The Journal: Focusing Down

In today’s Journal

* Quotes of the Day
* Topic: Focusing Down
* The current novel
* Of Interest
* The Numbers

Quotes of the Day

“There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.” Stephen King on where to get ideas

“[Q]uite quickly this technique of the tight focus, the super closeup, found itself being played out within the characters themselves, and their stories.” James Clammer

Topic: Focusing Down

Focusing down is a sure way to add depth to your writing and to avoid hearing the dreaded “The story was all right, but it was thin.”

The second quote of the day is intriguing to me. It’s about James Clammer’s experience as he wrote the novel Insignificance. The story of the whole novel is contained within a single day. (See the third item in “Of Interest.”)

I’ve found this same focusing down on details is necessary when writing a novel that spans a few days or a week, or even a series that spans 50 years, at least if you want to engage the reader. It’s why readers often email me to say they felt they were “in” the story.

Focusing down is especially important in openings. By “openings” I mean the opening of the novel and the opening of each major scene and of each chapter. And it’s easy, at least mentally. The POV character will give you everything you need. You only have to put it on the page.

All stories of any length from flash fiction to novels begin with a character who has a problem and is dropped into a setting. (Some writers, like Stephen King, call this a “What if” question.)

And all POV characters, when they appear in the opening, reveal to the writer what they see, hear, smell, taste and feel (usually both physically and emotionally).

At that point it becomes the writer’s responsibility to put on the page (or not) what the POV character is giving them. In every case, if the writer chooses to omit what the POV character is showing them, that is a conscious, critical-mind decision. And in every case, that decision will render your fiction thin and bland.

The conscious mind decision process begins with thoughts about how much description is “too much” or whether the description is “germane to the story.” That’s all BS.

Hint: If your POV character sees, hears, smells, tastes, or feels it, physically or emotionally, it’s germane to the story. If it wasn’t germane to the story, the POV character wouldn’t sense it in the first place.

The reader can never sense what the writer “imagines” but does not write down. Or to say it the other way, the reader can only see, hear, smell, etc. what the writer puts on the page. And the reader wants to see, hear, smell etc. everything.

If the POV character is hanging clothes out back on the clothesline (yeah, that used to be a thing) and notices a notch out of the post holding up one end of the line, the reader wants to see it too. If the POV character is having a hard time hanging the sheet from the double bed because the wind gusts at just the right time, the reader wants to feel and hear that wind too, and maybe the damp, cool sheet slapping the POV character’s cheeks and bare arms. (Would you want to keep reading this story?)

If the POV character in a cold garage skins his knuckles on an engine block when his wrench slips off a bolt head, the reader wants to feel the cold air of the garage and the sting of the wound across the knuckle and the warm blood trickling over his hand. And smell the grease staining the floor and the heady scent of the solvent the man used moments before to clean a part. (How about this one? Would you want to keep reading this story?)

Focus down. Put on the page everything the POV character gives you so the reader can experience it too. Deal in minutiae. If you don’t, you’re missing a sure bet.

Those who follow my numbers below will have noticed that for some reason, the current novel is writing a little more slowly than usual. It’s annoying. I have to keep reminding myself that every novel writes differently. (grin)

Talk with you again soon.

Of Interest

See “Income Streams” at https://mystorydoctor.com/david-farlands-writing-tips-income-streams/.

See “Writing Lovely Moments” at https://killzoneblog.com/2021/06/writing-lovely-moments.html.

See “Top 10 novels told in a single day” at https://www.thepassivevoice.com/top-10-novels-told-in-a-single-day/.

The Numbers

The Journal…………………………………… 800 words

Writing of WCGN: Assignment: Brownsville (novel)

Day 1…… 2890 words. Total words to date…… 2890
Day 2…… 3178 words. Total words to date…… 6068
Day 3…… 3124 words. Total words to date…… 9192
Day 4…… 2977 words. Total words to date…… 12169
Day 5…… 1001 words. Total words to date…… 13170
Day 6…… 3791 words. Total words to date…… 16961
Day 7…… 3569 words. Total words to date…… 20530
Day 8…… 1607 words. Total words to date…… 22137

Total fiction words for June……… 31720
Total fiction words for the year………… 486209
Total nonfiction words for June… 8230
Total nonfiction words for the year…… 114460
Total words for the year (fiction and this blog)…… 600669

Calendar Year 2021 Novels to Date…………………… 9
Calendar Year 2021 Novellas to Date……………… 1
Calendar Year 2021 Short Stories to Date… 3
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………………………………… 62
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)………………………………… 8
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)………………… 217
Short story collections……………………………………………… 31

Disclaimer: In this blog, I provide advice on writing fiction. I advocate a technique called Writing Into the Dark. To be crystal clear, WITD is not “the only way” to write, nor will I ever say it is. However, as I am the only writer who advocates WITD both publicly and regularly, I will continue to do so, among myriad other topics.