Writing and the Ugly Duck Syndrome

When somebody tells you what you’ve written doesn’t work (for whatever reason), that doesn’t mean you should rip it up and throw it away. It can be easier to think of writing as an all or nothing process, since the horrendous idea of having to rewrite everything is often a really good way to convince yourself to do nothing.

But something that doesn’t work doesn’t have to be removed or recreated from scratch, it just has to be improved. That goes for any kind of writing, whether it’s central to the plot, or a minor subplot, or backstory, or exposition. 

Things that may seem vital to the integrity of your idea, key to the development of the narrative, or the very reason you wrote the story in the first place, never are. Nothing in your story can’t be reworked in a way that does whatever you want it to do, and does it better.

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Chapter One: The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is a debut novel from 2011. It is one of those books that publishers decide will be culture-changing and so market the hell out of it. Most reviews praise the ideas and imagery of the first 150 pages or so, and criticise the story and plotting from there to the end.

Luckily, that is of no consequence here. We shall be looking at the (rather short) first chapter to see how Miss Morgenstern uses it to grab the reader’s attention, which she certainly does (even if later she loses her grip).

The man billed as Prospero the Enchanter receives a fair amount of correspondence via the theatre office, but this is the first envelope addressed to him that contains a suicide note, and it is also the first to arrive carefully pinned to the coat of a five-year-old girl.

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What Do You Love About Your Dialogue?

The general advice about writing dialogue tends to follow the same basic precepts. Conflict, goals, move the plot forward, don’t waste time with chit-chat, etc. That is certainly all useful stuff and will help keep the story moving.

But there’s more to dialogue than just getting across information.

People loves great dialogue. In books, in plays, in movies. In real life. Sparkling conversation holds the attention, even when it has nothing to do with anything. People like hearing it. It’s enjoyable to read. But it’s very difficult to write.

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What Do You Love About Your Characters?

When it comes down to it, it’s the people in stories that stay with the reader. You may be impressed and delighted by a plot twist or a surprise ending, but that’s not what you’ll remember years later. It’s the characters that will stay with you.

Some fictional characters resonate strongly with people. They stand out as remarkable. You want to know more about them. You want to read more books about them. You want to see the movie when it comes out. Why? What is it that makes a character stand out? And more importantly, how does anyone meeting your character for the first time know how wonderful they are?

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What Do You Love About Your Story?

When you first come up with an idea for a story, you don’t have to think too hard about what it is you like about the story. Something catches your interest. One idea follows another and you’re off and running.

Later, when you’re deep in the belly of the beast, maybe stuck in the middle of the first draft, or struggling with the umpteenth rewrite, the very point of writing as a use of your time comes into question. You liked the idea as an idea, but this sprawling mess in front of you doesn’t seem to be that thing at all.

Why are you even bothering? Who is going to read this? Aren’t there already a thousand stories like this? What’s on TV?

You have to be able to hold onto the thing that made you want to write this particular story. When the going gets tough (and it will) you need that thing to get you through. But first you need to work out what thing is.

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Writing Without Too Much On The Nose

Story shouldn’t be obvious or predictable. Nobody enjoys being told about things that just happen in a nice convenient fashion, no matter how realistic and lifelike it might be. Don’t write on-the-nose.

On the other hand, story shouldn’t be vague or obtuse. Nobody enjoys being confused or bored, no matter how brilliantly the baffling events of Chapter One are explained in Chapter Sixteen. Don’t write wishy-washy.

Don’t be obvious. Don’t be vague. So what does that leave?

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The Joys of Rewriting

There are some people who love getting an idea down on paper, and that’s it, they’re done. The concept of going over it again and again is anathema to them. Nothing could seem more tedious and uncreative. But there's no writing without rewriting.

There are times when things come out fully formed. A short story. A poem. A sketch. A little ditty. But if you want to create a substantial piece of work, in any of the arts, you have to be ready to get down and dirty, and really work it.

This is true of all works of art. They all require slow, tedious, laborious effort. There’s a romantic idea of creativity, mostly from movies, that an artist creates spontaneously and at great speed. The writer bashes away at the old typewriter. The painter sloshes the paint on the canvas. The composer wakes inspired by a melody heard in a dream. 

Fast cuts and a driving musical score produce a montage sequence that makes it all look like so much fun. Sadly, that's not how it is in the real world.

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Improvising Is More Than Making Things Up As You Go Along

If I told you to go up in front of an audience and speak for two minutes about something off the top of your head, and make it interesting, could you?

What if I said the same thing, but this time added the proviso that you can’t use the word ‘the’?

A strange thing will happen as you struggle to get the words out without breaking my arbitrary rule. The audience, even though they don’t know why you’re speaking so weirdly, will recognise that you are struggling against something and it will catch their interest.

And an even stranger thing happens if I let the audience in on what it is you’re trying to do. They will join in the game with you, laughing at your weird story, going ooh when you nearly make a mistake.

The point is, when you are struggling against an obstacle, what you do to get round that obstacle becomes interesting. The same action with no obstacle takes a lot more effort to get the same result.

Difficulty stimulates the brain to be more creative. And difficulty is what makes improvisation engaging.

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You Already Have The Answer

Everyone has a natural facility for telling stories. It is part of our ability to communicate. When we instinctively tell someone else about something we consider interesting, we edit, fill in background details, provide backstory, even embellish—all without thinking twice.

When we start writing these things down, things aren’t quite so easy. Without the natural rhythms and purpose of spoken language—and the interaction of another person asking for more detail when they need it—we can freeze up and start doubting the value of what’s on the page. Which is often when we turn to books for guidance and instruction, and even reassurance.

The thing is, the basic structure of story is pretty similar in every book on craft. There may be variations on a theme, but generally all the advice is pretty much of a muchness. And if you have written a story you’re trying to fix up, and you go over it armed with the Indomitable Hero Flow Chart, or the 22-step Brain Map, or whatever method your favourite new book has revealed to you, what you will tend to find is that most of the things they say you need for a good story, you already have.

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Inside A Story Part 2: The Hunger Games

In part one of this post I discussed various techniques to keep each moment of a story interesting in and of itself. In particular, how a story is made up of a bunch of much smaller stories that keep the reader engaged as the bigger story is slowly rolled out. In today’s post I will use the first chapter of The Hunger Games to demonstrate what I mean (I get so many search hits for HG based on the one post I did mentioning it, that I thought I might as well give those people another article to read). There will be spoilers.

Chapter One introduces the MC, explains what The Hunger Games are, and ends with Katniss not getting selected—her sister is chosen instead. 

There is a lot of backstory and exposition and the key development is Prim’s selection, but a lot of other stuff is also going on during this chapter. I’m going to look at the moments in each sequence of scenes to see how the author manages to keep interest high, even when she’s being very digressive.

These techniques can help you energise quieter moments and also make backstory and exposition enjoyable to read.

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