Question Whether You Question Enough

Tip: Nonfiction is for answers. Fiction is for questions.

Certainly, fiction has much to teach, and not just about society or morality, but also about ornithology, teen pregnancy, Victoria’s reign, the Song of Songs, and so on. But if fiction accomplishes this teaching with a sound that’s overtly educational, most readers close the book. What’s the solution? Questions.

The questions that propel fiction originate in the writer’s own questions:

~ Who is the audience?

~ Why struggle through this when I might make more money at McDonald’s?

~ Does my plot deliver my theme?

~ Wait. Do I have a theme? If not, do I need one?

Start there. Then consider your writing lifestyle. Maybe, like many writers, you’re addicted to critique, conferences, coaching, and a canon composed of brilliant minds like John Truby’s, Robert McKee’s, Donald Maass’s, John Gardner’s, and so on. Great!

Yet instruction doesn’t necessarily pose questions the way that good feedback does. Do you let rules or explanations bury the fundamental questions?

Whether you struggle with your first or twenty-first draft, work alone or with a group, certain questions always apply:

• Is your scenario original and electric? Too good to ignore?
• Does at least one character evoke empathy?
• Do you capitalize on your point of view?
• Do you open the first chapter, and every chapter and scene thereafter, with a big bang?
• Do the details support the story, or mostly your own subjective interests?
• Do you dramatize what’s truly exciting, and summarize what isn’t?
• Does your plot keep readers turning pages?
• Is your story more important to you than your readers are? (Oh, oh.)
• Are too many of your sentences annoying?
• Does your novel ask more questions than it answers?

The best fiction leaves us with questions. Nathaniel Hawthorne wonders whether hypocrisy is more contemptible than adultery. F. Scott Fitzgerald invites us to decide what the past means. Harper Lee asks if we ever considered the connection between innocence versus racism or sexism. Tracy Chevalier questions whether we noticed how many women influenced a history peopled with men. Jonathan Franzen speculates on the meaning of “purity.”

If you prefer answers to questions, is fiction the best genre for your tastes and talents?

Edit like an Agent

Whether novelists submit paranormal, YA, or literary, the reasons underlying rejections and requests for rewrites constantly overlap, regardless of genre. Doesn’t this across-the-board similarity seem odd? Actually, not at all. Because fundamental qualities apply to every work of fiction—and every agent seeks these fundamental qualities.

Tip: To land an agent, think like one.

So what are some things that agents might be thinking?

~ Begin earlier than you thought you could.

Over and over, I hear about agents asking novelists to cut five, ten, even one hundred pages. Why? Because you need to start where the trouble does. Don’t set up, take your time, create a world, or establish a serenity to disrupt. Instead? Begin with an actual inciting incident. And right away.

~ Eliminate self-indulgence.

This insidious issue can creep in without writers even noticing. Too many characters. Too much amazingly aggravating alliteration. Heartfelt anecdotes about Gram, whom you loved so very much. Irrational contempt for your arrogant brother-in-law. Be on the lookout for stuff that belongs in your diary, not your professional submissions.

~ Delete backstory.

Donald Maass got an audible groan from a large UW-Madison Writer’s Institute audience when he insisted, “Once you’re seventy percent of the way through the book, have as much backstory as you want. Before that? Forget it.”  Agents are readers, and every reader longs to know what happens next—not what happened yesteryear.

~ Shore up the middle.

            What’s worse than hitting page 102 and no longer caring what happens next?

~ Fix clumsy sentences.

It’s human nature to rationalize. “Oh, the sentence isn’t that bad. They won’t notice.” For better or worse, they definitely will. Every awkward sentence conveys one of the following: The author doesn’t know which sentences don’t work, or the author didn’t care enough to fix that one. Seriously. Do you want to convey either of those messages?

In the background, I imagine increasingly audible grumbling. “How do I know how late I can start?” “How many characters are too many?” “This published book I read made all of these mistakes, and so I…”

Forget all that. If you curb rationalization, you already know the answers to all those questions. Objectivity reveals when to start your book, which characters you can cut, and when your syntax is clumsy or cutesy. Pay meticulous attention to everything you already know, and you’ll read like an agent. That’s how you get one.

Do you serve a buffet?

Long, food-laden tables aren’t just popular because of all that food. The variety attracts. So does the freedom. Once you pass the meat and seafood and advance to the salad items, you can always return for one more shrimp. You can circle the table to sample a mini-brownie before you dig into that crab cake. It’s all available at whatever order and pace you choose.

Readers can’t control fiction that way. However obvious it seems, it’s significant that nearly every reader proceeds in a linear fashion. Of course one can skim, backtrack, or peek at the ending. What readers can’t do is position the setting beside the dialogue or help themselves to more of this and less of that. The buffet that fiction ought to provide is the writer’s gift and responsibility.

Why wouldn’t every writer host a buffet every time?

• It’s easier for writers to focus on one thing at a time, such as dialogue.
• It’s easier not to shift gears, because then you don’t need as many transitions.
• If you adore setting, for example, you might overdo it at the expense of action.
• If you see the complete picture already, you might not notice its absence from the page.

 How can you break this habit of offering only desserts or appetizers instead of a full buffet?

~ Improve your skill with transitions.

Make friends with transitions. Once you bridge acting with thinking, tension with backstory, and so on, you’ll shift more willingly, knowing your readers can follow. Build transitions from the underlying similarity between what’s going on and where, between gesture and symbol, and between rumination and behavior.  What better way to engage reader emotions than to create a whole world instead of one part?

~ Read like a reader.

As Harper Lee put it in To Kill a Mockingbird, imagine someone else’s consciousness by willingness to “climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.”  This isn’t easy. It is doable.

~ Imitate reality.

When we converse, we still notice surroundings. If we terminate a job, investment,  friendship, or marriage, we experience a range of emotions, all of which impact all our perceptions. For credibility, fiction must re-create a world where more than one thing goes on at a time. That’s reality. Fiction must follow.

~ Accentuate with contrast.

Description matters in novels only when it supports the characters. Tension enhances dialogue, which enhances action. “Light can only be understood with the wisdom of darkness,” said Ka Chinery. Since readers can’t supply what’s missing, make sure that you do.

Tip: Break the habit of long stretches of dialogue, description, or narration. Blend them.

Don’t Ditch Your Novel

Rejections. You might think you prepared yourself. You probably didn’t. The longer you worked on a book and the harder you hoped, the more it hurts. It might hurt worse that loved ones who aren’t writers don’t completely understand. The clash between book and business is an ugly one. Suddenly you’re a wordsmith without the words to communicate disappointment—the pain.

Clichés you would normally never use fill your tortured mind. “I can’t believe how bad this hurts!” “My insides are emptied out.” “It’s like being kicked in the stomach.” “No one will ever love my book.” “No one understands me.” “I’m a failure!”

But after all the time, energy, and heart you already invested, does it make sense to cower in a corner? Lick your wounds in the dark? Of course not. Grace Hopper, a Navy Rear Admiral born in 1930, who surely had her share of disappointments, said, “A ship in port is safe, but that’s not what ships are built for.” Didn’t you build your book for readers? Go get some.

Tip: Don’t give up on your book too soon. Watch out how you define “too soon.”

If it feels as if you’re starting fifty steps below square one, read Chuck Wendig’s superb blog on rejection at terribleminds.com. And try these.

~ Remember why you want to be a writer—and why you poured your heart into this book.

           “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” ― Ray Bradbury

~ Maintain your sense of humor.

            Here’s what they told Dr. Seuss about “And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street:

“Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.”

~ Learn from any criticism you’re lucky enough to receive.

“Every rejection is incremental payment on your dues that in some way will be translated back into your work.” – James Lee Burke

~ Stand up straight. Don’t slouch.

“I would advise anyone who aspires to a writing career that before developing his talent he would be wise to develop a thick hide.” — Harper Lee

~ Redirect your emotions.

“Was I bitter? Absolutely. Hurt? You bet your sweet ass I was hurt. Who doesn’t feel a part of their heart break at rejection. You ask yourself every question you can think of, what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger. That’s my favorite part. It drives me, feeds me, and makes one hell of a story.” — Jennifer Salaiz

~ Write something.

It’s fine to start out negative. But swiftly assume figure skater mentality. If you fall, get right up and execute the next leap. That’s what skaters and writers do. After all, “A blank piece of paper is God’s way of telling us how hard it to be God.” — Sidney Sheldon

          

The Psychology of Three

Writers and readers don’t necessarily experience fiction the same way.  Novelists usually love the set up, where they got the idea in the first place! Ah, the climax. It aptly rewards or disciplines, restoring moral order and communicating theme. Not to mention the relief of typing “The End.”

Readers might disagree. Because the characters are still unfamiliar, the stakes must be swiftly and enormously high. Theme is enjoyable only if subtle, credible, and deserved. If readers love a book, they rarely want it to end. Hard to say goodbye. The next novel might be less appealing.  Many readers, then, favor the middle. There the conflict escalates, the characters breathe. Choices surprise, while events seem motivated yet unpredictable.

Perhaps the middle causes more trouble for you than your characters. What’s the strategy?

~Accelerate the inciting incident.

Start with a symbolic Big Bang. An explosion like that will organically engender a chain of events that force your protagonist to learn the requisite lessons for a happy ending. Deliver the inciting incident immediately, and choose one you needn’t explain.

~ Look ahead.

Be willing to discard your homework. Why does the protagonist hold grudges, despise autumn, or refuse to own a poodle? It’s great for the writer to know all of this backstory —and more. Just so the reader needn’t endure what amounts to someone else’s notes.

~ Explore plot templates.

The web offers numerous reminders of what the mid-section must accomplish. Among the best choices? Christopher Vogler’s The Writer’s Journey or Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Method.  Pick a recipe that suits you, and use it flexibly rather than dogmatically.  

~ Streamline.

At the first sign of a sagging middle, the average novelist rushes to fill the gap, usually by reaching wide instead of deep. Rather than adding new subplots or minor characters, focus on what’s already there. Intensify and intertwine. Too many ingredients spoil the soup.

~ Fall in love with how your protagonist earns the ending.

If you’ve done your job right, your main character worked as hard as a team of dogs to enjoy that happiness, victory, or moral triumph. As Ursula K. Le Guin observed, “It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”

Tip: The development of the opening sets up the finale. Revere your novel’s start, middle, and end.

How’s Your Attention Span?

Writing’s a balancing act. Your ego must inspire rather than breed defensiveness or despair. You need to consider audience, but never to the point where you can’t evaluate the actual prose. The goal is composing freely, but with sufficient awareness of quality that you needn’t discard every word later on. You want to revise rigorously, yet with exhilaration. Otherwise you stifle what can be an electrifying process.  

All this demands impartial assessment. How can you accomplish that while wondering whether you’ll land an agent, what’s in those emails binging in the background, or if you’ll ever compose another sentence as good—or bad—as the previous one.

Good writing balances knowledge of craft with creative implementation of that knowledge. The novelist must consider tension, emotion, pace, characterization, detail, and language. Change just one thing on that incomplete list, and you’ve altered something else. Add a transition, and now you’ve repeated a word. Surely writing is complicated enough without your mind wandering while you diagnose and revise.

Writing time is less a matter of the time spent than the time spent with high quality of attention. You can’t attain that when focused on yourself instead of your novel:

Go to the pine if you want to learn about the pine, or to the bamboo if you want to learn about the bamboo. And in doing so, you must leave your subjective preoccupation with yourself. Otherwise you impose yourself on the object and you do not learn.  – Basho

If this sounds a lot like mindfulness, could be because that’s what it is. Mindfulness. This word evokes powerful reactions. Most people view it as either a practice to follow, or “Oh no. Not that stuff.”

But mindfulness is simply consciousness or calm awareness of the present moment.  According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness is

the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment.

Of course you can achieve concentration in a variety of ways. It doesn’t matter which you choose. Once you do, though, you’ll

• Read what’s on the page, not what you hope is there.
• Encounter your words objectively, so you can revise them effectively.
• Examine your work with neither too much nor little confidence.
• Scrutinize every sentence, rather than only the best or weakest parts.
• Eliminate real-world distractions.

 Tip: The best writers balance quality of concentration with quality of invention.

A Gift or To Give?

Today’s a time of chocolate, roses, expensive jewelry and store-bought poems. But in either real or fictional worlds, how much love do these offerings convey? Is there something a bit facile about 77% cocoa or a new watch?  What’s the best way to express any emotion, including love?

“All human happiness and misery take the form of action,” Aristotle said. It’s easy to buy carnations, say “I love you,” or keep repeating, “I’m sorry.” Why is the quote that “actions seem louder than words” so famous?

Because it’s true. The opening of Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory illustrates:

Mr. Tench went out to look for his ether cylinder: out into the blazing Mexican sun and the bleaching dust. A few buzzards looked down from the roof with shabby indifference:  he wasn’t carrion yet. A faint feeling of rebellion stirred in Mr. Tench’s heart, and he wrenched up a piece of the road with splintering finger-nails and tossed it feebly up at them.

Yes, Greene comments by mentioning “indifference” and “rebellion.” Yet the memorable part is the protagonist’s behavior: braving the heat, tearing at the road, taunting the buzzards.

In Paule Marshall’s Brown Girl, Brownstones, she captures atmosphere not by describing it but “showing” hope and connection, however inhuman:

 And then a cat, its belly sagging with young, ambled over and brushed her leg with its tail—the one warm gesture in a cold country.

Marshall needn’t explain that no amount of frustration will make this protagonist give up; the cat conveys this for her. Through action.

Like the cat, characters must do something. Otherwise, the writer forces readers to accept narrator claims about emotions, decisions, and options.

Jonathan Franzen often comments on his characters’ emotions—but only to add depth and insight. These few sentences capture a range of emotion through the behavior of Pip and her boyfriend:

Pip shut the door again, to block out the words, but even with the door closed she could hear the fighting. The people who’d bequeathed a broken world to her were shouting at each other viciously. Jason sighed and took her hand. She held it tightly.

Even without reading this extraordinary novel, you know that the overheard accusations are unbearable, that Jason wants to support her but is helpless to help, and that she clings to him because he’s there and that’s all she has. The physical responses capture this with active verbs: “shut,” “block,” “closed,” “shouting,” “sighed,” and “held.” Something happens.

Something happens with a gift, too, of course. Who wouldn’t want a carefully chosen one? But loving acts exert greater power. And in fiction? Store-bought expressions of love, pain, fury, or terror can only “tell.”

Tip: Nothing conveys emotion like behavior or action.