Tag: writing help

A Made-up Word That Will Add Depth to Your Characters

  By ,

 

Kramer bursting through Jerry’s door. Garfield kicking Odie off the table. Michael Scott turning an innocent statement into an innuendo by adding “that’s what she said!”

What do all these things have in common?

They are all arsidities!

What the heck is an arsidity?

  1. A word I made up.
  2. The phonetic spelling for the pronunciation of the acronym RCDT: Recurring Character Development Theme. This is a phrase, object, or quirk that bears significance to a certain character or characters, and appears more than once in a single piece of work.

Wait a second, isn’t that called a “motif”?

Yes and no. A motif is a type of arsidity. A motif represents something – for instance, the sound of footsteps in A Tale of Two Cities represents the oncoming troubles of the characters, particularly Carton’s fate. An arsidity doesn’t always represent something, and is not always “important” – it is just a detail that adds depth to your characters and soul to your story. Arsidities help make a story and its characters more lovable, meaningful, charming, or funny.

More examples of arsidities:

The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien) – “my precious”     

The Outsiders (Hinton) – “gallant” and “stay gold”

Ocean’s Eleven – Rusty, Brad Pitt’s character, is eating in almost every scene

Silence of the Lambs – Hannibal Lector never blinks

Star Trek – Spock’s famous “Live long and prosper” gesture; Bones’ “Damn it, Jim, I’m a doctor not a [fill in the blank]”

None of these arsidities are vital to the plots of these books, movies, and TV shows, but can you imagine them without their arsidities? What a dull world it would be!

Do you use arsidities in your novel? How have they enhanced your character development, world building, and voice?

—

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

  By , ,

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.

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

  By ,

 

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.