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Show and Tell

Jul18

This August, I’m doing the “Show and Tell: An Interactive Workshop” online for the FFnP Chapter of RWA, so it seemed time for blatant promotion and to post tips for this.  The “show don’t tell” advice I understand but it sometimes chaps my hide a bit since telling can be a way useful tool for a writer and if folks are struggling to show everything they don’t get around to leaning how to do strong narrative.  That’s too useful a tool for a writer to ignore.  The way I figure it, these are two things you need in your toolbox–same way a carpenter needs both a screwdriver and a hammer.  Hammers really are great for pounding things home–but there are times you need the finesse of a screwdriver to just tighten things up.  Means a writer needs to learn how to both show and tell–and you need to learn when each of these works best for your story. 

Now, about those tips….

Showing:

  • means convening the character in action and words.
  • takes more words because the goal is to create a picture and feeling in the reader’s mind with only words.
  • takes vivid descriptions that reveal the characters emotions to the reader.
  • requires good visualization by the writer.
  • is strongest when you use as many of the five senses as possible: smell, touch, taste, sight, hearing.
  • is the continual search for how to reveal what your character feels and how that character displays (or doesn’t display) those feelings.

 Telling:

  •  means conveying exact meaning to the reader; it is, literally, telling the reader information.
  •  compresses word count (useful in short stories and a synopsis).
  •  alerts the reader that the information, or the character, is relatively unimportant.
  •  can smooth transition in time, distance, or viewpoint.
  •  can establish a mood or setting when you do not wish to do this in any character’s viewpoint.
  •  is the continual search for fresh ways to give your reader information the reader must have.

To know if you’re telling vs. showing, look for “clue” words that tip you off when you may be telling more than showing, such as was, were, are, to be (as in, The sun was hot.).

If the telling is done in a character’s viewpoint, it is really showing us how a character sees the world.

If dialogue is about plot exposition, it is really telling a plot point to the reader—this is why exposition in dialogue usually falls flat and leaden (use dialogue to show more how a character is feeling).

Use of deep viewpoint allows the reader to ‘discover’ your characters through showing that inner person.

A character’s actions always speak louder to the reader than any thoughts or narrative about that character; actions reveal true character—you can tell a reader a character is brave, but if you show that person acting like a coward the reader will believe the action, not the telling.

To better show a character, give your characters mannerisms (physical and verbal habits) that reveal their inner person.

In general, if you have a character thinking something, put that thought into dialogue. 

Most people respond to any motivating stimulus (something happening) in this order FEELING, BETRAYING ACTION, THOUGHT, DELIBERATE ACTION (GESTURE/SPEECH), so that’s how you want to structure scenes, so that a character feels something, acts on that feeling, then says something.

The main except to the above response order comes when training or instinct kicks in action before all else. 

Less can be more (in both show and tell)–what you leave out is often more important than what you include. (Just don’t be obscure.)

Words and sentences and paragraphs that do not add anything actually detract from what is there–the end result is to weaken the good stuff.

Multiple edits are your friend; it’s not necessary to get everything in one pass.  Make one edit about dialogue, the next edit about punching the narrative (telling), the next edit about adding more showing details, etc..

Showing and telling do not have to be absolutes; use more show than tell in a dramatic scene, or use more tell than show in a transition.  Part of the choice about how much of each you have is your style, and part is the effect you want to have on the reader.

For the rest…well, you’ll just have to take the workshop.

Goldilocks Time

Jul15

At risk of stating the obvious, beginnings are tough. Nothing new there. We all know that. So the question is, what to do about that ‘hook’, the super opening that grabs the reader and doesn’t let go? Since it seems to be judging season right now for contests, I’ve been thinking about this. Because, honestly, the writing lately in contests has been good. Often very good. But the stories…well, not so much of the grabbing.

The balance is always too much information and too little. This is particularly tricky with paranormal, and if you add in romance, both have to be there. That’s a lot to get in front of a reader. Add in the reader needing to understand the world, the rules of the fantasy, and yeah, pretty much everyone is going to get the too much or too little thing going. It’s Goldilocks time.

Now, in the interest of learning from fairy tales, let’s look at Goldilocks. She did not find the perfect bed on the first try. She did not eat the perfect porridge with her first taste. She had to try different options. And I think this is one place where folks are having trouble because sometimes you have to write a scene different ways in order to find out what works best. It’s far too common for a writer to fall in love with a scene (particularly an opening) and not want to change it. That way to disaster, my friend.

But why not try the bigger bed (add more information, details to enrich the world and the story)? Try the smaller bed (try a bare-bones opening). Try the middle bed after taking on the other two to see what’s the best balance (and a couple of readers here can be very helpful).

Why not try a different character’s viewpoint for the opening (to see who really has the most emotionally at stake)? Why not try on first person to see how it feels and stretch your skills?

Now here’s what I’ve noticed in teaching workshops–folks want to apply everything to the manuscript in hand. And want it all to work right off. That kind of focus can be a good thing. But not everything you write will (or should) make it into the book. So why not try new things on? Write scenes just so that you, the author, know the information. Interview your characters to get to know them better. Try writing the book as every page is the ONLY page you’ll get anyone to read. And try writing a scene that you don’t want in the book–see if you can keep it a secret scene.

IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE HERE: Withholding information from the reader is not suspense, it is irritation. Withholding information from the characters which puts them in jeopardy gives you suspense–so stop saving the best stuff for chapter five and later. Give the reader the best stuff right away, and then go think up even better stuff.

Now to balance this–after all Goldi didn’t like the too hot or the too cold porridge, and let’s not get into why bears were eating porridge–the other side of holding out on the reader, giving too little to go on, is loading the reader up for bear.

Personally, I think there are two kinds of writers: those of us who over-write and must cut and those who under-write and must layer in details that reveal the world to the reader. It’s good to know which camp you fall into so you can compensate. If you’re like me and you love the details, you have to learn to be picky about which details you use. And you have to learn to edit and cut. Even more important is to learn to layer and weave in back-story in small bites–a sentence here or there, instead of a few paragraphs here and here and here and here. If you’re the type who writes sparse, that’s good, but make sure there’s enough details that a reader can see the same world that’s in your head.

One caution here–it’s boring to get too much information about people you haven’t learned to like. So that’s task one–engage the reader’s emotions. Make them care for the characters and get them interested, then you can start peeling back the layers of the characters.

NEXT IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: What you show your characters doing matters more than what you tell the reader about your characters. If you want a reader to think a character is brave, she must be shown doing something brave. That’s why showing matters so very much.

Speaking of brave, there’s one other lesson that Goldilocks offers, other than that a life of petty crime isn’t that bad, and this lesson is that it pays to be picky. Goldi is a high-maintenance gal. If it’s not just right, she’s not putting up with it. That’s a good trait for any writer–don’t put up with crap, not even from yourself. Be very picky about the opening and getting it just right (you only have that one chance to hook a reader). Be picky about the words you use. Be picky about making sure it’s not too hot or too cold, or too hard, or too soft. Be picky about the character’s dialogue, about opening with a strong scene that SHOWS the reader something important about the main characters.

LAST IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE: Start the story as close to where the main character’s life changes forever–but start also with a scene that sets the reader’s expectations for the mood and type of story. (There is a reason to start off with Bella moving up North and not sooner or later than that.) It’s very hard on folks when they’re in the mood for fish and they pick up what looks like a fish and you’ve said it’s a fish, but the first bite is all batter and breading.

With the last comes the first, and we’re back to where a lot of beginnings seem to struggle. It’s damn hard to write a good beginning without having the ending done. That’s my take on it. I almost always revise the opening based on where the story ends up, but this is just about impossible if you don’t have the book done. Which leads us back to Goldi.

The last lesson we can take from Goldilocks is that kid didn’t give up. She ransacked that whole house–food, chairs, beds, everything she wanted. Start to finish, our Goldi girl. That’s often where you can find your great opening, in that strong ending that gives you a mirror back to how it all started. You show your character at the end now able to do what was impossible at the beginning (in a romance, you show the character now able to have a relationship that was impossible at the start of thing). You KNOW where this story has to start because you know where it has to end.

And maybe that’s what we need more of–contests for great endings. Ones where Goldilocks starts off a wear-bear herself and ends up married to the handsome were-bear of the family.

(Originally published as  a guest blog at FFnP.)

Exercise — Not Everything Goes into the Book

Jun9

I have a fascination for reality shows that let you see into other people’s lives — yes, one of my favorite things is to walk the neighborhood at twilight and peer into lit living rooms to get a glimpse of decor and people and mostly ghostly glows from widescreen TVs.  Now I know the reality is about as much as in any piece of fiction — it’s filtered through an editor, producer’s, camera man’s view.  But, still, there are glimpses.  And last night on the newest lose weight show a woman said she’d never learned how to exercise.  Which got me  thinking.

Over several workshops that I’ve taught, I’ve noticed that writers tend to only want to use material from their work in progress.  If I assign an exercise, out comes the manuscript and a chunk of it is used.  This is not a bad thing, but it does defeat the purpose of exercising — as in, it’s not stretching out the writing muscles.  Folks also struggle with the idea of a writing exercise that is about writing a few pages that are never going to make it into any book — the pages may be about trying a new viewpoint, or exaggerating a technique, or it may be about backstory that needs to be real (meaning it needs to be on some pages, just not the ones that go into a reader’s hand).  So I’m wondering — do folks need to be taught how to do writing exercises?

It seems obvious to me that if you do any sport, you don’t just do the sport.  When I rode, I also trained so that I could ride (yucky sit-ups which I loath, stretching, weights).  The exercise wasn’t part of the sport, but was an important factor — there wasn’t much to learn, except that some exercises helped more than others, and nothing helped as much as the drills you actually put in on horseback. (Lots of rising trot without stirrups.)  But I was taught by riding instructors, and part of that was about ‘hey, you need to do more than ride, if you’re serious about this.’

In the interest of passing along info, writing exercises — ‘hey, you need to do more than write the book, if you’re serious about this.’  So what is that more?  What’s worked for me?

POV Exercise 1

Take a scene.  Write it from one character’s POV only.   Now rewrite that scene from the viewpoint of another character in that scene.  Now rewrite that scene from yet a third character in that scene (and if there wasn’t one invent one — could be a cricket under the carpet eavesdropping.)  Point here is to try multiple viewpoints — can be very helpful to unblock a book.

POV Exercise 2

Write a scene that is first person.  Now shift the writing to third person.  Helps to develop deeper third person POV.

Description Exercise

Write a description of a setting in your book.  Write this as one sentence.  Now write this as three paragraphs.  Now write this as three pages.  As you develop the setting, layer in more details–use all the senses (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell).

Character Exercise

Interview your main character–ask them deep personal questions (as if you are a reporter for a tabloid).  This works particularly well if you’re working on a scene and it’s not working–ask the character about this, what’s wrong, and what does that character really want to do in that scene?

Backstory Exercise 1

Write a critical scene in your main character’s life that happened when that character was very, very young and which forever shaped this character’s core beliefs and personality.

Backstory Exercise 2

Write a two page profile of a secondary character — in first person as if you are that person.

Story Idea Exercise

Write the back cover copy for your story — in two to three paragraphs, how do you convey the idea and get someone to buy this book?

Show/Tell Exercise

Write the opening for a story and only TELL the story to the reader — use only the narrative voice.  Now rewrite that same opening and only SHOW the reader information by showing the character in action and show the character’s thoughts and feelings to the reader with dialogue and detailed, layered descriptions that convey how that character expersses that emotion.

Each exercise should result in work that you DO NOT use in your manuscript.  You may get ideas and insights, but the goal is to treat these like sit-ups — useful to strengthen muscles.  If you even have a vague idea you might use the writing in a manuscript, this will affect how you treat the exercise. You want the freedom of writing only for yourself here.

There are lots other exercises, but these are good for core writing strength.  Like any exercise program, try not to do these all in one day.  Apply them in a regular program of writing every day, and repeat the exercises as well — this is not something you do once and that’s it.  These are great ways to limber up if you haven’t written in a long time.  They’re also great if you feel ‘blocked’ and need something to break you out of a rut.

And you really, really don’t have to use everything you write in the book.  Sometimes is about performance on the page, and sometimes it’s about warming up with exercises.

Inside-Out for Plotting with Characters

Feb8

Twelve steps to create a romance from the inside of the characters instead of the outside of things happening.

1. Start at the deepest point: for every character, find that person’s core need.

2. Look for what happened in that character’s past to give that character that need (motivation)–when looking discard the first two or three ideas (they’re almost always cliches).

3. Set up a potential mate for the main character who can’t provide that need quite the way that character wants it met.

4. Decide if your characters recognize their needs and motivations (the reasons why they need and want the things they need and want), or if a character is lying to self, or ignoring the past.

5. Know each character’s sexual history.

6. Go beyond he’s hot and she’s sexy for characters who can click emotionally, mentally, and on levels beyond the physical.

7. Layer–add ‘wants’ on top of the core needs, and add traits to each character that are strengths and ones that are weaknesses, and make them compliment and contrast for all characters.

8. Give every character a secret.  Maybe even one that stays hidden in the entire book.

9. Leave room for characters to surprise you.

10. Focus the story on one character’s specific growth.  That person’s growth is at the heart of the book.

11. Put in clear goals for each character that force the characters into action to reach those goals, and put them in conflict with others.  So there can be conflicting goals, or different approaches to achieving the same goal, but everyone should want something in every scene.

12. Play the “what if” game to keep coming up the worst thing that can happen to the main character — use the “what ifs” that most resonate with you, and then come up with something even worse to keep raising the stakes, tension, and conflict.

Voice

Jan13

With a workshop pending (one I’m giving, not taking), I’ve been thinking about what to say–what can be taught, what can’t.  And that leads me to thinking about ‘voice’ since that is where we’ll be starting.

A writer’s voice is one of those ‘you know it’s good when you read it, but it’s difficult to verbalize’ things.  But I’m a writer, verbalizing is what I do.  So it’s worth tackling.  Also this seems good timing for the topic–American Idol is starting a new season (maybe the last what with Paula gone and Simon heading out the door, and it’s tempting to wonder if he’s missing that love/hate thing with Paula or just exhausted–how does anyone sit through that many auditions in one lifetime?).

(Confession time–I’ve voted only once…well, okay, twice.  For David Cook. Yeah, they suckered me into thinking other David had the lead, and I fell for it. And boy was I so happy Adam Lambert did not win and get saddled with that awful ‘idol must sing song’ they had.  Sometimes second is a good place to be.)

Anyway, Idol does one thing brilliantly–they show how easy it is to have a bad voice.  Maybe it’s nerves.  Or song choice.  Or simple delusion.  But they show how the “that’s a good voice” is not always subjective–there are folks who can’t sing worth a damn, and that’s painfully clear.  Same goes for writers–there are folks who can’t write worth a damn.

Maybe it’s nerves.  Or story choice.  Or simple delusion.  And I do think that nerves figure into a large part of a bad writing–folks tend to cramp up or go all stiff when faced with a blank page.)  But while you can fix nerves–build confidence, acquire technique, do breathing exercises–and you can fix story choice with better ones, there’s not much that can be done for delusions.  And you can’t really teach someone to have ‘a voice’. 

Now, you can point in the direction for a writer to look to that voice.  And there are techniques to develop voice–plain old writing helps more than anything.  But it’s still something that every writer must find for herself–or himself. Voice comes from experience, education, upbringing. It comes from what you read, and personal taste.  It’s shaped, just as an artist’s eye, or a singer’s voice, is shaped by teachers, mentors, and by what you taken in and put on the page.  There are so many things that go into making ‘a voice’ that it’s no wonder it can’t really be taught.

But I wonder if we’d have more really good writers if a few more teachers at least tried to tackle this?  Or if a few more writers went out looking for their voice, or spent time developing voice?  I know that when you take on a physical skill–riding horses, or dancing–you always want to look at the teacher’s style because that’s going to be your style, too.  You imprint like a duckling on the instructor–that old ‘monkey see, monkey do.’  And maybe that’s the core issue–writers are generally too busy writing to do much teaching.  Either that or they don’t have the credentials, or those who teach writing have been to college and have taken courses, but they haven’t been in the wilderness looking for their voice either–so what they pass along is a lot like BBC-mid-Atlantic don’t get in the way voice.  Which, come to think of it, is at least an okay voice.

So maybe this is something every writer has to find on her own, sort of a rite of passage (and I’ll resist the obvious pun). And the question then becomes–how can you give someone better sign pointers along that path?

Take Aways

Oct30

Just finished up online workshop — new one, and that’s always interesting. Take-aways from this workshop, which had a focus on storytelling….

Folks don’t seem to know how to do writing exercises–or does no one teach that not all writing is meant for the final product? 

We had some issues of grasping what is an “exercise”–as in, you do need to practice your craft.  That means technical practices, the same way someone does scales before you play music.

This seems basic to me.  But, then, I’ve just hit a place in the new book where I need to write some “off camera” scenes.  I need them since I need the blocking and info hard in my head (not floaty and fuzzy).  Folks this class didn’t seem to understand that sometimes you write to STRETCH — as in push a particular technique, then let it relax to normal.  I’ve often doen work just to try out a new technique.

This is something I learned from dance, and riding–you’d often have to exaggerate a technique to get it to stick in your muscles.  Once you overdid, then you could relax back and have it work to fix a technical problem you were having before.

Very common mistake for writers in their first couple of years of writing–most of ’em bite off more than they have skills to execute.

This makes me wonder if more folks need to go back to school and take some creative writing classes just so they can figure out where they are with their skills.

IMPORTANT: Just because you can put a sentence (or a paragraph together) does not mean that you know boo about telling a story.

VERY IMPORTANT:  There may not be much of a short story market around, but start off with short stories if you’re just learning to write.  Write them as fan fiction, or just because, or publish them yourself on your blog with a Creative Commons license.  Writing short will teach you craft, help you avoid getting bogged down in complexities you may not be ready to handle, and keeps the basics manageable while you’re still getting them down.

Of course, I may be prejudiced about this since I learned so damn much from writing short before I tackled the long stuff. And the long stuff still daunted me and tangled me up for way too long.

(And then there’s always the other extreme of not going far enough with anything–playing it safe and doing too much of the ‘me too’ book.)

There’s never such a thing as too much of the basics.

Just when I think that I’m repeating myself (way too much) I find out that, oh, whole bunch of newbies here.  And they need to hear this.  This is why I think writing books are as much a perennial as cook books–basics never go out of style, and we all need to get back to them every now and then.

The words matter.

How you put words on a page matters–that’s your style, your voice, and what someone’s going to buy (or not buy).  Never think you can get away with being a little sloppy about the words because ‘it’s a great idea’.  I do see folks get carried away sometimes with their style, or a style, and forget to think about things like, “does this work, is the emotion and scene clear, am I tripping up the reader here with fancy footwork that’s much too much?”

And the one thing I still wonder about–can you teach someone to have a self-editor?  Is that just a matter of some folks can learn to have an objective eye to their work and can see ways to make it better, and some can’t?  It’s sort of like if you have someone who is tone-deaf–that person’s never going to make for a great musician, but you could give them some level of technical proficiency.

So can you have someone who is word-deaf?  Or is that edit-blind?

Discouragement

Sep12

Joel Olson posted at The Village Voice on why, I Will Not Read Your Fucking Script, an amusing, and pained, observance on both dealing with getting and getting feedback on writing. Which got me thinking.

He notes, “…not only is it cruel to encourage the hopeless, but you cannot discourage a writer.”

There is much truth in this. Speaking just from personal experience, I think I ‘quit’ writing about a dozen times–yeah, it’s like smoking, or drugs, only worse. Finally, I gave up on the whole giving up idea–if it’s not taking, it’s not taking. But it still took a couple of years after that of still writing the stories to get something to the point where it could sell. (And, no, you cannot see the ms. under the bed. They’re staying there–for now, at least.) From my side of the street, writers write.

On the other hand, there’s John Kennedy Toole (and isn’t that a name to work with), who offed himself, and eleven years later A Confederacy of Dunces came out, went on to do very well. So was it discouragement, or booze that dun him in, or another set of demons? And did the folks who rejected his work wonder about that later? (Don’t we all hate to be the one with the straight pin at the end of the birthday party that really does need to end now?)

Now, I’m not advocating for the tormented writer stereotype who needs comfy care. On the other hand, writers can be touchy bastards…oops, I mean sensitive types. As in thin-skinned, egocentric, arrogant…well, you get the idea. You cut us, we not only bleed, but we whine about it the whole time–words are habit forming. And, yes, every critical word sent at our precious goes in like a cut–or seems to, but that’s that ego thing.

And on the third hand, this sort of thing always leaves me heading for the truth behind the word. To ‘discourage’ is to dishearten–love that word, taking the heart out of you. According to M-W it’s to “deprive of confidence” to “hinder by disfavoring” or to try and talk someone out of doing something.

Seems to me that saying something needs work, or that it doesn’t work, or even that it sucks does not come tied to saying, “give it up.” But even that opinion is subjective–art’s supposed to appeal to the individual on a core level. So I like this book, but hate that other one, and a third is a big ho-hum–and the next person down the line feels entirely different. (God, please always have folks feel something about my work–love it or hate it, but spare me indifference.) And if you’re going to get really artsy, you’d better know your audience is not going to be mainstream.

Which leads me to the fourth hand of this bridge set, and the idea that really, it’s damn hard to be discouraged unless you do it to yourself. As in confidence is an inside job (or if it’s not, my friend, you are in serious, serious trouble, probably not too unlike Toole).

So I’m left thinking that what anyone says to you about your work is an opinion. How you take this is your responsibility. Even if you ask for it, your reaction to it is yours to own. To my mind, a writer is responsible for her own work. And for her own opinion of it. Meaning, we all need the ability to evaluate any critical comment and see it as either useful or irrelevant. That includes the comment, “Ever considered knitting, dear.”

Hemmingway (not a writer I adore, but he has good things to say, and you cannot fault the man’s craft) is credited with the quote, “The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof shit detector.” A good thing to apply not only to the world, but to your work, so you see what’s good, and what’s crap. And then learn how to fix the crap (or just cut it out).

But Jeffrey Carver’s the one who said, “Practice, practice, practice writing. Writing is a craft that requires both talent and acquired skills. You learn by doing, by making mistakes and then seeing where you went wrong.”

And, yes, we all lose perspective at times. We ask for advice which we are not ready to hear. Shit-detectors can fail on us. (Oh, yes, those purple pants were indeed a mistake, and yes, so was that very bad, bad idea of that cowboy amnesia story.) Which means, a writer needs friends who will point out the mistakes, say what’s wrong, and do so in a way that is not an abuse of friendship. And I do mean friends (not friends of friends, or acquaintances, or cyber-stalked folks, which just seems to me to be a path that is begging for a smack down or neglect).

If you do not have such friends, reference Toole’s story again. Or, frankly, Hemmingway’s. Which just goes to show, it’s not always about the rejection. Sometimes it’s about having friends who tell will you the truth. And the ability to hear them.

But is it Literature?

Sep1

Boing Boing, one of my favorite sites to visit, had a link to this Wall St. Journal Article, Good Books Don’t Have to Be Hard, an amusing article. Lev Grossman, the article’s author, is the book critic at Time, and urges literary types to discover that, gee, folks like to have a plot in a story. Now he sites the decline of adult trade fic (down 2.3% last year), and the upswing in YA novels (hardcover up 30.7% this year). And he writes, “The novel is getting entertaining again.”

I’m not sure what he’s been reading, since I’ve had a steady supply of excellent novels all my live. I will agree that some of the best stories around are to be found in YA — I’ve found myself reading a lot of YA. But I’m not sure about this, “…revolution from below, up from the supermarket racks.”

What’s wrong with a supermarket rack? What…literature is not only supposed to be hard to read, but hard to get? Didn’t Amazon kill that idea?

And in a bit of reverse snobbery, maybe it’s time for readers of genre fiction to start looking down on those who read “literature” and slip them a nice paperpack that’ll keep them up all night.

Ageless Prose ?

Aug21

Over at Wyrdsmiths, author Kelly McCullough picked up on the post from John Scalzi on why new authors are kinda old. That started me thinking not just about how long it takes to learn how to write (Scalzi and McCullogh note about twenty some years, each, which seems about right to me, since it took ten years of dabbling for me, and about another five or so to get serious and figure out what the hell I was doing). And I wonder if the real danger to the novel is not that folks will stop reading, but that potential writers may not have the patience to learn to tell a good story.

Note the phrase “tell a good story” — I’m wondering if that’s the key here?

Recently, it’s been contest entry time, so I’ve been judging. Give back when you can, that’s the idea, only I worry sometimes that I’m being so very tough. But then I think what if some kind souls hadn’t sat down with my early scribblings and written up comments (hard to take at the time, but oh so useful once you get past being ticked off at anyone not loving every word). Learning takes sweat, and patience. Learning writing technique is one thing, but I so many entries these days from good writers — really good ones, sometimes — but the story is not….(sorry to say)…not good.

So…good writing, bad storytelling. What–are these writers just not reading enough to absorb what storytelling takes? Or are they reading a lot of badly structured crap, and therefore producing the same? Or is it really that hard to get a creative writing class these days in which characterization and story and pacing are taught? Come to think of it, most of what I learned wasn’t from a class, but from taking apart the stories I liked. And from imitating.

My first story came out a Ray Bradbury wannabe. There was the inevitable Poe poetry–ghastly stuff on my side, but Poe will teach you a lot about the rhythm in words. And then the Georgette Heyer imitation, which seems mandatory for any writer who has aspirations to write a Regency romance. Oh, and a couple of mysteries that leaned heavily towards Dick Francis. Once I got all of that out of the way, I finally found my own stuff. Thank god. And, just in case you’re thinking it, copying does not mean taking their words. It means writing in the style of. I think I even slipped in a bit of Lovecraft there for a bit.

So…what does it take to learn storytelling? Maybe this just goes back to writing — a lot. And reading even more. And maybe it also goes to having a small circle of friends who can read those early stories before they have to go out into that big, tough world.

Storytelling for Writers?

Jul2

So I’ve been thinking about story and writing, and how one of those is being taught these days, but maybe not the other. Which got me thinking about ‘story telling’, that most ancient of arts if you go by the cave drawings of Lascaux, which has to be the first picture book around.

This led me to Story Arts a most useful site. Now they break it down to the telling bits, but the info seems just as good for the writing of a story if you look at the parts that apply to the concept of conveying a story:

They start with Voice Mechanics — and that’s a great place for a writer to start. It’s the mechanics of actually putting the story on the page.

…clear…non-monotonous…expression to clarify the meaning of the text.

All good stuff for a writer to do–clear, not boring, and making sure its very clear to the reader. Without meaning there is no story.

And then Face/Body/Gesture which a teller of story needs, but a writer needs to remember to use this for the characters: …uses non-verbal communication…

Ah, yes, the sub-text, SHOWING more than TELLING. More stories could use that.

And then, Focus as in: …engaging….charismatic…

This is noted as “stage presence” for a teller, but characters need all of this, too. Do writers check back and ask, “Is this a likeable character? Someone who is engaging, charismatic?”

And speaking of characters, they note: Characterization….characters are believable…

That’s one where I’ve read manuscripts where the ‘anything goes’ rule has been applied, except that doesn’t work if the reader isn’t playing along with you and also believing. Are you sure everyone’s drinking the Kool-aid you’re peddling?

And another essential: Pacing:….The story is presented efficiently and keeps listeners’ interest…

That’s a big flop area for a lot of stories–the pacing is too fast, and the reader has no time to settle into any scene, or it’s too slow and I’m flipping ahead looking for where this story actually starts.

They add in Effective Storytelling Composition but I’m only quoting the parts that a story teller needs for the written word:

Basic Story Structure
…clear and engaging opening.
…sequence of events is easy…to follow.
…ending has a sense of closure.

Okay, if I read one more synopsis in a contest that talks about how this it the start of a series, I’m going to quote the above to that person. Engaging opening, easy events to follow, and closure. It’s simple stuff, but simple takes more work than complicated. And I think most folks want to over-complicate.

Words
….choice of language is descriptive and articulate.
….character text is clearly differentiated…so the listener understands who is talking.

How many folks read their own dialog aloud? Without tags? Can you tell which of your own characters is talking? This one caught me the other day, so that I knew I had to rewrite that passage so that character’s voice stood out better.

Innovation
…a unique or creative use of language….
…creatively presents the sequence of events.
…the meaning of the story is artfully expressed or suggested….

And, yes, this is another place where the language has not been used in fresh ways, where the sequence of events is just too much like other already published books, or the writer may really not have anything to say. There’s no theme–meaning no there there.

This is about as good as it gets for a clear map to better story telling. I’m going to have to think about this myself, but I think there’s a workshop here, too.