The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes - Jack M. Bickham [34]
It isn't always easy to figure out the logical but unanticipated disaster. You can do it, though. You must, if you're going to play fair with your readers and keep your story moving forward with tension and suspense.
24. DON'T FORGET TO LET YOUR CHARACTERS THINK
IN YOUR ANXIETY TO BUILD your story in a straight line, with tight scene plotting, you may run the risk of plotting action so tightly that your characters never have time to catch a breath.
Are your stories like that? Did anyone ever frown and admit that your story confused them... just a little? If so, the chances are good that your story problem lies in your failure to provide time and structure for your characters to breathe... and think.
Most writers build components into their yarns to provide this kind of pacing time. Sometimes they may call such a part of their story a "valley." But ultimately this name for breathing time in a story is not very helpful to the writer. Long ago, I heard literature professors talk about high points in fiction as "peaks," and the quieter points as "valleys." And the terminology confused me for years until I finally figured out what they were trying to say.
When they spoke of "peaks," they were talking about scenes. For scenes, as discussed in Chapter Twenty-two, represent the high points of excitement, conflict and reader involvement.
When they spoke of "valleys," they were talking about quieter times in the story when conflict was not onstage in the story now—when the character had time to feel emotion, reflect on recent developments, and plan ahead.
We call the "valley" parts of your story the sequels.
Sequels, however, are more than just the quiet times in your story... more than little spots that provide breathing time for the character and the reader. They are those parts of your tale in which you show your character's reaction to the disaster that just took place... then planning what he is going to do next to try to get his quest back on track.
You must not forget to provide such sequels.
Think for a moment about times in your own life when something really bad—some disaster—befell you. What was the pattern of your response?
If it really was a disaster, the first thing you felt, perhaps only for an instant, perhaps for months, was emotion.
At some point, however, you stopped feeling blind emotion, and began the process of thought.
And at some point you told yourself, in effect, "I've got to get going again... I've got to make some decision."
This pattern, emotion-thought-decision, is the kernel of the structure of the sequel.
In planning your story's next development after a scene-ending disaster, you must put yourself in the mind and heart of your viewpoint character: imagine her feelings, in all their shadings and ramifications; then go through with her the painful transition into thought, the wondering "What shall I do next?"; finally, imagine with and for her what that new, goal-motivated decision ought to be.
Having done this, you will have planned her sequel.
Now, having planned—imagined—her sequel, you ordinarily will write it. How much emotion will you portray? How many pages will you devote to her feelings, before she progresses to thinking? That will depend on the nature of the disaster that just befell her, what kind of character she is, what kind of story you are writing. In a romance, your written delineation of her emotional response may take many pages; in an action story, you may have such plot pressure on her that she must respond in some new action almost at once, without the luxury of taking time for much feeling; with a sensitive heroine you may have to devote pages to her feelings, while with a gruff woman of the world, it may be more realistic if she shrugs off the hurt almost at once, and gets on with business.
The same is true in terms of how much page space you will give to the thinking portion of the sequel. A college professor may take many pages to think logically about what to do or where to go next; another kind of character may make an impetuous decision almost at once.