Fiction as Transportation

This relationship is obvious in science fiction, where improbable vehicles ferry readers to improbable places. But all successful fiction—whatever the genre—always transports, and, ideally, in both senses of the term.

Readers choose fiction for the opportunity to travel somewhere new. Even if the setting is one’s hometown, this fictional world feels as tangible as the “real” one, only far more causal, credible, and compelling. Even better? You get there without the misery of heavy traffic, delayed planes, or cramped seating.

But because readers can suspend disbelief, fiction can even more miraculously transport them to the territory within a novel’s covers. And, if the creator of that world commits no gaffes that fling readers back into daily reality, the magic lingers long after the protagonist’s journey ends. Every time you recall the first line of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife”), or wonder if anyone could really be as good as Harper Lee’s Atticus in To Kill a Mockingbird, then you’ve confirmed that novels enchant even when you’re no longer reading them.

Tip: The novelist’s hard work makes transportation to a fictional world easy.

Perhaps that’s easier said than done. So what flings readers out of a fictional world?

~ Errors.

Novel readers want to believe in the world they’ve entered. If they didn’t, they’d choose nonfiction. But they can’t ignore the Plaza Hotel standing across the street from Grand Central Station, or female sea horses housing the developing eggs, or “All of it feels badly.” Fiction must be free from mistakes.

~ Motive.

In real life, people frequently behave irrationality. The novel’s job is letting readers escape that. Fiction must imply (though rarely directly explicate) the rationale underlying character decisions.

~ Sentimentality.

Why not leave that to greeting card writers? Fiction must “show” happiness, fear, or anger rather than using abstract generality to label any of these.

~ Conincidence.

Sometimes infants are born on the same day as their grandmothers, and lucky infants have grandmothers who materialize at exactly the right instant. Novels though, ought to avoid the response of “Oh, give me a break,” and accomplish that by setting up and foreshadowing. Fiction pleases most when it links the cause of one event with the subsequent one.

~ Tedium.

To illustrate, try typing up an actual conversation. If you think that’s painful, imagine reading one. Or a detailed description of how the detective arrived at the crime scene. Who cares? Fiction must suggest rather than replicate.

For many readers, a novel that truly transports brings incomparable joy. Don’t you want to write that book?

Fiction versus Nonfiction?

The pronounced divide between these has diminished. At its best, nonfiction sparkles because it incorporates characterization and drama, while writers like Jonathan Franzen, Margaret George, Daisy Godwin, David Liss, and Donna Tartt wow readers with facts they never knew they were dying to know. How do they do it?

Tip: At its best, fiction so cleverly disguises a little nonfiction that readers barely notice.

So what is this nonfiction that needs to be there, but needs to be disguised?

~ Background and backstory.

Every character lives somewhere and has a certain education, political slant, and life before the Inciting Incident. Readers might not need to know all that but certainly need to know some. 

~ World-building.

Much contemporary fiction derives its power by recreating Tudor England, the Italian Renaissance, or the Vietnam War; or by inventing new planets, species, or social systems.

~ General information.

Contemporary readers often enjoy leaving a novel knowing more about chromosomes, knitting, the transgender experience, hockey, or life on the tundra.

The good news is that you can “teach” a bit of what you’d like to—perhaps the original motive underlying the novel—by thinking about how, and when, you do that. No part of your novel should resemble a lengthy nonfiction lapse readers never signed on for. So try these:

*** Watch your sentence structure.

Basically, the more complex the information, then the greater the necessity of shortening and varying sentences. Work to divide concepts into accessible mouthfuls, so your readers don’t have to. Alternate sentence length. Your goal isn’t showing off what you know, but condensing and simplifying.

*** Be concrete.

Whether with literal details or symbolic comparisons, frequently introduce one or more of the five senses.What does an RNA strand resemble? How does a touchdown sound?

*** Check your organization.

That’s the beauty of computers. You can swiftly try a sentence in six different locations.

*** Provide something to hang on to.

Hang the abstract or strange on a rack that’s both familiar and substantial.

*** Balance edification with suspense and emotion. 

A moment of high tension or heartbreaking loss is a great time for a fact or two. Just never let it feel like a “teachable moment.” 

Do it with a plot.

Hush, or Understatement, Subtext, and Whispering

Let’s start with a picture. After all, aren’t novels one picture after another of characters—both inside and out?

What do you see? This Bernini sculpture, which you can view in Rome’s elaborately decorated Santa Maria della Vittoria Church, has a story behind it.

The title, “The Ecstasy of St. Teresa,” clarifies that it’s a male angel, and that his hand, yes, indeed, is exactly where we suspected but were reluctant to admit. Is the angel really doing that? Yes.

Here’s a closer look. 

What captures the ecstasy? The Saint’s flung-back head, the arched body, the open mouth, the foot bodiless enough to seem devoid of bones. The sculpture melds earth and heaven—keen awareness of body with the ultimate transcendence of it. The sculpture conveys all this with such subtlety that without the tantalizing suggestion, much of this might go unnoticed. What a terrific recipe for fiction.

Tip: The more readers discover emotion, rather than being bludgeoned with it, the happier they'll be.

How does that work?

~ Understatement.

Intense emotion, such as tragedy, disaster, euphoria, or ecstasy needs implication. Because readers already know how they feel about such events. The more you “tell” them then, particularly with judgments like “horrible,” “painful,” “terrifying,” or joyous,” then the less readers can feel what they already do without your help. Abstract words, especially over-used ones, separate readers from plot, much the way adding the word “rapturous” to Bernini’s title would only interfere. Just as he uses the subtle folds of the marble—and what that implies—to make his point, use the events—not the descriptions—in your novel to make yours.

~ Subtext.

Literally what’s “beneath the words,” subtext involves what characters say indirectly.  A wife reluctant to confront her husband overtly might observe, “You needed another fishing rod?” A father might freak at his daughter’s low-cut, skin-tight tank top, and mutter, “Is that all you’re wearing? “Meaning implied but never vocalized both mimics real-life interaction and leaves readers free to interpret. This resembles the way one can scrutinize Bernini’s sculpture and infer the feelings of the angel and the saint.

~ Whispering.

With rare exceptions, the more intense the emotion, then the more subtly and quietly you ought to describe it. Defy this rule of both craft and psychology, and the likely result is melodrama, or a portrayal that feels sensational rather than emotionally gripping. Neither reader nor writer wants a novel to read like a tabloid.

How do you whisper? 

• Use concrete language that evokes one of the five senses: sight, sound, taste, touch, or smell.
• Avoid judgmental conclusions like “anguished,” “devastated,” or “heart-stopping.”
• Focus more on what happens than how scary or wonderful or terrific it is.

Here’s the ultimate understatement: trust your audience. Bernini did.

Asset or Accident, Experiment or Intuition?

Recently, a very talented writer confided that he never has the slightest idea whether his material is awesome or awful. And, he’s partially right: every writer needs feedback. Yet every writer also needs honest, judicious self-assessment.

Tip: Learn to be your own best, most trusted critic.

Writers usually know a ton of “rules,” everything from “Vary the length of your sentences,” to “Tension is the most beloved character in every novel.” If you know all those rules, and you’re a smart cookie, why can’t you see whether you break the rules unintentionally?

Because most novelists rationalize as skillfully as they write. And then, alas, succumb to their own rationalizations. Ever used one of these?

• It’s monotonous to start every chapter with a hook.
• Sometimes readers need a break from all that action and just want to overhear the characters thinking, wondering, and deciding.
• Words like “anguish,” “yearning,” and “joy” engage readers emotionally.
• An occasional point of view slip makes things more interesting.
• Readers choose the novel form because in order to study history and savor description.
• Anyone who can create compelling characters won’t need much plot.

Hmm. How much of a critic, or writer, can you expect to be if you defend every misstep, justify every self-indulgence, excuse every shortcut, and break every rule?

The trick is to know when you can—should!—break the rules. Certainly too many exist, along with too many instances where rigor should bow to the serendipity of inspiration. Still, those rules exist for a reason, so you need a reason to ignore them. 

Want some help deciding?

~ Identify and appreciate your skills.

Writers often prefer listing their faults. But to undermine those, you need your—assets.

~ Notice and exploit writing accidents.

            They produce some of the loveliest writing moments.

~ Experiment with your plans.

            Try things out. Take risks. You can’t revise what you never wrote.

~ Intuition.

Anyone inclined toward fiction intuitively knows when to ignore the rules.

Listen to yourself. What better way to discover much you already know?

OVERWROUGHT!!!!!!!

“Overwrought.” Since its first meaning is over-stimulated to the point of hysteria, we associate this word more with behavior than language. Yet “overwrought” also defines purple prose— phrasing that’s ostentatious, gaudy, pompous, self-conscious, self-indulgent, and likely to drive readers nuts.

Tip: Overblown language isn’t lively or original; it’s excessive and irritating.

To illustrate, I could choose from hundreds of classical or contemporary disasters. Instead, I tactfully offer hyperbole of my own making:

The few faint, final, fluttery wand-like wisps of the dying sun’s peach, mauve, and magenta rays whispered past the stony-faced mountains, majestic mountains unmoved by the sky’s pyrotechnics as it sank, ever more slowly, toward its well-deserved rest. The scene’s serenity reminded the still-heartbroken widow of all she had lost. Never again would she savor his tender caress, his musical laughter, his powerful arms. No! The love they’d had was lost forever. No, no, no! As the thickening twilight besieged her, no one anywhere in the world yearned with greater anguish, or wept with more acrid acerbity.

Let’s examine “overwrought,” one issue at a time.

~ Lighten up on colors, especially esoteric ones like peach, mauve, or magenta.

~Exercise caution with the familiar, including the heavy-handed symbolism of the setting sun.

There’s a reason “It was a dark and stormy night” is more hilarious than threatening.

~ Avoid personification, or attributing human characteristics to anything inhuman.

Does the sunset actually “whisper”? Are those mountains more moved by sunrise than sunset? Does the sun really need a rest? Deserve one? Can twilight “besiege”?

~ Insinuate sound echoes.

A little alliteration, or repetition of initial consonant sounds, goes a long way. Bombard

 with poetic devices, and you’ll move readers to laughter instead of tears.

~ Understate.

A widow watching the sun set already verges on melodrama. That means you can’t have clichés, exclamation points, turgid pace, vapid generalizations, or annoying repetition.

~ Eliminate arcane or abstract language.

Certain words achieve neither invisibility nor imagery. The paragraph above is full of them: “savor,” “forever,” “yearned,” and “anguish.” This language diminishes rather than intensifies the moment.

Replace oversimplified judgments like “tender caress,” “musical laughter,” and “powerful arms” with original imagery.

“A discerning eye needs only a hint, and understatement leaves the imagination free to build its own elaborations.” -- Russell Page

One concrete, apt suggestion is worth a hundred tired, redundant, overblown details.

When to “Tell”

The answer isn’t “never.” Whether to “show” or “tell” is situation-specific. Although definitions of “telling” are vague and varied, many novelists still fear this “writing crime.” Yet view “telling” as frustrating your readers, and you can differentiate “bad telling” from “good.” After all, “telling” makes up half the word for sharing a story.

Storytelling unites “showing” and “telling.” Readers want the juicy parts in scene—without commentary from the narrator. As Anton Chekhov put it, “Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.” So in certain instances you really shouldn’t “tell”:

~ Judgments.

Rather than “telling” readers that the dog is “ugly,” describe the skinny, flea-covered mongrel that’s lost most of his hair. Let readers decide what’s “ugly.”

~ Belaboring what’s obvious or repeating what you already “showed.”

            Is the character panting? Don’t add that she’s also “breathing heavily.”

~ Summarizing the fun parts.

If we’ve waited for three hundred pages to see if they’ll go to bed, please don’t say, “She turned off the light, and they both had the time of their lives.” “Show” us their pleasure with a voyeuristic but tasteful peek inside the bedroom.

~ Oversimplifying emotions.

Avoid abstractions like “angry,” “sad,” or “ecstatic.” Use body language. Use metaphor. Reflect the complex, inconsistent, and fleeting nature of feelings.

But in other instances, readers want “good telling”:

* For worldbuilding.

Whether fantasy, sci fi, or bankrupt Detroit, describe the setting where the action occurs. Sometimes it takes too many words to imply a social structure, moral code, time period, or atmosphere. If so, just explain.

* For transition

Svelte, sophistication transitions are simply lovely. But every so often you need to be clear and causal. Because readers need to understand.

* For voice.

Terror of “telling” would eliminate sentences like this one:  “Her correspondence had been like the pumping of a heart into a severed artery, wild and incessant at first, then slowing down with a kind of muscular reluctance to a stream that became a trickle and finally ceased; the heart had stopped.” -- Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Tip: Storytelling boils down to knowing when to “show” and “when” to “tell.”

How else can you deliver the whole story at the fastest pace with the most fun possible?

To Do (or Not to Do)

A novelist who shrugs off the need for active verbs could sink in the same boat as novelist who neglects plot—and for the same reason. Events must unfold in the physical world, the emotional one, or, ideally, both. Reduce everything to syndrome or possibility or state of being, and nonfiction becomes a preferable reading and writing choice.

Examine the evolution of the verb “do.” “To do” now compiles priorities to accomplish. On the novelist list? Capture action with active verbs. Because the noun “to do” signals commotion, stew, fuss, quarrel, agitation, uproar, stir, tempest in a teapot, hurricane, squall, tumult, or storm. Fiction originates right there. As Charles Baxter said, “Hell is story friendly.”

Tip: A scene without “to do” isn’t much of a scene.

Feeling isn’t doing. Neither is worrying. Neither are sentences like: “Anne felt angry,” or “He was astonished by the amount of confusion,” or “Wandering listlessly, he got in touch with how lost he really was.” No “to do” there. No good verbs, either.

Note how verbs invigorate the opening of Paula Fox’s Desperate Characters:

She smiled, wondering how often, if ever before, the cat had felt a friendly human touch, and she was still smiling as the cat reared up on its hind legs, even as it struck her with extended claws, smiling right up to that second when it sank its teeth into the back of her left hand and hung from her flesh so that she nearly fell forward, stunned and horrified, yet conscious enough of Otto’s presence to smother the cry that arose in her throat as she jerked her hand back from that circle of barbed wire. She pushed out with her other hand, and as the sweat broke out on her forehead, as her flesh crawled and tightened, she said, “No, no, stop that!” to the cat, as if it had done nothing more than beg for food, and in the midst of her pain and dismay she was astonished to hear how cool her voice was. Then, all at once, the claws released her and flew back as though to deliver another blow, but then the cat turned-it seemed in mid-air-and sprang from the porch, disappearing into the shadowed yard below.

Verb Checklist

ü  Skip the distancing auxiliaries: “is, be, am, are, was, were, been, has, have, had, do, does, did, may, might, can, could, shall, should, will, would, must.”

ü  Snare the verb: “sweeten” instead of “add a sweetener.”

ü  Banish dead metaphors. Find another way to illuminate that idea.

ü  Replace vague abstraction with concrete verbs: prop, besiege, wither, decimate.

ü  Jazz things up. Sizzle, curtail, unravel, kvetch, and pounce.

   But jazz up every verb, and you sound demented. Add just enough to electrify—to do, to act. Verbs repair weaknesses and incite commotion. That incites great scenes.

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.

Look at Me!!!!!!

A friend asked me to look over her realtor’s listing of her house. The EXCITING copy I read offered exclamation point after exclamation point! New listing! Priced to sell! Cute! Quaint! Comfy! Just what you’re looking for!

Perhaps. But I’d rather be shown the reasons why it’s just what I’m looking for. Specify that, and you can omit all the in-your-face manipulation, which won’t convince me, anyhow. Exclamation points, caps, and even some instances of italics are like SHOUTING IN THE READER’S FACE! And, as the always understated F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, “An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke.” How funny can that be?

Exclamation points are symptomatic of a larger problem. How much do you trust your reader? How much do you trust your own words? If you mistakenly believe you feel that trust, or hope that grinding your teeth hard enough will make it so, all is lost! You’ll state. You’ll tell. You’ll bludgeon. You’ll smear your scenes with abstractions.

Don’t reduce emotion to vague abstractions like “anguish,” “terror,” or “ardor.”

Don’t tell us what to think. You won’t convince us, just annoy us.

Don’t think that describing character emotions helps readers feel them. That’s just another way of saying “Quaint! Comfy! Just what you’re looking for!”

Do imply. The best clues are the ones readers just barely absorb.

Do offer imagery. If we can see, hear, taste, smell, or touch it, that’s when readers experience the scene right along with the characters.

Do understate. The more tragic and dramatic the emotion, then the more quietly you should whisper when conveying it.

If you don’t trust your readers and your novel, the best way to address that is to revise until you feel good about what you’ve written. Real evidence on the page helps you relinquish control to offer readers the inference they prefer. Yes, this involves the risk that they might miss something you long to share.  But it’s always better not to make your point than to pummel readers with it.

Tip: Unless there’s a fire (!) or someone needs help (!), not a bad idea to pretend that exclamation points and other intrusive gimmicks don’t even exist.

Naughty Words

No, not the body parts most people cover. And not the harsh indictments like “hatred,” either. For novelists, abstractions are naughty because they fail to tangibly link to the external world through seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, or touching.  And of course they’re naughtiest when most familiar: “Alicia yearned for true love,” “Anger entered the deepest recesses of Oscar’s soul,” or “The pain of this loss stayed with Roderigo day after day.” Ugh!

Thankfully, few novelists sink this low often, if at all. Novelists are usually aware of melodramatic, naughty descriptions from agonizing to zestful. But most novelists slip in an expression, a condensation, a vague description here and there. Some of that comes from forgetting why abstraction is naughty.

Abstraction steals the cookies from the cookie jar.  Readers turn to fiction for vicarious experience—the joy of eating brownie bars without fear of excessive calories or peanut allergies. When writers are naughty, readers are instructed to feel anxiety, relief, or misery.

Whether you call it “telling” or “abstraction,” the naughtiness comes from depriving readers of the character world that enticed them to fiction in the first place. At its best, fiction offers emotion without any personal liability. Summary and directive remind readers that they’re reading and not snacking, love-making, getting promoted, or defeating the rapacious CEO.

Sometimes the problem is writers wanting all the cookies for themselves. Instructing people how to feel resembles running the world, calling the shots, and playing at being all-powerful. That might make some writers feel triumphant. But it makes most readers feel—pretty close to nothing.

In contrast, when writers generously give their readers tangible, specific moments and details, readers can groan over the basketball trophy, nod when she gets his love letter seconds before boarding the train to Siberia, or shiver over the doctor questioning the infant’s survival. Don’t steal the cookies your readers want to enjoy.

Tip: Want to be “nice” to your readers?  Give them the fictional experience they seek.