I made a joke on Twitter last night:
"I wish I could write a thoughtful piece about including pages of exposition without ruining pacing but I obviously know nothing about that"
Well, perhaps I'm a little bit wrong. I know a whole lot about including exposition in ways that impede and foil pacing, so naturally I guess I know a bit about what NOT to do. I might as well write about that now.
The two dangerous ways to deliver exposition are through paragraphs of unapologetic backstory or question and answer sessions. There is a time and a place for both and a time and a place for neither. I shall explain.
I open my story with a Question and Answer session between a six year old boy and his grandfather about the nature and rules of my universe. These are the things that everyone reading my book needs to know in order to understand where they are and what the heck's going on. Paragraphs of exposition when you have nothing invested are boring (that is unless it's really exciting exposition) so I introduced two characters to feed off each other with a bit of an underlying b story to keep the audience interested enough to read on. I am well aware this segment is not perfect. I've re-written it a ton of times, every pass making it shorter and more concise. These are what I have come to call "Bamboo Trap Scenes"- pages and pages of characters sitting and talking about stuff they already know.
Your standard bamboo trap is usually set up in jungles or forests consisting of a deep pit covered loosely with sticks and leaves. The trap is sprung when an innocent passerby steps on the cover and falls down to be impaled on several pointed bamboo sticks stuck in the bottom of the pit. This is about the same unfair painful feeling you get from a QnA scene gone wrong. You wander in innocent enough but before you know it you're waist deep in pages of information, trapped and helpless. A good sign that this has happened is when your characters start getting bored. When their whole contribution to the conversation is "What about this?" "Tell me about that" "Why is that". When the engineer in your story-locomotive is sitting around doing nothing useful, the audience riding the train is doing the same. No matter how interesting the backstory is, Bamboo Traps are not a fun place to be stuck in and should be avoided at all cost.
The other option is blatant blocks of exposition. I consider this a more honest approach; we've got a ton of exposition, why force the characters to sit around and discuss it for three pages when the prose can lay it out plainly for one? The downside is that now your characters aren't involved at all! I call these bits "Lectures" because it's the author abandoning anything the characters were previously doing while the audience takes a minute to do some supplemental reading that has nothing or little to do with the current plot. This throws a huge wrench into pacing and should only be used at times where a little separation from the action doesn't matter - like at the beginning of a chapter, after a scene break, or in closing. I still try to keep these things brief. If the characters are off-screen for more than a page I go back and start eliminating things to shorten it up. This has worked in my favor before - bits of exposition I've had to cut out of one Lecture sometimes surface later on in dialog or as flavor text. This leads me to perhaps the wisest and best form of exposition; the gradual kind.
The best way to learn about a world is to explore it, go places and learn about them as your characters see them; talk to locals to learn bits about what happened in the past and the present, make events take place at historically significant sites so that your backstory is told parallel to your main one. This is a good way to make your world feel established, because people only stop every few feet to read about the past when they go to museums not when they're on adventures. Bundle events with backstory as much as you can to slip the bits people need to know naturally into the story as they experience it. The first example of this I can think of was pointed out to me by a scriptwriting friend several years ago when we were having this discussion.
In National Treasure starring Nick Cage, the history of a certain document and how it got into his fathers hands is explained as a diversionary tactic. Nick is pressing his dad for specific info and to avoid answering, his father distracts the other characters with a story about the document they are studying. It was obviously exposition, but it also served a purpose and was more than one scientist walking up to another scientist and saying "Boy I'm glad Dr. Klien put us both on this project together. I get to study how rats reproduce, you get to test your new rocket fuel and the pay's good too!" The scientist conversation would not happen in real life, but the National Treasure one conceivably would. This is good implementation of exposition.
Of course there are exceptions to every rule. I hit a point in Act 2 where a huge element of the past was suddenly revealed. It was not the kind of discovery that could be stretched out amid worldbuilding scenes and was important for setting up decisions and motivations for the next few chapters. Cat found herself sitting in not one but TWO one-on-one question and answer sessions. I fall in to way too many Bamboo Traps for my own good, so I had to find creative ways to get the information out without making Cat a "Then What", and employing Lectures wouldn't do for the timing.
My answers were to turn the Traps into something else. The first became a game; the character we were receiving information from was actually interesting to talk to and spoke in slant for most of his replies. This gve the audience something to ponder as the exchange progressed as both they and Cat try to figure out what exactly he's talking about. In the second I decided to tell the history as a tale within a tale delivered by a storyteller complete with dialog of the past characters. I'm content with this because it physically removes us from the Trap for a good chunk of time, making the time we do spend speared in the pit more manageable. If nothing else it connects the backstory events to real human emotions the readers can relate to soy they'll be distracted enough to forget that we're two people in a room asking questions back an forth.
These are all points to consider when writing your exposition but I'd like to reiterate that I write Bamboo Traps and Lectures constantly in my first drafts and it's only in the revising process that I solve and sort them out. I'm sure I'll talk about how I mold and handle drafts later because Lord strike me down if I try and stop talking about writing this book, but first drafts are just for putting your ideas on paper - letting them out of your head to make room for more. Once they're on paper you can see them in daylight and figure out the parts that need work. Write first off the cuff, if you worry too much about nitpicks like Bamboo Traps, repetitions or the passive voice you'll overwhelm yourself. That said I'll complain about reps and pvs in another post.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
A box of goodies!
My VistaPrints order came in the mail today! I placed my honorary first sticker over the unsightly scratch on the lid of my laptop. Still have no idea where the scratch came from, but the Baron looks much cleaner now.
I am such a sucker for the Merch, you don't even know. I can't wait to hand my promo cards out this weekend. Will blog about the Missouri Writer's Conference and tell you all how it was.
A Brief note on Breaking chapters
Something I'd like to share about pacing and chapter breaks learned the hard way.
There are three ways I use to pass time in a story. There's in-prose passage when you say something like "some time later" or "After a while". These work best when the action is continuing throughout and is intended to flow unimpeded from one bit of time to another. Like say your characters enter a maze. Instead of describing every turn in detail you can say 'They continued through the maze making educated guesses and left turns for several hours before finding the dreaded minotaur." This passes several hours of "prose time" spent on the same small action. Nothing significant happened within the aside and the reader doesn't feel rushed.
The second option is what I call the "scene break". It's a change in time or place usually indicated by asterisks, dotted or solid lines, tiny graphics or my favorite - the ' ~*~ '
Scene Break transitions take place at the close of something. When it comes up whatever happened in the preceding passage is over and no longer of concern. Going back to the maze idea, I'd use a scene break when the maze goers stop their random turns to sleep for the night, instead of explaining in long boring detail the efforts of setting up camp and fixing dinner, I'd employ a scene break and resume with "In the morning they started searching again." This gives the reader a significant stutter in time and implies that things actually occured while they were gone. To put it in more modern terms, it's like the commercial break in a tv show. We don't care about the commercials but we know they're there. The show will pick up at a more convenient time when there is something important going on. In that vein I usually conclude scenes with a wrapping up line, bringing the reader to an even halt before the break.
Scene breaks are often followed by a change in location or cast, like when you switch from the A story characters to the B story characters. When used this way the break implies time or distance between the two events. If the hero and the villain were making camp on either side of a forest, I'd employ a scene break to transition between them. If they were camping within earshot, I'd use prose instead, giving the reader a first-hand impression how close the two camps actually were to each other. These extra scenes usually come at the beginning or end of a chapter, at least in Threadcaster. There's enough focus on Cat and her party that any deviation from that story feels like a derailment. Scene injections can take place in the middle of chapters, but always be aware of pacing; whether it's a line of asterisks or twenty paragraphs, applying a scene break severs the connection between the reader and the events they were just reading about.
The final (and title) form of time jumping is Chapter Breaks. This is the most severe time jump of them all. If you want to pass hours, days, or even years the chapter break will do it. People usually see chapters as a good place to put the book down for a while, it's dangerous to bridge important action from one chapter to another unless you're really good at writing cliffhangers. Some authors are almost devilishly good at making you want to jump straight into their next chapter, especially near climaxes when everything is happening at once. In threadcaster I use chapters as containing nodes chronicling each stage of our quest into identifiable bits. Most end with a hint of where the party will be going next and a reflection of where they just left. Never end a chapter lightly and be careful of where you cut things short. Sometimes a chapter break happens naturally, you have to obey the pacing of the story and listen to your reader voice as you go along.
Right now I'm looking at an eight page chapter. I like my chapters being twelve, but I've tried prosing the time away and scene breaking the time away and neither of those had the impact they needed. This scene needs a chapter break and so I shall do it, letting the meaning of the previous scene sink in with a reader who needs a chance to take a breath and turn a page.
There are three ways I use to pass time in a story. There's in-prose passage when you say something like "some time later" or "After a while". These work best when the action is continuing throughout and is intended to flow unimpeded from one bit of time to another. Like say your characters enter a maze. Instead of describing every turn in detail you can say 'They continued through the maze making educated guesses and left turns for several hours before finding the dreaded minotaur." This passes several hours of "prose time" spent on the same small action. Nothing significant happened within the aside and the reader doesn't feel rushed.
The second option is what I call the "scene break". It's a change in time or place usually indicated by asterisks, dotted or solid lines, tiny graphics or my favorite - the ' ~*~ '
Scene Break transitions take place at the close of something. When it comes up whatever happened in the preceding passage is over and no longer of concern. Going back to the maze idea, I'd use a scene break when the maze goers stop their random turns to sleep for the night, instead of explaining in long boring detail the efforts of setting up camp and fixing dinner, I'd employ a scene break and resume with "In the morning they started searching again." This gives the reader a significant stutter in time and implies that things actually occured while they were gone. To put it in more modern terms, it's like the commercial break in a tv show. We don't care about the commercials but we know they're there. The show will pick up at a more convenient time when there is something important going on. In that vein I usually conclude scenes with a wrapping up line, bringing the reader to an even halt before the break.
Scene breaks are often followed by a change in location or cast, like when you switch from the A story characters to the B story characters. When used this way the break implies time or distance between the two events. If the hero and the villain were making camp on either side of a forest, I'd employ a scene break to transition between them. If they were camping within earshot, I'd use prose instead, giving the reader a first-hand impression how close the two camps actually were to each other. These extra scenes usually come at the beginning or end of a chapter, at least in Threadcaster. There's enough focus on Cat and her party that any deviation from that story feels like a derailment. Scene injections can take place in the middle of chapters, but always be aware of pacing; whether it's a line of asterisks or twenty paragraphs, applying a scene break severs the connection between the reader and the events they were just reading about.
The final (and title) form of time jumping is Chapter Breaks. This is the most severe time jump of them all. If you want to pass hours, days, or even years the chapter break will do it. People usually see chapters as a good place to put the book down for a while, it's dangerous to bridge important action from one chapter to another unless you're really good at writing cliffhangers. Some authors are almost devilishly good at making you want to jump straight into their next chapter, especially near climaxes when everything is happening at once. In threadcaster I use chapters as containing nodes chronicling each stage of our quest into identifiable bits. Most end with a hint of where the party will be going next and a reflection of where they just left. Never end a chapter lightly and be careful of where you cut things short. Sometimes a chapter break happens naturally, you have to obey the pacing of the story and listen to your reader voice as you go along.
Right now I'm looking at an eight page chapter. I like my chapters being twelve, but I've tried prosing the time away and scene breaking the time away and neither of those had the impact they needed. This scene needs a chapter break and so I shall do it, letting the meaning of the previous scene sink in with a reader who needs a chance to take a breath and turn a page.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Now on Deviantart
Deviantart is my home away from home when it comes to the internet. I'm very happy to announce the book has it's own group on the site. It's primarily an art site, so pop over if you'd like to see some of the Threadcaster themed art I've been making over the last five years of production! It'll be a lovely gallery with even more to come
http://threadcaster.deviantart.com/
http://threadcaster.deviantart.com/
Thursday, March 31, 2011
First step: Ask yourself questions
A lot goes into making a really good plot. It's hard work and takes a great deal of reconsideration. When you spy your own work with a critical eye you get the closest glimpse you can get to what your reader will see. Even if they are the forgiving sort of reader that will bark just because you command them to, the back of their minds will still know when something is amiss or awry - when a plot hole opens or a decision hits air on that shark in a jetski. This is my method for developing stories; ask questions.
This works when helping others too. When I sit down with a writer friend who is having trouble with their story I start by asking questions. They're sometimes obvious questions, sometimes more specific, but in the process of figuring out the answers the friend comes to understand a little bit more about the world that lives in their head. I like it when other people ask me questions about my world or my characters... part of me knows everything there is to know about Threadcaster Land and sometimes the answers that come out of my mouth are news to me, too. Like someone asked "How does a Wind Curse die?" and I answered, "They're turning to air so they're wasting away." and the other asked "Does that make them short of breath?"
Hadn't considered that before... but yes, yes it would. If Water Curses have coughs because the water is filling their lungs then why shouldn't the Wind Curses have athezma and the Fire Curses have heartburn? There's no reason for them not to. Right now I'm asking myself the questions "Why don't Earth Curses spit rocks?" to which my mind answers, "I don't know, Jen, why DONT they spit rocks?" Look forward to seeing at least one person sneeze a cloud of dust when we get to Earth Town.
I decided to ramble about this question thing because I've hit a snag in the revising (I don't have time to do it) so instead i've been brainstorming the next couple steps in the story. We're rapidly approaching the end as far as outline is concerned, but the outline was written years ago and things need to be changed. To solve this, I got out the old pen and paper and started writing my steam of consciousness:
Where do we go next:? Why do we go into town when Cat knows it's dangerous there? What if they go straight to the Curses instead of going through town first? Weigh options: two columns Positive and Negative.
Positives: Excuses the fact I can't figure out a reason for them to go.
Excuses the fact I can't figure out what to do with them once they get there
Speeds the story up where it needs to go fast.
Negatives: Astonage is kind of an important location for our epic past, it'd be a shame not to see it
We have a letter to deliver there - but is that important enough to send the whole party AND the
quest into danger? No, no it's not.
Thinking about this problem presented me with a solution; what if Cat goes in alone. She wouldn't risk everyone to deliver a letter... and a promise would be enough to get her in and out quickly. It also adds variety to the City-town combo we've done three times previously, and gives Cat a chance to choose to do something on her own as opposed to begging Pete to go along with her as she's done all the way to this point.
So there's a solution to that... which poses another query. I know what she'll find while she's there... but what will she get out of her visit? She shouldn't do anything if it doesn't move her toward her ultimate goal. She has to find something in town to help her. This leads me thinking about the next location, the kind of environment they're headed toward and who they will inevitably meet there. To spare anyone else my train of thought, I came up with a satisfactory solution through asking myself questions, making positive/negative columns for comparison and writing the word SOLUTION really big and cockeyed on the page. It's a system that works for me... maybe it will help you other writers out there as well.
This works when helping others too. When I sit down with a writer friend who is having trouble with their story I start by asking questions. They're sometimes obvious questions, sometimes more specific, but in the process of figuring out the answers the friend comes to understand a little bit more about the world that lives in their head. I like it when other people ask me questions about my world or my characters... part of me knows everything there is to know about Threadcaster Land and sometimes the answers that come out of my mouth are news to me, too. Like someone asked "How does a Wind Curse die?" and I answered, "They're turning to air so they're wasting away." and the other asked "Does that make them short of breath?"
Hadn't considered that before... but yes, yes it would. If Water Curses have coughs because the water is filling their lungs then why shouldn't the Wind Curses have athezma and the Fire Curses have heartburn? There's no reason for them not to. Right now I'm asking myself the questions "Why don't Earth Curses spit rocks?" to which my mind answers, "I don't know, Jen, why DONT they spit rocks?" Look forward to seeing at least one person sneeze a cloud of dust when we get to Earth Town.
I decided to ramble about this question thing because I've hit a snag in the revising (I don't have time to do it) so instead i've been brainstorming the next couple steps in the story. We're rapidly approaching the end as far as outline is concerned, but the outline was written years ago and things need to be changed. To solve this, I got out the old pen and paper and started writing my steam of consciousness:
Where do we go next:? Why do we go into town when Cat knows it's dangerous there? What if they go straight to the Curses instead of going through town first? Weigh options: two columns Positive and Negative.
Positives: Excuses the fact I can't figure out a reason for them to go.
Excuses the fact I can't figure out what to do with them once they get there
Speeds the story up where it needs to go fast.
Negatives: Astonage is kind of an important location for our epic past, it'd be a shame not to see it
We have a letter to deliver there - but is that important enough to send the whole party AND the
quest into danger? No, no it's not.
Thinking about this problem presented me with a solution; what if Cat goes in alone. She wouldn't risk everyone to deliver a letter... and a promise would be enough to get her in and out quickly. It also adds variety to the City-town combo we've done three times previously, and gives Cat a chance to choose to do something on her own as opposed to begging Pete to go along with her as she's done all the way to this point.
So there's a solution to that... which poses another query. I know what she'll find while she's there... but what will she get out of her visit? She shouldn't do anything if it doesn't move her toward her ultimate goal. She has to find something in town to help her. This leads me thinking about the next location, the kind of environment they're headed toward and who they will inevitably meet there. To spare anyone else my train of thought, I came up with a satisfactory solution through asking myself questions, making positive/negative columns for comparison and writing the word SOLUTION really big and cockeyed on the page. It's a system that works for me... maybe it will help you other writers out there as well.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Promotionally Speaking
I know the manuscript isn't done yet, but that's not stopping me from pitching it to a couple agents two weekends from now. Hopefully they'll be interested enough to give me a second look... to help ensure that I'm making myself some Threadcaster Business Cards.
It'll basically be the blog template (lotsa mauve with that shot of Cat's chin and string) with the words Threadcaster: A Novel by Jennifer Stolzer written real big on the front. Then a photo and my contact information on the back. I'll post a pic of if up here for review when I'm done and share it with Facebook as well. The audience is larger over there for now.
Do you all think I should link this blog on the front of the card too? I've got the room.. I might as well, right. It'll be a great place to follow the book's progress and read up on it's world and characters (when I get around to making those posts. I'm planning one out very soon)
It'll basically be the blog template (lotsa mauve with that shot of Cat's chin and string) with the words Threadcaster: A Novel by Jennifer Stolzer written real big on the front. Then a photo and my contact information on the back. I'll post a pic of if up here for review when I'm done and share it with Facebook as well. The audience is larger over there for now.
Do you all think I should link this blog on the front of the card too? I've got the room.. I might as well, right. It'll be a great place to follow the book's progress and read up on it's world and characters (when I get around to making those posts. I'm planning one out very soon)
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