Things I think about while weeding...

I love the Spring. Warm weather has finally graced Virginia and after a record-setting winter, it is time to get outdoors again.

But Spring means I need to tackle the outside projects that have been idle and ignored. So Saturday, I spent hours weeding the shrubbery bed at the end of my driveway. The temperature was just about perfect and so I honkered down for the hours it would take to pull and dispose of the evil weeds.

The key is not to let the weed break off at ground level, but go deep and get the root. Oh, how fulfilling it seemed to be to pull out a long root snaking along under the surface. It's that same "ah, now we're getting somewhere" type of feeling that a surgeon gets when he or she finally breaks into a major pocket of pus while draining an abscess....but I digress.

A particularly popular weed (I'm not sure of the name, just that the darned things were everywhere) gave me the most challenge. I would pull up one plant only to find that just under the surface the roots were all connected into a complicated network linking all of the weeds. The most fun was to be had an inch or two below the surface when grabbing the hub of a root network would lead to pulling out a spider of roots in multiple directions.

Of course, the work was mind-numbing after a while, so I had to think about something else to keep myself amused. So naturally, my thoughts turned to writing. I thought about the individual weeds as situations or people in a novel. At first introduction or just a cursory look, each situation or character seem unrelated. But start digging and you will be rewarded with finding a root leading off in directions unimagined at first glance. The beneath the surface stuff is always the most interesting. A killer seems unrelated to the victim, but is later revealed to be a grade-school chum. Separate characters in a small town might have multiple, initially unseen, connections below the surface. They all shop in the same store, attend the same church or have been touched by the same set of undesirable circumstance.

In a story the length of the contemporary novel, events that seem random are rarely so. The reader digs a little deeper and is rewarded with a connection. Follow that lead and soon you will find a hub linking everyone together. It is this final discover of a hub that ties it all together that is usually at or near the climax. It is the discover of this network that leads to the "ah ha" moment for the protagonist. The knowledge of the connection is the final piece that pulls it all together and completes the change in the character (the character arc) that is needed for resolution.

In the craft books, the teachers refer to this as layering. The longer the book, the more intricate and connected the layers. Things in novels shouldn't just happen by coincidence. If they do, the reader feels cheated. Things happen for a reason. But don't give away the reason too quickly. The fun is in the gritty process of digging along the root until a connection is found. It is in getting your fingers in the dirt that the rewarding moments are revealed.

Say a new guy comes to town. Don't think this is random. He's got a past. Somewhere, somehow, he has a connection to the protagonist. Is it a blood connection, perhaps one that was hidden on purpose? An emotional one? A common love interest? Does the knowledge he has about the protagonist create a problem?

If you are working on a novel, I'd encourage you to look for the under-the-surface stories. These are the ones that will create the cohesiveness that the story needs. Yes, your story will have random characters that serve the purpose, bit characters who appear once and then disappear. But isn't it more interesting to find a secret link?

Maybe your protagonist eats sausage every morning. Coincidence? Or something deeper?Did he or she grow up poor and only had sausage on Christmas morning? Maybe he or she makes the sausage? Maybe it is a special sausage made from a yearly family hunting trip. Maybe it is made up of the human victims of some crime (ug, that's a sick thought, right...but it was an unexpected or hidden connection and that's what you want to some degree...the hidden surprise that rewards your reader with the ah-now-we're-getting-somewhere feeling).

You get the idea. When you read, guess ahead. What is this guy doing here in this circumstance? Is it random? If the author has layered the story correctly, there will be unseen and surprise connections all over the place. The waitress that serves the old man in the dinner is actually his granddaughter, the result of a secret affair. The truck driver that is so nice to everyone and leaves a big tip is a brother to the town's mayor. The protagonist is a heart transplant recipient whose donor had a scholarship to play basketball at the very school he attends. The possibilities are limited only by the imagination.

In my novel, Could I Have this Dance? I used the genetic illness, Huntington's Disease to create multiple connections through the novel. HD attacks in mid-life, often after the person has passed on the disease to the next generation. Let's say a person with HD (unknown to them because they haven't gotten old enough to show symptoms) dies after having a child and passes the disease on, unsuspected by everyone. Add in the spice of a grandmother who bears a child as the result of a hidden rape, a mother with a hidden affair with the local doctor and a disease which affects only half of the children of those affected and the complicated ins and outs of small town life and you have a story that is quickly layered and connected in ways the reader will be delighted to root out.

So the next time you're out in the garden facing those ugly weeds, just think about your favorite novels and the underground connections that you discovered on the way.

The next few days after the hours I spend weeding, my muscles told me I'd done something I'd been avoiding a long time. Hopefully, the rewards of uncovering the layers of a good novel will be more fun!

Until next time, keep digging.

Harry Lee

PS: Help me out with the launch of my new novel, The Six-Liter Club. It is coming out tomorrow (April 6, 2010) (finally!)! If you want, purchase the book off of Amazon.com between 5-7 p.m. Eastern Standard time tomorrow. If everyone buys at the same time, my Amazon rank will improve and it may catch someone's eye. Thanks to all my readers!!!!!