Today's guest blogger on Salad Bowl Saturdays is Marilyn Larew. As with many of us, she came to writing fiction after a career of writing non-fiction. She shares with us four things she needed to unlearn in order to write fiction.
~ Jim
~ Jim
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Being trained
as a historian is not the best way to learn to write fiction. In a Ph.D.
program you ingest reams of facts and interpretations, which you then package
in 50 minute segments and attempt to insert into the brains of the kids who are
texting in the back row. That doesn’t work for fiction. For one thing, your
reader doesn’t have to stay.
Here
are four things I had to unlearn while I was writing my first thriller.
When I started, I created a precise depiction
of present day Morocco in which to set my story. After all, had I not been
creating as accurate a picture of the past world as I could for my students?
This proved constricting, and then it became impossible, and I faced the
reality that reality wouldn’t work.
The terrorist group I was using for the Bad
Guys had made it, big time. When I started, the group was small, on the run
from the Algerian authorities, almost done for. Earlier this year, they carved
out a fief in northern Mali from which the French have yet to expel them. They
also captured an Algerian gas plant in the Sahara and held its workers hostage.
The site was only recaptured by Algerian Special Forces after four-day standoff, which left
at least 37 foreign hostages and 29 kidnappers dead.
Clearly, this was
no longer a group that a single American woman, however brave, could mess with.
A friend finally took pity on me and told me to junk Al Qaeda in the Islamic
Maghreb and invent my own group. I was writing fiction, after all. It was an Ah
Ha! Moment.
I invented the
Pure Warriors of Islam, and the plot began to move again. Then I went back and
took out all the other inconvenient realities and invented there, too. It was a
great liberation.
UNLEARN TELLING PEOPLE HOW MUCH I KNOW
Far too many
versions of The Spider Catchers had long
passages explaining Moroccan society and Islam. They were full of information
that was fascinating to me, but which slowed the pace of the plot down to the
speed of a donkey in the medina, not a good thing in a thriller. I think I did
this to demonstrate that I knew what I was talking about, but it may have been
sheer showing off.
unlearn telling the reader everything up front
This, of course, takes
the mystery out of a mystery and leaves no room for the gathering in the
library where the detective reveals who the murderer is or for the shootout in
the last chapter where the Bad Guys get their comeuppance.
Scholarly work is
organized differently from fiction. In a work of scholarship, you tell the
reader the most important things first, explain why they are so, and then tell
them again. In fiction, you feed the reader just enough information to keep her
interested, and sometimes that
information may be false, which is a great crime in scholarly writing.
UNLEARN OBJECTIVITY
Last, most
important, and most difficult, I had to unlearn objectivity, the need to
suppress my emotions and give a balanced, impartial account of my research. I
had to learn to write with emotion, even passion, to persuade my readers that
my girl and her story were worth caring about.
The
hardest lesson I have learned along the way has been to unlearn what I have
learned.
My computer has
been shocked at how my writing has changed. It occasionally sends me a prompt
that says “are you sure you want to do this? OK / cancel.”
Yes, I’m sure I
want to do this. I just want to do it better.
P.S. As I wrote
this post, the French and Chadian armies announced that they had killed the
last two real terrorists in my book. They were only in a briefing, so it won’t
be a problem replacing them with imaginary characters, but it proves once again
that reality is not really useful in writing fiction.
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I live just over the Mason-Dixon Line in southern Pennsylvania with my husband and a finicky cat. My publication credits are all non-fiction, but my love is thrillers. I write them right out of today's news. I'm not published yet, but I was a 2012 semi-finalist for the Debut Dagger award, so I'm getting close. My website ishttp://marilynnlarew.com .
I related to your post so much, Marilyn. When I first started writing and research, I was not only fascinated with the information I found, but I also wanted to educate my readers with it. Of course, I then discovered that entertaining readers was my objective, not educating them.
ReplyDeleteI also wanted to explain too much to them, which meant illuminating them with backstory.
We learn, but since most of our writing experience originates from school, its an unlearning and new learning process.
Thanks for a great post!
Having earned my living in the world of writing reports, I too wrote much too formally and needed to explain everything. Even after I began to realize most readers didn't much care, I thought footnotes would be great for the one reader who did want to know.
ReplyDeleteI had characters talking in the most stilted language and continually referring to each other by name as though the reader couldn't keep track of who was talking.
"Mother, I will go out and play will my neighbor Johnny. We shall follow our agreement with you, Mother, and not trespass into Mrs. Yellalot's yard."
It's fun to hear of someone else's journey to better writing and reflect on my own travails.
~ Jim
I'm pleased to learn that I have comrades. I thought I was alone.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I have earned along the way is that when you're a writer, you're never really (there it is again!) alone.
May we unlearn so well that we shortly learn that we're published. Have you seen Jim"s new book?
Seen it, read it, loved it. Glad you blogged with us today, Marilyn.
ReplyDeleteI'm from York, PA, Marilyn. Where are you Shrewsbury? Loganville?
ReplyDeleteE.B., we're five miles east of Stewartstown. I'm glad to have a neighbor.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. Writers come from many backgrounds
ReplyDeleteI had to learn to stop qualifying what I wrote as a psychologist.
But don't you think that your characters were more real, better conceived, because you're a psychologist?
ReplyDeleteThank you for this message, Marilyn! I plan to write a story based on real life events set in the late 1800s. While I think all the information is fascinating and that everyone would be equally enthralled to learn about a cowboy race that began in Nebraska, I know that’s not the case. I will take a lesson from you and unlearn telling people how much I know and unlearn some reality, too.
ReplyDeleteAll the stuff you learned would be fascinating to me, but then I was trained in Frontier History and born in Nebraska.
ReplyDeleteLet me know where you place it.
I enjoyed reading your lessons learned, Marilyn. I think we all have a lot to learn. After many edits, I eliminated over 20,000 words from my book. That's a problem I have - saying more than is necessary.
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of words, Gloria. Are you sure they all had to go?
ReplyDeleteYou make me worry about mine now. I do go on. Programmed for 50 minutes, you know.
Another wordy person here -- I've learned to cut and cut and then cut some more. It's why I love the RFW challenges - excellent training!
ReplyDeleteHi Yolanda, I just met you on Facebook.
ReplyDeleteI guess wordy is normal, isn't it. Such beautiful words I write, none of which advance the plot. Sigh. Out they have to go.
But you know, sometimes somebody else has to tell you that they don't advance the plot. They're so beautiful.
Fascinating post, Marilynn.
ReplyDeleteI think it's difficult for those of us who find learning to be a form of entertainment to understand readers out there who aren't so inclined—just one of the reasons it's important to determine our audience before we put pen to paper. Some readers want only to be amused and distracted, others want more. That said, throwing out facts which don't move the story forward or shed light on character is nearly always a bad idea.
In college, I took rhetoric rather than English. As a sociologist the choice served me well. I learned to write papers by repeating my thesis in a hundred different ways—ideal for academics. Surprise, surprise, this doesn't work in fiction! To this day, I still have lapses.
~VR Barkowski
"throwing out facts which don't move the story forward or shed light on character is nearly always a bad idea"
ReplyDeleteWould you explain that, Viva? There's counter-factual history. There's counter-factual writing?
I was under the impression that counterfactual writing was solely the bailiwick (I've always wanted to use that word) of alternate history writers.
ReplyDeleteBy throwing out facts…, I was actually referring to writers who include information because they find it intriguing, rather than because it's essential to furthering plot or developing character. I'm not one for rules, but I do believe when writing fiction, the writer's first duty is always to story, no matter how interesting the research or important the theme. This includes literary fiction. Exquisite writing is a joy to read, but if the story gets lost, all you're left with is a lot of pretty words.
~VR Barkowski
The best (?) counterfctual history I remember was an early one where the author proved to his own satisfaction that it would have been better not to build the transcontinental railway but to rely on canals. I do want to build a canal across Nebraska, don't you?
ReplyDeleteAnd then there was the 2 vol. one that proved that slavery wasn't profitable except on new lands, which all of us had been teaching since 1865. The second volume was the notes.
So I suppose it is the bailiwick (back at you. it is fun) of alternate history writers.
I find this very helpful, Marilynn, as i do yet another read through of my ms for a swap. I've got to get rid of a lot (based on my critique group's comments) and be comfortable with letting some things be less detailed.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I could relate to so much of it, especially number three. I have a horrible tendency to give away too much, thus destroying any "mystery" aspect. I am always going back and trying to hush my characters, lol.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog post! I could relate to so much of it, especially number three. I have a horrible tendency to give away too much, thus destroying any "mystery" aspect. I am always going back and trying to hush my characters, lol.
ReplyDeleteYou have to know all the facts and use a small portion of them. Nice blog. Cher'ley
ReplyDelete