I seem to be in song title mode at the moment (see my earlier post It Ain't What You Say It's the Way That You Say It) but here's a little pinch of plotting snuff for you to breath in deeply.
When you are thinking about constructing a plot, at some point -- this is going to sound unkind of me, I know -- it is an excellent idea to punish a sympathetic character, ideally your hero or someone close to them, by ensuring that something truly dreadful happens to them. Your reader will find it extremely hard to bear any wanton act of cruelty towards a character to whom they have become deeply attached, and the calamity will have the effect of drawing them far more closely into your story, as they will be waiting with bated breath to see if everything comes right in the end.
Simples!
Monday, 28 February 2011
Friday, 25 February 2011
Chicken or Egg, Which Comes First?
In the world of writing fiction, which comes first -- character or plot? Much more interesting than chicken or egg...
Strictly speaking, I think that situation beats both of them. I saw True Grit yesterday and you could sum the situation there as: Young girl hires hard-bitten US marshal to avenge father's death. That's a situation with a little whiff of plot going on and even the very beginnings of some character stuff too.
Once you have a situation nailed down, you will probably find that you are working on character and plot pretty much simultaneously, the literary equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your tummy, so keep concentrating. They are so interdependent that it's almost impossible to separate one from the other, so perhaps it's just a question of emphasis or priority. There is, however, one cardinal rule, which is succinctly summed up by the late, great John Mortimer.
Never make your your hero or heroine (or anyone else, for that matter) behave out of character simply to get yourself out of a difficult hole in the plot, as anything that takes place for the sake of narrative expediency will have a hollow and unconvincing ring to it. In my experience, if your characters have been developed with sufficient depth, the plot will flow from them with a kind of satisfying synergy, but it never works in reverse: plots don't create wonderful characters, good characters involve themselves in fascinating situations.
Strictly speaking, I think that situation beats both of them. I saw True Grit yesterday and you could sum the situation there as: Young girl hires hard-bitten US marshal to avenge father's death. That's a situation with a little whiff of plot going on and even the very beginnings of some character stuff too.
Once you have a situation nailed down, you will probably find that you are working on character and plot pretty much simultaneously, the literary equivalent of patting your head while rubbing your tummy, so keep concentrating. They are so interdependent that it's almost impossible to separate one from the other, so perhaps it's just a question of emphasis or priority. There is, however, one cardinal rule, which is succinctly summed up by the late, great John Mortimer.
"It's important that the characters perform the plot and that the plot doesn't manipulate the characters."
Never make your your hero or heroine (or anyone else, for that matter) behave out of character simply to get yourself out of a difficult hole in the plot, as anything that takes place for the sake of narrative expediency will have a hollow and unconvincing ring to it. In my experience, if your characters have been developed with sufficient depth, the plot will flow from them with a kind of satisfying synergy, but it never works in reverse: plots don't create wonderful characters, good characters involve themselves in fascinating situations.
Thursday, 24 February 2011
Stuff and Nonsense
Following on from my hymn of praise to Roget, of Thesaurus fame, I thought it would be good to have a little Lewis Carroll moment, because I think it was that nonpareil of the nonsensical who made the following remark:
With your Thesaurus close at hand (and if you haven't got one, rush out and buy one, even before you buy The Hand That Once Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell, which I'm longing to read) sit yourself down and have a go at writing some nonsense verse. Do what Carroll says and just think about the sounds, bemuse and bewitch yourself. You will probably have no direct use for what you come out with, but I wouldn't mind betting that next time you settle down to write, your sensitivity to what you're saying will be more acute and you will be far more dexterous.
"Take care of the sounds and the sense will take care of itself."I think this is a great way to look at the use of language as it makes you come at writing from a slightly different angle, not getting too bogged down in meaning (you can fix that later) but just thinking about the plasticity of words, how malleable they can be, how audible....(and edible?)
With your Thesaurus close at hand (and if you haven't got one, rush out and buy one, even before you buy The Hand That Once Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell, which I'm longing to read) sit yourself down and have a go at writing some nonsense verse. Do what Carroll says and just think about the sounds, bemuse and bewitch yourself. You will probably have no direct use for what you come out with, but I wouldn't mind betting that next time you settle down to write, your sensitivity to what you're saying will be more acute and you will be far more dexterous.
Wednesday, 23 February 2011
Roget and Out
I love my Roget's Thesaurus. I love it so much that I have taken the trouble to scan it in so that you can see how well-thumbed and fondly-used it is.
It was given to me as a birthday present by my grandmother, whom I adored.
If I had to choose a desert island book, it would be right up there with the Collected Poems of WB Yeats. It's not just an indispensable tool for a writer, much better than that pinched and meagre facility which Windows provides, it is a work of poetry in its own right.
See what spells it can cast over a dull a word like grey:
greyness, canescence, neutral tint, pepper and salt, chiaroscuro, grisaille, oyster, gunmetal, ashes, neutral, sad, leaden, livid, grizzled, hoary, glaucous, steely, pearly, smoky, cinereous, field grey, iron grey, mousy, mole.
Cinereous! Canescence! It's pure magic. I often find myself looking up one thing and travelling from that to another to another, in something that is more than a flight of fancy, it's an unfettered leap of the imagination. Using Roget gives my writing not just breadth, which is easy enough to achieve if you work at it, but depth as well, something which is much more elusive (or flown, or fugitive, or wanted, or slippery, or abient (?), or enigmatic, or abstruse...)
It was given to me as a birthday present by my grandmother, whom I adored.
If I had to choose a desert island book, it would be right up there with the Collected Poems of WB Yeats. It's not just an indispensable tool for a writer, much better than that pinched and meagre facility which Windows provides, it is a work of poetry in its own right.
See what spells it can cast over a dull a word like grey:
greyness, canescence, neutral tint, pepper and salt, chiaroscuro, grisaille, oyster, gunmetal, ashes, neutral, sad, leaden, livid, grizzled, hoary, glaucous, steely, pearly, smoky, cinereous, field grey, iron grey, mousy, mole.
Cinereous! Canescence! It's pure magic. I often find myself looking up one thing and travelling from that to another to another, in something that is more than a flight of fancy, it's an unfettered leap of the imagination. Using Roget gives my writing not just breadth, which is easy enough to achieve if you work at it, but depth as well, something which is much more elusive (or flown, or fugitive, or wanted, or slippery, or abient (?), or enigmatic, or abstruse...)
Tuesday, 22 February 2011
I Can See Clearly Now....
I went to have my eyes tested a couple of weeks ago and as I have at least three different things wrong with them, it was quite a challenge for the optician. She put one of those glasses -- as -- cages contraptions on my nose and then added in so many lenses that I could hardly hold my head up. After that, she fiddled and twiddled them and there was this extraordinary moment when, lo and behold, everything came miraculously into focus and I could read, ooh, three or four lines of letters on the far side of the room.
I thought afterwards that it is a little bit like rewriting / editing. You hack and hack and hack - move this scene here then move it back again; chuck that one; cut that one in half; discard, discard, discard; rewrite; cut; move to the next chapter; rewrite; change the beginning; rewrite the rewrite; ditch the end - until suddenly (lo and behold) everything comes miraculously into focus and the story as you want to tell it emerges before your very eyes.
I've had students say to me, "I could go on rewriting forever, how do you know when to stop?" but somehow you do know; you know. The months and years you have spent nose to nose with your narrative mean that you have become so finely attuned to it that you know there is nothing more that you can do.
It's a bit like a child leaving home: you drop them at their new flat and they don't want you to help them with the unpacking, they just want you to leave them on their own to get on with things. It means your job is done.
Which means in turn that you must find a new door to open...
A door that Rothko might have painted?
I thought afterwards that it is a little bit like rewriting / editing. You hack and hack and hack - move this scene here then move it back again; chuck that one; cut that one in half; discard, discard, discard; rewrite; cut; move to the next chapter; rewrite; change the beginning; rewrite the rewrite; ditch the end - until suddenly (lo and behold) everything comes miraculously into focus and the story as you want to tell it emerges before your very eyes.
I've had students say to me, "I could go on rewriting forever, how do you know when to stop?" but somehow you do know; you know. The months and years you have spent nose to nose with your narrative mean that you have become so finely attuned to it that you know there is nothing more that you can do.
It's a bit like a child leaving home: you drop them at their new flat and they don't want you to help them with the unpacking, they just want you to leave them on their own to get on with things. It means your job is done.
Which means in turn that you must find a new door to open...
A door that Rothko might have painted?
Monday, 21 February 2011
It Ain't What You Say, It's The Way That You Say It...
Dialogue is fun - I really enjoy writing it. It offers a chance to change tempo, it is more relaxed and, well, conversational than descriptive prose. It is quick to do, you can be funny or dramatic and it's a great way of really getting to grips with your characters: the words that come out of their mouths are the pure essence of who they are.
Dialogue is infinitely flexible, as well. What people say is open to several interpretations, so there is scope to be elliptical and enigmatic. To find out just how flexible, have a go at this little exercise. Try writing a conversation between two people and then, while keeping the dialogue exactly the same, alter the sense of it by changing how they say it. Context is all!
Dialogue is infinitely flexible, as well. What people say is open to several interpretations, so there is scope to be elliptical and enigmatic. To find out just how flexible, have a go at this little exercise. Try writing a conversation between two people and then, while keeping the dialogue exactly the same, alter the sense of it by changing how they say it. Context is all!
Friday, 18 February 2011
Having a Hinterland Helps
The American novelist and short story writer Flannery O'Connor once said, "If you're going to write, you'd better come from somewhere," perhaps because good writing, like good wine, does have a sense of terroir - landscape, climate, derivation. The Irishness of writers such as James Joyce, Yeats and more recently John McGahern somehow seems to be mystically ingrained in their work.
However, even if you don't have the good fortune to come from a place that has a recognised literary hallmark stamped on it, you can always come from somewhere in a metaphorical sense. Don't limit yourself to the geography of your origins, think about where you have come from in an emotional sense, in terms of your personal experience, and see how this can inform your writing. My hunch is that Flannery O'Connor , in saying that writers need to come from somewhere, might have meant that they need to arrive at the blank page in front of them with something pressing to say about where they have been, rather than where they were born, with a good story to unpack from their travelling bag.
However, even if you don't have the good fortune to come from a place that has a recognised literary hallmark stamped on it, you can always come from somewhere in a metaphorical sense. Don't limit yourself to the geography of your origins, think about where you have come from in an emotional sense, in terms of your personal experience, and see how this can inform your writing. My hunch is that Flannery O'Connor , in saying that writers need to come from somewhere, might have meant that they need to arrive at the blank page in front of them with something pressing to say about where they have been, rather than where they were born, with a good story to unpack from their travelling bag.
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