I've spent about two hours here at Sweet Donkey working on my novel. It's been work. I've had some thinking, incubating time -- not a lot of output but thinking through some questions I have about the novel.
First, one thing I needed to think through was how to add tension and a sense of urgency to the novel. I described the novel to some friendly strangers on vacation last week, and I bored myself telling them the story.
I realized I was bored with my story. So I needed to do the work of finding the emotional heart of the story. And the fire or nucleus of the story, is the fire itself. The burning down of that silo still calls me as its emotional center.
Why? The tower at first, when anchored in my own constellation, represented ego. And the burning of the fire represents the burning of the ego, and the birth of the soul. But, here is the question. Is that what the tower represents for Robert Davis, my protagonist? And is the metaphor as powerful if it's not about the burning of ego but the burning/death of one man's dream for his life, and the birth of his son's dream for his life. Does the burning of the silo also represent the death of one man's dream for his son's life and his role orchestrating the son's dream, and the birth of his new understanding of his son's life and his role in it?
Since Robert experiences the fire at the end of his life, and this story is Robert's story, it now moves the work out of the territory of the middle grade or young adult novel. My protagonist is neither middle grade or young adult. Pickles. I am in a writer's group where we write and critique children's through young adult work. So, this makes it a little tricky submitting this manuscript to my co-writers. But in truth, I thought this story was going to be about Marjorie when I first started writing it. And it was going to be about her deciding to go to college. But the novel took a new direction and Robert's voice came to the fore.
I am submitting a manuscript where the protagonist is an old man to a children's writer's group. The irony. I hope they take mercy on me and have some understanding.
What I think I will do is try to weave in the day of the fire through the novel. Through that day, Robert will come to an understanding, while through the years, the readers will come to an understanding of Robert and the significance of that day. Perhaps.
I find it rather nonsensical and mysterious that this has turned into a father/son story. What do I know about being a father or being a son? I know what it is like to be a child. And I have a father. But the gendered nature of that relationship is not something I have experienced as the participant in the relationship. So … I will have to make some imaginative leaps and remember that my protagonist's voice is going to be gendered … it will be in that male gender binary, and to be aware of how men, rather than women, communicate and express themselves, and some of their attitudes toward goals, self-fulfillment, fatherhood, sons. And this is not at all what I thought I'd be writing about, fyi!
Some father-son relationships to explore in film and story:
Beautiful Boy
The Kid (Charlie Chaplin)
Steamboat Bill Jr.
The Champ
I Was Born, But...
It's a Wonderful Life
Bicycle Thieves
Shane
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Godfather
Kramer vs. Kramer
Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
Paris, Texas
In the Name of the Father
Life is Beautiful
Road to Perdition
Big Fish
There Will Be Blood
http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2015/the-25-best-movies-about-father-son-relationships/2/
Some father-son relationships in the Bible....
um God and Jesus
Abraham and Isaac
Noah and
Moses and
Adam … and Cain and Abel
Jacob and Joseph
David and Solomon
Joseph and Jesus
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