Guest Post: Maria Rainier on Reading Poetry to Improve Your Fiction

In my first year of college, my idea of a poem was a Mother Goose rhyme.

In my second year of college, I studied abroad in Italy under the tutelage of modern (dead) poet Ezra Pound’s daughter. I grew so frustrated with Pound’s style that I could often be found talking into his huge volume of poems, The Cantos, in the library. No, Ez, I don’t care about or even know that random guy you met on a train to Venice, and why are you talking to me like I should? and Sorry, Ez, could you write in English? Or, maybe Italian or Spanish? I don’t know seventeen dead languages like you do.

In my third year of college, I took only fiction and creative nonfiction classes.

In my fourth year of college, I resignedly signed up for all 5 poetry classes my Creative Writing major called for that I’d skirted for three years. I learned more in that year about writing than I had in all of my previous education.

Poets Don't Waste Words

Well, the great ones don’t. Even back in the days of Alfred, Lord Tennyson and others known for their lengthy works, poets still made their words count. This is doubly true today; modern poetry like modern writing in general must appease the stunted attention spans of recent generations. Certainly, writers like Gregory Maguire with enormous vocabularies and wandering imaginations write successfully at length—even if some might call it “purple prose”—but you can be sure that poetry helped them, too.

Poets don’t have whole books to express a point (unless his name is Ezra Pound). They must choose just the right word. You will find few mundane terms like “got,” “good,” and “sleepy” in accomplished poetry. Take, for example, an excerpt from one of my favorite poems, “Dulce et Decorum Est” by Wilfred Owens.

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

Can you think of a word more vile, horrifying, and bone-chilling than cancer? The word stands out from this stanza, chocked full of Owens’ memories from WWI.

Poets are Painters

They paint with words. Not only are the words themselves the most evocative they can muster from their vocabularies, they paint pictures of them through uncommon turns of phrase, similes, and metaphors. Take Langston Hughes’ “Suicide’s Note”:

The calm,

Cool face of the river

Asked me for a kiss

You don’t even need to read the title to know what Hughes is talking about. This is the essence of showing, not telling, since poets don’t have time to tell us every minute detail. To this end, a fiction writer who has studied poetry exercises restraint. He or she allows the reader to assume certain things or use his or her own imagination. A good writer cannot be a control freak.

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education and performs research surrounding online degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop. Read more of Maria's work at the Online Degrees site.

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Showing not Telling: Infodumps

At one point or another, you have to explain some aspects of your book. Even if the character knows exactly what’s going on, the reader might not. Put simply, an infodump is a large chunk of necessary information that bores the reader to death. I don’t know about you, but when I come across blocky paragraphs describing the scenery, my eyes tend to skim.
So how do we present crucial information by showing instead of telling?

Dialogue
One of the best ways to present facts is through characters talking to each other. But even this can be botched if the dialogue if nothing more than an infodump with quotations. Let’s compare;

Infodump
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with mercury. Mercury is a silver metal with a high density. It’s a liquid at room temperature, but exists in the solid cinnabar. Cinnabar is a powdery, red mineral that’s extremely poisonous when inhaled. Mercury was once thought to cause longevity. It is toxic and has been known to cause insanity. It was this material that the alchemist chose to work with.

Infodump with Quotations
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with mercury. He turned to his apprentice and explained, “This is mercury. Mercury is a silver metal with a high density. It’s a liquid at room temperature, but exists in the solid cinnabar. Cinnabar is a powdery, red mineral that’s extremely poisonous when inhaled. It is toxic and has been known to cause insanity.”

Face it; the second’s not much better. If you choose to do dialogue, make it a conversation;

Conversation
The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with a silvery liquid. The apprentice craned his neck to see. “What’s that?”
The alchemist grunted and held the jar out for the apprentice’s inspection. “This, boy, is mercury.”
“And, uh, what exactly is it for?”
“Some believe it has the power to make you immortal.”
The apprentice’s eyes widened.
“Of course,” snapped the alchemist. “That’s utter rubbish. Far too many emperors have died because of that supposition. Everlasting life indeed. Mercury will kill you, boy. If it doesn’t drive you insane first.”
The apprentice looked warily as the sloshing metal. “Right. Well then, is there anything else we can use for the recipe…a substitute maybe?”
The alchemist laughed. “Closest thing you’ll get is cinnabar. But that’s got mercury in it anyway. Highly toxic. Take a whiff of that stuff and you’re a goner."

Thoughts
This only works if you’re using first person or third person omniscience POV. A character’s thoughts can be a powerful tool.

Before:
The day was bitterly cold. A crisp wind blew garbage across the street. Everyone was inside, enjoying the warmth of a fire. The entire sky was coated in white snow-clouds and it was only a matter of time before a blizzard hit. Even the queen’s palace was suffering from the icy weather, with servants scraping away at the frost-coated windows so the queen could enjoy looking outside.

After:
I marched down the slushy street, my woolen cloak wrapped tightly against the crisp winter wind. I was the only one outside. Every other sane person was indoors, tucked in a quilt by a blazing fire. But not me, I had a job to do. I groaned inwardly and kicked at a pile of frozen garbage. Blast this weather. I glanced up at the leaden sky blanketed with snow clouds. We’d have a blizzard before the month was out, for sure.
Another gust of wind sent me hurrying down the road again. I passed the queen’s palace and snickered at the poor, frozen guard on duty. The Queen didn’t much care about other people’s discomfort, evident by the army of servants scraping frost off the palace’s two-hundred-and-ten windows. Poor suckers. What was even the point of it? So that the queen could look outside and see the empty street?

Actions
The way characters behave can strengthen both Dialogue and Thoughts, and make a strong support on its own.

The alchemist selected a jar, filled to the brim with a silvery liquid. The apprentice craned his neck to see. [This reveals that the apprentice is curious and new to the alchemy experience] “What’s that?”
The alchemist grunted [Not the friendliest guy] and held the jar out for the apprentice’s inspection. “This, boy, is mercury.”
“And, uh, what exactly is it for?”
“Some believe it has the power to make you immortal.”
The apprentice’s eyes widened. [He’s naïve to believe such a myth]
“Of course,” snapped the alchemist. “That’s utter rubbish. Far too many emperors have died because of that supposition. Everlasting life indeed. Mercury will kill you, boy. If it doesn’t drive you insane first.”
The apprentice looked warily as the sloshing metal. [Now he’s nervous] “Right. Well then, is there anything else we can use for the recipe…a substitute maybe?”
The alchemist laughed. [He’s got a strange sense of humor] “Closest thing you’ll get is cinnabar. But that’s got mercury in it anyway. Highly toxic. Take a whiff of that stuff and you’re a goner.”

The apprentice’s reactions give us a clear definition of who he is without having to say, “The new apprentice didn’t know anything about alchemy and was incredibly gullible.”

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The One Rule to Writing

"There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are."

~W. Somerset Maugham

By now, we’ve probably heard plenty of writing rules. Show don’t tell, start with action, the main character must develop, pace yourself, ect.

And then, of course, there’s everyone’s personal rules. According to George Orwell, the six rules are
1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print,
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do,
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out,
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active,
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent,
6. Break any of these rules sooner than saying anything outright barbarous.

Or maybe you’ll prefer John Rechy’s three rules; Show don’t tell, write about what you know, and always have a sympathetic character for the reader to relate to.

If that’s not enough, there’s always Elmore Leonard’s ten rules, Kurt Vonnegut’s ten, Norman Holland’s three, or Steven Goldsberry’s one hundred and one.

I believe that there’s only one rule: Write.

Sure, learn the craft of writing. Study what makes a reader tick and publishers squeal with joy. By all means, follow writing blogs, google images of random people who resemble your characters, and make playlists for your story. But nothing will ever replace the movement of pen on paper. Less talk, more action.

Now, I know this sounds obvious, but a lot of writers (like me) catch ourselves spending more time worrying that we’re not writing instead of actually doing it.

If your butt isn’t in the chair, you will not write a word.

So, Step 1, pull out a notebook and a pencil. Sit down. Comfortable? Good, because you’re not allowed leave. Chain your ankle to the desk if you have to.
Now….write.

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Made to Stick for Writers: Emotional

We've found our core message, we've hooked the reader, dragged them in with a few concrete details, and kept the tone with credibility. Now one of the most important questions; How do we make them care?
Why should the reader care about the main character? Sure they're going through difficulties, but so is everyone else in the world.
We think we can present a huge, insurmountable tragedy and the reader will care. But people don't care about problems, they care about other people. It's so much easier to feel for someone instead of something.
So before you dish out the blows, introduce your character.

By introducing, I don't mean a flat-out description. So she has brown hair and brown eyes, huh? So what?
To get someone to care about the character, show what the character cares about. What are their personal goals? What keeps them awake at night?
If you plan on killing a character right off the bat, first spend a little time humanizing them. It will be so much more painful if a character you've grown to love dies, rather than a character you don't even know.

This is where Showing Not Telling comes in. Show whatever it is they care about.
If it's another character they care about, show them becoming more gentle, more gruff, or more shy around that character (depending on their personality).
If it's revenge or justice, something abstract, show them taking steps to reach that.
If it's something material, show why they want it so bad and what they're willing to do to get it.
And if all they're trying to accomplish is surviving from day to day, then you should probably throw another motive in the mix.

Your main character's desires should drive the book, rather than plot goals.

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional (You are here)
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Credible

For a fiction writer, trying to make your book believable can sound stupid. Of course fantasy books aren’t credible. Who’s going to believe that there’s a magical school called Hogwarts, or that people fly on broomsticks, and people talk to snakes?
Well, my sister did. When she was little, she waited patiently by the mailbox for her Hogwarts acceptance letter and asked Santa Claus for a “Harry Potter” broomstick.
But most readers aren’t five-years-olds who will soak up every tooth-fairy lie you tell them.

To write a credible book, you don’t have to utterly convince the readers that the story is true. You just have to make it believable enough that they will pause and remember that, “Oh yeah, these characters don’t exist.”

The book has to make sense. I cannot stress that point enough. You have to fill in plot holes and, above all, your character needs to act realistically. They should weep for the death of loved ones, they should have weaknesses and fears, and they shouldn’t escape their problems totally unscathed.

Use convincing details to add credibility. If I can visualize it, I can believe it. (You’ll note that this ties in with Concrete.)

If you lose your credibility, you can’t get it back. The minute the reader spots a mistake like, “Hang on…wasn’t that character severely injured the day before?” or “How did the poor village boy suddenly learn to fight?” or “I thought she left her sweater at home, how is she wearing it now?” the believability of the book goes down the drain.

For more on this subject, see Believable Part 1 and Believable Part 2

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible (You are here)
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Concrete

When I was first learning French, I would pore over my notes, struggling to hit it home that “chien” meant “dog” and “pomme” meant “apple.” But it never seemed to stick. It was hard to see one word as a literal translation of another.
Then one day my teacher shows up lugging a bag of pretend food. She held up the plastic apple and declared “pomme.”
Everything clicked. “Pomme” was the firm fruit whose taste, texture, and smell were familiar to me. She gave me something visual. She gave me a concrete definition.

That’s what a concrete story does; it latches onto the reader’s memories and triggers the five senses. The reader feels like they’re watching alongside the characters.

Studies of the human memory show that we’re better at remembering concrete nouns versus abstract ones. It’s easier to remember something you can visualize (grapefruit, train) rather than something abstract (equality, hope).

Writers constantly present the abstracted form of the noun “Pain”. To say “he cried in pain” is not enough. Don’t tell me that he’s in pain, show me.
Lois Lowry provides an excellent example in her book The Giver as she describes a broken leg;

Then, the first wave of pain. He gasped. It was as if a hatchet lay lodged in his leg, slicing through each nerve with a hot blade. In his agony he perceived the word “fire” and felt flames licking at the torn bone and flesh. He tried to move, and could not…

The description uses several concrete nouns; “hatchet”, “hot blade”, “fire”, “torn bone and flesh”. The agony feels almost real, as if we too are experiencing it.

To make your story concrete, use concrete details. Through the five senses, describe what is happening to your character. What do they see, smell, hear, taste, and feel?
Don’t tell me the house was old. Show me the bald patches of roof tile, the door with a zigzag crack running down the middle, the sooty window panes broken into jagged teeth, the stench of mildew, the creak of an old shutter in the wind, the splintered wood, the dusty air you choke down every time you breathe.

Put the reader in the story.

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected
Part 3: Concrete (You are here)
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Made to Stick for Writers: Unexpected

To make something unexpected you must break a pattern. Doing so captures the audience’s attention. “Once upon a time…” is so common that the sentence fails to surprise.

In Patricia Kindl’s book Goose Chase she began with, “The King killed my canary today.”
Already we have several questions: Why did the king kill her canary? What does he have against birds or the narrator? Who is this king? How did he kill it? Was it an accident?

First of all, it’s surprising. It’s not the usual way for a fairytale to begin. Secondly, it’s interesting. We realize that we’re missing a lot of vital information and so we want to keep reading to find answers.

To be unexpected you must grab the audience’s interest and, more importantly, hold it.

Surprise
We become surprised because what we expect to happen doesn’t. In other words, our “guessing machines” fail us.
If that’s the case, then it should be easy to create a “hook” at the beginning of our stories, right? All we should need to do is write a surprising sentence. Wrong.

While our hooks need to be somewhat surprising, it can be difficult to craft one that avoids planting a red herring.
For example, if the first sentence was “Sitting in the shade of the tree early that morning, I could never have imagined that by sundown my whole family would be dead.”
What! We inwardly gasp. How did the whole family die?
We’d be curious to discover the cause and to read the, no doubt, thrilling adventure that led to their demise.

But what if the book suddenly begins describing every aspect of the narrator’s staircase. She then explains to us that her “whole family” consists of an old greyhound named Maddock who trips on said staircase and dies. Thus, by sundown, the narrator’s “whole family” is dead. It’s only after that episode that we get to the actual story, which is much less thrilling than we imagined.

You’d probably feel tricked and frustrated. The hook sentence turned out to be a red herring that did nothing but attempt to lure you into a dull story.

To write a successful hook it must both surprise and reflect the main idea, or the core, of the story. The stupid dog dying was NOT the story’s main idea and so it failed. Miserably.

Interest

Now that we’ve got the reader’s attention, how do we keep it?
Let’s talk Velcro; Velcro connects because one side is made of hooks and the other is made of loops. The hooks snag the loops and Voila! It sticks together.

We have the “hooks’, so to speak. We have the answers to the reader’s questions. But before we can answer their questions, we have to make them want the answer. We have to make them realize that they’re missing crucial information.

To do so, ask yourself, “What questions do I want my audience to ask?”

Once we know the questions ourselves, we can gently point out what the reader doesn't know by creating mystery.

“The man was killed by the king because he distributed treasonous flyers” leaves very little to become curious about.
By withholding information we can create mystery.
Instead, we could show the man being arrested by the king’s guard. We could show the guard proclaiming that, as a traitor, he will be tried.
Now we’ve got the reader asking questions; What did the man do that was so treasonous? What will happen at his trial? Will he end up dying?

Intro
Part 1: Simple
Part 2: Unexpected (You are here)
Part 3: Concrete
Part 4: Credible
Part 5: Emotional
Part 6: Story
Part 7: Epilogue

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Writing a Rough Draft: The Easy Way

When I start writing a novel, I get a picture in my head of the hefty two-hundred page book it will become. So I'm disappointed when the rough draft ends up around twenty pages. I add scenes just to lengthen it and bog it down with unnecessary sentences.

Well, I think I've got the solution.

Write your rough draft as if you're writing a short story.
I recently wrote a short story and it ended up about the same length as most of my rough drafts. Sure, the pacing is a little fast, but the point is, a short story gets to the point and doesn't have uncertain pauses. If I wanted, I could easily make it longer.

I don't know if you've ever read The Arabian Nights. While the stories could certainly be expounded, they are told in concise language;

"The grand vizier conducted Scheherazade to the palace and left her alone with Sultan, who bade her raise her veil and was amazed at her beauty."

This single sentence could be lengthened into several paragraphs;

"Scheherazade didn't speak; merely followed the grand vizier submissively. He glanced at her sideways. She didn't look like the rest. She wasn't sobbing uncontrollably, didn't claws at his robes and beg him for release. She had a thoughtful step and, while her hands trembled slightly, she did not seem afraid. The vizier shook his head. She was either incredibly brave or incredibly dim-witted."

See? Already a whole paragraph and we haven't even finished coloring in the sentence. We could tell how the vizier bowed once and scuttled out. We could add dialogue. We could write in the sharp intake of breath as Scheherazade raises her veil.

So, if you're having trouble fleshing out a story, write it so that you're telling instead of showing.
Write it as a short story.

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Writing Scene Transitions

In answer to Marian's question, I decided to do an entire post. Hope it helps.

When jumping from scene to scene, it can end up choppy and confusing. This can be especially difficult for those who write out of chronological order (like me.)
So how do we smoothly stitch together all the changes in tone/setting?

Chapters
Chapters are handy when there's a major change in scenery. The end of a chapter usually signifies the end of a scene and folds up the tone of the previous chapter. But what if the jump between scenes is too short?

Telling Link
However much you want the dramatic pause at the end of the scene, sometimes the transition could be a simple sentence showing passage of time.
"He watched her disappear into the rain" can be a dramatic scene ending. But what if the next scene abruptly begins with, "'I don't understand women,' he said glumly, staring into his lukewarm coffee"? The solution is a small passage telling the events that led up to that moment. Example;

He watched her disappear into the rain, unable to move. Then, with a sigh that stuck to the wet cement, he walked back inside and climbed into bed, his damp clothes still on. But he did not sleep. When the gray morning light sifted through his curtains, he fell out of bed, numbly shuffling to his small kitchen.
"I don't understand women," he told his lukewarm coffee glumly...

The transition can be used to not only meld the two places together, but to provide extra information.

Traveling Transitions
One of the more difficult transitions to write is a change in setting. They need to get from A to B, but the plane ride is mediocre.
You have two options; quickly explain the length of the journey ("Two peanut packages and a Leo Tolstoy novel later, they arrived...") or shake things up a bit ("The man to her right smiled cheerfully at her. Too cheerfully. Alice clutched her handbag firmly. He'd get a shot of pepper spray if he so much as moved. But Alice didn't see him slip the pill into her water, or notice him nod to the silver-haired woman across the aisle...")

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Showing Not Telling: Action

Sometimes we all get so caught up in the showing not telling rule that we become obsessed with it and reject anything that doesn't hold true.
There are exceptions. Action scenes are one of them.

Several aspiring writers I've talked to all claim they're terrible at writing an interesting action scene. When I ask why, most shrug and say that they just don't "have the knack for it."
What I've discovered is that most fear telling too much.

When writing an action scene, feel free to tell. It's dastardly difficult to show all the time; impossible in some cases.
Let's examine an action scene;

Max yelped. The bullet had hit him. He stumbled. He clutched his shoulder and ran. More shots echoed from behind. One narrowly missed his heel and sent sparks flying from the concrete. Max dove to the side and under an overturned car. He fumbled with his own gun and tried to take of the safety with one hand. Another shot slammed into the vehicle above his head. Max ducked.

Now let's try to add some showing to the scene;

Max yelped as hot lead seared his flesh. He stumbled, using the hand not clutching his shoulder to stop his fall. More shots echoed from behind, forcing him into a run. Sparks flew up from the concrete as a bullet narrowly missed his heel. Max dove to the side and under an overturned car. His free hand fumbled to take his own gun off safety. Max ducked as another shot slammed into the vehicle.

If you'll notice, not every sentence is showing. But there's enough sprinkling of it to make it interesting while maintaining the pace.

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Showing Not Telling: Setting

The setting of your story is important. It's the time and the place, the stage for your characters.

But it's important to give a sense of setting without bogging the reader down with details.

When I'm reading, I tend to skim through the descriptions about the "dew-kissed glades, the pale coin of a sun rising like a burning emblem against the azure sky, tinged with the pink of a new day..." yada yada yada.

One way to incorporate the setting into the story is through dialogue.
Quoting from my September post;

Dialogue can also tell the reader about the scenery. For example;


"...five steps, six steps. Six steps long."
"What is?"
"This cell."
"Quit splashing around in the water and sit down."
"Sit down where? Everywhere is wet."
"Well standing by that barred window won't help your health much either."

We can already see that a) they're in a cell, b)it's wet, c) it's small, and d) it has a barred window.
A little more interesting than

The room was wet and cold. It had a barred window. It was small.

But the main thing a writer wants it to set up the scene with as few words as possible, without it sounding like a travel guide. This is usually accomplished by having the characters thoughts and actions reflect his surroundings.

Travel guide version;

The area is prone to sunshine, though for the last hundred years or so, the people of Pent have experienced cold and snowy weather.
To the west of the small village is a vast wood. This wood is the primary source of food for the villagers, but they must be cautious of the wolves that live there.
The area is flat, with few hills. This provides a wide view across the Pent Plains.

Now let's try incorporating it into the story;

Jace pulled his hood around his ears. Folks said that a hundred years ago snow had never chilled these expansive plains. It was hard to believe with the cold biting at him so fiercely.
He trudged away from the village of Pent toward the woods, the only place to find food these days.
A howl erupted from the trees. Jace gripped his knife. The wolves wouldn't get him unarmed. Not this time.

Which one do you prefer?

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Showing Not Telling

One of the 'rules' of writing is to show not tell.
What's the difference between showing and telling?

Telling is when you, the writer, come out and say it.

She was shy.
She was afraid of snakes.
Her hair was brown.

Showing is when through the character's actions, thoughts, and words the reader learns these things.

She blushed and tucked a strand of brown hair behind one ear.
"I'm...scared of snakes," she whispered quietly, nervously scraping her foot against the floor.

Some more examples;

Telling:

Marie hated Daniel.
Marie cried when she got upset.
Marie had blue eyes.

Showing:

Marie ripped herself from Daniel's grasp.
"Don't touch me," she hissed, her blue eyes brimming with angry tears.

Showing is usually more vivid and appealing than Telling.

But Telling has its place too, something people tend to ignore.

You can say "Five months had passed," rather than showing in detail what happened every day during those months.

Telling is also useful when writing a action scene. Some writers shy away from writing fight scenes, because they bog themselves down by worrying about showing.
Most action is done quickly. Simply saying, "Jared slammed his fist into Ben's face," will suffice.
For fast paced scenes, don't worry about showing us the fight. Just get on with it already.

But that's another post.

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Showing Not Telling: Characterization

There are two ways to reveal a character and establish their personality; Directly and Indirectly. By far the most interesting, engaging way is Indirectly.

WAYS TO INDIRECTLY INTRODUCE A CHARACTER:

1. What the character says 
(“I don’t care much for fighting,” he said, backing away.)   
We can tell they dislike fighting.

2.The character’s physical appearance 
(He wiped his calloused hands on his worn burlap jacket.)
His hands tell us he lives a rough, poor life, which is also supported by the worn jacket.
 
3.Their feelings/thoughts 
(I wish summer would come back. This blasted cold freezes my old bones, he thought.)
Old and hates the cold (What do you know, it rhymes!)

4.What other characters think/say about the character 
(“So serious for someone so young,” she laughed.)
The character is young and serious.

5.How the character acts/reacts 
(Without another thought, he dove into the fray, snarling and biting.) 
Impulsive and reckless

DIRECTLY INTRODUCING A CHARACTER:

1.The author directly comments on the character   

(The man was quiet and thoughtful, never seeking a fight.)

Um...he's quiet, thoughtful, and hates fighting. (Obvious...and kind of dull.)

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