Archive for November, 2007
Visible Cold, Vanishing Point
Mostly cross-posted from The Midnight Hour, as I am tremenjously sick today.
Yesterday I posted about exposition and infodump. More specifically, I answered a Reader’s questions about why infodump is so prevalent. Today my cold is much worse and I am feeling just as cranky, so I thought I’d point you toward that post as my contribution to the world for this week. I’m too sick for much else. When one starts having fever-dreams involving spiders, it’s time to go back to bed.
Before I go on, though: in answer to reader Dave Grenier’s questions: I just did those Vanth paragraphs on the fly, they were disposable. I really wasn’t thinking of much other than illustrating the exposition point. I’m glad you liked them.
I will, in the interests of fully shouldering my blogging responsibilities, mention that I’ve been thinking about artistic synchronicity lately. I heard about Vanishing Point while watching Tarantino’s Death Proof, and of course got it up on my Netflix queue. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but am too sick to come up with any in-depth analysis*. I will just note that after destroying my protagonist’s orange Impala in the current book I was thinking about a replacement car, since Jill is kind of a gearhead. I’m thinking she might have to find a 1970 Dodge Challenger and cherry it out.
I just wonder what color I’ll have to make it for my picky, picky Muse. White would be just too much.
Off I go to take cold medicine and curl back up in bed before everyone else wakes up. Sorry for being a party-pooper, but I am really not up to par today.
* Although there is a Viggo Mortenson remake I fully intend to lay on the floor and watch today. If Viggo doesn’t cure the common cold, there is no hope for humanity.
muckity muck and exposition
The cold has struck. It’s not as bad as I feared, but a deep cough and enough mucus to grease a runway? Check. Body aches and pains? Check. All this while I am undergoing that particular female biological process all girls of reproductive age are visited with about every twenty-eight to thirty-six days?
CHECK, dammit. Check.
Yeah, I know, too much information, Lili-san. Sorry. It is a blog, you know.
Reader Elaine asked after yesterday’s post on infodump, “For something that is on all the lists of story-telling errors, why is it so prevalent?”
Ah, a simple answer, Grasshopper. Because it’s easy.
Compare this:
Vanth was an assassin for the Jackal King. The Jackal King owned the streets in the city Vanth lived in, called Vois. Vanth was a real badass and hated the Jackal King.
To this:
It was time for another job. He stretched, making sure nothing would creak or jingle while he moved, took a few experimental steps, touched the garrote’s handles. A job that called for a neck cord was likely to end badly; you were just as much at risk of losing a finger as the mark was of losing its life.
Vanth preferred a good clean knifing from behind, if you prepared the ground well the mark could not easily struggle and cause problems. But perfumed, whispering, greasy Sivarus wanted this one strangled, it was a condition of the prize, and one did not disagree with the Jackal King’s expressed preferences. Not unless you wanted to lose the prize and quite possibly one’s own license to weed the world of annoyances.
That was how Vanth phrased it to himself, when he thought of it at all. He was in the business of removing annoyances, for those who had the money. The rich could pay for an annoyance-free life. Other sad saps, like Vanth himself, had to work for every annoyance-free moment they could snatch.
He took a final look around his small rented room, closed one eye, and stared at his unmade cot while he counted to fifteen. Then he blew out the candle, opened his now dark-adapted eye, and ghosted for the window.
It never did to leave from the front door too often…
That isn’t the best illustration in the world, but it works. Exposition seems easier because we place a premium on verbal information-giving. However, what works well verbally may not ever work well on the page. An indirect directness works best on the page; you must avoid definitive statements from the third person about your protaganist (Vanth is a badass, Vanth hates Sivarus) but you can state definitively what the character is doing or thinking about (perfumed, greasy, whispering Silvarus; Vanth has to work for annoyance-free moments.) Those things, if chosen carefully, can hold two or three different pieces of information about the character at once. And they MUST.
Dialogue is not just what a character says. Dialogue must also serve the purpose of telling us something about the character and MOVING the story along. If it doesn’t, kill it swiftly before it breeds. Definitive statements from the character’s point of view are the same way. If they only say one thing, they’re exposition. If you can weave them to say two or three things about the character at once by showing what the character does and says, it’s actual writing.
A touch–a mere pinch–of exposition may be okay, if there is no other way to get the effect you want. One must, however, think carefully about what to put in and what task, exactly, the expo is supposed to perform. It must be a conscious choice.*
When I see a lot of infodump I see an apprentice writer’s mistake. When I start seeing less infodump and more showing, there are no longer apprentice mistakes–there are journeyman mistakes, which only about ten percent of people who think they’re writers make because they’ve made and learned from all the other mistakes. I don’t read stuff that makes apprentice mistakes. I put it back into the slush pile and I move on. Infodump is a mistake that will land you in the slush pile ninety-nine times out of a hundred.**
Exposition is a piece of information you give the reader that s/he just has to take on faith because you SAY so. (Vanth is a badass.) Real writing is where you show Vanth getting hit in the gut and a finger hacked off, and dealing with it well enough to kick the shit out of Sivarus’s goons and escape–and then bandage himself up while shaking and realizing how close to death he came THIS time. (Which touches on combat psychology and combat scenes, a different ball of wax. Stay focused, Lili.) Additionally, exposition is passive. There is no movement in infodump. The character stands there like a wax figurine to be painted. During SHOWING, not telling, the character moves and breathes in such a way that the reader can read between the lines and decipher numerous things about Vanth, his background, his personality, his job, his outlook on life, and his likely reasons for doing what he’s doing.
This is one of the reasons why writers must read constantly and omnivorously. After a while, infodump gets to be like pr0nography–you may not be able to define it but you knows it when you sees it.
It’s not easy. It’s a heck of a trick pony ride. But when done well, it’s what writing is all about, and it’s well worth thinking about. Pretty much every jackass who can tell a good joke at a family reunion thinks s/he can be a writer. “How hard can it be when it’s just telling stories?” But telling stories on the page requires a completely different skillset than telling stories at the family reunion. Each sentence has to perform multiple functions and balance against every other sentence. Then there’s plot and characterization, verisimilitude, pacing, and all sorts of other things to consider.
Hey, if this was easy, anyone could do it. And I’m sorry, but “just anyone” can’t do it. Writers work hard and think about these sorts of things.
Thank God.
* Breaking the rules consciously is NOT the same as breaking them because one doesn’t know any better.
** I can hear some of you now thinking about wildly popular books are are pure exposition–Dan Brown, for example, or Tom Clancy. Such books are not writing. They are technical manuals with a thin veneer of hero worship. Don’t bother with those.
Beware The Mad Writer
Don’t take anything I say personally today. I woke up in the kind of mood Attila the Hun must have woke up in when he decided to take over the world–and not in a nice way, either. Not that I’m about to take over the world…but I am certainly in take-no-prisoners mode.
I had a whole long post planned today about infodump and exposition. I’m reading a book today that has been two chapters of infodump from the main character. The only show don’t tell was a short chapter sandwiched between the other two, and that had its starring character murdered. Which sucked.
On the one hand, I’m intrigued enough by the premise to keep reading. On the other, goddammit, I HATE infodump. I like being thrown into the action and figuring everything out in context. In media res is also how I like to start books, and my editors keep telling me I need to explain more. It’s so clear inside my head sometimes the explanations seem superfluous…and of course, with this kind of balancing act, nobody is going to be completely happy. Readers sometimes think I’m explaining too much or wish I’d explain more, and editors feel the same way. Writing is like trying to satisfy all of the people enough of the time.
But I’m cranky and tired, so I suppose today isn’t the day for a big post on exposition and infodump. Instead I will remark that my bud Nina Merrill’s mini-novella Genie, No Bottle is available on Amazon as a Kindle book. There’s a hot genie in it–and guacamole. Which is all kinds of awesome. End cheap shill for friend’s book. *grin*
All right. I shall bid adieu. This cruddy mood may not even be helped by the challah bread I am required to bake today. Wonder if I should clean up around the heavy bag? That’s certainly therapeutic, but I need my fingers to type with. I suppose I’ll just settle for deep breaths and repeating I shall not lose my temper until tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow…
Because That’s How We Roll Around Here, Baby
Why, I ask you, WHY, does the Muse decide she’s got a gargantuan load of plot to dump on me RIGHT WHEN I’VE GOT REVISIONS DUE ON A TOTALLY DIFFERENT BOOK?
*weeps, gnashes teeth*
So of course I’ve spent the morning tooling around on the Internet, not doing much of anything. Of course, I needed that time to get everything straight in my head…but Jesus, why does the Muse have to be difficult? I need to be doing revisions on Book 2 now, period. I can’t have Book 3 trying to birth itself from my cranium right now.
I can’t tell the Muse to go away either. So it’s sleepless nights for a while, unless we can strike some sort of bargain.
I do love this job, even with this.
Happy Tuesday, everyone.
Some Sunny Day, Baby
First, an excellent pair of posts about street kids and verisimilitude. Kaigou has taken the trouble and time to point out why the treatment of street kids in fiction (especially urban fantasy, but not limited to that genre) is often wildly inaccurate, and what an author can do about it.
Part one is here, and
Part two is here.
These posts are not just useful for characterization and plot holes, they are also true. If you know anyone who has ever been on the street, these might help you understand (and hopefully, interact with) that person a little better.
Ace Backwords once did a strip with a cartoon mouse leaning against the frame. “Streets?” he said. In the next box, someone had fallen and bounced off the pavement, twisted and tangled. “Hard.” the mouse says. In the last box, the mouse addresses the audience. “Any questions?” Which pretty much sums it up, though it’s not quite useful as a guide.
It was difficult for me to read these posts because they are so dead-on, though I am relieved someone else feels the way I do about toilet paper. Nothing like finding out someone else shares your security item. Anyway, both posts are HIGHLY recommended. Read ‘em even if you don’t write.
Yesterday was a busy day. I got workbooks for the Princess, did some yardwork (yes, I still hate raking; but it’s kind of okay sometimes when I do it and when I can start and stop at will to stare off into the distance) and baked white bread and challah. (mmmh egg wash!) I ALSO finished the copyedits on Night Shift, though I forgot the glossary. (Insert “D’oh!” noise here.) I finished up by going for a short walk in the freezing cold and now have developed some kind of cough. I know it probably wasn’t the cold air, but still, I’m feeling hypochondriac enough to obsess over it.
Wah.
I seem to be feeling the cold more intensely these days, and the only thing I can think of is that the weight loss has robbed me of insulation. I am still nowhere near skinny but I am roughly half the size I was, and that’s a lot of (pardon the term) blubber that ain’t keepin’ me warm no more.
I’ve also been rereading Kaigou’s posts and remembering times when I’ve been colder. And I’m looking around this house, which is damn near a palace compared to a lot of places I’ve lived. Not only is it damn near a palace but it’s also arranged the way I like, and if things get messed up or accidentally broken nobody has to cry or make up for it in pain. And it’s quiet, no screaming or yelling except when the kids are excited and happy. No suddenly-shifting sand underfoot. Here is solid ground, and I am glad of it.
So today I’m going to take it kind of easy. I’m ahead of schedule, so if I just knock off a few of the first revisions on Hunter’s Prayer and take a stab at the glossary, I should be ahead of the game. It’s a nice place to be.
