Having just finished reading Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, I must say that apart from this book being rightly named #1 on the New York Times Bestseller list it is a prime example of a well-written, well-researched work of fiction.
When many people pick up a book at their local Barnes and Noble or the library, very few actually ponder the process that occurs to put that book together. I’m not talking about printing and binding and advertising and book deals, I’m talking about the process of forming the story.
When you become a writer, you read things from an entirely different perspective. Every paragraph of every scene must be captivating to the reader and your descriptions must never beat around the bush, but jump headfirst into the shrub.
I recently heard someone tell me that she’d been carrying around a troupe of characters in her mind for years, like lugging family photo albums around in a suitcase wherever she went. She would find herself wondering how her characters would behave in certain situations or “what they were up to these days”. But she added that she never brought her characters to life on paper because she simply couldn’t write fiction. I tended to share a similar feeling towards the genre until I was properly corrected in class one day by Tim Brookes, author and professor at Champlain College.
In the third grade, I vividly remember my teacher telling me that I should not begin writing a story unless I already know what the ending is going to be. This piece of advice couldn’t have been more wrong. Brookes laughed when I told him that I’d been lugging around this philosophy for so many years. He explained that no author knows the ending of the story until she gets there. And still, she reserves the right to change her mind and change the story. Stopping yourself from writing before you’ve started is the worst thing that a writer can do.
Brookes continued to pass on countless bits of knowledge and strategy regarding both fiction and nonfiction writing. One tidbit I found particularly helpful was the idea of writing in scenes. Instead of forcing yourself to write your entire novel from beginning to end (a daunting task), begin writing small, detail-rich scenes. Focus in on the place, the characters, the action, and bring the scene truth and life. Just because it doesn’t fit into a bigger novel-sized picture yet, doesn’t mean it won’t later. I found that once I got going writing small scenes, soon I was able to string them all together to create a larger picture.
My other favorite piece of advice from Brookes was his emphasis on good research. A writer cannot write a probable fictional story without having substantial research to make everything feel real.
This is exactly what Gruen did in writing “Water for Elephants”. Throughout reading the book, I could not only sense the small scenes she may have worked within to create the story, but the intense research she conducted on the subject of train circuses is crystal clear. Anyone could have written a lazy story about some guy working on the circus during the depression, but Gruen made the story feel plausible and substantial by integrating such detailed elements of her research.
What I like even better is that Gruen ended the novel, not with a flowery dedication, but with a note that opened the window to her writing process. She conveys the sheer enthusiasm she had for studying the history of train circuses and the way she came about writing the book. Originally planning to write another novel entirely, she came across the topic while reading the newspaper one day and soon found herself hoarding photography books on circuses and taking an a trip to the Ringling Circus Museum in Sarasota, Florida.
Gruen says, “I spent the next four and half months acquiring the knowledge necessary to do justice on the subject, including three additional research trips…The history of the American circus is so rich that I plucked many of this story’s most outrageous details from fact or anecdote…”
Here in this little town, there is a sizeable young man who works at the local CVS Pharmacy stacking shelves of hair product and Band-Aids, bragging to every passerby who will listen about the sci-fi novel he is writing.
Despite the fact that I simply stopped by to pick up my prescription or buy a birthday card, I always get cornered (I let slip at one point or another that I am a writer) and end up listening to his latest inspiration or appreciation from/for Star Trek.
I will admit science fiction and Trekkies are not my thing, but writing is my thing. I can tell by the years he’s spent bragging about this novel that’s too complicated to explain, that either he hasn’t made a dent in the project or it’s far too complicated for a reader to enjoy.
The trick about writing is, yes, to write about what you love, but you must also write well enough to make others love your story too. Stacking shelves and supposedly dabbling in martial arts “to get ripped for summer” is all well and good, but I would suggest that if science fiction writing is what he wants to do, then he should do it with his whole heart. Every waking moment should involve jotting notes and researching, developing character and practicing the art of making dialogue sound genuine.
I found myself muttering as I walked out of the CVS, “For Christ’s sake, if you’re going to call yourself a writer, at least do the profession some justice.”
To some, writing may seem artsy, inspirational, isolated, and whimsical. But in reality a story only starts with a whimsy. The real work comes soon after, and believe me, the leg work and heartbreak involved in research, editing, and editing some more is not always pretty.
So top hats off to Sara Gruen, who not only wrote a phenomenal story, but insists that other writers honor the process it takes to be good at your craft.
Whether you’re writing about circus elephants, dressing up for Star Trek conventions, or stacking store shelves with speed and precision: do your thing justice and do it with passion.
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