Title: 11/22/63
Author: Stephen King
Progress: 50%
Platform: Kindle
Amazon Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
NYT BS Hardcover/E-Book List: #1 (debuted at number 1)
Book 6 out of 107
It's been a while since my last post. It's not because I've been too busy. It's because 11/22/63 is a freaking long book. I could have read The Litigators twice by now, but really, who would want to?
I'm halfway done and I remain steadfast in my opinion that Stephen King is lying when he says he doesn't outline. I think he thinks it makes him sound cool, like he's just so talented that he doesn't need a guide to get to the end of a book like the rest of us hack writers, like he's a jazz saxophone player riffing his way to the end of a bestseller without so much as making a note in a margin.
Yet, right there at 50%, bang, a major turning point, our hero Jake being sent in a new direction, one part of the story done, and another just begun.
If I could break into Mr. King's home and take a peek at his notebooks (after looking in his refrigerator, because who doesn't want to know what a guy like that eats?), I think I'd see something like this...
First Act -- We explain the rules of time travel, introduce Jake and have him go back in time to kill a guy who deserves killing. This will be a warm up act to the main event. This section is about Jake proving to himself he can take on history and win.
Second Act -- This is the calm before the storm. Jake falls in love with the 50s, re-falls in love with teaching, then falls in love with a girl. This will make the reader love him and makes the stakes more personal. We will go into the second half of the book not just wondering about preventing JFK's murder, but worried that Jake won't get the girl and live happily ever after.
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| Stephen King gets romantic in Act Two of 11/22/63. More gore is sure to be around the corner. If King had baked this cake, it would be filled with blood and a time bomb filled with anthrax. |
It's all working famously. Mr. King is awesome.
I was once of the opinion that one of his tricks was a little too worn. He will often lovingly develop a character, make you, the reader, care more than you really should about the fate of a fictional person. Then, cruelly and with relish, Mr. King will kill that character slowly, gruesomely and with a poet's attention to detail. I think his goal with his books from the 80s and 90s was only to terrify. The well developed characters were just a trick and felt contrived, created to be killed. This is especially obvious if you happen to read two King books in a row.
These days, as the horrorist revels in his post-death scare artistic phase, the frights don't seem to be the point. The point is about the character, about life, about love. The scares are a spice, but not the point of the meal.
This second act of 11/22/63 could be cut out, edited a bit, and released as a successful novella, a time travel love story between two misfits who find each other, he in the wrong time because of a wormhole, she in the wrong time because of her gender.
Some of the few negative reviews cite this romantic subplot as the bad thing in this book, as the thing they would like to edit out. Dumbasses.
If this were Mr. King's first novel, cutting out the romance would be the first bit of advice an editor or agent would give. Get rid of the fluff. Drive the plot forward. No cares about the characters. Readers want action. Get to the killing, blow some stuff up, can ninjas be involved? Sure, throw a little romance in there for the ladies, and a little sex for the guys, but get back to the guns as soon as you can.
Again. Dumbasses.
What have we learned this week? When your story has a heart, everything else -- the action, the gore, the frights, the dangers, the bad guys -- works better. A lot better.
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