It used to be that if I didn’t like a book I’d read, I chalked it up to the underlying concepts that fuel the narrative. I’d let it go and move on to the next one. I didn’t even think about it very hard, to the point where I can’t even recall the majority of the books I didn’t like. Except for a few particularly egregious books I was forced to read, I just didn’t dwell on them enough to remember what it was that turned me off. More and more though, I’ve realized that pretty much any concept is viable, if not a great place to begin a story. The more I write, the more I end up feeling like the books I didn’t like were a waste of a good idea rather than something I could never have enjoyed. This has it’s benefits and it’s downsides. For one thing, the stories I end up thinking about a lot are actually ones I didn’t like. I dwell on how things might have been different rather than everything I loved about another story. I still think about those too of course, but I’ve noticed that a portion of the time I spent on idolizing some stories has shifted to ‘how could I make this thing I hated worthwhile?’ I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing, but maybe reworking an existing story would make for an interesting exercise.

One recent example that continually irks me is ‘The Hunt for Red October.’ I was so disappointed because I already knew how much potential it had from the movie. Even if I hadn’t seen the movie, submarine warfare is just a cool concept that I think works perfectly for a novel because novels excel at fulfilling desires conceptually rather than viscerally. Description for description’s sake is boring in my opinion, which is why I couldn’t stomach Red October’s long stretches of technical information about military hardware. I really didn’t need all that to understand what was going on. Sure, there needs to be some description, but what’s going on is the exactly what you read for. Everything else serves the goings on of the story.

Making use of the conceptual strength of a novel is crucial to make certain kinds of scene work. A massive variety of concepts can be explored all at once at great depth, much greater depth than any other medium. The downside is that, sensually, novels are much less impressive. A fight scene for example can’t just be a play by play, it has to have more. Beyond the stakes and why two characters are fighting, it needs to have some nitty gritty details of how they choose which moves to throw out, who is feeling what, how the characters move. Then the reader can relate that information to who they are and what they’re fighting for. In other words, what’s going on in their heads, in their hearts, in their bodies, and in their worlds. Making all this come through at once in a movie is really hard. You might get one or two, but there’s just not enough time or space for all of it and all the choreography of a fight scene. In a novel though, time can stretch, and space only has the meaning the writer bestows on it. All of what’s happening within and without can come through over the course of a fight, or whatever other kind of conflict is playing out. I read a novel once called ‘Nexus’ where the state of a character’s brain cells were crucial information during several scenes, including a fight. The main character had access to this information, and adjusted his brain accordingly in between fending off attacks. Try putting that in a movie without cheesy dialogue, or a weirdly confusing heads up display, or a bunch of exposition that’s wholly disconnected from the scene you’d like to see it in. I doubt it’s even possible.

But back to Red October. The thing about the movie is that a lot of the information you get is not available to the characters themselves. Shots from outside the submarine are shots that nobody else gets to see … except for maybe a few of the genius tacticians who can picture exactly what’s going on at any time. Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could peek inside their head to see what they saw in their mind’s eye during those pivotal moments of suspense? This is exactly the kind of power the written word offers. There’s no need for a shot outside of the submarine to see a narrow gap between the hull and the rocks that would sink them all into the abyss because everyone on deck already knows that’s what’s at stake. What’s going on in their heads is enough to make anyone sweat. Are we gonna hit the wall? Ramius is crazy, that’s way too close. He turned to late! We must be about to ground the vessel! And suddenly it appears in the mind, just as it is in theirs, steel sliding past rock. In some ways it’s better than a real image of the physical reality. To other officers, the rocks are probably scuffing the paint. Meanwhile Ramius is calm. He knows the charts too, better than they do, and he knows there’s actually a few feet of space. To the others, that’s nothing. To him it’s plenty of room. The difference is interesting. It’s why he’s calm, and the others are not. It’s the heart of the conflict at play and It’s what’s everybody is thinking about in the moment. It’s what’s actually going on in that cramped steel tube. I don’t need a floating eye to tell me what the state of the submarine is because Ramius already has one. I don’t need pages of technical description beforehand or a walkthrough of the whole vessel either. Unless of course what’s going on necessitates that Ramius do that.

If I were to change Red October I think at this point it’s probably pretty obvious to you what I would do. Reduce all description down to the necessities. What’s left I’d put in perspective too. A lot of the information was delivered by a floating third person narrator. Putting more in dialogue, or by exploring the mind of a person rather than the events that happened to them would be much improved I think. Ramius’ backstory as a child is not what’s going on. Ramius dwelling on his childhood memories of the early Soviet Union while executing an act of treason as a seasoned adult, now that’s what’s going on. Clancy tried to achieve this but ultimately the degree of separation between Ramius’ thoughts and the actual description of what happened back then was too great. It felt disconnected from the story at large to the point where I didn’t care, even if that’s exactly why Ramius was doing what he was doing. That information is juicy, but needs to be delivered in a more engaging way. There’s probably a half dozen other things that could change in the half of the story I didn’t get to.

What’s actually going on in the story and the contents of the book are so far apart. All I’d want to do is bring them closer together. But of course, the book sold millions of copies, so who am I to judge?

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley