Category Archives: advice

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It’s too easy

I don’t mean writing is too easy, because it most certainly isn’t. Perhaps for others it is, though I don’t know if I’ve ever encountered a serious writer who has claimed it was. No, what’s too easy is the challenge facing my main character. Not in the overall quest, that’ll be hard enough, and long. It will take him to the very corners of the world. That conflict drives the story as a whole. What I’m referring to is the challenge facing the principle characters who must go from one place to another inside of a chapter.

The setting: A haunted road, seldom travelled in hundreds of years, over-grown and dangerous. This place should be filled with all manner of evil things. When I’d first written it, my characters simply left point A and made it, with little difficulty, to point B along this road. Only once they reach their destination do they encounter any sort of trouble, and it has nothing whatever to do with the haunted road. I didn’t start by thinking it was too easy. In fact, I started by thinking: ‘What purpose does any sort of encounter along this road serve? After all, one of these characters nearly died on the same road not three chapters back.‘

If it hadn’t been for such a big deal being made of the dangers along the road earlier in the book (there’s that word again – still feels like this story doesn’t deserve that label just yet), it might be that a brief account of getting from A to B might be adequate. However, that’s not the case, and even if I didn’t have this haunted road, I’d still have the threat of being caught by the ‘bad guy’. So, I really don’t have a choice but to add some sort of difficult situation along the road before they get to point B. It doesn’t matter that a major problem awaits the characters there. Having come to the conclusion I’ve got to add this bit anyhow, whatever I have these characters face needs to push the story forward in some way. I don’t think it should just be an interesting side-show (Although this can totally be done, and work well).

My approach, in this case, will aim to accomplish a few things. First off, the reader will be expecting the road to be bad, and when something horrible pops out of the woods, it’ll meet expectations. I will also be able to describe some seriously evil creatures, in action, which are referred to later. Meaning I don’t have to describe it in dialogue when I get to later, plus it will help with explanation of the difficulty the other character had, with less effort. The altercation should provide a platform for some explanation of history, though I’m going to limit this to prevent an information dump situation. Finally, I want it to help paint a picture for future events along the same road, especially if I’m in a position of describing any of those second hand.

Perhaps the main take-away for me in thinking about my current issue, and this rubber-ducking session to work it out, is every story has at least a few things along the path from A to B which weren’t essential to the telling. Those events exist because they happened along the way, and they’re interesting. After all, it’s a story good enough for the retelling because of the all of the crazy things that happened. Thinking about it from a purely story-teller perspective, the best stories you tell your friends always have something like: ‘And then J.D. got punched in the **** by a 10-year old right there in front of everyone.‘ Which may, or may not, be relevant to the key events of the story, but are present in the retelling just to illustrate the epic-ness of that story.

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Thinking about the hook

I’m not spending much time on the beginning of my story just now, but I was thinking about this thing called ‘the hook’. It’s that bit of the story near the beginning, let’s say the first chapter, that draws the reader in and could make the difference between a sale and being dropped into the slush pile. When I hear other writers talk about it (or see them write about it), it puts me in mind of some epic event like those stupid extreme marriage proposals where a guy is arrested whilst jumping from a space-plane tied in chains or something. I’ve come to the conclusion, as a thoroughly amateur writer, that the typical advice falls ludicrously short of the mark. The typical advice being: “You need a good hook, it really needs to grab the reader.”

Here’s what I think: The beginning of the story just needs to to have enough conflict to be interesting, that is, pose some problem for the character that makes the reader wonder what happens next. I don’t think it even matters what that conflict is, though it should probably be relevant to the story as a whole. What’s really important in the hook is having something that is instantly engaging. A lot of the most enjoyable books I’ve read start with something like a conversational tone. It’s light and feels vaguely like those times when you’re having a few drinks with friends and telling stories. The sort of thing where you might say: “Oh, man, there was this time we were out hiking, and Steve saw this squirrel, and you wouldn’t believe what it was dragging around…” There’s always a lead-up in those stories, often heading to a punchline, but I would argue it’s the same for a book, except that you’re aiming for a climax, not a punchline. The point here is that it’s more in the telling than the actual events, though those are important too.

 

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Two hours to not finish a paragraph

So, last night I spent two hours cracking away at a single paragraph. It’s not done, and the only way to fix it is to trash it. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to say. I’ve got a pretty clear picture of the scene, actually. The problem, I think, is because it’s all narrator. There’s nothing to drive the scene. It’s not the sort of scene I can just add a character to move things along either. So, what to do? The plan for the moment is to start the scene earlier in the course of events. Then when I get to the narrator heavy bit, I won’t have to say as much and it should flow way better.
This problem is at the heart of a common situation, and one that has trapped one of my unsuspecting employees at my real job in hours of history lesson, when all they really needed to know was two mouse clicks and a hand gesture away: Telling too much, and not showing enough. A common bit of feedback I got when I used to workshop my writing was ‘show, don’t tell.‘ While may have been applicable, it was, and really still is, meaningless. As a new writer, I needed real advice on how to deal with the problem, not that I was likely to take any of it.
So, here’s my advice. You will recognize too much narrator because it’ll be hell to write, or you have 36 paragraphs without dialogue. However, as a fantasy writer, you might, occasionally, be stuck at a point where you need to be narrator heavy. When you are, make sure your character is in motion, interject her thoughts. Otherwise, move the scene around until you hit a point where another character can help you explain whatever it is you need to say. Whatever you do, don’t mistake dialogue for action, it’s only a feature of action.