Beginning a Teaching Novel

 

Copyright Glo Lewis 7/25/2023

 

Dear Readers of My Blog, 💓

 

Sensitive Content Warning on My Blog:

I believe that I will be able to continue my blog with Google. I still have more of their policy links to review and act upon, but I decided that today it’s more important to communicate with you, my readers, first, to give you another update and the beginning of our teaching novel.

To conform to Google’s policy regarding violence, I added information in my Profile to advise that my blogsite is not for children of any age—that it’s for adults, particularly adults who are interested in creative writing. Google responded by putting a “Sensitive Content Warning” Banner prior to my blog. Therefore, readers of my blog will need to click on the button that states, “I understand, and I wish to continue” before they can access my blog posts. Again, the reason for this is because as fiction writers, we will be discussing prose and dialogue that sometimes contains violence. But fear not, on my blog, you will not experience ads for pornography, illicit drugs, or gambling. Although, characters may have addictions, but that’s different. This is simply a work-around for artistic freedom.

Oscar Wilde:

Today, I am thinking about Oscar Wilde, the Irish poet and playwright, to whom so many quotable quotes are attributed, such as “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” Forbes. And in his 1889 essay, “The Decay of Lying,” Oscar Wilde stated, “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life." Having read several quotes penned by Wilde, I must say that I disagree with this last one, as it’s my opinion that Art imitates Life most of the time. Indeed, in my view, in fiction, Art springs from the author’s life experience, in that as writers, we write from the wellspring of what we know. This is not to say that when we create prose and dialogue that we have lived every character’s experience, but we are aware of various experiences somehow, and that makes them part of what we know.

To Be Your Own Muse:

Simply put, what it means to be your own muse is to inspire yourself. This concept is complicated, in my view. What it requires, I find, is opening your mind to communication coming from your own creative soul. In learning to write, over the years, I have often read that when the impulse to write comes upon an artist, they should act on that internal push and create, and where possible, respect the immediacy of their muse and not procrastinate. This morning, for example, while awakening far too early, in the middle of the night, I lay there thinking about my teaching novel for you. And mostly male characters came to mind, which I was consciously questioning, when suddenly, I realized that I was blocking the free flow of ideas from my own muse. And clearly, I realized that female characters were surfacing in my mind as well, but most of the heroes and antiheroes were male. And I understood that of course such would be the case, because the teaching novel is a Teamster’s Union story. Upon accepting the common sense of the presence of the strong male protagonists, I felt swept along in the potential of this gradually emerging story. So, let’s begin the teaching novel.

Start of the Teaching Novel:

When you conceptualize your own story or novel, one of the first things that you need to decide on is the time and place, i.e., the year and the location, e.g., for my teaching novel, 1958 to 1976, Oakland, California, USA. I will need to create a fictional trucking company (that won’t be hard).

Character Development:

Next, we need to create the opening characters. We can add characters, obviously, as the story develops and unfolds. But to begin, an author must create the characters who start the tale rolling and who, largely, will propel the narrative forward. To do this, it’s best to establish a character file in Word, where you create your main opening character descriptions, e.g., for my teaching novel, Joe (I will need to create a last name for him). On Joe’s description page, naturally, I will discuss only for my own use later in the novel, what Joe looks like, how old he is, how tall, what he weighs, his educational level, and so on. Further, the discussion will proceed to note if Joe is married and to whom and if he has children, and if so, what their names, genders, and ages are, and so on. Additionally, at some point, Joe’s past, including parts of his childhood, will serve me well if they are mentioned later in the book. Where Joe works, if he does, and his job title, and so forth, will be required. A page or more will need to be created for each significant character. You may not need the entire dossier that you develop for each character, but again, like a map of our books, it’s important to have laid your groundwork so that you can layer your story with pieces of character description, emotion, their memories, likes and dislikes, friends and enemies, their indiscretions, etc. The work that we do in character development preparation will greatly enrich our work in the story or novel later. And importantly, we won’t stray from what we have set down on paper. For example, as authors, we don’t want to be on record as having begun our story with Joe having dark hair, only to refer to him as a redheaded male later. Such an error sounds preposterous, but there could be plenty of smaller errors en route to the end of the account that can be easily avoided by proper preparation. And clearly, as in life, characters are motivated, inspired, duped, etc., etc., so your dossier on each character should also describe their family members and friends who could be influencers in their lives. And we have all undoubtedly known the ache of false friends. Indeed, as Oscar Wilde once observed, “A good friend will always stab you in the front.” Goodreads. Therefore, while you are layering your character development pages and creating family, friends, and potential enemies for each protagonist, make notes therein, where you feel inspired by your muse, as to subplots of betrayal that might later take shape, as ah, “such is life!” attributed to Ned Kelly, the Australian gang leader. Frankly, I prefer the French, C’est la vie! That’s life, or such is life! The important thing to remember is that while we are creating character descriptions and histories, be cognizant of the people in their orbit who may or may not betray or befriend them, even close relatives. Remember The Godfather? Fredo betrays his brother, Michael. So, open your mind, and allow your muse to ride the river of your thoughts. And then, right quick, get it all down on paper for “the book.”

Consider at Least Two of Your Novel’s Themes:

As you are creating your main characters, which seems like a huge undertaking, but it’s not, allow your mind to wander somewhat. And in that musing, consider a couple of themes for your book. For example, my union story will center around the amount of plotting, intrigue, and violence that is often required to create room for a big idea like the acceptance of unions in our society by the 1950s. A secondary theme will consider the more marginal characters, such as the family members of both the union men and women, and the management personnel, and their experience and sacrifice. Normally, in two pages you can largely flesh out a main character. Minor characters can be constructed on the fly, as it were, as normally, there is not much depth to them. So don’t allow yourself to feel overwhelmed. Just begin with the first main character, e.g., Joe, as the title of your Word document, and do that for each key player (Remember to give each character a last name as well). Normally, you will only have three to six central figures, so it’s not an abysmal amount of work.

Historical Fiction Will Require Research:

If you are creating historical fiction, as I am, you will need to do some research to be factually accurate. In my union novel, at a minimum, I will need to show a couple of union meetings and probably some violence between the union members and management. And then too, of course the relationships that the power brokers in these two paradigms have with their family members and friends.

 

Your Assignment:

Creation of at least one main character and their dossier is your assignment for the next few days. Meanwhile, I will create a dossier on Joe as illustrative for you for my next post. I will try to create two or three character dossiers, and I encourage you to do the same this week and possibly into next week. Once we have our main characters documented in this manner, or mapped out, if you will, we can begin to map out the first chapter of our books. So, don’t be too disappointed that we haven’t started that part yet. It’s imperative that we know who our people are first, as they will populate our story, and their details will inform and enrich every inflection and nuance proceeding out of their personas. While you are preparing in this manner, consider what point of view you will adopt. I always prefer third person limited for each character. And then you can ultimately get into dialogue, which will bring immediacy to your storytelling later.

God Bless, and more to come soon…Glo