A.C. Crispin's Blog, page 7

Writing Post: Foreshadowing and Serendipity in Stories

When writing a story, especially at the climax of said story, if anyone or anything is going to rescue your characters from a dire situation, extreme jeopardy, near death, etc., that event CANNOT be coincidence. It MUST be foreshadowed. Sometimes you write foreshadowing in with purpose. Sometimes it seems to occur serendipitously — which is great fun, trust me! When you are casting around for a plot element, or a character to behave in a certain way, and you realize you've already laid that groundwork. That's a RUSH.

You've probably heard the term "foreshadowing" before, but I'm going to define it for those who may not be familiar with it. In stories, "foreshadowing" is when you place a bit of information, or a bit of character interaction, or a short scene into a story early on, because what happens or is established in that scene will become vitally important — later in the book. the playwright Anton Chekov once said something like: "If you specify that a gun is hanging on the wall of your set, before the end of the second act, it must be fired." Think about this for a moment. We've all seen innumerable instances of foreshadowing in books, short stories, television, films, or plays. For example, the other night Michael and I were watching "The Event" and one of the first things we saw in the episode was a scene in President Martinez's conference room. As the muckety-mucks and generals were gathering around the table, a secretary handed the Prez a cup of coffee. We watched his hands take it, then tear open a yellow packet that was obviously made to resemble Splenda, and empty it into his coffee. Michael and I looked at each other and nodded. "Someone's gonna poison the Prez," I said. "Yep," said Michael.

And sure enough, at the end of the episode, the VP did exactly that — substitute a poisoned packet of sweetener for the one the secretary had waiting beside Martinez's coffee cup.

That was foreshadowing. Admittedly, as is typical of television, it was clumsy, hit the viewer over the head foreshadowing. Most television viewers aren't writers, or aren't professional ones, anyhow, so tv writers often can't or don't attempt the subtlety of a good prose writer.

Sometimes foreshadowing will happen without even being planned. When I wrote my first novel, back in 1978, I was looking for a character tag for the leader of an archeological expedition. I decided, on a whim, to make Dr. Vargas an amateur violinist, and to give her a Stradivarius. I didn't reason this out. I just did it. I showed a scene where the members of her archeology team gave an impromptu concert after dinner one evening when hosting Kirk, Spock and McCoy on a mission to the planet where they had their dig. Kirk asked about the violin and Dr. Vargas proudly told him it was a genuine Stradivarius.

Every time I went through that story, I would think, "I should cut that. It doesn't 'go' anywhere." But then, for some reason I didn't understand, I left it in. And then I realized I had to completely rewrite the end of the story to make it much more dynamic. I had to have Kirk poised to blast the Guardian of Forever into rubble, because Romulans had attacked the archeologist's camp and killed everyone there. But Spock and his son, Zar, were still away on a reconnaisance mission. Time was running out. Kirk knew he couldn't risk all of human history by having the Romulans take over the Guardian of Forever. He had to destroy it before risking that happening. He had set himself a deadline for Spock and Zar's return. The chrono was running. He beamed down himself, hoping to see some sign of the two approaching the beamdown coordinates. But he saw nothing, as the clock ran out. Kirk was going to have to beam back up and start blasting. But then, just as he contacted Scotty, ready to beam up, he saw something in the rubble of the camp. It was Dr. Vargas's Stradivarius. Nobody is going to deliberately blast such a treasure; Kirk walked over and picked it up, finding it miraculously unharmed. And when he looked back up, maybe 2 minutes after his deadline had passed, Spock and Zar came into view.

And the story went on.

All the while I'd been writing, I think subconsciously I knew that violin would come in handy for some plot related reason. So that's why I never cut it. Serendipitiously, it was there when the story needed it, all ready and waiting and FORESHADOWED.

But if you're going to have some kind of last minute reprieve or rescue, you must have the foreshadowing in place long before its needed. Readers will roll their eyes in disgust if the cavalry just happens to arrive in the nick of time to save your protagonists. You don't have to spell it out specifically, or god forbid hit the reader over the head with your exact plan for the denouement before it happens (like the writers of "The Event"), but you MUST let the reader know that the protagonist (or sidekick, or someone) has put wheels in motion that will result in rescue/salvation, etc.

You can even have a minor character, someone who is only marginally involved with the story, trigger a rescue, as long as that character is introduced earlier. For example, you might establish a nosy neighbor who bugs the protagonist(s) half to death with his or her constant surveillance, then have the police/fire dept. burst in before your trussed-up protagonists can be roasted in a house fire because nosy neighbor saw the smoke and called in the alarm. But you have to foreshadow nosy neighbor's tendency to snoop on your protagonists earlier in the book, probably in more than one place.

Just be aware that as writers, writing something into a story that will benefit the protagonist(s) and having it be coincidence is a no-no. It simply won't be believed. You, the writer, must FORESHADOW.

As Jack Sparrow would say, "Savvy?" Questions or comments?

.

Photos from Swashbuckler Soiree

Click to view slideshow.

Continuing Adventures in Pirate Costume Land

Hi, folks!

Thank goodness I did a full dress rehearsal of my costume yesterday!

The boots worked great. My second pair of pirate pants fit just fine. My new coat needs steaming, but also fits. I found a rip in my shirt and mended it.

I was feeling quite smug by the time I got ready to put on my black leather corset. And, you guessed it, pride goeth before a fall. My consarned laces aren't long enough to lace the thing up correctly. My new friend Rachel Graves (congratulations on your first book sale to Tor, Rachel) had Tweeted me that she'd be available for consultation on corset-wearing, so I called her up, only to find that I really need two long lacing strings, not just one, and that to fit really well, the corset must be laced from top to bottom with one string, then from the bottom up with the other, so the two strings meet in the middle and are tied in the middle of one's back.

So this morning I'm off to buy really long shoe lacings, or black ribbon, whichever I can find most easily.

I found out there will be music and actual dancing at the Fells Point Swashbuckler soiree…a sort of "Buccaneer's Ball" — neat! Two tickets are waiting for Michael and me. Will I dare to try and dance wearing all of this…stuff? Only time will tell. I do know that we'll be taking the camera, and if we get any decent pictures, I'll post them here.

Another nice thing…turns out Rachel is a pirate enthusiast and plans to attend the Privateer Day on Saturday. So we'll get to meet, and I can thank her personally for all the advice re: wearing a corset.

I'll tell you, yesterday as Michael and I struggled with the recalcitrant thing, I found myself remembering Elizabeth Swann's words just before she whacked the undead pirate with an oar. "You like pain and suffering? Try wearing a CORSET!"

I hear ya, Liz. I understand completely.

Cross your fingers for no wardrobe malfunctions for me tonight or tomorrow!

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!

-Ann C. Crispin

Adventures in Pirate Costume Land…

I've been writing books full-time since 1983. When people ask me what kind of books I write, I tell them that I've written Star Trek novels, Star Wars novels, the original V novelization, and the novelization for Alien: Resurrection, the 4th Alien film (btw, that one was written in collaboration with Kathleen O'Malley, one of my favorite co-authors).

After saying that, I always add, "But I don't just write tie-in books for franchises…half my books are set in my own original universes." This statement is ignored about 60% of the time.

That 60% of people I meet say something along the lines of the following: "Oh, you're a Trekkie!" followed by a guffaw, or even a snicker, then the comment, "I suppose you put on your Mr. Spock ears and wear a costume, huh?"

Over the years the sting has pretty much worn off this often well-meaning but depreciatory comment. For the first few years I used to bristle, but now I just smile and shrug and say, "No, I'm afraid I don't dress in costume. I dress like a boring old author."

Only…I can't say that any more. I have now acquired a COSTUME, and I'm going to wear it for the first time Friday and Saturday. God help me! I just hope I can muster the courage to actually appear in it. I spent too much on the thing to chicken out.

It happened like this: A couple of years ago at Dragoncon, when I was first working on Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom, on impulse I marched into a weapons dealer's booth, put on a baldric, drew a cutlass, and waved it around. Something strange happened. I felt five inches taller, twenty years younger, and thirty pounds lighter. It felt GREAT! I wanted to stride around, buckling my swash and saying "Arrrrrr" to everyone. The feel of that cutlass in my hand went to my head like potent rum.

I didn't buy the cutlass. I had a feeling I'd have trouble explaining it to TSA, and it wouldn't have fit in my bag, what with the weight limits these days. But I did go wandering off to look at all the costume shops, and the next thing I knew, while my friends Sonia James and Eugie Foster cheered me, on, I found myself being laced into a black leather corset. (No wonder those women fainted all the time. Elizabeth Swann's fainting fit was one of the more historically accurate bits about Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.)

I bought the corset anyhow, because it did look really kewl. I haven't had that small a waistline since before I had my son, Jason. And then I found myself in another booth, and I bought a pirate shirt, because the corset was the kind that comes up under the boobs, but doesn't cover them. So I needed something to wear so I wouldn't get arrested.

The next year at Dragoncon, I went over to the dealer's room and emerged with a big, black cavalier hat. By that time, I'd found and ordered (from a weapons museum in Louisville, Kentucky) a cutlass. The first cutlass they sent me had a defective knuckle-guard, so they sent a second, no extra charge. This came in very handy when I wrote the definitive sword battle (by moonlight, yet!) in The Price of Freedom.

To hear what swords would sound like first-hand, I went out to my living room (my office is too small) and whanged the blades together, sliding and slithering them along each other like some kind of demented ginsu chef. Then I turned out all the lights and did it again. Got a couple sentences from that little exercise I'm quite proud of : "The blades rang against each other, a song of metal. Jack could see and smell sparks as they struck, steel sliding against steel."

I bought a baldric at a War of 1812 re-enactment. (A baldric is the leather sling you wear over one shoulder that holds your sword on your opposite hip.)

After that, I was too busy writing for the next six or eight months to add to the costume. I had a hazy idea that maybe I'd wear it at Dragoncon to sign books, if I got my courage up.

Then I got very busy finishing up The Price of Freedom, and the potential costume languished for a year or so. But recently, I was invited to attend the Fells Point Swashbucker Soiree on April 15, and Privateer Day on April 16. The organizers wanted me to judge the pirate costume contest, and to host a Pirates of the Caribbean trivia contest. It all sounded like fun, and a great chance for book promotion, so of course I said yes. And then came the fateful words when I was confirming with the organizers several weeks later: "But of course we'll expect you to be in costume yourself."

Argggh! (Or should I say Arrrr?)

What to do, what to do? I confided my problem to my friend Howie Weinstein at Farpoint convention. He's been dressing up in a hall costume as his hero "Maverick" (from the television series) so he came up with some links for me. I began checking them. I needed pants, a coat, and boots.

I found the pants, ordered them, then had to re-order because the first ones were too big. (Better than too small, right, ladies?) For the coat, I finally located a blue "Captain's coat" — a frock coat that seemed lightweight enough to wear in the summer. None of this garb is necessarily accurate for the period, and I didn't really care about historical authenticity. After all, this is Pirates of the Caribbean, right? (Though my novel is nautically and historically accurate, where it didn't run counter to established POTC film canon…)

Now I needed boots. And there I hit a major snag. They don't make pirate boots in W width. I looked, and looked, but I couldn't find any. And the ones that seemed like candidates were hundreds of dollars. Finally I saw an ad on Amazon.com for "bootcuffs" in velvet you could put over regular boots. I have some very nice black leather winter boots, plain, not too high in the heel. But the velvet just looked, IMHO, tacky, judging by the picture. So I took my boots down to Elam, the Mennonite harness maker down in Loveville, Maryland. (Yes, there is a Loveville, MD, and every year around the 7th of February they get deluged with Valentine cards to be mailed out with the "Loveville" postmark.)

"Elam," I said, "you've never had an assignment like this before. I want you to make some leather cuffs I can slide into my boots to make them look like pirate boots." Elam blinked his mild blue eyes at me, obviously bemused, but he's a nice guy, and he's worked on my tack repairs before, so he knows me.

"I have some leather to match this," he said, fingering the boot leather. "Give me a week." He looked down at the picture of Johnny Depp as Capt. Jack, and said, without a flicker of recognition, "Can I keep this picture of this fellow in his boots as a guideline?"

"Sure," I said. "That's why I brought it."

Accordingly, Michael and I drove down to Loveville on April 11, the specified date (obviously you can't call on the telephone to check status, but Elam's never missed a deadline yet!) and there were my boots, with beautiful black leather cuffs I could slide on over them and leather tabs so I could tuck them in.

"Interesting assignment," Elam commented, as I wrote the check. "I like pirate stories. I read Treasure Island."

So if anyone is attending the Fells Point Swashbuckler Soiree and Privateer Day, on Friday night and Saturday (11:00 – 6:00), I'll be there, with a box of freshly printed limited-edition Price of Freedom bookplates. (They came out really great…it's the back cover, showing the famous skull). I'll be autographing and handing out the bookplates to attendees, so they can paste them in their books after May 17.

Looking forward to seeing some of you there!

-Ann C. Crispin

Promised Link to StarTrek.com Interview

Here's the link I promised.  I am going to email them about my picture…somehow they didn't put it in right and it's out of shape.

http://startrek.com/article/talking-trek-and-pirates-with-author-a-c-crispin

I had to do the interview very fast…I suspect they needed a quickie because someone else cancelled.  But hey, promotion is promotion, right?

-Ann

Open, sesame! This blog is now active!

Hi! 

It's a beautiful spring day here in the Washington DC area, and I'm taking that as an auspicious omen for the activation of this blog.  First of all, I'd like to thank all the folks who gave me advice about blogging, and how to set up a blog, including my webmaster, Brian Mitchell, who designed this page to complement my main website, www.accrispin.com.

I'm feeling my way into this blogging thing, creeping along like a ship with storm canvas up in a pea-soup fog.  So please be patient while I take depth soundings and attempt to avoid the rocks.   My goal is to blog several times a week, but, since I need time to work on my new book, don't expect a post every day, okay?

By the way, I just finished a lengthy interview for StarTrek.com, where I was the most detailed and honest I've ever been about writing for the Star Trek novel program.  And I'm afraid my reaction to the popular 2009 Star Trek "prequel" was a solid thumbs down.  Anyway, I'll post the link when it's up for those who would be interested in reading it.

Welcome to my blog!

-Ann C. Crispin

Welcome to A.C.Crispin's Official Blog!

Well, here I am! My first blog post on my own, personal blog. Yay! Of course I've written many blog posts for Writer Beware's blog, which I inaugurated, years ago, but Writer Beware has a clearly defined "agenda," namely helping writers safely navigate the often murky and perilous waters on their voyage to publication.

Here, in my own blog, I'll be telling you a bit about my life as a writer, about critters and people I love (my cat, Mocha, for one, wait till I post his picture!). I'll also be offering Basic Writing Tips, giving a little advice, and posting about my upcoming projects.

At the moment, and for the past three years, my life has been dominated by Johnny Depp in the person of Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean. Three years ago I was hired by Disney Editions to write the prequel to Pirates of the Caribbean as a novel — which I did, though it was one of the biggest challenges I've ever faced as a writer.

And now Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom will become a reality in just 45 more days. I can scarcely believe it's going to finally be a book! All that research on life as a sailor in the early 1700′s, on real historical pirates, on sailing square riggers around the Triangle (Africa to the Caribbean, then north with the Gulf Stream along the coast of America, then across to England or Europe) and on the Disney Pirates of the Caribbean universe — all of it coming together in a big, hardcover book readers can open and read!

Wow! I haven't been so excited about a new book arriving on my doorstep in a long time.

So…come in, welcome to my blog, sit down, make yourself comfortable. I'm setting my goal at blogging at least several times a week, more if I can spare the time. But I warn you, I'm starting a new book, so there may be times that I "vanish" for a while. I get very focused, very single-minded, when I'm deep into a project. I think most writers are like that.

I now declare this blog officially "open." Too bad one can't smash a bottle of champagne over a monitor without doing it serious damage. But perhaps we can all have a virtual glass to toast this new effort of mine?

Wishing you smooth sailing…

-Ann C. Crispin