Faith and Fiction

Suzanne Francis, author of Heart of Hythea, Ketha’s Daughter, and Dawnmaid, has kindly consented to be my guest today. On the subject of Faith and Fiction, Suzanne writes:

We can all think of a series or two where religion plays a major role in the plot-like the Left Behindbooks by LaHaye and Jenkins or the Mitford Series by Jan Karon. Whether or not you agree with their beliefs, these are authors who have placed their own faith squarely at the center of the books they write.

Should we do the same? I can think of three reasons why we might.

–Spirituality is a deeply personal attribute, part of what makes us individuals. No two people, even two who belong to the same faith, believe in exactly the same things. Our faith, even if it is atheism, is a fundamental part of who we are. That is something we can use to differentiate our writing from all other authors, something that will allow us to claim it as our own.

–Most of us with religious beliefs feel that these tenets make us better people-that is why we follow them, after all. Many authors of fiction-like Ayn Rand or Jack Kerouac-have used the voices of their characters to present their own beliefs to the world. If we have an understanding, something that helps us, should we not also share it with others?

–Every author wants their characters to be multi-dimensional, to come to life for the reader. If we do not give our creations a spiritual dimension, then they are lacking one of the most essential qualities of humanity-the one thing that separates us from all other animals. Even if our character never discusses his or her faith or lack thereof, it must still be in the background affecting everything he or she says and does.

But how do we go about placing our beliefs in the context of our fiction without sounding artificial or preachy?

It pays to spend some time thinking about what you actually believe and how it affects your everyday life. That becomes the starting point. Do you have doubts? Have you suffered for your faith? Do you speak of it with others, or is it private?

Once you have a handle on that, then you can decide how much or how little you wish to include. Maybe you will put a single line in the mouth of a minor character. That might be enough. Alternatively, you can give a main character some of your convictions, and let it emerge little by little through their actions. Or perhaps, like C.S. Lewis, you can write a whole series of allegories around the things you believe. (But I think the Chronicles of Narnia is very preachy!)

In Song of the ArkafinaI gave one character, Arkady Svalbarad, a faith very much like Buddhism. I am not a Buddhist, not really, but I find the some of the philosophy very useful in my day-to-day life. Here is an example from Ketha’s Daughter:

—Nodding, he turned to his pack, and retrieved his tin plate and a small knife. He was hungry, and the rabbit smelled good, though it had been a year since he had last eaten any flesh. That was another thing he learned from his teacher in T’Shang — respect for all living creatures. But Dawa had also impressed upon him the importance of kindness to others, and that meant accepting any gift without complaint or reservation. So he ate the rabbit with pleasure and shared what food he had in return.—

Everything about this character is colored by his faith-both his successes and failures are measured against it. It gives him a genuineness I could never create otherwise.

My own belief system I would loosely describe as Paganism, though probably not the kind you are thinking of. I don’t own any robes, or do any rituals or chanting. But I do believe in the immanence of God in all things, and I hold the Earth to be sacred. I gave my convictions to a group of wanderers called the Firaithi. From Ketha again:

—”Still,” insisted Arkady. “It must be very difficult - always traveling like this. Do your young people not grow tired of your rootless existence?”

“Of course, some do,” admitted Huw. “Perhaps two or three each year decide to leave the Kindreds and make their way in the world of the Gruagán. But we raise our young ones to honor Asparitus, so most come back to us after a few years.”

“Asparitus? What is that?”

Huw stared thoughtfully at his sister Eira’s neatly painted caravan. “I don’t know a word in Maraison that means the same thing. Asparitus is our way of life. It means to tread gently on the Yrth, to use as little as we are able, and put back as much as we can.” He frowned. “We have very little, compared to the Gruagán in their fancy houses. They think of us as impoverished tinkers and thieves, when they think of us at all. But truly, Kadya, few of us would give up our place here amongst the Kindreds for all the gold of the Gruagán. Asparitus is all the treasure we need. Do you understand, my brother?”—

That is very, very close to the heart of my own faith, only lightly cloaked in the language of the Firaithi.

How will you clothe your faith in your fiction?

To find out more about Suzanne, read excerpts, or buy her books, check out her fictionwise book page.

Voice: Being Yourself in Words

“Voice” is a difficult technique for new writers to master but, like compost, voice happens. It’s who we are, how we write, what we believe.

I’ve heard that a good actor is one who can be himself in front of the camera. Maybe that’s what defines a good writer, too — one who can be him/herself in words. What that means, I don’t know, except that we shouldn’t be afraid to be who we need to be and to write what we need to write. (You don’t have to be yourself, of course. You can be anyone you want if you can make yourself believe it. And if you believe that this is true, you can believe anything.)

I never wanted to write the great American or the great international novel, I just wanted to write a book people would enjoy reading. But now I want more. I want to be an extraordinary writer.

I know I over think things When I’m not writing, I think about writing, which is not always a good thing. But still, I have written four novels, and taken them as far as I can. I know they can be improved, since everything can be improved, but at least one, maybe two are good. Unfortunately, simply being good isn’t good enough. With hundreds of thousands of books being written every year, something has to make one stand up and scream to be published.

Since I am going to continue writing, I figure I have two options: go for quantity or quality. Quantity gets me nothing except more books that I can’t peddle. So I’m left with Quality with a capital Q. But perhaps quality comes from quantity. I recently read that the first million words are just for practice, so I’m halfway there.

A friend suggested that I keep writing and, maybe in the eighth novel, the hints of the extraordinary in what I have now will emerge full blown from the shadows of my former novels.

Good advice for all of us.

Creating a Character — Part VI

The second half of a book is easy for me to write — I know the characters, their backstories and motivations — but I have trouble with the front part. My poor hero, Chip, has been running from a volcano for the past month while I’ve been trying to figure out who he is, what I need him to be, and what he needs to become.

According to Robert McKee in Story, “The most fascinating characters have a conscious desire and a contradictory unconscious desire. What he believes he wants is the antithesis of what he actually but unwittingly wants. (Although the protagonist is unaware of their subconscious need, the audience senses it, perceiving in them an inner contradiction.)”

After the volcano incident, Chip is going to meet an archetypal crone who was supposed to get him to thinking that now he wants a family (this after I’ve killed off almost everyone in the world and despite his need to be free) but it’s too soon in the book for him to want that. It would change the way he interacts with his mate when he finally meets her, which means it has to be a subconscious desire the old woman invokes in him, which changes my perception of the story, which means my WIP comes to a crashing halt while I rethink Chip’s wants and needs. And there he is, running from the volcano, waiting for me to figure him out so he can move on to the next disaster.

If a character wants something he himself doesn’t know he wants, it brings out different facets of personality than if he does know what he truly wants. The secret is to give character hints for the reader to pick up on without the author (or an authoritative character) explaining it. Much of reading is subconscious. We notice things without realizing we are noticing them.

Robert McKee also wrote: “The revelation of true character in contradiction to characterization (the sum of all observable qualities) is fundamental to all fine storytelling. What seems is not what is. People are not what they appear to be. A hidden nature waits concealed behind the facade of traits.”

If Chip doesn’t know what he truly wants until he gets it, it also will add a different dimension to the theme, which is freedom vs. safety. He first chooses freedom, next he chooses incarceration and saftey, then he chooses the excitement and danger of freedom over the boredom of safety, finally he chooses responsibility, a different facet of freedom.

By giving Chip an inner character in contradiction to his outer one, he should become a richer character which in turn will allow the story to explore all the facets of the theme rather than the rather simplistic one of freedom vs. safety.

Now all I have to do is get the poor guy away from that volcano or else there will be no story.

Creating a Character — Part I

Creating a Character — Part II

Creating a Character — Part III

Creating a Character — Part IV

Creating a Character — Part V

The Setting Should Be Integral to the Story

Characters interact with the setting as much as they do with the plot and other characters. In fact, setting can be used as another character, one that is implacable and without reason. Like a character, the setting can have scars, weaknesses, moods, even a personality.

The setting should be integral to the story. It needs to be more than a backdrop for or an introduction to the events. A static description adds nothing to the story’s purpose. The setting should not be any old place, but a unique place that has meaning for the character. Setting can work for or against the character, but either way, it must be dynamic, otherwise it’s just filling space.

Setting can create a mood. It can suggest the character’s motives. It can predestine character in the same way we are all creatures of our environment. A person who grew up in the shadow of mountains is different from someone born by the sea. A child living in a mansion is different from a child of the streets.

Setting can help move plot along. Whenever things slow down, the introduction of a real or perceived change in the setting can deepen the character’s conflicts. Maybe the character sees things he never noticed before; maybe those familiar things now seem menacing. Or perhaps the weather can take a disastrous turn.

Every description of a place should have a memorable quality that hints at the story’s meaning. In Story, Robert McKee wrote, “The irony of setting vs. story is this: the larger the world, the more diluted the knowledge of the writer, therefore the fewer his creative choices and the more clichéd the story. The smaller the world, the more complete the knowledge of the writer, therefore the greater his creative choices. Result: an original story without clichés.”

What Do You Want to Say to Your Readers?

The publishing industry seems determined to keep writers on a tight leash of fast and easy fiction, but I don’t see any reason why a good writer can’t find a way of saying something important in readable stories.

In all these years I’ve been writing, I never really considered what I wanted to say to the reader, or what role I wanted to play in their lives. I knew I wanted to be a good storyteller, but that’s all. Odd to find myself thinking about this now after having written four (unpublished) novels instead of at the beginning.

One theme that has run through my books is, “Beware. Nothing is as it seems. You are being lied to and have always been lied to,” but other than that, I’m not sure I ever considered what I wanted to say to potential readers when I was writing a novel. I wrote for me and I concentrated on telling a good story with the hope that someday someone would like to read the book and be entertained.

I no longer know where I am going with my writing.

The first book I wrote was a fictional autobiography (sort of). I had a lot of matters I needed to work through and thought it would be a good way to do it. It worked, but the book was so bad I don’t consider it one of my finished novels.

The first real novel I wrote because I wanted (needed) to make some money. Silly me! I also wanted to talk about the Vietnam war and the misconceptions that people have about it. I ended up deleting most of those parts in the rewrites

Then I read Albert Zuckerman’s book “How to Write the Blockbuster Novel” and decided I wanted to write a blockbuster novel and make a ton of money. In many ways, that book is my best work, but the one that has the least interest for agents and editors.

The third book I wrote because I read “The Writer’s Journey” by Christopher Vogler and I wanted to write a mythic journey story. And debunk the Hollywood myths about the mafia. And make a lot of money.

The fourth book was a compendium of conspiracy theories — a different way of looking at the world. (Interestingly enough, it was also the first novel I conceived. It just took me five years to get the whole thing worked out.

My current book was supposed to be my declaration of independence from the dictates of the publishing industry. It was supposed to be a silly story, but it’s metamorphosing into something deeply metaphysical, and while it’s doing that, it’s changing the way I look at my writing and myself. I’m not sure where I want to go with my writing, but I do know I want to be better than I am. To learn how to make every word count. To create a vivid world. To make it mean something.

I wanted to be a good storyteller. I  never really had any interest in writing the great American novel, but because of the changes my WIP are bringing, I’ve been getting the feeling that I want to get so good at both storytelling and writing that I will not be ignored. In the end, I want to make a difference, even in a small part, in the lives of people who might someday read my books. And yes, I want to say something important.

A Writer’s Mythical Journey

The best books always have characters that go through a transformation during the course of the story, but most books today seem to have static characters. The authors tell us a lot about the characters and their myriad relationships but the characters do not really transform. Perhaps because the writer isn’t asking the right questions.

In Worlds of Wonder, David Gerrold wrote, “Ask your character these two questions: Who are you? Who do you want to be?

“Ask them of yourself as well.”

Perhaps the key to writing well is knowing who we are and what we want to be in relation to the book we are writing. Maybe the way to get inside it and to create a vivid and compelling world is to make the character’s transformation our own. And we do this by having a clear idea of what we want to say and choosing the right words to say it.

The realization that the words we write can change us as writers as well as affect our readers is making me rethink my own mythic journey as a writer. If words are so powerful that they can change readers and writers both, then they deserve my best. I don’t think I’ve achieved my best. At least, I hope I haven’t.

Writing is changing me in ways I could not even fathom several years ago, and I have a hunch I am at still at the beginning of my journey, so I have no idea how I will be transformed. I’m hoping I am a hero in my own journey, and that I will become a powerful writer. I now can see that writing will never get easier for me, because with each book I will pick something to challenge me, to help me get closer to that being that author I need to become. Published or unpublished.

It’s the journey that counts. The process of transformation.

On Writing: Questions to Ponder

David Gerrold, a science fiction writer, is guest hosting my blog today. He doesn’t know that he is; I only know him through his book, Worlds of Wonder. Although it is a book on how to write science fiction and fantasy, it’s a good reference for all of us who want to take our writing to another level. He not only explains certain concepts better than anyone I’ve ever read (such as, “The name of the game is Hurt the Hero! Why? Because if he doesn’t hurt, why should we care?”); he also philosophizes about writing. (”What you write has an effect on the people who read it. Words have meaning, ideas have consequences.”)

And he poses questions worth pondering:

As a human being, you make a difference. Simply by existing, simply by being in the room you make a difference. What kind of difference do you want to make as a writer?

Your book, your story, your script — whatever you write — that’s your way of challenging the world. What do you want to say to the rest of your species?

How do you take readers someplace else and make them glad they went?

How do you create an experience of another life so vivid and compelling that for the moment it exists in the mind, it obscures and obliterates the reader’s own life?

How do you transport human consciousness into the realm of exhilaration and transformation?

How can you get so deeply into the story that you are telling it from the inside?

On Writing: The Name of the Game is “Hurt the Hero.”

I like my characters and don’t enjoy hurting them so my novels tend to focus on unraveling the mystery of the situation, because one thing I do understand is that at the heart of all books is a discovery. In a mystery, the discovery is the killer. In a romance, the discovery is love. In a character driven novel, the discovery is the nature of the character himself.

For the first time, though, I understand why the hero needs to be hurt. If the hero doesn’t hurt, why should we care? And if he doesn’t hurt, how would we ever discover his emotional core, what it is that he really cares about? When we discover what the character cares about, we care about him, and want to read to see how he reacts to the hurt and to find out what he is going to do to make it stop.

True character is revealed in the choices a person makes under pressure or when he is hurting or both. The greater the pressure, the deeper the revelation will be and the truer the choice to the character’s essential nature. Pressure is necessary. Choices made when nothing is at risk mean little.

In Worlds of Wonder: How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, David Gerrold wrote: “You need to ask yourself these questions in every situation. Asking these questions brings each scene to life: Why is the moment important? Where is the pain? Why does it hurt? And most important — what will make it worse?”

In life, experiences often become meaningful with reflection and time. In retrospect, a horrendous experience takes on an aura of excitement or even happiness because we remember being fully alive. In art, experiences are meaningful now, at the moment they are happening on the screen or in the novel. We can see instantly that the character is hurting, but we can also feel the excitement of the moment, the adrenaline rush. It all happens at once, the reflection and the experience, which explains why movies and books sometimes seem more real than life itself. Without the character hurting, however, the experience becomes muted, less real.

So: hurt the hero. I guess I’ll just have to learn to like it. Or at least learn how to do it well.

Writing Sex Scenes

In its essence, a sex scene in a novel is no different from any other scene, and the key to writing it is to figure out its objective. If you’re just putting it in there because you think it’s time for some titillation, it will not have the resonance of a motivated scene. (Though in some novels, category romance especially, titillation alone is an acceptable objective.)

There are many other objectives for a sex scene besides titillation: to bring the couple closer together; to show that they want each other even though they can’t tolerate each other; to bring them comfort; to show the maturation of one character (perhaps he couldn’t commit, and now he can); to show the intensity of the relationship; to slow the pace of the book or speed it up; to bring a bit of humor or playfulness to a somber work.

Once you know the objective, you can write a fitting action/reaction sequence. If comfort is the objective, you can show them together at the beginning, close the door during the action, and show them cuddling afterward. If tenderness is the objective, you can show a bit of the action in addition to the before and after. And of course, if their desperation for each other is the objective, you will need to leave the door open during the scene. As with all resonating scenes, when it is over there must be some reaction, some change to the character or the direction of the story. And the objective dictates that reaction. If the scene was about bringing comfort to the characters, we need to know whether they found comfort or failed to find it, and we need to know the characters’ emotional response to the success or failure of that objective. This reaction, in turn will help set up the next scene.

Scenes also help show who the characters are, and where better to do this than when they are at their most vulnerable. The sex scene I wrote that I like best is one where the woman calls out her partner’s name, and he exults to himself, “I’ve still got it!” That defined them and their relationship.

The problem I have with sex scenes is that, in the end, there are only so many different ways of writing them and after a while they begin to seem ho-hum. Finding the objective helps make the scene unique, as does sense description not related to the act. Can they smell the garbage outside the motel window? Is the traffic only a faint hum from her penthouse? How does the office desk feel beneath her back? Each of these bits gives the scene a depth it might not otherwise have.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to have a sex scene in my current work. After devolving (or evolving depending on your point of view) from graphic sex in my first novel to none at all in my fourth, I thought I’d run the gamut. But then I realized I have never done a humorous sex scene, so that’s what I’m going to aim for. Not a bad objective.

Your Mother-in-Law, the Sociopath

Anyone who writes crime fiction, especially novels about a serial killer, is familiar with the sociopathic personality. But not all sociopaths are killers. Some psychologists estimate that there are thirty thousand psychopaths who are not serial killers for every one who is. So who are these non-killing psychopaths? Your neighbor, perhaps, or your mother-in-law. Maybe even the psychologists who came up with the sociopathic profile. Possibly even you.

Abused children who were not born with a sociopathic personality usually grow up to lead normal lives. Sociopaths who were not abused usually grow up to lead normal lives or lives that mimic normalcy. Sociopaths sometimes become killers because of childhood abuse, and sometimes they become killers simply because they want to. (The killer in the Dutch version of The Vanishing was a classic sociopath who killed to see what it would feel like.)

Even if you don’t write crime fiction, familiarity with the sociopathic personality can help you create dynamic characters and even interesting dialogue. For example, sociopaths frequently use contradictory and illogical statements such as “I never touched her, and anyway, she wanted it.”

A sociopath has difficulty connecting to others, though people often like them. They are charming, glib, witty, and use captivating body language. Because of their impulsiveness, need for excitement, poor behavior controls, and lack of responsibility, they can be fun companions, but because they lack empathy, conscience, and remorse, they can never truly connect with anyone.

Other characteristics of the sociopath are shallow emotions, egocentricity, lying for no reason, no need to conform to societal standards, the skill to detect and exploit the weaknesses of others. They are also well satisfied with themselves, never looking back with regret or forward with concern.

One characteristic that keeps a sociopath from being a good fiction hero is that in fiction heroes need to change during the course of the novel, and sociopaths have solid personalities that are extremely resistant to outside influences. But, being the manipulative creatures that they are, they can make us believe they have changed.

Sounds to me like an interesting character. With or without the killing.