TrueVoice, the Blog

Do You Misuse This Simple Little Word?

"As." A tiny two-letter word so innocuous it shouldn't be threatening to anyone. Especially novelists, right?

"As Jake was wiping the windshield, the view was clearer all the way to Boston."

What's often overlooked is that "as" has a very specific meaning all to itself. It means "while" or "concurrently in time"--that is, an action or event going forward simultaneously with somthing else.

So for our example to work correctly, "the view was clearer all the way to Boston" would have to be some sort of event going forward at the exact same time as Jake's wiping the windshield.

But that doesn't make logical sense, does it? Regardless of when Jake wiped the windshield, the view just...was.

More examples:

"As the flash fire burned up everything of value to Jim, a major effort to fight it was organized and put into action."

Use Google Maps to Research Your Locations

Google Maps is one simple, high tech way to save a lot of legwork when you need to write about a location you have no familiarity with.

I faced that challenge on a massive scale when I was researching my novel, I Killed Hemingway, because much, if not most of the story happens in Key West, Florida, a place I had never even visited. My bright idea--I bought a plane ticket and flew down there for a week, hanging out in the kinds of places I thought my characters would inhabit. A productive solution, as it turned out, as well as one helluva good time.

But what if circumstances had prohibited it? This was the pre-Google era, so my options were pretty well limited to checking out picture books or just flying blind and hoping I got it right....

Can You Write the Next Dropbox?

I have to thank Natasha at Spyscribbler for turning me on to Dropbox (it's in beta, and for the moment, only available by invitation). And if you've never found yourself in a viral marketing storm, here's what it's like:

My signup got me 10 invitations. After taking care of a few friends & family members, I put the remaining 6 up for grabs on a non-literary forum where I hang out. "Anybody want these?" was more or less what I posted. The response was an almost immediate feeding frenzy:

"YES PLEASE"

"Gosh Yes"

"I would absolutely love this! Good eye Bill." And so on.

The point is--and yes, fiction writers, I'm getting to our own little niche--when you're IN the piece of a tipping-point that's actually tipping--you feel the power of it.

Malcolm Gladwell knew this when coined the term in his book The Tipping Point. Seth Godin knew it when he wrote The Purple Cow. 

And novelists should know it applies to them, too, when they write what agent Donald Maas has called "the breakout novel." What is that, exactly? A lot of things. Maas even wrote an entire book about it.... 

Craft Tip #11 - Star Meter - the Nitty-Gritty

Yesterday I introduced my "Star Meter," origionally developed for screenwriters. Why a screenwriting gimmick? I can hear my novelist friends (some of them) protesting. Because, ttrust me, the Star Meter is equally helpful for fiction writers-- ESPECIALLY for novelists.

It's a rough but effective tool for keeping in touch with your main character, scene by scene, as you build your story. I listed the 4 key values it's based on, qualities a dynamic, effective "main" must possess (or in one case, avoid). Here's how the Star Meter uses them to "score" your work::

Let's say your character is an ordinary guy who finds himself, through mistaken identity, being sought for a crime he didn't commit. In each scene we will award him:

 • 1 point if he is the motivating force, 0 if someone else drives the scene.

•  1 point if he says (or thinks) something memorable, 0 if another character gets the colorful dialogue.

•  1 point if he actually does something sigifnificant: performs an action that has major impact on the direction of the story. No? Then he gets a 0.

•  Minus 1 point if he is genuinely upstaged by a supporting character who gets the memorable dialogue and action--especially if our hero could just as easily have been given the meaty stuff.

Each scene, then ends up with a score that ranges from 4 (perfect) to -1 (needs rethinking)....

The Star Meter - My Tool for Rating Main Character Effectiveness

Can we agree that character, hence characterization (the skill of developing and rendering character) stands a prior in significance to the other elements of fiction? I hope so. (Doubters: watch for a near-future post, guaranteed to win you over.)

What I call the "Star Meter" can help you create a main character worthy of driving your story. I developed it some years ago while helping a film director understand why his script was not attracting stars--hence, "Star" Meter.

But aren't movie stars renown for being poor judges of story quality? Maybe, but they know a powerful main character because that's their business: they didn't get where playing characters nobody was interested in. And today, cinema-bred readers (including agents and editors!) used to larger-than-life screen characters, look for similar qualities in fictional heros.

Okay then, what's the Star Meter and how does it work? Tomorrow, I'll have more detail, but essentially it's a point scale for rating your main character in 4 areas, scene-by-scene. The result is a single number. The higher that number, the stronger and more effective your character. A low number and...well, it's back to the woodshed.

I had to be do a lot of boiling down to keep it simple. Here are the 4 areas I ended up with:

1) Motivating force

2) Quotable line

3) Plum moment

4) Upstaged (a negative)

Tomorrow, I'll go hands-on and give you the specifics, and you'll see it's quick, easy, and uncanny in its power to keep your character development on track. Be sure to come on back for Part 2. (To Be Continued)