Plot Development: Confusing is not the Same as Mysterious

By mcmckit on Dec 7, 2012

When we pointed out to a recent client that parts of his story were confusing, he said that was just what he intended. Readers were supposed to be confused, and the muddle would all be cleared up later in the book.

Confusion? Really? Here is the Miriam Webster definition that popped up for confusion:

1. Lack of understanding; uncertainty.
2. A situation of panic; a breakdown of order: “the shaken survivors retreated in confusion”.

There are, we suppose, people who like to be confused and delightfully confusing books that lead readers down one path, only to leave them at a dead end and start up again in another baffling direction. But we would argue that when readers talk about “getting into a good book,” they do not generally mean “getting into a state of confusion”.

Being confusing is different from being mysterious and suspenseful. What we often see is authors trying to be mysterious by introducing a plot element like say a sword with unknown and yet-to-be-proven magic powers without any explanation at all. The less said, the more mysterious, right?

No. A sword by itself signals nothing to the reader. But if the sword had an interesting history or appeared on the scene in a particular manner, one might be curious to know what’s up with the sword. A random sword is confusing. One with context is something to wonder about.

One way to do this is to put yourself into the head of a particular character and tell the story of the sword as he or she discovers its magic powers.

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Putting on Your Writing Skin to find your Narrative Voice

By mcmckit on Nov 27, 2012

One of our readers wrote to us after the last blog to say that he was trying the foreshadowing techniques that we had described and wasn’t sure they were working so well for him. We wrote about how Erik Larson created suspense in his book, IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS, (posted 11/14) by hinting at what was to come. This technique works really well for him, but writing is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor. You are always limited by your narrative voice.

When people talk and write about narrative voice, they use terms like first person, third person omniscient or third person limited. We have, ourselves, blogged about voice in these terms. But when you come right down to writing a story – fiction or non-fiction – voice is really a matter of inhabiting the skin of the person who is telling the story. This person could be you, the writer. It could be a character in the story. It could be some sort of God-like creature, who knows and sees all. You, as the writer, have to start by putting the skin on your voice. Then you have to fill it in.

If you are writing from the point of view of a particular fictional character, the task is hardest. You have to define that character: age, sex, circumstances, motive for telling the story, family background, friends, neighborhood, education, speech, looks – everything. You have to bring that character alive in your mind so that you can speak through him or her. You have to know whether that character is telling the story as it happens or from some later date which you also have to define. The more successful you are in doing all this, the better your narrative voice will be. Think how well J.D. Salinger must have known and understood Holden Caulfield.

Even if you are writing from a God-like point of view, you have decisions to make about what this voice is, where it is coming from, what its tone is and whether it inhabits the mind of a particular character and shares her/his point of view or hops (be careful with this) from head to head. Even an omniscient narrator has (or doesn’t have) a sense of humor, a certain set of knowledge and a particular way of talking. Does this narrator know what is going to happen or is this narrator just reporting things as they happen?

Erik Larson seems to be writing from his own point of view so the skin he is wearing is his own. But even that required a set of decisions. He had to decide which Erik he was going to be. We all assume different roles in our lives. Which one are we going to choose to write our book? And what does that say about who we are writing for and what we hope to convey and what attitude we will take?

Larson could hint at what was to come in his book because he established he had done the research and knew what was going to happen. His narrative voice allowed him to hint at what was to come. Your narrative voice may be telling the story as it happens in which case the future is unknowable until the end of the book. Or, if your voice is the God-like one, it may be disruptive to break in with what is essentially a promo for the rest of the book. It depends on the voice.

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Never Leave Them Laughing: Learning How to Build Suspense from a Master

By mcmckit on Nov 14, 2012

The book club has just discussed IN THE GARDEN OF BEASTS by Erik Larson, an account of the American ambassador to Germany and his daughter during the rise of Hitler. All agreed that the true story of William and Martha Dodd was a compelling and suspenseful read. The gathering storm in Berlin and the degree to which observers were and were not aware of what was going on is absorbing stuff.

But we know Larson’s work and he is a master of suspense. He could write about a duck pond and we would be unable to stop reading. This time, we made some observations about how he does it. For one thing, he builds in lots of teases, hints that compel the reader to turn the page. He sprinkles these throughout but almost always includes them at the end of chapters when readers might be tempted to put the book down. Here are some examples:

Theirs would prove to be a journey laden with incident that would provide the first challenge to Martha’s rosy view of the new Germany.

Forces opposed to Dodd began to coalesce.

Now a special “witness” was scheduled to appear.

As Dodd was about to find out, in a milieu as supercharged as Berlin, where every public action of a diplomat accrued exaggerated symbolic weight, even a mere bit of conversational sparring across a banquet table could become the stuff of minor legend.

As would soon become apparent, Germany was not yet willing to let the matter drop.

In light of what was about to happen a few years hence, Dodd’s crowing about his own driving prowess can only raise a chill.

Each of these hints makes the reader want to know: What happened to challenge Martha’s rosy view of Germany? What forces coalesced against Dodd and what did they do? Who was the special witness? What exactly was Dodd about to find out? How would Germany’s unwillingness to let the matter drop become apparent? And what chilling driving event is in Dodd’s future?

Larson also cuts between stories, alternating William with Martha, so the reader is forced to read through a passage about William, for instance, to get back to what changed Martha’s view of Germany. These passages get shorter and shorter as the book progresses so the cuts are quicker and quicker like the action in a movie speeding up.

Larson may be a suspense natural but we suspect he also works at it. Here is one of his blog entries from last year in which he compares his daughter’s reading habits to his own:

She’s the kind of reader I never was in high school. She just finished reading BELOVED by Toni Morrison, which she read of her own volition, and what book did I just finish? BLACK SUNDAY, by Thomas Harris, who is best known as the author SILENCE OF THE LAMBS. In my defense I’d just like to say that BLACK SUNDAY is one crackler of a thriller…

Larson not only writes suspense, he reads it.

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Expletive Deleted! We’re talking sentences, not words.

By mcmckit on Nov 6, 2012

Sometimes we think that our authors are trying to build a firewall of words around whatever they are trying to say. That is because they use a lot of expletives. These expletives, which have nothing to do with profanity, put empty words between the reader and the content.

We are talking about what are known as expletive sentences. These are sentences that begin with there is, there are, it is or it was. Here are some examples:

It was in that room that I kept I keep my best artwork.

It is unlikely that he will win the marathon.

There are many cooks participating in the best recipe contest at the fair.

There is a tree limb blocking the street in front of my house.

That was when he became a warrior and liberated them during the battle of 1066.

Expletives are also referred to as “empty words.” They are used to manipulate sentence construction, but contribute no meaning. Often, they just make sentences hard to read. The reader is forced to look past the expletive to get to the heart of the sentence. Why do that to readers? Isn't the idea to get them to read your stuff?

Here are the sentences above with expletives deleted. See how much simpler and direct they are.

I kept I keep my best artwork in that room.

He is unlikely to win the marathon.

Many cooks are participating in the best recipe contest at the fair.

A tree limb is blocking the street in front of my house.

He became a warrior and liberated them during the battle of 1066.

We generally edit out expletive sentences in order to streamline narratives. Clients that use them habitually can drive us to expletives of the other sort.

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When the storm of life takes on a life of its own…

By mcmckit on Oct 29, 2012

Our non-fiction authors make wonderful use of metaphor, which – as you probably know – is a comparison. Using a metaphor, a writer will write about a storm (right?) to express what he/she wants to say about life. This can be a very useful tool. Storms have defining characteristics that can be applied to the amorphous blob that is life and bring it in to sharper focus, giving readers a better understanding of whatever point is being made. As the examples below show, storms are a common metaphor for life’s vicissitudes:

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore.
Vincent Van Gogh

It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.
Amelia Barr

Like all of us in this storm between birth and death, I can wreak no great changes on the world, only small changes for the better, I hope, in the lives of those I love.
Dean Koontz

There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.
Willa Cather

Metaphors allow you to say complex things simply. But what we see happening is that some of our writers are allowing their metaphors to drive their narratives. In other words, it isn’t enough to say that life is like a storm. They think about all the characteristics of a storm: high winds, heavy rain, barometric pressure readings, high humidity, dark clouds, power outages, downed tree limbs, etc. and then, they think about how these apply to life. A change in pressure on a sunny day can demonstrate that no happy times last forever. The dark clouds signal the approach of trouble and warn us to buy milk for spiritual sustenance. The high humidity makes our hair frizz, always a very bad omen. When we get drenched in the rain, life is changing us. And material possessions cannot help us because the power goes out. The tree limbs must be negotiated to get back our core selves. ETCETERA.

Pretty soon, what the writer is doing is writing about a storm. Whatever point that was originally going to be made about life is lost in the comparison which becomes the new point. To use another metaphor, this is called getting lost in the weeds. Readers generally know weeds when they see them and don’t want to go there. The moral is to stick closely with what you want to say and keep your metaphors in check.

And for those of you on the east coast: stay safe in the real storm.

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Style Creep, Keeping your Voice Pure

By mcmckit on Oct 16, 2012

A famous author once told us that she reads books by other people when she is in a writing phase. But she has plenty of author friends who don’t because they get infected by the styles of the writers they are reading, and these voices creep into their own writing. For beginning writers, this can be a good thing because it is a way of experimenting with a style that is not yet fully developed. But later on, when you have honed in on that voice that is yours alone, you don’t want anyone else interrupting.

Style creep can also be an issue if you have a job that requires a different style of writing from the one you indulge in at your home computer. This was recently the subject of a blog in the New York Times Draft series of blogs on writing. Author Michael Erard works in a think tank during the day and on short stories, news articles, essays, reviews and nonfiction books at night. He says the think tank writing is decidedly “less juicy” and he has to work to keep it out of his other writing.

Erard calls the problem of voice creep “priming” as in what you are primed for when you start the writing process, what style is stuck in your head. He warns, for instance, about staying off the Web: “Each time you look at Facebook or Twitter, you get primed with another kind of language, whether it’s your friends’ or your own.”

To unprime yourself, Erard suggests that you read things that are very different from what you have been writing.  Or, he says, you might try  imitating a writing style different from your own. This is hard and gets you out of whatever you have been primed for.

We like to start writing early in the morning when our minds are empty of pretty much everything, including other people’s writing styles. Another technique is to reserve a special place where you only think about your writing, in your voice. And you should always, always revise, review to be sure you are saying what you want to say and in a voice that is true to you.

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Are we there yet?

By mcmckit on Oct 2, 2012

We are currently doing a third edit on a client’s book and we are so excited we can hardly stand it. The book has gotten so good! This author has worked long and hard to get here; the book has been in the works for decades. We are full of admiration for this author’s determination and long-term view.

This is the kind of effort it often takes to produce something really good, as well as a sort of dumb faith. So when you start asking yourself, have I finished this book yet, watch this:

Have you finished your book yet?

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Bringing Characters to Life by Studying the Master

By mcmckit on Sep 25, 2012

Last winter, the British news organization, the Telegraph, did a series of stories called My Favorite Charles Dickens Character. There were 27 installments of this series each written by a different Telegraph staffer. Twenty-seven! That’s a lot of favorite characters by one author, yet really, it only scratches the surface of great Dickens characters. He had an uncanny ability to make characters jump off the page and into your living room.

So how did he do that? An essay at victorianweb.org cites some interesting examples from LITTLE DORRIT:

1) One is individual speech patterns. Dickens had an ear for how people talked. When a character named Arthur Clennam stops at an inn, he is asked if he would like to see a room:

“‘Chaymaid!’ cried the waiter. ‘Gelen box num seven wish see room!’
“‘Stay!’ said Clennam, rousing himself. ‘I am not going to sleep here. I am going home.’
“‘Deed sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, no go sleep here, gome.'”

The waiter is not a major character but he is completely captured by his speech.

2) Dickens also has an eye for distinctive appearance. Here is hoe he describes Little Dorrit’s uncle:

“He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where in vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red clothe with which that phantom had been stiffened was now laid bare, and poked itself up, at the back of the old man’s neck, into a confusion of gray hair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his hat off.”.

3) Some of Dicken’s characters make themselves memorable by their actions and manner. Flora Finching is a mature woman, but she acts like a young girl:

“‘Indeed I have little doubt,’ said Flora, running on with astonishing speed and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very few of them, ‘that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China so long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and extend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should propose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I’m sure than that the lady should accept you and think herself very well-off too…'”

In these three examples, Dickens uses three different techniques to affix these characters in readers’ minds: voice, detailed description and action. In each case, he takes the one major quality that distinguishes each of these characters and uses it to define them. If you are going to be writing about other people, real or made-up, this is a good model to follow. You can practice next time you are at the gym or on a bus or waiting in line for a cashier. What distinguishes the woman in front of you or the man across the way? How would Dickens have portrayed them?

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A Glimpse of Stocking – and what it reveals about a character

By mcmckit on Sep 18, 2012

Recently, we heard a radio show about the way the current candidates for president and their wives dress and what this says about them. For instance, Robin Givan of The Daily Beast suggested that vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan is routinely dressed in large suits because he works out a lot and anything more form fitting would make him look muscle-y and sleek which apparently is not VPish. During the show, Givan noted that she had no idea what kind of socks the candidates wear because she can’t see them.

In fiction, socks and stockings are not only visible; they can speak volumes about the character wearing them. Thinkof the famous stockings of the Wife of Bath from Chaucer’s CANTERBURY TALES. “Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet reed.” The dress of Chaucer’s characters is frequently mined for clues about his era. The Tales were written somewhere between 1386 and 1395. So those scarlet hosen have been much discussed. Red hose were associated with the nobility which the wife of Bath was not. But she must have had some money to afford them – and she must have had aspirations. So her hose peg her as a wanna be.

Shakespeare uses hose for a different kind of wanna be in TWELFTH NIGHT when the character Malvolio is prevailed upon to wear yellow stockings to attract the wealthy Olivia, who hates yellow.

In her 1896 short story “Silk Stockings,” Kate Chopin dresses her main character in silk stockings for a day of freedom from her drab life: “(Mrs Sommers) took the elevator, which carried her to an upper floor into the region of the ladies’ waiting-rooms. Here, in a retired corner, she exchanged her cotton stockings for the new silk ones which she had just bought. She was not going through any acute mental process or reasoning with herself, nor was she striving to explain to her satisfaction the motive of her action. She was not thinking at all.”

Bill Bryson uses socks to establish sophistication: When I was growing up I used to think that the best thing about coming from Des Moines was that it meant you didn’t come from anywhere else in Iowa. By Iowa standards, Des Moines is a mecca of cosmopolitanism, a dynamic hub of wealth and education, where people wear three-piece suits and dark socks, often simultaneously. THE LOST CONTINENT: TRAVELS IN SMALL TOWN AMERICA (1989)

Vladimir Nabokov uses one sock to convey the opposite: She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. LOLITA (1955)

We aren’t suggesting you necessarily write about socks or stockings. We are using these humble items of clothing to show that you can provide important information about characters in either a work of fiction or a memoir through what they wear. At the risk of sounding superficial, we derive clues about people we meet on the street from their clothes. The same is true of people we meet in books. Dress your characters – and don’t neglect their socks.

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Story Core: At the Heart of Every Good Book is a Story(ies)

By mcmckit on Sep 10, 2012

Lately, we have been telling both fiction and nonfiction clients over and over again not to lecture or explain to the reader. Instead, make the point by telling a story. It is so much more interesting to read and so much more likely to attract a publisher. Jesus did it in the New Testament of the Bible and he has been read by gazillions of people over many centuries. His book has been published a few times too.

We bring up this example not to proselytize but to make a point about writing. After all, the Bible is a great work of literature. Jesus preached in parables which are nothing more than stories that illustrate a point he was trying to make. The stories have added depth to his teachings and made them memorable through the centuries. Below is the parable of the woman and the coin. His point is in the last line; the imagery (story) readers remember comes before.

Or what woman, if she had ten drachma coins, if she lost one drachma coin, wouldn't light a lamp, sweep the house, and seek diligently until she found it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.' Even so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting.

Luke 15:8–10, WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE

In this political season, observe how politicians use stories both about themselves and other people as a way of making political points real and memorable.

Writers are in the business of telling stories: To make the point that you were abused as a child, tell the story that illustrates that. To demonstrate your secret to weight loss, tell the story of how it has worked in your life or someone else’s. To write a novel, don’t veer from your story, your plot. To explain some arcane principle, use an analogy, a story. In short, if you are writing, stick to your story.

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