Getting Tense

A writing friend asked me the other day about whether she should continue to write her novel in the present tense. Since I put a bit of thought into my answer, I’m going to recycle it here for the benefit of my readers.

First, let me start by acknowledging that the past tense is the standard default setting. I suspect it dates back to oral tradition – stories recount events that have already occurred, so we tell them in the past tense. It sounds natural to the ear, where the present tense may stand out and be distracting.

It is also not necessary to use the present tense to convey urgency or immediacy. Many can’t-put-‘em-down page turners have been written in the past tense.

This doesn’t mean the present tense is inherently wrong. But like any tool in the writer’s kit, it should be used to build a better story. Is there a reason for the present tense? My third novel has two running timelines, one past and one current, so I use both the present and past tenses to keep them clear to the reader.

Another trick might be to use the present tense for dream sequences or for when the narrative is told from the perspective of an animal, a space alien, or some other notably unusual point of view.

Nothing is wrong if it makes the story better, but there is a balancing act.  Any deviation, any trick, any clever bit of writing, needs to be judged carefully, weighing the benefit it brings to the work against any confusion or distraction it may bring the reader.

I have read more than one well-written, professionally published novel written entirely in second person narration, which just goes to show that weird stuff can be done and done well.

So my advice on using the present tense is: Know why you are using it and check occasionally to be sure it’s really working for you.

Outlines and Writing Sequence

Oh my, I haven’t really blogged much in April, have I?  I’ve been busy. Remember the Script Frenzy challenge to write 100 pages of script in April? Despite taking four days off for Norwescon and catching a killer cold, I managed to complete a stage play.

It’s a first draft. Like all first drafts, it will require review and revision. But it’s done. At 79 pages.

It was an interesting writing experience. I wrote final scene first, because I knew how it had to end. Then I wrote the first scene, because certain things had to be established for the final scene to work. Then I wrote some stuff in the middle, in no particular order. Then I wrote the scene that came before the first scene and then the scene that came after the final scene.

A lot of writers start with outlines. Obviously, I’m not one of them. But I had created such a cluster that I had to impose order on it. So, rather than outline what I needed to write, I went back and outlined what I had already written (which, incidentally, told me what I still needed to write).

What I  learned from the exercise was that my story had three distinct problems arising from the order of the scenes.

The first was sequence.  Characters cannot act on information before they receive it and problems cannot be resolved before they occur. This was the most obvious problem.

A little more subtle was the issue of timing.  In one case, I had a character told she could not return to work until she had solved a certain problem. At the start of the very next scene, she returned to work with a clever solution. It was in the right sequence, but it happened too fast. It just doesn’t seem like much of a problem when the audience only experiences five minutes of real time before it gets resolved.

And finally, there was the problem of flow – how one scene proceeds into the next.  It’s easy to cut between scenes on the stage with a blackout or a curtain, but cutting from a pair of characters on one set to the same pair of characters on the same set may not flow as well as other transitions.

This is part of the fun of working in different formats. All of these lessons can apply to the construction of any type of story, but they were easy to see while I was writing for the stage.

A Clever Word Avoidance Strategy

Short blog because I’m already behind on Script Frenzy.  The title of my play has changed, by the way.  I kept looking at The Souls Academy and thinking “Souls” looked like it wanted to be possessive, when the original intent was for it to be plural.  The current working title, still subject to change, is The Apocalypse According to Saint Michelle of the Coffee Shop.

Today’s writing lesson is in how not to be trite.  Or maybe it’s about word choice.  I’m writing a play about religious themes, but I don’t want to talk directly about things like “the healing power of love" because frankly it will make the audience wince. 

So I am actively avoiding certain words.  For “love,” for example, I’m talking about understanding and kindness. It’s less ambiguous anyway.  And, like with the sonnets I discussed a few blogs back, it forces me to expand my vocabulary.

Another trick I’m using is hiding key words amongst words of lesser importance.  Forgiveness is a major theme of the play – more so than love, actually.  So I don’t want to beat the audience over the head with it, especially early on.  So instead of saying “you need to forgive him,” I say things like “forget him, forgive him, or whatever you need to move past him…” The concept is still in there, but it is far less obtrusive.

And yes, authors worry about stuff like this all the time. Believe it or not, it’s part of the fun.

Staging the Next April Project

It’s April 1st as i write this.  In addition to being April Fool’s Day, it’s the start of Script Frenzy, the script writing challenge from the wacky folks that brought you Nanowrimo.

I wasn’t going to do the Frenzy this year, but then I remembered an idea for the ending of a play that I’ve had in my head for several years.

I’m going to have to start with the ending and write backwards.  (Back…words?)  Wish me luck.

I’m also going to need to figure out where the play is set.  I have action and characters, but no backdrop.  This is important for stage plays – every change in location requires a set change, which requires the theater to spend time and money.

Many modern plays revel in set changes – the elaborate sets and fancy changes are part of the spectacle.  And also part of the ticket price.

And on the other end of the spectacle spectrum, there is bare stage.  Shakespeare is largely written for the bare stage – the actors come in and simply announce where they are and the audience goes with it.  My, the Forest of Arden is lovely this time of year.  (Amusingly, A Chorus Line, famous for its big musical production numbers, is also written for bare stage.)

So I’m going to start writing now.  My work is tentatively entitled The Souls Academy: A Blasphemy in Two Acts.  I don’t really know yet if it will really be two acts.

But I’m fairly certain about the blasphemy part.

Perspective Matters

A fictitious character walks up to you and says, “The other day I saw two birds in flight, one below the other.  The further from me they flew, the closer together they came, until at last, in the distance, they merged into a single bird.”

How would you respond? My first thought is “You’re farsighted.  You should get glasses.”  But I’m not you and that is very important. 

How would people from other times and places have responded?  Perhaps “You are seeing double.  You should drink less ale.”  Or, “Your vision is  a terrible omen.  You should be burned at the stake.”  Or, “You have seen the bird’s spirit flying beside it.  You should study under the tribal shaman.”

The point that I am so subtly bludgeoning here is that everyone’s answer is based on their knowledge, their culture, their perspective.  This is particularly important for fictitious people, who carry the burden of illustrating their world to their readers.

The culture and perspective of the characters impacts not only how they see the world, but the choices they make and the words they use.  And it is not just something that authors need to consider in terms of character.  It can inform even the word choices and language of the work.

I am told that the use of the word “focus” to mean concentration – focusing on a problem, focusing one’s energies – is derived from the science of optics and is therefore a fairly modern term.  So a Stone Age sorcerer would not focus his magics.

Now, you may be saying, that’s a bit nit-picky.  And you are right, it is.  There is a counter argument that states to be read and understood, the work needs to be in the language of the modern reader.  After all, to be truly authentic, any piece set far enough in the past should be linguistically incomprehensible to all but the most dedicated scholars.  And honestly, you want to sell to a wider readership than that.

But the counter argument should not be used as an excuse to avoid any research or effort in fully depicting the perspective (and the world) of the character.  It’s more of a balancing act.  Accessible language and the portrayal of a foreign or fantastical perspective are not mutually exclusive.  It comes down to making writing choices – will this word choice support my story without confusing my reader?

Hey, I’m sorry, but no one ever said writing was going to be easy.  But oddly enough, it can sometimes be a whole lot of fun.

Secret Genre Identities

I written before about how genres are built up of conventions and expectations.  But times change and sometimes genres have to adapt to keep up.

The obvious example would be the old cowboy movies that inspired a generation of children to play Cowboys and Indians.  Westerns today acknowledge the cultural complexity and diversity of Native Americans.  Besides, they were here first.

And the role of women, in just about any genre, has changed a good deal since the 1950’s.  And the spy genre is still adapting to the end of the cold war.

But it isn’t always the sledge hammer of political correctness.  Sometimes the changes are a little more subtle.  Sometimes the tropes just get tweaked a little, here and there.  In the current super-hero space, for example, the secret identity has been devalued.  It’s still there – it’s too central to the concept to toss aside, but it’s not the same. 

You rarely see a story these days that centers around a hero’s close friend almost stumbling on the big secret.  Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne no longer pretend to be bumbling idiots just to contrast their super lives.  And where it used to be only one or maybe two at most knew a hero’s identity, now the secret is commonly shared.  Heroes call each other by their personal names.  Clark married Lois.  Heck, even Aunt May knows who Spider-Man is.

There are a number of reasons for the change – we’re not really a culture that values humility and anonymity.  No one gets a promotion by being just another office drone.  And we live in an information age where personal privacy has become something that needs actively defending.  I think the heroes have adapted fairly well, considering such a central genre trope is no longer a good fit for the times and customs.

Deploy the Backburners

Sometimes we have ideas that we just can’t stop to think about right now.  So we set them aside, to some dark corner of our minds, where they continue to grow.  I believe the idiom is “putting it on the back burner.” 

I have a fairly large back burner.  But this may not be unusual – for all I know, every one does.  As a writer, it is useful to look back there occasionally and see what’s cooking.

I’ve had a rant in my head for years asking why anyone would want to grow up in a nation that appears to value youth over age.  And another about how a global communications network will not create a world of peace and understanding and may, in fact, have the opposite impact.

One day, years ago, I’m writing this play and have a scene where I need conversation for an awkward dinner date between a man who needs to grow up a little and a woman who is a bit of a techie.  Out come the rants and the scene practically writes itself.  And the characters have something interesting and thoughtful to say.

After all, it’s stuff I thought about for years.

Of course, it doesn’t always work out that well.  Here’s a counter example:  I’ve had this idea for a play in which the characters trap a vampire in the basement, not realizing just how cruel and dangerous a creature they’ve cornered.  And I had this great speech, in which the vampire justifies her existence by claiming to be a living historical memory.  Great speech, with mythological references, poetic meter, and layers of metaphor.

When I finally get around to writing the play, however, the speech doesn’t fit.  It sounds too different from everything else in the play.  It sticks out, it spoils the rhythm, it looks like the author’s favorite pet doing an unnecessary cameo appearance.

So I had to cut it.  Had the damn thing for years, and it ends up on the cutting room floor.  So it goes.

It’s commonly held that works of art are expressions of the artist’s ideas and creativity.  But sometimes, for the end result to be a quality product, we don’t get to say everything we want to.