Literary Hub » Benjamin Hale on How to Expand a Magazine Article Into a Book

Navigating Structure, in Fiction and Nonfiction

This first appeared in Lit Hub’s Craft of Writing publication—join right here.

The quick reply to “How did you expand an article into a book?” is just that I had such an considerable wealth of fabric, in a approach the e book was simpler to write down than it had been to pare issues down for the unique article, even with the very beneficiant 15,000-word rely ceiling that Harper’s gave me for the article that grew to become my e book, Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning within the Ozarks: it was just like the distinction between a fish swimming within the sea versus swimming in an aquarium.

When I write fiction, I’m often very deliberate about construction when first beginning to work on a challenge, as a result of if I’m not, I have a tendency to not end it. Supposedly Haruki Murakami simply wings it with no define by any means; he says he doesn’t know what’s going to occur subsequent any greater than the reader does. I love such adventurous belief in a single’s instinct, however I couldn’t probably work like that. When I’m embarking on a piece of fiction, I take advantage of a way for outlining I discovered from William Melvin Kelley and modified to go well with my very own habits of working and pondering, which I name the nine-box grid methodology. Draw a grid of 9 squares:

Each of those packing containers is a leg of the story; they’re not “chapters” but as a result of this methodology is for a lot earlier within the technique of writing, once you’re simply making an attempt to get the entire story down on the web page for the primary time—I simply name them “chunks” of narrative. Narratives work effectively in threes. The construction of a joke is (1) setup, (2) fulfill the listener’s expectations as soon as, (3) the punchline—i.e., subvert the listener’s expectations. Similarly, the construction of a magic trick is: (1) the pledge, (2) the flip, (3) the status.

Especially in mild of this solipsistic, lame, and tiresome “autofiction” fad that’s been going about fifteen years sturdy and nonetheless refuses to die, I wish to encourage writers to enterprise far-off from the locations—each geographical and psychological—the place they really feel most comfy.

This nine-box grid methodology builds a three-act construction into the story, and every of the three acts ought to comprise its personal smaller narrative arc. A significant a part of the artwork of storytelling is introducing issues, letting the reader sort of neglect about them for some time, after which bringing them again on the proper time. Put extra elegantly, Jorge Luis Borges writes within the essay Narrative Art and Magic {that a} novel (or, I might add, a longish quick story) “should be a rigorous scheme of attentions, echoes, and affinities.” I feel two cycles of narrative is the right period of time to permit the reader to sort of neglect one thing, and two appearances of a factor is the suitable quantity for the third look to really feel magical. So, the motifs—they may very well be pictures, objects, traces of dialogue, and so forth.—that first seem in field 1 ought to return in field 4, and once more in field 7. Likewise for the opposite two columns: 2-5-8 and 3-6-9. Now jot down the important thing issues that must occur or characters or items of knowledge that should be launched or reintroduced in every of the 9 squares.

Now you could have an overview. Before starting to write down, I often spend not less than just a few days simply honing this define as near perfection—or my satisfaction—as I can get it. When I sit down to start out writing the sentences, I’ve a roadmap for the story I can observe. I swear by this methodology, and I extremely advocate it. It’s in all probability the only most useful gizmo I’ve on my workbench. I’ve used it on the earliest stage of composing just about each work of fiction that I’ve ever completed.

I by no means use this methodology for structuring nonfiction as a result of I don’t want it, any greater than I would like an overview for writing a letter to a pal. As Gertrude Stein stated to Ernest Hemingway, the one option to say it’s to say it. When writing nonfiction, I simply say what I must say within the order wherein issues happen to me.

When I wrote the Harper’s article I adopted the identical order of presentation I might use within the a few years earlier than once I would verbally inform folks the story, besides I had accomplished much more analysis with which I might vastly flesh out the small print, and in addition appropriate among the factual errors the story had accrued over time—a few of which I inherited from different tellers of the story and a few of which I in all probability added myself. A piece of fiction wants that “rigorous scheme of attentions, echoes, and affinities” as a result of fiction must be believed, whereas I didn’t want such a scheme to write down this e book as a result of it’s all true, and reality doesn’t should be plausible.

One factor of researching and writing nonfiction that’s totally different and way more enjoyable than the method of researching and writing fiction is just getting out into the world and speaking to folks. I made many analysis journeys to Arkansas, and following leads additionally took me to Louisiana, Tennessee, and Georgia—monitoring folks down, making an attempt to win their belief, and interviewing them. At one level I used to be on the Newton County Sheriff’s Office in Jasper, Arkansas searching for information of what occurred in 1978, discovering that they didn’t seem to have any, and the officer who was serving to me stated, “You know, Ray Watkins used to be the Sheriff back in the ’80s, and he was a deputy for a good while before that. He might know something about what you’re looking for. These days he works at the hardware store. If you go down there now you might catch him.” So I drove the 5 minutes’ journey over to Bob’s Do It Best Hardware & Lumber simply outdoors of Jasper, and located an almost ninety-year-old man sitting behind the money register. I requested him if he was Ray Watkins—he was—and I requested him if he knew something in regards to the cult that murdered a toddler on Cave Mountain in 1978. “Yep,” Ray stated, “I was the one who arrested ’em.” What adopted was probably the most astounding—and indispensably helpful—interviews I’ve ever recorded, which was periodically interrupted at any time when a buyer wanted to purchase one thing.

I suppose I’ll finish on that be aware. Especially in mild of this solipsistic, lame, and tiresome “autofiction” fad that’s been going about fifteen years sturdy and nonetheless refuses to die, I wish to encourage writers to enterprise far-off from the locations—each geographical and psychological—the place they really feel most comfy. To writers who’re taking a look at a clean web page casting about for one thing to write down about—whether or not they’re writing fiction or nonfiction (or, within the case of “autofiction,” neither and each, I assume)—it’s actually not laborious to get out of your private home, get out of your individual head, get out of your individual life, and get out into the world. The world abounds with extremely unusual and engaging tales, a few of which you may hear from an previous man working in a ironmongery shop in Jasper, Arkansas.

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Cave Mountain: A Disappearance and a Reckoning in the Ozarks by Benjamin Hale is accessible by way of Harper.