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Ever have trouble with plots and subplots? Characterization keeping you up at night? Having issues with suspense and tension?

You can read a ton of books, take writing courses, get critiques like you always have, or you can spend a couple of hours a day for a few days or even a week watching the work of writers who have mastered all these skills.  Infamous for their ability to suck in a new viewer, sneered upon even more than romance writers, you gotta hand it to them.  Soap opera script writers know what they're doing.

Their plots and subplots are written very well and are extremely well-balanced.  They have to be.  Remember, they have to keep an audience interested enough that they'll wait through some of the most obnoxious commercials aired on tv, second only to late night infomercials, to continue watching.  During the dread commercial break a viewer can easily switch to a different soap or plug in a non-commercial-laden DVD. 

 

Their characterization is strong.  The viewers may know who the bad guys are, but not all the characters do know who the bad guys are and that makes for a lot of fun.  (Take a lesson from that right there.)  They write bitches like no one else and put honey in their mouths when those bitches are a wooing.  If you have trouble writing good guys that aren't boring, look no farther.  Each character has a distinct voice, goals, agenda--they're well-rounded and unique.

Suspense and tension?  They've taken it to extremes that have become laughable in the tv screenwriting industry, turning the cliff-hanger into a cliche' and drama into new heights (or lows, if you prefer) of melodrama.  What's beautiful about it as far as learning how to do it from a writing perspective is that the snippets of plot are broken down into very short frames and you can examine the tension arch in bold relief.  

The writing has to be good or there would be no audience.  In matter of fact they have a huge audience, one any writer would envy.  They have to be able to pull in a new viewer in just a few seconds in the middle of the story, with no recap because they never know when a new viewer will come in.  That alone I find fascinating, that the writing can bring in a viewer into the story even though that viewer has no idea (initially) what's going on.

I bet you think I'm joking but I'm not.  Give it a try.  Just remember, they are addicting.  Whole magazines and forums are devoted to them.  There was even a paranormal one I came very close to becoming addicted to when I last had the flu.  It's worth the risk for a quick, dirty and efficient lesson in effective writing techniques.  

Book in a Week?

Who needs a kick start to get themselves writing again?

I was reading about writing a book in a week on Broad Universe and something clicked.  No, absolutely I'm not going to write a book in a week.  I've got too many books I've written in a month that need my tender loving editing care to write yet another, especially since I'll probably do Nanowrimo again.  But when I got to the part about heroines of straw I thought aha!  That's something valuable to observe.  The author focused on lack of preparation leading to her failures but I thought her mention of her characterization was a bigger clue to her underlying issues.  Or not.  She was writing about her process, not mine.  

I wondered, can you prepare a character?  Technically, I guess.  You can decide their hair color and eye color, if they were molested as a child and how that makes them act out, if they drive a Cadillac or take the bus, and so on.  You can even 'motivate' them.  "My character wants, more than anything in the world, to travel to outer space."  Is that going to be your climax, then?  She finally gets to go to outer space?  Or is that just the beginning?  With the first choice, you've got a whole lot of empty to get her there.  With the second, you've got the deadly 'now what?'

So I thought about characters and what happens when I've got a good one.  And I realized that my favorite characters are strangers that I connect with and learn about as they grow in the story.  They're people when, as our eyes meet for the first time, I get this tingle.  I want to get to know them.  Maybe it's a shallow impression.  Man, is he hunky, and yet he's so shy!  Or maybe it's that moment of we're all in deep doo doo and she looks like she knows what she's doing.  I may be wrong, but my instincts say she's going to get me out of this mess alive where no one else can.  

Hopefully you're getting that idea.  I think this is yet another situation where 'write what you know' gets a lot of writers, including myself, into a little trouble.  I can think of a novel in particular where I put so many of my own insecurities and philosophies and everything else into the character that she didn't have much going for her.  Well, she had about as much going for her as I do.  I can be pretty entertaining and I have a lot of friends, but for a character to carry a novel I think she needs to be surprising, uncomfortable, edgy--something (even if it's just one thing but hopefully several things) that's not me.  I don't want her to be predictable and always react the same way I'd react if I were in the same situation.  

I'm not saying characters have to be larger than life--not at all.  But think about the first time you met your best friend, the love of your life, the teacher that changed your life, someone who impressed you even when you didn't know that much about them.  I propose that a character needs to pop for you the same as real people pop out of society's swarm and instantly become individuals.  Great actors can make even the most mundane secondary character interesting.  You want to get to know them, even if they're bad guys (or maybe especially, if you think that way.)  

The strongest short story I've recently written had this fun voice.  I didn't know much about that character's history, but I immediately wanted to get to know her.  She was a pistol.  I think I'm going to try to write something like that again, about someone I'd want to really get to know.  I think she's going to make a fabulous first impression on me.  I'll combine it with the garden challenge, I think.  Doesn't really matter, as long as I get to write about her.  I can't wait!

The Back of Characters

Since the INK meeting, I've been thinking a great deal about character backstory. And I've finally realized what's been missing in my own character conceptualization.

Most of the 'how to write a novel' books on the market include handy lists for conceptualizing a character's backstory. Carole has the epitome of character concept worksheets, and while many writers find this sort of things useful, I've always balked at it. Yes, I, the lover of All Things List, balked. And now I understand why.

These lists encourage the consideration of things like dress code, political alignment, funky quirks, level of education, pet peeves, that sort of thing. But where, in all of these helpful lists, is it said how to use this information in your novel. How do you condense pages of character concept into a walking, talking character partaking of your plot? They don't, because they aren't really a character's back Story. They lack the very definition of story: Conflict, Resolution, Outcome.

For me, everything about a character's backstory should be setting up the hows and whys a character is involved in the plot of the novel. Why do they make the choices they make? (Because such and such happened when they were seven) Why do they trust the people they do? (Because so and so is like that kindly aunt who helped raise them)

Knowing all that other information is just character dressing. It isn't actually in depth character analysis. Even running a character through a personality test, like Myers-Briggs, will only get you so far. Those are too general. A good place to start, but not where to end.

The backstory needs to be the character's mold, or the long garden path full of sunshine and rain, bramble and roses, they followed to reach the events in the novel. It's a building of the character to be in the right place and in the right frame of mind (even if it all goes horribly wrong--as good plots often do) to be THE character of the story.

Realizing this lack has made me realize what I've been missing in Jamesina's character (from the Reven book Kami and I are co-writing). I have a few sketchy events from her past (her mother's death, her father and brother's falling out, her taking up her brother's place in the hospital), but I have nothing that has had a real effect and impact on the formation of her character, and so she hasn't built a strong enough character, based on past conflicts and resolutions (good and bad) that have made her who she is when the story takes place. The entire point of backstory is missing, and so her character is shallow and thinly motivated.

This week, I'm going to be writing some of those missing conflicts out. Give her a real past that has teeth and has both bitten her and bitten others around her. Who knows what she'll be like on the other side of those small stories that will never see the light of day, but I do know she'll have far more depth than the pale, tepid thing that's trying to keep up with the story now.

And that's another point about backstory. It's backstory. It may never come out in the course of the Real Story (and often it shouldn't), but it is necessary foundation. It has to be there, just like the setting and plot have to be there. Like Ragu: It'sa in there!

The Reveal

While watching the special features for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" yesterday one of the threads they followed was how JK Rowling (super writer complete with cape) employed a wonderful device with her characterization.  What impresses me is that she used the same device with a huge number of important characters in her books and still kept it fresh.

The device is:  No one is as they seem.

Lupine turns out to be a werewolf.  James Potter was an ass.  Sirius Black is not only a loving godfather rather than a mass murderer, it turns out that's he's part of a notoriously nasty family.  Professor Moody in book four turns out to be a disguised bad guy (and we liked him so much!)  The list is huge.  Even Voldemort isn't what he seems to be.  In fact with each book Voldy has bigger and bigger reveals that rewrite what we know or what we think we know about him.  Even Harry Potter himself goes through transformations, the biggest at the end.  My favorite is Snape, because I have this thing for anti-heroes.  Another beautiful reveal came with Draco Malfoy.  Say what you like about Rowling's flaws--with this device, she's a genius.  Bravo.

It goes to show you that just because it's a mechanical device that anyone can use, that doesn't mean it's a cheat or cheap.  None of the tools for the writing craft are cheats unless you mishandle them.  Even writing tools that many consider bad, like 'it was all just a dream' are skillfully employed in hundreds, probably thousands of stories without going wrong.  If you handle a tool in a way that's meant to bring enjoyment to the reader by deepening a world and making it unexpected and exciting, any tool, no matter how transparent, can be made to work wonders.  If, however, you take a hammer and smash on the screw head because you can't seem to tighten it down to the wood and you're too lazy to pull it back out and drill a pilot hole, you're no longer employing craft.  You're employing brute force, and I doubt anyone will want to buy your creation if you build it that way.

Lots of people employ writing devices without being consciously aware of them.  If their subconscious is particularly clever, they might stumble on a reveal while writing the first draft and dance a little happy writer joy dance as their novel opens up to new possibilities.  For the rest of us, writing devices are things we employ consciously, and usually on a second draft while we're going through and trying to figure out how to fix up the drab little house we've built.  So if you've taken a look at this and have decided that you want to employ a character reveal or plot twist or an action causes the opposite of the expected effect, don't be in a big rush to start a new project.  Take a look at what's collecting dust in your drawer first.  It may be collecting dust because you haven't gotten out your tools to work on the raw material.  Bring out the shovels, grab that router, and don't forget your level.  Writing is work, and your overworked, underpaid creativity can't do it all with stone knives and bear skins. 

Bring It, Nano!

The regiment of daily medication is pushing me back into the realms of the Healthy; the in-laws have left us after five days of grandparent fun. Between illness and in-laws, I was fretting about being even the little prepared for Nanowrimo that I had planned, but that all changed, thanks to an ethusiast author signing and a little e-mail from Chris Baty.

The author signing was preceeded by a reading (of a short story) and a Q&A session. I came away enthused about the craft I'd chosen and ready for daily writing again. But moreso, I want to enjoy the writing. I get to dreading Rough Drafts to the point of paralysis. This nano I get the chance to Get Over It, Already, and just have fun writing.

Chris Baty's e-mail reminded me that writing is all about opening doors and seeing what's on the other side. And I want to open those doors! I want to see where they go!

So no outlines for me! No synopsis! No long, drawn out, pre-planned plot! I'm going into Nano this year with just a handful of colorful characters: a sufi dancer named Argent Rose; her wise-cracking bodyguard, Saia; Rinker, the tinket-box maker; the red-coated homeland guard and their Visigoth adversaries. There might possibly still be a convent of rebel nuns and a witch with a penchant for making golems. At this point, I'm leaving all the doors wide open.

I have no idea what the landscape will look like on the other side, but I am looking forward to the voyage there!

Asserting Myself Around Town

I've had a couple of odd dreams in the past few nights where I am suddenly very assertive. As in, calling people out when I don't like what I'm seeing or experiencing. For anyone who knows me, they know this isn't a typical Ris reaction. I'm more of the put up with it until I can escape type. I'm wondering, though, if these dreams mean I'm actually becoming more assertive in my waking day. I'll have to keep an eye on my own reactions to see.

And that wouldn't be a bad thing at all. After all, running away at the first signs of difficulty isn't a good way to be a writer. Which might accounted for all the files I have of started but unfinished stories. I put them aside as soon as I ran into plot troubles and moved on to something easier (and less work). I haven't done that lately. Sure, I've gone from one story to another, but I end up circling back around to the first story after a while. Sometimes all I needed was fresh eyes to find where to take the story next.

But if that doesn't work, I'm still not running away. I'm embracing other methods.

Take Mummy Case. I'm to a point where I'm starting down the muzzle of the plot gun, but it hasn't fired quite yet. I'm starting to questiong the validity of scenes and ask myself if this trip is really necessary and all those other cliches, but I haven't put it aside. Instead, I'm telling myself Go Outline, Young Writer! An outline will make it all better. Or at least clearer on how each scene is building up to the other and how they'll all come together. I guess I'm to the point where I need a map to find my way around.

And that feels right. I've tested the characters up to 17,000 words and found them compelling and fun. Testing characters can only happen by writing characters. But testing plot can happen in outlining to a point, and I think that is where I'm at now. Testing the loose plot ideas I have in my head, and figuring out how and when I can add in more elements to the story to advance the theme and the genre along with the plot. And that feels good, even when I'm not ending up with word count after the day is done. Well, a few words, but not where I'd like to be during a typical day of writing.

And that's okay, because untypical days come up! We like untypical days. Untypical is fun. (Is untypical even a word?)

Just Thought I'd Share

In case you weren't aware:

Today is no day for false modesty. You know that you're brilliant, so admit it.

I must admit that I feel rather brilliant. Wrote a good chunk on a new chapter of The Mummy Case yesterday, hoping to get through the middle section of it today, and then did lots and lots of gardening, then came inside to make and hang summer curtains. And continued thinking about writing even while doing all of that.

It's good to be me.

It's not so good to be my characters, but they're stuck with what they have. Mwahaha!

Mayonnaise Man.

My assignment: Write a chapter that captures the atmosphere of a car show. Sights, sounds, flavor, or ‘flava’ if you will.

End result: Yet another chapter with one of the main characters, the antagonist, showing more personality yet digging himself deeper. And it's not good stuff he's digging into.

I like this character but not enough to give him the starring role in every chapter. The problem is my protagonist is so much the nice guy he wouldn’t utter a peep if a semi truck was parked on his foot.

Questions: How do you make a protagonist interesting when everyone loves evil characters? How do you ‘un-mayonnaise’ a nice guy protagonist?

Characters

Of the five stories I am currently working on, all of them are well over 2,000 words, and one just passed 11,000. That feels very, very good. I can't think of any other time I reached over 10,000 words on a story that was not for NaNo.

What impresses me lately is how I can go so readily from working on an historical fiction one day and switch to a fantasy the next. The characters are so completely different. Here, let me show you:

The meal was served, and the conversation observed over it was hushed, kept to small household matters that Aberlin was not a part of. The Earl's health was raised, but only exhaustion was claimed for his absence. Aberlin suspected more, but she didn't speak her mind. She concentrated on her meal and on the nuances of the conversation between Gilbert and his wife. Theirs was a common enough marriage, made as much for dowry and degree as it was for feeling. They were comfortable with one another in a manner that all strangers eventually become accustom to one another. But there was no true love between, not of the kind that had grown between her and Warrick. And, sincerely, Aberlin was sorry for that. For all her position as tolerated outcast, she was fond of Gilbert and of simple, homely Mary. They were good folk, honest in their word and in their expressions. Which is why she knew something was bothering Gilbert a great deal and it had everything to do with Aberlin.

But Aberlin had made a study of patience. She waited for the news to come to her.

It did so just as the meal was finishing. She knew it was coming when Gilbert looked directly at her, something he'd been avoiding throughout the meal. "We will be making a journey in two days. I am told you are to pack for a voyage."

Aberlin allowed herself a moment to control her emotions before she spoke. In only two sentences, Gilbert had eluded to far too much. She chose the most innocuous of her questions. "And in what manner should I prepare?"

Gilbert looked confused. Clearly, he'd expected a far more condemning sort of query.

"If I am to pack for a voyage," Aberlin explained calmly, "I should like to know in what manner to pack. Will the climes be warm or chilled? Should I expect much in dampness?"

"I . . . I really couldn't say," he stammered.

That is from my historical fiction The Lady Grey. Aberlin is very controlled sort of character. poised and patient. Rhys, from my fantasy Warrior Storm, most definitely is none of those things:

"You're awfully sure of who I am," Rhys told the girl.

The girl's face brightened. It was a pretty face, the kind that hasn't seen much sun or harsh weather, though there was something about it that spoke of past tragedies. Rhys was quick enough to recognize that. Tragedy leaves a mark even beauty can't
completely hide. "I knew from the lock in your hair. I'd have known you from that before I saw you speaking with Caleb."

Rhys' hackles rose and the girl shrank away from the show of anger. "What do you know about that?"

"I . . . I was on my home. I saw you in the street speaking with him." She hesitated, but a streak of courage showed itself with determination. "Did you come to get him away from here? Is he needed somewhere else?"

"The only thing that man needs is a kick in the head," Rhys growled. "And you need a kick in the ass. You've had your fun. Get on home."

"No, you've got it wrong!" The girl reached out as if to catch Rhys before she could walk away. "I need your help."

"Go ask the great Caleb."

"You don't understand." The girl sagged against the wall. "He's the problem."

"He's everyone's problem."

The girl straightened suddenly. "I could get you a horse."

Wariness edged through her, but Rhys hesitated. "How do you mean?"

"You said you needed a horse. I know where a couple are. No one would miss them."

So that was it, was it? "Them, huh? And for this act of kindness, you'd expect me to take you with me?"

"Well--"

"Look, girl, I'm not out on a joy ride. You've got no place with me and no business stealing horses."

"But I wouldn't be stealing them. Not exactly."

Rhys eyed the girl. "Sorry. Can't help you."

Rhys is great fun to write. I don't even bother avoiding cliches with her, because that's just the sort of character she is. In a rewrite, I'll weed them out and fill in either with something more clever or just make sure the tone conveys that sense of her, but for the rough draft I just play.

But I enjoy writing Aberlin just as much. She's a quick-study of others, but doesn't reveal much herself, for the moment. That's going to change later, when she has to trust someone she really doesn't want to trust (he doesn't really endear anyone with the word 'trust' actually). And Rhys will get to show some of her softer side later in the story, too, which will be hard for her.

It makes each day writing a new experience when I get to chose from such diverse characters, sometimes amid the same story. Rhys' dearest friends are as opposite in personality from her as Aberlin is, and Aberlin's nemesis come partner couldn't be further from her in disposition.

Which makes those head-banging days go a little easier. And makes days like today, when I whip through 1100 words without blinking, the most fun of all!