Writing Excuses 20.06: Lens 2 - Identity 1 - History & Community

Feb. 12th, 2025 04:49 pm
mbarker: (Me typing?)
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Writing Excuses 20.06: Lens 2 - Identity 1 - History & Community
 
 
Key points: The lens of who, by history and community. How much do you need to know about their background before the story to tell it effectively? I discover as I go, and then layer it in for continuity. Backfill! Beware the statement without narrative weight, without effect on the character. Consistency! History and identity and community are opportunities, not burdens. Make your identity verb-based. Where are they on axes of power? What stakes are driving the plot? What are their idioms? How does the character relate to their communities? Can anybody solve the plot problem, or does the character solve it because of who they are? Use pieces to imply a larger community or world. Make sure they have enough context. Build your net, drop something into it, and then tell us about the three or four threads that caught it. 
 
[Season 20, Episode 06]
 
[Howard] Writing doesn't have to be a solitary activity. That's why we host in-person retreats and workshops. At the Writing Excuses retreats, you'll get access to classes, one-on-one office hours, critique sessions, and activities to keep you inspired and motivated. Become a more engaging storyteller and learn how to navigate the publishing landscape. As you make meaningful progress on your stories, you'll also build connections with your fellow writers that will last for years to come. Check out our upcoming events at writingexcuses.com/retreats.
 
[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 20, Episode 06]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[Erin] History and community.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Erin] Today, we are going to continue our discussion of the lens of who by talking about what your character brings with them from who they are. Their identity, at its core, the communities that they come up in. Like, how much do you need to know… Question for the group… About who your character was before they entered the story in order to tell it effectively?
[Mary Robinette] I find that I often don't know the answer to that when I start writing, but sometimes, I will be writing and will discover a thing later as I go. But then I have to go back and layer into the early part of the story before I have made that discovery in order to have my character make sense and have them have continuity. In a beautiful, perfect world, I will have sat down and I will have figured out how old they are and how many siblings there are. But a lot of times, especially when I'm doing short fiction, I just… I just start writing.
[DongWon] You can backfill all that information in as you go. I think, in a lot of ways, like you're saying, it's not that you have to have prewritten the document ahead of time, though knowing that here's the town they grew up in or whatever. But be prepared that when something comes up, to find the answer in that moment, and give them that context that they're missing. Right?
 
[Erin] I actually think that layering and backfilling that you're talking about are actually the key things that I really want to talk about in this episode. Which is, how do the ident… Like, how does the lens of identity and community… How does that lay on the story? The reason I mentioned it that way is because sometimes I'll read people's work and they will have a fact about their character, they grew up in this neighborhood or they suffered through… They're an orphan and they grew up eating from a trashcan on the streets. As people do in fantasy worlds often. And it's like, I hear that. Then, when I read the story, if you had never told me that about the character…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] I would never know it. It doesn't feel like it has any actual narrative weight. So how do we give the identity of our characters narrative weight in the story?
[Mary Robinette] I think it is a lot of the… It winds up affecting the choices that you make. For instance, if I am… If I have to walk down a dark street at night, I am going to make different choices than a six-foot white guy who lifts. I will be evaluating things extremely differently. So, for me, this gets into something that we'll be talking about later, it gets into some of the reactions that the character makes, and also the language that they use to describe things, the internal reactions that they have. All of those things are informed by their history, their experiences.
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, as we're talking about this, I can't stop thinking about a meme that already feels dated, and by the time this comes out, will feel truly fossilized. But the whole, like, you didn't just fall out of a coconut tree yesterday. Right? You exist in the context of all that came before. Right? Like, the thing is, is when a character feels like they fell out of a tree yesterday, that's when it feels like a failure state. Right?
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon], like, you're saying, like, you can say the detail out loud of, like, oh they grew up on the street. But then they walk into a restaurant and, like, order all the food and, like, feel like so comfortable in that. It's like a diff… It's like is that really a character who just came off the street? Right? Or, like, what is the context that led to that? So, it's not that you have to prewrite all of the context before, but you do need the consistency of it. Like, when you introduce something, you need to make sure that that feels felt in the choices, in the wor… And how you're describing it, and how they speak and what they do.
 
[Howard] This is a microscale version of the game that I'm always playing with the macro of worldbuilding. Where I have to look at the implications of the thing that I've put in my world. If this character is someone who grew up during the Great Depression, or lived through the Great Depression, they have behaviors that don't make sense to me. Lot of hoarding of things that don't necessarily need to be hoarded is something that you'd find from that generation. So I'm always asking myself, are there implications that I need to examine of whatever this back story is. Sometimes I invert it. I have the character do a thing, and then I ask myself, this is an implication… This was implied by something in their back story that I don't know yet. What is that thing? Should I write that thing now, or should I just put a pin in it? Maybe have another character put a pin in it for me? Hey, why are you hoarding Mason jars? Why are you keeping Mason jars? And nobody answers the question. But now my readers aren't going to pester me about it. Because another character asked the question, and now we know that it's obviously justified, because someone else wondered why it was there.
[Mary Robinette] Can I offer a very specific example from something that I wrote where I had to backfill character? So, I have this whole Lady Astronaut series, and it started with a book… A novelette called The Lady Astronaut of Mars. In that, my character Elma, who in the novels is Jewish, is not Jewish. That's not a decision I had made for her. I'm not even certain that she's Southern. I think she probably is. But there's a line in that, in Lady Astronaut of Mars, in which she talks about eating crawfish as a child. Which is not something that most Jewish kids who are observant would do. So when I went back to write Calculating Stars, and I had made the decision to have Elma be Jewish for a number of different structural plot reasons, I had to come up with the back story that would have allowed her to have that experience as a child. That then informed every decision that she made going through the story. And then every subsequent thing. And it… So it is something that I have both discovered, but also that I had to shape the lens through which she was viewing the world in order to have that be a… Make sense and have a consistency for the character. That her family grew up secular, because her father was in the military and they were trying to mask the fact that they were Jewish to outsiders.
 
[DongWon] What I love about this story is… there's a little bit of a language we've been talking about this so far that almost makes it feel like a burden. Like, how do you keep track of it? How do you have this consistency? But what I love about it is the way in which history and identity and community are opportunities. Right? Like, you found a thing and that gave you an opportunity to make the character feel more interesting and nuanced and three-dimensional. Right? There… All of these elements of introducing aspects of the character's context, of their history, of their connection, are storytelling prompts for you to then fill out your role more, to find plot in it. Right? It's what I love about characters in role-playing games is that you don't just say a thing or introduce a thing, then it's suddenly, like, oh, the whole character's descending from this one prompt that… Or turn of phrase that he used or an attitude that they had. Erin, you and I were in a game together recently, and I introduced a character who was extremely cantankerous…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] And fought with everybody. So then the question kind of became a little bit, why is she like this? Then we developed a whole relationship of, like, oh, she was sibling with your character, and, like, all of these other things. The joy for me is finding that opportunity and letting that be the seed for character, story, conflict, all the things that we want to make the story work.
[Erin] Yeah. I think that, to me, like, identity is such an important thing. It drives a lot of things.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Trying to figure out, like, why a character is the way they are, and all the things that they carry with them, is a huge part of writing for me. I think it's why I love voice so much. I think that one of the… A lot of times, we think of identity as noun based. It's about the things. Like, this person carries this item or eats this food or goes to this place of worship or what have you. But I think that, Mary Robinette, you sort of alluded to this earlier, to me, the interesting thing about identity is identity as a verb. The way you make choices, the way that you, like, take action in a situation is going to be… Hoarding is like, that's the verb. Do you know what I mean? Like, the Mason jar isn't the important thing. It is the collecting, the keeping, fear of things being taken away from you. I think that really thinking about how can we take identity from feeling like a noun, which I think can sometimes make things feel more shallow, like, I added all the right nouns, how come this person doesn't feel like they embody this identity? It's because their verbs haven't been changed.
[DongWon] Yes.
[Erin] Only the nouns have.
[Howard] There's a nineties sitcom… I can't remember the name, I don't think it ran past one season. But it had Jenna Elfman in it. At one point, she is very upset that she's going to this place and she's not going to identify with anybody, she comes from lower income or something, I don't remember. And her brother says, "You'll be fine. Y'all were raised by the same TV." I remember loving that line because in the nineties, we were kind of all raised by the same TV. But that's no longer a thing. That's… There's a different set of com… We weren't all raised by the same YouTube, the same cnn.com. The disparity of pop-culture background or the diversity of it is so significant now that you can't all be raised by the same TV. So I now ask myself often, rather than what are the implications, or what is this… How is this one character different in terms of background, I ask myself how is everyone the same on any point, and why? What is it that they would all have in common? How could they possibly have all that in common?
[Erin] Which is a great time to say that something that all of our episodes have in common is a break. And we'll be right back after it.
 
[Erin] All right. Thinking a little more about identity and community. So we've talked a little bit about what you do with it, but how do you, and I feel like I've said this in earlier episodes, how do you actually figure out, like, what your character's identity should be? You talked about making a character Jewish for specific story reasons. Is it, like, when we're picking the identity of the community of our characters, what are the things that we should be looking out for so that we can find those opportunities to make our stories richer?
[Mary Robinette] I have talked about this in previous episodes, the wonderful book, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? This introduced me to the ax… The idea of axes of power. Which is why when I needed with Elma, I made her Jewish, was that I tried to think about where my character sits in axes of power. Where do they have power, where do they not have power? I try to make sure that all of my characters have at least two areas where they do not feel like they have power, where they feel subordinate in the larger society. Because that introduces vulnerability, but it also often introduces some of their strengths, some of the ways that they defined themselves. So that was one of the reasons that I did that with Elma, was that in Lady Astronaut of Mars, she's older, she's a caretaker. Both of those are sliders on that axes of power that are farther down. But when I move all of the way back to Calculating Stars, she's young, she's beautiful, she's smart. And I didn't have enough sliders that were lower on the power structure, and it was 1952. So I made that choice. But, for me, that's what I start looking for, is where do they feel like they are lacking in power and where do they have power that they are unaware of.
[DongWon] I love axes of power as a framework here. I think kind of ties into how I think about it. Which is about stakes. Right? When you have a character… Plot derives from character in my mind, because of stakes, because of a character's… How they relate to other characters, how they feel about them, how they feel about themselves. Right? So when you're looking at what stakes do I want this character to have, what relationships are at risk by choices that they make, or what pressures are put on them by the world that puts these relationships at stake? That leads you to the point where you're now asking questions about history and community. Right? Who are they connected to, what history do they have with that person, and why is that relevant for the story I'm trying to tell? Right? You get to plot by developing these stakes. But as you're asking questions of what is this book about, why am I writing this book? I think that's when you get to that layering in these pieces of history and identity and a sense of self.
[Mary Robinette] One of the other things that… When we were talking about community, one of the other things that I have begun using as a shorthand since we did the space economy camp is thinking about the idioms that they grew up with. Because those shape the opinions that we have. They are parts that we don't… We often don't interrogate because it's like, well, everybody says, no such thing as a free lunch. But that's extremely different if you grew up with that as your truism, that's extremely different than somebody who grows up with their core idiom, their core truism, as a rising tide raises all boats. Like, those are two different ways of interacting with community. So I will often think about how the community defines that. Where the community sits with that. Like, if my character embraces that or if they push against it.
[Erin] One thing I really like to think about axes of power is who's aware of them. So, one of the biggest things that, like… There are many definitions of privilege, but one of the definitions is the ability to ignore the axes of power, because you're really high on it.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] So why do you care. Because I always think about… I know the book you're talking about, Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? I remember talking to friends, black friends, about it at the time, being, like, well, why isn't it called Why Do All the White Kids Sit Together in the Cafeteria, because they do too. So, but it's, like, no one ever asks that question because there's a… An idea that that's a default.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] Like, that… Why wouldn't they? That's… They're just… That's just Jimmy hanging out with Jen versus, like, if I'm hanging out with somebody, then that is… Something is wrong there, something is off. So being able to recognize the axes of power and what your relationship is to them. Do you understand where you are in the world? Like, do you understand the axes of power that you're on, or is it one that you either can ignore or that you're in denial about? Like, what is the relationship? I also think it's interesting to think about, like… I love relationships between individuals and structures.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
 
[Erin] You know what I mean? So it's, like, you and an axis of power, or you and community. Are you someone feeling, like, you're in the midst of your community? Well embraced by them? Do you feel on the outskirts of one community, but the in in another community that you think is very core to who you are is also one that you feel at odds with, that's a very different character than one who comes from the exact same community but who feels like they are the absolute, like… I am that community. We view things exactly the same way, we use the same idioms, we do the same things. So I think thinking about how your character relates, not just to other people, but two other structures, is a really fun way of looking at it.
[Mary Robinette, DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] One piece that I want to come back to is the idea of these lenses as a way to examine… Or a way the audience experiences the story. We're talking about who these characters are, what their history, their tradition, their influences, so on and so forth. Sometimes I'll have to ask myself whether the plot, mcguffin, action, the whatever it is that needs to happen to resolve things, could that have been done by anyone? Or can it only be done by someone who comes from this tradition? Because those are actually two very different stories. I like the story where anybody could have solved the problem, if they brought tools to bear and tried to solve the problem. But this character solved the problem in this way because of who they were. And that… For me, those are the stories that feel the most real. Those are the stories when I read them, I feel like I could have been that person. I'm experiencing the story as if I were there.
 
[Mary Robinette] You're making me think of something, just tying it back to something that Erin was saying, which is that you're using the tools that you have available, because of the experiences that you have. One of the things that I enjoy doing is thinking about this community, this connection. When you're looking at how to bring that to life on… For the character on the page for the reader, I often think about the pieces of the community that imply larger pieces of the community. That if you say, oh, yeah, I had to do that on my Naming Day. It's like that suddenly implies this whole… That there's a whole thing about Naming Days. That then implies this bigger ripple, especially if your character's like, oh, oh, my God, I had to do that on my Naming Day, my parents made me. It's like, okay, so there's a difference. It's implying these levels of… That there's more than one way to view the thing, there's more… That then implies that there's multiple groups within a larger group. Which I think is fun. I love that, but I also think that only works… You can't do it with something that is existing in isolation. Like, you can't just say, "Oh, yes. Oh, Naming Day, we all do this." It's gotta be tied to the emotions of the character. It's the connections.
[DongWon] I mean, this to me is like the flaw of, like, a certain type of dystopian YA. Right? Like, that was way popular, was it was so focused on just, like, the one thing that was different and existed in isolation and just didn't feel like there was other connections to that. Right? There wasn't further context. So when a character came from a place or had an identity or any of those things, it felt very reductive in a certain way. Right? Like. So without the further context and complexity, it didn't feel rich enough. Right? I think the ones that succeed very well, something like Hunger Games, does a great job of pulling in those other details, pulling in those other contexts around the central thing, and then ones that, I think, did not do as well were ones that failed to ask the further questions, failed to look at intersecting axes of power, failed to look at the ways in which this event connects to all these other events that happened in a person's life. Right?
[Erin] I think that's what makes it work when somebody uses a tool in an unexpected way.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] If there have been all these connections, you understand how they got there, and how something that character A sees as an oh, my gosh, an obvious tool I can use, character B would never recognize as a tool at all. Do you know what I mean? I love that type of thing where one character's like, yes, it is… The answer is so obvious, and another character is like, I don't even understand the question.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] Yep.
[Erin] And that is like such a beautiful moment of character, because even if we don't understand that culture, that identity, that context, we do understand that there are things that we know that others don't and things that we don't understand that others live in.
 
[Howard] When you look at these connections between characters and society and traditions and economies and po… There's this enormous network of things which as a writer, you can become very very oppressed by. Because drawing a matrix in which you have defined every point and drawn every line is nightmarishly difficult. The tool that I use… You treat that matrix as a net. Drop something onto the net. Where did it hit? You only need to define the threads where it landed. Those are what caught it. By defining those threads, those three or four threads, you have now implied the existence of the entire net, and the reader will believe in the entire net. Now you have to describe those three things well. You have to describe them in ways that make sense for the character, that imply the actual history of the character. But you only need three or four things to get us to believe that that whole web of your society, of your world, of your universe, from those three pounds of wet stuff between your ears, that whole universe you've created, we can believe it's real. You just gotta give us three threads.
[DongWon] I think about it as a GM, I think about it in terms of [paduke?] the game of go, where you are not defining all the connections between all the things. But what you will do when you're playing go is, as a strategic move, you'll put a piece out at a distant part of the board from which you are right now, and it's communicating I'm interested in that. I'm going to be making moves around that in the future. Hey, opponent, just so you know, we're going to be fighting about that in the future, so whatever's happening here, think about that, too. So, when it comes to worldbuilding a lot of times, I will just make a lot of stub documents with nothing in them, just a title of like this culture, food here, geography over there. I won't fill those in until they become relevant, and as things start becoming relevant, then I'll go and, like, okay, I need to think about this now because my characters are going over there now.
[Howard] Gotta tie this thread off.
[DongWon] Exactly. So, like the net you that you're talking about, you have this disparate web, but don't lose your mind trying to fill in all those details.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] Take big swings when your character does interact with something. Define broad things. Reach for whatever their cultural contexts are and use those to keep building as they connect.
[Erin] To come back to something we talked about at the very beginning about weight, I think weight can often sound like a burden, but, to me, when you talk about building a net, it's making people feel like your worldbuilding has enough weight to catch the story.
[DongWon] Yeah.
 
[Erin] With that in mind, we're going to go to the homework. Which is to identify something from your character's life from before the story begins. Identify… Especially if it's something, a community, an identity, some way that they interact with the broader world. Write a scene in which that element of the character weighs heavily on the scene but is never explicitly mentioned.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 20.02: Q&A Aboard the Writing Excuses Cruise, with Mark Oshiro and Kate McKean

Jan. 16th, 2025 04:27 pm
mbarker: (Me typing?)
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Writing Excuses 20.02: Q&A Aboard the Writing Excuses Cruise, with Mark Oshiro and Kate McKean
 
 
Questions and Answers:
Q: How do you know when a character is taking up so much space in your book that they need to die and maybe never come back?
A: Is the character redundant? Is the character related to the general themes? Does the character fit the tone of the book? Is this a more interesting character, so I need to make them the star? If you take the character out, does it affect the story? Are they filling a role that nothing else fills? Is this a protagonist, main character, or hero?
Q: If the story is very plot focused, how can you make it more character focused?
A: Who is the most interesting person for this plot to happen to? Why is this character staying in this plot? What ability do they have to participate in this plot? Why is this character unsuited to solve this problem?
Q: Say you have some cool thing that doesn't quite fit the story. How do you decide whether to rip it out or find a way to shoehorn it in?
A: Is it going to baffle readers? Save it for a later opportunity. Can it do some other things?  Don't buy cool solar powered lights for your garden path if you don't have a garden path. Does it fit with the characters? 
Q: What are some strategies for finding the motivation to work on something that has a deadline when there are other fun things to do instead?
A: Money. Fear. Think about what you will lose if you don't finish it. Don't trade what you want most for what you want at the moment. Reward yourself with joy. Break it into small pieces, and use checkboxes. Think about why you don't want to do this. Write the ending first, and then use it to remind yourself where you are going. 
Q: When do you call a manuscript done?
A: Everything can be made better. Can this be more of the thing that I want it to be? Art is never finished, only abandoned. Realize that there is a lot of refinement afer the point where you say it's done. First, is there a little voice saying, "Chapter 3 is really weird?" Second, make it hard for the editor to say no. You get more than one chance.  
 
[Season 20, Episode 02]
 
[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 20, Episode 02]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[Howard] Q&A on a ship.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
 
[Howard] And we are joined by Mark Oshiro and Kate McKean here on Navigator of the Seas. Hey, Mark, tell us about yourself real quick.
[Mark] Hello everyone. I am a young adult, middle grade author of some books that I've won some awards and been on some lists and I'm trying to pet every dog in the world.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Short and to the point. Kate! Tell us about yourself.
[Kate] My name is Kate McKean. I'm a literary agent at the Howard Morhaim Literary Agency, and I'm very excited to be here.
[Howard] Well, we're excited to have you. And our students here at WXR right on the Navigator have been excited all week to learn from you guys. This has been awesome. But they still have some questions. So, let's turn it over to our students and have someone ask a question.
 
[Someone] Well. How do you know when a character is taking up so much space in your book that they need to die and possibly never have been in your book at all?
[Howard] Restating the question, how do you know when a character is taking so much space in your book that they need to die and maybe never come back?
[Mary Robinette] So, one of the things I look at is… The same things that I look at… I evaluate the character in many of the same ways that I evaluate a line. Is it redundant? Is the character doing things that other characters are doing? Is the character related to the general themes? Does the character fit the tone of the book? Those are the things that… It's the same kind of metric. But you're just applying it to a different sort of experience.
[Dan] There's a… One of the things that I do in this case and in many other cases, any time the outline goes off track, is ask myself, do I need to get this back on track or is this a better track than I had in the first place? It could be that the character's taking up so much space precisely because you love them and they are more interesting than what anything else is going on. So you might need to just retool a little bit and let them be the star.
[Mary Robinette] Also, then, in some cases, where those two guys should be one guy. And you can just give all of that stuff to one guy, and then cut but you don't need.
[Mark] Yeah. Any instance I've ever had, where I've had to completely excise a character, the question became, if I take this character out, does it actually affect the story? If the answer is no, bye. Goodbye. Throw them overboard.
[Laughter]
[Mark] To fit the metaphor where we are. Please don't throw anyone overboard.
[Kate] No crimes.
[Mark] No crimes. No crimes on this ship.
[Erin] I actually… It's funny, because I was just thinking about the other side of that, which is it's possible that the reason that this character is taking up so much space is that they're filling a role in the story that there's nothing else there to fill. Like, they're the one who is advancing the story, at a time where no one else has that plot information. They're the one representing the characters back story, because there's nobody else to talk about. So maybe the answer could be that you could either add other characters, give part of what that character is doing to other characters, or figure out if there's a way that this story can hold it. Because you don't want to, like, knock out the supporting wall of your house, because you don't like it, and then be like, oh, no, it all fell down.
[Howard] I come back to the tripartite definition, the protagonist, the main character, and the hero. Who can all be the same person, but they can also be three different people. If someone is taking up a huge amount of page space in a story, and they are not fulfilling the role of protagonist or hero or main character, then I am well off outline, I'm now writing a different story, and it's time to figure out which story this character actually fits in.
 
[Someone] So, if you're writing a new book, and your plots tend to be very plot focused, what are some tricks to making the book more character focused?
[Howard] Restating. So, if you're writing a book, and the story is very plot focused, what are some tricks to making it more character focused?
[Mark] A question I ask myself, actually, because I'm also an outline or as well, is, very early on in my process of developing an idea, is who is the most interesting person for this plot to happen to? Instead of just creating a character whatnot, think of possible… Not just possible conflicts, but, like, what's a contrast? What's a very interesting contrast of this happening to a specific person? That often can help me find a way into a much more character driven story, still within the very plot heavy story.
[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I… Similar to Mark, but one of the things that I will specifically look for within that is why the character can't just nope out of the plot. So that, for me, then means that being on that plot fulfills a lack, a hole in the character, it's doing something for them. That can usually allow me to find out what it is that they're missing, what it is they're lacking, that they can be on a journey for, separately from the plot, but that the plot is intersecting with, and that that's part of why they're moving forward.
[Kate] Exactly. Like, if they are on the plot because it fell in their lap, it is… They can easily nope out of it. But they have to want to be there for a complex reason. If the reason is too simple, you can make it more complex and that will deepen their… At least that character.
[Erin] I also sometimes think about what is the… What is it about this character that gives them the ability… Not only the desire, but the ability to participate in this plot. What is it that lets them take the action that moves this plot forward, and what is that rooted in? What is it that they're bringing with them to the plot that makes them an interesting person to be advancing it forward? Then, for that interesting thing, what's a way that you can work in… Somewhere where we see that area of interest outside of the plot? Where can we see it on some… In a side scene, or something else that's not necessarily plot focused?
[Mary Robinette] You just reminded me of something that… One of the other tools that I'll use is to look at the character and ask why are they uniquely unsuited to solve this problem? That, again, opens up a lot of tension and just… A lot of juicy, juicy stuff.
 
[Someone] So, say you have some really cool, awesome worldbuilding thing that you wanted in your story, but it just doesn't quite do it. How would you balance just ripping it out and just saving it for another story versus trying to find an excuse or a place to fit that into the story?
[Kate] Does it pass the smell test? So, if you're trying to shoehorn it in there, and you can find a way to make it work, but you're the only one who recognizes why that works, the reader's going to be like, "What? Why? Huh? Where?" So you're better off saving it for something else, which is an opportunity. You have this cool thing, you get to use it later. Not that you don't, like, use it now.
[Mary Robinette] I had this thing in Martian Contingency that I was extremely stubborn about. Which is that in the real world, when you're looking at time on Mars versus Earth, you use Sol for Mars, and Earth… Day for Earth. That's so that people who are talking back and forth can tell whether they're talking about next Sol or tomorrow. Because they're not lined up. I was extremely stubborn about including this. People were not getting it. But it did a bunch of things. It helped… I actually needed it, technically, to be able to talk about those two concepts. It also did, like, this is a really cool worldbuilding thing that actually did a bunch of heavy lifting. But it was so hard to explain to people. So I took an opportunity and I took another scene that was a little bit flat, and used that seem to just explain it to the readers as a point of conflict between two characters. So it was… It… Looking for what else can this do. If it's doing only one thing, you probably save it for the… Look, everybody, here are my extras. Here's my acknowledgments, which is where the Mars speed of sound went, because I couldn't fit it into the book.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] I think…
[Mary Robinette] It's different.
[Howard] I think about that one time I was shopping and saw some just really cool solar powered garden path lights. I was like, oh, these are amazing. They're so neat. I mean, you can program the… I don't actually have a garden path. This is one of those situations where no matter how cool it is, it doesn't belong in my yard, because it's just going to end up as, like, a fairy ring or something. See, that would have been awesome.
[Dan] see, that would have been amazing.
[Howard] Oh, well.
[Dan] For me, this comes back to character. Which is kind of what Howard was just saying. Howard, as a character, had no plausible interaction with a garden path. So there was no point in putting extra time and effort into one. Because one didn't exist. If my characters can plausibly interact with and be harmed by and make interesting decisions about the cool thing that I'm struggling to include, then it will be fairly easy to include. Whereas if it's just some neat bit of worldbuilding that I made up that doesn't actually affect the characters in any way, then, yeah, it needs to go.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, friends. The 2025 retreat registration is open. We have two amazing writing retreats coming up and we cordially invite you to enroll in them. For those of you who sign up before January 12, 2025… How is that even a real date? We're off… [Background noise... Friend?] As you can probably hear my cat say, we've got a special treat for our friends. We are offering a little something special to sweeten the pot. You'll be able to join several of my fellow Writing Excuses hosts and me on a Zoom earlybird meet and greet call to chit chat, meet fellow writers, ask questions, get even more excited about Writing Excuses retreats. To qualify to join the earlybird meet and greet, all you need to do is register to join a Writing Excuses retreat. Either our Regenerate Retreat in June or our annual cruise in September 2025. Just register by January 12. Learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats.
 
[DongWon] Heading into the new year, we're all thinking about what our intentions and goals are. It's hard not only to set your targets, but to live up to them. Especially as writers and creative's in a world that doesn't always seem eager to support you financially. That's why building your financial literacy and starting to work towards a stable financial base is an important aspect of developing your writing career. We talk a lot about the creative tools you need, but peace of mind about your bottom line will give you the space to pursue your goals and develop the career that you want. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing, so your money has a chance to grow for you, your kids, and your retirement. You don't need to be an expert. Acorns will recommend a diversified portfolio that fits you and your money goals. You don't need to be rich. Acorns let you invest with the spare money you've got right now. You can start with five dollars or even just your spare change. Head to acorns.com/WX or download the acorns app to start saving and investing for your future today. [Garbled inaudible]
 
[Someone] What are some strategies you have for finding the willpower for finishing a project that you have a deadline on, so you have to finish it? But you don't want to work on it, you've got another cool thing… [Garbled]
[Howard] What are some strategies for finding the motivation to work on something that has a deadline, but there's… There are other fun things to do instead?
[Mary Robinette] Money.
[Unknown] Spite.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Fear.
[Laughter]
[Dan] They're very primal urges here.
[Mary Robinette] Do you want to give them actual useful information, Erin?
[Erin] I'll try. I don't know. But I think part of it is not thinking of it as motivation. You know what I mean? Because I think there are certain things in life we just do because we have to. But because writing is so personal, sometimes you think, like, I will always write when, like, the moment is there and when I want to. But as somebody who does a lot of deadline work, ultimately, it's about… It is a little bit about fear. Like, I'll lose this… I will lose this next opportunity to write something cool if I burn this bridge by never getting back to this person when I said I would. I will lose the money that I was going to receive from this project. But part of it is thinking, like, I don't actually need to be motivated to work, you just have to work to work. If that makes sense.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] Sometimes it is just putting down one sentence and saying that's all I'm going to do for today, but at least it gives yourself a small goal to get through that doesn't require motivation, just action.
[Howard] There's an aphorism that I come back to all the time that I think applies to just adulting in general. It is, don't trade what you want most for what you want at the moment. I come back to that all the time. In my doing this thing now because it's just what I want to do now or am I doing it now because it's leading me to what I really, really want.
[Mary Robinette] I have a similar thing, which is what gift can I give to my future self? But the other piece that I will say is that one of the tools that I use is coming from dog training. We're having… We're working with a dog trainer on Guppy and while I said money, the fact is that my dog gets a form of payment for doing the things. It's a joyful form of payment. So, for me, the thing that I have to do… That… I shouldn't say that I have to do. The thing that I've found that is most effective… I can force myself to work. But that just makes work worse. It makes me resent it, and it starts to bleed over into the writing that I'm doing for fun, when I'm having to force myself to write. So, if I can make it more joyful, that helps. One of the things that you do with dog training is you do a lot of small sessions. So I will break things into smaller pieces. I will give myself ticky boxes, because the joy of watching a ticky box turn green is like… Um… Like… It should not be that effective. It makes me mad that it is.
[Howard] Our episode spreadsheets… I went to great trouble to program our episode spreadsheets so that all the little checkboxes are red until you check them, and then they turn green. That gives us joy every time we finished recording.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, for me, it's like oh, when I finish this, then I get to do the next piece of it. And I get to cross something off. Like, I have literally given myself gold stars before.
[Kate] I have also done that. And I love a checkbox that I can physically do…
[Chuckles]
[Kate] What I do is turn it around and say why do I not want to do this? What am I scared of? If I'm scared to take the next step on this project, or I don't know what scene I'm writing next, or when I… I have to do the big edit when I finish this task. So when I… Even just say, like, I don't want to do this because I don't know what I'm doing after. Saying it out loud makes it less scary. It doesn't mean that the actual fear goes away, but you're like, oh, I'm just afraid. Great. That's easy to be afraid.
[Dan] That's so much better than the technique I got from dog training, is I wear a shock collar.
[Laughter]
[Dan] Then, anytime I get off of the main document, it buzzes me. Don't actually do that.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. You actually need a different trainer.
[Laughter]
[Mark] If I can add to this too. I… A thing… So I do actually something before I'm drafting. Some of you have heard me speak about this. Which is it's very important that when I'm about to start a book, I know how it ends. And I want to be absolutely unhinged and feral about that ending. Because then when I'm in those moments where I'm stuck, I will actually turn to the end, because I actually write my final scenes, final line first, and remind myself, like, that's where I'm going. Which often sort of related to you will help me figure out, subconsciously, why am I stuck in this moment? Why does this moment feel unmotivating? I will also say if you do just really require motivation, often, for me, it's I want to get this done so I can go to the shiny new object over here and work on the other thing that is also making me slightly feral and unhinged.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] Yeah. Sorry. One last last thing which is, like, what I love about all of these different answers is I think what they remind me is we're also different in the ways we handle this. I think one way that's good is how have you ever forced yourself in your life to do anything else? Like, if you are like I always… When I don't want to go to a party, make… Say, I can get a pizza on the way home, then maybe you're, like, reward, like, focused. If you're somebody who… Like, whatever the thing is that works for you in other areas of your life can also sometimes be repurposed for your writing life.
 
[Someone] When do you call a manuscript done, because it seems like you could be stuck in each [garbled step of the process?]
[Howard] You had me at when do you call a manuscript done.
[Mary Robinette] So, here's the thing. Everything can be made better. There is not anything in the world that can't be made better. I think if… Some people have heard me talk about this when we've been doing office Hours where you've come to me for one-on-one. So I know I've said this multiple times on the ship. When you're… If you talk to someone who worked on the Princess Bride, which is a perfect film, I am certain that they would say, "If I would've just had one more day." So, for me, the question is not can this be better, but can this be more of the thing that I wanted to be. Like, if I got a chair, if you look at the chair, listener, that you are sitting in right now. There's probably a scuff on it. Could you fix that scuff? Yes. Would it make it more of a chair? Would it make it more useful, would it make it better for you? No. So, when the thing is doing what you wanted to do, then it is done. Can you make it better? Yes. But you don't have to.
[Howard] I think it was Picasso who said, "Art is never finished, only abandoned." And I have taken that as a gospel truth. I never finish anything, I decide to abandon it. Which is very emotionally liberating.
[Dan] Yeah. One thing that I did not realize when I was very early career, when I was still trying to break in, is how much refinement there still is to do after that point when it is done. Right? The agent is going to help you make it better. Your editor is going to help you make it better. The copy editor, the proofreader, like every step of the process will continue that refinement. It doesn't need to be completely perfect. It never will be. But it's good to remember this is good enough right now, and there's a whole army of people that's going to help me make it better later.
[Kate] I did two kind of litmus tests, both as a writer and as an agent. The first thing I do is I ask myself, whether it's my book or somebody else's, is there, like, this little voice in the back of your head going, "Chapter 3 is really weird." The quieter it is, the more I need to go back and look at chapter 3 or whatever part. The loud voice that's saying, "This is horrible and you're a blah blah blah blah blah." That's not your intuition, that's just fear and anxiety and all those things. It's the tiny little bit, like, yeah, this scene doesn't make that much sense. Then you go back and fix that one. When I'm in… When I have my agent hat on, and I'm editing a client's manuscript, my goal is to make it really hard for the editor to say no. But that goal is not make it perfect and ready to go to the printer. Because that's not my job and I don't have the power nor the time to do that. But when I look at a manuscript and say, okay, well, the beginning's a little slow. That might derail an editor. Let's fix that. Let's address that, and then not worry about some hand wavy things in the middle. Because by the time they get there, they're invested and they'll want to know the end.
[Mark] Most of the time, I'm teaching to young kids who haven't written at all, or very interested in it, have never even finished a short story. So a lot of their questions are around, like, well, how do I know it's done? Like, when do I know? Is it just writing The End? Which, often times, I'm like, yeah. Actually, yes. Then you're done. It's done. But I also like to talk to them about how those of us, especially here in the States, we have been raised in a system in which we are taught you have one chance. Right? You write an essay, you take a test, you get a grade. The end. That's it. So they often approach writing the same way. I see adults then struggling with that in adulthood, of I only have one chance to do this. So I love how all of us can sort of dispel the notion of, like, the thing you're writing is… You don't have one chance. It's not you write this manuscript, it's done, and that's the only chance you're ever going to get. So, for me, at least with my process, I know a manuscript is done initially, just when I reach that ending point that I've already written. It's done. Then I can give it to my agent. I can start having conversations with my editor. Then, even then, as it goes through developmental edits, line edits, and then we all get down to pass pages, where we're reading the proof of your pages. For me, I know it's done when I can read long periods of the book without stopping and going, oh, this doesn't make sense, something here is tripping me up. That's when I'm like, it's done. Maybe five or six things over the course of a whole novel, I'm like, I don't know if I landed this. But if it's very few of them, then I'm like, this is done. Like, I can let this go. Or abandon it, to use that language.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The UK edition of Shades of Milk and Honey is three chapters longer, and 5000 words longer, than the US edition. Because they made the mistake of asking me, "Is there anything you'd like to change?"
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Yes.
[Laughter]
[Howard] You made the mistake of answering.
[Erin] I think that just shows the power of time. Because I will sometimes abandon, whether temporarily or permanently, a story because I'm like, I am not where I need to be at in order to make this any better. Like, I have done… All that I'm doing now is… I… Always call it like shuffling, is on the Titanic. All I'm doing is making very minute changes. Nothing is changing at the core. Because if there's something wrong at the core, I cannot figure out how to change it now. Sometimes I send it out anyway, and it's like, I hope that the editor at the magazine is, like, oh, actually it is this, or, you were wrong, it's fine. I accepted it. Then I'm like, oh, well, maybe that was all in my head. But sometimes, it is years later, I'm like, oh, I could have written this different, better story, but the story I wrote was fine for the writer I was at that moment. I think it sometimes nice to, like, acknowledge who you are and what you can do now, and worry about what your future self can do later.
[Howard] So you freeze the document in your trunk cryogenically until you've developed the technology to really fix it.
 
[Howard] We've got time for one more question. No we don't. We do not have time for any more questions. What we have time for is homework.
[Mary Robinette] We're going to give you the same homework that we are giving the participants in the Writing Excuses workshop here on the Navigator of the Seas that is the daily challenge. Asked and answered. Ask someone a question about writing. Either to learn more about what they're working on or to work through a project of your own.
 
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 

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Writing Excuses 19.46: An Interview on Structure with N. K. Jemisin

Nov. 21st, 2024 09:49 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.46: An Interview on Structure with N. K. Jemisin
 
 
Key points: What was your process? I wrote an outline that laid out the three plot line structure, the opening with an overview of the world, and that there would be a cliffhanger ending. Then I write test chapters. It started to flow. But about halfway, I decided it was trash. Devi talked me down. Structure and process are intertwined. Deep and close reading. I wrote the majority of Essun first, then started working on the other two. I fixed a lot in revision. I seeded in a lot from the beginning, then took out a lot in revisions. Starting with too much is an easier edit. Epic fantasy wants certain things. What if we have a complex magic that is indistinguishable from technology? The restoration tradition in epic fantasy is  a manifestation of privilege. I wanted to explore oppression. I do write certain scenes while cackling deep in my chest. 
 
[Season 19, Episode 46]
 
[Howard] I have three be a better writer tips. The first, write. The second, read. The third, get together with other writers. That third one can be tricky, but we've got you covered. At the Writing Excuses retreats, we offer classes, one-on-one sessions, and assorted activities to inspire, motivate, and recharge writers just like you. As you make meaningful progress on your stories, you'll build connections with your fellow writers that will last for years to come. Check out our upcoming events at writingexcuses.com/retreats
 
[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 19, Episode 46]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] An Interview on Structure with N. K. Jemisin
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
 
[DongWon] We are incredibly excited to have a guest with us today. As the title implies, we have interview… We are interviewing N. K. Jemisin as we are finishing our section talking about The Fifth Season. Nora is truly one of my favorite authors working in the genre today…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] I think an absolute powerhouse when it comes to sort of redefining what fantasy is right now. Not to overstate it right at the head into us. But, we are incredibly excited to have you here and to start diving into some of the topics we've been talking about when it comes to The Fifth Season. So, welcome.
[Nora] Thank you very much. I'm N. K. Jemisin. Welcome. Thank you for welcoming me to this podcast.
[Chuckles]
[Nora] You are also the sweetest person in the world [garbled for having?] said that. Thank you.
 
[DongWon] Very, very happy to, and I promise it's only true things. But… Let's dive right into it. So, as we've been talking about Fifth Season, we really focused on the structure of this book, with sort of the three point of views that you eventually realize is all one character, just split across time. I was always entranced by how this book is put together. It feels like an intricate puzzle box. Yet, as we were chatting before we headed into this recording, this episode, you mentioned that you don't do a lot of planning ahead of time. So, what does the process look like for you to put together this thing that, as a reader, feels quite complex? But to you, was an organic process?
[Nora] Um. There is some structure involved. I wrote an outline that sort of basically laid out the three plot line structure, the sort of opening, which would be sort of an overview of the world, just to kind of introduce people to the planet as a character. And that there would be a cliffhanger ending. That… All of that, I knew up front. My initial thought was that the story was going to be third person, very traditional telling, present tense… I mean, sorry, past tense, third person. Nothing sort of experimental or unusual there. But I always write test chapters. The test chapters, I will just simply start writing. Like, I'm spitballing and, I'm trying to see what voice feels best, what makes it flow, what makes it have the right energy. So I will try it over and over again, in some cases, from the different POVs, different tones, different voices. For some reason, I found myself drawn to this bizarre part third person, part second person, present tense-y… Almost… It increasingly felt like I was trying to write poetry. And I suck at poetry. So, I attempted multiple times to write poetry, only to realize I'm entirely too literal a person to do that. But here I am, I'm pulling the hollow man, even though I'm only E. E. Cummings, I'm like… All of a sudden, all of the poetry I've ever read in my life is starting to speak to me and wants me to acknowledge that flow, that energy. It was a truly instinctive… Like, this just feels right. So I started writing. It started to flow well. I was like, this is ins… This is bizarre. I've never really written anything this… Just experimental, I guess. For lack of a better description. I've never written anything this off the beaten trail. I don't know if it's right. But it feels right, so I'm going to keep going. Then, of course, I hit a point about like halfway through the book, where I suddenly decided that this is the worst thing I've ever written, I can't believe I've written this much, I need to stop right now. Devi Pillai, my then editor, editor at Orbit books, had already given me… Had already offered me a three book contract, and I had happily signed it and happily gotten the advance. At that point, I was like, this… I've never written anything like this, I can't keep doing this. This is going to make people think that I'm the worst writer in the world. So I called up Devi, I was like, I want to stop doing this book, I'm going to change this back to a single book contract. I think I was crying. Devi was like the editorial equivalent of hey, Nora. Have a Snickers. You always want to quit your novels when you haven't eaten. So… Basically, she told me to sit down and relax. So, around the same time, a bunch of friends of mine dragged me out for a intervention.
[Laughter]
[Nora] A very drunk intervention. Over mimosas, they were like, Nora, this may hurt. So…
[DongWon] Stop reading Modern Miss poets and get back to reading your poets. But…
[Laughter]
[Nora] Anyway. So we're segueing over from talking about structure. I'm sorry. But that was basically how I wrote it.
[Howard] Yeah, but see, that's… Structure and process are so intimately intertwined. I mean, when we talk about structure with each other, when we talk to writers about structure, it is in part of a… It is as part of a discussion on process. You have a structure that you are originally working with, and then you realize… You get to the middle of the book, as I think almost all of us do, and decide that we're wrong, we've always been wrong, we hate writing, and we're done.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] That is a structural moment. That is a moment where you go back and you look at what you're doing and you eat the Snickers and you have drinks with friends at the intervention, and then you go back, and, I assume, at some point realize…
[DongWon] [garbled]
[Howard] Oh, my goodness, the second person is actually teeing up a wonderful reveal. And… [Garbled] I don't know when that moment was…
[Nora] Yeah.
[Howard] But your reveal was brilliant.
[Nora] Well, the reveal… So I knew at the beginning that all three perspectives were the same person. That was a given. I knew that my primary perspective needed to be Essun. That Essun was the person whose story I was ultimately telling. They're all Essun, but that was…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] The focus that I wanted to keep. So I found myself seeding in hints into Essun's POV… I put hints into all three of them on purpose. Because I am an evil writer, and…
[Chuckles]
[Nora] I cackle while I throw in little hints. I'm like Did you notice this one?
[DongWon] Yep.
[Nora] But, uh...
[DongWon] Going back in a reread, it is such a delight to pick out all those little moments of, like, oh, diabolical.
[Nora] Isn't it?
[DongWon] That she was giving us this… I remember noticing stuff in the introduction of Essun that, like, leads to that understanding later. I was just like God damn.
 
[Nora] Yeah. Yeah. Those are my favorite kinds of books to read. The books where, when you are really… Where you enjoy the first read through enough that you're willing to go back and reread it and catch all the little stuff. So that is… I don't expect anybody necessarily to pick up on it the first time around. But, deep and close reading are… Deep and close reading is something that I want readers to do with me. It is what I love to do myself with good writing. So I want to reward that with here's a blanket which she mentions in one chapter that you're not going to see again tell like six chapters later. But, little things like that. So, um… But, yeah. I knew from the very beginning that it was going to be all three people in the same perspective. I did write Essun's part first. Because I felt like I needed to know where she was going and where she was going to end up in order to write the other two. But then the other two, I kind of flipped back and forth between Damaya and… Oh, God. Wow.
[DongWon] Syonite.
[Nora] Syonite. Wow. Wow. Okay. Coffee… I don't have enough in me. Sorry.
[DongWon] Always. Yeah, I was really curious about the order in which this was written. Because part of me was like, did she write just sequentially, chapter 1, Chapter 2, chapter 3, altering the perspectives? But hearing that you wrote one of the POVs first, and that then enabled you to write the other two… Which makes sense. Because Essun is like the spine of the novel in some… So many ways. Her story's like carries us through as we start to understand the other perspectives and the history that she's had up until this point.
[Nora] Yeah, I wrote the majority of Essun first. Because I needed to have her lodged in my head. Then I started kind of working on the other two, and inserted some earlier chapters. But I reached a point where I was basically alternating between the POVs as I wrote. It just felt better that way. In fact, in some cases, I was deliberately… Like, when I was writing about Damaya, I would have just written a segment in which Essun went through some terrible hell, and I wanted to seed in a parallel to that that Damaya has to go through. Or that Syonite has to go through. I had to actually kind of stop that, because it was a little too obvious. In the revisions, I fixed it, I think. But…
[DongWon] Interesting.
[Nora] Yeah. But that is how it got written.
 
[DongWon] I mean, we spent a whole episode talking about parallelism in this book. Right? Your use of parallelism in the different character arcs, but also over time. Right? Starting with the child death and ending with a child death. Starting… You'll have one beat that then is replicated across all three stories at different points in time. Which, like, set up so many sort of like thematic resonances. It was almost like… Like the magic system, you were setting up these different resonances that were coming at us from different angles, which, like, built to something, but felt quite powerful. When you're setting up those parallels… I mean, you were saying that once you started alternating, you saw them coming in, and then you sort of shifted them around or cut back on them in edits. When you're seeding like, these clues, in as well that you kind of mentioned, was that planned at the beginning or did you find yourself layering that kind of stuff in later? Because I think… I love that we're talking about process so much, because I think these are the questions people have when they see something beautifully structured, they're like, how in hell do you do that? Because you can't think of all these things when you're outlining or when you're doing your first drafts sometimes.
[Nora] Right. Right. The majority of the parallels and the hints and things like that, I seeded in from the beginning. I took out a lot. I am not a subtle person. I am a… I am a person that throws bricks at the heads of my readers. I have to stop sometimes, because I need to be more subtle than I naturally am. So revisions are my favorite. Revisions are when I'm like, oh. Oh, that's way too… Let's turn that brushstroke into a dab. Let's turn that brick to the head into a pebble to the head. Or whatever. So I removed a lot of really obvious stuff. Honestly, it still felt too obvious to me. But then I ran it through some beta readers and that helped a lot. Because things that scream obviousness to me are far more subtle in other people's eyes, I think. So…
[Howard] Yeah. Yeah. It's a little bit like… I don't know if you've ever performed stage magic, but it's a little bit like being the magician and knowing which hand you palmed the coin into. Being able to see from your angle, yes, I have a fake fingertip on this finger. It's often very difficult to step out of that point of view… Like, man, everybody's going to see this. I can see it. It's obvious.
[Nora] Yeah.
[Howard] No. Nobody's going to see it. You're moving your hands fast, and you've written this well. I feel like there's an instinctive element here, that sometimes we have to go back and remember. When I wrote this the first time, my instinct was to do this. I've cleaned it up in revisions, and I haven't broken it. That's the thing I think we're always afraid of, is that we'll break something in revising.
[Nora] No, I have always loved revisions. Revisions are my favorite part of writing. Writing raw is actually my least favorite part. I am good at that part. Like, the flow… Once I really kind of get into the zone, I… If I'm listening to my characters the right way, then they are speaking and the story is writing itself. At least at a certain point. But there are two huge problems. One, I have a terrible memory. So I will write the same scenes, or the same kinds of scenes, beats, over and over and over again. Because I don't… especially when I'm on deadline, I don't have time to go back and reread the entire book, and I forget that I put in some particular beat, and then I do it again, and I do it again. So that sucks. Because each writing session is about anywhere from like 1500 to 3000 words a day, and by the time I get to the point where I am doing page 100, I will have forgotten what's on page 25. So that's one problem. But the other problem is that the urge to be subtle feels coy to me. I've always preferred just being straightforward. I've always preferred just saying what I mean. The problem is that it's a good idea to be subtle sometimes. It's a good idea to kind of let the story speak for itself, the action or the setting or whatever speak for itself. I've got to get myself out of the way of that. I have sort of a… I'm told that this is a typical neuro-diverse person behavior. I don't know if that's true. I'm still adjusting to realizing that I have been ADHD my whole life, and had no idea until relatively recently. Yet, when I look back, I'm like, "How did I not know?" So… Anyway.
[Chuckles]
[Nora] But, um… So I'm…
[DongWon] We've all been there.
[Nora] Yeah. So I'm told that is sort of common for folks with ADHD to just repeat themselves over and over again trying to be more clear each time in the hopes that they can get across what they're trying to say if they're just clear enough. If they just say it slowly or carefully enough. As a writer, I'm especially prone to that. Because I'm like if I just write it exactly the right way, they'll all get it, and it'll be obvious, and then I won't need to do it again. And, no, that's not how anybody works. So…
[Chuckles]
[Nora] That's not how I work. I don't even know why I expect that of other people. So I have to kind of get myself out of the way. I have to stop my urge to explain and explain and explain. That is what revisions let me fix.
 
[DongWon] That said, if you're going to err on the side, I think erring on being straightforward over being coy is so powerful. Right? There's so many times I read a book that is just with holding so much back that I'm like there's nothing keeping me here. You've kept so much back that I am just straight up bored. Right? So I think the instinct of just telling the reader stuff up front, I think, does so much to keep us engaged. And then, I love this idea that in edits, you're like, oh, I gotta pull back a little bit. I gotta hold a few things back, I'm telling them too much. Right? I think starting with too much and pulling back is always an easier edit than starting with… Like, underwriting is harder to edit for then overwriting. Right?
[Nora] [garbled]
[DongWon] Not to say that you're overwriting.
[Chuckles]
[Nora] Yeah. I'm not sure. I've never underwritten. I've always overwritten.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] But the overwriting is a problem in and of itself, though.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] Because past a certain point, I find underwriting coy. Overwriting is condescending. It is patronizing to your audience. It is assuming that your audience lacks the intelligence to figure out simple stuff.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] [garbled] subtle stuff. So… That's not what's in my head, but that's how it feels when it comes across. So I have to keep that in mind too.
[DongWon] It's all trust.
[Nora] So there is a sweet spot. Yeah. There is a sweet spot.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] And there is a trust factor, and you have to remember that your trust factor changes as you proceed through the book.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] You start out at the very beginning, your audience does not necessarily trust you at all, especially when you're hitting them with second person and a bunch of other weirdness. Then, past a certain point, though, you can start to be very, very delicate with your brushstrokes. I tend to still slap on the paint. But I… Revisions are where I thin it all. To beat a metaphor to death.
[DongWon] Well.
[Laughter]
[Nora] I'm sorry.
[DongWon] No, you're doing it, that's great. Speaking of overwriting, we are running a little bit long here. So, let's go ahead and take a quick break.
[Nora] Sure.
 
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[Nora] So, yeah. My thing of the week right now is the videogame Alan Wake II. I have gotten very into the Remedy connected universe, I think is what they're calling it. Alan Wake is the sequel to the game Alan Wake. It is companion to a game called Control which one lots of awards last year. Alan Wake II one lots of awards. These are writers games, I think. Because they are games that are heavy into sort of exploring the artistic mindset, among other things. But, also, the paranoia that revisions are to writers. Are you making the story better or are you dragging the story to hell? And is the story driving you to hell? So are you actually putting in… Breadcrumbing your ideas early or is an eldritch abomination slowly dragging your story into a terrible place? So, Alan Wake II is a game about a writer who is literally trapped in his own novel. There are other characters involved. There are other plot elements to it. But, as a writer, writing this… Playing this incredibly meta-fictional game, it has been absolutely fascinating for me to realize (A) how writing looks to other people. How writers look to other people. That's been a little actually intimidating. Because you realize Alan's coming across to pretty much everyone that meets him as just being absolutely bat shit. And there's something wrong with the guy and everybody can see it. I'm like, oh, is that how… Is that how we seem?
[Chuckles]
[Nora] Oh, good to know. But then you also see things like the author's characters getting revenge on him. [Garbled lot in common] But it's been a delight to play. And I'm actually super excited because next week sometime, the latest DLC, The Red Caps, drops. So I cannot wait for a chance to play that. So…
[DongWon] We've been talking about doing a bonus episode talking about Alan Wake and…
[Nora] Oh, really.
[DongWon] I think now we have to do that, and we have to have you back to do a deep dive with us.
[Nora] Sure. I would be… Absolutely.
[DongWon] On why this game is so brilliant. So. But thank you so much.
[Nora] Yeah. Absolutely.
 
[DongWon] Welcome back. So, so far we've done a wonderful dive into your process and how you think about the structure of these books, what that looks like as you develop it. I want to take a zoom out a little bit and take a little bit of a step back, because one thing I was thinking about is… This might be my publisher perspective coming in. Right? Of this book is very much marketed and sold as epic fantasy. Right? It's very much fitting in that category. One of the things that I think is so interesting about it is it feels very fresh and contemporary. It's not surprising to me that you were like thinking about modernists as you were writing. There's so much about it like the rupture of technology is sort of modernity coming into this book in a certain way. It feels very contemporary, it feels of non-genre fiction in terms of the structure. But when you look at all the elements, it's literally wizards going to a magical school with magic crystals and things like that. Right? Like, especially the first book has so many of the trappings of classic fantasy brought into it. So, epic fantasy can have a really rigid structural drive. Right? It wants third person omniscient. It wants prophecy. It wants multi POV, like all of this stuff. Were you actually thinking about the category as you were conceiving and drafting this novel, or were you just like I'm going to do my own thing? And did you feel a tension with that tradition at all?
[Nora] I definitely felt tension with the… I always feel tension with the epic fantasy tradition. I take very much to heart your statement that epic fantasy wants certain things. I find myself hearing those calls for certain things and saying, "No. Fuck you, epic fantasy. I'm not giving you what you want."
[Chuckles]
[Nora] I have spent probably the bulk of my career fighting with epic fantasy. Because I see such potential in that subgenre. It is… Like, why are we fixated on middle European epics, on that as epic? Why aren't we looking at Gilgamesh? Why aren't we writing about [San Diego?] Why aren't we writing about all these different cultural traditions instead of just a few? Why aren't we exploring science fictional landscapes? There's no reason why you can't have magic in space? And things like that. So I do not like the rigidity of any genre. I react badly when I'm told that the way to a particular kind of genre is only X, Y, Z. I'm like, well, what about X, Y, A? So that is how my head works. So, yes, I very much was like I'm going to put a lot of science fiction in this. Then, somewhere in… I think the two… This is a little spoiler. But, somewhere in the two, I gave a name to the force that is being used, and it is not orogeny, it is magic. And I'm just… I just did that to [garbled fool with the audience]
[chuckles]
[Nora] [garbled] because I am an evil writer as I said.
[DongWon] Because at that point, the book was becoming more science fictional, was becoming more science fiction in terms of its logics and technologies, and then that you're throwing out us, like, no. This is magic. It's such a lovely little tension there, yeah.
[Nora] Well, I mean, there's a particular thing that I was doing which is that… I believe it's Clarke's Law, is any sufficiently complex magic is indistinguishable from science fiction… No. The other way around. Any…
[Howard] Any sufficiently complex technology is indistinguishable from magic.
[Nora] Thank you.
[DongWon] There we go.
[Nora] The inverse of that, I think, is the Girl Genius law, which is the same thing. Any sufficiently complex magic is indistinguishable from technology. And I really wanted to play with that. What if we have magic so complex, so structured, still incomprehensible, still at its core something that you cannot fully grasp or at least not easily, and not necessarily reproducible, not necessarily all of the things that are science. But what if it's magic, it looks and sounds and tastes like science. At what point do you start to treat it as a science? At what point is it just science, it's just got a weird name. I really just wanted to play with that. I did not want it to become a clear answer, I wanted it to be ambiguous to the end. Because… Again, this is a bit of a spoiler for later in the series, but the initial stage of the story, where you realize how structured orogeny is, much, much later in the story you find that another civilization went even further with the structure. They got into literally the ability to do some miraculous things with it. They scienced it to death and then drag the world with them. So I really just wanted to explore that aspect of it. It's magic, but can you science it too much? Is there a point where you have dragged it so far that it has a different core?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] It's different in its nature, ultimately.
[DongWon] [garbled]
[Nora] Yeah. That was the idea.
 
[DongWon] Well, like, one thing I think about a lot is… I think about Tolkein a lot. I love those books, I love the story. It's very meaningful to me. But the thing that always strikes me when I go back to Tolkien is how mournful it is. It's very sad. Everyone's always just singing songs about how the world used to be better. Right? I think so much of epic fantasy derives from that origin point of this… What is ultimately a restoration fantasy. Right? It's we need to bring the old ways back…
[Nora] Right.
[DongWon] And the world was better before and we live in this fallen time. So, so much of what we think of as classic epic fantasy… Obviously there are departures, this is not the whole genre. But much of the core of the genre, much of its most successful elements tend to be this urge to bring something back that once was. Right?
[Nora] Yeah.
[DongWon] If I'm… Had a couple cocktails and you catch me at the right moment in an expansive mode, what I will say is that I think the dominant mood of epic fantasy is nostalgia. Right? I think nostalgia is the thing that drives a lot of it. That is not The Fifth Season. Fifth Season explicitly starts with this statement of Fuck restoration.
[Nora] Yeah.
[DongWon] Restoration doesn't work.
[Nora] Yeah.
[DongWon] We can't do that. It starts with the breaking of the world. I mean, I just wandered off into a whole thesis statement about where fantasy is, but I'm curious, like, was that something that resonates with how you think about this book or were… Was that not even in your mind as you're trying to distinguish yourself from that tension between the what epic fantasy wants versus what you wanted to do?
[Nora] That is always a tension in my mind. I, like I said, one of the things that I… I have been fighting against that tradition within epic fantasy and other traditions within epic fantasy in my whole career. Epic fantasy has so much farther that it can go. And it is… The adherence of so many writers to that nostalgic theme limits it. I think that that's not necessarily a thing that they can help. I think that that is a manifestation of privilege. You want to get back to the world as it was if the world as it was is good for you. If the world as it was was a shithole, you have no need to go back to what used to be. You would not want to go back to what… In fact, you're going to fight the quote unquote heroes of the story, you're going to be an antihero and try and move on to something different, instead of returning to what was. So a lot of my fiction tends to explore these themes. Because some of it… It's pretty obvious, I think, in The Fifth Season that I'm channeling slavery. And I wanted to explore a lot of different kinds of oppression within it. I was exploring closetedness among queer people, I was exploring disabled people who had been treated as useless at varying points, I was exploring a lot of different stuff. I wanted to kind of teach one sort of unified theory of all these folks for whom the old world was bad, are going to see the potential in change. They may or may not pursue that potential. But they see it. And there's no reason for me to pretend that tension isn't there. So, yeah, in the case of… For example, in the case of Essun, I deliberately contrasted her against Alibaster. Alibaster is the reformist. Essun, for the bulk of the book, is the centrist. Who is the status quo defender, survivor, etc. one of these people… Both of them see the potential for change. One of them is just simply not willing to put in the effort that is necessary to make that happen and the stuff for it that would be necessary to make that happen. And the other is further along on his particular path towards reform, basically. I deliberately contrasted them, because I wanted to show… I don't believe that there is… I mentioned earlier that I think that that nostalgic exploration tends to be associated with privilege. For people who are coming from marginalized identities, there's different ways of reacting to that same thing. I don't believe that there's any one way of doing it in a privileged way, and I don't believe there's one way of doing… Of reacting to oppression as a marginalized person. But I wanted to show different perspectives on… Excuse me. If you are seeing the world as it is and you see that it could be better, what do you do? So, yeah, I guess it's the centrist versus the progressive, if you want to look at it that way.
[DongWon] Yeah. It's really interesting. I was just having a conversation with a cis white male author about epic fantasy. I kind of said something similar to what I said here about, like, me, even as a kid, reading epic fantasy, feeling a sense of golden nostalgia, of a thing I would never have access to. His response was initially [garbled] he didn't quite have that experience when he read it. He felt more of the potential of adventure. I was like, oh, is this just the experience of reading this while marginalized? Right? Like, as a person of color, as a queer person, of, like, oh. These adventures aren't for me. I will never get to be Taron. I will never get to be whoever a major epic fantasy hero is. It's really interesting… And I think part of why Fifth Season did speak to me so much was I was like, oh. This is from the perspective of deeply marginalized people who are being subjected to active, awful oppression. Right? It's why the scene of the Guardian breaking Damaya's hand will just, like, live in my brain forever in the worst and best ways. So… But I would love to shift away from sort of looking back a little bit at the traditions and talk about how you move forward. You've written a whole nother series since then, and… What lessons did you take away from the experience of writing these books. Obviously, they came out to great acclaim. You've won Hugos for every single entry in the series. What did you… How did this shift how you approach writing fantasy going forward and what… How you think about structure going forward? To return to the original topic, like, what were the lessons that you took away from this experience?
[Nora] Um.
[DongWon] That's a very easy to answer question.
[Ha ha ha ha]
[Nora] I think I have relaxed a little. I'm not as angry at the genre, because I said my piece. I… I… Like I said, I spent a long period of time kind of railing against the traditions of epic fantasy, frustrated by the potential that I saw that just seemed to be being squandered. I would read… I'm not going to name any particular books, but I would read an epic fantasy series and see how much more interesting it could have been if they'd decided not to restore the king to power. If they decided why don't we try democracy. I know that, like Game of Thrones, kind of went and nudged about ha, ha, ha, democracy? We're not going for that silly idea. Why would we try that? I know that there have been others engagements with that idea, and, epic fantasy as a general thing has mostly kind of laughed at the concept of applying all these modernists… All these modern ways of thinking to the story. But you aren't bound by the ways that medieval people actually thought. You are writing to a modern audience, you are a modern person yourself. You cannot think like a true medieval person. So why pretend? Why let your biases about the medieval era impact how you actually write about the medieval Europe versus how people in the medieval era might have themselves actually thought. There's a lot of potential within the genre, and I spent a long time just kind of pushing at it and trying to say, look, we can do more. We can go here, we can go there. Let's try it. Why isn't anybody else trying this? There were people… There are people who are. I don't want to pretend that I am the only writer that is doing something weird.
[DongWon] No. But I do think you kicked the door in. You know what I mean? Like, I think people were doing that, but I think you opened a door in a way… Forcefully in a way that made it easier for people to follow.
[Nora] Good.
 
[Howard] Using the door metaphor, when Tolkien published Lord of the Rings, he threw open a door into something that at the time was being called romantic fantasy or fantasy romance or something. They didn't even have a word for it.
[DongWon] Right.
[Howard] He had a goal which was to create a sort of fictional mythos for Great Britain, and we all walked through that door.
[Nora] Yeah.
[Howard] We all walked through that door and ended up with that POV, ended up with that point of view, ended up with that perspective. And now when I think about worldbuilding, I have to kick myself a little bit and say, no. You're worldbuilding. You're building a secondary world thing. You do not have to adhere to the rules of feudalism or medievalism or Roman or bronzed technol… Just do what speculative fiction does best and speculate!
[Nora] That's… You raise a really good point. What Tolkien did, in creating that mythos, I think bunches of readers read the Lord of the Rings, saw what he did, and were to… And their take away was we can do medieval Europe better. Their take away was not we can do a mythos in whatever thing that we want to do. We can make up our own mythos in any direction that we want to spent. I think that there's a number of reasons why that sort of lockstep thinking kicked in. I mean, obviously, you wanted to make imitations for commercial reasons. Because when you look at Lord of the Rings, and you think, what makes it worthy of all this money and all these movies and all this other stuff, you're going to go for the most obvious imitations. I grew up in the eighties, where there were Tolkien imitators every fricking where…
[Chuckles]
[Nora] And literally called the genre or the subgenre of Tolkien clones.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] And…
[DongWon] I grew up on those. They were candy to me. I loved them [garbled]
[Nora] They were candy to me. I was like 10 years old. Then I hit 15 and I was like I am so sick of medieval…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] Europe once again. And I would have reached a point… I did reach a point where it was just sort of like, oh, my God. How many times can they do the same shift over and over and over again? And I think that that is probably what informs my writing…
[Chuckles]
[Nora] As an artist, is my 15-year-old, no, I am tired of this. So, yeah, I think that that's really what it kind of boils down to. But what Tolkien did was take something that he cared about…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] And take it in and create a riff on it. I wanted to take something I cared about and riff on it. And I don't care about the same things that a British professor who's born in South Africa and went through World War I… One? Two?
[DongWon] Two.
[Howard] One.
[DongWon] One.
[Nora] One. I don't think about the same things, I don't have the same interests, I'm not going there. Among other things, what interested me was American history, Black history. I inserted a theme from an actual thing that happened, the Margaret Garner incident at the end of the book. You people have read the book, the first book, so Syonite killing her child at the end rather than letting her child return to slavery is based on a true event for those that did not know. Based on the actual real life of a woman named Margaret Garner who escaped slavery with her children. Something went wrong, slave catchers were closing in, she began to kill her children rather than let them go to… Go back into slavery. It was one of the incidents that galvanized the abolitionist movement, because people were beginning to… People were basically like slavery is so bad that a mother would kill her own children rather than let them suffer it. Because at the time, the marketing for slavery on the part of the slaveholders was, oh, it's fine. We treat them beautifully. Because they're an investment. We would never mistreat them. It doesn't make any sense for us to mistreat them… Didididi… All of that. So that was one of the prime… Not primary, but that was one of the thematic ways that people pushed back. I wanted to insert all of that. I wanted to riff on American history. We are a country with so many sins to our name. We are a country that cannot really function without putting someone in a position of suffering. I wanted to think more about that, basically.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] So I did the same thing that an old British guy did, but I did it from the perspective of a younger black woman. Black American.
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, to me, it felt like his reference point was postwar Britain, and you moved the reference point to being 21st century America. Right?
[Nora] Yeah. Yeah.
[DongWon] One of the things I love about Fifth Season was, to me, it felt… When reading it, I felt so clearly to be to be… If not entirely about it, at least in conversation with the experience of being black in America. Right? But, nothing was mapping allegorically one-to-one. It wasn't like, oh. These are the black people, these are the white people, these are blah blah blah blah blah. It wasn't, like, mapping to specific things, but it all felt so densely and richly of the experience. Right? But a part I didn't know about the individual event that you mentioned that you were referring at the end, which is very powerful and very upsetting. But, yeah…
 
[Nora] What I wanted to explore was oppression. Not specifically…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] Racism, not specifically sexism, not specifically… I was not exploring a specific oppression. I was not exploring a specific manifestation of oppression. I read about suffragism in the UK and Australia. I read about the aboriginal resistance to Australian colonization. I read about Mallory resistance. I mean, I was reading as much as I could about how people in the world pushed back against colonizers and what happens to societies that are colonized, and how it warps those societies, how it warps the people in them. And I wanted to explore the themes and not dry history. So that's why it doesn't map. I didn't want it to map.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] I didn't want it to be… This was not me trying to work through the specifics of my own life or the specifics of American history. This was me working through what is it to be oppressed. Period.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Nora] Um… And I tried to do it in a way that paid respect to all of the marginalized people whose histories and stories I read. I don't know that I succeeded.
[DongWon] I… From my experience, you did succeed very well. I found a lot to personally identify with from where I come from. For someone who is afraid of being too obvious or… Worried about a kind of didactivism, I think you succeeded in creating something very specific and very subtle and very universal all at the same time.
[Howard] I am fond of saying that there are books that are factual and there are books that are true. And you wrote a true book.
[Nora] Well, thank you. Wow.
[Howard] I come from… It's middle-aged white dude. I do not come from any of the marginalized spaces, and I read a true story about what it meant to be marginalized, what it meant to be oppressed, what it meant to try to reshape the world when a marginalized person finds themselves with the power to do some reshaping. It was a true story for me and I loved every minute of it. Except for the parts where I was mad at you, and crying.
[Chuckles]
[Nora] Yes. Okay. Um…  Yeah, okay, I mean I… Writers are evil.
[DongWon] Yes.
[Nora] I am an especially evil writer. I admit it. I accept it. This is a thing that I have learned to own about myself.
[Chuckles]
[Nora] I do write certain scenes while cackling deep in my chest. Like, I'm killing a character and I'm like people are going to hate this. Hehehehe.
[DongWon] Make them suffer.
[Nora] Yes… Your tears. I am sometimes like that. I try not to be like that, but… In real life, I am very much… I try very hard to be a nice person. I… Everybody's got their own inner bitchiness, of course, but… And sometimes outer. But I try to be a nice person. I am very much a people pleaser and so forth. But in my deepest soul, I am a sadist. [Garbled] writers are.
[DongWon] And we are deeply grateful for it.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] So… Nora, thank you so much for joining us. This conversation was truly wonderful. It was a real delight to be able to dig into some of the thematic elements and structural elements of this book with you. Thank you for writing it.
[Nora] [garbled] I thought so too.
[DongWon] Thank you for joining us here.
[Howard] Do we have some homework?
[DongWon] Yeah.
 
[Nora] Yes. In keeping with me being interested in video games lately, I've also been replaying Mass Effect, the Mass Effect series.
[DongWon] For your sins.
[Nora] Sorry?
[DongWon] For your sins.
[Nora] Always. So, what I would like to ask people to do is to imagine that they are in a game like Mass Effect where they are presented with three different attitude-oriented choices. Let's call them paragon, and the renegade, and neutral. So, take your current work in progress, take your protagonist to date, assuming that you have one, and flog them through those attitudinal flavored choices. What happens if you continue the story with your character having done the diplomatic and polite and nice thing? What happens if you have your character snap and just be super done with everything and say the stuff that they probably shouldn't say, but it's effective? What happens if your character tries to punt on either of these choices, when they really needed to be giving a more strong response? Just run it in your head and see how that affects your plot structure. I don't know if that…
[DongWon] That's fantastic. Thank you so much. That sounds like a really delightful exercise.
[Nora] Okay.
[DongWon] Nora, thank you so much again for joining us. We… It was such a delight to have you here.
[Nora] Thank you very much. It was a delight to be here.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.43: A Close Reading on Structure: Parallelism and Inversion

Nov. 1st, 2024 04:51 pm
mbarker: (Fireworks Delight)
[personal profile] mbarker
Writing Excuses 19.43: A Close Reading on Structure: Parallelism and Inversion
 
 
Key points: Parallel structures. 3 POVs. Mirroring structure with inflection point in the middle. Inversion. Fifth season of catastrophe. Narrative rhyming. Echoes, imagery, emotional states can create parallels. A knife in the hand can create parallels. Read this book twice. How do you do this? Ask a question, again and again. Revision!
 
[Season 19, Episode 43]
 
[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 19, Episode 43]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A Close Reading on Structure: Parallelism and Inversion
[Erin] 15 minutes long, because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[DongWon] So, this week, I really wanted to talk about the parallel structures that are present in Fifth Season. We talked a lot last week about perspectives and POV and how those shift. And we got a little bit into parallels, just inherently in that, but the way Fifth Season is structured has two major structural things, in my view. One is you have the three POVs of Damaya, Syonite, and Essun that all have their own arcs. Right? They all have the arc of being pulled through the story in a beginning, middle, end way. There's also an inflection point somewhere in the book where you have this mirroring structure of beginning with a child's death and ending with a child's death. Right? We have Essun/Syonite losing both of her children, or two of her children. The inversion of her husband killing her son, and then her killing her own son at the end of Syonite's story is this absolutely devastating mirroring effect as we have the inversion across the book. That works because we have these three parallel structures. So I just kind of want to toss it to the group a little bit. Like, is that something you grokked in the moment of the sort of rhyming between the different narratives, or did they feel really distinct to you?
[Howard] I did notice that there were parallels… I've only read it once. You have the advantage of a second and perhaps a fifth read on me.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] I think three total now. So, yeah.
[Howard] I've only read it once, so a lot of my time was spent figuring out what's going on. But, by the end, I definitely noticed the parallelism of the three POVs. The other thing that I noticed, and it took me a while to really grasp the in-world terminology of Fifth Season. The Fifth Season is not there have been four seasons and now there is a fifth. A fifth season is a season in which a catastrophe adds a season to your year…
[DongWon] Or your 10 years.
[Howard] And it… Yeah. It adds a season to this year…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] And that season may span multiple years…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Or decades. And there was a parallelism to that, because they kept coming back to previous… Or talking about previous fifth seasons. The choking season. The season of teeth. The… Oh, what was…
[DongWon] The acid season.
[Howard] The acid season. The idea that there was a season in which they learned metal just doesn't last well…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Because we get acid rain and it will destroy these nice things you've made.
[DongWon] This goes back to secondary world contextual tension that we were talking about many episodes ago now. But it's such a wonderful idea of seeing that in-world understanding of the context of a thing, where Syonite will look at the metal doors of the rich… What was the term for the towns?
[Howard] Yumenes.
[DongWon] Oh, no, no, no. There's like the whole… Like the towns with…
[Erin] Comms.
[DongWon] Comms. Thank you. Where she would look at the big metal doors on one of the Comms and just be like, "These damned fools have no idea what they're doing," because of the contextual sort of history there. So, yeah.
[Howard] Coming back to the parallelism, there was this idea… And I didn't get this until, oh, 80 percent of the way through the book, the idea that Damaya, Syonite, Essun's life is itself punctuated in the same way the world's life is punctuated by fifth seasons. There are these periods of disaster, these periods of upheaval, and I love that.
[Erin] I'll say, for me, it felt more cyclical than parallel. I think I felt more like life changes, but does it change?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] And I think the fact that it's called the Fifth Season sets me up contextually… If you think about it, the title is the most obvious piece of contextual thing that you give your reader. It's the one thing that no one in your story knows. They do not know what the story is called. You do. So I was set up for a cycle, but I'm curious to ask, what you think is required to make something parallel? Like…
[DongWon] Yeah.
 
[Erin] How many things need to work in sync for it to feel like a parallel structure for you?
[DongWon] Yeah. I think it's almost maybe more narrative rhyming than parallel, exactly. Right? Because I think you're right, that it is cycles, especially in this book. Right? So much of what N. K. Jemison is trying to get across is the way cycles of violence and abuse perpetuate themselves, the way cycles of exploitation perpetuate themselves, the way cycles of seasons… All of that. So, to me, I think it is rhyming of certain things. Right? Like, it's hard for me not to connect Schaffa and Damaya in some of those early scenes with Syonite and Alibaster going to the Node Maintainer. Right? As we see two endpoints of the same logic, as we see two aspects of the absolute horror of what the Guardians are. Right? Then I think there's also later rhymings of seeing the Guardians die when Damaya goes and finds the socket versus I think the later scenes we see of the Guardians, both the truly horrifying attack on Alibaster…
[Erin] Yeah.
[DongWon] When they're in the city where… The coastal Comm…
[Erin] Yeah.
[DongWon] Then, sort of seeing them again at the end of the book. There's sort of this thing of, like, what the hell is going on with the Guardians? Is, like, such a big question. Right? So, like, I think those rhyming things really do kind of set up that parallel. I don't think you need parallel arcs, like… I don't think every beat needs to be the same. But I think having points here and there that echo each other, that have overlapping imagery, that have overlapping emotional states, I think all three of those can be ways in which you can create a parallel.
[Howard] I talked about this in the class I taught using Beethoven's fifth and some other musical pieces, just talking about parallels and how you don't need much. If you put a knife in someone's hands in two different scenes…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] In the book, they are completely different people, they are completely different knives, the reader will create a parallel out of that for you. That's an extremely useful tool. Just reading that one sentence, one bit of imagery, one element of a paragraph on a page can be enough to forge a parallelism in the reader's mind. Once you've done that, you can play all kinds of games.
[DongWon] Yeah. It's drawing the connection between two dots, and once you have that connection established, then they will feel on parallel tracks or on similar cycles, too, I think play with as a writer.
[Erin] Yeah. I love the concept of narrative rhyming that you just dropped in here, which I don't know if you… Like, I know what you mean by it, but it might be good to sort of talk about what you mean when you talk about narrative rhyming?
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, I think narrative and visual rhyming is, like, one of the most important techniques in all of storytelling. Right? It is to… I'm trying to find a way to describe it that isn't just relying on other metaphors…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Like, to me, it's like a leitmotif, right, in music. It is a thing you return to over and over again, and as you do so, you can layer on more meaning to it. Right? So, like a very simple example is the way Stonelore works in the book. Right? Where Stonelore references in all these different moments in the book, and every time we get a new piece of Stonelore or someone telling us the lore of the Stonelore, so, this is Alibaster explaining the secret tablets and things like that a little bit, the apocryphal text and things like that, we're getting all those extra layers and that adds richness and texture to our understanding of it. Right? So that's like a very simple form of… That is a very simple form of that rhyming. Right? Another example is the moments in which parents understand that their child is an orogene. Right?
[Erin] Yeah.
[DongWon] like, hey, they have that power and the ways in which they respond to…
[Howard] [garbled]
[DongWon] Whatever it is. And then, of course, we have Essun's husband literally killing one of the children and then leaving. Then we have the other parallel on the island of how they treat orogene children. Right? So we have this rhyming, and each time, we see a new one, it's a different layer, different kind of hostility, different learning about what the world is.
[Erin] Yeah.
[Howard] I think of… When you say narrative rhyming, my mind immediately goes to The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe. Because the word Bell is used over and over and over again, and technically, it's not a rhyme, because it's the same word. Of course, it rhymes with itself. But it is a concept, and parallel to it, or sitting alongside it, is the types of metals. Iron and silver and gold and brass are all part of a narrative rhyme, because they are all a metal and they are categorizing what we are getting from the bells.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] And I like distilling it down to something tiny like a poem that super effective because it extrapolates out big for me more easily.
[DongWon] Rhyming creates a pattern which creates tension, because then you can resolve the pattern in one way or another. While we are back on patterns for a moment, let's fulfill our pattern, and take a break.
 
[DongWon] This episode of Writing Excuses is sponsored in part by Acorns. Money can be a difficult topic for writers and creative professionals. It's not like earning a regular paycheck that comes in at reliable intervals. It requires more careful planning to make sure that that advance covers you not just this year, but set you up for the future as well. Learning to invest and be smart with your money takes time and research, and it's easy to put that off in favor of short-term goals. I encourage all the writers I work with to read up on the options out there and do their homework to figure out what makes sense for them. Acorns makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing in your future. You don't need a lot of money or expertise to invest with Acorns. In fact, you can get started with just your spare change. Acorns recommends an expert-built portfolio that fits you and your money goals. Then automatically invests your money for you. Head to acorns.com/wx or download the Acorns app to start saving and investing in your future today. [Lots garbled]
 
[A] I'm so sorry I'm late. I was just talking to my sister about protecting abortion rights.
[B] Wait. Didn't we already do that in Ohio? We passed Issue One last year.
[A] I know. By a wide margin, too. But now it's up to our state Supreme Court to decide whether they enforce it or ignore it.
[B] Ignore it? Will they really do that?
[A] They will if we don't keep extremists out of the court. But we can protect our rights by electing justices Donnelly, Stewart, and Forbes.
[B] Um. I don't know if I can remember that. Listen, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast this morning.
[A] Here's a trick. All you have to do is remember Don't Stop Fighting.
[B] Don't Stop Fighting? Oh, I get it. D, S, F. Donnelly, Stewart, Forbes. I love that.
[A] Tell everyone you know. If you supported Issue One last year, Don't Stop Fighting. Vote for Donnelly, Stewart, and Forbes.
[C] This message was paid for by Red, White, and Blue, a community of women who care about reproductive rights as much as you do.
 
[Erin] Eden Royce is one of my favorite short story writers ever. I had the pleasure of editing an issue of Strange Horizons that featured her story Every Goodbye Ain't Gone, which, like, just from the title, right, you're there. It joins another story of hers, the Shirley Jackson nominated Room and Board Included, Demonology Extra, and 17 other short stories in her new collection, Who Lost, I Found. So, Eden is an amazing black Gothic horror writer from South Carolina, and she brings Geechee-Gullah culture, which is the culture of the sea islands and the coastal areas of the Carolinas and Georgia into all of her work and all of her stories. They're written in ways that make you tense, but also make you feel filled with love. So, please check out the amazing Eden Royce's stories in Who Lost, I Found.
 
[DongWon] So we talked a bit about sort of the narrative rhyming in the parallel structures, the cycles. One thing that I think is super interesting… I kind of mentioned this at the beginning, but it starts with a truly awful moment and ends with a truly awful moment. These are paired in a certain way, and there's sort of an inflection point in the middle that we get somewhere that creates sort of this inversion by the end of the book. I'm wondering if people have thoughts about, like, how that structure works, some sort of end to end rather than layered?
[Mary Robinette] I think one of the things that you can do is introduce surprising elements, like, hello, everyone.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] For me, the thing that was interesting about that was that they hit that beat of a parent killing a child more than once. There's a point in the middle of the book which sets up, besides the beginning setting it up, there's a point in the middle of the book where she says that… In one of the Syonite's sections where she says that she would later understand why sometimes killing them was more… Was kinder than sending them to a Node Outpost.
[DongWon] Yes.
[Mary Robinette] That… When you hit the first arrival at the Node Outpost, you're like, oh, okay. Then when you get to the moment where she kills her own son at the very end, you also realize… For me, there were two things about that. One is that is… That predates the killing at the beginning.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] And it is only… What it does is it recontextualizes our understanding of why that death… The many, many layers of why that death was so horrible for her.
[DongWon] Yeah. I love a reveal or a twist that echoes back through the narrative you've experienced before and rewrites your understanding of all of those beats up until that moment.
[Howard] This, per the episode that we just had where we were talking about whose perspective is it anyway, why do you break up a timeline and tell a story in media res so that you can align emotional arcs differently. The emotional arcs aligned via this parallelism, via this inversion, are so much more powerful when you discover that the killing of a child that happens first… When you learn about it, and so it now re-informs your whole understanding of the thing that we opened the book with.
[Erin] I've been thinking about, like, earthquakes and epicenters and sort of as its own thematic element… I've been thinking about how… Thinking about this book and I was thinking about Ring Shout and how I would summarize them, like, in a word or two. To me, like, Ring Shout is about the power of community, and Fifth Season is about breaking the world.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] I love that in some ways, this is like a seismologist, like, going back and finding where the actual break was. Where was the worst break? It's the one that we end with.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Even though we start with the worst on paper, like, for the world break, we end with the worst emotional break. Like, we been sort of tracking back to it the whole time.
[DongWon] It's the reveal that Stonelore is wrong, you don't look to the center. It's not just the center, it's… The epicenter can be somewhere other than a perfect circle. Right? So the elliptical nature of these two points that create this… This sort of ovoid space of the novel. Right? I don't know, there's something about that that's really powerful.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. There's a line in the book where she says, "This is what you must remember. The ending of one story is just the beginning of another."
[DongWon] Oof. Yeah. Right. Oh, I'm so mad at her sometimes.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Very much so. Very, very much so. And one of the things that I love about the way she is using the inversion and the parallelism is that she's… Sometimes people call this foreshadowing where you set something up. That's not exactly what the way N. K. Jemison is wielding this. Because it is the… It's, like, yes, something bad is going to happen later. But it is the recontextualization of that first element because of the bad thing that happens later. So it's not just foreshadowing, it's that that thing that is a foreshadowing becomes re-contextualized.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Because of the thing that happens later…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] And that's that inversion, the parallelism, that's the power of that.
[DongWon] Yeah.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, also, just FYI readers. You should read this book twice. Because when you read it a second time, there are layers upon layers of this kind of thing that are happening all the way through it.
[DongWon] Exactly. I mean, I think what we were talking about in terms of rewriting itself by the end of it and being able to see all of those tricks up front. It's just an absolute master class and, on a craft perspective, you just learned so much about structure, about rhyming, about all these different things if you just go back through the text a second time.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
 
[Erin] That actually brings me to a question, which is, let's say I'm writing something and I'm not N. K. Jemison, which I'm not, like, how do I then figure out how to create this kind of, like, layered parallelism in a story? How do I rhyme narratively?
[Mary Robinette] Some of the techniques that I have been playing with, because I have the same question…
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Much of it rising after reading this book the first time. But, one of the things I've been playing with is thinking about it when you go into the book, about a question that you want to ask. So, she's not… Like, rather than saying, I am going to tell a story about, you say, how does this affect? What are the ways… How does a parent feel when they have to kill a child? And then you ask that question…
[DongWon] What a question to ask.
[Mary Robinette] Right? Yes. Okay. So. But then you ask that question again and again, and that allows you to set it up. Or, like, what does it mean for a world to end? How do you define world? Is it a personal world, is it a larger world? And it's a question that she's asking over and over again, what does it mean to end a world. What does it mean to start again? And she doesn't do that much starting. Like, we see the aftereffects of the world ending. We see a little bit of the starting again for the Syonite version of her. But it's a lot of… There's a lot of endings that happen over and over again.
[DongWon] And we can see Essun starting again. It's just… There's a middle part of the start again that we don't see of her life in the Comm. But we do see her have to start again… With the knowledge that her husband killed her son, and how do we survive this season. Right?
[Mary Robinette] I guess that I feel like that is all part of the ending. I feel like that is still part of her [garbled]
[DongWon] [garbled] beginnings.
[Mary Robinette] right? That's fair.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] Mary Robinette, when you said foreshadowing but not really foreshadowing, I had a bit of an epiphany that I'm now going to go ahead and share. The etymology of foreshadowing is the idea that something is coming toward you and it's backlit and so its shadow arrives first. Then I immediately went to Plato's cave, the idea that the shadow is not the thing, and the idea that some of these parallelisms are foreshadowing because you are being told the shape of the thing, but not the thing in advance of the thing arriving, so that when it arrives, you realize, aaa… I was staring at it the whole time, but the light was coming from a different angle, and so I didn't recognize it.
[DongWon] This is the power of the rhyming, and this is the power of the perspectives, is every time you see the thing, you're seeing it from a different angle. So, from that parallax, you begin to understand more and more the true shape of the thing or the consequences or the context. So that repetition is adding more and more power to your encounters with the object.
[Erin] I also thing, like, circling around, thinking of circling around an object is really interesting because one of the things that I really like is we talked earlier about how you're like, why would someone break the world? And at the end, you're like, why wouldn't they?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] And there is… There's something really interesting there, in that looking at the exact same action and being able to see it from all sides.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] The thing that is both horrible and necessary is the same action. I think that there's something really powerful in that.
[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. To get back to your question, Erin, about how you do that. One of the things that I want to also flag for readers is that as brilliant as this book is, and as brilliant as Nora is, this did not spring out of her head in this form. You have to do revision. That's the other way you can get this kind of parallelism and these inversions, is during the revision process.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] So don't feel like setting yourself up with I'm going to be thinking about these things. You can do that. But a lot of that's going to come as you layer it through the revision process.
[DongWon] Yeah. I was literally last week working on this with an author actually, where we are breaking it back down to the outline, and looking at each of the character arcs, figuring out what needs to be here, what doesn't, and then also how to enhance the parallelism of those arcs. How do we line up certain beats? And really, taking things from act five, putting them in act one, taking things for Mac two and putting them at the end. Like, so much moving around and restructuring so that we can get that rhyming repetition rhythm going through the book that will build to a conclusion.
 
[DongWon] So, on that note, I have a little bit of homework for you that kind of builds on what Mary Robinette and I and Erin, we were all just talking about here in terms of how to do this. Right? So what I want you to do is to take a look at one of your main character's arcs. Then, try to rework another character's arc to match similar beats and structure to the first one. This can be a villain POV, this can be a love interest, this can be a traveling companion. But see if you can take the arc of one and then have that rhyming structure in the second arc. See what that adds to the overall emotional state of the book.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Howard] Have you ever wanted to ask one of the Writing Excuses hosts for very specific, very you-focused help. There's an offering on the Writing Excuses Patreon that will let you do exactly that. The Private Instruction tier includes everything from the lower tiers plus a quarterly, one-on-one Zoom meeting with a host of your choice. You might choose, for example, to work with me on your humorous prose, engage DongWon's expertise on your worldbuilding, or study with Erin to level up your game writing. Visit patreon.com/writingexcuses for more details.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.39: A Close Reading on Tension: Tying It All Together

Oct. 4th, 2024 03:41 pm
mbarker: (Fireworks Delight)
[personal profile] mbarker
Writing Excuses 19.39: A Close Reading on Tension: Tying It All Together
 
 
Key points: anticipation, subversion, movement, resolution, narrative, context. How do you decide what to use when? Think about one thing and do that the best you can. Then go back and fix the others. Do little bits of lots of things. Ask yourself questions at the end of a try-fail cycle.  Use an inverted pyramid, to do the least rewriting. A mille-feuille of elements! Multiple threads of tension. Bake your structure as you go! Add tension in rewriting. Tension is not just conflict. Don't just add more explosions. Tension comes from caring, stakes too. That needs relationships. Relatable moments. Focus! Variation and change. 
 
[Season 19, Episode 39]
 
[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 19, Episode 39]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A Close Reading on Tension: Tying It All Together.
[Erin] 15 minutes long, because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Erin] I'm excited that... Well, I'm sad that we're winding up our whole piece on Ring Shout. But I'm excited to talk about all the things that we've been talking about over the last few weeks and figuring out how do you put it all together. We've been talking about anticipation, subversion, movement, resolution, narrative, context. If you're writing, trying to write something as tense as Ring Shout, how do you decide which tools you're going to be using at which moment to make it work?
[choking sound]
[Howard] I'm laughing because there are so many disciplines… That as a web cartoonist I had to learn so many different disciplines and in every last one of them, I found that I knew more things than I could track at once when I was trying to do a thing. So, for me, the answer is think about one thing. Do it as best you can. Then come back and figure out where you made the mistakes in all of the other things and now try to do them.
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, this is been such a fun module because we were able to cover some many different techniques, so many different types of things. I think P. Djèlí Clark is really virtuoso-ly demonstrating a lot of these techniques at once. So one of the things to kind of take away from it is what you want to be doing is doing little bits of lots of different things. Right? I think this kind of goes back to what we were talking about last episode in terms of how to keep something from feeling super trope-y is having that variation. You want to subvert a little bit here, you want to like deny someone a resolution here, and then you want to complete the pattern here so that we're in the rhythm of the story and your drawing us forward. Right? This really ties to a lot of the stuff we've said before, we're just framing it slightly differently in terms of try-fail cycles, yes-but/no-and, like all of these kind of things that help move someone through the story which we usually talk about in terms of plot, really are tension techniques. Because tension is the thing that makes a reader excited to continue reading. That's when you get that page turning effect. That's how you get the more like quote unquote transparent prose effect where it makes something more quote unquote commercial. Right? I'm going to just keep saying quote unquote around…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] All these publishing terms. But tension is so much of what like drives the story, because you can get to the emotional core of the characters, you can get to the core of the relationships, and you can set stakes in really efficient ways.
[Erin] I love what you said about try-fail cycles, because one thing I've been thinking about for myself is, like, how to incorporate all of this. Because it's one thing to read it in somebody else's work, like you were saying, Howard. It's another thing to try to put it all in yours. I was thinking if I broke my work down… A work I was still doing, into a try-fail cycle, maybe these are all questions I could be asking myself at the end of that cycle. So it's like, okay, I'm trying, like… What am I… What are the characters anticipating in this try-fail cycle? What have I resolved at the last try-fail cycle? Where am I moving towards? Instead of look for some of these moments of tension, because, sort of as you were saying, though the try and fail is a lot about the… Like, the action. But not necessarily the tension. So, thinking about what's the tension that moves that action forward, or that makes that action important, might be a cool thing for me to think about, like, when I'm trying to figure out an outline or if I've written something and I'm like, "That doesn't seem very tense. How can I add more to it?"
[Howard] I love the try-fail cycle aspect of it, because try-fail cycles are one of those things structurally that you kind of want to know early on. Because if you get them wrong, you have to do a whole lot of rewriting. I think about… Tying it all together, all of the techniques, I think about which do I need to do first in order to do the least amount of rewriting. It's kind of an inverted pyramid. Worldbuilding. For me, is the very first, especially with a historical alt history piece like this. You get something wrong, oh my goodness, the amount of rewriting that has to go on. But the amount of history that your readers are actually seeing on the page is very small compared to things like dialect, dialogue, all of those other tension techniques we've been talking about. So, for me, tying it all together is an inverted pyramid. Start with the structural things that will make the biggest mass if I get them wrong, and finish with the structural things that are like the fine grit sandpaper.
 
[DongWon] Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. One way to think about how to apply what you're talking about and sort of what we were talking about earlier in terms of all these techniques is I often think of a novel as a layer cake is the metaphor I use a lot. Right? Not like a three layer birthday cake, but like of mille-feuille with all these different elements. One thing I want people to think about in terms of how to keep tension rolling forward, how to keep that momentum up, is if you're resolving one thread of tension, if you're coming to the end of a pattern, make sure you have another one set up that's going to carry them forward. Right? So as you're resolving one, so… Say it's resolving her arc of understanding what happened in the barn, then underneath that you have the second arc of the broken sword. So that's going to carry you forward. As one ends, there's already rolling forward tension and momentum on another plot line. Ideally, like two or three others. Right? This is partially why what we were talking about in one of our earlier episodes about contextual tension can be so useful. Because the contextual tension is this ambient tension that pulls us through the whole book as were trying to understand how does this tie into the real world history, how does this tie into the actual plan, into the history of quote unquote the nation and all of those things.
[Erin] I also think I will say, like, as a very messy writer, I am not a great structural like planner. So I think it's also maybe, maybe not, a way to like bake your structure as you go. So I'm thinking about that opening scene where they're fighting… Let's say I was just like I want to write a scene where the clan are monsters and somebody is fighting them, and I'm going to figure out the rest once I get there. So it's like the scene has ended. Okay. They fought them. Then it's like what is left unresolved on the stage. Like, what is left? What's actually left is the next thing they do, which is the pieces. So I'm thinking, like, okay, now they've killed these things, they've got to, I assume, get out of wherever they are. Okay. That needs to be resolved. They need to, like, take the bits of monster somewhere and do something with them.
[Howard] Oh, and they gotta steal some whiskey.
[Erin] And they gotta steal some… There's always time to steal some whiskey. One of my life mottos. Not really. But then, like, by thinking about that, then it's like, okay, maybe that gets me to the next scene. Then I can figure out, okay, now I've figured out where they take the pieces. Oh, I thought up a new character, maybe that character provide some new tension. Will it be a lot jankier, and you're going to have to go… It's like a cake… You ever make those cakes where it didn't quite work out?
[Chuckles]
[Erin] I mean, not frosting the heck out of it?
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] You're like, no, no.
[DongWon] [garbled] Flat and round. Right?
[Erin] Exactly. That's all you need. So you may have to fix it in post. But I think sometimes, for me, like, I will often get stuck when I'm writing at transitions. I think a lot of times it's because I haven't figured out where the tension is going.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] So it feels like you just ended a sentence with a really, like, heavy period. That sounds very odd. You just ended a sentence with a very definite ending.
[DongWon] You want to keep the flow going.
[Howard] You know what, let's keep that. And speaking of flow, should we take a break for things of the week?
[Erin] Sure, while I get myself together.
 
[DongWon] This episode of Writing Excuses is sponsored in part by Acorn. Money can be a difficult topic for writers and creative professionals. It's not like earning a regular paycheck that comes in at reliable intervals. It requires more careful planning to make sure that that advance covers you not just this year, but set you up for the future as well. Learning to invest and be smart with your money takes time and research, and it's easy to put that off in favor of short-term goals. I encourage all the writers I work with to read up on the options out there and do their homework to figure out what makes sense for them. Acorn makes it easy to start automatically saving and investing in your future. You don't need a lot of money or expertise to invest with Acorn. In fact, you can get started with just your spare change. Acorn recommends an expert-built portfolio that fits you and your money goals. Then automatically invests your money for you. What to acorn.com/wx or download the Acorn app to start saving and investing in your future today. [Lots garbled]
 
[Mary Robinette] I want to tell you about a novella that I translated from Icelandic. Yeah, I know. Icelandic. It's a whole other story. The thing I want to talk to you about is this novella. The author, Hildur Knutsdottir, is an award-winning writer in her home country, and we met at Ice Con in 2021. I fell in love with her writing, but it wasn't available in English. The Night Guest is a creepy horror novella which starts out with a totally relatable situation. The main character goes to the doctor because she keeps waking up tired and with mystery bruises. That's not the relatable part. The relatable part is that her concerns are dismissed because she's being quote hysterical. But each night, the injuries get worse. Hildur has this beautiful spare language that manages to create dread in the seemingly most innocuous moment. I loved this book enough to translate it. Check out The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir.
 
[DongWon] Howard, I love what you're saying about thinking about how to write efficiently. How to figure out how to do the least rewriting. The one thing I do want to say on that, though, is I think tension is the thing that needs rewriting the most often. You know what, as an editor, the thing that I see the most, the feedback I give the most is, characters are great, worldbuilding is great, the plot is great, it just doesn't have enough momentum. It needs somebody to… The line I always say is it didn't pull me through the story in the way I need it to. Right? So that's always a tension critique when I give that. So what you're saying, Erin, makes a lot of sense to me too, in terms of like when you do it, you have these individual scenes, is getting the momentum and sliding from one scene to the next. Tension is how you create that elision, moving from one beat to the next beat. So figuring out how to layer that in sometimes will not be too obvious for you in the planning stages, and maybe something you find as you go. So if you're struggling with that, I don't want you to, like, worry too much about things in the outlining and planning stages. Obviously, have an eye on it, think about it. I think it can be really helpful. But it's okay if you feel like this needs a lot of rewriting to get the kind of tension in there that you want.
[Howard] You know what, I want to be clear here. When I say the least amount of work, I'm not talking about no work.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] There is so much rewriting that needs to be done. But I don't want to have to take this magnificent set of layers and instead of doing some trimming, I turn a dobos torte into a dobos tortilla. There's... Okay, I only have one layer I can use. Now I gotta rebuild the whole thing.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] For a tension rewrite, what I prefer is to be able to say, "Oh, this chapter isn't working the way it needs to work. I will rewrite this chapter." Rather than, "Oh, this chapter doesn't even fit in this book. I have to restructure it and everything that comes after it." That's the work that I want to avoid.
 
[Erin] I think that one of the reasons… I agree with everything. But I think that one of the reasons that tension often happens in the rewriting is because tension is different than conflict. I think sometimes when we get stuck in writing, or maybe it's just me, like, the instinct might be to, like, Michael Bay it and…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Just be like more explosions! More things! More enemies! Like, and just like build it out bigger and bigger and bigger. But that doesn't necessarily make it any more tense.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Because it's like if you're up against 50 people trying to kill you or 60 people trying to kill you, it's pretty bad either way. It's not more tense, you're pretty dead. So you have to think about a lot of times, it's small things…
[DongWon] Yes.
[Erin] That create tension. It's emotional things, it's personal things. I think that's what I love about Ring Shout is that things that we talked about in tension, the girl, the sword, they're important, but they're not the big set pieces.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] They're not the huge battles in a lot of ways. They're the smaller moments that pull you from one big set piece to the next. I think they can be harder to find until the rewrite, because you don't know what small details you put in chapter 3 until you write it out. Then you go, oh, I mentioned a cloak. Maybe that's a source of tension that I can bring through…
 
[DongWon] I think the lesser version of the opening of this book is one that starts with the trap blowing up. Right? But he doesn't do that. He starts with a conversation. Starts with a long conversation between the key characters of the story. I think that leads to the kind of tension that's interesting. Because now we have a sense of who these people are, we're starting to care about them. Then, for me, the fight scene in the warehouse is fine until she draws the sword. Then it's like, oh, damn. This is interesting now. Right? Because that, for me… I… We talk about this a lot, but death isn't very interesting stakes. Right? Like, if the character dies, I'm sort of like, okay, characters dead, let's move on. It's how the other characters feel about the character's death that makes it hit hard. It's the sense of, like, oh, they had something to accomplish that they didn't accomplish. Because we, as people, care about other people. Right? We don't necessarily care about one thing in isolation, we care about communities and relationships. So when I say that this needs stakes, I almost always mean that this needs a relationship of some sort. To another person, to a group, even to like themselves in a certain way. An aspiration for themselves. That's the thing we're going to feel emotions about. So, that's why starting in an action scene is something that, like, I always recommend against. When you think about action scenes in general, as Erin was saying, it's not about the explosions, it's not about the cool fight scenes, it's about the intensity of emotion, it's about caring about the relationship, it's about what's the consequence of losing this fight. That consequence is in the regard of their community and their family, whatever it is.
 
[Howard] The community and family. There's a scene about… I want to say a third of the way into the book, where the community is coming together for shared meals, and we talk about the food and we talk about the music and what's happening. When a scene like that is done well, I want to eat. I am now connected. If you do something that like removes their ability to get crayfish anymore, I'm tense. Because I… Food. That's important.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] So these sorts of celebratory moments a third of the way into the book… Granted, my meta-reader is saying, "Oh, Howard, don't learn to love this food or these people or whatever else. P. Djèlí Clark is just setting you up to care about things that could be taken away." Yeah, set my meta-reader aside and just enjoy it. Because it's a lovely scene that connects me and allows the author to create stakes that matter.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Rather than, oh, no, somebody's gonna die. Oh, no, this community might fracture.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] It's so grounding. Like… You said food, it made me think, many of us may have been in life or death situations against multiples of people, but many have not. But we've all eaten. I would assume. Oh, boy…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] So I think that a lot of times in… It makes me think about one of the challenges of fantasy and science fiction, which is that sometimes you're talking about things that we have no frame of reference for. Like, I have never been tense about a ship exploding, because I'm not on a spaceship. But I am tense about letting the people on my crew down. Or, like, disappointment is something that we understand. So I think a lot of times where I can sometimes get lost in fiction is when so much of the tension is focused on the thing that I can't ground myself into, and not enough, like you're talking about, in the relationships.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] But I think when people hear "add more stakes," sometimes they think…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Add bigger things blowing up.
 
[DongWon] One other thing I want to add to my layer cake metaphor here…
[Erin] Yes.
[DongWon] And sort of what we're talking about in general is I think one of the problems with adding more explosions is you lose focus. Right? So I'm saying have lots of layers, but have one of those tensions be the focus of your scene. Right? Then as you resolve that, you shift the focus to something else. When you're just adding more noise, you lose sight of the tension, so the tension drops, actually. Right? So thing to remember is that, like, if you think about the juke joint fight scene, right, she's running around looking for her lover through all that, and the tension is coming from that, primarily. There's other elements there. Right? There's the relationship with Sadie, there's whatever's going on outside with the butcher, there's… Again, the stuff with the sword, her memories, those are all present in the scene, but the dominant note, going back to our music metaphor, the dominant theme in that is her relationship with this guy as she's coming to terms with how much she cares about him.
[Howard] You mentioned don't raise stakes like Michael Bay by blowing more things up. Funny story. I think it's the third Transformers film where they were shooting in 3D, and it was the most enjoyable and comprehensible for me. It turns out it's because the 3D tech people went to Michael Bay and said, "That thing you keep doing with the cameras? Stop it. We can't do 3D if you jiggle around a lot." So they, for technical reasons, they forced him to, as you were saying, focus our attention on something.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Which let me care about it. Which made things comprehensible.
[DongWon] Yeah. I saw an interview with George Miller the other day where he was talking about the most important thing that he learned to do, and he learned it from making Happy Feet 2…
[Laughter]
[DongWon] Which he made immediately before Mad Max Fury Road, which is very funny to me. But once you spot it, you can see why it makes Mad Max so good, is he learned that you communicate who the protagonist is by what the camera is looking at. Right? So all throughout Fury Road, you will notice these scenes… You talk about, like, Michael Bay level action, a million things are happening at once, but you're always focused on a character, what that character's experiencing, thinking, and you can tell what that character feels about the other characters in the scene. Right? You can see the growing trust and affection between Max and Furiosa simply by watching how they move, how they respond to each other. Then when they start fighting in tandem, it's this beautiful moment of two people coming together for survival. So, I know we've wandered off of Ring Shout…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] But think about that focus when you're thinking about how to create and maintain tension.
 
[Erin] Yeah. I also want to, just before we wrap up this episode, you were talking about music earlier also made me think about something that I've seen that happens a lot at karaoke. Which is that if you have somebody who has the most beautiful voice in the world and they start singing at the same volume and, no matter how beautiful it is, after about 30 seconds, people will stop. The thing they do where they start listening, they're like, "Wow, you can really sing," and then go back to their conversations. Because it is the change that actually makes…
[DongWon] Yes.
[Erin] People pay attention. Our human brains are really good at taking things that there use to and screening them out. It's actually… Whole nother podcast on why that actually is unfortunate, because if you're happy, sometimes you could get really accustomed to it and start thinking you're not happy anymore, because that's what the human brain does. But it does the same thing when you're reading. So when you were talking about the one scene in her looking for her lover, that's the note of that scene. But it's not the note of the entire book.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Erin] Because if you hit the same note over and over and over again, nothing wrong with explosions, I think the reason Michael Bay gets a lot of heat is because when you go to the same well over and over, it's like that singer holding the same note, same pitch, same timber, for 10 minutes. Eventually, you're just like, oh, got that. Now I need something new.
[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly.
[Erin] Speaking of something new, we have new homework for you.
 
[DongWon] Yeah. I've got your homework for you this week. What I want you to do to tie this all together is to take a look at your own outline. Move one of the major conflict points in that outline into a different act. Move it forward. So, say you have the resolution of Act I. See if you can stretch that into what happens if you move that to the end of Act II. If you have something in Act IV, what happens if you move that to Act III? See how that changes the pacing, see how it changes the tension, see if moving things forward or back increases or decreases the speed of reading the book and the momentum of your story.
 
[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Howard] Have you ever wanted to ask one of the Writing Excuses hosts for very specific, very you-focused help. There's an offering on the Writing Excuses Patreon that will let you do exactly that. The Private Instruction tier includes everything from the lower tiers plus a quarterly, one-on-one Zoom meeting with a host of your choice. You might choose, for example, to work with me on your humorous prose, engage DongWon's expertise on your worldbuilding, or study with Erin to level up your game writing. Visit patreon.com/writingexcuses for more details.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.15: A Close Reading on Voice - Tying It All Together

Apr. 19th, 2024 08:02 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.15: A Close Reading on Voice - Tying It All Together
 
 
Key points: Voice can be an active part of developing plots and character arcs. As the character changes, their voice changes. Characters learn. Allow yourself to love to write. When you can't write with joy, reach for craft. Use the tools in revision. Use pacing, punctuation, word choice, accent, sentence structure to make the character more them. Allow yourself to be yourself as you write, use the personal voice! Use the smiley face! When something is good in what you are reviewing or critiquing, put a smiley face by it. Look for the key phrase, the sentence or paragraph that really sounds like the character, and use that to ground yourself as you revise or write more. Take big swings! Push yourself, and aim at the home run. Watch for falling into the same rhythm, sentences, and repetition by accident. Try reading it aloud to catch this! Check the musicality of your text. Deconstruct what you're doing, just step back and look at what you are trying to accomplish and how you are doing it. 
 
[Season 19, Episode 15]
 
[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.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, listeners. We want your input on season 20. Which, I have to be honest, does not sound like a real number. What elements of the craft do you want us to talk about? What episode or core concept do you use or reference or recommend the most? Or, what are you just having trouble with? After 20 seasons, we've talked about a lot of things. What element of writing do you wish we'd revisit for a deeper dive on the podcast? Email your ideas to podcast@writingexcuses.com
 
[Season 19, Episode 15]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A Close Reading on Voice – Tying It All Together.
[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.
[Erin] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[DongWon] So, this episode, we are reaching the end of our first sort of module, talking about This Is How You Lose the Time War. We want to focus a little bit on both recapping some of the stuff we've talked about, but also making sure it feels actionable for you, the audience, about how you can start to apply this to your own fiction. So one of the things I really wanted to focus on, I think we've hit a number of times over the past few episodes, is we can sometimes think about voice as a very passive element of your story. You decide the voice at the beginning, and then once you sort of finish your opening section, you're like, "That's the voice for my book." I hope you can see from the past few episodes as we looked at Red and Blue and the letters individually, how voice is an active participant in developing the plots, in developing the characters, and really carrying the reader through in a way, with much more clarity than if the voice hadn't evolved.
[Mary Robinette] This is something that is a factor that you will find in most fiction that you're going to be reading or writing, that… If you have a character arc, I should say. If you have a character arc, your character at the end is not the same person they were at the beginning. So it is natural that the voice of the character would evolve over the course of the story. But we often don't think about it. We just let it go for a ride. So, thinking about some of the tools that we've used here, the big one that I would say for adjusting things is the experiential nature of the character. Like, that they are seeing things differently at the end than they are at the beginning. So you're going to be using different language to highlight things, as one example.
[Erin] I think another thing is, building on that different language, is also that characters learn things. You know what I mean? There are things we always carry with us, like, if you were the child of fisherfolk, maybe you always use fish metaphors throughout the rest of your life. But if you suddenly learn magic, or you learn how to become an engineer, or you go to space, the type of language that you use will change. I think a lot of times, again, we will sometimes think, "Oh, I've set up the knowledge that my character has at the beginning of the story," and then that knowledge changes. But has the language changed with it? So you can sort of look at a paragraph from the beginning of something you're writing and something at the end and say, "Do these seem the same?" If they do, is that a choice that I've made, or is that something I've defaulted into?
[DongWon] Well, one great example of that is in the letters, they start referencing this thing that's like Mrs. Levitt's Guide, which is some kind of…
[Mary Robinette] Etiquette.
[DongWon] Etiquette manual. Thank you. That teaches them how to write letters. Red is using this actively, and we see Red discover postscripts and all kinds of different aspects of letter writing. But it's also a cue for the audience as well of showing how literally Red and Blue are teaching each other how to speak to each other. Right? We'll see poetry start to appear in Red's letters. We see this back-and-forth about different elements of letter writing, about postscripts and things like that. I think it's really reflecting what Erin is talking about, of how you can actively and deliberately have your characters learn how to speak and how to write in a way that shows their ongoing entanglement in the way that language changes.
 
[Howard] The tool that I would first recommend that you, fair listener, take from this whole close read. Allow yourself to love to write.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] Let yourself love it. Lose yourself in it. In our previous episode, I used the word luxuriate, Erin used the word indulgence. Embrace those. Please. Luxuriate in it, indulge yourself in writing. And that joy will begin to lock in some of these tools for you. Because I'm watching Mary Robinette work from notes as she talks to us and lists these things that we can do deliberately, and I think I will never be able to do all of that deliberately. That's fine. I'm just going to have fun with it, and then remember those rules and rewrite deliberately.
[Mary Robinette] Well, so frequently the tools that I list are things that I used to punch up my fiction, that it's… Sometimes it's stuff that I do unconsciously, because I come out of theater. So, getting into a character voice and rhythm is something that I was trained to do and have internalized. But other times when I'm writing with depression, I cannot write with… Through the joy. I lean… I reach for the craft, and I'll let myself get something down that's messy, knowing that I can come back and I will look at it and say, "Okay. Pacing wise, where does this character pause? Is this a character that speaks in long fluid sentences? Or is this a character that speaks in short punctuated sentences?" I will go through and I will adjust my punctuation, I will think about the word choice, I frequently go back in even with something that I have written from a place of joy, will go back in and look at how I can dial up a character's particular accent. Like, what are the word choices and sentence structure that makes this character more specifically them? How do I remove the ambiguity, so none of the other characters on the page could have said that sentence?
[Erin] I think we do a lot of this subconsciously all the time. I think about being in a meeting, or even listening to this podcast. You'll be like, "Oh, yeah. That's such a so-and-so thing to say."
[Laughter]
[Erin] Or, like when somebody says to me, they're going to use a long metaphor and talk about their cat, because that's what they always do…
[Mary Robinette] Have I told you about Elsie recently?
[Laughter]
[Erin] Who is Elsie?
[Mary Robinette] Elsie is my cat, who uses buttons to talk. It's very much… Carry on.
[Laughter]
[Erin] That was absolutely… The cat who has no shame. I've been looking at pictures of my own cat all day. But I think that… Think about the things that you do. How do you recognize somebody else's voice? Then, what is it about it? Is it the lens… Is it the things that they reference? Is it a specific word that they always use? That is a thing that they always come back to? Then think about how can you create characters that have that same depth and richness?
[Mary Robinette] Also, think about who your character is addressing, because that is one of the things, again, that we do naturally that Erin was just talking about. So when your character is speaking to someone else, do they have the same rhythm every time? Or do they change it based on who they're talking to?
 
[DongWon] Yeah. I think one thing that comes through clearly in this is kind of going also to what Erin's saying that allow yourself to be yourself as you write. This is the 3rd part of voice that we didn't talk about, which I'm forgetting the exact term you used for it, but…
[Mary Robinette] Personal voice.
[DongWon] Personal voice. Right. Red and Blue sound very distinct because there written by different people. I get the distinct pleasure of being friends with these people, so I know how they talk. These are such heightened versions of how Max speaks and how Amal speaks. But their natural rhythms and their natural proclivities in how they talk, how they construct a metaphor, are coming through and they let that happen. Right? There was no hiding who they were. They were in fact amping that up, I think, to make that distinction very clearly felt the different sections. So, I think one other lesson you can take here in addition to let yourself have fun, write from a place of joy when you can, is also just because we're giving you all these tools to manipulate voice, to use it in different ways that are very deliberate, don't feel like what we're also saying is you have to hide who you are. The way you talk, the way you think, the way you speak. Sometimes, the most distinctive fiction is the one that feels like you are talking to the person who wrote it.
[Mary Robinette] The way I often describe this is you've spent your entire life honing your tastes as a reader, and you've got good taste. So trust your taste when you're writing.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Erin] I would say as both a reader and a listener. Because I think there are ways of writing, ways of speaking, that actually don't make it into fiction as often. So if you love the way that your auntie tells a story, you know, maybe there's a way to take that and put that on a page in a way that nobody else could because nobody else has your auntie. Well, except your relatives.
[Chuckles]
[Erin] So, just get that and put that on the page. Because it comes from you and your experience, it will feel real and it will feel valuable to the reader…
[Howard] Depending on the relatives, it might be a sister or a daughter.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Howard] You are still right. None of them have your version of her.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. That's the personal voice. So, the thing about this is that what we're trying to do here is to teach you the mechanical and the aesthetic voice and how to manipulate them. What we hope is that you can learn to inhabit your own personal voice. Because mechanical and aesthetic can be learned. Personal is all about just learning to trust yourself.
[Howard] I have a smiley face for you. After our break.
 
[DongWon] Hey, writers. Are you thinking about learning a new language? I think exploring the world, experiencing other cultures, and being able to communicate with people outside your everyday experience lets you create richer, better stories. A great way to do that is with Rosetta Stone, a trusted expert for over 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. They use an immersive technique which leads to fast language acquisition. It's an intuitive process that helps you learn to speak, listen, and, most of all, think in the language you're trying to learn. They also feature true accent speech recognition technology that gives you feedback on your pronunciation. It's like having a voice coach in your home. Learn at home or on the go with a desktop and mobile app that lets you download and act on lessons even when you're off-line. It's an amazing value. A lifetime membership gives you access to all 25 languages, including Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, and, of course, Korean. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a very limited time, Writing Excuses listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. Visit rosettastone.com/ today. That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at rosettastone.com/ today.
 
[Erin] This week I want to talk to you about Princess Weekes. She has some of my favorite YouTube video essays on the Internet right now. She has this way of bringing excellent story, culture, and media analysis that has helped me immensely in crafting my own work. She looks at popular or unpopular works of media, asks the right kinds of questions to get you thinking, and explains why it did or didn't have the impact it was looking for. Specifically, her video on why The Last Duel failed was an excellent critique of how you can look at a movement like Me, Too or see the problems in representation of women, and then try, but fail, at addressing the true reasons the movement happened. But you should really go watch all of her things. That's Princess Weekes on YouTube.
 
[Howard] One of my biggest fears when I pick up the long lists of tools and techniques is that it will suck the joy out of whatever it is that I've written, that it will become mechanical, that it will become cookie-cutter or recipe or whatever. My solution for this is the smiley face. In red pen, when I am reviewing my manuscript or when I'm critiquing someone else's, if there is something that sings to me, makes me laugh, it was a wonderful metaphor, whatever, I put a smiley face next to it. That means there may be other things you need to change in this document, but don't break this bit. Don't break this bit. I gotta tell you, the smiley face has been the most valuable critique mark that I write to myself, because it stands as a reminder.
[DongWon] Absolutely.
[Howard] Because when I go back over the text, I don't always remember how much I loved that the first time I wrote it or the first time I reread it.
[DongWon] It's such a huge mistake I see early career editors make. Right? When they're starting out and doing their first books that they're working on, they'll give feedback and the author will be like, "I thought I wrote a good book. What happened?" I'm like, "You did write a good book. This person just forgot to write down all the parts where they liked this." Right? They forgot to do what I think of as an alignment exercise of, like, first you tell the writer here's what I loved about this book, here's why it's important, here's why all these things are working. Now let's get on to some of the stuff that isn't working that will further highlight what does work. Right? So I think when it comes to voice, when you go through your manuscript, I think this is great advice from Howard, of learn to recognize what things do sound like you and you like that fact. Right? Lean into that going forward.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. It's a more of this, please. This is something… I love calling it an alignment exercise. This is, again, trusting your own taste, trusting that personal voice. You… Books that you love, you're not the only person that loves that book. When you read it, you have an emotional response to it every time you read it. So when you're reading your own book and you have emotional responses, trust those emotional responses. Those are genuine things that you experience as a reader. If you like it, lean into it. It's like, "Oh, okay. I did that well." And when you're learning, you can use these tools to say, "Okay, what did I do well here? How can I do that intentionally, and heighten it later in other parts of the book, so that this thing that I love, I continue to be good at?"
 
[Erin] I also think with voice specifically, because it can be hard to really capture the voice of a character, at least it is for me, is sometimes I'll go through and find a sentence or a paragraph where I feel like, "This is the person." Like, I really got it here. Sometimes I'll have to write my way into it. Like, I'll start writing the story, it's not quite there, it's not quite there, and then I'm like, "This is the phrasing that this character would absolutely use 100% of the time." I will highlight that, and then when I go to either revise or write more, I will start by grounding myself in that sentence or paragraph and say, "Okay. This is what I'm trying to get to, this is the feeling. Now, can I carry it forward?"
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] As someone who has built PCs, I love the word grounding myself…
[Laughter]
[Howard] Because if I forget to ground myself, I'll destroy a $1500 video card…
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Howard] Absentmindedly.
[Mary Robinette] Well, this… In audiobook narration, we call this thing that you're talking about, we have a word for it, it's called a key phrase. It's used to get yourself into the rhythms of the character, so that you remember what is your pacing for this, what is the accent of this character, what attitude do I have? I think that that's the thing that you're looking for when you're looking for this phrase, it's like… It embodies all of those things in a single moment.
 
[DongWon] Yeah. Kind of building off of this, the one thing that I also want people to remember when experimenting with voice, in addition to the other elements we've talked about, is don't be afraid to take a big swing. Don't be afraid to push yourself and reach for the tonality, the voice, the emotion that you're looking for, whether that is the blunt muscular brutalism of Red or the deep poetic organicness of Blue. These are huge swings in terms of voice. Right? There really aiming for the fences with how far they're pushing this, and I think that's part of the joy of the book and that's part of the playfulness of the book, is this sort of high wire formalist act that they're pulling off here. Then we see that again in the letters, the way they become so profoundly hugely romantic. That's… That is not a thing you see very often in text. I think one of the reasons people responded to it so well is both the humor, but also the "Oh, my God, these characters are so in love with each other," and feeling that in your body as you read it is really wonderful.
[Howard] Sports ball has the best metaphor here. You miss 100% of the pitches you don't swing at.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] You take that big swing, and, speaking as someone who is at this moment remembering very vividly some of my young writer mistakes and fears, you will miss some of those pitches you swing at. The good news is that as a writer, you get to go back…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Howard] And rewrite. You get to put the novel in a trunk, or the story in a trunk, and come back to it 10 years later and say, "Oh. Now I have the skill set to finish this thing that I wanted to do," or, you come back 10 years later as Dr. Frankenstein, and this is more liked my approach, and say, "Oh, that corpse is only good for parts."
[Chuckles]
[Howard] But I know which parts!
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[DongWon] Yeah. Not to stress everyone out, but from a publishing perspective, we're in an era where base hits aren't good enough. Right? You've gotta be swinging for the fences. It can be okay if you get on base, but that shouldn't be your target. Your target should be the home run. So I encourage you to do all these things that we're talking about in terms of finding a way to get to that joyful place that you're writing from, but also to make sure you're pushing yourself and reaching for the thing that is really distinctive, is really going to stand out, is really personal.
 
[Mary Robinette] [garbled] As we're talking about this, I want to flag a thing that I see happen with early career writers with voice, that is an… Asking for a mistake, and I see it happen a lot, which is this idea we've been talking about pacing and finding the rhythm of the voice, is that you will have a character or the… Just the language of the text itself, where everything has the same rhythm, where all the sentences are the same length, and you have this accidental repetition that, again, can flatten something. All your paragraphs are the same length. In the real world, you have this variety of rhythm. Something that you can really see when you look at This Is How You Lose the Time War is how intentionally they're using when the character speaks in long sentences versus short sentences, when the switch happens, when the variety takes place. So look at your own work and think about if you've been thinking my prose falls flat, and your urge is to add more adjectives, take a look at it instead and see if it's something that you can fix with your punctuation. Fix by just breaking up how the sentences are structured.
[Howard] I am almost shocked and amazed, Mary Robinette, that you didn't tell us to try reading it out loud. Because often that is how I identify it, when I realize just in the pattern of my breathing, in the pattern of my nodding, of my body movements, I'm like, "Oh. This is all written to the beat of the song I was listening to…"
[Laughter]
[Howard] "When I wrote it."
[DongWon] That's what I was going to say is…
[Howard] Oh, my.
[DongWon] I encourage people to think about the musicality of the text. Right? Think about the rhythm, the sound, all of those things. One way to switch stuff is to change the music you're listening to. If you write to music, whether it's wordless or with lyrics, find something with a different BPM. Find something with a different tonality. That can help you shift out of one rhythm. Or, even if you're not using that specifically, just think about it as a piece of music, of when do you want to change your time signature, when are you heading into the bridge, when are you heading into the verse. Right? Those are all things that will help you unlock those tools of rhythm, of sound and poetics, and of repetition, which is also a very common thing in music, of when are you coming back to the same beat, the same note.
 
[Erin] I also think it's just fun to sometimes deconstruct what you're doing. There's this song that I love called Title of the Song in which each ver… It's like declaration of my feelings for you, elaboration on those feelings. The ver… The actual versus are telling you what the song would be doing. Sometimes, when something feels off to me, I'll actually say like, "A long ass sentence that appears to be explaining the world. A really short quip." Like, I'll actually look…
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
[Erin] At what my thing is… What my sentences are attempting to accomplish. If it's the same thing 8 times in a row, then it doesn't quite work.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Erin] Because, to think about musicality and karaoke, one of my favorite things, even the most amazing singer, if they just come out and belt, with no variety, they never make their voice softer, no matter how good the tone is, people will start to tune out, about 2 like sentences in. Because they'll be like, "Oh. Okay. That's what's happening here. Back to my conversation." The way you keep people in a song is the way you keep people in writing, by using variety so that not quite sure what's coming next and they feel like you're taking them on a journey that they want to go on with you.
[Howard] The song between the servants, This Is As Good As It Gets, in season 2 of Gallivant, the actress is trained as a Broadway singer, and they don't let her off the leash until the last 2 verses of that song, and she belts… I get chills every time I hear it, because I realize that was the message of this song. She is breaking free from a life of servitude and accepting that she is good enough to not have to eat olives off the floor. They communicate that with that note of… Just a couple notes. Oh, I get chills just thinking about it. So, yeah. Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Changing the rhythms. It's something that we're hardwired… We're hardwired to pay attention to repetition and then to also tune it out. The reasons are that if there's something that's a sameness, that's… If you think of us as humans as animals, that's not important information. You know what it is, you've identified it. So you're listening for the threat or the opportunity. The threat of the rhythm of someone stalking you. Or the drip drip of water that is a food source… A water source. So, again, like when you're placing those repetitions in your text, you want to be placing them in points where it's carrying information that the reader needs as opposed to just accidental repetition that the reader tunes out as unimportant. It's like, "Oh, yeah, it's all green. It's true, it's leaves."
[DongWon] Yeah. If you want an example of how pacing and repetition can really enhance your experience, I love Tina Turner's rendition of Proud Mary, which starts very slow and then gets incredibly fast and intense by the end of it. I think that sense of… That increasing excitement and thrill and danger, all those things are communicated in that song as it changes very differently tonally from the beginning to the end. So, I want all of you to sort of think about the musicality and think about that tonality. Think about rhythm and repetition, as I'm demonstrating right now. As you're like really digging into how to keep building the voice of your work.
[Mary Robinette] I think that brings us to our homework.
 
[DongWon] Our homework for this week is I want you to write a short outline of your work in progress. This would be a new outline. I want you to instead of focusing on what are the plot beats for your characters or… You could even do this for a single character arc if you don't want to do it for the whole book. But instead of writing down what happens to the character, make notes about how the voice of that character will change with these events. Make a little bit of an outline so you have a sense of the arc as the character changes how they see the world, how they're going to talk about the world, and experience it.
 
[Mary Robinette] I love that homework. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[DongWon] Please rate and review us 5 stars on Apple podcasts or your podcast platform of choice. Your ratings help other writers discover us for the first time.
 
[Mary Robinette] Support for today's show comes from the Inner Loop Radio. If you listen to us because you're a writer, then you'll also want to listen to Rachel and Courtney talk about how to stay inspired, how to stay focused, and how to stay sane. Subscribe now to the Inner Loop Radio on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or any other podcasting site. Get inspired, get focused, and get lit on the Inner Loop Radio.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.09: LIVE Recording - Rituals, Rites, and Traditions

Mar. 7th, 2024 06:00 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.09: LIVE Recording - Rituals, Rites, and Traditions
 
 
Key Points: Rituals, rites, and traditions: making beliefs tangible as practices. Building the rites helps you discover a little about your characters, about what they believe, and helps make them more real. Incorporating them into our fiction makes characters more believable, realistic, vibrant, and tangible. Births, weddings, and funerals are what make a culture work. Do you work from culture to tradition or ritual, or start with the ritual, and then work out the culture? Start with an existing culture, but add elements and tweak it. Start with the premise of the story world, and then think about the implications of that. When you're working from a real culture, what can you take or not? Be respectful. Don't dip your quill in somebody's blood. Use characters, individuals, who are resistant, lack understanding, or are trying to understand as buffers for the culture. Rituals, rites, and traditions can do so much heavy lifting for you. One takeaway? Show how communities come together. Remember that rituals, rites, and traditions reflect how people relate to the world, community, and each other. During revision, go for depth, and work out the rituals. Remember that rituals and traditions are not just something that other cultures have, we have them too!
 
[Season 19, Episode 09]
 
[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 19, Episode 09]
 
[Erin] This is Writing Excuses. Rituals, rites, and traditions.
[DongWon] 15 minutes long.
[Fonda] Because you're in a hurry.
[Mahtab] And we're not that smart.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Fonda] I'm Fonda.
[Mahtab] I'm Mahtab.
 
[Erin] We are going to talk today about tradition. We're going to be talking about what happens when you take beliefs in a world and make them tangible by turning them into practices. This happens in our real world, and it often happens in our fiction. I'm wondering how do you all do that? Have you done it, are you interested in doing it, how do you tackle it?
[Mahtab] It would absolutely… I think it is definitely a very important, I would say, a part for worldbuilding, because that is how people… Like, first of all, when you develop rites or any kind of rituals, which is… And I'm talking my experience when… Which is what I did for my novel Valley of the Rats. I built up these traditions and these rites that the people in the village go through. That was actually how I discovered a little bit more about my people. It's what they believe. It makes them a little bit more real. And, it was an aspect of worldbuilding, which made it really interesting.
[Fonda] Same. I love incorporating rituals, rites, and traditions into my worldbuilding. If you think about our own daily lives, we go through the world performing a whole series of rituals, rites, and traditions, many of which we're somewhat unconscious of. Right? Everything from our day-to-day practices of holding the door open for another person to the order in which your family members talk when they're gathered together to big scale traditions like our holidays and our societal values and principles, like, those all feed so much into our day-to-day lives that, to the extent that we can incorporate them into our fiction, it will make our fictional worlds that much more believable, that much more realistic, and that much more vibrant and tangible.
[DongWon] Yeah. One of my clients once told me, Kate [Ballahide] said that the 3 things you need to define a culture are births, weddings, and funerals. If you have those 3 parts of a person's life, you have a strong understanding of what makes that culture work. Because, when I think about worldbuilding, I think less about material physical things that make up that world and more about what are the rules that define this society. Right? That's important to people, what are the taboos that you can't break. So those 3 points of how do we treat a new life, how do we celebrate 2 people coming together, and then how do we honor a loss, I think are the things that we really communicate to the audience this is what our characters value, this is what they aspire to, and this is what they're afraid of.
 
[Erin] I'm curious, does it come that way for all of you? Like, is it something where you decide here's the value, here's the culture, I'm going to create this tradition or ritual? Or are you like, I want to make this really cool ritual, I will figure out the culture that would make it happen? Is it always the same way for you, or one or the other?
[Mahtab] I'm always… Because a lot of my stories have been set in India, I take that… The culture that's currently exists as the starting point, but then I will try and add a few fantasy elements, or I'll try and switch it around a little bit, and go against people's norms of beliefs and just try and make it a little bit more interesting. And, because I love scary stories and horror, I will add a horror element to it as well, which is… Most people are not going to, but the main thing is that I want some kind of a reaction from the reader. So I will take something that's existing, and then I try and tweak it. I think sometimes, you know what, when you take something existing and tweak it, not only are you showing differences between what people believe, but sometimes you can even show similarities between different cultures or different beliefs and different people. So it's a good way to play with things and play with the character and the world, and I love doing that.
[Fonda] I start with the premise of my story world. Which, for me, involves some speculative element. Then I go through the thought exercise of what are the implications that that entails for the society and for the individuals that navigate that world. So, the example of the Green Bone saga, I have a coded East Asian society, but there's a speculative element that doesn't exist in our world. Which is this magic jade that confers powers. So an entire society has been developed around this one resource and there's a whole culture that is grounded around the practices and traditions and beliefs surrounding this speculative element that I've introduced into the world. So I couldn't just go and wholesale take an East Asian culture and then transplant it into my story world, I had to create this hybridized world where I was cueing certain rites and rituals and traditions that readers would pick up on as being East Asian in origin, but then just weaving it together with my own imagination based around what kind of world I wanted to create around the speculative element. The more that you can get down to that microlevel of even the things like the idioms, the sayings that people have, the day-to-day interactions that they have around the speculative element and the rich… Religious aspects, the spiritual aspects, social aspects… Hopefully, if I've done my job right, it will feel like a very grounded place that's been built from the starting principles.
[Erin] I feel like you've hit on two really, really exciting things. One is, I think, a question people often have when they're working from something that's real. They're working from a real culture, is, what can you take and when can you not take? This is something that I've thought about. I've used rituals that come from basically conjure, like, folk magic, that come from, like, a black American folk magic tradition, and I don't want to depict closed practices, which are basically practices only meant, rituals and rites that are only meant to be done by the group themselves. If you're not in the group, like, don't do it, and you'll know if you are. I think, number one, I don't want to be disrespectful. Number 2, I actually don't want a bunch of folk magic practitioners mad at me. They were like… That's not a good group to have on your bad side. So I think that is something that I thought about, is, what is the essence of what's going through? I think that's what you're talking about. What is the core value that is underlying that tradition, which is the thing that that tradition is meant to do. Or what was it originally developed to do. Then, how can I develop it in a different way? What if this same objective was expressed differently? What if it had a different practice, but the same underlying goal? So I think a lot about that in, like, trying to avoid doing things that just seem like I'm kind of using somebody else's closed practices or, as I like to say it sometimes, dipping my quill in somebody's blood. Which is not a good thing unless that's what your story is about.
[DongWon] That is such an evocative image. I love that.
[Yeah. Chuckles.]
[Mahtab] I think one thing that we must remember whenever you do… Whenever you're writing something like this, is be respectful. Like, make sure that if, one, there is no misappropriation of someone else's traditions or practices. Use your own, something that you have, but whatever you change it into, whatever you tweak it into, make sure that it's respectful. If there is a fantasy element or a speculative element to it, that's fine, but try to make sure that you're not offending anyone by just making it so egregious that it's like it's wow, but it's really, really bad. So, just respect. Keep that in mind.
[DongWon] I think one of the things that can really help there is, especially in fiction, we're seeing these rites and rituals and traditions through an individual's perspective. Individuals have an imperfect understanding of the traditions that they're embedded in. Right? Nobody fully understands why it is that we do this ritual on this day, or why we honor this tradition in this way. So, having a character that is resistant to it, or doesn't quite understand it, or is trying to understand, I think are great ways to build a little bit of a buffer between the culture that you are referencing, that blood that you're dipping your quill in, and what's actually on the page. When you grounded in someone's specific experience, I think that does a lot to add that texture and that subjectivity that makes it feel less like you're just picking something up wholesale from someone else's culture, even from your own culture. Right? So, just remember that as people are experiencing all of these things that we're talking about, you're writing it through characters, you're writing through individuals embedded in that culture. I don't know, my experience is a lot of, like, trying to understand how my culture works, both as an American and coming with… My parents coming from Korea, there's, like, all these different things that I'm trying to puzzle out all the time and trying to get them to fit together. So I think letting that be felt in how your characters experience these moments can be a really thrilling way to go about it.
 
[Fonda] One of the things I love about incorporating rituals, rites, and traditions in fiction, in worldbuilding, is that they do so much heavy lifting for you. You don't need to have pages of exposition when you can show your characters living their day-to-day lives and going through the traditions of their society. It just provides this natural in, where you can very seamlessly include the exposition that you need to. For example, if I was to write a story set in the United States of America and it was for an extraterrestrial audience, rather than explaining the origin of this country and how it came to be and etc., etc., I could have my characters celebrate the 4th of July. There's an automatic in for me to, through the traditions of the society, give a bit of background on where… The origins of the society and how people celebrate it. So, think about that when you are doing your world building. Can you have, as much as possible, these grounded day-to-day experiences of your characters that give you this automatic in, where you don't have to make an awkward cut to explain something about your world?
[Erin] Which is a perfect time for a tradition of our own, to pause, so that we can have our little break, and so, traditionally, this would be the time for the thing of the week.
 
[Fonda] Our thing of the week is a debut fantasy novel called Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao. It is a very action-packed, funny book, that takes place in a Chinese underworld that resembles 1920s Shanghai, and I especially recommend the audiobook that was narrated by Mei Mei Macleod. The reason why I've chosen this is the book of the week is because it is a great example of how one author took rituals, rites, and traditions from our own world and shaped it for a fantasy world. For example, in our world in Chinese tradition, there is the ritual of burning offerings for ancestors, and in Shanghai Immortal, some of these offerings show up in the underworld in very unexpected ways. So, like the lucky ro… Joss roosters that get burned in our world end up just over populating the underworld…
[Chuckles]
[Fonda] And there are roosters running amok everywhere and there's a disaster. Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao.
 
[Erin] Now that we're back from the break, I'm going to break from tradition in a little bit, and actually, we're going to do a quick wrap up section because we are on a ship right now and they are telling us that they want this room for secret rituals of their own. So, if you… We can go down, starting with DongWon, what is the one thing that you wish people knew when they were writing rites or rituals or traditions? One take away, what would it be?
[DongWon] [garbled]
[chuckles]
[DongWon] I think the thing that I wish people would really bring to it is really showing how communities come together. I think these are… The opportunities to make your characters feel embedded in a specific place and a specific group of people. Often times, when we see these scenes, it feels very individualistic, we're so focused on that person's emotions emotional experience going through it. But a thing that I often feel is missing in stories is a greater sense of a wider cast of characters, even if we're not seeing them all as individual POVs. That feeling of community, that feeling of connections, I think these ritual moments are such an ideal place to get that in and, often times, people can be very focused on the isolating experience of the character in those moments.
[Fonda] I would say that remember that at its core, rituals, rites, and traditions reflect how people relate to the world, to the community, and to each other. When you incorporate them into your fiction, they are an incredible opportunity to not just world build on a macro level, but also on a micro level, and weave in really tangible details, like food. Food is a part of so many of our rites and rituals and traditions. Dress. Is there special dress associated with certain occasions and traditions in your society? Money. Entertainment. So many of your world building blocks can be put together through the lens of the rites, rituals, and traditions of your fictional world.
[Mahtab] What I would say is try… And the first time that you're writing it, you may not know how many or what kinds of rites or rituals or traditions you want to, but I think during the revision is when you really need to figure out if you have too many strands, too many things going on, how you can roll a couple of things into one another and deepen your plot and deepen some of the things that you put in there, rather than widen it. Just give it some… Like, I would say during the revision process, go for depth, and really work those traditions out or rituals out, whatever it is that you want to work on. But narrow them down and just really work them out. I hope I'm making myself clear.
[Erin] You are. What I would say is to remember that rituals and traditions are not just things that other people have. I think sometimes we can think of rituals as that is a different culture has this ritual or tradition, but I'm just doing things because I am. But there are so many traditions that we have, like holding the door open or moving to the other side of the elevator or even blowing out the candles on a birthday cake is a ritual that exists in the birthday celebrations in America that may not exist everywhere. 
 
[Erin] With that, I have the homework for you. Which is to pick a ritual or tradition that you are accustomed to or familiar with and make it the center of a fictional scene. You can change its meaning, you can change its impact, but keep the actual actions of the ritual or tradition the same.
 
[DongWon] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, writer. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Let us know. We love hearing about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.08: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Working with an Editor

Feb. 29th, 2024 06:52 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.08: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Working with an Editor
 
 
Key Points: Working with an editor or agent! First, your agent and your editor and you are all on the same team, trying to make your book a better book. What's an edit letter? There are stages of editing, starting with developmental or structural. This tends to be broad structural questions. E.g. this character arc doesn't seem to line up with the rest of the book. These are often phone conversations, not letters. Edit letters should be a compliment sandwich, starting with what is good about the book, and ending with more things that are working. When the editor asks you to do something, can you say no? Absolutely. That helps the editor or agent know what is important to you. When the editor or agent offers a suggestion, they are asking whether you can come up with a better idea. Sometimes they offer ideas that they know are not good ideas, to help you react and find a direction. Suggestions identify that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Ask questions! Sometimes "no, this is a terrible idea" shows that you are tired, and it's time to take a break. Editors and agents are people, too. Alignment comes with asking questions.
 
[Season 19, Episode 08]
 
[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 19, Episode 08]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A mini-series on revision, with Ali Fisher. Working with an Editor.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Ali] And I'm Ali Fisher.
 
[Mary Robinette] Now, I am very excited about this episode. Let me tell you what we are about to do. I'm about to ask DongWon and Ali all of the questions that I wish I'd been able to ask an agent and an editor before I had published a novel.
[Ali] [garbled]
[laughter]
[DongWon] We are so excited to answer these questions. I wish I could transmit from my brain all the information I know about how this process goes to every writer in the world. Because that's the whole point of this. We want them to feel comfortable coming into the process and see how it's not scary. Even though it is difficult at times, that we're all pulling for the same goal at the end of the day.
[Ali] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yes. I will say, one of the things that's straight off the bat, dear writers, that you should know is that your agent and your editor and you are all on the same team.
[Ali] Yes. It's true.
[Mary Robinette] You're all trying to make the same book a better book.
[Ali] Amen.
[DongWon] One of the reasons I wanted to have Ali on in particular is that we are working together on several projects at this point.
[Ali] Yes.
[DongWon] Having a sense of Ali's perspective, but also so that you guys can hear a little bit of the working relationship between an agent and an editor working together. I think there is this idea that is the agent versus the publishing house sometimes, and that it's the author versus everybody sometimes. The more that, I think, if we can find ways that… To be clear, that we are all trying to accomplish the same thing. That doesn't mean that conflict doesn't happen, that doesn't mean that there aren't problems. But at least we're starting from a place of understanding and conversation and alignment in what our goals are.
[Ali] Yeah. Yeah. Which doesn't mean that your agent won't advocate for you when needed and it doesn't mean that there aren't going to be conflicts of sort of ideas or like [garbled thoughts on] campaign, etc. Like, that's just smart people working together. But when it comes to the book itself and especially… I don't know, overall, I think, there's no question that success of the book is a win win win for the whole team.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yes. So, writers, you've probably heard that at some point you're going to get something that's called an edit letter. What's an edit letter?
[Chuckles]
[Ali] Never heard of it. Sounds suspicious.
[DongWon] Sounds like to me…
[Ali] Well, DongWon, do you want to start with the types of, like letters or calls you do before I do?
[DongWon] Yes. So, I think, there are different stages of editing. Right? What we sort of think of as developmental or structural. Then, sort of like editing. What I tend to do is very much on the developmental stages. I love to be involved early in a project. Or when a submission comes to me, and it's a debut, then I'm doing a lot of structural edits working with the editor to make sure that the book is in a great place before we send it off to the publishing house. So I'm asking… I tend to be asking incredibly broad questions, like big structural questions, word count questions, of, like, can we add 20,000 words? Can we cut 30,000 words? Right? Like, that's scale of question tends to be what I'm doing. So, often times…
[Mary Robinette] Can you give some examples of what a structural question is?
[DongWon] Yeah. So, a structural question can be as much like, "Hey, I'm not sure this arc for this character is lining up with sort of the central themes of the book." Right? I'm being a little bit abstract. I'd say it more specifically of like, "This character's situation feels really disconnected with our protagonist's situation. Can we make that feel more connected, or should this be here?" Like, what are… What was your intention with writing this character into this book, and how are they tying into the rest of it? So that might be a structural question I'm asking that could affect an entire character arc, which is… A solution set could be rewriting that character's entire central conflict so that there arc ties more closely in. It could be cutting that character entirely, because we all realize that they're extraneous and were vestigial from a previous draft. Or it could be changing the central thematics of the book, because that character is actually really important and their arc is more important than the protagonist's arc, and we need to make those pull into alignment in a different way. Right? So, when I'm asking these structural questions, they are kind of that big and that broad about, like, "Hey, the pacing doesn't feel great here. The act two turn, the big reveal, isn't landing in an exciting way. This character isn't feeling like they're exciting and connected. This romance isn't working right, these 2 characters don't come together in the way that I kind of wish." So that's kind of what I'm doing at that stage. Because they're such big broad questions, and because I really do frame them as questions, not like, "Hey, do XYZ," I tend to do that is a conversation. So I'll get on the phone with the author. I know, everyone's dreaded phone call. I will have edit conversations that are 2, 3, 4 hours, sometimes. As we're really just talking through the book, like, what were you trying to do, what… How does this work? What are possible solutions? For me, those are some of the most exciting, most fun conversations I have. They're very difficult and stressful for me, and for the author, but in ways that I think are really energizing when they go well.
[Ali] Yes. So, not dis-similarly, by the time it comes to me, normally, it's in more polished condition or it is… It fits more firmly within the expectations of the types of things that the house that I work at publishes. Right? So, like, it tends to be in a state that is quite recognizable to me. Then I do a lot of the same things. I'm a different reader, different eye… A different sense of… Understanding about where the author's coming from or, probably a lot less understanding of where the authors coming from, and probably just a lot more sort of like generic reader experience. I'll ask a lot of the same questions, very high structural things. You mentioned worst-case scenario twice, and we never saw it. Which made me want to see it. So, something like that. Right? Then, all the way down to sometimes through sentence level style questions or suggestions, mostly for matching things up or, like smoothness, that kind of thing. Just, for anyone out there who's curious, I am an acquisitions editor and an editor, and not a copy editor. Bless them, because I am not nearly qualified enough to make sure a book could actually go to print. But, so a lot of the same things, a lot of the same questions. So brace yourselves, this is also a part where, I think, the agent turns into a little more handholding as someone's going back into…
[Chuckles]
[Ali] Revisions after they felt like we just finished, and then we went out and the book sold, it's so exciting. So, sometimes that happens. Similarly, I also… I love and I offer a phone call as often as I possibly can because an edit letter, even though those are really fantastic, and I've also obviously found that authors with audio processing issues or who just need the time… They just need to read it, they need to think about it, and otherwise it's just not a free flow conversation. Happy to write it down. But if we get the chance to have that conversation, you avoid sort of the asynchronous issue of my assumptions running through the entire thing, whereas there can be a quick, like, "Oh, I actually intended this," and then that changes a lot of my responses. Right? So, I guess all I'm doing is sort of pitching the concept of if you can muster the confidence or the desire to get on the phone with an agent or an editor, I do think it's a really helpful thing. If you can't, that's totally fine too. Edit letters themselves look really different, editor to editor, and, for me, book to book. Sometimes it is… I go through… I have big chunks that's like character A, character B. I'll have worldbuilding questions. Then, sometimes, they're 2 pages long, and it's like bullet points of, like, this is where I cried, this is… My one big question is this. And can you add like a whole section where she's getting from here to here? Because I was desperate to know more.
[DongWon] Yeah. Sometimes they can be really brief, like you were saying, like, one or 2 pages. I think my longest edit letter, back when I was at Orbit, I think was 25 pages.
[Ali] Whoa!
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] I think sometimes…
[Ali] Oh, my God.
[DongWon] Hey, I know people who wrote longer letters. You ask [garbled] sometime what the longest letter she wrote was…
[Ali] No.
[DongWon] So, sometimes, like having… Sometimes you just need to dig into lots of detailed things. Especially if you're going chronologically through the book, of, like, chapter 1, Chapter 2, like, breaking things down. Depending on the writer and what they need and what kind of conversation and what kind of changes you're suggesting, sometimes, a lot of details was called for. But the long edit letter, I think, is very rare, don't let that scare you. That was something that was produced in conversation with the author, I didn't just spring that on them.
[Chuckles]
 
[DongWon] But one thing that I wanted to point out about edit letters that's really important is what I think of as the compliment sandwich. Right? Where you start your letter with talking about the things that are good about the book, and hopefully you end the letter also with reminding the author, here are the things that I liked about the book, here's the things that are working. Right? I think… I see sometimes younger editors, newer editors, skip that. I think that's a huge mistake to do so. Because it's not just… We're not just like blowing smoke and we're not just complimenting you for no reason. It is… Kind of going back to what we were talking about last episode, it's showing that we are in alignment about what your intentions with the book are. If I'm telling you, here are the things that I think are working, and you read that and say, "That isn't the book I wrote. That's not what I was trying to do." Then nothing in between that compliment section matters anymore. Right? Because I don't understand what you were trying to accomplish, so all of my critiques aren't going to land now. Right? So those alignment sections are… Perhaps as important if not more important than all the critical stuff in between. It's not just to make you feel good. It is to make sure that I understand as deeply as I can what it was you were trying to accomplish, so I can help you write the book that you meant to write. To make it the best version of the thing that you want it to. So don't skim those compliments, don't cut them, don't not give them, if you're an editor yourself. I think they're really, really important and really interesting, and very fruitful conversations come out of them.
[Ali] Also, that's… I think I flagged this in our last episode, so we share credit, but it's also where I say, like, please don't cut this. Like, I love this. Like, I might be telling you to make some sweeping changes, and this could get caught up in that, and I don't want to lose it. So those are genuinely… I find those very important.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. As a writer, I can also say, that now I recognize that those compliments are some of the most useful things, because it is telling you what I'm doing well, and, as writers, we are spectacularly bad at understanding what our strengths are, because those strengths are usually things that come easy to us, so we don't acknowledge them as being valuable. Having someone else recognize that allows us to be like, "Oh. Okay. So that's something I'm good at. I should look for more places where I can do the thing that I'm good at."
[Ali] Yeah. It… A lot of parts of the process to focus on what could be improved or, like, what opportunities are there that aren't here yet. So it's very important to focus on the things that are there and that are working and can be expanded, like you're saying.
[DongWon] Yeah. Again, flagging the things that, like, this is great. This made me cry. This made me laugh. Like, as you go through the manuscript, are just really helpful, because getting… Somebody telling you the stuff that doesn't work about your book over and over again for a long period of time can be quite demoralizing. We understand that. So I encourage any people who are trying to be editors or agents out there to really remember that. Even [garbled] just like have your little notes of like, "Yay, thumbs up," like, this part is so important just to make the whole process go more smoothly. Whenever I see an edit letter that's like too harsh and sometimes even sarcastic a little bit, it's like, "Uhh, this is not working, we can't do this. We gotta switch up how we're approaching this writer."
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, when we come back, I will ask my 2nd question.
[Laughter]
 
[Ali] My things of the week are 2 incredible podcasts. One is called Rude Tales of Magic, and the other is called Oh These, Those Stars of Space. Both of these podcasts just so happen to feature me regularly on almost every episode. So if you like the sound of this, what's happening now, I simply must recommend Rude Tales of Magic and Oh These, Those Stars of Space. Rude Tales of Magic is mostly fantasy. It's a collaborative live-action role-playing…
[DongWon] I believe the phrase I said earlier is that it's a collaborative improvised storyteller podcast that is…
[Ali] Yes.
[DongWon] Roughly using the rules of Dungeons & Dragons to lightly flavor the type of story that you're telling.
[Ali] Correct. Then, Oh These, Those Stars of Space is the science-fiction version of that. Also, we have so much great merch. Go to rudetalesofmagic.com/store, get a sweatshirt, and don't listen. It's entirely up to you. The sweatshirts are so soft. I'm wearing one right now. Thank you.
[DongWon] I can attest to the quality of the merch. As someone who owns some. I'm a huge fan of the podcasts myself. As you can tell, as I'm stepping all over Ali's pitch here. But, Rude Tales in particular is a really wonderful podcast if you like things like critical roll and Dimension 20, then absolutely you should check out Rude Tales. It is much more irreverent than those, but it is a group of truly hilarious comedians and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
[Ali] Yes. Thank you.
[Laughter]
 
[Mary Robinette] I… As… I'm just going to flagged here for our listeners, even editors can be really bad pitching their own stuff.
[Laughter]
[Ali] What do you mean?
[Chuckles]
[Ali] Yeah.
[DongWon] I promise we're all better at talking about other people's stuff…
[Ali] I know.
[DongWon] Then our own stuff.
[Ali] That's… Other people's stuff…
[DongWon] That's why we do what we do.
[Ali] Exactly.
 
[Mary Robinette] Anyway. All right. As we come back in, I'm going to ask another question. So, we talked about what the edit letter is. One of the things I just wanted to draw a line under is that a lot of the edit letters that I get and that you all have talked about is really about the editor asking questions rather than giving an answer to the author. It really is about the… A trust between the editor or the agent and the author. But when you're a new author, you don't necessarily know that that trust is there, and you don't know what the rules are. So they've asked you a question, they've asked if you can add more of this and more of that, can you really say no?
[Ali] [deep breath] I don't know. What do you think, DongWon?
[Chuckles]
[That's really tough]
[DongWon] No. Absolutely. Please say no. [Garbled] people say no all the time. You have to say no. It's your project, you know it better than us. Know what you… This goes back to what I was saying earlier about loving your darlings, know what you can change and what you're not willing to change. Right? Know what the things are that are untouchable to you. That's fine. We will work around that, because what we want to know is what do you care about and why have you written the book that you've written and how can we make that the best version it can be. Right? So we will constantly be poking at stuff, and you say, "No. Actually, I don't want to do that." My best case scenario is I make a suggestion of how to fix something and the author does something completely different. They do answer the question, but they just run off into the distance and come back with something wildly different. That's always more exciting than whatever stupid idea that I had.
[Chuckles]
 
[Ali] Yeah. Oh, 100%. I have a piece of text that I put at the beginning of all of the edit letters that I send to new authors that I'm working with. I really hope it gets through. This is what it says. It says, "I'm trusting you to safeguard what makes this story for you. When I offer you suggestions for changes and opportunities for deeper exploration, I'm hoping to initiate your creative process. I fully expect you to come up with better ideas than the examples and suggestions I come up with to illustrate my thinking." Because that is really how I think of it, which is, when I'm offering a suggestion, or like a directly actionable specific recommendation, I'm really saying, like, "can you think of something better, actually?"
[DongWon] I love that so much.
[Ali] This is kind of what I mean, is, really what I'm trying to say.
 
[DongWon] There's a thing that I'll do, and this sounds worse than it actually is. But there's a thing that I do sometimes where I will suggest something that I know is not a good idea because… And that the author will also recognize is not a good idea. Because then, they'll have a reaction to it. Right? When you have a reaction, now you have a direction. Right? I do this a lot with titles most clearly. I'll just start suggesting the worst titles in the world…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] So that they'll bounce off of it, and in bouncing off of it, a direction is going to start to emerge, because, like, they keep running in this direction, like, "No, that's too comedic, it has to be more like this…" Then I'm like, "Okay. Now we have more information that we can start building around." So, the… When I make a suggestion about an edit, I mean, usually it is sincere of, like, what if we did this, what if we thought about it this way, but really what I'm looking for is a reaction to the suggestion, not an execution of the suggestion.
[Ali] Yes. 100%. Did you see Hannibal? The show?
[DongWon] Not that much of it. Only the first few episodes.
[Ali] Okay. Well, in the first season, there's an episode where Hannibal commits a murder in the style of a murderer…
[Chuckles]
[Ali] To show Will Graham, like, what it isn't. Like, what is actually special about that. I think about that all the time. How I'm committing bad murders to show…
[Chuckles]
[Ali] How their murders… This other murderer to try to figure out that's actually like this.
[DongWon] If you take nothing else away from this episode, please remember that we are the Hannibal to your Will Graham.
[Ali] Yes. That's all I'm saying.
[Mary Robinette] That's beautiful, and I'm making notes about being alone in a room with both of you.
[Chuckles]
 
[Mary Robinette] But it is… I will say that, as an author, the thing for me is, is that suggestion, for me, it identifies that there is a problem that I need to address, and the suggestion is usually wildly wrong. But the problem is usually one that's present. So, when I don't understand why a suggestion has been made, I will go back to the editor and I will ask clarifying questions.
[Ali] Beautiful.
[DongWon] Yes. I think if there's anything you truly do take a away, not joking this time, is that if you don't understand what the editor is asking you to do, or if you don't feel it's right, just ask questions. Just start a conversation.
[Ali] Yes. Please.
[DongWon] Whether it's your agent, whether it's your editor, if you feel that you cannot go to them and have a conversation about what is going well and what's not going well, then there's something that needs to be tweaked about that relationship. Because it's your book at the end of the day, and you should feel empowered to make sure that your writing the book that you want to be writing. That means asking questions, advocating for yourself, advocating for your ideas. If there is something you really care about that they're really pushing back against, then that should be at least a conversation, if not an adjustment that everyone's working around what your goal is.
[Ali] Yeah. I remind myself all the time, it's your name on the cover. Right? Nobody else that you're working with, their name's going to be on the cover. So, that's your… It is your vision, it is your job to safeguard things and to also, like, keep your ears open and be really honest with yourself if something causes friction within you. But that discomfort might settle into a realization of an opportunity. Right? So, sometimes our initial reaction can be really intense, and we thank you for your 3 day waiting period before telling us.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Right. That too.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, I'm going to give writers a quick moment of perspective from some of my experience. And then a tool that's extremely valuable. The first is that, with my first series, I would hit things that my editor would say, and I'd be like, "No. This is very wrong, and I'm doing this for a reason, I'm going to keep it." I only did that a couple of times, but without exception… Without exception, my editor was right, there was a problem, and that is a thing that got [garbled] in reviews, that people would say… It would get brought up. So, my editor's suggestion on how to fix it was the thing that I was objecting to. I didn't recognize that at the time. But now, when I get a suggestion and I don't agree with it, I will ask for more clarification, but I will see if I can dig into it and find a way to do something that makes me happy that addresses whatever the problem is. The other piece of that is that sometimes the reason that you are having the no, this is a terrible idea, is just because you're tired. You're feeling a little bit defensive, because your baby… Someone has come in and told you that your baby is ugly. So if you hit 3 editor notes in a row that you think are stupid, walk away from the edit letter. Go take a walk. Go do something else, you're just tired and angry.
[Ali] I mean, clear your vent. Tell them how stupid we are. Get mad. Be… It's…
[Mary Robinette] Yep.
[Ali] It's totally, absolutely appropriate and shows that you give a shit about your book if you're mad at… Like, suggestions that don't feel right immediately.
[DongWon] I would encourage you to do that in private.
[Ali] In private.
[DongWon] And not on Twitter or Blue Sky.
[Mary Robinette] Yes.
[Ali] yes.
[DongWon] That is a thing that I don't recommend you do.
[Ali] Ideally in private. Rage in private. But then come back and then see what still feels bad. Or feels different.
 
[DongWon] One more thing I just want to point out that may be too obvious to bring up, but editors, agents, are people. Right? There individuals with strengths and weaknesses. Yeah, I know, we're…
[Questionable]
[DongWon] We're all just robots and… Yeah, very questionable. But have their own personality quirks, have their own modes of communication, have their own styles. Right? One thing that may be happening if you're feeling really frustrated is an editor might just have an abrasive style or a style that just doesn't vibe with you. Sometimes I will get an email from a client being like, "Hey, I got notes from this editor. Can you take a look at them and tell me what's happening here?" Sometimes the answer is, "Oh, they're missing XYZ," or sometimes I'm just like, "They just kind of talk like that, and that is rubbing you the wrong way." I've seen that both go in the too harsh and too nice directions. Right? I've seen both send up a flag for the writer. So much of this is matching personality, matching style, matching how we communicate, how we connect. Again, that alignment stuff I'm talking about, this is where it becomes really important. So, sometimes, if your editor has left or you didn't choose your editor or for whatever reason, you might be stuck with someone for a second that… And you need to find a way to work it out. But other times, it is a question of, like, make sure that you're working with someone you're excited to work with. Don't just be taking the first thing that's offered to you or the biggest number that was offered to you when you don't like the person. The connection with your team is so important to making sure that everyone is happy with the end result.
 
[Mary Robinette] So how do you get that alignment with… Between the writer and the editor on a project? Like, are there tools that are useful to make sure that everyone's actually on the same page?
[DongWon] I mean, I think it's asking questions. Right? We kind of keep coming back to the same things in certain ways, but it's that… The compliment section of the edit letter, not to sum up what's wrong, but talking about what's going right. Sometimes it's taste stuff, right, like sometimes even talking about other books, other movies, and things that you both like can be really useful, because then that gives you a shared language of, like, "Okay, we both love Hannibal. So our series [murder] like, we want it to feel more like Hannibal than we do like Scream." Right? So having that shorthand of vibes that you both are feeling can be really, really helpful to think about it.
[Ali] Yeah. Even on that… If you have that initial call with an editor who's interested in your book, you can ask mildly irrelevant questions. Obviously, nothing like to personal or inappropriate, right. Because that's probably not your business. But you can ask questions, because the more someone talks, the more they display their values and their interests and their thoughts, and, like, it's kind of just reaching out and touching someone else's mind for a little while and seeing if you like it.
[Mary Robinette] Right. Well, with that, let's segue to our homework as we try to touch the minds of our listeners.
[Ali] Yes, yes.
[Mary Robinette] Not creepy at all.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Not creepy at all.
[Ali] For my final style…
[DongWon] Exactly.
 
[DongWon] So, I have our homework this week. I would like you… Thinking about this alignment question, I would like you to take a work you haven't written, and come up with 3 questions you would ask the writer to help them clarify their intention in the text. Whether this is a project your beta reading for a friend, a short story, even like a movie that you've seen, take a piece, a story that you engaged with and really figure out what are the questions I would ask the creator of this to really help them understand better what it was that they were going for. Then, for bonus points, I want you to apply those questions to your own work in progress.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go edit.
 
[DongWon] Hey. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Congratulations. Also, let us know. We'd love hearing from you about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.07: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Intention

Feb. 21st, 2024 03:55 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.07: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Intention
 
 
Key points: Editing for intention, focusing to make the book more of the book that you want it to be. What effect do you want to have on the reader with the book? Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose. You read your favorite author because of what they do well. So lean into what you do well, and what you enjoy. Don't kill your darlings. Why is this here? Do consider where and how you are planning to publish. Don't write to the market, but you can edit to the market. Having someone tell you what they think the book is about can help. Focus on the question the novel is asking. What is the tone of the book? The vibe? What is your lodestone, your guiding light?
 
[Season 19, Episode 07]
 
[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 19, Episode 07]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A mini-series on revision with Ali Fisher, editing for intention.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Ali] And I'm Ali.
 
[Mary Robinette] We are delighted to have Ali Fisher back with us for this episode, where we are going to be talking about intention. This is, like, how you're approaching the editing when you're not thinking about the length, but thinking about really focusing to make the book more of the book that you want it to be. There's a thing that Edgar Allan Poe said that I referenced in our last episode about writing and editing for unity of effect. That is, in his view, what is the emotion that you want to leave the reader with. That's a… Something that I share as well, and I think I've certainly heard both of you talk about that quite a bit. Like, thinking about what effect you want to have on the reader with the book. So, what are some of the questions that you ask your authors when you're trying to get them to focus their book?
[DongWon] Absolutely. When I'm approaching a manuscript, so much of what I'm doing in the initial pass is trying to make sure I understand very clearly what the author was intending to accomplish. Right? What was the unity of effect that they were going for? Since everyone else has a quote on this topic, I also have one…
[Mary Robinette] Yes.
[DongWon] Which is a Dolly Parton quote…
[Yes]
[DongWon] which is, "Figure out who you are, and then do it on purpose." So much, I think, of writing a book is a process of figuring out what is this book, who is this book, why did you write it? I think sometimes you'll have an idea going into it, and sometimes that idea isn't clear until you've finished it. Or, what you originally thought it was about turns out not to be what the book is about. Right? So, I think the process of writing it is often, no matter how much planning you do, discovery of what your intentions were, and are, and what you want them to be going forward. Right? So, that's so much of the thing that's going to be informing your editing process and your revision process as you dive back into it.
 
[Mary Robinette] I love that so much. That Dolly Parton quote makes me so happy. It also ties into something that... I just took a class with Tobias [Buckell?]. He was talking about finding your spark, but one of the things that he said just set off all sorts of fireworks and sparks in my head, was that you read your favorite author because of what they do well, not because of what they don't do well.
[Ali] Yes.
[Mary Robinette] So, like when you're reading Asimov, it's not because of his characterization.
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] Like, that's not why you read Asimov.
[Ali, DongWon chorus] Nope.
[DongWon] Truly not.
[Ali] She likes jewelry. End of character.
[Mary Robinette] Yep. That's all you need. Really. It goes with the diamonds. But, for me, it was like thinking about… Like, really leaning into what you do well, and the things that you enjoy as a representative audience member yourself, as a writer.
[Yeah]
[Mary Robinette] That's, for me, I think just an exciting way to think about it. It's, like, what do I love about this and how can I make it more of what I love.
[Ali] It's such a good reframe. Author Jo Walton had a series of posts. I don't know if they were critiques or love letters, but they got all published in a book by tour that was called What Makes This Book so Great. That was what the series was called. I just thought that was such a wonderful way to approach, like, the reading experience. But also a very helpful way to approach the revision period which is when you're expected and most likely will be extremely hard on yourself. We're not talking about the fallout trial process in this episode, but stay tuned until next week or 2 weeks from now…
[DongWon] Yes.
[Laughter]
[DongWon] Next week.
[Ali] Stay tuned. But I will say one of the things that, when talking about revision and intention, I always do my best to try to remember to flag the things that, like, what's so awesome here, like, this made me cry, don't touch it. I want it, I want to get hurt. Let's talk about how to hurt me more. Or, like, what… This is so great. So, what else is like that? Or, like, what else can we do to sort of… Putting those flags down I think is just really helpful. Because it can be… It's a really hard time, it's a really hard time to be with the story and just remembering what all these good things is really helpful.
[DongWon] Yeah. I think 2nd only to show, don't tell, which is something I complained about last episode, one of the most common repeated refrains of writing advice that just drives me bonkers is kill your darlings.
[Mary Robinette] Ugh. Yeah.
[DongWon] Right? There's this idea that… There are times when you do have to cut something you love. Right? We talked about this a little bit less time, about cutting a character or cutting a scene or an element that isn't tying… That is slowing your pacing down or isn't supporting the main action of the story or the main intention of the story. But that's different from this idea, that's like, oh, if you love this thing, then it shouldn't be in the book. You wrote this book, the reason we are here is because we like the things that you're doing well. I mean, this is exactly… Going back to Tobias's quote, I don't remember the exact wording, but it's this idea of, like, we're reading this for a reason, and that reason is probably the thing that you're most excited about. Because your energy and enthusiasm and interests are going to come through. Right? Now, don't overindulge in that. Right? Don't, like, luxuriate in that at the expense of all the other elements that a book has to have. But, don't kill your darlings. Love them. Find ways to support them and give them an environment that they can be best observed, appreciated, and so they can flourish for the reader.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. For me, it's that you have to be willing to kill them if they are pulling the book out of alignment. That's… Sometimes, if you've got a book that's got this really clean, spare, austere sense of language, and then you've got one sentence that has a lot of flourishes in it that you love, that sentence stands out, not because it's a bad sentence, not because you love it, but because it is in contrast to everything else that's happening in the book. It is not part of that unity of effect. There are times when you want to contrast, but you want to make sure that it's a contrast that is applied deliberately and for an effect itself.
[Ali] Right. Do you want that attention, because you're grabbing it. Is this the subject or the topic or the moment that needs that spotlight because it's got it.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. So, for me, when I'm thinking about this editing for intention, the thing that I'm coming back to is always like why is this scene here, why is this moment here? If I'm trying to fix something, sometimes I'm looking at it like I can't get this sentence to work. Then realize it's because it does… It just… It doesn't fit. There's some part of me that knows that it doesn't belong there. If I query, like, what is my intention with this and what function is it serving in this scene, then I can usually either swap it out for something different that serves better or recognize that it doesn't have one and cut it. But it is always coming to the why is my starting point.
 
[Ali] Yeah. We've talked about sort of philosophical and essentially political, but, like the effect that the book is having and that intention. Do we also want to talk a little bit about the intention of like how to publish it and, like, whether or not you're planning on going to a major publisher or publishing yourself or making it into a zine, like printing your own booklet? I think knowing the expectation, or like excitement of the reader in different spaces, or, like, what is more exciting to people right now, like, they're [garbled]. We were talking about the [Oops La] battle novel in…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Right.
[Ali] In our last episode. I feel like there are certain areas that that could potentially hit stronger. I think maybe knowing where you're going with the story or where you're hoping to take the story out is a good thing to keep in mind, because there will be expectations based on whatever that publishing process looks like.
[Mary Robinette] That's a really great point. There is the reason that you write is not the same reason that you publish.
 
[DongWon] I always really strongly encourage writers not to think about the market when their drafting or coming up with a book. Right? Like, don't write to the market. But what you can do is edit to the market. A little bit. Right? You don't want to overdo it. But there's ways in which once you have a drafted thing, and now you're sitting there figuring out, like, okay, here's the book I wrote. I love it. How do I get this in front of as many readers as I can? That's the point at which you can now start to consider, okay, what categories does this fit in? Is this for adults? Is this for teens? Is this for a middle grade audience? Is it genre? Is it literary? These are so where you can start to edit and start tweaking things to push it in one direction or another. Sometimes, it can be hard to completely do a 180 in terms of your direction once you have the draft, but you can move it 10° this way, 10° that way, and I think start to hit a really specific audience and a specific reader that you're aiming for.
[Ali] I mean, even within like traditional publishing and within my work, I've had a situation where cover art comes in before the book is finished and, like, we realize, like, oh, there's… Like, there's an expectation here, like, an even cozier… Even, like, whatever expectation… Let's put in more food, more delicious like moments, like more textures. Then, the sequel, like, oh, what if it's snowing, and there's a little cozy fire. Like, there are things that can be really surprising that can have an effect. This is obviously very down the line. But you might be surprised at some of the things that affect the revision by the end of the process.
[DongWon] Yeah. I've had situations where we wrote up the copy to pitch it to publishers, and in writing the copy, we both went, like, wait a minute. There's something that's not working. There's a huge piece of this that needs changed, because it just wasn't hitting, it wasn't… That intention wasn't coming through, both in terms of what the author was trying to get across, but also how we were trying to publish it and who we were trying to publish it for. So we really, like, took it back, broke it down, and like added a whole other… We added like 20,000 words, added a whole new character arc, and a new POV, based on trying to write the pitch for the book. Like, we were ready to go out with it, and then suddenly, like, 6 months later, we're like, okay, now we're ready to go out with it. Sometimes it really is that much of a process of figuring out how do we target it for who we're trying to get it to.
[Ali] I've absolutely been in the same situation, where I've been like…
[Chuckles]
[Ali] But, wait, I'm like working on addressing some copy and been like, I actually don't know what the stakes are, but I don't care. So what does that mean? You know, like… During the read, it didn't bother me, but now, like, is there space for that? Is it needed? That kind of thing.
[DongWon] Yep
[Mary Robinette] So, when we come back from our break, we're going to talk a little bit more about intentions and how to figure out what your intention is when you've finished a book, but actually don't know what it's about.
 
[Ali] So, DongWon assures me that they've already pitched you Scavengers Reign, an animated show, I assume you're all now watching. It is gorgeous, vivid, kind of psychedelic dark science fiction. A while back, I got to work with the cocreator of that show, Joe Bennett, on illustrating 2 books with us. One that he also cowrote with Dera White called I Will Not Die Alone about learning the end is nigh and basically just playing D&D with your friends. He also illustrated a book by comedian Joe Pera called A Bathroom Book for People Not Pooping or Peeing, But Using the Bathroom to Escape. Both are now available from Tor books, and you should check them out.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, we've been talking about different types of intention, but one of the things that I will hear early career writers say, and indeed have experienced myself, is I don't know what this book is about.
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Nancy Kress, who is a phenomenal writer, said this thing to me that just… Like, I shivered in my very bones. That she writes a draft, and that that is what tells her what the book is about. Then she throws that draft away completely, and start writing again from scratch now that she knows what the book is about. I'm like, I cannot. Uh-uh. But I've also heard other people and myself say this, and then someone will say, like, one chance thing, and I'm like, "Oh! That's what my book is about." So, how do you help your writers understand what their book is about? Like, what are some of the questions that you ask? I'm hoping for pearls of wisdom that will help me.
[Laughter]
[DongWon] Oh, great. How do we… No, I mean [garbled]
[Ali] One of the things that I do is I tell them what I think it's about. Then get to watch their face and find out if they're like, "Oh, no," or like, "Oh, yay," or "I hadn't seen that," or whatever. It's… I love to go in there with a very like, I'm often wrong, here's what I think attitude and just sort of see what that surfaces for somebody. But in terms of actually identifying it?
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, this is… I think people ask a lot… I have an undergraduate degree in English literature, and I think people ask a lot, if, like that's useful in what I do, and in most ways, it isn't. Right? It's not like I learned grammar from that or how to compose prose from that. But one thing it did give me was critical reading skills. Right? And how to think critically about the stuff that I am reading. Thematically, what there is in it. It's not even so much the formal instruction that helped me do that, it's just reading a ton of books. Right? I think this is one of the reasons why I so strongly encourage, if you want to be a writer, if you want to work in publishing, you have to like books, first and foremost, and you have to read books, first and foremost, and try and stay current with what's happening out there. Because when you're consuming enough media, when you're consuming those things, you start to understand why you like something, what it is about it that… Even if you don't know how to articulate it. When we say that we want you to understand what your book is about, I don't need you to be able to sum it up in a sentence. I don't need you to be able to tell me. In part, you wrote the book because you don't have a simpler way of explaining whatever it is that you were trying to get to with writing the book. Right? That's okay. That's great, actually. That's my job to figure out how to frame it up in a pithy few sentences so they can go on the back of a book or go to an editor or whatever it is. So, I think, for me, it really is putting those critical skills into place as I'm reading to figure out, okay, what is this project? What are they trying to accomplish here? What are the thematics of it? What are the things that are really jumping out at me that seem to resonate with the person behind this book? Now, that's me as a third party coming in, and again, what Ali was saying, I think is so true of sometimes it's about presenting that idea and watching it bounce off the person you talk to, and hopefully you're close…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] And sometimes it's like, oh, wow, I'm way off here. Then we can approach the edit with that sort of refocus on the intention.
 
[Mary Robinette] When you don't have access to an editor or an agent to do this for you, because I have absolutely had that happen… On the Spare Man, Claire looked at the book and said, "This is a story about a woman of privilege who wants to get her hands dirty." I was like, "Oh. Yeah." The… For me, the thing about that is that that is a declarative's statement. But when I go into the book, the thing that I have found most useful is to figure out what question I'm asking. This is a… I'm reframing something that Elizabeth Bear said, like, you know how you're having a casual dinner conversation and someone just says something brilliant? You're like, "Well, that is going to save everything I write from now on." She said that the difference between a story and a polemic is that a story asks questions and a polemic answers them. The thing for me about a novel, in particular, is that a novel can show so many different answers, so many different possible ways, and leave room for the reader to decide what their own answer to that question is. So, for me, one of the things that helps when I'm trying to focus a story is to think about what is the big question I'm asking. In… It's… It varies. Sometimes it's something like how do you handle it when your spouse is depressed. Sometimes it's a very straightforward one like that. Sometimes it's a big societal one, like how do you create community? Like, what does community mean to you? Like, what are the different ways that community expresses? Then, when I'm writing, I can evaluate against that question. It's like does this scene explore that question? If it doesn't, is there a way that I can add that? If there's not, what is this scene doing? Why is this scene in here? It's not that every scene has to be providing an exact answer to this. But it's… Even if it's just one moment in the scene where that is explored, it still helps me. It helped me with focusing and making decisions about what to include in that.
[DongWon] But if your book isn't feeling like it has a clear purpose, that it has a clear direction, then I think that's a great way to go about it, is asking these questions of is this particular scene supporting the central question that I'm asking? If the answer is no, then does this scene need to be here and does this scene need to shift in its purpose to better support whatever that central thing is. Right? So, I think being able to have some clarity about what that question is, and also what your personal connection to that question is… I see a lot of times someone will come into a book and they'll be asking a big question about society or about how a certain relationship would work, but I can't feel why that question is important to the person in particular. Sometimes digging until you get that personal connection, where you can feel the author in the story, is the thing that really makes a book pop for me. That's when I get very excited, when I can suddenly be like, oh, I see you. You're here. This matters to you because X, Y, or Z. Sometimes it's something as simple as a shared identity, and sometimes it's very nuanced and complex in a way that could not be explained without 30 hours of conversation about the author's like life. But whatever that is, you should feel a connection to the questions that are being asked by your book and find a way to really focus on that and make sure you're really highlighting that in all the major pieces of your story.
[Mary Robinette] Absolutely. One of the other things that I've found along these lines is, again, that personal connection is thinking about the tone that I want the book to have. Because I'm measuring against a bunch of different things. In an ideal world, I'm just writing it and I'm feeling it and it's there. But when I'm revising it, and I'm having to make decisions, like, my first series, Jane Austen with magic, it's like how does this feel like Jane Austen with magic right now? Spare Man, Thin Man in Space. Does this feel… Does it have that feel? No. Okay. Fine. There needs to be more cocktails, obviously. Like, who's… Where is the small dog right now? So, I think that that's another question that you can ask yourself, is, like, what is the tone that I want? What's my vibe? Is this supporting it or is it a deliberate juxtaposition?
[Ali] Yeah. That's so helpful because I do feel like purpose can start to feel sort of like academic. It can feel a little like intellectualized in a way that I think rightfully a lot of people would bristle against. But it can be really basic. It can be like I want to give people a laugh. Or, like, I want… I want to show how cool explosions are. Like [garbled] probably.
[DongWon] [garbled] by the fire. Right?
[Ali] Yes. There probably is more there, if you wrote a whole novel, like, there's more there. But, also, like that is a very legitimate and exciting and cool sort of jumpoff point that needs to be honored in a very similar way, I think. Especially…
[DongWon] Again, it's not something you need to necessarily be even able to articulate. You just need to have like a feeling of what the vibe is. If you lock into that vibe, that's all you need. You just need a tone, or like an image, a thought, a question, any of these things can be your guiding light. I just encourage you to try and figure out what that sort of lodestone is for you that is going to pull you through it, and keep you consistent when you're asking questions about should this stay, should this change, whatever it happens to be.
[Ali] Find your vibe.
[Mary Robinette] I think that's a great… Yeah. I think that's a great segue to take us to our homework for the week. Ali, I think you have that.
 
[Ali] I do. Thank you for asking. Or telling or saying. Okay. Yes, I do. Your homework this week. Write down what you like best about your book. Find a spot in your book where you can incorporate that element where it isn't now. Godspeed.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, writer. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Let us know. We love hearing about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.06: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Length

Feb. 15th, 2024 02:37 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.06: NaNoWriMo Revision with Ali Fisher: Length
 
 
Key Points: There's no Goldilocks zone when you finish a novel. First, look at unfulfilled promises, or runaway atmosphere, and adjust those. What tells the story most effectively? Is the pacing off? Consider the master effect, what is the intended impact of the story, and do the separate elements support that? Often authors write their way into or out of a scene, and leave that extra text there. Cut it! NaNoWriMo, high-paced writing, may focus on whatever you're excited about, and leave out the parts that are harder for you to write. Take a look at filling those in! When layering, look for natural pause points. Watch for shorthand or compressed spots, which you can unpack to add emphasis or remove ambiguity. To add length, try sending them to new locations. To cut length, cut a character or a side quest. READ, review, do the easy fixes, audition (outline, then try changes on the outline), and do it! Adjust signposts and bridging material. Use narrative summary (aka summarize your darlings). Let things happen offstage, and have someone refer to it. 
 
[Season 19, Episode 06]
 
[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.
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] A mini-series on revision, with Ali Fisher. Length.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
 
[DongWon] With us this week, we have a special guest, which is executive editor at Tor Publishing group, Ali Fisher. Ali acquires and edits speculative fiction and non-fiction across young adult, middle grade, and adult categories, and is, as a bonus, a cast member of the podcast Rude Tales of Magic, which is a D&D flavored comedy podcast. But really Ali's here in her capacity as an editor, and has worked on a very wide range of incredibly successful titles in speculative fiction, mostly science fiction and fantasy. Yeah, so welcome, Ali.
[Ali] Thank you. Hello, world. I am so excited to be on this podcast. Longtime listener, first time being on the podcast here. I've been listening to Writing Excuses since, I think, 2010.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Ali] Is that true? You've been doing this that long, correct?
[DongWon] I mean, next season will be year 20 soon, so, I don't remember what year we started, but… It's been a minute.
[Ali] Yeah. I… I've been listening to Writing Excuses longer than I've been in publishing. So, it's a real pleasure.
[Mary Robinette] This somehow delights me. And also makes me feel impossibly old.
[Laughter]
 
[Mary Robinette] [garbled] revision, which is also something that makes me feel impossibly old when I get into it.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Mary Robinette] We know that… We've timed this because we know that a lot of people have just finished NaNoWriMo, and you have written a novel and now you have to figure out what to do with it. So, that was why we invited Ali in, because as an editor, she has a certain understanding of what happens with novels. So, the first thing we're going to talk about is length. Because most of the projects coming out of NaNoWriMo are going to be too short. Having said that, every time I talk to someone about a novel, I always hear them say either, "Oh, yeah, I just finished this novel, but it's too long." Or, "Oh, yeah, I just finished this novel, but it's too short." I never hear anybody say, "But it's just right." There's no Goldilocks zone when you finish a novel.
[DongWon] Exactly, exactly. Even when novels come to me as an agent or when it goes to the editor or the publishing house, I feel like that is one of the first things we're talking about, that's, like, where does this fit in terms of length. So, Ali, when a project comes across your desk, when I send you an email with the most brilliant thing…
[Ali] Uhuh.
[DongWon] Attached to it…
[Ali] Of course.
[DongWon] What is your immediate reaction when you start thinking, oh, I wish this was a little bit on the shorter side, I wish this was a little bit on the longer side. What are the questions that start coming to your mind to help you figure out how to answer that?
[Ali] Yeah. Absolutely. So, working in speculative fiction, often we're sort of… We see the higher range of word count on like different novels, novellas, or whatever, because there's a lot of additional writing that sometimes takes place in those books, especially at Tor, known for door stoppers.
[Chuckles]
[Ali] A wide range, though, really. So, depending on the age group it's for, there tend to be different sort of hopes and requests coming in from retailers for their shelves and what are their assumptions of those readers' reading lengthwise. Right? Middle grade being slightly shorter. YA has really run the gamut at this point, but… With adults attending to have potentially the longest word count that I've seen. Those are very broad generalizations, but it tends to be something that is absolutely always on the table in the conversation when books come in. But that word count conversation also tends to happen after an initial read and just sort of taking stock of… There were promises that were never… That I was excited to read about, we never saw them, or there was a lot of atmosphere here, but it felt a little exploratory to your process, and I actually think that it could feel bigger if there's less in there. So, stuff like that is a little bit more… A little less like let's chop this to a really specific length, and more of a what else… What's helpful in telling this story most effectively?
[Mary Robinette] I'm really glad you said that, because one of the things that I see a lot with early career writers is that they will have internalized these rigid ideas of how long a book needs to be. Sometimes they think that they have to cut 10% when they finish a book. I think they've picked that up from Steven King. But it's not just cutting. Like, shorter is not better, longer is not better, it's the why of it, for me. Like, why are you trying to cut or expand? That helps inform the places that you're doing it. For me, length, like description, that sort of thing, has a lot to do… Has a strong relationship to pacing.
 
[DongWon] Yes. Exactly. I think sometimes when a book can feel too long, that is because the pacing is… It's too drawn out. It's not moving fast, I'm not getting pulled enough… Pulled through this as forcefully as I want to, to have like a really great reading experience. So, I think sometimes the idea is, okay, there's some fat, we can cut here. There's some extra elements that aren't quite landing with the reader for whatever reason, and if we remove those scenes, then maybe things will move on a little bit quicker. Then, sometimes, we make sure on the other side too of everything is always up to 11, it could be exhausting as a reading experience. We kind of need those breaks and those breathing points to kind of absorb character information or background information or worldbuilding, and kind of like really settle into the story in some ways. So, I think length and pacing often feel very connected.
[Ali] Definitely. It is very hard to know before you get to the stage where you have confirmed beta readers or an agent or an editor who will read your book and tell you about things like pacing and tell you their [garbled] responses to stuff like that. I'm going to bring in something from a book that I read once…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Excellent.
[Ali] Right off the bat here. There's a book called The Fiction Editor, The Novel, And the Novelist. It's very short, I think it's like 170 pages, by Thomas McCormack. I don't know much about Thomas, but he was an editor once upon a time, and he has a concept called the master effect. The concept was the master effect is the cerebral and emotional impact the author wants the book as a whole to have. It goes on to say it can be… It's sort of like it's propped up by observation and insight and emotion and experience. So, like what does this all lead to? I think, when you're looking at length, it can be helpful to look at the separate elements, as they like relate to what that big overall feeling is that you want. It can be sort of like interesting to see what inspires that feeling most, and what doesn't really add to it. Right? Especially if you're looking at like tension or something, you might find with an eye really clearly set on, "Oh, I want this to feel really tense," then you realize like, "Oh, this traveling isn't quite getting me there," or something.
 
[DongWon] It's sort of like… We were talking about word count expectations by category and genre, that the publisher wants. If it's an epic fantasy, you want it to be this length, whether that's like 100,000 or 120,000 words. If you wanted to hit with middle grade office, you want it on the shorter side. Whatever that specific range is. But those aren't… They are arbitrary and they can be very frustrating when you run into them in a rigid way. But the logic of it does come from somewhere, which is, when you're reading an epic fantasy, so much of what you want to be hearing… Experiencing is that expansiveness, is the breadth of scope and perspective, and to get a sense of the politics and the magic and those kinds of things. So you're expecting a slightly slower pace when you're coming into an epic fantasy than you would if you were coming into an adventure fantasy, which you want it to be moving a little bit at a brisker pace, getting from action scene to action scene, from tension to tension, a little bit quicker than you would when you're not having big feast scenes or big courtroom political scenes. Right? So I think a little bit of those length expectations really are driven by genre and category, because those connect to certain types of pacing and certain types of reading experiences. So if you're thinking about that, you call it the master effect? Is that what the term was?
[Ali] Yes. Yeah. Thomas called it.
[DongWon] When you're thinking about the effect that you want to have on your reader for your particular category, that's where length can really be part of the conversation coming into it.
[Mary Robinette] That's something that we're going to talk about in our next episode, where we're talking about intention. Edgar Allan Poe has a similar concept, which he calls the unity of effect, where you kind of think about what is the overall emotional goal that you're aiming for, and then everything that you put into the novel goes into that, and I think that length is one of those things that you're also manipulating as you're moving through. One of the other things that you said, Ali, at the beginning was talking about… Or maybe it was you, DongWon, talking about… Oh, I can see you've left some of your homework here. But there's another thing that I see authors do, and I've done myself a lot, which is that we don't really know where the scene is going so we write our way into it to discover it. But then all of that text is still there. So I frequently find that often the beginnings of scenes and sometimes the ends of scenes are places where the author is trying to figure out how do I get into this scene or how do I get back out of it. That you've done the thing that the scene required, and then you're kind of floundering, going like, eh, I don't… It needs a… I don't know, let's… Eh… Then there's just a lot of text where you were trying to figure out the perfect line, and then you don't cut any of it, because you don't know which pieces are actually supporting it.
[DongWon] Exactly. I think… I would love to dive into more about how you identify those and some techniques for cutting or adding, depending on where you need to do that. But let's take a quick break first, and we'll talk about the specific techniques when we come back.
 
[Ali] For my thing of the week, I wish I could pitch every book I've ever been able to work on. But, since it's 15 minutes long, and we're not that smart, I'm going to constrain myself to just the most recent publication that I had the genuine pleasure to acquire and edit. This is Infinity Alchemist by World Fantasy and National Book award winning author, Kacen Callender. Kacen is the author of Hurricane Child, King of the Dragonflies, Felix Ever after, Queen of the Conquered, and many more. Infinity Alchemist is their YA fantasy debut. It rules. It's basically dark academia burn the magic school down. In it, 3 young alchemists come together to find and then protect the rumored Book of Source before others use it for alchemist supremacy. Of course, these 3 heroes end up in a legendary love triangle, and please remember real love triangles connect on all 3 sides.
[Chuckles]
[Ali] [garbled] is clear, mostly trans, mostly POC, and polyamorous. The magic system is inspired by quantum physics, so it's very original, very cool, and available just now as of last week from Tor Teen.
 
[DongWon] As we come back from break, I would love to start digging into some of the techniques. So, say you… Coming out of NaNoWriMo, the expectation is you've written 50,000 words, and now you're sitting there thinking, "Okay, how do I make this a little bit longer?" How do I make this feel like a full novel that is ready for a fantasy reader, or ready for a YA reader, whoever it is you're trying to reach? So, how do you know where to add length? What are the points at which… How do you add to the volume of the text without slowing down your pacing too much, or disrupt or throwing off your plot structure or your character arcs or whatever it is?
[Ali] First of all, congratulations. Well done. I don't… Every time I hear about NaNoWriMo that sounds absolutely bonkers to me. That is extremely impressive. My understanding is writing at that sort of sprint pace, for a lot of people… Some people that is a very standard piece of writing, for a lot of people it is, like, pedal to the metal, tough situation. My guess is you gravitated towards like writing things you're most excited about, or, like writing towards characters if that was what you're most excited about or writing towards just the world if that was what you were most excited about, so it could well be that, like, there are full category elements that are somewhat missing, that just don't feel as instinctive or easy or smooth for you as a writer, to, like, write when you're in that zone, when you're in that kind of sprint zone. So there may be whole categories that have opportunities for lengthening.
[DongWon] That makes sense. So you're really looking at it overall and saying what are the things that I was drawn to when I was putting this together, but maybe not feeling the sort of holistic sense of I want to have this effect on my reader, here's the things I didn't put in there. I'm writing an epic fantasy and all I did was right cool battle scenes. Now I gotta go put back the court intrigue, now I have to put a romance in here, now I have to put in those character arcs that maybe aren't as fleshed out as they were when I was thinking about how to get enough words down on the page. Right? So I think that's a great place to start, I'm just feeling like where are the elements of this story that I want to be putting in that I wasn't thinking about in that moment.
[Ali] Yeah. Unless you're pitching [garbled] battle scenes, and then…
[Chuckles]
[Ali] It's just a collection of battle scenes, which sounds…
[Laughter]
[Ali] [garbled] and you should do that, but then you need 20 more battle scenes.
[DongWon] I would recommend Joe Abercrombie's The Heroes, which is basically just one battle over 3 days for the entire book. So…
[Ali] Awesome.
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Ali] Very cool.
 
[Mary Robinette] So I… What I look for when I'm doing this… The kind of thing that you're talking about, the layering of… Layering in the romance element or sometimes you've written a scene and it's only dialogue and there could actually be some description… Maybe we'd like these people to be some place. So what I look for when I'm going to like layering description, for instance, is I look for natural pause points. Because when you… When you're spending words on a description, the reader has to slow down to read them. So every word you've got on the page is basically creating a pause in the readers head between one line of dialogue in the next. Which is why… Sometimes you've had the experience where you see a character answer a question and you don't remember the question that was asked. Because there's been a ton of description in between those 2 things. So I'll look for those natural pause points to put in descriptions, but also to unpack emotion. One of the other things that I find when I got a finished novel is that at the… Especially the last 3rd of the novel, I just want to be done with the novel. So I, like, shorthand every emotional experience my character is having. This is a place where you can add length by going back and unpacking the things. You don't want to unpack every emotion that the character has. You want to unpack the ones that are… Again, going with that unity of effect. So I think about it as places where I want to add emphasis or remove ambiguity, as some of the places that I'm looking at for unpacking the emotion. Is this an emotion that I want to add emphasis to, because it helps you understand the character better? Or, is this moment ambiguous? Can I give a little bit more here? Like, did I completely forget to give any physical sensation to my character experiencing an emotion?
[Ali] Totally. So, like what you're saying, it could be that at the beginning, you have a… When notable emotional experiences happen, you have the full range of… The emotion beforehand and the observation, and the tension, and then the emotion itself, and then the internal judgment on the emotion, and, like, go through the entire sort of the cycle of that. And watching then the reaction, or the dialogue that comes after it. By the end, it's like, "Uh, she was sad."
[Chuckles]
[Ali] Moving forward.
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] You've read my manuscript.
[Ali] Yeah, but it works at the time. So, like, just… That's also about balancing and finding that style… Style similarities across maybe when like different… Different days felt different levels of oh, no, I have to make up for 2 days now, or whatever, that you were getting through.
 
[Mary Robinette] One of the other hacks that I have for adding length is reverse engineering something that I do for short fiction where I need to compress. So, with short fiction, I try to have everything in a single location. With novels, sometimes I'm like, "Oh, I need to make this longer. Where can I send them that I haven't sent them before?" Because it will make the world feel richer. It's like, oh, reuse locations, but sometimes sending them someplace else gives me additional words that I have to write because I have to describe the new place. Again, it can make the world seem broader and richer and more interesting if I just change location of a scene.
 
[DongWon] Exactly. So, on the flipside of that, though, you've got something, it's a 200,000 word manuscript, you need it to be 110. Right? You need to cut a lot of it because it's simply too big for whatever reason. Either for the readership or even sometimes bumping up against physical limitations of publishing.
[Chuckles] [Yes]
[DongWon] It's hard to remember that we are making physical objects that we're shipping around.
[Yes]
[DongWon] And when you print more pages, it gets more expensive, and when it's heavier, it's more expensive. That can really affect things. So when, for whatever reason, your publisher is saying, "Hey. We would love this to be shorter." Or if your friends are saying that, or just your own instincts, where do you start to make those cuts? What are the things that are either easy things that you can start to look at? I mean, like, okay, across the board, I could start pulling out these scenes, or, what are the more difficult interwoven elements that you're starting to look at?
[Mary Robinette] As, apparently the only writer in the room…
[Laughter]
[Ali] But we have a lot to say.
[Mary Robinette] You have a lot to say. But I will…
[DongWon] We have a lot of opinions about how writers should do things.
[Ali] Yeah. Since you asked what's the hard part.
[Mary Robinette] You have opinions about what I should do, but I can tell you what's mechanically difficult and what's easier. The easiest way to reduce a bunch of length very fast is to cut a character or a side quest. That'll pull out a ton of length really fast. It can feel daunting when you are thinking about doing that because usually it's a… It's woven into the book all the way through. So I… What I will do is I will… I have an acronym that I use which is READ. I will review, do the easy fixes, audition, and then do it. So by audition, what I mean is that I will… If I have to do a really big at it like that, I'll reverse engineer my outline. Then I will experiment with pulling out those scenes just in outline form to see whether or not the basic flow is still there. Then, when I get into it and start the do it part of it, I put all of those into a scrap been, because I will almost certainly need pieces of them later. Then, largely what I'm doing is I'm having to adjust my signposts, which is the way I exit and enter scenes, and the material… The bridging material from getting from one thing to another. When I'm cutting things. Then, when I'm cutting characters, often it's, like, you just go in and you change the character names and then you have to tweak the dialogue to make it make sense for that character. But it's one of the fastest ways to lose a lot of length.
 
[Ali] I also think there's a… Maybe I'm wrong but I feel like, generally, out there, there's a bit of like a demonizing of narrative summary. It can really go a long way to… There are scenes that are fully dialogue, beat by beat, like this is happening, that can probably be brought down to a couple of sentences. That's like reducing your darlings, I guess. Or like…
[DongWon] Yeah.
[Laughter]
[DongWon] Summarizing your darlings.
[Ali] Summarizing your darlings. Exactly.
[DongWon] I think this is where show, don't tell can lead you astray. Right? It takes so many more words to show something than to tell sometimes. So, sometimes if you have this sense of I can summarize this, I don't need to walk through every part of this group figuring out what their plan is, or having this interaction or this conversation, you can condense that into a few sentences. You can condense that into a paragraph. Provided you're making that narration interesting and still connecting it to the character. I think there are ways that you can give us very large amounts of information very quickly. And then keep moving. That can really accelerate the read in the pace of the book in a lot of good ways.
[Garbled] [go ahead]
[Ali] I was just going to say I just love what you said about auditioning. Because I think it can be very daunting and emotionally taxing to cut things that you wrote and loved. I will say as an editor, I have recommended things and been very sad about them and felt like I genuinely know I'm going to miss this. But the audition process was such a smart move. Because then you can like be really honest about whether that's going to take something away that's genuinely precious to the book, or if it's like something that was very cool, but isn't needed.
[DongWon] Because sometimes you audition and find that, oh, that was loadbearing.
[Yeah]
[DongWon] This whole thing doesn't stand up without that element. So it's like, okay, we can't touch that one. What else can we do? Unlike renovating a house, you can actually pull those out and see what happens to the whole structure.
[Ali] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to pull out a loadbearing wall under any circumstances. Unless you're like, okay, I'm going to have to pull this out, but then a beam of steel…
[Chuckles]
 
[Mary Robinette] So… But when you're pulling things out, I like what you said about the show, don't tell, and the narrative summary. But the other piece that I think a lot of people underestimate when they're thinking about length is how much can happen offstage. In the gap between scenes, in the gap between chapters. You can… I found that I can cut an entire scene and just have someone refer to it having happened. That the implication is sometimes enough, if the scene was not doing anything loadbearing, aside from like one thing, that often I can just say, "Oh, yes, I see that you got the diamonds," instead of actually showing them going into the store and buying the diamonds.
[Ali] Yes.
[DongWon] Exactly.
[Mary Robinette] Obviously. A thing that all of my characters do.
[Ali] So fancy.
[DongWon] I did not assume that they were buying the diamonds, when you set up that scene, but… Yeah. I mean, you can just tell us that anything happened.
[Mary Robinette] That's why you need the narrative summary.
[DongWon] Yes. Exactly. Exactly. 
 
[DongWon] Well, apropos, I suppose, for an episode about length, we're running a little bit on the long side here. So, Mary Robinette, I believe you have some homework for us.
[Mary Robinette] I do. I want you to… This is a way to play with length. You're going to find 2 scenes that… Scenes that are right next to each other. What I want you to do is I want you to remove the scene break, and then write bridging text to connect the 2 of them. So that narrative summary about how they got from point A to point B. Then I want you to find a different scene that has that bridging text, and cut it into 2 different scenes. So that you are removing it and creating new signposts, new entry and exit points to get from those 2 scenes. I want you to try that. See what it does to length, see what it does to your perception of the pacing
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go edit.
 
[Howard] We love hearing about your successes. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Tell us about it. Tell us about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
 
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LIVE Recording - Revisions with Mahtab Narsimhan

Feb. 8th, 2024 09:07 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.05: LIVE Recording - Revisions with Mahtab Narsimhan
 
 
Key Points: Revision is a mindset. The first draft is telling yourself the story. In revision, you are telling the story to readers. Use the template to distill your story into factors and notes, then revise using that outline. Your first draft is for what you want to say, your final draft is for how you want to say it. Revision is like writing a first draft all over again, but with spoilers. Try a trello board! A spreadsheet, including columns for the purpose of the scene in story terms, and the purpose in audience terms. While writing, add placeholder notes in brackets. Also note the purpose of the scene. Look at the emotional core of each scene. What works for you, works for you. 
 
[Season 19, Episode 05]
 
[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 19, Episode 05]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses, Revisions with Mahtab Narsimhan.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] And if we were smart enough to write it well the first time, we wouldn't have to revise.
 
[Mary Robinette] We are here with our special guest, who is a past season host. Hello, Mahtab.
[Mahtab] Hello, Mary Robinette.
[Mary Robinette] So, for people who have not had the pleasure of having you join us before, would you tell us a little about yourself?
[Mahtab] Thank you. So. For those who haven't attended my session, I write books for kids. Everything from picture books, chapter books, middle grade, YA. Writing is actually my 5th career, because I have been hotel management, I've been sales, I have been recruitment. Writing, and I love it. This is my 5th one. It took me most of my life to figure that out, but now that I'm here, I am staying.
[Mary Robinette] So, basically, what you're saying is you've been revising your life to get to…
[Mahtab] Thank you. Yes, yes. Yes I have.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, I'm excited about this. You pitched several topics to us, but I was like, "Yes, listeners are always asking us about revisions." So when you said that you wanted to talk about it, I was like, "Yes, please." So, when you're thinking about revisions, like, do you have a process or is it different every single time you pick up a new project?
[Mahtab] It is different every single time, because, first of all, revision is a mindset. There are a lot of people who feel… They love the rush of writing the first draft, everything is new, everything is shiny, let's just keep going. Then, when it comes to revision, it's like, "Oh, gosh, I know this story already. Why am I doing this again?" For me, the first draft is actually the hardest, and then the real work begins during revisions. It really is a mindset, because you've got to realize that this is the time that you're actually going to be telling the story to the readers. The first time, when you're doing the draft, you're telling the story to yourself. There are a lot of holes, there are a lot of gaps, there is no pacing, there is basically no story or structure, unless you're a plotter. Or you might be a hybrid. But then, revision is when the real work, I think, begins. I… Like, for picture books, I've got a book coming out… Shameless plug, sorry about that, but I've got a book coming out in October, which is The Boy in the Banyan Tree. That, even though it's a 700 word picture book, that took about 4 years to finally like finalize and revise. I had to keep reading and writing the same 700 words again. First, when I just wrote it on my own. Then when the illustrator's notes came in, I had to write them again. I had to change my text to match what the illustrator did. So that was a whole different way of thinking about revision. Because most of the books that I write are middle grade, and those, I do have a revision process I have pretty much settled on which I really like. I do have a template which I will be sharing and people can download it. But it's basically distilling your entire story into chapters, scenes, plot points, a point of view, the setting, a timeline when that is happening, and then, when you're not distracted by dialogue or you're not distracted by descriptions or anything else, when you've just distilled the story down to these factors, and then you have a column on notes, that is how I actually revise based on that outline. Then I go back into the full revision. That really helps. Because you're not distracted with any of the other stuff. All you're looking at is are your chapters consistent, do you have enough point of view characters? If you've got 2 or 3, are they appearing at regular intervals? It just gives you a very distilled snapshot of your story. Which is easier to revise.
 
[Howard] Last week, the episode on pacing with Fonda Lee raised for me the question of if your pacing's wrong, how do you go about fixing it? Pacing, I think, is one of the most challenging things to address during the revision process. Because often you realize you've got scenes in the wrong order, you've got character whose arcs are not in the right places. The rewrite… For me, anyway, the rewrites for pacing often require me to take something that I just loved and set it aside, because it can't happen yet in the book. So… But when it happens later, it can't happen like that, and so I just have to rewrite it. Yeah, so, for me, often rewrites are about pacing. I want to get the flow correct, and it always hurts when I find that I've done it wrong, because I know that it's not so much a few words here and there, it is a few pages here and there that just have to be rewritten.
 
[Dan] I'm really with Mahtab on the way she thinks about revision. I think revision is the most important part of writing, and it is definitely the part where the real work starts. I think it is incredibly fun to do. That took me a long time to come to terms with, because I've already written this book. Why do I have to write this book again? Why do I have to keep working on it?
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Why do I have to throw some words away? Why do I have to add extra words? I'm already done. But… That's what helps you really fix it. One of my very favorite sayings is that your first draft is for what you want to say, in your final draft is for how you want to say it. That's where you take all these words you've written and you polish them and you hone them and you reorganize some of them and make it into a story instead of just a bunch of stuff that happens.
[Erin] I like to think about it as a fun thing. So… I think because I'm a little bit of a pantser, I'll be like, "Okay, I thought I was writing story X, but, oh my gosh, midway through, I realized, really, it's story Y." Now I get to go back and make it story Y all the way through. That's so fun. So, for me, it really feels like writing a first draft all over again, but, with, like, spoilers. Like, you know what I mean, like this is where you were going with this, now build it.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think of it… Because I… Before theater, I came out of art school, and we had sculpting, which was… When you were sculpting, it was, with clay, an additive and subtractive process. So you would get kind of your armature, which is an outline, and then you'd do the rough sculpt. Then you go through and you start fine tuning things and honing them and sometimes that means adding a little bit more clay, sometimes it means taking a lot out. I find that revisions, it's much the same thing. It's like sometimes I'm adding a scene, sometimes I'm pulling a scene out. Sometimes the revision is just, oh, I can fix this entire problem with just a single sentence. Those are like so satisfying when I managed to find that.
[Howard] That's the point where you realize, "Oh. I am a writer. I am good at this."
[Chuckles]
[Howard] My friend, Jim Zub, used to do portfolio reviews for comics, for illustrations, and he had some pointers for people on do's and don'ts for portfolio reviews. One of the things he said was if there's a piece in your portfolio that's not on good paper, it's something you drew and it's on notebook paper, don't put it in there. Draw it again on another piece of paper. If it's on notebook paper, and I look at it, what you are telling me is you don't like drawing things a second time. You have to be willing to take the original and do it again.
 
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. One of the… Sorry, that just made me start thinking about the tools of drawing. Which then makes me think about the tools of writing and the tools of revision. So you had mentioned that you have a…
[Mahtab] A template.
[Mary Robinette] A template. I find that my revision tools change kind of as I go through the process. So, when we come back from break, what I'd love for us to talk about are some of the tools that we use when doing revisions.
[Mahtab] Great. Absolutely.
 
[Mahtab] So, the thing of the week is I would love to recommend a story called, or rather, a book called Nevermoor, The Trials of Morrigan Crow. It is one of the… One of my favorite middle grade trilogy series that I've been reading right now. Such fabulous worldbuilding. It has got all of the tropes that you would need for the middle grade. You've got a child who's cursed, who gets whisked away into this magical land where she has to get inducted into this wondrous society, and she has all of these trials to go through. The voice is amazing, and it is… Well, the writing is amazing, but the voice of Gemma Whelan, who has narrated this book, is just as delightful. So, I actually raced through the entire trilogy, and now I'm listening to it, which is a whole different way of enjoying the book. So I highly recommend Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend. It's Nevermoor, The Trials of Morrigan Crow.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, now that we're back… What I'd love to talk about are tools that we use. So you mentioned the template that you've got. I have a trello board, which is a newer thing for me that I've started using. Which I will also share in the liner notes. For me, one of the things that I find that is most difficult about revision is that it's hard to mark that you're making progress. Which is one of the things that the trello board gave to me, is that I got little ticky boxes that I got to check off. It's like, yeah, I did the thing. What are some of the tools that other people use when they are diving into revision? Or do you want to tell us more about the template?
[Mahtab] You know what, actually, I went looking for where is versions or tips and techniques to look for revisions. I actually came across this blog post by a writer called Anita Nolan. Unfortunately, that blog post is not available, but I did have a chance to prepare the template based on what she had recommended, which is what I use. For anyone… Has anyone here opened the pie safe? Anyone cracked the… Wrote the number of words? No one here. But I did see… Any hands up? Okay, that's… So that's great. So you would have seen my first chapter revisions for Valley of the Rats. Which is the method that I use. I just found that even if I use it in a simple format, this particular revision method helps. Of course, the shorter the novel, I kind of… If it's a chapter book, I would probably do it in a slightly different way. But for most middle grade, YA novels, this helps.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, I'm going to give a really good example of revision. Which is that often you have information that you should have planted earlier so that the readers understand where you are. One of the pieces of information that I failed to plant at the beginning of the episode was that we are recording this live for an audience on the Writing Excuses workshop and cruise. So that's who we are talking to when we say for those of you who opened the pie safe. The pie safe, which is again information that you might have wanted…
[Dan] Vital worldbuilding exposition.
[Mary Robinette] I know. It's so much worldbuilding exposition. The pie safe, if you are on our cruise, we create this thing we jokingly call the pie safe which are basically behind the scenes looks at different things that we're working on as a prize for writers who have managed to write quote high, which is 3142 words in a single day. So, with that exposition out of the way…
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Which I should have planted earlier, we'll just all pretend that I… I'm going to go back and... Maybe we'll ask Alex to put that in...
[Howard] We can tell our engineer Alex to revise the episode for us. He loves doing that.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. We're absolutely not going to do that. But...
 
[Howard] One of my favorite tools is the spreadsheet that I use for my outline. Once I've written through a chapter or a scene or an entire book, I know a lot more about what an individual line in the outline might mean, and I will add columns to the outline for things like what is the purpose of this scene in story terms? What is the purpose of this scene in audience terms? Story terms might be I'm planting a clue or I'm creating a red herring. Audience terms is I'm building tension or I'm relieving tension or I'm telling a joke. I like to fill out that spreadsheet because as I do, it gives me a map for revision. It tells me what the scene's for, it tells me… It helps me find the things that are wrong or find the things that are missing.
[Erin] A tool that I use as a short story writer, a lot of my tools are really micro, because, like, you're getting into the individual sentences and paragraphs. One that I actually stole from essay writing is that sometimes when I'm writing an essay, I'll put a spot in brackets and I'll be like, "A brilliant sentence that summarizes all the things and makes it really make sense with this scene." So… I don't know if anyone remembers literal videos back in the day of MTV where they would tell you exactly what was happening in the video as opposed to the song? Sometimes I will go through a scene and actually look at what is this line doing? Not what's the line itself, but I'll be like, "A long, winding sentence that establishes the world and gives a little bit of character." "A short punchy thing that like keeps the audience going." I'll actually look at what I'm trying to accomplish with each individual sentence. The reason to do that is it gets me out of the headspace of I love these words, I don't want to touch them, to thinking about why did I put these words here in the first place. So that when I look at the literal video outline, it… I'm like, that's a series of things that doesn't make sense in a row, that tells me that the actual words that I wrote may need to be moved around as well.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I often find that when I'm sitting there, trying to revise the same sentence over and over and over, that it's a clue to me that that sentence doesn't belong in the manuscript at all, and that I was just desperately trying to make it fit in. When we're talking about sentence level stuff. But, I also do the "really terrible German joke goes here" is one of my more recent ones…
[Chuckles]
[Mary Robinette] Or "competence porn. Then Almo does more." It's like sometimes you just… You put in these placeholders and the revision process is honing them. So, one of the other things that I find useful along the lines that you're all talking about is the purpose of the scene. That's something that I also mark down. So, sometimes I will look for redundancies in my manuscript, where I can look at rolling scenes together. I find that that's really fun. So, for me, what I'll do because I get attracted to my beautiful, beautiful words, is I'll pull the entire scenes all the way out, stick them in the scrap folder, start again. Then, when I'm like, "Wait, I've written this already," I'll go and grab a piece of it and drop it back in.
[Mahtab] What I also like to do is when I'm doing the revisions, also look at the emotional core of the scene. Sometimes, when you're doing the descriptions or you're doing the pacing, all of that, that might be missed out. So I also have an EC, and then for every scene, in the notes section, I will write in what is the emotional core. What is it that you want the audience to feel? How are you going to end the chapter to make sure that the audience feels… Or, it's not audience, the readers feel that way and they want to turn the page? So there are many things that I will also look at in the revision, and that'll all go into the notes column. Then, one thing I love to do is when I start a brand-new draft, I don't… Or rather, when I start the revision, I don't use the old… The first draft that I wrote. I start a brand-new draft. Then I just pick the pieces that I need, change it around so I'm starting with something very, very clean. It helps me in my head rather than looking at this whole jumble and getting bogged down by it and getting overwhelmed. I just go chapter by chapter by chapter and it just makes it a lot simpler and easier to kind of revise.
 
[Dan] I wanted to just say, really quick at the end here, that the method Erin and Mary Robinette are talking about, where they will insert placeholders, I will come back later and add this sentence or this scene or this dialogue… That is not something that I can do. So I just want to let you know out there that there isn't a right way to do this. What works for you, works for you. For me, I have to write things in order. I can go back in revision later, and I can add a line, but I find myself kind of constitutionally incapable of planning to go back and add the line. If I know it needs to be there, I have to put it in right there because everything that comes after it will stem from it or grow out of it in some way. So, whichever way you do it is fine. There's just lots of different ways to do it.
[Mary Robinette] So, with that in mind, it is time for us to give you your homework.
 
[Mahtab] Right. So, I would love for you to take your first chapter, whatever you're revising, your work in progress, or even if you're… Well, actually, this will work if you already have a draft. You will have access to the template very shortly, as soon as the podcast goes up. Try and revise your very first chapter by creating that template. The first time, I can tell you, is going to be a little bit painful, because all you're doing is you're picking out the plot, the chapters, the point of view, all of that. Just put that into your template, and aft… It will go a little bit easier, but I remember the first time I did it, it was extremely painful. It was very slow. I'm like, "Why am I doing it?" But, trust me, trust the process, it is going to work. Do that with your first chapter and see if you can see… If you can work out what's missing, if you can write notes in the chapter, and then continue on with chapter 2, 3, 4. But, at least, try that with the first chapter to see if this is a process that works for you.
 
[Mary Robinette] Well, thank you for joining us, Mahtab. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go revise.
 
[DongWon] Hey. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Congratulations. Also, let us know. We'd love to hear from you about how you've applied the stuff we've been talking about to craft your own success stories. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
 
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Writing Excuses 19.01: Interview with Abraham Verghese

Jan. 12th, 2024 04:00 pm
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Writing Excuses 19.01: Interview with Abraham Verghese
 
 
Key Points: Verisimilitude, feeling of reality, and conveying medical information. Readers have seen it all, but you can tell them what's important. Revision, it's easier to take words out then add missing details. Beware circuitous information, make sure it serves a purpose. How did you organize time passing and generations? Well, really I didn't know before I started. I did use a spreadsheet, characters, etc. New chapters allow you to sail through time. Gardening, finding your way through a novel. We all know, "I'm just muddling through..." 
 
[Season 19, Episode 01]
 
[Mary Robinette] This year, my family will be having our 67th annual Christmas Eve dinner. It's a menu passed down from my grandmother through my mom to me. The entire family shows up. I'm talking 4th cousins once removed. This is not an exaggeration. Which means that during the lead up, I don't have time to menu plan or cook anything else. That's when I turn to prepared meals like Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. Factor can help you eat well for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef-prepared, dietitian-approved ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. It allows me to save time and not eat garbage, while tackling all my holiday to-do's. So if you want to cross meal prepping off your list this holiday season, consider Factor. You can skip the meal planning, grocery shopping, chopping, prepping, and cleaning up, and get Factor's fresh, never-frozen meals delivered to your door. They're ready in just 2 minutes, which my dad says is the appropriate amount of time to cook a meal. He has no idea. The point is, all you have to do is heat and enjoy. If you're trying to squeeze writing into the holiday press, it might be useful to know that Factor is not just for dinner. Count on extra convenience anytime of the day with an assortment of 55 plus add-ons to suit various preferences and tastes, so you can carve out some writing time in the morning by choosing quick breakfast items, lunch to go, grab and go snacks, or ready to eat coldpressed juices, shakes, and smoothies. So, head to factormeals.com/WX50 and use code WX50 to get 50% off. That's code wx50 at factormeals.com/WX50 to get 50% off.
 
[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 19, Episode 01]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses, Interview with Abraham Verghese.
[Erin] 15 minutes long, because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Howard] I'm Howard
 
[Mary Robinette] We are joined today for our first episode of the new year with our special guest, Abraham Verghese. Thank you so much for joining us.
[Abraham] Pleasure to be here. Thank you.
[Mary Robinette] I have been reading your novel, The Covenant of Water, and, of course, have read your bio. But I was wondering if you could just quickly introduce yourself to our listeners.
[Abraham] Sure. First of all, I should say that I wish you guys had been around when I was starting out writing. It would have been very helpful. I'm Abraham Verghese. I live in California. I'm the author of The Covenant of Water and 3 other books. One other novel, which was called Cutting for Stone. 2 works of nonfiction, My Own Country, and The Tennis Partner. My day job is I work as a physician at Stanford University. Yeah, that's me.
[Mary Robinette] That's amazing. I just want to say how much I really have been enjoying The Covenant of Water. There's such a richness to the language and verisimilitude. So what we're going to be talking about with you, which is something I'm very excited about, is how to kind of create that verisimilitude and also how to convey technical information like medical information in a way that is engaging to the reader. So, we often talk about this idea of verisimilitude, the feeling that something is real. When writing about medicine in particular, what have you found makes it feel real for the reader? Since you write both fiction and nonfiction, do you find that changes between the 2?
[Abraham] Well, I think when I'm describing something medical, there probably isn't a lot of difference between the way I might do it in fiction or nonfiction, other than the fact that I'm making things up in terms of outcomes and so on. But I think that, in a way, I think it's a challenge because in this day and age, most readers are also television viewers. So there's no part of the medical operation that's not familiar to them. This is not like writing in the days of Somerset Maughan when he wrote about traveling to far islands, it was exciting, because there was no other way readers could visualize those places. So you write about surgery and most viewers have seen surgery on YouTube or… So your challenge is to write about it in a way that's somehow fresh and different from what they think they know about it from having seen the operation or seen the procedure or seen whatever it is you're writing about. Part of that is, even though they may have seen something, they may not have realized what the crucial thing is in that inner scene or what the insider's view is on what really matters in all the different things that we're doing. So, I think… I'm hard-pressed to say more than that. I very often worry that I'm giving too much detail. Clearly, for some readers, it may well be too much detail. For that, I really rely on my editor who often will tell me it's not enough or rarely it's too much. So I think I have a… I'm very conscious of not taxing the reader with more than they need. I'm trying to keep it informative and entertaining. It's a fine balance.
[Howard] I find that when the time comes to rewrite, it is a lot easier to take words out than to put words back in. So, erring on the side of too much information means, oh, all I need to do is remove the wrong ones and I will be left with exactly what I need. Rather than needing to sit down and add a bunch of details that I didn't realize was missing.
 
[Erin] Yeah. I also love what you said about figuring out what matters, and that using that as a way to focus in. I'm curious, like, how do you decide in a certain scene, what is it that matters, like, to you, to the characters, to the readers, in order to focus in like that?
[Abraham] Well, I'm not sure that I have a blanket rule about that. But, for example, when I was describing a particularly hazardous labor scene in The Covenant of Water, I'm thinking a lot about the layperson involved in that, delivering that child, and what this must seem like to them. They obviously don't have the medical terms, so they're looking at it through a different lens than say I might look at the scene. Also, I'm trying to really understand what the patient might be going through. So, for example, in terms of the feeling of a woman giving birth, obviously, that's something that I can only imagine. I don't have personal experience of that. But I was able to talk to the women around me, but also to a gynecologist friend who was also a mother. There were something she talked about that I would never have found myself or by imagining the scene. She talked about the tremendous isolation, the moment that labor starts. Despite the fact that there's all these people around you, suddenly it's you against the world. Everybody else sort of disappears, your focus is so intense on yourself. So I'm not sure how to give you more specifics than that. But I think it's recognizing… I mean, it's rare that I'm describing something from the point of view of purely of a physician, but when I am, even then, if it's routine for the physician, I need to convey in that routine this, what are the things that this person is looking for, what is essential to this whole complicated act. That's often true in my medical practice, for example. People come with a lot of complex complaints. But there are also keywords they say, there are key things they say that are much more important than the things they don't say. Or other things they say. Sometimes it's what they don't say that matters. So certain words, certain acts are terribly important. I try to make sure I underline that for the reader.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah, I think that…
[Abraham] For example, chest pain is pretty common. But chest pain with any tinge of anxiety and sweating, say, that comes with the chest pain, just makes little alarm bells go off. Because this is probably a different kind of chest pain. So, just small… That may be not the best example that I… Just to give you a sense…
[Howard] Oh, no. That's a good example. I had chest pain, and then I had a dull ache spreading down my left arm. I decided this was… 99, this was, 25 years ago. Decided to go into the hospital and they said, "Well, good news. Yes, a lot of what you're experiencing is indigestion. Bad news. Your heart is doing a thing and we're not going to let you leave for 3 days." I learned all kinds of new words.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] My point of view from the beginning was, yeah, my chest hurts and my arm aches. At the end, I had all kinds of medical terminology and things that if I were being described in a book, that would be my character arc.
 
[Abraham] I think the other… That's well said. It's I think the other thing that I have to keep in mind is not to belabor the reader with medical information that's circuitous. It has to serve a purpose. I think readers are interested in technical details of the world that they don't know very well. So, whether it's Tom Clancy on submarines or, I don't know, Arthur Hailey on the working of an airport, I think we as readers have an inherent interest in the working of a locale and a profession that we don't have a great deal of familiarity with. So you want to provide them enough details to create verisimilitude that you mentioned, but not so many to sort of flash your knowledge. You don't want to just…
[Mary Robinette] Yeah
[Abraham] Pour out words to impress them. It's a fine line, and I think, as you said, the real art is in the revision, it's not really in the writing of the scene. It's in the many, many attempts at revision that hone it down.
[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I'm struck by as were talking is about the difference between insider knowledge and translating it for an audience. I find that often some of the things that are the most difficult for me to write are the things that I have a deep intimate knowledge of because I can't tell what I have to unpack for the reader. You're dealing with a couple of different knowledge bases in this book, both your medical knowledge but also the knowledge of this particular community. I can see the… My writer brain can see the places that you are translating for outsiders. Where you will use a word, and then you will say, and this is what this word means. But it's all very much, for me, seated in point of view, in the tactile details, the way the character is moving through the world. I think one of the questions that I have is, like, do you… I'm certain that the answer is going to be it depends, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you find that you just write it, and then rely on your editor to say, "Oh, you're going to need to unpack that for people," or do you have a sense of, oh, I should probably pause here to explain this before I carry on?
[Abraham] I think I have a pretty good sense. So I don't really rely on the editor to do the hard work for me. I really have to catch myself if I feel I've used the term that's very familiar to me, and may not be for the reader. On the other hand, you don't want to keep stopping to say, oh, that word means this. I will often use a big word or an unfamiliar word, and as a reader, I enjoy when I don't know the word, but the next sentence or the context makes it clear what this might be. For example, I love reading Horatio Hornblower's series on sailing, or the whole Audrey Martin… Help me out. The other big sailing series? Patrick O'Brien? Is that…
[Mary Robinette] Patrick O'Brien. Yeah.
[Abraham] So, I mean, I still don't know a lee shore from a not lee shore…
[Chuckles]
[Abraham] But it doesn't really matter. I certainly get the gist of it. I think that's what you're after, you're not for a complete explication, but enough so that the reader's not lost. By the way, I meet readers from time to time who tell me, "I have to skip over all the medical parts." I just have to bite my tongue when I hear that because…
[Laughter]
[Abraham] I don't want them to skip anything, but some people do for whatever reason.
[Mary Robinette] Well, speaking of things we don't want to skip, we're going to pause right now. We're going to take a quick break, and then when we come back, we're going to talk more about how to make things feel real without overwhelming the reader.
 
[Abraham] Yeah, I've been drawn to this book that I read about, I don't know where, and I ordered. It's called How to Draw a Novel. The title alone is intriguing. It's by Martin Solares. He's a fairly well-known foreign writer. I don't think his work is as well known to us. But it literally has… It's a very erudite meditation on novels. But he uses graphics to sort of illustrate the course of particular novels. So you have a little figure comparing Moby Dick to Wuthering Heights. It's really quite entertaining. The figures are sparse, there's a lot of text in between. But the whole thing is a delight. So that's what I'm recommending and reading right now.
[Mary Robinette] That's How to Draw a Novel by Martin Solares.
[Abraham] Yes. Exactly.
[Mary Robinette] Sounds amazing.
 
[Mary Robinette] Well, let's dive back in. One of the other things that you do when you're… You're not only dealing with the technical information, but The Covenant of Water takes place over multiple generations of a family. One of the things that I find fascinating is how to convey time passing and how to show the connections between generations. When you were diving into this, did you have touch points in your head about, "Oh, if I mentioned this," or "I want to draw this piece of history out?"
[Abraham] No, not really. I mean, I knew… There are very few things I do about this novel before I started.
[Chuckles]
[Abraham] I'm embarrassed to say. I knew the geography. I think that's terribly important because setting this in the South India, in this community of Christians who believe their religion came when St. Thomas the apostle landed on the shores of Kerala, India, in 52 A.D. That was an important decision. Because the same story anywhere else, in Hoboken or somewhere, would be a very, very different story. I also knew that I wanted it to be multi generational. Mostly because, as someone who's practiced medicine for almost 40 years now, I really liked being able to see, in my early years, some entity for which we just have a label but no understanding, and then watch it evolve over decades to where the molecular basis was better understood, and then eventually completely understood, and then we have a diagnostic test, and then we have treatment. That sort of unfolding requires generations. So I knew that much. But I didn't really know much else. So I was sort of… As I was writing, I actually had a spreadsheet with the characters, when they were born, when they died. I had a parallel column with milestones from my grandparents and parents lives, just because they were sort of helpful touchstones in terms of helping me imagine that moment in time. Rather than saying, "Okay, World War I," you can say, "Well, the year my grandparents got married," or something like that. So then I had 1/3 column with milestones and world history that pertained to that region. For example, seminal events in the long, long journey towards emancipation from the British in India [garbled] about independence in Independence Day, August 15, there were many, many milestones, hundreds of years of them leading up to that. Of course, world events. And, yet another column for medical milestones. I had to keep in mind that my current medical knowledge is not the knowledge I should be using describing something. I had to stay true to the knowledge of that time. So, I suppose in that sense, I was very conscious of time and history. But I didn't really know until I was well into the writing how to weave all these elements together and when to switch scenes. One very useful thing that an editor told me many years ago was the great magical thing about a blank page or a white page or a new chapter is that you can skip over years, just by doing that.
[Chuckles]
[Abraham] You don't really need explanations. Which was a huge revelation to me at the time. I think it was with Cutting for Stone. So, make use of that. The white space allows you to just sail through time.
[Howard] As an aside, I think I deserve an award for not shouting, "Yes!" When you said spreadsheet. Because I have preached spreadsheets…
[Chuckles]
[Howard] A lot. I use them in exactly the same way. Columns for events, columns for character lives. I even have a column sometimes that describes what I'll call story beats. I want this story beat, needs to be dark night of the soul. Or, this needs to be a moment where I tell the reader that this is a character they can trust. For this is a character they can't trust. Very explicit notes to be, so that when I sit down to write, I can write words that are better than that.
 
[Mary Robinette] I think it's going to be really comforting for our listeners… A couple of us, like, I'm an outliner, usually. It's I know that a lot of listeners are people who garden, who find their way through the novel. I think it will be very comforting for them to hear, "Oh, yeah, I didn't… I sat down and I kind of found my way through the novel." Especially if they pick up the novel and read it, which, it feels so cohesive after it's all done.
[Erin] I was going to say, I wonder a little bit, like, how do you… If you are gardening, if you are finding your way through, but also you have this structure, these columns that like sort of form a trellis, let's say, in the garden, sort of, how do you ensure that you garden to it? How do you make sure that, like, your spreadsheet says X, but you're really feeling Y as you're writing. How do you reconcile between those differences to make sure that you're telling something that both works, and also works for you?
[Abraham] Yeah. I mean, first of all, I should say, the spreadsheet came much, much later. I'm almost embarrassed to confess this, but my books have taken a long time. The last novel I wrote, Carving for Stone, was 14 years before this one. I spent 8 years writing that novel. So with this novel, I really wanted to not spend 8 years, or 14 years. I wanted it to be a few years. So I really wish I could have plotted out the whole novel. In fact, on my right side is this whiteboard with a fairly extensive drawing of the entire novel. Which I know your listeners can't see, but you guys can. So I would plot out the entire novel, and I love to think visually. I draw things out, kind of cartoon fashion. Then I would start writing, only to find that the novel is wandering off in a completely different direction. So then I would photograph the whiteboard, and start all over again. So, to be quite honest, I started with a mood, I started with one character. That was a young bride on her wedding day in 1900. It's I vaguely knew that I wanted 3 generations. I knew where this was situated. But I really didn't know the central conflict of this novel. I didn't know very much of anything. I wish I wasn't that kind of a writer. I wish I knew everything that was going to happen. There are writers like that. I'm a friend of John Irving, who's been a mentor and a correspondent for many, many years. I'm amazed. He knows the first and last line of the novel before he starts, he knows the first and last line of every chapter. So when he begins, it's not that new things don't come up, but he really knows the entire story. He has said… He will say, "If you don't know what you're showing to the reader and what you're hiding and when you're going to reveal it, you're just making it up as you go along, Abraham. You're not a writer, you're just an ordinary liar."
[Laughter]
[Abraham] I think he's right.
[Mary Robinette] I hate to disagree with John Irving, but…
[Abraham] I was going to say that, at the end of my stumbling process of pushing this feeling long and many dead ends and many hundreds of pages in months and months in the wrong direction… Realizing that that's not the novel. There is a point where you finally arrive where… For me, it was almost halfway, two thirds into the novel where I could suddenly see everything. See exactly how it ended. Immediately, many extraneous but important characters and scenes fall away. You realize that they're not critical to this outcome. So I think we eventually all arrive at the same place as John does, but he spends many months in the planning before he embarks on it. So you could say that my writing for all those years was an inefficient way to come to that same point.
[Howard] It may be inefficient, but I would… I'll put a stake in the ground and say, "You're not just a writer, you're an extraordinary writer, and you're a really good liar."
[Laughter]
[Abraham] I'm happy to take that from you. I feel very blessed actually… When you write without any sense of how it's going to be received. So hearing things like this now our wonderful, but at the time, you're not sure. You just do your best.
 
[Mary Robinette] I think we all feel that sense of, "Oh, I'm just muddling through, and hopefully no one catches me." But since you are a man of science, I'm just going to remind you and our listeners that there's… In science, there's no such thing as a failed experiment. In writing, there's no such thing as a wasted word. You find the story often by discovering what the story is not.
[Abraham] Especially mysteries.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Nancy Kress, who is one of my favorite writers, said that her process is that she writes a draft of the story. She doesn't outline. She blunders her way through it. Then when she finishes, she knows what the story is about, and she tosses her first draft completely, and starts over from scratch, and this time she knows what the story is. So she doesn't extremely long, detailed outline.
[Chuckles]
[Abraham] I think, very much like you, I'm fascinated by process. In my library, such as it is, in my study, I have bookshelves very well organized, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, one whole shelf of marriage self-help, which didn't help, by the way. Then, I have a whole section on writing. Because I keep thinking there will be some book there that's going to give me the key to make the process more efficient. I finally gave up when I bought a book recently and they were quoting me. Here I was trying to find the key, and there quoting something I said. I think we just all have to muddle our way through it, and some of this is organic to the individual. You just can't adopt someone else's method and have it work for you. It doesn't always happen that way.
[Mary Robinette] That is so true. I think that's actually a great note focus to move to our homework. I think you've got some homework for us?
 
[Abraham] Yeah. I think, I was going to suggest something that I found useful is to either take something you've written that describes something, sort of passive, a landscape or a… Ideally, a landscape. But then write it in 3 different moods. Pretend that someone very precious to you has just died, and you're now gazing at this, and you describe the landscape without any reference to this event in your life. The 2nd time you write it, at a moment of great joy, whatever that is, the birth of your first child, and you're looking at the landscape. Again, no reference to what just happened to you. The 3rd time, imagine you're in a terrible rage, and you're describing this landscape. You can actually see this happening in the best of Dostoyevsky and some of the other writers, where the very landscape is affected by the mood of… That the narrator's carrying into that scene. It's quite beautiful. It's a good exercise to show us how even the most unrelated things to the emotion and the characters can still take on the hue of the prevailing emotion.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. That's wonderful homework. Thank you so much for that. Thank you for joining us.
[Abraham] My pleasure. Thank you.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
[Howard] We love hearing about your successes. Have you sold a short story or finished your first novel? Tell us about it. Tell us about how you've applied the stuff that we've been talking about. Use the hashtag WXsuccess on social media or drop us a line at success@writingexcuses.com.
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Writing Excuses 18.48: NaNoWriMo Week 5 - Writing Endings

Nov. 29th, 2023 08:21 pm
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Writing Excuses 18.48: NaNoWriMo Week 5 - Writing Endings
 
 
Key points: How do you wrap up your novel? What makes a satisfying ending? Make sure the parentheses are closed. But how do you decide what to resolve, and what to leave open? Endings let the characters and your reads feel everything that has happened. Give the readers the same grounding that you did at the beginning. Where, who, why, how. Restate the core thematic elements of the story. Give us the aftermath. How do you leave the door cracked for a follow-on, and still give a satisfying ending? Remember, life is messy, and your character may not achieve all their goals. Leave some things unanswered. Think about how you want your reader to feel, and make sure that is the last beat, but leave other questions hanging. End with a success that leaves something else to try. Revision! Not for NaNoWriMo, but when you reach the end, you know what questions you should have been asking, and you may need to go back and set it up right. Go ahead and try different endings! Nowhere near the end? Write yourself some notes about what you want the ending to be.
 
[Season 18, Episode 48]
 
[DongWon] Hello, writers. Whether you're doing NaNoWriMo, editing your newest project, or just desperately trying to keep up with your TBR pile, it's hard to find the time to plan and cook healthy and nutritious meals to keep you energized on these jampacked days. So, I'm here to tell you about Factor, America's number one ready-to-eat meal delivery service. They can help you fool's [one word fuel up fast for breakfast, lunch, and dinner with chef prepared, dietitian approved, ready-to-eat meals delivered straight to your door. You'll save time, eat well, and stay on track with one less excuse to keep you from writing. This November, get Factor and enjoy eating well without the hassle. Simply choose your meals and enjoy fresh, flavor-pack deliveries right to your door. Ready in just 2 minutes, no prep and no mess. Had to factormeals.com/WX50 and use code WX50 to get 50% off. That's code WX50 at factormeals.com/WX50 to get 50% off.
 
[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 18, Episode 48]
 
[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.
[DongWon] NaNoWriMo Week 5, Welcome to the End.
[Erin] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Erin] And we're not that smart.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[DongWon] I'm DongWon.
[Erin] I'm Erin.
[Dan] And I'm Dan.
 
[Mary Robinette] Congratulations. You have made it to week 5. For those of you who are still writing, and all of you should be, because we believe in you, you are now trying to wrap this thing up. Listen, if you lost steam, you don't have to have 50,000 words. This is about just moving forward. You can save this episode and listen to it when you're ready. But we're going to be talking about how to wrap up your novel. So, what are some things, like when you are thinking about moving towards a satisfying ending? What are some of the elements that you think about as, hmmm, this feels good?
[DongWon] It's funny. I have an issue, editorially, in thinking about endings. I have such a bias towards openings and the beginnings of books, and all like getting into the story and asking all these big questions, but I sometimes forget to think about how important the ending is. So I've made it a real focus for myself in the past few years to really pay attention and really care about how a book ends and how we're moving on from the story, emotionally. Right? There are so many very famous authors, very successful authors, who are notoriously bad at endings. Where the book just kind of stops. Right? So I think we criticize those endings, but there's a way in which maybe we can think about endings as a broader category than just making sure there's a long denouement, where everything is fully wrapped up. But, overall, I think making sure those parentheses are closed, that we were kind of talking about last week, as we were talking about starting to get to the climactic beats and making sure certain things are tied up. But how do you prioritize what are the things that you want to close off, what are the things that you want to leave your reader with a real sense of resolution on, and what are questions you want to leave open?
[Erin] I think endings are difficult because they're quiet. In some ways. Not all. But there's a moment where everything you've been doing sort of resonates in the room. It's like the moment after a concert ends, when you can still hear the mild echo of the music in the air. There's something like really beautiful about that. But also frightening in the stillness. Because it's sort of you don't have the candy bar scenes that we were talking about last week to like distract you, you're really sort of left with you and the word. I think that's why a lot of times I'll say, for me, I had a real tendency to like just try to murder everyone…
[Chuckles]
 
[Erin] At the end, because then there's no one left to be in the quiet and in the stillness. I could just be like, "The end. They're dead." But I actually have found out that… Somebody told me once that it's like landing a punch. When you punch someone, you want to actually let that impact happen. If you punch someone, and then go to black, you never really see them feel it. And that endings are the moment where actually your characters get to feel everything that has happened. As frightening as it is, it's really important to also give your reader an ability to feel what has happened at the end or throughout the course of the book.
[Dan] Yeah. I love the way that The Wire ends. As much as I think season 5 went wildly off the rails, that final moment, you've got McNulty driving down the highway with a person. He stops, and he gets out of his car, and he just stares at the city for a while. Then we get a chance to see, like, what is each one of these people doing, and we get to see McNulty thinking about it and digesting it and processing it. Then he gets back in his car and he drives away. Giving your characters the chance to process what has happened and what they've gone through gives your readers that same chance. Rather than just yanking out the rug and saying, "Thanks for reading my book. Imagine for yourself what happens next."
 
[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I had a lot of problems with when I started the switch from short fiction to novels is that I would in my novels the short story pacing. That I would stick the landing and I would be out. Because novels are about immersion. I wasn't giving my readers time to absorb this. The dénouement that we talk about sometimes. So what I've started realizing is that I need to give them the same things that I gave them at the beginning of the book. I need to ground them, because my character is in a different emotional place. They're often in a different physical place. So I find that if I start thinking about it with the why, where, who, and how that we talked about at the beginning, that I can… I know more of the elements that I need to include. It's like it helps me ground my readers. Like, who is my character now? Who have they become over the course of this journey? What physical actions are they doing in this scene that conveys that to the reader? Where are we? Like, how is the status quo changed? Like, what does the environment tell me about this new landscape, and, like, why is it important? So these are the things that I will be thinking about. Like, we're talking about the very, very last piece of it. But it's that looking back at the beginning for my answers to what we're talking about at the end. Some of it is what Dan was talking about in the previous episode of the inverse thing, or, you've heard me talk about it with nesting code. But that's what I start thinking about, is easing them out and kind of very similar pacing to how I brought them in. If it was a fast opening, that I'm going to give them a faster paced close. If it was a thoughtful opening, that's going to tell me something about the pacing at the end. So, sometimes I'm looking at mirroring that kind of pacing that I had at the beginning, sometimes I'm looking at doing an inversion, because it's saying something about the changes that have happened across the course of the novel.
 
[DongWon] Yeah. Sort of building off of that idea, I think there's sometimes… One of my favorite types of endings that I've run into that I think kind of plays into this is when the last scenes are just a restatement of the core thematic elements of the story that you've just experienced. Right? So I think going to your Wire example, McNulty, looking at the city of Baltimore at the end is just a statement about what this whole show was about, what this 5 season project was, was we did a portrait of Baltimore, and now we're looking at it and reflecting on the journey that we went on. One of my very, very favorite endings to a TV show, finished last year, was Better Call Saul. Which, I don't want to quite spoil it, but the way that it ends is such a statement of what is important in the show. Right? Why did we spend all of this time with Saul as he went on this whole journey? It's making really clear, crystal-clear in some ways, the importance that love has in that story and what he stands for and what is important to him and who he wants to be. That is all restated in the final episode in this really beautiful, elegaic way. So I think when you're looking at your ending, it's almost a little bit like writing an essay in college, where you start with you state your theme. You explain how you're going to say your theme. That's kind of the opening to your story. Then you get to the business of explaining all the things. At the end, you're like, "Here's my conclusion. In this story, we discover that love is real." You know what I mean? There's a very simple, boiled down version of how you end the story that can look like that, that I think can be simple and impactful. I'm thinking about your punch example. There's a thing in Hong Kong cinema where you will actually see the punch 3 times. Right? You'll see the blow land, and then it'll cut to the slow mold impact of like you can see how it's affecting the person who got it, then it'll cut back to the wide angle and you'll see them jump backwards or fall down or whatever it is. So you see these 3 different beats and 3 angles on the same strike. That's the thing that makes it feel so impactful to the audience of, like… It can also seem corny when it's done certain ways, but, so often, it happens very quickly, you don't even really see what's happening, you just see boop, boop, boop. And you realize that that guy just got crushed in that moment, he got hit so hard. You can feel his ribs breaking, in that moment. Right? I think letting it sink in in that way and being a little obvious in your ending is not a bad way to go.
[Dan] If you've ever watched a GIF of like a disaster, someone falling down, something collapsing, and it ends right as soon is the disaster happens, and you're like, "But wait, I wanted to watch it land. I wanted to watch it fall. I wanted to look at the rubble for a minute." That's what we're talking about, that sense of, yes, you've seen the big thing, but you didn't really get a look at the aftermath, that's what really is satisfying about it.
[Mary Robinette] We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about some of the other tools you can use to make that disaster really satisfying.
 
[Mary Robinette] Hey, writers. Welcome to week 5. How are you doing? I wanted to share something with you. I wrote my first published novel, Shades of Milk and Honey, during NaNoWriMo. I also wrote multiple unpublished novels during NaNoWriMo. I've won Nano and I've had years where I could not hit that 50,000 words. So as you enter this last week, I want you to remember that every word you've written this month has been a victory. Because the journey is the thing. By writing, you are learning to write. You're learning to set goals. You are learning about your writing process and what works for you. Whether you wrote 50,000 words or 5000 words this month, you are a writer.
 
[Mary Robinette] All right. Now we're back from our break, and we're going to talk about kind of the messiness of it all. I think you had something you wanted to say?
[DongWon] Yeah. I had a thought as we were talking about all this, where we've talked about closing things out and leaving things on this very resonent ending. I think that can be really important. In the categories that most of us work in, there's a lot of series writing, a lot of people writing trilogies, a lot of people writing ongoing series, and a lot of people are doing quote unquote standalones with series potential. So, one of the things I would love to hear your thoughts on a little bit is, how do you leave that door cracked open? How do you give the satisfying ending, make a book feel like a book, even if it's middle of a trilogy? Right? Make the audience feel like I went on a journey, this had a conclusion. I feel good about where we're ending. And still have more questions to be asked. Have… They want more story, they want to spend more time with these characters. What do you do to leave that door cracked open?
[Mary Robinette] The trick that I've found is that life is messy, and that I don't have to give my character all of their goals. When you read a book and the character achieves all of their goals, those are the ones that feel too tight. So sometimes I don't… It's not so much that it's a cliffhanger, it's that I have deliberately left something unanswered, knowing that that can be a problem for later. But I think about… To give that sense of satisfaction, I think about how I want my reader to feel. When I'm looking at nesting things at the end, I try to make sure that whatever solution, whatever goal thing lines up with the emotional feeling I want my reader to have, that that's kind of the last beat I land on. That's the thing that gives it the sense of closure as a standalone, while the other questions that are still hanging there are available if I want to use them for future books. So, like in Calculating Stars, Elma achieves her goal of going to the moon. Right? But I don't answer your questions about what it's like when she gets there. I don't answer your questions about what the next steps are. I leave all of that open. Her conflict with Parker is still a conflict with Parker. Like, that's not a solved problem. So I have all of that to play with when I come back to the subsequent books. Then… This is outside of the scope of NaNoWriMo, but when I am looking at my next book, I look at my solution to the first one, and that becomes my problem for the 2nd book.
[Erin] Yeah, I was thinking about the fact that we've talked a lot about try-fail cycles. Generally, a novel ends on a success. I mean, it can end on a failure, but I think it has some sort of emotional closure. But, it feels to me like it's a success that leaves something else to try. That thing that you're trying becomes the thing that happens in the next book. So that's sort of like… So there's a finishing, but there's something more.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah.
 
[Dan] This is such a horrible thing to bring up the last week of NaNoWriMo, but a lot of what makes a lot of this work is the revision process. Knowing that, okay, we've reached this point. Now we need to go back and set it up right. Getting to the end, having satisfying answers, really means you need to make sure what questions you're asking. In the Fellowship of the Ring, for example, that first book ends with the Fellowship breaking and everyone splintering off into different places, and yet it does feel conclusive, because Tolkien made sure that the question asked at the beginning, is Frodo constantly wondering am I leading people into danger? Can I really live with the fact that I am corrupting everyone around me? So, leaving the group behind and setting off on his own with Sam, that is a victory for that specific question. So it feels, okay, this feels very natural. We've asked this question, we've answered it, obviously there's other problems, but we've concluded this part of the story.
[Mary Robinette] But this is why we… When we talk about you have to keep writing and finish, this is why. Because you don't know always what questions you want to set up at the beginning until you're getting to the end. It's… Like, when I was an art major, I would see people… I mean, I did it myself. Where you would draw the perfect hand and the perfect arm and the perfect shoulder, and then you would step back and the entire figure was entirely out of proportion. Because you work thinking about the entire picture. So with novels, like, one of the things that you can be doing for yourself during this last week is coming to an agreement with yourself about, oh, this is what I want the book to be. Like, these are the… And if it doesn't match what you started, that's okay. You have a new understanding of it. You can go back and fix everything that you did earlier later.
[Erin] I would say one other way to do that is if you want… If you liked what you had at the beginning, and you feel like you've gotten away from it because that also happens is something that I like to do right before, when I've done Nano, like, right before I get into the last bits is to actually tell myself out loud, or actually to be honest, tell my cats out loud…
[Chuckles]
[Erin] The story so far. Like, not every single thing, but, like, what I can remember of the story. I find that what I go to, like, the things that I choose to explain are the things that have continued to stick with me about the story that I'm telling. So I may have forgotten one subplot or one character, but, like, when I go to say, like, the Fellowship of the Ring, which I wrote during Nano… No…
[Laughter]
[Erin] Wow. It is about X, like, that's what gets to the core of it for me. Then I can say, if that's the core, then what's the ending that works for that core? Then, like Mary Robinette was saying, go back and fix the rest in post-, as they say in the movie business.
 
[DongWon] Yeah. I mean, truly, when working with clients on projects, the things that usually change the most our beginnings and endings. Right? Often in tandem. If the last act isn't quite working, then you'll find the roots of those problems in the first act. Middles always… I mean, every part needs revision, but the middle tends to be a little bit more defined from the jump, and then really… It really is about asking questions and answering them. So if the answers are wrong, then maybe the questions are wrong, and vice versa. So, this is again, this is NaNoWriMo. If you're not feeling super great about your ending, that's totally fine. Right? We're not… No one's expecting you to have the perfect answer to the question you didn't even know you were asking on day one, because it's been a crazy month. You've made it this far. Right?
[Mary Robinette] One of the things that will also catch you here is that you're like, "I don't know how to solve this. My character has to solve this thing and I don't know how to solve it." You feel like you're locked in because of everything that you've written up to this point. But your… When the book is out in the world and you're letting other people read it, they never have to see this draft of it.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Right.
[Mary Robinette] So you can always go back and just say, "You know what? They could have solve this the entire time, if they had only been able to tesseract spiders into the building with bees."
[Laughter]
[Erin] I knew it!
[Mary Robinette] "But I didn't introduce the ability to tesseract earlier. So, I'm just going to say that they can do it, and I'm going to make a note to myself that I have to establish that when I go back and do my revisions." So just go ahead and give yourself the tools that you need and fix it in post-.
 
[Dan] Well, one of the great things about writing and NaNoWriMo does this perfectly is you can try different endings. This is what I said about free writing in the beginning. If you get to the end and you think, "Well, maybe this would work as an ending. Maybe this is a good solution to the problem." Write it. If it doesn't work, don't delete it. Try something else. Right that. I know that for a lot of you, that is so painful, me telling you to write a bunch of extra words that are not going to be in the final manuscript. Well, guess what. That's most of this job.
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] Yeah. I had a project recently where 500,000 words were written that went into the trash that will never see the light of day, for the 150,000 that got published. Right? Sometimes that's what happens. Right? I think one of the best lessons about NaNoWriMo is there's no such thing as a wasted word. Everything that you put down to paper got you to this point. It helps you realize that these extra scenes need to be written, even if the older scenes also had to be put in a drawer somewhere. All that was useful work. All that was the work that got you to understand what your book really is and make your book the best version of it it could be. So I hope you're hearing us talk about revision and not feeling discouraged. Instead, be excited that you now have clarity about what it is you're trying to accomplish with your book, even if it's just a little bit. Even if you have one degree more…
[Chuckles]
[DongWon] I hope you don't have to write 500,000 words…
[Laughter]
[DongWon] To the 150 that got published. That's not great. We all felt not great about that. But also, we all felt great about the book that was there at the end, and so proud and so happy about the work we did on it.
[Dan] Well, the same thing that I said earlier about endings, making sure that you're asking the right questions to provide a satisfying answer, apply that to your life! Apply that to the process. Apply that to NaNoWriMo. Don't necessarily think of this as I'm going to end November with one awesome book. Think of it as I'm going to end November having learned how to write a book. Then, even if the ending is weird or there's bits in the middle that are clunky and awkward, that's okay. You learned how to write a book.
[Mary Robinette] Just briefly, I want to speak to the people who are like, "Hey, you know what, I'm coming up on 50,000 words, but I'm nowhere near the end of my book."
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] That's fine. You can… We're talking about things in proportion right now.
[DongWon] Totally.
[Mary Robinette] You're totally fine. Don't worry about it. You don't need to have, like, the ending. You just need to hold on to what you're aiming for.
[Erin] Yeah. You can… You may want to take a break. You may say, like, writing 50,000 words in a month was a lot, so even though I don't have the ending like I want to get there. This is when you could leave yourself lots of fun notes in brackets, like, "And here's the part where they figured out the meaning of love," and, like, "Here's where he defuses that bomb filled with spider bees."
[Laughter]
[Erin] Right? Then you can come back and your future self will have the problem of figuring that out. But I hope the main thing that your future self takes away from it is you wrote stuff that did not exist at the beginning of this month and it exists and only you could have written it.
[Mary Robinette] That's right. So we're going to give you some homework. This is, again, a way to help you just keep moving forward. Especially those of you who are like nowhere near the ending and you're just like, "I gotta keep going. I've just gotta keep going."
 
[Mary Robinette] Here's your homework. Gift your character with your insecurity. Brainstorm about what should happen next in the voice of the character as they're facing the challenges in the scene. Because your character doesn't know what's going on either. So all of that and just be part of your character development, and the brainstorming process may get you closer. It also will just get you words on the page, which is very useful. You may wind up cutting it later, but after you hit 50,000 words.
 
[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. Good luck. You're out of excuses.
 
[DongWon] Do you have a book or a short story that you need help with? We are now offering an interactive tier on Patreon called Office Hours. Once a month, you can join a group of your peers and us, the hosts of Writing Excuses, to ask any question that is on your mind.
 
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Writing Excuses 17.8: The Alchemy of Creativity

Feb. 24th, 2022 09:39 pm
mbarker: (Fireworks Delight)
[personal profile] mbarker
Writing Excuses 17.8: The Alchemy of Creativity
 
 
Key Points: The Alchemy of Creativity, aka how do you translate from one medium to another and keep the original spark. How do you turn the movie in your head into compelling prose? How do you take a script you are handed and turn it into comics or storyboards? Movie in your head people, remember that prose needs room to breathe. Pay attention to the difference between ideas and execution. Sometimes you need to write down what the movie in your head shows you. How do you transform ideas into thing and keep the excitement? Rough draft! Use 10-year-old boy watches a movie outlining! Write the part that excites you. Dessert first writing! That's one way to capture the lightning in a bottle. Sometimes drafting is the slog, and revisions are where you put the lightning back in. Sometimes you may need to change the POV or tense to make something work. I.e., find the right framework so you can execute it. Make sure your bottle is shaped right to catch the lightning. 
 
[Season 17, Episode 8]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, The Alchemy of Creativity.
[Kaela] 15 minutes long.
[Sandra] Because you're in a hurry.
[Megan] And we're not that smart.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Kaela] I'm Kaela.
[Sandra] I'm Sandra.
[Megan] And I'm Meg.
 
[Howard] The Alchemy of Creativity. How do you translate things from one medium to another and keep the original spark? Meg, you pitched this to us. How do we do that? What are we even talking about? I'm confused.
[Laughter]
[Megan] Okay. So this isn't me saying, "How do you turn a book into a movie?" Because I'm sure we could talk circles around that for hours. But on a smaller scale, how do you turn the movie in your head into compelling prose? Or, how do you take a script you're handed and turn it into something like comics or storyboards? What are some of the things you have to personally consider when you're going from one form of a story into another?
[Kaela] Okay. So I am a very movie in my head person, which I think most people have… Recognize when they read Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, because it's a very visual book. Now, one of the challenges that this gives me is that sometimes I get… What's the word? Micromanage-y about everything that's happening. Because in prose there needs to be room to breathe. You can just say someone crossed the room, you don't have to say exactly how. You try to deliver the exact experience that you're seeing in your head, it will overwhelm people and it will ruin the delivery. Because I'm like I want to tell you every little twitch of their facial expression, because I see it so clearly in my head. But doing that robs the reader of the opportunity both to see it in their own way and it over crowds… Like… It completely over crowds the delivery. So that's something I really have to watch. I have to pull myself back.
[Sandra] That's fascinating to me, because I do not have a movie in my head.
[Chuckles]
[Sandra] I have a feel of the scene or an emotion of the character. So… Then there's also the sound of the words in the feel of the words in my head. So it's all about the words and the feel and the interaction of those things for me. So, right there, we've got a difference in alchemy and approaches which I love hearing about. Because until you said that, people talk about having movies in their head or how they read a book and see it in their heads, and I just don't. I don't see things. I don't visualize. But I feel it. I feel whether the words feel right, whether the character's emotion is correct on the page or whether my theme is being expressed.
[Megan] So you have to translate this more spacious emotion into words. How do you go about doing that?
[Sandra] This is where I wish I'd thought that through before…
[Laughter]
 
[Howard] [garbled One of my?] Favorite things about Writing Excuses is having an epiphany in front of the microphone and then not being able to follow up on it, because it's still an epiphany. I can't take this apart yet. Let me say this. Another way to articulate what we are talking about here is the difference between ideas and execution. It doesn't matter where I get my ideas. I'm full of ideas. I never run out of ideas. The movie in my head is always running and it has a soundtrack and it has a rumble track and it is always there. How do I execute on that huge library of interconnected and unrelated and sloppy information in order to create a thing that delivers an experience that some part of me will look at and say, "Ah, yes. That is the experience of that thing as extracted from the brain… That is the experience we meant to come across." That is where… What's the expression… That's why they pay me the big bucks.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] They don't actually pay me the big bucks, but having a career as a creative lies not in having good ideas, but being able to do what Meg has called alchemy, [garbled] execution.
[Sandra] Yeah, that's… This is one of those places where you have to learn your own creative process. I really love that we have already two competing processes that are… Not competing but different to compare. Because I can't… My process is going to have to look different than Kaela's process is, because we're starting from different places and our brains just work differently. If I spend a lot of my craft learning time trying to see a movie in my head so that I can then follow Kaela's process, that is wasted effort. If I… I don't need to see a movie in my head, I can move with feelings and emotions.
 
[Megan] So, for work, I generally have to translate other people's words to visuals. I'm a storyboard artist for animation, which means that every six weeks somebody hands me a script and says, "Turn this into a movie." So I actually have a couple extra steps than most of my coworkers, because I read the script, watch a movie in my head, and I'll take out a pen or a pencil and a mark on the script itself where I'm imagining the camera is cutting. Then I have to write up detailed list of my shots. Like, okay, medium camera up close, foreground is this, background is this. Wide camera, these characters doing this. I'll pinpoint like emotional moments, and I'll star them, all this stuff. I have some friends who can read a script and instantly just board it finalize. They can just go immediately from one to the other. But it's, like, personally, I have to translate it into two or three different creative languages before I can get to my final set up, because it is a, for me, a process of turning a script into storyboards.
[Sandra] Yeah. On Twitter, just recently, I was reading a thread from Ursula Vernon talking about how she writes and how her writing process can't actually speed up anymore because she can't sleep often enough. Because she will, like, as she's falling asleep, the characters talk in her head and the story progresses. Then when she gets up in the morning, she just writes down the thing that her brain did while she was falling asleep. So there's no way for her to write any faster, because she can only sleep so much. That's fascinating to me because Howard does the same thing. He will fall asleep with character dialogue and things going in his head. I can't do that. I have to shut my brain off and turn off the stories in order to be able to fall asleep. Because if I let the stories run in my head, they will keep me awake. For… Hours! And hours, and hours. Then I will have anxiety and I will have to get up and write down the thing because I'm afraid I will lose it while I sleep.
[Howard] See, my method is more, look, characters, if you guys aren't going to tell me a nice story at bedtime, I'm just going to have anxiety instead because I'm going to spin on real stuff, and that's boring. So… Have some fun.
[Yeah. See, this is…]
[Howard] My brain is your playground. Go! Don't break anything.
[Sandra] This is actually a skill I would like to learn. You know what I was talking about… I don't need to see a mov… I don't need to learn how to see a movie in my head. But that one I would actually like to learn, because it sounds like a nicer way to fall asleep than me with my wrestling thoughts every night. So… Yeah.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] Emptying the head is hard.
[Emptying is hard]
 
[Megan] So you've thought up a great moment for your story and you can feel the emotions all right, and you're so excited to do it. How do you transform ideas into thing while keeping what made you excited about it in the first place?
[Sandra] This is where rough draft is my friend. Just… Or… Oh, I know. Howard has this outlining method he calls 10-year-old boy watches the movie. Like, he literally writes down the idea as if a 10-year-old has seen this movie and is telling you about it. Okay, so then they were in a car chase, and then the train comes sideways out of nowhere. And then there's a helicopter… Oh, by the way, there was a helicopter way back in… Like, literally back and fill as we're telling the story. Just dump it. Then you can go clean it up. So there's this let the excitement just blah onto the page, and then you can engage your more critical brain at a later stage. Seems like one of the ways that people do that.
 
[Howard] We need to take a break for a thing of the week.
[Yes]
[Megan] Right. Thing of the week, this week, is a YouTube channel called Every Frame a Painting. It is a series of video essays dissecting how different creatives bring their own vision to the big screen. Two of the videos I'd especially love to recommend is how Jackie Chan does comedy and how Edgar Wright edits for jokes. I don't think those are the actual titles of the episodes. Ah. Edgar Wright: How to Do Visual Comedy and Jackie Chan: How to Do Action Comedy. There you go. These are my two favs.
[Awesome]
[Howard] Cool. I haven't seen either of those, but they have comedy in them, so…
[Megan] You need to.
[Howard] It's possible they will be right up my alley.
[Kaela] I love Jackie Chan, so I know what I'm doing…
[Sandra] Yes. [Garbled I've got] plans for after we're done recording.
 
[Howard] So. But let's come back to those tools. You've got something you're excited about. What do you do to capture that excitement, that energy, that elemental spark in the medium in which you execute?
[Kaela] One thing I do is I just let myself go write that one. Like, I know I used to try and pull myself back because I was like, "Oh, I have this perfect scene idea in my head. I can feel it. I can see it. I live it." Then I was like, "Oh, but I'm not there in the story yet, I can't write it yet."
[Howard] Write the homework first.
[Chuckles]
[Kaela] I just let myself have dessert first. That's probably the best way of putting it. Dessert first writing. Where when I love it and I'm excited and I can feel it, I just dive in and I just full on draft it. Drafting is my favorite part of the writing process, anyway. So I'll just let myself go ham. I don't worry if I'm like, yes, I used three paragraphs to write something that should probably be one. Because I'll do that later. That's what revisions are for. I'll do that throughout the book. I jump around, and I go back and forth and up and down in order to get to all of those dessert places. Whenever I feel the excitement for it. It's all about the excitement, it's like… So I've captured that lightning in a bottle feeling.
[Howard] Meanwhile, the guy who's putting green vegetables on the buffet is like, "What?"
[Laughter]
[Howard] "What! You gotta eat your greens."
[Kaela] I'm sitting down with seven different cakes. Hello!
[Howard] You've plowed through 11 bowls of pudding.
[Laughter]
[As many as four kids. That's terrible.]
[Laughter]
 
[Sandra] This is another interesting place where Kaela and I apparently are different, where… Because most of my aha moments, most of my lightning in a bottle moments, are actually in revisions. Drafting is kind of a slog for me. It is in the revisions that I catch the lightning and put it back. Like, I drafted, and all of the beauty leaked out in my drafting. Now it is just flat on the page. So in my revision, I go catch the lightning and put it back in. Howard and I used to, early on in the comic, I remember so many conversations with Howard where he would bring me comics and say, "Okay. I think this was funny when I wrote it, but now it is all drawn and I think the funny has leaked out." It's this thing that happens when we become overly familiar with the scene, we lose touch with the thing that is actually still there. We just have said the words so often it makes no sense to us anymore.
[Chuckles]
[Kaela] That is me and revisions.
[Chuckles]
[Sandra] Yeah. So I'm happy that for me, putting the lightning back in is a thing that happens for me in revisions, because it makes the revision process exciting and interesting. But… Again, different people, different approaches.
[Whoa!]
[Megan] And they all work.
[Sandra] They do. That's…
 
[Howard] Any other tools? Any other concrete bits? Crunchy stuff?
[Sandra] I'm trying to think… We were talking about influences in a prior episode and talking about going back to the well, going back to remember the thing when you feel like you have lost the track or lost the thread, stepping back and describing your thing to somebody new. Saying what is the thing, what was it that excited me about this story. And seeing that…
[Howard] Yeah, that was part of the process for my story An Honest Death in Shadows Beneath. Shadows Beneath is a compilation from Brandon and Mary Robinette and Dan and I of things that we workshop on the podcast several years ago. My story, there was this bit that really excited me and every time I sat down to write the story, that bit kept leaking out and I realized that the bit was only working if I told it in a different tense. If I changed the way, just the POV, and the narrative unfolded. I wanted to shoehorn it into the third person limited POV and it just didn't work until I pulled it forward into a more immediate tense. It's which is weird, but that was the way I'd originally, I guess, heard the idea in my head, and it wasn't until I came back to that that the story flowed cleanly.
[Kaela] That's a really good point about finding the right framework as well. It's not always just about executing something, but sometimes it's finding the right framework so that the execute… So that you can execute it at all. Like, there… Like Cece. I wrote two different books with Cece. Cece's idea of souls being on the outside of your body and how that would change your world. I wrote two different books about that, and it just didn't work for some reason. I was like, "Why? Why isn't it working?" But then I said it in a completely different place, I gave the main character really specific motivation of trying to save her sister. Then I decided, yeah, I'm going to do a Shonen anime tournament. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make this like a battle to the death Pokémon style, like somewhere between Pokémon and the Shonen battle. That actually created so many more… And first person instead of third person. Like, all of those things amalgamizing together into one thing ended up being the framework where that kind of a story could shine. Because it put into question… The stuff that we joke about with Pokémon is that like legal? You're making animals fight against each other? But in this world, it's criaturas and their people, which is what I wanted to explore about, like, how would it affect other people's souls, like, on an emotional theme level. That was the thing I was most interested in exploring. I didn't have a world previously or an emotionally intimate enough voice because it was third person. First person really brought that out, to give that the justice that I wanted to. The thing that made me want to write it.
[Sandra] Yep. If you want to catch lightning in a bottle, the bottle needs to be shaped right to catch the lightning.
[Kaela] Yay.
[Sandra] So if you can go back and remember what your lightning was, what the spark was that drew you to this story or this character or this location, and figure out, okay, what else do I need to change around the thing so that it can live here without being squelched.
[Howard] I'm now picturing 20,000 Writing Excuses listeners all out on assorted hilltops in thunderstorms…
[Laughter]
[Howard] With huge arrays of bottles holding them up saying, "This one's round, please?"
[Laughter]
[Howard] "No? Here's a square one. Please?"
[Sandra] All we need is Robert De Niro as the pirate captain on an airship to go catch the lightning.
[Howard] Oh, my.
[Laughter]
[Sandra] Sorry, guys.
[Howard] All right. That might be a good mental picture to wrap up on. Because his portrayal of that lightning pirate in Stardust brought me such joy.
[Sandra] Oh, so much joy.
[Howard] Such joy. Lightning in a bottle indeed.
 
[Howard] Okay. Do we have homework this week?
[Megan] We do have homework and it's practicing turning an idea from one form into another. This week, you're going to choose a theme from a movie you love and write it up in a novelization style.
[Howard] That is much better advice than standing on a hilltop during a thunderstorm with a collection of glassware around you.
[Safer]
[Howard] So… Fair listeners, thank you so much for joining us. This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 17.3: Chekov's Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun

Jan. 19th, 2022 09:44 pm
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Writing Excuses 17.3: Chekov's Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun
 
 
Key points: Chekhov said if there's a gun on the mantle in Act I, it must be fired in Act III. Which means if you want something surprising yet inevitable later in the book, you need to set it up, make the promise, earlier! Structure, genre, audience, medium all shape the way you put the gun on the mantle. Look at your story holistically, especially during revisions. Do critical analysis of the media you consume, especially when the big reveal fails. Use expectations to create good anticipation and tension.  
 
[Season 17, Episode 3]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, Chekov's Surprising Yet Inevitable Inverted Gun.
[Kaela] 15 minutes long.
[Sandra] Because you're in a hurry.
[Megan] And we're not that smart.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Kaela] I'm Kaela.
[Sandra] I'm Sandra.
[Megan] And I'm Meg.
 
[Transcriptionist's note: According to the sources I checked in Google, Chekhov is spelled with an h. So... I'll spell it that way in the remainder of the transcript.]
 
[Howard] This episode is about creating the thread which makes surprise inevitable. The title of the episode is an acknowledgement of the fact that most people use Chekhov's gun backwards. Chekhov was saying if there's a gun on the mantle in Act I, it must be fired in Act III. I suspect that Chekhov, who was a playwright, was basically conserving budget for the props master. It's like, "No, we're not going to spend any money putting a gun on the mantle unless the script calls for a gun to be fired in Act III." The way we use Chekhov's gun is the inversion. If a gun must be fired in Act III, it has to be on the mantle in Act I. We want it to be surprising, yet inevitable. That gun on the mantle makes a promise, but the only promise is that the gun matters. Maybe it's a distraction, maybe it's not loaded, maybe it'll misfire, maybe it'll get used as a club, maybe it's in front of a secret safe on the wall. What do we do, as writers, to put a gun on the mantle in order to correctly foreshadow, in order to correctly make a promise of something really cool that's going to happen later in the book?
[Sandra] This is one of the places where… This is like where the rubber hits the road. This is where you have to look at the expectations you're setting up with the very structure you picked, and the genre that you've picked, and the audience that you're aiming for, and the medium that you've chosen… All of those things play into the decision on how do I put a gun on the mantle. Because the answer is very different for an animated show versus a cozy mystery novel versus a picture book. To hail back to the example of a picture book, The Monster at the End of This Book, which we talked about a couple of episodes ago, you have Grover and you have the title… The title, right there, that's the thing on the mantle. The title promises you at the end of this book, there will be a monster. That has to be delivered upon. That is the perfect way to deliver the promise for a picture book, because your audience is 3 to 5. You really just have to put it right there in front of them and say, "Hey, look. I've promised you this." Then we're all going to spend the whole book talking about it. Whereas a much more subtle thing, for example, Dan's I Am Not a Serial Killer series, had a huge telegraphing problem because in I Am Not a Serial Killer, the first book, he had supernatural elements that don't really come into play in the story until a third or halfway through the book. So he had to figure out how to hang supernatural elements on the mantle right there at the front of the book so that when they showed up later, no one felt betrayed about it.
[Howard] There were places where the bookstores had shelved it with thrillers…
[Yes]
[Howard] Instead of with something that's in context, "Oh, this is probably supernatural as well." Yeah, there were folks disappointed at that. What are some other good examples of foreshadowing? Kaela, and then Meg.
[Kaela] So, I love knight books. Knight books for this does such a good job, like, there's an amazing twist… Spoilers, I'm warning you there's about to be spoilers. Plug your ears if you're really invested. But knight books, they have this whole tension and it's weaved into tension and satisfaction overall. That's what this is about, satisfaction. But the… You find out, you find these bits and pieces, these clues about the last girl who tried to escape this witch's house or apartment in this case. The boy is piecing it together, he finds out that she had a plan and he finds what her plan was and then he doesn't find any more information about it. So he's like, "Oh, she must have escaped." There's like all these little unicorn emblems about it, right? My favorite part is realizing that it seems like a logical solution, she must have escaped because she didn't write more. But when he runs away, when he does the plan, he runs out and he sees a wild unicorn where he thought… What he thought was the exit, a wild unicorn, and he's like, "Oh, my goodness." Then he finds out the witch that has captured him was the girl and that she took the place of the old witch. You're like, "Oh, my goodness." It doesn't… It's surprising, yet it completely makes sense with the way they had framed things. You're like, "Oh, my goodness. That was satisfying payoff without feeling like you had tricked me." I had… It was totally a possibility, I just hadn't considered it because in the way it was framed by the characters. Very logical reasoning where they're like, "Oh, it must be that. She escaped." You're like, "Oh, yeah, I buy that. That made sense to me."
[Howard] Meg.
[Megan] One of my favorite examples is the comedy film Hot Fuzz. Because I think it has the greatest number of setups and payoffs in any movie that I've ever seen.
[Howard] It is so tight.
[Megan] Yeah. Pretty much any line of dialogue or any prop that you see in the first half plays into the big final fight of the movie. It's about this big cop from London with all of these skills who has to move to a tiny town where really no crime ever happens. It's this fish out of water story, and just the writing and the editing of the film itself, like how the shots are used and cut together, is so fresh and intriguing that it's one of my all-time favorites.
[Howard] It is a masterpiece. My own high bar for foreshadowing is the BBC America 2016 Dirk Gently. In the first episode, we get touchstones for… There's a missing girl, there's a dog wandering around, there was a terrible murder in this apartment… In fact, we open on this murder scene that just doesn't make sense, and then a kitten walks across and traces little red footprints in the carpet and then a hand reaches down and scoops up the kitten. For the first half of the episode, we cut and intercut and nothing connects. Except Dirk Gently keeps saying, "I am a holistic detective, I function on this way in which everything is connected." At the end of that episode, Dirk Gently unzips his bag and pulls out the kitten, and we see in the bag a gorilla mask that we saw on a monitor, and we realize, "Oh, wait. Oh, wait. What's going on?" Then we roll credits on episode one and we head into episode two. It does this so well. I watched it numerous times and it's like Hot Fuzz, there is nothing wasted. Everything that is thrown down shows up later and it is connected to other things. For me, it functions kind of like a master class. Because I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to foreshadow by writing things that… Where every word matters and every word is telegraphing or foreshadowing something that is coming. Kaela.
 
[Kaela] Yes. I would agree with that. I think that one of the keys to getting this done is looking at your story holistically. Which, of course, the time for that is really revisions. I know I've mentioned that already, but it's because it's so important, like revisions is the time when you are tracing threads throughout your story, and making sure that they're evident, that they're there, and they have their payoff. If they're not there, how do you add them there, how do you build to this kind of full moment where it feels satisfying? Because if you don't have it running consistently through, it is not satisfying. It's just like, "Oh. Okay. Deus ex machina."
[Howard] Yup. Meg.
[Megan] I have a YouTube video to recommend from a YouTuber called Folding Ideas. He did, back in 2016, he did a half-hour dive into the film editing of the 2016 Suicide Squad film. Talking about how their visuals didn't set up what the story was actually trying to tell. There is one very specific instance that he brings up. There's one of the characters who has a pink unicorn stuffed animal. That's just something he has. In his opening title card, where you learn about this character, he has a thing for unicorns. Then, later on, you see him get… This is maybe 20, 30 minutes into the movie, you see him get thrown down in a scene, and the unicorn falls out of his jacket. He picks it up and he puts it back in his jacket. Then, in the final fight, there's a moment where I think someone throws a knife at him, and he catches it, right in the chest. But then he reaches and he pulls the knife out of his jacket, and it's in a wad of cash. The unicorn never shows up again. So they did a set up for it, they did a reminder with it, and then the unicorn vanished for the rest of the movie. So…
[Howard] Was the cash supposed to be like stuffed in the unicorn, and the stuffing came out and… We have no way to know that.
[Megan] No. It's just a big stack of dollar bills in the exact place where he tucked the unicorn in his jacket. This was a film that underwent a lot of re-shoots and a lot of re-editing. So it's possible it's a through line that either ended up on the cutting room floor or maybe the cash was supposed to be a joke. It's just… It's not quite clear. So this is an example of something that would be done in revisions, where you have your alpha or your beta reader being like, "What? What happened to the unicorn?" You can be like, "Oh, right. Right." Because [garbled] thousands of words and hundreds of pages, you may not remember everything you've already put in your story.
 
[Howard] Right. Let's pause for the book of the week. I've got this one. It is Deadbeat by Jim Butcher. This is the seventh of the Dresden Files novels. It's… It is a novel that puts necromancy out in front. The title is three layers of pun. I won't explain it. But the premise of necromancy as a power in which the older something is, the harder it is to bring back but the more powerful it is when it arrives. The way these things are foreshadowed delivers in a final sequence that is just so delightful. So very, very delightful. Deadbeat by Jim Butcher. I don't think you need to read the other six Dresden Files novels in order to pick this one up and enjoy it. So you should pick it up and enjoy it.
 
[Howard] Let's dive back in now. What are some tools for us for foreshadowing well, for correctly creating the thread that makes the surprise inevitable. How do we create that inevitability?
[Sandra] I think that one of the best tools that a writer could use is critical analysis of the media that you consume. Look at the ways that the show you're watching or the book you're reading, how it fails. If you are frustrated by the big reveal, then dig into why that is. Kaela and I were having a little conversation about Frozen. I want her to tell us…
[Howard] Oh, oh, oh. Let's talk about Frozen. Yup.
[Sandra] Frozen. Yes.
[Kaela] Okay. So, Frozen. What I… Now, Frozen does a lot of good things, so I'm not ragging on the movie here. But my least favorite part of it, and yet also my favorite part too, at that, is the Hans twist subplot, where he is like, "Oh, Anna, if only someone loved you." Then tries to kill her and take over her country all of a sudden. Now, the reason that gave me whiplash, other than the fact that I had, at the beginning, when I was going to watch the movie, joked, "\Huh. What if he was the bad guy?" Because I always joke about what things that would be bad twists.
[Chuckles]
[Kaela] And I was right about my joke bad twist. But one of the things that… Like, this is not necessarily a bad idea, it could have leaned into the scenes really well, it could have been a satisfying through line, except that it was almost intentionally deceptive. Which does not create a satisfying, a surprising yet inevitable. It is, "I cheated. Ha ha." in a story structure. So I think the big moment that I can pin it down to in that movie is when, after Hans and Anna meet, and she walks away, and he looks after her. It's just the audience watching Hans, Hans by himself in the water. He has no reason to be deceptive. He has no reason to be trying to put on a face. He goes, "Ahh," all dreamily and smiles after her. We know… We're supposed to believe that that means, "She's the perfect person for me to murder later. Ahh." It's not at all tonally consistent. It doesn't match. All those things later… Yup. Megan, yeah.
[Megan] I was just going to hundred percent agree with you on that. Not only that, but there's a music cue that also indicates this moment is romantic. Because in books, we can be in our character's head, but in movies, it's the lighting, music, and sound design that indicate what our character is thinking beyond just what the actor is doing with their face. Every single element of that scene is stacking up to tell us that this is a romantic man with good intentions.
[Kaela] Yeah. He's a gooey boy. Like a… It shows that evidence. Then… Now, everything in the middle of Frozen could be interpreted that he could be secretly plotting things. But his whole set up, there is no evidence to give us any belief that he is a plotter.
[Howard] So, categorization of this. The apologist might argue that what's been done here is like a red herring, but what I'm getting from you and what I personally believe is that it wasn't a red herring, this was the animators, this was the studio, deciding that we need to help Hans keep his secret by lying to the audience. That is not how you make a surprise inevitable, that is how you make a surprise annoying.
[Yeah. Chuckles.]
[Megan] Because you feel cheated.
[Howard] Yeah. Meg.
[Megan] We have very intelligent audiences, as well, that… Especially if you have someone who really likes to consume everything in their genre. It can be very hard to hide your gun on the mantle. I went to a theater production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame at the Hale Center Theatre Orem with my family a while ago. There's a bit where Quasimodo is showing Esmeralda around the bell tower. This is a small theater with a circular stage and people sitting around it. There's not a lot of space for set. But there's a point where he points up into the rafters and was like, "And that's where I keep the hot lead where I repair the bells." I just leaned over to my sister and I'm like, "So that's Chekhov's cauldron of hot lead, right?"
[Laughter]
[Megan] We had a little bit of a giggle in the theater waiting for it to come back in Act II.
[Kaela] Yeah, but the interesting thing is like I think that people try to subvert… Like, you see people try to subvert expectations because they know that these tricks are in quotation marks tricks of the trade. But in fact that can create… You can use them to create good anticipation instead. Like, when you're like, "That's where I keep the hot lead," and I'm like, "Ooo, I hope the bad guy gets melted with lead." It actually makes you invested if you're doing it right. When you're like, "Hey, I'm not telegraphing the fact that oh, maybe it almost fell on the guy this one time before it officially becomes a thing." But that it can be… You can use it for tension, you can use it for anticipation. If you're looking at it right.
[Howard] That's why I describe the possibility that the gun on the wall has a safe behind it. So that we have this inevitable moment, somebody goes to lift the gun off the mantelpiece. But instead of lifting it, they pull down on it and the panel slides to one side and they open a safe.
[Megan] I think one thing… We want surprise and inevitable. But if you can only hit one, hit inevitable rather than surprising.
[Howard] Yeah.
[Megan] Because that is going to deliver a more satisfying experience for your reader, even if they guessed this once.
[Howard] We'll talk about red herrings in our next episode. Predictability is better than abject disappointment.
[Chuckles. Right.]
[Howard] To my mind. I could be wrong. I could be wrong. We've got…
[It's time for homework]
[Howard] I just love talking about this stuff, and we could just keep going, but we're almost 20 minutes in again.
 
[Howard] Homework. I think this is…[Megan] Meg.
[Megan] I got this. In your current work in progress, pin down a person, a place, or a thing you threw in for flavor at the beginning of your story, but didn't plan to use again. Write a scene for them to come back in the final act of your story in an unexpected way.
[Yes. Satisfaction.]
[Howard] I love it. I love it. This has been Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts

Jan. 13th, 2022 06:51 pm
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Writing Excuses 17.2: It Was a Promise of Three Parts
 
 
Key points: Sometimes the first line promises beautiful and evocative prose. Often pilots and prologues are violent or romantic, to show the range of what you can expect. Action, excitement, characters at their extreme. Try flipping to the middle! Use revisions to create consistency. Craft your promise and deliver on it. Use chapter beginnings as opportunities to write killer first lines. Watch for the dips when you're connecting the tent poles you are excited about. 
 
[Season 17, Episode 2]
 
[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, It Was a Promise of Three Parts.
[Kaela] 15 minutes long.
[Sandra] Because you're in a hurry.
[Megan] And we're not that smart.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Kaela] I'm Kaela.
[Sandra] I'm Sandra.
[Megan] And I'm Meg.
 
[Howard] The title of this episode comes to us paraphrasedly from the opening line of Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. Which I'm going to go ahead and read in its entirety.
 
It was night again. The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.
 
This is beautiful and evocative prose. Among the many things that this first line does, it promises us a book in which there is going to be beautiful and evocative prose. Rothfuss's writing is delicious. It is… It's delicious. That's just a great word to lead with. When we talk about first lines, first scenes, first paragraphs, first pages, first chapters. Establishing shots. Overtures for a musical. Opening splash pages in a comic. All of these things make promises to the audience about what's going to follow. We need to make sure that we make those promises consciously. So let's talk a little bit about what some of those promises are. Meg, I think you had an example from Lower Decks that you wanted to…
[Megan] As a call back, when Howard was talking about the Lower Decks pilot, I brought this up in our notes as an example to really hammer home in this episode. Often, the pilot episode of a television series needs to show the full range of what you're going to experience within the show. So this means your pilot is often the most violent or it has the most romantic content. This is one of the reasons why, also branching over to books, you'll often have a prologue that's full of action and excitement for you to meet our main character. So, the specific cold open that Howard mentioned, when we first meet Boimler and Mariner initially put a lot of viewers off the show, because Mariner was so extremely Mariner and Boimler was so extremely Boimler. But in order to introduce these two characters, we had to see them at their most extremes to get an idea of what their dynamic would be like throughout the show. The final bit is that slice into Boimler's life at the very end of the cold open with… You can see the sinews and the tendons and the little fountain of blood to show that, oh, hey, other Star Trek shows are not going to have the kind of… I'm not going to say gore, but we're going to go a little bit further visually then your use to in a Star Trek. So that minute and a half had to show the full extremes of what the comedy, action, and characters would be like through the remainder of Lower Decks.
[Howard] Well, that first episode was, if memory serves, a splotchy Star Trek zombie comedy in which at the end of it, well, it's Star Trek, we found a medical cure and the zombies all got better.
[Uhuh]
[Howard] So…
[Ramsey met a guy, but… Giggles]
[Howard] Oh, yeah. I mean, there were a couple who were now nothing but ex-zombie excrement, but the… That slice in the opening promises us, to borrow the title from Brian McClellan's debut novel, it's a promise of blood…
[Laughter]
[Howard] And then the episode delivers that.
[Kaela] I like… For starters, you just explained to me pilots in a way that will make me kinder to pilots for the rest of my life.
[Me, too] [laughter]
[Kaela] I love it. But it brings to the fore, for me, how… Which is what we talked about last episode, genres are different, and mediums are different. Because in a book, you don't want to telegraph that much all upfront. You do need to telegraph some. You need to let people know this is what you are signing up for. However, in a book, some of this is what you can expect from this book is taken care of by the packaging of the book, the cover, the art, the back blurb, which will all talk about in a later episode in more detail. But we, as writers and creators, that first page, that first chapter, gets so much rewriting because you have to promise the right things.
 
[Megan] I had a friend once… Rachel, I'm going to say you by name…
[Laughter]
[Megan] Once, I gave her a copy of one of my favorite books. I actually think it may have been The Way of Kings. I'm like, "This is my very favorite book, and you will love it." She takes it from my hand and opens to the middle of the book and start reading. I actually yelled the word "Spoilers!"
[Chuckles]
[Megan] And I smacked it out of her hands.
[Laughter]
[Megan] She's like, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "What are you doing?" She says, "Well, I find the first chapter of books to be very overwrought because that's where the author spends most of their time." So she always reads a page of prose in the middle of a book, any book, to see if she likes the author's voice, and then she will start it from the beginning. Which I think is just… Makes sense…
[Wrong]
[Megan] It makes sense.
[Readers]
[Howard] No, that's fair. Because if you're reading a page from the middle of the book and… You read the opening, and you're like," Oh, wow, this looks good." Then you flip to the middle of the book. If I'd flipped to the middle of The Name of the Wind and it was suddenly super, super dry, low-end, workmen's prose… Sigh. Then the promise of the front of the book is not being kept in the middle, and I might not have read it.
[Sandra] Yeah, I know of a…
[Howard] The challenge for us… Sorry to keep going. The challenge for us is to make our first lines and are pages and paragraphs not overwrought, but wrought to the same extent as we are going to wreak… Wrought, wreak…
[I think it's wreak]
[Howard] Wring the rest of the book.
[Right]
 
[Sandra] Yeah. I once… I knew of an author who sold a three book deal after the first book was written and the other two were not, and sold it on the strength of the first two chapters, which then got completely edited out of existence.
[Chuckles]
[Sandra] So, the thing that had hooked the editor, and the agent and everything, was wiped out. The whole series kind of just fell flat for everyone. Book 2 kept just like not being accepted and not being accepted and not being accepted. It was just, to me, case of that… Part of the problem was that those first chapters didn't actually match any of the other stuff. They were gorgeous and beautiful, and the rest was so much weaker in comparison. We don't want to do that either.
[Howard] Yeah. You don't try out for the long distance team by showing them how quickly you can run the 50 yard dash.
[Sandra] Right.
 
[Howard] Meg.
[Megan] In… Wait. No, I got it. Sorry. Reset. In video games, something that will happen, especially in very long story driven games, is you will start with a big action sequence, with a lot more abilities than your character will normally have later on in the game. So I'm thinking the opening of Ghost of Tsushima, the opening of the first Assassins Creed game, where you're playing a character at full strength. Then something happens that nerfs them back down to level I. It's a way to promise your audience that, "Hey, listen. Although you're going to start at a level I, can't do anything person, you will eventually work up to be this great grand thing." This is why shows like Star Wars or books like Eragon open with this big action sequence of a princess running from the villains with something very important that ends up in the hands of this farmboy. That happens in both of those. It's to promise the audience that, yeah, our protagonist is at the very beginning of their journey, but it inherently has this promise that eventually they will get to the level where they are participating in the story on this grand scale.
[Howard] I think one of the finest examples of this is the mission completion text of the first gun mission in Borderlands 2. The mission completion text is, "You just moved 5 feet and opened a locker. Later, when you're killing skyscraper-sized monsters with a gun that shoots lightning, you'll look back at this moment and be like, heh."
[Laughter]
[Howard] It's perfect. It's perfect because… Yeah, you're told what's coming.
 
[Howard] We need a book of the week. I have paged away from my outline. Who's got that?
[Kaela does]
[Kaela] That is me. Oh, uh… Wait.
[Yes. Yes, it is you.]
[Kaela] It is my book! So prepare yourself.
[I'm excited]
[Kaela] Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls is the book of the week. The reason why I suggested it for this episode is because, as I have been doing school visits and things like that, I read out like the first page and a halfish, the first page is actually half a page, anyway. So I read that out to the kids, and my favorite part is ending right after the main character, she's lost in the desert, ending right after she turns around, looks up, and she meets her first dark criatura. It is a woman who is half skeleton, traced by the moonlight, and is like known as the devourer. She's like, "Don't eat me." Is her thing, and I end right there. That's because, from the very beginning, I want people to know that even though that, yes, this is a middle grade adventure and it is… Like, we're starting out in an adventure. We're out in the desert, we're soaked in what the world is like, we have a very fearful main character because she's going to be throughout the book, and we're meeting very otherworldly, very frightening things. She is going to be in life-threatening situations very often. But also, they're cool, and the pros as well, I've found very important to bring in some of the descriptions, like the stripes of moonlight coming through her ribs, things like that. Where you know that going to be soaked into this world from the beginning. You're going to be meeting very ancient, very primordial creatures who are both dangerous but also quite unexpectedly kind as well. Because this criatura ends up taking her home. Even though she's known as the devourer.
[Cool]
[Howard] Thank you. So that's Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls. Cece is spelled c.e.c.e., for those of you who are thinking it's a carbon copy email to Rios.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] No. Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls by Kaela Rivera.
 
[Howard] Meg. You've got your hand up, and no one can see it except those of us with cameras.
[Megan] That's something, as you're creating, as you're writing, as you're drawing, whatever you're making. Check back in. What is the promise of the premise that you've set up? Are you still bringing the same level of fire and excitement to the remainder of your book as you do in that very beginning part that you've polished and framed?
[Howard] How do you avoid the problem of writing checks you can't cash in your first page? How do you avoid being so clever or so purple or so whatever that you just can't maintain it for a book?
[Sandra] Well, this is a problem we all have.
[Laughter]
[Sandra] I mean, like… It's… One of the things I think to make sure is while, yes, we do end up spending a lot of time on getting that beginning right, doing what Meg's friend did and flipping to the middle and seeing what does the middle feel like, and maybe when you see what the middle feels like, while we want to telegraph this book is going to be exciting and whatever, if your book is actually contemplative, trying to make it exciting in chapter 1 is setting a bad expectation. So if you have a contemplative, quiet book, then you do want a contemplative, quiet opening. Because lips us even though that feels like, oh, no, people won't get hooked, yes, they will. They will, because they ca… If they're a person who wants a contemplative book, and they pick up and see excitement, they're going to put the book down. So then you've suddenly created a mismatch between the reader and what you're delivering.
[Howard] Kaela.
[Kaela] Yeah. I think this is particularly achieved through revisions. Like, no matter what media you are doing, whether you're doing books, video games, whether you're making a show, you need to do revisions. It's inevitable. Because that's how you get consistency. I think consistency is absolutely key to this. Both crafting the right promise and delivering on that promise. Because, for example, both pacing and tonally wise, a previous book of mine that is not published and will need major revisions, like, the first third of the book was this very slice of life experience, and it was contemplative and soft and painful and hard and beautiful. Then, the last two thirds are this life or death video game tournament, where you're like, "Go, go, go, go!" Even though I liked both of these things, it did not mesh into the same book properly.
[Howard] You have written two very cool books.
[Kaela] Yeah.
[Howard] Or at least parts of two very cool books.
[Kaela] And they're both unfinished. Yeah.
[Howard] Yep.
[Kaela] So…
 
[Howard] One of the tools that I use is treating chapter beginning as another opportunity to write a killer first-line. I'll review my first-line and I'll ask myself, okay, was it awesome because it planted a hook, was it awesome because it was pithy, was it awesome because it described something in a new way? Do I do that again, or do I do what the first-line didn't do, and do something else in order to show that this chapter still has a powerful first-line, but contains a continuation of the story in an expanding sort of way? But always treating… Always treating the page turn to a new chapter as an opportunity to overwrought again.
[Chuckles]
[Sandra] Yeah. One of the tools that I really find very powerful is finding the voice of your book. This is a thing that newer writers are sometimes very, very confused by, because voices this amalgamation a lot of word choice and tone shift and character voice and all of these things. But when you… Like… When you find the voice for the book as a whole, you can then go back to your beginning and make sure that the voice is matching. Again, it's flip to the middle and make your beginning promise accurately what the middle is delivering.
[Howard] Flip to the middle, but be standing more than an arm's length away from Meg…
[Yes. Laughter. Garbled.]
[Megan] Something else is when you are working on a creative… We all start with an idea. Be that one scene we love, one character we love. Something you need to watch out for is you set your tent poles of the scenes you're really excited for, and the dips come when you're like, ugh, I have to connect these, but it's so boring to get from A to B. You may either need to take out a tentpole or put something more interesting in the canvas of your connectivity.
[Howard] Yep. One of the things that I found working on the illustrations for Extreme Dungeon Mastery version 2, and I knew this going into it. I've got about a couple of hundred pictures to draw, and I knew that my style and my technique and my stamina was going to change on the way through. I was going to get better at what I was doing, and I was going to get tired of doing it. That was going to change things. One of the ways I tackled that was by drawing some of the last pictures first and revisiting some of the first pictures later, and doing a little bit of revision.
 
[Howard] We are approaching a 20 minute episode of a 15 minute podcast. So, I think it's time for homework. I've got our homework. You ready for this? Write six different first lines. For your work in progress or for a work in progress that you're imagining maybe sometime someday doing. Or maybe for six different works in progress. Six different first lines. But each of them should make a promise that you personally don't think you can keep. Now ask yourself why you don't think you can keep it, and how you would change the first-line to be something that you can do. There you go. This has been Writing Excuses. Thank you for listening to us. You are out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes

Aug. 25th, 2021 06:17 pm
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Writing Excuses 16.34: Novels Are Layer Cakes
 
 
Key Points: A novel is like a layer cake? Well, layers of information. Revision helps!  Also pre-work can help. Spontaneity is not creativity. Structure also helps. Make sure you are starting the story in the right place, but also make sure we have context. Use tiny flashbacks. Manipulate the POV. Use free indirect speech. Mostly, think about how you want to layer the information, what's important, what order to present it in, and how to slide it in there.
 
[Season 16, Episode 34]
 
[Dongwon] This is Writing Excuses, Novels Are Layer Cakes.
[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Howard] And we're not that smart.
[Dongwon] I'm Dongwon.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] And I'm Howard.
 
[Dongwon] Okay. So, we're talking about novels as layer cakes. Which may initially sound a little confusing. But, this is one of the central metaphors I think about when I think about what makes a novel a novel that's distinct from a short story or a novella or a novelette. The thing about a novel is it requires more complexity, because you're sustaining a narrative over so long, there need to be so many more different aspects going. So you want layers to be present at almost every point. Especially in an opening scene. I'm not just talking about like two layers of a birthday cake. Ideally, you want like a Mille-Feuille, one of those crêpe cakes that's like layer after layer after layer…
[Chuckles]
[Dongwon] That gives you that kind of information density in that kind of character and world building and all those elements. We've talked about individual pieces of how to do that so far. But this is really how do you weave all of that into one coherent whole, while still maintaining the distinction of that lamination. We're turning into the great British Bake-Off here. I'm sorry.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] I've gotta tell y'a, when I think of layer cakes, I… Sandra makes cakes from time to time. You take the cake pan and you make a bunch of different layers. You saw the tops off of them to make them stack flat. Then I think of the episode of British baking show where they were trying to make dobos tortes with bazillions of little layers. I look at that and think, "No, I'm sorry. That has to be done by a machine and a computer. That is not possible for a human being to make that cake." I know there are many people who look at the way novels are constructed and to step back and see all of that layering and all of that construction and have that same reaction. "I'm sorry. That had to be done by a computer and a machine. No human being can hold all that in their head."
[Dongwon] Yeah. With… We were talking about tell don't show, we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I think this is a case where thinking about movies and TV and visual media is really useful to think about how to layer all this different kinds of information. You're absorbing worldbuilding, you're absorbing character, you're absorbing some of the thematic elements, right? If it… If a scene is lit in a menacing way, it's like, okay, we're in a thriller. If they're wearing Regency dresses, we know the time period and we know the class of the person we are looking at. If the background behind them is an office, then we know what kind of story we're in. So there's automatically many, many more layers in a single shot of film than there is in a book by… As a default. So what you need to think about is how do I start working all that other information that I would get if this were a movie into the text. You have a laser like control over the focus of the reader, so you can show us bit by bit. The downside is you have to do that deliberately. You can't just rely on us passively absorbing that information.
[Mary Robinette] A lot of this will come down to word choice, specificity, I mean, all of the different things that we've been talking about for the past several weeks. You're trying to manipulate all of those at the same time. It's what is the character noticing, what order do you feed that information to the reader, which pieces are you telling versus which pieces are you showing. Is this sentence a long sentence or a short sentence? What is my word choice here? Am I going to say, "Pulled out of a chair," or "jerked out of a chair"? Because those are two different things. This is… This is complicated. I will disagree slightly with Dongwon because this is also something that you do with short stories, and in many cases, it is more vital because you have less space. But I understand… But the layers of plot that you have to deal with in a short story are not as many as you have to deal with in a novel. This is, for me, one of the biggest differences and the thing to think about regardless in some ways if you are writing a short story or novel. That first page is framing the thing that you're getting into. In a short story, you're framing a small thing, and it's like, this is the emotional punch that you're going to get. But in a novel, you're framing something that has multiple different emotional punches that you're going to get. You're going to have multiple plot threads. How do you tell the reader, kind of, which of these is the thing that… Like, which one do you introduce as, "Here. This is the thing I'm drawing a line under. This is the story that you're going to be in on." Because you have to make that choice. Is this a coming-of-age? Yes. Is this also an epic adventure? Yes. Where do you start?
[Dongwon] Yeah. I'm going to say, actually, I'm in complete agreement with Mary Robinette. When I say that a short story has fewer layers, I purely mean in terms of character arcs and plot lines. When that information density, I don't care what you're writing, you're going to need to make sure each word, each sentence, is doing as much work as it can, while maintaining crystal clarity for the reader.
 
[Dan] Yeah. I want to emphasize the importance of revision.
[Mary Robinette] Yes.
[Dan] For this. Because, like Howard was talking about, if you're making a layer cake, most of the time you're making several different cakes in several different batches and then you're combining them together later on. I'm… I don't think that you have to do that with writing. I'm not going to say that you can't, because I'm sure that there are people who do. But what I do do is I will write out… The first draft is often just focused entirely on plot or on character. Then I have to go back through multiple revisions and say now I'm going to add in the other parts.
[Chuckles]
[Dan] Now I'm going to emphasize more of the description… Now I'm going to do another revision pass to really drill into internal monologue and emotion. It does take… You're going to have to get a lot of cake pans dirty by the end of this revision process.
[Dongwon] Your first draft is going to look more like Nailed It! than British Bake-Off, and that's okay.
[Laughter]
[Mary Robinette] Well, so… Continuing our cake metaphor. So, first of all, I do the same thing that Dan does. I do multiple passes. The second thing is, right now I am reading… And this is not our book of the week. I'm reading Every Tool's a Hammer by Adam Savage, which is about making. In the entire time I'm reading it, I'm like, "Oh, dear Lord, this is about writing a novel… Or this is about writing." In the midst of it, he talks about making a cake, and that one of the things that, in general, you want to do while making is to set yourself up for success with your pre-work, and that chefs go in and they lay out all of… Here's the bowls that I'm going to need. Here are the ingredients that I'm going to need. They measure things. It feels like it's so much more work, but it in many ways will go faster. It can often feel like, "Oh! But my creativity!"
[Whem]
[Mary Robinette] But what we're talking about here is, with this idea of a layer cake, and especially when you're learning the tools, it's okay to learn, like, one tool at a time. When you… When we're talking about pre-work, that doesn't necessarily have to mean, oh, you're going to outline everything. Oh, you're going to do all your world building ahead of time. What we're talking about is the number of iterations it takes you to get to a product that you're happy with. So sometimes you have fewer drafts, because you've done a lot of pre-work. Sometimes you have multiple drafts, because that is the process that you particularly enjoy going through in order to get to that layer cake. You may only have one bowl in your kitchen. So you have to mix that bowl and then clean it, and then mix the next bowl and then clean it. You may have a ton of bowls, so you can lay it all out. Everybody's kitchen is different, everybody's brain is different. Every cake that you bake, every book that you write, every short story… All of these are different. But the point of it is to remember that there are layers, that there are multiple ingredients that you have to be managing.
[Howard] If there's one thing that has stuck with me after 20 years of Schlock Mercenary, from beginning to finally ending the whole thing, it's that I cannot afford to conflate spontaneity with creativity. Those are not the same thing. Spontaneity is fine, and it has its place. But creativity is never being throttled by me imposing a structure. It's being funneled, it's being channeled, it's being directed. It's… I love having a structure, and so the layering of things in a novel is incredibly helpful. The current work in progress… I had about a 4000 word scene which I couldn't make work all at once because the voice had to be consistent, but the voice is kind of tiring. It's that noir detective sort of lots of humorous metaphors, lots of weird extensions. Can't be maintained well by the reader. I realized that, "Oh, wait. This is… I wanted to use this to frame some of the other characters. What happens if I carve it into chunks?" What happens if I make separate cake pans and saw the tops off of it and then use… I call it a common tone modulation, where the theme of one scene kind of introduces the theme of the next one, even though something has changed. As I began assembling that, yeah, there's no spontaneity anymore, but the creative fire is raging, because now I can see how it needs to be built.
 
[Mary Robinette] Let's pause for our book of the week. When we come back, what I'd love for us to do is… We've talked now about the importance, and I'd love for us when we come back to talk about some of the hows, of how to do that. So, Dan, I think you have the book of the week this time.
[Dan] Yes. So, our book of the week is Legend by Marie Lu. Marie Lu is an absolutely incredible science fiction writer. This book is a kind of a YA dystopia. It's about 10-ish years old from back when YA dystopias were all the rage. This one has stood the time better than most, I think. It's called Legend, like I said. I wish I had the time to read you like the entire first page. But I'm just going to read you the first two sentences.
 
My mother thinks I'm dead. Obviously, I'm not dead, but it's safer for her to think so.
 
[Wow]
[Dan] That says… Tells you so much. It is asking you compelling questions. It's introducing elements of the character. It goes on in the next paragraph, if I had time to read that, just lays out incredible detail about the world that this takes place in. There is so much density of information, while also being incredibly compelling and readable. It's a wonderful book. It's called Legend by Marie Lu.
 
[Dongwon] So, as Mary Robinette mentioned, I do want to talk about some of the mechanics, about how you make this work. I think when I'm in writing workshops the thing that I see most commonly, like the feedback I'm giving like 60 or 70% of the time is I think you're starting the story in the wrong place. This kind of goes back to what we were saying about the earlier mistakes is often… Or the common mistakes is I often see that the story's starting too early. It's starting before interesting things are happening. Now the problem is if you jump into when interesting things are happening, we don't have context. Which leads to the common mistake of the gunfight problem where then you're like, "What's going on? Why do I care about all this?" The solution, for me, is that layer cake. Right? So you can start when things are kicking off, you can start in the heart of the inciting incident, and then you manipulate the timeline. You don't have to go straight A, B, C, D. You can start at C, and then tell us about A, right? You can layer in those tiny flashbacks. They don't have to be big scenes. They can be a sentence. It's like, "Oh. Yeah. When I woke up today, I wasn't expecting this." Right? You can layer those things in to give us the context of where this character comes from, what do they care about, and then introduce stakes that may not be immediate to this scene. Like, the stakes of the scene is I need to get out of this gunfight because my sister needs to go to school today. Right? I don't know what book I've just written here…
[Chuckles]
[Dongwon] But it's something, right?
[Mary Robinette] I mean, that sounds like Jade City, actually.
[Dongwon] Kind of. Actually. Right? Like, if the character cares about something, then suddenly I, the reader, care about this gunfight. I think when you think about how do I change the timeline, I think you can get a lot more of that density in and start layering those elements in from sentence to sentence, from clause to clause, and really get all of that information into my brain much faster than if you did it sequentially.
[Mary Robinette] Yeah. The other piece of that when you're dealing with that kind of thing, one of your best tools for stacking that information is the manipulation of POV. So, we have talked a lot about all of the things that make… In previous episodes, about all of the things that make a point of view. If you go back to the very first episode that I appear on, which is episode… What was it?
[Howard] Three, 14.
[Mary Robinette] Three, 14. Right. Because it's pi. In which I talk about puppetry and focus and breath and internal motivation and all of those things. All of those pieces are the things that make up POV. But the other piece of POV that you have to manipulate is the showing versus telling, the describing versus demonstrating. It's basically are you… You can pull back and go a little omniscient for a moment. You can go deep in. Those moments, those choices that you make, allow you to layer information in. Within that, one of my favorite tools is free indirect speech. Where you can have the narrator basically just say something to the reader, even if it's in third person. So, this example is from Wikipedia, which actually has a great explanation of what free indirect speech is. So, quoted or direct speech would be: 
 
He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. "And what pleasure have I found since I came into this world," he asked.
 
Whereas free indirect speech is something more like:
 
"He laid down his bundle and thought of his misfortune. And just what pleasure had he found since he came into this world?
 
So, that thought just goes straight into the text. You can do so much with that to layer in information. She picked up the knife. Her grandfather had given it to her. That's just like, "Ah, I picked up the knife. Ah, my grandfather gave this to me." That slows us down. It's popping in and out. So, these are the kinds of things that you can be thinking about and manipulating when you're playing with that opening.
[Dongwon] I'm going to give another very highfalutin literary example here, but if you ever have the chance, go take a look at Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway. There's a very famous scene of Clarissa walking down a street. There's like somebody's doing sky writing and she uses that to slide from POV to POV to POV in this scene as you move through the crowd. You really jump… Like, someone will make eye contact, and then suddenly you'll be in that character's head. It's a master class in how you can use POV to build out a complete scene, and the balance between telling and showing. Of telling us a piece of information about another person, dropping into their mind to see how they see the world, and then sliding back out into someone else's POV. If you want to think about how powerful shifting that perspective can be in building out a narrative, both in terms of using free indirect speech in terms of subjective experience and seeing things from different angles in that Rashomon style, even that one scene, if you don't read the whole book, I think is an enormously instructive thing to take a look at.
 
[Mary Robinette] So, we are now at the point where we are at our final homework. Dongwon has this for us. But I'm actually going to tag on at the end of it with a trick. So this is going to be a tagteam homework, and he has no idea that I'm doing this. This is information that I probably should have layered in earlier.
[Dongwon] Well, I'm also calling an audible and I'm going to shift what the homework is. So we're going to see if our two plans line up right here.
[Mary Robinette] Okay, then.
[Dan] [Oooo]
[Dongwon] So, I think the thing I want you to do is actually to delete your entire first scene from your draft. I mean, save it somewhere else. Put it under a different name, don't throw out your draft. But I want you to start from word one for that first scene and rewrite it using all of the tools that we've talked about here. I want you to think about the exercises you've done up to this point rewriting that scene using all those different tools, characters' interiority, that sort of narrative description, describing the world building and setting. Then redo it and try and think about how am I go to layer all these techniques into a single whole? How do you make that cake feel more complete using these tools?
[Mary Robinette] Fantastic. I am going to tag onto that, that once you've done that, but I want you to do is I want you to revise it. I want you to tighten it. The way I want you to do that is I want you to go through and highlight which things you really need the reader to know and make sure that they are in the right order. Then I'm going to see if you can fit them into a single paragraph. So what you're going to do is… This is an editing technique that I call one phrase per concept or one sentence per concept. So each concept, you're like, "Okay. They absolutely have to know that there are dragons and the dragons can talk. They absolutely have to know that this is 1950s. They absolutely have to know that I'm at a girls' boarding school." Okay, so that gives me four sentences. Then you get one more sentence for tone. Because tone is incredibly important. That is also a piece of information that the reader has. This is just an editing exercise. Then your final thing is probably going to be somewhere in between those two. But that is a way to start really, really thinking about which layer is important to you as you start your novel.
[Dongwon] I think these two homeworks dovetail beautifully. I think, by the time you're done with it, you'll have a killer first page that's going to work great for you.
[Mary Robinette] So, now you are really and truly out of excuses. Now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 15.52: Economy of Phrase, Being the Concentrated Concatenation of Complex Thoughts i

Dec. 30th, 2020 11:31 am
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Writing Excuses 15.52: Economy of Phrase, Being the Concentrated Concatenation of Complex Thoughts in Just a Very Few Words Which Must Fit In A Very Very Small Box, With Patrick Rothfuss

From https://writingexcuses.com/2020/12/27/15-52-economy-of-phrase-with-patrick-rothfuss/


Key points: Be brief. Expanded version: Let the art or other medium do the heavy lifting. Treat each sentence as its own dialogue bubble.


[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode 52.

[Howard] This is Writing Excuses, Economy of Phrase, Being the Concentrated Concatenation of Complex Thoughts in Just a Very Few Words Which Must Fit In A Very Very Small Box, With Patrick Rothfuss.

[Mary Robinette] 15 or so minutes long, give or take.

[Dan] Because you may or may not be in a hurry.

[Pat] And we are…

[Laughter]

[Pat] Not that smart.

[Howard] I'm no longer allowed to write the titles for episodes.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[Dan] I'm Dan.

[Pat] And I'm Pat in a small box.

[Chuckles]


[Howard] All right.

[Laughter]

[Howard] We recorded… I'm just going to give you the back story on this episode. We recorded Pros and Cons with Pat, and at the end of the episode, he turned to me and said, "I really wanted to talk to you about writing comics and fitting all of those ideas into tiny panels." As we discussed this, we realized that that level of compression of information is something that all of us have done. Mary Robinette, you've done it writing a children's book.

[Mary Robinette] Picture book, radio, and also flash fiction.

[Howard] Flash fiction. Dan…

[Dan] I've written three audiobooks at this point, intended as audio dramas.

[Howard] Yup. And Patrick, you wrote… It's one of the… What was it, Rick and Morty?

[Pat] Yeah. The Rick and Morty D&D crossover comic, which was an interesting exercise in editorial control for me. Two IP's that I did not control, but also writing… Only getting 21… 20 pages. 20 pages and only so many words in a box. I'm also doing a comic, another comic with Nate Taylor. So, like, how… Brevity is the soul of wit and that is not necessarily my jam.

[Howard] My very first convention panel was called Crispy Crunchy Writing, and we were asked to introduce ourselves. I was last in line. One of the guys on the panel was Jerry Pournelle. We got… They introduced themselves and I said, "My name's Howard Tayler and I'm on this panel because I write comics, and I have to fit all the words in little bubbles." Jerry pounded on the table and said, "Son, you're the only one here who's qualified to speak. I get paid by the word."

[Chuckles]


[Howard] Which is one of the best moments of my life. But in looking at what I have to do in order to… In order to fit everything into dialogue bubbles. We've had discussions about revision, we've had discussions about editing. There are two key pieces for me that I want to lead with and get your ideas on. The first is that when I'm writing for comics, I am allowing the art, I am allowing the sequential illustrations to do a whole bunch of the heavy lifting. Whether it's facial expression on a character that's going to convey emotion or background that's going to tell me whether or not the room's on fire. That's the first piece. The second piece is arguably the harder part, which is the pith, which is the compression. For my own part, I've found that some of my most interesting experiences have come when I was writing for a different artist, and I would write some descriptions and the panels came back and I realized that 75% of the dialogue that I'd delivered was already now being told in the story. So I pulled all of those words out and put in new dialogue and had way more story to work with. It's a fascinating experience. With Rick and Morty…

[Pat] Rick and Morty was interesting. I should say, while I have… I was forced to like deal with short dialogue, short spaces… Jim Zub, who helped me script, we were a writing team there. He, in a couple of different interviews, you can find them online, has gotten very salty. Because Jim has written a bunch of stuff. He's an absolute consummate professional, gets the job done. I am Patrick Rothfuss. Who has kind of never done a comic before in a professional way. But… And he tells the story, like, he's written for The Avengers. At one point, he said that he had… He goes, "I write for this little comic called The Avengers. One of the issues, I had to write off 24 different characters in 20 pages. Because it's a 20 page comic. Comics are 20 pages." He goes, "And then I worked on this comic with Patrick Rothfuss, and…"

[Laughter]

[Pat] He goes, "I had to argue… I begged them for another page, so I had 21 pages to write off these 24." He goes, "Rothfuss turns in his third script, and here we are with 25 pages. Approved by the editors."

[Laughter]

[Pat] So, I didn't necessarily have the knee on my neck that would have taught me as much as it could have. But also, I really am thankful for the editor, because one of the things you learn with the compression is that sometimes to tell the story you want to tell… I'm curious about your experience here, because again, with this sequential medium, you can't just add another panel. That's like one of the first lessons I learned working with Nate Taylor, because we did a comic together years ago for the Numenera game, to introduce the character and the world. And he says, "Okay. Here's the thing. We're going to do a script, and then I'm going to do some blue lines, and I'm going to lay things out. I'm going to do some panels. You're going to approve those. Then we're done, because you can't just stick something in. You can't just add another panel." I'm like, "Oh, no, I get it. I get it.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Then the realization sinks in. A bit of fun back story. Jim Zub and I are good friends. When Zub said, "So I'm working on Rick and Morty and D&D with Patrick Rothfuss," I may have snerked so hard I hurt myself.

[Laughter]

[Howard] Because this conflict that you have described is one that I saw coming a mile away, because Jim… I studied Jim's scripts to try and find out how to write for other artists. Jim's got a Patreon where you can look at the scripts that he does. It's a brilliant resource. I struggle all the time with being too wordy. What I've found is that sometimes… We talk about killing our darlings. I will turn a phrase… I just had to do this today. I will turn a phrase and love it and think it is key to the story. Then I take a step back and realize that I need that panel for a reaction shot.

[Yeah]

[Howard] I need that panel for a character to say nothing, but to react to someone else's dialogue. Which means that line's got to go. Because I can't make the book longer. I've got a hard page count. So I have to remove something. The boneyard is full of that kind of thing. I'm interested to know how these sorts of things play out in children's books.


[Mary Robinette] So, it's very similar for me. That… One of the things that you're looking at which is where the page turn is…

[Yeah]

[Mary Robinette] Because you want them to… You want to make a promise so that they want to turn that page. You want to make sure that that hits in the right spot. So then when you're trying to get in more information, and like I have written a science fiction… A hard science-fiction children's book, which is set on the moon, which means that I have to explain lunar gravity two small children while still moving a plot forward, and I have a specific page number. I still need to make all of the things hit the right point. So it was very much about trying to compress and having things do double duty in making sure that anything I put on the page was an ambiguous, so that I didn't have to have a second phrase to explain it. Making sure that those pieces of language were really, really clear.

[Dan] Yeah. That was the same thing I was going to say. My audio dramas that I wrote were hard science-fiction middle grade.

[Mary Robinette] I love them, by the way.

[Dan] Thank you very much. The second one comes out… Will actually have already been out by the time this airs. But having to explain how zero gravity and microgravity works in a fast-paced children's story means that it does have to do double duty like you're talking about. You can't just sit there and explain cryogenics or zero gravity or the Kuiper belt or any other thing. So my solution was, well, this is going to be fun. If I'm explaining zero gravity while my main character is screwing around with it and doing some mean thing to his brothers, then I… Then it's still exciting, while also explaining what I need. So that making sure that it's always doing extra multiple things is something we’re all supposed to be doing anyway…

[Chuckles]

[Dan] But I feel like I learned that lesson even harder when I had to reduce everything down.


[Howard] I want to take a quick break for a book of the week which is not a book of the week. I want to break for it before we moved too far away from his name. JimZub.com, he's written… He's got some tutorials on the sidebar of his website. Comic writing number one, brainstorming to, pacing, page planning, scripting dialogue, action, and analysis. It's seven parts. We'll link to it in the liner notes. These are little older, but I would encourage you to go out and read this. Yes, it sounds a little bit like homework, but there are going to be pages from his comics in there, so it's also fun to read. I can't emphasize strongly enough the importance of reading the things that the experts decide to write about this subject. I still learn from Jim when we talk about these things. So that's JimZub.com, sidebar on comic writing.

[Pat] Can I also just throw out, since we have talked about comics, reading… And I wouldn't be surprised if you guys have already recommended over the years, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. Now, I imagine people who work in comics could have different feelings about it. I read it before I really read comics, and it changed the way that I thought about a lot of elements of storytelling. Just pacing and like where action happens. It was an absolute narrative game changer for me in sort of developing my writing philosophy.

[Howard] Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. That is also an excellent book of the week. We'll link to that, too.


[Mary Robinette] One thing that I want to flag that is allowing for this compression with words when we're looking at comic books or audio is that there is another medium that is carrying part of the story. Whether that is the voice of the actor or the visuals on the page. That's part of what you're looking for when you're trying to trim is everything where that other medium is carrying the story. This is a thing that you see a lot in puppet theater where the characters will… In an early draft, people will feel the urge to have the characters… You'll have the character say something and then you get it up on its feet on the stage and the puppets are moving and you're like, "The characters don't need to say that, they're expressing it with their body," and so you cut the line. Because that physicality does the job more for you. So, what I find when I'm working in one of these other mediums is that it forces me to really consider what pieces are important. Then, when I return to prose, with straight prose, where I'm just dealing with words on the page, a lot of that economy of language comes back with me and allows me… I know, this is a very long-winded description, but it allows me to be more focused in what I'm doing, because I've learned to be unambiguous, because I've learned which pieces you actually have to have.

[Howard] It's difficult perhaps to understand the importance of audio as an additional medium without an example. My favorite is, "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe YOU did that. I can't believe you did THAT." Those are three completely different sentences. All exactly the same length.

[Chuckles]

[Howard] All exactly the same length. That's the kind of thing… Now, when you're writing for comics, when you're writing for prose, often you will have to put text emphasis in, in order to ensure that those things are there.

[Pat] What you mentioned there, I realize, now, actually this is true of some of the script notes I've been giving for the Kingkiller TV show, which, when this airs, will probably be dead. But a lot of times, I'm like, "Hey. This isn't really perfectly clear, or this or this." They would say, "You know, we're going to worry about that after we have an actor."

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Pat] Because… Which again is such an alien concept to me. I've gotten to thinking about picture books. Because like, I'm going to show a picture, and there will be a picture and text. Then it's like comics is sequential art, depending on how you want to argue that, but like a series of picture and text. Then they're like, "Well, no. The actor will sell this."

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Pat] "You don't need to explain the emotional beats. You will see the actor's face. You will…" I'm like, "Oh, gah." It's so hard for me to trust, but also, it's really hard for me to give up control.

[Laughter]

[Mary Robinette] That is one of the things that I love about writing for an actor. Like, I wrote for Defense Grid 2…

[Pat] Yeah!

[Mary Robinette] And also for Brass Tactics. What I had to do was… Because it's a game, I had to create a spreadsheet of lines of dialogue that could be delivered by the AI at a point, theoretically, in a way that follows narratively. But I had to write lines that actually did have some ambiguity to them, but that gave… That the actor could make… Give a consistency to. One of the things that, the first time I worked with them, they wanted me to make the lines in my mind a little more purple. We had this conversation about trust the actor. When they get into the booth, when the actors get in there, the lines play. Because I've given them space. I've given them space to bring this character in.

[Dan] Yeah. I remember talking to a videogame writer at Gen Con. She was telling me that she had to write a bunch of different dialogue options that had specifically different emotions. Here's the happy response, the angry response, and all of those. She realized that she could cover all five of them with just the word hey.

[Mary Robinette] Yup.

[Laughter]

[Dan] And just have them delivered differently. She convinced them to pay her separately for all five instances of the word hey. Because the actor was going to sell them.

[Pat] That's great.

[Mary Robinette] I have done the same thing.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Not with hey, but with what?

[Dan] Oh, yeah. That's another good one.


[Pat] When I wrote for the Numenera game, similarly, like, you only have… You have a very small box. Numenera was amazing, in my opinion, because they were doing a return to this older style of game where you had legitimate narrative options which could impact your relationships in the game. Like the old Planescape. This was sort of the spiritual successor to Planescape. For some of the old Fallout games, or the more character driven RPG's as they use to exist. Before graphics sort of ate up all the… Read up all the air in the room. It was like… They honestly went crazy. You could have nine different dialogue options to choose from, and go in any direction. They really leaned into it. But thinking of that sort of economy, where you want it to be clear to the player, like, the person actively engaging in the narrative… There it was, without an actor. But you're still on the screen.

[Mary Robinette] Right.

[Pat] And you're sort of… You are the character. You're the character that's speaking. In this theory… How to do that in 12 words. 12 words is a lot if you're going to do five different dialogue… It's like you've overfilled the box, you've got to have a little scrollbar, that's not elegant. So, yeah, it's… This is a remarkably transferable and universally useful skill.


[Howard] One of my least favorite forms within comics is the fact that the fontography for comics is sans serif, all caps. There's a huge amount of information that is lost when you're text is like that. I've found that the tools… And I'm saying this for people who specifically want to write comics. The tools that I use to work around this, first and foremost, you know the whole hit the spacebar twice for the period. Instead of hitting the spacebar twice after the period, hit the return key a few times and treat each sentence as its own dialogue bubble. Because the period can get lost and you will find yourself reading a wall of all-caps comic text, and you haven't read it correctly. If you lose the reader in that way, you've got a problem. The second is use bold and italics. These things, they have to be there…

[Pat] I hate the use of bold in comics. I'm sorry. I hate…

[Chuckles]

[Pat] I mean, it's… This would be fine if it was William Shatner reading this in my head all the time. But it's a convention in comics that started like way back… Like, these days… I really want to hear how you feel. But I feel like we have the narrative technology these days… Not even like to script, like, we are better storytellers now. We… And like Zub really leaned into it, and, honestly, the editors wanted it. There like, "You're doing a comic." So he would always bold these words, and I would kind of… In my editorial pass, I would go through and unbold as many as I thought I could get away with.

[Howard] That's not going to stick.

[Pat] I got away with a few. But, like, if it's a well written sentence, you don't need nearly as much of that. Do you? I mean…

[Howard] That's… That is one of the tools that I use. If I find, wow, I've got to bold half a dozen words in here in order to get the emphasis in the right place, it's time to rewrite the sentence. It's time to rewrite the sentence.


[Howard] We are out of time. So ironic that we could…

[Chuckles]

[Howard] Talk about economy of phrase being the concentrated… I'm not going to do that again.

[Laughter]

[Howard] That we could talk about economy of phrase and just keep going and going and going. Homework. Take a scene that you've written of prose. Remove all of the blocking. Just space out the dialogue. Draw stick figures and smiley faces, and attempt to convey with a different medium all of the things that you were conveying with those other words.

[Pat] That's a great one.

[Dan] Awesome.

[Pat] That's really great.

[Howard] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write. But short.




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Writing Excuses 15.51: Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Nar

Dec. 23rd, 2020 11:33 am
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Writing Excuses 15.51: Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with special guest Mahtab Narsimhan
 
 
Key Points: Prescriptive advice, suggestions about how to do it, are going to come your way. But when do you look for it? Until you show me you can articulate your reactions in a way I understand, I may not accept your advice on how to rewrite a scene. Tell me how you feel, then tell me how to rewrite the scene. Arrange your readers by the type of advice you want. Subject matter experts, sensitivity readers, tell me what's wrong and how to fix it. Most readers, just tell me your reaction. Editors, suggest how to fix a problem. When you get feedback, you decide whether to accept it or not. Follow your vision. How do you find people you trust to tell you what to do? Professionals. Agent, editor, writing group. Organizations can help, but you have to pick and choose. Audition, or vetting, process. Start with media you both consume, and see what they think of that. Reactions, fresh perspectives, the feedback echo chamber... stay true to your vision. You know how to fix your story better than anybody else. But be open to brilliant ideas from someone. 
 
[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode 51.
[Dan] This is Writing Excuses, Feedback -- When to Listen, and When to Ignore, with Mahtab Narsimhan.
[Howard] 15 minutes long.
[Mahtab] Because you're in a hurry.
[Brandon] And we're not that smart.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Howard] I'm Howard.
[Mahtab] I'm Mahtab.
[Brandon] And I'm Brandon. Which I keep telling you and I'd like you to take that feedback.
[Chuckles]
 
[Dan] So, we talk all the time about how to give feedback, how to construct a good writing group, how to train your alpha and beta readers, and one of the points we hit on a lot is that what you're looking for in that feedback stage is reactions rather than specific prescriptive advice. But, as one of our listeners pointed out in an email, asking this question, "Prescriptive advice is incredibly valuable and we all do it and we all get it." So, we're clearly not saying ignore every suggestion that comes to you. What we need to talk about now, then, is how do you decide which pieces of advice you're going to listen to and which ones you're going to discard. When should you actively seek out that kind of specifically prescriptive feedback? So, first ideas, like, when do you seek it out? At what point do you say, "Hey, I need you to answer this question for me?"
[Howard] Approaching it from a different angle, until I have gotten reader reactions from someone and they been able to articulate their reaction to me in a way that I understand, I'm not going to accept feedback from them. If someone hasn't yet told me that this scene made them feel a certain way, I'm not ready to accept their feedback on how to rewrite the scene. I want to know that you can tell me how you feel before you tell me how to rewrite the scene so that you feel what you're supposed to.
[Brandon] Yeah. That's a good piece of advice. Although one thing I do is I kind of arrange my readers by what type of advice I want them to give me. For example, when I use a subject matter expert… I recently wrote a story about someone who's paraplegic. I went and I hired several people to read this story. To them, I said… They were paraplegic and I said, "I want you to tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it, specifically, how this differs from your life experience in the life experience that you know other disabled people have. I want you to tell me." For other readers, though, I say I just want to know your reaction. I want to know if my characters are working and my story's working. The way you help me with that is by telling me your just feedback emotionally. I'm looking for different things from different people. From my editor, I want them to tell me what they suggest I do to fix a problem when they've noticed it, because I might not take that, but there's a much better chance that I will take it when it comes from an editor who really knows what they're doing.
 
[Dan] Let me follow up on that subject matter expert thing. When you've got feedback from them, how much of that feedback was just kind of the mechanics of daily life of a para… Someone who is paraplegic and how much of that was the story or the characterization are broken, and here's how you can fix those? Because that seems like it kind of straddles that line between subject matter and storytelling.
[Brandon] It was actually weighted toward the latter. I would have thought it would be weighted toward the former. But those things are very easy to fix. When someone says, "I usually keep a pole next to me so I reach things and pull them across the desk to me," that's like, "Oh, that's really handy. I will do that. That's an easy fix." But when they say something along the lines of… A piece of feedback I got on this piece which was really helpful was all of them noticed… They say, "We work in a community. We talk to other people." A lot of people write… When they write a story like I had done, they talk about this person in isolation, which is not how we do it. It makes it seem like this person is the only person who is paraplegic in the whole world. That's very common. I hadn't realized that's what you do, but of course, you're part of a community. I'm part of a community of writers. I'm part of a community of people who share a faith with me. I'm part of a community of people who are parenting. We look for people who have a shared life experience so we can help each other. This is something that I had done flat-out wrong that required a really big revisitation of how I was viewing the character and the story because it was just… It was flat-out wrong. That sort of thing was a harder revision, but it was also more surprising to me, and it's the sort of thing that needed a subject matter expert to explain to me.
[Mahtab] Okay. I would call those instead sensitivity readers. I mean, that's what happens when you're writing a piece, middle grade YA fiction, and your writing someone with whom you don't share the identity or a marginalized status or what have you. I mean, you just… You do not have a similar background. That's when you get someone who we call like a sensitivity reader, who's going to look at your story and tell you, "Okay. This is what it is," or "This is what you need to think about as you write." You said, Brandon, they're not in isolation, but sometimes when we're writing from an outsider's perspective, we almost make that kind of an issue story or the issue with that character is their disability or whatever. Sometimes having someone with that background read it often gives you a whole different perspective because they do not see it as an issue, because they're part of a community where this is not the center stage. You can get other feedback from it, but just coming back to your point, Dan, as to when do you seek feedback. When I've taken a story to a certain level and I do no more with it, is when I would actually send it out to my critique group. One of the good things is I have a group that has different strengths. Someone is really good with the big picture perspective. So they would like really look at the forest. There are some who actually look at the trees, and they go down to the bush level, and they will absolutely look at the pacing and the plot and the characterization. So that's when you take the feedback from these people which is… Each one gives you a different idea or a different facet of what your story is. Then once it comes back to you, I think the onus is on you, and it goes with your gut feel of should I accept this feedback or shouldn't I. If it does not fit with your vision, no matter who's given it to me, I would probably not follow it.
 
[Dan] Okay. I want to pause now for the book of the week, which we get from Howard.
[Howard] Yes. It's not really related to the topic, but I really, really enjoyed Dan Rather's book What Unites Us. Dan Rather has been a fixture in American and, let's be honest, world news broadcasts for… I want to say 50 years, at least 40 years. His experiences… It's kind of a retrospective of the way he sees the American nation and the people who are in it. I really loved it. I needed it when I listened to it. I don't know if you do, but the audiobook was quite good, and that was the way I experienced it. So I can't speak to reading the words on the paper with my own eyeballs and brain.
[Chuckles]
[Howard] That's for other people to discover. But the book is called What Unites Us by Dan Rather.
[Dan] Thank you.
 
[Dan] Now, the common thread between all of your comments in the first half of the episode were heavily kind of focused around this idea that you have curated your groups of people that you get feedback from and that you… When you look for specific feedback, you are trying to get it from specific people and for specific reasons. So let's talk just really quick about that. How do you find these people that you trust… Not talking about specifically subject matter experts or sensitivity readers, but just, in general, how do you find those people and how do you decide, yes, I trust what this person is going to tell me to do?
[Brandon] Well, with beta readers in particular, them, it doesn't matter, right? Because I'm not asking them to tell me what to do. So, people who tell me what to do, that I let… That I'm looking for, are professionals. Right? Which is a different sort of thing. I find my beta readers, generally, they are people who have been long-term friends, people who are active in fandom, or people that other beta readers have recommended. We do that a lot. We try to add a few new people every book that I do and not have everyone do every book, right? So we shake it up. It's just a process of watching who makes astute comments on forum posts about the books, who are active on our Facebook posts, those are the people I look for. But for alpha readers, they're giving me direct, fix this, I'm generally only looking at like my agent, my editor, or my writing group for that.
[Mahtab] I think, for me, I join a lot of organizations, and again, we've got forums, so you can connect with people on the forums and say, "Okay, I'm looking for… I'm looking for a critique partner," and everyone kind of just exchanges emails and then goes for it. In case… That's how I started with, but then, over the years, I kind of got closer to a group of people because they write similar stuff that I do, and I like their work and they like my work. So we kind of broke off and formed our own groups. But if you're looking at the children's section, SCBWI, CANSCAIP, these are the… I guess for the US, it's SCBWI, you join those groups, there are areas where you can exchange information and find critique partners. I would say, start out with maybe a chapter or two, see what the feedback is like, see if they're on the same wavelength as you are, before you go deeper down the rabbit hole, and then become good critique partners, because sometimes… What if you're not at a similar level or if the level of feedback that you're getting is not what you're looking for? Then that relationship or that critique is not really helping you. So you also have to pick and choose. Don't just say yes to anyone who says they're going to give you feedback.
[Dan] That kind of audition process, so to speak, I think is really important. Because, we've talked before about how to find fellow writers and form your little groups and things, but going through that kind of vetting process, of saying, "Okay. You know what, I really like your feedback," or "You're giving me feedback that I don't think is valuable," that's a big step. It can be difficult to say, "You know what, this relationship isn't working. I think we should break up."
[Howard] There is… To my mind, there is an easier and much lower pressure way to get to that point. That is to socialize… And I guess Zoom may be the way that we're doing this for the foreseeable future… Socialize with people right and who consume media that you consume, and talk about the things that you're consuming. If Dan and I both sit down and talk about The Mandalorian, and I say, "Oh, my gosh, it's my favorite Star Wars ever, because it's like a cowboy movie Star Wars," and I don't know what Dan's going to say about it. But if Dan's feedback about Mandalorian makes me feel like the two of us watched a completely different show, he's out of my group.
[Laughter]
[Howard] Because… Not because he's wrong, but because connecting might be so very, very difficult. Initially, for seeking feedback, I want to get feedback from people whose critiques I'm able to understand. We both watched a movie and we both agreed, "Wow. The protagonist fails to protag for the entire first act, and by the time the second showed up, we were… We didn't like him anymore," and we both get that. Oh, yes, this is someone I… Because when they critique my work, I'll be like, "Oh. Oh, yes. You're right." And when you prescribe something to me, I'm more likely to get it. Now that, that initially is going to create kind of a bubble, and you want to branch out from that. But start friendly first, I think.
[Mahtab] Yes.
 
[Dan] Yeah. It is a very tricky line to walk, because you don't want to get into that feedback echo chamber. I always really value opinions that are different from my own. Because that, I think, is going to help me look for new solutions and new answers. But on the other hand, someone who is constantly suggesting ideas that don't fit with my style at all, that's not going to be valuable to me. So, it all comes back to this idea of just very carefully deciding who you're going to talk to. Well, I guess, who you're going to get that prescriptive feedback from. The person whose ideas are super different from mine, yes, give me all your reactions. Please. But when it comes to how am I actually going to change this, that's when I do tend rely on people who have similar sensibilities to mine.
[Brandon] Or, I would add, the further someone gets in the professional field of writing and storytelling, the more it seems they are able to help a story become a better version of itself, rather than trying to push it one direction or another. That's not to say that all agents and editors are perfect at this, or even all writing group members, but I've noticed that people who write a lot… For instance, Dan tends to be better at looking at one of my books and saying, "Here's what I think you're trying to do. Here's how to make it better." Where there are other people who are longtime writing group members of mine who like my books, who often give good feedback. But if you give them a book that's outside their normal reading comfort level, they'll give bad feedback on it. Where I've never gotten bad feedback from Dan, because as an industry professional, he reads a lot of things and even things he doesn't like, he can say, "Here's how I think you can make a better version of this thing that I don't necessarily like." Which is a really great skill for a storyteller to learn, I think. But it is not something you can expect from your average even writing group member, I think.
[Dan] I want to print up business cards that say, "Dan Wells. I will help you make a better version of a thing that you're doing that I don't like, even though you're doing a thing that I don't like."
[Mahtab] Where do I sign up?
[Laughter]
[Mahtab] But just very quickly to say something about what you said, Dan, was sometimes you can get that same feedback from the same group that you're with. So getting a totally fresh perspective, even if it does not gel with your own thinking, I think is very valuable. But at the end of the day, you have to decide am I taking it or leaving it, and that decision rests entirely with you. So you just stay true to your vision. No matter who gives you feedback.
[Dan] Yeah, well and…
[Howard] One of… Sorry. One of the things that Brandon said, the ability to say… As a critiquer, the ability to say, for instance, it feels like in this scene you are presenting me with a red herring and you want me to feel doubt about this and you want me to become convinced of this. If that's the case, you need to punch this bit up more and punch that bit down a little bit in order to adjust the balance. But if this isn't meant for a red herring, whatever, then ignore everything that I said. I will give feedback like that to Bob all the time, because I don't know where Bob's book is going. But I will tell him this is my response and this is where I think maybe your levels need to be set. Bob will smile and nod, and I have no idea if he's going to take my advice or not. But he knows what to do with it.
 
[Dan] So, as a final word, I suppose more than anything else, I just want to give you as a writer permission to get prescriptive feedback, to take suggestions from other people. Don't feel like we have told you you're not allowed to. I do believe that at the end of the day, you know how to fix your story better than anybody else. But that doesn't mean that someone is not going to come along with a brilliant idea that will solve your problems for you. That does happen, and absolutely be open to those experiences.
 
[Dan] So, let's end with some homework from Howard.
[Howard] Okay. Bear with me.
[Laughter]
[Howard] You're going to want to do this with a friend. Okay? Step one. Each of you prepare a quick written critique of a movie. Maybe one… I mean, they can be different movies, but something that you've watched and has problems that you're willing to critique. Now. Share your critiques with each other, swap them. Now you take the critique that your friend gave of this movie… Oh, and when you wrote the critiques, you anonymized it, you didn't say like character name, you just say like protagonist or antagonist. Anyway. So you get this feedback from this movie. Now. File as many of the serial numbers off as you can. Set it down next to your manuscript and treat this bit of random, utterly random, feedback as if it was aimed at your manuscript. Why are you doing this? So that you can see what absolute nonsense looks like with regard to your manuscript AND so that you can have the broken watch is right twice a day experience of "Oh, my gosh. That thing that you said about the phantom menace applies to my book."
[Laughter]
[Howard] Oh, no. It may seem really weird, but by doing this, what you're going to do is refine your filters for the sort of feedback you receive and it's going to knock you out of the box and maybe make some of your writing better.
[Dan] I really like this homework. I think it is a cool idea to teach you how to sort through the value of a bunch of feedback. So, cool. Anyway, that's our show for today. Thank you so much for listening. This is Writing Excuses. You are out of excuses, now go write.
 
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Writing Excuses 15.36: Collaboration, with Shannon and Dean Hale

Sep. 9th, 2020 01:37 pm
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Writing Excuses 15.36: Collaboration, with Shannon and Dean Hale
 
 
Key Points: How do you do collaboration? Plot together. Outline. Outline, revise, split it up, revision again. Love your collaborator. Work times? Not really. Book, then screenplay, may make the story worse, or make it better. How can you encourage better? Check your ego. Collaboration takes time. Collaboration forces you to explain why things happen, and sometimes it helps. 
 
[Mary Robinette] Season 15, Episode 36.
[Brandon] This is Writing Excuses, Collaboration.
[Mary Robinette] 15 minutes long.
[Dan] Because you're in a hurry.
[Shannon] And we're not that smart.
[Brandon] I'm Brandon.
[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.
[Dan] I'm Dan.
[Brandon] Once again, we have Shannon and Dean Hale, our awesome friends.
[Shannon] Whoohoo!
[Dean] I'm Shannon.
[Shannon] Opening so much…
[Dean] I'm awesome.
[Laughter]
 
[Brandon] You guys collaborate quite a bit.
[Dean] Yes, we do.
[Shannon] Some would say too much.
[Dean] Ooo. Two children too much.
[Chuckles]
[Dean] But which two?
[Laughter]
[Brandon] So, we have talked about collaboration before on the podcast, but whenever we get an opportunity to talk about collaborat… Talk with collaborators, we like to bring them on because it feels like everyone's collaboration style is so different from every other one. Basically, we just want to know how you guys collaborate. I guess I can kind of start you on the how did it begin? What were your first collaborations like, and how did it start?
[Shannon] Besides the children.
[Dean] Yes. The actual, like, literature… Like, books.
[Shannon] The very first one, I'd been publishing novels for a while…
[Dean] First Kiss Then Tell was probably the first one.
[Shannon] Oh, that's true. We did write… We wrote a short story about our first kiss in an anthology.
[Dean] Yeah, she was asked to do an… It was like a YA anthology about first kisses, all the different authors were asked to do it, and she wrote about our first kiss. Which I don't think was her first kiss, really.
[Shannon] Well, it was not my first kiss. But it was my first kiss with you.
[Dean] Right. Right, exactly. Then I read it, and wrote a rebuttal. They published that, too.
[Laughter]
[Shannon] They did. Then, our official first book was… I'd been writing novels, and I wanted to write a graphic novel. This was pretty early, most publishers were not doing graphic novels yet. But he was a lifelong comics reader, so I thought he would have a lot of insight into the medium. So we did a book called Rapunzel's Revenge that came out in 2008.
[Dean] Nominated for an Eisner.
[Shannon] So, but now…
[Dean] [for those inaudible]
[Shannon] We've done…
[Chuckles]
[Shannon] 15+ together. Graphic novels, early chapter books, novels. We've done quite a lot.
[Dean] Everything except for one that I've written has been a collaboration with you.
[Shannon] Yes, you did that special picture book, all on your own.
[Chuckles]
[Dean] Out-of-print.
 
[Shannon] So, how do we do it?
[Brandon] So, how do you do it?
[Dean] She does it.
[Shannon] So, at first it was really important that we identify who was the chief writer and who was…
[Dean] Who was…
[Shannon] The subcontractor.
[Dean] Exactly. Exactly.
[Shannon] But we had to establish who was in charge.
[Dean] The steward.
[Shannon] That was obviously me.
[Dean] Yes. That was how everything worked at home anyway.
[Chuckles]
[Dean] So we just fell right into it.
 
[Shannon] Yeah. But we've done it so much now that I think we've kind of ironed out the process. I would say the biggest thing that we do that is…
[Dean] Different from when you write alone.
[Shannon] Yeah, we plot together. This is… I mean when you… It's unusual to cowrite in novels, but it's like very common in screenwriting and in television, of course. So that kind of getting into a room with one other person or a few other people…
[Dean] And breaking the story.
[Shannon] And breaking the story is like really a healthy great way to work. I used to not like to outline, but when you collaborate, you have to outline, you have to outline completely.
[Dean] [after we made an error]
[Shannon] Or you have many errors. So we get together, we figure out the plot, we break it…
[Dean] We walk around the lake holding hands.
[Shannon] Like every time a commercial.
[Dean] Chatting plot.
[Shannon] It's beautiful.
[Dean] It is. I love this job.
[Shannon] Actually, it's really kind of a fun process.
[Dean] Yeah, it is.
[Shannon] We make sure we get good food, [pestering all of those]
 
[Dean] We're just banging ideas out. Ideas are the most fun part of it.
[Shannon] For us, we're not precious about ideas. So, for people who, like, ideas are the harder part, that might be harder. But for us, we have never-ending ideas. So it doesn't bother me if I throw out an idea, and he's like, "No."
[Dean] Bleah.
[Shannon] It's not like I don't have 12 more waiting.
[Dean] Right. It doesn't bother me because I only have three.
[Shannon] Right. Whatever. You're the idea engine. Then we outline, extensively. There are times, for example when we're doing a graphic novel, when our outline can actually be longer than…
[Dean] The script.
 
[Shannon] The final book. Then, we, after we've outlined and revised the outline over and over again, then we split it up.
[Dean] Yeah. There are certain pieces of the story that often call to one or the other of us. Or, if during the pitch process, I'm totally behind this idea…
[Shannon] This particular idea I'm excited about.
[Dean] I can visualize it more than…
[Shannon] Or if we have different characters. So, in our Squirrel Girl novels, there are different point of view characters, so I did all of Doreen's chapters. This is in the first draft. I wrote all of Doreen's chapters and all of Sephia's.
[Dean] I did the squirrels.
[Shannon] You did the squirrels and the villain. Then we both wanted to do Squirrel Girl chapters, so we split them. But then in revision, we just trade it back and forth, so… We're not precious about it. So… We can read and add and delete and add...
[Dean] We each take credit for the best… For the funniest parts.
[Shannon] We have no idea what… Who wrote what.
[Dean] Except I did the funniest parts.
[Shannon] No, but they were probably mine.
[Dean] Oh, okay.
[Laughter]
[Shannon] Does that clarify everything?
[Brandon] Oh, yes.
[Mary Robinette] That's completely repeatable, too.
[Shannon] Everybody needs to take that model…
[Dan] Replicate it right across…
[Shannon] Take it home.
 
[Dean] It does help when you love your collaborator. I mean, when you know that whatever they're saying, how rude and insensitive and evil it sounds, you know at the end of the day that they love you.
[Shannon] I cowrote a screenplay with Jerusha Hess, and her process was any time I said anything she didn't like, she'd say, "That's stupid." It took me like a couple days to get into it, and then I was like telling her what an idiot she was in return, and it was lovely.
[Dean] Then, our next collaboration, I'd say something and she'd say, "That's stupid."
[Shannon] He's like, "Whoa!" 
[Garbled]
 
[Brandon] So, let's talk about that. Keeping the relationship…
[Chuckles]
[Brandon] And the work relationship, like intertwining those, how have you made that work?
[Shannon] I don't think it's healthy for most people what we've done.
[Dean] Yeah. I don't know that it would work.
[Shannon] Honestly, the main question I get from most people is how are you guys so happily married?
[Dean] Right.
[Shannon] We talk about…
[Dean] And you say, "Are we?"
[Laughter]
[Shannon] Well, I want to keep some mystery in there.
[Dean] Right. Exactly.
[Shannon] I think… I've also collaborated with LeUyen Pham, the illustrator. So, there… I've collaborated closely with three different people. It is different when it's your husband…
[Chuckles]
[Shannon] And you live in the same house and you have relationship outside of work. I think we're just lucky.
[Dean] Yeah. Yeah.
[Shannon] We like and respect each other.
 
[Mary Robinette] Do you have… I mean, you talked about, like, go for a walk by the lake and… But do you have specific like work times and…
[Shannon] When the kids are at school.
[Dean] Yeah.
[Mary Robinette] So, I was wondering if you had separated work and family relationship a little bit… By time or if it's just like…
[Shannon] I mean, not really officially.
[Dean] Yeah.
[Shannon] Yeah. No. It just… Just because logistically it's easier when they're out of the house.
[Dean] Yeah. Yeah, no, it's true.
[Laughter]
[Dean] I mean, sometimes I try to… Like, when you're… Just this last week, you were on a heads down deadline.
[Shannon] I was working 10, 12 hours a day, which is really unusual for me.
[Dean] I'm trying to run interference with the kids, but… Oh, man.
[Shannon] He's really bad about running interference with the kids. Let's be honest. He's really good at ideas, but…
[Dean] I only practiced football one year.
[Shannon] They slip past him.
[Dean] Yes. Like, what, where… Hmmm? Then I found them in your office. "Mom!"
[Shannon] Weeping at my feet. I'm like…
[Mary Robinette] But you're so tall and they're so tiny.
[Dean] I know. It's hard. Slippery.
 
[Brandon] Let's stop for our book of the week.
[Chuckles]
[Brandon] Which is Kind of a Big Deal.
[Dean] It is. You're right.
[Shannon] It is Kind of a Big Deal. I have a new YA novel. It is just bra… I haven't done one in years. It's just out. It's about a girl named Josie Pie. She wanted to be a Broadway star, dropped out of high school to pursue Broadway, and failed spectacularly. A year later, she's trying to figure out her life and she starts reading books and being pulled into them. Trying to figure out what's going on…
[Brandon] Like, magically pulled into them?
[Shannon] Like magically pulled into them. So she's trying to figure out how at the same time using this opportunity to, like, live out her truest fantasies.
[Brandon] Awesome. And this…
[Dan] Just to be clear, for listeners who didn't get it, the actual title is…
[Shannon] Kind of a Big Deal.
[Dan] Yes.
[Brandon] And the release date is…
[Dean] Not sure.
[Brandon] Right around this time.
[Shannon] I have no idea. We are just… We're having so much fun with it, even now, because we're… We're recording this in advance. One of the books she gets pulled into is a comic book. Which we just are getting the pages of that right now. It's really fun.
[Dean] All the books… The fake books that you've made up for this are super funny. They're like examples of a genre.
[Shannon] Yeah. So she gets pulled into a tawdry romance, a historical romance, and…
[Dean] Post-apocalyptic horror.
[Shannon] Yeah. And a YA rom-com. A horror. She gets pulled into Anne of Green Gables, that's the only real book that I didn't make up. A fantasy. Anyway. A nonfiction book.
[Dean] I've read it, it's very good.
[Dan] Someone's going to read this, not realize that Anne of Green Gables is real…
[Dean] That's true.
[Dan] And encounter it like 10 years later…
[Shannon] I know. I thought of that.
[Dan] And it's going to freak them out. It's going to be awesome.
[Shannon] I wrote a book that was called The Goose Girl that's based on a Grimm Brothers fairytale.
[Mary Robinette] Which I love.
[Shannon] I would get letters from people saying, "I saw this story in a book at school. You didn't make it up. The Goose Girl's a real story."
[Dan] You cheated.
[Shannon] "This is plagiarism." I'm like, "Oh, no."
 
[Brandon] So, looking at some of the collaborations I've been involved in, a lot of mine lately have been I write a book and someone writes a screenplay of it, which is a collaboration, but a different style of collaboration.
[Shannon] Yeah. You're not in the same room.
[Brandon] I've noticed that sometimes this turns into a process that makes the story much worse.
[Laughter]
[Brandon] Let's just say that.
[Dan] None of his screenwriters listen to our show.
[Brandon] One time…
[Mary Robinette] [garbled with him]
[Brandon] One time, I got back a screenplay, and every aspect of my story was better in a way that made me embarrassed.
[Oooo…]
[Brandon] At every turn, they took the better option that I hadn't considered, and just leveled up the entire story to an amount where I was really excited, but also kind of embarrassed. Right? It was like, "Oh, man. They just…"
[Dan] That's awesome.
[Brandon] So, I got to see it work, finally, right? Because that's what's supposed to happen in collaboration is that the things that you both bring to the table, you enhance each other's abilities, you make up for one another's maybe weaker areas in writing, you get something better than you could have done alone. This has happened to me in writing with Mary Robinette where we did a story together. But only once in screenplays. So I guess my question is how do you make sure it goes that direction instead of the other direction? Dan actually raised his hand on this one.
 
[Dan] Well, I was just going to say that you and I just did a convention last week, and we've collaborated on a novel. It's still unpublished, and we did a reading from it. Which was the first time that either of us had really heard it out loud. It was astonishing to me, first of all, how well it worked, but second, how I couldn't tell what was mine and what was yours.
[Brandon] Right. I…
[Shannon] I thought that's what…
[Brandon] You doing a reading of that chapter made me think, "That book's way better than I remember it being."
[Laughter]
[Brandon] It's gotta be Dan's influence. But I can't figure out what was Dan's influence. It made me really excited about… I have to dig into it and fix part of it, but… Yeah. So. Collaboration can be energizing and it can be exciting, and when I got the screenplay back, I'm like, "Wow." Again, how do we make sure that collaborations go that way?
[Shannon] You have to check your ego, first of all.
[Dean] That's true. Definitely.
[Shannon] You can't be remembering this was my piece and this was your piece and you can't touch my peace. I just don't think it works that way.
[Dean] Yeah. Well, you can't be precious about anything. Like, I'll think, "Oh, I've got this awesome idea, and I still believe it's awesome." But you're like, "It just doesn't fit for the story." I have to be like, "Yeah. All right."
[Shannon] He'll send me pages and then I will see the heart of what he's trying to go for and I will delete 75% of it…
[Dean] She's the screenwriter in this case.
[Shannon] And then add a few more sentences. He'll get it back and go, "This is exactly what I was trying to do."
[Dean] It's so awesome. I'll be like… I'll feel like it's my work, but suddenly, like, better.
[Laughter]
[Dean] That's, I guess, what it is. But…
[Shannon] But I would say collaboration takes longer than doing it by yourself. So you don't… I think people often think, "Oh, there's two people, so you only have to work half the time." But it actually takes more work. So the benefit of it, as you were saying, Brandon, is that synergy that comes from two different people and you're wrestling out something together.
[Dean] You get more edit passes, because I go through and see what you've done, and then you go through and undo whatever I've done, and I go through and try to redo it.
[Shannon] I have a couple friends who collaborate and they said never they get to the point where they can't… They often agree, but if they each have an idea of what should happen and they can't agree, then they have committed to throw out both of those ideas and come up with a third option. But we actually don't really get there. We…
[Dean] No, I back off way too early.
[Shannon] We pitch to each other a lot, and, like, and really try to explain why we want to go that particular way. But often, in the process… What's great about collaboration, too, is that you're forced to explain…
[Dean] Why this is awesome.
[Shannon] This is what… Why this should happen, and sometimes when you're explaining, you realize…
[Dean] Ooooo...
[Shannon] Actually, it's not that great. But sometimes when you're explaining, you realize, "Oh, it is that great, and in fact…
[Dean] Even better…
[Shannon] Even talking about it is giving me more ideas about a way to expand it." So it is… It's a totally different kind of writing. I don't think it would… I actually really enjoy writing novels on my own, as well, so I don't think it's the only thing I need to do. But for certain books, I'm always like, "Oh, this would be better if I do it with Dean."
[Dean] Well, I love having an early reader. Like, sometimes when I feel like I can't… I feel like I don't know where to go, like what tack to take, I know that I can write for you. So I will insert a joke in there that I know is not going to be in the final one.
[Shannon] And I'm like, "Ha ha, that's funny."
[Dean] It's a gift for you.
[Shannon] Delete, delete, delete.
[Dean] I need to give you something to do.
[Chuckles]
 
[Brandon] Well, we are out of time for this podcast. We want to thank Shannon and Dean who have been here to record some awesome episodes with us. We're going to leave with Dean giving us some homework.
[Dean] All right. So this is a thing that I do with my kids. I collaborate with my children, and with my wife. That was named Picture Word by one of my kids, I'm not sure which one. What we do is we just get a single piece of paper, and we fold it into four so that we've got four separate like pages. We sit down and we draw pictures on each page. We're telling a story. It's like a picture book or a graphic novel. But you only draw the pictures. Then you pass it to the next person. They, sight unseen, draw… Or write the words that are supposed to go with that picture. Or you flip it. Or you start down and you write… You write the title, The Egg. You don't put any pictures on the next page. The Egg had something in it. Then whoever it is, the kid who's next, draws the picture that is related to that. You end up getting a story that neither one of you really thought was going to happen.
[Brandon] That's awesome. This has been Writing Excuses, you're out of excuses, now go write.
 
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