Fresh plots for sale

On July 5, 2013, Athira Abraham wrote, How can I come up with original plots? I’ve searched up on the Internet, and I know that you should write the story you want to read, but I’m sick and tired of reading books on quests, rescuing, riddles, forbidden love, escaping, or revenge, though it seems like all books and stories and plots fall under these categories and more. But I want my plot to be more enticing to the readers that read it and to myself. I want it to be new, original, and unique.

I do like quests and escaping an evil enchanter etc., but its so common. How can I accomplish this?

This reassuring response came from Michelle: I think that perhaps the reason that these topics are used so much is because they’re popular. For many people, these adventures are so exciting and suspenseful that they never get boring. Of course, the success of a book depends on its author. If you feel bored with these topics, don’t use them. There’s a good chance that readers won’t be interested if you’re not.

Write about what you think is interesting. As for the uniqueness, I don’t think there is any advice to give. It’s a hard question. But, I do think that every plot, even original plots, have piggybacked off others at one point or another. If you like quests and an escaping evil enchanter, ponder those topics. And eventually, ideas will come. Good or bad, they always do. By the way, if you’ve done research on the internet, this means you’re a serious writer. You have an imagination. And if you have an imagination, there’s nothing to worry about.

On my bookshelves are two books about plot, bought a long time ago, probably out of desperation. Interestingly, I just looked on Amazon and discovered that neither author seems to ever have published any fiction!

The point of one of the books, which is similar to Michelle’s comment, is that there are only a few possible plots. I agree with Michelle and the book on this: a limited number of plot types. But character possibilities, situations, settings, are limitless. Complete originality may be impossible, but uniqueness is inevitable. Except for plagiarizing, no one writes exactly the same story, comes up with the same dialogue or identical characters or identical anything.

We all, I think, have dreams for our stories; we hope that we’ll create a marvel, which we may actually achieve. But not by concentrating on wished-for greatness. Once I sit down to write and start spinning my tale, I need to put those hopes aside to concentrate on my words and my story. If I think about how stupendous I want my book to be, I freeze. Guaranteed.

Having said that, as an example of pretty significant originality, I’ll put forward The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong, which I just read, and which won the Newbery in the 1950’s and is, in my opinion, a tour de force in plotting. It’s too young, I’m pretty sure, for almost all of you who read the blog, and it may seem old-fashioned. But I recommend it highly, because it has a lot to teach us about plotting, and I’m sure I’m going to learn from it. There’s little at stake, only persuading two storks to nest in the Dutch village of Shora (so it’s a quest plot), but the tension stays high, and DeJong varies carrying out the quest with astonishing ingenuity. Repeatedly, when I thought the problem was solved, he came up with something new to keep me reading. Besides, it’s a charming book, and, here and there, throughout are marvelous brush-and-ink drawings by Maurice Sendak. If you do read it, or if you already have, I’d love to know what you think.

Athira Abraham, sounds like you may be tired of the kinds of books you usually read. Maybe your writing would be re-energized by reading outside your usual preferences. I don’t know how old you are, but when I was in high school I went through a phase when I read mostly nineteenth century Russian novels, and then I moved on to other kinds of novels. I also read a lot of plays, and several were by George Bernard Shaw. Mark Twain is another favorite, and he’s so unsentimental that he’s cleansing. I adore A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Or, in the world of young adult literature, I admire the work of Virginia Euwer Wolfe boundlessly, and my favorite is The Mozart Season. Short story collections may be useful too, because you come across a lot of plots in a single book. A librarian or a knowledgeable bookseller may have more suggestions.

You may already know all these books and authors; you may read short stories regularly, but the point still is that stepping outside your usual preferences may give you new ideas and may suggest approaches to plot you haven’t tried before.

Another source of unpredictable plots is life, where the unpredictable meets the random meets the intentions of people. They combine and recombine, and we find meaning. We shape what happens to us into story. We can use family stories as the basis of our fiction. I’ve mentioned before that my book Dave at Night is an invented version of my father’s childhood in an orphanage. Tucked into the story are fragments of truth and the real-life personality of my dad. Soon I’m going to start reading another book about the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, my ancestors among them. I’m hoping to find a true story I can fictionalize, because something that really happened often has a surprising shape. You may find something in history that you’d like to turn into a story. Or a piece in the news. Or something that’s going on in your community.

When I think about turning fairy tales into novels, I look for leaps of logic, anything that doesn’t make complete sense, which usually leads me to exploring my characters’ motivations. Why does the prince fall in love with the maiden in “Toads and Diamonds”? What’s up with the cat in “Puss ‘N’ Boots”? Why is he so willing to help a master who was about to eat him? The answers usually take my plots in surprising directions.

In The Wheel on the School, author DeJong uses not only his characters, but also the weather, the dike (since this is Holland), and a bell tower to twist his story. Oh, I hope you read it! As we write, we can think, What else can I bring in? What’s handy in my story that I haven’t exploited yet?

Here are two prompts:

• Begin your story with the achievement of a quest. The magic statue has been found at great cost. The heroes and heroines are celebrating, and it all falls apart. The statue doesn’t do what it was supposed to, or someone drops it, and it shatters.

• Here’s a little germ of an incident from my girlhood, which you can use as a story seed. A friend and I read a book in which the heroine’s name was a variant of the name of another one of our friends. We announced to her that she had to go by that nickname from then on. I won’t say what followed. That’s your story. Think conflict. You can go small and keep the tale to the confines of the friendship. Or you can widen it. You can imagine that the three are members of powerful families (as we definitely were not!), and more people get involved. Whichever route you take, the point is that, since it derives from reality, the story is unlikely to follow a predictable path.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Legendary backstory

Before I start the post, I want to mention that last week I recorded Writing Magic, which is going to be an audio book with me reading. I’ll let you know when it’s out. I just wanted to share my joy about having done it. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to. My voice cracks when I’m nervous, and I thought the people doing the recording would give up in disgust, but we all soldiered on. I repeated many sentences and had to read the whole beginning over at the end, but we did it! If you get it, you won’t hear a young voice or even a smooth voice, I don’t think, but the inflections will be the way I hear the book in my head, the way I wrote it.

Now for the post: On June 28, 2013, Michelle wrote, Mrs. Levine, in Writing Magic, you said that in a story, you can’t begin using subjects before you have introduced them. The example you gave was of a boy delivering a message on a foreign planet. He gets attacked by wulffs, and that’s interesting, but the author hasn’t mentioned wulffs until then. This is the problem I have. I have a complicated story, and it contains a lot of legends. There are three different trials that my character has to pass through, and each one requires a legend to explain it since it is so complex. How do I slip all of that information in before the trials come up while still being subtle?

Advice from anyone else is also more than welcome.

Athira Abraham weighed in with, I remember that example!!!

Mrs. Levine had also mentioned to try to slip something about that earlier in the story. So for the wulffs, maybe his best friend had a scar from them.

For your story, maybe you can have the legends being mentioned in a book your character might have been reading, or if he/she was in a library, maybe the librarian was caught reading something about it.

Or if this is top secret information (the legends) you can have your character eavesdrop or overhear two people that are important to these trials talking about it. Then you can have your character recall them speaking, and racking his/her brain trying to remember what the two people were saying and eventually remember.

These are wonderful ideas. I especially love the library idea.

I’m not sure why subtlety is necessary in this case. If legends are a big part of this world, you can be bold about them. In the case of the wulffs, I was imagining that they weren’t very important, just one more danger for an MC who is already in a perilous situation. If I were writing a story in which wulffs were one of the main plot strands I’d introduce them more powerfully.

I’m guessing, so I may have what you’re doing all wrong, but if the legends are part of the culture of this society, then everyone knows them. There are lots of possibilities for introducing them to the reader. For example, the story can start with your MC being told them by her grandfather when she’s a child. The reader feels both the terror of the tales and the comfort of the grandfather’s rumbling voice, maybe the feel of his dry hand stroking her forehead, and the taste of the hot ginger tea he’s prepared for her. Then we flash forward to the present where the body of the story will take place.

The only trouble with this approach is that if the trials are a hundred pages in the future, by the time the reader gets there, he may have forgotten the details of the legends and may need to be reminded in the narrative or in the MC’s thoughts.

Or, the story starts in the present. The legends are mentioned once or twice in the narrative or hinted at in dialogue. When we come to the trials, there can be some kind of ceremony during which the first legend can be recited by someone who has that role in the community. Action stops for the recitation.

For me, as a reader, I don’t mind the cessation of action for a legend. Just the word, legend, puts me in a receptive state. Mmm, delicious, I think. The recitation runs its course, and then the trial takes place. Trial over, we’re ready for the next legend.

The only problem I can see is that we don’t want the reader to be lulled by the format into a sense of security. We don’t want him to think that the MC is going to succeed because there are two more legends coming up, so we have to work in tension, maybe with dialogue about promising candidates of the past who’ve failed the tests. Maybe with suggestions that new candidates step up regularly. If our MC fails, someone else will come forward. Or in our MC’s worried thoughts. Or in the legends themselves, which incorporate a dismal record of failure. Maybe no one has ever succeeded.

Another way to go would be to start the story with a legend in third person from a voice that’s outside the ordinary narration. What’s told could be one of the trial legends or a creation myth for the entire culture. Starting this way would prepare the reader for the story to be stopped occasionally for legends.

Here’s a caution about dialogue, which also appears in Writing Magic. If everyone in this world knows the legends, we have to be cautious about how we put them in our dialogue. It sounds unnatural when characters talk to one another about matters they already know. Brandon is unlikely to say to Jenna, “Remember how in the Legend of the Fish seven carp will swim in a circle?”

And Jenna answers, “Yeah. They swim so fast a funnel is created for the contestant to dive into. That’s the beginning of the trial.”

This is just information for the reader, not real dialogue, unless they’re explaining to a foreigner. But if not, we have to find another way.

However, if the legend is complicated, there could reasonably be disagreement about the details. Brandon might say, “Remember how in the Legend of the Fish seven carp will–“

Jenna can interrupt with, “Six carp.”

They can argue over the number until Sura breaks in. “Stop counting carp. I’m hungry.” The action moves on, but when we get to the trial the difference in the fish count is important, and the reader remembers the number, because we’ve highlighted it with the dispute.

There may be many other ways to introduce the legends. If you think of some, you can post them.

Here are three prompts:

• Let’s say that a week after the number-of-carp debate, Sura is chosen as the candidate to undergo the trials. Her lack of interest in the details of the legend becomes a factor in her performance. She has to enter the funnel to get to an underwater (dry) prehistoric world where she has to find the only talking dinosaur, who can answer a question vital to the survival of her people. Write the trial, keeping in mind her flaw.

• Or, Sura, the chosen one again, enters the funnel when only six carp have created it, without waiting for the arrival of the seventh. The funnel isn’t strong enough to hold. Write what happens. What other strengths might she have to offset her heedlessness?

• Write the legend of the carp and the underwater kingdom as the introduction to your story. Move into the narrative with characters and the upcoming trials. Get us worried, then interrupt the story with the next legend. Keep going.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Pursuing chase variety

I have a blog-related dilemma coming up. In September I’m going back to school, to poetry school, to be exact for a masters degree in poetry. (Very exciting!) I’m also going to continue writing my books, and I’m worrying about time, particularly having time for the blog, which I don’t want to give up. What I love most is reading your comments; I’d feel deprived without them. So I’ve thought of three possibilities, and I’d like feedback. One would be to post every other week. Another would be to write a post and break it in two, half posted every week. A third would be short posts every week with only one prompt, or two at the most. I’d welcome other ideas. What do you think?

Onto today’s post. On June 27, 2013, Tiki Armsford wrote, One of the scenarios that I have the hardest time writing is chase scenes, particularly the ones where there’s a lot of running. There are only so many times I can write, ‘her heart was pounding’ before it gets repetitive (usually once). Do you have any advice to help keep people from getting into this rut? Any words on writing scenes that could easily get repetitious?

Michelle Dyck weighed in with: Some of that repetition you may not need at all. Only a few mentions of a pounding heart, burning lungs, or aching calves may be all you need to immerse the reader in the chase scene. Of course, you want to put in enough of that kind of detail so that the reader doesn’t forget what the character is feeling… Stuff like ‘her heart was pounding’ is, unfortunately, used a lot. (I’ll admit I use it too!) But if you can, at key moments, find a new way to say it — delightful! Maybe liken that pounding heart to a thrashing animal trying to get out. Or instead of saying that her lungs are burning, write that they’re straining, expanding, hungry for air. Just so you know, you’re not alone in this! Repetitious scenes are tricky, and I’m sure most of us have had trouble with them before. 🙂 Hope this helps!

And I pointed out that I’d written a related post, which anyof you can find by clicking on the “showing feelings” label.

I like Michelle Dyck’s idea of using metaphor to get to the feeling in an interesting way. As our MC runs she can become in her mind a hunted creature, and she can describe herself as one, a mouse, a rabbit, even a cockroach.

So how can we achieve variety in a scene with repetitive action, particularly a chase? What do we have to work with?

• Feelings. This is where the pounding heart comes in and the other physical manifestations Michelle Dyck mentions. My old post may come in handy here for more ideas. If our MC happens to be nonhuman or more than human there may be other feelings we can mention. For example, if she happens to be super empathic, we can use that. Does it make her legs tremble as she runs? Is her mind clouded? Or maybe she’s not human and her skin color changes when she’s scared.

• Senses. Her can be heightened. She’s more than usually aware of shadows. Her hearing is unusually sharp; her panting sounds explosive, but she still hears pebbles rattling behind her. She smells the slightest odors on the wind.

• Thoughts. What might our MC be thinking? Maybe about where to go next, what to do next, why her pursuer is after her, how to stop him, what she can use to fight him. We can reflect the desperation of a chase in rushed thoughts or thought fragments, because this isn’t the time for her to think in complete paragraphs. If she’s telepathic, her thoughts may be muddled with the thoughts of her pursuer.

• Speech. When I’m scared I talk to myself out loud. She can do this too. She can have a running internal conversation going that she may not even be conscious of. She can give herself directions, like, “Faster. Faster. Don’t give up. You can do it. Do it.” And so on. It doesn’t occur to her that she’s wasting energy by talking.

• Appearance. She can give us hints of this in her thoughts: that her lip is bleeding, her scarf is streaming out behind her and what if it catches on something, her jacket is torn, people are staring.

We can also mix things up by having her think she’s gotten away. She’s run into an alley and is crouching behind a dumpster, wondering how long she has to stay there before it’s safe to leave. Her thoughts and her breathing slow down. She thinks about telling the story of her great escape to her friends when she hears the pebbles again, and she’s off, running.

She can appeal for aid from a stranger or from someone she knows. Another character will introduce new interest. Can the new character be trusted? Is she well-meaning but useless? Does she just happen to be on the scene, or for good or ill, is she there for some reason that’s connected to the chase?

It’s also nice if we can vary the transportation she uses in her attempt to get away. She can commandeer a bike, get on a bus, jump into the back of a truck, launch herself in a rowboat or even swim. All these will mix it up, and they can introduce new problems. Whose bike is it? If the pursuer gets on the bus, too, she’s in an enclosed space with him. A rowboat isn’t exactly a fast getaway vehicle. And so on.

The setting of a chase can lend interest, too. If our MC is running across a vast prairie, we’re going to have to work to break things up, maybe with a haystack, a grain silo, an irrigation ditch – not a lot. But put her in a mall, for example, and the opportunities multiply. Of course, we may not want to give her a lot of options. We may want her to run until she collapses.

Here are four prompts:

• Your MC, Holly Run-Lightly, is being pursued by your villain’s private security squad. Include three modes of transportation in your chase, one of which can be running. Write the scene. If you like, write the circumstances that led to the chase and the story that follows.

• Holly is being chased at a roller skating rink. She doesn’t have time to unlace her skates. Write the scene.

• Mary is trying to get away from the lamb who follows her everywhere. Write the chase.

• Tell Alice’s pursuit of the White Rabbit from his POV.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Crystal ball gazing

On June 21, 2013, Kenzi Anne wrote, So I have a question about riddles…I don’t know about you guys, but I like to throw in a riddle sort of mystery into some of my books, like a prophecy or enigmatic saying, but… I’m not very good at making them! I feel like it’s either too easy to decipher so that the story’s ending is too predictable, or otherwise the clues are too much of a stretch and won’t make much sense. Any advice? 🙂

I love enigmatic auguries, too! And I’ve used them in many of my books. In Ella Enchanted and Fairest gnomes can see into the future, but dimly, so they just give hints. In Ella, a gnome gives this warning: “Danger, a quest, three figures. They are close to you, but they are not your friends. Beware of them!” The quest, of course, is to end the curse of obedience; the three figures are Dame Olga, Hattie, and Olive; and danger abounds – from ogres, from Ella’s stepfamily, and from the curse itself.

The trick here is that the warning doesn’t foretell the solution to the story, so it doesn’t give anything away. It just heightens the mystery, enhances the atmosphere, and makes the gnomes more exotic.

So that’s one way to go. If your prophecies don’t give the ending away you don’t have to worry about being too specific.

In Ever, Puru, the god of fate, drops an occasional hint. But then he contradicts everything he’s said with: “Fate may be thwarted.” And he confesses, “I long for a happy outcome.”

That’s another approach: Make your omens contradictory.

In The Two Princesses of Bamarre, the kingdom is afflicted with a fatal disease called the gray death, but a specter has foretold that the cure will be found when “cowards find courage and rain falls over all Bamarre.” MC Addie obsesses about the prediction and wonders how many cowards have to find courage and how long the rain has to fall, and whether it has to fall all at once.

So make your portent open to interpretation.

Here are two more rolled up in one. In Stolen Magic a wooden puppet issues a warning: “Expectation misleads.” In this case, the words are so vague and the source so questionable that nothing is given away. You can make your prediction hazy, or make the character who gives it unreliable.

I’m sure there are more that I haven’t used. For example, we can introduce so many signs that the reader doesn’t know which to believe. Or the prophecy can be received in a dream or a hallucination, and its credibility can be in doubt. The character who delivers the prediction can have questionable motives. Or the person who receives it can be too receptive. For example, if Portia believes fortune-cookie fortunes and spends ridiculous sums of money on handwriting analyses, tea-leaf readings, tarot-card fortune tellers, and she consults her Ouija board nightly, the reader will be skeptical when she tells her best friend to avoid anyone with a harpoon tattooed on his or her wrist. Even so, the reader will sit up when that harpoon tattoo shows up.

We need to pay attention, too, to the timing of a prediction. If it’s delivered late in a story, it may feel contrived to the reader, like a set-up.

I’ve talked about Chekhov’s gun on the blog before, but in case you haven’t seen that post and don’t know about this rule, the Russian novelist and playwright Anton Chekhov wrote that one mustn’t show a reader a rifle hanging on a wall and not have it be shot at some point in the story. I don’t always agree with this. Sometimes the rifle can just reveal the character of its owner or provide atmosphere. But I do believe that it has to contribute in some way, and, in the case of predictions, I agree completely. That harpoon tattoo has to come into the story. It can’t just be left hanging. Same with any portent. You need to use it, although not predictably, and it doesn’t have to come true.

Naturally there isn’t a single way to use your foreshadowing. In Ella, I use it subtly, I think. The gnome delivers the warning and, if I remember correctly, Ella doesn’t think much about it after that. The reader may identify the three figures, may see danger on all sides, and may wonder until the end of the book and possibly after that what the quest was. Still, it plays out enough to be satisfying.

It plays out more overtly in Two Princesses. When MC Addie is huddling in her castle, she looks to the prophecy for deliverance; she keeps searching for signs that it’s coming to pass, but once she takes action, she becomes less fixed on it.

In Ever, the prediction that Kezi hangs onto, that sustains her, is that fate isn’t immutable.

A prophecy has power. It will linger in the reader’s mind, so we don’t have to refer to it often. We can let it spin its magic in the background. The reader will compare story events as they move along with the augury and will wonder if it’s playing out yet or when it will rear its head.

One more thing. This is a reply to Kenzi Anne from Elsabet, suggesting how to handle prophecies: I LOVE riddles!!! Read a book of poems maybe, read books of riddles. That helps me. I like to see how other people do things, and then I do it myself, but MY way. I’m not sure about other people, but I love poems that rhyme. Other poems, they’re okay (No, I’m not insulting anyone, it’s just my preference.), but they don’t seem to have the same type of dazzle, the same type of power. My dad says it this way: Anyone can write a non-rhyming poem, but it takes someone special to make a really great rhyming poem. It’s harder, and funner. My dad’s a poet (unofficially, of course, but he writes good stuff). So just keep that in mind. The riddle probably shouldn’t be too short, and if it rhymes, I suggest you use a different scheme (or whatever poets call that) than aabb or abab. Too common. If it’s an old prophecy or riddle it should probably rhyme. Make it special, and don’t worry. Use longer words and serious sounding synonyms if you can. Run it past a few people, and if they think it’s too cheesy, try again. If you like it the way it is, keep it. Mrs. Levine is good at writing poems, she probably has some good advice. I don’t know too much about writing all kinds of poems, but I write songs, which can be challenging, so I totally understand how hard it can be. Just do your best! I hope it comes out great.

Yes, rhyme scheme is the proper term, and that’s a great idea, to pay attention to the language of your prophecy. If the prophecy comes from a character who is given to elevated language, or if she’s in a trance, pull out your $600 words. Make it into a poem, if you’re feeling poetic. Make it rhyme, if you’re feeling rhyme-y.

Here are three prompts:

• Cassandra is a tragic figure in Greek mythology. The god Apollo gave her the gift of future sight, but after she angered him, he turned it around so that no one believes her when she accurately forecasts the future. And yet she keeps trying. Bring her into the modern world and put her into a situation, a party, on a train, a family gathering, whatever pleases you. She meets people and instantly knows their fate. Write her as your MC, trying to get out of her own fate while also attempting to help the people around her.

• Your MC’s father has disappeared, and she’s trying to find him. In desperation she consults several people who say they can look into the future, an astrologist, a fortune teller, a specialist in tea leaves, and someone with a crystal ball. Write a scene with each. Keep going if you like.

• The MC whose father has gone missing becomes convinced that a particular character really has powers of divination. She goes to him, but he won’t help her unless she answers a riddle. Write the riddle. Keep going, if you like. Let this seer stay in the story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Lost in Story Land

First off, a message from the sponsor (me): Amazon is promoting The Two Princesses of Bamarre e-book with the low low price of $1.99. The promotion runs until August 5th.

Now for the post. On June 19, 2013 Athira Abraham wrote, I have a problem. With the story I’m writing, I haven’t created a plot but I want to because I don’t want to be lost in my story. But at the same time, I don’t want to create a plot because then I’ll have no fun writing it and will get bored. But without no plot, I’ll end up nowhere. Please help!

This generated a big response.

unsocialized homeschooler wrote, Athira, I have this problem a lot. Some of what would be my best stories disappear forever because each time I plan it out, it gets really boring.

First, are you sure that if you don’t create a plot you’ll end up nowhere? Sometimes the best plots and stories come together when you just wander around in the wilderness of your story for a bit. Maybe you should try writing it freestyle with no idea where the story is going, and see where it takes you. Because, if plotting out a novel makes it boring to write, why do it? (Okay, I realize that logic isn’t very sound, and there are hundreds of authors who will tell you that you have to be bored with your writing for a while to finish it–But that seems a little pointless and ridiculous. Write because writing is enjoyable, fun, creative, and all that good stuff!)

And Caitlyn Hair wrote, I plot my story in segments. Maybe that would work? The one time I tried plotting out the whole thing I ended up so far off my outline that I had to redo it anyway.
I usually do three big chunks: beginning, middle, and end. I usually go off my outline by the time I get through those too, but not as badly. By outlining a little at a time I can incorporate the ideas I come up with while I write and not stress about it not fitting in to my plan.

Elisa chimed in with, Athira, do you have a favorite scene? In one of my stories-to-be I created a random scene where my heroine completely neglects the guy who traveled across two countries and 892 hundred miles to beg for her hand and leaves him living in a tent outside of her moat. I built a story from that. What I picked up is that she was independent and headstrong, also a little mean. Figure out your characters, then make more scenes. Do this, and then figure out how to link the scenes together. That’s how I set up plots for my stories. If you’re basing it on a fairy tale or something, it’s easier, because the plot’s already laid out.

Finally, Jenalyn Barton contributed this: I have two suggestions. My first is to just go with it, see where it takes you. Then, when you’ve finished it and know where it ends, go back and rework it so that your plot better fits where you’ve ended up. This way of writing is fun, because something that starts out as random may become a major plot point.

My other suggestion is to take a look at your story idea and ask yourself, “Where do I want to go with this? Where do I want my hero(ine) to end up?” Once you’ve answered that, write your story, keeping your end in mind. This way you can have a game plan in mind without having to give up the fun of discovery writing, as Brandon Sanderson calls it. You’d be surprised at how flexible you can be even with some major points plotted out beforehand. But, when it comes down to it, it’s really up to you and what you’re comfortable with.

Wow! These are great! I agree with unsocialized homeschooler and Elisa that in art accidents often lead to great discoveries. I’d even say that without the looseness that allows accidents writing can turn out stiff.

And I like Caitlin Hair’s practice of plotting in big chunks, which I think may make the task manageable. We don’t have to deal with the whole thing, just this beginning segment. And we can start to ask ourselves questions. What will get the story started? Who am I dealing with? Where? I do something like this, but in smaller bits, when I plan my scenes out before I write them.

I’m also in synch with Jenalyn Barton’s suggestion that you imagine an ending and write toward it, as I usually do. In fact, the ending often comes to me as a package along with the idea that gets me started. For example, as soon as I thought of Ella’s curse of obedience, I knew that the book would have to end with the lifting of the spell, although I had no idea how that would be accomplished.

However, these comments come from writers who don’t do close, detailed outlining. I’m in that camp, too. Is there anyone out there who can weigh in about creating complicated plot outlines and staying excited when the time comes to expand into a narrative? What are your strategies?

Some of you know that it took me a very long time and a lot of wrong turns before I finally figured out Stolen Magic. So I resolved to plan out the next book before I started writing. And I failed almost immediately. After five or six pages of notes I itched to begin the story, which I did. I’ve written only two pages, and now I’m revising a manuscript for my editor, and it will be a while before I get back to it, but I’ve been laughing at myself. We may gravitate to a certain process, in my case winging it, and be stuck with it unless something forceful intervenes, like an amazing teacher or a how-to book that we follow to the letter. Or a magic spell.

Getting lost in a story doesn’t necessarily mean disaster. When I get lost I often backtrack to the point where I still had my bearings and strike off again. Sometimes that point is 200 pages ago. I may repeat the confusion a few more times; still I’m learning about my characters and the final story shape. It’s possible I couldn’t have found my final book without meandering.

Both Athira Abraham and unsocialized homeschooler mention boredom. When I was writing the languages in Ella Enchanted, coming up with each one and figuring out how they sounded and looked on the page was fascinating, but once I had the scheme, inventing each new word was dull, necessary but dull. Other than that, when boredom sets in, it means I’ve gotten lost, and then I have to do what I talked about in the last paragraph. I don’t think boredom is required for finishing a story, although it may be a necessary sign that what we have isn’t working.

Here are three prompts about being lost. Of course, there’s a third possible ending to each beyond finding the way or being lost forever. A character can wind up in a better spot and not care about reaching the original destination.

• Take a true experience from your life of getting lost. Write about what really happened and how you felt and, if you weren’t alone, who said what.

• Now put someone you know in your place and fictionalize the memory. You may have to try out several people in your imagination before you find the right player. How would this other person handle what happened? How does the story change?

• Now make getting unlost much harder. Introduce obstacles, weather events, a villain. If you like, put it all in a fantasy world. Change your MC so that she becomes entirely fictional.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Who’s telling?

On June 2, 2013, Emma wrote, I’m writing a trilogy with 3 main characters. It goes across three generations, so a new MC is introduced in each book, but the one(s) from the previous book(s) are still present and very active in the story. So here’s my question: I’ve been telling the story in first person from the POV of the first of the three women. I feel like this trilogy is very much her story, much more so than the story of the other two, but they’re essential to the plot. The problem is that during the second and third books there are major plot developments that happen when one of the other two characters are around, but this person isn’t. The voice I’ve been using isn’t really a “I’m telling this in my old age” voice, so would it be bad to have her tell the events in the order they happened and just later say “he told me all that had happened since our last meeting” or something to that effect? Or would it be better to have her talk to a person who was present and say “He began to explain what had happened” and then launch into telling the events normally? I don’t want to tell all the stuff that happens in dialogue, because there’s a ton that goes on, and it would just be confusing. Or do you think none of those really work and I should add another narrator in each book? Like, in the first book I’d have one narrator, in the second I’d have two, and in the third I’d have three? I’ve thought about telling the first book from the POV of the first of these characters, the second book from the POV of the second, and the third from the POV of the third, but I think that wouldn’t capture how it’s the also story of the first character’s life, and I’m not sure that my idea about adding another narrator with each story would really show that either, although it would be better than doing each book from a different POV.

A little later she added this: Here’s a quick example of sort of what I’m thinking of doing:

‘woke in the hospital with Eric by my side. ‘What happened?’

‘It’s complicated,’ Eric said.

‘Ok, tell me.’

Eric sighed and began to explain everything that had happened.

After I’d passed out, Lily had taken charge. ‘James, call an ambulance,’ she’d said. ‘Eric, come here.’ When he knelt by me she asked, ‘do you think she’ll be ok?’

…[more happens]

Eric finished telling his story. ‘Like I said, it was complicated.'”

But instead of a few lines in the story there would be pages and pages, or maybe a whole chapter. Do you think that would be weird, or could it work?

The trouble with telling a story in first-person, as we all discover, is that our POV character can relate only events that happen in her presence, unless she has super-powers and can see and hear at vast distances. But there are other workarounds besides super-powers that we can use now and then.

I like variety when I’m reading, so you might go from, “It’s complicated” to a section called Eric’s Account, which might have extra-wide margins to distinguish it from the rest of the story, and it could be told from Eric’s POV. When he’s finished the margins go back to normal and he says, “Like I said, it was complicated.”

We can repeat this techniques with the accounts of other characters, and after the first one, they won’t surprise the reader.

Or, Eric can write to your MC, let’s call her Jackie, and tell her about events that happened in her absence, and we can put the whole letter in our book. The fun is that the letter will be in Eric’s voice, from his perspective, and loaded with his opinions. We can interrupt here and there, if we like, with Jackie’s thoughts and then return to the letter.

We can intersperse newspaper or magazine articles that reveal events from a more neutral viewpoint. We can have Jackie sleuth things out and maybe interpret events incorrectly. She can discover physical evidence and interrogate the players, and we can use a playscript format for the interrogation to liven things up. Jackie can visit a psychic, one with real powers. The psychic and Jackie can look in a crystal ball and see happenings play out in pantomime. In Ella Enchanted, I gave Ella a magic book for just this purpose. If we’re writing fantasy, we can invent a tiny being, or more than one, who can be Jackie’s spies, or, if she doesn’t want spies, who can act on her behalf without consulting her first. Or whatever else we like, talking trees, magic seashells that allow people to hear at great distances, clouds that change shape to portray events. Anything our overheated imaginations can produce.

If this isn’t fantasy, we can use technology: phone bugs, surveillance cameras, YouTube.

Writing is weirdly light on rules. Whatever works is good, and often we don’t know if it’s worked until we’ve tried, and sometimes not until we’ve asked someone else’s opinion.

A more traditional option, the one I’m using in Stolen Magic, is to write in third person. In Stolen Magic, the chapters that Elodie is in are written from her perspective, even though the narrator is third person (meaning that Elodie’s thoughts, and only her thoughts, can be revealed). The chapters she isn’t in are from the perspective of either the dragon Masteress Meenore or the ogre Count Jonty Um. Since the overwhelming majority of chapters belong to Elodie, she’s clearly the MC. I chose to do it this way for a reason that’s similar to Emma’s. Both Meenore and Jonty Um have to leave Elodie, and what happens to them is crucial for the plot. In an earlier version I told everything in first person. Meenore’s, Jonty Um’s, and Elodie’s chapters were from their first-person POVs, but I couldn’t get the ogre’s voice. He’s smart but not a natural with words, and he came across as stupid in his chapters.The third-person voice is neutral and represents each of them accurately.

So that’s another consideration when we switch first-person POVs: the voice has to shift, too. In Emma’s case each woman has to have her own voice. However, if that’s no problem, then this is a perfectly fine way to go, too. If Jackie gets most of the chapters, it’s still her story.

One more option is to switch from first person for the chapters Jackie is present in to third for the chapters she’s not. The reader will adapt. Again, Jackie needs to have a voice that’s distinct from the narrator’s. The reader may be confused for a paragraph or two, but he’ll catch on. We can clue him in by starting the first third-person chapter with a segue like, While Jackie slept fitfully in her hospital bed, across town in a perfectly appointed studio apartment, like the velvet interior of a jewel box, Lily paced.

Here are three prompts:

• Let’s not waste that last sentence: While Jackie slept fitfully in her hospital bed, across town in a perfectly appointed studio apartment, like the velvet interior of a jewel box, Lily paced. Write what comes next, in third person, but from Lily’s POV.

• Next, write it in first person, again from Lily’s POV.

DO THESE FIRST TWO PROMPTS BEFORE YOU READ THE NEXT ONE!!! (If you want to.)

• Now let’s imagine that Lily is pacing because her attempt to kill Jackie failed. If you didn’t think of that too, rewrite Lily’s chapter in first or third person with that in mind. Then write a chapter that takes place in Jackie’s hospital room or that happens soon after her discharge. This chapter is from Jackie’s first-person or third-person POV. Follow this with a chapter starring Eric. Keep going if you like.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Plot skimming

First off, Carpelibris, I can’t find the Humpty-Dumpty story. Can we see it online yet? What’s the title? Is there a URL that goes straight to it?

And now, a reminder: Please post writing successes on the blog. Anything published? Anything won a contest? Any other form of success?

Also before I start I want to share a sad (in a minor way) discovery I made this week. At one point in Stolen Magic I wanted Elodie to say something about a large vegetable, and I was thinking of a pumpkin but I suspected that pumpkins originated in the New World, which wouldn’t do, because I’ve been deriving my fantasy middle ages world from Europe, so I looked it up online and found that not just pumpkins but all squashes originated in the Americas. Whoa! I thought. Didn’t I put squash (not a pumpkin) in A Tale of Two Castles? I checked, and I did. Then I went to my book, Daily Life in the Middle Ages by Paul B. Newman, to see if it said people ate squash back then, way before Columbus, and yes, it did say that. The book was wrong! How could it do that to me?

It doesn’t matter much. This is fantasy. It isn’t even true historical fantasy, since the kingdom of Lepai doesn’t exist on planet earth. But still, I like to find some of my details in the real world. I would say that the lesson is to double-check everything, but I won’t say that. Everything is tedious, and fantasy doesn’t demand it. Yes, I should double-check anything I’m not sure of, or use an absolutely dependable source, like the Oxford English Dictionary, but in the case of squash other than pumpkin, I accepted the accuracy of my book.

If you’re writing historical fiction set in a real time and place, I do think you should be confident of all your details, and if you depart from reality, say so in an Author’s Note. And if you’re writing non-fiction, then everything should be rock solid – unlike my book. Shame on you, Mr. Newman!

For the large vegetable in Stolen Magic I wound up going with a cabbage. I had no idea they can grow so big. Some weigh 130 pounds! There are photos online. They throw off one’s sense of scale. People standing next to these cabbages look like elves! If you’re in the mood, check it out online. Or maybe you’ve grown such a monster cabbage – and eaten a lot of coleslaw!

Now for today’s topic. On May 27, 2013, WriteKnitRead wrote, I’m having a problem with my book in that though I’m in love with my plot and can see exactly where I want it to go, I can’t actually… write it. I feel like I’m skimming over everything interesting, like description and giving my characters, well, character, in order to write down the plot. I keep telling myself that it’ll get better once I’m through the first draft but my writing is so bland and boring right now I can’t stand it. I feel like I want to give up but I still love the plot, just not the writing. Is it just first-draft blues? Or do I really need to start over?

When I said I was adding this question to my list, I also wrote, I’d suggest getting interested in your characters. Then see what happens.

Let’s imagine a quest plot. The golden scale of justice has gone missing from the kingdom’s grand courtroom, which is right next to the king’s throne room. Without it, the royal magistrate can’t rule on criminal cases or make judgments in civil disputes. The magistrate’s daughter, Lara, can’t bear to watch her mother’s indecision, her sinking into depression. Moreover, bad people are taking advantage of the situation. Lara decides to find the scale and bring it back – that’s the quest. We plan out these plot points:

• the disappearance of the scale and when it’s discovered

• consequences of the disappearance

• decision to quest and plan to visit the local oracle for starters

• overcoming the creature that guards the oracle

• posing a question to the oracle

• the oracle’s answer, which reveals that the scale has been stolen by an evil magician who lives in a forest fortress

• failure to enter the castle of the duke, who owns the sword that is essential to recovering the scale

• enlisting the aid of the duke’s eight-year old cousin, Peter, who can sometimes read minds

• trying again with the castle, and this time succeeding

• sailing across the yellow sea to the island of the wood nymphs, with the sword in the boat

• persuading the wood nymphs to follow Lara into battle against the magician

• the capture of Peter by the magician

• the storming of the fortress

• the final battle between the magician and Lara

• recovery of the scale and Peter

Lambs and calves! I’ve written a rough outline!

Let’s pick one of these bullets: overcoming the creature that guards the oracle. If we regard this as just a step to the next bullet, the oracle, things get boring pretty fast. Lara is told by one of the king’s advisors that the creature guarding the oracle adores bread pudding, so she shows up with two crocks of bread pudding. If the creature will let her in she’ll give it one on her way in and the other on her way out. The creature is mollified; she enters without incident. We can cross that step off on our list, but we’re feeling sleepy, and we can hardly type or write.

There are two problems here, which you may have guessed. The first is that we’re making things too easy for Lara, and the second is that we haven’t explored who she is and who the creature is. Maybe we have explored Lara’s character by now because we’ve already seen her decide to go on this quest, but we probably haven’t gone into the creature.

So let’s invest some thought in the creature. Here are a few possibilities:

• It’s mostly teeth and stomach, and its tiny brain cells are focused on its teeth and its appetite. Lara will never get by it with the second pudding crock. She better give the creature all the food she has on the way in. Then we and the reader have to worry about how she’s going to get out again.

• The creature is afraid of only one being: the oracle. After it lets Lara in, it’s consumed with fear of the oracle’s anger. What does it do to protect itself? What are the repercussions for Lara?

• The king’s advisor was misinformed or lied. The creature has no interest in bread pudding, but it will let Lara in if she’ll do a favor for it in return. Whatever the favor is (maybe winning the creature’s freedom), it makes her quest more difficult.

• The creature adores bread pudding and falls in love with anyone who provides it. The creature starts following Lara everywhere, and sometimes its behavior is problematic.

By the time Lara reaches the oracle, she may also want his advice on dealing with the creature!

Then we have to consider the oracle, who he is, what he wants, whether his prediction is truthful or not. We want to cut Lara (or WriteKnitRead’s MC, or yours) a break every so often, generally an unexpected one, but mostly we want to make every step in our plot outline as hard for her as possible, and we want to pave her way with the most fascinating characters we can come up with.

As we write, we have to develop the setting so we can see (and hear and smell) everything play out, and if we can think of ways for the setting to make matters more difficult, we should. For example, suppose the walls in the oracle’s house are covered with trompe l’oeil paintings. Lara can’t tell the painted stairways from the real until she attempts to climb them. It may take her days to find the oracle, and time is ticking. If the setting contributes to the plot, we’re sure to get interested in it.

WriteKnitRead, I’m not sure if you need to start over, but if I’ve diagnosed the problem correctly, I do recommend that you go back and expand your scenes. If I’ve entirely missed the boat, please write again to set me straight.

The prompt today is obvious. Fool around with my outline. Pick one of the bullets and expand it into a scene or scenes. Invent the setting. Develop the character. Make Lara’s quest harder. If you’re ambitious, write the entire story.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Character, reform yourself!

On May 15, 2013, Bibliophile wrote, Now, how do you bring about the reformation of a character? Not necessarily from evil to good or vice versa, but one of my characters is very proud, and hates humans, (she’s a mermaid). Unfortunately she has GOT to fall for Prince Coram, or the story is worthless. In fact, the whole story rotates around the fact that she and he got engaged at a ball after her dad transforms her into a human for punishment… long story there. But anyway, in my first draft, she and he just click. All of her hate just melts away for no reason at all. And not because he’s particularly handsome or anything like that; it just fades inexplicably. The reason she hates the humans is that one of them killed her mother long ago on her 6th birthday. Also I am debating about whether or not she can speak on land, or have it so that she can speak, but no one understands her. (The curse of the illustrious Disney!!!!) But she will probably be able to talk, or communicate in writing.

Elisa contributed these thoughts: To reform a character, there has to be the seeds of what the character will be like after the reformation already there. One of my characters is a proud high-born lady, who is, in the beginning, a snob. She’s cold, and sometimes downright ruthless. But she is also lonely. She is afraid of having relationships because her family all died of plague when she was young, and she is afraid to get close to someone for fear of losing them. Her seeds of reformation are her love for children and her appreciation for beauty (she loves flowers) and her random acts of kindness. You see that she’s not really all that bad, just cautious and somewhat insecure. You need to sew the seeds for your character. Maybe make her like the different types of plants up on the earth. Or have her bond with an animal. This is generally a good way to help show a good side in a character. Though, it should probably be a land animal, seeing as she was once a sea creature. Or have her grudgingly help a little girl, and then get fond of her, which will slowly melt down her hatred of other humans as well. Then have something terrible happen to the little girl, (kidnapped, terrible illness?) and your Sea Maiden will have to rescue her. Maybe have her band up with several people, in the case of kidnapping, or, in the case of illness, maybe make the cure be something from the depths of the sea, where she is forbidden to go, but she loves the little girl so much that she will save her no matter what, so, she goes back. Maybe have the prince help her somehow. You have to build up her affection for him someway, so having them work together might be a good idea. Have her save his life maybe, or him save her. Or both.

The prince is Coram. Let’s call the mermaid Ondine, after the play Ondine by the French playwright Jean Giraudoux, which is a marvelous and tragic mermaid fairy tale. Do any of you know it? Giraudoux died before I was born, but his work was popular when I was a teenager. Wikipedia cites a marvelous quote from him: “Only the mediocre are always at their best.” I haven’t read the play in decades, but I just revisited it on Wikipedia, and it sounds appropriate for middle school readers and up. To be sure, show the plot summary to a parent or ask a librarian for an opinion. However, I suggest you read the actual play rather than the summary.

Onto Bibliophile’s question. Reformation is bigger than mere character growth or character change; reformation is fundamental. So my question is, Must Ondine reform? Can she fall for Prince Coram and go merrily on hating humanity?

As for falling for him, I’d suggest connecting him somehow with the sea or with the mer or just with water. Suppose, for example, Ondine, in rebellion against her fate, contrives at the ball to spill a pitcher of festive punch on him, and when she sees his face dripping wet, he becomes familiar in her eyes. His wet skin glistens; his eyelashes are especially compelling, and she stops regarding him as the despised other. Or, suppose he prepares for their meeting by becoming familiar with mer customs. He greets her in the mer way. He disarms her with his understanding. She’s halfway there – and then they go outside, where the fountains send sparkling spray into the moonlight.

But if you’re after real reformation, if Ondine’s hatred of people has been so longstanding that it’s become ingrained and she has to come to feel differently for the story to work, then more has to happen. There has to be a powerful reason and a decision, an act of will.

I hope there’s character change in all my books, but for true reformation, I identified six: Ella Enchanted, The Two Princesses of Bamarre, Fairest, Ever, The Fairy’s Mistake, and For Biddle’s Sake. In Ella Enchanted, Ella has struggled against her curse all her life. The reader endures with her as she makes attempt after attempt to break free. It’s only when she becomes a danger to Prince Char that she can summon up – with great difficulty – the will to disobey.

In Fairest, Aza’s suffering stems more from her own self-hatred than from the scorn of Ayorthaians. After instance upon instance of trouble for trying to change her appearance, by the end of the book she’s beginning to accept herself. She’s on her way to reformation, but it isn’t even complete by then.

One more example: In For Biddle’s Sake, which is completely lighthearted, the fairy Bombina’s favorite activity is turning people into toads. However, her heart is touched by the child Parsley, who only eats – you guessed it – parsley. The fairy adopts Parsley, and the girl disapproves of the fairy’s hobby and withholds her smile, which Bombina adores, unless Bombina gives it up. With great difficulty the fairy does, until she has a relapse, with disastrous consequences that teach Bombina her lesson forever. It’s my favorite of my Princess Tales.

In each of these cases, the reformation is hard won. It’s the focus of the book. For the reader to believe it, we need to devote a lot of pages to it. Change has to be preceded by suffering, and generally more than one instance of it. In For Biddle’s Sake, first Bombina is sent to jail by the fairy queen. When she comes out and adopts Parsley and then again turns somebody into a toad, she loses Parsley’s smile. Then, the final misery, she loses Parsley entirely, which does the trick.

The reformation is a decision that Ondine or your MC makes, which is quite different in most cases from falling in love. The word falling suggest that love comes from a loss of will (I don’t know if this is true in real life!). Reformation calls for an act of will or many acts, not so different from overcoming a bad habit, like not studying (or studying only one’s favorite subjects) or overeating or mercilessly teasing a brother or sister.

Surprise can be a factor leading to reformation. I think Elisa’s suggestions are along these lines. Ondine has long-held beliefs about the brutality of humans. On land she’ll see examples of kindness that will surprise her and may make a dent in her prejudice, but for reformation to be profound the change needs to be more than intellectual. Still, that can be a beginning. For example, she can start to believe that harboring hatred violates what she considers the best part of being mer.

Here are three prompts:

• Someone you know has a bad habit, the ones I suggested (not studying or overeating or merciless teasing) or some other. Fictionalize this real person and write a story in which he or she conquers the habit.

• Turn the bad habit into something bigger. Your earlier MC couldn’t stop smoking cigarettes, for example. Transform this into something else, like a deep-seated need to sleep on pillowcases made from butterfly wings, or pick your own. In my example, butterflies are being slaughtered in great numbers and may go extinct. Reform him for a happy ending or make him fail and create a tragedy.

• Take on your own version of our Ondine story, with or without a prince. With every fiber of her being she hates and loathes people. Her reaction to humans is similar to mine to cockroaches: Yuck! Ew! Get away from me! Die! Now bring her around to love and admiration.

Have fun, and save what you write!

Copy cat!

On May 8, 2013, Elisa wrote, I need help, I have a problem with my voice. My writing voice, that is. I’m a copy-cat. If I’ve recently read a book, say, by Shannon Hale, and then I go to write on my story, I find that my writing style is a lot like hers. If I haven’t read anything recently and have started writing, my writing is really bland. I do actually have my own “voice,” it’s quick, sarcastic and quite funny. (Think Patrick McManus, only, slightly less hysterical.) My problem is, I write a lot of serious stuff, and I’m not sure I like my “voice” very well for that type of tale. And, also, I can only slip into my “voice” every once in a while. I’ll come up with one thing, (say: “Atomic just doesn’t fit those cinnamon jawbreakers. No sir, Atomic just doesn’t do them justice.” Excerpt from one of my “try-out” stories, called “Ode to Atomic Fireballs.”) and then I come up with a whole string of them and mold them into a story. My problem is this “Voice” strikes at the oddest times, very rarely while I’m in a position to write stuff down and it never lasts long. In my “Ode to Atomic Fireballs”, my “voice” died out right before I finished the story (It is maybe two pages long) so the end didn’t quite fit. I have a problem and I don’t know how to solve it. Can anyone help?

I’ve said this before on the blog. Being able to imitate other writers is good. The ability proves that you’re impressionable. What you’re reading is permeating you, becoming part of you. Someone else’s style may pour out sometimes when it’s not wanted, but that’s a minor problem, easily fixed in revision. The great benefit is that you’re assimilating myriad ways of expression, which, once you’ve mulched them down, will flow out in interesting, flexible writing. This is cause for celebration.

Let’s look at the beginning of Elisa’s question, which seems to me to be written in a distinctive voice that isn’t sarcastic or especially funny. Here it is again: I need help, I have a problem with my voice. My writing voice, that is. I’m a copy-cat. If I’ve recently read a book, say, by Shannon Hale, and then I go to write on my story, I find that my writing style is a lot like hers. If I haven’t read anything recently and have started writing, my writing is really bland.

Do you see it, too?

The strength of the voice is in the short, snappy sentences at the beginning, followed by two longer sentences and repetition of the word If starting the last two. Plus, the term copy-cat has power. Elisa, I don’t know if you thought about voice when you wrote the question, but it’s there, and it isn’t bland.

If you want more of the quick, sarcastic, funny voice, which you liken to Patrick McManus’s, I’d suggest you study his writing. How does he get his effects? I’ve never read any of his books, but I googled him and then I checked out his writing using the search-this-book function on Amazon. He reminded me a little of Mark Twain, a high compliment. Anyway, he seems to pack a lot of his humor into his verbs, so I’d look at them in particular. Then try writing with him in mind, imitating on purpose. The goal is to have the funny voice always available to you.

Mostly when I’m writing fiction, I’m not concentrating on voice. I’m focusing on my characters and what they’re thinking and feeling, which will lead them to act or to speak. Basically I’m trying to get out of the way so my story can tell itself. I want my readers to lose themselves and not to be pulled out of the narrative by the antics of my voice.

Same thing when I’m writing this blog. I want you to be concentrating on the meat of what I’m saying, not on my language.

I do think about smooth and lively writing, decent writing – about varying the lengths of my sentences, about not starting more than two sentences or two paragraphs in a row with the same word, about not repeating sentence structure, one sentence after another. An example is a string of sentences that are two independent clauses connected by and. Another example is a succession of sentences that also have two independent clauses connected by but. In the first case, I’ll break some of the sentences into two shorter ones. In the second, I’ll sometimes start with Although. Or I’ll use however, just to avoid monotony.

And since I’ve been writing poetry, I’ve become more aware of the sound of my words, like more and aware have the same ending sounds. I could have written more alert to instead of more aware of, but I like the similar sounds. I often go for alliteration when I can. But I never sacrifice clarity for euphony. Clarity trumps everything else.

When I deliberately create voice, I’m generally writing dialogue. For example, Masteress Meenore, the dragon detective in A Tale of Two Castles and Stolen Magic, peppers ITs sentences with fifty dollar words. There’s also a cadence to ITs speech that I fall into. The ogre, Count Jonty Um, says little, and what he does say, he expresses economically. When I’m writing his speech, I trim away any unnecessary words. His vocabulary is excellent, and he’s by no means stupid, so I may throw in a big word here and there. But not many words anywhere.

I don’t mean to suggest that there’s anything wrong with a quick, sarcastic, funny voice. I just don’t think you should strain for it. My guess is that it pops out when it’s needed. And the less noticeable voice (not bland!) may be what’s needed to push your story to the fore.

Here are four prompts:

• As I suggested to Eliza above, try imitation on purpose. Read a page or two of a book you love. Analyze it if that’s helpful. What is this writer doing? Long sentences? Short ones? Paragraph length? What is the tone? Action-packed? Reflective? Funny? Now, go to a story you’re working on. Rewrite a page in that voice.

• Do the same with another writer.

• Do the same, if you haven’t already, with an author who wrote at least fifty years ago. A hundred years ago. Out of curiosity, I once compared Jane Austen’s style with Charlotte Bronte’s, whose work came later. In particular, I wondered which one used longer sentences. The answer surprised me. Check it out!

• Retell a fairy tale, concentrating on varying your sentences and paying attention to the sounds of your words. Work in assonance, alliteration, repeat end sounds. Include dialogue. Give Snow White, for example, a different way of expressing herself from the evil queen, the hunter, a dwarf.

Have fun, and save what you write!

R trouble

When one of my books is published in another country, I’m sent a copy or two, and I always enjoy seeing how my story is represented on the cover. Last week the Turkish edition (translated into Turkish) of Ella Enchanted came in the mail, with a fetching cover, which I asked my husband to put on the website. You can see it and other foreign editions of Ella if you click on this link: http://www.gailcarsonlevine.com/ella_oth.html. They’re not for sale. I don’t know how you’d purchase them if you happened to be interested.

On to the post, and this week I’m letting you do a lot of the work because there were so many comments when this question came from unsocialized homeschooler on May 8, 2013: I’m writing a story right now, and one of the characters has a speech impediment. The character often drops his “Rs” and pronounces them wrong. I read online that an author should never write out accents or quirks in the character’s speech, and that it’s distracting, hard to follow, and generally doesn’t work. The author of the article that talked about this said that mentioning it a few times will do the trick, but I’m not sure. What does everyone here think about writing out things like that? Is it annoying? Should it not be done? Does it make it easier to hear the character in your mind if it’s written out, or is mentioning it a few times enough?

In response, Michelle Dyck wrote, I’d find it annoying if it was overdone or simply hard to read. But I have read several books where I thoroughly enjoyed the accents the author wrote out:
-A mystery series set in London in the 1800’s, where the lower-class people dropped their Hs. (For example, “Mr. Astley set ‘er out on ‘er ear, ‘e did.”)
-And a series set in the South during the Civil War, in which the slaves’ speech was written out exactly how they’d sound. (It’s been a while since I read those, so I don’t have any examples.)
I’ve also read a book where a character was Irish or Scottish, and whenever he said “you”, it was written “yu.” It took me a while to figure out that it was supposed to be pronounced with a short u, not a long u, but once I did, I think I could hear his accent better.

Anyway, I’m not sure about just mentioning it a few times. I think I’d wonder why a character started out talking differently, then began speaking normally. I’d probably consider it a mistake on the author’s part.

And carpelibris wrote, I’m from the “Use dialect like hot pepper” school of thought. Put in a dash where it’s needed, but don’t overdo it.

And Elisa wrote, I don’t especially like lots and lots of funnily spelled words. You might mention it a couple times, or something, but don’t over do it. If he has a speech impediment, don’t make him talk a whole lot. If he can’t talk correctly, then have him be sort of embarrassed about it, and try his hardest not to say anything with R’s in it. Or every now and then do this: “It was red, really bright red.” he said. (Only it sounded like he said: It was led, eally blight led.) and put the pronunciations in brackets. I do that with one of my lisping characters. I’m not sure if people find that annoying, but I don’t do it that often; maybe once every three chapters or so, just to remind everyone.

And writeforfun wrote, I have a character in my books who can’t pronounce s’s properly, and I read the “mention it a few times” advice before I wrote it, so that is what I did. I discovered, however, that before long, even I forgot that he had a lisp! I’m still trying to figure out just how to fix it, so I appreciate these comments, too!

Finally, Rosjin wrote, An author I enjoy, Brian Jacques, had a habit of giving his characters very distinct (and sometimes heavy) accents. At first, I couldn’t understand a word one group was saying, but it was really fun to read. After the first book, it was much easier. I love them. It’s so fun to try and read them out loud, or listen to the audio books to see how they sound.

The only drawback is that some people end up skipping the heavily accented dialogue. They never learn to read it, and may end up putting the book down.

I say a balance is needed. I probably wouldn’t write accents as heavily as Mr. Jacques, but I would want it to be present. If a character has a lisp, I think you should write his dialogue with a lisp. If it seems a little overdone when you’re finished, then smooth out a few parts.

Here, played out on the blog, is one of the delights of being in a writing group. Members’ perspectives vary, and that variety broadens our choices. If people disagree, maybe we don’t get clarity, but we get complexity and freedom.

When I was starting out, the advice I got from teachers and read in books was to use dialects, accents, and speech oddities sparingly, as carpelibris suggests. I’m still in that camp. In Ever, for example, the gods and people of Akka pronounce their p’s as b’s. Here’s how I introduce it:

“Pardon me.” He has an accent. His p sounds like a b. Bardon me. I don’t know anyone who speaks with an accent.

And that’s it in the beginning. I don’t care much if the reader remembers the accent. My purpose was twofold: to set the two civilizations apart, the city-state of Hite and rural Akka; and to show how sheltered Kezi is.

Later in the book I remind the reader of the accent when Kezi meets another Akkan god:

“I… am… Puru… I’ve come to help you find your destiny.”
His accent is the same as Olus’s. I hear Buru and helb.

Puru has another speech peculiarity, slow speech. Here’s where I introduce it, in a scene from the POV of the Akkan god Olus:

When he speaks no constant breath pushes his words, so he stops after each one. “Olus… will–”
“Hush, Puru,” Hannu says, frowning.
“He’s too young to hear about his fate,” Arduk adds.
Puru says, “Olus… will… have… no happiness until he gains what he cannot keep.”

Notice that I put ellipses (dots) between the each of the first few words in his sentences but then I stop. I tried putting them everywhere, but it was irritating to read, even for me.

So one way to remind the reader of a character’s unusual speech without constantly reproducing it is to have him meet someone new, as when Puru meets Kezi. The new acquaintance may ask him to repeat himself or may simply not understand. The situation can turn funny if the mispronounced word sounds like a different word. My husband and I once saw an example of this in print, because of the problem that Chinese and Japanese speakers sometimes have with the letter r. (I may have told this before on the blog. Forgive me!) We were in Chinatown in New York City and saw a billboard for a movie. The title was there in Chinese characters along with the English translation: Love on a Foggy Liver!!!

Almost anything can be a tool for character development, and a speech peculiarity can be, too. Elisa suggested something along these lines. Let’s give a name to our character who has trouble with his r’s – let’s call him Marc. He’s teased about it when he’s little, and as a result he becomes a quieter person as he grows up. More self-conscious, too, and less spontaneous. He rarely bursts out with speech because he’s always thinking ahead to where the r’s may come up and looking for synonyms.

Pamela, on the other hand, could go the other way. She doesn’t mind the way she sounds. In fact, she exaggerates it. Or Theo doesn’t like his r’s, so he becomes obsessive about overcoming them. The first money he earns he spends on speech therapy, then on a voice coach. He develops a news anchor voice, deep, rich, unaccented, perfect on his r’s, except that on occasion, under stress, all his training evaporates.

Secondary characters can be revealed, too. Inez, not the nicest person in the world, delights in trapping Marc into saying words with r’s in them. In their Public Speaking class she gives her speech on speech impediments, and she delivers it directly at Marc. She tries this once on Pamela, but never again. However, she finds a way to trigger Theo’s funny r, and she takes great delight in doing it again and again.

Another secondary character, a kind one, can be revealed by her treatment of Marc, Pamela, and Theo. And we can get to know Theo’s speech therapist and his eccentric voice coach.

The odd r can become a plot element. The three journey together to a distant kingdom where the inhabitants have been waiting for three strangers who can’t say r. A native prophesy says that these strangers will discover how to open an ancient secret vault. In this case, with the r so important, I think we’d probably want to show it every time.

Here are three prompts:

• Write about the kingdom that expects three strangers and how our r-challenged heroes figure out how to open the vault and what turns out to be in it and what consequences follow.

• Write a scene that takes place on Marc’s sixteenth birthday. Show the kind of boy he’s grown up to be.

• Inez manages to make Theo think he loves her. Write their third date, during which all his speech training falls apart. If you like, he can triumph in the end.

Have fun, and save what you write!