Welcome to The Némirovsky Method
A newsletter about taking story ideas from spark to first draft.
Welcome to the first edition of The Némirovsky Method. This is probably longer than the rest will ever be but I have to do some world building.
Meet Irène Némirovsky
My best friend, Brian, mentioned Irène Némirovsky to me a few years ago, that the novellas in Suite Francaise were exquisite. A must-read. Brian’s advice on relationships may be suspect, but his opinions about literature are never wrong.
I loved her two stories in that book, but was amazed by the story of how they were written, while escaping and hiding from the Nazi invaders. The introduction of Suite Francaise described her method of writing in-depth character studies, and story possibilities, in a large, leather volume as she worked out the story. Apparently, she kept digging at the characters, setting, and plot until the story emerged.
Sadly, that's all we know, because she was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz.
Meet Me
I've been writing for four decades now, thrashing about trying to figure out my voice, my stories, and how to type faster. Its been a mixed bag of success.
I took third place in a story contest held by Whiskey Island, the literary journal of Cleveland State University. I made it to the quarterfinals of two screenplay competitions, and got several rejection letters with handwritten encouragement to keep trying.
I’m a pretty good touch typist. I’m not the fastest, but I find I’m fast enough for my thoughts when I’m writing. Also, I’ve gotten better lately at not editing as I type, letting the crap flow onto the page, leaving the mess for my future self to clean up later.
Also, I use the DVORAK layout. I’m all fancy and stuff.
The Némirovsky Method
In the About page for this site, I wrote the following about my observations of Némirovsky’s method:
She worked out a process to design and develop stories involving lengthy backstories for the characters, including minor characters. She wrote about the themes that interested her and how they intersected with the characters until a workable story emerged, and thus set about writing the narrative.
When I shared this with my friend, Brian, he said (more or less) that “...her method of weaving together bits and pieces of the conceived lives of her characters, finding lucky coincidences, was elegant, organic, and natural.”
This is all second-hand, culled from the introduction of Suite Francaise. Yet it rings true, as it’s not too far from other novelists methods I've heard about.
The Doctorow Method
I had the pleasure of attending a reading by E.L. Doctorow in East Lansing, Michigan, quite a few years ago. (And no, I don't think the “E.L.” stands for East Lansing, but thanks for asking, Brian...) He described how he wrote Ragtime, which I present here in his voice using my memory of what I heard him say.
“I sat at my desk and gazed out the window, trying to think of a story to tell. I had nothing to begin with, but eventually I thought of a character. As I pondered that character, others emerged. Slowly, over the course of a year, I worked out what I might write about.”
In fact, he may have said two years, but I can’t recall now if it was a total time of two years to write the novel, or two years of staring out the window like the terrifying character in the movie, The Sentinel, who is condemned to guard the gates of hell.
Either way, he got a banger of a story for his efforts.
My Method (Early Years)
Early on, when I knew nothing, I mostly used a variation of these above methods, thinking of characters and what their lives might involve. That’s what I wrote down.
The reason those stories stank up the place was that I didn’t have a strong sense of story. Basically, I wrote about how a bunch of stuff happened.
I was weak on character motivations. I didn’t understand scene structure. And I couldn’t build tension to save my ass from a spanking.
My Method (Middle Years)
Finally recognizing my failings, I tried writing screenplays, thinking I could learn faster because they required fewer words than writing a novel (I wish I was kidding).
I relied on formulas and cliched stories. Some efforts didn't seem too awful as I had an ear for dialogue. As you might surmise, not much came of this.
My Method (Declining Years)
The past twelve years, I’ve worked diligently to learn about story. Now I understand the demands of genre, scene structure, and building tension.
Most recently, I’ve worked to integrate all this to make it more intuitive.
In 2020, it started to make sense after I read the stories in Suite Francaise, and read those two or three paragraphs from the introduction about how she wrote. In her biography, there's a picture of Irene at a chair holding the massive journal in which she wrote.
It stuck with me that she worked out those characters, the setting, and the themes she cared about by hand, journaling, making notes, exploring the story possibilities.
An Example
In 2021, I completed the first draft of a psychological thriller. 70,000 words of what I thought was pure gold. I sent it out to two beta readers.
I got back a solid “meh” from them both.
When I decided to rewrite the story from scratch, I grabbed a fresh journal and spent several months thinking about the characters, the theme I wanted to explore, and how to plot a story that was elegant, organic and natural.
I’m about two scenes away from completing that rewrite. I don’t know if the result is any good, but the process was fun. I enjoyed writing this way.
My Story-Story
This is the story of my story.
About sixteen years ago, I had a story idea set in an insurance office. It was inspired by my job at the time, and I wanted to satirize office life. I wanted to show how silly and stupid it can be working in an office. It was going to be like The Office, only darker and funnier.
Eventually, I realized I couldn’t out-office The Office.
I still wanted to satirize corporate shenanigans and how greed changes people. I focused on a supporting character from my original story, and tried to write from her point of view. I mentioned earlier that I only recently understood the foundations of story, so those early versions were derivative of other stories.
I tried it as a romance, a business thriller, and dual-identity disorder thing. I took breaks to write other things but I kept coming back.
I stuck with it because the themes of corporate privilege and greed are even more compelling now because the gap between the haves and have-nots has grown wider than the gap between Irène Némirovsky’s life experiences and my own.
Eventually (a total of 15 years later), a compelling version of the supporting character emerged, and her world came to life in my mind. Once I worked out some of the details, I began to narrate the story that formed in my mind.
Going Forward
This newsletter will focus on how writers of longform stories (novels, novellas, and screenplays) conceive of a story and work it out. But I don't want to teach people—there are about a billion books that try to teach you how to write or tell a story.
I want to inspire you to stick with your own stories and write them.
To that end, I’m looking for writers to share their story inception stories. Just a couple hundred words on how they spark an idea and bring it into something they can write as a first draft. (My Story-Story above is under 200 words.)
I hoped to have a professional novelist offer such a story-story for this first newsletter, but it turns out professional writers are busy as fuck. They’ll get back to me when they have a chance.
In the meantime, I'll share thoughts on what I think are the best books for writers, especially longform writers. I certainly have read quite a few.
If you have a story-story to share, send it my way.
Thanks for your time. Now get back to your desk and type faster.
All the best,
Mickey
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