Roz Morris's Blog, page 116

Should you use real life in your novels?

How do you make good stories out of real life?

S hould you change things?

 This week, a picture popped into my inbox. It's a frame from the manga graphic novel Cloud 109, the latest WIP by artist Peter Richardson and writer David Orme. Peter sent it because he's put me and Dave into the background as a cameo.

This is something arty folk do regularly, of course; we're forever using each other as cameos and walk-ons in our stories.

But this is only for cameos. Not main characters.

In fact, this topic has been hot all week. Mysteries writer Elizabeth Craig started it when she asked, should you write about people you know? Non-writers assume that everything we write is recycled from our own lives – but they don't realise how much invention is added. The debate carried on on Twitter, where the consensus from writers was this: sometimes real people go into novels, but if they are to play major parts, they require a lot of tweaking. What comes out is not necessarily that similar to the raw materials that went in.

No character from real life, however remarkable, is going to be completely suitable just as they are.

And that's just when they start off in the story. If characters are to be explored in any great depth they will probably – and should – evolve as the story goes. They may surprise you, develop a will of their own – that oft-repeated phrase 'the characters took over'. Not only do they do what they want, they go through their own changes which you can't necessarily predict when you start.

To use real life well in a novel, you have to allow everything to go its own way.

This doesn't just apply to characters, but also to events.

I used to go to a critique group, and one week a lady read from her novel about a couple divorcing. There were many scenes featuring bitter arguments. Everyone agreed the characters' distress was plain to see but following it all was difficult. We started to make suggestions that would help us find a way in – so that we could engage with the characters and why they were so upset with each other. There were suggestions to amalgamate two characters, show some of the other person's point of view, tone down the villainous behaviour. Every comment was answered with 'but I can't change that, it's what really happened'.

Really, she was writing the novel as therapy, so telling it exactly as she saw it was the point. Inviting the reader to become involved was not her purpose.

But if inviting the reader in is your purpose, you have to be prepared to change things.

You have to know the difference between real truth and dramatic truth. Dramatic truth is universal, in some ways it is about us all. Real truth is messy, overblown, particular to one situation. For instance, coincidences – in real life they happen all the time. In novels coincidences usually look like lazy storytelling. In real life, people behave in ways we will probably never understand. Real life is a terrible template for a story – it only gets away with it because we can't turn it off.

Truth is stranger than fiction – or, if you're a storyteller, fiction cannot be as messy and strange as truth. In a novel, the reader knows you have made up the events – therefore the events themselves are not as important as what they signify, or their part in a coherent whole. This is an absolute rule, no matter what kind of material you are basing your novel on – and I've helped clients make novels out of truly horrific childhoods, which you might think gave the writer a free pass for the reader's indulgence.

If you're basing a story or characters on real life, don't get hung up on what really happened. You are not giving evidence for the police. When you write fiction, no matter what you are making it out of, you cross a line. Telling the real truth isn't your job. Telling the dramatic truth is. 

If you're going to write about real life, be prepared to let it change to make a better story.

Writing for your day job is nothing like writing a novel

Many of us have day jobs in which we might

have to write. Not just journalists; a lot of

us might have to write reports, presentations

or other documents. But when you write

your novels, you have a lot to unlearn

I've had a question from the enigmatically named Caretaker of the Mind, who writes the blog Sanctuary of Insanity. He noticed my biog says I trained as a journalist, and writes: 'I'm a journalist who would love to make the jump to novel-writing. Was it hard to make the transition?'

My answer, in a nutshell: yes.  

When I started writing fiction, there were a number of journalistic habits I had to unlearn. And not just because in fiction I was allowed to make it all up (I was the well-behaved type of journalist with respect for the facts).

I'll come to those journalistic habits in a moment, but first, here are two major differences between the way I approach fiction and articles.

Difference 1 – the reader's journey

Journalists – and anyone who writes reports or presentations – learn this guiding principle: 'Tell them what you're going to say, say it, then tell them you said it.'

Fiction observes this three-step principle to an extent – themes and concerns are evident early on and the end seems to arise out of the beginning.

But the way fiction does this is not the same at all.

Reports and articles take the reader on a straightforward journey. In fiction, I do anything but. I use deliberate twists and turns. The character may start out thinking they want something, then decide they really want something else, then change their mind again, then decide none of it was important compared to the new problem that has arisen… and finally may end up back where they started and feel they have finally found the right place (or wrong place).

Draw a diagram of the reader's journey through an article or presentation, and it will be a straight line. Statement, development, conclusion. Draw a diagram of the reader's journey through a novel, and there will be ups, downs, reversals, circles. It may end up where it started.

A satisfying novel that really takes the reader on a journey will not be a straight line. (If it is, it's known as a linear plot – and will seem plodding and predictable.)

Difference 2 – the relationship with the reader

In an article or report I present facts, issues and ideas. In a novel I am working on the reader at deeper levels – and not always straightforwardly. I can be subtle and manipulative. I might plant an ending, then misdirect like a conjurer so that the reader doesn't see it. I might be biased or an unreliable narrator. I might make the reader love a character and then do something really unpleasant to them.

In a report or article, I attempt to be balanced, concise, reliable and authoritative. In a novel, I can, if I want, be anything but. Nya-ha-harrgh.  

 

 

Two journalism habits I had to unlearn to write novels

1 I had to avoid condensing the process of change. In novels, change is gradual.

Journalism – and other types of report – tend to be very condensed. When I've critiqued first novels by journalists one of the key problems is that characters often change suddenly. For instance, an errant boyfriend is given a talking-to by a wise friend and in the next scene he's changed his ways.

In an article or a report I might well show such a progression as a sharp contrast. But in a novel, I would make change gradual, spread out over the book. I would also have the character strenuously resist, which is why it is a challenge that makes a good story, with ups and downs. It's the meandering journey in our diagram – and it takes some time.

2 I had to stop using scenes and dialogue to convey only a focussed message

Reports and articles are written with a 'message' in mind. Quotes from sources and interviewees are used to back the message up. I had to forget all about this when I started writing scenes with dialogue.

The 'reporting' way to use dialogue is to cut to the chase – showing only what is necessary to back up an argument. For novels, I learned to add details that my journalistic brain would strike out as irrelevant. How the speaker behaved while saying the words, what the room was like, what complexities and contradictions give clues about the person. I might add details like what the weather was doing, or sounds that could be heard in the distance – anything that might externalize what the character isn't saying, or thicken the atmosphere. All these details allow the reader to immerse and feel they are making up their own mind. Of course, you may want to direct the reader strongly – after all, some narrators are highly judgemental. But I've seen a lot of first novels that stop the characters coming alive on the page because they are presenting the action to the reader already digested.

 If you've learned to write in a reporting or presentational kind of way, these principles are great for their purpose – but they can stop your novel being a rich, involving experience. Here's how to liberate your prose:

1 – make the journey purposeful, but tangled

2 – be unreliable, biased and manipulative

3 -  be lengthy

4 – make all the irrelevant details relevant

(See what I did there?)

Have you had to unlearn any writing habits in order to write fiction?
 
 

 

Revising my novel: baby steps help me take giant strides

I'm revising my WIP and I don't think I have ever
cut a draft so brutally or reworked so radically.

Here's what I've been doing and why
 
I'm on my second draft of Life Form 3. There is way more material on the cutting room floor than there is in the manuscript. My first draft was an improvisation around a detailed synopsis. When I assessed it with my beat sheet – my favourite tool for planning revisions – it came out with the following diagnosis: strong character arc, submerged in meandering lovely bits and too much back story. And way too complicated.

More than anything else, I needed to tell the character's journey more simply. But how would I get my head out of all the byways, the bits I needed to explain, the flashbacks? It was time, as James Killick wrote in a wise post this week (Rewriting – when to take the nuclear option), for drastic measures.

Dave said, why don't you rewrite Life Form 3 as a fairy tale? Once upon a time there was a character, and this happened, and he began to wonder, and so he did this… And so on.

It was quite a brilliant suggestion, which is why you are being treated to a picture of him.

Beginning

I split the story into thirds at the three most dramatic points and wrote the fairy tale version from memory. I ignored my draft and the notes of stuff I wanted to add.

Whatever I could remember off the top of my head went into the fairy tale version.

Once I'd got to the first major dramatic point I went to my draft to see what details should go back in, always distilling it to something simple and fairytale. I ended up with a strong storyline that really knew where it was going.

Once that was ready I gave the riffing draft a new name – 'rushes'. I started a new master text file and cut together a new draft using the fairytale synopsis as a route map. I wrote acres of new material too.

Middle

Beginning done, I tackled the middle third. With that came more complications, because by then there were more routes to each destination.

I really listened to my instincts. There were days when the story would pull me to the keyboard with a magnetic force. There were others when my confidence flatlined and I wondered if the whole thing was an idiotic waste of time. But then I'd look back a few pages, as India Drummond was discussing in another wise post this week (Don't sit down in the woods), and I'd see that the weakness had only just crept in. What went before was smokin. I'd pace around clutching my hair and scaring the postman, trying to figure out what to do. I'd write reams of notes, play guessing games – if I do this, will it feel right?

Every time I retraced my steps, it was for one of the following reasons:

The scene was being pushed in a direction that it wouldn't go.
I was inventing something new when there was already something elsewhere in the story that would do the job and be more satisfying
The scene seemed trivial but in fact was disappointing me because it needed to be given more time and space  

I always knew when I'd groped my way to the right solution. It was as if the characters would say, that's what we were trying to do all along. Thank goodness you realised.

End

Middle done, I started on the final third.

That was most painful. I'd written a big fireworks finale in my riffing draft. It contained a lot of inventive scenes that I was very attached to, but it kept bothering me.

After several weeks of bad hair days, I got it. Although the final outcome was what I wanted, the way it happened didn't fit. Mere revising wasn't going to be enough.

Well thanks, muse. Thank you very much. I junked the entire section and found myself facing a blank page. Back to guessing games.

The solution came to me over several slow weeks. First of all I had an idea that seemed no more than another neat surprise. Then the more I explored it, the more it offered – until I realized it was the key to everything. In the first and second parts of the story I had pushed all these boulders up a hill and now there were holes ready for them to drop into. Many of them, I hadn't even realized were waiting for holes. My next task will be making a list of elements that need to be strengthened now I know how the ending happens. 

So what is on the cutting room floor?

Developments I was convinced would be big reveals, but now clutter the story. They might be downgraded to a pleasant footnote. It's amazing how, at the time I thought of them, they seemed mega important.
Darlings galore – some very funny sequences with sparky writing, which I now realise were me feeling my way. This book is built on a heap of the rubbish that was taken out, but helped me get to what should happen.  
The whole last third. I'm a bit traumatised because there was a lot there that I liked. But now I've found the right thing to put in its place, I'm no longer tempted to shoehorn any of it in. Which is how I know I've found the right solution.

In this revision I've added a few tools to my arsenal for revising my novels

Renaming my first draft as 'rushes' – the scenes can go in any order and may not be used at all
The fairy tale version

Are you revising a novel at the moment? How's it going?

For a bonus point, suggest a suitable caption for the picture of Dave