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Jul. 18th, 2008 11:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ostarellaArticle from "Write Through It", latest newsletter from Manuscript Rx (www.ManuscriptRx.com)
MASTER THE ART OF INVISIBILITY: TAKE THE "AUTHOR'S HAND" OUT OF YOUR STORY
The best authors are invisible...by design.
When you're under the spell of a great book, details like "Who wrote this?" and "How did s/he write it?" become petty and irrelevant. In fact, when you're immersed in a truly compelling story, everything but the story itself melts away. Insane gas prices, your kids fighting over the same Super Soaker in the backyard, the traffic ticket you got for doing the California roll (if a whole state does it, is it really wrong?)...you lose everything but the world on the page. One trick that makes that blissful immersion possible is the writer hiding behind the work itself, thereby achieving authorial invisibility.
A great piece of writing is transcendent. And remember: it needs to transcend you, too.
The disappearing act isn't just for veteran, multi-book authors. You can learn how to extract yourself from your story early on, thereby dramatically increasing your odds at publication. You've been told that you have to get rid of anything in your writing that doesn't serve the story itself. But did you know that that includes the author's hand?
And don't worry: if you're the type of person who needs lots of attention and therefore can't bear to resign yourself to a life of invisibility, just remember that after you write your book you'll have plenty of time to take center stage again. Readers want to know about the author after they finish the book. You can talk up a storm on your book tour, can even get a T-shirt made up that yells "ME!" But in the meantime....
Get lost, author!
The act of reading is a magical dance between a writer and a reader. The reader momentarily forgets that there is anything in the world beyond the story at hand. To keep the magic strong, you need to maintain the illusion that the story that's unfolding on the page is the only thing of importance. Which means you need to learn to erase any trace of yourself as writer from the story. This doesn't mean you pluck out autobiographical details or personal experiences that you've reshaped to exist in the story. Quite the contrary: no matter what we're writing, our essence will be on the page, and writers run into trouble when they try to quash who they are when they work. (Even memoirists need to retreat behind their stories, even though their stories are all about them. In the best memoir, the life story is what cements you to the book, not the idea of the author producing the manuscript or the writerly techniques that shaped it.)
What disappearing entails is that you, as the author, don't intrude on the reading process. Make your techniques seamless and subtle and mesh with the story you're telling so that the reader doesn't have any reason to feel pulled away from the world on the page.
Let's face it: many of us write because we love language (I'd bet a bunch of you enjoyed English class...math, not so much). We love stringing words and sentences and paragraphs together, we admire language's powerful beauty, and therefore we want to wave it like a flag in a parade. We want someone to acknowledge that we are the ones pulling the strings that make the book dance. This is a common mistake new writers make, but quite understandable when you consider its origins. We're so used to positive reinforcement and extrinsic rewards (the gold star chart at school, the assemblies where they hand out awards like Most Improved Student or Most Curious or Best Budding Scientist) that it makes sense that we want to plant ourselves center stage and take credit for the unique arrangement of words on the page.
But to create a story that lets the reader think about nothing else, you need to fight that urge to show yourself too soon.
Here are the best ways to keep from intruding into your own story:
1) Keep exposition to a minimum.
Exposition (filling in gaps for readers, often with background info, sometimes info that spans years) is a necessary evil. Without any exposition, without explaining and condensing, you'd have to flesh everything out into the microcosm of scenes and couldn't summarize anything at all. And that would mean the average novel would weigh in at millions of words and be too heavy to lift (nevermind too expensive to publish).
However, too much exposition (or exposition in unnecessary/illogical places) drags the story down and jars the reader from the dreamlike state s/he needs to be in to be captivated by a book. Referred to as "info dumping" in the industry, exposition should be used sparingly and only when necessary. Look for alternatives to exposition when they make sense: try to subtly incorporate necessary information into dialogue or action rather than setting it apart in long paragraphs that leave readers bleary-eyed.
2) Keep details vivid, sharp, crisp (especially sensory details).
Let the reader be there, really be there and smell and see and hear what the reader does. Make things specific.
Damien ate breakfast before school.
Blah. Yawn. Whatever.
Now try this:
Damien peeked out the window over the kitchen sink. His mother sat at the picnic table in the yard, the giant seashell she used as an ashtray in front of her. Tilting his head back, he glugged OJ straight from the carton. Ugh. The extra-pulp kind. He scraped the mealy bits off his tongue with his fingernails.
"What did I tell you about that?" his mother yelled. "It's unsanitary! Even when I buy the kind you don't like you guzzle it without a glass."
He hadn't heard the door slam when she came back in, so her shriek startled him. Damien's arms flailed in involuntary response, sloshing juice onto his bagel slathered with peanut butter. "Crap, Mom. That was the last one. And it was brain food--I have a test first period."
Which one do you lose yourself in? Which sounds more believable, sounds like it really happened? Presenting details in a vivid way is the difference between pulling off the highway to explore interesting areas and just letting it all blur past you, knowing you're passing through something called "Cave Junction" but never getting a real sense of it. Let your readers experience the things your character does. (Remember the "Show, don't tell" adage? Hold onto it!)
3) Avoid talking directly to your audience.
As with any "rule," there are notable exceptions, of course. One that comes to mind is Markus Zusak's breathtaking novel, The Book Thief. Death narrates the novel and often speaks to the audience. One of the first things he tells the readers:
***HERE IS A SMALL FACT***
You are going to die.
Whew. It doesn't get more direct (and spot-on chilling) than that. Still, keep in mind that this is not Zusak's first book (several novels preceded this one); therefore, that success grants him a measure of latitude that "untested" authors don't have. Further, Zusak is a genius, an artist with soaring, meteoric talent. The rest of us who orbit the earth in the usual fashion are wise to stick to what we know is likely to work.
Talking to your readers (as opposed to telling them a story) pulls them out of the trance you want them in when they read.
Don't take a running leap at the narrative by saying, "Let me tell you a story." Your readers already have the book open, their flannel jammies on, a fire crackling at their elbow and a dozing dog at their feet. They're ready, and they're primed to hear a story. Just dig in. Your audience will lose interest or become frustrated if they feel continual little taps on the shoulder, reminding them there's a storyteller feeding them the story. It shatters the illusion of the work as an organic, almost mystical whole.
4) Keep the language simple and straightforward.
Similes and metaphors, when particularly complex or too frequent, become like the annoying kid in the first row, jumping out of his seat, hand raised high, yelling, "Ooh! Me, me! Look at me! Over here!" They draw attention to themselves, thereby pulling attention away from your characters and plot.
When readers stop to untangle the meaning of your sentences, it gives them time to feel frustration with you ("Hey, there's an author behind all this!") and drop the story threads they're holding. Even if your meanings are clear, if you're playing with the language (a.k.a. indulging) rather than presenting the paths of the story they can navigate, YOU become the focus rather than the work. Sure, the reader might stop and muse, "Wow, that was a really stunning metaphor. I've never heard the setting sun compared to a warped golf club," but the problem is that they're stopping. And that represents a breaking with the story. Considering all the competition for people's attention today, you can't guarantee the reader will try to re-engage with your story after the break.
5) Drop the parentheses.
Parentheses pull the reader out of the story at large and ask the reader to consider this set-aside information in a different light, in a different manner than the rest of the work. It's sort of like a burb, a hiccup, a cough.
Ahem.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that parenthetical asides are my weakness. I love them, and I regularly speak using them (divergence, anyone?). My adoration aside, we must fight the urge to parenthesize when we attempt to let our stories speak for themselves.
Relying on parenthetical asides is like shoving clutter under the bed or cramming it in a closet. You want to keep the stuff, but you don't know where to put it: so you hide it in a dark place or set it off with parentheses. (If you're a guest in my home, please don't look under the bed or open a closet without wearing avalanche-protective gear.) Overusing parentheses is a form of laziness, really, or a lack of precision. (And again, I'm not pointing any fingers, since it's my personal vice...as you can see, here I am, cozily ensconced in a parenthetical nest once again.)
Often you can just delete the parentheses and the content you had inside will work within the text. Other times, though, you'll need to carefully assess that bracketed information to determine if it's in the right place. Perhaps it needs to be repositioned. Is it even needed at all? If it is a true aside (one that might make the reader chuckle but one that the story doesn't grow from), give it the axe and move on.
*****
Disappearing may be a tough act to master (and it may even feel uncharacteristic to you), but if you achieve authorial invisibility, you aim the spotlight on your story, allowing the reader to enjoy it to the fullest. Your readers will seek you out to shake your hand and thank you afterward.
The best authors are invisible...by design.
When you're under the spell of a great book, details like "Who wrote this?" and "How did s/he write it?" become petty and irrelevant. In fact, when you're immersed in a truly compelling story, everything but the story itself melts away. Insane gas prices, your kids fighting over the same Super Soaker in the backyard, the traffic ticket you got for doing the California roll (if a whole state does it, is it really wrong?)...you lose everything but the world on the page. One trick that makes that blissful immersion possible is the writer hiding behind the work itself, thereby achieving authorial invisibility.
A great piece of writing is transcendent. And remember: it needs to transcend you, too.
The disappearing act isn't just for veteran, multi-book authors. You can learn how to extract yourself from your story early on, thereby dramatically increasing your odds at publication. You've been told that you have to get rid of anything in your writing that doesn't serve the story itself. But did you know that that includes the author's hand?
And don't worry: if you're the type of person who needs lots of attention and therefore can't bear to resign yourself to a life of invisibility, just remember that after you write your book you'll have plenty of time to take center stage again. Readers want to know about the author after they finish the book. You can talk up a storm on your book tour, can even get a T-shirt made up that yells "ME!" But in the meantime....
Get lost, author!
The act of reading is a magical dance between a writer and a reader. The reader momentarily forgets that there is anything in the world beyond the story at hand. To keep the magic strong, you need to maintain the illusion that the story that's unfolding on the page is the only thing of importance. Which means you need to learn to erase any trace of yourself as writer from the story. This doesn't mean you pluck out autobiographical details or personal experiences that you've reshaped to exist in the story. Quite the contrary: no matter what we're writing, our essence will be on the page, and writers run into trouble when they try to quash who they are when they work. (Even memoirists need to retreat behind their stories, even though their stories are all about them. In the best memoir, the life story is what cements you to the book, not the idea of the author producing the manuscript or the writerly techniques that shaped it.)
What disappearing entails is that you, as the author, don't intrude on the reading process. Make your techniques seamless and subtle and mesh with the story you're telling so that the reader doesn't have any reason to feel pulled away from the world on the page.
Let's face it: many of us write because we love language (I'd bet a bunch of you enjoyed English class...math, not so much). We love stringing words and sentences and paragraphs together, we admire language's powerful beauty, and therefore we want to wave it like a flag in a parade. We want someone to acknowledge that we are the ones pulling the strings that make the book dance. This is a common mistake new writers make, but quite understandable when you consider its origins. We're so used to positive reinforcement and extrinsic rewards (the gold star chart at school, the assemblies where they hand out awards like Most Improved Student or Most Curious or Best Budding Scientist) that it makes sense that we want to plant ourselves center stage and take credit for the unique arrangement of words on the page.
But to create a story that lets the reader think about nothing else, you need to fight that urge to show yourself too soon.
Here are the best ways to keep from intruding into your own story:
1) Keep exposition to a minimum.
Exposition (filling in gaps for readers, often with background info, sometimes info that spans years) is a necessary evil. Without any exposition, without explaining and condensing, you'd have to flesh everything out into the microcosm of scenes and couldn't summarize anything at all. And that would mean the average novel would weigh in at millions of words and be too heavy to lift (nevermind too expensive to publish).
However, too much exposition (or exposition in unnecessary/illogical places) drags the story down and jars the reader from the dreamlike state s/he needs to be in to be captivated by a book. Referred to as "info dumping" in the industry, exposition should be used sparingly and only when necessary. Look for alternatives to exposition when they make sense: try to subtly incorporate necessary information into dialogue or action rather than setting it apart in long paragraphs that leave readers bleary-eyed.
2) Keep details vivid, sharp, crisp (especially sensory details).
Let the reader be there, really be there and smell and see and hear what the reader does. Make things specific.
Damien ate breakfast before school.
Blah. Yawn. Whatever.
Now try this:
Damien peeked out the window over the kitchen sink. His mother sat at the picnic table in the yard, the giant seashell she used as an ashtray in front of her. Tilting his head back, he glugged OJ straight from the carton. Ugh. The extra-pulp kind. He scraped the mealy bits off his tongue with his fingernails.
"What did I tell you about that?" his mother yelled. "It's unsanitary! Even when I buy the kind you don't like you guzzle it without a glass."
He hadn't heard the door slam when she came back in, so her shriek startled him. Damien's arms flailed in involuntary response, sloshing juice onto his bagel slathered with peanut butter. "Crap, Mom. That was the last one. And it was brain food--I have a test first period."
Which one do you lose yourself in? Which sounds more believable, sounds like it really happened? Presenting details in a vivid way is the difference between pulling off the highway to explore interesting areas and just letting it all blur past you, knowing you're passing through something called "Cave Junction" but never getting a real sense of it. Let your readers experience the things your character does. (Remember the "Show, don't tell" adage? Hold onto it!)
3) Avoid talking directly to your audience.
As with any "rule," there are notable exceptions, of course. One that comes to mind is Markus Zusak's breathtaking novel, The Book Thief. Death narrates the novel and often speaks to the audience. One of the first things he tells the readers:
***HERE IS A SMALL FACT***
You are going to die.
Whew. It doesn't get more direct (and spot-on chilling) than that. Still, keep in mind that this is not Zusak's first book (several novels preceded this one); therefore, that success grants him a measure of latitude that "untested" authors don't have. Further, Zusak is a genius, an artist with soaring, meteoric talent. The rest of us who orbit the earth in the usual fashion are wise to stick to what we know is likely to work.
Talking to your readers (as opposed to telling them a story) pulls them out of the trance you want them in when they read.
Don't take a running leap at the narrative by saying, "Let me tell you a story." Your readers already have the book open, their flannel jammies on, a fire crackling at their elbow and a dozing dog at their feet. They're ready, and they're primed to hear a story. Just dig in. Your audience will lose interest or become frustrated if they feel continual little taps on the shoulder, reminding them there's a storyteller feeding them the story. It shatters the illusion of the work as an organic, almost mystical whole.
4) Keep the language simple and straightforward.
Similes and metaphors, when particularly complex or too frequent, become like the annoying kid in the first row, jumping out of his seat, hand raised high, yelling, "Ooh! Me, me! Look at me! Over here!" They draw attention to themselves, thereby pulling attention away from your characters and plot.
When readers stop to untangle the meaning of your sentences, it gives them time to feel frustration with you ("Hey, there's an author behind all this!") and drop the story threads they're holding. Even if your meanings are clear, if you're playing with the language (a.k.a. indulging) rather than presenting the paths of the story they can navigate, YOU become the focus rather than the work. Sure, the reader might stop and muse, "Wow, that was a really stunning metaphor. I've never heard the setting sun compared to a warped golf club," but the problem is that they're stopping. And that represents a breaking with the story. Considering all the competition for people's attention today, you can't guarantee the reader will try to re-engage with your story after the break.
5) Drop the parentheses.
Parentheses pull the reader out of the story at large and ask the reader to consider this set-aside information in a different light, in a different manner than the rest of the work. It's sort of like a burb, a hiccup, a cough.
Ahem.
In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that parenthetical asides are my weakness. I love them, and I regularly speak using them (divergence, anyone?). My adoration aside, we must fight the urge to parenthesize when we attempt to let our stories speak for themselves.
Relying on parenthetical asides is like shoving clutter under the bed or cramming it in a closet. You want to keep the stuff, but you don't know where to put it: so you hide it in a dark place or set it off with parentheses. (If you're a guest in my home, please don't look under the bed or open a closet without wearing avalanche-protective gear.) Overusing parentheses is a form of laziness, really, or a lack of precision. (And again, I'm not pointing any fingers, since it's my personal vice...as you can see, here I am, cozily ensconced in a parenthetical nest once again.)
Often you can just delete the parentheses and the content you had inside will work within the text. Other times, though, you'll need to carefully assess that bracketed information to determine if it's in the right place. Perhaps it needs to be repositioned. Is it even needed at all? If it is a true aside (one that might make the reader chuckle but one that the story doesn't grow from), give it the axe and move on.
*****
Disappearing may be a tough act to master (and it may even feel uncharacteristic to you), but if you achieve authorial invisibility, you aim the spotlight on your story, allowing the reader to enjoy it to the fullest. Your readers will seek you out to shake your hand and thank you afterward.
