Writing Update
Scenes Written: 3
Total Scenes: 102
Yesterday was a GREAT writing day. Not for how many scenes I arranged, but because I had a character motivation breakthrough. There is a new character I’m introducing and I kept asking myself why. I knew why I needed him down the line (he’s VITALLY important to the story I want to tell down one of my plot lines), but I didn’t know why he was in the story now. There had to be a good reason. Characters who arbitrarily join a group break flow.
So I sat down with the scene where he goes from an annoyance to a party member and stared. And thought. And stared some more.
For those who don’t know, there is a fair to extreme amount of staring in writing. Blank page. Composing page. Open air. Lots of staring for lots of reasons.
I put myself in the character’s shoes and asked myself why would I be striving so hard to attach myself to a person like this. Well, fear, of course! Fear of what? Well, I know where he’s going…so why would he be afraid now? Oh…OH!
And then it started to come together. I figured out a threat that the reader knows nothing about and determined how to present it on the page. Once I had that, all the other plot bits that I know happen later seem natural and organic. AND THEN I linked this Fear to what happened in Book 1 and it all made sense.
So take it from me, staring CAN bear fruit.
Reading Update
Vengeful: 76%
Perelandra: 64%
Vengeful turned a corner and now everything is ratcheting up for the final conclusion. I can’t wait.
Perelandra also had a rousing confrontation including a nautical chase scene. I was shocked to find something so thrilling in this almost clinical review of an alien world. Pretty cool stuff. Looking forward to more.
Personal Update
Not a whole lot to say here right now except that work is starting to calm enough for me to start checking things off my list. I’m VERY happy about that. I never want to have an empty list (and I’m in no danger of that any time soon), but I have an Achiever in me so it’s fulfilling to finish things.
Discussion Topic
My Thoughts on Advice from Kurt Vonnegut that Every Writer Needs to Read
Advice Tip #6
I realized this morning that I should have been linking the article every day so the link is now in the Discussion Topic title. Sorry about that.
We’ve covered motivation and purpose, so today we’re covering Kurt Vonnegut’s Tip #6: Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them in order that the reader may see what they are made of. This is a slightly different take on the writing adage “Kill your darlings” but I like the way Vonnegut phrases it. “No matter how sweet and innocent” really makes the writer look like a sadist. Oh look! THAT’S HIS ADVICE.
A great example of this to me is Tasslehoff Burrfoot in the Dragonlance Legends trilogy. Despite this being my favorite trilogy in that universe because TIME TRAVEL, it contains one of the most heart-wrenching moments against a beloved character. I’m going to talk about this now so if you don’t want to be spoiled for this series that came out over 20 years ago, skip all the text between the Spoiler Alert warnings.
Towards the end of the series (if memory serves; it’s been several years since I read this series), there is an intense scene where Tass is just being Tass (yes, I’m putting a lot of words here to try to spare those who would be spoiled) and suddenly Raistlin kills him. I had the Annotated Legends so I got to read a note from Tracy Hickman that explained when Margaret Weis ran in his office exclaiming what she’d done and despairing over it. Tracy’s response was merely, “Watch what happens next.” The point is that this super innocent character who was a staple in the series was killed. Dead. Despite his lovable nature, even he was tortured by the author.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about torturing characters to reveal the character underneath, the fiber of their being. 24 is one of my favorite TV shows of all time and my wife and I recently watched the entire thing (rewatch for me) including the final half-season. When we started watching, I told my wife that this show was incredible at answering the question, “How could things get worse from here?” No matter how bad things were, the bad guys (aka the authors) managed to make them worse and worse until Jack rose up and stopped them, tying up all the loose ends often at extreme personal consequence. The writers of this show downright tortured Jack both literally and emotionally. Do you know what we saw out of that?
Jack was unstoppable. He sought what was right in all things he did even if they were the wrong things, despicable things that he had to live with the rest of his life. On top of that, he was self-aware enough to communicate this to other characters. In the last couple of seasons, there is a character named Renee Walker and at one point she asks him straight up how he can do the things he does regardless of the fact that they are for the right reasons. He just says that stopping whatever terrorist plot is worth it and he just finds ways to live with it. THAT is who Jack Bauer is, but we only get that through the countless ways the show writers torture him.
That is what this advice is all about. Even in romance novels, the characters are tortured emotionally for a variety of reasons. Through it all, though, we see what these characters are made of and what they’re willing to do to satisfy their wants and/or needs. No one ever learned anything about themselves by a string of perfect sunny days. Maybe about the world, but not themselves. So, writers, torture and kill your darlings. It’s the only way you’ll get a believable reaction out of them.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG