The Fog Also LIfts
"Gerry Pollack is a professional musician. Renata Thomas is an English professor at UCLA. They meet by chance. Their romance unfolds, often shrouded by the fog that settles along the beach almost every morning. As their love deepens, the fog also lifts."
That's a "teaser" about the novel I'm writing this month in Blogger's NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) Contest. You can view my efforts by visiting this link:
http://thefogalsolifts.blogspot.com/
I've never written a novel before, but I thought I'd give it a shot. If you wish, stop by from time to time to see how it develops.
2 Comments:
George,
I read through the first part of your novel. The prose and characters are pleasant and engaging, but the work seems to lack conflict, action, predicaments to get out of, etc.--elements that are essential to a plot. What causes readers to turn pages? It's not setting, or description generally--it's some sort of tension involving the protagonist the reader identifies with that brings the reader along and gets resolved at the end of the story. Even if the novel is character-based (Anne Tyler's novels, for example), the protagonist is compelled to resolve some sort of conflict, and changes as a result.
I've been studying screenplays and short mystery novels as a way to learn how to structure plots. Good screenplays (my favorites are Robert Towne's Chinatown and Ernest Lehman's North by Northwest) are very quick about involving the audience in the protagonist's current predicament, and his or her struggle to get out of it, or or his or her need to find out enough information and take sufficient action to be able to resolve a problem.
I only mention this because it seems like it could be useful to you. Please let me know if you're looking for this sort of feedback, and if so, if it helps. Appreciated the opportunity to read your work in progress.
Thanks for posting your comments about "The Fog Also Lifts". I appreciate you taking the time to read it and share your thoughts.
George
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