern word-processing package will sort out most of these errors for you. Beware the use of colons, semi-colons, dashes and exclamation marks – and long, complicated sentences with too many clauses.
2	Always use a short word in preference to a long one: Watch out for verbosity - it makes reading tedious. Edit out every word and phrase that has no other use except taking up space on the page.
3	Limit your use of clichés: for example, 'springs to mind', 'the test of time', 'at the tender age of', 'too much, too soon', etc. Avoid also clichéd situations; someone fainting on hearing bad news is a classic. Find an alternative situation/reaction/phrase.
4	Don't use stilted speech or phrasing: "I have told you that I did not do it" is stilted. A real person would say, "I've told you I didn't do it". Make your characters appear to be real, believable people.
5	Find the best verb and limit your use of adjectives and adverbs: ' He talked loudly' could be made much more effective by writing instead, 'he shouted', 'he yelled', 'he screamed'.
6	Show, don't tell: Remember the rule, 'make a scene of it'. It's easy to fall into the habit of describing an event, rather than showing it. For example, 'The young girl stood up and began to sing sweetly to the people, who gradually became quiet and stopped what they were doing to listen…' becomes instead, 'Tara leaped onto a chair, threw back her head and sang. The shoppers gasped, entranced by the sound of the clear young voice.' Always prefer the active to the passive.