The Shapes of Fiction—Juggling

As a writer, I try to read books on the craft of fiction as often as I can. While most cover the same basic material, the same basic “rules,” each writer’s perspective varies. I like to mine the depths of knowledge and wisdom each writer offers to find two or three gems that inspire me to write better, or make me re-evaluate my writing philosophy. If I come away from a book with a half-dozen lines that I can hold on to, I consider the book worthwhile.

Enter Jerome Stern’s Making Shapely Fiction. If you follow my blog much, you’ll know I’ve referenced this book several times. This was a joy to read, and gave me much more than my hoped for half-dozen gems. Instead, nearly half the book provided great advice and prompts to spur the imagination.

I thought, over the next couple of weeks, I’d share a few of my favorites with you. Not many, but enough to whet your appetite. I highly suggest purchasing a copy for your personal collection.

JUGGLING is the second story “shape” Stern describes. Essentially, he describes it as the movement between interior thought (or reflection/memory/etc.) and action. The movement between the two helps to create tension, especially when the action is dangerous and the thought is distracting.

I won’t steal his example. Instead, I’ll provide you an example that I wrote in response to this “shape.”

In context of action, I chose to have a man driving too fast in the rain. Instead of paying attention to the road, my character thought of a female colleague of his, a crush, if you will.

The first paragraph sets the scene, describes the action. The second moves into my character’s mind. His thoughts on the woman distract him from the danger at hand, which creates tension for the reader. At the same time, it helps to build his character. We get to know him better, what he likes, what he fears, etc. While I’m building character, I’m also building tension.

If you adopt this structure, remember not to stay too long inside your character’s mind. If you do, the tension is lost, because the reader forgets about the danger. Try to pepper a few paragraphs of action in with the thought as you move the story and interior monologue forward.

Care to give it a shot? Here are two lists, one of dangerous actions and one of distracting thoughts. Mix and match and see what you come up with. Let me know what you come up with for your scene.

1. Skydiving 2. Firefight in a war 3. Performing surgery 4. Working on high-energy power lines 5. SCUBA diving 6. Hunting big game 7. Driving a bus 8. Fighting a fire 9. Chasing an armed criminal 10. Chopping vegetables with a sharp knife

a. Marriage trouble b. Financial trouble c. Fall out with a sibling d. Failing health e. New love f. An obsession g. Making sense of a puzzling call h. Choosing between loves i. Failing health of a pet j. Planning an argument

Born of Plot

There’s a bit of a problem I’ve seen with beginning writers. Scratch that, I’ve seen it with experience writers as well. And that is this: the idea that characters exist to serve plot. Don’t get me wrong, characters CAN serve plot. But that is not their primary role. If I haven’t said it before, let me break down the simple formula of fiction.

Character desire + obstacle to attaining that desire (conflict) = plot.

What we forget, often as we write, is that every character has a motivation. It needs to be real, and tangible (even if it’s an internal struggle for peace, the reader should be able to feel the struggle). Instead, we ignore those motivations and have our characters do or say things to further our plot, even if those things fly in the very face of who our characters are.

If you’ve created a coward as a character, they’re probably not going to rush into battle, just because they have to in order to meet the next character and push the plot forward. If your character would run, they must run. Do not negate the work  you’ve put into your characters by having them make decisions that contradict who they are.

OR – if they do make these decisions, it must be clear why they’re making them. They must have a valid reason (family is in peril, their money is at stake, the fate of the free will hangs in the balance etc.).

Too often I read characters who make decisions simply to move them from one plot point to another. It’s clear, when we read these, that the decision underlying the character motivation is simple: the author wants to stick to his or her outline. Don’t be afraid to manipulate your outline so that it better serves the story. Allow the story to change, the characters to grow, organically. Outlines are fine, if they follow an organic style of story—one that makes sense.

Remember your ultimate goal is to allow the story to tell itself. Get out of its way, and watch it work.

Creativity’s Archenemy

And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise.  The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.  ~Sylvia Plath

When talking with writers, I’ve come to notice several commonalities—one of which is that we’re our own greatest enemies. Our self-doubt rules over our creative process with an iron scepter (forgive the cliché). I’m starting to think we need to have a creative revolution if we ever want to succeed. Our creativity needs to rally against the oppressive reign of self-doubt. But how?

Of the several strategies for overcoming self-doubt, I’ve found one the most empowering: give yourself the right to write garbage. If you enter into a novel thinking you’re going to craft the perfect book right off, you’re sorely mistaken. Most novels and stories undergo multiple drafts before they end up on the shelves of your Barnes and Nobles. And the first drafts are seldom good.

If you listen to the voice in the back of your head that tells you that what you’ve written is worthless, you’ll never finish a project. You need the imagination to improvise. Rather than giving up, harness the self-doubt and turn it into motivation. Yes, your first draft may be terrible. All of ours are. But it doesn’t mean you’re a failure as a writer. It simply means you’re a writer.

Take your doubt, wrestle it into submission, and assert your right to write, your right to revise something that you feel has little worth and turn it into a masterpiece. Imagine sculptors throwing away entire slabs of marble after a few taps with hammer and chisel. We’d call them crazy. But how many of us do the same thing with our first few pages?

Give your art the time it needs to be shaped and crafted into art.

Happy Memorial Day.