Completing Your Novel

One word: committment. Or perhaps commitment. Spell it how you must, in this age of mass media and easily downloadable Internet pornography, it is the key inherent to completing your novel. Get to know it—not just the way it rolls off your tongue, but the way that it is such a difficult thing to commit to.

Few things are as important to completing your novel as choosing a comfortable reading position. Without this trump card, you may as well turn the television on right now. Every reader is different. Some people prefer arm chairs, while others like a nice countertop on which to rest their book. Some approach their novels while in bed, either lying flat on their back, and thus holding the book upright, or resting their head on their right arm for even pages and left arm for odd ones. Still others—oftentimes aficionados of Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy—require an airplane seat to concentrate on their book.

Once you have found the position that works best for you, it is time to begin the novel. Let us pretend that you are about to launch into F. Scott-Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. As with many classic tomes, most additions of this book come with an introduction; in my experience, it is best to ignore these. Frequently tedious and universally pedantic, introductions ruin exciting plot twists and indulge in the type of academic mumbo jumbo that sends the average reader straight to the local video arcade or Internet pornographer. What’s more, many introductions are numbered with “Roman” numerals that do not factor into the book’s final page count, leaving a prospective reader to slog through twenty pages of text only to find herself, discouragingly, back on page one.

With reading position chosen, book cracked open, and introduction smartly skipped, we find ourselves ready to rumble with Mr. Scott-Fitzgerald’s mind. Let’s look at the first paragraph:

IN MY YOUNGER and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since.

It is a handsome beginning. No grandiloquent word sending an eager reader to the dictionary. No presentation of eccentric characters or complicated plot devices. Rather, we have what appear to be two characters: The book’s narrator (who, we already learn, was once younger and more vulnerable), and his father (a giver of advice). What’s more, through the author’s use of capitalization, we know that his emphasis is being placed on the book’s first three words, “in my younger.”

It is not long before we realize that Scott-Fitzgerald has tricked us. Not only does the book fail to explore the narrator’s youth, but his Gatsby could hardly be considered commendable. Perhaps more discouraging, the author loads his novel with those insipid passages sprinkled throughout so many pictureless masterworks that cause even a cautious reader’s mind to wander, sometimes breaking sentences with two or even three commas. To wit:

Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away.

Now let us see how a typical contemporary reader mentally digests Scott-Fitzgerald’s prose:

Evidently some wild wag [come again?] of an oculist [is that an eye doctor? I really shouldn’t have put the dictionary all the way on the shelf] set them there [what if I move it over by the radiator?] to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness [wait, who’s blind? I’m not paying attention at all here…] Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten [I sure could use a snack] his practice [I did just eat all those potato chips—are potato chips fattening?] in the borough [I wonder if I have any of those Teddy Grahams left over from the party] of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness [who’s this blind guy? I better start over again…] Evidently some wild wag….

At this rate, the poor sap seems unlikely ever to complete his novel. Why? Our reader let a bland passage get the better of him. Once he found his mind veering off course, he should have skipped the paragraph—which, as you probably have figured out, is tossed in by the author to pad out his book—and plowed ahead.

Indeed, those skilled in plowing ahead will find more success with their novels than readers who linger on every last detail. It is with this in mind that we approach our final major step: skipping pages. Once a book is 75% read, it is as good as done. A reader is familiar with the characters, the author’s favored nouns and pronouns, and much of the plot; all that remains is the conclusion. The best strategy is to skim a novel’s final portions, keeping an eye out for references to death, birth, oral sex, and such phrases as “at long last” or “of course!” Soon enough, one’s eyes confront those words cherished by lovers of literature around the globe: “The End.”