March 09, 2004
Rewriting revelations
Today has been interesting. I haven't made much progress in terms of actual word count, but instead I went back and rewrote a scene from the perspective of a different character, and what do you know. I think the scene works MUCH better this way.
I also had a small worldbuilding revelation. (Actually, it might not be that small.) Bear with me if it's obvious to everybody else--in truth, I think it was unconsciously obvious to me, it was just nice to have it float to surface consciousness.
I was thinking about how my sidhe in Exile view death, then thought "Oh! I should make sure it's clear that although they don't age or get sick, they can die by other means."
Then I realized I already had, without spelling it out in exposition. Alex's father is sidhe. He died. Alex, although she is naturally angry and grieving, isn't baffled or confused or shocked that a sidhe would die. It's accepted as a fact of life because of how the characters react to it, rather than because I stuck it in exposition somewhere: "Okay, sidhe don't age, but they can die."
I don't know what to call this technique, although I'm sure someone else has already coined a term for it (in fact, I've read about it before). It makes me wonder what other aspects of my world I've presented this way--and more importantly, it makes me wonder what exposition I can go back and cut in order to present the information this way.
Gods, the more I write (and rewrite), the more I realize just how much I still have to learn. I'm still planning to use Exile to agent hunt, but I swear, if I get an agent because of it, it's going to be because the agent saw some potential in me, not because of my mad writing skillz.
Posted by Lisa at March 9, 2004 01:05 PMOn that writing technique: this is something I've stumbled on recently, too, though in a more agonized and rationalized way (you and I approach this gig from opposite angles, which doesn't surprise anyone). Here's what I learned and where:
In a book about writing mysteries, one of the articles was about "telling details" -- rather than say a guy is kind (which is telling, right), authors are admonished to show the guy is kind. So the poor author, told what to do but not how, writes a thousand words about how the guy takes out the neighbor-lady's garbage. The scene shows he's kind, sure enough, but it adds nothing to the story and is dull. So maybe the author rewrites it to show the guy being kind to the waitress, who is more important to the plot, but that makes everything seem too insular and contrived. What's missing is the "telling detail" -- keep the garbage taking scene off the page, and figure some detail that is a side effect of it and add that detail to the existing story. Voila! Telling detail hints (shows) at the quality you're trying to convey.
What you've done is built a world with a quality -- Sidhe don't age, but they do die -- and you don't want to just tell us this. Rather, you want it shown. Rather than show it in exhausting detail and have some character draw the lesson for the reader, which is clumsy showing, you find a few side effects (one character is concerned but not surprised) and show that -- voila, a telling detail that shows rather than tells without being pedantic.
What I've been doing in the last week is building story data sheets where I write out a quality (told), three ways in which it could be shown (dull scenery), and three side effect details for each showing. That's nine details per quality that I can consciously include in a story to evoke the quality I want to convey without wasting word count on a full scene and without telling anything at all.
- emc
Posted by: emc at March 9, 2004 01:30 PM