In the summer of 2019, when I started working with my editor, Rachelle Ramirez, one of our goals was to find a masterwork for my book. A masterwork is a well-established novel, film, or any other story that a writer can use as a template to help ground his or her work. A writer might borrow small thematic elements from this story or its entire plot structure. For example, one of my favorite novels The Legend of Bagger Vance, is a retelling of the sacred Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita, but set on a golf course in Savannah, Georgia, during the great depression.
At its core, storytelling is about solving hundreds if not thousands of little problems. When do I introduce this character? How do I make my scenes informative while still being compelling? Have I made this plot point clear enough? Have I made it too obvious? These problems are seemingly endless, so having a template that has had proven success can make writing a novel a lot less frustrating. At least that’s how I feel.
Occasionally, I hear writers say, “I want my story to be completely original!” To me, that sentiment is just Resistance. Resistance, with a capital R, is a concept coined by author Steven Pressfield to describe all the negative forces, self-sabotage, procrastination, fear, arrogance, and self-doubt, that prevent us from doing our best work. I feel like the Resistance to using a masterwork is rooted in the fear that our story will end up being a cheap knock-off of someone else’s work. I think Shawn Coyne addresses this concern well in his 2014 book The Story Grid.
“Innovation is found in the way a writer handles audience expectations… the obligatory scenes and conventions of your chosen Genres.”
In other words, ignoring or defying audience expectations doesn’t make a story innovative. It’s the writer’s take on those expectations that makes it stand out. This was the mindset I adopted when I started working with my editor. I wanted to find a story that would ground my novel and make it more relatable. Maybe it’s because I’ve spent so much of my life feeling disconnected from the people around me, but I don’t care about being original I care about being understood.
In fact, I was starting to get worried when after working with Rachelle for 12 weeks, we still hadn’t identified a masterwork. We had considered stories in almost every genre we could think of, but nothing seemed to fit. Then, on a whim, she suggested a movie that was totally unlike anything we had looked at before. That’s when a light bulb went off, and over the next week, I wrote a 10-page “thesis paper” on how I could use this masterwork as a template for my story.
So, what movie did she suggest? Well, it’s a superhero story, and just like the conventions of that genre, I’m going to leave you with a cliffhanger. So, “tune in” to my next installment of Beyond the Book, to find out which film I used as my masterwork.
As I’ve started to tell people about my book, I’ve had to wrestle with how to describe it or classify it. While it is a personal story, I have fictionalized it in parts, so it’s not exactly a memoir. I describe it as an autobiographical novel, but how is that different from a memoir?
Something interesting happened a few months ago when I sat down to work on my book. After years of struggling, I felt like a "writer." I’ve realized that, when comes to identity, there is often a disconnect between the way others see us and the way we see ourselves.
As I’ve worked on my book, I’ve come to understand that spelling and grammar aren’t the same as writing. At the same time, I’ve gained a deep appreciation for the critical role they play in bringing a story to life.
