Hunting Adjectives with Elephant Guns

Bonnie's post on Monday made me sit up and pay attention. Bonnie climbed into the bully pulpit for the sake of nouns, the building blocks readers use to create story worlds and those shadows we all hope to leave with our readers. (Sharon's post on Wednesday made me rethink my daily words, the ones I fling about recklessly. Thanks for that, friend. I am resolved to do better.)

And so I went a-hunting for adjectives as she had done. I found few extraneous uses, but they're there. I also admired strong nouns like never before.

This was such a powerful exercise that I've done the work for you. I've collected seven random samples from novels we've all loved. Some are more adjective-rich than others. I hope you'll look at these 50-word snippets and help me decide if any of the adjectives should be scratched, or if a more descriptive noun could have been used.

Remember, adjectives aren't the bad guys. We do tend to lean heavily on them in our writing. The trick is to use the strongest noun possible (cottage rather than house; beret rather than hat) to minimize the need to slow-down-the-action adjectives.

Yep, this is how writers have fun, so jump in!

[Note: I italicized the adjectives for you. I didn't italicize adjectives with linking verbs. That makes things messy but does show what a complex task lay before us each day. Also, I have missed a few or thousands.]

I finished reading the letter and closed my eyes. I was thinking, So many tears for Elder Sister, so much joy for me. I was grateful that we followed the custom of my not falling into your husband's house until just before the birth of your first child. I still had...Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See

We had been wandering for so long I forgot what it was like to live within the walls or sleep through the night. In that time I lost all I might have possessed if Jerusalem had not fallen: a husband, a family, a future of my own. My girlhood disappeared in...The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman

A day after the Evers funeral, Miss Leefolt's mama stop by for a visit. She live up in Greenwood, Mississippi, and she driving down to New Orleans. She don't knock. Miss Fredericks just waltz on in the living room where I'm ironing. She give me a lemony smile. I go...The Help, Kathryn Stockett

When he was pushed out by the rest of his family, the relief struggled inside him like an obscenity. It was something he didn't want to feel, but nonetheless, he felt it with such gusto it made him want to throw up. How could he? How could he? But he did...The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

Restlessness rippled through the schoolroom like waves of wind through wheat. A teacher on a discipline rampage can be a fearsome thing; every student ever born knows that. But we never expected that kind of behavior from Morrie. Nonetheless he seemed to go out of his way to pick fault...The Whistling Season, Ivan Doig

The polar bears lies on his stomach, head and snout stretched in front of him. In repose he looks harmless--cuddly even, with most of his bulk concentrated in the lower third of his body. He takes a deep, halting breath and then exhales a long, rumbling groan. Poor thing. Water for Elephants, Sara Gruen
Note: Some would have italicized polar bear, but when it's a species, as the animals in the following example, I prefer to read the two-word phrase as a noun.

The Stark River flowed around the oxbow at Murrayville the way blood flowed through Margo Crane's heart. She rowed upstream to see wood ducks, canvasbacks, and ospreys and to search for tiger salamanders in the ferns. She drifted downstream to find painted turtles sunning on fallen trees...Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell

Did any of our authors go crazy with adjectives? Did they use adjectives when a strong noun would have been more powerful? Look at your own writing, too. Is this a new awareness for you? What are you doing this weekend? I'm going to a mineral hot springs with the family. Thanks for spending time with us. We so enjoy your company.

Of Befuddlement and Theme

It’s not enough to know how to do something. You have to know how to speak and/or write it, meaning that you use the correct vocabulary. And then, if you know how to communicate it, you can teach it to others.

When I taught 4^th and 5^th grade, mastery of multiplication included vocabulary words like factor, multiple, and product. Easy!

No one asked me to teach calculus. Reason #1: I didn’t know how to do calculus. #2: I didn’t know calculus-ese.

For the last year, I’ve been focusing on mastering the concept of story structure.

This should be straight forward. Stories have been around since people formed language, and much of what the ancients wrote about story—Plato and Aristotle, for instance—is still true today. Good stories share common attributes.  And there are lots and lots of books out there to teach me everything I need to know.

A smidgen of frustration (understatement) entered my quest for knowledge because people who write about writing, don't use the same vocabulary. For instance, there's "theme." Theme influences character arc and the internal and external conflicts of a story. In fact, theme should influence absolutely everything in a story.

Again, talking about theme should be straight forward.

It’s not.

Especially if you read more than one book on the subject. Maybe I should have been a mathematician, specializing in elementary math skills. There’s not an ounce of ambiguity about the definition of a sum or what a rhombus looks like.  (Polygons rule!)

But I’m a writer. I should have read ONE really good book about structure and been satisfied. Instead, I read five, which has landed me straight into the category of befuddlement. (The Category of Befuddlement would be a great book title. Dibs!)

I’ve experienced this befuddlement because each author presented different definitions for theme that were enough alike that I could eventually say, “Ah-ha! They’re talking about theme!” But two of the authors gave theme a new name. 

Is theme a bad word?

The first book I read, of course, was John Truby’s book, The Anatomy of Story, strongly suggested by Bonnie. Truby says at the beginning of the “Moral Argument” chapter that “a great story is not simply a sequence of events or surprises designed to entertain an audience. It is a sequence of actions, with moral implications and effects, designed to express a larger theme.”

I get that. Tell me more!

Theme is the author’s view of how to act in the world. It is your moral vision. Whenever you present a character using means to reach an end, you are presenting a moral predicament, exploring the question of right action, and making a moral argument about how best to live. Your moral vision is totally original to you and expressing it to an audience is one of the main purposes of telling a story.

This was a new way for me to look at theme, but it made sense. When I tested the idea against stories I’d read, it worked. Suzanne Collins must believe that personal sacrifice is the highest form of love. Lisa See believes traditions can tie a family together and rip them apart. Anne Tyler believes that what we may think is loving, others see as belittling and settling.

Alan Watt in The 90-Day Novel comes up with his own name for theme. He calls theme the dilemma.

There is a dilemma at the heart of every story…It is the core struggle around which every character in the story revolves. Some people call this the theme (Thanks for the hint, Mr. Watt.) or the dramatic question. It is personal to the hero yet universally relatable to the reader.”

Most recently, I picked up The Moral Premise by Stanley D. Williams, Ph.D. He’s talking about theme as the moral premise. This is how he introduces moral premise:

Every…physical obstacle that the protagonist confronts is rooted in a single psychological, spiritual, or emotional obstacle. And to overcome the many physical obstacles, the protagonist must first overcome the singular psychological obstacle that his journey…is really about…Moral Premise—a statement of truth about the protagonist’s psychological predicament.

These authors are saying very similar things about theme. It’s up to me to create a working definition of theme for my writing. I’m very tempted to go back where I started, with Truby—“theme is how the author believes the world should work.” While these other writers on theme have deepened, corroborated, and expanded my understanding, I prefer this simple yet widely applicable definition. 

Distilling down the themes of books you’ve read—or written—is a great exercise. I’m a bit tardy, but I’ve done just that for my novels, plus my work in progress:

Like a Watered Garden: Expanding our perception of others allows us to grow and gain independence.

Always Green: Friendship is the best foundation for romantic love.

In Every Flower:  Being a family requires more courage than love and the ability to bend and stand against resistance.

The Queen of Sleepy Eye: Harsh judgment of others leads to self-incrimination. Forgiveness leads to personal growth and deeper love.

Seeing Things: We hang on to those we love by surrendering our desire to control them.

Goodness & Mercy: Running away from guilt only brings us back where we started.

Ring!: To free ourselves from regret, we must live without excuses and embrace living in the present.

Notice that theme is not the storyline (plot) or premise (one sentence that tells what happens to start a story and what the protagonist is going to do about it). Theme is the underlying truth of the story from the author's perspective.

What are the themes from your stories? What frustrations have you come across as you’ve learned the craft of writing? Is there a danger in reading too many writing books? What contradictory advice have you been given either by a teacher or in a book? And by the way, if I've got this theme-thing all wrong, tell me now!

Project! The Art of Voice in Fiction

I’m eyeball-deep in a writing challenge, a sort of shark tank for the ever-developing writer. I’m writing in four—count ‘em!—four voices. My greatest fear is making them all sound alike. And so, I’ve been studying the topic of voice, reading The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass and Write Away by Elizabeth George, and listening to a podcast with Anne Lamott. Allow me to share what I've gleaned from these skilled teachers.

Elizabeth George defines voice (how brave of her) like this: “The narrative voice of your novel is the point-of-view character’s defining way of speaking and thinking.” Voice is the tone that comes through the narrative, and tone is the product of knowing my characters better than myself.

Before I started writing my current work in progress, I knew all about Lucy, Ada, Mercy, and Pete. I'd created very detailed backgrounds for each. Their voices were determined by their level of education, formal or acquired. And even though they are American-born, they have positions in society and family histories wrought with material. They're nice, of course, to a point (no anti-heroes this week), but the better I get to know them, I discover their prejudices and biases, their inclinations and desires, their bad habits and poor hygiene habits. Each of them has a well-developed belief system, even if they can’t express it. It's my job to know this about them. Once my characters are fully developed, they have unique, powerful voices.

Maass is especially adamant that characters must offer strong opinions to have a voice worth appreciating. This made a little light glow over my writer head. A character who makes judgments about her world is far more engaging. Consider the importance of opinion in your narrative, your story. Perhaps you've walked past a window of mannequins and thought something like this: Good grief, ugly must be the new black this year. No one older than eight could squeeze into that skirt. They must be selling fashion design diplomas on QVC.

Seeing in your head is fun, interesting, provocative. We give that same thrill to our readers by sounding opinions through our POV narrator.

I’ve rambled on. Indulge me another point.

Donald Maass also has this to say about details in relation to voice: “Even the most ordinary people have a life that’s unique. The details that make it so are a secret source of what critics glibly refer to as voice…Details are an automatic voice all in themselves.”

Here’s an example of details fueling voice from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See:

Three days before my wedding, I began the ceremonies associated with the Day of Sorrow and Worry. Mama sat on the fourth step leading to the upstairs chamber, the women of our village came to witness the laments, and everyone went ku, ku, ku with much sobbing all around. Once Mama and I finished our crying and singing to each other, I repeated the process with my father, my uncle and aunt, and my brothers. I may have been brave and looking forward to my new life, but my body and soul were weak from hunger, because a bride is not allowed to eat for the final ten days of her wedding festivities. Do we follow this custom to make us sadder at leaving our families, to make us more yielding when we go to our husbands’ homes, or to make us appear more pure to our husbands? How can I know the answer? All I know is that Mama—like most mothers—hid a few hard-boiled eggs for me in the women’s chamber, but these did little to give me strength, and my emotions weakened with each new event.

I walk each morning while listening to a podcast called Pen on Fire (highly recommended). The hosts interview the most amazingly talented storytellers, like Anne Lamott. In a recent podcast, the host asked Lamott what advice she had for new writers on the topic of voice. Lamott is the perfect writer to ask. She has a distinctive voice and isn't afraid to give opinions--some that make me wince.

Lamott answered with typical honesty that nothing comes easy for her, including voice. If her writing sounds "conversational and natural," this only happens by writing "draft after draft after draft." Also, she sees improvement with her writing as she ages. What her pride demanded she keep in as a younger writer, age allows her to jettison. I found this encouraging. By the time I'm as old as Methuselah, I should have the voice thing down.

This is only an opening discussion on voice, but these fine authors and writing teachers have offered great pointers for developing voice for our characters. First, know your characters. Second, allow your characters to voice opinions. Third, add details that ground your character's voice in a culture. And last, be prepared to work for voice...and welcome birthdays.

Details of a story line may fade, but the voice remains forever in our memories. Share a story you have read with a distinctive voice. Any ideas about how the author achieved this? What helps you develop a unique voice in your stories? Is it okay to use yourself as a model for voice?