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| Books by Julie Eberhart Painter. |
Focus: An Important Element of Storytelling
By Julie Eberhart Painter
Of all the skills I've learned in this last quarter of
century’s worth of concentrated writing, it's that three elements are key to a
successful piece of writing: point of view, story and focus.
POV is a learned skill. There are many articles around to
guide writers through that tunnel. And story tells itself providing we stay
true to it and the POV characters living it. The easiest way to accomplish this
is to put the POV camera on the shoulder of the character with the most to lose
and let that character see and react to the story unfolding.
A Slippery Issue...
Focus is a slippery issue, easily lost when we are
distracted by a cute joke or a sidebar kind of addendum. The “let's include
this,” mindset will not get a story past the first editor. I find flash
fiction, a good place to put those distracting asides.
But truly focusing, “Now there’s the rub.” With focus the
writer must stay on point. Characters must speak as themselves, act in their
own style and have a clear voice—so clear that very few dialogue tags are
needed. The characters must dress and look like the person the writer is
portraying. (No tart clothes on a nun.)
Some bit players will not be thoroughly described. The days
of a person entering the room, followed by a full bio and inventory of their
appearance are gone. Minimalism is in. Get to the point. Elmore Leonard says he
leaves out the parts people skip over. That might be extreme, but it's a good
measuring stick to apply when you get verbiage in your wordage.
When choosing a way to tell any story, it must come from the
most visceral place, the heart of the character.
Characters...
Focus on how this character is acting and what part of the
back story must be included. For instance might he have just gotten out of jail?
Is she not wearing a wedding ring but obviously expecting? There might be a physical
disability that can only be caused by the back story itself.
How we chose to tell the story means everything. Over all,
whose story is it? That will determine the point of view and focus; and what
method are you going to use to bring this story from your inner being to haunt your
readers.
If all else fails, keep your focus by taking that
distracting little gem you're just dying to use and make it the focus of a
short-short or flash fiction story.
Application...
Applying the disciplined pen to the focus of your piece will
get your readers laughing in the right places and crying as you might have when
you first wrote the scene. Weed out the extraneous details cluttering the point
of the story. And, never forget writer Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They
Carried saying, “When you come to the end stop!”
Julie Eberhart Painter is the Champagne Books author of Mortal
Coil, Tangled Web, and CTRR award-winning Kill Fee, also recipient of Champagne’s Best Book
for 2011 Award. Web site at www.books-jepainter.com
Check out http://bewilderingstories.com
to read Julie's latest flash fiction stories and articles and stories in Cocktails,
Fiction and Gossip Magazine, an online slick.
One of the reasons I love writing in 1st person, is how easy it is to avoid head hopping. It allows an unusual amount of focus, which helps me tremendously. I've even discovered if a scene is especially difficult to write, I pick a character and rewrite it in 1st person. Then return to 3rd person. That helps regain the focus for me.
ReplyDeleteThat's a great tip! Thank you. I can surely use that. It might help me with current scene, in fact!
DeleteWow Julie - great advice. Thank you so much. Love that - "when you come to the end, stop" hehehe. Words to live by.
ReplyDeleteSimple, huh? So why don't we think of that I wonder?
Deletemy book, Rock Bound, started out as a bit of back story I wrote for some secondary characters in a book I was working on. I was writing it as scrap just for my own information, but the characters took over and became a prequel, so I published it first, then went back and finished Rock Crazy. That way, I kept the focus on Annie in Rock Bound and on Katie in Rock Crazy, and I ended up with two books that received pretty good reviews.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good way to stay focused. Kind of like promising to take the dog walkies after kitty gets fed. ^_^
DeleteI tend to get too caught up in the back story. I want to include every minute detail. I always have to go back and thin the story out. Great information!!
ReplyDeleteme too. I like the idea writing it from 1st pov so you clearly see who is doing what.
DeleteThanks for your additional input, everyone. I can see backstory getting hold on the real story.
DeleteAlso, Kayelle, I was lucky enough to hear Tim O'Brien say when to "stop" in person. He was very generous with his time.
Martha, first person would be a good way to weed out the confusion. I'll keep that in mind when I get stuck -- again.
Sound advice for any project, and maybe a few things like personal discussions, too. ;) Say what you're going to say and then leave it alone. ^_^ Good thing to remember. It goes along with another good piece of advice... a closed mouth gathers no foot.
DeleteGood one, Kayelle. Thank you again for allowing me to present here.
DeleteWhen this started I was, like, oh no! Something else I don't know! I guess I just didn't know what it was called. Whew! Great advice, though. I've run into a few times with new writers, knew something was wrong, but not what it was called. Nice concise explanation, too. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIsn't that true? The more I learn the less I know. There are so many things to keep in mind. I'm glad we have this blog to share information and ideas.
DeleteJulie, I loved this post and it is so true that those are the three key factors in writing. Thank you so much for your insight and the great explanation on staying within POV by imagining a camera on the character's shoulder.
ReplyDeleteThanks!
I second that! An author friend used to say that first person means you only know what that one person knows. Unless he/she is telepathic, you don't know what the others are thinking or doing.
Delete