Speak Up! — Avoiding Hesitant Characters and Using Your Words to Assert Meaning

Receiving my pages back from my mentor this weekend, one thing that jumped out at me through her insightful comments was the occasional and sometimes not so occasional slip from a strong, assertive voice to a more tentative, hesitant one. Instead of my character saying something in a strong, positive manner, the language I chose made it seem almost as if they didn't really want to speak of their feelings,  or they weren't quite sure what they thought. But certainly, this is not a good way for my characters to come across, and not an effective manner for establishing a strong, engaging story for the reader.

When reading a story, it is important for the characters to come across as people who have a consistent voice, know who they are (to some extent), and convey their emotions in a clear manner. Of course, this does not mean that all characters always know how they feel or what they want, or that a character can't be inconsistent if that is what an author intends. But even so, creating characters who only half-way say what they mean or never fully say what they are trying to convey doesn't make for a strong reading experience, or for a character who will last well beyond the last page turn of the book.

I think part of this tendency comes from our own hesitation as writers sometimes. I know that in working through this first draft of my current novel, I'm not always sure exactly what I want to say or how I want to say it for every line. But we don't want the characters to reveal whatever hesitation we have as writers. We want them to stand strong, defined on the page, and confidently owning who they are. Even if you have a character who is completely lacking self-confidence or is desperately unsure of who she is, you still need her to assert herself as unconfident, perhaps not by saying so, but by simply using the words she speaks to convey a decisive point. This may sound a bit confusing as we are getting into the line between us writers (or creators) creating and controlling these characters and the characters sometimes creating and dictating their own paths, but still — the point is that each of our characters need to assert something. Whether its fear, joy, trepidation, anger, or insecurity, no character can do this half way. At least not an effective character.

Words like "probably" and "possible", the passive voice, and phrases like "she could feel" instead of "she felt"are all good indicators that perhaps a sentence needs to be reevaluated and made stronger. Having another person read through your work and look for these things is a helpful tool for identifying your own hesitant writing since we all know that we miss things when we read our own work. And, remembering that this will be something you can make better again and again as you work through your revisions is something to keep in mind. We all struggle with making our words convey exactly what we want them, too. So it's certainly not just you, and it's not just me. 

But when I think about the books that affected me the most, or the books for which I admire the prose or the strength of character, all of them have this same element in common. Their words assert meaning. And their characters' words clearly convey who they are, uniquely, consistently, and with no shame. So as we work through our prose, and develop our characters, let's keep this in mind: write characters who are not hesitant to reveal who they are, even if they are only revealing insecurities. And don't be afraid to rework that sentence over and over again, until the right words shine and are just as powerful as you had hoped. 

Don't Rush, but Hurry Up — The Importance of Pacing

Yesterday, my friend recounted a story to me in which someone said to her, "Now don't rush, but hurry up!" The more I thought about it, the more I realized just how perfect this statement is. This is exactly what you want to do with you a novel. You want to hurry yourself to the action; to the real meat of the story. But you don't want to rush getting there, or leave out any of the crucial parts.

Pacing is a complex problem that will come with every novel. Of course, we all go into a novel with a certain plan, knowing roughly how much time we are looking to cover, and how we want the narrative voice to read. But the difficulty of figuring out the level of detail that you want to describe, how to do so in an interesting manner, and then keeping this consistent throughout can sometimes prove challenging — particularly when you want your pacing to keep the reader engaged, and always wondering what will happen next.

This is something I've been thinking a lot about over the past two weeks while working on my third round of revision for my manuscript. My mentor instructed me to go back through every scene, and really evaluate how I could tighten things up, or if I really needed a scene at all. This type of evaluation was really aimed at the questions, "Do your readers really need to know this?" and "How does the exposition/dialogue/event further the story?"

As I went through my manuscript line by line, I realized there were three main areas were I could enhance and contribute to the pace of my story. First, I looked for material that I could cut. These sections were in some way unnecessary. This could be a description of a place or person that just doesn't need to be in the story, or a conversation that doesn't further reveal or build character, or maybe just a statement of the obvious that the reader can glean for herself. Perhaps it' two lines, or two paragraphs, or two pages, but cutting unnecessary material can increase the pacing significantly.

Next, I really looked at dialogue. Dialogue is something that can help the reader get a lot of information in short spurts, and deepens character. But because you want the dialogue to have a quick movement, longer monologues and lengthy conversations are often something to avoid. This was particularly important for me because of the age of my character. Thirteen year old boys are not often very verbose, so I tried to pare down my character's words particularly when it came to any type of repetition.

The third area I looked at was exposition. In my first draft I had tons of exposition to start the story. Now, most of it is gone, and the action of my story starts right when you read the very first page. This meant that I had to figure out ways for information to come through a variety of sources as the novel continued, but not in such away that it slowed down the action. Good exposition can be one or two lines, so I tried to focus on key pieces of information, rather than general descriptions.

While this is something to be aware of in the first draft, I think pacing is an element that needs to be looked at in revision, when you've gotten everything you wanted down on the page and can then see the whole scope of what you're working with. And just as pacing for each of your projects will be different, so, too, will your revisions. But the key thing is that for each of your manuscripts, you only want to include what's necessary. You want to plunge your reader into the action and keep them steadily wanting more and not feel as though they are plodding through or digging for some buried treasure. You want to remove the debris from the path and provide a clear line toward the destination, all while not take too long to get there.

So like following any treasure map, creating the right pacing may not be easy, but it certainly can be done.

The Unspoken Emotions — Movement and Dialogue

This week, while working on a particular tension-filled scene, I found myself stressing over my characters' dialogue. I found myself thinking questions like, "Would she really say it like that?" and, "how can I reveal his discomfort without having him just say it?" When there is so much that needs to be said, but only so much a character would actually voice, I felt the pressure of wanting to capture the weight of the moment accurately with each line a character spoke.

The thing about dialogue is that while characters can say a lot about themselves, there are equally as many things they won't say. Like every person, there is a distinction between a character's thoughts and what he will actually voice. So in writing a scene that so heavily depends on dialogue, you have to be careful to maintain the line between thoughts and speech. Of course, you want your characters to be realistic and only speak dialogue that is authentic to their nature, but then, how do you accurately describe their state of mind, and the tension of the moment, if having them directly state it just doesn't work?

The answer is through a description of their physical movements — all the small ticks and habits and body language that reveals so much about a character. This is what I spent a lot of my week doing, visualizing the thing going on between and around the dialogue. In my scene, which relies so heavily upon dialogue because of the static nature of the office where it takes place, I realized that the physical expression of those words mattered just as much as the words themselves. Although you cannot detail every inflection and tone of a character's voice, well-placed descriptions of how a character looks, or what a character does, can make all the difference.

Visualizing the physical element of dialogue allows you to realize that it is not just about the words that are said, but also how they are said. Because we are limited to the words we put on the page, and cannot insert stage directions or whisper each and every emphasis into the reader's ear, the description of a character's actions becomes vital. In the absence of such stage directions, the expression of a character's subtle movements and tweaks become the guide that allows us to reveal just how a character's dialogue can be read. It gives the reader insight into the tension of the moment, and all the ways we envisioned the scene to come alive.

In my particular scene, my protagonist finds himself in the guidance counselor's office, where they are later joined by his mother. Unlike the previous scene that takes place on the soccer field, there is little movement happening. Everyone sits in chairs. No one is gesticulating wildly. But yet, the way the guidance counselor leans across her desk to portray empathy, and the way he slouches, totally uninterested in her words, and the way his mother fiddles with the clasp on her purse — these are all so important to understanding the scene. They show you what's going on below the surface. They show you how people feel.

You have to be creative about the movements you choose, because you don't want to venture into the cliche. I mean, your character can't sigh every time he feels exasperated, right? And your other impatient character can't just loudly tap her foot throughout the entire book. So you have to ask yourself,  if she tilts her head to the side, what does that say? And, what would it mean he if purposely dropped something to the floor just to lean over and get a break from the gaze of his teacher? Scenes that are full of tension, or whatever emotion that lay just below the surface, need the physical description in order to come to life. Yes, the words of the dialogue themselves are so important, and cannot be underestimated, but the things going on around the dialogue are just as important, too.

When further limited by the first-person narration like my story is, you only have that moment to work with. What your characters sees and how he perceives things is all you have. With a distant third person or a third person omniscient, things might be easier. But when you only have that one scene, you need to bring it to life. And life is full of physical movement. So why not use it? It might just tell part of the story for you.