What My Last Book Taught Me: Learn to Drive in the Dark
by Monika Schröder
Writing can be lonely. To find solace I keep a collection of quotes by famous writers about writing. When I need confirmation that writing is equally hard for others I re-read Thomas Mann’s, “A writer is someone for whom writing is harder than for other people.” I turn to the quote from Flaubert, “I am irritated by my own writing. I am like a violinist whose ear is true, but whose fingers refuse to reproduce precisely the sound he hears within,” to remind me that I am not alone in my struggle to fill a page with what is in my head. While working on my latest YA novel, My Brother’s Shadow (Frances Foster Books/Farrar Straus Giroux, September 2011), I came across Randall Jarrell’s definition of a novel as “a prose narrative of some length with something wrong with it.” This quote reminded me that writing means to accept imperfection, a lesson I learned from My Brother’s Shadow.
Before I started writing I conceived of My Brother’s Shadow as an almost perfect historical novel. The main character’s experiences during the last months of World War I would grip readers and not let them go. It would be a coming-of-age story, an explicit anti-war novel, depicting the effects of war on ordinary people and illustrating the role of women in Germany’s political transformation while at the same time alluding to the roots of the rise of Hitler and the Nazis.
But as soon as I began writing the first chapter I realized that the novel in my head was not the one I was putting on paper. Yes, the two had some elements in common. Moritz was the main character in both and the settings as well as a rough idea of the plot line in the first few chapters were the same. But already in the first few pages I encountered a surprise. Moritz was telling his story in first person and used the present tense! I stopped. Hadn’t I read in many books about writing that the first person, present tense point-of-view was a most difficult choice for a writer? My first two novels were told in the voice of third person omniscient narrators reflecting back on past events. Was I really going to change this “winning formula” by writing in first person? And in present tense?
I re-wrote the beginning in past tense but couldn’t force Moritz to tell me his story in hindsight. He was adamant and stuck to the immediacy of present tense. Familiar with historical fiction novels told in first-person by admired authors such as Avi, Laurie Halse Anderson and Jennifer Holm, I was convinced that I wouldn’t be able to pull off a story in this challenging POV.
The story was set in 1918 Berlin. I needed to convey a lot of background information. It seemed such a daunting task to introduce the reader to starvation and despair in Berlin as well as the anticipation of military defeat without the omniscient perspective of third person POV. In the first chapter I needed to set the stage, let Moritz introduce himself and his family and find an intriguing ending to the chapter that would entice readers to go on. Moritz came to my rescue. As an apprentice in a print shop of a Berlin newspaper he could read the headlines of the paper he just helped print and thereby inform the readers of my novel of the state of affairs in Germany, October 1918. The newspaper became a vehicle to disseminate information about the setting without interrupting the flow of the narrative. On the first page Moritz reads an official war report, knowing that the government is not allowing the truth to come out. He also meets Herr Goldman, a journalist who works for the paper and who takes a liking in Moritz and ultimately helps him to fulfill his dream to become a reporter like himself. Through their conversations Moritz is able to tell the reader about the most pressing and newsworthy current events.
Apparently there was a way for me to write in first person, present tense and still give the reader a sense of the setting. I also realized that through dialogue I could fill the reader in on the back story and was able to rely only partially on inner monologue.
The next concern was how I (and my readers) would feel about being stuck in Moritz’s head for 50,000 words. His “I” had to be compelling throughout. But after I had let his voice tell me the first three chapters, I revisited these concerns and had to admit to myself that I was intrigued by Moritz’s account. So I decided to go on and trust that he would keep me engaged in writing down his narrative. As a way of encouraging him and helping me to envision his story, I placed a copy of a photo on my desk that I had found during my research in German online archives of two brothers, one of whom became a printer’s apprentice around 1918 and later a journalist.
About half way in, the story took an unexpected turn and once again I had trouble letting myself deviate from the previously envisioned novel. Moritz had met a girl! He had met her on a train and she had completely flummoxed him with her wit. Granted, it was not so unlikely that a 16-year old boy would take an interest in a girl, but I had not anticipated a romance!
I had never expected to write about young love. My previous books were for middle school kids and I wanted to stay away from “love issues.” Now here was Rebecca, the smart daughter of a Jewish bookseller who attended the same political meetings as Moritz’s mother and sister. After their first encounter on the train, it was clear that they had to meet again. Yet, the book takes place in 1918, so they wouldn’t go “all the way.” And besides, I would have to braid his discovery of love together with the story of Moritz’s relationship with his brother, who returns from the trenches a maimed and bitter veteran. In addition, this posed a second challenge, writing about romantic feelings from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old boy. I think it worked in the end and Rebecca’s appearance also gave me the opportunity for a hopeful conclusion that leaves the reader satisfied after Moritz’s intense final confrontation with his brother.
Looking back at the process of writing My Brother’s Shadow, I still remember the novel I actually had in mind, but it’s not the one that will be published in September. Though I still like the imaginary original, writing the “real” novel has taught me to trust the process along the way. I hope I’ve learned as a writer the value of accepting a compromise between the perfect book in my mind and the book the character has to tell.
Lately, I added a new quote to my collection of inspirational sayings. This one is from E. L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
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Thanks for sharing, Monika. I have that last quote written down too. Stephen King referred to it in his book, On Writing.