It was interesting reading Zadie Smith's book On Beauty immediately after reading an article by her titled Fail Better about how author's tend to drift away from their original purpose when writing a novel. (Sorry, the link to that article is dead. It was originally printed in the Jan. 20th edition of the UK Guardian.)

The novel was incredibly ambitious. It tackled topics as diverse as affirmative action in American colleges, interracial marriage, the psychological effects of religious belief and/or disbelief, and the way American's perceive beauty. It was philosophical, yet carried enough of a thread of a plot to keep the reader interested. It had all the makings of a work of great literature, and then, well, then it dissolved into a very tangled story of dirty fifty-something college professors (yes, that's plural) sleeping with YES, FUCK ME undergrads.

This isn't to knock the book. It was definitely on the verge of greatness--it just, well, got lost in its own expansiveness and needed a quick and cheap ending.

Anyway, I'm not writing this to knock Zadie Smith, who is an ungodly talented writer, but rather myself. I'm deep into what is now the seventh draft of my next novel. It was intended to be an expansive treatise on what's wrong with religion in America. I had written six-hundred odd pages, most of which was my main character going off on tirades, and the plot wasn't even close to tying together.

I've been, honestly, very close to complete dispair and utter defeat. But after taking three months off from writing, I came to the realization that despite the fact that most novels are generally some 60,000 plus words, the great works of literature generally only make one or two simple points. I'd been trying to make hundreds...

On the surface, it seems ludicrous that a novel can only make a couple of points. If I'm simply trying to make the point that:

1) The way Americans think about religion needs to drastically change.
and
2) My generation's ironic and fatalistic outlook is putting the world at great peril.

it would seem that I could do so in a few paragraphs--why do I need to write a whole novel? Well--that's just it--it often takes some 60,000 plus words to convince someone of something. As adaptive as we are, humans are still resistant to change--it takes a novel and then some to get us to alter our behaviors.

So anyway, I'm dropping nukes on the suburban sprawl that my novel has become, and trying to keep the book entertaining while I make a few points. Let's hope whatever emerges isn't too mutated for publication.

Labels: Book Lovers, Writing Process