SABRIYA Writing Journal 8 - The Real Drama is Mostly Invisible ... UNLESS ...

I have finished plotting out Sabriya as an action thriller novel, if such a thing exists. (see pix below of Keynote plot outline.) The story is set in fictional countries and towns of Southeast Asia. I was scared off from making it in a historical setting since I know so little about Southeast Asia's history. But I wanted to write better. I'm still pleased with my writing in my previous three fictional outings (Wizard Clip Haunting, Wizard Clip Haunting JR-YA, and Tiger's Hope). However, I wanted to venture into a more classic genre with Sabriya, even though the genre is an action thriller, not unlike the movie TAKEN and its sequels, which was the inspiration for the original Sabriya movie treatment from which this novel originates. 

Plot Beat Board for Sabriya Novel. Writing has begun.
Planned: 37 chapters, 72K words

The VALUES and the mental DECISIONS we hold in our hearts are the instigators of our ACTIONS and the resulting Natural Law CONSEQUENCES.  Some of you may be familiar with the workshop slide that follows. It's a milestone to understanding how character values and actions transform. 

As I usually do before starting a major project, I research the subjects where my knowledge is lax. In the case of Sabriya, I want to become a better novelist, so I've been reading and studying the writing techniques of well-known authors in genres I admire. The last three I've read are pictured below.

At right, is Thomas Hardy's "Far From the Madding Crowd."

The ... UNLESS ... surrounded by ellipses in the title of this post refers to WORDS on a printed page. Words are visible, but in a classic novel such as those above, the words refer to what's invisible—the inner monologue of the moral dilemma facing a character.

All successful stories, if I can make an invisible assertion, is that stories (even movies) are really about what is happening inside a character's heart and mind. An oft-repeated adage in our industry is SHOW, DON'T TELL. But what is shown in a movie, e.g., the action on the screen is only a metaphor for what the story is REALLY about—the internal transformation of the characters.

What I've come to realize anew is that novels, as opposed to movies, have a superpower—they spend most of their time dealing with what the story is really about by staying (mostly) inside the character's head, dealing with and negotiating values and decisions—the inner monologue predominates in classic novels.  I write "classic" novels, because popular novels read more like movies and spend most of the words describing action. My novel, Wizard Clip Haunting, does that because it was modeled after the style of Len Follett's The Pillars of the Earth, which I pored over at least twice before writing Wizard. 

I am not capable of mimicking Thomas Hardy in Madding Crowd. But I can't help but idolize passages like the following:

FRTMC (2015) Carey Mulligan (Bathsheba Everdene)
and Michael Sheen (William Boldwood)
Multiple movie efforts. We've seen the 1967 and 2015 
versions (our favorite).

Boldwood was thus either hot or cold. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him: a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid it was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed. The shallows in the characters of ordinary men were sterile strands in his, but his depths were so profound as to be practically bottomless. (Some of these delicious words were omitted in the 1912 edition as noted in the footnotes of the Penguin Classic edition shown above.) [Chapter XVII, p.105]

The above paragraph is a (physical) plot-worthy necessity as it foreshadows Boldwood's actions that bring the novel to a bold and surprising climax (not herein spoiled). The paragraph also foreshadows Bathsheba's internal reaction that unfolds in a subsequent paragraph. Together, the two make the climactic ending sensible and complete.

Bathsheba was far from dreaming that the dark and silent shape upon which she had so carelessly thrown a seed was a hotbed of tropic intensity. Had she known Boldwood's moods her blame would have been fearful, and the stain upon her heart ineradicable. Moreover had she known her present power for good and evil over this man she would have trembled at her responsibility. Luckily for her present, unluckily for her future tranquility, her understanding had not yet told her what Boldwood was. Nobody knew entirely: for though it was possible to form guesses concerning his emotional capabilities from old flood-marks faintly visible, he had never been seen at the high tides which caused them. (Chapter XVII, p.106]

Yes, novels can do much more than movies when it comes to revealing the truth of a story, and not overemphasizing the metaphors.

Sabriya, an action thriller, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your tolerance for internal dialogue), will be more pulp fiction novel than classic.