What I learned about writing from my vacation

Okay, so I didn’t bring work on vacation. That is, I didn’t bring my computer, but I brought a summer read that I could tell everyone I was reading for pleasure, while I worked at dissecting it…well sort of dissecting it. I was, after all, on vacation. The book was The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein.

So, the book is told from the first person point of view of a dog named Enzo who recounts his life with his owner, a Formula One racecar driver named Denny. The obvious would have been to look at voice and how Stein made of a dog a convincing character, but I’m not writing a novel that has anything to do with an animal having a voice. The book did, however, make me aware of what makes a character feel real. I think Stein carefully balanced the “human” nature of the dog with the “dog” nature of the dog. It was also interesting to see how he worked the story of Denny in there with the dog’s perspective limitations without it feeling forced. Talk about major limitations in first person. It could have been the result of too many s’mores by the campfire (we were tent camping on my vacation), but I began thinking, “Is this how our golden retriever sees us?”

Really what I focused on most as I read was how the story progressed and moved as I thought about the story that I am trying to tell in my novel. I’ve worried a bit that more needs to drive the narrative in the book I’m working on, and Stein’s book felt like the example I needed to see what worked to propel his novel. I noticed how he peppered the big guns and small guns throughout the book, so that I was looking for the explosions throughout the book. By guns, I’m referring to that saying, “If you bring a gun in during the first act, it will have to go off by the end of the play.” Stein had several guns that he placed in waves throughout the book, some smoking and some that would work in Denny’s favor. He had Denny’s mysterious parents. He had Denny’s wife’s mysterious illness and then the mysterious presence of a promiscuous young girl. All and more loom throughout the novel as things that could and do explode. So, what this makes me see as I work on my own novel is now I’m aware of where this may or may not be happening in my book, and how, perhaps, I can resolve to create a little of this with my characters and my narrative. It’s just something I’ll think about now.

I also appreciated Stein’s racing expertise and how something like that not only can frame a novel but can enhance the story with theme and metaphor.

As far as the vacation went, it was tent camping to the full extent with rain and leaky tents. Thank goodness it was only a couple of days, time enough to start and finish a book and to enjoy swimming, fishing and s’mores with my dear partner J, our kids and Maggie, our dog.

This isn’t Enzo. This is Maggie, who is happily splashing in the Muskegon River near where we camped.