Mayhem and Dinner and Organic Writing
When one particular editor of mine believes I've forced a plot point, she says, "I just don't buy . . . . "
And nine times out of ten, what she's stumbled on is puppetry, not organic writing.
What do I mean?
No one has yet to be able to give me a surprise party where I am actually surprised. Oh, I ACT surprised, and I am always pleased at the gathering of friends and family, but no, I'm not surprised. (Sorry, guys.) And most of the time it's because there's something just a tad "suspect" about the way I am lured to a certain locale at a certain and precise time. Like, "Let's go to dinner at precisely 6:00." In my life, the way I roll, it's more like, "Let's go to dinner AROUND 6:00 and hope it happens by 7:00." Preciseness isn't my thing. So that's one giveaway.
Same thing with writing. If you as author stop and think, "I need to get Character A into the scene with Character B so that Character B can reveal Plot Point A, a red herring for the mystery," or if you say, "I want Character A to keep bumping into Character B for a cute set-up to their romance," then to me, it's forced. It's visible.
Instead, if the characters and story drive it, there's a flow to it; it all unfolds organically in a way that's very real. And then you often find organic things spilling unexpectedly into your storytelling. Maybe it's chicken and egg theory I'm discussing here, maybe it's too subtle to even fully explain. But I look at it like this . . . . in one of my favorite scenes in The Roofer, Ava (main character/narrator), Uncle Two (two-time murderer and beloved uncle), Dad (multiple murderer and daddy dearest), Tom (brother, cop, cokehead), and Uncle Charley (loanshark/bookie)have dinner one night. I didn't set out to have a scene in which a fight would evolve. Instead, they're a volatile bunch--no matter what they do, what they eat, if they are gathered together, anything can happen. Tom was sniffing in the scene, hyper, junked up . . . Dad got pissed and punched him with no warning (which is how someone like that would handle it) and broke his nose, blood flew into the sausage (ruining dinner . . . somehow, it just wasn't appetizing after that), the dinner turned into a melee with everyone staking out a corner, someone pulled a knife, Uncle Two's arm got cut to the bone, Ava and Tom left to avoid it disintegrating further into more bloodshed, Dad had to be held back from going after them. It was an organic, for this family, unfolding from sitting down to a meal to bloodshed. I think if I had SET OUT to write a scene of family bloodshed, a piece would have been missing. Tom wouldn't have done cocaine before dinner, Dad would have grabbed the knife first and cut to the chase. Somehow, I would have forced it to its logical end, but some piece would have been left out or rushed. Same result. Different path. Had it not been organic, an editor might have said, "I just don't buy that a father would pull a knife on his own son," but instead, so much happens, so realistically, it might make you wonder why you don't bring a switchblade to your own family gathering.
I don't know if this is something I intuit as a writer, this let it unfold process, or if anyone else goes through this process--if anyone else SEES the difference. Maybe I'm the only one who figures out every surprise party.
So . . . I bet you all want to come to family dinners at my house. As for the writing? Thoughts?
25 comments:
That's why I'm not good at plotting or outlining ahead of time, and why I get in knots at the end. Sometimes I see a scene in my head, and I jot down snippets, but then getting to that scene doesn't always happen organically if I haven't imagined it through fully.
I love it when things unfold on the page as I write, like what you describe!
That scene in Roofer kicked ass, btw.
Hey Spy:
Thanks.
And yeah. I don't outline precisely because I just have a need to just let it come when the scene is right there. I don't plan it too much. I just see where the words take me that day. Doesn't work for everyone, I don't think. But it's my process for sure. And I definitely, as an editor, DO see when writers have manipulated too many plot points so that it loses emotion and seems less organic and more about moving chess pieces around.
This is a timely post for me. Just today, I was trying to figure out how to get a certain character back for the climax. I racked my brain and wrote several foreshadowing events that would lead to his logical return.
But it was forced. Every bit of it.
So guess what? He's not coming back for the climax. He did his job, and we don't need to see him again until the denouement.
It's like a revelation sometimes, when a story takes on an organic life of its own. It was there all along, but it took me a while to see it.
Great post, Erica. A good reminder to avoid contrivances.
Loved the dinner fight scene.
Truth is often stranger than fiction. I have a friend who married into a family of robust brothers who get into knock-down, drag-out fist fights with their father (!) every year on Christmas Eve (!). I think such a family, if somehow depicted believably, would make good fodder for a story.
A comedy anyway.
A zany comedy.
jude:
That's a good point to . . . characters can do their job and leave the stage. E
stephen:
Did he marry into my family. ;-)
E
Hey, Erica. I've become a fan of your blog, so I hope you don't mind if I drop in on the comments every so often. Anyway, here're my thoughts on this ...
I'm with you about the need to develop organic characters whose natural proclivities drive the plot forward. As one editor said, "Characterization is the difference between literary writing and straight genre writing." Characterization has always been a struggle for me, and as you know, this particular editor has made my recent life infinitely complicated.
But (and of course there is a but), I'm also a fanatic about outlining and careful, careful plotting. I'll do 20-, 25-page outlines and think nothing of it. Before I write, I want to know EVERY plot point, every trick and set piece in the whole book.
I guess it goes to the heart of what, exactly, a writer is trying to accomplish. What kind of book do you want to ultimately produce? And what kind of writer are you? Because there's room for everybody out there -- some readers LOVE a good thriller and are only tangentially involved in the characters. They want the plot to move, they want speed, and they want a world that is foreign, strange, wonderful, fantastic, dangerous. Crichton, Patterson, Grisham, Brown -- a lot of people love those guys. Crichton once openly bragged he doesn't care about character at all. His "characters" represent ideas rather than people.
Literary writing ... a totally different ballgame. Lolita, home to one of the most twisted and compelling characters in English literature, could be summarized in three sentences without a single surprise. In Cold Mountain, the guy just walks, but the book is heartbreaking. In those books, I would argue the point is to illuminate the human character. These writers are artists.
I think the best of the best, the greats, they have it all. They do BOTH. Dickens hops to mind. The man built these amazingly complex plots that hung together, with all kinds of twists and turns, yet populated his worlds with tragicomic characters that have survived more than a century. Ian McEwan has moments of genius -- Atonement is like a piece of fine crystal. And Rowling is famous for her outlining process -- she generated thousands of pages of outlines in the process of creating totally believable, organic kids.
Of course, I don't really believe it's a straight dichotomy. It's more like the Kinsey scale :) To my mind, though, each of us as writers is somewhere along this axis, and at least for me, the goal is to learn how to be, um, you know, more bi.
JVZ
Oh I get this, all right. I am an organic writer, which means I am a slow writer. I slow down to listen to my characters. I LOVE making the discoveries that propel the story. As I've moved through this first novel I have attempted many synopses but in the end, the story is driven by the characters. I just shut up and stop trying to control them. They lead me to the next chapter. Only sometimes I wish they'd do it a little faster. I couldn't outline a novel in advance if you held a Luger to my temple.
Great post! And it was a great scene.
My wip was the easiest book of mine to write and the one I'm happiest with as I'm revising. I think it's because I wrote it organically. I loved writing this book.
Hey JVZ:
I hear you on all points. :-)
Actually, I don't think--and again for me this is a "feeling" I have about writing, rather than something I am probably elucidating clearly--outlines preclude what I'm talking about. I guess, if you outlined, you can see how the book unfolds, each thing that happens, and then the dialogue and emotion and character color it. But I guess for me, it's when it's visible . . "I need to move character A to this particular house to get this particular piece of information" and it just doesn't seem to spring from anything in particular but movement itself, that I find it forced. When a writer wants to show something and then, like a dog and pony trick, whips up some plot point to make this ONE thing stand out. It would be like stopping a book mid-stream to make the hero rescue a puppy from a burning building to show us he's really not such an a**hole after all but has these heroic gestures. In the words of a certain someone who shall remain nameless, "What is the POINT of the scene? Why does it exist?" And for me, it has to have some organic root. Which goes back to my process . . . .
And great examples about writing BTW.
E
Hi Tena:
No Lugers here (or it will become like Stephen's blog and a whole fight about gun control will break out). ;-)
But I hear you. I don't write slowly, but it's definitely what you describe as process.
E
Hi Edie:
Sometimes those books that spring from somewhere . . . they just flow and are exciting and easy to write from the get-go.
E
Ha ha! I think I've met that certain someone, and he's a fine-looking chap.
I get it now -- it's ye ol' deus ex machina question. OK, here's a question (and I'm not bitter or anything), but how come writers of books can't get away with anything resembling this, but movies can be ridiculously implausible and everyone involved makes a jillion dollars? Remember that scene in Independence Day when Jeff Goldblum uploads a VIRUS from an APPLE computer that disables an incredibly advanced alien space fleet? I almost barfed. Domestic box office: $306 million.
Why are we the poor suckers who have to master an impossible craft while making a pittance and wearing cheap sunglasses?
JVZ
Yes. That age-old machina bit.
And I think it's because moviegoing is a sensory experience--sight and sound and often eating, and so on. Most movie goers are distracted by all the pretty lights, gratutitous T&A, noise, and CGI. We go for escape.
Reading is more personal, and it isn't passive. It requires and investment from us, so we demand more of our written word.
E
JVZ--
I'm working on a screnplay and, as noted above, trying to avoid that kind of crap.
I hear you, though. Sometimes I walk out of the theater saying WTF???
Hey Erica,
I so get this! And I love the word organic writing. Like Spy mentioned, I'm not good at plotting and enjoy the unfolding, it's how I work. Once again, thanks for such a clear explanation of a very mysterious process. I get ya! Now, if I could just get the identity sign-in down pat. Boggle the mind. LOL.
LaDonna
Hi LaDonna:
LOL! I know it's you. :-)
I always plot out the story... just to give myself markers. I usually end up off in the weeds because the characters are telling a different story... which is I guess what you mean by organic.
I find that the characters develop and expand the story more than I originally thought to put in, and I am always surprised at some point in the writing process by what they choose to reveal.
ewoh:
I love it. Off in the weeds. I end up there often.
:-)
E
No Lugers here (or it will become like Stephen's blog and a whole fight about gun control will break out). ;-)
I liked your response to the current post.
Hi Tena:
Thank you. I thought his was a reasoned argument for a change. :-)
E
I thought his was a reasoned argument for a change.
Agreed. But I find it daunting that the moment you open your mouth, someone jumps down your throat. I guess I'm not a good debater.
Hi Tena:
I can debate, but most of the time I don't like to . . . it can get me too upset when I hear people spew what sounds like hatred to me. I have my father to thank, in all sincerity, for teaching me how to defend my viewpoints, and I have him to thank, too, for not being afraid to have a VERY unpopular point of view. I always defended the underdog my whole life.
I've also learned that most of the time, when people are blinded by hate or by prejudice, NOTHING I say will change them. I've also learned that just because I CAN decimate someone in a debate--because I'm skilled at presenting my point of view, or because I have an edge in terms of intellect or education or being well-read on a topic, or because of whatever reason . . . doesn't mean I SHOULD. I once humiliated someone--his opinion was SO ignorant, and I made him look the fool. And I saw it really damaged him . . . so, I decided most people are capable of looking the fool without my help and I tend to keep out of it. Stephen's is the only blog I ever go on and discuss politics.
E
Erica, you are one wise woman.
Namaste.
Tena:
Namaste, too.
:-)
E
Post a Comment