A great writer once told me that to be a good writer, I needed to learn all the literary rules and then forget them all.

I remember the first time I shared my craft with a crit group. I remember thinking how lucky they all were to discover my talent. The session didn’t quite go as I thought. They tore apart my writing for one fundamental flaw—Point of View. In the chapter of about fifteen hundred words I switched POV at least seven times. I wrote as if I were watching a movie, each POV a different camera angle. This of course is amateurish and makes for rough reading.

In another crit group, I shared a new piece, expecting agent referrals and publishing contracts. Instead I received fantastic feedback on the concept (new to me at the time) of Showing vs. Telling.

So I upped my game. I avoided any word ending in “ly” and the word “felt” so that I could show instead of tell. (There was a great post on adverbs earlier this month). I wrote much more dialogue and I put my main POV character deep in the scene. I thought that I needed to keep reminding the reader of where my POV character was, how his/her hands were positioned, and where he/she was looking.

Instead of writing, “I picked up the phone.” I might have written something like, “I picked up the phone with my right hand while using my left to shuffle through some papers.

I’d use filtering phrases like “I could see the light glistening through the window from the outside.”

Rather than “Light glistened through the window.”

This type of writing really messes with pacing. I had written a scene as follows:

“Lenny grabbed the back of the trailer with his right hand and while running along he reached as far as he could with his left hand grabbing another part of the trailer and jumped at the same time pulling himself up though he got stuck part way but soon pulled himself up and onto the trailer. “

Rather than, “With some effort, Lenny managed to pull himself into the trailer.”

Also, I failed to give any backstory in my novel for fear of telling rather than showing. So I would get it in by an incredibly long discussion that didn’t quite work. I left my readers with a bunch of questions, because I was too afraid to “tell.”

It seemed as if I swung on the pendulum of poor writing from inappropriate use of POV and too much telling, to the other side of overuse of POV and obscurity.

To address my problems I’ve read, a lot. I take notice of when authors use “ly” words and when they use filtering and why it works or maybe how it could be better. I’ve paid attention to how an author shows a story, how he/she sets it up and establishes setting while still revealing back story, and I think I’m getting it. Maybe those publishing contracts are right around the corner or maybe I’ll have another opportunity to learn and grow or both.

I’m learning that good writing is just one element to a good story. I’ll endure page after page of telling backstory in The Rackateer by John Grisham, because the story is intriguing. I’ll ignore Larry Correia’s overuse of adverbs in his work Monster Hunter International because his story is extremely exciting and funny. I’ll overlook Michael Chrichton’s abundance of point of view filtering in Prey because the story is full of nail-biting suspense. Hopefully someday I can have the privilege of someone critiquing my work after they’ve paid for it.

I think that it is very unlikely that a person just wakes up one day and realizes that he/she is a fantastic writer. Great authors learn how to write great stories well. It takes time and lots of practice.

I think maybe I’m starting to forget some rules.

Always (or Never?) Leave Your Readers Hanging

March 18, 2015

Nathan Barra

Authorial Trust Balancing Acts Character Conflict Craft & Skills Nathan Barra POV Reader Investment & Empathy No Comments

Every so often, I hear a writer claim that everyone must “Always end your (book/chapter/scene/page/sentence/introductory clause) on a cliffhanger.” Yes, maintaining your reader’s momentum through the story is essential. Yes, cliffhangers can be an effective means of doing just that. Extremely so. By their very nature, cliffhangers leverage the reader’s investment in character or story to push the narrative forward and create a sense of urgency. However, they also run the risk of backfiring and driving readers away if used improperly or cheaply.

This sort of manipulation typically takes one of three forms. In the first instance, a beloved character is threatened, but neither their fate nor their response to the danger is revealed. It is a sort of dramatic pause, like cutting to a commercial break in your book. The emotional draw in this instance is dread; the reader wants to know that the character will survive the encounter. They keep reading to find this answer.

Another option is to have a powder keg moment. In this structure, the reader has been anticipating a specific event, usually some sort of violent conflict. It is akin to watching the fuse burn towards a keg of gun powder. The reader knows that the explosion is coming. They have been waiting for it, bracing for it. However, in the moment before the explosion of action, there is a prolonged stillness and the scene is cut. In this case, the draw is anticipation. The reader needs to see how the events play out and if those events match how they thought the scene would progress.

The third major case is what I sometimes call “the First Boot Drops.” A major story event occurs, often unexpected, but before the characters or reader have time to fully react, the story cuts. Though the threat to the character is implicit, the reader’s tension comes from not knowing what will happen next. They are drawn forward by their need to witness those consequences. They are waiting for the other boot to fall.

In all three cases, cliffhangers play upon the reader’s need to know the resolution to a threat against a beloved character. The situation must represent a believable and immediate threat whose consequences would be severely and personally damaging to the PoV. For that to happen, the reader must be deeply enough invested in the character to feel a sense of urgency. Used too early in the story, before a strong bond is developed between reader and PoV, the technique will feel like a cheap ploy.

The threat’s believability hinges on the reader’s trust of the author’s skill. I see cliffhangers as an addendum to the writer’s contract with the reader. They accept the situation because they believe that the writer will pay off on the promise with a satisfying resolution. Revealing that the character was never actually threatened after all is cheating. You might get away with pulling that sort of bait and switch once, but over use of cliffhangers will numb your reader to threats against the character. Once they come to believe that any threat against the character is an instance of “crying wolf,” it’s game over for your book.

As for immediacy, it is perfectly legitimate to cut to another PoV in order to draw out the suspense. However, the contents of that second PoV must be interesting enough to keep the audience moving forwards until you cut back to the character you left hanging. Furthermore, the threatened character needs to resolve their situation to pay off on the tension. Lag for too long, and the effect is lost.

Cliffhangers are an effective tool, not a one size fits all solution for every situation. They require authorial trust and reader commitment to be effective, as well as an impeccable sense of timing. Used too often, they begin to feel cheap and lose their effectiveness. However, betraying your promise to the reader is even worse. False anticipation will drive readers away faster than any other authorial sin.

Second Person? Yes, You Can

March 17, 2015

Colette Black

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One of the infallible rules that I’ve always been told is that you can never write a good story in second person. First person stories let us see the character in depth from a single person’s point of view. Third person, while not quite as personal, allows us to easily switch viewpoint characters and see the world from multiple points of view. But second person? Who wants to read a fiction story that keeps taking the reader out of the story by insisting that they are the character. “You went to the store. You bought a gallon of milk. You chugged it down so fast you made yourself sick.” Nope. Doesn’t work. But can it?

There are two scenarios in which I think second person works beautifully. First, is the choose-your-own-story scenario. These are books, sometimes online and sometimes sold in stores, where the storyline can change according to the choices the reader makes. I haven’t read many of these. Okay, maybe only one, but I’ve seen calls for them. One online publisher in particular–I can’t remember the name–wanted stories for YA girls. It seems that many of these girls enjoyed a second-person story with a bit of romance and adventure, where they could decide how their story progressed and how it ended. I think there’s some value in this. Just as first person, present-tense, makes a story more immediate, second-person can make it more personal. There’s a unique opportunity to entertain while teaching about the inevitable consequences to our choices, especially if the story is done realistically well.

Another scenario, my current favorite, is writing for games. After struggling for over a year with the technicalities of creating a story for the board game, Sojourner Tales, I finished the module, The Hologames. It’s a take off my Mankind’s Redemption series, going back to the early years of one of the side characters, and introducing the inception of one of the series’ fun elements, the hologames and hololympics. The story modules are written in second person, present tense, and like a choose-your-own-story, the players select the direction in which the story proceeds. There are a lot of great reasons to present the story modules this way:

Second person makes the game feel like a personal adventure. In A Knight’s Tale, you are the one trying to find the princess. Will you find the clues, get lost in a dungeon, eaten by a dragon…? In The Hologames, you’re trying to win prizes and glory along with your chosen partner. Will you pick human or alien, which species, what battle themes, and will you select the right environments to win? Second person increases the fun of the scenarios.

In a board game scenario, having the story in second person coordinates with moving tokens, having unexpected events, and the eventual closing chapter and game conclusion. They integrate well.

By putting a tell-your-own story with a board game, Tracy Hickman has brilliantly made a game that can be played multiple times for each story module and the players will have a slightly different game each time. It may not be strategy with the complexity of Twilight Imperium, but the inherent variety is an interesting twist on traditional board games. It’s a lot of fun.

So, never write in second person? Generally, no, but when given a chance to take a risk and step outside the box, I took it. It’s been a great ride.

Bio: Colette Black
Colette Black lives in the far outskirts of Phoenix, Arizona with her family, 2 dogs, a mischievous cat and the occasional unwanted scorpion. She loves learning new things, vacations, and the color purple. She writes New Adult and Young Adult sci-fi and fantasy novels with kick-butt characters, lots of action, and always a touch of romance.

Authorial Foreshadowing

March 16, 2015

fictorians

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A guest post by Lou Berger.

As Emily Godhand’s post Friday discussed, writers are, in the course of their tutelage, exhorted to show their story, not tell it. As you read this post, however, you‘ll learn a specialized form of how to break this rule and do it well.

See what I did there? I gave you some insight about what’s to come! If you were paying attention, Gentle Reader, you’ll be able to guess the rule I’m about to teach you how to break. And that’s exactly the point.

Authors, including Stephen King and Jane Austen, make frequent use of the literary device known as authorial foreshadowing. Thing are bopping along, you’re getting great dialogue, great scene descriptions and a general, friendly backstory of the folks you’re about to spend time with in the story you are reading. Then, ruining your day, the author intrudes on all this happiness and beauty with a huge revelation.

“Little did Jimmy know that this was his last morning of sunshine. A late-model Buick with fishhooks welded to the grill barreled down the interstate, driven by an unshaven man hunching forward to peer through the cloudy windshield.”

Gives you shivers, don’t it? And the unshaven man probably won’t, prior to his smashing into poor little Jimmy and his friends at the bus stop, pull over and shave or, God forbid, clean the damn windshield.

The author has interrupted the story to tell you that something dire is approaching. Now you can’t see Jimmy in quite the same way, can you? You’re already discounting what he says and does because he’s gonna die. Oh, it will be a splendid death, for sure, with young bodies cartwheeling through the air, perhaps a mangling or two, maybe even a severed head bouncing through the school zone, coming to rest against the curb, eyes clouding over as the mouth works soundlessly.

But I digress. That’s coming up. Right now, Jimmy and his cohorts are sniggering about something the teacher said. “The beauty of art,” she announced, but the boys can only parse that she said “The beauty, uh, fart.”

Boys, right?

Authors foreshadow to build tension, to keep you engaged in the story.

Also, if they know that something unbelievable is about to happen, a good author will break the “show, don’t tell” rule with authorial foreshadowing to get your mind working on what is about to take place. Call it, if you are so inclined, a way to get you thinking about something improbable way ahead of time, so that when it comes up, you were expecting it and you’re not so unwilling to believe that it is possible.

“When Georgette woke up that morning and stretched in the early Kansas sunshine, she had no idea that she’d be barreling toward Pluto in a stolen alien spacecraft by mid-afternoon.”

See? Now she can munch Wheaties, dress for school in a smock and Mary Janes, then skip her way to the bus stop where Janice is waiting with the latest dirt on the new boy that moved into the Johnson house. WE know that aliens are a’comin’. So we mentally prepare for that and anxiously await learning how the author will make it happen.

Georgette, on the other hand, is clueless.

And we turn the pages rapidly, racing toward the abduction . . .

There. I told you you’d learn something!

About Lou Berger:

Lou Berger is a Denver-based writer. He’s published several short stories in magazines and anthologies, and is a member of SFWA. He’s currently working on a middle-grade novel set in 1978’s Franklin, North Carolina. His website is www.LouJBerger.com.