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Mechanics

Comparing notes on paragraphing

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There is at least one hard-and-fast (mostly) rule for paragraphing in fiction: when you change speakers, change paragraphs. But from there, things can get a little complicated.

If you have a character react to another character’s dialogue without speaking, does that get a separate paragraph? What if the first character continues speaking? Or, to use an example, how would you paragraph this (we’ll call it Exhibit A), assuming it’s the same person doing all the talking:

“That’s the stupidest blog post idea I’ve ever heard.” He scowled at his sister. She rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed, as if begging for the patience to endure him. He took her by the shoulders. “You’re only thinking like this because you’re editing.”

I don’t know that one way is better than another—it mostly depends on what you want to emphasize, and making sure your meaning’s clear. Interestingly, I’ve read a couple books published in the 1950s and ’60s lately, and there seems to have been a rule that every time someone starts speaking, you need a new paragraph, so this example might be:

“That’s the stupidest blog post idea I’ve ever heard.” He scowled at his sister. She rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed, as if begging for the patience to endure him. He took her by the shoulders.

“You’re only thinking like this because you’re editing.”

Which I find confusing, since I think the paragraph change is setting up a speaker change, and it’s not. (And that might be precisely why they’ve shied away from that.)

Along those same lines, I made sure to include (in this totally-made-up-not-for-real example) a sentence that brought the speaker back into actor position before the second part of his dialogue to try to make it clearer who was speaking. (This may or may not be successful. We would assume it’s him because we haven’t changed paragraphs in the first example, but if the sister’s action was the last sentence before the second part of the dialogue, it might be hard to parse who’s supposed to be speaking. While we may want to “challenge” our readers, we probably don’t want to challenge them just to understand what’s happening 😉 .)

And then there’s narrating internal monologue. How do you think you’d do this in Exhibit B?

Terrence looked up as soon as he heard the hollow clack of high heels in the vestibule. Andrea came tripping in to the chapel, casting her eyes about hopefully. Terrence read people for a living. The way she leaned forward, her eyebrows drawn up inquisitively: she was eager to see him. And she only knew him as a lie. He suppressed a sigh.

How about Exhibit C?

Angelica nearly missed the meeting. Why she’d spent so long fussing over her hair was beyond her. No amount of fussing had ever made it behave particularly well—and she shouldn’t be so concerned about how she looked. She was lucky to reach her seat before the presentation began. But she was glad of the fussing as soon as they began the introductions—and she knew Mr. Griggs was there. She hadn’t seen him yet, but she could almost feel his presence. Or maybe his eyes on her.

How would you add paragraph breaks to these examples (if at all)?

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Mechanics

The art of paragraphing

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Part of the reason why paragraphing is so tough is that there aren’t as many rules governing it—but then, that leaves it open for us to play with paragraphs to great effect. Paragraphing can affect meaning and pace. It’s a powerful tool that I, for one, want to learn to wield better.

One way I’ve found I try to use paragraphs to better effect is to write a paragraph of a character reasoning something out, then break to give the conclusion:

Maria shook her head. Jimmy couldn’t have stolen the diamonds. It wasn’t possible. But the passer-by was talking to the policeman, so they were both innocent. The heiress was in the kitchen, flirting with the maitre d’. And Constantina was returning a book to the public library.

That only left Jimmy.

Note that we still organize paragraphs around the same topic. Here, this set of paragraphs are all about Maria ferreting out the suspect in the case of the missing diamonds. The first paragraph, especially, is organized around a central theme. It could even have a topic sentence: “Maria sorted through the possible suspects.”

And like in nonfiction, there’s a logical progression and coherence among the paragraphs. Here Maria (rather quickly) goes through an actual logical theorem of sorts, persuading herself from the emotional denial (“Jimmy can’t have done this”) to what she knows must be true (oh, but he did).

In reality, I’d break up that first paragraph between “It wasn’t possible.” and “But the passer-by . . .” Which is the exact kind of thing that made me want to write this post: why do we paragraph the way we do? I think in this example, I want to change paragraphs because she’s almost “changing sides” in her mental argument: “A is true” versus “But A cannot be true.”

I could see an argument for breaking there and then joining “That only left Jimmy” to that paragraph, too. It seems to come down to how dramatic we want that conclusion to be. (And I have a sneaking fear I’m an overdramatic paragrapher!)

What do you think? How does art play into paragraphing? How does “art” play in to your paragraphing?

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Mechanics

The science of paragraphing

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How’s that for nitty gritty?

Usually in school, when we learn what a paragraph is, it has a fairly standard definition: three to five sentences, the first being a topic sentence and/or thesis, and the others relating to that topic. The last sentence should usually offer some sort of segue into the topic of the next sentence to show the logical structure of the overall essay. (In the first paragraph, the last sentence is the thesis of your work.) And that’s a great structure—for non-fiction.

In fiction, paragraphs are still important, but unfortunately they’re not quite as easily defined. We aren’t simply relating information or crafting a persuasive argument—we’re trying to make a cohesive narrative come to life.

There is at least one hard-and-fast (mostly) rule for paragraphing in fiction: when you change speakers, change paragraphs. Beyond that, we’re left with . . . more like “guidelines.”

One of those extremely important guidelines is clarity—break paragraphs to make your meaning clear. Breaking a paragraph between speakers is one reason why we do this. We might also break a paragraph to better illustrate the relationship between the character’s actions: showing cause and effect, for example.

Also, breaking a paragraph can help keep POV clear. I thought it was rather clear whose POV we were in in one scene that I wrote, so the POV character could comment on other characters’ dialogue in the same paragraph as the speech. My CPs found paragraphs like the made-up one in bold below confusing POV:

Lisa leaned back in her seat, trying not to look like she was eavesdropping. They were talking about her—again.

“Well, we were going to tell her.” Oh, really? Like when?

As we read, we need white space to help our minds psychologically space out information. We can use this to great artistic effect (as we’ll talk about tomorrow!).

What do you think? How do you paragraph? How would you paragraph this example?

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Technique

Language and narration

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I heart languages. I majored in Linguistics in college, and as part of that I studied two foreign languages. I’m super excited that my library offers free online language courses (and am frustrated that they don’t use more technical terminology. I want to conjugate, darn it!). I transcribe things into the International Phonetic Alphabet. For fun.

But it wasn’t on a conscious level that I began using characters who spoke other languages in my works. I started with a native English speaker—but a native Irish English speaker.

This might actually be trickier than using a foreign language, because it’s easy to forget all the subtle differences between American and Commonwealth English. I mean, I speak English, how hard could it be, right? (Not as easy as you think.)

I think my next project will feature a character who speaks Russian as her native language. This will have more challenges for me because I want to learn all I can about the language to make her voice (in English) more authentic.

For example, in Russian, you can reorder the phrases of a sentence without changing the meaning. “To the store I went” and “I went to the store” are both perfectly acceptable. Moving a phrase to the beginning of the sentence adds emphasis. (So “To the store I went” is like saying “[No,] I went to the store.”)

Which brings me to a dilemma: in English (or just in “good writing”), we tend place emphasis on things at the end of sentences. So what do you think? Should I use the Russian emphasis pattern to stay truer to the way my character would think, or should I conform to the writing standards of English?

And if you have any questions about any of your foreign (or not-so-foreign) characters’ use of language, feel free to ask me!

More fun facts about language and meaning this week from Livia Blackburne

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Technique

Backstory in perspective

This entry is part 18 of 20 in the series Backstory

If you’ve been here a little while, you know that I’m a big fan of Alicia Rasley (and her co-blogger, Theresa Stevens, of course). I’m knee deep in revisions for the rest of the month, and Alicia goes and posts a great article on backstory. How can I not “reblog”?

A preview (emphasis and image added):

We know we need [backstory], so make it work. Part of the problem is that "layered-on" backstory (that which is meant to make the reader feel sorry for the character or understand some motivation) often ends up just being contrived— the rivets are showing, and the reader can feel the extraneousness of it. "Right, right, she was orphaned and we’re supposed to feel sorry for her. Got it." . . .

This makes the character and backstory work together for coherence. But the coherence requires us as writers taking the backstory we invent seriously, and imagining what it would REALLY cause in this particular person. That is, stop thinking of it as "backstory" and start thinking of it as "her/his past".

Read the rest: edittorrent: Coherence in backstory

What do you think? How can we take backstory more seriously and use it better?

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Technique

Figuring out the backstory

This entry is part 17 of 20 in the series Backstory

Ha ha, we’re back! I came across a handout from a class on backstory at last year’s National Romance Writers of America Conference.

Author Winnie Griggs says on her handout: “Whether you are a plotter or a pantser, the more time you spend figuring out what makes your character tick, the easier your story will be to write and the more depth it will have.”

For significant events in the characters’ lives, she includes how that event impacts her character’s life-view. The handout also outlines several ways to reveal the backstory (obviously, the full content was covered in the class, and I didn’t attend the conference, so I can’t help you fill in all the blanks).

This handout also features a chart for tracking your backstory against the backdrop of the historical events before and during your novel—an important aspect that we haven’t really discussed. Especially if you’re writing a historical novel, mapping out the events in the years before your novel may help you find some events that could have an impact on your characters.

Using a chart may or may not help you figure out your character’s history and personal motivations. But as I looked over the chart, I wondered how other people come up with backstory details. When it comes to backstory, are you more of a planner, a fixer/grafter or a happy coincidencer? Are you more likely to allow the story to grow out of something that happened before your story starts, or to fill in the blanks in your characters’ pasts as you write them?

How do you craft what came before?

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Works

Story department!

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A while ago, I posted about a story department for writers, like that of a Hollywood movie studio. Basically, it’s a place where we can find help identifying weaknesses, brainstorming new ideas, making the jokes better, getting the story structure right and more.

How this works:

The lucky volunteer submits whatever s/he wants help with: this could be the seed of an idea if you’re in the brainstorming phase, a query-length blurb if you’re looking for more specific brainstorming help or stuck in between plot points, a synopsis if you want structural advice, or even a scene or passage if you can’t quite put your finger on what’s not working. For maximum effectiveness, a short list of what you’re looking for is helpful.

I post the material on the appointed day. Then we, the kind, thoughtful and helpful readers and writers around here, put our minds to work. Think about it all day and come back with an insightful idea, or post the first thing that pops into your head.

Of course, the volunteer author doesn’t have to use anything we toss out—but now s/he isn’t the only one having to think of ideas. And even if we don’t come up with something specific to help the volunteer, maybe something one of us says will spark another idea and the story will take off again, magically healed 😉 . (The volunteer is more than welcome to engage in a discussion, of course, but we probably don’t need a full explanation of just why our ideas won’t work.)

The story

Today, I’m the volunteer again. I’m looking for help with one of those “little ideas,” a scene-level fix.

The setup:

Our bad guy (whom we may call . . . “Tom”) is trying to induce our heroine (“Nina”) to come somewhere with him to save our hero (“Johnny,” Nina’s fiancé). Nina has known Tom for years—and knows him well enough not to trust him. But when Tom shows Nina Johnny’s prized watch (or something else) that he never parts with, she knows something is wrong. Nina allows Tom to drive her car, and they’re leaving the garage at her building when one of her neighbors gets suspicious. When the neighbor starts to call the police, Tom shoots and kills him.

What I’m looking for:

  • A way to keep Nina in the car after the gun goes off. Nina knows better than to go driving off with an armed murderer. I think Tom needs to physically restrain her in the car somehow.
  • I’m also open to suggestions on Johnny’s prized, personally identifiable possession (something he’d be able to function without).
  • If it helps, I think it’s not crucial that they use Nina’s car. (However, the neighbor is more likely to think something weird is going on if Tom’s driving Nina’s car. On the other hand, if you can give a reason for the neighbor to attract Tom’s attention and ire from Tom’s car, I’m open to that)

Want to participate? Jump in the comments! Want to volunteer? Send your material—including what you’re looking for—to storydept at JordanMcCollum.com. I’ll contact you to work out a date.

Original photo by Tom Magliery

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Technique

Where little ideas come from

On the topic of “little ideas” again, I was looking to add some dialogue to increase tension in an argument scene, and I remembered a conflict from the first half of the book that had kind of faded in the second. A ha!, I thought. I can tie this back in here, and it will look so natural—you’d never know it was new stuff grafted on! I was very excited for another “little idea.”

As I read books, even great books, I often wonder which parts were planned all along, and which ones the author had to go back and add—characters or events to explain motivation or justify later actions, plot devices and twists, foreshadowing, even jokes that refer back to previous events in the story (which came first, the joke or the event?). (Yes, I do perform a lot of unnecessary mental gymnastics while I read. It keeps me young.)

And then I wonder, “Where do little ideas come from?” (I know, I know, when two big ideas love each other very much . . . save it, thank you.) I came up with three sources: planning, “fixing” (grafting it on later) or happy coincidence.

Planning is when you’ve known you were going to do this all along. So far, I always know who the killer is in a mystery, so I can plan some of the little hints in his/her behavior that act as clues, and I can foreshadow that big reveal in little ways. Even little ideas may be planned. Often, planning comes from fixing/grafting or happy coincidence during the plotting stage of writing, so you’re all ready when fingers hit the keyboard.

Fixing or grafting is when you’re writing merrily along and suddenly you realize, Hey, wait a minute. What the character’s doing here doesn’t make sense. I need to go back and add something before this to justify this story turn/plant this clue/SAVE HIS LIFE!!!

Happy coincidence is when you’re writing merrily along and suddenly you realize, Hey, wait a minute. This would be the perfect place to hearken back to X event/Y clue/Z character in my story. Oh, how neat and tidy! I am oh so very clever! (I love these ones.)

I think we all probably tap into these as we write. I’m afraid happy coincidence is the one I use most, though that may not be the case—and those are often the type of little ideas I’m most worried about losing.

What do you think? Are there other sources for little strokes of genius? Which do you use the most?

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