Writing the Mystery

Again, sorry for the ambiguous title for this post. I'm not going to talk about writing mystery, whodunnit novels. I really like throwing you off, don't I? But in my defense, I want to talk about every kind of story is a mystery for the reader to figure out, and how writing an story with that mindset might lead to better, tighter writing.

I can't take credit for this idea. My YA novel professor is the one who taught me this idea. Here it is: basically, a story is a mystery to the reader. They are reading to figure out what happens at the end and how it gets that way. So, any genre from science fiction to romance is a mystery when the reader first opens the book or pops in the DVD. What this means for writers is this: dispense information like you would in a mystery.

It's hard to start writing a story, especially a sci-fi/fantasy, without feeling the need to start out with a bunch of exposition about the world and the characters. And while that kind of thing is necessary, to some degree, after a while the reader just wants to move on to the main action. So how does writing like a it's a mystery help this? Think about mysteries: do they tell you everything at the start? No! They leave parts out, imply bits, and have the hero find out details as they become important. Exposition to set up the flow of the story comes at the beginning, but readers don't have to know everything from the beginning. They can pick up on the fact that one character is kind and another cruel by how those characters act. The details in setting and plot may also reveal better to a reader things that might have also been said in early exposition, but in a far more entertaining way.

Another thing, I think, that writing as if the story is a mystery helps is how the writer sees the story. The reader solves the puzzle, yes, but only after the writer does. Personally, I feel more like a detective than a creator when I write. I come up with specific characters with values, strengths, and weaknesses, and I have to solve how they end up where they are. This means using what I've already written to solve problems, instead of inventing a new way out of trouble for my hero. I feel like I've been handed a bag of clues - details revealed in earlier writing - and I need to puzzle out how they come together to solve the problem.

For example, this week I was writing and hit a snag. I have two characters, teenage boys, who are working very hard to lie to each other about who they are and where they come from. They're guys; they're not going to confront each other unless it's life or death. So, here's what I had:

Alder: half-human, half-elf, but doesn't know it. Determined, defiant to the point of stupidity, and curious. From Earth, but is hiding that. Has panic attacks when his life will be threatened in the next couple of hours. Also, heals extraordinarily fast. Doesn't trust Berzen.

Berzen/Zed: fireperson with enhanced powers (large wings and the rogue ability to burn things with a touch), but hiding that. Wears gloves and a long coat. Street-smart, knows the history of Cartha where Alder doesn't. Good liar. Has redemption issues over an accident his powers caused.

So, here's what I came up with to reveal to both characters the identity of the other: Alder and Berzen (or, really, Zed) arrive in a town. Alder has a panic attack, but dismisses it. They get a room in an inn. Berzen takes off his coat and goes to bed before Alder comes in. Alder, seeing Berzen asleep, wonders about his companion and why he's always wearing gloves. He sneaks over and takes off Berzen's gloves, seeing a large scar on one hand. Berzen rolls over, and his bare hand sets the bed on fire. Alder freaks out, and Berzen jumps out of bed. His wings are out and obvious. The fire spreads. Because Berzen wants redemption for things in his past, he goes to save the other people in the inn. Alder, feeling like the whole thing is his fault, goes with him. Alder acts heroically and is burned while saving a life. After everyone escapes, Berzen tries to get Alder some medical help and the burns are completely healed.

Both boys have explaining to do.

Okay, so this example is kind of bare-boned and rough. But the point is, I didn't need to invent any more than what I already had. Everything already there about my characters and their situation allowed me to create a scene where Alder and Berzen's true identities are revealed. I held all the clues, and a little creative thinking allowed me to solve this mystery.

Let's Talk Politics!

Okay, okay. Not fair of me to scare you with a post title like that, not in an election year. While I believe voting is important, and something I will be doing come election time, this is a writing and storytelling blog, not a politics blog. I apologize to those readers who want a political debate between me and the second personality. I also apologize if this post turns out to be a little haphazard in organization and rationality; it's been a long day. No, I mean it: it's been a really long, long day. It ended with me watching The Englishman Who Went Up A Hill But Came Down A Mountain, which was a good way to unwind. If you want a good example of a story that has a very simple plot, made interesting by good characters, that's a film to see.

So, politics. Have you ever read a story where the main conflict is, of course, a character's personal dilemma, but politics plays a huge role? I see this a lot in the sci-fi and fantasy I read (think Dune and Eragon), but I've also seen it in thrillers, romances, spy novels, the list goes on and on. Honestly, I don't like politics because I think it's boring, but now that I'm writing a novel where my main character is about to get embroiled in the politics of three Kingdoms and a group of desert clans, I've been thinking about it a lot.

Politics, when used as a backdrop in a story, gives the story a sense of realism. Every kind of people have a way of governing themselves, so politics is as prevalent as death and taxes. It provides the feeling that there is more in this story than just Bob and Sue's current workplace tension that will erupt into romance or, maybe, violence. This is especially useful when worldbuilding for a science fiction or a fantasy. In fact, I think every writer who worldbuilds should take into consideration what the politics of that world are, even if they aren't referenced much in the story. Then again, they may be more than you realize. If your hero's a thief living in a settlement on a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy, wouldn't it be helpful to the reader to know what the laws are regarding theft, without going into unnecessary detail?

Some stories use politics as a major thread. This usually happens when a main character is someone of importance, like royalty or a dignitary. This kind of story gives the writer a chance to create a utopia or lampoon current politics. I advise against both; utopias are boring, and politics changes enough to make the story obsolete in a short time. However, I think exploring politics as a story is a good way to explore human nature, and how the lure of power (or the loss of it) affects different kinds of people. What will these people do to get what they want? Will they sacrifice their personal interests for the good of the people, or will they put their ambition above all else? Will they lie and manipulate? Will they rise above corruption or succumb to it? A good story is one that deals with the struggles of complex characters. Politics is a good way to show those struggles and that complexity.

Here's the warning label: using politics in stories can get big. It can get messy, and tangled, and snarled. It's probably best to use it in a novel or film, over a short story. But good writers can do whatever they want, as long as it works. Breaking the rules is one of the best parts of writing, I think, and like theft in the Andromeda Galaxy, it's not against the law.

Odds and Ends

I don't have much to say this week on the formation of good stories - my life is nuts. I am currently taking a class that requires a lot from me, and another that requires more, and for the other two...don't get me started. The good news is that my fiction class is teaching me how to use unusual forms of prose, such as index (telling a story with numbers), lists, letters, questions, footnotes (most of the story is in footnotes), etc. I feel like it will make me a better writer. My class on writing the YA novel is a little different.

You see, I know my professor doesn't like high fantasy and there is a possibility writing high fantasy will harm my grade. However, the novel I want to use is high fantasy, and I feel like using it will make me a better writer than if I used something else. For those who follow my fictional lives, it's down between the Alder Torrance/fantasy world of Cartha story or the Jeremy Wilderson story. Alder's story would help me grow in writing plot, characters, dialogue, prose descriptions, and, well, basically everything else, whereas I feel Jeremy's story will only help me write characters. Which is good, but I can do better.

The good news is, my professor knows me and knows I write fantasy. Also, Alder's story is not a conventional high fantasy. Yes, there is another world and yes, the names there are strange. But Alder is a typical fifteen-year-old from our world. It takes him a long time to accept the magic in Cartha, he doesn't get the fashion of cloaks and tunics, and he has a hard time pronouncing the names. I also plan on messing with the idea of magical translation (how Alder can understand what the people of Cartha say) by having some puns and idioms not land with Alder. I think this story will be okay when I workshop some of it next week.

In other storytelling news, I went to the Timpanogos Storytelling Festival this weekend for the first time. I highly recommend it for budding storytellers; the style and mastery of words that I saw there was amazing. It was inspiring for me, as I try to write a bunch of stories for my two classes. I learned there that anything can be a story, even a drive home with your kids, and that the best tool a storyteller has is the ability to see things in a different way than most people. Huh. I guess I did talk a little here about the art of story crafting.

Lastly, I think I'm beginning to be a real writer. One of my friends teaches sixth grade and she is currently teaching her students about the writing process. Somehow I came up in conversation and her students want to read my novel (that's hopefully coming out around Christmas). When she told her colleagues about this lesson, they said, "You should get your friend in here and have her give an assembly on writing." So, next semester, I may have a speaking gig at an elementary school. It feels weird. Who am I to be talking about writing, Brandon Sanderson? I'm no expert. But, I'd be lying if I don't giggle a little gleefully when I think about it.

Song & Dance

Some brief things about my life before getting into the topic I really want to comment on: I started my graduate studies this week. It's going to waste me, it's so much work already. I have a job in addition to my studies, which are work-heavy this semester. I have a short story due every other day for one class, and in another I will complete a novel by the final. Not to mention that my classmates are stupendous writers, so I'll learn a lot but my grade will likely suffer when my professors compare me to them. Oh, well. I'm here to learn my craft as well as I can. As long as I pass.

On to lighter things. I wanted to talk about musicals today. I know I'm the story fanatic, and I generally deal with the verbal elements of storytelling like dialogue and plot, but I feel like something needs to be said in defense of using music to tell parts of a story. I hear way to many people call musicals "gay" or "lame" because the characters break into song and dance to express their emotions. I don't think that's fair; it's kind of like bashing a fantasy novel because dragons don't really riddle with hobbits.

No one really, truly, actually in real life starts singing and dancing in an elaborate musical number with a bunch of people who know the same song and choreography - here's a good example of that from Disney. I get that. I want to talk about why the writers would have chosen to include music and dance in their storytelling. First off, I'm sure a lot do it because it's entertaining. It's amusing to see people dancing on stage, and song is beautiful to human ears. It's not me saying this, it's generations of proof. We like rhythm, and we like spectacle.

However, music and dance can be powerful non-verbal means of showing emotion. I think of songs in musicals as soliloquies, often set apart from the movement of the plot and meant to allow the audience to see deeper into a character. The character has a problem. Does he view it with humor or concern? Well, is the song upbeat and bouncy, or is it heavy and in a minor key? The words can be exactly the same, but the two different tones can color our impression of who the character is. Imagine, for a moment, that in a scary part of a thriller movie the music wasn't the intense, suspense-building kind normally used but the optimistic, swelling strains of a romantic comedy. How would that change your impression of that scene?

Dance is the physical movement of emotions, in a musical. The same rules apply - are they leaping with happiness or trudging along?

I feel like allowing music to carry some of the weight of characterization frees musicals to not place as much emphasis on the words. I love words, don't get me wrong, but when 90% of human communication is non-verbal, maybe we get things more when we see and hear the story in other places than just the words.

Pros and Cons of Surprises

This week I want to discuss something that is surprisingly touchy for me: whether or not it is better to end a story with a shocking revelation. That is, a big surprise reveal that tells the reader he or she has been tricked the whole time, that the truth is not what it has seemed to be. This might not sound like a very controversial subject, but after reading On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner, I have seen that one can argue quite extensively on this.

Gardner's view is that surprising the reader at the end is poor writing because it eliminates what makes fiction writing "good." That means, the character development, the difficult choices, and the internal strife that makes a story worth reading. In his opinion, the "victim story", a story told from the perspective of someone who eventually gets used or harmed in some way, is useless because the victim doesn't know that this is happening until the end, and cannot act on it. Think of a story written from the perspective of someone unknowingly being conned out of his life savings. Until the end, there is no conflict for him, no problems. Now imagine the same story, but either told from the perspective of the con artist (questions of morality, fear of getting caught) or the victim, but this time the victim knows he's being conned. In this second case, maybe he knows the con artist personally and has reasons for going along with it. What would they be? Why would it be preferable to lose all his money rather than turn in, or even just brush off, the con artist? Gardner's point is that a story where the character knows the problems and has to deal with them is a much more interesting story.

However, I think there are times when it's okay to shock the reader with surprises at the end. It worked for O. Henry of "The Gift of the Magi" fame. One can make the argument that mystery writers have no choice but to surprise the reader. Yet, I feel like I should add a qualification to this part. O. Henry's stories were short stories, and a reader didn't need much patience to get to the big reveal in the end. Holding out revealing something huge until the end in a novel requires lying to the reader; there's no other way to keep a secret for so long.

Mystery novels can have some kind of huge revelation at the end because the plot revolves around searching for the truth. The story is not about character development - well, some may be, but mostly that's not the case - it's about getting the bad guy and finding out how he did it. However, while the plot may end with a surprise, many mystery novels hide little clues along the way that let readers catch on, if they're observant.

So, what's my final opinion? Surprises have their place, but probably not in a long work like a novel unless it's a mystery novel. Even then, a writer has to be careful to let the story flow and not work to obscure the truth to the reader. That's never a good thing. Why is this touchy for me? I have written at least one story with a big, snappy reveal at the end, and now I have begun to question whether or not my story could be stronger if my characters knew more from the beginning. They would not be victims; they would have the power to act in their circumstances. And then, who knows what consequences they would set in motion?

Much of Madness

For those of you who thought that last week I would talk about the use of mental illness in writing, here you go. Today I'm actually going to talk about it. I took a class on mental illness in film and literature, so hopefully I sound like I know what I'm talking about.

Personally, I kind of enjoy the use of madness in literature, if only because it tends to complicate things a little. In my own writing, I like to use a facsimile of mental illness because it causes tension between characters. For example, a character may behave in an insane way but be sane, but the other characters see only the actions and none of the method. The sane character may have a method, or be just as confused as everyone else as to what is going on but still feels that he has not quite lost his mind. Not yet. It makes the characters develop in the way they interact with themselves and others, and makes for interesting writing.

Also, it is an interesting experiment for the writer when he or she tries to write from the perspective of someone with a mental illness. In my class we studied different kinds of mental illness and how they distort the way a person views the world. Everything, from depression to schizophrenia to dissociative identity disorder, change the way a person views the world and they are all different. When constructing a character, it's one thing to say "she's crazy" and it's another to say "she has bipolar depression". With a specific illness in mind, the writer can't make the character do anything he or she wants. The writer has to try to see the world as someone with that specific illness would.

But, like with all things, I think using mental illness in writing should be used as appropriate. Throwing in a crazy character simply because he is crazy is bad writing, only out for flash and amazement. Especially since, today, mental illness is a sensitive subject for many people. Research has to be done, and it has to be done well. As much as I like Poe and Lovecraft and all those Romantic writers with their swoons and brain fevers, their version of madness isn't usually that accurate nowadays, and it's definitely not politically correct. Care needs to be taken to make sure the story's use of mental illness is as appropriate and true-to-life as possible.

That, of course, is more important for realistic fiction. In science fiction and fantasy, the reader can assume something supernatural or not yet understood is at play, making characters lose their minds in ways we don't know anything about in our world. But still, it must be done as the story needs it. I believe that, as much as possible, all the elements of the story should contribute something. If it doesn't develop character, push the plot along, or worldbuild (or anything else I neglected to mention that makes the story grow), it doesn't need to be there.

How to Quickly Lose Your Mind

If you got excited upon reading the title of this post, thinking that I was going to talk about using madness in writing, then I'm sorry. That's not happening this week. It's a great idea for a blog post topic, and I'm sure I'll hit it soon, but I have to admit I'm not mentally capable of writing something intellectual. I have learned how to go crazy in only a few days, and it will be a while before I recover.

Here it is: on Thursday my editor sent back my novel manuscript with 308 comments on it, not including in-text issues like comma placement and awkwardly phrased sentences. The publisher would like to get my book out relatively soon and I'm starting grad school in a few weeks. Thus, I feel pressure to finish making revision as soon as possible so the publisher can keep their schedule and I can focus on my writing for school and not fall behind in my classes. It is now Tuesday, and I am on comment 225. My head hurts.

Through this process I'm learning valuable lessons about myself and about how to revise with an editor. I am addicted to writing and have to set goals for myself, or I keep going until I can't think anymore. That sounds weird: setting goals so I can stop sooner. Right now the goal is revise 50 pages a day, which is more than manageable given my current empty schedule. But all that writing is removing me from the real world, which is making me act a little crazy. I'm excited by my writing, mentally fatigued, and crazy. Not a good combination for social functions. Or maybe it is - I guess it depends on what kind of social functions you enjoy.

As for writing with comments from an editor, it's interesting. I usually make the changes he suggests, because they really do make the book more awesome, but I am stubborn and always try to find a way to do it my way. Probably not the best mindset, but it keeps my voice in there. The worst part is when he suggests a change I don't want to make, but in trying to keep things the way they are and still make sense, I realize he is right and it should be changed. On the other hand, it's cool to see that he recognizes my characters are as cool as I think they are!

Sorry this post isn't more interesting. I just have a lot on my mind right now. I'll keep you posted on publishing details!