Taven Moore's Blog, page 26

[Perry] Bleakness In Fiction

Note: The following post contains spoilers for The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb

You know the thing that happens when you incorporate a new friend into a group of friends you commonly hang out with?

It’s like the process of osmosis, or homogenization. Some of their speech and mannerisms get absorbed and tossed around within the group while some of the groups little slangs and methods of speech rub off on the new guy.

Hopefully, you guys know what I’m talking about or the rest of this may not make as much sense as I hope.

I’ve found that over the past year or two, Tami’s taste in books has been rubbing off on me.

Well, that’s not exactly right.

It’s not quite her taste in books…but more like…the things that bug her in novels has started to bug me too? Which struck me as odd as I’d never even noticed it before.

For one example? Take jargon.

Tami has a strong dislike of books that over-introduce many new words and phrases to describe things. Too much jargon waters down the story…and I agreed with her until she brought up Sanderson’s Mistborn series as an example.

Whoa, hold up a second there. Don’t you be hating.

But I went back through the Mistborn trilogy, and Sanderson’s other works as a reread and I’ll be damned if all the made up words and phrases didn’t start to stick in my craw as well.

In a similar fashion, I think that association with me has eased her dislike of the first person perspective a little. Not to the point where she’d seek it out, but I don’t think she minds it quite as much as she used to.

And now? I think another one of her reading tastes have rubbed off onto my own:

Bleakness.

When we first started talking, bleakness in a story was something that bothered her that didn’t bother me at all.

In fact, not half a year ago, I put up a post on this very site, talking about how it bleakness could be beneficial at times.

I just finished reading The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb. As I finished off the third book, I realized that it left a horrendous taste in my mouth and I thought about the reasons why.

The Books

I enjoyed the first book, felt a little let down by the second, and wanted to chuck the third one across the room.

The main character, Fitz, his situation just constantly goes from bad to worse. There’s never a reprieve, there’s never a happy moment. He literally mopes and is depressed and is acted on for the twenty or thirty years of his life that the trilogy covers.

Oh, and the few times he DOES reach for agency and tries to do something? He gets it pounded into him that everything he did made every situation infinitely worse…and it’s all his fault.

It is goddamned depressing to read about this character just getting shit on for three books and all the years of his life. And to be honest? This isn’t even taking into consideration the deus ex DRAGONS! ending of the series, or the ridiculous characters that appear in the third book BECAUSE REASONS.

I can get into my gripes with those in the comments if anyone’s interested, but the point I’m trying to make here is that the bleakness has started to get to me.

The Difference

You know what I think it is?

I think the difference is in the character’s intent.

When it comes to certain times of grimdark, always bleak books…there are some that I don’t mind (and actually fully endorse), and now these that I’m starting to find intensely annoying and difficult to read.

In some examples I’ve listed in the past, namely, the things by Jeff Somers, his characters are ground in the goddamned dirt.

But there’s a difference.

Fitz gets ground into the dirt and he just…fucking whines like a little bitch. He mopes and moans his way across the years of his life and across the country. And when he finally gets to the end? And finds out that his friends have sold out his daughter “for the good of the kingdom”, he doesn’t even fucking FIGHT. He just…..gets all depressed, and sighs, and takes it.

He JUST TAKES IT, after whining and bitching about how it’s not fair throughout the entire book, he just sits there and takes it.

Reading the third book of the trilogy was like watching a dog getting kicked around by a bully with steel-toed boots. It was like walking down the street and just watching, as a bunch of jackasses taunted and picked on a homeless man on the street.

Not pleasant at all…but already halfway through the third book, I felt like I’d come too far to stop at that point.

Bleakness Done Well

Here’s the thing. With Avery Cates? With the main character from Trickster? Hell, even with Harry goddamned Dresden. All of these characters just…get totally shit on by the universe. It gets dark at times, there are many points where the character wants to give up…

But they don’t.

I think that’s the key.

Looking back on the books I’ve read, anytime I’ve felt that bleakness and that grimdark style was done well? It’s because of the…like….it’s because of the indomitable WILL of the character in question.

Dresden doesn’t take shit lying down. Sure, people heap shit on him from all sides, but he just grits his teeth and refuses to take it lying down. He screams his defiance into the void and rages against the demons and critters that are trying to ruin his life.

Avery Cates? He’s not as flashy, not as much of a bonfire as Dresden is, but in his own way, he fought. Sure, his situation just went from bad to horrifically worse as the books went on. But he never gave up. In his own quiet way, he slogged along, doing what he could to not let the horrendous situation get to him.

These characters, these defiant madmen don’t stand for this shit.

When life hands Fitz lemons, he rolls over and shows his belly. He begs life to tell him what to do so that he won’t get anymore lemons, and of course, that doesn’t do shit. Life is a cold and implacable taskmaster and doesn’t care about his whimpering and whining.

When life hands Avery or Dresden lemons? They don’t whine and beg. They don’t make lemonade. They cut the lemons in half and go for life’s throat, grinding the lemons into life’s fucking eyes to teach her not to fuck with them.

That’s the difference.

That’s a type of grimdark, bleak on bleak situation I can get behind because the character doesn’t give up. And when the character refuses, absolutely refuses, to give in, we readers don’t give up either. We fight with them, and we suffer with them because we KNOW that they’re suffering but we also KNOW that they’re doing what they can to pull through to the light.

A character like Fitz? Makes me feel like I’m trapped in the quicksand with him and he’s just…”Oh well, we might as well kill ourselves cause we’re not getting out of this anyway.”

It’s depressing and fucking stupid.

Conclusion

I very much NOT recommend The Farseer Trilogy. 

That’s the conclusion.

 

Related posts:

[Perry] Audiobooks – The Dresden Files
[Perry] Deus Ex Machina
[Perry] Perry’s Review of The Unremembered

Movie Recommendation: Remora In France

Okay, that’s not what the movie is called. It’s ACTUALLY called The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec and it’s available on Netflix and if you trust me (and are in the mood for the sort of movie you don’t take too seriously) you will watch it without invoking this preview.

This isn’t 100% Remora? But it’s about 80% her. It’s basically Indiana Jones as a woman, only … slightly more Allen Quartermain, for those who know who that is.

I enjoyed every single moment. (Also, it’s French with English subtitles, so it’s even better. French is a gorgeous language.)

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Incoherent Scribbles

Harry Potter 5 Discussion

HOOBOY.

That? That was a long book.

Let’s dive right in.

This was (based on memory) my least favorite from my original readthrough, and the first one I didn’t watch as a movie. This was my least favorite so far of the new readthroughs, as well.

I can never decide if I want to do the good or the bad first, so I’m gonna roll a die. Bad first, end with good this time.

The Bad

Harry. I actually kind of hated Harry in this book. He spent the entire time feeling sorry for himself, entitled, and whiny. While this may have been an entirely believable reaction for a teenage boy in his situation? It was incredibly tiresome to read.

Worse than that? It made him a TERRIBLE friend.

Ron, his best friend on the entire planet? Finally gets a tiny portion of glory for himself. Harry begrudgingly congratulates him on becoming a Prefect, but then pities himself for not having Ron around. Then? Ron realizes a DREAM and joins the Quiddich team. Harry practices with him ONCE and then barely even thinks about the fact that Ron probably would like to have his help practicing a lot more often than that.

I just. Really really hated the main character throughout this book.

And then at the end, Dumbledore basically tells him, “You were right to be petulant, I should have done everything you wanted.”

I have heard it said that there are very few (if indeed, any) people who, when asked who their favorite character in the Harry Potter series is, actually name Harry (apologies for all the commas there). This book is a hella good reason why that is.

Okay, enough on that. I’m sure there are plenty of people who can point out that this is exactly what teenage angst is like from inside the head of a teenager. I won’t argue that. It’s not FUN TO READ. I don’t care if it’s accurate. It was a slog to get through those scenes.

I really did not like the entire Grawp subplot in this one. Period.

There was another infodump at the end of this one, as Dumbledore explains his actions throughout the year. At least there was only the one, but I still felt like it was tiresome. I would have preferred Harry find this out throughout the book rather than be told it all at the end.

The Villain was cartoon-horrid, with zero shades of gray to her at all. These books have a history of incredibly negligent and dangerous detentions (hello, forest during the first book?) but to have a teacher deliberately harming a student? She was sickening, and everyone I know hates her, but I feel like it’s a cheap shot. I prefer my villains to be shades of gray. (Loki is the pinnacle of villains for me, closely followed by Magneto from the comics).

Hermione.

I know, I know! I LOVE HERMIONE, and she was in fine form during this book! What could I possibly complain about?

… honestly? She was too good in this book. She was point-on with regards to pretty much every piece of advice she ever gave, and could immediately discern the complex emotional tangles behind strange behavior and explain it to Harry and Ron. It was a little too perfect for me and it kind of made her character less interesting. (Also, the house elf side plot was still not working for me.)

The Good

I know it seems like I rag on these books a lot, but I’m trying to learn and to pay attention to things that I never noticed when I first read through. Sometimes, it’s the bad I forgot. In the case of this book, I had forgotten many many wonderful things.

GINNY. Oh, my gooses. Ginny came ALIVE during this book! She was vibrant and vivacious and sassy and powerful and I adored every one of her scenes. ESPECIALLY the one where she verbally jolted Harry out of his self-pity by reminding him that he wasn’t the only person to have suffered at the hands of Voldemort. Ginny was FANTASTIC in this book. Way to pull a character out of the background and let her shine.

Luna was good. Many people adore Luna? I do not yet adore her, but I do like her. I liked how she had her own take on situations and refused the status quo, and my heart ached at the end when I found out how folks stole her stuff from her. I really liked Luna in this book.

RON. Oh my gosh, poor Ron! Still trying to be a good friend to Harry while finally getting some attention himself! I really really wish that Harry had been a better friend to HIM in this book, but I was so very very glad to see him become a hero on the Quiddich field, and just how much that must have meant for him. I wanted to hug him SO HARD.

The Dumbledore’s Army subplot was the highlight of the book. I loved that Hermione talked Harry into it. I loved the secret room. I loved the training and the secrecy and the feeling that many students had that they weren’t getting what they needed from the school.

Which highlights another awesome character. Neville. Neville, who despite books and books of being trampled on (and honestly, even in this book he kept arguing that he was useless despite proving again and again that he wasn’t!) finally managed to be good at Defense Against the Dark Arts. He learned spells almost as fast as Hermione, and the dark backstory of his family drove him to great things. It was a marvelous combination of dark and light and I loved the turn his character took here.

The final fight was EPIC and amazing. Fun to read and full of excitement. (even if there were rather a lot of characters getting conveniently knocked out)

Thestrals were fantastic, though I quibble that at the very very end of book 4, Harry still saw the coaches as being pulled by nothing. I forgive though, because the idea is so dark and lovely.

FRED AND GEORGE. I really don’t need to go into any details here.

Molly. Oh, Molly Weasley. her heart-wrenching scene with the boggart. I cried, I am not even going to lie.

Snape got some really nice character work in here. Still being a villain without being the total black and white. (And yes, dear reader, he is still a villain here, as he actively keeps the hero from his goals more often than he helps).

Bad To Worse

I want to point out that this book is why I often dislike it so intensely when writer suggestions include “put your character in bad situations, then make it worse and worse!”

From the perspective of not pulling punches and making your characters be in actual danger? This is fantastic advice.

Too many people use it to leech any happiness from a storyline and this book is the best example I can think of for that. Every time something good happened, something bad happened to combat it. There was so little Fun And Games to this plotline that it was a slog for me to get through many of the plot points.

For all that I loved aspects of it? I never want to read this book again.

I will allow rather a lot of wiggle room in a plot that is fun to experience. This is a personal choice, and I am in no way pretending it’s a universal truth. However? A writer should write books they would want to read, and I want to read something that’s a heckuva lot more fun than this was.

Your Thoughts

As always, I would LOVE to hear your thoughts on the book and/or movie. In this case, the movie especially since I am completely unfamiliar with it. What did they cut? Did the movie feel as depressing as the book, or did it gloss over some stuff and highlight the good?

Related posts:

Harry Potter 3 Discussion
Harry Potter 1 Discussion
Harry Potter 2 Discussion

[Perry] Nostalgia Movies

We’ll be taking a break from our regularly scheduled writing advice for the sharing of some thoughts on movies.

Was having dinner with family a few nights ago and over a few glasses of wine, I had a long conversation with my sister and her boyfriend, Eugene, about the movies of our childhood and how they just don’t make em that way anymore.

I’m sure this sounds familiar to a lot of people, and furthermore? I’m sure that most people feel that way about the movies they grew up with.

But c’mon, you gotta admit that the late 80′s and early 90′s had a huge batch of absolutely amazing movies when you were a kid.

Ghostbusters? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Legend? Willow? The Neverending Story?

Motherfucking Transformers movie?

Hell. Yeah.

So I’ve been on a nostalgia movie binge. I’ve currently made my way through the two Ghostbusters movie (fun fact? I’d totally forgotten that Sigourney Weaver AND Rick Moranis were in that movie).

And you know what? Those movies still hold up fairly damned well today.

The CG effects back then weren’t particularly realistic or impressive, but they make up for it with a heavier emphasis on practical effects and just enough CG to touch things up and add that little touch that adds so much.

Think about the movie, The Thing, by John Carpenter. Have you seen that movie?

It features some of the most horrific monster design my young mind had ever seen and the vast majority of it is done through puppetry and practical effects.

Fast forward to the remake of The Thing that was released last year or so. Pure CGI.

You know which movie looks scarier?

The freaking original.

Anyway, I’m finding this whole trip down memory lane quite entertaining.

These old movies…some of the appeal is simple nostalgia, it’s true. Things like Gremlins? Terminator 2 terrified me as a child and I distinctly remember having nightmares that featured Robert Patrick as the T-1000 chasing me down. The original Star Wars trilogy?

Freaking Aliens?

Not all of it is nostalgia. A lot of these are damned fine movies that hold up even in this day and age with all of our award winning CGI and technical wizardry.

Am I alone here? Or are there others of you out there feeling the hankering for an old school movie night?

All I need to do now is find a drive-in theater once the weather warms up… >.>”

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[Perry] Good Bad Movies and Bad Bad Movies
[Perry] Blind Entertainment
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Art! Bus Stop

A commission for a lovely, incredible person. Some of you may recognize the owl. More of you ought to recognize the monster.

I figured the owl has sort of a built-in umbrella, so surely she’d be kind-hearted enough to lend hers to a wet monster.

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[Perry] Infodumping

Infodumping is a term used to describe when an author decides to bring the story to a screeching halt so that they can explain.

What they choose to explain doesn’t really matter. They may go into the history of the world, a country, or a character. They may stop and spend five pages detailing exactly how the magic system works. They may stop to have a character make speeches about how a tragic trampoline accident when they were young led to a terrible fear of bouncing now that they’ve grown older.

WHAT they’re choosing to explain doesn’t matter because the damage has been done.

Infodumping is the death of pacing. Infodumping kills tension. Infodumping can destroy the emotional impact of your story and it’s important that you realize this.

Please note that I’m not saying that ALL infodumping should be eliminated. There are definitely aspects of story/world that need to be explained to ground the reader in the world you’re building around them.

But the infodumping that you do should be handled with care and consideration.

In no particular order, here are a few thoughts on the matter.

1) Hiding in plain sight

There are actually a number of ways to hide the fact that you’re infodumping. Little methods and tricks that you can utilize in order to disguise the information that you’re force-feeding the reader.

The clumsiest (but most often used) method is to introduce a character who doesn’t know what’s going on. This is usually the fish out of water character. It’s the character that the ones in the know take along as a companion and then explain away everything about their world to them.

You can see examples of this in the movie Thor when Thor explains the world he comes from to Jane. You can see it when Kelsier and the others explain how Allomancy works to Vin in Mistborn. You can see it in the way that Abenthy explains the concepts of sympathy to a young Kvothe in The Name of the Wind.

The whole explaining to the fish out of water technique is one you see most often because it tends to work the best. It’s a way to explain how things work to the audience without making it obvious that you’re speaking to them because, hey look! There’s a character that needs this stuff explained to as well! You’re just sort of eavesdropping on the conversation and picking up some much needed information as you tag along for the ride.

Properly handled, this method feels the most natural and the least intrusive as part of the story.

2) Out of story sequences

This is another method used where you introduce little bits and pieces of infodumping in the breaks between chapters. Often, these are represented as little mini-chapters that are outside the timeline of the main story.

This is usually done to explain what’s happened in the past, the history of the world in question, that the audience needs to know to really understand the scope of what’s going on, BUT, it’s too awkward a topic to bring up naturally between the characters.

Primarily, the problem lies with the fact that unless you’re using a fish out of water (henceforth typed as FOOW) character, everyone sort of KNOWS the back story of the world and it feels unnatural to go over it in any great detail.

Some examples of this type of out of sequence infodump can be found in Stephen King’s IT. In it, every two or three chapters, the reader is brought up out of the main story and we read along with a passage of Mike Halloran’s journal. In it, he ponders on the nature of the creature they’re fighting, as well as some facts and theories about the monster and how it works.

This works well because the journal voice feels natural, it’s the entries of a man who’s alone and trying to understand the source of his fear. It also doesn’t really detract from the flow or the pacing of the story because it’s outside the confines of the story.

The breaks before the journal entries are set in natural places so that the tension of the scene has already bled away, leaving the field open to a bit of an aside.

Another example of this can be seen in the Mistborn trilogy, where every chapter is prefaced with one or two paragraphs from the journal of another character.

These work well because outside of the flow of the main story (provided you pause the story at the ebb of action instead of in the middle of a climactic moment), the issue of pacing drops in importance because nothing is happening.

That’s not to say the importance of pacing disappears. Not at all. If you go on a fifteen page break between chapters, you WILL kill what momentum you’ve gathered.

But the pace of the story develops a little bit of slack between chapters and if you want to go for that out of story development, those are the best places to stick them.

3) Less is more

It’s better to keep some things hidden behind the wings and leave the reader wanting more by the time they finish your story than to overload them with information and have them walk away with the gross, too full feeling. 

Reveal too many mysteries too early and explain away everything 100% and you risk losing the interest of the reader.

Humans are curious creatures by nature. Hell, one of our strongest motivations is curiosity. You don’t want to utterly glut that curiosity for the sake of sharing what you know with the reader only to end up having them lose interest because what you explained was the thing that kept them turning the pages.

J.J Abrams, love him or hate him, understood this idea. In most of his works, he always leaves something unexplained.

Things like the “red matter” from the first Star Trek movie he did, or what exactly the “white rabbit” was in Mission Impossible 3.

…Or, you know, just about EVERYTHING from Lost. 

Keep a little behind the curtain. Once the reader finds out that Oz the Great and Powerful is just a little man with a microphone and a lot of smoke, it stops being a motivation to continue along with the story.

4) Trust your reader

Listen…by and large, readers aren’t a stupid bunch. You don’t have to explain every little thing, step by step in order for them to get a solid grasp on what’s going on.

When you take a big break to explain the history of the world, and the history of the character, and how the magic system works, and then throw in the kitchen sink…well, honestly? As a reader, it feels a little insulting.

Have you played any recent video games? The recent craze with super nitpicky tutorial segments drives me absolutely crazy.

Press A to jump. Hold B to crouch. Look! You see this area where it looks like you can get past if you can crouch? Hold B to crouch and move through it…very good! Press X to attack. Look! A monster! maybe you should press X to attack it! Good job! You killed it. Look, it dropped money! If you pick up the money, you can use it to BUY things. Look! A store icon! If you walk over there, you can talk to someone to BUY things. If you BUY something, it appears in your inventory. Go to your inventory now. This is your inventory. You can see a list of all of the items you have. Let’s try to use an item now! Select an item and press USE!

It’s condescending. It’s boring.

IT KILLS PACING.

Stop it.

Trust your reader.

People are good at understanding the rhythm and flows of a story. Our entire lives are made up of goddamned stories. Trust that we can make some logical leaps. Trust that our understanding of your work won’t be diminished because we don’t know every obscure fact about the past.

Every single niggling detail of the back story is NOT important. What’s important is that it happened…not exactly who participated, and what they all did, and exactly what happened.

There was a war. Character Y fought in said war. They lost and now Character Y is here, dealing with the aftermath.

Does WHO fought in the war matter early on? Not in the least. If the story continues, presumably, we’ll find that out when we run into the villain.

Does it matter what kind of person Character Y was during the war? Not really. The person he WAS won’t be the person the reader is introduced to. What the reader cares about is the person he IS.

Does it matter why the war was fought? Yes, of course…but those kind of facts TEND to come out naturally in conversation when the good guys confront the bad guys. There’s really not much need to go super in depth about it in a big info dumpy segment when there will be plenty of opportunities to release that information naturally, in bits and pieces as the story goes on.

Closing

Over explaining is a really bad habit to get into while writing, and it tends to be an awful experience while reading. Big infodumping sections are prime for skimming past to get back to the ‘good stuff’.

Don’t fall into the trap.

I know that writers tend to love their work and their ideas, but the worst thing you can do for your story is to flood the reader with information they don’t really need and cause them to get bored.

Stay interesting.

Infodump as little as possible and try to spread it out as much as possible so as not to drop big chunks on the reader at once.

Trust the reader to make certain intuitive leaps and leave some deductions up to them. You cut down on your explanations while still having them understand what’s going on.

 

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[Perry] Be Careful What You Leave Out
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[Anne] The Words We Use Are Powerful

The words we use are powerful. I am sure all you authors know this, but I would like to give some examples of how we use and understand words.

One evening, Middle Child made the following comment:

“Isn’t is weird that read and lead rhyme, but so do read and lead?”

I heard:

“Isn’t it weird that reed and LEED rhyme, but so do red and led?”

I was stuck in a trapezoid and couldn’t even see his box, so it took a family effort for the two of us to see (really, spell) our miscommunication. I was painted as the odd-ball in that situation for immediately thinking low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) and not a more common word….or as some pointed out, a word even, since I chose an acronym.

A few evenings later, Youngest Child was angrily voicing her distaste for the practice test that she would be taking the next morning.

“I don’t even know why we waste our time on mock tests.”

The suggestion was made by a parent that maybe the point was to practice mocking.

“I think you should answer all the questions with “I know you are, but what am I?” That is a good way to taunt people.”

Several other appropriate mock answers were given for examples, when Youngest Child said, very seriously, “No, Dad. That is not right. It is a M-A-C-H test.”

Over the loud laughter, Middle Son said, “Begin your testin…PUT YOUR PENCILS DOWN! Mach testing is over!”

I could only contribute, “I am pretty sure this is mock parenting.”

Husband retorted with, “You never told me we were MACH parenting. Why are the kids still here? Get out, children! GET OUT NOW!”

“Honey, you wasted years mocking our children and undermining their self-esteem. We can’t kick them out now.”

Middle Child responded with a mumbled, “I hate my life.” And Youngest Child wondered whether she was at all prepared for the test anymore if she couldn’t even get the zipline to go fast.

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Art! Spiritwalker Necari

A commission from a friend on Flight Rising, of Necari the Skydancer.

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[Perry] Situation vs Plot

Today, we continue on extrapolating the advice gleaned from Stephen King’s On Writing.

Essentially, he states that when you can, you’re better off with situational writing instead of plot-driven writing.

Before we begin, a caveat: This is VERY personal advice. Some people ARE more comfortable and write incredibly well with plot driven stories while others may work better with writing in a situational fashion.

Your mileage may vary so take the advice with a bit of caution.

Situational writing largely stems from the “what if…?” process of creation.

You come up with some characters that you can jive with, then you “what if…?” them into a situation and see what they do in said situation. You don’t spend too much time plotting, and figuring out the ins and outs of every chapter.

You don’t figure out every single wrinkle that may come up in the story and you especially don’t try to ‘railroad’ your characters onto a certain path, just because your plot outline says they should be somewhere at a certain point in time.

You just have your characters, sit them down in a situation and see how they react to it.

This has a tendency to create a more organically grown story, and it affords your characters more room and opportunity to surprise you with how they act and react to events around them.

These stories tend to be a little more focused on the driving needs of the character instead of the plot, and largely speaking, churn out more relatable characters. The characters in situation driven stories feel a little more real or tend to hit a bit closer to home because their decision making process isn’t controlled by the needs of the overarching plot, but by the needs of the characters themselves.

For examples of such things within his own works, King points to books like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Gerald’s Game, Misery, Dolores Claiborne, among a whole host of others.

Situational writing seems to be Stephen King’s preferred method, and it shows.

King writes that he considers the act of writing akin to uncovering a fossilized skeleton, buried beneath the ground. While situational writing is akin to gently excavating the fossil with brushes and weak fans, plot-driven writing is akin to excavating it using a jackhammer.

The jackhammer will get the fossil out in the end…but it tends to make a mess of things.

I think the heart of the advice King is trying to impart is to NOT let your plot outline drown out the voices of your characters.

When you first start writing, your character tends to be a little flat on the page. They need to warm up, you know? They’ve been all stiff and cramped in your head, so when you finally get them out on the page, they tend to need a little bit of stretch before they start coming to life.

The danger lies in NOT letting them come to life.

The danger lies in IGNORING the voice of your character for the sake of slavish devotion to a plot outline.

DEFER to your characters.

You may know the overall story and what you want them to do, but do NOT forget that your characters are living it.

They may see something from the ground that you can’t see from your omniscient, overhead view. Don’t let yourself be so blinded by the dictating of your plot that you forget to give your characters a voice in the decisions that they make.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Don’t be afraid to lend them an ear. Maybe you know that the characters have to escape the evil lair at some point, but maybe let THEM come up with a solution on their own instead of forcing one down their throats.

I’m not saying that you should cast aside whatever method WORKS for you, keep in mind.

I’m not saying that you’ve been doing it wrong the entire time.

I’m NOT saying that this is the best, and only, way to write and that you should be doing this and only this from no on.

No.

Not saying that at all.

…but?

It wouldn’t hurt to experiment a little.

Try mixing and matching the styles. Maybe create plot points that the characters will hit, but leave it up to them to make their way from one point to another, you know?

Maybe work out a short story that’s purely situationally driven.

Maybe write a piece of fan fiction with an established character? Yours or someone else’s.

Put a character you know into a ‘what if?’ situation and see what comes of it as a thought experiment.

Even if you’re the type to completely swear by 110% plotted stories…it doesn’t hurt to experiment a little with short flash fiction pieces. It doesn’t hurt to PLAY.

Remember that writing is PLAY as much as it is work and PLAY.

Try new things.

Try new methods.

Get stuck and have three men barge into the room with guns, just to see how your character reacts.

It may not work for you…but the new experiences can NEVER hurt.

 

 

 

Related posts:

NaNo2010 > Plot Scavenging
[Perry] Grit and Grime
Deus Ex Machina and the Final Plot Point

[Anne] Husband and I have a Special Way to Torment Our Kids

Husband and I have a special way to torment our kids, which mostly involves forcing them to learn how to interact. Televisions and computers, and for some, phones are not allowed in bedrooms. We still have a landline, because Youngest Child does not have a phone, two phones that are rotary dial. (One of them is an old pay phone.) And, while we do have an Xbox and a Wii, mostly the old pinball machine is played, especially when company is over. It is not a great surprise, then, that we communicate with Oldest Son by hand written letters….sent by mail!

We send articles, pictures and letters. There letters with pictures. Letters with graphs. Some letters are long and sometimes just one sentence is written. We include quotes. There are coded messages. And plain letters. Honestly, I cannot remember ever sending Oldest Son a package with baked goods, although Girlfriend gets a weekly-ish package of brownies from me. (Along with a note in glitter pen about why Pretty Little Liars is the worst show ever.)

The latest exchange started with Youngest Child sending a coded message to her brother. He promptly decoded it and, by text, sent us a picture of the message noting that her letter was even more mysterious decoded. It was an incomprehensible mess of gobbledy goop. Literally. And so beautifully hilarious. Oldest Son thought that maybe she had sent a code within a code, until he saw that she had misspelled her name in the signature.

Oldest Son returned the intrigue by sending her a coded letter. It is a mathematical code that requires me doing homework to break it. He gave me a set of instructions and defined variables for me, which was really sweet. I am hoping it is not an urgent message, though.

My favorite part? Addressing the envelopes. Sometimes we give clues as to what to expect inside (the Family Symphony was a coded letter to us that was written on a musical staff) and sometimes it is just plain silliness. The package I sent today, because there were ridiculous awards and certificates in there, was addressed to Plain Man. Years ago, Youngest Child used to sing a song about her brother. The lyrics were:

Jacob is a plain man, not a WO man.

Oldest Son and I are always at battle about women and math, so I needed to remind him that he is a plain man.

It is my favorite way to communicate. I will respond to all who agree with me.

Related posts:

A Call to Arms…err…Pens!
Whiskers and Lace Update
[Anne] I Distinctly Remember The First Time I Saw Sesame Street