Exposition

Exposition is critical as it provides background which the reader needs to appreciate the plot and/or characters. An example:

It was understandable that George would act like that. Dad was army and retired as a general. Not the top—which I think made him bitter. He got to Brigadier General which is a one star general. The top guy is four stars. I think Dad thought he should have risen higher and took it out on us.

He ran our home like boot camp. My mother tried to protect us but Dad really had it out for George—maybe because he was the oldest. George got slapped down for every little thing. One time, it was for breaking a glass. Even though Mom kept saying it was an accident, Dad gave George a clip on the ear that swelled it up for days. So, when George got away from home, he was pretty mad.

Not a horrible paragraph and for exposition of the type I’m talking about, not even all that long.

What’s wrong with exposition?

Absolutely nothing. It is completely necessary but exposition, almost by its nature, slows down the forward action. It is a pause while you tell the reader something she needs to know. But if it goes on too long, readers get restless and/or bored. And they start skipping to more interesting bits which defeats your purpose.

Multiple extensive expositions in your story will make the reader more likely to say something like, “I put it down and just couldn’t get back into it.” Not the only reason for a reader to abandon a book but too many blocks of exposition can be a contributing factor.

Writing exposition without slowing the action

Cut it down to the pertinent facts.

It was understandable that George would act like that. Dad was army and ran our home like boot camp. Dad really had it out for him—maybe because he was the oldest. So, when George got away from home, he was pretty mad.

You might not agree with my particular cuts but the point is to keep the exposition to a minimum. If George’s relationship with his father is really important, you might dramatize the glass-breaking incident in a flashback.

This is not the time to show off all the research you have done into the armed forces. When you use research in a story, keep it to the facts the reader needs to know at that moment in order to understand the situation.

Weave it into the story

Think about showing the effect his father had on George either through flashback or the way he acts in the present. If you do that, the reader will get the relationship without having to spend a lot of time in explaining and/or slowing the action. Breaking up a long explanation into a back-and-forth conversation, especially if it reveals something about the speakers (“But a lot of military families…”), avoids a feeling of stopping the action.

A protest?

I realize that there may be some hackles raised as you protest, “But the reader needs to know this.” I am not doubting that; I am just encouraging you to both keep it to what she needs right at that moment and consider actually expanding some of the exposition (e.g. Dad was bitter that he didn’t rise higher in the forces) to give a fuller picture rather than cramming it in as an aside on the way to the main point about George.

September 8, 2023August 28, 2023

Creating a Good Happy Ending

In the last post, I discussed how happy endings have fallen out of favor. But I understand that you still might want write one. So let’s talk about that.

Pitfalls to look for

There are some cues to when you might be heading down the feel-goodism path. Here’s what to look for in your story.

Things come together too easily. Brenda gets into the college of her choice. At the freshman meet and greet, she is introduced to this great guy. She marries him, they live happily ever after. Exactly what want for our own lives; boring fiction. A happy ending isn’t credible unless there are some roadblocks on the way to it.

Characters have to be bent out of shape to make the ending work. To this point in the novel, Jordie has been a lovely guy—considerate, generous, open-hearted (by the by, probably not a very interesting character). Suddenly, he deceives his girlfriend by convincing her that her BFF is coming onto him. I mean, he has to do that as you are planning a great knock-down, drag-out fight between him and the girlfriend. Although I suppose this betrayal immediately makes him more interesting, a happy ending in this case will be unsatisfying to the reader because it sort of comes out of the blue.

Deus ex machina. Or ‘God in the machine.’ Any time you have written yourself into a corner in the plot and you get out of it by introducing a never-before-seen character to save the day, a trapdoor in a bungalow—you get the picture. Major coincidence (protagonist happens to run into the one person who can save him), while not exactly the same, are nevertheless also taboo.

How to create a credible happy ending

So, to sort of turn around the pitfalls above, here are some of questions you need to ask yourself about your piece if you are heading to a happy ending.

How does your protagonist struggle to achieve the happy ending? In the example above, Brenda might like the guy but he’s already going out with someone else. She has to get his attention. The guy’s girlfriend is actually really sweet and Brenda feels guilty about her plan. You see, complications. A happy ending has to be earned.

Does he achieve it through his own efforts? Today, readers might be a little skeptical if, as in It’s a Wonderful Life, a friend in Europe agrees to advance $25,000 to cover the debt the hero owes. Usually, the protagonist needs to achieve the happy ending because of his own strivings. i.e. No deus ex machina.

Are his actions consistent? If you need Jordie to lie to his girlfriend as in the example above, then adjust your portrayal of him so that readers have a few doubts about him. If they get to the lying scene without them, both that scene and the happy ending are going to be incredible (but not in a good way).

Have seeds of happy ending been planted? Don’t have to be and in fact, shouldn’t be obvious. But little throwaway moments that the reader can take in, perhaps without even noticing them, that make a happy ending realistic. Great surprise that Roger isn’t the last one to leave the bar; he is losing weight without working out; he doesn’t fly off the handle as much. Spread over the course of the novel, these casual comments can make the happy ending of Roger going to A.A. believable.

So, you can still do a happy ending—you just need to build up to it.

August 25, 2023August 8, 2023

It’s a Wonderful Life: Feel-Good Movies

Christmas is the time for feel-good movies like The Miracle on 34^th Street, How the Grinch Stole Christmas (okay, TV movie) and It’s a Wonderful Life. We bask in stories which not only end happily but we know they’re going to. We can sit through the trials of the hero/heroine quite contentedly, knowing Things Will Work Out.

A great example of this genre is Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life. In it, George Bailey (played by Jimmy Stewart) maintains a Savings and Loan company. He wants fair mortgages for the townspeople rather than them being forced to deal with the town’s greedy banker. However, money inadvertently goes astray and George realizes he will be charged with fraud. Projecting how this shame will reflect on his loved ones, he decides he is better off dead. An angel prevents his suicide and shows him how things would have been if he had never been born. George realizes how many people his life has benefitted and decides not to jump off the bridge. When he returns home, he finds that town folk and distant friends have donated money to replace the missing amount.

The feel-good part of the movie happens when George’s friends contribute to make up the shortfall. If the movie had ended with George’s decision to live, it might still have been a good movie, but it probably would not have had the feel-good touch we all love.

The problem with feel-good stories

It was remarkably hard to get Google to say anything negative about feel-good movies. No matter what I input along with the term—criticism of, problem with, etc.—all I got were lists of the best of them. Only dictionaries would admit that the term feel-good relates to or promotes “an often specious sense of satisfaction or well-being.” Example: “a feel-good reform program that makes no changes.”

Because, let’s face it, calling a movie or novel ‘feel-good’, is often a dismissive way to denigrate a story. What in other times would have been thought of as just a ‘good’ movie, might now be flipped off with the addition of ‘feel.’ Why does a happy ending in modern works now run the risk of being disparaged in this way?

Frankly, who knows. It might be because we have been more suspicious of others’ motives than in earlier days. Or perhaps we are less willing to accept that good outcomes are as frequent and/or uncomplicated. Or maybe the literary fashion has just changed. But as a writer, you ignore this zeitgeist at your peril.

How does it affect your writing?

Interestingly enough, it might be easier to see the effects of feel-goodism in memoirs. How would you feel if you read a memoir where everything turned out beautifully for the protagonist, that she was never guilty of a value-challenging act, and everyone was lovely to everyone else?

In addition to being bored to death, I’d probably think, “She’s lying through her teeth.”

In fiction, it is more difficult to pick up when this phenomenon is operating. But you need to step back from your story to ensure that the happy ending is deserved, if you know what I mean. So how do you write a happy ending which doesn’t get the finger for feel-goodism? Next post.

August 18, 2023August 8, 2023

Creating the Fictional World

In the last post, we discussed how to do a backstory but there is another technique which can help expand the realism and fascination of the continuous dream you’re crafting. I call it creating the fictional world (CFW).

What is creating the fictional world?

With every story, you place your characters not only in a plot but also a setting (or world). The world may be another planet, another time period, or the house down the street. Doesn’t matter. Just as you do backstory to develop your characters, you can do CFW to leverage your setting/world to deepen the impact of your story.

Backstory and CFW have many similarities but CFW is different enough to warrant separate treatment. Most importantly, CFW is not description. Description of your world has its place, of course, but CFW is more focused on how your fictional world influences your characters’ thoughts and actions.

How to do it

As with backstory, this technique works best somewhere in the middle of writing your story or, at very least, when you have a good sense of your plot and characters. Doing it beforehand can lead to a stilted feel as you try to shoehorn them into your world.

To consciously explore the world you’re creating, you can ask yourself:

What is distinctive about my fictional world? An answer of ‘nothing’ is not the right one. A completely generic setting means you’re losing an opportunity to enrich your narrative. If you’re having trouble with this, think back to when you first conceived the story. Why did you pick the setting to begin with?

What aspects of your world might intrigue the reader? Pick two or three of the most prominent.

How does my distinctive world affect the characters’ thoughts and actions? Are there morals, customs, values, unspoken expectations and even external events of your setting which can and should influence your protagonist?

An example

Let’s use my novel, Kimono Spring, to work through the technique.

What is distinctive about my fictional world? It happens in the 50s and is seen through the eyes of a child.

What aspects of your world might intrigue the reader? 1950s, Japanese-Canadian, seven year old girl.

How does my distinctive world affect the characters’ thoughts and actions?

My protagonist (the little girl) observes but doesn’t comprehend what is going on in the adult world. The reader understands more than the little girl. Possible scene: parents fight over discipline. Reader realizes the marriage is in trouble but little girl is just relieved that she won’t be punished.
Caught between two cultures when post-war hate of Japanese still strong. Possible scenes: the family experiences prejudice at work, shopping, etc.
The 50s’ pressure to present a perfect picture to the world. Possible scene: Mother trying to deny Japanese heritage to conform to 50s’ ideal.

Don’t go crazy about this

You can easily see that this could get out of hand. Don’t work this exercise with every item of your world. But try it for a few distinctive aspects. The huge upside in this approach is that it often gives you ideas of scenes to write.

A fully realized world will help you create a fully realized novel.

August 11, 2023August 8, 2023

How to Create a Backstory

In the last post, I covered why you might want a backstory and an abbreviated example. In this post, I’ll discuss how to create one. But first, I think I will cover:

Why/when to create a backstory

When you’re stuck. You envisioned the plot going one way and then find the planned twist won’t work.

When you have written yourself into a corner. Your protagonist has to be hard-hearted for this scene but you’ve already established her as kind and generous.

When your story feels flat/boring/ any other adjective which strikes fear in a writer’s heart. Don’t believe this too quickly. As I talk about in Everything I Write is Junk!, this may be just destructive self-talk we all occasionally fall prey to.

All these reasons assume you’re already writing the story. Backstory can be just what you need once you’ve gotten the shape of the piece. It’s the pause to take stock and hopefully re-energize.

It might be tempting to do a backstory before even starting the writing—sort of warming yourself to the character—but by and large, I’d avoid it. A backstory before writing comes dangerously close to a plot outline which I don’t think is helpful to your process.

Write, write, write

Put aside a period of time for this. You can’t usually do this in fits and starts. You can always come back once you’ve broken the back of the issue.

If it feels right to start with the definition of backstory and write the history, goals, dreams, and nightmares of your character by all means, go ahead. But I tend to do a backstory only when a problem from the section above comes up.

Your backstory will be unique but here are some general questions you can ask yourself.

What’s the problem? Don’t be brief. Do a detailed exploration of the problem up to and including rants, frustrations, and emotions (yours, not the character’s).

Why do you think this has happened? An unacceptable answer: because I’m a crummy writer. First off, it’s probably not true and secondly, it lets you off the hook for doing some hard thinking. Instead, pose questions like ‘Have I focused too much on the secondary characters?’ OR ‘Is the protagonist more acted upon (i.e. passive) than acting?’ OR ‘Are you trying to cover too much (since the cooling of the earth) or too little (not enough meat for a full story).’ Etc.

In a perfect world, how would the character/story turn out? Not necessarily just the ending, but also the feel, intent, theme of the piece.

To attain the perfect world, what writing needs to be created, revised, or dropped? Identify the scenes that are lacking in some way.

Is mastery of craft or failure of imagination standing in your way? If you don’t know how to achieve the desired effect technically, get writing coaching or tutoring. If your creativity seems to be on strike, take a stretch, a walk, a shower or a nap. Get away from the piece for a few minutes or if you must, a few days. If none of that works, toss the problem around with your writing group or a close friend.

Isn’t this a lot of work?

Yes.

But what are your options? If you continue to slog along, convinced that you are writing junk, you might well talk yourself into stopping.

It does take time, so don’t backstory every problem you face. Pick the big one and work it through. That’s frequently enough to energize you and the story.

The big bonus of backstory is that it often provides fodder for new scenes. If the heroine is boring, thinking through how to deal with this can prompt ideas for exciting ways to address this.

There is one aspect of backstory which I think is a bit different. Next post.