Digging for Writing Advice Gold

Advice, for writing and for everything else, is situational. In some cases it applies, in some it doesn’t.

When a concisely phrased suggestion fits perfectly with what you’ve been trying to work out it can be mind-blowing. Everything suddenly slots into place. You know exactly what you need to do. Not only does it seem to give you the answer to the problem at hand, it can change the way you look at the world in general.

But advice, no matter how apropos, never applies to everything. The camera never lies, love conquers all, honesty is the best policy, they all have their exceptions and so does every other piece of wisdom.

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Starting With Subplot

 

There are stories where you start in the middle of things and keep going. In the case of thrillers and books that are part of a series the reader doesn’t really need an explanation of what’s going on, they’ll work it out on the fly.

In most cases, though, readers prefer to get an idea of characters and setting before things really take off. The inciting incident that propels the main character into adventure may not occur for several chapters.

When you’re trying to establish the world so the reader has an idea of who they’re going to be following for the next few hundred pages the approach is often to show ordinary life, important relationships, interests and activities. And this can be quite dull.

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Complications Of Storytelling

All stories get more complicated the further you get into them.

This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just inevitable. The reader starts off knowing nothing, and over the course of the story they get fed more and more information.

If it’s a properly written story anything the reader is told will be relevant to further developments. That means they have to remember everything that’s happened so far and how it relates to everything else that’s also happened and everything that’s going to happen.

This network of events, consequences and reactions will get ever more intricate. To the point where it can become so overwhelming that when a character says, “Hey, Mary’s back!” all the reader thinks is, Who the hell is Mary?  

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Does Everyone Have A Novel In Them?

It seems like everyone wants to be a writer these days, but do they all have a story worth telling? The short answer is yes. I believe that with no doubt whatsoever.

However, it may not be the story they’re actually writing. Many writers shy away from the really interesting stuff they could tell because it’s just too damn uncomfortable for them. And then even when they do pick the perfect tale, they can still screw it up in the telling.

But I believe anyone can come up with something that’s interesting enough to share with the world at large.

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Pedantic Much?

When you first learn about the basics of good writing, about how to best employ the senses, or how not to employ adverbs, there comes a moment when it all comes together, when it all makes perfect sense. Good sense that can’t be argued with. And you start employing those ideas in your own writing and no doubt your writing improves greatly.

However, it’s very easy to go from convert to zealot. The main difference being you suddenly feel the need to impress on others the true path. And in many cases others would certainly benefit from knowing the value of show versus tell, or that short sentences make action scenes more visceral. How could anyone disagree with using fewer clichés?

But that doesn’t mean it’s true for all cases.

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Do Not Trust Your Gut

Let’s say you’ve written a story, you think it’s pretty good but you know it needs work—and you’re prepared to do that work—but being so close to it, it’s hard to know exactly what to change and what not to change.

So, you give it to a couple of people to read and they both zero in on the same thing that needs fixing. And you’re pleased because you too suspected that part needed work. However, the suggestions they make for what’s wrong with it and what approach needs to be taken to make amends is totally contradictory. One says do more, the other says do less. One says this story needs more of Mr X, the other says it needs more of Mr Y. Make it quicker, no, make it slower.

And the thing is, you can see both make valid points. They both have merit. Either could be right. What do you do?

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The Reversal

The Reversal is a technique when things appear to be going one way, but they end up going another. It helps stories avoid being predictable and you can use it to subvert clichés. It also pulls the reader deeper into the story.

In its most familiar form a reversal is a plot twist, usually big and important. You thought the murderer was Dave, everything pointed to it being Dave. But it was BILL!

What you can do though is use it in a more simple, subtle form, to keep a reader engaged and wondering what will happen next. This is especially useful in genre fiction where readers who are familiar with the form start guessing what happens next and rapidly lose interest.

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Make the most of it

If what appears to be happening in a scene is exactly what is happening in a scene, it can read as plodding and obvious. Direct, on-the-nose, mono-layered, mono-tone storytelling has a tendency to read as juvenile. That’s not to say the writing can’t be simple, but simple isn’t the same as simplistic.

One way to add depth to a scene is to take into account where the scene is set, and use the setting to create sophisticated storytelling. It should be noted that as simple doesn’t mean simplistic, so sophisticated shouldn’t mean convoluted.

Here are eight ways to achieve a greater level of depth without being too obvious (or too waffly) about it:

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Action Stations!

There are some basic rules to writing action in fiction that are straightforward and make sense. Keep sentences short to add pace. Be clear and use simple language when describing complicated moves. Show don't tell.

This doesn’t just apply to fights and chases. Any confrontation, any physical movement, any visual scene will have an action element to it. However, you can’t just replicate Hollywood movie visuals, the picture in the reader’s head won't automatically have the same impact as stunt-work on the big screen. You have to find a way to translate what's on the page into an emotional experience for the reader.

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Chapter One: The Friends of Eddie Coyle

The latest genre in my series of Chapter 1 Analyses is crime fiction. The Friends of Eddie Coyle was written in 1972 by George V. Higgins, an experienced lawyer. It was his first published novel (although he had 14 failed attempts under his beltt—hope for us all) and it was made into a film soon after starring Robert Mitchum in the title role.

I looked at a number of crime fiction books for this post as I would have preferred something more recent, but most followed fairly standard approaches, many of which we have already discussed in this series. However, this book, considered a classic and much admired by people like Elmore Leonard and Dennis Lehane, had a first chapter that really made an impact on me. Here are the opening lines:

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Chapter One: Harry Potter

This dissection is specifically looking at how best to construct an opening chapter of a novel, in this case for children. I should say first that I am not a big reader of middle grade books and will be approaching this first chapter the same as any other in the series (other books I’ve analysed can be found here: Chapter One Analyses), with a view to taking it apart to see what works, what doesn’t (and how she got round that), which conventions are used well, and which are broken to good effect.

Clearly this is one of the most famous and most revered books in children’s literature but I have attempted to approach it objectively, aided by the fact that I have never read any of the books in the series. It should also be remembered that chapter one in a published book as written may not have been chapter one in the original manuscript, or may have gone through many edits.

The original Harry Potter book was published in 1997 after being rejected by numerous publishers. The first chapter, thirteen pages, is a little different to the rest of the book, being in omniscient POV, very much in the narrator’s voice. The following chapters appear to switch to a more conventional third person POV from Harry’s perspective (although I don’t know if this remains so for the rest of the book).

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