“Where crime comes into it for me is that I need a narrative engine to strap myself onto so I can write the book. ‘Cause otherwise, I feel like, “Oh, fuck, where’s this going.” And then he’s in the room thinking about things and the dust is blowing in the sunlight.” – George Pelecanos
I’ve been caught up watching an HBO series called “The Wire” on DVD. There is a pack of novelists who write for this show. George Pelecanos is one of them, along with Richard Price, and Dennis Lehane.
Just like a good classic novel, “The Wire” spans the gutter and the penthouse — Balzac does Baltimore. Characters are real, they change, everyone has a story to tell. It’s probbly the best TV show ever.
I didn’t know much about the writers on the show so I’ve been researching and reading about them. In the process, I came across the nugget of wisdom above and had to stop and think about it because I’ve been floundering with this for a while. What’s my narrative engine?
“Oh, fuck, where’s this going…?” That’s exactly the question that I’ve asked myself so many times.
In my writing, I have often played with subtlety and vagueness, because I thought a distinct narrative engine was maybe too simple, too easily disputed. I wanted to be mysterious.
On the one hand, I think this was cowardice: too afraid to really dig down in my stories and pull up real emotions, fears, passions, perversions, etc. But, to be fair, there’s also been something genuine — something inside me that truly likes the undefined and the blurry, that dust blowing in the sunlight that Pelecanos takes a dig at in the quote above.
But you have to latch onto something.
For Pelecanos and the other scribes on “The Wire,” crime is their engine. I can’t pinpoint anything so specific as crime — but it’s something close. Some literary miscegenation of people who look at dust in the sunlight and happen to get mixed up in very bad things. I’ve been playing along the borders of this for awhile, but was afraid to jump into it with full commitment. But, I think I just revved up my engine.
So this is where I’m going — for now, at least.
Where are you going? Down what roads is your narrative engine taking you?
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Comments 4
The Wire (yes, the most well-written show, possile ever. And possibly some of the best contempory writing period.) crime, per say, isn’t the engine, it’s just other people. The show follows a classic framework: make hell of interesting and human characters (omar… well, almost everyone) and get them in trouble. All they do to keep this engine running is take the temperature of every character at the end of an episode and those who are doing fine get fucked with in the next show and those who aren’t get a free pass. The engine to this show is character.
Posted 08 Sep 2006 at 6:08 pm ¶The previous comment suggests that character is the narrative engine in “The Wire,” which, I have to admit, I have never seen. But, in general, I don’t think that characters on their own work as a story’s engine (I won’t say “absolutely” because I think rules in writing are lame – always an exception).
Gordon, you talked about your stories as being vague and opaque and I’m going to go ahead and translate this to mean that they’re probably lacking in story or plot. And I think I can safely say that my own stories tend to have that problem as well. Like we’re afraid to make any major plot decisions – to make anything happen – because that would take away from our characters who are exploring something closer to reality, in which nothing really momentous ever happens. But the reality of writing is that it isn’t reality and even if it could come close, important stuff happens all the time in the real world.
So I guess I’ve come to see plot as important. Good characters are key (of course), but stuff has to happen to them in order to gain (or lose) momentum. Characters provide the gas, but your narrative can’t go anywhere without a road (excuse the lame metaphor).
Posted 09 Sep 2006 at 4:14 pm ¶Gordon, what a wonderful, true post. You know how thoroughly I agree with you about “The Wire.” (Be sure to read Simon’s “Homicide.”) But I love how you related the show — and Pelecanos’ quote — to your own stuff.
Posted 11 Sep 2006 at 8:37 pm ¶I’ve reached a point in my own novel where the plot needs to become more active, rather than just resonant. It’s scary because I feel that with each major plot decision, the possibilities for the direction in which my novel may go become increasingly limited. But I agree with Pelecanos that most of us need some kind of narrative to ground us- it can’t all be just characters and feelings, because while those things are interesting, we all, deep down, want a good story.
Posted 13 Oct 2006 at 4:05 pm ¶Speak Your Mind