Category Archives: Craft & Skills

The Balancing Act – Specificity in Action Scenes

Action & Adventure Conflict Craft & Skills Fantasy Horror Ideas & Plotting Leigh Galbreath Science Fiction 2 Comments

Very recently, I took part in a workshop with twenty or so other aspiring novelists in the SF and Fantasy genres, and one of the most common problems I ran across was in writing action scenes. Often the scenes came out jumbled and confusing, or the writer simply skipped it. Writing action can be intimidating. It was for me. My first action scene, I confess, was first written by a friend of mine. He did the draft, and I had to fiddle with it until I figured out how it worked.

For me, action scenes have myriad issues that make it difficult to navigate. Here I’m going to focus on one of those issues – the difficult balancing act of how much detail to include. Too much description is much the same as too little; both will leave the reader confused.

The lack of description, I think, is at least partially based on the fact that we hear, again and again, how too much description slows the pacing down. In most cases this is correct, most description is unnecessary because the reader can assume certain things.

Example: He parked and went into the building.

I don’t put in the step by step detail about navigating the parking lot or getting out of the car- putting his foot on the break, turning off the ignition, unlatching his seat belt, opening the door, getting out, and closing the door behind him. Most people know how to get out of a car, so the detail is unnecessary.

Let’s look at the same idea put into an action scene. Take this example I saw recently: I lunged. He landed on the ground with a heavy thud, and I got back to my feet.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I have no idea what just happened. What made the other guy fall? When did the narrator end up on the floor and why? The detail is now a true necessity for the reader to experience what they are reading.

That’s the irony. While, in another type of scene, description can be problematic, it’s necessary for action scenes. Quite simply, most people don’t know what it’s like to be in a gun or sword fight, a space battle, a horse charge, or a kung fu brawl. They don’t have the experience to fill in the gaps, and so the writer has to do the heavy lifting.

The problem comes when the writer moves too far in the other direction. As I said above, too much is just as bad as too little. Get too detailed, and the reader might lose the focus of the scene in all the minutia and become confused anyway.

The way out of this is to be specific rather than wordy. Slamming to the ground, for instance, implies something very different from hitting the ground or slipping to the ground. Also, words that mimic what’s going on can help cut down the word count while still keeping the pacing going. Hard consonants can help a reader hear a gun fight in their heads. Short, concise words echo the pace of a fast moving chase.

Another good thing to remember is the use of paragraphing – shorter paragraphs that describe only one character’s actions can keep what’s going on clear to the reader. Get too long, or put more than one character’s actions in a paragraph, and things start getting muddled again.

So, while finding the right balance can be difficult, it’s by no means impossible. There are plenty of ways to counteract the need for the additional description an action scene requires. The key is to keep the action simple and clear.

Valuing Your Characters or Maslow for Writers

Ace Jordyn Character Conflict Craft & Skills First Drafts Ideas & Plotting The Writing Process 3 Comments

A great plot and fantastic world building mean nothing without solid characters. Solid characters? Aren’t protagonists supposed to have weaknesses, flaws, desires which make them easier to relate to? And aren’t antagonists supposed to have soft spots to make them less stereotypical? True enough. But how do we determine those qualities?

Solid, well rounded characters, above all else, need value systems. What is the character’s core philosophy? What does he/she value above all else? What is most important? Family? Survival? Pursuit of knowledge? Loyalty? Money? Control? Love? Revenge? Adherence to rules? Fully realized characters have values which are challenged as they try to achieve their goals or live up to them. For example, an heiress, loyal to her father and his values which made him wealthy, searches for love and finds it in someone who hates everything her family stands for.

Value systems create opportunity for conflict and give characters depth. Once we’ve discovered those values, the plot comes alive as characters struggle to be true to themselves. For example, in The Hunger Games, despite all contestants valuing survival, they each value other things which motivate them: Katniss wants to save her sister and to avoid loving people but finds herself falling in love with Peeta who she’ll have to kill to win the competition; and Peeta wants to save Katniss but to do so, he must overcome his pacifist nature and kill others.

Ask – What three things does your character value the most?
The most important thing for X is: survival ….. adhering to the rules ….. scientific discovery …. family ….. avoiding love … finding love …. and so on.

We can use Maslow’s Hierarchy to explore the range of values to determine which ones will create the most conflict for our character and our story. Maslow’s Hierarchy orders our human needs from the most basic to self-actualization. Remember, fulfilling our needs determines what our values are at any given point in our lives. That means we can be on level 1 while trying to achieve level 5 because conflicts are never tidy packages – they are individual to the person and even to the culture.

Maslow’s Hierarchy
Level 1 – Survival: basics such as food, shelter, water, clothing, health – what the human body requires to function
Level 2 – Safety and security: personal (violence, natural disaster), financial, health and well being
Level 3 – Love/belonging: friendship, intimacy, family, this is our tribal nature of needing to belong in a group to enhance safety and survival needs
Level 4 – Esteem: being respected by others, needing status, recognition, fame, prestige, and attention. self-respect, mastery, independence and freedom. Respect = greater power
Level 5 – Self-actualization: concerns personal growth and fulfilment

Now use Maslow’s Hierarchy to understand your character’s values and to create conflict. Let’s start with Cindy. She’s a mom, a scientist and a peace activist.

Ask – What three things are most important for Cindy? What does she value? How does that fit into the hierarchy?1) winning the Pulitzer prize for peace by creating a Virtual web around the earth which neutralizes weapons (levels 4 and 5);
2) survival because nuclear proliferation threatens world safety (levels 1 and 2); and
3) her family (level 3).

Create your plot line by threatening all or some of the values or pitting them against one another:
Terrorists steal Cindy’s invention to use it to control all political powers on earth. Cindy must cooperate by agreeing to be their spokesperson and by activating the device in order to save her family. Will Cindy sacrifice her family to save the world? Will she die saving the world but be dishonoured as a traitor?

The higher levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy can be compromised by the lower basic needs or vice versa. Take a value and either go higher or lower on the chart to find a situation or value which can undo it. Ask what your character wants to gain and then ask how that can be undone or threatened by another value or what the effect of that will be.

Once you’ve determined your character’s values, putting them in emotional or physical conflicts which challenge those values makes for interesting reading. How your character responds to those situations creates wonderful opportunities for more action and reaction and moves the story along.

And, as an added bonus, focussing on values helps create the elusive pitch! Here are two quick pitches developed using Maslow’s Hierarchy and a character’s values.

Tom cannot remain the invisible technician aboard a space ship (level 4) when a computer virus compromises life support (levels 1 and 2) and he must overcome his insecurities (levels 4 and 5) to find the traitor before everyone dies.

Kim values family above all else (level 3) but his desire for wealth (level 2) puts him in a compromised position which threatens to bankrupt him and leave his family penniless (levels 1 and 2).

Using these examples create a story by exploring the protagonist’s values. Ask yourself: What is important to the character? What threatens his values? Now, create the supporting characters and determine what is important to each of them. Which of their values will conflict with the protagonist? What internal conflicts arise for each character?

By answering these questions, your plot comes alive through conflict, your characters rise beyond cardboard cut-outs and your readers, well, they’ll love you for it!

So, value your character by developing personal values which are threatened or clash with one another. Let those values drive the plot and watch your story come alive.

Happy writing!

Research sources:
psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/…/hierarchyneeds.ht
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs
www.businessballs.com Ҽ leadership/management
http://changingminds.org/explanations/needs/maslow.htm

Ethics in Writing

Craft & Skills Nancy Greene The Fictorians No Comments

Every year, Virginia lawyers have to complete a certain number of class credits (CLEs) to remain certified as a lawyer. A certain number of those hours have to be in ethics. Yes, I know, insert applicable lawyer joke here. Regardless, I still attend ethics classes every year. So, I took a course in The Ethics of Legal Writing. I know-the jokes keep coming.

Most of what I write as a lawyer is derivative. I quote from cases, statutes and articles. The standards that govern my cases are often so ingrained that it’s tempting to repeat them without citation. Junior lawyers (associates) draft pleadings signed by senior lawyers. All these things are plagiarism if proper credit isn’t given to the initial author. One would think I wouldn’t need a class to tell me this. Anyway, the class, an opening written by someone who’d commented on one of my stories and using the same set-up I had (prompting a “déjà vu” comment from one of the critters), and a “Daily Kick” from Dave Farland (Davefarland.net) sent out on September 10, 2011 started me thinking about plagiarism.

A judge once used a paragraph I wrote in his final decision. His opinion didn’t reference that the section came from my brief. Is that plagiarism? Yes. It’s using another’s words without giving that person credit. But, while I’d see red over someone reproducing my fiction writing that way, I took the judge’s use of my paragraph as a huge compliment. I never even considered that the judge was guilty of plagiarism. On the contrary, I’ve pointed to that section of the published opinion with pride.
Senior lawyers have associates who write briefs (the legal documents we file with the Court). The senior lawyer then may file the completed brief without reference to the poor associate who slaved over the document. In the legal profession, as long as the partner reviewed and retained oversight over the work, his taking credit for the associate’s words is acceptable. Yet, in the non-legal writing world, this purest form of plagiarism-stealing someone’s words-destroys careers.

So, is it that lawyers don’t believe in plagiarism when it comes to legal writing? No, we just have different pressure points. The legal writing world is a bit schizophrenic about ghost writing. Ghost writing is when someone writes for a fee knowing that someone else will be listed as the author. In non-legal writing, ghosting is a time honored tradition. Writers are hired to make famous people’s good stories readable. The writer doesn’t get credit for the work, the famous person does. It’s an accepted form of plagiarism since the writer is fairly compensated for the use of his words. Even within the legal writing context, we accept certain types of ghost writing like the associate/senior lawyer example above.

But I can lose my law license if I ghost writing a pleading for an individual who then files the document on a pro se (i.e. without counsel) basis. A pro se party is likely to get more leeway from the Court than an attorney. So Cheatum hires Attorney Dewey to draft a law suit for him. Dewey then allows Cheatum to file it without Dewey’s role being disclosed. Because Cheatum is “pro se”, the Court will likely forgive some of “his” mistakes even if it would have raked Dewey over the coals for those errors. The Virginia Bar considers this form of ghost writing fraud on the Court and the opposing party.

Maybe there’s a reason lawyers need classes on plagiarism. We often don’t think of ourselves as “writers” even though a large portion of what we do, our craft, is written. Plagiarism is center stage in the information age. It’s not just college students trying to fill space in a paper who are plagiarizing these days. Dave Farland’s September 10, 2011 Daily Kick warns of writing scams offering to review or edit your manuscript in order to steal it. The availability of e-publishing allows “writers” to sell their books to readers before those books have been professionally vetted. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. But plagiarism can flourish in this unrestricted marketplace. Non-lawyer writers don’t sit through CLEs. All writers, legal and non-legal, need to be vigilant about the many forms of plagiarism given current technology. As David Farland suggests and the Bar Association requires, be careful with electronic documents. Don’t send them to people you don’t know.

Understanding your own Writer’s Block

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Writing Tools 5 Comments

This is a topic I’ve been thinking about lately, and is similar to the recent post from Kylie on Unleashing the Muse

Although the topics are similar, I’m taking a slightly different approach so hopefully it won’t seem like overkill.

I recently watched the movie “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.  Very funny.  Emma Thompson is a novelist who kills her heroes, and somehow Will Ferrell becomes her next character and can hear her voice as she types and prepares to kill him.  Fascinating concept, moreso for the fact that Emma Thompson can’t quite figure out the right way to kill off Will Ferrell.  She gives a brilliant portrayal of a less-than-stable author suffering from writer’s block.  She goes to some amazing extremes in her attempt to get the right idea.

The following clip shows just how far she’ll go:  to an emergency room to view injured and dying patients to get real-life inspiration.

Stranger Than Fiction clip – Writers Block

As the clip so wonderfully portrays, some writers struggle mightily with writer’s block.

Do you?

What do you do about it?

I don’t suffer from writer’s block very often.  I spend lots of time in the early stages of story creation planning, considering different ideas, and fleshing out exactly what I want to achieve with the scenes, the characters.  Once that basic framework is nailed down, the actual writing of the story is pretty straight-forward.  The big exception is if a new, unexpected idea hits me while I’m writing a scene.

So am I just lucky?  Inspired?  Or do I not push the envelope far enough?

I believe that many times writer’s block is a symptom of one of these deeper problems:

  • Lack of clarity of a story’s mission or concept
  • Lack of understanding of the correct plot framework the story needs to build upon
  • Incomplete worldbuilding
  • Weak or inconsistent conflict
  • Trying to force a story down a direction that just doesn’t work, which the author may understand at an instinctive level, but lacks enough mastery of the craft to consciously identify the shortcoming and therefore begin the process of correction.

When have you run into writer’s block?  Is it at a particular phase in a story every time, or does it happen at random intervals?  How do you find ways around it?

As mentioned in Kylie’s previous post, one approach that often helps is the BIC_HOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard) approach:  force yourself to work, to type, to drive yourself into “the zone’.   This actually works for me.  Sometimes playing the right music as I try to get into “the zone’ helps a lot.

Another way to help explore options is playing the “What If?” game.   Back up to the last part that worked in the story before you hit the snag that’s holding you up and start asking “What if?”.  Search for the most surprising, craziest possible twists you could add.  Or look at the scene and consider if anything similar has ever been done before, and then ask “What If?” you took the opposite track?

The worst thing you can do is just give up and say “I’ll write tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll feel like it then.”  ;or blame it on a Muse that just isn’t talking today.