I want to be a paperback writer

I’ve always wanted to write a novel. You know, a piece of fiction with dialogue, plot, action, theme, torrid sexual encounters, love, adventure, humor, fantasy, stark terror, violence, suspense, and all the other elements that make up for a smashing good read.

The manuscript I’ve mentioned here before, the one that (I think, hope, pray) has been completed, except for the final edit (for now), is a work of non-fiction (oh yeah, there is a certain amount of hyperbole and aggrandizement of situations, let alone false-memory syndrome), and is actually more of reminiscence. It doesn’t have a plot, let alone violence, suspense, sex (well, a little bit), and all the things I just mentioned in context of novels.

But, I’m thinking I’d like to turn my hand to fiction. As I said before, despite the fact I was an English major and taught senior high school English for a number of years, and have read most of the so-called ‘classics’ of fiction – a state of grace is having reached an age when one never has to read Moby Dick again – I currently read very little fiction, and haven’t for many years.

Primarily, in my recreational reading I do true crime, travel (I worship at the respective shrines of Bill Bryson and Paul Theroux), biography – somewhat ironically I just picked up a bio of Patricia Highsmith, who wrote The Talented Mr. Ripley, among others. In other words, I’ll read about Ms Highsmith's strange (real) life but am yet to read any of her novels (loved the movie, though). I also read true adventure, spirituality, and much more. But, rarely fiction.

My problem with fiction is that it’s not (in the purest sense) true. It’s the product of somebody’s imagination. Yet, so was Hamlet, and I cherish every word Shakespeare ever penned, and so were Huckleberry Finn, and David Copperfield, and Twain and Dickens are also to be worshipped and the world would be a much poorer place without such aforementioned writers of fiction.

So, going back to my original premise, I want to write a work of fiction. I want to get over my hurdle that has resulted in many aborted manuscripts of novels and short stories over the years.

I’ve worked out some great plot lines and general themes, and I think they would fly if handled by a John Irving, Wally Lamb or Jonathan Franzen, but not so much by me.

Where I lose my groove is when it comes to dialogue. My dialogue looks dorky, stilted and false. It doesn’t look like real people sound. I don’t know why that is. I’m relatively eloquent in real life, and cherish good conversation. But, I have great difficulty reproducing it. My characters end up terminally inarticulate like loveable boob Joey on Friends: “So, how’s it goin’?” being the calibre of my reproduced verbal exchanges.

"So, Martha, how's it goin'?"
"Good, Ralph. And you?"
"Just great. Wanna have sex?"
"Oh -- er -- OK. Why not?"

When the dialogue factor becomes crucial is when I attempt to create a verbal situation around either love or sex. I mean, I have had such conversations at such times – and some of them are gems in my memory bank, easily recalled. Yet, if I put them down on a computer screen they come out either gratuitously dirty, childish, or really, really embarrassingly awkward and seem to say more about me than I necessarily want to share with somebody else.

“Your character wanted to do what?? Ooh, ick.”

“OK – forget you read that. I’m sorry. I don’t really think that way. Really I don’t.”

Anyway, I recently started my 2,367th fiction manuscript and I have managed to work out 12 pages of it – I’m actually starting my second chapter. The dorkiness factor hasn’t yet come to dominate (demanding abandonment), but I’ve also been avoiding dialogue like the plague.

And, it is based on a real-life semi-autobiographical element of the writer's life. Maybe that'll work better. I'll keep you posted, but don't reserve space on your bookshelves just yet.