A few months ago I attended a writers conference where the impressive and charismatic keynote speaker, novelist Christian Moerk, led a workshop on "Building the Writer's Toolbox." He covered such topics as how to create satisfying chapter openings and closings; the importance of layering-in details in act one that you can pick up later in the story; and how to create a "skeleton" in the form of a chronological synopsis of your novel. But the tidbit I found most interesting was Moerk's suggestion that we must include periodic "reveals" in our stories-- at least one every five or six pages or so; and that it's the revelations that will keep the reader engaged and turning the pages. In a recent interview he talked about doing just that when working on his latest novel Darling Jim: "I wanted to attempt a multi-layered story in which each scene becomes part of a daisy chain; the more you pull on it, the more will be revealed."
Before that writers' conference I hadn't thought much about revelations in fiction, or seen much mention of them in any of the books and articles I'd read on craft. But now it seems they're everywhere. They're popping up in almost every book and article on craft I come across these days.
One of the most detailed references is in John Truby's Anatomy of a Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. Truby defines a revelation as "a surprising piece of new information" that forces a character to "make a decision and move in a new direction." As part of the 22 steps he breaks down the different types of revelations and where they typically occur (or should occur) in a well-told story.
One such reveal is the protagonist's "self-revelation" that comes just after his apparent defeat (some refer to this point in the story as the end of Act III):
Just after the apparent defeat, the hero almost always has another major revelation. If he doesn't, the apparent defeat is real, and the story is over. So at this point, the hero gets a new piece of information that shows him that victory is still possible. Now he decides to get back into the game and resume his quest for the goal…. The story turns in a new direction.
In his book Rewrite, Paul Chitlik describes this revelation as coming just before the beginning of his last, biggest battle, the final struggle to the summit: when your hero "sees something, hears something, or even remembers something that reanimates him and gives him the will to continue."
As part of Truby's 22 story steps all the major story revelations are covered: the protagonist's first revelation and decision near the end of the beginning; added revelations in the middle to keep the plot from stalling; the second major revelation after the hero's apparent defeat; an important audience reveal (information that the reader receives before the hero learns it); a third and powerful revelation for the hero when he learns new information about a supposed ally; the all-important self-revelation at the story's crisis point; and if you're looking to "express your character's change with more complexity and emotional impact than the standard method allows, he offers the advanced technique of the "double reversal". A reversal is "a reveal in which the audience's understanding of everything in the story is turned on its head."
For each of these different reveals, Truby goes into detail about why it's important, how to write it well, and how to make the revelation meaningful. I can't recommend this book enough.
Christian Moerk talks about reveals as being a reward for the reader, that you should present the reader with just enough information to keep him going until the next reveal a few pages down the road. His advice when writing is to start at the end (of the reveal) and work backwards so you can lay out your "clues" along the way.
Donald Maass, in his Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook, describes these revelations in character as "high moments" in the story -- moments that make him "suck in his breath, lower the book for a second, and admire what the author has just made happen." These moments (or story events) don't need to be huge to have an impact. Examples of character revelations might be an unexpected act of forgiveness, a small but surprising act of self-sacrifice, or a simple, perhaps sudden realization by one character that things aren't quite the way he thought they were (as in the example in the exercise below).
John Truby writes that "the more revelations you have, the richer and more complex the plot will be." And here's a surprising assessment: Truby says that revelations are usually missing in average (as opposed to great) stories. What?? Really??? Well…we're not going to allow "revelations" to be missing from our stories, are we?
Part I:
The following excerpt is from Writing Fiction Step by Step by Josip Novakovich, novelist, short story writer, and professor of English at Penn State University. This book, and his popular Fiction Writers Workshop, are two of my all-time favorite books on the craft of fiction. I'll talk more about his books in a later post, but for now I'll just say that if you love a good writing exercise, especially one you can hone to your current work-in-progress, and one that'll help make your scenes sing out loud, you've got to get your hands on a copy of Writing Fiction Step by Step!
Read this excerpt from Novakovich's story "Hats and Veils" and pay attention to how the scene flows forward and backward in time, ending with a revelation. Novakovich: "Chronologically, we follow father and daughter on the bus, on a short ride. We deviate into the past reveries a little to prepare us for the present, which is the mainstream of the scene:
They climbed onto the bus together. There were several elderly people; a dozen high-school students; a leathery adolescent with green hair and a ring piercing his lip; and two young women, with black lipstick, in mink coats and torn fishnet stockings….
"Could we go sailing?" Sonya asked in German, looking at the bouncing sailboats among the choppy waves of the lake. He did not answer because he was busy with his reveries.
He remembered how when Sonya was thirteen months old, she had loved fish. Whenever she saw a drawing of a fish, she'd silently open and close her mouth. When he showed her a red starfish picture -- and said, "Starfish!" -- her finger tried to trace the mouth, and not finding it, got confused, stopped on the picture of a submarine rock. She put her tiny forefinger back in her fist, and stared at Vadim openmouthed, as though confronted with the concept of a lie for the first time. Later, on a moonless night with a breeze murmuring through pines, when he pointed to the sky and said "Stars!" she opened and closed her mouth happily, and turned to him to show him how well she was doing. She's learned to accept all kinds of fishes, in their variety, even those that did not have mouths and that swam in the sky at night.
"Sag mal," Sonya began again. Tell me…
"Mozda kasnije," he said in Bosnian. "Maybe later, after I teach you how to ski. Would you like that?"
"Hush!" Sonya put her forefinger on her lips, and said in English, while blushing, "Somebody might hear you!"
As he stared at her red face uncomprehendingly, she whispered in Bosnian, apparently thinking that he was not capable of understanding other languages. "Keep quiet, people will hear you."
"So? That's what speech is for!" he said.
She turned her head away and bit her lips.
So that's it. She's ashamed of me. She's afraid of being identified as Bosnian. I'm a Bosnian peasant, and she's a Swiss lady. My child, my best friend, is a foreigner to me.
Novakovich again: "The reveries, with their images of stars and starfish, enhance the man's nostalgia and dreaminess, out of which he is jolted in the conversation with Sonya, when he realizes that she, though he has and is going to sacrifice a lot for her, is actually ashamed of him, and ashamed to be a foreigner."
The following is an exercise not only in revelation, but in the "elements of scene" as well. Novakovich says:
When you read novels, watch for scenes that work particularly well. Analyze them. What do you like in them? Can you do something similar? If it's all right in tennis to imitate a good stroke, why not in writing? You will still end up doing it your own way.
He invites you to steal his scene above and do something similar with your own story. Using his scene as a general guide, write your own scene, preferably one using two of your own characters --a scene you might use in your current novel or work-in-progress. As an exercise in structuring a scene and negotiating flashbacks, try doing something similar to Novakovich's scene, keeping it to about 500 words or less:
Begin by briefly describing the setting. What does your POV character notice? If he's been there before, what's different this time? The other character wants something and a dialogue begins. During the conversation your main character drifts off into a brief memory that will inform the present action. Bring your character back to the present, being careful to anchor the reader in place and time as you move from present action to memory and back again. Continue the conversation, bringing it to a close with the main character receiving some kind of meaningful revelation. (500 words or less)
Part II:
"Good writers know that revelations are the key to plot. That's why it's so important that you take the time to separate the reveals from the rest of the plot and look at them as one unit. Tracking the "revelations sequence" is one of the most valuable of all storytelling techniques." John Truby, in Anatomy of Story: 22 steps to becoming a master storyteller (read the book to learn much, much more!)
Make a list of all the revelations in your story in the order they're revealed to the protagonist. Beside each reveal, note the effect that the new information has on the POV character. How does the revelation change his desire? How does it impact his course of action? How does it change everything that follows?
~
Writing Fiction Step by Step, by Josip Novakovich
Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, by John Truby
Christian Moerk, Keynote speaker, 2009 Central Coast Writers' Conference
~
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for sharing your thoughts...