Too much thinkin' wears out your brain

[shalanna]

(This is one of those long, wordy, windy entries about writing, so you might want to skip it. It's basically about how frustrating it is to try to figure out what "that special spark" is in manuscripts that are picked up by agents and publishers.)

I became interested in chick lit early on because early books in the Red Dress Ink line and other lines were so digressive and chatty. I figured, hey, this is perfect for me. (Grin.) Women's fiction does not have to have a "hero's journey" and usually is more digressive than the action-only stuff. I can put in the character's thoughts and do funny asides. Yay!

However, my book IS PROBABLY NOT chick lit after all.

I ran across a book that reads more like mine than most of the current chick lit novels do. I picked it up off the New Releases table at B&N last month.

_Whatever Makes You Happy_ by Lisa Grunwald reads like an old-fashioned BOOK book. It's about a writer who's doing research on what happiness is and how it is sought after and achieved so that she can do another book in her series of "all about" books . . . but that's a sidelight on the main plot. The main plot is her affair with an acquaintance's husband, an affair she starts out of boredom and opportunity, as I see it. Now, that kind of turned me off, because I need something to admire in a heroine, and that ain't it. But it's kind of a mainstay of the midlife-crisis novel, I suppose, so I decided to read on.

Sally, the main character, starts out the book by saying that she's bored with her faithful, too-good-to-her hubby--but the way she says it is that she announces she's upset because she's forgotten the shape of anyone else's dick (and I paraphrase here, but that's actually one of the character's thoughts as written in the prose--kind of a grossout image for me.) Aargghh. The book isn't erotica by any means, but I thought that was kind of a crappy excuse for starting an affair. Couldn't she have joined a life drawing course, gone to a nudist colony for a weekend, surfed the Internet for pix, or just asked a few of the guys she knew pretty well to drop their drawers?? I mean, seriously. ("So, Fred, how's it going? Sailboat still afloat? Let's have a look at that rusty anchor, shall we?" "Tim! Looks like you're happy! Could I make sure of that real quick?") *ahem* Perhaps that last option is not an option, but let's overlook that for the moment. It's a faulty justification for starting an affair, IMHO.

Sally's mom wants her to clean out the old childhood home so it can be sold (Mom has gone to a retirement community), and this gives her a venue for the clandestine meetings (and also provides a way they can get ALMOST caught by the wife, and when they DO almost get caught, this "wakes up" the character and causes her to give up the affair.) This becomes another way of exploring the character's inner thoughts as she thinks about the stuff left behind by the late tenant, the "treasures" her dad hid inside the walls that she finds after moving the posters, etc. And all through the book, she quotes definitions of happiness by Aristotle, Freud, Charles M. Schulz, and many others. I like those bits, because (hi Pamela) some of us read just FOR those kinds of bits--the philosophical asides, the musings, the profound little quotations. (There are a few of those that I have marked with book flags, but I can't go get the book to type 'em in now because I'd wake up the family. Most of 'em are from the character's happiness research.)

*However*, my point *AND I DO HAVE ONE* is that I recognized in this the same "style" of book that _Little Rituals_ is, in a sense: it's got a gimmick that follows the main character as the ostensible focus of her energies (in her book, the happiness research that the character is doing to avoid actually finishing the book she's writing; in mine, the bad luck my character is suffering under, her superstitions, and the ways she tries to get rid of the bad luck as it keeps worsening), but there's something else deeper that the character has to recognize about herself before she can break through what is blocking her progress. In my book, my character needs to realize that she has to start making some of her own luck and take responsibility for her own life. In WMYH, the character needs to realize that her affair isn't what she wants and is not the answer, and that where she belongs is back at home with hubby. (Yuck, but that's how it ends, and that was the proper way for that one to end, cliched as it may be.)

I was reminded of Judy Blume's _Wifey_, which I sneaked around and read when I was a preteen (after reading Blume's other "dirty" novel, _Forever_, which my mother promptly found and TRASHED.) _Wifey_ had a similarly misguided heroine, but it was so much funnier (to me) than WMYH . . . and the heroine was *so* much more screwed up, too. _Wifey_ "did it" with an old boyfriend, a neighbor, and her own brother-in-law (Ew! Ew! EEW! Not only because brothers-in-law are off limits while you are married to the brother, but because EWWWW!) And her hubby Norman was pretty clueless. But somehow Blume made me feel that Norman kind of deserved being made a cuckold and that he was kind of a buffoon (he had her keep track of the dog's bowel movements on a chart in terms of "sticks" and "wees," for one thing), while in WMYH the author makes it clear that the doctor hubby doesn't deserve that kind of cheating and that he is very noble and longsuffering. I dunno--it's interesting to wonder what I would think of _Wifey_ if I read it now instead of under the covers by flashlight when I was fourteen. Still, anyhow, I think it's easier to identify with the _Wifey_ woman . . . but I did finish WMYH nodding with a sense of recognition. Recognition, I mean, that my plot/book has more similarity to her book than it does to much of the published chick lit that I am claiming (in my query letters) my book is like.

I should add that her prose is way less minimalist and more "elevated" than what I see in many of the new chick lit novels. Many of the newer chick lit novels seem to be written to be easy to read--not quite a "high-low" book like the ones written for reluctant teen readers back in the day, but you can tell they're limiting the vocabulary, maybe without even realizing they're doing it. I don't know how to explain what I mean here, but the prose in the new chick lits seems more minimalist, if not a little simplistic, and it gets on my nerves because I like a slightly more complex and cadenced prose style. Which is what WMYH has, in comparison to chick lit, at least. (It's certainly not _Ulysses_, and that's not what I am trying to imply, because my book isn't _Ulysses_, either.)

So my next project is to find out who this author's agent is and who the editor was on this book. They might like *my* book.

(defensively) It could happen.
* * *
I also wonder whether I'm really waiting for replies from this one particular agency, or if that ship has sailed and I'm just confused. It has been since August or so when I sent in the full manuscript for one and a partial for the other, and I got confirmation that they'd received the stuff. I have been thinking I'd hear by email. But maybe their policy is "no response unless we're interested." Someone talked about that on one of the agency websites, and I realized that makes sense; they said that was their policy with queries, but maybe it also extends to partials. Or maybe I've already been rejected, but the email went to the bit bucket. I don't really want to email the agent to ask, but I suppose I should do that so I can know before Christmas whether they're really still looking at the books . . . if not, I guess I should send the stuff out again. (I hate marketing.)
* * *
The Knight Agency held a chat with an editor from Harlequin (the romance publisher) sometime in the past couple of weeks or so, and I decided to ask a question rather than just lurking in the chat room. I typed that I thought my plots were the weak points of my manuscripts, and I wondered whether she could recommend a book doctor who had worked in publishing before and who had possibly helped someone she worked with (which isn't all that unlikely, in my opinion.) That didn't seem like such an outlandish question to me, because critique groups sometimes can't see the problem(s) that agents and editors may be snagging on.

She was nice about it, but I sensed she was aghast (or playing the High Road person because she was afraid of being misinterpreted--after all, some unscrupulous types in the past have done referrals to book doctors in exchange for kickbacks, and she wouldn't want to have ANYONE get the wrong idea.) "I don't work with any book doctors," she said, understandably (if you look at it from her POV, even if she DID know one or two, she wouldn't feel comfy telling you about it on a public chat! I didn't think about that until after I asked, though.) "What I recommend that you do is go get a stack of our books--or the books in the genre you're targeting--and analyze the plots that we like." (That's paraphrased; the chat transcript is up in the file area of the Knight Agency's Yahoo group.)

Well, I've done that reading and analysis. I did that with chick lit last year. I thought I understood plot structure and grokked the kind of narrative that these books shared. But I still couldn't see what might be lacking in the book I was sending out in comparison to these that were being held up as examples.

So I thought I might need some help from others in the same situation. Mailing lists and newsgroups are meant for people to get help with questions and problems, so that's where I went. Well, first I posted a couple of times in this forum about the flaws I saw in those books, the potential I saw in the books that might not have been fulfilled, and the questions I had about the books. I also said a few of the same things about chick lit plotting on the ChickLit mailing list and two RWA craft-of-writing mailing lists. This was my way of sparking debate and analysis.

That didn't go over well. Apparently, there's this unwritten rule that says you can't say anything non-positive or uncomplimentary about a novel if you say you are a novelist. (I'm oversimplifying here because it is, after all, four in the morning, and I'm not up to doing all the qualifying and so forth that people like to see when you set up a "this is usually true" rule.) I deduced this after I got totally trounced on the ChickLit mailing list, on the RWA mailing lists, and right here in my own li'l ol' comment sections.

Ever intrepid, I then set up this Yahoo Craft-Chicklit group dedicated to discussing the craft of writing chick lit and invited anyone who was interested in analyzing such novels (or other novels) to find out how the plots that sold were constructed to c'mon and join. I did this to remove any angry debate from those other lists, of course, but I was also interested in actually doing some analysis.

[EDIT: Hey, three new members joined the group over the past week! I didn't get their messages, but they're on the Yahoo site. I'm going to reply to them and see if I can get some pleasant discussions going. They each said that "this seems like a friendly group," so perhaps I was taking things too seriously. We'll see.]

Of course (and you might have predicted this), the attempt didn't work out well on that list, either. In the interest of making this entry briefer, I'll tuck some of the details about the list behind a cut. In short, I did some analysis, but it only upset everyone.


One or two people agreed that they'd do some analysis, and I asked for suggestions as to which title we should all read. It had to be a successful chick lit novel published recently, so that we'd all be aiming for the most current marketable plotstuff and what-have-you. Two people suggested a novel by Sophie Kinsella, the author of the Shopaholic books. It's a standalone that she has also had much success with. I figured, what the heck, I'll pick that one up and we'll all analyze it. . . .

. . . well, naturally, I had to start the discussion, because no one else said anything except that they'd finished the book. I mentioned a few things about the plot that I thought were weaknesses, but I asked people to post their impressions so that we might figure out what it is about this novel that made it popular and that helped it sell. What did people say in response? Most posted angry stuff aimed at me that said, basically, it's good because it sold. Nobody really wanted to do any analysis in the sense the term is used in English literature courses or in the sense of making a list of plot events and perhaps a diagram of the paradigm (plot point one, turning point, black moment, et alia, as in the Syd Field method.) I had done that in a sketchy fashion, but didn't want to be the only one posting, and didn't want to post it as "the final word" or do the work for everyone. (Don't know why I thought anyone would want to be the first to speak up, considering what happens to those who speak up! But I was still thinking in the schoolteacher way, not in the "toes-crunching" way.)

Here's one of the points I tried to make. I feel that there's a real anti-intellectual climate in the world today. However, chick lit in particular seems to attract the most vitriolic editorials and columns about how it shouldn't be so successful--there have been various editorials marveling at the phenomenon in all sorts of magazines. The authors of chick lit take exception and get all upset when they read these, though they also admit they're crying all the way to the bank. I posted a few links to these articles (on the New York Times site and the Salon site, if I remember correctly) and then said that even if our chick lit heroines aren't always the brightest crayons in the box, WE their creators can't afford to NOT be intellectuals and smarter than the characters we write (who may surprise us all at various times by being pretty sharp after all).

I pointed out that even if characters do "take over," we as authors need to keep control of the narrative, and we need to know our tools in order to do that. I suggested that we examine how Kinsella controlled the narrative. I pointed out that her heroine is portrayed as not being very on-the-ball, and that the character doesn't really change during the course of the book, but is rescued by other characters and their actions. (Some saw it differently, believing that the main character rescues the man, but it didn't seem that way to me.) I asked anyone who disagreed to speak up and post examples of how the character does change so I could see it. The reason, as I told them, is that I wanted to know whether this is OK now in plotting. It used to be (according to Jack Bickham and many other writing teachers) that your characters needed to save themselves by their own actions. Many chick lit heroines don't do this, in my view. In several successful published chick lit novels, the women are rescued by a man (aaaugghh). I asked whether we needed to make our plotlines fulfill this old expectation of characters growing and learning and saving themselves or not. I wondered how readers felt about this.

I also pointed out that a good bit of backstory gets shoehorned in. Since I've always heard that this is a no-no, I mentioned it and wondered whether some of it was really necessary.

You'd have thought that I defamed somebody's grandmother's good name. Many people just seemingly wanted to "defend that poor little author" against my "evil putdowns." I thought we were going to analyze the novel, which means that we might find a couple of flaws that we could learn to avoid AS WELL AS finding things we wanted to emulate. But several people (especially one published romance novelist, who seemingly just wanted to make a fuss) pretty much just wanted to say that a book which is successful must by definition be flawless, and that I must be wrong about anything I questioned. They couldn't see the flaws in *that* logic, and they didn't want to use their reasoning. They wanted to use their emotions.

cookie_dreams was one of the list members who posted many interesting and encouraging things, but she couldn't change the general tide. Neither could I. I really had hoped that we could figure out something as a group that we could each use. But I realized that I was spending too much energy on that forum in return for pretty much nothing but yelling in response, and so I just let it go. Eventually it'll just get deleted for lack of activity. (I always hope someone will run across it and will post a message, but not even spammers have visited for some time.)

I have to wonder how many of the people who got so angry about the discussions I tried to start have ever (1) been in school and paid attention during a literature or writing class, or (2) analyzed one of their favorite books in order to get more of an idea how a successful novel might be structured. At any rate, I kept trying to clarify that this list was meant for those who wanted to take apart a working clock to see what made it tick and keep time properly. Nobody else really wanted to DO that, as far as I could tell; they thought of what I wanted to do as "book reviewing" or "putting successful people down" because I didn't say ONLY the positive things. And I was pretty much the only one trying to do much analysis by that point.

Anyway . . . that's why I asked the editor to recommend somebody professional whom I might consult. If I have tried to figure out what's wrong by myself, and that didn't work . . . and then I tried to get others to do some analysis with me so that I could see the error of my ways, and it didn't work out . . . that means I'm at a dead end. I still think that a REAL book doctor (one who actually has done some editing on published novels, someone like Jerry Gross, although he's way out of my price range) might be able to give me some direction. There may NOT be anyone affordable who could read it and give a response. I was just casting about for some solution.

Yeah, I know I said I wasn't going to write fiction any more, that I was just going to redirect my creative drive into piano playing. But then I got another idea for a sort of sequel to my chick lit and wrote the first couple of chapters. (sigh) It's tough to turn down the Muse.

However, I did learn "Christmas Is Coming" and "Christmas Time is Here" from the Vince Guaraldi "Charlie Brown Christmas" soundtrack. Now I remember why I always give up on my frequent "conversions" to jazz piano after a short time of playing transcriptions and arrangements: it's because they ask you to reach a ninth or tenth on a regular basis. I mean, the G on the bottom line of the bass clef AND the A on the top line of the bass clef . . . both with your left hand while playing a five-note chord in the right hand. That just doesn't work unless your hands are the width of a skillet. My hands are tiny, but they're flexible because I've been playing keyboards since I was four. However, they don't reach a ninth. Not comfortably--and I don't want to risk injuries, because they lead to not being able to play at all. And playing the A on the first space of the bass clef with the G on the top space of the bass clef *instead* sounds COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and LAME because of music theory. (sniffle)

Comments

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I play an instrument where I don't have to deal with the bass clef at all. Then again, changing positions can be tricky.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

*grin* What do you play?

I tried to play the flute (transverse flute) a few years back, but I discovered that it was difficult to hold that heavy ol' silver stick up, and the embouchure would be a long time getting perfect, and (most significantly) although I could blow a particular note once I got my fingers in position, I couldn't just plink out a tune by ear because I had no idea where the next note on the scale was. (sheepish grin) I had to learn every note individually. On the piano, once I found the "starting note" of a song, I could work it out by intervals. That would have taken some time with the flute. So after the first month of rental, I knew that I'd have to get a teacher and schedule a lot more practice time . . . so I gave up that idea for the moment.

The recorder is easier, but is also tricky in its own way. I tend to overblow the high notes. But the fingering of the scale is more guessable. *But* but it really takes an ensemble cast in order to get the recorder heard--there's not a lot of volume in it.

I suppose they all have their tradeoffs. *grin*

[wildcelticrose.livejournal.com]

I play violin.

Strings make the most sense to me, and since I have (or so I've been told) excellent intonation, and picked up bowing easily, it's the instrument that made the most sense to me.

I tried tin whistle and recorder, but they aren't for me. I pluck around on the guitar a bit, but I prefer my violin. It's actually easier than guitar for me.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! The violin is the toughest instrument to play. That's what I've always heard, and it makes sense. Mozart was the concertmeister and first chair violin, and it seems to me that it takes a Mozart to play well. I'm always amazed by fiddlers (grin), as well. I hear they play by ear (the folk fiddlers), too. My mother-in-law played violin as a child, but when she pulled her child-sized instrument out of a closet while we were cleaning out her mother's house, she didn't look at it fondly; she did offer it to my niece and nephew, but they weren't interested. I don't know where that ever went--probably back on a shelf. People are intimidated by string instruments other than guitars and ukuleles.

I'm impressed!

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Boy, do you ever need a new crit group/book club/both.

What you are proposing sounds entirely reasonable to me, it's the sort of discussion I'm used to. IIRC, shows like Oprah and Richard&Judy have been pushing bookclubs, so you might find some advice on how to create and channel discussion through that route. Alternatively, are there any communities geared towards discussion on livejournal? It sounds to me as if it would be a good medium.

As I haven't read the book you refer to, I'll remain silent on that account, only to say that I dislike Bickham with a vengeance. (I've got an article up on beyond_elechan should you want to learn why.)

As for a book doctor, I would recommend against it, because ultimately, you don't want a better book - you want the skills to write better books. Note the plural.

I'm floundering slightly because most of the resources I am aware of are geared towards SF/Fantasy - workshops, the rasfc newsgroup - and I've got no idea what the requirements for your genre are. That backstory bit, for instance - in SF, you want it - not in large blobs (aka 'infodumps') but finely interwoven through the narrative, building a more interesting, richer world.

If you can't work out what the problem is, and you're certain that it's as good as you can make it and has no obvious and glaring problems, then send it out into the world and write another. Most writers have one or two or more novels under the bed that aren't quite up to standard, and sometimes it's easier to write a new novel than to find the flaw in an old one. I know I certainly found that to be true, and I'm slowly approaching the point where I can see what's wrong with the old ones.

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

>ultimately, you don't want a better book - you want the skills to write better books.

I do think that if I got some input from a pro about this particular book, it would illuminate more than just this particular book. That's *if* I stumble across the right pro. Preferably, it would be someone who had worked with a particular editor before and knows what he/she likes. (They're bound to have their personal preferences, just the way we do.)

The objection that I get from agents (though I've only talked to around ten of them about this book so far, since I wait to hear back from one before contacting the next) is not related to my style; they usually praise my style and voice. (I mention this despite the risk of sparking a long thread regarding my style and voice.) What they DO say is that the plot is weaker in the middle than the other books that they're considering at the same time, so I believe that a paid editor or "doctor" might isolate the scene(s) that the acquiring editors and agents are talking about (because I don't really have any idea, unless they're having a problem with the scenes set in the office--and those scenes are showing how she struggles against the downward spiral and fails, and also showing the stuff going on in the office with the characters who are breaking the law. But the guy she thinks she is in love with is not in those scenes. The guy she will realize she can love IS in the scenes. It's sort of subtle.) I don't think it is entirely related to wordiness or a need to tighten, although that's always a useful idea. (I could sit and tighten or flip-flop paragraphs endlessly. There's gotta be a point at which you stop and decide it's readable enough, because after that you tend to make it worse and take all the life out of it--at least I do. Truman Capote said he spent a morning putting a comma in, and the afternoon taking it out.)

I used to be in a critique group (in person) for F&SF, but I currently don't want to write F&SF, so they stopped being a good fit. I don't want to be in another group of category romance authors, because they DO operate by a certain set of unbendable rules. (Bring the hero on within twenty pages, have the sexual tension at the forefront, have the characters obsess about one another and never have anything else that they are thinking about that's more important, have sex scenes that are of varying degrees of hotness depending upon the line you're targeting, etc.) Typically, the authors there don't give me helpful guidance because they have set up the groups to talk about category novels and what their requirements are. What I'm saying is that they want to make whatever book you're writing conform to these checklists they have for the Golden Heart romance contest and so forth, which may not be appropriate. So far, I haven't found a group of authors who think like agents and editors and who will let unpublished authors into the critique group. (There are a few in Dallas that only take people who are already published, which is a quality control measure that I can well understand, considering that everyone I meet is "writing a novel" in their spare time. *grin*) Online groups are elusive, as well (when I join them, they turn out to be populated by beginners who can't really help you analyze beyond a certain level, except as beta readers.)

I'd love to see a community where we analyze books. If y'all find such a community on LJ or elsewhere, please do let me know!

OH, and Bickham

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

About Jack Bickham (who was the protege of the University of Oklahoma fellow, Dwight V. Swain) . . . you don't want to take everything he says completely to heart, but I think the concept of scene and sequel is useful. I'll have to read your remarks about him, because I'm always interested in discussion! I can also attest to the fact that he is always talking about commercial fiction, never literary fiction, so far as I can tell. Some of the suggestions he makes would be counterproductive if you were trying to use them to write a more artsy novel. (But then that's what I am trying to get away from.)

He isn't the only teacher who says that characters should save themselves, though; at Viable Paradise, Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Teresa Nielsen Hayden mentioned this, as did Lawrence Watt-Evans. (That's because I asked about it, not because my character had the problem in the work I submitted.) I think that even the guidelines on some online magazine sites say that in short stories, you should make sure you don't use deux ex machina methods but have the character rally to save herself or pull himself out of the bad situation. That is what I see lacking in some of the chick lit stuff I analyzed (the Shopaholic series is particuarly bad about this, and the first Bridget Jones is the same way, as far as I can see.) Am I the only one who still adheres to this idea?

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

I do think that if I got some input from a pro about this particular book, it would illuminate more than just this particular book. That's *if* I stumble across the right pro.

If you were looking for someone to improve your understanding, I'd agree, but it sounds more as if you want to see an improvement in the book. There are no guarantees that someone else's vision would be any better than yours, respectively that of other writers. (I've got one novel on my desk that I should be reading right now. I'd be perfectly willing to take a look afterwards.)

I'd be interested to hear the result, whether it would be of any use to anyone else. Would you terribly mind having a look at my Theory of Everything and see whether it is in any way helpful as a way of looking at those sagging scenes?

OTOH, it sounds to me as if you know pretty well where the problem lies, just not how to fix it. There are two strategies for that - 'keep worrying at it until you get it right', and 'write the next book'.

I'd love to see a community where we analyze books. If y'all find such a community on LJ or elsewhere, please do let me know!

You can always found your own, and you might have to.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Some thoughts:

I don't think you should get a book doctor either, especially if you like writing. The key is finding people with whom you can communicate AND do your quest, and that's just not easy. But there is no age limit on writing, or learning to write--and there is no reason why you cannot get one of those novels into good enough shape to sell, so the next step is working with editors.

Do you know Danielle Monson? She lives somewhere in Texas there, and she's spent the past few YEARS doing the kind of analysis you want to do. She's come up with some fascinating stuff. And she's always looking for someone to do it with, as her regular library group got cancelled after some years, by some schedule shift at the place they met.

Bickham, I think, had one single good thing to offer: identifying the purpose of scenes. Once one could wrap one's head around that enough to step back and discover the purpose of a scene, then that was enough. The rest--I dunno, I just didn't find it useful, too arbitrary. But he did make me aware, and I needed that, my brain gets too crowded with image, and I need tricks to help me beat the image ghosts away and see only words.

My second lesson was in identifying scaffolding, the unnecessary words and phrases that may be harmless in themselves, but sometimes some people use so much of the effect is cumulative boredom, though no one can quite say why--just it's too slow, too wordy, too hum...

What I mean by that is something like the following:

She turned and saw Molly cross the room, a wide room in which the dominating feature was a mullioned French window, against which Molly was silhouetted for a moment as slanting sun rays poured all around her.

Words like 'she turned and saw' the repetition of 'room', the structure of the clauses, they all add too much freight. The sentence could be cut to read, since we're already in the character's POV:

Molly crossed the wide room, silhouetted briefly against the golden light slanting in the mullioned French windows. (SOme might even insist the adverb come out, and put that clause, 'a silhouette against...')

This is the kind of close scrutiny, sentence by sentence, that can radically change the effect of a scene even when you don't touch the structure at all.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Your example also illustrates my nemsis, I seem to have had a morbid fear of sentences not relating to my protagonist. I had whole volumes full of 'he saw, he felt, he thought'...

For scenes I started out with 'worldbuilding/characterisation/advancing the plot' and recently branched out. (See my Theory Of Everything posts)

For your passage, I think I would go with 'Molly traversed the ballroom, silhouetted briefly against the French windows' - do we *really* need to know the rest?

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

I seem to have had a morbid fear of sentences not relating to my protagonist.

When you use a lot of those phrases ("he saw", "she felt", etc.), it's called filtering, and when it's overdone, it can create a greater distance between the reader and the story. Of course, there are times when you do want or need those phrase, especially if you want to emphasize the act of seeing, or sensing, or whatever, but like any other technique, it's good to be aware of why you're choosing it.

For your passage, I think I would go with 'Molly traversed the ballroom, silhouetted briefly against the French windows' - do we *really* need to know the rest?

Depends, but I like those extra details -- they add texture and vividness to the scene. (imo, of course.)

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

Filtering - ok, that's something to add to my vocabulary. I think their origin for my lies in overdoing the tight third thing - wanting to report *only* what the protag experiences, and going too far.

[beth-bernobich.livejournal.com]

Even without the "he saw/she felt" phrases, you are showing things only through the POV character, because the text shows only was the POV character would sense. In fact, you could argue that dropping the filter phrases makes the POV tighter -- it's as though you (the reader) were dropped into the POV's skin. But with the filter phrases, you get constant reminders that you are outside, which is where the extra distance comes from.

There are times the distance is good and useful, of course. And as I said, there times you want to emphasize the filter act itself (for whatever reason).

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

Danielle Monson . . . doesn't ring a bell. But do you have an email address or phone number for her? I'd love to get in contact. Texas is pretty big, though, so we'd probably have to form an online group. Maybe she's in D/FW, though.

Dang ol' libraries keep pandering to the video renters and the non-book-related meetings. Phooey on whoever messed up her in-person meetings.

Bickham (like Swain before him) mostly helped me with the scene and sequel concept. There is scene, in which the action and dialogue that's happening in the story's NOW takes place. Then there's the "sequel," where the viewpoint character takes stock of the situation and makes plans or reflects. Before I really understood that, I would interrupt an action scene for a reflection or a bit of thinking/planning. Now I don't do that so often (only when it's brief and it's needed then.) He also talked about setting as a character, which happens all the time in my Texas books. I don't remember what else I got out of his books . . . maybe the part about having a "speech tag" for a minor character, but maybe that came from somewhere else. (That's where you have a minor character who's there for comic relief or who's not memorable enough, so you add a quirk such as his saying, "So to speak," all the time. You don't want to do that often, but it can be effective. Especially if you add into the mix a hard-of-hearing character. But that can easily spin out of control into a Three Stooges bit!)

Gosh, that passage you wrote off the cuff sounds just like Danielle Steel and the romance authors who run the critique groups that I want to stay out of. (grin) I'd say look at that scene and figure out why the entrance is emphasized. You could do it this way instead. (Assuming it is important that the time is sunset, and we want to get that across.)

She turned to find Molly behind her, backlighted by the setting sun through the windows.
"What's up?" Molly's hair glowed like one of those cheap holograms on a cereal box.
"Nothing I can put into words." The room seemed so wide. It was triggering her agoraphobia. [Etc.]

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Here is Danielle's e-mail. (She tried to write to you today, but it bounced. I sent her your link this morning, as just today she was writing to me about openings and things.)

<arriki@msn.com>