In today's WRITING FROM FICTION mini-writing class, I look at Jean Hanff Korelitz's THE LATECOMER. She spoke about this novel at my local literary festival a few weeks ago: about how hard it was to write, about how she kept redrafting it over and over again and having it rejected by her editor, how nothing she did seemed to make it better.
The solution lay, she said, when her editor asked her this question - a question my editor asked me about my debut novel, WHAT MILO SAW too: "Whose story is this?"
THE LATECOMER, like most great novels, is filled to the brim with interesting, layered characters, all of whom matter to the story. But there is always one. One character for whom the stakes are the highest. One character in whom the reader will be most invested. Once you've found that character, and once you center them in your narrative, the rest of the book falls into place (with a bit of work, of course!). And here’s the thing, it might not be the most obvious character or the character you assume is the main character.
The wonderful thing Jean Hanff Korelitz did with this novel is that she turned her problem - whose story it was - into a central part of how the novel works and what makes it so engaging and also suspenseful. Once she decided whose story it was, she gave that character the power to tell the whole story about their family. However, we only find out who is narrating quite late in the novel. It's a brilliant technique and a wonderful example of how your biggest writing problem can turn into a shimmeringly brilliant solution!
Happy writing friends, and keep going - our stories matter now, more than ever.
Virginia
