The Princess inside the Dragon???

Rainer Maria Rilke had this to say about expectations, judgments, and truths:

Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us, is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Maybe you find this concept troubling even outside fiction writing, not to mention within it. But don’t visualize Walt Disnified princesses and dragons. These are metaphors, symbols to tweak however you wish. Often, though, metaphors are the best way to express the unsayable.

So which ideas does this metaphor suggest?

~ Identify the dragons in the lives of your characters.

What if the sources of terror and repugnance craved love instead of blood?  How many of those only reside within? What new insights might this generate?

~ Look beneath the surface.

Though dragon imagery shifts from culture to culture, the basic idea’s always the same. Or is it? Perhaps humans and dragons share traits in common. Why do dragons represent so many things? What does it really mean to be a dragon? A princess?

~ Refurbish.

We associate dragons not with beauty, vulnerability or tenderness, but such hideous violence that slaying one makes you a hero. When we change both image and message, readers experience both original and new versions.  How efficient is that?

~ Reveal similarities, whether in heart or history, in drama or dream.

How does the antagonist resemble the protagonist? How do both antagonist and protagonist manifest the strengths and weaknesses everyone shares?

~ Play God.

The role of Supreme Being capable of infinite wisdom and understanding suits fiction writers well. We write fiction, of course, from yearning to expose what we consider evil and good. But that yearning must remain so secret that every dragon harbors a bit of princess. Wouldn’t your readers appreciate that kind of wisdom and understanding ?  

~ Astonish.

Great plots reveal the possibility of the improbable, the morality that becomes possible because the hero makes it so. You won’t need a single dragon or princess. Just larger-than-life characters and a causal plot.

Tip: Use the metaphorical dragons and princesses surrounding us to gentle your novel’s dragons and

        fortify its princesses. 

The Writer, the Reader, and the Goldilocks Dilemma

Who wants context so sparse that the scene seems to occur mid-air? Who wants to read thickly layered description that resembles a bowl of lukewarm porridge vast enough to fill a T Rex belly? Every reader, writer, and lost little girl wants a meal that’s “just right.” Goldilocks sampled everything. But your goal is having so many readers that assessing their individual needs becomes impossible. How do you offer a serving neither meager nor massive?

~ Trick yourself into reading like a reader.

“Trick” is the operative word here. You find your scene perfectly clear and your sentences, um—glorious. Uh, uh. How would this read if you didn’t already know what’s at stake? Weren’t smitten with the syntax? Take a break for days, maybe weeks. Try reading aloud, printing the pages. You can teach old writers new tricks.

~Provide context.

Who wants to guess character age or gender, or where and when this takes place? If this is urban fantasy or romance? If the tone is serious or satiric? Clarify the broad picture. Let readers infer the rest from clever clues.

~ Imply.

The human mind has a remarkable capacity to use hints for completing the picture, guessing the meaning, grasping the idea. Clues are fun. Spelling everything out? Not fun. Closer, in fact, to being stuck with a boring teacher. We’ve all been there.

~ Use the five senses.

Even a little abstraction, such as “painful,” “satisfying,” or “exquisite,” feels like that giant dish of soggy cereal. Offer concrete imagery, ideally in original combinations. The first image that leaps to mind is likely to be weak and tired. Keep hunting.

~Construct great metaphors.

Then let them speak for themselves. If they’re really that great, you needn’t explain them.

~Avoid double-dipping.

Readers rarely want to hear that Ed sneered and glowered, or that Nancy laughed with joy and amusement, or that Eloise slouched and trudged. Find the right image or explanation so you won’t be tempted to torture with two.

~ Understate.

The more intense the emotion or catastrophe, then the less you need to say about it.

Sometimes, of course, like Goldilocks, you may have to assess the scene with the detail in or out, the sentence reduced or expanded. Experiment, and you’ll get better and better at “just right.” After all, you’re lots more sophisticated than little Goldilocks.

 Tip: Readers need “facts” in order to draw conclusions about what those “facts’ mean.

Feeling the Feeling

Since novelists need their readers to feel what the characters do, it’s useful that humans feel with both our hands and hearts. Characters, too, can touch either a face or a nerve. What’s this got to do with conveying feelings?

Feeling covers so much territory: to grope, caress fur, get chilled, evade anger, experience curiosity or euphoria. What do they all share in common?

To answer this, consider churches. They evoke our deepest feelings, whether sanctity, security, love of beauty—or frustration over whether church delivers or nullifies these.

Physicality is the source of the profound emotions that churches evoke. The images are so intense—so iconic, that most everyone senses spiritual presence, even if no incense burns, even if you never kneel, touch a statue, or let a wafer melt on your tongue.

Since they first built churches, they knew that the feelings we literally feel transmit those we can only imagine. Fiction works precisely the same way.

Tip: Tangible feeling is the route to emotional feeling.

Despite this, people, including writers, of course, reduce the complexity and solidity of emotion to abstract and unrealistic shorthand: scared, angry, overjoyed, miserable. “Sad” evokes the same amount of physical sensation that “good as gold” does—i.e. none at all. Imagery isn’t enough. It’s got to be imagery that’s still vital.

So how do you help your readers feel the feelings?

Bring characters together.

Can someone brooding alone match the intensity of a live confrontation?

Translate into body language.

Forget abstract description and ponderous pondering. What is the character doing?

Compare.

What event or image (image—not cliché) does the feeling resemble?

Probe.

Few feelings are one-dimensional. What conflicting emotions does your character feel?

Fiction works its magic by creating a world, and worlds are built from what we hear, see, smell, touch, and taste. Convey feeling with—feeling.

Right Through It; Write Through It

Every writer knows about those trouble spots, resembling a stain on your best jacket. No matter how you struggle, it’s still right there, usually in the forefront, where it’s the first thing anyone sees. You have options for fixing the jacket: Replace it, dye it, take it to the cleaner’s.

You have options for refurbishing  your novel, also. Sometimes you can’t write the sentence, describe the character, or articulate that bit of backstory because…you don’t actually need to. That’s when you should draw your pen, pencil, or cursor right through it. How can you tell if that’s smart thinking? These questions might help.

1.      What does the scene lose if I omit this detail, description, or character?

2.      What does the novel lose if I just omit this scene?

3.      Is my point here so obvious that I can’t find a new way to frame it?

4.      Is my point here so convoluted that I can’t find a smooth way to express it?

5.      Is the issue that I don’t know what the heck I want to say?

The first four questions often suggest the “right through it” approach. The last one, though, begs for the “write through it” approach.

Let’s say you decide that you would cheat your readers by omitting that detail, sentence, or scene. But maybe you’ve already struggled until you doubt there’s enough chocolate in the world to fix those words or your frustration over them. The trick is tricking yourself into fresh strategies and restored energy (it can be a renewable resource). Here’s a bag of tricks.

ü  Command yourself to rework this passage for fifteen minutes.

ü  Forbid yourself to revise this section for more than fifteen minutes. (No cheating.)

ü  Fix one thing bothering you: the verb, the image, even the punctuation.

ü  Fiddle with this section for five minutes at the start or end of each writing session.

ü  Change the point of view. (Just for fun.)

ü  Change the character motivation. (Potentially even more fun.)

ü  Think about what you want to say every night for a minute before falling asleep. One morning you’ll awake knowing what you wanted to say and how to say it.

Tip: You’ll write happier by differentiating “right through it” from “write through it.”

Not at All yet Completely New

At a Mount Holyoke College commencement speech, Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen warned that “Every story has already been told. Once you’ve read ‘Anna Karenina,’ ‘Bleak House,’ ‘The Sound and the Fury,’ ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and ‘A Wrinkle in Time,’ you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel.” Now that’s discouraging! But then she added this: “Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.”

How true. And it isn’t just that each writer has an individual voice. Unless that voice captivates—and instantly—then we’ve heard it before, and it’s yesterday’s news.

Writing about death, dragons, and denial? Nothing new there. But watch what D. L. Burnett does in this passage from “In the Kingdom of the Dragons”:

“Death wasn’t as easy as Gaspotine the Dark expected. He tried denying it, choosing to believe this a fever-induced nightmare. Or perhaps he’d stayed in the Continuum too long and exhausted his flesh. Shortly he’d return to his Cavern of Diamonds, strong and virile.

The Niede, a primordial instinct like hunger and thirst but ninety-three times worse, demanded his spirit rejoin his body. He tried again and again until he’d lost half his mist.

He must really be dead.

Gaspotine thrashed his tail. The tip flew off. Shocked, he froze. These deteriorations had never happened before. But then he’d never died before, either.

Code decreed another Dragon must devour his remains, easing his spirit’s permanent transition into the Continuum, preventing him from returning to dead flesh. Tallasha the Resplendent had done that, but without diminishing the Niede.

Dragons shouldn’t die, especially the greatest current rider, Gaspotine the Dark.”

By creating a new world for us, Burnett offers insight into our own world. Imagine a Continuum where we survive after we’ve died, where we can ride silver waves and see the future. Imagine the lifeless body struggling to merge with the surviving spirit. Imagine feeling yourself too powerful—too special—for death to claim?

These are a dragon’s feelings. But how many humans have experienced them? More than empathy entices here (and empathy for dragons is pretty special): It’s the voice. Snappy sentences set off long ones; strong verbs like “thrashed,” “flew,” “froze,” and “devour” propel this forward.

The other strength here is harnessing the external to convey feelings. This wouldn’t work if Gaspotine whined about weakness, frustration, and anger. Instead, Burnett supplies the concreteness of “fever,” “Diamonds,” “hunger,” “thirst,” and the specificity of “ninety-three.” Those images lay a foundation for the shocking cannibalism of the Code and grip of “the Niede.” Burnett’s voice creates this new world—and our empathy for this tormented dragon.

Tip: It’s not necessarily your job to offer something “new.” It’s your job to use your voice to make whatever you describe feel completely new.

Full or Frantic?

 Like many Americans and Brits, last Sunday I tuned in to “Downton Abbey” with anticipatory pleasure. And don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it. But I also sensed two issues I’d never noticed before, both relevant to the craft of the novel.

The first is self-consciousness. Who knows what the writers or cast actually think, but it almost seems as if concern about rivaling past performance swallowed the freshness and vitality of past seasons. This kind of pressure often surfaces when you let yourself worry if you’ll ever outdo the success of the last great season, scene, or sentence.

Once you enter “worry” mode, you might just decide that the solution is to add more. More of what? Why not everything? This can generate a deluge of detail, sub-plots, minor characters, imagery—everything but the kitchen sink, and if you’re desperate enough, maybe that, too. Here’s the danger:

Tip: Blurred focus makes for perilous pace.

That’s true not only for scenes but also individual sentences. The too-much-of-everything

syndrome can generate a painful irony: Clutter feels simultaneously frantic and tedious, hectic and monotonous. How do you solve this?

·         Remind yourself that for most writers, early drafts don’t start out great. But if they’ve been great before, they will be again. Then you’ll have the confidence to streamline.

·         Streamline not by offering tons of everything, but one or two or maybe three additions that really work, whether it’s a detail, sub-plot, image, or clause.

·         Emphasize what matters. That sounds easy, but if you want readers to grasp significance, you must first identify it yourself. That can be less obvious than you imagine.

·         Finally, offer an uncluttered view of what you want readers to see. That means you’ll have to cut. And that’s okay. Because “Downton Abbey” acquired the fame it enjoys by doing lots of things right. That means it’s highly likely that it will do most things right again. Guess what? So will you.