November 2008 – Page 2

A biggie for me, when I edit or critique, is pushing encouraging writers to really get specific and concrete in their writing. You hear a lot about using strong verbs, but I think we also need strong nouns, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, articles, you name it.

You hear a lot about using details, and I think sometimes, we get carried away by quantity and forget to really pick and choose the right detail (or two) for the moment. Right to me is the detail, whether I’m working on a setting, a thread of internal thought, an action, or a voice, that hits it just right, that evokes an equally strong, solid response in the reader.

I’ll probably come back to this thread in future posts, so I’m not going to try and cover all the ways I think you can weave specifics into your writing. (I’d overwhelm you, you’d throw something (hopefully soft) at your computer, and you might never come back!) Today, I’m just going to talk about setting.

Read this, please:

The mountain was in front of her, the path going up it through the trees. The wind blew, and clouds moved across the sky, making shadows that made the forest even darker. The air was cold, and she pulled her coat closer around her, trying to shut out the silence as well as the cold. She started walking again, up and up, one foot after the other, ignoring the distance that was left.

Now, this:

The huge stone loomed ahead of her, the path struggling up its chipped, hard surface through the pines. The wind sighed, and gray stormclouds gusted across the sky, casting shadows that turned the forest almost black. The air was icy, and she tugged her parka close around her thin body, hoping to shut out the loud silence, as well as the deep chill. She started climbing again, up and up, one heavy boot after the other, ignoring the height she still faced.

Okay, all I did here, pretty much, was replace a word. I added a few. I may very well have gone overboard, just by playing, but reread the two passages. Which one paints you a more clear picture? Which one brings you closer to the scene this woman is moving through, makes you experience more of what she’s experiencing.

These kinds of details are not something to worry about in a first draft (especially if you’re doing NaNo!). Often, we really do just throw our settings onto the page, giving them a placeholder in the scene where they belong. Later, then, we actively research that setting, go physically to the place we’re describing or send some time with it in our imagination. Your critique group 🙂 can help you with the balance of detail–how much is enough, and how much is…well, too much.

Whatever you settle on, though, every setting deserves revision time, a few passes, to make sure your details are the right ones–strong, sensory specifics.

Today’s post is in honor of all the NaNo writers out there, and all variations thereof, who may or may not be writing from some kind of outline. To all of you: Go, go, go!

Outlines. Think back to school–junior high, high school, even college. You had a paper to write, an analysis of a book you’d been assigned. You were organized, you’d learned the method, so you started with an outline. You know: Thesis, Topic Sentences, Supporting Details, Conclusion.

Remember?

It’s a useful technique. I kept at it when I became a technical writer, and I use it today for my nonfiction. It’s a great map to write from, and it gives me a starting point to go back to, if I get distracted or off track, to re-organize things a bit, get my new focus down on paper. And, yes, it’s got that basic form: Chapter 1, Heading 1, Heading 2, etc, etc.

Not so my fiction. Probably because there are too many layers to fiction. If I try to fit them all into headings and subheadings—my brain will implode. Messy. So how do I outline?

I start with Martha Alderson’s Scene Tracker. The Scene Tracker has several columns of information that you fill out for every scene. I add columns of my own, things I tend to forget about unless they’re right in front of me. And I’m sure I fill every column out with a LOT more text than Martha expects. I don’t trust myself to remember big ideas from a word or two, so I end up using a teensy font and get these very skinny, very TALL columns to squint at later. But the system keeps me organized, which keeps me calm and (relatively) sane.

I also always have gaps. I find it too hard to “outline” my story all the way through, without getting down to doing some writing. The outlining process stirs ideas that go beyond details and facts–scenes, character moments, tensions–and I need to start writing.

Before I write any real scenes, though, I usually take things one step further. I open a file for those scenes–starting with the beginning of the story. In that file, I write the basic action that I visualize in the scene–what the hero does, who and what they run into that makes their life difficult, and where, by the last page, they need to be heading. I get down the goal of every major player in the scene, and I try to come up with a plan to put those goals in conflict. I also throw in a lot of fairly random thinking about theme, tension, setting, and various connections I’m starting to see.

When I’ve done this scene planning as long as I can stand it, I start writing.

Do I stay with the “outline” I’ve plugged into my Scene Tracker? Do I stick to the goals and actions I gave my hero in the scene basics?

Sometimes, yes; sometimes, no. I said that I use my nonfiction outline as a guide, as the original drawing board that I often go “back to.” Why should my fiction plan be any different? Would I love to know everything ahead, have the story perfectly drawn out in my head and on paper, so I could just write and write and write? I’ll admit it: Yes, I would.

I just don’t think its possible. And I don’t think it’s a good goal for the writer to shoot for. Every time I lose myself off the outline, I come up with something new and exciting, something that either turns the story in a new, better direction or something that adds a layer, a depth, that simply didn’t exist before.

Here are a few more blogs and articles I found about the variations of outlining:

What about you? What’s your definition of outline these days?

Month: November 2008

Concrete, Solid Specifics

Outline: What’s Your Definition?