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.

When Subtext Goes Wrong

While on a flight, I began reading The Righteous by Michael Wallace. It had an interesting concept dealing with a murder investigation by a secretive polygamist sect that happened to one of their own. He wrote the book well, delivered solid characterization, a tight plot, and fluid prose. SPOILER ALERT However, towards the end in one of the climatic scenes when many of the characters are in mortal danger, it is revealed to the reader that one of the main characters was wearing a wire for the FBI, and the agents, right on cue, burst in with their guns drawn to essentially save the day.

END SPOILER ALERT. This reveal of such a critical piece of information in the place it was revealed made the climax instantly loose it's momentum because I felt like I had fallen victim to a deus ex machina. Now, this particular scene was not quite a DEM as the rescuing characters had been properly brought into the story, but because of the late reveal of that critical piece of information, it really felt like it.

Now, what I think Michael Wallace could have done differently to fix this would to have brought that critical piece of information in when one of the characters was in their viewpoint. It would have taken away the knowledge gap between the reader and the character, but it would inserted a new knowledge gap (that the reader would be aware of) between the main character and the antagonist. This would sacrifice the poorly done twist for heightened suspense.

So I think the main takeaway from this short post would be that you need to be careful when using knowledge gaps to give your story a deeper subtext, because one wrong slip (especially right at the climax) can have disastrous effects. Look at what you are keeping from the reader and actively see if there might be a better way to reveal that information.

Do you have any examples of when subtext goes wrong?

Be a Rockstar!

You're a writer, so you're probably not wearing leather pants up on a stage in front of thousands of adoring crowds as the pyrotechnics blast off, filling the arena with the haze only spent benzine fuel could create while you do your work. (I you are, well that's awesome and I want to be you.) No. You're probably sitting in your office, living room, library, or coffee shop pecking away at your keyboard...alone. So how do you become a rockstar, and why?


Rockstars are generally really good at their craft. (And yes, this can be anything...not just music anymore. A Rockstar is somebody that is really good at what they do, and they have the personality that makes it fun to be witness to their genius. They are flamboyant and even a little arrogant. They make difficult things look easy and smile when they are done like they know you're amazed.


A rockstar is a surgeon who performs delicate brain surgery while whistling "Yankee Doodle" and when they are done, they say 'it was nothing.' 


A rockstar is an athlete who makes the opposition look like fools, and when they win, their celebration is elaborate and planned, because they knew they would win.


A rockstar is a writer who spins tales of intrigue that memorize their audience while they goof off in the media (or social media) but yet they never say anything dumb...they're just fun.


What you don't see though is the surgeon spending long hours in the library or skills lab, the athlete pushing their body to the limit, or the writer sitting at they keyboard typing out lines and lines of text even when they don't want to.


A rockstar is brilliant and arrogant in the public eye, but privately, they are mad perfectionists making sure their skills are the best in the world, and they won't settle for less. They work harder than anybody else, but they don't let the world see.


Why do you want to be a rockstar and not just a 'brilliant writer?' People love rockstars and their personalities, and they sell a lot of their work. And wouldn't that be nice if you were able to sell tons of copies of your book and actually quit your dayjob? A brilliant writer might write great books, but just like a brilliant musician, if nobody reads/listens to them, does it really matter?


If a brilliant book gets published in the middle of the forest, but nobody is around to read it, is the book really brilliant?


So how do you do this? How do you become a rockstar? YOU WORK YOUR ASS OFF IN PERFECTING YOUR CRAFT. You type at your keyboard until your fingers are arthritic and then you take some Alieve and keep going. You read voraciously in and out of your genre. Fiction and Non-fiction and you become the best damn writer you can be. And once you do that, you keep doing it day in and day out.


But you must also take some time out of your day to polish your rockstar image. Get on Twitter, Google+, Facebook, or your blog and smirk at the world as if you barely work at all. Poke fun of the latest Franzen novel and even belittle some of your own work by brushing off praise. Even pretend like you don't need or want it. Or perhaps you go Muhammad Ali and and proclaim yourself the greatest writer of all time...even if you don't know it yet.


"I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was." Muhammad Ali


Once you are oozing with confidence because you're convinced yourself that you truly are a bad-ass , and you mix that with the hard work you have put into your craft...you just might become a rockstar and the greatest writer of all time.


(This was a very fun post to write, and plus, it gave me an excuse to put up a picture of Judas Priest)

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.)

Empower your writing by dumping 'feel'

There are certain words in the English language that allow writers to be lazy and end up as traps for some of us. One of my biggest offenders seems to be the word 'felt.' It's a tricky word in that it seems like it's a show type of word when you think of the sentence "Anna felt the heat of the fire." And it is better than "The fire was hot." But there is an even better way to write this.


If you say "Anna felt the heat of the fire." we get the image, but it feels removed. Felt seems to serve as a filter that bars us from the character and ironically (Yes, I think this is actually an appropriate use of the word irony), does not allow us to get a good grasp of what the character actually felt. The main reason for this is that it put's Anna as the subject of the sentence even though she does not really do anything aside from passively observe. Plus, by removing that word, it forces you as a writers to become more creative in your descriptions, and that's a mega win.


So going back to our example sentence, I removed 'felt' and had to figure out what the fire was actually doing. So since we'll say the character is standing, the heat is going to originate from the ground (assuming this is not some massive conflagration) and heats up her lower back first, making its way to her upper back. So the feeling is moving upwards, and motion is a good thing because it's active.


The next question is what do I do with the motion? I suppose I could go and use the typical phrase 'ran' as in "The heat of the fire ran up Anna's back" That's good because now instead of Anna being the subject, 'The heat of the fire' is, and it is actively doing something instead of our passive Anna.


Still, I feel (pun intended) there has to be a better word than 'ran.' Since I want to keep this simple, I'm just going to throw a yummier verb in there instead of going all metaphors and such and say "The heat of the fire crept up Anna's back." Not perfect, but for this little blog post, I think you get the idea.


So for a recap:


"The fire was hot." = Bad.
"Anna felt the heat of the fire." = Meh at best.
"The heat of the fire ran up Anna's back." = Alright.
"The heat of the fire crept up Anna's back." = Good.

"The waves of heat radiating from the fire ducked under Anna's shirt and slowly crept up her back like a pack of ninjas closing in on their target." = Well I just went and ran with this...not perfect but you get the point.


'Felt sentences' may be better than 'was' sentences, but come on, you can do better.




Please let me know if you have any better suggestions for the sentence...and can you beat my super awesome ninjas metaphor???

Sensory Images and what NOT to do

When you start out writing, many people will tell you to make sure you put in lots of sensory details, as they liven up your writing. And yes, that is true. If you can smell, feel, taste, hear, and see the story, it will be a lot more vivid than if you are just looking at it like a movie.


But the trap I've seen a lot of writers (myself included) fall into is they end up using the character as a sensory vessel. Now while this would be technically correct to write:


Zachary saw the blooming flowers and bent down, smelling their sweet fragrance.


It comes across as weak. Zachary is technically the subject of this sentence. He dominates. And unless the act of Zachary bending over to smell the flower is very significant, we don't care about it. What you would want to do is, instead, just go out and tell us about the blooming flowers and what they smell like. The reader doesn't need the main character to be a sensory vessel. Here is a quick revision:


The blooming flowers released their sweet fragrance into the meadow.


There were two things I did there. First, I was able to add the little detail about the meadow (in 2 less words mind you) Second, I made the flowers the subject of the sentence. Now we as a reader are focused on the flowers and the image is a lot more powerful.


But you have to be careful when you do this with any POV that isn't 3rd person omniscient (and I don't recommend you use that) because while readers don't want to see Zachary bend down and smell the flowers, the character has to be smelling the flowers. If he is trapped in a glass box where the smell can not enter, then the sentence I wrote would technically have a POV problem. Instead you could do this though:


The blooming flowers swayed in the meadow, and Zachary could only imagine their sweet fragrance wafting through the air.


Granted there are quite a few more words in this, but come on, my MC is locked in a glass box.


This POV problem though also goes for the other senses including sight. If you character can't see it, you can't describe it. But you don't need to (or should) explicitly tell us what your character sees. Again, some examples:


Zachary turned around and saw the bear chasing him.


Zachary turned around. The bear was chasing him. 


It's subtle, but in an industry as competitive as creative writing, every little trick you have to make your writing just a bit more powerful goes a long way.


For you: Have you noticed this in your own writing? Do you have any tricks for showing sensory detail without explicitly having the character experience it?

Inserting the 'Knowledge Gap' into your writing

The last two weeks, I've been reading David Baboulene's book "The Story Book" and I've learned quite a lot that I want to share with you. The book is primarily concerned about script writing for movies, but the same principles apply to any type of story you are trying to tell. I recommend you check it out if you have a Kindle (paperback is listed at like $40!?!?! while the Kindle version is only $1.99) and then go watch the movie Back to the Future since this is the key example that keeps coming back again and again.


But anyways, the key concept of the book that I feel is well worth your time to actually look at and analyze would be the concept of a "knowledge gap" and how it helps create a subtextual plot.


First, we need to lay down the knowledge gaps and what they are. Quite simply, it is a lack of information that either some subset of the characters or the reader is privileged to.


A knowledge gap for the reader might be the lack of knowledge that one of the characters is really a vampire. The character who is a vampire knows this fact and acts accordingly, but the reader does not. This allows the reader's imagination to go into overdrive trying to figure out why this particular character hates the sunlight. All of a sudden, boom, they've engaged their own imagination. And once that is up and running, it's easier for them to apply that to other aspects of the story. (Plus is also gives them a puzzle to figure out without them knowing it. And we all love to solve puzzles, so it keeps us interested)


Once it's revealed to the reader that this character is a vampire, the author might take our vamp into some little village somewhere. Here, the reader knows he is a vampire, but the other characters do not. This again gives the reader some things to play with and imagine all on their own, like how the characters are going to react, or even how they would react in a similar situation.


Now both of those concepts are pretty basic (although you don't really hear them discussed much, regardless of the jargon used to describe it) What you really want to know by reading this post, is how to use that simple concept to create a plot of pure subtext.


I won't be able to teach this to you in a single blog post, but what might get you on the right track is to look at your stories and see what kind of underlying message you want to get across. It is usually this underlying message that really brings out the power in a story, since it is something that the reader 'discovers' on their own without being told bluntly what it is. This makes that underlying message stick a lot longer with the reader because they came up with it 'on their own.'


A simple example I can give you would be if you have a husband and wife in your story, and you want to get across the point that marriage is hard but worth it. You don't have to make the characters fight, make up, and talk about how happy they are. You could write a scene where they fight, say doing the dishes, then at the end have the husband pause for a moment, smile, and blow a handful of dish bubbles at the other right at the point where their argument is at its most intense.


The knowledge gap here would be that the reader doesn't know that this is actually a happy married couple. So their mind is thinking "wow, when will they get divorced. They really hate each other. I wonder if he cheater on her. Does she no longer love him?" But in reality it's just innocent bickering. The other knowledge gap would be between the husband and wife. The husband knows(and so should the reader at the obvious 'paused and smiled' cues) that he's realized their argument is stupid and it's not worth fighting about (which is why he playfully blows the bubbles at her). But she doesn't know this, making the reader feel like they are in on the playfulness.


The plot of my little example is pretty simple on the surface. Husband and wife fight. Husband ends fight by blowing bubbles at wife. The subtextual plot is, Husband and wife have difficulties, but in the end they realize how much they enjoy being around each other. The subtextual plot is the one you feel closer to, and it also has a lot more power than just the superficial one.


What do you think of this method of putting in subtext? Do you already do this or have some other method?

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?

Writing your Query Letter before your Novel

    One of the most painful things for a novel writer is the dreaded query letter. We hate it. We really do, but I shouldn’t have to tell you. You know, don’t you?
    I mean how do you condense a brilliant novel into just a couple paragraphs? It can’t be done. How can you get across your brilliant symbolism and genius characterization? How can you show the subtlety of your foreshadowing? How can you explain your fiendishly twisted plot?
    You can’t.
    And I’m not here to tell you how to write your query letter. But what I am here to tell you is that half of the pain is in distilling and sifting out the main idea from your novel. That is if you even have a main idea to distill...and if you don’t, this can be a SUPER painful process. And the one way to reduce this pain is to write your query letter before you even type “Chapter 1.” Yes that’s right, I said before.
    Why?
    The reason is simple. If you have an idea for a novel, yes you can write it and make it interesting. But once you go to write that query letter, it’s easy to find out that you don’t have a hook, or a plot that can summarized to the point where an agent, editor, or more importantly, a reader, will want to hear more. If you write your query before hand, you are no longer handcuffed by your novel and if you realize that the plot just can’t be dressed up enough to make somebody drop everything and read your book, you can change it. No longer will you think, “I wish I could just change that death to a kidnapping. I could do A, B, and C and my book would be amazing!” You can just do it.
    Oh, and did I mention that you won’t have to go through the alchemy of finding your main point? Did I mention that you’ll have, sitting in front of your computer as you write, a guiding light to keep you on track? Did I also mention that when your friends, family, and other co-workers ask about that novel you’re writing, you can succinctly tell them what it’s about?!?!
    Yes, that’s right. You’ll never have to fumble around for 15min only to leave them wondering how anybody would ever make sense of the nonsense that was your plot!

    So yes, I know. Writing query letters can be painful, but if you do it as soon as you have an idea for a novel, it will not only make your life easier, but it will make your novel better. I wish somebody told me this years ago...
   

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!