The Art of Fiction:
Crossing Disciplines

My friends and family know that interior design and architecture are something of an avocation for me: I collect (and read) design books the way others might seashells or salt shakers.

Last night, I picked up one of the design books I’m currently reading, Patterns of Home (Taunton Press, 2005), and immediately read the following:

A house needs to feel well proportioned, combining the variety of particular needs with an overall sense of stability and order. Rather than being a patchwork of disconnected elements, it should have the same fitness of form as a living organism.

Hey, I thought. I’d say the same thing about a novel! When I read on, I knew I was on to something. So, with thanks (and apologies) to Patterns of Home authors Max Jacobson, Murray Silverstein, and Barbara Winslow, I’ve adapted a few of their subheads in their section “Working with a Pattern” for us to consider as we write and rewrite our fiction.

Balance the area and mass of the house.

“Place the highest part…in the center, supported by lower supporting parts.” You know that diagram I always come back to, the one with rising action moving toward a climax? That’s what the “highest part” refers to here. But note the other part of the equation, “supported by lower supporting parts.” What this means in terms of your writing is that every single part of your fiction must support and balance the larger edifice.

Create a rich variety of room sizes and orientations.

“Including human scale,” the authors continue. To me, this can be applied to two important aspects of fiction writing: first, keeping your reader’s interest by “creating rich variety” in your characters, plot, and scenes; and second, always remembering that the most universal connections will be made at the individual level.

Let the overall form of the house grow naturally.

“The form of the house equals the form of its parts.” Around here (“here” being north central New Mexico), supposedly Tuscan-inspired houses are rising from the desert like anthills. Now there’s nothing wrong with Tuscan houses—in Tuscany, or maybe even (tastefully done!) in California. But this is the land of pueblo-inspired homes, of cooling-in-summer, heat-retaining-in-winter adobe, of houses that are part of the place, not apart from it.

So, imagine if you will, a novel that takes place in New Mexico that uses Tuscan imagery, or a Tuscan leitmotif, or – I’m laughing now – is written in Italian, or, hey, Latin. Dumb, huh? This is what I mean when I say that every single thing in your fiction should belong.

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There’s an entirely separate lesson in all of this. Don’t limit yourself to one discipline because, just as it takes a third seed to act as a catalyst for any fiction, reading only writing books as you learn to write can keep you from seeing the trees for the forest. Plus, you never know where you’ll find inspiration and instruction.

Now, back to work!