http:\/\/www.writingforchildrenlive.com\/Marion_Dane_Bauer.html<\/a> for more information. She will also be offering a FREE, LIVE Webinar on Point of View in Fiction the following Wednesday, September 26, 7:00 EST.\u201d<\/p>\nI plan to attend or tune in later. My picture book skills could use work.<\/p>\n
And – you are among the first to know – I sent Beloved Elodie<\/i> to my editor two weeks ago. I was afraid to announce that in case she despised it and told me to start over, but she called me, and looks like the manuscript will actually be a book! …after I revise and mostly trim. She does not like the title, so, after I bang my head against a wall a few hundred times, I may come to you guys for help again.<\/p>\n
One more thing: I\u2019ll be signing books at Children\u2019s Book Day at Sunnyside in Tarrytown, New York, on Saturday, September 15th, from noon to 2:15. Hope to see some of you there! Please let me know if you found out about the event on the blog.<\/p>\n
Now for this week\u2019s question. On March 19, 2012, writeforfun wrote, In my last book, the beginning was really good. The conflict is introduced on the second page. For 15 pages, it’s all exciting and keeps the reader’s interest. After that, it goes downhill. The first 50 pages cover one week. During that week the MC never leaves the apartment he’s in, and the only action is his conversations with the others that live in that room and the secrets he learns about them (of which there are many). The reason for that is because he’s been kidnapped, and I needed all that time to learn about the kidnappers, who become co-MC’s, and to make them seem likable, as they are actually good guys. The trouble is, readers start to get bored. They tell me that they like knowing all this about the kidnappers, but it seems a little dragged-out, although they can never tell me what I should omit. I guess all I’m asking is, how do I know what to cut, and how do I keep the reader’s interest until AFTER the 50 page mark, when the action kicks up again?<\/i><\/p>\n
To start, congratulations for soldiering through the gluey part, where the action is stalled. For me, when I sense the reader\u2019s boredom the going gets tough. Writeforfun, if you\u2019ve finished your story, by now you may already have figured out what to cut. For the rest of us, often we can get perspective on the parts we need and the parts we don\u2019t only after we\u2019ve written \u201cThe End.\u201d As the plot works itself out, we develop our characters and discover what they\u2019re driven to do. When we\u2019re done we realize that some of the incidents, sometimes entire chapters, we thought were crucial have become unnecessary or actually impede progress.<\/p>\n
But if you have finished and you still can\u2019t tell, here are my ideas:<\/p>\n
Consider whether all the secrets are necessary. Maybe you\u2019re giving the reader too much and she\u2019ll never keep it all straight as the plot progresses. If you can slice out a few story strands the pace may pick up. Or maybe some secrets can be revealed later, after the characters leave the room. You may be able to work in a few pauses for exposition, a break for a meal, a fireside chat before your characters go to sleep.<\/p>\n
The message that the kidnappers are good can be conveyed economically. I gave an example of this in my post of November 2, 2011, in which Fllep and Yunk, aliens from another galaxy who don\u2019t speak English, enter Keith\u2019s house in the middle of the night and tie him to his bedstead. However, before leaving him alone and going on to the rest of the household, the aliens bring his stuffed elephant over from the bureau for him to cuddle with. From this single gesture, the reader gets the idea, at least provisionally, that these beings with a single eye and hands that look like spiders, may not be so bad. Follow this up with a couple more indications, and the reader is likely to be won over. The dog may be following them and wagging his tail; the cactus plant in the window may suddenly break into flower. A few sentences may be all that\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n
However, going the other way, I\u2019m not sure that cutting is required.<\/p>\n
If the characters are stuck in a single room, the setting may start to feel claustrophobic. I had that problem in Beloved Elodie<\/i>. For most of the book many of the major characters are confined to the Oase, a residence and museum inside a mountain. I love being in caves, but even I started to twitch after a while. One approach I took was to shift POV to characters on the outside. Another was to have Elodie explore parts of the Oase beyond the great hall. In writeforfun\u2019s setup there\u2019s just one room, but there may be ways to create private, separate areas, perhaps a closet or bathroom that could be its own environment. Or maybe there could be a screen; or two characters might barricade themselves behind a piece of furniture. Or, getting imaginative, two characters might have a way to communicate that the others don\u2019t understand, a secret language or hand signals or something else.<\/p>\n
*Warning!* I\u2019m about to use a word concerning the afterlife that may offend some of you. If you\u2019re worried, skip this paragraph:<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a great play, Jean-Paul Sartre\u2019s No Exit<\/i> (definitely high school and above) that might be worth reading if you have this problem. For those of you below high school level, it\u2019s about three souls in hell (literally), and their hell is a single room, a modern room, like a hotel room, no torture devices. The hellishness is that the three have been chosen because their company and their combination will provide each with unending torment. The setting doesn\u2019t change but the audience or reader is never bored.<\/p>\n
If all your characters are in a single room, dialogue still isn\u2019t the only option. There can be action. For instance, a fight can break out; there can be escape attempts. Depending on who\u2019s there, the characters can engage in a project that can break up the talk. They can play a game – rummy, Scrabble, Monopoly, whatever – which may reveal goodness and evil and power relationships.<\/p>\n
I also wonder why the reader has to find out right away that the kidnappers are good. Doubt increases tension, always a plus. Their virtue can emerge gradually in the course of the action. Sometimes, because I like my good characters, I don\u2019t want anyone to think ill of them for even a page. I may mire my stories in mud just to shine their halos – I need to remember that there\u2019s no way I can actually hurt their feelings!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s another approach, it\u2019s possible that the story starts too late and a better beginning would have begun earlier. The secrets that are revealed may more properly be shown in action when they happened. Let\u2019s imagine that Allura, one of the kidnappers, was tortured by the terrible regime in power. Under torture, she revealed the true identity of one of those held in the room, who doesn\u2019t even know who he really is. Now she\u2019s got to protect him. Why not start the story with the torture?<\/p>\n
Or, suppose another of the kidnappers, Borick, is there because he had a vision. Why not begin with the vision?<\/p>\n
Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nora, Nate, and Nina are trapped in the basement of Nora\u2019s suburban ranch house during a tornado scare. When they judge that the storm must have passed and try to leave, they discover they\u2019re trapped. Write the story, and don\u2019t let it get boring. Create tension through their desperate situation (little water, no food, no bathroom, no cell phone reception), their personalities, their attempts to free themselves, the secret that Nate has been keeping from the others, and any other harrowing factors you invent.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Nora, Nate, and Nina discover they\u2019re not alone. Write the new story. Unknown to Nora\u2019s family, homeless Norton has been living in the basement for a month. Norton is bigger and older than the others. Give hints that confuse the others and the readers about his intentions. Make him seem evil one moment, good the next until you finally resolve how he is.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Although the entire story takes place in a modern basement, find ways to vary the setting. Write a scene of exploration. Write a scene of privacy for one or two characters.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First off, a follower of the blog got in touch through my website and asked me to announce this free event, and I\u2019m happy to oblige. Here\u2019s what she wrote: \u201c…the Newbery Honor Winner and author of over 80+ books for children, Marion Dane Bauer, will be doing a FREE, LIVE teleconference call entitled \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[113,114],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}