Good Bones
by Victoria Fortune
Prose is architecture, not interior decoration.
– Ernest Hemingway
Hemingway’s quote strikes a chord with me, perhaps because I am grappling with the structure of my novel in which a house plays a critical role. At the same time, I’m in the midst of moving—selling one house my husband and I renovated extensively, buying another that is going to need some work. Thus, I have houses on the brain, and comparisons between novels and houses seem especially apt to me at the moment.
Hemingway’s point—that good prose requires good structure—is well taken. A book, like a house, must be solidly built, the critical systems functioning properly, the layout well designed so there is logical flow and movement, each part serving its purpose, while working together as a whole. Without these elements, no window dressing or pretty wall colors and decor can make a house appealing, just as no amount of lovely language, witty dialogue or rich descriptive detail can salvage a novel that is not built on a solid plot. Both novels and houses need good bones to last.
I personally prefer houses and novels that are well-constructed and full of decorative detail. Hemingway’s style is a bit minimalist for my taste, but I agree with his point: structure and foundation are paramount. I learned this all too well with my last house (the one I’m now selling). It was built in 1766 and I loved by the historic charm, despite that fact that it was in rough shape (much like the novel I was working on at the time). However, it had good bones, the inspector said, so we bought it, prepared to put some work into it. We just weren’t prepared for how much work it needed.
I will never forget the day I came around the corner and found the entire front wall of the house gone, the living room exposed to the street. Our contractor had discovered, while replacing a window, that the entire front sill was rotted, as were the walls and the beam supporting the second story. Some previous owner, many years prior, had built a trellis across the front of the house and planted a Concord grape vine that created a lovely, leafy overhang, giving interest to the flat façade. It was an attractive feature, but it held moisture against the house, eventually rotting the wood and undermining the structure. A subsequent owner had clearly discovered the rot, but instead of fixing it, had just built another layer of wall inside the house to cover it up, keeping the trellis and vine— the source of the problem.
Renovating an old house is not a project for the faint of heart. Nor is writing a novel. My story is drawn heavily from family history, so I have far more material than I can use. As with my house, there were elements of my book that I had worked hard to make pretty and I didn’t want to let them go, but, like the vine, they were undermining the structure of the novel. My attempts to make them fit were like adding an extra wall that merely covered up the problem, rather than addressing the root of it. At last, I accepted that I was going to have to tear the whole thing apart and rebuild. It was a painful process, much like seeing the whole front of my house demolished, but a necessary one.
It was clear, when the renovations were complete, that they made an enormous difference in the function and appeal of our house. Nevertheless, I worried about the resources we’d put into it. When we sold it, would we get a good return on our investment? Our contractor pointed out that, even if we didn’t, we had done a good thing, saving an old house. At the time, I scoffed. That would hardly be consolation if we lost our shirts.
It was a great relief to receive an offer on the house that came much closer to what we spent than I feared we would get. Although we did not recoup every cent we invested, we would have spent more paying rent for those years. And it was far more gratifying to have spent that money saving an old house we loved and, consequently, engendering good will in our community.
I often wonder, as I sit hunched over my computer working on my novel, whether I will feel similarly about it in the long run. Will all the time and effort spent prove to be a worthwhile investment? That remains to be seen. In the meantime, I am trying to enjoy “living” in it and focusing on the other rewards that can come from my efforts.
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