About Escape!

 

I want to talk about it, because Escape! has a slam bang finish. Not easy to do. Almost impossible to render properly to sustain suspension of disbelief without addressing technical issues that arise in every paragraph. The scenes are compressed in a crush of parallel action with numerous people to recognize and remember, because we encountered all of them intimately four or five times in the course of 240 previous pages. A slam bang finish cannot be slowed to help confused readers.

 

If you read it with the sort of thrall that flows from catharsis and actual worry about the fate of men and women we like and care about, the finish is a nail biter that ratchets tighter and explodes, almost certain doom — which triples the risk of a flopped soufflé, unless the rescue makes sense and plays correctly in every detail and shade of expression through dénouement and a punchline. It's a high wire tightrope back flip without a net. Why I attempt such insanely risky literary stunts is inexplicable, yet required by my structural plotline of the story and foreshadowed in a dozen clues. Gadant can lose his temper, feel empathy, tell jokes, and suffer heartache, but he's steady and strong enough to assess a life and death situation and reveal nothing to an opponent. He has bold bronze eyes for a reason.

 

Hmph. If I keep raising the bar, how the hell am I supposed to conceive a new story? Writing is not a difficult problem. What to write is a distant hush. I have to be completely alone to hear it, a slow half mile walk to the country store.