Emulating a Favorite Author

This week’s assignment for the fiction writing workshop I’m enrolled in was to write in the style of one of our favorite authors.  I chose to “attempt” to write in the style of historical fiction author Philippa Gregory.  In emulating Gregory, I struggled with trying to make it sound like the voice of my character, but also incorporating my own style, plus, using elements Gregory makes use of.  The problem with this is, everything the professor said not to do, Gregory does, and does it flawlessly.  I took particular note of her long, compound sentences, which she often uses semicolons with.  For me, the semicolon has some kind of stigma attached to it.  Some people are afraid of semicolons.  I’m one of them.

The use of compound sentences also goes against the grain of what I’ve been trying to do with all of my stories this term.  The professor advised us early in the term to keep sentences around ten words long, and I’ve been consciously making an effort to vary my sentence lengths.  Gregory doesn’t use a lot of short sentences, so I felt like I was regressing to my long-winded, rambling sentences I used to write before this term.  Gregory also uses a ton of adverbs, which I’ve been trying to limit in my writing.  I also keep Stephen King’s writerly advice in mind about adverbs not being a writer’s friend.  I tried to use some adverbs in this week’s story, but it felt like I’m telling the reader, instead of showing.  Another thing that goes against the grain that Gregory does is, she deviates from the he/she said/asked dialogue tags that the professor told us to stick use.  Gregory uses those simple tags, but more often she uses tags such as “she hissed” or  “he added.”  In a lot cases, Gregory uses adverbs with basic dialogue tags.  For example, “she said bossily” or “I said brokenly.”

It’s an odd feeling trying to emulate another author’s style.  It didn’t feel like me, and I felt like my writing was being held hostage because I was more conscious of trying to emulate her style.  I couldn’t get my story to flow out of my brain and onto the paper.  I kept teetering back and forth whether it was best to write the story first, then go back and emulate Gregory, or if it was best to incorporate her style into my story as I was writing.  In the end, I’m happy with my finished story.  My finished product came out more like my style but with a few stylistic elements I don’t typically use.  The professor will probably take points off for my long-winded sentences that I used with semicolons.  She won’t like how I deviated from the basic dialogue tags either.  But I followed the assignment guidelines and wrote in the style of an author I love.  I’m anxious to get my grade for this story!

Historical Tidbit: Prostitution in Ancient Greece

Historical Tidbit:  The hetairai of ancient Greece were professional courtesans who possessed intelligence, beauty, and sophistication. They charged their elite male clientele high fees, making them the only group of economically independent women.  Even though they were viewed as prostitutes, the hetairai had much more freedom in Greek society than the common woman.

 

Point of View: Third-Person Objective

I’ve been assigned the dreaded task of writing a short story using third-person objective point of view.  I say “dreaded,” since most of my stories are written from the first-person POV.  I also like reading first-person stories and novels because I feel more connected to the point of view character.  Writing in first-person POV is preferable to me for that same reason.  To write in third-person POV is a challenge for me in itself, but third-person objective is a completely different beast for me to tackle.

From the third-person objective point of view, the narrator cannot read the thoughts or feelings of any of the characters.  The narrator may only describe what is seen or heard, as if they were a fly on the wall or a spectator in the stands.  The actions, dialogue, and descriptions of the characters can be explained, but no judgments can be made.  This has been a struggle for me because I keep wanting to describe what a character is feeling or thinking.  I began writing sentences such as, “Her cheeks burned in embarrassment,” but caught myself and backspaced.  A fly on the wall couldn’t possible know that a character “felt” embarrassed or that her cheeks “felt” hot from embarrassment.  That would be making a judgment, and that’s the whole point of third-person limited.  Your narrator cannot make judgements.  While writing my story using this POV, I have to keep reminding myself that third-person objective is like watching a movie.  A character’s feelings and thoughts are only revealed by what they do and say.

In his book, Master Class in Fiction Writing, author Adam Sexton points out the pros and cons of third-person objective POV.  He notes that third-person limited is one of the least used POVs, but that it works for John Steinbeck’s novel Of Mice and Men, as well as Ernest Hemingway’s short story “Hills Like White Elephants.”  According to Sexton, one reason why more novels and stories aren’t written from this POV is because it challenges readers to draw their own conclusions.  On the other hand, Sexton claims that it can be a good thing because it makes for more active reading, rather than passive.

As writer, third-person objective point of view has been quite a challenge.  But I’m keeping in mind a passage from Sexton’s book: “If you force yourself to write a story from this point of view…you will discover just how much information you can communicate to your readers dramatically rather than explicitly — how very possible it is to show rather than tell.  And that can liberate a storyteller, as well as empower her.”

 

photo credit: Lívia Cristina via cc

Dialogue: Beyond Conversation

I just completed a historical short story titled “The Dueling Politicians.”  It’s based on the George Canning and Robert Stewart duel of 1809.  For this story, my focus was on dialogue.  My aim was to use character conversations in order to serve the story in more ways than just characters talking.  I used it as a tool to push the plot forward, to provide information and exposition, to develop my characters, to add tension as well as humor, and to show the absurdity of these two politicians agreeing to a duel.

After reading about the importance of dialogue in short stories and novels, I’ve compiled notes on how dialogue can best serve a  story.

Pushing the Plot Forward

The events that occur in a story don’t always have to be embedded solely in the narrative.  Dialogue can drive the plot by showing the story’s conflict, throwing obstacles at the protagonist, and providing resolutions to the stumbling blocks.

Adding to Tension

Dialogue can be used to contribute to the stories tension.  For instance, you can use it to show two characters disagreeing.

Providing Information

You can give readers information within the dialogue.  But care should be taken as to not cram too much backstory or exposition in there.  If there’s a lot of exposition, it would serve the story better to write it in narrative form.  By doing so, you would also be making your characters more believable, because nobody gives information overload during a conversation unless they’re giving a speech or just can’t shut up.

Diction & Syntax:  Essential Elements of Dialogue

Diction is word choice.  In the case of dialogue, it’s the words a character uses in conversation as a way to convey their feelings, views, beliefs, et cetera.

Syntax is sentence structure.  When a character is speaking in dialogue, the way they form their sentences can lend to character development.  Do they speak in clear and concise sentences?  Do they speak in compound or complex sentences?

Character Attributes that Affect Diction & Syntax

• Age
• Gender
• Ethnicity & culture
• Nationality & region
• Social class
• Education
• Occupation

The Best Dialogue Advice

In his book Master Class in Fiction Writing, Adam Sexton uses the dialogue in Raymond Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” as an example of dialogue serving the story in more ways than characters having a conversation.  Sexton says that masterful dialogue contains “repetition, interruption, unfinished sentences, slips of the tongue, errors in fact, characters correcting themselves and even taking back what they said (alas, too late!), jargon and cliché, jokes, characters talking past each other, significant things left unsaid, and gestures—each in small doses…”

Fixed Form Poetry: The Sonnet and The Villanelle

Writing historical fiction is my thing.  I love developing long-forgotten historical characters and their settings for short stories.  I love throwing conflict after conflict at my main characters in my historical novel-in-progress.  But I also love fixed form poetry.  It’s like placing pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together.  The difference is, you have to make the pieces yourself before you put it together.

The Sonnet

The Italian sonnet (or Petrarchan sonnet) treats its theme in two parts:

1. The octave (8 lines) — states a problem, poses a question, or shows emotional tension.  The rhyme scheme is abba abba.
2. The sestet (6 lines) — resolves the problem, answers the question, relieves the tension.  The rhyme scheme can vary:  cde cde, cde, dec, or cde dce.

The English (or Elizabethan sonnet) is composed of three rhymed quatrains (12 lines) and end with a rhymed couplet (2 lines).  The rhyme scheme for the English sonnet is abab cdcd efef gg.

Both the Italian and English sonnets consist of a total of 14 lines and 10 syllables per line.  I adhere to the 14 lines for each form, but my lines sometimes fluctuate between 9 and 11 syllables.

Example English sonnet:  The Scribbler

The Villanelle

The villanelle is a French verse consisting of five tercets (15 lines) and a quatrain (4 lines), making for a total of 19 lines.  The rhyme scheme is:  aba aba aba aba aba abaa.  There is no set number of syllables per line for the villanelle, but it’s usually between 8 and 11 syllables.

The key to the villanelle is that the first and third lines of the first tercet are repeated throughout the poem.  The first line is repeated as the last line of the second and fourth tercet and as the third line of the final quatrain.  The third line is repeated as the last line of the third and fifth tercet and as the last line of the final quatrain.

Example villanelle:  Uncharted Escape

Descriptive Writing in Storytelling

When working on my short stories and novel-in-progress, I’m finding that most of what I write has description, including my dialogue.  Without descriptive writing, readers will apply their own senses (sights, sounds, tastes, and textures).  Sometimes I want readers to trust their own instincts with my writing when they’re reading.  Other times, what the reader has imagined may not be what I wanted them to see, smell, taste, hear, or feel.  By using descriptive writing, I can guide the reader to see, smell, taste, hear, or feel what I intended.

Concrete Writing

In the fiction writing workshop I’m in currently, I’ve learned that one of the most important aspects of writing is being concrete.  Descriptive writing is concrete in that it tempts a reader’s senses first.  It can be experienced by one of the senses.  Smell, taste, and touch fall under the concrete category and have a better impact on the reader than sight and sound.

Describing Body Language

Another way I’m using descriptive writing in my stories is describing a character’s body language.  For example, when a character is having a conversation with another character, are they inching backward to gesture that they want the conversation to end?  Or are they tipped forward, indicating their interest in what the speaker is saying?  If characters are seated, are their legs crossed at the ankles?  At the knees?  Are their spines upright?  Are they slouching?

Similes and Metaphors

Similes and metaphors add to description as well:

• A simile indirectly compares two unlike things as one: He ate like a pig.
•  A metaphor directly compares two unlike things: He was a pig.

For my current stories, my goal is to include at least one concrete description per scene.  I always try to include simile but metaphor is challenging for me.  I do well with concrete description and calling on the senses, but I need to apply that descriptive language in each scene.

 

photo credit: eyesore9 via photopin cc

photo credit: jDevaun.Photography via photopin cc

Methods of Characterization

For the fiction workshop I’m currently participating in, we’re using Adam Sexton’s book Master Class in Fiction Writing :  Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and Other Greats.  For the workshop this week,  the focus of our short stories was on character development.  More specifically, creating “round” characters.

Three Levels of Characters

Sexton simplifies the three types of characters in a story.

1. Tertiary characters are “flat” characters. Meaning, their actions are consistent. They don’t change during the story.
2. Secondary characters are “round” characters. They’re three-dimensional. They change and are inconsistent in their actions and reactions.
3. Primary characters are also round. What distinguishes them from other round characters is that they have a motivation.

The Round Character Test

In Master Class in Fiction Writing, Sexton refers to E.M. Forster’s quote about round characters: “The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises, it is flat. If it does not convince, it is a flat pretending to be round.”

4 Methods of Showing What You Know About Your Characters

Sexton provides four principles of characterization.

1. What the character does.  Their actions and reactions to various situations.  Example:  “Your father forces himself on me when Abby goes away for the weekend,” I said, creating the lie to stir their anger.
2. What the character says or thinks about themselves.  Example:  “I’d never let a man force himself on me.  They’d be dead the instant I sensed their intention.”
3. What other characters say about the character.  Example:  “He’s a penny-pinching swine worth five-million dollars, yet we have no indoor plumbing and not one gaslight.”
4. What the narrator tells us about the character.  “She knew how to wield a hatchet.  She’s been slaughtering pigs on the family farm since she was twelve years old.”

Sexton notes that a writer should incorporate all four methods of characterization, but “readers will believe and remember Method #1 best, with Method #4 coming in second place and Methods #2 and #3 bringing up the rear in terms of reliability.”  My short story this week was based on the murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in August 1892.  Their daughter Lizzie was arrested for the crime, but found not guilty by a jury.  I told the story from Bridget Sullivan’s point of view, the Bordens’ maid.  I incorporated all four methods of characterization and feel as though it added much dimension to her character, making her a memorable narrator and primary character.

Master Class in Fiction Writing: Techniques from Austen, Hemingway, and Other Greats: Lessons from the All-Star Writer’s Workshop by Adam Sexton

Writing Short Stories Under Strict Word Counts

A new fiction writing workshop began for me this week.  I’m a bit sad because it’s the last workshop I need towards my B.A. in creative writing.  On the other hand, just like all the other writing workshops, I’m tasked with writing a short story each week for six weeks.  This is a great thing, but the challenge is that I’m under strict word counts for each story.  This week’s story is limited to 1,500 words.  If I go over that limit, I’ll automatically lose 15% off of my grade.  On one hand, having word limits is a great way to make me choose every word carefully.  It also ensures that each word drives the story forward.

On the other hand, it’s difficult for me to write a story with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and which includes a strong character who faces conflicts, who then comes to a resolution — all within 1,500 words.  And since I write historical fiction, I do a lot of research for my stories and want to incorporate my findings in order to embellish the characters, plot, and setting.  Needless to say, my weakness with these very short stories is that my endings are rushed.  I feel like I’m making my poor characters run as fast as they can, only to have them slam into walls.  Even though I move the conflict and action up in the story to be early on in the beginning, there’s still a setting to create, at least two rich characters to develop, and dialogue that needs to be exchanged between them.

The instructor of the workshop acknowledged the struggle over word count and provided some tips:

1) Write a story with no more than three locations. Try to start the course with just one location in your stories (often, that number increases, but the attempt will harness you).

2) Have no more than three characters. You can briefly mention a character in dialogue, but in a story this short, your best bet will be to keep it simple. A conversation between two characters, an interchange, even just a reflection from one person, is going to be stronger as you can really go in depth with your work.

3) There’s usually no need for an extensive vocabulary in short stories. Too many large words often make writers sound pompous, even if that’s not intent. It’s actually considerably harder to write a story with a limited vocabulary.

4) Vary sentence length: General rule of thumb is to never have a sentence longer than 10 words. There are some exceptions (maybe one sentence is very long), but you lose the reader in those sentences, and losing the reader is the worst thing that can happen to a writer! As well, make sure to have some VERY short sentences for variety.

5) Dialogue tags (s/he said) can sometimes be cut altogether.  I often see people for variety writing a different thing each time: mumbled, proclaimed, mused, murmured, spoke, inquired, exclaimed, etc.  If you’re going to use dialogue tags, honestly it’s MUCH stronger to stick with “s/he said.”  The others are distracting.  When used in major moderation, a particular line of dialogue can be emphasized.  If done too often, the words lose meaning.

These are valid tips.  But Number 4, a sentence never being longer than ten words is doesn’t seem realistic.  That’s where my focus lies with this week’s short story.  My goal is to keep my sentences simple within my story.  When writing under strict word counts in the past, I watched the word counter on my document as I typed.  But this time I’m going to try a different approach.  I’m going to write the first draft and include everything and anything I want.  After that draft, I’ll take out my hatchet and trim and cut and cut some more.

A Novice Novelist’s Approach to the 3-Act Structure

Writing a historical novel has been quite an undertaking.  I’m discovering more facets to the process all the time.  With the short stories I’m used to writing, I didn’t have to do full character charts, nor did I have many characters (two for my short stories).  I didn’t have to plan scenes and generate a scene list because my short stories are usually one scene, maybe two.  There certainly aren’t any “acts,” like the 3-act structure that many writers use for their novels.  With a short story, there’s a major conflict and then a resolution.  With writing a novel, I can’t have just one conflict.  That’s where the 3-act structure has helped me plan my novel, because it includes three major disasters.

Why Use the 3-Act Structure?

Once I compiled my scene list, I began analyzing it and combing scenes together to make them into one, or splitting scenes apart into two separate scenes.  I arranged the list to my liking, and that’s when I looked into the 3-act structure.  I was afraid of it at first.  I had a mental aversion to the word “structure.”  I didn’t want this blueprint of my novel to be permanently set on a clay tablet.  I wanted the freedom to move things around or change my mind and delete things or add new content as ideas arise.  I also thought, This structure thing is confusing.  Why complicate matters when I can just write it as it comes to me?  The answer to that is:  Because I want my readers to be fully engaged while reading my novel and to have an intimate experience with my characters.

Simplifying the Structure

My brain doesn’t take well to this linear-type of thinking and planning, but the more I looked into the 3-act structure, the more I began to grasp it.  The most confusing part of this structure to me was how a novel can be divided into four quarters, and yet there’s three acts.  To simplify the process, I made a chart.

The 3-Act Structure (w/novel divided into four quarters)

Act I	First Quarter	Ends with first major disaster
Act II	Second Quarter	Ends with second major disaster
	Third Quarter	Ends with third major disaster
Act III	Fourth Quarter (Last quarter)	Wrap up with climax and resolution

 

Placing Scenes within the Acts

When it sank in that the third quarter is part of Act Three, that helped in explaining how there can be four quarters but only three acts.  Once I saw how this structure flowed, I was then able to place my scenes into the act in which they belonged, as can be seen by my spreadsheet below.  This was my first sheet and very rough, just so I could get the layout and where the three major disasters belong.  It’s only a screenshot, and I deleted lots of rows of scenes in to order to show how I sectioned my scenes around the 3-act structure.  I couldn’t get Acts Three and Four in the photo, but you can get the idea that those acts follow as the spreadsheet continues on.

 Is the 3-Act Structure Restricting?

I never imagined that I would be plotting and planning to this extent, but I don’t feel like I’m locked into this blueprint of my novel.  I can still change what happens and how characters react, right?  And, yes, I like to color code.

Historical Research: Why Did Elizabeth I Never Marry?

You can find my post The Virgin Queen’s Aversion to Marriage on my History Diaries blog.