Radio Advice

I have to attend the funeral for my mother-in-law, Christina, on Saturday and in order to have a blog post ready for this Friday I knew I needed help—maybe even a miracle.

The radio came through with a miracle.

I don’t always make myself listen to WVIK every weekday morning to catch Garrison Keillor’s broadcast of The Writer’s Almanac. But on Thursday I tuned in late and only caught the tail end, the part where he recites a poem. I went online to read about what I had missed. Then, on a whim, I went to the previous day’s transcript, the day when my mother-in-law passed away after a nearly week long struggle. I was totally surprised to find writing advice that was very pertinent to my novel.

This is what I read:

                                        

It's the birthday of novelist P.G. Wodehouse (books by this author), born Pelham Grenville Wodehouse in Guildford, England (1881).

He said: "Always get to the dialogue as soon as possible. I always feel the thing to go for is speed. Nothing puts the reader off more than a great slab of prose at the start.

I think the success of every novel — if it's a novel of action — depends on the high spots. The thing to do is to say to yourself, 'Which are my big scenes?' and then get every drop of juice out of them.

The principle I always go on in writing a novel is to think of the characters in terms of actors in a play. I say to myself, if a big name were playing this part, and if he found that after a strong first act he had practically nothing to do in the second act, he would walk out. Now, then, can I twist the story so as to give him plenty to do all the way through?

I believe the only way a writer can keep himself up to the mark is by examining each story quite coldly before he starts writing it and asking himself if it is all right as a story. I mean, once you go saying to yourself, 'This is a pretty weak plot as it stands, but I'm such a hell of a writer that my magic touch will make it okay,' you're sunk. If they aren't in interesting situations, characters can't be major characters, not even if you have the rest of the troop talk their heads off about them."

I do believe in signs and this one came as a wonderful surprise. I will try to make the most of it—in Christina’s memory.

The Writer's Almanac: http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2014/10/15