Building Tension

I've just read a wonderful one-page article on writing SciFi by a Wen Spencer about building tension in which the author recommends a gradual build to action that is sure to create a sense of impending calamity instead of the staid and all too normal “suddenly”.  Suddenly is a shortcut—the author says—that doesn't work well.

Giving the reader clues to what is coming works best because they (the audience, really) can start building an image in their minds what is about to come.  Setting up a flow of action then breaking from it in a jarring manner and the true action of suddenly is there without resorting to the packaged, freeze-dried word.

His (or her) example:

Rainlilly drew her sword and crouched into readiness. Instantly all the other sekasha went tense, hand to their weapons, pulling in tighter around Tinker.

“What is it?” Pony scanned the thick underbrush that Rainlilly faced.

“Something is going to attack,” Rainlilly whispered. “Something large.”

“?” Pony spoke a word that Tinker didn’t recognize in question.

Rainlilly nodded.

“What does she see?” Tinker whispered.

“What will be,” Pony made a gesture to back the way they had come. “We’re in an position of weakness. We should retreat to —”

Something huge and sinuous as a snake flashed out of the shadows. Tinker got the impression of scales, a wedge-shaped head, and a mouth full of teeth before Pony leaped between her and the monster. Pony shouted the deep guttural command to activate his magical shields. Magic spilled out of the cobalt blue stones threaded into this hair, traced down the blue tattoos on his arms and flared into a shimmer blue force that encompassed his body.

The creature struck Pony with a blow that smashed him back into Tinker, his shields flashing as they absorbed the brunt of the damage.

I'm not normally a fan of fantasy and SciFi, but I take the point, don't you?

Humility

The meeting of the Idaho Screenwriter's Group is underway and a middle-aged man sitting to my left has just handed me a copy of his script.  I am to be the narrator, in charge of reading out the slugs and description while others in the group will be the actors.

At the end of 15 minutes, it was over and the inevitable critique session kicked in: what do we think, he asks.  Since I was reading, I thought I should skim the work again as before, I was busy concentrating on my diction and so on—I've been known to murder the pronunciation of words.

I liked a lot about it and in ten pages, the script was shaping up to be an intelligent comedy.  I didn't like the dialog of some characters, but the setting was real enough and the description was on-point.  I offered my analysis as such.

He offered me his thanks, told me I'd made a good point and the meeting went on ... cut to the end of the gathering when we were all to introduce ourselves and I found out that this guy whose work I'd been criticizing was a writer on Mr. Belvedere and a script doctor on The Two Jakes and The Honeymooners.

Ehem.

I blushed a bit, of course, but as he was so humble and accommodating, it was okay.  That's humility and more of us would be well-advised to adopt such a strategy.  If only to have an unknown admirer pen a praise post!

Outlining

As a new writer, I have only recently become involved in the spurious debate about outlining. I say it's spurious because eveyone who doesn't want to waste time outlines. In one way or another, they outline. This free-wheeling attitude about writing from the heart is fallacy and results, I believe, in disjointed stuff.

To quote from Alastair Fowler's new book, How To Write, “It is unprofessional to put finger to keyboard or pen to paper without any idea of the scale of a piece; no one has time to write words that will have to be discarded.”

So there.

Tough Questions

What went wrong?  Why didn't that guy duck?  No one can be that stupid, can they?  Why is she with him?  No one told her it was going down?

Every story is an unconscious game between the storyteller and the audience; a puzzle with a race to The Answer.  That Answer is what the storyteller is trying to keep from the audience as long as possible while the audience is nimbly trying to guess it.

How quickly can the audience guess all the answers if at all?  If it's too soon, we dismiss the tale—too easy, too pat.  If we don't or can't or God help you, won't guess it at all, then the pivotal point is whether we can't because the story is incredibly cryptic and/or illogical or because the story's development is sluggish (not enough clues in the proper places) and the tale becomes boring.  However, the salient characteristic here revolves around questions and as a storyteller, you'd better be ready for them.

So, here's the deal: better to ask yourself those questions now while you're building your story than afterwards.  And here's another deal: those questions have to be tough, the ones that blow holes in your story.

You know the ones.

To refer back to my chess analogy once again: you've got to play both sides and mercilessly so.  You've got to ask and answer those tough questions and you'd better answer those questions with a modicum of logic or you'll really anger your audience who will have invested the time.

If the audience is not able to guess correctly, then they'd better be able to follow the logic of the story backwards after the revelation.  This is one of the best scenarios and it can be seen to good effect in The Usual Suspects.  As an audience member myself, realizing who Keyser Soze was in the few final scenes brought on an immediate series of interconnections spanning the length of the story as I asked myself: did it make sense that this man is Keyser?  And after, when those questions were asked and answered adequately, I realized how much I enjoyed the tale.

So prepare for those questions and if, in crafting your tale, the answers are too pat, or too easy, or too difficult, or too illogical, revise the story.

Opposing Force

One thing you will learn about me if you read this blog for any length of time is that I'm a voracious, rapacious reader.  Sometimes (who am I kidding, all the time), I read several books at once.

Don't ask me if I remember what I read.  Alas, only splinters of outstanding, excellent information remain.  There are some books that require re-reading (Story by McKee is one that comes to mind) and some that quickly start gathering dust.

The one I'm reading now (in addition to three others) is 20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them) by Ronald B. Tobias.  For those with a love of plotting story, this is a must-have.

Here's a thought for the day from Tobias:

Writing a story without presenting a meaningful opposing force is propaganda.

Think on that for a while if you can.  This is an important and deep thought that will benefit almost any writer.

It is also the reason for the downfall of such movies as Lions for Lambs and many politically-motivated movies.  Forcing one's characters into a stereotypical response or characterization is foolhardy storytelling.

Tobias continues:

As a writer you have your point of view—your prejudices, if you will.  Let's say you were a battered wife for twelve years, the victim of a controlling and abusive husband.  When you go to write about it, the story unfolds as it happened:

He storms in from work at night, throws his jacket down on the sofa and demands, “What's for dinner?”

“I made you a lovely duck a l'orange, dear.”  The table is set with their best china and crystal; the candles are lit.  She's obviously gone to a lot of trouble for him.

“Duck!  You know I hate duck.  Can't you ever do anything right?  Make me a sandwich.”

A tear collects in the corner of her eye, but she accepts his abuse stoically.  “What kind of sandwich?”

“I don't care,” he says abruptly.  “And get me a beer.”

He turns on the television and is gone.

Enough.

I don't have to go on.  You know the score and you know the story.  The characters are already defined as types.  She is the silent-suffering, kind-hearted, devoted wife; he is the loud, obnoxious, cruel husband.  You can't wait for him to get his comeuppance.  You hope he suffers.

But this is propaganda.

Propaganda?

The author's point of view here is obvious and one-sided.  I've sided with the wife and exaggerated her just as I've exaggerated the husband beyond belief.  They're types. “Begin with an individual and you find that you have created a type,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald, “begin with a type and you find that you have created—nothing.”  The author is trying to settle a personal score.  The fiction may be therapeutic and help the writer work out hostility, but that's not the purpose of fiction if you intend to show it to someone else.  The purpose of fiction is to tell a story, not to get even or to work out your own personal problems.

You can always tell propaganda because the writer has a cause.  The writer is on a soapbox lecturing, telling us who is good and who is bad and what is right and what is wrong.  Lord knows we get lectured enough in the real world; we don't read or go to the movies so someone else can lecture to use some more.  If you use your characters to say what you want them to say, you're writing propaganda.  If you characters say what they want to say, you're writing fiction.  Isaac Bashevis Singer claimed characters had their own lives and their own logic, and that the writer had to act accordingly.  You manipulate the characters in the sense that you make them conform to the basic requirements of your plot.  You don't let them run roughshod over you.  In a sense, you build a corral for your characters to run around in.  The fence keeps them confined to the limitations of the plot.  But where they run inside the corral is a function of each character's freedom to be what or who he/she wants within the confines of the plot itself.

Jorge Luis Borges said it best: “Many of my characters are fools and they're always playing tricks on me and treating me badly.”

More of a slave than a god.

How, then, do you  avoid writing propaganda?  First start with your attitude.  If you have a score to settle or a point to make, or if you're intent on making the world see things your way, go write an essay.  If you're interested in telling a story, a story that grabs us and fascinates us, a story that captivates the paradoxes of living in this upside-down world, write fiction.

Start with a premise, not a conclusion.  Start with a situation.