A Prayer For Owen Meany

I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice - note because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany. I make no claims to have a life in Christ, or with Christ - and certainly not for Christ, which I've heard some zealots claim. I'm not very sophisticated in my knowledge of the Old Testament, and I've not read the New Testament since Sunday school days, except for those passages that I hear read aloud to me when I go to church. I'm somewhat more familiar with the passages from the Bible that appear in the Book of Common Prayer; I read my prayer book often, and my Bible only on holy days - the prayer book is so much more orderly.

And so begins A Prayer for Owen Meany - a story of two friends growing up in the 50s and 60s, one of whom, the narrator, shares his childhood with an extraordinary boy called Owen who, as stated, kills the narrator's mother, but who then proves the existence of God to the narrator through his actions and the eventual coming true of his long foreseen destiny.

In Owen Meany John Irving has created an amazing narrative structure that slips effortlessly between three separate time periods, makes repeated references to previous descriptions to keep them alive in the reader's mind (lending itself well to one continual read or to a disjointed read over several weeks - which is often the case with me). Symbolism is rife and the outcome of the denouement proves just how strong Irving is in honing a broad story filled not only with a plethora of engaging characters, but also a long and deep history for each - Irving isn't one to go jumping into writing a story until after many months of thought and preparation.

In a way, much of this book has the same feel as To Kill A Mockingbird. Admittedly it's not about race, and it does tend towards the slightly miraculous, but that shouldn't discourage anyone - which, I suppose, is why it made the Top 100 in the BBC's Big Read (It reached 28).

The narrative is weighted so that while the beginning opens with the clear message that Owen is going to kill (albeit accidentally) the narrator, Johnny's, mother (the reader's needed suspense to sustain the then following passages which draw us back through religious viewpoint and the setting of Johnny's family), all the important reasonings, the great reveal, and the epiphanies only come in the last 100 pages. You get a clear sense that Irving has started at the end and worked his way back to the beginning, lacing everything with meaning (though I'm guessing that since the work is semi-autobiographical it may have been slightly easier to write than starting from scratch).

Anyhoo, since my latest work raised some questions about the nature of dramatic suspense, I've found that Owen Meany's first chapter has added weight to the argument. I've been worried about the amount of knowledge I should pass to the reader. My first chapter ends in a car crash that both characters in the car know is going to happen - they will it to happen. I wanted to keep this secret from the reader until the final moment, so that, like a car crash in motion, the reader is stuck in this situation baring witness to it in complete surprise.

However, as Owen Meany, and Solvey, have demonstrated, dramatic suspense is a far stronger tool than surprise - this harks back to Hitchcock's theory of the two men talking whilst a bomb ticks underneath their table - neither of them know, but the audience does, giving expectation and suspense - we were not to know, we wouldn't be hooked.

I was watching Child of our Time on the Beeb a few weeks back and one of the children was perpetually distressed that her dad was going into hospital and might die (he was going to give a kidney to his brother). The parents had decided (in their infinite wisdom) that it would be best to prepare their daughter for the worst. This ties into the theory that dramatic suspense is by far the most gripping tool any storymaker can use. The poor girl is now stuck in the constant anticipation/aprehension that her father is going to die in surgery - unfortunately for her, dramatic suspense feeds off our anxieties a time-lock or option-lock situation is slowly ticking by, the outcome getting closer, out of our hands. (IMHO they should only have told her he was going into hospital and would be a bit tired and ill from it... not dead)!

Take horror films for example, more often than not only a handful of times does the killer come from nowhere and kill - surprise doesn't last long, and only serves to change the direction of a story or scene. Horror and thrillers use dramatic suspense far more than simple surprise - we know the killer is around here, stalking our hapless hero/heroine, and we're waiting for the crunch. We are held in a continual loop of suspense until it all unravels with the attack, and though we can't be held like that forever without a break, it can be sustained for quite some time.

In Owen Meany, we learn that Owen will kill Johnny's mum in the first paragraph. It doesn't happen for another 40+ pages. So, we left hanging, waiting to see exactly how she will be killed, trying to ascertain motivation, second-guessing the development of relationships, waiting, waiting, waiting for it to come.

In the Bourne Ultimatum, the chase half-way through the film involves a failed attempt by Bourne to save a contact. He is on the back foot when he realises that he is now the target, and by implication, Nicki (who is now working with him). The chase ensues not with the simple lets-all-chase-Bourne, but with the badguy heading back along the streets to seek Nicki and execute her, and Bourne desperately trying to beat him there. He's late and Nicki has to call on her own initiative to evade the badguy. This extends the suspense as we're certain that whilst Nicki has her own skills she will be no match for the badguy.

With this in mind I need to alter my opening to cover the knowledge of the impending crash... simple really, just lots more work. Sigh!

Ken Follet - Suspense Masterclass

Here on the NAW we get the occasional master of arts to come give a talk on their most reverred subject. Last Tuesday it was Ken Follet's turn - super-successful (well he has monogramed shirts - either that or he'd just had a tattoo done on his left nipple that was bleeding through) thriller writer. Thanks to Bobbie D for doing the write up that follows. It saves me having to do any work. Much appreciated Bobbie.

Tuesday 12 June 2007
Trailer:

I’ve been reading thrillers for longer than I’ve been writing them. Over time, I’ve put my ideas on how thrillers work and why we love to read them into a lecture – The Art of Suspense.

Starting with the first real thriller – Erskine Childer’s ‘The Riddle of the Sands,’ and covering the works of John Buchan, Zane Grey, Agatha Christie, Ian Fleming and Thomas Harris (amongst others) I trace how thrillers have developed. The historical events that helped drive the development of thrillers, the effect of the Dreyfus trial, Hamlet as an assassin, the impact of the world wars on how we see ourselves ... this history of the thriller will be of interest to students of literature and would-be writers.

A good idea for a novel is one that will generate between 50 and 100 dramatic scenes. Pride and Prejudice has 61. Some ideas only give you 2 or 3, and are not enough for a novel.

The defining characteristic of a thriller is that the protagonist is in danger. (Detective stories are not thrillers, they arouse curiosity rather than tension.) Sometimes the villain is in danger, or the danger alternates between hero and villain. If the villain has a fair chunk of the action and point of view, he needs to be charming or readers will be turned off.

The Riddle of the Sands (Erskine Childers) 1903, was the first ‘thriller’. It had the pretence of a factual basis, revealing anxiety on the part of the author. Robinson Crusoe, written early 18C. when the novel was a new form, also pretended to be factual. Follett did the same thing himself in 1978 when ‘faction’ was a new form.

A display of expertise (in Childers’ case, of North Sea sandbanks, etc.) helps because this diverts the reader’s attention from the implausibility of the plot. All the best stories are unrealistic (says Follett). To fake the expertise plausibly, you need to research, if possible hands on, e.g. in his most terrifying case, flying lessons.

The tensions (in a thriller or any novel) have to resolve, and this is almost always physical, e.g. a fist fight or sex. Look at Anna Karenina – hundreds of pages of irresolution and dilemma, resolved physically by throwing herself under a train.

The Riddle of the Sands had no women characters at first, but Childers was persuaded to put one in, which he described as ‘a horrible nuisance’.

Childers wrote only the one book before he was shot for treason in 1922. Next came John Buchan (The 39 Steps) acknowledged by Ian Fleming as the creator of the genre.

As well as putting the protagonist in danger, a good thriller also threatens a greater danger (Riddle of the Sands – to England, 39 Steps – to Europe). Why? Because (1) it enlarges the concerns of the novel; (2) it makes the hero more admirable; and (3) it gives more opportunities for suspense because the hero will risk himself for the greater good.

The hero’s social class is usually somewhat elevated – readers like to identify upwards (says Follett), in general fiction too. Clubland heroes began with Buchan. Lower class heroes are acceptable if they are good at cutting their betters down to size, e.g. 1950s novels like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

Buchan set his thrillers outside, and used any excuse to take them to Scotland, whose landscape he described beautifully. But he didn’t do this gratuitously – landscape in a thriller must have a function: to set the mood or further the plot – e.g. establishing that there is nowhere to conceal oneself.

E Phillips Oppenheim (from 1900 to 1939) invented indoor thrillers (The Mysterious Mr Sabin). Weak plots; the vicarious high life is the main attraction.

Many thrillers include ‘the conversation with the Prime Minister scene’ about halfway through. The hero meets a VIP, e.g. the President of the USA, who tells him, ‘Everything depends on you.’ This is an efficient way to add tension and veracity to what’s at stake.

Zane Grey invented the Western genre (again men in danger with a violent resolution). The thriller and the Western are essentially literature for men. Affluence in the 20C enabling publishers to create niche markets.

William le Queux, another bad writer, invented the spy thriller. This grew out of the Dreyfus case and the build up to WWI.

Joseph Conrad (The Secret Agent) invented the psychological thriller, where the issue isn’t who but why. Hamlet is a psychological thriller: it’s what’s in his head that prevents him from killing his uncle, not physical obstacles. Crime and Punishment is a psychological thriller. There are action scenes and dangers in both of these, but their purpose is to increase the tension in the mind of the protagonist, more than to threaten him physically.

• Bulldog Drummond is crap – ‘snobbery with violence’.
• Leslie Charteris (The Saint) is okay.
• Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male) – a classic. Simple but effective.
• Somerset Maugham (Ashenden), and Graham Greene (The Third Man) – modernist disillusionment. Both these writers had connections with intelligence in war. The moral dilemma has more importance than the chase scenes, which, as in Dostoevsky, are there to heighten the psychological tension.
• Eric Ambler – Marxist thrillers – invented real violence that actually hurts, which became standard.
• Edgar Allen Poe – mystery detective stories, heading towards the hybrid detective thriller, exemplified by Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Thought of as an American genre, although Arthur Conan Doyle got there first with Sherlock Holmes.
• Dennis Wheatley – WWII thrillers, the agent behind enemy lines, a situation that yields constant tension.
• Mickey Spillane – a great writer, hardboiled punchy prose; but his attitudes stink.
• Hank Jansen – prosecuted for obscenity.
• Ian Fleming (James Bond) was privately into S&M. The hero becomes promiscuous and romantic, and the action has an edge of sexual sadism. Vivid, immediate prose.
  The heyday of the spy story was the cold war and the nuclear arms race. It was comforting to know that James Bond was out there, keeping us safe.
• Len Deighton, John Le Carré (The Spy who Came in from the Cold). Lower key.

Post cold war, new arenas have been found – organised crime, science, assassination plots, serial killers (Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs is brilliant and is second only to Follett in making the hero a woman), lawyers in danger (Grisham), religion (Dan Brown).

The thriller is arguably the defining literary form of the 20th century. Why? Follett’s theory is that all boys lived with the possibility that they might have to fight and die, and reading thrillers was a vicarious way of facing and dealing with that fear. The advent of women heroes reflects women’s entry into police and army, etc.

Q. Thriller an Anglo-Saxon form?
Waterstone’s manager said, Scandinavian market huge. Also South American and Cuban.

Q. Why do more women than men read fiction?
A. Discussed but not resolved. (Bobbie’s theory: that men tend to be more interested in facts and women in psychological and philosophical issues; and fiction takes liberties with the former to explore the latter.)

Q. Topicality?
A. Over-rated and ephemeral, no substitute for literary merit. It is fine to explore and expose an issue, or use fiction as allegory, but it has to work first and foremost on the level of a good story.

Q. Have you written any books that are not thrillers?
A. Yes – The Pillars of the Earth, about the building of a medieval cathedral, something that interests him personally. Timescale too long to lend itself to the thriller form. About to bring out a sequel – also not a thriller. Over time it has sold better than any of his thrillers.

Q. Research?
A. It constrains at first. But then it (1) liberates the imagination, (2) generates ideas, and (3) supplies the details that give the books the grain of everyday life and lift them out of ‘comic strip’ unreality of his first ten (unresearched) books. He was lucky to be published with those, but they have sold okay.

Q. Harder to get published now?
A. Not really. New small publishing houses continue to spring up, as ever. Many fail. A few succeed, grow and get swallowed up by conglomerates. More spring up.

Q. Pace of modern thrillers cf. e.g. The Riddle of the Sands?
A. Yes. Stories used to unfold ponderously. Now they must turn in some major or minor, but significant, way every 4 to 6 pages. Much influenced by film and TV. But it’s not completely new. Pride and Prejudice turns every 4 to 6 pages.

Q. What’s it like being filmed?
A. Thrilling (sic) to see actors, even in a bad production, embodying the characters you have created. But tense (sic) and often frustrating because the writer has no say, and the director and screenwriter can mess with and occasionally destroy the story logic.

Enter Late, Leave Early

Sticking to the thought-thread of anticipatory suspense, this, I believe, goes hand-in-hand with ELLE, as Robert Gregory Browne puts it:

When writing a scene, rather than start at the “beginning,” you
come in after events are already in motion. And you make sure you get out of there before said events have concluded.

For example, John and Mary decide to go for a jog. Instead of cutting to the two of them throwing on the jogging shorts, pulling on the running shoes, and hitting the road, we cut straight to John and Mary running
side by side, in the middle of a conversation. Then we cut away from them AFTER the point of the scene has been made, but BEFORE they finish their jog or their conversation. To compel the reader forward, it often helps to use a line of dialogue or prose that’s a springboard into the next scene.

Many people think this has to do with brevity, keeping the scenes as short as possible, but that’s not quite true. Yes, when writing screenplays it’s important to keep scenes short (if the story calls for it,
there are always exceptions), but, to my mind, ELLE has more to do with keeping the reader (or viewer) interested. It’s a neat little trick that cuts the waste and keeps the story moving.

It also has a lot to do with pacing, because any good story should have rhythm, aided by the ebb and flow of your scenes. ELLE is one way to
maintain that rhythm.

I think this applies to novels as well. I certainly applied it when I wrote my first. And I’m still doing it with the second. Get in, make your point, then get the hell out.

How does this work alongside anticipatory suspence? Scenes serve a certain purpose. As undisciplined writers we tend to write a scene from the point of story - lets throw in the character doing this, travelling this path, interacting with that character, performing that feat; without giving any thought to reasons to show this, that and the other, with no idea about what a character really is - my wife finished an essay on Greek tragedy characters at the weekend, regarding "How sharply drawn" they are, which I want to share at some point, but even back in oldy Greeky days, the likes of Aristophanes, Sophocles, Aeschelyus and Euripides knew how to show character development, arcs and inner conflict for the purposes of plot.

ELLE helps us understand that when a writer writes a scene it MUST serve a purpose. And, to Leave Early help maintain anticipatory suspense by, as most often seen these days in TV programs, one character asks a majorly important question, and either, as shown below, a distraction occurs, or, the scene ends, and we cut to somewhere else.

The audience is left in one of two positions:

1. The audience, already being aware of information themselves (dramatic irony), know that one character has imparted the new knowledge to another character that is important to the plot and the audience had an inkling of before. The audience have a small sense of catharsis - Thank God the new character knows - and also, the audience doesn't have to sit through the knowledge again - so, they don't lose interest over repeated material - We only need to know that the information is to be transferred. There is a sense of relief; the audience are happy that there is one more person on side.
2. The audience doesn't already know the information (dramatic suspense), and when we cut away from the scene we are held off knowing the vital clues around which the plot, or subplot, is hinging - maintaining/sustaining our interest a little while longer.