Karen Sandler

Tag: writing

  • Give Every Scene a Purpose

    The other day, I gave a talk to a high school class about how I did the world-building for my SF book Tankborn. This was a creative writing class, and the students were very motivated to learn more about how I wrote Tankborn and about the writing business in general.

    During the talk, I brought up an essential fact about writing fiction: that although real life is full of the trivial and mundane, there’s no room for the unimportant in fiction.

    In real life, all sorts of things can happen. You try to start your car and your battery is dead. So maybe you’re late for work and get a chewing out. Or you happen to meet a friendly stranger at the supermarket and you chat for the few minutes you wait together in line. Or when you get home from the market, you discover you got regular coffee when you meant to get decaf. Or perhaps you spend days at your father’s care home (as I did earlier this year) as he’s dying.

    Could these things happen in your fiction story? Of course they could, whether you’re writing a realistic or speculative story. But here’s the big difference. All of those events, from the mundane (chatting up a stranger) to the life-changing (the death of your father) would have to have a purpose in your story. They should not, must not be there just to fill space on the page.

    For instance, the battery going dead might mean that your main character gets to work late and discovers a police cordon around her office building. Then she sees the bodies wheeled out, including that of the mass murderer who just killed her boss and several co-workers.

    That stranger your character chats with in line could be a harried single father in desperate need of a nanny. Perhaps your main character is in desperate need of a job and she agrees to watch the father’s three unruly kids. This would lead to true love and the taming of the kids (yes, I used to write romance novels).

    That accidentally purchased coffee could have scrawled across the bottom a message that leads the main character to a factory where the employees are victims of a human trafficker. If the character had grabbed the decaf instead of the regular, she might never have seen the message.

    So think about your own story. Does every scene count for something? Are your characters finding clues, are they revealing information, are you raising the stakes for them in ways that moves the plot forward? It’s pointless to have the heroine narrowly avoid being run over by a car (as nail-biting as that might be) unless the person driving the car (or the person who hired them to drive the car) is crucial to the plot. If she slips and falls down a cliff, she’d better find a secret cave or a dead body or a treasure chest. And if she doesn’t get herself out of that fix, the person who does rescue her had better be the love interest.

    If you’re sure every scene in your manuscript does have a purpose, let me up the ante. Find a way for at least some of those scenes to do double or triple duty. Have the scene reveal not only information, but character. Have it expose a character’s weakness and also set up a crucial plot point that will be paid off later. Use that scene to not only describe the setting, but how that setting impacts your character.

    Nearly every scene can do double duty. Many can do triple duty. Your goal is to give the reader aha moments, when she or he realizes, “Oh, that’s why that was in there.”

    Because here’s the thing, here’s the reason every scene must have a purpose. It is the nature of books and stories that as a reader reads, they are accustomed to noticing what happens to the characters. They are used to tucking away unusual events and to consider them important. If you describe your character brushing her teeth every morning, but that never factors into the plot, it will irritate your reader. Brushing teeth is trivial…unless it’s not. Unless that’s how our character is poisoned. Or that’s part of her OCD routine (maybe she has to do it at a set time and for a set number of strokes each day).

    Your reader is going to notice those little details. She’s going to want her payoff later in the story. Make sure she gets it–or hit that delete key.

  • RTW – Who Do You Love?

    This week, YA Highway asks Who has helped you on your reading/writing/publishing journey? I’ve given that considerable thought (at least the last five minutes) and as is often the case, I can’t come up with just one. There have been many. But there are two I’d like to mention, a Ghost of Writing Past and a Ghost of Writing Present. If there’s a Ghost of Writing Future, I guess I haven’t met you yet.

    My Ghost of Writing Past was Mrs. Luckensmeyer in 10th grade English. The best thing she ever did for me as a writer was the weekly composition book. We were to fill two pages in one of those small gray composition books every week and turn it in on Thursday. We could write our own original material in those two pages, or we could copy something from someone else (as long as we attributed). I think that dispensation to just put pen to paper and write was such a liberating experience for me. Also, she gave us the choice of whether we wanted her to read what we’d written. If we wanted her to read it, we wrote “Please Read” across the top. If we hadn’t given that permission, she would just glance at the pages to make sure we’d done the assignment. It was very cool.

    Here is a my artistically decorated cover and the first page of my 10th grade composition book. If you can read the enlarged version of the poem I wrote, you’ll see some very topical references to what was going on in the late ’60s. I mention the musical Hair because I’d gone to see it at the Aquarius Theater down in L.A. Me and my sisters had done the groupie thing afterward, and hung out with the cast in a seedy hotel room.

    My Ghost of Writing Present is my good friend and romance author, Barbara McMahon. Besides supporting me through those pre-published years when I’d be moaning and groaning about yet another rejection letter, she taught me a key lesson–conflict. We were attending RomCom in Reno, Nevada, sharing a room and enjoying the conference together. I was so chuffed to have a multi-published friend to hang out with. We were taking in the sights one night and I got to telling her about a book I was working on. She stopped me dead with one question–But what’s the conflict? I had no clue. I stuttered something, possibly hated her for a Reno second, then started thinking. From that moment on, that question has never far from my mind when I’m writing. Barbara’s voice is still whispering in my ear, What’s the conflict?

    So who’s important to you in your writing life? How did they help you? Let me know in the comments.

  • Dialogue Tags–Spawn of the Devil or Useful Minion?

    On a recent #yalitchat on POV, a few of us got into a side discussion of dialogue tags. What’s a dialogue tag? The simplest is said (when using past tense) or says (in present tense). For a question, you use asked or ask. It’s used with he/she, or a character’s name, to identify the speaker. So, as an example:

    “Come with me,” he said.
    “I can’t,” she said. “They’ll punish me.”
    “I’ll protect you,” he said.
    “You can’t,” she said. “No one can.”

    Perfectly acceptable dialogue. Assuming you already know who “he” and “she” are in the scene, there’s no doubt whose dialogue is whose.

    But some people are vehemently opposed to dialogue tags. They’d much rather use action to convey who’s saying what:

    “Come with me.” He reached for her hand.
    She snatched it away from him. “I can’t. They’ll punish me.”
    He touched her cheek. “I’ll protect you.”
    She shook her head. “You can’t. No one can.”

    Each bit of character action conveys who speaks each line of dialogue. This works too. The action adds to the scene by revealing some of the inner conflict and motivation between the characters.

    So which is preferable? Dialogue tags or action? Neither. It depends on the scene. Using strictly “he said/she said” in a dialogue-heavy scene can result in “floating head syndrome” where the reader isn’t quite sure where the characters are or what they’re doing. In the above example, you only get a hint of what the relationship might be between these characters. The action example shows that intimacy more clearly.

    But over-using action to identify the speaker can bog down the dialogue. If you want a fast-paced dialogue exchange, you don’t want to insert character action every time the speaker changes. In the above example, the use of action gets a bit clunky.

    The solution is to vary your use of dialogue tags and action. You can even omit both when it’s clear from the context and dialogue who’s speaking. Here’s an example from Tankborn. To give it some context, Devak has just told Kayla that it was his brother who was supposed to take his father’s place, not him:

    “Why didn’t he?” Kayla asked.
    “He’s dead,” Devak said. “The lowborn Sheffold riots.”
    A dim fact surfaced now. “Azad Sharma.”
    Devak nodded. “My half-brother.”
    “Then you—”
    “I’m the child he gave his life to save.”
    “But they never meant to kill him.”
    His gaze narrowed on her. “Of course they did. He went in as a peacemaker. He’d befriended some of the lowborns, but they betrayed him.”
    “That’s how the trueborns tell the story,” Kayla said.

    The point is not to get caught up in using only one method of identifying the speaker in dialogue. You wouldn’t want every paragraph in your book to be the exact same length, or have the same number of words in every sentence. You wouldn’t use the same adjectives over and over. You vary your language so that the reader finds your work engaging. And in the case of dialogue tags and action, you use them to clarify the speaker, to describe action, and reveal conflict or motivation.

  • LTUE – Third Day

    I’m home from LTUE, but I wanted to write a wrap-up of the last day of the symposium. I managed to make it to Kirk Shaw’s “THE GOOD AND THE BAD: Five Things to Do and Five Things to Avoid in Writing Speculative Fiction.” This was an excellent craft workshop, and the tips he gave could be used in any genre of writing.

    He started with the five to avoid: Deus Ex Machina, Infodump, Agenda, Series Degradation, and Disjointed Elements.

    Deus Ex Machina translates literally to “god from a machine.” In Greek plays, there would be a point near the end at which a god or gods would be lowered via a mechanism to the stage to tie up all the loose ends and solve the story problem. You want to avoid a device like this in your writing, instead making sure that your main characters have completed their goals themselves.

    Infodump is a particular bane of speculative fiction. Our world-building may include invented language, created flora and fauna, a political system, religion, etc. If we lay this all out in the first few pages, our readers’ eyes will glaze over. Kirk mentioned a few tricks to avoid infodump. Use a smart foil (that sidekick that seems to know everything, a la Hermione Granger). Plant an artifact that reveals information (I used this device in Tankborn; my MC Kayla finds a journal). Have the characters do some research. You can also use dialogue and action (although I would recommend taking care with dialogue that is too expository).

    Agenda is a problem when the author has an axe to grind and uses their book to hone the blade. For example, the author could use the light touch of satire to get across the point that partisanship in politics is sending us down the road to ruin, or he/she could write a heavy-handed, hit the reader over the head diatribe against politicians taking sides.

    Series Degradation pretty much speaks for itself. The first book in a series is great, the next is quite good, the third is okay, etc. This is only an issue for those writing series.

    Disjointed Elements refers to a story that has too many things going on in the story. It’s a paranormal-romance-science-fantasy-adventure-thriller. If you can’t describe your story in a succinct query letter paragraph, you might want to take a look to see if you’ve crammed too many unrelated elements into your plot.

    On to five things to master. First on the list was Make Something New, although Kirk covered that one last by way of a writing exercise. Next, Voice and Dialogue, then Pacing, Good Research & Added Value, and Name with Meaning.

    With Voice and Dialogue, you want to vary your dialogue amongst your characters. Each character’s dialogue should be clear and distinctive. It’s okay for a character to have an accent, but it should be accurate.

    With Pacing, you want to make sure you don’t run out of steam at the end. Make sure you have an actual climax.

    For Good Research & Added Value, Kirk used the example of Michael Crichton. In Jurassic Park, Kirk felt the details about genetic engineering were a fascinating part of the story. He didn’t feel the same about Congo, and found it a difficult book to get through. Make sure your research adds to your reader’s enjoyment.

    Finally, Name with Meaning. Use names that a) make sense to the reader and that b) the reader can pronounce. Ten consonants in a row with random apostrophes inserted might not make the best name for your characters or creatures.

    Kirk got around to Make Something New at the end. On the reverse side of his handout, he listed ten each of typical speculative settings (e.g., zombie apocalypse, college of special abilities), character archetypes (evil sorcerer, homicidal creature), and elements (e.g., cryogenics, magical items). The trick was to combine these into a new take on a story. We had some great contributions from the attendees.

    I also attended a mile-a-minute presentation of SF/F fiction for children (PB to YA) given by local librarians Patricia Castelli and Marilee Clark. It was pretty cool to see how passionate Patricia and Marilee were about the books in their collection. It was also nifty to see Tankborn listed under “Other new teen books of note” in the YA section.

    I finished the day with my editor Stacy Whitman’s talk on Writing Cross-Culturally. She started with some thought-provoking questions. Who gets to write what? Who reads multi-cultural books? The word multi-cultural is controversial–does it exclude white people? Some prefer to use inter-cultural or diverse.

    She said if you admit you’re ignorant about a culture, you’re less likely to brazenly write mistakes. Sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know.

    Other issues she discussed was how to attract people of color to publishing. Also, when writing historical fiction, how do you make language choices? Some historically accurate language is offensive in the present day.

    She talked about four approaches to writing multi-culturally:

    Invader–someone who arrives without warning and claims entitlement without reason
    Tourist–someone who is sincerely interested, sometimes in the way but willing to learn
    Guest–someone with a long term relationship with the host whose relationship is reciprocal
    Native

    A resource for those interested in writing Native American culture: oyate.org.

    Questions you may not know to ask when writing multi-culturally (these can be found on Stacy’s blog):

    Who are people loyal to?
    Who are people responsible to?
    Who gets respect?
    How do they ensure fairness and efficiency?
    How do they control their emotions?
    Who’s in charge of their fate?
    What time is it–absolute or flexible?
    How do they handle guilt vs shame?
    How different are men and women?
    How do they handle personal space?
    Do they look forward or back?

    All in all, LTUE was a fantastic experience. There was a real wealth of information for the beginning writer and plenty of networking opportunities for the established author. I’m looking forward to attending next year.

  • LTUE – The Pre-Game Show

    Today’s the first day of the Life, the Universe & Everything (LTUE) symposium in Orem, Utah. I haven’t yet walked over to the Utah Valley University where the symposium is held, but last night I had a blast at the BYU campus at this event. I was a late addition to Stacy Whitman’s talk on children’s publishing. Most of the questions during the Q&A portion were for Stacy, but I got to field several. I love sharing about writing and what I know about the publishing business. Speaking to this class was a wonderful opportunity to do that.

    After the talk, we went out to Sakura, an all-you-can-eat sushi restaurant. A dangerous place for me to be since I l-o-v-e sushi. I ate more than I should have, but it was oh, so good. Particularly the Twin Dragon roll. Yum.

    My impression of Utah (or Orem, anyway): a little chillier than home, desert-like (well, it’s a desert–what do you expect?) and dry-dry-dry. I thought the Sacramento area was dry. My skin was flakier than a pie crust (okay, that imagery is pretty eww). Nice people.

    Now off to LTUE.