quote:Originally posted by Silkienne Dvora: Putting the crown on the prince’s head wasn’t something Foxchild wanted to do, but he’d promised his father to complete the task.
The immediate picture drawn by "putting the crown on the prince's head" is a coronation. But a couple of paragraphs later it turns out they're at a forge and this is some kind of fitting. Don't make the reader reimagine the setting. Make it clear from the start.
This is still telling. My suggestion would be to get in deeper to Foxchild's POV. Show me his internal conflict between what he'd promised and what he thinks is the right choice. Show some internal and (perhaps suppressed) external signs of his emotions. (If you're unsure how to do that, I suggest Ackerman and Puglisi, THE EMOTION THESAURUS. In fact, there are several books in that series you might find helpful.) Also use his internal thoughts to communicate this information rather than the narrator's telling it. How much does his promise to his father weigh on him and why? What makes him think this might not be a good idea so that he doesn't want to do it? And what choices does he think he has?
quote:“I am the king.” Sanzir sneered, “Get on your knees before me.”
“You are not the king yet, Prince Sanzir.” Foxchild took in a lungful of air, as much to steady his voice as to calm his anger. He ran his fingers along the line between the prince’s head and the edge of the crown, feeling for spaces and pinches.
Since this is Foxchild's POV, this is the perfect time to get in a description of Sanzir--the details that would be important to Foxchild at this moment. Is this prince a cocky teenager? A grown man who'd demonstrated his overweening pride before?
Foxchild's reaction is far too mild. The deep, steadying breath is good, but it needs more. Internal thoughts could give the reader more insight into Foxchild's doubts about doing this. More physical reaction to this statement, even if--perhaps especially if--Foxchild dare not show it outwardly would enhance the conflict.
quote:Removing the crown from the prince’s brow, he set it once more into the heat, this time in a hearth in the kingdom of men. The crown only needed a small adjustment, so it lay against Sanzir’s head as if it were part of him---as if it were made for him. Which it had been. Rather than using the hammer and the strength of the forge in his arm, he pulled on heavy bison-hide gloves and bent the hot metal with his hands.
I'm having a hard time picturing the "strength of the forge in his arm." That line stops me cold.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thank you Jay. I've been told before that my writing was very cinematic. I didn't feel it was a compliment, though others told me it was. Now I understand why.
So I'm still withholding too much information from the first thirteen lines. Perhaps it would be better told as the alfer envoy makes the formal presentation and Foxchild is forced to put the crown on the king's head. A more poignant moment, but it's the human king receiving the crown from Foxchild and his seething at the rules he's bowed to all of his life that I want to show/tell/convey (all those words are inadequate and seem to be wrapped in my problem).
Thirty years as a nonfiction writer seems to be my biggest problem, not my greatest asset. I see the story, but I'm not weeping and tortured by it as I have been in the past for my published fiction. Does that mean the story is not enough to matter, or that I'm not yet close enough to Foxchild to care? I thought it meant the opioids were helping the pain and I was past the brain fog.
I'm hoping my copy of "Techniques of the Selling Writer" comes in another day or so. I'm ready for the next text.
I'm not sure what I'm doing is relaxing and digging into the nuts and bolts. I'm putting in the time, experimenting with what I've learned and have sworn off nonfiction for a couple of months. I may need to extend that deadline, but we'll see if this old dog can still learn.
The best gift y'all have given me is a mirror. I can see my efforts through your eyes. Extrinsic thinks like a typical SF&F reader, immediately looking at all of the possible meanings build into a simple paragraph---more than I'd imagined. You've written and published so many novels that prose and storycrafting are part of you, as much as being an engineer and a scoutmaster.
Now, I will no longer nod and believe I comprehend these texts when a parallel of nonfiction comes to mind. It's like the difference in the structure of a horse and a cow. Those two animals have done all of the same things for us through history (riding, driving, milking, meat), but not in the same way. They are no more the same animal than nonfiction and fiction are alike. I see I have a very long way to go to change my modus operendi. Even my analogy is nonfiction.
posted
Narrative point of view mechanics are grammar principles and global for all composition: grammatical person, tense, grammatical mood, subjective opinion and objective fact axis, degree of expression sophistication, and tone's attitude.
Prose separates from nonfiction at viewpoint and narrator personas, degree of access to personas' thoughts, personalness, and aesthetic functions. A viewpoint persona may or may not be a prose narrator. Nonfiction's narrator is always the writer, always overtly impersonal, always detached to remote distance, never overtly accesses others' thoughts (psychic access). Prose may be as detached a narrator as nonfiction, though present-day readers favor a degree of closer narrative distance between narrator and viewpoint persona, from remote to middle to close to danger close distance.
Narrative distance is the degree of separation between a narrator's and a viewpoint persona's perspectives, sensations, thoughts. Dave King's essay "Decoding Narrative Distance" offers insight, though contains a few misperceptions.
A third-person narrator, past tense, indicative mood, objective by default, omniscience limited to one persona, close narrative distance is the reader favored overall narrative point of view anymore. First-person narrator, present tense, indicative-subjunctive mood mesh, subjective by default, omniscience limited to the self, and by default close narrative distance is a close second. Each comes with similar and different challenges. First person's is often a lack of the first-person's character development. Third's is an all too often inconsistent viewpoint persona and narrator perception mishmash.
Third person and past tense entail strongest by default objective sensibilities. First person and present tense entail strongest by default subjective sensibilities.
Many believe third person cannot be as close a distance as first person, includes King. That is a misperception; "non-narrated" third person can be at least as close or closer.
The non-narrated third person absents the narrator altogether and is non-narrator, unfiltered received reflections portrayed from a viewpoint persona's insider perceptions. This is an insider looks, perceives, outward and inward narrative point of view and viewpoint synthesis. Cinema and stage cannot do that; even with the many gimmicks innovated to simulate insider looks outward and inward, viewers and hearers nonetheless receive actors' externally.
Breakdown from the latest version's first sentence:
"Putting the crown on the prince’s head wasn’t something Foxchild wanted to do, but he’d promised his father to complete the task."
Third-person, mixed present progressive, past progressive, past infinitive, past perfect, and future infinitive tenses, indicative mood, subjective tone, limited omniscient psychic access, remote to middle distance outsider narrator to insider thoughts, narrative point of view. Where's the simple tense predicate anchor? Simple past? Simple present? Albeit a remote distance stream-of-consciousness expression, perhaps of Foxchild's, though heavily narrator filtered.
Narrator filters, perceives and summarizes and explains and reports Foxchild's shallow thoughts direct to readers, from a remote distance, closer than detached at least. Writer tells Foxchild what to think, Foxchild tells narrator, narrator tells writer to tell readers. Too many filters!
If instead, a setting detail, an external perception of Foxchild's somewhat introduced the scene and he, the distance might close somewhat. Deep, immediate at first, and close access is a challenge to many readers. Gentled up to is broadly preferred. Exceptions abound.
The crown must be cooled to set upon Sanzir's head, right? From where does Foxchild take it up? A workbench? A royal pillow on a scullery side table? The foundry? The throne room? Sanzir's bed chamber? A dungeon? Etc. What is Sanzir's posture? Does he stand or sit? What does he sit on? A crude stool? A royal bench? Is Sanzir even already in wherever? And seated? Or does he bulldoze in wherever and impose his arch presence from the get-go? Etc. Who, when, where context and what, why, and how texture questions apt to ask so readers have timely, judicious answers.
An aural sensation might show Sanzir comes, somewhat characterize the setting's personality, say, brash echoes off a stone walled passageway and a distinct to Sanzir gait, hobnail boots' metallic scrapes, for example, a ta-ta-da, ta-ta-da, dah-dah tap dance pattern? That then is an occasion for an action, speech, thought, and/or emotion response to the sensory stimuli.
Or visual, or both, so long as in an economy of apt words, sets the scene and the stage setting, entrains tension setup, implies a contention about to unfold, and introduces Foxchild and Sanzir. From an insider's received reflections.
A tall order! Yet leisure attention lavished on the scene's sensory details, mental reception and reaction processes of those, and further responses, three steps, that is, affords occasion for dramatic movement initiation.
//Metal scrapes echoed from the cellar foundry stairway. Hobnails tapped the stone treads a brash pattern Foxchild loathed. His archness himself, Foxchild thought, Prince Sanzir came for the impatient usurper's crown test fit.//
The above dashed off the top of the head, no great prose to speak of, for illustration purposes. Anyway, my demonstrations are intended to be off kilter so as not to usurp writer creative vision ownership.
posted
So, I've been trying and failing to write a third person deep pov. I spent most of last year being bashed for any narrative exposition at all, but the only thing that remains is action and dialogue. Even Mr. Card states that SF&F specifically needs more narrative than other genres, so I need to find the balance.
Is that why my prose seems cinematic now? I've lost all ability to set scenes and paint the vast canvas?
While struggling to get the story on paper, I recognize the first sentence, first paragraph, first-page issue. If I bore my reader and can't spark even a modicum of interest, then they won't read the story no matter what happens after that first barrier. I've got to entice the reader past the first barrier while setting up the entire story. This isn't an idea story, but rather balances (I hope) milieu, event, and character. I used to think having milieu and event was enough, I was wrong. Without the character aspect, the other two don't really matter at all.
So, perhaps something more like:
Riding into Asherioth, the first thing that struck Foxchild was the smell. Men living too close together in their stone fortress with wooden buildings constructed against every wall and haphazardly snubbed against each other produced a stench beyond imagining. Hordes of people lined their path, stinking masses of unwashed peasants at first, then, as they climbed through each enceinte, the people showed more wealth, smelling less of sweat and toil and more of oils and herbs.
This is a description of what he sees with his own reaction to the place woven into the text. There's no action or dialogue, it's just exposition. Is it better to start with something more like this? I thought we had to start with some sort of immediate conflict, but here I've described the basic conflict at the heart of the story. The races are different, it brings them into strife and the mirror brothers handle this conflict differently.
I thought this was specifically what I wasn't supposed to do, yet y'all seem to be pointing in this direction. Or am I confused yet again?
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jan 2019
| IP: Logged |
posted
Note here that the main sentence subject is out of apt position for insider perceptions, plus unnecessary and trivial tense shifts, wordy, too:
"Riding into Asherioth, the first thing that struck Foxchild was the smell."
Still somewhat narrator filtered.
An apt syntax inversion uses fewer and stronger, more robust words, finite and definite, is more concise and firmer, easier to read and comprehend, and locates the self in apt sentence object position. Might imposed courtly social etiquette name the insider self last for closer personal distance, less narrator filtered!?
//Rode into Asherioth gates, the stench struck Foxchild first.//
Oh ho! Something more horrible next will strike Foxchild? A peasant's dung-dirty left hand? Soon enough, Sanzir strikes his dragon bite at the impudent peasant? Foxchild pities, empathy, sympathy for fear of the peasant's pain? A subtle and subversive foreshadow of events to soon come, dual and accessible meaning? Tension entrainment setup, dramatic movement from the outset, closer distance, less narrator filtered.
Consider "exposition" looked up in a dictionary, definitions 1 and 3 for prose, 2 for impersonal essay, please.
And seven -ing words in one paragraph of three sentences, two train-wreck run-ons? -ing ring rhyme disease and nuisance accumulated. The muse forbids me those except when otherwise impractical or impossible.
posted
That's more in Foxchild's point of view, so you are getting there.
You might consider asking yourself about Foxchild's pain with respect to what's happening.
extrinsic talks about the protagonist's "wants" and a major "want" is to stop the pain.
Pain can be a strong motivation and trying to do something about it can be a good place to start. What does Foxchild do about the "pain"?
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
All right, so the spur of the moment opening wasn't well written, I'm beginning to understand.
Of course, like most of us, Foxchild wants to stop the pain. Am I right to use the name he calls himself, rather than the name(s) others use for him? I think I read that somewhere.
I'll try and write better, even if that means editing my run-on sentences. I'm getting better, I used to have the "see spot run" disease. Somewhere in the middle, there will be correct sentence lengths and variations.
Thank you again for the help. I'm starting to recognize my specific problems. That's the first step to addressing them.
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jan 2019
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Silkienne Dvora: Am I right to use the name he calls himself, rather than the name(s) others use for him? I think I read that somewhere.
If apt for his thoughts, yes. A challenge, though, is multiple, unearned names for one persona confuses readers.
A secret spirit name is a Native Nations tradition. Pocahontas' spirit name was Matoaka, blue lake, for the dark purple color of her irises. She shared her spirit name with her anglo spouse John Rolfe, in token of her conversion to Christianity. Pocahontas was her public nickname and means little wanton, for the frisky play behavior that delighted her father wero-werowance Wahunsonacoke (head-head man of the True People nation, Powhatan). Her mother-given birth name was Amonute, untranslated.
Oral traditions say Powhatan's mother's nickname was Little Flower, probably for the Eastern Woodlands' Large Marsh-pink, Sabatia dodecandra. She was the nation's wero-werosquaw while her sons reigned, the other way around, actually. A head-head mother's sons in birth sequence became a nation's head-head men.
"Squaw," though much malice meant by it, means mother in Aglic cultures. A werosquaw is the head mother of a matrilineal kinship village.
posted
Yes, that last version gets deeper into Foxchild's POV. However, it also moves you further away from the conflict of the previous version. Just apply some of the same methods to the scene with the fitting of the crown. With more internal thoughts, and you'll be getting close, I think.
Posts: 4633 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:So I'm still withholding too much information from the first thirteen lines.
The reader isn't looking for information, background, history, weather, or opinion. They want you to begin your story with story. They want to know where they are in time and space. They want to know what's going on as the protagonist sees it. And, they want to know whose skin they wear. More to the point, they don't want to be told about it by a faceless, emotionless outsider.
Is it hot when the story opens? Does that matter to the flow of the story? Have them wipe their face as they're doing something necessary to the plot, the setting, or developing character, so the reader learns of it as enrichment to a necessary point. Use implication to involve the reader. Make them think they notice the byplay. Is the character nervous? Have her seem assured, but at the same time shred a napkin, or fidget. Show, don't tell. Or as Mark Twain put it, "Don't say the old lady screamed. Bring her on and let her scream."
Find every point where you, the narrator, explain anything, and ask yourself if the protagonist needs that information as part of their decision-making process in that moment of now. If not, that's not the place to dump in that data. If so, let the reader evaluate it as the protagonist does.
Readers aren't seeking to know. They want to be made to live the story as-the-protagonist. How can that character be our avatar if we don't know what that person is focused on in the moment they call now?
I know it's frustrating, and that every writing reflex you've spent so long honing is howling in outrage every time you try to write in a way they see as wrong. And I can tell you from experience, that changing over is one of the more difficult things you'll do, because in this, you may be your own worst enemy. But once you break through you'll wonder why it was hard. And when you get there your protagonist becomes your writing partner. Try to get her/him to do something they don't approve of and they will tell you, "Hell no, I won't do that, in no uncertain terms. And as your partner, they'll help you solve the protagonist's problems in ways you won't have anticipated, which is great fun when it happens. And because you'll be viewing events through the senses of the protagonist, and deciding on action based on his/her needs and imperatives, the act of writing becomes dramatically more fun.
I once write for thirty-four hours straight, with breaks only to use the bathroom and consume the food my wife put on the table after she shoved the keyboard aside (I adored that woman). Why? Because my protagonist had taken the bit between her teeth and was running the show. The lady I planed to be a a demure magazine writer turned ourt to be a brash, and irreverent lap dancer, who did everything she could to screw up my poor protagonist. I had no choice. I had not a clue of where she was going, or what she planned. Nor could I control the protagonist. So I had to find out what happened. And in the end, she did exactly what she should have done, and I loved her for it.
I love when that happens. And so will you.
And here's the thing. If you get a little closer every day, and you live long enough...
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
| IP: Logged |
posted
For 2c worth of nothing, the second attempt at a start was better than the first, with one exception: I was overloaded with sensory information I didn’t need. The place smelt bad and he was almost gagging. Okay, I got it. In the first attempt, instead of drowning in information, I didn’t know anything useful about anything in that room. It was a room, wasn’t it?
I suggest you take a step back from trying to manufacture a start and smell the roses for a bit. I spent nearly eighteen months considering how to start a story and I think I have a pretty good handle on it, At least I think I do.
The start of a story is the hardest part of writing, so why not leave it till the end? After all, you’re writing a first draft, not the final one. Just start anywhere and get the story rolling. Once you have you extensive outline and you know where your story is going and how it will end, tear the draft up and throw it in the bin. Whatever you do, don’t try and save it by re-writing; therein lies madness. Now, write a proper start. You’ll know where, and how, and in what manner it must be done by then.
And the story you end up writing as your real first draft won’t be anything like the one you just threw out. It will be so much better.
If you don’t believe that, and why should you, then try this: Ask yourself what the purpose of the opening scene is, then ask, what does the reader need to know in order to understand exactly what is going on in this scene? Once you decide all that, follow through and make it happen.
One last thing. Everyone who offers a critique has their own biases. I know most of them by now so, when I receive a critique for a start, I know what filters I need to apply. Just for the record, I’m partial to the quiet, invitational start; a bit ‘old school’ I know, but it works for me. Others prefer the ‘lets get some action happening’ school.
posted
My "bias" is for outset emotional equilibrium upset foremost, for appeal's sake, irrespective of who, when, where, what, why, or how, so long as those attend and are leavened among the essence's lot, too. May be quiet, may be full bore all engines ahead full steam emotional upset. Slow or no emotional disequilibrium start, no thank you, please.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Such emotional equilibrium upset starts have their place, as do slower, more languid ones. In 'short-form' stories, introductions are, of necessity, brief and to the point. In longer forms, what's wrong with introductions and an invitation for the reader to join? Egad! Euphemisms abound!
The only mandatory criteria for a start is that it engage the reader. There are ways, and then there are ways to do that. Boring them with unnecessary drivel or sweeping visual descriptions of pastoral scenes is not one of them.
posted
Nell Zinc's Mislaid start is a vivid pastoral scene description several pages long, though not a slow or quiet dramatic movement start. The novel's tone is strong, clear, and emotional from the ab ovo introductions invitation outset. The title itself sets drama and tension in motion. Later events upset the physical pastoral setting's tranquility and stability, an idyllic synthetic lake agonists transform into a mud-bog swamp, like their lives.
Mislaid, indeed, includes the outset setting location is a mislaid place, pastoral, yes, commentary about pastoralism's sketchy and macabre skeletons and dirty laundry kept hidden in backroom and rural closets and faraway self-marooned enclaves. Engaged by emotional upset from the first word of the title and throughout, yes, though too cozy, more or less content ever after reintegration outcomes for the four-agonist ensemble cast.
Greater satisfaction end if the agonists each more so earned their lucky breaks and clear cues given they would encounter further though better managed self-sabotage mischief thereafter.
posted
Obviously this pastoral scene was lacking in drivel and was high on engagement. If we've done any study of prose at all we know what emotions engage reader attention and how they may be manipulated. But, a light hand, please.
posted
You don't have to write the beginning first, as Phil has said. You don't have to write any scenes in the story in the order in which they will be read.
If there is a scene that has really grabbed your brain and insists on being expressed, go ahead and write it. The excitement you have for it has a better chance of exciting readers than a forced beginning that you think you have to write first.
Once you've got that exciting scene written, write the next scene that grabs your brain.
As Phil has also said, it's a first draft. Get all the exciting scenes written and then figure out what you need to do to connect them. And do that as quickly and smoothly as you can. (Transitions are one place where you can "tell" instead of "show.")
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Grumpy old guy: Obviously this pastoral scene was lacking in drivel and was high on engagement. If we've done any study of prose at all we know what emotions engage reader attention and how they may be manipulated. But, a light hand, please.
Phil.
The extended rhetoric of prose's drama wants judicious emotional persuasion's seductions rather than manipulation's assaults -- "a light hand," indeed.
Posts: 6037 | Registered: Jun 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote: Riding into Asherioth, the first thing that struck Foxchild was the smell. Men living too close together in their stone fortress with wooden buildings constructed against every wall and haphazardly snubbed against each other produced a stench beyond imagining. Hordes of people lined their path, stinking masses of unwashed peasants at first, then, as they climbed through each enceinte, the people showed more wealth, smelling less of sweat and toil and more of oils and herbs.
Better, but still, a nonfiction approach, focused on the visual. You, the narrator, are explaining what he saw, as a synopsis. But is he seeing “hoards of people,” and “Men living too close together in their stone fortress?” Not unless he has x-ray vision, because most of them are out of his line of sight. In reality, you’re using the fact that he arrives in the city as an excuse to do a bit of world-building. But the fact that he’s in it, but not of it, negates the value.
Think about it. I’m sure you’ve heard, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” If anything, it’s understated. But assume it’s right, can your seventy-six words give me even a tiny fraction of what a thousand will? Hell no. Making it worse, that thousand words provides only a still picture. In the paragraph above I’ve learned what can be seen, yes, but in far too general terms, and I don’t know how it relates to him and his mission, as he sees it. He’s getting the breeze from the town, but as described he’s noticing the differences in the way people smell. What’s he doing, getting down and sniffing them? Based on personal experience, any city where there are no sewers, and where every house has an outhouse, smells like crap from one end to the other. And you can smell that city from pretty far away.
But forget that. Think about something more important. In his experience, is this city unique? Probably not. So he might wrinkle his nose, but other than that he will not think about the causes of the smells, the structure of the town, etc. because he’s done it before. He might, if he’s given reason to because of changes. But for him, the trip through town is nothing special. And in reality, nothing of interest to a reader happens during the trip.
I understand what you’re trying to do. And, you write well. But you’re doing it as someone following him with a camera and recording the things that might impress a reader, while he’s ignoring all that and thinking, “I wonder if that bastard Stuttard will be there, sucking up to Eloshia and trying to poison his mind against me” (or something that’s meaningful to him).
My point is that this is a travelogue, not story, because he’s not in it as a participating character, only to give you a reason to expound on what matters to you. Story with a capital “S.” But story, with that lower case “s” is what matters to him, in the moment he calls now.
Try an experiment. Look at the sequence described in this article. Try writing the same story sequence using it as a template. It will feel awkward, because it’s a very different approach. In addition, because it is formulaic, that will make it feel unnatural. But think of it as learning the box step for ballroom dancing. Until it’s automatic you’re counting 1, 2, 3…1, 2, 3… But once it has been practiced enough that you need not count, or think about it as you dance, you can embellish and expand, and, dance.
You’ll find that because you’re forced to think about what has his attention enough that he must react, he’s going to dictate his own behavior. So instead of ordering him to obey, if he’s resisting, you change the situation to make him want to do what you need done.
It’s a very different approach, because you can’t give an overview or explanation, which banishes you to the prompter’s booth. But that’s not a bad thing. And by doing it, the reader is placed into his viewpoint, as against that of an unknown, unheard, and unseen narrator. And in his viewpoint the future is uncertain, and, therefore, interesting.
Hope this clarifies. I know this is frustrating, and can be really discouraging. But you are getting better. And while you’re not at the head of the line, look behind you. That line is getting a lot longer.
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
| IP: Logged |
posted
Sorry I've been gone a bit, health issues. At least my Swain book arrived and I have been able to read.
Does this hit the head of better emotion, more empathy with my protagonist?
Gulping one last time, Foxchild squared his shoulders and looked his father in the eyes.
“Why aren’t you more like your brother?”
Like a fist in his gut, those words took his breath away. He’d done everything right, he’d taken insult with dignity, and he presented the crown to the new king. The precious metals and magic lay in a beautiful design on the human king’s brow.
“Nothing to say?” His father glowered. “Why weren’t you at the presentation?”
“I was! I fitted the crown and gifted it just as you instructed me.”
“No, your brother did that. Stop lying.”
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jan 2019
| IP: Logged |
It's unclear which person is speaking, especially the first statement (partly because the sentence before it starts with Foxchild, which would imply that he is the one who speaks).
Also, if this is his one last gulp, why was Foxchild gulping before that? It feels as if we have come in on the tail end of a conversation.
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
posted
The latest fragment expresses more Pathos, though physical details are so few, if any, that the scene portrays a disembodied personas' conversation Event in a white-space vacuum.
Consider if Setting and more Character developments are essential to the scene's realization completeness, that is, dramatic (Antagonal, Causal, Tensional: ACT) physical Description that matters to the viewpoint persona's now moment; Sensation, Action, and Introspection, too, a timely, judicious, tension-entrainment organized, and dramatic synthesis of the several, for Ethos (authenticity [re: narrative authentication credibility]) and Logos (logic) appeals in addition to Pathos appeals.
For example, Description of the father's expressions and appearance, instead of a Summarization tell of the look at his eyes, show Sensation and characterize both personas, likewise, dramatic descriptions of Action and place. ---- Though perhaps somewhat difficult to appreciate, I have read and read so much prose that a start signals to me what to expect forward. Extensive prose craft study gave me a vocabulary to label strengths and shortfalls I had previously more so intuited than could describe, let alone adjust to greater appeal strengths for my own prose creation.
posted
I'm struggling to try to get everything into the first thirteen lines, make it passionate and coherent as well as concise. I expand on things, that's not a problem, or, more appropriately, it's too much as well as not enough---just like my openings.
At least this scene, when I wrote it, felt passionate and intense. Now, I need to get it from my guts to the page. I'm still over thinking this.
If I add to the beginning, it feels like I'm telling again, trying to steal the scene from Foxchild. Maybe I should just write the book and not worry about doing a creditable job. This gets so frustrating.
Returning to the forest of Cymru, Foxchild would have a chance to tell his father all that occurred---the good and the bad before anyone else could. None of it had been his fault, he had not strayed from his duty. He dismounted, grabbed his saddlebags, and turned to look his father in the eyes.
“Why aren’t you more like your brother?” Father asked.
Like a fist in his gut, those words took Foxchild's breath away. He’d done everything right, he’d taken insult with dignity, and he presented the crown to the new king. The precious metals and magic lay in a beautiful design on the human king’s brow.
“Nothing to say?” His father glowered. “Why weren’t you at the presentation?”
“I was! I fitted the crown and gifted it just as you instructed me.”
posted
A formula that, for best effect, should ought not appear to readers formulaic is, from a viewpoint persona's perspective, one, a dramatic external sensation stimuli; two, a natural amount of "time" to dramatically and mentally process the sensation stimuli; and go, a natural, dramatic reaction-response to the sensation stimuli. One-two-go. Or go or one-go or one-two-three-go. "Go" means act dramatically, respond. This formula also somewhat parallels tension's setup, delay, relief entrainment.
Here: "Returning to the forest of Cymru"
If that's the aptest start clause, what does Foxchild sense about the forest that is dramatic and matters to the now moment and further along? Does Father wait among an ash grove for Foxchild? Does Foxchild seek Father? Is Father at an expected place? Is the meet place at a mythic meadow among a spruce grove? A busy city, village, or small settlement? Or is the meet place among or inside stone, clay, wood, grass, bamboo cottages or cabins, hide tents, or a cave or a mansion, etc?
A merger synthesis describes a gamut of "telling details," not telling in the sense of narration, summarization, or explanation, rather, concise descriptive details fraught with drama and subtext relevance and likewise enmeshed with dramatic action, speech, thought, and emotion details.
If the scene were drawn, sketched, painted, or photographed, how does it appear? What features draw Foxchild's eye and ear, or nose, touch, taste, thought, etc? Though in an economy of words.
Say Father is in a stone cottage nestled among, say, ancient moss-draped oaks. This is the home, of Father and Foxchild, maybe Firechild? Or only Father and his romantic partner? Or Father all by his lonesome?
Next, sketch a detailed description of Foxchild's first impression of what his senses perceive that is natural to him and his situation to it. Omit all except what matters and compasses the whole setting in one eye blink's time. Limit the content to maybe twelve or so words that express Foxchild's trepidation about a visitation with Father, and certain that it will be unpleasant and defensive.
Then sketch Father's likewise portrait, maybe that he waits at the entrance, perhaps weaves cloth or spins thread and sits on a bench at the door. Etc. They greet, albeit fraught with contention. Etc.
"Film it. A self-test of critiquing. To judge a scene or chapter, mentally convert it into a movie or screenplay. This effectively subtracts all narration and exposition and leaves only description, dialog, and action. Things which shrink dramatically when filmed are heavy on telling, light on showing. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)
"First-draft-itis. Various flaws which everyone, including the author, agrees immediately should be corrected. E.g.: a character who has blue eyes in Chapter 2 has brown eyes in Chapter 7; or an important feature of the society which is first manifested in Chapter 20 and implicitly contradicted in what was written before. See Retrofit."
"Retrofit. An editing term. To rewrite a previous chapter or scene for the purpose of making a later scene work better, by setting up something that is needed later, introducing a premise, situation or character so that its presence later in the story is justified. To revise a previous chapter or scene to conform details to what is necessary later in the story. (CSFW: David Smith)"
And the above accords but one of forty or so Damon Knight narrative points of view-viewpoints: Third-person, close, limited, past tense, subjective-objective mix, indicative mood, robust tone. Mileage varies accordingly.
The latest fragment, as is, and the gamut of them, is a detached third-person, past tense, indicative, neutral tone, objective narrator outsider looks in main narrative point of view, some inconsistent auxiliaries, and the viewpoint is of the narrator's perceptions. If a narrator is a, or the focal viewpoint persona, the narrator's attitude tone toward sensations for best effect is reactive commentary about stimuli.
quote:Originally posted by Silkienne Dvora: I'm struggling to try to get everything into the first thirteen lines, make it passionate and coherent as well as concise.
And just why, exactly, are you trying to get everything into the first thirteen lines? “Too many minds.” seems to be your problem. In addition, you’ve forgotten the most important thing you have to do in these first thirteen lines: engage my interest by making me care about what’s-his-name.
A son desperate for his father’s love and approval. Perfect! An opportunity to develop plot, character and invoke reader sympathy, if not outright pity, for Foxchild’s dilemma. It’s all sitting there waiting for emotional development.
And, what do we get? An “As you know, Bob . . .” moment where the writer uses dialogue, even a family argument, in a poor attempt to disguise an information dump. Too bad.
quote:Originally posted by Silkienne Dvora: Maybe I should just write the book and not worry about doing a creditable job.
Yes. Just write it, but do the best you can.
Continued attempts to get the first 13 lines right will certainly be frustrating, and not only because focusing on that is keeping you from getting on with the rest of the story.
Write it, and then work on it to make it more creditable (and credible, for that matter).
As for your recent fragment, it seems to me that the focus of your scene is Foxchild's report to his father and his father's accusation.
So maybe you could do something along the lines of what extrinsic suggests - give us Foxchild's father from Foxchild's point of view as Foxchild rides up to him and then dismounts. Then have Foxchild say to his father that he had presented the crown to the king (and so on). And then have his father accuse him of lying.
That way we get Foxchild's point of view and feelings as he approaches his father, and then we get a clear indication of the conflict. That's enough for 13 lines.
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm struggling to try to get everything into the first thirteen lines, make it passionate and coherent as well as concise.
Why? It’s the opening. Your goal is: To place the reader in time and space, which is also scene setting; Make the reader know what’s going on; Make the reader know whose skin we wear. These can be spaced out, and should be apparent, not explained—introduced as necessary to give context. Try to put too much into the first thirteen and you have a fruitcake. Relax. You have three pages in which to hook the reader, not thirteen lines. If you can hold their interest, and keep them reading…
As Sol Stein observed: “A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”
Obviously, what’s below isn’t the opening, so assuming the reader has the necessary context at this point:
quote: “Why aren’t you more like your brother?” Father asked.
This is the motivation that has the protagonist’s attention, and will make him react. Nothing wrong here.
quote: Like a fist in his gut, those words took Foxchild's breath away. He’d done everything right, he’d taken insult with dignity, and he presented the crown to the new king. The precious metals and magic lay in a beautiful design on the human king’s brow.
Here is the response to the motivation. And what he does, or in this case, doesn’t do will be his father’s motivation. Several comments:
• The reader knows the situation. So why label him as “new?” Only the author would see him as so here.
• Why say, “presented the crown to the new king.”? They both know who it was presented to, so he’d have no reason to mention who got it.
• In first person it would be “took my breath away.” The third person equivalent would be “took his breath away,” since the reader already knows his name, and that he's the protagonist, when not directed by antecedent it’s assumed you’re talking about the protagonist. He In his viewpoint he doesn't think of himself by name. Only the author does. So use his name when it's necessary for clarity, but if the reader truly has him as an avatar, they aren't thinking of him by name because it's theirs, too.
• If the reader is unaware, till now, of the rivalry with his brother, this would be a place to interject an emotional reaction to the remark (but not a soliloquy/info-dump) that would supply context. Perhaps a thought, in italics, something like, Again? For every stinking thing I do, you say that. But I’m me, not a reflection of him. And I presented that damn crown.
• If you didn’t use an interjection/thought, I’d trim it to: “He’d done everything right, taken insult with dignity, and presented the crown.” In his viewpoint he would never use “he” to describe himself. Keep in mind that though the narrator is telling the story in a specific tense, for the protagonist who’s living the scene, as for us in life, it’s always first person present tense.
• Would he, in his moment of now, think of what the crown is made of? Probably not. So if we’re in his viewpoint, anything you interject as an authorial interjection serves only to weaken POV. If the reader needs it, give him reason to tell his father that.
quote: Nothing to say?” His father glowered. “Why weren’t you at the presentation?”
No problem here. His motivation is that his son said nothing, and he’s providing our protagonist with motivation to act.
quote: “I was! I fitted the crown and gifted it just as you instructed me.”
In his viewpoint, since this comes as a surprise, why not show it with: “What?” Or, to add emotion, you might phrase it as:
What? I…” He spread his hands in surprise, as he said, “I was there. I presented the crown to—”
Done that way, we demonstrate his shock to show the intensity, and provide a more natural reaction. And having the father interrupt him demonstrates the intensity of his emotion.
Be careful of people lobbing dialog back and forth. Were someone to run into the room where you are and say, “I heard you won the lottery,” Would you simply reply, or would your instinctive reaction be to say “What?” and then wonder if you heard right…and then…and then…and finally say, something like, “What in the hell are you talking about?”
You’re leaving out steps in the M/RU
quote: “No, your brother did that. Stop lying.”
Here, I’d have him react physically, to add reality. Perhaps pull his head back like a snapping turtle before shaking his head and saying… And as a personal thing, I’d reverse the two sentences here, since the idea that he’s lying is of more importance to the father.
But everything else aside, this is vastly improved.
Posts: 263 | Registered: Dec 2016
| IP: Logged |
posted
Another thought, that is, doubt, confusion, and frustration are signs of progress and a natural, congruent opposite part of creative expression, at the least a newfound sense all is not as ideal as wanted. The magic moment of epiphany follows, as daylight follows the darkest darkness before dawn, is reward itself -- and sublime.
Also from the Glossary:
"Dare to be stupid. An exhortation by a critic to an author whom the critic thinks is not stretching enough. Authors grow by daring to write bolder, more imaginative, more personal, or more emotionally powerful situations and confrontations. Since writing that stretches is by definition unpracticed, the result may be rougher than a less ambitious effort. The author must trust the critics to recognize the stretch and help the author build or expand his talents. (CSFW: Steve Popkes)"
By the way, I post rare few fragments due to, one, to meet the Hatrack writers' focus group expectations demands a near finished draft start's best effort, all but ready for prime time, not for approval, that is, rather, for next in turn skilled eye sets upon a fragment for to test content and appeal and tacit want for constructive responses; and two, I won't post anywhere online my A material. Those two contradict each other!? A reconciliation fragment project is in the works.
My early fragment posts were rough and raw, and garnered numerous shortfall observations and few strength notices; respectively, what didn't work and what did for the focus group responders, yet motivated me to "stretch." Albeit, I knew not those were rough, and posted fragments' responses showed how raw those really were. Most essential aspects I learned, learn, are the wants for leisure attention lavished in an economy of words upon enmeshed, apt less-is-more, timely, judicious dramatic event, setting, character, description, sensation, emotion, action, introspection, conversation, antagonism, causation, and tension outset developments.
posted
Silkienne Dvora, please notice how much time, space, wordage, feedback, etc. you have been receiving on your story.
We would not spend this much time, etc. if we didn't think you were worth it. We wouldn't try to help if we didn't think our help would help.
Fiction writers have to worry about two main aspects to creating their stories. I call one of them wordsmithing and the other storytelling.
The wordsmithing part involves using words, punctuation, grammar, spelling, and other such tools to convey the story, though there is quite a bit more to it than that. It also involves things like imagery and poetry and description and characterization and how you use words to do that.
Please don't let frustration keep you from keeping on. You are learning and growing, and your wordsmithing didn't start from the bottom - you are articulate and coherent and interesting.
We are just trying to help you figure out the storytelling part and how to make it work with the wordsmithing part.
Posts: 8826 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury:
quote:Originally posted by Silkienne Dvora: Maybe I should just write the book and not worry about doing a creditable job.
Yes. Just write it, but do the best you can.
Continued attempts to get the first 13 lines right will certainly be frustrating, and not only because focusing on that is keeping you from getting on with the rest of the story.
Write it, and then work on it to make it more creditable (and credible, for that matter).
Amen to this! The start only matters if the work it introduces actually exists... Personally, I am beginning to suspect that the 'perfect start' is something you can only see from the perspective of the whole story/novel/essay/whatever. Feedback on a (possible) start can offer many valuable hints and warnings about what to work on in the whole, but after a certain point, continuing to focus on just the first-13 becomes self-defeating.
And holding out for universal (or even majority) approval on a forum that is critically-oriented is a recipe for getting stuck.
That said, I've been on this site for almost a year, and I'm still figuring out how best to use it as a support to my creative process. There's a fine line between getting useful criticism and integrating others' creative ideas, and losing the essence of what you were trying to make in the first place -- and that initial spark that made you want to make it.
Posts: 115 | Registered: May 2018
| IP: Logged |
posted
For many years workshop veteran me, workshop's function is more so writer self-critique and edit skills development than a given submission's development, part, parcel, whole, or fragment.
Writing program submission length rubric is about ten pages, or two thousand words. Many prose workshops accept excerpts of about that quantity from longer lengths, though short wholes is the overall preferred submission, so that a whole's completeness is a facet of focus group scrutiny and response: as it were, start, middle, and end appeal and craft.
I also consider a fully realized scene-length dramatic unit an ample sample of a whole of whatever length or a whole in itself. And microprose of "flash" length or shorter. How many words to complete a scene's full realization? Some novels, a one-word chapter fraught with pre-positioned context setup; some are book lengths, some may be a twelfth of total length, or an average chapter long, and a subchapter may itself be a scene, or a few hundred words.
A challenge is, the shorter a length, the more that stronger craft skills are wanted, why a two thousand-word short story, essay, script, or twelve-line poetry, are considered a compromise for workshops: enough real estate for full realization of a whole, not too much burden for focus group participants, not too great an onus to timely complete a draft creation, not too much to bear if dreck, and a robust writer and workshop apprenticeship length.
Anyway, Hatrack's thirteen lines posts, for me and mine, were an apprenticeship for what to avoid, like "As you know, Bob," or "Maid and Butler" dialogue, and unearned wake-up scenes, ad nauseam, and what to include, like motivations, stakes risked, and tone, crisis contentions of quiet apprehension or to an urgent degree, and events, settings, and characters, etc.
posted
Thanks everyone! I have a really good idea of what I'm doing wrong, things I need to work on, and a story that is burning to be written. So, I'm going to disappear for a while, unless I drastically need the hive mind. I'll read posts here and there, but I will not be replying unless I feel I have something important to add that no one else has covered.
When I return, I'll either be completely stuck and miserable or, hopefully, have at least a first draft of my manuscript ready for the shredder and a complete rewrite!
I know I've only been focusing on the first 13 lines, but it is representative of the rest of the prose. I've learned a lot, it may be only the tip of the iceberg, but it's more than I had. Wish me luck.
posted
Best wishes and a bon voyage. And, in case you missed it, there is a forum called, "Open discussion about writing". You may want to consider posting there if you have a 'writing' issue you'd like to discuss.
Phil.
P.S. Don't forget Novel support group as well.
Posts: 1937 | Registered: Sep 2012
| IP: Logged |
posted
I want to thank all y'all for getting me focused and started. Between the books, the forum here, and the directed and hard-hitting advice on my own openings, you helped me to find a better voice with far less author intrusion. I can't say that I've stopped writing as a nonfiction essayist, but I'm working on what's going on within my protagonist and how he sees his world. I'm worrying far less about the landscape and the cinema of the scenes.
Here is my current opening, for what it's worth. I'm still struggling to count 13 lines, but here goes:
Why aren't you more like your brother? The question mired Foxchild’s mind, eroding his confidence and worrying him more with each step they took. When they arrived home, his father would ask, he always asked. His whole life boiled down to that one, simple question.
How far would he have to go to prove himself? Would people ever see him as separate from Scoria? His mirror, his twin, the one who shared his mother’s womb and his looks and absolutely nothing else. It was as if his heart beat on the wrong side of his chest just as he used the wrong hand for his sword and drew his bow backwards.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Scoria's horse skittering over shale and surging up the steep trail, his twin reining the sweaty animal next to his own sturdy beast.
Posts: 34 | Registered: Jan 2019
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
