Perfect words to create suspense (or anything else!)
I always ask readers of this blog who privately e mail me questions to post the questions in the comments section and I'll answer them here, in public. (Or if you don't want to be identified, I'm happy to post the question myself without using your name, and then answer it.)
This may be annoying or possibly enraging to some of you.
But here's the thing. I have this unalterable belief that if anyone is getting anything out of my workbooks, workshops and blog, it's because I was a dance teacher - and theater director - for so many years.
Any dance teacher I ever had was ALWAYS saying - "If I talk to any person in this class the rest of you should assume I'm talking to YOU, and DO IT."
That makes total sense to me as a teaching/learning method. Because who couldn't benefit from paying attention to the teacher/choreographer/director's corrections and doing that extra bit of polish?
So I got a question from a reader and writer this week about how I am able to use "perfect words" in my novels to create suspense and scares and atmosphere, and I wanted to answer it on the blog, for everyone who wants to to learn and discuss.
For me, there are three issues going on here and they are symbiotically entwined: the visual, the emotional, and the thematic. The words only work if they are conveying ALL THREE.
What I really encourage everyone here to do is to start thinking like a production designer.
In film (and theater) every movie has a production designer: one artist (and these people are genius level, let me tell you) who is responsible, in consultation with the director and with the help of usually a whole army of production artists) for the entire look of the film – every color, costume, prop, set choice. A production designer designs the look, but with acute understanding of how the visual can convey an emotional and thematic impact.
With a book, guess who’s the production designer?
You are.
Take the Alien series. I could go on all week about what a perfect movie the first Alien is structurally as well, but for the purposes of this blog - it’s a perfect example of brilliant production design. The visual image systems are staggering. Take a look at those sets (created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger). What do you see? Sexual imagery everywhere. Insect imagery, a classic for horror movies. Machine imagery. Anatomical imagery: the spaceships have very human-looking spines (vertebrae and all),intestinal-looking piping, vulvic doors. And the gorgeous perversity of the design is that the look of the film combines the sexual and the insectoid, the anatomical with the mechanical, throws in some reptilian, serpentine, sea-monsterish under-the-sea-effects – to create a hellish vision that is as much a character in the film as any of the character characters.
Oh, and did I mention the labyrinth imagery? Yes, my great favorite: you’ve got a monster in a maze.
Those are very specific choices and combinations. The sexual imagery and water imagery open us up on a subconscious level and make us vulnerable to the horrors of insects, machines and death. The combination imagery also gives us a clear visual picture of a future world in which machines and humans have evolved together into a new species. It’s unique, gorgeous, and powerfully effective.
Obviously Terminator (the first) is a brilliant use of machine/insect imagery as well. And sex, right? Let's not forget that Arnold, in his prime, landed on earth completely naked.
I know I’ve just about worked these examples to death, but nobody does image systems better than Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon are serial killer novels, but Harris elevates that overworked genre to art, in no small part due to his image systems.
In Silence, Harris borrows heavily from myth and especially fairy tales. You’ve got the labyrinth/ Minotaur. You’ve got a monster in a cage, a troll holding a girl in a pit (and that girl is a princess, remember: her mother is American royalty, a senator). You’ve got a twist on the “lowly peasant boy rescues the princess with the help of supernatural allies” fairy tale: Clarice is the lowly peasant who enlists the help of (one might also say apprentices to) Lecter’s wizardlike perceptions to rescue the princess. You have another twisted wizard in his cave who is trying to turn himself into a woman.
You have the insect imagery here as
well, with the moths, the spiders and mice in the storage unit, and the
entomologists with their insect collections in the museum, the theme of change, larva to butterfly.
In Red Dragon Harris works the animal imagery to powerful effect. The killer is not a mere man, he’s a beast. When he’s born he’s compared to a bat because of his cleft palate. He kills on a moon cycle, like a werewolf. He uses his grandmother’s false teeth, like a vampire. And let’s not forget: he’s trying to turn into a dragon.
Now, a lot of authors will just throw in random scary images. How boring and meaningless! What makes what Harris does so effective is that he has an intricate, but extremely specific and limited image system going in his books. And he combines fantastical visual and thematic imagery with very realistic and accurate police procedure.
I know, all of these examples are horror, sorry, it’s my thing - but look at The Wizard of Oz (just the brilliant contrast of the black and white world of Kansas and the Technicolor world of Oz says volumes). Look at what Barbara Kingsolver does in Prodigal Summer, where images of fecundity and the, well, prodigiousness of nature overflow off the pages, revealing characters and conflicts and themes. Look at what Robert Towne/Roman Polanski do with water in Chinatown and also, try watching that movie sometime with Oedipus in mind… the very specific parallels will blow you away.
So how do you create a visual/thematic image system equivalent to what I'm talking about in film and theater - in your books?
Well, start by becoming more conscious of what image systems authors are working with in books and films that you love. Some readers/writers don’t care at all about visual image systems. That’s fine – whatever floats your boat. Me, with rare exceptions, I’ll toss a book within twenty pages if I don’t think the author knows what s/he’s doing visually.
What I do when I start a project, along with outlining, is to keep a list of thematic words (in my project notebook!) that convey what my story is about, to me. For my ghost story (or maybe not!) The Harrowing it was words like: Creation, chaos, abyss, fire, forsaken, shattered, shattering, portal, door, gateway, vessel, empty, void, rage, fury, cast off, forgotten, abandoned, alone, rejected, neglected, shards, discarded… I did pages and pages of words like that.
For The Price : bargain, price, deal, winter, ice, buried, dormant, resurrection, apple, temptation, tree, garden, labyrinth, Sleeping Beauty, castle, queen, princess, prince, king, wish, grant, deal, contract, task, hell, purgatory, descent, mirror, spiral…
Some words I’ll have from the very
beginning because they’re part of my own thematic DNA. But as the word lists
grow, so does my understanding of the inherent themes of each particular story.
Do you see how that might start to
work? Not only do you get a sense of how the story and specifc setting can look to convey your themes, but you also have a growing list of meaningful words that you can work with in your prose so that you’re constantly hitting those themes on different levels.
When I do short workshops, this is my absolute favorite quickie exercise to make a big group do:
Brainstorm for just two or three minutes on thematic words for your story.
People get SO EXCITED about this - I have had people stand up in a workshop and shout - "I know how he killed her! and "I just figured out my final scene!" after just two minutes of this brainstorming. You are seriously missing out if you don't just TRY it.
At the same time that I’m doing my
word lists, I start a collage book, and try to spend some time every week
flipping through magazines and pulling photos that resonate with my story. I
find Vogue, the Italian fashion mags, Vanity Fair Premiere, Rolling Stone and of course, National Geographic, particularly good for me. I tape those photos together in a blank artists’ sketchbook (I use tape so I can move the photos around when I feel like it. If you’re more – well, if you’re neater than I am, you can also use plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder). Other people do collages on their computers with Photoshop. I am not one of those people, myself, it's too much work.
However, I do have a new obsession with the social media site Pinterest, where you can create boards and use the Pinterest button to build a visual image system for every one of your works-in-progress. It's instant online collaging and I LOVE IT.
See what I mean here: http://pinterest.com/axsokoloff/
I'm in the process of creating image boards for every one of my books, past and current. It’s another way of growing an image system. And it doesn’t feel like writing so you think you’re getting away with something.
Also, I know I'm constantly going on about this, but know your world myths and
fairy tales! Why make up your own backstory and characters when you can tap
into universally powerful archetypes? Remember, there’s no new story under the
sun, so being conscious of your antecedents can help you bring out the
archetypal power of the characters and themes you’re working with.
So of course you know my question for the day. What are some books and films which to you have particularly striking visual and thematic image systems? What are some of your favorite images to work with?
And - are you on Pinterest? Are you as obsessed as I am?
- Alex
=========================================
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.
- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)
- Kindle
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)
- Amazon/Kindle
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
This may be annoying or possibly enraging to some of you.
But here's the thing. I have this unalterable belief that if anyone is getting anything out of my workbooks, workshops and blog, it's because I was a dance teacher - and theater director - for so many years.
Any dance teacher I ever had was ALWAYS saying - "If I talk to any person in this class the rest of you should assume I'm talking to YOU, and DO IT."
That makes total sense to me as a teaching/learning method. Because who couldn't benefit from paying attention to the teacher/choreographer/director's corrections and doing that extra bit of polish?
So I got a question from a reader and writer this week about how I am able to use "perfect words" in my novels to create suspense and scares and atmosphere, and I wanted to answer it on the blog, for everyone who wants to to learn and discuss.
For me, there are three issues going on here and they are symbiotically entwined: the visual, the emotional, and the thematic. The words only work if they are conveying ALL THREE.
What I really encourage everyone here to do is to start thinking like a production designer.
In film (and theater) every movie has a production designer: one artist (and these people are genius level, let me tell you) who is responsible, in consultation with the director and with the help of usually a whole army of production artists) for the entire look of the film – every color, costume, prop, set choice. A production designer designs the look, but with acute understanding of how the visual can convey an emotional and thematic impact.
With a book, guess who’s the production designer?
You are.
Take the Alien series. I could go on all week about what a perfect movie the first Alien is structurally as well, but for the purposes of this blog - it’s a perfect example of brilliant production design. The visual image systems are staggering. Take a look at those sets (created by Swiss surrealist HR Giger). What do you see? Sexual imagery everywhere. Insect imagery, a classic for horror movies. Machine imagery. Anatomical imagery: the spaceships have very human-looking spines (vertebrae and all),intestinal-looking piping, vulvic doors. And the gorgeous perversity of the design is that the look of the film combines the sexual and the insectoid, the anatomical with the mechanical, throws in some reptilian, serpentine, sea-monsterish under-the-sea-effects – to create a hellish vision that is as much a character in the film as any of the character characters.
Oh, and did I mention the labyrinth imagery? Yes, my great favorite: you’ve got a monster in a maze.
Those are very specific choices and combinations. The sexual imagery and water imagery open us up on a subconscious level and make us vulnerable to the horrors of insects, machines and death. The combination imagery also gives us a clear visual picture of a future world in which machines and humans have evolved together into a new species. It’s unique, gorgeous, and powerfully effective.
Obviously Terminator (the first) is a brilliant use of machine/insect imagery as well. And sex, right? Let's not forget that Arnold, in his prime, landed on earth completely naked.
I know I’ve just about worked these examples to death, but nobody does image systems better than Thomas Harris. Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon are serial killer novels, but Harris elevates that overworked genre to art, in no small part due to his image systems.
In Silence, Harris borrows heavily from myth and especially fairy tales. You’ve got the labyrinth/ Minotaur. You’ve got a monster in a cage, a troll holding a girl in a pit (and that girl is a princess, remember: her mother is American royalty, a senator). You’ve got a twist on the “lowly peasant boy rescues the princess with the help of supernatural allies” fairy tale: Clarice is the lowly peasant who enlists the help of (one might also say apprentices to) Lecter’s wizardlike perceptions to rescue the princess. You have another twisted wizard in his cave who is trying to turn himself into a woman.
You have the insect imagery here as
well, with the moths, the spiders and mice in the storage unit, and the
entomologists with their insect collections in the museum, the theme of change, larva to butterfly.
In Red Dragon Harris works the animal imagery to powerful effect. The killer is not a mere man, he’s a beast. When he’s born he’s compared to a bat because of his cleft palate. He kills on a moon cycle, like a werewolf. He uses his grandmother’s false teeth, like a vampire. And let’s not forget: he’s trying to turn into a dragon.
Now, a lot of authors will just throw in random scary images. How boring and meaningless! What makes what Harris does so effective is that he has an intricate, but extremely specific and limited image system going in his books. And he combines fantastical visual and thematic imagery with very realistic and accurate police procedure.
I know, all of these examples are horror, sorry, it’s my thing - but look at The Wizard of Oz (just the brilliant contrast of the black and white world of Kansas and the Technicolor world of Oz says volumes). Look at what Barbara Kingsolver does in Prodigal Summer, where images of fecundity and the, well, prodigiousness of nature overflow off the pages, revealing characters and conflicts and themes. Look at what Robert Towne/Roman Polanski do with water in Chinatown and also, try watching that movie sometime with Oedipus in mind… the very specific parallels will blow you away.
So how do you create a visual/thematic image system equivalent to what I'm talking about in film and theater - in your books?
Well, start by becoming more conscious of what image systems authors are working with in books and films that you love. Some readers/writers don’t care at all about visual image systems. That’s fine – whatever floats your boat. Me, with rare exceptions, I’ll toss a book within twenty pages if I don’t think the author knows what s/he’s doing visually.
What I do when I start a project, along with outlining, is to keep a list of thematic words (in my project notebook!) that convey what my story is about, to me. For my ghost story (or maybe not!) The Harrowing it was words like: Creation, chaos, abyss, fire, forsaken, shattered, shattering, portal, door, gateway, vessel, empty, void, rage, fury, cast off, forgotten, abandoned, alone, rejected, neglected, shards, discarded… I did pages and pages of words like that.
For The Price : bargain, price, deal, winter, ice, buried, dormant, resurrection, apple, temptation, tree, garden, labyrinth, Sleeping Beauty, castle, queen, princess, prince, king, wish, grant, deal, contract, task, hell, purgatory, descent, mirror, spiral…
Some words I’ll have from the very
beginning because they’re part of my own thematic DNA. But as the word lists
grow, so does my understanding of the inherent themes of each particular story.
Do you see how that might start to
work? Not only do you get a sense of how the story and specifc setting can look to convey your themes, but you also have a growing list of meaningful words that you can work with in your prose so that you’re constantly hitting those themes on different levels.
When I do short workshops, this is my absolute favorite quickie exercise to make a big group do:
Brainstorm for just two or three minutes on thematic words for your story.
People get SO EXCITED about this - I have had people stand up in a workshop and shout - "I know how he killed her! and "I just figured out my final scene!" after just two minutes of this brainstorming. You are seriously missing out if you don't just TRY it.
At the same time that I’m doing my
word lists, I start a collage book, and try to spend some time every week
flipping through magazines and pulling photos that resonate with my story. I
find Vogue, the Italian fashion mags, Vanity Fair Premiere, Rolling Stone and of course, National Geographic, particularly good for me. I tape those photos together in a blank artists’ sketchbook (I use tape so I can move the photos around when I feel like it. If you’re more – well, if you’re neater than I am, you can also use plastic sleeves in a three-ring binder). Other people do collages on their computers with Photoshop. I am not one of those people, myself, it's too much work.
However, I do have a new obsession with the social media site Pinterest, where you can create boards and use the Pinterest button to build a visual image system for every one of your works-in-progress. It's instant online collaging and I LOVE IT.
See what I mean here: http://pinterest.com/axsokoloff/
I'm in the process of creating image boards for every one of my books, past and current. It’s another way of growing an image system. And it doesn’t feel like writing so you think you’re getting away with something.
Also, I know I'm constantly going on about this, but know your world myths and
fairy tales! Why make up your own backstory and characters when you can tap
into universally powerful archetypes? Remember, there’s no new story under the
sun, so being conscious of your antecedents can help you bring out the
archetypal power of the characters and themes you’re working with.
So of course you know my question for the day. What are some books and films which to you have particularly striking visual and thematic image systems? What are some of your favorite images to work with?
And - are you on Pinterest? Are you as obsessed as I am?
- Alex
=========================================
Screenwriting Tricks for Authors and Writing Love, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, II, are now available in all e formats and as pdf files. Either book, any format, just $2.99.
- Smashwords (includes pdf and online viewing)- Kindle
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amaxon DE (Eur. 2.40)
- Smashwords (includes online viewing and pdf file)- Amazon/Kindle
- Barnes & Noble/Nook
- Amazon UK
- Amazon DE
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Matt
(new)
Jun 28, 2012 05:48AM
Well, I'm honestly not sure if I convey the image as well as I could be in my writing, but to go away from that to something you brought up, I just read for the first time The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz and not only was the book miles better than the movie, but they had the visual in it as well of going from black and white to color. I thought that was a very cool thing, that the movie didn't create it, rather, played off of it and did it well by using the technology that they had at the time. In the book, Kansas is painted as gray, completely, the house, the landscape, the people were all just gray. There were no colors as everything was dried up from the hot sun. And then she went to Oz and discovered colors everywhere. Very cool play with words. Now, I'm off to try and do what you suggest to maybe make my work a little better. *fingers crossed*
reply
|
flag
The Wizard of Oz books are wonderful visually - and you describe it very well! I like how the very dark "Return to Oz" used some of those images, too.
While I do plan to read the rest, I have not as of yet. But, I have always loved Return To Oz. It's so dark and unlike the first movie. So awesome.
