Tag Archives: plot

Give Your Characters Vivid Personalities

Figured out the plot for a story you’re going to write, have you?  Got some rough character ideas in mind?  You say the only problem is, you’re not great at fleshing out the personalities of your characters?  Well, you may have surfed to the right blog post.

I think the first rule of character personalities is–they must fit the story.  Sometimes the plot itself necessitates certain personality types for your major characters.  Of course, from the reader’s point of view, this fitting is the other way around.  Readers learn about the character’s personalities early as they are introduced and relate to each other, and then read about the plot events.  So from your reader’s perspective, it seems fortunate that your characters had just the right personalities, given what eventually happened.

You may have read plot-driven stories in which there’s a lot of action but the characters seem shallow or stereotypical.  These stories get published because the plot action is so riveting, and despite the character portrayals.  There are also character-driven stories where the characters are fully fleshed out, but very little action occurs other than people talking to each other.  These stand a better chance of publication because readers like compelling characters.  However, it’s best to have both a gripping plot and captivating characters.

Let me explain more clearly what I mean about character personalities fitting the plot.  The protagonist in your story will face a conflict consisting of increasing levels of challenges.  That’s what stories are about.  The conflict can be external or internal or both.  In the end, the conflict will be resolved somehow, and the protagonist may undergo an internal change.

So you could pick a personality type for the protagonist that suits her well for the conflict.  In that case the story line is about her dealing with the challenges as they arise, and the actions she takes in accordance with her personality help to resolve the conflict.  Or you could pick a personality type that’s at odds with the conflict.  (For example, the conflict requires bold action, and you’ve got a shy protagonist.)  Now the internal struggle within the protagonist is one more challenge she faces as she deals with the external conflicts.  The actions she takes may actually worsen the conflict initially and trigger the increasing challenges.

In addition to fitting the plot, a character’s personality should fit, and emerge from, his background.  As you figure out where the character was born, his birth order in relation to siblings, what his upbringing was like, and what occupation he chose, those background details might well suggest certain personality traits.  (Alternately, you can determine personality traits first and come up with a suitable background later.)  Keep in mind that people sometimes form personality types in reaction against their upbringing rather than being in harmony with it.

In addition to having a protagonist’s personality fitting both the conflict and the character’s background, you should ensure your major characters have different personality types.  That makes their interactions much more interesting.  As a beginning writer I have found this difficult.  It’s easy to have characters act as I, the writer, would act in their place.  That results in characters with personalities much like mine.  A good writer populates her stories with characters of several personality types that are both revealed by their actions, and determine their actions in a believable way.  Ideally your readers should be unable to determine your personality type from your writing.

There are many sources of information about personality types that can aid you in developing your characters.  Internet searches on any of the following terms will provide plenty of information:

  • One (my favorite) is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which lays out sixteen different personality types.
  • There are four-color personality representation schemes which seem a little less useful to me.
  • Enneagrams provide nine personality types.  I have not used or studied this much, but it looks intriguing.
  • Astrology, either Western or Chinese, provides twelve unique personality types.

I listed these aids last because they are only useful to you in fleshing out a character’s personality type after you’ve already ensured the personality (1) fits the plot, (2) fits the background, and (3) differs from other characters and from the writer’s.

As always, feel free to leave a comment whether your personality clashes or matches with–

                                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe

December 11, 2011Permalink

Why’d She Do That?

Did you ever read about a character making a decision or taking an action and wondered “Why did she do that?”  For example, why does the girl in the skimpy dress unlock and crack open her door after she’s seen the TV news and knows there are zombies loose?  If you have to ask why, the author hasn’t made the character’s motivations clear enough.  Today I thought I’d give you one technique for avoiding that problem.

Engineers have a method called Root Cause Analysis (RCA) they use when something goes wrong with machines or systems they designed–ships sink, spacecraft blow up, cars crash, etc.  They review the accident to understand if they could design the machine or system better to lessen the risk.  It occurred to me one day that RCA could be applied to fiction writing.

Imagine an event–one person taking a specific action.  Let’s represent that event with a rectangle.  For the moment, we’ll call our event the “effect.”  For that event to take place, a set of conditions must be present, and a few other events must have taken place first.   These can be represented by other box-like rectangles off to the left, connected by lines to the effect box.  The prior events can be termed “causes.”

Each of the prior causal events are also themselves effects of even earlier causes and conditions.  This means there is an endless stream of causes and effects, creating a rather messy diagram of infinite boxes and lines. But for our purposes we can keep it from getting too complicated.

Let’s take our seemingly idiotic girl (whom we’ll call Mary) who unlocks her door in a zombie-infested neighborhood.  We put the words “Mary cracks open door” in our effect box.  We know some conditions have to be present for that to happen, but some of them are too obvious to write down–Mary has to exist, she has to be inside a house or apartment, the dwelling has to have a door.  As you do RCA you’ll become more skilled at figuring out which conditions to write down.

Let’s suppose there are other, less obvious, conditions that lead to Mary’s action.  Suppose there’s a storm or fog and the view out her nearby window is obscured.  These could be shown as condition boxes with lines connecting to our effect box.  Suppose Mary’s personality includes the fact that she’s a naturally curious person.  We’ll come back to that one later.

Aside from conditions, we can think of a few preceding events that might prompt Mary to crack open her door.  Suppose she knows her boyfriend is outside somewhere, because he called her earlier and said he’s on his way to her.

Suppose she just heard a noise from outside, a voice that sounds like it might be her boyfriend.  If the call from her boyfriend is one of the prior events, that one will take some explaining, too.  Why would he venture out on a stormy night when zombies are about?  That event cries out for its own prior events and conditions.

The point is for you the author to think about each major decision or fateful step taken by a character and come up with reasons, motivations (whether they are prior events or conditions) that help explain why the character takes that action.

Remember I mentioned that one of our story’s conditions would be that Mary is a curious, inquisitive person?  It’s not enough to just put that in a box on our cause-effect motivation chart.  You need to establish that point earlier in your story.  Provide some scene, or part of a scene, showing that Mary’s personality includes that trait.  Only then will readers understand why she cracks the door later.

When you finish your chart, it should look something like a big ‘greater than’ (>) symbol leading to the final event of your story.  Now make sure the manuscript mentions all the events and all the conditions, even if briefly, and even if only hinted.

RCA helps engineers figure out why bad things happen with complex engineered systems, but I think authors can use it to help explain why their characters do things, too.  What do you think?  Could that technique help you?  From personal experience, I can tell you it has helped–

                                                                   Poseidon’s Scribe

November 27, 2011Permalink

10 Reasons to Keep a Writer’s Journal

From my lengthy “do as I say, not as I do” file comes this item–keeping a journal.  I decided to blog about this topic to kick-start myself into restarting this important habit.  So read on if you like, but this entry is meant to persuade me.

Steve, I know you’ve kept journals in the past, but you’ve fallen out of the habit and out of practice.  You’re also now denying yourself a journal’s many benefits.  Yes, you kept secret “event”-type journals about each of your children’s activities as they grew, and gave the journals to them when they became adults.  Yes, you’ve kept “log”-type journals of writing progress, including daily word counts and submission status.  Yes, you still keep a computer file of story plot ideas that occur to you.  And yes, you write this blog.

But you’re not doing the type of journaling that could improve your writing.  You should keep a private writer’s journal, Steve, and in David Letterman style, here are the Top Ten reasons why:

10.  If you keep your journal in your computer it can be multimedia, including video clips and digital images.

9.  A journal can be a handy place to track your writing progress, by noting word-count per day, and by noting what stories you submitted to which markets, and what the response was.  This particular journal use is so important, I’ll devote a future blog post to it.

8.  You’ll remember things better.  The brain stores stuff in one place when you sense it, another place when you talk about it, and another place when you write it.  That “wet computer” between your ears is pretty good about cross-linking such storage places, so writing a journal will improve memory, whether or not you review previous entries.

7.  It’s a place to note things you may use in your writing — bits of dialogue, descriptions of people, gestures, facial expressions, descriptions of settings, and interesting words.  When you encounter anything of interest during the day, note it in your own words.  If you like the way some other writer phrased things, write that in quotes and note the source; you can paraphrase, but not plagiarize.

6.  Within the journal, you can find out which ideas don’t work.  Admit it, some ideas only seem wonderful when you first think of them in the shower.  Once you write them down, these great-sounding thoughts about plots, characters, settings, and scenes have now picked up some unsightly warts.  Good thing you found that out before going too far with a dumb idea.

5. You can use the journal to solve story problems with such aspects as plot, character, motivation, hook, and the “so-what? problem.”  In the private idea space of your journal, you can clarify the problem, brainstorm possible solutions, and examine each potential solution until best one emerges.  You can use mind maps in your journal to do this.  (I promise to write a blog entry about the use of mind maps to help your writing.)

4.  The act of keeping a journal instills a measure of self-discipline about writing.  Every time you walk into the room where the journal is (if you use the book-type handwritten journal) you’ll feel guilty if you haven’t written in it that day. Once the habit forms, it will nag your conscience until you make your daily entry.

3.  The journal is a safe place to write, a “word sanctuary” where there are no criticisms, no nasty reviews.  There you are free to roam with your muse discovering and charting regions of thought not suitable (yet) for public commentary.

2.  Journal-writing helps hone the process of capturing thoughts into words.  And that’s what a writer is all about.  You might learn to write with greater clarity and focus.  After all, it’s a private journal; there’s no need to write in a fancy, confusing, or euphemistic way.

And, Steve, the number 1 reason you should keep a writer’s journal is…

1.  By exploring your inner feelings in a private journal, you might increase your self-awareness.  It’s said that Gnôthi Seauton was inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, meaning “Know Thyself.” If you probe deeper into yourself and combine that knowledge with a better ability to convert thoughts to words, it should make you a better writer.

Perhaps you readers of this blog can comment on other reasons for keeping a writer’s journal, or about your experiences with journaling.  Excuse me now while I go make a journal entry.  Signing off here, I’m–

                                                          Poseidon’s Scribe

November 6, 2011Permalink

What? I’m Supposed to Learn Structure, Too?

Yes, you should know about short story structure to be successful in selling your tales.  Luckily, it’s not difficult.  To learn about structure, I mean.  The actual writing of successful short stories takes some effort, but so does anything worthwhile.

Let’s start with the basic structure of any story.  This structure is true for novels, movies, plays, even comic books.  We’ll then see how the structure applies to short stories in particular.

1.  The Hook.  This is an opening section meant to grab the reader’s (or viewer’s) interest.  I’ll have a few things to say about hooks in a future blog post. The hook needs to introduce your protagonist and his or her conflict.  It should set the story in a particular time or place.

2.  The Middle.  Here the protagonist tries several times to end the conflict, but fails.  It can even be the case that his or her attempts actually make things worse. In any case, the protagonist is tested in some way, either to physical limits or emotional ones, or both.

3.  The Resolution (or Dénouement).  In this section the conflict is resolved.  This usually involves the protagonist learning something, perhaps something about himself or herself.  The conflict could also be resolved by the protagonist’s death.

Aristotle called these parts the protasis, the epitasis, and the catastrophe.

 

 

The novelist Gustav Freytag later introduced the concept of the dramatic arc containing five parts: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and dénouement.  Essentially Aristotle’s epitasis includes the middle three elements of Freytag’s dramatic arc, though the falling action could be part of Aristotle’s catastrophe.  For simplicity here, I’ll stick to a three-part structure and use my titles for them.

 

In many story forms there will be no breaks or signposts separating these sections.  Even so, a reader who is looking for these sections will find them.  If you think back to novels you’ve read or movies you’ve seen, you’ll be able to recognize this structure.

With short stories, everything gets compressed.  The main feature of short stories is, in fact, their shortness.  This benefits the reader, since she or he can enjoy the story in a single sitting, thus remaining immersed in the world of the tale without interruption by the real world.  However, this brevity becomes the driving constraint for the writer.  The writer has to convey all three elements of story structure, but in very few words.

A short story needs a hook, like all stories.  However, an author of such tales cannot include a long description of the protagonist, other characters, or the setting.  Short stories have bare-bones hooks that just (1) introduce the protagonist, (2) introduce the conflict, and (3) set the story in time and place.

The middle section of a short story is likewise compacted down to the bare minimum.  There are fewer characters to interact with, few or no subplots, not even very many protagonist-testing events.  To keep the middle section short, some events or actions can be implied, letting the reader fill in the gaps in his or her mind.  This implication technique seems to contradict the “show, don’t tell” commandment, but it’s different, and it’s something with which I still struggle.

A short story’s resolution section also is a trimmed-down version, in comparison with longer works.  The section needs to resolve the conflict, possibly by having the protagonist learn something or otherwise grow as a person, or defeat the antagonist.  Nearly all the loose ends of the story need to be tied up in this section.  I say nearly all because it’s okay to leave some things unresolved or open to question–that’s life.

Throughout the writing of the short story, the author must take pains to keep a laser-like focus on the theme of the story.  Delete anything not directly supporting that theme, or necessary to having a meaningful story.

As you read more short stories by authors you enjoy, you’ll see how they employ the three-part structure I’ve described.  Soon you’ll be using it in your own stories, too.  As always, please send a comment if this has been useful to you, and address it to–

                                                                      Poseidon’s Scribe 

October 2, 2011Permalink

Not Mary Poppins

Let me set the scene for you.  It’s an elementary school classroom in Cedar Rapids, Iowa sometime in the mid-1960s. Young Steve Southard is a student in second, third, or fourth grade.  He has no idea that he will try his hand at writing stories someday.

The teacher asks if we have seen the movie “Mary Poppins,” and virtually all of us raise our hands.  Then she asks, “Who is the movie about?”

There was no word “duh” in those ancient times, otherwise we would have used it.  Every hand goes up.  When the teacher chooses someone, the obviously-right answer comes out: “Mary Poppins.”  (I mean, after all, they named the movie after her!)

“Wrong,” the teacher says.

That causes some puzzlement, and every hand goes down.  Raised hands are much more tentative after that, the answers are phrased as questioning guesses.  “The children?”  “No.” “The mother?”  “No.”  “Bert, the chimney-sweep?”  “No.”

In desperation, someone guesses “the father?”  “Yes, that’s right.”  The father?  Really?  The movie is about Mr. Banks?

What a wonderful teaching moment and an ideal vehicle to use!  The teacher explained that the father was the only character who learned and changed, the only character with a major personality flaw that needed correction. (Well, the mother also has a major flaw, but she is definitely a secondary character.)

Mary Poppins is merely the agent of change. She arrives because a change is required, and leaves (as the wind shifts) as soon as it happens.  It is the father who we see initially as being comfortable in his established world.  The change agent shows him a different way of acting and he reacts badly to it.  He blames the change agent (instead of himself) and tries correcting the problem in his own way.  Things go from bad to worse until he loses the thing he values most–in this case, the security of his job.  He comes to understand his problem and the likely consequences of continuing along an unchanging path.  In the end we see he has changed, and is happier for it.

I’ll leave other concerns (whether a father really should care so little about his job, whether the movie was a fair rendition of the books, other movie interpretations, etc.) to other analysts.  My purpose is to show that the protagonist in a story may not always be obvious.  Look for the character with a problem–internal or external–he or she is forced to confront, the character whose problem makes things worse and worse, and for whom the problem is resolved at the end in some way.  Find that character and you’ve found the protagonist.  In a novel or novella-length story, multiple characters can have flaws that get resolved, but it should be clear which character is entwined with the main plot, and which are secondary characters involved with subplots.

Funny how that incident in a long-ago classroom stands out in my mind!  Do you recall great learning moments from elementary school?  Do you know any other story examples where the protagonist isn’t obvious?  Send me a comment.  In the meantime, I’ll just sit here feeling rather supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. Until the wind changes, I’m–

                                                             Poseidon’s Scribe

August 27, 2011Permalink

How to Create Life (in fiction)

In what way are all fiction writers like Dr. Frankenstein?  Answer:  we’re all creating life.  Mary Shelley’s famous character is a better metaphor for my purposes than the phrase “playing God,” because, like the Transylvanian experimenter, we have models to copy from — all the people we see and meet.

The problem is, as Dr. Frankenstein found out, creating life is difficult.  Some writers are better at giving readers a vivid mental picture of their characters than others.  What are the factors involved in creating believable, memorable characters?

Linda Seger answers that question well in her book Creating Unforgettable Characters, which I recommend.  Her technique for coming up with great characters is to (1) research the character, (2) create a backstory, (3) understand the character’s psychology, (4) create character relationships, and (5) develop the character’s dialogue voice.  The book also contains great advice regarding the development of supporting characters, nonrealistic characters, the use of stereotype, and how to solve the character problems you may experience as a writer.

Back in the 1800s, authors could furnish long descriptions of their characters, giving readers all the necessary details for understanding them.  Readers stopped putting up with that many decades ago.  Writers had to learn to imbed snatches of character descriptions into the action and dialogue as seamlessly as possible.  No more “time-outs” from the plot to devote a few paragraphs to the heroine’s matching dress and parasol.

Then writers found a technique for describing their main character’s physical appearance while remaining in that character’s point of view.  Simply have the character stare at a mirror or other reflective surface.  Sorry, modern writers don’t get to do that either; it’s been way too overused.

Complicating matters more, short story writers just don’t have enough space in the story for complete, well-drawn character descriptions.  A short story writer must create a memorable, identifiable main character using very few words or details and not slow down the plot while doing so.  There just isn’t the leisure of space for full character development in short fiction.

That’s why many writers turn to stereotypical or “stock” characters.  Not much description is necessary for these characters, since the reader will fill in the rest.  The problems here are: modern readers are offended by negative stereotypes, and use of stereotypes marks the writer as lazy and uncreative.  It is okay to use a stock character if you give her at least one aspect running counter to the stereotype.  That makes her more human and interesting.

So far this blog post reads like a list of “don’t-do’s” without giving much positive advice.  Therefore, here’s a list of do’s:

  • Make your plot and main character fit together such that only that character could have starred in that story.  It doesn’t matter which you think of first–plot or character–just ensure they fit.  Your story’s plot will become your protagonist’s private hell, so ensure it’s the specific corner of Hell your character fears most.
  • Get to know your major characters.  Develop a brief biography.  Put more in the bio than you’ll ever write in the story.  The bio should include elements (2) through (5) in Linda Seger’s list above.
  • Ensure the main characters in your story are distinctive and obviously different from each other in as many ways as possible.  You don’t want to confuse your readers.
  • Ensure your protagonist has some measure of the Everyman about him, so readers will identify with him and care what happens to him.

I’ll have more to say on creating characters in future blog posts.  It’s a major aspect of writing, of course.  In the meantime, (Bwaaa-ha-haaa!) it’s back to the laboratory for–

Poseidon’s Scribe

 

August 7, 2011Permalink

Write What You Know? Really?

One of the oldest sayings about writing is “write what you know.”  Its originator is unknown.  Is this good advice, or bad?

This much is certain; it’s a lucky thing some great writers didn’t actually follow that advice.  For one thing, we never would have had any science fiction or fantasy, since no writer has gone through the experiences of characters in those sorts of stories.

Or have they?

In one sense, all characters encounter problems and experience emotional reactions to those problems, then seek to find a resolution to those problems.  All writers, all prospective writers, and even all people have done these things.  Maybe you haven’t battled menacing wyverns with a magic sword, but you’ve felt fear, had adrenalin rushes, struggled to overcome a difficulty, experienced a feeling like all is lost, grabbed for one last chance, and felt the triumphant glow of victory.  You’ve had the sensations your character will have.  Even though you’re writing about a heroic knight in some never-time of mystical wonder, you’re still—in one sense—writing what you know.

I suspect some long-ago teacher coined the maxim after first giving students a writing assignment and listening to a student complain about not knowing what to write.  The answer “write what you know” isn’t a bad one in that circumstance, since the students aren’t seeking wider publication, and writing about something familiar can free the student from worrying about research or getting facts wrong.

For a writer who is seeking publication, we’ll have to amend the adage.  Write what you know, so long as:

  • It’s not just a list of boring events from your real life;
  • You give us (your readers) an interesting plot and engaging characters;
  • Your descriptions grab us and insert us right into your setting, your story’s world; and
  • Your writing touches something inside us and helps us feel what your main characters feel.

So what you know may be that ugly incident at the school playground from third grade, but don’t give us the play-by-play of that.  Please.  Instead, use the feelings of that long-ago afternoon, but make the events happen in a different time and setting, with different characters.  If your setting is a far-flung planet and your characters are wearing space suits and packing blaster pistols, you might want to do some research to ensure plausibility.  But if you’re true to the emotions you felt on that playground, they’ll come through as genuine in your story and your readers will connect.

So, Beginning Writer, if you’re stuck and don’t know how to get started, try writing what you know, then edit it into what readers want to read.   Just some more free advice from—

Poseidon’s Scribe

July 17, 2011Permalink

The first thing we do, we kill all the darlings!

The title of this blog post combines a bit of William Shakespeare with William Faulkner.  I’m fairly confident neither William will sue me.

Faulkner’s quote actually was, “In writing, you must kill all your darlings.”  What did he mean by that?  My interpretation is he meant for writers to look, as they edit their stories, for passages with clever phrases, little jokes, or humorous anecdotes—the passages that made them smile as they wrote them for the first time.  Then they are to ask themselves, “Does this passage relate to the story?  Does it advance the plot?  Does it help the reader understand the characters?  Does the style or tone of the passage match the rest of the story?”

Here’s the hard part.  If the passage does not pass these tests, the writer must delete it.  That’s difficult because the writer might consider the passage a demonstration of the greatest height of her talent.  The writer may have fallen in love with a particular clause, a sentence, a paragraph, a character, a scene.  However, for the sake of the story, the darling must go.

Here’s the even worse part.  As he was writing, the author might have thought of and written the darling, fallen in love with it, and then bent the story around to force-fit the darling in.  Now the question of killing the darling involves how much of a force-fit it was, and how much rewriting is necessary for the deletion.  Even so, the writer should think hard about this, keeping in mind the story is more important than the darling.

Fortunately, the darling need not be so terminated that it vanishes to wherever deleted bits and bytes go.  The writer can save it in a separate file, for potential use in a later story, one where it will fit better.  Perhaps an entire story can be written around that darling.  In the directories where I save my stories, there is almost always a “Deleted Sections” file I’ve created to dump the parts of early drafts that I’ve axed.

I don’t know that Faulkner was necessarily advocating more concise writing.  After all, a writer could go back, kill the darlings, then replace them with even longer passages that fit the story better.  I think he was advocating the writing of more integral stories, where each piece of the story is necessary and supports the plot and theme.

As you do this in your writing, don’t think of yourself as moving along the path to becoming a psychopathic murderer.  Think of it as your effort to become a better self-editor, a writer who produces well-crafted stories.  Though I may be known to my computer as the Killer of a Thousand Darlings, to you I’ll always remain—

Poseidon’s Scribe

June 12, 2011Permalink

Are Outlines…Out of Line?

Do you outline before you write stories?  If you’re not a fiction writer, do you outline in preparation for any substantial non-fiction you write?  I do, but this won’t be an attempt to persuade you to outline, but rather a description of why and how I do it.  Perhaps you’ll benefit from knowing such things.

I’m sure many writers don’t use outlines.  Too much of a bother, they’d say.  Too confining, others believe.  Still others would profess that time spent outlining is time not spent writing.  For some, their outline is in their head, and that’s enough.

More power to them.  I can’t imagine writing without an outline.  For me, it’s not a bother, but rather a way to ensure my story stays on track, stays true to its intended purpose.  I suppose outlines can be confining, but I think if them as flexible guidelines, every bit as subject to editing and rewriting as the story itself.  I rarely adhere entirely to my outline anyway.  It’s true—the process of outlining takes time that could be spent writing.  However, the time I spend outlining is worth far more to me than time wasted writing a story that lacks direction or purposeful flow.  As for keeping an outline in my head, I’m too afraid I’ll forget something important.

How do I outline, you ask?  I always start with a mind map.  If only my teachers had covered mind maps in elementary school!  Instead, I first heard about them in my thirties.  What a marvelous note-taking and brain-storming method!  I recommend reading Use Both Sides of Your Brain, by Tony Buzan, but you can also learn about the technique through internet searches.  I use mind maps initially to form ideas for my story, letting my mind free-stream, and organizing my thoughts on the mind map.  Later I might refine or redraw the mind map as things clarify.

More often I use the mind map to create a document called “Notes for ___” where the blank is either the title of the story, or the initial idea for the story.  This Notes document will eventually contain the research I’ve done, as well as the outline fleshed out from the mind map.

That outline basically consists of: (1) a list of the characters, along with character traits and motivations, (2) a description of the setting, along with any research I’ve done about the setting, (3) some notes about the conflict(s) to be resolved (both external and internal), and (4) the listed series of events making up the plot.

I know—seems like a lot of work, doesn’t it?  But I write short stories, so my lists of characters are short, the settings and conflicts are few, and the plots are not too involved.  As important as outlines are for my short stories, I imagine they’ll be even more necessary when I take the leap into writing novels.  For me, there’s little danger of getting snared in the trap of forever planning the story and never writing it.  Every moment I’m outlining, my bored muse is screaming at me to stop that tedious business and get writing!

As I write the story, I keep the Notes at the ready and refer to them often.  In almost every case, I reach a point where the story wants to deviate from the outline.  This can occur when a minor character starts taking center stage more than intended, or when my outlined plot requires a character to do something he or she just would not do, or many other reasons.  Here I must decide whether to detour from the outline or edit the story to match the existing outline.  Most often I abandon the outline, but I’ve done both.

My process has evolved to this and will likely continue to change.  Perhaps the next time I address outlining in a blog, my method will have altered again.  The process you choose will be different and uniquely you; it may not involve outlines at all.  It’s my hope you enjoy your writing adventure as much as…

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 24, 2011Permalink

How to Read

That title is a bit illogical; those who can’t read would not turn to a blog post to learn how.  By ‘how to read’ I mean something more along the lines of ‘how to appreciate what you read.’

Ever notice how familiarity brings an added dimension of appreciation?  Let me explain.  Those who have never played football or studied its finer points watch and appreciate a game at a different level of enjoyment than do those who have played it or otherwise understand its intricacies.  If you have played a musical instrument, you listen to music in a different manner from those who have not.

I’m suggesting the same is true of reading.  Here I’ll confine the discussion to short stories, my area of familiarity.  Those who haven’t written or studied fiction since school will appreciate short stories in a different way from those who know something about the craft.

Understand–I’m not disparaging either level of appreciation.  Unfortunately, our lifetimes are limited and you can’t become an expert in everything.  There’s nothing wrong with reading fiction for pure enjoyment without understanding its finer nuances.  In fact, writers selling to the mass market hope plenty of people do just that.

Even so, you might be a non-writer and still wonder about how writers read.  What things do they look for in a short story that non-writers may not be aware of?  Non-writers know stories involve characters, and there always seems to be a main character, about whom they come to care as the story progresses.  But writers look at the way characters are described and portrayed.  Is the description brief yet impactful?  Does the character have depth or is that protagonist stereotypical or one-dimensional?

Non-writers understand whether a story is written as if God were telling it (the story makes clear what is in the mind of several characters), or if it only enters one character’s thoughts.  Writers use the term ‘point of view’ and form judgments about whether the author selected the right POV for maximum effect.

As various events happen in stories, the non-writer reads along and forms opinions about them.  Afterward the non-writer might say she “liked the plot,” meaning it seemed logical and held her interest.  A writer examines the same story’s plotline looking for characters reactions to events, and whether each character’s actions spring from motivations aligned with the character’s established traits.

Most non-writers can spot the major conflict in a story, understand how the passage of time occurs (whether in a straight sequence or through the use of flashbacks or gaps), and can feel themselves to be ‘in’ a setting if it’s well-described.  Writers are alert for other aspects too, such as tone, symbolism, allusions, and themes.

In the end, both a non-writer and a writer will form an overall judgment about the story they’ve read.  Either one might say, “I liked it” or “I didn’t like it,” though their overall assessment is based on integrating different things (and differing numbers of things) they noted as they read.  But is the writer’s assessment more correct than that of a non-writer?

No.  If every wine expert in the world considers a certain wine terrible, but you (a non-expert) like it, then go ahead–drink it and enjoy.  Everyone’s different and entitled to his own opinion.  Short stories are meant to be enjoyed by individuals, so judgments about quality can only be made by each person according to his own level of expertise.  It’s my fervent hope that you gain some enjoyment reading stories written by…

Poseidon’s Scribe

April 3, 2011Permalink