Category: Writing

A Wizard Did It

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Happy February, everyone. To start off this month, we have part two of Tia Kalla’s question. For those who haven’t read yesterday’s post, Tia (@tiakall) tweeted me the question:

“@JessicaDall Any good advice for plothole/ending problem solving?”

Since we ended January talking about plot holes, today we’ll be talking about tricky endings.

Now, I completely understand why Tia grouped these two concepts into one question. Where plot holes are a problem with something integral to the story, ending problems are just what they sound like…problems when you get to the all important climax and conclusion (or denouement, if you want to be fancy) of your story.

Unlike a plot hole, where you have a character/situation that doesn’t make sense or is in someway against the rules of your universe/personality of your character, what you generally find with ending problems are that you’ve written the rest of the story in a way that makes it so you can’t find a way to solve the problem you have spent the entire story building up.

For example, your Main Character is caught in the Big Baddy’s secret hideout with all his/her friends locked up and no way out. Now, if your Main Character is James Bond, they’ll figure out some crazy escape that works. Far too often, though, authors find themselves flailing trying to figure out just how they’re going to write their way out of the mess they’ve gotten themselves into.

And this is where you have to be careful not to fall into the most dreaded ending fix. The Deus Ex Machina.

What, you ask, is a Deus Ex Machina? A latin phrase that translates to something like “God out of the machine” my dear friend Wikipedia defines it “as  a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.”

From what I remember of Drama 101 in college, Deus Ex Machinas (yeah, yeah dei ex machina, but Latin plurals are crazy) abound in the Ancient Greek Playwright, Euripides’, plays, such as an example in the play Medea, where perhaps the original “hell hath no fury” woman has slaughtered her infant sons in revenge for her husband, Jason (of Argonaut fame) leaving her for another woman. Children freshly killed, Jason comes to punish (read: kill) Medea for her crime and has her there, just about as defenseless as possible, dead sons nearby, ready to pop her head off. Escape seems impossible for poor (read: completely insane) Medea, so how is Euripides going to write himself out of this? Is he going to let her die?

Spoiler Alert: No, that would just be completely understandable for the plot. He wants Medea to live. And so the chariot of the Sun God, Helios, comes down on stage (by mechanical means) and pulls her out of her predicament. Quite literally, a God in a machine saving Medea and solving Euripides’ plot problem.

Now, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a modern-day book which uses Deus Ex Machina quite so literally as Euripides (does anyone have an example of God coming down in a chariot and fixing everything at the last minute?) but that doesn’t mean that seemingly unsolvable problems aren’t “suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object” in modern-day works.

Perhaps the most blatant of these moments are in situations where one of the main characters “suddenly” finds out that they had some power that has long been dormant that they only find out about just as everything seems hopeless. Often times this is found in stories with “Mary Sue” characters. Though Mary Sues are a controversial and a poorly defined occurence in fiction (which I’ll get into at some point in a later blog post) the overly-idealized Sueish character often find some magical way to save the day when all seems lost because of their perfect selves.

Like one of the suggestions for fixing plot holes in yesterday’s post stated, you should not to throw in things that are going to be important to the plot too late in. If you’re going to have something that is important come in later, try to touch on it before that exact point where it’s needed. Even if it isn’t a fix-all, knowing that the main character has the ability to jump tall buildings in a single bound when threatened is better than having it just suddenly happen at the climax of the story.

And that’s what makes Deus Ex Machinas so annoying. They feel like a cop out. You’ve spent however long reading a novel, or sat for however long in a theatre, have invested yourself in the plot and story, and just when you’re supposed to get the pay off – see how it all comes together – you find that there’s a proverbial “get out of jail free” card that makes the rest of the story not mean much. If the main character could have used their super-awesome teleporting skills right at the beginning, you wouldn’t have needed the entire middle of the story where they’re struggling through. So why did you have to read that part at all? If the wizard could have sent out that spell that just traveled halfway around the world to kill the Big Baddy, why the heck didn’t he?

So how do you avoid a Deus Ex Machina situation?

Like other general plot holes, it can help to outline before hand, or put in something that makes it so they aren’t saved at the possible last second by something that makes the rest of the book useless… But, truly, the most important thing in avoiding Deus Ex Machina is to spend some time thinking about your characters, thinking about how they would react to any given situation (when they don’t have a hope of lightning striking down the Big Baddy, or God dropping down), and not to worry about making your story “more exciting” by building up the danger they’re facing to the point where there’s simply no way they can get out of it without said lightening bolt from the heavens. Even with a little less danger, if you’re able to stay within the logic of your story, and have your characters stay, well, in character, it’s going to be a much more interesting, much better story than it would be by saving them by something out of nowhere that leaves the reader wondering what the point was if that’s the end.

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The Ever-Dreaded Plotholes

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Today’s post comes from a seemingly simple question from Tia Kalla (@tiakall):

“@JessicaDall Any good advice for plothole/ending problem solving?”

Of course, I’d bet all of us writers wish that were simple, after all, it’s never fun to finish a story, get halfway through editing, and then find out that what the second half of your plot hinges on actually makes no sense. Sadly, there’s very rarely an easy fix, just some that are easier than others. And so for today, we will focus on plot holes, and I’ll attempt to tackle all those sticky ending problems tomorrow.

For those who don’t know exactly what a plot hole is, wikipedia puts it:

“A plot hole, or plothole, is a gap or inconsistency in a storyline that goes against the flow of logic established by the story’s plot, or constitutes a blatant omission of relevant information regarding the plot. These include such things as unlikely behaviour or actions of characters, illogical or impossible events, events happening for no apparent reason, or statements/events that contradict earlier events in the storyline.”

Reader or writer, I think we’ve all been there. Even if you’ve never seen a book in your life, you’ve probably experienced plot holes. You’ll find them in movies all the time. Cracked.com even came up with a list of eight movies left with gaping plot holes.

For example, Back to the Future:

“Marty McFly goes back in time, helps his parents get together, invents rock and roll…and everyone promptly forgets he was ever there the minute he leaves.

Nobody notices that a famous clothing brand is later named after him, nobody notices that Chuck Berry releases a song that sounds pretty similar to the one he played at the big dance, and most importantly, nobody bats an eyelid when his Mom has a kid who looks exactly like him.”

Or Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban:

“At the end of another wondrous wizarding adventure, Harry uses a magical time-travel necklace to go back and save himself and his godfather from the evil dementors… The movie treats time travel like this urgent thing: “We’ve made it to the past! Now we’ve only got a few minutes to go back and stop the dementors!” No you don’t, you have as much time as you need. It’s f**king time travel. If you mess up, just go back and try again.”

Now, I’m sure every writer and/or reader had come across something in a story that seems out of nowhere, or completely out of character (I know I had to change a scene in a story when my editor pointed out that it didn’t make sense to have an otherwise cautious character agree to drive home with someone who might have had a few too many). But what’s awful about true plot holes are that they’re essential to your story. Had that car ride been the start of the story (a story about dealing with a drunk driving death, perhaps) or an essential part of the plot (it leads to a car chase that absolutely has to be there) it would have been a lot more difficult to get around it than having her take a taxi home for the night (which she does).

So just how, exactly, do you get around those annoying plot holes?

1. Acknowledge/Joke about the plot hole: One of the easiest ways to get around a plot hole is to simply acknowledge that, yes, it is a plot hole. For example:

“Wow, lucky this charm we’ve needed was right here where we just happened to be walking in a forest where we’d be lucky to ever find each other if separated.”

“Yeah, what are the odds?”

Not an ideal fix, but it’s better than just leaving it there for other people to pick apart. Personally, I believe this fix works best when a plot hole comes from someone acting illogically.

“Why the heck would you go and talk to that guy?”

2. Go back and change something that’s less important to make the plot hole make sense: For example, using my example of the cautious character getting in a car with someone who may or may not be safe to drive, put in somewhere much earlier that she’s very cautious, except when she’s drunk. That way, it would be easy to say she got drunk at the party and thus wasn’t her normal self. It’s easier to change than trying to rework just how you’re going to start your plot without her in the car and you have the plot hole taken care of.

What you do want to be careful of with this fix, however, is not to throw in the fact too late. Then it seems like a blatant attempt to fix something at the last minute. For example, in a book I was editing a while back there was a painfully obvious “oh, I need to move the plot along” moment that just made for bad writing. It seemed to go something like:

[Author is writing] Hmm, I need to have Generic Love Interest (GLI) jump in to this river and save Heroine who is suddenly going to turn into a Damsel in Distress long enough to have them meet and fall in love. But how can I do that? I’ve shown up until now that she is a completely competent woman who wouldn’t need anyone to save her. Oh! I got it.

Heroine: I know we’ve been on this boat for half a day, but just so you know, I can’t swim!

GLI: Oh, really?

Heroine: Yeah, I sure hope… AH! I just fell overboard, you need to save me since, like I just said I can’t swim!

It’s good the author was trying to fill in a plot hole, but if it’s important that the Heroine of your story can’t swim for that scene, don’t mention it three seconds before she falls in. Add it in earlier, take a little more time to edit and put it in earlier. A couple of references that maybe she’s afraid of water. Heck, even when they first get in the boat, make her uncomfortable. That way you have some precedent for when she falls overboard.

3. Outline: This might be most useful for keeping plot holes from happening int the first place, but outlining can also be a useful editing tool. Write down everything important that happens. Write down all the things that make those important things happen. It won’t take as much time as completely trying to rewrite and it will help you pinpoint where you’ll be able to make changes that will either allow you to make your plot holes make sense, or change them entirely. Is there a minor character you forgot about who could make the plot point work? Add them in so the plot hole makes sense.

4. Total Rewrite: And, of course, the most dreaded of the fixes for plot holes. Completely rewriting the story from however early you need to to get rid of the plot hole. Just considering it is enough to make the writer in you die a little inside, isn’t it? You’ve spent X amount of time writing your sixty, seventy, eighty-thousand word baby (562,000 if you’re Ayn Rand. Yep, that’s how long Atlas Shrugged is) you’ve finally made it through a complete draft, and now you’re basically going to have to start over. Still, if you can’t find any other fix (and you aren’t willing to just ignore it and hope no one very catches on – a fool’s dream) a rewrite could be your best bet. And sometimes it works out for the better. Now that you know exactly what you want to do with your story, and know your characters so well, the second time writing the same story might turn out amazingly better than you ever thought it could be just by going through and editing it.

And so, those are my suggestions for fixing plot holes (at least how I would do/have done it). If anyone has any other ideas, feel free to comment or email me (jesskdall(a)gmail.com) and I’ll add your ideas in as help for other writers.

To all: May your fixes be easy and your plot holes few.

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What’s in a Name?

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Today’s blog post comes from us courtesy of Roxanne St. Claire (@roxannestclaire), a fellow Twitterling (I’m not sure if that’s something we call people on Twitter, but I like the term, and thus it is what I call people on Twitter all the same.

In under 140 characters Roxanne wrote:

“Sometimes just changing a character’s name changes everything. Just did that and heroine feels so much more “right” now.”

Right away, at least for me, that made complete sense. There are some writers out there who can write an entire story with their characters being X and Y before filling in the names. I, personally, can’t. A name means a lot to my characters. Often times, a story idea comes from the name, rather than fitting the name into a completed story. I don’t know, maybe that comes from my not much caring for outlines, but all the same.

Take, for example, Willow. One of the main characters in my novel Grey Areas. To me, she has always been Willow. I’m not quite sure where the name came from at the time (perhaps it’s just that I like plant names. Thinking about it, the Main Character in The Bleeding Crowd is Dahlia…) but from the moment I started writing, she was Willow. From that name, an entire back story came out that her parents had been hippies. Hence the plant names. (And the fact that her middle name became Belladonna). For The Bleeding Crowd, the names are even more set. Dahlia comes from a mother who loves plant names. The twins are Audrey and Zoe (A and Z for the two ends of the alphabet). All the men have biblical names (Benjamin, Jude, Abraham…)

But, ok, those all have plot reasons behind them. It would be a little odd to have all characters in X group have names that start with one letter and stray from that. In those cases, of course names matter. But what about just any old character? Does it really matter if a character is named Jill or Jane?

Of course, to quote Shakespeare, “That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet” (Romeo and Juliet (II, ii)). Would it really have mattered to the story if Romeo had been named Sam? Or Bill?

Perhaps not. If you wrote the characters exactly the same, perhaps it wouldn’t matter if the play were “Bill and Juliet” but then, the name Bill just brings up a different connotation there, doesn’t it? The 1989 movie Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure just wouldn’t have sounds the same if it had been “William and Theodore’s Excellent Adventure” now would it?

To quote the great philosophers, the writers of The Simpsons:

Lisa – “A rose by any other name would still smell as sweet.”
Bart – “Not if they were called ‘Stink Blossoms’.”

Perhaps a rose would still smell like a rose even if it were called something else. But what would someone’s first reaction be if you were trying to give them a Stink Blossom for Valentine’s Day? I doubt many people would want to even try smelling something that says it stinks in the name. And for those who did, you can’t discount the idea of the mind playing tricks. Something along the lines of the placebo effect. You tell someone something’s going to smell bad, less likely they’re going to accept that it smells good.

Personally, I think the same thing happens to a lot of writers. There’s a picture in our heads associated with names. Take Agnes for example. What’s the first thing you picture? Unless you know someone else named Agnes, it’s probably an older woman. Now Laquisha, or Vinnie. There are some names that are just associated with stereotypes – either because they are most common in one group than another, it’s a name used a lot in media referring to one type of person, or because they have been used as a negative “catch-all” for a group of people (such as someone insultingly referring to a hispanic man as ‘Jose’). There’s such a strong mental connection to some names that it doesn’t only affect how a reader sees the character, but it starts morphing even us writers’ ideas about our characters.

And, so were’ back to Roxanne’s point, “Changing a character’s name changes everything.” It’s probably why it can take so long to find a perfect name for one character, and why you couldn’t change another’s name no matter how much a publisher or agent pushes you to. It’s just the character’s name. It’s how you see them. It’s who they grow to be.

And so, a rose might still smell like a rose, but it wouldn’t be what we expect it to be. And that changes everything.

(If you’re struggling to name someone or something in your story, naming sites around the web can help you find something that seems to “fit.” I made a handy list of a small fraction of these sites available here to help point anyone looking in the right direction.)

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Character Questionnaire

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By popular demand, here is a sample of a Character Questionnaire (like the ones I mentioned in yesterday’s post). You can find the original questionnaire here, or many other wonderful questions on the web (some with over 100 questions, which I think will give you just about anything you ever wanted to know about your characters).

1. What is your character’s full name?

2. When were they born?

3. What are their parent’s names?

4. Do they have any brothers or sisters?

5. What kind of eyes do they have?

6. What kind of hair do they have?

7. What is their complexion like?

8. What body type are they?

9. What is listening to their voice like?

10. Do they have a favourite quote?

11. What sort of music do they enjoy?

12. Have they ever cheated on a partner?

13. Have they ever lost someone close to them?

14. What is their favourite sound?

15. What is their opinion on euthanasia?

16. Are they judgmental of others?

17. Have they ever been drunk?

18. What are they like when they stay up all night?

19. Have they ever been arrested?

20. What colour evokes strong memories for them?

21. What do they do on rainy days?

22. What religion are they?

23. What word do they overuse the most?

24. What do they wear to bed?

25. Do they have any tattoos or piercings?

26. What type of clothing are they most comfortable in?

27. What is their most disliked saying?

28. Do they have any enemies?

29. What does their writing look like?

30. What disgusts them?

The Unanswerable Questions

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One of the best things about a writing community, be it an online forum, a writers’ group, or any other sort of group is that they give you the chance to talk out our stories. Whether you’re a plotter (someone who outlines) or a pantser (someone who plots as they go along), I have yet to find a writer who doesn’t like talking about their work. Sure, hearing, “Oh, what’s your story about?” isn’t always the most loved question (writing something is so much easier than summarizing it while not making it sound completely boring and/or bizarre for some reason…) but even if you don’t like quick summaries, getting the chance to talk about your story, on your terms is almost always fun.

Beyond that, talking things out can definitely help when you’ve hit a writer’s block, or even just a snag. Ignoring any little side projects, what I have been writing lately has been quite an undertaking for me. For one, it is a series. I’ve never done a series before, and for a die-hard pantser that’s a bit of a struggle. (I currently have two small notebooks of just notes so I can keep everything straight/not have continuity errors between the books. Broke down and got Scrivener [another NaNoWriMo sponsor] as well. Good outlining software, for the record). Also, since it’s historical fiction, it takes a lot more research work than my modern or fantastical works have. I know what sort of cell phone all of my friends have, I can make up what fantasy characters have, I actually have to look up what historical characters have, and that makes for slower going.

Luckily, I have people I can talk to to work through all these problems. In a stroke of luck, my dear boyfriend is a historian, and thus has become my live in history expert for all those random “I have no idea if they would do this. Honey?” questions. And for what he can’t help me with (or when I feel like I’ve bugged him too much recently) I have my dear friends over at the NaNoWriMo forums.

There are plenty of other writing communities online, but they’re mine when I have a question I often find myself posting in either the Reference Desk (for the factual questions) or Plot Doctoring (for help with a plot hole and such). When possible, I also try to help other WriMos with their questions.

Many of the questions get good discussions going (and save our friends and family from having to listen to us try to talk out our plots) but you also get a fair share of questions that are truly just not answerable.

“My character is a 17-year-old girl who lives in Alaska. What would her favorite band be?”

Really, how would any of us begin to help answer that? There are so many different answers there’s no place to begin. Is she into classic rock? Punk? Top 40? How would any of us know?

Now, the problem with most of these questions, I believe, is not that the author doesn’t know their own characters (or at least I would hope it’s not that), it’s that the author knows their characters too well. You’ve been either writing or outlining them for however long that it doesn’t cross your mind when asking about them to specify that they are homeschooled, and like pop, and…

If that’s the case, when looking for help, it’s important to think about everything the people whom you are asking for help don’t know. It might make for a really long question, but it will end up taking less time then having half a dozen posts asking about the character before you actually end up getting anywhere.

Now, if it really is that you just don’t know your character (it isn’t that you aren’t a seventeen-year-old and want some teenage opinions), before ever bringing things up to other people to answer, try using a character questionnaire. These handy tools give you questions to help you work out just who your character is, from hair color, to family, to favorite food. Once you have one of these filled out, then you’ll be able to ask the small questions without having trouble answering all the little things about them.

Just, please, don’t put everything on a questionnaire into your story…info dumps are no fun.

Progress

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I got an interesting question today: How do you feel about your past writing?

And wow is that a loaded question. I don’t think it’s any secret that I have hidden my first novel away for the time being. I don’t know if it’s unsalvageable, but it’s bad enough that it would take a good chunk of time to bring it up to a standard I’d be ok sharing with the world these days. It goes back to the “Your first novel is never as good as you think it is” point I’ve made a few times before (such as at the end of my recent interview here [look around the 3-minute mark]). Well, you might know that your first novel is awful, but as someone who has worked in acquisitions I know there are plenty of first novels that get sent out that most likely won’t be considered up to snuff as you get better (like, well, mine…) As I like to say, you may think it’s the best thing you’ve ever written, but that’s only because it has been up to that point. Writing is a skill. You get better the more you do it.

With that out of the way, though, lets break out my dusty old writing folder and see what I have from early on.

1. Librae
Here we go, the infamous first novel. Written at about 15, it’s the first longer work I finished. It still has a special place in my heart, but…shutter. Let’s look at this a little closer.

Length: 200,000 words. Yep this one got away from me, and that’s after a couple of rounds of edits. I’m sure it would have clocked in at at least 225,000 when first written. For some perspective, Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is about 170,000, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is about 190,000. Yep, this is hundreds and hundreds of pages of first-time writer fun that outdoes the later Harry Potter books.

Plot: Ok, the plot isn’t too bad. I mean, it’s cliche, but not irredeemable. It’s about a bunch of teenagers who can control different elements (oddly enough, a common topic for first novels for some reason. I’ve seen a ton come through submissions and have edited many more). Honestly, it’s some sort of Harry Potter, Star Wars, The OC mix. Semi-enjoyable clichéd goodness all around.

Characters: Well, I can’t be too harsh on the characters here. They’re my babies. I mean, I spent 200,000 words talking about them (not including the completely useless conversations that they had in the middle of the book that I cut out and pasted in another document when I realized how insanely long it was). Main character is a bit off a Mary Sue–though I’d like to believe she isn’t completely unlikable. And not to be outdone, she has her male counterpart, the Gary Stu (or Marty/Larry Stu if you prefer). A good few of Miss Sue’s friends are based on friends I had in high school, which is always a good idea… Still, for all their problems, I still love them all. Even if hidden away, they are still my first cast of characters and will be defended beyond reason.

Writing: Gah. Prologue wreaks of having just watched the beginning of the first Lord of the Rings movie. It has so many beginning writer problems it makes me cringe. Yeah, I would definitely have to take a hatchet to that to make it anywhere near presentable. I have other projects I’m working on, and am not being paid to tackle that, so that’s not happening anytime soon.

2. Two or Two-Thousand: Next up, the yet (and more than likely forever) unfinished novel that was started after Librae in an attempt to keep up the writing pace. Again, a high school (junior year?) project.

Length: 40,000 when abandoned. If I remember correctly (again, this was a high school project, so it’s been a while since I’ve thought about it) it’s one of the “I thought of a better idea” casualties that plagued me up until NaNoWriMo in college gave me a reason to stick to project (and taught me all my writing didn’t have to be giant wannabe epics). 40,000 isn’t too bad (about halfway to a proper novel) but I’ve just finished all the beginning stuff, so it’s likely this would have stretched out to something completely unruly if I ever truly got into the main plot.

Plot: Again, not a completely awful idea. Clichéd again, but somewhere between fantasy and sci fi about a society where water is inaccessible and has to be manufactured (thus making it amazingly expensive). Not nearly as original as thought it was at the time (see my “Accidental Plagiarism” article) but not without merit.

Characters: Generally unlikable. Again, we have some Mary Sue/Gary Stu problems, though not as much of a problem as in Librae. Even without leaning more Mary Sue, the main characters see entirely unlikable reading it now.

Writing: Same beginning writer problems. Same awkward prologue right at the beginning (had to keep “my style” consistent for when these got published, don’t you know) though I suppose you can argue I’m learning a little.

3. Just Farrah: What I abandoned Two or Two-Thousand for. I believe this was senior year of high school. I might be wrong, however

Length: 20,000 when abandoned. I didn’t get far enough to have some idea about what it might have ended up at, but I at least have some hope that it wouldn’t have ended up as some 200,000 word behemoth

Plot: Eh, could be interesting. Not fantasy this time, but about a girl who secretly wants to be a singer, against her parent’s wishes, and thus moonlights in a club. Nothing special, but nothing awful.

Characters: No Mary Sues this time, but the majority are stock characters/two-dimensional. Main character is stock good girl who secretly isnt’ so good. Love interest is stock bad boy with heart of gold…and it goes on. Would need some serious character development if I were to revisit this.

Writing: Getting there. Not great but it doesn’t make me cringe at least.

And that, I believe, takes us through high school. If any of you are career writers/have been writing for years, I have to say it’s really interesting to go back over your old writing. Feels good to know you’re advancing. Perhaps if people ask nicely, I will be persuaded to share a couple of samples of just how much mine has changed in the future…for now, that file is closing again.

Too Much Dialogue

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Today’s News: Read an interview I did with An Innovative Pursuit here about writing, Grey Areas, and upcoming The Bleeding Crowd.

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Another topic courtesy of the NaNoWriMo forums: How much dialogue is too much dialogue in a novel/short story?

For anyone who’s read my work, you’re probably assuming that my answer is “there’s never too much dialogue.” I’ll be the first to admit that I am a huge fan of dialogue. In fact, regarding my last short story published (“Frankincense” for those of you who don’t want to pop over to my biography), the acceptance letter for the anthology literally started:

” Well…normally when I read a manuscript that consists of 95% dialogue, I stop reading after about two pages and prepare a decline letter.  Yours, however, kept me reading…which is what a good story should do.”

She went on to compare it to Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, so I’ll take it overall as a compliment, but you know you write a lot of dialogue when someone accepting your work feels the need to point out that it’s nearly all dialogue (personally, I think 95% is overestimating, but still…)

Every author I know has a different take on dialogue. Personally, I find it the most interesting (and generally easiest) thing to write. Many people find it the hardest  (I’ve more than once heard people complaining about how poorly they do dialogue). Editing, I can see that. For some people, dialogue comes naturally. For some it sounds stilted and unnatural. Based on our skills/preferences, it’s completely understandable (at least to me) that we each lean one way or another. We write more dialogue or more narrative.

More and more, though, I hear people talking about being worried they’re using too much/not enough dialogue in their writing. For example, this post in the NaNoWriMo Forums this morning:

“So my novel is 75000 words and pretty much done.  Problem is, the last 1/3 is alot of dialogue…I dont think I can cut much of it without losing the vital information it posesses.  Is there something I can do to fix this problem?  I am trying to add alot of movement between words and descriptives to break it up but I still find myself worrying…HELP.”

And on the other side:

“Do you think it’s either bad style or very off-putting to readers if there are whole pages (or 2 or 3 pages at a time) with no dialogue? I often find I’m following events involving one person on their own, and I realise it’s been three pages since anyone actually SAID anything.”

Now, I admit I’ve been trying to put a little more narrative into my writing, but then, personally I don’t like reading too much narrative, so I probably (read: definitely) still lean on the dialogue-heavy side.

So, when should you worry that you have too much dialogue (or too much narrative)? Or should you even worry?

Based on the odd compliment for Frankincense, it seems too much dialogue could hurt you when it comes to submitting your work. Though I never had a problem with a ton of dialogue in submissions (it would be a bit hypocritical to…) I’m sure others in acquisitions and agents might dislike it. While that can come from just about any part of your writing style (it’s why you should expect those rejects I was talking about in yesterday’s post) you definitely don’t want to find yourself in the reject pile before the agent/publisher of your choice has actually had a chance to look at your work.

So, like everything else when it comes to writing, it comes down to weighing the pros and cons.

Dialogue Pro:

– Dialogue tends to move more quickly due to its quick back and forth nature. It’s simple to explain things without taking too much time and losing the reader’s attention

Narrative Pro:

– Narrative moves slowly (or more slowly than dialogue) and gives you a chance to really dig in to important things. People don’t tend to get into long intricate explanations (unless they’re Bond villains) and thus you can do things with narrative that will sound awkward in dialogue.

Dialogue Pro:

– Dialogue gives you a chance to develop multiple characters at once. One of the quickest ways to tell who someone is is to hear them talk. What kind of grammar does the character use? What words? Is he/she polite or swear like a sailor? A couple of lines and people can tell a ton without long-winded paragraphs about your character’s back story.

Narrative Pro:

– Narrative gives you a chance to see the world through your POV (Point of View) Character’s eyes. Of course this doesn’t work so well in omniscient third person, but as that style hasn’t been popular in the better part of a century, generally you’re relating the story, or at least each scene, through one character. This is especially true in first person. Dialogue has to be more truthful than narrative. You write what is said. How your POV character interprets things, however, shows up in narrative. Are they the type to take every little thing as sarcasm? Do they think the way their boss just winced means they’re getting fired? You can show how they react much better with narrative.

Dialogue Con:

It’s easy to get into “As you know, Bob” situations with dialogue. For those of you who don’t know/don’t want to risk the time black-hole that is TV Tropes, “As you know, Bob” is a term that describes those awkward bits of a dialogue where it’s obviously the author trying to get information in the reader needs to know, but what the characters would never be talking about, since they both know what’s going on. For example:

“How is Cathy, your sister, doing?”
“Just fine. As you know, she fell off a building lately, but fell on a circus tent and thus didn’t get as hurt as she could have.”

1) Why would the first speaker need to clarify that Cathy is the second’s sister? The second speaker knows that. And 2) Why would the second speaker need to explain something that the first speaker already knows (Cathy’s fall)? It’s awkward and could be taken care of with a line of narrative along the lines of “It had been three weeks since his sister, Cathy’s fall…”

Narrative Con:

It’s much easier to fall into “laundry lists” with narrative. For example:

“Tim and Nancy went to the store. It took about 15 minutes. They walked up and down the aisles. They found milk. Then they checked out…”

Now, part of that example’s problem is the repetitive sentence structure and what not, but hopefully you see where I’m going. There’s no need give a play-by-play account of what’s happening, but it’s so easy to do when writing narrative. Unless one of your characters is supposed to be long-winded and boring, it will just feel awkward for something along the lines of:

“How was your day?”
“Well, I went to the store. It took me about 15 minutes to get there. Then I walked through all the aisles…”

And the list goes on and on. Will I keep trying to add narrative to my writing? Sure. But I’m not going to worry about the proper ratio for it. At least in my opinion, the genre of your novel and the situation of each scene is going to dictate how much narrative is needed just as much as my preference for dialogue. Rather than worrying about a ratio, or if people aren’t going to be happy with this much narrative or that much dialogue, weigh the pros and cons of each for what you want to happen in the scene. After all, if Frankincense is any indication, good writing will come out above any ratio of dialogue to narrative. It’s just about getting it to be good.

Beginning Writer Problems

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Publishing Update: The contract for my new novel, The Bleeding Crowd, has been signed. Look for more updates as its August release date gets closer.

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As a freelance editor, I spend a good amount of time with other people’s not-quite finished masterpieces. Though I have edited for all manner of writers (from the first-time novelist to multiply-published) my three most recent jobs have been for either completely new novelists, or ones with only a little experience under their belts.

None have been especially bad (there are some novels I have gotten freelance which, I admit, have made me cringe) but I have seen some problems that seem to be a common theme. For all those aspiring novelists out there, here are a few things I’d suggest keeping an eye on.

1. “Very” abuse. I can understand it, the music at the club your characters have gone to isn’t just loud. Having gone to clubs, I know the particular level of loud club music is. “The music was very loud” is a “very” weak sentence though. Not only because of the “to be” verb (was) but because “very”, for the most part, just clutters up a sentence. There are such stronger words to use. “The music was deafening” or “my/his/her ears rang, the music shaking the walls” are both stronger (and more interesting).

2. Contractions. People speak with contractions. One of the easiest ways to make someone sounds stuffy/formal/like a non-native English speaker is to have them speak without contractions. Think about the people you talk to on a regular basis. Now think about which of these sounds more like what they would say: a) “I am going to go. He cannot now, so he will come when he is able.”  of b) “I’m going to go. He can’t now, so he’ll come when he’s able.”

3. If people are saying things, use dialogue. As with all of these suggestions, there are exceptions, but dialogue is one of the easiest ways to make your writing quick and engaging. Of course it has to be good dialogue, but even bad dialogue tends to be more interesting than, “he was telling me/him/her about this, and this, and this.”

4. You don’t need to account for every minute. It’s possible to skip time/stop when the interesting part of the scene is done. If you start every scene by a character waking up and end with them going to sleep (and it isn’t a conscious stylistic choice) take a closer look at the scene. Do you really just need the two main characters to meet? You can have “they looked at each other in the coffee shop” as the first line of the scene. It doesn’t have to be “she woke up, took a shower, thought about having breakfast, but then decided to just get a bagel at the coffee shop on the corner.” If it isn’t important/interesting, you can skip to the fun parts.

5. “To Be” verbs. I touched on this a bit before, but “to be” verbs (am, is, was, were…) are weak. Don’t worry about taking out every “to be” verb in your writing, but if it doesn’t need to be there, don’t use it. For example, it doesn’t have to be “The ball was falling.” “The ball fell” is better.

6. Adverbs. I’m hardly one of those editors who is against adverbs of any kind. If you’ve read any of my writing, you know I’m not against adverbs. Just like “very” abuse, the main problems with abusing adverbs is that often they’re used when a stronger word could be. It’s especially bad when coupled with “very” abuse. “He said very quietly.” What’s wrong with “He whispered.”? If you can say something in fewer words, it’s generally stronger.

7. Telling, not showing. Yeah, this saying is overused quite a big, but it does has its uses. It’s just not interesting reading “He was angry.” How is “he” feeling? Or if he isn’t the narrator, how does the narrator see “he” is mad? Is his pulse rising? Is his face turning red? Is he clenching his fists?

8. Vary sentence structure. If every sentence starts with the same word (generally “I” in first person or “He/She/[Character’s Name]” in third person, try to change up some sentences. Not everything has to be filtered though a character (to use an above example, it doesn’t have to be “I/He/She/[Character Name] saw the ball fall” it can just be “The ball fell.”) It’s also possible to change up complex sentences (“She started to walk down the dark street, her foot steps echoing on the walls.” can become “Her foot steps echoed on the wall as she…”)

9. Switching tenses. Something to just watch for, I see it far too often. You can write in present or past tense (there are plenty of debates over which is better, and past is more common, but it’s your choice). Just keep consistent. Few things seem more awkward than when you start a sentence in past tense and finish it in present.

As with anything else in creative writing, take what I say with a grain of salt. There’s a time and place for almost everything. It’s when you do things without thinking, without a reason for them, that it makes someone seem like a novice. All of the above are little things, easily correctable (I’m sure I did more than one of them when I was just starting to write). Writing, like anything else, is a skill. If it isn’t perfect to start, just keep practicing.

Even if something is the best thing you’ve ever written, it only is because you haven’t had the chance to write something even better.

The Name Game

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While working on a separate post for tomorrow, I came to the realization that a number of questions my fellow WriMos ask when looking for plot help in the NaNoWriMo forums have to do with naming, be it a character, tavern, city, or anything else.

I completely understand that. Names are important. They set a tone, and I know I personally can’t develop a character until I have a name for them (I’m just not able to write “X said to Y” like some people can while looking for names, it seems).

Luckily for us writers, the internet abounds with resources to find names (Lucky for my readers, too, or all my minor characters would have the first name that came to mind–which oddly enough tends to be Kyle.) So, in the interest of consolidating all those helpful sites I use when looking for/making up names…

HELPFUL NAMING SITES

Character Names:

–behindthename.com: Personally, I consider this site a bit like the Holy Grail of naming resources. Not only do they have an amazingly long list of names (each with a full explanation of the history behind it) but you can sort them by country,  see what names were the most popular in the year your character was born, or even search by meaning. They have also recently started surnames.behindthename.com, which has last names. The list isn’t quite as extensive as the original behindthename site so far, but it’s still a great source.

–thinkbabynames.com: Though I am partial to behindthename, thinkbabynames.com is also a good source for first names, including the rarer names behindthename doesn’t have listed. For example where “Me’Shell” might only get you this list of similarly spelled names on behindthename, it’s featured today on thinkbabynames, which will tell you it is a variant of Michelle.

–babynamewizard.com: Another useful baby name site. Perhaps most useful is it’s front page “Find a Name” feature, which lets you search for a name based of certain criteria such as “Must start with __” or “Can’t start with __” If you really want an uncommon but traditional sounding name for a character that doesn’t start with B, but ends with an A, this is your site.

–census.gov: If you’re looking for relatively common last names (for US-based) characters, this list provides, by percentage, the top ranked last name down to 88799th place. (Sorry Johnson, Smith has replaced you as most popular once again.)

–wikipedia.org: Yes, it had to pop up eventually, and now that it isn’t blacked out it’s really quite useful when naming characters, especially (I find) this list of common surnames. You can pick which country your character comes from, and pick one that is currently common in the region.

Place Names:

–wikipedia.org: Once again, and top ranking this time. Most of the place names I use actually come from wikipedia. Whether I’m stealing a common town/city name for a middle-of-nowhere US town, finding something French sounding, or making up my own town using generic forms of British/Irish place names, wikipedia is a great site. For example, my made up town of Ardbost? Comes from the generic list on wikipedia (Ard: Height, Bost: Farm. Named for the hill the town was first built on).

–Serendipity Place Name Generator: A great place to get random suggestions for made up place names. I generally set it to generate 50 at a time (the most it will) and then pick one/come up with some combination of a few when one strikes my fancy. They also have Fantasy Place Name Generator

–Chaotic Shiny Place Name Generator: Another fun place name generator. Also will put in real landmark names so you get fun creations such as “Taelus Glade” and “Dugfresh Pond”

Finally, since I have to give in to my NaNoWriMo Fangirl-ness, I can’t for get the NaNoWriMo Adoption Society. This forum is where any WriMo who can’t use a name, plot, title or anything else they think up is free to leave it for the needy. With how many things are there, if you don’t find a place name, or character name, or anything else you want to use, you’ll at least probably have some idea sparked while going through them all.

Concerning Pseudonyms

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This morning I woke up to an always welcome sight in my inbox — a “You may have gotten however many rejections before on this manuscript, but this isn’t one. We’re interested in publishing your novel” letter.

They are currently working out a contract, so nothing’s signed (I won’t fully be excited until I’ve looked that over. No counting chickens before they’ve hatched), but it got me to thinking about one very important topic: pseudonyms.

Now, anyone who has ever gone over to glance at my biography page can see a list of published works. I didn’t use a pseudonym for any of them. Honestly, I never saw much of a need to/my name is awesome/I’m a little vain (if the previous slash didn’t get that across, I mean, Dall – beginning of the alphabet, easy to pronounce, generally pretty…)

This manuscript, however, is a little different. While I have never written anything like a memoir (see my “Write What You Know” post to see why. My life just isn’t that interesting) this manuscript is closer to being autobiographical than anything else I have written. And while I will neither confirm nor deny this, there might be some characters surprisingly close to people I know in my real life. None are those people, none are named to be those people, but there may more may not be some striking similarities.

I assure everyone in my life who is now wondering if her or she has told me anything incriminating, everything is completely fictional, and with each edit it has become more and more so (again, my life=boring, had to spice it up a little), but still…

And thus we find ourselves back where I started. Obviously a pseudonym would be handy in separating anything personal that is left in the work from me, and thus anyone who might feel they are unfavorably portrayed in a book that may or may not contain a likeness of someone potentially like them. Of course, I’m not talking about slander (note: pseudonyms do not protect you from being sued for slander), but it would add a little more privacy for everyone. And there are other benefits of course, as outlined in articles such as this, this, and this.

But then, there are the bad things, like what do you do about marketing? Obviously, having written under the name “Jessica Dall”, I have always marketed myself as such. Everything from my webpage (jessicadall.yolasite.com), to my Twitter account (@JessicaDall), to this blog are, quite noticeably, under Jessica Dall. People talk about “branding” in many articles about pseudonyms. This work would be a stark break with the “brand”.

And there’s the fact that everyone who might be in the book would probably know I had written it anyway. I would still have to market it, of course. And I’m not planning on undergoing any sort of identity-hiding plastic surgery just to separate myself from the novel. It is just a novel after all. (Though I bet doing all book signings with my head under a paper bag would be quite a marketing gimmick…)

So is a pseudonym worth it? I actually don’t know. When I sign something (assuming I actually sign something) I will have to come to a decision. But for now, I’m still rather up in the air. Truly, it seems to be a matter of personal preference. People chose to use, and not to use, pen names for any number of reasons. And so, I’ll actually have to figure out those reasons. Great.