Spring and the Novelist

Spring. Lots of possibilities there. The season of hope and rejuvenation. To grow leap, originate, open, force.  A renewal, an opening, a flexibility. And those are only the basics. Might a fiction writer put any of this to use?

~ Renewal.

I can shake off everything if I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn. But, and that is the greatest question, will I ever be able to write anything great… — Anne Frank

Why not use the awakening of the landscape to wake your passion for your own novel?

~ Serendipity

No tears in the writerNo tears in the reader.No surprise for the writer,No surprise for the reader. — Robert Frost

Why not use the startling nature of spring to discover something new about your scenario, protagonist, opening, ending, or even your own writing process?

~ Leap.

Characters only grow by sprinting out of lethargy and into the fray.

Why not try cornering them even more than usual?

~ Launch.

Without urgency, fiction falters. Readers seek propulsion, over and over: the start and end of each scene, the first chapter, the midpoint, and so on.

At your recent talk titled “Urgency and Momentum” you introduced a new theoretical framework you’ve been exploring, that you called “request moments.” You spoke about how much of the time, most if not all of us are doing not what we want to do but what other people ask of us either directly or indirectly. Your point was to arrive at a type of necessity, that creates, as you put it, “forces in narrative that make characters do what they do.” Many stories with real urgency and momentum grow out of a simple request; someone says to someone else, “There's something I want you to do.”  — Susan Tacent Interview with Charles Baxter 

Why not seek techniques that entice your readers?

Of course like other people, many novelists find spring addictive. Time to be outside—to row, or hike, or garden. But no matter how seductive that call, don’t let it overpower your muse.

Be ruthless about protecting writing days…  — J. K. Rowling

Tip: Spring isn’t just a season or a verb. It’s a process.