Ray Bradbury | CW Hawes

Getting into Books

A writing guru whose mailing list I’m on is always advising us writers to sell the read, not the book. And that’s ultimately what we are all trying to do. Some of us just do so better than the rest of us.

As a reader, that is, of course, exactly what I want to know: where will I be going, what will I be experiencing, feeling, doing as the result of reading this book. The book I’m considering buying, or the one I bought and am considering reading.

I read fiction primarily for entertainment. If I learn something new along the way, or am given cause to stop and think for a moment — extra kudos go to the writer.

For me, reading is no different than watching TV, or a movie, or playing a video game. Except my imagination is doing the work, instead of someone else’s — and that’s what makes reading, IMO, the better form of entertainment. Even the best form. Reading is active. Videos, in all forms, are passive. And active is good. Stretching those imagination muscles is good. It’s why reading is my favorite form of entertainment.

The other day I was reading Lawrence Block’s introduction to one of the editions of Black Orchids, the ninth Nero Wolfe mystery, by Rex Stout.

Block’s observation as to why we reread the Nero Wolfe mysteries is enlightening, and I think a vital key as to why some of us really get into books. Block wrote:

I know several men and women who are forever rereading the Nero Wolfe canon. …

They do this not for the plots, which are serviceable, nor for the suspense, which is a good deal short of hair-trigger even on first reading. Nor, I shouldn’t think, are they hoping for fresh insight into the human condition. No, those of us who reread Rex Stout do so for the pure joy of spending a few hours in the most congenial household in American letters, and in the always engaging company of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.

… we know these two, and it is a joy to see them simply being themselves.

What Block wrote describes to a T why I thoroughly enjoy rereading the Nero Wolfe mysteries. Stout wrote in such a way that we are the fly on the wall observing the goings on in that delightful brownstone.

I’d go one step further than Mr Block: any book I read is for the characters. I don’t read for the plot. One reason, I suppose, why I enjoy plotless novels. I also don’t read for the suspense, which I prefer rather low key. And I’m old enough that I probably won’t learn anything new about the human condition.

I read for the characters — pure and simple. The experience of meeting new and interesting people.

If a writer can deliver the goods, characters I can fall in love with, then he has me hook, line, and sinker. I don’t care what else is in, or not in, the book.

Unfortunately, this does not occur all that often. Most writers seem obsessed with the plot. They are too busy counting plot points or beats, writing a detailed outline, following the Hero’s Quest, or whatever other nonsense is being pushed by the writing guru of the moment.

Most writers fail to heed Bradbury’s Dictum: create your characters, let them do their thing, and there’s your story.

Fiction is not about the plot — it’s about the characters. The characters are the ones who pull us into the settings, the time period, the world they inhabit.

I cannot recall one book where I walked away remembering the plot and not the characters. Not a single one.

At base, plots are simple. There are at most just a handful of stories. They are mundane at best. But characters, like people, are complex. Everyone has an outer life and an inner life. Good characters are no different.

Which is more interesting? Tarzan, or the plot of a Tarzan novel? Dirk Pitt, or the plot of a Dirk Pitt novel? Sherlock Holmes, or the plot of a Sherlock Holmes story?

Many of us would like to get into a spaceship and fly off to other worlds. I don’t remember a single plot in Eric Frank Russell’s Men, Martians, and Machines. But I do remember the chess playing octopoid Martians, and the android Jay Score.

Good characters pull us into their world. We become one with them and experience what they experience. This is because the writer can’t give us everything. He can only suggest, and once he does our imaginations take over and do the rest.

This is not the case with even a good movie or TV episode. That’s because we’re passive. Everything is fed to us. We can only react. We are limited to what’s on the screen — which is why special effects are becoming increasingly important.

However, my imagination can do what special effects will never be able to do. My imagination is mine and makes the story live for me. Special effects are general. They target everyone, and in the end that means they shoot for the lowest common denominator. My imagination produces special effects tailored for me.

The secret to a good book lies in the characters. They make any old plot shine. Because it’s the characters who make the plot come alive. Create the characters, let them do their thing — and there is the story.

As a reader, I appreciate the wonderful characters good writers create.

As a writer, I appreciate the readers who fall in love with my characters.

No greater compliment was paid to me then when this review appeared for Trio in Death-Sharp Minor:

Some fictional universes are just places you want to be, and I have been so moved by the world CW Hawes has created for private detective Justinia Wright and her brother, Harry. … I would drop by their house any time, if only for a glass of Madeira.

Tina and Harry’s home will never top that of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. However, I will be very satisfied if I’m granted second place.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

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Movie Review: The Before Trilogy

The plotless movie. The plotless novel. The plotless story. How can a movie or a work of literature have no plot? Well, the answer is simple. It can’t. All stories have a plot of some kind, because the plot is nothing more than what happens in the story.

Plots are fairly simple. They are, broadly speaking, some manner of:

Adventure or Quest
Love story
Puzzle
Seeking of Vengeance or Justice
Pursuit or Escape
Self-Discovery

What makes a story, however, is not the plot. It’s the characters. As Ray Bradbury advised writers: create your characters, let them do their thing, and there’s your story.

Recently, my wife and I watched the movies Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight. The movies were written by Richard Linklater, Kim Krizan, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy, and directed by Richard Linklater. They tell the story of Jesse and Céline who meet by accident on a train and eventually become parents of twin girls.

The movies are described as “minimalist” because nothing much outwardly happens in them. Each movie focuses on Jesse and Céline talking about life. The only movement is that in each movie the action, such as it is, takes place in the span of one day. Which means the storyline is driven by the shortness or brevity of the time factor. A standard technique used to induce suspense or a sense of urgency.

Personally, I think the movies are brilliant examples of what the “plotless” tale is all about. Which is the characters. These movies are in depth character studies. Through dialogue alone — often what isn’t said being as or more important than what is said — the writer tells a tale that is profoundly moving.

In Before Sunrise, Jesse, an American tourist in Europe, accidentally meets Céline on a train bound from Budapest to Vienna, where he will catch his flight back to the states. On a whim, Jesse asks Céline to spend the day with him before he has to catch his flight. She agrees.

The rest of the movie is nothing more than the two walking around Vienna talking and sharing little experiences together. In the course of the day, they fall in love, and promise each other to meet at the train station in six months. They also agree not to exchange any contact information.

Before Sunset picks up the story nine years later. Jesse is in Paris on the last day of a book tour. He is now married, with a son, and is an acclaimed author, having turned his one day love affair with Céline into a successful novel. Céline learns he is in Paris and shows up at the book shop where he’s giving a talk and autographing books.

After his talk, he and Celine leave the shop with the intention to get a cup of coffee and catch up on what has happened with each other. The shopkeeper reminds Jesse as he leaves he needs to be back in one hour to catch his flight. The two walk to a coffee shop and then begin walking around Paris talking about their lives. In the course of their conversation, we learn Jesse flew to Vienna to meet Céline. She, however, didn’t show because her grandmother had died. Eventually they end up at Céline’s apartment and Jesse misses his flight back to the States.

The final film in the trilogy, Before Midnight, takes place eighteen years later. Jesse and Céline are in Greece. They are now a couple with twin girls. Jesse’s son from his ex-wife flies home at the beginning of the movie. The parting of the father and son sets up one side of the conflict. On the other, Céline wants to take a new job with the French government, feeling unfulfilled in her current job.

The couple have been given a night in a hotel for a romantic evening. However, the night turns into a battle of angst and wills and agendas, climaxing with Céline saying she doesn’t love Jesse anymore and leaves.

Jesse finds Céline after a time. She wants to be alone but he asks her to listen to him and she relents. He tells a story and Céline eventually thaws. The ending of the movie is somewhat ambiguous, but we’re left with the feeling they stay together.

What I love about these movies is that through dialogue alone we learn of the hopes and fears, the dreams, and the failures of two ordinary people. How chance events can change one’s life forever. And that no matter what, we always have choices.

I think the movies should be seen close together, much like the Mad Max movies, in order to keep the story flow fresh in ones mind. They are fabulous films. A testimony to the power of character over plot.

As always, I appreciate your comments. And until next time, happy reading!

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The Brained Writer

A couple months ago, fellow author Jack Tyler wrote a blog post entitled “The Right-Brained Writer”. Part of the post dealt with Planners versus Pantsers. That is, those writers who plan the story out ahead of time and those who “fly by the seat of their pants”.

Jack wrote he was in the former camp. (I, by the way, am firmly in the latter one.) He went on to write because he was a Planner, he was right-brained. Could be. I don’t know. Supposedly, right-brain dominant people are creative and left-brain dominant are logical. I think writers are simply brained. They must be creative and they must be logical. Writers must be creative to make up their worlds and they must be logical, because in the real world things don’t have to make sense — but readers demand that a fictional world make total sense.

I think whether one is a Pantser or a Planner has more to do with one’s approach to life than whether one is creative or logic dominant. I don’t like authority. I strongly resist being told what to do. I like structure, but it must be organic rather than imposed. I see outlining as imposing structure, which to my mind is counter to the organic creation of story.

Planners, though, it seems to me, dominate academia. Plot your story is all I ever heard in writing classes. For Planners, outlining is a way to organize unruly thoughts. However, if you have to tell yourself the story to outline it — why don’t you just write it down?

I’ve tried outlining my stories. After all I was told I had to. My mind, however, totally freezes up. I can’t even finish the outline. I’ve tried brief sketches of chapters and scenes. I’ve tried storyboarding. Again, my mind freezes up and I can’t even finish sketching out the story. Trying to plan my writing nearly destroyed my nascent “career”. (I put career in quotes because at present I’m a hobbyist. Which means I ain’t making any money yet.)

I have more aborted writing projects than Carter’s famed little pills, or leaves to be raked off the lawn on a Minnesota autumn day. Planning didn’t work for me. In spite of all those well-meaning How-to books on writing.

The realization I was a Pantser came slowly. It started several years ago when I saw the movie The Remains of the Day. I liked it so much, I got and read the book. Then I read about the author, Kazuo Ishiguro, and learned about the “plotless” novel. That is, a novel that isn’t constructed around a plot, but is an extended character study. An extension of Ray Bradbury’s advice: create your characters, let them do their thing, and that’s your story. In other words, story is the outcome of who the characters are and their reactions to the problems we, the writers, throw at them. When I realized a novel could be “plotless”, I felt a burden fall from my shoulders.

In reality, let it be said, there is no such thing as a “plotless” novel. Why? Because plot = story — and all novels (or movies) tell a story. However, the focus of the so-called plotless novel is on the characters. The actual story is pretty thin and sometimes irrelevant. Watch a movie or two by Yasujiro Ozu. The story in each movie is pretty much the same. The focus is on how the different characters react to the circumstances. That is where the power and emotion lies.

After I learned about the plotless novel (or movie), I realized that as a reader I didn’t really care about the plot. I was fascinated by the characters in the story. If the author didn’t create compelling and memorable characters, I stopped reading.

Then I learned of Pantsers and Planners. Those terms didn’t exist, to my recollection, 50 years ago. Once I learned them, however, I realized right away I was a Pantser — and that I wasn’t alone! That realization was also very freeing.

There is no right or wrong way to write a story. There is only the particular author’s way. The one that works for that writer. I’ve read of writers who write chapter one, then write the last chapter, and then all the ones in the middle. I’ve read of writers who use a formula (like Lester Dent) and those who write a 100 page outline. There are those who sketch their idea out on the back of an envelope and then start typing. Each method works for that author. It won’t, in all likelihood, work for me. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t give it a try, but the odds are I’ll either abandon it or adopt it with my own twist.

In the end, all I know is that — for me — outlining and planning out my story on paper kills the Muse.

So how do I write? Good question. One I’ve asked myself. Usually I just sit down and start writing. I have no problem coming up with story ideas. They are like falling rain or snow. I just have to collect them. A blank sheet of paper has never intimidated me. Back in high school and college I was very active in forensics (competitive speaking, debate, and the like). My particular strengths were extemporaneous and impromptu speaking. I guess that applies to my writing also.

However, the more I’ve thought about how I actually go about creating a story, the more I realized I do a fair amount of thinking and planning in my head. It’s all up there in the ol’ noggin, just not on paper. And it’s all very, very fluid.

I start where Bradbury advised: with the characters. For me, they are what drives me to write. Those people in my head clamoring for me to tell their story. Basically, I see myself as a stenographer who simply listens to the the tales I’m being told. Then with a little editing, fashion them into a coherent whole. Because no one tells their story in a coherent linear fashion.

Stories come to me in one of two ways: either a character springs forth, like Athena from Zeus’s forehead, or the germ of an idea or scene appears which I then people. I may do a little research to clear up points about the character or the setting. Then once I have that basic information I start writing. I’ll do additional research if needed along the way. I often joke I have one hand on the pencil writing and one on the keyboard doing research.

Lady Dru Drummond, for example, came to me after reading about the very real Lady Grace Hay Drummond-Hay, who was a Hearst reporter in the ‘20s, ‘30s, and early ‘40s until she was captured by the Japanese. Lady Dru is Lady Grace on steroids, as it were. A phenomenal woman made even more so for fiction. I then came up with a world to put Dru in, one in which World War Two never happened and the cold war is between the Allies and the Axis powers. I picked 1953 as a starting point for The Moscow Affair because that’s the year Stalin died. What a great time for the Czarists to attempt to take back the government. And then I started writing.

The Rocheport Saga began with a sentence that popped into my head. Out of the blue someone suddenly said, “Today I killed a man and a woman.”

I thought on that a bit and then a second sentence came to mind, and then a third, and a fourth. Pretty soon I had a whole paragraph given to me by my as yet unnamed protagonist. So who was it who was talking to me? Once I got that figured out, the rest of the story began to tell itself.

Justinia Wright and her brother, Harry, came to me after reading the Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine editor’s comment about the dearth (at that time) of female detectives. They are Holmes and Watson, Wolfe and Goodwin in the 21st Century Midwestern city of Minneapolis, with a touch of Phryne Fisher thrown in for good measure.

Writing mysteries, to my mind, are pretty easy. The detective either solves the case or he or she doesn’t. And readers usually demand that the case is satisfactorily solved. Do I write puzzles? Not intentionally. In fact Tina and Harry poo-poo mystery writers for coming up with all manner of unrealistic storylines. Real detective work is boring, they say. Yet, I don’t think they’ve had a boring case yet. Imagine that.

I love mysteries, but only those where the detective is an intriguing and realistically portrayed quirky person. Holmes isn’t “real”. Who do we know who is like him? Yet we love him. Nero Wolfe is even more removed from reality than Holmes, yet his adventures are still in print. In fact, Stout was a pretty hack mystery writer. What saves the day is that duo of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. Their antics and escapades and run-ins with Inspector Cramer. Hercule Poirot is a refugee and yet he lives a very sumptuous lifestyle. How does he manage that? In addition, he is fraught with oddities and a whole lot of vanity.

The characters are what I love about mysteries. The puzzle is just there, in my opinion, to give them something to do. And I like just watching them try to solve it.

In the end, I think we writers are not left- or right-brain folk. I think we are simply brained. We use both sides in the creative process. And whichever side gives me those delightful people I write and dream about, doesn’t really matter. I’m just glad it’s there. My life is all the richer for their appearing. And I hope the same can be said for those who read my little stories.

Comments are always welcome! Until next time, happy reading!

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Cozy Catastrophe Review: Ray Bradbury’s “The Highway”

Good things often come in small packages. A surprisingly delightful cozy catastrophe can be found in Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Highway”, which appears in his 1951 short story collection The Illustrated Man.

The story is very short, only seven pages, and basically has no plot. However, don’t be fooled. Bradbury, by a masterful use of character portrayal, tells a very effective story. In fact, the story is a perfect illustration of Bradbury’s dictum: create your characters, let them do their thing, and that’s your plot.

I am going to forego summarizing the story because I don’t see anyway to do so without giving away the ending, which would be a shame if you wish to read this delightful and thought-provoking little tale. I will point out why I think this story falls into the cozy camp and in doing so give you a bit of a feel for the story.

The Catastrophe

First of all, the catastrophe is quick and there is little discussion of it. A nuclear war has occurred.

The Amateur

The main character, Hernando, lives on his farm with his wife near a river and a road. The road is a main north-south highway, but isn’t a freeway. From the description, we are safe to assume it is a two lane road. One on which lots of tourists travel.

Where Hernando lives exactly is not specified. But because Bradbury also makes clear Hernando’s first language is Spanish, we can again assume his farm is probably in Mexico or Central America.

Contrary to the so-called cozy stereotype, Hernando is not middle-class, nor British. It’s obvious he’s poor. He has a burro and a wooden plow. His wife grinds corn with a block of lava rock. Aside from his farm, the highway provides him with important things which enable him to live apparently somewhat comfortably. The highway provides him money from tourists who want to take his picture, it’s provided him with a shiny hubcap that he and his wife use for a bowl, and the highway provided him with a tire, which he cut up to use for the soles of his shoes.

Clearly, not all cozy catastrophes are about middle-class British blokes who hate the working class.

The Setting

The setting is recognizable. It is a rural place south of the US border. The story focuses on Hernando and his wife. He is going about his everyday tasks when the disaster hits. What tips him off to something going on, is the highway has no cars on it. Something big has happened.

A Survivable World

Suddenly, a stream of cars appears all going north and when the stream is finally gone a lone old Ford shows up that’s overheating. Hernando fills the radiator with water and finds out from the young people in the car a nuclear war has happened. And then the car drives off. What is obvious, there is no sign of the calamity where Hernando lives and we can assume his little corner of the world is survivable.

A New World

The only point I see which might disqualify the story as a cozy catastrophe is the hope of building a better world out of the ashes of the old. For Hernando and his wife, there are no ashes and life goes on. Which is a point Bradbury liked to make: our modern world is too complex and too fragile and isolates us from the simple pleasures of living an uncomplicated existence. So, in a way, for Bradbury, Hernando’s world is the desired new world.

One can, of course, argue something must be survivable for all the cars to have headed north into the war zone. If the US had been totally obliterated, why go there?

The story, though, is about Hernando and for him there is no other world than the one he has always lived in.

Conclusion

In this seven page story, master storyteller Ray Bradbury tells a tale which uses the cozy catastrophe format to tell us a story of the value of simple living.

The tale is very much worth reading and I encourage you to do so. Add a copy of The Illustrated Man to your library. You won’t regret it.

Comments are always welcome. Until next time, happy reading!

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Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries

Having just published the third book in my Justinia Wright, PI series and two short stories which take us back to a time before the series begins, I’ve had mysteries on my mind. And of late, I’ve been watching Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.

I find the showed delightful. The characters are superbly drawn. They have history. They have issues. They are like real people. The mystery, on the other hand, is usually light and often flawed. On one episode, Miss Fisher gets an important clue by looking at a typewriter ribbon – a carbon typewriter ribbon. Oh, did I mention the era is the 1920s? Now that is what I call I gaping plot hole. But in spite of such faux pas, I thoroughly enjoy the show because the characters are so very lifelike. And the show is really about the characters.

For me the best stories are not plot-driven, but character-driven. I don’t give two hoots for the plot. In my mind, the plot is only there because the characters do something. Where’s the plot in Waiting For Godot? The story seems to get along quite nicely without one. Or how about The Remains Of The Day? The plot, such as it is, is merely the vehicle for us to listen to the ruminations of Stevens. Or what about The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress? Lots of plot there and yet the plot is merely the vehicle for Heinlein to present his picture of a libertarian utopia. In that sense, any plot could have worked. The plot in and of itself is non-essential. It’s the characters acting (giving us a plot) that is the real story.

Another example is Raw Head by Ben Willoughby. Willoughby creates two characters, has them do their thing, and the result is a strongly character driven story. Just as Ray Bradbury said it should be.

Christine by Stephen King, in my opinion, is a case of where the plot actually gets in the way of the story. And I think it was probably due to his having to write his book to a certain length for the publisher. But whatever the reason, two-thirds of the way through the book the story was told and yet King went on having the car create more and more senseless havoc, gore, and mayhem. For me, the extended and senseless plot ruined the book. Plot to my mind is highly overrated. Follow the Bradbury formula and your story will be told. After all, that is the real point of the plot. To tell a story. And your characters will do that for you.

So if the writers of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries leave gaping plot holes, why bother watching? I think there are lots of reasons. Namely, the characters. Miss Fisher, a complex rich socialite with the past. Her companion, doc, who is in some ways miss fishers polar opposite. Inspector Jack Robinson, I somewhat stated police detective who gradually appreciates Mrs. Fisher’s talents. Constable Collins, who provides us with comic relief. And the list goes on.

Of course, this setting also contributes to the charm of the series: Melbourne in the 1920s. It is the perfect stage for larger than life liberated woman to walk apart.

There’s lots to like in Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. Do give the show a try.

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