Written on Thursday, May 07, 2009 by haleigh
Thursday, May 7, 2009
In continuing to look at Carolyn Wheat's How to write Killer Fiction, there was one other spot that stood out at me. Action and reaction.
This is a concept I've been thinking about a lot recently, on a kind of scene-by-scene macro scale (as in, who is doing the acting, and who is doing the reacting in this scene).
That doesn't make any sense, so let me explain. In suspense, someone is doing something. Acting. There's a plan, a plot, a conspiracy - someone is actively doing something. In False Move, my current WIP, there's a bad guy who is desperately trying to get his hands on a cache of weapons.
So my bad guy, he's acting, right? He set this whole chain of events into motion with the goal of getting these weapons. Which means my hero is reacting. He's caught in this sucky web of the bad guy. He needs to save himself and his daughter. He does not have the option of sitting by and watching this happen. He must react. So for the beginning, the bad guy is acting and the good guy is reacting.
But that can't sustain a whole novel, right? I mean, we don't want our hero's just signing to the tune of the bad guy. At some point, my hero has to get one step ahead of the bad guy. He needs to become the actor. Which means, at that point, my bad guy needs to react. His plan has been foiled by the hero. He has to salvage things -- react. But then he has to come up with a new plan, and destroy the hero. Once again, he becomes the actor and the hero is forced to react.
This concept has been exceedingly helpful to me in my plotting. Especially in this MS, where I have five characters, all with their own goals and plans and plots. At any given point, someone is acting, which forces others to react. Who's taking over next? Who starts acting? How are the others forced to react? Thinking through it this way makes sure that no one is relegated to the back stage, always reacting. And it keeps the stakes high.
So in Wheat's book (yes, I'm slowly getting back there), she talks about acting and reacting on a micro scale. As in each and every little tiny thing. There's a new show I adore, called Lie to Me, where they talk about micro-expressions. Tiny, half-second expressions that, given the right person noticing and paying attention, reveal what we really feel.
So this is like micro action/reaction. Hero says something. Heroine clenches her fist. Action -- reaction. Heroine refuses to answer or engage, hero gets pissy. Action -- reaction. Again, it goes back and forth. Something always follows from something else. Nothing comes out of the blue -- everything is the result of everything that came before it (karma lesson, anyone? :)
This is also a great way to cut out unnecesary scenes. Is this a reaction? Did it come out of nowhere? Are the right people acting and reacting? If not, chop it. Already, I can think off the top of my head in my last MS where I threw in scenes that weren't really a reaction to anything that came before, mostly because I didn't know what else to write (give me a break, it was my first try at a full novel). Those are the ones I'll be going back to cut.
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Written on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 by haleigh
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
My craft/how-to book for this semester is "How to Write Killer Fiction" by Carolyn Wheat. The book is focused on mystery and suspense novels - the first half focuses on mystery, the second half on suspense.
I found the history of the suspense genre interesting, because it was new information to me. Did anyone else know that Jane Eyre is essentially the first romantic suspense novel? I put Pride and Prejudice on my reading list for this semester; Jane Eyre is definitely going on my list for this coming semester. And if Georgette Heyer's Fredericka brought romance into the modern age, then Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca did the same for romantic suspense. Another book which will be on my reading list next semester.
In looking at the suspense genre as a whole (because I've never looked at it outside the "romantic suspense" sub-genre), the theme I'm seeing is characterization. Wheat's book goes into detail on all the different sub-genres of suspense, and the common thing that stands out to me between all these sub-genres is character (not really a huge surprise there, but still interesting).
"Woman in jeopardy" (or child or man or alien in jeopardy, etc) is a common theme in romantic suspense. According to Wheat, the protagonist is a normal person, required by circumstances outside their control to become somehow stronger, braver, and more heroic then they were at the beginning. It's David and Goliath. As readers, we identify with that, because we want to think that in the same set of circumstances, we would be just as brave, heroic, and strong.
In Spy fiction (what I write - I guess it's more "romantic spy fiction"), Wheat advises being careful of the big, international stakes. It's great the the fate of the free world rests on the hero's shoulders. But as readers, we still need someone to identify with, someone to root for, and someone to blame. Without knowing those characters, it's hard to get invested in the big save-the-world stakes, even if we all, at an intellectual level, want the world to be saved. It's hard to get impassioned about the world - it's easy to get impassioned about a well-drawn character.
There were other sub-genres, which I won't get into. I will say that Wheat's description of romantic suspense was nowhere near accurate. In her description, there is a heroine and two men -- one good, one mean. The good one turns out to be the one trying to kill her and the mean one turns out to the be the hero. I think I have read a Mary Higgins Clark book like that, but it's certainly not indicative of the entire genre. Of course, there are as many types of romantic suspense novels as there are romance and suspense novels, so no one could accurately sum it up in two paragraphs.
I realize that my new and exciting revelation that characterization is important isn't really new information. Every writer knows that. But there are some genres where it's more important than others - for instance, in straight mystery, the plot is often more important than the characters. It's the puzzle the readers invest in (not always, but it can be the case). The Da Vinci Code, as well, had very little characterization. It was about solving the clues.
But Da Vinci Code aside, for suspense, the stakes have to be constantly going up (see my little chart in last week's post :). For that to resonate with the reader, the stakes for the reader have to be going up too. Which brings us back full circle to characterization - that's the reader's stakes.
I'm going in circles here, I realize. But I have a point. Usually, when I write, I think of the romance side as the characterization and the suspense side as the plot. I think of them as almost two separate story arcs. I concentrate on one, then the other. But this is making me realize that characterization is just as important on the suspense side. Maybe they go more hand in hand than I thought.
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Written on Tuesday, May 05, 2009 by haleigh
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
This week, continuing on an analysis of novels, I’m looking at Pamela Clare’s Unlawful Contact, her most recent in the I-Team romantic suspense series. I’ll try not to leave any spoilers, for anyone who hasn’t read it (and if you haven’t, track it down, seriously).
There are two things which stood out to me while reading Unlawful Contact the first time, which I think bear closer examination: POV depth, and external conflict.
Because I don’t know how she achieved that amazing POV depth, I’m going to focus on the external conflict. In most romance novels, we talk about external conflict vs. internal conflict. I only recently realized this was exclusive to romance novels (when I was blabbing to a mystery author and her face got all scrunched up and she looked at me sideways).
But for romance, there are two things holding apart our hero and heroine – the external conflict (jobs, suspense, bad guys, etc) and the internal conflict (fear of intimacy, past trauma, trust issues, etc). And these often (or hopefully) collide all at the same time for the ultimate black moment/conclusion.
And now and then, you stumble upon a novel which breaks the rules. Now, I’m a sucker for internal conflict, as I love angst. I recently read Anna Campbell’s Tempt the Devil, which has almost all internal conflict and little external conflict. Because the focus was entirely internal, the emotional depth and angst was awesome.
In Unlawful Contact, Pamela Clare takes the opposite direction. The external conflict, rather than the internal conflict, is the primary thing holding Marc (our hero) and Sophie (our heroine) apart. Rather than having Sophie not trusting Marc, or Marc being scared of commitment, or any of the other internal issues that keep us all from having perfect relationships, they’re passionately in love.
I found this interesting, because it was the first time I’d seen it. There’s nothing internal holding them apart. They want to be together, they love each other, and they’re desperate to stay together. And yet they know, beyond the shadow of any doubt, that they won’t be together beyond the few days they’ve stolen from real life.
The external conflict is so powerful that the readers, as well, are thinking “they’re never going to get out of this. Either Marc dies or goes to prison.” Marc himself says to Sophie, “There’s not going to be a happy ending for us.” There’s no lifetime of bliss in the future, no home and family, no happily ever after. Which makes their love and devotion to each other – that lack of internal conflict – all the sweeter (and of course, since this is romance, and there’s always a happy ending, it just makes the happy ending itself so much sweeter, since I for one, never saw it coming).
This also has interesting implications for the black moment. Usually the best black moments are the collision of the internal and external conflicts, especially in romantic suspense. The hero thinks he’s unworthy of love, so walks away from the heroine, only to have her kidnapped by the bad guy (yes, I’ve used that one – stop laughing now!). Or the heroine, can’t risk another failed relationship, so calls the paramedics to help the injured hero and slips out into the darkness.
But in Unlawful Contact, because there’s not the internal keeping them apart, the black moment is entirely external. And because you *know* how much Sophie loves Marc, you feel her anguish. She’s not holding anything back – and that comes across the reader. She loves him, she knows she’s losing him, and it’s devastating.
Now, I’m not trying to advocate dropping internal conflicts from romance novels. In fact, another book in the I-Team series, Hard Evidence, has phenomenal internal conflict between the hero/heroine.
But for Marc and Sophie, the primarily external plot worked, and worked brilliantly. I think it’s important, as writers, to examine our characters, and really think through conflicts – do these particular characters have primarily an external or internal conflict? Even split? What’s going to make the plot stronger (and the happily-ever-after sweeter)? It won’t be the same with every set of characters.
Any thoughts on the conflicts in Unlawful Contact? Any other books which use primarily internal or external rather than a mix? What do you tend to focus on in your own writing?
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Written on Thursday, April 30, 2009 by haleigh
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Earlier in the week, I rambled on about the alternating chapter hooks in The Da Vinci Code and how I felt that really made a huge difference in the pace of the novel, and contributed to the suspense.
But besides the hooks (or perhaps leading directly to the amazing ability to create 105 chapter hooks), is the raising stakes in almost every chapter. Every single time I thought things were coming together or falling into place, another wrench was thrown in. On numerous occasions, I thought there was no way they were getting out of this. And of course, they managed it, but over and over again, the stakes went up, the danger got worse, or their chances got slimmer. The characters never had a chance to take a deep breath, and neither did the reader.
Now, I’ve read other books like that before, but I didn’t have the same reaction, and it’s taken me a while, but I think I’ve figured out the difference. Before, when reading books so fast paced, I just set it down and felt exhausted. Every time things got better for the characters, something new happened, and the suspense/fast pace started all over again. My reaction was along the lines of, really? Again? With The Da Vinci Code, there was no pause. There was no moment of relaxation, no thought that everything was finally working.
I’m a visual person, so charts work best for me:
My point is, in The Da Vinci Code, there was no up and down. There was just a steep climb up, and then a hold at uber-suspense while all the seemingly loose pieces came together.
Now, in romance, we usually want that up and down motion. Or at least, I think we do. In a straight romance, we want lulls, times when the relationship seems to be going right, where you can have love scenes and sweet intimate moments to show them falling in love. If the conflict line just went straight up, at a steep angle, you’d miss all the falling in love moments (somebody correct me if you think of romances where the conflict had no lulls).
But I think in suspense, or at least what seemed to work in this book, was the straight, steep climb. Every single scene built on the scene before it. Every piece of new information added to the suspense. And when one question was finally answered, there were already two new ones introduced, so even the answering of questions didn’t create that lull.
I don’t know what this means for romantic suspense. It’s almost as if you need to two charts above in the same novel: suspense that grows and escalates without lulls, but romance that offers just enough lulls in the conflict to develop the relationship. Is that possible?
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Written on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 by haleigh
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
We choose The Da Vinci Code for my reading this semester for its suspense and pacing. I read a lot of romantic suspense, but hadn’t read any straight suspense, and I was intrigued to see suspense after the romance has been stripped out.
And boy did the Da Vinci Code fulfill that. I had been warned, on multiple occasions, that I wouldn’t be able to set it down. No shocker, they were right. I gobbled this book down, and even after I finished it as fast as possible, couldn’t stop thinking about it. I even had creepy dreams about monks in brown robes and the Mona Lisa. And of course, I read it on vacation, where I don’t have internet access, so I’m still thinking about all the paintings described and desperate to look them up and see if I can spot the symbolism.
My first reaction, when I started reading, was that I hated the writing. I still do. The POV, while limited 3rd person, was shallow to the point of feeling more like omniscient. There were enough flashbacks to give some character depth, but the shallow POV killed me. And I don’t think there was any showing. At all. Everything was told to me. After finishing it, I was trying to determine if it was more Langdon or Sophie’s story. And I realized that the reason I couldn’t decide was because it was Dan Brown’s story – the one he told me, not the one the characters told me.
So when I first started reading I was dreading to have to read an entire novel told to me and full of things like “What should I do next?” he thought. But within 50 pages, I forgot all my complaints about the writing and just kept reading.
I was reading for suspense and pacing, but the more I read and thought about it, the more I think they go hand in hand. The pace is what created the suspense. And wow, was there some phenomenal pacing going on.
The book is 105 chapters long. And every chapter ended on a hook. Every single one of them. But not only did each chapter end on a hook, but probably about 70-80% of the time, the next chapter was a different POV or setting. So when chapter 42 ends in a hook in Character A’s POV, chapter 43 jumps to Character B’s POV, and their situation/setting. It might be chapter 45 before you get back to the hook that had you gasping at the end of chapter 42. (Clearly, these are mostly 2-5 pg chapters).
So often, with a good chapter hook, whatever questions raised are answered on the facing page, in the first paragraph of the next chapter. I think part of what makes the pacing here so good is that you don’t have that option. You’ve got to read 2 or 3 more chapters, and each of those have a good hook. So now, you finally have the questions at the end of chapter 42 answered, but you’ve got ten more questions burning in your head, so you have to read a few more chapters, and then you’ve got those new questions….you get the idea. There’s nowhere to stop.
At an intellectual level, you always hear how important chapter hooks are. But The Da Vinci Code takes chapter hooks to a whole new level. And really, they could be called scene hooks just as easily as chapter hooks, as the chapters were short. There were very few traditional scene breaks, as almost every new scene was its own chapter. But I think really, the amazing pace came from not only the chapter hooks, but the alternating hooks, if I can make that up as a new phrase.
Tomorrow - my thoughts on how the raising of the stakes created additional suspense.
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Written on Tuesday, March 03, 2009 by haleigh
Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009
So today, in continuing my examination of Pride and Prejudice, I'm shamelessly piggy-backing Santa and Janga's comments this morning about character flaws.
I talked last week about the major character changes/arcs that Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy go through. But Santa's post got me thinking about the exact opposite - those characters who did not change over the course of the novel.
With the possible exception of Jane, whose perfection showcased Elizabeth's impulsiveness, all of Austen's characters were flawed. Elder Mrs. Bennett was comical in her small-minded desperation to marry off her daughters; Mr. Bennett had given up caring about anyone except Elizabeth and Jane decades ago.
And then we have Lydia. Oh, Lydia. Has anyone else seen "Fool's Gold"? I think Lydia, if living today, would be a lot like Gemma on "Fool's Gold." I love when Kate Hudson points to all the idiot guys chasing after her and says to Gemma, "You see how dumb they are? They can't help it. You can. The end." Perhaps Lydia would have fared better if someone had said the same to her. Then again, perhaps not.
Opposite Lydia is Mr. Wickham, who starts out nice enough, and quickly takes a down-hill turn. Wickham's flaws seem numerous - deceit, gambling, lies, pretension, vein flattery.... But I think Janga was able to sum it up in one word: weak. Wickham had a weak character - he cared nothing for the other people in his life, yet tried desperately to look good in the eyes of others.
So the question on the ship today was about honor and redeeming our heroes. Could Wickham been redeemed? Could he have changed and become Lydia's hero? Austen purposely does not redeem either Wickham or Lydia, and they're doomed to a marriage much like Mr. and Mrs. Bennett's.
I think I'm going to have to go with Janga here that weakness is difficult, if not impossible, to redeem. Wickham had no honor - there was nothing beneath his flaws. Mr. Darcy, on the other hand, had plenty of flaws himself, yet the cornerstone of his character was his honor and his willingness to do anything for his loved ones.
Even our most flawed heroes (our wonderful "bad boys") must have some moral code of their one, some sense of honor. It's there in the way they treat a stranger, or they're mother, or any other host of places, but you always have that glimmer that something better is deep inside and waiting to come out. Wickham didn't have that glimmer :)
For example, and to piggy back on the next book I'll analyze for this reading journal - Pamela Clare's Unlawful Contact - Marc Hunter is a definite bad boy. The man is serving life without parole for murder and drug trafficking for goodness' sake! So we have plenty of flaws (the whole killing people thing), yet we root for him through the whole book. I kept coming up with justifications for him, to gloss over the fact that he'd committed first-degree murder. Because it all came back to his honor - he did what he felt he had to do to protect someone he loved. For him, that was the end of it. If that meant he had to spend the rest of his life in prison, than that's what it mean.
There are heroes with strong characters (Mr. Darcy, Marc Hunter), and there are men with weak characters (Wickham). For me, those with weak characters, those who manipulate and use those around them and have not even a glimmer of honor beneath, will never become Mr. Darcy or Marc Hunter.
So, can anyone prove me wrong? Do you have heroes who start out as Wickham and turn into Mr. Darcy? A character with no glimmer of honor who is redeemed by the end? Or do you think it's impossible?
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Written on Sunday, February 22, 2009 by haleigh
Sunday, February 22, 2009
As part of my requirements for school, I must read selected texts within the genre, and critically examine them. One of the texts I chose for this semester is Pride and Prejudice because (gasp!) I haven't read it before and I thought the whole "requirement" thing might give me the necessary motivation.
In fact, it did, and of course, I loved every word. Though I must say, by the time Mr. Darcy got around to proposing (again) to Elizabeth, it was subtly buried in a paragraph, and I missed it. When she announced to Jane she was engaged, I had to go back and figure out when that had happened. lol.
So P&P is, of course, classic literature, and reads like classic literature. There was the omniscient narrator, a ton of telling, and adverbs everything. Fortunately, unlike Frederica there was no one ejaculating their words. Thank god.
The thing that really stood out to me the most in the novel is the character arcs. Both characters went through major changes from over the course of the book. Mr. Darcy was as proud and haughty as Elizabeth was accusing him of being, and by the end of the book, he had seen the error of his ways. He told Elizabeth about his change of heart, but even more importantly, it was shown through his subsequent actions. He put up with her mother, who he had previously dismissed as a liability, he spoke to her "trade class" aunt and uncle with the utmost manners. And most importantly for Elizabeth, he ended his interference between Jane and Mr. Bingly.
And Elizabeth changes as well, though it wasn't quite the complete reversal of Mr. Darcy's change. Elizabeth made snap judgments, and believed Mr. Wickham's account of Mr. Darcy's behavior, all of which she was forced to read after Mr. Darcy explained all in his letter. Not only did she have to change her own mind, she then had to admit her bad judgment to Jane, whom Elizabeth had previously convinced of Mr. Darcy's wicked ways.
Even though there were other characters in and out of the story - Lydia with Mr. Wickham; Jane and Mr. Bingly - but it's Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy who have such wonderful changes throughout the story.
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Written on Sunday, January 25, 2009 by haleigh
Monday, January 26th
So one part of my upcoming classes is to critically examine other books within the genre. Last week I read Frederica, and while it wasn't technically on my list of books to examine, there were bits which intrigued me.
So Frederica was published by Gerogette Heyer in 1965, and kicked off the modern romance genre. It reads much like classical literature, rather than books which are published by today's standards. For instance, every instance of dialog was followed by an exclamation point.
Don't pick on the dog, Felix! I won't, Frederica!
And then there were the dialog tags. Oh, the dialog tags. Not only were there explanations and adverbs, Heyer didn't follow the "said and said only" rule. Not even close.
"You don't say!" exclaimed the Duke. "Oh yes!" shouted Frederica.
And then it got worse. On four occasions - four! - the dialog tag was......wait for it......ejaculated. That's right, the Duke ejaculated his praise. "My Lord!" ejaculated the Duke. Seriously. He ejaculated.
So there were things about this book which clearly, would not be acceptable by today's standards. And Heyer broke other cardinal rules too. She wrote entirely in omniscient pov, and switched between people's heads as fast as she changed paragraphs. Hell, she even dipped into the dog's pov once!
And there was no showing going on in this novel - only telling.
So here's the weird thing. There was no pov depth, and I was told everything instead of shown. And there was a lot of words being ejaculated. But still, I could not put down this book. I loved it. The agnst was phenomonal, and my heart broke over and over for these characters, only to be perfectly taped back together.
I have no idea how Heyer accomplished this, as it's been drilled into my head that they only way to convey emotion is to show it, with the necessary deep pov. But she accomplished it. I guess it goes to show that in the hands of a very talented author, any rule can be broken. And telling, while not as strong or effective as showing, can work if used correctly.
Anybody else have a book that broke all the rules, but you loved it anyway?
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Written on Tuesday, November 11, 2008 by haleigh
Nov. 11th, 2008
I never actually got caught smoking in school -- I was too much of a good girl back then to dare do anything like that. *g* But I digress. The point of this blog is....
I'm going back to school!
I just found I was accepted this week, and am sooooo excited. It's a two-year, MA in Writing Popular Fiction, and I start January 4th.
I just finished picking my classes for the spring semester. I'm taking: "Empowering the Female Heroine" (doesn't that one just sound awesome?), "Maintaining Narrative Tension," and "How to Make a Living Writing Romance Novels," taught by writer Stephanie Bond.
I have one more class to choose, and I'm stumped. I can choose a class on POV, or "Plotting for Mysteries." The POV class is required, but will be offered two more semesters. The Plotting class may or may not be. But I write suspense, not mystery, so it may not be 100% applicable. And if I take the POV class, it's one more required class out of the way, and hence room for cool electives next semester. But the suspense side of the plotting has always been difficult for me (people always figure out the mystery, like 5 chapters before they're supposed to!), so it could be useful.
Can you tell I'm over thinking this, just a tad?
So, since my decision making prowess has always been a bit questionable, I'm doing some polling (that would be you). Which would you pick - POV or Mystery plotting?
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