Cues Readers Need to Stay Oriented - Markers for location, character, situations, and time

 Half the fun of stories is getting immersed in them. But when we say we are “lost in a story,” it doesn’t mean we are disoriented. In fact, living in a well-crafted story makes the imagined world the only reality we know (for a time).

The catch is, unlike the real world, story worlds can fall to pieces in a moment. It’s up to writers to make them vivid, consistent, and memorable. This is done with descriptions, cues, and suggested space for our imaginations. Without them, we truly are lost… and thrown out of the story world.

Let’s look at these in terms of locations, characters, situations, and time.

Locations - Sometimes places are never built (scenes the seem to take place in a white, windowless room), and sometimes they are too busy (providing so many details they become confusing. Most good locations begin with selective description. This is obviously true for fantasies. Where anything is possible, descriptions provide a window into newly discovered places. But even a familiar place, a place we’ve seen a hundred times in movies, pictures, and TV commercials like the Eiffel Tower, deserve to be presented in a complete enough way. There are many ways to do this. Heinlein famously suggested a new world with the words, “the door dilated.” But, if the muse doesn’t strike, I suggest following Max Adams’s advice (in her wonderful course on Visual Writing), presenting (in this order) space, light, and texture.

Ideally, locations are as much a part of the story as the characters. They reflect mood. They create challenges. They hint at social structure and hierarchy. Grey Gardens would be diminished without the mansion’s decay and the raccoons in the walls.

I have a fondness for locations that change in important ways each time they come up. Shown in different seasons or undergoing renovation, missing an important object. I love it when they are dynamic, filled with mischievous cats (or raccoons) or ringing phones or lights that flicker. One of my favorite story locations in the one in His Girl Friday. It supports choreographed chaos that highlights the story’s theme.

Characters - The classic way to help keep characters straight is through tics and other identifiers. Dickens’s Uriah Heep (who is so ‘umble) wrings his hands. Potter, the villain in It’s a Wonderful Life, is pushed around in his wheelchair. All of the Marx Brothers (well, at least Groucho, Chico, Harpo) have signature clothes, ways of speaking (or not, in Harpo’s case) and musical specialties.

Metaphors work, too. Both Potter and Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’s nemesis, are described as spiders. Juliet is the sun. And, as Cole Porter (an American treasure) said,

You're the top! You're the Colosseum,
You're the top! You're the Louvre Museum,
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeare sonnet,
You're Mickey Mouse.

For me, dialogue is the great and memorable tell for characters. While every story has functional lines, I read every line a character has in isolation to make sure it sounds like them and it’s something they’d say. Character, education, perspective, and voice should be there often enough so that each would describe, say the Eiffel Tower, in ways so distinctive, you could tell characters apart. I interview my characters so I know them so well, readers will recognize them right away.

As with locations, descriptions play a part. Choosing one physical feature to obsess over in different ways is better than cataloging. And I use a hint someone gave me when I lamented that I could not remember what my late aunt looked like. I could tell stories about her, but I could not picture her. He said, imagine her in motion. So I thought of her planting zinnias and her face appeared immediately. I try to give readers at least one image in motion to hang onto.

Situations - This may feel too obvious to a writer. How can readers forget that Izzie has a secret and all hell will break loose if it’s revealed? But it’s your job to remind them so they don’t forget. Characters reacting emotionally to a situation can help. I love to cook, but I’ll notice and sympathize with a character who grouses about being sent into the kitchen. When the spaghetti escapes the colander and ends up on the floor, I’ll be appalled. If the character comes back with a bandage because the knife slipped, I’ll remember. If, later on, the character is dragooned into creating a dinner for his boss, that will resonate.

I notice. I react. Characters react. Stakes are increased. And the situation becomes a compass for the story.

Time - I just read a story where the ages of characters, the time invested in their enterprise, and diminishing fortunes were all critical. It also had flashbacks, and I got totally disoriented about when things were happening. How long after? How long before?

I had a similar lapse myself. Pitching a script, I didn’t get the year (1860s, not 1960s) across, and the producer was disoriented. So much so, that he got distracted and missed a lot of the story.

People need markers for time. Year. Season. Morning. Evening. Once upon a time. Duration matters. Six days in prison or six weeks? When someone showed me a story about a man who’s main lament about incarceration was missing the cherry blossoms, character, empathy, and the passage of time were achieved in a single line.

Whether you are orienting readers to locations, characters, situations, or time you can suggest, using indirect elements, like the cherry blossoms, to make a marker memorable. You can have them reflect the mood or the tone. You can use contrasts, whether it’s a bull in a china shop or wealth and poverty or differences in ages or odd couples (Oscar & Felix, Mutt & Jeff, Laurel & Hardy).

A warning: Once you have readers oriented, they hang onto bits you’ve offered with both hands. They embed themselves deeply into the narrative as each is reinforced. Which means, if you slip up and put into something that doesn’t fit the story world they’ve accepted, it will toss them out as surely as if they had missed information. Anything that could be inconsistent needs to be fixed. Your protagonist cannot show up with green eyes after we know they are cornflower blue.

If you can do more than orient, that’s the way to go. Link markers with something meaningful. Use them to remind readers. Show what has changed. Plant information that’s critical.

And when it’s all done, see how it fits together to reinforce theme, set the tone, provide unity, and, most of all, maintain clarity.

Creating Impolite Characters — Let’s shake things up

After several recommendations, I finally watched the TV program Lucifer. One thing surprised me. In spite of our living in uncivil times, I found the title character's unrestrained frankness amusing. Why?

Lucifer (who is the devil, after all) is rarely rude. By that, I mean most of his disruptive comments are not malicious or disrespectful. He simply has his own agenda, and doesn't “get” our rules. I love that he is often surprised when people take offense.

I think of this and contrast with many characters I come across in manuscripts. They are too genteel. They want to be liked. They follow all the rules, even unwritten rules. This can flatten out conflict.

To be clear, I am not calling for more rude characters. In fact, I see too many. Perhaps this is because people are angry or our culture he’s too eager to forgive and even celebrate rudeness. I’m also not advocating eliminating subtext from dialogue. That would be boring and, for scripts, where great actors work to bring out the nuances, disastrous.

I think there is a way to strike the balance on frank vs. rude to make stories more engaging. Genuinely impolite characters can, without becoming irritating, heighten conflict. They can add humor-and often do. They can provoke responses from other characters that are revealing. They can reveal new information and intentions. They can raise questions. I’ve formulated a few rules for creating impolite characters. Or let’s just call them guidelines.

    •    An impolite character should have other dimensions that make him or her likable.
    •    When offense is given, it should be unintentional.
    •    There should be a clear reason why the impolite character is naïve.
    •    In general, an impolite character should ”punch up.”
    •    Most impolite remarks should push the story toward justice.
    •    Impolite people should ask questions that uncover secrets or embarrass villains and powerful characters.
    •    If the impolite person sees that he or she has really hurt someone, they should clearly attempt to make it right through apology or restitution.

With these in mind, impoliteness can be used to say the quiet part out loud.  “Out of the mouths of babes” is a classic way to show speaking truth to power in the story. So impoliteness can be used to puncture the defenses of people who use propriety and etiquette to defend themselves or to maintain power. (Purportedly, Southern gentleman used exaggerated politeness to contrast themselves with the ”rough” Yankees, and thereby keep challenges the injustices of slavery or discrimination at bay. Today, employers have people convinced they should keep their salaries secret, which allows them to underpay those who work for them, often preserving inequalities.)

The value of having impolite characters is not complete unless other characters react. Those who expect to be kowtowed to may object to reaches of etiquette, fumble for answers to disarming questions, reveal themselves by reacting to quickly, or respond with disproportionate anger— even violence. All this is great for storytelling.

I’ll end with a thought on humor. One reason why impolite characters are fun is wish fulfillment. They say things we’d like to say, but wouldn’t dare to.

Putting Story Outcomes in Doubt - Thoughts on evening the odds to keep readers hooked

In fiction, adversity reveals character. Nothing is more tedious then a story where the protagonist isn’t challenged and isn’t forced to change.

Yet, lots of beginning writers pull their punches. They like their main characters too much to hurt them. This is why I often congratulate writers when they get tough and create real losses. No pain, no gain in the realm of fiction.

So, I was surprised when I read a piece where circumstances tortured a character. He was beaten in every encounter, and his life became more hopeless with every scene. He was completely a victim. And that, it turns out, is as tedious as having a protagonist who always wins.

Perhaps there are readers who don’t react as I do. I know that I am much more of a fan of a ball game where the lead keeps changing and the outcome is in doubt right up to the end. My father, on the other hand, loved it when his team crushed its adversary.

I'm guessing—based on what succeeds commercially—that a story with a fair fight is what most readers and audiences prefer. We want to worry for our protagonists and we want to see them grow.

This doesn't mean that it's a mistake to have most scenes end with the protagonist in worse shape. But power shifts—even if a character goes from advantage to better advantage or disadvantage to worse disadvantage—can be engaging and revealing. Generally, I tried to have three to five power shifts per scene. And, until the very end, I like the protagonist to find that both failure and success worsens his or her problem.

This does not rule out David and Goliath fights. The odds don’t need to be even, but it’s helpful if the little guy has a chance. If you give your protagonist a slingshot to fight the monster, at least he or she is armed. And it's OK to have the rock miss its target. It makes for a stronger story if the outcome is in doubt. Giving readers and audiences reasons for hope (even if it ends up being dashed), can keep people interested in the battle. If they worry about the protagonist, they’ll hang around to see what happens next.

As for the revealing part… a heroes can fail and keep their dignity. Their attempts can show intelligence and creativity. If they fail because they won’t cross lines of virtue, they have shown their true selves in ways that engender empathy and affection. And if they don’t give up even as they suffer, we recognize something special— courage.

If there is a happy ending and a villain, there is likely to be creative humiliation of the character who has been a thorn in the protagonist side throughout the story. This can nail down the lesson and delight the audience our readers. But there is a danger.

It’s usually a bad idea to have the protagonist revel in the adversary’s defeat. Cruelty is not attractive. To have a character you side with turn out to be a bully makes for an uncomfortable ending. In fact, a kind gesture toward the villain at the end often proves the merit of the main character. It justifies all of the investment in time and emotion, which is satisfying.

This is not to say that it’s impossible to write an excellent story that isn’t a fair fight (though it would be tough to pull off commercially). As I was thinking about this, I thought of how Ferris Bueller goes from victory to victory in Ferris Bueller's Day off. Is it just wish fulfillment? Was the movie aimed at people like my dad who love overwhelming successes? I don’t think so. The character I worry about is Ferris’s friend, Cameron. Even as Ferris wins, I’m on edge about the doom Cameron seems to face. For all the fun Ferris has, I stay engaged because Cameron is suffering, because his well-being is at risk.

Reading Aloud - Making your stories better by listening to them

Your ears are tuned to language. They pick up errors every time you open your mouth, which is why deafness (which reduces self-correction) often leads to difficulty articulating. They are sensitive to the nuances of dialogue, which is why, high school students who may not be great at copying how teachers sound can still imitate their phrasing and idioms well enough to draw laughs. They are affected by rhythms, rhymes and beats, which is why a forced line in a lyric or poem can be so irksome. They are experienced in following stories and raising questions about stories, which is why bedtime stories can last a lot longer than it takes to read what’s on the page.

For me, hearing typos makes them stand out. This is embarrassingly true when (as has happened to me) a friend chooses to read your work out loud at a get-together. But you don’t need a friend to test your work. Your computer (whether Apple or PC) has a text-to-speech function that does a good enough job. I’ve found better than 80 percent of the typos that have escaped my eye (and automated editors) are found by having my computer read the work to me.

Text-to-speech can also reveal awkward phrasing and make important omissions more apparent, but reading aloud is more effective to me. Whenever I read a finished scene, chapter, or short story, the excess bits and missing bits stand out. I think this has to do with listening to stories as a child and in audio. The unnecessary sequences make me restless. The omissions raise questions.

It may be more than just ears that are involved. There’s a recontextualization happening that helps what’s actually there (instead of what’s intended) stand out. I have friends who always put their manuscripts into a different font as a way to see them with fresh eyes. But for me, fresh ears carry the day.

Reading dialogue out loud picks up tongue-twisters (the work of the tongue, not the ears), but, if you read through each character’s dialogue independently, it’s usually evident that some lines sound more like the author than the character. (A speech is essentially a monologue. It needs to have one, consistent voice, and that’s why it’s easy to pick out the speechwriter’s own words in a defective speech.)

The poetry of language is a delight, and, if you let it, they opportunities will declare themselves with a reading. Repetition, alliteration, changes in sentence length, paragraph breaks, and more will fight to replace stodgy prose. Flow, varied cadence, and even just the right words are waiting to be revealed like Michelangelo’s form looking to escape from the marble block.

Humor, other than revealing needed punctation, may be hurt by repeated reading. Even a good joke can sound lame over time. So protect what drew a laugh by tolerating its diminishing power.

Reading aloud is also a great way to discover and develop your own unique voice as a writer. When you talk, it comes out naturally. When you write, a dozen English teachers reshape it. But when you make the effort to return to speech, the English teachers, over time, are driven away to leave what’s special.

The biggest test of text that puts ears to work is listening to an actor read the work. Every wonderful thing will stand out. Every bit that needs improvement becomes nails scratching at a blackboard.

One more thing. The ear can be trained. I think listening to poems being read (and learning about how techniques of poetry work their magic) makes the ears better writing partners. Hearing different actors read the same classic lines can help, too. Whatever your ears reveal in someone else’s work is halfway in your possession. To own it fully, use what you’ve learned. And enjoy the results when the full work is finished, and it’s time for you to read it aloud.

Adaptation 2 - Thoughts on book to movie, movie to play, and this to that

Last time, I wrote about all the stories and songs coming into the Public Domain and free for you to adapt. Earlier, I compared the strengths and weakness of different forms (prose, film, fiction podcast, poetry/lyrics, and stage). There’s a lot to chew on there, but I suspect most people can connect the dots. So, rather than write how-tos for each adaptation, I’ll just offer some notes (opinions, experiences, reflections) and examples, as needed. I’ll go from what I see as the biggest opportunities (based on landing the gig and impact of the work) to ones that may be more specialized.

Notes: 1 - Animation (musical films and Broadway musicals) and comics (tentpole films) have had an outsized cultural influence in the last twenty-five years. Blockbusters provide a route for very few (those with credentials or power) to reach audiences and readers. On the other hand, who’s to say animation and comics coming into the public domain won’t hit the same notes without battles with Disney and Marvel.? 2-  I’m not an expert on all of these areas. I doubt anyone is. So take my observations with a grain of salt (or leave a comment).

Fiction Podcast (or Radio Theater) to TV
-Opportunity Medium-High
-Art High

This is the path many legendary TV shows (Gunsmoke, I Love Lucy) took. And it seems to be repeating itself (Welcome to Nightvale, Limetown). Making a fiction podcast is less expensive than making a movie or a stage play. And you don’t need bestseller sized audiences to attract producers and agents. These professionals seem to be inviting the creators in. The trick is finding a way to attract even a moderate audience amid all the competition. Still, there is already wonderful work around in fiction podcast, even though (in the US) there was a decades-long hiatus. Some are even eschewing the old-time approaches to produce work that is truly new. And it’s just getting started.

Now… adapting Public Domain radio shows may need to wait a little bit. Radio drama did not really get its start until 1923, and this year’s Public Domain Day is for the year 1924  Wait a few years before some of the really great old radio dramas appear.

Prose to Fiction Podcast (or Radio Theater)
-Opportunity High
-Art High

Highly doable. And it can be great. Proof: Mercury Theater’s (Orson Welles’s) adaptation of War of the Worlds.

Prose to Stage
-Opportunity Medium-Low
-Art Very High

Prose being turned into plays has a long (and successful) history:

Of the top 10 grossing non-musicals, see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse, To Kill a Mockingbird, and arguably Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Recent Tony Winners from prose  are The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, War Horse, and  Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

Of the top 10 grossing musicals, see Wicked, The Phantom of the Opera, Beauty and the Beast
(indirectly), Chicago (indirectly), and Les Miserables. Recent Tony Winners from prose are Hamilton, Fun Home, and A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder.

I think there are great opportunities in the books and short stories that are already available in terms of using them to create works for the theater. The trouble is breaking in. In general, this requires being part of a theater community.

I live in the New York area, so the barrier is low, and you can even end up with industry people in your audience. Chicago, Toronto, and London are good theater cities, too. There are other cities like Edinburgh (which specializes in “fringe” work) and non-English language cities (Athens, Tokyo). And there seem to be “live” online venues emerging, thanks to the pandemic.

If you can become part of a community, my advice would be to look for Public Domain prose works where dialogue is a major strength and the story is simple enough for a one-act play. One-acts in small theaters provide laboratories for learning, finding collaborators, and building credentials. (Then be ready to jump when someone asks for a full-length work.)

Prose (Novel, Novella, Short Story) to Film-Opportunity Medium
-Art Medium

I’ve been told that there was a time when Hollywood would see the galleys of a promising book before the author did. Something similar may still be true for comics, but I doubt reading-averse Hollywood cares now until readers validate the work.

So… the advantage is the many of the Public Domain works are already validated. Admittedly, those readers are mostly dead, but the titles and names of authors might have lived on. It has to be a work that has cinematic potential, in story and action. (I’d look at novellas first.) Think in terms of updating the story for our times. Oh, and move quickly. Someone else may be looking at the same works.

Stage to Film
-Opportunity Medium-Low
-Art Medium

Talkies created a great migration of writers from Broadway to Hollywood because of the need for dialogue. A lot of beloved works came from these writers, sometimes as their plays (The Front Page) became films with few changes.

Considering opportunities in the Public Domain, begin by abandoning musicals. Few had stories that were much more than excuses for the songs. (The stories in Fred Astaire/Ginger Rogers films provide a good approximation of what writers could get away with.) My understanding is the Broadway Musical changed with Oklahoma! Since then, audiences expect more in terms of story.

But there may be treasure in the non-musicals. It takes more imagination to see the opportunities for cinema in a stage script, but they are there. If this catches your interest, learn from the best. Study how the action and visuals implied by Shakespeare made it into the best adaptations of his work. Then find your own Shakespeares of the 20s. 

Film to Stage
-Opportunity Low
-Art Medium

For today’s work, this mostly involves big budget, and it’s much more likely that going to the stage will include adding music (unless, as with the animations, it’s already there).

The main concern on Public Domain is dialogue wasn’t a part of film yet (The Jazz Singer came out in 1927), and most plays are dialogue rich. Even if the story could be easily adapted, using a silent as a selling point doesn’t confer much advantage.

Poetry (or Lyrics) to Stage
-Opportunity Medium
-Art High

Cats stands out as an unusual case of success. And I saw a brilliant stage adaptation of The Illiad. But even though there list of examples runs out fast, poetry and lyrics fit the stage nicely, since speech is dominant. Story is the sticking point. Were there any magical narrative poems written in the 20s? I don’t know, but it might be worthwhile to check.

I suspect there are great possibilities with lyrics. In the 20s, Tin Pan Alley was alive and well, with wit, personality, and innumerable innovative cultural mixes. So, find a song that tells a story and can be delivered to today’s listeners, and that’ll be a good start toward a story. The selling point becomes the catchy song. The tough part is growing a story from that tiny seed.

Film to Prose
-Opportunity Low
-Art Low

These are called novelizations. Today, they come to writers through agents. And they almost always result in clearly derivative, second-rate work. One exception I know of… Isaac Asimov once was asked what he thought about how Hollywood had turned his novel, Fantastic Voyage, into such a mediocre film. He immediately said, “I turned a mediocre film into a good book.”

TV to Prose
-Opportunity Low
-Art Low

What happens here, even today, is even worse than what happens when films are novelized. (I’m sure there are exceptions.) And there are no 20s TV shows waiting for adaptation.

Film to Music
-Opportunity Low
-Art High

The songs are made to push the movies, but some wonderful songs by some marvelous composers/lyricists have been created. The gigs go to people with track records.

With that in mind, it may be that watching Harold Lloyd or Mary Pickford do their work in silent films could inspire some songs worth hearing, especially if a contemporary angle could be explored. It would be fun to give it a try.

Film or TV to Fiction Podcast (or Radio Theater)-Opportunity Low
-Art High

Okay the Public Domain opportunities for TV won’t be around for decades. There are films to adapt, but they are silent. (Post-1940 films, mostly series like Henry Aldrich and Captain Midnight, were adapted from radio dramas.) With that said, some of the TV shows (Have Gun Will Travel) and films (Star Wars) adapted have been good. 

Poetry (or Lyrics) to TV-Opportunity Low
-Art Low



I'm not aware of this happening, other than television events based on epic poems. It might work.

TV to Poetry (or Lyrics)
-Opportunity Low
-Art Low

Okay, I’ll admit some good songs have come from TV shows (but not by people without contacts and credentials). But, again, there were no TV shows in the 20s.

Stage to Poetry (or Lyrics)
-Opportunity Low
-Art Low

Musicals come with their own songs, of course. I’m not sure that a stage play has inspired verse or original songs.



By design, this post ends with what seem to be not adaptation possibilities, but impossibilities. But I'm happy to be proven wrong. Creating a rap musical based on Chernow's biography (over 800 pages) of Alexander Hamilton drew skepticism and laughter. Be the genius that shows the way.