Arthur Gibson's Blog: A Journey In Mind, page 11

Viewpoint Preference

I have noticed more and more 1st person narratives being published. Personally, I have never liked the 1st person narrative. About the only one I liked was Michael A. Stackpole's "The Dark Glory War". The rest of the ones I have read have all had the same issue - for me.

I like an element of suspense in what I read. I do not want to know what happens next the first time I read a story. If there is a life and death situation, I like not knowing who - if anyone - is going to survive. I like not knowing if the bad guy will be caught. I remember when I first read the Sherlock Holmes stories how formula driven I thought they were until I got to "A Scandal in Bohemia". Imagine a Holmes story in which a woman outwitted him and got away. The bad guy won. I liked it. I like that element of discovering a story.

1st person writing is telling me what happened to you. Mostly previously. So if you are telling me the story of what happened, you obviously lived. I don't care how scary that guy with the gun is. I don't care that he tied you up. You are telling me yourself in past tense. I know you live. For me it takes away the element of unknown. It takes some fun out of it. This is not to say that they are not well written. Many of them are. I just like to not know anything.

Writing 1st person in present tense would eliminate this problem. Writing so that the reader and the writer seem to be experience the story at the same time. This is extremely hard to do. I don't know as I could hold it for anything longer than a short story. So I understand why the tenses are used. It is just not my personal preference.

I like being able to see into everyone's heads. I like not knowing what is happening - not even that the characters will live or not. But it is just a personal preference. And as Mr. Stackpole demonstrated to me there are always exceptions to the rule.

Who Are You Trying To Reach?

I don't know what other people like to do. I like to keep my target audience in mind as I write. The reason is that a few years ago I wrote a book just to get out the storyline. Then when it came time to try and push it, I realized that so much of the material was inappropriate for the target audience. I ended up having to re-write it a dozen times just to make it flow well once my cuts were made. It was tedious and by the end I was tired of the story. It was still fine, but I was tired of seeing it in front of me. Not the thing you want to feel.

I am a believer that stories need to be told. If you have it inside of yourself, you should get it out. Why not? That is what we do as writers. It is part of who we are. You want to know if you are a writer? Try not writing - even in your head - for a day or two. If you can't, then you're a writer lol. So we have stories inside ourselves that need to get out. We should let them out. I do not believe in not writing something just because it doesn't fit with your usual readers or the audience you prefer. That isn't what I mean.

Say you have an adventure story. Who do you want to read it? Adults? Children? Young Adults? If you keep in mind who your audience is as a guideline then you can do a lot of as you go editing. For example, that foul mouthed detective? If it is a children's book then maybe he can just be bad tempered and you can tone down or cut out any language darn it. That couple that seem to be coming together? Maybe they don't need a full on sex scene. Maybe making out will suffice. That is the kind of thing I mean. If you want to reach a certain audience, you need to tailor it to their needs and what they can handle.

However, sometimes you can't do that. Sometimes that detective just can't help swearing. It is who he is. Sometimes that passionate moment needs to be more than a kiss but still less than porn. In those moments of passion, as they progress, plot develops. In these cases it is simply a matter of the story needing a certain audience. Maybe you are a children's author. That is what you love. But for some reason there is a story nagging at you. You play with it, but discount it because it is very much not appropriate for children. That is ok. Write it anyway. Step out of your comfort zone and explore your craft. Ian Fleming is well known as an adventure writer. But the creator of James Bond also wrote a beloved children's story: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

It is not always bad to step outside of your frame and write out of the box. You never know what kind of jem is lurking there.

Check Their Work

Editing. It can be a hassle. It also frequently becomes the forest for the trees. Working on the same piece all the time gives us familiarity. That is useful. Your characters become friends. You know what they are thinking and what they will do. You know how they will react. It helps to keep us consistent. But that same familiarity keeps us from always seeing the flaws. And there are flaws.

The flaws can be grammatical. They can be timeline issues. They can be possession issues (Bob owned a car in chapter 2, but in chapter 5 he is borrowing one because he has no vehicle). They can be spelling. They can even be the right spelling, but the wrong word. As a writer a lot of those errors will be caught in editing. But we can get so familiar with the project that we lose sight of some of them. We gloss over them when we read because we know what they should be. We see the forest, but not the trees.

Get an editor. Preferably a professional. Just don't trust them completely. Check their work. Just like you would yours. A professional needs to be someone you trust will not slaughter your baby. They are there to edit and advise and make your story better. Just don't assume they are perfect. Don't assume that because you are paying them that they will not make a mistake here or there. They could. They are human. And it is ok if they miss something. They will find a lot more that you can tweak and fix. You will end up with a better project. You will be happy. Just read through the whole thing again with a fine-toothed comb.

I have made the error of not doing that. It sucks. You end up with something that has minor errors in it. And it bugs you. Or at least it bugs me. Some of the errors might not be noticed. Some might. They all might. I know that many of the books I read have some error of some kind in them. Printing errors, editing errors, you name it. None of us are infallible and neither are the machines we create. But that does not mean we should slack off and be complacent. That does not mean that we should not do our level best to produce the cleanest manuscript we can at every stage. The better we edit and triple-check the better our end product is. Check everything twice. If Santa can do it, so can you.

Great Intentions, Lack of Ability :)

So barely a day passed and I missed another day, lol. No point in giving an excuse to myself. It just didn't happen. This is going to be MUCH harder than I thought. But the journey is the reward so I will continue to plug onward.

Are You a Backwards Traveller?

Everyone plots their books differently. Forward, backward, middle. Some start from the hooking idea. Some from the characters. As long as your way gets you to home plate then there is no right way.

I have a tendency to keep in mind where I would like to go. Nothing firm, just an idea of what I would like to see. Then I create the main characters. I try to find something in their personalities that will either bind them together or make them argue. Something to keep them interesting and/or real in their relationship. Then I write the inciting incident and let them go. Much like a child in a toy store - or any store for that matter - they go all over the place. When I edit I trim and cut and direct them. But in the first draft they go wild. I do gently prod them towards the finish line, but mostly I let them do whatever they want. I find it more spontaneous for myself and some interesting things end up happening. It feels more like performing improv than it does forming a plot.

Once I have a first draft, then I take a breather for a day or two. I firmly fix in my mind where I want them to end up. And I re-read the first draft, editing or taking notes for editing as I go. I cut out some of the loose ends. I eliminate unproductive areas. I re-write stupid dialogue. Once I have done that, I have a draft that can be worked. Then I go into proper editing mode until I am satisfied. Once I am satisfied, I get someone else to do an editing pass (get someone good and look over their work - more on that in the future). Then I have a "finished" product.

However, that is just the usual process. Sometimes I get this thing in my head. And it is a frustrating thing. It is a scene. Often in vivid detail. And it is the end of the piece. It is usually perfect in tone, theme, dialogue, etc. Everything you could want in a polished and consistent ending. Unfortunately this usually leaves me with a clear end, an inciting incident, a few characters, and a middle that is a great blank expanse of nothingness.

That is when I start being a backwards traveller. It is a long and arduous process. There is a lot of "how did he get that?" and "if she says this, why would she have said that?" Sometimes they lead back to the beginning. Other times the beginning has to be altered. Sometimes the story stays the same. Other times I end up with a completely different tale. It would be like seeing in your head the scene in Lord of The Rings where Golem and the ring fall into the pit and get destroyed. That is the scene you have. All you know is that the ring was picked up by Bilbo your previous book The Hobbit and you think you have some good characters in a relative of Bilbo (Frodo) and his gardener (Samwise). Now start at the scene in Mt. Doom and work backwards through the plot of The Lord of The Rings. Not an easy thing to do. Luckily, I have not tried the backwards traveller in any of my more epic storylines. But that is the idea.

For me, I find it harder to end up with a first draft that I can then work forward. But sometimes that is the only way to work. Some people prefer it. Some hate it. In the end, as long as your process works for you then it is right.

Missed One

Well, yesterday I missed a blog post. Since I started the challenge to write a post every day I have been doing well. But yesterday I missed one. No big "X" on the calendar for me. I did manage to do some writing on my own, so I get a small "x". I had not thought it would be an issue to write a post every day. My problem was not the writing, but the maintaining of internet access. I hope that this little issue will not cause more problems with my goal of a daily post.

Point Form

The most frustrating thing about a first draft for me is that by the time that I am done it feels like point form. I look over what I have written and I think that I have just touched on all the things I wanted to. That I haven't really "written" anything yet. Inevitably that leads me to go back and flesh out everything. Sometimes that means re-writing everything.

One of my personal pet peeves about writing is when writers tell you something instead of showing it to you. They say things like "She told him she wasn't interested" or "After a few comments, he relented". I do acknowledge that summary is essential to writing. If we wrote down everything our characters said and did it would be boring. Four pages of how Bob ate beans might be fascinating but it would put your readers to sleep. But there is a distinct difference between summary and brushing over.

Brushing over is what my first draft often feels to me. That I have told the main points of the story, but not shown anything. I don't want to summarize my story. I want to show it. To let the characters talk and feel and breathe on the page. To help the readers forget that they are looking at a printed page and let them see the pictures in their head. To almost give them the feeling of watching an internal movie instead of just reading a book.

If a conversation can happen, why not let it? Give the characters their voice. Let their personalities show through. It can give dimension to a book. And it helps us understand our characters more. Helps us make their actions match their personality. Every time we let a piece of the puzzle expand, it makes a better story. A fuller and more realized vision.

At least until we need to prune.

It is a long, long, long, long, long way to the period.

The number one issue I have seen with some of my own writing and the writing of a lot of people is run on sentences. We try to give every description or feeling we can and pack it into each sentence. I don't know if we are just enthusiastic or if we want to make a rich tapestry. But whatever it is, what we end up with are sentences that can make the reader feel like they are running a marathon.

In writing, more is not always better. But pace is. Shorter sentences can do that. We can make it seem like we are racing against a clock. We can make it seem like there is no end in sight. It is all about where we place the punctuation and the emphasis. The shorter the sentence, the faster the pace. The longer, the slower. Sometimes breaking up a description from one long list to a series of observations make that description clearer. It does what we want it to do. It paints a rich and vivid picture. Readers can stroll along our words and see how they are building things up.

Whenever I catch myself running on, it is hard to stop. I usually have to walk away for a few moments to give myself some perspective. Then I can come back and chop things up. Sometimes it is easy. Other times the chopping tends to form new words and directions. That is when I have to force myself on track again. But the end result is so much better it is worth it.

That is not to say that there is not a place for a longer sentence. Keeler seems to me to write little else but long running sentences. But that is his style. And if it is yours, then more power to you. It takes courage and talent to sustain it in a way that is enjoyable and readable. But it is possible. Still, I prefer the shorter sentences. I find it easier to control the direction of the story. I also love that when I do use the occasional longer sentence it really stands out. Which is always the best reason for breaking a rule.

Setting

Setting is the easiest and hardest thing to get right. In essence it is the set, the backdrop of your character play. Do it right and it works to make the characters more real. Do it right and no one really notices it. Do it wrong and it becomes so obvious that it takes away from your work.

You could set it in the real world in a real place. I used to think that was easy. But I found when I did that I was automatically listing too many real things. It wasn't like reading a story, it was like reading a travel book.

You could set it in the real world in a fictional place. Sometimes I think that this is the easiest. You can use the real world around you, but you can also change things to suit yourself. You do have to follow some basic rules (like not putting a river in the middle of the downtown core), but mostly you can stretch things to suit yourself.

You can set it in an entirely made up place. This can be easy to set because you can make things just the way you want them to be. The difficulty comes in not overdoing it. When you are creating new words every second sentence - or maybe several times in the same sentence - it is cumbersome. Readers spend so much time trying to figure out what you are describing that they are distracted from the plot.

You can set it in an alternate timeline. Maybe Cromwell took over the world. Maybe Napoleon won. Maybe the Russian revolution did not succeed. Maybe Castro invaded America. Who knows. But sometime changed the timeline or the dress or the technology that we find around us. Much the same as a made up world, it is only when we overstress it that it has problems. Steampunk can be fun to write, but not if you mention that everything runs on this or that type of engine every time your characters move around.

You can set it in the future or the past or some other time than the present. And again, the same rules apply. Overdoing it is bad.

In essence, setting is something to be brushed in a background. Things or terms that the reading audience will understand and respond to is all that it takes. You mention gaslight in the streets, buggies going past, and a zeppelin taking off behind the cityscape and your readers will know that you are in a different time. Subtle, basic strokes of the pen do a lot more than globs of ink all over the page.

I Didn't Know She Was Like That

The thing that I enjoy best about writing is meeting my characters. They are always different than I think. They arrive in my head and I craft them. They are going to look like this, they are going to act like that, they are going to do this, etc. But in the end it is different. Writing is so organic. It is so much about feel. You have a character do or say something and it just seems off. You change it and it is right again. I love it when some new thing comes along and all of a sudden aspects of their personality click into place. Take Alexdria.
She is a twenty-something student of oceanography. She has been conned by her professor into taking a summer internship with Ben Arnet. He used to be something in his field. But he is burnt out now. Hasn't published a thing in years. But she seemed to protest the opportunity a lot more than I expected. Well, the only way to get out to the Ahseak Institute where Dr. Arnet works in by zeppelin. And it turns out that Alexdria has a fear of flying. Absolutely terrified. No wonder she protested.
It may not seem like anything big, but a fear of flying is a beautiful facet of character. Why does she have the fear? Is there a tragedy in her past? Is it just a sense of vertigo? Is it just something she has always had? How will it affect her internship? Will it limit her choices in career? It just lends it self to so many possibilities.
I think the best character building advice I can give is not to stick so closely to your drawing board that you end up with cardboard characters. Let them live. Let them breathe. Let them surprise you. In the end they will be fuller, more dynamic, and real to you and your readers.