Last time, I offered guidelines for a writer using the Web to get the work done with fewer distractions. This time, I have recommendations on good habits that might save you from the Internet's siren song.
1. Track your activity. This does not have to be the lawyers habit of logging every 15 minutes (although that works well). Simply writing down your estimates of how much time you spend online in the morning, afternoon, and evening can be eye-opening. Get a good sense of where your time is going to see if it is in proportion to your goals. One week of tracking every few months can help you see how close you are to activity that will help you reach your hopes and dreams.
2. Start your day without connection. While the Web is not all junk food, it offers a lot of sugary treats. (I almost wrote tweets.) Just as starting your day with candy pretending to be cereal is a bad idea, hitting all your favorites (email, social media, videos) before you’ve gotten any work done will not help your productivity. Two suggestions: Three suggestions:
First, get something started at the end of the day and put it where you can’t miss it. I usually place an ideas paper on the kitchen table (since I often wake up with story solutions or concepts), as well as a page with three to five open questions (in case I don’t wake up with things I need to get on paper right away).
Second, turn your wifi off before you go to bed. This puts temptation a step away.
Third, avoid anything digital for the first hour of the day. The morning is the best time to cultivate connection with the tangible world. It helps if you actually turn a mechanical timer to one hour and give yourself those minutes as a gift.
3. Time box distractions. Being open most of the day to every bell, buzzer, and alarm that pulls you into email, Facebook, and other Internet lure hands control of your time over to other people. It’s also hugely inefficient since most of these are not valuable. Interrupt mode work is less productive that batching your responses. So set times during the day where you permit yourself to respond and keep to those times. It helps, again, to set a timer for these activities.
Time boxing is difficult if you normally have no barriers to these activities (or worse, find yourself checking email or social media repeatedly during the day). Rather than enforce optimal rules right away, it might be good to turn your computer’s sound off or reset alerts or just set an hour or two of quiet time you know you can commit to. Building good habits gradually (perhaps with each step on your calendar) is often less discouraging and painful.
4. Have “insteads” ready. One vulnerability for writers is unexpected free moments, especially 10-20 minutes that becomes available unexpectedly. I often hear that writers “reward” themselves for getting something done early by checking on social media. The ten free minutes easily become 30, 40, or 50 minutes of low-value engagement. Having something valuable to do, designed for short openings, can help support good habits.
I call these interstitial tasks “insteads.” Instead of making yourself vulnerable to a time sucking activity, read a poem or memorize something or make a list of possible titles for a story or answer a plot question or interview one of your characters or read an article. All of these (for me) have natural stopping points that allow me to use open time well, and then get on with priority work.
It’s best if these task require Web searches or the possibility of real-time interactions. Writerly things (like marketing, cultivating an audience, looking for opportunities, or discussions with peers) carry the risk of being snared into bigger (and less valuable) time commitments.
5. Make physical activity part of your routine. I stretch every 40 minutes. It helps keep me healthy, and it also makes it impossible for me to keep my hands on the keyboard longer that I should. It stops my brain from restless cycling. And even if I’m productively engaged in the Internet (say, by doing research), it forces me to reflect on the purpose and value of the activity. It makes it harder to make excuses for less than productive activity.
The focus above is on positive activities, good behaviors that can support productive work without invoking shame or (currently) impossible objectives. You don’t have to do them all at once. You don’t have to do any of them perfectly. And you can substitute your own positive activities, these are not rules that must be obeyed.
No matter how obsessive your relationship with the Internet may be now, you can take small steps to keep things proportional. To not be a slave to alerts or twitch behaviors. Those steps may help you to prioritize how you use your time so you can do your best writing.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Wednesday, August 21, 2019
Writing Efficiently Despite Having All the Answers 1 — The Web as a tool, not a distraction
What makes a great writer? Curiosity? Inspiration? Knowledge? Care?
Let's take them one by one, and explore them in relation to the essential tool of our time — the World Wide Web. And for each, I'll suggest some efficiency guidelines so that the web can become a help more than it's a hindrance.
Curiosity
If you're writing instruction manuals, curiosity has limited use. Basically, the steps need to be expressed clearly, without a lot of opinion and nuance. But art happens when unexpected connections are made and often the impact depends upon the spaces in between. This makes the thrill of collecting bits and pieces of life and exploring them in enough detail so that their relationships become visible a positive practice for writers.
Even before the Web existed, I remember getting lost in libraries, often learning more from adjacent books than the ones I came to refer to. The web provides this library effect on steroids. With a few clicks, arcane subjects can be run down, often providing bizarre discoveries that are totally unrelated to the original intent.
This is a good thing when not taken to extremes. Unfortunately, it's easy to spend more time collecting artifacts (which can range from data to quotations to intriguing biographies) than creating new works.
Guideline 1. Spend no more than half as much time feeding your curiosity online than you spend drafting stories.
Inspiration
Articles, news stories, images, and opinion pieces can provide delicious, often nearly formed prompts and ideas for fiction. And this can be true from the inception of stories to their development to the drafting of scenes and chapters to finding just the right piece to complete the revision of a draft which includes an important hole.
For me, complete stories have come from a chance remark or a little-known fact. The shapes the stories have, at times, been determined by the structures of successful works that parallel my intentions. And I've often stumbled across an article and had it come to mind as my subconscious was busily searching for the answer to a story problem.
It's good to read regularly and broadly. But it's not very useful for writer to read opinion piece after opinion piece that dissects the latest outrage in the news, especially if these all come from similar perspectives. (That's just one example of feeding anger or hardening positions or be obsessive urged to read about subject past the point of diminishing returns.)
Guideline 2. Set a timer before you begin reading articles on the web, and choose the time of day that is other than your most productive writing time. (Give preference to your writing.)
Knowledge
One reason people read books, including fiction, is to learn new things. James Michener made a career out of elegant, in-depth novels that promised readers they would know more about a subject, essentially developing college course level expertise painlessly. Research into a region or a business or a time in history or technology can differentiate a work of fiction and support storytelling. It can, however, become a great excuse not to begin (or finish) a story.
In addition, I suspect some writers get to the point where the facts get in the way of the storytelling. It's very easy to dismiss options, include real facts that are difficult to believe, and magnify elements that are unrelated to the story's theme. I usually rely on my intuition when deciding when to stop research before a draft is written. I also may collect information about something specific over years before I know what story needs to be told.
When I am doing research as part of revision, that work is targeted toward filling holes and answering questions.
Guideline 3. What a story is not set, collect topic information in one file (preferably with some useful subcategories) that is clear, organized, and accessible over years.
Guideline 4. For revision research, clearly articulate what is needed, the specifications for satisfactory information, and how what is learned will be used for the work in progress.
Care
When drafting, I go to extremes to keep forward momentum. When I lack a fact or have a less than perfect word in the text, I'll mark it off with brackets. If I don't have a near substitute, I'll simply put in the word, "bagel," and fill in those blanks with references once the draft is complete.
Getting it right, my care for the work, is secondary while I’m engaged in the creative process. But I need to move beyond that in revision. Before others see the work, I need to make make sure my facts are correct and my language choices are as good as I can make them.
A writer depends upon keeping the confidence of readers. Mistakes in language and facts can cause a reader to doubt or even abandon the work. Getting it all right matters. And this can't be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders and dependence on editors (as essential as they are). It's part of the responsibility to not be sloppy and to demonstrate respect for the work and the readers.
Guideline 5. Judiciously use Internet references (including fact checking sites) to make your manuscript as close to error-free as possible.
I hope this is a good starting point to explore your use of the Internet as a writer. Other uses (email, social media, entertainment, and marketing) may have more of an impact on productivity than these, next time, I'll provide some guidelines on avoiding distraction and generally fitting the Internet into the life of the disciplined writer.
Let's take them one by one, and explore them in relation to the essential tool of our time — the World Wide Web. And for each, I'll suggest some efficiency guidelines so that the web can become a help more than it's a hindrance.
Curiosity
If you're writing instruction manuals, curiosity has limited use. Basically, the steps need to be expressed clearly, without a lot of opinion and nuance. But art happens when unexpected connections are made and often the impact depends upon the spaces in between. This makes the thrill of collecting bits and pieces of life and exploring them in enough detail so that their relationships become visible a positive practice for writers.
Even before the Web existed, I remember getting lost in libraries, often learning more from adjacent books than the ones I came to refer to. The web provides this library effect on steroids. With a few clicks, arcane subjects can be run down, often providing bizarre discoveries that are totally unrelated to the original intent.
This is a good thing when not taken to extremes. Unfortunately, it's easy to spend more time collecting artifacts (which can range from data to quotations to intriguing biographies) than creating new works.
Guideline 1. Spend no more than half as much time feeding your curiosity online than you spend drafting stories.
Inspiration
Articles, news stories, images, and opinion pieces can provide delicious, often nearly formed prompts and ideas for fiction. And this can be true from the inception of stories to their development to the drafting of scenes and chapters to finding just the right piece to complete the revision of a draft which includes an important hole.
For me, complete stories have come from a chance remark or a little-known fact. The shapes the stories have, at times, been determined by the structures of successful works that parallel my intentions. And I've often stumbled across an article and had it come to mind as my subconscious was busily searching for the answer to a story problem.
It's good to read regularly and broadly. But it's not very useful for writer to read opinion piece after opinion piece that dissects the latest outrage in the news, especially if these all come from similar perspectives. (That's just one example of feeding anger or hardening positions or be obsessive urged to read about subject past the point of diminishing returns.)
Guideline 2. Set a timer before you begin reading articles on the web, and choose the time of day that is other than your most productive writing time. (Give preference to your writing.)
Knowledge
One reason people read books, including fiction, is to learn new things. James Michener made a career out of elegant, in-depth novels that promised readers they would know more about a subject, essentially developing college course level expertise painlessly. Research into a region or a business or a time in history or technology can differentiate a work of fiction and support storytelling. It can, however, become a great excuse not to begin (or finish) a story.
In addition, I suspect some writers get to the point where the facts get in the way of the storytelling. It's very easy to dismiss options, include real facts that are difficult to believe, and magnify elements that are unrelated to the story's theme. I usually rely on my intuition when deciding when to stop research before a draft is written. I also may collect information about something specific over years before I know what story needs to be told.
When I am doing research as part of revision, that work is targeted toward filling holes and answering questions.
Guideline 3. What a story is not set, collect topic information in one file (preferably with some useful subcategories) that is clear, organized, and accessible over years.
Guideline 4. For revision research, clearly articulate what is needed, the specifications for satisfactory information, and how what is learned will be used for the work in progress.
Care
When drafting, I go to extremes to keep forward momentum. When I lack a fact or have a less than perfect word in the text, I'll mark it off with brackets. If I don't have a near substitute, I'll simply put in the word, "bagel," and fill in those blanks with references once the draft is complete.
Getting it right, my care for the work, is secondary while I’m engaged in the creative process. But I need to move beyond that in revision. Before others see the work, I need to make make sure my facts are correct and my language choices are as good as I can make them.
A writer depends upon keeping the confidence of readers. Mistakes in language and facts can cause a reader to doubt or even abandon the work. Getting it all right matters. And this can't be dismissed with a shrug of the shoulders and dependence on editors (as essential as they are). It's part of the responsibility to not be sloppy and to demonstrate respect for the work and the readers.
Guideline 5. Judiciously use Internet references (including fact checking sites) to make your manuscript as close to error-free as possible.
I hope this is a good starting point to explore your use of the Internet as a writer. Other uses (email, social media, entertainment, and marketing) may have more of an impact on productivity than these, next time, I'll provide some guidelines on avoiding distraction and generally fitting the Internet into the life of the disciplined writer.
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Windows to Reveal (Just Enough about) Mysterious Characters
In Moby Dick, Captain Ahab doesn't show up until after the ship has been at sea for days. And it's chapter 28.
Talk about intriguing. Talk about building the tension. Herman Melville was not afraid to withhold information, and that practice can especially valuable when you have a character who must be bigger than life. By leaving things out, readers' imaginations are engaged and can create dimensions that are deep, meaningful, and personal.
When I was a kid, most of the horror movies did not share the monsters. They hinted at them, making them all the more terrifying.
One important tool for providing some but not all information about a character is using other characters as windows. These provide readers with indirect (and incomplete) experiences of mysterious characters. Their filters give readers the option to pick and choose between descriptions, characterizations, and opinions. This permits them to assemble their own images (and can, with the best of fiction, reward revisiting these stories over the years).
If you make the right choice, the window can be a single person, as with Nick Carraway who narrates The Great Gatsby. Though Nick has direct experience of Gatsby, much of what he gathers about that character comes from rumors and the statements of others. His interest, skepticism, and opinions all shape, without defining too much, our own experiences of Gatsby.
Citizen Kane doesn't begin until after Kane is already dead. The story is basically told as a series of interviews, dramatized by flashbacks, with people who had contact with Kane. The interviewer, Jerry Thompson (who is mysterious in his own way, never seen on camera), has had no direct experience of Kane. The testimony of others provides windows into who Kane was. These are shaped by the questions the interviewer asks, but not by his providing his own point of view. (Of course, there is an ironic perspective as well. The viewers of the film know the Rosebud answer, something which is never learned by the interviewer.) The windows approach is recreated by the film’s promo, in which Welles is heard, but never seen.
How do you choose your windows to best present an intriguing character? Having a naïve character, probably the narrator, is a very effective starting point. This character, like your reader, is seeking knowledge. I think it's good to have characters who have biases as well. It's tricky to handle unreliable characters, but, if you balance them, with advocates and enemies, victims and beneficiaries, skeptics and believers, these can give you powerful ways to provide the right mix of hints to deliver a memorable character.
Of course, this technique works for characters who aren't so mysterious. More might be learned about a shy character from his or her friends than from direct experiences. Think of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Or an inarticulate character, like Edgar in Men in Black. Or a neuro-diverse character. Or someone suffering from memory problems.
I love how, in Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber, the protagonist, Corwin, discovers who he is, often through other people. We discover who he is at the same time, and the brilliant twist in the story is how Corwin comes to dislike who he was and reform himself.
Using characters as windows into other characters are does not need to be limited to characters who have a lot of hidden aspects. Windows can be used for any important characters in your stories. But, at least as an exercise, it's worth considering creating a character who is mysterious and discovering how to balance hints and scope for imagination when giving readers a direct experience of characters is deliberately limited.
Talk about intriguing. Talk about building the tension. Herman Melville was not afraid to withhold information, and that practice can especially valuable when you have a character who must be bigger than life. By leaving things out, readers' imaginations are engaged and can create dimensions that are deep, meaningful, and personal.
When I was a kid, most of the horror movies did not share the monsters. They hinted at them, making them all the more terrifying.
One important tool for providing some but not all information about a character is using other characters as windows. These provide readers with indirect (and incomplete) experiences of mysterious characters. Their filters give readers the option to pick and choose between descriptions, characterizations, and opinions. This permits them to assemble their own images (and can, with the best of fiction, reward revisiting these stories over the years).
If you make the right choice, the window can be a single person, as with Nick Carraway who narrates The Great Gatsby. Though Nick has direct experience of Gatsby, much of what he gathers about that character comes from rumors and the statements of others. His interest, skepticism, and opinions all shape, without defining too much, our own experiences of Gatsby.
Citizen Kane doesn't begin until after Kane is already dead. The story is basically told as a series of interviews, dramatized by flashbacks, with people who had contact with Kane. The interviewer, Jerry Thompson (who is mysterious in his own way, never seen on camera), has had no direct experience of Kane. The testimony of others provides windows into who Kane was. These are shaped by the questions the interviewer asks, but not by his providing his own point of view. (Of course, there is an ironic perspective as well. The viewers of the film know the Rosebud answer, something which is never learned by the interviewer.) The windows approach is recreated by the film’s promo, in which Welles is heard, but never seen.
How do you choose your windows to best present an intriguing character? Having a naïve character, probably the narrator, is a very effective starting point. This character, like your reader, is seeking knowledge. I think it's good to have characters who have biases as well. It's tricky to handle unreliable characters, but, if you balance them, with advocates and enemies, victims and beneficiaries, skeptics and believers, these can give you powerful ways to provide the right mix of hints to deliver a memorable character.
Of course, this technique works for characters who aren't so mysterious. More might be learned about a shy character from his or her friends than from direct experiences. Think of Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird. Or an inarticulate character, like Edgar in Men in Black. Or a neuro-diverse character. Or someone suffering from memory problems.
I love how, in Roger Zelazny’s Nine Princes in Amber, the protagonist, Corwin, discovers who he is, often through other people. We discover who he is at the same time, and the brilliant twist in the story is how Corwin comes to dislike who he was and reform himself.
Using characters as windows into other characters are does not need to be limited to characters who have a lot of hidden aspects. Windows can be used for any important characters in your stories. But, at least as an exercise, it's worth considering creating a character who is mysterious and discovering how to balance hints and scope for imagination when giving readers a direct experience of characters is deliberately limited.
Tuesday, August 6, 2019
Satisfying Stories Turn on Characters Learning Lessons (or Not) - Authentic Change
I'm a sucker for stories where the hero or heroine goes from being greedy were self-absorbed to generous and open. But I only connect with such stories if the transformation makes sense. Fundamentally, characters only grow and change if they're forced to. And, the bigger the transformation, the more pressure the character must experience.
This isn’t easy to achieve. While there are a lot of stories where characters learn a lesson, many of these fail because they are less than convincing. As a kid, I got a steady diet of these in TV shows, especially in situation comedies that featured families. This one so far that it became a cliché for a parent (usually the dad) to puff on his pipe and explain to the child the error of his or her ways in the end. There was absolute certainty that the lesson was taken to heart.
Ultimately, my memories of those shows tend to focus on jokes, frustrations, embarrassments, and the nasty characters more than the bland heroes and heroines to barely edged away from the straight and narrow and were easily brought back into line.
The Twilight Zone — even though it often terrified me — was more memorable. In general, it was more likely to have a just desserts ending than a happily ever after. My preferences still are toward darker material and earned happily ever afters. (And, as I looked at some favorites – A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Life, the original Star Wars — I was surprised to discover it was easier for me to find happy endings in fantasy and science fiction.)
Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca are two mimetic stories with characters who change to allow happy endings. Both of these are also stories of healing,. I think this is because it's easier to show basically good people being restored and becoming better people than it is to show (as with Scrooge) and unpleasant character becoming positive without leaning on magic.
Nonetheless, there are some principles and play to keep in mind when you want to create authentic change in a character, a transformation that touches people's hearts.
Make it a big change. Within the bounds of the time you have to tell your story, a bigger change, from evil to good, will be more compelling. It's easier to engage with strong contrasts than subtle differences. This works best with longer stories, where there is room to support change.
Make it difficult. Characters only change when they are pushed hard, don't have alternatives, and have something that matters they might lose. No one changes dramatically if they can shrug off pain, dodge obstacles, and have little to lose. Go for torture, no escapes, and high stakes.
Give the hero agency. While it is perfectly permissible to have change catalyzed by misfortune or someone else's action, the hero or heroine needs to have the power to take action to resolve the situation – at a price. The hero or heroine cannot be saved by someone else.
Support the protagonist. In most cases, part of the inspiration and motivation for change is someone who cares for the main character. Lovers and friends encourage, inspire, and nudge the protagonist to make good choices and take action.
If possible, require courage. There are lots of reasons why the best choices are made by characters. Very often in stories, it comes down to the character trying things that worked in the past that aren't sufficient for the new circumstances. That happens in real life. In addition, laziness and ignorance can keep people from doing the right thing (although these two tend to weaken the drama of the story). But fear is probably the most accessible and visceral reason that can be presented to audiences. Because of this, happy endings tend to be most effective if they require courage on the part of the main character.
Show the choice and the action. The only way I can explain why (usually in amateur works) big moments where the protagonist finds the answer, makes the choice, and does what's necessary are skipped in stories is because the best ones demand so much from the writer. These scenes of transformation, in my own experience, require vulnerability and openness to feelings that are painful and frightening. Even writers who know enough to include them may protect themselves by making these scenes less specific or unclear. Since so much of the story depends on the scenes, the best work demands that nothing is hidden and no punches are pulled.
Show the results. A lot of "clever" stories leave it to the reader to figure out what happened when the protagonist takes action. This always feels incomplete to me. I don't think extended endings are necessary, but I do believe in making most consequences — in terms of the hero or heroine benefiting and getting rewarded – explicit.
As I said previously, I'm fine with darker stories (and the best tragedies have much of the above, with the main character NOT learning the lesson). My tendency in my own work is to have bittersweet endings. But happy endings are the most satisfying, provided all the pieces are in place for them to be justified.
This isn’t easy to achieve. While there are a lot of stories where characters learn a lesson, many of these fail because they are less than convincing. As a kid, I got a steady diet of these in TV shows, especially in situation comedies that featured families. This one so far that it became a cliché for a parent (usually the dad) to puff on his pipe and explain to the child the error of his or her ways in the end. There was absolute certainty that the lesson was taken to heart.
Ultimately, my memories of those shows tend to focus on jokes, frustrations, embarrassments, and the nasty characters more than the bland heroes and heroines to barely edged away from the straight and narrow and were easily brought back into line.
The Twilight Zone — even though it often terrified me — was more memorable. In general, it was more likely to have a just desserts ending than a happily ever after. My preferences still are toward darker material and earned happily ever afters. (And, as I looked at some favorites – A Christmas Carol, Groundhog Day, It's a Wonderful Life, the original Star Wars — I was surprised to discover it was easier for me to find happy endings in fantasy and science fiction.)
Shawshank Redemption and Casablanca are two mimetic stories with characters who change to allow happy endings. Both of these are also stories of healing,. I think this is because it's easier to show basically good people being restored and becoming better people than it is to show (as with Scrooge) and unpleasant character becoming positive without leaning on magic.
Nonetheless, there are some principles and play to keep in mind when you want to create authentic change in a character, a transformation that touches people's hearts.
Make it a big change. Within the bounds of the time you have to tell your story, a bigger change, from evil to good, will be more compelling. It's easier to engage with strong contrasts than subtle differences. This works best with longer stories, where there is room to support change.
Make it difficult. Characters only change when they are pushed hard, don't have alternatives, and have something that matters they might lose. No one changes dramatically if they can shrug off pain, dodge obstacles, and have little to lose. Go for torture, no escapes, and high stakes.
Give the hero agency. While it is perfectly permissible to have change catalyzed by misfortune or someone else's action, the hero or heroine needs to have the power to take action to resolve the situation – at a price. The hero or heroine cannot be saved by someone else.
Support the protagonist. In most cases, part of the inspiration and motivation for change is someone who cares for the main character. Lovers and friends encourage, inspire, and nudge the protagonist to make good choices and take action.
If possible, require courage. There are lots of reasons why the best choices are made by characters. Very often in stories, it comes down to the character trying things that worked in the past that aren't sufficient for the new circumstances. That happens in real life. In addition, laziness and ignorance can keep people from doing the right thing (although these two tend to weaken the drama of the story). But fear is probably the most accessible and visceral reason that can be presented to audiences. Because of this, happy endings tend to be most effective if they require courage on the part of the main character.
Show the choice and the action. The only way I can explain why (usually in amateur works) big moments where the protagonist finds the answer, makes the choice, and does what's necessary are skipped in stories is because the best ones demand so much from the writer. These scenes of transformation, in my own experience, require vulnerability and openness to feelings that are painful and frightening. Even writers who know enough to include them may protect themselves by making these scenes less specific or unclear. Since so much of the story depends on the scenes, the best work demands that nothing is hidden and no punches are pulled.
Show the results. A lot of "clever" stories leave it to the reader to figure out what happened when the protagonist takes action. This always feels incomplete to me. I don't think extended endings are necessary, but I do believe in making most consequences — in terms of the hero or heroine benefiting and getting rewarded – explicit.
As I said previously, I'm fine with darker stories (and the best tragedies have much of the above, with the main character NOT learning the lesson). My tendency in my own work is to have bittersweet endings. But happy endings are the most satisfying, provided all the pieces are in place for them to be justified.
Friday, August 2, 2019
Story Weather - A powerful way to give readers fuller experiences
LA Story is one of my favorite movies for a lot of reasons. (I love the Shakespearean references.) Weather plays a central role in the story. It's a magical element. The irony for me is that I blame LA for replacing wind and cold and rain and snow and blazing heat with the ambient, invisible weather of Southern California. (I'd point to Hollywood films and Raymond Chandler to blame for reducing the importance of weather in fiction.) LA Story seems to recognize this by making the hero a weatherman and mocking the uselessness of his job.
But weather is too valuable to skip.
You can use weather to set the mood of the story. (It was a dark and stormy night.)
You can use weather to test and threaten characters. (Think stories where hurricanes, floods, droughts, and ice storms play a major role.)
You can use weather to demonstrate contrasts between characters. Obviously, some characters will have unexpected reactions to changes in weather, and these will reveal them. My father-in-law always felt it was necessary to get out on the road during a blizzard. I'm more likely to hunker down.
Weather can shape and illuminate characters in the story, and it does not need to be extreme to do this. One way is by demonstrating differences in challenges presented in obligations. Think of a week of rain with the family on vacation, and how that can make the experience miserable for the mother who needs to keep the children entertained and calm.
Weather also provides sensual experiences for readers. Most writers know enough to include visuals, sound, and smells to bring readers into stories, but often these seem to be tied to scenery or human – made elements. Yet, weather is an immersive and may be deeply pleasurable or supremely uncomfortable. There are a few more effective ways to bring readers into stories.
Weather can also be used artistically. Some of the most charming prose has been written describing weather — both directly and as it's experienced by characters.
While cinema may have undermined the use of weather in our fiction, it's still a strong positive influence because, as opposed to sitcoms, theatrical films tend to include a lot of exterior shots. Not doing so can make a film feel claustrophobic. (In fact, that's taking advantage of with prison pictures, horror, and even tense dramas.)
Science fiction, with its emphasis on world building, often takes full advantage of weather. Historicals, referencing novels from other eras, also give whether its due. But other contemporary works neglect to take advantage of the possibilities of weather (and often, even time of day). In the extreme, there can be a white space effect, where the story seems to be taking place without a location.
In addition to following the examples of ambient weather in fiction, I suspect a lot of writers are leery of dealing with weather because the first words that come to them are probably clichés. We are buried in descriptions of weather that are all too familiar. You will never be the first one to describe wind in the character’s hair or sunshine on their shoulders or sleet tearing at their cheeks. It takes some thought and effort to keep things fresh.
The best way to avoid clichés (for anything, not just whether) is to mark them for revision. Once they are noted, it's best if real experience can be drawn from. That means paying attention to weather, both in specifics (especially change) and in effects (on the observer and on people around the observer). Language comes next. A richness of vocabulary, similes, and metaphors may come from wide reading and imagination. Or a writer can approach it by brute force, making a list of 10 to 20 alternative phrasings. Ultimately, I think the richest opportunities for fresh descriptions come by way of showing the impact of weather rather than directly portraying it.
If it sounds hard, it is. But it's part of the job. Good writers make things fresh every day. How many times has a first kiss been described in a romance novel? Yet romance writers, time and time again, present unique examples of first kisses to their readers.
Ursula K Le Guin brings the ice world, Gethen, featured in The Left Hand of Darkness, to readers through a character who is an alien on that world. A powerful way to bring weather to readers is through a character for whom the experience is new. This need not be on another planet. Someone from LA experiencing winter in New York City might take what a New Yorker would fail to notice and make it something special.
But weather is too valuable to skip.
You can use weather to set the mood of the story. (It was a dark and stormy night.)
You can use weather to test and threaten characters. (Think stories where hurricanes, floods, droughts, and ice storms play a major role.)
You can use weather to demonstrate contrasts between characters. Obviously, some characters will have unexpected reactions to changes in weather, and these will reveal them. My father-in-law always felt it was necessary to get out on the road during a blizzard. I'm more likely to hunker down.
Weather can shape and illuminate characters in the story, and it does not need to be extreme to do this. One way is by demonstrating differences in challenges presented in obligations. Think of a week of rain with the family on vacation, and how that can make the experience miserable for the mother who needs to keep the children entertained and calm.
Weather also provides sensual experiences for readers. Most writers know enough to include visuals, sound, and smells to bring readers into stories, but often these seem to be tied to scenery or human – made elements. Yet, weather is an immersive and may be deeply pleasurable or supremely uncomfortable. There are a few more effective ways to bring readers into stories.
Weather can also be used artistically. Some of the most charming prose has been written describing weather — both directly and as it's experienced by characters.
While cinema may have undermined the use of weather in our fiction, it's still a strong positive influence because, as opposed to sitcoms, theatrical films tend to include a lot of exterior shots. Not doing so can make a film feel claustrophobic. (In fact, that's taking advantage of with prison pictures, horror, and even tense dramas.)
Science fiction, with its emphasis on world building, often takes full advantage of weather. Historicals, referencing novels from other eras, also give whether its due. But other contemporary works neglect to take advantage of the possibilities of weather (and often, even time of day). In the extreme, there can be a white space effect, where the story seems to be taking place without a location.
In addition to following the examples of ambient weather in fiction, I suspect a lot of writers are leery of dealing with weather because the first words that come to them are probably clichés. We are buried in descriptions of weather that are all too familiar. You will never be the first one to describe wind in the character’s hair or sunshine on their shoulders or sleet tearing at their cheeks. It takes some thought and effort to keep things fresh.
The best way to avoid clichés (for anything, not just whether) is to mark them for revision. Once they are noted, it's best if real experience can be drawn from. That means paying attention to weather, both in specifics (especially change) and in effects (on the observer and on people around the observer). Language comes next. A richness of vocabulary, similes, and metaphors may come from wide reading and imagination. Or a writer can approach it by brute force, making a list of 10 to 20 alternative phrasings. Ultimately, I think the richest opportunities for fresh descriptions come by way of showing the impact of weather rather than directly portraying it.
If it sounds hard, it is. But it's part of the job. Good writers make things fresh every day. How many times has a first kiss been described in a romance novel? Yet romance writers, time and time again, present unique examples of first kisses to their readers.
Ursula K Le Guin brings the ice world, Gethen, featured in The Left Hand of Darkness, to readers through a character who is an alien on that world. A powerful way to bring weather to readers is through a character for whom the experience is new. This need not be on another planet. Someone from LA experiencing winter in New York City might take what a New Yorker would fail to notice and make it something special.
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