Day 3: Strategies and strenghts
I do have some strenghts. Dialogue, mostly. Exposition as a secondary one.
When I write dialogue I write it like a Tarantino film. A normal conversation. A normal situation. Every day stuff is the base. Much like the burger Dialogue in Pulp Fiction. The diner discussion in Reservoir Dogs, or the basement bar conflict in Inglorious Basterds.
It has to flow naturally between the characters, if its my two main characters I think back to the times I have talked with my best friends and how we talk over one another, or how we finish one though, not exactly our sentences, inferences is more like the thing. I plant an idea, he follows it. I give an argument he gives a counter-argument. Or one of us corrects the other.
Then I fuse the two things. Set myself in Character, imagine a normal conversation. How would they talk about their jobs. They would get a coffee and drink it nonchalantly, arguing about their daily lives between pondering about the body they have been asked to investigate.
It has to feel comfortable between two close people.
I don’t think about the actions, nor the mannerisms, sometimes not even the way they talk. I just write the dialogue and how it comes and goes. The intonation. The pauses. The excitement.
But that’s not the only situation. Think about how you talk to people.
Listen how you talk to your friends, listen how you talk to other people, elders, strangers. How they talk to you.
And then add the seasoning. The juice. The actions. After you have your dialogue and it flows like people would talk.
This is from my first draft, first chapter, of Cannibal’s ball, a conversation between Homer and Virgil.
“You got it wrong again,” I told the man who had arrived half an hour late.
“Hello,” he replied in an overtly exaggerated manner, “nice to see you again too,” I did not know if he was being sarcastic or if it was his extravagant personality. “I brought you coffee, you're welcome.”
“I only drink black.” Hesitantly, I took the warm cup he had offered me.
“I know that.” He said with a silly smile.
“So? Why did you bring me a latte then?”
“You haven't even tried it yet.”
“I know it is not black.”
“Come on, at least try it.” I reluctantly drank it, too much foam.
“See? It’s a Cappuccino.” He drank loudly with gusto. “The latte is mine.”
“I still only drink black.”
“Then why did you bring me this.” - I hold the cup with my thumb and my middle finger.
“Because I forgot!” He threw his hands to the air dropping some of the coffee to the air to be carried miles below the city to become a slight drizzle over Paris.
It still needs some work,buuuut....See what I did there at the end?
I threw a bit of exposition there. See, in my universe London is a flying city, and it’s flying a bit to the west and hundreds if not thousands of miles above Paris.
Exposition also has to come out naturally. We don’t learn all and everything at the beginning in life and we don’t need to do it in a book.
We can use a lot of devices to explain our universe. From humor, like Terry Pratchett did. To using a “fool”, explaining to a third party coming to your world for the first time about the intricacies of the magic system or political conflicts.
If two characters know about something, they don’t need to give exposition about something they already should know.
You don’t go saying to an American... “As you know, on July the fourth we celebrate the independance and because of that now we throw fireworks at night”...That would be silly unless it’s a teacher explaining to her 6yo pupils why they have that holiday.
Which is also why kids make great tools for exposition... unless you are not talking to them like a child, or worse, treat your audience as a child.
Audiences are more intelligent than we give them credit for. Specially in this day and age, we have all this theorists and reddit boards and discord servers all to discuss the miniscule details of every little piece of media that we can get our hands on.
You can try to hide away your plot twists, and great reveals, but someone somewhere will be trying to decipher your clues from the day of release. If you have luck.
Use flashbacks sparingly, it’s like medicine. In the right doses it can be convenient...Too much and it becomes poison to your story. They are great to explain character’s motives, but they also halt the plot. We want to know what happens next, not what happened in the past.
And finally. Information. Exposition. Is on a need to know basis.
Sure. Tolkien could go on and on about all the things the Hobbits could eat for breakfast as soon as he began a book.
But you are not Tolkien and this is not 1954.
There is a reason Medium has an approximate reading time in the articles they publish, why most wattpad professionals make their chapters to be read in 5 minutes.
Explain things as your characters/plot encounters them. Leigh Bardugo doesn’t explain why Kaz is such a bastard until he passes out from a triggered trauma. Patrick Rothfuss explains all about magic and names until Kvothe reaches the magic school, even if before that he had been thaught a bit of the magical system. And we still don’t know much about why they killed his family (sorry about the spoilers.)
If they need to know “Encyclopedic knowledge” give them an encyclopedia, a teacher, something that makes it logical or interesting. For example...
Homer buys a “newspaper” called “The Researcher” and in there he learns...
“The Central is located “underground” below the newest edifications of the city. After a big catastrophe almost seven hundred years ago, the state-cities began to develop ways to restore themselves to their old glory days and prevent any major incidents to happen again.“
He is learning about a new place he is going to visit. He is “The fool” in this case and has to learn about a new world.
But later on we introduce Cybelle, who comes from another reality, she doesn’t know how things work in Earth, so Homer has to explain a lot of stuff to her. And it becomes a dialog and it has to flow naturally, like you would explain something you are good at to someone who has never known about the topic.
There is a truckload of tricks to learn about exposition, but this is a lot already and I have yet to cover some weaknesses.
Descriptions. I have a difficult time creating descriptions for many things. Since I try to keep “the juices” flowing I tend to skip on the descriptions and when I go back I forget at times what they were wearing or how the place they were in was like.
And my other weakness, like many others, sitting down and write, defeat that blank page.
Most of the time it helps to have something to calm the nerves... A glass of wine for example... but water also works, it is kind of a reset.
But then you hit a wall and you think... damn it... what is next....
Take a breather. Have a snack...But don’t go searching for a snack! Have them ready and handy so that it can be easier to let it flow once again.
I love to have a mix of cheese, ham, nuts, strawberries, anything that is not too sweet but can be nibbled. Make it fun and fancy as possible if you can/want. Get into that mindset to write.
Another strategy that I have mentioned before to get into the mindset is to write that blank page, your day, but not YOUR day. What would your day would have been if your normal day was in a magical setting or science fiction setting.
Dragons that nest seasonally on the mountains bringing different seasons with them. Your necromancy studies are not going too well and the frog you tried to bring back to life just the lower part began to dance while the other was very limp and dragging, it will give you some nightmares later. Or maybe your teacher from Orcish 101 decided to make an Orcultural festival and you have to make a traditional dish and an exposion on the evolution of traditional skullcups since the Orc-human treaty in 1924.
Have fun and then get back to that story.
A final strategy is a classic one, but one that I don’t do often specially in first drafts.
Read what you wrote last time and edit a bit. Then go back to the last line and keep going.
I don’t like that one much since you could get stuck in a self-doubt-editing loop.
I rather finish my writing day leaving a little idea or a clue of what comes next. A bit of a preview for myself to incorporate that the next day.
That went for too long. Sorry for the mess. If you have come this far I would really like to talk with you. Send in a message. We might help each other or just talk a bit.
See you on the next post. :)
