FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR NOVEL

where there's love, there's drama

 

No matter what genre your story is, whether it’s fiction or creative nonfiction, you want the reader to not only enjoy it, but to love it. You want the reader to fall in love with it. The only way to make that happen is if you are in love with it first. You must love your story. You must love the characters, the settings, the conflict, and the plot in order to keep building that world. If you are not in love with everything about what you are creating, you will not have the energy, fortitude, diligence, or motivation to keep creating. Skillful artistry is important, but it won’t be enough to carry you through those painful moments of writer’s block, rewriting, revising.

Yes, there will be painful moments in the process. That’s because it’s not a short one. In any long-term relationship there are highs and lows, good times and bad. But when you really love someone, you are able to work through those times and come out better in the end.
Your first task, then, is to come up with a story and character that you love and can live with for a long time, through sunshine and storms, sickness and health, till death… Well, you know what I mean.

Your second task, before you even put pen to page or fingers to keyboard, is to not think about the finished product. Too many writers stop the process because they are focused on selling the book before it’s even written. If in the beginning stages of writing your story you start researching literary agents and dreaming of seeing your name on the New York Times Bestseller List, you are more likely to never finish the book. It will become too frustrating, the process too wearisome.

Like the concept of show, don’t tell, the process of writing a story, especially long-form fiction or creative nonfiction, is an elusive one. Many writers don’t know what to expect when starting their project. It’s not uncommon to think that all you have to do is sit down and write and once you’ve reached the end, you’re done. They don’t think the process is that complicated, that it’s simple: start, write, finish. I can tell you, the process isn’t complicated, but it is complex, which is a different thing.

Good stories and great stories require a lot of attention. They are like puppies. They start out messy, piddling on the carpet, tearing up the sofa cushions, running around without direction, getting under your feet. It takes a patient puppy parent to train little Fido. You love Fido, so you’re willing to do the work and suffer the shredded loss of your favorite pair of Nikes. You know it will take time for Fido to become that loveable, obedient, good boy. And you know the only way to get to that point is to start the process of training.

 

Where to start your story

For some, the hardest part of writing a story is getting started. Because there are countless ways to start, it can be overwhelming. One logical place to start would be at the beginning before any of the conflict or action even occurs. There is a common human impulse to start with the backstory and work forward, to lead in with where it all began.

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.
Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away…

These lines suggest that there are other stories to be told that will lead up to the main plot, things that happened before the conflict that you want the reader to know before they get to the real meat of the story. If you are writing a biography that could make for a successful start, because the goal of a biography is to trace a person’s history from the day she’s born to the moment the book is finished. Those types of books are mainly reserved for celebrities or super famous people like Walt Disney or John F. Kennedy. The reader already finds something fascinating about these people and is eager to learn the details of their lives. Those kinds of details can be beyond boring if they are about someone you’ve never heard of before, like the protagonist (main character) of your story.

Even the details of notable or momentarily famous people can be boring if there is no substance behind it. For example, Olympic gold medalists are fascinating when we are watching them win. But other than wondering what kind of parent takes their six-year-old to the gym at four in the morning to watch them fall off a balance beam a hundred times, do we really want to know other things, like the kid hates Brussels sprouts? Probably not for the simple reason there is not enough drama to pique our interest.

But when 1994 U.S. Olympic skating finalist Tonya Harding got embroiled in a physical attack against her competitor to try to take her out of the competition, not only did we break out the popcorn, we yearned to know if the hamster she accidentally dropped and killed when she was five had any impact on her life choices. Actually, I did the hamster thing, not Tonya. The point is the general public would have likely forgotten who Tonya Harding is, much less care about her history if it were not for that drama. She didn’t receive any medals in that competition, ranking eighth in the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, while Nancy Kerrigan, the skater her ex-husband clocked in the knee with a baton, earned a silver medal.

But because of the scandal, Harding has been the subject of dozens of books and media projects, including the 1994 biography Fire on Ice by Abby Haight and J.E. Vader, and the biographical 2017 Steven Rogers screenplay I, Tonya, directed by Craig Gillespie and starring Margot Robbie.

So, even for biographies, the reader wants the drama first and then the backstory. Unlike biographies, though, you are not writing about your character’s entire life. Even if you are writing memoir your goal isn’t to give the reader every detail of your life since birth. That would be an autobiography, which, again, is mainly reserved for super famous people. A memoir isn't an autobiography. An autobiography details every aspect of your life from the day you are born until the moment of writing the book. A memoir focuses on only one integral part of your life. It is a story, much like a novel, but nonfiction and the protagonist is the author of the story. For example, if someone survived addiction and wanted to write his story about that journey, he would focus on only what led up to his addiction, how he overcame it, and where he is today.

Fall in love with your story and embrace the drama. Don't keep the drama your dirty little secret or make it a surprise. You can add twists and turns to your story along the way, but the main drama, or conflict should be in the spotlight right from the start. Few people love drama when it surrounds them in real life, but boy do we love it when it belongs to someone else! 
Good luck and happy writing!
Eileen 
(This segment is taken from my upcoming book on writing titled Glittering Little Stars. Check back for information on the release date.)

 

Show, Don't Tell

Your fifth-grade English teacher, in my case Miss Powell, writes the words on the chalkboard as a reminder that you are to keep this phrase in mind with each word you grind into your notebook with your No. 2 pencil. A simple phrase, she explains, that means show the reader what you mean, don't tell them.

"So, you see," she tells the class, "the definition is self-explanatory. Okay, now write."

Great. Okay. Wait. What?

All the students, except Bobby Miller, who is attacking the page like a hungry reporter, stare ahead with a glazed expression of nothingness on their faces.

You feel dumb because it's supposed to be simple, and if it's so simple, then you should understand how to do it. But you don't. Why? Because that simple phrase does the exact opposite of what it is advising you to do. It's telling you to show, don' tell. But it's not showing you how. It oversimplifies a vast and complex process that incorporates myriad practices that must be executed to create a successful "showing" piece of work.

How do you show, then?

Let's start with the great 19th century Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. It can be argued that his quote on show, don't tell is the most famous in the world. 

"Don't tell me the moon is shining. Show me the glint of light on broken glass."

It is a vivid image. But as with so many other things in today's world, we like to get our information in abbreviations and sound bites. Alas, that is the case with this quote, which isn't a quote from Chekhov at all, but a reworded, truncated version of what he said or, more specifically, wrote. If we were to pass down the full quote from this master of the stage play, the technique of show, don't tell might not be so hard to grasp.

Our teachers tried to explain it. They did the best they could, but I am going to guess many of our writing teachers, like Miss Powell, didn't fully understand how to put show, don't tell into practice themselves. So how could they teach us? That's not an insult to those who tried yet fell short of defining this concept. The problem is within the phrase itself and how we describe its meaning.

Show, don’t tell is a writing technique using action and sensory detail rather than exposition. Show illustrates. Tell states.

You may think this means to be more descriptive, use more adjectives or write that your character is wearing a green wool sweater or your cat has five toes on his two front paws. And you’d be correct because description is important. But it’s only the beginning.

Let's look at the actual quote that Chekhov wrote in a letter in May of 1886 to his brother who had literary aspirations. It reads: 

“In descriptions of Nature one must seize on small details, grouping them so that when the reader closes his eyes he gets a picture. For instance, you’ll have a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle glittered like a bright little star, and that the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball.”

Notice that Chekhov uses comparisons to show the moon is shining. He doesn't describe the moon at all, or even mention the moon. Nor does he mention the "reflection of light" in his description. He uses simile to capture the essence of the moonlight so we can see it in a vivid and tangible way. The broken glass "glittered like a bright little star" and "the black shadow of a dog or a wolf rolled past like a ball." What's more complex about these two comparisons is that in each he uses an image inside an image.

In the first we have the image of a broken bottle on the mill damn and from that image we see a piece of glass glitter like a bright little star. In the second we have the image of a shadow of a dog or a wolf and from that image we see the shadow roll past like a ball.

Even more complex is the emotion these images evoke. It's not just a picture he's drawing. It's a painting he's painting. Have you ever gone to a museum and just stared at a painting for minutes, getting lost in the emotion of it. The more you stare at the painting, the more layers you discover, the deeper you fall into it. That's what Chekhov does. The glitter of a bright little star feels magical, while, at the same time, the shadow of the dog or wolf rolling past like a ball is mysterious.

Chekhov showed us that moonlight is magical and mysterious without ever mentioning the moon or using the "telling" words magical and mysterious. Those are great words, and I encourage you to use them, however, compare the difference in how you feel about moonlight after reading Chekhov's passage and then me telling you that moonlight is magical and mysterious. 

So, his well-crafted bit of advice to his brother, which gave so much insight into what show, don't tell means, is lost because someone at some time decide to paraphrase and shorten it into an anecdote and that's what stuck.

 Yes, the "don't show me the moon is shining" thing is cool, but it cannot compete with a magical glittering little star and a mysterious shadow of a dog or wolf rolling past like a ball.

This segment is taken from my upcoming book on writing titled Glittering Little Stars. In it, I give tips and techniques on the basic structure of story and the principal elements of character, plot, point of view, tense, pacing, dialogue, and, yes, the all-important and often misunderstood concept of show, don’t tell. This book draws from my experiences in writing and what I’ve gathered from others who write. My goal in writing this is to pass along to you what I’ve learned and practiced in the hopes of having an abundance of great new books to read in the future.

Although Glittering Little Stars is written with the novelist in mind, other authors will benefit from the tips and techniques offered here, including, but not limited to the writers of memoir and short story.

If you would be interested in this book, please drop me a note and let me know. I can put you on my list and notify you when the book goes into publication.

Happy writing, everyone! 

~Eileen