An Itty Bitty Ditty

I sat down to rescue my hero from one of the many perils that have beset him, and this is what showed up on the page: 

 

I used to do it when I was young,
Though I don’t do it any more.
I did it in my room all alone
At night after I locked my door.

I could have done it in the day,
But I didn’t want anyone to see
That what I was doing
Was touching something deep inside of me.

The passion is gone with the years,
So now I can let the secret out.
I used to write poetry.
What did you think I was talking about?

 

I don’t know where that came from, or why, but there it is. Maybe all this writing is stirring up my brain. I just hope what shows up tonight is the next scene in my WIP. My poor hero is getting tired of waiting around for me to rescue him.

Five against one hero. Whap. The hero is down. The end.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I needed to fill a hole in my work-in-progress. As it stands now, everyone my hero knows disappears, leaving him alone for too many pages. I have a hard time writing scenes that come alive with only a single character; I need another character contributing to the conflict or providing a sounding board for the hero. The hero will have a cat for a while, which doesn’t really help. The cat is an ally (perhaps) and is not a source of conflict. Besides, writing dialogue for a cat is difficult unless he is a talking cat, and the story is silly enough without that.

Suzanne Francis, author of Heart of Hythea, commented that she found writing scenes with lots of characters even more difficult than writing for one or two. I have to agree. As difficult as it is to make a scene with a single character come alive, having a whole cast of characters interacting is worse. I picked up a book today about a group of women who banded together to avenge those who had wronged them, but I couldn’t get into it. Too many characters to keep track of and try to identify with.

Perhaps a crowd action scene wouldn’t be that difficult. Short sentences and pithy identifiers might make it seem as if a lot is going on. But the most compelling conflicts are usually between a protagonist and a single antagonist (human or nonhuman). Ever notice how in movies, whenever one hero is pitted against a multitude of bad guys, the bad guys take numbers and stand around waiting to be called? I always thought it was silly, but the reality doesn’t make for much of a story. Five against one. Whap. The hero is down. The end.

Dialogue with two people is easy. You don’t need many speaker attributes because they can take turns conversing. And you know who is in conflict. With several people, you have a litany of he said/she saids, dispersed conflicts, and long drawn out conversations. In real life, people talk over each other, which can’t be easily portrayed in a book. (Or even in a movie - in the nineteen seventies they tried for realism in dialogue with two people talking at the same time, and it was very confusing. And annoying.)

I read a bit of advice once to the effect that if you have several people in a restaurant scene, for example, have all but two characters go to the restroom, tablehop or whatever to get them out of the way. That way you can have both: a big group and a focused discussion.

Later in my work, I will have to deal with the problem of too many people in a scene, but for now I have the opposite problem.

So. A talking cat is out. But what about talking sheep?

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ, Moves on

A couple of days ago I used a tongue-in-cheek version of the above title, and now  people are coming to my blog in search of the quote. So here it is, along with several other well-known quatrains from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam:

The Moving Finger writes, and having writ,

Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit

     Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,

Nor all your tears wash out a Word of it.

  

Here with a little bread beneath the Bough,

A Flask of Wine, A Book of Verse—and Thou

     Beside me singing in the Wilderness—

Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

  

Into this Universe and Why not knowing

Nor whence, like Water, willy-nilly flowing;

     And out of it, as wind along the Waste,

I know not whither, willy-nilly flowing.

  

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit

Of This and That endeavor and dispute;

     Better be jocund with the fruitful Grape

Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

  

Heaven but the Vision of fulfilled Desire,

And Hell the Shadow from a Soul on fire,

     Cast in the Darkness into which ourselves,

So late emerged from shall so soon expire.

  

Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire

To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things Entire,

     Would not we shatter it to bits—and then

Re-mold it nearer to the Heart’s Desire!

  

Oh, Thou, who Men of baser Earth didst make,

And ev’n with Paradise devise the Snake:

     For all the Sin the Face of Wretched Man

Is black with—Man’s forgiveness give—and take!