Plot and Character more Important than Prose?

I'm the type of writer, who I'm sure is like most, that frets over using the right word, right sentence structure, right exact perfect mechanics of prose to get across what I want to communicate in my stories. But does that really matter? Does prose actually have that much of a bearing on how it comes off to the reader as we think it does?

The other night as I was driving along the highways for work late at night, I popped in the audio book of "Epic of Gilgamesh" which is considered by a lot of people to be the oldest story in history. (Written around the 18th century BC. on the clay tablets pictured above.) Suffice to say, the word choice and sentence structure is not very advanced. There are many parts that repeat itself verbatim many many times to the point where I was chanting along with the narrator by the middle of the book in some parts. Overall, the work is very basic and has about the same sophistication I would expect out of a 10 year old.

But still, this story drew me in and kept me awake so I didn't crash my car. (yay!) And I began to wonder why that was, since it was so basic. And the reason is that the plot and characters are well developed. In reality, this is all that The Epic of Gilgamesh has going for it, and it has survived for almost 4000 years!

This brought me to another train of thought then. A lot of the classics that we know and love are indeed translations from the original work. And the format they were originally written in is usually not how we experience them in present day. For instance, just about everybody knows and likes the Iliad and Odyssey, however I don't know many people who have read it in the epic poem format. It's usually the modern spin offs that they have seen. But the power of the characters and plot has allowed this story to survive and still impact people after many years.

Shakespeare wrote plays, but still, people pick up those plays and read them as if they were a book, still getting enjoyment out of them. There is virtually no description, and all we have is dialogue that many of us struggle to comprehend without putting on our thinking caps. And still, he's widely read by people far and wide, even after they graduate. What keeps drawing people to these works, again, is the power of the characters and plot.

Even more modern works that end up getting translated loose a lot of the feel of the author, no matter how good the translation. But still, there are great pieces of literature that survive this process to still touch our hearts. Because the only thing that really can be translated across language and time barriers is in my opinion, character and plot.

I'm not saying that you should be writing your work at that 10 year old level, but perhaps a lot of the agony we spend trying to come up with the perfect word could be better spent on making sure we have an overall story that connects with the reader.

Anachronistic Dialogue in Fantasy

This Friday I wrote a short piece of fantasy flash fiction where a number of commenters raised an interesting issue. They noted that my dialogue pulled them out of the story because it was too modern. But, at the same time we can't be using period authentic dialogue and still get our point across. Now, with fantasy you have a little more leeway because the period the story is based off is a little more ambiguous, but even writers of historical fiction can't be 100% true to the language.


Imagine a historical fiction about the signing of the Magna Carta (assuming they talk in English vs. Latin.) Now you can argue that even the Old English that they would use is a completely different language, but in the end, our modern English is evolved from that, just so that our modern 21st century English is evolved from 17th century English. Not only are the definitions of the words different, but the metaphors will make absolutely no sense to the modern reader. This is probably why even the Canterbury tales (late 1300's and technically Middle English) is published often with the original text and a modern translation along with it.


So, unless you are one of those stubborn purists, I've probably convinced you that dialogue for fantasy and even historical fiction needs to be modernized. But that does not give writers a licence (if they want people to read what they write) to have the dialogue of their fantasy roughly based on the middle ages to include, "Dude, I'm trying to celebrate and chill, but you're harshing my buzz. What's going on?" This is where we now get to the interesting point of this article. We can't take modern dialogue and stick it in the story, but you also can't be authentic. What are you to do?


First, that example ("Dude, I'm trying to celebrate and chill, but you're harshing my buzz. What's going on?") is my rough, modern translation of this line from Chaucer, "What fold been ye, that at myn hom-comynge perturben so my feste with criynge?" Neither works, but we can do better, right?


The first problem with my version (if this was going into a fantasy of historical fiction piece) is obviously the slang. "Dude, chill, and harshing my buzz." We need to take that out and replace it with something perhaps a little more appropriate. How about:


"Sir, I'm trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. What's going on?"


Now there's an interesting thing here as well. I've got some contractions in there. I'm sure people back in the day used them just as we do today, but there seems to be a prejudice in our media (movies, plays, books, etc.) about the people back in the day speaking in nice, crisp, proper English...without contractions. And especially somebody would would bother addressing anybody as 'sir.' So, taking those out, we have:


"Sir, I am trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. What is going on?"


I'm still not happy with "What is going on?" and I think there needs to be a better way. It still sounds too modern (even though, as we saw from Chaucer, everything about my sentence is 'modern.'). So what I'm going to do is just take a phrase that, again, would make no sense in the 14th century, and see what happens:


"Sir, I am trying to celebrate and relax, but your spirit is without cheer. Please, tell me what is the matter?"


All I did was take a phrase that is not used all that often and put it in there instead. This and the other things I put in there alert the reader to know that this is definitely not taking place right this day, because just about nobody they encounter on a daily basis talks like that. From there you are free to use the setting to give your reader a more accurate sense of time.


You don't really want to create authentic period dialogue, but instead what you want is transparent dialogue that gets the character voice across and keeps the plot moving forward. Don't use it for creating setting, let your descriptions do that.


So in summary, what I would recommend at this moment would be the following:


1) Get rid of all slang (contemporary or otherwise unless it is native to the period you are working with)


2) Understand that formality and manners can be useful for some characters to highlight that we are not in our modern time period


3) Use uncommon phrases that seemingly transcend time to allow your setting to pin point the time period.


4) Don't use the 'thee, thou, thine' stuff unless you know what you are doing and the rest of your dialogue is going to be very close to authentic. And even the, I feel it takes away from the clarity and becomes less than transparent.


Hopefully my little rant was helpful, and props go to those who pointed out this issue of anachronistic dialogue in my flash. Without you, I never would have sat down to think about this. Thanks.


What do you think? How should dialogue be handled in Fantasy (and Historical Fiction.)

Why you should transcribe masters...by hand

When you go art museums, chances are you'll see somebody like the woman on the left copying a masterpiece. She's not expecting to make a name for herself by doing this. Sure she might sell it as a copy...who knows...but that's not the reason she invests all this time into her task. She's spending days in this museum with her paints and easel to get inside the master's mind and figure out exactly how they created the illusions that made that painting great.


She's hoping that once she gains these insights, she will have the skills necessary to eventually create beautiful art of her own. She hopes to become a master herself.


Other arts such as music or literature don't have such public exposure to artists copying the masters, as they can be done in the privacy of their own home, but it's something we shouldn't neglect to do ourselves.


We read the masters as writers and we learn stuff from them. They teach us how to tell a story and what you can do with the language. But how much can we really absorb by just reading them once, twice, even ten times? The answer is not as nearly as much is if you sit down and actually transcribe their words on paper by hand.


When you slow things down and copy down each word, each letter, and each punctuation mark, you are effectively dissecting the work. You figure out what the author is doing and you gain insight in to why. You essentially take a microscope to the work, and just like the painter, you inspect each brush stroke, each color is scrutinized, and more often than not, you end up with an ah-ha moment that leaves you a stronger writer.


While most of the masters are famous for their novels, it would be preferable to select some of their more acclaimed short stories. They are short enough where it will only take a couple hours to transcribe an entire story by hand (Yes I know this is a long time, but it's worth it) You will then see how these authors open the story, carry it through the middle, and wrap it up in the end. Novels...well those would take weeks of constant transcription and an wrist of steel to do.


Novels though can contain very good passages that would have some benefit as well, and while copying the whole thing might not be practical, doing the first and last chapter will give you insights into the two most important chapters in a novel, if writing those things are your thing.


Now I also mentioned that you should do this by hand. Why is that? Well for one is slows you down just a little bit more. It's easy on a keyboard to type fast and recklessly because it's easy to delete and use spellcheck. This will not only diminish the effect of transcription, but you will loose one of the other benefits that will really help you out...HANDWRITING. As I'm writing this post, @sirra_girl just mentioned how she can't read her own edits sometimes, just like me. Well one way to improve this aspect is to write by hand and write slowly. Again, greatly beneficial.


The last thing I want to mention is that you also want to make sure you do some transcribing of the modern masters as well. While the old guys like Shakespeare, Dickens, Poe, etc. have lots to learn from, the modern masters (especially ones published in the last year or two) will help you keep your writing current. If you're not plugged into who they are, just look at award winners for instance.


Is this something you've done before? If yes, did it work for you? If no, will you be trying this?

Just what is a passive sentence?

Aside from “don’t use adverbs.” the biggest advice it seems that young writers are given is “don’t use the passive voice.” The problem is that, unlike adverbs, the passive voice can be a bit fuzzy.

The basic definition is to have the verb in front of the subject. These forms are easy to see and identify such as the example below.

1) The dishes were washed by John.

In that example, John is obviously the subject, washed is the verb, and the dishes are the direct object. But there are other types of passive construction that can be more difficult to spot. Take the example below.

2) I was punched by a bully.

Here, the noun ‘I’ is the first word of the sentence, but if you look carefully, it’s not the subject. ‘a bully’ is the subject. Additionally, the subject can even be implied, making it far more difficult to identify.

3) I was punched in the nose.

Yes, this is passive because of the implied subject. ‘I’ does not do the action of punching, and that is why it can’t be the subject and thus it becomes passive. (Note, the subject could be ‘by somebody’ and it would come right after the verb, punched.)

Now this is where things can get really fuzzy. You can have a subject that sorta does some of the action in combination with another subject that would still be passive, but it’s a little more vague.

4) Alex got elected to county examiner.

Here, Alex does some of the action, and he is first. But the other subject would be ‘by the people’ and that would come after elected. Here, Alex is more involved, but there is still a subject after the verb. This is called a ‘reflexive passive’.

The next example I have seen is generally regarded as a ‘pseudo-passive’ because we are about to cross the line where the noun before the verb is more active than before, but there is still another entity doing action.

5) My family had our apartment checked for bugs.

The family does not check for bugs, but they actively caused the checking of the bugs by having somebody else do it. This is called a ‘causative passive.’ And this become more and more pseudo the more active the subject becomes such as the example below.

6) My family got somebody in to check for bugs.

Some people might even debate whether that is even passive at all, but we could all agree that this is very close to the line.

Now that we’ve established what is and isn’t really passive, what about sentences that have ‘was’ in them? I’ve seen a lot of people in critique groups call sentences that had the word ‘was’ in them passive for no other reason than the word was there. But is it?

Probably not.

“I was walking” is not passive. It is a tense called ‘past progressive.’ Now if somebody keeps using that tense, there might be something else going on in their writing, but it does not mean it is passive.

Hopefully that cleared things up for a lot of people, and hopefully I got the grammar all right.

Keep writing!

When to End your Paragraph

How and when to end a paragraph is something I don’t often see written about, and honestly I’m not quite sure myself on this topic. Hopefully I will help understand myself, how and why I end a paragraph by the end of this post. But in my opinion, the purpose of a paragraph is to convey a full series of interconnected thoughts. But that is pretty vague…so I’ll need a paragraph or two to fully convey my point.

First I’d like to start out with the word. The most fundamental building block of language is the word. (aside from letters, but they all exist on your keyboard already…words, not so much.) Words make up sentences, which make up paragraphs, which make up chapters, books, trilogies…etc. They express an idea, one simple, single, abstract thought. A word will make the reader picture something in their minds or generate an emotion, all depending on the person. Really though, a single word does not have much power over a general audience without context.

Words are given context in phrases. phrases allow for an entire single thought to be conveyed. That’s it. Just one. You can’t write a phrase that focuses on two different ideas. For instance, to convey the thoughts that Mary has a blue dress and that she goes to school, you need two phrases. (I’m pretty sure. If there is a grammar expert out there that thinks I’m wrong, please correct me.) I know you’re thinking “Mary wore a blue dress to school.” might disprove that point, but the main focus is that she goes to school; blue is just a modifier.

Sentences now, they are made up of phrases. (A sentence can be a single phrase, which can also be a single word, or many.) A sentence contains a full, complete, thought. So “Mary wore a blue dress, and she went to school.” takes the full idea of Mary going to school with a blue dress and packages it into a single unit, making neither the blue dress, or going to school irrelevant. That is what I think a sentence is in a nutshell.

And how here we finally get to the paragraph: it should contain a more complex idea, for instance a description of a room; and you could write a full and rich room description in a single sentence; but doing so over and over again, will tire the reader and make pacing difficult; and this is where the paragraph comes in, taking a really long sentence and allowing you as a writer to break it up into multiples, while still keeping that idea contained in a single vessel.

So now where do you end a paragraph? You end it once you have completed your idea. My rule of thumb, is that if I can’t link the entire paragraph into a single sentence, I need to start a new paragraph. But don’t let this limit you either. There comes a point where you might have a 3 page paragraph, and while there is nothing wrong with that, it will tire your reader. At that point you might want to look at breaking it up. Where you would do that would be up to you, but I would suggest any time you have a good line, or a word that would end it with a lot of power.

And that brings me to my last point. To make your writing more effective, you want to try and end your paragraphs on a good, strong word. If you end your paragraph with a word like ‘this’ or ‘is’, there is not a lot of power. But if you end it in a word, like I did above, that is powerful, it puts a good, strong, stamp on your writing.

So hopefully this helps you, and as always I don’t proclaim to be an expert on grammar. Don’t show a teacher/professor this blog as why you can do something, but I think it’s right.

What do you think is the best place to end a paragraph?

Emulate Television or Movies in your Writing?

I feel that a lot of times, authors will be inspired by movies when they begin writing. And I understand that appeal, since a number of us probably end up watching more movies than we read books. I mean they are less time consuming, can be shared easily with other people, and usually don’t require a lot of imaginative effort. So then we as writers start to imitate what we see on the screen in our writing, we make a huge mistake.

The truth is that while books and movies may share a lot of story structure in the middle and end, the beginning of a novel is more akin to a television show. If you plan on taking story telling hints from the visual stories, then I suggest TV rather than movies. (at least in the beginning).

TV programs compete with 100s of other shows on at the same time as them, and when the break between programs comes on and people start surfing, they need to grab hold of the viewer and can’t let go. They need a compelling hook with an interesting character facing some sort of problem. For instance a ER type show might begin by showing some very unusual and possibly deadly ailment affecting a patient, a cute little 6 year old girl. Yea, everybody want to see if she makes it.

Does that sound familiar? Isn’t that pretty much what every writing tip tells you about your first page? Because just like the TV viewer, a reader browsing a bookstore is surfing through tons of books, all trying to grab their attention. If they happen to look at your book, you have only a couple lines to hook them before they move on, just like in TV.

Contrast this with movies where the viewer has spent the money on the ticket and entered the theater with their popcorn in hand. This gives the movie a chance to slowly bring the viewer into their world. They can have the opening credits scroll by in a fog while they show the setting. Then they can show the main character getting ready for work and doing their daily routine before anything interesting happens. But the only reason they can get away with this is because the viewer has already committed to the work. This just does not happen with books unless you are such a big name that readers pre-commit to you.

So when you write that opening chapter, don’t take us on a journey through the geology of your world and/or start with the character in their ordinary routine. I see that far to often in the fiction that I critique. Give us a compelling character stuck in a problem that we need to know the resolution of. Without that your book will be put back on the shelf or deleted from the editor/agent’s inbox.

Complex sentences–To the EXTREME

I’m currently reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville, a great peace of American literature; and I have to say that this man must have gotten paid by the semi-colon; but his pay must have also thus, as pay was sometimes done at that time from what I gather, been subtracted from each period that he used, since there seem to be sentences that go on forever.

Ok that was a little snarky nod towards Melville there, but that seems to me how a lot of people in the 19th century wrote. If you don’t believe me, I just opened up my book and found this whopper after only about a minute:

And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues–every stately or lovely emblazoning–the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of the butterflies and the butterfly cheeks of the young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all defied Nature absolutely paints like the harlot whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge–pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.

That is a monster of a 175 word sentence right there!

Now what can we learn from this? First we can tell by reading it that it’s hard to read. Granted the sentence is technically not a run-on, even though it violates the ’single breath rule’ that some people use to determine if a sentence is a run-on. In fact, a sentence can be infinitely long, as long as it’s punctuated properly. So it’s not a run-on, but wow is it complex and hard to read. So we don’t want to imitate this, but why study it?

Like a batter in baseball puts a weight on his bat to take practice swings before coming to the plate, learning how to write a sentence like Melville’s will make you more comfortable using more complex sentences in your writing. Again, I’m not advocating filling your work up with 100+ word sentences, but there is value in learning how to construct them.

So lets start de-constructing that sentence. First I’ll break the sentence apart into all the independent clauses.

And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues–every stately or lovely emblazoning–the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of the butterflies and the butterfly cheeks of the young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without;

so that all defied Nature absolutely paints like the harlot whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within;

and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge–

pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored and coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him.

So as you can see there are 4 of them there. (At least that’s how I see it. I’m not a grammar junkie so it might be wrong, but that’s just how I see it.) If you read each one you will notice that it is a single complete thought. You’ll also notice that two of them end with a semi-colon, one ends with a dash, and the final one obviously ends with a period.

Why arn’t commas used? Well a comma would normally be used in a more basic complex sentence. “I went to the store, and I picked up a gallon of milk.” There are two independent clauses there: “I went to the store” and “I picked up a gallon of milk.” In that case a comma joins them well, so why did Melville use semi-colons and a dash?

He did that because the general rule of thumb is to use a semi-colon in place of a comma to join two independent clauses when commas have already been used in the independent thought. (And a dash can take the place of a semi-colon and is nothing more than a stylistic choice).

So that is an extreme example of a complex sentence, broken down into the main thoughts; and having read that, I hope that you feel confident in ratcheting up the complexity in some of the sentences in your work that feel could use it.

Hope this helps.

Also, feel free to comment if I’ve botched up any of these grammar rules. I want to make sure that this is correct as possible.

Thanks!