Mistakes I Have Known
As I stood under the water in my shower the other day, where I do some of my best thinking, I thought about some story ideas, a scene in my wip, and writing in general. Suddenly, I realized I used a mental checklist. Whoa. Where did that come from?
Funny thing-everything on this mental checklist came from mistakes I've made.
I thought I'd share them with you.
Mistakes I have made and learned from:
Mistake #1. Starting with too much backstory
The temptation is to do an information dump. Let the reader know all the reasons for my character being so uptight, crazy, conflicted. I want them to understand how awful her upbringing was or how her life was ruined by the death of her child. But you know, we read about these things all the time in the newspaper and yes, we feel bad. We might even shed a tear but we walk away and seldom remember the names of the people involved. Why? Because we have nothing invested personally. So I need to make the reader care about the character. I have to slowly let them know the WHY on a need-to-know basis.
Mistake #2. Starting in the wrong place
Yes, I must start at a dramatic place, a place of change, usually when the direction of the characters is about to change drastically, but I have to be careful it's at the right change. For instance, would I start a story at the loss of a baby, at a point when the heroine appears insane, or when a marriage breaks up? I suppose the answer is 'it all depends.' But one of the things I contemplated in the shower that day was if I'm writing romance, which I am, the story begins when the heroine and hero meet or at the point where they are about to meet. Not in the dramatic events that changed the direction of the heroine's life before she encountered the hero. Another thing I have to remember is most of the stories I write occur in a short period of time and in a limited number of pages. Some of these angst-driven problems have to be far enough removed that the character is adjusted or dealing with them even if they might be issues that hamper the development of the romance. That becomes internal conflict whereas dealing with in-your-face issues can take too long, can make it impossible for any of us to believe the characters are ready for romance.
Mistake #3. Having fuzzy characters
We all know we don't want flat, cardboard characters. The challenge is how to create complex characters. The temptation is to just keep adding more stuff—more tragedy, more problems—instead of digging deep into the complexities of human nature. David Freeman talks about creating character diamond. He calls it a blueprint to know how a character will act and speak and suggests 3-5 characteristics. I like what he says and it helped me enormously but apologies to David Freeman, the whole character diamond took on a new dimension when I took an on-line class with Connie Flynn. She talks about the diamond having 4 specific points. The Primary characteristic, which defines the character—the trait that guides her behavior. The Supporting Trait which supports but also adds a degree of contrast without conflicting with the primary trait. The Fatal Flaw which is a positive trait carried to extremes and the thing that will be defeated by the character growth. And the Shadow—the secret longing your character refuses to admit or is unaware of. For a complete article on Connie's character diamond see http://www.connieflynn.com/character.htm
With these tools in hand and with concerted effort at digging into my character rather than piling on stuff to create interest, I hope I no longer have fuzzy characters.
Mistake #4. No plot structure.
The longer I write and the more stories I create, the more I realize I must have a firm plot structure at some point. Some models work better for one story than another. But my personal conviction is popular fiction always has a structure. I recently sold a novel on a very rough synopsis. Obviously I wasn't the only one who thought there was a story in that synopsis. Trouble was, I had a story but no structure. And when I tried to write it, I went in circles. I had to stop, go back to the synopsis and create a structure before the story would come together. Which is not to say there aren't other ways of writing. You might find it before you write, after you write or you might never know you've found it but in my tiny opinion, structure is there. Call it the hero's journey, the three-act structure, the W of plotting, call it whatever you want, there is a structure. For me, it saves a lot of rewriting if I have at least a vague idea of the structure before I start. Whether you plot before, after or instinctively, I think one of the things each story requires is structure.
Mistake #5. Outside instead of inside POV
This is deep pov. One of those things that makes sense to me when I'm talking about it, but I often can't find it when I'm writing. I see the character, know what he's doing, what he's feeling, but I tell it from outside. Ex. Steele leaned back, laughing at this familiar routine. I need to take it inside him, be him, see through his eyes, feel through his skin, think his thoughts. He laughed. The old man was slowing down. A full thirty seconds into the conversation before Pops got on his case .
Mistake #6. Missing a beat
If someone had suggested a few years ago that there were mechanical tools for writing fiction, I think I would have been doubtful, but more and more I see it's true. One of the most useful mechanical tools is what Dwight Swain has called the Motivational-Reaction unit or MRU for short. The motivation is what happens to the character; the reaction is how she reacts. Sounds simple but he has broken it down even further. The motivation is external and objective—does NOT contain the pov character. As in the shoe fell, the policeman blew his whistle, the hero stroked her arm. The reaction is internal and subjective. According to Swain it is:
Others have described the reaction as:
- feeling
- reflex action, (Observable)
- rational action, (conscious thought which leads to decision)
- speech
For me this is what works for a MRU:
M: The character hears, sees, touches something outside himself
R: the character:
- feels something (the gut reaction)
- Does something (reflex action)
- Thinks something
- which leads to deliberate action and decision
- Says something.
This all leads into the next MRU.
Not all of the reaction steps must be included but as least one must and they ALWAYS occur in this precise order.
Again for more in-depth on this topic refer to Techniques of the Selling Writer by Dwight Swain or this web-site. http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/perfect_scene.html
Mistake #7. Muddled scenes
This has to do with scene and sequel—another of those mechanical tools. Scene and sequel are two types of scenes. One follows the other. A scene must have goal, conflict, and disaster (or change that makes things worse). Each scene must have a goal—not a goal for you as the writer (I want to show how kind the heroine is) but one for the pov character (I must persuade him to move his car). Otherwise why does this scene matter? Where's the tension? This is followed by a sequel—the reaction—which is emotional reaction , dilemma (quandary—what do I do now?), and decision which becomes the goal for the next scene. It's that easy. And that hard. When I apply it to my work, it immediately gains a sense of growth and development.
Okay, you ask how does this apply to MRU? I'm glad you asked because I had to figure it out too. MRU is used for both. It's the basic unit of writing.
Again consult Dwight Swain or the above web article.
Mistake #8. Giving too many stage directions
I find I see the characters move from point A to point B and somehow or other feel I need to tell the reader the whole business. I'm not sure if I think it's showing rather than telling which has been drilled into us. But really, how necessary is it to describe every walk across the room, every reach for the telephone, every opening of the door? Just say he answered the phone. Or he opened the door. We know he got from his chair to the door by getting up and walking across the floor. Now if the floor is like an Indiana Jones walk in a cave...then I better not skip one tension filled detail.
Mistake #9. Giving too much, too little or not specific enough details
Too little detail and the reader can't experience the story, too much and I bog it down with boredom. What I need is specific details that make my reader experience the story. As Judith Enderle said in an article in Writing For Children magazine, 'Writing is thought made visible.' Brenda Ueland says to "write microscopically... the more you wish to describe a universal idea the more minutely and truthfully you must describe a particular." There is one such detail in Under the Tuscan Sun, where the heroine sits at a bistro table contemplating a wine bottle, closing first one eye and then the other causing the scene to shift from left to right. And while she'd doing this, she'd writing to her friend how full her life is. That's a particular detail that conveys a universal idea of boredom.
Mistake #10. Too much coffee/tea drinking, staring out the window
Yes there are places where I have my characters sit and consider the sequel. These are necessary. Or are they? Can I have them do something as they think? But inaction is not the worst problem I can create by having the characters drink coffee. It creates a temptation for the characters to TELL about their lives instead of living them in real time. Really, how much fun (I use the word loosely) would Fear Factor be if the contestants came back, gathered around a table and discussed what happened? As much as possible, I need to use events—real action in real space, real time, real consequences.
I know I've made lots more mistakes and will continue to make the same ones over as I discover new ones but by consciously, purposefully thinking about things to avoid, I hope I spend more time learning from new mistakes than repeating old ones. Now I have to get up from my chair, stand on my legs, cross the room and go to the coffee machine where I am going to pour myself a cup of rich, hot coffee. Bet you wanted to know that. No? So I'll just say good luck with learning YOUR personal mistakes and I'm off to get a coffee.
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