Thursday, September 19, 2013

It's All About Perspective

Bell Tower, Longwood Gardens
Perspective on our own work is nearly impossible to achieve in the beginning. We are scaling a tower and fighting dragons of doubt and incomptence to reach the prize at the top: a sense of self-worth. A feeling that no, I am not a delusional maniac with a multiply-split personality, but someone of vision and coolness and writerly awesomesauce.

That feeling lasts for about ten minutes when we actually finish a draft. Then we look down from the top of our completed manuscript, find we are dizzy and disoriented, and climb right back down to start all over again from the beginning. We repeat until we are so sick of that damned tower that we decide to go write poetry by the lake instead.

Eventually, however, we get jaded enough to gain real perspective. I believe that has finally happened to me ten years into my literary adventures. I finally have started to look at my work as... well... work. A draft is just something to be refined and edited like a report for my day job. This sounds callous but it's actually very freeing.

My soul's well-being no longer depends on someone liking my stuff. I know what I like. I know what sounds good. I know that there are lots of people who don't read the kind of stuff I write. Who aren't going to get the whole literary-fantasy thing.

One day I really do want to write a literary fantasy novel, about a character in another world getting to know himself. I want to write a fantasy literary contemporary novel, in which "she doth rise and toss the laundry into the washer with one meager cupful of viscous liquid, which when combined with cold water from the city supply doth miraculously make her clothing bright and fresh."

One day I shall write that report I jokingly mentioned on Facebook about how "68% of physicians are having affairs with their nurses and 42% of psychiatrists have unicorns to take notes for them during patient sessions." (I analyze health care provider surveys for a living. Sometimes you just gotta spice things up.)

Most importantly, I TRUST MYSELF. This is a huge thing, people. No longer will critique partners or casual commenters on my blog or Facebook cause me to rush to change a work I've slaved over yet again.

How did I get this way?
  • Practice. Lots of it. Writing junk, seeing what works and what doesn't. 
  • Talking to other writers, going to conferences and writers' group meetings
  • Reading writing and agent blogs. 
  • Having the courage to put a few things out there and getting some positive feedback from people who don't know me
  • Realizing how very subjective anything to do with the creative arts is.
  • Most of all... getting to know my characters inside and out. They guide me. They know what to do. 
As my friend February Grace says, "The characters are in control. I just take dication.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The Internal Dialogue Dilemma

Internal dialogue is the term writers use for the thoughts that run through people's heads, revealing emotions, prejudices, states of mind, and reactions to external events. My current story has quite a bit of it, as the character thinks she is being haunted. She lives alone and talks to a friend she runs with on the beach every night, but much of the action takes place in her house.

I tend to prefer to put internal dialogue in third person so that it blends seamlessly with the narrative. Other writers (and readers) prefer that it be in first person and italicized. I'm going to give you an example and ask what you think.

Third person (the way I wrote it):

     Amber strode to the door, pushed it shut, and locked both the knob and the deadbolt. She could call the police, but what would she tell them? That she thought she’d seen a ghost and her front door was open? She checked in closets, behind shower curtains, and any other place a person could hide but no bogeymen jumped out at her. Leaving the lights on, she went back to bed still clutching the flashlight.


First person, italics:

     Amber strode to the door, pushed it shut, and locked both the knob and the deadbolt. I could call the police, but what would I tell them? That I thought I saw a ghost and my front door was open? She checked in closets, behind shower curtains, and any other place a person could hide but no bogeymen jumped out at her. Leaving the lights on, she went back to bed still clutching the flashlight.


Only now we have dialogue buried in the midst of description, which requires paragraph breaks:

     Amber strode to the door, pushed it shut, and locked both the knob and the deadbolt.  
     I could call the police, but what would I tell them? That I thought I saw a ghost and my front door was open? 
     She checked in closets, behind shower curtains, and any other place a person could hide but no bogeymen jumped out at her. Leaving the lights on, she went back to bed still clutching the flashlight.


This is really disruptive, so I could take the internal dialogue out altogether:

Amber strode to the door, pushed it shut, and locked both the knob and the deadbolt. She checked in closets, behind shower curtains, and any other place a person could hide but no bogeymen jumped out at her. Leaving the lights on, she went back to bed still clutching the flashlight.

In my opinion, this version deprives the reader of valuable insight as to her state of mind.


Really, though, in the end, it boils down to personal preference. So, which of the three versions would YOU prefer?