More On Writing The Chapters: Excerpt From My Book: A Friendly Guide to Writing and Ghostwriting
Writing the chapters of your book takes patience and a lot of trial and error. As you decide what belongs where, here a few common cliches that you don’t want to use as segues from one chapter to the next. Or anywhere in your text. Cliches are lazy and you want your work to be lively even if you’re writing about something heavy or sad.
She was gentle as a lamb.
The apple doesn't fall from the tree.
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Ignorance is bliss.
All’s well that ends well.
He was sleeping like a log.
And here’s one of the most common clichés that I loathe and show up in some of the best books is:
I remember it as if it was yesterday.
When you remove clichés and obvious phrases, you can find a more creative way to express yourself. People act in unexpected ways, especially when they’re faced with trauma, and a writer needs to be a keen observer of human behavior that becomes the trajectory of all the chapters in your life.
Back in the nineteen eighties, a friend of mine, Michael, took an HIV test. He was sitting in the waiting room, about to get his results and he distracted himself by reading a People Magazine article about Meryl Streep. When they called him in to see the doctor, he took the magazine with him. At that time, HIV was a terminal diagnosis and when Michael heard the word “positive,” he buried his head in the magazine and felt annoyed that he was being interrupted. When he left the doctor’s office, he said, “Oh, thanks.” He knew a lot about Meryl Streep’s movie career and her family life but he hadn't heard a word the doctor had said about his health options.
His reaction wasn’t logical but that’s the way people act when they’re facing bad news. “What did he do next?” is the question that writers want their readers to ask.
In his life changing book, Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl, holocaust survivor, wrote: An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. My friend, Michael, was confronting an abnormal situation and he needed a good dose of normal denial to survive it and remain functional.
If you were writing that scene, how would you describe his reaction to his diagnosis? Would you have him say, “Omigod, I’m so scared,” or “I don’t believe you.” Or “I have to take the good with the bad.” Those reactions are predictable and boring and it’s rare that anyone would actually say them. When your protagonist is facing really bad news, you might have him notice a plant in the room that needs watering or a picture on the wall that needs straightening. Are his shoulders hitched up to his ears? Is he covered in perspiration? Is he laughing? Is he crying? Is he ignoring the doctor altogether? What does he do when he leaves the office?
When I was working on Grace Slick’s memoir, “Somebody to Love,” I was about to interview her about Woodstock. The concert had been legendary and I didn’t want to bore the readers by hearing the same old story that she had most likely told it hundreds of times: Jimi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner. The pelting rain that turned the ground into mud. Half a million people who spent three days and nights together with no violence. These were amazing stories but we’d all heard the over and over. I needed to evoke a fresh perspective from Grace about the concert so I asked her to close her eyes and feel herself back on stage. What did she remember? I wanted her point of view, not like someone looking at the stage, but rather someone looking out.
She told me she felt a responsibility toward her audience. In her words: I didn’t get high. I wanted to look like a strong but fluid representation from the Coast, so I wasn’t about to get so fucked up that I looked a freaked out slob.”
I was surprised at that. She went on to tell me so many stories that had never been told and it was among the most fresh and interesting chapters in the book.
When you become more thoughtful about authentic human reactions to both difficult and celebratory situations, you’ll find ways to write that can transform an ordinary story into captivating and human chapters.
Here are some steps to follow for to make your chapters come alive:
1. Describe a scene or story from an alternate perspective, maybe that of a passing bystander, a pet, or even an inanimate object.
2. Tell the story you don’t want your mother to read. Yes, that one. Don’t censor yourself.
3. Recall a moment in which you felt a powerful energy. Describe it in vivid detail, paying special attention to the senses. Examine how you incorporated that experience into your worldview.
4. Describe a location, one that is close to your heart, one that you know well or a describe a brand new one. What is your connection to the location, however small or large it may be?
5. Choose a commonplace, unremarkable memory and describe it in the most dramatic and absurd way possible.
6. Revisit a moment in your life that you will never be able to forget. What made it so unforgettable?
If your work don’t feel interconnected, use your imagination to fill in the gaps and make sure the segues are seamless. This is how you keep people turning the pages. You might end a chapter in the middle of something exciting or terrifying so the reader can’t wait to see what happens next. A friend of mine once said, “I’m mad at you. I couldn’t stop reading your book last night and I didn’t get to sleep until 2 AM.” A supreme compliment.
As you write, your alternate world is forming and just like life, it all needs to fit together, even if it’s awkward. Life is awkward. Surprises come careening in seemingly out of nowhere and abruptly turn your life in a different direction. But they are still a part of the whole. If you use your chapters to leave a reader wanting more, if your writing reflects the way life unfolds in its own messy way, you’ve done your job.