The short-story writer, André Dubus, described writing as having vertical and horizontal moments. In an interview for the anthology, Novel Voices, he spoke of the challenges in his first novel, The Lieutenant: “I’m not sure I knew how to bear down then. . . . I was writing what I call horizontally, making scenes go. In my forties, I switched to writing vertically, trying to get inside a world and inside a character.”
Have
you ever driven long distance through the Midwest of the United
States? The horizon stretches forever, across a landscape that is flat
and predictable. I loved driving the endless prairie roads when I lived
in Minnesota and took summer trips through North and South Dakota.
But I longed for a little variation in the unending peace of the grasslands, which sometimes had me struggling to stay awake.
When
I reached the western edge of these states, and the mesas and mountains
began to rise, my heart thrilled. I always looked forward--after three
days of flatness--to the Badlands. The newly vertical landscape provided
more tension and interest, a happy contrast to the sleepy time spent
knowing exactly what was around each turn in the road.
Just
as the variation of landscape excites a long-distance traveler,
unexpected moments charge your book with energy, suspense, and tension.