I have a real problem getting any writing done these days, besides blogging and emails and paying jobs. I used to spend hours and hours out in the sunshine with a notepad and a pen, coming up with fresh work, writing first drafts, noting down interesting ideas to explore. Or else I was writing actual stories and scenes, working on revision, reading great writers and taking notes, analyzing their plots and following character development and sometimes just copying out longhand the sentences I loved. I also spent a lot of time hanging out with my little boy.
But when am I supposed to do stuff like that now, when there are blogs to read and links to follow and conversations to have over IM about whether or not my friend in a cube in Silicon Valley gets M&M’s in the break room today? I mean—really. I’m not infinite.
Do you know when was the last time I wrote a story or even an article, just for the sake of it? Neither do I.
How busy are you? How much of your life (especially now that we have the endless blogosphere to mess around in) do you spend busily staying busy without actually accomplishing anything? How many evenings do you look up and say, “Huh. I had stuff to do, but the day seems to have just gotten away from me. . .”?
And, most importantly, how is this affecting your writing?
We’re talking about exposition today on the magazine.
Not till the knife of love gained sufficient edge could he cut out her figure from its surroundings.
—Elizabeth Bowen, “Ivy Gripped the Steps”
Exposition: the necessity for it to be sharp and succinct ties it intimately to line editing. . .yet it is simultaneously tied to artistic vision and also to the simple mechanics of plotting.
What is exposition for?
Exposition is for stepping outside of the reader’s vivid experience of living this story—summarizing what could almost always be better said in scenes—and in a way that both moves the plot forward, creates layers and complexity, and illuminates the story beneath the plot, the real, hidden agenda.
All that?
Yes, all that.
You can see why fiction has moved away from exposition (nineteenth-century novels are chock full of the stuff) toward scenes. Because, as hard as scenes are to write, they’re a thousand times easier to do right than exposition. . .
“Hey, Mom! I just got done planning a book about relativity. I outlined 20 chapters, and I’m going to write them all. I even came up with chapter titles. And you’re going to love it, because it’s full of faux resolutions.”
Today we’re linking to a guy my husband knows, Joe Brockmeier, a professional writer who’s written a great post on exactly what that job is.
Writing’s always been a fun idea for people who really like written language and telling stories (some folks call them “lies”), and lots of us out here have been noodling around with words and sentences and characters and plotlines for decades, enjoying ourselves mightily the whole while.
But suddenly in recent years there’s been this explosion of massive marketing aimed at people who don’t really know writing—most notably the latest rage to skip working on your writing skills and go straight for the platform—fueled by the very industry that feeds off the dreams of aspiring hopefuls. And it’s insane. You can’t be a professional writer if you don’t learn how to write! And you can’t earn money at it if you don’t like doing what you have to do to earn it!
Me, I don’t mind technical writing. It’s all about organization and clarity, translating complex ideas into simple language, which appeals to me. It also comes with a salary, so I don’t have to keep asking my boss over and over and over again to hire me back. Even now that I’m not working full-time in the industry anymore, I prefer contracting. It pays really good.
I don’t much like freelance nonfiction work. I don’t like competing with all the other freelancers over who’s got the best clippings. I don’t like the constant self-sell. It taxes my lily-white brain. So I pretty much leave it to the people who don’t mind that stuff, like my friends and husband.
Of course, I love fiction. I love working with fiction authors. I love reading fiction. I love writing it. However, as with freelance nonfiction, I’m basically lazy and don’t send stuff out all that often. I get busy. . .
The worst part of the publishing industry these days is the economy. Because, as more and more professionals in the industry get laid off and turn to freelance work teaching others how to do what they used to do, the more innocent hopefuls are pulled into the vortex. And the harder and harder it becomes to sell any writing, no matter how great, making the vortex that much darker for everyone.
My closest writer friend tells me I should stop saying things like that, since my own work feeds off your innocent assumption that if I edit your work you can get it published. It’s perfectly true that I can edit your manuscript to be not just publishable, but the highest quality it can possibly be. (That difference, unfortunately, gets bigger every day.) I do know how to do that. Really well.
But please, guys, understand what professional writing is. Understand what it isn’t.
You’re not going to get rich as a writer. You’re not even going to get the $150,000 advance this heartbroken author got and spent on living expenses so many years ago.
You’re probably not going to make much of anything.
Write because you love it. Because you love this work.
We’re talking about holographic fiction in three different articles on the magazine this week:
Bouncing like a yo-yo. kaboing. kaboing. kaboing.
Macrocosm. Microcosm. Macrocosm. Microcosm.
Cosmology. Quantum physics.
The holography of fiction.
In the cosmology of your novel, you’ve got a Hook (big bang!), leading into Conflict #1 with its plot point that snaps your characters’ heads around and drives them in a new direction, which leads to Conflict #2 and the significant apex of your story, which leads to Conflict #3 with its really, really, complex, multiple, and deformed plot point that snaps your characters’ heads around yet again and drives them in another new direction, leading fortunately to your Faux Resolution.
Whew! Pause and mop your brow. Because your Faux Resolution drop-kicks your characters right into the Climax.
Ta-dah! You fixed them.
And you know what else? This process works on each layer and sub-layer, as well, down through each individual Conflict, each episode in each Conflict, each chapter in each episode (or vice versa), each scene in each chapter, each chunk of action or dialog or description or exposition in each scene. . .each sentence. . .
Quantum physics.
Say you’ve got a scene in which your protagonist and their antagonist/love interest are hashing over a long and rather complicated argument absolutely vital to your theme. This conversation needs to convey a lot, you’ve designed your chapter for a good, long wallow in the discussion, and it’s time these two simply had it out.
But after you’ve determined the points to make and the order in which to make them and then you’ve sat (sitten) down and written it all in marvelous, pointed, contrasting and ultimately poignant lines of dialog. . .
I’m so sorry. That sucks so bad. it reads like a fricking script. . .
You know what the set-up is, the plot point this scene needs to fling the reader at. You know who’s in the scene, what fuels the action, the moves they have to make during the course of it, and where they have to wind up at the end. You’ve got it choreographed in your mind.
So you sit down and write it:
move #1
move #(1+ <= n – 1)
move #n
(I think that’s the right code. It’ been a lot of years since I wrote incrementation. Anyway, you get the gist.)
Then you go back and read it. And you know what? It’s just like with dialog. It reads like an instruction manual. . .
And let’s wind up our exploration of microcosm in scene with a bounce through description.
You’ve got a spot where you need a little breather. You’ve just come out of an intense piece of action or dialog, you want to give the reader a second to let it fully sink in, but you always have to keep moving the story forward. So you take a glance around, setting the stage for the next rush.
What’s your hook?
Remember Kanen and the sharpened hunting stick? Remember what was significant about it? That’s right—foreshadowing.
What’s the climax of the upcoming scene (the one you’re setting up with description)?
So you’re sitting at the table in the captain’s cabin across from Assuipe, guzzling wine and trying not to bang your elbows on the brass table rail that keeps stuff from flying off during storms. He’s allowed you to change your britches, but you’re still wondering whether your heart will ever stop pounding. Probably not.
“Tell me again,” Assuipe says, clutching his quill and preparing to write laboriously as you speak. He’s not very literate.
“It’s the story of a genius of a writer whose greatest idea, the most extraordinary premise, the pinnacle of a brilliant career, is stolen by a—by a—well, a pirate.”
“I like it!” Assuipe belches into his fist. “Go on.”
“It starts in a little seaside village, where the writer lives. He’s down in the waterfront pub with his friends, when he hears the story of this terrible pirate. It’s his best friend, Panther Jack, who tells the story—”
“Screw that,” says Assuipe. “Tell me about when the pirate steals the idea.”
“That’s at the end.” It’s obvious Assuipe knows nothing about the art of storytelling. What a cretin. “Panther Jack is this kind of maverick sailor. He could be a ship’s captain, he’s so experienced, but he’s not into power or authority, so instead he roams the seas on whatever adventure strikes his fancy. He and the writer grew up together—”
“Screw Panther Jack,” says Assuipe. “I want to hear about the pirate.”
“I’m trying to tell you—”
“Your idea about a pirate.”
“NO. The pirate’s not even in most of it. He only comes in at the very end, when he wrecks everything. He’s just part of the climax. He’s not the actual story.”
“I like him.” Assuipe grins, and you immediately wish he hadn’t, because his teeth are the worst. “Your climax is the whole point of your story. Bozo.”
“Assuipe—” You suddenly realize why nobody ever says this guy’s name out loud.
And so you go back and forth for hours, dickering over your genius idea.
“—so the writer goes overseas to think this all out, and while he’s there the pattern of everything he’s been through crystalizes in his mind, and—bingo!—Panther Jack’s story of the pirate comes back to him, and he realizes it’s the kernel to the most brilliant premise—”
“—which is that a terrible and swashbuckling pirate king steals a stupid story so he can live happily ever after—” Assuipe is trying to massage the cramp out of his writing hand.
“No.” You shake your head. “Living happily ever after isn’t part of the climax. It’s the resolution.”
Assuipe sighs and puts down his quill. “Living happily ever after’s the resolution to the story. But before that, the resolution to the climax is me letting you get down off that plank.” He hawks with a revolting sound and spits into his empty flagon. “You know, for a famous writer, you sure don’t know squat about structure.”
There’s really only one thing we can talk about today: CLIMAXES.
The climax of your novel is, bizarrely enough, the premise. It’s the point of the entire story.
Suppose you’re a writer working intensely on an incredibly deep and meaningful story. You’re an eighteenth-century American who’s been in Europe and are on your way home, so you have to do this work on shipboard. But that’s okay because you’re so completely immersed in it that you could work on it anywhere. Or else you’re a European who’s been in America. But, anyway, you’re on a ship, working, working, working away as towering waves crash over the prow and the tang of salt wafts to your nostrils.
Now, news of this extraordinary story has leaked out into the general public. Since you have a huge international reputation as a storyteller, everyone knows this story is worth a fortune. It’s rumored to be the pinnacle of your career. It’s the most amazing production of a brain that’s already produced stories greater than Homer’s, plot twists more baffling than Cervantes’, audience investment more powerful than Shakespeare’s. Anyone who possesses it will be richer than Croesus. But of course you keep it top secret so no one can steal it from you. It is—as Bertie Wooster would say—a real pip.
But disaster strikes. Oh, no! Your ship is hailed and, in quick order, boarded by pirates. They kill everybody on board and take command. You are hauled up in chains before the pirate captain, the notorious Assuipe, with his reputation for collecting strange and unusual treasures and selling them to buyers of enormous wealth known only to him. This guy could sell snow to Eskimos. He’s that good.
And he wants your story.
“No!” you cry. “I won’t tell you! I’d rather DIE FIRST.”
He’s okay with that. In an instant, his minions have flung out a plank, and you are encouraged at sword point to climb up on it and begin your promenade. They’re leaning over the side of the ship tossing edibles into the depths to attract sharks. This guy’s mean.
“Well?” he calls when you’re a third of the way down the plank.
“I won’t!” you yell furiously over your shoulder. You rattle your chains above your head at him.
Poke, poke go the points of the swords.
“What do you think?” he calls when you’re two thirds of the way down the plank.
“Never!” you bellow, yanking futilely against your chains. One foot slips, and you jerk it back with a private whimper.
Poke, poke go the points of the swords.
“It’s time, matey. Will you tell me or won’t you?” he calls when you get to the end of the plank.
The pirates lift, and the plank begins to tip. Below your feet, shark fins are circling. The tang of salt wafts to your nostrils. You shriek.
Short story author Scott Warrender is a Mentoring Program client. I have done full Copy, Line, & Developmental Editing on a number of short stories for him, the first of which was his poignant fictional memoir of Africa, ''The Boy With the Newsprint Kite,'' now published in the Foundling Review.
Clients’ Books
Bhaichand Patel is the author of two nonfiction books: Chasing the Good Life (Penguin Books India, October, 2006), and Happy Hours (Penguin Books India, October, 2009). I edited Patel's debut novel, When the Streets Were Cold and Dark.
I've edited a number of nonfictionessays for my friend Lucia Orth. (Many years ago, my contribution to Baby Jesus Pawn Shop was simply a peer critique and participation in a standing ovation.)
The poet Chris Ryan is the author of The Bible of Animal Feet (Farfalla Press, 2007). He has recent stories in Pank, Anemone Sidecar, and A Cappella Zoo. I edited Ryan's novel The Ishmael Blade and worked with him on his debut novel Heliophobia and WIP Pogue.
