WU Breakout Novel Book Dissection

Dissecting In The Woods

February 17, 2019 By Natalie Hart 14 Comments

How many conventions can a crime novel break and still be satisfying for genre fans? How can an author make up for or even prepare the reader for the sting of flouting deeply-held expectations?

The Writer Unboxed Breakout Novel Dissection (BND) crew discussed this at length regarding Tana French’s debut novel, In The Woods. We are a Facebook book club for writers; four times a year we choose a breakout novel to take apart using questions derived from Donald Maass’s craft books. This novel’s ending inspired some passionate negative reactions, yet it has sold over 1 million copies and in 2008 won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, the Macavity Award for Best First Mystery Novel, and the Anthony Award for Best First Novel. While may have done one thing very wrong, she gave us:

a stellar example of an unreliable narrator;
well-drawn and distinctive characters (both major and minor) with vivid internal lives;
turning points that pull a lot of weight.

Standard disclaimer

We will explore the writerly lessons we learned from In The Woods here, but we cannot do so without revealing spoilers. While this is a crime/mystery novel that came out in 2008, we understand that not everyone has read it. If you do not want to know whodunit or anything about the ending, stop right now, read the novel, and come back to add your voice to the discussion. Because I’m going to get into that unsatisfying/genre convention flouting/enraging ending right away, which is a major spoiler. Seriously. If you don’t stop now, you only have yourself to blame.

French’s crime

The hook for this novel was good, and drew in many of us who are not regular crime readers: Rob Ryan, a 35-year-old Murder Squad detective is assigned the case of a 12-year-old girl murdered in the woods at the edge of a housing estate in a village on the outskirts of Dublin, but he doesn’t tell his captain or anyone else but his partner that he was the sole survivor of a mysterious crime in that same woods. When Rob was 12, he and his two best friends, a boy and a girl, spent the day in the woods as they often did, but that night, only Rob was found clinging to a tree, his shoes full of blood which may or may not have been his, with no memory of what happened; his friends were never found.

[Read more…]

Dissecting The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

November 18, 2018 By John J Kelley 18 Comments

an image of an open book with a fountain pen balanced on top — Photo by Max Pixel, CC0

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, though far from being a mystery novel, still managed to perplex the WU Breakthrough Novel Dissection Group more than nearly any of our prior reads. While the concept of the story, which explores England’s emergence from the harsh shadow of WWII, holds a natural appeal, we were confused at how a novel so highly regarded, both within our group and with readers around the globe, could break so many rules we’ve come to expect of our reads. Given its epistolary format, the unfolding tale is relegated to letters, notes and telegrams, lending a reflective air to the action. Moreover, the story unfolds so naturally that it often lacks tension and telegraphs key plots points well in advance. And the characters, even while recounting tragic events, remain decidedly upbeat, scarcely displaying angst or fear.

Yet members of our group, by and large, found much to praise in the writing. Christopher Blake enjoyed the ensemble cast of “odd, diverse characters who might not have bonded, except for the dire circumstances in which they found themselves.” Leslie Budewitz felt the novel succeeded at “showing the universal through the particular” in its depiction of resilience to wartime occupation through the small acts of residents of a tiny island. And as Alisha Rohde noted succinctly, “The story had a lot of warmth to it.”

So, with that in mind, the overriding question that drives all of our dissections – “How did the author achieve breakthrough appeal?” – moved along a different tack. Indeed, our discussions repeatedly returned to considering how the authors, the late Mary Ann Shaffer and her niece Annie Barrows, connected with readers despite the challenges of their chosen narrative format and the largely predictable plot elements. Through our exploration, we hit upon these fundamental strengths, which not only sustained the novel but elevated it to both critical acclaim and commercial success:

Shaffer and Barrows captured an appealing real-life setting, shedding light on a dark moment in its history.
They crafted a delightful ensemble of characters that readers could embrace and celebrate.
They anchored the story with heart, offering a reassuring tale of resilience in the face of tragedy.

Fair warning that *spoilers* lurk in the following recap of our exploration of these attributes. [Read more…]

12+

Dissecting A Gentleman in Moscow

May 20, 2018 By John J Kelley 11 Comments

If the ability to get people talking is the measure of success of a novel, then A Gentleman in Moscow was clearly a hit with the WU’s Breakout Novelist Book Dissection Group, generating more comments than any of our previous reads. Then again, given the authorial machinations hidden beneath the surface of a blithe and bubbling narrative, perhaps it isn’t all that surprising. Our crew of writerly explorers gobbled up the breadcrumbs author Amor Towles left behind, intent on understanding how the story of one man confined to a single location captivated worldwide audiences, as well as the eye of Kenneth Branagh, who plans to direct and star in a television adaptation of the tale.

“How did the author do it?” is the overriding question that drives all of our discussions. It’s not a matter of liking or not liking a book, though the task is certainly easier when one feels an affinity. In this case, the group generally found the narrative appealing, despite quibbles with early pacing and a desire for more complexity in a few secondary characters. But over the course of our exploration, the following writing strengths emerged as the pillars that sustained a novel offering a fresh perspective on the notion of blooming where you are planted:

Towles crafted a fully immersive setting, building an entire world within the confines of a solitary hotel, one shielded but not immune from the chaotic history swirling beyond its doors.
He perfected a breezy narrative voice that masked the complexity of the underlying tale.
He developed a durable story structure, allowing a saga that unfolds over three decades to provide continual surprise and discovery for the reader.

Fair warning that *spoilers* lurk in the following samplings from our discussions on these attributes. [Read more…]

Dissecting THE MARTIAN

August 26, 2017 By Elissa Field

A storm just whipped up on a planet far enough from home it’s taken you months just to arrive. In those moments on the red planet, your captain declares the winds unsafe and orders evacuation, but an errant communication tower spears you through. Out of reach for rescue, assumed to be dying, you are abandoned with no hope of rescue, and no plan for sustainability, alone on Mars. What word comes to mind?

The opening line of Andy Weir’s The Martian sums up, in four words of spicy vernacular, not only the life and death stakes for survival, but the fan-winning wit of Weir’s protagonist, Mark Watney. As a novel that began its life self-published on the author’s blog site, and went on to win a 6-figure publishing contract, a Hugo award for the author, and 7 Oscar nominations for the film, The Martian was a lively choice for the third Breakout Novelist Book Dissection for 2017.

As readers may know from prior posts by John Kelley (Dissecting The Goldfinch) and Natalie Hart (Dissecting A Man Called Ove), WU hosts a Breakout Novelist Book Dissection group which meets four times a year to closely examine what led certain novels to become breakout successes. Discussions take place over 7 days, guided by questions derived from Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel.

The Martian as a breakout example

Members of the Breakout Novel Dissection group nominate the books we dissect, based on a few criteria – primarily that the book be “a true breakout,” not one whose success depended on the author’s prior success, and which broke out beyond the normal expectations of its genre.

It’s hard to find a more compelling breakout story than The Martian. When Weir’s novel sold film and publication rights in 2013, he said he had given up any such expectation. In fact, the novel first ‘broke out’ on his own website. Having been unsuccessful in finding an agent, he began posting the novel as a series on his blog in 2011. Interest for a publication contract appeared after he sold 35,000 copies of a Kindle edition in just a few months. Beyond expectations, indeed.

And it’s also a compelling example for being science fiction that broke outside its borders of expected readership. In prior dissections, we’ve discussed genre transcendency as an aspect of breakout fiction. For example, we saw how Station Eleven wove literary fiction with science fiction for breakout effect.

But The Martian… is hard science. Real, dense facts. There’s actual math in there. Weir is the son of a particle physicist; he studied orbital mechanics and space flight. Actual scientists have given thumbs-up to the engineering, environment, trajectories, and equipment Weir imagined for his Mars mission.

How did hard science fiction break out to such mass market appeal? For those who haven’t followed or participated in a breakout dissection before, this is exactly the question we are asking: Why this book? What did the author do to create such a breakout success?

Heads up: If you haven’t read the novel, know that SPOILERS MAY BE PRESENT in shared excerpts from our dissection.

High Stakes: What is the value of a human life? [Read more…]

Dissecting The Goldfinch

May 27, 2017 By John J Kelley

While it might be more apt to describe Donna Tartt’s novel The Goldfinch as anchored by time, place and character, rather than constricted as the word “tether” implies, I couldn’t resist a reference to the enigmatic painting at the center of this epic tale that recently swept the literary world. Not only did The Goldfinch win the Pulitzer Prize in 2014, it won readers over as well, enough to entice the WU Breakout Novel Book Dissection group to take on the novel as our second read of 2017.

As some may recall from Natalie Hart’s initial post of this series (Dissecting A Man Called Ove) in January, the dissection group takes questions from Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel and applies them to works that rise above the crowd of today’s competitive book market, in hopes of gleaning insights on our own writing. And while Donna Tartt, unlike previous authors we have explored, arrived with an established reputation, the tremendous acclaim for this work after the author’s extended absence from publishing, warranted an exception. What we discovered was a book that, while not flawless, excelled at capturing a tumultuous period of recent history, weaving multi-dimensional characters into a tale filled with intrigue, tension and an ever-present nostalgia for what might have been.

“How did the author do it?” is the question repeatedly asked, in a number of ways, of all of our breakthrough reads. In this instance, the answers frequently centered around three key elements:

Tartt crafted an exquisite opening, drawing the reader close with a blend of palpable foreboding, striking imagery, and heart-wrenching tragedy.
She explored bold, universal themes while setting the action within a distinct time and place.
She developed her characters with tremendous heart, continually ratcheting up the tension in their paths to sustain reader interest on a long, arduous – and sometimes circuitous – journey.

Fair warning that *spoilers* may lurk ahead in the following samplings from our group discussions on these attributes of this acclaimed bestseller. [Read more…]