I thought you guys might enjoy this cute link, which describes words in other languages that can't be directly translated into English. I think the two I'm most likely to adopt in my own speech are "tartle," the feeling of panic you get just before having to introduce someone whose name you don't remember (Scotland), and "pelinti," moving hot food around in your mouth so you don't burn your tongue (Ghana).
Don't forget that the hangout is going ahead today at 11am PST on Google+! I hope to see you there!
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
TTYU Retro: What your character doesn't know can hurt him/her (in dialogue and internalization)
To get this topic started, I'm going to start with an example. The following exchange is one I revised some time ago:
Initial Draft:
"Young master," said the First Houseman's quiet voice. "The Arbiter of the First Family Council..."
"Oh, thank you, Serjer," said Tagaret. "Has he sent a reply?"
"He has come to see you, sir."
Revised Draft:
"Young master," said the First Houseman's quiet voice. "The Arbiter of the First Family Council..."
"Oh, thank you, Serjer," said Tagaret. "What does he say?"
"He has come to see you, sir."
The difference isn't huge, but it is important. I changed Tagaret's question from "Has he sent a reply?" to "What does he say?" The reason I changed it is because in writing the first question, I had lost sight of what Tagaret knows and expects - specifically, that Tagaret would automatically interpret his servant's mention of the Arbiter to mean that a message had been received. He would not ask whether there was a message. He would ask what the message was. That still leaves plenty of room for him to be surprised that the Arbiter has come to see him, and it keeps him from seeming dazed or appearing to point out the obvious. Here's my point:
What your character says and thinks will change completely based on previous knowledge and expectations.
Possibly the mystery/police procedural writers know this best. Entire plots can hinge on a slip of the perpetrator's tongue, something to indicate the person knows more than he/she claims. "No, I haven't seen Grizelda's goldfish." "Aha, but I never told you what Grizelda had lost!"
This is also an excellent way to reveal a character's bias. Here's another example from yesterday: Tagaret wants to reveal to the Arbiter that his brother has a congenital mental problem, but first he asks the Arbiter to promise not to blame his mother - a promise that the Arbiter readily agrees to because he's a nice person. The way he talks about it afterward, though, reveals his position on the underlying matter.
"You've already said you wish to protect your mother for her involvement..."
The Arbiter, helpful as he is, does believe that the mother is responsible for the problem with her son. If he did not feel that way, he would say something like,
"You've already said you wish to protect your mother from any accusation..."
When I'm critiquing, there are two types of problems I typically see which arise from the writer not keeping the character's knowledge and expectations in mind. The first one is when a character seems not to know basic parameters of interaction in his/her society. This is pretty common in early drafts where all the details of a world haven't yet been worked out, so it's not necessarily a huge problem, but it's still one that needs to be addressed before the final draft. If the character is speaking or internalizing on the basis of a relatively blank slate, in the worst case he or she may appear shallow or stupid. Watch out particularly for the less extreme case, when a character may appear younger than the age the writer specifies. This is very often due to insufficient evidence of social knowledge in the character's actions, speech and thought.
The second type of issue I run into is what I'll call over-instruction. The character doesn't naturally demonstrate bias or social knowledge through phrasing in dialogue and thought, so the writer realizes that the reader may forget that this person is biased and society works in the way it does... and has the character make overt statements of bias or explanations of social structure. This isn't always quite as obvious as "as-you-know-Bob" dialogue, but it's worth watching out for.
Avoiding over-instruction is not the same as avoiding instruction altogether. There are plenty of contexts when people (particularly young people, but also adults) get instructed about how the world is supposed to work. However, it's important if you're going to include instruction to make sure that you're not solely acting as an author instructing your reader, but that the context of instruction is also one that would occur naturally in your society. In my book, the Arbiter's job is something like that of a high school guidance counselor, so he's full of advice, even in the same conversation:
"Tagaret, you need a manservant, and you need one now. Do you want to remain helpless until the end of Selection?"
"You'll need to write your own inquiry letter, but you may use this one as an example."
"You realize any manservant would have [saved your life]... You can't afford to let fondness influence your treatment of servants. Given your brother's current position, we need you to be as strong as possible, politically."
Notice that Erex is ready to tell Tagaret that he's showing too much fondness for a particular servant - but he doesn't bother saying anything about where servants rank, or whether they have value, because he considers that evident (his own servant is standing right behind him at the time). He makes the instructional point in order to get to what he considers more important and central to the conversation, namely Tagaret's reputation as a potentially strong political force.
It's something to think about.
For those of you who have been anticipating my return to worldbuilding hangouts, I'll officially be resuming those tomorrow, Thursday, January 17th. I'm looking forward to chatting with you all about how to keep rich worldbuilding from bogging down your story!
Initial Draft:
"Young master," said the First Houseman's quiet voice. "The Arbiter of the First Family Council..."
"Oh, thank you, Serjer," said Tagaret. "Has he sent a reply?"
"He has come to see you, sir."
Revised Draft:
"Young master," said the First Houseman's quiet voice. "The Arbiter of the First Family Council..."
"Oh, thank you, Serjer," said Tagaret. "What does he say?"
"He has come to see you, sir."
The difference isn't huge, but it is important. I changed Tagaret's question from "Has he sent a reply?" to "What does he say?" The reason I changed it is because in writing the first question, I had lost sight of what Tagaret knows and expects - specifically, that Tagaret would automatically interpret his servant's mention of the Arbiter to mean that a message had been received. He would not ask whether there was a message. He would ask what the message was. That still leaves plenty of room for him to be surprised that the Arbiter has come to see him, and it keeps him from seeming dazed or appearing to point out the obvious. Here's my point:
What your character says and thinks will change completely based on previous knowledge and expectations.
Possibly the mystery/police procedural writers know this best. Entire plots can hinge on a slip of the perpetrator's tongue, something to indicate the person knows more than he/she claims. "No, I haven't seen Grizelda's goldfish." "Aha, but I never told you what Grizelda had lost!"
This is also an excellent way to reveal a character's bias. Here's another example from yesterday: Tagaret wants to reveal to the Arbiter that his brother has a congenital mental problem, but first he asks the Arbiter to promise not to blame his mother - a promise that the Arbiter readily agrees to because he's a nice person. The way he talks about it afterward, though, reveals his position on the underlying matter.
"You've already said you wish to protect your mother for her involvement..."
The Arbiter, helpful as he is, does believe that the mother is responsible for the problem with her son. If he did not feel that way, he would say something like,
"You've already said you wish to protect your mother from any accusation..."
When I'm critiquing, there are two types of problems I typically see which arise from the writer not keeping the character's knowledge and expectations in mind. The first one is when a character seems not to know basic parameters of interaction in his/her society. This is pretty common in early drafts where all the details of a world haven't yet been worked out, so it's not necessarily a huge problem, but it's still one that needs to be addressed before the final draft. If the character is speaking or internalizing on the basis of a relatively blank slate, in the worst case he or she may appear shallow or stupid. Watch out particularly for the less extreme case, when a character may appear younger than the age the writer specifies. This is very often due to insufficient evidence of social knowledge in the character's actions, speech and thought.
The second type of issue I run into is what I'll call over-instruction. The character doesn't naturally demonstrate bias or social knowledge through phrasing in dialogue and thought, so the writer realizes that the reader may forget that this person is biased and society works in the way it does... and has the character make overt statements of bias or explanations of social structure. This isn't always quite as obvious as "as-you-know-Bob" dialogue, but it's worth watching out for.
Avoiding over-instruction is not the same as avoiding instruction altogether. There are plenty of contexts when people (particularly young people, but also adults) get instructed about how the world is supposed to work. However, it's important if you're going to include instruction to make sure that you're not solely acting as an author instructing your reader, but that the context of instruction is also one that would occur naturally in your society. In my book, the Arbiter's job is something like that of a high school guidance counselor, so he's full of advice, even in the same conversation:
"Tagaret, you need a manservant, and you need one now. Do you want to remain helpless until the end of Selection?"
"You'll need to write your own inquiry letter, but you may use this one as an example."
"You realize any manservant would have [saved your life]... You can't afford to let fondness influence your treatment of servants. Given your brother's current position, we need you to be as strong as possible, politically."
Notice that Erex is ready to tell Tagaret that he's showing too much fondness for a particular servant - but he doesn't bother saying anything about where servants rank, or whether they have value, because he considers that evident (his own servant is standing right behind him at the time). He makes the instructional point in order to get to what he considers more important and central to the conversation, namely Tagaret's reputation as a potentially strong political force.
It's something to think about.
For those of you who have been anticipating my return to worldbuilding hangouts, I'll officially be resuming those tomorrow, Thursday, January 17th. I'm looking forward to chatting with you all about how to keep rich worldbuilding from bogging down your story!
Monday, January 14, 2013
Watch out for ING. It may be weaken-ing your story.
I've heard a lot of writing advice, and I've heard about a lot of things to avoid when writing. Maybe you've heard people tell you to avoid adverbs. Maybe you've heard them tell you to avoid passive voice. I'm not the kind of person to say "avoid doing X at all costs," so I won't tell you to expunge all adverbs from your work, or never to use the passive. I will, however, tell you that whenever you use a word or a grammatical construction, you should know why you are doing it and what its effect is.
On that note, I'm going to try to bring "over ING-ing" to your attention.
The suffix -ing is extremely common. You can find it in places like the question, "What are you doing with that suffix?" or like the statement "Abusing the suffix -ing is unconscionable." I'll tell you right now that you won't be able to avoid it completely. However, overuse of ING can weaken your story significantly. So let's think about what it does.
I found this article about the grammatical functions of -ing that gives you a pretty good idea of your options. They quote the following list of different ways you can use the word "painting" in a sentence (emphasis added):
What is the relevance of this to story writing?
Let's start with the present progressive. It creates the impression of an ongoing state by placing us inside the moment when the activity is going on.
I am walking.
I am walking to school.
Notice that if I am walking to school, the presence of school as a prospective end point for my walking doesn't change the subjective impression that I am floating in the middle of the activity, suspended for whatever amount of time necessary. One of the things that the present progressive can do for you is set up a state of suspense that can then be interrupted (I do this a lot in my stories):
I was walking to school when I first saw the stranger girl.
The simple past "saw" is the event that interrupts the sense of suspension inherent in "walking." Terrific, and it's a great thing to be able to do - but as with most things we encounter in our writing, it can be overused. Variation in syntax is really important for flow, because people will notice if you use the present-progressive-interrupted construction too often.
Another use of present progressive is to talk about two activities happening concurrently:
Walking to school, I considered my options.
In this case the simple past doesn't interrupt, but if I had to pick which of these was the "action" of the sentence, I would pick "considered" rather than "walking." I would expect the sentence that followed to discuss details of my consideration, rather than details of how I was walking. Using the present progressive backgrounds the activity of walking to the activity of considering, so you'll want to make sure you have the emphasis where you want it.
People will also notice if you use the present progressive by itself too much. Maybe you have a piece of writing where you read it and it feels dreamy, a bit disconnected, like you're waiting for something to happen... that could be due to the presence of a lot of present progressive -ing forms.
The other ING to watch out for is sneakier. The nominalizing -ing, as I mentioned above, the one that takes a verb and turns it into a noun. You might be familiar with this phrase:
"The scouring of the Shire"
In fact, "The Xing of the Y" is a very commonly used phrasing in fantasy (and maybe sf too?). I think this may be because it gives a momentous feeling to whatever it describes, as though that event were important enough to merit historical significance. However, what it also does is steal the sense of action and movement out of the verb.
This is a problem that can sometimes be mistakenly identified by readers or critiquers as "use of passive voice." Don't be fooled. It has nothing to do with the grammatical passive "was Xed by Y" - and yet, it does make the narrative sound passive.
Rather than the word passive, I prefer here to focus on the word "static," as in "a continuing state without change or drive." Both the present progressive and nominalizing INGs leave you with static prose when they are overdone - because the present progressive suspends you in a state, and the nominalizing suffix takes an action and makes it into a thing or event.
Can you avoid ING completely?
Well, you could - but you probably wouldn't want to. I chose to minimize the use of ING in my story "Cold Words," because my narrator was a wolf alien, and one of my goals was to have him sound very decisive and like a creature of action. In particular, I was trying to avoid the present progressive. That was, however, one of the things that made him sound inhuman. Here's an example:
He, enter audience? I lean close to his ear, since listeners would take offense that I don't dominate him with Cold words in reply. "What, Parker, have your superiors abandoned you? Do the Allied Systems punish you for our previous failure?"
He shakes his short mane. "No, Rulii. They want too badly to place a spaceport here. They may blame me for the language error that cast insult on Majesty, but they still need me for my own studies. I came to tell you the Systems have granted my request: a replacement negotiator arrives tonight. But if I could speak to Majesty before she arrives..."
He must fear indeed, to propose such a risk. "What is it? Still the problem of Cold words? Someone of Rank among your people must grasp the dominator's tongue, Parker, or Majesty will brand you Barbarians!"
It's something to think about.
On that note, I'm going to try to bring "over ING-ing" to your attention.
The suffix -ing is extremely common. You can find it in places like the question, "What are you doing with that suffix?" or like the statement "Abusing the suffix -ing is unconscionable." I'll tell you right now that you won't be able to avoid it completely. However, overuse of ING can weaken your story significantly. So let's think about what it does.
I found this article about the grammatical functions of -ing that gives you a pretty good idea of your options. They quote the following list of different ways you can use the word "painting" in a sentence (emphasis added):
- A painting of Brown’s…
- The painting of Brown is as skilful as that of Gainsborough….
- Brown’s deft painting of his daughter is a delight to watch…
- I dislike Brown’s painting his daughter.
- I dislike Brown painting his daughter.
- I watched Brown painting his daughter…
- The silently painting man is Brown…
- He is painting his daughter.
What is the relevance of this to story writing?
Let's start with the present progressive. It creates the impression of an ongoing state by placing us inside the moment when the activity is going on.
I am walking.
I am walking to school.
Notice that if I am walking to school, the presence of school as a prospective end point for my walking doesn't change the subjective impression that I am floating in the middle of the activity, suspended for whatever amount of time necessary. One of the things that the present progressive can do for you is set up a state of suspense that can then be interrupted (I do this a lot in my stories):
I was walking to school when I first saw the stranger girl.
The simple past "saw" is the event that interrupts the sense of suspension inherent in "walking." Terrific, and it's a great thing to be able to do - but as with most things we encounter in our writing, it can be overused. Variation in syntax is really important for flow, because people will notice if you use the present-progressive-interrupted construction too often.
Another use of present progressive is to talk about two activities happening concurrently:
Walking to school, I considered my options.
In this case the simple past doesn't interrupt, but if I had to pick which of these was the "action" of the sentence, I would pick "considered" rather than "walking." I would expect the sentence that followed to discuss details of my consideration, rather than details of how I was walking. Using the present progressive backgrounds the activity of walking to the activity of considering, so you'll want to make sure you have the emphasis where you want it.
People will also notice if you use the present progressive by itself too much. Maybe you have a piece of writing where you read it and it feels dreamy, a bit disconnected, like you're waiting for something to happen... that could be due to the presence of a lot of present progressive -ing forms.
The other ING to watch out for is sneakier. The nominalizing -ing, as I mentioned above, the one that takes a verb and turns it into a noun. You might be familiar with this phrase:
"The scouring of the Shire"
In fact, "The Xing of the Y" is a very commonly used phrasing in fantasy (and maybe sf too?). I think this may be because it gives a momentous feeling to whatever it describes, as though that event were important enough to merit historical significance. However, what it also does is steal the sense of action and movement out of the verb.
This is a problem that can sometimes be mistakenly identified by readers or critiquers as "use of passive voice." Don't be fooled. It has nothing to do with the grammatical passive "was Xed by Y" - and yet, it does make the narrative sound passive.
Rather than the word passive, I prefer here to focus on the word "static," as in "a continuing state without change or drive." Both the present progressive and nominalizing INGs leave you with static prose when they are overdone - because the present progressive suspends you in a state, and the nominalizing suffix takes an action and makes it into a thing or event.
Can you avoid ING completely?
Well, you could - but you probably wouldn't want to. I chose to minimize the use of ING in my story "Cold Words," because my narrator was a wolf alien, and one of my goals was to have him sound very decisive and like a creature of action. In particular, I was trying to avoid the present progressive. That was, however, one of the things that made him sound inhuman. Here's an example:
He, enter audience? I lean close to his ear, since listeners would take offense that I don't dominate him with Cold words in reply. "What, Parker, have your superiors abandoned you? Do the Allied Systems punish you for our previous failure?"
He shakes his short mane. "No, Rulii. They want too badly to place a spaceport here. They may blame me for the language error that cast insult on Majesty, but they still need me for my own studies. I came to tell you the Systems have granted my request: a replacement negotiator arrives tonight. But if I could speak to Majesty before she arrives..."
He must fear indeed, to propose such a risk. "What is it? Still the problem of Cold words? Someone of Rank among your people must grasp the dominator's tongue, Parker, or Majesty will brand you Barbarians!"
It's something to think about.
Friday, January 11, 2013
A Must-Read Article on Diversity in Fiction
You should read this wonderful, detailed article on the question of diversity in fantasy and science fiction, called PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings are Not Apolitical.
It makes a lot of great points, but the one that really stuck out for me is this: women have had very important roles - what we would call powerful roles - throughout history, and the modern view that women were historically weak is not due to an understanding of what happened historically, but to the fact that the history writers were biased, and thus silenced the stories of the many, many people of color and women and gays, etc, etc, who made major contributions to the workings of the world. Click through to see the argument, and also to hear it backed up with example after example. Don't let the prejudiced recounting of history convince you that portraying minorities as powerful in historically influenced settings is somehow unrealistic.
Read it.
It makes a lot of great points, but the one that really stuck out for me is this: women have had very important roles - what we would call powerful roles - throughout history, and the modern view that women were historically weak is not due to an understanding of what happened historically, but to the fact that the history writers were biased, and thus silenced the stories of the many, many people of color and women and gays, etc, etc, who made major contributions to the workings of the world. Click through to see the argument, and also to hear it backed up with example after example. Don't let the prejudiced recounting of history convince you that portraying minorities as powerful in historically influenced settings is somehow unrealistic.
Read it.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
TTYU Retro: When do you trunk a story?
I ran across this question on the SFWA website some time ago. It's an interesting question, and not at all easy to answer.
Let's start with the more basic question: what does "trunk a story" mean?
Well, to trunk a story in its simplest definition means not to send it out, or to keep it in your "trunk" at home (at this point, this is a virtual trunk for most of us, rather than a literal one). So, once you have stopped actively writing a story, and have revised it to the point where you consider it "ready", then if you don't send it out, it might be considered "trunked."
Of course, if you're simply not sure you're through with revisions, you may just be letting it rest to give yourself a fresh perspective on it. This is not the same as trunking, and it is highly recommended practice. Distance makes for more effective revisions.
The question of trunking becomes much more relevant after you've sent a story out and it has come back rejected. Many writers will cite Heinlein's rule, that you should not revise a story except to editorial order. I don't actually agree with this. If you've sent a story out, and it comes back rejected without comment, and you look at it again and see some major way to improve it, then go ahead and rewrite. It's just like taking a rest from your editing to get distance. Even better is when the rejection actually contains advice - then you can decide if the advice seems solid, and if it is, revise as necessary. But once you've revised, you need to send it out again. And again. And again.
So when do you stop?
Well, getting demoralized is not a good reason to stop. There are a lot of markets out there, and markets come and go. A story that gets rejected at all the current pro markets might not be good enough yet (and it behooves you to try to figure out if that's indeed the problem with it), but it might just not have matched the tastes of a particular editor. Thus, you should keep going. There are a lot of great semi-pro venues out there (some of which may become pro in the future), and if exposure is what you're looking for, there are also venues such as small anthologies which can be terrific (though they pay less well). You can choose to trunk your story temporarily because you don't want to submit below a certain pay level... just don't lose it in your files! In the future, other markets will surely open up at the pay level you're interested in, and you will be able to submit to them at that point.
Deciding that a story just isn't good enough... may or may not be a good reason. Maybe you just haven't found the right editor yet. But if you're feeling pretty sure it's not good enough, or you're getting pretty uniform feedback from critique partners but you don't feel capable of doing the revisions required, then maybe it's worth setting the story aside and taking a look at it later. If you leave it aside for a few months, or even a few years, then you might be able to come back to it later. At that point you may decide it should be blown to smithereens, or you could have much better vision and better tools as a writer and really be able to make it work. This has happened to me.
Deciding that a story isn't your first priority right now... is a good enough reason. I have a story that I'm keen to revise, but I don't have time. Add to that the fact that it takes place in my Varin world, which not many people know, but in which I'm currently writing a novel, and I arrive at the following decision: I should probably be writing my novel and not rewriting that story right now. It can sit until I have the time and wherewithal to deal with it.
Deciding that you don't want a story to represent you... is a good enough reason. I had a story that I wrote on the basis of a story seed given to me by somebody else. It was fun to write. It was really different from what I usually write, and as such I found it refreshing. But when I started to send it out, the main complaint I got from editors was that the premise was not believable - and the premise was the part that I had been given as a seed. I couldn't change it without gutting the story. I looked at what I had written, and asked myself, "If an editor says he/she likes this, will I feel happy about having this in the public domain with my name on it?" In the end, I decided I really wouldn't. So I retired the story. I have only ever done this once.
I'm sure that my own personal experiences don't cover all the possibilities here. Have any of you decided to "trunk" stories? Why? I'd be interested to hear your thinking on this subject.
Let's start with the more basic question: what does "trunk a story" mean?
Well, to trunk a story in its simplest definition means not to send it out, or to keep it in your "trunk" at home (at this point, this is a virtual trunk for most of us, rather than a literal one). So, once you have stopped actively writing a story, and have revised it to the point where you consider it "ready", then if you don't send it out, it might be considered "trunked."
Of course, if you're simply not sure you're through with revisions, you may just be letting it rest to give yourself a fresh perspective on it. This is not the same as trunking, and it is highly recommended practice. Distance makes for more effective revisions.
The question of trunking becomes much more relevant after you've sent a story out and it has come back rejected. Many writers will cite Heinlein's rule, that you should not revise a story except to editorial order. I don't actually agree with this. If you've sent a story out, and it comes back rejected without comment, and you look at it again and see some major way to improve it, then go ahead and rewrite. It's just like taking a rest from your editing to get distance. Even better is when the rejection actually contains advice - then you can decide if the advice seems solid, and if it is, revise as necessary. But once you've revised, you need to send it out again. And again. And again.
So when do you stop?
Well, getting demoralized is not a good reason to stop. There are a lot of markets out there, and markets come and go. A story that gets rejected at all the current pro markets might not be good enough yet (and it behooves you to try to figure out if that's indeed the problem with it), but it might just not have matched the tastes of a particular editor. Thus, you should keep going. There are a lot of great semi-pro venues out there (some of which may become pro in the future), and if exposure is what you're looking for, there are also venues such as small anthologies which can be terrific (though they pay less well). You can choose to trunk your story temporarily because you don't want to submit below a certain pay level... just don't lose it in your files! In the future, other markets will surely open up at the pay level you're interested in, and you will be able to submit to them at that point.
Deciding that a story just isn't good enough... may or may not be a good reason. Maybe you just haven't found the right editor yet. But if you're feeling pretty sure it's not good enough, or you're getting pretty uniform feedback from critique partners but you don't feel capable of doing the revisions required, then maybe it's worth setting the story aside and taking a look at it later. If you leave it aside for a few months, or even a few years, then you might be able to come back to it later. At that point you may decide it should be blown to smithereens, or you could have much better vision and better tools as a writer and really be able to make it work. This has happened to me.
Deciding that a story isn't your first priority right now... is a good enough reason. I have a story that I'm keen to revise, but I don't have time. Add to that the fact that it takes place in my Varin world, which not many people know, but in which I'm currently writing a novel, and I arrive at the following decision: I should probably be writing my novel and not rewriting that story right now. It can sit until I have the time and wherewithal to deal with it.
Deciding that you don't want a story to represent you... is a good enough reason. I had a story that I wrote on the basis of a story seed given to me by somebody else. It was fun to write. It was really different from what I usually write, and as such I found it refreshing. But when I started to send it out, the main complaint I got from editors was that the premise was not believable - and the premise was the part that I had been given as a seed. I couldn't change it without gutting the story. I looked at what I had written, and asked myself, "If an editor says he/she likes this, will I feel happy about having this in the public domain with my name on it?" In the end, I decided I really wouldn't. So I retired the story. I have only ever done this once.
I'm sure that my own personal experiences don't cover all the possibilities here. Have any of you decided to "trunk" stories? Why? I'd be interested to hear your thinking on this subject.
New Worldbuilding Hangouts!
It's been a long time - too long! - since I last had a worldbuilding hangout on Google+, and I want to resume. However, with the demands of my schedule, it's taken me a while to figure out how to manage what I want to do. Wednesday, despite its lovely alliteration, isn't going to work for me. Therefore, I'd like to invite you to join me for worldbuilding hangouts on Thursdays.
We resume tomorrow!
UPDATE: 11am PST will be the time. If we are not yet connected on Google+, please comment and let me know how to find you so that I can put you in the appropriate circle. I'd love to see you there.
UPDATE 2: I was sick last week, but am planning to hang out this week!
We resume tomorrow!
UPDATE: 11am PST will be the time. If we are not yet connected on Google+, please comment and let me know how to find you so that I can put you in the appropriate circle. I'd love to see you there.
UPDATE 2: I was sick last week, but am planning to hang out this week!
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Who dies in your story?
It's an important question to ask. We used to make a joke: How can you tell the difference between a Shakespearean comedy and a Shakespearean tragedy? In the comedy, everyone gets married at the end, and in the tragedy, everyone dies. This is, shall we say, a bit of an extreme difference. But what about your story? How do you know whether people should die or not?
Age group is, of course, an extremely important factor in your decision. Generally, the younger the story's audience, the less likely it is that anyone will die. Deaths in books for young people have to be very carefully decided upon, and very delicately handled.
Genre is also a huge factor. Murder mysteries begin with dead people, naturally. Thrillers often have a huge body count. Romances tend to veer away from death, for the most part. In science fiction and fantasy, there isn't a necessary expectation one way or the other. So I thought I'd take a look at some options.
1. No one dies
This one always makes me think of children's books, or children's animated shows. There's something weird about it, because no matter how dramatic the attack (and those are pushed to the heights of drama), there's never any gruesome injury or death, even when those might be the most natural result. Odd disappearances often substitute for death. The reason I bring this up, though, is because a lack of death can be handled badly or well. "No one can die" is a tricky arbitrary rule to enforce, and if you try to find easy ways of doing it, like having people coincidentally or luckily just not be injured or killed, it's going to look really weird. On the other hand, if you dig deep into how to handle it, it can also be very interesting. There's another way in which death is a too-easy way out - you can ditch a character and not have to do much except have people mourn and react. Sometimes it would be a lot tougher to figure out what might happen if the character didn't die. A non-death solution requires some ingenuity, especially when the character in question is the Big Baddie. It's never a good idea to avoid plausible and necessary injury or death out of a sense of squeamishness. However, having to deal with the real consequences of an attack that was supposed to be fatal and wasn't can be really interesting.
2. People you don't care about die
I'd also refer to this as "Only extras die." Maybe in the past, people took less umbrage at the idea of only extras dying, but at this point I think audiences and readers are pretty critical. If your story includes fighting and death, don't put a force field around your main characters. It's hard to kill off a point of view character, but it can be done. If you really feel you can't do in a point of view character, do consider important secondary characters. In the end, what you're trying to avoid is a situation where tons of extras die, but nobody in the main group takes a scratch. That would likely be seen as an authorial conceit (or, put less nicely, a cop-out).
3. The people you care about die.
This one is both tricky and interesting. We often care about the bad guy, enough at least to want him to get his comeuppance. So having the bad guy die is often a good thing - but depending on how violent and chaotic the story is, having him/her be the only one to die can be a problem. Please be aware that I'm not advocating killing a lot of people off. Let me say here that I was surprised and pleased when in The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck didn't actually get killed. But let's say you want to have deaths in the story which may or may not include the bad guy. In recent years, it's become more common and acceptable to have characters you care about die in stories. The first time I encountered this was in the film Serenity, and I'm pretty sure you are all aware of George R. R. Martin's tendency to make you love characters and then kill them off. The hazard of killing off characters people love is that readers need people to invest in who can carry them through the entire story. Kill the character and you may kill the reader's interest. Now, Game of Thrones has been enormously successful in spite of this, but I know at least one person who put down the books saying, "Every time I start to care about someone, they die." Kudos to George R. R. Martin for keeping so many people enthralled - but don't assume you can pull off the same thing without some careful planning. Make sure you leave someone behind to carry on the drive and momentum of the story.
I know some authors who get gleeful on Facebook when they are about to kill someone off (not always the bad guy). I remember being thrilled when a character I hated finally got to die. It can be difficult, though, especially if the death is wrenching. Think through whether the death is necessary. It can be necessary for logistical or plausibility reasons, or for emotional amplitude reasons. You don't want to be holding back out of fondness, or squeamishness. On the other hand, you don't want to be needlessly brutal. Once I read a book where the main character was constantly getting injured - so constantly that after a while it became almost comical. I was pretty sure that any normal person would have been dead or hiding out somewhere licking wounds. In any case, you'll want to look at the emotional dynamics of the story, and make whatever happens fit in to match your intent.
The last thing I'd like to mention here is the issue of minorities and death. This has come to my attention in the form of Facebook posts from some respected friends critiquing modern media and literature. Be careful who you kill off and try not to fall into discriminatory patterns. For example, black men who achieve romantic relationships are highly likely to be killed in movies, as are minority supporting characters who sacrifice themselves for the success of the white lead. There is also a tendency for women to be killed off, often in order to provide motivation for a male character (sometimes called "manpain"). Whenever I see examples of this, or see it discussed, I can't help but shudder. When I was writing For Love, For Power, I set up a love triangle between Tagaret, Reyn, and Della, with Tagaret in the middle. I knew that I could not in good conscience resolve the triangle by having Reyn die - because killing off a gay character to make it possible for another character to have a heterosexual relationship would have been despicable of me (!!), not to mention an authorial cop-out. It's far more interesting and valuable to tackle the issues that come up as people work out their differences, even if it can be more difficult.
Take questions of life and death seriously.
It's something to think about.
Age group is, of course, an extremely important factor in your decision. Generally, the younger the story's audience, the less likely it is that anyone will die. Deaths in books for young people have to be very carefully decided upon, and very delicately handled.
Genre is also a huge factor. Murder mysteries begin with dead people, naturally. Thrillers often have a huge body count. Romances tend to veer away from death, for the most part. In science fiction and fantasy, there isn't a necessary expectation one way or the other. So I thought I'd take a look at some options.
1. No one dies
This one always makes me think of children's books, or children's animated shows. There's something weird about it, because no matter how dramatic the attack (and those are pushed to the heights of drama), there's never any gruesome injury or death, even when those might be the most natural result. Odd disappearances often substitute for death. The reason I bring this up, though, is because a lack of death can be handled badly or well. "No one can die" is a tricky arbitrary rule to enforce, and if you try to find easy ways of doing it, like having people coincidentally or luckily just not be injured or killed, it's going to look really weird. On the other hand, if you dig deep into how to handle it, it can also be very interesting. There's another way in which death is a too-easy way out - you can ditch a character and not have to do much except have people mourn and react. Sometimes it would be a lot tougher to figure out what might happen if the character didn't die. A non-death solution requires some ingenuity, especially when the character in question is the Big Baddie. It's never a good idea to avoid plausible and necessary injury or death out of a sense of squeamishness. However, having to deal with the real consequences of an attack that was supposed to be fatal and wasn't can be really interesting.
2. People you don't care about die
I'd also refer to this as "Only extras die." Maybe in the past, people took less umbrage at the idea of only extras dying, but at this point I think audiences and readers are pretty critical. If your story includes fighting and death, don't put a force field around your main characters. It's hard to kill off a point of view character, but it can be done. If you really feel you can't do in a point of view character, do consider important secondary characters. In the end, what you're trying to avoid is a situation where tons of extras die, but nobody in the main group takes a scratch. That would likely be seen as an authorial conceit (or, put less nicely, a cop-out).
3. The people you care about die.
This one is both tricky and interesting. We often care about the bad guy, enough at least to want him to get his comeuppance. So having the bad guy die is often a good thing - but depending on how violent and chaotic the story is, having him/her be the only one to die can be a problem. Please be aware that I'm not advocating killing a lot of people off. Let me say here that I was surprised and pleased when in The Princess Bride, Prince Humperdinck didn't actually get killed. But let's say you want to have deaths in the story which may or may not include the bad guy. In recent years, it's become more common and acceptable to have characters you care about die in stories. The first time I encountered this was in the film Serenity, and I'm pretty sure you are all aware of George R. R. Martin's tendency to make you love characters and then kill them off. The hazard of killing off characters people love is that readers need people to invest in who can carry them through the entire story. Kill the character and you may kill the reader's interest. Now, Game of Thrones has been enormously successful in spite of this, but I know at least one person who put down the books saying, "Every time I start to care about someone, they die." Kudos to George R. R. Martin for keeping so many people enthralled - but don't assume you can pull off the same thing without some careful planning. Make sure you leave someone behind to carry on the drive and momentum of the story.
I know some authors who get gleeful on Facebook when they are about to kill someone off (not always the bad guy). I remember being thrilled when a character I hated finally got to die. It can be difficult, though, especially if the death is wrenching. Think through whether the death is necessary. It can be necessary for logistical or plausibility reasons, or for emotional amplitude reasons. You don't want to be holding back out of fondness, or squeamishness. On the other hand, you don't want to be needlessly brutal. Once I read a book where the main character was constantly getting injured - so constantly that after a while it became almost comical. I was pretty sure that any normal person would have been dead or hiding out somewhere licking wounds. In any case, you'll want to look at the emotional dynamics of the story, and make whatever happens fit in to match your intent.
The last thing I'd like to mention here is the issue of minorities and death. This has come to my attention in the form of Facebook posts from some respected friends critiquing modern media and literature. Be careful who you kill off and try not to fall into discriminatory patterns. For example, black men who achieve romantic relationships are highly likely to be killed in movies, as are minority supporting characters who sacrifice themselves for the success of the white lead. There is also a tendency for women to be killed off, often in order to provide motivation for a male character (sometimes called "manpain"). Whenever I see examples of this, or see it discussed, I can't help but shudder. When I was writing For Love, For Power, I set up a love triangle between Tagaret, Reyn, and Della, with Tagaret in the middle. I knew that I could not in good conscience resolve the triangle by having Reyn die - because killing off a gay character to make it possible for another character to have a heterosexual relationship would have been despicable of me (!!), not to mention an authorial cop-out. It's far more interesting and valuable to tackle the issues that come up as people work out their differences, even if it can be more difficult.
Take questions of life and death seriously.
It's something to think about.
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