As promised, here are several bonus writing tips, gleaned from the books I’ve reviewed in the past few weeks, plus one extra tip that I’ve learned through blogging. Interested in more tips? Read part one here. As always, if you find this useful, I’d love to hear about it! Please share with your writing friends, too.
Characterization:
from Auntie Poldi and the Vineyards of Etna, by Mario Giordano
Be big. Be outrageous. Be believable.
Giordano has created Poldi as a larger-than-life, overwhelming character. In some books, she would be too much and the readers would raise eyebrows in skepticism. But he gets away with it because the rest of the book is so outrageous, too. Death as a character, for example, is an outlandish idea. (It’s a stroke of genius, in my opinion, to make him such a lackluster, drooping employee of a bloated government bureaucracy. Ironic, and it fits with the rest of the story.)
But there’s a second reason: both the nephew/narrator and Poldi are unreliable characters. The nephew’s never certain whether Poldi’s telling the entire truth, especially as she’s obviously prone to exaggerating her importance and relationships with celebrities. (See her story about Cher.) But we’re also never quite certain whether this nephew is reliable, too. Is he putting her stories through a mincer and mixing it with “the sausage meat of his “pubescent fantasies”? Possibly.
The reason we can believe the story, as outrageous as it is, is partially because of the unreliable narrators. We know these are characters who exaggerate. We know they aren’t always telling us everything. And we accept their tales just like we accept the wacky stories our crazy old relatives regaled us with every family reunion. (Or am I the only one?)
Give secondary characters a chance to grow.
(from Smoke and Ashes by Abir Mukherjee)
All too often, the protagonist does all the growing. Sometimes the antagonist gets her/his own character arc. But others are static. It’s as if they only exist in relation to the protagonist or antagonist.
That’s too bad, because secondary characters need their own character arc, too. (By “secondary”, I mean major characters who aren’t the focus of the story.) It’s a chance to add layers of conflict and depth to the story.
Mukherjee does this with Surrender-Not. He’s a fully developed character with his own story arc. He’s coming to a point where he’ll have to choose between his family (and by extension, his country) and his job (which involves serving the country). He’s no longer an idealist who believes his country needs detectives. It’s great to see him growing into his abilities.
Plotting
(from The Controller, by Matt Brolly)
Share the necessary backstory only when the reader needs it.
You don’t have to share everything that’s happened in the past, prior to the novel, only things that are relevant. (Which, honestly, in my experience as a writer and reader, is less information than writers think. Far, far less.)
In The Controller, there’s backstory: Daniel’s abduction, Lynch’s investigation, his divorce, and the FBI’s refusal to let him investigate. But we receive the necessary information at strategic points throughout the narrative, rather than all in one big wad somewhere at the beginning. We learn what we need to, when we need to. It’s difficult to do this without confusing the reader. My inner writer applauds Brolly for how he handles this.
There’s even a delightful hint that Lynch has been through a terrible traumatic experience sometime in the past involving captivity, a killer, and a SWAT team rescue. (Okay, delightful‘s a stretch. It really sounds horrible!) But it intrigued me, and though I didn’t get answers in this book, I hope to get them sometime in the future.
If there’s a sequel, set it up!
The last chapter of The Controller–no spoilers, I promise!–hints at more books to come. Consider it a bit like MCU’s end scenes, whetting our appetite for the next big movie. Only here, it’s the next big book, and I didn’t have to sit through all the movie credits to get it! Nice.
Random writing tip:
This is mostly for writers who want to pitch their novels. Everyone hates writing query letters, right? Boiling down thousands of words into a few sentences feels harder than writing the actual dad-gum book. I’ve struggled with even describing my work to other people.
Random Person: So, Meredith, you’re a writer! Cool. What’s your book about?
Me: (Opens mouth. Silence comes out.)
I’ve written plot summaries of most of the books I’ve reviewed. Each one reads more like a blurb than a synopsis. I’ve noticed that it’s helped me home in on the relevant plot points, the main characters, and main conflict. It’s forced me to think about how I can describe these books so other people, not just me, want to read them. In other words, it’s an elevator pitch!
Doing this for other people’s books is helping me to think about these points for my own books. Give it a try and see if it helps you!
What did you learn this month? Share in the comments!
Talk to me! What do you think?