Inspired by Ayn Rand, Erika Holzer decided to write a novel. She made a plan and did some research. And then—
posted 12.29.05
MY WOULD-BE FIRST NOVEL WAS AN UNWIELDY LABYRINTH FROM HELL
Don't bite off more than you can chew.
People who know me assume Double Crossing is my first novel. It was my first published novel. Well before Double Crossing, I'd planned another novel in great detail.
Businessman as Atlas
What triggered my interest—soon to develop into a passion—was my memorable introduction to the businessman-as-unadulterated-hero in the wildly romantic, larger-than-life persona of my favorite Atlas Shrugged character, Francisco D'Anconia. Adding fuel to the embers (not yet a full-blown fire) was the shabby treatment of businessmen that was endemic to the culture at that time. (Alas, not much has changed.) I found ample evidence of what today's slang would label an "attitude" and what I would call an animus in the way they were depicted in books, movies, and especially television.
When the subject came up during an extensive interview with the contributing editor of a (now defunct) politically conservative magazine and I was asked what could be done to counteract hostility to books that supported free enterprise, I let loose with what, in retrospect, I can only characterize as pent-up frustration.
"That's a hard call, given what we know from public opinion polls. Take the television medium. Most businessmen are depicted as the bad guys—fools, criminals, greedy parasites—so the message going out to millions of Americans (to turn an old General Motors slogan on its ear) is: 'What's good for business is not good for America.'
"No surprise when you consider that a huge majority of the TV elite, from executive producers and network VPs right on down to program directors and story consultants, are self-described 'left-of-center' types who use television entertainment as—in their words, not mine—'a major force for social reform.'
"I think there's something grievously wrong with a culture that considers a businessman-hero as a kind of oddity," I told the editor heatedly.
And then...
This blowing-off-steam episode set me to thinking that maybe it was time somebody took on the anti-business culture in fictional form.
I decided to rise to the challenge with a novel about the gross injustices endemic in our antitrust laws. Being a lawyer with a background in labor relations (which had begun in my college days at Cornell's prestigious School of Industrial and Labor Relations and continued in my first job out of law school until I quit to go into appellate practice with my husband), I was confident that I had the analytical ability to dissect the relevant statutes and pick apart their flaws and inherent contradictions. I also knew enough about psychology to zero in on the base motives of the bureaucratic mentality—unproductive citizens and power-hungry enemies of capitalism —who took pleasure in enforcing their pernicious laws against the Hank Reardens and the Dagny Taggarts (not to mention the Francisco D'Anconias!) of this world.
Becoming a mini-expert on the antitrust laws, while time consuming, was relatively easy—I was right about that much. Where the project broke down was in my naive expectation that I had the necessary skill to create a highly intricate plot structure that would convincingly carry so complex a theme. My literary goal, you might say, was nothing short of collapsing the entire antitrust house of cards! I ended up with so many characters going off in so many directions, so many incidents in so many places, so much meticulously detailed research with no place to go, that I eventually filled an entire file cabinet drawer with my folly.
"What's the worst mistake you made here?" Ayn asked me after I had finally acknowledged the Frankenstein in my file cabinet and issued a call for help.
"It's a lousy idea for a novel," I said disconsolately.
"It's an excellent idea," Ayn countered, pushing up her glasses (which had a habit of slipping) with an automatic, impatient gesture. "You chose a provocative theme on an important subject. It shows originality. You've given yourself a lot of leeway in choosing where to place the action. The antitrust laws affect businessmen all across the country, after all. I see an embarrassment of riches here when it comes to potential plot events and character conflicts. What is it you missed, Erika?"
Reach and grasp
Lump-in-the-throat time. "I suppose...that I'm kidding myself? That I don't have the talent to write novels?"
"You don't have the talent to write this novel—not yet. Not your first time out. Your mistake was in not knowing that you weren't ready. The way to avoid false starts in future," she said, her features softening into a grandmotherly look (yes, the severe, unflinching Ayn Rand had a grandmotherly aspect to her persona), "is to monitor what you're doing—not just in the early planning stages, but repeatedly. It's the only way to be sure your grasp doesn't exceed your ability."
A hard lesson. Such a profligate waste of time. Such a wealth of information going down the drain! It was years before I could make myself dispose of the byproduct of this ill-advised writing venture. I was reluctant to send everything to the shredder on the premise that, someday, I would be ready.
By the time I was, I had lost all interest in the subject.
It makes a lot more sense to do the necessary monitoring on any given writing project—particularly the potentially time-consuming ones, and especially in the early stages of your project—than to jump right in, as I did, and discover, too late, that you've landed in quicksand.
Clichés can come in handy
One way to put a cliché to work on your behalf is to use it as a reminder of some pitfall you'd do well to avoid. Take my first serious attempt at writing a novel by tackling the antitrust laws in all their inglorious and interlocking complexities. Had I kept the cliché "Don't bite off more than you can chew" in mind—it's not a hard one to remember—chances are I'd have tackled a more realistic subject. And had I grasped early on that I was too focused on "the trees (my glamorous businessmen heroes) at the expense of the forest (a thicket of statutes with its bureaucratic roots dug in from one end of this country to the other)," I could have pulled myself out of that labyrinth without Ayn's help.
Reprinted by permission of the author from her new book, Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher. Erika Holzer's novel Eye for an Eye was made into a movie starring Keifer Sutherland as the bad guy, the same actor who would also star as the good guy in one of Erika Holzer's favorite TV shows, "24." Her web site is ErikaHolzer.com.
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"Damn you for taking me away from my work and compelling me, like a man possessed, to read your book from cover to cover. It's just wonderful. Humane, dramatic, humorous, touching, terrific on every level...."
—Chris Sciabarra, author of Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical
Read Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher by Erika Holzer
Read The Art of Fiction by Ayn Rand
"Every good writer is such a craftsman; and occasionally—very occasionally—a craftsman will let you visit her workshop. That’s what Holzer does, and that's what Rand let her do."
—Stephen Cox, author of The Literary Achievement of Ayn Rand
"Erika Holzer gave us one of the best thrillers of the 80s—Double Crossing— and gave us one of the best thrillers of the 90s—Eye for an Eye. She hasn't yet given us one of the best thrillers of the first decade of a new century, but I believe she will. In the meantime, she has served up this fascinating memoir of how she learned to write fiction so well, along with a collection of essays and short stories her readers may well have missed on their first publication.... If you're like me, you'll read through Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher in a single sitting—and then you'll come back to its pages time and time again."
—Jeff Riggenbach, author of In Praise of Decadence
Read Ayn Rand: My Fiction-Writing Teacher by Erika Holzer
Read The Woman and the Dynamo: Isabel Paterson and the Idea of America by Stephen Cox
Read In Praise of Decadence by Jeff Riggenbach
Read Eye for an Eye by Erika Holzer
Watch "Eye for an Eye" starring Kiefer Sutherland
Watch "24" starring Kiefer Sutherland
Read Double Crossing by Erika Holzer
Read The Art of Nonfiction by Ayn Rand
Read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Read The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Read Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical by Chris Sciabarra
Gifts Books on liberty All books—and all else, also
