From the Archives: "Telling" is Another Word for "Let Me Explain"

I've been having trouble with spam-robot-clicker-commenters on my blog, so am deleting and reposting some of the older, popular content they seem to have connected to.

As you were.

I do a lot of critiquing for unpublished writers. I also do a lot of critiquing for published and repped writers. There's one crucial difference I see almost every time:

Unpublished writers often haven't learned to trust the reader's ability to gather what's going on. Even the very good ones often show the plot, character development, emotion, etc, then proceed to tell the reader how to interpret it.

What do I mean by that?  Example:

"Come with me," Carl said, so quietly I wondered if I'd imagined it. He leaned closer, lips at my ear. "Come with me." His fingers closed on my arm, as if he could force me. Drag me along.

"I can't." It came out broken, betraying my desire to follow. I never wanted to let him go.

"You can-"

"No, Carl, you don't understand!" I stepped back, out of his hands, away from his lips. "They killed my mother. If they find out we're together, they'll kill you too." My voice shook, but I couldn't make it stronger. I was too afraid. Too desperate for him to find another answer that would let us stay together.

Carl eye's narrowed. "I can take care of myself. And you," he said, seemingly willing to dismiss my mother's death.

Now, read that again without the bolded, "telling" sentences:

"Come with me," Carl said, so quietly I wondered if I'd imagined it. He leaned closer, lips at my ear. "Come with me." His fingers closed on my arm.

"I can't." It came out broken.

"You can-"

"No, Carl, you don't understand!" I stepped back, out of his hands, away from his lips. "They killed my mother. If they find out we're together, they'll kill you too." My voice shook, but I couldn't make it stronger.

Carl eye's narrowed. "I can take care of myself. And you," he said.

It's the kind of writing tip you have to practice, but here some clues:

1. Using the words "as if".

2. Use the word(s) "seemed / seemingly / seems to".

3. Using the name of an emotion.

If you're using any of these in the process of describing the POV character's interpretation of another character, you might be telling the reader what to see. Now, obviously there are several situations in which these phrases or words can be used legitimately, but keep the above examples in mind. Train your eye to look for explanation, then delete it wherever possible.

And here's more food for thought: If you remove statements like those bolded above and the reader can't interpret what's going on, the problem is in your showing. Don't fall into the trap of explaining. Figure out how to make it clear in the action or dialogue, not author narration.

Your Turn: Are there any other words or phrases you think writers could search their manuscripts for to identify "telling"?

Mundane: The Cure for Melodrama

Melodrama -noun : A dramatic form that does not observe the laws of cause and effect and that exaggerates emotion and emphasizes plot or action at the expense of characterization.

Time for a dose of reality:  It's easy to write melodrama. 

No matter what genre you're writing (with the possible exception of those books my grandmother used to devour), melodrama is a curse.  It's the mark of an amateur. 

The good news is, there are some very straightforward antidotes to melodrama.  A couple years ago, when I'd just finished my first draft of my first book and submitted it my writers group, a generous published author offered to read for me.  I told her I knew my prologue was melodramatic, but wasn't sure how to fix it. 

Read the rest at YAtopia.

My Nomination for Best. Book. EVER

A couple weeks ago I had the finest reading experience of my life to date. The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay won't be to everyone's taste. But for this reader it was so close to perfect a knat could starve on the difference.

I'm not going to summarize the plot because, frankly, I suck at that. But, I will say that if you're a fan (or writer) of raw, contemporary YA, then The Sea of Tranquility is a Code Red Must Read. Buy it now. Then start reading it and try to stop. I dare you.

But I don't want to spend today expounding on TSoT (though, trust me, it's tempting). What I do want to do is get my analysis down on why I enjoyed it so thoroughly. Because I just read the book that achieves what I always wanted to achieve as a writer. So I'm going to pick it apart to see if I can replicate the result.

Below is my personal notes to myself about the reading experience. The Elements of Awesome I'm able to identify in the vain hope that one day I'll be That Good...


Element of Awesome #1 - Characters We Haven't Seen Before

This is pretty straight forward, but worth noting. As a reader, these characters are very, very real to me. Not just because I loved them, but because the writer achieved what I believe is the perfect balance between recognizable traits, and a unique blend with depth. I haven't seen Josh or Emilia before. Even Drew, who seems cookie cutter on first appearance, demonstrates actual depth (more on this later).

In other words, if I want to write a book like this, I can't just take these characters and make them my own. I need to find my own people, my own set of talents and fears and flaws for them. I can't rely on tropes, or just flip them over. I have to design real people.


Element of Awesome #2 - There Are Surprises

The character I mentioned above, Drew, is the primary example of this, but the book is full of them: People or plot points that you think you can anticipate. BUT YOU CAN'T (trust me on this).

Drew walks on to the page in typical Man-whore style -- and lives up to that trope the first few times we meet him. But by the end of the book I just want to squeeze him and sit on a couch with him and bask in the brilliance of who he is. And he isn't even the hero of the tale!

So if I want to write a book like this, not only do I have to keep my characters unique, I have to take people and story points in directions no one would anticipate after they'd read the first six chapters. And I do mean no one.


Element of Awesome #3 - Technical Brilliance

There's no way around it, Katja Millay has a turn of phrase, a wit and a vocabulary (on both ends of the mannerly scale) that provide a shiny vehicle for this story. And maybe this is what sets TSoT apart from other stories that have grabbed me by the shoulders and shaken me until I finished the last page: The writing is stellar. It's clever. It's funny. It's emotional. There's no telling. No explanations. No over-emphasis of important points, no faux ex machina. My OCD internal editor didn't even cough.

So, if I want to write a book that engages readers the way this one does, I've got work to do. No more short cuts. No more "hope for the best". No more giving up on a difficult paragraph. I have to get good. Real good.


Element of Awesome #4 - The Plot Vehicles Didn't Rev Their Engines

Let's face it, in every story there are elements of the plot that just can't occur unless some other circumstance is in place. In YA it's usually the marginalization or removal of adult authority figures.

Katja does that too, but in such a way that the removal of those figures drives the entire book. The motives and circumstances of this story aren't just convenient, they're critical. Literally, the story couldn't occur unless these unique circumstances were in place.

So if I want to write a book that feels this solid, I've can't just figure out the shortest route from A to B. I've got to identify The Imperative. What set of circumstances must be in place to force this story to happen?

No more leaning on traditional, expected vehicles. I've got to find the real life equivalent and use it to drive my characters from beginning to end.


And last, but not least: Element of Awesome #5 - Emotion

I'm not sure I can explain this, but I'm going to try.

At one point, about halfway through the book, when the characters were firmly ensconced in my heart, and I was wholly invested in their lives, a very quiet, very unobtrusive paragraph opened a new chapter.

Six or seven lines. Nothing dramatic.

And I wept. Literally.

It wasn't because the author had thrown down a literary gauntlet and pulled the tears from my eyes. It wasn't because a massive, emotional reveal had just occurred. It was because she'd used the pages before that moment to make the characters so real to me, that when one of them told me an anticipated event had occurred, I cried for how I knew the character must feel. My emotions were so completely engaged, I reacted to this character just as I would have a true, dear friend.

I was moved.

Frankly, I don't have a clue how to replicate this impact. It is the part of this book that blows my mind into the next solar system. But I have a feeling it has something to do with depicting your characters in such a way that they look, sound, and act like real people. Like people I could run into on the street any day of the week.


So that's it... those are the things I learned from reading this incredible book, then thinking about it for five days straight afterward.

Like I said, the story itself may not be your cup of tea. But if you're writing YA, I'd seriously consider it an important part of your study of the craft of fiction.

This book rules.

Katja Millay is my new hero(ine).

Your Turn: Have you read anything lately that achieved what you're aiming for in your book? What did you learn from it?

Keep Your Writing "Active" - PART II: Motivating Stimulus and Reaction

Last week we talked about Scene and Sequel as a structure to keep your story driving forward, your characters moving.

This week I want to drop into the details of each scene written in that structure, and talk about Motivating Stimulus and Reaction.

Motivating Stimulus: Anything external to the focal character to which he must react.

Reaction: An appropriate response to the motivating stimulus (through feeling, action, and / or speech).

Again, I'm going to keep this simplified for the ease of understanding, but here's a few cues to help:

Read the rest at YAtopia.

Keep Your Writing "Active" - PART I: Scene & Sequel

I'm only going to be able to touch on the basics of this topic. Trust me, there's a lot more to it (which is why you need to scoot out and buy Dwight V. Swain's Techniques of the Selling Writer forthwith). But I'm happy to answer questions at the end if anything is unclear.

Writer's talk about "scene" a lot. The pivotal scene. The opening scene. The climactic scene... but did you know that there are multiple kinds of scenes (on a technical level), and that they build on each other like bricks on a house?

Today when I use the word "scene", I don't necessarily mean the traditional definition:

"A division of a story, or of an act of a story, usually representing what passes between certain characters in one place."

When I use the word "scene" in this post, I'm talking about a traditional scene within which:

1. There is a stated goal.
2. A conflict or obstacle occurs.
3. Events take an unexpected turn, thwarting the original goal.

These three elements are the building blocks of your technical "scenes". Unless a scene includes these elements, it isn't a technical scene, it is sequel or transition.

("Say what?" You say?)

In the most basic sense, a novel is made up of ever-increasingly complicated, intertwining scene and sequels.

Scene is defined above. Every book should open with a scene which includes those elements.

Following a scene thusly defined, the reader requires Sequel:

1. Reaction to the events in the scene.
2. Consideration of a new course (mulling your options).
3. Decision / Determination of a new goal.

Do you see how this might become a cycle?

Here, let me show you:
 
Hopefully that demonstrates how scene and sequel work. I'm keeping it very simple, just so we can become familiar with the foundational structure. Obviously, the more skilled you become in using the structure, the more intrinsically you can combine them - giving one character a reaction, consideration and decision during the midst of a parallel goal, conflict, unexpected event. Or take one character through their conflict and event, while another reacts to the previous scene... and so on.

The important thing to note is: If your novel seems to be getting off track, or you're losing readers one hundred pages in, it may be because you've haven't been employing this structure.

Without them knowing it, this is the structure that draws a reader inexorably forward into your story. With the constant understanding of what the main characters are aiming for, the reader is able to gauge whether or not the story is going well. Because you keep introducing conflict, thwarting the goals, and changing them, tension builds. The reader starts to wonder, will the couple get together? Will the murderer catch his prey? Will the dictator kille everyone we're coming to care about?

 If you're receiving feedback that your pace is dragging, the reader isn't connecting with the characters, or the story feels aimless, try reading through your manuscript with this formula in mind. Identify the moments when your characters haven't stated their goals. Make sure every time something happens, the reader gets a chance to hear (or more importantly, see) how the character feels about it. Make sure your conflicts are organic, and throwing the main characters out of their chosen course.

Then start the whole process again.

Your Turn: Any questions? Do you understand why this structure will keep your story on point? Are you uncertain how to apply any of the elements?