Nov 21 2008
It’s All About the Action
I’ve decided to move around times a bit. I wrote 4 pages of my novel yesterday, after I wrote my morning blog, so if you see a blog from me, that means I wrote the day before. If you don’t see a blog at all, I never got to write (darn!). This morning, my mind is a whirlwind of action. Not only do I have a to-do list a mile long (that’s about half a mile longer than usual), but I also have all sorts of big events coming up in my novel, creepy, scary stuff (and the chapter I just finished left Emme unconscious on the floor of her bedroom, wrapped up in the sheets torn from her bed!), stuff I can’t wait to write. I am also on the third novel of the Libba Bray trilogy, and even in the second chapter stuff is happening. Perhaps it is the part of me that remains the most adolescent. Perhaps it’s because I am easily bored. Whatever the reason, I am highly motivated by ACTION. I’ve seen movies with very interesting characters, interesting enough to get me to keep watching for an hour or so. Sadly, in many of those same movies, after an hour of film, nothing has actually happened, and I wince (after I yawn), pulling up the guide so I can switch channels. When I say no action, that most certainly doesn’t mean the film is devoid of car chases, killing, or immensely frantic movement. What it means is that nothing is happening. The characters, interesting as they are, aren’t developing at all, and after countless scenes nothing has changed substantially. I discuss film here, but I believe the novel is more prone to this kind of difficulty. Writers may become so enamored by their own words that they neglect what the words describe. Suddenly the female character has the same conversation with her mother three times over, wandering through the beautiful countryside when she isn’t repeating her previous behavior. In other words, nothing is happening!!! Perhaps the best way to avoid such a problem (beyond outlining, which I have discussed in a previous blog about planning) is for writer to ask herself, “What is happening?” If the answer is predominantly, “The protagonist is staring off into space” or “talking” or even if that character is repeating the same action over and over (and over), something needs to give. Each scene should build upon the last, pushing the novel’s development just a bit further, telling us a bit more about the character or his/her situation, moving us towards the climactic conclusion. Yes, we might all enjoy a day when we have nothing on our to-do lists, and when we do nothing more than watch TV all day and eat, but that’s a day once in a while. I, for one, detest such days. A day nothing happens is a day wasted. And a novel should be MORE interesting than my life, not less (or why read at all?).
That’s a cool thing. I gotta have my characters grow. Maybe not all of them to the same extent, in fact, probably not, but learn something, change something, open their minds to something they didn’t have before.
Perhaps it’s a realization that everything isn’t as easy as they first thought, even if they accomplish their goals. Perhaps it’s a realization that the cost of what they want (and I don’t mean dough) was steeper than they would willingly have paid if they’d known before.
I can’t see how one could have a movie or novel with characters that feel deeply without them also growing. But that would certainly explain a number of both I never cared for.