The Right Word for the Job

So before I left London I made a point of seeing Les Miserables...twice. I may have developed a slight obsession/burning love for it over the past year or so, and I didn't want to waste my best chance to see it. Needless to say, I had a great time both times I saw it.

But the second time the cast seemed a bit off. They made mistakes in a few places, which weren't huge, but were noticeable if you know the whole play by heart (Did I mention the obsession part?). What I learned from them was that changing a single word can change an entire song, scene, act, or, potentially, play.

This was most noticeable for me in the scene in which we're introduced to Fantine. There's a line in the song in that scene which is supposed to run "Cossette needs a doctor, there's no time to lose." The chorus member singing it screwed up and sang "Your child needs a doctor, there's no time to lose."

This may not seem like a big change, but a few scenes later when we run into a child named Cossette, without any further mention of her, that single mention of her name becomes pretty key to understanding why we should care about her, and why the scene is even happening at all.

Just an example of how simple mistakes can effect a narrative pretty drastically.

Epiphany!

I just finished having about an hour-long phone call with a woman I met playing Warcraft who also happens to be a writer, in which she critiqued the current draft of my novel. Interestingly enough, given my blog post of a couple days ago, she really didn't like my dialogue style--so it looks like I need to take a much harder look at how I'm doing that (and for that matter, ask some of my other readers whether it annoyed them as well). But more importantly, towards the end of the conversation she told me that she just didn't care about the world or the characters in it.

Bad press perhaps, to be posting that someone felt that way on the blog, but it led me to a very important realization about why books do and don't work for certain people. I think it's a fairly well-accepted truth that readers have to like at least one character in a work of fiction, to root for them, to identify with them etc. Even in the best stories, full of great characters, everyone finds one in particular that is their favorite--whose story moved them more than that of the others.

I realized that for my friend, that never happened. Character after character was introduced and none of them spoke to her. None of them grabbed her like they grabbed other people I've had read the book, and without that grip there was nothing to keep her reading.

To be honest, I'm not sure what to do with that knowledge now that I've got it, other than to go back with a more critical eye and make sure that my characters become sympathetic as quickly as possible, but I think it's a very important realization, and one that I'm sure will bear dividends in the future.

Fanfic...Oy.

One of the things I've struggled with is how to get any of my work published before I start shopping my novel around. There doesn't seem to be much of a market for fantasy short stories. And for that matter, I'm still trying to figure out what makes a good one tick, as I haven't read that many. That hamstrings me a bit, as it makes it pretty difficult to get any publishing credits to throw on the old resume.

The only opportunities I've seen, as a matter of fact, are for fanfic. In particular, the developers of MMORPGs seem to enjoy putting their players' fanfic out there. I discovered last night that Blizzard is taking submissions for World of Warcraft fanfic, which would be a great thing to have on my resume, and for that matter, really would get my name out there to a few hundred thousand people or so--nothing to sneeze at.

The only problem is that, well, it's fanfic, and while I don't have anything against fanfic, I've kind of moved on from it. I got my start writing Star Wars fanfic, and while I will always cherish my time working in that universe, adding bits and pieces to someone else's story just doesn't energize me the same way that creating my own does.

I suppose that's a bit snobby, and the professional in me is certainly strong enough to say "Too bad. Write it, and write it damn well, because this could be a huge break for you", but I can't help but be the littlest bit sad that the opportunities for fantasy short stories seem to be centered around writing fanfic.

Developing a Style

So I ended my last post by saying, "that's how I write, and I'm pretty happy with it." That got me thinking it might be a good idea to discuss my thoughts on developing one's own personal style.

I think there are upsides and downsides to it. The upside, obviously, is that it means there's something that differentiates your writing from the other writing out there. For me, it means telling a lot of my story through dialogue (an idea lovingly ripped from the RPGs that have influenced me so heavily), and choreographing my scenes pretty intensely. My characters don't "say" anything. Ever. I don't think you'll find a "xxx said" once in my entire body of work. And when I do put speech tags on (I think I've used "groaned" and "whispered" and such-like words) I rarely use adverbs.

Instead I try to get their emotions across by describing their actions. If they're confused, their face shows it. I'm probably guilty of over-using the phrases "pursed his/her lips" and "knit his/her eyebrows together" to this effect. This is probably lovingly ripped off from the fact that so many movies do so much storytelling simply with body language, and it's something I wanted to try myself.

The downside of trying to develop a style is that if it doesn't work you can get stuck. The preceding two tricks are things that I think work pretty well for me. I haven't gotten many bad comments about them in workshop or from other readers (except one woman who told me that my characters smile too much--but hey, that's a flaw in execution, not in theory ;-p), but I can see that it would be hard at this point to switch tacks if they weren't working and take a speechtag/adverb approach to writing dialogue.

At any rate, for me I think the upside outweighs the downside. I like being able to say that I'm doing something different, and it's fun for me to figure out ways to work in the various storytelling techniques I've picked up in places that aren't books---it's part of why I write. I'd love to hear comments from others on their own styles and how they came about.

Dialogue Contest Pt. 2

Well, I wasn't a finalist. But I still felt very good about the contest, because my dialogue snippet was, in my eyes, just as good as some of the stuff that was chosen. Sure, there's a certain amount of personal bias here, but I've been in the position before of reading other people's writing and saying "Damn...I'm just not that good," and that didn't happen, so overall I'm feeling pretty good about my dialogue. That said, it can't hurt to turn the responsibility for judgment (which, incidentally, should be spelled with two 'e's, in my opinion. Someday, after I'm respected the world over for my writing, I'll write to the Oxford English Dictionary and see about remedying this....) over to others. The following is my dialogue snippet, and below that I'll post my favorite snippet of the finalists, and you guys can let me know whether I'm way off base in thinking I'm not much worse. Hell, if anyone wants to pick apart either or both entries, please do.

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My entry:

Cole's eyes burned and his right hand clenched into a fist. On his left side, Dil snaked her arm through his and leaned against him. Her hand found his and their fingers intertwined. She spoke quietly.

“What's wrong?”

He frowned, staring darkly at the fire. “Everything.”

Beside him, he could feel her shake her head. “Everything but us.” She lay her head against his shoulder, staring with him into the embers of the fire.

His fist relaxed, and after a moment he smiled sadly. “Everything but us.”

He heard a sound to his left and lifted his eyes to see Leramis get to his feet, staring towards the mountains.

Quay immediately stood from where he had been crouching, his eyes darting to face that direction. His voice sounded almost panicked. "What is it, Leramis?"

The necromancer stayed silent for a moment, his eyes narrow. No one moved, and he frowned. "The Renegades' struggle is over. I can't sense any more fighting."

Cole's heart froze and there were a few seconds of silence before Dil spoke, her voice almost shaking. "Who won?"

Leramis shook his head. "I don't know. The only power I can sense now is Sherduan's."

Cole heard only his heartbeat. After a moment, he spoke.

"What does that mean?"

Leramis shook his head again and stared into the night. "I don't know."

My favorite of the finalists, from a writer whose blogger name is Polenth:

"Davie, dearest? That's a very bad idea."

"Why?" asked Davie. He stopped the drill an inch from his head.

"Dying is terribly unpleasant."

"I won't die. My mind isn't bound to my physical form. This will prove my independence from mortal flesh!"

"I'm sure it will, dear," I said. "But you'll get blood on your clothes. What would your mother think?"

He lowered the drill. "She'd be angry."

"Exactly. Why don't we prove your independence from mortal flesh some other way?"

"There isn't another way."

I sighed. "You could go on a quest or sing about it, like a normal young man. You're making my job very hard."

He scowled. "You just don't understand."

"Of course I do, poppet. Come on, let's get some doughnuts. You'd miss doughnuts without a body, wouldn't you?"

"I suppose." Davie looked at the drill. "Fairy Godmother? Can I drill holes in the doughnuts?"

"Yes dear. If it stops you drilling holes in yourself, go right ahead."

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Let me know your opinions. If anything, I think mine probably just had too much description and not enough speaking for a straight-up dialogue contest---but hey, that's how I write, and I'm pretty happy with it.