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I don't mind a cold fish. My question would be: Will I feel invested in him as a reader? Is it worth it for me to spend valuable time following his adventures?
That's a good first step. But I would try to push it a bit further as fidgeting can get old very quickly. As a reader, I prefer when conversations overlay common, useful actions so I can see a slice of life. No need to fidget or "run their fingers through their hair" (which is severely overused). Just give me a hint of what they're really doing while talking.
I know I don't necessarily stop what I'm doing when my family engages me in conversation. If I did, nothing would ever get done since my son can't seem to ever stop talking! ;-)
Just my 2 cents.
Oh, and you might consider posting your first scene / chapter to Share Your Work (SYW, password vista) in order to get other opinions.
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A cold fish can be made attractive (Mr. Darcy, anyone) but it would be good to make sure some of that attractiveness shows from the beginning. I've put more than one book - or movie - aside because I really didn't care what happened to the jerk.
In regards to the "cold fish", well, let's just say that the situation he finds himself in, and that the reader does, is interesting enough to keep the Analog Writer's Group interested and asking for more.
I'm hesitant about posting anything these days as discussions on other forums seem to have come to the opinion that this could amount to being published in some publisher's and editor's eyes.
In regards to "fidgeting", I understand what you mean and I do try to avoid that. Here's a pertinent section from my book where two characters are talking to one another in a lab setting and one is trying to explain something to another (I don't think that small excerpts like this can be, in any stretch, considered "publishing" of a WIP - please pardon me if placing the example here isn't appropriate),
-----
“Well, it’s a tough call. Photosynthesis is a complex process that works in two different ways, called the light and the dark cycles, respectively.”
“It’s been a long time since I took basic biology, and even then I didn’t concentrate on plant physiology,” Jason said. “But I know the basics. It’s the details of this process they proposed that I don’t get. That’s what you’re here for.”
“Right. Okay, let’s work through the process and see where they might have rearranged things some. In the classic example a six-carbon sugar and six oxygen molecules are manufactured by the plant from CO2 and oxygen. Photosynthesis is a two-step process. The first stage is the light-dependent reaction. The second is the light-independent, or dark, reaction and it’s only called that because it does not require light to function.”
“Right, I got that,” Jason said. He felt the flare of anger in his stomach again.
“The light reaction occurs in the grana of a plant cell,” McIntyre said. He took a dry erase pen and stepped over to a whiteboard to begin drawing. “The grana is a stack of thylakoid membranes inside the cell. The thylakoid is the structural unit of photosynthesis. If they did anything to interfere with photosynthesis, it would likely take place there. Think of the grana as a stack of pancakes. Each individual pancake is a thylakoid.”
“Pancakes. That reminds me, I didn’t have breakfast today and I haven’t had lunch either,” Jason said.
“Pay attention,” Randy said. “This is important.” He drew a stack of circles on the board. “The areas between the stacks, the grana, are called the stroma. In the light reaction, light excites electrons in the chlorophyll, raising their energy states. An electron transport cascade then uses the energy from this reaction to synthesize adenotriphosphate, ATP, or nicotinamide adenotriphosphate, or NADP. Water is split in the process.”
“So, there’s our hydrogen, right?”
-----
This scene takes place in Chapter 21 and is about 1/3rd of the way into the book, but is placed here to demonstrate what I mean when I'm trying to have my characters perform some type of action during dialogue (in this case, it's also important to the scene).
BTW, you can call me Greg. The FOTS portion of my nym is short for Fire On The Suns, a space opera wargame played via email which I've been running for about 15 years.
I'm hesitant about posting anything these days as discussions on other forums seem to have come to the opinion that this could amount to being published in some publisher's and editor's eyes.
In regards to "fidgeting", I understand what you mean and I do try to avoid that. Here's a pertinent section from my book where two characters are talking to one another in a lab setting and one is trying to explain something to another (I don't think that small excerpts like this can be, in any stretch, considered "publishing" of a WIP - please pardon me if placing the example here isn't appropriate),
-----
“Well, it’s a tough call. Photosynthesis is a complex process that works in two different ways, called the light and the dark cycles, respectively.”
“It’s been a long time since I took basic biology, and even then I didn’t concentrate on plant physiology,” Jason said. “But I know the basics. It’s the details of this process they proposed that I don’t get. That’s what you’re here for.”
“Right. Okay, let’s work through the process and see where they might have rearranged things some. In the classic example a six-carbon sugar and six oxygen molecules are manufactured by the plant from CO2 and oxygen. Photosynthesis is a two-step process. The first stage is the light-dependent reaction. The second is the light-independent, or dark, reaction and it’s only called that because it does not require light to function.”
“Right, I got that,” Jason said. He felt the flare of anger in his stomach again.
“The light reaction occurs in the grana of a plant cell,” McIntyre said. He took a dry erase pen and stepped over to a whiteboard to begin drawing. “The grana is a stack of thylakoid membranes inside the cell. The thylakoid is the structural unit of photosynthesis. If they did anything to interfere with photosynthesis, it would likely take place there. Think of the grana as a stack of pancakes. Each individual pancake is a thylakoid.”
“Pancakes. That reminds me, I didn’t have breakfast today and I haven’t had lunch either,” Jason said.
“Pay attention,” Randy said. “This is important.” He drew a stack of circles on the board. “The areas between the stacks, the grana, are called the stroma. In the light reaction, light excites electrons in the chlorophyll, raising their energy states. An electron transport cascade then uses the energy from this reaction to synthesize adenotriphosphate, ATP, or nicotinamide adenotriphosphate, or NADP. Water is split in the process.”
“So, there’s our hydrogen, right?”
-----
This scene takes place in Chapter 21 and is about 1/3rd of the way into the book, but is placed here to demonstrate what I mean when I'm trying to have my characters perform some type of action during dialogue (in this case, it's also important to the scene).
BTW, you can call me Greg. The FOTS portion of my nym is short for Fire On The Suns, a space opera wargame played via email which I've been running for about 15 years.
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WOOHOO!!! My first and last name are each 4 letters...I am SO going to be a Big Name Author.
Guess that explains how Ann Rice got anywhere...
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Woo! Greg, that's a heck of an infodump (in As-you-know-Bob format).
I sure hope there's some reason the readers care passionately about photosynthesis by that point.
That's telling, not showing.
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Aside from the infodump aspect, yes, the action you have included is meaningful, not just random fidgets.
However, when you include action, you can omit the 'said' tag. Instead of:
However, when you include action, you can omit the 'said' tag. Instead of:
Try,
Also, are 'Randy' and 'McIntyre' the same person or two different people?
Fennel, Yes, McIntyre and Randy are the same purpose (it's laid out in the paragraph or so prior to where this one starts. Good points about the "said" and other identifiers. I can fix that in the next draft.
Jim, Yes, I agree it's an info-dump, but it is important to the story and a story point which has occurred earlier. It's also much less than it used to be (a reader of an earlier version of the book stated "this isn't a story, it's a lecture" which made me go back and cut, cut, cut).
I'm not sure if I can fix the "telling, not showing" bit at this point since the POV is solely from Jason's viewpoint and I don't think it's severe enough that he'd show it outwardly in any fashion, especially when speaking to someone who's ostensibly his employee. It might be possible to show something in his voice or remove the reference entirely, but I'll have to think about that one a little bit.
Jim, Yes, I agree it's an info-dump, but it is important to the story and a story point which has occurred earlier. It's also much less than it used to be (a reader of an earlier version of the book stated "this isn't a story, it's a lecture" which made me go back and cut, cut, cut).
I'm not sure if I can fix the "telling, not showing" bit at this point since the POV is solely from Jason's viewpoint and I don't think it's severe enough that he'd show it outwardly in any fashion, especially when speaking to someone who's ostensibly his employee. It might be possible to show something in his voice or remove the reference entirely, but I'll have to think about that one a little bit.
Thinking about what I just said, maybe I should explain a bit about what has set up this scene although explaining it also feels like it's still not fine-tuned enough (admittedly, there's a lot of buildup to this particular scene that you will not have seen)...
The main character (Jason) has, a couple of days before, met with a person who has explained that she is an agent working for a secret group that created a plant that essentially grew hydrogen and stored it internally. Jason is attempting to discover how this was done and why it resulted in what he sees as a potentially catastrophic shift in a particular part of the global ecology (specifically the re-emergence of prehistorically giant insects). In order to do that he has to get into the nitty-gritty science of what they did. He's also dealing with the emotional impact of losing his family, his girlfriend, and his college mentor to attacks by giant insects (not the size of the creatures in the movie Them, but still much larger than normal), being thrust into the lead position of a crash program to figure out what's happening, and fighting with a number of experts who are jealous of his position or are testing him. He's under a tremendous amount of pressure, but he's barely showing any emotion at all at this point (this is 33,500 words into an 80 thousand page work (with probably another 5-10 thousand words to be added filling in continuity and character holes before the end of this draft).
I'm not trying to excuse any of this BTW, just trying to place the reader at this particular point and scene without revealing the whole darned thing. I know it still needs work (at least 1 more complete draft).
The main character (Jason) has, a couple of days before, met with a person who has explained that she is an agent working for a secret group that created a plant that essentially grew hydrogen and stored it internally. Jason is attempting to discover how this was done and why it resulted in what he sees as a potentially catastrophic shift in a particular part of the global ecology (specifically the re-emergence of prehistorically giant insects). In order to do that he has to get into the nitty-gritty science of what they did. He's also dealing with the emotional impact of losing his family, his girlfriend, and his college mentor to attacks by giant insects (not the size of the creatures in the movie Them, but still much larger than normal), being thrust into the lead position of a crash program to figure out what's happening, and fighting with a number of experts who are jealous of his position or are testing him. He's under a tremendous amount of pressure, but he's barely showing any emotion at all at this point (this is 33,500 words into an 80 thousand page work (with probably another 5-10 thousand words to be added filling in continuity and character holes before the end of this draft).
I'm not trying to excuse any of this BTW, just trying to place the reader at this particular point and scene without revealing the whole darned thing. I know it still needs work (at least 1 more complete draft).
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"Good dancers practice the things they are good at; great dancers practice the things they are bad at."
--Twyla Tharp
Greg, do you recall The Princess Bride? Do you recall Inigo Montoya? "Let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up."
The summary you gave in the last message is probably about the right length.
Unless we're expecting our readers to pass a quiz at the end of the chapter, it's still too much. Don't explain; show what happens. Particularly show what happens when things go wrong.
For the next half-hour Randy explained photosynthesis, the process by which green plants turn sunlight and water into sugar, while Jason alternately regretted his missed breakfast and contemplated strangling the older man.
"So it's theoretically possible to get hydrogen instead of oxygen as a byproduct when the water molecule breaks up?"
"Theoretically? No? I can't imagine a mechanism. Anyone who managed that would be first in line for a Nobel Prize."
"I'll get on the phone to Oslo later. Right now we have bigger problems."
But (since I haven't read the preceding 33,500 words) I could be completely wrong.
--Twyla Tharp
Greg, do you recall The Princess Bride? Do you recall Inigo Montoya? "Let me explain. No, there is too much; let me sum up."
The summary you gave in the last message is probably about the right length.
Unless we're expecting our readers to pass a quiz at the end of the chapter, it's still too much. Don't explain; show what happens. Particularly show what happens when things go wrong.
For the next half-hour Randy explained photosynthesis, the process by which green plants turn sunlight and water into sugar, while Jason alternately regretted his missed breakfast and contemplated strangling the older man.
"So it's theoretically possible to get hydrogen instead of oxygen as a byproduct when the water molecule breaks up?"
"Theoretically? No? I can't imagine a mechanism. Anyone who managed that would be first in line for a Nobel Prize."
"I'll get on the phone to Oslo later. Right now we have bigger problems."
But (since I haven't read the preceding 33,500 words) I could be completely wrong.
Jim, No I think you're completely right. That particular section got added into the book after a long and thoughtful discussion about the process with some people over at Analog (I got so into the details I even diagrammed out the process so I would be clear on it when trying to write about it - a clear case of being too close to the problem). I won;t borrow your example word for word, but I'm definitely copying & pasting it for future reference.
BTW, The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies and Inigo Montoya one of my favorite movie characters (love the swordfight at the top of the cliff - that has to be one of the classic movie swordfights of all time).
Oh, and that scene ends much as your suggestion does
“Because the whatsit that transferred to insects appears to be easily transferable, possibly communicable between species. That means it’s going to spread, species to species, from wherever the stuff gets loose. Caliope was one of their field test sites. I’m betting it wasn’t the only one. It means something else too.”
“What’s the something else?”
“It means that Amy lied to me,” Jason said. He was afraid the burning anger in his stomach was only the start of something much more serious.
Though it's still largely telling in that last sentence especially.
BTW, The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies and Inigo Montoya one of my favorite movie characters (love the swordfight at the top of the cliff - that has to be one of the classic movie swordfights of all time).
Oh, and that scene ends much as your suggestion does
“Because the whatsit that transferred to insects appears to be easily transferable, possibly communicable between species. That means it’s going to spread, species to species, from wherever the stuff gets loose. Caliope was one of their field test sites. I’m betting it wasn’t the only one. It means something else too.”
“What’s the something else?”
“It means that Amy lied to me,” Jason said. He was afraid the burning anger in his stomach was only the start of something much more serious.
Though it's still largely telling in that last sentence especially.
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Don't get me wrong: It's entirely necessary that you as the author be an expert. You have to know how things really work, and your characters have to know how they really work. If you aren't intimately familiar with the real deal, the readers will know that you're BSing them.
It's an iceberg. Nine tenths of your research never gets into the final draft.
Up above in this massive thread somewhere, I mentioned that for one of my books I'd learned enough about Gangland Chicago that I knew what brand of cigarettes Bugs Moran smoked. I never mentioned it in the text because it didn't move the story along. But when I could picture Bugs smoking Clown brand cigarettes, my descriptions of him, the way I imagined him acting, were (I think) surer, and (I think) the readers recognized that. (Oh -- and in case any of you were wondering, Al Capone's family called him "Snorky." That wasn't in the book either.)
It's an iceberg. Nine tenths of your research never gets into the final draft.
Up above in this massive thread somewhere, I mentioned that for one of my books I'd learned enough about Gangland Chicago that I knew what brand of cigarettes Bugs Moran smoked. I never mentioned it in the text because it didn't move the story along. But when I could picture Bugs smoking Clown brand cigarettes, my descriptions of him, the way I imagined him acting, were (I think) surer, and (I think) the readers recognized that. (Oh -- and in case any of you were wondering, Al Capone's family called him "Snorky." That wasn't in the book either.)
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That's second-draft. When you're writing fast, you don't stop to check. (In first draft I might even type "I'll get on the phone to [city] later."
I should remember to do that when I can't think of the right person, place, or thing. Of course my first draft would be a forest of brackets.
You mean you publish first draft posts here? I'm shocked. I spend hours on mine.
I do that all the time only like XXXinsert pub name hereXXX so I can just use find on XXX to get tham all in one sitting when I revise. Also does for those other little notes to myself such as XXX FFS! show don't tell! XXX or the one that escaped the revision, made it to a beta and gave them a giggle : XXX FOR THE GODS SAKES WOMAN THIS IS THE CHEESIEST THING SINCE THE EXPLOSION IN THE BLOODY CHEDDAR FACTORY. GET A GRIP! XXX
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I dunno', Fennel. That section is shortly after the character is introduced so it felt correct to use the two names interchangeably. I'll take a look at it again, but remember that you haven;t seen the whole section so can only judge by this short section. I don't think it's really all that confusing if one starts at the beginning.
But, like I said, I'll take another look at it.
Just as an aside, the book is rather steeped in the science, but I've been steadily working through fixing the info-dumps so they work better to bind the entire story together and do not take away from the story as much as they used to. My science consultants (both Cal professors so rather biased) and the grad student readers (Cal entomology students so also rather biased) I also talked with liked it. They all saw the work in first draft though and haven't seen any of this draft (yet - my main science consultant is now an assistant prof back at Oswego in NY so it's been awhile).
But, like I said, I'll take another look at it.
Just as an aside, the book is rather steeped in the science, but I've been steadily working through fixing the info-dumps so they work better to bind the entire story together and do not take away from the story as much as they used to. My science consultants (both Cal professors so rather biased) and the grad student readers (Cal entomology students so also rather biased) I also talked with liked it. They all saw the work in first draft though and haven't seen any of this draft (yet - my main science consultant is now an assistant prof back at Oswego in NY so it's been awhile).
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My bracket strategy can engulf entire sections of a chapter:
[Find out how to clone cell phones and somehow make that natural AND interesting. Insert here.] -or- [Ask husband best way to break wrist. Ask nurse next door how long bruises take to heal]
or my favorite - [not right - rewrite para later]
Good to know I'm not alone.
[Find out how to clone cell phones and somehow make that natural AND interesting. Insert here.] -or- [Ask husband best way to break wrist. Ask nurse next door how long bruises take to heal]
or my favorite - [not right - rewrite para later]
Good to know I'm not alone.
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It must be great to have a partner who can step right in and pick up where your thoughts leave off.
On the other hand, It must have taken a great deal of work to get yourselves to that level of cooperation.
On the other hand, It must have taken a great deal of work to get yourselves to that level of cooperation.
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Oh my eyes, how they bleed.
Being the kind of person who refuses to ever skip ahead in any media, I couldn't comment until I read the entire thread, uncut, from start to finish. I don't know when I started, but it had to be months ago.
Mad props go to Uncle Jim and all the other contributors to this thread. The amount of insight gathered in this bastion of knowledge knows no equal. Though I wasn't able to do all the exercises (due to time constraints, broken links, or the fact that certain deadlines had passed), I learned a lot from those I did. Except the whole Celtic knot thing, I still don't fully get that one. I found it encouraging that I had already done a few of them before reading this thread (such as listening to the director's commentary on DVDs, particularly on deleted scenes.)
Personally, I'm an aspiring author who, after writing a few short novels and tucking them away, decided to finally pursue publication... without studying the market first. I wrote the dream novel I always wanted to write, based on the style of all my favorite fantasy authors. Unfortunately, my favorite authors tended to write books exceeding 200k words. My tome was not as sought-after by agents as I'd hoped, due to me being a first time author with a 209k-word monster. After a year of revisions and the trimming of over 50,000 words, I've started sending it out again, and hope to finally find a home for my baby.
Starting this weekend, I'll be BIC-ing on my next novel (which won't be a sequel to the first, despite the temptation.) Can't wait.
Since it's customary for posting newbies to present some sort of question for the master, allow me to ask one on behalf of my friend.
Yes, this is actually for my friend, and not just some hypothetical question ploy, like a teenager asking his parents, "So I have this friend, who likes this girl, and was wondering..."
Anyway, he got a rejection back from an agent saying that he couldn't "connect" with the main character in the first five pages. I tried to give him what advice I could, of course. But what are your suggestions for making a sympathetic character that readers can quickly attach to and feel concerned for?
Being the kind of person who refuses to ever skip ahead in any media, I couldn't comment until I read the entire thread, uncut, from start to finish. I don't know when I started, but it had to be months ago.
Mad props go to Uncle Jim and all the other contributors to this thread. The amount of insight gathered in this bastion of knowledge knows no equal. Though I wasn't able to do all the exercises (due to time constraints, broken links, or the fact that certain deadlines had passed), I learned a lot from those I did. Except the whole Celtic knot thing, I still don't fully get that one. I found it encouraging that I had already done a few of them before reading this thread (such as listening to the director's commentary on DVDs, particularly on deleted scenes.)
Personally, I'm an aspiring author who, after writing a few short novels and tucking them away, decided to finally pursue publication... without studying the market first. I wrote the dream novel I always wanted to write, based on the style of all my favorite fantasy authors. Unfortunately, my favorite authors tended to write books exceeding 200k words. My tome was not as sought-after by agents as I'd hoped, due to me being a first time author with a 209k-word monster. After a year of revisions and the trimming of over 50,000 words, I've started sending it out again, and hope to finally find a home for my baby.
Starting this weekend, I'll be BIC-ing on my next novel (which won't be a sequel to the first, despite the temptation.) Can't wait.
Since it's customary for posting newbies to present some sort of question for the master, allow me to ask one on behalf of my friend.
Yes, this is actually for my friend, and not just some hypothetical question ploy, like a teenager asking his parents, "So I have this friend, who likes this girl, and was wondering..."
Anyway, he got a rejection back from an agent saying that he couldn't "connect" with the main character in the first five pages. I tried to give him what advice I could, of course. But what are your suggestions for making a sympathetic character that readers can quickly attach to and feel concerned for?
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