Self Editing: Eveything you need to know

I had planned a post at some point similar to this, but when I read the talented Sharon Zink’s page I decided to share it.

Sharon is an amazing writer and I have had her on my blog. She also does the same job as me in that she offers manuscript appraisals; the same level of detail.

So I decided to share this link because it really is a masterclass in writing and everything on here is exactly the kind of thing I say to clients all the time when I assess their manuscripts…

Take heed fellow scribes!

I am now about to write the homecoming chapter on Pelicans… this is exciting, it’s the final chapter when we reveal the last of the missing pieces… and it’s raining so I am loving the sounds of rain on the roof as I write! The morning goes pitter patter… ❤

Have a wonderful day everyone!

http://sharonzink.com/writing-tips/all-first-drafts-are-sht-so-heres-a-masterclass-on-self-editing/

 

Seeking page-turnability …

One of the things I tell readers I work with is you decide when your reader pauses. You set the pacing.

Creating the kind of book that really grabs has always been one of my missions. There are so many stories and so many novels where I falter, am not as gripped as I ought to be and any excuse to put the book down, go make a coffee can lose your reader. But how do you keep those pages turning and stop that happening?

Clearly you need a good plot, one that keeps moving and this means not overloading it with filler. By this I mean too much back story, complicated sub-plots that do not tie into the main plot, extraneous detail. Readers will see through this and it will turn them off. So this means you have to really tighten your plot so it all feels credible and it moves the story onwards. Anything that can be removed without the main plot tumbling probably can be removed full stop.

It’s the function of the second BIG edit where you address issue sf plot, characters that don’t need to be there, filler etc.

And also think about narrative devices, teasers that end  chapters and have you read the next chapter right away!

The validation comes with the kinds of comments I am getting with reviews about like not being able to put the book down I say a big “PHEW” . You can get there, but you have to be brutal when you edit and tight with your plot and your devices.

Well that’s it for now, have a wonderful day. I am now trying to resolve some plot issues with the current novel… means a lot of note jotting and rocking in my chair … now there’s an image for you … complete with cats too! In fact I am feeling like a real writer! And what a wonderful way to spend the day!

The art of story telling — the question a novel asks

Writing is not just about having a good idea.

It’s not just about being clever with words and finding new and interesting ways of combining them,

It’s the whole deal and that’s why it can take a long time to really get that to work, to learn this craft of ours.

And burning at the heart of any good novel needs to be a question, one that  makes the reader want to read that book and then keeps them hooked throughout, even to the last page!

Some stories are what we call high concept, the kind that often end up as movies, a great idea, something that feels like it surely must have been done before and has real universal appeal. I hope While No One Was Watching might be that.  It’s not like something I set out to do, and I am not so sure I Am Wolf does that, but we’ll see!

I was thinking about ideas that hook yesterday when the lovely Roy Noble interviewed me for BBC Radio Wales. It airs on Sunday morning, 10.30 onwards.  We talked a lot about Kennedy and about this idea of what’s happening at the same time, who was Eleanor Boone and why did she disappear? Of course I wasn’t going to answer that exactly. He also asked after all my research who did I think killed Kennedy? Well not sure I can answer that either, only to say I was quite convinced it could not have been a lone assassin. I suspected a cover up, and I tried to evoke many of the ideas and theories in my novel — I would say no more. No spoilers!

Roy did also say the idea of being apart from a child is one that is current and he talked about the film Phil0mena.  I’d like to see that.

Yes I think there are two things that I hope have that universal appeal with While No One Was Watching. One is that it deals with an iconic moment in history where everyone, who is old enough to remember, recalls where they were and what they were doing, as does Edith Boone who was standing on the grassy knoll.  But we take it a step further with her  because she got stuck in that moment forever. Can you imagine turning around, distracted for a moment by the gunshots and the panic (and can you blame her? Does this make her a bad mother?) — and then turning back and the child is GONE.

That in itself is a horror story for any parent, right? But amidst an assassination, a moment anticipated with excitement at seeing the President turns into a murder in front of you  … and not only is your child gone but  she is never found.

So why?  Why does she disappear? Is the story really what it seems? Is the question that beats at its heart (as has to be the case in good story telling) and the hook to add page turnability, what really happened to Kennedy? Or what happened to Eleanor Boone? I think it’s this:  if Kennedy had not been assassinated that day, would Eleanor Boone still have disappeared?

That is the one I set out to answer.

So what about your novels — can you identify a single question?

With the anniversary week approaching and the conspiracy theories rearing their heads  again, there was an interesting programme on Channel 5 last night, although not sure when it came to suggesting an accidental gunshot by a member of the Secret Service, I can buy into that. They glossed over quite a lot and when it came to the key elements of the argument, like that the magic bullet could have been right as Governor Connally has a lower seat than originally suggested there was no real evidence to show this or the trajectories, just a sweeping ‘so the Warren Commission was right after all and the ‘magic bullet’ could have passed through Kennedy and Connally etc.’  And in concluding the final head shot that tore the President’s brain apart was an accident,  the agent in the car behind reaching for his gun and falling onto it and that was the fatal shot made me say — hang on, show the evidence? And why go to such lengths to cover that up when they had one man to blame. Okay one that would cast terrible shame for the US if one of their own secret service agents (Hickey) had fired the fatal shot, but in fairness  a response to a real assassination attempt by Oswald. But really? It could be that simple? And would an agent (even though they did say he was not experienced) have made such a mistake? Hmm …

Not convinced.

What about you?

There is another TV show on tonight ITV 10.35 that I will await eagerly.

I do wonder at this incessant need for conspiracy, but there is little doubt for me with this story that this is what we have and with records remaining sealed until 2029, what do they have to hide?

I think this obsession with conspiracy in any story taps into the same primeval need for a good story. Diane died tragically in a car accident as many do every day, didn’t she? Or something much more sinister? Add a cover-up and you have all the ingredients for a high concept bestseller, right? Do we like to wallow in tragedy?

Maybe as humans who seek pleasure in escapism, be it film, TV, books, plays etc, there is an inherent need to inhabit other lives and for things to be bigger and better and  at the same time far worse and more sinister than they might be. So maybe that’s why we buy into it, who really knows.

All I know is we constantly seek new angles and so I hope that what my novel does, is find a different  angle that makes an old story feel new.

But you will be the judge of that.

Some wonderful reviews coming in! Thank you and if you read it and enjoyed it, please do post a review on Amazon too!

Order me now!

Engage engage engage …

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

I will keep this short and sweet this morning as I have been updating the Paws Website and am pleased to announce that the next Paws Animal Writing Competition for Children is once again open for entries (link at the end of this email).

I was watching something at the weekend where someone was talking about the need to engage. He was in fact talking about radio and segments of time where you need to wholly engage the listener or you lose them.

The same can be applied to your writing. I am always waving my banner for character voice being the key connection you have to your reader. So it’s not you but the character the reader wants to engage with. And so I got to thinking about this whole process of engagement. How many times have you read something and got distracted, laid the book down, gone to make tea? Sometimes this is you, you’re not really in the mood, but if the writing really does have that grip factor and the story is compelling with a burning question the reader has to know the answer to, perhaps tea can wait, that TV show can wait, just let me get to the end of this chapter … etc. You have all been there. So now ask yourself what about that book, that particular one that had you lost in a fictive dream state for hours, what made you like that? What engaged you?

Now it’s hard to say any one thing that does this, right? So how will you know if you  have woven that magic ingredient into your own writing? Indeed  what is this thing you need? Well I think it’s a combination of knowing how to write well so your narrative is strong, exactly the right words in the right place so they flow like velvet. A voice that’s interesting, not generic, quirky, even odd but odd in an intriguing way, characters I want to invest the next few days of my life with (for a novel) and hopefully ones that will stay with me long after I finish the book. So they need to have something at stake I care about. And then page-turnability so tea turns cold on the table, I can’t put it down, marital relations are strained by the one more chapter thing. Right? Not that I want to be responsible for a breakdown in marital harmony — but then again, if it’s because of my book. Why not?!

Engagement is key and the reason why a lot of books fail is down to the weaknesses in the writer in not knowing how to do that. This is why I sometimes talk about narrative devices and technique. And why rejection should fuel the drive to make your work better. Learn what isn’t working. You can learn a lot from your own reading. Look at how scenes and chapters end, and what about that makes you turn to the start of the next chapter, even though you promised your wife one more chapter. I’ll turn out the light at the end of this one, I promise …

You must think about your reader as you write and remember it’s not just about telling a story, it’s how you tell your story, or should I say SHOW your story, because believe me — you film it and create the tension and narrative drive that way, it will start to have that can’t put down yet engagement. And always think active voice, not passive! Telling, too much exposition, clunky phrasing … and they’re making tea or turning out the light. Maybe better for martial harmony — but …

What kind of writer are you?

More tomorrow and if you know children who write, here’s more about the Paws Competition …

LINK — feel free to share

 

What an editor does …

I love getting up close and personal to other people’s writing — but what I love the most is seeing how suggestions and comments are put into practice and when the final version comes back it is so much better. I feel then that my role is justified.

New writers often ask  what to expect from an editor. Do they change your work? What if you don’t agree? Can you keep it your way?

In simple terms, an editor doesn’t just change your work and write a whole other story the way they’d do it! If they do — sack them! They do offer constructive and useful comments. I would change grammar errors where there is a hard and fast rule ,and I would remove run-on or words I feel are redundant but ONLY in track changes so the author can reverse the change if they disagree. And occasionally, if I think it’s the best way to show it, I will change a sentence to demonstrate  a point — see how this sharpens it, for example — a more hands on approach if I think the writer needs that and more often for a critique than a copy-edit. I tend to favour making suggestions — this is overwritten, consider sharpening — and I might suggest what could be better but leave it to them.

By marking your MS and highlighting the weaknesses it really is the best and fastest way to identify weaknesses in style, plot, narrative etc. I had read a great many books on writing but just reading that you need to show not tell and even with examples you can not always see how that applies to your own writing. So you have to let an editor into that personal creative space.

There are various tell-tale signs of the new writer, and we all do this  when we start to write — head hopping mid scene (often because the writer hasn’t even thought about it), telling rather than showing, overwriting using ‘awkward’ or ‘clunky’ phrasing, adding too much back-story and lifting the reader out of the story, overly long descriptive passages that slow the story, too many adverbs especially after dialogue (it’s telling), telling what’s already shown and use of other forms of repetition to drum home a point (tell the reader only once) and using as any different words for said as they can find!

Now these will all be ironed out as you learn and get feedback and new writers who invest in a professional critique will most certainly find this is a short cut to identifying key weaknesses so by the time they start sending work out it’s good.

If it’s good enough to be accepted or publication another editor will be appointed and you need to trust their judgement.

In my opinion there is no room for divas! Luckily for me this is incredibly rare and by this point the writers know the importance of the editorial process and have long since shed their tiara and  learned to take constructive criticism. They will already know that a good editor or critiquer  is worth their weight in gold. Because, and this is very  much my philosophy,  a critique, a copy-edit, even a proof read is a teaching aid and if you get a good editor you will learn. It’s still you writing it — but an editor makes it stronger — and we all need that guidance. At the end of the day it’s about making your writing as good as it can be. And this should be the goal of the writer and the editor and it has to be the goal of the publisher as he needs to sell the book!

So can you argue with the editor? Insist on not changing things? Of course you can — it’s only one opinion but it has to be remembered it’s a professional and experienced opinion (or it should be if you pay for it) and so you need to think carefully about the advice. But if you did something a certain way for good reason and make a good argument an editor will listen to you and wants you to be happy too.

As someone who has straddled both sides of the proverbial fence, even when I wasn’t so sure there was something wrong with something my editor had questioned —  I looked at it very closely and nearly always made some kind of change to remove any trace of ambiguity. I trusted her and she did make great suggestions.

Don’t be a diva!

Have a great weekend all — out shopping for a new tiara!

The moment when everything changes ….

The title of this post is a line plucked randomly from one of my many writing books.

Aptly it is something I often discuss in relation to plot when I work with clients.

Of course you all know change is the most important action of any key character in terms of both the character arc but also the story arc. Without change, is there even story?

But what brings about this change and how do you get there?

One of the common weaknesses in story is not so much a lack of change, although I do see this too, but it tends to be either a lack of real motivation for change and/or a lack of credible reason at the moment when everything changes — and these are different.

Let me explain.

I have come across stories where the motivation for a character to change is lost or ill-defined but how can you have a true story if you don’t know or you don’t believe what’s at stake? The conflict needs to be established early and it needs to be believable and as we ‘cross the threshold’ into the story (to coin Christopher Vogler’s much-used expression in The Writer’s Journey) then you will also need to crank up the tension, raise the stakes just at that moment so now the character has no choice but to — take the challenge, get the bus, confront the inner demon. This is fundamental to good story telling in any form or genre — be the conflict internal or external, small or large. The reader needs to believe the character and feel there is no other action ‘they’ can now take. And now we have mapped out an arc where we know the climax will be the point where ‘that’ question to be answered, ‘that’ conflict resolved in one way or another.

Of course this sounds simplistic (and yes I have talked about this before) but it’s how you do this that makes all the difference. The reader knows what’s to come but they don’t know what curve balls will be thrown along the way or what the outcome will be at that moment of resolution. Throw in strong believable characters and I can tell you one thing — the reader does know if they’re rooting for that character or not and what outcome they want, already. And they should or at this point they’re putting down the book! Note as well that we need the conflict as early as we can, stories that take too long to set it up can lose the reader before they get started!

So make sure you the motivation for action is defined enough — something really important (life changing even) has to be at stake for ‘that’ character.

So if you get this right, what about that moment when everything changes?

Well in a story with good subtext and character development the change begins with the journey just as we start to age as soon as we become adult! So the key plot functions will not just be how the character seeks his goal and overcomes his dilemma but in the way the events of the story start to change him or her. So by the time we reach the climactic scenes we believe why the character is now able to walk in a dark room, confront the enemy etc.  We believe it but it still needs more …

The biggest change has to be the one that pushes the character to ‘their’ limits at the key moment after which we head for the resolution and of course the ending, the homecoming usually shows the effect of this change afterwards.

Again this might seem to be a simplistic interpretation of the story arc — but that’s the point, it is simple and it should be simple. It’s from that you build the intricacies of the real story. What you don’t want is a character to have an unexpected change of heart at a key moment that breaks down and is inconsistent with everything we know about him so far.We need to have seen the gradual change and then the big one at the key moment. A sudden change of heart would only work (I think) if it has also been built into the character’s development and foregrounded. A flaw of the character but one we kind of see coming?

Now some of you might think this doesn’t apply to the more subtle more character-driven ‘literary’  story and it sounds more like a plot-driven dragon slaying adventure but you’d be wrong. That’s the reason for the inverted commas today for ‘that’ character and ‘their’ conflict. The story can be Harry Potter with a huge external quest where life and death stakes are there bold and clear, we know exactly what’s at stake. Or it can be subtle, internal, psychological but it can still be life and death for that character.  Remember my OCD story I talked about in the dim and distant past (probably not!) well all she had to do was press three odd numbers on a mobile phone — call 999. Hardly life and death for Harry potter or indeed most of us — but for her, it was and ‘that’ story set out to show that and make us believe why.

Whatever the form of the story when that pivotal moment comes — we need the reason for the change that brings about the resolution to be credible. If there is a change of heart we need to see why and buy into it completely.

Have a look at the books you’re reading and see how and indeed how soon the key conflict is established. How does the plot slowly change the character and what happens at the climax of the story?

Getting to grips with story is key to writing a good one — a memorable one, one that stays with the reader. It isn’t just about how you write it and those narrative devices. You need everything to work together.

Have a good one everyone!

Style versus Voice in Writing

Today when I looked at the flashing cursor I reached for one of my many writing books for inspiration and flicked the pages imagining some invisible person said: STOP.

The book I picked up was: Larry Brooks  Story Engineering Mastering the 6 Core Competencies of Successful Writing. I STOPPED on page 221.

Two expressions  that jumped out at me were writing style and writing voice — both of these often get confused and I do discuss them separately when I critique work professionally. Even when I Googled it the two words are used interchangeably. I guess it’s down to pedantics.

I  see the Writing Style  as separate from Voice. 

Writing style, Brooks claims, in akin to the literary uniform that you — the writer– dons. It’s how you compose your narratives: long or short sentences. laden with similes and metaphors or simple sentences, poetic or more direct, descriptive or not — and so on.

I would also suggest that you could extend this to encompass how you build those sentences into creating your structures, hence how you move your plots: i.e. use  of flashbacks, exposition, where you switch narrators as you follow your story arc to its resolution and denouement.  So in other words what devices you use in your story telling to tell your story effectively. For the purposes of critique, I tend to talk about use of phrasing, clunky words, overuse of adverbs, dialogue, description, even formatting (if they do it wrong for dialogue for example) here, as well as how they use flashback, back story — all of these general overall points under the heading style, looking for the things they commonly get wrong or don’t do as well. 

I tend to look at structure more in my discussion of plot but in reality it’s all part of  overall style.

Voice on the other hand is how  the story is told and you might think that also includes the things talked about above. And again it’s down to pedantics, labels. But I prefer to discuss voice with viewpoint. It’s WHO YOU HEAR. In the modern age where we shift away from the more old-fashioned, more prone to ‘telling’  voice of the omniscient narrator, the focus is a lot more on character viewpoint narrators. While it is your voice strictly speaking talking for your characters — it’s their voice we  hear.  So again, voice is who  the reader hears. So it could be you as the omniscient all-seeing narrator but more than likely it’s a character or in multiple viewpoint novels a succession of characters (but no head-hopping mid scene — new character narrators for chapter or  if needed scene but clearly formatted!). And as I have said before, even in a third person where we imagine it’s let’s say the author telling the reader Flo’s story — she thought —  the closer you get to her, the more intimate the connection and in essence it’s not really the author we hear — it’s Flo. We hear her dialect, her way of rambling in her own head i.e.  it’s her jumbled thoughts we’re privy to, no one else’s!  People struggle with that claiming the third person who’s narrating is you the author watching her and listening to her thoughts and therefore you organising those thoughts and translating them for the reader.  So your voice not theirs? Again partly true but have a look at how closely a Stephen King third person character is to first person? How invisible is the third person so all we really hear is the character? So you wouldn’t have the character even in third person say how they’ve gone pale or look tired unless they’re seeing themselves.  That’s what I’m talking about!

So for the purposes of a critique I would look at how the character narrates, quirks, odd phrases, first or third person, tense, their body language even — and this is why I tend to discuss with viewpoint.

So in a nutshell I would say Voice is how the character speaks (through you) and style is the technical stuff in terms of what words you choose and how you structure that.

It might be a game of labels, but so long as the author takes on board what works in their own writing and is receptive to improving weaknesses and working on both their style and their voice then that’s what matters.

I’ve found the more I read and the more I experiment with voice and technique my own distinctive signature style of writing and the voices I use, develop. After all, we are all unique — aren’t we?

Or are we?

More musings on all things writerly tomorrow. Got any nagging questions? Anything you want me to discuss — just ask away! I like a challenge — to stretch my writing muscle!

Happy Thursday!

Writing a Psychological Thriller …

I have been asked to run a workshop in Bath in November with this title so I thought I would talk a little about it here. But first, and it is related, this week I’ve been looking at various potential covers for my novel and been in discussion about how covers sell books, and what they say. I have talked about this before and I was also interested in the following link about covers. http://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/19-book-cover-cliches

I have been looking at lurking silhouetted figures but the one I want isn’t that!

The cover I really hope they go with is very bold and that’s what I think you want to grab your buyer’s attention but I hope it also says classy mystery/American/thriller and not just  commercial cop/crime thriller — which it’s not. We can fall into genre traps and while my novel is about a crime,  none other than the very public assassination of John F Kennedy, it’s not a conspiracy thriller per se. The main focus is really the missing child — so is that the real crime? Is the book just about solving that? Well, yes and no. It’s about a family; broken families, about love, loss, keeping your children safe and it’s set now but the key players are brought together by the events on the grassy knoll in 1963. So what I don’t want the cover to scream is gritty cop crime thriller when it’s not. Not do I want it to say literary mystery with an arty ambiguous cover. Because it’s not that either.

I’d call it a psychological thriller or mystery  but it’s more than that. I guess you could also say it has historical elements but more recent history but then 50 years is history although it’s set now but uses the past. In fact I use flashback as well as insights by the psychic to go back to 1960s Texas.

And I am thrilled to be asked to run a workshop because I feel I have learned from the greats in terms of the kind of books I read as a teenager. I loved Stephen King,  Dean Koontz and even the medical horror writers Robin Cook who wrote Coma. One of my favourites though was Mindbend where drug reps were taking doctors on cruises and implanting microchips into their brains. Says something about me perhaps! I have not revisited Robin Cook as a writer to look at his style, I’m sure there are things about it I won’t like now — but at the time I was addicted to these kinds of mind-bending thrillers. More recently I have enjoyed Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, S J Watson’s Before I Go To Sleep  to name a couple. I have read Sophie Hannah but not that excited about her. There are many many others.

So what exactly is a psychological thriller? 

Well any thriller needs a compelling mystery to solve so crime novels  are of course thrillers — but I like to think of psychological thrillers as tapping more into the thoughts of the characters and more importantly unnerving the reader’s own sense of immortality and vulnerability. It’s not just about finding a killer. Personally I like to put  what seem like ordinary people into situations that test them to the limit, and this can be more what’s going on in their own head than just external — psychological manipulation of the main characters by an impact character or in this case event. Like any thriller the main character is put into a situation that threatens ‘normality’ so  they can be  trapped in their own head , haunted by memories, have a ‘different’ way of seeing the world or thinking about the world or are driven by an uncontrollable compulsion or need. So it can be more internal than the classic crime thriller.

 There are cross overs and genre is just a way of saying what type of book this is and what to expect so gritty murder mystery crime thrillers need to use psychology and many of King’s novels are classified as horror but still use psychological manipulation, my favourite is the Dead Zone (if pushed to name one although I LOVE his Kennedy/time travel novel 11/22/63) and these are both more psychological than horror. But then what often scares us most, as humans is our own thoughts! Those that do really well are those that manage to tap into a universal sense of the human fear — what makes us uneasy? What scares us? What would happen if something about the world  we know changed? And that can be waking up and having to remember who we are every day to being trapped on an island where you go insane — or more frighteningly none of it’s real and you were insane the whole time.

I like to think While No One Was Watching is a psychological thriller but it’s not just that, it’s a mystery, it’s historical and it has a touch of the supernatural — in a loose sense. I use the devices of thrillers to hopefully (fingers crossed)  give it page turnability with twists and turns the reader doesn’t expect, so action is essential but there’s a great deal of the psychology of loss, do you know what your child is doing? Now that’s universal as a fear, right? And Kennedy and what happened to him, that also has universal appeal too, right? So by definition it’s commercial because it’s the kind of story that needs to be plot or action-driven, but at the same time it still taps into characters and, for me is very much about voice and the psyche. What happened to Eleanor Boone? Can finding the answer to that unearth some important questions about Kennedy? And my narrators have very distinct voices and ways of thinking as I hope you’ll see!

So I will have great fun exploring what it is about these kinds of books that hook a reader — what gives some more universal appeal than others and how can you keep your reader second guessing, surprised even …? What techniques are used? I might also draw some of this from films in the genre. Recently I saw  Premonition with Sandra Bullock and this had that quality I love — of having to really work and think about what really happened. It’s an oldish film now but I found it on late one night and got hooked.

But even if you don’t write, read, watch psychological thrillers, in essence what makes a good story, an unnerving conflict, a question you MUST know the answer to and so the techniques and structures writers use to achieve that — can be applied to any genre. And that’s what I also hope to look at in my workshop.

And it might also be interesting to look at how we can use fact and fiction side by side in our writing for authenticity.

Anyone want to recommend any great psychological thrillers — books and/or films?

If you live near Bath and want to come to the workshop it’s taking place on November 19th in the evening and I will send more details of how to book it etc soon. This is the website: http://www.writingeventsbath.co.uk/2/Writing-Events-Bath.html

Right — still need to hone that short story of mine.

Also unusually I have a little lull while I wait for work to pop in my inbox so now is a good time if anyone wants to hire me for critiquing. Just saying! In three and a half years I have had three only occasions when my whiteboard was clear temporarily– although work is expected soon!  http://www.debzhobbs-wyatt.co.uk/Pages/default.aspx

Have a good half-way through the week day! So much to look forward to!

 

Saying too much …

Getting a first draft down is a voyage of discovery. You are learning about your characters and their desires and conflicts as they steer you through the course of their journeys. And so there is a tendency to tell too much, to use too much back story (or exposition) and what you do is not only pause the action, but you lose any intrigue.

When we first meet someone they don’t tend to tell you their whole life story in the first five minutes (well most don’t!). We learn, we make preliminary judgements (often wrong) and we start to work them out. And that’s what you want to do in your writing. Show the reader enough and then build on that slowly. It’s much more enjoyable for the reader that way. And when you do reveal something put as much of it in the subtext as you can, shown through their actions and words, rather than tell us Mr Graham was a quiet sort; probably because his first wife never let him get a word in but now he’s remarried to a quieter woman he seems to be coming out of his shell.  All of this can be shown and woven like an invisible thread through the story.

A lot of the saying too much comes in early drafts and that’s okay if it’s your way of finding your way, getting acquainted with your character. Later you need to take it out and only show what’s needed when it’s needed (and if the above detail about Mr Graham is completely irrelevant because he’s the butcher who we only meet in the story once then not at all!). When you know the characters inside out, that is often enough to allow you to subtly write only the key features that makes a character seem real without the extraneous detail — as I always say if it doesn’t reveal character, move plot or at some level explore theme — lose it! But knowing all the background is still important to allow you to create real characters. Even Mr Graham with his two-minute cameo when the protagonist goes in to buy meat for her boyfriend (even though she’s veggie and has been since she saw a chicken beheaded on the farm she visited one summer with a friend because their family were big on farms and after the son died by choking on a peanut the family really needed a holiday and since it was her best friend whose brother choked on said peanut she wanted to be supportive but has never eaten meat since she saw that headless chicken) PAUSE for breath, where was I? Oh yeah even if Mr Graham only has a cameo you can still splash him with enough colour to  make him seem real without ANY of his back story unless you want to foreground something needed for plot. Got that? Glad someone has! And while my little back story excursion there isn’t as bad as some I see — trust me I do see them!

So get it down in a first draft if you have to, but then lose it.

The more experienced a writer you become, the less you will do this, even in a first draft.

When I see it, okay not as bad as my example, but when I do, it says amateur. Now that’s fine when I am mentoring or critiquing for a client because that’s the point, I’m teaching and learning at the same time (it’s two-way) — but when I see it in submitted work when I have my publisher hat on, I know this writer needs to work more on developing their craft.

It’s okay — we are all somewhere along that learning line. But get it right when you submit if you are hoping to be accepted for publication, that’s all I’m saying.

Right, back to my new short story …

Have a great day all. Still working on some more In The Spotlights for the Autumn … so watch this space. I also saw some more potential covers for the novel yesterday, one I LOVE in particular — all I will say is it’s very bold. Watch this space as I will reveal it here first.

And the same with characters …

We all fall down …

I thought I would do that looking in one of my writing books today and seeing which page I landed on and I landed on story structure.

I have talked about this before of course but it’s actually a key component to why some short stories and novels fail and why some really work. And I found not only did I have to get a real grasp of this for my own writing — but if I was to define what doesn’t work in someone else’s story I needed to really ‘get it’.

Some stories oddly, like one I looked at recently, kind of broke the rules, it moved over a large time gap in a short story, it also used an authorial voice shifting from one character to another and it’s structure was slightly skewed in terms of arc and the conflict driving it — yet it worked and so it forced me to look more closely at how it was structured. And it also proves we need to know the rules, we need to ‘get it’ before we then play around. And while we might say with something like the arts, there has to be room for subjectivity (and who’s arguing) at the same time we need to know how to build our houses  — so they don’t fall down. And there are many ways to do that right? But while there may be many types of houses, they all need the same key features — good foundations, support work, roof etc and this metaphor can be applied to how we structure our stories.

Actually when I did tease apart the structure of the story mentioned, I saw that what ran through it was something that connected each character, in different times and places and almost took on the role of the character the reader engages with even though it’s not a person, it’s not even a living thing. And here formed the skeletal backbone around which the other components assembled. And that’s why it worked. It did follow the rules!

Structure is key. Might sound obvious but trust me when I say how many stories I read that fall down, literally because not enough attention is paid to this very thing. It isn’t always enough just to tell the story in a linear way but at other times it’s exactly what’s needed to help along a limping,meandering, overcomplicated plot. So as you can see it’s no exact science.

For me it’s about making sure the basic structure is totally sound and then starting with a simple arc, a strong story and then add the complexities to it BUT never tear up the foundations (the THEME) or the joists or the walls that hold it together or it will fall down.

If you do it right you will feel it and you will measure that in the reactions to it. And if you think it was more by fluke than design take a closer look. Study the structure — do the same with books and stories you love and think how you can use that in your own work.

When I do my second bit edit on a completed first draft it’s the structure I look at before I start getting pedantic about the words and the way I develop voice and use language (also integral to the story but more interior design than stabilising walls). And since you might well lose characters and whole plot points in the ‘redesign’ then start with the structure and redecorate later.

So what you ask is structure precisely? Well it’s how is the story told? Three first person narratives at different time points? Multiple narrators chronologically? Using the past and the present in an alternating way? Time slip … etc. And again this all boils down to the question I ask my clients all the time BUT IS THIS THE BEST WAY TO TELL THIS STORY? Look at voices, who’s telling the story? Does the tense work? Do the voices sound different? Would it be better to start at the climax and work back? Do you need all the build-up, why not start in the action and then go back and build to it? Do you need all the exposition (back story) at the beginning (NO!) — you carefully drip feed on a need to know basis?

And how is your scene placement and function tied to the theme — how does it explore it since everything needs to EXPLORE THEME — and REVEAL CHARACTER AND MOVE PLOT. So does it?

There are many ways novelists and short story writers structure their work and so the only way to really grasp it is to read what other writers do well and not so well and write, write and oh er — write. And if you have a story written one way, let’s say a very articulate first person monologue of let’ say a woman talking about the loss of her child — now see if you can tell the same story in a different way. Can you use a different voice, alternating narrators to show a whole other perceptive, start at the end and move backwards and now see what works the best?

In a world of infinite possibilities, there is an exciting assortment of methods and techniques and structures out there — you won’t be reinventing the wheel, but the more you play, the more you might just hit upon a masterpiece in structural engineering. And it might feel new. I think that’s the magic agents and publishers are looking for — that thing that’s so hard to define.  But they know it when they see it and so will you. And the odd thing is when I  come across a novel like that, or its film adaptation even though it might feel new and innovative and exciting — it also feels like a story I know! And one I wish I’d written. Do you get me?

So always worth mixing up your writing and trying something new.

And won’t it be fun trying.

 

One that falls down?