tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10619373485913025552024-03-18T11:44:50.073+00:00MOODY WRITINGabout stuff that might be interesting (might not)mooderinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523337588830695638noreply@blogger.comBlogger38813tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1061937348591302555.post-54476926539631900422015-05-18T18:00:00.000+01:002015-05-18T18:35:10.436+01:00Maximising Want-To-Know Value<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">When someone is reading a story they are assigning a value to what they are reading. This value can be anywhere from ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have absolutely no interest in this</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ to ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I have to know what happens next, sleep be damned</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’. Obviously you want them to be nearer one end of the scale than the other.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">While it’s impossible to have a story where the reader’s engagement is turned up all the way to 11 from beginning to end, there are ways to help you get the most out of a scene, no matter what the premise might be.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Action, conversation, or even a familiar set up that’s been written about a zillion times before— they can all be vastly improved if the reader actively wants to know what’s going on. And there are ways you can help nudge them in that direction.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Often, when advice is given on how to improve a story, it is presented in the manner of a tutorial manner. Do more of this, less of this, this way is good, this way is bad. A lot of this comes down to wanting to be concise and get to the point, but it can lead to a lot of very similarly structured stories that end up feeling formulaic.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Your first priority should be to your own creativity. Whatever strikes you as interesting, wherever your imagination suggests you go, that’s what you should pursue.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That doesn’t mean it will be any good. It’s a process that takes time and you will eventually take out things you used to think were essential parts of the story. But trying to second guess yourself and write to a pre-approved template isn’t much fun.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">If, for example, you think it would be good to start a story with an introduction of the main character, you might find, once it’s on the page, it feels a bit slow and not particularly interesting. The reader doesn’t know who this person is or what they’re going to do, but they’re expected to absorb all this information about them.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Imagine you’re in a park and you see a man under a tree. Up in the tree is a child, stuck. The man is trying to coax the kid down. You go over to help. How interested are you in who this man is, where he lives, what his employment background is?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">You don’t need to know, and generally, other than for the sake of politeness, you aren’t interested. You help get the kid down and you go on your way.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">This would seem to be me advocating for not bothering to give the reader details they don’t need. But just because they don’t need it doesn’t mean you can’t give it to them, if it happens to strike your fancy. The reader might not care all that much, but they aren’t going to throw the book down in disgust because your opening lines are: </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Jack Brown, a 31 year old father of three, stood under a tree in the park, trying to convince his youngest son to jump down from the branches he’d managed to climb up into. Climbing down wasn’t proving to be so easy. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Does the reader have a burning desire to know how old Jack is? Probably not, but if I want to tell them, for whatever reason, I certainly can. But can I boost their interest if I wanted to?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Consider the same scenario, but suddenly a man in a cape flies down and plucks little Timmy out of the sky and returns him to his father. Do you want additional background on this guy?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The thing is we all have a general sense of curiosity, but we also have a sense of expectation. I may not know the personal details of the man under the tree, but I have a rough idea of the kind of information he might reveal to me. He lives in a house or a flat, he has a wife, or he’s divorced, he has a job, or not. I don’t know the specifics but I expect them to fit into my past experiences.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">And, of course, I could be totally wrong. He might have the most amazing history and if I gave him the time he could tell me some things that would blow my mind. But probably not.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unless we are give some indication otherwise, we assume the norm. And most of the time we turn out to be right, so our level of interest is low.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The man in the cape, on the other hand, clearly doesn’t fit into our preconceived ideas of what’s normal. His story is going to be something different and that increases our level of interest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That doesn’t mean you have to go to fantastic extremes to grab a reader’s attention. If you went over to the guy under the tree and he spoke with a strong Swedish accent, that could also affect the level of interest, especially if the story took place in a remote part of Scotland. If the story took place in Sweden, not so much.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">By being aware of what the reader expects, whether they’re are going to be told something that falls within their realm of experience or not, you can manipulate that level of interest, both in small and large ways.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Being able to judge this scale, and use it to your advantage, isn’t always obvious and you may not always get it right. If you think Marsha looks 20 and she’s actually 21, there’s not much to be gained from correcting you. If she’s 47, it might be worth mentioning. But if she’s 26? </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">You have to use your own judgement. but being aware of this ability to increase interest is very helpful when it comes to writing scenes that feel obvious, familiar or info-heavy.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Getting the reader to want to know, even in a small way, isn’t just good in the immediate moment, it can also have a snowball effect where one thing leads to another and the level of interest quickly escalates. At the same time though, it’s also possible to cheat, and if you’re caught cheating you can easily lose any momentum you’ve gained.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">For example, if two boys at the back of a classroom are having this conversation:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">“You sure the security cameras will be off?”</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“For sure. I got the codes, we just have to avoid the guards.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">Here you are trying to get the reader to be curious about what’s going on. They’re planning something suspicious but it’s not clear what. This kind of mystery set-up can work in terms of piquing the reader’s interest, but essentially you’re focusing on the question, not the answer.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having no idea what’s going on will pull a reader in to some extent, but you have to keep it up or otherwise once you reveal what it is, the interest can fade very quickly. For example, if it turns out the boys are talking about a video game they plan to play that evening, the reader would probably lose the curiosity they had built up.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Alternatively, if they had this conversation:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“You sure the security cameras will be off?”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">“For sure. I got the codes off my Dad’s computer. The bank’s never had any kind of break in, so they use the same system they’ve used for years.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: large;">It becomes clear these schoolboys are planning to break into a bank for real. This isn’t what you expect of kids, so why are they doing it? How? What makes them think they can get away with it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because it’s outside of what you would expect, all sorts of details become much more interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">On the other hand, imagine the same sort of conversation between two burly men in basement, standing over a blueprint of a bank.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now that they’re two professional thieves planning a heist, the details of their personal lives become less interesting. It’s still a dramatic situation and can be great material for a story, but because it’s more in line with what you expect, you won’t be particularly surprised by the whys and wherefores. You don’t know the exact reasons why they’re robbing a bank, but you have a rough idea.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">And, again, you could be totally wrong. They might have a very unusual reason for the robbery. But without any indication of that, the reader will default to assuming to it being pretty much what they’ve seen before.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">This can be changed very simply. If it becomes clear that these men aren’t breaking into the bank to take money out, but to put a large amount of money in, then who they are, why they would want to do that, what brought them to this point all take on a lot more value for the reader.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Even though just about every story is probably not going to be about normal,everyday things, letting the reader know that in a definitive way by giving a clear indication within a scene is what snaps them out of their tendency to assume it is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s very possible, even common, that as a reader progresses through a story, they will discover stuff that they will find interesting and engaging. After they find it out.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">If, however, you present the story in a way they aren’t expecting, they will be interested and engaged before they find out the answers, and hopefully even more so afterwards.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you found this post useful, please give it a retweet. Cheers.</span></div>
mooderinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523337588830695638noreply@blogger.com232tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1061937348591302555.post-66204814108553514102015-05-11T18:00:00.000+01:002015-05-11T18:00:02.034+01:00The Other Senses<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;">When writing a story, using the senses to make scenes more vivid and visceral is simple and obvious advice. You want the reader to feel like they’re right there with the characters, experiencing what they’re experiencing.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Using what the characters see, hear, smell, touch and taste will further reader engagement, but these are not the only senses people have. There are in fact a host of other senses that are often overlooked or are so abstract that it isn’t clear how to convey them on the page.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">A simple google search will produce a list of senses other than the big five, but it isn’t enough to be aware of them, or to be able to define them. You want to be able to capture the feeling in a way that the reader will relate to, and relate to strongly.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The kind of senses I’m referring to are things like balance, hunger, time, unease, fear, pain, temperature. Everyone is familiar with these sorts of feelings, but it’s hard to describe. In fact it’s much easier to simply state it. </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m hungry</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. You know exactly what I mean and what it feels like to be hungry. But this kind of statement won’t put you in my place. It won’t make you feel hungry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, if I describe the kind of food I’m hungry for, the ridiculously indulgent cream cake sitting in my fridge, then I can not only make you feel hungry too, I can actually make you want to go open the fridge, even though it won’t do you any good because you aren’t here (and even if you were good luck getting any before I stuff it all in my face).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is what you what to achieve with all senses, to make the reader have a mirroring physical response, and there are a number of ways to do this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s not to say you shouldn’t use the big 5 sense also, but because they are used so often by so many writers, it can be hard finding an original way to put it. Somebody always seem to have already found the perfect phrase, and a bunch of other people have re-used it ad nauseam.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can, of course, still have the hairs rise on the back of a character’s neck, or a cold bead of sweat trickle down their back, and the reader will have some kind of sensory empathy, but not as strong as they might have 50 or 100 years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s one of the big advantages of considering the lesser known senses. They’ve been employed less frequently and so offer more opportunities for fresh ways to draw readers in.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, here are a few different techniques you can use to accomplish this.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The most direct method is to go on the body. You literally describe the sensations evoked in you when you experience a particular event or stimulus and the reader feels it too, whether a nervously bouncing leg or a cold bead of sweat. But, as mentioned above, it’s hard to avoid cliches and some senses don’t really have this kind of physical component. What are the physiological sensations associated with time passing, for example?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Often, a more effective method is to use the scene to recreate the stimulus itself. Like in my hunger example, making saliva pool in the reader’s mouth can be more powerful than describing the saliva in the character’s, and it’s also one of the few times over-describing something can be a good thing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You should also pay close attention to the words you use. Strong verbs, similes, alliteration can all affect how well a reader slips into the same mind state as a character. It takes a little thinking about, but it should quickly become second nature to go through your options and realise that </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">jagged </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">scraping </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">are more evocative words to use when describing pain than simply painful or very painful. Similarly </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where, what, why?</span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> can convey confusion better than </span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Where am I?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">With similes and metaphors you have to watch out for </span></span><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 33.1199989318848px; white-space: pre-wrap;">clichés</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> since all the best ones seem to have been already written (multiple times) but if you can come up with a good one it can be very effective. Much like recreating the stimulus for a sense reaction, a related stimulus that has the same reaction will still put the reader in the right state of mind just as well.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The biggest problem comes with the really abstract senses. It’s hard to capture the way you feel when you’ve been writing for what seems like ten minutes and you look up and two hours have passed. And, to be honest, the absolute best way to recreate that kind of feeling is to pay attention next time it happens to you and make notes. There really is no substitute for personal experience when it comes to trying to present a fresh perspective on a universal feeling.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, what you may find is that your observations seem very familiar. People react in similar ways and focus on the same things, in particular the small things. There’s nothing wrong with this, a small detail can very often pinpoint a feeling very accurately.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you’re on top of a ladder feeling unsteady, the things you notice within yourself, the shakiness in your hand or the wobbly sensation running up your legs, are pretty much what everyone feels, and while that’s good in terms of being relatable, it’s not so good when you’re the umpteenth writer to make that exact same observation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">My point being it’s not just about noting the first thing that comes to mind, because chances are that’s going to be too obvious and predictable. You should also consider going outside of yourself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">When you’re on top of that ladder, once you become aware of the immediate sensation in your body, think about your surroundings, the consequences, the possible options to save yourself should you fall.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">An image of yourself smashing your nose into the concrete floor below or a filthy gutter you could grab onto, hoping it won’t be wrenched away from the roof, can give just a good idea of losing balance as swaying left to right uncontrollably.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">You can even go further out, using the environment to suggest a particular state of mind. So a spooky story set on a dark and stormy night can help establish a mood that in turn makes it easier to convey the character’s sense of unease.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hmm, a dark and stormy night, I wonder if anyone’s used that phrase before. I should trademark it asap.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you found this post useful please give it a retweet. Cheers.</span></div>
mooderinohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01523337588830695638noreply@blogger.com486tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1061937348591302555.post-77150527447711678452015-04-27T18:00:00.000+01:002015-04-27T18:00:03.201+01:00Chapter One: Gone Girl<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chapter One</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is a series of posts where I take apart the first chapter of a successful book to see what makes it work, how the author hooked the reader, which rules were followed and which were broken to good effect (previous entries can be found here: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i><a href="http://moodywriting.blogspot.co.uk/p/chapter-one-analyses.html" target="_blank">Chapter One Analyses</a></i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">).</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gone Girl </span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">by Gillian Flynn was published in 2012 and made into a hit movie last year. The author’s previous two novel were moderately successful, but sold nowhere near as many copies as<i> </i>this one.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s a contemporary mystery thriller, written in the first person by two narrators, both of whom seem fairly unreliable. Chapters are alternated in a he said/she said format. The story starts with the husband (Nick) writing on the day his wife goes missing. The wife (Amy) is represented by a diary that begins on the day she first met Nick at a party in Manhattan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll be looking at both first chapters (his and hers) to see how they differ and how they complement each other.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">When I think of my wife, I always think of her head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The first line is quite an odd one. Nick is remembering the unique shape of his wife’s head, but rather than a romantic memory it comes across more like a serial killer fondly recalling a favourite skull in his collection.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’m sure this is intentional, for the writer I can see it as an effective way to make the reader unsure about how this guy feels about his wife. But from the character’s perspective it seems a strange way to begin a story.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The oddness of the first paragraph is enough to keep you reading, I think, but a little contrived. A way to get to him wondering what went on in her head, establishing the distance between them. I didn’t really believe the first thing he thought about when thinking of his wife was the shape of her head.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The next few paragraphs are him waking up. Starting a story with a character waking up in bed, sun streaming through curtains etc., is considered amateurish and will be found on any list of things to avoid in a first chapter. And for good reason. It’s dull, it’s </span><span style="line-height: 33.1199989318848px; white-space: pre-wrap;">clichéd</span><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and it tells you very little. And all those things are true here.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Of course, no rule is absolute and there’s always a way to make the old new and fresh again. Not in this case, though.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">At that exact moment, 6-0-0, the sun climbed over the skyline of oaks, revealing its full summer angry-god self. Its reflection flared across the river…</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Both character’s are writers by trade (him a reviewer for </span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Entertainment Weekly</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> type mags, her a quiz writer for something similar to </span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Cosmo</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), and both have lost their jobs due to the internet’s effects on the publishing industry. Clearly not a day too soon.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">There then follows an extensive chunk of backstory. We learn how they meet, lost their jobs, moved back to his hometown in Missouri, her reluctance, their lack of options, and the buying of a bar with the last of her trust fund.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">This part isn’t too bad. Even though info-dumping isn’t encouraged in the first chapter either, I’ve always felt it depends on how interesting your dump is. In this case the way he works in commentary about the economy, the state of the publishing industry and his hometown, his general mood of pessimism and guilt about taking his wife away from the life she was accustomed to, all helps bolster the expositional stuff so I wasn’t bored (which is my main criteria for what makes something worth reading).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Eventually he gets out of bed, goes down to the kitchen where his wife is making breakfast and then we cut to him going to work (at the bar). The chapter ends with him seeing a line of men walking along the river bank, mirroring the feeling he got from the angry-god sun (you have been seen) and he hurries into the bar.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I don’t know who the men were or why he felt disturbed by them, but I don’t think I’m meant to. I think it’s meant to feel odd, again, as a way to set the tone for the story, and I think it does that fine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">So, nothing much happens in this opening chapter. It’s more about tone and introduction. He’s not happy in his marriage, he feels guilty and a little bitter.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">He isn’t a very sympathetic character and I think the author has gone out of her way to make you question his loyalties. This is not the normal approach for this sort of story. Usually in a story where a man is suspected of killing someone, we are encouraged to empathise with him and be on his side. If he turns out to be innocent we are relieved, if he is guilty, we are surprised. Both resolutions work, the important thing is to keep the reader following the story. Something much harder to do if they don’t like the character.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">However, in this case, the dual narrators shifts the focus onto who is the good guy here, rather than rooting for one person from the outset. This probably works best in mysteries where the reader is perhaps willing to wait a little longer to find out what’s really going than in other genres.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tra and la! I am smiling a big adopted-orphan grin as I write this. I am embarrassed at how </span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">happy I am, like some Technicolor comic of a teen-girl talking on the phone with my hair in a ponytail, the bubble over my head saying: I met a boy!</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My first reaction was to fervently hope the rest of her diary entries weren’t written in this style. I haven’t read the whole book, nor seen the movie, but I know enough of the story to suspect she isn’t quite the gushy </span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sex in the City</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> fan this makes her seem. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">There are plenty of clues that she is aware how her writing will come across. She makes several references to her job as writer of quizzes in women’s magazines, the kind of status it gives her among other writers, and her need to practice her skills. And beyond that there’s a sense that all is not quite what it seems. I think her fizzy personality and one liners are meant to keep you engaged but still, having to actually plough through pages of this pseudo-teen mag!!!! writing fills me with more dread than any murderer.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">The end of her chapter, where they kiss under a shower of powdered sugar, is particularly cheesy, and makes me think she’s faking it (or at least hope she is).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having said that, the difference between narrators is very clear. You wouldn’t confuse the two styles, even without chapter titles. It’s also clear both aren’t being totally frank. He wears his guilt like a fluorescent jacket, and she writes like a delusional Austen fan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neither character is particularly appealing at this point. In fact I’d say neither chapter is remarkable in any way. So what makes this such a successful book?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Well, I have no doubt it’s a good story, with interesting twists and turns and fascinating characters even if you don’t like them very much. What it tells me is that you don’t need a slam bang opening, even for a thriller, if people have some expectation of good things to come.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In previous </span><span style="font-size: large; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Chapter Ones</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I’ve considered bestsellers with slow starts to have been countered by having established authors behind the wheel. If you know the author and have confidence in their abilities you really won’t care very much about the first couple of chapters.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">In this case, though, the writer was fairly unknown and her books mid-list at best. If it wasn’t an attention grabbing opening that sold the public on the book, what was it?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think it was probably a number of thing but in my opinion most likely it was marketing and publicity. Seeing a book advertised heavily in newspapers, seeing it reviewed well by journalists in serious publications has a similar effect as a big name author’s name above the title. People assume there must be something to all the hubbub and won’t be put off by a slow start (or even a hackneyed one as in this case).</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">G</span><span style="font-size: large; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">etting publicity, though, isn’t all that easy. It’s where big publishers have it a lot easier than those self-publishing on Amazon. Not that simply signing with a traditional publisher will get you the same kind of results. They don’t spread their money around evenly, they prefer to choose one or two books they think will do well and then push them down everyone’s throats as hard as they can. Seems to work.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large; white-space: pre-wrap;">What it does tell you is that readers aren’t all that bothered about how a story starts if they have a reasonable expectation that good things are coming. You just have to find a way to give them that expectation.</span></div>
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