Category Archives: Qualities of Good Fiction

Draft 18

02 Wednesday Nov 2022

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I am in the midst of draft 18 of my current novel. This is an administrative fact, but one that carries nuance.

The term defined: This is the 18th time I’ve printed, hand-edited, and rekeyed the entire manuscript. That is the extent of the value of saying “this is draft number 18.” 

The nuance it carries: There are sentences and paragraphs in this manuscript that are in their 3rd draft and others that are in their 12th. As I write this 18th draft, I’ll be adding sentences. These sentences will be first draft sentences. These rookie sentences are joining a roster of preexisting sentences—some of which are veterans, some of which are mid-career. 

My job is to develop this manuscript as a whole, to bring all of it along, to ensure that each sentence, no matter its tenure, is carrying weight, is collaborating with the sentences surrounding it. And, if I’ve done my work well, those first draft sentences and paragraphs, those last minute edits won’t be visible to the reader. If I’ve done my job well, the reader will never consider this entire process, but will get lost in the dream that is story.

HBARP

The Beholder’s Share*

06 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction

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The idea is this: part of the meaning or significance of a work of art is provided by the viewer. The viewer of the work, by the act of consuming the work, is granted a share of the art’s intent. There is a creative co-op that occurs between the artist and the audience.

In the Westside Writers Workshop, the writing workshop I facilitate, we have begun to use this term when we speak of our written work. We ask ourselves, what is the beholder’s share? How will a reader engage with this piece of writing? What will they take away from it, what will they make their own? How does the writing leave room for the reader to engage?

Creative writing may be started, but it isn’t finished in solitude. A written story is finished in public, out in the wild, where readers take it in, internalize, and share in it. This is when the work is finished, when it has found harbor with a reader. Readers complete books. Readers complete stories. 

*‘The beholder’s share’ is a term from the art world. Coined by Austrian art historian Alois Riegl and popularized by another Austrian-born, British art historian, Ernst Gombrich.

Fire

28 Wednesday Jul 2021

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Technicalities

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I am finishing a late draft of my current long-form project. The setting of the story is agricultural, pre-electricity. The family uses open flame for light. A couple of days ago, I was working on edits to the manuscript when I realized I had all the elements needed but had fully missed an opportunity for tension, conflict, and story.

A fire.

For some mysterious reason it had never dawned on me that a fire should occur in the story. I thought I’d mined the story line for all the tension it could offer, but in doing so I’d overlooked an obvious option.

Now there’s a fire. 

And now that it’s occurred, it’s hard to imagine the story without it. The conflict opened up another facet of characterization––for more than one character––and gave the reader another reason to turn the page.

What opportunities for conflict or tension are you overlooking in your current story? It could be as simple as taking the existing elements of the world you’ve built and letting them naturally interact.

Quote and Comment, Bradbury

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Quote and Comment, Ray Bradbury, Reading as a Writer

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Read poetry every day of your life. Poetry is good because it flexes muscles you don’t use often enough. Poetry expands the senses and keeps them in prime condition. 

Ray Bradbury

Over ten years ago I read my first book by Billy Collins, Ballistics. Since then, I’ve consistently had a book of poetry in my reading stack. While I don’t think Bradbury was necessarily aiming his comment at writers, reading poetry has impacted me creatively in a variety of ways. More specifically, I believe it’s had a positive impact on my prose––especially my novel in progress.

As Bradbury states, it builds muscles that might ordinarily get little or no attention. 

So exactly what does poetry bring?

Reading poetry brings new perspective to sentence length, word choice, and euphony––the music or rhythm in poetry. It brings awareness of how the prose looks on the page and how it reads aloud. It reinforces the importance of ending a paragraph with the penultimate phrase, or starting a paragraph with an image that demands the reader’s attention. Good narrative poetry provides insight into how to tell a story, when to be a minimalist, when to be an impressionist, and how concrete details––the right concrete details––can bring an unmatched realism.

Perhaps you don’t have any poetry on your shelf and don’t know where to start. Consider picking up a copy of Mark Lilley’s debut, Lucky Boy. Or start where I did, with Ballistics. Perhaps read through the Psalms in the Bible––a collection of ancient Hebrew poetry. Follow Bradbury’s advice. You’ll be glad you did.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Technicalities

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[This is the sixth and final part in a series of posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

You’re several drafts in and your story is starting to pop. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, while also creating tension for your reader. You’ve got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working and a ticking clock has been put in place.

So why hold back? Why not give your reader everything at once?

In the opening pages of Burden of Proof by DiAnn Mills, a female FBI agent stands in line at a store when a woman, also in line, her tells the agent she can’t care for her baby anymore and thrusts the child into her arms before walking out. A beat later a man approaches the agent and tells the agent that he’s the father. The child responds to her father’s voice. The father proceeds to ask the agent why she kidnapped his daughter.

There is a lot of information withheld from us as we read that scene. But this doesn’t stall the momentum. Instead it draws us in. Makes us turn the page.

Such withholding of information and delaying the gratification of a reveal can be done on a grand scale, such as when the solve comes at the end of a 300-page gauntlet, or on a scene-by-scene level as details are held back to drive up the reader’s wonder.

Your reader, whether they realize it or not, doesn’t really want to know what happens next––yet. This is the joy of story, the desire to discover. Discovering what’s next isn’t the joy; the joy is the desire to discover what’s next.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Ticking Clock

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Qualities of Good Fiction, Role of the Writer, Technicalities

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[This is the fifth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Ticking Clock

Your story is really starting to come together. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, and creating tension for your reader. You’ve also got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working as well.

Your main character is already fully motivated. What will adding a ticking clock do for your story?

It will bring to the forefront that reality with which we all live––there is only so much time. The narrative goal, if not accomplished in time, will result in even greater angst for your protagonist. Perhaps this ticking clock is driven by some aspect of place or setting, perhaps it’s driven by an ever-closer approaching antagonist, or even by some simmering character trait of the protagonist himself.  

A ticking clock will get your reader’s heart racing, it’ll pull your reader down into the story like little else can. Time is an element you must manage in your story, regardless. Why not manage it in a way that will cause your reader to––quick––hurry––turn the page?!

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Lower-Order Goals

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

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[This is the fourth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Lower-Order Goals

So, you have the narrative goal and a protagonist with the unwavering urgency to pursue that over-arching goal. You have laid out the obstacles that will hinder this character all along the way and create tension. The next concern is building the scenes that will form the overall story. 

Scenes can be thought of as mini-stories. Each scene moves the protagonist along in their quest. The best scenes have a goal, what Percy calls a lower-order goal, that propels that particular scene forward under the overall arc of the story. Just as the human urgency speaks to the DNA of the protagonist, these lower-order goals should as well. These goals should not only provide momentum but also develop the character, be integrated with what they say and do, and deepen the setting as well. Of course, the primary concern in this is your reader. Bring your reader along with pace and tone that creates the certainty––the certainty they will turn the page.

To Wrangle and Capture

04 Wednesday Nov 2020

Posted by in Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Reading as a Writer, Writing Life

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The poet Billy Collins’ latest book was released in September, Whale Day. As I do with every new Collins collection, I’m reading it slowly, treating it like the candy dish it is. Most evenings I dip in for a poem or two, often reading them aloud to my wife and the dog.

Nearing his 80th birthday, it amazes me how Collins continues to produce thoughtful, insightful, and edgy work. In this collection I find him yet more introspective, pushing his aesthetic a little further––a twist here, a turn there. It’s a delight to read.

That said, as I approach this collection––reading as I do, as a writer––I’m reminded that Collins has mastered that skill all writers (perhaps especially poets?) must master: the sensibility to wrangle and capture those moments that trigger the eye or heart, those moments in which the common man simply shrugs, grunts, and ambles on.

And this is the take-away for writers of all genres. Don’t let those moments that cause you pause to simply slip by and slide downstream. Grab a detail, a perspective, or an image from those experiences and use them to anchor your writing. Your writerly perception is a skill you must hone, for you are not like all the other lookers-on. You are a writer.

Sunday Word Choice

19 Wednesday Jun 2019

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Early Sunday morning, while working through edits to The Confessions of Adam, I came across a passage where one of the central characters uses the word ‘sewage.’

I stopped reading. The right word for the situation. The wrong word for the story. Too modern.

So began the search.

I didn’t want a reader pulled from the dream by the wrong word. 

With a dictionary in one hand and a thesaurus in the other, I went to work. I spent an hour reading and looking at synonyms, their definitions, their origins. Hundreds of words all revolving around refuse, waste, discharge, and other distasteful aspects of human leavings. 

It turns out that the word ‘sewage’ carries a lot of weight.

After finding my morning mood and stomach soured, I consulted a writerly friend. I texted him the challenge. Per his suggestion I went with the word ‘stagnant.’

And this is how it works. The word you’re looking for may not be an equivalent. It may be a change, a tweak, a subtle shift in tone, color, or perspective.

And this is the pursuit of story.

Style Is Content Is Style

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

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Tone. Voice. Color. Style. These are four of the many terms that we toss about when attempting to describe the qualities of a piece of writing. Defining these is tricky, so any time we are offered a bit of clarity we should grab it.
I’ve begun listening to a series of lectures by Brooks Landon of The University of Iowa. They are talks focused on crafting sentences – how and why they work.
In the first lecture he states that style is a result of content. What is in the sentence – how it is constructed, what is there and what is not – determines the style.
I thought that style was much more elusive than that. A week ago I may have written something as tangled and sideways as: “the footprint left by a writer from the accumulated weight of his/her sensibilities, derived from the way they think about, feel, and experience life – this mash-up is what we call style.” Oh dear.
Landon’s explanation is fulfilling because it makes the writing, not the writer, the central focus. Instead of delving into the rocky terrains of psychology, micro-culture, and worldview, we are guided instead to consider syntax, word choice, and phrasing.
One way to test this is to transfer the principle into other creative mediums.
Does not the material from which a suit is made and the way this material is put together determine the suit’s style?
Do not the plants and the design of their beds determine the style of the garden?
Does not the choice of music and the choreography applied to it determine the style of the dance?
The power of your work is in the sentences, and nowhere else. And the choices you make about what is on the page and how it is consumed by your reader amounts to your style.
No need to dig further.
Thank you Professor Landon.