My Two Magna Cartas
Two years ago I wrote my first novel in thirty painful days, following Chris Baty's NaNoWriMo model. It was a dystopian story about a world in which a seemingly benign state deftly removes those of its citizens which it deems to be the unproductive – the disabled, the ill, and the elderly. It has all been done before, of course, but I like to think that my story added something new to the genre, a contemporary comment about ruling a society through fear and the way in which religion can be used to either keep people in check or stir them into action. I like to think that there is a germ of something really quite good hiding within that 50,000 words, and one day I'll go back and salvage what I can and build it into something great.
Baty's book, No Plot? No Problem: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, chivvies participants along with a combination of good-natured pep talks of the you-can-do-it variety and stern advice on overcoming 'writer's block' through the discipline of daily writing. One of the exercises I found most insightful was an examination of the books I like to read and those I am apt to dismiss.
In a chapter entitled 'The Two Magna Cartas', the reader/writer is encouraged to make a list of the qualities he enjoys in a novel. Baty calls this list the Magna Carta, and suggests that the qualities one appreciates as a reader will be the qualities one excels at, as a writer.
As a way of reminding myself where my priorities should be as I struggle with my second attempt at novel writing, here is my Magna Carta I.
These are the things I enjoy in novels:
Baty's book, No Plot? No Problem: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days, chivvies participants along with a combination of good-natured pep talks of the you-can-do-it variety and stern advice on overcoming 'writer's block' through the discipline of daily writing. One of the exercises I found most insightful was an examination of the books I like to read and those I am apt to dismiss.
In a chapter entitled 'The Two Magna Cartas', the reader/writer is encouraged to make a list of the qualities he enjoys in a novel. Baty calls this list the Magna Carta, and suggests that the qualities one appreciates as a reader will be the qualities one excels at, as a writer.
As a way of reminding myself where my priorities should be as I struggle with my second attempt at novel writing, here is my Magna Carta I.
These are the things I enjoy in novels:
- Third-person, present tense narration;
- Unreliable first-person narrators;
- A distinct narrative voice;
- Multiple viewpoints;
- Non-linear plots;
- Short chapters;
- Playing with language;
- Beautifully constructed sentences;
- Psychological conflict;
- A search for identity;
- A big, unseen enemy;
- Landscape;
- Landscapes that mirror emotional conflicts;
- Rural settings;
- Character-driven stories;
- Puzzles;
- Protagonists who are on the outside;
- Protagonists seeking forgiveness;
- Characters on the edge of madness;
- Characters struggling with religious/moral issues;
- Protagonists racked with guilt;
- Flawed characters;
- Punchy dialogue;
- Dream-like narratives;
- Implausible events made real;
- Finely crafted imagery;
- Ambiguous endings;
- Positive, life-affirming messages.
- Protagonists I don’t connect with or don’t care about;
- Nasty characters without redeemable qualities;
- Two-dimensional characters who serve only one purpose in a story;
- Gratuitous anything;
- The writer’s pomposity showing through in the narration;
- Preaching – messages which are too obvious or overworked;
- Teenaged angst;
- Middle-aged angst;
- Endless descriptions that don’t serve a purpose within the plot;
- Mute characters in particular, and lack of dialogue in general;
- Anything with ninjas;
- Simplistic plots of good vs evil;
- Interesting strands of plot which are not fully explored or are simply dropped midway.
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