I’m on a 4 day streak, after messing up a 36 day streak of writing daily on 750words.com. Sigh. Why did I mess up? Too many family issues going on.

If you’re writing 750 words daily, too, part of the goal is to learn to think like a writer. Character relationships are important to establish, but the relationships must be natural. In order for that to happen, you must not put too much on top of the text. In other words, you must have subtext.

Subtext is the real topic of discussion, whatever is going on in the relationship.
For example, a couple might be making apple pie together, peeling apples, mixing up and rolling out pie crust, popping it in the oven. Their dialogue might be:

This green apple is sour.
That’s why I got half green, half red.
It’s too sour.
Then add sugar?
Yes. Sometimes you need to sweeten things up a bit.

Straightforward, talking about apple pie. But the subtext could vary. Maybe they had a fight that morning and when one says “sour” they really are talking about the fight. When the other offers to add sugar, maybe it’s a subtle apology.

This green apple is sour. She hesitated, waiting for him to speak.
That’s why I got half green, half red.
It’s too sour.
He took the knife from her hand and turned her around.
Then add sugar? He bent to kiss her.
Afterward, she said, Yes. Sometimes you need to sweeten things up a bit.

The text is still talking about making apple pie, but the subtext is the couple making up after a fight.

What if it is two brothers?

His mouth puckered: This apple is sour.
Tight lipped, his brother said, That’s why I got half green, half red.
He shook his head and dropped the apple in the trash: It’s too sour.
His brother pulled it out again and slammed it onto the counter and glared.
Quickly now, hoping to avert the anger, he stuttered, Th-th-then add sugar?
Yes. His brother’s eyes gleamed red and he rolled up his sleeves and flexed his fist. Sometimes you need to sweeten things up a bit.

You get the idea. It’s not the dialogue, per se, that carries the weight of a relationship. Sometimes, it’s the subtext. Often that is in the dialogue itself, but often it is in the beats or actions, thoughts and emotions responding to the dialogue. Think like a writer: what is really going on in a relationship?

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by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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The Think Like a Writer series continues here with an exhortation to continue thinking in sensory details, the basic exercise of any writer. Today, think about how a person moves as a way to characterize him or her.

Action and Metaphors of Action

She is as lithe as a jaguar.

That simile evokes a certain type of grace and perhaps, stealth, in the movement of a woman. Today, watch everyone around you and record their movement in words. Use strong action verbs. Not walk. Instead, think about stumble, stagger, dance, pirouette, stroll, amble, etc.

And, hardest for me, is to think in terms of metaphors of some type. But metaphors can be some of the most evocative of descriptions.

Here are a couple videos to watch. How would you describe this beginning waltzer?

If you can’t see the video, click here. *|YouTube:l1wPywALl5U|*

Contrast that with these 8-year-old dancers in a competition. You can describe the overall FEEL of the dancer, or take a ten second section and try to describe IN DETAIL exactly how he moves.

If you can’t see the video, click here. *|YouTube:uUPSQYmZqZs|*

Contrast the above with these Tango Soloist.

If you can’t see the video, click here. *|YouTube:C8WkA1ja2-w|*

After writing about each video, read your work over. What does the DESCRIPTION say about your character? How does it make this person come to life in a way that could not be done with interior thought?

750words.com Features

If you are using 750words.com, you can see interesting stats about your writing. At the end of the day’s writing, click the green word count at the bottom and look around the stats about what you just wrote. Pay particular attention to whether you are using lots of visual, auditory or tactile senses. Try to vary your writing to include as many senses as possible.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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You Can Tell a Lot About a Person by His/Her Nose

Yes, noses.

Writers of novels, short stories, picture books or other fiction must keep firmly in mind that the character rules.
You must be able to characterize quickly, whether your characters are wooden men or birds or airmen or teenage boys.

One thing I’ve noticed about people is that every single nose looks different. Shape, color, length, width, state of health–a nose is right in the middle of the face and well, you notice a nose.

Today, make a list of nose descriptions. Think like a writer and describe them with actions (twitching, turned up, etc.) and with the sensory details like I described on Day 1. Well. You probably don’t want to use a taste sense here. That’s OK. I bet you can tell the age of a person just from a description of his/her nose. Don’t give the age, just ask someone how old each nose is. What else can a nose tell you about a person? Their station in life, their income? Who knows (pun intended)?

If you run out of descriptions, flip through pictures and describe each person’s nose. Search Google Images for “famous noses.” Describe each one and see if friends can guess.

In fact, if you particularly like one of your descriptions, post it here and we’ll try to guess who it is!

Think Like a Writer and Nose Out a Character Today! Remember, I’m using 750words.org to keep track of how many days I’ve written, but you can do it on paper or on your computer.

Here are some images to get you started:

Please post a Nose Description below and let us guess who it is!

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Character Emotions MUST Spill Out into Big Actions

Characters, even supporting characters, should be bigger than life. No flat characters. Fiction demands round, “fleshed-out” characters. I’m working on a revision and I know this. Yet, when a friend read my revision, her response was that I needed big actions for my characters.

In the revision, I had noticed that the supporting character (Father) didn’t have much reaction to the main character (Laurel). I revised, adding in actions. But the actions were small: fist clenched, raising eyebrow, turning away.

Nothing wrong with those actions if Matt Damon was doing them on the big screen. There, the small actions would mean more. But think of him as Bourne and you’ll remember the BIG actions.

Revise for Emotions that Spill Out into Action

Revised: now, Father picks up a blanket and shakes it, snapping it up and down. He throws it onto a bed and when it falls off, he wads it up and throws it at the wall. It’s not the huge actions of an action-thriller, but in the context of the current scene, these are big actions. (Make sure you keep everything relative and in context!)

Even supporting characters need big actions. So, why didn’t I use them before? I think it’s because I’m a very restrained person myself. I keep a tight rein on emotions, not letting them spill out into big actions. That means for my characters, I need to push them to build emotions so strong that they MUST spill over into big actions.

And yes, the revision is much stronger. My early readers report that the Father is starting to come alive. Hello, Dad!

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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OK, so I have this revision to do and one key element of it is to deepen characterization and relationships. Uh, oh. My weakness! How did the editor know that it was my weak area? Even after spending agonizing hours on characterization, I’m still not hitting the mark.

Which left me stumped on this revision. I’m not blocked. Just don’t know what to do next.

Here’s my analogy. In China, we passed by open doorways that led to teensy courtyards from which four houses (or more) might front onto. We could look through the doorways, but the glimpse was brief, you didn’t get much detail.

That’s how I tend to write characters, from the outside looking in. But this week, I’ve been rephrasing the question.
NOT: How can I deepen this character?
INSTEAD: What is the relationship in this scene? How do these characters affect each other? What is each character fighting for in this scene?

The answers can NOT change the plot, the actual actions of what is going on. I’m actually happy with the plot. Instead, I’m looking at the inner person, the relationship which is revealed by the plot events.

Asking about relationship seems easier to me than asking about how to characterize. It’s interactive, as one character does something, the other must respond. If I can find a central thing around which I can center conflict and reveal character with that, it will work.

In the current scene, the characters are discussing going somewhere and they both agree that they need to do that. Well, there is conflict in the plot, because it’s a daring thing they do. In the revision, though, I’m having Character A hesitate, wondering if she should consult her father or someone other adult before going. Meanwhile, Character B is impulsive and confident. “A” generally has a superior attitude to B, so she can’t let him get the upper hand by being so bold. And thus the relationship develops. Who will bluff the other into action? Who will compromise their ideals to prove to the other they are tough?

It’s like zooming into that Chinese courtyard to see the small details. Suddenly, the relationship has revealed details of the character and we see clearly.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

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Working on a novel revision, I realize that I need to refocus the relationship between two characters. The question is where to start.

Grand Entrance for Your Character

I once heard the late Sid Fleischman talk about the importance of giving a character a Grand Entrance. Think about a stage play, where a character sweeps onto stage commanding the attention of the audience. It’s a first look at the character and sets the tone for everything that follows.

Characters out of focus? Start revising with the Grand Entrance Scene.

Actions. First, I’ll look at the action verbs. A story is almost always contained in the verbs. Too many “to be” verbs (is, are, has, had, am, etc.) and the story is flat, uninteresting. Action verbs characterize and I want to sharpen the characterizations while setting up the relationship differently. It’s not that the ACTION — what the character DO — will change much. But the meaning of the actions will take on a different tone.

Sensory Details. Likewise, the choice of sensory details will be crucial: visual, auditory, tactile, gustatory (taste) and olfactory (smell). For example, if you want to talk about a romantic relationship, you might describe a guy with these details: musky smell, soft curly hair, rough baritone voice, brush of his lips and –well, let’s forget the taste one for now.

On the other hand, a more platonic relationship might be sweaty smell, greasy hair, clear voice, firm handshake and –well, taste just doesn’t work here, either.

I’ll be looking at the actual choice of words carefully. I don’t expect that the scene’s actions will change much, but the reader should get a very different feel for the character relationship.

Tone

Of course, all of this relates to a slightly different tone set up in the relationship. Tone is that underlying attitude that characters have toward something that comes out in the language choices of the writer. I don’t want romance here, but an honest, growing friendship. I’ll use action verbs and sensory details to change that tone in this scene of Grand Entrance. If I can nail it here, it should act as a touchstone as I revise the rest of the novel.

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Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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Setting: “Where am I? And why should I care?”

Where are we? Lake Michigan, January 1 for the Polar Bear Plunge

The Importance of Sensory Details

Almost everything you’ll need to know about setting and description can be encapsulated in a single exercise about using sensory details. Let’s go over the exercise first, then see how it applies.

Before you start to write a scene, it’s helpful to stop and think about the sensory details of the situation. That is, what would your character see, hear, smell, taste or feel? Using the senses is self-explanatory, except the feeling sense, where you want to emphasize temperature and texture, or the kinesthetics of how it feels for this character to move in space.

I like to stop, close my eyes and imagine that I’m the character – a young girl, and that I’m at the opening of a cave about to go in.

• See: Moss clinging to the rock overhead, water oozing/trickling over rock, a slow dimming of light until it’s just darkness in the distance
• Hear: water dripping, heart thumping with fear
• Taste: damp air, musty air
• Smell: musty air, onion-stink of sweat
• Touch: slippery rock, uneven path, sweaty palms, a cool breeze from the cave, rocking back and forth from heel to toe

Once I have the details firmly in mind, I start to write:

I hesitated, my heart thumping, at the boundary between light and dark. From the overhead clumps of moss, cold drops plopped into my hair, a water clock ticking away the precious seconds. The musty smell, was it from bats? Or was there something more sinister in this cave?

I don’t worry about using all the sensory details I wrote down in the exercise, and I rearrange them or add to them as I write. What I’ve accomplished, though, in 46 words is to tell the reader where we are: at a cave opening, in a fearful place, under a time constraint, at a crossing point and maybe a point of no return.

Sensory details are the basis of active fiction that puts the reader directly into a story. David Morrell, author of the book about Rambo entitled, First Blood, and over 30 other thrillers, says he tries to anchor every scene with details from at least three different senses. This grounds the fiction in our common experience as humans: it is through our senses that we encounter and understand our world.

You can easily evaluate how well you’re doing on using a variety of senses. Assign a color to each of the senses, then use markers to highlight the sensory details you used in a section of your story. Often, writers tend to use one sense more than the others. If you’re a visual learner, you may include great visual details, but few auditory details. If you’re an auditory learner, you may emphasize sounds to the exclusion of visual details. Everyone struggles with smell and taste. It partly depends on the setting of your story whether there are any appropriate smells or tastes. Certainly, a Christmas banquet would allow for a deeper exploration of these senses. But even in our cave setting there were some smells and tastes. Push to find these, because they’ll add richness and evoke strong memories in your readers. Think of the smell of cinnamon at Christmas.

Everyone should add more touch details, it’s a neglected sense. Kinesthetic details are usually translated into strong verbs, for example: She swung her arms in a wide circle.

Your characters are moving around, doing things, reacting to things and you should search for strong verbs to express this action. In the cave paragraph, what if I reworded the opening a bit?

My toe caught a rock and I stumbled, catching myself against the slimy wall. My heart thumped. I was at the boundary of light and dark.

A final tip in using this exercise is to be as specific as possible.

• Poor visual detail: a dog
• Better visual detail: a pit bull

Once you have a specific noun, then you can add modifiers – and not before.

• Poor use of modifiers: a scary dog
• Better use of modifiers: a scarred pit bull that limped

It works for verbs, too. Choose specific, precise verbs.
<

li>Poor verb choice: Water fell onto my head.
• Better verb choice: Water plopped onto my head.

Once the verb is specific, then you can add modifiers – and not before.

• Poor use of adverbs: Water fell quickly onto my head.
• Better use of adverbs: Water plopped rhythmically onto my head.

SENSORY DETAILS CHANGE WHEN THE SETTING CHANGES

The sensory detail exercise is flexible and allows a writer to quickly orient readers to a variety of settings.

1. Specific Location
   A friend was writing a story about a school in Barrow, Alaska. The school itself wasn’t a problem, the story put me inside a school building. But that school could have been picked up and set down in Hawaii or Arkansas. When she rewrote the story, a student looked out the window toward the sea. She wrote something like this:

   Jagged stalagtites of ice hugged the shoreline, marking where the ice floes slammed against the shore.

2. strong>Time of Day
   Often, a story starts and we have no idea of the time of day, or even the season of the year. Another friend was writing a story about an estranged couple. For various reasons, it was important that the story was set in December. Yet, there were no Christmas decorations, no Christmas music playing at the stores they entered, no discussion of holiday celebrations or parties. In short, it could have been any time of year. When he added in the Christmas details, the story became more poignant as this usually happy time of year counter-pointed the breakup of the marriage.
3. Historical time period.
   What if you wanted to immediately tell show-don’t-tell that we are in Medieval France, about to enter a cave? The actions can be almost the same, but it’s the selection of details that will change. In addition to the details above, I might add these.
   • See: homespun robes, torch made from rags soaked in pitch
   • Hear: melodic voices with French accent or occasional French word, hiss of torch
   • Taste: rough country food
   • Smell: (can’t think of anything different for smell)
   • Touch: the flap of rough homespun fabric on her knees

   Very little has changed here, except the homespun robe, torch and occasional French words. But the reader needs to know immediately that we’re in Medieval France, not in contemporary America.

   I hesitated, my heart thumping, at the boundary between light and dark. Fumbling with my pouch, I pulled out my flint and struck a spark. Would it light? Oui, just so. The torch sputtered, then flared. From overhead, cold water plopped into my hair, reminding me of my hours in the dungeons under Bordeax castle. The pungent torch hissed, an insistent whisper: time was running out. The musty smell, was it from bats? Or was there something more sinister in this cave?

   The language needs more work to give it a French flavor, but you can see how the torch and the brief hint of a castle and a dungeon adds orientation. Notice that the homespun robe didn’t get in there and that’s fine. The exercise of listing sensory details is meant to jumpstart ideas and to give you choices; it’s not a taskmaster.

4. Phase of the relationship
   If your opening involves dialogue or characters meeting, one orientation for the reader is a hint of the relationship.

   Let’s give our cave visitor a friend:

   I hesitated, my heart thumping, at the boundary between light and dark. Luc fumbling with his pouch, pulling out a flint. His eyebrows lifted in a familiar gesture. I nodded and he struck a spark. My tar-soaked torch flamed brightly. From the overhead, cold water plopped into my hair, reminding me of my hours in the dungeons under Bordeax castle. The pungent torch hissed, an insistent whisper: time was running out. Luc slipped his hand in mind and squeezed. The rough callouses, his strength–they reassured me. Together, we took a step toward the dark. The musty smell, was it from bats? Or was there something more sinister in this cave?

   Luc is familiar, he takes her hand easily and it reassures her.

5. Emotional setting, or mood
   Finally, you can completely change the mood of a piece by the selection of sensory details.

   I hesitated, my heart thumping, at the boundary between light and dark. Luc struck a spark and my tar-soaked torch flamed, casting a merry yellow circle. From the glossy moss overhead, cool water trickled into my hair, refreshing after the day’s heat. The pungent torch sizzled, a reminder of the castle feast to come this evening. Luc slipped his hand in mind and squeezed. The rough callouses, his strength–they enticed me. I tugged him, almost skipping forward in anticipation.

   The mood now is one of anticipation, not dread. Notice the different details: the torch flames instead of sputters; the glossy moss, instead of overhead clumps of moss; and so on.

   You can change the mood entirely by your choice of sensory details. Notice, too, that these changes are often reflected in the verb choices: cool water trickled instead of cold water plopped; the torch sizzled instead of the torch hissed; and so on.

Purple Prose: Don’t Overdo Your Details

Can you go to far with this idea? Of course. The famous example is Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s opening sentence from Paul Clifford, written in 1830.

It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents, except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the house-tops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.

It accomplishes the purpose. We know that it’s night, it’s stormy, that we’re in London, the lamps suggest a previous historical time period. However, most agree that this is overwritten. In practice, I find that few writers give enough detail and should push toward more. But if you get to this level, you may want to back off a bit.

When you open a story, you must answer the question, “Why should I care?” within the first couple hundred words. But don’t forget to orient the reader, too. “Where am I?” can easily be developed by the right choice of sensory details. Don’t forget to re-orient the reader when a setting changes or at the opening of every chapter.

OPENINGS TO STUDY:

Read each famous opening below (100 Best Lines from Novels http://www.darcypattison.com/revision/opening-lines/ ) and think about the questions, “Where am I?” and “Why should I care?” Does the author accomplish one or both in this opening sentence? Are sensory details used or not?

In the examples above, I used a variety of sensory details to make a point. Here, it’s clear that often it’s the choice of a single sensory detail, a single word that makes the difference.

1. It was just noon that Sunday morning when the sheriff reached the jail with Lucas Beauchamp though the whole town (the whole county too for that matter) had known since the night before that Lucas had killed a white man. William Faulkner, Intruder in the Dust, 1948
2. It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, 1963.
3. The Miss Lonelyhearts of the New York Post-Dispatch (Are you in trouble?—Do-you-need-advice?—Write-to-Miss-Lonelyhearts-and-she-will-help-you) sat at his desk and stared at a piece of white cardboard. Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts, 1933.
4. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. James Joyce, Ulysses, 1922.
5. One summer afternoon Mrs. Oedipa Maas came home from a Tupperware party whose hostess had put perhaps too much kirsch in the fondue to find that she, Oedipa, had been named executor, or she supposed executrix, of the estate of one Pierce Inverarity, a California real estate mogul who had once lost two million dollars in his spare time but still had assets numerous and tangled enough to make the job of sorting it all out more than honorary. Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49, 1966.
6. —Money . . . in a voice that rustled. William Gaddis, J R, 1975.
7. The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel. William Gibson, Neuromancer, 1984.
8. The cold passed reluctantly from the earth, and the retiring fogs revealed an army stretched out on the hills, resting. Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage, 1895.
9. Psychics can see the color of time, it’s blue. Ronald Sukenick, Blown Away, 1986.
10. He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull. Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, 1900.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

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In my WIP, I’m looking for mini-conflicts among characters. I want to keep the tension high throughout. Donald Maass, agent and author of Write the Breakout Novel, says, “Tension on every page.”

Ongoing Conflicts. These mini-conflicts are the stuff of everyday life:

• The ongoing battle between teacher/student over chewing gum.
• The ongoing battle between brother/sister over hanging up towels in the bathroom.
• The irritation of being the only one in the household to notice that the trash needs to be taken out.

You should give these conflicts only a tiny fraction of space, but they will repay you in big ways as they make the character, setting and plot more concrete and realistic.

Scene beats. Mini-conflicts might just be the tiny beats of a scene. It’s the small actions, dialogue, reactions, movements that are required for a character to physically move in space and interact with other people and his/her environment. You can build in min-conflicts in something as simple as making a cup of coffee. The tap water is too hot/cold; the coffee grounds spill; all the coffee cups are dirty; the sugar bowl is empty and the creamer is sour.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Character’s Job Affects Your Novel

When you think about a character’s profession or job, what are you looking for?

Stand out. Usually, you want something that will stand out. Maybe taxidermist, taxi driver, armored car driver. The ch

Implications of the Job. Think carefully about the implications of the job. This might be considering the tools they use, the hours they work, the type of people they will work with and will serve. All these things are grist for the mill of your story. You’ll have to SHOW-Don’t-Tell the character at work, so you’ll need all these details. How will it work into the story? For example, a butcher deals with knives and housewives; are either of those important in your story?

Roles and Hobbies. Even children/students need an interesting job or role in life. This can come from their passion for studies, their family situation, or their hobbies. Maybe your character is just ten years old, but is already on the way to being a champion at tying fishing flies. Or, maybe they like photographing birds and can identify anything that flies by at a glance.

Plot. Think about when and where your stories events could happen because of this particular job. The list will be short: will those places/events work for your story?

Theme. Finally, think about the theme of your story, what is the underlying moral pinnings of your story? Are you telling a story of healing? Then look for medical jobs. Are you telling a story of revenge? Jobs that require some heavy physical activity would lead to a story of violence.

Of course, in all these things, you can go for the total opposite: a story of healing takes place in a jail (Character’s job: inmate). A story of violence happens in a nunnery.

Think carefully about the jobs/roles you assign to each character because it has implications for the whole story.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Celebrate Milestones of Writing

This week, I finally have 1574 words done, a solid draft of Chapter 1. I’m celebrating. It’s been a struggle to get this one started. And I have a plan for what comes next, even better.

Do you celebrate small steps along the way of writing and publishing your work? What’s your favorite way to celebrate? What milestones do you celebrate?

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Random Acts of Publicity Begins Next Tuesday

Next week is the Random Acts of Publicity week. Join us at the Facebook Event page. Invite some friends to join us.

I have posts ready on word-of-mouth, reviews, links and social media.

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Character Links

Seems like everyone is talking about characterization lately. Here are some links from around the blogosphere:

• Characterization Exercise: No Two Characters Are Created Equal
• Characterization Exercise: Make a Wish
• The Dreaded Mary Sue (the perfect in every way character)
• Janni Talking to her Characters
• Poor Ole Secondary Characters

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Wisdom, the Midway Albatross

by Darcy Pattison

Giveaway ends March 11, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win