In Today’s Journal
* Quote of the Day
* Setting, and Characters’ Opinions: 2
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
Quote of the Day
“An opening line should invite the reader to begin the story. It should say: Listen. Come in here. You want to know about this.” Stephen King
Setting, and Characters’ Opinions: 2
To read Part 1 on the website, click Setting and Characters’ Opinions, Part 1.
To read it on the TNDJ Substack click here.
As I was saying yesterday
about the “difference between the story (content) and the presentation (form),” everything starts with differentiating the two.
You must differentiate or separate yourself (the Recorder and Presenter) from your Characters (those who are actually living and experiencing the story). If that makes sense.
Think of it as differentiating yourself from your neighbors across the street. As you observe them and record what they’re doing, you don’t replace what they’re doing with your own thoughts. Exactly the same thing.
And again, if this doesn’t make sense right now, and if you learn to trust your characters to simply live the story, it will make more sense (now that it’s in your head) as you practice and put more new words on the page.
I could easily add description to the story [my young writer friend and I] were discussing earlier. But that description would be from “my” version of your characters—albeit in the same situation(s)—and what those characters noticed about each other (maybe) and the setting plus how they noticed those things.
And that’s the problem.
If you publish without any description of the setting or characters or the personality-revealing opinions of the POV character, everything (setting) will appear to the reader as a blank screen and everyone (characters) will appear as naked human blobs and, when characters speak, talking heads.
Sometimes it’s okay to gloss over intricate details—see my description of the man and woman “in business attire” in my version of your story example below—but you still give the reader something and let him fill in those minor blanks. That the man and woman are in business attire at least puts clothing on them.
Our job as writers is to invite the reader into our characters’ world, and in large part we do that by conveying the authentic story our characters lived.
That’s why I often advise writers to Take Your Time as you write. Be sure to include on the page whatever’s in your head as you’re writing. If you miss something the first time through, you’ll usually pick it up during cycling.
The next morning, the writer sent another question along with an example.
The question was “Does [the following] description do justice to what you said? [Is it all right that there’s so little description?]
Here’s his example:
“John Parker was in a large hotel lobby, sitting in a small chair that he thought was uncomfortable, and was waiting for his narcissistic wife. A loud crash happened in the kitchen down the hall and it spooked him. Then he looked around and he saw two people laughing, looking at him. He felt embarrassed and looked down, tapping his feet.”
Here’s my response to his question, keeping in mind his example:
Depends on the individual reader. For me personally as a reader, it’s a little better, but it also begs questions that I (the reader) will hope it answer later.
For example,
- I assume we’ll find out, though his wife’s comments and actions later, why he thinks she narcissistic (and why we agree or disagree with him).
- Is John a little paranoid (the people looking at him and laughing)? Maybe. Seems a little paranoid to me, but if he is, why?
- And how does he know the kitchen’s down the hall? (Is there often a kitchen down the hall from the lobby in a major hotel?)
For me as a writer, what you wrote (or rather how you wrote it) above in your example is an info dump. Remember ‘show, don’t tell’? You (the writer) are telling me everything. Maybe step aside and let the reader see for himself.
Okay, I wrote the same scene (albeit from the perspective of my version of your character) and presented the same info. But now the reader’s getting the info directly from the character rather than from the writer. That’s what pulls the reader into the lobby with John:
In a small, uncomfortable chair in the Sheraton Grand Hotel, John Parker waited for his narcissistic wife. His suit was dark wool, and the fabric of the trousers made his legs itch.
As he reached to rub his legs, something crashed. John flinched and muttered, “Holy crap!” then held his voice in check. Did that come from the hallway? From like a kitchen or something?
He frowned and glanced around to identify the source of the sound, the soles of his patent-leather shoes nervously tapping on the marble tile floor. His gaze swept across a man and a woman, both in business attire, standing near the check-in desk. They were laughing.
His frown deepened. Did she glance at me? Are they laughing at me?
Notice the POV has shifted from the writer to the character. Also notice my version is presented in four paragraphs instead of one and that you (the reader) can ‘see’ things a little more clearly. I added some details about both the setting and the characters.
Is my version better? Worse? That’s up to the reader (you) to decide, but the character and the setting are probably a little more interesting.
Finally, if you have the Journal archives, you can search those for instances of “setting,” “scene,” “recorder,” and “presenter” to see a lot more on this topic.
If you don’t have the archives and if you want them, I offer them free in fully searchable PDF format. You only have to email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com and let me know you want them.
And if you don’t already have it, I recommend buying Writing Better Fiction.
Stay tuned. Back tomorrow with Setting and Characters’ Opinions: 3.
Of Interest
Analyze First Lines to Write Openings Your Readers Love Not vetted, but it sounds good.
The Numbers Six and Seven Are Making Life Hell for Math Teachers Shrug. I dunno. You figure it out.
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 1040
Writing of Blackwell Ops 49: Wesley Stark
Day 1…… 2381 words. To date…… 2381
Day 2…… 3283 words. To date…… 5664
Day 3…… 2934 words. To date…… 8598
Day 4…… 2305 words. To date…… 10903
Day 5…… 3356 words. To date…… 14259
Day 6…… 2295 words. To date…… 16554
Day 7…… 3271 words. To date…… 19825
Fiction for October………………… 43380
Fiction for 2025…………………… 621918
Nonfiction for October.…………… 11260
Nonfiction for 2025……………….. 221370
2025 consumable words………… 835719
2025 Novels to Date…………………….. 15
2025 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2025 Short Stories to Date……………… 32
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 119
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 306
Short story collections……………………. 29