Form and Function

  The principle that the shape of a building or an object should be based primarily upon its intended function is associated mostly with architecture; however, the idea that the form of a work of fiction might serve the writer’s purpose is a provocative one.

  Gone Girl is the autopsy of a marriage both partners are eager to kill. In choosing the warring husband and wife as dual first-person narrators shoving one another out of the way to present the “truth” of their marriage to the reader, Flynn has found the perfect form to serve her novel’s function.

  Nick, the husband, is the primary storyteller in Part 1. His narration takes us into the events leading up to his wife Amy’s disappearance and apparent murder. However, Amy is also present through the journal she leaves behind with her account of “the realities” of her marriage to Nick.

  In Part 2, Amy takes centre stage as the first-person narrator, noting that the journal she left behind is a tissue of lies (“I hope you liked Diary Amy. She was meant to be likeable”) and revealing her plot to frame Nick. In theatre, the act of addressing the audience directly is called “breaking the fourth wall,” and Flynn has both of her unreliable narrators break the fourth wall and make direct appeals to readers in order to get them onside. In attempting to enlist bystanders in their war against each other, Amy and Nick mirror the behaviour of the combatants in many broken marriages. Again Flynn uses the tools she has as a writer to realize her purpose. Art imitates life, and the result is a wrenching portrait of what happens when passionate love sours into something vile.

  Choosing a First-Person Narrator

  Is this the character with whom both you and your readers will be content to spend time?

  Is this the character who can best explore what you believe to be the truth about the human condition?

  If your plan is to write a series with this narrator-protagonist, does he or she have the potential to go the distance?

  This last is not an idle question. I’ve known more than one mystery series that ran aground because the writer had simply exhausted the possibilities for the protagonist.

  My decision to allow my protagonist Joanne Kilbourn to age wasn’t based upon a master plan for a lengthy series. I wanted Joanne to be middle-aged because I was middle-aged, and I’d noticed that middle-aged protagonists were underrepresented in mystery novels. I decided to have Joanne age because I was aging, and I found the process an interesting one.

  Ruth Rendell, Baroness Rendell of Babergh, and I once had a spirited moment over that decision during a panel discussion at the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival. During the Q&A after our panel, a reader asked me about my decision to allow Joanne to grow older. Before I could answer, the Baroness jumped in, shaking her finger at me. “You’ll regret that, my girl,” she said.

  I have a sense that, in her long and productive life, the late Baroness was not often wrong, but she was mistaken about that. Joanne was forty-three when the series began, and she is now sixty. For her, as for all of us, aging has brought both joy and sadness. Most importantly for the series, age has brought many changes to her life, and in a later chapter I’ll discuss how the characters introduced by those changes have given me very rich material with which to work.

  I have been asked so frequently if Joanne Kilbourn Shreve is my “alter ego” that I finally looked up the term. According to Merriam Webster, “an alter ego can be thought of as a person’s clone or second self.” The question is a fair one. Joanne and I are both mothers, grandmothers, university professors, occasional media commentators, and political activists. The facts that we both have children, grandchildren, and dogs that we love and that we both live in Lakeview, a beautiful neighbourhood of tree-lined streets and old homes, further muddy the waters. As does the fact that Joanne’s “take” on people and institutions is close to my own.

  That said, Joanne is not my “clone or second self.” As someone who taught Canadian literature for many years, I wanted a protagonist whose character had been shaped by this country and who was deeply committed to making Canada a good place for all of its citizens. As well, I wanted someone who was deeply rooted in her family and community.

  You write from what you know, but you write into what you don’t know.—Grace Paley

  The eighteen Joanne Kilbourn novels have given me approximately 5,580 pages in which to explore my protagonist’s character. I know Joanne well, but in writing her I have come to see the wisdom of Grace Paley’s observation.

  Once, as an exercise, I took a character from Burying Ariel, the book I was working on at the time, and had her describe Joanne. It was a useful experiment, and I recommend it to all writers who have decided on a first-person narrator-protagonist. The character I chose to describe Joanne is Solange Levy, a young radical female colleague in the Department of Political Science, where they both teach. I learned a great deal from Solange’s opinion of Joanne. “It’s tempting to dismiss Joanne,” Solange says. “She’s so easy to dismiss: middle age, middle height, middle weight, middle class, intellect at the middle of the scale, with middlebrow interests, but once in awhile she does something extraordinary.” Joanne might be just as unexceptional as Solange believes her to be, but like all of us Joanne is more than the sum of her parts. As a character, she continues to surprise me, and the moments when she surprises not only me but also herself are among the most vivid in the series.

  American literary theorist Kenneth Burke has suggested that literature can provide “equipment for living.” Later in Sleuth is a chapter devoted to how secondary characters can be used to illuminate the character of the protagonist. The chapter dwells in depth on Joanne’s inner self—on the forces that have shaped Joanne and on her strengths and vulnerabilities. It contains a number of ideas that I believe will be helpful as you create your own characters.

  However, for the time being, my focus is on the fact that, in making Joanne as deeply flawed as most of us, I’ve created a character with whom many readers identify. Occasionally, the events of her life and her reactions to them open a vein of response in readers that makes me realize the profound responsibility that we, as writers, have to our readers.

  In 12 Rose Street, Joanne’s husband, Zack, is running for mayor of Regina. The campaign is vicious, and as his campaign manager Joanne is considered a fair target. The opposition approaches Joanne with audio tapes of her late husband, Ian Kilbourn, having sex with her best friend, Jill Oziowy, and gives her an ultimatum: if she doesn’t convince Zack to withdraw from the race, the rival campaign will send the tapes to her children. Joanne rejects the offer, and in the following scene she confronts Jill.

  “The kids just found out about you and Ian.”

  “Oh my God. How did that happen. . . .” [Jill’s] sentence trailed off. The full horror of the situation was beginning to hit her. “Jo, we have to talk.”

  “I agree,” I said. “But I don’t want to talk here.” Still holding her hot dog, Jill followed as I went up the stairs to the stage and back to the green room.

  After she closed the door behind her, Jill looked at me beseechingly. “Jo, you have to understand—”

  “Shut up,” I said. “There’s nothing to understand. I may be naïve but I get this. . . . An hour ago I stood in this room and listened while Slater Doyle played an audio tape of you fellating Ian and him returning the favour. The quality of the recording was excellent. I felt as if I was in the room with you. And the clip I heard was just a sample. Slater told me the affair began before Mieka was born and was still going on when Ian died.”

  Jill’s entire body was shaking. It was as if she’d been suddenly plunged into ice water. “Jo, please. Give me a chance to make things right. I’ll do anything.”

  “You’ve done enough,” I said. “We’re finished. Get your things out of Mieka’s house. Then go away and stay away.” For a moment my heart went out to her. But the moment didn’t last. “Better eat your hot dog,” I said. “It’s getting cold.”

  12 Rose Street is the fifteenth book in the series. Readers thought they had come to know Joanne. They knew she believed that when Ian died he was wholly committed to the family he loved. They saw the warmth and mutual support that characterized her friendship with Jill. Joanne’s pain, confusion, and rage at the dual betrayal struck a chord with readers. They knew, as Joanne herself did, that the only way she would find peace was through the agonizing but necessary journey to forgiveness.

  The number of readers who approached me, either in person or through email, asking me if I could teach them how to forgive was a reminder of a first-person narrator’s power to connect with readers. It also underscored the fact that as writers we must always be mindful of the fact that the stories we tell bind us to those who read our books.

  The “Watson” Narrator

  Named for Dr. John Watson, the narrator of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, this narrator is the assistant closest to the principal sleuth. Such narrators are integral parts of the action. In revealing events as they occur, these narrators give readers the sense that reader and detective are uncovering evidence together. Equally importantly, they also give readers ongoing and sometimes critical observations about the big guy. Theirs are the voices we hear when we read the novels.

  Here’s Archie Goodwin in The Silent Speaker on his boss:

  Wolfe was in bed. Wolfe in bed was always a remarkable sight, accustomed to it as I was. First the low bootboard, of streaky anselmo; yellowish with sweeping dark brown streaks; then the black silk coverlet, next the wide expanse of yellow pyjama top, and last the flesh of the face. In my opinion Wolfe was quite aware that black and yellow are a flashy combination, and he used it deliberately just to prove that no matter how showy the scene was he could dominate it. I have often thought I would like to see him try it with pink and green.

  And Dr. Watson in The Adventures of the Creeping Man on his boss:

  Holmes was a man of habits . . . and I had become one of them . . . a comrade . . . upon whose nerve he could place some reliance . . . a whetstone for his mind. I stimulated him. . . . If I irritated him by a certain methodical slowness in my mentality, that irritation served only to make his own flame-like intuitions and impressions flash up the more vividly and swiftly. Such was my humble role in our alliance.

  Second Person

  In second-person narrative, the narrator refers to him- or herself as “you” in a way that suggests alienation from the events described. Alternatively, the author addresses the reader directly as “you.”

  It’s rarely used. Offhand, I can think of only one book I’ve actually read that uses it: Jay McInerney’s slick and immensely successful debut novel Bright Lights, Big City (1984). In it, the unnamed narrator offers readers a play-by-play account of his life spinning out of control when he is on a bender:

  The night has already turned on that imperceptible pivot where two a.m. changes to six a.m. . . . Somewhere back there you could have cut your losses, but you rode past that moment on a comet trail of white powder and now you are trying to hang on to the rush. Your brain at this moment is composed of brigades of tiny Bolivian soldiers. They are tired and muddy from their long march through the night. There are holes in their boots and they are hungry. They need to be fed.

  I can’t see second person working well for a crime novel, but if the prospect appeals to you check out that novel, because McInerney handles it well.

  Third Person

  In third-person narrative, the narrator refers to every character in the third person: that is, either by given names or as “he,” “she,” or “they.” The narrator is unspecified and is not a character within the story. Third-person narration gives the writer the greatest flexibility of any narrative mode, and for that reason it is used most frequently.

  Flexibility

  In third-person narration, the writer is not confined to a single point of view. She is free to move through time and space, and can know what drives every character to do what they do.

  American police procedural writer Richard Price has been justly praised for his dialogue and his mastery of the rhythms of everyday speech. In addition to his crime novels, Price has written screenplays and co-written tv series, including The Wire and The Night Of. In his novel Lush Life, the advantages of third-person narration are apparent.

  A friend who is an appeals court judge told me once that most murders are sad, unpremeditated, wrong place/wrong time incidents. Lush Life deals with the aftermath of one such murder. The victim, Ike Marcus, an aspiring writer/probationary bartender, goes out drinking with his supervisor, Eric Cash, and Steven Boulware, another probationary bartender. Headed for home, they are confronted by three teenage boys from the projects who demand their money. Boulware passes out, Cash hands over his wallet, but Marcus refuses, saying “Not tonight, my man.” He is shot to death. One of the first cops on the scene calls his death “suicide by mouth.” Lush Life has a large cast of characters: the police investigating the murder, the grieving family of the victim, the shooters, their families, and their acquaintances in the projects.

  Third-person narration allows Price to follow the lives and thoughts of at least a score of these characters, and he makes them come to life as people we know and care about. Such narration also allows him to give us a sense of the very different worlds his characters inhabit and how they have been shaped by those worlds. When the shooter is identified and brought to police headquarters for an interview, Price describes his attitude in a single sentence that captures the inevitability of the young man’s tragic destiny:

  The kid seemed unbreakable; as in, broken so many times there was nothing left to break; coming off as if he were sitting in the back row of a meaningless class, barely interested in his own lying answers to where he had been that night, as to how he came upon the gun found under his mattress; indifferent to the point of boredom to all the contradictions pointed out to him in his narrative; indifferent to his own fate.

  Tension

  Writers working with first-person narration will hit certain “dead spaces” where events might be transpiring, but the narrator is not yet aware of them. Third-person narration allows the reader to be aware of everything that’s going on and keeps the pace brisk. Readers of Lush Life can be aware of how the investigation is progressing while they continue to follow the lives and thoughts of the police on the case, of the grieving father and his family, and of the shooter and his circle of friends. Moving from one character to another creates momentum.

  Third-person narration allows the writer to show what drives the antagonist and what drives the protagonist. It allows the writer to heighten suspense by tracking the inexorable movement of antagonist and protagonist toward each other.

  Distance

  For writers considering writing about their own experiences or those of someone close to them, third-person narration allows them to distance themselves from material that might be inherently painful or constricting. Frequently, I have suggested using the third person to students who, in telling their stories, found themselves blocked by their emotions or concerns for others.

  Chapter 6

  Setting

  The world a writer writes about is not chosen accidentally. Most often a writer chooses a fictional world that allows her/him to say best what s/he believes is true of the human condition.—Robert Penn Warren

  American novelist and literary critic Robert Penn Warren cites Ernest Hemingway’s belief that it is only by facing down death every day that a man (and for Hemingway it was always about the man) can live his life fully. Warren illustrates his theory that setting is integral to communicating theme by pointing to some of the places where Hemingway chose to set his novels: a war zone, a bullfight ring, a small boat carrying a man alone on the ocean. If you’re keen to test the theory further, ponder Jane Austen’s famous line: “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Think of the exquisitely drawn cameo of Austen’s fictional world. Can you imagine a Hemingway hero nibbling a scone at a vicarage tea party or, conversely, an Austen heroine sidling up to a bullfighter?

  The care with which writers of crime fiction choose the fictional world that allows them to say best what they believe is true of the human condition is apparent in all mysteries but particularly in mystery series. On the streets of Watts, where—fifty years after the 1968 riots—rage and resentment still smoulder, Walter Mosley, author of the Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins series, found a world that shows what poverty, alienation, racism, and hopelessness do to human beings. In the Arcadian beauty of Three Pines in Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Louise Penny (the Armand Gamache series) created a community that offers an antidote to the conviction that the world is a cruel and dangerous place, a belief that was part of the collateral damage of 9/11. In the underbelly of Chicago, a place of almost Dickensian darkness, Sara Paretsky (the V.I. Warshawski series) found a canvas that allows her to show that, in our most shining and affluent cities, if you have the bad luck to be born poor, female, black, Hispanic, or challenged physically, intellectually, or emotionally, you might be consigned to a life that is nasty, brutish, and often short.

  I could go on, but the point is clear: in crime fiction, setting is not simply backdrop; it is a crucial element of the novel and a key factor not only in establishing the reader’s loyalty to the series but also in deepening the reader’s understanding of the novel’s characters.

  Writing in Regina

  I live in Regina, the capital city of Saskatchewan, the only Canadian province shaped like a rectangle. The population of Regina varies, but generally it hovers around 230,000. Regina is a city that most people drive through to get somewhere else. At first blush, it does not appear to offer much to write about.