@constablewrites / constablewrites.tumblr.com
Them: How’s the writing going?
Me: *looks down at the thing I wrote just now*
Me: Going great!
Since this is randomly getting notes years later, I feel like I should add that on the next draft, this scene got cut completely and I never had to do that research. I have a bad habit of falling down rabbit holes, so this is something I should honestly be doing more often.
if you’re white and wanna write a poc character and feel awkward about it i implore you to ignore any twitblr stuff treating it as a massive ethical burden and instead come in more with the same mindset you’d have if you wanted to write about idk firefighters but didn’t know anything about firefighters so you do... research. Like fuck off with the weird kinda creepy calls for spiritual introspection you’re not writing about god damn space aliens you’re writing about humans and if you think you need more perspective of different life experiences just read?
I don’t see an issue.
So, is the first picture a crude representation of alien genitalia? Because that would make sense, actually.
I’ve fallen off the wagon on my weekly posts here, because ::gestures vaguely at 2020:: It isn’t that I haven’t had observations to make, more that I lacked the particular motivation to actually write them up. But there’s one thing that can always drive me to the keyboard: getting nice and annoyed!
Star Wars Rebels is a deeply irritating show, mainly because when it is good, it is truly excellent, but there’s a lot of meh to wade through to reach those moments. It seems to be aimed at a younger audience than Clone Wars, and lacks that show’s advantages of both the well-established characters from the films and its urgent newsreel energy (because who needs Act I when Tom Kane can just yell exposition at you). There are a lot of interesting ideas and setups in Rebels that just never get properly explored, but the one I found most disappointing was the relationship between Kanan and Hera.
(Major spoilers after the cut. Go watch the show, it’s not terribly long and, as I said, the good stuff is really good.)
The latest kerfuffle on Publishing Twitter concerns this tweet by Janet Reid (aka the Query Shark):
I can't believe I need to say this AGAIN! Please do not, under any circumstances, email clients to ask what I'm like to work with BEFORE YOU'VE GOTTEN AN OFFER or even queried!! They tell me about it, and your name goes on my list of people I don't want to work with. Ever.
And people seem to be getting all huffy at the implication that authors shouldn’t be doing this kind of vetting at all, and how dare agents try to cut off this kind of communication, and what are you trying to hide, etc.
Which is weird, because that’s not what she’s saying at all. She’s gone on record elsewhere saying she will gladly put prospective clients in touch with her authors. People somehow seem to have missed the part that’s in all caps...
Look, you should absolutely be doing some basic diligence before you put an agent on your list to query. That means things like: Are they in AAR? Does your novel match up with their wish list? Do they rep your genre and category? Are they actively acquiring? What have they sold? This is all stuff you should be able to find on your own, using the agent’s social media, the agency website, Publisher’s Marketplace, just Google, etc.
And you should definitely want to talk to their authors before you sign, to find out things like: How responsive are they? Are they editorial? Do they help when you’re kicking around an idea or do they only want to be brought in when there’s a finished draft? Were you satisfied with the terms of the contract they got you? Have you ever had an instance where their vision for a book didn’t match yours, and how was that handled?
Trying to dig into all that information BEFORE YOU’VE EVEN QUERIED is, frankly, bonkers. It’s a question of scale.
Agents receive hundreds of queries per week. Based on those who give info about their response rates, they’re only going to even request material from about 5-10% of those. Of the requests they make, they’re only offering on 5-10% of THOSE. So statistically, a given agent is probably gonna reject you. Which means from the author’s end, you’re likely to submit to dozens if not hundreds of agents before signing with someone. Does it really make sense to go into that kind of depth for every.single.one of them? And does it make sense for authors to take the time to answer those kinds of (frankly rather personal) questions about what it’s like to work with their agent for people who more than likely never will?
I’d liken it to calling up HR to talk about benefits when you’re looking for a job. It would absolutely be foolish to take the job without finding out that information. But calling them up before you’ve been asked to interview? Before you’ve even applied? That... is not making the impression you think it will. And from the other side of that analogy, it’s very reasonable for a job candidate to request that their references not be contacted until the final stages. They’re not saying not to contact them at all, just that it’s not a good use of anyone’s time if they might still get knocked out of the running for other reasons. It should also be noted that if you have an established relationship with someone, reaching out to them for an inside scoop plays completely differently than if they’re a total stranger.
(I’m also a bit bemused that so many of these indignant responses are from established authors who are like, “My agent is great, I’d love to recommend them!” Yeah, I’d figure an NYT bestseller would generally be pretty satisfied with the agent who got them there. I want to hear from the midlist author whose first series just did okay and is trying to place their second, or the author who’s just about to debut, or the author whose publisher went under and had to fight to get paid. Plus, something tells me that if those authors were regularly fielding from hundreds of people the kind of detailed questions I listed earlier, they’d probably add some caveats to that statement.)
In general I think the scale thing flummoxes a lot of writers trying to get published. They’re only seeing their one book, their one question, their one submission. They’re not asking for much of someone’s attention, just a few minutes! But those few minutes add up so, so fast. (If you take 5 minutes to respond to a query, answering 480 of them would make up a full work week. I’ve heard of agents getting that many in a single day.) If their boundaries seem overly restrictive, that just usually means they’re in a position where they’re okay with potentially missing out on something good because they’ve already got enough on their plate.
I do think the idea of someone being blacklisted for messing this up is a bit much. But I also think that if an author is reaching out to their agent all “You believe this shit?” they’re probably not reacting to a single email wanting to ask a couple of questions. Someone who cares about messing these things up is probably not doing it. The people who get themselves blacklisted are the ones who think the rules don’t apply to them, not the ones who are trying to follow the rules but aren’t clear on what they are.
In short, if you’re thinking you might want to query an agent, just send the damn query (according to their submission guidelines). Don’t start picking apart the clauses in the wedding venue contract before you’ve even been on a date.
The other day, my husband told me about a conversation he had with a woman who claimed not to like Disney’s Cinderella because she’s a feminist. It’s not the first time I’ve heard such an argument, and I never cease to find it to be bullshit. I wish I could have asked the woman when she had last watched the movie, because I’m guessing it hasn’t been since puberty. So many of these knee-jerk dismissals of things like the classic Disney canon are based on vague recollections of movies the person half-watched decades ago, rather than the actual text. (And the actual texts definitely merit a second look as an adult, if only for the frequent what-the-fuckery, like how Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio is a hobo who hits on every remotely feminine entity in the movie, up to and including wooden carvings and the fish.) There’s this perception that Cinderella is a wholly passive character who just sits around and waits for a prince to rescue her, but that’s just not supported by the film itself.
For starters, Cinderella’s not going to the ball for the prince. When the invitation arrives, her stepsisters are the ones who burble at the idea of seeing the prince, but Cinderella presses for her chance to go because, dammit, she was invited too. She never equates her unspecified wishes and dreams with this invitation or implies that her whole world is riding on it; she simply wants to be treated like an equal, to have a night off and enjoy herself. When it’s all over, she’s thrilled to have been left with the one glass slipper and the memory of a dance with a hottie. The idea that he’s the prince, or that she could have a shot at marrying him, doesn’t even occur to her until the news gets out the next morning. Hell, she didn’t even seek him out at the ball; he’s the one who came over to her, and never managed to introduce himself while they were dancing.
Then there’s the tricky question of agency. This is the image that detractors seem to point to as the essence of the issues with the story: Cinderella weeping while the Fairy Godmother comes out of nowhere to solve all her problems.
But that’s not quite what’s going on here. When she appears, FG implies that Cinderella actually summoned her. (“Nonsense, child. If you’d lost all your faith, I couldn’t be here.”) True, that would indicate a power that Cinderella doesn’t otherwise demonstrate–except when she’s singing. She harmonizes with herself in multiple parts on “Sing, Sweet Nightingale”, and immediately before FG materializes, Cinderella is having a conversation with the background music. Seriously, there’s no other way to explain her dialogue there. A little later, she duets with the prince on “So This is Love” without either of them opening their mouths. It’s not a direct correlation, but it’s enough unnatural shenanigans to underscore the repeated refrain that believing hard enough (not just possessing a belief, but the action of believing) will make a wish come true.
But that’s still passive, right? She’s not actually doing anything, just bursts into tears and gives up. Well, she did do something about going to the ball: she finished up an inhuman workload and found an outfit, which her menagerie did an extreme makeover on. She earned her chance and then was fucking assaulted, forced to watch in horror while her dress, a memento of her dead mother and a gift from her only friends, was destroyed. Of course she breaks down. Holy shit, guys, give the girl a minute. All FG is doing is restoring the balance, popping in like Sam Beckett to set right what just went wrong.
Of course, the dress was only presentable in the first place because of the mice and the birds. So let’s talk about them for a second, shall we? After all, the Tom and Jerry bullshit takes up over half the runtime (41 minutes out of 75, I shit you not; it is 23 sodding minutes before Lady Tremaine gets a line), and we meet two of the birds before we even meet Cinderella. The animals, then, drive the bulk of the plot. But this isn’t like Sleeping Beauty, where the supposed protagonists take a back seat to fairy face-offs. See, while the mice are the main ones we see in action, they never act on their own behalf. Ever. The one time we see them doing something for their own benefit is when they go out seeking food, and who’s the one that provides it? In addition to feeding them, Cinderella clothes them and teaches them to speak (which is something they value, apparently) and protects them from traps and the cat. This has created a cult of personality, where the animals all happily sing to her tune as they perform incredible feats of engineering in her service. Everything they do on-screen serves Cinderella’s interests, from acting as her lady’s maids in the morning to altering her dress to helping her escape her tower. In short, she has a small army of devoted minions at her command, who prove by the end that they’re willing to risk their lives against a sadistic predator if she needs them to. Do we say that the supervillain has no agency because he hangs out on his dark throne until the final battle, letting the underlings get their hands dirty until then? (Am I calling Cinderella an evil mastermind? Well, she has taken over a kingdom by the end credits. Just saying.)
tl;dr: Cinderella is fighting for equal rights and a fair leave policy, is maybe a little bit psychic, and can bend animals to her will. I’m not claiming that she’s a perfect template for a protagonist, or that there’s not some problematic bullshit at work here. (The love-at-first-sight thing is only part of a ludicrously compressed timeline; the entire story, barring the prologue, takes place in just over 24 hours, including the complete organization of a royal ball.) But this incarnation of the fairy tale gives us a heroine who’s snarky, determined, and industrious at the very least, a woman who unfailingly approaches her situation on her own terms even if she’s not exactly fighting to change it. She might not be a feminist icon, but she’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of.
I haven’t been able to get up as much new material as I would like here, because, well, I haven’t been reading or watching or playing new things. I’ve been writing. This revision has been occupying just about every shred of free brain space for the last several months.
And today, it’s done. Second draft. in the can.
Stuff That Changed
What Comes Next?
So still a long way to go. I had hoped to be querying by the summer, but I had also hoped to be done with this draft before Christmas, so we’ll see. The big question mark is gonna be how long it takes my first reader to get back to me, and how many problems they identify.
But it’s another major milestone down, one step closer to the day where I will no longer be writing this book (because it currently feels like I will never not be writing this book).
Now I just need my brain to stat working again, because I’ve plowed through something like 15K words in 4 days and I’m not entirely certain what century I’m in.
I love me some dialogue. There’s nothing quite like a good snappy exchange, and great quotes are the kind of thing that becomes timelessly viral (as evidenced by the average quantity of Monty Python quotes in a given D&D session). But dialogue isn’t everything, and there’s a whole lot you can do without ever saying a word.
As befits a story about a stoic badass riding into a town full of stoic badasses, The Quick and the Dead is practically a master class on this topic, packed with just about every kind of visual communication you can imagine.
Here’s one silent exchange from very early on, when the Lady first arrives in Redemption:
The creepy mustached guy, Eugene Dred, will be her secondary antagonist, right behind Herod. Notice the way she shows him her gun, and his reaction? Their enmity gets set up immediately, in just under 15 seconds.
Another similar exchange of glances establishes Herod’s primary challengers (Ed. note: This GIF cuts out a couple of shots in the middle):
In both cases, pretty much all it takes to set up these relationships is eye contact. There are a whole lot of characters in play and not a lot of time to set everything up, so this method efficiently builds audience expectations, so we already know what’s going down even before individual beefs get explained.
Efficiency occasionally leads us to an entirely wordless scene. The Lady meets with Cort to work out the rather complicated conspiracy that will see her fake her death and blow up half the town, but we naturally don’t see that whole discussion. All we see of it is this:
Of course, it’s not a silent film, and there’s quite a bit of dialogue. But the visuals still don’t slouch, frequently providing crucial subtext:
The barkeep is talking about the food and drink Herod is paying for. Later on, Dred will rape the girl, and the Lady will kill him for it.
And, of course, there’s the trailer-friendly, not terribly subtle but still rather awesome:
The movie is thick with background details, too. I’ll spare you examples of the gun porn (every fighter carries a unique, frequently blinged-out and customized, weapon) because this page would be about eighty screens long. But look over the Lady’s shoulder in the saloon for a wanted poster for one of the other contestants:
Or the skulls and bones that are all the hell over that scene:
The saloon scene is a good example of how the film divides its focus well among its large ensemble cast, and they’re frequently worth watching in the background throughout. For instance, you can spot every character who makes it past the first round as they watch the first duel:
Here’s Foy’s priceless reaction to the glass of water that almost hit him in the face:
Or watch Cort’s hands twitch after he’s held a gun for the first time in years:
Those little details help keep the character present and active, even while the lines are going to other people.
Okay, so that’s an awful lot of examples, and admittedly, things like subtle acting choices or set dressing aren’t really major tools in your arsenal as a fiction writer. Still, there are a few things that can be drawn from this for writers in any medium:
When you talk about imparting information in a story, there are actually two groups that need to get clued in: the audience and the protagonists. So, we have three potential combinations for how we start:
(There is a fourth combo, where the characters know something the audience doesn’t, but that one doesn’t often apply to the identity of the antagonist. And it would kind of ruin my thesis here, so shh.)
As it happens, all three of these flavors of antagonist are in The Rocketeer. (Spoilers ahoy, obvs.)
The Feds know from the outset that the rocket thief is working for gangster Eddie Valentine, and as we learn around the second act break, they also know that Valentine has been hired by an unidentified Nazi spy. In general, you see this one mostly in retellings where the audience is already familiar with the story, or in series and serials where characters reappear frequently.
Benefits: There’s not a lot of mucking about with setup. Nazis frequently get used in this capacity (though not in The Rocketeer, funnily enough) for exactly that reason. You don’t need to spend a lot of time establishing who they are, what they want, or just how nasty they can be. Both the audience and the heroes say, “Oh shit, Nazis!” and we can get on with things.
Drawbacks: Our current storytelling culture tends to favor novelty, originality, and surprise, and the identity of the bad guy is a frequent source of that mystery. As such, you don’t see this one as much anymore.
Our first introduction to Neville Sinclair is when he’s chewing out Valentine for fucking up the robbery. Though we don’t yet know why he wants the rocket, there’s no question that he’s up to no good. Tends to be common in kids’ movies where the “sides” are clearly delineated.
Benefits: Easy source of tension. The audience is on edge from the moment Sinclair sets his sights on Jenny, although she doesn’t realize the danger she’s in until much later. If you didn’t suspect Sinclair from the start, the only emotional investment we’d have in his seduction of Jenny is pity for Cliff that he’s going to get dumped.
Drawbacks: Be careful to keep track of who knows what, or of treating something as a reveal when the audience already knows. It’s also easy to fall prey to accusations, fair or not, that a character is carrying the Idiot Ball. After all, we may know a character is in a horror movie, but they don’t.
Oh shit, Nazis! We actually get the reveal in two consecutive scenes demonstrating the two different variations: Jenny stumbles upon information that solves the mystery for both her and the audience simultaneously, while Cliff puts the pieces together for himself when he’s told about the Hollywood spy, and then explains his conclusions to the group.
Benefits: The aforementioned suspense and surprise! We all live under the shadow of the spoiler now, so it’s rare to find a story these days that doesn’t have a reveal of some sort. Throwing this sort of curveball at the characters can also force them to reevaluate and change tactics, as when the reveal to Valentine prompts him to betray Sinclair. (As a side note, I always thought that development was kind of cheesy, but rather awesomely, it’s Truth in Television: prominent gangsters worked with the government during WWII to aid in the war effort.)
Drawbacks: Setting up a good reveal is a tricky balancing act: too much information and the audience will figure it out early, but too little and it feels like an ass pull. You also have to make sure you don’t have a reveal for the sake of having a reveal, since those can easily drag a story down.
As demonstrated here, the different ways that the antagonist’s identity can be revealed aren’t necessarily better or worse than each other; they just do different things. Which one is best for your story depends on what you’re trying to accomplish.
Look, I really wanted to like The Rise of Skywalker. I liked The Force Awakens. I loved The Last Jedi. I wasn’t expecting Great Cinema, but I at least hoped to be entertained. Instead, I just couldn’t bring myself to care. Part of it was the grating way the heroes did nothing but bicker and part of it was that I knew there was no way J.J. Abrams was going to do anything really daring or subversive. But the biggest problem was that the villains were absolutely useless.
And lo, the holidays are immediately followed by illness as day follows night.
Actual post next week, I promise.
One type of twist that can be surprisingly difficult to pull off is the face-heel turn. (In wrestling, faces are good guys and heels are bad guys.) Done poorly, it can seem abrupt or arbitrary, and instead of packing an emotional wallop it can just make the audience feel like they’ve wasted their time investing in the story. You have to build it up as a believable progression.
(Spoilers follow for Ready or Not)
I’m going to be spoiling the everliving shit out of Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, so nearly this entire post is going behind a cut. Go watch it, it’s pretty great.
Whenever a story promises to include Jack the Ripper, it’s almost a guarantee that they’ll take some stance on his real identity. And in DC Elseworlds, half the fun is seeing how they fit the familiar characters into this new setting, So when I sat down to this one with my friends, we immediately started speculating.
Spare a thought for the poor goon, will you? After all, the bad guy can’t do all that heavy lifting himself, and the good guy can’t go straight to the top and sort shit out off the bat or we wouldn’t have much of a story. Like an impressive skyscraper, it all comes down to the support structure; an organization is only as good as its people. Sure, the baddie can throw wave after wave of anonymous masked bastards at the problem, but that’s not very engaging for the audience. So speaking of impressive skyscrapers, let’s take a look at Die Hard.
Yup, in addition to being indisputably the greatest Christmas movie of all time, it’s also widely considered to have a nearly perfect structure, so this probably isn’t the last time I’m gonna come back to it. Hans Gruber’s flunkies aren’t fully-fledged characters, true, but they’re far from faceless bullet fodder.
For starters, all twelve “terrorists” have names, which is uncommon. Usually beyond the Dragon and a couple of important henches, the rest of the crew usually ends up credited as “Soldier #5.” True, they’re not really given backstories or motivations to go with the names, but it helps make their interactions amongst each other feel realistic. It doesn’t so much matter if I remember which one Marco is, just that they’re worried McClane might have gotten him.
Speaking of interactions, special mention goes to Karl and Tony, the very blond brothers. You get a hint of their personalities and relationship in the brief scene where Karl takes a chainsaw to the phone lines Tony is trying to patch. But their biggest significance to the plot comes when McClane kills Tony and taunts the terrorists with his corpse, and Karl loses his shit. His dogged pursuit of McClane isn’t because of sadism or orders from Gruber, it’s because this is the bastard who killed his little brother and he wants to make him pay. It’s not enough to make us root for him or anything, but it makes him human.
The movie’s filled with little humanizing details like that, from the dude who nabs a candy bar during a standoff to the guy who pours Ellis a soda during his failed negotiation attempt. The director’s commitment to realism was such that he used extra-loud blanks that permanently deafened his star, and that realism carries through in the depiction of the bad guys. Even though you don’t know their histories or their personal goals, they feel like real people, which makes them more interesting foes for McClane. There’s more tension in him trying to evade a cunning, desperate individual than there would be if it were some dumbass blindly following orders.
Die Hard skillfully balances a lot of different characters, but I think the restraint shows best in the goons. There’s just enough personality and humanity to give them some depth and intrigue without stealing screentime and sympathy from the good guys. That’s not an easy trick to accomplish, and it adds quite a lot to the movie’s core. Hans Gruber just wouldn’t be the same without his gang.
I don’t normally talk much about my own writing, because it’s generally more useful to talk about things that people are actually familiar with. But I had a moment recently where I got stuck, and what I looked at to get myself unstuck might help people out a bit.
Our heroine is at a fancy party and is approached by an acquaintance, who apologizes for being a bit of a dick the last time they met. This is how far I got:
As the countess was pulled away by another socialite for a more private conversation, Tari noticed someone approaching purposefully from the corner of her eye. She turned to see a familiar face with memorable high cheekbones. “Mr. Tan! What a pleasant surprise.”
Tan Sin Pho bowed. “It seems your prediction that we would run into each other proved correct,” he said.
I stared at it for like half an hour trying to figure out what comes next, then gave up and called it a night. As I was getting ready for bed, I realized that one single word in this passage utterly torpedoes me.
Any guesses to what it is?
The culprit is “pleasant.” See, I need Sin Pho to apologize. If he thinks she’s happy to see him, he doesn’t have much reason to do that. There’s also not a good way for either her to respond or him to continue that connects to anything else that might be useful to include in this conversation. Basically, I jumped ahead, and thus left myself with nowhere to go.
Here’s the revision:
As the countess was drawn into a more private conversation with another socialite, Tari noticed someone approaching purposefully from the corner of her eye. She turned to see a familiar face with memorable high cheekbones. “Mr. Tan! This is a surprise.”
Tan Sin Pho bowed. “You did predict we would run into each other,” he said.
“It’s always gratifying when one is proven correct,” she replied. Lady Alva’s companion continued pulling her toward the further end of the room; Tari shifted to keep them in sight.
“I hope that’s not the only good thing about it.” Tari thought this might be an invitation for flattery, until Sin Pho stepped closer and said more quietly, “I fear I got a bit deep in my cups when last we met.”
Other adjustments: tweaked the first sentence so I could use “pulled” where it made more sense, and split up the bit about her prediction being correct so it gives the followup line to him rather than her.
It’s not perfect, mind. I’m pretty sure I’ve used the “turned to see a familiar face” transition elsewhere and it’s not that strong to begin with, and I could probably stand to clarify that Tari is specifically turning away from him to keep an eye on Lady Alva, so Sin Pho is reacting to her body language as well as her neutral word choice.
But still, I can work with this. Each piece of the conversation now leads naturally to the next. It builds toward something in a way it just couldn’t before. From here the rest of the scene was pretty easy to finish.
Editing midstream can be a tricky thing, especially if you’re making changes without a clear idea of what benefit the changes will have. But writing is often like making your way through a maze--if you hit a wall, you could try to brute-force your way through, but it’s more likely that you just made a wrong turn somewhere further back.
Of all the tools at a writer’s disposal, simile and metaphor have to be among the most powerful. Sure, you might spend paragraphs or pages trying to convey an image or an idea in exact detail, or you could get the entire thing across just as clearly in a single phrase. What we do is basically magic, you guys.
True, as an extremely powerful tool, this one is also really easy to cock up. (Side note: It would appear that the answer to the question, “Is there a Tumblr of that?” is always yes.) However, I think more can be learned in this case from examining the ones that do work, and breaking down what makes them work so well.
One of my favorite descriptions of all time ever comes from one of David Levithan’s chapters of Will Grayson, Will Grayson:
The whole place smells like debt.
Just bask in that one for a moment. This is not an explicit description; after all, the concept of “debt” does not emit molecules that are picked up by olfactory receptors and interpreted by the brain as sensory data. What it is, is evocative. If you’re given no other description of an apartment other than that it “smells like debt,” chances are pretty good you’re still going to have a mental picture of the place. Now, one person may envision musty hand-me-down furniture while another sees a home filled with battered Wal-Mart offerings, but the beauty is that that doesn’t really matter. Where the specifics aren’t important, you can fill in the blanks yourself.
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman is another rich trove of great description. Take this introduction to the assassins Croup and Vandemar:
There are four simple ways for the observant to tell Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar apart: first, Mr. Vandemar is two and a half heads taller than Mr. Croup; second, Mr. Croup has eyes of a faded china blue, while Mr. Vandemar’s eyes are brown; third, while Mr. Vandemar fashioned the rings he wears on his right hand out of the skulls of four ravens, Mr. Croup has no obvious jewelry; fourth, Mr. Croup likes words, while Mr. Vandemar is always hungry. Also, they look nothing at all alike.
It’s a fairly long stretch of pure description, the kind of thing that some writing coaches might tell you to avoid on principle. Unlike the first example, this one is explicit description, of details that are very well-chosen. (The fourth point in particular gives you quite a solid lock on their respective personalities.) The poetry comes from the fact that you’d need a way to tell apart people who look nothing alike; this tells you that they’re a unit, two halves of a single malevolent entity, their interchangeability as torturers and killers more significant than their physical discrepancies. Plus, there’s a punchline, and the Rule of Funny overrides pretty much everything.
Here’s another passage that’s deceptively straightforward:
Richard could already tell that he was the type of person who was always in motion, like a great cat.
A solid, concrete visual aid to establish the mannerisms of just about anyone. But he’s not describing just anyone. He’s describing the Marquis de Carabas, a powerful figure who takes his name (and possibly more, for it is that kind of place and that kind of tale) from Puss in Boots. It’s a pattern that persists throughout the novel, as de Carabas is repeatedly described in decidedly feline terms, and other characters get their own epithets: Croup and Vandemar are frequently depicted as a fox and a wolf, for instance, and Hunter’s descriptions always come back to leather and caramel. This usage makes it easier to keep straight the large and colorful cast, and also helps evoke the almost totemic power of these ageless creatures.
It’s fine to have description that’s purely sensory, that only tells us what an object or action looks or sounds or smells like. But when you’ve got the opportunity to also tell us more about what that thing means, what that thing is? That’s when the magic happens.
We’re about halfway through NaNoWriMo, so many of you are probably feeling the Act II Blues. You’ve got all the setup, you might have some idea of how you want it to end, but the stuff in the middle?
There are lots of ways to get through Act II, but one I’m fond of is what I call the “Nice Try Midpoint.” Essentially, it’s this:
Your characters have developed a plan to deal with the story problem and are taking steps to put it into action. But then, nice try, something major happens that throws them into disarray and forces them to reevaluate. The rest of Act II is them dealing with the fallout from that and preparing for the final showdown.
A few examples:
The Incredibles: Bob fights the Omnidroid and feels like a new man, getting back into shape and happily going back for another mission. But nice try, this is a big ol’ deathtrap set by a scorned fan. Now he has to sneak around and try to figure out what’s going on and how to get home.
Star Wars: Luke delivers R2′s message and tracks down a ride to Alderaan, But nice try, Alderaan has been blown up. Now they have to try to escape a heavily fortified Imperial vessel.
Die Hard: John gets the police to show up and start taking the threat seriously enough that the cops are ready to charge in. But nice try, Hans is ready for them and takes them out easily. Now here comes the FBI.
Essentially, it’s a way to keep your heroes active so they’re not just twiddling their thumbs waiting for the finale. Which also keeps them from looking dumb for not trying to solve the problem earlier. They did try, and things got worse. Stakes escalated, tension increased, and maybe a nice flashy setpiece for good measure.
Nice try, heroes, I’ve still got half a novel to write.
(Spoilers for seasons 1-3 of Steven Universe)
This isn’t a close reading in the strictest academic sense, but I still want to take a somewhat deep dive into a single episode to examine how it elegantly plays out some major character development.
In “The Test,” Steven finds the moon goddess statue from his very first away mission with the Gems, all the way back in episode 3. Pearl lets it slip that it wasn’t a critical mission and they were using it as a test. Since that mission wasn’t exactly a success, Steven asks them to give him a new test. Pearl balks, saying that he’s come so far–and he has. At this point he’s learned to heal and to warp, dealt with Lapis, and fused with Connie. But Steven insists, so the Gems set up an obstacle course in the temple.
Steven gets through each of the rooms and confidently strolls his way toward the finish, realizing too late that there’s an obstacle that will skewer him… except it doesn’t. It operates normally unless he’s under it, and then it stops short of harming him. Which makes perfect sense; a training exercise that could kill you isn’t all that useful, and further the Gems are Steven’s protectors and certainly aren’t going to casually subject him to serious risk.
But Steven doesn’t see it that way. As he works his way backward through the obstacle course, realizing that he could have gotten through regardless of what he did, he goes from irritation to full-blown anger. From basically the beginning of the series, Steven has been trying to get the Gems to take him seriously, to treat him like part of the team and not just a kid tagging along (like in “Serious Steven” and “So Many Birthdays”). So to him, the obstacle course being rigged for safety is just more proof that they’re not giving him a real chance.
He backtracks far enough that he finds himself outside the course, on top of the rooms. But before he can fully articulate his frustrations, he overhears the Gems as they’re waiting for him, worrying about how this is going to play out. They’re trying their best to train him, but they don’t really know what they’re doing. Garnet admits, “We have no idea what Steven needs.”
That’s one of those major innocence-ending moments in a kid’s life, isn’t it? Realizing that grownups don’t magically have all the answers and perfect plans. They’re just making decisions based on the information they have and hoping for the best. They can be uncertain. They can be wrong.
Steven re-enters the course and walks, scowling and unflinching like a damn Terminator, all the way through to the end. He reaches the waiting Gems, fists clenched, still radiating fury, and falls to his knees. “I can’t believe you guys,” he says. “That was so… insane!” He then enthuses in detail about each of the obstacles and how he beat them, as each anxious face relaxes into a smile. “This was just what I needed,” he says, and the episode ends with a group hug.
That parallel in language (referring to what he needs) explains this otherwise sudden shift in Steven’s demeanor. He now knows that the Gems all have the same need to know that they’re doing a good job that he does, and he deliberately puts aside his own feelings to give that to them. He has the magical ability to heal people physically, but it’s here that he really leans into his ability to facilitate their emotional healing as well. It will come up again and again, from Pearl and Greg’s reconciliation to Peridot’s redemption to Kiki’s nightmares. Further, from this point on he stops looking to the Gems for validation. He knows, as he declares when he leaps to defend them from Jasper’s ship, that he’s a Crystal Gem too.
I love moments like this, because they show that you don’t have to go overboard in explaining motivations, even at a significant juncture like this one. When the characterization is consistent and growth progresses logically, the audience should be able to follow along.
Many storytelling techniques and tropes transcend medium. But when it comes to horror, visual media like movies and video games has tools at its disposal that fiction just doesn’t. Unsettling images in the background and creepy music can be extremely effective at provoking a visceral reaction of fear. How can one replicate that feeling with only words?
I’ve read a fair amount of horror in my day, especially in my Stephen King phase that is apparently standard-issue for preteen girls. And among all the weird and creepy stuff, there’s only one scene that’s ever genuinely terrified me. The funny thing is, whenever I say that to people, without any further explanation I usually get a single response:
“Oh, you mean the topiaries in The Shining.”
It’s an element that’s not in the Kubrick film (which has only superficial resemblances to the book). They appear a couple of times, but their first appearance is particularly worth examining. While Wendy and Danny make one last trip into town, Jack goes out to trim the hedge animals near the playground. He trims one, then heads over to explore the playground, lingering there for reasons he can’t explain. When he finally returns his attention to them, they’ve moved. The animals are perfectly still while he’s watching them, but the ones he can’t see keep advancing on him, boxing him in. Finally he just covers his eyes, and when he opens them, everything has returned to the way it was.
So what makes this scene stand out?
First, you have to consider where the scene fits structurally. The first half of the book is a slow burn. Danny’s premonitions provide an undercurrent of dread as all three Torrances desperately try to reaffirm their family bonds. Jack in particular clings hard to his conception of himself as a good person, even as his self-control starts to slip and old bad habits crop back up. The attack of the topiaries serves as the last warning for them to turn back before tragedy becomes inevitable, a warning which goes unheeded. Immediately after that scene, the snow begins to fall, and the next chapter sees Danny meet the dead woman in room 217 and the family’s trust in each other start to crumble. So the topiary scene is the culmination of a long build-up of the knowledge that this is all going to end very, very badly.
The idea of a threat that only moves when you can’t see it is a very primal one, tied to the way ambush predators hunt. It’s a fear that plays particularly into the paranoia of the novel, the idea that you just know something is going on but are denied the concrete proof of visible motion. Further, it gives you just enough agency to feel really helpless: you could hold the monsters at bay, if only you were able to watch them all at once.
Jack’s reaction is a big part of the effect of the scene. Up until now, he’s been rationalizing the strangeness (the wasps, Danny’s powers, his drunken tics returning despite the lack of liquor). But in the face of this, he doesn’t try to explain it away, doesn’t do anything but react with pure, childlike terror, down to the decision to simply cover his eyes and hope that the threat passes. It’s a reaction much more similar to how Danny’s been treating his visions, tying him closer to the boy’s certainty that the Overlook is a dangerous place.
From a technique standpoint, the scene echoes the book as a whole in that it really takes its time. Jack starts trimming the animals, then impulsively stops and goes into the playground. He keeps telling himself he should get back to the task, and keeps doing other unsatisfying things instead, delaying for no particular reason. Even when he hears the noise behind him, it takes a full page of him looking around and grappling with his inexplicable physical fear reaction before he finally puts it together. If the animals had simply come to life and attacked, it would be freaky but wouldn’t give Jack (and the reader) the time to get good and worked up over it. The slow realization that this is really happening and there’s nothing you can do about it is what puts the scene over the top.
Ultimately, it’s fairly easy to startle or disturb or freak out an audience. The Shining in general, and the topiaries in particular, show that if you want to truly terrify them, you want to stretch that anticipation until it snaps.
