Building the Series, Part I: Beginnings
Warning: This is not a How To Guide for Writing.
What this is, is an exploration. Specifically, it is an experimental look, using The Raven Cycle as a starting point and lens) to discuss structure in a longform seriesâfor a narrative that is meant to have multiple beginnings, multiple middles, multiple endings, and (simultaneously) one beginning, one middle, one end.. It is an examination of how an idea can evolve to become not merely a story but a fully realized, living, breathing world.
Because, I think, that is really what a series is: a world of your own making, with the structure and form your medium of choice requires to live a life within it.
(or The Raven Boys, and The Lie of âShow, Donât Tellâ)
The first rule of writing is: Show, Donât Tell.
Itâs a rule Iâve always taken to heart, as a consumer of narrative. My mind wanders listening to endless exposition, when I feel like I already know the rules. I scowl when a character beat or plot point Iâve already seen demonstrated gets signposted, or, in rare cases:
Itâs obvious why we get fed this rule, and it makes perfect sense. Of course you Showâhow boring otherwise. How repetitive your sentences would be in all Tells: âHe was sad.â âShe was delighted.â âThey were not happy together, but they were in love anyway.â How complicated it would quickly become, if your audience felt like they were being told something they were not being proven: âHe and she are a bad match and probably shouldnât be together but I decided as a writer to do it anyway so nuts to you.âÂ
So: Show, Donât Tell. Of course. We get it, weâve got it, good.
Of course, the first line of The Raven Boys is:
Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times sheâd been told that she would kill her true love.
For some of you, that might seem to make sense too. Of course you Tellâhow difficult otherwise. How would you even write that, in a Show? âWhispers in Blueâs mind told her again.â âA man half-cast in shadow would fall before her.â âTwin lips brushed together, and turned black at the touch.â You have to Tell itâitâs obvious to Tell it.
So: Tell, Donât Show. Great, got itâ
Wait, donât got it, no. Maybe some of you do, but. I know for myself, Iâve never found it so obvious, for whatever reason. And by for whatever reason, I mean âfor a specific few, many of which Iâll get into Part IV.â
But most importantly one: I think the first rule of writing is Show, Donât Tell. I also think the first lie of writing is Show, Donât Tell. Not because itâs inherently, universally, wrong (see SW example above), but because it implies it is inherently, universally right. Thereâs something glorious about the Show, about seeing a scene and knowing, feeling, in our gut, the truth of it.
Demonstrated by and named for Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov, the Kuleshov Effect is meant to demonstrate how cutting in cinema creates meaning. An audience member, seeing two images in quick succession, will create a meaning and a relationship between the two of them due to the natural human inclination to tease out patterns and create narrative in seemingly random events. The shot of the man in the above short is always the same: a blank, neutral expression. Yet, depending on the image immediately preceding it, we understand the emotion differently. We bring to him subtle nuance and shades of meaning that are, patently, not truly there.
It is a testament to the rule of Show, Donât Tell that we are able to do this. The man does not need to Tell us heâs hungry. We understand hunger, and we understand that looking at a piece of food (rather than ignoring it) generally indicates it. However, I also think it demonstrates very well the lie. The manâs expression never changesâand, on its own, the manâs expression Tells us nothing. There isnât anything really in this part of the Show. Were the shot of the man unmoored from the short or were it cut to come after a scene of ambiguous value, something we do not inherently understand, then the same power the human mind has to find nuance or create patterns actually only becomes a weakness. It leads to argument, or confusion, as different audience members gather different thingsâand without a Tell to keep them in line, thereâs no real way to determine, who is right and who is wrong.
Not all beginnings are created equal. Your series might take place in a white siding house with a white picket fenceâa narrative we have been fed, however incorrectly, as being the norm, and thus, something many people understand as a baseline. Your series might take place in alternate history rococo Space Franceâa narrative that we have not been gifted, however unjustly, as the norm (thanks, universe). Or, like The Raven Cycle, your series might take place in a not quite real town in Virginia, with pockets of world that are exactly like our own, and pockets of world that only seem like our own. These are different levels of distance from reality, with different levels of inherent understanding we can bring to itâand thus, different levels of Tell, I think, that we in practice need to have along with our Shows, to make sure our Shows are actually Telling.Â
This is particularly true, I think, when weâre looking at beginning our series. If a series is an idea fleshed out to make a worldânot a story with three parts (beginning, middle, and end), but a genuine universe with a life to be lived within itâthen the beginning is the start of that life in that world. It is the promise of what is to come.
No, not just what you are setting up, promising. They are the same (until they are differentâmore on that later) and knowing thatâknowing this is a question to askâis probably the most important thing you can do in any beginning. We understand Exposition. Whether or not we are good at it, we get the purpose. It is, after all, what we do as the writer.Â
What I think we understand less, to differing extents, is what we donât actively do but which occurs as a direct result of our actions: What I think can be safely called Establishment and Expectation.
Establishment, at least, is a word we get thrown as writers. Though, I want to talk about it not as a synonym for exposition, not as an action we do as writers, but as something the book does with our exposition. Kind of like an echo of what we shout into the cold, dark abyss.Â
Letâs go back, again, to our first line:
Blue Sargent had forgotten how many times sheâd been told that she would kill her true love.
It exposits just that: Blue knows she will kill her true love. But thereâs more than that going on here. With this line, it is also established that Blue is a pretty strange duck. Having true loves, killing true loves. It is established, very lightly, that this is not your average kissing book, and not your average true love tale. It sets a tone, one the rest of the prologue supports with
Her family traded in predictions. These predictions tended, however, to run toward the nonspecific. Things like: Something terrible will happen to you today. It might involve the number six. Or: Money is coming. Open your hand for it. Or: You have a big decision and it will not make itself.
Exposited: Blueâs family is magic, but not omniscient and exact (Told and Shown).
The people who came to the little, bright blue house at 300 Fox Way didnât mind the imprecise nature of their fortunes. It became a game, a challenge, to realize the exact moment that the predictions came true. When a van carrying six people wheeled into a clientâs car two hours after his psychic reading, he could nod with a sense of accomplishment and release. When a neighbor offered to buy another clientâs old lawn mower if she was looking for a bit of extra cash, she could recall the promise of money coming and sell it with the sense that the transaction had been foretold. Or when a third client heard his wife say, This is a decision that has to be made, he could remember the same words being said by Maura Sargent over a spread of tarot cards and then leap decisively to action.
Exposited: Blueâs family is specifically the fortune teller kind of magic, but in a modern world (note cars, note lawn mower) (Shown). The town loves them for it (Told.)
But the imprecise nature of the fortunes stole some of their power. The predictions could be dismissed as coincidences, hunches. They were a chuckle in the Walmart parking lot when you ran into an old friend as promised. A shiver when the number seventeen appeared on an electric bill. A realization that even if you had discovered the future, it really didnât change how you lived in the present. They were truth, but they werenât all of the truth.
Exposited: That magic is therefore not showy, and doesnât make them wizards (Told).
âI should tell you,â Maura always advised her new clients, âthat this reading will be accurate, but not specific.â
But this was not what Blue was told. Again and again, she had her fingers spread wide, her palm examined, her cards plucked from velvet-edged decks and spread across the fuzz of a family friendâs living room carpet. Thumbs were pressed to the mystical, invisible third eye that was said to lie between everyoneâs eyebrows. Runes were cast and dreams interpreted, tea leaves scrutinized and sĂŠances conducted.
All the women came to the same conclusion, blunt and inexplicably specific. What they all agreed on, in many different clairvoyant languages, was this:
If Blue was to kiss her true love, he would die.
Exposited: Blue is differentâthe magic foretelling her future is very definite (Told). No matter what kind of magic it is (Shown). If Blue kisses her true love, heâs done (Told).
And, through all the above: Established: Blueâs kiss is dangerous, and this is definitely not your average magical true love kissing book.
Expectation is a bit trickier. It is less what you do, or even what the book does, and more what the audience does with that information from there. What thoughts the information youâre expositing and establishing has led them to have.Â
Because of what has been said about Blueâs kiss, the audience can expect several things: That Blueâs kiss, whenever she does have it, is going to be very important. That romance, whenever Blue does experience it, is going to be very complicated for her. That Blue will kiss someone (because otherwise what even is the point); that the other bits and bobs we pick up about the rules of magic in this universe will somehow tie into this, even if we canât say just this second what those bits and bobs are (because otherwise what even is the point). Even that Blue is a/the main characterâbecause, otherwise, what even is the point.
Thatâs all with a pretty easy few paragraphs, ones which do a lot of Telling, and just enough Showing to keep things interesting. What do you do when you throw Kuleshov into it? When your audience will always find nuance and patterns, and thus will always create expectations based upon them that you may not even be planning for? This could end up terrible. After all, no one fully knows the mind of another person.
This could also, however, end up great. After all, you can use this. If the reader will create expectations, if the reader will feel promised something based on what you are expositing and establishing, that means youâve got some nifty things in your toolkit now. You have intrigue. You have tension.
And you also, I think, have organization. You can now sort your set up, into information we must in book one know right now and information you actually donât. Information that sets up and promises, and information that may, in fact, be better as a reward.
After all: If your audience has expectations, then you can meet them. But you can also flip them right where it hurts. Stab them in the eyes and leave them for dead.Â
But, thatâs for Part II and The Dream Thieves to tackle next.
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