A Title that Grabs

I've been blogging about writing in a literary fashion.  Recently, I talked about the need to ensure your first line is an attention-grabber.  Even before a reader can find your awesome first line, they must first pick up or click on the book.  To get them to do that, you must find a title that makes a reader want to learn more.  

Now, it's a given that the final title isn't always entirely up to the writer.  The writer chooses a working title, but the publisher or others may have input as well.  As much as possible, however, the writer ought to give the title a lot of thought.  It must be the kind of title that reveals and conceals, that gives the reader just enough of what the story is about without giving away too much.  

One obvious and common titling method that has stood the test of time is choosing a name for a title, often the main character's name. Jane Eyre.  David Copperfield.  Oliver Twist.  Tristram Shandy.  Emma.  The Count of Monte Cristo.  If the location plays a major role, that could also be a possibility like Mansfield Park or Wuthering Heights.  However, this kind of title may not cut it in the modern world with so much competition.  If a reader doesn't know who this Emma is or where Mansfield Park is, what makes a reader care?  A lot of titles use the name plus something about the plot, something to hint at the genre as well.  Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone.   Okay, it's obviously about one character's experience with magic.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians (series title).  Mythology?  Okay.  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  Adventure sounds good.  This addition may intrigue the reader just enough that he/she is willing to pick up a book to find out who this Harry or Percy or Huckleberry guy may be.  

However, a lot of titles don't mention the main character at all.  So what do you choose?  Some authors choose major themes like Crime and Punishment, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, or War and Peace. These may seem a bit esoteric or more philosophical than a modern reader may want to explore, though these titles alone would appeal to some.  Think about a critical image or symbol like The Picture of Dorian Gray, Of Mice and Men, Moby Dick, Grapes of Wrath, Les Miserables, Animal Farm, The Tempest, or A Tale of Two Cities.  This kind of title may appeal to a lot of readers, especially if it's an intriguing and unique symbol, one that captures the reader's imagination.  This can be particularly successful and literary if the book, itself, makes the symbol or image carry so much more meaning.  A picture of some random guy named Dorian is intriguing, but a magical picture that magically reflects a character's soul?  That's deep.  Mice and men are common in this world, but when they become so closely paralleled and their fates tied together?  Wow.  Grapes of Wrath as a symbol draws on biblical imagery, as a lot of successful literary works do, but in the case of the novel, this image brings a lot of that imagery into the modern world, making it mean so much more.  

Really, when it comes to titles, anything intriguing, meaningful, and reflective of the story can work.  But it takes a lot of thought to come up with just the right concealing/revealing sort of title, something that invites as many questions as it answers.  It may also help to look through titles that have worked for others.  Best of luck coming up with just the right title for your amazing piece.  

Leave it Fallow

I've been blogging about writing more literarily. This blog is simply about a technique that a lot of writers use to give them distance as they approach editing.  As one writes, magic happens.  Characters that have been extensively described, drawn, outlined, etc. come to life on the page.  Settings come to vivid color with their visceral scents, sounds, sights, and flavors.  The writer dives into a world, either meant to represent something real or imagined.  The writer often comes close to the material, bonding in a way that is unlike anything else.  You, as the writer, come so close to the material that it hurts to cut anything.  This is why writers need distance from the piece before you can begin to edit. 

How does one achieve said distance?  As with most things, the best way to achieve distance is through letting time pass before editing.  How much time is entirely up to the writer.  It could be a few days, a few weeks, or even a few years.  Sometimes, there is no option to dive right into editing.  But, for me, the ideal is to let as much time as can be managed before editing. 

When I edit something I just wrote, I'm in the same place intellectually, emotionally, and physically that I was when I wrote it.  At best, I'll find the things I considered faulty in the first place, grammar issues, spelling issues, and other such glaring issues.  But I can't really rethink the concept, characters, and shape of the piece.  I wanted it like like this, so like this it must be. 

However, if you can allow yourself a week, a month, a year, or more while you work on other pieces, this would be ideal because then, you can see it from a bit of a distance.  You can see better what works, and what doesn't.  If you can get the help of heads outside your own, you can achieve even greater distance.  As I go back and revise short stories I wrote years ago, I don't even remember what I was thinking the first time.  I can slash out large spans of wordiness, rename and revamp characters, delete adverbs, redirect the whole story, and just make it better because I'm no longer the writer I used to be.  If I've been refining my skills, I will better know how to tackle what once looked fine to me. 

Look at the pieces you just wrote.  Then, set them aside.  Go back to something you wrote sometime ago.  It's now the perfect time to revise. 

First Lines

I've been blogging about how to write in a more literary fashion.  Much has been written about first lines.  They really need to catch the reader.  A title and interesting cover buys you a couple of seconds' perusal.  An expert in the field may tell you the first line gets you the first paragraph.  The first paragraph gets you the first page.  The first page may get you the first chapter, which may get that reader sticking through to the end of your book, which may just get them reading your next book and beyond.  It (almost) all starts with that first line, assuming your title and cover (over which not all writers have control) are powerful enough.  A first line is critical to hooking your reader.

So what makes a good first line?  It often can be something with a mystery, something that leaves your reader asking questions.  Google first lines or get your hands on a collection of great first lines.  Then ask yourself what makes them tick?  "Call me Ishmael" from Herman Melville's Moby Dick seems, at first blush, like a simple introduction until one starts questioning if that's this character's first name, and why he'd choose Ishmael of all names if it isn't.  It gets the reader asking questions.  Orwell's 1984 leaves the reader absolutely mystified with its at first mundane, "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were all striking 13."  One is immediately stricken with questions about how this is possible and with the thought that such a world would have Aprils and o'clocks, such a normal, expected thing, but not stop at 12.  Military time, maybe?  But one must read on.  Ralph Ellison's opener, "I am an invisible man," which mentions the title in that very first line, makes one pause because the reader can't decide if this is literal or metaphoric, and what this could mean.  Dickens's David Copperfield asks the question we never thought to ask because it seems self-evident, "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."  How could he be anything but the hero of his own story, one is left to wonder.  There are countless examples, and not all start on a question.  However, enough of them do that it seems a good strategy.

Many classics start with long-winded, eternal lines that just don't end, but that strategy would be a tough sell in the modern age.  For some funny (and intentional) crappy first lines, please go to the Bulwer-Lytton contest and maybe enter the contest. But don't, I repeat don't, do anything anyone there does.  Also read through several first lines of modern novels.

Remember as well that it helps if your first line or lines bear a quirky or interesting voice like the first line in the Harry Potter series.  "Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense." Not only does this leave one asking how such normal people can be important to a popular fantasy series, but it also is stated in such a tongue-in-cheek and quirky way.  Likewise, Rick Riordan's popular Percy Jackson starts with quirky voice and on lines that raise questions.  "Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.  If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now."  The narrator speaks to the reader in a way that invades his/her space and makes the action to come seem very real, like it could really happen.  It also asks the question, "What is a half-blood?"  The reader ceases to be just a passive observer and becomes part of the story.  It also works with reverse psychology.  The narrator is telling me to put this book down, which means I have to keep reading.  

Go to your first line(s).  Does it ask questions?  Is it in your particular voice?  Does it make the reader want MORE?  If not, it's time to read more examples and find out how to craft that first line in a way that draws your reader in.  

Wants and Needs

I've been blogging about how to write more literarily, but this is more of a basic concept.  It's that every character, large or small, that enters the stage of your narrative needs a motivation, especially the important ones.  How many people do you know who do things for no reason?  In reality, it may happen.  However, generally, people in real life do everything they do for some reason.  If you have a man standing on the street corner, but he doesn't seem to go anywhere or do anything, what's the purpose of even mentioning him?  A character's motivation may be selfish or selfless or anything in between.  These desires and drives shape the story as characters act on them.

It helps to heighten the drama of a story if those wants are at odds, and even more so if what drives the character is different then what others or even they, themselves, think..  Let's look at Jane Austen's Emma, for example.  Emma pushes Harriet into a fake relationship with Elton.  Why?  Because she wants to feel pride in a match well made.  The relationship doesn't work because Elton's motivation for all he does (spoiler alert) is to impress Emma, and Harriet's motivation is eagerness to please.  No one in this situation is motivated by love in this "love match," so drama ensues.  If Emma's desire had been true concern and love for a friend, Elton's had been love for Harriet, and Harriet's had been love for Elton, as in the fiction Emma paints for herself in her imagination, there would have been no drama.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is all about characters trying to read each other's opposing motivations.  The spirit of Hamlet's late father pushes him to take revenge on his murderous uncle.  His uncle watches Hamlet to read his motivation, even while Hamlet returns the favor.  Hamlet plays the fool while searching his soul and those around him for a motivation and drive to obey his father's will.  Ophelia gives up the fight toward trying to read Hamlet and takes herself out of the narrative.  The tension of the story is in the reading and misreading of others as they all struggle toward a resolution.

Sometimes, a motivation can be short-term, as in for just one scene.  Harry Potter's need to solve the riddle of the golden egg in the fourth book drives just one section of the book.  That drive conflicts with his desire to deal with other issues around him, so this motivation gets put off until others spell out how to solve the mystery.  The motivation of his seeming-ally, though at first appears altruistic, ends up bringing on the true danger and climax of the book.  Although Harry's motivation is temporary and not even that strong, that of his unseen enemy carries him through to the end in a way that is critical to the story arc of not just the book but the entire series. Motivations can vary in strength and conflict with each other, even in the same story and character, but all of them need to be believable to the reader.

What are your characters' most basic motivations?  What do they want?  Look at both the broad plot and individual scenes to figure out if the motivations are clear to the reader, even if they aren't to the characters.  Are there places that characters confusing each others'--or even their own--motivations could heighten the drama?

Verbing Nouns

I've been blogging about writing in a literary fashion.  This one is more about how to write in a modern literary fashion.  Once upon a time, if a writer wanted to get expressive, they'd say it with adverbs.  "Adverbs!" said the character observantly.  That style doesn't work with modern literature.

Writing with passive tenses, spicing it up with adverbs, is now considered a sign of novice writing.  Editors advocate using "said," "asked," or "yelled" then a short dialogue tag, possibly including action since dialogue tags should practically disappear.  Interesting verbs should take the place of adverbs wherever possible--outside of dialogue tags--and adverbs should all but disappear.  "Adverbs are a no go," George said, stomping his foot.  Writing this way tends to be more punchy and powerful.

Many writers take potent, brief writing one step further by changing a noun into a verb to create something new.  This is a form of what's officially called "anthimeria."  If you googled for information, hashtagged a post, eBayed your old stuff, friended someone on FaceBook, or YouTubed your video, you're already verbing nouns.  Some of these usages, like the above, enter the language and become permanent.

This technique can be used in writing to make your voice unique. The comic Calvin and Hobbes says, "Verbing weirds language," thereby showing how this is done with not one but two words in a unique way.  But "weirding" language also freshens it.  This has been done over the years, such as when Jane Austen in Emma writes, "Let me not suppose that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!" A reader of the book knows this verbed noun references matchmaking.  Even Shakespeare occasionally did this such as in King Lear,  "The thunder would not peace at my bidding." This is not a new technique. 

However, verbing nouns has become more common in modern writing, and it makes writing sound fresh and unique.  Kate Daniels, for instance, used it in In the Marvelous Dimension with the line, "Until then, I'd never liked petunias, their heavy stems, the peculiar spittooning sound of their name."  The word "spittoon" has become a verb/adjective instead of a noun.  In The Lamorna Wink, Martha Grimes writes about a character who "was marmalading a scone."  Verbing nouns cuts out possibly unnecessary words and gets right to the point in a fresh way. 

Now read through your writing.  Where have you used adverbs?  Is there a noun or even a verbed noun you can use there instead to make your writing powerful and fresh?  Best of luck using this technique. 

The Importance of Reading

It's been said many times, but I'll say it again: read what you want to write.  If you want to write like Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, J.K.Rowling, or anyone else, read.  You can read as many blogs, as many how-to books, as many guides as you want, but the best way to really get to know your genre is to read it.  If you're a poet, immerse yourself in poetry.  If you want to be a poet, but you're reading historical romance, the wrong voice is likely to rub off on your writing. 

I find my voice best when I'm reading books that have the voice I want to emulate. If I'm writing a romance, my work is at its best when I have recently read a string of romances along the lines of what I want to write.  If I want to write profound literary fiction, I should sink deeply into the world of literary fiction to get a sense of how they do it.  If I want to write light and humorous fiction, that's exactly what I should read.  My young adult fiction is at its best when I've just read Rick Riordan, Harry Potter, and others that have a unique style.  No matter what genre I wish to write in, it's always best when I read books like those I want to write.  What are you writing?  Go find something like it, o you have a sense of how to do it.  Then, you'll know comparable pieces when it's time to publish. 

Beware of Hopping Heads

I've been blogging about how to write more literarily.  This one is actually how to write more like modern literature rather than traditional literature, with a focus on modern YA literature.  There was a time that the distant, omniscient narrator was the way of all writing.  A writer could tell you what was happening in John's head one paragraph, Sylvia's the next, and their garbage man a third.  The writer could play a wild game of checkers, with pieces in their command moving however they wanted. 

Now, readers, as a rule, prefer the intensity of learning the interior world of one, two, or a select few characters.  They like first-person or third-person limited.  Readers, especially young readers, like a book like Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series in which we follow the ins and outs of one character in first-person.  They also like Riordan's Heroes of Olympus series, wherein there are multiple perspectival characters, but we follow in third-person one character for a chapter or a few chapters then switch to another for more chapters.  Or, they like J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series in which we never leave Harry's head.  He may observe Voldemort through his dreams, but we're still firmly in Harry's mind. 

Older literature, even children's literature, hops heads all the time, without chapter changes or even section changes.  If you pick up books like Tamora Pierce's Lioness Rampant series or even Roald Dahl's Matilda, among several others, a narrator can hop heads two, three, four or more times a chapter.  At the time, this was the norm, just how they did it.  Now, a writer is advised to avoid such random head-hopping. 

If you want to hop heads, it's a rule of thumb to make at least chapter or section divisions.  If I want to appeal to a modern reader and editor, I'll no longer write, "John looked at Sylvia and marveled at her beauty.  She looked back at John and wondered when he would take a shower."  Instead, I'll write, "John's longing eyes turned toward Sylvia's lovely face only to catch her nose wrinkle and eye roll as she leaned away from him."  I see her response to the world through her body language but firmly remain in his head, at least this chapter.  Next chapter, I can hang out in her head a while.  Or I can just stick with John the whole book, reading the world through his eyes. 

Go through something you've written recently.  Is there any section in which you're intentionally or unintentionally jumping from head to head like on the 90's series "Quantum Leap," without changing sections or chapters?  Is there a time in the middle of one section where your character, mind-reader like, magically knows what someone else is thinking or what actually motivates another WITHOUT having telepathy?  If so, it's time to tweak your writing to avoid head-hopping.  Your reader will thank you for it.