by Maxine E. Thompson
As a story editor, when I work with new writers, I often find they
tend to gloss over the painful parts of their novels. When a
character gets cancer, two pages later, the character is dead. A
woman has a child where the father has abandoned her. Three
paragraphs later, the child is in law school. What’s wrong with this
picture? No drama. In life we don’t want conflict or drama,
but in stories we need it. It’s the oxygen of fiction. We need to be
able to take a look at the darker side of ourselves, our
characters.
I recently went on the "Oh Drama Show" (I was in the audience) at
BET where they interviewed a young author with a book on "Macking."
Why such a subject? Drama.
Fiction is about both drama and conflict, but it is also about
healing. Readers want to know how the character made it through
losing a loved one or rearing a child without the help of an absent
father. People often use books as bibliotherapy - a way to heal
themselves through reading.
Yet there’s a healthy balance between writing unflinching fiction
that tells the truth and writing fiction that helps heal. As a
former social worker, I’ve worked in the trenches and witnessed some
of the darker side of humanity, from domestic violence which ended
in death of the mother to burying babies, to servicing AID’s babies,
so I have to fight a tendency to not just depict evil without
redemption in my own fiction. As writers, it is not only our job to
throw mud at "sacred cows," but also to be a light for those lost in
darkness.
A writer can influence the world by reminding us, in a cynical time,
of all that’s good too. When we write good fiction that reflects
both the good and the bad in life by looking at life on all
different levels, inner, personal and outer (societal), we come up
with a way of recording our human passage in this world. Hopefully,
people will read our words after we’re dead and close our book and
say, "Yes, that’s how life is."
These are just some pointers that a
writer can use when self-editing their
fiction.
Can I see the characters and the settings? Have I taken time to
outline my book and do character charts on my major characters and
even some of my minor ones?
In your opening, do you have an inciting incident, disturbance or
departure from the norm which triggers the engine? For instance, in
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Marley’s death is what triggered
much of the ghosts and nightmares that Scrooge had.
Have I made my protagonist too good and my antagonists too evil?
Look at the success of The Godfather for how to create a lovable
antihero. More recently, read Walter Mosley’s Always Outnumbered,
Always Outgunned. Socrates, the former convict/murderer is one of my
favorite protagonists.
Have I used action/reactions in the scenes? Even if a character does
not answer an exchange of dialogue that’s a reaction. Good writing
results from showing character reactions. (Scene/sequel patterning.)
Do I show adequate motivation for my characters and what drives
them? Do I use imagery which brings the story alive and underscores
the themes? Have I used imaginative language? Is my story burdened
by clichés? Do I make my characters’ world real to the reader? If
the character is from a different culture, or in a little understood
job culture such as police officer, social worker, newscaster,
pathologist, or as in the HBO show "Six Feet Under," even a
mortician, do I create a believable milieu?
Am I showing as well as telling through scenes? Do I make adequate
use of reversals in scenes? For instance, a scene might start with
what appears to be a happy marriage to one on the rocks by the end
of the scene? In real life, one phone call or nighttime visit can
change our whole word such as in Oprah’s book club pick, Anita
Shreve’s The Pilot’s Wife. Do I make use of subtext? Remember in
real life, people say one thing and mean another. What appears to be
is not. This really makes fiction resonate.
A novel must have causal relationships between events. It should be
interesting to the writer, but more importantly to the reader. If
you use a prologue, it should foreshadow the theme of the story. If
a prologue does not add to a story, it shouldn’t be used. Are you
introducing too many characters at once, so the reader can’t bond to
any of the characters?
Have I foreshadowed major events? Do I use the POV (point of view)
which works best for the story and the chapters? Does your character
grow and change? If your theme is a message of how the character
changed for the negative by becoming demoralized that is fine, too.
Just as long as there is change. Fiction is about change, be it
positive or negative.
© Copyright Maxine E. Thompson
About the Author
Maxine Thompson is a former social worker of 23 years. She has
published 2 novels, The Ebony Tree and No Pockets in a Shroud. She
has had numerous short stories, articles and essays published in
magazines, anthologies and e-zines. She runs an on-line column to
promote the works of new and self-published writers. The column is
called, On The Same Page. She aspires to publish and promote the
works of new writers. Email:
maxtho@aol.com
http://www.maxinethompson.com
