An interesting aspect to writing a novel that I hadn't anticipated when I wrote RUNAWAY is to be asked, Why did I write it? What is the message, the meaning?
The answer bears a bit of background before answering. To start, I have taken a series of creative writing classes at several different community colleges over the years. The story RUNAWAY was a short story written for one of those classes in the late 1970s.
The teacher wanted it expanded. He had ideas he wanted me to explore, but time ran out. I had no design other than to write an interesting story for a class assignment. The years ticked away. People I let read the story wanted it expanded.
Finally, after retirement and submitting my story to a new writers group I was checking out. They critiqued the heck out of it. The overall censuses were they wanted it expanded. I will admit it. I was afraid. I didn't know what to do to create a novel. What- a chapter book. A daunting undertaking.
Nevertheless, I pushed on. I started reading how-to books, Dean Koontz, Steven King, K.M. Weiland, and others while I continued to write. I learned new concepts and when I went back to check my writing I found I was a bit of a natural for story creation and didn't require much in the way of fixing plot, character arcs, or world-building. My Achilles heel was and is still grammar, fixable if the bones are good.
I think all novelists have some idea of what the purpose of their book is going to be about. Be that of a brain twister like mystery, or a shocker as in horror or tension ladened like in a thriller. My story is historical fiction set in 1936. It has been compared to a cross between John Steinbeck and Dashiell Hammond. I think of it as more Gulliver's travels without the fantasy part. Yet, the story has tragedy, sacrifice, murder, and mentorship for a fifteen-year-old forced to grow up quickly.
Time to answer the questions. Why, what are the purpose and message? The overlying theme was things are not as they always seem. Bad people have good traits, good people have conflicts, and evil people have their reasons. For a fifteen-year-old, naïve and vulnerable, a mentor for good can be important. For a teenager that reads this, I hope the takeaway is - to have patience. The young tend to knee-jerk reactions. My boy in this story suffers from this.
Did I plan this? Yes and no. I had these life lessons I wanted to weave into the story in the back of my mind, and they fleshed out on the page as I wrote. For the most part, I had young adults in mind as I wrote, but is good reading for parents as well for most of the concepts can be applied to raising their children.
What good is a meaningful message unless delivered in an engaging manner? A subjective answer. The texture of the period is well put. The internal and external dialogues revealing and believable. A fellow writer in my writers' group commented my writing is like the Norman Rockwell of literature. There, so much for horn tooting. You can read the story description by searching Emmett J Hall on Amazon.
