short story question
Sarah Monette
the tiger by the tail and post. As a starting point, I've got a brick
wall I've been beating my head against for several weeks.
I'm by nature a novelist, but I've managed this year to write five
short stories (it's been a weird summer). Four of these stories work,
both for me and for my test reader. One of them doesn't, and I can't
for the life of me figure out why. (By "work" here, I mean that the
sum of the story ends up being more than the total of its parts.)
This nonfunctional story has a beginning, middle, and end;
characterization and prose are, I think, par for the course in my
writing, and there are some bits of the dialogue I'm actually quite
fond of. But it doesn't seem to *do* anything. "Theme" is a horribly
loaded word, and I hesitate to use it, but the story is certainly
lacking *something*.
There must be something I can do in this situation, other than (a)
scrapping the story or (b) sitting on it for years in hopes of a bolt
of inspiration. Any suggestions for option (c)?
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Patricia C. Wrede
Monette) writes:
>Any suggestions for option (c)?
Not without a lot more information and/or a more specific question.
That particular problem is exceedingly difficult to diagnose correctly
in the absence of the actual work, and practically impossible to
suggest any general solutions for. There are just too many things
that could be lacking.
Patricia C. Wrede
Mare Kuntz
wrote:
>This nonfunctional story has a beginning, middle, and end;
>characterization and prose are, I think, par for the course in my
>writing, and there are some bits of the dialogue I'm actually quite
>fond of. But it doesn't seem to *do* anything. "Theme" is a horribly
>loaded word, and I hesitate to use it, but the story is certainly
>lacking *something*.
Try asking yourself or your test reader "What is the point/moral of
this story?" "Is it worth caring about?" This may not help, but it
can't hurt.
-Mare
Sarah Monette
wrote:
>Not without a lot more information and/or a more specific question.
>That particular problem is exceedingly difficult to diagnose correctly
>in the absence of the actual work, and practically impossible to
>suggest any general solutions for. There are just too many things
>that could be lacking.
Let me take another pass at what I meant, since I clearly only grazed
it this time.
I've discovered the hard way that one of the things that kill a story
stone-dead for me is asking other people to solve its problems, so I'm
deliberately not talking more specifically about the story itself.
Part of my question really was:, does anyone have strategies for what
to do with a story when you (generalized you) know *something*'s wrong
but you can't put your finger on what?
The other part was more a question about working with theme. You've
said, a thread or two back, that theme is not something you think
about when writing. I don't either, and I wouldn't want to. *But*
when I look at a finished short story, if it's come out right, I can
say things like, "Well, that's clearly about the blindness of
obsession," or "That's about brothers and honor," or even, "I'm not
quite sure what that's about, but it's about *something*." Here I've
got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it about?" with anything
more than, "Well, there were these two guys, see, and they had to go
find this other guy . . ." It's failed to pick up any larger
resonances on its way from my sub/unconscious through my conscious
mind and out to the word processor. So what I've been casting about
for is a way to figure out what part of the story ought to resonate
when struck.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Mary K. Kuhner
>Any suggestions for option (c)?
[how to fix a finished but pointless story]
One that might work for me would be to tell the story to someone--
not read it, but retell it oral-storytelling style. This could help
in two ways:
(1) The other person might possibly catch what's missing;
(2) More likely, you might find yourself itching to change
something or add or delete something. I find the process
of translating the story to this format sometimes makes its
deficiencies a lot more obvious.
If you don't like (1) (say, your stories don't survive being
meddled with by someone else) you can do your oral storytelling
to a cat or a teddy bear or an imaginary audience. I would
do it out loud, though. It's easy to skate over things if you
don't have to speak them.
Mary Kuhner mkku...@eskimo.com
Kevin Russell
>
> I'm by nature a novelist, but I've managed this year to write five
> short stories (it's been a weird summer). Four of these stories work,
> both for me and for my test reader. One of them doesn't, and I can't
> for the life of me figure out why. (By "work" here, I mean that the
> sum of the story ends up being more than the total of its parts.)
>
> characterization and prose are, I think, par for the course in my
> writing, and there are some bits of the dialogue I'm actually quite
> fond of. But it doesn't seem to *do* anything. "Theme" is a horribly
> loaded word, and I hesitate to use it, but the story is certainly
> lacking *something*.
>
> scrapping the story or (b) sitting on it for years in hopes of a bolt
Don't underestimate the advantages of (a) and (b). I can only think of
two good reasons for banging your head over the one story that's not
working. 1) For some reason (unrelated to procrastination), you love
this particular story more than the other stories still rattling around
your skull begging to be written. Or, 2) You feel you need some
technical practice in honing your craft and, for some reason (unrelated
to procrastination), you think you'd get more of it reworking this
story than in starting new ones.
If neither of these is true, I'd forget the story for now. Start
mailing out the other four stories and move on. Eighty percent is a
damn fine average.
Just one perspective...
-- kevin
Randy Money
I agree with Kevin. A) and b) are legit options. Sometimes, years
later, something will pop into mind that completes the offending story
-- some detail, some subplot, some narrative strategy or prose motif.
Good luck with the story.
Randy Money
Anna Feruglio Dal Dan
> Here I've
> got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it about?" with anything
> more than, "Well, there were these two guys, see, and they had to go
> find this other guy . . ." It's failed to pick up any larger
> resonances on its way from my sub/unconscious through my conscious
> mind and out to the word processor.
Probably a stupid suggestion, but what about the old-fashioned word
association? Pick key words from the story and free-associate. Then see
if something comes up. Works with my dreams usually. :-)
--
Cut out the attention signal in my address to mail me
Togliete l'avvertimento nel mio indirizzo per scrivermi
Helen Kenyon
<se...@po.cwru.edu> writes
>
>Part of my question really was:, does anyone have strategies for what
>to do with a story when you (generalized you) know *something*'s wrong
>but you can't put your finger on what?
>
bit of distance between yourself and the story. This generally means
putting it aside and doing something completely different for a while.
>The other part was more a question about working with theme. You've
>said, a thread or two back, that theme is not something you think
>about when writing. I don't either, and I wouldn't want to. *But*
>when I look at a finished short story, if it's come out right, I can
>say things like, "Well, that's clearly about the blindness of
>obsession," or "That's about brothers and honor," or even, "I'm not
>quite sure what that's about, but it's about *something*." Here I've
>got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it about?" with anything
>more than, "Well, there were these two guys, see, and they had to go
>find this other guy . . ." It's failed to pick up any larger
>resonances on its way from my sub/unconscious through my conscious
>mind and out to the word processor. So what I've been casting about
>for is a way to figure out what part of the story ought to resonate
>when struck.
>
Just a thought, but you said you felt you were primarily a novelist.
Perhaps this wasn't really a story at all, but a subplot. I often get
bits of story which are not stories in their own right, but need to be
part of something larger. The only thing to do with them (in my case)
is leave them to sit until the rest of their novel turns up.
If you really think it *is* a short story, but that you just haven't
done it right yet, then the perhaps it's suffering from the "string of
interesting incidents" syndrome. I always used to say that I didn't
know what differentiated a "story" from a "string of incidents", but I
knew a story when I saw one. More recently, I've come to the conclusion
that a crucial ingredient is change. What changes in your story?
Helen
(I'd say more, but I'm posting this hastily because it's very windy and
the lights keep flickering and I'm worried the power is about to go on
me...)
--
Helen, Gwynedd, Wales *** http://www.baradel.demon.co.uk
Or try http://blaenau.members.beeb.net and follow the town trail
to see Blaenau Ffestiniog in glorious sunshine.
**Please delete the extra bit from e-mail address if replying by mail**
Brenda
Sarah Monette wrote:
> Part of my question really was:, does anyone have strategies for what
> to do with a story when you (generalized you) know *something*'s wrong
> but you can't put your finger on what?
>
In this difficulty I always show the work to my editor at Tor, who has an
unerring nose for what to fix in a book. However, this only works for
novel-length works that Tor is interested in. Failing her, I'd find other
kindly test-readers, whose acumen and discernment you respect. Get quite a
few if you can, at least 4 or 5. Then with luck you can get a consensus
opinion -- if everyone says the heroine is a wuss, you have a problem.
> So what I've been casting about
> for is a way to figure out what part of the story ought to resonate
> when struck.
What I'd do is to start hunting for an epigraph for the work. (Short
stories don't need epigraphs of course, but why let these minutiae slow you
down? You don't have to actually include it in the finished ms.) It will
take you ages, but you will find the right octet of a sonnet or the exact
epigraph of Solon or something that expresses the work exactly -- or that
the work OUGHT to express. Then go back and fix it so that it does.
Brenda
--
---------
Brenda W. Clough, author of DOORS OF DEATH AND LIFE
From Tor Books in May 2000
http://www.sff.net/people/Brenda/
mary_...@cix.compulink.co.uk
se...@po.cwru.edu (Sarah Monette) wrote:
[...]
> Let me take another pass at what I meant, since I clearly
>only grazed it this time.
>
> I've discovered the hard way that one of the things that
>kill a story stone-dead for me is asking other people to
>solve its problems, so I'm deliberately not talking more
>specifically about the story itself.
Fair enough: you know your own process best.
>
> Part of my question really was:, does anyone have
>strategies for what to do with a story when you (generalized
>you) know *something*'s wrong but you can't put your finger
>on what?
I try listening to the little voice in the back of my head
that says "you know this isn't very good, don't you?"
Usually, it gets a lot louder when I'm on the section that
actually does need work.
Then it points out that some bits are trite, are clichés, are
too personal to me to make good Story... whatever. I should
add that this doesn't work all the time: I'm still left with
some that don't work and I don't know why.
I ask myself at what point in the text I first get bored and
find myself skipping.
My other strategies involve other people (reading it out loud
to an audience of one, frex), so wouldn't be of much use to
you. Unless you could work with asking them not to comment,
but just watching their reactions? I find I can pinpoint
exactly the moment the attention goes away -- although the
actual problem may relate to something needing to be fixed
considerably earlier.
>
> The other part was more a question about working with
>theme. You've said, a thread or two back, that theme is not
>something you think about when writing. I don't either, and
>I wouldn't want to. *But* when I look at a finished short
>story, if it's come out right, I can say things like, "Well,
>that's clearly about the blindness of obsession," or "That's
>about brothers and honor,"
Wow, I wish I could do that... The last book, I look at it
and I think "it's about courage -- oh, no it isn't, it's
about not being able to be loved -- no, it's about integrity
-- oh, soddit!"
>or even, "I'm not
> quite sure what that's about, but it's about *something*."
/That's/ my default position. <g> But, yes, the presence of
the "something" is unmistakable. As is its absence.
> Here I've got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it
>about?" with anything more than, "Well, there were these two
>guys, see, and they had to go find this other guy . . ."
>It's failed to pick up any larger resonances on its way from
>my sub/unconscious through my conscious mind and out to the
>word processor. So what I've been casting about for is a
>way to figure out what part of the story ought to resonate
> when struck.
Well, I'm not going to say anything about theme, on account
of the concept of 'theme' is the least useful one in my
personal toolbox, so I can't contribute to that. I do have a
couple of thoughts, however...
One of which is: /is/ it a story?
This is easier to talk about in novels, but it works for
short stories too. You may have a whole world, and a cast of
thousands, and startling events happening left, right and
centre -- but only some of them are Story. Most of them are
just Stuff Happening, that needs to be there, but to be left
on the sidelines.
I wonder if you've written a story which is just Stuff
Happening? If you couldn't say anything to the question
"what's it about?", I'd be inclined to think that might be
so. OTOH, you can: it's about these guys... so there is a
story there. That's a good beginning.
Then, if it was me, I'd ask a checklist of questions -- am I
telling the right person's story, have I started at the right
place, ended too soon, have I thought through all the
implications of the set-up? Something might spark a thought.
Then I'd wonder if I'd gone deeply enough into what might
happen at every turn.
Is the story-engine running, or did it stall? As far as my
people are concerned, are things going their way too much?
If so, do I make things worse for them, or is it a story
about how ease itself causes problems?
I'd look and see if my need-to-know-what-happens-next hooks
are properly planted -- have I set up enough things that the
reader is going to read on to find the answer to?
And then I suppose I turn to what would be called theme. Is
there a _point_ to this story, and if there is, can I direct
everything else in the story so that it relates to it? For
me, a 'point' can be anything -- somebody saves the world,
somebody turns their emotional damage into a source of
strength, somebody loves way beyond what's reasonable,
somebody solves a technological/social/political problem,
somebody dies... So long as something _happens,_ there's a
story.
Or rather, something happens, and there's a reason for me
reading about it -- I'm entertained, or I'm made to think, or
I'm reassured, or I cry, or cheer... whatever.
At that point, I ask what sort of reaction my Ideal Reader is
going to have. If it's a "so what?", I'm in trouble.
I should point out that, unlike some people here who've said
they don't, I do think about the reader/s. Not any specific
person, but an ideal, generalised person -- if I *didn't*
think about them, I wouldn't have any way to judge how much
needs to be explicit in the text. When I look back at some
of my early stuff, it's obscure -- in the sense that I
presuppose "everybody will see" the implications and
inferences. I, at least, need to have some sort of a
reminder that they *won't* see unless I make a certain effort
to make it plain. (But not insultingly plain.)
Hmm. If readers solving your problems kills the story for
you, do you have an 'internal reader' whose feedback
*wouldn't* be destructive?
Sometimes -- which I'm starting to feel may be what you're
getting at -- the whole thing is just too shallow. There are
these people, they do this stuff, but... <shrug> It's all
'shrug'. The times I've tried to cure this by grafting on
some emotional depth haven't worked for me, but you might
find that you could do it. If it's me, I probably have to
sit down and think what it was that made me want to write the
thing in the first place. If that reason still has milage
for me, then I need to kick it around more -- the way
Patricia's doing with the asteroid story. The same process
that I went through when writing it, just more so.
I don't know if any of this will help, but I hope so.
Difficult problem, especially since we can't kick
story-details around. Talk about trying to castrate a black
cat in a coal cellar at midnight...!
Mary
--
ASH: A SECRET HISTORY available now in whole (Orion, UK) or
in parts (Avon Eos, USA).
Sarah Monette
>Sarah Monette <se...@po.cwru.edu> wrote:
>> Here I've
>> got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it about?" with anything
>> more than, "Well, there were these two guys, see, and they had to go
>> find this other guy . . ." It's failed to pick up any larger
>> resonances on its way from my sub/unconscious through my conscious
>> mind and out to the word processor.
>
>association? Pick key words from the story and free-associate. Then see
>if something comes up. Works with my dreams usually. :-)
No, actually, that's not a stupid suggestion. It falls into the
category of Things I *Haven't* Tried Yet. Thanks!
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Sarah Monette
<ken...@baradel.demon.co.uk.please.delete.this> wrote:
>Just a thought, but you said you felt you were primarily a novelist.
>Perhaps this wasn't really a story at all, but a subplot. I often get
>bits of story which are not stories in their own right, but need to be
>part of something larger. The only thing to do with them (in my case)
>is leave them to sit until the rest of their novel turns up.
I have no sense of there being a larger story attached to this, but
that doesn't, of course, mean there isn't.
>If you really think it *is* a short story, but that you just haven't
>done it right yet, then the perhaps it's suffering from the "string of
>interesting incidents" syndrome. I always used to say that I didn't
>know what differentiated a "story" from a "string of incidents", but I
>knew a story when I saw one. More recently, I've come to the conclusion
>that a crucial ingredient is change. What changes in your story?
Ow! Hoist with my own petard. I've been lucky enough to teach
creative writing a couple of times, and this is one of the fundamental
elements I try to drill into my students' heads--partly because many
of them have never tried to write a story before and they need SOME
structure before they can even get started, and partly because many of
them are deeply entranced with the New Yorker style of contemporary
realism (I've never been lucky enough to teach an F/SF class :( ), in
which nothing *seems* to happen, but you reach the end of the story
and you know something has. The beginning writers I've had in my
classes have all wanted to do this without recognizing how hard it is.
So I should have thought about asking that question of myself.
<think, think, think>
Now that I have: things *do* change in the story. I think the problem
is what Mary's getting at in a later post; Things Happen but nobody
much cares.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Sarah Monette
>Sarah Monette wrote:
>> So what I've been casting about
>> for is a way to figure out what part of the story ought to resonate
>> when struck.
>
>What I'd do is to start hunting for an epigraph for the work. (Short
>stories don't need epigraphs of course, but why let these minutiae slow you
>down? You don't have to actually include it in the finished ms.) It will
>take you ages, but you will find the right octet of a sonnet or the exact
>epigraph of Solon or something that expresses the work exactly -- or that
>the work OUGHT to express. Then go back and fix it so that it does.
What an absolutely miraculously splendid form of cat-vacuuming! I
think it's a way cool idea, too; I love epigraphs and there's nothing
quite like the click when you find what you KNOW is the one you need.
But just imagine the hours and hours and hours I can spend looking for
one. Hours and hours and hours . . .
<fade off, gloating>
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Sarah Monette
[snip intelligent and useful advice]
>>
>> The other part was more a question about working with
>>theme. You've said, a thread or two back, that theme is not
>>something you think about when writing. I don't either, and
>>I wouldn't want to. *But* when I look at a finished short
>>story, if it's come out right, I can say things like, "Well,
>>that's clearly about the blindness of obsession," or "That's
>>about brothers and honor,"
>
>Wow, I wish I could do that... The last book, I look at it
>and I think "it's about courage -- oh, no it isn't, it's
>about not being able to be loved -- no, it's about integrity
>-- oh, soddit!"
Oh, I can't do it for *novels*--that looks exactly like what you
describe--"it's about brothers . . . no, no, it's about the abuse of
power . . . oh, drat it all, it's really about the pressure the past
brings to bear on the present . . ." And then I have to go lie down
for a while. I can only do it for short stories.
[snip further i&ua]
>Hmm. If readers solving your problems kills the story for
>you, do you have an 'internal reader' whose feedback
>*wouldn't* be destructive?
I do a lot of editing based on my own reactions to the story,
including reading it out loud, which always brings to light some
mortifying cludges in the prose. The trouble, I've found out, is that
I have to be satisfied with the story *before* I can show it to other
people. Then, when they say, "Well, you've got this plot hole over
here that we could stampede a herd of buffalo through," I say, "Okay,
I can fix that," instead of, "This story is clearly not worth the
bother." It's not a self-confidence issue, exactly. Maybe it's a
story-confidence issue. It has to hold water for me before I can
think about where it leaks like a sieve for somebody else.
>Sometimes -- which I'm starting to feel may be what you're
>getting at -- the whole thing is just too shallow. There are
>these people, they do this stuff, but... <shrug> It's all
>'shrug'.
Yes. Thank you. That's it. "Shallow" is the word I was looking for
and not finding. Also "shrug."
>The times I've tried to cure this by grafting on
>some emotional depth haven't worked for me, but you might
>find that you could do it. If it's me, I probably have to
>sit down and think what it was that made me want to write the
>thing in the first place. If that reason still has milage
>for me, then I need to kick it around more -- the way
>Patricia's doing with the asteroid story. The same process
>that I went through when writing it, just more so.
Yeah. It started out as a dream. My stories--well, not *often*, but
I have more than once gotten a good and functional story out of a
dream. I also have been known to dream about the characters in my
WIPs, and those dreams are usually helpful, although frequently in
very obscure ways. . . . but, anyway, I was trying to get down the
atmosphere of the dream, and then I got interested in the voice of the
narrator. *He*'s probably the reason I'm not willing to give up on
the story . . . which may suggest that that's where I need to start.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Brenda
Sarah Monette wrote:
And you might even find an epigraph that could be used for a title, which then
would make the entire process count as research!
Brenda <spent a whole year looking for a title once>
Sarah Monette
wrote:
>Don't underestimate the advantages of (a) and (b). I can only think of
>two good reasons for banging your head over the one story that's not
>working. 1) For some reason (unrelated to procrastination), you love
>this particular story more than the other stories still rattling around
>your skull begging to be written. Or, 2) You feel you need some
>technical practice in honing your craft and, for some reason (unrelated
>to procrastination), you think you'd get more of it reworking this
>story than in starting new ones.
You're perfectly right, and the answer happens to be #2. It
exasperates me, as a craftsperson, that I can have a story that's
finished but not complete. It also isn't a constant head-meets-wall
thing. It's more that every time I look up from the other things I'm
working on, this particular story is still sitting there, smirking at
me.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Patricia C. Wrede
My server has been slow lately; I think they're doing upgrades or
fiddles or something. So it took me a while to get this, and then
everything came at once. So I have the advantage of having looked
at everybody else's suggestions first.
>I've discovered the hard way that one of the things that kill a story
>stone-dead for me is asking other people to solve its problems, so I'm
>deliberately not talking more specifically about the story itself.
That's wise, especially on a board like this where the conversation
*will* wander and people will chime in later who may not have
read any early-in-the-thread caveats. In person, though, you have
more control, if that's useful. "Asking other people to solve its
problems" is a little different from "asking other people what its
problems *are*." If the first causes your story to go dead, but the
second doesn't, then it may be possible for you to find someone
to talk to in person and warn them sternly against making any
suggestions for solutions at all, of any kind, and then getting them
to try to tell you what they think the problem is. If they start saying
anything that sounds like a suggested solution, you interrupt and
say "No suggestions! I won't be able to write the story if you make
suggestions!"
(I bring this up because I have a friend who cannot discuss her stories
in advance, but who occasionally needs plot-noodling. We have
worked out something similar, where I sit around throwing out
questions, but she never says what any of the answers are. She
just makes little notes and occasionally says "This angle seems
unproductive to me" without saying why. It's very odd, from my
standpoint, but it seems to work -- that is, she gets the benefits
of plot-noodling without wrecking her ability to write her story by
explaining it first. Something similar might work in your case.)
>Part of my question really was:, does anyone have strategies for what
>to do with a story when you (generalized you) know *something*'s wrong
>but you can't put your finger on what?
In general, what I do is to go to other writers and ask for their
take on the problem. Different people are good at spotting
different problems, and I'm usually too close to the thing myself
to see it. If you absolutely can't do this, you'll have to come
up with something else (OTOH, isn't that sort of what you're
doing here?)
You said elsewhere that things change, but nobody cares. Nobody
who -- nobody the reader? Or nobody in the story? If it's nobody
in the story, not anybody at all, then the question is "who else is
there in this world who *would* care that these things changed?"
If there's somebody in the story who does care, then maybe
they should be the viewpoint character, even if they're not the
main mover-and-shaker in terms of the action.
If the reader doesn't care that stuff changes, then usually it's either
because the change doesn't matter to anyone in the story (see
above), or else it's because there's some missing connection
between the reader and the characters in the story who *do* care.
Maybe they're not sympathetic characters, or maybe you just haven't
gotten them across somehow. Maybe you were concentrating so
hard on getting the action to come out properly that the
characterization got bypassed, or maybe you were trying to do
an unsympathetic anti-hero main character and succeeded a
little *too* well.
>The other part was more a question about working with theme. You've
>said, a thread or two back, that theme is not something you think
>about when writing. I don't either, and I wouldn't want to. *But*
>when I look at a finished short story, if it's come out right, I can
>say things like, "Well, that's clearly about the blindness of
>obsession," or "That's about brothers and honor," or even, "I'm not
>quite sure what that's about, but it's about *something*."
Well, I usually have to wait until my editor tells me what it's about.
So I don't know that I'll be much help here.
>Here I've
>got a story that doesn't respond to "What's it about?" with anything
>more than, "Well, there were these two guys, see, and they had to go
>find this other guy . . ."
Can you look at it and try to figure out what it *could* be about?
"Given this storyline, it *could* be about .... (friendship, duty, faith,
loyalty, responsibility, commitment, the consequences of following
one's impulses, families...)" Then you'd at least have a list of
specific things, and you could look at the story and ask, OK, *why*
**isn't** it about duty? This might be a slow and tedious way of
chipping off all the bits that aren't an elephant, but OTOH, it might
get you somewhere. I don't know. As I said, I don't work much
with theme on a conscious level.
Patricia C. Wrede
Julia Blackshear Kosatka
> Sarah Monette wrote:
> > What an absolutely miraculously splendid form of cat-vacuuming! I
> > think it's a way cool idea, too; I love epigraphs and there's nothing
> > quite like the click when you find what you KNOW is the one you need.
> > But just imagine the hours and hours and hours I can spend looking for
> > one. Hours and hours and hours . . .
> > <fade off, gloating>
> >
>
> And you might even find an epigraph that could be used for a title, which then
> would make the entire process count as research!
:-) Which, when you come down to it, is the same as finding the theme.
For me, what the story is about *is* the theme. If I don't know that
going in (or pretty close to going in) nothing comes out the other end.
> Brenda <spent a whole year looking for a title once>
hehehehe! I've read your essay on titles. :-) I love it. :-)
--
Julia Blackshear Kosatka
Forthcoming in BLACK GATE - "Bones of the Dead"
BLACK GATE: Adventures in Fantasy (first issue, November 2000)
www.blackgate.com
Sarah Monette
reasons best known to itself]
Patricia wrote:
[good advice about proactively controlling test readers snipped]
>>Part of my question really was:, does anyone have strategies for what
>>to do with a story when you (generalized you) know *something*'s wrong
>>but you can't put your finger on what?
>
>In general, what I do is to go to other writers and ask for their take on >the problem. Different people are good at spotting different problems, and >I'm usually too close to the thing myself to see it. If you absolutely >can't do this, you'll have to come up with something else (OTOH, isn't that >sort of what you're doing here?)
Yes, really, I suppose it is. I'm a big believer in having a whole
horde of alternate strategies available. If one doesn't work, just
pick another.
>You said elsewhere that things change, but nobody cares. Nobody who -- >nobody the reader? Or nobody in the story? If it's nobody in the story, >not anybody at all, then the question is "who else is there in this world
>who *would* care that these things changed?" If there's somebody in the >story who does care, then maybe they should be the viewpoint character, even >if they're not the main mover-and-shaker in terms of the action.
No, the characters care. It's just that, when I read it, *I* don't.
I can see the story trying to make me care, and it just falls flat. I
realize that this sounds very weird and self-detached, but it is how
it works. The author part of me cares about the characters, but the
detached reader part says I've missed my grip. The story comes across
as sort of slick and amiable (as somebody said about some piece of
writing or another--Le Guin talking about her early SF?), but
fundamentally unimportant. The events of the story should not come
across this way--they're events which ought to be carrying some
meaning. I'm wondering if, no matter how much I like him, I've got
the wrong damn narrator. <ponder, ponder, ponder>
>If the reader doesn't care that stuff changes, then usually it's either >because the change doesn't matter to anyone in the story (see
>above), or else it's because there's some missing connection
>between the reader and the characters in the story who *do* care. Maybe >they're not sympathetic characters, or maybe you just haven't gotten them >across somehow. Maybe you were concentrating so hard on getting the action >to come out properly that the characterization got bypassed, or maybe you >were trying to do an unsympathetic anti-hero main character and succeeded a
>little *too* well.
I think, really, that it's the action problem. This story was a bit
of a departure for me, in that it's trying to be a mystery, and I
think I got so hung up on the plot part that I dropped the ball on the
rest. So it's a little like . . . there's this great science museum
where I grew up that has a "Perpetual Motion Machine". It's this sort
of Rube Goldberg thing with the marbles that go down chutes and around
wheels and get catapulted through the air and things like that, only
to end up right back where they started. You can watch it for hours
and not have a single synapse fire. That's what this story feels
like; the mechanism runs like a dream, but it's meaningless.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Patricia C. Wrede
Monette) writes:
>No, the characters care. It's just that, when I read it, *I* don't.
>I can see the story trying to make me care, and it just falls flat. I
>realize that this sounds very weird and self-detached, but it is how
>it works.
That sounds more like a character-identification problem than it
does like a meaning problem. Because if the characters care
deeply about what is going on, and the reader cares deeply about
the characters, the reader will end up caring about what is going
on because it is important to people she cares about. If your
characters care about events, but the reader doesn't, it seems
likely that the missing link is how much the reader cares about
the characters.
> The events of the story should not come
>across this way--they're events which ought to be carrying some
>meaning.
Is this how you usually approach your characters? Because if
the problem is that the reader doesn't identify/sympathize with
the characters, and you're busy concentrating on the meaning
of it all, and you don't normally get at your characters via the
underlying meaning, then you may be busy pondering the wrong
problem area.
>I'm wondering if, no matter how much I like him, I've got
>the wrong damn narrator. <ponder, ponder, ponder>
Whose story is it? Who do the events matter most to? Who
has the greatest stake in the outcome? And is that person
sufficiently annoying that, like Sherlock Holmes, he needs to
be seen at one remove by a Watsonian viewpoint-narrator, or
can that person just *be* the narrator?
>>across somehow. Maybe you were concentrating so hard on getting the action
>>to come out properly that the characterization got bypassed, or maybe you
>>were trying to do an unsympathetic anti-hero main character and succeeded a
>>little *too* well.
>
>I think, really, that it's the action problem. This story was a bit
>of a departure for me, in that it's trying to be a mystery, and I
>think I got so hung up on the plot part that I dropped the ball on the
>rest. So it's a little like . . . there's this great science museum
>where I grew up that has a "Perpetual Motion Machine". It's this sort
>of Rube Goldberg thing with the marbles that go down chutes and around
>wheels and get catapulted through the air and things like that, only
>to end up right back where they started. You can watch it for hours
>and not have a single synapse fire. That's what this story feels
>like; the mechanism runs like a dream, but it's meaningless.
I get more and more the feeling that the "meaninglessness" of
the story is a symptom, not the actual problem itself. Which
may be why you're having trouble fixing it. The obvious candidate
for actual problem is characterization. What is this narrator you
like so much *like*? Does it come across in the story? What
makes you like him; what makes him interesting? Does that
come across in the story? Why not?
Patricia C. Wrede
Sarah Monette
wrote:
>In article <39dd43dd...@news.doit.wisc.edu>, se...@po.cwru.edu (Sarah
>Monette) writes:
>> The events of the story should not come
>>across this way--they're events which ought to be carrying some
>>meaning.
>
>Is this how you usually approach your characters? Because if
>the problem is that the reader doesn't identify/sympathize with
>the characters, and you're busy concentrating on the meaning
>of it all, and you don't normally get at your characters via the
>underlying meaning, then you may be busy pondering the wrong
>problem area.
No, actually, I'm very character-oriented as a writer; that's always
where I start and the other stuff like plot and world-building and the
rest of it comes later. That's certainly how this got started; I had
these two guys with an errand, and I figured out stuff that could
happen to them based on who they are and what they're doing. The
events are only interesting because of the people to whom they happen.
And usually, this works just fine. But I'm looking at this thing,
with characters who are not unusually unpleasant (except for the
villain, who *ought* to be unpleasant) and whom I do in fact rather
like, and the events are of sufficient magnitude to matter (this is
not, in other word, the Heroic Epic of the Splinter in Conan's Toe).
>>I'm wondering if, no matter how much I like him, I've got
>>the wrong damn narrator. <ponder, ponder, ponder>
>
>Whose story is it? Who do the events matter most to? Who
>has the greatest stake in the outcome? And is that person
>sufficiently annoying that, like Sherlock Holmes, he needs to
>be seen at one remove by a Watsonian viewpoint-narrator, or
>can that person just *be* the narrator?
Eureka! You should see the lightbulb that just went on over my head.
Thank you!
The PROBLEM is that this story has only one layer. That is, the
events that are important are events that the narrator is discovering,
not that he is personally affected by. That's okay, as far as those
events go; as readers, we need his detached perspective to figure out
what exactly is so out-of-whack with the situation. What I didn't
do--and what I have done properly in other stories--is work out a
second layer of narrative, in which the narrator has some difficulty
*important to him* that the first layer affects or comments on or has
some other relationship to. *That*'s what's wrong.
Or, to put it another way round, I developed a narrator with a tough,
cynical, Chandleresque attitude and then forgot that, to make him
interesting, I have to find the chinks in his armor.
I don't know where the story's going now, but it sure did just spring
back up into full Technicolor life. Wow.
--
Sarah Monette
se...@po.cwru.edu
Patricia C. Wrede
Monette) writes:
>What I didn't
>do--and what I have done properly in other stories--is work out a
>second layer of narrative, in which the narrator has some difficulty
>*important to him* that the first layer affects or comments on or has
>some other relationship to. *That*'s what's wrong.
It's moderately easy to forget to put in an emotional/character-growth
plot if one is doing a deeply action-centered story. Especially if
one isn't accustomed to doing action-centered stories, and so has
to pay extra attention to getting the action plot-mechanics right.
>I don't know where the story's going now, but it sure did just spring
>back up into full Technicolor life. Wow.
Oh, good.
Patricia C. Wrede