Anatomy of a Scene Cut

With all the talk of self-pubbed, new platforms, the old regime of NY, I thought this week about a couple of things. One, just two days ago, I clicked on a self-pubbed book by a woman I know peripherally in the blog world. I was stunned by the number of egregious errors (we're talking missing commas, periods, quotation marks, spelling) because she clearly SPENT bucks on her website. But more and more, with access to crit groups, editors, and so on, I think those sorts of books will continue to exist, sure, but maybe . . . less so? I don't know. Readers will start to separate wheat from chaff.

However, if I was going to forget about that sort of writing for now, and just talk about a book FREE of those sorts of errors (for the most part, as no book is perfect), the ONE quality I see in books that have not been edited, gone through workshopping, whatever, versus those that have? BLOAT.

Yes. Bloat. And there is no Manuscript Midol except a good editorial eye.

So I thought about my last two crit meetings.

Three weeks ago, I brought a scene that was (I think) well-written. It was moving. It had "a" purpose (to show man's inhumanity). It was set in the aftermath of Hiroshima. It had some sentences and word choices I really liked. The only problem was the scene existed to show that inhumanity of mankind . . . but I didn't NEED the scene. There's enough inhumanity populating the book to begin with. And two, that singular purpose ALONE was not enough to keep the scene. It did not advance (1) storyline, or (2) any of the characters.

Scene is gone.

LAST night, I brought a scene in which a doctor performs an autopsy on his best friend. Group was divided into three in favor of keeping the scene. And this ruthless cutter in favor of "perhaps" excising it. It does not advance the story much, except to show further deterioration of society in body counts and the inner workings of a hospital lab. But it represents the ONE time in the novel when the doctor/man of science has a breakdown. So far, he has been sleepless, exhausted, blank-eyed at times, he has made love with the intensity of a man on the brink . . . but he has NOT fallen apart. He didn't fall apart as a child with cancer. He didn't fall apart when his father died in Chernobyl. He has held it together, and for that reason AND the idea of his being forced to do this autopsy, which goes beyond what ANY of us could likely handle, the scene stays.

And when I thought about the two scenes--and which one I kept and which went to Manuscript Heaven, I thought about bloat. And I thought about writing as CRAFT. And I realized that some writers perhaps don't understand the purpose of editing. It's not just i's dotted and t's crossed. You could say this blog is about the anatomy of a scene cut, but you could also call it the anatomy of a (hopefully) page turner. There should be NO scene that is purposeless, that exists because you are just so damn fond of your character that you want to show him or her in a certain scene just because you are enamored with the humor of the scene, or the location, or the dialogue, or the . . . When editors and writers talk back-story dumps, chances are that's a lot of it. ("I need this scene so the reader finds out that as a child, my main character lost his left big toe in a hunting accident and never forgave Dick Cheney.")

A good editor or crit partner will BE your Midol. They will rid you of bloat. They will force you to think of each scene, heck, each PAGE serving one purpose. Forward motion.

Thoughts?

Love a Good Back Story

Ah, the back story.

I have been addicted (!!) to this album for a week now. Love his blues voice. And holy hell, it's Chrissie Hynde, for God's sake! And the music is wonderful--guitars, singing, LYRICS. But when you read their back story . . . and if you see them being interviewed, it's even more meaningful. Two songs (Never Drink Again and If You let Me) are amazing on the emotional spectrum. The former makes me tear up (yes, a week later, having heard it 50+ times now), and the second lets me rock out at my desk.

But back to that back story . . . .

Because I think there's a lesson there for writers who have the urge to dump back story into their writing.

We don't need to know it all. The words and lyrics speak to it, from opening riff to final song, and knowing just ENOUGH of the back story enhances this album.

I feel the same way in most books and definitely my own writing. Parcel it out, a hint here or there. A bottom line and away we go.

To me, if I meet someone new, I can pretty much sum it up: This is what you need to know about me--up to you to walk or stay. Mom, four kids, writer, messy life, smart-mouthed, edgy, earthy. How I got this way . . . long story. And maybe I'll tell you in bits and pieces. In the meantime, let's go.

So . . . is there a book, album, piece of art, or movie that was enhanced by the back story? And how do you decide how much back story to include in your writing?

Focus

What do you put on a Ninja Demon Baby's birthday cake? Ninja eyes, of course. The eyes were made of frosting and we used the picture at left for inspiration. I would show a picture of the cake, but he stick his fingers in the eyes first thing and so the cake was badly mutilated. Nonetheless, this post is about Ninja focus.

I decided, after a couple of weeks of indecision about what project to focus on, to bring out my romantic-suspense and re-envision it as a thriller. When I opened the file, I discovered I had 250 pages of the sucker, and it was highly polished . . . and then the fun began.

The central plot involves a demonic possession of an actual historical figure from the Middle Ages. To that, I added an assassination by a Serbian priest, a schizophrenic with visions, and assorted other elements. I cut the prologue and chapter one and two entirely. And then more fun began.

What I essentially discovered was that this was all about pacing. That it had "worked" before, but if this was really a race around the globe, then it damn well better be a race around the globe from Athens to Brazil to the Vatican to Connecticut to London. What I discovered was I had all those chapters in there, but I was sandwiching sidetracks into the characters' lives because, well, I find them interesting. An entire chapter depicting the decline of a young man from promising chess player to very ill schizophrenic was reduced to ONE line.

"My brother has been in that room for six years."

That's ALL you need to know. I show the current condition of the brother. I don't need to TELL you how he got that way, the slow decline, the suicide attempt, the way his sister's life became consumed with rushing home from work to care for him. You don't need any of that. An entire chapter reduced to a single sentence.

That's focus.

When you get really ruthless with a manuscript--fearlessly ruthless--it's incredibly freeing. And now, more than I ever did before, I can clearly see why some books are a "meh." I stopped at page 250 before because the theology I was creating was difficult to wade through. And the book was a hybrid. Not really a romantic-suspense, and yet not a thriller. I have found over the years when I worked on other writers' manuscripts that a sure sign of a meh was not really knowing what you have on your hands, what the genre demands. Another sign was sidetracking, meandering off to what on its own is good writing, solid, but really amounts to a back story that can be reduced to a sentence.

When writers hear that, they often say, "Not possible." Well . . . working on this, I got proof. Yeah. It is. Show the damn guy in the room, what he has become. SHOW it. Then one sentence.

You don't need even an extra COMMA in there.

So, fellow writers . . . do you have Ninja focus?

What Novel Are You In?

There's really not much you need to know about me. Maybe there's something you WANT to know. But I'm not brave enough to do what Melanie did at the What Am I Doing in Mexico Blog. She took questions from the "audience" and answered every one. Me? I'd be thinking, "All right, I'll answer that one. But not that one. And most definitely not THAT one."

But really what do you need to know? I very rarely tell people I am a writer. Writing seems too personal. I loved the New York Times obituary of Gregory McDonald (who wrote Fletch and died a couple of days ago). The obit said on airplanes, if his seat-mate asked what he did, he always said he was in "insurance." That usually stopped conversation. I thought, a man after my own heart.

I will usually tell people I have four kids. I will very rarely tell people if they were of one marriage, two marriages, three, or none. Or why their last names are different, and why those last names aren't MY last name. You don't NEED to know. Curious, perhaps. But is it important?

If you look at a life like a novel . . . what back story is important to the novel at hand? Every life has a narrative, and there are key events that shaped me--just as there are key events that shaped you. All this past weekend, I was pretty sure I was getting my M.S. symptoms back in my right leg. I was pretty quiet all weekend, it was disconcerting. I didn't tell anyone in my life at all. I did a lot of "what ifs." What if I end up not being able to walk again? How much would THAT suck? But what ifs NEVER lead to a good end, so I basically told my right leg to just get with the program, and after a few days, whatever it was settled down. But if this were a novel, it would be enough to know that once, for a year--three years ago exactly--I lost most of the feeling in my legs for 365 days--and what feeling I DID have was excrutiating pain 24/7. And then it went away. And it doesn't matter why it happened or what I thought as I went into the MRI tube. It doesn't matter what they saw. What matters is . . . some days, if I get very quiet, I wonder. And it would be enough for the novel at HAND, to do that in a sentence. We don't need a flashback. We don't need a whole drawn-out medical drama--that's ANOTHER NOVEL. Not this one today. This is a whole new novel. The 2008 version. I have other dramas and other battles and other joys. The 2005 version . . . just a little back story, none of which you NEED to know unless it impinges on 2008 in a significant way.

When ruthlessly cutting and editing, so much of back story centers on "what do you NEED to know?" AND WHAT NOVEL does it belong in? If it's not this one, as fascinating as YOU might think it is (and trust me when I say this, most people aren't as fascinated by your life as you are--the same can be said for character back stories) . . . yank it.

Thoughts? Are you ever tempted to put back story in that belongs to another novel?

Moments

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave,

find your eternity in each moment.

~Henry David Thoreau

Not only is this a great quote for how to live your life, but for how to write dialogue.

Last night, Oldest Daughter wanted help procrastinating. This basically means she comes in and flops on my king-size bed and insists on talking to me, even though I am clearly just a few deep breaths away from falling asleep. When I point out the obvious to her, she says, "No. Hang out with me." Note this was 11:00 p.m. Did I mention I rise at 5:30 a.m. and SHE is a night owl/musician?

Anyway, TV got flicked on and she breezed through channels, and all I got to see was ONE minute of the Movie Independence Day. But . . . it was a great moment of dialogue, in an otherwise popcorn flick.

In the scene, Jeff Goldblum (and can I tell you, I think he's sexy?) is riding his bike into the office--into the actual office, amongst the cubicles and so on. Riding bike must mean he takes his dedication to the environment seriously, folks. That's "movie speak" for "hippie." His assistant, played by my adored Harvey Fierstein, follows him around with that VOICE of his, telling him how the entire world is about to blow up or whatever. And in the midst of it, Jeff Goldblum notices someone didn't stick a can in the recycling bin. He makes a decent wisecrack, puts it in the bins, and the conversation keeps rolling without missing a beat. And on we go to find out that YES, MY GOD, aliens are about to eat us all alive, and YES, MY GOD, this brainy fellow is the one to save us all. But now, in the span of 30 seconds or so, we know his "type."

It was a moment. A non-writer wouldn't even notice. Hell, had I been SLEEPING and not forced to watch it, I wouldn't have noticed.

But the point is . . . so often when I am critiquing manuscripts (and right now I am doing the "contest judge" thing), I see HUGE back story dumps. If I was going to say what gets axed with my red pen more than anything else? Back story dumps. And writers hate parting with them. "But NOOOOOOOOOOO, I MUST tell the reader about his childhood on the banks of Lake Huron. It's important to the story later, on page 349."

Um. No.

Here's the thing, like our pal Thoreau, like the B-movie popcorn spectacle, look for MOMENTS. Drop the hint, move on. A line of dialogue could tell you more than an entire page of back story if done right.

I've used before as an example that I had to, in each book, tell the reader that Billie Quinn was a genius. It IS important, and while you might discern that after reading 300 pages, I, as author, don't have time for you all to get up to speed. I need you to know that early on. So it's her BEST FRIEND who tells us that. Billie, who narrates, tells the reader that Lewis LeBarge is a genius. She just flat out tells us he is the smartest man she's ever met, than most human beings will ever meet. He's the lab director, so even from a non-partisan viewpoint, he must not be dumb. And then at SOME point early on in the books, he says, in a throwaway line, something like, "Just because you're the ONLY human being who can keep up with my brain doesn't mean . . . " or "Shut up, I know your IQ is that high but it doesn't mean . . ." A moment of dialogue. I don't have to tell you her test scores, the scholarship she got, her academic background. None of it. A line. A moment.

Back to life. Find your eternity in a moment this weekend. I often find them in sticky kisses from Demon Baby. But wherever you find it . . . peace and joy, my friends.

Thoughts? What are your "eternity moments"? And how do you put in single moments in your writing?

Hints and Whispers

If I was going to state the number-one flaw of most writing I've been asked to edit over the last 20 years, it's probably the adage of show don't tell. I mean, I have edited grammatical nightmares, writers who never met a comma they didn't love, and writers who apparently have never met a comma, or gave them all away to the writer who loves them. But practical matters of grammar and punctuation and typos galore aside . . . show don't tell is one of the hardest things to get across to new writers or writers who haven't yet mastered it.

I consider show don't tell in the same category as back story dumping. It's all this telling and not enough showing. And I think, myself, I finally "got" it about the twentieth time I highlighted three pages of text and pressed "delete." Believe me, I get it. I think of it like this . . . I recently had dinner with a new friend, and part of the process of getting to know someone new is revealing your past--"here's my back story." How you got from birth to here, in ten major highlights. Someone asks you, "Why did you move to Virginia?" I could say "Because." But really, I am more likely to tell you the back story of the four major hurricanes, the back of my house that blew away, the roof perpetually losing tiles and leaking, nursing a baby in a closet as a category 3 blew through town and being unable to get diapers for another week. I have a back story. We all do.

And as a writer, and as a person, I understand that it is really fascinating to put it all out there. BUT . . . you often cross the line into "telling" category. You can tell the hurricane story in a flash of dialogue in your book. BUT, you wouldn't want to then add three pages of the actual EXPERIENCE of the hurricane. That's what I mean when I said I hit delete. Now I understand that all that back story doesn't belong. Instead, what I am left with is hints and whispers. Just enough that the reader can guess and surmise, enough to let the mood waft through the book. Enough to keep people reading until, little by little, the WHOLE back story comes out. I have a book now in which the entire journey of the heroine is to discover who her mother really was as a person, and readers will not know until the LAST page what the mother's whole back story is. That's 300 pages of whispers.

Go back to the dinner with a new friend. Even as they tell you all that back story, the hints and whispers are there. Think about it. You ask, "Do you have any siblings?" They say, "I have one sister and a brother. My sister lives about ten minutes away. We're really close. My brother . . . well, hmm . . . you know, he married this woman and we haven't spoken in ten years." Hell yeah, there's a story there. But it's, perhaps, a story for another day. You have time to get all the back story. Maybe even a whole book.

Thoughts? Hints and whispers in your own book? Your own life?

Back Story Junkies

Whenever I meet a new couple, I always ask "How did you two meet?" I love all of fate's twists and turns and there is never a couple that doesn't have a great back story to their real-life romance. My significant other and I met when he was a chef and I was waiting tables, and his sous chef burned my best customer's steak, and I hurled the steak through the window and cursed the kitchen with a few choice words, and broke a plate . . . and I guess that suffices for a sort of cute "how we met" tale. For him, it was love at first sight. In my defense, this was BEFORE I studied Eastern philosophy, Buddhism, and found my more peaceful path. Back then, I was a b*tch on wheels.

But I digress . . . I am, most definitely, a back story junkie. I LOVE the "how we met" tales. I LOVE looking at old photo albums--even of people I have NEVER met. I will sit in a near-stranger's home and look through photos and listen to tales. I don't know why, but it's all somehow amazing to me how different people are, their clans, their love stories, their lives.

Which leads me to my new work-in-progress. It has, without a doubt, the most complicated back story of any book I've attempted. The relationship between my heroine and her mother, and the themes of feminism and obsession, are complicated. And here I am in chapter two, struggling . . . because I really just want to sit down and tell you the whole back story in linear fashion, but I know . . . that I can't. It doesn't make for good story-telling, so the secrets have to spill out bit by bit. This entails fighting my natural human instinct.

Anyone else a back story junkie?