Writing Excuses Transcripts

Writing Excuses 21.08: Setting Expectations 

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-08-setting-expectations

Key Points: Expectations? What is the shape of the story? What are we going to do? Genre, plot structure. What kind of ride will this be? Beginning? First couple of scenes. By the end of the first chapter. Short stories? Small proportion. Microcosm in the first half page or whole page. How do people engage with their world? Hacking the brain and checking the label. Hit the markers to identify the kind of story. MICE quotient. Understanding the character's perspective. The feel, what is going on. Build reader trust. Make a promise and fulfill it. Let readers feel clever.  Let the reader figure it out just before you tell them. Raise a question and then answer it. Don't try to be mysterious. Sometimes the surprise can be how something happens. Control the tone, so the beginning matches the rest of the book. Use common human experiences. 

[Season 21, Episode 08]

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[Mary Robinette] This episode of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 21, Episode 08]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] Setting expectations.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[Mary Robinette] And today we're going to talk about setting expectations. So, we have been looking at the things that you need at the beginning of the story. And, after taking a little break to go dive into my short story, we are back and we are talking about one of the specific things that you need to try to accomplish in the beginning, which is to set the expectations of a reader. So when we say expectations, like, what does that cover?

[DongWon] I mean, I think that covers everything from what is the shape of the story... I think that's the thing I say the most when talking about openings, is, this didn't communicate to me what the shape of the story is to come. What kind of things are we doing? Is this... And that includes genre, but that also includes sort of just like a hint of overall plot structure. And so those expectations for me are really like what kind of ride am I about to go on? I think of it as a roller coaster, and I look ahead and I can see, oh, there's a loop de loop, there's a drop, I don't know what that's going to feel like when I get there and there's stuff I can't see, but, like, okay, that's the kind of thing that says, versus one of those ones that just goes straight up and drops you right back down.

[Erin] I also have a couple of questions about that. Let's interrogate that.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] I love roller coasters.

[Erin] No. I'm curious when you say beginning in this case, how large of a piece are you... Like, does it take for you to get that kind of... Is this a one-page thing, is this, like, a three chapter thing? How do they set that for you?

[DongWon] I think this is more of. like. a first couple scenes thing. So not necessarily first page. Like, first page is so much about setting a vibe and tone in a lot of ways as we were talking about in the last epi... Or a couple episodes ago. But I think in terms of setting expectations, I think really by the end of the first chapter, depending on how you've structured your book, I kind of need a sense of not necessarily who the protagonist is, but also, like, a feeling of, like, the kind of protagonist we're going to have. Right? So, if our opening is a cold opening with a character who's not going to recur, I think that's totally fine. But then the action of that should give me some indication of what kind of story I'm in. So I think of Six of Crows as a great example of this, which starts with the POV character who's... Spoiler... Is dead by the end of that prologue or first chapter or whatever it is. But I got the kind of sense... It introduced me to the magic system, to the setting, to the world, but also the like, oh, this is going to be a story of a certain kind of crime story, a certain kind of about resisting oppression, a certain kind of, like, violence will be present in this story. And I'm like, okay, I know what ride I'm on now, by the end of that. And so my expectations feel really thoroughly set by the end of that. And the rest of the book continues to deliver on that.

[Mary Robinette] So I'm going to answer that from short stories. Because I think it's the same thing, but I think one of the places that people get into trouble when they're going from novels to short stories, or the other way around, is that it is about proportions.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, the end of the first scene of a novel is like 1% of a novel-ish.

[Erin] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And this is a really... Like, I've pulled that number out of my ass. But it's a really small proportion of that novel. And when you look at the first 1% of a short story, you're looking at the first half page, sometimes the first full page. Where you've got something that tells the reader the same thing, but you're just having to do it a lot more economically. So I think of it like if you're making a layer cake, and you decide to cut the recipe down to make some cupcakes. Right? It's the same proportions, you just aren't using as much flour for that cupcake as you do for the layer cake.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, for me, I'm thinking about the same things. Like... But I specifically try to get that microcosm in within the first half page, because I also know how editors read when they're reading slush. And that first half page is where they have to make the decision about whether to turn the page or move to the next manuscript.

[DongWon] I also think that's how readers read it, though. Right?

[Erin] Yeah.

[DongWon] I do think readers make their judgment. I think they're actually even meaner than industry folks are, because we... We're in it with, like, a hope of, like, that we want the story to be good, that we want to be excited about this. And so when we're reading slush, I do think there is a little bit more generosity afforded than sometimes a reader, who's like, I'm not paying for that. You know what I mean? That's my general impression from talking to readers, of like, oh, you guys are brutal.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I mean I certainly... When I've been in a brick-and-mortar store and pulling something off the shelf...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] To decide, sometimes it's like I decide within a paragraph whether or not I'm going to read it.

[Erin] Yeah. It's funny, I was thinking about, like, how do you set expectations, and thinking about like when I used to slush read, a lot of it was like how the characters... Like, not necessarily what they were doing, but, like, how they were moving through the story. If you think about a whole bunch of people confronted with, like, a clock... A clock table for whatever reason. Like, there are the people who would decide, like, how can I take this apart? What are its components? A technical approach for example. Where there are other people who would be like, this reminds me of time and what is the meaning of time? A more lyrical, poetic approach. And so that tells me as I'm moving through the story, okay, what can I expect in terms of the way that people engage with the world around them. It's almost like the way you think about people engaging with the way around them. If you think about the people you know, like, people carry their own stories with them, but if you have five friends and the same problem, they would all approach it a little bit differently and would probably give you a hint pretty early on as to how they would go through it.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. And that's... I think that how they would go through it is a lot of it. If you've ever had an experience where you encounter someone... And it turns out that they were just having an off day, that's not the way they carry themselves for the rest of their life. But if you're reading the story, and it's like, this is the experience that you're going to have, but then the rest of the story is not like that... It can be... It can have this real disconnect.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] It's like that's not what I signed up for. I often talk about writing as a drug made out of words. Which is something that I got from, I think, Cory Doctorow, that writing is designed to hack the human brain. Because that is how he would phrase it. But... That with novels, what you're thinking about is a slow release, long acting drug. You're dealing with immersion, like, often a cocktail. And with short fiction, it's a fast-acting thing, it's designed for a very focused experience. You may go through different emotions while you're taking that to treat whatever symptom that you're trying to treat. But that you are picking it up for a reason. And that first page is kind of like checking the label to see is this going to address the symptoms I have?

[DongWon] Yeah. In terms of hacking the human brain, I think about it in terms of pattern recognition. Right? I... I talk about this a lot. Human brains are really wired for pattern recognition, it's like how our cognition works. And so storytelling is our way of communicating patterns that we've observed to other people and to Future Generations. Like, one of the things that makes humans special quote unquote is our ability to discover and communicate information and dangers across generational divides and communities. And so storytelling is kind of how we do that. Right? And so what you're trying to do in the opening is hack that process. You're trying to get me to match the patterns that exist in my brain of... So when I say the shape of the story, I want you just to like... I don't need you to tell me what's going to happen. I need you to hit certain markers that will activate my brain that goes, oh, I'm in a Law and Order episode, or, oh, I'm in a romance, or, oh, farm boy is going to find a sword in like three pages. You know what I mean?

[Mary Robinette] This is one of the places that I often reach for the MICE quotient. Because that means that in the beginning, I can have a small version of that problem happen. So if it's a milieu story, which is... it's about crossing thresholds and navigating, then I can begin with a little bit of a navigational problem at the beginning. If it's about a character story, I can begin with a little bit of angst. It's not the big angst yet. If it's an event story, something small goes wrong. It doesn't have to be the big thing. A lot of times when you're reading horror, there's just something that is out of place and unsettling. But it's not... like the haunted object has not yet hit the page. So often just saying, like, this is going to be a story about the status quo being disrupted, this is going to be a story about... Where we're going to have to be dealing with trying to be kinder to our self. Like, this is... These often help me make decisions about the kinds of information to give the reader in the beginning to set the expectations for what I want to have happen later on in the story.

[DongWon] I think it's really important that it comes down to perspective. Understanding the character's perspective, how they approach a problem, I think... One of my favorite openings is Lee Child, I be... Is it the first Jack Reacher novel? I think it's called The Killing Floor. And it starts with him getting arrested in a diner. And the main thing that strikes me in that is it's a very staccato opening, because you just feel Reacher tactically assessing everything in the diner. Of like, oh, this is, like, vulnerabilities, these are my entrances and exits, as these cops pull up and start coming towards the diner to arrest him. And you just... Moving through his perspective tells me everything I need to know about this character, everything I need to know about the story I'm about to get, which is going to be a very smart man dealing with very violent situations. And that is precisely what the book is going to deliver for the next however many pages, and it's a great thrill ride.

[Erin] I think sometimes it's about, like, the character, and sometimes it's about the feel, like maybe the milieu, the what is going on. I was thinking about Law and Order, because you mentioned it earlier. And in the, like, original Law and Order, openings are always two New Yorkers talking about something deeply New York-y.

[laughter]

[Erin] And so they stumble over a body.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And I think that really sets, like, place is important, like, there's a New York atmosphere, especially to early season Law & Order that that captures. Like it doesn't start with the victim, it doesn't start with the body already there. It's them being like, oh, I can't believe I gotta be in this rent controlled apartment. Oh, no...

[DongWon] Fo'ged about it. Ah'm working here.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Exactly. And I think it's like, okay, that gives you a sense of what you are getting from the story. And it's like if you liked this...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] You can get more of it. This is the expectation and we will fulfill it.

[Mary Robinette] Yes. It's the [garbled Brooklyn accents?]

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] So we're going to take a quick break. And then when we come back, we're going to talk about some more tools for building reader trust.

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[Mary Robinette] Welcome back. And, as part of building our reader trust, I'm going to fulfill the promise that I made before our break and we are going to talk about how to do that. Because that's one of the important things that you're doing in the beginning, especially as a debut author, especially early career, or just... The honest thing is that if someone has never heard of you, even if you're five books in, you're a debut author to them. I had the joy of introducing someone to this author they had never heard of before, a little-known author called Ursula K. Le Guin...

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And so for them, Ursula was a debut author and had to build reader trust. So, like, wherever you are, you have to build reader trust. What are some of the tools that we can use to do that?

[DongWon] I think part of it is... You kind of mentioned this in a previous episode, but you make a promise and then you fulfill it. Right? You make some... You set some small expectation and then you pay it off. And that can be as little as like... I wanted to have a sandwich, oh, I have a sandwich. You know what I mean? And just like having... Just showing this thing in a very small way... And it's almost like animal training in a certain way, of, like, I'm going to set an expectation, I'm going to give you your treat. Proving that I'm a reliable source of treats. Now, I'm going to make a big promise, and you're going to get that treat by the end of this book.

[Erin] I think it's also, like, letting readers feel clever...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Is always a great way... Who doesn't like to feel clever? So in a book in which you start with a sandwich, even something as simple as having a character gather the ingredients for a sandwich, so a reader will be like, oh, they're making a sandwich, I can tell, like, they've got turkey there and lettuce and tomato. And then they're like, as I enjoyed the sandwich, just for one second you get to go, like, just like I knew they were going to do. Which makes you feel like I get the story. What I expected from what you gave. All the ingredients is what it was, and I'm smart. And everyone loves that.

[DongWon] Because that's part of the relationship, Trust, too. I'm trusting you to figure out that this is a sandwich one line before I say it's a sandwich. Right? And I think that's one thing that you should think about in reveals in general is let the reader figure it out right before you tell them. You know what I mean? Don't... If you're trying to completely surprise them, it feels bad. If you let them be like, um, this is a sandwich. Hah, I knew it was a sandwich. I think that is a really satisfying interaction, and builds that trust, because if the author is saying to the reader, hey, I know you're a smart reader and you know that I know how to build a reveal. I think once you start building that rapport, that relationship between creator and audience, that's going to create a really fun experience of reading this book.

[Mary Robinette] I think... Absolutely. I think with that, one of the other variations on that is specifically raising a question in their brain and then answering it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Which I wound up doing... It's one of the tools that I use in With Her Serpent Locks, because there was a thing that I was trying to do with that particular story. Which I... Like, the surprise that, ooh, look, we are actually dealing with Greek mythology. But, to start with, to get to the place where I could reveal that, I had to build reader trust. And I do it by saying, hey, cuz, as my starting line, and that raises the question, who's talking?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And then within the first paragraph, I'm like, her cousin wanted to visit, the asshole favorite grandson. So I immediately answer that question. And one of the things that I've found is that if you raise a question, and it's a small question, and you immediately provide the answer, you raise it and you provide the answer, and you raise it and you provide the answer, then you can raise a question and not provide the answer...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And at that point, the reader is like, ah, I understand now. They are going to give me the information I need at the point that I need it, so I don't need it right now.

[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly.

[Mary Robinette] And that's when you can start playing. But what I see the failure mode of that is people raising up questions because they want to be mysterious. They want the reader to figure things out. But they aren't giving them the trust and... To know that they're going to get the tools to figure it out. And so it just makes the reader feel ungrounded and unsafe.

[DongWon] The thing I'm always telling... When I'm giving critiques on opening sections, I'm always like, just tell people stuff. Just tell people how your world works. You don't need to be mysterious about it. Just tell me, like, this is a mystery or this is what they're thinking about. Or let them solve problems early. And that lets you... Yeah. Have the big questions later. But I think there's such a feeling for... I see this a lot in TTRPGs, actually, too, of GM's being like, oh, I can't tell them this yet, because that has to be the big reveal. But sometimes I'm like, no, you can just be like, this is the big bad, this is the villain, he's bad. We're going to spend the rest of the time chasing this man. And that can be a really fun narrative thing. Right? Not everything has to be a surprise.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] And sometimes the surprise can be how it happens...

[DongWon] Exactly.

[Erin] Not that it happens.

[Mary Robinette] Yes.

[Erin] I mean, the entire Final Destination series is basically like, you goin' die. But how?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And where? And, like, in what horrible way?

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And I think about that with one of the... I think the very first story I ever published was a story in which I wanted there to be this, like, big surprise at the end, and it just was not working for people. And so I made it, like, much easier to figure out, like, that this kid is the son of the other character in the story that he hates. And then, as you see him want to, like, hurt this person who is his father, then, like... It's bad. Because, like, you can see it coming, he doesn't get it, but you get it, and it's this feeling of, like, I cannot stop this, like, Greek tragedy from happening between the father and son, versus, like, surprise, that's his dad. Which is fine, but, like, just didn't have the same emotional weight. Because it kind of, like... we'll get to this with endings, but it's like, when you punch somebody in the stomach, you want to, like, wait a second to, like, watch that unfold before you run away. Like, if you punch someone and run away, you don't know if the punch hurt them. If you punch someone and stand there and watch them go ulp, then you know it landed. And then you run away.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] Before they can get you. And that's kind of what you want your story to do. But sometimes the surprise...

[DongWon] This is not tactical advice.

[Chuckles]

[DongWon] When you punch someone, you should just run away. Don't wait.

[Chuckles]

[Erin] In real life, don't do that.

[DongWon] Yeah. In real life, don't do that. Just to be clear.

[Erin] Comfortable. But...

[DongWon] Unless you got to. But, yeah.

[Erin] But, like... You punch people, you want to like... You're spending all this time, like, gearing up for the punch...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] That you're not even going to watch happen. And I think that can be... It feels like... It can never hold the force that you want it to. Because, like, everything cannot come down to this one surprise.

[Mary Robinette] And a lot of times, giving someone an answer at the beginning and they are like, oh, how is that going to happen? The opening line of The Calculating Stars is do you remember where you were when the meteor hit?

[DongWon] Ooh, that's good.

[Mary Robinette] And then what is that first chapter? The meteor hitting.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So you have a piece of information that the protagonist does not have while she's experiencing that. And so you can... You understand contextually what is happening as she is piecing it together, and it's one of the ways that I built trust...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] With the readers for the rest of the story. It's like, yeah, I'm going to give you every piece, you're going to get to be a little bit smarter than her, sometimes. And those are things you can do. The other thing that I think you can do to build reader trust is control your tone. Because this is another place that... A failure mode that I'll see that someone will have is a total opening that's like... Like, really in media res action-packed thing, and then the rest of the story is this contemplative thing. That they've been told that they have to have something that's very hook-y...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And interpreted hook-y to mean action...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And fast. Or having a very slow opening that then is for a story that's super fast paced. So I think sometimes that's a place that you can play with.

[Erin] Yeah. I was thinking about those action openings. Because I do like them, and I think... I tried to figure out what makes them work. And a lot of times, it's... I think we can also hook into things that are common human experiences. A great way to kind of figure out... Like, if you have somebody who's nervous about giving a speech in public, that is something that a lot of people can relate to. It makes the character... Oh, that's a thing I got, and then, like, as they're on the way to give the speech, the spaceship explodes. But, like, while they're running through, they're like, oh, I'm sad the spaceship exploded, but I'm glad I don't have to give that speech. I'm like, I get that. That feels very... It feels really real to me, even though I don't know the character much yet. So, I find a lot of times action pieces work really well for me when there's something in them where the character has one driver...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] That is something that I understand as a driver that doesn't require me to understand the world. It's something that is very personal instead of like it is part of the World building.

[DongWon. Yeah. Giving a really simple relatable goal can be a way to carry somebody through an outlandish experience. But as part of why these action openings almost never work... They're really, really hard to do, actually. Because I don't care about this character yet, so I don't really care if they live or die or get hurt. I need to care about some aspect of it. I'm thinking of like the Harley Quinn movie where she has her breakfast sandwich. And the thing that matters is preserving this breakfast sandwich. And so... I mean, that's like a comedy beat way to do it, but giving a really small scale achievable goal to care about let you feel... Understand the character in a deep way, because the character cares about something, and then I can see how is she responding, how does she act? I learn who she is by her working through this scene of trying to save the sandwich, and failing.

[Mary Robinette] I think these are all really great ways to get people to trust you at the beginning. And, to continue building our reader trust with you, I think it is time for us to move to a little bit of homework.

[Mary Robinette] So, what I want you to do is I want you to review the first chapter of your work in progress. Make a list of all the story promises you've made. Keep this list somewhere you can easily refer back to as you progress through the story. So that you can make sure that you're staying on track. And if there's a promise that you set up, then maybe you should think about how you're going to fulfill it. But... Start with the list.

[Mary Robinette] And now, you're out of excuses. Now go write.