This is going to be a light week. For one thing, it’s the week of Thanksgiving here in the US, and most people get 2 days off from work–Thursday and Friday. Thursday is for porking out. Friday is for fighting other shoppers at the mall to launch the Christmas shopping season. Also, my birthday falls this week, so I’m going to take it just a little easier than usual.
Several of you posted good comments today. I’ll note that I’m currently writing the first three chapters for my book proposal, so I’m facing the same self-editing issues that we’ve been discussing lately. I find it helpful to do a light edit on the previous day’s work before I start writing new material. The goal is not to “make yesterday’s work perfect.” The goal is to “get into the same groove I was in yesterday so today’s work will pick up seamlessly.” This scheme works for me. Be aware that it is not the only way to do things, and for some of you it will not work.
Mary wrote:
The hardest thing for me right now is to make each chapter count. Does that make sense? I have a few chapters that just don’t push the story forward, but they provide necessary information for the plot to work. I am wrestling through them, trying to add page-turning conflict. It’s not easy, this fiction thing.
Randy sez: No, it’s not easy. Mary, you do make it look easy. When I read your work, I am always impressed. But the art of fiction is to hide the sweat stains. For each of those chapters that are not advancing the plot, I wonder if you can extract that “necessary information” and put it somewhere else. It may not be possible or necessary in your case, Mary. You are toward the literary end of the spectrum, and literary novelists have license to run the pace a bit slower. Just make sure those chapters carry emotive punch. Every chapter needs to be providing a Powerful Emotional Experience. There is never an excuse to slack off on that.
Pam wrote:
I think when we come to the end of a manuscript, the tendency is to rush through it because we just want to be done. HA! That happened to me in my second middle grade story. It was longer than my previous attempt, and I was so excited, I ended it. My writing partner said I had to add something because she could tell I was in a hurry to finish.
Randy sez: Yes, and the danger with a rushed ending is that we tend to not edit our endings as much. So a hurried ending may never get fixed, and it can leave the reader with the “huh, what happened?” feeling. I love an ending that really ends the story. I finished reading THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS today and it has a very nice ending that really tied it all together. Last week, when I finished reading NEXT by Michael Crichton, I did not feel like the story had ever really got rolling, so the ending simply was the termination of the text, rather than any kind of a summation.
Christophe wrote:
I can see now that waiting to self-edit until later is a good thing for a couple of reasons, but I keep having this nagging gut feeling that if I don’t fix things right now, then I’ll end up not doing a good job later. I do leave little annotations as a reminder, but I still can’t shake that feeling. Am I being overly paranoid and/or is there a better way to handle this?
Randy sez: Editing is a highly reproducible experience, in my opinion. You are very likely to edit it as well next month as you would today. You might even do a better job next month, because you will understand your story better then and you’ll be a slightly better writer.
Bonne wrote:
Maybe this is too broad a question, but how many POV’s can you get away with in a YA novel?
My main character is separated from her best friend and we need to see what’s going on with her before they are reunited.Also, does the WHOLE scene or sequel need to be one POV?
I’m reading Dwight Swain and everything and I still am having a hard time wrapping my brain around it. In an important scene, there are many obstacles between the character and the goal. For a complex obstacle, it seems like sometimes I need someone else’s POV on it…help!
Randy sez: You can have numerous POVs in a YA novel. I would recommend less than 1000. 🙂
As for each Scene or Sequel, yes, I believe you should restrict each to a single POV. But remember that you can break after each Disaster or Decision to a new POV character. It’s possible to string together a whole series of scenes that all take place in the same place and happen one after another, each from a different POV. But remember that a Scene or Sequel has emotional unity. If a character has a Goal, then you want to show Conflict that frustrates that Goal and a Disaster that destroys the Goal. All of those are a single emotive entity, and they need to be experienced by a single POV character. Otherwise you are castrating your fiction. You read that right. As in neutering, neutralizing, emasculating, oatmealizing. DON’T DO THAT.
M.L. Eqatin wrote:
I’ve decided to add another POV for just one chapter. I came to that conclusion when I started looking at the whole from my reader’s perspective. I’m using three POVs, pretty much evenly balanced, each of which moves the story along in turn from a unique perspective that the others could not. But for this one chapter, a very revealing moment which set up the final plot crisis, the P.E.E. was much more powerful if I let the reader see inside this character’s head. And it took a lot less words than trying to show what went on through one of my 3 main characters.
Randy sez: It’s perfectly fine to add a one-shot POV character if it works. The goal is to give that Powerful Emotional Experience. Whatever it takes to do that — do it.
It’s a light and easy week, so feel free to comment on any of these, or anything else you want to talk about this week. To my US readers, Happy Thanksgiving!
Happy Turkey Day!
I’m seeing the wisdom of breaking my work into scenes and sequels, but I’m a little confused about sequels: how long do they need to be? If a scene ends in disaster and I need to take my character from that right into another action, is what happens between those two scenes a sequel even if it’s only a paragraph or so? And more importantly, can there be action in a sequel, pushing the MC to the decision–or is that then just another scene?
I hope you have a very happy birthday, Randy.
“It’s possible to string together a whole series of scenes that all take place in the same place and happen one after another, each from a different POV.”
What about different POVs about events that take place at the same or at an overlapping chronological time? How can you cover the same (or not distinctly separate) time period from two different POVs?
I have a feeling it is kind of “not done” to have a following scene from a different POV which is not moving the story ahead chronologically, but is there another approach to the whole “meanwhile, back on the ranch … ” kind of thing?
I believe that Thanksgiving is also celebrated by your brethren up north across the great lakes. Two of my brothers with their families live in Prince George, Alberta, and they have invited me to their joint Thanksgiving celebrations. I had to decline, not because I’ll have to travel a mere 12 000 kilometres, but I’m under pressure from the missus to mow the lawn and clean the pool.
In the meantime Randy, enjoy your birthday! Many happy returns and may God bless.
In Canada (including Alberta *grin) we had Thanksgiving a month ago Daan, but we’ve been known to use US Thanksgiving as an excuse for more sleepy bird.
Happy Birthday, Randy!
My critiquer complained that the story was too dark and breakneck. I intentionally added a few humerous scenes to slow things down and give the reader a breather. They aren’t sequel and don’t necessarily advance the plot, but they do deepen characterization and mileu. And, they bridge to the plot. Is this done?
Randy said: As for each Scene or Sequel, yes, I believe you should restrict each to a single POV. But remember that you can break after each Disaster or Decision to a new POV character.
I’ve found that using more than one POV character builds tension. Switching POV after a Decision or Diaster frustrates the reader but keeps them reading. It’s sneaky, but it works. 😉
Birthday Blessings, Randy!
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We have much to be thankful for all year long.
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Randy
Happy Birthday to you!!
Have a Happy Birthday, Randy!! May your cup overflow!
“If a character has a Goal, then you want to show Conflict that frustrates that Goal and a Disaster that destroys the Goal. All of those are a single emotive entity, and they need to be experienced by a single POV character.”
Great questions and great stuff, thanks. The words ‘frustrate’ and ‘destroy’ I can identify with. But “oatmealizing” will take a bit to digest.
So a question that comes to mind on the heels of Randy’s comment to Mary about literary fiction. Okay, a bunch of questions.
I’d like to know if, in general, the key elements to good storytelling that we talk about, like Scene/Sequel, apply more to commercial than literary fiction?
I guess I’m writing a relational drama, women’s fic. I have some chapters that move the story along but don’t have a disaster, unless it’s subtle. Can you have an emotive punch in a scene without a ‘disaster’? Isn’t humor an emotional experience? In a story about relationships and inner struggle, can inner conflict and interpersonal drama produce enough emotional experience? Or is it a hairy bore?
Don’t get me wrong, there are some major disasters in the story. But, since it’s not an action based story, I don’t have a big earth-shattering one in every scene.
Hi Randy,
Have a happy birthday and a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Hello,
I’ve commented a couple of times, but don’t see it coming up in the blog, so if I need to do something different, I’m open to learning!!!!
Randy, I was glad to read your comment today about skimming through the previous day’s work to get into the right groove for your story before you start working on it again. I like to mentally “live” in my story world while I’m writing, but I don’t always get that luxury (I’m a married middle school teacher working on my masters in creative writing). The problem comes along when I’m reading something that is not written in my “style” or similar to my voice, and then I start mimicking that writer’s style! Not overtly, but in things like sentence length or sarcasm or pacing. You have mentioned reading several different types of fiction: do you ever face this challenge, or is it simply a freshman/sophomore thing?
Happy Thanksgiving/Birthday!
Davalynn
Happy birthday and Happy Thanksgiving. I just got “Promoting your writing by speaking” through the mail, and am looking forward to working through it. Many thanks.
Randy, I can’t seem to grasp this Scene/Sequel thing. I’ve read Dwight Swain’s book and even listened to his lectures, but it just excapes my understanding.
I know it will be one of those things that makes me slap my forehead and say “well duh!” when I finally understand the concept, but for now I get frustrated trying to “get it”. Yes, I have listened to your Fiction 101, Fiction 201 and also the tapes of Fiction 101 you did with Brandilyn Collins. Am I just hopeless?
Happy birthday, Randy, and Happy Thanksgiving to all.
So good reading all your comments. I think I’m beginning to get a feel for your different personalities. It would be fun to meet face to face, but impractical, so for the time being, everyone, keep writing, keep sharing, keep being thankful.
Randy, I hope the celebration of your day is just what you love best. I’m celebrating this week too. Maybe we’re twins. NOT! I’ve got a couple of decades on you.
Happy Thanksgiving, all.
And Happy Birthday, Randy.
Happy Birthday, Randy. Happy thanksgiving all.
This for Davalynn: I do that too, and I have always considered it a gift. Once in college I took an intensive Shakespeare course, and in two weeks I sounded like the King James Bible. If that natural mimicry runs through your brain, use it to tune your writing. It does get cumbersome; I can’t read any wildly different styles while I’m writing because they get all muddled in. But sometimes I will mentally reference two or three books when my different characters come to mind, so that all the dialogue doesn’t sound like the same person thinking.
Oops, I see that it also creeps into my spelling. Been exercising the British inflection lately.
Happy Birthday Randy, belated if I missed it. And Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!