Category: Thoughts about Writing

bookmark_borderAntihero: The Ambiguous Protagonist?

Posted on by Glenn

I’ve long been confused by the definition of “antihero”. My daughter uses the term to describe characters in movies but I’m never quite sure what she means.

Wikipedia says:

An antihero, or antiheroine, is a protagonist in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality. Although antiheroes may sometimes do the right thing, it is not always for the right reasons, often acting primarily out of self-interest or in ways that defy conventional ethical codes.

So,

  • Sometimes does the right thing, but
  • not from idealism, courage, morality
  • often acting primarily out of self-interest

I think Dexter, of the novels as well as the television series, is a good example of an antihero. Dexter is a serial killer, a sociopath with no inherent morals. When Dexter’s cop father discovered his adopted son’s predilections, he told him he can only kill those who deserve to be killed; other killers on the loose. Dexter is doing “good” for society by removing other serial killers but only because he is following his father’s rules while satisfying his own needs; needs which society might find objectionable.

In my mind, a protagonist does not have to be either a hero or an antihero. Or maybe he does, in the traditional definition of the term. Wikipedia seems to think so. Based on their list it looks as if any important character who is morally ambiguous is an antihero, including the Lannister boys from “Game of Thrones” and Snape from Harry Potter (who is not the most, second most, or even third most present character in the series). And I don’t see Micheal Corleone of “The Godfather” or Gordon Gekko of “Wall Street” as antiheroes. They’re protagonists, but they never come out the other side of the hero’s journey like Kurtz of “Heart of Darkness”/”Apocalypse Now”. They are anti-hero, as in the opposite of heroes.

Wikipedia also has Frank Drebin from “The Naked Gun” in the list. Does that mean Mr. Magoo is an antihero even though his good deeds are accidents that he stumbles into because of his extremely bad eyesight?

For my purposes, I take issue with the “may sometimes do the right thing” part of the definition. They don’t have to try to do good all the time, but must always do something hero-like at some point. Heroic, for me, meaning working for the good of others beyond oneself and struggling or sacrificing to achieve it. Otherwise, they’re not heroes, just protagonists or main characters.

Morally ambivalent leads of spaghetti westerns may or may not do something hero-like. And morally ambiguous characters who wander through the world in an existential or alienated funk are fine protagonists but that doesn’t make them antiheroes. At least not in our modern world of Marvel and DC movies.

Struggling internally for ones own peace of mind may benefit those who read and learn from the struggle, but if the results are only internal for that character I don’t know that it fits the same category of heroic action. Perhaps I’m not seeing all the ramifications though: is the struggle to maintain sanity not heroic, and how is that different from a character that is deeply and profoundly moved by societal issues?

But in the 21st century we have a clear definition of hero: Superman, firefighters, good Samaritans. And, I think, antiheroes are the ones who do heroic deeds unwillingly (the Marvel character Jessica Jones, who gets dragged into her fights) or primarily for selfish reasons (Dexter, who kills killers to satisfy his own need to kill, or Dr. Gregory House, whose need to solve puzzles usually results in curing the illness), or freely breaks rules in order to accomplish their journey (Jack Reacher, who doesn’t go looking for battles but once he’s decided he needs to right a wrong never hesitates to break laws or lie or to pulverize a few bad guys).

These antiheroes have dark sides, shadowy pasts, and struggle with themselves and their morals as well as with the villain and evil forces. Most interesting heroes have similar characteristics though: that’s what makes them interesting, human, relatable.

 

Apparently, my definition of a protagonist is not the same as a hero. Rather:

  • hero is a category of protagonist where the protagonist is at some point or on some level is trying to do good, and,
  • antihero is a subcategory of hero, not the opposite, so an antihero could also be a protagonist. Also,
  • the difference between hero and antihero is in the values of the character. Doing good needs to be an explicit priority for the protagonist to be a hero. If he or she ends up doing good primarily for other reasons (selfish, coincidental, forced or blackmailed into it), they are an antihero. They are doing good but not for heroic reasons or due to heroic values.

In some ways this doesn’t make sense. I’ve defined antihero as a type of hero whereas it should refer to the opposite of a hero, but I think this is closer to the current use of the term.

Especially in a world where the heroes are often superheros, or at least humans with super abilities.

bookmark_borderWriting Review: The Host, by Stephenie Meyer, and thoughts on dialog and action tags

Posted on by Intermittent Rain

I’ve only read a few chapters into The Host by Stephenie Meyer but I think I’m done.

The opening chapters of SF can be a challenge because the reader needs to be acclimated to the world, but an operating room with excited students that seem irrelevant to the rest of the story isn’t the best choice. Following that with a memory from the host whose past the narrator is experiencing rather than the eventual narrator’s own story is disorienting.

By Chapter 3 I can figure out what’s going on but Chapter 4 goes further back in memory and the writing style becomes simplistic and repetitive in rhythm. Since the host is in her teens at this point I assume the writing is supposed to be YA, but it’s not quite John Green. I might have been tempted to open the novel here and maybe present the story in parallel timelines because this scene is less confusing and has action. This is where I stopped reading though, so I don’t know how well my idea would work.
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In Chapter 2 there are sentences that have timing or logic issues which I wanted to look at.

For contrast, I’ve quoted an example that is fine. We’re in first person POV. The narrator is immobile, getting used to her host body. She has not opened the host’s eyes but has been listening to a conversation. (The following three quotes are from Chapter 2 of “The Host”.)

The woman breathed out heavily. A sigh. “But where did she come from?”

The narrator hears a sigh, then the spoken words. This is an action tag to the dialogue that makes sense. (Though it’s repetitive to have her breathe out heavily and then tell the reader it was a sigh.  A member of my old writing group would tag this as “reader gets it”)

But compare that with the next quote. After some internal narrative, a new paragraph starts:

The woman was defensive. “We do not choose violence. …”

How does the first person POV-eyes closed narrator know the woman is defensive? She can’t see the woman grimace or tense up because the eyes of the host are closed. We weren’t given any audible clues.

I think the author is trying to color the tone of the words, to imply tension and attitude, but the narrator can’t know this before the first word is spoken. It’s not an audible event that precedes the words like the sigh in the previous example. Maybe she can read it from the woman’s voice, but even that can’t happen until she hears some words. Just because the author knows doesn’t mean the narrator can know.

Later in the scene:

“Why should she have to?” the man muttered, but he didn’t seem to expect an answer.

The woman answered anyway. “If we’re to get the information we need -“

Again, we are told the woman is answering before she speaks. How does the narrator know it is an answer until the end of the sentence? And, by then it’s obvious that she’s answering so whether the reader needs to have it highlighted as “anyway” is questionable, though it does show some insistence on the woman’s part.

One could also wonder how, without eyes and in first person POV, the narrator understands that the man didn’t seem to expect an answer. Maybe he whispers or tails off. Or maybe it’s just lazy writing; telling rather than showing (or hearing). And inexperience with first person POV.

Dialogue tagging before the dialogue is more acceptable in non-fiction writing because the narrator is supposed to know everything in advance. We can dialogue tag in advance comfortably when we are instructing:

It was Lincoln who said, “We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”

Or even action tag in advance:

Just before he fell off the stage and broke his arm, the actor delivered the line, “Men at some time are masters of their fates.”

This only works if reported after the event, like a news story. It could even be done in first person POV as long as it’s delivered after the diagnosis of a broken arm.

When I fell off the stage and broke my arm I had just delivered the line, “Men at some time are masters of their fates.”

But, though “The Host” is in past tense, I’ve seen no indication that the narrator is writing to us from the future.

Dialog or action tagging before the dialog can also be more acceptable in third person POV because the narrator can be varying degrees of omniscient and, like the non-fiction author, can know someone is going to speak or what tone of voice they will use. An omniscient narrator might know the woman feels defensive or that the man does not expect an answer.

But a first person (and blind) POV narrator can only know tone of voice after words are spoken, or that someone is answering after hearing their voice and determining what that person intends to communicate.

To me it feels like careless editing of a writer who thinks in third person rather than first person.

Was “Twilight” written in third? I don’t remember. But the prose and plot confusions in “The Host” are enough to convince me not to finish reading this one.

 

bookmark_borderThe Writing Process

Posted on by Glenn

I thought it might be worthwhile to summarize my writing process. This is based on the two most recent stories but the process has been similar for many years.

  • Envision a setting, situation, or character.
  • Write a sentence.
  • Write a second sentence
  • Read what I’ve written
  • Change a phrase
  • Write a third sentence, extending the flow and increasing the breadth.
  • Read.
  • Correct a typo. Fix a shift in tense.
  • Get up and walk away, do something like get a drink while thinking about what I’ve written. Or if I’m in a formal writing prompt situation, stare at the wall for a minute.
  • Come back and start the second paragraph with a new sentence that I’ve thought of while away.
  • Read.
  • Remove an unnecessary comma. Realize I’ve used a word such as “clear” or “recent” twice, think about alternatives, go to an online thesaurus. Decide none are perfect but select one anyway just so I have an alternative. Change one usage.
  • Read to see how it fits and flows now.
  • Add a fifth sentence.
  • Read.
  • Consider whether I’ve covered the opening material sufficiently and if it is time to start expanding the range by widening the vision or adding an action or another character. Ponder character goals and motivation, the back story of the situation, possible threats. Is there a theme emerging? Cut the second half of the second sentence and paste into the first sentence. Delete the second half of the first sentence.
  • Get up and fill the pets water bowl. Put some papers into my bag so I’ll remember to take them to work tomorrow. Take some dry pans from the dish rack and put them away, and other things.
  • Read.
  • Notice an awkward phrase and rewrite it. Add a missing article. Change the character’s name. Spit the fifth sentence into two and extend the second one. Delete the second and third sentence and reorganise and rewrite into one new sentence.
  • Read to feel the new flow.
  • Write another sentence.
  • Read. Wonder if I’m writing too many long sentences or too many short sentences. Read the long ones for missing breaks, read the short ones for unintended emphasis. Look for overused words or descriptions but also to see if they hint at a theme.
  • Change a word that is too intellectual for the scene. Consider whether the voice I’m using is consistent, and if it is appropriate. Make additional revisions to hype the voice or make the style more consistent.

At this point I have 150 to 300 words.

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If you’re wondering why I keep stopping, why I keep reading and correcting it’s because I rarely plot any more. I only plot when I’ve already got a story going and then I might sit and write 200 or 500 words in one go but before I do that I have to know what and who I’m writing about. Even in time pressured situations like NaNoWriMo or the 3DayNovel competition I go through this same process. I have to correct and edit when I see the little errors and weaknesses because they snag my attention. They must be polished away so I’m not distracted.

And to write I need to experience the flow, as focussed and uninterrupted as possible. Much like when I compose, where I listen in my head to the music and then try to hear what might come next, the flow must tell me what the logical next sentence is. I need to hear what the story is telling me.

Since I’ve fallen into using this process my prose has improved. Or perhaps the reverse; because my prose and editing has improved I’ve developed this procedure which requires more editing and results in better prose.

But these pieces often fail to gain traction and to get to completion. I don’t think it’s because of the editing or stopping and starting, I think it’s because my standards have increased and I drop more ideas than I used to because they don’t seem to be leading somewhere interesting or to be worth my time.

I also get stuck, unable to find a satisfactory understanding of the story that will allow me to continue. In more than one case this block has come right at the end where I know what the essence of the story is but I can’t find an acceptable solution for presenting it. Other times the block comes near the beginning because I don’t know where the story is going. And even when I write to the end usually the story feels imperfect because I didn’t understand all levels of the story well enough to give it its full value.

bookmark_borderReading Across Genres

Posted on by Glenn

I like to read across genres.

Some years back I discovered Google’s list of best books of 2012 and I read them without paying attention to what the title might hint, reserving judgement as long as I could. The 2013 list wasn’t as good and that was the last I saw. Since then I haven’t found a reliable way of finding material across genres worth looking at.

Recently I realized that, just as I’ve used Pulitzer, Giller, and Booker prize long lists to give me literary novels to read (often by authors I’m unfamiliar with, which is the other bonus) I can use awards from other genres to help me find titles.

So I started with the Edgar nominees for mystery, then the Hugo awards, the Rita, and now the Thriller awards.

The Lady from Zagreb (A Bernie Gunther Novel) was better written and was more entertaining than I expected. At the start I was hesitant because I’ve read enough Nazi Germany fiction for my needs but this Marlow-like detective just happens to live during that period. The Goblin Emperor was also well written but I lost interest in the detailed description of ceremonies and procedures. When I read unfamiliar authors I usually research afterwards and one reviewer pointed to the focus on court intrigue rather than on events; that’s where I lost interest too. I stopped reading about a third of the way through.

I tried two Rita nominees, but the first was written at a 12 year old reading level and the other at a 15 year old level. The characters were real enough, but boring because the internal narrative focused exclusively on how hot their intended looked. Not exactly Jane Austen. I won’t mention the titles because they’re not well written and I’d rather forget about them, and hope others do the same.

There were also two YA novels that I read and I’ve forgotten where I found their titles, perhaps in the library suggestions themselves. The first was Uninvited,which fell miles short of Divergent or The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and I didn’t finish it, and the other was Revolution, which was an interesting creation of parallel life stories in modern times and during the French revolution. Because of the history lesson included within I can see why school libraries like it but I felt shorted in the modern character’s resolution and evolution.

Now I’m into Fever: A Novel which is pretty well written though heavy on interjected backstory snippets and it constantly jumps POV from the girl to her father to her brother. I’m to the point where the fever is just making its presence felt but it’s not been a smooth read to this point. The POV jumps and backstory interjections make me fell as if I’m winding up a string of Christmas lights when I’m used to rolling up a plain electrical cord or a garden hose. Snaggly. Hoping it will smooth out as we get further into the story.

So I haven’t found a good award to suggest romance or YA titles yet. I think there probably are some, as well as ones for other genres I haven’t tried yet (Western; meh, Memoir? Humour? Woman’s Lit? Horror?).  There are sub-genres too but I’m hoping the larger ones will include those, like the Hugo included “The Goblin Emperor” which is more fantasy than science fiction.

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I realize that if I’m abandoning so many novels unfinished, one might ask why I bother looking for award lists for recommendations?

It’s because in order to find something to read I need the title to be presented to me. It used to be that I’d find a book that I liked and then I’d read everything that author had written (like all 51 Hardy boy novels when I was in the sixth grade; it wasn’t until recently I learned that they were written by different people) but these days I want to go across genres and read different things all the time. I want some authority to give me the ‘best’ available to increase my chances of discovering something I like and I’m not interested in what the readers like or I’d try Goodreads or Amazon. I want some evaluation of the quality of the writing. Then, asked Phaedrus (or was it Lila?), what is quality? Apparently that’s up to me, the reader, with a little qualification from the internet.

bookmark_borderTalking Heads

Posted on by Glenn

hanging heads

I just critiqued a short piece where some friends are driving home from a party, gossiping about others they just left. There is some description of the drive, but the piece was almost entirely talking heads. Worse than that, since we get no description of the speakers, they’re disembodied talking heads, without the fake smile and coifs of a newscaster to look at.

Granted, the dialogue is what this story is about; showing how these friends cut others down. The problem for the reader is that we’re not there (or even watching the scene on television) and if the writer doesn’t give descriptions of setting, expressions, and vocal inflections, we have no means of getting there.

Talking heads are great for an intense discussion in a novel. The reader’s focus is driven exclusively toward the words exchanged, heightening their importance, but that’s in the context of a longer story where the personalities, relationships, physical descriptions and objectives are already set. Even then any emotions arising from the words exchanged should be supported with actions, expressions, and vocal inflections.

“Give the character’s some business” is one oft repeated piece of advice, and in the story I just read that’s what the writer’s interjections of traffic does. But traffic is what the characters might notice, not what the unfamiliar reader needs to see.

“Put yourself in the character’s situation and describe what you see” is another aphorism that might have been applied, but what the character sees and what the reader needs (wants) to see are different things here. The reader is there in the car, but is not familiar with the characters the way the characters are with each other. What would a new kid in town notice or an invisible passenger wonder, or what is a movie camera going to capture?

More importantly, if we were directing this scene, what have we told the cameraman to focus on? What expressions, what camera angles, what shots of passing scenery or around the inside of the car are important to getting this scene across? We (the writer/director) already know what’s going on and we need to select visuals (and for the writer, other senses as well) to communicate the point of the scene.

Again, traffic might be what you, travelling with old friends through familiar territory, are most aware of, but there are backstories and unspoken agreements and known shared and conflicting perspectives and familiar tones of voice and expressions that an outsider isn’t privy to, that reassure and explain more fully the meaning of the words. Giving the reader only dialogue and traffic descriptions limits the reader to poor vision, as if we are very nearsighted and can only make out shapes and gross movements. It also keeps us far in the distance and makes it difficult to believe or to connect to the characters and the story.

If you give the characters some business, don’t just stop at relevant. Don’t pass up on the opportunity to chose business that helps to define the personalities or the characters’ relationship to each other or to the friend left behind, or to provide a metaphor for the point of the scene or of the story overall.

Don’t throw in the first thing that comes to mind just because it fits .

 

 

bookmark_borderDouble Duty

Posted on by Glenn

I’ve been working and thinking a lot about various things related to writing.

One is layering.

https://flic.kr/p/ogN18S

By layering I mean multiple levels of meaning or connection so that there is more than one thread connecting every phrase to the plot, the setting, the personalities, or the themes. In other words, why describe the light as “clear and bright” when you can say “cutting through the darkness like a knife” if the threat of a knife and cutting adds to the mood or the tension (and the cliche isn’t too painful), or “illuminated the dust hanging from long forgotten spider webs” if one of your themes is memory or time.

Or, as a writer you know you need to mix bits of setting or description of actions with your dialog, so rather than have the waiter ask about refills, have a baby in the next booth start to cry because one of your characters has a problem with her repressed childhood memories.

This is what I mean by double duty. It could be even triple duty; a beat to let the dialog settle in the reader’s mind, a description to add strength to the setting, while also a metaphor for one of the themes of your story. Or any other sort of multiple purpose use.

What these multiple layers do is weave a denser tapestry so the fabric of your story is supported in numerous ways. Not all of this hard work will be obvious to the reader but subconsciously they will get the feeling that yes, this characteristic of this person is clear to me because of this, this and this, but there will be these other subtle supporting connections that they cannot list unless they spend the time with your story like you did writing it.

 

bookmark_borderWord frequency counter; an add-in for Word

Posted on by Glenn

I have to give a shout-out to this word frequency counter add-in for Word:

http://gregmaxey.mvps.org/word_tip_pages/word_usage_and_frequency_report.html

Word frequency is something I review when self-editing. Get a count of each word, decide which ones I’m overusing, do a search-and-replace-with-highlight in Word and it’s easy to read and consider options.

Word will count words, but not give you a frequency. There are web sites that will do this, but you have to upload your file to their site and some restrict the size of the document (though, as a trade-off, they often do other analysis as well). The add-in doesn’t require Internet access, runs within Word, and can export to a separate file which I copy to Excel and massage further.

Now, if it would only measure proximity of words as well so I can see that I’ve used ‘word’ three times in the first paragraph and three more in the second and twice in the third ..

bookmark_borderPainting with Words

Posted on by Glenn

It’s been pointed out to me (and I’ve been subconsciously aware) that my writing over the past year or two has become more convoluted and laced with more (sometimes) challenging grammatical errors.

A few factors:

  • more complicated situations and characters
  • desire to push my prose
  • poetic licence

But I’m beginning to think the biggest factor is that I’m writing and editing like an improvising painter. I decide that a situation or description needs a dash of red, but not just basic red; rosewood red. That specific color has slight characteristics or elements that regular red does not have. With that addition I think that section as a whole represents what I want to say but I don’t notice that the shade conflicts with other parts of that section, all of which have elements of green.

I think I want rosewood red (or the gerund version of a verb, or an unexpected metaphor, or a strange wording) and it isn’t until someone points out the awkwardness or the mismatch and perhaps suggests a smoother revision that I see what they’re seeing. Only then do I realize that I have not fully thought out why I need rosewood red, not seen the conflict, and not made a conscious decision either to keep it and rework other things so the unintentional awkwardness is removed, place it so that it’s clear why that conflict or oddness is considered and necessary, or revise it with a version that works better with the colors (words, phrases, sentences) around it. Instead, I see the composite of what I’ve placed there and what it includes.

It’s like being a beginning writer and making simple grammar or sentence construction or POV or logic errors and reading right past when I self-edit, only now I’m doing so at a higher level (I hope) where I’m striving for subtle or complex or intentionally nebulous communication which is more difficult to work perfectly. I’m using a larger palette with more shades and in more combinations and trying to use them in such a way that paints a better picture, one that more completely includes all of what I’d like to say.

Like the writing here. Metaphors and multiple options or versions all strung together in long sentences; these are examples of some types of prose situations I’m getting myself tied up in. But there others. And I think they’re all arising from the same basic writing issue; trying to get a more complete communication of all the elements and shades that I want to get across.

bookmark_borderOn Anecdotes

Posted on by Glenn

Here’s an anecdote:

Late one rainy Saturday morning I caught the X9 bus going downtown. The front was full so I sat near the middle, on one of the long bench seats where your back is to the window and you face the opposite seat.

I heard a woman’s voice from the rear. She was Filipino and I couldn’t tell if she was speaking English, but I did understand that she was trying to get the attention of the elderly Chinese man sitting across from me. On the seat was a bag of vegetables. Beside that, a dark hard shell glasses case.

The woman was pointing in the direction of the case and my assumption was that she had seen this fall from his pocket. I put my hand in front of the man and waved. When I had his attention, I pointed to the case. Without looking where I pointed, he shook his head, mumbled something, and faced forward again. I exchanged glances with the woman and shrugged. Her expression didn’t change.

As the bus slowed for the next stop, I heard the crinkle of the cellophane-like bag and the man walked past me to the door. The case still sat on the seat. I flicked my eyes toward it and asked the woman, “So that’s not his?” She replied with something that may have been ‘No’, or maybe ‘I don’t know,’ or maybe something else entirely.

I wondered whether I should take the case to the driver, but the bus was filling up. A fellow in his thirties with his own bag of things pushed the case to the edge of the seat and sat down. Next time I looked back, the woman had gotten off the bus as well. I wasn’t sure where best to get off myself so I was busy Google Mapping the location and left soon after.

If I wanted to use this anecdote, the first idea that comes to mind is to use it as an opening, then continue with an essay on the multiculturalism of society or on communication in general. Another option would be to criticize myself for my half-hearted efforts at doing a good deed.

Now, this anecdote is true but it could easily be fiction or used in fiction. As is, it tells a little tale but without the essay or further explanation the point is not clear. A series of vignettes with me as the central character might tell a story about me or about my city. A series of vignettes with communication issues due to multiculturalism would have an obvious meaning. A more creative option could be to write the incident from the perspective of me, then of the woman, then of the man, then from the view of another passenger witnessing the event, and tell a story about perspectives. Or I could wait until I’m working on a longer piece were this incident might be useful to reinforce a theme that already exists.

But here it’s just an anecdote. And I’m using it to point out that an anecdote alone is not necessarily a story.

An incident may have poignancy, it may have things worth thinking about. I could tell this to a friend and ask, do you think I should have picked up the case to make sure the man understood? Or, isn’t it interesting that I understood the woman’s communication but not her words, nor the man’s? Maybe when I tell this to a friend, the friend jumps to their own interpretation and we could continue the conversation that direction. But standing alone, an anecdote may not be a story.

bookmark_borderWhy is Writing Well so Difficult?

Posted on by Glenn

Why is writing well so difficult?

It seems easy. When we talk, we don’t have difficulty communicating.

On the other hand, our appraisal of our chatter is not strict, not until we have to make a speech or a presentation. And when we speak face to face we receive feedback—discussion, questions, body language—to check how well our message is coming across.

Good writers make written communication seem natural, easy, almost invisible from a technical perspective. I find my writing (increasingly) cumbersome, clumsy, disorganized. Why does it require so much editing to get it right, or at least, better?

Maybe it’s useful to look at things that are a problem, figure out why they are a problem, and try to guess how they come about. Then, if we’re lucky, we can figure out a way of making it easier, and better earlier.

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Sometimes the issue is a function of sentence or paragraph structure. Grouping and ordering the bits of information in the best sequence doesn’t always come the first time, especially if you rearrange sections and add material. In a critique I commented on a sentence which gave the time of day, the temperature, and the characters appearing on the scene, but the author said afternoon first, then told us riders on horseback, then mentioned the sweltering heat, then something else about the situation. I suggested putting the temperature and time together since they’re related, and keep the information about the characters with the situation, rather than time, riders, heat, situation, and the sentence could flow much better.

But you don’t always see those things as you write. You start with bits of information and add to it and don’t see how it might work better.

Another writer wrote about Mary sitting in her car waiting for it to heat up, rubbing her hands to warm them against the cold (using descriptive language and many more words in two compound sentences). If she’s in the car she’s probably sitting and if she’s rubbing her hands to warm them the car is probably not in motion and it’s probably cold inside and out. Could it be important that the car is running and not moving (carbon monoxide poisoning)? Maybe, but not to the author as the rest of the paragraph went into backstory. What I imagine here is the writer visualized the situation, devised bits of information, then put them together in sentences. Yes, give us details to make the scene real, but new information that adds something useful to our understanding, not repeated or obvious information (unless you’re writing a self-help book and repetition helps get your point across).

So maybe it is the process of revising, of changing to try to improve and adding to fill out and to build that leads us to dump in additional bits and bytes of information, and then it requires editing to find the new best structure.

What this implies to me is a willingness to be free with the structure as you insert, rework, and edit. You’ve got a nice couple of paragraphs but you realize you need more setting or more reaction from the character? Great, but be willing to toss all the pieces, new and old, into a pile. Look for duplicates and overlap. Look for bits that are obvious from other bits or that don’t add anything useful. Find the best order for presentation. Then, rewrite or re-weld from scratch. Remember the old days of doing research or analysis essays in college? Same plan. Don’t just think, Yes, I’ll add that bit of detail by stuffing a new sentence in.

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What about the opposite; missing things? Not basics, like missing end quotation marks at the end of dialogue, but missing detail for realism, missing background for understanding character or situations, or larger scale items such as missing tension, or insufficient reason for the existence of a paragraph, scene, character, or chapter?

I tend to write concisely. There’s an aphorism that you write your first draft and cut out two thirds of what you’ve written in the second, but that doesn’t apply to my writing. Sure, there are phrases and words that don’t add anything, like in the story of Mary above, but generally the percentage that needs to be cut is small. On the other hand when a reviewer tells me “this needs to be twice as long,” sometimes I reword that to mean “give me more background, I don’t get enough story so that it works for me”. Now maybe it’s true; they really would like it to be twice as long, but sometimes it works better (imho) if I insert a description here, a sentence or paragraph of backstory there, a reaction to an existing situation that tells more about a character elsewhere. Tiny additions sprinkled throughout that define a character much clearer than before. Or on a larger scale a few moments of backstory or reflection or descriptive reaction, as opposed to another chapter.

Why were these not present earlier?

Maybe:

  • I was comfortable with the character being vague.
  • I didn’t see how much more powerful or understandable the story could be with a more clearly defined character.
  • I didn’t understand the character or the situation well asI was writing.
  • I still haven’t defined the character sharply enough in my mind, so when I read I don’t see what’s lacking.
  • I was reading things into the story that I haven’t written.
  • I’m not as good a reader as my reviewer.

Some of these things don’t come until review, or at least after first draft. Still, it doesn’t hurt to work toward being capable of seeing them earlier, to keep them in consideration in my own reading and early revising.

I guess the potential downside is losing some speed and flow in the first draft process. On the other hand, the improvements I’ve made over the years to my editing and sentence writing ability have not hampered my first draft writing, at least not that I’m aware of, but it has enabled me to write better sentences the first time, with fewer repeated words, fewer adverbs, better rhythm. (And I know that my expectations and hopes for the quality of my writing is higher, hence my ongoing failure in spite of my improvement.)

Sometimes some of the lack of detail and background is a natural difficulty of writing fiction. Like the liar, the fiction writer wasn’t actually there and so details, sensory information, emotional reactions and developments are imagined, faked. Lies. So the descriptions will easily be lacking key elements of a ‘truthful statement’.

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Okay, what about plot and storyline?

Sometimes I enjoy the writing, the exploration, the creation of sentences and paragraphs, and end up with little or no plot. Why should a reader find what I have to say interesting? If I have no arc, if the character doesn’t evolve, if the action is random or not investigated, what’s the point?

I might be aiming for an investigation into a situation or a moment, a dramatic presentation of an event. But wouldn’t it be stronger and have more meaning with more context? If we understood more about the characters and why they act or react, more about the circumstances that drove this combination of elements to collide, would the reader not get more?

A vignette is a moment with valid artistic value, but a vignette has to evoke more than what is presented. It needs to encourage the reader to experience a mood, an emotion, or to reflect and consider the implications of the words beyond what is there on the page. Placed within a larger piece, a vignette might give the reader a deeper sense of one of the characters. It adds to our understanding of who this person is, and is the point of the writing.

But as a stand alone short piece, a vignette lacks the context that one within a novel will have, and needs to be more universal, both in its experience and in its application, thereby requiring less setting. Or, so powerful, so poetic or poignant in its expression that they have touched something through the words, and it was a worthwhile experience.

Or so I think, anyway.

This is something that I’m struggling with. In theory a lot of my short writing experiments could be considered vignettes because I’m trying to capture a moment in time, a slice of someone’s life, but they may not be poignant enough to be worth reading, unless you’re going to stand there and admire my writing, like I do.

In a larger piece, conflict, physical description, beats, anything outside dialogue or internal narrative can be lacking. When I feel my way through a chapter often there is one element that drives the writing. In a dramatic or conflict situation that driver could be dialogue. In a chapter build around a series of events it could be getting the characters from one setting or situation to the next. In a problem solving situation it could be all about the problem; setting it up, experiencing the blockage, finding the solution.

Anything that is not the driver could be left behind. In a dramatic situation the tension will be there, but I might miss opportunities to heighten conflict with smaller tensions, and I will definitely miss physical activity. In a series of events the movement will be key and I will miss description, conflict, and dialogue.