David Brandin
I have a warm place in my heart for David Brandin. Yes, he has a keen intelligence and quick wit. He's courageous and all around pretty cool but mostly I admire David for being a prolific writer. He is the author of The Horns of Moses, a novel, The Miracle of Alvito (And Other Stories), The Lodge, A Tale of Corruption, The Technology War. Lots of people talk a good story. Few finish. Fewer follow through all the way to publication. David makes writing and finishing and publishing a book look effortless. I wish him all the best and hope he never stops writing.
I asked David about his writing process, with an emphasis on plot.
Blockbuster Plots [BBP]: How do you go about plotting your books?
David Brandin [DB]:
My novels are laid out quite differently than my short stories. For short stories, of which I write many, the hard part is coming up with an “O Henry” twist. The short stories may or may not be character developments (which admittedly are different from classical O Henry) but the plots generally are simple.
For my two novels, the stories began with “ideas”—in each case a unique idea which served as the focus of the book.
In the development of The Horns of Moses, my first thought was to write about a man who wanted revenge for the murder of his son in the Middle East. He and his friends struggle with a moral dilemma but ultimately decide to send dying Jewish suicide bombers “into” Palestine, instead of the usual direction out. The original writing began with the first bombing which bewilders the Palestinian Authorities and from then on, I had to develop the reasons, the justification, the moral arguments, etc. for the bombing. This was rather difficult since most Jewish people will tell you “Jews do not commit murder.” Still, even those that hated the message told me they were pulling for the protagonist as the story developed.
The thematic statement came later. Indeed, the original material ended up as Chapter 11 in the novel.
Of course, an “idea” may serve as the backbone of the plot but the novel/story depends on the character development. David Green, the protagonist (viewed by some as a bad guy who promotes violence) had to be a sympathetic character with all the classic strengths and weaknesses (smart, funny, friendly, liked dogs, nice to children, undeserved calamities, have a secret and obsessed with revenge to the point that it ruined his marriage to Rebecca—an even more sympathetic character who was a survivor of two concentration camps and who had a complementary secret to David’s). Taking Blockbuster Plots as the guide, the plot curve then literally drove the character development and parts of the story by forcing the story line to crisis and climax in a finite space. The same applied to the antagonists.
The underlying question addressed in the book was: Is murder always unthinkable or justifiable under certain conditions? Writing the thematic statement today I would offer: A man’s lifetime obsession with revenge in the Middle East leads to murder, treachery, and disaster.
So a short answer to this question on The Horns of Moses was the “idea” drove the plot formation which in turn drove the character development and all of this work was driven by the inherent story demands for stress, emotion, fear, and action. In Horns, the action started slowly only because the moral issues required enormous development. Once the action started, though, it was continuous.
In my second novel, The Lodge—A Tale of Corruption I began with a much greater knowledge base about writing. After the first novel, fifty short stories, and three years of writing classes plus many sessions with Martha and Blockbuster Plots I was better prepared to lay out the plot before I began writing. Of course, it turned out I had to rewrite the Beginning (because of timeline/flashback/ and character development). Still, once the “idea” hatched, I followed the basic structures.
The story is about a fictional fraternal order (Fraternal Order of Stags) which is selling prime beachfront property on the central coast through a mobbed-up agent. The Stags leadership is old, inane, ingrained, operates under archaic rules, and several of the principal officers are corrupt. A murder investigation of a Stags trustee uncovers a massive land scam and unleashes a bonfire of violence. I’ve been involved in several (not for profit) professional societies as a volunteer as well as several fraternal orders and they all suffered from weak volunteer leaderships. They were all vulnerable to manipulation and exploitation. I might be overstating the issue but I chose for the thematic statement of The Lodge: “Charity is Helpless in the Presence of Corruption.”
The story reaches its Crisis when the main character realizes that his friend did not die an accidental death but was murdered. He then makes an emotional commitment to discover the killers and joins the Stags and launches his investigation, constantly being foiled by corrupt trustees, the FBI, and getting little assistance from the local cops. He enlists his dog and his new girlfriend in the mission and the Climax occurs when the dog is attacked and the girlfriend kidnapped, forcing the protagonist to confront fears that have plagued him since Vietnam (his big secret).
BBP: Are you a pre-plotter or after the fact?
DB: I am probably best described as a “Past-plotter.” I start with the idea, write more or less the “crisis, and then backtrack into the character development. In The Lodge, the crisis is the murder of the protagonist’s best friend. This forced development of both their characters and led to several flashback scenes in Vietnam. Since Martha is hostile to flashbacks in general, I then plotted a timeline which permitted me to show the murder without a flashback. This took some doing.
For my next novel, The Earthquake Prophet, I’ve tried to diagram the plot in advance. However, I have also written several short stories which, with rewriting, can serve as the Crisis and the Climax so perhaps I’m a “Present-plotter.” For beginners I would recommend drawing the plotline as soon as the idea matures.
BBP: What methods did you find particularly useful in plotting out your project?
DB: The formula driven requirements help. The End of Beginning at ¼ the word or page count, more or less, and the End of the Middle at 3/4 focus one on getting it all down in an efficient and concise manner. You can’t waste words, or space, or overkill. Everything must contribute to the plot, the stress, the Crisis, etc. There can’t be too much tell, dialogue must be realistic and speeches are VERBOTEN, you can’t have too many characters, and everything must be balanced.
BBP: Do you consciously develop thematic significance?
DB: Not as I developed the first book. I did on the second.
BBP: Are you a character-driven writer or action-driven?
DB: I start with the main story action and that leads to character development since a novel is based on characters. I can get away with action and little character development in some cases only when I write short stories. I consider dialogue one of my strengths but that gets me in trouble with Martha who always says you need more conflict, stress, action, anxiety, fear, and feelings.
BBP: Plot tips to share?
DB: Read O Henry. Read everything. Avoid author intrusion (e.g. She was beautiful. This means nothing. Describe her!) Plots with surprise endings are the most fun. Edit, Edit, and Edit. Martha always says every word, preposition, article, noun, verb, etc, must work. I prefer to repeatedly edit my MS when it’s in development. Martha and other pros say you should complete the drafts before you go back for a new pass. I find that constant editing helps me catch holes in the story line sooner. However it is also true that in both my novels I needed to rewrite the beginnings which meant a lot of re-work was wasted. Perhaps the most interesting “tip” was noting I got the motivation to change the ending of The Horns of Moses. I was watching “Over the Hedge,” a film about a bad raccoon who becomes a good raccoon. (Do you use who with a raccoon?) The movie reminded me that more dramatic character change is good and so I changed the ending of Horns to an unhappy ending which allowed me to make more draconian changes in the protagonist and to drive home the thematic statement that obsession is destructive. Inspiration can come from anywhere so pay attention to the world.
Thanks, David.
To buy David's book, go to Amazon.