A Million Words To Mastery?

We've all heard about K. Anders Ericsson and the 10,000 hour rule of thumb which holds that, roughly, 10,000 hours of practice is required to become an expert in any skill-based field. I'm not sure who first popularized the idea, but for writers this is generally taken to mean writing 1,000,000 words.

To put this 1,000,000 word figure into perspective, if one wrote 1,000 words a day for five days a week and kept this up for four years then one would write over a million words. Or, to put it another way, one would need to write ten, 100,000 word books--or twenty 50,000 word books.

Yes, that's a lot of writing but it is not uncommon for a professional to write 500,000--or even 1,000,000!--words in a year (both Chuck Wendig and Kris Rusch have done this).

But, according to Daniel Goleman, this isn't enough to achieve mastery. In Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, he writes:

"You don't get benefits from mechanical repetition, but by adjusting your execution over and over to get closer to your goal."

That makes sense to me.

I've written about this before (see: The Secret To Succeeding As A Writer: Having A Criterion For Success) but the implications of that comment are far-reaching, especially for writers.

If Anders Ericsson is correct--and I believe he is--then the sheer number of words we write does not hold the key to getting better at our craft. Focused practice does.

1. In order to write well one must write. A lot.

Goleman says the 10,000 hour rule is only half right. Practice may not make perfect but no one will get far without it. 

2. Focused, or directed, practice.

a. Concentrate. Mentally attend to what you're doing. Think about it. 

Goleman suggests eliminating distractions from your workspace, distractions such as the TV and access to social media.

b. Build your writing muscles by working on new aspects on the craft, or aspects you would like to improve. 

For example, hooking characters into setting, giving each of your characters a unique voice, using dramatic irony, pacing, weaving description seamlessly into a story, creating believable dialogue, writing from unusual points of view, using an unreliable narrator, giving your narrator personality, making your narrator invisible. And so on.

3. Get feedback.

For writers this can be tricky since what counts as a good story can differ from person to person. What I think is a terrific story, others do not. For example, Stephen King is on record as saying that he didn't enjoy the first book of the Hunger Games enough to continue the series. It wasn't his favorite book, but, nevertheless, Suzanne Collins' books are loved by many.

I honestly think that talk of 'good' or 'bad' books isn't profitable. It is, I think, much better, much clearer, to talk about the potential readership for a book than it is to talk about good and bad books. (I talk more about this here: The Dark Art Of Critiquing, Part 1: What Makes A Story Good?)

Find your ideal reader

Your ideal reader will be someone who shares your tastes. Millions of people love Nora Roberts' romance novels* and buy every book she writes. But millions of people also say (different millions, presumably!) that they wouldn't be caught dead reading her books. If you give one of these folks Roberts' latest book their dislike of it wouldn't tell the writer anything useful.

(* "As of 2011, her novels had spent a combined 861 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller List, including 176 weeks in the number-one spot. (Nora Roberts, Wikipedia)")

Why? Because those folks aren't part of the potential readership for that book.

If you know someone who shares your reading preferences and is willing to take the time to give you a detailed critique of your work, then (all things being equal) they are your ideal reader. Hang onto them!

What An Ideal Reader Can Do For You

Ever since I wrote that blog post The Secret to Succeeding as a Writer I've been doing short little writing exercises every morning as a kind of writing workout. 

But doing these writing exercises isn't enough. We need feedback from a (compassionate!) reader (or readers) who is familiar with our writing and can help us judge whether we are improving as well as suggest what other areas we could work on.

I know that, often, I'm blind to the mistakes I've made in my own writing and need someone--a compassionate someone--to point them out. This is one of the reasons writers seek out beta readers to go over their work.

Choose someone--someone who shares your tastes in books, someone compassionate--to look at the exercises you've done and give you feedback. 

For example, let's say that every day for a week you wrote 500 words and that every day you concentrate on a particular area of writing; for instance, creating vivid characters with distinct voices. After you've done a few if these your reader could look them over and tell you whether they saw improvement and perhaps suggest other areas you could work on.

This isn't about skill level, it's about improvement.

One thing I want to stress is that this is not about how well you write--it has nothing to do with how evocative your descriptions are compared to, say, Neil Gaiman's--it is how much you improve.

And, again, I'm not talking about improvement relative to Neil Gaiman! I think well over 50% of writers who earn a good living from their craft would get dangerously depressed if that were the criterion! No. I'm talking about improvement relative to yourself.

Using yourself as a reader.

If you don't have an ideal reader; that is, if you don't have anyone you trust to help you evaluate your writing progress, take heart! There's still a way to do this.

Use yourself as an ideal reader.

Although beta readers are essential for vetting material destined for publication, I think writers themselves can act as their own readers when it comes to their writing exercises.

Here's one way this could be done:

a. Pick an area of the writer's craft you would like to work on. For example, using dramatic irony to increase tension. Or, if you have Roy Peter Clark's book, 50 tools that can improve your writing, make a list of the 50 tools Roy Clark talks about and practise using those tools, one tool per day, to help build up your writing muscles.

b. When you do an exercise make it clear which element of the writer's craft you are targeting.

c. After you've worked on the same area a few times look at your first exercise and your last. Did you improve? 

That's it for now. I'd love to hear from anyone who does writing exercises on a regular (or semi-regular) basis. Has it helped improved your craft? Do you have tips, hints or suggestions?

Thanks for reading and, as always, good writing!

Photo credit: "Baltic Sea" by *Light Painting* under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Two Ways To Introduce Setting Quickly And Effectively

When I first started writing, I had no idea how important a well-developed setting was for enabling a reader to imagistically enter into a story and wrap it about them as one would a warm blanket. I knew the importance of characterization and 'hooking' characters into the setting, but not setting itself. I didn't yet view setting as almost a character in its own right.

For example, here's a passage from P.D. James's short, wonderful, book on the writing of detective fiction:

"[...] I was on a visit of exploration in East Anglia, standing on a deserted shingle beach. There were a few wooden boats drawn up on the beach, a couple of brown nets slung between poles and drying in the wind, and, looking out over the sullen and dangerous North Sea, I could imagine myself standing in the same place hundreds of years ago with the taste of salt on my lips and the constant hiss and withdrawing rattle of the tide." (Talking About Detective Fiction, P.D. James)

Wow. I'm there, I taste the salt, feel the wind, hear the ocean.

Of course I always had known, even if I was unable to articulate it, that the author's description of the setting was a large part of my reading experience, but knowing is one thing and being able to articulate exactly what it is about a piece of prose that causes a location to become so real to one's imagination it seems one is transported there ... well, it's difficult. I've become better at it lately, but it has not been easy.

Still from the first episode of Sherlock, season three: The Empty Hearse.

I wish I could be like Sherlock Holmes (Benedict Cumberbatch's interpretation) and instantly spot which elements of story contributed to my immersive reading experience. But, alas, in this I am often more like Watson.

I have a tendency to shortchange setting and go right to the action--perhaps because I'm worried readers won't find my description of setting terribly interesting and will move onto more engaging pursuits. Which is why I found Deborah Chester's recent blog post, Setting on the Run, so encouraging: she talks about two ways of introducing setting that won't bore the pants off readers.

Weaving Setting Into Narrative

To recap. The problem is that a storyteller must describe setting even though doing so will slow the pace; and slowing the pace isn't the best thing to do at the beginning of a story when we're trying to hook a reader's interest. 

Deborah Chester puts it this way: "Description is notoriously slow going. It basically puts the action on 'pause' while the author inserts whatever details of the locale are deemed important."

Here are DC's two solutions to this problem:

1. The Dominant Impression

DC writes:

"Now, I was trained to use dominant impression when describing a place or person. Dominant impression is simply selecting the primary detail or information that you most want the reader to absorb and focusing on that in a brief, vivid paragraph."

I looked around for an example of this and finally chose the following. It doesn't describe a physical characteristic, but it does describe an aspect of character:

"I don't call people for help. It's not because of the way I was raised, at least I don't think so; it's the way I was made. Johanna once said that if I was drowning at Dark Score Lake, where we have a summer home, I would die silently fifty feet out from the public beach rather than yell for help. It's not a question of love or affection. I can give those and I can take them. I feel pain like anyone else. I need to touch and be touched. But if someone asks me, 'Are you all right?' I can't answer no. I can't say help me." (Bag of Bones, Stephen King)

2. Deborah Chester's Method

DC says the following is effective in fantasy, but I think it generalizes to other genres.

a. Tell "readers where they are--for example Dickensian London or the fire pits of Ustan."

b. Plunge "the viewpoint character into immediate trouble–either in scene action, conflict, or peril" and present "the dialogue and character reactions true to their particular locale."

Why this works:

"The reader, reading quickly to stay with the story action, has to keep up, orient himself to the locale, and envision the kind of place where characters would speak and behave in this particular manner." DC comments that this method of introducing setting is "quick, engaging, and anything but boring. Avoid the temptation to explain and embroider. Give it a try, and see how it works for you.

DC recommends "The Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers as a book with examples of this technique.

Question: How do you communicate a sense of place quickly and effectively?

Photo credit: "Sunrise under scrutiny" by Loco Steve under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

The Importance of Setting In Writing A Murderously Good Mystery

Today I continue talking about murderously good mysteries and how to write them.

The Five Elements: Milieu, Victim, Murderer, Suspects, Detectives

In "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden writes:

"The detective story has five elements — the milieu, the victim, the murderer, the suspects, the detectives."

I want to look at each of these in turn but that's going to take a while so, for today, let's start with a murder mystery's milieu.

Milieu

a. The Society/Setting must be closed.

I think that what W.H. Auden meant by "society" was, in practical terms, the sum total of characters that would have to be taken into consideration when solving the murder. One's pool of suspects.

Small suspect pool. When Auden writes that the society must be closed he means that, in selecting the setting, we need to pick something that will limit the number of people who could have committed the murder; that is, limit the number of suspects we'll have to deal with.

For example, in Agatha Christie's Murder at the Vicarage the society would be everyone in the village of St. Mary Mead where the murder took place. The suspects are those who had, or could have had, the means, motive and opportunity to kill the victim, Colonel Lucius Protheroe.

One murderer. In addition to having a relatively small suspect pool it must also be clear that the murderer is one of the people in the society you set up.  Auden writes that what the murder mystery writer needs to avoid is any possibility the murderer comes from outside the society. For example, it wouldn't do for the murderer to be someone on a road trip from London who killed the Colonel for kicks and then drove back to London. 

It must be clear from the beginning that one of the people in the society (in the case of my example, the village of St. Mary Mead) must have committed the crime. The only question is: who?

By the way, it doesn't have to be just one murderer, but the principle of parsimony applies and if the evidence doesn't suggest more than one murderer was at work, it's likely best not to complicate matters. On the other hand, as time goes on it may appear that there was more than one murderer. In several of Agatha Christie's books it turned out this was the case but she tended to use this as a twist near, or at, the end of the tale.

Every character within the society should have multiple connections with every other member.

Characters, like people, aren't islands unto themselves; each character has--or should have--multiple connections to every other character. This raises certain questions: i) what kind of connections and ii) how are they relevant to the murder (many connections probably wouldn't be) and iii) how will the sleuth discover them?

Kind of connections. Auden writes that everyone in the society should be closely related either by family ties, by geography (a small village such as St. Mary Mead), by occupation (they all work at the same company or go to the same lodge) or by happenstance (happen to be trapped in an aeroplane together). 

Relevance and discoverability. Each and every character should be a potential suspect, but the detective might have to dig a bit; do some research, interview a few characters; to figure out the exact nature of the connection between the suspect and the victim and whether it's relevant to the murder.

In the beginning, the members of the group--the society--will first appear to be strangers to each other, but the sleuth will discover they have many interesting, intimate (and possibly scandalous) connections with each other.

Examples:

- Group of relatives (Auden gives the examples of the Christmas dinner at the country house).

- Geography keeping people together; a small rural village, a college campus, a military academy.

- A group of people who work together. Auden suggests a theatre company, but it could also be a band, choir, writers' convention, and so on.

- A group isolated by technology: an airplane, a train, an RV, and so on.

b. Nothing bad ever happens here.

Auden writes that:

"Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet." (Auden)

The setting should be unsullied by murder. The society should be such that murder is ... well, if not unthinkable, then very very unlikely. A nunnery, academia, the church choir. This way, when murder occurs, the crises is greater. If a murder were to occur, say, in the bad area of a big city late at night we wouldn't be as shocked than if it occurred in the middle of a play on a cruise ship in mid-afternoon.

Also, having the murder occur in a setting, a context, where murder is rare helps put pressure on the law to solve the crime in order that things can get back to normal. 

In addition, the law itself would be a disruptive influence, one that many would find unwelcome. This may be bad for the characters, but it's great for the storyteller because it's a source of conflict. Every character--even the (apparently) most blameless, most upright, is cast under the same pall of suspicion. This makes everyone--everyone except the murderer!--anxious to expose the murderer and get things back to the way they were.

Characters

Auden writes:

"The characters in a detective story should [...] be eccentric (aesthetically interesting individuals) and good (instinctively ethical) — good, that is, either in appearance, later shown to be false, or in reality, first concealed by an appearance of bad." 

In other words, it should, on the face of it, seem implausible that any of the suspects committed the murder. (If there is someone around who hated the victim then give them an ironclad alibi.)

As the murder mystery unfolds, those who seemed to have no motive will become serious contenders for the murder. Similarly, those who seemed most likely to commit the murder will be shown either not to have had the opportunity, or to have vastly different motives than it first appeared.

Thats it for today! It looks as though these posts have morphed into a series. In the next instalment I will look at what W.H. Auden--lifelong lover of murder mysteries that he was--had to say about what makes the perfect victim. In the meantime, good writing!

Photo credit: "Recreation" by *Light Painting* under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Lee Child's Three Tips For Building A Loyal Fan Base

According to David Vinjamuri (The Strongest Brand In Publishing Is ...) Lee Child's fans are the most loyal of any bestseller, even Stephen King and John Grisham.

That is, Lee Child has the highest percentage of readers/fans who will buy his next book, sight unseen. 

David Vinjamuri writes that:

"Child carries a higher percentage of his readers with him to each successive book than any other bestselling author.  While just 41% of John Grisham’s fans owned or planned to buy his newest novel Sycamore Row, 70% of Child’s fans wanted a copy of the last Jack Reacher tale “A Wanted Man”."

Impressive!

The question: What's Lee Child's secret? What did he do to generate such reader loyalty?

David Vinjamuri caught up with Child in Manhattan and asked him.

Lee Child: The Three Key Factors In Reader Loyalty

1. Consistency

Lee child said:

"A series is better than a sequence of [unrelated] books in terms of building brand loyalty. There are two components of loyalty: one is the author and the second is the subject.  If you like the author but you’re uncertain of the content of the next book, that’s an obstacle. It runs counter to the literary view of writing that values originality and growth.  Jack Reacher is the same person in every book.  He’s unemotional and focused on detail. There are lots of things that he always does that characterize who he is."

Since all of Child's books are from a single series, and since Jack Reacher is the same person in every book--unemotional and detail oriented--fans can be confident about what the next book will be like ... well, more or less. It's the old dilemma. Readers often want a story just like the last one, only different. (grin)

By the way, an interesting article on Lee Child is: Lee Child debunks the biggest writing myths over at writersdigest.com.

2. Authenticity

Child holds that in order to inspire reader loyalty one must give one's stories a sense of verisimilitude. Child states:

"Authenticity is not the same thing as accuracy.  I live in New York.  If you know New York then some of the actual reality of [life in] New York might not seem believable to the reader who doesn’t live here."

That it happened in real life is no guarantee your readers will find something believable.

To create a believable story it helps to begin with believable characters; a story is only as good as its characters just as a cake is only as good as its ingredients.

When I create a character I ask myself:

- What would make this character do something they don't want to do?

- What would make this character do something they vowed they would never do (again)?

- What would this character die for?

- What would this character kill for?

Read more: On The Art Of Creating Believable Characters: No Mr. Nice Guy. Also, see Tags, Traits And Tells.

3. Uniqueness

Child says:

"I ignored all the other series.  If you start with a laundry list of things then the book won't be organic.  Reacher is not a white knight.  He lies and cheats and steals but because he’s doing it with integrity, people recognize him as a real human being."

There are two things here, and both concern the protagonist: uniqueness and (for lack of a better term) "relatability." Here's how I would cash them out:

a. Make the protagonist unique.

As much as I love Indiana Jones, or Hercule Poirot, I wouldn't want my protagonist to be exactly like them. What would be the fun in that?

Ignore what everyone else is doing and do your own thing, go your own way, but make sure your hero/protagonist has integrity.

b. Make the protagonist relatable.

Give your protagonist integrity, where that cashes out to having a clearly defined personal code and sticking to it, even when that's not comfortable.

Much has been said--and, I'm sure, will be said--about the relative importance, or unimportance, of likability as a character trait. Some swear by it and other's scoff at it. 

We can all think of characters who we loved that were likeable (Harry Dresden, for example), but many aren't: Dexter, Walter White, Frank Underwood.

What attracts us to unlikable characters? In a word: relatability.

It isn't important whether readers/viewers/listeners like your protagonist, what matters is whether they have some sort of personal code that they stick to.

c. Have the protagonist seek justice.

A protagonist can be one bad dude or dudette as long as they are trying to do something just, something noble. For example, a hitman struggling to save a child from being murdered by another hitman.

d. Measure the protagonist against the other characters.

Your character will be measured against the other characters, especially the antagonist and his/her minions.

I've just finished watching the second season of House of Cards (don't worry, no spoilers!) and--wow--Frank Underwood is not a likeable character. But Frank Underwood (his initials: FU) lives in a dystopia where every character is a shark and no one is likeable . When the viewer measures him against the other characters, especially the antagonist and his/her minions, we find that he's not so bad.

He's a shark, but he's a shark swimming with sharks. That's the background against which we evaluate his actions.

e. Have the protagonist be the best.

There's something to be said for having a protagonist who not only does something well, but does something better than anyone else. Of course then the storyteller has the problem of figuring out how to plausibly put the character in danger, a problem which can be overcome by (among other things) pairing them with someone weaker whom they must take care of.

Part of the reason I care about Frank Underwood is that he is the biggest and baddest and best shark of them all. He will grit his teeth and make painful personal sacrifices where others won't. Further, he is self-aware. He knows his strengths and his weaknesses and this allows him to see other people's strengths and weaknesses, and then exploit them. No, he's not a nice character, but one can still find qualities to admire. He has--if I might put it this way--a twisted semblance of integrity. He values ruthless pragmatism above all else. 

If you haven't already read David Vinjamuri's article The Strongest Brand In Publishing Is ... (forbes.com) I would encourage you to. And thanks to Michael +Kelberer for sharing the link through his (excellent!) Google+ account.

Until next time, good writing!

Photo credit: "Friends for life" by Joan Sorolla under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Narrators, Their Knowledge And Awareness

Today I'm going to pick up where I left off Thursday (see: Point Of View: Elements) and talk about a narrator's knowledge (restricted vs unrestricted) as well as what I've been calling transparency/awareness. 

But first ...

Why is this important? Why should we care about the narrator and his/her/it capabilities?

The short answer is, because it's fun! It's fun to employ narrators who depart from the omnipresent third person limited viewpoint where the narrator has restricted knowledge (that is, only knows what the viewpoint character does). Stephen King's sprawling, immersive novel, Under The Dome uses a narrator with an omniscient voice. As I discussed last time, at one point the narrator floats through town acting as a virtual tour guide and addresses the reader directly. Brilliant! I laughed out loud. 

Joe Hill, in his book NOS4A2, uses a narrator who--while using third person limited--has an omniscient voice. That is, the narrator knows all about the viewpoint character, knows things about the viewpoint character that character doesn't know. The narrator even knows what will happen to that character in the future. But that's it. Other character's minds and futures are closed to him/her/it.

Having written a bit about why a writer might care about dusty sounding phrases like "narrative voice" let's continue looking at the various abilities a narrator can have. (Note: I'm only addressing third-person narratives in this post.)

3. Restricted vs Unrestricted Knowledge

This refers to the extent, the scope, of the narrators knowledge. Does he/she/it know only about the viewpoint character's present and past or does he/she/it also know:

- what the viewpoint character doesn't

- about the viewpoint character's future. 

Restricted knowledge: 

The narrator is restricted to knowing only what the viewpoint character (or all the characters if using an omniscient perspective) does at that point in time. Therefore, the narrator doesn't know what will happen to the viewpoint character in the future.

Unrestricted knowledge: 

The narrator's knowledge is not restricted. He/she/it knows things the viewpoint character is ignorant of, things about themselves. Also, the narrator can know what will happen to the viewpoint character in the future.

Keep in mind, though, that this is a continuum. On one end of the continuum the narrator has restricted knowledge of the character and only knows what the character does at that moment.

On the other end of the continuum the narrator has unrestricted knowledge of the character; he/she/it knows everything about them, past, present and future. The narrator knows things the character has forgotten as well as things about herself she was never aware of.

For example, Joe Hill in NOS4A2 writes:

"Her Raleigh Tuff Burner had been her birthday gift in May and was also, quite simply, her favorite birthday gift of all time ... then and forever. Even at thirty, if her own son asked her the nicest thing she had ever been given, she would think immediately of the Day-Glo blue Raleigh Tuff Burner with banana yellow rims and fat tires."

We aren't told that her son will ask that question. No. The narrator's knowledge is more extensive than that. The narrator knows that if he asked that question then that would be her answer. That is, the narrator's knowledge of the viewpoint character extends to counterfactual situations (/other possible worlds). At least, that's how I read it.

"The square of brightness at the far end of the bridge expanded and intensified. As she approached, she was conscious of an almost brutal heat emanating from the exit. She inexplicably smelled suntan lotion and onion rings. It did not cross her mind to wonder why there was no gate here at the other end of the bridge either." (Joe Hill, NOS4A2)

I thought that was a nice example of the narrator knowing something about the viewpoint character that the viewpoint character did not. For me, it gave the novel an extra dimension, it seemed to expand the universe of possibilities. It, in an odd sort of way, made the story world seem more real. 

Third Person Limited vs Third Person Omniscient

What POV was that last bit of writing told from? It seems to me it's third person, limited, even though the narrator seems to have full knowledge (/unrestricted knowledge) of the viewpoint character. 

You might wonder why I put such emphasis on this, I used to have the idea that if a narrator was omniscient concerning the viewpoint character--if they had, say, total knowledge of their thoughts and their future actions--that the viewpoint had to be third person, omniscient. 

4. Transparency/Awareness: Representational vs Presentational 

As I discussed Monday, transparency has to do with the narrator's relationship with the audience.

Representational: The narrator never addresses the reader.

Presentational: The narrator addresses the reader and may also express personal opinions.

A presentational narrator will make it clear he/she/it is speaking, not to characters in the story world, but to readers in the real world. A thoroughly presentational narrator knows he/she/it is the narrator of a work of fiction and that someone is reading it.

That said, even in a presentational narrative the narrator will, at times, fade into invisibility making the text seem representational. However, if a narrative is truly representational, the same will not be true. A representational narrative will not have any presentational moments. 

As Orson Scott Card writes in Character & Viewpoint, it is jarring if, in the middle of the story, the narrator suddenly starts addressing the reader. Which is not to say it should never be done, it would just be tricky to pull it off without jarring the reader. 

By the way, all the narrative examples in this post are representational. See my post on Monday for an example of presentational prose.

The Narrator's Presence In A Story

Think of a window. A freshly cleaned window is--as many birds have discovered--practically invisible. It is so clear one gazes through to the other side without noticing it. 

If a window is a little dirty, one notices the window but barely. Most of one's attention is still focused on what is on the other side.

On the other hand, if the window is very dirty then one notices the window almost as much as what is on the other side.

A transparent window --> An invisible narrator

An invisible narrator  --> No personality of their own

An opaque window --> A visible narrator

A visible narrator --> A personality of their own

What is the difference between a visible and invisible narrator? Well, clearly, the least visible narrator is going to be one that tells a story from the third-person, limited, where their knowledge is restricted to what the character knows. Also, they will never turn to the reader and indicate they know what's going on, that they are a narrator in a story you are being entertained by. In this case, the narrator seems non-existent and one focuses solely on the viewpoint character and experiences the story world through the viewpoint character's senses.

On the other hand, the most visible narrator--or one of them--would be one who turns to the audience and announces that the gig is up. They know they're telling a story to an audience--to you. But that's not the only way to become aware of a narrator. Whenever the narrator tells you, the reader, about something the viewpoint character doesn't know the narrator becomes visible. That is, such things encourage a reader to focus on the narrator and not just the viewpoint character. 

Summary

As you can tell, I'm currently fascinated with narrators, the kind of abilities they can have, and how storytellers can use them to weave a story.

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear from you. Good writing!

Photo credit: "Intrigued" by Marina del Castell under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Write A Murderously Good Mystery

I said I would finish my post on narrators today but I've decided to put that off until Monday. Today lets revisit one of my favorite topics and examine how to write an engrossing murder mystery.

The idea for this post came to me because, over the past few days, I've come across several top notch posts about writing a murder mystery. The one I'm going to draw from for this article is "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. (This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.)

In The Guilty Vicarage Auden--a self-confessed addict of murder mysteries--talks about what elements go into creating a great, wonderfully escapist, murder mystery.

The Basic Formula of a WhoDunit:

Auden writes that the "basic formula is this: a murder occurs; many are suspected; all but one suspect, who is the murderer, are eliminated; the murderer is arrested or dies." (The Guilty Vicarage)

Generally speaking, mystery stories conform to the overall structure of a genre story:

1. The Ordinary World.

The state of the story world before the murder.

2. Inciting Incident. 

The murder.

3. Call To Adventure. 

The detective takes the case.

4. The Special World of the investigation.

The detective crosses the threshold into the special world of the adventure. Something might happen to lock him into the investigation. Perhaps he discovers he needs the money, or a rival detective bets he will fail, or his love interest is arrested for the murder.

5. Tests and Trials.

Clues. The detective discovers many clues. Some of them are false (red herrings), some of them are true but not related to the murder (irrelevant), and some are true and related to the murder (critical). The detective's job is to figure out which clues fall in which categories. 

Suspects. The detective interviews suspects, gathers evidence and thinks about the crime. Perhaps more murders are committed. 

If there is a B-story it will come into play around points (4) or (5), if not sooner.

6. Ordeal.

False success. It seems as though the murderer has been found. This could be someone the police have fixed on and the detective doesn't agree, or it could be that the detective is working from false or insufficient data and identifies the wrong character as the culprit.

7. Peace. 

The police, and perhaps even the detective, believe the case is closed. This would be a good place to have something exciting happen in the B-story.

8. Suspicion. 

Something ruffles the still waters of the newly accepted status quo. Suspicion is raised that the person arrested for the murder might be innocent.

9. Major Setback. 

Everyone comes to know that the person they thought was the murderer really isn't.

Perhaps someone comes forward with evidence that the person thought to be the murderer couldn't possibly have committed the crime. For example, the suspected murderer is a parent who believes their child is the murderer and, since they feel they are somehow responsible for their child's actions, seek to take the blame.

Perhaps evidence is discovered which reveals it was impossible for the supposed murderer to have done the crime(s).

Perhaps there's another murder while the suspected murderer is behind bars.

Perhaps something, an idea, was nagging at the sleuth but he couldn't quite but his finger on it. Something happens, he sees something, hears something,  remembers something, that convinces him the person accused of the murder is innocent.

10. All Is Lost. 

Or all seems to be lost. The police and/or the detective suspect the wrong person. Perhaps they're on the right track but something--perhaps some item of information--they've accepted as true really isn't and is leading them astray. 

Of course it doesn't have to be misinformation that throws the detective off. Perhaps his personal life is blinding him to something (his love interest is leaving him; children in crisis), perhaps there's someone he believes is above suspicion that he hasn't examined seriously enough; his mentor, for instance. The mentor might not be the murderer, but the detective's failure to take that possibility seriously has, perhaps, kept him from fully examining those around the mentor, like the man's personal assistant.

11. "Use The Force, Luke."

This is the detective's 'ah ha' moment. If, as I suggested above, the detective believed something false that was tripping him up, this is removed. If there's a B-story, then this is where the resolution to the B-story could supply the missing piece of the puzzle.

12. The reveal.

This is where the detective gathers everyone together, lays out all the clues, explains which category each falls in (red herring, irrelevant or critical), unveils the deep dark secrets the suspects were hiding, and, finally, unmasks the murderer.

13. Aftermath.

The guilty party has been exposed and so we know that those who appear innocent really are. The detective has removed the pall of suspicion from the community and they can return to their ordinary lives.

There's a lot more to say about this but that's enough for now. I'd like to come back in the near future and talk more about setting (both human and physical) and characters (suspects, detective, murderer).

Links

Here are some links to articles about mystery writing you might find interesting:

- "How To Write A Murder Mystery," by me, here.

- "The Guilty Vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict," by W.H. (Wystan Hugh) Auden over at Harpers.org. This article is from the archives and was originally published in Harpers magazine in 1948.

- "Raymond Chandler’s Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel," by Jonathan Crow over at OpenCulture.com.

-  "A Plot Begins to Take Shape," by Margot Kinberg over at Confessions of a Mystery Novelist ...

Photo credit: "Orchard At Twilight" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. Photo is based upon Anne Worner's photo, "In the Clearing (Explore 10/16/2013)", licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Point Of View: Elements

Today I'm going to continue talking about the narrator; specifically, about how flexible a third-person narrator can be.

Terminology

I've found many people use "viewpoint character" and "focal character" interchangeably. I don't, so I thought it would be a good idea to be explicit about what I mean by the following terms.

Storyteller: The writer.

Narrator: The entity that recounts the story. He/she/it may or may not be a character.

Viewpoint character: The character the narrator tells the story through. 

Focal character: The protagonist, the main character of the story.

First-Person Perspective

In first person the narrator and the viewpoint character are one and the same. 

For example:

"Willie McCoy had been a jerk before he died. His being dead didn't change that. He sat across from me, wearing a loud plaid sport jacket. The polyester pants were primary Crayola green. His short, black hair was slicked back from a thin, triangular face. He had always reminded me of a bit player in a gangster movie. The kind that sells information, runs errands, and is expendable." (Guilty Pleasures, Laurell K. Hamilton)

Here there is no distance between the narrator and the viewpoint character, they are one and the same. There is, however, distance in time. The narrator looks back through memory and recounts events that have already taken place.

Also, you will notice that in Guilty Pleasures Anita Blake is not only the narrator and viewpoint character, she is the focal character as well. That is typical of first person narratives, though there are notable exceptions: 

"I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books [...]." (A Scandal In Bohemia)

Here, John Watson is the narrator and viewpoint character while Sherlock Holmes is the focal character. Having a separation between the viewpoint and focal characters works well when the storyteller wishes to write in the first person and yet keep certain things hidden from the reader. 

Also, by looking at Sherlock Holmes through John Watson's eyes we find it easier to admire his piercing intelligence and pass off his anti-social behavior as an amusing idiosyncrasy.

Third-Person Perspective

One of the fundamental differences between the first and third person perspectives is that, in third person, the narrator and viewpoint character are not one and the same. While the narrator may have access to the thoughts and feelings of the viewpoint character he/she/it is a separate entity. 

Another difference between the first and third person perspective is that, in third person, the narrator and the viewpoint character aren't as displaced in time. 

Orson Scott Card writes:

"Even though most third-person accounts are told in past tense, they feel quite immediate. There is not necessarily any sense of the narrator remembering the events. They are recounted as they are experienced. There is no distance in time.

"However, with third person there is distance in space. That is, the narrator, though she can dip into one or more minds, is never a person who is actually there. She is always an invisible observer, always at some distance. So first person is distant in time, third person in space. " (Characters And Viewpoint)

As with the first-person perspective, the viewpoint character doesn't have to be the focal character. That said, there is often little reason to separate the two. It's a good idea to make the viewpoint character the one who is the most active--the one who has goals to achieve and obstacles to overcome.

If you, the storyteller, don't wish the reader to learn something the viewpoint character knows, there isn't the same obligation for you to reveal it since the narrator and viewpoint character aren't the same.

Point Of View: The Elements

Now that I've talked a bit about how I'm using words like "focal character" I wan to talk about several elements, or dimensions, or what-cha-m-call-its that go into forming a point of view. These are:

1. Number of heads.

This refers to the number of heads a narrator can peek into, whether at a time or over the course of a story. 

For example, in third person limited a narrator is restricted to peeking into one and only one mind. In third-person omniscient, on the other hand, a narrator can peek into any character's mind.

2. Depth

Depth has to do with the level of penetration into the viewpoint character's mind. 

Subjective versus Objective

If the narrator has access to the thoughts and emotions of the character then the POV is subjective. If the narrator does not have this access then the viewpoint is objective.

Level of Penetration

As I wrote on Monday, depth of penetration has to do with how deeply into the characters current thoughts and emotions the narrator can go. At the deepest level the voice of the narrator melds with the voice of the character. 

Here's an example from Stephen King's book Under The Dome:

"Big Jim also did not ask Who did you sleep with? He had other concerns than whom his son might be diddling; he was just glad the boy hadn't been among the fellows who'd done their business with that nasty piece of trailer trash out of Motton Road. Doing business with that sort of girl was a good way to catch something and get sick.

"He's already sick, a voice in Big Jim's head whispered. It might have been the fading voice of his wife. Just look at him.

"That voice was probably right, but this morning he had greater concerns than Junior Rennie's eating disorder, or whatever it was." 

That last paragraph is in Big Jim's voice. It's the narrator talking--or so it seems to me--from within the consciousness of Big Jim. 

For instance, look at this fragment: "[...] Junior Rennie's eating disorder, or whatever it was." As I discussed on Monday, Stephen King employs an omniscient narrator in Under The Dome. The narrator knows exactly what Junior's illness is and it's not an eating disorder; the narrator would never say this, not like this. 

So what's happened? It seems to me that, here, the narrator has momentarily dipped down so deeply into the thoughts and feelings--the personality--of the character that he/she/it speaks with Big Jim's voice and with all the limitations that implies. 

Usually, though, in third person narratives the narrator doesn't go quite that deep into the consciousness of the character. For example, here is the beautifully written opening paragraphs of Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman:

"The night before he went to London, Richard Mayhew was not enjoying himself.

"He had begun the evening by enjoying himself: he had enjoyed reading the good-bye cards, and receiving the hugs from several not entirely unattractive young ladies of his acquaintance; [...]."

Here the narrator knows the superficial thoughts and feelings of the character; he/she/it knows about what an observant passerby would.

Yikes! 1,200 words and counting. I'll continue this post on Friday. Then we'll discuss a narrator's knowledge (restricted vs unrestricted) and transparency. Good writing!

Photo credit: "Bench at sunset" by Karen Woodward under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0. Photo is based upon Thomas Leuthard's photo, untitled, which he licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 license.

Show vs Tell: Talking About The Narrator

I've been sick.

Not condolence card sick, but sick. First the flu then a nasty cold. Over the past few weeks, I've been turned into a coughing, wheezing, ball of misery. 

But I'm back! Five hours of sleep, baby, and I'm back. (Hopped up on cold medication, but, hey.)

I had a final draft of my Friday post done and ready to go--it was going to be on direct and indirect characterization (in other words, telling versus showing) and using the mnemonic S.T.E.A.L.--when I fell down a very interesting rabbit hole. 

Here's how this post is going to go. First I'll talk a wee bit about characterization then I'll introduce you to a rabbit. Or something. (It's possible I'm still sick.)

Indirect Characterization And S.T.E.A.L.

STEAL is a mnemonic for (a few of) the different ways writers can show (/indirectly characterize) a character's character.

S = Speech. Show character through what a character says.

T = Thought. Show character through what a character thinks.

E = Effect. Show character through the effect a character has on other characters.

A = Action. Show character through what a character does.

L = Looks. Show character through how a character looks.

Forgive me for stating the obvious, but strictly speaking one can't show anything in a written story (movies, yes; novels, no). It is, after all, written. Rather, we use words to paint pictures in our readers minds. 

For example:

i. "Charlie slept," tells an audience, our readership, that a character named Charlie was sleeping. 

ii. "Charlie, mouth agape, snored so loud the bed vibrated," implies that a character named Charlie was sleeping.

The second sentence paints a rudimentary picture where the first does not. The first tells, the second shows.

Narrators and Narrative

Even though a novel isn't a visual medium we tend to see a story as we read it. Words are like colors, a sentence is like a brush-stroke, and a paragraph is like a picture. 

When you read the sentences--(i) and (ii)--above, even though I didn't describe how old Charlie was, what color hair he had, whether he sprawled in bed or lay straight as a board with the covers pulled taught, what kind of bed it was (single, double, queen, king), what the room looked like, and so on, chances are that you, like me, had formed some sort of idea. Not a very precise one, perhaps, but enough to be getting along with. 

In this--in the formation of this mental picture--(ii) gives us marginally more to work from than (i). Generally speaking, indirect characterization gives one's imagination more to work with, more of a guide, than direct characterization. 

My question (and this brings me to the rabbit hole I feel down): Who gives us this guide? Who paints this picture?

Yes, of course, the writer does, but within the mechanics of the story it's the narrator. But what exactly, who exactly, is the narrator? Is he a character? A disembodied voice? A kind of meta-character? (A good article I read while researching this piece was: The Narrator, or Who are you? And why are you telling me this? by Lois Leveen.)

The Narrator

The narrator usually isn't a character, though this depends on the point of view your story is told from.

If you're using the first person then your narrator and your viewpoint character will be one and the same. If you're using the third person (we're going to ignore the seldom used second person) then your narrator will probably not be a character. 

"In third-person narrative, it is obvious that the narrator is merely an unspecified entity or uninvolved person that conveys the story and is not a character of any kind within the story being told." (Narrative Mode)

A narrator is, most often, an unspecified entity rather than an uninvolved person. Yes, I have read stories where the narrator tells of events that happened to people in his past and who takes someone other than himself as the viewpoint character (or it may turn out, at the end, that the narrator was, really, the viewpoint character). That said, what I'm interested in here are those stories in which the narrator is not a character. 

Question: Can The Narrator Have A Personality?

I'm talking about third-person narratives where the narrator is an unspecified entity and is not a character within the story.

I think the answer is "yes." Even though a narrator isn't a fictional person, they can still have a personality of their own. Lois Leveen writes:

"When you read, think about what clues you're given about the identity of the narrator. You may be able to pin down specific aspects of the narrator's identity (age, region, religion, race, gender, etc.) even if they are NOT explicitly stated in the text. For example, if the narrator says "Ethel put the pop in a sack and handed it to the customer," that narrator is not from the same region of the country as a person or character who would say "Ethel put the soda in a bag and handed it to the customer." If the narrator addresses older characters as Mr. or Mrs. and younger characters by first name, you may be able to gauge how old the narrator is — who are her/his elders, contemporaries, etc.?" (The Narrator, or Who are you? And why are you telling me this?)

For example, who is the narrator in Stephen King's delightfully meandering novel, "Under The Dome"? In this story, the narrator is--or seems to me to be--as close to a fully realized person (though not a character) as I've ever seen/read. For example, he speaks directly to the reader:

"Another night is falling on the little town of Chester's Mill; another night under the Dome. But there is no rest for us; we have two meetings to attend, and we also ought to check up on Horace the Corgi before we sleep. [...] 

"So let us go then, you and I, while the evening spreads out against the sky like a patient etherized upon a table. Let us go while the first discolored stars begin to show overhead. [...]"

"[...] let us float through certain half-deserted streets, past the Congo church and the parsonage [...].

"We'll stop for a quick check on Barbie and Rusty, shall we? There'll be no problem getting downstairs; there are only three cops in the ready room, and Stacey Morgin, who's on the desk, is sleeping with her head pillowed on her forearm. The rest of the PD is at Food City, listening to Big Jim's latest stemwinder, but it wouldn't matter if they were all here, because we are invisible. They would feel no more than a faint draft as we glide past them."

"Do we need to listen to his [Big Jim's] speech? Nah. We'll be listening to Big Jim tomorrow night, and that should be enough. Besides, we all know how this one goes; America's two great specialities are demagogues and rock and roll, and we've all heard plenty of both in our time."

It goes on. It's a marvellous scene. We can tell certain things about the narrator from the language he uses ("stemwinder") and by his attitudes toward what's going on in the town (calling Big Jim a demagogue). One of the many things I liked about "Under The Dome" was having a modern story told by an omniscient narrator and seeing how King handled this.

Presentation vs Representation

The question of whether a narrator, even though--strictly speaking--not a character can still have a personality, can still, in a way, be an active participant in the story, is addressed by Orson Scott Card in his excellent book "Character And Viewpoint." He writes:

"There are two ways of relating to the audience during the performance of a story. The difference is clearest in theater. In a representational play, the actors all act as if there were a fourth wall between them and the audience. If they look in the direction of the audience, they give no sign of seeing that anyone is out there looking at them. Instead, they pretend that they're seeing only what would be there if the play were real--another wall of the drawing room, or the rest of the Forest of Arden. This technique helps the audience maintain the illusion of reality (or, as it is commonly called, the willing suspension of disbelief). Though of course the audience knows they are watching a play, the actors do as little as possible to remind them of it."

"Presentational theater, on the other hand, tears down that imaginary fourth wall. The actors don't just admit the audience is there, they make constant contact with the audience. This style is at its extreme in the art of stand-up comedy, where the actor even talks to the audience about the audience's response. [...] The actors and the audience are engaged in continuous conversation."

In this sense, the scene we just looked at from Stephen King's "Under The Dome" would be considered much more presentational than representational. That said, the novel as a whole is (I think) much more representational than presentational.

OSC continues:

"We aren't talking about the difference between romance and realism here. We're talking about the storytellers' relationship with the audience. In fiction, the representational writer never addresses her audience. The narrator never expresses a personal opinion. All the focus is on the events, and everything is expressed through the point of view of a character in the story. In a representational first-person account, the narrator has clearly in mind who it is she's talking to, and it isn't the reading audience."

"On the other hand, fiction can be highly presentational. Kurt Vonnegut is a prime example. He speaks directly to the audience; he refers to himself; the author's hand is so obvious in the story that the reader never forgets that he is reading fiction."

Those quotations were all from chapter 14 of Orson Scott Card's book "Character and Viewpoint." Seriously, if you don't have this book on your reference shelf, think about getting it. I find it indispensable. Card addresses topics few other writers do and makes the information easy to understand. He is a top-notch writer and teacher. 

That's it for today! Sorry for the long post, but this subject of how--for lack of a better term--'thick' we want our narrator, how involved we want him to be in our story, is one I haven't spent enough time thinking about.

Good writing!

Photo credit: "parking conductor" by Robert Couse-Baker under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating A Logline, Or One Sentence Summary, For Your Story

When you start out to write a story I find it helps to have an idea--even if it's a broad, general, diaphanous, sort of idea--about what story I'm writing. Writing a logline can give you this.

First, what's a logline? Briefly, it is a sentence that sums up the central conflict in your story. It captures--or attempts to capture--its essence. (Characters, as well as stories, can have loglines. See: Creating Vivid Characters For NaNoWriMo.)

Aspects Of A Logline

1a. Central conflict

What is the central conflict of your story? I think of this as the protagonist's goal, what opposes it, and the stakes of the battle.

For example, this might be a logline for Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark: 

In a desperate effort to prevent Hitler from using the Ark of the Covenant's mysterious powers to win the war, Indiana Jones embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to find the Ark and bring it to safety.

Or something. It took me three minutes to come up with that logline so I'm sure there are plenty of ways it could be improved, but you get the idea. 

That logline gives the object of Indy's quest (find the ark and bring it back to America), who opposes it (Hitler) as well as the stakes (if Hitler gets his hands on the ark the world is doomed). 

1b. Genre

A great logline also gives the reader an idea of what genre the story is from. In the case of my example, above, the genre would be action/adventure.

1c. Irony

Ideally, the logline should contain an ironic contrast. Henry Watson Fowler, in The King's English, says "any definition of irony [...] must include this, that the surface meaning and the underlying meaning of what is said are not the same." 

Matt Bird (who writes one of my favorite screenwriting blogs Cockeyed Caravan) shared this definition of irony with me in a comment. He wrote:

"The best overall definition I’ve come up with is this: Irony is any gap between expectation and reality. ...But, in practice, this isn’t quite precise enough. Irony, in common usage, usually also has some additional element of mortification to it. The person experiencing the irony is trying to preserve their false expectation, or is actively working to make it come to pass, and then reality upsets their expectation or their efforts."

(To read more about Matt Bird's views on irony see his article, Storyteller's Rulebook #123: There’s More Than One Type of Storytelling Irony.)

Here's one way of looking at how irony pertains to the logline: there should be a marked difference between the protagonist's intended outcome and the actual outcome.

For example:

Die Hard: "A cop comes to L.A. to visit his estranged wife and her office building is taken over by terrorists." (That was Blake Snyder's example from his (great, awesome, fantastic) book Save The Cat!)

What outcome does Officer John McClane want? He wants to effect a reconciliation between him and his wife. What actually happens? Her office building is taken over by terrorists and they are, once again, forced apart.

1d. Compelling mental picture

Blake Snyder writes that your logline should communicate a "compelling mental picture." In other words, make it interesting! Gripping! Make it evocative and emotional. Make the reader want to know more.

A formula

The following formula is from Nathan Bransford's excellent post Query Letter Mad Lib. 

"[protagonist name] is a [description of protagonist] living in [setting]. But when [complicating incident], [protagonist name] must [protagonist's quest] and [verb] [villain] in order to [protagonist's goal]."

Let's try this out by putting together a logline for Agatha Christie's short story, The Adventure of the Egyptian Tomb.

Protagonist's name: 

Hercule Poirot

Description of protagonist: 

Famed detective with an exquisite moustache and world-class grey cells.

Setting:

London and the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

Complicating incident:

A number of people excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings die from what seems to be an ancient curse.

Protagonist's quest:

Travel to the Valley of the Kings, discover the true cause of the deaths, and bring an end to them.

Verb:

Ancient 

Villain:

Curse

Here's my first attempt:

"Hercule Poirot is a famous detective with an exquisite moustache and world-class grey cells who craves order and method. But when a number of people excavating a tomb in the Valley of the Kings die from what seems to be an ancient curse, Hercule Poirot must leave his comfortable home to travel to the Valley of the Kings and discover the true cause of the deaths, stop them, and restore order to the world."

Here's another:

"Hercule Poirot, the most sagacious detective of all time (though perhaps not the most modest), is commissioned by Lady Willard to investigate several mysterious deaths caused, she says, by a mummy's curse."

It doesn't fit the formula exactly, but it's not meant to. The formula is meant only as a starting point, a springboard, from which you can weave words to work your own magic.

Have you made a logline for your work in progress? If so, what is it?

Photo credit: "Fog in the Valley, Candle in the Sky" by Zach Dischner under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Best Fonts For Genre Book Covers

One of the most difficult things about creating a book cover is selecting a font. I'll try Impact and maybe Engravers MT and then reach for Lucida and then ... you get the idea. It's a hodge-podge of guesswork. Eventually I'll trip over something that works but there's got to be a better way.

Derek Murphy has come to the rescue. 

DM takes some of the guesswork out of selecting a font by arranging them by genre. His article, entitled 300+ Fool-Proof Fonts to use for your Book Cover Design (an epic list of best fonts per genre), is a keeper.

He includes fonts for the following categories:

- Romance

- Science Fiction

- Thriller

- Fantasy

- Horror

- Paranormal Romance

More good news: many of the fonts are free!

In the image, above, I've included Derek Murphy's font recommendations for fantasy. Head over to DM's site to see the others. A valuable article.

If you liked this article you might also like: How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover.

Photo credit: Fantasy Fonts by Derek Murphy over at Creativindie.com.