Charlotte Lesemann

A Review of The Moth Diaries

There’s a fancy word in the writing world – intertextuality – that refers to the practice of using literary references in your writing. On the surface, this sounds like the social practice of name dropping: throwing out a name here or there in conversation just to sound more sophisticated, or important. But, when done well, the two are nothing alike. Well-executed literary allusions can add multi-dimensional nuance and even new meaning to your writing. While we take a look at Rachel Klein’s brilliant writing in The Moth Diaries, I’ll show you how intertextuality can enhance your writing.

The Moth Diaries features a teen-aged girl who’s away at boarding school after her father’s suicide. While she’s there, a new student, Ernessa, claims the attention of the protagonist’s best friend, Lucy. This new student seems particularly strange. She’s a foreigner, doesn’t eat, wanders out at night, has unnatural strength, possesses exceptional intelligence, and seems to be entirely immune to the effects of recreational drugs. Simultaneously, Lucy shows signs of increasing weakness and ultimately becomes so ill that she must be bedridden.

It isn’t surprising that the unnamed protagonist (Rebecca in Mary Harron’s film adaptation) is convinced that Ernessa is a vampire and that she is feeding off of Lucy.

On the surface, that’s exactly what is happening, though the protagonist can easily be read as an unreliable narrator. Written as a series of diary entries, the novel is the protagonist’s journey to save her best friend while also struggling with her own pain. But that’s where the intertextuality kicks in and makes this story so much more.

What is Intertextuality?

I picked up The Moth Diaries after a bunch of people recommended it on Twitter as one of their favorite vampire stories of all time.

This one is a mere 240-ish pages, and given the youthful protagonist, I didn’t necessarily expect much. But it did come highly recommended and something about it spoke to me. I can’t begin to tell you how surprised I was. The writing is amazingly profound, and most of that is due to the author’s use of intertextuality.

In this story, the protagonist is away at school, so she’s reading books for her classes. She’s also very bright and especially found of literature, so she reads extensively in her spare time. Both of these give the author opportunities to introduce different titles and passages from various works. If/when you read the book, don’t overlook any of these. Every one is intentional and changes the way that the story should be understood.

Intertextuality is the idea that we bring all of our past literary knowledge to everything new we read. Thus, those writings, especially those that are either explicitly or implicitly referenced in the novel, color how we understand the story.

At a superficial level, that means that the referenced writings help to clarify what we’re reading; they parallel the novel’s story and deepen it’s meaning. (I’ll give an example in a minute.) But at a deeper level, those referenced writings can actually cause us to understand the author’s intent such that they can entirely change the way the book should be understood.

Mind blown?! Yes, that’s the point.

Examples

In The Moth Diaries, Klein references 30 different works. When I read the book, these immediately stood out to me. Not just the references themselves, but the fact that the author is subtly suggesting something in her use of each one. Some I could pinpoint; others I’ll have to examine in greater detail later.

After I finished the novel, I looked for others who had also commented on this intertextual use and found this incredible Harvard MLA thesis by Irina Cashen. It’s a must-read and is fascinating from start to finish. It opened my eyes even more to the profundity in the novel.

As Cashen walks through Klein’s use of intertextuality, she points to three reference points that strongly influence the reader’s perspective of the work, which we’ll focus on today:

1. The 1872 novella, Carmilla, by J. Sheridan LeFanu, which the protagonist reads for her class: “Beyond Belief: Writers of the Supernatural,”
2. Dracula, by Bram Stoker, which is only mentioned once in the book, but which parallels the story in some very different ways, and
3. Sigmund Freud who’s never mentioned in the book, but who walks through the background of this extremely psychological tale as an ever-present character

Note: Before we get started, it bears noting that the extent to which the readers have experienced and understood (and remembered) the referenced works will greatly influence how they read the novel. That’s the point of intertextuality. What you know changes what you read. I’ll show you why that is true as we highlight Cashen’s three reference points.

Carmilla Reinterpreted

Carmilla is the most obvious reference as the protagonist is reading and discussing it in class, it’s frequently referenced, and it parallels the surface level story most obviously. In many ways, Carmilla reinforces the protagonist’s perspective that Ernessa is a vampire, has Lucy in her sights, and is feeding off of her. After all, that’s what happens in the referenced novella. A young girl, Carmilla, comes to a small town after having killed another young girl and sets her sights on Laura, the story’s protagonist.

In the interest of time, I’ll highlight just one use of Carmilla as an example and leave the others for you to research yourself.

One of the many ways that Klein uses Carmilla as an intertextual source is in the protagonist’s reimagining of Carmilla herself. For example, our unnamed protagonist writes in her diary the following words:

Who is Carmilla? Dark, depressed, death-drawn.

“Her name is Carmilla.”

“Her family was very ancient and noble.”

“Her home lay in the direction of the west.”

Who is Ernessa?

Klein 63

What Cashen astutely identifies is that Carmilla is not described as dark, depressed or death-drawn. Rather, LeFanu describes her as beautiful, smiling, melancholy, animated, and very intelligent (27, 29, 33). What’s happening here?

Readers who know Carmilla will instantly realize that our protagonist is reinterpreting Carmilla so that she fits her perception of her classmate, Ernessa. This is crucial because it raises questions about the narrator’s perspective. If she’s unable to ferret out reality versus fiction as she draws a connection between Carmilla and Ernessa, is her understanding of Ernessa’s actions correct? Is Ernessa even a vampire?

Dracula – A Metaphor

Simultaneously, the entire novel will bring to mind the story of Dracula for those who have read it. This isn’t an accidental association either. Cashen points out that Klein uses at least two scenes in which The Moth Diaries parallels Dracula.

Let’s look at one of these – the scene in which the protagonist and Dora witness Ernessa walking along the gutter outside the windows.

“I’m going to find out what she’s up to at night,” said Dora… She went over to
the window and opened it. We both stuck our heads out… The moon was
completely hidden behind clouds, and in the faint greenish light from below, I
could barely make out the gutter… “Look,” said Dora, nudging me with her
elbow. The gutter was nothing more than a thick green line… At the far end of
the building, by Claire’s window, I saw something… The person stood up and
started to walk toward us along the gutter. She walked as if she were on the
ground, without hesitation, without a single misstep, the way she played the
piano. When she reached her window, she turned and stepped into the glass…

Klein 102-103

Those who are familiar with Dracula will recall a similar scene when Jonathan Harker witnesses Dracula leaving his castle.

I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down
the castle wall over the dreadful abyss, face down with his cloak spreading out
around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was
some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow, but I kept looking, and
it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones,
worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection
and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves
along a wall.

Stoker 38

Notice that in this use of intertextuality, readers must have the preexisting knowledge of Dracula in order to make the association. Otherwise it’s simply a scene that confirms the protagonist’s opinion that Ernessa is a vampire.

However, with the knowledge, it points to something else entirely.

Dracula & Antisemitism

For example, one of the prevailing interpretations of Dracula is that it’s a work of antisemitism. I tend to take the stance that Dracula is a symbol of the west’s fear of eastern migration and the impact it will have on the western culture. However, this is only one step removed from antisemitism and I can see how some scholars arrive at this point.

In case you’re thinking that this is a stretch, it’s important to note that the protagonist’s Jewish background is a dominant factor in the story. She, Ernessa and Dora (who’s half-Jewish) are the only Jewish students at the school and are subjects of persecution from some of the teachers.

In conjunction with that, scholars have noted that readers in the 19th century would have interpreted Stoker’s depiction of Dracula as Jewish. Apparently, Stoker’s description of his features was a common caricature of Jewish people at that time. I’ve never perceived Dracula as being Jewish, but I can believe that the audience at the time might have held different stereotypes about the Jewish race.

All that to say, in this example of intertextuality, notice how differently Klein presents Ernessa versus Stoker’s depiction of Dracula. Ernessa is a study in grace and beauty. Dracula is something monstrous and reptilian. One who is familiar with Dracula will note the differences here and will understand what Klein is very intentionally accomplishing.

She’s rewriting the readers’ perceptions of Jewish people and presenting them as something beautiful and good (though opposed throughout the story), rather than something bestial and dangerous.

Thus the intertextuality here lends another very distinct nuance to the story and casts the entire purpose of the novel in a different light.

Sigmund Freud

And lastly, Cashen points out (and I agree) that it’s impossible to miss the influence of Freud in this novel, though he’s never mentioned.

The protagonist bookends the story with a mention of her time in a psychiatric hospital after the events of the main story. The psychiatrist had taken her diary and has only now – thirty years later – returned it to her.

Further, Klein tells us that the protagonist was diagnosed as “suffering from borderline
personality disorder complicated by depression and psychosis.” (Klein, 2) This, coupled with our knowledge that the protagonist is suffering from the severe trauma of finding her father as he was dying from his suicide, should cause us to doubt the protagonist. To see her as an unreliable narrator who is suffering from some form of delusion or post-traumatic psychotic break.

But we don’t. I’ll show you [partly] why that is.

Freud’s Failings

As with Carmilla and Dracula, Klein uses intertextuality that refers to Freud in a myriad of ways. One of these is her choice of Dora’s character. Cashen reminds us, assuming we know much about Freud, that the female subject of Freud’s most famous case, Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, was named Dora.

This case is notable for the fact that it pointed out many errors on Freud’s part and the subsequent negative coverage that the case received. It’s an example of Freud’s failings, not his successes.

Within The Moth Diaries, both the protagonist and Dora, the daughter of a psychiatrist, imply or overtly state that psychiatry and therapy in general are largely ineffective and may do more harm than good.

The protagonist goes so far as to recount an instance in which a therapist listened to her memory of her father tucking her in and helping her to fall asleep and then, rather than empathizing or understanding why the memory was so important to her, suggested that perhaps the situation was inappropriate. In other words, he dismissed the patient’s needs and feelings and instead relied on Freud’s theories of the Oedipal complex – that children are sexually attracted to their parents – to interpret the situation.

This is just one of many subtle indictments of Freudian psychology that Klein utilizes in the book, none of which are labelled as such. But what readers – most of whom likely have at least a basic understanding of Freud’s theories – perceive is that the psychiatric assessment of the protagonist is most likely false and misses the entire crux of what is happening within and around her.

In her implicit assessment of Freud, Klein is warning readers not to make the same mistake that the psychiatrists did in their assessment of the protagonist’s story.

Conclusion

There’s more – so much more – to Klein’s use of intertextuality in this novel. Entire books could be written on what she accomplishes through her use of these. However, by looking at the three above, we can see how intertextuality, whether it’s overtly or only implicitly utilized, can completely alter how the readers interpret the book.

Those with fewer literary data points will still enjoy the basic story. They’ll read it as if it’s nothing more than a vampire story about a girl at boarding school. But by using intertextuality, Klein created a vastly more nuanced story that’s accessible in different ways to readers who have varying degrees of knowledge about the references cited therein.

If it does nothing else, it adds to the readers’ sense of the work’s profundity and it might cause them to research some of these references. Thus welcoming them into a broader story world in the future.

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How to Unlock Your Maximum Creativity

Several years ago, I heard an author casually refer to auto hypnosis. I was instantly intrigued. If there’s anything that we writers constantly seek to achieve, it’s to be able to be in that zone with the characters so that we’re able to generate the best quality story. But getting there is hard. So many distractions stand in the way. That’s where hypnosis comes in. By writing with auto-hypnosis, we can unlock our maximum creativity.

Note #1: Auto-hypnosis is sometimes used for other areas of life such as redirecting our energy or changing bad habits. However, I’m going to speak strictly to its use as it relates to writers.

Note #2: If you have reservations or fears about hypnosis, keep reading. Auto-hypnosis is very different from traditional hypnosis and doesn’t come with the same sense of a loss of control over one’s self.

Definition

By auto-hypnosis (also referred to as self-hypnosis), I’m referring to the process by which we relax that left-brain, hyper-critical portion of our mind so that we can create freely. Whereas the more analytical, left side of our mind is extremely important in rewriting and problem-solving (fixing plot holes, critiquing diction, etc.), it can be a huge barrier to the initial, creative effort.

Picture auto-hypnosis as a means by which we either put the left side of our brains into a time out, or give it something to occupy itself, so that the right side of our brains can create unimpeded.

Simultaneously, we want to be able to enter into the story so that our imagination is fully engaged and we’re able to see and hear everything that our characters are experiencing.

Auto-Hypnosis vs. Hypnosis

If you’re wondering if this differs from traditional hypnosis, the answer is that the outcomes are similar, but the methods are quite different.

Traditional hypnosis – conducted by an external party – places a person into a trance so that [in theory] the person can, among other things, bring hidden memories to the surface. Both traditional and auto-hypnosis aim to free up the mind to release what lies within, whether those are memories or simply ideas.

However, the approach to each method is quite different. As you might have guessed, auto-hypnosis is conducted by you. Unlike in traditional hypnosis, you control the state into which you place your mind and you bring your mind back to its standard functioning level by yourself. This also means you aren’t entering into a trance in quite the same way as you would in traditional hypnosis.

Traditional hypnosis is like a sleeping state in which the person is still responsive to the one conducting the hypnosis.

Auto-hypnosis is more like an extreme state of relaxation in which you close off all external concerns and stimuli and become hyper-focused on the task you’ve chosen – writing, in our case. At the risk of stating the obvious, you have your eyes open and are able to write. This is very different from traditional hypnosis.

Is It Only for Pantsers?

As we segue into how we can induce this type of hypnosis, it’s important to note that this can work for either plotters (those who plan/ outline their books ahead of time), or pantsers (those who write by the seat of their pants), or for those who use some combination of the two.

The advance work might be a bit different though.

For instance, if you’re a pantser, you can utilize the auto-hypnosis as it suits you best and simply free write. That means that, with no advance planning or work, you sit down under the influence of the hypnosis, put the proverbial pen to the paper, and see what happens.

If you’re a plotter, you’ll probably want to start with at least a rough outline. From there you can enter into each scene under the influence of the auto-hypnosis and allow yourself to write more freely as if you’re something of a very well-organized pantser.

And of course, those who do a bit of both can adjust the method to their liking. I like to start with a pantser-style summary of the novel, which I then manipulate into a moderately robust outline, and then write. I would use the auto-hypnosis for the up-front summary so that I can freely generate an idea of the story from start to finish (in a very abbreviated, summary form), and then again when I work on the scenes themselves. In the middle, I would use my usual [more analytical] form of thinking/ creating to massage the summary into an outline.

Auto-Hypnosis: How To

There are almost as many ways to induce this type of hypnosis as there are types of thinkers or personalities. What that means is that, you’re going to have to execute some trial and error to find out what works for you. However, I’m going to discuss what I’ve experienced, what I’ve read, and what I’ve heard other writers doing. That should give you some good places to get started.

The key to knowing where to start is to remember what we’re trying to achieve:

1. No distractions, and
2. An extreme focus

Eliminating Distractions

As I write this, my dog is running around my work area (and the hallway adjoining it), playing with the two kittens – her little brothers. They love this, although I sometimes have to intervene, but I think we can all agree that having them running around pouncing and knocking things over isn’t the best environment for writing.

When it comes to writing a blog post, I can handle it, but it isn’t conducive to the kind of deep focus I need for creative writing.

In addition, in the Myers-Briggs personality system, I’m an INTJ. If you’re an INTJ or an INFJ, you might know that extroverted sensing is my inferior function in my cognitive function stack. That’s a fancy way of saying that INxJs don’t process external stimuli very well. It’s not our strong suit.

[If this is all new to you, think of me as someone who’s especially distracted by external inputs or stimuli. If you’re interested in knowing more, I recommend personality hacker – start here for a discussion of the cognitive stacks, the “car model” as they define it. – or personality junkie, which has a great article about this topic.]

In order to compensate for that, I do particularly well if I cut out as much in the way of external stimuli as possible. I have blackout curtains and if I’m struggling to get into the writing as much as I need to, I close them and turn off all of the lights. I sit in the dark, with only the light of my laptop screen.

I have noise-cancelling headphones and usually listen to some type of white noise like rain and thunderstorm sound effects. There are also multi-hour sound effect videos for things like fans, the ocean, running water (a river or stream), etc. I close the doors so that the kittens play elsewhere in the house. I get my dog some play and exercise and then put her down for her nap. If you have kids, you’re probably going to have to do likewise, or work around their school or sleep schedule.

I turn off my email, silence my cell phone, close the internet except for any white noise I have on [research later or ahead of time, not during this process], and make sure family members know when I’m working and need no distractions.

You might also want to think about things like sugar, alcohol, cigarettes, larger meals (instead of more frequent small meals), etc. that can create more fluctuations in your energy. Sometimes sugar or caffeine makes me super focused for a very short period of time…but then I crash. In the end, I’m more tired than I would have been without them. I find that moderating these helps me to stay as consistently sharp as possible without highs or lows.

The key to this type of focus that we call auto-hypnosis, is that it needs to be as unbroken as possible. If you can only do an hour at a time, do so. But try to get a solid block of time in which you have as few distractions as possible.

Extreme Focus

Here’s when the process becomes more complex. The work of getting your head into the zone in which you’re very deeply focused on the characters is something of an art form. It’ll differ more per writer than simply eliminating distractions.

Keep in mind that some of these are used during the brainstorming/ problem-solving phase of your creation. You’ll notice that you can’t necessarily write while conducting some of them, but they may be the key to getting into the right headspace to begin with.

Here are some things that I’ve used, or have heard other writers use to induce this type of auto-hypnosis:

1. Exercise – some writers run, or cycle, or walk, or…whatever. While doing so, the rhythm of their movements opens their mind to work through the story and discover where it’s going, or what the characters need to do to get from point A to point B.
2. A very repetitive craft – this one is trickier. I’ve found that cross-stitch or quilting – though I like them – are too mentally engaging to function as part of the auto-hypnosis process. But some crafts like Diamond Dotz, which I also enjoy, are just mindless enough to function like doodling. While my left brain is applying colored dots to a canvas (it’s all laid out with a legend… little thought required), my right brain is free to think through my story.
3. Doodling or using a fidget – this is like exercise on a small-scale. Rather than engaging the whole body, you’re working with your hands to give them something relatively mindless to do. That can give your mind free rein to wander.
4. Passive Movement – some people think really well while driving or riding in a car, train, or plane. Most of us aren’t in planes everyday, but if you’re going to be in a moving vehicle, it might be a good time to capitalize on that opportunity. I don’t know why this one works as well as it does, but when I’m in a moving vehicle, my mind sails free. It’s incredible.
5. Meditation or visualization – this type of meditation isn’t the typical emptying of your mind. That wouldn’t really serve our purposes here. However, you might start off – in a quiet place devoid of distractions – by emptying your mind of all of your other concerns, focusing on relaxing each of your muscle groups, and then allowing your mind to step into the story. Take this as far as you want to. If you’re working on an individual scene, think through what’s just happened in the story and then, once you’re fully immersed, walk forward into the next scene. Allow yourself to place yourself in the character’s shoes and engage all of your senses. What is happening around you? Who comes to see your character? How does your character respond? What does she want to acquire or accomplish in this scene? Go there with her. If you’re developing the entire story, expand this process, start at the beginning and visualize the entire story to the best of your current knowledge.

You may have noticed that I organized this list from the most active to the least. The more active scenarios tend to be ones that writers use in advance – while they’re thinking through the story or a story problem at a higher level. Then they come back to the keyboard and write.

As the activities become more passive, you can use them as a launching pad in the actual writing process. You might find that you do one thing one day and another thing another day. Or you might find that you need to start with some doodling, or crafting in a quiet place, and then move towards the deeper visualization that sparks the writing process. It might be that most days you’re fully immersed and only need this when you’re feeling some writer’s block or confusion about the plot.

Be flexible with yourself. Pay attention to times when you’re doing something and find that your mind is especially open and creative. Try various things until you find those things that work for you. And if you’ve used a method that has worked for you, let me know. I’d love to hear from you!

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Which Should You Use? Maybe a Hybrid

It’s the age-old question among writers: to plot or to pants? But the question isn’t really as simple as we think that it is. And the answer IS simpler than we assume. I’ll explain. There really is a way to know whether you should choose plotting or pantsing, and why. There are also some shortcuts that I use, which I’m going to share with you here.

First though, let’s acknowledge that we all arrive at a similar place when it comes to story structure: in the end, it has to be there. If you’re writing a novel or a screenplay, the rise and fall of the characters’ actions need to progress at least close to the classic three-act structure. The reason for that is quite basic. It provides a balanced rise in tension and action, giving room for reflection and interpersonal relationships, so that readers’ (or viewers’) attention isn’t lost.

Unless you’re going to attempt something truly avant-garde – and if you’re not a very experienced, market-proven author, just don’t – it doesn’t make any sense to do otherwise.

But getting there…whether we’re saving the cat, using the snowflake method, or just plain structuring our novel… that’s another matter.

Definitions

Just to get definitions out of the way, I’m referring to these two options as follows:

Pantsing – Writing a novel without outlining beforehand (aka: writing by the seat of your pants). You sit down with a basic idea of a story and just write.

Plotting – Preparing an outline with at least the key plot points before writing. Plotting generally also includes at least a rough scene-by-scene plan, but the extent of the planning varies widely among writers who use this method.

When You Should Pants

1. You have structural intuition: you believe that you have the entire story fully formed in your head and want to just let it fly. Some adamant plotters such as Stephen King employ this method. He doesn’t write a story until it has grown in his mind to the extent that he knows enough of what will happen. Keep in mind that King manages to produce stories with solid story structure. Thus, he’s either a really fast and effective rewriter, or he has an innate intuition about structure so that the story falls out in good form.
2. You love rewriting: you don’t mind having to rework [potentially] large portions of the story and would rather feel the freedom to see what comes out of your mind. I know a lot of pantsers who feel this way.

The problem with pantsing is two-fold: first, many pantsers end up with content that has to be almost entirely overhauled for it to work. And second, many of them end up stalled at some point in the story because they don’t know where to go next.

When You Should Plot

1. Planning is fun for you: let’s face it, some writers enjoy planning the novel. In fact, some of them might enjoy the planning as much as or more than the actual writing.
2. You hate rewriting: on the opposite side of the coin from the pantsing option above, a lot of writers find the idea of getting part way (or all the way) through a book and finding that much of it needs to be scrapped or entirely rewritten is very frustrating. And stressful. Plotting can help with that. It allows you to have at least enough direction to produce a first draft that you can work with in the rewrite process. And the rewrite process will likely be easier.
3. You don’t know the story: if you come to the writing table and don’t know what you’re going to write, plotting can be a great tool to help you flesh out your story. By using the standard plot points as a guide, you can brainstorm your way to a story that has a solid structure.

The potential problem with plotting is that it can be easy to end up with a story that doesn’t flow as smoothly as a story that’s pantsed. The reason for that is that the plotting process sometimes causes writers to focus on the bigger points rather than compelling them to walk with the characters. This can be corrected in during the rewrite process. OR you can tweak your plotting process to be more detailed, like that of a storyline.

Is There an Alternate??

However, these aren’t the only two options. Many writers, myself included, use something of a hybrid model. That’s what I’m going to share with you here: some options to get you to a solid story in shorter time.

Note: if you really have no idea what story you want to tell, this won’t work for you. You’re going to want to use the plotting method above to help you flesh out what will happen. However, if you have at least part of the story, this will work.

Step 1: Write a summary

Write out the story in summary form, almost like a synopsis. Omit any dialogue and description unless it’s really weighing on your mind. If so, note it to the side on a separate page.

However, write everything that happens in the story. You can do this as prose, or bullet points, whichever allows you to think most clearly. Let your mind flow. Write down whatever you think will happen without worrying about whether it will change.

Don’t worry about whether all of the plot points are in the right places. Don’t worry about whether you’re missing a detail, or don’t know something such as how the character will get from the midpoint to the ending. Just tell yourself the story to the best of your knowledge at this point.

At the end, you should have a summary of everything you know about the story from start to finish.

Step 2: Analyze what you have

Go through what you’ve written and assess what you want to say. Then look for ways to fit what you want to tell into a structural framework. This is when you’ll fill in the gaps. Many of the following questions below may fall out of your summary. But some might require some brainstorming or tweaking in order to find a story that works.

For example:

High-Level

What is the overall story you’re telling – is it about redemption? Revenge? Friendship? Loss?

What do you want to say about that theme? For instance: revenge is a two-edged sword, or revenge is karma…you should have expected it.

What is your main character’s (MC) goal? Her flaws? Her underlying value system? Her false beliefs about what she needs in life, or who she is, or the world around her, etc.?

What or who is obstructing your MC’s progress? (That’s your antagonist.) What is this person’s goal? Why does he want that thing? What will he do to try to obtain it?

Detailed

Look at the possible plot points you already have and tweak as necessary. I plot my stories out of order for a reason: the ending is more crucial than the beginning. And various plot points are contingent on one another. For example I might do something like this:

Start at the end – does the story have a solid ending that you like. Is it surprising? Exciting? Fitting based on what you want to say? Develop that first.

What happens during the climactic point of the story (the last 10 – 15%) to get the MC to the ending that you like?

What happens at the third plot point that sets your character up for the ending? Remember that this is generally a terrible defeat that she must rise from and come back stronger in order to succeed (assuming you’re writing a positive character arc). This success will be based on a better application of your protagonist’s knowledge of the truth and use of her skills.

Does the first plot point mirror what happens at the third plot point (at least vaguely)? Both involve your MC stepping into the action. At the first plot point she’ll do so very poorly, mostly passively. By the third plot point she has learned a lot, nearly failed, and is now ready to take dramatic action in an effective way.

How does her action over the first half of act two (between the first plot point and the midpoint) look different from her action over the second half of act two (between the midpoint and the third plot point)? Note they should be somewhat like opposites. The first half is a passive response to the first plot point…very weak, ineffective, mixed with a lot of failure – like someone failing downwards towards defeat. The second half of act two should be strong action that’s more intentional, and sometimes effective – think of someone failing upwards towards success.

What action or incident (this could be a discovery) at the midpoint will cause your MC to switch from less effective responses to more effective deliberate action?

Step 3: Tweak Your Summary

Next you’re going to want to tweak your story that you summarized in step 1 so that it lines up with this new outline. That might include moving events around or entirely changing your MC’s course of action. The goal at this point is to finalize a rough outline that you can work with.

Then you have choices.

If you’re more of the pantsing variety, you have enough here to build a first draft that won’t need a major overhaul. Notice that by writing out the summary ahead of time, you’ve allowed yourself to be in the flow, seeing where the story takes you, without wasting three- or four-hundred pages on something that won’t work. Be in the flow…but have a plan.

If you’re a plotter, you may choose to flesh out this outline even further and develop a full-blown scene-by-scene plan. It’s up to you. Some plotters work with less, some with more.

Step 5: Write the Story

Then, of course, you have to write the story. If you’re a pantser, don’t fret. You’ll be able to be in the flow, walking with your characters while you do this. However, you should have a story structure that works and gets you to a solid first draft as efficiently as possible.

If you’re a plotter, as I originally thought I was, this process forces you to walk through the story ahead of time (in the summary). While plotting alone can result in novel that feels more technical and unfeeling – or even disjointed – this hybrid process requires you to flesh out some of the side stories and relationships that might otherwise fall by the wayside.

Whatever process you use though, give yourself the room to try alternative options until you find what fits for you. You might surprise yourself!

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How & Why We Should Write Them

I’ve written about how to make villains relatable and I’ve written about handling characters with a negative character arc so that readers are still left with a positive, hope-filled message. But that’s entirely different from what I’m talking about today. Lately in the writing industry, I’ve noticed a substantial rise of amoral and immoral characters. By that I’m mean protagonists who have either no morals whatsoever or depraved character.

Why would we want to write them? And, if we do, how do we handle these types of characters so that readers can relate to them? I also want to talk about how a writer interjects his or her voice into the story’s theme or message so that it stands apart from the protagonist.

Anti-Heroes?

But before we get started, let’s clarify what I’m not talking about.

I’m not talking about heroes [anti- or otherwise]. who begin the novel with very bad character but improve significantly by the end of the story. Anti-heroes are those characters like Tony Stark in Iron Man, who have no desire to be a hero and also have bad character. Tony is a selfish, arrogant, materialistic man who views everyone and everything else as his playthings. He’s a narcissist. However, Tony improves over time. He changes, overcomes his flaws, and becomes a self-sacrificing hero.

Other characters who have more of a villain-to-hero arc might include Rick Blaine in Casablanca, Nux in Mad Max: Fury Road, or Loki in Thor: Ragnarok. These characters are simply exaggerated versions of the traditional [positive] character arc. They start off very flawed (more so than most characters), but move towards being influencers of good.

I’m also not talking talking about characters with a negative character arc. These are the characters like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, who begin as wholesome people and then progressively move towards a villain-like status.

Instead, by amoral or immoral characters I’m referring to those like Norman Bates in Psycho, Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, and Dexter Morgan in Darkly Dreaming Dexter. These are characters who start out with terrible character (whether the reader/ viewer knows it or not) and, though they might nominally improve, they remain largely amoral or immoral from start to finish.

There’s no redemption for them. And they have a relatively flat character arc.

Amoral: An Example

My desire to write this post came from a conversation I had with someone about Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. We had each read the book and had similar, counter-market perspectives of it. I’ll avoid any plot spoilers to the best of my ability.

In that book, the protagonist is a young girl, Kya, who grows up deep in the marsh along the North Carolina coast. Her mother abandons her as a young girl. Then her older brothers and sisters leave to avoid their very abusive father. Last, but not least, her father disappears, leaving Kya, at ten-years old, to fend for herself.

The book presents the marshland in a lovely light. And the focus on Kya’s ability to grow, learn, and survive on her own will inspire many people. However, Kya has absolutely no sense of right from wrong (apart from defining wrong as any act that threatens her). She’s amoral.

Immoral: An Example

An immoral example would be Dexter in Darkly Dreaming Dexter. Dexter isn’t amoral; he has a distinct knowledge of right from wrong. He knows that murdering people is wrong, but he’s a serial killer and can’t seem to help himself.

In order to reconcile himself with his nature, he has developed something of a code (largely due to his father’s influence). Thus, he only kills those who fall through the justice system – criminals who are violent murderers themselves. In order to make his choice of victims, he demonstrates that he recognizes good from evil. Though he’s also in the wrong, he chooses to redirect his evil nature towards being an instrument for good in the world. He’s a vigilante.

How to Write This Character

I’ve heard many writers talk about their struggle with writing characters with what their readers refer to as no redeeming qualities. Thus, they have determined that there’s no audience for this. But the examples above prove that that’s not the case. There’s definitely a market for them. Instead, there are several things that readers need to see from this type of character in order to relate to him or her.

Motive: Give readers a relatable reason for the character’s amoral/immoral nature. We learn why Norman Bates is a killer: the loss of his mother. We can understand Kya’s amoral nature: her parents’ abandonment of her and her lack of other role models. Even Dexter is understandable. In his case it isn’t so much the fact that he’s had urges to kill since childhood. Rather, it’s his frustration with the justice system. There’s a reason why this TV show was/is wildly popular: so many of us can commiserate with that motive.

Any one of these is something that most readers can understand and relate to.

Relationship: One of the best ways to keep readers engaged with this kind of character is to show him or her in a positive relationship. Don’t underestimate how much Norman’s love for and devotion to his deceased mother (though it’s disturbing) does to redeem him in the viewers’ perspectives. The same can be said of Kya’s love interest, Tate. Through him, we see her as someone with pain and baggage, but someone worthy of love. This is also true of Dexter’s sister, Debra. She’s controversial in her own right with her crass language and promiscuity, but she’s deeply flawed, very vulnerable, and endlessly devoted to her brother. Through her we see Dexter as a person and a family member.

That’s absolutely crucial with this type of character! Readers have to see the character as someone who came from a family like themselves. As someone whom someone else loves and wants to care for (though it may be in the past tense as in Norman’s case).

Interest: Lastly, this kind of character needs to have something that makes him or her interesting to the reader. We see this in Kya’s art and her extensive knowledge of nature. She isn’t just an amoral girl with a desire for revenge. She’s a scientist and an artist. The best feature of the book is her perspective of the marsh. It’s like listening to a teacher who’s deeply passionate about his subject. That makes the subject – at least temporarily – compelling to those who listen (or read in our case).

Dexter is a scientist. Think about his story as one tale in two parts. If Dexter was simply a serial killer who had hacked into the Miami P.D.’s system in order to find cases of injustice, much of the interest in his story would be lost. Instead, most of the book/show is actually his work on blood splatter analysis and his relationships with those around him. Readers and viewers find him fascinating because we learn something about an area in which most of us have never worked. That interest factor actually makes Dexter more likeable.

Why Do We Write Them?

But why, oh why, do some writers want to write about such deplorable characters? And why would we?

The answer to that is probably extensive, but I can think of several.

Sometimes we write about the things that we witness in the world and don’t understand. We put amoral or immoral characters on the page in order to try to make sense of violence around us (like senseless acts of violence such as those Norman Bates commits).

Another answer is that some characters like Dexter answer a heart’s cry that many of us have: for justice to be done. The vigilante character is a long-standing one. However, Dexter takes it in a new direction. Unlike Batman with his upstanding family and desire to work with the police, Dexter takes vengeance in particularly brutal ways. His actions appeal to our own desires to see wrongs righted.

And lastly, sometimes we just want to explore the type of character who’s so unlike ourselves – a person who responds to hard circumstances in ways that might flash through our minds, but which we would never pursue. We want to see what brings a person to that point, what his life looks like, how he or she can live with himself. It’s an exploration of something foreign and yet intriguing.

The Author’s Voice

There are lots of ways to write these amoral or immoral characters. However, there are only two basic ways to present the author’s voice: as neutral/ approving, or as understanding but condemning. By that I mean that it’s one thing to show that a character is inherently bad and why. However, the author’s voice is an entirely separate thing.

I’ll give two examples.

A Neutral/ Approving Voice

We’ve come full-circle to my very counter-market perspective of Where the Crawdads Sing. As I said before, Owens does a great job of showing readers why Kya is amoral. It would be unusual for her not to be given her upbringing. However, the book itself comes across as unapologetically amoral.

What I mean is that the author’s voice is amoral. Owens writes about Kya’s [very bad] actions as if they’re entirely acceptable. As if she approves of them. This is actually consistent with Owens’s very problematic history. I was surprised by readers’ overwhelmingly positive responses to the book. I think she managed it because her beautiful portrayal of nature, Kya’s relationship with Tate, Jumpin and Mabel, and her sense of betrayal and fear overshadowed the writer’s voice.

Keep in mind that this may or may not always work. Writing about an amoral or immoral character as if their actions are good and right (or writing as if the author is neutral, which most people interpret as condoning) is not something many readers can relate to and will approve. However, in her case she managed to win them over.

An Understanding But NOT Condoning Voice

Usually when writers present these kinds of characters, it’s clear that the author (or screenwriter) wants the reader to understand and empathize with the character, but that they don’t condone their actions. This is much more likely to resonate with readers.

My current work-in-process, The Monster of Vienna (not the book that’s scheduled to be released later this year), is about a young violin protegé who becomes a serial killer in Vienna in the middle of the nineteenth century. The book is an exploration of monstrosity: how a person with no clearly identifiable reason can commit heinous acts, and what’s to be done about it.

I love my protagonist, Karl. He’s an enchanting boy at the start of the story. I present his story with a lot of sympathy for him and how he falls so far in the end. However, it’s obvious by how I write the story that I don’t agree with his actions.

One of the ways I make that clear is through his brother’s responses to him. His brother is his closest friend and ally, and the one person who would save him if he could (plus a love interest at one point). Through Josef we see the impact of Karl’s dark preoccupations and how desperately he needs to be redeemed. Easier said than done, of course…

The point though is that authors are narrators. Their perspective lies over the story and presents it in one of two ways. This can make or break the audience’s ability to relate to the novel. If you’re writing this type of character, think carefully about what you want to implicitly say about the protagonist’s actions and why. Whatever you do, do it for a reason.

Conclusion

All this to say that I can see why writers would want to write this character, but they need to be handled more carefully than some. There’s a much greater risk of reader rejection, but there’s also a very big possibility that these characters will be the most memorable.

Write your amoral and immoral characters wisely. And let me if you’ve written this type of protagonist. I’d love to hear about it!

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With a Possible Exception…Maybe

This week’s post stems from a recent Twitter conversation. Someone posted a comment from an aspiring writer who said that they don’t like reading. The tweeter asked the writing community for its thoughts about this. After all, most of us who write are also avid readers, and many well-published authors (she quoted Stephen King) have said that non-readers don’t have the tools to be writers. The question was, “can you be a good writer without being a good reader?” My answer was a mixed one, but all in all I tend to hold the established stance and can explain why writers should also be readers.

There are reasons why this is true, and [maybe] a caveat or two to allow for a rare exception. I’ll give three high-level reasons why reading gives writers the tools they need to be good at their craft.

Character Development

I can see why a non-reader might say that there’s no reason why they have to learn character development from reading. After all, we’re surrounded by people, aren’t we? Even when we’d rather not be. And writers tend to be consummate observers.

A close friend once told me that she sees me as an observer of life rather than a participant. At the time I thought this might be an indicator that I was abnormal in some unacceptable way. Later I learned that many writers are described this way. We love to watch people – how they react to different situations, how they relate to one another. We linger on the fringes, watching, asking questions, waiting to see the responses.

But there’s something that non-readers haven’t understood. Characters in fiction need to have something of a positive or negative character development that isn’t like real life.

In real life, people sometimes repeat the same mistakes until the day they die. Sometimes they learn a lesson in one setting only to fail at it in another. They might grow in some ways, regress in others and then reverse their path. In summary: people in real life often don’t seem to grow or regress in ways that make sense.

In contrast, a novel has to close most of the loops it has opened. Our characters aren’t perfect saints when we type The End, but they need to have a discernible character arc (positive or negative) that resonates with readers. As writers, we learn much of that by reading. We absorb the stories around us and pick up an intuition as to how characters should struggle and change.

Even rule benders start from an understanding of what works. And the only way to know what works is by reading.

New Worlds

Another of the more acknowledged benefits of reading is that it exposes us to new worlds – not just fantasy ones, but also places and times that we’ve never experienced. Even within my own country, America, there are so many areas I’ve never lived. So many types of families that are unlike my own. So many experiences I’ve never had.

I’ve never been a logger in western Montana, or a short order cook in a diner off of Route 66, or a physics professor exploring far galaxies in an observatory deep in the desert. But writers write about these things. And by reading them, my perspective of humanity and the world opens up.

I can hear the non-reader arguing that he has no intention of writing about these things. He plans to write what he knows. And that might work.

But it probably won’t work as well as it would for him if he were a reader. As writers, we need to craft worlds and stories that are unique. Even if we’re writing about our own small town or urban metropolis, reading gives us a wider view that allows us to color in the corners of our little world so that it comes to life in a richer, more multi-faceted way.

Pacing, Sentence Structure, Diction

And lastly, there are all of the little things that add up to make a huge difference in writing. These are the writing elements that are the hardest to teach someone. Think about the writing craft books out there. Most of them deal with characters, plotting and story structure, or fostering increased creativity and time in a writer’s life.

Pacing is both a high-level thing – how the plot unfolds – which is often taught as part of story structure, and a granular thing – how sentence structure impacts the readers’ experience. This is something I rarely see discussed: that the ebb and flow of sentence length (short, long, short, short, long) greatly impacts the reader’s experience.

Yes, we all know that longer sentences slow down the action; shorter ones speed it up. But how can we teach an aspiring writer how to apply this? I don’t know. It’s not that simple. There’s an intuition that good writers have as to how the writing should rise and fall.

That also extends to the writer’s use of diction. Newbie writers often over-do it, thinking that great writing is the difference between simplistic and complex vocabulary. Oh, how wrong that is. Read Cormac McCarthy or Ray Bradbury, two extraordinarily meaty and profound writers. Both use almost exclusively everyday language.

But word choice matters. What will make the greatest impact? What do word choices tell us about a character? How do they affect a reader’s emotions? Can we use two sets of words to describe a horrible accident and leave readers, in one case unaffected and, in the other, in despair?

Yes, of course we can. And it’s not simply a matter of describing the character’s feelings. Writing goes far beyond that. I love how Donald Maass handles this in The Emotional Craft of Fiction. In his book, he opens writers’ minds to the fact that just showing the character’s feelings doesn’t necessarily affect readers at all. It’s all those other things.

The use of specific words, pacing, subtle indicators that the opposite is true, etc. These are things that can be taught to a small extent, but which are largely gained through exposure. Through reading. Writers have to read in order to study how these feats are accomplished in different settings and circumstances. They have to gain a feel for it so that it’s a natural extension of their ability.

A Possible Exception

However, I want to leave room for the rare exception. One tweeter pointed out that screenwriters might not read much at all and yet have experienced a myriad of storytelling examples. Very true. The same might be true for playwrights. When we say that writers need to be readers, that means that they need to study storytelling in some form, which is what he’s getting at.

I also noted that there may be some writers who struggle to find material that they enjoy reading. However, that still leaves them without the experiential gains that we talked about here. That person should study what’s done well but doesn’t love, so that he can produce the things that he does love.

As an example of what not to do, in response to my tweet (in which I said I’d be interested to see what a non-reader produces), a non-reader sent me a link to a short piece he had written. I read it. Twice. I still have no idea what it is. It has no structure, no character growth. It isn’t a short story, or a piece of flash fiction, or poetry. It has no semblance of meaning at all.

And that is the point. Writers need to read in order to understand how to convey thoughts to readers in a way that makes sense and tells a story. We get much of that from reading.

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A Short Story

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room. If she were willing to look. If she wanted to step to the tetra-paned shield and draw it aside, to press the power button and wait for the screen to fill with an image of the surrounding landscape.

He probably wouldn’t stop her if she tried. Instead, Isra kept her eyes carefully averted, her mind focused on the scene laid out on the conference table.

“Only one week. Can you imagine?” Harold gestured to the three-dimensional model before them. He wore one of his several tweed coats – now ratty and patched – that he had brought with him. She wondered whether he had known that they would be his only remnants of his past. If they had been his choice.

Or if it had been a surprise, as it had been for her. She focused on the word surprise, holding the truer word at bay.

She clutched her notebook close against her chest. “Yes. So many years in the making.” He merely smiled and wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they gazed down at the urban model before them.

There before her stretched a model of a city of the future – one of twenty-five slated to be built, the first beginning in less than one week. Long, slim buildings with interior transportation systems, their own water and power systems, corporate spaces, restaurants, schools, residences and more. Everything each urban community would require.

The first to be installed would be erected in what had been Colorado Springs. She overrode the thought with its new name: Pleasant Springs. Everyone in the bunkers – everyone left in the country to the best of her knowledge – would move there once the city opened. Until they sent out a new generation of recruits to build the next city.

They had brought them on trains. The Children of the Future they had called those like herself, those who had tested exceptionally high in any of several categories. They called her a spatial genius and had grouped her with thirty-four similar youths under four renowned architects, four urban planners and seven engineers.

A unit of fifty devoted to building the new world to come. To planning it at least. She caught the thought, held it at bay, rubbed the concave area behind her earlobe and redirected her mind.

A rare opportunity. A new future. Peace. Prosperity. Brilliant design.

She looked down at the wrist band. The face glowed green, unchanging. Thus far, she had only 222 thought demerits – an unprecedented few among the others selected to train for and build their new future. She planned to keep it that way indefinitely. Or for as long as need be.

A perfect future. A city designed with every need and desire in mind.

Save one, of course. The dangerous one. It was ok. Ok to think of it so long as she held it at bay and called it what it was: a threat to their safety and security. What her leaders termed selfishness, individualism, and greed. Those who discredited the greater good and disregarded the beneficial boundaries of their leaders. Those who sought independence above the collective.

She chewed her lip, rubbed behind her earlobe again, and considered the impressive scope of the model. “Have the others seen it yet? In entirety?”

She felt him shake his head, his arm still draped around her. “In the morning. First thing. I was hoping that you’d help me present it. Nothing too formal of course. Our group knows its own piece at the very least. The others… I’ll lead the overview. If you could just fill in the specifics. Talk through the details in the design. And anything I leave out or forget.”

He cast a quick look towards her. She beamed. “I’d be honored.” And she would be. It stood for more. So much more than he knew.

“Well, you run along.” He winked at her beneath unruly chestnut brows sprinkled with white as she turned to go.

The old phrase. Their phrase. The one he had said to her since she came to the underground bunkers to apprentice with him when she had been seven, thirty years prior. A phrase she had heard every day since then. Their own personal history. The irony wasn’t lost on her.

It wasn’t that history was taboo. In many ways it was encouraged. To reflect on the past was permitted, but only with the proper perspective. No longing. No fondness. No sense of loss.

A lesson learned. Wisdom gained. The time before – never to be repeated.

She passed out of the architectural wing, down a long tunnel. In the distance she could see lights. Could hear the rumbling of machinery moving. Workers from the engineering division, dressed in yellow and gray overalls and hard hats, scuttled around the center of an open concrete space. Most likely moving materials from the Construction and Fabrication division to the exit tunnel and out to the hangar abutting the heavy steel doors that led outside.

Outside.

The sight stirred her heart. She felt it beating in her ears. Tingling her fingers. She paused, took a deep breath, willed her pulse to still. The band’s face edged towards lime green. She breathed deeply again.

A glorious world. The answer to all of our problems. The beginning of the future.

Her band settled back to its original glowing version of Crayola green.

They hadn’t come in that way – through the elevators up to the steel exit doors. None of the children had. They had all come in via trains, into the uppermost tunnels, from which they had descended deep below the base of the mountain.

The country had been on the brink of a peace treaty after decades of civil war. The people, long characterized by schisms and animosity had finally united and led numerous revolts. The force of a group, geographically scattered, but united in purpose, had been too much to resist.

Still, the country’s leaders had wavered on the issue of an agreement. The people – insurrectionists – responded by planning what would be their final uprising – the one in which they managed to take the remaining portion of D.C that still stood, along with the strategic command centers in Nebraska. The last straw, meant to secure the outcome.

They had been so certain of victory, so focused on the last uprising, that they had agreed to the evacuation. Had welcomed it even. A chance to remove their children to safety while they finalized the state of the renewed nation. Amidst the conflict and martial law, the communication lines severely hindered, no one had stopped to question why so few children had been selected. Thousands across the country, but still so few.

It might not have mattered. On an individual, isolated level, resistance would have been futile. The insurrectionists weren’t prepared to unite around the situation and only the collective could stand. On that matter, Isra’s new world coincided with the final state of her former.

It had been a Tuesday. A day of the week when no one expects anything. Tuesdays are for routine, mundane predictability. Even in the midst of martial law, the world had held a sense of cyclicality. The sight of chain link fences and tanks in the streets seemed to grow dull at the end of the week, to reestablish itself on Tuesday mornings and to fade away in anticipation towards Thursday evening.

Not completely, but enough to make the situation bearable.

The knock on the door had caught her parents off guard. Her mother, stirring a stew of vegetable scraps and tough bits of some unknown meat, had paused, the steam veiling her surprise, and looked towards the door. Her father, sitting at their tiny table, cleaning his work tools had paused, his glasses sliding precariously near the end of his long nose, his mouth open.

It helped that she had been an only child. Easier to assume that all were taken.

Chosen. Privileged. Fortunate. Granted a new chance. Selected for the good of all.

“Isra!” The shout barely rose above the sound of the machinery. One of the engineers, her friend Matthias flagged a forklift on towards the east tunnel and then jogged towards her. “It’s almost time.”

“Yes. I can’t wait,” she scanned his face, reading the unspoken amongst his words. “When will they lay the foundation?”

“As soon as possible.” He glanced almost imperceptibly at his wrist band. Green. “I’ve heard that they want it in within a week after the doors open.”

“Hmm.” She turned to walk towards the residences. “It’ll be weird. Being out there again.”

“I almost don’t remember it.”

“Me neither,” she admitted.

Images of a wooden swing sailing over long grass, a scampering black and white dog, the brilliant white sunlight filled her mind. Children of the future. Loyalties misplaced. Broken. She remembered a woman over her shoulder, calling from the porch, holding a pitcher of lemonade. We are all family. Isolated units breed disunity. The city is home. The community is home.

She rubbed the dip behind her ear again.

“Does it bother you?”

She blushed, properly warned. “No. Nervous tick. That’s all.”

He watched her, his look clearly unconvinced. “Oh. Mine itches occasionally. You should see if they can tweak the settings.”

She raised her eyebrows at that and shot a quick glance at his band. It had faded into chartreuse, dangerously close to yellow. “It’s good to hear that you’re on schedule. So much rests on the engineers.”

“Yes.” He started to walk away and then paused. “Oh, I forgot to mention that Brant won’t be there tomorrow. He clocked two thousand.”

The blood flooded her neck, rising into her face. “What did they…” her band swung into golden yellow. She bit her tongue, emptied her mind. “What went wrong?”

The band faded back to lime. She focused her thoughts on the models she had spent so long designing. The perfect blend of form and function. Of positive and negative space. Everything the human mind and body needed to live in harmony with nature.

“Guess he couldn’t see the opportunities for what they are,” Matthias shrugged and turned away. His body language read as unsympathetic, but his eyes were wide, his face fallen. She knew what he couldn’t say. Couldn’t even think.

—

The next morning, Harold had moved the model to the central hangar by the time she arrived. Someone had focused a camera on it. The image filled two enormous overhead screens. Throngs of people stood about the gray space, their voices quieting as Harold cleared his and welcomed them.

Out of the corner of her eye, Isra caught movement in the balcony. A small group, shrouded in darkness, their faces imperceptible. No one she knew could say who they were. Couldn’t or wouldn’t. Some things could only be safely handled with silence.

She listened to Harold explaining the layout of the city, its amenities. Watched the responses in the others. Those in her own division were already familiar with their own contributions to the end product. Others like Danelia in Water Management or Evan and Laniya in Metal Fabrication knew only about those elements on which they had been consulted. The things that they had specified. Still others – most of the Medical staff and those in Neural Engineering – knew the least.

Regardless, everyone stood frozen, their eyes empty, cautious, calculating. So still. The world hadn’t been so still before. When people had been free. The thought struck her with a force she hadn’t foreseen. She gasped lightly, drawing a quick questioning glance from Harold before he returned to a discussion of the interior foliage and its biological benefits to the future inhabitants.

Her wrist band swung to pale peach. She shifted slightly, standing behind the model in such a way that it would be hidden. It wouldn’t matter of course. She looked down to see the screen register 223.

A thought guarded leads to wise actions. Wise actions lead to wholeness and community. Community leads to a future – for each and all.

“I believe Isra can speak to that better than I can.” Harold stepped back, signaling to her.

She faltered, grasping. The group in the balcony seemed to shift, to inhale, drawing all of the air out of the cavernous space and into itself. Where was he? She glanced down at the model before her. The division of residences and their design nuances. She cleared her throat.

“Yes. Though unity is bolstered by conformity and anonymity, there are several small distinctions that will enable each pod to enhance the productivity of the residents…”

Thirty years of architectural study and of judicious choices in language and expression took over, carrying her presentation despite her anxiety. She spread her arms over the urban model, hesitated, looked down to see her band. Solidly green.

Relief flooded her body. Exhaustion followed it, dragging her arms down, pulling at the back of her neck, pressing on her shoulders.

Excited. My body belongs to the state, the city, the community. One for all. All for one.

She hardly knew what had happened when the people began to swell around her makeshift stage, reaching out hands and arms in appreciation. Congratulations. She and Harold lingered for another hour to answer questions.

By the time the last of the audience had mumbled a final compliment and had shuffled away, her head throbbed – a pulsing pain that started up from her neck and radiated inwards from behind her ears.

Nausea filled her senses: a feeling that breathing too deeply, or moving too rapidly, or turning her head to the side would be disastrous.

—

The nursing attendant waited for her to approach the desk. Reached out her hand. Isra held out her arm, the inside facing up, and waited for the scan. Minutes later she sat in a private room, her head leaning back against the cushioned table, her eyes closed. The glaring fluorescents glowed red through her eyelids.

“Isra! Fancy seeing you again so soon.”

“Hi Lydia.”

The young doctor closed the door and pulled up a stool alongside the table. “Not feeling well?”

“Other than my head splitting in two, I’m just great,” she mumbled through her teeth. The lights above her head seemed to throb, their bluish cast probing into her skull.

“Hmm. Let’s take a look.” Lydia began a routine exam, checking all of her vital signs, and then pulled up to the computer. Isra risked a quick look in her direction and saw her band data pulled up on the screen. 223.

Something behind her eyes seemed to snap. She winced. Lydia turned in time to see her reach up and rub the once-hollow gap behind her ear.

“What’s going on there?” The doctor turned and pulled up to take a look, gently probing at her head alongside the mastoid process.

A term she wouldn’t have known before, even had she been the same age in the old world. Everyone knew something about neural engineering now. Isra recalled Matt’s words and focused her mind on the neurons behind her ear. Long enough to feel an itching sensation.

“It itches sometimes.” She watched her wrist band out of the corner of her eye. It seemed to flicker between Crayola Green and the faintest lime hue, but she couldn’t be sure.

First rate health services. Free for all. No one without every basic human need. Everyone with more than he could imagine.

Lydia shone a light in her eyes. She winced again. “Ok. I don’t see anything wrong with you. Give me a minute.”

Fifteen minutes later, her friend, Cody, head of the neural engineering apprentices, trailed the doctor into the exam room. “Isra. What’s this I hear?”

“I don’t know,” she said. Throbbing pain. Itching. Blinding light.

He ran his fingers over the section behind her ear, feeling the implant. “I’m going to need to bring you back to the lab.” He nodded to Lydia. “I’ll take it from here. Can you walk?”

“Ugh.” She squinted at the lights as she edged her legs over the table and carefully slid to her feet. He took her arm and helped her out of the office.

—

“Sit there.” His office was a stark, industrial one filled with computers, mounds of paper, disheveled bookcases, their contents threatening to topple, and – other than his desk and chair – a lone black guest chair. He reached over and clutched an armful of papers from the seat, moving them to a precarious position on top of stacks of paper on his desk.

“We won’t know what’s wrong with this without running through a number of tests. Fastest thing would be to extract it and insert a new implant. It’s minimally invasive. We’d do it through the stent. It’s pretty quick – out and back in. Otherwise you’re going to have to wait as we run each test and look for answers. In the meantime, I can imagine that your head isn’t going to feel much better.”

She swallowed as if thinking it through. The best choice is the one that benefits the community. “I’d be back to work faster if we swap it out?”

“Mm-hmm.” He slapped his thighs and swiveled towards his computer. “Ok. Let’s get this done.”

An hour later, the placed a bandage on her neck over the two stitches where they had removed the old implant chip and re-inserted a new one.

“We’ll want to sync this to your new wristband, of course.” He pulled a wristband out of the cabinet and logged a serial number into the computer: A4D799310IZ. It lit up: Crayola Green. “Excellent. Let’s get this on.”

She bit her lip and looked away. It didn’t matter. She knew that the serial number didn’t match the band he strapped to her arm. Most likely the new chip he had inserted was linked to nothing; definitely not to her profile. She tested the theory, ruminating on a fitting thought. Nothing too extreme, but something that should register.

Community may not be home.

She looked at the wristband. Still Crayola Green. Relief flooded her body, energy surging through her arms and legs. Her stress headache began to fade. She glanced at him. Most likely he had already done the same to himself, but his face gave away nothing.

Better to be safe. Especially this late in the game. Still, she left the manicured thoughts aside.

“I’m already starting to feel better.”

“Of course. Had to be some faulty wiring sending all the wrong signals. It happens.” He winked at her as she started to rise and leave his office. “Oh, and Isra. I’m looking forward to that new city you have planned.”

“Me too.” Me too. She felt giddy, as if her shoulders and legs floated just above the floor. The feeling she had had when she had been a child and the world – so full of color and bubbling sounds and fragrance – had beckoned to her. She had run. Run to the creek. Run through the woods. Run into the barn and back. Through the house – her father yelling at her to stop that racket – and out the back door.

To catch it all, to not miss a thing.

—

She stepped into the central hub – the cafeteria just as the line dwindled and most of the people had taken a seat. Lunch time was from noon to two, but most people hit the scene somewhere between twelve-fifteen and twelve-forty-five. The overhead clock read 1:04.

Her stomach growled on queue. Her body knew. The tight rations, apportioned on schedule three times every day, kept her body taut, hypervigilant. Something their leaders probably hadn’t considered: famine drives people to irrational, animalistic behavior; excess leaves people mentally numb and complacent; but a mild, constant near-hunger sharpens the mind.

She stepped into line in the cafeteria and pulled an orange plastic tray, its surface hot and damp, down from the stack. Sadir sat at the back table closest to the tunnel to his own division: Chemistry, Metallurgy and Fabrication. She slid in next to him and pulled her notebook and a pen out of her bag.

“Nice presentation,” he said, his fork balancing his goulash in mid-air.

“Thanks. Look, I have some last-minute things that I need to go over with you.”

“Shoot.”

“We’re going to need to test the air system before we go live. Given the number of people and the off-gassing of new materials. I don’t know the technical terms for all of it.”

A young woman next to Sadir gathered her eyebrows, but he didn’t miss a beat. “Of course. Expected as much. We can run a test with all of the materials present in the air chamber.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure thing. Expected as much. Just let me know what time.” He eyed his plate carefully. She could almost read his thoughts: Every thought for the state. Every resource for the good of all. Every moment one of contribution.

His wristband remained resolutely green. Impressive.

—

She dumped her tray on the way out and spun around, ready to head off to check off one more box. It would only be a matter of time before someone realized that her implant – and Cody’s – were not connected to the computer files. That her mind and actions were entirely unmonitored. For now, without the need to carefully plan her steps and monitor her thoughts, she could move quickly.

As she turned to dash down the western tunnel, she collided with someone.

“Matt?” She looked up to see him before her, his face ashen, his lunch tray still heaped with food, trembling. He shook his head and stepped around her. “Matthias? What is…” Her face fell, her heart dropping out. “Is it Brant?” she whispered.

“He got what he deserved,” he said as he threw his tray down on the stack without clearing it. He turned and stormed off towards the residences.

“Oh, God,” Isra clutched the side of the bussing station and hunched over.

“What?!” Two girls looked at her with scorn as they passed.

“Nothing. Nothing.”

She stumbled out of the cafeteria, her feet suddenly heavy, anchored to the truth. The truth of the world she couldn’t – hadn’t yet – escaped.

On the train, she had clutched her favorite book, The Wind in the Willows, and a small suitcase filled with her toothbrush, nightgown, several pairs of socks and two changes of clothes. They rode from her home in Minneapolis through the rolling farmlands of Iowa, across the prairies and grasslands of eastern Nebraska, and across the barren land in eastern Colorado until the Rocky Mountains loomed before them.

“We won’t see them again,” a small, freckled boy said across the aisle.

“Yes, we will. It’s an evacuation. Don’t you know anything?” She turned away.

“Why won’t we?” the girl in front of her rose on her knees, gripping the back of her seat.

“Because it’ll all be gone by this time tomorrow. Bombed to smithereens.”

“That’s not true,” the girl retorted. “They’ve already bombed us and lots of stuff is still here.”

He just shook his head. “Those weren’t the big guns.”

Isra watched him, pulling out phrases he’d clearly overheard. Phrases that seemed silly from a child.

A small crowd had gathered around him. “What big guns?” “He said bombed?” “Yeah. Bombed to smithereens.” “How do you know?” “Yeah, what do you know?”

“My Uncle is already there.” The freckled boy pointed ahead, as if the mountains lay just beyond the train. “He told me.”

“I want to get off!” the girl in front of Isra whined.

The end of the train car opened and a tall woman with hair shaped like a helmet strode towards them. “What’s this? Everyone, back in your seats. You need to stay seated.”

It was true of course. Isra could still feel the panic that she had felt then. The sense of wild hysteria beating its wings against the cage of her chest. and back out at the rolling fields. She couldn’t go back. There wasn’t time and there was no train or plane to take her. Even if she did, there was an inescapable sense about the train, carrying her where she didn’t want to go, to a place she couldn’t escape.

She had looked down at her suitcase. One thought played over and over through her mind: if she had known, she would have taken something of her mother’s. Her bathrobe, the blanket she had knitted for her, her worn coin purse. Anything. Anything to hold onto. To fight the severing of the link.

Her face must have been chalky, her pupils dilated, when she stumbled into Sadir’s lab. Several other chemists looked up in surprise.

“It’s all right. Routine tests for the big day,” Sadir covered, pulling her aside. “I thought you wanted to run those tests tomorrow?”

She swallowed hard. “I think I can be ready tonight. Think you can work me in?”

His face registered shock, his wristband edging into yellow and pale orange. He shook himself, rubbed his stubble, waiting. The dial moved back towards green. But his demerits had jumped from 603 to 628. He glanced at them. “Yeah. Yeah. No point in prolonging the inevitable. Let’s get going?”

“Where we going?” one of his partners laughed as he passed by. Sadir just looked at Isra.

“We’re going home,” Isra answered.

And Think Most Writers Should Too

Happy New Year! I hope you had a lovely Christmas and that you and your family are well. This week I wanted to talk about something a bit different from the book reviews and the posts about all that I’m learning about writing and want to share with you. Instead, I thought I’d talk about all of the benefits I’m experiencing by entering various writing “challenges.” Why I enter writing contests and think that you should too!

This is at the forefront of my mind because I recently entered another Vocal Media contest. This time the requirements were that we submit a dystopian short story between 600 and 5,000 words, beginning with the following sentence:

The outside world was unknown to her, but she could see a glimpse of it through the window in his room.

This one frustrated me for quite awhile – maybe due to the very distracting time of year, maybe just because my story idea wasn’t coming together very quickly. However, in the end, I came up with a short story that I really liked (although I hope to refine it more in the future).

The entire process sparked my thinking about the nature of writing contests and what I’m getting out of them.

Discipline

A writing contest has a way of forcing you to write. There are deadlines, as I’m sure you know, and if the topic sparks your imagination, you only have a fixed amount of time to finish the required work. This one doesn’t benefit me quite as much since I tend to be very self-disciplined.

However, I have writer friends whose lives are much more multi-faceted than my own and finding time to write can be challenging. Frankly, when there’s always something else to be done, it’s easy to put writing on the back burner. I experience a little of that too.

It can be very helpful to have a specific deadline and to have to set aside a certain amount of time weekly or daily to get it done. It keeps the writing brain cells agile.

Experience

More than that, writing contests have a way of forcing you to practice writing things you wouldn’t otherwise. As you may have put together from my website and the contest I mentioned above, I don’t write dystopian fiction. I like to read it, but I have no experience writing it.

Writing in a different genre often looks and feels very different. It’s not just the subject matter, or the structural framework of the writing that’s different. It’s often the sentence structure, description and dialogue as well.

Gothic writing tends to be very lyrical and melancholic. There’s a poetic darkness about it, interspersed with all of those heavy spiritual and/or psychological thematic elements. It’s weighty.

Other genres are written very differently. Thrillers are very punchy and fast-paced. And the character growth and descriptions, even if you’re introducing a lot of depth like Ludlum’s Jason Bourne series, is executed differently. It’s more cut-and-dry than a Romance novel, or a Gothic one, or a work of Literary Fiction (although those vary widely).

My point is that the writing contests give me such a broad range of experience. And even if it’s in my own genre(s), they usually choose a subject that I wouldn’t, which requires me to step out of my usual writing mode.

Practice

Related to experience is the matter of practice. The smaller-scale requirements like those that are frequently required in contests, are an excellent place to work on refining specific skills.

For example, most writers, myself included, consistently work on the quality of their dialogue. It’s hard to manage that balance between natural conversation, subtext and unique character voices that’s required in dialogue. Similar things could be said of writing challenging types of scenes – those that are high in emotion like the culmination of a love story or the depth of feeling during a loss, or fight scenes and scenes that need to be highly symbolic or laced with pervasive thematic intent.

I work on all of these things as I’m completely a novel, but there’s a lot to be said for working on a short story or single section of a work in that it allows me to focus on refining these things on a much smaller scale. It’s a lot like running sprints to train for distance running. It seems like it wouldn’t work, but it does. It’s one of the best ways of practicing the craft.

Feedback

And lastly, when you submit to these contests, there are at least three types of feedback, any of which is beneficial.

First, there’s the explicit set of winners. In the contests I enter, there’s usually a winner, a second place prize and a certain number of runners up. It’s obviously very rewarding to be one of these. I placed as a runner up in the Fantasy Prologue contest. I posted my entry here if you want to read it. That gave me a real boost in my writing confidence.

Second, there’s also the feedback from other entrants, from those who are in the community but didn’t participate in the contest, and from family and friends who read your work. Obviously, I don’t always win. However, it’s so helpful to hear that others enjoy my work. As writers, we tend to lead something of an isolated work-life – not sharing what we’re creating with anyone until it’s at some point of completion. When it comes to novels, that can be a long span of time without any encouragement. But with these contest entries, you receive more frequent feedback. In addition, you can request more specific feedback from your contacts in the writing community. That makes short stories and smaller works – flash fiction or poems – great ways to receive direction on where to focus your efforts to improve.

And third, and possibly most importantly, these contests tend to be wonderful ways to witness how my ability is improving. When I’m working on a novel for years, it’s hard to see that I’ve grown as a writer. Stopping to complete something totally different and usually much smaller in scale is usually very eye-opening and encouraging as it gives me a reminder that I’m moving in the right direction.

Conclusion

I think you can see why I think so highly of writing contests. As a final note: they also give my brain a brief rest from my current manuscript without really taking me away for too long. That gives me a much fresher (and more experienced and confident) eye when I get back to it.

Let me know if you also enter writing contests, or have in the past, and what you thought of them. And look for my latest submission in the near future!

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How to Make Your Book the Best it Can Be

This week I thought I’d write something that’s both personal and [hopefully] very helpful for you as a writer. Call it a mash-up of what I’m up to and how to approach the [sometimes intimidating] rewriting process. Let’s be candid – I adore rewriting. It’s my favorite part of writing. And I know that that’s not true for a lot of writers. So I thought I’d share some of my rewriting tips. To begin with, let’s talk about how I’m defining rewriting versus editing.

Let’s also be honest. Most self-published books don’t sell very well. What makes a traditionally published book read so differently from a self-published one is a matter of rewriting. By that, I’m NOT talking about grammar, although that certainly does matter. Fixing grammar, spelling, and sentence structure should happen, but it should be the very last thing you do before going to market. After all, there’s no point cleaning up content that you may cut or completely change.

I call this final step editing. In the editing world, this would be the purview of line editors, copy editors and proofreaders. They do a whole lot of things including the following:

Editing Includes…

• Removing redundancy in word choices – for example if you use the same word too many times throughout the manuscript
• Strengthening word choices for clearer and more evocative writing
• Eliminating excess and/or unnecessarily wordy phrasing
• Reorganizing thoughts so that they flow more efficiently and clearly for the reader
• Fixing spelling, punctuation, grammar, etc.

When I talk to writers, especially those who self-publish, I get the sense that when they re-write, they’re solely focused on these things I just mentioned. The problem with that is that this alone won’t make for a good novel. And readers can tell that it’s a self-published novel…that’s not a compliment. None of us who pursue self-publishing want that!

We want novels that read like a traditionally published novel does. That requires a level of rewriting that comes before these editing tasks. If that sounds daunting, don’t be nervous. I’ll tell you how I go about this in steps. It’s a long process, but that’s true for any well-written novel. If you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can have a polished novel that reads as if it came from a top publishing house.

Draft #2: Rewriting the Bones

I have a process of planning my books that looks a bit like a mixture of pantsing and plotting. I write out a summary of my story and then fit it into a structural framework that allows for good story pacing and character development. That said, after I write the first draft, I still find elements of the novel that aren’t reading the way I pictured them in the plotting process.

After a brief break from my book (good for clearing my palette), I read through the manuscript and note what isn’t working. At this stage, I’m looking for the following types of things:

• Scenes that bore me – if they bore me, they’ll bore the reader
• Scenes that seemed necessary in the plotting phase, but now seem to have no purpose – kill all of your unnecessary scenes no matter how much you love them, or make them serve a very clear purpose!
• Pacing that’s off – such as sections in which it feels like a character moved from one phase of the story to another too quickly –> the story could use another scene or two (or more) in between; or vice versa – sections that are too slow and need more tension and purpose
• Plot holes – if you did any plotting, you probably won’t have many (or any) of these, but holes have a bad habit of popping up when you don’t expect them.
• Plot twists (if you have them) – are where they should be and are both surprising and plot twisting (taking the story in a new direction
• Etc.

Notice that in this step of the rewrite I’m looking for bones that are out of alignment. I’m basically resetting all of the underlying structure of the story. Before that’s done, nothing else matters.

After I’ve fixed and cleaned up the bones of the first draft, I write a second draft. Your second draft should look VERY different from the first. If it doesn’t, you’re either a compulsive plotter (every component of every scene), or you didn’t do what you need to do to improve the manuscript. Give yourself the time to create something worth reading and remembering.

Draft #3: Rewriting Protagonist/ Antagonist Arcs, Setting Choices

Once you’ve done that, you can move onto the next layer of writing: the main character’s progression (or devolution) and your scene choices. Look for things like these:

• Is the Main Character’s (MC’s) arc what it should be? Does he remain flat too long and then suddenly change at the end? Does he learn everything he needs to too early, such as by the midpoint and then has to wait for the third plot point and climax to happen?
• Is the Antagonist actively pursuing what she should be (not just reacting to the MC) and in a progression that makes sense?
• Are the right characters in the book?? Sounds funny to raise that at this point, but sometimes those secondary and tertiary characters, as much as we love them, don’t seem quite right for the story after we get the plot details hammered out. If you love them but they don’t fit, save them for another story and get the right characters in here.
• Are the settings right? Sometimes a scene is necessary to the story but feels boring simply because the setting is a repeat; your character was just there. Try to choose settings that have a symbolic purpose for each scene and those that increase the interest and/or tension in the story. This was challenging for me in my current WIP because it’s set solely within an old estate. The protagonist can only leave (while accompanied) to attend her father’s funeral. There aren’t as many settings as when I work on my Fantasy novels. However, it can still be done! Even in a single room or small space, it’s possible to highlight a very different area or aspect of the setting at different points in the story.

Again, after you find and plan these fixes, you’ll want to rewrite the story.

Draft #4: Rewriting Subplots, Relationships, etc.

Then reread it for issues related to character relationships, etc.

• Is the development of a character-to-character relationship too flat or stilted? If it is, it may be an issue of needing to write better dialogue, include more interactions in the scenes you already have, or even add a new scene (it’s never too late until the book goes live).
• Do you have character subplots and are these well-developed? Do they support the plot and yet stand alone – meaning: the subplots aren’t totally removed from the story and yet they aren’t 100% necessary to the plot?
• Does your antagonist have a sidekick? There’s a big advantage to it, if you haven’t already included one. See why here. If you have, is there relationship progressing? Are their interactions unique to them and consistent with their characters?
• Are all of your characters playing the archetypal roles they should? Meaning: if the MC has a mentor, is he mentoring, or is he running off on a side-tangent? If you use a jester-type of character, is she providing the comic relief in the right places? Are her actions unexpected enough to qualify as a jester? Etc. See Jung’s archetypes if you’re confused about this. It isn’t necessary to formally determine this for every book, but it can be very helpful as you develop your characters on the page.
• Is the dialogue largely subtext? [It should be.] Is any of it awkward or unnecessary?

Draft #5: Rewriting Thematic Underpinnings

It might seem odd that I’m talking about the theme at this point in the rewrite. That’s because, first, I’m assuming that you had your theme in mind and included its progression in your first draft. And second, a lot of what develops the theme for readers happens through character dialogue and description.

For example, my current manuscript has a couple of themes, one of which is that vengeance cuts both ways but justice always satisfies. At a plot level, it’s important that the MC and many other characters are exploring this throughout the story. My MC has a strong reason to pursue vengeance and I give her ample opportunities to do so. As she learns more about the antagonist, her desire grows but her opportunities are thwarted…until they aren’t. So those scenes have to be there for her to be able to attempt (or want to attempt) to take vengeance.

However, there’s a lot of dialogue that happens between her and her sidekick – the ghost of her long-dead aunt who met a very untimely death. And between other characters. There’s also a lot of symbolic description in various scenes that parallels this theme. That can be tweaked and refined in later drafts without [necessarily] having to add or subtract scenes. But give yourself the space and permission to do so if it’ll make a better end product.

In this draft, look for these types of things:

• Is your MC exploring the theme from a number of different angles (and rejecting the one you want him to learn)? For example, let’s say your theme is that most people can be trusted to help others regardless of what they gain from it. Your MC shouldn’t believe this at the start. He might pursue ways to prove that people are 1) inherently untrustworthy, 2) only trustworthy if they get something from it, 3) only trustworthy if they feel obligated, etc. This should work hand-in-hand with your plot, of course.
• Are your other dominant characters also dealing with this theme from different, less-prominent angles? See this article, if you’d like help understanding this.
• Is your description and dialogue contributing to the theme? Look for places where you’ve chosen the easy/ obvious description or statement and could instead say something more symbolic and intentional.

Draft #6: Clean-Up

At this point, you’ve written the book at least five times: your first draft and four rewrites. That’s not a hard rule, of course. All of this is simply meant to guide and aid you. However, this is how I go about a rewrite. The reason I do it this way is because I want my plot, characters and theme to be very dense and well-written. I can’t do that in one pass. And that many moving parts makes one rewrite too overwhelming.

I actually go through each of these steps fairly quickly considering how meaty this process is. And managing the rewrite process in layers keeps me sane. Very important.

A Personal Note

I promised a personal component to all of this. In a lot of ways all that I’ve said is personal; this is my process, which may or may not work for you. However, this is also where I am at the moment. I’m working on my sixth draft of my current book.

It had been finished, had even been to a number of beta readers, and had been revised due to their feedback. But then I stepped away from it for a year due to life circumstances and, once I came back to it, I had changed my publishing plans. By that time, my writing ability had improved enough that I wanted to take another look at the manuscript before sending it out to the editors.

When I did, I saw a number of things I wanted to refine, so I gave myself a set time limit: a few months during which I could rewrite to the best of my ability and still stay on track for an October 2023 release date. [This is hard for me. I could rewrite forever, continually refining and perfecting everything I do. There’s definitely a balance to be had.]

It’s hard during the Thanksgiving – Christmas month (or more) when there are so many other things happening and so many family expectations and obligations. However, I’m putting in a lot of time and am doing well so far.

This draft is a hodgepodge of a lot of different things. That’s why I call it Clean Up. That’s really an all-inclusive way of saying that I’m tweaking poor dialogue, adding in more visibility for a character or two, increasing some of the ominous symbolism, closing the loop on a couple of little [but important] things that readers might wonder about, etc.

It’s a lot to do, but I want to go to market with the best product I currently can.

Next Steps

After I finish this rewrite, I’m planning on sending the manuscript off to the editors. I’ve been researching these and have found a couple of women with a lot of experience in my genre(s). They will, of course, suggest changes – both developmental and simply line/copy editing – as well, which is why I have a timeline for all of this. However, I’m looking forward to enlisting their support and help in my growth as a writer.

If you don’t use outside editors…do. At least find a friend with a sharp eye for grammar who can fill in for the copy editing/ proofreading portion of the editing work.

Conclusion

If this seems like a lot, ask yourself: if you were offered a traditional publishing contract that [usually] comes with an 18-24 month lead-time between signing and the book’s release, would you take it? Because that lead time isn’t just an issue of marketing. During that time, the publishing house’s editors help the author refine the book so that it reads as well as it can.

Ask yourself if you’d rather release two or even four times as many books that sell poorly (because most self-published books don’t sell well primarily due to the quality of the books), or half as many books that all do at least fairly well if not very well?

Lastly, remember that your ability to do all of the above more quickly and effectively, in fewer drafts, will likely increase as you give yourself the time to work at your craft and learn all of the nuances of writing. Long way of saying: it probably won’t always take me this long and this many drafts to put out each book. However, it’s ok if it does. Many bestselling authors do take years per book. And the results are worth it.

More on that soon!

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Do you want readers to forget everything you’ve written? To enjoy your plot and characters but then promptly move on to another book without a backwards glance? To neglect to tell their friends and family that your book is one they should also read? Then you should forget about theme. Because a theme that resonates with readers is the one thing that touches people more deeply than plot or character ever can.

But what is a resonant theme? How pervasive should it be? And how do we accomplish this?

That’s what I aim to address in this week’s post. Buckle up.

What is a Theme

Ask any fiction writer except the most commercially driven and they’ll tell you that their book has a theme. I’ve yet to meet a writer in the adult world who will say My story means nothing. It’s just entertainment.

The problem is that few of these stories actually have a theme. Rater, the author has labelled a common thread in the story – for example friendship, or love, or memory – as the theme. The problem is that these generalities aren’t actually themes.

And they’re definitely not the kind that resonates with and causes readers to mull over and return to your book time and time again. Let’s start with a definition.

Surprising? Great writers, even of fiction, are always exploring something and putting forth a belief about something in the world, in humanity, in the supernatural arena, etc. Always. That exploration is wrapped in a plot in which the main (and secondary, if not other) characters explore the ways that people might look at that subject. They’re seeking to understand it as well and to come to a conclusion about it.

Examples

Let’s look at a few examples from well-known works. Keep in mind that these novels may have other themes as well, and/or the themes I’ve listed below could be worded in other ways.

Dracula by Bram Stoker – Eastern European immigration threatened to destroy the British culture. (For more on how I got there, see this video, in particular the 1:27 – 6:20 portion.)

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield – A twin is so connected to her sibling that a loss of one of them kills a piece of the remaining person, forever leaving them incomplete.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters – Each of us has a little stranger, a fragment of our subconscious, that acts according to our true desires for good or for evil

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë – Only one who is free and selfless is prepared to give and receive love in a healthy way

What’s a Resonant Theme

Then what makes a theme resonant? Some argue that it has to be something that’s true, for all people at all times. And I will admit that a theme like that, assuming that it’s well written, will have a very wide-reaching audience and appeal. However, I think we can each see that there could be disagreement about even the few well-renowned novels I’ve listed above.

A better way to define resonance would be: a theme that speaks to a desire or question to which most people could relate. I’ll throw out a few examples of my own:

1. The soul is immortal and takes all that it learns in this life into the next in which it finds a higher and more perfect use for all things.
2. One never has better, more enduring friendships than those he had as a child. [This is essentially the theme in Stephen King’s Stand By Me.]
3. A child who grows up with a critical parent will always struggle not to be critical.

Again, I think we can all look at these themes and say that there will be some people (including ourselves) who may not agree with these statements.

Also, note that I’ve presented three very different types of themes. The first is a spiritual one, the second is relational and the third is personal/ psychological. By definition, the first is the broadest and the third is quite narrow. The first and second are more likely to resonate with a large number of readers. That said, the third will still find a very wide audience. We all know or have known very critical people or people who have grown up in a very critical environment.

Don’t hesitate to write a narrower theme if it’s something that really speaks to you, or on which you’ve been dwelling. But if you can find a way to write it so that a number of people will be able to relate to it, you’ll find a solid audience.

The broader the theme (while still putting forth a specific idea) the more resonant it’s likely to be. There are very few people who wouldn’t be able to relate to the idea of childhood friendships being especially poignant, regardless of whether or not we all agree that they’re the best we’ll ever have.

How to Work with Our Theme

Once we have our theme, how do we write it into a novel? Let’s use this theme as our example:

One never has better, more enduring friendships than those he had as a child.

Your plot and MC’s growth will need to center on this idea. Let’s say your main character comes back from fighting in a war abroad. He’s terribly wounded – partly physically, but even more so emotionally and psychologically. He runs into a childhood friend at a Christmas party. This isn’t a happy reunion though. They had each endured deep trauma as children and had parted on bad terms.

He takes up with the local veterans’ support groups. There he meets some people with whom he immediately bonds very deeply. A couple of guys become close friends of his. He starts dating and ultimately marries a fellow female veteran. For a time, all is well.

But then he’s diagnosed with a crippling disease. His temperament turns difficult as the pain grows and his disappointment mounts. He’s financially stressed. As a final blow, his mother dies very suddenly and unexpectedly.

At the funeral, he runs into his childhood friend again. The two have a significant conversation. Something broken in their relationship begins to mend, though they don’t see it yet. Again, they go their separate ways.

You can probably see where this is going….over time his other relationships that were based solely on the veteran experience fall away. [I’m not saying that veterans really do this. Just the ones in my story.] Even his wife fails him. He discovers that she’s having an affair. She can no longer handle the stress of being his caregiver and facing down a long future in which she feels financially insecure.

As all of this is happening, he and his childhood friend slowly rebuild their relationship. In the end, that friend is the only one who stands by him. Who walks him through the last stages of his life, who cares for him no matter how hard it is and then sits with him as he passes away.

Notice that you never once in the entire book have to say that what you’re writing about is the fact that childhood friendships will always run the deepest and be the best. But that’s exactly what you’ve proven. I remember someone saying to me that the most powerful themes are those that are never stated. She’s right. If it’s as deeply entrenched in the plot and character growth as it should be, your readers will catch it even if they can’t quite articulate what it is.

Notice also that you accomplish this theme without preaching because your main character doesn’t know it. He thinks just the opposite and has to try every other avenue until he comes out with the answer that you want to put forth.

What About the Other Characters?

While all of this is happening, what do you do with your other characters? Why, that’s a great question. It took me until recent years to realize that in great writing the secondary characters are also exploring the same theme.

Remember how our main character’s mother died unexpectedly? Perhaps, in the wake of that, our MC needs to reach out to her friends for help or information. You know where they are? Unavailable. Or increasingly aloof. Perhaps it’s one of her earliest friends who helps him with the funeral, gathers photos and stories, and comes over periodically to check in on our main character. She may even become something of a mother-figure for him as he struggles with his illness.

The larger the story, the greater number of ancillary characters you’ll probably have. The more prominent ones should each be learning the same lesson as your main character. It helps me to brainstorm all of the ways a character could have to face this issue, or all of the different opinions one could have about it. You want them all to be running down their own tracks, but in ways that will come together in the end.

In our example, the theme is somewhat less conducive to a wide range of opinions. But many themes are not. Play around with ideas until you find ways for all of your prominent characters to pursue their own journeys that also prove out the theme.

Conclusion

There’s nothing that sticks with readers more than a story that really presents that truth to them in a way that causes them to think. Even if they don’t agree, give them a compelling journey to follow and mull over.

Lastly, if you’re looking for themes to explore, look to those questions – about life, death, relationships, your own mind – that you consider. What would you want to explore? What have you come to believe very strongly? Write that. It’ll be much more powerful than writing something that you don’t feel deeply about.

And of course, let me know what you’re working on. I love hearing about your writing goals and projects!

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Better Writing than Telling or Showing

When you ask writers (or prolific readers) what makes truly great vs. good writing, there are a number of things that people tend to say. Everyone wants to see characters who jump off the page, who are so unique and full of life that they’re unforgettable and become household names. We all want to lose ourselves in a book that has such a great balance of tension and pacing that we can’t put it down. And most of us love prose that captivates and transports us. But few people mention one of the most powerful writing tools there is: the ability to evoke emotion in the reader.

Even fewer seem to understand what that means.

I know what that’s like. I used to think that showing was the highest and best writing. After all, we like to say show don’t tell as if it’s the end of all great writing, when really it’s just the beginning. But then I read Donald Maass’s book, The Emotional Craft of Fiction. I continue to reread it because it’s an earth-shattering, mind-blowing, eye-opening look at the best way to engage readers: to cause them to walk in the main character’s footsteps. Telling doesn’t create that experience. Even showing only sometimes does. But evoking almost always does.

Telling vs. Showing vs. Evoking

Let’s look at an example to see what these three look like. In this example, your main character’s best friend is moving away. They’ve been inseparable since early childhood. Now, as pre-teens, Dani is watching as Mila’s parents load the last of their things in the SUV and drive away. Dani feels a sense of loss that she struggles to understand. She knows that she may never see her friend again. How would you write this scene? I’ll show you three abbreviated examples of what I might do – one for each type of writing.

Telling

Dani felt an emptiness growing in her chest as she watched Mila’s father stack cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets in the back of their Ford Explorer. A desperate desire to scream, to tell them to stay, to grip the car with her fingers and refuse to let go. Instead, she stood and mirrored Mila’s smiling face, and told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, she knew that she had lost something she would most likely never regain.

Comments: Ok. This paragraph isn’t terrible but it isn’t great either. In some ways it might even cause readers to feel something, especially if they’ve experienced something similar. And of course, there’s a place for some telling in our writing. When and how much though is another discussion, for another day.

Let’s try stepping it up a notch.

Showing

Dani clutched her phone, open to the photos she and Mila had taken at camp earlier that summer. She watched Mila’s father stack cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets in the back of their Ford Explorer. A weight pressed down on her chest. She fought against the welling tears that struggled to fill her eyes. She felt her fingers twitch, longing to grip the SUV’s door handle and refuse to let go. Instead, she stood and mirrored Mila’s smiling face, and told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, a deafening roar of static filled her ears. A cold tremor seized her heart, building a wall of ice that left room for nothing else.

Comments: Notice that I haven’t changed the story much. That’s intentional. The story is what the story is, but there are good, better and best ways to say the same thing. In this second example, I think you can see how much better this scene is. Here we see Dani desperately holding onto her memories (the photos on her phone) and fighting against her rising emotions. In the end, we see the death of that piece of her heart that held her friendship with Mila. We see it much better than if the writer tells us that she has lost something precious.

Notice also that there’s still some telling here. There’s a healthy mix of both showing and telling. Great writing doesn’t eliminate the usefulness of occasionally telling (or showing as we’ll see in a moment). We see the cold tremor seizing her heart, which shows us that something in her feels as if it’s dying. And we’re told that she’s building a wall of ice around her heart to close herself off from further pain. But can we do better?

Yes, we can.

Evoking

Dani clutched her phone, open to the photos she and Mila had taken at camp earlier that summer. She watched Mila’s father stacking their last things in the back of their Ford Explorer. But instead of seeing cardboard boxes and plants and laundry baskets, the leaves that swept around her feet took her back to the prior Fall. To her grandmother lying cold and still at the front of the church. To the once-cheerful yellow kitchen, Oma’s favorite cookbook leaning against the mixer, collecting dust. To her grandfather, seated on the edge of his bed, the quilt no longer draped over the end where it belonged. His expression a smile that no longer creased his eyes. To a quieter Christmas with an empty chair at one end of the table, the easy laughter of former years gone, replaced with a stiff formality.

As Dani listened to Mila’s lilting voice and watched her smiling face, she told her yes, of course she’d write. And visit. She’d always wanted to see Taos. It would be so fun for Mila to meet new people, to have a new house. But as the red taillights faded down the street and into the distance, a deafening roar of static filled her ears. A cold tremor seized her heart, building a wall of ice that left room for nothing else.

Comments: Notice that evocative writing often requires more real estate than showing, which in turn tends to use more words than telling. However, notice how much richer and more profound this simple scene has become. Now readers are gripped by the same deep sense of loss that Dani is feeling. That’s what we want.

We also learn more about Mila – about her past and the loss that she has suffered and about the changes in her family over the last year. This type of associative evocative writing gives the writer the opportunity to show more of the character’s history and experiences, leaving readers with a richer perspective of the story world.

In addition, if you compare the evoking example with the prior showing one, you’ll see that I haven’t mentioned any of what Mila is feeling. No mention of the weight in her chest, the welling tears, the desperate desire to hold onto something that’s already lost. But did you feel exactly those things as you read the evoking example? Hopefully you did.

The most powerful writing doesn’t need to tell or show readers what the character is feeling if the readers are already feeling it.

Readers know what Dani is experiencing because they’re experiencing it themselves.

Lastly, notice that evocative writing is sometimes executed with allusions that step outside of the immediate scene, those that are more of an association. We’re calling forth some of the images, impressions and memories that Dani might have at this moment. Images that she associates with this experience of loss. We can’t wander off and describe someone else who lost a loved one. But for Dani to suddenly picture a similar moment of grieving in her life is entirely natural and likely to resonate with readers.

Conclusion

Evoking takes your readers on an emotional journey. It causes them to feel. There are a number of ways to do this – more than just the associative method I’ve used above. If you’re interested in learning more, I recommend checking out Donald Maass’s book The Emotional Craft of Fiction. He walks through several of these, with great examples.

However, the key takeaway is that neither showing nor telling can cause readers to feel what the main character is feeling as well as evocative writing can. If you want your writing to be the best that it can be, you need to build this skill.

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