by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
A re-occurring theme in this novel I’m working on is how much I want people to really love a place. I want particular place in the setting of the novel to be almost a character unto itself. I’m fascinated by how people love the office politics and history of Saturday Night Live and struggle to figure out how to use that dynamic in the novel.
It’s really interesting that people enjoy hearing old behind the scenes stories from SNL that sometimes that’s Jimmy Fallon’s entire show. I’m still only on my first draft, so there’s a lot of nuance that I’ve yet to figure out how to impart into the novel’s text.
But in general, I want several main characters to have an emotional attachment to a place so when something happens to it, the audience knows it’s a big deal. Being able to actually show that on the page is a lot — a lot — of work. I’ve discovered the hard way that my imagination and my ability to lay what I can think up on the page are two different things. It’s been a two year struggle to get to this point.
Anyway, I’m going to have to give this a lot of thought to evoke the emotional attachment I need.
