Legos—and the art of writing

I've said this before, but it bears repeating—we readers are a lucky bunch to have OTHER people willing to write novels for us. I certainly can't do it.

Here's what author Amos Oz has to say on wriitng:

It is like reconstructing the whole of Paris from Lego bricks. It’s about three-quarters-of-a-million small decisions. It’s not about who will live and who will die and who will go to bed with whom. Those are the easy ones.

It’s about choosing adjectives and adverbs and punctuation. These are molecular decisions that you have to take and nobody will appreciate.... That is the business of three-quarters-of-a-million decisions.

Wait...that's the hard part? PUNCTUATION? Nah, that's nowhere near the hard part. When someone says to me (and people have surely said it to you), "You should write a book," MY JAW DROPS in dumb wonderment. Just how smart do people think I am? (I'm not.) Even more to the point, just HOW EASY do they think writing novels is? (It isn't.)

A BAZILLION Legos—not a million—go into novel writing. Here's just some of the stuff authors have to think about—stuff we take for granted but then get ALL TETCHY over if authors get it wrong:

1. WHO will tell the story, whose voice (or voices) will be used? (It better be a convincing.)
   
   
2. WHAT information will be withheld? When will it be revealed? Who will reveal it, and how?
   
   
3. IS the dialog believable—is it the way people really speak? (Not so easy.)
   
   
4. HOW much research is needed to establish setting—location and era.
   
   
5. HOW will the characters be shaped; how much depth will they be given; what will make them life-like and compelling?
   
   
6. HOW will the plot be structured—what's the arc of the story?
   
   
7. WHAT underlying concerns, themes, or ideas will suffuse the book? What big questions does the author want to explore?
   
   
8. WHAT about all the literary stuff—imagery, symbolism / metaphor, irony, and allusions—which gives the story richness and resonance?
   
   

Writing is a hard-knock life. Too hard for the likes of me. AND YET, it's remarkable, isn't it, that with the rise of web-based self-publishing, lots and lots of people are heading to the key board to try their hand(s) at writing books.

Bless them one and all. They are BRAVE SOULS, brave souls indeed!