July 2024 …
Since launching myself into developing a writing craft my awareness of the structure of stories has changed. Whether a theatrical production, a movie or a novel, my appreciation of the story has become more enhanced. This doesn’t mean that I have developed a preference for pure literary works. I read both popular novels and literary classics to try to identify elements that make writing appealing to a wide readership.
I recently read John Grisham’s 1994 novel The Chamber. The protagonist, Sam, is on Death Row in Mississippi. The story covers the four weeks before his scheduled execution in the gas chamber. I started reading the book partly because it was lying around and I hadn’t read it, but also because it was by John Grisham – a renowned thriller writer. I was interested to see the methods he used to build tension.
The story is quite linear – a simple progression in time from start to end, with no use of flashbacks. The opening chapters cover the crime itself and the immediate aftermath, so the reader is aware that Sam did not commit the crime for which he is sentenced to death. As the story progresses, the jumps in time-span for each chapter change from years to months, then to weeks and days and, finally, to hours. While the number of pages in each chapter doesn’t change significantly, the number of scenes within a chapter increases. Towards the end of the book, each scene is only a few paragraphs long and follows the point of view of a different character of influence.
The suspense is created using progressively shorter time periods and changing points of view, and the reader’s anticipation that Sam is going to avoid the death penalty. We are fully aware that he is innocent of the crime – and the real killer is lurking in the fringes of the story. As the chapters unfold and the countdown continues, the reader begins wishing the reprieve would soon happen, the real killer captured, and the hero lawyer lauded for his achievement.
While this is not what ensues, the compression of time intervals and frequent changing of points of view create a sense of urgency for the reader. Personally, I set aside all other books on my list to focus on the final dozen chapters; I felt compelled to finish the novel.
Despite the clever buildup of expectation and tension, the ending was somewhat disappointing. Applying the “Chekhov’s Gun” principle, the presence of the real killer had no influence on the actual outcome. If he had never been mentioned after the first few chapters, it would not have detracted from the story.
The impending failure of the hero lawyer was evident too early. The writer in me was expecting a sudden revelation to change the ultimate outcome – but it never came. Grisham could have included an apparently ordinary element early in the story that was later revealed as the key to a reprieve or clemency – but this didn’t occur. The story ended with the outcome that was set up from the beginning – Sam was executed.
The learning I take from this is – while it is helpful to use timing as way of building tension in a story, other writing craft techniques still apply. In his MasterClass series, Dan Brown points out that readers can often anticipate endings; someone lives or dies, succeeds or fails, or a couple gets together. What interests the reader is how an author gets to that end. The journey must be as satisfying as the endpoint. In The Chamber the journey was good, but the ending was disappointing, and therefore unsatisfying.