Smile Induction

My best wishes to all of you who are bravely writing away on you NaNoWriMo projects. Hope it’s going along swimmingly!

For any of you in my neck of the woods, I’m going to be part of a kids’ book author panel and then a signing on the evening of Monday, December 8th, from 6:00 to 7:30 at Fox Lane Middle School, 632 South Bedford Road, which is in Bedford, New York. If you can come, I’d love to meet you!

Also, at the suggestion of Lydia S. last week on the blog, we’ve added a new feature right to the right of these words: FOLLOW BY EMAIL, which will let you know about blog updates, if you’d like. Strictly voluntary. Thank you, Lydia S.!

On July 24, 2014, Kenzi Anne wrote, I’ve noticed that while I’m usually a very goofy, lighthearted person, my stories always end up being dark and fairly heavy. I know I need some humor and comedy in there, but it always sounds forced and unnatural. How do I lighten my stories but still keep them serious?

Elisa suggested, Have there be a character for comic relief, like Razo in the Goose Girl and Enna Burning, both books are by Shannon Hale. (I LOVE[!!!!!!!!!!] Razo.)

And Michelle Dyck weighed in with: I second what Elisa said. 🙂 That, and a bit of sarcasm or even slapstick humor can help.As for humor sounding forced… it might help to show it to another set of eyes and ask for an opinion. And if you know someone witty, he or she could help you out too.

These are great suggestions. Not only Shannon Hale includes humorous characters for comic relief; Shakespeare did it, too. In his tragedies, he gives minor characters entire funny scenes. If it’s good enough for the bard…

You might introduce a character, say Salli, who sees the bright side of everything. Your MC, Carole, takes a drubbing at the hands of a bully. Her nose and cheek are bruised an interesting shade of purple. A dance is coming up the next day, which will also be Carole’s first date with Mark. Salli says, “Wear the blue dress. Blue and purple–very pretty.”

The mood is further lightened if Carole smiles and says, “Mark will know I have good taste.”

Things get worse, since this is a story about bullying. Carole loses a tooth. She’s weeping. Salli says, “Wow, the space is just the size for a straw. Handy.”

Again, it will help if Carole goes along. She says, “You think?” Only it comes out, You zink? She adds, “Oh! I can’t say tee aitch or even tee–” though the words don’t come out that way.

Salli, cheerful as ever, says, “It sounds like Transylvanian. A vampire would say that.”

The seriousness of the situation hasn’t changed. The bully is still increasingly dangerous, but the reader enjoys what’s going on more, and he likes these characters better and better. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to these endearing people.

Salli’s crazy optimism doesn’t pop up unless something bad has happened. When the worst happens, whatever it is, Salli’s consolation is so far-fetched and pathetic, it breaks the reader’s heart even while he’s aware of the humor.

Mishaps, even tragedy, can have a humorous side, usually do in real life. For example, I was a plump child, and once, ice skating on a frozen lake, I fell through after two of my (thinner) friends had skated safely across the same spot. I’d have died if my father hadn’t pulled me out fast, but all I was thinking about was that I was fat and that my friends were more aware of it than ever. The contrast between the seriousness of the situation and the frivolity of my thinking is where the humor lies–but only if I’m aware that my worry is silly and the danger is real. Decades later I reconnected with Michael, one of the friends, and he remembered me falling through the ice. When I told him what I had been worrying about, his jaw dropped. He was a sweet boy, and that never occurred to him.

There’s the scene in Ella Enchanted when the parrot Chock commands Ella to kiss him and then keeps flying away when she tries. It’s funny but also powerful, because it highlights the crazy things the curse forces Ella to do–and she’s perfectly aware of this.

So how do we get these deep but humorous moments?

Look for the contrast. Let’s say our villain, the bully, has managed to push Carole into a lake (not frozen). She’s soaked from the waist down and running for her life. What she’s aware of as she runs–one of the things she’s aware of–is that her skirt is clinging and transparent now that it’s wet. She isn’t sure which she hates more, being so afraid, or having her knock-knees revealed as well as the print on her panties: black bunnies leaping across a red background.

This is serious humor, but I love humor that’s silly, too, and I love word play. My Princess Tales books are full of this kind of humor. For example, in The Fairy’s Return, one of my MCs, Robin, loves to pun. They’re groaners, but I enjoy them. Here are three examples:

What’s the best food for a dwarf? Shortbread.
What’s a jester’s favorite food? Wry bread.
Why do elves taste delicious? Because they’re brownies.

And Robin’s father is a poet. Here’s one of his poems:

Royalty and commoners must never mix.
Do not forget or you will be in a predicament.

Also a groaner, but I had fun writing it.

I also like writing subtle humor that doesn’t make even me crack a smile, but that causes an interior nod of recognition, a little spark of pleasure. In a poem I wrote this week, I wrote about forgetting things when I went shopping. Then I wondered in the poem if I should list what I forgot, and I wrote, “Lists are good in poems but these aren’t interesting, just soy milk, eggs, and almond butter.”

Do you get it? If not, doesn’t matter. The pleasure is for me and anyone else who notices.

Here are four prompts:

• Write the story of Carole and Salli and the bully. His or her target is Carole, and Salli is the eternal optimist.

• Write the story of Carole and Salli and the bully, only in this version the funny one is the bully, and this makes him even scarier.

• In the version of “The Frog Prince” that I know, the frog turns into a prince, not when the princess kisses him but when she throws him against a wall as hard as she can. This scene is begging for comedic treatment. Write it!

• Carole is a punster. The dance date with Mark is handicapped for two reasons: Carole’s face is bruised, and she keeps punning. Decide how Mark handles this and write the scene, including at least five puns.

• I listen to a comedy-news quiz on the radio every week. One of the segments, called “Bluff the Listener,” presents the contestant with three goofy solutions to a problem, one of which actually happened. The topic might be increasing tourism or winning customer loyalty, but last week it was getting kids to eat their vegetables. Figure out your own wacky solution to this age-old problem, and write a scene in a family in which it plays out for good or ill.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Picky, Picky

In July, this question came from Leah on the website: What is the right kind of details? Which details are important and which not so much?

I talk about this in Writing Magic, so if you have the book you may want to look at Chapters 8 and 20. For now, let’s start with what a detail is, which is slippery, like most matters in writing.

I’d say that a detail is any snippet that conveys information. Sometimes whatever that is may not seem like a detail. Suppose, for example, our MC is Candace whose birthday is today. Her mother comes into her bedroom to wake her up, bearing a big gift-wrapped box. Candace sits up, smiles, and carefully removes the wrapping paper. When she opens the box, she meets her mother’s eyes and says, “Beautiful.”

And the reader sighs with relief and thinks, Whew! Finally.

I’d argue that, if it was set up well, the word beautiful is a detail even though it tells us little about what’s in the box, even though this word is often a generality. The word’s success as a detail depends on what went before. Imagine that Candace’s fourteenth birthday in her world is the day she has her Admission Ceremony, when she becomes a full-fledged member of her clan, but she suffers from self-doubt and a need to be perfect in every circumstance. In the close-knit clan, the mental state of every full member affects the entire community, and the elders, who wouldn’t dream of holding Candace back, are worried that her anxiety will infect everyone. Candace has been working on her serenity, but until now she’s made little progress. However, when she pronounces the box’s contents beautiful, the reader understands that she’s changed profoundly.

If the reader already knows what’s in the box, the effect of the word is further strengthened. It’s the ceremonial robe, and it has a small brown stain in the otherwise creamy linen. The stain was made on purpose to reveal Candace’s frame of mind when she sees it. That she calls it beautiful despite the stain demonstrates that she’s truly ready to become a clan member (or that she’s lost her eyesight! Just kidding.).

On the other hand, if beautiful is pronounced in the first sentence of our story, the reader will have to wait to discover the significance of the word, and if that significance is never demonstrated, then it will remain vague and won’t work as a detail.

When we write, we want to create a movie in our reader’s mind. Part of the movie is established through the scenery, the setting, although we can’t ever describe everything. Even the attempt would exhaust us and bore the reader. We wield an authorial spotlight. When Candace’s mother enters the bedroom, we have to decide what to reveal. Maybe we want to illuminate the box with its star-patterned wrapping paper and the ribbon that curls like confetti, and her mom’s hands on the box, nails neatly trimmed, clear polish, the thumb callus that’s characteristic of her occupation, whatever that is. Or maybe we want to show her mom’s expressive face, where her inner peace combines with pride at her daughter’s accomplishments. Mom’s expression may add to the reader’s worry that Candace will shatter the clan’s calm, regardless of the other benefits her joining will bring. Or maybe we decide to pan across the untidy room, with clothing and books scattered about, reflecting Candace’s emotional state when she finally collapsed into bed at 2:00 AM.

We’re guided in our choice of detail by our need to advance plot and develop our characters. The details that do neither may be unnecessary. Take the gift wrap paper, which may shed light on Candace’s mother’s love for her daughter, but if the reader already knows all about these feelings, this particular detail may not be needed. Secondary considerations can come into play, too. We may decide that the gift wrap detail helps create a mood or establishes the setting. The reader almost certainly doesn’t have to be told what the ceiling looks like or whether the desk lamp uses a seventy-five watt bulb or a sixty–unless either is going to come into our story.

Detail can be presented in dialogue, narration, and thoughts. We’ve seen it operate in dialogue, when Candace says, “Beautiful.” She can say more, too. She can go to the window, pull aside the curtain, and add in a satisfied voice, “Beautiful again. I wanted a sunny day.”

There is a danger in conveying details in dialogue, however. If Candace and her mother discuss something they both know, the dialogue is likely to sound staged. For example, if Candace says, “I hope I don’t trip on the way into the Meeting Chamber,” and her mother answers, “The stairs are very steep,” well, she probably wouldn’t say this, because they both know what the stairs are like. The one she’s really speaking to is the reader, and there are better ways to convey the information: in narration or in thoughts–if the steep stairs are important.

But, aside from that caution, dialogue is a great vehicle for detail, because along with the facts conveyed, the reader also gains insight into the speakers: what they notice and how they express it. Same with details relayed in thoughts. Through what Candace notices, for example, we learn not only the details themselves but also more about her character. Candace, in her nervous state, may be extra aware of things that appear threatening. Let’s imagine her in a park with her friend Vergil. She notices how thick the bushes are and thinks that a whole battalion of soldiers could hide behind them. He says something about the family of ducks and ducklings in the pond. She answers, “They’re cute. I didn’t even see them.” The reader gets a double dose of information.

A few words about sensory details: We tend to neglect senses other than sight. Sound, smell, touch, and sometimes taste are also important. Imagine a seaside scene, for example. It won’t come alive without the sound of the surf, the wind on our MC’s cheek, the weight of the sun in summer, the smell of the ocean. If our MC sticks out her tongue, she can taste the salt.

Here are four prompts:

• Look around the room you’re in right now. Pick a detail– anything–and make it the focus of a story.

• Use the sixty-watt light bulb as the central detail in a story. Write the story.

• In Fairest I gave the magic mirror in “Snow White” a back story. Write a version of “Sleeping Beauty” in which the spinning wheel that delivers the soporific pricking is more than it seems.

• Write Candace’s Admission Ceremony, and make it the beginning of your story, so it does not go well. Deliver details through dialogue, thoughts, and narration. Include all sorts of sensory detail.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Mama Mia!

For those of you who are about to dive into NaNoWriMo, all my best wishes! Don’t forget to eat and sleep and read this blog!

I look forward to meeting one–carpelibris!–or more of you this Saturday in Albany, New York!

Now, imagine fanfare, a trumpet blowing, confetti. See it first here: the final cover for Stolen Magic!

I think it’s appealing and inviting, just what we want a cover to be.

And on to the post. Two related questions came in over the summer. On July 23, 2014, Elisa wrote, What do you do with parents? I mean, I write from the perspective of children and teens–for the most part–and the things the children/teens do in books these days (you know, saving the world, etc.) are not even remotely possible, most of the time. Kids don’t do that sort of stuff. Plus, since technically our brains haven’t fully developed yet, we wouldn’t have the wisdom to deal with such situations and would need a wise and generally smart, fairly all-knowing adult with us to deal with such things. (Because, from the kid’s perspective, grown-ups know EVERYTHING! Seriously, until I was eleven, I REALLY thought my parents knew basically everything!) So, what to do with the parents, or even grown-ups in general? I know lots of kids in books are orphans, but that’s really cliche, and don’t even get me started on having the kids save the parents, nuh-uh, not even gonna go there, it’s WAY too twisted. I want my parents to be good parents while, at the same time, their kids can do some fairly cool stuff. I can only have them be invalids so often. How do I keep them involved, and not interfering too much, while being really solidly good (also smart, I hate it when the kid is brilliant but the parents are idiots, in real life, the kid would probably be pretty dumb too, you learn from your parents after all) parents?

And on August 19, 2014, Elsabet wrote, What do I do with parents? I really don’t like how uninvolved parents are in literature these days. They’ve all but disappeared! I want the parents in my stories actually BEING there. But them being there means they would cut into the adventures of my kid/teen MCs. How do I work around or through this? Actually, how to I work WITH this? I don’t want the parents to be dumb, or dead, or evil, and I don’t want the kids to be bratty or sneaky. Kids lying to the parents is just not an option. For one, most parents would see through the lies – therefor making it unrealistic – and secondly, I don’t want sneaky, scheming, lying “heroes” in my stories. I don’t like glorifying ugliness. Upon occasion I will have one (scheming liar) as an MC, but only to bring a point across, or to create a contrast. So how do I work this?

The questions generated this from Kenzi Anne: I’ve discovered it’s easier to write parents when they have an actual character. I read the “How To Train Your Dragon” book series a while ago (they are adorable) and I love how the parents are unique individuals with their own characteristics and personalities that actually add to the story– rather than just being the “mom” or the “dad”–there for reality’s sake but not really the story’s. Giving them hopes, dreams, fears, etc. like you would for a main or secondary character might help you to incorporate them better into the story and the plot :). Parents are people too!

Elsabet added: I would like to be accurate, authentic and realistic. Actually, the real reason I want to write parents like this, is because I am modeling them somewhat off of my own parents. My parents are the very best, they really are. And they would do anything to protect their children. They would never be foolish enough to get caught in a situation where they both needed to be rescued at the same time, and if, by some completely random circumstance and several simultaneous coincidences of astronomical oddness they did happen to get into such a situation, they would never wish, or even allow us (their kids) to come to harm by trying to rescue them.

This topic really is a problem for us writers. One of the first laws of children’s literature is that the young protagonist has to solve the story. The parents can’t do the solving or the saving. Readers are asked to suspend their disbelief, big time. Okay, maybe it’s unlikely that a parent needs rescuing or that so many MCs are orphans or that a teen can save the world, but the reader knows this is fiction and, if the story grabs him, he’s happy to go along.

We counter the unlikeliness by developing our situation realistically. Maybe we set the story in a dangerous part of the world. If we’re writing fantasy, we can establish that kidnapping or hostage-taking is common in this kingdom. Then we create a detailed setting and complicated characters and believable characters. The reader may think, I’ve read other stories of parents who need rescuing, but this one is pretty exciting and I’ve never seen it done exactly this way before. And he keeps turning pages. As I think I’ve said before here, there aren’t many possible plots; complete originality is either unattainable or incomprehensible. Even Shakespeare recycled stories from older sources. We take the common elements and reshape them in uncommon ways.

You who know my books are well aware that the only parents I allow on the scene are, ahem, defective. The good ones are either dead or out of the way. In The Wish, Wilma’s mom. a single parent is terrific, but most of the action takes place where she isn’t. So that’s one way–and the true-to-life way I got to be the MC in my own actual growing up. My parents were good people, but they were offstage when I faced most of my challenges: at school, at a friend’s house, in the local park, at the skating rink, in one of the museums I could walk to or get to by bus or subway. (I was lucky to grow up in New York City, where I didn’t need an adult to drive me places.) You can give your characters public transportation to help separate them from grownups.

In Fairest, Aza’s adoptive parents are super caring, but they can’t leave their inn to travel with her to Oscaro’s castle. In their defense, they have no way to anticipate the danger that their daughter will encounter, and, besides, she’s under the protection of a duchess. In A Tale of Two Castles, Elodie’s loving parents send her off to become an apprentice, unaware that the apprenticeship rules have changed. So that’s one strategy: the young MC leaves home for an ordinary reason, but extraordinary things happen, and she can’t go back. The parents, if they know, are wringing their hands, but they can’t rescue their child.

I’m as guilty as any other kids’ book writer of killing off good parents, and I agree that parental mortality is much more common in fiction than out of it, which is fortunate. However, there are orphans in the world. Dave, the orphan I write about in Dave at Night, is loosely based on my father, whose mother died of childbirth complications a few months after having him, and whose father died of (ugh! and gasp!) gangrene when he was about six. I hasten to add that they died a hundred years ago, and medicine has come a long way since then. I doubt that anyone in a developed country dies of gangrene anymore, and death after childbirth is very rare. Interestingly, my father’s stepmother was as bad as Snow White’s. Sometimes life imitates art.

Here are three prompts:

• Your MC’s mom sends her to the corner store for a container of milk. Let’s say she goes reluctantly, because she was in the middle of something, and she isn’t pleasant when they part. On the way, or when she gets to the store, something unanticipated and horrifying happens that makes return impossible. Write what happens in a scene or a story or your NaNoWriMo novel.

• Your MC, Matthea, has great parents, whom she loves and admires. Whenever she has a problem, she discusses it with them, and they always offer great advice. In this story, the advice is good as usual, but following it never seems to work out as planned. Sometimes Matthea flubs when she acts on it, and sometimes the other person doesn’t react as expected. She returns for more advice, which also backfires. Matthea is in a downward spiral. Write the story.

• In the real fairytale, Snow White’s father isn’t around at all. In your version, he is, and he’s kind, and he doesn’t want bad things to happen to his daughter. Include him in the story, but make it all go wrong anyway.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Out With the Old… Or Not

First off, I’ll be signing books from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm on November 1st at the book fair in Albany, NY. The event is at the Silipigno Athletic Facility, 140 Academy Road. If you are going to be in the area, I’d love to meet you.

On to the post. On July 23, 2014 Bibliophile wrote, Does anyone else ever cringe when looking at stuff they wrote ages ago?

I was rereading the one ‘book’ I ever finished writing and just started to die inside. The heroine gives in to the hero too easily, there is no real main conflict and the magic I use is not only cliche, but has no rules. The romance in the book is stilted, as is the dialogue. The main characters literally have zero relationships with any of the other characters and since this isn’t a post-apocalyptic novel, that is unacceptable and just plain weird.

The worst part is, I can’t bear to take the time and actually rewrite/reread it all the way through. I seem to have lost my love for this book, which is a shame because, like I said, it is the only one I have ever ‘finished’. I have tried rewriting dozens of times; I have had conversations with the main character, reimagined the beginning, how they meet, totally reworked the plot. But every time I restart I get lost and annoyed. Is there any way to learn to re-love this story?

Michelle Dyck responded: Yes, I have certainly cringed – numerous times – when rereading old stuff! (I mentioned earlier the book I’m returning to. It’s a mess.) The good thing about cringing is that it just goes to show how much you’ve grown as a writer since then.

Dig deep into the heart of that story. Look past the weaknesses, stiltedness, and clichés, and search for the core. That’s probably what inspired you to write it in the first place, and it’s what can inspire you again. Remember what you loved about it. There’s got to be something that kept you going back when you first drafted it, and even if it’s not as sparkly now as it was then, it’s something! Try to draw it out. Reimagine what you can do with the story’s potential. Maybe that will help you see the problems with the eye of an artist, seeing more than what’s there, but what could be.

I’m with Michelle Dyck. I certainly have old writing that now makes me uncomfortable. And even in stories that I do like, that I’m working on now, I make mistakes. Recently, in a poem, I imagined a genie granting me wishes. He was an inquisitive being and unwilling to grant anything unless he was sure it would make me happy. I wished for the ordinary things: health and long life for me and the people (and dog) I love. I admitted these might just keep us alive and well. What would preserve my happiness, I wrote, was for writing to continue to be hard. Poem or no poem, I really believe this. No matter how badly a story or a poem was going, I’d never ask a genie for perfect writing or for writing to be easy. That would be dreadful, to sit down every day and pop out glorious plots and poems, effortlessly. How boring! How could I grow as a writer? I would weep and tear my hair.

I also agree with Michelle Dyck that being able to see the flaws in an old work is a mark of progress.

Here’s what you might try, what any of us can try with a story that no longer pleases us:

Without looking at it, just from memory, list (on paper or in your computer) the elements of the old story that you do like, scenes, bits of dialogue, descriptions. Now, without judgment, think about the main plot line. Write it out in a sentence or a paragraph. Again without judgment, list the main characters and the important secondaries.

Consider what you might do with what you’ve got–what you might do now, using the skills you’ve developed. We can regard this as a new story, but a lot of the work has been done, and how great is that?

Bibliophile says that in the old, despised version the characters didn’t connect with one another. Now is the time to think how they might interact, where they might come into conflict, where they might support each other, how they can contribute to our MC’s struggle and ultimate success or failure.

And the magic. Just because it didn’t have rules before doesn’t mean it can’t have them now. Where should the magic come in, and what might be behind it?

I have a novel, like Bibliophile’s, that I put aside, and, when I tried to read it, about a year ago, I found it so intolerable I had to put it down. It’s called My Future Biography. Just from the title you may be able to guess the problem: my MC, Marita, is obnoxious. She’s full of herself and always sure she’s right. The plot turns on something she does that’s so damaging, it’s impossible to like her. She learns her lesson, but too late for this reader.

At the same time, I like the secondary characters and adore two of them. The almost-boyfriend is utterly delicious. And the beginning of the book is hysterical. And I share some faults with Marita, like that tendency to think I’m always right, so I’m fond of her. But even in my most misguided moments, I would never have done what she does.

Maybe someday I’ll go back to the book. If I do–and thinking about it is getting me interested–I would follow the approach I just outlined. I might tone Marita down a little, and I’d give her other, likable qualities to keep the reader in her corner. And I’d find another way to deliver the lesson so that she doesn’t have to sabotage people who’ve been good to her.

Hmm…

But it’s possible that I couldn’t save the story if I tried, or I couldn’t save it yet, until I grew more as a writer, or until the right idea arrived. There are lots more stories to write, and I should get cracking on them rather than mooning over an old one. If Bibliophile or anyone else is drawn to an old story only because it’s the only one she’s finished, that’s not enough of a reason. If finishing is a goal, which it can be but doesn’t have to be, you might look at my posts on the subject, which you can find by clicking on the label finishing stories, and you may also want to check out my posts on revision.

Here are four prompts:

• I love genies! In a takeoff on “The Shoemaker and the Elves,” your MC is a writer who has a genie looking out for her. She finishes the day’s writing with her hero in trouble, but when she wakes up in the morning, her genie has solved everything. The story is finished, typed, and printed out. Write what happens next.

• Take it a step further. This over-zealous genie has emailed the manuscript in the middle of the night to five agents, one of whom, over-zealous as well, has already sent it on to three editors, and one of them has made an offer. The problem–-one of the problems–is that your MC wrote only twenty pages of this three-hundred page opus. Your MC is ambitious and eager to get published. Write what happens.

• Try the method in this post. Go back to an old story that no longer pleases you. If you can’t bear to read it, just think about it. Remember what you loved about it and use that as the springboard for a new story.

• Your MC is a new enrollee at the Hope for the Hapless Improvement School, which promises to turn every student into a heroine. Her failings: messiness, weepiness, awful chapped lips, an uneven growth curve, and an unusual sense of humor. The school has never taken in such a desperate case before, and the head mistress sees the new student as an opportunity to bring fame and fortune to the establishment. Write the chronicle of her school days.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Curtains

First a little lovely news: Writer to Writer, From Think to Ink (based on this blog, for any of you who don’t know) has been chosen by the discerning people at the Junior Library Guild as one of their selections when it comes out, and both Publisher’s Weekly and Kirkus will soon be giving the book lovely reviews. Publisher’s Weekly calls the book “valuable,” and Kirkus says it’s “comprehensive.”

Onto this week’s post. On July 23, 2014, Penelope wrote, I’ve been having a really hard time with my endings. I’m doing a redo of a fairy tale and I’m split on the ending. What I originally had was perfect, I thought. So unbelievably perfect. The element of surprise, the setting, the MC’s heroism, everything. It was a Happily Ever After, for sure. But now I’m realizing that it just won’t do. It makes everything too easy. I’m thinking of changing it only because it ends too quickly and makes everything too simple.

So here’s my dilemma: Should I mold the story to my satisfying but easy ending? Or should I go with the less appealing alternative which is probably better, but a little anti-climactic?

In reply, Bibliophile suggested, Write both and see which your friends/critique group like better.

I like both parts of Bibliophile’s suggestion. Let’s start with the critique group idea. Some of us are great critics of our own work, but some (me) not so much. We may be too hard on ourselves. Nothing we write is good enough. And some are blind to the flaws in our masterpieces. My guess is that most who read this blog fall into the severe category, because people who think everything they pen is pure gold probably don’t read writing blogs.

So it may be helpful to get another perspective from someone or several someones who can be counted on to be constructive. (We don’t need harsh critics to provide another voice in our heads telling us that what we’ve done is a mess.) If you’re in a critique group, that’s great, and it’s not too much to ask members to read two versions of an ending. After all, you’d do the same for them. You’d be happy to. It’s an interesting dilemma.

If you aren’t in a critique group, you can still get help. A good critic is, first of all, a good reader. You can ask friends who read almost as voraciously as you do, whose taste is similar to yours. You can ask family members who aren’t hyper-critical. You can reach out to a teacher or, especially if you’re home-schooled, a librarian. You can say that you want an opinion about the alternate endings only. If they offer more, you can say no; just that one thing. (If your readers are helpful and you think they may have other things to say that you can use, you can ask for more afterward, but don’t open the floodgates right away.)

If possible, it’s nice to get more than one opinion. If the two agree, that’s pretty solid. If they don’t, you still have fresh perspectives to consider.

But–and this is important–you don’t have to listen to the advice. Just because your critiquers did you a (little) favor, you have no obligation to do what they say. It’s still your story.

On to Bibliophile’s second point, I’m all for trying things more than one way. Writing the ending both ways may make all clear to Penelope, and to all of us when we’re not sure which way to go. And writing both ways may lead us to a third way, which turns out to be the best of all. Or, trying both ways can lead us to a middle ground that satisfies.

In this kind of dilemma, I like to back up and dream up even more than two possibilities. I list all the endings I can think of. Sometimes I run through fairy tale endings and endings of books I love, looking for a key to my story.

I may revisit the problem at the core of my story to help find the ending that fits best. Let’s do this with a couple of examples.

First, we’ll take “Rapunzel,” a fairy tale with, in my opinion, an imperfect ending. Aside from the mystery of why the witch wants a child in the first place, I’m on board with the story almost until the end. The prince is thrown from the tower and Rapunzel is sent far away; that’s fine, just what this witch would do. But then the witch seems to forget about both of them. Rapunzel is reunited with her prince and cures his blindness, and they live happily ever after. Their troubles are over. But the problem at the heart of the story is the witch! The ending should include her, and she doesn’t want Rapunzel or the prince to be happy. She wouldn’t stand by and let them be. According to Wikipedia, there’s a version in which she’s trapped forever in the tower where Rapunzel was imprisoned. Better. But there are other options as well. She could grow and become a better being, or she could be distracted by another baby for her to adopt and behave weirdly to. Or something else. The best ending, I think, would involve Rapunzel and the prince settling matters with the witch: destroying or reforming or distracting her.

Now let’s look at Anne of Green Gables, which, to me, has a perfect ending. *Spoiler Alert!* If you haven’t read Anne of Green Gables and intend to (I recommend you do!), skip this paragraph because I’m going to give the ending away. As I see it, the central problem is that Anne needs a home where she feels at home, an outer home and an inner home. At the beginning she doesn’t feel loved or understood, and she isn’t at ease with herself. By the end she gives up something up that’s important to her, and she does so because she’s achieved self-knowledge and a deep sense of belonging. It feels inevitable. Any other response to Matthew’s death would be wrong.

When Penelope says that her first ending is surprising, I’d call that a plus. We want inevitability and surprise at the same time. Of course, not all surprises are good. Dropping a bomb on our characters may be tempting, but it’s never good. Likewise, bringing in a fairy to solve everybody’s problems.

Inevitability arrives when we solve the main problem. Surprise comes in through the way it’s solved. In a romance, for example, we know that the lovers will be united if the story is happy or separated if it’s tragic. But we don’t know how the two will come together or how they’ll be torn apart. To take another fairy tale, “Beauty and the Beast,” as an example, what seems inevitable as we first encounter the story is that Beauty will finally agree to marry Beast. The surprise is the transformation that follows. So satisfying!

Here are three prompts:

• Write a new surprising ending for “Beauty and the Beast.” Yes, there’s a transformation, but it isn’t the one we’re used to.

• Write a Rapunzel story and weave the witch into the ending.

• The ending of “Rumplestiltskin” is problematic. We’re left with a loveless marriage and a dead imp. I know there are versions that fix this. Write your own. In this case, consider what the problem at the heart of the story is. I don’t think that’s so clear. Could be the imp who desperately wants a child for reasons fair or foul, or an impoverished king, or a neglected girl, whose feelings nobody cares about.

• One of the twelve dancing princes is in love with one of the princesses, a love that’s outside the enchantment he’s under. Write the story of their romance. Think of five possible endings and write at least two of them.

Have fun, and save what you write!

When Bad Things Happen to Good Characters

On July 23, 2014, Lex from Bohemia wrote, I am having a hard time entering into a scene I know will be difficult for my characters. I’m shying away from it because it is what needs to happen, but I’m afraid to do it to my characters. Any thoughts? How do you prepare yourself to write the hard stuff?

J. Garf responded with: I don’t know of a way to prepare necessarily, but there’s a chapter about it called “Suffer!” in Mrs. Levine’s book Writing Magic. In it she talks about how if you’re cruel to your characters, your readers will care more about them and how it’s going to end. I tend to be a pretty mean writer (I’m sure that if my characters were real people they’d punch me in the face for all the stuff I put them through), but I still have the same problem sometimes. Try finding something about your characters that can make them as annoying as any real person. If you focus on that, it might not be as hard to make them suffer.

I like this, J. Garf! Relieve our own suffering by making our characters irritating! We don’t even have to actually give our MC annoying traits in the story; we can just imagine her whining whenever any little thing goes wrong. Then we can snarl happily, “If you think that was bad, take this!” and drop a boulder on her leg.

As some of you know, I’ve been working on a prequel to The Two Princesses of Bamarre, although I’m putting the work aside now that the fall semester of poetry school has started. *SPOILER ALERT!* A few times, I’ve gone back to Two Princesses to refresh my memory of some of the details. The first time I did this, when I reread the end, much to my surprise, I wept!

*SPOILER ALERT!* continues. When I wrote the book, I could have let Meryl live. But that ending seemed flat. I believed the reader would think, Oh, okay. Ho hum, what should I read next? And I didn’t want to completely kill Meryl off, either. Yes, other citizens of Bamarre would benefit from the cure, but Addie would have failed in her personal quest, so I found a middle ground that came to feel inevitable.

*SPOILER ALERT!* still continues. However, at one time the prospects were good (not any more) for a Two Princesses movie, and a script was written. The producer opposed my ending, so it came out completely happily. The screenwriter did a good job, and it worked. But I still prefer my way.

The point here is that we don’t always have to be totally brutal to our characters. We can make them suffer somewhat. The boulder can land on a toe rather than on our MC’s entire leg.

However, sometimes we do have to be totally cruel. Then we may have to bite down hard on a cloth while we write–to keep from screaming. We may have to take frequent breaks, but it must be done.

In the new book, I recently had to make my MC go through something awful, and at the end of the awful thing I piled on something else just as bad. However, it took me a while to sit down to do it. I had to write notes in which I wondered if I could get away with something less terrible. But when I finally faced the music and started typing, I had fun, because the scene has tons of energy, and I could see it so clearly.

So there’s that comfort. Those moments when everything goes horribly wrong for our beloved MC come to vivid life on the page, and our writing is likely to be our best.

Another *SPOILER ALERT!* This one is for Ella Enchanted. I wrote Ella about six and seven years after my parents died when I was in my late thirties. As I wrote about Ella’s feelings after I killed off her mother, I included some of my emotions about my parents’ deaths. That was a relief, to re-experience a very sad time in a gentle way, cushioned by fiction. Oddly, when I gave my grief to Ella, I felt like I had a companion in it. Comforting.

And that’s another strategy: to use our own experiences in the misery that we inflict on our characters. We heighten the realness of what our characters are going through, and we validate our own history.

We can also comfort ourselves. If we’re not writing a tragedy, we can keep in mind the final victory and the lessons learned. We can think of bad things that have happened to us that turned out well in the long run, that we learned from, that strengthened and shaped us.

In addition, we can talk to our characters in our notes and prepare them for what’s to come, the way a doctor or a dentist does when she’s about to inflict a little pain. “You’ll feel a prick,” she says, and we get ready, and it’s much better than being taken by surprise. Moreover, we may learn something about our characters. These conversations won’t appear in our story, but they can help us deal out the bad stuff. Might go something like this:

Lanie, in a minute I’m going to drop a boulder on your leg. It’s going to be extremely painful.

Why would you do this to me? Do you hate me?

No. Actually, I love you. You’re my favorite character.

I’d hate to be a character you dislike. So why are you doing it?

You’ve used strength and agility in the past to accomplish great things, but you haven’t learned other skills that will bring you the success you want most. Being laid up will force you to engage with the people who are important to your goals. You’ll learn that you have to depend on others. The lesson may hurt more than the boulder. Sorry!

Will I be able to walk and run after I recover?

You’ll have a limp forever.

Silence. Then: But I’ll still be able to throw a spear, right? You won’t mess up my arm or my eyesight?

They’ll be fine.

Okay. Do it already.

Here are four prompts:

• Write the conversation with your character about what’s going to happen.

• Rewrite the conversation with your character about what’s going to happen and make your character so irritating that you don’t mind doing it!

• Your MC’s BFF tells him that she never liked him. Write the scene. Be sure to include your MC’s emotions. If you like, continue and write what comes next.

• Your MC’s beloved dog Woof gets the power of speech. He tells your MC that he dislikes her and that everything she does annoys him and always has. At the animal shelter he was hoping to be picked by anybody but her. He’s just too polite to bite. Write the scene. (This may be the worst thing you can do to a character!) Again, include your MC’s feelings, and keep going if you like.

Have fun, and save what you write!

The Passivity Solution

This week we start the many questions that came in when I asked for help restocking my list. Thanks again for the big response! The first one came from Michelle Dyck on July 23, 2014: This last week I’ve been reading over a novel I wrote three years ago. It’s book two in a series, and when I wrote it, I thought it was fabulous. Not anymore! The thing is chock full of inconsistencies, plot holes, convenient solutions, and leaps of logic (all of which I plan to fix).But one problem that’s bugging me is how passive my two MCs are. In book one, they take charge and go on a quest to save a nation. They’re independent and make their own decisions. Circumstances in book two, however, find these teens in the company of several adults. Because my MCs are respectful of authority, they wind up playing follow the leader a lot of the time. And as much as the adults in the group deserve that respect, I don’t want my heroes just tagging along for the ride. Any advice?

Let’s assume we need these annoyingly sensible grown-ups in our story, so we can’t kill them off or have them be kidnapped. What are some other possibilities?

Suppose our MCs, Adele and Beau, and three upstanding grownups, Caryn, Dennis, and Enola, are being pursued by the evil queen Francesca and a dozen of her henchpeople, who intend to torture information out of them, because each of the five good guys knows a crucial piece of a whole that will either save or destroy the future child king. The pursuit is taking place in mountainous terrain, and winter is coming on. If our heroes are trapped on this side of the pass, all is lost.

Here are eleven ways to allow the kids to be more active:

• We can give them special skills that the adults don’t have, and we can make those skills essential for success. Adele is a skilled mountaineer. Beau is a spelunker, and these mountains are full of caves and tunnels. The others may be great at swordplay or withstanding torture or planning, but when the kids’ skills are called for, the grownups have to stand back.

• The teens can discover abilities they didn’t know they had. They’re attacked by the bearions from a previous post (a cross between a lion and a bear that carpelibris drew), and Adele turns out to have an uncanny talent for predicting the creatures’ next moves.

• Caryn, Dennis, and Enola can regard themselves as teachers, or can actually be teachers. Adele and Beau have to be given a chance to act and make mistakes, so the adults defer to them. Of course, the problems have to be real. When the kids do make mistakes, everyone has to live with the consequences, or the tension is gone.

• We can include Adele’s and Beau’s thoughts, which, even if they’re not doing much, will make them seem more active to the reader. They listen to the adults but disagree in their thoughts. And they worry, which always ratchets up suspense. This strategy may not be enough to solve the passivity problem, but it will help.

• There can be more than one approach to a crisis. Beau argues his and is convincing. His plan is adopted. The adults take the lead in carrying it out, but he still feels responsible. Or, his plan includes crucial roles for himself and Adele.

• The adults deserve respect, but they can’t be perfect, because no one is. Caryn has asthma, which is worsened by altitude. In these mountains she needs the help of the teens to keep up with the others. Dennis is cautious, even in situations that require boldness. Adele discovers that if she’s subtly reassuring, he moves forward. Enola has no sense of direction. When she’s alone with Beau or Adele, the youngster has to keep them from getting lost.

• Adele and Beau can each have flaws and virtues that get them into trouble, and getting into trouble isn’t passive. For example, Beau is impulsive, and Adele is loyal. When Beau slips off to try some ill-considered approach to the problem that’s threatening everyone, Adele goes with him. They create a situation that they then have to get themselves out of while the adults are back at the campsite, fast asleep.

• We can create a temporary separation. For instance, supplies are low, so Caryn and Dennis go off to hunt, while Enola looks for a source of fresh water. They tell the teens to stay at the campsite. While they’re away, three of Queen Francesca’s people discover the camp and attack. Adele and Beau are on their own.

• Size, agility, and youth can make Adele and Beau the best choices for certain actions. They have to do them solo or duo, and the adults have to wait on the sidelines.

• We can use simple physical placement. Adele is in the path of a rockslide. Or Queen Francesca’s henchperson sneaks into the camp in the middle of the night. He captures the one on watch, who happens to be Beau.

• Queen Francesca, who is not stupid, can realize that the young people are the key to her evil designs. They’re less experienced than the adults and more prone to making mistakes. Moreover, the grownups will be less likely to sacrifice a teen than one of themselves. They may even be foolhardy in their attempts at a rescue. The kids, therefore, are the focus of their attacks. Sometimes the adults save them, but often Adele and Beau have to act for themselves and even make split-second decisions for the whole group.

Naturally, these prompts come from the post:

• Write a scene that reveals the child king and shows why he is beloved and why he’s the hope of the kingdom.

• Our five heroes are gathered around their campsite at night. They don’t know how far away their pursuit is, although they’re safe for the next few hours. They need to plan their actions after that. Write the dialogue, revealing the characters of each and their strengths and weaknesses. Include the thoughts of the two teens as the discussion progresses.

• Queen Francesca and her company are at their own campsite, planning their moves for the next day. Reveal her character and the characters of two important members of her bunch.

• Create a scene from one or more (or all!) of the situations in the bullets above. If you like, continue and write the whole story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

What’s funny

On July 13, 2014, Writer At Heart wrote, I’m having problems with my MC. I feel as though she isn’t very developed. How do I get around to do this? Maybe it’s because I don’t think that she has a great sense of humor.

carpelibris responded with these questions: Why doesn’t she have a sense of humor? Is she overly serious? Socially awkward? Too literal-minded? The reason might give you clues to her personality.

Is she in a situation where humor’s important? Why? How does she respond? What problems does this cause for her?

And Writer At Heart answered, No, she’s not overly serious or any of that other stuff you said. Like, she can be awkward at times or serious, it’s really just me. I can say a joke pretty well, but I just can’t write it down on paper or on the computer. She’s actually very outgoing. It’s not only my MC who I want to be funny, but my MC’s ‘boyfriend.’ I want him to be very funny, someone who can make a girl laugh.

The school teacherish side of me has to say that if we’re not good at writing a particular kind of thing and we want to be, the remedy is practice. We can write down the joke that we told out loud, which had our friend clutching his sides and weeping with laughter. We can tweak it until we think it’s pretty good. Then we can show it to another friend and see what happens.

Not even a smile? Revise and repeat.

We may never cause the uproarious laughter that accompanied the spoken joke, because our timing, our inflection, our own suppressed hilarity will be missing, but we should be able to get a smile.

If this aspect of writing is as important to us as it is to Writer at Heart, we can read joke books and see which ones make us laugh and figure out how the effect was achieved.

So now I’m tempted. I recently heard a joke on the radio that I loved and want to share. (It’s not mean.) It’s also not funny to everybody. The radio person who told it said that the smartest person she knows didn’t get it. Here’s the joke:

I’m walking down the street and see my old friend, but, surprisingly, he now has a big orange head. I ask him what happened. He says he was in an antique store and bought an old lamp, which he cleaned when he got home and a genie appeared and offered him three wishes. His first wish, he says, was for a beautiful house. He points at an enormous, gorgeous mansion and says that’s it. His second wish was for a beautiful wife. He points at a stunning woman who’s pruning the roses along the fence and says she’s his wife. He goes on. “Then I made my mistake. For my third wish I asked for a big orange head.”

I’m laughing right now. My telling is nothing special. I just wrote it down more or less as I heard it. The surprise and the absurdity tickle me.

I want to assure you all that I’m not violating anybody’s copyright by telling this joke. When it was told on the radio, the person who heard it already knew it, so it’s out there. But we do need to be careful with jokes that come from joke books, which probably are copy protected. We can repeat them to friends, but we shouldn’t include them in anything we hope to publish.

I adore funny books, plays, movies, but not everybody is into humor or is interested in writing it. Most writers, as far as I can tell, are, sadly (so to speak!), not funny. We can write a career’s worth of serious stories, and that’s fine. It’s like some artists aren’t good at drawing hands but they’re great at other aspects of visual art.

So let’s work on making our MC funny, and let’s call her Marie, and let’s call her boyfriend Jonas. They can both be funny in the way that Writer at Heart would like, that is, they can be witty. In a social situation, people can wait for one or the other of them to make the remark that surprises and brings the smiles. Also, for them to be likable to the reader, they can’t be mean. Their jokes shouldn’t be at someone else’s expense.

Suppose they go together to a Valentine’s Day party. They make their entrance a little late, and everyone is delighted to see them, because they’re the life of every party. On the way in, Jonas picks up a big heart lollipop from a bowl. With everyone watching, he lunges like a fencer at Marie. She steps back smiling, instantly getting the joke. The two of them bow to everyone and say in unison, “Heart attack.”

Not sure how funny a heart attack is, but Marie and Jonas are clever. They’re witty, and no one’s feelings have been hurt.

How did I come up with the heart-attack joke?

It happened to come right away, but if it hadn’t I would have written some notes, which might have gone like this: They’re at a party. A theme party provides more opportunities and more interesting props, could be Halloween, a birthday, Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day. Which of them will make the joke?

• Marie holds a heart doily to her ear. Jonas gets it and says loudly, “Heart of hearing!”

• Heart is also hart. Can I do anything with a joke about the deer? No. Nobody will get it.

• Something with endearments: sweetie, love, dear, darling, sugar, honey.

• Stick with heart. I got it! Heart attack. How do I write it so it isn’t making fun of a terrible illness?

Or you may prefer heart of hearing. Or the endearments may have gotten you thinking.

In a story, a series of jokes will quickly grow tiresome. If Marie’s and Jonas’s repartee continue at length, the reader may stop reading and switch to something that has story momentum. So suppose we leave it at one joke in this moment, and suppose the reader knows that half an hour ago the lovebirds were arguing and even on the point of parting. They’ve made up, and the relieved reader sees that they’re back in sync. The joke isn’t just funny now, it also makes the reader feel good until the next crisis.

Or, suppose either Marie or Jonas is really not a nice person, and the reader is alarmed that they’re happily together again. The joke is still clever, but the tone is ominous.

Or, the reader knows somehow that they’re about to be separated forever, but the two of them are blissfully unaware. Now the humor is tinged with tragedy. The reader smiles through his tears.

Let’s consider other ways Marie and Jonas can be funny, and let’s reprise carpelibris’s questions: Is she overly serious? Socially awkward? Too literal-minded?

Writer at Heart said no, but a character’s foibles can help with the humor. Marie can be overly serious and too literal-minded. People are being witty all around her, and she doesn’t get it. The reader hears the soundtrack of her thoughts. She’s trying to figure out what’s funny, and she has a fake smile pasted on her face. Finally, she thinks she understands. She says, “I get it!” And she comes out with a wild interpretation that nobody meant. They laugh, and she’s mildly puzzled. The reader sympathizes and smiles. But if she’s really hurt it stops being funny.

Jonas can be socially awkward. He always says the thing everybody else is tiptoeing around. He means no harm, but he misses a lot of cues. There can be comic relief when he blurts out the obvious.

In both of these, unlike the witticisms, we’ve made our MCs vulnerable, which probably makes them more likable and certainly makes them funnier. If we think about stand-up comics, many present themselves as vulnerable, and there usually is a dark side to their humor. For example, I heard a comedian named Mike Birbiglia perform a piece on the radio about his sleepwalking. Part of the story involved him walking through the plate-glass window of his hotel room. It was very funny, since he’d lived to tell about it.

There are, of course, many ways to write humor. I suggest you also look back at my other two posts labeled “writing humor,” and you can also check out the chapter “Writing Funny, Writing Punny” in Writing Magic.

These prompts are based on the post:

• Jonas and Marie are going to be separated forever as soon as the party ends. Write the party scene with both at their wittiest, most charming, and most obviously in love. End with the tragedy that separates them.

• Rewrite the scene, but make the romance ridiculously over the top. Their pet names for each other are embarrassing. Jason feeds Marie a heart-shaped cookie, and they’re both dusted with powdered sugar, which they don’t see. Marie is wearing a long scarf, which gets tangled in something while they dance. They’re not nearly as charming as they think they are, but they may be twice as funny. Then have the separation occur.

• Let’s imagine that the story is going to turn sinister when two heavily armed men and one heavily armed woman crash the party, hoping for a place to evade the police. Make Jason and Marie laughable as they were in the last prompt, or make one socially awkward and the other overly serious and too literal-minded. Before the situation turns deadly they are vulnerable objects of fun. When these desperadoes come in, Marie and Jason accidentally notice the danger. They can’t tell anyone or the baddies will realize. (The phone lines have been cut, and cell phone reception is terrible here.) It’s up to our doofus duo to save the day. Write the scene, and use detail to make it funny. I’m rooting for a happy ending, but it’s up to you.

Have fun and save what you write!

Moving Along

Thanks to all for the questions. That was terrific! My list is healthy again, but questions are always welcome.

On June 2, 2014, Sunny Smith wrote, Hey, I was wondering if any of you guys have any tips on how to spice up travel scenes so they aren’t boring? I’m writing a book where the main characters are doing a lot of traveling and I’m learned quickly that if you don’t spice it up it can get pretty boring really fast. So that’s what I’ve been doing, but I keep wondering how much spice is too much spice. Where’s the line between making the reader so interested they can’t stop reading and making them frustrated with it because there just too much stuff going on?

Sunny Smith’s question generated a lot of help. This came in from maybeawriter: Well, I know of an older post dealing with road trips called “Enhancing Experience.” (April 20, 2011.) Not sure if that helps you, but it might be worth looking at.

And this from Eliza: They don’t need a flat tire and a troll bridge every two pages to keep the reader interested. There are simpler ways to spice things up. You know those pesky bits of dialogue you have to put somewhere but too much talking slows down the story? Put the talking with the walking.

And from Elisa: I would suggest reading Crown Duel, by Sherwood Smith, and it’s sequel, Court Duel. The first has a lot of traveling in it, and the second has some as well, though not as much. Plus, they’re fun books. Especially Crown Duel.

And from carpelibris: Is the journey part of the story, or do you just need to get characters from Point A to Point B? If that’s the case, you can just say something like “Three weeks later, footsore, sunburned, and in dire need of baths, they arrived at the palace.”

Sunny Smith responded to Carpelibris: It is part of the story, it’s actually a quest story like Writer At Heart’s so it’s pretty major. The worst part is in my first chapter where my POV character is on her way to meet up with the other three mains and she’s all by herself in a forest for most of it so there isn’t any way for me to put in any juicy dialogue. So I made it interesting because I’m not one to bore myself and I keep wondering if it’s too much for the first chapter.

These are great ideas! I’m with carpelibris in that we can truncate a journey with judicious telling, and her suggestion for how to do it is charming, in my opinion.

Let’s consider this first chapter as I understand it. Our MC–let’s call her Andressa–has to cross a dangerous forest to reach her allies, the other three MCs, who will help her on the next leg of her journey. Andressa’s ultimate mission is to find the mythical roc, the bird that, according to prophecy, will lay a golden egg, and the egg has the power to unite three warring kingdoms. Let’s say that once Andressa possesses the egg she has to get it to the queen of her home kingdom, because this queen is the only ruler who wants peace.

If nothing is going to happen in the crossing of the forest that will have bearing on the discovery of the roc, one choice is to skip the forest entirely and start the book when Andressa reaches the village where her friends are waiting.

Another possibility is to make the forest crossing have bearing on the quest. It could be some kind of test of Andressa’s ability. There are lots of options. Maybe she’s been told that she mustn’t leave the path through the forest. As she crosses, she keeps being tempted. She can succumb once for a reason we choose. Maybe she gets hungry. An apple tree loaded with low-hanging fruit is growing near the path. She reaches for an apple but keeps her feet planted firmly where they should be. Unfortunately, the apple is just a little farther than she expects. She stumbles and her foot comes down six inches beyond the path.

The reader–and Andressa-–worries that she’s already failed at the quest. To make matters worse, when she gets out of the forest, she doesn’t tell anyone about the failure.

The point is that whatever we write in our forest-crossing scene should have some bearing on the quest. If it doesn’t, our reader may be engaged briefly, but he’s soon likely to feel confused about what’s important. He may have trouble following the thread.

What happens in that first chapter doesn’t have to be quite so focused on the quest as the prophecy idea. We can use the forest adventure to shed light on Andressa’s character and her fitness for the task she’s taken on. Suppose there are bearions, a cross between a bear and a lion, in this wilderness. Andressa’s first mistake is that she leaves crumbs after her evening meal. She curls up to sleep nearby, and a bearion smells the food and finds her. She hears it coming and has time to get ready with her bow and arrow. She shoots off four arrows, but the beast keeps coming, so she runs to a tree to climb. And the reader discovers how bad her coordination is. She can’t climb the tree. The four arrows do finish off the bearion before it reaches her, but the reader is worried again. Andressa has proven herself a good shot but also careless and clumsy. She is a weak vessel for such an important mission.

I’d say that one adventure is probably enough for the forest part of the story unless we decide that more of the plot should take place there. After the event we’ll probably want to go into Andressa’s thoughts about what happened. If she doesn’t realize that leaving crumbs was a mistake, the reader is going to worry even more about her. If she does realize and beats up on herself too much, he’s going to worry too. If she thinks about the importance of her quest for, say, the people she loves, he’s most likely going to like her. If she pities the dead bearion, he is certainly going to.

We can also use thoughts to eat up the miles and set up the trouble to come. During day one she can think about each of the friends she’s going to meet if this interminable forest ever comes to an end. She can assess their strengths and shortcomings while her opinions also inform the reader about her. During day two she can think about the war that’s raging outside this interminable forest. And during day three she can recall everything she knows about the roc. On day four she can arrive.

A Tale of Two Castles begins with a boat ride to the town of Two Castles, where the body of the story takes place. On the cog (medieval boat) Elodie observes her surroundings. She thinks about where she’s going and what her mission is. A lot of thinking goes on. She also gets seasick and receives bad news from a fellow passenger that threatens her plans. Nothing is earth shattering, but the journey fills seventeen pages. It establishes Elodie’s character and begins to build the world of the story.

If we don’t have dialogue we still have actions and thoughts. And we also have a setting for our MC to interact with, all in the context of her quest. Now let’s start down that yellow brick road!

Here are four prompts:

• Write the scene in which the bearion attacks Andressa. Go on to write her thoughts after she discovers that she isn’t going to die.

• Write Andressa’s thoughts as she crosses the forest, and have her consider the issues I named: the other MC’s, the war, the roc.

• Imagine the roc. Write a scene about it in its natural habitat. Reveal something that will make Andressa’s quest much more difficult.

• Write the whole story of Andressa, her three companions, the roc, and the golden egg.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Defined by decisions

Before the post, this is a call for questions. My long list is running down. I know I don’t add every question that comes in to my list. Some I don’t have a lot to say about, or I may have answered something similar recently. But if there’s anything about writing that plagues or confuses you or that you’ve always wondered about, this is a good time to ask. Poetry questions also welcome.

On April 5, 2014, Farina wrote, If you have a character’s, well, characteristics down in a description of him, can you give some advice for then writing that person in their own character, showing off their characteristics and personal traits? So often I feel like my characters are all blandly similar in my writing even though in my own ‘Character Bible’ I have varying personalities and flaws for them all!

In response, Bibliophile wrote, Putting them in situations where their values are challenged would be a good idea. That way, you can see how true they are to what they say they believe, and everyone is going to react differently. Use the (it doesn’t have to be in your story) ‘A house is burning down and you can only save one of these two things: a priceless painting or a murderer.’ Then have a conversation with your characters and ask them why they chose what they did. Keep in mind, there is no true right and wrong answer to this question, it’s just a great way see where your characters’ priorities are. (The question is borrowed from Shannon Hale’s Princess Academy: Palace of Stone.)

Interesting suggestion. We can move the idea behind Bibliophile’s suggestion into our story, that is, we can look at the moments in our plot when our character faces a choice.

Let’s go with the choice Bibliophile and Shannon Hale suggest. Let’s imagine a strange combination of events that might present our MC, Tania, with this exact dilemma. A civil war is raging in her country, where she works as a prison guard. Because a high-security prison was bombed, the provisional government has moved the surviving prisoners into the only structure still standing that’s big enough to house them, the fine arts museum, which holds the cultural legacy of the land. Unfortunately, one of its new inmates is an arsonist. The museum is burning. Tania guards the wing where both the murderers are penned and the masterpieces of the golden age of portraiture are displayed. She can save a murderer’s life or a cultural legacy. She may even be able to rescue more than one painting but only one person. What does she do?

We can consult our character bible to see what she cares about, how she reacts in a crisis, what her life has been up to this point. With that, we may be able to decide what this particular character will choose.

Suppose we know, for example, that she’s judgmental. Right and wrong are clearly defined in her mind, which is one reason she became a guard. Even so, this particular choice may move her into unknown territory. She believes in preserving life although she thinks murderers are the lowest of the low. She’s not much of an art lover, but she’s a patriot and she regards the museum’s holdings as a national treasure. Her values are in conflict.

Cool.

The choice will be brought into sharper relief if we write the scene as it unfolds. The writing itself is likely to reveal Tania to us and will help us help her choose.

Which particular murderer is in danger of incineration? Does Tania know the details of his crime? Did he poison his own mother? Or did he kill the man who killed his sister, who got off on a technicality? What’s he like? What’s he saying to Tania while the flames lick the walls? How frightened is she? How clearly is she thinking?

Her choice will give the reader an idea of her. She can take the painting or the murderer, or she can be a ditherer and try to take both: advance five yards with the murderer, run back for the painting, and so on, possibly too slowly to get out alive with either. A tragedy. But whatever action she takes, her character will be much clearer if we write her thoughts as well, and if there’s an opportunity for dialogue, too, so much the better.

Thoughts first. We can make a list of possibilities, like this:

• I wish they’d given us fire training. Am I supposed to close the door or leave it open? Do I take the stairs or the elevator? Which is worse, first degree burns or third? I don’t want those puckery scars on my face.

• He looks a lot like Mr. Pollack. If I leave him, I’ll have to live with killing Mr. Pollack. He’s whimpering. Mr. Pollack would probably whimper, too, if he were here. This painting looks like Maria when we were in the third grade.

• Aaa! It’s so hot! We’re both going to die. I can hardly see. I’ll take whatever I touch first, the prisoner or a painting. We’ll die together.

Our characters’ thoughts help define them. We find out something about each version of Tania from what’s going through her mind. The first Tania may be a tad vain. The second Tania is more sympathetic, if no more competent. The third tends to panic, although she has a good reason in this case. Your turn. Write three more stream of consciousness moments for Tania.

On to dialogue. She can have a cell phone and a walkie-talkie. There may be other guards in the building, and she may be shouting to them. She may be talking to the murderer. In her frightened state, she can also be talking to the painting. Here are some possibilities:

• To her best friend on the cell phone: “Tell me you’ll take Susie if I don’t come out of here. I don’t want to die worrying about her. Tell her every day that I loved her, and remember to mix wet food in with the dry. She won’t eat otherwise.”

• To the murderer: “One move I don’t like and I will leave you and take the picture. Hands in the air. High. Keep them up.”

• Another possibility to the murderer: “Don’t kill the lady who’s saving your life. Don’t be like the scorpion in that story. We’re in this together.”

Your turn again. Write three more bits of dialogue for Tania. See how they define her.

I find character bibles most helpful once I start writing, and I don’t use them for every character. It’s only when my character has to do or think or say something and I can’t figure out what that should be that I create a character bible. And usually I leave it unfinished the minute I know what to put in my story. I may go back to it, though, if I get stuck again.

Using the choice between the murderer and the art is useful if our story includes that very decision. Otherwise, it’s just an exercise. When we get back to our story we may find that whatever we came up with in our hypothetical situation doesn’t fit.

One more thought: The more detail we include in our scenes, the easier it will be to make Tania come to life as a lively personality.

Naturally the prompt is to write the scene in the burning museum/prison. When you’re finished, if you’ve gotten fascinated by Tania, continue with the rest of the story, which may start with the lead-up to the burning building and go on to include her role in the civil war. If the murderer interests you, too, keep him in. Tania may not save him, but he may manage to survive anyway.

Have fun, and save what you write!