The Importance of Being Observant

(Okay, first, did anyone get my pun? It has to do with the movie. Of course if you never watched the movie, it might not make much sense...Um. Yeah. Nevermind.)


Moving is like cleaning. Except ten times worse. Recently I had to go through all my junk and figure out what I wanted to take with me, as a transfer student with a small apartment, to College By the Sea. Parts of it are fun, though. It’s like time traveling through your own past. This was when you collected china cows. This was when you considered becoming a freelance journalist. This is when you were depressed for a year and wrote all those awful poems.

I had an entire bin filled with writerly stuff, most of it scribbled on torn scraps of paper, or stuck in color-coded folders. (The more I liked the color of a folder, the better the material I put in there.) Most of it I threw away—half the point of moving—but some of it impressed me. Like this:

“It was spring, and if she stood still out on the lawn, she could hear it popping softly.”

I wrote that on a scrap of paper. Do lawns pop? Re-reading the note while packing, I couldn’t remember. It struck me as fascinating that past-me had been so observant as to capture something that future-me couldn’t remember, even when reminded.

After thinking about it, I did end up remembering what the note was about. One day I had gone outside to intentionally document the season I was in—spring—so I could write about it when it was, say, winter, and still get the details right. The lawn was wet and mushy. As it thawed, little air bubbles worked their way to the surface. If you stood quietly, you could hear them popping.

Wow, right? Those are the kind of details everyone says we need to put in your writing. You know, engaged the five senses, use setting as a character, keep it fresh.

I am pretty proud of past-me for noticing the lawn-bubble thing. I am a little shamed with future, current-me, because when I am wracking my brain for descriptive material, I tend to think of either A) Stuff I have seen in movies, B) Stuff I’ve read in other books, or C) Stuff I’ve already written. And then I try to make that fresh.

I do remember as a newish writer being very diligent about carrying a notebook with me, jotting down useless stuff I saw. But nowadays I rarely go out intending to research. If I’m writing a scene in a grocery store, I will write about it from memory. From whatever material I have in my creative well. You know what I mean? I’m not hopping in my car for the nearest grocery store unless it’s crucial that I know the exact way a checkout aisle works, or something. I’m guessing this is pretty much how we all handle it.

And I’ll be honest: I don’t advocate elitist kind of research. It’s great as an exercise, but it’s not something (most) people (ahem) can sustain long-term.

Bottom line: if we’re not intentionally going off to observe, then we need to be intentional about observing. Right? I mean, writers are different in that everything we do is research. If we want to make our writing convincing, those little details matter. But two people can go on the same walk, be in the same room, have the same experience, and not notice the same things. We need to make a point of noticing.

I say this partly to myself, out of conviction. I realized that I’m not as intentionally observant as I used to be, and that also, I often rely too heavily on movies and TV because I liked the way they interpreted things.

But secondly, I say this because it’s an easy thing to forget. That intentionality. Being a writer is great, and it comes with a lot of gorgeous communities—the blogosphere, the writing forums, retreats, conferences, tours, the coffeehouse and Panera breads, the writing groups and critique groups and programs—all these people. And we all share our inspiration, sparking someone else, who inspires someone after them. Ideas can get kind of over-processed as a result. The element of real goes missing.

So, sometimes it’s important to remember that our job isn’t just making stuff up, but capturing what’s real, and putting it in a way readers might never have themselves, but that rings true anyway.


Being “intentional” is such an individual thing, that I’m curious: how do you guys go about being intentional about observing? Do you carry notebooks? Or are you not that intentional, just generally try to be observant as you can? What do you think about the whole thing?

(And I’m really curious: has anyone else ever heard their lawns pop? Ever?)



Truly and always,
-Creative A

Six Principles of Description

Whenever I talk about description, I always end up repeating the same basic principles in different ways. Use all five senses. Pick strong action words (“throttled forward” instead of “drove.”) Things like that. I thought it would help if I compiled them all in one spot, to help those struggling with their descriptions and in the need of a reference. 

Here we go. The six principles are –

 

One: Put yourself in the scene.

Putting yourself in a scene is more than imagining what it would be like. It’s placing yourself there, in such a way that the details of a moment hit you, new and fresh and surprising. Like the first day on the beach, or an amazing sunset. We suddenly wake up to everything in that experience, feeling it and embracing it with every pore.

Imagine that you have stepped directly off a plane onto the exact moment of your scene. Better yet, think of a time you experienced such a scene, and the way you felt when you first entered that environment. What are the things that hit you right away? What did you feel in that moment? Get inside the scene’s head like you would get inside your character’s head.

 

Two: Focus on what defines the moment.

You remember two weeks ago when I said that descriptions define the thing being described? It’s like creating a 3D box. Every bit of description adds up to something, helps us make the picture. What you choose to describe alters the shape of our box – changes the picture we create in our minds.

So when you begin describing, think about what image you want to create. Is this scene scary, or contemplative, or loving? Then choose what will flesh out that idea. Don’t do a checklist description, starting with the room, then furniture, then accessories; pick the few things that matter most.

 

Three: Use different senses for a rounded effect.

It helps if each description is based on a different sense - maybe one is what you see, one is what you smell, and the other is what you feel. Taste and smell are powerful senses but hard to use regularly. Try paring one odd sense with two normal ones. For example, you see the popcorn stand, feel the sweat trickling down your spine, and taste butter thick on the air.

 

Four:  Pin down the exact feeling.

What helped me improve my description was trying to and pin down an exact emotion, thought, or association instead of settling for something that just “worked.” Lots of people like the smell of fresh cut grass, but how does it make ME feel? What does it remind me of, exactly? How can I condense that? How can I compare it to something else that will take people there with me? And finally, is that the image/mood I want to set my scene with?

 

Five: Choose words with emotion in mind.

I think word choice is hugely important. So you feel the breeze, but what kind of breeze is it? Does the breeze waft? Trickle? Hiss? Spin? Each one has a different feel as well as a different emotional subtext. Waft = light, aromatic, slow and relaxing. Trickle = tepid, maybe nervous, uncertain, leaves you gulping for air. Etc.

Don’t get bogged down by what is possible or impossible. If you say the winter wind smelled bitter, we’ll all know what you mean, even though bitter is a taste and not a smell.

 

Six: ground the descriptions with concrete details.

Too many metaphors or personifications can make a scene unreal and far-fetched. You want to ground those thoughts in reality by connecting them to something we can easily process.

For example. You want to describe the wind, so you say, “the breeze hissed.” That’s your metaphorical thought. Now tie it to something concrete in the scene. You could say, “The breeze hissed through the grates,” or  “The breeze spun around her ankles.” That puts us firmly back in the scene. 

 

Description is like taking a snapshot of a moment. Good description says, this is how it feels to be here, this is what I’m seeing, and this is what it means. Our ability to describe a moment directly relates to our ability to imagine it ourselves. This is a visceral process. If we aren’t feeling it, how can our readers? Hopefully these principles can help you ground yourself in the scene.

 

-Creative A 

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Edgy Techniques

Description and Selection

Edgy Techniques

A while ago, edgy writing was on the rise. Agents and editors were looking for it. Authors were trying their best to write it. Plenty of others were arguing about it. Since there is no one definition for edgy, it is instinctively controversial; when you try to scout out a definition, the controversy grows.

Sometimes edgy is a good thing. It emphasizes mastery in writing, an avant-garde way with words, powerful themes, stunning plots. More often, edgy stands for the dark and provocative, for stories that unsettle or leave you on edge. In YA (Young Adult fiction), edgy can stand for something else entirely – stories that deal with drugs, sex, or teen violence. Each kind manifests in different ways.

You can have an edgy theme – This is often the provocative, controversial type of edgy that takes people out of their comfort zones. Edgy themes could be racism, abortion, life for an inner city gang.

You can also have edgy content – This is similar to an edgy theme, in that they both deal with uncomfortable issues. But content takes the theme to a higher level. For example, take Songs Without Words, versus Thirteen Reasons Why. They both deal with suicide – the influence, the act, it’s effect on other people. But each impacts you differently.

In Songs, you’re left thinking, “How sad. How true.” In Thirteen Reasons you’re left thinking, “Whoa.” Both are very good books, but Thirteen Reasons is edgy, and Songs is not.

Some people believe that edgy can’t be taught. And it can’t—you won’t be edgy at all, unless it develops from your own personal writing style, using your own distinct voice. It’s about skill and cultivating these skills. That’s the gist of growing as a writer – you can’t force methods or rules, but you can grow through them.

Here are some techniques to make your writing edgier.

Mood

When writing a scene, think about what kind of mood you want to set, and what kind of mood you want your readers to feel. Getting your readers emotions involved can really make them connect with a story. Learn to use settings that amplify your desired mood, but don’t overdo it –if you put your victim in a dark alley, and he gets attacked, readers will roll their eyes. Better to put your victim in a stairwell, or in the library during closing time.

Also learn to filter settings and situations through your characters emotions. If a character is wearing rose-colored glasses, he’s going to see roses no matter where he is. So choose your descriptors to emphasize the desired emotion.

A brooding character may see “flickering shadows on the pavement, like hands trying to warn him of something, only he couldn’t hear the words.”

A happier character might see “shadows that danced, sprite-like, so that light glittered off the gutter, and the wind laughed overhead.” 

Suspense

Suspense is simply a withheld outcome. The art of suspense is learning how long to withhold an outcome, and how much to reveal, how soon. Don’t withhold something so long that it looses its importance. Don’t reveal it as soon as readers begin asking questions. And don’t jerk them back and forth so long that they become thoroughly confused – it just leads to frustration and indifference.

Wait until they’re uncertain, but still suspicious.  Wait until the answers are most necessary. Then give readers some – not all – of what they want. And whenever you reveal one thing, ask two more questions. This will continue the suspense, while still satisfying readers.

Be careful to make your answers worthwhile, and make sure that they don’t blindside readers. You want readers to be surprised, not upset.

Original thought

Once a beta-reader told me not to get too literal with my metaphors. It sounds silly, but we do this sometimes. We worry too much. It’s a metaphor – let it be a stretched metaphor. Because then it doesn’t matter if it’s good or not. If it works, or not. You were just messing around. 

The best way to come up with something original is to experiment. Go overboard sometimes. Write something you would never write; write something you stopped writing. Be different in as many ways as you can. Stretch your metaphors, dramatize your settings, and in a word, be bold.

Contrast

Contrast is using two different ideas to compliment certain aspects of each other, and to highlight other aspects. Example. Say you have two mob-heads meeting in a church, where some old lady is lighting candles. The poignancy of the old woman compliments the grimness of the meeting. At the same time, her act of reverence and grieving stands out against the men’s dark, shallow intentions.

Reading books or watching TV, it’s easy to start taking fictional death or violence casually. You see it all the time. It looses it’s meaning. Contrast can snap readers back to reality. Incidentally, this ups the stakes.

 

Really, the “whoa” factor is what defines edgy at it’s core. It’s not just good writing, or shocking writing, or dark, eerie writing – it’s writing that blows you away. Even if your work never takes on the other aspects of edgy writing, learning the techniques can help you develop your own “whoa” factor. Agents look for it. Editors crave it. Readers love it. Because everyone wants to have a “whoa” moment.

 

-Creative A

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Characterization and Backstory: Secret Sin #5

It’s vital that readers understand our characters. These are people to us, with faces we can see and voices we can hear. We know everything about them, down to the lint in Richard’s pockets and the cracks in Damian’s bathroom mirror. If we can see them, our reader should too, right? In truth, too much description can dumb our character’s down in the reader’s eyes.

This is a tricky sin. The issue too much/too little description is hard to define. There’s nothing wrong with fleshing out your protagonist. There’s nothing wrong with creating a clear image of how they look. And a bundle of quirks isn’t going to upset anybody. The sin is not how many traits Richard has, but how you reveal these traits to the reader.

There’s two ways of characterization. You can reveal things about your character, or you can introduce them. An introduction is just how it sounds: “Look, this is Richard. He wears leather jackets and likes flexing his biceps in not-so-subtle ways.” Revealing someone is subtler, more gradual. “Damian tugged the edge of her skirt farther down her calf, wishing her legs weren’t so long, and that this skirt wasn’t quite so short.”

It feels natrual to introduce – a new character walks on the scene, and we want to know what they look like. What kind of accent do they have? What clothes are they wearing? How about their hair, skin color, eyes?…

If you tell us everything you know right away, you’ve simplified the character. There’s nothing to discover. The character become a grocery-list of quirks, looks, and metaphors. Try too hard to one them round, and it actually becomes flat. (This isn’t a bad thing – as long as that’s all the character was meant to be.)

A similar dumbing down happens with backstory as well. I have noticed a lot of novels that dump the backstory on you like so many rocks. It’s a very blatant, “I’m screwed up, and here’s why” type of thing. Either that, or the writer throws you a rubber ducky. This is when a character’s actions are explained by one simple event from their past. People are shaped by series of events and reactions; a rubber-ducky backstory make us loose respect for the character.

Backstory is a powerful tool. If you dumb it down or simplify it, we loose respect for the character. It’s a subtle thing that needs to be revealed piece by piece.

I remember one of Robert Crais’ characters, Joe Pike. Pike has a less-than-astounding backstory: he had an abusive father, spent a few years in the Marines, became an LA cop, and then a private detective. Now he’s a sort of Zen, enclosed, quietly dangerous guy that wears sunglasses and never smiles. In every book Crais peels back another layer of Pike’s psyche. The revelations are simple, non-dramatized, and very honest. Flashbacks relate to previous scenes. When the epiphany comes, it’s an understanding of how Pike has been shaped by his collective past.  The backstory is effective because you learn about it in digestible increments, the same way you get to know Pike.

 

Effective characterization.

I know I’ve presented a problem here: you can’t go about avoiding all character descriptions, or put off developing the backstory. So how do you introduce a character? What if they need describing? What if the backstory is essential to know about right away, up front? How do you avoid these sins and still work in the important stuff?

First: avoid dumping. Yup – “dumping” as in “info-dumping.” Spread things out so they feel natural, revealed. Avoid the systematic head-to-toe method of describing, and don’t insert descriptions just because you can.

Use flashbacks that add depth as well as explanation. A good flashback presents as many questions as it answers. Avoid epiphanies and rubber duckies that dumb down the real effect of your backstory.

Second: You’ve heard me say this before, and I’m saying it again – use only what is pertinent to a scene. Make sure the backstory you uncover relates to your previous scenes, and upcoming ones, in surprising ways (if possible.)

Try to write how your character would actually think. For example, when you play with your hair, you don’t think how it’s blond and luxurious. But many characters do just that. It forces the description out into the open, making blatant and fake. Try rooting out as many of these as possible; re-write a scene in first person if you have to.

 

One final point about introducing vs. revealing: when you introduce something, that’s all it’s supposed to be. There’s nothing more to learn, nothing more to discover. But when you reveal something, the revelations keep coming. You continue to peel back layers and add dimensions. It’s like getting to know someone: at first, one or two things about them may strike you; a funny hat they wear, or the way they always shrug one shoulder. Then as you get to know them better, this first impression gives way to a deeper understanding of who they are. Effective characterization takes you on this same path of discovery.

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More on Duckies. (This isn’t from my blog, but it’s a great follow-up to the rubber ducky post I linked to before.)

  

- Creative A

Description and Selection

Last Wednesday I talked about description and emotion—how if you use words or images that have an emotional value, a reader will become personally involved. Today I’d like to talk about selective description. This is the act of narrowing down what you describe so that it has a stronger value. In simpler terms, it’s the act of figuring out which descriptions are more useful than others.

 

The first step in selective description: avoid sampling.

“Sampling” is a term I came up with for someone who writes like they are snacking on appetizers; they eat (or describe,) a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and we the readers have trouble imagining the scene.

Usually “sampled” images are contradictory. Say, a vase of wilting flowers, and a sunny hallway. The wilting flowers have a bad connotation: death, decay, corruption. The lighted hallway has a pleasant connotation: sunshine, warmth, laughter. Both are realistic images but together they suggest opposite things. Know that everything you describe will have an underlying meaning or feel—readers come to expect this. They look for the bigger meaning.

Sampling messes with this. Usually the writer is trying to make a scene authentic, so they think of everything they might experience in that scene. But in real life, we ignore most of what goes on around us. It’s better to place yourself in the world you have created, and then imagine what is realistic for that world.

Remember how last Wednesday I said to choose which sense are most prevailing, instead of describing each one in turn? Before you describe something, think of what makes it unique. What are a few things you would instantly notice—things that would stand out in your fictional world? Play up those qualities, and describe things that support them.

You don’t want to go overboard on this. In Noah Lukeman’s popular book The First Five Pages, he says: “Aim for complexity of thought, not expression. This means don’t lay on descriptions. Let the thing being described be complex, and write simply.”

There’s a movie called Stranger Than Fiction that does an amazing job of this. Each character has two or three qualities that set them apart and, in a way, define them. Harold Crick is the main character. He’s proper and dull. He counts everything—the number of strokes to brush his teeth, the number of tiles in a bathroom, the number of steps to the bus stop. He wears sweaters or suits everywhere. These outside quirks tell us that inside, he’s resigned to his life, but he’s not happy in it; and that leads to some deep revelations. Simple writing: complex thought.

 

The second step in selective description: show only what is pertinent for the moment.

Writers tend to over-describe things, especially when introducing a new character. “Mark had stylish salt-and-pepper hair,” we might write, “Over an angular face. His eyes were an intelligent green, and his smile was charismatically crooked at the corners. He wore a pin-striped vest…”

This doesn’t tell us what kind of man Mark is. Maybe he’s a little proper, maybe he’s a man of class. We aren’t certain. It’s too much information too soon, and we have nothing to bounce it off of. Once we get a feel for who Mark is, we’ll care how he looks. But right now his pin-striped vest isn’t pertinent. It has no importance.

Really, details do not matter until the item itself matters. I won’t care about how your Photon-Blaster works until it jams during the Mexican standoff. I won’t care how Mark looks until he turns out to be the serial killer. Etc.

This leaves the question of what is pertinent to a scene. Well, what image are you trying to get across? What does the reader need to know? (By need, I mean would they get confused if you cut it out?) Pick a few details or quirks that support your big image. If Mark is our serial killer, what would support that? Maybe he toys with a little pocket knife. Maybe he always turns up in dingy bars. These add something to his personality. They make us curious.  They matter.

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Secret Sin Series

Description and Emotion: Part One

-Creative A 

Description and Emotion

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader – not the fact that it is raining, but the feel of being rained upon.” – E.L. Doctorow

I’ve learned some interesting things about description, lately. I know to show things using active verbs, selective adjectives, and strong, core nouns. I know to trust the reader – another way of saying “don’t over-describe something.” I know to write with all five senses. These are all common tricks of description. You probably know them yourself.

Today I want to try and take it a step deeper. I’ve noticed some interesting connections that I think we could all apply in our work. Most of it relates to the principles I’ve stated above, so it won’t be a huge revelation, but I think it may shade things differently for you.

Alright then, here it is.

 

Thing I learned, the first: Use sensory details – taste, touch, and smell.

We’ve all heard of writing with the five senses. This is a valuable method of getting a reader inside your character’s skin, like internal monologue gets them inside a character’s head. But some senses are more relevant than others. Taste, touch, and smell link directly to our memories. If you stimulate one of these senses in your fiction, it can personalize things for your reader.

Like pumpkin pie. Think long and hard for a moment about the smell of pumpkin pie. Imagine it bubbling away somewhere inside a stove. Imagine it thick on the air, tangy with cinnamon. Imagine taking a creamy bite.

What does it remind you of?

Thanksgiving, maybe. Cranberry sauce and stuffing. Sweet potatoes dribbled with brown sugar and real butter. This extends outward to Thanksgiving day itself: the hugs and back-clapping, family in woolen sweaters, a game of football out in the backyard, crisp falls days, winter, Christmas…

This is called association. I’m personally a bit too associative – I can tell you what yellow tastes like just by the way it makes me feel – so this example may be a little extreme. But the point is that some things bring up distinct images. Images have memories, and memories have a feel. Like I said above: if you can tap into these associations, you’ll involve a persons memories and emotions. This more than anything else lets them feel a scene.

 

Thing I learned, the second: Emotion is a key. Once someone emotionally feels a scene, they’re involved.

This may feel like stating the obvious, but you want a reader invested in your story. You do this by creating a sense of common humanity. Readers can empathize with a character without ever being in the same situation. As Lawrence Block said in Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, “If I was that kind of guy, that’s the kind of guy I’d be."

On a small scale, empathy is created when you bring a reader’s emotions into a scene. Take our pumpkin pie example. The average person could relate to that, and in the process, they would bring in their own emotions and memories to create a sense of family, tradition, and goodwill. So If I wrote:

“Someone was making pumpkin pie. Carla leaned back into the doorframe and soaked it up, all creamy and cinnamon. Her mind flit to Thanksgiving dinners around Aunt Jen’s big oak table, the way everyone laughed, dogs licking your legs and hands; how they were all so happy.”

The reader knows exactly how Carla feels. Not because I said “the memories made her happy,” but because the readers have experienced similar memories themselves. That is empathy right there. Metaphors are good at this because they target a reader’s memories. If I tell you “the house smelled like Thanksgiving,” I am allowing you to apply your own history to my story.

When you write, be aware of the emotional connotations your descriptions. What’s the difference between a sob, and a wail? Musk, and stench? Ice that splintered, and ice that sliced?

 

There’s a bit more I wanted to say, so check in next Wednesday for part 2: Description and Selection.

 

 – Creative A