Deep and Wide

Common advice, for writers, is that we should read a lot – and read different things, too. Read novels in your favorite genre, sure. But also read newspapers, magazines on topics that don’t normally interest you, and read novels outside your customary realm. That’s fantastic advice for anyone, honestly. But it’s especially good for writers.

I normally read historical fiction. I’d like to write it too, with some romance tossed in. I’ve had lots of ideas and made many false starts. Usually, after a couple of chapters, I get bored or frustrated with my projects. And I wasn’t quite sure why until I picked up a Carl Hiassen novel today, “Skinny Dip.”

“Skinny Dip” is decidedly not historical fiction. It’s different than anything I’ve read recently, perhaps the male equivalent of chick lit. It’s irreverent, improbable, and funny. Not “giggle out loud” funny; more like “raise an eyebrow and shake your head” funny. Hiassen has his own writing style. As I read it, it occurs to me that one thing after another is completely improbable and unlikely, that the chances of things happening in just the way they do in his story is entirely small. Yet it works. It works because he says it does, and it’s fun to read – you want to believe it, that’s all, if only for a while. There’s also a lot of exposition, but it’s so skillfully done you don’t care.

And it occurs to me that there really aren’t any rules to writing fiction, despite how hard I’ve been trying to follow them. I’d be better served if I wrote from the heart. Or maybe my stomach. Something besides my brain, at least during the first draft.

I think it’s not just fiction that works that way.