Mom isn't a writer, although she should be: she comes up with some great story ideas, and she knows all the good tricks.
When
I was little, Mom was divorced with sole custody of me, working two
jobs, no alimony, only $20 a month in child support. Still, every year,
Christmas brought me every single thing I'd been begging for all year. I
was dazzled.
When I was grown and had my own child, Mom told me the trick.
"Right
after Christmas, when the toys went on sale, I would pick out some
things I thought you'd be old enough to enjoy the next year and I'd put
them on layaway. Then, all year, I would talk those things up and get
you all excited about them."
And so it is with writing. (I've said it before and I'll surely say it many many times again: everything is about writing.)
The trick to fulfilling reader expectations is not to follow through on your promises. The trick is to create expectations in the reader of what you intend to give them.
Ever see The Sand Pebbles? It's famous for being the first American Hollywood movie where the main hero, played by a major star, freakin' dies
at the end. Let's just say the whole movie was sad as all get-out, but,
at that point, totally fulfilled viewer expectations, which were: death
is all around, good intentions won't help, poor decisions sure as hell don't help, dying isn't the worst thing that can happen to you and is (after all) inevitable.
My favorite novel for illustrating this is THE FACE OF TRESPASS by Ruth Rendell.
Brilliant! The very first paragraph, which seems full of random stuff,
plants the seeds of everything that happens subsequently.
Decide
what you want to happen and how you want that to affect your reader.
Start laying down the groundwork for that from the first and build on
that (if you're a pantser, write your rough draft, think of that as a
rough sketch of a house plan, then go back and finalize the groundwork
and build-up).
Head 'em up, move 'em on.
And that, boys and girls, is the trick.
Marian Allen, Author Lady
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes
Showing posts with label writer's tools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writer's tools. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Timelines for Multiple Characters -- reblogged from MarianAllen.com
I've written a Big Fat Fantasy called SAGE that
has a bazillion or so characters. One of the tools I used to keep
things tidy is a timeline. This was particularly important in SAGE,
since some of the action is presented in stories that people tell one
another, and the people in the stories are (obviously) younger than they
are at the time of the telling.
The straight line is marked off in years, as the main story takes place over the course of twelve years.
The scribble at the upper left is "A dies + 17 years to Cameron's death/coup, K 16, S 14". That means that, in the year the old ruler, Ada, dies, her elder daughter, Karol, is 16 and her younger daughter, Sorcha, is 14. It's seventeen years later that the major action begins.
The lists (V 14, A 13, M 11, B 9) are the ages of various characters at various stages of the timeline. Didn't want someone taking up arms only to later realize he hadn't been born yet.
The curvy bits encompass years in Kinnan's life: Where was he and what was he doing when other characters' stories were in the forefront?
Other notes remind me of the stages of Guthrie's rise to prominence, when Andrin was dismissed from royal service, when Brady came to work for Devona, and other fiddly bits.
This is by no means an outline, or even an exhaustive timeline; its purpose was not to be a map but a memorandum. It was just enough to keep the characters, some of whom grew from infancy to pre-teen self-sufficiency during the course of the story, from being the wrong age from chapter to chapter.
If you're having trouble getting the timing of fiddly bits right, try making a timeline to hang the bits from. It can be amazingly useful.
Marian Allen, Author Lady
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes
Timeline of SAGE
The straight line is marked off in years, as the main story takes place over the course of twelve years.
The scribble at the upper left is "A dies + 17 years to Cameron's death/coup, K 16, S 14". That means that, in the year the old ruler, Ada, dies, her elder daughter, Karol, is 16 and her younger daughter, Sorcha, is 14. It's seventeen years later that the major action begins.
The lists (V 14, A 13, M 11, B 9) are the ages of various characters at various stages of the timeline. Didn't want someone taking up arms only to later realize he hadn't been born yet.
The curvy bits encompass years in Kinnan's life: Where was he and what was he doing when other characters' stories were in the forefront?
Other notes remind me of the stages of Guthrie's rise to prominence, when Andrin was dismissed from royal service, when Brady came to work for Devona, and other fiddly bits.
This is by no means an outline, or even an exhaustive timeline; its purpose was not to be a map but a memorandum. It was just enough to keep the characters, some of whom grew from infancy to pre-teen self-sufficiency during the course of the story, from being the wrong age from chapter to chapter.
If you're having trouble getting the timing of fiddly bits right, try making a timeline to hang the bits from. It can be amazingly useful.
Marian Allen, Author Lady
Fantasies, mysteries, comedies, recipes
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