Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: William Noble on Subtlety and Misdirection
Excerpt from Conflict, Action & Suspense by William Noble:
We speak of subtlety and misdirection because the story moves with veils and whisps and bare outlines, and there’s no attempt to ring a bell or blow a whistle so the reader’s attention can be lassoed like a runaway calf. What this type of writing requires is a careful assessment of how much or how little to offer the reader, keeping in mind that we don’t want to be unfair, and we don’t want to obfuscate beyond a reasonable point. It means we must come up with at least one plot-hyper [an element of uncertainty and tension], and we must plant the key somewhere in the text. It doesn’t do much good if we expect the reader to deduce things from vague clues because, then, we’ve exchanged subtlety for unreasonable expectation. Go back to Conan Doyle and Poe—both planted their plot-hypers in the body of their stories, the subtleties and misdirection came, not from obfuscation or vagueness, but from knowledge of the way we tend to think. How many of us are lulled by the steadiness of routine? The same thing done the same way at the same time and in the same place. Would we wonder about sinister consequences if the routine broke down once or twice? Human nature, we’d call it, nothing works perfectly every time!
Of course, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t quite so fooled.
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Work Cited:
Noble, William. Conflict, Action & Suspense (Elements of Fiction Writing). Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1994. 122. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Tom Chiarella on Silence
Excerpt from Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella:
There are moments when silence comes naturally to a character or scene. In these cases, silence seems the natural answer, an extension of the exchange between two people. . . .
There are moments when nothing can be said. Many things might stand behind this sort of silence. Pain. Conflict. resolve. Here, the person stops speaking because silence is the only answer. Silence is the response. . . .
Assume you’re writing a scene in which two brothers are arguing in a bar. They reach a moment during which the younger brother will reveal his secret. Say he stole money from his brother at a low point and since then he’s felt himself in a spiral. You lean back in your chair and decide to let the conversation make the choice. You wait to hear the words of the younger brother, to feel for the tension in what he says next. You expect it to come easily. The story has been building toward this for days now. But hours pass. . . . Hold on. What if the brother didn’t speak? What if he held the secret? What if he said nothing? . . .
Maybe there’s another way to continue this exchange. Work against your expectations of what should be said. Say less. Say nothing. Let the scene take the weight. . . .
When a character goes silent, holds back or turns away in a moment like that, much is revealed. That silence stands as an act in itself. That silence might heighten tension or provide resolution, signal a parting of ways or, by contrast, an agreement. Sometimes the answer lies in not speaking, in keeping quiet.
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Work Cited:
Chiarella, Tom. Writing Dialogue. Cincinnati, OH: Story Press, 1998. 80–82. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Eric and Ann Maisel on Fiction as Experimental Psychology
Excerpt from What Would Your Character Do?: Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters by Eric and Ann Maisel:
A writer gets inside his sleepless, blue character and discovers that she is blue because she has contrived a loveless marriage that made sense from one point of view, the security angle, but was a horrible mistake from the purely human angle, since her husband is a cipher. A clinician says it’s a major depression. A writer says, “Hmm. Given this inner conflict, given that she really does love her walk-in closet but hates her husband, what is she going to do? What if I bring in, not a handsome stranger, but someone she’d never look at twice under ordinary circumstances but who, by virtue of the fact that she is so conflicted, begins to attract her in an obsessional way? Wouldn’t that be interesting?”
A writer sets up his own amazing experiment: his work of fiction. He says to himself, “How would a guilty conscience play itself out in a character who thinks that he is entitled to murder but discovers he doesn’t feel all that entitled?” The writer runs his experiment: He writes Crime and Punishment. He may think that he knows how his novel must end, but he must still write the novel—run the experiment, as it were—to know for sure. Until he inhabits the landscape he has decided to investigate, he can’t be certain his characters are going to do what, at the moment of inception, he supposes that they must do. . . . The psychological legitimacy of the journey is the writer’s paramount concern.
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Work Cited:
Maisel, Eric, and Ann Maisel. What Would Your Character Do?: Personality Quizzes for Analyzing Your Characters (Elements of Fiction Writing). Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 2006. 7. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Nancy Kress on Taking a Wrong (Story) Turn
Excerpt from Beginnings, Middles & Ends by Nancy Kress:
Characters who overreact indicate that the situation itself isn’t interesting enough, so you’re trying to rev up the excitement level with histrionics. Out-of-character actions indicate either that your plot is wrong for these people or these people are the wrong ones to be inhabiting your plot. Long “this-is-why-I-behaved-like-that” speeches indicate a gap in characterization. If we know these people well enough, their actions should make sense to us without lengthy explanation. It’s only when you haven’t shown what your people are really like that we need after-the-fact explanations of their behavior.
In each of these cases, the solution is the same. Abandon the outline. It doesn’t work. You now have two choices. If your characters are taking off in directions you didn’t anticipate, rejoice and go with them. This means that even if your plot is now dead, your characters are still very much alive. Follow their lead and see if a new plot emerges from the unplanned actions you now prefer to write.
But if abandoning the outline and giving your characters their heads doesn’t get your creative juices flowing again, you’ll have to try something more drastic. Read over the story or novel. Where was the last place you were genuinely interested? Was it the second scene? Chapter three? Wherever that point occurred, discard everything after it. Then sit down and build a new plot on what’s left.
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Work Cited:
Kress, Nancy. Beginnings, Middles & Ends (Elements of Fiction Writing). Cincinnati, OH: Writer’s Digest Books, 1993. 97. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Jordan Rosenfeld on Character-Related Plot Threads
Excerpt from Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time by Jordan E. Rosenfeld
At the same time as you establish that your protagonist is a smack-talking hooligan with seductive eyes and a mop of brown curls, or a lonely librarian who reads mystery novels and winds up investigating an actual crime, in this first section of your narrative, you also need to establish:
Involvement. What is your protagonist’s relationship to the events of the significant situation? Is the event his fault, centered around him in some way; did he accidentally stumble into it, or is he integral to it? The stakes. What he stands to lose or gain as a result of the above-mentioned events will create necessary tension and drama. Desires. What he desires, from material goods to deep and abiding love, will inform the stakes and his intentions. Fears. What he fears, from bodily harm to not obtaining his desire, will also inform the stakes. Motivation. What reasons does he have to act upon the events of the significant situation? What is he driven by? Challenges. How does the significant situation challenge his life, views, status, other people, his status quo, etc.?
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Work Cited:
Rosenfeld, Jordan E. Make a Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 2008. 169. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Donald Maass on Humor in Fiction
Excerpt from Chapter 7, “Hyperreality,” in The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass
It’s one thing to crack a joke or be occasionally witty; it’s another thing altogether to be funny for four hundred pages. But that is what it takes. Humor is cumulative. Laughter builds. Have you ever enjoyed a comedian’s routine? When do you laugh the hardest, at the beginning or the end? Toward the end, of course, because the comedian’s outrageous outlook takes a while to overwhelm you.
So it is with fiction. For humor to come through in a novel, it needs to be bigger and more relentless than most authors realize. You can crack yourself up at the keyboard but barely raise a smile on your readers’ faces. To slay those readers, you need to hammer their funny bones like Noah nailing the Ark.
The malnourishment of comic manuscripts is a shame, too, because the methods of mirth are so plentiful. They’re even free. Here are a few of them, on me:
hyperbole wit biting comment (think insults) ironic juxtaposition and reversal escalation of the mildly ridiculous being extremely literal (“Who’s on first?”) funny name and word choices deadpan delivery of dumb remarks deliberate misunderstanding unlikely points of view extreme personas or voices stereotyping
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Work Cited:
Maass, Donald. “The World of the Novel” in The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose, and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 2009. 169. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Bob Mayer on Setting Goals
Excerpt from Write It Forward: From Writer to Successful Author by Bob Mayer
Here’s another thing about stating your goal. Putting it out there, verbally and in writing, is a form of making a commitment. I know many writers get some static from those around them about all the time and money they invest in writing when they are unpublished and there seems to be no payback. If all those around you see is you sitting in front of a computer staring into space and then going off to conferences, they might start to question what you are doing. Letting others know your goal is committing you to trying to achieve it and also lets others know you’re serious about what you are trying to achieve. Then showing your supporting goals such as how much time you allocate each day to writing, attending conferences, taking workshops, etc., will make sense in terms of the framework of the larger, long-term goal.
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Work Cited:
Mayer, Bob. Write It Forward: From Writer to Successful Author. Langley, WA: Who Dares Wins Publishing, 2010. 29. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Sol Stein on Dialogue
Excerpt from How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them by Sol Stein
Dialogue is not a recording of speech, it is an invented language. As a refresher, let’s now remind ourselves of some basic guidelines for dialogue:
1. What counts in dialogue is not what is said but what is meant.
2. Whenever possible, dialogue should be adversarial. Think of dialogue as confrontations or interrogations. Remember, combat can be subtle.
3. The best dialogue contains responses that are indirect, oblique.
4. Dialogue is illogical. Non sequiturs are fine. So are incomplete sentences, and occasional faulty grammar suited to the character.
5. Dialogue, compared to actual speech, is terse. If a speech runs over three minutes, you may be speechifying. In accusatory confrontations, however, longer speeches can increase tension if the accusations build.
6. Tension can be increased by the use of misunderstandings, impatience, and especially by giving the characters in a scene different scripts.
7. Characters reveal themselves best in dialogue when they lose their cool and start blurting things out.
8. Think of the analogies with baseball and Ping-Pong as a way of understanding how dialogue differes from ordinary exchanges. In life, adversarial or heated exchanges tend to be repetitive; in dialogue, such exchanges build. In life, adversarial exchanges vent the speakers’ emotions; in dialogue, such exchanges are designed to move a story forward.
9. Avoid dialect. It makes readers see words on the page and interrupts their experience.
10. In dialogue every word counts. Be ruthless in eliminating excess verbiage. All talk is first draft. Dialogue is not talk.
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Work Cited:
Stein, Sol. How to Grow a Novel: The Most Common Mistakes Writers Make and How to Overcome Them. New York, NY: St. Martin’s, 1999. 106–107. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Brandilyn Collins on Character Growth
Excerpt from Getting into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors by Brandilyn Collins
Too often authors—particularly first-time authors—make their characters turn suddenly, one event moving them from darkness to light, or light to darkness. This is simply not the nature of human passions. To believe a change from fear to courage, a reader must perceive from the outset a tiny bead here and there of potential bravery. These may be almost imperceptible, but they will be present. Then, slowly, more “bravery” beads are added as the “fearful” beads decrease in number. A little more, and a little more, until the shade of the entire necklace begins to change. What’s more, somewhere along the way the color of each individual “courage” bead intensifies. Then perhaps a few “fearful” beads are added back in, and the shade becomes difficult to determine. Then more “courage” beads are returned, and still more and more added until finally the change is complete.
These changes won’t occur at an even pace throughout your book. Certain key events will prompt the addition of numerous beads at once, whether the positive ones of courage or the setbacks of returning fear. The crisis and climax of your story may involve a relatively major change for your character. Readers expect that. But they will only believe such change when they’ve seen the natural progression of colors that must precede it. Being human themselves and having experienced their own passions, they will inherently know if your story is true to human nature or if it’s not.
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Work Cited:
Collins, Brandilyn. Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist Can Learn from Actors. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2002. 102–103. Print.
Writing Advice from the Bookshelf: Billy Mernit on Theme
Excerpt from Writing the Romantic Comedy by Billy Mernit
The first and foremost, most obvious rule of working with theme is that it can’t be artificially imposed on the material—or artificially expressed. . . .
Actually, if you’re working with a viable theme . . . it’s already being expressed without such on-the-nose soapbox pronouncements. Your characters are embodiments of thematic concerns; they’re the ones arguing the sides of your possible truth. And who wins the argument is crucial. A writer’s attitude, belief system, and/or point of view gets expressed in three places: in the growth of the main character, in the resolution of the story, and in the storylines of its subplots. . . .
What has your character learned by meeting, losing, getting? Answer that question, and you enter the realm of theme. . . .
Where your protagonists end up is the clearest indication of the point you’re trying to make. . . .
Any storytelling component that doesn’t conform to a [story’s] theme confuses and diffuses a [novel]; an audience intuitively feels the wrong turn taken.
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Work Cited:
Mernit, Billy. Writing the Romantic Comedy. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2000. 95–96. Print.
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