Why The Silence of the Lambs is great

I’ve spoken many times about analyzing what we see and read and using that to inform our own writing. In the novel and film, we are entertained by two brilliant versions of the story of Clarice Starling, Buffalo Bill, and Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter. That’s a pretty unusual accomplishment. I can think of great movie adaptations of mediocre books (The Godfather and Gone Girl) and mediocre adaptations of great books (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The DaVinci Code). And there are plenty of mediocre adaptations of mediocre books that just caught the right mood in Hollywood (Eat Pray Love and Life of Pi). But a great book that becomes a great film—that’s very unusual (Gone with the Wind). The Silence of the Lambs is one of those unusual exceptions. I can go back and forth reading the novel and watch the film and never worry that one will diminish the other. The only thing that diminishes the enjoyment is when I read or watch Hannibal, the disappointing sequel.

The Silence of the Lambs is different

But The Silence of the Lambs is almost perfect as a novel and actually perfect as a film. The film truly has no missed notes, while Harris has a few loquacious moments in the novel. Both are at their best when they keep to their economy, focus on two riveting characters, and maintain an ever-quickening pace.We’ve reached a point in movie adaptations where longer is almost always better. Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption is around 180 pages, but the adaptation is well over two hours and omits many things (though it’s still great). The Silence of the Lambs, the film, is less than two hours long, while the novel is almost 350 pages. And yet, nothing seems missing. The adaptation by Ted Tally is perfect. The direction by Jonathan Demme never misses a beat. The performances are great all around, but Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins are at their very best. I think there is a lot for writers to learn about craft from this piece because it does the hardest thing a novel can do: it is a genre piece that has significant literary value.

What makes something genre vs literary?

To me, the defining difference between genre and literary is plot-driven vs character-driven. I know I’ve said this before but it bears repeating that for something to be truly great it should be a plot-driven piece with great characterization or a character-driven piece with a solid plot. They hardly ever happen. The Great Gatsby, though not one of my favorites, is an excellent example of a literary novel with a great plot, as is 1984. Most anything written by James Joyce does not fall into this category. Not that his works are all bad, but his focus is never on plot, and in many ways, it seems incidental. On the flip side are great genre pieces that have real aesthetic value. I would put Stephen King in this category because he’s the rarest of all writers: a genre writer who sucks at writing plot. But there are a few that can do both, though their œuvre is usually hit or miss. Tana French’s In the Woods and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale are both squarely in this category.And so is The Silence of the Lambs. There are several things Harris does extremely well in this book that other writers should use.

How Harris transcends genre

The first is that he understands that Lecter, as the antagonist, is an overpowering character and so there must be a very powerful character in the protagonist. By making the character a woman, it allows us some real insight into Lecter‘s mind as he toys with Starling. Throughout the movie, we’re made to think that he is manipulating her to get a better room. But the truth is he’s using her to manipulate Chilton into manufacturing his escape. But he doesn’t allow Starling to get sucked into Lecter’s depravity (one of the reasons the sequel is awful) and he never lets the reader sympathize with Lecter by ever justifying his actions (one of the reasons the prequel, Hannibal Rising, is appalling).There is something very comfortable in the fact that Lecter is bad because he’s bad. “Nothing happened to me, Officer Starling,” Lecter says when she attempts to find out why he is the way he is. Lecter rejects a behavioral analysis: he’s just evil. Starling is just good. And they work together to find a serial killer. But Lecter already knows who the serial killer is. He only lets Starling discover his identity on his own terms, not so much to toy with her, as to orchestrate his escape. All of this dovetails so well with who the characters are that it’s breathtaking when one steps back and looks all the big picture.

How do writers use this

To me, this all goes back to planning. I may be wrong but I don’t see how Harris could’ve written a story that so perfectly meshes plot and character without a lot of planning. And seeing as how Harris has only published five books since 1975, I think that’s safe to say. From Black Sunday in 1975 to Hannibal Rising in 2006, he averages almost 8 years between novels and hasn’t published a new one in over 11 years. Stephen King said about Harris’s process that essentially tortures himself. You can see that in the results. And that what we should take from this brilliant novel: take your time crafting your work. Plan out the details, write the damn thing, and then obsessively edit it until it’s where you want it. I would love to see early drafts of The Silence of the Lambs because I bet it was four to five hundred pages at one point and Harris whittled it down to until every single word was absolutely necessary. There are moments where he’s describing Baltimore where this reader notes the tedium. But then there’s one scene. A scene that may be perfect in its terse description and pulse-raising narrative. When Starling comes upon the storage unit that belonged to a patient of Lecter’s who he says is linked to the serial killer. We don’t know what Starling is going to find in the unit, but Harris does an amazing job of making the reader feel claustrophobic and terrified. We don’t know if she’s going to be trapped or if Lecter has set her up, but when we see that he has indeed sent her in the right direction, we begin to trust Lecter as Starling does. Brilliant. So, as you go forward in your writing pay attention to the lessons of Thomas Harris:

• Pay attention to detail, but not to an excruciating point • Readers will only continue to read as long as they’re invested in the characters • Readers will never stop reading I those characters are in danger

Climax, resolution, and story goal

The easiest part for most writers is to come up with a premise.

A computer hacker learns about the true nature of his reality and his role in the war against its controllers. (The Matrix)

A serial killer helps an FBI agent hunt another serial killer. (Silence of the Lambs)

The patriarch of a crime syndicate transfers control of his empire to his reluctant son. (The Godfather)

You know what these are without seeing the title. And if you’re ambiguous with a few words, a premise describes multiple stories.

An orphaned boy is raised in the care of a powerless uncle but watched over by an aged but powerful wizard/warrior. When the boy reaches a certain age, the old wizard tells the boy about his true heritage and helps him develop his powers until he is able to avenge his father’s death. (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Eragon, King Arthur, etc.)

That’s the power of the premise—even a simple one can be used multiple times with small variations.

But some writers really struggle when it comes to the back end of premise, resolution. They come up with amazing premises that keep you riveted to the page or screen and then the end is a huge letdown. It should come as no surprise that these writers generally consider themselves “organic” in the sense that they do not plan.

Stephen King believes that the story exists within you and you’re an archaeologist brushing the dirt away to find the fossil underneath. As such, many of his stories have the exact same resolution.

A killer clown comes out of hiding every few years to kill kids. (It) Resolution: the monster was an alien.

An invisible dome cuts a town off from the rest of the world. (Under the Dome) Resolution: aliens did it.

M. Night Shyamalan has this issue as well. After the brilliant Sixth Sense, he decided all of his movies needed a twist ending (Dr. Crowe is dead, Mr. Glass is the bad guy, The Village isn’t real). I don’t have a problem with that, but if you’re not O. Henry, then this can cause problems.

So, when setting out to write a story that has a good resolution you need to start at the beginning. Yes, you may stumble upon the right ending by writing organically, King nails it in Pet Semetary, but mostly you’ll get bad endings or obviously tacked-on endings where you just run out of steam.

(For a better synopsis of this than I can write, go here)

Once you have your premise, you need a goal, something the protagonist has to achieve. Then you set the antagonist up in opposition. Some writers put the cart before the horse and come up with a hero and a villain before they know what the hero wants. That’s fine, but realize that you may realize as you’re planning that the antagonist is not a true antagonist but may be a contagonist. If you have a story goal, you can more clearly set your protagonist and antagonist against one another.

Once you have these basics, you need a solid climax. To me, this is the hardest part. I almost always know how a story is going to end, which you may think is the only thing you need, but for me it never is. A resolution without a convincing climax is not possible. The resolution flows from the climax, so even if it makes sense with the original premise, if you cheated to get there, your readers won’t ever trust you again.

The reason most climaxes struggle is that they come from outside the MC, and that’s no way to sell a story. You’ve shown your MC as either a tragic or a heroic figure and then you’re going to let the sidekick save the day (Star Wars)? No. The climax is about your MC either changing or not changing a fundamental trait that your story is based on. Andy Dufresne in Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption wins because he never gives up hope. Michael Corleone in The Godfather loses because he is unable to stay true to his convictions at the beginning of the novel and turns into his father.

Once you have that decision in place, the resolution follows. If it’s a comedy, it ends happily, and if it’s a tragedy it ends badly. Right before the climax of a comedy, everything should look impossible for the MC. Right before the climax of a tragedy, it should appear that the MC is going to pull it off.

In a poor resolution, these things either aren’t connected, or the final resolution is affected from without instead of within. In Under the Dome, we see Barbie trying to maintain control of the town despite Big Jim’s machinations and the town survives because the aliens release the dome. How is that in any way satisfying?

And it took King three tries to finish this novel? I hate to think what the first two ended like because the last one is awful.

And it’s that way because the ending was never planned from the beginning and King was looking for a resolution that was at least plausible. But why not have the government in charge of the dome? Why not have Barbie, who is trusted by the government, realize that he is being manipulated and finds a way overthrow our domestic overlords? That would’ve been a fantastic finish. Just as everything is about to fall apart, Barbie makes a last ditch effort to find the source of the dome. He finds it and it reminds him of some government research plan from his past military career. He puts two and two together and blows the whole thing up.

I can’t have a post without a Breaking Bad reference. In the final episode, Jesse is at absolute rock bottom. He’s being held prisoner and forced to cook meth for a bunch of new-Nazis. He tries to escape and to punish him they kill his ex-girlfriend, who happens to be a single mom. He knows that this is life. He will cook until there’s no more methylamine and then they’ll kill him.

Throughout the series, Jesse Pinkman has the most dynamic arc. In the beginning, you hate him and want him to die. Slowly, you understand him, then you pity him, and then you root for him. More than anything you want him to get free of all of this.

And when he breaks through that fence at the end, I cheer every time, choking back tears. That, my friends, is resolution.

How to use sparks of inspiration

“It doesn’t matter if something is hard or easy. It should matter if it’s possible and important. If it’s both of those things, then it must be done.”

I came up with this phrase while discussing a problem with someone from my corporate office. As soon as the phrase came to mind I had to write it down. I didn’t necessarily know what to do with it or what it meant but I knew that it was important because it sounded exactly like a character I was currently writing. Once I realized that it was this character talking and I could use it in this specific novel I didn’t wait for a moment where it would work or look for a moment where it would work, I created the moment where it would work.

Every once in a while you’ll know you have something that’s important but you won’t have the exact place for it. Rather than scrapping it or writing a note down and looking for the best moment or forcing it into the scene, you’re currently writing, maybe just create that place. I had been struggling with this novel since I started. I knew where I wanted to start I knew where I wanted to end but I had no idea how to get there. The entire middle was a mess.

Once I wrote the scene that included this quote I knew everything that had to happen before that scene and I knew everything that had to happen after that scene. It was the most important scene I had written for that novel. And I literally wrote it thought about it when I was at work doing something pretty trivial.

It’s also an important message for learning how to break a story. I fear as writers we give up on something because it’s too hard. But that shouldn’t matter.

Every once in a while you’ll come up with a perfectly worded phrase. Sometimes it’s a string of dialogue that is particularly pithy. Sometimes it’s the way to describe an epic sword move. But usually what we do as writers is make a note of it in one of our many epic notebooks, or just on a napkin, and forget about it. A month or a year later, we see that scrap of paper and wonder what we’re supposed to do with it.

But what if we didn’t do that?

I was at work discussing bad weather with a customer when a thought popped into my head. It got me to thinking about how things are handled in govt or corp bureaucracies as opposed to how things are handled by the “boots on the ground.” It occurred to me that if something was too difficult, a bureaucrat either doesn’t do it or pawns it off as someone else’s problem. But people in operations don’t have that option. If something has to be done, then it gets done. If it’s considered difficult or even impossible. If it has to be done, then it gets done. And that’s when the phrase above came to my mind. I immediately wrote it down because it sounded exactly like something a character in my WIP would say.

Now, truth be told, this WIP is still very much “In Progress.” But I knew the broad strokes and wanted to capture the moment with that phrase. So, rather than writing the phrase down and remembering it for later, I created a scene around the phrase. What would be happening to my MC (who is not the person speaking this line)? Who would this character be talking to? What would be the context of him using this statement?

I had no idea if I could make it work, but I knew that if I answered those questions, I could find a way to create the whole scene and the scenes leading to it and away from it. And that’s what I started to do.

At this moment, this character is separated from the MC and a significant point in the story. The character speaking this line, Mike, is talking to the sidekick of the antagonist, an obsequious toad naked Joey. Joey works for the govt, Mike works for Home Depot, and they’re arguing over gasoline prices during a hurricane. Joey is sequestering all the gasoline for govt use to prevent price gouging and Mike is trying to help the MC, Christine, find her daughter, who is missing after the storm goes through.

Now the whole premise of the story is about the chaos dealing with the aftermath of a disaster, but all I had was big picture problems between different govt leaders and businessman, all of whom were pretty awful. But I never had the subplot of why it personally mattered so much to Christine, who is the protagonist.

With this one scene, precipitated on one line, I figured out the whole climax of the novel. For me, climaxes are always harder than resolutions. I think where most authors fail is they pick the wrong climax (I’ll discuss that more in another blog about Stephen King and Kevin Smith). So, once I had the climax, I was no longer the tail wagging the dog, so to speak. If you know whether your novel is a tragedy or a comedy, which means it ends unhappily or happily, then the really hard part is the climax.

In a tragedy, the MC looks like they’re gonna big to win at the climax. In a comedy, it looks like they’re going to lose. So, if you know how the story is going to start and end, you just have to figure out the climax and then connect the dots.

So what does this mean for writers in general? For me, it means never taking anything for granted. You never know where an idea is going to lead you unless you follow that thread. Give it a good yank and see where it takes you. Allow your characters to surprise you. Let the bad guys win every once in a while. Let minor characters provide the death blow.

And always torture your MC as much as possible.

But, above all, remember that nothing is off the table. You’re creating a story here and it only belongs to you. When you get a crazy idea, follow it. In fact, it may be better to stop whatever you’re doing with your WIP at the moment and follow that crazy idea wherever it may lead. If it doesn’t work, that’s fine, too. Learning what your characters won’t do and where your story won’t lead is as important as what they do and where it leads.

That’s not to say I’m a proponent of Edison’s maxim of finding thousands of ways to fail, but I am a proponent of failure. You should learn from your mistakes. You should investigate why things don’t work when it feels like they should. And then you should apply those lessons in future projects, especially in the planning stages.

What techniques have you tried that hasn’t worked? And those that have?

How Thanksgiving informs the writing process

Thanksgiving and writing—how can these two things have anything to do with each other? Mostly, it’s about planning, making time, and being flexible. If you really want to write every day then you should find a way to write every day, even holidays and workdays, birthdays and off-days. It’s not even about hitting 1,000 words every day but find some time to do something. And plan it ahead of time.

For instance, I planned this blog post these days ago. I remembered that I’d written a blog on the Fourth of July and it was about how that holiday had something to say about writing. I was wondering on Monday if I could do the same thing for Thanksgiving. So, I opened the “blog” folder on my iPhone and opened a note for this date. I then wrote a title and a little blurb describing what the post would be about. Then, I did the same thing for Tuesday and Wednesday.

Tuesday may have actually been a harder day to write because I had so much to do and only one day off. I got done with everything and was sitting in bed watching Jeopardy! when I remembered the blog. A big part of me wanted to just forget about it and relax, but I pulled my phone out and wrote the blog. Was it a masterpiece? No. But I’d planned it and I wanted to stick to my plan. So I wrote until I got 1,000 words and called it a night.

Yesterday, the blog on collaboration was really tough, and I didn’t think it was making a whole lot of sense. But I pushed through the doubt and the “inner editor” telling me that it was pointless, and I eventually found the point I was trying to make.

And now, here it is, Thanksgiving morning and I’m writing the blog I planned three days ago. I’m at work so I won’t get it all done at one time but I’ll pick moments here and there and by the time I’m done, I should have 1,000 words.

And that’s the important thing—moving forward all the time. If it takes you six months to write your first draft, who cares? Because Stephen King said that a first draft needs to be complete in three months, there’s something wrong with you if it takes you longer? The hell with that. Remember the only rule should have: if it works for you use it.

And what would King say about Under the Dome? He started that one in 1972 and abandoned it. Then he tried again in 1982 and failed again. He finally published it in 2009. If Stephen King can take 37 years to write a book, you can take six months, or a year, or as long as you want. Just keep writing.

And yes this blog is too short, but that’s okay to. Even if you write 25 words, you’re still writing and that’s good enough.

How I write dialogue

Striving for perfection

One of the few things I really try to perfect (not merely do well, but get exactly right) in my writing is dialogue. I'll go over it again and again, trying to get it everything to sound right. The editing process is so hard, it seems like it's never going to be right. But what about the first part? What's the best way to write a scene that is mostly dialogue? I've recently come up with a technique that is work pretty well for me and I thought I'd share it with my follower.

When I come to a scene that is going to have a lot of dialogue, it's usually because it's a pretty important scene. Dialogue is used for some many different purposes. It reveals character traits, pushes the story in different directions, defines relationships, and many other things. Usually, I have a clear idea in my head of where I want to go and have to get it on the page as quickly as possible. This can be difficult when adding dialogue attribution, action clues, and emotional responses. So I don't.

A new way to write dialogue

I write the scene out like I'm writing a play. There's a great template you can create on MS Word that allows you to automatically jump between fields without having to change it manually. When you are typing a CHARACTER and press enter, it goes to DIALOGUE. When you press enter at the end of DIALOGUE it switches back to character. This helps me write out the scene as fast as I can type (which still isn't fast enough).

If you're anything like me, when you get to a dialogue-heavy scene, it really feels like the characters are talking to you. If you've done a good job of developing three-dimensional characters with unique voices, they'll do most of the work for you.

Again, I do this by rewriting over and over again. For instance, I've been writing a scene that explains the backstory of the main antagonist of one of my current WIPs. I kept jumping to a scene where he's talking to a high school track coach, and every time it sounded phony. After the third attempt, I realized that I didn't know the coach at all. I didn't know his voice, but this was a critical scene that explained why the antagonist was the way he was, so rewrote it three times before even getting a rough draft that I liked. And I abandoned the dialogue altogether. It just wasn't working.

But when you know the scene is coming and has to be carried by dialogue, that's not an option. You have to find that sweet spot, and that's not always easy. I find that the best thing I can do when writing these scenes that I know are critical, is to know when it's not working. And when it's not, I stop and start over. And then I do it again. I feel like Thomas Edison, in a way, when asked about the invention of the light bulb. "I have not failed," Edison said. "I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

Is it the best, most efficient way for me to work? Probably not. I'd probably be better off if I sat and talked it over with five or ten other writers until we "broke" the story. But I don't had five or ten other writers. So I have to be five or ten different writers. And when I write, I try to come at it from completely different directions. And I usually find it in the third or fourth try.

Then, when I find that sweet spot, it really is impossible to keep up with my mind. I can hear the characters talking back and forth and it's more like I'm only an audience to the conversation, not as though I'm creating it. It's a wonderful place to be, even if nearly impossible to find. Writing isn't something writers do because it's fun. Writers write because they have to.

The worst part of writing is the fleeting inspiration. You know what you want to say, you had it worded perfectly just a moment ago, and then it disappears. I'm it sure if there's a way avoid it 100%, but I know it's damn hard for a moment to disappear if I'm writing about it right then. The fleeting moments come when you wake up from a dream and can't grasp what it was you just saw. And then come for me when I'm driving home and I have to decide whether to run every stop sign before I forget or pull off into someone's drive way and write down my idea on a napkin from Taco Bell.

But I hope that as I do this more and more often, those moments of inspiration will become more frequent or easier to hold on to. I doubt it's true though. I fear that those moments will always be the most difficult. Stephen King said that it is the moment staring at the blank page right before beginning that is the scariest. I'm not sure if I agree. I don't really struggle with starting a new story. That's usually pretty easy. But that moment when I'm stuck between two points in a story and I know what has to happen but I can't get there. I hate that moment.

But again, I hope that that moment gets less scary and less frequent the more I write. But I don't think that will ever be true either.