The Water Keeper by Charles Martin

With respect for Charles Martin, I hated this novel. 

Honest Confession: Undergirding my distaste for this novel is some jealousy of Martin's success. So take that into consideration for what follows.

There are lessons to learn ... not sure I can learn them.  

The basic problem I'm struggling with is finding a new audience for my creative output, which has recently shifted to novels, that do not sit well with my former audience.  

I won’t bore you with the history … but there’s a theme of the human condition that often raised its head in my work in the corporate world, which reading The Water Keeper has sharpened, and which relates to “finding a new audience.” 

And honestly, I’m sitting here smiling and laughing at my fragilities. I'm not despondent, since I typically like crazy challenges that seemingly have no ready answer ... like hand shoveling 5 tons of limestone garden rock, which I dreaded for weeks at my age (79), but nonetheless did and felt good doing it—the endorphins raged ... happily.

Having written a sex-trafficking-rescue novel (Sabriya’s Hope), my sister (who has edited a lot of my stuff over the years, but not Sabriya) suggested Martin’s Water Keeper.  Water Creeper was so distasteful to me for technical writing reasons that I put the book down four times, promising myself, my wife, and sister that I would not finish the book.

But this morning I did.

I'm not the only one who hated Water Keeper. I've read a few comments on book review sites that sound just like me ... I'll never read the second book ... ridiculous plot ... fatally wounded hero who lives ... impossible situations.

But Martin is hugely successful, if you believe the LIKES on Amazon and Goodreads. Although I have voiced out loud my dark-web suspicions of purchased LIKES and endorsements.

But back to some truth that might be helpful to any writer with bruises up the side of his or her head. Articulating the issue as aphorisms, I come up with:

What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.

or

Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.

(which is ironic because rubrics are traditionally curbs that provide trustworthy direction toward truth.)

What do I mean by such maxims?

Martin's fictional rhetoric ignores with astonishing immunity the rubrics of reason and forces readers to forgive and accept outlandish premises, dramatic beats, and reversals because the undergirding theme of the novel is a love that teeters on absurdity … forcing the reader (dare I suspect women with bruised hearts) to forgive Martin's rhetorical foibles.

But Stan, aside from your evident misogyny, what possibly could Martin be doing wrong?  

Well, let me tell you, but first remember, Martin has successfully built a huge audience, and we have to learn from that.  But the list below, while only partial and without the detail from the text, each of the following took me out of the story as flamboyantly unrealistic since the premise is modern-day Florida around the Intercostal Waterway (ICW),  and we're not talking about a fantasy novel like Harry Potter. Here's a list with a little detail:

SPOILERS FOLLOW:

• Outlandish descriptions of the capability of a Sig Sauer pistol with a 115-round capacity, during which Finger's (a good guy) is fatally wounded by return fire. Sig magazines vary from 10-30 rounds, and no mention is made of magazines, just the pistol. 
• Martin consistently lies to the reader that Fingers is a real person, when at the end we discover Fingers is a fictitious character in novels that Murphy (David Bishop's alias) writes. 
• The novels make Bishop extremely rich, which makes possible all the other outrageous things later in the novel. 
• David Bishop is Charles Martin's alter ego, secretly rescuing beautiful female trafficked victims and air-freighting them off to a secret Colorado retreat so they can heal. Such ego stroking is blatant throughout the novel under the pretense of rescuing trafficking victims. (There's nothing untoward implied, and some girls are returned to their families, if they're not too psychologically messed up.)
• Repeated and outlandish examples of plot happenstance to introduce reversals. Major examples follow (a-r). As these piled up, each one made me groan and put down the book.
• (a) Murphy sets off for a week-long cruise down the ICW in a 24-foot Boston Whaler to Key West to sprinkle Finger's ashes at the "end of the road." It's hard to believe a reasonable character would take 2-3 weeks to do this for the ashes of a loved one when a car would get it done in a day or two. But then, Martin needs the boat and water for romantic and dramatic purposes.
• (b) Martin lies repeatedly to the reader that Fingers is a real person loved deeply by Murphy. Fingers is a narrative and emotional ploy— a liberal literary license of symbolism that, when discovered by the reader, is a major groaner and reveals the depth of Martin's lies earlier in the book. 
• (c) Turns out Finger's ashes are just the ashes of some of Murphy's novels in which Finger is a character.  This discovery makes (a) and (b) all the more absurd.
• (d) Before the trip down the ICW, young and sexy Angel visits Murphy's resident/chapel on a small island near Jacksonville to use the bathroom, but there are multiple heads onboard the 80-foot party boat she disembarked from. 
• (e) Angel spends 12 pages in an inane dialogue with Murphy in his home/chapel. She tries to seduce him. She's drugged. She returns to the boat with the tip of the Captain's hat. The real purpose of the visit to use the bathroom is never revealed, and it was never about the bathroom, which the boat has plenty of, for the dozens of other boozing partygoers.
• (f) A day after leaving on his trip from Jacksonville to Key West, Murphy rescues a dog from the ICW (also swimming south). What are the chances that a dog is in the middle of the ICW sniffing the air to find his master?
• (g) Many more miles south in the ICW, also at night, Murphy rescues Summer, a beautiful and sexy woman, after she crashes and destroys a skiff she has stolen from a marina. 
• (h) Turns out Summer is Angel's mother. What are the chances? There's no foreshadowing, just an inadvertent sharing of an iPhone photo of Angel to Summer. 
• (i) Summer persuades Murphy to help her find Angel, who has been trafficked by the party boat gang.
• (j) Murphy races his Boston Whaler down the ICW toward Key West, but there's no indication that Angel is on a party boat going to Key West. Much, much later, Martin shares Murphy's logic for racing to Key West. But earlier, the race is one without reason or motivation, see (m).
• (k) A day later, and miles and miles down the ICW, they stop for lunch somewhere, and the dog takes off toward a ball field nearby. And there is the dog's "owner," a 78-year-old man, Clay, dying of cancer, who has just been let out of prison because he's going to die. Clay and the dog are reunited. What are the chances? Later we're told that Clay was tending bar on a party boat and saw Angel. When this was is a mystery. Supposedly Clay went from 60 years in prison to dying on the ball field, to Murphy's boat. 
• (l) Turns out that Clay wants to visit his wife's grave, and guess where she's buried. You guessed it. Key West. 
• (m) For reasons of a "ticking clock," Martin reminds us that they have to get to Angel quick before she's trafficked to Cuba or someplace, and so they have to keep rushing down the ICW. But they stop for nights in a hotel, for long lunches at cafes, and for bathroom breaks, and to teach Summer to swim, a task that is never needed later in the story. This "bathroom break" item is an important fact. The clear indication is that there's no way for a woman to go to the bathroom on a small 24-foot Boston Whaler. A man can go (presumably over the side of the boat), but not a woman. Are you ready?
• (n) Two or three days further south (remember, it's a week-long trip to Key West), while on shore for a stop, Clay draws Murphy aside and says there's a stowaway on the boat. Now, this is surprising to the reader, because so far the description of the Boston Whaler is that it has front and rear seating, and in the center under a T-roof is the steering and control console, but it's otherwise open to the weather and waves over the side, etc. There's no mention of a cabin. Suddenly, Murphy goes on the boat (again, at night) and opens up the "head locker." And there inside is a teenage girl, meet Ellie, who's been sitting on the head (the toilet) for two days in the dark.  I looked on the Boston Whaler site; the head locker on a 24-footer is big enough for a grown man to poop. Wait, I thought they had to stop to let the ladies (and gents) go to the bathroom at marinas, motels, and restaurants. I guess it didn't fit the plot for Martin to tell us this. Before he lied by commission, now it's lying by omission ... and he claims to be a priest!
• (o) But there's more. Murphy reveals that he was married for almost an hour, years earlier. Turns out that he and his childhood friend, Marie, were married, but at the reception his best man distributed photographs to everyone at the reception, revealing the bride and the best man naked in bed the night before the wedding. The best man mocks Murphy, "I'll always be her first," and the bride goes off and commits suicide. 
• (p) Turns out Ellie is Murphy's daughter by Marie, who didn't commit suicide, but returned to Murphy, where they made up for a couple of hours and Marie conceived and hid out in NY until the baby was born and put the child up for adoption...all this time Murphy thinks that Marie is dead of suicide. Then, out of the blue, Ellie shows up in Murphy's boat and HIDES for two days, only to confront him that he may be the father, which he denies, telling Ellie that she was born a year after his "wife" died. It's great to keep secrets from readers, but looking back, we should find clues, not lies.
• (q) During all the rescue operations over the years, Murphy has a close Academy friend who is running intelligence ops for Murphy's rescue efforts from their hideout in the Colorado mountains. This friend is Bones. Turns out Bones knew all along (18 years) about Marie and Ellie and didn't tell Murphy. Don't believe it. 
• (r) Guess where Marie ended up? You only get one guess.  Key West, within walking distance of where Murphy spread "Fingers" ashes. Marie is dying of a virus and has been a nun for 18 years. Of course, they reunite, kiss, and she dies in his arms as he "baptizes hr the Gulf as she takes her last breath. But all that only after Marie tells Ellie all about why she abandoned David and her daughter. 

Well, I'm running out of letters. But you get the idea.

However, a couple more observations.

• Turns out Murphy is an extraordinary one-man SWAT, ARMY- RANGER, SEAL TEAM 6, and DEMOLITION EXPERT that always seems to have armament, explosives, guns, bulletproof vests, and underwater lung capacity and the right tools at his fingertips, even at night, underwater, in the middle of the Gulf. And he can get shot, sliced, bled out, and still get up and fight, fight, fight. Hollywood will never make this movie simply because none of Hollywood's superheroes are this super.  It's too fantastical. Harry Potter is lame by comparison. 
• Finally, the story about Murphy, told at the ending of the book, by David Bishop, complete with shifting POVs in the middle of paragraphs (very confusing) makes the reader wonder: "If David Bishop (aka Murphy Shepherd) is so smart (2nd in his class at the Academy ... which Academy?) why did he he marry such a psychotic, disloyal woman (known from childhood), and ask a total psychotic, jerk to be his best man. In other words, David Bishop is a terrible judge of character, and for all his rescue efforts, he can't find the living. Conclusion: We should idolize fictional characters that are flawed beyond belief.

There's more, but I must stop. 

The bottom line is The Water Keeper is extremely popular. 

Why? 

What can we learn from Martin's rhetoric? 

I have a few opinions, but I'm curious as to yours. Please comment.

In closing, back to my aphorisms. 

What is true about the human condition is neither known nor precise.

or

Rubrics can become stumbling blocks that obstruct truth.

My problem is that I value reason, logic, and stories that embrace rationality (rubrics, precision). My doctoral education was partly in the philosophy of logic, and I spent the first decades of my professional life writing detailed operational, malfunction diagnosis, and repair procedures for NASA astronauts and automotive technicians. Precision. Detail. Reason. Facts. 

If I ever want to be a popular writer like Charles Martin, I have a problem that I may not be able to overcome.

In other words, all the "problems" with TWK, listed above, obviously don't mean a centipede's patter to a book's success (in this culture)

ON THE OTHER HAND: Charles Martin's de facto expertise is his ability to describe love in all its absurdity. And that is what The Water Keeper is really about. It's not about rescuing sex-trafficked women. It's about relationships and the ability for a man to LOVE people in all their ABSURDITY. I haven't counted the pages, but I think there are more pages in TWK about the inequities, the inexactitude, and the absurdities of love than there are pages of action and mayhem.

For now, for me, shoveling gravel is so much more appealing. Maybe that's my calling.

The Dilemma of Telling the Truth in Fiction

I added to this article 24 Sept 2025 (sw)

Writing true stories is a hard and dicey affair. 

Recently, I experienced a paradoxical rejection of my historical novel (The Wizard Clip Haunting) principally because it features an important aspect of all story telling—paradox. In this case a paradoxical Catholic priest. The renegade (or vice) aspects of this priest's nature are historically documented. At the same time, the heroic (or virtue) aspects of this priest's nature are also historically true. Yet, because the priest plays a central role in the plot of the story, and because he fulfills the critical narrative nature of being human (that is, imperfection, which allows readers to connect with someone like themselves), a few Catholic readers are hesitant to endorse the novel. 

This is nothing new for any writer, especially any historical fiction or non-fiction writer. The problem occurs when the subject of your story touches on the beliefs or ideologies of a social subgroup that clings to those beliefs. It doesn't matter if the subgroup is a religious faith (e.g. Catholicism), a political party, professional organization, or a cadre of social activists. You're sure to upset someone, somehow, sometime...even if you're trying hard to tell the truth.

Although there is something called "objective" truth, to every social subgroup "truth" is relative and "subjective" to a particular worldview. This is what makes telling the truth difficult. 

If you have a character that is morally flawed -- and all characters need to be flawed for the story to connect with audiences -- there will be a subgroup in that audience who will cling to an "ideal" of how a particular character should act. And when your human character, who is part of a subgroup thinks, speaks, or acts in contradiction to the subgroup's ideal, although the character is being true to his human nature, members of the associated subgroup will be offended by what you've written. 

Have you told the truth? To the subgroup you may not have told the truth...about the reader's IDEAL. But you have told the truth about the character's fallible, human character.  The criticism comes because you have not sanitized the subgroup's hero and portrayed he or she as perfect—the central problem of most Christian, so-called "faith films."  My conclusion is that if you were to sanitize the hero and make him or her perfect, you would be lying—a lie historically and a lie about the human condition. 

Thus, writing true stories is a hard and dicey affair.  The best stories that resonate with truth of the human condition do not land solidly in the ideal worldview of good and evil, like the red or black realms of the above Yin-Yang illustration. Rather, the best stories that tell the truth reside on the curved line between the two realms. This thin and chaotic border is where all of humanity exists. The Yin-Yang also illustrates the necessity of mystery and the human soul's quest for perfection—the red and block dots.

Going a Bit Further 

In an early blog post, "Can Historical Fiction Be True?", I described six aspects of telling the truth in fiction.  The second aspect describes how multiple stories of the same event can conflict, simply by the storyteller's different perspective. This touches on the logical fallacy known as AND/OR. where one person may claim that a fact is either A or B, when the truth may actually be A and B.  

While "objective" truth may exist as a heavenly ideal, human "subjective" truth becomes a paradox—an apparent logical contradiction—that through reason can be explained as plausible. As writers of fiction or non-fiction, we all know that successful stories are based on what appears to be a contradiction or great irony. For example,  a man falls in love with a mermaid—something that is logically impossible—but through the skill of storytelling the writer explains how the impossible can be possible, e.g. the hit movie SPASH.  (1984, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Tom  Hanks, Daryl Hannah, John Candy & Eugene Levy.)  SPLASH necessarily lies on the Yin-Yang border or the A&B region. 

Thus, all good writing begins with an ironic premise, because the human condition is inherently ironic. At every moment of every day we all want something...but can't have it—the 2 spheres of the Yin-Yang.  Hope turns to despair, our exhausting effort is always in need of a rewrite, love is lost, and "snakes on a plane." All good stories are about the human condition, which by definition is ironic. The good guy is sometimes fallible, and the villain sometimes noble. 

Back to those social subgroups that cling to beliefs or ideologies—where "belief" is a logically defensible, and "ideology" is a logically indefensible. Depending on the topic, the subgroup, and the perspective, what is a belief to one is an ideology to another. Yes, irony is ubiquitous. 

Truth hurts. It's the human condition to avoid being hurt, to attack those who do the hurting, or at least shun such miscreants.  But while we are driven toward the ideal, it's the paradox that gives life intrigue.

How Fiction Tells the Truth and Non-Fiction Cannot.

Fiction is necessary to convey the truth about the human condition. Fiction allows the writer to examine the heart of his characters. Non-Fiction cannot authentically write about what someone is thinking, unless that thinking is confessed and documented—a memoir  But fiction, especially in a novel, can spend hours inside the value system and thoughts of a character. This occurs when the writer delves into the psychological heart and moral truth of natural law and its effect on the character and plot. In so doing, the character, at the hands of the writer, begins to explore how natural moral law and works—not just in the physical realm (like gravity) but also in the psychological realm (like guilt). 

What is worth underscoring here is that ALL physical action is the consequence of moral decision-making. The outward dissection actions take (what we normally document in non-fiction texts), must first originate in the mind, and what non-fiction cannot access. Thus, what happens in the non-fiction sphere is a metaphor for what happened previously in the mental value sphere, the sphere from which memoirs are written and where only fiction can tread.   

And this is what makes stories so alluring to audiences and readers—they get to peek behind the curtain at the truth of what is really going on .                                                                                                                   

MOONLIGHT and Screenplay Rules

Each year I read one or both of the screenwriting Oscar winners. The theory is, in doing so, I'll learn how to write better screenplays and help others do the same.  In this case the learning from MOONLIGHT (Best Adaptation) was two fold.

I watched the movie on iTunes, then found the PDF shooting script HERE. The challenge I knew was to discover how Barry Jenkins wrote something that was so interior in scope, and was so silent. While there is some action and dialogue, the interior emotional tension is thick.

A screenplay is suppose to describe what is SHOWN and HEARD on screen, without TELLING us what the character is THINKING. The screenwriter describes the setting, the props, the posture, the bodily response, and when all of that is done rightly, then we give the writer permission to tell us what is actually going on inside the mind.

The adage is, learn to do it well, and then you can break the rules. Here's an excerpt from the third act. There are somethings here, expertly done, but they break the rules. Can you identify the rule breakers? (I use the term "rule breakers" with derision. )

This starts on page 79.

0. We watch the children at play a moment longer. We’ve seen none of these kids before, we’ll see none of them again. 

   A final beat of this, then... 

   EXT. JIMMY’S EASTSIDE DINER, PARKING LOT - NIGHT 

   A door closed -- Black’s car parked deep in the corner of this parking lot, in the farthest back corner away from street light, obscured by low-hanging shade trees.  

   The diner is away from us, across the parking lot. Black takes it in a moment, pulls on a fresh shirt. 

   He’s moving, crossing the parking lot at an easy clip. It’s quiet out, a few passing cars to Black’s left running north on Biscayne Boulevard, no foot traffic -- can hear the SOUND of his footfalls on the pavement. 

   As he nears the threshold of this diner, takes the handle on the entry... 

   CLOSE ON: an old school bell, the sound of it jingling as the door it’s affixed to parts. 

   INT. JIMMY'S EASTSIDE DINER - NIGHT - CONTINUOUS 

   And right away, the sound of music, something old, soft, and lilting (think Aretha Franklin’s One Step Ahead). 

   Black scanning this room, his view of the place a clue for us: this is definitely the same diner we saw Kevin working in during the earlier phone call. 

   All the details are there, the old-school register, vintage chairs and table-tops. And in the corner, that old school jukebox blessing us with Aretha. 

   BLACK 

   ...on the move now, crosses the diner with eyes down and ahead of him. There’s a counter lined with stools, directly opposite the staging station and adjacent the register. 

   Black eases up to the counter, places his cell atop it and takes a seat. 

   No one stirs at Black’s movement, no one watches. Looking about the place again, we notice the other patrons: a quartet of college girls in a corner booth shoring up for a night on the town, an elderly gentleman sitting to himself, staring into a cup of mild coffee. 

   As Black watches the elderly gentleman... 

                   VOICE (O.S.)                                        (moving)                                            Be right with you. 

   A figure moving past, carrying an urn over to the old man, sets a new cup down and pours a fresh coffee, scoops up the old cup as he moves on. 

   As he crosses to the girls, we see him better: it’s Kevin. 

   We watch as he speaks to them; can’t hear any of it but from the feel of it, very jovial, Kevin is good at this work. 

   A beat of watching Kevin here, isolated bits of him from Black’s perspective: Kevin’s lips as he speaks, the hand he rests to his neck instinctively.

   Finished with the girls, Kevin turns back toward the counter, hands full with their spent dishes. As he approaches, he looks right at Black, right at us... 

                   KEVIN                                                (moving)
             Be right with you, boss, just                           let me get this out the way. 

   ...and moves past. 

   Somehow, Kevin has not noticed him. 

   Something lodged in Black’s throat, without thinking places his hand there: Am I breathing? 

   He must be, he’d better be: those dishes discarded somewhere in the back and... here comes Kevin. 

                   KEVIN
            How you doin’ tonight, what                            can I get you? 

   Kevin flipping through a stained note-pad, hasn’t bothered to look up yet. As he does, his eyes settle on Black’s. 

   Beat. 

   Kevin watching this man. And Black watching back, the two of them silently holding each other’s gaze, pure curiosity. 

Here's what I noticed throughout the script, but I'll restrict my examples to the passage above.

1. The tone and mood of MOONLIGHT is expertly included in the visual descriptions. The setting, the lights, the movement (all visual), are also metaphors for what the audience should be feeling. We're not TOLD how the audience should feel, but phrases like those underlined SHOW us.

• "Black's car parked deep in the corner of this parking lot..." 
• "the farthest back corner away from street light, obscured by low-hanging shade trees."
• "...away from us, across the parking lot..."
• "...no foot traffic -- can hear the SOUND of his footfalls on the pavement."
• "...the sound of music, something old, soft, and lilting..."
• "...with eyes down..."
• "...staring into a cup of mild coffee..."

But the "rules" tell us that we should never use past tense verbs, present participles, break the fourth wall, use adverbs or gerunds. And all of those "errors" are used extensively throughout the MOONLIGHT script. Can you see them in the bulleted list above? Here are a few more.

2. We're told: Don't break the fourth wall. Yet, the MOONLIGHT script includes the audience/reader a great deal.

• "We watch..." 
• "We've seen..."
• "We see..."
• "...he looks...right at us..."
• "...we notice..."

3. We're told: Avoid adverbs, present participles, and gerunds. Yet, they're everywhere. 

• "scanning the room..."
• "blessing us with Aretha."
• "Looking about the place..."
• "an elderly gentlemen sitting to himself, staring into a cup..."
• "As Black watches the elderly gentleman..."
• "...watching Kevin..."
• "Kevin watching this man. And Black watching back. The two of them silently holding each other's gaze..."

4. We're told: Only describe what can be seen, and never say what the characters are thinking:

• "..but from the feel of it, very jovial..."
• "...Something lodged in Black's throat, without thinking places his hand there: Am I breathing?"
• "He must be, he'd better be..."

NOW, this is NO CRITICISM of BARRY JENKINS. The screenplay reads easily, visually, and most of the writing is PRESENT ACTIVE. But to communicate this interior sense of emotions, the gerunds, the adverbs, and the other things work wonderfully. 

Yes, you might argue that this is an example of learning to follow the rules so you can break them. But here's what's different about Jenkin's situation. He had written and directed a bunch of shorts, but this was only his second full length movie, and his first, MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY, was something he directed for $13,000 and no studio readers were involved. Add to that, Plan B executives (Brad Pitt) had seen Medicine for Melancholy and liked it and wanted to work with Jenkins, so with Plan B behind him,  they persuaded a A24, new distributor, to get behind Moonlight as their first feature to finance and distribute.  (Jenkins also said in an interview I watched from a Netherlands film festival, that the OSCARS SO WHITE protest from 2015, heightened awareness of movies by black artists.) So, Jenkins was not in a situation where the grammar or the format was ever an issue. His previous work and his connections spoke louder than the grammar of his screenplay. In other words, the executed work is what's important, not the screenplay's grammar.

COME THE OSCARS

This is further reinforced when voting occurs for the Best Screenplay categories. It was clear to me (having lived it numerous times) that no common Hollywood reader had ever read Jenkin's screenplay without being told by their boss, first, "We're going to make this movie." Of course, I don't know for sure, but I'm willing to bet MOONLIGHT was never subjected to the anonymous eyes of a first tier reader. Had it been, I'm sure it would have been immediately rejected. But yet, like a Quentin Taratino script, it wins an Oscar. (And, PLEASE, do not tell me that Quentin Taratino has learned how to write a script so he can break the rules. If you've ever, ever seen a Taratino script you would know by page 2 he never learned the rules in the first place.)

Yesterday, I wrote four screenwriters I know in Hollywood, all who have worked on many films that were produced and two who are Academy members. I asked if those voting for the BEST SCREENWRITING categories actually read the scripts they're sent. The answers came back: "Probably not," and "Usually, no." What they do is watch the finished movie and infer what the screenplay was like. 

So, I'll say this again....as I have in past posts. If you're a screenwriter that wants to waste your time, heave your screenplays at the anonymous studio blockade, and see them bounce off into the rubbish pile. They may be Oscar winners, but 90% of the readers in Hollywood wouldn't recognize it as such. Readers generally are not going to take the time to understand your story, but find fault out of a personal bias or tell you to follow the rules. For the rest of you, who want to get your screenplays made....ignore the obsessive format and grammatical rules, and find someone to help you make the story into a film.