What I Think Donald Maass Said

I attended a workshop a couple of years ago conducted by Donald Maass (author of Writing the Breakout Novel and The Fire in Fiction and "more than sixteen novels" which he's rumored to have written using a pseudonym). I took pages and pages of notes, mostly exercises using the manuscript I'd completed at the time.

Looking through those notes this morning, I couldn't actually find this, but I swear he said it:

"If it isn't on the page, it doesn't exist."

So, I've decided he said it. And since this is my blog, I've decided he said it more than once.

Apparently, for me, it might have been a good idea to say it One. More. Time.

A few wonderful authors reviewed my First Fifty pages recently, and one catch (among many great catches) revolved around my minimal use of physical description and other personal detail. Wow. True.

I know my characters so well, see them in such a highlighted and defined way when I tell their stories, that I made the fatal assumption everyone else could see them as well. I neglected to put their descriptions on the page.

The trick is to find a balance. I do not want to become the Tom Clancy of characterization. I want to give just enough detail that my readers can take it from there, and enjoy their own mental images of my characters.

Have you ever read a book and half-way through you're told the brown-haired protagonist is blonde? Not only does it take me out of the story, it kind of ticks me off.

I recently read a wonderful series of books featuring the same protagonist. Unless I missed it, no description appeared in the first few books. So, in my mind, he bore a strong resemblance to Brian Dennehy—a kind of gentle giant. Imagine my shock when I read that he was small and wiry? I shook my head and decided to stick with Brian.

So, part of my First Fifty revisions include a bit more description. Hopefully, just enough.

For those of you who are much like me, here it is, One. More. Time:

"If it isn't on the page, it doesn't exist."

Today is also my blogging day at Crime Fiction Collective. I'm tackling my need to be perfect and would love you to stop by there as well.

CR: You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz. I'm loving this book and at about half-way through, feel like I can highly recommend it. It's such a pleasure to be reading something I enjoy.

It's all better with friends.

Books on Writing

I don't know about you, but I have shelves of books on the craft of writing. Some are terrific, some not so much.

What's important to remember when you buy a book on the craft of writing, is that it won't do you any good if it just sits on your shelf looking good. I know this from personal experience.

So, as a kind of accountability, here are the craft books I'm reading bits from every morning (beginning this morning) while I sit outside in the Colorado sunshine:

The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell. As opposed to craft, this is more about the writing life, and how we can get through it. I'd begun reading it ages ago, but for some reason (probably the need to organize my desk), I shelved it.

The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass. I don't always agree with him, but I always learn from him. Again, I'd started reading this one a long time ago and had to pull it off the shelf this morning.

Write Away by Elizabeth George. This one has been untouched on my shelf, but not for very long. George is going to walk me through her process, and I have the feeling she'll hold my hand if I need it.

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. I confess that this book has been in my home longer than I can remember. Even before I seriously considered writing a novel. Unread. I think because I thought it might be a lot of psycho-babble. But, along with Write Away, it's probably the book I'm most excited to read now. She teaches us how to unblock our creativity. I'm willing to give that a shot.

What books on craft are you committed to reading right now?

CR: Passions of the Dead by L.J. Sellers.

It's all better with friends.

When Detail Drains

I wrote about action scenes a while ago, but I've considered them even more in the last few days.

How does a writer transfer that amazing action scene from the screen (for real or in his or her mind) to the page? Some of those action scenes in a movie are awesome, and I almost hold my breath while they're taking place. I see every detail and it's all I can do not to call out. Have you experienced those? (I was lazy on Sunday and watched movies most of the day.)

Sadly, with many—if not most—novels that I read, these are one of the parts of the story that bore me. I find myself skipping over them, plucking out a word here and there to make sure there's nothing important happening that might force me to go back and read it carefully later.

What's with that?

As I mentioned in the earlier post, slowing down and developing details are important. But too much of either and you can kill the story. Trying to capture every nuance that is visually available on the screen becomes tedious and draining when you're throwing it out to your audience using only words.

How do you lift that tension-filled cinematic moment to the page?

I knew there had to be an answer.

Behind my back at this very moment is a bookcase with probably over sixty books related to writing. I like to think that somehow the brilliant advice and direction in each of them would somehow drill into the back of my head when I'm goofing around with emails, but alas, they require a more interactive approach.

Donald Maass is my 'go to' guy when it comes to most things writing, and he didn't fail me in The Fire in Fiction. In fact, I had conveniently highlighted it months ago when I first read it:

" . . . action, when related in strictly visual terms, feels flat. Handled objectively, it does not move us. Emotions are needed to give action force." (p. 198)

Yes! Exactly! So what does this mean . . . exactly?

Master Maass continues later:

" . . . tension in action comes not from the action itself but from inside the point-of-view character experiencing it." (p. 200)

(Note: This is also the first time I've seen a 'poor' example spelled out in a craft book. Nope. Not gonna tell you. You'll have to get your hands on a copy for yourself. But it begins on page 196.)

So, the way I interpret this is you reign in your broad cinematic view of the details to the sweat and fear and utter desperation in your POV character.

Slow it down, provide the details, but don't try to be a reporter on the scene. Be the character. This would be a perfect place for deep POV.

If there's something else, please share!




CR: Rain Gods by James Lee Burke. This one has really slowed me down. I'm considering shelving it for a bit because I'm sure it's me and not Mr. Burke. And, to be honest, there's been a lot of life going on at the moment.

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Exposition

Donald Maass has written a top-notch craft book called The Fire In Fiction. If you haven't laid your hands on this, I highly recommend it. This series of posts is taken directly from Chapter Eight. You will want your own copy if possible, so you can highlight and mark it up. I think this is one book on craft I will refer to often.

Exposition (interior monologue) is often skimmed over by readers. To illustrate his point, Maass suggests you pull out a purple highlighter (purple?) and grab a novel off your shelf. Read a few pages with your purple highlighter in hand. Draw a wavy line through any area you find yourself skimming. His bet is that much of what you skim will be exposition.

Why?

Maass writes: The most common reason is that such exposition merely restates what is obvious from what we have read: emotions that we felt earlier, thoughts that have already occurred to us. My private term for this is churning exposition. It's easy to skim because there's nothing new in it.

My notes from the his workshop include these words under micro-tension in exposition: SHARP HARD CONFLICT WAR

Tension in exposition is created when the author constructs feelings that are in conflict, or ideas that are at war with one another. Examples in Fire, include feelings of happiness and relief vying for worry in the exposition of one young girl. Ideas of judgment warring with forgiveness in the interior monologue of a dying man.

From Fire: How do you handle exposition? Are there passages of interior monologue in your manuscript that are just taking up space? If there are, you can cut them, or possibly you can dig deeper into your character at this moment in the story and find inside of him contradictions, dilemmas, opposing impulses, and clashing ideas that keep us in suspense.

. . . true tension in exposition comes not from circular worry or repetitive turmoil; it springs from emotions in conflict and ideas at war.

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Action

You know that old axiom, "I know what I like when I see it." Well, when Donald Maass is actually reading examples and fixing them off the cuff, I can see it. I can hear it. The shift from mundane to intriguing.

But then I look at the page in front of me. One that I've written. It either looks just fine (and don't I know that is gonna bite me in the butt later on), or I can't figure out how to fix it. Is it really either of those things, or is it that I'm afraid it's going to require a lot more of me than I'm willing to give at this moment?

Whoa. That's bears repeating.

Is it really that I can't figure out how to fix something I've written, or is it that I'm going to have to invest more time, more thought, more struggle?

From The Fire in Fiction: . . . tension in action comes not from the action itself but from inside the point-of-view character experiencing it.

Here is a short section of a scene I recently revised. Hopefully, you'll be able to see a difference. Both of my critique partners had been in favor of cutting this paragraph. I decided to see if infusing it with a little bit of micro-tension changed their minds.

Bond (my co-protag) had gone for a walk with the family dog, a little bichon named McKenzie. The bad guys sent a message to the family by booting the small dog like a football. She's taking him to the vet.

First Draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and took off at a fast trot down the remainder of the trail. She entered the code to open the garage and ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and wrapped McKenzie. She hated letting him out of her grasp, but knew that laying him on the passenger seat would be better than him feeling her movements every time she moved her feet to drive. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and put her key in the ignition. Flying down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

Revised draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and sped off at a fast pace down the rocky, now dangerous, trail. Damn. What’s the code for the garage door? She forced her mind to focus. Two attempts and she ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and swaddled McKenzie. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and twisted her key in the ignition. Firing down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

What would make this better? More tension could be infused if Bond has some conflicting emotions. Any ideas?

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack.

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Dialogue

I'm working through my rewrites wondering how different the last half might look from the first as I try to stumble through the idea of developing micro-tension in my writing. I like to think I may have lucked out a time or two early on (or better, had flashes of brilliance), but since I have yet to fully understand this concept, there's a good chance there's little difference. {resigned sigh}

For more significant guidance, additional detail, or just because there's a lot more in the book than the idea of micro-tension, you'll want to get your hands on a copy of Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass. The chapter I'm working from is Chapter Eight, Tension All the Time.

Maass has the amazing ability (honed from years and years of studying writing) to pick up a sample and tweak it to add undeniable tension. Or intrigue. At the workshop I attended, a brave soul offered up her YA manuscript with a bit of dialogue to see how it could be enhanced.

Her scene had two people waiting for a bus. An older woman and a teen girl with an attitude. What Maass did to make it better was to get to the goals and emotions of the individual characters. The older woman was nosey, and the younger girl wanted to be left alone. Super conflict for tension in the dialogue. His immersion into the psyche of each character ratcheted the words each one uttered. Amazing.

From Fire: Tension in dialogue is emotional, not intellectual. It comes from people, not topics.

Writers will sometimes feel we have to risk backstory and info dumps to help the reader understand the situation, and in some cases, we're probably right. But there's no way we can turn information into riveting writing. It is what it is. Sometimes we can make things a little better using dialogue. But it must be infused with tension. One of your characters has to have an opposing goal, or a disbelieving view, or something that makes the dialogue relevant and interesting.

And don't forget inner conflict. That can be expressed in dialogue as well. Do they indicate that what they're about to say is really none of their business, or something else even more dramatic?

Maass gives an example of creating tension when the dialogue is between friends. Then, the writer must rely on friendly disagreement. But there is still an element of strain. Does the character think they're friend is making a horrible decision? Do they refuse to back down?

From Fire: Where is the tension in your dialogue? Is it present in every line? Why not undertake a dialogue draft? Check every conversation in your story. Are you relying on the circumstances or the topic itself to make it important for us to listen in?

That is dangerous. Instead, find the emotional friction between the speakers. Or externalize your characters' inner conflicts. Or pit allies against each other. True tension in dialogue comes not from what is being said, but from inside those who are saying it.

Maass says earlier in the chapter: Micro-tension is easily understood but hard to do. I know this because when teaching it in workshops I watch participants nod in understanding when I explain it, but see them stare helplessly at their pages when they try to do it themselves.

Was I that obvious?

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension

I attended a writers conference last week at which an Early Bird session was offered. Donald Maass presented an information packed workshop based on his must-have books on craft: Writing the Breakout Novel and Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook; and his newest, The Fire in Fiction.

Because it's easier for me to begin to understand a concept by sharing it with others, my plan is to write a few posts here centered around what Maass says is "the secret for making a page turner."

My notes say: Micro-tension: The line-by-line tension that carries the reader. Makes them momentarily apprehensive, anxious—enough to make them read the very next line, and then the next.

Maass says in The Fire in Fiction: Micro-tension is the moment-by-moment tension that keeps the reader in a constant state of suspense over what will happen, not in the story but in the next few seconds. It is not a function of plot. This type of tension does not come from high stakes or the circumstances of a scene. Action does not generate it. Dialogue does not produce it automatically. Exposition—the interior monologue of the point-of-view character—does not necessarily raise its level.

I often hear writers talk about authors "getting away with" breaking the rules. Opening with weather or landscaping, dumping backstory when we all know it's supposed to be sprinkled like a very rare, very pungent spice throughout the story, but not before page 50!

Maass says that when you don't have micro-tension, the reader is likely to skim. Too much skimming and you've lost them forever. When you do have micro-tension, you can get away with anything.

From Fire: . . . micro-tension has its basis not in story circumstances or in words: it comes from emotions and not just any old emotions but conflicting emotions.

I hope to sort through this with you over the next few days as I learn about tension in dialogue, action and exposition, and try to apply it to my own writing.

Stepping off the cliff now . . .

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.

Writing ER

Yesterday I sat down to read the next few scenes for my rewrite.

They stunk.

To be honest, the scenes weren't as stinky as the writing. I must have been ten when I wrote them.

To be even more honest, amateur writing aside, the scenes were still pretty horrible. {heavy sigh}

Enter Grand Intervention in the form of The Fire In Fiction by Donald Maass. I'm reading a little bit every day while I eat lunch. Feeding two needs at once. Yesterday, I was a wee bit unhappy as I sat at the table and opened Fire at my bookmark. I read:

Authors, as they plow through the middle portion of their manuscripts, tend to write what they think ought to come next; furthermore, they write it in the first way it occurs to them to do so. In successive drafts such scenes tend to stay in place, little altered. Unsure what to do, an author may leave a scene in place because . . . well, just because.

And then:

To re-envision a scene, look away from the page and look toward what is really happening. What change takes place? When does that change occur (at what precise second in the scene)? In that moment, how is the point-of-view character changed? The point of those questions is to find the scenes' turning points (note the plural).

And I'll leave you with:

To put it plainly, scenes work best when they have both outer and inner turning points.

Thanks to a bit of direction by Donald Maass, I was able to fix one scene yesterday. Today, I plan on writing a new scene for a sub-plot and then move on to perform additional surgery on the next couple of seriously ill sections.

The Doctor is in.

CR: Love & Respect by Emerson Eggerichs.

It's all better with friends.

I've Birthed a Book!

"I hope that this time I will be able to hold all the threads together, that the characters will evoke a sense of reality, that what I've written will elucidate a theme, that an occasional paragraph will sing, that I can, in a phrase I learned in England, 'bring it off.' This, I believe, is the constant ambition of the writer and his constant prayer."

~ JAMES A. MICHENER

I finished my SFD about 6:30 last night. After pacing (and yeah, flexing a little), I finished printing it out about 9:30.

Now what? My last two attempts are stuck in the proverbial bottomless drawer.

This one is different.

I have about twelve gazillion craft books and workshop notes on editing. Too much data.

The next few days are going to be focused on researching this next giant step. That delay will help with the "settling/stewing" thing I've heard about so often.

Nothing like accomplishing something by doing nothing.

CR: Relentless by Dean Koontz.

Will be crawling through Margie Lawson's Deep Editing system, Chris Roerden's Don't Murder Your Mystery, Browne and King's Self-Editing for Fiction Writers, The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass, with Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird standing by to make me feel better.

It's all better with friends.

Striking the Match

Every novelist I know reads books on craft their entire career.

I'm taking a workshop from Donald Maass in September, and because I like to have an idea what might be coming, I purchased his newest, The Fire in Fiction. Okay, the another reason might be I can be a little bit of a suck-up.

The INTRODUCTION made me very glad I don't wear dentures because I dropped my jaw more than once.

Take a look:

"What do I mean by passion? Simply put, it is the underlying conviction that makes the words matter. It is the burning drive to urgently get down something specific, something that the reader has to see. It could be as big as a universal truth about human nature or as small as the quality of light on an autumn afternoon on the Nebraska prairie." (pg. 2)

"Passionate writing makes every word a shaft of light, every sentence a crack of thunder, every scene a tectonic shift. When the purpose of every word is urgent, the story crackles, connects, weaves, and falls together in wondrous ways." (pg. 3)

Donald Maass creates big expectations. He sets the bar of storytelling higher and higher. He makes me rethink every plotline, every character, every . . . every word. I believe my writing will be better for it.

This book is shaping up to be my most high-lighted, notated, re-read book on craft yet.

CR: Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott.

(Waiting to receive the new Linwood Barclay for review.)

It's all better with friends.