The secret of great fiction writing is...

[Brian G Turner]

...character driven conflict.*

That means you stop thinking of conflict as action sequences, but instead as an emotional response to existing tensions.

The more tightly you juxtapose your character conflicts - ie, opposing drives - the stronger the writing.

Take Dune as an example - the attack on Duke Leto's forces on Arrakis is a moment of incredible tension, but you *never* actually see any battle, which can surprise the casual reader because the tension is so strong.

Instead, the tensions are created through seeing Dr Yueh's treasonable thoughts, and contrasting them with Jessica and Paul's thoughts of trust and distrust, when faced with adversity. Re-read it looking at how Herbert used tension through contrasting character thought, and you'll see just clever it is.

I've just started reading George R R Martin's "Game of Thrones" again, and the prologue of Ser Waymar Royce's doomed ranging is another excellent example of use of tension - contrasting character conflicts between young and old, authority and servant, experience and naivety, confidence and alarm. Again, you see very little actual action, because all of the tension is driven through character viewpoints. It's a very clever, very tight, and very crisp piece of writing.

I'm currently trying to tackle re-writing my own magnum opus (!!), and find myself constantly tempted to describe landscapes and contexts, and realise this is a big mistake - it has to be through the character experience. And to keep the reader interested, must be set up through a series of character tensions rather than dramatic events.

I used to laugh at books that started with a piece of dialogue - how on earth could you visualise what was going on? But I realise now the last laugh was on myself - I saw fiction writing as about creating scenes that tell a story and the more visual the better. But that's film, not the written word, which is actually about creating a character conflict driven story.

Anyway, just my personal view at present.




* This is, of course, my humble non-professional inexperienced position.

 

[ctg]

I would say that is one way to look, but it's not the only way, or otherwise we would have a world full of books that are all written in same way. At the moment I reading and studying how Richard Morgan writes his stories and I constantly throughout the first book though he should give readers a bit more context. But as soon as I dwelled into the second books, I noticed that he'd had same thoughts, so you find a wee bit more description, but this time, there are times when he doesn't use clarity throughout the flow to narrate what's actually going.

So you get the chapters that jumps out from the story so suddenly that the reader can for a moment feel quite confused. If he would have given a bit more context then maybe the readers could be actually be on same tracks as his main character.

Therefore, it's not all about making the conflict, but using all your tools to make the best story.

 

[Nik]

Good plot, good characters, told well.

D'uh, if I'm lucky, I can average a couple of those... In places.

 

[Toby Frost]

I agree with this in principle, but I don't think it necessarily leads to dialogue-heavy writing, or indeed the leaving out of visual, descriptive scenes. I'd argue that those are entirely optional.

What I think is important for writers of fiction to realise is the difference between the background and the true, zoomed-in story of the novel. Often these blur, but "Who will win the galactic war?" is different to "What will happen to these five people?". Answering the first question might make a good computer game, but answering the second would probably make a better book.

 

[HareBrain]

"Who will win the galactic war?" is different to "What will happen to these five people?". Answering the first question might make a good computer game, but answering the second would probably make a better book.

But if you successfully set the second against the backdrop of the first, and have the small-scale and the large-scale interacting with and affecting each other, you can end up with something epic.

(Though of course, not every story has to be epic, even in SFF.)

 

[Toby Frost]

Definately, but I do believe that no matter how epic the background, the story sooner or later has to zoom down to the actions of individuals to be really great. Frodo, Paul Atreides and Titus Groan all exist within epic settings, but it is their individual actions that really make the difference (Titus is arguably a bit of an exception, as almost everything in the Gormenghast books is character-driven). Herbert, as pointed out above, doesn't even show us the big battle in which Paul's army wins, because the real drama he wants to focus on is Paul himself.

I think this highlights one of the dangers that comes with world-building in SFF: it is all to easy to create a vast setting, populate it with complex nations and species, and end up with characters who are just "scientist", "marine" etc.

 

[Jon Sprunk]

Good plot, good characters, told well.

Nicely put. Can't speak for everyone, but I like to read good stories involving interesting people told by a competent storyteller. All quality starts here (for me).

 

[Tindal]

'What Nik and Jon said"

The rest is the details that allow each story to be unique, but without the above, it is pointless.

 

[Interference]

Conflict is vital (in fact, indispensable in probably all cases), as is, of course empathy with one side or the other. Conflict can be lame if you don't identify with anyone involved; for example, a soap you haven't been following and find yourself confronted with on a visit to someone else's home can seem like tedious torture as you wait to see which of these despicable people will get the upper hand. But indignation is also a powerful weapon in the author's arsenal: the wrongly accused or unfairly treated against their accuser, once the resolution is achieved, can be immensely cathartic.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

...character driven conflict.*

That means you stop thinking of conflict as action sequences, but instead as an emotional response to existing tensions.

I absolutely agree with this.

find myself constantly tempted to describe landscapes and contexts, and realise this is a big mistake

Nope. I can't agree with that. Without the context, the conflict, the tensions, and the emotions can fall absolutely flat -- or confuse the reader, or create the wrong impression. The closer the setting is to the world we and our readers personally inhabit, the more the society that surrounds the story is like our own (however far in time and space it may be), the more we can depend on the reader to know the context and the more things the writer and the reader both can safely take for granted. BUT once we leave that zone of comfortable familiarity, we simply have to start providing context or readers will fail to understand the tensions and emotions.

To give an example of why context matters: Imagine a scene where five men are playing cards. Suddenly, one of the men announces that he knows that one of the others has been cheating. The protagonist (we'll call him X) starts to sweat, he feels a knot in his stomach, his hands begin to shake. The reader rightly concludes from this that X is the cheater. But what happens next if X is exposed, depends entirely on the context, and it is the context that tells the readers how worried they should be on X's account.

Because depending on where, and when, and what kind of society, the penalty for cheating could be:

a) the others beat the *&^%#$! out of him

b) death (if they are rough, violent men and there is some sort of honor code between them that has been violated), possibly a rather gruesome one

c) his friends swear at him good-naturedly and kick him out of the card game

d) his friends swear at him, kick him out of the card game, and never include him in their Saturday night poker games again

e) he is utterly disgraced, banished from the society of his peers and disowned by his family

So, should the readers be sweating along with him? Should they hope he gets caught? Should they hope he doesn't get caught? Should they consider the whole situation so minor that it doesn't really matter if he gets caught, but wonder what all of this sweating and trembling says about him? Should they put the book down now before what happens next gives them nightmares?

Depending on the context, what the readers will be feeling could be any of these.

 

[thatollie]

There are three rules to great writing, unfortunately no-one knows what they are.

 

[The Ace]

...and whoever finds out will make Croessus look like a pauper.

 

[Boneman]

But there are three qualities that you might possess that could go an incredibly long way to achieving success - luck, talent and hard work.

Nigel Watts, in the book 'Teach yourself:Writing a Novel'* says this: the sucessful novelist (that is, one who has finished a project that is reconizably a novel) is a stubborn, brave and single-minded individual. Antisocial perhaps; misunderstood almost certainly; confused and afraid at times, unsure of their talent, regretful of their mistakes, envious of their peers - a successful novelist may be all of these. But he or she is also a brave pioneer

*Published by Hodder Education 1996

 

[goldhawk]

Without the context, the conflict, the tensions, and the emotions can fall absolutely flat -- or confuse the reader, or create the wrong impression. The closer the setting is to the world we and our readers personally inhabit, the more the society that surrounds the story is like our own (however far in time and space it may be), the more we can depend on the reader to know the context and the more things the writer and the reader both can safely take for granted. BUT once we leave that zone of comfortable familiarity, we simply have to start providing context or readers will fail to understand the tensions and emotions.

I agree with this but I also agree with I, Brian in that it's possible to over-describe the setting. And far too many novice writers do this because it's so easy to do.

When writing the setting, only do that which stands out or is different. Let your readers' imagination fill in the rest. And try not to do it all at once; let your characters' interactions intermesh with it. Describe the parts that are involved in the story and let your readers do the rest.

 

[Nik]

"...one who has finished a project that is reconizably a novel."

I am so glad he didn't mention 'published'...

That aside, if I can re-boot my stalled (*) 'Long Weekend' by fixing a tedious scene, then write the ~20k words of lead-in plus finale, I'll be rather pleased.

Finishing one novel-length project ('Project Lorraine') was an accident. Two's a trend...
==

(*) Good news-- It was only a hair-line Colles'. Bad news-- It needs a lightweight cast...

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I agree with this but I also agree with I, Brian in that it's possible to over-describe the setting. And far too many novice writers do this because it's so easy to do.

It is, however, difficult to do well, and that is where novice writers usually trip up.

How much is too much, or enough, depends on the kind of story, the taste of the reader, the power of the prose, and imaginative quality of the description. There are some books that people read so that they can completely immerse themselves in the world. There are some books that people read for the marvelous prose. Other readers, of course, just want to get on with the story, and don't care for those books at all -- nevertheless, some of them are enduring classics.

Not that you should sit down with the intention of writing a great classic. But the style should suit the story. Some stories work best with a very spare style, others cry out for something more ornate and exuberant.

We don't really have to make a choice between character-driven conflict and a great attention to detail and setting. We can have both.

 

[J-WO]

We don't really have to make a choice between character-driven conflict and a great attention to detail and setting. We can have both.

Perdido Street Station is an excellent example of this. Albeit a bloody massive one!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Indeed, my point is primarily that as an aspiring writer there can the pitfall of trying to communicate tension visually, rather than through a character experience.

That doesn;t mean to say visuals can't play a part - of course they can.

I know when I first started trying to write a SFF novel, I would find myself visualising the story like a film - and then trying to write what I saw. It took a long time for me to realise this was a huge mistake.

I have an opening scene to rewrite and always struggled with it - previously I would write about how it looks. I've now started the process of writing how it feels to the character in that situation. The writing is far more punchy and grabs attention faster - not least because it allows for the creation of character-driven tension from the first sentence. It doesn't allow the reader to sit back and view from a distance - they are pushed straight into the character experience.

It was only from realising this is how the big greats of SFF write, through use of tension, that I've realised just how fundamental the tool is for fiction writing.

Knowing and comprehending this has been a long lesson hopefully now learned.

 

[Ursa major]

I know when I first started trying to write a SFF novel, I would find myself visualising the story like a film - and then trying to write what I saw. It took a long time for me to realise this was a huge mistake.

Me too.

(I wonder if this is because we live in a world of near-constant provision visual media or whether vision dominated the thought processes of people in the nineteenth century and earlier.)


And it is not just a mistake, it's a lost opportunity.

Film and TV have had to develop all sorts of ways - gurning character tics and "unlikely" dialogue - to convey to their audiences what a writer can do simply with a few well chosen words. Writers also have more (or, rather, different) control over pacing: yes a director can use slow motion (and even speeded-up presentation) and in the absence of a fast-forward function, can force the viewer to accept the pace. However, the very act of reading about action gives a writer the opportunity to mould time: turning what could be little more than an instant into long paragraph (or more) without - if done well - upsetting the flow of the story; or, in the other direction, compressing days of struggle into a sentence or two of description (of circumstance and its effect on a character).

I'm reading The Lord of the Rings (I'm coming to the end of Book V) and I've been comparing it to the Jackson's films. I love those films, and I understand why the telling of the story had to be altered for the different medium. What I most notice, however, is the long timespan described the books compared to the helter-skelter pace of the films. Those shots of the Fellowship tramping across hills and mountains (of NZ) are, while beautiful and evocative, pale shadows of the images Tolkien places in my mind of the days and weeks of difficult and dangerous travel and of the fears and hopes of those on the trek.

Another case of horses for courses, methinks.

 

[Interference]

Which is why book adaptations of films and TV progs are almost always unsatisfactory, I suppose - the writer is trying to transliterate the images, when he tries at all, rather than open up the other dimensions.