Literary, the classics, and how pragmatic is that for the rest of us?

December 21, 2011 10 Comments

The classics were commercial genre in their day. I’m imagining myself pretty out there with such a claim, but I’m hunting for the exception. For example, Melville was Van Gogh’s literature. He wrote about working stiffs, in a day when more institutionally respected writers wrote about God and king. There probably are exceptions to my observation, but I’m guessing those exceptions are modern anomalies.
This brings us to the form ordained for greatness, literary. One’s book cannot become a classic without being literary, can it? And yet, I repeat, I can’t think of many classics that weren’t pushing back the favorite literary forms of their day, and that thought goes all the way back to the bawdy houses of Shakespeare. My assertion that yesterday’s commercial genre is how the classics were made, seems to confront all the assumptions that literary is superior. I kind of like banging that drum, not because of what it says about pipe-smoking professors wearing cardigan sweaters, but because of what it says about the potential within genre literature; more on that later.
Let’s look at a common definition of this thing called literary: ‘Literary fiction is a term that came into common usage during the early 1960s. The term is principally used to distinguish “serious fiction” which is a work that claims to hold literary merit, compared to genre fiction and popular fiction. In broad terms, literary fiction focuses more upon style, psychological depth, and character. This is in contrast to mainstream commercial fiction (what I’m loosely calling genre in this post), which focuses more on narrative and plot. Literary fiction may also be characterized as lasting fiction (destined to be the source of future classics).’
Now, let’s just take a moment to look at all the assumptions in that definition. First, the definition starts off with circular reasoning. Literary is serious fiction and has merit. Why? Well, because the way it is written has more merit than any other way of working, and therefore is serious. This means genre fiction is not serious and has no merit, or at least by comparison. Those who are serious, and who have merit, claim it so from the bell towers.
We are also told that literary fiction can be identified as having style, psychological depth and focus on characters. Oh, and if it has significant plot, that’s a big no-no.
As a writer, this kind of pompous crap just blows me away because it has been a very long time since I’ve thought it optional to neglect the very basics of good story. You should have great style, internal depth and vivid characters in every story. It isn’t optional.
There are two silly positions born from this claptrap. One is the assertion that one writing form holds ownership over style, psychological depth and characterization. Some on the other side suggest that, as a genre writer, there’s a pass on these concerns if the external plot is interesting. The latter I hate even worse than the former because it dumbs down our work and gives the critics all the excuse they need to continue with the claims that literary is “serious fiction” worthy of “classic status,” someday, and by comparison, our work isn’t, in spite of the fact that nearly everything ever declared a classic was genre in its day.
I’m reminded of a very nice lady in one of my writers groups several years back. I told her, “You know, you need to decide what your story is about, given it is leaning several directions. I suggest a romance, considering the type of relationships you are spending all your time building in the first fifty pages.”
Her response was an aghast, “Oh no! I’m writing literary.”
This sort of assumed superiority of form leaves me feeling a little insulted, but we genre writers are used to that, and the lady didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
If you put a couple of romantic scenes in a book that obviously screams for them, you’ve somehow reduced yourself to the slag-heap of poor writers by writing a romance and joining half the bookstore’s inferior commercial offerings. In the minds of some, that’s unconscionable. But I ask: what about a couple of romantic scenes automatically make it trivial literature lacking in style, depth and characterization, even though everything else in the work is supposedly literary? God forbid I should have suggested making a main character a vampire. That would have doomed it, regardless of the style, depth and characterization. Give it a better plot, and off with her head. Let’s be real, a moment, here. Did Moby Dick have a plot? It did? Oh, never mind.

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Protagonists

October 31, 2011 7 Comments

I sometimes state, “Your protagonist doesn’t protag.”

My Webster suggests that a protagonist is the prominent figure in a real situation. It is usually a good idea to have someone to care about, plot point by plot point. This might seem to be fundamentally given, but I’m surprised how often the issue comes up.

Writers often work directly from plot, building characters much like they do setting; a little of this, a little of that. Once halfway through a hundred thousand word novel, the question creeps up: Who exactly am I rooting for?
This is a hard problem to ignore, given my axiom that a novel is finished when the internal struggle of the main character finds a different comfort level. If we can’t do the first (define the main character), it’s impossible to find the second (define the internal struggle).

A number of writers have said they prefer more than one main character, but this obviously presents problems with internal struggles, making it a difficult concept. I suggest having a prominent figure in a realistic situation.

I’ve noticed a kind of pattern with many novels, of late. There is a tendency to work at creating the sympathetic character that is utterly downtrodden. I do this too, and the novel, Shaman Within is an example. At first the protagonist has a problem, then the character has a bigger problem. Some are resolved early, but the cycle continues until nothing but problems abound. The strategy of building sympathy bears taking a closer look because there’s more to it than just beating on the kid.

Let’s start that closer look with the second definition of the protagonist: The advocate or champion of a cause or idea. Usually the lack of this strategy is why I end up saying, “Your protagonist isn’t being a protagonist.”
Even while your main character is suffering from mounting problems and deeper downtrodden depths, he or she should act. Nobody likes a moping character. (See Twilight for the lonely exception; not that I can explain why people like it).

Sympathy has two components to it, in my opinion. One is a need for our sympathy because problems and conflicts accost the character. The second component is that we see the person struggling to earn our respect. The character might be downtrodden, but the character doesn’t necessarily deserve to be treated so poorly. My protagonists protag. They are always fighting back.

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Typos

September 23, 2011 4 Comments

In my last post I accidentally included a couple typos that were pointed out. I thought, why neglect this issue? It’s interesting to note where typos often come from. For example, in my two typos, the original text was as follows:

Bibi stood with her head propped on her sister’s shoulder. “Let’s dance, sisss… terrrr.”

“We’ll have to restrain her.” The doctor rushed around the bed.

From there I hoped to show how an author could junk up dialogue with too many adverbs in conjunction with dialogue tags. I wrote:

Bibi stood with her head limply set on her sister’s shoulder. “Thanks, sis.” She said drunkenly.

“We’ll have to do something.” The doctor expressed professionally. He came around the bed.

The first paragraph’s error occurred as a simply typo. Unlike the action tag, which is a complete sentence, the dialogue tag is a clause, requiring a comma before the end quote mark and lower case in the first word of the tag clause, as follows:

Bibi stood with her head limply set on her sister’s shoulder. “Thanks, sis,” she said drunkenly.

Now, we all know this, but we are human. I’ll get to that later. The second error is more interesting because it is what often happens through the process of editing. We change one component, and leave other parts of the sentence unchanged, creating an error by default. The (something.” The doctor) is unaltered from the original text, which becomes an error when I added (expressed professionally), which changes (The doctor rushed around the bed), from an action bite to a dialogue tag. Corrected, it should have read:

“We’ll have to do something,” the doctor expressed professionally. He came around the bed.

Thus, errors often occur in a writer’s work because of simple human error, but they can also occur through the process of editing, which is just another form of human error. I’m fairly certain I’ve never written anything significant that didn’t include some errors, proving my pedigree.

When an author writes then goes back and edits, the same set of eyes that made the error are looking at the black and white on a page in roughly the same manner they looked at the page previously. The chances of missing the error are huge, even though someone else pointing the error out makes the mistake appear obvious, as if emerging from the paper after having been in invisible ink.

What we need for the second pass is a new set of eyes or a new piece of paper. It is literally physical. There are strategies for doing this.

One way of showing this quirk of human magic is to post your work somewhere else then read it. For example, I often use Scribophile.com as a means of presenting novel openings to other writers and getting a quick review. After I post, I usually read my own posted story portion and instantly find a handful of errors that are glaringly obvious.

I don’t even wonder about why this happens. It’s simple physics. I have my work on a different piece of electronic paper, and my eyes are seeing the lines of text in what they perceive to be a different way. Things show up.

The need to edit can be eternal, but I determine that a novel is ready to be submitted if I can print the novel out and forge my way through with less than one edit per page. Of course, I’ll have to put the changes onto my electronic file, and in so doing I know I’m injecting one new error per ten changes. One can become vary anal about editing.

Another way of earning a new set of eyes is putting the piece down for a time. What seemed perfect the night before is full of mistakes a day later. This effect increases with time. Obviously this means working under a deadline is bad news.

It also means that any author who writes a book and tells his or her friends that they’ll be ready to send it off after a couple weeks is showing a lack of experience. I’ve put finished novels on the shelf for as much as a year, and I can tell you that the longer it sits on the shelf the more awful it looks when you pick it back up. That’s a really good thing. The book speaks to who you are. You want people to be impressed. When others point out errors in something published, it’s painful and usually something obvious, which only makes it more painful, but it does make you human.

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The lowly adverb–poison

September 2, 2011 6 Comments

Adverbs are parts of speech that modify verbs and adjectives (mostly). If you are a writer, sooner or later someone will suggest they are poison.

For those unaware of the debate, this is probably most true. The tendency to abuse them is always amplified by unawareness.

Before I fly to the defense of either view, it’s good to realize that this issue is a little complex. One can’t categorically say yeah they’re good, or no they’re not.

So, what’s the big deal?

To begin with, adverbs are tell. In writer’s English, that means you’re not showing us the story, you’re explaining it. The technique isn’t actors on a stage, but moderators with microphones.

Consider the example below:

Joe angrily walked in the door.

There are two ways to think of this example. One is, hey, I just want to get Joe in the door. Once he’s in there, I’m going to show you things, but for now, I’m happy just telling you he’s not a happy camper and in transit.

On a certain level, I can accept that. Nothing is worse in literature than mindless action that takes us through every trivial motion of a character:

He opened the door. He turned on the porch light. He put his keys on the table. Joe stepped past the threshold and turned around, and looked out the door window. Next, he yelled a curse word. Doors, hum. They always seem kind of… rectangular.

Oh, my god, this is going to take all day. A little of that and one is just dying to read prose like:

He swiftly ran to the car.

Or

The rapidly descending spider hungrily eyed her prey.

Okay, I’m having a little fun with it.

On the other hand, let’s move past the occasional desire for tell and look at angry Joe in better detail.

Joe clutched his fists until white showed at the knuckles. He kicked in the door and strode through.

Now sure, there are other ways of showing this anger, but the operative word here is show. Angrily, suggests the author
is not interested in showing us the details, but prefers to move on past this portion of the story to something more interesting. The writer is deliberately, or accidentally, dumbing down the line. If a writer substitutes angrily for the show too often, the story feels flat and inactive.

Let me revisit that swift move to the car. What happens when we omit the adverb?

He ran to the car.

Isn’t running always swift?

Adverbs are often redundant, begging for omission.

He went to the car.

Now I have a non-specific verb. I feel the need to explain it, so I add an adverb:

He swiftly went to the car.

There, patched back up.

One huge problem with adverbs (or adjectives for that matter) is they convince us that we’ve picked the right verb when we’ve actually picked a horrible verb. Went doesn’t compare to ran, skipped or crawled. Better verbs mean better work.

The biggest offenders are those who insist upon lacing their dialogue with adverbs in tags or action bites. It is a pet peeve of mine because it suggests writers are content with dialogue that doesn’t express itself as fully as it might.

Let’s take a look at some dialogue from one of my novels:

Bibi stood with her head propped on her sister’s shoulder. “Let’s dance, sisss… terrrr.”

“We’ll have to restrain her.” The doctor rushed around the bed.

He bounced off Lilly’s hand as she held her arm out. “All she needs is one of Rahela’s teas, and she’ll be good as new in the morning.”

“That’s ridiculous.” the doctor said.

“Rick, are you going to help me, or just stand there?”

The door imploded.

“Mom! What are you doing? Let Aunt Bibi down; can’t you see she’s hurt!”

When it comes to dialogue, we need to reflect not just words in dialogue, but attitude. The attitude of each actor above is carried, I hope, by the dialogue itself. Bibi is drunk. The doctor is steady. Lilly is forceful, but offhanded. Mitsi, the daughter, is beside herself with both worry and astonishment at how her mother is treating her aunt. The tags and action bites are relegated to simple actions and explaining who is talking. The surrounding text does not communicate these attitudes; the dialogue does that all by itself.

We don’t want to tell the reader what the words should be showing the reader. If we have to tell people the attitude of the speaker, we are taking a major style hit and probably engaging in weak dialogue.

Having written all that, let me put myself in a position, wherein I feel compelled to add adverbs to spoof it up:

Bibi stood with her head limply set on her sister’s shoulder. “Thanks, sis.” She said drunkenly.

“We’ll have to do something.” The doctor expressed professionally. He came around the bed.

He bounced off Lilly’s hand as she held her arm out. With a stoic attitude, Lilly said, “I’ll get her a drink.”

“What do you intend?” the doctor critically intoned.

“What are you doing, Rick?” Lilly asked, desperately seeking his help.

The door opened impressively.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Mitsi said in a scolding tone that quickly implied exceeding concern.

That seems silly, but I read a lot of lines like those above. Adverbs are usually not our friends. Once in a while we need them, but we should educate ourselves regarding their abuses and why they are abusive.

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The Writer’s Promise

August 1, 2011 4 Comments

The opening of any story is synonymous with a promise to the readers. This means it has to directly relate to the resolution.

I am reminded of a story I reviewed where a serial killer walked through a playground full of children. A reasonable person starts to worry for the children. Handled correctly, this can be a compelling opening that leaves us with a story-wide question. What is going to happen next? We hope he reconsiders or they escape or some hero stops him.

In a group meeting, several thought that the opening was a fairly decent hook and sustained the murder mystery reader’s interest into the second page.

When one person mentioned a dislike for this sort of story, the writer said, “Not to worry.” He had no intention of having his villain actually harm, or even confront, any children. This served as a relief to many, including myself, but it also raised a different flag in my head.

What about the story promise?

Unless the writer has a Ted Bundy in the offering, using the fear of a murderer walking through a playground full of young people is invalid. The story-wide theme offered on the first page of any story or novel must be consistent with the story-wide promise throughout and at its conclusion.

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Character Paragraph Integrity and Action Bites

July 4, 2011 1 Comment

“Well, did you shoot him or not?”

“Only because I enjoyed it so gods-damned much.”

Rahel put her hands on her hips. “You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this.”

Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant. This was a disaster, she realized. Now, even going home meant nothing but disgrace. “What part of I’m having a bad day haven’t you noticed, causing you to want to fill in the sweet spots for me?”

Rahel sighed.

Tundy stood, staggered and checked her horse.

                                             ###

While reviewing manuscripts, I often notice when writers fail to maintain what I call character paragraph integrity (I made that term up–maybe).  It’s worth touching on because it’s one thing that separates good writers from those still learning the craft.

Writers are usually aware that whenever a new person speaks, a new paragraph is in order.  What is less known is it’s usually preferable to also do this with action and other forms of narrative.

I’m reminded of a question someone posed regarding paragraph length. The questioner said a teacher once told her to never write a one sentence paragraph.  I wrote back and said, ‘length has nothing to do with it.  It more often has to do with where the ball is on the playing field.’  The above segment from my novel in progress (The Condotte’s Daughter) opens with the ball in Rahel’s hands. Six words later, the ball is in Tundy’s mitt.  It hardly matters if it’s dialogue or action.  A few lines down, Rahel sighs (clearly action), yielding a two word paragraph.

On a general level, paragraph integrity relates to the broader need to afford readers as much clarity as a writer can offer. On a more specific level, regarding this post on action bites, paragraph integrity allows the writer to use action bites–or nothing at all–in place of tags.

Let’s look at the lowly tag a moment: Rahel said.

                                             ###

A tag actually does nothing for a plot. It is simply a device used to help clarify who is speaking. Tags are best when simple and nearly invisible. If you can find ways to do without them, great.

Nobody has ever become a great writer by using lots of gaudy and intrusive tags, though I’ve noticed plenty of poor writers seemingly specializing in decorating them up as much as possible.

Many writers know to use a variety of techniques to minimize the use of tags. One good tool for doing away with tags is the action bite.

Use of the action bite in place of the tag relies solely upon a writer having convinced the reader that they abide by the rule of character paragraph integrity. If the paragraph belongs to Tundy, she can think in it (if also the POV), act in it and speak in it.  It belongs to her and her alone.  If I show her speaking in it, acting in it and thinking in it, in any combination, one form can support the other, often allowing me to do away with the tag and still maintain clarity for the reader.

Imagine the following bad example:

Rahel put her hands on her hips. “You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this.” Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant.

In the above example I’ve put two of my actors in the same paragraph. Who is speaking? It could be either actor.  I have no choice but to add a tag. If this is the habit, I’ll have to tag every spoken sentence in the entire novel (an utter disaster).  This yields the weaker paragraph:

Rahel put her hands on her hips. She said, “You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this.” Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant.

The same problem occurs when we pull things apart too far. In the example below, we have no idea who is speaking because we’ve taken the action bite tool out of the dialogue paragraph:

Rahel put her hands on her hips.

“You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this.”

Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant.

This example of overly-splitting bites away from dialogue begs for the clarity of an otherwise unnecessary tag:

Rahel put her hands on her hips.

“You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this,” Rahel said.

Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant.

The action bite, Rahel put her hands on her hips, does all the work for us–while keeping every word in plot–when we maintain paragraph integrity, as shown below:

Rahel put her hands on her hips. “You’re a hardheaded, impetuous wench. No wonder you’ve come to this.”

Tundy stopped fussing with her wounds and glared up at the servant.

I’m a big fan of action bites and a reduced reliance upon tags.  Character paragraph integrity allows me to get away with it while minimizing words that don’t contribute to plot and while maximizing clarity.

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Dialogue is War

June 13, 2011 4 Comments

“Did I hear somebody?” Footsteps pounded from a staircase somewhere behind the curtain. “Is that Tundy down there, I hear? You can’t hide her from me, don’t you dare.

I drudge this dialogue up from a work in progress as introduction to the idea that dialogue is war. I read that in a book once, and the concept instantly had meaning to me.  Imagine all the ways I might have shown Vira saying hello to Tundy. Even before I get started I know hello and goodbye are the two least liked dialogue ideas in genre fiction. Every good writer knows to hack the bookends off most conversations. But, if you’re going to say hello, at least make it war.

Now, having come under assault, Tundy has to brace her defenses:

Tundy bit her lip.

It’s no use cowering, Vera is always on the offensive.

“Tundy!” The elderly woman broached the curtains.

Tundy decides upon surrender.

“Vira! I’ve missed you.”

And Vira is having none of it.  She strikes Tundy where it hurts, and pokes a sword into her father at the same time.

“Well, that’s because you’re always off doing things too dangerous for a decent woman, or out at that homestead where your mean father keeps you locked away like he’s afraid someone will snatch you up. Which someone will, so it’s useless.”

Tundy parries.

“Nobody’s going to snatch me up.” Tundy smiled.

Vira’s an old hand at warfare, and deftly deflects the counter strike.

“Not with that hair. Off with your hat!”

This aggressive notion kind of reminds me of when I coached summer track. I especially enjoyed coaching the special events like hurdles and high jump.  One day I was coaching my oldest daughter and some other hurdlers when a member of the men’s team asked me to give him some pointers. He did a few hurdles while I watched.

I said, “Son, you have perfect form. If I took a picture of you they could put it in Track and Field under the caption, This is How it Should Look While Over the Hurdle. Unfortunately, runners don’t win the 100 meters hurdles by running the 100 meters hurdles.  They win the 100 meters hurdles by running the 100 meter dash. You can’t look good over the hurdles. You can’t even like the hurdles.  You have to hate them and nip every one of them on the way over.  You have to want them out of your way because they’re keeping you from running the 100 meter dash, and anything you do to reduce the amount of time you spend looking pretty while running the 100 meter dash is wasted effort.”

That kid went from consistently placing 3rd in dual meets to placing second in the states two months later. It was mostly about his attitude. If you write without attitude, it slows you down.

This is what writers have to do with dialogue. They have to stop being so damned at peace with it, and think of it as a battle worth our attention.

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Point of View: One Simple Rule

May 23, 2011 13 Comments

It is my hope that this post bores you. In fact, I’m going to start off slowly, so it’s pretty much guaranteed.

Back in high school my teacher told me there were three points of view (POV): First person (I), second person (YOU) and third person (HE or SHE).

I’ll start with first person.  This is from my novel Satan’s Daughter Goes to Pittsburgh.  Satan’s Daughter, Ruth, is conversing with a hovering angel who is trying to impress a Bolivian town with an angelic revelation:

Liwet gave me a smirk and said, “His loins are girded with bronze armor.”  He rocked his head from side to side, like telling me so there!

Lot of good it did him.  I had no idea what a loin was and the Bronze Age was over hundreds of years ago, if not nines and eights of decades even.  I made it a point to not show him any reaction, knowing it would bother him worse than anything else I could do.

“His loins are girded with bronze armor.  Oh, praise God!” yelled Sister Margaret.  She ran up to the villagers and said this over and over again, touching each of them as if giving out hats.  All the other nuns hopped up and down as if their feet were tied together and on fire.

Notice that Ruth (the ‘I’ in this story) is the one through which all thoughts, vision, smell, taste, touch and hearing occur.

Moving on, that English teacher told me third person was the technique that allowed you to be any and all the people on the stage.  In addition, you can even be God, or the bird floating overhead.

THIS IS WRONG.

A little less boring, huh.  A rock solid rule in all genre fiction is that you must pick a POV.  Knowing that, we can even toss out the terms, first, second and third person.  The new rule is this: Pick a POV! That’s it. Simple.  Direct.  And, one of the most violated rules new writers expose to the slush editor.

So, how does this work in 3rd person?  Simple, actually.  If you want to be God, you are.  Easy as that.  Just don’t be someone else.  If you want to be Mary, fine, be Mary.  Just don’t be anybody else.  How about the dog, Spot.  You’re spot.  You can’t jump over and be the cat too.

There are a lot of sub-categories to 3rd person.  There’s the journalist style and the pure omniscient style, for example. The first means a non-objective POV, and the second is kind of like God.  Those each imply a singular POV, so no violation there.

The most common POV in genre fiction is called limited 3rd person.  The difference between first person (like my example above) and limited 3rd person is virtually non-existent. Raise your hand if you’ve ever heard someone say, “I hate 1st person, but I like 3rd!” Lots of hands, and to the reverse of that comment as well, I suppose.  I repeat, there is no meaningful difference between 1st person and 98% of all accepted genre 3rd person (limited 3rd) writing.  The rule is the same.  One person is your POV.

In the case of the portion of my writing above, my POV is Ruth.  Let me show you Ruth, my POV, in 3rd person limited:

Liwet gave Ruth a smirk and said, “His loins are girded with bronze armor.”  He rocked his head from side to side like telling her, so there!

Lot of good it did him.  She had no idea what a loin was and the Bronze Age was over hundreds of years ago, if not nines and eights of decades even.  Ruth made it a point to not show him any reaction, knowing it would bother him worse than anything else she could do.

“His loins are girded with bronze armor.  Oh, praise God!” yelled Sister Margaret.  She ran up to the villagers and said this over and over again, touching each of them as if giving out hats.  All the other nuns hopped up and down as if their feet were tied together and on fire.

There it is.  Five changed words in all, simply altering ‘I’ to she, her or Ruth. Everything else is identical.  And, this is no odd example. This would be the case for the majority of the entire novel. Notice all the thinking and seeing here happens to Ruth.  Even Sister Margaret yelling is reported because Ruth is present. Otherwise, no dice. When Ruth leaves the scene, the section/chapter/novel ends because no eyes exist on the stage.

This is mother-nature speaking. We are all trapped within a body.  The most natural way of thinking about a story is through a body. Weird is being everybody or floating about in the ether.

What I want to do next is show you how to do this wrong.  Notice what happens when I violate the ONLY RULE TO POV (Only one person can be your POV):

Liwet knew he had her.  He gave Ruth a smirk and said, “His loins are girded with bronze armor.”  He rocked his head from side to side, letting her know so there!

Lot of good it did him.  Ruth had no idea what a loin was and the Bronze Age was over hundreds of years ago, if not nines and eights of decades even.  She made it a point to not show him any reaction, knowing it would bother him worse than anything else she could do.

“His loins are girded with bronze armor.  Oh, praise God!” yelled Sister Margaret.  Thrilled to the bones, she ran up to the villagers and said this over and over again, touching each of them as if giving out hats.  All the other nuns hopped up and down, filled with glee, as if their feet were tied together and on fire.

There you have four POVs.

1) Liwet knew.  He let her know.

2) Ruth had no idea.  She knew it’d bother him.

3) Sister Margaret was thrilled.

4) The other nuns were filled with
glee.

This is a mess. I can write a long time about the many major ways this will plague the ongoing story and fatally weaken it. Some contend, “Well, I just want the reader to know what Sister Margaret is thinking.” To this I say there are plenty of better ways to SHOW what Sister Margaret is thinking, and in the two former examples, I do.

Maybe some other time I’ll write about how one breaks this one rule (or seemingly so).

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Surface Problem / Story Worthy Thread

May 2, 2011 2 Comments

Plot

Surface Problem / Story Worthy Thread

Some authors know that the main story plot is not one thread, but a minimum of two.  The two most important are often named the surface problem and the internal story-worthy problem.

The surface problem is usually how we describe our stories in the blurb on the back of the book.

If the work is a murder mystery, the surface problem is likely to be a puzzle culminating in sorting out the murderer.  In the Lord of the Rings, it’s the quest to stop the death hordes by melting the ring in a volcano.  In Star Wars, Luke Skywalker is on a quest to save the princess, and ultimately the universe, from the evil empire.  If asked, the casual observer defines the story as this kind of surface problem.

Singular focus on the surface problem, however, can be a reason why a plot is unsuccessful. That’s because every good story is ultimately about a person with a problem. Finding the will to overcome temptation may only have passing relationship with Frodo stopping armies of ogres, but the story fails to move us without this element.

Without a person overcoming a problem, it’s hard for us to identify with the human story, and thus the humanity within our emotional centers. The quest to find the killer, scale the volcano or save the princess becomes no more than sequences of events. When the POV bears no internal baggage, he is all skeleton and no meat. The story passes as a history book suitable for boring all-nighters and plenty of coffee.

I suspect that many young writers instinctively add this internal, story-worthy plotline without even knowing what they are doing right. Consider the Hollywood detective movie, for example. Our cliché detective drags himself out of bed with a hangover. He has lost a partner and wife and been on drunken leave for two months, but today he is taking a half bottle of pills and going to work. This thread isn’t in the movie trailer, but the story is really about a detective overcoming his issues, using the surface story as a catalyst. We want, most of all, for him to become a better human being.

When the internal problem is resolved, a writer will automatically find a decent story ending.  That is yet another reason why it is critical to tend this thread. Without internal resolution, the writer will never find the ending, regardless of how many princesses are saved or death stars destroy. (By resolution, I don’t necessarily mean uplifting. We must, after all, make room for Shakespeare).

A good way of modeling this is to visualize a plot as a stream of threads running from one end of a tapestry to the other. These two are the most critical as they boldly emerge from the cloth at various points along the story’s path.

Hopefully, more on the broader concept of threads in later posts.

Filed under LocoBlog, The Write Tip Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Narrative Should Not Announce Action

April 11, 2011 6 Comments

Deciding he had to act or be victimized, John steeled himself, throwing both elbows into the ghoul’s chest and shouting, “Nooooooo!” The monster lost all balance, stumbled across a limb and pitched off the mountain cliff.

I like to look at all my inactive storytelling with the hope of omitting. SHOW, don’t TELL is foremost in a writer’s head.  While we need the internal narrative in order to get a feeling for the character, I’ve found it easier to put narrative in than it is to “kill your rambling babies” later. Be particularly wary of broad-brush explanations of action, half-page descriptions, long internal reflection and the dastardly back story.  In particular, if the content of the TELL is about to be shown, omit the tell; that’s an easy call.

I am choosing to define narrative here as that portion of the prose that directly communicate story to the reader either through the author’s (nasty) or character’s (better) point of view’s (POV).  Some suggest a formula of one third narrative to two thirds DIALOGUE and ACTION.  Rules tend to be too rigid, but most new writers are heavy-handed when it comes to tell versus action and dialogue, and thus the emphasis upon cutting narrative that adds little to the show. (Adhering to this is particularly difficult if you have a lonely character or write first person, but still worth the effort).

In the above example, the narrative is giving us a peek into the mind of John.  He’s afraid of being victimized and he is steeling himself.  One of John’s problems might be his cowardice.  Building character is often a story-wide concern though–not a momentary issue.  I’m betting there are a number of scenes wherein John’s fear can be shown as opposed to told here.

Let’s face it, every author tells a bit of what is going on inside their POV character and the prose here is not bad. In fact, a little telling might be necessary in certain passages. My instincts tell me that getting rid of this paragraph’s opening won’t feel easy to the author.  On the other hand, thinking about ways to reduce narrative story-wide is always a productive exercise, even if you choose to keep a few, which I’m sure you will.

“Nooooooo!” John threw both elbows into the ghoul’s chest.

The monster stumbled across a limb, lost balance and pitched off the mountain cliff.

Reading the above, do we doubt that John steeled himself?  If we have done a good job and allowed our readers to see John’s cowardice throughout the story, we see this as an act of courage.  And, of course, we don’t need to be told he shouted.  Everything left is active plot, a seriously good thing in writing.

I have a personal goal: Carving away narrative should make me feel guilty about not showing enough of the internal character.  Once I feel that way, I add narrative that is meaningful in strategic spots.  After all, John did push a ghoul off a cliff. Here, his actions tell us everything we need to know. Here, we are compelled to strip out the fat and let the action and dialogue sing.

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