Feed Your Inner Analyst

I once had a conversation with a friend where we were discussing a movie that we'd both liked (the Matrix), but she liked it much better than I did. I really loved elements of the scenery and the premise, but there were glaring plot holes and inconsistencies that pulled me out of the story.

My friend got really annoyed and ranted, "Can't you watch the movie without analyzing it to death, and just have fun?"

There was this awkward silence, and then I laughed and said, "But analyzing it to death is fun for me!"

As a writer and photographer, it's always been really hard to turn off the editor in my brain while I'm reading a book or watching a movie. I fought that tendency for a while, until I realized that it's a really good skill to have. Even while I'm caught up in the story, there's a little Hermes (from Futurama) inside me filing away all the things that worked (and didn't work) for future reference:



And now I've found a writing book that really taps into that habit: Screenwriting Tricks For Authors (and Screenwriters!)by Alexandra Sokoloff



It's full of great tips on crafting characters, plot, etc, and includes fun exercises. You know, my kind of fun, like making a list of your favorite ten antagonists in books or films (she uses films as examples just as often as she uses books), and then thinking about what made you connect to those characters. Not only does it help you find instances where antagonists are done well, it gives you insights into why you might be writing the antagonists that you've put into your stories.

She says, "You need to create your list, and break those stories down to see why they have such an impact on you - because that's the kind of impact that you want to have on your readers. . .there will also always be a few stories on your list that have nothing to do with your dominant genre, some complete surprises, and those wild cards are sometimes the most useful for you to analyze structurally. Always trust something that pops into your head as belonging on your list. The list tells you who you are as a writer. What you are really listing are your secret thematic preferences. You can learn volumes from these lists if you are willing to go deep."

So if you're willing to go deep, check out her book, and its companion, Writing Love. They're on Amazon and Barnes and Noble in ebook form for only $2.99.

Unsympathetic characters

A friend of mine recommended I check out "Nurse Jackie"; we like a lot of the same shows so I added it to the Netflix queue. I watched the first disc last week and we had a discussion about whether we could actually like the main character.

I don't think it's too much of a spoiler if you've never seen the show to say that she's a nurse with a prescription drug addiction. In the first few episodes you see her doing "Scrubs"-like activities (standing up to bad doctors, finagling extras for patients--just trying to make a difference) and also trysting with the hospital pharmacist. In between, she's taking drugs in every possible form.

Through all that, I didn't exactly identify with her but I did have sympathy for where she was coming from (high-stress job with impossible hours, along with severe back pain). That is, until she goes off shift and heads home . . .to a husband and two little girls.

That cast a whole new light on her relationship with the pharmacist for me: was she screwing him just for the drug access? How can she possibly reconcile the "work Jackie" with "home Jackie"? It was so off-putting that we had to think about whether we were going to keep watching. There are some real laugh-out-loud lines in the show, good writing, so we'll give it another chance.

But it made me think of the line between an unsympathetic character and a villain. I've posted my prologue that features a mean schoolteacher, and I've been surprised at how much of a reaction she's stirred up. Miss Bonney is a fairly minor character in my mind, but she's definitely a villain.

I also have my MC abandoned by her traveling companion, and I had a hard time striking a balance with Mrs. Jensen. She's a charming woman and Isabelle genuinely likes her, so how is this woman able to just walk away when Isabelle is left penniless? Mrs. J is definitely a pragmatist above all, but she's also ended up being kind of a Dickensian character.

Anybody else have trouble finding that fine line between a well-rounded character and one whose flaws outnumber their virtues?

Teaser Tuesday: A Little Exercise

I'm in the midst of a dialogue and point of view writing class with Naomi Williams and I thought I'd tease today with the results of an in-class exercise.

We were talking about the part that tense (present tense, past tense, etc) has to play in POV. The assignment was to share a true story (but it didn't have to be your own experience) and start out telling it in past tense, and then move into present tense. I immediately thought of this story, because it is still so vivid in my mind all these years later. Some details have been changed to protect the shamefaced.

In this assignment, we could choose to tell the story in past tense and then retell it in present tense, but Naomi told us to switch tense after five minutes of writing, right when I was going into dialogue. So I chose to make the dialogue in present tense and leave the exposition in past tense.

And I hope I don't have to keep posting warnings or disclaimers for my posts, but this does have some scatological crudeness in it.


I saw part of this play out, or I might not have believed the rest. Me and Joe were working the checkout near closing time, and the store was quiet even for a bookshop.

Then a girl came in, set down her duffle and struck up a conversation with Joe. Her accent struck me immediately: French with a nasally undertone. I stifled a grin; Joe wrote comic books, and the sexy villianesses or tramps often sported a Pepe-le-Pew dialect, so I knew she had his attention.

They left together, every fantasy he'd ever had about exotic foreign women writ large on his face. The next morning, he gave me the dirty details:

"She says right up front that she needs a place to crash, and she's willing to share my bed for the night. I take her back to my apartment and ply her with frozen burritos and St. Pauli Girl beer.

"The whole time we're eating and talking, there's this weird stench in my apartment. We both comment on it in passing. I check the garbage can, run the garbage disposal, sniff the refrigerator--nothing.

"It's not til I go into the bathroom to rummage for a condom that I see it, a giant turd that's been stewing in the toilet since this morning.

"I flush it (three times) and I feel like I have to say something about it when I go out. So I do, and I follow it up with "I understand if you don't want to stay now . . ."

"And, unbelievably, she does."


A note: when they left together, I genuinely expected his story the next day to include, "And when I woke up, she was gone, along with everything of value in my apartment."