Author: Stephanie Orges

Stephanie is an award-winning copywriter, aspiring novelist, and barely passable ukulele player. Here, she offers writing prompts, tips, and moderate-to-deep philosophical discussions. You can also find her on and Pinterest.

Plot Exposition, Muppets, and Cannibalism: a Writing Lesson from the Movies

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There’s a scene in the Great Muppet Caper, in which Lady Holiday explains to Miss Piggy the backstory for the entire movie.
Miss Piggy: Why are you telling me all this?
Lady Holiday: It’s plot exposition. It has to go somewhere.

The Muppets are a classic in my family, and whenever we catch serious movies forcing blocks of plot exposition into dialogue for convenience, we roll our eyes at each other and quote Lady Holiday.

It’s a good rule of thumb to make sure you Show Don’t Tell by giving everything you write the “how can I translate this to the big screen?” test, but shoving all your plot into dialogue and all your character development into voiceover is cheating – and it will show in your work. Perhaps a better way to remember the rule is “Imply, don’t state.” Let’s switch to an example of Imply Don’t State done right in a movie.

The Book of Eli opens up in a forest, gray with fog, where lies a decaying human body. A skin-and-bones cat is picking at the carcass. A few feet away, a hunter waits, aiming a crossbow. He sees the perfect moment, shoots the cat, picks up the dead creature for his next meal, and leaves the human body.

This seemingly simple first scene conveys everything we need to know in one fell swoop. Something terrible has happened in this world. Times are desperate. And even though we don’t yet know the main character’s name, or where he comes from, or where he is going, we know he won’t eat human flesh, even if he is starving. He also doesn’t bury the body, but thanks to the previous fact, we know this is not due to a lack of respect for human life. Either he’s seen too many human bodies to bother burying one of them, or he has more important things to do. Or both. We also know that he has patience and skill with a weapon.

We learn all this in less than five minutes, without hearing a word of dialogue. And it’s brilliant. Approach your novel (or short story) the same way.

Writing is Mind Control

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these aren't the droids you're looking for

 

As you pass by an alley on your way to the drugstore, a woman with a face like a dried apricot approaches you from the shadows. Her eyes are squinted so tightly, you’re amazed that she can see at all, but she aims a knobby finger directly at you, and a voice like tires on gravel announces that you have magical powers. You can draw little black marks on paper, she says, and when other people see these marks, their minds are filled with new images, feelings, and ideas.

With years of training and practice, you can hone this natural ability into a powerful weapon—so potent, it could change the world.

Minus the creepy old woman, this scenario is 100% true. Language is a form of mind control. In a way, it’s easy; I can write “mouse in overalls,” and the image will automatically pop into your head. But it’s more complicated than that; did you picture a mouse poking its head out of a farmer’s overall pocket, or did you picture a mouse actually wearing a pair of miniature overalls? You must choose the right words, and combine them in just the right way, for the magic to work.

Plus, in order to plant things in people’s minds, you have to get them to read your stuff—which will be difficult if it is boring or badly written. That’s where the training and practice comes in. The more accomplished you are at showing, not telling, through your writing, the more interesting the story, and the more relatable the characters—the more influence you have over your readers. And, like any power, you can use it for good or evil. Will you teach ideas that improve the world, or make it worse? Bring happiness, or pain? Inspire hope, or despair?

It’s your choice, oh powerful one.

Help! My Short Story is Turning Into a Novel! – 3 Tips to Get It Back on Track

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Too wordy?

 

Those of us who write (or read) mostly novels are used to dragging out the story over several scenes and chapters. We set the stage, introduce characters, infuse the narrative with backstory, build plot, build plot, build plot, write very dramatic death scenes at the climax, then finish up with a brief but satisfying summary of what happened afterwards. The problem is, we approach short stories as if they are mini-novels…then wonder why we can’t make it work. Here are three things I’ve learned about writing the perfect short story:

1. Find the right place to start. Picture the whole story in your head, as if it were a full length novel, and identify the climax—the moment the hero makes his or her ultimate decision, and people die or escape or kiss or whatever. Write that scene. And only that scene. Now, read it. Does it make sense by itself? If not, add backstory in small amounts until it does. If you really have to add additional scenes, add them, but only before the climax, never after—and keep your red pen ready.

2. Build the story like a joke. Whether it is a comedy or not, think: Setup. Punchline. Open with a punchy first sentence and build quickly to your climax; your last sentence is your punchline.

3. Cut extraneous details. No more than three main characters, and that’s pushing it. Don’t describe whole landscapes; only what your character notices in the heat of their passion, fear, grief, whatever. If possible, don’t even include character names. Look carefully at every sentence, every word. If it can be cut, it should be—you will find the phrasing hits harder the more concise you are.

Writing: the Sixth Sense

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I see fictional people. And they don't know they're fictional.

 

After reading my novel (old draft, now discarded) for the first time, my brother’s fiancée asked me where I got the idea.

I had no idea what to say.

Of course there were various influences, from Out of the Silent Planet to Stargate, but I can’t rightly say where I got any idea. I can’t say I made it up, either. It’s inspiration. God breathes it at us.

Writing fiction is like discovering a story that is really going on somewhere, but you can’t see or hear it. Writers are simply born with a sort of sixth sense by which they feel the story. Sometimes we are well-attuned to that sense; sometimes the sense lies to us. We know some details of the story automatically, without even thinking about it, while other details we have to feel for in the dark. That’s why there are so many badly-written books. Those authors haven’t fine-tuned their sixth sense.

We don’t control it; we discover it. That’s why our characters rebel and sometimes refuse to do things we want them to. We can turn them into puppets and force them to our will, but that always makes a soulless, wooden story. There are certain restrictions to playing God. If we interfere with free will, we suck the life out of the story. But if we stick to manipulating only certain parts of the story – the weather, or the timing of events – we can move the story forward naturally. We arrange events around our characters’ personal tendencies, like drawing a chalk line around an ant, to urge them in certain directions. 

Finally, they arrive at the end – having walked there on their own two feet – where they will discover, Author-willing, their carefully-planned happily ever after.

—

The Three Laws of Writing

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There are dozens of rules in writing – ones you should follow and ones you should break – but there are three basic tenets at the core of good fiction that you ought to know. I’ll expand on the Three Laws as we go along. For now, here’s an overview:

Law #1: Read good books. Garbage in, garbage out. If you want to write well, feed your mind with excellent writing. You’ll learn a lot just by osmosis. Start with the books that defined your genre. If you write fantasy, read Tolkien. If you write sci-fi, read Wells. If you write mystery, read Doyle. Then branch out and read in other genres; Dickens. Carroll. Bradbury.

Law #2: Show, don’t tell. You’ll hear this one a lot, because it’s true. But it’s not always explained well. Here’s a short example: “she was beautiful” is telling; “her large, indigo eyes peeked out from behind a mess of curling flaxen locks” is showing.

Law #3: Write from your gut. You’re trying to write a dramatic scene and it sounds cheesy. It’s happened to the best of us – because we were trying to be poetic instead of just writing from the gut. Hopefully, we haven’t experienced the same tragedies that we inflict on our characters, but we’ve probably felt, to some degree, the same emotions. You’ve never lost your entire family to Martian invaders in a single day, but maybe you had to put your dog to sleep. Latch onto that feeling. Try to remember every detail – how it felt in your chest and in your fingers, the thoughts you didn’t want to think, the things you wished you could say. Avoid using fancy words; just write as plainly and as honestly as you can, and from the rawness of your emotion, beauty will naturally emerge.

Is your work Three Laws Safe?