Tuesday Tip: Why *do* we do what we do to our OTPs?!

[thtwzjustadream.livejournal.com]

I've been slacking on the Tuesday Tips, my apologies for that. I'd planned to use the class I'm taking as fodder,but we've reached the point where it's mostly critique. So today I thought I'd toss up a tip from the web and see if it inspires any conversation....

It's from author Kurt Vonnegut and his much-republished  "8 Basics of Creative Writing." If you haven't seen it, it's a fun read in itself.

Tip number four really jumped out at me the first time I read it. It states: "Every sentence must do one of two things—reveal character or advance the action."

Every single sentence! Wow - there's a goal. In one way, it makes perfect sense- you wouldn't send your character around the corner for coffee unless something will happen on the way that adds to your tale. It might be that the conversation he has while running the errand provides clues to what's coming next. Or maybe the coffee shop's about to get held up, a-la "Pulp Fiction" and all manner of craziness ensues.

The other piece of the directive is a little more subtle and, to me, more about craft and the reason we write. Do you consciously work to reveal character in each of your stories? Does it happen naturally for you, or do you have to look for ways to bring that into play?

I think it's one of the trickier things to do but one of the more compelling reasons to write fan fiction; to take a well-loved character and put them through something, see how they react/cope/act - and ask myself what it says both about them and why I care about them.

So what do you think? If you read the most recent thing you wrote, do you see every sentence either moving things along or saying something about your characters? And what proportion would you say you focus on each of those goals?

Comments

[azziria.livejournal.com]

Interesting...

I think I'd add one more item to 'reveal the character or advance the action', and that is 'set the scene' and make the reader experience it, because sometimes that's needed too. I give an example here of trying to do this from a drabble I wrote recently (and with drabble writing almost every *word* needs to move things on):

Three a.m. is the Devil's hour, the time when body and soul are at their lowest ebb, when death is most likely to occur. Danny wakes just after three, neck stiff and knee aching, and Steve's still with him. There's no noise except for a faint electronic hum and the soft, rhythmic hiss of the ventilator, and the lights are dim, augmented only by the green glow of the monitors. Danny shifts in his chair, grateful beyond words to be here, and wills Steve to live. If he can make it through the Devil's hour then he has a chance.

The line about the ventilator and monitors doesn't advance the action or reveal character, but I feel that it's necessary to put the characters and their situation in context (and I hope I succeeded with it). I don't think that just saying "Danny sat in a quiet and dark ICU" would have had the same power.

As for the second point, I don't consciously try to reveal/explore character, but as my stories tend to be character-driven rather than plot/case-driven then it's something that I've probably already worked out in my head and is the point of writing the piece.

[witchyemerald.livejournal.com]

Good point. I find it is hard to follow rules that state Always, Never, Every etc. There are exceptions to the rules.

[thtwzjustadream.livejournal.com]

That may be why it struck me when I first read it, because I'm not a fan of absolutes either.

[goneahead]

I don't think there should be absolutes, but I will say it certainly does help to have guideposts!

One of my guideposts is to always have a character arc in every chapter/scene - at least one character should come out of each chapter/scene changed in some way, even if its a small or subtle change.

I bring this up because knowing that one teeny tiny tip would've have saved me many years of sweat, tears, and most likely even blood. Personally, I find that if I have a part of a fic that is not working, when I go back and check for character arc/change? Sure enough, the character(s) is not actually doing anything but just bobbing along. So then I smack myself and ask, 'OK, what is the character(s) learning, figuring out, deciding, refusing to decide, etc' - and voila! I usually have a much better idea how to actually fix it.

I hesitate to mention how many fics I've scrapped, screwed up, or wound up not being happy with because I didn't know this one small, but oh so vital, bit to storytelling!

**eyes the dead plot bunny pile in the backyard**

[thtwzjustadream.livejournal.com]

That's a good one. I've certainly heard how at least one major character should change by the end - usually the protagonist, except maybe in the case of a story like Gatsby where Gatsby dies because he doesn't learn/change, and it's the narrator who grows in the end. Someone's gotta grow, that's the bottom line.

A change each scene is ambitious - but as you say, it doesn't have to be huge. Even a character entertaining a thought he wouldn't have harbored at the top of the page is change. Forward motion.

[thtwzjustadream.livejournal.com]

Agreed about the drabbles. I hadn't written many before January, and I think playing with them has already made me less wordy in my chapter fics.

I think what you chose to describe does further the action in a subtle way. It tells us that time has passed since we checked in last, but Steve's still on a ventilator. Picking the details that add power but also further is a knack - some days I feel like it comes to me with little effort, others I really have to make a conscious effort.

Danny's aching neck and knee make us feel him in the room rather than simply seeing him there, but they also reveal character. This is a guy who's sitting right by that bed no matter what.

And oh, poor dead bunnies! In a pile.

[thtwzjustadream.livejournal.com]

oops.. the dead bunny reference got added to the wrong reply, lol.. sorry. LJ is... challenging.