You Gotta Have Heart

I've noticed something about the movies I've watched recently.  Some of them work for me, and some of them don't.  I wondered why.  I tried to guess, but it dawned on me what the movies that don't work for me lack: heart.  We more or less enjoyed "Secret Life of Pets" in theaters because it was a good romp.  But upon further reflection, I realized the characters were fairly simple and unrelatable.  The beginning looked promising, but the rest lacked heart and meaning.  I didn't care about what was happening that much because of the lack.

"Moana" and "Finding Dory," however, were full of heart and meaning.  I cared about the characters from the beginning, so what they went through and their voyage meant a lot more to me.  I saw a clear motivation for everything they did, and it made human sense.  The characters cared about each other, so I cared about them.

I guess, for me, the clearest back to back comparison is the two newest "Star Wars" episodes.  "Force Awakens" seems to me to be full of heart.  I love the humor and chemistry between the characters as well as their clear motivations.  It's a joy to watch.  Meanwhile, "Rogue One" has some good characters and a clear plot, but it seems to lack that heart.  I found it hard to care about most of the characters because they didn't seem to care much about each other.  Some of the individual pairs of characters have chemistry and heart, but all together, there is little to no heart.  The magic that worked so well with "Force Awakens" is lacking for me.  Some people really like it because of a compelling storyline.  For me, that's not as important as caring.  

Authors who sit down to write a screenplay, story, novel, or whatever need to make sure audiences and readers care about their characters, that they are invested in the heart of the story, or nothing else matters.

Doing the Exercise

Last blog, I talked about an exercise, one in which you come up with the most useless super powers you can imagine then figure out a way to make them useful.  Over the last week, my kids and I brainstormed different ways to use this idea in an actual story.

We've come up with the hint of an idea that needs to be fleshed out: a superhero team of nerdy outcast kids with all but useless powers who find a way to fight off danger with their amazingly useless skills.  What about a kid who can sense and manipulate guacamole and only guacamole?  This would seem useless, especially since he can't stand avocados.  Except one day, a guacamole monster comes to town.  Say there's a kid who can hear what animals think but can't say anything back?  This would seem fairly useless unless there's a danger coming to town that all animals sense but people cannot.  How about the kid who can teleport only an inch?  This may become useful if he's trying to get through glass, pass laser beams, and generally break through very thin boundaries.  What happens when the picked-on crowd becomes awesome?  That could make for a really interesting story.  If you didn't try this two weeks ago, try it now.  If you did brainstorm, take your brainstorms and turn them into a story.

A Writing Exercise

My boy came up with a delightful little writing exercise with which we had quite a lot of fun yesterday.  It would be particularly useful for genre fiction writers, say those interested in science fiction, fantasy, or superheroes, but it could also be used just to get the creative juices flowing.

1. Come up with the most useless power you can imagine.  Here are some of the examples we came up with: detect all guacamole within ten feet [and you can't look for it why?];  compel all hippos within a twenty-foot radius to do the Macarena [they could still attack, after they're done dancing]; transform actual goldfish into a cracker [soggy cracker]; ability to transform everything you touch into rats [that could then bite you]; telekinesis on small items usable by touch only [and you can't pick it up because ..?]; power to emit a mooing sound whenever you rub your hands together [say what?]; ability to tickle your own toes [scientists have done studies that show tickling is a social behavior, and you can only tickle someone else]; the ability to see halfway through a wall [so what about the other half?];  gift of telepathy, only useful on arachnids [you'd learn what from the mind of a spider?]; the ability to put food in your mouth without opening it [and that's so much easier than actually opening your mouth?]; ability to teleport one inch [really?]; ability to make chickens explode into glitter.  You get the idea.  We spent close to an hour coming up with these ideas, laughing the whole time.

2 Create a scenario in which this useless power is actually useful.  Say you are blind and have an enemy whose weakness is guacamole.  Then it may be useful to detect it.  Or let's pretend you need to pass through a field of killer hippos in order to steal a diamond.  If you can get them to dance the entire Macarena, you'd be able to slip through that field and get to the jewels without dying.  Imagine you are starving, and all you have on hand are goldfish.  You can take them out of the water and turn them into goldfish crackers.  Perhaps you have a lot of snakes and can't afford food for them.  Turning items into rats could really come in handy.  And so on.

3.  Write the story.  Expand on your exercise.  It could end up just being a writing exercise, but then again, you may be able to spin this into a children's story, short story, novel, etc.  Have fun!

Writing what You Know

It's been said that one should write what they know.  But if we only write what we know, how do we write anything but blogs, memoirs, and biographies?  How do we write that story that's trying to battle its way out of our soul and onto the page?

The easy answer, which may not be so easy in execution, is know more.  You may think, well, I know my life.  I can write about me.  But even that can get complicated.  That's where I started with the novel I'm still working on close to two years later.  About two years ago, I pondered the books I had recently read, the sub-par, poorly written books I had just read and thought, "I can do better than that.  What do I know?  I know what it is to be an overweight Mormon woman living in the Logan area who is dealing with loss.  How about I write about that?"  But I didn't want to write about me.  I wanted to write about some other overweight Mormon woman living in Logan dealing with loss.

So how could I write about this other woman?  I had to plan.  I had to decide who she was apart from me.  If I were to try to make her entirely me, I'd have such a hard time pulling us apart that the character would get mushy.  I'd assume everyone understood what I was writing because I understood.  I had to sit and figure out who she was, what her voice sounded like (if not mine then whose?)  I had to plan her relationships, her friendships, her past, her present, a bit about her future.  I had to come up with a story and research the pieces of that story I didn't know from memory.  I had to know more than just what it is to be me.  I had to know what it is to be her.  But what it is to be me informs my writing of what it is to be her.  And like I said, two years later, I'm still working out the kinks, figuring out what works and what doesn't about what I've written, so I can write her story believably and in an interesting way.

I could have put her in a fantasy or sci fi or western or any other genre.  I could have started with what I knew about fairy tales.  But I have tried my hand at much of that, and it has come out sounding cliched.  If you can start with what you know in one of these genres without becoming yet another in a long line of poor writers, good for you.  But I tried, and it didn't work for me. My me-as-a-fantasy-character stories fell flat because they had no meaning, no depth.  Maybe I'll go back one day.  But for now, it suits me to stay in the present with someone enough like me that I know her but not so much like me that knowing her, you understand my life.

Once I'm done knowing her story, I can  use that as a jumping off point to know more about other people, other lives.  Meanwhile, my knowledge base is growing.  As I research and explore more areas, I can write about more.  And all of this helps me become a better writer.

Names in Writing

In the best literature, names are meaningful.  Harry Potter character names are very well researched and profound.  Here is a link to what J.K. Rowling, herself, says about the names and what they mean.  According to the site, Harry Potter's name seems ordinary, but yet Harry is the name of kings.  The name of his nemesis, Draco Malfoy, means Dragon of bad faith.  Remus Lupin's name was based on the Roman myth of one of a set of twins raised by a wolf, last name a derivative of wolf.  The list goes on.  Other writers often use similarly symbolic and meaningful names.  Jane Eyre's name has multiple connotations, of plainness, of air spirits, of being an heir to a fortune.  Rochester's name means rocky crags, indicative of his hard and harsh manners.  Her favorite teacher is Ms. Temple, with obvious meanings.  Her best friend, Ms. Burns burns with a fever.  St. John, one of those who try to court her, is as self-righteous as his name may suggest.  Several other authors add significance through their naming, to varying degrees.  It may be something you want to consider.

Another thing to remember when choosing what to call the characters is that whatever the narrative calls the characters should be consistent.  To switch around from title to first name to last name can be very confusing.  It's almost as confusing to  use similar-sounding names.  If two to three of the main characters have the same first initial, the reader will start to get confused.  These are all things to consider as you name and title your characters.  

The Hook

I've heard that the first line buys you the editor's attention long enough to make it through your first paragraph.  The first paragraph buys you the first page.  And the first page may just buy you the chapter, which could very well buy you the book and get your book published.  And a good published book that really hooks a reader can lead to a lucrative career.  That's where to spend your time: on the hook.  It's always a good idea to read really good first pages from books that have done well.  How did J.K. Rowling draw the crowds with page one of Harry Potter?  How did J.R.R. Tolkien make his splash in the literary world with page one of his story?  Where do the greats start?

Then go look at your first line, first paragraph, first page.  Read it to people.  Does your first line snag your audience and not let them go?  Do you pose enough questions to intrigue or paint a setting that makes people curious or characterize in a way that helps people love your main character like you do?  Is it clear without being boring?  If you lose your reader with too many passive tenses, writing full of generic descriptions or cliches, too many adverbs,  description too dense or entirely lacking, or whatever, your reader is gone for good.  It does not matter if everyone would just love page seven.  If you can't get them past page one, seven can be fabulous.  46 can be prize-winning material.  None of that matters unless page one is awesome, awe-inspiring, intense, captivating, glorious, whatever.

Ask yourself a few critical questions.  Does it start at the right place, a place critical to the story?  If not, cut pages or add some.  Does it make your reader care?  If not, figure out how.  Does it make your reader want to know more?  Does it show more than tell?  Too much explanation in chapter one can end a story before it begins.  Read it to anyone who will listen and get feedback.  Read it aloud.  Take it to a professional editor.

Now go out and work on your hook.  Turn it from just a beginning to a real hook.  Do whatever you have to do to make a splash and make the reader thirsty for more.

Trying to Pin down what Makes a Story Work

I just watched the new "Ghostbusters" movie, and it really worked for me and for many of those I know for whom the older version isn't seen as the be all and end all.  I expected to like it.  I loved it.  It's rare that I walk into a movie with certain expectations, and it impresses rather than depresses me.  And I'm still trying to work out what worked so well for me.  Both versions have good humor.  Part of it is the newer version is so much cleaner and is something I don't hesitate to share with my kids.  But that's more of a personal reason.  It's not just the movie that works for me.  It's the STORY that works. How often does that happen, that a reboot is just as fresh if not fresher than the original?  Many reviewers thought it was a rehash.  Although I saw some resemblance and parallels, I wouldn't call it a rehash at all.

So what is it that made the story work for me?  I like theme of girl power without the need to hammer on the concept.  Women were allowed to be the center of a story without needing to lean on men for their power, initiative, or purpose.  I liked that Hollywood women were allowed to be frumpy, nerdy, to just be themselves.  My sister complained that it perpetuated the stereotype that intelligent women had to be frumpy.  I would argue these women looked precisely like they wanted to look.  And they were all beautiful.  They just didn't feel the need to flaunt that fact.  I also liked that the ditzy beautiful blond was a man for once.  He was charming, funny, and could be competent when possessed by a genius.  And he was played by Thor, who was clearly having the time of his life.

I think what worked so well for me was the very fact of its being a reversal.  It took all the stereotypes and expected themes for an adventure yarn and turned them on their ears.  It was all about female geniuses who used their entrepreneurial spirit to start a business and save the world.  And it was funny.  Not just mildly funny but very funny.   Every serious moment was counterbalanced by a wisecrack or a bit of straight-faced silliness.  Of the characters, the one I found most entertaining was Holtsman, the newer version of Egon.  She made every scene hilarious, and you never were quite sure if she was being snarky or meant it.  She was the life of the party.

So what can a writer learn about storytelling from this movie?  1. Balance humor with seriousness.  2. Be unexpected: turn stereotypes on their ears.  3.  Make sure your characters are convincingly human but also fresh and unexpected.  4. If you're going to retell an old story, make it your own.

A simple formula for writing

Someone asked me about writing this week, and I told her my formula for writing.  This won't work for everyone or for every genre, but it might work for you.  First, come up with a germ of a story, some concept or idea.  You can use my writer's net to brainstorm.  You can use a story starter.  You can look at your family history.  You can read a novel and get a germ of a story.  One way or another, you get the basic idea and write down a bit about your story and its characters.

The next step is prewriting.  If it's fantasy or sci fi, know the laws of the world you're writing in.  Invent them.  Know the map or the geography.  I then use a character theory like Meyers-Briggs or color theory or the enneagram to get to know my character.  Other people have done the heavy lifting on coming up with character theory.  You don't have to invent the wheel, just give your characters a sense of life and reality.  It helps if you know people like your character, so you can keep their voices in your head.  You may want to figure out the characters of all the major characters and their antagonists.  A story is only as good as its bad guys.  And most bad guys think of themselves as heroes of their own story.

Next, adapt the heroes' journey.  There are many versions of it, countless.  But most of the best stories, especially adventure stories, from Star Wars to modern Star Trek to Harry Potter to anything Pixar and modern Disney take a cue from the heroes' journey.  If you are an outliner, outline the whole think as far as it works for you.  If you're a pantser --a by the pants, write as you go kind of person--just keep the heroes' journey in the back of your brain and/or keep it standing buy to give you a rough roadmap.

Then revise, edit, and send it off to your writers' group.  You may need additional editorial services.

That's it.  The better, the more unique your description, the fresher the voice, the more successful your story will be.  If you're running into walls, try it.  See how it works.

Creativity Net

I once wrote about this, but it was about a year ago and bears repeating.  One good way to defeat the power of the blank page is through setting out your creativity net.  What does this mean, you say?  Listen to conversations and take notes on how people talk.  Look around for odd things people do or strange events.  Watch the news for curious happenings.  Then invent your own why.  Once, I had three random strangers come up to me and give me little things over the course of a few days.  They were totally unrelated events, but it all led to a short story.

Grab your notebook and look around you.  Become a people watcher.  Become a thing watcher.  And let your imagination fly.  Spin whatever you see into a story of fantasy, science fiction, romance, whatever.  Come up with a germ of an idea then don't stop until it's written down.  Then turn it into a story with meaning and life.

Tighten your Writing

It's during the editing phase that you start to realize that you're a lot wordier than you thought.  At least that's been my experience.  And you, too, can do most of it without any help.

• You can catch your overwriting  and redundancies ["Hey, Grandma," I said to Grandma as I walked in the house.]  
• You can change those overly descriptive writing handles [she screamed angrily] into ones publishers will accept like said, shouted, asked, or whispered.  
• You can dump all amplifiers after you realize they amplify nothing [really hated doesn't convey nearly as much as loathed or even just hated all by itself.] 
• You can ferret out those pesky adjectives [beautiful woman] and turn them into vivid nouns [goddess].  
• Above all, you can hunt down those clunky adverbial phrases [stared stupidly] and swap them for strong verbs [gaped].  

Basically, you can take your gut draft, the draft you wrote just for you, straight from your heart, and turn it into something another human being will actually want to read.  You can change it from written vomit into a compelling story.

It helps to distance yourself from your writing, so you see it with newer eyes.  I went over an old short story recently I thought was so wonderful and found about half of it was filler.  It also helps to print out your writing because then you see it from another angle.  You can go at it with a pen.  It really helps to read it out loud to yourself, as well, because then you slow down your reading pace and see so many things you didn't see before.  You can also use the software's built-in spell/grammar check.

But there comes a moment when you realize you can do no more.  You need external eyes, someone outside your head, to which you can send it or read it.  That's when writers' groups online or in person come into play.  I've written about those recently.  That's when you can call in an editor like I did recently.  That's also when you can look into buying software like Grammerly or Autocrit, which help you do a lot of the things I've mentioned.  Most of editing can be done alone.  But almost everyone eventually needs help.  You are not alone.  If you're done with your heart draft [the rough draft], it's time to write the rest with your head.  It's time to tighten that writing.

Grammar-free Zones

Last semester, I taught an English class.  Granted, it was a very beginning writing class.  But I got to teach then expect grammar and writing skills--to a point.  I've now been asked to teach a class that is even more of a beginners' class.  And it doesn't look like I'll be teaching [or expecting] writing skills in the weekly paragraphs I'll be receiving.  This, for a grammar nazi, is called torture.  FaceBook causes many writers pain.  I am one of those writers.  I read the humorous grammar nazi's rule book Eats Shoots and Leaves for fun.

Now, I will be looking at and papers, unable to let my internal editor say a word.  Tell me, fellow writers out there, how much fun it is to live in a world full of [sometimes intentional] bad grammar?  How much fun is it to walk through those 20 Items or Less [FEWER, people, FEWER] lines and not say a word?  How many times do you have to look at signs and billboards and not say a thing about how much people must be smoking to spell that way, where kids are able to see and learn all the wrong things?  How many of us can watch Weird Al's "Word Crimes" and laugh knowingly while mentally looking for (and finding) errors even there?

People like me who enter situations like these have to remember to breathe.  We have to remind ourselves that the only reason we haven't been unfriended by 90% of those we know on social media is because we can control our red-pen impulses and just shake our heads in silence.  The only way to keep the job is to be gentle and view the heart of the piece, not the trappings.  The world will spell and punctuate [or not] as it will.  We will somehow survive the experience and move on. And be thankful to have a job.  

The Power of the Hero's Journey

This week, I watched the new live-action version of Disney's Jungle Book.  The original is cute, a classic.  Many people adore it.  But for me, it was never very exciting because it was my least favorite kind of story, milieu.  This means location.  The place is the main character.  Mowgli represents the audience as Baloo and Bagira act as tour guides to show off the quirky denizens of the jungle, who sing to display their personalities/philosphies.  Some of them are dangerous to the defenseless Mowgli.  But it is nonetheless not the story of a kid in a jungle so much as the story of the characters that people that jungle.

The new move has the same checklist of characters, for the most part.  However, the story as shown in the new movie employs the power of the hero's journey as described by Joseph Campbell. Mowgli starts in the normal world, in the wolf pack.  His call to adventure comes from Shere Khan, the tiger who threatens his family and home.  At first, he resists it, then he accepts it.  He then descends into the underworld of the unknown parts of the jungle and faces a number of dangers, including a father-figure's death.  The stakes are higher.  The choices are Mowgli's to make, not forced on him, and he grows as a character through them.  The movie takes one step further in becoming a bildungsroman, a coming of age story.  Because he fulfills the hero's journey, he emerges capable, master of both worlds.

A lot of writers like to write stories, but any story, whether it be a fantasy, a fairy tale retelling, science fiction, horror, or romance can benefit from the time-proven power of the hero's journey.  As I mentioned several weeks ago, many of Pixar's movies follow the same pattern.  People subconsciously expect it when they start reading an adventure yarn, especially.  When major parts of the hero's journey are lacking, people notice and feel unsatisfied.  I highly recommend that any writer researches and employs the hero's journey in their stories.

The Treasure

I found a treasure whose scope I didn't remember.  Two decades ago, I wrote my life's history--in some detail, as it turns out.  I just remembered writing it, not what was there.  I have started rereading it, and I've learned so much that I didn't recall.  I see teachers' names, classes I was in, things I did that was younger, and all sorts of details that, twenty years later, had disappeared from my memory.

I highly recommend that you write down your life to date because you never know what you will forget in a few years.  My memory isn't particularly good, but this kind of memory slippage can happen to anyone.  Write your life now, up to now.  Write about your early childhood, youth, and adulthood in as much detail as you can.  If possible, have others around you do likewise, especially older generations.  When my grandma was about to pass, I sat and interviewed her.  I'm thankful for what I learned.  One day, these writings may be your treasures and maybe your descendants' treasures, too.  

Rule #1: Make Me Care

I've repeated this mantra of writing before, but it bears repeating.  Before your audience/reader will truly get into your piece, you need to answer the "So what?" question and get your reader invested in your character.  That was the big flaw I saw with one of the most anticipated blockbusters of the summer, "Batman vs. Superman."

I think we've all heard that same review over and over.  At least I have.  It was strange that such a mixed review was repeated EVERYWHERE from Rottentomatoes to all my movie-going friends: Batman was well done.  Superman was blah.  Wonderwoman was squeezed in.  Lex Luther was dreadful.  I heard this same review from everyone, so I expected to have the same reaction.  I love comic book movies that are well made.

People seemed to more or less like this one.  So why shouldn't I?  I knew I wouldn't love it.  My expectations weren't sky high like they are when the reviews are universally wonderful.  But I expected to like it on some level.  Turned out I didn't like it at all.  Why?  Because the writers broke rule number one.  They didn't make me care about anyone, okay, except Lois Lane.  But Amy Adams is good with making the audience care.  How does she do it?  By so obviously caring about someone herself.  Her love for the Superman character here ALMOST had the strength to make me care about him.  If only he weren't so busy being inscrutable and above-it-all, so dark and brooding like all the rest of the characters, I might have succeeded in graduating past almost and into caring.  I needed to feel his humanity, but so much of the movie was bent on making him feel alien and inhuman to the audience.  Because I didn't care about any of the main characters, nothing they did or said mattered.  I didn't care if someone was in danger or someone died, got injured, whatever.  A nuclear bomb full of cryptonite could have wiped out all of humanity in this movie, and I would have felt bad about just Lois.  

I understand not everyone consciously reacted the way I did because not everyone is looking for that one thing in the main characters: a humanity and caring for something or someone that will make the audience love them.  It helps if there is humor as well, which was totally lacking here.  But you'll notice with the review above people weren't swept up into the story.  They were keeping their distance and analyzing it rather than just enjoying it.  If you as a writer break rule number one, people don't get swept up.  Even if they don't consciously notice they're not caring, they certainly don't get attached.  Just in the short bit of preview I've seen of the upcoming Justice League movie, I already care more about Batman than I did throughout this entire movie.  Why?  Because they do with it what was lacking here: they make the audience laugh and give the sense of Batman's humanity and his caring about others.

Keep rule number one--show the main character's humanity through love and optimistically some humor--and readers will follow your character and his/her adventures through the ends of the earth.  I know I would.

Importance of Writers' Groups

For any writer, I highly recommend finding and using a writers' group.  No matter how refined your writing abilities, how many degrees you have, you're always best served seeking out a writer's group.  You can do all the editing you want, including letting the manuscript rest for a while, so you can see it with fresh eyes, reading it out loud once it's been printed out, and even using editing software such as Autocrit.  There is no replacement for fellow writers.  Even readers who don't write, as I have discovered first hand, don't necessarily read the way that editors do when they read your story.  This isn't a bad thing if you're self-publishing and aren't seeking to please anyone but yourself.  But if you're going to send your writing in for contests, publishers, or anyone in the industry, there is no reader like someone else who has been trained to think more like an editor.  I have had several readers read my manuscript, but until I had a reader who thought like an editor read it, I didn't know what a publisher may think of my work.  When I did have such a reader read it, a publisher's comments on my work suddenly made sense.  

In order to be motivated to seek out a writing group, you have to be ready to take and use criticism.  If you're not there yet, a writer's group is not for you.  However, if you're ready to move past the phase where you only want people to praise your work, it's time to seek out readers.  

There are multiple online forums for getting reader/writers such as Wattpad, Critique Circle, and Writer's Cafe, among many many others.  You can assemble a group of writers yourself.  You could also join a local group.  Here in my state, we have League of Utah Writers, but there are writers' groups everywhere.  You can also find an online editor like Eschler or Book Baby, though services like that cost money.  One way or another, find readers who are also writers outside your own head, and your work will transcend where it is now.  

What Drives your Story?

Story Drives: 

Some time ago, I wrote about how important it is to know what drives your character, what makes a character do what he/she does.  I apologize if I've mentioned this before, but it couldn't hurt to revisit it [I checked and couldn't find it.]  This post is on what drives your story.  I recently read someone's story in which the main character meanders from event to event without anything driving him.  When he gets done with one major life event like a job or military or even a family, he simply goes and does something else.  That's fine for a PERSON, or even a biography, but it won't work for a STORY.  A story is about something, one specific event, set of events, character, etc.  It has a clear beginning, middle, and end, or it isn't, by nature, a story.  If you find people asking the 'so what?' question repeatedly or wondering what your story is about, it's time to sit down and figure out what drives your story itself.

Orson Scott Card talks about four kinds of story drives: 1. milieu or location  2. question, as in whodunit, 3. plot, as in what's wrong with the world and how can it be fixed? and 4. character as in what's wrong with your character and what does he/she do about it?  If you know your genre, chances are you can figure out what drives your story.  A book that primarily takes you on a tour of any location is a milieu book.  This can include fantasy or science fiction in which the magical land is the most important aspect of the story.  Think the Lord of the Rings trilogy, if you think of it as a world in which prototypical characters of various races appear in a struggle, or "Gulliver's Travels," wherein an outsider comes into a foreign land and learns all about it.  A mystery is most often question-driven because the story isn't finished until the primary question, whodunit most often, is answered.  Adventure yarns, science fiction stories, fantasy novels, and fairy tales are mostly plot-driven.  Something is wrong.  The story is about how the something is fixed.  Think Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game series, particularly the first.  4. Character-driven stories can include science fiction or fantasy but are more likely to include romance, literary fiction, and the like, stories that are not complete until the character is happy in his/her own skin.

The Contract

The story drive chosen is a kind of unspoken contract with your reader.  Once the reader understands the promise made by the text--that you won't finish the story until he or she has learned everything about the world or the question is answered or the world is put to rights or the character gets their satisfying happily ever after--he or she will find it highly dissatisfying if you don't complete your promised story.  I've read novels about a whodunit that don't answer the question but end in a happily ever after.  It's very unsatisfying.  A story about a lonely, sad character may end in the solution to a question, but if she's not happy, I, as the reader, am not happy.  I ran into this with the recent "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" movie.  We start with a world launched into zombie war and end with "and they live happily ever after."  At which time, the zombies return in force.  I imagine movie makers were setting up for a sequel, but the sequel isn't likely to come because the movie doesn't complete the contract it promised.  Audiences don't like that.

Example:

The Harry Potter series manages to balance out all four story drives.  We start with a lonely boy who is immediately handed a question--who am I?--which leads to other questions, all of which are resolved by turns as he enters a foreign magical world and attempts to resolve the problem in the world as well as his own loneliness.  All four drives come to satisfying endings.  This is part of the books' appeal.  Rowling makes several contracts with the reader, all of which get a satisfying resolution.

Now, You

If you're struggling with a story you're writing, unsure if it's hitting the mark, figure out which contract you are making with your reader.  Are you promising to show off an awesome world, answer a question or questions, fix a world, or make a character happy?  Do you fulfill your promise?  If not, how can you fix that?

Taking Inspiration from Nature

I had the privilege of walking into nature over the weekend.  I saw Yellowstone National Park.  I viewed colors, vivid colors I have never seen elsewhere in nature: blues, rusts, greens, aquamarines, yellows... sights, sounds, and odors I never smell anywhere else from the smell of evergreen to sulfurous mist blowing in my face.  When walking through such natural beauty, there are many ways to view it all.  Some of the people I traveled with found these unique natural vistas exciting to begin with but then dull and familiar after a time.  Some people view such things as an opening to adventure, a place to hike and take risks.

  

As a writer, I could see it as something else again: a source of material, a muse.  The vivid colors could spin my thoughts into a world of vivid intensity, a magical portal into a place of imagination.  As water explodes into the air, I could turn that geyser into a water dragon and that one nearby into a wizard bent on taking that dragon down.  Or as I look at the twisted, tortured trees that fought their way through the harsh environment to grow out of rock then failed and fell when the sulfurous blasts got too toxic, I could envision a landscape like that and ponder what else could cause it, some malaise or curse upon the land.  The wild titles of those geysers and pools could spin my thoughts with red dragons' maws and churning cauldrons.

If my style tends toward the less fantastical, I could still imagine a couple meeting among the geysers and finding love.  The couple who got engaged to the blast of Old Faithful while I was there could inspire a tale of love and tragedy among the geysers.

If my imagination suits the world of science fiction more, I could envision a fleet of aliens that start their invasion over a field of geysers and on shaky ground, only to meet misfortune on every side as one ends up in a hot pot, another crashes through the crust, and yet another is gored by a moody bison.  That invasion could be defeated not by men with technology but by mother nature herself.

Or I could write a western in which a mountain man or early settler and his family faces the unknown perils of a side of nature never before seen by their people.  I could write about a Native American tribe's relationship to the park itself, including one brave's voyage of self-discovery.  I could write poetry about the intense feeling of looking straight into the eyes of a nearby bull elk or engage in nature writing about my experiences with the park.

Or I could blog about how the park fills the imagination and invite other writers to go out and seek their own adventures in nature that could act as their muse in their writing.  See the world of nature in a fresh way.  Make it new.

Back Story

There are some important things to remember about back story when writing about a character.  Number one is to have it, in a lot more detail than you're ever going to share with your reader.  It's always a good idea to know not just this generation but the parents, possibly even grandparents, uncles, cousins, etc. because you want to know what makes this character him/herself.  One of these characters may be important in your story or its prequel...or you may just want to know this for yourself.  What tragedies form your character?  What makes your character tick?  Know this.  Plot it out in some detail.

But don't share it in detail.  The last thing you want to do is data dump within the first chapter.  Sneak it into conversation.  Use it as a source for drama.  Show it as much as it can be shown.  Turn it into meaning rather than a three-page filler when you can't think of anything else to do.  Most people have to do some data sharing to get the reader up to snuff, but the less tell about the past you have to share as a narrator, the better.  If you're going to share this as a narrator, try making the narrator unreliable.  I'm telling you this, but I'm also the catty next door neighbor or the hated boss.  Can I be trusted?  Find a way to turn background into meaning and drama rather than filler, and your reader will thank you.

Texts and subtexts

Text and Subtext

Sometimes, a spade is just a spade.  Sometimes, when you're writing about a blue rug, it's just a blue rug.  Others may read into your blue rug: depression, sadness, water, nature, whatever.  But sometimes, you just want to write about the rug.

However, when you want meaning beyond the surface description, it's important to keep in mind what the point or motivation is at all times.  What are you trying to show through your rugs and spades?  Say you want meaning to come through in dialogue.  Sometimes, dialogue is just dialogue.  A character says something, and another responds to move the plot along or show character.

However, sometimes, it's better yet if two characters can SEEM to talk about one thing and yet be really talking about something entirely different under the surface.  Say two characters are talking about whether to get a dog.  On the surface level, the two characters are talking about a dog.  However, under the surface, she's really asking if they can start a family, can try to have a baby.  He blows her off because he doesn't get what she's really asking.  He just doesn't like dogs.  Or, sometimes better yet, he gets what she's saying.  He understands she's not JUST asking for a dog.  And he wants nothing to do with a baby.  It's too much commitment, too much stress, feeds into childhood trauma, etc.  This is a great way to SHOW character.

The most meaningful movies, books, and scenes show clear motivation for the character.  One of the truly sophisticated ways to show clear motivation is by having two characters talk about it or, sometimes, talk about it WITHOUT SEEMING to talk about it.  We start to walk the realm of symbolism and deeper meaning, something great literature often does.

Now go back to that piece of dialogue that is sitting like a rock on the page.  Is it not working because it's too obvious?  Try using context and sneaky language to hint at motivations and meaning.  Best of luck.

Exercising the Senses

Someone recently asked me how to enhance sensory detail in their writing.  A writer doesn't want to bog down every scene with so much sensory detail that the narrative slows to a snail's pace, yet writing must have some kind of sensory detail to keep it interesting, fresh, and engaging.  So where is the balance?  How does one write enough detail but not too much?

I'd recommend pausing over the scenes that are the most significant, the scenes that the author wants to be most memorable and meaningful.  Then, count to five for all five senses.  Vision is easy.  But if you want a scene to be truly memorable, make sure you also feature something you can taste, touch, smell, and hear.  It may even help you to close your eyes in various places--at a park, in your room, in a library, in a classroom--and just write down everything you sense besides sight just to work on focusing on anything and everything but the visual.

When you sit down to write your piece, if you want a pleasant moment, have us smell melon body wash, taste freshly baked bread, feel the soft grass under the character's feet, see the vibrant colors of the flowers across the grass, hear the wind through the trees, etc.  Help us live that significant moment.  If it's a scary moment, we can smell our own sweat, feel the chilling breeze across that sweat on our skin, hear the eerie sounds of rattling wind through the branches, etc.  Create the atmosphere, just enough that we can experience it along with the character but not so much that we get bored.  Read it with someone else just to be sure.

And remember, the same hair color, eye color, etc can be described with very different words for just the right connotation.  The same color can be called golden, medium blonde, bronze, dishwater, muddy, etc. all depending on how you want the reader to feel about that character.  It's all in the sensory language.  I've heard it said that when you're describing a character, it's often best to minimize, to describe one or two primary features and leave the rest to the reader's imagination.

So that's it.  Mark the significant moments in your plot or characters you want us to remember and count to five.  If you can turn that moment or that sensory imagery into symbolism or metaphor or foreshadowing or alliteration, all the better.  Have fun!

Drafting and Revision

Drafting

In the movie "Finding Forrester," a writer's movie, a character says that the first draft should be written with the heart and the second with the head.  For most people, it's not very helpful to sit down and write without any idea what I'm doing.

There are different styles of drafting.  I'm what's often referred to as a "pantser."  I fly by the seat of my pants.  I just need my characters and an inkling of where the plot is going, and I just start writing.  With my romance novels, I don't even write chronologically, whereas with my children's fantasy, I do.  Either way, I don't plan much before I write.  Meanwhile, some people need an elaborate outline and all details planned before they would dream of writing.  These are often called planners. As for me, if I tried to plan everything in detail, I'd never get anywhere.  Outlines just don't work for me.  I need a rough idea where I'm going and a clear view of my characters then I just write.

Regardless of the way one writes, this advice from "Finding Forrester" can be a guide.  When one writes the first draft without spending a lot of time editing, revising, or rethinking everything, more progress is likely to be made.  Those who get bogged down with the details and with rewriting everything over and over again, researching every twist and turn, and belaboring every detail will likely get nowhere in their writing.  There are things that need to be researched in advance, but most things can wait.  The way I understand how the writers of the "Star Trek" series did it, they'd type along and write [tech] anytime they got to a piece of story that needed technology, then they or someone else would go back in and research the technology needed.  A writer can use this method by writing along according to outline or general idea then write [MORE ABOUT THIS] or some such then go in to fill in whatever is missing later.  It's really best if an author uses the momentum built and finishes that draft before ever letting the internal editor or researcher have a chance to walk through the door.

Revision

The next step after the heart/rough draft is written is to revise.  But if one revises right away, when everything is fresh, every cut hurts.  It all feels too personal.  To write the first draft, the author has poured out his/her heart and soul onto the page.  The characters, sometimes even the minor ones, are his or her babies.  He/she has spent HOURS on short scenes that feel important or at least special somehow.

After the draft has lain fallow for as long as the writer can manage, it is time to return and see it with fresher eyes.  It is time to figure out which scenes advance character and/or plot and which ones are just fluff.  It is time to take an axe to those scenes that are precious [overwritten] but not important.  With a bit of distance, one can also achieve a bit more distance as well as impartiality.  I wrote a short story during my undergraduate years, over a decade ago, about which I felt particularly proud.  I recently reviewed it and realized so much of it was inessential.  It went from around 3000 words to about half that.  It is so much better for the cuta I once didn't think needed to happen.  Reading aloud always helps as well.  It slows down the eye and helps the writer catch errors that otherwise would be missed. It's always best as well if the author can find several pair of external eyes to look over the manuscript and give feedback.  Polishing takes as much distance, chronologically as well as emotionally, as one can muster.

In other words, throw yourself into draft one.  Let it carry you either through your outline or in crazy directions if you're a pantser.  But then let Mr. Editor/Researcher/Detail-oriented in and turn it into something a publisher could accept and a reader could enjoy.  Best of luck.

The Powers Game

A few weeks ago, I proposed the McDonald's game.  If you know enough about your character or characters, you can say what your character would order at McDonald's whether or not there is one around.  This week, I came up with a different game: the Powers Game.  Most authors could [or should be able to] answer the question, "What does my character want most in the world?"  In "Finding Nemo," the whole story is driven by Marlin's desire to be reunited with his son.  In "Finding Dory," likewise, the story is driven by Dory's desire to be reunited with her parents.  If you can't name the greatest desire of your character, that's important.  It shouldn't be part of a game but part of characterization to begin with.

So what is the game?  Imagine your character can have any power in the world (or can get rid of a power he has but does not want.)  What would it be?  Marlin may want the ability to track his son from anywhere, so he could never lose him again or possibly to put a bubble around his son, so his son could never get hurt.  Dory would want the simple power to remember what happened five minutes ago, or even yesterday.  At some point in "Incredibles," many of the characters would like to wish away the power they do have to simplify their lives.  In a similar fashion, one could go through most characters in Pixar movies and decide what powers the characters would like (or get rid of) based on their particular desires and drives.

Now, go through your characters and figure out what magical/super/technological power your character would want if he/she could do anything in the world.    If you can't answer that question, you may need to work a little more on what drives your character to do what he/she does.

Hero of Your Own Story

Villain's Motivation

In reality, everyone is the hero of his or her own story.  Everyone [almost] thinks they are doing what's best, even if others would say they are doing what they're doing for the wrong reasons.  That's why a truly interesting story has a villain/opponent/rival who has clear motivation, who is, according to his/her own narrative, the hero of the story.

Take Magneto, for instance.  According to Magneto, the villain of many of the X-Men movies, humans have destroyed the world and are endangering his people.  In the first X-Men movie, humans' treatment of mutants is paralleled with Nazis' treatment of Jewish people.

Let's expand our net to history and legend: Al Capone thought of himself as a provider of useful services, while the media vilified him for his mob-related killings and bootlegging.  The same could be said of Jessie James, who some saw as a folk hero while others viewed him as nothing more than a bank robber and a murderer.  From the point of view of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Robin Hood could be seen as the villain.

Wrong Way

Just as a story is better when the hero's motivation is clear, a story is also better when the villain's motivation is clear.  In many a melodramatic tale, villains delight in calling themselves a villain and fight the good guy simply because he's good while the villain is bad.  No more motivation than that is needed.

Early Disney movies provide a very simple motivation--Snow White's stepmother's vanity, Cinderella's stepmother's jealousy on behalf of her daughters, and Maleficent's desire to fulfill the curse she'd lain. Yes, these can be called some kind of motive, but why?  Why are the stepmothers and evil fairies so harsh, they'll cause death before letting the princess marry the prince?  What led them to sacrifice their lives and reputations to oppress or murder an innocent?  None of it is clear.  One supposes they do it because they're evil, but this is no kind of clear reasoning or motivation.  Why are these female characters evil?  Nobody knows.

Right Way

We understand that Magneto is willing to destroy humanity because they stole his family away and are trying to oppress his people.  Why do we know that?  Because he has a back story.  We see his childhood--not a lot but enough to know why he does what he does.  We can feel and understand WHY.

When we understand why, the character becomes real to us.  We understand that Kylo Ren is willing to fight the light side of the force and kill anyone who gets in his way because of his resentment toward his father and because he adopted a new father figure in his grandfather, Darth Vader.

Furthermore, we understand that Mother Gothel must keep Rapunzel isolated in "Tangled" because she will lose her youth and her life if she loses the source of her power.  Their motivation is clear. Back story makes the difference between a believable villain and a stereotypical Bad Guy who is bad because he's bad.

Caveat 

However, because we don't agree with his motivations, he remains a villain, the enemy.  That is the one caution here, that there is such a thing as having a villain become too sympathetic. If your villain is more sympathetic than your hero, you have the new problem of the audience being confused by your story.  This confusion can be useful when you flip the story around and tell the story from the villain's point of view, as mentioned in last week's blog.  But in general, that confusion is to be avoided.

Conclusion

If your villain is supposed to remain on the dark side, make sure that your hero has a more vivid and sympathetic back story than the villain.  Help us view the villain as understandable but not the one for whom we're rooting.  Best of luck on your villains.

New Perspectives

I've found that sometimes, if you're looking for a story to write, the best thing to do is to see a familiar story from a new angle.  This method has worked really well and has gotten a lot of attention and popularity of late.  Look at the Broadway musical "Wicked."  The story retells a very familiar story from the witch's point of view, and it's a new story.  The same is true with Disney's "Maleficent" and the popular teen made-for-tv "Descendants."  Each of these tell a fairy tale or crossover of fairy tales from the villain's point of view.

But you don't have to limit yourself to writing just fairy tales or stories already written and told.  You can write something new but tell it from someone's point of view other than the stereotypical hero's.  Look at "Despicable Me" and its sequels and spin-off and how people love the villain-turned-daddy.  Modern audiences are hungry for a new perspective.

Nor do you have to limit yourself to the villain's perspective.  Read Ender's Game, which was written by Orson Scott Card many years ago and which has since been made into a movie.  A lot of people are familiar with the story of a child groomed to rescue the human race from a big enemy race.  But fewer people have read Ender's Shadow, the same story told all over again from Ender's sidekick, Bean's point of view.  He views the world entirely differently, so through his eyes, the story feels like a different one.

Disney has used this trick as well with "Lion King 1 1/2," which is told from Timon and Pumbaa's perspective.  It features many of the scenes and plot points from the first movie but shows them in an entirely different context.  And Like "Despicable Me," it's hilarious.

Try it.  Tell an old story from a new point of view or try retelling your story from a different point of view.  If your story isn't working as is, make it new.  Tell it from the point of view of the hero's opponent, his dog's point of view, or his girlfriend's.  Maybe what you're doing wrong is telling it the normal way.  Time to get crazy.

Depth of Feeling

The Problem

I watched the sci-fi movie "Fifth Wave" recently.  It bothered me.  It's not that it was a shallow popcorn flick with invading aliens causing lots of destruction.  That was no big surprise.  It was kind of like the dreadful Tom Cruise vehicle, "War of the Worlds" for teens.  I didn't hate this movie like I hated that one.

What bothered me is the writers did what I often recommend writers do:  1. Start in the middle of the story to get the reader/audience into the action and excited about the plotline.  2. Spend some quality time with the protagonist early in the story, showing her/him bonding with other characters, so we understand the protagonist's character.  3. Give the protagonist someone important to him or her like a puppy or a child to take care of, so we see the character's heart.  4.  If possible, have the character suffer or remember a great tragedy in their life that helped shape who they are.  5.  Give the protagonist a companion on the journey, so there is a reason for dialogue, which helps enlighten both characters and situation.  Solo characters are hard to make interesting, though it can be done.  6.  If there is an antagonist, make his motivation clear, which leads to more clarity in the protagonist's motivation.  All of this should, theoretically, deepen the story and make the character more compelling.

So why didn't it work with "Fifth Wave"?  This question bothered me.  Then I looked closer.  I realized there is no depth of feeling to any of this.  The main character of the movie starts in the middle of the action then we go back to the beginning.  The scene is no more compelling the second time than it was the first.  We still don't care about her character.  Why is that?  Well, it's because during the time she spends bonding with other characters, most of whom die quickly, the script emphasizes she's a totally normal teenager.  There is nothing unique or interesting about her.  She's a normal teenage girl with a normal crush on a normal guy, and she has a normal family.  Their supposedly meaningful bonding scenes could have been taken from any other teen flick.  She's not compelling because she's too generic.  She spends a very brief scene looking lovingly at her little brother, but that scene gives us nothing to care about, no words to make either character memorable.  When her normal parents [spoiler alert] die one at a time in front of her, the audience has a hard time caring because, other than a brief sort of emotional reaction, she doesn't seem to care.  There is no great sense of tragedy.  The companion she gets is a generic attractive guy with nothing really special about him.  Even the big reveal of the secrets behind the companion and the whole story is not big or very revealing because it's predictable.  The characters, in fact, predicted it earlier in the story.  The reveal basically repeats what one of the characters already said.  It does not deepen the understanding of the antagonists' motivation because they don't seem to have one.

The Heart

What this says to me is that the five suggestions above are good but can't be turned into a formula.  Once they get turned into a simple formula [do x, y, and z, and you get yourself a killer plot line] the humanity and depth of feeling they're supposed to convey go out the window.  There has to be a real sense of tragedy, an actual character with quirks and dialogue to care about.

Above all, we have to get the sense that the character cares.  If there is nothing convincing about her tragedy or character-building scenes, all the action and excitement in the world can't save the movie or the novel.  It all falls as flat as a cardboard cut out.   Start with a character who actually cares about someone or something.  All events in the story should build on that caring.  We should never lose the sense that she cares, just because we've moved on to another scene.  If we don't cry when she cries or laugh when she laughs, chances are, there is no depth of feeling to our scenes.  If the story isn't based first and foremost on humanity, on some aspect of the human condition, why tell it?  If there's no meaning, it's all a waste of time.  Find the meaning, the real heart of the character, and you'll find your story.

Fantasy Fiction as Metaphor

Once upon a time, I wrote fantasy novels.  I mentioned this in my first blog post on this blog.  I have two fantasy novels and plotlines that will never be completed because they ceased to be part of my identity after my baby died.  I moved on to LDS fiction because I can deal explicitly with topics meaningful to me such as mourning and healing.  

However, fantasy is my home base.  One day, I would like to go back.  But like mine was, so much of fantasy literature is simply about story and sometimes characters.  Its charm for so many, as it was for me, is in its escapist quality.  It takes one away from regular life.  But since my life has been altered so drastically, I don't see the point in spending the kinds of hours it takes to write a novel simply to tell a story that doesn't mean anything or change lives.  For me, genre fiction of any sort, particularly fantasy, science fiction, or adapted fairy tale, ought to be a metaphor for the human condition.  

For instance, if a character's struggles with his super or magical powers aren't a metaphor for disability or strange gifts or even simply differences from others, it doesn't mean much to the reader or audience.  In "Frozen," Elsa's ice power seems to me to be a metaphor for disability, which causes her isolation as well as her family's.  When one reads the movie like that, it can have so much more universal meaning.  Until I can tell a fantasy/science fiction/superhero/fairy tale story that brings in genre as a mode to share meaning and make a statement or tell an allegory, I don't see the point in going there.  

Oral tales told by generations from one generation to the next were all about reflecting the human condition.  Yet so many of our modern stories just don't.  They tell a story for the story's sake.  A lot of people like that kind of story, but I find I can't bring myself to write them anymore.  I don't want a fan to come up to me and rave about my story and what a great writer I am.  I want someone to come up to me and tell me how my words changed their life, helped them feel understood, etc.  If I'm going to go the route of these genres again, it will be because I have something meaningful to say through these vehicles.  Until then, I will stick with this foreign language [to me] of realistic fiction.