Category: description

February 13, 2019 / 1 Comment

The Talk

I’m posting this one a bit early because… well, hopefully you’ve all got other plans for tomorrow. I know I do. Alita: BattleAngel is finally out. And also some book about zombies on the moon…

Oh, yeah, and it’s Valentine’s Day tomorrow. With all the fun activities we associate with said holiday. And that’s kinda what I wanted to talk to you about…

Look, you’re getting to that certain point in your writing career. Your voice is developing. Your body is changing. Your facial hair is growing out nice and thick, which is probably a big change for most of you women.

Anyway, I figured it’s time we sat down and talk about… well…

Writing sex scenes.

Yeah, this is going to be a little awkward for all of us.

Like sex itself, a lot of this is going to come down to our own personal preferences, comfort zones, and what works in a given situation. As such, it’s going to be really tough to offer any specific advice about when and where and how these moments should happen in your book. I’ve tossed out some general suggestions in the past if you really want them.

What I wanted to talk about here is more of the act itself, so to speak. Writing sex scenes is a tricky skill to master. It’s a constant balancing act of too much and too little, exciting the reader or maybe horrifying them, and it’s ridiculously easy to make people roll their eyes (not in the good way).
So here are three big things I think should be in mind when writing a sex scene.

Firstis that we don’t always need to show sex happening in order for sex to have happened. Subtlety and nuance are a huge part of sexiness—on the page and in real life. If we know Wakko and Phoebe sneak off to the supply closet for half an hour during the office party, we can make an educated guess what they’re probably doing in there. Especially with the appropriate context around them sneaking off and how they sound/look/act when they come back.

So depending on the overall tone of my story, maybe I don’t actually need to write out my sex scene—I can just let my reader fill in the blanks themselves. And again, like so many well-done subtle things, this can end up being much, much sexier than actually showing stuff. As an artist friend of mine once pointed out, “nudity isn’t sexy. It’s what you don’t see that gets you turned on.”

There is one small pitfall to doing things this way. If I’m too subtle, people might not get what I’m implying. Their assumptions may go much too far, not far enough, or maybe end up on that awkward balancing point where they try to figure out what just happened. Or if anything happened. I don’t want to knock my readers out of the story with a confusing “did they or didn’t they”—unless that was the whole point of my fade to black.

Second, if I’m definitely going to show my sex scene, I need to remember that sex is… well, action. I don’t mean it needs to be wildly enthusiastic, just that this is a case of actual, physical things happening. And any sort of action can get boring fast if it’s written poorly.

I’m a big believer that most action shouldn’t take longer to read then it would take to happen, especially when we’re in the moment. A punch shouldn’t take three paragraphs to describe. A car crash probably shouldn’t take two pages unless it’s some massive, seventeen-car pileup

Likewise, if I’m telling you these two people are ripping each others clothes off, but it’s over six pages of description… you’re probably going to start skimming. And that’s never good. I don’t want to slow down action—any kind of action—by stretching it out with too much description.

And talking about describing all that action…

Third,if we’re going to be writing things out, brings us back to personal taste. I think the catch with explicit sex scenes is they essentially become porn. Porn, as a friend from work once pointed out, is when we see everything. And after a certain point, that’s pretty much exactly what we’re talking about with any written-out sex scene.

And some people like porn, some don’t. No judgment either way. That’s just a simple truth.

But there’s more to it than that. Even the people who do like porn don’t all like the same kind of porn. This particular act really turns me on, but you find it kind of quaint and almost routine. That might weird me out, this might be a complete non-starter for you, and that… okay, that seriously disturbs both of us on a number of levels. So it’s a pretty safe bet that the more explicit/niche my sex scene becomes, the less people it’s going to appeal to. And the more people it’s going to repulse.

Y’see Timmy, this is where empathy is going to be really important, and also a very clear, honest sense of who my audience is. The people who pick up a thriller aren’t expecting the same kind of sex scenes as the folks who buy romance novels, and I’m thinking neither of them are expecting five pages of hardcore, strap-on orgy action.

And if that last sentence made you a bit squeamish… you get my point.

So go forth and write your sexy moments. But think about if you really need them. And how they’re paced. And who you’re writing them for.

Hey, speaking of sexy things, I’ve got a new book out tomorrow, exclusively through Audible. Have I mentioned that recently? Dead Moon is a fun little zombie story set… well, you can guess where. And it’s also set in the Threshold universe, so there may be some other things in there that appeal to a few of you. Please check it out so I can keep buying cat food and rum.

Next time…

Well, okay, look. I’m in the last few weeks of finishing up another Threshold book, so I don’t have a lot of time. Truth is, I’m probably going to take the next week or two off to focus on that. If you want to use this time to toss out a few suggestions for thing you’d like me to rant about, that’d be fantastic (thanks in advance).

And one way or another sometime very soon, I’ll be revisiting the whole outlining thing.

Until then, go write.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

December 20, 2018

Christmas Time

Two semi-holiday related posts? In the same month? I’ve just totally sold out to the whole capitalist Christmas experience, haven’t I?

Honestly, I’ve been sick in bed most of the week, so there won’t be much to this. Lost a lot of time. I still have a ton of presents to wrap. And mail…

Speaking of time, something bounced across my mind a week or three back, and it’s been fermenting over there in the corner for a bit…

As a little kid, once we hit December, I could tell you almost exactly how long it was until Christmas. As we got closer, my brother and I would start planning it down to the hour. Sometimes down to the minute. What time we could wake up. What time we could expect to wake my parents up (without fear of reprisals). What time they’d let us come downstairs. Christmas wasn’t in “a couple of days”—we were two days, fourteen hours, and six minutes away from opening presents.

(that’s the present Mom let us take to bed with us on Christmas Eve—the bribe to keep us quiet and in our rooms for an hour or so after we woke up)
Of course, after I got older it did just become “a couple of days” until Christmas. I met people who didn’t celebrate Christmas and kept an even looser sense of when it was than me. I even tried to actively avoid it for a while.

What random point am I trying to make this week?

How characters think about time says something about them. It lets me know if they’re precise people or if they tend to speak in generalities. It even gives me an idea how important events are to them.

I mean, how long is twenty-four days? Is it just 24 days? Or is it a few weeks? Maybe three weeks? Almost four weeks? Practically a month?

If I told you something happened a couple of weeks, ago does it seem as important as that happened sixteen days, eight hours ago? Am I looking forward to a party that’s still more than a week away? Or that dinner that’s in less than four days?
Y’see, Timmy, people are unique, and we all think about time in different ways. Sometimes we generalize and estimate. We round up and down. We abbreviate one way or another. And other times we’re very precise. Maybe we won’t even give an answer until we can give the exact, confirmed answer.

And this can all change depending on context. I might be vague about when I’m meeting friends for drinks, but very specific about when that date with Phoebe is. I can tell you exactly how long I’ll be at the office, but I might be up playing Falloutuntil, y’know, later. Don’t wait up for me.

So when I’m writing characters, and they’re dealing with time, keep that in mind.

And speaking of time, I hope you’re looking at a comfortable, stress-free couple of days. If you’re in LA and happen to still need a last-minute gift or two, Dark Delicacies has some autographed books of mine, if that interests you. And if not, there are a ton of awesome books at your favorite local bookstore.

I hope all of you reading this have a fantastic holiday season. Maybe I’ll see you all one last time before the new year rolls in.

Have fun. Try to enjoy a few peaceful days. And maybe, if you have some time…

Go write.

character description details holidays time

November 8, 2018

Mr. Nobody

A while back I asked for topic suggestions and this got tossed out by someone (you know who you are). I’ve been playing with it in my head for a few weeks because it’s one of those topics/questions that’s a little more complex than it seems on the surface. But I think I’ve got a handle on it to where I could mutter on about it for a bit.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m just suffering from leftover Halloween candy withdrawal. I guess we’ll see.

So, the question was, paraphrased, ‘Who deserves to be a character in my story?” Not in the sense of “wow, this guy on Twitter thinks he should be in my next book”—the answer to that is pretty much always no. No, we’re talking about where we draw those lines between main characters, supporting characters, and those folks in the background.

For example, in the book I’m working on right now, I just mentioned a Lyft driver. How much detail and backstory do they deserve? Should they have a gender? A hair color? Maybe an elaborate backstory involving a wild one night stand, a million-dollar art heist, and a cursed music box?

Should I maybe even give them… a name?

Now, on a simple, first-draft level, the answer to all of this is yes. Go for it. I don’t know how many times I’ve said good characters are the most important part of any story. So, logically, more good characters makes for an even better story, right?

And this is the whole point of a first draft. Getting it all written down. All of it. Everything. EVERYTHING! Every crazy idea and phenomenal character concept and neat cameo I can come up. So my Lyft driver is named Phoebe and that one night stand was actually a threesome and she was blackmailed into working the art heist because they knew about her skill with laser-based sensors but she didn’t know “they” were part of the Black Monks of Beleth, a monastery that deifies a fallen angel who’s now one of the nine kings of Hell and, damn, this stuff really writes itself, doesn’t it?

However…

Yeah, there’s a “however.”

You probably saw that coming…

Like a lot of first draft elements, eventually I need to sit down and decide how many of them really contribute to my story versus distracting from it. In this case, how many of these characters. And that’s when the real decisions happen.

For me, it always comes down to how much are they moving the plot or story forward. Are they sharing important information my protagonist (and my audience) don’t know? Are they setting something in motion? Is it vitally important we remember this character fifty pages from now?

And I should be clear what “moving the story forward” means. If Yakko needs a ride so he doesn’t miss his meeting with Dot, that doesn’t mean Phoebe the Lyft driver is moving the story forward. Being in the plot doesn’t inherently make a character essential to the plot.
Easy way to check—does anything change if I cut out that whole car ride? If I ended one chapter with Yakko calling a Lyft and started the next one with him running into the lobby of an office building… is anyone going to be really confused? Will my book be lacking something (except maybe an extra 4000 words)…?

I’ve mentioned the idea of who gets (or doesn’t get) a name before, and I think it’s a great guideline for this sort of thing. I don’t want to confuse my readers by naming every single character. If I’m going to bother to name a character, readers are going to assume I did it for a reason. This person is going to matter somehow.

And I think this holds for character traits overall. If I’m going to spend three paragraphs describing her clothes, his drinking habits, their sexual experiences in college, how she turned down her birthright and he never worked for anything… well, my readers are going to assume this is important. I wouldn’t just be writing all this out for no reason, would I? I’m a professional, after all. There’s a plan to all of this, and it’s a plan of my own careful devising.

But…

Yeah, there’s a “but,” too.

But I need to be sure of that plan. Sometimes things can seem to be important threads of the plan, but really they’re just bulk filler. Once or twice I’ve mentioned the idea of “describe and die.” It’s when the writer introduces characters, gives us tons of description and backstory, and then kills them. It can seem like a good use of description… but it’s something that wears thin really fast.

Like… after one use.

So imagine how frustrated my readers would get if I did “describe and… do nothing.”

To be clear, I’m not saying to pare away every single character description that doesn’t advance the plot. But I need to be careful how and where I’m using them.. There are lots and lots of reasons it might be worth bumping someone up to minor character-hood and giving them a little more. I just need to be sure I’ve got a valid reason.

For example…

In the book I just turned in, there’s an evacuation scene, and I tossed out quick, one-line descriptions for three different characters as my protagonist deals with the crowd. Two of them even had a very quick dialogue exchange with said protagonist before one of them is abruptly killed.

Spoilers, but you’ll forget by February.

Anyway, my editor suggested trimming that down, getting rid of the other exchanges and descriptions and just dealing with the imminent victim. I explained why I’d rather not—one was that it pushed me into a very light “describe and die” situation. Two is that—after years of watching and working on television—it always feels a little odd and cheap to me when the only person the protagonist interacts with in a crowd is the person something happens to. Y’know, like when the reporter talks to a random person in the audience about holding the concert despite the building needing repairs, and when that roof beam breaks and falls… well, you know who was under it, right?

And my editor accepted that.

Which is a great way to look at it. Feel free to introduce minor characters. Give them a line or three of description. Maybe a paragraph or two of backstory. But if someone asks why I’m focusing on this person for a few extra beats, can I give a better explanation than “it’s kinda cool,” or “it’s a very pretty description”…?

Because if I can’t… maybe they don’t deserve to be a character.

Next time, I’d like to talk about phone calls and rhythm and dialogue.

Oh, and one other random segue…

I’m hardly a prude, and I know there are lots of authors out there that have much earthier blogs than mine (some of which are really fantastic). But I always kept it kinda clean here. Mostly because this originally grew out of some professional articles I’d been pitching, and I tried to keep that general feel and tone, even though I’ve gotten a bit more loose and casual over the years.

Anyway, I bring it up because a couple of you have posted some rather *coughs* emphatic responses to things lately. And while I greatly appreciate the enthusiasm (and the comments), I prefer to keep things at a level that doesn’t get blocked by a lot of web filters. Alas, the only real moderation tool I have here is a delete button, and I’ve had to resort to that. Many apologies if your comments vanished in the (tiny) purge. Again, they’re appreciated but…

You all get the point.

Next time, dialogue.

For now, go write.

character Dead Moon death description names

September 21, 2018 / 4 Comments

One and Done

Okay, book edits have been turned in, but I never made it to IKEA. One of our cats is sick and has been getting daily trips to the vet for fluids. So the library and game room are still stuck in transition.

Plus, I managed to squeeze a ranty blog post into all of this, only to realize at the last moment (just as I was inserting links and pictures) that I’d talked about this exact topic just a few months ago. I mean, I used some of the same examples and everything. I may be a hack, but I’m not that much of a hack.

So let me skip ahead in my list of topics and talk briefly about killing people.

A while back I mentioned a bad habit people have that I named “describe and die.” It’s when an author (or screenwriter) gives us tons of details about a character in an attempt to make them likeable and relatable. As a way to get us quickly invested.

And then kills them.

Today I wanted to mention a little offshoot of this that I ended up talking about with my editor recently. Call it a connected bad habit. One I think grew out of necessity…

This is going to seem rambling, but stick with me.

One of the ugly truths about screenwriting is that so many things come back to budget. I can write the most elaborate script with a broad palette of characters, but at the end of the day it’s going to come down what we can afford to do—especially in television. I may have written dozens of little characters here and there to help bring the world to life, but the reality is they’re going to be cut and trimmed down to the bare minimum we need to move the plot along.

Of course, most of us don’t see this. We just see the final version. And we tend to absorb some storytelling lessons from it. Even the bad, unnatural ones.

In screenwriting it makes sense that we’ll never, ever have a speaking role that isn’t important. It costs almost a thousand dollars just for someone to have one line. Seriously. That actress saying “Your drink, sir”—she just paid rent for the month. And she’ll get a sliver of the residuals, because she’s a speaking actor. So Hollywood is reeeeeeeeeaaally conservative when it comes to handing out random lines to random people. I’ve personally watched those parts get whittled away as new script revisions came out.

Of course, that’s Hollywood. Books have no budget. We can have casts of thousands and dinosaurs and spaceships and all sorts of stuff. If someone needs to speak, they can speak.

But…

Some folks still follow that minimal-character idea, not understanding it’s an element of budgeting, not storytelling. And when I combine this with describe-and-die, it creates a really weird mechanic in my story. Not only do I “create” real characters just to kill them off… they’re the only other characters I’m creating. Nobody else gets a line of description or a few words of dialogue.

Y’see, Timmy, now my story only has three types of people in it. Protagonists, antagonists, and… victims. Heck, depending on my story, I may not even have an actual antagonist. Now all I’ve got is protagonists and victims.

Which doesn’t feel like a very well-rounded world, does it?

I’ve talked here a few times about the need to keep things tight, but—like so many things in life—this goes horribly wrong once it’s taken to extremes. I don’t want to trim away every single interaction or description in the name of brevity. A non-stop, breakneck paceis going to get exhausting really fast.

I shouldn’t be afraid to have a little more in my story. I don’t want my world to be cluttered, but I also don’t want it to be a stark, utilitarian framework. Because the truth is… sometimes people are just there.

Usually blocking an aisle in IKEA.

Next time…

Okay, look, my schedule for topics is a mess now, so if you’ve got something you really want to hear me blather on about, let me know down in the comments. And if nobody does, I’ll just end up blabbing on about Sherlock Holmes or something…
So until then—go write.

antagonists character death description details protagonist screenwriting supporting

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