One of the things that artists do is a study: They'll find a painting or sculpture that they love and then they make a copy of it, trying to learn the techniques that were so effective in evoking an emotion in them. My wife, in fact, has done a couple of paid studies--a chance for the patrons (as it were) to get an original painting that looked like one they appreciated and for Gayle to improve her artistic abilities. In the case of a writer, making a study is a bit different. First of all, I've no patrons to request that I type up a book that they love. On almost every level, that makes no sense. Not only would it be stupidly expensive for the product (I can type pretty fast--as much as 90 words a minute and upper 90s in accuracy when I'm really going well; if someone were to pay me by the hour to type up a 100,000 word book, it would take me probably close to 20 hours, making the book a bare minimum of $400), it would also be rather pointless. What good is a study of writing? So when a writer does this sort of emulative study, it's a personal exercise, designed to help the writer become more intimate with the prose of the preferred book. I've honestly only seen this sort of recommendation a couple of times online. That leads me to believe few people ever try this. I did. It's hard. As I've mentioned before, I'm fascinated by Stephen King's It. Despite the uninspired title and some exceptionally weird stuff (if you've read it, you know what I'm talking about), It is one of the best novels that I have ever read. I don't have a solid Top Ten list of my favorite novels (plays and poems don't count), but World War Z, Moby-Dick, and It are all on there somewhere. Maybe I'll do a listicle about my favorite novels one day. The point is, I've read the book twice in the past year, and though I don't know if I'll dedicate three weeks of next summer to reading it (It) again, I find my mind returning to Derry, Maine often enough to know that I will reread the book sometime in my future. When it came time for me to try the study of copying down another writer's book in order to better understand how s/he put the story together, the logical one for me was to start It again. Only the first chapter (I'm on page 10 out of 20 for that), because the point isn't just to go through the whole book, but to figure out what really works for the story. And there's nothing more iconic in the whole of It than the opening chapter, which dumps the reader in the aftermath of one heckuva storm in Derry, letting you see what happens to little Georgie in his yellow slicker and newspaper boat. Why is this the logical thing to do? Well, I'm still picking at the idea of writing a horror novel. I read It hoping to read a book that actually scared me (not revolted me or made me uncomfortable), as most everyone agrees that It is as scary as King has ever gone. I got something far more significant as a result of reading it, but I can't deny that there's some creepy stuff in the book. And what better thing to study than a masterpiece in the genre you want to work in? So I'm "writing" It. While I haven't even gotten to the clown yet, I do have some things that I noticed King doing. 1) King starts off establishing one of the pillars of the theme of the book, which is the passage of time and the unknowability of the future, in the very first sentence, which doesn't end until he's zoomed down into the "swollen" gutter: "The terror, which would not end for another twenty-eight years--if it ever did end--began, so far as I know or can tell, with a boat made from a sheet of newspaper floating down a gutter swollen with rain." The second word of the book, terror, puts the theme into its context, and though the reader (rightly) assumes that terror is referring to Pennywise, there's a thematic undertone that's quite important, that of the fear of growing old, of being part of the changing world, of the powerlessness of youth. My takeaway? The first sentence really does matter. Though King's narrator here is, presumably, Mike Hanlon, though we never get a straight answer on that front. And though I'm not normally a fan of a fully omniscient narrator (I prefer the limited, myself), this one really works. 2) King takes his time in this book, making sure that the details all line up and that we get to know little Georgie before we lose him. We learn that he's six, we learn about the importance of his brother, and a great deal of other things that all combine so that we like the kid before he gets his arm bitten off. Takeaway: Time is the best way to make a reader care about a character. The time passed with Georgie is pleasant--until it isn't--and we, as readers, are given an enjoyable time with him, brief though it is (in comparison to the rest of the book). So writing about characters that you'd want to interact with is a way of making the book engaging, and thus allowing the reduction of time on the page before the reader starts liking the characters. 3) There's something lurking on almost every page. While there are crucial world-building details--especially about the sewers--and sometime rambling tangents that a six-year-old would likely follow (their thoughts are rabbit-like, to say the least), the buildup to Georgie's death is marked with a kind of inevitable dread. King does this with phrases like "In that autumn of 1957, eight months before the real horrors began and twenty-eight years before the final showdown, Stuttering Bill was ten years old" and other drops about the impending terror. But it isn't just that he tells us it's going to be horrifying. He shows it by having Georgie, before he goes out in the rain, go down into the cellar to get some paraffin for his newspaper boat. This is an experience almost every kid has had (except those in Florida, who don't have basements): Having to go into the dark, unfinished basement to get something from the cellar. The fears that play in your mind--of being grabbed by the ankles as you walk down each step; of stretching to reach the light switch because you can't possible go down until the light is on; of the certainty that your only way to survive is to get up the stairs quickly, so fast that you're likely to stumble--are expertly crafted here. Though Georgie has some big words for a six year old (the "apotheosis of all monsters", while fitting to describe Pennywise, is a strange choice), his feelings and actions are familiar. The powerlessness of being so young returns to the reader as the section unfolds. This sort of perpetual dread haunts this opening chapter, which also serves to set the tone of the rest of the book. 4) Final takeaway: Time is elastic. This is another theme of It, but it's shown here by having the story "start" in 1957 (it will stretch backwards much further than that, as well as move forward into a timelessness by the end) with Georgie running in the rainwater. At the beginning of the second section of the chapter (King tends to number his page breaks, for some reason, at least in this book), we're watching Bill and Georgie make the boat that we saw in the first section. King will continue doing this sort of yo-yoing throughout the rest of the book, letting the parallel stories of the Losers' Club go from '58 to '85 and back again. This technique is part of how King can show what's happening to Georgie while at the same time help us care more about Georgie as we see him overcome his first grade-style fears--fears that end up being real and deadly. Okay, so this stuff may be interesting, but how does typing it help me to get it? Well, the first way I see is that it forces me to slow down. I may be able to type at almost 90 words per minute, but I can read at somewhere between four- and five hundred if I care to. By going slowly, I'm seeing how he constructs his sentences, why he makes such page-bending paragraphs, and where he throttles up and down on the details. Another way it helps is it shows me some of the tweaks that I would have done to fit my own personal style. I've learned that I use the phrase "a little" a lot, so I've excised it from almost every instance in my current project. King, who notoriously despises adverbs, is fine with "a little" and even adverbs, despite his advice to the contrary. Seeing these facets of his writing comes by going through the same motions. It may not be the only way to study a text, but it is a way. You should try it (It). ==== Hey, friends. I have been releasing essays on my website for a couple of years now at a pretty steady rate. I'm happy to do so, as it benefits me as a writer and (I hope) you as a reader. I also think that, as a writer, it's okay if I believe that my work has some value monetarily as well as emotionally. To that end, I've created a Ko-Fi account, which is basically a way to give an online tip to a creator whose work you appreciate. The idea is, you can buy them a cup of coffee. (That's what the of the website sounds like, if you're curious.) I'm not charging for any of the content on my website; instead, if you'd like to toss me a cup-le (see what I did there?) of bucks to show your gratitude, that would be cool. I'd totally appreciate that appreciation. If you don't? No problem. We can still be friends. As always, thanks for reading! Comments are closed.
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AuthorWould you like to support my writings? Feel free to buy me a coffee (which I don't drink, but I do drink hot chocolate) at my Ko-Fi page. Thanks! Archives
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