Running late today – getting an internet connection has been a little tricky. Of course I am completely relaxed. BTW do you like my new profile shot to the left there?
I was thinking about writing craft and how as writers we gradually extend our skills and accumulate bits and pieces of knowledge. Anything of worth seems to come pretty hard indeed. The question I was asking myself was – what is the single best Gem I have learned? It’s a hard question to answer, and probably impossible because everything in writing seems to be interrelated. The knowledge and realisations that will enhance one person’s writing may be unhelpful for another. Each writer approaches their work from a unique perspective. Each will do some things instinctively, struggle with others and have unique blind spots.
After a bit of consideration, I decided that just going chronologically would be the easiest approach. For me, the first Gem was understanding the importance of plot. My first novel draft was written off the cuff with just the smell of a story. That was fun, but it quickly derailed into a mess that was going nowhere. I binned it. After that I spent more than four months writing out (by hand) a sketch for every single scene, right down to key pieces of dialogue and movement. This enabled me to play with subplots and get a sense for overall arcs. I don’t go to that level of detail anymore, but I do plan the whole story by chapter and scene.
After that, the biggest penny drop was at a short workshop on story writing. The presenter outlined a simple framework of three interrelated elements: CHARACTER, SETTING, CONFLICT. That really enhanced my writing, particularly short story writing. I think this was when I realised that Setting has to be integral to the story – so integral that the setting cannot be removed from the story. The acid test being that if the setting element can be removed from the story then it is not supporting it – a capital crime for a short story where every element must pull its weight.
Then – and this was derived after a long, slow slog, rather than a lightbulb moment – I understood the role of point of view. Over a long period of time I learned to control it and use it. I learned to convey what a character was thinking from another character’s PoV through gestures, hesitations and leading dialogue.
I have increased my understanding of creating both emotional resonance and character sympathy – hook – but I think I’m in for a long haul before I have the mastery I need. This is what I really want to understand right now.
What are your greatest Gems? What do you want to learn next? Better still – what are your killer tips on creating emotional resonance and hooking a reader?
Cross-posted at chrismcmahons Web Blog.
Mad Genius Club 
6 responses to “Gems”
The first thing I learned was that there had to be a conflict, a problem for the character(s) to solve!
I think I’ve finally grasped that a story will be less incoherant if I pick _a_ Main Character and focus in more closely, eliminating things not relevant to him or her solving the problem.
Next, I need a better grasp of timing, putting a bit of tension in the story. And emotions. I need to show the characters’ emotions. That one I _know_, but it doesn’t flow automatically, yet. It’s still added in the editing.
Hi, Pam. I find one of the most challenging things is conveying how the character or scene appears in your own mind to the reader. Because the character and the story is so real to you, it’s easy to assume that the reader will pick up on that exciting emotion, even though you have not managed to put it in black and white as writer. Tough to be able to get enough objective distance to check how you’ve gone in terms of pulling it off. It’s also complicated by the fact that sometimes one reader will pick up on it, when another will not.
Good thing we all love re-writing, hey?
Yeah. I’m way too stoic by nature and nurture. I’m learning that this doesn’t work in print. But I don’t want my hero having hysterics, or crying like a little girl, either.
One gem I discovered is that you have to let a story be as long as it needs to be. I have some that came out much shorter than planned, because that was all the story needed, and others that turned into novellas. That also means, alas, that lovely, detailed descriptions of certain things end up getting chopped out when they would fit in a novel but not in an 8,000 word tale.
I also learned that you’d better explain what is going on when characters suddenly go against their nature. For example, a devout Austrian pre-Vatican-II Roman Catholic is not going to start eating beef on Friday and skipping confession and Mass without a good reason. The writer had better know the reason, and show the reason at some point, because otherwise the reader is going to be irked.
Story length is an interesting one. For some reason my short stories always end up between 6000-8000 words. Trying to squeeze them into less than 3k really hurts:) And every now and then I get the 15-22k novella that really just wants to be that length. If only they weren’t so damn hard to sell!
The beauty of epublishing is that you don’t have to trim. The bad thing about epublishing is that there’s no one to make you trim a floppy work into a tight drama. I think I learned more about editing, trying to slash an almost- novella down to a short by editorial fiat than I ever learned through polishing multiple novels.