What Makes You Read About Someone Else's Life?

What with the birth of the newest UK royal, I've been thinking about what it is about the royals that fascinates people on a whole. Why do we still have monarchies in developed countries? Why are people willing to admire someone else simply for their genealogy or because they are in a position of power? But more so, why do people want to follow these people online via blogs, newspapers, pictures, etc?

Take Princess Catherine for example. She's beautiful, she's common, she's the girl-next-door turned biggest fashion icon of the decade. The media buzz around her as bees around flowers. She's got that je ne sais quoi.

What all this media hype really got me thinking about is how many novels center around royalty and fame. Many historical authors are famous for chronicling not normal people's lives, but royal lives. Today, it seems that celebrities are the royalty of the world. I'm not going to lie, I enjoy a bit of celebrity gossip every now and then, even though I don't care to meet any of these people. But there's a certain disconnect from the "glamor" of their lives and the mundane of mine. It's that very disconnect which makes me interested in them. I cannot imagine existing in that lifestyle--and I don't--so I'll read about it instead.

There are many actors that I will read an article about and be fascinated with. Despite my mild interest in their lives, I may not care for what I know about that person's character, and I have a feeling I would despise them if I knew them personally. (No, I won't name names, that's not my point.) But this leads me to the question: would I be willing to read a book about a character like them? Probably.

People like to read about lives different than theirs. What is more different than celebrities or royals? Essentially, those are real people put into a completely foreign way of life. People read in order to experience those other lives. Every book I read puts me in the life of a new person. I want that person to be quite different from me. I need to connect with them, but I do want their lives to surprise me, to be different from "the norm." I don't want to read about someone going to work unless they uncover their boss committing a crime, or they are madly in love with their engaged coworker, etc., etc. If all they do is go to work, clock in, work, clock out and go home--why am I reading? Why would I want to read about a life that isn't very different from my own?

This leads me to my WIP, of course, because nearly everything in my life makes me think of fiction (more specifically how I can improve my fiction). One of my more recent WIPs has a main character with famous parents. By default, she has a certain amount of fame. Now, I'm not naive enough to think that's enough of a hook for a reader. However, it can add certain amounts of complications. And those complications are of much greater weight if the entire world is watching. Fame throws a wrench into many plans, especially if the plan involves a secret. And that is a recipe rife for disaster. And aren't disaster and conflict the reasons we read? 

So while I am content to read about famous people, perhaps a famous character or two in my WIPs add opportunity for conflict that will keep the reader reading.

~I.E.

Yearning, or What Your Character Wants Most

Only two days left of Blogging from A to Z. I'm going to miss the challenge of coming up with something to write about nearly every day. But, it'll be nice to breathe again!

Without further ado…

Y is for Yearning

Have you ever wanted something really badly? I mean, really, really badly?

Everyone has longed for something at some point in their life. It could be something good, like a relationship, a child, their dream job, an iPad, or simply wanting to pay the bills. Or you could want something bad, like your best friend's wife, or that third piece of chocolate cheesecake.

In writing a novel, every character needs to have a yearning for something. A character's wants are what drive the story forward. What does Katniss Everdeen want? To survive the hunger games and protect her family. What does Harry Potter want? To destroy Lord Voldemort and live his life in peace. What does Lizzie Bennet want? To marry a good man for love (and it would help if he's rich).

Notice anything in common about these wants? All the characters' wants are being denied. A want only drives the novel forward if it is thwarted. If the yearning is satisfied, then it disappears. It drops out of the plot and the character does not need to act to get it. In other words, don't give your character what she wants--take it away from her instead. Or make her yearn for something new. And don't let her have that, either.

It's the best way to get a novel's plot moving: get your character yearning for something that she cannot have.

Do you know what your character wants?

~I.E.

Knots

Life is full of knots. Those kinks in the rope of life which interfere with your goals. Every time the rope begins to run quickly through your hands, your fingers catch on a knot. Each knot is a different size, a unique challenge. Some force you to unknot them before you can continue, while some are mere snags in the rope.

In the same way, literature is full of knots. Or, it should be. Every time a character's life seems to be going well, every time the character is getting what she wants, she should have her rope knotted. The knots should be varied in size, big, small, in-between. Some should require stopping, or turning back, while others should be more easily overcome.

There are a million different types of knots to throw at your characters--sailor knots, decorative knots, climbing knots, etc.--and each has their own level of complexity. It's up to the author to determine how complex a character's knot should be. In a novel, they should not only be varied in size, but unevenly spaced.

When a novel's storyline is successfully scattered with knots, it is full of twists, turns and cliff-hangers. Knots are what keep the reader reading. Knots are what show the reader the real character.

And because my current knot is in the form of a head cold, complete with a migraine, that's all for today.

I leave you with some pictures of cool knots and links for how to make them.

Source Animated Knots by Grog shows you how to complete these knots.

Source

Source: Animated Knots by Grog

~I.E.

Insecure Writer's Day #1

So I was browsing some blogs over December, and stumbled across something called "The Insecure Writer's Support Group." 

I cannot express how much I love this idea.

Every first Wednesday of the month, writers across the globe blog about their insecurities. It's the opportunity to announce your insecurity, and hopefully, get rid of it as you realize other writers have the same ones (or used to).

So this is my first time joining up in Insecure Writer's Day, and it's sadly too easy to come up with a big insecurity for me.


My insecurity is:

People don't like my plot.

My biggest hurdle in sharing my work is not in thinking that the writing isn't any good, or even in whether I've got a modicum of talent. No, it's a bigger issue than that. 

Bad grammar can be forgiven, and poor sentence structure can be overlooked--if the plot is absolutely amazing.

The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, neither of those series have perfect grammar or perfect sentences. They probably could have been written better, to be honest. And really, The Hunger Games doesn't have a particularly new plot, nor does Harry Potter. So why are they so great?

I think the plot resonates with many readers on many levels. Classic tales of good versus evil, of children growing up and doing the best they can to overcome the odds. Stories where, despite the differences of the characters' lives and yours, you can connect with them.

So maybe it's not that my plot isn't any good, but maybe it's that the way I'm telling the story could be done better. Maybe the characters I've chosen aren't compelling enough. Maybe there aren't enough twists and turns in the plot. Maybe my desire to give an ambiguous/literary ending angers my reader so they never come back.

I could go on and on. Really, it's endless. All because of plot. 

I could read a million books on plot, and I'd probably still struggle. Because really, the best way to learn plotting is to plot. 

So I'll head off to my work-in-progress now and begin plotting once again. In the hopes that someone will want to devour this book until the final page.

Compulsive Editing Disorder

Photo credit: Nicolas Karim

I'm always astounded by how long editing an entire novel takes me. I go through peaks and valleys of editing like mad and feeling completely apathetic (or worse freaking out about the state of my manuscript, despite having edited this thing ten times!).



But it never fails. As soon as I finish one round of editing, I immediately want to start the next. Although I know that I should let it sit and come back to it in a week or so, I feel that I never think so clearly as when I have recently completed an edit, I feel as though I am never more aware of my manuscript's flaws and never more able to fix them.


Sometimes, I think I need this "warmup" (i.e. first) edit to fully understand what the purpose of my manuscript is and how I should be editing it.


I struggle with this, since most writers and teachers of writing tell you to let a manuscript "rest" before tackling a new edit. Still, I recognize a lot more flaws when I've just edited as opposed to approaching the piece after a rest.


What I really should be doing is reading my novel and making notes, refraining from line-by-line edits until a second read-through. However, I find that I am such a compulsive editor, that I'm afraid my "perfect sentence" will disappear from all time if I don't immediately edit the sentence at the time of my reading. And although there's merit in that, I admit that I often change the "perfect sentence" when I later edit.


What a second edit does for me is allow me to see my manuscript with more critical eyes, even though I can be very self-critical on a normal day. A second, immediate, edit reveals to me the Big Issues. And although I realize this is backwards from what is recommended, it's made me realize: I am a compulsive editor.


So what I am going to strive to do is to take time to skim my WIP first, look at Big Picture Issues, and then, after fixing those, go line-by-line grammatically. Avoiding fixing grammar mistakes is a difficult thing for me to even imagine, but it is my goal for the next big edit!


What are some of your goals for editing? What do you need to work on?

Don't Forget the Detail

There is only one place where I never forget to look up: cathedrals. Like in York Minster, where the photo to the left was taken. Cathedrals are something special, something so ornate that to ignore the detail that has been painstakingly etched into it, is to ignore the very essence of the building itself. 

Novels are like that. To only look at the big picture, i.e., the plot, we ignore so much of the ornate detail that has been painstakingly placed between the covers by the author. So much of a novel is not the plot, but the characters and their personalities, the setting, the descriptions...it’s much more than the big picture.

When you write a novel, I think you should be concerned with the big picture. If the big picture is blurry, then the novel ultimately fails. However, I think too many authors forget that the entire picture is composed of many different, and smaller, things. In a picture, if there is poor lighting, dull colors or no contrast, and too little texture...the picture is not worth looking at for long. 

Lighting, contrast, and texture are equivalent to character development and minor characters, setting and description. If the characters are underdeveloped, if description is lacking, no matter the plot, the story is hardly worth reading. And if you do make it through to the end, then it’s probably not a novel that will stick with you for long.

The challenge, as an author, is to not perfect the big picture and think that you’re done, or that everything else is perfect because the plot is strong. Yet you also cannot get bogged down with the little things at the expense of the big picture. If you focus too much on the details, the overall plot begins to suffer. 

An author must balance many, many things in writing a novel, but perhaps grasping the importance of details is the greatest. A strong character can carry a weak plot, but a strong plot cannot carry a weak character.