Re-envisioning a scene without rewriting it (originally appeared at The Other Side of the Story)

I'm going to talk about situations where you want to re-envision a scene without actually rewriting it completely.

To explain what I mean, I'll start by telling you about an interesting - and to me somewhat baffling - experience I had a few years ago. I met a young and talented writer in an online writing community and happily agreed to look at some of her work. I liked a lot about the story, the characters, etc. It did have issues, though, so on a couple of sections I gave her an in-depth critique, with my opinions, including how she might go about changing it to sharpen the focus. For each section she thanked me and sent me a revised version.

The revised versions were completely different.

It wasn't rephrasing, or even reworking. The scenes had been moved to entirely different locations, and just about everything about them was different. Again, they were quite well-written, but with issues. At that point I didn't know what comment to make any more, because I was terrified that I'd make her feel she had start all over for a second time.

What I tried to tell her then (with my apologies!) is what I'm trying to explain now. You don't need to start over. You can completely change the significance of a scene - what the scene means to the rest of the story - while hardly changing anything that happens in it. All you have to do is change what the events mean to your protagonist.

I have an example for you - I spent quite a while finding this one in my old files, but I had to. Why? Because Janice Hardy mentioned this very sequence when she asked me to do this post, which originally appeared as a guest post on her blog. In this scene, Dana is trying to make friends with her new roommate, Shannon. This tiny interaction went through four different iterations as I tried to figure out how Dana felt about Shannon's interest in the fact that she writes notes in her novels. Here's how it starts:

"Well," I [Dana] said, "a lot of famous authors write in their books. It's a sign of active engagement in the message."
And she didn't miss a beat. She put her hands on her hips and said, "God, Dana! 'Active engagement in the message' - that's awesome, you should totally major in English."

What changed was the few sentences that followed, specifically Dana's reaction to Shannon's comment. Here are the four versions, and my summary of the effect produced:

Version 1:
"Yeah, maybe," I said, all daring. "I love to write." For a second I thought that was it, I'd done it, my year with her was made.
And then Brian walked in the door.
Summary: Dana tries to be brave enough to accept Shannon and Brian wrecks the moment

Version 2:
I was speechless. Without even thinking, she just tore my secret hopes out of the safety of my heart and turned them into some stranger's ultimatum! How could she?
Before I could think of anything to say, Brian walked in the open door.
Summary: Dana resents Shannon's nosiness and is rescued by Brian.

Version 3:
What an amazing thing to say! She hit my dream straight on, as if she'd seen right into my heart; for a moment I was utterly convinced I'd had it right about her and me becoming friends. But before I could put words to my delight, Brian Bateson walked in our half-open door.
Summary: Dana feels a moment of true connection with Shannon but Brian interrupts.

Version 4 (final):
For a moment I was utterly convinced I would make it through, and that I'd been right about her and me connecting. But then she said, oh-so-slowly, "So, do you think you could tell if somebody was reading a magic book?" It felt like an insult. She was watching me intently, waiting for something, God knows what. Slowly I realized that this had to be some kind of test, maybe Shannon seeing if I had enough sense to laugh at my own escapist taste in literature. Before I could think of how to respond, Brian walked in our half-open door.
Summary: Dana hopes for connection with Shannon, but is subjected to a personal test, and Brian keeps her from knowing if she passed.

The difference between each these versions completely changed how my readers felt when Shannon and Brian got into an argument later in the same scene, and that influenced how their relationship came across for the entire book. That was why I spent so much effort fine-tuning it.

Now, you may be asking yourself, "Do I really need to do this?" Well, consider that you're sparing yourself the trouble of redoing the entire scene. Here are some spots to look at:

• The context in which a new character enters the story, which sets expectations about their future behavior.
• Any places where readers need the point-of-view character to give them a proper read on the motives of a minor character.
• Places where tension drops, character arcs seem to lose their drive, or character motives don't seem to match their behavior. (I'll return to this one in a minute.)

Any of these are good places to reconsider your protagonist's state of mind, and refine his or her reaction to the existing events. The third bullet point is my way of saying that this doesn't just apply to small interactions within a scene, but can also apply to larger sections of the text.

Here's an example of a chapter motive alteration from my current novel project.

Summary of the scene:
A young servant, Aloran, has a job interview with a family he's hoping to work for. It's the first time he's met the mistress, the person he would be working with most closely. Unfortunately, she's heard he's coming, and is terribly angry with her husband for inviting him (because he's firing her current servant without permission). She goes into a rage right in front of her husband and Aloran, making Aloran feel that he has failed in the interview. Later, however, he learns that she is actually going to hire him.

In version 1, Aloran went in feeling really keen to get the job. His apparent failure in the interview was a terrible disappointment, but he was so shocked by the mistress' behavior that he figured it was probably a good thing he failed. Then when he learned he was going to be hired, he was shocked and alarmed.

It made some sense, but something about it felt weak, and the chapter didn't seem to sustain tension and story drive. So I broke it down to look at the lead-in, the scene itself, and the exit from that scene, as follows.

The lead-in:
Here I found the first problem. Aloran's knowledge of the family had a lot of gaps. This helped explain how much he wanted the job, because he might not have wanted it if he'd known how twisted they were. But it was also implausible. Because of his resources (school advisor, etc), he would be able to access more information about the family than that.

The scene:
Another problem. The mistress flipping out seemed superficial as a reason for him to change his mind so thoroughly and dramatically.

The exit:
Because he changed his mind completely in the scene, that justified his reaction of shock and alarm later when he found he was hired - but it wasn't well-supported because of the problems mentioned above.

Obviously I needed to revise, but it wouldn't have made sense to get rid of the scene entirely. Aloran he has to get the job somehow, and the interview is an important step in this. Aloran also has to learn something important about the mistress during the scene, so he can't fail to see her. Showing it in a different point of view wouldn't make sense either, because it's what Aloran learns that he has to carry forward. Changing the mistress' reaction in the scene would call for a major change in her character that would gut the rest of the story. In fact, every word that is said in the scene remains the same, because the mistress and her husband have precisely the same relationship and interaction, and though Aloran might feel different, he can't show his feelings in front of a potential employer!

So the interview scene stays, along with the blocking and the dialogue. The difference lies in the internal states of the point of view character.

The new lead-in:
Aloran has plenty of information to make him feel ambivalent about this family. He comes into the scene hoping for some opportunity to screw up on purpose so that the family will reject him as a candidate. His only regret about this chosen course of action is the fact that he's heard about the mistress and how wonderful she is in comparison with the other family members.

The new scene:
Aloran is totally broadsided by the mistress' reaction of extreme anger. Because of his shock, he forgets his strategy and doesn't do anything deliberate to sabotage his chances. He decides that her behavior means he has been rejected.

The exit:
To his surprise, Aloran feels hurt by the mistress' reaction, and by the fact that she hasn't even given him a chance to show his quality. This is not a reaction he expected after planning to fail, but a gut reaction to the betrayal he feels after having heard how wonderful she is. Thus when he learns he has received the position, he is confused and frightened to be entering the family, but still harbors a hope that he hadn't expected, of seeing behind the mistress' anger - which motivates his actions once he starts working for the family.

What I'm asking you to do here is to consider how you might use your character's internalizations and mental states as a tool - a powerful tool that can completely change what a scene means, even while it leaves the essentials of the scene unchanged. It can help you keep your story drive, make sure your main character feels motivated, and keep the story flowing along smoothly. This is especially useful when you have a scene where you know a lot is right, but something feels wrong.

If you find yourself looking at a scene like this, break it down and consider:

1. the lead-in to the scene. Is anything missing? What does your character know, or feel, or anticipate?
2. the scene itself. Do the minor characters behave in a logical way? Can their actions be changed? How do they contribute to the overall flow of the arc or the larger story?
3. the exit from the scene. Does it fit well with where this character's arc needs to go next? Is it positive, or negative, or ambivalent? How does that contribute to the drive?

Good luck with your revisions!

Bringing characters together

Personal alliances can be critical to the success of a story. To me these include acquaintances, friendships, close friendships and romances. I find that it's really important, if I'm going to have two characters who have a friendship, to understand why it is that they are friends. One of the potential pitfalls of writing stories is that we can set up our cast of characters and place them on stage, announcing, "these people are friends" without deeply considering what they have in common and what brought them together. When we have two people fall in love, this can (I suppose) happen instantly and simply through pure physical attraction, but I like to consider a little more than just the "hhhot" factor when trying to get two people together. Indeed, I find it even more fun when the people are coming together in a more complicated way, as through adversity, overcoming dislike, becoming attracted without realizing it, etc.

I'm going to consider some basic alignment ingredients first, and then talk about engaging in the process of bringing two people together for an unlikely romance.

My current protagonist, Tagret, has three friends he always hangs around with. They have ended up together partly because they're all well-bred boys with a lot of money, a good deal of kindness, and an interest in school. However, each of them has an additional reason to hang around Tagret, and that affects how they deal with him. Gowan is very politically oriented, and not only does he like Tagret, but he recognizes the strength of Tagret's political position (through his father) and thinks it's advantageous to hang out with him because of that. This means the other boys are inclined to ask him for advice on political matters. Fernar is secretly attracted to Tagret, making him more inclined to physical games. He's also the strongest and everyone wants him on his side in a fight. Tagret's best friend is Reyn. Why? Because both of them share the experience of living alone with a sibling and a house full of servants while their parents have been sent to other cities for jobs. Because of this, they stick together and help each other through trouble more than the others. Details like these not only make it plausible that these boys would be friends, but allow each person to interact differently with the others.

We can think of these as things that the characters have in common. We can also bring characters closer in a story through letting them face adversity together. Events that bring characters closer are generally increasing the ways in which the two people align with one another.

Okay, so let's look at romance for a minute. The #1-A thing that everyone is going to think of to bring two people together is physical attraction. Yep, no surprise there. But particularly if a romance is going to be building over the course of an entire story, and ending in a lasting relationship rather than just a one-night stand, there has to be more to it than just hotness. I will tend to think of it in terms of two lists: 1. the list of things that separate the two people and 2. the list of things that they have in common. If I cause events to negate the effects of anything in list 2, the people will fall apart. If they are going instead to form a lasting relationship, any extremely serious objections or separation elements from list one have to be directly and deliberately countered by adding elements to list two.

In my Varin world, caste level distinctions are huge - cultural as well as legal - and not easily countered. One of the cross-caste relationships in my books results because a servant sees someone else disguised as another servant, and becomes both physically attracted to her and intellectually engaged with her before he realizes his mistake. Importantly, thought, he is also at the same time learning things about the historical origins of the caste distinctions that cause him to doubt what he'd always believed about them. Another relationship begins more subtly, because one of the characters feels so intimidated by the physicality of the other that his physicality impresses her more than his caste. Here the intimidation itself is an influence that keeps them apart - however, because it causes her to disregard his caste, I can then work on removing the sense of intimidation, and thereafter the caste factors will have less power to separate them.

I keep the alignment/separation lists in my mind when I'm writing conversations, and when I'm writing descriptions. If one character expresses unadulterated admiration for another, then that is going to suggest bringing them together - but it may not be realistic or appropriate for that person to express such admiration. I therefore play with ambivalence by putting expressions of admiration and separation in the same sentence or internalized description. "Alien but beautiful" might express one kind of ambivalence. "Possessing refined warmth" also suggests a contrast that might be meaningful to a different person.

Whenever we work with close relationships, we end up playing right along the edge of discomfort. Getting closer with someone else involves considerable risk. This should be reflected in the writing. Often events that tighten alignment also cause discomfort or a sense of invasion. Then the question becomes what to make of that discomfort - whether to soothe it, or to intensify it, etc. Discomfort is an opportunity for a writer who is trying to align two people, because situations that are uncomfortable are often perfect for initiating change in a person's mind.

When you're working with relationships in your stories, do take the time to ask yourself some questions like those below:
1. Why are these people friends? What specific things do they find most compelling about one another, and why?
2. Does this relationship require a backstory of specific aligning events, such as hardship? Or does it simply require basic common conditions?
3. How big a role does physical attraction play in the relationship between these characters?
4. What keeps or pulls these two people apart?
5. What ingredients might be able to counter the factors listed in question 4, and bring them together?
6. Can I use common experiences to erase the effects of prejudgment?
7. Can I align these two people in a similar way relative to a third party, event or task?
8. Are these people aware that they are coming together? If they are, how do they react to the knowledge? If they aren't, why aren't they? Is there something about the nature of the separation factors that keeps them from considering the possibility of their attraction?

Please be aware (though it should be no surprise to most of you) that I'm coming at these questions from a human-relations and anthropology viewpoint rather than a romance-writing viewpoint, so I can't speak to the particular requirements of the romance genre. However, I hope that these considerations can help you in thinking about relationships in your own work.

Blog Update

First off, I'm going to start by thanking all my readers. I totally love you guys and I'm so glad so many people care about the things I talk about! I have really enjoyed all the writing you folks have shown me, too - so many great ideas out there, and they're really fun to articulate with.

I've been very pleased with the way my blog has been working with the structured system I've instituted, which very basically speaking works like this: a writing post on a Monday, a "Retro" post on a Tuesday, Worldbuilding Workshop on Wednesday, Culture Share on Thursday, and free choice on Fridays. What I'm finding right now, though, with the demands on my time at the end of the school year combined with being in the thick of novel-writing (not to mention my short stories!) is that I'm getting overloaded. Those of you who follow the Worldbuilding Workshop will have noticed that I didn't manage to get posts up the past two weeks, and I apologize. The fact is, those posts are the most intensive of all the posts I do, and generally take two hours or more to write. You may be able to see where I'm going...

I'm going to be keeping the general structure of the week on the blog, but I'm going to be shifting Worldbuilding Wednesday slightly away from the intensive analysis posts, and onto more worldbuilding topic-based posts. You are still welcome to submit to the Workshop, but when I get Workshop posts up will depend on when I can find the time to invest in them. I'm hoping this will mean less stress for me, and also mean that I can give content on both Wednesdays and Fridays without burning myself out early in the week.

I am of course always looking for new posts for The Writer's International Culture Share. I have had a great response from readers, and I have a few posts coming up here that I'm really excited about. If you have had an experience living outside your own culture, or if you feel the specific details of your local culture would be of interest to people around the world, please contact me!

I'm going to make a special request to all my American readers here. One of the things I noticed while living in Japan was how much American culture was seen as a monolith by my hosts. It's easy for people to draw conclusions from movies and the media that "America is like this" when of course we know it's full of complex and fascinating local cultures. So far I've seen a lot of entries from countries all over the world, but I'm hoping some of you will feel inspired to talk about your local culture, and illuminate the fine details of religion, folklore, and cultural practices of US regions as well as those of other countries. Look around you and see if you can find an inspiration, because I'd love to hear from you!

Thanks again for being awesome, all of you. TalkToYoUniverse continues to be one of the most worthwhile projects I've ever engaged in, and a lot of that is thanks to you.

Juliette

Interesting link about the origins of Japanese

My mother kindly sent me this link today, from the New York Times. This linguist theorizes that Japonic, which gave rise to Japanese and Ryukyuan, originated with the Yayoi people of the Korean peninsula. Interestingly, the article also mentions the political consequences of such theories of language origin.

Culture Share: Netherlands - Bicycles in the Netherlands by Corinne Duyvis

This post is part of The Writer's International Culture Share, in which writers discuss their personal experience with world cultures: Corinne Duyvis discusses bicycles in the Netherlands.

Bicycles in the Netherlands by Corinne Duyvis

If you've ever been to the Netherlands, you'll probably have noticed that we like our bicycles.

We like them a lot.

The Dutch landscape, being approximately as flat as the computer screen you're looking at right now, lends itself perfectly to cycling. Given that most of our cities were built long before the invention of cars, we also tend to have narrow streets, with very little space to ride a car, let alone park it. For that reason, our cities encourage bikes or public transport as a means of getting around.

Add that to the fact that biking is pretty well engrained into our national consciousness...

Well. It means a lot of bikes.

It also means the following things (note that this is written from the perspective of someone who's lived in Amsterdam all her life, and it might be different in other/smaller cities):

* Practically everybody learns to bike from a very young age; kids get their first bike the moment they're able to walk.

* We bike everywhere. To school, to work, to the supermarket, to concerts, to the train station. Everywhere.

* We don't wear any special clothing on our bicycles. Bicycle shorts and helmets are reserved for hardcore sports cyclists and small children.

* We bike whenever. Midnight. In the snow. In the wind. In the rain. (That's what ponchos are for, after all. I've even seen a few special-made bike umbrellas.)

* Amsterdam has more bikes than inhabitants.

* Getting your tyre caught in a tram rail is always a risk.

* Sometimes people walk their dogs by bike.

* The police will patrol using bikes.

* We text while cycling. (I'm sure some even play Angry Birds.)

* We have separate bike paths, plus bike traffic lights to go with them.

* Depending on the time and place, it's perfectly normal to have a good ten or more cyclists waiting at a single traffic light.

* There are bicycle racks to park your bikes all over the city. Practically every non-residential street has several. (Even some residential streets have them.)

* Many buildings will also have basements to park your bike in -- both my old high school and former place of employment had these. Separate bike garages also exist.

* None of this will stop a true Amsterdammer from chaining their bike to whatever stationary item crosses their path. Bridge railings, street lights, trees, and "do not park your bike here" signs are especially popular.

* Bike theft is a huge problem. If you're smart, you'll carry at least one extra lock with you and you'll loop it through both the frame, the wheel, and Stationary Item X, because loads of thieves will just leave the wheel behind and take the rest of the bike -- or will take only the wheel to supplement other wheel-less stolen bikes. It's bizarre how many people fail to do this and end up surprised when their bikes are missing an hour later.

* Abandoned bikes are a problem, too. The city will tag bikes that have been standing around for too long; if they're still there a couple of weeks later, they cut the locks and take them with them.

* In a similar way, thieves will steal bikes en masse: They rent a truck and just toss any bike not chained to something on there.

* We have special bike compartments in trains -- and you'll need to purchase a special bike ticket to be able to travel with them.

* We'll have grandmothers in evening wear biking to a classical piano concert; fathers biking home from the grocery store, dog in a basket up front, a kid in the seat on the back, and a heavy grocery bag dangling from the handlebars; businesspeople in full suits biking to and from work, suitcase strapped on the back; and teens balancing a crate of beer on their laps or the handlebars.

Corinne Duyvis lives in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

TTYU Retro: Companions

Companions. Doctor Who is famous for them - Leela, Peri, Sarah Jane Smith, Adric, etc, etc - but almost everyone has them. In some cases they're sidekicks of a sort for a single main character. In other cases a larger group sticks together. Frodo has Sam. Aang has Katara, Sokka, Toff (and Appa!). Zuko has Iroh. The list could go on and on.

Why are companions so important?

One reason is social realism. There aren't that many complete loners out there. People have friends that they live their lives with.

Another reason is that the main character needs help. When you look at the Avatar group (Sokka wanted to call them "team Avatar" I believe), it's balanced between different types of people. There's an air-bender, a water-bender, an earth-bender and a warrior. That gives them a wide range of skills and strengths that they can use to get through their stories successfully.

Another big reason is information management. The Doctor has mountains of specialized skills and knowledge - because he's a Time Lord! - but without the companions he'd have no reason to explain any of it. If you have a major character who's an incredible specialist on some topic, you can always show him or her doing what he/she is good at... but if you build in an information imbalance between that person and someone else, it gives him/her an opportunity to explain where that skill came from, or how it works, or any number of other things that would otherwise feel like blatant infodumping.

Conflict is another reason to have companions. Conflict can serve the purposes of information management, as when two people start arguing and that lets them divulge information to the reader that the characters already know (without using as-you-know-Bobs), but I've separated it out because it actually does a lot more than that. Conflict is an enormous source of drive in the plot. Ongoing disputes (of the right variety) between a character and her companion can influence where the story goes and keep us wanting to see what happens. Conflict can also drive character development.

Dealing with an introverted character is a lot easier if that person has a companion. You can make good use of internalized thoughts when you're working with the written rather than the visual medium, but still, internalization can only take you so far. A companion gives the introverted character a reason to try to speak - or perhaps a reason to try not to speak! A companion will bring certain topics into the introverted person's thoughts. Appa gives Aang a reason to talk out loud even when he's alone, which is very useful to the storyteller who can't make any use of internalization. This is also a big motivator behind the presence of animal sidekicks in the Disney movies (that, and humor).

Companions also create wonderful opportunities to explore language. Some companions maintain an ongoing banter which can really add to the ambiance of the whole story. Their talk can be helpful for a story not only for content reasons, but for dialect reasons, and for the way it reveals aspects of the social contract in the community from which they (or each one) comes.

I'm not going to end this by saying you need to go off and give your protagonist a companion. Sometimes that's the right thing for a story, and sometimes it isn't - but it's worth considering. Even if the companionship is short-lived within the story, it can still be a valuable addition to what you're creating.

Chances are that if you've gotten much of a story written (especially a novel) you already have companions built into it. If you do, then it's worth looking at them and thinking explicitly about how they are functioning and what kind of work they are doing for you, the writer, as well as what they're doing for the other characters. That way you can deepen them, tune them, and strengthen them so that they're making a bigger difference for your story.

It's something to think about.

A different take on following the writing dream

Last week I read a very interesting, inspiring post from Sarah Ockler about following one's writing dreams, here. "Don't Plan B your dreams," she says. Don't listen to the people who say you can't make any money doing it, or who say it's a hobby not a career, etc.

I entirely agree. I discovered there was a fire for storytelling in my soul, and once I gave it fuel, there was no stopping it.

But.

1. I didn't make this discovery until I was 29 years old
2. The reason my writing dream has been realized is because of what I experienced before I started writing - my travels overseas, and my Ph.D. study which helped me in both content and writing technique.

The conclusion I draw from this is that you can benefit greatly from having something else. Call it what you will - an alternate interest, a backup plan, a money-making career, or just writing research - but find something that you are good at, that you have a passion for besides writing, and dive deep into it. If it can serve as a backup plan and money-maker, so much the better. But it will certainly help you in a writing career.

Why?

I traveled a very long way down the road toward an academic career, studying Japanese, Anthropology, Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, etc. My writing reflects this. Part of what they talk to you about when they ("they") discuss getting published is standing out from the rest of the writing that is going on out there - and the fact is, what makes you unique is your own experience. The things you've learned, the books you've read, the people you've met; everything contributes. My world of Varin started with a very simple fantasy premise, but grew into something totally different because of the way I started using my academic experience to feed it. I have a different take on Japan-related stories because I have lived in Japan and read Japanese literature and gone to Noh plays and visited tons and tons of shrines and temples (I love shrines and temples!). I am a published author today not simply because I felt dissatisfied with a Star Trek premise (Darmok) and wanted to have my own take on it, but because I was able to reduce that premise to its components, build an entirely different society around it, and take it in a new direction. That is all thanks to the things I did before I knew I was a writer.

What if you already know you are a writer?

Well of course, you write. Of course, you refuse to listen to those people who tell you it's not an activity worth pursuing - and you pursue it, and do all those great things that you need to do to improve yourself and get closer to the realization of your dream of writing marvels.

But don't forget personal and professional development. Read widely. Go places. Meet people. If you're headed to a job, keep your writer's eye open, because you can learn a lot about character and dialogue from personal interactions you see. You can also learn a lot about institutions and how they work. Take your personal experiences and try to look at them on the meta-level so they can work for you.

Make sure to keep aware of what feeds your energy and what saps it. If you're in a job that makes you scream and exhausts your brain so you have nothing left for the page at the end of the day, try to cultivate something else.

Your writing dream is worth pursuing. So much worth pursuing, in fact, that it's worth making the other parts of your life contribute to it - and worth pursuing things besides writing in order to make your writing richer, and get you closer to realizing your dream.