A Tale of Two Questions

You can reduce many questions about writing your novel to just two:

1.      Do readers want to experience this as a live-time scene?

2.      Do readers want these contextual details, and if so, earlier, now, or later?

Tip: Question what your readers want, and when. It won’t make you clairvoyant. It will improve your ability to meet reader needs.

1. Start with scenes.

Novels can’t survive without them. What must they accomplish?

~ Direct access to the characters.

Sol Stein, in Stein on Writing, reminds us that “scene happens in front of the reader, is visible, and therefore filmable.”

~ Lack of resolution.

According to Jack M. Bickham in Scene & Structure, scenes are for characters struggling toward their goals, not for achieving those goals. 

~ Psychological change.

Author and writing coach Jessica Page Morrell says that scenes change characters. Unless there’s enough pressure to force that, maybe it shouldn’t be a scene?

2. Connect your scenes.

Background and context are the glue that sticks scenes together. Readers want who, what, where, when, and why, and neither so early that the information seems cluttered and irrelevant, nor so late that they’re already confused.  It’s all in the strategy.

~ Connect details to what’s happening in the novel right now.

Sometimes you have to delve into the past. Always use that to escalate present-time tension.

~ Disperse gradually.

Info dumps, if they belong anywhere at all, are for textbooks. Respect reader attention span.

~ Keep action prominent.

Sense of place is crucial, but not necessarily as the start to every chapter. A hook pulls in the reader while reminding the writer where the scene is going.

Question the contents of your scenes. Question the details connecting your scenes. The answers help create the illusion that your novel is perfectly paced. Isn’t that worth a question or two?

The Space Between

At the recent AWP (Association of Writers and Writing programs) conference in Minneapolis, novelists Stacey D’Erasmo and Charles Baxter, and poet Carl Phillips tackled the reader/writer relationship. The panel focused on the reader’s relationship to the text. How much does the individual affect the meaning of what’s on the page? How much should the individual affect the meaning of what’s on the page? Their consensus? A lot. I heartily agree.

But reader participation requires “space.” Not the kind buzzing with unimaginable sub-atomic particles, but an emptiness—because not every dot is filled in—that lets the reader join a “conversation.”

This space resembles openness, or white space on the page, or the silence between the movements in classical music, or the blank parts of a drawing or painting. The individual ear or eye fills that space. Novels work the same way.

The quality of the space depends on the fragile relationship between reader and character, reader and narrator. Not enough narrator, and there’s insufficient context for the reader to react, much less interpret. But too much narrator, and reader interaction becomes impossible.

Tip: The secret to handling empty space in a novel is the balance between character and narrator.

Don’t

~ Let your narrator offer interminable logistics, or not enough who, what, where and why.

~ Let your narrator draw every conclusion, preventing readers from doing that.

~ Let your narrator withhold so much for so long that readers lose interest.

~ Let your narrator upstage your characters. Readers follow characters.

Do

~ Let your characters rely on subtext. Implication intrigues everyone. That includes readers.

~ Let your characters intimate intimacy. Readers want to contribute their own experience.

~ Let your characters fall silent. This doesn’t mean silence while worrying or yearning and

   reminding readers of that. It means characters acting, so readers can decide what that means.

~ Let your characters steal the show, with readers deciding who deserves a happy ending.

A novel is an opportunity to enter a world so compelling that we leave everything humdrum, improbable, or amoral far behind. Any real world, fictional or otherwise, is composed of clarity and vagueness, of questions answered or only introduced, of people saying what they think while we calculate whether they mean what they say they think.

Give your readers an opportunity to enter a world of conversation and silence, of empty space that readers can fill with questions they never knew they wanted to ask. Give your readers enough space to reflect on those questions.

Sentence Sense

When you think of it, a novel is just one sentence after another until The End. So every sentence needs lots of attention. But there’s so much to sort through. You know the drill:

• Be concise.
• Be parallel.
• Be rhythmic.
• Be varied.

Yet these sometimes conflict. Add extra words for rhythm or parallelism—and you’re inefficient. Perhaps you wish that sentences functioned more like math. Aside from a few mysteries like infinity and negative numbers,  2 + 2 will always yield the same satisfying result. What to do if sentences are your tools?

Tip: Accept that rules relating to language usually have exceptions. Context is king.

Neighboring sentences exert tremendous impact. For example, a long sentence might be glorious on its own, but odious if it’s the fourth lengthy one in a row. Despite context and exceptions, some rules apply. Usually.

~ Too much grammar can hurt.

How many characters can credibly say “It is I?”

~ Too little grammar can hurt.

After completing the aerobics session, a tiny waist is assured. Eek.

~ Connect cleverly.

The word “and” suggests that everything is equal and that nothing ever causes anything else and that nothing depends on anything else. And that’s not true.

Reserve “and” for equal items or moments:”She loved her brother and her sister equally.”

When there’s disparity, use words that capture progression or inequality: “She checked her watch, then gulped her coffee.”  Or “Because he loved her beyond anything, he let her pilfer small change without confronting her.”

~ Beware doubling up.

Do you really need to say that “Ann glowered and made a fist”? Writers offer two gestures from habit plus a sneaking suspicion that neither gesture is quite right.

~ Emphasize.

A long sentence in a series of short ones will accomplish that. So will the reverse.

~ Train your ear.

Notice sentences you love—or don’t. What turns you on—or off? What better way to sensitize yourself to the sound of the sentences that compose your novel? Sentences are the engine that transports the plot. Give them the attention they deserve.

That Tricky First Sentence: Individuality and Integration

Every opening—for each chapter and scene—is crucial. But the first is most crucial of all.  Along with the familiar openings of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, haunting openings usually need  no context at all:

They shoot the white girl first. – Toni Morrison, Paradise

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. – William Gibson, Neuromancer

Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. – Gabriel García Márquez, 100 Years of Solitude

Every summer Lin Kong returned to Goose Village to divorce his wife, Shuyu. – Ha Jin, Waiting

Time is not a line but a dimension, like the dimensions of space. – Margaret Atwood, Cat’s Eye

Yet, as Chad Harbach observed in The Art of Fielding,

It was easy enough to write a sentence, but if you were going to create a work of art, the way Melville had, each sentence needed to fit perfectly with the one that preceded it, and the unwritten one that would follow. And each of those sentences needed to square with the ones on either side, so that three became five and five became seven, seven became nine, and whichever sentence he was writing became the slender fulcrum on which the whole precarious edifice depended. That sentence could contain anything, anything, and so it promised the kind of absolute freedom that, to Affenlight’s mind, belonged to the artist and the artist alone. And yet that sentence was also beholden to the book’s very first one, and its last unwritten one, and every sentence in between.

Sentence Revision Exercise 1

Just for fun, model the first line in your book after the structure of an opening sentence you love. Now transform your sentence into something that actually works, perhaps a combination of your original sentence and the one from this exercise. What did you discover? Can you apply it?

Sentence Revision Exercise 2

View your first sentence as the launch pad for everything else. Is it powerful enough? Does it hint at what’s crucial and set up the climax? Revise until it does, to improve not only that essential sentence, but your understanding of your entire novel.

Tip: The opening sentence must stand on its own and foreshadow every sentence to come.

Poet Tricks for Novelists

Doesn’t orange juice taste good any time of day? Aren’t bouquets welcome without a special occasion? Isn’t poetry’s something every writer should know about? That includes novelists.

Techniques that novelists might borrow from poets:

~ Artlessness.

In “Adam’s Curse” (about life outside Paradise”), Yeats wrote: “A line will take us hours maybe;/Yet if it does not seem a moment’s thought,/Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.”

Work hard enough to make it sound as if you never worked at all.

~ Big Ideas.

Wallace Stevens observes in “Sunday Morning” (about alternate spiritualities) that “Death is the mother of beauty.”

Emotion and suspense drive novels. Using irony and imagery, you can add beliefs, as well.  Layering gives poetry substance. It never hurt a novel, either.

~ Brevity

“My sky is black with small birds heading south,” notes Edna St. Vincent Millay in a sonnet about love—and its aftermath.

So much emotion in so few words. In such simple language. What Emily Dickinson called, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off…” Couldn’t every writer seek that kind of explosion?

~ Passion.

Dylan Thomas’s villanelle insists, “Do not go gentle into that good night/…Rage, rage against the dying of the light.”

In novels, rhyme generally distracts. But characters frenzied over philosophy, morality, love, and, hate—that’s the stuff that fiction’s made of. Because intensity distracts readers from the mundane, unheroic, patternless amorality of everyday life.

~ Propulsion.

Emily Brontë celebrated the heath she loved with “Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,/Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.” For novelists, rhythm often involves risk. But take no risks, and you might be good. You’ll just never be great.

Tip: Read some poetry. This could be an investment that pays off.

A Rose in a Cornfield Is a…

…weed. Misplaced, the most exquisite, evocative addition feels like…a mistake.

We’ve all experienced it:  “What a sentence! I love it! I can’t even believe I wrote it! Must’ve come directly from the Muse.” And yet, if you can’t find the right location for that fantastic sentence, you must let it go.

It helps to view your novel as a limited area of ground. You want to make the most of every inch, not let things that don’t belong there insidiously sneak in.

Don’t

…realize that readers need to know something and leave it wherever you happened to think of it.

…interrupt the action with distracting backstory or description. Note that distraction differs from

slowing down—teasing out suspense. The former is accidental, the latter deliberate.

…weigh down your story with detail that feels as relevant as Aunt Agatha’s best friend’s grandma’s traditional recipe for last-till-spring Christmas Fruitcake.

…add a brief passage about the Galapagos Islands because you did lots of research on it and long to share your discoveries about marine iguanas and Blue-Footed Boobies.

Do

…add “set up” just prior to “pay off,” so readers never wonder why they heard about this.

…limit details to those which enhance plot, deepen characterization, or foreshadow themes.

…make details “double-duty”: they advance plot while setting scene, or they add scenery while suggesting atmosphere, contribute irony to the plot, and so on.

…use transitions so readers can grasp the connections between details that might be linked only in the author’s mind.

…use stage business, or character gesture or behavior, to support the dialogue.

…remember that flowers set seeds. In fiction or soil, they grow wherever they happen to fall.

It’s easy to delete clumsy sentences, boring references, and paragraphs that go nowhere. Far harder is realizing that you’ve written something really good and have nowhere to put it. But whatever doesn’t add subtracts. Aren’t you willing to make hard sacrifices for your readers?

Tip: A great sentence or detail in the wrong place is a…rose in a cornfield.

Spring Cleaning

It’s a traditional activity for good reason. Over time, things pile up, and the season of renewal gives many of us—writers and otherwise, a chance to refurbish when we have the most energy we ever will.

So get going. Clear up those smudges that block the view. Identify debris; either dispose of it or place it where it belongs instead of piling up wherever you dropped it. Finally, clear out all the stuff that accumulated. How long since you assessed what’s on display for those entering your world?

A significant task, like sprucing up a home, yard, or novel, can feel too big for a single swipe. Instead of getting discouraged, divide the tasks into logical parts. That’s not only manageable. It’s downright inspiring. Start by assessing what you might revise for a sounder foundation.

• Structural clean up

~ Are your characters multi-dimensional?

~ Does a dilemma drive your novel?

~ Do the events of your plot flow causally into each other? Do you ever rely on coincidence?

~ Have you developed your idea into a High Concept, one with universal appeal and emotional

   intensity?

That’s the big picture. But a picture’s only as good as the individual elements composing it.

• Detail clean up

~ Does this description add?

~ Do you position information in the best place?

~ Do you transition between details?

~ Do you ever “tell” and then “show,” or “show” and then “tell”?

~ Does each detail perform more than one function, i.e. speaker attribution plus escalating

   tension?

If specifics are crucial, so is how you convey details to readers.

• Sentence clean up

~ Are any passages wordy?

~ Do you seek active verbs that don’t require prepositions, i.e. illuminate instead of “light up”?

~ Do you emphasize by contrasting long, flowing with short, punchy ones?

~ Do you resort to passive voice when you needn’t? There are (sic) few instances when you

   need it.

~ Are you using “and” too often, and are you not noticing and thus are you also wasting words

   and weakening causality with that habit? Once you notice, it’s not a hard habit to break.

Tip: Let spring infuse new growth into your characters and their world.