I've just stopped reading another YA novel about 65% of the way through. And it's one I'd been really looking forward to reading. It's not a massive bestseller, but it definitely got some buzz and sounded cool.
But it didn't work for me.
First the good stuff: This book has a very interesting and imaginative world. And it subtly explores some really interesting ideas about gender roles and society, not to mention cool sci-fi stuff, even though it felt more like fantasy than sci-fi.
But even that is a cool thing about the book. For a long while you don't know whether it's fantasy or sci-fi, whether it's in some imagined past or the future. And the answer to that, once we learn it is satisfying enough.
There was so much about the world building of this book that I admire and/or I wish I'd thought of first. :) And the opening chapters were intriguing and exciting. I was sucked in. For a while, I thought that I was going to LOVE this book.
But then it failed to go anywhere and nit-picky things started to nag at me more and more and more.
1) The world, while fascinating, didn't fully make sense. That's the kind of thing I can easily let go if the story and characters are pulling me along but, well, see below.
2) The character's personality does a 180. To me, she becomes a totally different person after the "inciting incident". She goes from a sullen, silent teen, who's completely in her own head and doesn't share something pretty freaking important with her family, into a smart-ass who talks back to everyone, flirts with everyone, acts up to the point of putting herself in constant danger--just to be difficult. Two-thirds of the way through the book, I still didn't know who she was. And she made me more and more angry.
3) Her acting out made no sense. Even if she wanted to undermine the authority, the things she did made no logical sense. Rather, she seems determined to be punished. For no reason other than maybe the author thought that her being punished (again) would count as a plot point? And the reasons for her punishments, now that I think of it, weren't really because of her legitimately bad behavior. No. The antagonist (an adult) would punish her out of jealousy... because the protagonist kissed her favorite servant boy. Because she realized the protagonist looked good in a party dress. Because she realized the protagonist had talent and would one day be her superior. It was all such petty motivation.
4) And back to that thing she kept from her family at the start... In a nutshell, she knows that the authorities will be coming for her. In fact, she knows they're coming that night. She knows her parents don't want it to happen and have been working her whole life to make sure it won't happen. Yet.. she doesn't warn her parents that it's about to happen. Maybe because it will put a damper on her sister's birthday party??? But doesn't she think that the authorities storming in to take her away might also ruin the party??? Why not warn her family? Why not take the opportunity to say good-bye?
It didn't bother me that much at the time. Because what happened was exciting and I assumed she had a reason for not warning them, but no such reason is ever revealed. And because of her silence, her family all ends up DEAD. Worse, not once after that does the protagonist even have a passing thought that maybe she bears a tiny bit of responsibility for their deaths. Not once. Not up to 65% of the way through the book, anyway...
5) Another thing that bugged me was that characters were constantly having "big realization" moments about things that I was 99% sure they already knew, or should have known... Even the main character has this "I'm no one special" moment after it's been made abundantly clear to her over and over, that the only reason she hasn't been killed for all her bad behavior is that she is VERY special. In fact she's the key to the ongoing survival of the entire world they're in. And yet, she thinks, "They won't care about me. I'm no one special." WHAT???
6) So, it's clear the main character is an important girl. Okay, maybe not everyone knows this or knows why... but when the antagonist does things that could seriously hurt the main character, and therefore threaten their entire world... no one does anything about it or punishes the antagonist or tries to stop her! It was like nothing was connected in a world where, well, the whole point was that everything was connected and visible to the authorities. (See what I mean about the logic problems?)
7) Even though they died for it, it's hard to understand what her parents hoped to save her from in the first place... She gets taken away into what seems like a way better life than she'd been destined for if they'd been successful in "saving" her. Sure, there are subtle threats about "power corrupting the powerful" but is it worth risking death to (unsuccessfully) keep your kid from being one of the powerful few?
I suppose that question could be debated and perhaps it's one of the things the book is about... but to the point I'd reached, it had yet to be explored. And, again, the character felt no guilt about her part in her parents' deaths.
8) I found the book riddled with inconsistencies. I do know, as an author of books set in imaginary worlds... that if a reader wants to get picky, he or she can always find something to pick at... But in this book, they just piled up for me. In addition to the stuff mentioned above, at one point, the character has already seen that the authorities have wiped her sister's mind clean, and given her a new life and new memories, and the character has learned that in a few days she has to go in for a procedure that sounds like it might wipe HER mind clean, or at least alter her mind. And she thinks and worries about that. And then a page later she thinks something like: at least they can't mess with my thoughts. WHAT??? You know they can. Idiot.
9) But the biggest sin for me in this book, is that at 65% through, there was still no evidence of a plot. Worse, the main character did not have a goal. I had no idea what she wanted or how I'd know if/when she got it. The author's entire point of the story seemed to be: show readers this cool and interesting world I thought up, by making my character travel through it and to make it fun, why not have her flirt with two boys--and a creepy grown man--none of whom have any real personality.
I saw part of an author interview, and based on what I read, I don't think I"m far from wrong in my guess of the author's writing process.
Sounds like this was a first book by a seat-of-her-pants author, who had a cool idea, but really didn't have a clue as to where it was heading, or even what the story was about, other than the world ideas.
10) But the reason I finally stopped reading was that (growing frustrated) I read a few negative reviews that revealed that, even at the end, there's no indication of where the story is heading. The book ends on a cliffhanger that sounds like the author simply didn't know how to finish the book, so she didn't. If I'm this angry now, just imagine the rant if I'd taken the 3-4 more hours to finish!
Now, I actually think that it's possible to have a book that's largely about revealing cool and interesting things about an imaginative world. But only if there are fascinating characters to care about and only if that cool world holds together...
With this book's story world, if you tug on one tiny logic thread, the entire thing unravels.
(I don't want to mention the title... because I dread the idea of someone picking apart my books like this... but that last line contains a hint for anyone who might have read it.)
Can you think of a book that works with mostly world building and character development and no plot? I'm sure there must be some...
Oh, this rant got WAY longer than I meant it to. I must be on a deadline. #responsibiltyavoidance #selfsabotage
Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label craft. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Dialogue in YA Fiction
One of the first things you learn as a beginner author is that while dialogue should give the reader the impression that it's the way people talk, it shouldn't be exactly how people talk.
That is, you shouldn't include the ums and pauses and repetition. You generally shouldn't include the boring inane small talk we all use to break the ice with each other or to get warmed up. You should get to the point, have your characters express themselves in as few words as possible, and expressing even more than the words actually say with subtext. Dialogue is closer to how we wished we spoke, or how we think we speak, rather than how we really speak.
But I feel like some YA authors forget this or think it doesn't apply to them. And editors let them get away with it.
To the point where I wonder if they think the rule doesn't apply to YA. I even started to wonder if teen readers want to read dialogue that's closer to how they actually speak.
But I, for one, don't think so. It's one reason why I haven't enjoyed a lot of contemporary YA I've read. Not all. Just some.
It's like when you hear a teen, like, speaking and like, they're saying like, like a lot, and it's like, that's okay, she's a teen and, like, that's how she talks, so like it makes sense that like the author wrote, like, all the dialogue with a lot of likes. But I think like it gets, like, you know, like kind of repetitious and annoying and, like, I start to feel like, if I were an actual, like, teen, I'd feel like the author was, like, mocking me, or like, talking down to me, not like, trying to sound like me or relate to me.
I'm reading a critically acclaimed YA novel right now. And it's from about 10 years ago. And it's not contemporary, it's sci-fi. And it's clever. It's a cool concept. I wish I'd written it. The author really commits to the world and the language these teens use, and for the most part it really works but, like, I wish the author had, like, used the word like less often.
The other YA book I read this year with really quirky language was Blood Red Road, but that one really worked for me. The language was different, it took a while to get into the flow of it, but it wasn't annoying. For this new one I'm reading, the language is getting in the way of the story for me.
Does that ever happen to you? If the language is annoying, can you enjoy a story?
That is, you shouldn't include the ums and pauses and repetition. You generally shouldn't include the boring inane small talk we all use to break the ice with each other or to get warmed up. You should get to the point, have your characters express themselves in as few words as possible, and expressing even more than the words actually say with subtext. Dialogue is closer to how we wished we spoke, or how we think we speak, rather than how we really speak.
But I feel like some YA authors forget this or think it doesn't apply to them. And editors let them get away with it.
To the point where I wonder if they think the rule doesn't apply to YA. I even started to wonder if teen readers want to read dialogue that's closer to how they actually speak.
But I, for one, don't think so. It's one reason why I haven't enjoyed a lot of contemporary YA I've read. Not all. Just some.
It's like when you hear a teen, like, speaking and like, they're saying like, like a lot, and it's like, that's okay, she's a teen and, like, that's how she talks, so like it makes sense that like the author wrote, like, all the dialogue with a lot of likes. But I think like it gets, like, you know, like kind of repetitious and annoying and, like, I start to feel like, if I were an actual, like, teen, I'd feel like the author was, like, mocking me, or like, talking down to me, not like, trying to sound like me or relate to me.
I'm reading a critically acclaimed YA novel right now. And it's from about 10 years ago. And it's not contemporary, it's sci-fi. And it's clever. It's a cool concept. I wish I'd written it. The author really commits to the world and the language these teens use, and for the most part it really works but, like, I wish the author had, like, used the word like less often.
The other YA book I read this year with really quirky language was Blood Red Road, but that one really worked for me. The language was different, it took a while to get into the flow of it, but it wasn't annoying. For this new one I'm reading, the language is getting in the way of the story for me.
Does that ever happen to you? If the language is annoying, can you enjoy a story?
Wednesday, January 04, 2012
When Flawed is Good Enough
I'm reading a YA novel right now that I shall not name, but it was one of the big anticipated books of 2011 and while I don't think it hit high on any bestseller lists (or as high as it was expected to) it did pretty well.
I can't quite decide what I think about this book. (Am waiting for Sinead to finish it, so we can discuss.) In parts it's amazing and creative. In parts it seems cliched. Parts are graceful and breathtakingly beautiful. Parts are clunky and awkward. Parts I've skimmed. (I'm not a skimmer.) And ultimately I've decided, reading it through writer's eyes, that the author, while clearly very talented, didn't know that much about writing. I'm guessing she didn't go through the "apprenticeship" that many of us go through writing multiple books that gather rejections and criticism through which we learn the craft of writing.
But the book is entertaining. And I keep turning the pages. So like other bestsellers that weren't considered "well written" clearly the story is making up for the muddy POV's, the occasional lazy choices, like repeating the same scene from two different points of view, or adding of a random POV for no reason other than to explain something she couldn't figure out a better way to explain... The things that stand out like sore thumbs to me as a fellow writer.
It almost makes me think I've wasted my time learning all that I have about "good" writing. But then I remember. I actually care. I know not everyone will like or appreciate my style or agree with my choices in storytelling, but no matter what criticism I hear in reviews, I know why I made the decisions I made in my books.
And in contrast, a study in perfection... I saw an absolutely wonderful film tonight that I highly recommend. Do not let the fact that it's a silent film made by a French filmmaker scare you off. It's very commercial and very entertaining and at its core is a really simple and believable and very sweet romance. Of course I'm talking about The Artist. The lead actor, Jean Dujardin, is favored to get an Oscar nomination and if I had a vote I agree. I'd also nominate the jack russell terrier in the movie for best supporting actor. Awesome.
I can't quite decide what I think about this book. (Am waiting for Sinead to finish it, so we can discuss.) In parts it's amazing and creative. In parts it seems cliched. Parts are graceful and breathtakingly beautiful. Parts are clunky and awkward. Parts I've skimmed. (I'm not a skimmer.) And ultimately I've decided, reading it through writer's eyes, that the author, while clearly very talented, didn't know that much about writing. I'm guessing she didn't go through the "apprenticeship" that many of us go through writing multiple books that gather rejections and criticism through which we learn the craft of writing.
But the book is entertaining. And I keep turning the pages. So like other bestsellers that weren't considered "well written" clearly the story is making up for the muddy POV's, the occasional lazy choices, like repeating the same scene from two different points of view, or adding of a random POV for no reason other than to explain something she couldn't figure out a better way to explain... The things that stand out like sore thumbs to me as a fellow writer.
It almost makes me think I've wasted my time learning all that I have about "good" writing. But then I remember. I actually care. I know not everyone will like or appreciate my style or agree with my choices in storytelling, but no matter what criticism I hear in reviews, I know why I made the decisions I made in my books.
And in contrast, a study in perfection... I saw an absolutely wonderful film tonight that I highly recommend. Do not let the fact that it's a silent film made by a French filmmaker scare you off. It's very commercial and very entertaining and at its core is a really simple and believable and very sweet romance. Of course I'm talking about The Artist. The lead actor, Jean Dujardin, is favored to get an Oscar nomination and if I had a vote I agree. I'd also nominate the jack russell terrier in the movie for best supporting actor. Awesome.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Talent vs. Skill
I feel as if I've done a post on this topic before, but the previous one was more about whether or not you can learn to be a writer... Hmmm.. when was that? (I found it. A post I did on my other blog in 2006 about whether writing is a talent or a skill. I guess a five year gap is enough time to revisit. ;)
Something recently drew this concept to mind again--and it was partly Stephanie commenting last weekend that she was now paying more attention to craft than she used to. And I'd already thinking about talent vs. skill.
A few weeks ago, I was walking through a bookstore with the fabulous Debbie Ohi and we stumbled on a woman doing a signing and we listened to a small chunk of her presentation. From what we could gather, her book was a cookbook, but also had personal stories about the recipes and some cartoon-type illustrations. Someone in the audience complimented the illustrations and asked her about them.
The author was a tad shy about her drawings and said she wasn't an artist or an illustrator by any sense of the imagination, but she'd shown them to the publisher and they wanted to include them. She also showed them to an artist friend at the time, to ask her opinion (should I really let them publish these?) and the artist replied something like: you don't have much skill, but you definitely have talent. That made me nod.
I think you can go a long way in many creative pursuits relying solely on talent, but at some point, when the going gets tough, or when something isn't working, or when you want to push yourself to do something different or better, or when you need to continue to produce more and more books, faster and faster, it sure helps to have developed some skill. :)
What do you think? Do you rely more on talent or skill when you write? Which is more important?
Something recently drew this concept to mind again--and it was partly Stephanie commenting last weekend that she was now paying more attention to craft than she used to. And I'd already thinking about talent vs. skill.
A few weeks ago, I was walking through a bookstore with the fabulous Debbie Ohi and we stumbled on a woman doing a signing and we listened to a small chunk of her presentation. From what we could gather, her book was a cookbook, but also had personal stories about the recipes and some cartoon-type illustrations. Someone in the audience complimented the illustrations and asked her about them.
The author was a tad shy about her drawings and said she wasn't an artist or an illustrator by any sense of the imagination, but she'd shown them to the publisher and they wanted to include them. She also showed them to an artist friend at the time, to ask her opinion (should I really let them publish these?) and the artist replied something like: you don't have much skill, but you definitely have talent. That made me nod.
I think you can go a long way in many creative pursuits relying solely on talent, but at some point, when the going gets tough, or when something isn't working, or when you want to push yourself to do something different or better, or when you need to continue to produce more and more books, faster and faster, it sure helps to have developed some skill. :)
What do you think? Do you rely more on talent or skill when you write? Which is more important?
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Character, Plot and Dragon Tattoos
I went to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo tonight and it got me thinking about plot and character, again.
On the absolute plot level, this film (and I assume the book, too, but I haven't read the book), is a who-done-it type murder mystery with a thriller/suspense edge. But it's so much more than that, and I couldn't help but think of how it rises above other popular books/movies in that same ilk like, say, The DaVinci Code.
Both had an intriguing mystery to solve, both have danger and life-threatening situations, both have chills and thrills, but the big difference is that Dragon Tattoo also has interesting characters.
Really interesting characters, whom we really care about, and worry about, and have unanswered questions about.... And the backstory for the one character is held back until virtually the end of the film but we're so fascinated by her (or at least I was) that I actually wondered at one point if maybe I'd be okay if we never found out what had happened to her. I actually started to think that they were going to hold that info back... because I knew there was a sequel (for the book, anyway).
I just read a bit of the description of the second book The Girl Who Played with Fire and it does have the same characters and it does sound like we find out more about her... Hmmm... Thinking I need to buy this book now. Too many books, not enough hours in the day.
Anyway. Good film. A few scenes were hard to watch, but a highly entertaining film.
On another aside... I don't know the story of how/when this bestselling book got optioned... but I also thought it was bold to do the film in Swedish with subtitles... After the book took off so big in its English translation, I'm sure there was huge pressure to do the film in English or even move it to Maine or someplace like that. Glad they didn't.
On the absolute plot level, this film (and I assume the book, too, but I haven't read the book), is a who-done-it type murder mystery with a thriller/suspense edge. But it's so much more than that, and I couldn't help but think of how it rises above other popular books/movies in that same ilk like, say, The DaVinci Code.
Both had an intriguing mystery to solve, both have danger and life-threatening situations, both have chills and thrills, but the big difference is that Dragon Tattoo also has interesting characters.
Really interesting characters, whom we really care about, and worry about, and have unanswered questions about.... And the backstory for the one character is held back until virtually the end of the film but we're so fascinated by her (or at least I was) that I actually wondered at one point if maybe I'd be okay if we never found out what had happened to her. I actually started to think that they were going to hold that info back... because I knew there was a sequel (for the book, anyway).
I just read a bit of the description of the second book The Girl Who Played with Fire and it does have the same characters and it does sound like we find out more about her... Hmmm... Thinking I need to buy this book now. Too many books, not enough hours in the day.
Anyway. Good film. A few scenes were hard to watch, but a highly entertaining film.
On another aside... I don't know the story of how/when this bestselling book got optioned... but I also thought it was bold to do the film in Swedish with subtitles... After the book took off so big in its English translation, I'm sure there was huge pressure to do the film in English or even move it to Maine or someplace like that. Glad they didn't.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Killing the Magic . . . Or Finding It?
I had several idea for blog posts for today (Kyra Sedgwick's wardrobe in THE CLOSER, my love of themes, grammar vandals) all of which I threw out the window after reading the following quote from James Cameron, the man behind TITANIC in Entertainment Weekly (because I am that kind of classy intellectual girl):
" I don't feel competitive with TITANIC . . . In all cultures in the world, everyone just happened to like that movie. But I can't run my career as a filmmaker trying to reverse-engineer the combination to that lock."
I sat there (I'm not going to mention where I was sitting) totally stunned at the profundity of that statement. How many times have I seen that happen? An author (or a film maker or a painter or a musician) scores big with something and then keeps trying to reproduce it, but it doesn't always work. The result can be cold and lifeless, because the heart that originally went into the book (movie, painting, song) just isn't there in the pale reverse-engineered duplicates. Or someone else tries to emulate the book and you get the same thing. An imitation of its external factors, but none of the internal guts that really made it work.
I know I'm guilty of it. I can think of several proposals that were shot down for various reasons, but I really think this is the real one. I reverse-engineered the life out of the story. Instead of letting the story grow organically out of my characters, I forced situations on them that I thought would fit a certain mold.
Then (because I am incapable of only seeing one side of an argument which is why even trying to pick what to make for dinner can be excruciating for me), it occurred to me that some times, reverse-engineering is really about learning my craft.
When I started working on my first urban fantasy, DON'T KILL THE MESSENGER, I really didn't know anything about the character. I'd had a snippet of a scene pop into my head and wanted to figure out what to do with it. I started thinking about which books that I'd read recently that I'd loved. Not liked. Not enjoyed. LOVED. Robin Hobb's Assassin series popped into my head.
I loved those books. Couldn't put them down. I adored the main character. I asked myself why? I did some rereading and lot of thinking and came up with the fact that the hero didn't really look like hero material at the beginning. Sure, he had some special skills, but he didn't even know how to use them correctly and some of them had to be kept secret. He was essentially a little cog in a very big machine, but ended up being the crucial piece that allowed the good guys to win. He became hero material. He had to. I wanted to make a character like that and that's where Melina Markowitz, Messenger to the supernatural world in Sacramento was born. Her story grew out of who she was and who she needed to become.
I love writing Melina. I think she's one of the better heroines I've created in a while and I don't think she would have happened without a little bit of reverse-engineering.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Multitasking vs One thing at a time
I read somewhere recently that few of us actually multitask very well, in spite of the fact most of us think we do. I also heard that what little ability we have to multitask gets worse as we age, and that scares me.
Why have I been thinking about this? Actually, it was Sinead's last post about writing faster (and my recent snails pace of finished product production). My snail's pace is due to the frustrating time I've been having doing final revisions on my latest opus.
I've always been a multi-tasking kind of person. At least that's how I think of myself. But I'm realizing (either because of age or wisdom or both) that maybe I'd be more effective if I forced my ADD underground and focused on one thing at a time.
And I don't mean doing multiple books at once. I've stopped projects mid-way to start others... but I've never been a write-two-books-at-once kind of gal. I wish. I mean, dealing with one stage of revisions/editing at a time.
Once a book is sold to a publisher, it goes through a few very distinct kinds of edits. Here's how I understand it:
The first is revisions. Which, for popular fiction at least, is mostly about changes to the story. Making sure it's as tight and strong as possible. Depending on the book and the editor, this may go through a few rounds. (Have you ever heard Lisa Garner talk about her revisions for The Perfect Husband?)
Then there are line edits. This is where the words become the issue. The prose. Are there repeating words or phrases, overuse of adverbs or adjectives, repetitive sentence structures. That kind of thing. (I understand depending on the editor, and the extent of revisions needed, these two stages are sometimes combined. I also understand that with more "literary" novels this stage is more rigorous. Fine. I heard one story about an authors and her editor arguing over the choice of one particular word for a few weeks. Lucky publishers have popular fiction to help pay for that kind of anal-retentiveness.)
Then, only then, does it go to the copy editor who worries about continuity and fact checking and punctuation and grammar and do the heroine's eyes change color on page 243.
This is how I understand the process to work, anyway.
So, I'm thinking. Why the hell do I make myself crazy trying to combine all those different kinds of edits into one set of revisions myself? Why do I worry about all of these things on each pass through my manuscript? Why am I fussing over the exact wording of a paragraph until I'm absolutely positive the overall story is working? Do I like wasting time? Making extra work for myself? Subsequently cutting huge swaths of prose I'd tinkered with until I loved it? Am I that worried about my CP's opinion of me that I can only show them stuff I think's nearly finished?
I'm not sure why I never tried to apply this multi-step approach to revisions to my writing process.
And even if I hadn't made the connection earlier, I could have taken a lesson from my CP, friend and fellow drunk writer, Molly, who never cares about line edit things when she's just trying to get the story right.
I've learned to (mostly) ignore grammar and repeated words and poor punctuation in Molly's early drafts, but I'm seriously just realizing now how friggin smart she is. (I knew she was smart about lots of things, just not this.)
What I now realize is how much time I waste trying to polish my work before I show it to my CP's for that initial "does this story work" critique. Or even before I make my own assessment of my story.
Damn, damn, damn.
Can you edit your work for just one thing? Can you ignore the wording and just worry about the story? Or do you multi-task-edit, too?
Why have I been thinking about this? Actually, it was Sinead's last post about writing faster (and my recent snails pace of finished product production). My snail's pace is due to the frustrating time I've been having doing final revisions on my latest opus.
I've always been a multi-tasking kind of person. At least that's how I think of myself. But I'm realizing (either because of age or wisdom or both) that maybe I'd be more effective if I forced my ADD underground and focused on one thing at a time.
And I don't mean doing multiple books at once. I've stopped projects mid-way to start others... but I've never been a write-two-books-at-once kind of gal. I wish. I mean, dealing with one stage of revisions/editing at a time.
Once a book is sold to a publisher, it goes through a few very distinct kinds of edits. Here's how I understand it:
The first is revisions. Which, for popular fiction at least, is mostly about changes to the story. Making sure it's as tight and strong as possible. Depending on the book and the editor, this may go through a few rounds. (Have you ever heard Lisa Garner talk about her revisions for The Perfect Husband?)
Then there are line edits. This is where the words become the issue. The prose. Are there repeating words or phrases, overuse of adverbs or adjectives, repetitive sentence structures. That kind of thing. (I understand depending on the editor, and the extent of revisions needed, these two stages are sometimes combined. I also understand that with more "literary" novels this stage is more rigorous. Fine. I heard one story about an authors and her editor arguing over the choice of one particular word for a few weeks. Lucky publishers have popular fiction to help pay for that kind of anal-retentiveness.)
Then, only then, does it go to the copy editor who worries about continuity and fact checking and punctuation and grammar and do the heroine's eyes change color on page 243.
This is how I understand the process to work, anyway.
So, I'm thinking. Why the hell do I make myself crazy trying to combine all those different kinds of edits into one set of revisions myself? Why do I worry about all of these things on each pass through my manuscript? Why am I fussing over the exact wording of a paragraph until I'm absolutely positive the overall story is working? Do I like wasting time? Making extra work for myself? Subsequently cutting huge swaths of prose I'd tinkered with until I loved it? Am I that worried about my CP's opinion of me that I can only show them stuff I think's nearly finished?
I'm not sure why I never tried to apply this multi-step approach to revisions to my writing process.
And even if I hadn't made the connection earlier, I could have taken a lesson from my CP, friend and fellow drunk writer, Molly, who never cares about line edit things when she's just trying to get the story right.
I've learned to (mostly) ignore grammar and repeated words and poor punctuation in Molly's early drafts, but I'm seriously just realizing now how friggin smart she is. (I knew she was smart about lots of things, just not this.)
What I now realize is how much time I waste trying to polish my work before I show it to my CP's for that initial "does this story work" critique. Or even before I make my own assessment of my story.
Damn, damn, damn.
Can you edit your work for just one thing? Can you ignore the wording and just worry about the story? Or do you multi-task-edit, too?
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
It's Write, not Right!
No, this isn't a post about spelling or diction... it's a post about the highly subjective nature of writing and storytelling.
I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about writing contests recently. Not because I'm entering any right now, but because I'm involved in my local RWA Chapter's contest, to a certain extent. And debating about how much detail the score sheet should have, how specific the questions should be, has got me all fired up.
Writing is an art, not a science. Sure, like any form of art, there are techniques. There are basics to be mastered, skills to be learned. But like art, writing and storytelling would not exist or be so popular, or stimulate so many people's minds and hearts, if everyone painted, drew, sculpted, constructed a chapter, told a story in the same way. Similarly there's no right answer to whether a piece of art or a particular story is "good". What one person loves, the next will hate. It's subjective.
In art schools, budding artists learn by first drawing and painting mundane things, all in the same manner using the same media. They start with cylinders, balls, cones and other shapes, first with pencil, then charcoal, then conte or ink, then paint (if they are painters) or clay (if they are sculptors). Then they move onto apples, oranges and pears (an art school favorite). Then onto more complex still life compositions and then the human form.
After this, in most art programs, the students learn to imitate. They copy the old masters, the impressionists, the great modern artists. They learn techniques by studying and imitating the artists who have gone before them.
But then? After those skills are mastered? Artists are expected to forget all that. No, not to forget, to put all those skills and techniques in a toolbox and start creating art in an entirely new way--their own original way. Being derivative isn't rewarded, even in more commercial areas of art. What everyone loves and rewards and gets excited about, is someone who does something different and interesting. Whether something is "good" or not is entirely up to the viewer of the art. In fact, whether or not it's original versus derivative is also up to the viewer. It's entirely subjective.
I believe that all these things hold true with writing. Even genre writing. Writers learn the basic building blocks of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, acts, novels. They learn about careful word choice, avoiding redundancy, clean writing, the advantages of using an active voice and when they might use a passive voice for effect. They study other writers and perhaps do some imitation at first. They learn other skills of storytelling like escalating conflict and point of view and managing the release of information to create the desired emotions and experiences for the reader. They study theories, developed by those who've analyzed storytelling, like "The Hero's Journey" and "Goal, Motivation, Conflict" and "Three Act Plotting".
But how to best use these skills once they are learned? Entirely subjective. If it weren't. If there were one way to do these things, then reading -- particularly reading more than one book within a given genre -- would be hopelessly boring for the reader. Readers don't notice the writer's technique, unless it's dreadfully poorly executed. (Occasionally, if the story's great, they don't even notice when it's poorly executed -- evidence that little religious thriller that did pretty well a few years ago.) Readers know when they are drawn into a story, when they are pulled along so they can't put the book down. When they are entertained.
Now I completely agree that genres have conventions and this is particularly true in the romance genre. Romance readers know what they like.
That said. Romance readers are the most voracious flavour of reader on the planet. Romance accounts for over 50% of all paperbacks sold and I've met countless readers, since I began my association with RWA, who read a book a day, minimum.
Now if all those books were executed in exactly the same way. If all the events unfolded exactly as expected and in the same order. If all the characters behaved predictably, the same way they behaved in every other book... Wouldn't readers get bored??? Of course they would. That's why the common claim that romances have a "formula" irks romance writers and readers alike. Sure there's technique involved. Great writers in the genre have developed ways to maximize the reader's enjoyment and there's much to be learned by studying those techniques. Sure there are conventions like happy endings. But there isn't a "formula" and there aren't "rules" and even for the most ingrained conventions like happy endings, there are highly successful exceptions.
I've been to a lot of writers conferences over the past 2-3 years. Too many, some may argue. But as a result, I've probably heard no less than 30 different editors and probably double as many agents discuss what they're looking for and the most common mistakes/problems they see in submissions.
What is it? It's that the writing is boring. That it lacks spark. That the story is too derivative of others already published. Too cliche. When writers ask editors, "What are you looking for?" The most common answer is, "A good story." When writers ask, "What's the next big trend coming along?" Most editors answer, "You tell us. You're the writers. You're the creative ones, the ones inventing the characters and unique story lines."
So, back to contests and score sheets... With all this inherent subjectivity, with editors wanting something "different", how is it even remotely possible to create a score sheet that can judge precisely, without bias, some one's storytelling and proclaim whether or not they did it "right"? One person's "right" is another person's "wrong".
One of the biggest challenges in running a contest is that, not only the entrants, but also the judges will be at different skill levels, different places along their journey to becoming great (or even good) writers. Some entrants will still be at the learning the mechanics stage. Some judges will still be learning to recognize whether or not the mechanics were properly applied. Some judges will be stuck at some point in the past, thinking the best practices when they were learning are still the best practices now.
But with any luck some entrants will be very close to publication. Some entrants may have moved beyond the mechanics stage and onto manipulating the tools in their toolbox in their own unique ways. To me, the most important goal of a contest is to maximize the chances that those entries which will be of most interest to the editors, the ones closest to publication, are the ones which final. Second to that, is for the judges to provide excellent and useful feedback for the entrants, so that, no matter which stage they're at, entrants learn something to help them move on to the next stage. That's where it becomes extra-difficult, because some judges will be less experienced than some entrants... but that's one of the foibles/realities of peer judged contests. You pay your entry fee and roll the dice hoping at least one judge who looks at your work knows more than you and/or will have something useful to tell you or will simply give you a great score. And lets face it. Even if all the judges were agents and editors, anyone who's submitted knows that even agents and editors can't agree on what's "good". But they can usually agree on which entries don't have the basics down.
So we can judge the basics. Does the writer understand "show don't tell", do they know how to use POV effectively. How's their use of grammar, their spelling? Is the storytelling gripping? If it isn't gripping, why? Is there no conflict? No emotion? No setting? Too much of any of the above? Is the dialogue stilted or artificial? Are the characters flat or stereotyped? There are lots of things that could be "wrong" if a story doesn't grip us. (Including personal bias...)
But if the story is gripping. If a judge picks up the pages and reads them straight through and wishes there were more to read... who the fuck cares whether the external or internal conflict is resolved first, or whether the heroine uses her sense of smell, or whether there's chemistry the first time the hero and heroine meet or whether, in the first chapter, the reader can fully understand all the reasons behind each characters' actions?
Bottom line. There is no one way to write a story, even a genre specific story. Because of this, it's impossible, and in my opinion wrong-headed, to try to create a scoring system to pretend differently.
Right and write may be homonyms, but they they have entirely different meanings.
I've been doing a fair bit of thinking about writing contests recently. Not because I'm entering any right now, but because I'm involved in my local RWA Chapter's contest, to a certain extent. And debating about how much detail the score sheet should have, how specific the questions should be, has got me all fired up.
Writing is an art, not a science. Sure, like any form of art, there are techniques. There are basics to be mastered, skills to be learned. But like art, writing and storytelling would not exist or be so popular, or stimulate so many people's minds and hearts, if everyone painted, drew, sculpted, constructed a chapter, told a story in the same way. Similarly there's no right answer to whether a piece of art or a particular story is "good". What one person loves, the next will hate. It's subjective.
In art schools, budding artists learn by first drawing and painting mundane things, all in the same manner using the same media. They start with cylinders, balls, cones and other shapes, first with pencil, then charcoal, then conte or ink, then paint (if they are painters) or clay (if they are sculptors). Then they move onto apples, oranges and pears (an art school favorite). Then onto more complex still life compositions and then the human form.
After this, in most art programs, the students learn to imitate. They copy the old masters, the impressionists, the great modern artists. They learn techniques by studying and imitating the artists who have gone before them.
But then? After those skills are mastered? Artists are expected to forget all that. No, not to forget, to put all those skills and techniques in a toolbox and start creating art in an entirely new way--their own original way. Being derivative isn't rewarded, even in more commercial areas of art. What everyone loves and rewards and gets excited about, is someone who does something different and interesting. Whether something is "good" or not is entirely up to the viewer of the art. In fact, whether or not it's original versus derivative is also up to the viewer. It's entirely subjective.
I believe that all these things hold true with writing. Even genre writing. Writers learn the basic building blocks of sentences, paragraphs, scenes, chapters, acts, novels. They learn about careful word choice, avoiding redundancy, clean writing, the advantages of using an active voice and when they might use a passive voice for effect. They study other writers and perhaps do some imitation at first. They learn other skills of storytelling like escalating conflict and point of view and managing the release of information to create the desired emotions and experiences for the reader. They study theories, developed by those who've analyzed storytelling, like "The Hero's Journey" and "Goal, Motivation, Conflict" and "Three Act Plotting".
But how to best use these skills once they are learned? Entirely subjective. If it weren't. If there were one way to do these things, then reading -- particularly reading more than one book within a given genre -- would be hopelessly boring for the reader. Readers don't notice the writer's technique, unless it's dreadfully poorly executed. (Occasionally, if the story's great, they don't even notice when it's poorly executed -- evidence that little religious thriller that did pretty well a few years ago.) Readers know when they are drawn into a story, when they are pulled along so they can't put the book down. When they are entertained.
Now I completely agree that genres have conventions and this is particularly true in the romance genre. Romance readers know what they like.
That said. Romance readers are the most voracious flavour of reader on the planet. Romance accounts for over 50% of all paperbacks sold and I've met countless readers, since I began my association with RWA, who read a book a day, minimum.
Now if all those books were executed in exactly the same way. If all the events unfolded exactly as expected and in the same order. If all the characters behaved predictably, the same way they behaved in every other book... Wouldn't readers get bored??? Of course they would. That's why the common claim that romances have a "formula" irks romance writers and readers alike. Sure there's technique involved. Great writers in the genre have developed ways to maximize the reader's enjoyment and there's much to be learned by studying those techniques. Sure there are conventions like happy endings. But there isn't a "formula" and there aren't "rules" and even for the most ingrained conventions like happy endings, there are highly successful exceptions.
I've been to a lot of writers conferences over the past 2-3 years. Too many, some may argue. But as a result, I've probably heard no less than 30 different editors and probably double as many agents discuss what they're looking for and the most common mistakes/problems they see in submissions.
What is it? It's that the writing is boring. That it lacks spark. That the story is too derivative of others already published. Too cliche. When writers ask editors, "What are you looking for?" The most common answer is, "A good story." When writers ask, "What's the next big trend coming along?" Most editors answer, "You tell us. You're the writers. You're the creative ones, the ones inventing the characters and unique story lines."
So, back to contests and score sheets... With all this inherent subjectivity, with editors wanting something "different", how is it even remotely possible to create a score sheet that can judge precisely, without bias, some one's storytelling and proclaim whether or not they did it "right"? One person's "right" is another person's "wrong".
One of the biggest challenges in running a contest is that, not only the entrants, but also the judges will be at different skill levels, different places along their journey to becoming great (or even good) writers. Some entrants will still be at the learning the mechanics stage. Some judges will still be learning to recognize whether or not the mechanics were properly applied. Some judges will be stuck at some point in the past, thinking the best practices when they were learning are still the best practices now.
But with any luck some entrants will be very close to publication. Some entrants may have moved beyond the mechanics stage and onto manipulating the tools in their toolbox in their own unique ways. To me, the most important goal of a contest is to maximize the chances that those entries which will be of most interest to the editors, the ones closest to publication, are the ones which final. Second to that, is for the judges to provide excellent and useful feedback for the entrants, so that, no matter which stage they're at, entrants learn something to help them move on to the next stage. That's where it becomes extra-difficult, because some judges will be less experienced than some entrants... but that's one of the foibles/realities of peer judged contests. You pay your entry fee and roll the dice hoping at least one judge who looks at your work knows more than you and/or will have something useful to tell you or will simply give you a great score. And lets face it. Even if all the judges were agents and editors, anyone who's submitted knows that even agents and editors can't agree on what's "good". But they can usually agree on which entries don't have the basics down.
So we can judge the basics. Does the writer understand "show don't tell", do they know how to use POV effectively. How's their use of grammar, their spelling? Is the storytelling gripping? If it isn't gripping, why? Is there no conflict? No emotion? No setting? Too much of any of the above? Is the dialogue stilted or artificial? Are the characters flat or stereotyped? There are lots of things that could be "wrong" if a story doesn't grip us. (Including personal bias...)
But if the story is gripping. If a judge picks up the pages and reads them straight through and wishes there were more to read... who the fuck cares whether the external or internal conflict is resolved first, or whether the heroine uses her sense of smell, or whether there's chemistry the first time the hero and heroine meet or whether, in the first chapter, the reader can fully understand all the reasons behind each characters' actions?
Bottom line. There is no one way to write a story, even a genre specific story. Because of this, it's impossible, and in my opinion wrong-headed, to try to create a scoring system to pretend differently.
Right and write may be homonyms, but they they have entirely different meanings.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Writing is Hard
Okay, I started thinking about this post at 10:00 pm Sunday night after having spent a week of 10 hour days editing/revising my latest opus. I’d been determined to get it out the door to my agent before I went to bed Sunday night—wouldn’t it be cool if it was the first e-mail she saw Monday morning?—but bleary-eyed, lightheaded, barely able to think at 10:00 p.m., and feeling a little sick after consuming nothing but snacks (most of them healthy, but snacks nonetheless) all day, I conceded I needed one more day to finish. Feeling somewhat defeated, the title of this blog post popped into my head.
That writing is hard shouldn’t really be a big surprise, yet I think to many people it is. I mean, everyone writes, right? We all had to do it in school. Many of us do it in our non-writing day jobs. We all tell stories to each other in one way or another, so how hard could it be to actually write them down? I mean, it’s just about discipline, right?
WRONG.
Sure, discipline plays a big part of it. You need to get your ass in a chair, your fingers on a keyboard and just plow through it to some extent. That’s certainly the first very important step—the step most people never get through. But will that result in a great, well-written novel that readers (who don’t know you) won’t be able to put down? Possible, but not likely.
I guess I believe (because I’ve heard the stories), there are writers whose books just pour out of them. And I’ve had days like that. Days when my fingers can barely keep up with the story unfolding in my head.
But given all I’ve learned about the craft of writing (and I still feel like I’m scratching the surface, there), I also believe it’s highly unlikely that whatever pours out of me (or any writer) in that way will be the best work they can produce. Sure, sometimes it’s good enough. But can we really produce consistently great stories that way… I don’t think so.
So, we edit. We fine tune.
We critique each scene—does it do enough? We consider our characters’ motivations—are they clear enough, or conversely so obvious they’re trite or cliché. We consider the conflict and tension on every page—can we make it stronger? We critique other aspects of our storytelling—do turning points happen when they should? Are we repeating ideas? Are we beating some aspect of characterization to death such that the reader wants to yell, “We get it!” at the book? How’s the pacing? Is it gripping? Are the characters real or flat?
We critique our prose—have we made careful word choices, varied our sentence structure, trimmed redundancies and otherwise unnecessary words? Or conversely, have we over-edited to the point of removing all sense of voice and/or style from our work. Have we over or underused purposeful repetition, alliteration, similes, metaphors?
And this is just a short list of what we as writers do to make sure our final product is quality work.
Easy? I think not.
That writing is hard shouldn’t really be a big surprise, yet I think to many people it is. I mean, everyone writes, right? We all had to do it in school. Many of us do it in our non-writing day jobs. We all tell stories to each other in one way or another, so how hard could it be to actually write them down? I mean, it’s just about discipline, right?
WRONG.
Sure, discipline plays a big part of it. You need to get your ass in a chair, your fingers on a keyboard and just plow through it to some extent. That’s certainly the first very important step—the step most people never get through. But will that result in a great, well-written novel that readers (who don’t know you) won’t be able to put down? Possible, but not likely.
I guess I believe (because I’ve heard the stories), there are writers whose books just pour out of them. And I’ve had days like that. Days when my fingers can barely keep up with the story unfolding in my head.
But given all I’ve learned about the craft of writing (and I still feel like I’m scratching the surface, there), I also believe it’s highly unlikely that whatever pours out of me (or any writer) in that way will be the best work they can produce. Sure, sometimes it’s good enough. But can we really produce consistently great stories that way… I don’t think so.
So, we edit. We fine tune.
We critique each scene—does it do enough? We consider our characters’ motivations—are they clear enough, or conversely so obvious they’re trite or cliché. We consider the conflict and tension on every page—can we make it stronger? We critique other aspects of our storytelling—do turning points happen when they should? Are we repeating ideas? Are we beating some aspect of characterization to death such that the reader wants to yell, “We get it!” at the book? How’s the pacing? Is it gripping? Are the characters real or flat?
We critique our prose—have we made careful word choices, varied our sentence structure, trimmed redundancies and otherwise unnecessary words? Or conversely, have we over-edited to the point of removing all sense of voice and/or style from our work. Have we over or underused purposeful repetition, alliteration, similes, metaphors?
And this is just a short list of what we as writers do to make sure our final product is quality work.
Easy? I think not.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Some talk on beginnings...
I gave a workshop on Saturday at the Toronto Romance Writers on Great Beginnings. And I thought I would sort of hit the highlights of that workshop in this blog and then I promise to have more comprehensive notes on my website sometime before Mick goes to college.
First, I think and have always thought and probably will always think that the beginning of the novel is the hardest part of the novel writing process. There is so much resting on those first few pages. Not only do you have to introduce theme and character and plot and goals and motivations and be funny or scary or suspenseful or clever, but you also have to do all those things so that the reader can't tell you're doing it-- very difficult.
I have been a reader far longer than I have been a writer and if there is one thing I've learned as a READER it's that the best storytelling happens outside of expectation - when I can't see it coming. And I think RWA and all helpful rules and guidelines we pick up at the numerous workshops conferences and on line courses CREATE expectation. If we are all following "the rules" we're all writing the same book!
I think we need to step back from those small nit picky guidelines and rules that we've been taught and remember that good storytelling is about engaging the reader with questions. Books become page turners because the reader is dying to know the answers to questions that the writer controls and manipulates. It's really very simple - at the beginning of our books we want our readers to be asking PLOT questions - what is going to happen next? and CHARACTER questions - who are these people? and BACKSTORY questions why are they behaving this way?
The more specific the questions and the more immediate the question the better. Will she get the promotion? Will he get out alive? Will he speak up for himself? Will she leave her husband? Will she kill her husband? Will she make out with the cute guy at the bar? Will she get out of bed?
The goal is to make every question -- even the silly or frivolous fraught with tension and stakes. Remember the great Jenny Cruise book when the heroine is on the phone with her friend and trying to get that frozen brownie out of the pan -- it's a life or death battle for that brownie. If you are showing your character late for work and she's NEVER late for work and she's an aggressive woman with control issues - that morning commute has to be akin to the Battle of Hastings.
All too often books start with conversations - where in one character tells the other character what they already know for the readers benefit - but it's all about all the things going wrong and what's happened since Dad died/they lost their job/they got divorced/their husband cheated on them etc... there's no tension there. There's information - but I'm not asking questions because the writer is answering them before I can ask them. In two words - no conflict.
Now - some of those rules we've all been told - don't show ordinary world, start with a hook, the hero and heroine must meet in the first chapter, show don't tell, start with action and dialogue. And even more the list I have created for myself over the years of things I don't want to do in my books - you know, bob dialogue, repetition of theme, conflict and goal, lazy writing, misleading my reader - those rules become TOOLS for creating those reader questions and conflict.
I think one of the problems I have with a lot of romances these days is that many writers are lazy on the small scenes - the scenes that lead us to love scenes or black moments, or moments of change or groveling or happy ever after - and the key is to make those scenes as important as those big scenes by, again controlling reader questions. If every scene has to be important and a scene that the reader is DYING to read whether they know it or not - it is doubly true for that opening scene.
So look at those rules you've been told and figure out which of them are tools you can use to jumpstart your opener - to get those reader's hooked and asking questions. Because that's what good storytelling does and that's what we're trying to do - tell great stories.
First, I think and have always thought and probably will always think that the beginning of the novel is the hardest part of the novel writing process. There is so much resting on those first few pages. Not only do you have to introduce theme and character and plot and goals and motivations and be funny or scary or suspenseful or clever, but you also have to do all those things so that the reader can't tell you're doing it-- very difficult.
I have been a reader far longer than I have been a writer and if there is one thing I've learned as a READER it's that the best storytelling happens outside of expectation - when I can't see it coming. And I think RWA and all helpful rules and guidelines we pick up at the numerous workshops conferences and on line courses CREATE expectation. If we are all following "the rules" we're all writing the same book!
I think we need to step back from those small nit picky guidelines and rules that we've been taught and remember that good storytelling is about engaging the reader with questions. Books become page turners because the reader is dying to know the answers to questions that the writer controls and manipulates. It's really very simple - at the beginning of our books we want our readers to be asking PLOT questions - what is going to happen next? and CHARACTER questions - who are these people? and BACKSTORY questions why are they behaving this way?
The more specific the questions and the more immediate the question the better. Will she get the promotion? Will he get out alive? Will he speak up for himself? Will she leave her husband? Will she kill her husband? Will she make out with the cute guy at the bar? Will she get out of bed?
The goal is to make every question -- even the silly or frivolous fraught with tension and stakes. Remember the great Jenny Cruise book when the heroine is on the phone with her friend and trying to get that frozen brownie out of the pan -- it's a life or death battle for that brownie. If you are showing your character late for work and she's NEVER late for work and she's an aggressive woman with control issues - that morning commute has to be akin to the Battle of Hastings.
All too often books start with conversations - where in one character tells the other character what they already know for the readers benefit - but it's all about all the things going wrong and what's happened since Dad died/they lost their job/they got divorced/their husband cheated on them etc... there's no tension there. There's information - but I'm not asking questions because the writer is answering them before I can ask them. In two words - no conflict.
Now - some of those rules we've all been told - don't show ordinary world, start with a hook, the hero and heroine must meet in the first chapter, show don't tell, start with action and dialogue. And even more the list I have created for myself over the years of things I don't want to do in my books - you know, bob dialogue, repetition of theme, conflict and goal, lazy writing, misleading my reader - those rules become TOOLS for creating those reader questions and conflict.
I think one of the problems I have with a lot of romances these days is that many writers are lazy on the small scenes - the scenes that lead us to love scenes or black moments, or moments of change or groveling or happy ever after - and the key is to make those scenes as important as those big scenes by, again controlling reader questions. If every scene has to be important and a scene that the reader is DYING to read whether they know it or not - it is doubly true for that opening scene.
So look at those rules you've been told and figure out which of them are tools you can use to jumpstart your opener - to get those reader's hooked and asking questions. Because that's what good storytelling does and that's what we're trying to do - tell great stories.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Great endings…
My topic today is great endings, as opposed to happy endings, which I’m pretty sure are something dirty. (We’ll probably get a bunch of unexpected hits today, because I wrote happy endings.)
Not that I’m against endings which happen to be happy. All the books I’ve written to date have happy endings, hopeful endings if not entirely settled endings, and my two drunk writer cohorts both write in the romance genre, books which all have happily-ever-after endings. So I don’t want to talk about whether to make endings happy… I’m more interested in what makes endings great.
I’m just finishing revisions on a manuscript, trying to get it off to my agent so she’s got something else to sell. Problem is, I’m not feeling really confident about my ending and it’s got me thinking about endings in general.
I thought I’d consult my Vogler to see what he has to say on returning with the elixir and all that jazz, but for some reason I couldn’t find it today, and I think I only wanted to read it to get permission, to get some justification to end my book where I want to end it, where I always want to end my books, just as soon as everything’s resolved. (And adding to my lack of great-ending-confidence, an editor who was very interested in my last manuscript, but ultimately couldn't offer, told me she thought that book ended abruptly. It did. But I liked it that way.)
Based on all this, I know many (most?) readers like more ending than I do. They like something to come after the climax/resolution. Something that increases their confidence that everything turned out all right. They want to know the protagonist was still okay, even after coming down from the adrenaline high of surviving the climax. Not only do they want the protagonist to come down, the readers want time to calm down and absorb. This all makes sense to me. I know I need to push my stories just a bit past where I want to stop writing. I think my problem is that I know the characters will be okay... so after everything's resolved, it's just not interesting to me, anymore...
So, I’m ending challenged. Frequent DWT commenter Kimber, asked some time ago whether we’d do blog on epilogues. So, while this topic might please Kimber somewhat, it may also disappoint her. Why? Because I’m not sure I have an opinion on epilogues, per se. I think, like most things, it depends on the story. (And we've already established I'm confused about endings in general.)
I do think epilogues can tend toward the cliché. For example, a wedding scene at the end of a romance, or a scene with the couple and their kids a few years later. Now, full disclosure, I’ve written scenes like that… but I guess those epilogues in a romance have become cliché because they've been written so many times, and they've been written so many times because they work, because they’re satisfying to readers.
But I fear I've drifted off topic. I wanted to talk about what's driving me nuts right now... Here I go. It's my ending. My ending is boring and I think it probably tells rather than shows. Also, in the current draft, it includes an "insight" I ended up putting earlier in the book, and I do think it works better where it’s ended up, so to avoid redundancy, my ending will not only be boring and badly written it will also be insightless (if that were a word).
This weekend, I came up with a new final scene idea (not written yet) to let my protagonist return with her elixir. But, what is this planned scene I'm thinking of tacking on? Get ready for it, it’s a wedding scene. It does, however, have a twist… Not the protagonist's wedding, someone elses -- but still I feel it might be too corny and cliché.
How about you? Once the conflict’s resolved and the protagonist has demonstrated they’ve changed… Do you want more? Do you want the story wrapped up in a pretty bow? What makes a great ending for you? Help me. Please.
Not that I’m against endings which happen to be happy. All the books I’ve written to date have happy endings, hopeful endings if not entirely settled endings, and my two drunk writer cohorts both write in the romance genre, books which all have happily-ever-after endings. So I don’t want to talk about whether to make endings happy… I’m more interested in what makes endings great.
I’m just finishing revisions on a manuscript, trying to get it off to my agent so she’s got something else to sell. Problem is, I’m not feeling really confident about my ending and it’s got me thinking about endings in general.
I thought I’d consult my Vogler to see what he has to say on returning with the elixir and all that jazz, but for some reason I couldn’t find it today, and I think I only wanted to read it to get permission, to get some justification to end my book where I want to end it, where I always want to end my books, just as soon as everything’s resolved. (And adding to my lack of great-ending-confidence, an editor who was very interested in my last manuscript, but ultimately couldn't offer, told me she thought that book ended abruptly. It did. But I liked it that way.)
Based on all this, I know many (most?) readers like more ending than I do. They like something to come after the climax/resolution. Something that increases their confidence that everything turned out all right. They want to know the protagonist was still okay, even after coming down from the adrenaline high of surviving the climax. Not only do they want the protagonist to come down, the readers want time to calm down and absorb. This all makes sense to me. I know I need to push my stories just a bit past where I want to stop writing. I think my problem is that I know the characters will be okay... so after everything's resolved, it's just not interesting to me, anymore...
So, I’m ending challenged. Frequent DWT commenter Kimber, asked some time ago whether we’d do blog on epilogues. So, while this topic might please Kimber somewhat, it may also disappoint her. Why? Because I’m not sure I have an opinion on epilogues, per se. I think, like most things, it depends on the story. (And we've already established I'm confused about endings in general.)
I do think epilogues can tend toward the cliché. For example, a wedding scene at the end of a romance, or a scene with the couple and their kids a few years later. Now, full disclosure, I’ve written scenes like that… but I guess those epilogues in a romance have become cliché because they've been written so many times, and they've been written so many times because they work, because they’re satisfying to readers.
But I fear I've drifted off topic. I wanted to talk about what's driving me nuts right now... Here I go. It's my ending. My ending is boring and I think it probably tells rather than shows. Also, in the current draft, it includes an "insight" I ended up putting earlier in the book, and I do think it works better where it’s ended up, so to avoid redundancy, my ending will not only be boring and badly written it will also be insightless (if that were a word).
This weekend, I came up with a new final scene idea (not written yet) to let my protagonist return with her elixir. But, what is this planned scene I'm thinking of tacking on? Get ready for it, it’s a wedding scene. It does, however, have a twist… Not the protagonist's wedding, someone elses -- but still I feel it might be too corny and cliché.
How about you? Once the conflict’s resolved and the protagonist has demonstrated they’ve changed… Do you want more? Do you want the story wrapped up in a pretty bow? What makes a great ending for you? Help me. Please.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Publishing Outside the Mainstream
I am currently trying to organize a Valentine's Day signing for three Canadian Authors at a local Coles store that has proven to be incredibly romance friendly and the manager puts on a great signing. Finding romance friendly bookstores in Toronto has been a challenge. Like in the states we have lost a lot of our small private bookstores to the big conglomerate - for good or bad - that's not the point of my post. (Though always a good topic of discussion -- all that selection, comfy chairs and Starbucks but no soul). One of the author's doing the signing (Talented Teresa Roblin - Hocus Pocus and Now You See It) is e-published with Cerridwin and her books are being published in hard copy. Books are in the warehouse ready to be sent but the distributor doesn't have an account with Coles/Chapters/Indigo. Other Canadian writers have complained to Ellora's Cave/Cerridwin, but still no account. Maybe distribution is better in the States -- but there's not much in Canada.
I think this problem is something that a lot of people don't consider when the sign the contract with an e-publisher. If you publish outside the mainstream it's harder to try and work within the mainstream. It sucks. But that's the way it is. And if having signings and walking into the big bookstore and seeing your book is a big deal...it might not happen.
I write for Harlequin and if I had a nickle for every time someone has come up to me two months after my books were in stores and said "I went yesterday to find your book but I couldn't find it" I would have more money than I earned from both my Flipsides. Harlequin novels are pulled off the shelves after a month -- that's the deal. It sucks. But that's the way it is. So, I have to say to all those well-meaning friend's and possible sales that they will have to get the book on Amazon but most of them don't which is why those Flipsides never made any money.
I am hoping that with some complaining my friend Teresa can get this changed so maybe she can join us for the next signing - but it's been a real eye-opening experience for me.
I think this problem is something that a lot of people don't consider when the sign the contract with an e-publisher. If you publish outside the mainstream it's harder to try and work within the mainstream. It sucks. But that's the way it is. And if having signings and walking into the big bookstore and seeing your book is a big deal...it might not happen.
I write for Harlequin and if I had a nickle for every time someone has come up to me two months after my books were in stores and said "I went yesterday to find your book but I couldn't find it" I would have more money than I earned from both my Flipsides. Harlequin novels are pulled off the shelves after a month -- that's the deal. It sucks. But that's the way it is. So, I have to say to all those well-meaning friend's and possible sales that they will have to get the book on Amazon but most of them don't which is why those Flipsides never made any money.
I am hoping that with some complaining my friend Teresa can get this changed so maybe she can join us for the next signing - but it's been a real eye-opening experience for me.
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Making a Scene
One of the first things I really learned that blew me away after I started writing I learned from Kristin Hannah (and it has nothing to do with commas -- which I know should be in that sentence somewhere). Kristin Hannah said a scene must do three things:
1. Forward Plot
2. Reveal Character
3. Foreshadow or disclose backstory
We call this the Holy Trinity. Well, maybe not we. Just me.
And lately I've been really obsessed with sharp scenes. I think sometimes it's hard in this genre either straight romance or even women's fiction to realize that there is a plot to forward. They are love stories - relationship books people meeting and talking and saying those small things that reveal character and backstory etc... but that is a PLOT. And just because scenes don't have explosions or kidnappings doesn't mean they don't need to be carefully crafted and plotted.
I am beginning to look at all my conversation scenes and decide what needs to be revealed, what small barriers breached and how much closer or further away from getting into the sack or reaching a happily ever after my characters are. Those idle conversations HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE - I am beginning to think of them like fights almost, even when they don't fight. Who is giving away too much. Who is making the compromise, who has the most at stake?
So, what are scene killers? Well, only have one of the Holy Trinity is one way to kill a scene. (Sinead is a holy terror about this -- don't tell her but I have kept a few of my nice scenes that don't do anything but reveal character.) Having the same things that are at stake at the beginning of a scene at stake at the end. Killing off conflict, making your characters too kind, or too understanding. Another thing is repetition.
I read Anne Stuart's new book - Cold As Ice. I love Anne Stuart - she gets away with stuff with her hero's that most people couldn't DREAM of pulling off. Her black moments are absolutely heart wrenching each and every time I read them. Almost all her historicals are on my keeper shelf. I love her. And I liked this book but I think at the beginning of this book her scenes were not sharp. There was so much dialogue repeated.
"you're going to kill me."
"maybe I will, maybe I won't."
Next scene
"I guess it doesn't matter if you're going to kill me."
"I won't kill you."
"you just said you will."
"maybe I will, maybe I won't."
I am paraphrasing this - but that is the jist. This made the scenes so fuzzy. Killed character and tension -- which she's so so good at. That said of course I'm going to get the next book and go back and buy the first book because she's still one of the best romance writers around.
If you have a scene that doesn't work go back and see what you're missing in terms of the Holy Trinity. Where you are not being clear and where you are simply repeating yourself.
If the scene is working -- don't mess with it. Hear that Maureen? DON'T MESS WITH IT :)
1. Forward Plot
2. Reveal Character
3. Foreshadow or disclose backstory
We call this the Holy Trinity. Well, maybe not we. Just me.
And lately I've been really obsessed with sharp scenes. I think sometimes it's hard in this genre either straight romance or even women's fiction to realize that there is a plot to forward. They are love stories - relationship books people meeting and talking and saying those small things that reveal character and backstory etc... but that is a PLOT. And just because scenes don't have explosions or kidnappings doesn't mean they don't need to be carefully crafted and plotted.
I am beginning to look at all my conversation scenes and decide what needs to be revealed, what small barriers breached and how much closer or further away from getting into the sack or reaching a happily ever after my characters are. Those idle conversations HAVE TO GO SOMEWHERE - I am beginning to think of them like fights almost, even when they don't fight. Who is giving away too much. Who is making the compromise, who has the most at stake?
So, what are scene killers? Well, only have one of the Holy Trinity is one way to kill a scene. (Sinead is a holy terror about this -- don't tell her but I have kept a few of my nice scenes that don't do anything but reveal character.) Having the same things that are at stake at the beginning of a scene at stake at the end. Killing off conflict, making your characters too kind, or too understanding. Another thing is repetition.
I read Anne Stuart's new book - Cold As Ice. I love Anne Stuart - she gets away with stuff with her hero's that most people couldn't DREAM of pulling off. Her black moments are absolutely heart wrenching each and every time I read them. Almost all her historicals are on my keeper shelf. I love her. And I liked this book but I think at the beginning of this book her scenes were not sharp. There was so much dialogue repeated.
"you're going to kill me."
"maybe I will, maybe I won't."
Next scene
"I guess it doesn't matter if you're going to kill me."
"I won't kill you."
"you just said you will."
"maybe I will, maybe I won't."
I am paraphrasing this - but that is the jist. This made the scenes so fuzzy. Killed character and tension -- which she's so so good at. That said of course I'm going to get the next book and go back and buy the first book because she's still one of the best romance writers around.
If you have a scene that doesn't work go back and see what you're missing in terms of the Holy Trinity. Where you are not being clear and where you are simply repeating yourself.
If the scene is working -- don't mess with it. Hear that Maureen? DON'T MESS WITH IT :)
Friday, December 08, 2006
Understand the Rules…. Then break them
One of the amazing benefits to belonging to RWA and our local chapters is, there are wonderful resources and courses for a beginning writer to learn from. I know I’ve benefited and become a much better writer because of it.
But we hear so much about the rules these days. No prologues, start the book with action, no backstory, (Maureen covered how this really well in her last post), chapters should be 20 pages long, and countless others.
These so called ‘rules’ were created for a reason. Too many authors dumped pages upon pages of boring backstory at the beginning of their books. Books started with long, boring conversations that went nowhere.
Not sure how the chapters rule came into being…..
The results of the rules have been positive in most cases. A lot more books start with a bang, literally in some cases… Backstory has been eliminated from the first three chapters, and that is a good thing in most cases.
But, it’s also created something of a homogeneity in books. A lot of books are starting to feel really familiar. The romantic suspense that starts with the heroine in danger, the straight romance that starts with a meeting where the hero and heroine meet and sparks fly, the historical that starts in a ballroom, and the hero and heroine meet and sparks fly.
These books are doing everything right, they are following the ‘rules’ and yet they’ve managed to become boring.
Screw the rules.
Do anything really well and it will be fascinating read.
Create a prologue that opens up all sorts of questions in your reader’s mind. Give us backstory that both answers questions and creates more questions. (Again refer to Maureen’s post, cause she’s way smarter than I am). Start the book with a conversation, as long as the conversation is interesting.
I know it’s a lot harder than it sounds. Break the rules, because you know why they exist, and in the process create a book that feels fresh and different and compelling, because it’s different from 95% of the other books out there.
And if someone chastises you for breaking the rules… well, great storytelling trumps every rule out there. Tell a great story and I’ll be first in line to buy that book.
To finish, FINALLy saw Bond. Two words.. Daniel Craig. Is that man sexy or what……
But we hear so much about the rules these days. No prologues, start the book with action, no backstory, (Maureen covered how this really well in her last post), chapters should be 20 pages long, and countless others.
These so called ‘rules’ were created for a reason. Too many authors dumped pages upon pages of boring backstory at the beginning of their books. Books started with long, boring conversations that went nowhere.
Not sure how the chapters rule came into being…..
The results of the rules have been positive in most cases. A lot more books start with a bang, literally in some cases… Backstory has been eliminated from the first three chapters, and that is a good thing in most cases.
But, it’s also created something of a homogeneity in books. A lot of books are starting to feel really familiar. The romantic suspense that starts with the heroine in danger, the straight romance that starts with a meeting where the hero and heroine meet and sparks fly, the historical that starts in a ballroom, and the hero and heroine meet and sparks fly.
These books are doing everything right, they are following the ‘rules’ and yet they’ve managed to become boring.
Screw the rules.
Do anything really well and it will be fascinating read.
Create a prologue that opens up all sorts of questions in your reader’s mind. Give us backstory that both answers questions and creates more questions. (Again refer to Maureen’s post, cause she’s way smarter than I am). Start the book with a conversation, as long as the conversation is interesting.
I know it’s a lot harder than it sounds. Break the rules, because you know why they exist, and in the process create a book that feels fresh and different and compelling, because it’s different from 95% of the other books out there.
And if someone chastises you for breaking the rules… well, great storytelling trumps every rule out there. Tell a great story and I’ll be first in line to buy that book.
To finish, FINALLy saw Bond. Two words.. Daniel Craig. Is that man sexy or what……
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Backstory... Just say no! (or yes)
Commonly held wisdom in the commercial fiction writing world is that while it's important to know your characters' back-stories—it's the kiss of death to put any of it in your book, except perhaps in the subtext. In fact, Donald Maass, in his “excruciating tension” workshop, asserts that you shouldn't include any back story—ever. (But he also does a workshop on breaking rules.)
Lately, I've been considering whether this “rule” applies equally to all genres of commercial fiction. My problem is, in women's fiction, relationships between the main characters are paramount (there not generally being a big suspense or mystery or romance or other plot involved) and it’s hard to develop deep, meaningful, believable relationships between characters (with their friends, lovers, family, etc.) without touching on how the characters know each other, or what problems they’ve had in the past.
So, what to do?
Without a doubt, in commercial fiction, what's happening to the characters and their relationships during the actual story (not the past), is the most important aspect of those relationships and should be the focus. I also concede that in well-crafted writing, it’s possible to reveal aspects of how those relationships evolved into what they are. That is, writers can find ways to reveal, in the characters' present, evidence of the baggage and history in their pasts. (without telling us exactly what that baggage and history is.)
But for me as a reader, in many of my favorite stories, tidbits of events which occurred between the characters in their pasts are like golden nuggets. The tasty nuts on top of the story sundae. Hence my dilemma and why the absolutely no back story advice gives me pause...
On a related side-note, my fellow drunk writers and I have spent the better part of the last year discussing why Emily Giffin's books are so dang readable. (Okay, Sinead and I have talked about it once or twice.) And I would assert that Ms. Giffin includes loads of back story about her characters and I think it’s often the back story that makes her books so rich and interesting... (And obviously lots of people think her books work, evidenced by the whole New York Times bestseller list thing…)
So, I've been busy developing my own back story rules and theories to apply to my writing... (Not claiming my rules are original… just that these are the rules I’ve picked out for me.)
Where am I right now? I think I have 2 main rules:
Any time back story is revealed, it should be as detailed yet succinct as possible. (I know, these might seem to contradict--but I don't think they do.) By detailed I mean I think it’s weak to say characters Jen and Kim had a big fight in Jr. High over a boy. I think it’s better to say Jen pulled Kim’s ponytail in the third floor girls room at Rolph Road public school when she learned Kim told Jimmy Fenwick that Jen had a crush on Billy Jones. (Okay, not so succinct, but my point on succinctness is that this shouldn’t be a ten page flashback scene showing the fight. Just some great details to make the reader believe that it happened, and was important enough to one of the characters that she remembers it vividly.)
Back story must come as late in the novel as possible—each back story detail arriving at a point where it has the most impact, where the reader is dying to know what happened between these people, or at a point when it surprises the reader and changes the readers understanding of everything between the characters. (And yes, when used with caution and very sparingly, as late as possible might be in the first few chapters, but the writer should think about this and consciously decide whether it wouldn’t be stronger to hold back that information until later.)
So, that’s what I’m thinking right now… Do you have any back story rules? Do you even care?
Lately, I've been considering whether this “rule” applies equally to all genres of commercial fiction. My problem is, in women's fiction, relationships between the main characters are paramount (there not generally being a big suspense or mystery or romance or other plot involved) and it’s hard to develop deep, meaningful, believable relationships between characters (with their friends, lovers, family, etc.) without touching on how the characters know each other, or what problems they’ve had in the past.
So, what to do?
Without a doubt, in commercial fiction, what's happening to the characters and their relationships during the actual story (not the past), is the most important aspect of those relationships and should be the focus. I also concede that in well-crafted writing, it’s possible to reveal aspects of how those relationships evolved into what they are. That is, writers can find ways to reveal, in the characters' present, evidence of the baggage and history in their pasts. (without telling us exactly what that baggage and history is.)
But for me as a reader, in many of my favorite stories, tidbits of events which occurred between the characters in their pasts are like golden nuggets. The tasty nuts on top of the story sundae. Hence my dilemma and why the absolutely no back story advice gives me pause...
On a related side-note, my fellow drunk writers and I have spent the better part of the last year discussing why Emily Giffin's books are so dang readable. (Okay, Sinead and I have talked about it once or twice.) And I would assert that Ms. Giffin includes loads of back story about her characters and I think it’s often the back story that makes her books so rich and interesting... (And obviously lots of people think her books work, evidenced by the whole New York Times bestseller list thing…)
So, I've been busy developing my own back story rules and theories to apply to my writing... (Not claiming my rules are original… just that these are the rules I’ve picked out for me.)
Where am I right now? I think I have 2 main rules:
Any time back story is revealed, it should be as detailed yet succinct as possible. (I know, these might seem to contradict--but I don't think they do.) By detailed I mean I think it’s weak to say characters Jen and Kim had a big fight in Jr. High over a boy. I think it’s better to say Jen pulled Kim’s ponytail in the third floor girls room at Rolph Road public school when she learned Kim told Jimmy Fenwick that Jen had a crush on Billy Jones. (Okay, not so succinct, but my point on succinctness is that this shouldn’t be a ten page flashback scene showing the fight. Just some great details to make the reader believe that it happened, and was important enough to one of the characters that she remembers it vividly.)
Back story must come as late in the novel as possible—each back story detail arriving at a point where it has the most impact, where the reader is dying to know what happened between these people, or at a point when it surprises the reader and changes the readers understanding of everything between the characters. (And yes, when used with caution and very sparingly, as late as possible might be in the first few chapters, but the writer should think about this and consciously decide whether it wouldn’t be stronger to hold back that information until later.)
So, that’s what I’m thinking right now… Do you have any back story rules? Do you even care?
Friday, November 24, 2006
What’s Left – McKee, character vs. plot
To re-emphasize, personality issues aside, McKee’s seminar was amazing and informative and several lightbulbs went off in my head during the LONG three days.
The man has exacting standards, has no time for clichés, no room for poor characterization, and God help you should you try and resolve a plot using coincidence.
One of the things he did really nicely was define character driven and plot driven.
Character driven – Here he told us, the hard part is creating the story. The central question being, what would have to happen to a person to make them change?
Plot driven – Here, the hard part is creating the characters. They have to be interesting, but not too complex, or the story becomes about the character.
Lately, I’ve heard a couple of people express that character driven stories don’t have a plot, which I’ve never agreed with. What McKee confirmed for me, was that plot is essential for an effective character driven story.
Consider that for each scene, a value in the protagonist’s life has to be at stake and at the end of the scene, the value has to have changed. Each turning point has to raise the stakes for the character, all leading to a climax that resolves the questions created throughout the book.
Tough to do without a framework.
McKee does not believe in writing without a structure. He believes the first thing that comes to a writers mind is inevitably a cliché, and not until we dig deeper, much deeper do we come up with ideas that will surprise and delight our readers. This I very much believe. We have to meet the emotional expectations of our readers, while surprising them along the way. If they expect a rich, engrossing romance, we have to give it to them, but not in the way they expect.
Easy to say, way, way harder to put into practice.
I definitely have a lot to think about going forward, but now I have great ideas for structure and character and guidelines to help me when the book isn’t going well.
The man may have been annoying, but those three days were really worthwhile, even with the constant burping and cursing.
On the down side, I still have not seen the new Bond… have to see that
The man has exacting standards, has no time for clichés, no room for poor characterization, and God help you should you try and resolve a plot using coincidence.
One of the things he did really nicely was define character driven and plot driven.
Character driven – Here he told us, the hard part is creating the story. The central question being, what would have to happen to a person to make them change?
Plot driven – Here, the hard part is creating the characters. They have to be interesting, but not too complex, or the story becomes about the character.
Lately, I’ve heard a couple of people express that character driven stories don’t have a plot, which I’ve never agreed with. What McKee confirmed for me, was that plot is essential for an effective character driven story.
Consider that for each scene, a value in the protagonist’s life has to be at stake and at the end of the scene, the value has to have changed. Each turning point has to raise the stakes for the character, all leading to a climax that resolves the questions created throughout the book.
Tough to do without a framework.
McKee does not believe in writing without a structure. He believes the first thing that comes to a writers mind is inevitably a cliché, and not until we dig deeper, much deeper do we come up with ideas that will surprise and delight our readers. This I very much believe. We have to meet the emotional expectations of our readers, while surprising them along the way. If they expect a rich, engrossing romance, we have to give it to them, but not in the way they expect.
Easy to say, way, way harder to put into practice.
I definitely have a lot to think about going forward, but now I have great ideas for structure and character and guidelines to help me when the book isn’t going well.
The man may have been annoying, but those three days were really worthwhile, even with the constant burping and cursing.
On the down side, I still have not seen the new Bond… have to see that
Wednesday, November 22, 2006
More on McKee and 3 Dimensional Characters
It's hard to know what to talk about from the McKee workshop this past weekend. My brain's still spinning and I haven't even opened the notebook I almost filled. I used up two pens.
With a day or two of hindsight... I don't think he said much entirely new to me, but I think concentrating so much intense information over a short period of time, using a consistent vocabulary, helped solidify some concepts for me. I hope. Maybe I’m still under the McKee cult induction spell.
As obnoxious and offensive as he is, I do think he’s intelligent and I think it's been a while since I've really felt challenged by someone in that way. Probably since University, or maybe since my stint as a researcher in California. I've missed using that part of my brain.
His section on creating 3 dimensional characters is what's sticking in my mind most right now. I think the reason this topic stuck out is because it's going to help me, I hope, with a particular problem I'm having right now.
Anyone who's been to more than one writers’ workshop has seen plenty of questionnaires and charts and various other techniques to help create fully developed characters. But really, most of these tools are about characterization, not core character values.
Don’t get me wrong, developing all those quirky details that make our characters interesting is important. But they aren’t core values. That is, how that character would behave under pressure.
McKee contends (and most writers would agree) that main characters need 3 dimensions. But I doubt many writers could define what they actually mean by 3 dimensional. Not flat? Realistic? Fully developed? All abstract explanations that aren’t really practical in helping to develop characters. What impressed me about McKee is that he actually suggests a definition for 3 dimensional characters.
Based on his definition, a character should have at least 3 major values that define them, that won’t change significantly during the course of the book. (except in an educational plot--which is the kind of story I write--and then one of them should move along the negative/positive scale over the course of the book.)
What excited me, was the idea that to make characters 3 dimensional, a writer should have their main characters display both the positive and negative sides of each of these 3 core values during the course of the story. I don’t know if I’ve thought of it this way before.
That is, if a protagonist is brave, we should see times when he/she is fearful. If a protagonist is kind, she should show hints of cruelty. If she’s self-assured, she should show moments of vulnerability. This helps creates a 3 dimensional character. A metaphor the reader will mistake for a real human being.
What I liked even better was his suggestion about secondary characters. He suggests they should be no more than 2 dimensional or they’ll take over, and that bit players should be one dimensional—display only one major core value. Also smart.
I know I have trouble creating secondary characters at times… either going too far or not far enough in their characterizations. I also know I’m not always purposeful in how I create them. (I think I have done this well at times… Sophia in my Miseducation story was very purposefully created to contrast April… But sometimes I just toss characters in because I need them to forward the plot.)
McKee’s suggestion was to create secondary characters which bring out different combinations of the positive and negative sides of your protagonist’s core values. In other words, secondary character A might bring out your protag’s vulnerable and kind side. B might bring out your protag’s brave but cruel side. And C might bring out her self-assured but fearful side. (Okay, that one might not make sense, but you get the idea.)
Let’s face it, we don’t behave the same way around everyone we know and neither should our characters. Some people know how to push our buttons and bring out our negatives sides. So, why not purposefully use your secondary characters to help you show the readers these traits in your protagonist. Smart.
I found this really exciting because in my current WIP I’ve been having a problem with the protag’s siblings. I keep changing my mind about how many sisters she has (one or two), what they’re like and how they’ve affected the protag’s life. (I know my protag’s life has always been overshadowed by her sister(s?) but how is the question I keep waffling on.) Also, I’ve changed my mind 3 times about what kind of subplot I should give the sibling(s?) to best enhance my main plot.
Haven’t figure it out yet, but I’m really feeling hopeful that McKee’s ideas will help. And soon. The GH deadline approaches. Ack!
Oh, and I saw the Bond film tonight. Great fun, yet not silly like some of the Bond films and what a sexy, sexy man.
With a day or two of hindsight... I don't think he said much entirely new to me, but I think concentrating so much intense information over a short period of time, using a consistent vocabulary, helped solidify some concepts for me. I hope. Maybe I’m still under the McKee cult induction spell.
As obnoxious and offensive as he is, I do think he’s intelligent and I think it's been a while since I've really felt challenged by someone in that way. Probably since University, or maybe since my stint as a researcher in California. I've missed using that part of my brain.
His section on creating 3 dimensional characters is what's sticking in my mind most right now. I think the reason this topic stuck out is because it's going to help me, I hope, with a particular problem I'm having right now.
Anyone who's been to more than one writers’ workshop has seen plenty of questionnaires and charts and various other techniques to help create fully developed characters. But really, most of these tools are about characterization, not core character values.
Don’t get me wrong, developing all those quirky details that make our characters interesting is important. But they aren’t core values. That is, how that character would behave under pressure.
McKee contends (and most writers would agree) that main characters need 3 dimensions. But I doubt many writers could define what they actually mean by 3 dimensional. Not flat? Realistic? Fully developed? All abstract explanations that aren’t really practical in helping to develop characters. What impressed me about McKee is that he actually suggests a definition for 3 dimensional characters.
Based on his definition, a character should have at least 3 major values that define them, that won’t change significantly during the course of the book. (except in an educational plot--which is the kind of story I write--and then one of them should move along the negative/positive scale over the course of the book.)
What excited me, was the idea that to make characters 3 dimensional, a writer should have their main characters display both the positive and negative sides of each of these 3 core values during the course of the story. I don’t know if I’ve thought of it this way before.
That is, if a protagonist is brave, we should see times when he/she is fearful. If a protagonist is kind, she should show hints of cruelty. If she’s self-assured, she should show moments of vulnerability. This helps creates a 3 dimensional character. A metaphor the reader will mistake for a real human being.
What I liked even better was his suggestion about secondary characters. He suggests they should be no more than 2 dimensional or they’ll take over, and that bit players should be one dimensional—display only one major core value. Also smart.
I know I have trouble creating secondary characters at times… either going too far or not far enough in their characterizations. I also know I’m not always purposeful in how I create them. (I think I have done this well at times… Sophia in my Miseducation story was very purposefully created to contrast April… But sometimes I just toss characters in because I need them to forward the plot.)
McKee’s suggestion was to create secondary characters which bring out different combinations of the positive and negative sides of your protagonist’s core values. In other words, secondary character A might bring out your protag’s vulnerable and kind side. B might bring out your protag’s brave but cruel side. And C might bring out her self-assured but fearful side. (Okay, that one might not make sense, but you get the idea.)
Let’s face it, we don’t behave the same way around everyone we know and neither should our characters. Some people know how to push our buttons and bring out our negatives sides. So, why not purposefully use your secondary characters to help you show the readers these traits in your protagonist. Smart.
I found this really exciting because in my current WIP I’ve been having a problem with the protag’s siblings. I keep changing my mind about how many sisters she has (one or two), what they’re like and how they’ve affected the protag’s life. (I know my protag’s life has always been overshadowed by her sister(s?) but how is the question I keep waffling on.) Also, I’ve changed my mind 3 times about what kind of subplot I should give the sibling(s?) to best enhance my main plot.
Haven’t figure it out yet, but I’m really feeling hopeful that McKee’s ideas will help. And soon. The GH deadline approaches. Ack!
Oh, and I saw the Bond film tonight. Great fun, yet not silly like some of the Bond films and what a sexy, sexy man.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Robert McKee comes to Toronto...
....and manages to insult Canadians, the French, the physically challenged, M. Night Shamalyn, homosexuals, modern playwrites, women, feminists, most of his audience, the Germans BUT oddly enough not romance writers.
We're, as he remembers from speaking at an RWA conference years ago are tough broads. I think I'm complimented.
Drunk Writers just spent the last three days 12 hours a day listening to the storytelling guru Robert McKee. And I'm still at loose ends. The guy is a dinosaur, he's rude, crude, burps constantly into his mic but...he is GOOD. My craft and process will be different after this weekend.
He created a way for me to help myself through the worst part of my process - writing the beginning of the book. Two concepts - that the inciting incident of your novel creates in the mind of a reader the scene that reader needs to read to be satisfied by the book - however, my job as writer is to give the reader that scene in a way they could not possibly expect. For instance in the book I have coming out in July 2007 (now titled UNDERCOVER PROTECTOR) when she decides to go undercover in the heroes house - the reader expects to see that scene when the hero finds out - I just have to give it to them when and how they don't expect.
The other concept that your protagonist as a three dimensional character has to show the contradictory sides of three different traits. If your hero is courageous at some point they have to be cowardly, if they are kind at some point they have to be cruel and if they are indifferent at some point you have to show them engaged. As a romance writer I admit -- I settle at two. I need three.
I understand as I type this that these are really simple concepts but thinking about them up front - man that changes the nightmare of the first three chapters for me.
But McKee himself is actually pretty unlikeable. He believes he invented the concept of "the inciting incident" and clearly has not read The Hero's Journey. He attempted to save European film, but sadly, not even he could accomplish such a feat. He contradicts himself 30 times a day. The stringent parameters he uses to determine a film as good can be applied to films he has decided are bad for no other reason but that he doesn't like them. IE -- The Others -- good movie. The 6th Sense -- mind fuck.
But his parameters are wide - he is deeply in love with film of all types. Borat for crying out loud! Those parameters are just inconsistent. I think like most people how have created a system and applied it to an art he sees in black and white and taste constantly falls into the mix.
What I am really amazed by is how RWA has gifted me (and most of us) with huge possibilities to learn and study craft. I think many people in that room were learning theories we know well - show don't tell, dramatize exposition, etc - for the first time.
All in all a great weekend. Is the guy a hero? Not really. He's good - but he needs an editor.
We're, as he remembers from speaking at an RWA conference years ago are tough broads. I think I'm complimented.
Drunk Writers just spent the last three days 12 hours a day listening to the storytelling guru Robert McKee. And I'm still at loose ends. The guy is a dinosaur, he's rude, crude, burps constantly into his mic but...he is GOOD. My craft and process will be different after this weekend.
He created a way for me to help myself through the worst part of my process - writing the beginning of the book. Two concepts - that the inciting incident of your novel creates in the mind of a reader the scene that reader needs to read to be satisfied by the book - however, my job as writer is to give the reader that scene in a way they could not possibly expect. For instance in the book I have coming out in July 2007 (now titled UNDERCOVER PROTECTOR) when she decides to go undercover in the heroes house - the reader expects to see that scene when the hero finds out - I just have to give it to them when and how they don't expect.
The other concept that your protagonist as a three dimensional character has to show the contradictory sides of three different traits. If your hero is courageous at some point they have to be cowardly, if they are kind at some point they have to be cruel and if they are indifferent at some point you have to show them engaged. As a romance writer I admit -- I settle at two. I need three.
I understand as I type this that these are really simple concepts but thinking about them up front - man that changes the nightmare of the first three chapters for me.
But McKee himself is actually pretty unlikeable. He believes he invented the concept of "the inciting incident" and clearly has not read The Hero's Journey. He attempted to save European film, but sadly, not even he could accomplish such a feat. He contradicts himself 30 times a day. The stringent parameters he uses to determine a film as good can be applied to films he has decided are bad for no other reason but that he doesn't like them. IE -- The Others -- good movie. The 6th Sense -- mind fuck.
But his parameters are wide - he is deeply in love with film of all types. Borat for crying out loud! Those parameters are just inconsistent. I think like most people how have created a system and applied it to an art he sees in black and white and taste constantly falls into the mix.
What I am really amazed by is how RWA has gifted me (and most of us) with huge possibilities to learn and study craft. I think many people in that room were learning theories we know well - show don't tell, dramatize exposition, etc - for the first time.
All in all a great weekend. Is the guy a hero? Not really. He's good - but he needs an editor.
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Why I used to care about hair color and now don’t.
To start with, this post is not my own hair color, which is pretty boring. I used to open a book and look for the scene where the writer described the heroine.
Actively hunt it down, because I must have cared.
Why? Sad thing is, I can’t remember.
This is a while ago, before I started writing myself, but I remember it being really important. I needed a visual of her, more than I needed to know what she was like, character flaws, any of that stuff. And to be frank, and I’m not proud of this, I wanted her to be beautiful.
Perhaps it connects back to the whole reading as escapism, which I know is particularly true with romance. It was easier to get swept up into another world if I could place myself in the shoes of someone who was gorgeous and virtuous and in hindsight, pretty uninteresting.
Now, a few years later, I don’t really care what she looks like, unless it enhances her character in some way. I really dislike virtuous heroines, I find them boring and for a book to really sweep me up, it has to be different, unique and have characters who are deeply flawed and conflicted.
What’s the difference between now and ten years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s the writing, although I’m also sure a lot of readers out there would make a good case for non-writers also not caring about the heroine’s hair color.
But sometimes I worry that puts me out of touch with some potential readers. By trying to create books I want to read, am I creating books that don’t have enough escapism, characters who have too many flaws, am I skipping over that all important description scene(which I know I do now)
The answer won’t change anything. I write the books I want to read, or what’s the point.
But perhaps I should try for a balance between escapism and character, which is what I’m trying to do now.
Actively hunt it down, because I must have cared.
Why? Sad thing is, I can’t remember.
This is a while ago, before I started writing myself, but I remember it being really important. I needed a visual of her, more than I needed to know what she was like, character flaws, any of that stuff. And to be frank, and I’m not proud of this, I wanted her to be beautiful.
Perhaps it connects back to the whole reading as escapism, which I know is particularly true with romance. It was easier to get swept up into another world if I could place myself in the shoes of someone who was gorgeous and virtuous and in hindsight, pretty uninteresting.
Now, a few years later, I don’t really care what she looks like, unless it enhances her character in some way. I really dislike virtuous heroines, I find them boring and for a book to really sweep me up, it has to be different, unique and have characters who are deeply flawed and conflicted.
What’s the difference between now and ten years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s the writing, although I’m also sure a lot of readers out there would make a good case for non-writers also not caring about the heroine’s hair color.
But sometimes I worry that puts me out of touch with some potential readers. By trying to create books I want to read, am I creating books that don’t have enough escapism, characters who have too many flaws, am I skipping over that all important description scene(which I know I do now)
The answer won’t change anything. I write the books I want to read, or what’s the point.
But perhaps I should try for a balance between escapism and character, which is what I’m trying to do now.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Editing - A way to create the unexpected in your story
I had to think long and hard about what I could add to this discussion. Truthfully, I love writing the first draft, editing is the part I find hard.
But I have come to realize that there’s no getting out of it.( And I’ve really, really tried to find a way to write a clean first draft)
I remember going to a great talk by Lisa Gardner(smart lady and brilliant writer) at Nationals, where she discussed the editing process for her first single title. She came up with a system where she wrote a brief description of each scene on cue cards and spread them on the floor. (I’m paraphrasing here) She allowed herself two scenes for character development, but the rest of the scenes had to move the plot forward. Any scene that didn’t got cut.
Ruthless – yes. Effective – definitely.
It sounds really simple, almost intuitive, but on examining my own work, I came to realize this is really, really hard. Every scene has to tell the reader something new. No repetition, no rehash of what happened before. All new information for the reader. I’ve looked at the books I love, and they all do this, no matter what the genre. It sounds so simple, why then is it so hard?
Not only should we tell the reader something new, but hopefully advance the story in a way they weren’t expecting, but still makes perfect sense.
Essentially – giving the reader something unexpected, but completely satisfying.
This is really hard. I occasionally stumble into this in my 1st draft, but most times, I create this in later drafts, if I manage it at all.
Why did the Lisa Gardner talk resonate with me? Because, and I’m not picking on any particular books, or authors. Too many of the books I’ve read are far too predictable in their structure, the outcomes, even the characters.
As a reader I love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised. Taken on a journey where I can’t really predict what’s going to happen. My favourite books and movies do this and I strive to do this in my own writing. (It’s most definitely a skill in progress)
It’s rarely something I manage in that 1st draft, so as well as editing for character development, and flow of writing, I also edit to add the unexpected into my story.
(AAAAGGHHH) this is my lazy attempt to add something unexpected into this blog. Can you see now why we need to edit…..
But I have come to realize that there’s no getting out of it.( And I’ve really, really tried to find a way to write a clean first draft)
I remember going to a great talk by Lisa Gardner(smart lady and brilliant writer) at Nationals, where she discussed the editing process for her first single title. She came up with a system where she wrote a brief description of each scene on cue cards and spread them on the floor. (I’m paraphrasing here) She allowed herself two scenes for character development, but the rest of the scenes had to move the plot forward. Any scene that didn’t got cut.
Ruthless – yes. Effective – definitely.
It sounds really simple, almost intuitive, but on examining my own work, I came to realize this is really, really hard. Every scene has to tell the reader something new. No repetition, no rehash of what happened before. All new information for the reader. I’ve looked at the books I love, and they all do this, no matter what the genre. It sounds so simple, why then is it so hard?
Not only should we tell the reader something new, but hopefully advance the story in a way they weren’t expecting, but still makes perfect sense.
Essentially – giving the reader something unexpected, but completely satisfying.
This is really hard. I occasionally stumble into this in my 1st draft, but most times, I create this in later drafts, if I manage it at all.
Why did the Lisa Gardner talk resonate with me? Because, and I’m not picking on any particular books, or authors. Too many of the books I’ve read are far too predictable in their structure, the outcomes, even the characters.
As a reader I love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised. Taken on a journey where I can’t really predict what’s going to happen. My favourite books and movies do this and I strive to do this in my own writing. (It’s most definitely a skill in progress)
It’s rarely something I manage in that 1st draft, so as well as editing for character development, and flow of writing, I also edit to add the unexpected into my story.
(AAAAGGHHH) this is my lazy attempt to add something unexpected into this blog. Can you see now why we need to edit…..
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