Control: Giving It a Chance

I, Dalton Lewis, have a memory: I remember sitting in front of the television, legs crossed, after school. I put in the old Betamax tape of the first Star Wars movie — confusingly entitled Episode Four. I watched it over and over and loved lightsabers. I bought the toys and learned to read at four by reading the names of the characters that went into my Darth Vader display case.

I’m not here to review the new Star Wars movie — I’ve only seen it once and can’t decide what I think of it. No, I want to talk about something else — a novel I tried to write. I spent all of November writing a novel for National Novel Writing Month. I worked my ass off to write what I thought would be an intelligent synthesis of pulp sci-fi and real literature with real ideas.

I started out with an action scene to set the tone and raise the stakes for the characters and the readers. I found it a bit frivolous to have such action sequences in a novel that I write. I wanted something legendary. Then I thought about a lot of my favorite stories, and many of them include violence, sex, and a lot of over-the-top dramatic action. I decided that my novel should include murder and rage and jealousy and all that’s wrong with the world.

What’s wrong with a story with violence, murder, rage, jealousy, and anger? Nothing. Why shouldn’t I write an outrageously exciting space opera? I should. How should I go about writing it? I should give it my absolute all because I want to write something that garners a response from the readers.

I know — I should write literature. I love literature. I love trying to say something about life and death and rock and roll. I should also write something that people want to read. Literature starts with writing something that moves people — I can’t move people with boring stories of high school students who mope and worry about their appearance. No, sometimes someone needs to write about a galactic war that wrecks society. Sometimes characters have to grow up. I’m glad I’m writing about adults.

I will spend the next couple of months rewriting this book. I will sit around, talking to my friends, playing strategy games, and reading more books. This will occupy my next few months. All I want is for a few people to read the book I will work so hard rewriting. I just want people to give it a chance.

Thanks, and take care, friends.