The Place For My Writers Notes

Original Posting Dec. 29, 2016

Digging into the stack of slowly browning sheets, I find… Writer's Digest, June 1996, pages eight, 10, 11 or thereabouts, had an article by Nancy Kress with the title "The Four Ps" subtitled how to keep your fiction effectively dramatic – and keep your readers from snickering in the wrong spots. Drama, melodrama, parody? How do you get the emotion and the drama without going too far.

Well, Nancy starts out by reminding us that these three categories often are quite close. "Drama means a scene depicts events that evoke strong emotions in the characters, the reader or both. Melodrama means the events and emotions are exaggerated past the point of real credibility. And parody means everything has become so exaggerated that the only emotion now evoked is laughter."

So how do you control this? How do you control the emotions, making them dramatic, but not overdone? Four Ps! Placement, preparation, point of view, and precision. Here you go...

Placement. Nancy reminds us "no passion on the first date, please." At the very beginning of your story, we don't know the characters well enough to have a very emotional scene. Give us some time to understand the situation and the characters, and the scene might very well play. "Save your emotionally juicy scenes for placement in the last half of your short story. Or at least the last two-thirds."

Preparation. Here we're going for ripeness! Prepare us for the emotional reactions. Foreshadow that the characters are capable of strong dramatic reaction, and convince us that the trigger event, the thing that they are reacting to, really would push them into that strong a reaction. "To earn the right to a dramatic scene… Concentrate on foreshadowing. Both characters and situation must have demonstrated the capacity for losing control."

Point of view. Carefully pick who we are witnessing the drama through. An observer, standing outside the dramatic explosion, may help us feel balanced. Even a participant may be more rational and thoughtful than the characters who are exploding. A calm point of view can be an anchor in the midst of the storm.

Precision. Finally, tone down the melodrama with careful word choice. Avoid clichés, use fresh and original phrases to convey the emotion without slipping into parody. Details, precision, sincerity can help make your drama dramatic without going overboard.

Nancy ends with a warning. Some readers are going to find parody and melodrama in everything. After all, the reader interprets, and they may simply not want to invest themselves that deeply. But, do your best, put it in the right setting, foreshadow it nicely, use the best point of view, and pick your words carefully.

Let's see. This is kind of an interesting one to try to dream up a good way to practice it. Perhaps the easiest is to take a scene, from your own work or someone else's, that you consider dramatic, that has that emotional punch that Nancy is talking about. Now, try rewriting it, at least two different ways. First, push it over into melodrama. Yes, let the villian twist his black moustache, and let the cliches fall where they will! Second, try turning it into a parody! Can you make us laugh at the ridiculous lengths that this scene is going to? Then, of course, you might want to try a rewrite as a pure and simple dramatic highlight, with the words and emotions intended to work with the reader.

All right? Write!
tink

Original posting 5 January 2009

The Silver Screen

Writer's Digest, June 2005, pages 29 to 31, have an article by Chris Eboch with the title "the Hollywood touch." The question is whether there are some useful techniques that novelists can borrow from screenwriters. Adaptation doesn't have to always go one way. "Screenwriters know a great deal about efficient storytelling -- keeping a plot moving forward, writing snappy dialogue and making characters unique, for example." So what are some guidelines or techniques that can be borrowed?

1. Open Big. Start with a big opening scene -- visuals, color, movement. Action to grab the reader's attention. Something exciting, different, weird. And it needs to be an event that affects the character. Establishing the protagonist role and goals? Sure. The key here is to make the opening grab the reader -- and then don't let go.

2. Scene by scene. "Set high expectations, then satisfy them. Consider each scene in your novel. How can you make it bigger, more dramatic?" What's the worst thing that could happen? That's what you want in your novel. You also want set pieces -- big scenes that the reader remembers. At the same time, you need a good balanced mixture of action and dialogue.

3. Get to the point. Edit. Focus on making the most of your story points, and get rid of flourishes and lazy writing. "Novelists who focus on action over description are a step closer to making their books page - turners.... Make up for the lack of visuals by appealing to all five senses. Just keep the story moving and use short descriptions to advance the plot, not distract from it."

Big openings, drama in every scene, a mixture of action and dialogue, and ruthless editing.

What about an exercise? Take your work in progress, and consider how each scene would be turned into a movie segment. Where would it be shot from (is the point of view clear?) Does it have clear setting and objects, so that the props department can produce it? Does every scene have some good dialogue and action for the characters? Is their motivation clear, so that they can act? Do the rewriting needed by thinking through your story as a movie.

And who knows, you might get your name up in lights!