Now all I'm doing here is presenting sentence sequences and constructions that I think might send the reader off in the wrong direction or make her squint and backtrack, or break your POV logic. This is just to keep conscious in revision of what the reader is going to get, and make sure it's what you want.
Here's one of those dialogue passages that doesn't use "he said," and the lack of that tends to draw readers in more to the dialogue. However, the reader still does need to be sure of who is saying what.
Example, and I am making the characters "he" and "she" so there's no pronoun confusion:
They stopped outside of a massive block of storage containers, and both of them got out of the truck. Oliver glanced over at the office, where a young guard sat bored behind the alarmed windows. It would do.
"I owe you one." Mary handed him the envelope. He stuffed it in his pocket. "I'll use the combination from high school-- you remember that."
"Kurt Cobain's deathday. Yeah. I remember."
"I owe you one" is spoken by Oliver, but as it's immediately followed by "Mary handed him" it sort of sounds like Mary said it. So how about "Oliver took the envelope"? That way his name is the one closest to the dialogue sentence and, also, it's clearly in his POV (you can say "he" if you don't like using the POV character's name)-- he's the one whose actions (taking rather than giving) matter, as we're in his perspective.
Not a big deal. But stay conscious of the reader's experience of your sentences, and know that you can cause the right experience by how you craft the sentences. The last thing you want is to halt your careful pacing by making the reader go back and re-read.
Alicia
Friday, November 27, 2009
Brought to You by the Letters R and U
This month's "Ask an Editor" column answers a question about some of the distinctions between genre and literary tone and technique.
Go take a look. :)
Theresa
Go take a look. :)
Theresa
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Sequence in sentence order
I don't think there's a RIGHT answer to this, but I keep coming across this issue with submissions and usually deciding how to edit based on context and other stuff. But I wonder how you all deal with it, what logic you use.
That is, how do you sequence when you have different types of sentences? Arrgh. I can't find the words. Let's say there are different types of info you can put in this passage or paragraph:
His perception.
Something that happens that causes that perception. (That is, the approaching car turned on his brights.)
The physical reaction to the event (flinching, say).
Emotional reaction to the event.
Thought or conclusion.
His action in response to event (not the immediate flinching, but the flashing his own lights or putting down the visor).
The two that seem the most movable are those first two, the event and the perception of the event. Which comes first? And what does POV have to do with it?
For example, with a deeper POV, his perception is all we get of the event, right? I mean, it's not objectively the car is approaching and the brights come on. Rather he sees the car approaching and the brights on. The perception statement is how we know what is happening.
But what about in a more objective narration, where there is a distinction between what actually happens and what is perceived? Maybe the event is really the big important thing:
And then the space ship imploded, and space debris rushed into the hole where The Pacifica used to be.
Well, that's maybe separate from:
Junie Warren chewed her peanut butter sandwich while watching the news on TV.
Which then would you lead with? Does it depend on whether Junie or the space ship is your focus?
What about when it's all pretty personal and there's a cause/effect:
I panted like a plowhorse.
I climbed the four storeys to my apartment. (If ever we needed an intro participial phrase... but which verb to participlize? Panting, or climbing? Which goes first, the cause (climbing) or the effect?)
So--
Panting like a plowhorse, I climbed the four storeys to my apartment. (Hmm. Do you pant WHILE/simultaneous to climbing? Do we want to show that?)
or
Climbing the four storeys to my apartment, I panted like a plowhorse.
Or would you think there's a cause and effect here and do it in two sequential clauses, but reversed to show cause then effect:
After I climbed the four storeys to my apartment, I was (past progressive... why?) panting like a plowhorse.
I climbed the four storeys to my apartment, and by the time I reached the top, I was panting like a plowhorse.
Here's a sentence I just came across:
He stopped walking, his attention caught by a ruckus at the entrance.
Just a workman sentence, nothing special. So I'm not saying it can or should be brilliant. But notice this might have something to do with how deep the POV is.
This presumably is the sequence of events from inside him (in his POV):
He's walking.
He sees the ruckus.
It catches his attention.
He stops walking.
But let's be outside, omniscienty, more distant-- observing him rather than being him. What's the sequence from outside him?
He's walking.
He stops walking.
Why? The stop-walking means something has caught his attention.
He is looking at the entrance.
There is a ruckus there.
That is, from the outside, his action is before the perception. But from the inside, his perception is before the action.
Let's have some examples? What determines what sequence you have put a passage or sentence in?
Alicia
That is, how do you sequence when you have different types of sentences? Arrgh. I can't find the words. Let's say there are different types of info you can put in this passage or paragraph:
His perception.
Something that happens that causes that perception. (That is, the approaching car turned on his brights.)
The physical reaction to the event (flinching, say).
Emotional reaction to the event.
Thought or conclusion.
His action in response to event (not the immediate flinching, but the flashing his own lights or putting down the visor).
The two that seem the most movable are those first two, the event and the perception of the event. Which comes first? And what does POV have to do with it?
For example, with a deeper POV, his perception is all we get of the event, right? I mean, it's not objectively the car is approaching and the brights come on. Rather he sees the car approaching and the brights on. The perception statement is how we know what is happening.
But what about in a more objective narration, where there is a distinction between what actually happens and what is perceived? Maybe the event is really the big important thing:
And then the space ship imploded, and space debris rushed into the hole where The Pacifica used to be.
Well, that's maybe separate from:
Junie Warren chewed her peanut butter sandwich while watching the news on TV.
Which then would you lead with? Does it depend on whether Junie or the space ship is your focus?
What about when it's all pretty personal and there's a cause/effect:
I panted like a plowhorse.
I climbed the four storeys to my apartment. (If ever we needed an intro participial phrase... but which verb to participlize? Panting, or climbing? Which goes first, the cause (climbing) or the effect?)
So--
Panting like a plowhorse, I climbed the four storeys to my apartment. (Hmm. Do you pant WHILE/simultaneous to climbing? Do we want to show that?)
or
Climbing the four storeys to my apartment, I panted like a plowhorse.
Or would you think there's a cause and effect here and do it in two sequential clauses, but reversed to show cause then effect:
After I climbed the four storeys to my apartment, I was (past progressive... why?) panting like a plowhorse.
I climbed the four storeys to my apartment, and by the time I reached the top, I was panting like a plowhorse.
Here's a sentence I just came across:
He stopped walking, his attention caught by a ruckus at the entrance.
Just a workman sentence, nothing special. So I'm not saying it can or should be brilliant. But notice this might have something to do with how deep the POV is.
This presumably is the sequence of events from inside him (in his POV):
He's walking.
He sees the ruckus.
It catches his attention.
He stops walking.
But let's be outside, omniscienty, more distant-- observing him rather than being him. What's the sequence from outside him?
He's walking.
He stops walking.
Why? The stop-walking means something has caught his attention.
He is looking at the entrance.
There is a ruckus there.
That is, from the outside, his action is before the perception. But from the inside, his perception is before the action.
Let's have some examples? What determines what sequence you have put a passage or sentence in?
Alicia
Great link
New archive on Shakespeare's time.
Article about it.
Archive shedding light on Shakespeare's times goes online
Tudor documents show the pulling power of Titus Andronicus, the cost of darning and fears about the plague
* Maev Kennedy
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 11.21 GMT
A unique archive on the theatre of Shakespeare's times, revealing everything from the price of a ferry ticket across the Thames to the cost of a tumbler's breeches, becomes available free to the world today when the papers of the theatre owner and entrepreneur Philip Henslowe and his actor son-in-law Edward Alleyn go online.
Article about it.
Archive shedding light on Shakespeare's times goes online
Tudor documents show the pulling power of Titus Andronicus, the cost of darning and fears about the plague
* Maev Kennedy
* guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 November 2009 11.21 GMT
A unique archive on the theatre of Shakespeare's times, revealing everything from the price of a ferry ticket across the Thames to the cost of a tumbler's breeches, becomes available free to the world today when the papers of the theatre owner and entrepreneur Philip Henslowe and his actor son-in-law Edward Alleyn go online.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Thoughts on pacing-- nothing brilliant
Pacing is really a measure of how frequently important plot events happen in your story, how closely occurring they are. So in a fast pace, these events come more often and closer together than in a leisurely pace.
A few caveats:
1) Plot events that affect pacing are usually external, that is, important things happening in the external plot. This is one reason you’ll often find a fast pace in a plot-driven (non-character-driven) book.
2) Fast is not the only pace. There is “a leisurely pace” and “a measured pace” too, and those are good paces. But this isn’t genre-dependent so much as sub-genre-dependent—that is, within the “crime-novel” genre, the pace of a thriller is usually fast, while the pace of a suspense novel is usually more measured.
3) Why? I think that novels that are meant to inspire particular emotion—that is, horror novels, romance, suspense, and comedy—might need more time BETWEEN events to nurture the emotional response to events. In fact, that emotional response is often just as or more important to the story than the event itself.
Adapting your story to the sub-genre’s conventional pace is probably helpful in selling it.
The most important events for pacing are those turning points we were talking about, because they are the events that chart the path of your plot, and are the ones that determine when and in what direction that path changes. But between those major events are other events, and these are creators of pace too. Generally, the more events you have between turning points, the faster your pace will be. Some other considerations:
1) Placement is important. When you place a pacing event at the end of a scene—right before the scene ends—you are signaling to the reader that it’s important. The short pause—the white space, the change in time and setting—that usually comes with a scene change reinforces the importance and drama by giving the reader a moment to think about it.
2) So the purpose of the end placement might differ depending on the pace, and that might also modify how the event is presented. The goal of this in a fast-paced book is to give the reader incentive to quickly turn the page to find out what happens. That is more likely if the event poses a question, like “Will he survive that fall off the cliff?”
But if you want to create suspense or some other emotion, you might want the reader to linger there in the “old scene,” perhaps even re-read that last paragraph or two and relive the event before moving on. So in that case, the event might end on a some seeming conclusion: “He’s dead.” Or it might end with an emotional revelation or expression: “I can’t fight it anymore. I love you.” Obviously, causing the reader to stop and think and re-read will slow down the pacing… but that’s not a bad thing for emotion novels.
By the way, notice that the ending placement is a signal to the reader that “this is important!” If you want the reader to note the event but move on without really marking it, as often comes up in a mystery, where do you place the event? In the middle of the scene.
3) One feature of suspense-scening (and I don’t just mean in suspense novels, but any novel, including comic novels, where you want the reader to mark an event and respond to it, but without the drama and frenetic need to know—when an event’s repercussions might take place over the next several scenes, or be suspended for a few scenes) is that the event is often deceptively trivial. That is, it might just seem like a secret admirer has left Joanie a romantic gift, but the reader (if not Joanie) might sense that there’s something vaguely threatening in the gift. This can be accomplished by presentation.
First, placing this at the end of a scene tells the reader it’s important. Also, you can vary the language and selection of descriptive detail slightly to hint at something darker, something beyond Joanie’s own puzzled pleasure (one of the flowers in the bouquet is dead, and she notes this and pays it no mind, or she sets the bouquet on a desk under the window where can be seen a gathering of rainclouds, or she runs to get a glass of water to add to the bouquet and the faucet is stuck). The reader will note this and be emotionally affected, but not know exactly why—that creates suspense. (Remember, comic scene structure is very akin to suspense scene structure, because both rely on postponement to create emotion but also the suspension of emotion which will explode later.) This will lead to a more measured pace, as you build up the emotion in the reader over several scenes.
4) In contrast, in fast-paced thrillers and adventure novels, you want to make those scene-ending events unmistakably dramatic, so that the reader has no doubt that This Is Important Right Now. Again, placement at the end will help accomplish this, but that’s not enough. You need perhaps more dramatic language and description around it, maybe even dramatic pronouncements like, “He was the last man she wanted to see,” or “Mark didn’t have any choice. He had to stop that explosion.” This is somewhere detail really matters, so write the scene and the event, then go back and think about whether you want the light translucent or glaring, and if you want him to jam his hands in his pocket or grab that hammer, or if the object is described as smooth or bulky. Your choice of details can actually help the reader know whether to linger here or pelt onward to the next scene.
5) For real drama (a turning point or a cliffhanger), create an event that poses the question and then have a chapter break; that is, place this not just at the end of a scene but at the end of the chapter, so that reader feels that frenetic frustration as the white space at the end of the chapter becomes an obstacle to Finding Out. That is a mark of fast pace—that the reader wants desperately to Find Out.
6) With a fast-paced novel, you do probably want to answer that question or complete that action or show the reaction soon—definitely in the next scene, maybe in the first part of the scene. Why? Well, the point isn’t to frustrate and enmesh the reader, but to keep the reader moving on, so there should be an expectation of another event, another question, another cliffhanger, coming up quickly. So resolving the previous scene’s question makes way for the next one.
Oh, you’re probably noticing an opportunity here—if you want to pull an end run, a reversal, a trick, play with this. Say at end of Chapter 14, someone is arrested for the murder. You can keep the reader reading past this seeming conclusion first by having the arrest happen at the end of the chapter rather than the beginning of the next, that is, the arrest is the question, not the answer. Also you can play with the convention (and signal that This Isn’t It) by suspending (postponing) the actual consequence, by waiting till the start of the new scene not to resolve this (protagonist breathes a sigh of relief) but to plant doubts (protagonist is haunted by the one thread that wasn’t wrapped up). That sets up the dread in the reader that something is wrong, that this isn’t finished… but she’ll have to keep reading to find out.
Okay, those are just some thoughts. Notice I’m not focusing much at all on what the events ought to be, rather more about placement and presentation. That’s because I think those are key to pacing, and fortunately, are easy to manipulate. We are fortunate that we have readers well-trained in “story grammar,” who respond with gratifying swiftness and accuracy to structural cues. So, as always, figure out what works for you when you’re reading—what makes you frantically flip that page, or linger and re-read—and apply that knowledge to your own story. Pacing isn’t really about WHAT happens, but how whatever happens is presented, and while your muse and id and dark inner demons might dictate the what (and many thanks for that!), your conscious mind can be in control of the how.
Let’s think of “deceptively trivial but actually important” events for the measured pace, and maybe some “question-creating events” for the faster pace. Thoughts? Suggestions?
Alicia
Editing by Machine
Our friend Julie in the comments emailed me to ask my opinion of a particular editing software package. Because my opinion is less than glowing, I won't name the software. It operates much like all the editing software I've seen, and so my comments could apply to several platforms.
First, I must disclose that I'm biased against the notion that content editing can be performed by mechanical analysis. How can any software analyze for strength and consistency of character? For relative emotional impact of premise and climax? For a reader's potential ability to bond with a character? Can a computer identify theme, motif, and symbol? If it works by analyzing text, how can it analyze subtext?
I would never rely upon software for content editing.
But just for kicks, and just to be sure I wasn't prejudiced against something that might work, I downloaded the software and ran one of my manuscripts through the machine. I used a manuscript under contract with my company, one I know inside out and upside down. I chose this because I wanted a clear understanding of the story and narrative so that the sample analysis would be meaningful. (And no, I won't tell you which manuscript it was. The only relevant point is that I am thoroughly acquainted with it.)
Here's what I learned:
1. How many words per sentence.
I did a spot check of its counting, and found one error. The error came in where a number was used in the text. This is not a big deal, I think, but worth mentioning.
Because it presented the counts in the same order that the sentences appear in the manuscript, this function might be useful for showing where the text might be rhythmically monotonous. Where there was a string of four sentences all with six words each, I checked the manuscript again. The sentences were fine -- two standard SVO constructions, one fragment, and one with an introductory prepositional phrase. Rhythm depends upon more than mere word counts, but still I can see where this tool might be useful.
2. Flagging single word repetitions.
Again, in theory this could be a useful tool. In practice, it has its limits. It flagged the character names as overused, and even reported the exact number of usages to eliminate in order to overcome this objection. Strangely, it did not object to pronouns, so I ran a search in the original manuscript and found that pronouns outnumbered character names by a factor of more than ten. I don't know what to make of that. Perhaps the machine doesn't like proper nouns? (Worth noting: I had to use word to count the pronouns. The fancy editing software doesn't let you select which terms are count-worthy.)
The software didn't let me choose its parameters, so it generated some useless data such as the number of contractions in the manuscript. It was unable to distinguish between legitimate usages of the past progressive tense, but lumped all the "was walking" and "were kissing" moments in with all of the simple past conjugations of to be. Likewise, it counted the number of words ending in -ing without distinguishing between progressive tense participles and present participial phrases. None of that is of much value.
3. Identifying overused phrases.
The software claimed to be able to identify overused phrases. This part of the report, however, did little more than flag certain adverbs like when and where and then and after. The author earned a hearty "Good!" in this part of the report, but I'm not sure why. I suppose it doesn't like adverb phrases.
The other part of this section of the report listed several nouns that it claimed were overused. Seemed odd to include these in the part that was supposed to identify repetitive phrases -- phrases do have more than one word in them, after all. In any case, the nouns it flagged as "repetitive phrases" were appropriately used. This part of the report seems to have little value.
4. Dialogue tags.
The machine had no difficulty scanning the document for the word said. It picked up on some synonyms such as muttered, asked, blurted, and shouted, but missed hissed and snarled. (Alicia, make of that what you will!) It did not identify beats. I routinely strip tags during line edits, sometimes converting them to beats and sometimes eliminating them. This function might be useful if you were doing a search and destroy on tags, but there's a built-in option in word that can do that already.
5. Misused words.
I expected this part of the section to identify misused words. Silly me! What it did was flag every word that has a homonym. To/too/two, pearl/purl, and so on. It left it to me to determine if the correct homonym had been chosen.
6. Spelling errors.
This baffled me. We had no spelling errors according to this report. The manuscript is set in an alternate world, complete with made-up nouns, and none of these triggered a spelling error. Word's built-in spellchecker went cuckoo over this same manuscript, but the special editing software blew right past everything. Makes me wonder if I somehow accidentally turned this function off.
And that was it. No pretense at literary analysis, just a simple word-counting program that counts what it thinks is important. You could potentially use this software to locate certain words you want to change, but I don't see why you would spend money for it. Word (and, I suspect, wordperfect and other word processors) already let you do this easily.
Here's how. This varies a little bit depending on which version of the software you're running, but here's the basic process.
Open up the dialogue box for the "replace" function.
In the "find" field, type something you want to flag. (Said, ing, ly, etc.)
In the "replace" field, type the exact same word.
While the cursor is still in the "replace" field, click the "More" button.
Click "Format" and select "font" from the menu.
Select a nice bright font color like red.
Click on "okay," and then "replace all."
Boom. You just flagged your word. Repeat as needed for every word you want to flag. And then, when you're going through your manuscript for that pesky manual content editing, you won't be able to avoid all your present participles or saids or -ly adverbs.
Theresa
First, I must disclose that I'm biased against the notion that content editing can be performed by mechanical analysis. How can any software analyze for strength and consistency of character? For relative emotional impact of premise and climax? For a reader's potential ability to bond with a character? Can a computer identify theme, motif, and symbol? If it works by analyzing text, how can it analyze subtext?
I would never rely upon software for content editing.
But just for kicks, and just to be sure I wasn't prejudiced against something that might work, I downloaded the software and ran one of my manuscripts through the machine. I used a manuscript under contract with my company, one I know inside out and upside down. I chose this because I wanted a clear understanding of the story and narrative so that the sample analysis would be meaningful. (And no, I won't tell you which manuscript it was. The only relevant point is that I am thoroughly acquainted with it.)
Here's what I learned:
1. How many words per sentence.
I did a spot check of its counting, and found one error. The error came in where a number was used in the text. This is not a big deal, I think, but worth mentioning.
Because it presented the counts in the same order that the sentences appear in the manuscript, this function might be useful for showing where the text might be rhythmically monotonous. Where there was a string of four sentences all with six words each, I checked the manuscript again. The sentences were fine -- two standard SVO constructions, one fragment, and one with an introductory prepositional phrase. Rhythm depends upon more than mere word counts, but still I can see where this tool might be useful.
2. Flagging single word repetitions.
Again, in theory this could be a useful tool. In practice, it has its limits. It flagged the character names as overused, and even reported the exact number of usages to eliminate in order to overcome this objection. Strangely, it did not object to pronouns, so I ran a search in the original manuscript and found that pronouns outnumbered character names by a factor of more than ten. I don't know what to make of that. Perhaps the machine doesn't like proper nouns? (Worth noting: I had to use word to count the pronouns. The fancy editing software doesn't let you select which terms are count-worthy.)
The software didn't let me choose its parameters, so it generated some useless data such as the number of contractions in the manuscript. It was unable to distinguish between legitimate usages of the past progressive tense, but lumped all the "was walking" and "were kissing" moments in with all of the simple past conjugations of to be. Likewise, it counted the number of words ending in -ing without distinguishing between progressive tense participles and present participial phrases. None of that is of much value.
3. Identifying overused phrases.
The software claimed to be able to identify overused phrases. This part of the report, however, did little more than flag certain adverbs like when and where and then and after. The author earned a hearty "Good!" in this part of the report, but I'm not sure why. I suppose it doesn't like adverb phrases.
The other part of this section of the report listed several nouns that it claimed were overused. Seemed odd to include these in the part that was supposed to identify repetitive phrases -- phrases do have more than one word in them, after all. In any case, the nouns it flagged as "repetitive phrases" were appropriately used. This part of the report seems to have little value.
4. Dialogue tags.
The machine had no difficulty scanning the document for the word said. It picked up on some synonyms such as muttered, asked, blurted, and shouted, but missed hissed and snarled. (Alicia, make of that what you will!) It did not identify beats. I routinely strip tags during line edits, sometimes converting them to beats and sometimes eliminating them. This function might be useful if you were doing a search and destroy on tags, but there's a built-in option in word that can do that already.
5. Misused words.
I expected this part of the section to identify misused words. Silly me! What it did was flag every word that has a homonym. To/too/two, pearl/purl, and so on. It left it to me to determine if the correct homonym had been chosen.
6. Spelling errors.
This baffled me. We had no spelling errors according to this report. The manuscript is set in an alternate world, complete with made-up nouns, and none of these triggered a spelling error. Word's built-in spellchecker went cuckoo over this same manuscript, but the special editing software blew right past everything. Makes me wonder if I somehow accidentally turned this function off.
And that was it. No pretense at literary analysis, just a simple word-counting program that counts what it thinks is important. You could potentially use this software to locate certain words you want to change, but I don't see why you would spend money for it. Word (and, I suspect, wordperfect and other word processors) already let you do this easily.
Here's how. This varies a little bit depending on which version of the software you're running, but here's the basic process.
Open up the dialogue box for the "replace" function.
In the "find" field, type something you want to flag. (Said, ing, ly, etc.)
In the "replace" field, type the exact same word.
While the cursor is still in the "replace" field, click the "More" button.
Click "Format" and select "font" from the menu.
Select a nice bright font color like red.
Click on "okay," and then "replace all."
Boom. You just flagged your word. Repeat as needed for every word you want to flag. And then, when you're going through your manuscript for that pesky manual content editing, you won't be able to avoid all your present participles or saids or -ly adverbs.
Theresa
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Character or symbol
I'm just going to ask this, because -- natch-- I was reading a novel and thought, "This isn't a character. This is a construct." You ever have that experience? I don't know what the distinction really is, or how you make a real character, or how you know when you've "constructed" one rather than created one or discovered one. But I noticed this and thought I'd bring it up for review.
What it felt like had happened is that the writer started with an idea. "She's a gardening catalogue copywriter!" And what does that mean? It means that she describes things. That she is part of the whole commercial materialistic American machine. That she describes mundane tools with gilded language, that she uses language to sell, and sell out. That there's this motif of gardening/growing/life vs. glossy paper/lies/death. That there's a worthlessness and emptiness of her work, a prostitution.
And that's all true, and of course, I think that the art of characterizing might come from taking what we know of the character and inquiring and extrapolating: "What does it mean that she's...."
So when does this go wrong and create types rather than characters? When does this become "a catalogue copywriter" rather than "Sharon who writes catalogue copy" ? When does she become not a character but a way to satirize or symbolize commercialism or???
You know, this is really hard, creating people and stories.
Somehow this feels like what happens when we start conceiving a story with a premise or theme-- "I'm going to write about how modern college life is so commercialized and anomistic." It so often ends up so didactic and preachy, like the story is actually an allegory meant to prove this point. So the character above becomes just a way to prove some point about people?
How do you know when you've created a construct? I wonder if that's something readers can see but writers can't. (Also, I suspect this is something that lit-fic writers do deliberately sometimes-- to prove a point, or to prove that there is no point. :)
No brilliant thoughts, but have you experienced this in your reading? When do you sense this is a symbol, not a person, and what causes you to feel that?
Alicia
What it felt like had happened is that the writer started with an idea. "She's a gardening catalogue copywriter!" And what does that mean? It means that she describes things. That she is part of the whole commercial materialistic American machine. That she describes mundane tools with gilded language, that she uses language to sell, and sell out. That there's this motif of gardening/growing/life vs. glossy paper/lies/death. That there's a worthlessness and emptiness of her work, a prostitution.
And that's all true, and of course, I think that the art of characterizing might come from taking what we know of the character and inquiring and extrapolating: "What does it mean that she's...."
So when does this go wrong and create types rather than characters? When does this become "a catalogue copywriter" rather than "Sharon who writes catalogue copy" ? When does she become not a character but a way to satirize or symbolize commercialism or???
You know, this is really hard, creating people and stories.
Somehow this feels like what happens when we start conceiving a story with a premise or theme-- "I'm going to write about how modern college life is so commercialized and anomistic." It so often ends up so didactic and preachy, like the story is actually an allegory meant to prove this point. So the character above becomes just a way to prove some point about people?
How do you know when you've created a construct? I wonder if that's something readers can see but writers can't. (Also, I suspect this is something that lit-fic writers do deliberately sometimes-- to prove a point, or to prove that there is no point. :)
No brilliant thoughts, but have you experienced this in your reading? When do you sense this is a symbol, not a person, and what causes you to feel that?
Alicia
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Minor editing thing
I just came across this in revising, and thought it was a good example of avoiding a problem. Here it is:
Original:
She handed him the snowcone and left him to return to the ballgame.
Minor, minor, minor! But who returned to the ballgame? Did she leave him (allow him, let go of him so he could go to the ballgame), or did she LEAVE him behind (go back to the ballgame herself)?
It's just one of those constructions that confuses, and shouldn't. So I just edited out the "him" which caused the confusion, and voila! It works, and it's clear that she's the one who went back to the ballgame:
She handed him the snowcone and left to return to the ballgame.
This is the sort of dangerous decision editors have to make. I mean, it's not all fun and games, doing a line edit.
But there is a teachable point here (there always is). Writers should be conscious of the misconceptions caused by sentence construction. Stay in contact with your own meaning there, and make sure that the sentence says that and only that. (Ambiguity is great, but not about which character went back to the ballgame. Be ambiguous about emotion, about theme, about values... but not about character motion.:)
I'm wondering if-- this is such a trivial sentence. But I'm wondering if we make the action slightly different...
She grabbed the snowcone from him and left him to return to the ballgame.
Hmm. No, it's still not clear who went back to the ballgame.
Read consciously, and revise to refine meaning. And it's ALL important. Every sentence. Well, really, it is. Every unintentionally ambiguous sentence detracts from the deliberate ambiguity of more important sentences. Your reader needs to trust you-- needs to believe that THIS ambiguity means something and isn't just an accident.
Alicia
Original:
She handed him the snowcone and left him to return to the ballgame.
Minor, minor, minor! But who returned to the ballgame? Did she leave him (allow him, let go of him so he could go to the ballgame), or did she LEAVE him behind (go back to the ballgame herself)?
It's just one of those constructions that confuses, and shouldn't. So I just edited out the "him" which caused the confusion, and voila! It works, and it's clear that she's the one who went back to the ballgame:
She handed him the snowcone and left to return to the ballgame.
This is the sort of dangerous decision editors have to make. I mean, it's not all fun and games, doing a line edit.
But there is a teachable point here (there always is). Writers should be conscious of the misconceptions caused by sentence construction. Stay in contact with your own meaning there, and make sure that the sentence says that and only that. (Ambiguity is great, but not about which character went back to the ballgame. Be ambiguous about emotion, about theme, about values... but not about character motion.:)
I'm wondering if-- this is such a trivial sentence. But I'm wondering if we make the action slightly different...
She grabbed the snowcone from him and left him to return to the ballgame.
Hmm. No, it's still not clear who went back to the ballgame.
Read consciously, and revise to refine meaning. And it's ALL important. Every sentence. Well, really, it is. Every unintentionally ambiguous sentence detracts from the deliberate ambiguity of more important sentences. Your reader needs to trust you-- needs to believe that THIS ambiguity means something and isn't just an accident.
Alicia
First principles
I'm not planning on commenting much on the whole Harlequin mess (but if you're interested, here's a long blog colloquy/comment with lots of links and Nora Roberts :),
but I had a conversation about this with a friend, and she said, "90% of the time, people's problems can be traced back to a decision/choice they themselves made .. maybe not recently, but at some point they had a choice or made a decision that led to their current quandary." And it's true, and maybe it's something we might think about when we're creating (or rather discovering) our character's conflicts.
But if we do as my friend suggests and go back to the origins of a disaster or conflict, maybe what we'll see is that the start was a decision, choice, or action that went against "the first principle".
What's the "first principle?" Well, to me it's that sort of personal edict of value or morality or behavior that you've chosen as a guide to action and decision. Not everyone has this, and many would have it but would never have articulated it. In organizations, the first principle usually is stated in the mission statement, or is so essential a part of the corporate culture everyone knows it. Usually these are "positive":
Treat stakeholders (employees, stockholders, suppliers, customers) with respect
Be fair
Act with mercy
Be thoughtful and conscious of the implications of actions
Be generous
Know yourself
Be prepared
Let's try some which aren't so wimpy-good but are still action-edicts:
With your shield or on it
You can never be too careful
Never leave a man behind on the battlefield (and how many soldiers have died for this one!)
Don't hang your dirty linen out for all to see (notice this is the opposition to "Be honest")
Don't rock the boat
Never make a scene (how many "ladies" grew up with that as the dominating principle)
Beauty is truth
Always do your best
Always be your best
Always look your best
Don't let the bastards get you down
Don't sweat the small stuff
Some are more practical:
Be the first off the starting block
Avoid the generic (very good first principle for novelists :)
Innovate
Focus on the bottom line
Winning is the only thing
There is strength in diversity
Concentrate on your strengths
Some are more likely to lead to conflict than others (fictional example supplied)
Expect and reward loyalty (Godfather)
Seek the truth no matter what (Oedipus)
Always think before acting (Hamlet)
Some of these might seem trivial, but we probably all know people who have what we consider trivial principles. "Always look your best" sounds like vanity, but don't we admire those grands dames who manage to wear the right scarf even when they're going to chemotherapy? Think about signal actions like that, and trace them back-- what's the principle that underlies it?
What's the difference between this and a value or strength? Hmm. Well, they're all related, certainly-- principles would be based on values, probably. But I think a principle is a CODE, an edict, not just a feeling or attitude. You'd identify a value as a comparison ("Loyalty is more important than truth to me"). You'd state a principle as an imperative. "Reward loyalty." So the first principle is more aimed at action from the start. Try making a value into a principle statement and see if that helps you imagine more action and conflict.
Anyway, it's useful, I think, to identify a first principle, because you can discover conflict in two ways from that:
1) What happens when you follow your first principle.
2) What happens when you go against your first principle.
A publishing company might, for example, have as a first principle "never forget the reader." Now of course, businesses are trying to make a profit, but that's certainly not the first principle for many companies, or they'd all be seeking new trends constantly rather than sticking to their original business. (In fact, one of the paradoxes of publishing lately has been that companies who have earned steady if small profits for 100 years by focusing mostly on getting books out have started losing money as soon as the focus came to be "maximizing profit". Maybe that's not so paradoxical, or at least, it shouldn't be.)
"Never forget the reader" isn't as immediately and uniformly positive as, say, "Act with love." What's involved in that? Oh, maybe "giving the reader what he/she wants" might mean less challenging books, or a greater reliance on focus groups and market surveys than on the editor's gut in determining types of books to buy. It might mean identifying some little meme readers seem to like and inserting it in book after book (remember the "makeover scene" trend? "Everyone loved the makeover scene in Pretty Woman! Let's put that in all our books!"). But a continued dedication to the reader would lead against an action that puts a lot of energy and work and corporate reputation into making money from making books readers will never read.
Double-edged, definitely. But that's where the conflict is. What do you give up when you concentrate on one principle? That's conflict. You can't innovate much when your first principle commits you to concentrating first and foremost on customer desires. You can't lay off half your employees for better productivity if your first principle is "loyalty". You can't maximize your investment income if "slow and steady wins the race" has been your guiding principle.
So there's conflict to be found in acting within your principle, or rather, in avoiding other possible actions. The older son offers the example of Roland, The Gunslinger in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Roland is the very model of a principled character, and his principle is "Never give up the fight." This is a long series, so the choices and consequences are spread out over seven books. The first book shows him sticking to his principle of refusing to give up the fight, even when he's forced to choose to let Jake, his surrogate son, fall to his death. (The entire series deals with this theme of sacrificing love for principle and the reverse. King is a classical plotter-- his use, btw, of the gun as a motif, is a masterclass in how to embed theme in objects.)
This conflict seems to lead to a more traditional heroic story. Here is the man of principle to whom bad things happen because he sticks to his core value. The husband offers the example of the Matthew Broderick character in Glory, whose properly soldierly dedication to the chain of command and following orders leads to him having to accept racist treatment (he is in charge of the black regiment) from his commanders. He kept trying to follow the rules, and finally he does have a bit of rebellion (when he raids the supply shop to get necessities for his men), he could say it was within the rules (he had been promised the supplies by his commander). He even goes against his own morality to follow orders when he orders the flogging of Trip. The conflict comes from obeying his first principle no matter what, and his journey is towards a more nuanced understanding of his duty and of the complicated politics of the military.
Another protagonist who sticks to his first principle and runs into conflict for it is Oedipus, of course. His first principle is "seek the truth"-- he is the riddle-solver, the one who figures things out, the one who isn't afraid of the truth. And that leads him to discover an unbearable truth, along the way pretty much destroying his family and his kingship.
When the protagonist sticks to the principle, uses that to guide most of his actions (and especially the early actions), the conflict might come fast and hard. After all, what use is a principle if it is easy to stick to, if there are no consequences to holding it? So stories that use this model might have front-loaded conflict (bad things happen pretty quickly).
(Talk about sticking to principles. I'm watching the Colts-Ravens game, and what an example. Now I'm in Indy, and we love our Colts, and Baltimore loves its Ravens-- won a Super Bowl!-- but Baltimore has never forgotten that the Colts owner in the middle of the night a couple decades ago moved the team from there to here. Anyway, this game is in Baltimore, and the announcer and the scoreboard guys do not refer to the "Colts" or the "Indianapolis Colts"-- they say, "The Indianapolis Professional Football Team." The scoreboard says, "Indy," not "Colts". That's principle!)
While I think we see the "sticking to principle" conflict coming more from truly heroic characters, Moby Dick is a good example of how it can easily become monomania. Ahab's intense dedication to the principle of getting revenge and his unwillingness to swerve from that principle leads to destruction, and Melville definitely doesn't present him as heroic.
Now what about #2? What happens when you act AGAINST your first principle?
I guess the first thing is to make sure that the first principle is established in early scenes. You are going to have him violate it pretty quick, so you won't have the luxury of setting it up over the first half of the book as you do with scenario #1. So how can you show that her first principle is to seek the truth or to be loyal or whatever early on, knowing that you're going to show her going against it pretty soon? If you don't set it up as important, as a principle, early on, then her violation of it will have no dramatic weight-- the action will be only a response to exigency, not a real conflict.
But I think it's also important to get the character acting against principle pretty early-- and to motivate that well. For example, one great cultural principle set up in many classical stories is "Be hospitable." It sounds sort of wimpy, but in fact, the Greeks made such big deal about this, even having myths where the vagrant who appears at the doorstep turns out to be a god. So every homeowner knew that he had to offer food and shelter and treat intruders as honored guests-- and in return, the guests had to treat the host with respect.
So this is the cultural backdrop of the great drama of the Iliad, and notice what happens. Paris comes to Menelaus's kingdom (the myths vary as to how this happens) and they should treat each other with the mutual respect required by the principle of hospitality. But here comes the greatest motivation of all-- he falls in love with Menelaus's wife (Aphrodite's doing), and runs off with her, violating the principle and starting a war.
Macbeth is shown in his first scene as a good soldier, brave and triumphant. But soon his wife's appeal to his ambition (and his male insecurity) turns him against the soldierly principle of respect for chain of command and he kills his king and usurps the kingdom.
The initial violation is usually done because of exigency-- some seemingly good reason, some goal that could be reached just by violating ("just this once") this principle. So maybe it's good to set up the principle and set up a conflicting (but understandable) goal. "You can achieve your goal if you just ..." Also, I think that the character might be quickly rewarded for this pragmatic choice, so that there is a postponement of external bad consequences (so you'll have more action in the second half of the book). But an initial reward for doing the pragmatic/unprincipled thing can also put the focus on the internal consequences that come from violating principle, with the costs of this choice coming from within primarily-- the guilt, Lady Macbeth's madness, maybe.
What are some other examples of this (early) violation of principle? So are there some principles that would lend themselves better to violation? Or rather to creating good conflict by violation? "Act with honor," for example?
I notice that the examples I can think of for #1 tend to be heroic, and the ones I can think of for #2 are not really heroic. That is, maybe we understand that heroes might have to violate their principles, but we want it to be a difficult decision in furtherance perhaps to what they realize is a higher principle. ?
Any other examples, like of characters who sacrifice the first principle early for some other goal, and you regard as heroic?
And how does this affect the trajectory of your plot?
And what would you identify as your protagonist's first principle?
Hmm. Thinking of mine... "Be responsible." I know there's a better way to say that, but I mean he thinks he should always do the right thing, that everything relies on his doing the right thing. That makes me think that I need to have him choose the first action (where he pretends to be someone else) because he thinks it's the right thing to do, maybe, that he has to do it to make things work. I realize now that "tell the truth" isn't his principle, it's more "do the right thing." I'm now wondering if I've made it too easy for him just to start pretending he's someone else. I wonder if he would do that right away, or if I need to make sure it's consonant with that first principle, or make it consonant anyway, change the circumstances so that assuming the disguise is the responsible thing to do. I'm a bit afraid of making him too saintly, so I'll have to check out alternate scenarios.
Alicia
but I had a conversation about this with a friend, and she said, "90% of the time, people's problems can be traced back to a decision/choice they themselves made .. maybe not recently, but at some point they had a choice or made a decision that led to their current quandary." And it's true, and maybe it's something we might think about when we're creating (or rather discovering) our character's conflicts.
But if we do as my friend suggests and go back to the origins of a disaster or conflict, maybe what we'll see is that the start was a decision, choice, or action that went against "the first principle".
What's the "first principle?" Well, to me it's that sort of personal edict of value or morality or behavior that you've chosen as a guide to action and decision. Not everyone has this, and many would have it but would never have articulated it. In organizations, the first principle usually is stated in the mission statement, or is so essential a part of the corporate culture everyone knows it. Usually these are "positive":
Treat stakeholders (employees, stockholders, suppliers, customers) with respect
Be fair
Act with mercy
Be thoughtful and conscious of the implications of actions
Be generous
Know yourself
Be prepared
Let's try some which aren't so wimpy-good but are still action-edicts:
With your shield or on it
You can never be too careful
Never leave a man behind on the battlefield (and how many soldiers have died for this one!)
Don't hang your dirty linen out for all to see (notice this is the opposition to "Be honest")
Don't rock the boat
Never make a scene (how many "ladies" grew up with that as the dominating principle)
Beauty is truth
Always do your best
Always be your best
Always look your best
Don't let the bastards get you down
Don't sweat the small stuff
Some are more practical:
Be the first off the starting block
Avoid the generic (very good first principle for novelists :)
Innovate
Focus on the bottom line
Winning is the only thing
There is strength in diversity
Concentrate on your strengths
Some are more likely to lead to conflict than others (fictional example supplied)
Expect and reward loyalty (Godfather)
Seek the truth no matter what (Oedipus)
Always think before acting (Hamlet)
Some of these might seem trivial, but we probably all know people who have what we consider trivial principles. "Always look your best" sounds like vanity, but don't we admire those grands dames who manage to wear the right scarf even when they're going to chemotherapy? Think about signal actions like that, and trace them back-- what's the principle that underlies it?
What's the difference between this and a value or strength? Hmm. Well, they're all related, certainly-- principles would be based on values, probably. But I think a principle is a CODE, an edict, not just a feeling or attitude. You'd identify a value as a comparison ("Loyalty is more important than truth to me"). You'd state a principle as an imperative. "Reward loyalty." So the first principle is more aimed at action from the start. Try making a value into a principle statement and see if that helps you imagine more action and conflict.
Anyway, it's useful, I think, to identify a first principle, because you can discover conflict in two ways from that:
1) What happens when you follow your first principle.
2) What happens when you go against your first principle.
A publishing company might, for example, have as a first principle "never forget the reader." Now of course, businesses are trying to make a profit, but that's certainly not the first principle for many companies, or they'd all be seeking new trends constantly rather than sticking to their original business. (In fact, one of the paradoxes of publishing lately has been that companies who have earned steady if small profits for 100 years by focusing mostly on getting books out have started losing money as soon as the focus came to be "maximizing profit". Maybe that's not so paradoxical, or at least, it shouldn't be.)
"Never forget the reader" isn't as immediately and uniformly positive as, say, "Act with love." What's involved in that? Oh, maybe "giving the reader what he/she wants" might mean less challenging books, or a greater reliance on focus groups and market surveys than on the editor's gut in determining types of books to buy. It might mean identifying some little meme readers seem to like and inserting it in book after book (remember the "makeover scene" trend? "Everyone loved the makeover scene in Pretty Woman! Let's put that in all our books!"). But a continued dedication to the reader would lead against an action that puts a lot of energy and work and corporate reputation into making money from making books readers will never read.
Double-edged, definitely. But that's where the conflict is. What do you give up when you concentrate on one principle? That's conflict. You can't innovate much when your first principle commits you to concentrating first and foremost on customer desires. You can't lay off half your employees for better productivity if your first principle is "loyalty". You can't maximize your investment income if "slow and steady wins the race" has been your guiding principle.
So there's conflict to be found in acting within your principle, or rather, in avoiding other possible actions. The older son offers the example of Roland, The Gunslinger in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Roland is the very model of a principled character, and his principle is "Never give up the fight." This is a long series, so the choices and consequences are spread out over seven books. The first book shows him sticking to his principle of refusing to give up the fight, even when he's forced to choose to let Jake, his surrogate son, fall to his death. (The entire series deals with this theme of sacrificing love for principle and the reverse. King is a classical plotter-- his use, btw, of the gun as a motif, is a masterclass in how to embed theme in objects.)
This conflict seems to lead to a more traditional heroic story. Here is the man of principle to whom bad things happen because he sticks to his core value. The husband offers the example of the Matthew Broderick character in Glory, whose properly soldierly dedication to the chain of command and following orders leads to him having to accept racist treatment (he is in charge of the black regiment) from his commanders. He kept trying to follow the rules, and finally he does have a bit of rebellion (when he raids the supply shop to get necessities for his men), he could say it was within the rules (he had been promised the supplies by his commander). He even goes against his own morality to follow orders when he orders the flogging of Trip. The conflict comes from obeying his first principle no matter what, and his journey is towards a more nuanced understanding of his duty and of the complicated politics of the military.
Another protagonist who sticks to his first principle and runs into conflict for it is Oedipus, of course. His first principle is "seek the truth"-- he is the riddle-solver, the one who figures things out, the one who isn't afraid of the truth. And that leads him to discover an unbearable truth, along the way pretty much destroying his family and his kingship.
When the protagonist sticks to the principle, uses that to guide most of his actions (and especially the early actions), the conflict might come fast and hard. After all, what use is a principle if it is easy to stick to, if there are no consequences to holding it? So stories that use this model might have front-loaded conflict (bad things happen pretty quickly).
(Talk about sticking to principles. I'm watching the Colts-Ravens game, and what an example. Now I'm in Indy, and we love our Colts, and Baltimore loves its Ravens-- won a Super Bowl!-- but Baltimore has never forgotten that the Colts owner in the middle of the night a couple decades ago moved the team from there to here. Anyway, this game is in Baltimore, and the announcer and the scoreboard guys do not refer to the "Colts" or the "Indianapolis Colts"-- they say, "The Indianapolis Professional Football Team." The scoreboard says, "Indy," not "Colts". That's principle!)
While I think we see the "sticking to principle" conflict coming more from truly heroic characters, Moby Dick is a good example of how it can easily become monomania. Ahab's intense dedication to the principle of getting revenge and his unwillingness to swerve from that principle leads to destruction, and Melville definitely doesn't present him as heroic.
Now what about #2? What happens when you act AGAINST your first principle?
I guess the first thing is to make sure that the first principle is established in early scenes. You are going to have him violate it pretty quick, so you won't have the luxury of setting it up over the first half of the book as you do with scenario #1. So how can you show that her first principle is to seek the truth or to be loyal or whatever early on, knowing that you're going to show her going against it pretty soon? If you don't set it up as important, as a principle, early on, then her violation of it will have no dramatic weight-- the action will be only a response to exigency, not a real conflict.
But I think it's also important to get the character acting against principle pretty early-- and to motivate that well. For example, one great cultural principle set up in many classical stories is "Be hospitable." It sounds sort of wimpy, but in fact, the Greeks made such big deal about this, even having myths where the vagrant who appears at the doorstep turns out to be a god. So every homeowner knew that he had to offer food and shelter and treat intruders as honored guests-- and in return, the guests had to treat the host with respect.
So this is the cultural backdrop of the great drama of the Iliad, and notice what happens. Paris comes to Menelaus's kingdom (the myths vary as to how this happens) and they should treat each other with the mutual respect required by the principle of hospitality. But here comes the greatest motivation of all-- he falls in love with Menelaus's wife (Aphrodite's doing), and runs off with her, violating the principle and starting a war.
Macbeth is shown in his first scene as a good soldier, brave and triumphant. But soon his wife's appeal to his ambition (and his male insecurity) turns him against the soldierly principle of respect for chain of command and he kills his king and usurps the kingdom.
The initial violation is usually done because of exigency-- some seemingly good reason, some goal that could be reached just by violating ("just this once") this principle. So maybe it's good to set up the principle and set up a conflicting (but understandable) goal. "You can achieve your goal if you just ..." Also, I think that the character might be quickly rewarded for this pragmatic choice, so that there is a postponement of external bad consequences (so you'll have more action in the second half of the book). But an initial reward for doing the pragmatic/unprincipled thing can also put the focus on the internal consequences that come from violating principle, with the costs of this choice coming from within primarily-- the guilt, Lady Macbeth's madness, maybe.
What are some other examples of this (early) violation of principle? So are there some principles that would lend themselves better to violation? Or rather to creating good conflict by violation? "Act with honor," for example?
I notice that the examples I can think of for #1 tend to be heroic, and the ones I can think of for #2 are not really heroic. That is, maybe we understand that heroes might have to violate their principles, but we want it to be a difficult decision in furtherance perhaps to what they realize is a higher principle. ?
Any other examples, like of characters who sacrifice the first principle early for some other goal, and you regard as heroic?
And how does this affect the trajectory of your plot?
And what would you identify as your protagonist's first principle?
Hmm. Thinking of mine... "Be responsible." I know there's a better way to say that, but I mean he thinks he should always do the right thing, that everything relies on his doing the right thing. That makes me think that I need to have him choose the first action (where he pretends to be someone else) because he thinks it's the right thing to do, maybe, that he has to do it to make things work. I realize now that "tell the truth" isn't his principle, it's more "do the right thing." I'm now wondering if I've made it too easy for him just to start pretending he's someone else. I wonder if he would do that right away, or if I need to make sure it's consonant with that first principle, or make it consonant anyway, change the circumstances so that assuming the disguise is the responsible thing to do. I'm a bit afraid of making him too saintly, so I'll have to check out alternate scenarios.
Alicia
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