novel-writing and controlling information
A random subject, I must admit, but this has been on my mind recently.
Part of my book involves… we’ll call it a mystery. Unclear motives, conspiracy, a bigger picture than the protagonist sees. I’m exactly three chapters from ending the book according to my recent chapter plans, and as more and more climax-heightening information comes through, I have to wonder… is the big reveal, aha-moment too obvious? The characters have every scrap of information they’d need now to put things together. A stressful chapter, a distracting goal, and a wrong take on one of the events ought to keep the characters busy… what about the reader?
This is probably the most agonizing part of writing fantasy. Fantasy is a setting-genre. It has a great deal in common with sci-fi, westerns, and even historical fiction for that reason. And yet the genre constantly overlaps with the event-genres… action, adventure, romance, mystery, thriller (suggest that fantasy is an event-genre by the necessity of a ‘quest’, and I will vaporize you with my scary teacher-stare). So in able to be able to fully command the genre, one must be at least adapt at the subtleties of romance and mystery, the chill of a suspense novel and the tension of a well-crafted fight, no matter the era of weapon.
Back to my original question: how do you know when you’ve made the reveal too transparent? Like spotting a scratch on a piece of furniture– when you know where to look, it jumps out at you. I have some ideas– only a survey of test-readers can be accurate, but there are a few tricks that I’ve noted.
One upon a time, I was an admirer of the Harry Potter series. (Hey, at least it’s not ‘Twilight’). One thing that I admired about Rowling’s work was how thoroughly she would foreshadow her endings. By the fourth book, I caught on to her style enough to see them coming ahead of time, but the first three books left me hitting myself, declaring “Stupid! Stupid!” at the end of each one. Rowling also has a lot of characters, each involved with their own activities, and lots of quirky detail, to hide what’s important with what’s not. So what if the pet rat has a missing toe? It’s an old, pathetic rat that’s had one too many encounters with a garden gnome or something, nestled right in a description of how haggard it looks. And there was that vacation it was hauled off to in Egypt over the summer. It might have caught something. Plenty of reasons not to think it has anything to do with plot.
Use of detail, amid lots of other detail. Logical rationalization, yet a point unique enough to stand out. Foreshadowing each element as its own separate island, as if they’re not connected. Mistaken assumptions that the reader is lead to agree with can be startling to overturn.
But then, my next example uses something entirely different. Gosford Park, a murder mystery film… which was more about the people and less about the murder.
I will warn you, I really, really loved this movie. Watch it five times, and you might have picked out all the subtle sub-plots. Everyone is guilty of something… some more than others. There’s bickering behind closed doors, affairs, blackmail… in fact, all the sub-plots can be so interesting that they take away focus of the murder entirely. The reveal isn’t dramatic. On the contrary, it’s quiet, and not exactly a ‘pursuit of justice’.
So… is detail the secret? I haven’t made a habit of reading mystery for some time– I think I need to go back to it. Does anyone have any great references that they’d like to point to?
introducing a group, part ii
After my last post, about how to introduce several characters, and the distinctions between character and setting, I thought that I’d go visit Gav Thorp’s blog ‘Mechanical Hamster‘ and ask him if he would be willing to say a few words on the subject. I really love Gav’s advice– he writes some really excellent articles on writing tips and craft. Anyone interested in advanced creative writing should stop by and browse through the archives.
Much to my delight, Gav obliged me and wrote a long, detailed post on how to handle secondary characters that really addressed some of the problems I was having. You can find it here, and I think it’s well worth a read.
Thanks, Gav!
writing names and groups
It’s been a heck of a week! Trying to get the hang of teaching has drained me pretty dry for the last two weeks. I’m glad to report that we’re now working with code (which to me is easier to teach than history), my students look to be a fun group, with the exception of one or two of the guys who seem to be far too ‘cool’ to be taught by a hyper nerd-ette.
Which means that after two weeks of delays, it’s back to my novel, and back to thoughts on writing craft.
I remember watching old bugs bunny cartoons, and knowing what’s going to happen next, because one plank of a fence board will be a slightly different color than the others. It always annoyed me, letting one prop stand out from the others. Lately, I’ve been having the same problem in writing.
If you have a group of characters show up, how do you handle them? Do you go through the entire process of developing them? Do you name one or two, and leave the rest as blank faces? Leave them all blank, and hope that they’re still important?
Option 1– develop them all. It’s realistic. It brings a lot of focus on the parts of the new force, maybe even too much, detracting from the main characters and whatever else would be going on. Name them, and the reader will feel obligated to remember their names. Another advantage is that if one is utterly unimportant and another will make a huge difference later on, the device isn’t just inobvious– it doesn’t exist at all. I think this can be a good choice if introduced early into the book, or if they’re a constant presence.
Option 2– name the important ones. … I feel awkward about this method. It always seems painfully obvious who the returning characters are. Like the joke from Order of the Stick, “They won’t survive! They don’t even have names!” (link). It’s less weird if the main character has a reason to note one out of the group, say they’re looking at a girl he likes, or if something they do stands out. But that’s interaction as an individual, not as a part of the group.
Option 3– name no one. Make them all faceless. Last summer, I attended a fantasy-sci-fi conference in Spokane. One of the panels I attended included Timothy Zahn, of Star Wars fame, discussing villains in stories, and we made a comment that a lack of familiarity with the villain, not understanding who he is or his motivation makes said character less of a villain and more of a force of nature. Of course, this might be easier when you’re working with stormtroopers.
These are the techniques that come immediately to mind… but here’s what I want.
I want an immediate impression of a group as a whole. I want to be aware of the characters in a vague light, as tertiary characters ought to be seen, but ready to pop out, without being obvious which one will be used for plot, yet supported and foreshadowed.
Any thoughts on this?
jitters
I haven’t worked on my novel for two days– I’ve been scrambling to put together my materials for class.
I didn’t expect this. I’m terrified. What were they thinking, hiring me on?
Classes at the college start tomorrow, but mine is a Tuesday/Thursday class, so I’ve got one more day before I’m facing my first students at the head of the room. There’s also an online course, which I feel better about– just like blogging, with homework. Still, I was told very late that I’d be doing this, less than a week ago, and not all of my instructor information has come through, which means that I’ll have a syllabus with no office hours, personal campus phone, or even a college email. I’ve been rushing to review the lesson plans, even as I cut out the badly written sections out and replace them.
To go on top of everything else, I constantly get asked what high school I go to. I look like a fifteen year old. People keep trying to tell me that that’s secretly a good thing (after they’re done apologizing when I mention that I graduated from college years ago). It’s not when all the eligibly men assume at a glance that you’re jailbait, or when you blend in perfectly with your students. Just one more thing to worry about.
I usually keep a rule that I don’t talk about my personal life on this blog, but I needed to rant. It’ll be back to books when I’m comfortable again.
burning sulfur
So, I’m up late writing. And because of the events in my book (underground city, some volcanic activity) I needed to know what happened when sulfur gets set on fire. I knew it was flamable, but the color, for instance, and to what degree escaped me.
… Apparently, this is what happens: [link]
See those fantastic blue rivers glowing in the dark, halfway down the page? That’s liquid sulfur.
What an amazing effect.
mid-way blues– an adventure in writing
So, my last post about being slowed down at the end of writing a novel didn’t get the responses that I thought it would. I expected thoughts on procrastination and being a perfectionist. Instead, everyone else seems to hate middles.
They’re not alone. I remember that Steve Malley wrote a post about how much he hates middles (and preceding it, another post about how to get through that middle).
I remember once having trouble getting through the middle of my book. The first two drafts of Blue Crystal might have sunk the book if it weren’t for friends that talked me through the plot points. The middle of this draft gave me no trouble at all.
Personally, I think it’s because of the type of book that I’m writing. Even so, I thought I’d share what I’ve done, in case it helps anyone else out.
Halfway through Blue Crystal, a man is executed because of the heroine. Someone that she had decided not to trust because he was keeping secrets from her. The heroine is attacked, the hero goes out for revenge (not successful). A crooked judge is brought to light, and the king’s lenders are angry. There’s simply no time here to let the plot sag– there’s far too much going on. (And that’s less than half of the events in those middle pages.
When writing teachers diagram plot, they tend to use a rising mountain, a sharp climax, and then a drop off that curves to a nice resolution. It looks like this:
With no offense intended to creative writing teachers everywhere, this diagram really never did it for me. These were characters and situations that you cared about– not a graph of overall anxiety. And from a compositional standpoint, one has to wonder if this chart is even misleading.
Instead of thinking of the story as a mountain hike, I think it does better if seen as a series of beginnings and endings. One problem is resolved, and another rears its nasty head. One character takes an interest in one aspect of their troubles, another looks elsewhere. Perhaps both are aspects of the same source. Maybe they’re unrelated, but the conflict of interest between characters creates a new conflict.
Something more like this.
Try not having a middle. Try having little climaxes everywhere.
01-09-2009: word of the day
January 9th, 2009
extemporaneous
adj : with little or no preparation or forethought; “his ad-lib comments showed poor judgment”; “an extemporaneous piano recital”; “an extemporary lecture”; “an extempore skit”; “offhand excuses”; “trying to sound offhanded and reassuring”; “an off-the-cuff toast”; “a few unrehearsed comments” [syn: ad-lib, extemporary, extempore, offhand, offhanded, off-the-cuff, unrehearsed]
01-07-2009: word of the day
January 7th, 2009
lackadaisical
adj 1: lacking spirit or liveliness; “a lackadaisical attempt”; “a languid mood”; “a languid wave of the hand”; “a hot languorous afternoon” [syn: dreamy, languid, languorous]
2: idle or indolent especially in a dreamy way; “she was annoyingly lackadaisical and impractical”; “a… lackadaisical, spiritless young man-about-town” -P.G.Wodehouse
01-06-2009: word of the day
January 6th, 2009
centrifugal
adj 1: tending to move away from a center; “centrifugal force” [ant: centripetal]
2: tending away from centralization, as of authority; “the division of Europe into warring blocs produces ever-increasing centrifugal stress”
3: conveying information to the muscles from the CNS; “motor nerves”
fear of tension
I once read somewhere that the last 20% of a book is harder to write than all the 80% before it. I’ve been opening my book lately, rereading the last lines (right before a minor fight scene, major discovery, and pre-discussed setting), and I promptly freeze up and try to think of something else that I could do.
It’s a little like drawing. I have sketchbooks filled with character sketches, half-finished, because I’m too afraid to draw the second eye. I’m terrified that they won’t match and that I’ll have indented and smudged the paper if I get it wrong. There’s nothing worse than a very cool character that comes out cross-eyed.
I always do this before important scenes. I do this in drawing… I even do this when I’m reading. Sometimes it’s so hard to open up a book and read that first page. And when I do work up the nerve, I sit down and gush it all out at once, like a tsunami when the tide was due to come in. My goal for today is to end that scene… be it five hundred words or five thousand.
Anybody else run into this problem? How do you get over it?
