Piling On

Wow! I can honestly say without doubt that this is the worst Friday I have had all year, and possibly for several years. I mean, yesterday was kind of sketchy - my health was doing some stuff that it shouldn't have, but I made it past that and actually ended up feeling a sense of gratitude. Well, that was probably my first mistake because Friday must've got wind of it and decided to put me square in my place. I got to drive from place to place where I would then walk a total of five miles in the really humid air this morning, only to have my car break down just before the end of this trip. Of course, this means I had to walk home, finish my route on my bicycle, get a jump for the car (failed), get it towed (expensive), get it diagnosed (another nightmare), get a rental, and all in the equatorial heat. Add to this, I actually had things to do today - so much for that. Yep, this Friday is the worst. Or as the joke goes, it's only the worst Friday so far.

Now, did I choose to make my Friday post a piece demonstrating how to rant about a bad day? There's a hint of that, but it's more elaborate than that. When we write about a character and their adventure (at least in fiction), we have to remember that elements such as drama, suspense, tension, etc. are more than just things we need to include because they're required. We do our readers a horrible injustice if we don't really make the readers feel what the character is going through. And we do this by the simple route of making things worse.

I offer this simple, though somewhat gross, example of a character faced with a terrible choice. For whatever reason, the character accidentally drops a quarter in the toilet. Immediately this creates a dilemma - pursue the quarter and deal with the uncomfortable repercussions, or let it go and be one quarter poorer? Interesting discussion, but most of us would've walked away, high and dry. So let's pile on the costs of the lost money. What if it wasn't a quarter, but a dollar bill? A five-dollar bill? A twenty? The character's last bit of pocket money - the twenty he kept in his wallet for emergencies? Now it isn't as easy. What if the toilet is really dirty? I mean, post-apocalyptic bus-stop restroom dirty. Now what? Recover that twenty, wash your hands vigorously afterward, and try to put that nasty twenty back in your wallet and pretend you never knew where it had been? Dropping a quarter in the toilet is nothing now. Your last twenty bucks... and let's say you're twenty miles from home without a cell phone. Now what?

Piling on the problems is definitely a mean thing to do to a person, but fortunately, a written character can handle it so go ahead. And of course, it doesn't have to be the obviously gross outcome that's the challenge - just something the character does not want to face. Maybe it's a starving person living in Chicago who is given a hot dog WITH KETCHUP ON IT! People will have their opinions about that, but the conflict the writer gets to play with is the individual character's dilemma. 

The long and short of it is simple: when you give a character a challenge, make it worth something. Make it hurt. Pile on the grief. Maybe that ketchup thing was an out-of-bounds move, but you get the idea. Piling on quandaries and consequences wakes the reader to the character's challenge, and invests them in the result. So go ahead and pile on when you want - the character can take it.

And check your car battery in the summer - they can burn out just as easily.        

The Truth About Consequences

I can't even begin to thing about how many books I've read. I've gone through fiendish binges where I would read a book or two a week along with going to school, but there would be other stretches where I would go book-free for a while. I know that one year I read at least 75, but probably less than 100 books, but I also know a few years that were free of recreational book-reading (research books don't count in this case). The point is, I've read a whole bunch of books in my many years.

Now, I can't tell you how many of those books were bad. I can list some of the great ones - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Humboldt's Gift, The Stand, Foucault's Pendulum, The Great Santini, Liar's Poker and so on - but the bad ones, boring ones just kind of fade away. Some were just poorly written, or too formulaic, some had a writing style I didn't care for, others just never really paid off. However, I can tell you the most common factor in the long list of books that never really stuck with me, and it's surprisingly simple: at certain points, I just thought, "Who cares?" More importantly, I asked myself why the main character cared about what they were doing. Ultimately, it boiled down to a sense of there being no consequences. 

Here's a question I ask about the main character: What happens if they throw their hands up and say, "Nope. No more. I'm done with this." Or what if they never take the hero's journey in the first place. The answer, in any situation, should be the consequence of giving up, and in a good story, the consequences should be severe. Look at Frodo in The Lord of the Rings - a little hobbit with an overwhelming task that he often felt was far too much for him to handle. We are told, in no uncertain terms, if he fails in his mission, or gives up, or just lets someone else do it, all the people of Middle-Earth are doomed. Those are some pretty big consequences, and it takes a while for our hero to realize just how important he is and how critical he is to the story.

Now I will offer up a story (a movie, but still), that while it's full of action and fun characters, it really lacks the satisfaction that one might get from thinking about the consequences. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones goes on the quest to claim the legendary Ark of the Covenant, leaving a trail of dead soldiers and a poisoned Nazi monkey in his wake. His mission is to keep this holy artifact from falling into Nazi hands and becoming their weapon, so we know the consequences of his failure. Or do we? As we find out, not so much. The Ark falls into Nazi hands and, upon its usage, the Ark promptly wipes out an island-full of bad guys. Now we ask what would've happened if Indiana Jones just stayed at the university? What would the real consequences be? Well, nothing different. The Ark is found, goes into Nazi hands, wipes out every bad guy in sight. No unstoppable weapon, no undefeatable army. Life goes on, Indy teaches his classes and gets hit on by students. The end.

In the end, our story needs consequences, we need the characters to be motivated not just to do something but be driven by the possible dark result of their failure, and we need meaning to their mission. And I assure you that if your story isn't driven by a clear set of consequences that legitimately drive the character, your book will probably end up on that list of bad stories that nobody remembers. (And full confession: I only remember Raiders for the action sequences and Karen Allen. The story is incidental in the long and short of it).          

The Other Side of Writing

A lot of space on this blog has been dedicated to writing the Great American Novel, to perfecting your poetry, or to making your writing as appealing as possible for your reading audience. I do this because, in my experience, a lot of people want to take their writing up a few notches, preferably to a level where they can get it published or at least read by a larger audience. They want to know all the tricks of the trade for bringing something out to the public; writing a story that plenty of people will want to read and will enjoy reading. This is an admirable goal and one worth pursuing. However, now and then I recognize that a lot of people want to develop their writing for more personal reasons. They are not as interested in the New York Times Bestseller List as they are in making their story real. This requires some special tools indeed.

Now, what actually is, "making their story real"? Well, I have seen plenty of people get into writing as a form of self-help. They write their stories as a therapeutic process, putting their stories onto the page as a way of interpreting past events, relationships, traumas, and any point in between. I have known more than a few recovering addicts who turned to writing as a way of identifying and dissecting the pathology of their own compulsions and internal drives to better understand themselves and what they must confront. And indeed, there are a number of prison programs that get inmates to write about their past to better understand why they ended up on the wrong side of the bars. This requires a different kind of writing than all the talk about narrative and subtext. While in these cases, grammar and such aren't very important, in some ways it is much more difficult.

To "make a story real" requires a willingness to to write things down that you might not dare say out loud because hearing such things makes them real. Putting terrible experiences onto paper is a very effective way of purging pain from the system, but it's only the first step. Real creation requires more than just listing the events that occurred - that's the reporting side of writing. A story becomes real when we write about our feelings of the event. If we did something terrible, what drove us down that road? If we fell victim to someone else, what feelings swirled through us in that moment? After that moment? The next day? Events happen all the time, but they become real when we discuss how we, as humans, participated in them. Even if we existed in a state of shock, understanding that moment is just as important as any other.

Of late, I've done some writing about an accident I was in as a teenager. I've written about it before, but looking back on those earlier works, I defused the feelings by stepping around the trauma of it all. Just the fact that I wrote about it at all was a great first step, but the more I felt secure enough to let my mind swim deeper into the trauma of that moment, the more I discovered about my unresolved feelings from that moment nearly 40 years ago. 

Now I write about it, and I can feel the numbness, the shock going through my mind as I tried to figure out whether I was alive. It's easier now to express what it felt like to go stumbling into the foggy night, bloody and sore, trying to find another person, a house, a phone. How my eyes transfixed on a porchlight and I staggered toward it like a beacon of sanctuary, all my pain subsiding as I placed my energy toward reaching that one porchlight. I buried all my feelings in the name of survival and forced myself to reach that porch and get help - there was no other way to do things. And having written that, I now recognize how I often bury my feelings during stressful times in order to survive, and all that trauma is something I can identify now.

Will it be a novel? A bestseller? An epic poem? Not a chance. But I dug into those feelings, piece by piece, writing about each one until I understood it. It required patience, a little bit of pain, and a good amount of faith, but writing about my feelings and asking myself constantly, "How did I feel about this?" got me somewhere special. Maybe someone will read the final product, maybe not. But It is, by far, the most important writing I ever did - so who cares if anyone reads it?     

Character versus caricature

In most stories, we know enough about the main character to portray them in a way the reader can understand. We should know what they basically look like, their basic height and weight, and any stand-out features they might have - a limp, freakishly large hands, eyes of different colors, etc. Once I lay out these details, I have the basic character - the 5'11", 220-pound, brown-haired, blue-eyed, balding guy with a shuffle to his step and evidence of a history of broken noses. He is drawn-out. He exists. He is real.

And frankly, he is boring.

Boring? Not the best way to describe a main character (and since this is also a bang-on description of me, it's definitely an unusual choice). I mean, there's nothing wrong with that description, and it is something the reader can immediately understand. However, the description is little more than a report about the character's appearance. None of that description really does anything, and in this regard, it's boring - not the best main character to have.

Now, am I suggesting that a main character, therefore, has to be 6'9", a svelte 310 pounds, freakishly blond hair with black streaks, red eyes and a brutal scar across his cheeks? Well, you would remember that visual, but that character might not fit the story very well, especially if the story was about a middle-aged writer contending with his mortality. Rather, you need to take the elements of the character and make them stand out in a memorable way, so that the 5'10" person has a more engaging description. One way to do this is to think of the old art of the caricature.

We think of the usual caricature as something we get from some guy with an easel out on Navy Pier. For $10 he draws a real exaggerated sketch of you, making a few features stand out dramatically. The portrait of you usually includes having your head's proportion to your body similar to Charlie Brown, your expression expanded to utter joy, merriment, or something else incredibly positive, and usually posed with some dramatic gesture or with a prop as oversized as your now-humongous head. It works; it makes a statement and you get a chuckle out of it. However, the important part is that you remember those key exaggerated points.

A character should be no different in their description, even if they retain normal human body proportions. Look at our writer example. Describing him as 5'11" is accurate but clinical; making him "a boringly average height" loses the detail but adds to the dimension of the character. Instead of citing his weight, suggest he "could afford to miss a few meals" and now the reader starts painting his own picture. Is he balding, or are the last few proud follicles of a once-proud head of thick brown hair stuck on his broadening scalp in a desperate comb-over? Do we need to state he has a limp, or is it better to mention this as a part of his actions? "He walked to the deli, his left leg slow to keep up" gives description as an action, keeping the story moving while offering the reader details along the way. 

These tricks take a boring -looking character and make them interesting in the sense that they have depth and dimension. If you want to make your character stand out with freakish height or other aspects, well, that's your call. However, even with a stand-out character, they become recognizable when their description is emphasized and engaged with, even exaggerated, to make the point stand out. They don't need to be fully-misshapen caricatures, but emphasizing their key points will connect the reader to even the most boring middle-aged writer.      

Should Heroes Fail?

If there's one common theme of the human experience, it is that people love the success story. Whether it is someone rising up from nothing to take on the world, or overcoming the seemingly unconquerable and achieving their goal, people eat that up. We hear those stories, read about them, watch them on the screen, and a part of us lives out that dream. It gives us a rush, knowing that anything is possible, and everything under the sun can occur if we just press on. We don't get that rush from stories of failure, we get it from victory.

However, if this is the way to go, why do people write stories where the protagonist falls short? Fails to reach their goal? Loses the girl? Dies? What's up with that? I'm not sure if this is breaking news, but most everyone has had a romantic relationship fail - why would they want to read about it? Sorry, but been there, done that, wrote a book on it (literally). And yet for some reason, there we are, talking about plenty of books that end tragically. Also worth noting - plenty of them are actually pretty good. So how does that work out, and what's the catch?

The first thing I like to bring up is defining what a hero actually is, at least in a literary sense. The hero - preferably a good or admirable person but this is not mandatory - is someone who steps up to adventure beyond their known world and into the risk of the unknown. This could be the dashing knight setting off to slay a terrible dragon, or a young country bumpkin seeking their fame in New York City - whichever the case, it is someone taking on the so-called "Hero's Journey" and ultimately driving the plot of any story. Whether they are willing or reluctant, their cause noble or selfish, they go into the unknown and face the many obstacles awaiting. 

Now, why did I go on about the whole hero definition? The hero is the reader's anchor to this story, and that connection is what makes the hero's experience important - because the reader is living out that adventure as well. However, a very important thing happens along this way - the hero changes. The events and obstacles along the way give that hero the opportunity to learn and even grow, and as this progresses, there's every chance they start seeing the world differently - perhaps even realizing their beliefs at the beginning were misguided. The dashing knight might discover the terrible dragon is not terrible at all, but is being manipulated by a far greater danger. Perhaps our young bumpkin sees how the big city might not be the place of dreams anymore. Now there's a real problem - the conflict between pursuing a goal and learning about something greater.

In this regard, plenty of heroes fail at their initial mission. The knight leaves the dragon alone to vanquish the greater evil, and maybe dies in the process but does so having first spread this truth to other people. The bumpkin goes back to home in the country, putting up with everyone's taunts of failure but knowing the simple is the most genuine way to live. Did they fail? Technically, yes. Did they grow? Definitely. And in plenty of ways, the satisfaction of knowing our hero ultimately did the right thing in the end, perhaps even costing them their life, is just as good as a story about someone's success.

Of course, growth and success is even better as far as stories go. If the hero lives on for the sequel, that's great (and potentially a franchise). However, never be afraid to explore the possibility of failure, and what it can offer the reader in terms of telling a genuine story.       

The Between-Draft Lessons

Yes, I talk quite a bit about how writers should, above everything else, write things. This is what they do, so do it - worry about the edits later. In my last post, I really went on about how easy it is to get distracted by editing, revising, perfecting, etc., and how it really takes us out of the actual creative mind. Therefore, I felt it was important to offer a few notes on when we should be doing the non-writing stuff, and how we should commit to it. It's not as difficult as it may sound, but it's an important part of developing the personal process.

Most of us know the different stages of our writing drafts. Starting with notes, we create a rough draft, a second draft, then an endless series of further drafts, followed by a final product (in theory). Each one of these drafts holds a special role: the first one is solely to create - the committing of an idea to paper. The second draft is hammering out broad problems - PoV changes, weak characters, missing/necessary scenes, and plugging up plot holes. By the end of the second draft, we know what characters we need, their purpose, how they interact, and the main plot arc. Subsequent drafts become waves of clean-up - fixing contradictions, filling in weak descriptions, and side-plots. Any draft after that should be polish - making the characters stand out, tweaking dialogue, putting in jokes or other asides, and fine-tuning the critical turns in the plot. At that point, you do the grammar/spelling/punctuation check-up, weed out unnecessary words, then put a bow on it. This is how it should be done - but this doesn't discuss the space between.

In my experience, both as a writer and as a person who has talked with writers, when creating the first draft and even when working the second draft, something happens other than typing; learning. By the end of a draft, plenty of writers discover more about their story and their characters that might never have occurred when they started writing. It is as if the events and personalities evolve as that draft is being created, all while the story unfolds. This is great, but this demands that after the draft is finished, the writer would serve their work best by taking an interim step between drafts and think about what happened.

Just as every story is a journey and a character should grow in the process, the author should go through the same metamorphosis. Once a draft is completed, the writer should take some time to contemplate what they learned about the characters through the act of creation, and whether they discovered something fascinating about them. After the first draft, take some time to think about that journey, and whether it feels genuine. If you don't understand the character's growth, you might be missing some important aspects of the story. After the second draft, you should know the character well enough to understand the journey and their changes, so now you need to think about anything that can really emphasize that transition. This is where sub-plots and so forth become important - they define aspects of the character's growth that the main arc does not imply.

After I finish a draft, I shelve it for a bit so I can really process what has happened. I think about those people I wrote about, and what I learned about them in the process of converting them from thoughts to words. At this point, it's perfectly acceptable to not write - you are preparing yourself for the next draft, and making it something special.

After that, get back to writing.         

Bad Writing Habits

For the past nine years, I have raised two cats that were rescues at just a few weeks old. As abandoned kittens, they weren't weaned properly, they didn't quite know about cleaning themselves, and they were oddly scared of the dark. Fortunately, they grew out of these things, but that doesn't mean they are perfect. Over the years, they developed their own idiosyncrasies, and I honestly can't explain them. The little boy kitty enjoys sitting on my papers when I edit (much to my chagrin), and the little girl will run off with straws. Oh - they are also both hooked on Q-Tips. If I use a Q-Tip for anything, I have to take special measures to dispose of it, because those little beasts will somehow track the scent, chase it down, and drag it out of the garbage so they can eat the cotton, chew on the rest, swallow some parts of it, then throw up in the hallway. Seriously - these cats have gone into garbage cans and dug through trash if they figure out a Q-Tip is in there. It's like owning pet raccoons in that regard, but I don't know what formed their compulsion.

Writers, however, are a little more manageable than cats, and their habits can be explored, explained, and more easily changed than by saying, "Bad! Bad writer!" and going after them with a spray bottle. And, of course, the first part of correcting any bad habit is identifying the habit to the writer themselves. The things they do may not seem like bad habits to them, but with a little discussion and exploration, they can see the problems in their habits and find some proper workarounds.

One of the main problems is "The Perfect Chapter (or paragraph, sentence, whatever)." Maybe you've seen this writer, maybe you once were this writer, maybe you are this writer, but we can all fall for it. We have an idea for a piece of work and we begin the process of creation. Whether it's a poem or an epic novel, we start on it, get a bit into it, then decide we want to make sure that beginning is flawless. We hear about how important the first chapter, sentence, whatever is supposed to be, so we turn our obsession toward perfecting it. The rest of the project is nowhere near complete, but there we sit, obsessing on the first part of it, trying to paint the perfect smile on a portrait we haven't even sketched out.

I cannot say this enough - when we do this, we prevent ourselves from creating, which is the most important part of the process. Usually we decide to polish the first paragraph or the first line because, subconsciously, we feel stuck with creating the rest of the project. Either we're a little burned out, or something doesn't feel right, or it's just not going where it's supposed to. In any case, we turn away from that problem and focus on some editing challenge that really doesn't make a difference in the larger sense because the rest of the project could change that sentence's meaning anyway. If you find yourself pursuing The Perfect Chapter, ask yourself why you aren't creating anything new. If you think deeply about it, you will figure out the problem isn't the need for The Perfect Chapter, but the fact that you've hit an obstacle, and that's where you should apply your efforts. Create first, edit later.

One other very bad writing habit involves falling in love with a phrase, a verb, a descriptor - anything you can think of that can become a part of your content. A prime example is demonstrating conflict with two phrases, and joining them with the word, "but." Example: "He had to finish the race but his legs started cramping." Now, there's nothing wrong with the word, "but." However, if it becomes your go-to move in contrasting two points, it will wear on the reader after a while. (Oh - starting a sentence with "But" can be a mood-killer as well.) Throwing in the occasional "however" or other contrasting conjunctions can offer some variety and keep the reader engaged, particularly when they are used to strengthen a sentence. What if our example sentence becomes, "He had to finish the race even as his legs started cramping." or, "He had to finish the race despite cramping in his legs." Each one gives a different feel and a sense of urgency that a simple "but" leaves out. 

If you feel you are falling victim to word usage repetition, do a word count to demonstrate how much a word shows up. Let that figure inspire you to think about other ways you can say things. And, as opposed to certain cats, learn to change your bad habits.