Writing scenes

Following on from my earlier post about showing, not telling, here are the basics and a few useful tips on writing scenes in genre fiction . . .

Scenes are the fundamental building blocks of genre.  They are the venues in which the stories are shown, not told.  Scenes may be connected by narrative writing -- "telling" -- and a given scene may contain some necessary narrative description to establish the setting and convey any details that are essential to the action, but they will be mostly about characters in conflict with each other, with their environment, or with their inner selves.

A scene in a genre story or novel is there for a specific purpose:  it either advances the plot or it develops the character, and ideally it does both.  If the author happens to be a literary genius, a scene may instead evoke mood or make a symbolic statement, but those of us who are not in the genius business are safer if we stick to the plot/character standard.

Now, an aside to establish a definition, because the word "scene" means different things in different media:  a scene in a genre novel or story is not the same thing as a scene in a play or a movie.  In a play, a scene is the action that takes place in a specific location.  In between scenes, the curtain closes (or at least the stage goes dark) and we wait while the set is changed for the next location.  In a movie, a scene is bounded by much the same considerations, although one follows fast upon another, because editing takes out all the lag time between showing us what happens on the bridge of the Titanic then cutting to what's going on in steerage.

In genre fiction, a scene is bounded by its content.  Just as every novel or story asks and answers a dramaturgical question -- will Hamlet finally make up his mind?  will Dumbo come to have faith in his ability to fly? -- so each scene poses and answers a smaller question that's part of the big one that frames the story.

So, in a detective story, we may have a scene in which the sleuth, tipped off, goes to a warehouse at midnight to look for the evidence that will solve the case.  The scene's dramaturgical question is:  will he find the evidence?  The answer, as in most scenes, is liable to be either yes, nor, or not yet. 

Say that when he gets to where the evidence is supposed to be, he's jumped by the bad guy's henchmen, beaten up, and hauled off to meet the boss.  At that point, we've answered the question and the scene is over.  Probably, we go on to the next scene where the confrontation between the bad guy and the sleuth poses a new question:  say, will the confrontation yield new information that moves the plot along?  And again, the question will be answered --  yes, no, not yet -- by the action in the scene.

Because it's about asking and answering a question, every scene, long or short or inbetween, has a beginning, a middle and an end.  The beginning is where the conflict inherent in the action begins, the middle is where the conflict develops, and the end is when the conflict resolves into the answer.

The key word in the above para is conflict.  Every scene is built around a conflict of some kind, be it physical, verbal, emotional, spiritual, or any other form you can think of.  The protagonist of the scene struggles against some kind of opposition to fulfill some kind of agenda.  A scene without conflict is just travel writing or character sketching, both of which are fine in their own milieus, but not what the genre fiction reader is looking for -- which is story, the basis of which is conflict.

Scenes also have a sense of time passing.  Things happen, one after the other, and the reader is carried along from moment to moment, action to action, with an illusion of immediacy.  Even though most genre fiction is written in the past tense, the reader is led by the "show, don't tell" technique to experience it as if it's happening right now.

To write a scene, you must first settle the issue of whose point of view the scene will be told from.  In narrative (or "literary") fiction, the point of view may be that of an omniscient narrator who describes characters and editorializes on their strengths and foibles.  In genre fiction, the author is advised to choose either a first-person pov or what is called third-person-limited. 

In first person, the warehouse scene would open something like this:  "I opened the door to the warehouse and slipped inside, my trusty Smith & Wesson sub-nosed .38 ready in my hand."  In third-person-limited, it would go:  "Dick Tracy opened the door to the warehouse and slipped inside, his trusty Smith & Wesson snub-nosed .38 ready in his hand."

The reason the latter is called "limited" is because it is restricted to the pov of only one character in the scene -- in most scenes it's usually the story's protagonist, although scenes shown from the pov of a supporting character or even the antagonist (the "bad guy") may be useful to the story-telling process.  So, even though other characters may come into the scene, like the henchmen waiting in the warehouse shadows, the reader will experience them only through Dick Tracy's sensorium -- seeing what he sees, hearing what he hears, feeling the pain of the blows he suffers.  If we want the reader to know anything about what another character is thinking or feeling, it will have to be funneled through Dick Tracy's senses and perceptions. 

Leaving a pov character's frame of reference to dip into another character's in the same scene is called "head-hopping."  It's acceptable in literary fiction, but not genre.  So we can't write, "The one with the squashed nose, a genuine sadist, was enjoying hitting Tracy in the same part of his belly over and over again, doubling and redoubling the pain." 

Instead, it has to be something like this:  "The one with the squashed nose threw a second punch that struck Tracy in the same spot as the first blow.  The pain flared up like a fire when gasoline is thrown on it, and the detective's vision became a tunnel framed in red.  He looked into the thug's eyes, saw the pleasure there, and knew that he was being beaten by a genuine sadist.  The man's knowing smile as he slowly drew back his fist for a third strike showed that this was not just business.  The bastard was enjoying himself."

The more you use the pov character's senses in describing what's going on, the more you'll draw the reader into the scene.  So try to avoid generic descriptions like "The air in the room was chilly," and instead describe from within the character's sensorium:  "The chill air raised goosebumps on Tracy's bare arms and sent a shiver through his back muscles."

Minimize description in scenes, because it slows down the action.  Choose a couple of apt details to put the reader in the picture and let the reader's power of confabulation -- that's the human mind's ability to create a complete picture from just a few clues -- do the rest.  For example, the thug above with the squashed nose and knowing smile needs no more embellishment.

A tip for beginners.  Most us, when starting out, have a tendency to write a lot more than is necessary.  In writing scenes, that includes writing your way in and writing your way out.  Modern readers, especially, have been educated by the rapid-fire editing of contemporary movies and television shows.  They don't need the written equivalent of the establishing shots that bygone generations of movie-goers were used to.

So in the warehouse scene, we wouldn't bother with how Tracy got to the place.  We would start the scene with him opening the door and going in, because that's where the conflict begins.  The reader will understand that he got there somehow.  And we would end it when the scene's question has been answered.  The warehouse scene could end with the bad guys putting a black bag over the detective's head and everything going dark.  There's no need to describe his being shoved in a car, driven across town, dragged out, manhandled into another building and shoved into a chair.  The next scene can begin with the hood being pulled off his head so the confrontation with the bad guy can get underway.

When you're going over your draft, look for those "ears" on the beginnings and ends of scenes, the places where you wrote your way in and out, and cut them.  You'll get a faster-paced story.

Finally, every character in a scene has an agenda, something he or she (or it) is trying to achieve.  It's the clash of those agendas that makes for conflict.  And conflict is the indispensable tool of the genre fiction writer.

Free copy of Welcome to the Greenhouse

As I post this, it's only three hours since Gordon Van Gelder sent out the email, so there may be time for the early adopters...

O/R Books, publishers of Welcome to the Greenhouse, the anthology of science fiction about climate change (that Gordon edited and in which I have a story) is giving a free copy to the first twenty people who send them an email and promise to blog about the book.  Details are here.

Majestrum review

Here's a recent blogger's review of Majestrum, the first Henghis Hapthorn novel.  The blogger, Hornrimmed Magpie, says, "The idea that you will, in time, be subsumed by something that is you and yet your opposite is profoundly unsettling, and Hapthorn's attempts to soldier on, to make allowances, and yet maintain the upper hand are mesmerizing."  It's a welcome comment, because it goes to the core of what the Hapthorn books are really about.  They are a study of a proud (hell, hubristic) man having to come to terms with his own inevitable diminishment, as indeed we all do when we come to realize what age will eventually do to us.

Gordon Van Gelder, editor of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, is also the editor of a themed anthology, Welcome to the Greenhouse. All the stories (including a lightweight, humorous offering of mine, "Not a Problem"), are about climate change anthology.  He recently did has done an interesting radio interview on the book and on short sff in general.  My name comes up midway through.

I haven't been posting much lately because I'm trying to get as much done as possible on the spec thriller I'm writing, before I have to up-stakes and relocate from New Zealand (beautiful place) to Italy (just as beautiful, but of course different).  I've got 50,000 words in the can and the central character, an ex-soldier dying of leukemia who kills people who really deserve it, is evolving nicely.

Showing, not telling

 If there’s one stumbling block that trips up people who are trying to write genre fiction, it’s the challenge of “show, don’t tell.”  Some people don’t seem to be able to grasp the difference, and so they keep churning out narrative-based stories (“telling”) that editors reject because what they (and the readers) are looking for is scene-based writing (“showing”).

I think part of the problem is that narrative is the natural way we tell each other stories off the page.  We say, for example, “My grandfather was in the merchant marine in World War II and on his first convoy crossing, his ship was torpedoed off Newfoundland.”  We don’t verbally construct a scene, saying, “It was cold on the open bridge of the SS Minerva, two days out of Halifax. The old freighter’s constant dip and climb through the deep-troughed waves of the North Atlantic threw up a heavy spray, most of which froze on the chilled steel of the bulkhead -- but the rest seemed to be aimed directly at the beardless face of young Pete Hammond, making his first voyage into the longest, most murderous battle of the Second World War.  He thrust his fists deeper into the pockets of his sailor’s pea jacket, tucked his wind-numbed chin behind his closed collar button, and counted the minutes until the ship rang four bells, when old Albert would come up and relieve him.”

But if you want to write sf, fantasy, mysteries, romance, westerns – any of the genres – you have to overcome your default storytelling instincts and acquire a set of tools that let you create the illusion of immediacy of action (i.e., of “being there”) in the reader’s mind.  Those tools are:

·         sequentiality – the action happens, step by step, before the reader’s eyes;

·         detail – rather than generic, generalized descriptions, you draw the reader’s eye (and ear and nose and sense of touch) to specific, precise details from which the reader will confabulate the whole;

·         point of view – genre fiction is told from the point of view (pov) of the characters, rather than from the god’s-eye view of an omniscient narrator;  the preferred pov is called third-person-limited, i.e., each scene is anchored in one (and only one – that’s why it’s called “limited”) character’s view and appreciation of what’s going on in that scene, and that character is referred to as he, or she, or it, as the case may be.  First-person pov, where the point of view is that of the protagonist or another character who refers to him/her/itself as “I,” is less common in genre fiction, but is acceptable.  Second-person pov – as in a story that begins “You open the door and ease yourself into the room” – is usually not an easy sell;

·         character sensorium – you deepen the illusion of immediacy by showing the action in the scene through the pov character’s senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and the other lesser senses (balance, hair-raising response, etc.) to vicariously stimulate the reader’s own sensorium;  using the technique effectively requires picking the right sensory details that will best cause the reader to confabulate and identify with the character’s situation;

·         conflict – every scene is built around a conflict, whether major or minor, whether physical, verbal, spiritual, psychological, and the scene begins when that conflict begins and ends when it ends.

Now here is an example of the same action being told in narrative and shown in scene writing.

NARRATIVE

Armored and with sword and shield slung across his back, the brave warrior Arctor scaled the windy heights of Bran Covin.  The way was steep.  At times, on the bracken-covered lower slopes, he stooped to all fours, and at the end he must scale a sheer cliff, clinging by toe holds and fingertips.  All day he climbed until, high up where the air grew thin, he came at last to a wide ledge backed by a dark-mouthed cave.  From within its shadows came the troll Blodmir, roaring and wielding a great club of lighting-blasted oakwood set with stone points.  They fought until Arctor's shield was battered to a shapeless mass and Blodmir bled from a dozen cuts, yet still either might have won the day.  But, though weakened from the battle and the scant air, the hero delivered a cunning stroke that lamed the troll, then thrust him bodily out into the empty air beyond the ledge, to fall to the sharp rocks far below.  Then Arctor entered the noisome cave to claim the treasure he had won.

 

SCENE

The sun was just clearing the eastern horizon as Arctor set a booted foot on the lowest slope of Bran Covin.  The massif reared high above him, its upper heights bare rock wreathed in mist, its steep lower slopes clad in dense heather and clumps of thistle that tugged at his coarse leggings with each step.  The morning air was chill against his face but soon he felt trickles of sweat coursing down his ribs beneath the padded linen hauberk and the tight-ringed mail that covered his torso. 

By mid morning, he had reached ground so steep that he stopped to sling his shield across his back, cinching its carrying strap tight across his chest.  He yanked on the baldric that supported his scabbarded broadsword until it too hung from one shoulder.  Then, bent-kneed and with hands grasping at the bracken, he pushed and pulled himself up the precipitous slope until he came to a field of stones that had broken off and fallen from the heights above.  Beyond the jumble of sharp-edged debris a gray wall of weather-cracked rock rose sheer before him.

It was noon now and he sat on a boulder, drinking from his water bottle and chewing a lump of field bread as his keen eyes sought for a succession of crevices and outcrops that would be his route up the cliff.  An hour later he was high above where he had sat, and higher still above the slope where he had fought the bracken.  Now his face was pressed against the sun-warmed stone, fingertips blindly seeking above him for the next crack while the inner edge of his boots rested precariously on another small imperfection in the vertical rock.

At mid-afternoon, he found his way blocked by a outcrop that bulged out of the cliff face.  Sweat stinging his eyes, his fingers torn and nearly numb, his shoulder muscles afire from the strain of the sustained climb, he worked his way sideways and found the base of a crevice that went straight up.  It was a perfect width for him to climb by pressing his palms and boots against the rock and he made good progress.

Near sundown, he levered himself up onto a ledge three times as broad as Arctor was tall, backed by a wide-mouthed cave.  Up here the air was so thin that the hero must take deep breaths to keep his head from spinning and his sight from blurring.  The inhalations brought him the rank odor that emanated from the cave, a mingling of long-unwashed flesh and the sweet stench of rotting meat.  He kept his eyes on the darkness as he loosened the cinch of his shield so he could swing it forward and slip his left arm through the padded brace, while his sword hand went over his shoulder to grasp the sword's hilt.  The long blade slipped from its scabbard's oiled embrace with a sound like a serpent's hiss.

From within the cave he heard the faint rasp of a claw upon stone, then from the darkness rushed the red-eyed troll Blodmir, half again Arctor's height despite his bent-kneed gait, his lipless mouth sending a roar of red rage past dagger-sharp teeth.  With one clawed hand he raised a length of lightning-blasted oakwood, black and iron-hard, as long as Arctor's leg, its thick end studded with points and blades of razor-edged flint.

Arctor took the club's first blow on his upraised shield, felt the shock race up his arm to his shoulder even as the clash of wood on iron rang in his ears.  He swung his sword in a lateral slash at Blodmir's ribs, the weapon's edge laying open the pebbly skin but bouncing off the stony ribs beneath.  The troll roared again, pain mingled with rage, and brought the club down once more.  The upper rim of Arctor's shield buckled inward, and the force of the impact numbed the hero's shield hand.

He stepped back, feinted to draw his opponent off balance, then tried a straight thrust at the troll's naked belly.  But Blodmir swept the sword away with the back of one great hand, ignoring the wounds the honed edge opened on his fingers, and again he hammered with the length of blasted wood on the shield rim, driving Arctor almost to his knees.

The shield was no use, the man saw.  As the troll came on again, he flung it, edge-on, at Blodmir's red eyes and followed with another thrust that pierced the opponent's hip.  The troll seemed to feel no pain but swept the club in a sideways blow that would have crushed Arctor's ribs had he not leaped back.  Still, it was a near thing -- a flint set into the head of the cudgel scratched across the rings of Arctor's mail, striking sparks.

And now it was cut and duck, slash and spring back, his aim to bleed the troll into weakness while avoiding the long-armed sweeps of the crude weapon.  The ledge grew slippery with Blodmir's blood and Arctor's deepest breaths of the thin air were barely enough to keep the dizziness from slowing him.  His vision grew red at the edges and he labored to draw air into his lungs, the sword growing ever heavier in his hand.

But Blodmir was slowing too, the rage in his eyes giving way first to a look of puzzlement, then doubt.  Limping from a wound in one calf, he blundered forward again, swung his club at Arctor's ankles.  But the man leaped over the cudgel, then tucked and rolled between the troll's bandy legs, springing to his feet behind Blodmir.  The effort caused his head to spin and the red in his vision darkened to black.  But he saw the tendons where they stood out in the back of the monster's knee and thrust his sword's point at them.

The cords parted in a rush of blood.  Blodmir's roar was more of a bleat as the torn leg collapsed beneath him.  He tried to turn, meaning to strike at Arctor but the man went forward, the sword held level before him like a quarter staff, and shoved against the troll's hip.  Off-balance, teetering on one leg, Blodmir staggered back a step and Arctor came at him again, shoving with the flat of the sword.

The monster moaned, tried to raise the club for one more strike, but Arctor stepped beneath the uplifted arm and, panting, his head aswim, he used the last of his failing strength to push the troll back another step.

It was a step that brought Blodmir's splayed foot to the edge of the precipice.  The friable rock split and cracked, and in a moment the troll toppled over and out into the empty air.  Arctor saw him fall, the club swinging at nothing, the lipless mouth open in a roar the man could not hear.  Then the body struck the jagged rocks below and burst like a bladder of blood.

Arctor stepped back, set the point of his sword against the stone beneath him and leaned on it for a long moment until his lungs could get enough from the air to keep him from swooning.  When his vision cleared, he looked to the cave.  In the darkness something glowed with a light of its own. 

On still trembling legs, the hero stepped into the foul-smelling lair to collect the treasure he had won.

Polls don't matter

I keep seeing stories in the US papers that say the Republicans are way off base with their cuts-and-misery agenda because polls consistently show that the majority of Americans want government action to solve the unemployment problem.

The trouble is, it doesn’t matter what the majority of Americans want, because the majority of Americans don’t vote.  The Republicans changed the make-up of the Congress by motivating some 22 per cent of the electorate to come out and vote for them.

The first criterion for winning a battle is to show up.  As long as most of the US electorate is more interested in Charlie Sheen and American Idol, the results of public opinion polls aren’t worth a tinker’s dam.

I think we’re seeing the same trend in Canada.  The Tories pursue a nasty, attack-ad style of politicking, in continual campaign mode.  It energizes their base and turns off more moderate voters.  The result:  election turn-outs decline, and a determined minority can hijack our democracy.

First review of The Damned Busters

A pleasant surprise:  here's the first review --http://thecelebritycafe.com/reviews/damned-busters-matthew-hughes-03-06-2011 of To Hell and Back: The Damned Busters, appearing well before the book's release in May.  Reviewer Eric Gordon gives it five stars and calls it "a supernatural adventure that blends a rich and unpredictable story, with a tone and wit that provides plenty of laughs along the way. A great balance of action and comedic situations with some romance thrown in for good measure, albeit an awkward romance, this is a great read."

For those who missed the original short story, "Hell of a Fix," in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, I've put up the first 10,000 words at http://www.archonate.com/db

Growing up poor

Here's a little piece I wrote as a letter to the editor for a local paper in the Comox Valley years ago: 

The thing about growing up poor that is not understood by people who haven't grown up that way is that some of the fundamental baselines are different.  The non-poor take for granted certain underpinnings of life:  you'll have a roof over your head next month;  you'll eat lunch every day next week;  when your shoes wear out, you'll get new ones;  nobody will come and take your furniture away.  For the poor, these are not givens, but variables.

There are also less basic, but no less significant, givens:  you'll get something for Christmas;  you'll break the monotony of everyday life by going on a vacation or to summer camp;  you'll go to college;  if you work hard, you'll get what you want. 

The non-poor live in a firmer, more dependable world.  It gives them a degree of self-assurance that they are not even aware of, because they have never known the absence of the conditions that cause it.  They don't have to take gravity into account every time they take a step, because gravity has been a constant throughout every moment of their lives.  But the poor don't get reliable gravity.  Sometimes you go to take an ordinary step and find yourself spinning off into space.

It makes you different in a way that the people who don't share that difference can't understand.