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Making It Happen
I have been doing a lot of fictional and personal writing (and bleeding the two together liberally) offline for the past couple weeks. As I said, I am “working on a novel” - as cliche as that may sound. But I’m not here to debate triteness nor to remind myself that every two-bit hack who walks around saying they are a writer endlessly blabbers about “the novel I am writing” but that they mysteriously manage to never finish or show anyone. I am attempting to avoid that trap at all costs, by simply working on it.
Only problem is, I am discovering that these things have a life of their own. I sit down to write something and something very different comes out entirely. Early on I have decided just to let this occur. To write and write and write in it until I figure out what the hell it is that holds it together.
I have taken several cracks at trying to create plot outlines and a synopsis and all these different ideas about characters and events I would like to weave together. And they are all great ideas - I have the ability at least to recognize that - but when I go to do the actual writing itself, none of those things manifest themselves. It is a little frustrating, but it is also a satisfying process to release myself into my own invisible hands, in some way.
The thing I realized last night though was that I have no idea how to write action. I have a number of scenes where there are characters interacting and having some fairly good, meaningful and life-like conversations. And they kind of do things, but nothing ever actually happens.
I think this is largely symptomatic of the type of writing I have “grown up on” doing here on my website - this sort of meditative excursion into a vast landscape where we kind run around and look at all the pretty colors and strange shapes and then we rest. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that style of writing, but I think if there’s going to be any kind of character development or sort of meat to the story, then something - at some point - is going to actually need to happen.
I also recognize that there is a high probability that the issue I am having in writing “action” within the context of this novel is identical to the same problem that I have in my own life in simply taking action. Which is not to say that I am a motionless bump on a log, or that I necessarily see anything wrong with that. But you could say I am recognizing a common theme between the real and the textualized versions of my life.
This issue was perhaps only brought to light though by what I see as the nature of stories. They have a slightly different nature from what I do here regularly. I think stories in their elemental forms are machines made out language whose purpose is the modification of consciousness. And certainly that is how I see writing in general (ie, casting “spells” out of spelling). But I guess you could say I am tinkering with the inner workings of that machine. Trying to figure out what goes in, what happens inside of it, and what comes out the other end. It seems to be something you can only understand through the actual doing of it - like with anything.
At the height of my frustration last night, I decided to take my troubles to Google and look up tips on writing action. Writing advice in general tends to be rather bad and usually terribly obvious. But it still helped me to concentrate the energy on that problem and look at how someone else sorts it out linguistically. One of the more interesting things this particular author I chose pointed out is that people express their wants and needs through activities. It sounds stupidly obvious; I know. But somehow it still helped. As did here example of a scene description in a screen play:
Jane sits reading a book. Suddenly running her tongue over her lips, she swallows hard. She reaches for an empty glass on the table beside her. Rising, she goes into the kitchen.
Which is a fairly blatant way of saying that Jane wants a glass of water, without just coming out and saying it. Reading that, I had a funny feeling that I’d heard this somewhere else before. And then I struck on the fact that I’d written about it in a post the other day. An author I am reading uses the point that ancient poetry never expressed internalized emotions. They wrote “he smiled” instead of “he was happy.” If you divorce this from the wild speculation that I constructed around the whole thing, what you have is a simple and obvious formula for action-writing. Don’t say how people feel. Say what they do and this will express how they feel.
We don’t have a direct window into people’s hearts or minds (okay we do - through love, but bear with me here), so we typically have to divine it based on what they are saying and doing. Only problem is, most of the time we ourselves aren’t even sure what is really driving the things that we are saying or doing. As the writing-tips person above says: “Unless we are lost in the desert, rarely do we waste much time feeling and thinking about getting a drink of water.”
Ha! Unless you are obsessively linked to your own thought processes and their deconstruction, that is - but that’s a whole different story.
An ex-girlfriend of mine once commented on the movie Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon that the characters weren’t actually fighting when they were kung-fuing the crap out of one another. They were expressing how they felt about one another.
Duh.
This also correlates nicely, I think, with a comment left on my site recently by a reader calling themselves, “fuj” who wrote: “The body is always communicating its truth, even when the voice lies. But magical things happen when the body and mind are in harmony.”
And I’ve also discovered that “magical” things happen when you are able to yoke together your real life and the fictionalized version of it which you are spinning. In reviewing closely the events and feelings and moments of my recent life through the story-machines of language, I have begun to see an increasing closeness between how I live my life and how I write my life. That is, I have been following the conscious directive lately to make decisions in my actual life based around what would make a better “novel.”
If I’m faced with two choices, I have been trying to take not the easier one or the one which is “more me” historically, but have been thinking: Hm, this would make for a better character and a much more interesting story. And so I have been going with that. Not in all cases though. Not 100%. Because it takes a great deal of discipline to take the more interesting path, the one which puts you into a more peculiar situation as a character. But I am finding it extraordinarily helpful to think - and act - like this. Because really, this is what each of us really is: a character. A character which has been created partly out of circumstance and partly of our own choosing. Usually we fall into simply acting out the part of that character which has been written for us. Rarely do we try to take control of the script and actually make directorial or editorial decisions about where things are really going to go based simply on what would make a better story.
We see that some people in their lives have a better flair for this than others. We all have a friend who has lead such a peculiar life and has such strange stories to tell that everyone who meets them is instantly enthralled. And then you’ll have other friends who seem to purposely chase adventure after adventure, but who couldn’t be more boring or irritating when all is said and done. It’s a funny balance to strike, between self-consciousness and intention. And it changes all the time. But I think the next time that I am stuck, either in my life or in my novel, I am just going to ACT - because my actions are invariably going to express my feelings. There is literally nothing else they can do.
On that note, I’m off to go buy a bike. Seems only fitting.
- A 5 Part Definition of Reality
- Making Things Happen
- Pressure cooker
- Railin it
- And they call him: Hurricanor!
- Prev: At The Center of The Cross
- Next: Where Are Thoughts?
December 7th, 2006 at 2:17 pm
All of the best novels I ever read have spit in the eye of literary convention, each in its own way, so while it’s of course good to analyse and evolve your own techniques, make sure not to go too far in compromising your own unique style and whatever its strengths may be.
The concept of a plot itself seems somewhat stilted and archaic, an artifact of outdated Newtonian metaphysics. Focusing on creating interesting characters who express themselves in a compelling manner and interact realistically in a well developed setting is more effective than worrying about driving along a linear plot or even whether anything really ever happens at all. In my opinion it’s not even really necessary for anything to ever happen, action-wise, to have a great novel.
December 7th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
I’m currently reading Susanna Clarke’s dense tome “Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell” (a historico-magico-fictional novel) which she said took over 10 years for her to write. What’s interesting is how she includes fictional footnotes and biblographies, I can only guess resulted from her similar forays into inspirationally-led tangents, as you describe. No reason it can’t be of value sometime later!
Regarding action: for reference, maybe take a look at some Edgar Rice Burroughs. Even tho’ I read his Tarzans and John Carter of Mars when a kid, I recall he did a nice job.
What kind of bike?? I’m shopping too!
December 7th, 2006 at 3:09 pm
As a screenwriter trying to “go pro” you’ve hit on something that, at least for that format, can’t be expressed enough: “Show, don’t tell.” Make the reader’s mind your ally, don’t overburden it with stuff that doesn’t need to be there.
December 7th, 2006 at 3:30 pm
i have the same problem when i write fiction– pretty strong dialogue, not so much on the action.
if i could make a suggestion, one thing i started doing when writing was to start in screenplay/drama format, like writing a script. sometimes we’d even film the results. then, i’d expand the script– flesh out the ‘action’ sequences for the final story (or vice-versa– i’d translate a story into a screenplay). as an exercise, it really helped me hone the action/dialogue balance.
December 7th, 2006 at 5:42 pm
pmp:
Yeah, I totally agree with what you are saying. I guess what I am experiencing is some kind of block with regards to what I am doing with my writing. And from that I a sensing some larger issues in my life at play as well. So it’s a matter of untangling them in order to be able to really get down to the core of whatever it is that makes my own unique style really work. And I more than likely may end up jettisoning all the plot, all the action later on. I’m just trying at this point to simply *write* and let it take me where it takes me.
A $65 kind from craigslist. Basically an indeterminate mountain bike. It works fine but could use a little tune up. Looking forward to getting out on it!
I struck on something similar the other night. What I did was write out the dialogue that I wanted. Then as each character spoke, I assigned to them an action they took as they spoke, where the action leant a (hopefully) new layer of meaning to what they were saying and from that I was able to find where the action took place and the emotional overtones between the two characters. It was a really helpful exercise
December 7th, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Another idea I want to capture here for later:
If anyone is interested in a practical exercise based on these ideas, try going one whole day where instead of saying “I” or “me” you say “my character”. Try saying this to yourself in your thoughts. Try saying it out loud.
Try having an entire conversation with another person where each of you is speaking as “my character” and you can’t say “you” but instead have to say “your character”.
I guess you could think of it as a D&D approach to real life… Would be interested in hearing results of anyone trying this experiment
December 7th, 2006 at 7:40 pm
Jesus you’re prolific. I don’t know how you have time to do anything other than write. Anyway I think you should take a look at this:
Which is 50 tips to improve your writing, many of which I have found useful, and think you will too.
December 7th, 2006 at 7:55 pm
Is there supposed to be a link in that?
December 8th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Well, I can share what little experience I have
You have to somehow separate yourself from your protagonist, yet be in his or her shoes. It’s an odd balancing act, a kind of out-of-body meditation. If you can get your protagonist to do things, tell everything from his or her point of view, write down his or her thoughts, they cease to be yours and thereby gain credibility… otherwise you’re just writing down the thoughts in you own head, which reads completely differently. A protagonist is a useful device for getting yourself out of your story - you can blame them for all your crazy imaginings.
Having said all that, when it’s REALLY working, you’ll find your characters, your out-of body meditations, taking on lives of their own and doing things you hadn’t necessarily planned for them, finding resolutions to problems and pushing the story along. It’s really trippy when you’re in that zone.
December 8th, 2006 at 7:32 am
> Jane wants a glass of water…
Actually, those few lines into which you’ve read that elementary observation are bloody scary taken entirely out of context, don’t you think? Has something spooked her? What is she thinking? What can she see in the room? What happened yesterday to her?
This is the point at which, if Jane were the protagonist of a novel, we’d be allowed to see something of her point of view, her internal world. The novelist has a world of devices to do this, subtly different to those of a screenwriter. We could see a memory. We could see Jane’s kitchen. We could concentrate on the noise of the tapwater splashing into the glass. Jane could start feeling unreasonably self-conscious… who knows? Depends what the author / character wants to show us. At first the author can direct the character, but after a while the character can start doing it for herself.
December 8th, 2006 at 8:18 am
It seems that wherever there are discussions about writing, especially on the internet, there’s always this kind of dualism - characters vs plots. I personally don’t subscribe to this kind of thinking, because as far as I can see, characters, plot and story are all intertwined and impossible to separate. If you change one, the others immediately mutate as well.
Plot arises out of characters taking action. If you replaced Indiana Jones with the Rick Moranis character from GHOSTBUSTERS, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK would be a very different story, would it not? The plots of TOM & JERRY cartoons would be different if you replaced Tom with a slug. STAR WARS would be a different story altogether if George Lucas had discarded Luke Skywalker and let Han Solo be the sole protagonist … and so on and so forth.
I’m currently editing the first draft of my latest novel, and I’ve been getting really down’n'gritty with the plot, structure and characters with this one - much more so than the other two novels I’ve written, and I must say that this way works much better than what I used to do …
I used to do this when I was starting out as well. And it may work for you, but it didn’t quite do it for me. It resulted in a lot of strictly unnecessary work that could easily have been avoided, had I just had the discipline to sit down before actually writing the first draft and do a some work on the background stories, the characters, the setting, the structure.
My guess is that people who won’t outline or work with structure or plotting, and who say they won’t do it because it isn’t “organic enough,” simply don’t do it because they’re too lazy and generally lack discipline. I don’t mean for this to be a dig at you, it’s just what it seems like to me. Now, everyone has their idiosyncratic way of writing, but - and this is just taken from my own experience - whenever I “just write,” taking the stuff off the top of my head and put it on paper - well, most of it’s shit, actually. Clichéd, derivative shit. And I find I have to work my way through a lot of this crap before I find the few diamonds that I can then string together.
Just as an example, here’s a glimpse of the process I went through before writing the first draft of the novel I’m working on now: I started collecting notes and ideas, of course, for a few months, while working on a few other projects. I let it gestate in the back of my mind for a while. And then, when I had finished the other projects, I started in earnest. I began fleshing out characters, based on my own personality traits, or that of other people, or just someone I thought would be a cool character - not necessarily nice at all, but cool as in ripe with potential for dramatic conflict when put together with the other characters. I also wrote a lot of stuff about the setting, but most of all, I spent time designing the plot and structuring the story. I found a theme which interests me, and I started thinking about all the different kinds of ways I could explore this theme - by assigning different roles to various characters, so that the theme would be stated by characters doing stuff, not talking about it - because I don’t really like work that’s didactic. I think it’s lazy; one should at least be able to put one’s argument in a dramatic series of events. Then I explored different “umbrella situations” - different concepts and ideas that could be built around the main theme, and also be set in action by employing the characters.
And when I had enough material to begin working with, I started outlining the story. I got a stack of paper out and started writing down the scenes I had in mind - mostly act changes. Then I worked out the rest of the scenes, all the while discarding the ones that didn’t fit and trying out different combinations. This process took well over a month. When I had enough plotted out, I told the story out loud to myself, discovered quite a few bumps in the road, smoothed them out and kept going.
So, when that process was finished, I had almost an entire wall altogether, covered with these scene cards. And then I wrote an outline, edited this a bit, went back to the wall and shuffled the cards around a bit. And when I was as pleased with this as I could be - as well as nearing the deadline I had set for myself - I wrote the first draft. And I wrote the draft in a white heat over two weeks. And this was a draft that ended up being 437 double-spaced pages.
So now I’m editing and rewriting, which is a whole ‘nother process. Altogether, it’s been quite laborious, but I’m more pleased with the work I’ve done now than with anything I’ve ever written before.
By the way, I forgot mentioning the work I did on the concept itself. I spent a fair bit of time developing the high concept for the novel, as well as writing the logline. The logline will probably be written by marketing people in the end, but I decided to do it for myself and because it would serve as a focal point for the writing and construction of the novel. Because if the story and concept doesn’t make sense or sound interesting or unique when summed up in one to three sentences, the chances are that it won’t be very interesting when expanded into several hundred pages.
All in all, I wrote around 500 pages of notes and stuff on the computer before sitting down to write the first draft, and that’s not counting the several notebooks I’ve got.
I’m not saying any of this would work for you, but that’s what I’ve found works for me, and what makes me get off my ass - so to speak - and really get the interesting story, concept and characters - not the same stuff we’ve seen in hundreds of movies or read in hundreds of novels or comic books.
Anyway, here are some links I’ve found helpful (these are mainly aimed at screenwriting, but I’ve found them tremendously helpful in constructing stories, regardless of the medium):
http://www.twoadverbs.com/loglinearticle.htm
Wordplay
Scribosphere
I especially recommend the columns on the Wordplayer site.
Wow, this is quite a long post. Hope you find at least some of it helpful. And now, back to the rewrite!
December 8th, 2006 at 4:06 pm
What you’re describing is what I was describing in my latest podcast (#15)!
December 8th, 2006 at 4:08 pm
It’s hard not to read that and interpret it as a dig of some kind. I think I was pretty clear in my explanation that I am trying to first of all *connect* to the source of where this story is coming from - which in itself takes a great deal of discipline on its own. When I get to the next stage, I get to the next stage.
December 8th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
I like this idea a lot.
Just as you said you’re not hung up on people’s objections to plots, etc, I am personally not the least bit hung up on “uniqueness” as a criteria for what I am writing. I am more concerned - at the moment, with truthfulness. I tend to think originality is an illusion anyway
December 11th, 2006 at 10:22 am
Yes, I too sat in the garden and read the whole draft out loud to myself. Ironed out the really clunky bits.