I just finished The Deerslayer by James Fenimore Cooper. What a fantastic read! As the first and only novel I have ever read, I have to say that this book is an absolute masterpiece. Here are some writing tips, from me to you, based on The Deerslayer.
Tip #1: Tell, Don’t Show
Readers are dumb. You can’t trust them with even the most obvious inner workings of a character’s mind. So, to throw them a bone, just have your characters say everything they’re feeling out loud in the most simple and unambiguous terms. Worried that your reader won’t understand how conflicted your protagonist is about killing someone? Just have him tell the dying man about it in a two-page monologue. Worried because a character is alone and has no one to have this improbably comprehensive and transparent dialogue with? Just make it an extended soliloquy. Worried that this will all seem weird because no actually talks like that? I’ll deal with that later. Just trust me for now.
Tip #2: There’s No Such Thing as Too Many Details
World-building is crucial to good fiction. And, like real-life construction work, it’s a tedious process that requires you to repeatedly examine mundane things. If you want to build a house, every square inch must be accounted for. It’s the same with a fictional house. If you don’t describe every piece of wood, the whole thing may fall down! You’re going to need to give a running account of whether the wind is blowing on the characters from the east or the west, as well as how strong of a breeze it is.
Besides, your readers can’t get oriented on your fictional lake if you don’t give them minute-by-minute updates on where things are relative to one another. How can they lose themselves in the fictional world if they don’t know the direction a canoe is drifting compared to how that canoe drifted earlier in the novel? This leads me into my next piece of advice…
Tip #3: Repeat Yourself as Much as Possible
It may seem counterintuitive at first, but you have to seize every opportunity to say the same thing over and over. Life is repetitive, so why should your novel be any different? Don’t you want your readers to feel truly immersed in the fictional universe? To accomplish this, you HAVE to give the same descriptions of the scenery and the characters as many times as you can. After all, that’s how we experience the world; endlessly seeing the same faces and places many times over. This is known in the writing world as “realism.”
Plus, again, your readers are dumb, so if you don’t use the same adjective to describe a secondary character every time she appears, they’re apt to forget whether she’s noble or evil.
Tip #4: Reach Your Word Count
Nothing is more disappointing to a reader than to get to page 250 of a novel they’re really enjoying only to find out that there isn’t any more left. Solve this problem by writing at least 150 extra pages. And, if you’re really feeling yourself, write another 150 pages, just in case. Don’t be concerned if your novel is the fifth installment in a series in which every book is at least 400 pages long. Have confidence in yourself. Your readers WANTS that 550th page. They just need you write it for them.
Bonus Tip: If you’re having trouble making your book too long, one thing good writers often do is “clarify” a piece of information multiple times throughout the book, even if they’ve already established it twelve times. Many of the characters in The Deerslyer go by two different names, so Cooper, a true master of this tactic, makes sure to give the reader both names and a brief explanation of why he’s using this specific one about every third chapter. As he proves, you can also do this with locations or, if you really feel brave, the characters’ motivations. Yes, you’ve already said three times that your protagonist can’t marry a woman he really likes because he feels like he isn’t good enough for her. But what’s stopping you from saying it four times? Or five? It’s your novel. You’re the boss here.
Tip #5: Don’t Make Your Characters Too Complicated
A lot of writers make the mistake of overthinking their characters. They give them three, sometimes even four traits. They make their thoughts on a subject ambiguous or even inscrutable. And, worst of all, they have them do things that are in direct contradiction to what the character said they wanted earlier in the book! This is writerly indulgence of the highest order and should be avoided.
Tip #6: Deus Ex Machina Is Your Friend
“Deus ex machina” is Latin for “approved by the gods.” It comes from Ancient Roman theater, where the height of dramatic perfection was considered a third act in which the hero/heroine is saved from disaster by a rescue from some divine authority. These endings were considered to have literally been given to the playwrights from the gods themselves, who, if mythology has taught us anything, are fundamentally opposed to things like likelihood and normalcy.
Although using literal gods is no longer in vogue these days, there’s no reason that you can’t have some sort of authority figure save your characters from destruction. This can be anyone from a king to an army to a religious leader. It just needs to be someone who wields enough power (or guns) to step in and solve what seemed like an impossible problem at the very last second. If you want to follow the Roman formula exactly to achieve maximum sublimity, as Cooper does, you need to paint your characters into such a corner that it would require a truly unthinkable interference to keep them alive. And then defy all logic and have that happen! It’s what Jupiter would have wanted.
Tip #7: Stick to the Words You Love
If you’re fond of the word “placid,” use it. This is your book, and writing it should be a pleasant experience for you. If you don’t enjoy writing it, your readers won’t enjoy reading it. There’s no such thing as overusing a word you love. And, if you follow tip #4 and make your book really long, your readers aren’t going to notice anyway.
Tip #8: Address the Reader
Speaking of the reader, it’s common knowledge that the relationship between reader and writer can be alienating and fraught with tension. Avoid that by directly addressing them. A good book is a relationship between the reader/writer, and we all know that the foundation of a healthy relationship is communication.
And, like any good relationship, vague hints aren’t going to get it done. Really TALK to your reader. Address them specifically and often. Here’s an example of how to do this directly from The Deerslayer:
“The reader must imagine the horror that daughters would experience, at unexpectedly beholding the shocking spectacle that was placed before the eyes of Judith and Esther, as related in the close of the last chapter.”
Not only does Cooper speak directly to the reader here, he also helpfully reminds them of what happened at the end of the last chapter, which, in this case, happened over fifteen words ago! How is anyone supposed to remember all of that? Not only does Cooper give explicit instructions to the reader (they “must imagine the horror”), he also helpfully avoids sharing too much of the scene in question. In the next sentence he says:
“We shall pass over the first emotions, the first acts of filial piety, and proceed with the narrative by imagining rather than relating.”
This strengthens the bond between reader and writer. Without giving any description of the event and instead entreating the reader to imagine it WITH him, Cooper avoids the pitfall of actually writing by letting the reader do the work instead, creating a symbiotic relationship that makes the reader feel empowered. The whole paragraph is truly masterful, but I won’t gush more about it here. You can read it for yourself once you get to Chapter 21 of the 33-chapter novel.
Tip #9: Don’t Let Mark Twain Psych You Out
Twain wrote a thorough and completely unfair assessment of The Deerslayer that I won’t dignify by linking to it here. It’s quite derogatory and outlines all of the supposed “flaws” with a novel that D.H. Lawerence called “flawless.” Who are you going to trust: a respected novelist like Lawrence or a man who wrote a book with the word “pudd’nhead” in the title? Ignore this juvenile nonsense.
Tip #10: Don’t Feel Pressure to Be “Politically Correct”
I acknowledge that times have changed significantly since Cooper published The Deerslayer in 1841. Cooper’s representations of Native Americans and women may seem pretty messed up to us now, but his “separate but equal” policy in both cases still has relevance for us today.
Cooper explicitly calls out people who thought that Native Americans were not actually human beings, which I feel like was pretty cool of him since it must have been a matter of some debate at the time. And he has no tolerance for the idea that women’s natural tendency to be overly emotional and irrational makes them second-class citizens who should have no say in (certain aspects of) their lives.
Yes, the idea that white people have certain “gifts” and that Native Americans have different “gifts” seems suspect in the 21st century, especially since Cooper identifies some of the Native American gifts as lying, treachery, and torture. And yes, his portrayal of women may seem a little exaggerated to us in a time when blushing and fainting don’t dominate women’s reactions to 80% of conversational exchanges.
At the same time, you have to respect Cooper for fully committing to his beliefs. That kind of boldness is unfortunately lacking in today’s watered-down world of fiction, where people of every race and gender are often portrayed as being pretty much the same, creating a vanilla world where all human beings are basically interchangeable. That’s boring, and a boring novel is the worst kind. Form strong opinions about what all women are like and stick to them. Don’t be afraid to recognize that there are fundamental traits that all Native Americans share. And if some of those truths are unpopular, that’s someone else’s problem. An artist’s number one priority should always be the truth, and if Native Americans didn’t want to be depicted as untrustworthy, then they shouldn’t all BE untrustworthy. Tell it like it is, and don’t apologize for anything.
Also, if one of your characters has a disability, you HAVE to mention it at least every third time she appears or your reader is liable to see her as the same as the normal people who populate the rest of the book. One of the characters in The Deerslayer is “feeble-minded,” and Cooper uses that phrase 51 times, which works out to about once every eleven pages, not counting the myriad other ways he alludes to her condition. This is the model you ought to follow concerning any disability.
blood bank blues 