Writers in the Storm

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

In real life, being judgmental might cause a few problems, but in fiction, it's something every character should aspire to. How characters--especially the point of view characters--judge the world around them shows readers what that world is like and how it works (and even non-genre writers need to world build, it's just a little different in the details).

Point of view is all about judgment. Our characters see something, they judge it as it pertains to their personal views. If we write a scene where a girl walks a dog down the street, how our characters judge that will determine how we'll describe it and even how they'll react to it.

Someone afraid of dogs will see details that support that: large size, straining on a leash to bite them, big teeth. The judgment is "dogs are bad" and the reaction will reflect that.

Someone who loves dogs will see different details: floppy ears, tongue hanging out, straining to greet and lick everyone. The judgment is "dogs are cute" and the reaction will reflect that as well.

Someone who has never seen a dog before will see different details still: human overlord, quadrupedal locomotion device, snack on the go. The judgment is "whatever alien opinion" and we can have great fun reflecting that.

No matter who the character is, alien or human, they'll see something and judge it. How they see it says a lot of about them and brings a deeper layer to the character. If they don't care about anything at all, that can be reflected, too.

If all a character does is describe what's physically there, we miss an opportunity to world build and flesh out that character. We'll often have to work harder to achieve the same things a few good POV details can accomplish.

For fun, grab a random scene from your current work in progress (or take a few minutes and pretend you're at a cafe awaiting a contact for some nefarious purpose and write a quick scene about what you see around you).

1. How do you describe the setting?

Are the details all basic and general or does the POV character voice an opinion about them? Can you tell how the POV character feels about the setting by the words used to describe that setting? Do the details evoke any emotions? Opinions?

POV characters describe what matters in a scene, but there's usually a difference between what matters to them and what matters to the author. If the character has zero interest in interior design, they're not likely to describe the antique furniture or notice what the drapes are made from. But if they judge the decor in a way that fits their personality, we can show both the room and how they feel about damask.

2. How do you describe the people in the scene?

Can you get a sense of the POV character's morality in this world/setting by how she describes those around her? Does she give a sense of social structures? Can you tell where the POV character fits on the social ladder?

Humans are social creatures, so we like to know where we stand with others and how we fit in with the herd. How we position ourselves compared to others tells just as much about who we are as who they are. Our first impressions and snap judgments reveal what our beliefs are. As authors, we can show an uptight and sheltered POV character by having her react as such to a person who represents a "bad person" to that personality type. Or we can show a free and welcoming spirit by having her accept someone normally shunned based on appearance alone.

3. What do you learn about the world?

Are there any aspects of the world that suggest the society as a whole? Can you tell how this world works by observing it in this scene? Do any differences from our world appear? How does the POV character feel about them?

There's a big difference between Soho, New York and Milton, Iowa. How your POV character judges the world around her will show readers what they need to know about that world and the attitudes and views of the people living there. What flies in a gender-fluid big-city neighborhood probably won't go over the same in a small town in the Bible Belt, and vice versa.

4. What do you learn about the point of view character?

Does he accept the rules of his society? Is he the norm, or does he have outlying views? What kind of person is he? What kind of person does he wish he could be?

We've all had a moment in our lives when someone we liked said something that made us look at them in a whole different light. Their judgment about something changed how we saw them as a person.

This works for characters as well, and it's a great way to flesh out characters and show readers who they are and how they fit into the story. If your POV character is selfish, he might see nothing wrong with a selfish act, and will act selfishly. If he's generous, he'll act and think that way.

Letting our characters judge and be judged in our novels helps us show, not tell, and adds layers of interest and complexity to those characters (and our story worlds). They won't feel two dimensional, but will become textured people and places with virtues and flaws (that often contradict), and we can use those traits to craft more interesting stories.

Think about how your characters judge the world around them. And not just the POV characters--knowing how the other characters feel can help flesh them out as well, and create interesting conflicts when characters have different views on the same situation. The novel feels richer when not every character has the exact same opinion.

How judgmental are your characters? Do you have any examples to share in the comments?

 

Looking for more? I'm presenting two workshops at the Emerald City Writers' Conference on October 16-18 at the Westin Hotel in Bellevue, WA (Sponsored by the Greater Seattle Romance Writers of America). Look for my half-day master class on point of view, and my one-hour workshop on show, don't tell.

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About Janice

Janice Hardy is the founder of Fiction University, and the author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, where she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her novels include The Shifter, (Picked as one of the 10 Books All Young Georgians Should Read, 2014) Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The first book in her Foundations of Fiction series, Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure is out now.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

 

 

Top photo via Pixabay.

Kait Nolan

Summertiiiiiiiiime, and the livin' is easy...

Summer is the season of lazy days, naps, vacations, and endless stretches of time. The perfect opportunity to catch up on your TBR pile.

You sit down with the latest Nora Roberts, only to have to put it down again to take the kids to their latest summer activity—swim lessons, vacation bible school, summer camp. And then your evenings get sucked up with cookouts and other fun summer social obligations.

You pack the latest Stephen King in all your vacation gear, except he never sees the light of day because you’re too busy herding relatives through the Magic Kingdom or down the over-crowded streets of Gatlinburg and trying not to wilt under the onslaught of the summer sun.

Was it this hot when you were a kid?

Pretty soon, you’re giving serious consideration to dosing the kids with an elephantine dose of Benedryl just so you can dive into the latest installment in that series you’ve been salivating over for more than a year.

Because that whole notion of summer equaling lazy actually went out the door the moment you became a productive member of society—aka A GROWN UP.

Adulting is hard, y’all, and it doesn’t leave a lot of time for reading—especially in the summer when you don’t have the organized and consistent schedule of the school year. And that makes summer the perfect season for reading novellas.

Here’s a quick round up of some of my favorite novellas:

Home Sweet Home by Candis Terry: This is a prequel novella to Terry’s Sweet, Texas series (one of my all time faves—hot ex-military cowboys and their delightful small town, complete with a matchmaking mama and a sassy goat). This is the tale of an ex-Army Ranger and the woman (and town) who won’t give up on him.

Night of Cake and Puppets by Laini Taylor: This one actually falls in between Days of Blood and Starlight and Dreams of Gods and Monsters (books 2 and 3 of the Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy), but it can be read out of order. This chronicles the first date between Mik and Zuzanna—and Zuzanna is in my top five favorite book characters of all time. If you can, get this one in audio because the narrators are fantastic.

Flash Gold by Lindsay Buroker: Indie author Lindsay Buroker launches a fantastic western steampunk series with this novella (and follows it up with 3 others—I’m still waiting on the 5^th). It’s a fast, colorful, entertaining read with marvelous worldbuilding.

The Teacher’s Vet by Wendy Sparrow: This one is a totally adorable, small town read about a single dad, his precocious daughter, and the teacher who loves them both.

Mad About Plaid by Kam McKellar: Men in kilts. Need I say more? The first of five (so far), Mad About Plaid is certain to entertain anyone who has a yen for Scotland.

 

For all the same reasons novellas are great summer reads, they make for fantastic summer writing projects.

How do you know a concept is a good candidate for novella length?

Well, first off, let's establish what constitutes a novella.

The SciFi Writers of America define novellas as falling between 17,500-40,000 words. In romance, the bottom end of the novel range is 50,000 words, so to my mind, novellas hit in the neighborhood of 18k-just under 50k. In that range, you've got room for more detail and adventures than a short story but not as much as you'd have for a full blown novel.

Does your concept include a subplot?

Novellas generally don't have them. I won't say it's impossible, but I'd wager that 9 times out of 10, adding a subplot is going to make you a member of the Over-writer's Anonymous club. :glares at current WIP sitting at double its intended word count: It's just very, very difficult to successfully weave in a solid subplot without adding to your word count.

Does your concept have a compressed time-frame?

This isn't a hard and fast thing. You can certainly write a novel that takes place in a day or a short story that takes place over years. But choosing a story concept where the events happen in a compressed time-frame does tend to make it easier to stay within the necessary word count.

My paranormal romance novella Forsaken By Shadow occurs over about a week, maybe two. Its follow up, Devil's Eye happens all in twenty-four hours. And then my contemporary romance novella Be Careful, It's My Heart actually spanned about 3 months. The setup for that one lent itself to covering about a week a chapter. That kind of framework works very well for constraining word count.

Can your concept be written without a great deal of world-building?

Novellas require quick and dirty world-building. Just like with short stories, there's not room to wander aimlessly around, showing all the interesting bits of whatever your setting is. World-building needs to be shown as part of the active plot. SHOWN. IMPLIED. Not waxed poetic about for unnecessary paragraphs. You have to trust your reader to have a brain and understand what you're getting at without having it spelled out.

Do you know the crux of your story problem?

You really shouldn't even attempt to write a novella (or anything else, for that matter) unless you can clearly state the character's GMC (that's Goal, Motivation, and Conflict for the uninitiated--talked about in the fantastic book GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict by the fabulous Debra Dixon--it's just been re-released on Kindle after being out of print for a coon's age. (Buy it, read it, love it.)

In a nutshell, your PROTAGONIST is motivated to pursue some kind of GOAL that is the result of a NEED (that's what motivates him or her), but bumps up against some kind of CONFLICT (an ANTAGONIST who has his own NEED). Not having a clear handle on this before you begin virtually guarantees a lot of aimless wandering that'll eat up your word count.

BONUS: Does your concept tie in to any of your other work?

This absolutely isn't necessary to write a novella, but it's great for marketing purposes if it does. Novellas are fantastic, meaty bites of your work, your voice, and, as such, make great lead-ins or contributions to series and trilogies. Readers love seeing prequel stories, epilogue stories, side character stories, and in-between-and-waiting-for-the-next-book-why-the-heck-isn't-it-out-yet stories. If you're going to be writing a novella anyway, it's fabulous if it can lead readers to something else. Because, really, the entire point of writing anything is to turn casual readers into permanent fans.

If you'd like to learn more about what makes a good novella, feel free to try my class The Hitchhiker's Guide To Novella Writing: Rules of Thumb, where I cover what you need to know to write a solid novella that will keep your fan-base happy and help build your backlist.

Meanwhile...

tell me in comments about your favorite novella reads! And feel free to ask any questions you have about the novella-writing course.

~*~

About Kait

Kait Nolan is stuck in an office all day, sometimes juggling all three of her jobs at once with the skill of a trained bear—sometimes with a similar temperament. After hours, she uses her powers for good, creating escapist fiction. This Mississippi native has something for everyone, from short and sweet to Southern contemporary romance to action-packed paranormal—all featuring heroes you’d want to sweep you off your feet and rescue you from work-day drudgery. When not working or writing, Kait's hanging out in her kitchen cooking and wishing life were a Broadway musical.

A passionate believer in helping others, she has founded a writing challenge designed for people who have a life (aka we NaNoWriMo rejects who can't give everything up for the month of November). Please check out A Round of Words in 80 Days. Next Round begins July 6th!

You can catch up with her at her blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads or check out her latest release, To Get Me To You.

Bayard & Holmes
~ Jay Holmes

In our last Writing Spies article, we talked about bugging rooms.* But what if our characters need to know if a room is already bugged?

 First, consider the character being bugged and the character or organization doing the bugging.

Some characters are going to expect surveillance. For example, Mafiosos and the FBI agents that hunt them are going to be constantly suspicious that they are under surveillance. Successfully bugging them will require a higher level of technical skill and caution than what would be needed to bug characters who don’t have reason to suspect they are being watched.

On the other side of the equation, a jealous spouse or neighborhood pervert is not likely to be as skillful at placing bugs as an FBI Agent, CIA employee, or even your local police.

 

 

Next, consider when and how the bugging equipment was placed, and precisely when the target would become suspicious.

If the target is a business executive or CIA employee visiting China, Russia, or another police state, he would assume that he has been targeted for surveillance, and he would sweep his hotel room or rental car routinely. He would also assume that he could be targeted by mobile bugging equipment when he leaves his hotel.

Does it seem odd to you when a surveillance target such as a mafia goon suspects a bug and proceeds to have a loud conversation about it with his co-goons in the room? An intelligent person does not announce suspicions.

Remaining calm can give the surveillance target an opportunity to discover a suspected bug without the surveillance team being alerted. The target can then use the bug to misinform his opponents and send them on wild goose chases.

 

 

Once you’ve considered the players, it’s time to think about the technology.

Bug sweeping devices with various levels of sophistication are readily available to the public at costs ranging from $25 for a simple sweeper to $1,500 for a decent sweeper with full spectrum analysis capabilities. (Google “bug sweeping devices retail.”) So even in the case of a non-professional or non-criminal, a character can readily obtain electronic sweeping equipment.

In the age of tiny video cameras and transmitters, we all have to assume that we are under video and audio surveillance.

This means that characters need to sweep the room or building without being obvious. Modern sweepers can be disguised as working cell phones, which can generate vibrations rather than tones. A character can hide her true aim of detecting surveillance equipment by placing a fake call on the device and pacing the room while conversing.

 

 

Sweepers detect transmissions from either microphones or cameras, and they do not distinguish between the two. If your character doesn’t care about tipping off the surveillance team, he can use the sweeper to zero in on the transmission and then inspect the vent, lamp, furniture, etc. to discover the nature of the transmitting bug.

More sophisticated bugs can be remotely controlled to limit transmissions, but more sophisticated scanners can detect them even when they are not transmitting.

A sophisticated target might wait until nighttime and use infrared detection to find heat being generated by bugs.

This method is quite effective for most bugs. If a character waits a few minutes after turning off the lights to let the walls and furniture begin to cool down, she can find nearly any bug with the right sensing equipment.

Smoke detectors and refrigerators can mask a bug’s infrared signature, so they need to be inspected visually.

One technique for bug detection involves searching for pinhole camera surveillance.

Pinhole cameras rely on small amounts of light coming through a wall via multiple pinholes. A character would turn off the lights and then, while looking through an empty toilet paper tube, wrapping paper tube, mailing tube, etc., he would sweep the walls with a bright flashlight and watch for inexplicable small reflections. Such out-of-place light sources may indicate a pinhole camera system.

 

Another type of bugging a writer might employ in a story is an infrared laser system that bounces off windows.

A character can monitor the laser’s reflection, and the glass’s vibration can be measured and interpreted as sound. Basic infrared sensing equipment can detect these systems and pick up conversations from a targeted room without having equipment inside.

In the absence of bug detection equipment, a character can be clever and use his regular cell phone to do a basic bug sweep, even if it really is just a cell phone.

By placing a call and then pacing the room, she can locate radio noise sources. Electronic noise might indicate a bug, but it might also indicate what you already suspected – that we all pay far too much for hideously low quality cell phones. Higher quality bugs will not be detected by a regular cell phone.

The equipment and techniques are fun to consider, but before considering the technical aspects, be sure to consider the situation and the characters. Remember, whether the character is a complete innocent or a cunning old spook, the most important debugging tool is his brain.

Do you have spy questions? Bayard and Holmes will be checking in...

Related Writing Spies Articles:

Which Intelligence Agency Does What to Who?

How the Pros Bug

Truths of Spycraft You Don't See in Fiction

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Piper Bayard, is an author and a recovering attorney. Her writing partner, Jay Holmes, is an anonymous senior member of the intelligence community and a field veteran from the Cold War through the current Global War on Terror. Together, they are the bestselling authors of the international spy thriller, THE SPY BRIDE, to be re-released in spring of 2015.

Keep in touch through updates at Bayard & Holmes Covert Briefing.

You can contact Bayard & Holmes in comments below, at their site, Bayard & Holmes, on Twitter at @piperbayard, on Facebook at Bayard & Holmes, or at their email, BH@BayardandHolmes.com.