Let's revisit this idea of dull verbs so that there's no confusion, because this is an important point. Actually, two important points.
Point the First
No word deserves to be permanently excised from a writer's vocabulary.
I don't care if we're talking about an F-bomb or a C-word, a stentorian repetition or a Seussian nonsense word, a fourteen-syllable Latin derivative or a conjugation of to be. All words are good words.
Point the Second
The writer's job is to use the right word.
Mark Twain said it best. "The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." You see, a word can be a good word without being the right word.
Good writing is largely a matter of precision. By placing well-chosen words in a clear and logical order, you are able to communicate -- not just to communicate, but to evoke a response in your reader. You can make them believe in -- not just believe in, but care passionately about constructs of your imagination. You can make them turn the pages of your story not because they plunked down ten bucks at Border's and might as well get their money's worth, but because they would rather lose sleep than wake up in the morning without knowing what happened in the next chapter.
Never forget that your mission is to engage your reader in every word, every line, every paragraph on every page. Be vigilant. Be daring. But whatever you do, don't be dull.
If the core writing is good, I can forgive a writer who tries and fails to do something technically difficult. Much harder to forgive is lazy, sloppy, careless writing. It's always easier to pull a good writer back than to push a weak writer forward.
So that said, let's look at some of the comments to the post on dull verbs.
Ian said,
But...I like "looked!" It's a useful verb! Although I'll admit I'm guilty of overusing it.
That's sort of the point. If you reach for the same verbs over and over again, your prose will start to grow pale. It's possible you might not be fully engaged in the writing process -- that happens even to the best writers. Or perhaps you draft fast, just to get things down on paper, and miss certain key repetitions during revisions. In either case, useful verbs used properly are fine. Useful verbs overused begin to weaken the prose.
Unhinged said,
I have more of a problem using repetitive nouns. Someone caught me using the word unease twice AND using the word uncertainty, just on one page.
Overused nouns can also create problems, but generally not the same kinds of problems as overused verbs. Did you notice, though, that both your argen-fargen U words are abstract nouns? Do you think that's why they drew the objection? (BTW, thanks for giving me my new favorite swear word. Argen-fargen. Love it, and plan to overuse it thoroughly.)
Whirlochre offers a fantastic rule of thumb.
Use utilitarian words to usher in extraordinary detail.
Yes! Exactly! You want your prose emphasis to go to the detail with the biggest "wow" factor. We talked about this a little in the old Redlines column where I rehashed John Gardner's ideas on how to load a sentence. But your rule of thumb tackles that idea from a different angle, and I thank you for sharing it.
The ever-insightful Green Knight points out that these verb weaknesses often signal other problems:
- she saw this, she noticed that, she observed the other. 'She saw her friend walk down the street' is weak on more fronts than one. If we're inside her POV, we know she's doing the observing, so 'xx walked down the street' is good enough. At which point I realise that those words just aren't working very hard and I can convey much more story in the same amount of space: 'xx stumbled along the gutter' is much better.
Those "telling" verbs do shallow out point of view. If you want to stay in a limited-subjective third person, you're wise to clip them out. Ditto for she thought, she felt, she believed and so on.
Dara shares a technique I use, too.
I find it helpful to do a "find" for certain words and make them red.
Sometimes the numbers can be shocking. Here's a rule of thumb I've learned over time. If you search and replace "ing" with a colored text "ing," the number of replacements less about 20% will be roughly the number of present participles in your text. That 20% comes from words like fingers and wings.
Adrian says,
Everyone claims that said as a dialogue tag is "invisible." I disagree. It's a dull, overused verb.
I think both positions are correct: said is invisible, and said is overused. When words are overused, they flatten out and lose any significant impact on the reader. Said has been flattened to such a degree that we can almost see right through it, like overworked pastry dough.
You're better off overusing beats than overusing said. That is, if you have to overuse anything at all.
Bernita says,
When I see an excess of "interesting " verbs I see a writer trying too hard.
Yes, this is the opposite side of the coin. Heads, the verbs are dull and the reader isn't engaged in the story. Tails, the reader is noticing the words instead of the story. Either way, the reader isn't entering into the fictional world.
Dave flags the word muttered for us. I have to agree with that one. People don't mutter in life anywhere near as much as characters mutter in novels. And then he quotes one of my own example sentences back at me, complete with the verb look. Woo hoo! He's been paying attention! (sigh)
The problem with look -- actually, there are multiple problems with look, but we'll focus on the one that exists in both my sample sentence and in a couple posed by Southern Writer:
"It looks like rain," Tex said.
Mae didn't look mad.
She gave me a warning look.
It looks like a great place.
In all four examples, the same basic dynamic occurs: the reader is getting a conclusion instead of a description. Tex doesn't talk about clouds rolling in and wind picking up or whatever evidence he sees of approaching rain. And because he doesn't talk about it, we don't experience it with him. We get only his conclusion.
Sometimes it's a useful shorthand to say, "It looks like a great place." But most of the time, you're better off describing the place (remember the rule of three -- three brushstrokes set a scene) and letting the reader draw the conclusion himself. This creates an engaged reader, one who is always looking for "clues" in the text.
Thanks, everyone, for sharing such wonderful tips and insights.
Theresa
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Bloggus Interruptus
Things have been insanely busy chez nous, which you may have already guessed because of the blog silence. The world blew up on Wednesday, and I've just now caught enough of the falling pieces to start cobbling it back together. Happens sometimes. I'm sure everyone knows what it means to be busy.
I want to respond to some of the comments to the post on dull verbs, but before we do that, I thought I'd post the next Redlines column. This one tackles the same basic idea from a different angle. After we've looked this one over, we'll come back to some ideas and questions about dull verbs.
---------
Last month, we continued examining subject-verb-object dynamics. This month, we’re going to look at other types of tangled constructions, in particular, sentences that don’t put the strongest verb into the best sentence slot. In other words, we’re going to learn a trick to help you organize sentences for power and impact.
Let’s start with a core idea. As we have already seen, simple sentences contain a main subject, verb, and sometimes an object. But not all sentences are simple -- some are compound, complex, or all dressed up with phrases and clauses. Unfortunately, the more pieces you hang onto the basic subject-verb-object spine, the more likely it is that your sentence will lose focus.
One form of lost focus occurs when you have lots of action words -- verbs of any tense or variation -- competing for attention. Generally, verbs do the heavy lifting in a sentence because they literally tell the reader what is happening, where the action is. But not all verbs are active.
Here’s an example:
He was the kind of man who liked to build model airplanes.
In this case, everything that comes before “who” (the relative pronoun) is the main part of the sentence. Everything that comes after “who” is a subordinate clause. The subject-verb-object slots in the main sentence generally will draw a reader’s attention more than the subordinate idea. This is why we say that ideas of greater importance usually go in the main part of the sentence, and ideas of lesser importance (subordinate ideas, get it?) usually follow the relative pronoun.
The sentence contains three action words: was, liked and build. Of these three, one is very weak (was), one is weak (liked), and one is strong (build).
What’s the difference between a weak and a strong verb? Weak verbs describe states of being, emotional states, preferences, and similar intangibles. Conjugations of the verb “to be” are so weak as to be nearly transparent. The reader’s mind interprets “to be” verbs similar to the equal signs in math equations. “He = the kind of man.” It barely registers, which makes it weak.
Strong verbs, by contrast, are ones that describe an activity or a dynamic state. Strong verbs can be simple enough to include in first grade primers (run, walk) or precise enough to describe distinct shades of activity (waddle, toddle).
In our sample sentence, the weakest verb is the main verb of the main clause. This is a powerful slot in the sentence, and is being filled with a nearly invisible word. So, to maximize impact, remove the weak verb from the strong slot.
Thus,
He was the kind of man who liked to build model airplanes.
becomes
He liked to build model airplanes.
Notice that “who” is nowhere to be found in the second sentence. So the edit completely removes the weak main clause, and lets the formerly subordinate idea claim a more important role. If we wanted, we could take it a step further, by letting the dynamic “build” function as the main verb instead of as an infinitive. Remember, dynamic verbs (build) are stronger than verbs of emotion (liked).
In that case,
He liked to build model airplanes.
becomes
He built model airplanes.
There are shades of meaning between these two sentences that might not warrant the change. For example, perhaps the second sentence would be more appropriate if the man’s job was building model airplanes, and the first sentence would apply more to a hobby. So I present this second-level edit of our original sentence mainly as a way of completing the thought, with the caveat that authorial judgment must come into play.
I want to return now to the word “who.” It’s a danger word, a red flag. Along with its cousins (whom, which, that, whose), “who” signals the possibility of a twisted sentence. Writers are generally aware that “that” is a dangerous word. But how do you untangle sentences loaded with danger words? The process is similar to the one we’ve already described -- identify the verbs, measure their relative strength and weakness, and sort them out accordingly.
Let’s practice on a couple examples.
Past relationship failures were the issue that kept her from trusting Lucas.
You see the weak verb, “were,” in a position of power. The other verb is “kept” and it follows one of our red flag words, “that.” If we move “kept” into the power slot, we get:
Past relationship failures kept her from trusting Lucas.
Let’s try one more:
She’d been in a weird limbo for months, a limbo that made her feel as though her life was going nowhere.
Once again, we have a weak verb as the main verb in the main clause -- been. We have a red flag word -- that. But this time, the writer needed to repeat the object (limbo) in order to append the descriptive clause. Why? Most likely, the original sentence contained a dangling modifier. (Think, “She’d been in a weird limbo for months that made her feel as though her life was going nowhere” -- obviously, the months didn’t make her feel anything, but the limbo did.)
A better fix would be to ditch the weak main verb and avoid dangling by putting the temporal reference right up front and out of the way.
For months, a weird limbo made her feel as though her life was going nowhere.
The sharp-eyed among you will note that "as though" also introduces a clause. It's an adverb clause, not a relative pronoun clause, and we'll leave it be for now.
As with any editorial technique, this is not a one-size-fits-all application. Some sentences will function beautifully with a relative pronoun (who, whom, which, that, whose) and would actually suffer otherwise. I leave you with one of my favorite examples of a good one, the first sentence from “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
-------------
This is the seventh in the Redlines series.
Redlines One (on paragraph logic faults) can be found here.
Redlines Two (on dialogue sequencing) can be found here.
Redlines Three (on using frames within scenes) can be found here.
Redlines Four (on avoiding the need for "sequel") can be found here.
Redlines Five (on description) can be found here.
Redlines Six (on passive voice) can be found here.
Theresa
I want to respond to some of the comments to the post on dull verbs, but before we do that, I thought I'd post the next Redlines column. This one tackles the same basic idea from a different angle. After we've looked this one over, we'll come back to some ideas and questions about dull verbs.
---------
Last month, we continued examining subject-verb-object dynamics. This month, we’re going to look at other types of tangled constructions, in particular, sentences that don’t put the strongest verb into the best sentence slot. In other words, we’re going to learn a trick to help you organize sentences for power and impact.
Let’s start with a core idea. As we have already seen, simple sentences contain a main subject, verb, and sometimes an object. But not all sentences are simple -- some are compound, complex, or all dressed up with phrases and clauses. Unfortunately, the more pieces you hang onto the basic subject-verb-object spine, the more likely it is that your sentence will lose focus.
One form of lost focus occurs when you have lots of action words -- verbs of any tense or variation -- competing for attention. Generally, verbs do the heavy lifting in a sentence because they literally tell the reader what is happening, where the action is. But not all verbs are active.
Here’s an example:
He was the kind of man who liked to build model airplanes.
In this case, everything that comes before “who” (the relative pronoun) is the main part of the sentence. Everything that comes after “who” is a subordinate clause. The subject-verb-object slots in the main sentence generally will draw a reader’s attention more than the subordinate idea. This is why we say that ideas of greater importance usually go in the main part of the sentence, and ideas of lesser importance (subordinate ideas, get it?) usually follow the relative pronoun.
The sentence contains three action words: was, liked and build. Of these three, one is very weak (was), one is weak (liked), and one is strong (build).
What’s the difference between a weak and a strong verb? Weak verbs describe states of being, emotional states, preferences, and similar intangibles. Conjugations of the verb “to be” are so weak as to be nearly transparent. The reader’s mind interprets “to be” verbs similar to the equal signs in math equations. “He = the kind of man.” It barely registers, which makes it weak.
Strong verbs, by contrast, are ones that describe an activity or a dynamic state. Strong verbs can be simple enough to include in first grade primers (run, walk) or precise enough to describe distinct shades of activity (waddle, toddle).
In our sample sentence, the weakest verb is the main verb of the main clause. This is a powerful slot in the sentence, and is being filled with a nearly invisible word. So, to maximize impact, remove the weak verb from the strong slot.
Thus,
He was the kind of man who liked to build model airplanes.
becomes
He liked to build model airplanes.
Notice that “who” is nowhere to be found in the second sentence. So the edit completely removes the weak main clause, and lets the formerly subordinate idea claim a more important role. If we wanted, we could take it a step further, by letting the dynamic “build” function as the main verb instead of as an infinitive. Remember, dynamic verbs (build) are stronger than verbs of emotion (liked).
In that case,
He liked to build model airplanes.
becomes
He built model airplanes.
There are shades of meaning between these two sentences that might not warrant the change. For example, perhaps the second sentence would be more appropriate if the man’s job was building model airplanes, and the first sentence would apply more to a hobby. So I present this second-level edit of our original sentence mainly as a way of completing the thought, with the caveat that authorial judgment must come into play.
I want to return now to the word “who.” It’s a danger word, a red flag. Along with its cousins (whom, which, that, whose), “who” signals the possibility of a twisted sentence. Writers are generally aware that “that” is a dangerous word. But how do you untangle sentences loaded with danger words? The process is similar to the one we’ve already described -- identify the verbs, measure their relative strength and weakness, and sort them out accordingly.
Let’s practice on a couple examples.
Past relationship failures were the issue that kept her from trusting Lucas.
You see the weak verb, “were,” in a position of power. The other verb is “kept” and it follows one of our red flag words, “that.” If we move “kept” into the power slot, we get:
Past relationship failures kept her from trusting Lucas.
Let’s try one more:
She’d been in a weird limbo for months, a limbo that made her feel as though her life was going nowhere.
Once again, we have a weak verb as the main verb in the main clause -- been. We have a red flag word -- that. But this time, the writer needed to repeat the object (limbo) in order to append the descriptive clause. Why? Most likely, the original sentence contained a dangling modifier. (Think, “She’d been in a weird limbo for months that made her feel as though her life was going nowhere” -- obviously, the months didn’t make her feel anything, but the limbo did.)
A better fix would be to ditch the weak main verb and avoid dangling by putting the temporal reference right up front and out of the way.
For months, a weird limbo made her feel as though her life was going nowhere.
The sharp-eyed among you will note that "as though" also introduces a clause. It's an adverb clause, not a relative pronoun clause, and we'll leave it be for now.
As with any editorial technique, this is not a one-size-fits-all application. Some sentences will function beautifully with a relative pronoun (who, whom, which, that, whose) and would actually suffer otherwise. I leave you with one of my favorite examples of a good one, the first sentence from “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen:
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
-------------
This is the seventh in the Redlines series.
Redlines One (on paragraph logic faults) can be found here.
Redlines Two (on dialogue sequencing) can be found here.
Redlines Three (on using frames within scenes) can be found here.
Redlines Four (on avoiding the need for "sequel") can be found here.
Redlines Five (on description) can be found here.
Redlines Six (on passive voice) can be found here.
Theresa
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Dull Verbs
When I'm line editing a manuscript, I watch for certain dull verbs. These verbs are perfectly respectable, and they find their way into every manuscript, but the main problem with them is twofold. First, they are overused. In a language with thousands and thousands of nuanced verbs, surely we can mix them up a bit. That is, every time a character has to change his spatial location from point A to point B, we don't have to always use the same simple, unemotional verbs to accomplish that.
And second, while serviceable, they're not as evocative as they could be. A verb like move, for example, conveys a state of motion without implying anything about the quality of that motion. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of verbs that convey motion plus some other nuance -- fidget, jiggle, twitch, wiggle, writhe, budge, shift, stir, dash, dart, leap, scramble -- really, there are far too many to list.
Before you fuss too much about the overlooked splendors of these plain and sturdy verbs, ask yourself -- do you want readers to think of your prose as serviceable or as evocative?
Without further ado, here's my list. I'm sure there are plenty more besides these, but these are the ones that come to mind now.
get/got
put
push
pull
took
came (not in a sexual sense)
went
reached
looked
had (not in the past perfect)
turned
walked
moved
A special note about looked. I find that far too often, writers reach for "eye cues" to signal action or emotion. She looked away, he looked devastated, she looked into his face for a sign, and so on. Again, these are flat expressions. Lazy, even. I'm to the point where I want to pull out almost every instance of "looked" just to add some pizzazz to the writing.
And second, while serviceable, they're not as evocative as they could be. A verb like move, for example, conveys a state of motion without implying anything about the quality of that motion. And there are dozens, if not hundreds, of verbs that convey motion plus some other nuance -- fidget, jiggle, twitch, wiggle, writhe, budge, shift, stir, dash, dart, leap, scramble -- really, there are far too many to list.
Before you fuss too much about the overlooked splendors of these plain and sturdy verbs, ask yourself -- do you want readers to think of your prose as serviceable or as evocative?
Without further ado, here's my list. I'm sure there are plenty more besides these, but these are the ones that come to mind now.
get/got
put
push
pull
took
came (not in a sexual sense)
went
reached
looked
had (not in the past perfect)
turned
walked
moved
A special note about looked. I find that far too often, writers reach for "eye cues" to signal action or emotion. She looked away, he looked devastated, she looked into his face for a sign, and so on. Again, these are flat expressions. Lazy, even. I'm to the point where I want to pull out almost every instance of "looked" just to add some pizzazz to the writing.
I'd love to hear which verbs you flag in your own manuscripts.
Theresa
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Revision Letters
I've been sending out mass quantities of revision letters this week, averaging about 3-4 a day. My average would be higher, but I had a day and a half spent on issues related to our writing contest and other stuff. On the days when I've been able to focus on revision letters, I've been writing revisions for an average of about 200,000 words. That's a pretty good clip.
I'm seeing some common threads in the revisions that might be worth sharing.
Tangled Timelines.
Worth noting: these problems are being encountered in manuscripts good enough to get some editorial attention on revisions. Even the good ones need help!
On Amazon and Booksurge
Ian asked in the comments about our opinions of the Amazon/Booksurge dust-up. It doesn't affect my company directly because we're not a pod printer. We do offset print runs just like the big girls. But, looking at it from another perspective, it affects us greatly because publishing models are breaking down right across the industry, and small presses are unequally effected by all these changes. In some cases, indeed, it seems that the changes are designed to harm small presses.
Richard Curtis does an excellent job of tying things together in his recent blog post. Put this together with Amazon's overseas moves about list prices and discounts, and you'll begin to see the bigger picture. But really, there's a lot more to it than all this. I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent trying to think through and around all the angles. In essence, it's a distribution conundrum: how do we get our books into the hands of readers?
And that's a question I think we all must ponder. The times, they are a-changin'.
Theresa
I'm seeing some common threads in the revisions that might be worth sharing.
Tangled Timelines.
When we say "start in the middle of the action," that doesn't mean "start in the middle of the plot." In fact, by starting in the middle of the plot, you will have to go backwards in time to pick up the scenes from the beginning of the plot, and much of that will end up being cast as backstory. This only aggravates the problem which leads us to advise that you start in the middle of the action. Nobody wants to read a lot of backstory or exposition, especially not in the beginning of a book.
Bad formatting.
We have very few formatting requirements. Very few. And when an author can't conform to the very few, very simple formatting requirements posted in our submissions guidelines, that makes me worry that they'll disregard our other instructions. (For the record, we don't really care about things like font and line spacing in electronic submissions, but we care very much about the type of file submitted.)
Weak point of view.
At least six times this week, I had to write instructions to authors about fixing scenes where the point of view was almost abstract. These scenes tend to be heavy on dialogue and action, so heavy that we lose track of the point of view character. More than once this week, I've seen scenes where even the author lost track of the point of view character -- in one memorable scene, the point of view character walked offstage, and the rest of the characters continued the action without him.
Hanging meat.
This is a minor thing, and peculiar to our subgenre, but I'd like to know where this trend comes from: heroines being hung by the wrists so that they are completely suspended. This is not a good start to a sex scene. If you don't believe me, invite your significant other to hoist you into the air by a pair of handcuffs and then see if he gets past first base. Set a stopwatch and time how long your shoulders can handle it. (By the way, this falls generally under the category of "Block Your Scenes." Alicia talked about the importance of this a few posts ago.)
Worth noting: these problems are being encountered in manuscripts good enough to get some editorial attention on revisions. Even the good ones need help!
On Amazon and Booksurge
Ian asked in the comments about our opinions of the Amazon/Booksurge dust-up. It doesn't affect my company directly because we're not a pod printer. We do offset print runs just like the big girls. But, looking at it from another perspective, it affects us greatly because publishing models are breaking down right across the industry, and small presses are unequally effected by all these changes. In some cases, indeed, it seems that the changes are designed to harm small presses.
Richard Curtis does an excellent job of tying things together in his recent blog post. Put this together with Amazon's overseas moves about list prices and discounts, and you'll begin to see the bigger picture. But really, there's a lot more to it than all this. I can't tell you how many hours of my life I've spent trying to think through and around all the angles. In essence, it's a distribution conundrum: how do we get our books into the hands of readers?
And that's a question I think we all must ponder. The times, they are a-changin'.
Theresa
Friday, April 4, 2008
Flat Stanleys
When one of my nephews he was first learning to read , he fell in love with a book called Flat Stanley. Flat Stanley (the book) went everywhere my nephew went for months. Flat Stanley was something of a fixture in our lives. We were once stuck in a restaurant for hours while the bus boys dismantled a booth to recover Flat Stanley, which had fallen under the cushions and into the base of the booth. There were power tools involved. And tears. The child was seriously attached to the book.
Flat Stanley (the character) is a little boy who was crushed by a falling bulleting board while he was innocently sleeping. As a result of this dreadful accident, he is now four feet tall and one inch thick. You'd think this would pose a problem, but Flat Stanley gets to have lots of adventures that children of regular thickness don't get to have.
Quick writing exercise -- if you had a character of these dimensions, what would you do with him? Name three things Flat Stanley could do in your book that the other characters could not do.
In the book, Flat Stanley gets to slide under closed doors, and fly in the sky like a kite, and get mailed in an envelope to his vacation destination. Did any of these possibilities occur to you? Kid-lit authors tend to be very adept at taking a single notion and playing it out to extremes. I've always thought Flat Stanley was the perfect example of that. One attribute, flatness, is explored in an imaginative and (dare we say it?) in-depth manner. By the end of the book, you understand completely what effect flatness would have on a person's life.
Flat Stanley's Two Lessons For Adult Writers
Flat Stanley is not what adult readers would call a *cough*cough* well-rounded character. He has a single, central characteristic that governs his activities through the entire story. This is not to say the story is bad. It's excellent, in fact, and the characters are perfect for kid-lit. But adult readers have different expecations of characters.
Nevertheless, in Stanley's flatness are two lessons for us.
First, if you are going to give your character a unique or strong characteristic, you'd better exploit it. (Stanley doesn't look flat and act round.)
Second, exploit it in ways that are unexpected. (Stanley's flatness creates some surprising results.)
I can't tell you how many times I've read manuscripts that drew careful portraits of an important character, but never leveraged those portraits. Lord Sneerlip, we are told, is a villain of power and influence who can destroy entire families with a single cutting glance. Aha, we think gleefully, and settle in to see what kind of damage good old Sneerlip will do. And we read, and we wait. And read and wait some more. But Sneerlip never does anything to prove his power until the very last scene when he kidnaps the heroine and tries to force her to marry him. yawn
A smart writer knows that not only must she exploit the power and influence of Lord Sneerlip, but she must exercise it repeatedly, in unexpected ways, and at the worst possible moments. So if Sneerlip has a grudge against the family of Priscilla Bluestocking, and if Prissy's goal is to get vouchers to Almack's, what should Sneerlip do? (For those of you who don't read Regencies, Almack's was the place for a society debutante to go, and vouchers -- entry tickets -- were tightly controlled.)
The author with little control over the text will probably not let Sneerlip make trouble at all. After all, she reasons, the purpose of the scene at Almack's is to let Prissy Bluestocking meet His Grace, the Duke of Hotstuff, her ultimate hero, who scandalizes all of England by spiking the warm lemonade with vodka. Oh, Hotstuff, you dangerous rogue, you! But Sneerlip isn't necessary in this scene and doesn't appear until the end, when he kidnaps Prissy and forces Hotstuff into the role of rescuer.
A slightly more mindful author will have Sneerlip cancel the Almack's vouchers for Prissy Bluestocking and her entire family. After all, she reasons, if Sneerlip is the villain, and vouchers are the goal, then the villain should interfere with that goal. Right? Well...okay. It's better, but is that really the best we can do?
Of course not. An inventive author, an author who wins the hearts and minds of readers, starts wondering what else a villain of power and influence might do here. She gets creative. She starts thinking about how Sneerlip might screw up a night at Almack's for Prissy. Maybe he schedules a secret night of decadence so that no eligible men are at Almack's that night. Maybe everyone shows up, and Sneerlip cuts Prissy and her family, damaging her standing and marital prospects. Maybe he forces her to dance with him three times -- oh, the scandal! Maybe he feeds her several cups of vodka-spiked lemonade and invites her to declaim on the cultivation of marigolds to a group of bored and disgusted dandies. Really, the possibilities are endless.
And that's exactly the point. The possibilities are endless. Don't settle for simple, trite renditions of a character trait when the liveliness of your plot hinges on your inventiveness. Exploit what you've already set up.
What else might Sneerlip do to interfere with Prissy Bluestocking's success at Almack's? Come on now -- if Flat Stanley can fly like a kite, surely Sneerlip can do something inventive, too!
Theresa
Flat Stanley (the character) is a little boy who was crushed by a falling bulleting board while he was innocently sleeping. As a result of this dreadful accident, he is now four feet tall and one inch thick. You'd think this would pose a problem, but Flat Stanley gets to have lots of adventures that children of regular thickness don't get to have.
Quick writing exercise -- if you had a character of these dimensions, what would you do with him? Name three things Flat Stanley could do in your book that the other characters could not do.
In the book, Flat Stanley gets to slide under closed doors, and fly in the sky like a kite, and get mailed in an envelope to his vacation destination. Did any of these possibilities occur to you? Kid-lit authors tend to be very adept at taking a single notion and playing it out to extremes. I've always thought Flat Stanley was the perfect example of that. One attribute, flatness, is explored in an imaginative and (dare we say it?) in-depth manner. By the end of the book, you understand completely what effect flatness would have on a person's life.
Flat Stanley's Two Lessons For Adult Writers
Flat Stanley is not what adult readers would call a *cough*cough* well-rounded character. He has a single, central characteristic that governs his activities through the entire story. This is not to say the story is bad. It's excellent, in fact, and the characters are perfect for kid-lit. But adult readers have different expecations of characters.
Nevertheless, in Stanley's flatness are two lessons for us.
First, if you are going to give your character a unique or strong characteristic, you'd better exploit it. (Stanley doesn't look flat and act round.)
Second, exploit it in ways that are unexpected. (Stanley's flatness creates some surprising results.)
I can't tell you how many times I've read manuscripts that drew careful portraits of an important character, but never leveraged those portraits. Lord Sneerlip, we are told, is a villain of power and influence who can destroy entire families with a single cutting glance. Aha, we think gleefully, and settle in to see what kind of damage good old Sneerlip will do. And we read, and we wait. And read and wait some more. But Sneerlip never does anything to prove his power until the very last scene when he kidnaps the heroine and tries to force her to marry him. yawn
A smart writer knows that not only must she exploit the power and influence of Lord Sneerlip, but she must exercise it repeatedly, in unexpected ways, and at the worst possible moments. So if Sneerlip has a grudge against the family of Priscilla Bluestocking, and if Prissy's goal is to get vouchers to Almack's, what should Sneerlip do? (For those of you who don't read Regencies, Almack's was the place for a society debutante to go, and vouchers -- entry tickets -- were tightly controlled.)
The author with little control over the text will probably not let Sneerlip make trouble at all. After all, she reasons, the purpose of the scene at Almack's is to let Prissy Bluestocking meet His Grace, the Duke of Hotstuff, her ultimate hero, who scandalizes all of England by spiking the warm lemonade with vodka. Oh, Hotstuff, you dangerous rogue, you! But Sneerlip isn't necessary in this scene and doesn't appear until the end, when he kidnaps Prissy and forces Hotstuff into the role of rescuer.
A slightly more mindful author will have Sneerlip cancel the Almack's vouchers for Prissy Bluestocking and her entire family. After all, she reasons, if Sneerlip is the villain, and vouchers are the goal, then the villain should interfere with that goal. Right? Well...okay. It's better, but is that really the best we can do?
Of course not. An inventive author, an author who wins the hearts and minds of readers, starts wondering what else a villain of power and influence might do here. She gets creative. She starts thinking about how Sneerlip might screw up a night at Almack's for Prissy. Maybe he schedules a secret night of decadence so that no eligible men are at Almack's that night. Maybe everyone shows up, and Sneerlip cuts Prissy and her family, damaging her standing and marital prospects. Maybe he forces her to dance with him three times -- oh, the scandal! Maybe he feeds her several cups of vodka-spiked lemonade and invites her to declaim on the cultivation of marigolds to a group of bored and disgusted dandies. Really, the possibilities are endless.
And that's exactly the point. The possibilities are endless. Don't settle for simple, trite renditions of a character trait when the liveliness of your plot hinges on your inventiveness. Exploit what you've already set up.
What else might Sneerlip do to interfere with Prissy Bluestocking's success at Almack's? Come on now -- if Flat Stanley can fly like a kite, surely Sneerlip can do something inventive, too!
Theresa
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Last Month's Poll
When it comes to books, I am an unashamed whore. Any book that gives me a little wink-wink from the store shelves can come home with me. I even read most of them in bed. Insomnia's much easier to tolerate when you've got a nice stack of books on the bedside table.
Seems I'm not the only book whore around here. Here are the results of last month's poll.
When reading for pleasure, what do you read?
I only read in the genre I write in.
5 (3%)
I read whatever interests me, and don't pay attention to genre.
98 (65%)
I deliberately mix my genre and other genres as a way of furthering my knowledge base.
40 (26%)
I only read outside my genre so I don't contaminate my works-in-progress
6 (4%)
I posted this question out of simple curiosity. I read so much romance that it occasionally affects my reading patterns. Even when there are books I want to read (such as some of the newer "big" historicals that are catching so much review press), I feel that I keep fresher if I save my romance reading budget for work. So for my authors's sakes, I tend to avoid reading romance when I'm doing a lot of editing and submissions review. When I'm more focused on the managerial work, I don't worry about that, though. Not sure there's any grand epiphany to all this, except that it seems many of you also read widely but with deliberation.
Side question. What do you do with your books when you've finished reading them? I probably give away 200 books each year, and the piles around my house still keep growing. I've taken to boxing the "keepers" and stashing them in a storage area, but then I can't get to them. Who can remember which box has the Tolstoy, and which the Wodehouse? Not me. Bookcases are lovely and all that, but really, I can only fit so many of them in a room.
So, for the bibliophiles among you ... any suggestions?
Theresa
Seems I'm not the only book whore around here. Here are the results of last month's poll.
When reading for pleasure, what do you read?
I only read in the genre I write in.
5 (3%)
I read whatever interests me, and don't pay attention to genre.
98 (65%)
I deliberately mix my genre and other genres as a way of furthering my knowledge base.
40 (26%)
I only read outside my genre so I don't contaminate my works-in-progress
6 (4%)
I posted this question out of simple curiosity. I read so much romance that it occasionally affects my reading patterns. Even when there are books I want to read (such as some of the newer "big" historicals that are catching so much review press), I feel that I keep fresher if I save my romance reading budget for work. So for my authors's sakes, I tend to avoid reading romance when I'm doing a lot of editing and submissions review. When I'm more focused on the managerial work, I don't worry about that, though. Not sure there's any grand epiphany to all this, except that it seems many of you also read widely but with deliberation.
Side question. What do you do with your books when you've finished reading them? I probably give away 200 books each year, and the piles around my house still keep growing. I've taken to boxing the "keepers" and stashing them in a storage area, but then I can't get to them. Who can remember which box has the Tolstoy, and which the Wodehouse? Not me. Bookcases are lovely and all that, but really, I can only fit so many of them in a room.
So, for the bibliophiles among you ... any suggestions?
Theresa
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Antagonists and Antagonism
I'm sure my high school English teacher meant well when she uttered this definition:
Protagonists are striving for something. Pro = for.
Antagonists are striving against something. Anti = against.
She only got it half right. As we saw yesterday, the pro in protagonist comes from proto, meaning first. The protagonist is the first actor, the deuteragonist is the second, the tritagonist is the third. And they're all working against the backdrop of a Greek chorus. So that's four classes of humans on the stage (though more than four physical bodies -- if memory serves, a Greek chorus had between a dozen and fifty people).
The protagonist was not originally defined as the character with the goal. It was defined as the character on stage with the chorus all the time. This meant, by extension, that the protagonist's character would be most central to the story. Otherwise, there would be no need to have him on stage all the time. The deuteragonist and tritagonist, with the many roles they fulfilled, could be on or off stage as the scene required. My understanding is that they generally remained on stage and changed their props in full view of the audience.
Where is the antagonist on the stage?
If you've asked this question, you've assumed that the antagonist is a character. And the thing is, maybe the antagonist is a character, and maybe not. Maybe the antagonist is different characters at different times. Maybe the protagonist gets a turn at being the antagonist. Maybe the antagonist is something intangible like the weather, not a character at all.
I think this begins to snap into focus if we stop talking about "the antagonist" and start talking about "antagonism." What is the source of antagonism in a particular story? Are there multiple sources or a single source?
In some stories, the antagonism will be embodied in a single identifiable character: the sheriff wears the white hat, and the outlaw wears the black hat, and good and bad collide over the course of the story until justice prevails and the noose is tied. It's very easy to understand this story model and apply literary definitions to the various component parts. Maybe that's ultimately a source of confusion, though, if we come to think of protagonists as always the "good guys" and antagonists as always the "bad guys."
In some stories, particularly in ensemble stories, the antagonism will be embodied in different characters at different times. Alliances are built and shift and fall. The protagonist gathers different pieces of the puzzle from different sources. Conflict can be very subtle and abstract in these stories -- think of The Big Chill, for example, which is built in layers of interaction between the protagonist (Kevin Kline) and his college friends. We might identify the conflict as Kline's struggle to cling to his nostalgic idealism in the face of what they've all become. The antagonism is released through different characters at different times: Goldblum's bitterness, Tilly's objectivity, Close's earth-mothering all serve to reveal different nuances of the conflict.
In some stories, the antagonism will not originate with a character at all. In Castaway, for example, the classic human versus nature struggle, there is only one character on screen for most of the story. There is no other body, so the antagonism quite literally can never be embodied. Does this mean the Tom Hanks character has no struggles? Of course not. But his struggles originate with something other than another human being. The antagonism is revealed and shaped through rain, coconuts, volleyballs, and so on.
Keep in mind that any of the four classes of people on stage can provide a source of antagonism. The deuteragonist mother may be loving and supportive in one scene, and then cast the protagonist into the wilderness in the next scene. The chorus may sing a character's praises in one scene, and lament his foolishness in the next.
So when we say that conflict is defined as the interaction of the protagonist and the antagonist, we're really talking about notions that came into existence through different channels and, in some ways, are independent story functions. Protagonist originates in character. Antagonist originates in conflict.
When you're doing global, big-picture thinking about your story, think about the source of the antagonism. Have you slotted your characters into "good" and "bad" roles, and missed out on potential ways to twist the conflict? Have you ignored the possibility of antagonism from non-human sources?
Theresa
Protagonists are striving for something. Pro = for.
Antagonists are striving against something. Anti = against.
She only got it half right. As we saw yesterday, the pro in protagonist comes from proto, meaning first. The protagonist is the first actor, the deuteragonist is the second, the tritagonist is the third. And they're all working against the backdrop of a Greek chorus. So that's four classes of humans on the stage (though more than four physical bodies -- if memory serves, a Greek chorus had between a dozen and fifty people).
The protagonist was not originally defined as the character with the goal. It was defined as the character on stage with the chorus all the time. This meant, by extension, that the protagonist's character would be most central to the story. Otherwise, there would be no need to have him on stage all the time. The deuteragonist and tritagonist, with the many roles they fulfilled, could be on or off stage as the scene required. My understanding is that they generally remained on stage and changed their props in full view of the audience.
Where is the antagonist on the stage?
If you've asked this question, you've assumed that the antagonist is a character. And the thing is, maybe the antagonist is a character, and maybe not. Maybe the antagonist is different characters at different times. Maybe the protagonist gets a turn at being the antagonist. Maybe the antagonist is something intangible like the weather, not a character at all.
I think this begins to snap into focus if we stop talking about "the antagonist" and start talking about "antagonism." What is the source of antagonism in a particular story? Are there multiple sources or a single source?
In some stories, the antagonism will be embodied in a single identifiable character: the sheriff wears the white hat, and the outlaw wears the black hat, and good and bad collide over the course of the story until justice prevails and the noose is tied. It's very easy to understand this story model and apply literary definitions to the various component parts. Maybe that's ultimately a source of confusion, though, if we come to think of protagonists as always the "good guys" and antagonists as always the "bad guys."
In some stories, particularly in ensemble stories, the antagonism will be embodied in different characters at different times. Alliances are built and shift and fall. The protagonist gathers different pieces of the puzzle from different sources. Conflict can be very subtle and abstract in these stories -- think of The Big Chill, for example, which is built in layers of interaction between the protagonist (Kevin Kline) and his college friends. We might identify the conflict as Kline's struggle to cling to his nostalgic idealism in the face of what they've all become. The antagonism is released through different characters at different times: Goldblum's bitterness, Tilly's objectivity, Close's earth-mothering all serve to reveal different nuances of the conflict.
In some stories, the antagonism will not originate with a character at all. In Castaway, for example, the classic human versus nature struggle, there is only one character on screen for most of the story. There is no other body, so the antagonism quite literally can never be embodied. Does this mean the Tom Hanks character has no struggles? Of course not. But his struggles originate with something other than another human being. The antagonism is revealed and shaped through rain, coconuts, volleyballs, and so on.
Keep in mind that any of the four classes of people on stage can provide a source of antagonism. The deuteragonist mother may be loving and supportive in one scene, and then cast the protagonist into the wilderness in the next scene. The chorus may sing a character's praises in one scene, and lament his foolishness in the next.
So when we say that conflict is defined as the interaction of the protagonist and the antagonist, we're really talking about notions that came into existence through different channels and, in some ways, are independent story functions. Protagonist originates in character. Antagonist originates in conflict.
When you're doing global, big-picture thinking about your story, think about the source of the antagonism. Have you slotted your characters into "good" and "bad" roles, and missed out on potential ways to twist the conflict? Have you ignored the possibility of antagonism from non-human sources?
Theresa
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
POV winner!
The winner of the Particularly Putrid POV Passage is... drumroll! Ian! Email me your address at rasley@juno.com, please!
Deuteragonists and Tritagonists
This morning, I received a complaint email that was so absurd, my first thought was, "Ha, ha, April Fool." Then I realized the sender was in earnest. My day has not improved from there.
The Great Inbox Spring Cleaning continues, and I'm averaging revision letters on three novella manuscripts a day. I've just finished reading my last lonely manuscript from 2007 -- I've actually read it twice now, and just have to let it simmer before I contact the author. After this one, everything I read will be from January and February, though I probably have fewer than two dozen manuscripts pending from that time period. So at my current pace, I should be into March manuscripts sometime next week. Just saying, in case any of you are wondering about the status of your submission. (This all assumes that I will be able to remain focused on submissions for the next week or two. That's never a safe assumption.)
Deuteragonists and Tritagonists
It's probably fitting to post this on April Fools' Day, because if you're unfamiliar with these terms, you might just think I'm pulling a prank. I'm not. Google the words if you need evidence.
This ties in to my intermittent mullings on the nature of protagonists. Most of our literary theory evolved from dramatic theory, and most of that came to us from the ancient Greeks, or was at least built on notions that originated with the ancient Greeks.
But their notion of a play was very different from ours. In the beginning, there was a chorus. No actors, no monologues, no spotlights. Just an assortment of people on the stage, singing or chanting in unison, maybe with a bit of dancing or rhythmic motion similar to a marching band or drill team's synchronized movement. The truth is, we're not exactly positive how the chorus behaved. None of us were around to witness one, and scholars debate exactly what a chorus did and how they did it. But we're pretty sure that whatever they did, they did it as a team.
Then one day, somebody got clever and suggested that a solitary person could stand in front of the chorus and dramatize their song. If they sang, "He fell to his knees and wept," then this poor schmoe would fall to his knees and weep. They gave him some lines to speak and even let him interact with the chorus at times. He remained on stage for the duration of the show, as did the chorus.
This fellow was known as the protagonist, from proto- meaning first, and agon meaning gathering: he was the first in the gathering on the stage. He became a central figure in Greek drama, and eventually, a dude named Aeschylus figured out that if you could have one actor in front of the chorus, then why not have two?
This second actor was the deuteragonist. The funny thing about the deuteragonist is that his role depended on the story. He could play one role as did the protagonist and function like a sidekick -- a Robin to the protagonist's Batman, a Watson to his Holmes. Or he could play several roles, switching masks and wigs and props to indicate that now he was the angry father, and now the trembling maid. His role, in either case, was to help the audience better understand the protagonist's actions. You could say he provided a context for the protagonist's acting.
At some point they also added a third actor, the tritagonist. But instead of adding a fourth, fifth, and so on, they stopped with the tritagonist and developed a few theories to support that -- all dramas are triangles composed of three interacting and competing elements; stable alliances are rendered unstable by the introduction of a third party; between parents, a child; between parent and child, a spouse; between lovers, a parent; and so on.
Even though these theories make a lot of practical sense, they neatly overlook the fact that the three actors on stage frequently played multiple roles. So it wasn't really the presence of three human characters that created drama. It was the three levels of character:
What's missing from that list? The antagonist. I'm just going to float that idea out there for a moment. We'll come back to it eventually.
For now, I want to make a point about the way these characters were constructed. The protagonist was always a fully formed character. The deuteragonist could be either fully formed (when he was the sidekick) or a placeholder (when he had to change roles frequently). The tritagonist was usually a placeholder.
The placeholder characters were signaled by a change in props or masks. A sword and shield signaled a warrior. A mask with horns signaled a bull.
To this day, we use a similar form of character props to cue the audience about placeholder characters. Except, instead of giving the warrior a sword, we give the night desk clerk at the hotel a nervous shuffle in his gait. We give Aunt Flossie an aluminum crochet hook, and we make Uncle Ted a bit deaf. Our "props" are not symbolic (sword = warrior, horns = bull), but emblematic (that is, specific to one character instead of generic of a type of character).
So when our protagonist finds at the crime scene a bright blue aluminum crochet hook, we think, Aunt Flossie was here. Of course, it could be anyone's crochet hook. But because dramatic theory likes things to be neatly tied up, an emblem of a character must always be emblematic of that particular character. If horns indicate a bull, you have to use something other than horns to indicate the devil. If the crochet hook becomes emblematic of Aunt Flossie, than the blood-covered one in chapter seventeen had better belong to her.
It's a neat trick, and it's one that can be used pretty easily for secondary characters. (Get it? deuter = second. We still use the same basic language to talk about drama, except that now we call deuteragonists secondary characters.) But with secondary characters, the reader will want something more than a mere emblem. They'll want the emblem to become fleshed out a bit. There's got to be more to Aunt Flossie than a yarn hobby.
So, do you think it will help you develop your characters if you first decide where they fit on the -agonists scale?
Theresa
The Great Inbox Spring Cleaning continues, and I'm averaging revision letters on three novella manuscripts a day. I've just finished reading my last lonely manuscript from 2007 -- I've actually read it twice now, and just have to let it simmer before I contact the author. After this one, everything I read will be from January and February, though I probably have fewer than two dozen manuscripts pending from that time period. So at my current pace, I should be into March manuscripts sometime next week. Just saying, in case any of you are wondering about the status of your submission. (This all assumes that I will be able to remain focused on submissions for the next week or two. That's never a safe assumption.)
Deuteragonists and Tritagonists
It's probably fitting to post this on April Fools' Day, because if you're unfamiliar with these terms, you might just think I'm pulling a prank. I'm not. Google the words if you need evidence.
This ties in to my intermittent mullings on the nature of protagonists. Most of our literary theory evolved from dramatic theory, and most of that came to us from the ancient Greeks, or was at least built on notions that originated with the ancient Greeks.
But their notion of a play was very different from ours. In the beginning, there was a chorus. No actors, no monologues, no spotlights. Just an assortment of people on the stage, singing or chanting in unison, maybe with a bit of dancing or rhythmic motion similar to a marching band or drill team's synchronized movement. The truth is, we're not exactly positive how the chorus behaved. None of us were around to witness one, and scholars debate exactly what a chorus did and how they did it. But we're pretty sure that whatever they did, they did it as a team.
Then one day, somebody got clever and suggested that a solitary person could stand in front of the chorus and dramatize their song. If they sang, "He fell to his knees and wept," then this poor schmoe would fall to his knees and weep. They gave him some lines to speak and even let him interact with the chorus at times. He remained on stage for the duration of the show, as did the chorus.
This fellow was known as the protagonist, from proto- meaning first, and agon meaning gathering: he was the first in the gathering on the stage. He became a central figure in Greek drama, and eventually, a dude named Aeschylus figured out that if you could have one actor in front of the chorus, then why not have two?
This second actor was the deuteragonist. The funny thing about the deuteragonist is that his role depended on the story. He could play one role as did the protagonist and function like a sidekick -- a Robin to the protagonist's Batman, a Watson to his Holmes. Or he could play several roles, switching masks and wigs and props to indicate that now he was the angry father, and now the trembling maid. His role, in either case, was to help the audience better understand the protagonist's actions. You could say he provided a context for the protagonist's acting.
At some point they also added a third actor, the tritagonist. But instead of adding a fourth, fifth, and so on, they stopped with the tritagonist and developed a few theories to support that -- all dramas are triangles composed of three interacting and competing elements; stable alliances are rendered unstable by the introduction of a third party; between parents, a child; between parent and child, a spouse; between lovers, a parent; and so on.
Even though these theories make a lot of practical sense, they neatly overlook the fact that the three actors on stage frequently played multiple roles. So it wasn't really the presence of three human characters that created drama. It was the three levels of character:
- the protagonist, who always had to be on stage,
- the deuteragonist, who functioned like a sidekick -- literally, a second to the protagonist's first -- and was important, but not omnipresent, and could be more than one character
- the tritagonist, who was basically anyone else they need for the story to make sense.
What's missing from that list? The antagonist. I'm just going to float that idea out there for a moment. We'll come back to it eventually.
For now, I want to make a point about the way these characters were constructed. The protagonist was always a fully formed character. The deuteragonist could be either fully formed (when he was the sidekick) or a placeholder (when he had to change roles frequently). The tritagonist was usually a placeholder.
The placeholder characters were signaled by a change in props or masks. A sword and shield signaled a warrior. A mask with horns signaled a bull.
To this day, we use a similar form of character props to cue the audience about placeholder characters. Except, instead of giving the warrior a sword, we give the night desk clerk at the hotel a nervous shuffle in his gait. We give Aunt Flossie an aluminum crochet hook, and we make Uncle Ted a bit deaf. Our "props" are not symbolic (sword = warrior, horns = bull), but emblematic (that is, specific to one character instead of generic of a type of character).
So when our protagonist finds at the crime scene a bright blue aluminum crochet hook, we think, Aunt Flossie was here. Of course, it could be anyone's crochet hook. But because dramatic theory likes things to be neatly tied up, an emblem of a character must always be emblematic of that particular character. If horns indicate a bull, you have to use something other than horns to indicate the devil. If the crochet hook becomes emblematic of Aunt Flossie, than the blood-covered one in chapter seventeen had better belong to her.
It's a neat trick, and it's one that can be used pretty easily for secondary characters. (Get it? deuter = second. We still use the same basic language to talk about drama, except that now we call deuteragonists secondary characters.) But with secondary characters, the reader will want something more than a mere emblem. They'll want the emblem to become fleshed out a bit. There's got to be more to Aunt Flossie than a yarn hobby.
So, do you think it will help you develop your characters if you first decide where they fit on the -agonists scale?
Theresa
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