6 Tips from The Help on Using Multiple Points of View

Cover of The Help

Point of view: one of the most useful tools at the writer’s disposal, but also one of the most challenging.

Point of view—or POV—refers to the device of telling a story through a particular character’s eyes: getting inside his head and relating everything he sees, hears, feels, and experiences. Conversely, anything the character does not experience first hand should not be in the story, unless he hears or reads about it from another source.

POV can be challenging to master because our stories often contain information or events no single character experiences or is privy to. That’s why it’s alluring for writers to use multiple POVs, shifting the narration back and forth between different characters.

However, multiple POVs contain special challenges. They can jar readers and make your story difficult to manage.

So before you shift your narration from Molly to Jim to Don to Molly’s dog Pepper, take some tips from Kathryn Stockett’s excellent novel The Help to determine, first, if POV shifts are really necessary, and, second, how to go about managing them.

Whose Head are We In—and Why?

The Help is narrated by three women living in Mississippi in 1962—two black maids, Aibileen and Minny, and a white woman, Skeeter, who aspires to be a journalist. Their very different lives intertwine and come face-to-face with the injustice of segregation. But why was it necessary to tell the story from three different characters’ POVs?

Early in the novel, Aibileen’s employer, Elizabeth, builds her a toilet—an expensive and demeaning reminder that Aibileen is not considered worthy of using a white person’s toilet. Aibileen risks losing her job if she expresses how she feels, so she can only relate her feelings to her friend, Minny, a brash, outspoken woman who has her own employment issues. Meanwhile, Skeeter has just returned from college to find the black maid who raised her has mysteriously been fired by Skeeter’s clueless mother. 

Stockett’s evident purpose is to shed light on the unfairness of segregation and how it demeans both blacks and whites. She could probably have accomplished this by using a single character’s POV, but the shifting viewpoints add richness to the story. They enable us to experience segregation first hand through both black and white perspectives.

Likewise, Minny’s experiences are similar to Aibileen’s, but her personality and ways of coping with matters are entirely different. Thus, we get a fuller sense of the world in which these women live. Minny's working relationship with Celia, for example, adds a lot of humor that is missing from Aibileen's bitter and distant relationship with her boss.

To determine if your story warrants multiple POVs, ask yourself what they would contribute to the story. If you can't think of a single, specific advantage to using multiple POVs, don't.

6 Tips for Managing POV Shifts

If you’ve decided your story warrants multiple POVs, you can take another tip from The Help—or, rather, six more tips on keeping things straight and moving the story forward:

1. Limit your number of POV characters.  The Help introduces us to several other vivid characters—Skeeter’s friends, social climber Elizabeth and overt racist Hilly; Skeeter’s nagging mother; Minny’s bizarrely unhappy boss, Celia—but the narration is confined to Aibileen, Minny, and Skeeter.

Limiting the number of POV characters keeps the story manageable, and also gives the reader a somewhat predictable structure. We know we’re going to get to each of the three characters eventually, and we’re not thrown for a loop, as we would be if another character’s POV were inserted. Rather, we get used to these characters as if they were old friends, taking turns chatting with us over lunch.

2. Introduce all of your POV characters early on. Although the first two chapters of The Help are told from Aibileen’s POV, Skeeter and Minny are both present. Skeeter attends lunch at Elizabeth’s house and is served by Aibileen, who then rides the bus home with Minny. We get to know the other two characters through Aibileen’s eyes before we jump into their heads. When a POV shift occurs, it’s like being dropped off at a friend’s house for awhile.

3. Shift POVs at chapter breaks. Writers sometimes make the mistake of shifting POVs in the middle of chapters or, worse, in the middle of scenes. But that’s like riding on a toy train that suddenly turns into a roller coaster: it can throw the reader right out of the story.

Chapter breaks, on the other hand, are ideal spots for POV shifts. The reader is aware that this part of the journey is over and a new part of the journey is about to begin.

4. Avoid predictable POV shifts. Another mistake writers make is thinking they have to always follow the same pattern in POV shifts. Thus, Character A narrates Chapter 1, Character B narrates Chapter 2, Character C narrates Chapter 3, and we’re back to Character A for Chapter 4. Booooring!

Stockett does something more organic. She tells the first two chapters through Aibileen’s eyes, Chapters 3 and 4 through Minny’s, and Chapters 5 and 6 through Skeeter’s. Then she shifts back to Aibileen for Chapter 7, then to Skeeter for Chapter’s 8 and 9. Minny does not return as a POV character until Chapter 10.

Nor are the chapters of the same length. Stockett often spends more time with one character than another, keeping the story fresh and unpredictable.

5. Use cliffhangers. Another advantage to using multiple POVs is that you can leave a character hanging for awhile. One chapter of The Help ends with Minny hiding on the toilet of a white woman—a definite no-no in the segregated South. Will she get caught? What then?

Stockett keeps us in suspense for a long time as she shifts back to the other two characters, and when she finally reveals Minny’s fate, we feel both relief and a sense of injustice that she had to hide at all.

6. Show the same events through different characters’ eyes.  Probably the most important advantage of POV shifts is what’s known as the Rashomon effect—showing the same event through the subjective perceptions of different characters.

When Aibileen arrives home in the poor, "colored" section of town to find a Cadillac parked in front of her house and a white woman (Skeeter) sitting on her stoop out in the open, wanting to talk to her, her reaction is very different than the naïve Skeeter expects.

Getting to see this encounter through both of their eyes provides us with a revealing glimpse into the cultural expectations imposed by segregation without portraying either character in a bad light. Instead, we sympathize with them and understand that both are victims of a racist system.

POV shifts can be fun and add depth to your story. But the key to using them is 1) make sure your story warrants being told from multiple viewpoints, and 2) manage POV shifts in such a way that they move the story forward and keep readers enthralled.

Related articles

• How Many POVs is Too Many? (worddreams.wordpress.com)
• The Help by Kathryn Stockett (jillianreadsbooks2.wordpress.com)
• Separating POV Character and Protagonist (storytreasury.wordpress.com)

Are You Throwing the Reader Out of Your Story? Avoid Unnecessary Homages

Image via Wikipedia

So, I’m wrapped up in the latest superhero novel. The storyline is exciting, the characters are engaging, the action propels me along. It’s a real page turner. Then my enjoyment comes to a screeching halt when the action shifts to a fictional country called “Lieberstan”.

Lieberstan? Sounds familiar.

Wait – wasn't Stanley Martin Lieber the real name of Marvel Comics head honcho Stan Lee? Stan Lieber . . . Lieberstan.

Ah, I get it.

Unfortunately, I “get it” every time the country is mentioned – which, since a major turning point in the story occurs there, is quite often. I can’t help thinking of the wisecracking huckster persona of Mr. Lee, who has been so successful in promoting himself as well as the Marvel heroes he helped create that he’s practically a self parody.

As a result, every mention of “Lieberstan” throws me out of the story.

Homages – references to stories or creators which influenced the writer – can be fun. They provide an indirect way for the writer to acknowledge such influences. They also provide fans with the fun of searching for “Easter eggs” and with a feeling of being “in the know”. If you get the reference, you can call yourself a true fan.

But the wrong kind of homage creates an unnecessary association or image in the reader’s mind. Such an image can throw the reader out of the story like a horse which has suddenly decided to buck its rider.

Comic book artists, for example, often draw covers that evoke famous covers of the past, such as that of Fantastic Four # 1. But such covers are meant to make the reader think of the source, either as a parody or because the artist wants to capture some essence or feeling associated with Fantastic Four # 1. Any artist who draws a picture of heroes gathering around to fight a giant monster emerging from the ground and doesn’t expect readers to think of FF # 1 is fooling himself.

Sometimes an homage can mean the writer is merely trying to be clever. I fell prey to this vice myself: In grad school, I wrote a film script that included an investigative reporter named Jack Gittes. My professor immediately caught the reference to Jake Gittes, Jack Nicholson’s character in Chinatown, and chided me for it. Why on earth, the professor asked, did I want viewers to think of Chinatown in a film about a rock ‘n’ roll band?

Sometimes the writer draws so closely from source material that an homage can be unintentional. I fell prey to this vice, too. In previous drafts of The Power Club™, my club of super-powered kids elected a new leader every month. Why? Because one of my sources of inspiration, the Legion of Super-Heroes, elected a new leader every year.

A member of my writing group pointed out, however, that electing a new leader every month seemed artificial. I agreed, so I changed it.

What purpose is served by calling a fictional country “Lieberstan”? None, as far as I can tell. The writer may have intended for the reader to think of Marvel's epic super-battles. But this association destroys the uniqueness and seriousness of the writer’s own world.  As a reader, I don’t need to associate his world with Marvel to enjoy it. In fact, the name undermines suspension of disbelief by drawing attention to the fact that this is a made-up country in a made-up story. 

Homages can be fun, but, if you use one, make sure you have a good reason for wanting the reader to associate your story with its source of inspiration.

What do you think?  Do you have unnecessary homages in your story?

7 Things I Have Learned About Revision

Last month, I completed the first draft of my novel-in-progress, The Power Club™.  I have spent the last three weeks revising it, and I figure I’m about two-thirds of the way through.  Here’s what this process has taught me:

1. Write every day.

Writing every day builds momentum.  It keeps you from starting, stopping, starting, stopping . . . a process of cold starts that is bound to kill creativity. 

2. Keep a regular schedule.

A blog post I read recently said that you can become a professional writer by writing for three hours a day.  I decided to test this theory by revising for three hours a day.  This means that for most of that time (see below), my butt is planted firmly in my chair, my computer is on, and the latest chapter is up.  If I’m not actively working the keys, I’m either re-reading what I’ve written or reading comments from my critique groups.  I AM NOT doing the laundry, fixing lunch, checking email or engaging in other time wasters that kill writing.

3. Write at the same time every day.

I haven’t always kept the same schedule, but most days I’ve started writing at 10 a.m. and finished at 1 p.m.  Sometimes, I’ve begun early (and finished a corresponding amount of time early); once I began and finished an hour late.  But writing at the same time every day forces a mental discipline on me: that time is set aside for writing and nothing else.

4.  Use an egg-timer to take scheduled breaks.

I’ve discovered that, after 45 minutes of continuous writing, I begin to revise the same sentence or passage over and over.  Having a consistent break time means I don’t have the luxury of niggling.  When that egg-timer goes off, I stop typing for ten or fifteen minutes.  THEN I get to fix lunch.

5.  Revising is not drafting.

You’ve already written a rough draft to get your ideas down on paper.  Now it’s time to look at it again and see how it hangs together.  Revising may very well mean that you will be rewriting huge chunks, as well as adding and deleting material.  But it could also mean that you got certain passages right the first time.  In other words, resist the urge to rewrite EVERYTHING.

6. Treat writing as a job

. . . which it is, even if you’re not being paid to do it (yet). 

7.  Keep track of your progress.

Keeping track of your word count or page count can actually encourage you to keep going as you see how much you’ve already accomplished.  I’ve revised an average of six or seven pages per day, which does not sound like a lot, but, over three weeks it’s built up to about 135 pages or 30,000 words.

The process I’ve described above may or may not work for you.  I’m not even sure it works for me.  As I become more proficient at novel writing, I may spend more hours revising.  (And, if you don’t have other considerations such as a regular job, a family, or a life, you may want to work even longer.)  But for right now it works for me, and I’m pleased with how my novel reads.

You’ll figure out the revising regimen than works for you.  The important thing is to begin and don’t stop until you’ve finished.

What is your revising regimen?

What's Your Story Really About?

Image via Microsoft Office

What is your story really about, anyway?

This question can scare writers, particularly if we’ve finished a draft and we’re still not sure what we’re trying to say.  While there are many reasons why a story does not feel complete to us, one common problem stems from the writer's difficulty with two very risky but fundamental aspects of writing: self-discovery and self-disclosure.

Writing as Self-Discovery

Every time a writer puts fingers to keypad, she reveals part of her soul, her mind, what makes her tick.  This can be scary since most human beings don’t really have a clue what makes us tick and discovering truths about ourselves can make us uncomfortable.  

Sometimes, we’re not ready to address aspects of our own lives, so it’s hard to get our characters to do the same.

Yet self-discovery is one of most valuable reasons to write.  If we can illuminate ourselves as well as our readers, then we've more than done our job. 

Writing as Self-Disclosure

Most writers resist revealing too much about ourselves even to our closest friends, let alone to strangers who may read our work. However, even if the story is pure fiction, it can say a lot about you, what you think, and how you see the world. 

Yet self-disclosure is often what makes stories memorable.  Stories connect with readers when they touch on universal human experiences – those that show us how, despite our individual foibles and quirks, we’re not so different from each other after all.

 

While it’s good not to disclose too much of yourself to the reader, all writers should be willing to afford readers at least a pinprick glimpse into their souls.  If you are afraid of self-disclosure, you may be preventing your story from revealing the truths it needs to address.

Embracing the Journey

Here are five suggestions to help you on the journey of self-discovery and self-disclosure:

1. Don't begin your story with a “Big Idea.”

Most ideas have been done before anyway.  Instead, begin with some deep-seated need, question, or desire of yours.  Something unresolved from your past is always a good starting point, but it doesn’t have to be a traumatic event.  Write down ten things you remember from your childhood, for example, then pick one or two and play “what if?”

2. Let your story begin with you but take on a life of its own.

Writing fiction is different from writing biography.  You don’t have to be accurate.  You can let your imagination wander into the territory of Might Have Been.

3. Be willing to expose part of yourself to the reader.

Get your mind out of the gutter.  I don’t mean "expose" in that way.  Be willing to be vulnerable, to be taken as silly, or even to embarrass yourself.  Honesty wins over readers more than feigned super-competence.

4. Weigh the risks.

What is to be gained by revealing yourself?  What will you truly lose if reader thinks you’re nuts?  Chances are, you won’t lose anything but you’ll gain devoted followers.

5. Find a role model.

I often find my role models in fields outside of writing.  In his book, Flowers in the Dustbin, for example, James Miller describes how The Beatles refused to release a surefire hit, “How Do You Do It?” as their first single, preferring instead to be known for their own songs.  This was a gutsy decision for four lads from the sticks (e.g., Liverpool) who had just signed a recording contract – a decision that could have backfired and sent them back to the sticks with nothing.  Indeed, when their first single, “Love Me Do,” reached only # 17 in the UK charts, it looked as if they should have listened to their experienced elders.

But The Beatles’ gambit paid off when their second single, “Please Please Me,” topped the UK charts and set them on the course of reinventing music history – all because four English lads weren’t afraid to look foolish.

Determining what your story is about can be daunting, but give yourself the fearless courage to embrace both self-discovery and self-disclosure.  Only then can you determine what the truth is that both you and your readers need to know.

What do you think?  How do you know when your story has revealed itself to you?

Does Your Reader Really Need to Know This?

Image via Microsoft Office

As writers, we are often bursting with ideas we want to share with readers.  If you have a particular specialty or skill, or you find ancient history fascinating, you might be tempted to tell the reader everything you know about the subject. Even if you’re writing a story drawn from your own personal experiences, there’s a temptation to put in every detail, whether it advances the story or not.

And, on the surface, there’s nothing wrong with educating the reader as well as entertaining her.

But before you launch into your dissertation on the proper way to load a hunting rifle, ask yourself one very important question: Is it necessary?

Just because the information is fascinating to you does not mean it will be fascinating to your reader.  And information that does not advance the story in some way is dead weight, dragging the story down and giving the reader an excuse to nod off.

Back in the ‘90s, when I was in grad school, I wrote a screenplay about a rock band that had been around since the ‘60s.  I took as inspiration bands like Jefferson Airplane/Starship and Fleetwood Mac—groups whose real-life stories make fascinating soap operas.  I fictionalized a lot of things, of course, but my story had all the elements of classic rock groups: band members coming and going, romantic entanglements, drug overdoses, clashes between people who had once been friends and were now enemies.  A surefire formula for success, I thought.

But, after reading several scenes, my professor told me the only people who would care would be fans of this particular group.

The group, of course, did not exist—except in my head.

The lesson I learned was to read my own story as a reader—someone who knows nothing about the subject matter and has no reason to care, a reader who is interested in the story and not in the minutiae.

This is not to say that all information is extraneous.  Sometimes, the reader needs a detailed background to fully understand the context of the story or the actions of the characters.  Lavinia, by Ursula K. Le Guin, is loaded with details of pre-Roman culture, spiritual beliefs, and politics, all of which are necessary to understand the setting, character motivations, and events of the story.

How do you know if the reader really needs to know this information?  Here are five questions and suggestions:

1.  Would your main character(s) know or care about it?  

The reader is always with your character, caring about what happens to him and following him along this course of adventure.  Therefore, if the character isn't likely to know or care about events that happened before his birth, neither will the reader.  Unless your main character is a scholar who just happens to know this stuff, let him discover it instead of telling it to the reader.

2. Is the information relevant to what’s at stake for your main character? 

An unoccupied, creepy room may make your character feel scared, but unless something happens in that room, it does not need to be in the story.

3.  Are you able to sustain tension while giving the reader this information?

In The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown has another character give his two main characters, Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu, a lot of historical and rumored information.  But while all this is going on, we never lose sight of the fact that the French police are chasing Langdon because they suspect him of murdering Sophie’s grandfather!

4. Does the information move the story forward?

If your main character cannot proceed to the next step in the story without the information, then, rest assured, it’s vital.

5. Can you show the information instead of telling it?
 
Many writers struggle with the concept of showing versus telling.  Sometimes this is because we’re anxious to get to the “meat” of the story, so we gloss over scenes or ideas we deem to be less important.  But readers do not experience the story the same way you did while you wrote it.  They only know what’s important by what you choose to focus on, and they will remember vivid details and actions better than a summary of information.  Therefore, if the information is vital to the story, find a way to dramatize it.

As fun as it is to write about information we’ve learned or that is personally relevant to us, remember that we are not writing strictly for ourselves.  Always keep a reader in mind and ask yourself, does she really need to know this information?  If not, get rid of it.

What do you think?  How do you determine whether or not information is necessary to your story?

 

What Star Trek Can Teach You (Not to Do) About Keeping Your Characters Consistent

Image via Microsoft Office

Spoiler warning: The following post discusses plot elements of the films Star Trek III, V, and VI.  Read at your own risk.

Last week, I discussed Mark Twain’s advice that characters in a story should behave like real people.  I thought I’d said everything I had to say on the topic and was ready to move on.

Then I watched a marathon of Star Trek movies on the Syfy Channel.

I’m a Star Trek fan from way back.  Like most fans, I was thrilled when the original cast reunited for six feature films from 1979 to 1991.  And, like a lot of fans, I was willing to overlook certain flaws in the writing of these films.

But time has made me wiser, or at least pickier.  Although these movies are still enjoyable and feature all of the elements that made Star Trek the enduring franchise it still is, I couldn’t help but notice the inconsistency in the portrayal of ST’s iconic hero, Captain James T. Kirk, in the fifth and sixth films.

For some reason, Syfy aired the films out of sequence.  I came in during the middle of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (released in 1986 and perhaps best known to non-fans as the movie with the whales).  Then came Star Trek IV: The Undiscovered Country (1991; the last film to feature the original crew of the USS Enterprise) and, finally, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989; known derisively by some fans as Star Trek V: In Search of God).   I can only guess that someone in programming was not paying close attention and took the title of the fifth film literally, assuming it to be the last movie with the original cast.

In any case, showing the films out of order made the inconsistencies in Kirk’s character stand out like a Democrat at a Tea Party rally.

The Only Good Klingon . . . 

Some background information:  In the third film, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Kirk’s grown son, Dr. David Marcus, is murdered by a Klingon—a member of the warlike race that served as the original TV series’ primary antagonists.  In Star Trek VI, however, a Klingon moon has just exploded, threatening the Klingons with extinction unless they sue for peace.  Kirk and the Enterprise are assigned to escort the Klingon chancellor and his delegation to a peace conference.

This poses a significant problem for Kirk, who is so angry over the death of his son that he blames all Klingons, calling them animals and shouting to his first officer and best friend, Spock (who supports helping the Klingons), “Let them die!”

Kirk’s animosity, though deplorable, is understandable and very human.  It also gives him a starting point to grow from as a character.  This is all well and good—except that such attitudes are totally absent from the previous film.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I'll grant that Kirk has minimal interaction with Klingons during ST V (and none at all in ST IV; hence its exclusion from this discussion) ; however, Klingons are present in the fifth film, and the only time he expresses any sort of emotional reaction toward them is when he thinks he’s about to be blasted by their battle cruiser.

Furthermore, once hostilities have ceased, Kirk and crew welcome the Klingons aboard the Enterprise for a celebration.  There is no mention of David Marcus’s death or Kirk’s embittered feelings.   However, when Kirk invites the Klingon delegation aboard the Enterprise for dinner in the sixth film, he does so with reluctance and palpable hostility.

(His inconsistent attitudes, by the way, are mirrored by some members of his crew.  Watch how Chekov and Sulu follow a female Klingon warrior around in ST V.  Then listen to Chekov utter the infamous, bigotted line, "Guess who's coming to dinner" in ST VI).   

All in all, the fifth film ends with the crew of the Enterprise exhibiting a cordial if wary attitude toward Klingons.  This cordiality all but vanishes in the sixth film.

Why Inconsistent?  Because the Plot Demands It. 

So, how was Kirk able to put his feelings aside in Star Trek V but not in Star Trek VI?

The answer, of course, is that movies are self-contained universes even when they are part of a series.  The filmmakers of ST V chose to focus on the story at hand and not bring in extraneous bits of continuity from past Star Trek films. 

Most of us, however, don't have the luxury of feature films with a built-in audience that may "forgive" us for such transgressions.  Inconsistent characters can throw readers right out of the story.

What do you think?  Do your characters behave consistently?

Mark Twain Rule No. 2: Each Part of a Story Should Be Necessary

Image via Free-Stock-Photos.com

More writing advice from Mark Twain's seminal critique, "Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses":

 . . . the episodes in a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale and shall help develop it.

As with Rule No. 1, this rule sounds obvious, yet many writers violate it.  One reason is because much of popular entertainment—comics, TV shows, some films—consists of ongoing serials in which plot lines lead to tangents or unresolved conflicts or characters who contribute nothing to the overall story.  I was never a fan of Lost, but when I listen to friends discuss the series, it seems to typify this approach: Make it up as you go along and keep the audience coming back for more.

The problem is, the audience feels cheated if the story doesn’t actually lead somewhere or if the various episodes of the story contribute nothing to its advancement.  

Fans who feel cheated either abandon the series or take out their wrath by blasting the story (and the writer) on message boards!

It Doesn’t Matter How Cute It Is.  Does It Fit?

One of the challenges writers face is that we often don’t know at first how a scene advances the story.  We write character bits that we think are cute, insightful, or funny.  We introduce an ominous character who we’re certain will become a major antagonist later on.  Or we bust a gut to write a difficult scene, so we want to keep it.  And we delude ourselves into thinking that because the scene is cute or insightful or funny or because the character is ominous or because we’ve busted our gut the reader will forgive us if it doesn’t exactly go anywhere.

But extraneous scenes or characters can slow a story down, derail the plot, and leave even the most faithful readers scratching their heads.

Beware Elves with Guns

Back in the 1970s, writer Steve Gerber introduced a subplot into the Marvel Comics series, The Defenders.  Known notoriously as “the elf with a gun” subplot, it involved—over the course of several issues—an elf ambushing ordinary people and murdering them.  Gerber apparently meant for this subplot to build into a confrontation between the elf and the titular heroes of the book, but it never happened.  He departed the series, and it was left to his successor, David Anthony Kraft, to (humorously) dispose of the elf—who never even met the Defenders!

(And, yes, I know that several years later, the elf storyline was revisited by a different writer and resolved.  Let’s just say that some things—even dangling subplots—are best left alone.)

Most of us don’t have to worry about leaving a series before we get a chance to develop our subplots.  Our characters begin and end with us.  Still, writers sometimes write a scene that seemed necessary at the time.  Only later, when we revise the story or when our critiquing groups read it (or, heaven forbid, when our audience reads it) does the scene lay there like a puppy that's forgotten how to perform a trick.

Building a House of Cards

How do you know if a scene isn’t advancing the story?  

If you find yourself repeating information, or if the characters are doing the same thing they did in an earlier scene, it's usually a tale-tell sign that the scene is going nowhere.  (There's an exception: Sometimes you want the characters to repeat the same actions to show that they are in a rut.)

Writing a story is like building a house of cards.  Take out one card and the entire house falls apart.  If you can take out a scene without hindering the story's progress, leave it out.

What do you think?  Have you ever written a scene that went nowhere?

“A Tale Shall Accomplish Something”: Writing Advice from Mark Twain

Image via Free Stock Photos

How do you know if you’ve actually written a story? How do you know if your story is, in fact, a story and not a vignette, a scene, or something else?


Mark Twain was answering these same questions nearly 120 years ago. In a scathing critique entitled “Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses,” Twain took to task a popular author who violated 18 rules that govern good story telling. You can read the entire list at the link, but today we’ll concern ourselves with Rule # 1:

. . . a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere.

It sounds simple, yet it's easy to violate this rule. Writers often complete stories that arrive nowhere or accomplish nothing. The situation established at the beginning of the story remains unchanged, and so does the main character.

This happens because the writer fails to consider one simple but all-important question: What has changed for the character as a result of the story?

The Illusion of Change

It’s easy to understand how writers violate this rule. As human beings, we have a built-in resistance to change. Change is scary. It’s often hard. It forces us to step into the unknown. And because we hate taking those steps, we resist the notion of making our characters take them as well.

Popular genres sometimes reinforce the notion that the “illusion of change” is an acceptable substitute for the real deal. In comics, Spider-Man can change his costume—but the new costume turns out to be an alien symbiote and, before long, Spidey is back in his red-and-blue longjohns. In the various Star Trek series, characters get promoted—which means they add an extra collar pip and sometimes take on a new position aboard the ship or space station—but these changes are cosmetic. They do not alter the character, his relationships, or his role on the show.

Instead, what passes for "accomplishing something" in most genre fiction is that the good guys win. After a long, harrowing struggle, they defeat the bad guys and all is right with the universe.

And that’s okay to a point. However, a story becomes predictable if it ends exactly where the reader thinks it should.

Changes that Stay with the Reader

So, what did Twain mean? How do you know if your story has accomplished something or arrived somewhere?

Twain provides a sterling example in his own novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Throughout the book, Huck shares adventures with a runaway slave, Jim. Even though Jim becomes Huck’s friend, mentor, and ally, Huck—raised to believe that slavery is justified by the Bible—continues to see Jim as property of his owner, Miss Watson. However, when Jim is recaptured, Huck and his friend, Tom Sawyer, scheme to free him—even though doing so means not only violating the law but that Huck will “go to hell.”

Huck’s change in attitude shows us that the tale has indeed “accomplished something” and “arrived somewhere.” Would Huck have made the same choice at the beginning of the novel? Probably not—hence the need for going through all those adventures with Jim.

Huck undergoes this change without altering his clothes or saving the world. Nor does he have to become a completely different character.  Deep, personal changes such as this make a story worthwhile and resonate with readers.

What do you think? How does your character change?

Banishing Writer's Block: 7 Tips to Get Unstuck

Image via Microsoft Office

What Marvel Comics used to call the "Dreaded Deadline Doom" has descended upon me. It's Friday morning, and I'm bereft of content (which sounds I need a high-fiber diet or something).

I could blame it on having to grade 26 freshman comp papers (plus 14 more to go) this week, on having to make other deadlines for writing groups, or on general summer lethargy, but I won't. Instead, I'll direct you to one of my "greatest hits".

This article originally appeared at Banishing Writer's Block: Tips on How to Get Unstuck | Suite101.com http://www.suite101.com/content/banishing-writers-block-a130575#ixzz1PY4jyOLJ.

Writer's block can come on suddenly or slowly, and it's never pretty. Yet writers can get unstuck by following a few simple and daring steps.

A writer sails through her story. She has a clever idea, an exciting build-up, and a character who is going to set the world on fire. Then, midway through the first draft she realizes something: She has no idea what happens next.

She scurries back to her outline and reads what she had planned to happen. It sounded good when she wrote it, but now it reads like a kindergartener's plot! What was she thinking? Who told her that she could write in the first place? Maybe she should just throw it all out and start over. Maybe she should just throw it out, period.

If you find yourself assaulted by such thoughts, first realize that you are not alone. All writers have to deal with writer’s block sooner or later. Writer’s block—that feeling of suddenly reaching a dead end in the middle of your story—usually comes when the writer has expectations of himself that are too high, or expectations of the story that are not well thought out. Sometimes it comes from fear—the fear that one misstep will send the story plunging into a creative abyss.

If you find yourself getting stuck, here are a few suggestions to help stay the course: 

 

Take a Short Break

1. Go for a walk. Getting fresh air and physical exercise helps me feel better and makes it easier to tackle a writring problem with gusto.

2. Put the project aside for a few days. Getting away from the project can yield a fresh perspective on it. The only catch is that you have to come back to the project at some point. Having a "resume date" can make sure that the project isn't shelved indefinitely.

3. Discuss the problem with other writers. Sometimes, talking the problem out will help you arrive at a solution, and the perspective of other writers can provide a new slant on the story. One word of caution: Other writers may try to solve your problem for you or offer solutions based on how they would write the story. This is well and good, but understand that you are not asking fellow professionals for advice. You are merely using them as a sounding board (which may sound mercenary, but it's not. We all need a sounding board from time to time. They're usually called friends). When unsolicited advice is offered, listen politely but reserve all creative decisions for yourself.

Use Short, Crappy Writing (On Purpose)

4. Break the problem down into smaller problems. Writer Anne Lamott said that a writer needs two things to begin, one of which is a short first assignment. You can shorten your task by breaking the story down into acts and then into scenes. Focus on what must happen in each scene and how each scene contributes to the overall story. (Hint: If a scene can be removed without damaging the overall story, it should be removed.) You can do the same with your characters. Ask yourself how each character contributes to the overall story. (Hint: If a character doesn't make a significant contribution . . . well, astute writers can guess the rest.)

5. Write a crappy draft. The other thing a writer needs, according to Lamott, is a crappy first draft. (Well, she didn’t write “crappy," but this is an all-ages website.) This will be a draft that no one will see but you, and nothing is set in stone until the final draft is written (and sometimes not even then). Giving yourself permission to write badly liberates you from the fear of failure.

6. Skip the troubling section and come back to it later. Who says that every scene has to be written in sequence? Films are not shot in sequence. Comics artists often draw later parts of a script first. Writers can do the same.

7. Kill the main character! Again, nothing is set in stone. But by doing the unexpected, you can make the story exciting for yourself again. Back in the 1980s, DC's Suicide Squad comic book suddenly became much more interesting when central character Rick Flagg was killed off and replaced by secondary character Amanda Waller.

Whatever the cause, writer's block can be an opportunity to examine your story in greater depth, decide what is really important to it, and weed out the deadwood.

Above all, don't give up.

How do you deal with writer's block?

Source:
Lamott, Ann. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. New York: Pantheon, 1995.

What X-Men: First Class Can Teach You About the Choices Writers Make

[Spoiler Warning: The following post discusses plot elements of the film X-Men: First Class. Go see the film first. Then come back and read this.]

The sheer number of super-hero films this summer is both a blessing and a bane to comics fans.  

It’s gratifying to see long-time favorites such as Thor, Captain America, and Green Lantern finally getting their due in big-budget blockbuster films—a validation of sorts for those of us who had to endure snickering from classmates and co-workers who didn’t understand our obsession and from parents who kept waiting for us to outgrow comics.  

The mainstream, it seems, has finally caught up with us.

But films also provide fans with much to complain about. It almost goes without saying that films change characters and back stories to fit the needs of a different medium and audience, but when a film alters details established in previous films featuring the same characters, it gives fans cause to howl even louder.

Case in point: X-Men: First Class. 

Not only does the film depart substantially from the extensive continuity developed in the X-Men comic books, but it also contradicts story elements established in the first three flims, X-Men (2000), X2 (2003)  and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), as well as the prequel, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009).

Yet fans would be remiss if they regarded such departures as carelessness on the part of the filmmakers or insensitivity toward the characters and/or fans. Rather, analyzing such changes can help us understand the difficult choices all writers have to make.

Changes from the Comic Book Series

X-Men #1, published in 1963, introduced us to a team of five teenaged mutants—Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, and The Beast—led by their wheelchair-bound mentor, a powerful telepath named Charles Xavier (Professor X).  Though shunned because of their powers, they sought to protect humanity from their arch nemesis, an evil mutant called Magneto. All of these characters were featured in the previous films, set in the present day. 

This presented a huge problem when the filmmakers chose to set the new film in 1962, using the backdrop of the Cold War to escalate tensions between humans and mutants. Only three of the above-named characters—Prof. X, The Beast, and Magneto—were depicted in previous films as old enough to have been alive then.

So the filmmakers did the next best thing. They replaced the other original X-Men with two characters (Banshee and Havok) who didn’t join the team until much later in the comics. They also included the shape-shifting Mystique—a villain in the previous films—as an uncertain hero.  

Do these changes work? I think so. Banshee and Havok are relatively minor characters, so the slate is clean for the filmmakers to reinvent them as necessary. Sure, liberties were taken (in the comics, Havok is Cyclops’s younger brother and Banshee is older and speaks with an Irish accent). But these changes allowed the filmmakers to recast them as fun-loving and inexperienced teenagers. Come on—who didn’t laugh when Sean (Banshee) tried to fly for the first time, or when Alex (Havok) turned his destructive power loose in Xavier’s underground bunker? Who didn’t thrill for them when they finally mastered their abilities?

Best of all is the inclusion of Mystique. Outcast because of her bizarre appearance, she grows up living a lie—using her power to present herself as a normal-looking woman even to other mutants. Her journey toward self-acceptance is both heroic and heartbreaking. 

Changes from the Previous X-Men Films

X-Men: The Last Stand established that Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (Magneto) worked together to recruit mutants as late as 1986 (twenty years before the film)—and that Charles could still walk at that time.  (The Wolverine prequel, which I have not seen, is said to corroborate this.) However, X-Men: First Class contradicts both ideas.

I can only imagine that the filmmakers chose to go in their own direction for the benefit of the film. Even casual moviegoers these days know what is meant to happen to both Charles and Erik. Drawing their transformations out over the course of another film (or several films) would have left a hole in X-Men: First Class. The movie would be anticlimactic if it didn’t end with these characters adopting their familiar roles.  

What the filmmakers gave us instead was another heartbreaking moment wherein these two men—who had become friends in spite of enormous differences in personality, background, and worldview—must sever their friendship once and for all. As a viewer, I felt Charles’ anguish when he could not prevent Erik from killing. I also felt Erik’s anguish when he realized that he and Charles do not want the same future for mutants.

No Accents, Please

As mentioned above, Banshee does not speak with an Irish accent. Another character with altered speech patterns is Moira MacTaggert, a Scottish geneticist in the comics who is recast as a CIA agent in the film.

According to IMDb, director Matthew Vaughn told the actors not to use accents in this film, apparently so they would be free to reinterpret the characters instead of being enslaved to the depictions of previous actors (James McAvoy, for example, had planned to use Patrick Stewart’s British accent as Xavier). 

One benefit of this decision is that the film does not have to waste valuable time explaining why an American CIA agent has a Scottish accent.

An argument could be made, I suppose, that the character does not have to be Moira, but, considering the comics analogue’s long, personal relationship with Charles, it would have been disappointing if she had been recast as a completely different character.

Stradling the Line: Canon or No Canon?

Movies work on a much more emotional level than comics. The filmmakers certainly knew this and weighed the pros and cons of following canon against making a movie that delivered the biggest emotional wallop it could. 

X-Men: First Class delivers that wallop, I think. It also stands on its own, whether one has seen the previous films or not—and whether or not any further films are forthcoming. 

The merits of any given change can be debated, but, by straddling the line between following canon (and often reinterpreting it in surprising ways) and ignoring it, the filmmakers did what all writers must do: make difficult choices to serve the needs of the story.

Tell me your opinion. Did X-Men: First Class do a good job of "rebooting" the film franchise?

The First 100 Words: Hook Your Readers Instantly

Image via Microsoft Office

How long do you have to hook a reader into reading your story? One page? One chapter?

Try 100 words.

Hooking readers instantly seems almost de rigueur in today’s world of short attention spans and one-click-away information. However, I first encountered the 100-word rule years ago. Book editors (not article or short story editors, mind you) often decide to pass on a manuscript after the first 100 words. If you can’t sell your book to them in that limited space, the theory goes, you won’t sell it to a paying customer.

To test this theory, I turned to three stories in a literature textbook to see what the authors did with their first hundred words. All of these stories, written long ago, are considered classics. But at one time they were just stories their authors hoped to sell to an editor and, in turn, to a mass audience.   

Here are the first one hundred words of Mark Twain’s novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (the words in brackets continue the sentence after the 100^th word):
 

You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly -- Tom's Aunt Polly, she is -- and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which is mostly [a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before.]

Twain’s use of regional language tells us a lot about our narrator/protagonist: his age, background, setting, and, most tellingly, his personality—he regards everyone he knows as a liar, even the author! Twain's use of voice makes us like Huck immediately and want to learn more about him.

For a very different opening, check out the first 100 words of Ambrose Bierce’s Civil War short story. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek”:
 

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners--two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff.

Unlike Twain’s first-person narration, Bierce tells his story in third person—but we immediately know what’s going on: Our protagonist, a soldier, is about to be hanged.

What makes this opening come alive are the details—the water, the cord, the rope, the cross-timber, etc., are all described vividly so the reader can “see” the action. No emotion is given in the passage, but none needs to be. The setting itself is dramatic enough for the reader to want to see if the man escapes.

Lastly, here are the first 100 words of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall-paper”:

 It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity--but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror [of superstition . . . ]

In 100 words, Gilman tells us who her protagonist is (a married woman) and clues us in on her situation (she’s spending the summer with her husband in an upscale house very different from her usual surroundings). This, in itself, is not out of the ordinary, but notice the narrator's misgivings about the house and how her husband casually dismisses her feelings. The situation is ripe for conflict and danger.

Whether you’re writing a piece of fluff entertainment or the next literary classic, make those first 100 words count.


What happens in your first 100 words?

What I’ve Learned From My Writing Critique Groups

Image via Microsoft Office

Writers groups.  Some authors swear by them, others dismiss them.  Some thank their writing groups for helping to bring about their novels' success.  Others regard such groups as social gatherings for opinionated people who try to rewrite your novel—their way.

I’ve experienced the best and worst of writers groups, and, for me, the pros far outweigh the cons.  At their best, each member of the group responds as if he or she were picking up your novel off the rack—the way a paying customer might respond!   

Valuable input from fellow reader-writers can expose problems in story logic, how your characters come across, and even mundane considerations such as grammar and punctuation—problems that might cause an editor to reject the manuscript you’ve spent years working on or cause the reader to put your book back on the rack.

I’m privileged to belong to two critiquing groups.  The first is a generalist group with writing interests ranging from fantasy to domestic violence, from horror to music.  The second group focuses on children’s literature such as picture books and mid-grade level fiction.  Both groups have given me broad insights into the publishing world of today as well as very specific feedback on what works and what doesn’t in my stories.

Here are some of the valuable pieces of advice or questions I’ve received recently on my novel-in-progress, The Power Club ™:

• Why does a bordered section of town described as only a few acres long have a five-lane street running through it?  (I included the five-lane street so one of my characters could demonstrate his power—by leaping over traffic—but, as my reviewers pointed out, it makes no sense to have heavy traffic in such a small area.)
• The people who live inside this area cannot leave it without government permission, yet the area includes a sporting goods store that sells guns and other hunting equipment.  (I included this scene to show two older kids bonding in a way that excludes my main character, Damon.  I relied on my memories of growing up in northwestern Missouri, where hunting was (and still is) a major preoccupation of adolescent boys.  I need to either find another way for the two kids to bond or explain why hunting equipment is allowed.)
• Slow down the narrative so that readers don’t miss a character with a particularly cool power.  (The Power Club contains numerous kids with super-powers, some of whom are throwaway characters.  However, readers are often intrigued by such characters and want to know more about them.)
• Why is it that some characters develop powers before adolescence?  Don’t they have to be teenagers for their powers to kick in?  (This comment was made by a writing group member whose main familiarity with super-heroes is the X-Men movie franchise.  I hastened to point out that the rules of my world work differently than the rules in the X-films.  However, it’s worth knowing that many of my readers will associate my characters with other familiar characters.)
• How do the physics of super-powers work?  (I’ve pretty much ignored this consideration; to me, nothing destroys the fantastic world of super-heroes quicker than long-winded pseudo-scientific explanations (Treknobabble).  However—as one group member pointed out—if I’ve got a 30-foot-tall character leaping over traffic, there should be shock waves when he lands. )

While writing, it's easy to get caught up in a particular scene or character; after all, my focus in writing the first draft is on what this scene is about  What am I trying to accomplish here?  Therefore, it's easy to overlook "side" issues or to think they do not matter.  But when members of my critiquing groups notice them or think they're important, I know I need to look at the story again. 

Not all critiquing groups work for everyone, and it may take some digging to find one that works for you.  But when you find such a group, be open to every honest reaction you receive.  It’s better to make these discoveries about your story before it finds its way into the hands of an editor or a paying reader.