Blog-to-Blog: What your tastes can teach you

I'm starting a new feature within My Mental Marathon called Blog-to-Blog. It'll come up from time to time when I run across a particularly thought-provoking post. I found a couple of them during my weekly blog surf the other day, and will dedicate the next few posts to discussing what I read, and how it applies to my own re-write.

First up, Booknapped. Click on the link and see why I thought this was a worthwhile post to blog about. So I tried to come up with my own original list after reading this, and found myself searching the far reaches of my mind for the most impressive-sounding works of literature I've read. Then I thought, hey, what better way to keep it real than to take a list of favorite works I'd already created on my Facebook Info page. And I decided to go with movies, not books, because I think my movie list might be easier to make overarching assessments about. So here goes ... I'm going to cut and paste the list, and then start grouping the films by category and describing their appeal in a few words.

COMEDIES:

• Saved - quirky; good message about tolerance; terrifically funny antagonist; relatable outsider protagonist; great ensemble cast
  
• The Wedding Singer - very funny stylized 80s; nice relationship development; quirky secondary characters
• Pretty in Pink - quintessential 80s; LOVE Duckie and his friendship with protagonist (I do have a big negative with this one - the ending ... typical cheesy John Hughes/Hollywood, but the first 3/4ths make this forgivable)
• Working Girl - glitzy 80s NYC contrasted with towny Staten Isle; humorous extreme characters; feel-good ending about personal power (not just boy gets girl)
• Romey & Michelle's High School Reunion - quirky friendship; hilarious take on high school and yes, the 80s!; like one big fantasy, although very relatable

DRAMA:

• The Diving Bell and the Butterfly - triumph of the human spirit; delves into the subtleties and frailties of human relationships; no self-pity or sentimentality
• Dancer in the Dark - I've seen this film 2x and each time I was bawling as if a member of my family died;  I'm not articulate enough to be able to express what it is about this movie that got to me ... shall we chalk it up to some je ne sais quoi factor?  No, I can do better than that - how about: vulnerability; being doomed despite being loved and supported; using imagination to transcend the here and now
• La Vie en Rose - talent and success don't lead to happiness; vulnerability; moxie; loneliness; the tragic heroine whose inner demons get the best of her; romanticized era
  

Okay, now to synthesize all this ... so I like the 80s, that much is clear.  Putting on my psychoanalysis cap, I take that to mean I enjoy extremes and larger-than-lifeness, which is what that decade symbolized.  I've often thought of the 1920s as the 1980s of the 1st half of the century, which is probably why I always gravitate toward both eras.

Let's see - I like quirkiness and strong supporting characters (both supporting in the literary sense, and supporting in the emotional sense).  I want to see some kind of triumph or redemption of spirit (or conversely, degradation of spirit), and I want to really feel it in my bones, but at the same time, I don't want trumped up sentimentality.

Argh, I don't think I'm very good at this self-analysis stuff.  Anyone out there with a psychology background want to help me out? ;-)

Taking Characterization to the Next Level

Well, I finished Manuscript Makeover and got a lot out of the last half of the characterization section.  Here are a few highlights:

• On p. 266, Ms. Lyon offers a list of criteria against which to assess each of my characters.  I'm only going to list a smattering of the elements she mentions, but I definitely plan to work through all of them with each of my principle characters before tackling my re-write.

1. Physical Appearance:  Aside from age, weight, eye color, etc., she suggests considering such characteristics as the shape and fullness of a character's lips, his/her habitual stances and gestures, and voice quality (timber and pitch).
2. Emotional/Intellectual Disposition:  This list includes "most dominant emotion", "operating mode" (logical v. intuitive thinker), and "orientation to life" (cynical, optimistic, etc.), among other things.

• Ms. Lyon also points out that each viewpoint character's narration must have a distinctive "voice."  I have to be particularly mindful of this because I am writing in 3rd person limited, which means that I follow my characters' thoughts closely, however I am not writing as if I were them (i.e., 1st person).  Likewise, scene/character descriptions should not be generic, but rather, slanted toward the viewpoint character's personality and the thrust of the story.  What this means is, don't just start writing about trees in the forest if those background details bear absolutely no relevance to what's going on in your character's world.  [That said, Ms. Lyon does suggest the more-is-more approach to scene-setting in order to immerse the reader in the novel's universe; she says overwritten description can always be pared down in the final draft.]

• I really liked what Ms. Lyon had to say about dialogue, so here's a direct quote:  Dialogue "needs to sound like natural speech, [but it] should not replicate everyday speech ... it must meet two primary functions: (1) to characterize the speaker, and (2) to move the story forward." p. 278.  She also warned against describing dialogue (those awful adverbs!) and over-use of attributions (e.g., "he said/she asked"), especially "clever" ones (e.g., "she giggled/he extolled.").  Here's an example that incorporates both offenses:  "If that's the way it must be, so be it," Sue grumbled sulkily.  I was already well aware that if you can tell who's speaking without an attribution, don't use one.  But when I do use them, I must admit (to my great shame) that I often have my characters "harrumph" and "guffaw"ing their words.  Never again!  I'm also a lover of adverbs (I know, I know, I might as well have NOVICE WRITER stamped on my forehead).  Ms. Lyon suggests using action where the dialogue leaves doubt as to the character's emotions.  So in my example, I might try something like this:  "If that's the way it must be, so be it."  Sue slumped down in the armchair and scowled out the window. In trying this little exercise, I'm already getting a sense of how a writer can communicate much more interesting information by ditching the attributions in favor of description.

• And of course, Ms. Lyon addressed my Achilles tendon - excessive exposition.  "So often in early drafts of a novel, exposition takes the form of what editors sometimes call 'an information dump.'"  Manuscript Makeover, p. 294.  She suggests weaving between showing and telling to make the passage meaningful and to push the narrative along.  I wish Ms. Lyon had spent a bit more time discussing this, but I have a feeling that, with all the other tips and techniques I've gleaned from her book, my inclination to babble tangentially about a character's past will subside during this next re-write.

To round off my discussion on characterization, I'm inserting a mock back jacket "flap copy" I came up with about halfway through my first draft.  This will give you a brief overview of my six viewpoint characters as they are currently written.  I also wanted to share a terrific idea I had the other day re how to go about "storyboarding" my character arcs.  My novel is written in alternating viewpoint chapters throughout (e.g., Ch. 1 - Cora's POV; Ch. 2- Lila's POV; Ch. 3 - Rosemarie's POV, etc.)  So to be able to track any specific character's narrative, I decided the best way to re-read my book would be to compile all viewpoint chapters by character.  I've created 6 documents, one for all the sequentially-ordered Cora chapters, one for all the Lila chapters, etc.  It's going to be a whole new experience reading my novel this way, and will surely expose character weaknesses I had missed the first time around.

Vanderkill, New York is a small town about 120 miles north of Manhattan, a few miles inland from the Hudson River.  One day in late 1926, three young men move into their recently-deceased grandmother’s mansion.  From thenceforth, six lives will be permanently intertwined in a quest for truth, loyalty and, if such a thing exists, happiness.

Lila Payton, seduced by the promise of a glamorous city life, finds herself repeating the dangerous patterns of her ill-fated, wild-living parents.

Marcus Torrington has lived too long in the shadow of his flashy, debonair cousins to not be bitter.  Losing the woman he loves to one of them is almost too much to bear.

Rosemarie Dauber never thought she would have to break out of her role as the good little minister’s daughter.  But life, and love, have other plans for her.

Ophelia James believed she had left her devil behind when she escaped the Jim Crow South.  She never dreamed that he could find her up here.

Cora Morse is a prisoner of her own failing body, but like any prisoner, she has a plan for escape.  It is, however, not without casualties.

Arthur Morse does not ask a lot out of life, tacitly accepting the secrets that are kept from him.  And carefully guarding a secret of his own.

FIGURING IT OUT AS I GO:  Characters are the heart and soul of most fiction, so you cannot do enough to improve upon them in your second draft.  Again, learn your "novice writer" tendencies.  Come up with techniques to catch those tendencies as you write and re-write so that you can substitute them with better literary choices.

Here ends my overview on characterization ... now onto the research phase ...

Attacking Characterization Head-On!

So I'm halfway through the last main section - characterization - in Manuscript Makeover.  I skimmed much of the plot/pacing/tension chapters, not because I'm so cocky as to think I've got those down pat, but all-in-all, I seem to have pretty good instincts re those elements; using the feedback I've gotten from the 5BE, I can somewhat easily reform the parts that might seem sluggish or inconsequential.

Characters, however, are a whole other ballgame, and apparently I'm not alone in feeling this way.  The book mentioned that many published authors go back and refine character in their later draft(s), so it's good to know that I'm not way off the mark in sensing that I need more work in this area.  I will discuss the specific hurdles and questions that are creeping into my head re the depth of my characters once I actually start rewriting.  For now, I just want to touch on some general points.

An earlier section of Ms. Lyon's revision book discussed the difference between viewpoint and protagonist/central plotline (i.e., you can have multiple viewpoints telling one protagonist's story, without creating protagonists out of those viewpoint narrators).  This is a key issue (potential problem) with my novel.  Currently, I would describe the structure as being parallel plotlines centered around two protagonists (whose lives cross frequently, but who have their own personal journeys, arcs, etc.)  The story is told from 6 viewpoints, 3 per storyline.  All of the viewpoint characters have their own subplots, but these, in my mind at least, advance the two main storylines in some way.

If you're thinking, "Wow that sounds convoluted!" you may well be right.  I believe that I have created a well-paced, compelling work, however, as Manuscript Makeover points out, too many subplots and weighty side characters can diminish the depth and impact of the protagonist and her storyline.  A little voice somewhere inside me is whispering that this is likely the case with my novel!  Now the question is, what to do about it ...

Ms. Lyon suggests that, where you have two protagonists, you treat one of them as the "main one," giving her 3/4ths of the book.  This is a very interesting thought - at this point, I basically give both protagonists equal page time, and then of course, I have all those side character stories ... I have to seriously revisit the structure of my book, not so much for it's ability to tell a compelling tale, but for its merits in regard to presenting rich, 3-dimensional characters.

There is obviously a lot more I can say about all this, but again, I think I will hold off on giving specifics until I am actually in the throws of re-writing.  My goal is to finish the how-to book this week, and hopefully begin my phase 2 research next week (looking over old magazines and visiting the local historical society to get a better feel for life around here in the 1920s).  I sent out an initial questionnaire to the 5BE re some of the points I mentioned in this post, and am starting to get responses, which I will incorporate into my Master Feedback List.  Then comes synthesizing the whole list into an action plan ... argh ... this is starting to sound like work! ;-)

(I'm changing the name of my "Potential Novice Writer Sin" section to something a little less draconian-sounding ...)

FIGURING IT OUT AS I GO:  Know your book and its potential weaknesses!  I think this is the absolute first step in one's revision process.  Know what you have on your hands (and this means learning the basic conventions of novel writing.)  Only then can you decide whether you want to try to break the "rules" or conform your book to fit within them.  I still don't have all the answers in that department, but I feel a bit more confident now that I understand the "risks" I might be taking with some of my choices.