THE THIRD KEY

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The Third Key.

Key to what?

To writing a classic. {I'll talk of the 2nd Key another day.}

Summer Ross:
http://summersvoice.blogspot.com/

commented on my thoughts on meaningful dialogue being necessary to write a classic.

BOTTOM LINE:
Scholars may debate a novel and pick it apart, but it’s the readers who make it come to life, pass it on and keep it going for future generations.

BUT WHAT MOVES THE READERS?

One thing that does seem to make a novel, like a classic movie,

seem timeless was the authors ability to create quotes in which readers have found wisdom, humor and words to live by.

THE THIRD KEY:

THE HUMAN HEART.

In fact the title of one classic novel is THE HEART IS A LONELY HUNTER.

If you, the author, can speak directly to the heart and the wounded child in your reader, you will transform your novel into something timeless.

And aren't all great novels from THE ILLIAD to THE GRAPES OF WRATH to TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD to I KNOW WHY THE CAGED BIRD SINGS timeless?

Timeless because they speak to the eternal aspects of the human condition, of the human heart. And what are those aspects?

Morality -

a classic novel should say something of value, drawing attention to human problems, condemn or applaud certain points of view.

It should make a statement that is more significant than the "Dark chocolate is the world's best candy" kind of comment.

We don't have to agree with the authors statement, it just has to be there.


Meaningful dialogue -

As I said in yesterday's post, the language used should be forceful, fresh and not hackneyed, and suitable to the purposes of the statement/message.


Truthfulness -

Is the work credible?

Does the author make us believe what is being said? Such a standard cannot, of course, be applied literally.

We do not believe in the literal truth of Gulliver's Travels or Candide, but we understand that the authors are using fantasy and exaggeration to communicate basic truths about humanity.

Moreover, a good novel, story, or drama should give us the feeling that what happened to the characters was inevitable;

that, given their temperaments and the situation in which they were placed, the outcome could not have been otherwise.

Everything we know about Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman, for instance, makes his suicide inevitable. A different ending would have been disappointing and untrue.

Universality -

Regardless of when it was written, the work should hold meaning still in the western world,

and should still hold that meaning in the future.

Huckleberry Finn, for example, although it has been called the first truly American novel, deals with a universal theme, the loss of innocence.

That is how you achieve Timelessness -

The work should be of lasting interest. The comments the author makes about people, about the pressure, rewards, and problems of life should still be relevant.

The theme of the work should be as pertinent now as it was at the time it was written.

Here is a classic exchange between two friends now turned enemies from a classic film, THE THIRD MAN: