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Holy crap, I think I've got a short story done in draft. (Well, "short"; it's roughly 6600 words long. One of these days I'll figure out* how to write at commonly-acceptable lengths like 3000-4500 words.) I think I started this one sometime in mid-November. Not a bad start to the year, even if I probably won't have it out the door today!
* This is probably a lie.
Over the past few days of trying to tie everything together, I've been thinking about a couple of things.
1. Plausible choice. When I wrote Water Rights (the short story I wrote for Edge of Infinity), I found that I'd written up a setting and a predicament and a conflict that I really liked... but that didn't really offer the characters a choice. (A dilemma, yes; a choice, no.) Basically, the situation wound down to:
– Catastrophe has happened.
– Of our main characters do X, they'll be sacrificing their dreams.
– If our main characters don't do X, EVERYONE WILL DIE.
Considering that none of my main characters were evil, assholes, or unforgivably selfish, there wasn't a lot of plot-level tension there. Character-level, yes, but even I wasn't satisfied with the "And now we sit down and talk about our feelings until we come to the conclusion everyone knows we're going to come to" plot structure. It was, to my mind, something more of a sketch than a story**.
** A distinction I've tried to articulate before, with mixed results. More or less, I think a story positions its characters and/or readers in relation to a concept/trope/situation/etc at the beginning, and does so in the end, but with a change in that relationship (or a lack of change which is meaningful to the reader). Something along those lines. Like I said, mixed results.
Which was interesting, because this time, I found myself in almost the same situation. To wit:
– Event has happened.
– If main character does X, she's making a significant existential sacrifice.
– If main character doesn't do X, she is AN INCREDIBLE ASSHOLE. And the story will resolve on the note of her sitting around resolving to just continually be an asshole for the foreseeable future.
When I stalled out at this point and took it to the whiteboard, I realized that I needed to give her a plausible choice. Something she can do to remove herself from the situation, or resolve it to a different outcome.
Writing this out, it feels like the most obvious thing in the world. But when I was standing in front of the whiteboard, going why doesn't it feel like my story arc is functional?, it was something of a revelation. The tension in the story hinged on what the main character would resolve to do. Tension requires uncertainty. To increase tension, I had to add in a plausible choice.
2. Digging deep vs. going far. So, I seem to have a habit of writing stories in which not much actually happens. (That was one of the big critiques on early versions of Of Men and Wolves, and you can still kinda see it. In fact, if you went through most of my published work, I think the majority of it is weighted more toward "Here is a thing; how do my characters deal with it internally?" than the traditional try-fail loop of plot-driven works.
Which isinteresting. Because usually you hear about plot arcs, and those arcs have to start somewhere and go somewhere and pull the reader along. Whereas I think a lot of my writing kinda sits the reader down and starts excavating layer after layer of stuff right where they're sitting.
And it occurred to me that those were both perfectly fine dimensions to work in. At the very least, they both product functional stories when done well, and it is my hope to do well. But I do need to recognize that they are different modes to operate in, and their criteria for success are going to be different, as well.
And on we go. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, publishing for... yikes, 2005 was nine years ago already, wasn't it? –and editing professionally for over a year, and I've been to one of the most prestigious writing workshops in the speculative fiction field, and I still often feel like I have no idea how fiction works or how to write something that functions. Then again, I hear that this never really goes away, so I'd best get comfortable with continually working to figure things out and put neat labels on the tools in my toolbox.
[ETA] Welp, I read over it, and I'm still not entirely happy with the arc – but I'm not sure what I can do to fix it without writing a different story. So I sent it out! Because if nothing else, starting the year on a submission has some nice symbolic heft, and it is sometimes the case that other people like my fiction more than I do after a long writing/tweaking process. &o.o&
There are just about 50 minutes left in January 1. I'm doing pretty well!
* This is probably a lie.
Over the past few days of trying to tie everything together, I've been thinking about a couple of things.
1. Plausible choice. When I wrote Water Rights (the short story I wrote for Edge of Infinity), I found that I'd written up a setting and a predicament and a conflict that I really liked... but that didn't really offer the characters a choice. (A dilemma, yes; a choice, no.) Basically, the situation wound down to:
– Catastrophe has happened.
– Of our main characters do X, they'll be sacrificing their dreams.
– If our main characters don't do X, EVERYONE WILL DIE.
Considering that none of my main characters were evil, assholes, or unforgivably selfish, there wasn't a lot of plot-level tension there. Character-level, yes, but even I wasn't satisfied with the "And now we sit down and talk about our feelings until we come to the conclusion everyone knows we're going to come to" plot structure. It was, to my mind, something more of a sketch than a story**.
** A distinction I've tried to articulate before, with mixed results. More or less, I think a story positions its characters and/or readers in relation to a concept/trope/situation/etc at the beginning, and does so in the end, but with a change in that relationship (or a lack of change which is meaningful to the reader). Something along those lines. Like I said, mixed results.
Which was interesting, because this time, I found myself in almost the same situation. To wit:
– Event has happened.
– If main character does X, she's making a significant existential sacrifice.
– If main character doesn't do X, she is AN INCREDIBLE ASSHOLE. And the story will resolve on the note of her sitting around resolving to just continually be an asshole for the foreseeable future.
When I stalled out at this point and took it to the whiteboard, I realized that I needed to give her a plausible choice. Something she can do to remove herself from the situation, or resolve it to a different outcome.
Writing this out, it feels like the most obvious thing in the world. But when I was standing in front of the whiteboard, going why doesn't it feel like my story arc is functional?, it was something of a revelation. The tension in the story hinged on what the main character would resolve to do. Tension requires uncertainty. To increase tension, I had to add in a plausible choice.
2. Digging deep vs. going far. So, I seem to have a habit of writing stories in which not much actually happens. (That was one of the big critiques on early versions of Of Men and Wolves, and you can still kinda see it. In fact, if you went through most of my published work, I think the majority of it is weighted more toward "Here is a thing; how do my characters deal with it internally?" than the traditional try-fail loop of plot-driven works.
Which isinteresting. Because usually you hear about plot arcs, and those arcs have to start somewhere and go somewhere and pull the reader along. Whereas I think a lot of my writing kinda sits the reader down and starts excavating layer after layer of stuff right where they're sitting.
And it occurred to me that those were both perfectly fine dimensions to work in. At the very least, they both product functional stories when done well, and it is my hope to do well. But I do need to recognize that they are different modes to operate in, and their criteria for success are going to be different, as well.
And on we go. I've been writing for as long as I can remember, publishing for... yikes, 2005 was nine years ago already, wasn't it? –and editing professionally for over a year, and I've been to one of the most prestigious writing workshops in the speculative fiction field, and I still often feel like I have no idea how fiction works or how to write something that functions. Then again, I hear that this never really goes away, so I'd best get comfortable with continually working to figure things out and put neat labels on the tools in my toolbox.
[ETA] Welp, I read over it, and I'm still not entirely happy with the arc – but I'm not sure what I can do to fix it without writing a different story. So I sent it out! Because if nothing else, starting the year on a submission has some nice symbolic heft, and it is sometimes the case that other people like my fiction more than I do after a long writing/tweaking process. &o.o&
There are just about 50 minutes left in January 1. I'm doing pretty well!
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no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 08:48 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 09:16 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 01:49 pm (UTC)From:There are a fair number of readers who -- at least consciously -- respond a lot more to the thought-experiment aspect of speculative fiction than to characters. They want to see an interesting premise about the world ramify itself out with cool tricks and consequences, and that's about it. I always find it happy-making to find readers, editors, and writers who care about more than that! :)
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 02:30 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 01:57 pm (UTC)From:And comparatively, 6600 words aren't really that bad. It's right on the edge for me, anyway, in terms of how loudly I'll grown when going to read a story. ;P
Baco and I have discussed the whole choice thing before, or at least some version of that. (I think, specifically, we've talked a lot about how we really like plots that are driven by the characters' choices. Where the characters provide the drive for the plot, instead of the plot just sort of funneling them along towards an inevitable ending. It helps make them feel more necessary to the story -- but, I mean, like you said, that's just one way of going about it. Doesn't make it necessarily better.) It's really freaking hard to remember when actually trying to plot things out, though, holy crap. I think I've lost sight of that whole choice thing at least fifty times while trying to figure out what's going on in my 20s story.
I wanna second Riona's reply, too! I think the process of writing is really interesting to read about.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 02:32 am (UTC)From:And, heh, I didn't realize that there were so many people who wanted to read my rambles about how fiction got ficced. I'll have to do more rambledanse auctoring posts in the future.
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 02:41 am (UTC)From:Re: character choice, very true; choice-driven plots are pretty awesome, because they allow your character to be active and not just reactive. I think they're a little different than the structure I'm working with; this story (and Water Rights are very much predicament pieces in which the choice is the climax/resolution, rather than something that drives the story. Which might make it even more important to get the choice down right; I mean, you can have a plot which moves forward and has the characters constantly on the defensive and reacting, and it works if done well. (I feel like The Hunger Games might be an example, there, though it's been a while since I've read it. But while there were a couple moments of choice at the beginning (re: whether to run away) and one at the end (the big one at the end of the Games, which I won't spoil in case anyone is still planning to read it), most of the story takes place in this environment where Katniss has very little room to maneuver. So it's not exactly a choice-driven plot, but it's still one that drives forward instead of digging in deep on a single dilemma.)
I suppose the distinction is: choice-driven plots use choice to build tension and momentum toward a resolution. Water Rights and this story (which is named And Wash Out by Tides of War, because I couldn't think of a title for all the months I was writing it and this was the first thing that popped into my head) use internal character development and situational development to build tension and momentum to the moment where a choice is made. And if you don't have a plausible choice there to build up to, the buildup... fizzles. It can be kinda intellectually interesting, but it's more difficult to make moving.
</rambledanse>
no subject
Date: 2014-01-02 09:26 pm (UTC)From:re. digging deep vs. going far: It's funny you mention this now, but I was reading a very plot-heavy fic the other day that basically boiled down to:
1. Event happens!
2. Character A reacts, which causes B to react, which causes C to react ... all the way until the denouement.
It didn't occur to me until I finished reading the story -- because it felt very much like your typical "going far" story -- but it was really this amazing, beautiful balance of both "digging deep" and "going far." And because the plot was so character-motivated, it felt very organic. I do think getting a perfect balance of these two types of stories requires a very specific combination of situation and character types though.
Happy New Year!
no subject
Date: 2014-01-03 03:58 am (UTC)From:And yeah – I think the choice-as-climax format's success has a lot to do with how much readers care about the characters. If the characters resonate enough, I bet a what-happens-next story would also do well, being able to build on the implications from the choice and still be open to a lot of different story structures.
[but it was really this amazing, beautiful balance of both "digging deep" and "going far."]
These sorts of stories are so great! I think competence in one dimension is pretty much required to have a workable story, but really being able to pull off both can open up a lot of depth and momentum, which is a fabulous combination.