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.

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.

August 8, 2023August 8, 2023

Creating the Continuous Dream and Backstory

As I have mentioned in other posts, the job of writers is to create what John Gardner called the continuous dream—that is, a story the reader can immerse herself in and live in the world of your fiction. The more you do this, the more your reader finds the story both credible and compelling. Similarly, you need to avoid breaking the dream—that is, momentarily pulling your reader out of the story to wonder something like would Joe really do that? Or worse, abandoning your piece altogether because it didn’t grab him. To keep the continuous dream going, you want to create characters which are both fully realized (i.e. act like real people) and powerfully transmit your message. One way to support that is to write a backstory.

What is backstory?

Backstory is the writer’s exploration of a character’s motives, history, goals, dreams, nightmares and generally, how the character fits into your fictional world. The character is usually your main protagonist but can be others.

Backstory differs from the story you’re writing in that its intent is to inform you, not the reader. It helps you make decisions about where to take your narrative and so may never appear in the actual story.

An example

In my novel, The Honest One, my main character (David) is a hard-driving, ambitious young man who does whatever it takes to succeed. He steals an idea from a colleague to garner senior management’s attention.

At one point, I wasn’t sure where to go next for David to be a fully realized character. The following is a very abbreviated version of what I wrote as I was working through.

Who is David?

He knows he should not steal but does it anyway.

How interesting. Why?

Because he wants to succeed at any cost.

Why is he so driven?

His father Gord tells the truth all the time and has been sidelined and ostracized at work as a result. David knows that truth doesn’t lead to success.

But this, coupled with the ambition, creates an unsympathetic character. Do I want to make David more sympathetic? But then the whole point of the character is lost. I want the reader to be routing for him while recognizing the deviousness. How do I square this circle?

I think the reader would continue reading if David was a compelling character—that is, you can’t stop reading even though he is somewhat unsavory. How do I do that? Would it be enough to see his inner guilt? Or that he has other positive and sympathetic traits? Or something else. But what?

Would it work to have a personal life which isn’t so driven? Does he compartmentalize work and personal life so he can do things at work he could not justify in his non-work life?

As I said, this is an extremely condensed version of what I wrote. In the full version, I would have come up with some possible solutions to my questions and then written some experimental scenes to see if could achieve the effect I wanted. In any case, I hope the example above illustrates that you can use writing about the character to help you work out where you want to go even if the backstory itself never makes it into the novel.

Next post: how to do a backstory.

July 14, 2023July 14, 2023

A Gentleman in Moscow

Moscow

A Gentleman in Moscow

Amor Towles’ widely acclaimed A Gentleman in Moscow was published in 2016. It is the story of a Russian aristocrat during the Russian Revolution. His sanctuary/house arrest is the luxurious Metropol Hotel where he meets a girl who shows him the inner workings of the hotel. A moody chef, among other characters, figure in his discovery.

I found I enjoyed reading the novel while reading it but when I put it down, it took me a long time to pick it up again. This happened again and again. At about page 250, I think I figured out what was causing the sporadic reading.

The novel has lots of events, but no real plot. Things happen but the novel doesn’t seem to go anywhere.

A Gentleman in Moscow has other charms

Although I enjoy a good plot, I recognize that novels can be excellent for other reasons. I can and do appreciate living in the world Amor Towles created. The Count is quite a delightful character and his insights into Life are both apt and apropos. NPR’s review of the book says:

All of the verbal excess, the gently funny mock-epic digressions, the small capers and cast of colorful characters, add up to something undeniably mannered but also undeniably pleasant.

And I agree. It is lovely to read when I am reading it.

But there is the problem that I keep putting it down and not picking it up for a long time.

Lots of events, no story

This is tough concept to get. The idea that lots can happen, but there is no real story. The closest thing I think I can get to is when you watch, willingly or otherwise, somebody else’s vacation photos. Lots of places are visited, lots of boats boarded, lots of meals consumed. But it isn’t so much a story as a litany of events.

Which is fine for holiday snaps but readers usually expect more from a novel. I am prepared for people to argue that A Gentleman in Moscow does so have a story. I might even agree with them. But fundamentally, although things happen, it doesn’t have a sense of forward motion. The sense that the protagonist is going to end up somewhere different or be someone at least slightly different.

It might be argued that it is more real life to have a protagonist who is adapting as well as he can to a difficult situation. True. But, as I have said Fiction is Not Life and how it really happened is not actually an adequate defense against the charge of no story.

Fiction has its own rules. In order to feel authentic on the page, it often requires a distortion of what usually happens in real life. And generally, fiction requires that the story goes somewhere even if we don’t necessarily expect our own lives to come to a climax which is resolved in a surprising yet satisfying way.

Well, it is possible that A Gentleman in Moscow does suddenly develop a forward motion even if there was no sign of it at page 250. I’ll let you know when I get back to it.

Next post—how to turn events into a plot.