How To Write Magical Words: A Writer's Companion
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• Moral or social traits. Caleb will give his life to save a child, even one not his own.
All this gives us a lot of BS. (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.)
§§§
David B. Coe
I try to throw in some big trauma periodically as well—a death, a fight, a wound, a shocking plot twist. But—and I know that Faith is with me on this—it can’t be a trauma for the sake of itself. Everything we do as writers has to further our narrative progression and/or our character’s development. There has to be a point. We can’t just throw s*%t at our characters because the action is flagging. It needs to be part of cohesive whole. And this is another of my personal swing tips: Keep the narrative focused.
Swing Tips: Part 3
Faith Hunter
I view every bit of my own writing with an eye to meeting certain, specific goals. I keep those goals close to my heart, like a golfer will keep his swing thoughts in mind with every swing. Without them I screw up.
This essay:
Ruthless Words. Transitions. Five Senses.
1. Ruthless Words: Words are my tool, not my captor. I use them; I don’t get bound by them. That is a hard thing to keep in mind when the words are flowing and the plot is moving along. But what happens when I get lost on a tangent and can’t find my way back to the original plot line? The writing is sooooo good that I can’t toss it and go back to the place where I got off track. I can’t! Wrong. I can, and I must be ruthless.
What happens when a scene just flows off my fingers and onto the file? When it is pure poetry, but isn’t right for the novel I’m writing? That is when I use Ruthless Words. Unless I intend to self-publish (and we have agreed that there are places and people for whom self-publishing is the best method,) I need to keep in mind that a book is a one-size-fits-most product.
I’ll say it in a more unsympathetic way. This manuscript? It ain’t my baby. It doesn’t live, it doesn’t breathe. Not really. If I want to make it in the com-mercial market, I have to start thinking like a business person. A book is a product. It will be rewritten a dozen times according to the specifications of others. I have to be ruthless with my words. I have to be willing to cut and slash and burn when they don’t work.
I have to be willing to change the flow with proper punctuation. Not punctuation the way they taught it in school. (Sorry teachers.) I have to be willing to use the skills taught there and whip them and twist them and break them into what I want, with ruthless abandon. Punctuation becomes (within limits) improper in order to meet a specific goal—the emotional impact of a scene. But I have to be ruthless even there. Too many ellipses . . . ? Cut them. Too many dangling fragments and participles and whatever? Cut them. Be ruthless. Make your prose clean and sharp as a blade. Really good prose cuts like a knife.
2. Transitions: Transitions are the most overlooked part of any book-length manuscript. I must never ignore how my character gets from point A to point B emotionally, mentally, or physically. Showing the journey is the plot process. And it has to be logical!
• Emotionally, I have to take a character from one feeling to another in a logical manner. That seems backward, but it isn’t. Most people in real life (not all, I grant you) move from emotion to emotion for reasons that—if they really want to—they can trace back to a motivational event (or series of them). A good psychologist can take years working through some tangle of emotions to his client’s causative event(s). When they get there, it is a huge breakthrough. We have to be both our characters’ creators and their counselors, making their emotional paths clear to the reader. Unless you are writing a character who has mental or emotional problems, the why (motivations), and the changing whys of their actions, have to be logical.
• Mental transitions are similar except it is easier to allow your character to make mental leaps, especially if the character is created that way in the first place, like the brilliant detective who looks at crime scene evidence in a different way, makes mental leaps, and solves the crime. But even here, it can’t be magic. The character has to see or understand something in a way none of his coworkers do. It is still logical.
• Physically, there have to be ways and means for a character to get from place to place, and his environment has to be logical. David has talked here at Magical Words about horses and their stamina. In one of his worlds horses didn’t get replaced or changed out soon enough. There was a logical disconnect. Misty’s world in Mad Kestrel is always about water. Her boats and ships and methods of transport have to make sense in terms of water. The closed environments of her ships and boats have to be self-contained with everything she needs right there. I’ve had a problem writing a scene that takes place in the deep of the bayou. My character needed to set a bayou on fire. It took a lot of gasoline, so I had to find a way to get the gas where it needed to go. Logic, every-where, in every transition, is a writer’s goal. And yes, even in a fantasy.
3. Five Senses: A writer’s world is—or should be—fully functional in terms of its physicality. Yet the senses are often overlooked in scene setting and, when added in, can bring a scene to life. The way the light and shadows interact, the sounds that a character would hear, the way the air tastes on his tongue, the feel of the place in terms of temperature, humidity, etc. all impact on how a reader perceives the writer’s world. The most overlooked sense is the sense of smell. The scents that are unique to a place, make me know I am there, with that character, experiencing it all. The scents draw readers in, make them one with the story. Like the memory of fresh baked cookies, the aroma warm and cozy on a winter’s day. Or the milky breath of a baby or a puppy. The evergreen scent of a forest on a snowy day. The unwashed-body smell of a street person. You smell it, and it has impact. As writers we have to be aware of all the senses.
§§§
Misty Massey
Faith said, "This manuscript? It ain’t my baby. It doesn’t live, it doesn’t breathe. Not really. If I want to make it in the commercial market, I have to start thinking like a business person."
When Tor first showed interest in Mad Kestrel, the editor wanted a huge rewrite before any offer was made. I could have refused. I could have flounced off in a huff, insisting the book was perfect as it was and Tor didn’t know what it was missing. (And for a second, believe me, I wanted to!) Instead I let myself have a good, hard cry, and got to work. Because the editor’s suggestions made it a much better, more saleable book. Not my baby, not the glorious reflection of my eternal soul, but a product for sale.
Faith Hunter
Misty, I think that after the changes, your book was tougher, harder, darker, with an edgy feel that it had lacked before. It was still your story in every way, but . . . distilled somehow. Clearer and cleaner. That is what a good rewrite can do when a good editor is involved in the process. Also, you proved that you were easy to work with, willing to stretch your talent.
Editors don’t want a writer with an attitude and a superior mind-set. If they want to buy your book, then they want it to sell copies. The want to make you rich and famous, and the best way is to help you create a great book.
Swing Tips: Part 4
Faith Hunter
Immediacy: Immediacy is the way writers create suspense in the micro-scene. Sounds easy. Isn’t. When you say about a book, "I couldn’t put it down," it’s because every scene pulled you into the next and into the next. Immediacy is the result of using power words and details to increase awareness of the conflict and pull the reader forward. The result of getting immediacy right is suspense. It is much like a dance, with words as the steps, and the writer in the lead.
Immediacy is required on every page of a novel, is needed through every scene, to keep the reader grounded in the story. Do I get it right every time? No. But it is my goal.
Immediacy happens when the writer blends the known, and is used a lot by fantasy and urban fantasy writers to create mood and setting. Immediacy is influenced by a few details: the Diet Coke can, the Armani suit, the Dolly Parton wig, the go
lden-oldie Tina Turner song on the radio.
In Skinwalker, I used the device extensively in the first thirty-two pages to draw the reader in. I’ll break down a few paragraphs here to show what I did and why. Jane Yellowrock (vampire killer) is following a bodyguard (she has nick-named Troll) down a hallway to meet his boss. My comments are at the end of each paragraph.
I followed him down a narrow hallway that made two crooked turns toward the back of the house. We walked over old Persian carpets, past oils and watercolors done by famous and not so famous artists. The hallway was well lit with stained-glass Lalique sconces every few feet. They looked real, not like reproductions, but maybe you can fake old; I didn’t know. The walls were newly painted a soft butter color that worked with the light to illuminate the paintings. Classy joint for a whorehouse. The Christian children’s home schoolgirl in me was both appalled and intrigued. (The details are rich and subdued and set the scene. Her reaction is curiosity and detail-oriented and tells us a lot about Jane. The words I worked on the most because they lead into the dance of suspense are: followed, crooked, fake, Classy joint for a whorehouse, and intrigued. They all lead us on, pulling us forward, creating immediacy. The dance image is through the active verbs, and it’s similar to the opening steps of a tango when the lead and his partner take the first steps and one another’s measure.)
When Troll paused outside the red door at the hallway end, I stumbled, catching my foot on a carpet. He caught me with one hand and I pushed off him with very little body contact. I managed to look embarrassed when he shook his head. He knocked. I braced myself and palmed the cross he had missed in his pat-down. And the tiny two-shot derringer. Both hidden against my skull on the crown of my head, and covered by my braids, which men never ever searched, as opposed to my Luchesse’s which men always had to stick their fingers in. It was a partial excuse for the faux stumble and having my hands high. (Stumbled, catching, very little body contact, managed to look embarrassed, braced myself, palmed. The rest of the para is explanation, which is necessary for the next para to work. It does slow down the pacing, but this is the first time we learn about her hidden weapons. The benefit is the reader has to wonder why she needs weapons for a job interview. More forward movement creating conflict. If we use the dance image here, it is like a tango, two characters moving together, yet at cross purposes, to create a story and set a scene.)
He opened the door and stood aside. The room was neat and Spartan, but each of the pieces within looked Spanish. Old Spanish. Like Queen Isabella and Christopher Columbus old. The woman, wearing a teal dress and soft slippers, standing beside the desk, could have passed for twenty until you looked in her eyes. Then she might have passed for said Queen’s older sister. Old, old, old eyes. Peaceful as she stepped toward me. Until she caught my scent. (The details are slow and all of them dance around the re-petitive use of the word old. "Until she caught my scent." Which pulls us into the next para, and is like a quick turn on the dance floor.)
In a single instant her eyes bled red, pupils went wide and black, and her fangs snapped down. She leaped. I dodged her, sliding under her leap as I pulled the cross and ripped the derringer from my scalp, to the far wall where I held out the weapons. The cross was for the vamp, the gun for the Troll. She hissed at me, fangs fully extended. Her claws were bone white and two inches long. Troll pulled a gun. A big gun. Men and their pissing contests. Crap. Why can’t they ever just let me be the only one with a gun. (single instant, bled red, pupils, wide, black, fangs snapped, leaped, dodged, sliding, pulled, ripped. The action active words and punctuation give us speed and intensity. Cross, gun, hissed, fangs, claws, bone, gun, big gun, pissing contests, Crap. These pull us through the action and back into the character’s head all at once. In a dance, where the lead whirls his partner into a turn and back and stops abruptly. The female dancer’s dress has an instant to settle.)
"I’m not human," I said, my voice steady. "That’s what you smell." I couldn’t do anything about the tripping heart rate, which I knew would drive her further over the edge. But I’m an animal. Biological factors always kick in. So much for trying not to be nervous. (not human, tripping heart rate, drive, further, animal, kick in, nervous. All these words are the finish of one dance movement, a micro element in the book that sets the tone, pace, relationships, conflict, and pull the reader forward into the next para and the next. We end at an impasse, the characters ready for the next movement in the dance.)
At the end of every scene I ask myself, did I achieve immediacy? Do the readers want more? Do they want to follow me into the next dance set? Have I left them bent over my arm, stretched to the breaking/falling point, dependant on me to bring them back for more? If not, then I haven’t done my job as a writer.
Swing Tips: Part 5
Faith Hunter
These two are vastly different from the other swing tips. And these two hurt. They are internal, they are part of me. They may not appear inside any of you. But for me they are the most real things in the world. My own personal dragons to slay. The nitty-gritty of what goes on inside me at the worst writing times.
1. No Excuses: This isn’t something that I look for in every scene, but rather something that I look for, watch for, see coming, in every manuscript, and again in every rewrite. It is the time, the one single dark moment, when I want to stop. When that moment hits, it is paralyzing. It steals over me in a heavy cloud. I know that I haven’t reached the goal for that day. I am at that point in the manuscript or rewrites where nothing, but nothing, seems to be going right. Every bit of dialogue is flat, the final scene is a hundred pages away, or the little things in the rewrite are done and now I have to tackle the big things and they look like a mountain of work and I don’t see the end. Not anywhere. I am tired. Drained. Close to the edge. It is just too hard to go on. It is also when the dreaded but nonexistent Writers Block usually appears.
If I didn’t have a contract and a freaking deadline I’d shove it under the bed, close the file, burn the paperwork, and quit. Find something else to write. Something that works. Something fun. Something shiny and new. God, I hate this manuscript, this character, this story. I Just. Want. To. Stop. Yeah. Me. I want to quit. Usually I say, "No play until I do the job." BIC, right? Usually. Well, No Excuses is indeed similar to BIC. But it is more. It is that thing inside a commercial writer that separates him from a happy dilettante.
I don’t have any wise words for you here. I don’t know why some writers push on through and finish a book or a rewrite and why some give up. I don’t know. But for me it is No Excuses. It is when I keep working even when I hate it. It is what drives me back to the keyboard or the hard copy to finish the damn book. No. Freaking. Excuses.
2. No Fear: This, too, isn’t a scene-by-scene tip I watch for. It is internal and amorphous and nebulous. It is pride. It is worry. It is the old pocketbook. It is fear that I may never write again or may never sell another book. It wakes me up in the middle of the night. It brings on depression if I am not careful—and I’ve struggled with depression many times in my life so I can see it coming.
But no one can help me with my fears. They are mine to do with as I please. Mine—to do with as I please. I can fight them, injure them, slay them, treat them with medication. But I must always remember that my fear is owned by me, not the other way around. I can do this! There will be another story. And if I have to start my career over again someday, well, practice makes perfect. I’ve done that before and I can do it again. Because, by God, I am writer.
No Fear.
Lasagna and Info-Dumps
Faith Hunter
Okay, I know you’re saying, What?!? But hey—it’s an analogy (or is that a metaphor?) that I’ve used in seminars for years.
There are similarities between a well-made lasagna and the way a skilled author inserts back-story into current narrative, and similarities with the way an unskilled author and unskilled chef write and cook.
There are back-story rules (rules of thumb, not actu
al laws on paper, with back-story police to enforce them) for every genre. And every genre is different. Can you get away with breaking the rules? Sure. But if you want to wow an agent and editor (and the discerning reader) learning how to make back-story work like a good lasagna is a very smart idea.
Bad lasagna means that the onion is in one corner, the meat is in the other corner, the cheese is in a lump. The tomatoes are sitting between the meat and the cheese, and the spices are spilled into a pile. The noodles… well they get to be stacked on the bottom like lumber and the garlic is all icky and smelly off by itself. Nothing is chopped and spread out. Every bite tastes different, is a new experience and nothing is coherent. Really bad food.
Bad info-dump is where all the info you need is squished together into one big pile and dumped on the reader, stopping the story. It reads (tastes) different from the rest of the story. It stops everything. And the next time you need to tell the reader something, you do the same thing and it tastes different from either of the other tastes.
Are you beginning to see the picture? Back-story needs to be offered in small doses, chopped into tiny bits and scattered into the book. Let’s say you are writing a mystery series and you have told several things in previous books that you need to remind the reader (and explain to new readers) in order for this book to work: