Mechanics

The myth of the serial comma

2 Comments

The Oxford comma, or serial comma, is a standard convention in many publishing houses—but almost no newspapers. The serial comma is the final comma before the conjunction in a list:

Angela bought eggs, milk, and butter.

Some serial comma enthusiasts say that serial commas are required, and that the recent tendency away from serial commas is yet another sign of the deteriorating state of English literacy, blah blah blah. But the most common argument in favor of the serial comma is that it just takes care of so much ambiguity, such as in this famous example:

I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God.

And yes, it’s true that if this person had used the serial comma, it would be clear that they didn’t use “Ayn Rand and God” to mean “my parents” (hello, apposition!). But let’s be honest—you knew what this person meant, didn’t you?

It’s just simply not the case that the serial comma always clears up ambiguity. How many people are in this list?

I’d like to thank my father, the man who saw me through so many hard times, and my mother.

Is “the man who saw me through so many hard times” the same person as “my father”? (That sneaky appositive again!)

And then there are even times when the serial comma can’t fix the ambiguity:

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor, and my wife.

I’d like to thank Angela, my editor and my wife.

So is Angela his editor, his editor and his wife, or neither?

What to do:
Use the serial comma—or don’t—as you’re used to (or according to your publisher’s style guide). Add it or remove it if there’s any ambiguity. And if that doesn’t work, reword. (I’d like to thank my wife, Angela, who edits my work.) Just don’t claim that one way is always right—because it’s not.

Do you use the serial comma?

Photos by Xavi Blanch and Leo Reynolds

Technique

Are character arcs necessary?

2 Comments
This entry is part 7 of 11 in the series character arcs

After all this talk about character arcs, I was browsing around on an interesting screenwriting blog, and found an article kind of arguing against character arcs. So are character arcs necessary? The answer, of course, is it depends—and it depends on several factors.

In plot-driven fiction, for example, the characters’ growth and change aren’t what the story is about. Dirk Pitt, James Bond, and Indiana Jones see little, if any, character growth in each episode of their stories (aside from the new Bond movies, maybe). While they are memorable characters, and we root for them to win, we don’t care if they have a life-altering experience to become better people. We’re cool with them staying the way they are. The story focuses on their adventures rather than their experiences.

character arcs vsmallHowever, in character-driven fiction, the character arc is central. Reading this kind of fiction enables us the live character’s experiences and feelings, and those are at least as important to the story as the actual actions.

It also depends on the genre. Mysteries tend to be more plot driven. Action stories are usually more plot driven. Romances, especially single-title length ones, are usually more character driven.

Another consideration is whether the book will lead into a series (and if so, how long). If this is going to be a serial character, how many different lessons can s/he learn? It’s possible, of course, to do a metaarc—one that takes the character on a journey from the beginning to the end of the series (Harry Potter?)—but it will probably require considerable planning.

What do you think? Can you think of successful characters who don’t arc? Do you write characters who don’t arc?

Marketing

Call for websites!

10 Comments

It’s that time again! Kathleen MacIver of KatieDid Design and I, Jordan McCollum of Marketing Pilgrim (and, of course, this website), are looking for volunteers to have your aspiring author website reviewed by two professionals!

If you’ll recall, we did a series of aspiring author website reviews in August and September. The series was so well received that Katie and I decided to do it again!

This time, because of the holidays and the like, we’ll be limiting the number of sites we can review. The reviews will run in December.

To sign up for one of the very limited slots, leave a comment on this post! Be sure to include the URL of your website in the URL box provided. If comments are closed, all the slots are full (but we’ll do this again in the future!).

Can’t wait until December? The free Guide to Aspiring Author Websites PDF from our last series is still available!

Photo by Sean Dreilinger

Technique

Micro character arcs in sequels

1 Comment
This entry is part 6 of 11 in the series character arcs

Yesterday, we talked about character arcs within scenes, and we mentioned that there are two different ways to handle them. The first kind uses scene structure to bring about the change. The second kind of change, however, doesn’t rely on scene structure because it doesn’t happen in a scene—it happens in a sequel. The Sequel is what comes after the scene—the emotional response. However, it also has a structure that can help with this kind of character arc.

Bickham’s structure for the sequel is Emotion – Thought – Decision – Action (which leads to another scene). The Emotion is the initial response to the events of the scene and its Disaster. When the character moves past the initial emotion, they think through the events, their response and their options in the Thought phase. This ultimately leads to a Decision, which takes the character to another Action.

Not all the steps of the sequel are necessary. In fact, the sequel itself might not be necessary—depends on the pacing and whether the emotional reaction constitutes a change. But when the character is going through a major change, we can spend a little more time here. And this is where we motivate the next action.

When an emotional change in the sequel follows the full steps of the sequence, we know that there’s a logical progression of the events of the sequel. By moving through these steps, we can lead the characters and the readers through the steps of the change and create a compelling, convincing change.

For example, if we need our character to go from shocked after the last disaster to furious in the sequel, we start with that initial emotional response—the shock. We don’t have to spend a long time exploring the shock, especially if that’s the kind of reaction you’d expect in light of the disaster. Once we create a vivid picture of the shock (and that’s a toughie, since it’s characterized by the absence of feeling, really), we can give the character a minute to get her bearings again.

Once she’s had some time to recover, she’s ready for the Thought phase. Here we can explore exactly why she’s so surprised—because, say, this revelation is something that the hero could have told her. It’s something she would understand and would have even made her happy, if he had just told her, and he knew that—but he’s chosen to lie to her about it the whole time they’ve known one another.

And that can lead us to the Decision. The Decision can be about the coming Action and set up the next scene—or it can be a further decision about the emotional response. You know what? He should have told her. How dare he not? And if he could lie about that, what else about their relationship was a lie?

And now she’s mad.

What do you think? How have you handled drastic emotional changes in sequels?

Photo by Dan Foy

Technique

Micro character arcs in scenes

This entry is part 5 of 11 in the series character arcs

So far, we’ve looked at character arcs on a macro level—characters changing over the course of a story. At the beginning of the series, however, Deb pointed out that characters can also have arcs within a single scene, where they go from one emotion to another, possibly opposite, emotion.

Character emotions are always delicate things. It’s so easy as a writer to push the emotions a little harder than we should, so that they end up unnatural—especially in a delicate transition. Now, of course it’s always possible to use the events of the scene to create a very natural change in a character’s emotion—but it’s not the only way.

Jack Bickham delves into both kinds of changes in his book Scene & Structure. The first kind of change relies on external actions and scene structure. The basic structure of any scene, Bickham says, is Goal – Conflict – Disaster.

The Goal is the POV character’s goal at the start of the scene, for just that scene. (For a story and characters that feel purposeful and driven, have the character state the goal near the beginning of the scene.) The Conflict is what happens as the character pursues the Goal and meets resistance—dialogue, movement, pursuit, etc.

The Conflict builds to the climax of the scene—the Disaster, when the character’s goal is frustrated. Naturally, when the character is frustrated, s/he will have an emotional reaction—for example, she might go from hopeful or determined at the beginning of the scene to discouraged at the end.

So external events can obviously help to bring about a micro character arc. But there’s another way to show emotional change within a scene that we’ll look at tomorrow.

What do you think? How have you handled drastic emotional changes in scenes?

Photo by Tony Case

Technique

Shaping character arcs—the middle

3 Comments
This entry is part 4 of 11 in the series character arcs

So we’ve figured out what drives our characters, and where they’ll start and end their internal character journeys. So what happens in the middle? Obviously, if our characters start at one extreme (fear, loneliness, naivete) and go to the other (courage, love, wisdom), some pretty extreme things are going to have to happen in the middle. I mean, most of us don’t just wake up one day to have our deepest problems, flaws or hangups magically healed, right?

This reversal can stem from some level of autonomy—the character can recognize the problem and make a conscious choice to change—or we can force them to accept the change, give them no other possibilities than to try this new belief system/opportunity/way of life. But either way, to be believable, it’s got to be prompted by external events. As Alicia Rasley says:

Character-driven fiction is about internal change. Paradoxically, external action is usually needed to bring on this change. External action is the surest catalyst for both internal growth and reader interest. Sure, your protagonist could overcome his distaste for intimacy and his dread of family by going to a psychologist twice a week for ten years…. but who wants to read about that? Even psychologists, probably, would put down a novel about therapy sessions to pick up a novel about a woman who learns to trust by being blackmailed into joining a secret team to rescue the kidnapped clone of Thomas Edison.

To make sure that the external action is prompting your internal changes, Alicia suggests linking the external events and internal arc in stimulus-response units. She also points out that the change comes later—we see the character striving to maintain his worldview/attitude/whatever for most of the story. Until that reversal comes, the character isn’t ready for the change, and he’ll do what he can to avoid it. And those choices are going to backfire, hurt him somehow, perhaps breaking him down gradually, until he is put into a situation where he has no other choice or where he finally sees how stupid he was.

It’s also okay—advisable, even!—to not build the character arc every second. In fact, it’s more compelling to see him take two steps forward and one step back, resisting that change until he can’t anymore. And then at the end, show us how complete the change is by one last external action—have the character prove to us one last time that they really have changed.

What do you think? Where do you put the reversal in your works? How do you prompt it, and how do you prove to your readers that your character has changed?

Photo by Reuben Whitehouse

Technique

Finding the character arc

2 Comments
This entry is part 3 of 11 in the series character arcs

Of course, the method we talked about yesterday works great if you already know your plot and character (if you’re at the end of planning, in drafting or in revisions). But what if you don’t really know your characters well yet, or you’re trying to find a good internal conflict, or you still can’t figure out how the external events of the plot are going to affect them internally?

There should be one little thing you know about your character: what motivates her. Look at your character’s profession, hobbies, and journey in the story. What’s going to compel him to go on this journey with you? (Dragging him along when he has no reason to go on the story journey isn’t going to work well.) What are her core values—what does she prize above all else?

Let’s say our heroine’s core value is stability. She goes on the story journey because she is very specifically led to believe that this journey (let’s say winning huge cash prize in a reality game show) will give her life financial stability. So, at the beginning, she lacks stability in her life.

But if we dig deeper, it’s not just that she likes for things to be calm and stable. If her life is unstable, and all she wants is that equilibrium, she is afraid. The external journey may be her quest for cash, but the internal character arc will be her quest to allay her fears.

And what do you want to bet a cash prize won’t do it? You could tell a story about a woman who wants stability above all else, and then she gets it, but her internal conflict isn’t going to be very deep. Instead, if we realize that the desire for stability is a manifestation of underlying fear, we can use the events of the story to help her (or force her) to gain the courage she needs to press forward in an uncertain world (because, seriously, even a big cash prize won’t be enough to guarantee stability. Hello, economy. Hello, taxes. Hello, house fire.).

And we can do this starting with the external conflict. Say you have a character on a quest for a hidden treasure with, I don’t know, religious ties. He’s actually searching for the treasure to prove that it doesn’t exist and the adherents of this hokey religion are all wasting their lives.

There could be many internal journeys here. An obvious one is that he’s starting out in a position of doubt, and he could come to find faith. Or maybe he hates this hokey religion because of a bad experience with a member or the religion, so he’s trying to exact revenge—and then he can journey to finding justice (though probably not in the way he thinks).

And, like yesterday, these are only the beginning and ending of the character arc. To make it truly believable, we have to have some pretty major internal conflict in the middle of the story—some deep challenges for the character to learn and grow from.

What do you think? How have you linked character motivations to their arcs? Where do you start and end your character arcs?

Photo by Clever Cupcakes

Technique

Starting and ending the character arc

8 Comments
This entry is part 2 of 11 in the series character arcs

Character arcs are an important part of making any story satisfying. As we said yesterday, it’s as simple as making sure a character grows and changes throughout the course of the story. It’s important to remember that these changes, too, are most effective if they’re brought about by the external plot (more on that later).

Every character, and every character, has to start somewhere. We know that in the ordinary world, something is amiss—something is missing from the protagonist’s life. That doesn’t just mean a love interest or a murderer that needs to be brought to justice—there’s something deeper, on an emotional level, that the character needs.

That could be love or justice—or it could be forgiveness, healing, resolve, courage, wisdom, etc. (Alicia Rasley has a great list in her article “The Internal Journey.”) This is what they gain in the end— what the story events mean to the character.

This is another instance where knowing the end from the beginning really pays off—if you know what the character will end up with, you know set them up in the opposite place: if they need love, they start off lonely. If they need healing, they start off damaged; resolve, dissolute; courage, afraid; wisdom, naive.

This also works the other way around—if you have the flaw at the beginning, you can look for ways to “fix” it throughout the story events.

A major part of the “elixir” a hero returns with is this internal journey—the process of fixing what is wrong in his life. It’s what makes a book truly compelling, and something that we continue to contemplate beyond the basic events of the plot.

What do you think? How have you crafted your characters’ arcs? What are your favorite character arcs to read?

Photo by Richard Johnstone