The Difference Between Relatable and Real in Writing

Note: I’m trying something new here. I’m writing in a quasi-socratic method style. Hopefully it works, and if not…let me know.

As writers we are torn between trying to write something that brings the average reader in, while also writing something that will catch their attention and command it through the entirety of the story. Not to mention we are competing with TV, cell phones, Twitter (you can follow me as Michael_A_Tate BTW), and all other distractions with a medium that takes time, effort, and concentration. As authors we are in a tough position.

So how do we create a story that the reader can relate to but does not bore them? Simple. We take something extra-ordinary and pair it with something the reader is familiar with. For example, a hostage situation is a pretty extra-ordinary situation, and an office building is a pretty common setting. Here the reader takes the setting that you lay out and merges it with their own personal setting. Then you throw in the fireworks of a hostage situation and you have a decent story.

So there we go, we’ve got our formula right? Mmmm not quite. An example would be getting a new pet while living on an alien planet. We’ve got something extra-ordinary and relatable right? As you can imagine, this situation is not quite as appealing as the previous example. We’ve got to change our approach just a little.

Perhaps we can make the claim that setting must be relatable and the plot must be the thing that is extra-ordinary?

But by now I’m sure you’re shouting at me about how successful something like Star Wars is. Hmmm, I must have been wrong then. So let me revise. You need to have an extra-ordinary situation along with something that the reader can relate to. Does the hostage story have that? Check. Does the pet story have that? No. Does Star Wars have that? Lets see.

In Star Wars the setting is not relatable for most people. What about the plot? No. Most people are not going to be able to relate to being part of a rebel alliance aimed at destroying an empire. So perhaps we should look at character. Luke is a teenager with strict guardians. He longs for adventure and feels confident in his abilities before he’s ready. Now what kind of people generally love Star Wars? Teenagers like Luke…or something like that. I’ll give Star Wars a check.

How has our formula evolved? We realize that we need something relatable, be it characters or setting. (I’ll put my preference on characters) and we need an exciting plot.

So why is this again? Why doesn’t a story that deals with the slings and arrows of everyday life make it big (if at all)? It’s because the reader does not want to re-live what just happened to them that day. They don’t want to read 10 pages on how a character filed some papers at work, how the drive home was slow because of construction, and how long it took them to do the dishes because the dishwasher broke. I probably even bored you right there with those couple sentences so you can see what I’m talking about.

If you put those types of things in your plot (even if you have an really good one) then your plot becomes boring. So keep an eye out for those things.

I think we’ve concluded that relatable is good in a story, since it gives the reader a tie to their world; but writing something that is real and honest to everyday life is boring and makes the plot suffer.

The difference:

relatable = good for the story
real = not so good for the plot

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!

First update on my novel/chopping names

Right now I have two novels that I am writing. The first one, titled Bleed Well, is in the re-write/revise phase right now. The other one is in the draft stage and it is as of yet untitled. The new draft does not get a lot of attention as I find I’m really liking the revision process.

But anyways, Bleed Well has taught me a lot about revision; and the main thing I want to discuss with this post again deals with characters: specifically merging minor characters together.

Now I don’t know how many of you have read War and Peace, but for those of you who have (and even those who’ve just heard some horror stories) you know what I’m talking about when I say that too many characters can bog down a story to a crawl.

God bless you Leo Tolstoy, but in War and Peace you introduce SEVEN characters on the first page! This kind of character machine-gunning riddles the reader full of holes; and instead of flying through your book because it’s so beautifully written, they limp through, thinking of nothing but the difficulty of trying to figure out who is who; which characters matter; and why does it seem like this character has three names. Now Tolstoy could get away with this in the age that he wrote in, but not today.

So what do you do if you find yourself faced with your own War and Peace? Well if you’re written the next War and Pace by all means get it published! But for those of you who just have a novel with a cast of characters the size of the New York phone book, my answer would be to merge some of your minor characters together and eliminate many more.

What do I mean by this?

Each character has a specific purpose for being in the book. One character might be there for comedy relief, another to save the princess, and yet another to solve the riddle. Why not merge some of these responsibilities? Make the character that saves the princess funny. He can journey to the castle where she’s being kept, trying to solve the riddle. Then when he reaches her tells a funny joke and tells her of the riddle. Then have the princess solve the riddle. You’ve just taken four characters and condensed them into two.

I know I know that’s a pretty basic example, but look at your work carefully and scrutinize each character. Pretend you’re holding a delete key up to their head demanding that you tell them why they deserve to live; make them justify their existence. You’d be surprised just how many characters you can eliminate without losing anything.

Now an example pulled straight from my work would be this: I have a main character named Fredrick, who talks with his mother, gets some ‘motherly’ advice and moves on. Then another character, Susan, gives Fredrick some grief then dies. Does that already seem like too many characters? Yea I thought so too.

So here’s what I did. I did away with the main character’s mother. (Yes, you can do that. Nepotism is bad in both life and novels.) I then made Susan Fredrick’s aunt, who raised him after his mother died. So she’s kinda like a disliked but loved step-mother. Well Fredrick gets his ‘motherly’ advice from his aunt, who also gives Fredrick some grief. Susan dies and we move on with the story. (The mother did not do much of anything later on so she was just written out).

Another thing that I think every writer should be on the lookout for are naming insignificant characters. I won’t go into too much detail here, but no reader wants to read or cares about the six men sitting at the poker table in the back of the room. If they don’t directly contribute significant action to the story DON’T NAME THEM! But that does not mean name everybody who does something to affect the plot.

Even if one of those men at the poker table needs to break a beer bottle over your character’s head to move the plot forward, then are forgotten, just describe them as, “The man with the brown shirt who was playing poker in the back.” Yes it’s more words than just saying “Dave who was playing poker in the back.” but the word ‘Dave’ slows the reader down more than “The man with the brown shirt.” because the reader now has to create room in their mind for Dave, thinking they are an important character.

Now I don’t recommend that you keep referring to him as that in his scene. You can shorten it down to “the man” or something like that, but resist the temptation to name him. Yes it’s likely one of his buddies would say “Hey Dave, whatcha doin?” BUT DON’T DO IT HERE. Named characters need to be involved deeply in the story. They need to be 3D. Do you have time to develop Dave? Do you really have enough spare words to make him really come to life? I didn’t think so.

So as I’ve learned, by chopping down insignificant named characters and merging other characters together; you can really tighten up your writing and make your writing seem smoother and effortless.

As a side note, a blog that I read, Anne Mini’s Author! Author!, did a three part episode on names recently. I guess great minds think alike as I’ve had this in draft for the last couple days. But I just wanted to mention this so nobody thinks I’m stealing info (although I did read the articles and was probably influenced by them a little in my revisions.)

Character Motivation

I believe that character motivation is one of the most important elements in a story. It’s what makes the reader feel like a character is real, has feeling, and has an independent mind. Without this connection, it becomes very easy to see the strings dangling from the hands of the puppet master (the author).

What exactly does this mean? Well as a writer you have a plot in mind that you will guide your character through, and if the character is out of place, it will jump out to the reader like a flashing neon sign that the author does not know what they are doing.

For example: Say you have a Buddhist monk who has spent his entire life meditating, never killing a single thing; not even a mosquito. Then Rambo enters, trying to get away from the bad guys and asks the monk to help him out. If the monk starts fighting to help out Rambo; the reader is going to throw that book across the room. If for some reason you need the monk to start fighting you are going to need a REAL good reason to motivate this monk to forsake everything he’s ever believed in.

Pretty simple, but hopefully you get the point. Most cases it won’t be as obvious as this, and you as an author have to keep the motivations of your character in perspective, making sure that if you have them do something that they normally wouldn’t do, there needs to be a very good reason.

Another example would be a scene from the movie (I’ll try to use some literary examples in the future, but I think even in the writing community a there is a greater penetration for a lot of movies than most books.) The Shawshank Redemption, which just so happens to be based on a novella by Stephen King. So if you want, you can read a really good work by a skilled writer. But anyways, on to the example. One scene has the main character, Andy a former banker in prison for murdering his wife, on the roof of the license plate factory as part of a group of inmates chosen to do that work. At this point in the movie Andy is regularly being raped and does not really have any friends. Well he overhears one of the (notoriously violent and ruthless) guards talking about an inheritance he received, and how he’s disappointed that most of that money will be taken away by taxes. Andy approaches the guard and here is the transcript from that scene:

ANDY
Mr. Hadley. Do you trust your wife?

HADLEY (The guard with the inheritance)
That’s funny. You’re gonna look
funnier suckin’ my d*** with no
f***** teeth.

ANDY
What I mean is, do you think she’d
go behind your back? Try to
hamstring you?

HADLEY
That’s it! Step aside, Mert. This
f*****’s havin’ hisself an accident.

Hadley grabs Andy’s collar and propels him violently toward
the edge of the roof. The cons furiously keep spreading tar.

HEYWOOD (another inmate)
Oh God, he’s gonna do it, he’s
gonna throw him off the roof…

SNOOZE (One of the other guards)
Oh s***, oh f***, oh Jesus…

ANDY
Because if you do trust her, there’s
no reason in the world you can’t
keep every cent of that money.

Hadley abruptly jerks Andy to a stop right at the edge. In
fact, Andy’s past the edge, beyond his balance, shoetips
scraping the roof. The only thing between him and an ugly drop
to the concrete is Hadley’s grip on the front of his shirt.

HADLEY
You better start making sense.

Andy ends up explaining what Hadley can do and negotiates some beers for his fellow ‘coworkers’ in exchange for filling out the necessary forms. So now what can we extrapolate from this on Andy’s motivation? Well for starters most people would not have approached Hadley like Andy did, especially on a roof where ‘accidents’ could easily happen. But Andy could use two things. First he could use some favor with the guards; second he could use some favor with the other inmates.

This seems like a fine motivation for Andy; yet something seems wrong here. When Andy first walks up to Hadley, he insinuates that his wife is cheating on him. Now Andy is a pretty smart guy who would not do something like that on accident and here in-lies the problem that I have with this scene. I personally can’t find any motivation for Andy to do what he did there. If he wanted to die he could just jump off the roof; he would not insult Hadley and have him do it since Hadley hadn’t done anything to Andy. It makes no sense to me. Now granted it makes for a more dramatic scene, but when I was watching this movie it took a little of the magic out of it for me. Took away some of my suspension of belief.

To fix it so that the motivations of all characters are taken into consideration you could have Andy walk up to Hadley and just say, “I know how you can keep all of your money.” Then Hadley who is already in a rage could grab Andy by the shirt and push him over to the edge saying something like, “What are you trying to do? Get me in here wearing an number like you?” It’s not perfect but I think the scene would be a little more consistant as far as the motivation.

Anyways that’s enough for character motivation for now. My next entry will deal with some of the things I’ve learned while revising my latest novel.

Welcome to my Blog!

I’ll keep the opening post here pretty short and sweet; just explain what I hope to accomplish with this.

Frist: I want to use this as a journal, tracking my progress in sending out query letters and synopses for my first novel. I hope that this might serve as a sort of road map for other aspiring authors and help me look back on the progress that I’ve made.

Second: I will be posting tips and tricks to fiction writing, revising, and submission for publication. I’m the kind of guy who will research something about ten times as long as necessary before doing it, which means I’ve obtained a lot of knowledge on these subjects already and I want to share.

Third: I want to dissect classical (and even modern) literature and find out how great writers are able to do what they do. I want to examine these things from cover to cover—openings, endings, characterization, description, structure.

Fourth: I want to disperse some of my knowledge on the basic tools of writing: this means grammar. Its hard to write when you don’t have the proper skills to communicate, and even I am probably rusty with mine. So a refresher course for everybody would be great.

That is pretty much it. Those are my goals and by keeping this simple I think that I can remain quite focused on them and keep turning out quality content on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

Enjoy the posts as they come in and welcome to my little corner of the web.