When discussing writing as craft, something that doesn’t often come up—in part because it’s kind of a diffuse topic that’s hard to pin down—is how to get into a story. Most writers have experienced that disturbing moment when they have an idea for a story—an entire plot outline, even—and yet can’t seem to get the damn thing off the ground. It’s disconcerting, to say the least, to have a great premise, some solid characters, and other elements of a great story and not be able to tell that story. Personally, I start to feel a bit crazy; after all, the ingredients I’ve come up with are solid. I know they’re solid. I should be able to take these ideas and synthesize them into a novel. After all, that’s what I do. I’m a professional writer.
Getting into the story is a maddening challenge; it’s like hooking onto some kind of invisible wire. If you miss by even a few degrees you’ll flounder and lose your grip. If that’s happening to you, one thing to consider is whether or not you need an Outsider.
Elementary, My Dear Watson
I’ve been working on a novel idea for a while now. I have a premise I love, a cast of characters, and at least some idea where I want the story to go (I’m a Pantser, after all, so I don’t want to plot too much). But I’ve tried several times to get the story off the ground, and it keeps crashing back to earth. I finally realized the problem is that my main character is too intimately involved with the central mystery. They know everything. And so having them be the reader’s link to the story was problematic, because my protagonist either has to behave like an imbecile and somehow be unaware of things that should be obvious to them, or has to be actively lying to the reader the whole time in order to keep some plot elements secret.
Now, the latter isn’t a bad idea. The Unreliable Narrator is a tried and true tradition, and can be used very powerfully. This isn’t the right story for that, however; the protagonist shouldn’t be unreliable—there’s plenty of unreliable stuff in the story, so I need the characters to be reliable enough. So, I have slowly come to realize that what I need is a different kind of protagonist. I need an Outsider.
An Outsider is a character who knows nothing about the plot elements, the setting, or the other characters (maybe all three). They need things explained to them, which is a slick way of explaining things to the reader, and they are plausibly ignorant about many of the story’s key elements. The classic example is Dr. Watson from the Sherlock Holmes stories. Watson isn’t stupid, but he’s usually in the dark about Holmes’ feats of mental strength, and when Holmes explains things to the good doctor he’s also explaining them to the reader.
The companions on Doctor Who are another great example, as they’re role is often to be just as confused as the viewer until The Doctor explains what in the hell the Shadow Proclamation is.
Sometimes that’s what you need as a main character, an Outsider who doesn’t know the secrets, so they can be your way into the story. You can grab onto them as they explore the ruins of your plot, and see the secrets you’ve planted here and there through fresh eyes, all while freeing yourself from having to worry about dropping hints and somehow twisting your POV character’s narration so it plays fair while never revealing that they are in fact the killer.
See? Writing looks like a lot of Day Drinking and sitting around, but it is, in fact, hard work. As a matter of fact, I’m exhausted having written this and must now go take a nap.