Just kidding on the bad excerpts thing. I didn't bring my old manuscript to work with me, so I think I will save that for tomorrow or the weekend. Not entirely sure...
So anyway.
I'm pretty good at dialogue between characters. In fact, I had that noted at least once in a creative writing class I took for my minor. In writing, it is the thing that comes most natural for me. That's the part that ends up the most believable, and that is helpful because dialogue reveals a lot about characters whose heads you can't get into.
My four characters have helped loads in making my story more believable. When a character is lifelike, it's easier to see their world as real.
I started thinking of this the other day when my brother was watching the Lord of the Rings movies. I seriously have seen the first one no less than twelve times.
Personally, I blame the work that went into the making of the movies.
Those three films weren't slapped together hastily in front of a green screen. The filmmakers took their time to make Middle-Earth as real as it could possibly be. Tolkien did them a favor when he made up an insane history for Middle-Earth.
I had never thought about that before my brother said it.
And I realized it applies very heavily to writing.
I wonder if I lost that for a little bit. Did I believe my story? Am I trying to copy anything? I mean, the book has in no way lost its roots. I worry a little that I tried to put too much grittiness in it and lost...something. I've sometimes described the story as "this, plus this, with a little of that."
I tried to make it too small. Problem is, we live in a very big universe.
I believe my stories now. I believe the world in which they're set.
That doesn't mean the story's perfect yet. But it's really close to being good enough for me.
I think now I've recaptured what I lost, the honesty of wonder.
Showing posts with label dialogue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dialogue. Show all posts
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Thursday, September 1, 2011
Writing Like You Speak...or Not?
"All I'm writing is just what I feel, that's all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland." - Jimi Hendrix
One of the challenges in writing fiction, whether or not you decide to make your setting a MAJOR THING in the story, is making your readers feel at home. I've already gone over your personal writing style and making your readers feel at home. Today, I'll get into something that can be more of a technical aspect. I use that term very loosely, because this part of writing fiction (or even non-fiction) is not much dependent on mechanics. You can't memorize a method for it or figure out how to do it from a textbook. It must simply be mastered. Want to know what this all-important thing is?
Writing like you speak.
Not so hard, right? I mean, it seems pretty easy. Just write stuff like you and everyone you know says stuff. Easy stuff. Slang, here you come. Colloquialisms abound. Awesome.
Or not.
Here's why. Ever read a transcript?
Yeah. Writing a sentence exactly how someone says it, every time, is as bad as trying to make your random hilarious true story into a scene in a novel. No one is going to believe it. Case in point: any time anyone tries to give characters a "Southern accent." I have read the word "gwine" too many times in my life. I still don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it. (Like swine, maybe? I'm really not sure.) I know it means "going" and is supposed to be Southern (or just Old Person Southern), but it gets on my nerves. A lot. It's a really bad way to have a character (old or young) talk because it's a good indicator that a) you don't know what you're doing and b) you've never been out the house or flipped on the TV. Same goes if you insert some New York or Boston or California slang stereotypes and try to phonetically indicate how people in a certain place speak. Unless you are making a movie and are the Coen brothers, it will not work.
So your real challenge is to make your writing, prose or dialogue, seem as though it is actually someone speaking. Nicholas Sparks is pretty good at this. Honestly, though I am from North Carolina, I wouldn't speak like he writes, but somehow the guy manages to convey a conversational tone without it actually being anything from a conversation.
So how can you do the same? Well...practice. Read books that feature that local flavor feel. And practice some more. Bounce your ideas off willing friends. The method and time are different for everyone, and it may take some work before you find that conversational groove for your fiction. But once you do, it will be all worth it.
One of the challenges in writing fiction, whether or not you decide to make your setting a MAJOR THING in the story, is making your readers feel at home. I've already gone over your personal writing style and making your readers feel at home. Today, I'll get into something that can be more of a technical aspect. I use that term very loosely, because this part of writing fiction (or even non-fiction) is not much dependent on mechanics. You can't memorize a method for it or figure out how to do it from a textbook. It must simply be mastered. Want to know what this all-important thing is?
Writing like you speak.
Not so hard, right? I mean, it seems pretty easy. Just write stuff like you and everyone you know says stuff. Easy stuff. Slang, here you come. Colloquialisms abound. Awesome.
Or not.
Here's why. Ever read a transcript?
Yeah. Writing a sentence exactly how someone says it, every time, is as bad as trying to make your random hilarious true story into a scene in a novel. No one is going to believe it. Case in point: any time anyone tries to give characters a "Southern accent." I have read the word "gwine" too many times in my life. I still don't know how you're supposed to pronounce it. (Like swine, maybe? I'm really not sure.) I know it means "going" and is supposed to be Southern (or just Old Person Southern), but it gets on my nerves. A lot. It's a really bad way to have a character (old or young) talk because it's a good indicator that a) you don't know what you're doing and b) you've never been out the house or flipped on the TV. Same goes if you insert some New York or Boston or California slang stereotypes and try to phonetically indicate how people in a certain place speak. Unless you are making a movie and are the Coen brothers, it will not work.
So your real challenge is to make your writing, prose or dialogue, seem as though it is actually someone speaking. Nicholas Sparks is pretty good at this. Honestly, though I am from North Carolina, I wouldn't speak like he writes, but somehow the guy manages to convey a conversational tone without it actually being anything from a conversation.
So how can you do the same? Well...practice. Read books that feature that local flavor feel. And practice some more. Bounce your ideas off willing friends. The method and time are different for everyone, and it may take some work before you find that conversational groove for your fiction. But once you do, it will be all worth it.
Monday, August 22, 2011
More Awkward Than Your 5th Grade Photo
"Not in our arsenal of snappy comebacks." - Walter
So let's say you grew up bookish and introverted. (Like me. Yay! Friends!) You probably read whatever you could get your hands on. I know I did. I vividly remember helping myself to a Reader's Digest my family had lying around. Good stuff. Some of it was a little deep for my age then, but I got the basic idea. Reading "Mike's Flag" and something that was like a Bieber fan's guide to Romeo & Juliet possibly had an interesting effect on my taste now. (This will be important later.)
Naturally, when I discovered that the Wilson County Public Library's Bookmobile* rolled around to my neighborhood every couple of weeks, I thought it was pretty cool. Crammed into a small bus that would probably send my current 5 feet 9 inches self into a claustrophobic panic attack, were, well, books. They had whatever I might be interested in, which at the time included The Babysitters Club, Goosebumps, and American Girl magazine.** Anything else that might be a ghost story was also welcome.
I grew up in the 90s. In that decade and the one previous, there was a wealth of kids' books that were available (but never required for me...ah the miracles of private school.) Now, granted, kids did slack off reading for a while there, but there were more readers than the intellectual elite would like to admit.*** (Why do you think The Babysitters Club was so popular?) This created a generation of kids who are quite intelligent and possibly a tad apathetic about academia (or, if they're like me, inwardly ambitious, painfully procrastinating, and somewhat snarky.)
All this boring intro actually has a point, so stay with me.
Let's say that after a crash course in Narnia, you graduated on to greater and higher works of literature. Great. So you're all up into some Austen and some Stoker and maybe a little Melville, all shunning the television in your quest for academic and philosophical greatness. So after you take a break and pull your pasty head out of the wood-pulp, you find after some assignment or such that you enjoy writing, shoot, that it's downright awesome. Not content to stick with mere poetry with its paltry sound devices and subtle imagery, you try your hand at writing some short fictional stories. Then the biggie. The novel. Yours is a high and lonely destiny, writing such works of intellectual amazement. Triple syllable words and old-fashioned ideals are reanimated, lurching across the page like so many undead.
And your dialogue's probably terrible.
But what? You're well-read! All writers should read widely. You've done it all right. You've read the classics and the manuals and the instructions on plot and characters and setting and structure.
You don't get to know a person based on their surroundings. Nor is any person likely to hand you a paper when you meet them that lists things like "sarcastic" and "nice." Description can only take you so far. I have brown hair (most of the time) and blue eyes (all the time.) No matter how long you dwell on what I look like, you will never know me. When I open my mouth, you'll start to get to know me.
Dialogue will tell you most of what you need to know about a character. Actions are helpful, but if your dialogue is stiff and formal (when it doesn't need to be,) well, that's a turnoff. Your characters aren't natural. But you've read all those books!
Watch tv. Or a movie. Maybe you could listen to how people talk around you.
*GASP*
Yeah. I said it. If you want to know how to write good dialogue, you have to hear it first. A good television show to start with is The Office. No, really. Drama is too much, and comedy not enough, but The Office is just about perfect. Conversations on the show flow at a natural pace, and that's what you're looking for. As far as movies, I'd shy away from the new Star Wars trilogy, but the original three movies are for finding some amazing banter and such. (Han and Leia, obviously.)
So now you've got your characters who talk like normal people. Their words move with a wonderfully accessible rhythm. But please refrain from...
The Campfire Tale.
One of the mechanical faults that I will now criticize the Twilight books for is that some characters start talking.
And don't stop for several pages.
This really isn't seen much until you get to know three of the Cullen "siblings." One's like "Eh, my family put me in an insane asylum and told everyone I was dead. *shrug* How ya been, I'm feelin' Italy, how 'bout it?"
And then you get stories from the blond sister and brother. She is not as long-winded as he is. This guy tells this story about how he was a Confederate soldier (and apparently the actor has amazing accent power in the film) who went to Mexico, and vampireness, and blah blah blah. Ya boy talks for like a whole chapter. There's never any interaction with other characters, except the in-narration dialogue (not realistic, really.) And at the end of it all, the rest of the Cullens are doing other stuff, like cleaning up the kitchen and manicuring their nails out of sheer boredom. Dang, dude, you coulda just said "This Mexican chick turned me. I met my wife in a bar the next century, and then we came here. Nice town."
Do not have your characters go on and on and on with no interruptions or questions. Your work requires dialogue that's smooth and flows. Too much talking from one person, and your novel takes on the tone of a wiki. Not cool.
*I think they don't run the Bookmobile anymore. This is sad, because for me, it was like mini-Christmas every couple of weeks.
**Don't laugh, I watched the end of Red Dawn and followed it up with 27 Dresses. I'm all eclectic like that. Or just, you know, human.
***I did not read a Newberry book until A Wrinkle in Time when I was in high school. Seriously, those award winners aren't popular among the kiddies. They're picked by teachers who probably cry over them and pick them because of that. I don't want to read sad junk now, and I especially didn't when I was nine.
So let's say you grew up bookish and introverted. (Like me. Yay! Friends!) You probably read whatever you could get your hands on. I know I did. I vividly remember helping myself to a Reader's Digest my family had lying around. Good stuff. Some of it was a little deep for my age then, but I got the basic idea. Reading "Mike's Flag" and something that was like a Bieber fan's guide to Romeo & Juliet possibly had an interesting effect on my taste now. (This will be important later.)
Naturally, when I discovered that the Wilson County Public Library's Bookmobile* rolled around to my neighborhood every couple of weeks, I thought it was pretty cool. Crammed into a small bus that would probably send my current 5 feet 9 inches self into a claustrophobic panic attack, were, well, books. They had whatever I might be interested in, which at the time included The Babysitters Club, Goosebumps, and American Girl magazine.** Anything else that might be a ghost story was also welcome.
I grew up in the 90s. In that decade and the one previous, there was a wealth of kids' books that were available (but never required for me...ah the miracles of private school.) Now, granted, kids did slack off reading for a while there, but there were more readers than the intellectual elite would like to admit.*** (Why do you think The Babysitters Club was so popular?) This created a generation of kids who are quite intelligent and possibly a tad apathetic about academia (or, if they're like me, inwardly ambitious, painfully procrastinating, and somewhat snarky.)
All this boring intro actually has a point, so stay with me.
Let's say that after a crash course in Narnia, you graduated on to greater and higher works of literature. Great. So you're all up into some Austen and some Stoker and maybe a little Melville, all shunning the television in your quest for academic and philosophical greatness. So after you take a break and pull your pasty head out of the wood-pulp, you find after some assignment or such that you enjoy writing, shoot, that it's downright awesome. Not content to stick with mere poetry with its paltry sound devices and subtle imagery, you try your hand at writing some short fictional stories. Then the biggie. The novel. Yours is a high and lonely destiny, writing such works of intellectual amazement. Triple syllable words and old-fashioned ideals are reanimated, lurching across the page like so many undead.
And your dialogue's probably terrible.
But what? You're well-read! All writers should read widely. You've done it all right. You've read the classics and the manuals and the instructions on plot and characters and setting and structure.
You don't get to know a person based on their surroundings. Nor is any person likely to hand you a paper when you meet them that lists things like "sarcastic" and "nice." Description can only take you so far. I have brown hair (most of the time) and blue eyes (all the time.) No matter how long you dwell on what I look like, you will never know me. When I open my mouth, you'll start to get to know me.
Dialogue will tell you most of what you need to know about a character. Actions are helpful, but if your dialogue is stiff and formal (when it doesn't need to be,) well, that's a turnoff. Your characters aren't natural. But you've read all those books!
Watch tv. Or a movie. Maybe you could listen to how people talk around you.
*GASP*
Yeah. I said it. If you want to know how to write good dialogue, you have to hear it first. A good television show to start with is The Office. No, really. Drama is too much, and comedy not enough, but The Office is just about perfect. Conversations on the show flow at a natural pace, and that's what you're looking for. As far as movies, I'd shy away from the new Star Wars trilogy, but the original three movies are for finding some amazing banter and such. (Han and Leia, obviously.)
So now you've got your characters who talk like normal people. Their words move with a wonderfully accessible rhythm. But please refrain from...
The Campfire Tale.
One of the mechanical faults that I will now criticize the Twilight books for is that some characters start talking.
And don't stop for several pages.
This really isn't seen much until you get to know three of the Cullen "siblings." One's like "Eh, my family put me in an insane asylum and told everyone I was dead. *shrug* How ya been, I'm feelin' Italy, how 'bout it?"
And then you get stories from the blond sister and brother. She is not as long-winded as he is. This guy tells this story about how he was a Confederate soldier (and apparently the actor has amazing accent power in the film) who went to Mexico, and vampireness, and blah blah blah. Ya boy talks for like a whole chapter. There's never any interaction with other characters, except the in-narration dialogue (not realistic, really.) And at the end of it all, the rest of the Cullens are doing other stuff, like cleaning up the kitchen and manicuring their nails out of sheer boredom. Dang, dude, you coulda just said "This Mexican chick turned me. I met my wife in a bar the next century, and then we came here. Nice town."
Do not have your characters go on and on and on with no interruptions or questions. Your work requires dialogue that's smooth and flows. Too much talking from one person, and your novel takes on the tone of a wiki. Not cool.
*I think they don't run the Bookmobile anymore. This is sad, because for me, it was like mini-Christmas every couple of weeks.
**Don't laugh, I watched the end of Red Dawn and followed it up with 27 Dresses. I'm all eclectic like that. Or just, you know, human.
***I did not read a Newberry book until A Wrinkle in Time when I was in high school. Seriously, those award winners aren't popular among the kiddies. They're picked by teachers who probably cry over them and pick them because of that. I don't want to read sad junk now, and I especially didn't when I was nine.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Never Enough
Dang, that's one emo post title...Sorry about that.
Anyway, it has a point, I swear, so just hold on tight and we'll get there.
Some my readers may already know that I am engaged to an amazing, wonderful man. I'm not being sentimental or gushy because we're engaged; I've known him for 4.5 years and we've been a couple for just under that time. He is really a great guy who is both loving and willing to put up with a lot. That and he's been mistaken for Prince William (who is not as good looking as my man. Sorry Kate.)
Okay, so I'm engaged. Ever since a) some good friends of ours got engaged and b) I went to Disney World at Christmas time, I've pretty much been planning my wedding, mostly for fun. I've had a hundred different ideas for food, venues, my dress, my friends' dresses, whether my dog should walk down the aisle with me, and other such things. Now that I'm seriously planning a wedding for approximately a year from now, I'm getting serious about the little details such as food and locations. What I do know: I'm getting married to an amazing man, the cake will be chocolate, and Chick-fil-a food trays are great for any party. I'm happy to get married at my church, or a church in town, and I have picked three options in my hometown for the reception venue. But for a while there I caught it.
Yes, the wedding bug. No, this is no cutesy animal that makes you excited about centerpieces and favors and such. This particular species of wedding bug injects an otherwise safe neurotoxin that leads women to think things such as "I must get married at Cinderella's castle" (that was me y'all...totally was gonna rent the coach and everything) and "$9,000 isn't that outrageous for a gown...." Suddenly, it becomes necessary to have live circus acrobats at the reception (gee thanks, David Tutera) and fine caviar for every guest, just as a wedding favor. The wedding must culminate in an all-night blowout lasting until two in the morning. $70,000 is a potential price, though $100,000 weddings for normal, non-famous people, are not unheard of. Inviting everyone in your zip code, whether you know them or not, or like them or not, is the thing to do.
Suddenly, a simple dress with a simple church wedding, where just your family and friends are there and where you dance and eat delicious cake is not enough. It seems painfully inadequate to have a simple, old-fashioned wedding with good food and great music and just plain fun. Wedding magazines inform you that the sub tray at your reception is cheap instead of nice. You feel shamed into spending far too much to impress people who a) already know you or b) don't really know you well at all.
Yeah, for a while I bought into this. I was going to have a reception at an outrageously expensive location, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh (great place, though. Gorgeous.) The ceremony, in order to cut down on traveling time so that people would come to the reception, would be held at the All Saints Chapel, a block away from the museum. The total would have come to $3,000, only for the venue. Not terrible, but then you have to use the approved caterers, and they're expensive, because they're good. And let's just be honest, photographers charge way too much for a service in which they keep the pictures and all rights to said pictures.
Recently, I've decided that I don't want all that extra stuff. I just want to get married. I want it to be special and elegant, not over the top and stupidly elaborate. Namely, I want to be able to pay cash for it. It's mine and my fiance's wedding, not anyone else's.
You'll run into the exact same thing with your writing, but usually it's not even as intentional as it is with weddings. Most writers inflict that feeling of inadequate awesomeness on themselves.
It starts this way. You pick up a good novel and start reading. Maybe it can even be a guilty pleasure book with good elements (Twilight, for example, has some solid dialogue between various characters. It flows naturally, and I appreciate that in any book. Harry Potter and Elantris both also are forefront in my mind and have examples of natural flowing dialogue.) You're going to see something you like in a book that you feel you lack in your own fiction. Rules of magic, cool dialogue, an air of suspense, or a fantastical setting are only a few examples. So you start tweaking what you don't like, only you tweak it according to someone else's work. This is not plagiarizing by any means. You just tend to lose your unique voice by trying to live up to whatever author you've picked. Eventually, your book becomes unwieldy and brimming with main characters who suddenly develop a natural ability with swords, or the always popular nation of Pseudo-Germa-France. Chosen Ones who aren't chosen by anyone in particular drop in from nowhere, or from a tiny village, or from a sketchy intergalactic neighborhood, and dangit, I've never seen an ugly elf. (Someone please invent one. Please.) Eventually, your book becomes little more than a copy of something else. A real life example? Eragon, by Christopher Paolini. It's been criticized as being very much like Star Wars, and as much as I like the series, I agree. Turn the elf forest from the second book into a swamp, and you've got Dagobah with a taller mentor and metal swords. There were enough differences to keep my attention, and I do enjoy the books. The fourth one, called Inheritance (really? Inheritance: Inheritance?) debuts November 8th. I'll be buying it, because Paolini's writing has matured with him, and that's nice to read. But for anyone who's seen Star Wars, the first book generates a voice in the back of your mind going "THIS IS STAR WARS FOR THE DARK AGES." It means that somewhere, the author's voice was drowned out just a tad. Letting that happen too much will hand you the big fat stamp of "RIPOFF." (I'm not yelling at you, I swear. But can't you just picture that word, stamped in big red letters on a book cover?)
So while I'm seeing that the other girl over there has a full orchestra booked for her ceremony and serves gold-leafed cake on china plates, I have to remind myself that I don't really care. It may be beautiful, and wonderfully done, but it's hers and her fiance's wedding. So-and-so may have an amazingly detailed world where the sky is green and purple and fairies fart magic and it may be awesome...but it's not mine. I'm happy with two teenagers, best friends, discovering something they'd never suspect and dealing with all the changes that come.
I've said it many times before: be you. Find your voice and project it in your own work, and you won't be disappointed.
And if anyone's wondering, my wedding favors will be homemade chocolate chip cookies, because the ones I make are awesome. Just saying.
Anyway, it has a point, I swear, so just hold on tight and we'll get there.
Some my readers may already know that I am engaged to an amazing, wonderful man. I'm not being sentimental or gushy because we're engaged; I've known him for 4.5 years and we've been a couple for just under that time. He is really a great guy who is both loving and willing to put up with a lot. That and he's been mistaken for Prince William (who is not as good looking as my man. Sorry Kate.)
Okay, so I'm engaged. Ever since a) some good friends of ours got engaged and b) I went to Disney World at Christmas time, I've pretty much been planning my wedding, mostly for fun. I've had a hundred different ideas for food, venues, my dress, my friends' dresses, whether my dog should walk down the aisle with me, and other such things. Now that I'm seriously planning a wedding for approximately a year from now, I'm getting serious about the little details such as food and locations. What I do know: I'm getting married to an amazing man, the cake will be chocolate, and Chick-fil-a food trays are great for any party. I'm happy to get married at my church, or a church in town, and I have picked three options in my hometown for the reception venue. But for a while there I caught it.
Yes, the wedding bug. No, this is no cutesy animal that makes you excited about centerpieces and favors and such. This particular species of wedding bug injects an otherwise safe neurotoxin that leads women to think things such as "I must get married at Cinderella's castle" (that was me y'all...totally was gonna rent the coach and everything) and "$9,000 isn't that outrageous for a gown...." Suddenly, it becomes necessary to have live circus acrobats at the reception (gee thanks, David Tutera) and fine caviar for every guest, just as a wedding favor. The wedding must culminate in an all-night blowout lasting until two in the morning. $70,000 is a potential price, though $100,000 weddings for normal, non-famous people, are not unheard of. Inviting everyone in your zip code, whether you know them or not, or like them or not, is the thing to do.
Suddenly, a simple dress with a simple church wedding, where just your family and friends are there and where you dance and eat delicious cake is not enough. It seems painfully inadequate to have a simple, old-fashioned wedding with good food and great music and just plain fun. Wedding magazines inform you that the sub tray at your reception is cheap instead of nice. You feel shamed into spending far too much to impress people who a) already know you or b) don't really know you well at all.
Yeah, for a while I bought into this. I was going to have a reception at an outrageously expensive location, the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh (great place, though. Gorgeous.) The ceremony, in order to cut down on traveling time so that people would come to the reception, would be held at the All Saints Chapel, a block away from the museum. The total would have come to $3,000, only for the venue. Not terrible, but then you have to use the approved caterers, and they're expensive, because they're good. And let's just be honest, photographers charge way too much for a service in which they keep the pictures and all rights to said pictures.
Recently, I've decided that I don't want all that extra stuff. I just want to get married. I want it to be special and elegant, not over the top and stupidly elaborate. Namely, I want to be able to pay cash for it. It's mine and my fiance's wedding, not anyone else's.
You'll run into the exact same thing with your writing, but usually it's not even as intentional as it is with weddings. Most writers inflict that feeling of inadequate awesomeness on themselves.
It starts this way. You pick up a good novel and start reading. Maybe it can even be a guilty pleasure book with good elements (Twilight, for example, has some solid dialogue between various characters. It flows naturally, and I appreciate that in any book. Harry Potter and Elantris both also are forefront in my mind and have examples of natural flowing dialogue.) You're going to see something you like in a book that you feel you lack in your own fiction. Rules of magic, cool dialogue, an air of suspense, or a fantastical setting are only a few examples. So you start tweaking what you don't like, only you tweak it according to someone else's work. This is not plagiarizing by any means. You just tend to lose your unique voice by trying to live up to whatever author you've picked. Eventually, your book becomes unwieldy and brimming with main characters who suddenly develop a natural ability with swords, or the always popular nation of Pseudo-Germa-France. Chosen Ones who aren't chosen by anyone in particular drop in from nowhere, or from a tiny village, or from a sketchy intergalactic neighborhood, and dangit, I've never seen an ugly elf. (Someone please invent one. Please.) Eventually, your book becomes little more than a copy of something else. A real life example? Eragon, by Christopher Paolini. It's been criticized as being very much like Star Wars, and as much as I like the series, I agree. Turn the elf forest from the second book into a swamp, and you've got Dagobah with a taller mentor and metal swords. There were enough differences to keep my attention, and I do enjoy the books. The fourth one, called Inheritance (really? Inheritance: Inheritance?) debuts November 8th. I'll be buying it, because Paolini's writing has matured with him, and that's nice to read. But for anyone who's seen Star Wars, the first book generates a voice in the back of your mind going "THIS IS STAR WARS FOR THE DARK AGES." It means that somewhere, the author's voice was drowned out just a tad. Letting that happen too much will hand you the big fat stamp of "RIPOFF." (I'm not yelling at you, I swear. But can't you just picture that word, stamped in big red letters on a book cover?)
So while I'm seeing that the other girl over there has a full orchestra booked for her ceremony and serves gold-leafed cake on china plates, I have to remind myself that I don't really care. It may be beautiful, and wonderfully done, but it's hers and her fiance's wedding. So-and-so may have an amazingly detailed world where the sky is green and purple and fairies fart magic and it may be awesome...but it's not mine. I'm happy with two teenagers, best friends, discovering something they'd never suspect and dealing with all the changes that come.
I've said it many times before: be you. Find your voice and project it in your own work, and you won't be disappointed.
And if anyone's wondering, my wedding favors will be homemade chocolate chip cookies, because the ones I make are awesome. Just saying.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
How to Annoy Your Audience: Stereotypes and Generalizations
The typical fictional New York City will usually be characterized by a few things. First, fictional NYC citizens are rude and soulless. Old people and children will always be roughly shoved out of the way of tough city folk, and money and success define a fictional NYC citizen's life. Second, in the fictional NYC, soulful, green-haired, spontaneous, and poor artists populate Greenwich Village or any of the nicest neighborhoods in Manhattan. Third, you have to use a specific lingo in order to receive food from any eating establishment. Topping it all off, the negative vibes in fictional NYC are enough to cause a river of Pepto pink slime to run under the city and bring back the soul of Dracula's rival-in-meanness neighbor.
Uh-huh.
See how annoying all that is? Not only that, it's pretty insulting to make all those generalizations. (Except for the last part. Ghostbusters, you get an exemption.) New York City, to the average tourist, is quite fast-paced, but the people are awesome and the city is amazing. Okay, my second point was first made in my creative writing textbook, but it is true. People tend to put poverty stricken, fictional artists in a lovely loft apartment in Greenwich Village. Only thing is, Greenwich is a beautiful neighborhood and it's pretty expensive to live there. (Also, I don't know too many artists, but I do know that most of them are fun people who are focused on their work rather than doing random and typical free-spirited things.) Also, since most New Yorkers speak English, they understand perfectly when you say "I'd like a cheeseburger and an iced tea, please."
Now we can move on to the stereotypical South.
In the stereotypical South, everyone everywhere drawls everything. Sentences take five minutes to finish. Cotton is still king, and football is the life of everyone who's anyone. Southern belles always have an air of treachery about them, and every upstanding woman wears pearls. There is also lots of background music, usually consisting of a harmonica or some slow, methodical picking of random guitar strings. The stereotypical South, Louisiana especially, also tends to be a choice residential area for vampires. They like the football programs, I suppose.
While music and vampires aren't necessarily stereotypes, everything else is. How do I know this? Well, I live in the South. Fiction that includes Southern locations and a Gone with the Wind accent permeating all the speech is, quite frankly, annoying. (No, I didn't intend that Rhett Butler allusion there. That's just a bonus.)
Granted, I do live in North Carolina. Cotton wasn't king here so much as tobacco. Being more of a vaguely British/pirate persuasion, we don't speak all that slowly. True, there are certain people who insist on the haughty, Southern blue-blood, old money thing, but even that has a different flavor than somewhere like, say...Georgia. There aren't old plantation houses on every block. (In truth, only about 4% of the antebellum Southern population actually lived on a plantation.) Recently, I've read somewhere that North Carolinians speak more of a "proper English" than other states, stemming from the many English settlers in the state. North Carolina is pretty unique, actually.
It's not the only unique place though. When a character is described as having a "Southern" accent, and when that accent is the only defining feature of that character, the writer is cheating both herself and the readers. For one thing, every state has a different accent, or two different, or three. (North Carolina has at least three regional differences in accents, spanning from the Coastal Plains, which I have, and the Western North Carolina accent.) "Southern" characters who are Southern in accent only are annoying, flat, and less than they could be.
British accents can be the same way. There are many different accents in the British isles, and saying that someone has a "slight British" accent (as Abra Ebner does in Feather) is a little bit lazy. Not only is it lazy, it also means that you're cheating yourself out of some character development and dialogue, and this goes for any accent. Instead of your main character observing that another character has a British/Southern/whatever accent, have them make conversation. It might look something like this: "The boy had an accent, but Susie couldn't place it. 'Where are you from?' Louis looked up from his book. 'I'm from....'" This conversation establishes characterization. If your main character doesn't want to be embarrassed by asking such a question, imply that and let them find out later.
If you're unsure about a location, and you want to write about it, please do your research. My complaint with many books is that the author simply does not do research in key areas. If you set your stories in a real life location, but get things blatantly wrong (you'll see more of this in my analysis of Feather) about the area, then someone is bound to notice. (Spoiler alert: Feather mentions the "hillsides of London" once...but London is a metropolitan area. Ravines of New York? Crashing waves in Oklahoma? I've never been to London, but Doctor Who is sometimes set there and 28 Days Later was a great story partly set in London...I have a good idea of what it looks like.) When you don't bother to get details right because you assume that no one will know or care, you insult your readers.
Also, there's generalizations about people that you never want to make. Many times, I am assumed to be Goth, and I am not. I do wear a lot of darker colors, for various reasons. Mostly taste. I do like dark red lipstick (classy!) and lace. (I even wear pearls, but I swear I stay away from the hoop skirts.) Also, I tend to be seen as a pessimist. (I'm not.) While I realize that I probably invite these generalizations (unintentionally...), they're not fair in writing. Again, defining a character solely by appearance, dress, or accent is a bad idea. You end up with flat characters who cannot grow or change because they have no substance to change from. The same applies to places. Defining New York City, the South, Southern California, or anywhere based on what you've read in books or seen in movies is going to prove problematic. That's why it's important to write what you know. If you want to do differently, then at least research what and where you are writing about. Your story will make more sense and will seem more real.
Check back for my next post. Right now, I'm reading through Guardian, the sequel to Feather. I hope to have a review of that up soon, and an analysis of Feather that can help you see where a story can go wrong. I'll also be writing about characters next. Stay tuned, and thanks for stopping by.
Uh-huh.
See how annoying all that is? Not only that, it's pretty insulting to make all those generalizations. (Except for the last part. Ghostbusters, you get an exemption.) New York City, to the average tourist, is quite fast-paced, but the people are awesome and the city is amazing. Okay, my second point was first made in my creative writing textbook, but it is true. People tend to put poverty stricken, fictional artists in a lovely loft apartment in Greenwich Village. Only thing is, Greenwich is a beautiful neighborhood and it's pretty expensive to live there. (Also, I don't know too many artists, but I do know that most of them are fun people who are focused on their work rather than doing random and typical free-spirited things.) Also, since most New Yorkers speak English, they understand perfectly when you say "I'd like a cheeseburger and an iced tea, please."
Now we can move on to the stereotypical South.
In the stereotypical South, everyone everywhere drawls everything. Sentences take five minutes to finish. Cotton is still king, and football is the life of everyone who's anyone. Southern belles always have an air of treachery about them, and every upstanding woman wears pearls. There is also lots of background music, usually consisting of a harmonica or some slow, methodical picking of random guitar strings. The stereotypical South, Louisiana especially, also tends to be a choice residential area for vampires. They like the football programs, I suppose.
While music and vampires aren't necessarily stereotypes, everything else is. How do I know this? Well, I live in the South. Fiction that includes Southern locations and a Gone with the Wind accent permeating all the speech is, quite frankly, annoying. (No, I didn't intend that Rhett Butler allusion there. That's just a bonus.)
Granted, I do live in North Carolina. Cotton wasn't king here so much as tobacco. Being more of a vaguely British/pirate persuasion, we don't speak all that slowly. True, there are certain people who insist on the haughty, Southern blue-blood, old money thing, but even that has a different flavor than somewhere like, say...Georgia. There aren't old plantation houses on every block. (In truth, only about 4% of the antebellum Southern population actually lived on a plantation.) Recently, I've read somewhere that North Carolinians speak more of a "proper English" than other states, stemming from the many English settlers in the state. North Carolina is pretty unique, actually.
It's not the only unique place though. When a character is described as having a "Southern" accent, and when that accent is the only defining feature of that character, the writer is cheating both herself and the readers. For one thing, every state has a different accent, or two different, or three. (North Carolina has at least three regional differences in accents, spanning from the Coastal Plains, which I have, and the Western North Carolina accent.) "Southern" characters who are Southern in accent only are annoying, flat, and less than they could be.
British accents can be the same way. There are many different accents in the British isles, and saying that someone has a "slight British" accent (as Abra Ebner does in Feather) is a little bit lazy. Not only is it lazy, it also means that you're cheating yourself out of some character development and dialogue, and this goes for any accent. Instead of your main character observing that another character has a British/Southern/whatever accent, have them make conversation. It might look something like this: "The boy had an accent, but Susie couldn't place it. 'Where are you from?' Louis looked up from his book. 'I'm from....'" This conversation establishes characterization. If your main character doesn't want to be embarrassed by asking such a question, imply that and let them find out later.
If you're unsure about a location, and you want to write about it, please do your research. My complaint with many books is that the author simply does not do research in key areas. If you set your stories in a real life location, but get things blatantly wrong (you'll see more of this in my analysis of Feather) about the area, then someone is bound to notice. (Spoiler alert: Feather mentions the "hillsides of London" once...but London is a metropolitan area. Ravines of New York? Crashing waves in Oklahoma? I've never been to London, but Doctor Who is sometimes set there and 28 Days Later was a great story partly set in London...I have a good idea of what it looks like.) When you don't bother to get details right because you assume that no one will know or care, you insult your readers.
Also, there's generalizations about people that you never want to make. Many times, I am assumed to be Goth, and I am not. I do wear a lot of darker colors, for various reasons. Mostly taste. I do like dark red lipstick (classy!) and lace. (I even wear pearls, but I swear I stay away from the hoop skirts.) Also, I tend to be seen as a pessimist. (I'm not.) While I realize that I probably invite these generalizations (unintentionally...), they're not fair in writing. Again, defining a character solely by appearance, dress, or accent is a bad idea. You end up with flat characters who cannot grow or change because they have no substance to change from. The same applies to places. Defining New York City, the South, Southern California, or anywhere based on what you've read in books or seen in movies is going to prove problematic. That's why it's important to write what you know. If you want to do differently, then at least research what and where you are writing about. Your story will make more sense and will seem more real.
Check back for my next post. Right now, I'm reading through Guardian, the sequel to Feather. I hope to have a review of that up soon, and an analysis of Feather that can help you see where a story can go wrong. I'll also be writing about characters next. Stay tuned, and thanks for stopping by.
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