One Step in Front of the Next

Several things fell together today that gave me this idea. I was walking down my trail, thinking how I was watching where I put my feet, carefully picking my next step. This was necessary because my trail is rather icy at the moment. Let me elaborate. A few days ago, on a relatively warm afternoon (for us this time of year), my husband and I went out for some firewood. It was warm enough that the surface of the trail was mushy. Marks from the snowmachine's track and the inch wide runners on the sled, and in some locations, the smooth bottom of the sled, were cleanly left in the snow. Now that the days have gotten colder again, these marks in the trail are quite hard; if it was any harder, I would need ice skates to navigate the surface regardless of the tread-marks left by the snowmachine, and marks left by the sled sometimes made the trail a potential slippery ankle-twister. My boots have a horizontal tread and between the two, slippage is at a minimum, but hazards were frequent, and there are a couple places where the slant in the trail is enough to warrant quite a bit of care.

My thoughts went to when I was in the army and they were requiring me to break the habit of watching where I put my feet. And then there's my work in progress where my character was forced to shed his hunter aspect and replace it with a prey aspect in order to become a suitable target to catch a crew of Knock Out thugs. There is also the current editing project I'm working on where the writer used 'walk' more than once. All this together made me realize that there is so much more to the word 'walk' than just putting one foot in front of the other.

So much can be learned about a character just by watching how they cover the distance between point A to point B. The army teaching me how to walk is them teaching me how to be a predator. Of course, if you were to ask any of those guys that, they wouldn't see it that way. I mean, I had been walking for eighteen years by then; I knew how to walk. My growing up on a ranch was another reason for me to watch where I walk; I didn't want to step on some cowpie, and since I managed to escape my mother barefoot more often than not, knowing what was underfoot was kind of important. Cowpies wasn't the only hazard underfoot. Those were out in the corrals, I had to navigate sand-burrs before I got that far. At any rate, I grew up with a strong inclination to watch where I set my feet, and then I joined the army and they wanted me to hold my head up, to keep an eye on the sergeants and officers and other such important things. They never mentioned keeping an eye on the horizon where an enemy might be coming from. Like I said, they didn't really understand what they were teaching us. They wanted us to look like proud soldiers, not shambling civilians. See my distinction? The soldier is the predator - the civilian is the prey.

Keeping the head up is more than pride, watching for potential attack can be paranoid but it can also be a strength and confidence. Keeping the head up also keeps the shoulders square, it changes the entire body posture, and the walk itself alters dramatically. Confidence in the surface under your feet leaves time for your eyes to search the horizon for whatever might be of interest out there. Noticing the pretty girl perhaps, or the nice tight ass in a pair of bluejeans, or the werewolf lurking in the shadows. If your chin is keeping track of the top button on your shirt, you're not going to notice anything out there - you become the hunted, the prey, the target. You can run being less likely to trip. Of course if you're standing to fight, you're not worried about tripping.

There are lots of words describing how a person crosses from point A to point B. Make use of your thesaurus and explore a few. To merely walk is too generic, too boring; it says nothing other than that distance was covered, and there are certainly other ways to convey that small detail. How you say your character crossed the distance paints a picture about the person. Always have a picture of your character in mind when you move him or her across the page. It's important.

How does your character move?

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Show and/or Tell

Hmmm so which should it be? Show? Tell? Both? When it comes to the gut of the story, telling is good. I mean, that's what we do, right? Tell stories? But when it comes to your characters, we need to switch to the visual. When you encounter someone, friend or stranger, on the street, the first thing you do is make a visual assessment. There are a ton of different things we notice when we do this, but one of the subliminal things is emotion. Is that person afraid? Happy? Angry?

There are several tells that give us a clue to this. A woman who is afraid but not wanting anyone to know it might have her arms crossed, maybe clutching her purse very close. She might also glance over her shoulder frequently and be walking hastily. A man might have many of the same tells. It's not likely he'll have a purse to clutch, but he might make fists instead. Think about it. What do you do when you're afraid?

Happy is pretty easy to tell. Grins are uppermost, a bounce in their stride might be another. Other than that, conversation could be chatty and possibly more bubbly than normal. Angry, might be nearly the opposite. A stomping stride, a stiff face, unwilling to talk about it, maybe unwilling to talk at all.

There are other things, but the point is you don't want to tell your reader that your character is afraid or angry, you want to show them, you want to involve your reader in your character's life, the closer the better.

Anything your character is feeling, be it an emotion or a physical issue needs to be shown. Talking about physical issues, let's say your character stubbed his toe. How long should you have him hobbling around? A stubbed toe might be rather minor but still, if you're going to introduce the injury, deal with it for an appropriate amount of time. If he or she is in a car wreck, it would be a much larger issue. Still, you don't tell of the accident and then overlook any of the physical repercussions, even if the character was able to walk away from the wreck, there would be bruises, maybe cuts. Maybe they don't need much attention, but really, at least an assessment is necessary, maybe an improvised bandage to keep blood from dripping all over whatever work needs to be taken care of before more practical care can be sought out.

So, while telling your story, don't forget to show us the things we cannot possibly know in any other way. Visual tells are vital to get your reader involved with your characters. For those of you whose characters are emotionless or highly controlled, this issue is also rife with tells. To tell us your character is hurt and then leave it at that is two dimensional and that character is then easily forgotten. If you can involve your reader in your character, earn their sympathy or even hatred, that is how your stories stay with your reader long after the cover is closed.

So do you tell? Show? Or do you do a liberal amount of both? I'm still learning. Tell me your secret.

Synopsis - What is it?

Noun

synopsis (plural synopses)

• A brief summary of the major points of a written work, either as prose or as a table; an abridgment or condensation of a work.

Did you learn anything?

Origin

• early 17th cent.: via late Latin from Greek, from sun- ‘together’ + opsis ‘seeing.’

Did that help you any?

While the dictionary is a very useful tool, and I find the origin of words sometimes interesting, just exactly what is a synopsis? 'A brief summary' sounds so terribly formal, and it reminds me all to much of school and homework.

Look at it like this. Imagine yourself a bit rushed for time, but you simply MUST tell your friend all about this story idea you just got, or maybe you just gotta pass on the details about this really great book you just read. (I hope mine might fall into that category someday haha). That's what a synopsis is.

The first time I was asked to write one was for my first book, King by Right of Blood and Might. They gave me specific guidelines to follow, but basically it worked out to be about 1% the length of the book, so that's pretty much what I stuck with. That translates to about a page of synopsis per 100 pages of book.

On my website, I posted a synopsis of all of my books, published and not yet. Friends have told me they would prefer to see a sample there, but I can't decide what. Maybe I'll have to come up with a good blurb - but I digress.

So, for most people, most manuscripts, 1% is 3 or 4 pages. Okay now; that's a good length to aim for, but the real question I'm sure is 'how do you write one?' Go back up to the top. You're telling your friend about this book or book idea, but you don't have much time. Just walk up to someone in your family and tell them about the story. Don't explain anything (we'll talk about that here in a bit). Don't answer any questions. Just tell them about your story from start to finish. Yeah, all the way through to the end. No hangers. No 'you gotta read it to find out how it ends'. All of it.

That is your synopsis -

Once you have it all typed out, then just like you would with your original manuscript, you need to go back through and make sure names, places, and events are in a clear chain. Potential readers of your book are going to be reading this - or at least I hope mine do - and just like in your book, you don't want your reader to get confused and lost. All you're doing is hitting on the main chain of events; all the dialogue and all the background details are left out.

Look at it this way. For your manuscript, everyone tells you to 'show don't tell', well for your synopsis, all you do is tell - no showing at all. Like I said, you are 'telling' someone about the story.

Now, as promised above - about explaining:

There are times when writing up a synopsis can actually help your manuscript. I've said it before in other posts and in other contexts: "If ever you feel the need to explain something about your book, you need to get that information into your book." Sometimes when writing a synopsis, the gap where an explanation is needed is a glaring hole, or you just can't get from page 2 to page 3 because the chain of events is all screwy. That's when you know you need to go back to your manuscript and iron something out.

So, that's a synopsis. Why don't you sit down right here and tell me about your story? I'd love to hear all about it.

The Nightmare of Show and Tell

My nightmare anyway. We all walk through our lives showing others all manner of telltale ways. Think of all the major emotions we all have. Ha - I just looked up 'emotion' on Wikipedia and there's an awesome list there. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion I highly recommend you go there and read it. There's a lot of information about emotion you just might find helpful.

These emotions are broken down into six categories - Angry, Sad, Happy, Excited, Tender and Scared. Under each category are seven common emotions. It might not be a bad idea to take note of the words; they might come in handy in some of your writing. Maybe they'll help keep you from getting into a rut for lack of words.

But I digress. For the sake of this post, I'll use these six words.

Angry: You can write something like 'he was so angry he could spit stones' and that would get the message across, but what if you took it a bit further. How would you show that he was angry? Think of the phrase and take a close look at the picture it generates in your head - now write it down.

His face started to go all red and I could see the muscles in his jaw jump and jump, but he wasn't chewing anything. And the way he clenched his fists, one finger at a time, and so tight the muscles on his arms below his rolled up shirtsleeves bulged, I thought he was going to hit me - or something.

What do you think? Does it look like he's about ready to spit stones?

Sad: 'She was so sad, her heart had to be breaking' That's pretty sad, don't you think? But can you feel it? That's what you are trying to do, make your reader feel these emotions. For sadness, the meter I set for myself is to see if I can make myself cry. I've managed it a couple times, but then I'm an easy crier. Still, it's a good gauge to go by.

She sat there, tears running between her fingers to drip off her elbows onto the pale tattered dress she wore. Her face was hidden behind her thin hands. She made no move to stem the tide. She just sat there, her shoulders shaking with every sob; each sob the only breath she took.

Well, I've done better, but I think you get the idea.

Happy: 'She was the happiest she had ever been in her life' This is very generic and you want to avoid that at all costs. Such a state just might be different for every person who ever reads it and could generate a different feeling which just might screw some other things up. Remember to always be specific.

She was smiling so wide I thought all her teeth were going to pop out of her head. Her eyes were brimming with tears. She was hopping up and down, though her feet weren't leaving the ground. It looked as though she was going to burst or just take off into orbit at any moment.

Now that was kinda fun.

Excited: This is very like Happy but we'll see what I can do with it. 'He was so excited about his new gift' I almost said 'job' but though someone might be excited to get a job, I'm thinking it would be lesser that what we're looking for here.

He opened up the present, peeling the paper away with anticipation. When he finally opened the box and saw the contents, he whooped with glee and started jumping around, hugging everyone in the room scarcely taking the time to actually wrap his arms around anyone before spinning around with his treasure and then almost hugging the next person only to go off spinning again.

I don't know; he looks pretty excited to me. What do you think?

Tender: We can calm down a little now. Being tender is a quiet emotion. 'She looked down at the newborn and smiled'. Who doesn't smile when they see a newborn?

She gazed at the newborn as it kicked at air for the first time. She smiled as she watched the baby try to find the finger that seemed to be way too illusive. With a soft chuckle, she gathered the infant to her breast and gently rocked it.

I think that's pretty tender. What do you think?

Scared: We have all felt fear at one time or another, but writing about it, conveying it, might be a little difficult. The reason being, no one wants to remember what it felt like when they were afraid. And yet that is one of the most common things a writer must do. Fear is one of the greatest hooks out there. 'The boy cowered in fear as the monstrous creature stalked by'

He wanted to scream his terror, to call his father, his mother, but he dare not. To make a single sound, to move an inch, would only attract the monster to his hiding place and it wasn't all that great a hiding place. He clenched his lip between his teeth and pulled his coat tighter as if doing so would make him smaller still. He glanced down at his hand; it wasn't shaking - yet. He'd have time for that later - if there was a later.

Eh well, it's more the scenario than the emotion, but sometimes that's all you have. Trying to make your reader fear the problem as much or more than your character does.

So tell me, how would you convey these emotions? Show me please. I'm certainly willing to learn how to do it better. I'm always wanting to learn how to do this better. It's my nemesis. I know, I've said that before about different writing tricks, but this has got to be the biggest.