EXERCISE: Turn Around, I'll Be There?

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original posting: Tue, 03 Oct 2000 20:44:00 -0400

Okay, quick and more than likely a bit odd...

Pick a noun (you know, the concrete things.  Although for this occasion, a bit of abstraction may be useful.  So pick something like love, life, one of those big thoughts.  Got it?)

Pick a verb (action!  What the nouns do, when they get together in the jungle of language?  Anyway, a verb.  Crumbles, grows, something that the noun might be doing...here, a bit of concreteness is good.)

Now, toss your noun and your verb into the following sentence:

Music is the spindle around which <insert your noun here> <insert your verb here>.

So, for example, you might construct the sentence:

Music is the spindle around which love crumbles.

Take that sentence, and add more.  You may want to talk about the various kinds of music, and howl about the ways that your noun achieves your verbosity when rotating about the notes and bars of musical inspiration.  Or perhaps you would simply like to wander down into a specific scene and tale expanding on the thought of music, your noun, and your verb.

In any case, write.

EXERCISE: What do I do now?

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original posting: Fri, 01 Sep 2000 22:43:46 -0400

Hi, all.

One of our new members, in response to my letter about what it means to become a member of writers, asked the poignant question "What do I do now?".

Perhaps, if you have a few moments, you might answer that question.  In particular, I'm thinking of three areas:

1.  What can I expect from this list?  What is the purpose, what byroads do we wander along, where are we going and how do we get there?

2.  What should I do to participate in the list?  Suppose I want to send my stories (poems, essays, etc. -- scribblings?) to the list and comment and talk about technique and...  What is the best way to become a well-known and visible member of this place that isn't a place?  (and should I start by shaking hands or handing out business cards or just with a hearty "hi, ho, what do you know!"? :-)

3.  Are there games, questions, exercises, or what to help me along?  How do I join in the ring-ding dances?  Do I need to avoid stepping on the over-grown bunions of that wild-eyed list master?  What about the wrestling mat over there -- how can I get on it (and off it!) without pain and anguish?

Or whatever you think would help the new members (or even the older ones) to orient themselves, put their words out here, and enjoy the ambience (did anyone notice the new philodendron in the corner?  I go out of my way to get those chintzy curtains and no one even mentions the color!  Honestly, you'd think everyone enjoyed the dust gathering under the rocking chairs.  Come on, get up and shake a broom at the spiderwebs at least, okay?)

Later!

EXERCISE: What's Romance Got To Do With It?

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original posting: Sat, 10 Feb 2001 02:12:55 -0500

Just a quick note in the muddle...

Have you ever seen something called "Talk Soup"?  Flipping through the channels this morning, I caught a brief clip where they were commenting on a "blind date" a young lady had.  Apparently she was "given" a visit by an exotic male dancer, who stripped to his shorts and lap-danced?

The commentator exclaimed "That's not romantic!"

And I pondered, as I sometimes am wont to do, just what would be considered romantic.  In particular, for a young lady.

So describe that romantic evening (getaway?  lunch party?  you pick it).  Lay out the sights, sounds, tastes, aromas, sensations and events that add up to the elusive romance.

I'll even recommend that both parties enjoy the time together...

(Chianti and pasta?  Gaaarlic!  Now that's a romansa! :-)

TECH: Make A Scene #14: Dramatic Scenes

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[In case anyone hasn't been paying attention, this is another chapter from Make a Scene by Jordan E. Rosenfeld. We're wandering through various specific kinds of scenes at this point. And today, we've got . . .]

Chapter 14: Dramatic Scenes

Rosenfeld says that dramatic scenes are where you bring emotional content to the readers. When you deliver stunning emotional consequences, pushing the protagonist and the plot into new territory, you use dramatic scenes.

Rosenfeld says the goal of drama is to get the reader's feelings involved, not fancy writing or even the characters' emotional range. Dramatic scenes often lead up to epiphanies or climax scenes and usually include:

• a focus on emotional intensity
• heavy relationship-oriented interactions, deepening connections or sometimes breaking connections
• actions that push the protagonist into reflection on inner consciousness
• indications of an upcoming turning point

There are lots of forms of drama, but they all push characters into change. Drama forces characters to make decisions and face complications that makes them think about their own behavior and actions and beliefs.

Dramatic scenes often counterbalance contemplative scenes or dialogue scenes, bringing out the emotional confrontation. Since they push protagonists into change, they're more likely in the middle and the end of the narrative than in the very beginning

Structure of Dramatic Scenes: dramatic scenes often open and close at a slow pace, although the emotional intensity and pacing should grow higher and faster until there is some sort of climax, and then may back off again. Often there are three parts:

1. Slow opening, with exposition, setting details, and interior monologues
2. Rising pace and emotional intensity, with dialogue, actions, and emotional content rising to a crescendo.
3. Slow down for reflection, with increasing interior monologue or exposition

Rosenfeld suggests thinking about emotions as hot and cold. Hot emotions such as anger and passion erupts and spillover, they're loud. Too much hot content leads to melodrama. Cold emotions like shock and hurt often results in silence and withdrawal. Too much cool emotion though can make the scene flat and frozen. You need a balance of both for a good dramatic scene.

Dramatic Scene Openings

Dramatic scenes often builds slowly towards the real crisis. Dramatic tension, the potential for problems and conflict, often needs a setup. Narrow the focus down, bring in actions and characters with a sense of foreboding and emotional intensity. Introduce the interaction with another character or with a larger force of opposition.

Then, through escalating events and their actions, push the protagonist to change. "Dramatic scenes put the pressure on your character to transform so that your plot can move forward." Some examples of emotional complications in dramatic scenes include:

• confrontations
• reunions
• borrowed or limited time
• crushed expectations
• the threat of bodily harm or death

"What matters most is that at the end of a dramatic scene, your protagonist has had a new or enlightening emotional experience that causes her to behave, think, or feel differently."

Keep in mind that dramatic scenes need to be based in the overall plot. Intense emotional conflicts should push this story forward.

Closing the dramatic scene: given the emotional intensity of a good dramatic scene, you don't want to end with a cliffhanger. Give the protagonist, and the reader, a moment to reflect on what happened.

Avoiding Melodrama

One of the concerns of many writers is that their dramatic scenes will slide over the line into melodrama. Melodrama, with over-the-top excessive emotional intensity is hard to believe. It's usually a result of a writer not quite trusting the readers to get the point. So to avoid falling into that trap, be subtle. Let your readers figure things out, let them put together the puzzle of the hints and images that you provide.

So where does melodrama happen?

• sentimentality, with cliches, trite, and corny dialogue and sentiments
• hysterics, too loud, too emotional, too far out
• grand or unrealistic gestures, with changed characters acting out their new understanding in bigger than life ways
• silver screen speeches, with the characters suddenly sounding more like actors than actors. When the reader wonders who is writing this dialogue, you're in trouble.
• knee-jerk reactions, with characters changing too easily
• an overabundance of descriptors, a.k.a. purple prose. A heavy layer of adverbs and adjectives sometimes contributes to melodrama.

Reducing the Melodrama Quotient

1. Check the emotional intensity. Is there sufficient grounds for the emotional responses?
2. Fine tune dialogue. Read it aloud, get someone else to read it, and work on it until it sounds like real people talking, not puppets for the writer's voice
3. Adjust character behavior. Make sure the motivations and the actions line up and are natural.
4. Keep gestures human scaled. Your characters need to do things, but they should seem possible.
5. Balance your characters. All of your characters need to be roughly in the same scale. Villains that are so much stronger, interesting, and so forth than the protagonists can make a scene unbalanced.

Checklist for dramatic scenes

1. Does the scene focus on characters' feelings?
2. Does the scene have an emotional climax that pushes the protagonist to change?
3. Are character relationships and interactions the focus of the scene?
4. Are the reactions intense without being melodramatic?
5. Does the dramatic scene introduced an epiphany or contemplative scene?

[Hum? Interesting that we had a whole chapter on dramatic tension that focused on delayed conclusions -- the truck barreling down the alley towards the protagonist, and postponing showing exactly what happens for a while. But now we're talking about dramatic scenes, which I sort of thought might be those that fill in that waiting time, and we've gone off into the emotions and feelings? Oh, well, I shan't let the hobgoblin of small minds hold me back:-]

So instead of Sergeant Friday's "just the facts," we're going to get some emotion into our dramatic scenes, right? One suggestion from me -- think about times that you've felt the emotions and feelings. Pick up details and bits that helped make you feel that way, then transform them for your stories. Maybe that picture of a mother frantically digging into the rubble where a child was buried in an earthquake makes you gulp? Okay, now how can you use that in your story? Or the proud stance when you listen to a song with a someone chasing that impossible dream? Put that into your story!

Assignment? Well, the obvious one is to check out a dramatic scene in one of your stories, and feel free to do that. But . . . let's find that song that makes you sniffle a bit. Might be someone lighting up the sky on Independence Day, might be someone saying "You can let go now, Daddy" or whatever, but take that song. And write up the scene. Go ahead and make it melodramatic if you want to, this is practice. Then tone it down. Can you make that tearjerker just hints and images? Just an impression that makes the reader sigh?

Go ahead, write!

TECH: Make A Scene #13: Suspense Scenes

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TECH: Make a Scene #13: Suspense Scenes

[continuing the series on Make a Scene by Jordan Rosenfeld]

What do you think will happen next? That's the real question behind suspense. Rosenfeld suggests that suspense is a state of uncertainty producing anxiety. And you know, it doesn't matter whether we're waiting for something good to happen or something bad to happen, the reader is still hanging on the edge of the precipice. And the longer you as writer delay the outcome of the scene, the more your readers will enjoy it. So which scenes are suspense scenes?

1. The protagonist starts out in trouble or quickly gets mired in danger
2. Emotional, physical, or spiritual stakes for the character get more complicated
3. Emotional intensity increases and does not let up
4. Events or characters exert pressure on the protagonist to change or to act in some way

Suspense scenes add emotional zip, raise the emotional ante, and complicate things. They're often used after descriptive, contemplative scenes or dialogue driven scenes that mostly give out plot information. They act as a counter, getting the reader and the protagonist excited and out of their comfort zone. They are also fast scenes that push your reader to keep reading, so they can sometimes be good lead-ins to revelations. Oddly enough, suspense scenes are usually relatively slow paced, focusing on details. The agony of waiting for resolution is what makes it seem fast. Don't rush it, you want to give the reader time to worry.

The opening of the suspense scene should make the reader worry about the protagonist. The protagonist doesn't have to be hanging over the edge yet, but he can certainly be glancing at it. Or you might want to simply have the protagonist picking up some details that aren't quite right -- who left their muddy shoes on the porch?

• introduce a catalyst or antagonist with intentions that the protagonist does not trust
• let a character or event threatened or pressure the protagonist who resists
• let your protagonist under pressure react or do something that causes unexpected conflict

Mood, setting, sensory details -- these are what really build the suspense scene. Don't overdo it (remember the pathetic fallacy, wherein the weather always reflects the protagonists feelings). But select details and words that show the reader that something is wrong.

• dramatic weather can threaten the characters, block their achievements, or simply complicate everything
• decay or other evidence of damage makes readers wonder if the protagonist will end up in the same shape
• color and light -- there is a reason that bad things happen in the dark -- it's scary!
• eerie touches can certainly add to the picture

Raising the stakes. When the character's fate changes or new complications come in, a suspense scene can dramatize the new directions.

Strange or surprising actions that challenge the normality and expectations of the protagonists and the reader can push suspense. The confusion of this unexpected action raises the pressure and anxiety.

Ending a suspense scene. You need to finish the action and give the reader a pause. This might be a reflection by the protagonists, or maybe some other kind of pause. You need to let the reader take a breath. Another way is to run the scene right out into a cliffhanger. If you do this, pick it up in the next scene.

Note that even thrillers usually don't have all suspense scenes. You need to give the reader a break.

Rosenfeld's key points about suspense scenes

1. Does the scene open in an uneasy or anxiety provoking way?
2. Does the protagonist quickly get into trouble?
3. Is there enough emotional intensity in the scene?
4. Do events or an antagonist put pressure on the protagonist through opposition?
5. Is gratification delayed? Are conclusions to scene events postponed, and are the intentions of characters blocked?
6. Does the scene's end break the suspense or are we left hanging?

So that is Chapter 13. Suspense, getting the hero in trouble and letting them stew.

Incidentally, I think such scenes are a kind of staple for every writer. Thriller, adventure, mystery, romance, science fiction -- maybe if you're writing nonfiction you don't need to write suspense scenes, but I'm not sure about that. So we really need to practice these, setting up the structure and doing it. Can you think of any kind of fiction that doesn't need at least some suspense scenes?

An exercise? Well, these are staples for TV, so how about taking a look at a TV show and picking out a suspense scene? Perhaps the car chase or race somewhere (don't all TV shows have one of those?). Or some other scene that makes you bite your fingernails? How did it start, and what about it makes you worry and fret? Now think about how you might produce similar effects in a written scene. You don't have the background muzak to help, but you have plenty of other tools. So . . .

Write!

The writer's job is to help readers see the invisible -- or at least worry that it's coming.