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A blog for fiction writers and impending writers. An editor’s perspective.
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Focus on the Now.
Also: Foreshadowing, Telegraphing
and Recapping.
(The good, the bad and the ugly.)
Writing the Now is crucial in those segments or scenes of drama, and on less dramatic but utterly crucial segues). The Now is all about focusing on an immediate moment in your plot or in your character’s story—and not reminding us of what’s previously occurred or inferring what might happen next. In those tension-charged “inhale” moments (see Rule #8: Keep your characters moving) one’s writing should never dawdle, or drift, or pull away from visual or emotional impact. Thus, this rule’s addendum to Rule #8’s sage (IMHO) wisdom is this: Keep your characters—and the reader—grounded in space/time. (Seriously.) Keep us here. Keep us now. When you’re confronting drama, your writing should be its most concise and free of asides and philosophical segues. Keep your writing linear.
Unfortunately, we writers have to mute the cerebral cacophony inside our heads and assemble a string of linear thoughts sufficient to complete a coherent book. When we sit down to write, we can’t ponder what’s already been written (that’s what editing is for) nor can we wonder what might come next (that’s what outlining is for). Which leaves only the current thought—that which we confront on the page at this very moment. Nothing else should matter. It you have a term paper due, or dinner’s on the table, or the kids need to be put down (for the night, not forever) then perhaps it’s best that we leave our story until our mind’s able to better focus on the now. Which, ironically, will come later. For a writer, reality can be a bitch. Although a necessary one.
Speaking of focusing on the now, when writing, don’t remind readers of what’s already happened, and don’t allude to what might happen next. Rarely, if ever, do we need to remind readers of some important, impending morsel of relevance. Occasionally we can allow readers to speculate—but never to outright guess what might occur in a page or a scene, or in the next chapter. For the third time that week, Ellen dismissed the blinking Check Engine light and steadfastly sped the Volvo into the vast, sun-drenched Mojave.
So one can allude now and then, sure—but trusting one’s audience is a skill we hone along the way. Most readers will understand nuance, and context, and will read between the lines (Ellen’s gonna be toast) without a great deal of authorial intrusion or repetition.
BTW: This may be a good time to bring up the difference between foreshadowing (a useful tool) and telegraphing (a spoiler… also a drama killer). Ellen’s blinking Check Engine light is considered foreshadowing—giving a reason for readers to wonder (and worry) about Ellen’s immediate future creates tension. However, For the third time that week, Ellen dismissed the blinking Check Engine light and steadfastly sped the Volvo into the vast, sun-drenched Mojave. Martin would find her shriveled body seven days later. is a blatant telegraph. Allow readers the surprise, the full impact, of poor Martin finding Ellen’s body when he finds it. (In other words, you’re staying in the now!) You’re also telling us, not showing us about Ellen’s fat—contrary to the utterly functional Show, Don’t Tell, a more important literary device than many novice writers might believe.
Another example: We’ve maneuvered Rhonda and Keith, a pair of young lovers, atop Misty Mountain, alone beneath a full moon and about to share that first kiss. Once the puckering begins, we shouldn’t decide to pause to extensively examine what Rhonda ate for breakfast that morning. If there’s a plot-specific reason for depicting breakfast, sure, mention it—but not at the moment.
Or perhaps, midway through a daring cavalry charge against a hoard of angry hostiles, a writer shouldn’t suddenly decide that the protagonist once had an aunt named Rita who smelled like persimmon blossoms. Maybe the dear woman exists in your mind—but now isn’t the time to introduce her. Again, you’re disrupting the importance of the now—a hundred galloping horses, grim-faced soldiers with swords gleaming in the sun and a thousand angry Lutherans, waiting to thwart their advance.
Refer again to Rule #26: Don’t mix action and information (and vise-versa). Meaning that once you’ve decided on action, stay with the action—follow it through. You can mention Aunt Rita later, in a subsequent scene, once the smoke clears.
Also important to mention: Avoid the recap. Recapping is reminding a reader, or worse—summarizing for the reader—passages or events that have already transpired. A good novelist tells the reader once and moves on. Typically, a recap tends to be an unnecessary reiteration of a previous scene or sequence. Yet strong prose needs no reassurance. If you’re unsure whether a reader will remember your relevancy, revisit that scene and strengthen its potency. Then move along.
BTW: Beware summarizing any verbiage as a fictive device. Usually lacking drama and stylistic intensity, a summary is a limp noodle of a segue or brief passage. Say it eloquently, or not at all.
Ideas often form in bits and pieces in a writer’s brain; can ease into one’s consciousness like fragments of a wispy dream. It’s too easy to sidetrack ourselves, or to take off on flights of irrelevant fancy as we struggle to puzzle-piece each thought into its proper place. Our fragile minds generally lack the comprehension skills to immediately structure each necessary thought in proper sequence, chronologically from A to Z.
That precise chronology requires editing and re-editing and often re-re-editing. Adjusting. Pruning. So replay each scene, stripping needless verbiage until you’ve whittled your prose down to raw excitement. So if you determine that the aforementioned Aunt Rita is germane to the story, by all means include her—but at the proper moment, where she can enter your tale bringing her own excitement with her. (As Sophocles once said about drama; “T’is better to crash through a window than stroll through a doorway.” Or perhaps ’twas Vlad the Impaler. I can’t remember.)
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