That All-Important Relationship

Back in the day (ahem), editors edited.  They guided writers, taught them about language and grammar, illuminated narrative structure for them.  The best and wisest understood that the novel was the author’s not theirs and never tried to impose their suggestions for changes on the writing.  They were the pair of eyes a writer sorely needed to gain objectivity about what they’d written.  Those eyes needed a sharp but compassionate intelligence behind them, with a broad canvas of experience and knowledge.  Such editors still exist, but more and more, the most recent generation of editors do very little actual editing, from what I’ve heard from other writers and from editors themselves in published interviews.  The newest incarnation of the old-fashioned editor is the freelance editor.

Magazine editors are a different creature entirely.  The basics are the same, but the format is shorter, and the turnaround time faster.  A really good editor responds with specifics of what he/she needs; and while working with a writer on a piece, makes specific suggestions, focusing in on the parts that need work and those that please the editor.  I’ve learned a lot from good editors.  I really enjoy working with them.  The best respect my writing, my efforts, my time and intelligence, as I respect them.  They are not adversaries but allies in the process of publication. 

How I wish every editor out there were good!  But there is a range, as in any business, of intelligence, competence and ability to communicate to writers what they need from them.  There is a range of writers of intelligence and competence, too, but I want to focus on the editor here because more often than not, the focus is on the writer: how a writer needs to work with an editor. 

What to do when you encounter a less than stellar editor?  The first thing I ask myself is: how badly do I want this gig?  Sometimes, publication in the magazine is worth the aggravation of working with a less than stellar editor, depending on which magazine.  Sometimes, not.  The second thing: How much will I be paid?  The money better be good.  If not, I would respectfully take my leave.  Working with a difficult editor takes patience, clarity of your communication, and fearless but respectful questioning.  Beyond a certain point, vague feedback, changes without substantiation regarding the editor’s thinking specific to a sentence or paragraph, or lack of clarity in communication can frustrate me beyond words, especially when the editor becomes frustrated with me because I’m not getting what he/she has said.  But I’ve never walked out on a commitment.  I do the best I can and chalk it up to my continuing education.  Sometimes it’s a genuine relief if the editor kills the piece.

Most editors know what they’re doing, what they want and are able to communicate it well.  In the all-important working relationship between editor and writer, the editor has a responsibility to the writer as well as vice versa.  We just don’t hear about it as much as what the writer’s responsibility is toward the editor.  Both must want to forge the best possible writing between them…..

To Outline or Not to Outline?

An existential question, no, but a question that pops up in writer interviews regarding the creative process all the time.  Is outlining important?  Not to me.  However, it could be important to a writer who needs that structure before beginning to write.  So…what is important is that a writer find what works for him/her and follow it.  The creative process tends to be unique to the individual despite similarities.  Some writers need a detailed outline before they write, others prefer to discover the story as they write.  I’m somewhere in between.

I need to know what I am writing to, i.e. the resolution of the main character’s goal or problem or desire which usually comes to me with the character.  An issue I discovered while studying screenwriting is to have enough conflict, to create enough obstacles, including a worthy adversary, for the main character to face and overcome.  I learned from writing screenplays that it’s easy to come up with an idea or character, but then what?  Ideas can go nowhere after the first act.  So, I have questions that I ask myself:

• What does the character want?
• What will he/she do to get it?
• What are the obstacles/conflicts in his/her way?
• How does he/she overcome them?
• Does the character get what he/she wants?

Answering these questions is my way of outlining a story, novel or screenplay.  Nothing is written in stone and the action is sketchy.  Ideas flood in as I work at this stage.  I want to know if the original idea/character is viable or not, and the answer usually comes with the answer to the obstacles/conflicts question.  The bulk of any story is the middle where the main character works toward his/her goal or desire.  The character needs obstacles, the story needs conflict, in order to sustain dramatic tension and movement.  If there are none, there is no story.  I don’t know how many times I’ve had a terrific beginning and an ending but no middle.

Nothing is written in stone at this stage.  I want to get to know the characters and discover the story as I write.  So I leave the doors and windows open to all possibilities.  This keeps the process fresh for me, but presents a real danger, i.e. the possibility of writing off in a wrong direction.  However, I tend to learn from detours, too.

When I began Perceval, the first book in the series, I thought I was writing only one novel, not a series, so that novel is a self-contained story.  As the idea for the series evolved, I realized that I wanted each novel to be self-contained but also another step toward Evan’s ultimate goal — one long story broken into five novels.  I had no idea what Evan’s ultimate goal was, however.  Instead, I focused on the goal of each novel.  At this point, Perceval (book 1) is done; I have the first draft of Perceval’s Shadow on paper; I’ve answered my questions for novel 3, Perceval in Love, and finished about half of the first draft; novel 4, Perceval’s Game, is still in the preliminary note-writing stage when I write down ideas about action and characters before sitting down to answer the questions; and Perceval’s Choice, the last novel, is but a shadow of a story right now, although I know what the climactic scene is — I’ve seen it play out in my mind like watching a movie.  That scene is the climax to both the last novel and the entire series.  When it came to me, I was stunned because I’d done nothing to encourage or force it to appear, and it really does end both the last novel and the series in a satisfyingly inevitable way.  The imagination is a powerful force.

Now I know enough to know what I am writing toward on this journey of exploration and discovery in Evan’s world.

For Crying Out Loud

After writing last week about music that makes me cry, I spent the last week thinking about crying, which led to characters crying, which led to novels that have made me cry, which led me back to quality art and how emotions must be a part of the criteria for quality.  But how?

My first thought involved a recent horror movie much in the same vein as The Blair Witch Project, i.e. made on a shoestring budget and now raking in the big bucks because it’s scaring the bejeezus out of audiences.  I’m not a big horror movie fan.  I don’t enjoy being frightened.  It’s not entertaining to me.  But I love suspense, especially psychological suspense.  Much as I hate to admit it, horror and suspense movies are closely related.  They’re both scary, but in different ways.  One uses external things to frighten characters and the viewers, the other uses internal things.  In the former, the viewer really doesn’t have to invest emotionally or intellectually in the characters; just as the external things or forces affect the characters, so do they affect the viewer.  But in the latter, the story demands that investment.  Character motivation and behavior create the suspense.  For example, I watched an episode of the excellent Criminal Minds last night in which one character, a young man, fears that he’s descending into homicidal psychosis.  He’s at the age when serial killers are thought to begin acting out their early fantasies.  He’s also an extremely intelligent teen who seeks out the genius PhD on the BAU team for help.  Meanwhile, the BAU team works a serial killer case that mirrors the teen’s worst fears about himself.  What will the teen do?  Is he actually the serial killer?  This plotline created the most intense suspense for me, even more than the serial killer case.  The ending was a brilliant use of editing and paying off my emotional investment in the teen.  I was scared for the teen, not of him. 

A writing “rule”: if the character cries, the reader won’t.  There’s a corollary rule for screenwriting, i.e. never have a character cry more than once or twice in the story.  The thinking is that if the emotion is acted out on screen, viewers won’t feel it.  I tend to disagree, but I still agree with the rule.  It’s annoying to see a character crying all the time.  On the other hand, if I cry while I’m writing a scene, chances are my readers will also be affected emotionally.  I think the same rule applies for emotional expression of all kinds.  On the other hand, how a character expresses emotion, or doesn’t, is an important character detail.  Is he comfortable expressing emotion?  Does she repress her emotions?  Or does the character only express one emotion, e.g. anger?  Character development needs to take into account the emotional being of the character, and not in cliched ways but in genuine, human ways.  How was his emotional being molded and shaped?  By whom?  A character’s psychology includes his emotional being.

What novels have made you cry?  My most recent tearful experience with a book was The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  I’m still not certain if I cried from relief, sorrow or fear at the end of that novel.  I felt all those emotions.  Another deep emotional experience with a novel was The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje.  The novel possessed an intense suspense in the bomb-defusing sections, and for me, a growing horror in the other sections about the English patient.  As I read, my hatred and disgust for Almasy grew until the revelation about his torment and the reason he had not returned for Katherine.  That left me gasping, like Ondaatje had punched me in the chest, followed by tears.  Brilliant.

Humans need stories.  Whether it is for us to learn about life, about how to live, about other people, or to experience the range of emotions we’re capable of, stories give us far more than they take…..

What Music Makes You Cry?

Last night, Osmo Vanska and the Minnesota Orchestra performed Peter Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony on the second half of their concert at Orchestra Hall.  I love this symphony.  As I listened, I started thinking about how richly emotional Tchaikovsky’s (or Tchaik’s) music is, and yet, it does not move me to tears.  Not even the Sixth Symphony, which probably should, but doesn’t.  Sometimes Tchaik’s music detours into melodrama, and feels like watching someone else going through wrenching emotion.  Plus, I detect an undercurrent of anger in a lot of his music.  Probably just me, but I’d swear it’s there. 

Stephen Hough, the marvelous pianist who performed with the Minnesota Orchestra the previous two concerts, asked on his fun blog “What Music Makes You Cry?” which resulted in over 50 comments, some quite heartfelt.  His blog post came back to me last night, as I thought of how Tchaik’s music does not make me cry, and began musing on what music has made me cry.  Often it depends on the mood I’m already in when I come to the music.  Usually, I cry during: The opening of the second movement of Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto — that oboe solo is so exquisitely beautiful, it hurts.  The last movement of Verdi’s Requiem, especially if Susan Dunn is the soprano soloist.  Somewhere from West Side Story.  Robert Schumann’s Fantasy in C for piano, first and third movements.  The second movement of Johannes Brahm’s First Piano Concerto.   The second movement of J.S. Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins. 

And then there was the time I cried at the Finale of the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony.  Shostakovich’s music has not induced tears in the past but often fear, sadness, anger, and awe in me.  But the first time I saw Osmo Vanska conduct the Minnesota Orchestra, the Shostakovich Fifth was on the second half of the program, and I was so moved by the last third of the finale that I was almost sobbing, trying to hide my tears from the other audience members around me.  The power of my emotional response astonished me.  Why had that performance affected me so deeply?  I know this symphony well, and I’ve heard it countless times.  But never before had I cried.  After conversations with music-loving friends and much thought, I decided that Osmo Vanska’s attention to detail in the performance of this score, especially the dynamic detail, had had a cumulative emotional impact on me, so that the last third of the Finale, the build-up to the timpani at the end, took on a stark almost hopeless resonance.  It has always reminded me of soldiers goose-stepping in a parade, but this performance felt like I was under their boots.  I’ve heard the Shostakovich Fifth several times since that concert, and no other performance has moved me in the same way or as deeply.

During the final movement of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony last night, I mused on Evan Quinn and music as a tool for character building and development.  From the beginning, I’ve thought of music as Evan’s outlet for emotions and emotional expression.  Music kept him sane.  Certain composers, certain works, would have a specific emotional resonance for him, while other works would reveal his character to the reader as he conducted them.  But conductors must control their emotions in performance and concentrate on the music.  So Evan is also pushing the emotions away, whether he’s conducting or playing the violin.  I found that inner conflict way too interesting to ignore. 

What music makes Evan cry?  That question popped into my mind and jolted me.  I hadn’t thought of it before.  I hadn’t thought about his personal taste in music, either.  So, now I have a new avenue in Evan’s character development to pursue perhaps in the later novels….. 

(And what music makes YOU cry?)