And — setting that goal for yourself, and achieving it, will yield a very worthwhile result. Because more often than not, by eliminating those tedious expository scenes we’ve all squirmed through in the work of other writers, you will get your story moving more quickly, more briskly.
Further, and for me perhaps best of all, it will rid you of the temptation to write icky dialogue lines such as:
“As my lawyer, what would you say about...?”
Now — I do not mean that if a character is, say, a wife-beater, or an intellectual giant, or has some sort of quirk that only reveals itself under certain conditions, that that needs to be fully illustrated on first meeting. As you will note further along, misdirection and gradual revelation of character is a technique essential to good storytelling.
Okay, how do we lay in the fact that someone’s, say, a lawyer? Obvious way — put the character in the courtroom, pleading a case — or in a law office with a client. But that’s not always appropriate — or even possible — for the story you’re trying to tell, and forcing it is — forcing it. There are almost always other ways. Some are addressed in the following section, Exposition. And further along, in the section titled Kicking it Off (page 164), I refer to the opening scenes of several movies which are worth studying for the astonishing amount of information they convey — with even more astonishing economy — all of it done in such an entertaining manner that you’re almost unaware, until you think about it, that it’s exposition.
In my own writing, while I devote an inordinate amount of thought and care and energy to introducing my characters — especially those who are key — again, I try to give full shrift to intros of even the minor, micro-dimensional players.
You should, too.
As with most aspects of the storytelling biz, the good writers make it look easy.
Why is it so vital to choose that singular chord — and then to hit it? Because, exactly as in real-life first-meetings, we instantly, unconsciously process thousands of bits of information about the other person. Messages — communicated by such things as body language — facial expression, eyes, posture. How they’re dressed — the necktie-knot askew, the frayed or too-tight collar. Tone of voice, hair, excessive makeup and so on — all of it tells us about the person. My father used to call them snap-judgments, and he taught me to mistrust them. Well, that may be valid when you’re twelve years old, but I believe that once one has lived for awhile, once we know who we are, and are thus better able to read other people, such first-impressions should be trusted (which doesn’t mean they’re always correct). And certainly, as readers or audience-members, that’s what we do when encountering a new figure in a novel or in the visual media. That’s how we form our relationships with characters that authors present to us.
Are we sometimes fooled by real-life first-meetings? Of course. And as writers, we can and should occasionally take advantage of that — by employing misdirection. By allowing a character to misread another. Or by deceiving our audience.
The difference between fiction writing and real-life — in this case at least — is that we — as the writers — have a lot of control over what is communicated. Not absolute control — because everybody in your audience absorbs and interprets such information through their own set of filters. But that’s true of art in general. Near the end of this book, in the section titled The Rorschach View, I expand on the notion that no two people looking at the Mona Lisa, or reading Crime and Punishment, or watching an episode of The Sopranos, are seeing the same thing, the same way. There are almost no Universal Buttons that we can push.
A few that come close, incidentally, are in the area of startling or frightening an audience; almost everyone can be caused to levitate out of a theater seat by a particularly scary, well-executed cut in a film, as when the shark first appears in Jaws (Scr. Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, Howard Sackler, from Benchley’s novel — Dir. Steven Spielberg). And all readers of Richard Condon’s marvelous thriller, The Manchurian Candidate will find themselves frantically backtracking through the book, the moment that protagonist Raymond Shaw’s mother shows up dressed as the Queen of Spades — because Condon has just played the niftiest literary trick I’ve ever encountered in print (more about this on page 144).
Such instances, however, are truly rare. So rare and difficult to bring off, as a matter of fact, that many years ago the British Film Institute produced a fascinating twenty minute film devoted entirely to the analysis, frame-by-frame, 24th-of-a-second-by-24th-of-a-second, of one such stunning cut in the 1946 classic, Great Expectations (Scr. David Lean, Ronald Neame, Anthony Havelock-Allan, Cecil McGivern, Kay Walsh, from the novel by Charles Dickens — Dir. David Lean). The cut: the first reveal of the convict, Abel Magwitch, when he frightens the daylights out of young Pip — and the audience — in the wonderful graveyard scene. It is right up there with the earlier-referenced moment in Journey Into Fear.
But — guaranteeing the same-size laugh on the same cue from different audiences? Maybe sometimes — if you’re Mel Brooks. Mostly, though, forget it. And that which will bring one audience-member to tears of sadness will cause another to groan contemptuously. All we can do is try.
Those realities notwithstanding, we do have a lot of control. And, in choosing the all-important introductory moments, despite the virtual certainty that different audience members will react in varied, not always predictable ways upon meeting our characters, we writers must decide how, best-case, we would prefer those first encounters to go. How much we reveal, what we wish to hold back.
Now, as suggested above, you can mislead your audience. That’s not merely acceptable — it is often to be desired as a dramatic tool, a storytelling device. But do it intentionally. Plan your later reveal(s) of who this girl or that guy really is, handled in ways that will surprise.
Restated, if you find it easy to introduce your characters, you’re probably doing it wrong. By which I mean that you are not sufficiently challenging yourself.
The extra effort will pay off.
Examine the work of the superior novelists and screenwriters and playwrights. Notice how they decide to show us their characters. The precise first moment that the writer selects. The note that’s struck.
There’s an art to it. What follows is about the craft.
Exposition
Don’t tell it.
Show it.
Another lesson from Screenwriting 101 that ports readily to any kind of fiction writing. As urged above, always try — when introducing your characters — to show them doing what they do. Engaged in their profession, craft, thing, whatever.
Yet another, even more compelling reason: verbally telling about an aspect of a character (profession, tic, quirk, attitude, etc.) will not stick to the audience’s ribs. Showing the character doing it, being it, is what makes the lasting impression.
Now that’s clearly not always going to be easy, possible, or even appropriate. For instance, simply in order to show your character being a lawyer, it would be a mistake to shoehorn into your story a scene in a lawyer’s office, or in a courtroom. Obviously, there are other contexts in which an attorney can practice, and deeper into this chapter, you’ll find several specific suggestions for getting around the problem. But — if such a scene can be inserted with grace, if it’s organic to your story, it is definitely to be desired.
Amateur Exposition — The Dreaded “But, you are my sister...” Syndrome, and Other Sins
As suggested, in fiction writing there aren’t a whole lot of rules that cannot be broken. But what you’re about to read is one of my own (and is thus arguably a matter of personal taste), that for me comes about as close to inviolable as “The Rifle Above the Mantelpiece.”
Do not evereverever communicate a character’s occupation or background or relationship by having another character say anything remotely like “So, Al — how’s the lawyering business?” or “...But, you are my sister...”
Ever.
You’ve seen worse? T
hat’s not an excuse.
Here’s worse: self-exposition. As in “...but I am your brother...” Or having the above-cited lawyer say “As your lawyer, I...”
That is bad writing. Correction. It is terrible writing.
No, make that beyond-awful writing.
Do seasoned, even talented professionals write that way? Regrettably, carelessly, sometimes they do. Yes, we’ve all seen that sort of thing in work we might otherwise admire.
Just don’t admire that part of it.
Or, put another way, how often — in what passes for real life — do you hear people say “...Back in ’98, when we were at Stanford...” or “I’m your husband, and I...”?
Another way of stating it: Desperately avoid having your characters restate stuff they both already know, unless they’re also adding something new.
Doing so is right up there on the no-no scale with telling your audience what it already knows.
Which raises the question of how to communicate that this one is a carpenter or a doctor or whatever, or that one is a sister. The answer should be part of your mindset. It isn’t difficult. It’s about avoiding the obvious.
For instance, “Mom said we should...” very nicely, and somewhat obliquely, communicates siblinghood without beating it into the audience’s consciousness.
Notice also that the possessive “Our mom” was unnecessary (unless the line was addressed to a non-relative). And, had it been used, it would have been bad writing.
Obvious is bad. Redundant is bad.
Oblique is good. Indirect is good.
A cautionary word about this last: while you’re going for oblique and indirect, you have to guard against crossing the line — to unclear or obscure.
Good indirect/oblique might consist of having your attorney-character reply to a lunch-offer or other request for his time with “...Okay, but we’ll have to make it a quickie. I’ve gotta file this brief by 4:30...” begins to tell us what he does for a living. Or start the scene with your attorney on his celphone, instructing his assistant: “...And paragraph three sub-one-point-two should read ‘lien-holder has the sole and unencumbered right to...’ and so-forth...” And then, after he rings off, get him into the meat of your business. We now know A) what he does, B) that he’s probably good at it, and C) he’s decisive. And even a little about the type of client he’s representing. Not an inconsiderable amount of detail to pass on to your audience with only a brief speech.
Are there ever times when Obvious or Redundant are desirable? Sure. As when they are essential aspects of a particular character. I’ll address that further in the next chapter.
Front-loading — Some Advice — and Some Solutions
Don’t front-load your exposition.
Sure, you’ve fully imagined your characters, given them complexity and dimension. You’ve created concise, solid biographies for them. You know a lot about them (though you’ll learn more as your story progresses), and you’re anxious to use it, to tell your readers about it.
Resist, with all of your strength, the temptation to squeeze all that great stuff into the first scene, into those first moments that this or that character is onstage.
Dole it out.
In TV we call the gradual reveal of a character — not terribly cleverly — Peeling the Onion.
Why is this important? For the same reasons cited at the beginning of this book. It’s about grabbing the audience, your readers or viewers. You want them to keep on turning the pages. To stay with you, so they can learn how it turns out.
Similarly, to repeat, it’s best to avoid a lot of plodding, obviously expository scenes at the top of your story. Television people describe this phenomenon, pejoratively, as laying pipe. We’ve all seen it, in everything from novels to movies to miniseries and onward. It’s boring. Even to the least sophisticated, the least writing-hip audiences — people who may not know — or even care — why their attention is wandering — but will damned-well let you know by bailing out on your book, tuning out your show, or leaving the theater early.
Again, better to start in mid-story, to meet your characters at a crucial moment of an exciting — or at least intriguing — incident — and then lay that stuff in as you go. Often it’s worthwhile to disorient your audience at the beginning — to make ‘em wonder for a few minutes what or who in hell they’re reading about, or seeing. Use the gradual revelation of character to tease, to hook, and then to hang onto your audience. To capture, to entertain.
CONSTRUCTION — TELLING YOUR STORY
Plotting — Laying Out Your Story
Okay. You’ve started with the idea. The paragraph describing what your story is about. You’ve built it to a page, and now you’re expanding it into an outline — either a detailed one, or simple steps. You’ve begun your character bios. You’re becoming acquainted with your players. And you’re laying in the classic three-act structure so that your story will drive toward those curtains.
For those who are unclear about what the traditional three acts consist of, here’s the short-form:
Act One, put your protagonist up in a tree.
Act Two, throw stones at your protagonist.
Act Three, get your protagonist out of the tree.
Even if, as in Romeo and Juliet, the way out is death.
A theorist or two may have told you that the three-act structure is dead (likely it came from the above-referenced experts who are collectively twenty-eight cents short of being professional fiction writers). Don’t listen to them. There are sound reasons for why it’s worked for millennia, from folk tales to bible stories to Shakespeare to sitcoms, epic novels and miniseries. Among the more important reasons: it delivers satisfaction.
In TV we refer to the process of laying out our story, of planning the essential scenes, and sorting out the order in which they take place as “breaking its back.” Not an inappropriate description, since it is often, especially on the more complex shows, a painful exercise. And, it can be time-consuming, sometimes taking several days. One of the ways it’s done — a method that helps us maintain that so-necessary overview — is to divide a sheet from a legal pad into three sections — or, as described earlier, in one-hour TV drama, into four, because the commercial breaks every twelve minutes-or-so dictate that we write four acts — though in truth we’re still using the traditional structure, simply adding another curtain-moment. Then, we fill in capsule descriptions of each scene. Often, as stated, we begin with our Act-Outs, or curtain scenes, and any other obligatory parts of the show’s structure.
For action/adventure shows, these act-breaks are usually cliffhangers — moments when things look bad for the protagonist. A setback.
The same is true — in a less melodramatic sense — for the softer, quieter, more relationship-oriented shows. And for comedies, wherein the cliffhanger can/should be funny.
In cop or detective series, the Act-Out is often a shocker, an imminent crime, the discovery of a victim, or the reveal — or contradiction of — a key piece of evidence.
In Murder, She Wrote, where we usually kept the carnage down to a single homicide (we referred to the event itself as the “body-drop”), it mostly provided our Act One break, or at the latest, our mid-show (Act Two) curtain. And, as mentioned earlier, we could pretty well predict that our “penny-drop” would be at the end of our Act Three, or near the top of Four.
It’s an approach that translates well to theatrical pieces, chapter endings for novels, even for childrens’ books, sermons, non-fiction — even to poetry.
And of course, while the divided legal pad format is an effective way to work on shorter-forms, in a novel we’re wrestling with a beast far more complex than a TV episode.
Back to your story structure, once you’ve completed your outline you should be able to see the whole of it with sufficient clarity to have a sense of your pacing, the dramatic and/or comedic highs and lows, the places that need tweaking, juicing-up, including spots where your story might be better-told if you chan
ged the order of some scenes. Further, you should be able to judge how well your characters are fitting in, whether or not you’re keeping them sufficiently “alive,” where they need some help, and how well you’re building to your pivotal story-points.
You’ll also see where you’ll need to add subplots (conflict) that will put all of your characters to work — another of the many good things that happen when you’re writing your outline. And because in this relatively simplified form the holes in your story will be more visible, more readily spotted, they should be easier to plug, whether you fill them by inserting a plot device — or an additional motivation — or by shifting your characters around, by combining one with another. Or — creating a line of conflict between a couple of characters who seem to be “dangling,” not carrying their weight (usually because there is no edge between them).
It’s also where you’ll be making discoveries about your characters, though in my experience, they usually don’t begin seriously “talking to me” till I’m into the actual manuscript. But in the outline you’ll be finding the drama/humor — adding those sparks of humanity — in even the smallest, mechanically-necessary scenes. You may realize that a path you’ve chosen for one of your players can take a detour — wander a little, thus making room for conflicts, attitudes and moments you hadn’t anticipated.
The truth is, building your story in outline form is a difficult part of the process — the primary reason, I suspect, that so many writers resist it — but it’s also a lot of fun. Or it should be. And for me — and my comfort-zone, it beats the hell out of the stress of The Tightrope Act — starting with “Fade In,” “Once upon a time...” or the like, and trusting some sort of karma — or your characters — to guide you the rest of the way. That’s how — unless you’re gifted like the redoubtable Stephen King — one ends up with an unfinished “where does my story go now?” novel, or worse, one that meanders for 1000 pages and is unreadable and unpublishable.
Fiction Writing Demystified Page 15