Alexis wrote on December 2nd, I love writing, but I usually just write with very little in mind, typing whatever comes to me and it ends up this elongated mess with no clear plot and I haven't the slightest idea on how to do so without constantly worrying about it. When I deliberately set out to make a plot, I think of that chart I get in middle school, where I had to define the rising action and the climax and the falling action and so on. This just seems to take all the fun and creativity out of writing for me, but I know I just can’t write blindly. Can you please help me?
Not all stories have a crisis. Some books are a chronicle, held together by the charm of the characters or the fascination of the subject. Joan Abelove’s Go and Come Back is narrated by a girl in a Peruvian tribe that is visited by two American anthropologists. The story begins with the arrival of the anthropologists and ends a year later with their departure. Many things happen during their stay. One of the anthropologists gets very sick, for example, but her illness isn’t the story’s crisis, because there is no crisis, and yet the book is engaging and hard to put down. I recommend it highly, one of my favorites, and an example of how this kind of story can succeed. For middle school kids and older.
I think I’ve written before that a book or a story can be structured around an event, like summer camp or a wilderness adventure. In such a story, this happens, that happens; maybe there’s a crisis, maybe not. But there’s an accretion of experience. The main character comes away changed, and the reader is satisfied.
Some books are short stories strung together by common characters. Some of the stories may follow a rising-action-crisis-falling-action format and some may not. The reader gets attached to the characters and wants to see them in new situations, wants minor characters in one story to star in another. This works too.
My books are plot driven more than character driven, but that doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing. Sometimes I feel like I’m lost in a maze. A while back, in misguided desperation, I bought two books on plot, thinking I might discover a template that would guide me through all my stories. One of the books has this subtitle: “How to build short stories and novels that don’t sag, fizzle, or trail off in scraps of frustrated revision--and how to rescue stories that do.”
!!!!
Nobody can instruct you so that you - or I - can't fail. Nobody can do the work for you. I don’t remember this as a bad book. It just promised much too much. We all have to hack our own way through the thicket of plot. We learn by practice.
Now here’s a writing book I definitely do like: What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter. I’m not sure about it for kids below high school age. Have a parent or a librarian advise you. What If? has a few chapters on plot and some interesting exercises.
One of its ideas is that plot arises out of character and situation. For example, in "The Little Engine That Could" the little engine faces a huge hill and a string of train cars that have to reach their destination. In the classic, the engine is plucky, determined, and all heart. But what if the engine’s favorite conductor just lost her job, and the engine is ticked off? Or what if it’s winter, and the engine is depressed due to Seasonal Affective Disorder? Where does the plot go? Can you get it back on track (pun intended)? Do you bring in other characters?
Even if you’re a rambling kind of writer, a bit of tension is necessary, whether or not your story comes to a crisis. Think about what interested you originally. What was the spark? Suppose you began with two friends going shopping together, and you wanted to show what they’re like by the way they shop, because you’ve observed yourself shopping and your friends and your family. Or suppose they’re just out for a walk... Or suppose they’re in a field, and they’re both bored. All they’re doing is watching grass grow.
You don’t have to make the earth crack open, revealing a golden stairway to the realm of a lost civilization, for your story to take off. You can put it in flight with the tiniest thing. You can just have one character ask the other, “What are you thinking?” and begin major conflict. After all, how many times have you had thoughts that you do not want to share?
If you feel your story degrading into mush, examine what you’ve got. This means going back into the narrative. Hunt for spots where you can make trouble. You don’t need a grand plan. Just look inside what you’ve written. Twist something small. Drop in a tiny new detail. Make a character angry or unhappy or lonely. Anger can work particularly well because it’s lively. Create a problem in which action is forced on one of your characters. Bring in a new character who will shake things up. You can write notes to explore the possibilities. If you get stuck, go back to your old story for more bits you can use.
Here are two prompts from this post:
Rewrite the story of “The Little Engine That Could.” Make it more complex by changing the engine’s character or its situation.
Have one character ask another about his or her thoughts. Create some kind of disaster - interpersonal or global or intergalactic - as a consequence.
Save what you write and have fun!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Rightsizing
Rightsizing
Several weeks ago Asma asked a question related to the length of a piece of writing. She suggested (Asma, please correct me if I got this wrong) that long is daunting. I posted a comment advising her not to worry about length. Good short is as good as good long.
Since then I’ve been thinking about length. Before I’d had anything published, in the mid-1990s when I was working on Ella Enchanted, I was told by my mentor at a conference that my book had better be under two hundred pages, and Ella was longer than that. Maybe that was the rule at the time, but nowadays very long books seem to be fine. Publishers buy them, and they make their way into readers hearts.
The shortest novel for kids that I know of is Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, which is sixty-four pages short and won a Newbery award. Of course there is debate about whether it’s a novel or a novella, and I don’t know the answer. I’d guess that you usually need at least 125 pages for a book to be without a doubt a novel.
There is one law about length: Do not pad.
With one exception. If you have a school assignment, like a paper that has to be ten pages long or you will flunk and won’t be able to get into college and will be doomed to a life of drudgery and penury (look it up, kids), and if you do your best, but when you get to page nine-and-a-half, you have exhausted everything you have learned about the subject, then you have my blessing to pad, to string adjectives together and pile on the adverbs, to make your handwriting wide and rounded or to find a font, like this one, that takes up a lot of space. But aside from such an extreme situation, don’t. If your book turns out to be a novella rather than a novel or your short story is super short and yet unfolds fully, celebrate and forget about length.
A truism is that a book (or a story) should be as long as it takes, long enough to tell the tale, and no more. This is less than helpful. "Cinderella," for example, told as a classic fairy tale, takes up only a few pages. Her story - and most stories - can be summarized in several sentences. Yet I wrote it as a novel, and I found out recently that two more novelized versions have just come out.
When I’m in the midst of writing, I never know how long a book is going to be. More than once I’ve thought I had a trilogy going, and sometimes I’ve worried that my story wasn’t complex enough for a whole book. I even fret that a blog post won’t be long enough to be satisfying.
Satisfaction is the key to length. Your main character shouldn’t solve each of her problems too quickly or your reader will be disappointed. On the other hand, if she tries again and again, and her attempts are similar, the reader may become as frustrated as she is. For instance, I based Cinderellis and the Glass Hill on a fairy tale called "The Princess on the Glass Hill." The hero of the story has to ride a horse to the top of - you guessed it - a glass hill in order to win the princess. Conveniently, he has tamed three marvelous horses, each of which arrived with a full suit of armor, copper armor, silver, and gold. The horses with the copper armor and silver armor are able to climb partway but fail to make it to the top, but the horse with golden armor pulls off the feat. The reader roots for the hero at each attempt, but doesn’t really want him to make it on the first two tries, because the excitement would be over too soon. Success on the third effort is just right. If there were seventeen horses and seventeen attempts, we would want to take a hammer to the hill.
Three is often a pleasing number, so much so that it’s called "the rule of three." Cinderella goes to the ball three times. The evil stepmother visits Snow White in the forest three times. The queen guesses Rumpelstiltskin’s name three times.
But, despite the rule, to always create three attempts is formulaic. Sometimes your hero should succeed on his first shot and sometimes on the fifth, and sometimes not at all, at least for the time being. Variety adds richness and interest - and length.
In the upcoming third book about the fairies of Neverland, Gwendolyn, the human character, is searching for the fairies, who are hiding from her. She finds the spot where she thinks they live and speaks to them, but they don’t show themselves. She reveals the gifts she’s brought, which also fails to call them forth, so she looks for a dove who would know where they are, but the dove is hiding too. After wandering to other possible places, she sleeps pathetically alone in the forest. When she wakes up, she returns to the original location, gets angry, and throws a mermaid's lute. This act brings out a fairy. I count five attempts, the right number in this case.
Later in the story Gwendolyn asks Peter Pan for advice to help her help the fairies. She does this once, and it’s enough.
Prompt: It’s early in your story. Your main character has to find the magic cell phone that will let him start his quest. If you don’t like fantasy, it’s a real cell phone, which he needs so he can reach someone who will give him a clue. The phone is hidden in a public garden. Write his attempts to find the cell phone. Vary the way he tries. Who helps him? Who gets in the way? If you like, turn the exercise into a story. Don’t worry about length. Have fun, and save what you write.
Several weeks ago Asma asked a question related to the length of a piece of writing. She suggested (Asma, please correct me if I got this wrong) that long is daunting. I posted a comment advising her not to worry about length. Good short is as good as good long.
Since then I’ve been thinking about length. Before I’d had anything published, in the mid-1990s when I was working on Ella Enchanted, I was told by my mentor at a conference that my book had better be under two hundred pages, and Ella was longer than that. Maybe that was the rule at the time, but nowadays very long books seem to be fine. Publishers buy them, and they make their way into readers hearts.
The shortest novel for kids that I know of is Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, which is sixty-four pages short and won a Newbery award. Of course there is debate about whether it’s a novel or a novella, and I don’t know the answer. I’d guess that you usually need at least 125 pages for a book to be without a doubt a novel.
There is one law about length: Do not pad.
With one exception. If you have a school assignment, like a paper that has to be ten pages long or you will flunk and won’t be able to get into college and will be doomed to a life of drudgery and penury (look it up, kids), and if you do your best, but when you get to page nine-and-a-half, you have exhausted everything you have learned about the subject, then you have my blessing to pad, to string adjectives together and pile on the adverbs, to make your handwriting wide and rounded or to find a font, like this one, that takes up a lot of space. But aside from such an extreme situation, don’t. If your book turns out to be a novella rather than a novel or your short story is super short and yet unfolds fully, celebrate and forget about length.
A truism is that a book (or a story) should be as long as it takes, long enough to tell the tale, and no more. This is less than helpful. "Cinderella," for example, told as a classic fairy tale, takes up only a few pages. Her story - and most stories - can be summarized in several sentences. Yet I wrote it as a novel, and I found out recently that two more novelized versions have just come out.
When I’m in the midst of writing, I never know how long a book is going to be. More than once I’ve thought I had a trilogy going, and sometimes I’ve worried that my story wasn’t complex enough for a whole book. I even fret that a blog post won’t be long enough to be satisfying.
Satisfaction is the key to length. Your main character shouldn’t solve each of her problems too quickly or your reader will be disappointed. On the other hand, if she tries again and again, and her attempts are similar, the reader may become as frustrated as she is. For instance, I based Cinderellis and the Glass Hill on a fairy tale called "The Princess on the Glass Hill." The hero of the story has to ride a horse to the top of - you guessed it - a glass hill in order to win the princess. Conveniently, he has tamed three marvelous horses, each of which arrived with a full suit of armor, copper armor, silver, and gold. The horses with the copper armor and silver armor are able to climb partway but fail to make it to the top, but the horse with golden armor pulls off the feat. The reader roots for the hero at each attempt, but doesn’t really want him to make it on the first two tries, because the excitement would be over too soon. Success on the third effort is just right. If there were seventeen horses and seventeen attempts, we would want to take a hammer to the hill.
Three is often a pleasing number, so much so that it’s called "the rule of three." Cinderella goes to the ball three times. The evil stepmother visits Snow White in the forest three times. The queen guesses Rumpelstiltskin’s name three times.
But, despite the rule, to always create three attempts is formulaic. Sometimes your hero should succeed on his first shot and sometimes on the fifth, and sometimes not at all, at least for the time being. Variety adds richness and interest - and length.
In the upcoming third book about the fairies of Neverland, Gwendolyn, the human character, is searching for the fairies, who are hiding from her. She finds the spot where she thinks they live and speaks to them, but they don’t show themselves. She reveals the gifts she’s brought, which also fails to call them forth, so she looks for a dove who would know where they are, but the dove is hiding too. After wandering to other possible places, she sleeps pathetically alone in the forest. When she wakes up, she returns to the original location, gets angry, and throws a mermaid's lute. This act brings out a fairy. I count five attempts, the right number in this case.
Later in the story Gwendolyn asks Peter Pan for advice to help her help the fairies. She does this once, and it’s enough.
Prompt: It’s early in your story. Your main character has to find the magic cell phone that will let him start his quest. If you don’t like fantasy, it’s a real cell phone, which he needs so he can reach someone who will give him a clue. The phone is hidden in a public garden. Write his attempts to find the cell phone. Vary the way he tries. Who helps him? Who gets in the way? If you like, turn the exercise into a story. Don’t worry about length. Have fun, and save what you write.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Local talk
On December 2nd April posted this comment: What's your opinion on placing an emphasis on dialect? For example, Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What about the words accompanying dialogue? Some people are sticklers for only using "said," even with questions (instead of "asked"). Others use quite a variety of words to give more... shall we say, "expression" to the dialogue. And I know some don't care either way, so long as the word isn't an adverb/ends in "ly." What say you?
I love Twain, and I adore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But Twain, even though his voice is often modern, wrote in a different era. Different conventions applied. I don’t know if anyone today would name a character after a berry, either. Maybe, but the writer would have to have an important reason for doing so.
A writer would also have to have a powerful reason for using dialect, more powerful than simply establishing a regional feeling. Even if you get the dialect exactly right, which is hard, readers are likely to think you didn’t. Speech rings differently for each of us.
You can describe a dialect in narration, and then the reader will know it’s there. If I were introducing a certain species of New York accent (I’m a New Yorker), I might talk about the tortured r and the distorted long i and the attachment of a final g to the next word when that word starts with a vowel, as in Long Gisland. I might even give a sample as I just did and then return to standard English.
Choice of expression also can portray a region. You all is southern and only southern in my experience. Maybe these aren’t New York-isms, but it seems to me I hear Right? and Am I crazy? a lot here. My late friend from Minnesota used to say oofta! frequently. Pay attention to local phrases and use them, but don’t overdo or you’ll shift into parody - unless you have parody in mind.
There are more tools to situate our characters, because locales often live up to type. My books have taken me all over the country. On the streets of San Francisco and nowhere else I have overheard conversations about spirit channeling and fruit fasting. If I’m traveling for a publisher, I’m assigned local media escorts, who take me to schools and bookstores. In LA my escort one time was a starlet, and a car service driver had written a screenplay. When I sign books in southern states the children seem to have three-syllable and hyphenated first names more often than anywhere else. You can use details like these to establish place.
But again, be careful and specific, and use a light touch. We don’t want to alienate readers who actually come from these places. It’s fun - and safe - to adapt these techniques to fantasy, to invent regional characteristics for a fictional world. Make up your own, though. Don’t have your Quachappians saying oofta!
I talk about said and other speech verbs in Writing Magic. I like said because it fades into the background, as does asked. I’m not sure I approve of myself for this, but I use cried a lot. Cried suggests emotional intensity better than yelled, which, to me, is just about volume. I’m fine with speech verbs that convey information, like yelled, shouted, whispered, because I can't tell a character is doing any of those things unless I’m told. Whispered can be used in a scene where quiet is called for. The word needn't be repeated, because the reader will assume from then on that everybody is whispering unless told otherwise.
I’m opposed to questioned, exclaimed, snarled, blubbered - because they draw attention to themselves and away from the actual speech. I use blurted sometimes, so I guess I don’t mind it, although if you can convey blurting without actually writing the word, so much the better. I just looked at my latest manuscript and found continued, burst out, called, even squeaked, which I think is okay because the character’s throat was closing on her.
My favorite writing teacher insisted that speech verbs have to involve speech, so it’s wrong to write, She laughed, “That’s funny.” because you can’t laugh words. It should be, She laughed. “That’s funny.” or some other way of putting it. Notice the period rather than the comma after laughed.
About adverbs describing speech, like “That’s awful,” he said emphatically. - I’m sure I’m sometimes guilty of them, and sometimes you need them, but as infrequently as possible.
It’s great not to need speech verbs at all. One way to eliminate them is to break speech up with action like this: “I’m scared.” Sally twisted the ends of her scarf. “Did we step into a horror movie?”
We know Sally is the one talking if she has the paragraph to herself, which is a good way to avoid confusion. Action also lets the reader see what’s going on. It can shed light on a character, too, or heighten tension.
Here’s a prompt: A deli sandwich maker, a retired dress saleswoman, a stay-at-home dad, a college student, a lawyer, and a physical therapist are on a train that gets delayed. One of these characters (or any others you choose) starts a conversation, and the rest join in. Some may speak on cell phones as well. Write down what they say. You may want to try the conversation/debate/argument, whatever it turns into, a few different ways, experimenting with speech verbs, action, and placing the characters regionally. Have fun, and save all the versions.
What about the words accompanying dialogue? Some people are sticklers for only using "said," even with questions (instead of "asked"). Others use quite a variety of words to give more... shall we say, "expression" to the dialogue. And I know some don't care either way, so long as the word isn't an adverb/ends in "ly." What say you?
I love Twain, and I adore The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. But Twain, even though his voice is often modern, wrote in a different era. Different conventions applied. I don’t know if anyone today would name a character after a berry, either. Maybe, but the writer would have to have an important reason for doing so.
A writer would also have to have a powerful reason for using dialect, more powerful than simply establishing a regional feeling. Even if you get the dialect exactly right, which is hard, readers are likely to think you didn’t. Speech rings differently for each of us.
You can describe a dialect in narration, and then the reader will know it’s there. If I were introducing a certain species of New York accent (I’m a New Yorker), I might talk about the tortured r and the distorted long i and the attachment of a final g to the next word when that word starts with a vowel, as in Long Gisland. I might even give a sample as I just did and then return to standard English.
Choice of expression also can portray a region. You all is southern and only southern in my experience. Maybe these aren’t New York-isms, but it seems to me I hear Right? and Am I crazy? a lot here. My late friend from Minnesota used to say oofta! frequently. Pay attention to local phrases and use them, but don’t overdo or you’ll shift into parody - unless you have parody in mind.
There are more tools to situate our characters, because locales often live up to type. My books have taken me all over the country. On the streets of San Francisco and nowhere else I have overheard conversations about spirit channeling and fruit fasting. If I’m traveling for a publisher, I’m assigned local media escorts, who take me to schools and bookstores. In LA my escort one time was a starlet, and a car service driver had written a screenplay. When I sign books in southern states the children seem to have three-syllable and hyphenated first names more often than anywhere else. You can use details like these to establish place.
But again, be careful and specific, and use a light touch. We don’t want to alienate readers who actually come from these places. It’s fun - and safe - to adapt these techniques to fantasy, to invent regional characteristics for a fictional world. Make up your own, though. Don’t have your Quachappians saying oofta!
I talk about said and other speech verbs in Writing Magic. I like said because it fades into the background, as does asked. I’m not sure I approve of myself for this, but I use cried a lot. Cried suggests emotional intensity better than yelled, which, to me, is just about volume. I’m fine with speech verbs that convey information, like yelled, shouted, whispered, because I can't tell a character is doing any of those things unless I’m told. Whispered can be used in a scene where quiet is called for. The word needn't be repeated, because the reader will assume from then on that everybody is whispering unless told otherwise.
I’m opposed to questioned, exclaimed, snarled, blubbered - because they draw attention to themselves and away from the actual speech. I use blurted sometimes, so I guess I don’t mind it, although if you can convey blurting without actually writing the word, so much the better. I just looked at my latest manuscript and found continued, burst out, called, even squeaked, which I think is okay because the character’s throat was closing on her.
My favorite writing teacher insisted that speech verbs have to involve speech, so it’s wrong to write, She laughed, “That’s funny.” because you can’t laugh words. It should be, She laughed. “That’s funny.” or some other way of putting it. Notice the period rather than the comma after laughed.
About adverbs describing speech, like “That’s awful,” he said emphatically. - I’m sure I’m sometimes guilty of them, and sometimes you need them, but as infrequently as possible.
It’s great not to need speech verbs at all. One way to eliminate them is to break speech up with action like this: “I’m scared.” Sally twisted the ends of her scarf. “Did we step into a horror movie?”
We know Sally is the one talking if she has the paragraph to herself, which is a good way to avoid confusion. Action also lets the reader see what’s going on. It can shed light on a character, too, or heighten tension.
Here’s a prompt: A deli sandwich maker, a retired dress saleswoman, a stay-at-home dad, a college student, a lawyer, and a physical therapist are on a train that gets delayed. One of these characters (or any others you choose) starts a conversation, and the rest join in. Some may speak on cell phones as well. Write down what they say. You may want to try the conversation/debate/argument, whatever it turns into, a few different ways, experimenting with speech verbs, action, and placing the characters regionally. Have fun, and save all the versions.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
What's next?
Erin Edwards asked me to expand on this from my post about revising: "Am I leading the reader along properly so that what happens is neither predictable nor too far fetched to believe?" Erin added, "I think this takes real skill and is ultimately what makes a book satisfying."
Predictability happens to be timely for me right now. I just (ten minutes ago) emailed my mystery novel to my editor, who hasn’t seen a word of it. So I’m wondering if my villain is going to be instantly obvious.
Of course I want his or her identity to be a surprise, but I’m willing to put up with other writers’ predictability in some cases. I’m a great fan of the Adrian Monk TV series, for example, although sometimes I can spot the villain as soon as I lay eyes on him, before the plot has even been laid out. I’m okay with that because I’m there for the laughs and the poignancy of Monk’s sad life.
Readers of my fiction come to it expecting an ending that won’t leave them feeling hopeless. I may write a really sad book one day, and if I do, some people will be disappointed and even angry at me. We go to some books, especially series books, craving predictability. We want to enjoy again what pleased us before. There’s some of that pleasure in rereading books we love.
For tellers of old tales, like me, the story’s ending is known; what’s unknown is how the ending is achieved.
Total unpredictability may be randomness or experimental literature, not my thing but maybe yours. I’ve read that there are just a handful of fundamental plot lines, which writers recycle endlessly, dressing them up in exotic new costumes. I agree.
Having admitted this, there’s still predictability that’s too predictable for my taste, especially sentimental predictability: ghosts who can’t go to their final reward unless some romantic problem is resolved; children who are given up as uneducable until a young idealistic teacher comes along; a super-intelligent life form bent on wiping out humankind because of our base nature. And so on.
A few years ago I read a YA (young adult) book by an author I admire. I liked the book, but I saw the story’s major revelation coming from miles away, and I didn’t like that. I complained to a friend, who loved the book. She said young readers wouldn’t guess the truth, because they wouldn’t have encountered this plot twist before. Maybe she was right, but I didn’t agree. If we’re setting up a shock for the reader, we should aim it at everyone.
How to work within the inevitability of predictability and create the unexpected? Here are some ideas:
Drop in a clue that excites expectation and then go another way. I managed to do this in a scene in The Two Princesses of Bamarre. There are monsters in the kingdom of Bamarre, specters among them. Specters, in my conception of them, can assume any shape and even create fake landscapes. My heroine Addie is on a quest for the cure to the Gray Death. She’s been befriended by Rhys, a sorcerer in training. At this point in the story Rhys is away at a fantasy version of a training program. He’s promised to come to Addie when he gets a break, so when a specter shows up in Rhys's form, the reader doesn’t catch on. Then I have the real Rhys arrive too and I hope I fool the reader into not knowing which is which. This legerdemain (look it up, kids) is one of my favorite bits of my writing in any of my books.
Surprise yourself. If you outline, be loose as you lay out the story. If you just write without an outline, hack away in semi-darkness. If you know your destination, don’t take the freeway. Explore the back roads. Visit landmarks that are off the beaten track. Ask yourself as you write, Is there another way to get where I’m going?
When you finish your first draft, and if you’re worried about predictability, take a look at how you figured out your plot. Can you scramble some of the steps that led to the ending?
Ask your characters what they want to do in a situation. You can interview them in writing. Ask them to consider their options.
Make lists. I love lists. When you’re at a plot juncture, make a list of what could come next. Don’t close down the list when you come to the first thing that will work. Twelve possibilities is a nice number, and eight of them can be stupid. Let the stupid ones have their moment. Elaborate on the ones that appeal to you, without deciding. A good possibility can generate more lists. Let them roll out.
Stay away from easy morals, and don’t highlight them. Let the reader draw his own conclusions. Some may object to moral ambiguity, especially for children, but grays make a story more complex and less ordinary.
If you’re in a critique group, ask your writer buddies if your story is predictable. Or show your story to someone you trust. Do not describe the plot and ask if it’s predictable. That question cannot be answered apart from the writing. The story may sound unoriginal and still be full of surprises.
Life itself is both predictable and unpredictable. Giant panda bears are unlikely to march into your bedroom tomorrow morning, but you could get an unexpected insult or an unexpected compliment; disaster could befall you or delight. So here is the difference between fiction and life, which has troubled philosophers through the millennia: In fiction, giant panda bears can crop up anywhere.
Predictability happens to be timely for me right now. I just (ten minutes ago) emailed my mystery novel to my editor, who hasn’t seen a word of it. So I’m wondering if my villain is going to be instantly obvious.
Of course I want his or her identity to be a surprise, but I’m willing to put up with other writers’ predictability in some cases. I’m a great fan of the Adrian Monk TV series, for example, although sometimes I can spot the villain as soon as I lay eyes on him, before the plot has even been laid out. I’m okay with that because I’m there for the laughs and the poignancy of Monk’s sad life.
Readers of my fiction come to it expecting an ending that won’t leave them feeling hopeless. I may write a really sad book one day, and if I do, some people will be disappointed and even angry at me. We go to some books, especially series books, craving predictability. We want to enjoy again what pleased us before. There’s some of that pleasure in rereading books we love.
For tellers of old tales, like me, the story’s ending is known; what’s unknown is how the ending is achieved.
Total unpredictability may be randomness or experimental literature, not my thing but maybe yours. I’ve read that there are just a handful of fundamental plot lines, which writers recycle endlessly, dressing them up in exotic new costumes. I agree.
Having admitted this, there’s still predictability that’s too predictable for my taste, especially sentimental predictability: ghosts who can’t go to their final reward unless some romantic problem is resolved; children who are given up as uneducable until a young idealistic teacher comes along; a super-intelligent life form bent on wiping out humankind because of our base nature. And so on.
A few years ago I read a YA (young adult) book by an author I admire. I liked the book, but I saw the story’s major revelation coming from miles away, and I didn’t like that. I complained to a friend, who loved the book. She said young readers wouldn’t guess the truth, because they wouldn’t have encountered this plot twist before. Maybe she was right, but I didn’t agree. If we’re setting up a shock for the reader, we should aim it at everyone.
How to work within the inevitability of predictability and create the unexpected? Here are some ideas:
Drop in a clue that excites expectation and then go another way. I managed to do this in a scene in The Two Princesses of Bamarre. There are monsters in the kingdom of Bamarre, specters among them. Specters, in my conception of them, can assume any shape and even create fake landscapes. My heroine Addie is on a quest for the cure to the Gray Death. She’s been befriended by Rhys, a sorcerer in training. At this point in the story Rhys is away at a fantasy version of a training program. He’s promised to come to Addie when he gets a break, so when a specter shows up in Rhys's form, the reader doesn’t catch on. Then I have the real Rhys arrive too and I hope I fool the reader into not knowing which is which. This legerdemain (look it up, kids) is one of my favorite bits of my writing in any of my books.
Surprise yourself. If you outline, be loose as you lay out the story. If you just write without an outline, hack away in semi-darkness. If you know your destination, don’t take the freeway. Explore the back roads. Visit landmarks that are off the beaten track. Ask yourself as you write, Is there another way to get where I’m going?
When you finish your first draft, and if you’re worried about predictability, take a look at how you figured out your plot. Can you scramble some of the steps that led to the ending?
Ask your characters what they want to do in a situation. You can interview them in writing. Ask them to consider their options.
Make lists. I love lists. When you’re at a plot juncture, make a list of what could come next. Don’t close down the list when you come to the first thing that will work. Twelve possibilities is a nice number, and eight of them can be stupid. Let the stupid ones have their moment. Elaborate on the ones that appeal to you, without deciding. A good possibility can generate more lists. Let them roll out.
Stay away from easy morals, and don’t highlight them. Let the reader draw his own conclusions. Some may object to moral ambiguity, especially for children, but grays make a story more complex and less ordinary.
If you’re in a critique group, ask your writer buddies if your story is predictable. Or show your story to someone you trust. Do not describe the plot and ask if it’s predictable. That question cannot be answered apart from the writing. The story may sound unoriginal and still be full of surprises.
Life itself is both predictable and unpredictable. Giant panda bears are unlikely to march into your bedroom tomorrow morning, but you could get an unexpected insult or an unexpected compliment; disaster could befall you or delight. So here is the difference between fiction and life, which has troubled philosophers through the millennia: In fiction, giant panda bears can crop up anywhere.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Talking talk
Before I get to Hope M’s posted comment about dialogue, I want to mention what I heard on the radio recently in an interview with Madeleine Albright. I’m always on the alert - when I remember - for verbal tics, the phrases people repeat unawares that give a clue to their souls. Madeleine Albright had a telling one. Often, she began an anecdote by saying, “I have to tell you.” This from a former Secretary of State! How many times did she really have to tell a head of state something, and how many times was she unable to say what she wanted to? So, to psychoanalyze her without a license, this oddly candid expression migrated into her ordinary speech.
It’s marvelous when we can find such a revealing conversational tic for a character.
Here’s Hope M’s topic request: I would like to hear what you have to say about dialogue. Although it comes easily to others it most definitely does not come easily to me! It usually ends up going along the lines of he said...she said...he said and so on...droning on and on until I get bored and delete it all.
I’m not sure this is a dialogue problem. The problem may be telling a story entirely in action or in just action and thoughts so that dialogue becomes inessential.
For example, two friends are getting dressed together for a party. One of them, Merry, wants to look particularly great because she’s been teased at school for her lack of style. She tries on one thing after another and is convinced everything looks awful. Her friend, Lara, on the other hand, isn’t thinking about anything except the argument she just had with her father. Lara puts on whatever and sits on the bed, staring into space. The reader, since this is told from a third-person POV, has witnessed both the teasing and the argument with the father and is waiting to see what happens at the party. The conversation that goes on between the friends is polite and inconsequential, because each one has her mind on something else.
That’s okay. In this instance you might keep the dialogue minimal. Or you could go the other way. Merry could ask Lara’s opinion about one outfit after another. Lara could be a polite, supportive friend until she snaps. She says something mean, like, "You’re so insecure it’s ridiculous." Merry answers with, "You're so selfish it's incredible." They start to get into it just when Merry’s mom knocks on the bedroom door and says it’s time to leave. The argument is unresolved. Both girls have to go to the party bearing the weight of it, and the reader has another reason to worry.
Dialogue that’s working for the story is unlikely to bore you or anyone.
When introducing a character I want to make an impression, often even with minor characters who may have only a few lines. Dialogue, action, physical description, and, depending on POV, thoughts are the major tools for introducing a character. When you’re presenting him for the first time, think about what he can say and what the reader will get from it. For example, in Fairest the Snow White character, Aza, has two brothers who don’t come into the story much, but I wanted to distinguish them, so I made the older brother Yarry blunt. He says whatever he thinks with no tactful coating. If everybody is tiptoeing around a subject, Yarry goes straight at it. He’s the first to say that Aza is ugly. Obviously, he says this in words, dialogue.
Dialogue can move the plot along. In Fairest again, Aza discovers that she’s going to the royal wedding. The revelation comes through dialogue while she’s helping a duchess dress:
"Have you grown taller? I believe you’ve surpassed Ethele."
"Your skirt next, Your Grace?"
She looked at me appraisingly. "Ethele’s gowns would fit you."
Occasionally guests gave cast-off clothing to Mother. Dame Ethele’s gowns were clownish. I demurred. "Thank you, but–"
"Not to keep! To wear to the wedding."
The most economical way to advance plot is by telling, which can distance the reader. But dialogue is economical too. I convey the information about the wedding in just a few lines. As bonuses we see the duchess being imperious and Aza being clueless; character development is enhanced.
You can create a character who is prone to vacuous chitchat. In life, people who drone on are usually covering something. If you show the reader what your character is covering, even a motor mouth won’t be boring.
When you’re writing a scene with dialogue, think about the goals of each character. Maybe one is probing, the other concealing. Or their goals may not be related. Maybe one is probing and the other is practicing being charming. Doesn’t matter what the goals are. If the dialogue is backed up by motivation, it isn’t likely to be boring either.
Dialogue is great for emotional tension. In the party preparation scene, suppose Merry fears her friend is slipping away from her. When Lara doesn’t show the interest Merry wants, Merry becomes more and more desperate. Lara, on the other hand, still considers Merry her best friend, and wants some attention for herself, but she is absolutely lousy at asking anyone, even a best friend, for help. You may need more than dialogue to convey all this; you may need thoughts and action, too. But the dialogue can be the most powerful.
I love dialogue. When I have characters showing off their natures, I’m enjoying myself so much that I think more is better. Then I have to go back and trim, or even get out my ax. Sometimes dullness is just overload.
Here are three dialogue prompts:
Write a separation scene. Two characters are parting forever or for a long period. Each is important to the other, but not everything about their relationship has been positive.
Write a first-meeting scene in which each character has big expectations for what will result from the encounter.
Write a reunion scene in which each character is burdened by his perspective of the old relationship.
Have fun! Save what you wrote.
It’s marvelous when we can find such a revealing conversational tic for a character.
Here’s Hope M’s topic request: I would like to hear what you have to say about dialogue. Although it comes easily to others it most definitely does not come easily to me! It usually ends up going along the lines of he said...she said...he said and so on...droning on and on until I get bored and delete it all.
I’m not sure this is a dialogue problem. The problem may be telling a story entirely in action or in just action and thoughts so that dialogue becomes inessential.
For example, two friends are getting dressed together for a party. One of them, Merry, wants to look particularly great because she’s been teased at school for her lack of style. She tries on one thing after another and is convinced everything looks awful. Her friend, Lara, on the other hand, isn’t thinking about anything except the argument she just had with her father. Lara puts on whatever and sits on the bed, staring into space. The reader, since this is told from a third-person POV, has witnessed both the teasing and the argument with the father and is waiting to see what happens at the party. The conversation that goes on between the friends is polite and inconsequential, because each one has her mind on something else.
That’s okay. In this instance you might keep the dialogue minimal. Or you could go the other way. Merry could ask Lara’s opinion about one outfit after another. Lara could be a polite, supportive friend until she snaps. She says something mean, like, "You’re so insecure it’s ridiculous." Merry answers with, "You're so selfish it's incredible." They start to get into it just when Merry’s mom knocks on the bedroom door and says it’s time to leave. The argument is unresolved. Both girls have to go to the party bearing the weight of it, and the reader has another reason to worry.
Dialogue that’s working for the story is unlikely to bore you or anyone.
When introducing a character I want to make an impression, often even with minor characters who may have only a few lines. Dialogue, action, physical description, and, depending on POV, thoughts are the major tools for introducing a character. When you’re presenting him for the first time, think about what he can say and what the reader will get from it. For example, in Fairest the Snow White character, Aza, has two brothers who don’t come into the story much, but I wanted to distinguish them, so I made the older brother Yarry blunt. He says whatever he thinks with no tactful coating. If everybody is tiptoeing around a subject, Yarry goes straight at it. He’s the first to say that Aza is ugly. Obviously, he says this in words, dialogue.
Dialogue can move the plot along. In Fairest again, Aza discovers that she’s going to the royal wedding. The revelation comes through dialogue while she’s helping a duchess dress:
"Have you grown taller? I believe you’ve surpassed Ethele."
"Your skirt next, Your Grace?"
She looked at me appraisingly. "Ethele’s gowns would fit you."
Occasionally guests gave cast-off clothing to Mother. Dame Ethele’s gowns were clownish. I demurred. "Thank you, but–"
"Not to keep! To wear to the wedding."
The most economical way to advance plot is by telling, which can distance the reader. But dialogue is economical too. I convey the information about the wedding in just a few lines. As bonuses we see the duchess being imperious and Aza being clueless; character development is enhanced.
You can create a character who is prone to vacuous chitchat. In life, people who drone on are usually covering something. If you show the reader what your character is covering, even a motor mouth won’t be boring.
When you’re writing a scene with dialogue, think about the goals of each character. Maybe one is probing, the other concealing. Or their goals may not be related. Maybe one is probing and the other is practicing being charming. Doesn’t matter what the goals are. If the dialogue is backed up by motivation, it isn’t likely to be boring either.
Dialogue is great for emotional tension. In the party preparation scene, suppose Merry fears her friend is slipping away from her. When Lara doesn’t show the interest Merry wants, Merry becomes more and more desperate. Lara, on the other hand, still considers Merry her best friend, and wants some attention for herself, but she is absolutely lousy at asking anyone, even a best friend, for help. You may need more than dialogue to convey all this; you may need thoughts and action, too. But the dialogue can be the most powerful.
I love dialogue. When I have characters showing off their natures, I’m enjoying myself so much that I think more is better. Then I have to go back and trim, or even get out my ax. Sometimes dullness is just overload.
Here are three dialogue prompts:
Write a separation scene. Two characters are parting forever or for a long period. Each is important to the other, but not everything about their relationship has been positive.
Write a first-meeting scene in which each character has big expectations for what will result from the encounter.
Write a reunion scene in which each character is burdened by his perspective of the old relationship.
Have fun! Save what you wrote.
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