Storymaker Conference Report - POV

I think, for me, the most insightful thing I learned came the day before the conference at the Publication Primer--and it came about because of something I'd noticed after I sent in my first chapter of The Swap for review by my group. It had to do with point of view. My instructor was Clint Johnson.

We need to be very careful when we're writing MG or YA that we don't try to view our mc as an adult would. We really need to be IN our MG or YA character's head and see how their adolescent view of the world impacts what we show and how we portray their thoughts.

He gave an example of showing a character sitting at a table in the room where we were gathered. If a woman entered the room and the character at the table noticed she had on red stiletto heels and even what brand of shoe they were, what would that tell us about the character? That she's a woman (or a gay guy into shoes). If the character looked at the woman's chest first, we could assume the character is a guy.

Clint then suggested we consider that the character was a woman who'd given birth to a baby a few weeks ago and was suffering from severe postpartum depression. He asked how differently she might see the room we were in compared to someone who was just happy to be there and whose life was good at that moment.

When we describe what our characters see, it should reflect their life experiences, their current emotional state. What in a busy room draws their attention is important. In fact, it's a great way to show their emotional state without telling the reader what it is.

Clint asked me why my character in the chapter that was being critiqued was acting the way she is. He suggested that if the reason I gave was all there was to her motivation, then she was two dimensional. It really gave me pause. I think I may need to give a little more thought to the internal motivations and finally break down and do up a character bible for each one.

What kind of information do you put together on your characters? Where do you keep it?

Finding It

I have struggled with a particular plot line in WIP #1 since I first conceived it. It wasn't that I should leave it out. It was trying to find a way to portray it so the readers could make of it what they want ... or not.

My oldest daughter was the first to raise the issue of how I'd shown it, and it's been sitting back there in the back of my mind like an itch I couldn't scratch. It was quite an issue of discussion when my critique group reviewed the full novel.

As I went through all the critiques and made changes, I attempted to fix it.

When I read those changes to hubby, I didn't like them.

Trying to find that balance was starting to grow from an unscratchable itch into a pebble in my shoe. The kind that's more than a minor irritation. The kind that's starting to hurt whenever you walk, that invades your dreams (nightmares).

And then my firstborn son (David) makes the same kind of observation the others have made but in a brutally honest (but hilarious) way that cuts right to the quick of the problem.

What did he notice?

I'd completely emasculated the hero / love interest.

Never once had I considered that. It certainly wasn't my intent. As I stewed (and chuckled) over his email (and our subsequent Skype chat) and thought about it in terms all the things my other critiquers had noted and suggested, I realized what I had to do.

Not mention it at all. Let the reader's imagination fill in the blanks.

Duh!

No more balancing act needed.

Does it sometimes take you a while to see the obvious? Or do you need the right pieces of the puzzle to come together before you can really see the picture?

Storymaker Conference - Report 3: Show, Don't Tell

This post was eaten when Blogger had indigestion. It was restored minus its comments
and with distorted labels. When I edited it to correct the labels, it posted it as of today.

It was actually published on March 11th.

One very valuable class I attended was taught by Annette Lyon on Show, Don't Tell. I'd heard good things about Annette's class from other conference attendees, and I was glad it was offered twice, so I didn't have to decide between two good things. Annette used a lot of exercises and visuals, which helped me a lot.

Telling has the writer interpreting events, feelings, etc. for the reader, whereas showing allows readers to experience the scenes for themselves. We need to trust that the readers will 'get it' without us spelling it out for them.

Point of view (POV) is the filter the story is being shown through, and if we're using multiple POVs we need to consider how differently the various people might look at a scene and interpret it. Annette showed a picture and had everyone describe the scene by showing and then had two people come up and read what they'd written. It was fascinating to see what had drawn the attention of the writers. I hadn't noticed the room's interior because I'd focused on what was outside the window.

This exercise made me think of the way Rowling handled the Harry Potter series. The books are written in third person but a very tight third person. With a handful of exceptions, everything we see is through the Harry filter. If he didn't hear or see it, neither did we.

POV can be a very effective way to show, but we need to make sure the POV doesn't intrude. And we have to be careful not to head hop.

Some words that signal you're telling (this was a real eye opener for me):

• realized
• listened
• watched
• noticed
• thought
• felt
• saw

Show thoughts and emotions powerfully and avoid words with multiple meanings. Be specific. Don't just say it was a car; say what kind of car it was, color, etc.

Have you found any ways that help you spot when you're telling?

Blogger Ate My Post ... And Burped It Back.

Well. What do you know? My Thursday post about the Show, Don't Tell class at Storymaker is gone. I got an error message about missing posts that Blogger was trying to fix.

Still no post.

*sigh*

It was Peeves. I know it.

And now the post is back. Go Blogger!

Show, Don't Tell

When I first began this writer's journey, my friend Donna Hosie shared this delightful quote by Anton Chekhov:

Don't tell me the moon is shining;

show me the glint of light on broken glass.

 I find myself beating my head against the wall at times as I try to really get my hands around this concept. Even the way he phrases it seems poetic to me--and poetry doesn't come out of these lips (nor my fingertips on a keyboard).

When I first began A Change of Plans it was in third person. At that point in time I would never consider writing in first person because it would be too ... embarrassing as I mentioned here. Twelve thousands words into the story, and I knew I didn't have the voice right. The only alternative was go with first person, so I rewrote it, and it just flowed. I managed to get out 80,000+ (very rough--still rough) words in 30 days.

I've read tons about writing, since I began the process of editing this project (and began two others works), and in late December I joined a couple of critique groups at David Farland's Writers' Groups. All I can say is, "Wow." What I'm learning from my groups is what I'd hoped that creative writing class I took (and dropped) last September would teach me.

I submitted the first half of Chapter 1 and got back input from three other writers. I learned so much from that experience, and the main theme was 'show, don't tell.'

When I compared the first person, storytelling narrative of A Change of Plans I could never liken it to Chekhov's beautifully descriptive prose. For one thing, my main character doesn't go around talking like that. She's a regular person, who talks like a regular person.

But in the comments made (and explanations given) by my critiquers, I suddenly found myself "getting it" as far as what show, don't tell can mean--even in my first person, storytelling narrative. Maybe especially in my first person, storytelling narrative. It seems so obvious now that I feel a little stupid (that's an understatement to save my self esteem).

Nonetheless, I feel like I've made a huge breakthrough here.

Of course, it takes more words to show than it does to tell, and my manuscript at this moment is at 99,426 words. And I'm only on the second chapter replacing a lot of the telling with showing. Which means I'm going to have to do a lot of chopping in order to keep it under 100,000 words, since going above that, I understand, can be a reason for potential agents to not even consider it--if I decide to try querying.

*sigh*

Plus, I've been paying particular attention to the books I read, and there's a lot of telling going on. So how do you know when it's too much? There has to be some telling. We're storytellers, after all.