Writtenwyrdd

"I don't give a sh*t"

"[A]bove all, in an ending, the reader/audience has to CARE. A good ending has an emotional payoff, and it has to be proportionate to what the character AND the reader/audience has experienced."  Alexandra Sokoloff

I highly recommend reading the linked post.  Ms. Sokoloff discusses why readers will accept your ending (if you do it right) and what you need in a climax/ending for them to be happy with your story and how you end it.  Basically, you have to give them an emotional payoff that takes into account things like who dies, who doesn't die, who suffers and transforms, do the characters suffer enough to make the catharsis of the ending/climax emotionally satisfying, etc.  (Not that she spells out all these things, but you can infer them readily enough from the text.)

And a reminder to please read and vote on the entries for the Chthulu-inspired Halloween Horror Contest.  Entries here.  Voting needs to be in by end of day, Monday, November 9th.  And please feel free to repost this information and/or mention the need for voters.  There are some great entries, and your horror-loving friends will thank you!

The Bad Boy

Natalie Whipple has a great post today on her blog about Bad Boys and Cheerleaders and why kids (all of us?) are so attracted.  Particularly noteworthy as a reminder for those of us who are *ahem* older and havent been crazy nuts over boys and never-been-kissed in, like, several decades. 

The Bad Boy is really a symbol. He stands for the mystery and unattainable quality that ALL boys seem to have when you're a teen girl. Just like the Hot Cheerleader is that symbol of unattainable for teen boys.

I remember all too well how guys seemed to be this whole other creature when I was younger, like we weren't even the same species. And it felt like if I could just crack the code, then maybe I'd get their attention...maybe one would like me. Because I sure liked them, except I didn't really have any idea why other than the fact that they were all so cute. Having a boyfriend was like the ultimate status symbol; it meant you cracked the guy code. Or something like that.

That is the center of the Bad Boy trope—girl unlocks the mysterious guy code and thereby obtains the ever-coveted Boyfriend. It gives girls hope that love is attainable, and that is why it's such an effective plot.

She goes on to talk about things to think about using the bad boy trope, and it's fun and makes good sense.  Go read the whole thing and bookmark it if you, like me, are having to unclog the dust bunnies around your teenage angst.  (Generally, I'm glad for the dust bunnies; but when you want to write YA, you need to have some sort of clue about boy/girl dynamics...right?  Am I right?  [Is there an echo in here?])

Writing about violent characters? This provides some insight.

"You kill the first one and you panic for a few days. You're nervous. But then you kill the second one and that's a kind of a medicine. It takes the pain away that you were feeling after the first killing."  'Red' a Medallin, Columbia hit man

An article on cnn.com gives an interview with a couple of Columbian hit men.  I found this article particularly fascinating because of the well-rounded glimpses you get of the lifestyle, the reasons for these men choosing their careers in violence, and the attitudes.  You can readily picture how they got where they are, and how they look at the world.

What was also interesting is that these men feel justified in their killing of the victims they refer to as 'patients.'  They get permission from the 'old men,' the guys in charge, and anyone they are directed or get permission to kill deserves it in their lights. 

It's an interesting viewpoint from the perspective of a writer, especially for rounding out your violent killers.  They probably all have a sense of justification for their work and actions.  We as writers need to find that which humanizes these characters so that they feel more real.  Because nothing (IMO anyhow) is worse than a flatly portrayed villian.  Well, except perhaps for an infallible hero/ine. 

Lastly, let me leave you with this Q&A from the article:

Penhaul: Do you want to get out of this life?

"C": "I know you should pay what you owe. But I don't want to pay for all those deaths. I'll be absolutely f***ed if I have to pay. I want to get out of this but I want a clean slate. If I pay my debt to the law then that means jail and if I pay on the street then that means death. I don't want to go to jail or to die."

Emotional grabbiness

"Have you heard the description, “The characters are flat?” That’s because the author is telling the reader what the character is doing and feeling, but the reader is not identifying with that character."  Heidi Thomas, The Blood Red Pencil blog

A telling line there.  (Sorry, couldn't resist the pun.)  I have to say though that I don't entirely agree that it's telling the character's thoughts, actions and feelings that always causes a lack of reader bonding with the character(s).  Sometimes it's other choices at fault.

But, that said, I have felt pushed around by authors when reading, rather like having taped marks where I am supposed to put myself mentally as if it were a sort of emotional play and my part/reaction were dictated.  (Not sure if that's a useful analogy for anyone else, but it's all I've got at the moment.)  So you have a sense as a reader of being told how to feel (which agrees with Ms. Thomas' assessment). 

That'll tend to put a reader's back up in the I Don't Think So, Buster! mode.

So.  How does one avoid telling a reader what a character is doing and how the reader is supposed to respond?  Strong verbs, actions over descriptive narrative, no authorial intrusion aka telling, and clever use of dialog to illustrate actions/feelings/byplay.  Tough prescription, but that's what edits are for! 

Plenty of people have said it better than me, so I'll leave it at that.  What sparked this post, though, is my considering how some readers may be feeling dictated to and that the characters are flat because of certain narrative choices.  Some of these are quite popular, such as first person, or close-in third person.  We see what is inside a character's head, and depending upon the author's style, might be seeing internal dialog, narrative, exposition and all sorts of things masquerading as what's in the character's skull--yet which to many (most?) readers may perceive as telling instead of showing.

Which means it might boil down to individual taste more often than not.

Just a thought I'm tossing out there...

Confusing action scenes

"The trouble is, suspense involves a bit of fear. You're scared something bad will happen to a character you care about. That's how it works. If the hero is completely unassailable there's no tension: they'll win, so why get interested? You already know what's going to happen. Conversely, if the scene is going to have any dramatic tension, there has to be a chance the hero will suffer, will lose, will fail."  Kit Whitfield, from her blog

Blog hopping this morning, I came across Kit Whitfield's post on, basically, some of the reasons why Transformers 2 is considered to suck, big time.  [Before we go on to the main topic, let me just say that, although I gave it an immediate "too long and boring despite the noise and explosions and things morphing all over the goddamn place" I didn't hate it; it was just dull and dumb with confusing scene cuts.  Not engaging.  Brain candy of the glitteriest and most unfulfilling sort...but I didn't hate it.]

However, Ms. Whitfield expresses one reason Transformers 2 was dull and hard to grasp:  The action director broke the 180 degree rule, which basically states when you make a scene cut, you need to maintain continuity so as not to confuse the viewer, for example "if a vehicle leaves the right side of the frame in one shot, it should enter from the left side of the frame in the next shot. Leaving from the right and entering from the right will create a ...sense of disorientation."

Or, more clearly, "The 180° rule is a basic guideline in film making that states that two characters (or other elements) in the same scene should always have the same left/right relationship to each other. If the camera passes over the imaginary axis connecting the two subjects, it is called crossing the line. The new shot, from the opposite side, is known as a reverse angle." (From Wiki, link above.)

How this applies to writing.
Ms. Whitfield's post got me to thinking about action scenes and about emotional hooks.  I read Lilith Saintcrow's new book, Strange Angels last night, and although a few spots made my eyes cross (descriptions in the character's style were sometimes convoluted to the point of meaninglessness) it was a gripping read that had me staying up until I finished the book...because I was hooked emotionally.  I cared about the characters, and I also wanted to know what happened next.  So both suspense and emotional hook accomplished.

Now, the reader has to care about the outcome of all the crises your characters face.   If s/he doesn't, you will lose their interest.  These mini-crises build up to the major crisis, and the main character has to come out of these early crises to get to the big climactic crisis.  The important thing out of all these moments building to the climax is that the reader has to have serious doubt that your character can actually reach her goal, that the character really could lose or die or fail.  And, sometime, your character does experience a set back, so you have to ensure that if that does happen, readers believe your character can overcome this new obstacle, too, and keep slogging forward. 

It's not straightforward always, but the emotions you create in a reader are. They must care about your characters, must want them to win. 

And this applies to fight scenes, or action scenes in books as well.

In Ms.Saintcrow's book Strange Angels, there were a number of fight scenes.  I found them really well crafted and very clear as to what was occurring.  Here and there i think they got a bit overlong and a touch too descriptive about things like sounds (and I say this because I stopped to notice during the fight scenes, which did pull me from the reading a teensy bit) but the actions were very clear and the emotional drama was high.  It flat worked for me as a reader.

And after reading Kit Whitfield's post on Transformers, I realised something about how movie structure and book story structure overlap.  It's not quite the 180 degree rule, but it is something worth considering, and which I think Lilith Saintcrow used to good effect:  Keeping the focus of the pov character written so it stayed in focus yet keeping her also feeling and worrying about her compadres in the middle of a fight. 

That sounds rather simplistic and obvious, but I can think of other fight scenes where the character's emotions weren't engaged (e.g. not blended in with the writing) and where others were involved but the pov character doesn't feel for them.

So maybe this is s bit of hair splitting, but like the quote at the top of this post, it occurs to me that if you don't fully engage the readers' emotions your story won't grab them as much...but that can't happen if your character doesn't care herself.  You need to write them so they care, and that has to be a strong, clear thread throughout the story you write.  It doesn't have to be overt, but it needs to be there...at least for me. 

What do you think?