Thinkin’ on Thursday: Picture This!

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

At times in the past, I have modeled characters’ looks, fashion sense, even personality on unknown models in magazines. I’ve even cut them out and then built characteristics for that person on the same page or on a 4×6 card. Or I’ve envisioned an old time actor (or a current one, for that matter) as my “hero,” “villain,” “sidekick,” or whomever.

I’m going to suggest another way to utilize pictures of unknowns from magazines or books to help your writing (and the above paragraph has some good ideas too: if you’ve never tried it, give it a go and see what you think). Look through a magazine or illustrated book, preferably one you haven’t read already, or an old one you’ve forgotten all about. Find a picture with at least two main “characters” on it. THINK of these two as major characters in a story you haven’t yet thought through.

Just allow them to begin interacting with each other. Don’t “plan” ahead (this will be a good one for all of us ‘pantsers’), because this is designed to give us practice in a more “organic” method of plot construction. Just start “recording” the story’s events and let them spin out in front of you. Pay attention to other props or objects that appear in the ad or picture. If there are other people in the picture, ignore them for the moment. See how or why the two might interact with the props, objects, bits of scenery, in the picture with them. Record items and events as faithfully as possible without thinking about the “rules” of story plot structure.

Once you’ve recorded the scene, note whether your characters interacted with or used any of the props, etc., given them by the picture. What did they do with items there? Twiddle nervously with papers on a desk? Pick up a coffee cup and look for a refill? Grab a hammer or bucket of paint, intending to use it as a weapon?

How did your characters interact with each other? Were they friends or strangers at the start? What relationship was forged during the scene: adversarial? Conciliatory? Pleading? Helpful? and so on.

Go ahead. This is just a writer’s PLAY ground. Have FUN in it ! ! !

(And, at the end, is there anything salvageable there? Can it be incorporated in your current WIP? Is it the beginning of a short story? An article? An editorial? A children’s book? Even a brand‑new novel?)

See you next for Saturday’s Spellbinder!

Tips on Tuesday: How Well Do You Know Your Antagonist?

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

We writers spend a lot of time imagining, dreaming about, creating our wonderful “heroes” of our stories. We love them, we hate to hurt them . . . but we know we must. We want to let our readers know how wonderful, handsome/gorgeous, smart, talented, and clever they are.

Then there’s the Villain! The Bad Guy (or Gal)! They need to be every bit as smart, talented and clever. Sometimes we even need to make them seem like the “hero” ‑‑‑ or a “winner” ‑‑‑ or a “friend.”

Here’s a little exercise that may help you put some reality into the creation of your antagonist:

Recall somebody who made you really angry recently. Imagine yourself dong something to that person: getting revenge, giving absolution, practicing an extended session of psychotherapy.

Have fun with it . . . go “all out,” writing a scene (or even a chapter) on what you could/would do to that person in your life, if only s/he were your antagonist. How can you weave that scene/chapter into your mystery? Your romance? Your sci‑fi thriller? Your Arthurian tale?

Yup! That’s the “assignment” for this week. Have All‑Out Fun with it!

See you next on Thinkin’ on Thursday!

Tips on Tuesday: Weather . . . or not . . .

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

I’ve been thinking about the weather a lot lately. Who hasn’t? Across the U.S. alone we’ve had heat leading to fires, which led to floods; blizzards, leading to loss of power for thousands and thousands, meaning no heat.

This past weekend alone, Stephenville, TX, dropped from 80 degrees one day to 20 degrees the next. Ice and snow have shut down thousands of flights across the country for weeks, and that doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

I began to wonder how many times my writing in a story has touched on weather. Oh, I might need a cold, windy, spooky night from time to time to help set the scene. But the “ordinary” day‑to‑day weather I seldom think to mention. And what about the effects of “unusual” weather on your story?

We read about a tsunami, or avalanche, or summer‑heat fire. How could these affect your characters? Those are the biggies.

What about the ordinary? In Utah, we often have bad air when temperatures are warmer in the mountains than in the valleys. We have bright, sunny summer days. Occasional horrific winds coming out of the canyons. Cold, crisp, snowy days which lead to some of the world’s best snow sports.

How do your main characters feel about the weather? Even in a fantasy, you could have interesting interactions with people (or fairies, or sprites, or giants, or dragons, or . . . ) and the weather. What difference does a heavy rain make to a dragon? Maybe it puts his “fire” out? Or he likes the occasional shower—even when it’s a deluge?

Sci‑fi could have, literally, “un‑earthly” weather. How would that affect living beings? Or the robotic monsters, or . . .

Mid‑romance novel, the weather makes a drastic change. What difference does that make in the love scene? Or the first boy‑meets‑girl encounter?

Writing an historical novel? What changes in the weather have taking place during the years (or centuries) between Then and Now? How would those characters have responded then vs. how we might respond now?

The point is:

Don’t just THINK about the weather—like we all do.

Don’t just TALK about the weather—and do nothing with it.

WRITE ABOUT IT!

See you next for Thinkin’ on Thursday!

Tuesday’s Tips: Seeing is Believing

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

All attentive writers have heard “show, don’t tell” over and over again.  I’m here to tell you that’s true most of the time, but not necessarily all of the time.

I remember reading a book by Thomas Wolfe years ago. As I recall he went for three full pages describing a door‑knob. Three Full Pages! Now, he’s an excellent writer, but at that point, he’d lost me . . . and I’d lost interest.

Yes, you can “show” a person unlocking the car door, opening it, sliding into the driver’s seat, buckling up, putting the key into the ignition, cranking the engine, putting the car in reverse, backing down the driveway ‑‑‑ but only after checking carefully that there are no children, pedestrians, on‑coming traffic in his way . . . etc., etc., etc. I’m telling you, you can tell me he jumped in the car and drove off.

The minutiae of ordinary actions can be told quickly and easily. If they mean something important then, by all means, give me a chance to see what is happening. In other words, show me.

I did hear one writer give an apt description of how to go about “showing.” Write what you would see if you were watching a movie or TV show. I prefer to think “movie” because of the wide screen, big details. Isn’t that the “picture‑perfect” way to get the description in along with obeying the rule “show, don’t tell”?

Generally speaking, I think that would throw me into present tense. And present tense is always more immediate. Not sure I’d like to write a whole novel in present tense, but if I want to evoke immediacy, and I want to be sure I’m “showing,” not “telling,” that seems like a good way to go!

Describe the good guy facing the bad guy, guns ready to be drawn. The sweat running down the side of the hero’s face, the splat it makes in the dust by his feet. The smirk running across the bad guy’s lips. The bar girl reaching out and grabbing her friend’s arm in a moment of tension. And so on and so forth. You’ve all seen the scene, I’m sure.

Now go write what you see! And hear. And touch. And taste. And smell.

See you next for Thinkin’ on Thursday!

Tuesday’s Tutor: Is Your MC Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Part I

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB

This series on Main Character’s Smarts is written by Nikki Trionfo, a former writing student of mine; and, happily, now a member of our Wasatch Mountain Fiction Writers critique group.  She has kindly given permission to make some cuts, but you will find her full manuscript at http://www.realwriterswrite.com/2013/08/is-your-mc-smarter-than-fifth-grader.html

All of us have read the scene where the young, female, Main Character (MC) walks down the lonely, ghostly, melancholy, dark alley. We shake our heads: “Hello, how dumb can this girl be?” Or we slam the book down in disgust. We may even hang on tight, turning pages frantically.

Today, Nikki Trionfo is kicking off a three-part blog series on MC-smarts: Part I will look at when/how to make your character seem intelligent.

In Part II, she’ll hit when/how to achieve dumbness (an essential author skill).

Part III will show when/how to make a smart character believably do very un-smart things.

Start with a basic assumption: authors should be crafting clever MC’s —excep-tions will be saved for Part II. That said, how do you write a clever MC?

Don’ts:
Don’t tell readers the MC’s IQ, grades, or academic awards.
Don’t rely on the simplistic: “Hi. I’m Ted. E=mc².”
Don’t let parents/teachers testify to MC smartness.
Don’t dress the MC in “smart people” styles.
Don’t put your MC in a prep school.
Don’t, don’t, don’t force high-brow grammar on your poor, innocent MC.

So glad I got those off my chest. (There’s an exception for each of the rules. Save protests for Part III)

Intelligence in an MC is about situational awareness. World-savvy. Making mistakes early in the story. Learning from them. Making mistakes late in the story and being such a whole person, digging so deep that redemption is earned in quick, dramatic, reader-satisfying fashion. It’s about moral confidence, knowing who you are, cleverness, solving problems, decoding human behavior, using gut-intuition.  And being right.

Think of MC smartness as binary: on-or-off. Either the MC figures out a puzzle before the reader (MC smartness=on), or the reader figures it out before the MC (MC smartness=off). It’s that simple. Take Meg, from A Wrinkle in Time. Meg is confronted by many situations and reacts to them. But she’s quick to tell you how terrible her reactions were—so quick, she’s quicker than the reader at figuring out how poorly she reacted. Therefore, she’s smart (figuring out the puzzle before the reader), even though she tells you how dumb she is. Smart characters often tell you how dumb they are—especially if the plot calls for them to learn, grow. On the other hand, Sherlock Holmes can have a bit of smugness-smarts: he lives in plots which don’t call for the MC to journey through character development.

The next building block of character intelligence is pacing. Control pacing, you control smarts. In scene A, your MC’s best friend is trying to break into a school office. In scene B, your MC is in a chemistry class and notices her teacher hasn’t got the usual set of keys dangling from his neck. Now, pace the scene quickly, interrupting the MC with a love interest’s comment, a villain’s arrival and a powerful physical distraction, like a burn to her fingers when she forgets the Bunsen burner is lit. At the end of the scene, the MC walks up to her friend, demands the keys she stole from the teacher. This makes the MC look smart. Despite all the possible distractions, the MC was not distracted: she figured out who had the keys and why. And she used the information wisely.  MC smartness=on.

Rewrite scene B and change the pacing. The MC is in the classroom and notices her teacher is not wearing his keys. She chooses to think about something else in narration so the moment is drawn out. Maybe when she “comes to” from her thoughts, she’s still looking at her teacher and noticing his missing keys. By this time, the reader figured out the who/why of the situation. MC smartness=off.

MC smartness is already off, but take it a step farther: MC blurts her findings to the entire class when she realizes why the keys are missing, giving the villain and the teacher a reason to target her friend. Now the MC is acting even less intelligently.

This is the final building block of MC-smarts. What does the MC do with the mental jumps she makes?

Analyze your MC. Is she savvy with puzzle-solving, but too impulsive with handling the info? Does he learn from mistakes more quickly than the reader, but is too cowardly to act? What if she’s clever, able to act on info wisely, but too boring to grow character? Don’t despair. Remember Sherlock Holmes: the lucky recipient of such interesting cases his personal journey is unimportant.

May smarts be with you as you craft the clever MC. May you return to our blog in two weeks for tips on how to turn intelligence on its head. Because, let’s be honest: may none of us underestimate the power of the young, female character facing off with the lonely, dark, ghostly, melancholy alley.

Thanks, Nikki!  See you readers day-after-tomorrow for Thursday’s Thirteen!

AND two weeks from today for Part II of Nikki’s Smarter than a 5^th Grader!

Tuesday’s Tutor: Conspiracy. Murder. Politics. Love. Sex. Ghosts. Pirates.

Easy as A, B, C . . . from BB (Sorry for the lateness… we’re on the road and just got to Alabama!)

And we’re not talking today’s thrillers, but works of William Shakespeare. Author A.J. Hartley pointed out, as quoted by Writer’s Digest (July ’13), the playwright we now regard as “refined” and “literary” was considered rustic and fanciful in his time. “Shakespeare wrote for the mass medium of his day,” Hartley said.

So what can the bard teach us about storytelling? Here’s what Hartley shared:

1. “Good writers borrow. … Great writers steal.”

Most of Shakespeare’s stories originated in other source material. Hartley said there are a limited number of original tales out there. Steal—”then own the result.” Shakespeare wrote his works with his unique signature.

2. Remember: Shakespeare never went to Italy.

How could the son of a glove maker evoke settings, fields and time period he couldn’t have ever experienced? “By reading. Copiously. Diligently.” But “Never let research trump the tales. Shakespeare gives you only as much as you need to tell the story, and that’s all.

3. Get right to it.

Shakespeare doesn’t waste time getting things moving—books should do the same.

4. Story is character.

The bard’s props and costumes were kept to a minimum. His plays can be performed on a bare stage. It’s all about interaction between characters and how they speak, Hartley said. From a story perspective, a thriller shouldn’t be about explosions and car chases, but character.

5. Begin scenes late and end them early.

Just like the screenwriting maxim: start with something already happening. End without dragging the story out or “explaining” it.

6. All scenes must have external and internal conflict.

“It’s not enough for the door to be locked.” The character should have a reason not to want to open it.

7. Pace isn’t speed.

“Don’t be afraid to slow down to focus between action and event.” Hartley noted that what set Shakespeare apart was he allowed his characters to register the events that happened to them, gave them time for the emotional/spiritual consequences of things to register.

8. “Bad things happen to good people.”

Audiences expect poetic justice. In today’s works, like George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, the author lets his readers love his characters, and then he kills them off. Result: the reader is always in fear: “. . . a brilliant, simple story strategy, [which] creates a particular kind of suspense and a particular kind of tension.”

9. Dialogue says it all.

Hartley pointed out that we think of Shakespeare as a great, wise philosopher, but “Every word in Shakespeare is dialogue. It comes from character.” We don’t know what Shakespeare thought about anything . . . and that’s what makes him so good.

10. Shakespeare was all about output.

“You want to learn from Shakespeare? Write a ton of stuff,” Hartley said. On average, Shakespeare released his great works of literature at a rate of about two plays a year for two decades. So get to it!

See you day-after-tomorrow for Thursday’s 13!

Wednesday’s WIPs: WIPping Up Interest in a Minor Character

EASY AS A, B, C . . . from BB 

 ’Alo!  C’est moi, the Bensch Wensch!  Not CC.  As I was telling you a month or two ago, sometimes we have to fill in for one another.  Family emergencies, and all that.

So I’m two weeks early, and would love to have had more time and, therefore, more to report.  That given, what I do have to report is good.  When last you heard from me, I was scrambling to get 20 pages of my WIP sent in to WIFYR (by now, dear regular readers, you know that means Writers and Illustrators for Young Readers).  The good news is: I made my deadline that night and sent the pages.

The count several days of non-stop work, work, work!  Supposed to do 5 to 7 rewritten pages every day through that week’s workshops (where we were in wonderful classes and sessions from 8:30am until after 5:30, with homework to do before the next a.m.).

And, more good news: I got most of that done and turned in.

I also wrote a little blog after it was over that I had tried an experimental assignment on the last day of class: write one scene in a different POV; i.e., 1^st person instead of omniscient, or 3^rd person instead of 1^st, or from a different character altogether.  I tried the latter, at 5:00 a.m. the last day.

And that encompasses my next good news: though I was afraid it maybe didn’t even make sense, when I read it in class, they loved it.  Including my stellar teacher, Cheri Pray Earl.

This minor but interesting and quirky character made a raft of changes to my story, and it’s all good: she became one with the Story Teller I’d introduced at the beginning of Chapter One.  She became a close relative of the Hero.  She took on magical qualities I had heretofore refused to acknowledge she had.  She will be the Hero’s key to finding his magical way to the Princess.  And she will aid the Princess in finding the Hero again when he is lost to her.

Pretty good for a “minor” character, don’t you think?

Oh.  And the title has changed from the mundane, boring (and possibly derivative) Over Hill, Over Dale, and Back Again to Glass Mountain Princess.

Now, all I have to do is write all that into the narrative—oy vey!

See you day-after-tomorrow for Friday’s Friends!