Sliding down the Clothesline (Sense of Forward Progression)

Adrian

Happy holidays! To celebrate, a nice dark cowboy image. šŸ™‚ Iā€™m working on StoneDragon (or the Dead Dragon Cowboy) tonight, right before wrapping up a few left-over kids presents, so thought it would be an appropriate image.

Iā€™m going to talk now about one of the most impactful concepts that Iā€™ve come across recently in my writing thoughts, one that I’ve spent some time mulling over and want to better apply in my own writing. It is the concept of writing following a clothesline, with various story elements tied to it, but an absolute need to keep that line of forward momentum.

Maybe a zip line would be a better analogy. You can tape setting, theme, description and other things to the wire, but you need that sense of purposeful movement that comes from sliding along it.

Itā€™s a forward moving line, not a patchwork quilt where you donā€™t seem to be getting anywhere.

This concept can be credited to a couple of people, at least in my own research: Joshua Bilmes as recorded in one of Brandon Sandersonā€™s writing lessons, and Ilona Andrews, in describing how to deal with transitions (albeit in a slightly different context).

One of the points that this brings in is that description and detail should only included if they are directly relevant in time and significance to the main character in their immediate circumstances. Plot is the clothesline, other stuff can be strung along it, but it has to keep moving. You can’t stall in something that doesn’t have a sense of being relevant to the immediate story.

In other words, each paragraph should build on the one before and need the one after to fully realize the impact of the writing. As long as you keep this forward progression, you donā€™t need to rush. You can paint setting, give details, and help the reader to visualize the scene and understand your story.

The point is that readers want to feel a confident hand at the wheel. They want to make sure that everything that they are reading has a purpose and that they arenā€™t stuck in a morass of unimportant details that donā€™t lead anywhere. Especially for a new writer, that hasn’t earned their trust.

So keep things tied to the clothesline. Keep moving forward. And may that make all the difference for all of us!

Merry Christmas! May you have all the success you dream of in the New Year!!

 

Arrows in the River (Giving the Reader Time to Absorb)

Adrian

I think I might be going too fast in the beginning. There I said it.

I read other short stories in the ā€˜Improbable Truthā€™ anthology and compared them to mine. Then I skimmed the old opening of the original StoneDragon draft, the last full version I wrote, and I found fast dialogue and action, but not a lot of setting, backstory, or context, at least in the first few pages. I dropped the reader into a fast moving stream and expected them to start swimming, without help. And maybe with a few arrows falling around their head (my featured image was boring until I added the arrow, which IĀ have to tie in somehow!).

But seriously, I think I need to aim for slightly longer paragraphs early on, of adding something that isnā€™t fast moving action or dialogue, at least in the first few pages. Setting, mood, detail. Something to allow my readerā€™s mind to settle in, pick up the point of an individual paragraph and absorb it, before being assaulted by a new and completely different idea, every sentence or two. Or at least not until the pacing is intended to pick up and the reader is comfortably ensconced in the scene.

I should probably note that this flaw is probably better than the reverse: being too slow and predictable, which is the kiss of death, but I still have to write down my flaws when I see them–and I think I see one.

Hopefully, Iā€™m not be as bad as I used to be when I first wrote that early StoneDragon draft, and I definitely donā€™t want to swing completely to the other side of the pendulum, and have a pedantically boring opening, but I think that I will probably add this question to my checklist of itemsĀ when Iā€™m editing a story. Iā€™m still going to try having an opening that grabs you, but hopefully not at a speed where you are lost.

A fast moving stream can shock you, wake you up, and get your heart rate racing. All good things for a chapter. But if the waterā€™s too fast and deep, youā€™re just going to drownā€¦

Especially if you get shot by arrows. šŸ˜‰

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A new sketch for the post. I also have a hockey injury tonight: a slapshot to the little finger. A lot of blood and the nail is mottled black. So not much extra typing going on. šŸ˜‰ Most of this post was done beforehand. Before ‘hand’, he he. Okay, maybe a bit light headed from blood loss and a single beer. Hope your night went better!

On the WIP front, I’m finally shockingly happy with the outline and am cleaning up my world-building references into organized files in Scrivener before tackling the rewrite. Which will be followed by a paid edit and possibly a copy edit. So still quite a ways from complete. But I’m getting excited by it again, which is a nice change!

PS, I have a guest blog coming soon, which is a first for the blog and pretty exciting, And which will also hopefully give the little finger a chance to recover! šŸ™‚

sword

Stenographer Notes or Dusty Diary (Narrative Filter)

Adrian

 

A comment that slapped me upside the head a year or two ago was around narrative technique, and specifically if a filter was being applied or not. Unfortunately, I canā€™t remember the source, but it essentially said that a narrator can be one of either two form:

  1. Objective (no filter).

ā€œJust the factsā€. Such as a stenographerā€™s word-for-word typing Ā of a court proceeding.

Here, the author is trying to describe the action of the character and world as clearly as possible, without distortion, as if there were a video camera recording events. The reader sees facts, or ā€˜truthā€™.Ā (I know, truth is subjective, but thatā€™s the point. This style of writing tries to avoid subjectivity.)

You can still have emotion, and even close POV, with this narrative voice, but you are providing information to the reader as accurately as you can, without bias, other than what is clearly identified asĀ the thought of the reader. You can have

ā€˜Jonathan smiled. He was sure that there was a leprechaun at the end of the rainbow, no matter how CNN reported it.’

But youā€™re less likely to have:

ā€œSusan smirked at Jonathan. She didnā€™t know the truth, how the rainbow was only anchored to earth by the presence of a leprechaun.Ā Scholars might argue that point later, but those who deny magic have only their limited world views to blame. But I digress. As Jonathan stepped forward…ā€

In the latter, you have a strong and definitive narrator statement about something that isn’t as clear cut. The narrator is filtering the information and providing you his or her views on it. There is a narrative filter.

  1. Subjective (filter).

ā€œHereā€™s how you should interpret the factsā€. A filter is a decision to tell a story with someoneā€™s bias. A diary, instead of a video camera. Someoneā€™s ā€˜truthā€™, as they would remember or experience it.

In this case, the narrator might still be reliable (they’re still tellingĀ you the truth as best they can), but with some ā€˜flavorā€™ in how they tell it. Or they might be unreliable. They are deliberately misleading you, in how they tell the story. But either way, it should beĀ obvious to the reader that some kind of a filter is being applied. They should ‘hear’ the bias in the writing. Events are being interpreted for them, to an extent that the facts donā€™t support on their own.

As an aside, a narrative filter can either be using the opinions and ‘voice’ of theĀ point of view (POV) character, or someone else, which is a significant choice to make, but beyond the scope of this post.

Summary:

This clarification of narrative voice (that it can be objective or subjective, a filter of colored glass or a clear window without distortion) may seem obvious, but was an important point for me to think through. If you donā€™t decide what you want to do on this front, itā€™s easy to go astray. Plus, it’s also nice to know the range of things that you CAN do! Is your narrator almost non-existent? Is your narrator the character themselves? Or is the narrator someone else, maybe someone with a strong opinion on the story, such as a secondary character? And if you do have a subjective narrative filter,Ā who are they telling this story to? Is it anyone in specific? If you haven’t thought through all these questions, you run a big danger in writing your story.Ā One of the biggest risks in voice is inconsistency, which clearlyĀ marks you as an amateur to aĀ publishing professional. So don’t do it!

This is one of these thingsĀ that is easy to get right if you think about it (or at least avoid getting wrong), and very easy to goĀ wrong if you donā€™t. Hopefully this post helps!

Best,

Adrian.

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Life is crazy, outside of writing, so you’re getting a repeat image. But I haven’t used it for a while and kind of like it, so there you go. šŸ™‚ Also note that I will be posting onĀ Selah Janel’s website, Come Selahway With Me, in the next couple ofĀ days, as part of the ‘Improbable Truth’Ā Sherlock Holmes’ anthology’s blog tour. Please come and visit! I’ll try to update the link closer to the day.Ā I’ll be talking about Theme and Spiders (very Halloweeny). šŸ˜€ Enjoy!

Egg or Wiffle Ball (Short Story vs First Chapter)

Adrian

Iā€™ve written a few short stories recently and Iā€™ve struggled with the difference between a short story and a first chapter. This debate comes partly because I have so many ideas, and I love the creative bursts that come with first chapters. I also like the idea of writing a whole novel, using my short story ideas as seeds, so Iā€™ve tended towardsĀ writing short stories that could be expanded into novels if I had the urge (i.e. they could double as either a short story or a first chapter).

Iā€™ve also had some degreeĀ of success in my recent writing, with acceptance to an anthology (An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, out later in October) and an honourable mention in the Writers of the Future contest. I am not sureĀ how much of it is improved writing skill and how much from better understanding the short form of fiction.

So Iā€™ve thought about the difference between short stories and first chaptersĀ a bit, and one of the main differences in my mind, that I think is less well discussed and maybe worth considering, is the difference betweenĀ an egg and a wiffle ball.

Confused? šŸ™‚ Let me explainā€¦

An egg is completely self-contained, everything inside circular, trapped, self-reinforcing. A wiffle ball has a bunch of holes that air spins in and out of. It is connected to the larger world around it, even though its basic shape is the same. How does this apply to writing?

A first chapter can introduce many cool things very briefly, the start of threads that will be explored a chapter or two down the road. It doesnā€™t have to have much significant meaning right away. But with a short story, you are trying to amplify the impact on the reader of a small story segment, and that story segment will be more powerful if moreĀ of the elements reinforce each other. If more of the peripheralĀ details, whether part of setting or plot, reinforces the main story idea or theme. You are better to examine every element of a short story and see if you can bend it to reinforce that section of writing, rather than leaving something to build until later.

An example, you ask? Certainly.

In ā€œTimeā€™s Running Out, Watson,ā€ (my to-be-published short story) I originally had the villainess holdingĀ a futuristic weapon, beyond the time device that the story revolves around. I figured an evil scientist-type would have more than one trick up her sleeve, right? But eventually I took the extra weaponĀ out and had her threaten Watson and Holmes with the time device instead. That way, the focus was razor-sharpĀ on a single cool idea, the time device, rather than something broader. If I had been writing it asĀ a novel, maybe I would have wanted to includeĀ a second device, to show people that my villainessĀ wasnā€™t a one-trick pony and develop her character and backstory more. In fact, Iā€™d probably want more loose ends withinĀ the first chapter, to twig reader curiosity, and lead to a greater and deeper finale at the end. But in a short story, I have to be more careful.

Egg or wiffle ball. Short story or first chapter. There is a line you can dance in the middle, where something could be read as either aĀ short story or first chapter, but it is indeed a dance, and the most importantĀ thing to know, as a writer, is what can go wrong. At least then, you’re making a conscious decision on how to address it and whether the risk is worth taking. So now you can think aboutĀ it too.

Iā€™m off to play badminton. Neither egg nor wiffle ball it shall be. šŸ˜‰

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The featured image is a quick pencil sketch done for the post, maybe forty five minuteā€™s work. Enjoy.Ā On the personal front, Iā€™m actually not getting much writing done, sadly, as work pressures and sick kids (the THIRD time my older boy has got hand foot mouth, gah!) have sucked all my free time into the abyss. But I have people critiquing aĀ short story I finished on my recentĀ cruise, which I quite liked and got good feedback on, and Iā€™m hoping to submit it to an anthology call at the end of the month. It was a fun effort, and dances the line between short story and first chapter, inspiring the post above. Weā€™llĀ see how I doĀ in walking that line. šŸ™‚

Improbable Truth cover

Cover reveal, story hints, and a Benedict Cumberbatch sketch

Adrian

Melissa must be a better detective than me, because she has some clues as to the other writers’ stories. I can’t wait to read them all myself! (the sinister time deviceĀ is me, though, he he). So here is a link to a fellow Improbable Truth anthology writer’s post…

COVER REVEAL! An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I’m going to copyĀ her blurb too, cause I liked the sound of it:

In An Improbable Truth: The Paranormal Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 14 authors of horror and mystery have come together to create a unique anthology that sets Holmes on some of his most terrifying adventures.Ā  A pair of sisters willing to sacrifice young girls to an ancient demon for a taste of success, a sinister device that can manipulate time itself, and a madman that can raise corpses from the dead are just a few among the grisly tales that can be found within these pages.

Curl up with a warm cuppa and leave all the lights on.

This is not your grandfatherā€™s Sherlock Holmes.

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For the record, thisĀ featured imageĀ is a rare case of the artwork not being mine. This was done by the talentedĀ Anne Rosario instead.

For fun, though, I’m playing around with doing a Benedict Cumberbatch painting for the site. I don’t think that would get me in any copyright trouble, as long as I’m not selling anything attached. And I think it would be funny. We’ll see if I have enough time to finish it. šŸ˜‰ Maybe just a teaser pencil sketch???

He he… Ok, I shadedĀ it in a bit, so that it’s a bit more than a teaser. Enjoy.

Benedict Cumberbatch

I don’t know if I’ll ever finish it, but… “Time’s Running Out, Watson” as cast by the BBC. šŸ˜‰