FREE KINDLE FOR PC

FREE KINDLE FOR PC
So you can read my books

Sunday, June 24, 2012

THE THIRD KEY

{Take a chance on THE LAST SHAMAN:

http://www.amazon.com/THE-LAST-SHAMAN-ebook/dp/B00534OEL4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1340512164&sr=1-1&keywords=the+last+shaman+roland+yeomans It is only 99 cents. Give it a try.}


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:

7 comments:

  1. Ghost of Ernest Hemingway here.

    I have to take offense at this post, Roland. Classics you say.

    Yet you did not mention FOR WHOM THE BELL TOLLS or THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA.

    What were you thinking?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have not read many of the "classics", and if I did, unfortunately I don't remember them. I have downloaded several for my Kindle however, and I'm hoping to read some of them before they are all recalled and edited for content :)

    You are right that good dialogue stays with a reader for a long while. Who know what is going to intrigue readers and make it the next household phrase.

    .......dhole

    ReplyDelete
  3. Donna:
    I can remember reading THE THREE MUSKETEERS, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, THE TIME MACHINE, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, nd THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES ...

    but then, I was a lonely bookworm and didn't have a life. LOL.

    Good dialogue does stay with me. And you're right: who knows what will strike the public's fancy next?

    ReplyDelete
  4. The crazy part is that 'classics' tend to drift into the school system because they find their ways into a 'canaan' that teachers are capable of using to derive techniques from and hope to change thought patterns with.

    Recently, in college, genre novels have been making it into the academics, under normal circumstances they don't because they don't have what people refer to as 'literary value' but Lord of the Rings and harry potter as well as Mocking Jay are helping turn the tides. Genre novels were, in the not so long ago past, considered mindless reading and would have not made it into academics without teachers trying to change the tides and criticizers in favor of the general paper back novels.

    I think we might be headed into a new era. Great post Roland.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Summer:
    Sadly, small-minded agendas creep into what public schools and universities consider classics. Even now, HUCKLEBERRY FINN finds itself the target of being banned as does the HARRY POTTER novels.

    In junior high, I enjoyed GREAT EXPECTATIONS, LORD JIM, and SILAS MARNER. I do not think some schools even teach from those any more.

    Like you, I hope we are heading into a new era of more open-mindedness on what is allowable to be taught. Thank you for visiting and chatting over the cyber fence, so to speak! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I do LOVE a good classic!

    As you said, Roland, by pointing out the "human condition," it make the reader FEEL... emotion, anger, laughter, tears. That is the HUMAN CONDITION.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Michael:
    I agree. The right classic can whisk you to another time, another world. I used to envy people living at the time when THE LORD OF THE RINGS first came out ... to read it without the clamor.

    Well, HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE came out, and I got my wish ... in a way.

    What other books are out now that in decades to come will be seen as classics?

    Thanks for straying over to my neck of the cyber woods and staying to talk awhile. Soon will come the time for you to travel back home. I hope the design assignment is going well! Roland

    ReplyDelete