They say when you sit down to write that you should write what you know, but is that really good advice? I’ve come across a few instances where it just might be the worst advice you could follow.
This past year there has been a big blow up in the speculative fiction community about gender stereotypes in writing. More recently there was an analysis of the seven season of the new Doctor Who series using the Bechdel test to determine if the show was sexist or not. Now I have issue with that test, not because of what it is trying to test, but the way it does it. That’s a topic for an entirely different time. Right now what concerns me is the way writers deal with sensitive issues such as race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation.
Race I think I have handled. I grew up in a town that was predominantly white, but not exclusively. I consider myself blind to race, as in I do not treat anyone different because of how they look. I never have. I wasn’t raised that way. I am very race conscious. I know racism exists and I deplore it in all its forms. No one should have to experience that. I have filled my writing with a variety of races and if they were every to turned into movies (I know it’s a pipe dream, but no writer can help it) and cast according to how I see the characters, there wouldn’t be many roles for white people.
But it has come to my attention, through some of the things that have been happening, that my treatment of gender may be a little too close to how I was raised. There have been few working women in my family and there are few in my stories. An oversight I intend to correct. As I have pondered just how this came about, I have reached the conclusion it is because I have followed the advice and written what I know. No bad intention on my part, but the things that influenced me when I was young, and from which I continue to be inspired, tend to be male dominated. Just about everything I watched or read is male centric.
It is odd. I was raised by women (with few strong male figures in my life) and I portray women as people with their own strengths and weaknesses. I’ve even been told that when I write female protagonists that they are stronger characters than my mail protagonists. Even so, the ideas I come up with for stories lack many women characters. Men and women share this world 50/50. The characters in my stories should follow the same split, but I was well into my fourth novel when I realized what I was doing.
And this applies to how I portray sexual orientation. I knew of no one who was not straight when I was growing up. I had some good influence from one of my favorite writers on the topic, but found religion for a while and was quite against it for a while until I realized 90% of the stuff they were feeding me was untrue. It took me a while to come back to a better place and I consider myself to be very forward thinking. I support marriage equality and early detection of gender identity (so a young person can get hormone therapy before hitting puberty so their body can develop as the gender they see themself as). But because this is something I have little experience in, I am hesitant to write characters like this because of that advise to write what I know.
So we come to today and my writing, and that of many people, which does not correctly reflect our world or our beliefs because we are writing what we know. It is drilled into us and I see that advice, while great for looking for a genre or story idea, is horrible advice when it comes to populating our stories. Our world had changed considerably and we need to change with it. Not just in our beliefs, but in the characters we fill our stories with. No, I may not be comfortable writing about a gay or transgender character, but I need to expand my horizons and learn and grow. No, I may not know enough right now, but I can learn, study, ask questions, seek advice, make new friends, etc.
So I propose a corollary to Write what you know. That is, if you don’t know it, learn it. And don’t stop with what society sees as issues. Imagine your own. In speculative fiction we have opportunities to imagine things that may never be reality, but it can let us explore these issues. We can make our writing a platform for equality for all while telling damn good stories. In fact some of the best writing has a clear message.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Bye Bye, Mary Sue
Writers are often faced with an issue when creating characters – believability. We have to balance the task of creating real, fleshed out characters with what we need to tell the story in the space allotted. Some are better at it than others. Those who have failed have led to some interesting character tropes. In particular is the character labeled Mary Sue.
Before I get into what makes a Mary Sue, I should first cover the goals and desired character tropes that it is sometimes confused with. Hopefully if you are reading this, you are familiar with the term ‘trope’, but just in case, a troupe is a convention or device a writers uses that will be immediately familiar to their audience. Some of the notable character tropes are the hero, the old mentor, the damsel in distress. Writers use them to best effect when they use a trope as a skeleton to build a fully fleshed character on. One of the desirable tropes is the Everyman trope. The Everyman is a normal person, someone the audience can relate to. They are used to great effect in many ways in a story, but have come to prominence as the protagonist. A proper Everyman is well rounded, fallible, not particularly heroic, but someone who can make it through adversity. They key to good fiction is to take a character trope and produce a realistic, well rounded character.
And then you have a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a miss of the Everyman trope. A Mary Sue masquerades as an Everyman, but where an Everyman has flaws and seems real, a Mary Sue is almost too perfect and too successful. Thing come too easy for a Mary Sue. If you have every played role-playing games, a Mary Sue plays with loaded dice. This trope was really born in fan fiction, but you can find them almost anywhere. Everything seems to go their way and yet they pass themselves off as completely normal. Readers wait for them to crash and they never do. I really shouldn’t just limit this to written fiction as it applies equally well to moving pictures, but even they have a script written by someone. Whether it is a reader taking the words and building a character in their mind or an actor performing the part, you still have a writer behind it.
I would pin the difference between an Everyman and a Mary Sue as failure. You expect and get failure from the Everyman. From a Mary Sue you will never get real failure. What does it mean to fail? Well, in the extreme it means death. But it also means you lose the love, you can’t save someone important, you can’t succeed at every step and have to try again. Failure builds character. It also lets readers connect with the character. What it boils down to is that with the Everyman, success is not guaranteed and usually not fully achieved. With a Mary Sue, they are going to succeed and get just about everything they want. For an Everyman, success comes with a price or is incomplete. For a Mary Sue, there is little price and it is complete (unless the writer saved something for a sequel).
The Mary Sue is like this because the trope comes from wish fulfillment. The writer wants what they character gets. It is a fantasy where everything goes the right way. In good fiction, as with life, few things come that easy. The Mary Sue character has everything come easy and the story just lacks something. It may be action packed, and a thrill ride, but there is no real danger, not sense that failure is imminent. By creating this sort of character, the writer has diminished their work. That said, parody and comedy have different rules. I don’t write that way, but the only time a Mary Sue can work to good effect is when the purpose of the story is different. For normal dramatic fiction, a Mary Sue is a bad thing.
The Mary Sue trope is not always a deliberate thing. Usually it is done on accident by someone who has yet to acquire their full set of writing skills. We can forgive a budding writer for falling for this trap. It is an easy fix. But when you have someone who eschews the fix and keeps doing it, you just have a bad writer. A writer needs to have a reason for everything. If you want to put in an Everyman, they need to have flaws and failure. If you have a comic purpose, you might have need of a Mary Sue. A writer needs to know their craft and use the tools and tropes that are called for to best meet the expectations of the reader. A reader of serious fiction will read a Mary Sue story and hate it or be totally bored.
Eliminating Mary Sue characters (except for those rare instances when they serve a purpose) is one of the first things a new writer needs eradicate. It is one of those things that separates the amateurs from the professionals. Few other character tropes are so fully tied to bad writing as the Mary Sue is. Part of that is the trope’s birth in fan fiction and the wish fulfillment of the fledgling writer. I did it. It is the hallmark of a writer who has yet to learn that to make fiction interesting, you have to put your characters through hell. You also don’t want to just insert problems for problem’s sake, but that is a post for another time.
Before I get into what makes a Mary Sue, I should first cover the goals and desired character tropes that it is sometimes confused with. Hopefully if you are reading this, you are familiar with the term ‘trope’, but just in case, a troupe is a convention or device a writers uses that will be immediately familiar to their audience. Some of the notable character tropes are the hero, the old mentor, the damsel in distress. Writers use them to best effect when they use a trope as a skeleton to build a fully fleshed character on. One of the desirable tropes is the Everyman trope. The Everyman is a normal person, someone the audience can relate to. They are used to great effect in many ways in a story, but have come to prominence as the protagonist. A proper Everyman is well rounded, fallible, not particularly heroic, but someone who can make it through adversity. They key to good fiction is to take a character trope and produce a realistic, well rounded character.
And then you have a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a miss of the Everyman trope. A Mary Sue masquerades as an Everyman, but where an Everyman has flaws and seems real, a Mary Sue is almost too perfect and too successful. Thing come too easy for a Mary Sue. If you have every played role-playing games, a Mary Sue plays with loaded dice. This trope was really born in fan fiction, but you can find them almost anywhere. Everything seems to go their way and yet they pass themselves off as completely normal. Readers wait for them to crash and they never do. I really shouldn’t just limit this to written fiction as it applies equally well to moving pictures, but even they have a script written by someone. Whether it is a reader taking the words and building a character in their mind or an actor performing the part, you still have a writer behind it.
I would pin the difference between an Everyman and a Mary Sue as failure. You expect and get failure from the Everyman. From a Mary Sue you will never get real failure. What does it mean to fail? Well, in the extreme it means death. But it also means you lose the love, you can’t save someone important, you can’t succeed at every step and have to try again. Failure builds character. It also lets readers connect with the character. What it boils down to is that with the Everyman, success is not guaranteed and usually not fully achieved. With a Mary Sue, they are going to succeed and get just about everything they want. For an Everyman, success comes with a price or is incomplete. For a Mary Sue, there is little price and it is complete (unless the writer saved something for a sequel).
The Mary Sue is like this because the trope comes from wish fulfillment. The writer wants what they character gets. It is a fantasy where everything goes the right way. In good fiction, as with life, few things come that easy. The Mary Sue character has everything come easy and the story just lacks something. It may be action packed, and a thrill ride, but there is no real danger, not sense that failure is imminent. By creating this sort of character, the writer has diminished their work. That said, parody and comedy have different rules. I don’t write that way, but the only time a Mary Sue can work to good effect is when the purpose of the story is different. For normal dramatic fiction, a Mary Sue is a bad thing.
The Mary Sue trope is not always a deliberate thing. Usually it is done on accident by someone who has yet to acquire their full set of writing skills. We can forgive a budding writer for falling for this trap. It is an easy fix. But when you have someone who eschews the fix and keeps doing it, you just have a bad writer. A writer needs to have a reason for everything. If you want to put in an Everyman, they need to have flaws and failure. If you have a comic purpose, you might have need of a Mary Sue. A writer needs to know their craft and use the tools and tropes that are called for to best meet the expectations of the reader. A reader of serious fiction will read a Mary Sue story and hate it or be totally bored.
Eliminating Mary Sue characters (except for those rare instances when they serve a purpose) is one of the first things a new writer needs eradicate. It is one of those things that separates the amateurs from the professionals. Few other character tropes are so fully tied to bad writing as the Mary Sue is. Part of that is the trope’s birth in fan fiction and the wish fulfillment of the fledgling writer. I did it. It is the hallmark of a writer who has yet to learn that to make fiction interesting, you have to put your characters through hell. You also don’t want to just insert problems for problem’s sake, but that is a post for another time.
Monday, December 30, 2013
Staying Creative
This is a season when it is hard to stay creative. At least for me. Too many family events going on to keep the writing going. Then it is hard to get back to it.
Well, I have no good answers as to how to stay creative. In many ways it is kind of a question. What I find works best is to just dive back in as soon as possible. I've managed to meet every November writing goal I've set for myself, including this year, but the early months of the year have always been my least productive time for writing. I'm hoping this years is an exception.
I have plenty of goals for the year. I am working hard to finish one novel right now. I'm 3/4 of the way through it and the end is in sight. But I did take a break on another novel to write this one. So the new year sees me with several projects, including two novels to finish.
I think the one thing that does work the best for me is to keep taking the time to enjoy other people's work. It invigorates me to experience a good story. I try to turn that into energy for writing.
Staying creative is hard work. That is part of how it works. It takes work to be creative. You have to stick with it and not be an artist, but a craftsman.
Well, I have no good answers as to how to stay creative. In many ways it is kind of a question. What I find works best is to just dive back in as soon as possible. I've managed to meet every November writing goal I've set for myself, including this year, but the early months of the year have always been my least productive time for writing. I'm hoping this years is an exception.
I have plenty of goals for the year. I am working hard to finish one novel right now. I'm 3/4 of the way through it and the end is in sight. But I did take a break on another novel to write this one. So the new year sees me with several projects, including two novels to finish.
I think the one thing that does work the best for me is to keep taking the time to enjoy other people's work. It invigorates me to experience a good story. I try to turn that into energy for writing.
Staying creative is hard work. That is part of how it works. It takes work to be creative. You have to stick with it and not be an artist, but a craftsman.
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Selling Your Soul
Writing is a constant struggle to maintain the balance between something intimate and something marketable. We put our soul into our work and then we turn around and have to sell it. It doesn't matter if you writer fiction, non-fiction, for movies or for books, you have to sell your writing, your soul, to someone else.
Today I stumbled across a book that deals with that singular point, selling your work. Blake Snyder takes an interesting tack on it in Save The Cat. While he is a screenwriter and his book is geared toward his industry specifically, there is a lot for any type of writer to learn. Snyder focuses on something that had crossed my mind on several occasions in the past years and that is you need to know what you are writing before you write it. Not the whole story, but the premise. To do that he asks that we answer one question BEFORE we ever start writing - What is it? He, of course, focuses on what that answer should include to be successful in Hollywood, a far tougher market than the publishing world or the self-publishing world. He focuses on irony as the key thing that draws in potential producers.
We writers of novel length fiction have different audiences with different interests. Irony is a very good hook, but it may not be the most important for every genre. Know thy genre is the critically important mantra that will help you hook the readers you want. Ultimately, not matter what you write, it has to be sold to the public, either by you or by someone you sold your work to. The public will ask "What is it?" and you need to have the answer.
The first step, before you even name your characters or pick your setting, is to get to the heart of your story. Craft a simple one line sentence, commonly called a logline. You aren't interested in who at the moment, just what. The what is the foundation of your story, even if you are writing a biography.
Once you have the what is it is time to add in genre and who. Genre colors everything. You can have a story about a ship captain, but knowing that it is a modern cruise ship in a murder mystery, a future spaceship, a nineteenth century whaler, or a ship carrying a magical item to save the world. Genre colors the conflict and the characters. Then the who gives us a frame of reference, a way into the story. Who is this story about and why should we care about them. We novel writers have and advantage over Hollywood screenwriters in that our characters don't need to be as relatable. They don't need to be vehicles for stars and they don't have to be simple.
Next is structure and pacing. Snyder writes specifically about movies and gives a very set pacing (a tad dictatorial for my taste - but his pacing works). Novels flow at a different pace. A move screenplay is just a fraction the length of a novel (under 20k and only about 150 words per page) so there is less room to play with pacing. In a novel we have 4 or more times the length to work with and can weave much more complex stories so the structure is not nearly as set. But the pacing needs to be just as consistent. Movies are commonly considered to be structured in 3 acts. Novels are more like 9. You can have multiple highs and lows that build to the final climax and denouement. There is more time to delve into characters, large and small. Still, you don't want to get side tracked. You still need to stay focused on that idea you crystallized in the logline.
The nice thing is that this works for planners and pantsters. For planners, you can go a step further and plan out your structure and fill in the details. For pantsters, you have only created the kernel of the story and are free to wander to your ending, but you must keep pacing in mind as you do so. Some of the suggestions Snyder has can help, even if you don't want to preplan where you are going, you can set goals, such as in an 80k story, by the time you reach 40k, you should be halfway through your story and should be well into the problem. On the advice of Isaac Asimov (the essays from Gold), I always plan my ending so I know where I am going, but I leave how I get there up in the air.
But no matter what you write or how long it is, if you are serious about making writing your profession you will need to hawk you wares once you have your project finished. To do that, you need to have a clear image of what your story is about, who it is about, and what genre it fits into. One trick that I have learned but not yet mastered is that in trying to find a taker for your story, you don't have to be very precise in your logline/hook or summary. You want the person on the other end to read your story and everything needs to be designed to do that. These aren't skills that come easy to most writer, but doing these things up front will give you a better chance. If you create the basic logline first and then embellish it with the who and genre of your story (and then stick to that as you write), you will have the best possible tolls to gain the readers you want. This piece of your soul called a novel needs to be read and the better you can explain the what and who to potential readers, the easier it is to sell to them.
Today I stumbled across a book that deals with that singular point, selling your work. Blake Snyder takes an interesting tack on it in Save The Cat. While he is a screenwriter and his book is geared toward his industry specifically, there is a lot for any type of writer to learn. Snyder focuses on something that had crossed my mind on several occasions in the past years and that is you need to know what you are writing before you write it. Not the whole story, but the premise. To do that he asks that we answer one question BEFORE we ever start writing - What is it? He, of course, focuses on what that answer should include to be successful in Hollywood, a far tougher market than the publishing world or the self-publishing world. He focuses on irony as the key thing that draws in potential producers.
We writers of novel length fiction have different audiences with different interests. Irony is a very good hook, but it may not be the most important for every genre. Know thy genre is the critically important mantra that will help you hook the readers you want. Ultimately, not matter what you write, it has to be sold to the public, either by you or by someone you sold your work to. The public will ask "What is it?" and you need to have the answer.
The first step, before you even name your characters or pick your setting, is to get to the heart of your story. Craft a simple one line sentence, commonly called a logline. You aren't interested in who at the moment, just what. The what is the foundation of your story, even if you are writing a biography.
Once you have the what is it is time to add in genre and who. Genre colors everything. You can have a story about a ship captain, but knowing that it is a modern cruise ship in a murder mystery, a future spaceship, a nineteenth century whaler, or a ship carrying a magical item to save the world. Genre colors the conflict and the characters. Then the who gives us a frame of reference, a way into the story. Who is this story about and why should we care about them. We novel writers have and advantage over Hollywood screenwriters in that our characters don't need to be as relatable. They don't need to be vehicles for stars and they don't have to be simple.
Next is structure and pacing. Snyder writes specifically about movies and gives a very set pacing (a tad dictatorial for my taste - but his pacing works). Novels flow at a different pace. A move screenplay is just a fraction the length of a novel (under 20k and only about 150 words per page) so there is less room to play with pacing. In a novel we have 4 or more times the length to work with and can weave much more complex stories so the structure is not nearly as set. But the pacing needs to be just as consistent. Movies are commonly considered to be structured in 3 acts. Novels are more like 9. You can have multiple highs and lows that build to the final climax and denouement. There is more time to delve into characters, large and small. Still, you don't want to get side tracked. You still need to stay focused on that idea you crystallized in the logline.
The nice thing is that this works for planners and pantsters. For planners, you can go a step further and plan out your structure and fill in the details. For pantsters, you have only created the kernel of the story and are free to wander to your ending, but you must keep pacing in mind as you do so. Some of the suggestions Snyder has can help, even if you don't want to preplan where you are going, you can set goals, such as in an 80k story, by the time you reach 40k, you should be halfway through your story and should be well into the problem. On the advice of Isaac Asimov (the essays from Gold), I always plan my ending so I know where I am going, but I leave how I get there up in the air.
But no matter what you write or how long it is, if you are serious about making writing your profession you will need to hawk you wares once you have your project finished. To do that, you need to have a clear image of what your story is about, who it is about, and what genre it fits into. One trick that I have learned but not yet mastered is that in trying to find a taker for your story, you don't have to be very precise in your logline/hook or summary. You want the person on the other end to read your story and everything needs to be designed to do that. These aren't skills that come easy to most writer, but doing these things up front will give you a better chance. If you create the basic logline first and then embellish it with the who and genre of your story (and then stick to that as you write), you will have the best possible tolls to gain the readers you want. This piece of your soul called a novel needs to be read and the better you can explain the what and who to potential readers, the easier it is to sell to them.
Thursday, July 18, 2013
Where To Begin...
One issue that commonly plagues writers is where to begin a story. The standard advice of beginning when the action starts or to start with an action scene doesn't always lead to good results. I will attempt to put down my thoughts on the subject in a way that I hope will be helpful.
The good news is that you don't have to find your beginning when you start writing. Sometimes it can be more helpful to your overall story if you go back and fix it after you have the ending to your story ironed out. For those who outline in depth, you might just have enough of your story before you begin your first draft, but getting in and writing it might still give you cause to go back and edit your beginning later.
The trap many fall into is equating staring your story with action to starting it in the middle of an action scene. That is the wrong sort of action. It might work for some stories, but for others it can set a incorrect image of the story. If you aren't delivering hard hitting action scenes all through your story, you probably don't want to start with one. No, the meaning of starting with action is to start with your first character doing something. It's supposed to be an action verb, not an action scene. It doesn't matter how mundane it is, but the verb should not be static. Looking in mirror is not action. Lounging in bed is not action. Driving is, opening a door, even waking up or some life event works. Visit your favorite books and see how they start. Chances are it isn't with a fast paced action scene.
What is that moment that is the best beginning? It is the moment when things change. It could be as seemingly insignificant as a blown interview or cancelled appointment or as eventful as a birth, death, marriage, or car accident. Think about it like alternate realities. What is the point where this story breaks off from all possible other stories. Then find the first interesting thing that happens. Often the very first scene will be the change, but at other times, it has already happened. Such as a couple agree to sell their house and move, but the first scene is their final walk-through of the house - the moment that sale becomes final, at least for the characters if not the bank. In the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) the pivotal moment is when the plans are stolen, but it doesn't impact our characters until Leia gives the plans to R2-D2 during the epic battle over Tatooine. In The Hobbit, that moment is when Gandalf chose Bilbo to be the fourteen's member of Thorin's party, but we don't start the story until Gandalf puts a mark on Bilbo's door on the day of the gathering. And this is nothing new. Jane Austen started Pride and Prejudice with a conversation about Netherfield Park being rented at last, the day Elizabeth Bennett learned of the event that would change her life.
Also, if you like to be a bit more realistic, sometimes those early moments on the path to the conflict are not always that interesting. Maybe the key moment happened some months ago, but only now do things that make for a good story pick up. The key is to know what the pivotal moment is and how your characters get involved. One way is to have the opening scene be when another character gets involved. George Lucas used the two droids as his vehicle for moving the story. They are technically secondary characters, but they are the story link between Leia and Luke.
Once you lock in where to begin, the question becomes how to begin. That really depends on your story. But no matter what the story, you have to keep in mind two things. First, get the reader's attention and get them hooked by your story. Second, every story should build to the ultimate climax. You don't want to start with something so big and epic that the rest of your story can't live up to it. Now if you are going to tell a big epic war story, like Star Wars, you can start with a battle. If your character is in the military and a particular battle is crucial to the start of his story, then that works. What you don't want to do is make the opening scene bigger than the payoff later supports. You don't need big to snag an audience, what you need is something intriguing. Something that catches their interest. Movement and action verbs are just one of many tricks to do that. Mystery is another.
Like with just about every aspect of being a writer, the best education is to read and read widely. Step out of your comfort zone. Say, like me, you love science fiction and fantasy. On occasion, pick up a historical fiction, a mystery, a spy novel, or a chicklit. It will enrich your writing and let you in on what other types of writers are doing. I've found some pretty great books that way. While reading for enjoyment is always a good thing, as a writer, you really need to do more. You need to pay attention to how the plot unfolds, where they start the story, how the opening scene catches you, how the conflict builds and morphs and moves to the climax. There are many ways to structure a story and the more ways you know, the more widely you are read, the more depth your stories will have.
The good news is that you don't have to find your beginning when you start writing. Sometimes it can be more helpful to your overall story if you go back and fix it after you have the ending to your story ironed out. For those who outline in depth, you might just have enough of your story before you begin your first draft, but getting in and writing it might still give you cause to go back and edit your beginning later.
The trap many fall into is equating staring your story with action to starting it in the middle of an action scene. That is the wrong sort of action. It might work for some stories, but for others it can set a incorrect image of the story. If you aren't delivering hard hitting action scenes all through your story, you probably don't want to start with one. No, the meaning of starting with action is to start with your first character doing something. It's supposed to be an action verb, not an action scene. It doesn't matter how mundane it is, but the verb should not be static. Looking in mirror is not action. Lounging in bed is not action. Driving is, opening a door, even waking up or some life event works. Visit your favorite books and see how they start. Chances are it isn't with a fast paced action scene.
What is that moment that is the best beginning? It is the moment when things change. It could be as seemingly insignificant as a blown interview or cancelled appointment or as eventful as a birth, death, marriage, or car accident. Think about it like alternate realities. What is the point where this story breaks off from all possible other stories. Then find the first interesting thing that happens. Often the very first scene will be the change, but at other times, it has already happened. Such as a couple agree to sell their house and move, but the first scene is their final walk-through of the house - the moment that sale becomes final, at least for the characters if not the bank. In the first Star Wars movie (Episode IV) the pivotal moment is when the plans are stolen, but it doesn't impact our characters until Leia gives the plans to R2-D2 during the epic battle over Tatooine. In The Hobbit, that moment is when Gandalf chose Bilbo to be the fourteen's member of Thorin's party, but we don't start the story until Gandalf puts a mark on Bilbo's door on the day of the gathering. And this is nothing new. Jane Austen started Pride and Prejudice with a conversation about Netherfield Park being rented at last, the day Elizabeth Bennett learned of the event that would change her life.
Also, if you like to be a bit more realistic, sometimes those early moments on the path to the conflict are not always that interesting. Maybe the key moment happened some months ago, but only now do things that make for a good story pick up. The key is to know what the pivotal moment is and how your characters get involved. One way is to have the opening scene be when another character gets involved. George Lucas used the two droids as his vehicle for moving the story. They are technically secondary characters, but they are the story link between Leia and Luke.
Once you lock in where to begin, the question becomes how to begin. That really depends on your story. But no matter what the story, you have to keep in mind two things. First, get the reader's attention and get them hooked by your story. Second, every story should build to the ultimate climax. You don't want to start with something so big and epic that the rest of your story can't live up to it. Now if you are going to tell a big epic war story, like Star Wars, you can start with a battle. If your character is in the military and a particular battle is crucial to the start of his story, then that works. What you don't want to do is make the opening scene bigger than the payoff later supports. You don't need big to snag an audience, what you need is something intriguing. Something that catches their interest. Movement and action verbs are just one of many tricks to do that. Mystery is another.
Like with just about every aspect of being a writer, the best education is to read and read widely. Step out of your comfort zone. Say, like me, you love science fiction and fantasy. On occasion, pick up a historical fiction, a mystery, a spy novel, or a chicklit. It will enrich your writing and let you in on what other types of writers are doing. I've found some pretty great books that way. While reading for enjoyment is always a good thing, as a writer, you really need to do more. You need to pay attention to how the plot unfolds, where they start the story, how the opening scene catches you, how the conflict builds and morphs and moves to the climax. There are many ways to structure a story and the more ways you know, the more widely you are read, the more depth your stories will have.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
The Annoyance Of 'Whom'
Sometimes a word outlives its usefulness. 'Whom' is nearly such a word. It has lost much of its meaning because it was most people don't understand when to use it. Consequently when in doubt, people use 'who' instead.
Part of this stems from a lack of knowledge by the learned grammarians as to the origins of the word and its correct usage in historical context. Students of German should instantly understand what I am talking about because Old English and German had the exact same structure of pronouns. Modern German has four cases, Nominative (subject), Accusative (direct object), Dative (indirect object), and Genitive (possessive). You may notice that two cases carry the name object and therein lies the problem. 'Whom' is a specifically Dative form of 'who'. That is why when grammarians say that if it is an object use 'whom' and to our ears it usually sounds wrong. Because it is. Most of the objects are Accusative and so use 'who'. Only when used in Dative do you need 'whom' and only then does it seem to fit.
The gist is that something that started back in the Dark Ages during the birth of English, is still causing changes even today. 'Whom' is becoming less and less frequent. Fewer people use it and more and more just stick with 'who' in all instances. This has been a problem for English since the original Accusative form, 'whon', went away. Those of learning have consistently replaced it with 'whom', while the common people have replaced it with 'who'. Trouble is the common people tend to win these sorts of things. This particular issue has just taken a lot longer to work itself out than just about any other linguistic conundrum. Technically we still haven't fully worked it out, but it is pretty obvious that 'whom' is on the way out at last.
Part of this stems from a lack of knowledge by the learned grammarians as to the origins of the word and its correct usage in historical context. Students of German should instantly understand what I am talking about because Old English and German had the exact same structure of pronouns. Modern German has four cases, Nominative (subject), Accusative (direct object), Dative (indirect object), and Genitive (possessive). You may notice that two cases carry the name object and therein lies the problem. 'Whom' is a specifically Dative form of 'who'. That is why when grammarians say that if it is an object use 'whom' and to our ears it usually sounds wrong. Because it is. Most of the objects are Accusative and so use 'who'. Only when used in Dative do you need 'whom' and only then does it seem to fit.
The gist is that something that started back in the Dark Ages during the birth of English, is still causing changes even today. 'Whom' is becoming less and less frequent. Fewer people use it and more and more just stick with 'who' in all instances. This has been a problem for English since the original Accusative form, 'whon', went away. Those of learning have consistently replaced it with 'whom', while the common people have replaced it with 'who'. Trouble is the common people tend to win these sorts of things. This particular issue has just taken a lot longer to work itself out than just about any other linguistic conundrum. Technically we still haven't fully worked it out, but it is pretty obvious that 'whom' is on the way out at last.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Bad Witing: Who Notices and What Matters
I am making no secret I am boycotting Star Trek Into Darkness (warning, if you don't like spoilers, don't read further), but in addition to the whitewash casting that sparked my boycott, I have reports from those who have seen it on just how badly written it is. The most detailed report so far has been from James Cawley. For those who haven't heard of him, he is the other James T. Kirk. He stars and produces the fan made Star Trek: Phase II. His report on the flaws and plot holes of Star Trek Into Darkness is magnificent.
As a blog about writing, I thought it would be useful to delve into the topic of bad writing using this film as an example. The real thing I want to focus on is who notices and what sort of issues matter and what don't. Now, things are a bit different for movies than for books, but not by too much.
Star Trek Into Darkness is full of plot holes and logical inconsistencies. Cawley goes in depth on the major offenses and points out many of the minor offenses as well. The plot details don't matter for the sake of this discussion. I'm more interested in the audience reaction. With this movie it varies widely, but most have enjoyed it. Even Cawley says it is better than that last one. I'm sensitive to race issues so casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan Noonian Singh doesn't sit well. If you've read my work you'll know from the cover art and characters descriptions that I avoid using a typical westerner unless there is a reason. That on top of a dubious sequel to the dubious 2009 film and the bad writing reported by several people I trust, and I have chosen to boycott it. Not just now, I don't plan to ever see it. That puts me in somewhat of a bind, but Cawley has done an excellent job of reporting and it is more than enough to use for examples.
No matter what you write, there are two audiences you must please. You must please the general public and those who will be reviewing it. For novelists, the latter includes agents, editors, and publishers, as well as book reviewers. There is no work that will be universally loved, so often it is a matter of finding the right people to review it. You need someone who likes the same sort of thing. That is why agents, editors, and publishers usually focus on a few select genres. In the case of something part of such a well-known legacy as Star Trek, one of the key group of reviewers is not just the followers of the genre, but the followers of the franchise. Do they matter? Yes, they do. But the question is how much.
Star Trek has a long history and the fans first stepped up to keep the series on the air. But by the third season the writing was on the wall and Roddenberry lost heart and let scripts through that were less than stellar. It shows. Such classics as Spock's Brain and Turnabout Intruder really make you question the series. When it came to the movies, the legions of fans made Star Trek: The Motion Picture a hit, even though it is a more cerebral story filled with visual effects. They came back with a trilogy of popular movies, culminating in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the biggest popular hit of the franchise. That is because it took good Star Trek and made it accessible to the general public. It did so without dumbing down the franchise.
Fast forward to 2009 and the release of the simply titled Star Trek. The movie uses an alternate timeline to reboot the franchise and rattle the cages. In spite of casting an outstanding actor for the part, the film lacked a good villain. He was poorly written and was barely involved in the plot. I won't go into all the plot holes in that film. I was able to turn off my Trek logic detector and just enjoy it. Now we have its sequel, created by the same writers and production team.
It is clear form the careless nature of the writing that both these movies helmed by J.J. Abrams are all about the action. What that does is cater to the general public, the wider audience. That is well and good and would be fine, except there are the legions of loyal Star Trek fans who expect more. We have put up with the drawn out Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the low quality (but oddly with a story that is closer to the spirit of the Original Series) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. We dealt with Star Trek: Generations and the horrible breakdown in crew ability, all just to destroy the sets. We could deal with these because even while being less than great, they adhered to the ideals of Star Trek. That is missing from these new movies. And with the casting choice for the role of Khan, this latest one falls flat. We old timers will speak up. We are a group of reviewers that Abrams and his crew have chosen to ignore. While we may not have a big impact on the ticket sales these first weeks, we are the ones who normally see a film multiple times and then buy the home video release later. My boycott may have no impact now, but if enough Star Trek fans who care about story are disappointed enough in this film, it won't do well for long.
So what we have in Star Trek Into Darkness is a very pretty movie with serious story issues. The casual observer may not notice, or there may be just a flicker that something doesn't seem right. The closer observer, the critic, the reviewer, the Star Trek fan, is going to see these things and it will diminish the product. On a multi-million dollar effects movie, the expense of spending a little time on the script and bringing in someone who can pick out those flaws before the film gets made is minimal and would pay for itself in the end. By not caring and paying attention to those things, you lose some potential repeat business.
For us writers, this is a cautionary tale. Imagine instead of a die hard Star Trek fan, you are dealing with an agent who specializes in your genre. You write a good tale, but you goof up a few things. If you write historical fiction, perhaps you have introduced some anachronism that would spoil your story for potential readers. Perhaps you write science fiction and have leaned too far to the supernatural. These things can be a deal breaker. If you are lucky, someone will point them out to you, but in a world where the slush piles are so large, they are just looking for a reason to pass. The sort of carelessness Abrams has shown with Star Trek is the sort of thing an agent is going to pass on.
Now in this case, the movie is likely to be a huge success and Abrams will continue to ignore the protests from the fans as he rakes in the money. But consider that if he had done it right, not only would he rake in the money, but he'd make more people happy in the process and probably make even more. The lesson in this is to keep the reviewers and fans happy. You can't please everyone, but you need to please as many as you can. Writers need to focus on the agent/editor/publisher at first, and then, as they grow in popularity, their fans. It seems such a simple thing, but some people just don't get it and it shows in how other people feel about their work. So while much of the general public gives Abrams an A for this movie, this reviewer gives him an F. He failed to do some simple things that would have only given him a better finished product.
As a blog about writing, I thought it would be useful to delve into the topic of bad writing using this film as an example. The real thing I want to focus on is who notices and what sort of issues matter and what don't. Now, things are a bit different for movies than for books, but not by too much.
Star Trek Into Darkness is full of plot holes and logical inconsistencies. Cawley goes in depth on the major offenses and points out many of the minor offenses as well. The plot details don't matter for the sake of this discussion. I'm more interested in the audience reaction. With this movie it varies widely, but most have enjoyed it. Even Cawley says it is better than that last one. I'm sensitive to race issues so casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan Noonian Singh doesn't sit well. If you've read my work you'll know from the cover art and characters descriptions that I avoid using a typical westerner unless there is a reason. That on top of a dubious sequel to the dubious 2009 film and the bad writing reported by several people I trust, and I have chosen to boycott it. Not just now, I don't plan to ever see it. That puts me in somewhat of a bind, but Cawley has done an excellent job of reporting and it is more than enough to use for examples.
No matter what you write, there are two audiences you must please. You must please the general public and those who will be reviewing it. For novelists, the latter includes agents, editors, and publishers, as well as book reviewers. There is no work that will be universally loved, so often it is a matter of finding the right people to review it. You need someone who likes the same sort of thing. That is why agents, editors, and publishers usually focus on a few select genres. In the case of something part of such a well-known legacy as Star Trek, one of the key group of reviewers is not just the followers of the genre, but the followers of the franchise. Do they matter? Yes, they do. But the question is how much.
Star Trek has a long history and the fans first stepped up to keep the series on the air. But by the third season the writing was on the wall and Roddenberry lost heart and let scripts through that were less than stellar. It shows. Such classics as Spock's Brain and Turnabout Intruder really make you question the series. When it came to the movies, the legions of fans made Star Trek: The Motion Picture a hit, even though it is a more cerebral story filled with visual effects. They came back with a trilogy of popular movies, culminating in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the biggest popular hit of the franchise. That is because it took good Star Trek and made it accessible to the general public. It did so without dumbing down the franchise.
Fast forward to 2009 and the release of the simply titled Star Trek. The movie uses an alternate timeline to reboot the franchise and rattle the cages. In spite of casting an outstanding actor for the part, the film lacked a good villain. He was poorly written and was barely involved in the plot. I won't go into all the plot holes in that film. I was able to turn off my Trek logic detector and just enjoy it. Now we have its sequel, created by the same writers and production team.
It is clear form the careless nature of the writing that both these movies helmed by J.J. Abrams are all about the action. What that does is cater to the general public, the wider audience. That is well and good and would be fine, except there are the legions of loyal Star Trek fans who expect more. We have put up with the drawn out Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the low quality (but oddly with a story that is closer to the spirit of the Original Series) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. We dealt with Star Trek: Generations and the horrible breakdown in crew ability, all just to destroy the sets. We could deal with these because even while being less than great, they adhered to the ideals of Star Trek. That is missing from these new movies. And with the casting choice for the role of Khan, this latest one falls flat. We old timers will speak up. We are a group of reviewers that Abrams and his crew have chosen to ignore. While we may not have a big impact on the ticket sales these first weeks, we are the ones who normally see a film multiple times and then buy the home video release later. My boycott may have no impact now, but if enough Star Trek fans who care about story are disappointed enough in this film, it won't do well for long.
So what we have in Star Trek Into Darkness is a very pretty movie with serious story issues. The casual observer may not notice, or there may be just a flicker that something doesn't seem right. The closer observer, the critic, the reviewer, the Star Trek fan, is going to see these things and it will diminish the product. On a multi-million dollar effects movie, the expense of spending a little time on the script and bringing in someone who can pick out those flaws before the film gets made is minimal and would pay for itself in the end. By not caring and paying attention to those things, you lose some potential repeat business.
For us writers, this is a cautionary tale. Imagine instead of a die hard Star Trek fan, you are dealing with an agent who specializes in your genre. You write a good tale, but you goof up a few things. If you write historical fiction, perhaps you have introduced some anachronism that would spoil your story for potential readers. Perhaps you write science fiction and have leaned too far to the supernatural. These things can be a deal breaker. If you are lucky, someone will point them out to you, but in a world where the slush piles are so large, they are just looking for a reason to pass. The sort of carelessness Abrams has shown with Star Trek is the sort of thing an agent is going to pass on.
Now in this case, the movie is likely to be a huge success and Abrams will continue to ignore the protests from the fans as he rakes in the money. But consider that if he had done it right, not only would he rake in the money, but he'd make more people happy in the process and probably make even more. The lesson in this is to keep the reviewers and fans happy. You can't please everyone, but you need to please as many as you can. Writers need to focus on the agent/editor/publisher at first, and then, as they grow in popularity, their fans. It seems such a simple thing, but some people just don't get it and it shows in how other people feel about their work. So while much of the general public gives Abrams an A for this movie, this reviewer gives him an F. He failed to do some simple things that would have only given him a better finished product.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)