I had a different blog planned for today, than Hal sparked some ideas for me with her blog yesterday. She was talking about Keep It Simple, Stupid. What I want to chat about it more how to avoid simple and explain subtle.

For example, I’ve been told a few times that my heroines aren’t realistic, don’t inspire sympathy. Basically, that there is too much distance. Sigh.

How to build a bridge across the gap I keep writing without needing to build a basic step by step bridge. I like my heroines to have some hard to pin down mystery to them. They aren’t obvious about their wounds, but they are definitely wounded.

Wounds are difficult to diagnose sometimes, and even more difficult to show as opposed to tell. If I could take the words and discuss Post Traumatic Stress Disorder…but I can’t.

In the public eye, PTSD has been sold as something very obvious. An extreme reaction to loud noises, a paranoia, a phobia regarding public exposure, aggressiveness…all fight or flight reactions. Hide out, can’t step outside into life…

When I was diagnoses with PTSD I did a lot of reading up on the disorder. And I discovered a third reaction. Freeze. Between fight, flight and freeze, most victims of PTSD hover. And over the course of months of therapy I came to understand that PTSD is mainly about protection.

For some, this means flight. Run like hell. Easy aspect to depict in a heroine. Easy to show a tendency to avoid and run when confronted with something threatening. (Can be harder to really communicate that what one person sees as threatening, another doesn’t see at all…but it can be done!)

For others, this means fight. Nails and claw, fang and fury. Oh, yeah. Great things to show. Anything threatening, scary, challenging and wham-bam-slam. I’ve added in some bits of fight. (Hard not to when dealing with post-apocalyptic worlds, for example!)



Now, freeze. Well, that was an interesting thing to read up on. Basically, we’re all gazelles and on the Serengeti there are lions. When the lions attack, we kick like a pissed off five year old. Or we run as if Beelzebub himself is at our heels. Or once those fangs touch us, we freeze. We play dead, we go limp. Part of the way instincts protect us from the inevitable crunch… But! Also the way our instincts try to buy us space and time. Maybe that lion will drop us, thinking we’re dead. Yawn, stretch…look away and maybe, just maybe, we’ll have a chance to dart to our speedy little hooves and get the hell off the plain.

Hard to really show freeze in a character. It’s a passive reaction. It’s also sneaky. And in humans, freeze can appear as floating. Floating above all the drama, all the decisions, all the self-examination that life can present. It’s all about how PTSD protects the individual from the reality of trauma induced difficulties.

I suffered sudden cardiac death and never had a real diagnosis. I had no idea if it could happen again. So, my body/mind threw up walls of defense. I floated. I floated through the implantation of my interior cardio defibrillator. I floated above my father’s death 10 weeks after my sudden cardiac death. I floated for months.

 

Until the panic attack. According to my therapist, the protective nature of my PTSD was breaking apart and the delayed reactions of the months before hit me. Instinct was kicking in that…maybe, just maybe, the lion’s attention had drifted? Seemed as good a possibility as anything else!

But, how does a writer show that to a reader? How does a writer show that the passiveness isn’t really about being passive? That it’s about protection and it isn’t deliberate.

I have characters that suffer from the freeze aspect of a mild form of PTSD. Trauma isn’t always blatant and everyone has a different tolerance level for traumas. Blatant trauma would be easy. Subtle? Not easy. And frankly, part of the difficulty is that my story flirts with comedy.

I admit, I do have aspects of my character that are deliberately passive. She’s a very go with the flow woman. She has never been one to challenge the status quo. She’s had few friends and skated through life content with what happens. She’s a bit of a follower. She doesn’t react, she reflects and then responds.

Sigh. These are not easy things to show in a MS! Without telling. Or without info dumping. I’ve considered a few elements I can insert. A few small examples…but I don’t want to hit the reader over the head.

Any suggestions? Anyone else every dealt with troubling subtle elements that are foundational to your character? And is this all too confusing for a Friday blog? Maybe we should all just have a drink… And celebrate the offer on my book. The book with the character I need to make more sympathetic. Oh, bother! ;-)

 

And huzzahs for the Bo’sun! Woman’s World is on the shelves with her story in it! Let’s all rush out and buy ten!

We all know the KISS acronym: Keep it Simple, Stupid. I had a "well, duh" moment with this while writing recently.



I mean, really, it's not a difficult concept. As implied by its title, even the stupidest person should be able to grasp it. But somehow, it often slips my mind. And this is never so obvious to me as when I'm fighting with a piece of description.

When I'm trying to describe something, I have a tendency to pile up my descriptors. And the more I struggle with it, the more I add to it, just to make sure the reader understands *precisely* what I mean.

But often, adding more description doesn't necessarily give the reader a clearer image. Sometimes it only muddies up the water.

Sometimes what's necessary is to strip it down, pull away all the excess, and leave only that one, telling detail. The simple detail.

I was working on an antagonistic exchange between my heroine and an important secondary female character recently. I wanted to make sure the reader understood that even though the dialog wasn't overtly rude, Noami (heroine) had very deliberately (if subtlety) insulted Josephine, and Jo knew it. I started going into detail after detail, describing first the tone of Naomi's voice, then the tightening of Josephine's eyes, then the way she paused before replying.

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And the more detail I added, the more the subtly and tone of the original insult got lost. The interaction was muddled, and the more detail I added, the worse it got.

And I thought, aha! Delete!! Apparently, adding on more and more is just my way of coping when I don't know how to fix a scene. Deleting a few sentences here and there, pulling out the fluff to let the true tone and subtly come through -- that can be much more effective.

So what about you? When you get stuck, what do you automatically do? Pile on more, or start deleting? Does it work for you, or just make the problem worse? Ever had one of those moments where you said, Oh, duh! And did the opposite?

“In Fate's Hands” The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (Don't You Fake This, 2006)

I never really put much thought into what goes into making it through a day. I spent a lot of mornings in a mindless routine maintained to get me through the motions until I'm awake. This does include driving to work. For a person who lives on two hours of sleep a night, my mindless routine is what gets me going and keeps one foot in front of another until I wake up enough to bite someone's head off at work. But routine doesn't write in for disasters or little nuisances that pop up unexpectedly. The blown out tire on a two lane road with no shoulders. The down phone lines. The Internet connection that is no longer functioning. The brand new sparkly computer systems that can't seem to operate with the damned network you built. The Admin password that doesn't seem to work. The patient who feels they can be 30 minutes late and are still entitled to take another patient's spot because it's not their fault. A clearinghouse that can't seem to make your format work. The DR who sees it's sunny out and wants to play golf at lunch but needs to do his charts. None of these little disasters are built into a routine, yet as it springs up you take care of it. This is built into your character. You're programmed to head off disaster as it raises it's ugly head.

Now, not all characters are built to handle multitasking situations that arise out of routine. Some characters abhor routine. Each day is a different day filled with something that's not on a list, that's not a usual task to be taken care of and is stimulating to the character. These characters find themselves in more trouble than they can handle because they weren't looking for it. It's just the opposite. Trouble was out looking for them. These characters can look at this misfortune in two different ways. The character can either behave lackadaisical and pretend it's not happening. Or the character might think bad stuff always happens to them and Karma is out to get them. Either way, coping with the disaster is merely another adventure they absorb themselves in. It doesn't really get solved. The disaster somehow becomes a part of their daily life.

Then you have the characters who believe their shit don't stink. There is nothing they can't control. Nothing bad could ever happen to them. And why would it? Obviously, life is exactly what they've made it. When disaster strikes (what am I saying, disaster NEVER strikes these sort of characters! <snicker snort>) the disaster is quickly assessed and dealt with by pawning it off on someone else. But if you never deal with your own disasters as they come up and you let them stock pile in the corner, what do you think will happen? Exactly. The damned pile falls over on top of you and all hell breaks loose.

While I may not think about the never ending pile of stuff that ends up on top of me, I sure as hell give it thought when writing up my story. If only one bad thing is happening to your main character, they are getting off too easy. I can't remember the last time only one situation cropped up on me during the day. Try fifty. In one day. Why should my characters get off easier than me? No way. Don't think while my character is being blackmailed by one bad guy, she's not going to get blackmailed by the hero. And not to mention she's got a stalker and an “accidental” sister who shows up at her office 8 months pregnant and no where to live. And this all happens in one day. Can you imagine waking up to that day? Hell no. But that's why I'm writing it and not waking up to it.

The point is to make your characters live to their breaking point and push them one step past it. If you can't feel the character's frustration and disbelief at the day they are having, then maybe you need to have their roof collapse in on top of them. Or if you're Janet Evanovich, bring a monkey into it. Whatever suits your fancy. I'm an equal opportunity chaos distributor.

Now, what chaos do you like to distribute onto your characters? What pushes you past your breaking point? Have you read any books lately where the disasters seemed to get the best of the character?

It's Labor Day holiday, and we pirates like to celebrate this most reverential of holidays by doing absolutely nothing. However, I'm sure there are a number of good pirates here and there who are steadily writing or revising--and we salute you! Meanwhile, I've spent my weekend at a get together with friends; a birthday party (slip and slide party); and basically recovering from said slip and slide party.

Fall is about to kick off and the nasty hot weather is soon going to be replaced by warm days and chilly nights. What are you looking forward to most this fall? There is only like three months until the end of the year--how have your writing goals been this year? There are only a few more weeks until the Golden Heart deadline is upon us. Are any of you entering? And what did you all do with your Labor Day weekend to celebrate the end of summer?

A lot of us are enjoying a three day weekend, and just settling into it today. So I thought we could cheer for those poor guys who are stuck working today. Pay close attention, ladies -- these boys deserve it!


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Happy Labor Day!

I’m not a writer who analyzes or spends much time wondering how I write what I write. (I’ve explored a bit of the why, but that is more a philosophical question and has little practical application. But it’s loads of fun!)

(I think my definition of fun differs than most, but…well…it’s fun for me.)

When it comes to practical writing, I’m totally at sea. The concept of involving a formula of any sort to what I do gives me the shivers. I figure I’ll never be much help to those looking for advice on how to write. But I’ll be a good cheerleader!

I’ve taken classes and online workshops and gone to panels and taken notes and found it all really, really, really interesting. But the thought of how one deliberately examines a MS and inserts more suspense/drama/conflict/tension…gives me hives.

I’m superstitious. I admit it. I never thought I was, but the more I look at why I shy away from even sliding a sideways glance at all of these techniques to enhance the MS…the more aware I am that I honestly don’t want to know.

So, I had to examine the why I don’t want to know.

And instinct dove right to the front of the pack of my gibbering answers. Instinct. Hmmm. Well, OK. I can see that. I write by instinct. And I think I’m too close to my writing to find the space necessary to analyze and insert techniques that others find useful. It could be the fear of an ugly baby thing… Don’t want to risk the perspective of seeing how ugly the kid really is.



Or…I don’t want to take the time because…well, there are sabertooths out there waiting to pounce and make a meal out of me. Instinct says to just keep going. Just kept writing, just push through…out of that open savannah where danger lurks. Too easy to stop and lose my focus point, the landmark I’m heading for. Which leads to the rocks, to safety, to the oasis where water waits.

I run a lot on instinct. Which means I lose out on a lot of the sweeter shortcuts modern life offers. I think a lot of those writing techniques would really be useful for me. But I can’t. I have to get through to the other side… Once there, I can splash in the oasis with some of them and maybe find a way to use them. Maybe.

But honestly? Not very much.

Another thing…I don’t want to question the magic. I’m not a scientist. (Q, I hope you’ll forgive me this sentiment. I love science, really.) But science is apt to destroy the apple while trying to understand it. Science will uncover all the secrets of the magician and reveal to all that the rabbit was never really in the hat.



I like the magic of it. I don’t want to know how things are done. I mean, to a certain point, I want to know, but not the point of not believing in magic anymore. I don’t want to strip away the magic.

I do believe at the heart of science lies a hell of a lot of magic and miracles and things so beyond our understanding that it all might as well be magic. And maybe it is! ;-)

Sigh. Lovely sigh.

I’m a believer. At the heart of it all, I’m a believer. I believe there are days when things are easy. Even the writing. I know I fly in the face of several of the pirates with this sentiment, but there are times…even when I can feel the sabertooth breathing on my neck, that it’s easy to keep ahead of it. Fate spills my way, sabertooth stumbles, falls in a crevice I easily leapt over and for a short period, the writing spills from me like a steady rain. And it’s easy.

And I dance in that rain and just relish these times.

So, I’m standing tall today. Because instinct works for me. I trust my primal brain. And I trust the magic to keep me entranced. And that rain felt good this week, when the scene I’ve been stewing about poured down on me and it was good.

It may be an ugly baby, but it will grow up to be a handsome man…

Friday’s topic… Instinct verses training? Magic verses science? Easy verses hard? Take your pick!

My Regency historical is also a bit of a romantic suspense.  But, as I’ve been going back over  my story and synopsis post pregnancy, (read: after the resuscitation of many of my brain cells) I’ve realized there’s not a lot of suspense in my suspense.

There’s the plot.  They’re trying to trap the “villain.”  To gain enough information about him to put him in jail and avenge an innocent party.  But, that’s the plot, not the suspense.

So, I ruminated.  I picked and pulled at my brain, trying to find a way to keep readers at the edge of their seat.  I want them asking: will they catch the villain at his dastardly deeds or will the slippery fellow get away again?  Worse, will he accomplish his goal before they do?

Ultimately, I found myself asking, “Who cares?”  Not in a this-is-a-boring-storyline kind of way, but in a who-has-the-most-to-lose kind of way.

When I started, the only one who really cared if the villain got caught was my hero.  If the villain is caught, my hero’s brother is avenged and my hero’s reputation is quasi-repaired.  But, that was all I had.

Initially, my heroine sort of just got drug into the conflict.  She was collateral damage, forced to be part of catching the villain due to extenuating circumstances.  But she didn’t care because of her own motivation and I decided it would be more suspenseful if she wanted to catch the bad guy all on her own.   So, I added an external conflict that would be resolved if she got involved, namely, the hero offers to pay her a lot for her help and she needs the money to accomplish a very altruistic goal.

Finally, I decided the villain needed to care.  At the onset, he just didn’t want to be caught for the sake of it.  I mean, who wants to go to jail?  But that’s not an interesting reason because, in fact, no one wants to go to jail.  I wanted something specific to him, something that was compelling.  Something that makes him hell-bent on working at odds to my hero and heroine.  I’m still working on that part.

But I realized that there was a trend here.  I wanted all my characters to have a stake in the outcome of their actions.  And, I wanted that “stake” to be something immediate.  It couldn’t be something without a timeframe.  My hero only has a certain time to catch the villain because once the villain realizes he’s on to him, he’ll disappear and my hero will lose his chance.  My heroine needs to take the “job” my hero has offered because she needs the money—fast.  My villain can’t run and hide even when he’s foiled because of… well, something I haven’t figured out yet.

Their needs have to be immediate and volatile and in complete opposition.   And they have to be completely invested.  No turning back.

My story gets a little life or death.  But I don’t think suspense in every story has to be that dire.  I think as long as the characters have an immediate need that is in opposition to another character, an author creates tension and suspense.

So, I wanted to see how everyone else does this.  How do you create the suspense between your characters, the immediacy of them accomplishing their goals?  Anyone want to offer up their own hero's or heroine's motivations for example?