It is no accident that the first worthwhile advice on narrative storytelling comes from Aristotle in his Poetics, written some 2300 years ago. His comments, quoted by so many teachers of fiction writing, are about ancient tragic poetry. Tragedies dealt primarily with mythology, so it seems that storytelling and mythology have been linked from the first. In the method of novel writing presented here, we will rely heavily on the psychology of Carl Jung who developed what is called analytical psychology. Much of Jung’s work explored the connection between mental processes and mythology.

The methodology I describe here is not the traditional approach used in creative writing. This book is specifically about the craft of novel writing. I will not tell you how to combine the words to make effective sentences and paragraphs or to describe a scene. This is taught in many wonderful textbooks and classes in schools throughout the world. But what you will never find in any of these classes is how to actually put a novel together. Janet Burroway, in her book Writing Fiction (probably the best book ever written on the subject) says that:

The organic unity of a work of literature cannot be taught--or, if it can, I have not discovered a way to teach it. I can suggest from time to time that concrete image is not separate from character, which is revealed in dialogue and point of view, which may be illuminated by simile, which may reveal theme, which is contained in plot as water is contained in an apple. But I cannot tell you how to achieve this.... (Page 312)

But I have developed a process, one derived from psychology, Greek mythology, playwrights, Hollywood script writers and other master storytellers, which does precisely this. Storytelling, as a process, has deep roots within the psyche and is closely connected to myth and therefore to Jungian psychology. Even the many books on novel writing are little more than a hodge-podge of ideas about the novel, but what we will do here is get down to revealing the secrets of where it comes from and how to put it all together. What you will need first is a description of the underlying structure that makes all novels work, the DNA of a novel, so to speak. As I spell out this structure, we will find that it involves mental process, most of which, is hidden even from the writer, and this will lead us into psychology.

The writing process I describe here as "novel writing" can just as easily be applied to narrative non-fiction. The travelogue, Oedipus on a Pale Horse, on greek-myth.com is an example of how a writer might use this craft to generate an extended personal-history narrative. Its application may also be extended to drama and screenplays, although some parts, e.g., the one on chapters, will be of limited help there.

So, where do you begin? How do you determine the structure of your story beforehand? How are the infinity of elements related? All these questions, I will answer shortly, but first we must get some preliminaries out of the way. 

THE NOVEL: Craft or Art?

The Oxford English Dictionary defines the novel as,

"A fictitious prose narrative or tale of considerable length (now usually one long enough to fill one or more volumes), in which characters and actions representative of the real life of past or present times are portrayed in a plot of more or less complexity."

I would include the real life of future times in this definition also to cover science fiction. I would also argue that the word “fictitious” may not always apply because many historical novels are more historically accurate than some history texts. Milan Kundera, the great Czech novelist, defined the novel as "a meditation on existence," which really leaves the subject wide open.

A novel does not present real life but bears a relationship to it. Some say it is an "illusion of life." Or it can be approached even more casually as in Henry James’ statement that a novel is "an ado about something." I would define the novel as: an extended dramatic narration concerning a particular subject or event.

I put forth these definitions to illustrate how ambiguous the novel art form is. They are so ambiguous that they don’t help get the words on paper. But they are liberating. And though I’ll give you specific instructions here on how to discover and structure your story, please realize that what you create may be something no one has ever seen before.

To create a novel, we need to study the craft of storytelling. “But,” you may say, “I don’t want to be a craftsman. I want to be an artist.” But craft is the method, the discipline, of dealing with all artistic endeavors. The artist, the author, must learn his craft. Art for some reason doesn’t want to be criticized or reviewed, perhaps because it is so ego related. On the other hand, craftsmanship by its very nature implies both an apprenticeship, a period of trial and failure, and a certain level of skill before becoming a master craftsman. Viewing writing as a craft takes the pressure off your initial efforts and opens them up to critique. Plus, it means that to learn to write, you must write, write, write until you get it right.

NOVEL TYPE

Novels come in many forms, and the technique I describe here can be used to create any of them. It can be science fiction, mystery, romance, western, true crime, thriller, historical. Your novel can be mainstream or literary fiction. Literary fiction is more character based than mainstream, which is plot based. Know where your novel will fit among the multitude. Who is your audience? You are writing for someone. Who is it? An author, first and foremost, should read. All these things the author should know and do before he starts writing.

YOUR IDEA FOR A NOVEL

The techniques available to the novel writer have been broken down by some writers as equal parts “method and madness”, and this concept will be useful to us. The way an author constructs his novel, the craft, is the “method”. Where all the raw material comes from, the original idea, characters and events, narrative style, etc. is the “madness”. We will study craft first. I’ll say a little about where the idea for a novel comes from now, the initial impulse. But this will be pretty basic stuff, and I’ll leave the rest until later when we’ll do what we can about studying "the madness." 

THE CENTRAL IDEA

The idea for the novel can come from anywhere. Sometimes the idea will come from some traditional story, an action drawn from life or fantasy. It can come from personal experience or be completely imaginary. It can be built around a single character, as in the Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, or an event, as in Tom Clancy’s The Hunt for Red October. It should be something you know about or are willing to learn about through extensive research. One of the best places to find an idea is in your own personal fantasies, especially those involving conflict. Dreams, particularly recurring dreams, are an excellence source. Some experts will advise you to write what you enjoy reading, but my opinion is that reading and writing are radically different activities. Write what you want to write.

Some writers borrow from other authors. Shakespeare rarely had an original storyline. Many times he borrowed from Plutarch’s Lives (Plutarch was a Greek who wrote in the 2^nd century AD.) A Midsummer Night’s Dream came from Theseus and Coriolaneus came from Plutarch’s biography of the ancient Greek hero. Jane Smiley took the storyline for A Thousand Acres from Shakespeare’s King Lear and won a Pulitzer. Cinderella has been disguised and retold many, many times. Gothic novels are of that nature. Jane Eyre, Rebecca, the movie Working Girl are all Cinderella stories.

Other sources might include a personal event, family history, or something that happened to a friend. The TV series “Law and Order” frequently uses a story “ripped from a newspaper headline”. But the most original material will come from personal experience.

Everyone in publishing today (and particularly Hollywood) is looking for works that are "high concept". By this they mean that the main subject or essence of the work can be clearly exposed in a few words. Think of ways to express your idea so that it is immediately recognizable. The statement will most likely expose the central conflict and say something about the storyline. Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment might be identified as, "A young man’s attempt to come to terms with himself after committing murder." If you can’t summarize your story in one sentence, you probably don't know what your own novel is about. I’ll cover how to do this in detail in the next chapter.

Writing a novel is always accomplished in the dark and is very much a process of discovery. You really don’t know the story until you’ve written it. You can’t structure it properly until you know the story. Because of this Catch 22, you must write it and rewrite it several times. To begin with you must have the germ of an idea and trying to apply a story structure to it will help it develop. If the idea is the art, the structure is the craft. 

CRAFT

The idea for a novel is like a wild horse. You have to harness it to get it under control and discipline it. Your novel will develop as you write, but you will always feel as though you are working in the dark with a little lantern. That’s why you need to work within a structure that can throw that much-needed light on the subject matter. In the following pages, I will present a method for developing your idea. It will result in a first draft, so that a full novel can be written from it. Don’t be deluded into believing that this is the only way to write a novel. But this method will help you understand the energy inherent in any novel and how it may be harnessed.

The idea, particularly if it comes from true-life experience, must undergo a transformation before it becomes a novel. Because storytelling is such a part of our lives, we think of it as life itself. But a novel has certain characteristics that take it out of the real world. In fact, the existence of any story is outside real life. A transformation process takes place during the storytelling process.

This transformation is the craft of novel writing. Much of it will be identical to the ordinary storytelling we do everyday when someone asks, "How did it go at the office?" But further realize that the process is not simply a description of real-life events. A transformation takes place when we take "real-life" into the world of the novel, and that transformation occurs through craft. As an example, conversation is transformed into "dialogue" to sound "normal" within a novel. Dialogue is an abbreviated or edited version of normal conversation. Everything is magnified and has a storyline connection; therefore, the author has to develop a new set of proportions to judge the impact of his words on the reader.

That concludes the introductory remarks. To follow the discussion from here on, you should have an idea for the novel you wish to write. You will be developing that idea into a rough draft. But the central most important fact you should retain from this introduction is that the real world and the fictional world are radically different and that you can only get your story into the fictional world through narrative craft.