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The Art of Leaving Negative Space in Your Writing

As I’m rereading my prior manuscript and taking notes in order to prepare it for the rounds of editors I’ve planned for Spring 2023, I’m learning a lot about my writing style and where I can improve. There’s nothing like a year of separation, in conjunction with my tendency to read quality writing, to open my eyes to what should be changed in my own work. One of those things is something I thought I did quite well and which I call the beauty of the unspoken. This is one thing that differentiates great from good writing.

If you’ve ever read or studied architecture or interior design, you’ve likely heard the term negative space. It refers to the empty space around structural (or decorative elements). For example, if you picture a house full of rooms that are nothing but rectangular spaces (no moldings, no columns, nothing but drywall) your mind picks up the fact that the house is an amalgamation of rectangles (the empty space between the walls).

When designers update or renovate a space, they’ll often add moldings, or paneling, or a stamped tin ceiling, you name it… something to break up the flat surfaces of those rectilinear spaces. The rooms are still the same shape, but the eye lingers on those items that protrude into the rectangle. It travels around them, seeing something other than just a nondescript rectangular box. It’s generally more visually interesting.

The same is true in writing. Sometimes there’s so much more power in what isn’t said than what is. But how can you accomplish this? And when?

The Unspoken Level 1: Subtext

We could easily include subtext in this category: the underlying, but unspoken meaning beneath what people actually say. For instance, let’s say that a couple has had a terrible fight. If frightened both of them after the fact because it left each one aware of how much they could lose if they give up on their relationship. They each want to reconcile with the other, but struggle to articulate that.

Perhaps she’s very proud and doesn’t want to admit that she was wrong in how she treated him, but if she doesn’t say something, she might lose him – something she values more than her pride. On the other hand, it may be that he was deeply in the wrong. He acted selfishly and did something underhanded that threatened their family. Now, in retrospect, he is deeply ashamed of himself. So much so that he can’t even speak of it. But he’s sorry.

They might have a conversation like the following:

Him: I drove past The Szechuan Garden last night.

Her: Oh. They’re still in business?

Him: Looks like it. Got me thinking about how long it’s been since we’ve been there.

Here: Wouldn’t hurt to stop by…

Now, if readers [hopefully] already know that the Szechuan Garden was the restaurant where they met for their first date many years ago, this conversation means something more than what it appears to say. On the surface, he’s saying he craves Chinese food and she agrees it might be nice to get some. But to anyone who’s paying attention, he’s clearly trying to heal their relationship.

He’s suggesting that they revisit a restaurant that means something to them, a restaurant that’s symbolic of the start of their relationship. In essence, this is like saying, I‘m sorry, can we start over. In response, she’s saying yes, I’d like to try.

This kind of conversation is how people often speak in real life and is vastly more interesting than if they had actually said what they truly meant. Why? Because it’s loaded with all of the implied pride and shame and struggles to communicate that tell us more about who these two characters really are.

That’s subtext.

It’s powerful, and it could be part of what I’m referring to here, but not entirely. I’m actually speaking of more than just subtext.

The Unspoken Level 2: The Pregnant Pause

There’s something that actors call the pregnant pause. It’s when characters stop speaking, not because they’re running from a gunman, or trying to move out of range of a noisy, construction site, but because there’s something they’re not saying. They’re deliberately leaving something out of the conversation.

As much as I can still improve in subtext, I incorporate quite a bit of it in my writing. But the pregnant pause…that’s a step up. Let’s talk about an example of this from my own writing because it’s an example of what I thought I was doing well, but now see that I can improve.

In the first scene of my novel, the main character, Clara, is attempting to escape from her ancestral home in Bavaria in which she’s a prisoner. Her maidservant, Jutta, surprises her in her preparations to flee. In my prior drafts of the story, Jutta speaks to this in subtext, warning Clara that they’ve recently heard of more missing girls in the region and reminding her that her mother needs her in various ways…

Unspoken meaning: you’re risking too much and need to reevaluate your priorities.

As I said, this is done in subtext and it’s not bad. Maybe it’s even good, but it’s not as great as it could be. In this setting, especially given the differences in their social statuses, silence would be the better response. But keep in mind that silence is never really just silence.

Picture a real-life scenario in which a parent catches a child attempting to sneak out in the middle of the night. What kind of facial expressions, exchanged looks, body language, or other actions might accompany that situation?

Jutta’s a servant so she can’t say, Where the hell do you think you’re going? But as readers will learn later, she knows more about what’s going on in the house than Clara does. Much more. And she herself is so much more than meets the eye. All that to say that she has a wisdom that pertains to Clara’s situation in a way that mimics the parent in the example I just gave.

But she can’t really say anything too pointed.

However, she can do something! She can do a lot. When readers witness Jutta catching Clara in the act of her escape attempt, they know all of the things that Jutta might say. All of the ways that she might try to talk her out of it. It’s more powerful (and realistic in this situation) for her to do none of those. (This goes hand-in-hand with incorporating the unpredictability that keeps readers engaged and which I wrote about in this post.)

Instead, perhaps Clara catches Jutta eyeing her wet skirts and readers know that Jutta knows exactly where Clara has been [on the roof] and what she’s been planning. Perhaps she gathers the pieces of a figurine that Clara, in her shock, broke and moves to throw them away. This is a figurine that Clara’s mother had given her. Or she may pick up some bloodstained underclothes off of the bathroom floor and merely looks at Clara…

Unspoken meaning: I know what you’re up to. I know more about all of it than you do. But what you’re doing will sever the only good things in your life and expose yourself to danger and possibly destruction.

Of course, these actions could still be improved. You can probably think of better choices…or could if you know all of Clara’s backstory and what’s happening in the house at this point in time. It takes time to brainstorm these and choose the best ones.

However, this type of unspoken interchange is even more powerful than subtext because it raises more questions than subtext does. We want to know what’s going on with Clara and her mother (the dominant subplot) in the book. We want to know why the underclothes are bloodstained. Is this merely a reference to her femininity, or is it something more? What does Jutta know that she’s not saying?

On top of this, Jutta can also use some subtle (and appropriate) but very laden subtext. In this case though, her meaningful actions have more impact if she waits to speak. Let the reader feel the awkwardness, the fear, the questions and doubts rising in their own minds. That creates in them something of what Clara is feeling. That is great writing.

The Unspoken Level 3: Missing Details

Last of all, some writers leave out critical details. This is extraordinarily hard to manage well, but can be especially powerful. Many readers speculate on what’s missing in books such as Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun series (four small but extremely weighty parts to one larger story).

I’m not going to get into specific speculations about that book in particular, but leave it to say that it’s profoundly brilliant writing. And there’s a reason why many readers walk away with the sense that there’s something missing. Something crucial.

This is so challenging to manage because the story itself has to be complete and readers have to come away feeling like they weren’t cheated. Omitting parts of the story simply in an attempt to leave open questions is not what we’re going for here. That will leave readers unhappy, not excited.

What I’m referring to is something of an alternate story. Picture a novel in which an urban fantasy character embarks on an adventure to right a great wrong or to level the playing field for others like himself. As the writer, you set out to write his entire story. It has a satisfying beginning, middle and end. The story rises and falls, the character grows and changes, the theme is explored. Readers are happy.

But beneath it all, there’s more.

The more astute readers notice that something is off. There are holes in the character’s story. Not plot holes, but gaps in time. The character may appear at a place he shouldn’t have been. Or you portrayed something that he did and yet the outcome suggests that he also did something else. Or may have.

This kind of story is the supreme form of the unspoken. It’s an art form in and of itself. But again, it has to make sense. The story has to be intact. It’s just that there’s more. Another possible story other than the one that the writer told.

In a sense, this can be a form of the unreliable narrator. But in this case, the unreliable narrator is the writer. Not the main character. The writer tells one story when really, something else may actually be the case.

I think you can see why this would be exceptionally difficult to write well. And of course, as with our other examples, we can (and should) also use subtext and the proverbial pregnant pause in our writing.

Why is this more powerful than the other two options? Because it raises more questions. That’s the key to the art of the unspoken. One of the best ways to stirs a reader’s imagination and pull him into the story is the question: what isn’t being said?

We want to lace our work with as many of these as possible within our current ability level and without sacrificing the completeness of the surface story. If I can’t manage the missing details yet, I can work on incorporating more pregnant pauses. If my writing is too overt, I can focus simply on subtext-laden dialogue. And as I improve, I can push myself towards more and more unspoken meaning that will engage my readers more effectively.

Caveat

There is a caveat to all of this. Even though too much overt (non-subtext-laden) dialogue and action is a sign of undeveloped writing skills, the level three unspoken [missing] details that I just mentioned will not appeal to everyone. If the surface story is accessible enough, readers may be able to ignore all that you’ve omitted. However, sometimes these stories end up being so profound and erudite that they’re not as marketable (aka: Gene Wolfe isn’t for everyone).

Regardless, there’s still power in developing these skills. They can be employed in smaller or larger ways throughout the manuscript depending on the story and the appetite of the audience (or yourself as the writer). And doing so well will always make for a more interesting story.

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Last week, I explored the differences and similarities between Gothic writing and that of Dark Romanticism. Those two genres are more similar than different. But can we say the same of Gothic versus Magical Realism?

What is Realism & Magical Realism

In order to understand Magical Realism, we need to start with a quick look at Realism. Realism came about in the mid-1800s as a response to the idyllic art forms prior to that period. Whereas artists had glamorized, or at least cleaned up, representations of life in all forms of art, realism sought to display…you guessed it…reality.

They presented the ugliness and hardships of life as they truly were. Painters portrayed people who struggled in agrarian lifestyles as they often were: tired, sometimes oppressed, often discouraged. Or they painted food that spoiled quickly without refrigeration and pesticides as imperfectly as it appears in real life.

As you can imagine, realism, with its unvarnished approach, gave writers a greater ability to make strong statements about various social and political concerns. Magical realism – a subgenre of realism – sprang from Latin America and added to this, layering magical elements into real world settings.

It’s important to note that this isn’t the same thing as fantasy writing with a real-world setting. Magical Realism is essentially literary fiction with touches of fantasy. This type of writing tends not to follow the type of plot structure you would expect in genre fiction (such as fantasy writing). Furthermore, in Magical Realism, the magical elements are symbolic of an internal reality for the protagonist. Therefore, stories such as American Gods by Neil Gaiman would generally be considered to be fantasy writing despite their real world setting.

Example

As an example of Magical Realism, suppose you have a main character who lives on a farm in Mexico. She’s the wife of a discouraged and emotionally distant husband. One day she opens a leather box and finds an antique bottle of perfume. She applies some and awakens the next day to discover that she has grown wings.

Simultaneously, she discovers several ways that she can contribute to the family’s income and assets. She shares the perfume with her sisters and mother, and they in turn share it with other close friends and family members. As the bottle makes its rounds, the other women in the village grow wings and take newfound positions of influence in their families and in the community.

Rather than a fantasy story in which there might be winged creatures simply for the sake of having them – though they might also have a symbolic purpose – in this story, the women’s wings are a symbol of their newly-discovered inner power. The wings represent a rise in female assertion in business and in the family. In specific, they parallel the inner journey of the protagonist from quiet subjection to her lot in life to strength and independence.

Writers in this genre include Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, and Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved.

Similarities

You can probably already see a few possible similarities between Gothic writing and that of Magical Realism. Both Magical Realism and Gothic tend to be set in the real world. And both of them – although Gothic occasionally doesn’t contain any – use fantastical elements to make some form of reality more tangible to the reader. But that’s where most of the similarities end.

I would also argue that Gothic writing is the genre fiction that’s the closest to literary fiction, making that somewhat of a similarity. However, Gothic writing does follow a plot structure and sits squarely [enough] in the genre fiction category for this to be more of a distinction than a similarity.

Differences

That said, there are at least four significant differences between Gothic writing and that of Magical Realism.

Themes

The first one is huge. Gothic is defined by its exploration of irrational themes: generally spiritual and psychological truths that can’t be proven through reason or empirical data. Magical realism, in contrast, doesn’t tend to pursue those types of themes.

Political Nature

Rather, Magical Realism’s themes tend to be political in nature. This stems from the genre’s origins in Latin America. As the writers of Central and South American countries explored their use of magic in real settings, they sought to speak to the state of their own nations during and post-colonialism.

The political nature of Magical Realism is a significant – and some would argue an essential – component of the genre.

Use of Fantastical Elements

As you may have gathered from my example above featuring the Mexican woman who grows wings, the use of fantastical elements tends to be quite different in Magical Realism. There these elements reflect the inner state of the protagonist. In contrast, Gothic fiction may or may not use fantastical elements at all. When it does, these, like other Gothic tropes, are meant to make the theme more accessible to readers.

Thus, while both genres use these elements to point to an unseen mystery, in Magical Realism it’s an intangible facet of the protagonist (or the other characters) and in Gothic writing it’s an intangible component of the theme.

People Represented

Lastly, as you might expect, Magical Realism almost never features the aristocracy or upper class of a country or region. It’s concerned with presenting the common man and his struggles. This goes hand-in-hand with the political nature of this type of writing. The political statements these writers seek to make tend to relate to the impacts that various conditions have on the common person.

Gothic writing very often features the upper class, but this is not a requirement and is not done exclusively.

Conclusion

In summary, though Gothic writing and Magical Realism share a real world setting and fantastical elements, they are otherwise quite different. They pursue very different types of themes, often with different types of characters and, in the case of Magical Realism, a political bent.

I’ll admit that I don’t read Magical Realism so it’s been something of an intriguing journey to dig into this genre. I owe a lot of credit to the following two sources that were wonderfully useful in explaining the bones of this genre. If this is a genre you’d like to understand more, or would like to try writing, check out these two websites:

What is Magical Realism in Literature

11 Questions You’re Too Embarrassed to Ask About Magical Realism

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How Are These Two Genres Similar and Where Do They Differ

Many people view Gothic writing as a synonym for Dark Romanticism. It’s true that there’s some overlap, but there are also key differences. As we consider where these two literary genres intersect and where they differ, we’ll also look at how to write in the styles of Gothic versus Dark Romanticism.

Romanticism

Dark Romanticism is an off-shoot of Romanticism, which began in the late eighteenth-century as a response to the Enlightenment and, subsequently, to the Industrial Revolution. Those who adhered to the Romantic movement were those who distrust science. Not because science is necessarily wrong, but because it tends to reduce the world to one plane – that which can be known empirically – while rejecting the spiritual world and that of the inner man.

Hence it’s not surprising that Romantics value the world of former eras, particularly the Medieval one, in which the spiritual world played a central role. However, those former eras, such as the classical world of the Greeks, that had a predominant focus on reason, rules and logic, are by definition in sharp contrast with Romanticism.

Romantics also love nature, not from a scientific approach, but from an experiential one, along with folk art and music; art without constructs or requirements. The heart of this movement was/ is the individual and the ideal. The individual must be free to experience, to feel, to create, to imagine. And even more, to know the wonder of a spiritual world that extends beyond the limits of man’s reason.

Dark Romanticism

Two off-shoots to Romanticism are Transcendentalism and Dark Romanticism. We won’t emphasize the former here today, but suffice it to say that Transcendentalism is rooted in the idea that man can continue to perfect himself, to create something of an ideal world for himself and the rest of humanity. Assuming, of course, that enough other people participate in the endeavor. You may recall shades of this within Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. The March family is comprised of Transcendentalists.

In contrast, Dark Romanticism is the subset of Romanticism that holds that man is fallible, prone to evil, self-destructive, and unable to perfect himself. Some say that this perspective naturally devolves into an immoral one – a belief that man can only be evil. However, I would add that this is only true in his natural state. Dark Romanticism leaves room for the notion of a higher spiritual power, God, who could raise man from his natural darkness to a place of goodness.

The difference between Dark Romanticism and Transcendentalism isn’t where man ends, it’s where he begins; where his natural state would be. Whereas Transcendentalism teaches that man is inherently good and can be perfect through his own efforts, Dark Romanticism says that man is inherently evil and can never [apart from the work of an outside entity] be perfect.

Naturally, Dark Romantics often emphasize this through their work. Thus, their art and literature tends to be dark, melancholy, and focused on man’s inescapably evil nature. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is an excellent example of a work of Dark Romanticism.

Writers in this category tend to include Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville, and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Gothic Writing vs. Dark Romanticism

As you can probably see already, there are a number of similarities between the Gothic and Dark Romantic genres.

Irrational Themes

Both are a response to the Enlightenment, holding that such a rigid focus on reason and empirical evidence ignores an entire unseen spiritual world. In opposing this scientific focus, both genres set out to demonstrate this intangible world.

Tropes

Both Gothic and Dark Romantic wors employ tropes that make irrational (contra-reason) themes tangible for readers. [For more information on this see this article.] These tropes tend to be dark ones such as fog, dark and stormy weather, madness, vampires, ghosts, and isolation since darkness parallels the seemingly imperceptible and impenetrable nature of irrational themes.

The Emotions

Both genres emphasize man’s emotional and experiential response to the world around him. Generally both of these will be negative, although Gothic needn’t always be. The heart of the matter is that man should be free to explore his world through his senses and his imagination. His emotional response is a tangible means of understanding what he truly believes about his surroundings, and though those beliefs may be false, his emotions are a valuable gauge to understand his inner state.

History

Since Romantics in general dislike science, the Industrial Revolution and a world focused on reason, most writing within Dark Romanticism tends to be that which idealizes and reverts to a former time. This is often the case for Gothic writing as well. It would be difficult to explore the intangible spiritual or psychological world in the modern era with its emphasis on empirical data.

That’s not to say that this is unheard of or impossible. For example, notice that some more contemporary Gothic works such as The Shining by Stephen King, Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, or We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson take place in a fairly contemporary world. However, when this is the case, the characters are usually isolated from the modern world so that its influences don’t cloud the focus on the irrational themes.

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At face value, these two seem to be identical. The Gothic and Dark Romantic genres explore the same types of themes, using the same tropes, with an emphasis on darker moods, emotive writing and historical settings. However, there are at least two possible differences.

The Evil of Man

First, whereas Man’s fallen, depraved state is an inherent, if not central component in Dark Romanticism, it may or may not be the thematic purpose of a Gothic novel.

For example, some Gothic novels feature the evils of man as the central purpose such as in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson and in The Picture of Dorian Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

However, some present evil as a side issue reserved for the antagonist or some select group such as the Doyle family in Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia or the village/ community in We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson.

Others may have an evil character but man’s depraved nature is not a central issue such as in Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier or The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield.

Spiritual Focus…or Not

Second, you may have noticed that Dark Romanticism is by definition focused on spiritual themes. These always fall under the irrational, meaning those things that cannot be known through reason or empirically through the five senses.

True Gothic writing always features irrational themes as well. However, there are other types of irrational themes than merely spiritual ones. These can include psychological themes such as the connectedness of man (seen through a trope of telepathy in Stephen King’s The Institute) or the way that we can overcome the fear of aging and death (as in Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury).

Thus, Gothic writing contains a broader set of irrational themes than simply spiritual ones.

Conclusion

Dark Romanticism is essentially a subcategory of Gothic writing. Both are part of the Romanticism Movement. Both set out to explore irrational themes, generally from a darker, more melancholy approach than in other genres, typically using historical settings with a de-emphasis on technology or industry. The two genres also rely heavily on man’s perception of the world through his imagination and his emotions, in addition to his mental faculties.

However, Dark Romanticism’s narrower, spiritual focus and emphasis on man’s evil nature is only sometimes employed in the Gothic genre.

Both are wonderful types of literature and explore important, often-overlooked facets of our world. Which you choose to read or write will depend on your interest in works that highlight the dark spiritual side of man’s nature.

Let me know what Gothic or Dark Romantic writers you love! And if you write in either genre, let me know about it!

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How to Find the Emotional Energy to Write When Times Are Bad

This week I was listening to a Swedish artist and YouTuber whose channel I love: Jonna Jinton. She made a comment that it’s hard for an artist to create when surrounded by negativity. She was discussing a personal situation, but I know that the beginning of 2020 was hard for me in more ways than one. In all of the flurry of change and information about what was happening in the world, it was hard to concentrate on my writing. But what if the world and our own lives are often negative? How do we keep creating amidst negativity?

Isn’t that a million dollar question? I can’t say what the ultimate answer is, if there is one, but I can tell you what helps me.

Say Something

The first approach is to confront the issue head on. If you read a lot, you’ve almost certainly noticed that a lot of authors write in order to speak to a situation in the world. From Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, to David Guterson’s Snow Falling on Cedars, each of these addresses a contemporary and/or past issue in the writer’s culture or the world at large.

This isn’t preaching at readers. Rather, it’s a way of both working through the situation as an artist and engaging readers in an awareness of the issue. As authors, writing about the things that affect us the most can be cathartic and can help us to sort through our thoughts and feelings so that we understand what we believe about what we’re facing.

This is true with anything – not just large-scale societal ills or global drama. The more personally affected we are by what we address in our writing, the more it will speak to readers as well. I like Don Roff’s saying:

There are many ways to interpret this. It could be that what scares us is a point of anxiety about the world. But it could also be something that’s so deeply personal – a long-held struggle or pain point – that to expose it feels very vulnerable and frightening. Either one could be a source of powerful writing.

The goal with this type of writing is to gain our own understanding (and possibly healing) and to make readers aware of the problem in order to elicit a widespread desire to address it.

Create Something Better

An alternative approach is to do just the opposite: ignore the current situation and instead create a world that gives readers (and ourselves) a respite from the troubles of our lives. There are lots of ways to do this.

1. We can write stories that take place in the present day and age, but without the troubles we’d like to forget. These can be in any genre, especially in those that are farthest from real life. For example, my family tends to watch a lot of spy thriller types of movies. So it struck me as strange when one of my family members refused to watch an intense movie with danger in it. It wasn’t until someone else pointed out to me that spy movies feel like fantasy to a lot of people; they’re so divorced from our everyday lives that we don’t perceive that type of danger as a threat to us. In contrast, the other movie is based a realistic situation that might affect us.
2. Historical fiction is another way to step out of our current concerns and into an era in which none of these things existed. Despite the many hardships that people faced in different periods of history, they still feel like a better time and place where we have the opportunity to take a break from our own problems.
3. There’s nothing like Fantasy or Science Fiction to pull readers and ourselves out of our own lives and into a different world. This is an extension of my first point above. These stories are neither in the present era nor in the present world, so the conflict feels removed from our own lives. So much so that it’s like a breath of fresh air. We all need that sometimes.

In each of these, we have the opportunity to create a world we would want, with the type of conflict we’d all choose: conflict that our characters can conquer in the end. This gives us all that balance and perspective so that we don’t become overwhelmed by negativity.

Cherish Beauty

Lastly, it helps my creative mind when I refresh it by enjoying something beautiful. I mentioned the YouTuber at the beginning of this post. Jonna creates beautiful videos filled with captivating shots of nature in her native, northern Sweden. Her channel is an exercise in appreciating and exploring the world around us.

For deep intuitive types like myself, getting out into nature and experiencing something lovely and tangible can be a huge benefit. This can include choosing to do something charming like heading out to a pumpkin patch, or taking a weekend to get away to a cabin deep in a snow-filled forest, or taking a drive into the country to have a picnic by a lake, or just spending the day baking. Anything lovely that celebrates what is good in the world.

This is really a matter of recharging so that when we return to the page, we have the emotional energy to create. There’s something about beauty and the wonder of the world around us that gives artists like ourselves a longing to create our own small garden of magic on the page.

But most importantly, it helps to unplug from the news and social media most of each day. I’m not much of a social media person, but I do like to keep tabs on several independent news outlets. And frankly, there isn’t much that’s positive in these sources. I think it’s important to know what’s going on, but it’s also important to keep my mind and soul healthy. I need boundaries and balance. And to have these, I have to be very intentional about how much time I devote to these things and how often I include those other, beautiful influences in my life.

Conclusion

You may have noticed that the heart of each of these situations is not so much about writing, but rather perspective. It’s about keeping our minds focused on what is good and lovely, while not entirely neglecting reality. It’s about striving for balance and deliberately fostering a life of beauty and hope.

Whatever helps you the most, I hope that you find joy and peace in the midst of your creative process. Let me know what fuels your ability to create and to stay positive! I’d love to hear what gives you energy and happiness.

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Why You Want Unexpected Character Dialogue

Each October, I aim to reread Wuthering Heights. I love that book and love revisiting it. Meanwhile, I’ve also been thinking through and working on some manuscript revisions for my own book release scheduled for next October 2023. One of the things that I constantly question is the quality of my characters’ dialogue. So it came as a wonderful surprise that as I was reading Wuthering Heights for what must be the twentieth time, I realized that one of the things that gives this novel so much appeal is the power of unpredictable dialogue.

But why? And more importantly, how?

We all know that dialogue is difficult. We have to cut out all of the unnecessary things that people tend to say in real life: “Hi. How are you? Great. How are you? Fine. How’s your Mom?….etc.” But we have to leave in all of the subtext (and more) that people do tend to use. That means that we include all of the unspoken, implied meaning in their conversations as well.

This keeps us busy enough. But still, sometimes I look back at my dialogue or the dialogue in books that fall flat and I see that there’s still something’s missing. That missing component is the one that makes the difference between ho-hum characters and characters that grip readers.

The unexpected

We want characters to do and say things that surprise us. When they don’t respond the way other characters want them to. When they have their own (sometimes secret and, for a time, indiscernible) agendas.

Here’s an example of a scene in Wuthering Heights between Hindley Earnshaw and the story’s narrator, Nelly Dean. Hindley is in a violent rage and has just discovered that Nelly regularly hides his infant son in the kitchen cupboard to protect him from his father.

“There, I’ve found it out at last!” cried Hindley, pulling me back by the skin of my neck, like a dog…”with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the carving-knife, Nelly! You needn’t laugh; for I’ve just crammed Kenneth [the physician], head-downmost in the Blackhorse marsh; and two is the same as one – and I want to kill some of you; I’ll have no rest till I do!”

“But I don’t like the carving-knife, Mr. Hindley,” I answered; “it has been cutting red herrings. I’d rather be shot, if you please.”

p. 72 [hardcover – beginning of chapter IX]

I laugh out loud when I read this. It’s so indicative of both of their characters. Hindley is a bitter raging man, but he definitely did not killed Kenneth the physician. That’s not to say that he isn’t violent and troublesome, but Nelly, who grew up with him, knows perfectly good and well that he isn’t actually going to kill her.

At the same time, Nelly, who expresses a very wide range of emotions in the story, among them fear when it’s appropriate, has a very keen ability to discern the truth in each and every situation. Brontë uses this quality well in her narrator. Nelly often speaks to the heart of situations, characters’ motives and the effects of their consequences – good and bad.

My point is that this dialogue represents strong and accurate characterization. However, it’s still unexpected. Prior to this conversation, the author has built up the tension with Hindley’s drinking and angry outbursts so that readers fear for his son’s life. And immediately after this point, the boy nearly does die, but on accident. Thus, we don’t see Nelly’s response coming. Her nonchalant, mocking answer to Hindley’s murderous threat is the only thing that will disarm him. It flies in the face of everything he wants her to believe and contradicts the response he hopes to elicit.

Much of the book functions in this way. There’s power in this. It shakes readers, interests them, keeps them reading wondering what the characters will do and say. Because they don’t know.

When I look at some of my favorite characters – like Merricat in We Have Always Lived in the Castle – it’s that unpredictability that captures my attention so adeptly.

Realism in Unpredictability

Unpredictability also adds realism to your novel. This impressed me immensely when I read Kelly Mustian’s debut novel, The Girls in the Stilt House. The book spans a number of years in the lives of Ada and Matilda, two young women living together deep in the Natchez Trace area of Mississippi. These two women are so realistic that they practically materialize next to you as you’re reading.

It’s Matilda who really shines in this book. If there’s one thing Matilda never says or does, it’s what Ada (or readers) expect her to. We understand why later, when we see Matilda’s history. Her responses make sense in retrospect, but she has her own impression of every event; she comes from a very different background and set of circumstances; and she looks at people in different ways than Ada does. So she responds differently.

Here’s a section of dialogue early in the book in which Ada is discussing her father with Matilda.

[Ada] “He claimed I’m going to have a baby.”

[Matilda] “I heard.”

[Ada] “He had me all mixed up with my mother in his mind, but…” Ada trailed her hand over the bloodstained towel still around her waist, over the tight little bulge that she had thought was nothing more than her stomach knotting up like it always did when she was anxious. “Do you think it could be true?” Ada asked the question of the shadowy girl as if she might still prove to be a heavenly being.

[Matilda] “I think I saved your sorry ass and you ain’t said spit about that, is what I think.”

p. 62

As writers, we can learn a lot from this. I know I can. We read this type of dialogue and feel how realistic this is. Ada, consumed with her own situation, hasn’t considered how Matilda feels about all that has transpired between them. Matilda, on the other hand, has.

This is something that I always strive to remember. Each character has an entirely different perspective. Where dialogue fails is when the other characters simply respond to the character who’s speaking – usually our main character who’s perspective is generally the most defined in our minds. This reads as flat, if not false. It’s boring.

Interesting dialogue surprises because it implicitly lays each character’s prejudices, past history, and personal agendas on the table. Readers want to know more: where did that comment come from? How does a character’s impression of another character’s comment imply a history of disappointment and a root of cynicism? Why does a character’s response indicate an ulterior motive?

Unpredictable dialogue raises more questions than it answers. Predictable dialogue doesn’t.

The only way to accomplish this is to build unique characters whose motives and intentions are so well known to you that they take on voices of their own. Voices that are more a cry of their own hearts than responses to others. That’s the key. Creating unpredictable dialogue is an issue of crafting rich and multi-faceted characters.

Then, in each conversation, reflect on what they’re really thinking. Give them the air to say what they really think – sometimes directly, sometimes through subtext – in ways that are so true to who they are, but aren’t what the other characters and readers are expecting or necessarily looking for.

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I wanted to write about Gothic villains, specifically about great ones. What makes them great. How to write a great villain. What all great villains have in common. But when I pulled up my list of Gothic books and sat back to consider the villain in each tale, something quickly jumped out at me:

Many, if not most Gothic stories have the same villain.

That’s right. The exact same one. Keep in mind that I’m talking about traditional Gothic novels and some of the more modern classics like Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury and The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters. There are some contemporary Gothic novels that do not employ this villain and frankly, that might explain why some of them just don’t impact us all that much. I’ll show you why.

Let me illustrate with ten Gothic novels that have the same villain. Then I’ll tell you why this villain is so powerful that you’ll want to use him or her in your writing.

Note: there may be plot spoilers ahead!

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

In this story, Dr. Jekyll suffers from something of a split personality. By night he becomes Mr. Hyde and lives out every debauched fantasy he has. By day he increasingly struggles to suppress Mr. Hyde and return to his upstanding self as Dr. Jekyll.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein is a great example of a Gothic (aka: irrational) theme married to a tangible trope. Victor Frankenstein is consumed with the notion that he can overpower death, reverse it, and bring those he loves back to life. But when he succeeds, the monster he reanimates – a symbol of his attempts to play God – takes on a life of its own and becomes his worst enemy.

Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

It would be easy to read Rice’s first installment in her Vampire Chronicles and to struggle to point to a villain. After all, the characters are all villains. Louis, Lestat, Claudia and the ancient vampire, Armand, are all killers. And they all battle one another in various forms and at various times. But our protagonist, Louis’s journey is really one of self-understanding and acceptance. He doesn’t know what he is, who he is, or to whom he belongs (the God or the devil, though he’s uncertain that either of them exists). His villain is his own nature as a vampire.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Du Maurier’s modern classic, Rebecca, features an unnamed protagonist, the new Mrs. de Winter, who struggles with a paralyzing sense of inferiority as she compares herself to everything she believes her husband’s first wife, Rebecca, was. The tangible villain in this story, the housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who’s really just a manifestation of this self-doubt, spends the story emphasizing Rebecca’s perfections and driving the protagonist deeper into despair.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

What is it? By that I mean the something wicked that’s coming? Because that’s the villain. It’s aging and death. This story has two components to it – a coming-of-age story about Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, and a mid-life crisis for Will’s father, Charles. All of them are face-to-face with the fact of their future deaths and are confronted with solutions…that are really just attempts to hide from the inevitable. Mr. Dark is a symbol of the oblivion that they expect from the grave.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

In Jackson’s haunted Hill House, Eleanor Vance attempts to find a refuge from her own unstable mental state. Instead, the house parallels her own mind and becomes her antagonist, leaving her increasingly disoriented and confused.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

In Waters’s brilliant exploration of the uncanny, she gives us a main character, Dr. Faraday, who has what she will deem a little stranger. She characterizes this terrorizing force as an extension of the subconscious, something that acts out a person’s greatest desires apart from his overt knowledge of it. In Faraday’s case, his little stranger acts against the members of the Ayres family until he isolates Caroline. What does he want? Their wealth and their social standing, of course.

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man who’s curious. He wants to explore all of the dark and forbidden things of the world. As he does, his portrait – a symbol of his unseen soul – grows more and more grotesque while he remains visually unchanged.

The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

The Turn of the Screw features an unnamed protagonist, a governess who takes over the tutelage and care of two young children at an estate in the English countryside. Once there though, she discovers that something is wrong with the children. There are ghosts haunting her, and the children themselves oppose her, but in the end, it’s actually the governess, as a metaphor for the ways in which even the most well-meaning adults invariably rob children of their innocence, who is the children’s greatest enemy.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

And last but not least, my October favorite: Wuthering Heights. This book fascinates me. In it, Heathcliff is both protagonist and antagonist. He is opposed by and in return, oppresses the other characters (particularly Hindley, Edward, Isabella and Hareton). But we love him. Why? Because he’s consumed with Catherine and their undying love for one another redeems him in the reader’s eyes. But in the end, it’s Heathcliff who is his own enemy.

I think you can see what I’m getting at: in each one of these the villain is part of, a symbol of, or an extension of the main character. They are their own villain.

That’s powerful for at least three reasons.

1. There’s No Escape

First, when the protagonist is his own villain, whether that takes on a literal form such as in the case of Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde, or a figurative one such as in Rebecca and Frankenstein, there’s no where the character can go to get away. They’re backed into a wall in every situation in life. Dorian Gray’s soul is powerless to flee from the actions and will of Dorian himself.

Readers feel that. We watch as Dorian acts, knowing the impact that it’ll have on what was once a beautiful portrait. We see the ruin he’s effecting. But there’s no where to go. There’s less hope and more conflict with this type of villain.

2. The Antagonist Naturally Grows in Strength

Second, this type of villain naturally grows in strength as the protagonist does. Since they’re intrinsically linked, as your protagonist struggles to overcome his foe (aka: some aspect of himself), that very enemy tends to rear his ugly head in tandem.

Consider Charles Halloway at the beginning of Something Wicked This Way Comes. He has a niggling sense that something isn’t right in his life. He’s discontent, unhappy, and part of him can point to his mid-life angst. But it isn’t until he sees it for what it is that Mr. Dark’s carnival sidekicks (especially the Witch) begin to hunt him. When he goes after them, they threaten everything he loves.

This also increases the conflict, but in addition, there’s a parallelism here that resonates in writing. We know it should be so and we try to incorporate it with all of our villains. But it’s so much more natural when it comes to those internal villains.

3. It Bears Evidence of the Truth

Why is it so natural? Because there’s a profound truth to this type of villain. Every human being knows that there’s part of us that wants to triumph over the darkest parts of our souls. But there’s also part of us that wants to hold onto that part. Maybe we even want to relish it, to give it more space to run rampant. Our own personal Mr. Hyde.

As we attempt to suppress or defeat this part of us, it rages more strongly, unwilling to die. So we fight harder and our own dark side retaliates in full force.

Whether readers realize what you’re doing – which they may not if you utilize a tangible form of this internal enemy like Jackson does with the house acting against Eleanor Vance – it resonates with them because it’s true. That’s the writer’s job according to Ernest Hemingway.

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.

Ernest Hemingway.

I agree. Through our writing, we should show readers something true about themselves, the world, relationships, faith, you name it. And this internal villain reflects a deep truth that almost all readers will perceive at some level.

That makes this type of villain incredibly powerful and one that will stand the test of time.

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Welcome to Fall! I don’t know about you but I’m a Fall/ Winter kind of girl, so I’m extremely happy to welcome the quieter, cooler time of the year. This is the time of year when I have more time for writing and reading. Although let’s not kid ourselves…I find at least a moderate amount of time for both all year long. But there’s just something about Fall.

This week I pulled together some of the most recent (or upcoming) and promising Gothic novels to inspire your Fall/ Winter 2022/2023 reading list.

Nightshade: A Dark Paranormal Gothic Romance by Keri Lake

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

The Haunting of Las Lágrimas by W. M. Cleese

Begars Abbey by V. L. Valentine

The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson

Unnatural Creatures: A Novel of the Frankenstein Women by Kris Waldherr

The Dark Between the Trees by Fiona Barnett

The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn by Amber A. Logan

Never the Wind by Francesco Dimitri

One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig

These reading list posts take a bit of time to research and put together, but I have to admit that I loved gathering this one. All of these look to be very intriguing works. I’m looking forward to reading them myself. Let me know what you think of them!

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There are so many opinions about what writing should accomplish. At one extreme are those who believe that writing should do nothing but entertain. This group is dominated by those who try to write to the market, meaning that they choose their literary topics based on what they think contemporary readers want. Some of these authors are driven strictly by profit (and feel totally comfortable saying so). But everyone in this category is focused entirely on the readers’ pleasure. For them, writing is a way of satisfying an entertainment desire. These are writers like James Patterson.

On the other extreme are those who write to make others aware of social or global situations. They want to raise questions, cause people to think about tough issues, or provoke change in the world. Much of literary fiction falls into this category. Writers such as Khalid Hussain and Jodie Picoult tend to be in or close to this category. They may hope to make a money from writing (don’t we all?), but their writing appeals to a smaller market of those who want to learn about a subculture or unaddressed conflict. There they can grow in their awareness of the world and the lives of those who live in marginalized, disadvantaged, or simply different situations from their own.

And then there’s the majority of the market – those of us who are somewhere in the middle.

Unless you’re on the first extreme, wanting to say nothing to readers but come immerse yourself in this escapist fiction, you probably want to examine some theme. You may have something you want to say about human nature – about the things we fail to understand or the ways we fail each other, and what we can learn – or about how the world works (or should).

But how can you do it without sounding preachy?

Since I’m also in this category, I give this a lot of thought. Here are the three things that I’ve noticed in works by authors who manage to say powerful things without sounding overbearing.

The Power of Balance

If there’s one thing that will make any novel seem preachy, it’s one-sidedness. Let’s say that you set out to write a story about a young man who’s jaded about love. He’s seen nothing but failure – from his parents’ messy divorce, to his best friend’s infidelity. You bake in a mentor character who wants to convince him that faithful love is a good thing, worth fighting for.

Your intentions are great. It’s a good message. But if all your character experiences from the start of the novel is examples of good-ish [hopefully none of them are so unrealistically perfect that we all want to vomit in our own mouths] love relationships and your mentor’s sappy words about fidelity (though I’m certainly all for it), the book is going to smack of preachiness.

Does that surprise you?

We tend to assume that preachiness is always rooted in moral or religious themes. But it doesn’t have to be. Even if your protagonist struggles against these good-ish examples and learns things along the way, most readers won’t resonate with this type of story. It’s too one-sided.

Your protagonist needs to believe that faithful love is good despite the fact that many love stories are steeped in trouble. He needs to learn to see something higher amidst the rubble. Force him to do that. Put him up against the wall until he learns that there’s value even in heartache and difficulty. That’s much harder to write, but it’s what will influence readers the most.

The Other Characters’ Struggles

Along with your protagonist’s struggle to learn this lesson, show other characters waging the same war to a lesser extent.

Do you ever watch television shows like Parenthood? If you have, you’ll notice one thing almost immediately. The screenwriter(s) have created a number of characters, whose lives intersect, but who are all struggling with the same issue: parenthood. There’s power in that.

It’s the multi-faceted nature of the struggle that can speak to so many different types of readers. While your protagonist is faced with a potential new relationship that he doesn’t want and is trying to avoid, think of several other angles he could witness. Maybe his divorced mother is in a difficult second marriage and it isn’t going to improve. Perhaps his best friend – the one who had an affair – is facing the fallout from his decision.

Show as many angles as you can so that readers see the good, the bad and the ugly. But steer your protagonist towards the lesson he needs to learn.

The Implicit Answer

In the end, there should be an answer. It might not be everyone’s answer, but it’s yours – the writer.

I mentioned Jodi Picoult before. She’s a master at exploring touchy, controversial subjects such as gay rights, autism, religious faith, euthanasia, and school shootings. And in interviews she’ll say that she doesn’t know the answer to these things; that she’s exploring them along with the reader. I’m sure that’s true, but if you pay attention to her writing, in the end, she comes down on one side or the other.

And you should. Your character has to land somewhere. But if you’ve done a great job of giving him a lot of challenging questions and options to explore – equally – on all sides of the issue, his choice won’t feel like a mandate for readers. Instead, it should leave them wondering what they might have chosen in his place.

Conclusion

These are the things that I consider when I’m crafting my stories. I tend to lead with my theme – what I want to say in the work – but I want it to be hard for my characters. I want the protagonist (and many of the other characters) to have to struggle with many different ways to look at the issue. That way, when they finally land in the end, readers will have seen why they did so – that they explored the other options and found them lacking.

If you write with a moral lesson, let me know! I’d love to hear how you broach these types of themes in a balanced way that doesn’t leave readers with the impression that you’re preachy.

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My intention to revise it yet again is based on several factors. One of them is the fact that it’s my first novel and I’m still in a very steep learning curve. Since it’s been awhile, I want time to look it over again and put out what will be – at least at this point in my career – my best work. Another factor is the fact that several things about the novel bother me.

Not the story as a whole. The story is wonderful. I love it. The beta readers loved it. It’s full of twists and turns. But the more I look at the very beginning of the tale, which I’ve done a lot of while querying agents, the more I can see that the beginning isn’t a true reflection of how good the rest of the book is.

My story begins in media res, in the middle of the action. I’ve done this because it’s the point at which the story really begins. And also because it’s a good illustration of my protagonist’s condition in the story. She’s a prisoner in her family’s estate in Bavaria. What better first scene than to have her attempt to escape. And fail.

It also allows me to bypass a scene that would give away the ending. Because readers don’t know what’s just happened, they don’t see what’s coming. They see the aftermath, but don’t have all of the keys. This makes sense seeing as the story is also part murder mystery. Mysteries generally begin with a murder. A crime is discovered. If you back up the story at all, readers know too much, which spoils the fun.

All that to say that the problem is not the point at which I start the story. It’s the way the beginning is written. And part of that is the first line.

My first line is too divorced from the theme. It’s also too dramatic – melodramatic, even. Though that is sometimes the case in Gothic tales, I prefer a subtler touch. The slow burn of a psychological suspense.

Part of me has wanted to study Gothic stories and pick apart the plot points and different facets of these and put together something of a Gothic beat sheet. Simultaneously, another part of me needs to hone in on a finer, more nuanced beginning to my current tale. Thus, I decided to take a look at some Gothic stories and how those authors started their novels. We can’t look at all of them here (someday I may write a book on the subject), but here are a collection of seven wonderful examples of strong, Gothic openers. And why they serve their respective story so well.

Note: Some of these are actually more than one sentence. And some are from the Prologue; others are from the actual first chapter of the story. I chose the first sentence or two that best illustrated a fantastic entry into the novel.

Also, note that some of these may or may not be marketed as Gothic, a label I may or may not agree with. However, they are all excellent examples of how to start a Gothic story.

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons

Nina was going to take credit for the death of that Beatle, John.

This line is amazing. It has at least three components that set the stage immediately. First, it has a flippant air about it. The narrator clearly thinks little of Nina. The sentence strikes readers as one that says, there Nina, that silly little fool, goes again. There’s some form of competition or strained relationship implicit in the comment.

Second, it portrays John Lennon, a celebrity whom much of the world idolized, as someone small and inconsequential: that Beatle. This tells us much about who we’re dealing with. The narrator is someone who is either in a position – or thinks (s)he is – of power or prestige that renders even the most renowned public figures as nothing but that so-and-so.

And third – and most importantly – it wakes us up. Readers instantly wonder how Nina, whoever she may be, can possibly take the credit for the death of John Lennon. We know who shoot Lennon. How can Nina have had anything to do with that?? As readers discover, that is the entire theme of the story: who is behind the atrocities that we see around us everyday? And how can anyone control others in such an evil way?

House of Salt and Sorrows by Erin Craig

Candlelight reflected off the silver anchor etched onto my sister’s necklace. It was an ugly piece of jewelry and something Eulalie would never have picked out for herself.

House of Salt and Sorrows is a young adult fantasy novel with strong Gothic overtones. I wrote a spoiler-free book review about whether or not this is – in my estimation – actually Gothic. Regardless, it’s a good story, which I heartily enjoyed.

We can see several things from this first sentence. First, the silver anchor implies an ocean-faring people, which is in fact the [very rich and enjoyable] fantasy setting of the story.

Second, the narrator writes about her sister, Eulalie, in the past tense: [she] would never have picked out… Something had clearly happened to her sister, a fact that immediately becomes clear as the story opens with a very unique funeral.

And third, the sentence immediately hints at a mystery. Why is Eulalie dead to begin with? And why is she wearing a piece of jewelry that she would never have chosen to wear? This first sentence isn’t as thematically loaded as the prior one, but readers are instantly hooked.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury

The seller of lightning rods arrived just ahead of the storm.

Oh, Bradbury. If you read my blog on a regular [enough] basis, you know that I love Bradbury’s writing. His is some of the strongest story telling: character, plot and theme interwoven brilliantly in every tale. Something Wicked This Way Comes is no exception. See my review of this one here.

This first sentence is, at first blush, nothing but a straightforward one: a salesman came to sell lightning rods just before a thunderstorm approached. But of course, there’s more to this sentence than meets the eye.

The storm to which Bradbury alludes is definitely not a meteorological one, though that is technically also true. Rather, a storm will hit the characters – the young boys in the story, Will Halloway and Jim Nightshade, along with Will’s father, Charles. It’ll be a storm of more consequence: the ability to face and weather the transitions in life without losing oneself.

It is just that – a lightning rod – that they need: something to anchor the forces that will assail them, so that they can remain standing by the end of the story. The question is whether or not they’ll recognize their need and acquire the rod in time.

The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

The sky is a dismal gray when I finally go to remove my son’s car seat.

The Gates of Evangeline is a modern Southern Gothic story about the extent that a mother will go to in order to protect her child. This first sentence alludes to terrible loss. Who doesn’t read this line and feel a sense of dread?

If she had written – the sky is a dismal gray when I go to remove my son’s car seat – without the word finally, we might have thought that perhaps this mother is simply taking the car seat out of the car. But that one word, finally, imbues the sentence with a sense of grief.

We know that she has struggled against the fact that she no longer needs the car seat in the car. She has avoided the moment at which she will face this fact and act on it. She can’t bear the idea that she has to move on without it, a symbol of a child who is gone. We see all of this about the coming plot and the main character. In addition, this line is tied very closely to the theme and does a fantastic job of setting up the story about missing children and the mothers who would do anything to protect them.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old.

I love the brevity of this sentence. It’s punchy and it works. First, we’re instantly given the name of the house – Hundreds Hall – which bears a monetary reference. It’s an interesting way to hint to readers that this story has something to do with greed.

Second, we tie this greed to the narrator, who first saw Hundreds Hall as a child. Before reading the story, it would be easy to grace over this intro and not see it for what it is. In retrospect it’s wonderful. It tells us everything about the narrator and how his greed first set in as a child when he saw the gap between his circumstances and those of the Ayres family who live at Hundreds Hall. This sets the stage for Waters’ exploration of the concept of the little stranger, a study in the uncanny.

[I wrote an article about the use of the uncanny in literature, in which I mentioned this story and Waters’ use of this in The Little Stranger. It does contain spoilers, but it paints a fairly comprehensive picture of how she has broached this challenging subject in a brilliant way. You can find it here.]

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn.

I remember reading The Picture of Dorian Gray for the first time, having heard that it is very disturbing and thinking to myself, how disturbing can a classic be?

Very.

This is a very, very powerful story of one man’s descent into depravity. It isn’t graphic, but it’s very upsetting. The theme deals with the idea that a man (or woman) might, on the surface, appear to be beautiful and youthful and good, whereas his soul, were we able to see it, might be the most hideous sight we could ever behold.

Notice that this theme is in the first line above. Wilde mentions the scents of roses and lilacs, but also the pink-flowering thorn. This is a very delicate allusion to the story itself. To understand what Wilde is saying here, we have to look into the meaning of different flowers.

I recommend Chloe Lee’s article, What do the flowers symbolize in the novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray? In this first liner, Wilde is pointing out that within Dorian Gray, a strong desire [roses] will find an open door in his youthful innocence [lilacs] and with it will bring both pleasure and pain [the pink flowering thorn].

The way that Wilde accomplishes this using classical floral symbolism with a twist sets up the reader for a story that presents the darkness that beauty may hide.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

I have just returned from a visit to my landlord – the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with.

And last but not least, one of my perennial favorites: Wuthering Heights. This story is told much like many others in the nineteenth century: through the use of a narrator who exists on the periphery of the tale.

This first sentence refers to the new renter of Thrushcross Grange, a home owned by Heathcliff, the protagonist of Nelly Dean’s [the narrator’s] story. The man, Lockwood, has just gone to meet Heathcliff and is deeply troubled by what he experienced at Wuthering Heights. He sits down with Nelly to hear her story of how the events of the Earnshaw and Linton families led to what Lockwood witnessed.

Again, this sentence tells us several things at once. First, Heathcliff is now the owner of the two estates, a feat that readers would not have expected given his status as a gypsy orphan at the start of Nelly’s recounting. Clearly something has happened or Heathcliff has done something to gain control of both properties.

Second, the phrase solitary neighbor can be read two different ways. Either Lockwood is stating that Heathcliff will be his only neighbor (due to the vast land holding) or he is saying that Heathcliff leads a solitary life. Of course, both are true, and this intro sets up readers with the question as to why Lockwood would emphasize this, particularly in a way that feels negative to the reader. Something is wrong such that Heathcliff lives in a state of isolation.

Third, Lockwood states that this the solitary neighbor that I shall be troubled with. Notice again that this can be read two ways. Either he is saying that he won’t have to deal with more than one neighbor. Or he is stressing that this neighbor, Heathcliff, is the one with whom he will be troubled… which of course, is exactly the point. Both are true, but it’s the subtle hint of the latter that readers sense and expect. Thus, this first sentence, as benign as it seems, tells a story of trouble brewing on those wuthering heights.

Conclusion

If you’re still with me, hopefully you’ve noticed that these first liners do several things very well. They set up the tone and [sometimes] the setting of the novel. Most of them give us an idea of who the main character really is. They hint at the conflict to come. And most importantly, they time into the theme of the story.

That’s a lot to accomplish in one or two sentences, but it’s the key to a powerful opening. The first line should be a snapshot of the story’s meaning. It tells readers exactly where they’re going in such so that they’re intrigued, pulled into the story, and yet still have no idea what will happen.

That’s what I want for my story and what I plan to work into my final revision.

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