How to Write Exceptional Endings

In some ways, endings can be the easiest part of a story to write because they simply connect and resolve one conflict after another after another until all the loose ends are tied up. Often the writer has thought about the ending for months. But other times, coming up with a satisfying ending is dreadful. Not all endings are equal. Here are six key points that will help you write a satisfying and exceptional ending.

"Always Keep Your Promises if You Want to Keep Your Friends"

In the Christmas movie Jingle all the Way, Turboman, a fictional superhero has a maxim: Always keep your promises if you want to keep your friends. Since this movie is sort of a ongoing joke between me and one of my siblings, we say this to the other to get a laugh. But it's true for writing great endings: Always keep your promises if you want to keep your readers.

When we start our story, we make promises about what kind of story this is going to be. If there is a meet cute in the opening (where a potentially romantic couple meet in a cute way), you are promising that there will be a level of romance in the story. If you open with a character called on a quest to defeat a dragon, you are promising a dragon by the end. If you open with an unsolved murder, you are promising it will be solved. Promises not only happen at the beginning of a story, but they happen throughout too, and they can happen on a small scale.

Some people in the industry advise that you should never break a promise--I actually think you can, but you have to do it right (sorry Turboman), but as a rule in general, it works fine. Unless you absolutely know what you are doing and know how to break promises right, to write a great ending, you need to keep your promises to the audience. The meet cute couple confesses they love each other. The dragon is confronted. The murder mystery is solved. If you promised there was going to be magic in this story, we need to see it present in the end.

As I said in the very beginning, the ending is where you really start connecting loose ends and resolving the story's conflicts. So in order to write a good ending, those things need to be addressed, not bypassed. Bonus points if some of them are seemingly unresolvable and can be resolved in a surprising/unforeseen way.

Deliver MORE than You Promised (Exceed Expectations)

Keeping promises is vital to writing a satisfying ending. But if you want to write an exceptional ending, you really need to deliver more than what you promise and exceed expectations. You've set up expectations as you've made promises throughout the story, now you need to push beyond those. Maybe the protagonist prepared and planned for fighting a dragon during the entire book, but when he arrives, he discovers there are actually two. Maybe your heroine confesses her love to the hero--and finds out he's actually a prince in disguise. The detective solves the murder--and it turns out the murderer is her husband.

You can exceed expectations a little bit, or you can exceed them by a lot. Just remember that it needs to fit the story and the story's context. For some surprises, this means you need to foreshadow. For example, in the prince scenario, chances are you need to foreshadow something about a prince during the story (but you don't want to foreshadow too much, otherwise it will be expected). For the dragon example, I don't think you need to foreshadow that there are two.

When you exceed expectations, you include an element of surprise. Keep in mind this very important point: If you deliver something different than expected, it needs to be just as good as what is expected or better. Ideally, you deliver some of what is expected and some that is unexpected, but whatever the case, you don't want to deliver anything anti-climactic or anything that undercuts what you've been building throughout the story.

Twists also relate to surprises and exceeding expectations. A lot of great stories shift the context of what we and the characters know at the end so that there is a twist.

Learn about the five different kinds of surprises (including exceeding expectations and twists) and how they work in this post on them.

Escalate Risks (aka Stakes) and Costs

Any decent ending has risks and costs. After all, this is the moment the whole book has been building toward. There should be more at risk now than there has been through the entire book. Costs should probably also be at their highest point.

Risks are what are "at stake" in the story. In The Hunger Games, Katniss's life is what is at stake, and the emotional (and physical) health of her sister. If Katniss doesn't win The Hunger Games, she'll die and Prim will be devastated. The costs are what the character has to do or give up to reach a goal and/or save those stakes. So in The Hunger Games, it cost Katniss some of her identity. At the very end of the book, she grows more and more confused over what part of her is real and what part was her just trying to survive. (Not to mention the physical costs of everything she went through)

Sometimes in some stories, stakes and costs seem to overlap or be the same, depending on what angle you are looking at. But the point is, they need to be there. And to really take your ending to the next level, you need to escalate them.

So at the starting of the story, we thought we just needed to defeat a dragon. But by the climax we learn that this is no ordinary dragon, but essentially a god of the dragons who has the capacity to not only take over the country as it has, but bring destruction to all of civilization, and it will if threatened. So now all human civilization is at stake.

Our protagonist was training to defeat one ordinary dragon--he's done it before. But now that there are two, and both of them are basically "gods" of the dragon race, there's a good chance it will cost him his life to save all of humanity.

See how those stakes and costs were escalated?

To escalate costs and risks, you either add more, deepen what you already have, or vastly change the odds against your character. (And ideally, you do all three if you can)

These examples are a bit epic and extreme, but in a more personal story, risks and costs will be more personal. In a typical 90's movie, a workaholic dad is at risk of losing his family relationships, but to save those relationships, it costs giving up his job. That's a more personal set-up.

Whatever kind of story you are telling, escalate risks and costs so that they are the highest they have ever been. This also means you are greatly increasing the protagonist's struggle.

Choose the Right Ending Model

I've been taught that there are really three ways a story can end in a satisfying way:

- Happily Ever After: Everything is tied up nicely and everyone is happy and whole. Risks and costs were escalated, but in the end, everything panned out, the costs won't hurt for long, and the future looks great. Example: think of Disney's movies aimed at children.

- Much is Lost, but Much is Gained: Some of those costs? They really happened. People died. Relationships were lost. A central character may be scarred for life. But it was worth it. Loved ones and important people were saved, maybe even all of humanity. Even though it took a lot of sacrifice and heartache, ultimately, it was worth it. (Usually on a personal scale, there are a lot of sacrifices, but on the large scale, much is won) Example: think Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and many epics and blockbuster movies.

- Sadder but Wiser: A lot of the big things were lost, maybe even the protagonist's goals weren't met. But oh my word, they learned so much from the process and they are a changed person because of it. They are a better person because of the course of the story. They may be wiser, or love more deeply, or gained knowledge. (Usually the large scale things aren't won, but something internal and personal is gained) Example: think The Fault in Our Stars, and many literary works.

Usually certain genres lean toward one type of ending, as you can see from my examples. There might be some that sort of waver. For example, in How the Grinch Stole Christmas the Grinch doesn't meet his planned goals (he couldn't stop Christmas), but the journey leaves him wiser and a changed person. However, ultimately the story ends on a Happily Ever After note.

Choose the ending that fits your story best, and work with it to make it powerful, not against it. This will make the ending more satisfying. 

Cross Opposites

Essentially no one talks about this in the writing world (I'm the only one I know of), but crossing opposites and using contrast is really powerful in writing. When it comes to the ending, this is often done by crossing the biggest, broadest conflict with the deepest, most personal one (which usually relates to the theme). You've seen it before, but might not realize it.

There is an overarching story plot, but then there is a personal one. The personal one often relates to an internal struggle the protagonist is having to try to overcome something, which is almost always the character arc. To write a great ending, try to get the broad conflict to cross with the personal conflict. Sometimes you can get these resolutions right on top of one another, so that the broad conflict and the personal conflict are dealt with in the exact same moment--which is so cool! But most often, the personal conflict is overcome, which then enables the protagonist to face and deal with the big one. Other times, it can go the other way.

Here, let me write this out:

- The broadest conflict and most intimate conflict are overcome at the same time.

- The most intimate conflict is overcome, which leads to the broadest conflict being overcome (probably the most common structure)

- The broadest conflict is overcome, which leads to the most intimate conflict being resolved.

But whatever the case, often the closer you can get these to relate and coincide, the more powerful the ending. Because overcoming and resolving something big, and also something personal, are both significant in and of themselves.

But crossing opposites doesn't have to start and stop there. See if you can cross other opposites in powerful ways.

The movie Interstellar is pro at this. If you look at the movie, it's crossing opposites everywhere. The biggest, broadest, most unknowable possible problem (being thrown into a black hole in the process of trying to save all of humanity) directly crosses with the deepest, most personal, most relatable problem (struggling in a parent-child relationship). Even the settings are opposites. The black hole literally crosses with a child's room. At the end, each conflict works off the other--reaching through time and space--to be solved.

It's the breadth, of being pulled from end of the spectrum to the other that infuses the story with high, sharp, power.

So, see where you can cross opposites and where you can cross conflicts (most stories have more than one conflict after all, see if you can cross two or more of them at the end)

Validate, Validate, Validate

You may have heard the three rules for writing middles: Escalate! Escalate! Escalate! For endings, there are also three important rule: Validate! Validate! Validate!

This is more of the denouement than the climax (though validation can happen in the climax). Validate what has been lost, defeated, gained, or won, by showing the audience. With a romance conflict, validate that love was found. Depending on the story and if this is a primary, secondary, tertiary or lower plot line, this might mean the couple gets married, gets engaged, is shown spending time together, kissing, or finally confessing they love each other. In my dragon example, this might mean showing that civilization is at peace, maybe even celebrating, and if the process did cost the hero's life, showing how he will be honored and remembered for centuries to come, and how grateful people are for his sacrifice. In the murder mystery, this might mean showing the murderer locked up or being sentenced. If it was the protagonist's husband, it might show her coping with now living alone. If the Grinch's heart grew by two sizes, we see him celebrating Christmas more than anyone.

Powerful validation, especially one after another, is what can often bring an audience to tears. It can also cement the story into their hearts.

Keep in mind, however, that if you are writing a series, your denouement may be a little different. For example, not everything will be resolved, and not everything may be validated if there are more books still. Instead, it may be important to build anticipation in the audience for what is to come. However, for most series books, there should be at least some validation for the characters' arcs and major conflicts that were resolved in the book.

There is a saying in the writing community, that comes from crime novelist Mickey Spillane: "The first chapter sells the book; the last chapter sells the next book."

This is true for any book, series or not. If it's a series, it sells the next installment. If it's not, it leaves people wanting to buy the next book you write.

For more on climaxes and denouements (and all the other basic story parts), check out this post on outlining.  

  

Read More

Convey an Established Relationship Quickly + Storymakers + Update

Hi everyone! Things have been crazy for me lately and life has been incredibly busy, but I have somehow survived to May 8th, 2018. 

First off, I have a writing tip up this week at WritersHelpingWriters.net, so instead of reading this week's tip here, I'll direct you there (if you are new to my blog, you should know that this is atypical), but here is a teaser if you are into that stuff and are trying to decide if you really want to follow that link. ;)

How to Convey an Established Relationship Quickly

I was recently reading two story openings that were frankly amazing at conveying an established relationship in a matter of pages or even paragraphs. While many stories revolve around the protagonist meeting new people, such as in a typical hero’s journey plot, perhaps even more stories revolve around relationships that are established before the novel begins.

Many new writers have a difficult time conveying such relationships quickly, and to be honest, it can even be tricky for more experienced writers to figure out sometimes, especially if the relationship is very significant.

Whether you are working with best friends, significant others, parents and children, schoolmates, rivals, or downright enemies, here are several methods that can help.

Communicate what’s normal.

Every established relationship has been . . . well . . . established, meaning it has behaviors and attitudes that are typical in it. In one of the story openings I recently read, the protagonist had to deal with two, mean, cruel older sisters. First the meanness was rendered and then validated through narration. In the second one, what was normal of two brothers was simply conveyed through the way they talked to one another. In both cases, I immediately had context for what was typical.

Refer to or imply an off-page history.

Every established relationship has a history: how the characters met, what events have taken place between them, and how they got to where they are now. In some cases, they may have a “reoccurring history.”

. . . You can read the whole post here. 

And I actually got to meet Becca Puglisi in real life over the weekend and thank her (and Angela) for all the opportunities and support they have given me and my blog over the years. I love being a part of Writers Helping Writers, and their books are amazing resources for writers. If you don't have The Emotion Thesaurus, you need it.

Storymakers

This last week I attended the Storymakers Conference, which is definitely still my favorite writing conference I've ever been to. Here are a few quick reasons why:

- TONS of amazing information about writing and working in the industry from professionals

- Awesome events: every year the conference has a first chapter contest, pitch sessions, and get-togethers

- Food. It might seem simple, but I love that Storymakers takes care of attendees' meals and that they are included in the ticket prices, so we don't have to worry about what to eat or if we will go hungry.

- Friendly and amazing people. Storymakers is probably my favorite conference to meet new people. Attendees and faculty are so friendly and easy to talk to but it's not so over-the-top that it leaves me feeling suspicious or that people have an ulterior motive. (I'm sometimes suspicious of too much friendliness, to be honest!)

- The faculty and organizers are amazing! I love that they fly in amazing authors, agents, and editors from all over (including New York) and also accommodate and cherish those in this part of the states.

I could go on, but suffice it to say that I always feel well taken care of, the conference has never been a disappointment, and it has always felt simultaneously very professional and very fun (not to mention the prices for all that it entails are amazing).

This year was a very special year in particular because I actually got to teach a class! And I also had a vendor table ^_^ 

Storymakers was the first writing conference I ever attended, back in 2010, and so being on the other side--the faculty side--was really special to me. 

I will admit I was nervous to teach and have a table. Sure, I've taught before, but not at this conference. However human beings can do hard things, and it all turned out fine :) Thanks to everyone who came or stopped by my table and all the fun people I got to meet in real life. Somehow I ended up with the vendor table that got the most traffic--I'm still not sure how that happened, but I am definitely not complaining! 

I wanted to bring back a few signed books--like one of Shannon Hale's or The Emotion Theasaurus--to give away on here, but I wasn't thinking and of course by the time I made it to the bookstore, they were all sold out. 

If you are thinking of going to a writing conference, I highly recommend Storymakers.You only need to take a scroll through the special guest list and faculty list to get an idea for how amazing it is. 

Thank you to everyone who made the conference amazing!

Funny Story

Real quick I did want to share something funny that happened at the conference. I decided to make some stickers that I could hand out to people. Even though five writerly people checked my material for typos . . . there somehow still was one 🤦

And the worst part?

It made the sentence completely scandalous. 

Can you spot it?

It's says "I'd be easier" instead of "It'd be easier."

😂 🤣 😂

Yup, and that's how I started my conference experience. Since I couldn't fix it, I decided to roll with the punches and just say, "I'd be easy for a Weasley."

But it gets better.

I had four different stickers (as you can see at the top of this post), and I gave away more scandalous stickers than any other one 😂 (and I made sure to point out the typo so people were aware).

And it's the only sticker I ran completely out of. 

(Though I did tell people it was limited edition because it won't be back next year!)

So it all worked out and ended up even being a good thing. 

Update

Other than the conference, life has still been keeping me really busy. Fawkes Editing is going really well, and since I started freelancing seven months ago, I've never not had work! (How is it May already?)

I'm planning on attending Salt Lake Comic Con again this fall, and I'll also be teaching at the LDSPMA conference in early November. 

And of course, I'll be back next week with a new writing tip. You can check out all my writing tips in the index. 

Have a great week!

Me with fellow writers Charlie Pulsipher, Helen Boswell, and Shallee McArthur (in case you were wondering, this isn't typical of writing conferences, but one of the vendors had a fun photo shoot area with costumes!)

Read More

How to Dump Info without Info-Dumping

For a while I've been wanting to post an article on info-dumps, because they are so easy to do and so awful for a story. An info-dump is what it sounds like. A big ol' chunk of info that a writer splats out into the middle of a scene. They can bring the pacing of a story to a grinding halt while the audience has to sift through more information than they care to know about X, Y, or Z.

Info-dumps can literally be about information and facts, other times they are whole backgrounds and backstories about characters, or the entire history of a setting or object. Often this happens because the writer is convinced the audience needs all of the information in order to fully "get" and appreciate the story and characters, sometimes it happens because the writer simply loves the information on a personal level, other times the writer "discovers" the information when writing a first draft and hasn't bothered to fix it, and finally, it happens when the writer is a beginner and simply doesn't know better.

Science fiction author Shallee McArthur wrote a nice article on info-dumps and also taught a class on it at a writing conference. So today I asked permission to share it here:

I am a nerd. As a kid, I spent my summers doing science experiments in my giant white science book. For fun. And to this day, I get excited about things like sea slugs that absorb plant DNA and become photosynthetic. I get weepy about the space shuttle's last flight. It's why I write sci fi-- because I'm a nerd, and I love all that science stuff.

Here's the thing about writing sci fi: there's a lot of science in it. Which means there tends to be a lot of necessity for explanation, which leads to a lot of potential info-dumps. This isn't unique to sci fi, of course. Most authors have a lot of information to convey, and sometimes we have no choice but to reveal large bits of it at a time, potentially boring our readers just so they understand what the heck we're talking about.

I had some trouble with info-dumps in one of my novels, and it took me lots of revisions to get it right. And some of the biggest lessons I learned were actually from the movie Inception. There's a LOT of information they have to convey, but the movie never lags in its pacing. Here are the things I learned to apply in my writing. (Warning-- there are a few small spoilers if you haven't seen it before!)

1. Early in the story, weave as little information as possible to keep your reader engaged.

Inception doesn't start with Leo DiCaprio's character Cobb explaining the ins and outs of shared dreaming. We start with tension--he's trying to convince Saito that he needs to train his mind to not be vulnerable to idea theft. Here's the thing. We learn, in a few brief sentences of dialogue, that someone can steal your secrets through shared dreaming. And THAT'S IT. We don't know how it works, or who can do it, or the history behind why it was developed in the first place.

We know just enough that when we learn everything we're watching IS a dream, we get it. Maybe we don't understand why Cobb gets dumped in the tub to wake him up, but we get it enough to be invested and intrigued. It's the technique of weaving small bits of information into a scene so we get small bits instead of large chunks. And especially for the first 30-50 pages of a novel, that may be as much as you need.

2. Have a character who doesn't understand what's going on so someone can explain things to them-- and the reader.

Enter Juno--er, Ariadne. She's new to the team. She doesn't understand any of the history or the hows and whys of dream sharing. The team teaches her all the ins and outs, and as she learns, so do we. This neatly evades the "maid and butler" dialogue of "As you know, your subconscious is represented by all these people," and "Yes, Cobb, and they will attack us if they sense something is wrong in the dream." It's natural for Ariadne to be learning it, so it's natural for us to learn it too.

3. Don't explain everything at once--use small chunks in addition to weaving.

The first time Cobb takes Ariadne into the dream, we don't get all the information about how dream sharing works. We get small bits. We understand that the dream can be changed by the people sharing it, sometimes in fantastic ways, and that the subconscious of the person dreaming can become aggressive when it's messed with too much. And, very briefly, we see again Cobb's projection of his terrifying wife. We don't learn much about the other parts of shared dreaming, such as the use of chemists, or about what on earth is wrong with Cobb's deranged wife. These things are woven in later as scenes.

Which brings us to another point.

4. Information should always be revealed as part of a scene.

A.k.a, NEVER SIMPLY TELL THE READER. Paragraphs that say, "and this is the history of x, and this is how y works," are the exact definition of bad info-dumps. In Inception, every single bit of information is worked in as part of a scene. In other words, it is not just giving you information. It's developing character, deepening mystery, and furthering plot at the same time. It brings tension around the very information we're receiving, and we're so engaged, we don't even recognize it as an info-dump.

For example, the scene where Cobb risks going behind enemy lines to find Eames, we learn about how inception is possible, and we learn about the idea of a chemist and using dreams within dreams. All around this information is the tension of Cobb being potentially caught by people who want him dead. And then, when we have just enough information, we get some action as Cobb is chased through the streets of Mombasa. We are kept engaged because it's a scene in a story, not an aside of information.

Read More

Wordiness

 

A while ago I did a post on purple prose, and today I want to talk about one if its relatives: wordiness. 

They can overlap, but they are different. Purple prose may include wordiness, and wordiness may turn into purple prose, but it is possible to have one without the other. 

Wordiness is taking more words than necessary to say whatever it is you are trying to say. 

And like purple prose, it's also a phase of writing that I think writers naturally go through at some point. It could be in middle school or high school, or it could be in your 50's, but most of us have likely courted wordiness at one time or another. 

(Remember in school when you were trying to fill up a 5-page essay with a 2-page topic. Yup.)

So let's go through the characteristics of wordiness with some examples to help us discern it and understand why it's a problem.

Now, to me, wordiness is usually a sum of issues, instead of just one thing here and there. Not all of these characteristics are inherently bad, but it's usually the combination of them or the way they are used that's the problem. Contrary to the meme at the very beginning, you don't have to go through and literally cut every. Single. Excess. Word. --Though some people may tell you to. Believe it or not, I think there are times where "unnecessary words" are exactly what you need, and I started a post on that once . . . I really should finish it and publish it on here. Anyway . . . 

Redundancy

Redundancy comes about for a couple of main reasons:

1 - the writer doesn't trust the reader to get it the first time.

It was April 6th, and today was Cindy's birthday. She'd been looking forward to this day for weeks, because it likewise happened to be her cousin Mimi's birthday, and they were going to celebrate all day together. Both Cindy and Mimi were born on April 6th; they shared the same birthday. 

Here the writer (my alter ego ;) Maybe I should make up a persona for my bad writing) is worried that the reader isn't going to pick up on the fact that Cindy and Mimi share the same birthday, which is pretty miraculous (at least the writer thinks so), so they write it multiple ways within a matter of sentences.

Look, the first mention of it was pretty straightforward. You need to trust that the reader has the ability to make obvious logical connections. We don't need to be told same exact information within a matter of sentences. The only time this might be okay is if you are trying to explain something very complicated or unfamiliar to the reader. Here, we know what a birthday is. We get it the first time.

2 - the writer doesn't trust implication

Some of the most powerful writing comes from implying. Big things can be implied, but more importantly, little things don't need to be said.

Once Kip sat to the right of her, Alice took her hand out of her jacket pocket and took his hand with hers, with his left hand in her right hand. 

The audience really doesn't need this much specificity and detail to understand what is going on. Just say, "Once Kip sat to her right, Alice took his hand." Where her hand was before probably isn't important. "Took" implies she used her hand, so we don't even need to say it. He's sitting right of her, so it's assumed by default that his left is in her right. 

Long Multi-Syllable Words and/or Uncommon Words

There is a phase that most writers go through where they think that the fancier the word is, the more sophisticated of a writer they are. They might grab the thesaurus and find the most complicated word to say the simplest thing. Dictionary.com's "word of the day" feature is great at doing this sort of thing, which sometimes drives me nuts. Don't pick overly complicated words that no one is familiar with to say something that can be said more simply. 

Sure, some of these words are great for academic papers, but not for storytelling. 

The field that Steve stumbled upon was prodigiously verdigris with anthophilia circumnavigating every inflorescence.

Overusing multi-syllable words and uncommon words makes the writing more complicated than it needs to be, and the tone becomes too pedantic. You can break this rule in special circumstances, but usually . . . not.

Filler Phrases and Unnecessary Words

This one can be a little tricky because a lot of times we aren't aware we are even using them. 

In my personal opinion, during that period of time, the stone had turned orange in color and sparkly in appearance.

All opinions are personal, so you can delete that word. Also, depending on the scene and character, you may not even need to say "opinion"--that can be implied. "Period" suggests time, so you can delete "of time." Orange is a color, so you can delete "in color." "Sparkly" refers to appearance, so you can delete "in appearance."

Style by Joseph M. Williams gives some good examples of these phrases to watch out for. Here are just a few:

Free gift (all gifts are free)

Each individual

Future plans

True facts

And also:

Due to the fact --> Because

Despite the fact --> Though

Concerning the matter of --> About

Passive Voice

I'm a big believer that passive voice isn't always wrong. However it should almost never be your go-to. If you aren't familiar with passive voice, rather than explain it all over, just read about it at Purdue OWL.

Passive voice naturally takes more words to say something than active voice does. And if you are using passive voice regularly, there's probably a problem. It also adds all those to-be words, which can relate to wordiness too.

The door was kicked down by me, swiftly without many motions, but a whole lot of decisiveness was used by me, that was apparent to everybody. 

Bonus:

Watch out for words being unintentionally repeated too close together. That can contribute to wordiness.



Wordiness can come from trying to be too dramatic, which is often where it veers into purple prose, which is the wrong way to render a dramatic moment.

It can also come from a writer thinking the more words he can use to describe something, the better. Again, like purple prose, that's not how it actually works.

Read More

Minor Viewpoint Errors

I've covered point of view and viewpoint penetration before on my blog, but I wanted to do a simple post about common viewpoint errors because they are something I see a lot from new writers.

Let's build from the ground up.

The common "rule" these days (or decades) is that you should really only be in one viewpoint character's head at a time. This means that if I'm writing from Rosie's viewpoint in the opening scene, that I stay in her viewpoint for the entire scene, chapter, or in many cases, book. She is the viewpoint character, and therefore, everything we see and experience should be what she sees and experiences, and if it deviates, it's considered a viewpoint error.

Here is an example.

Rosie scraped frost from her windshield in the freezing winter air. She felt as if her very eyeballs would freeze. Can't wait for spring, she thought. She should have come out sooner and started her car, melt all the frost off so she wouldn't be late.

"Hey Rosie!" It was Ms. Trumble, Rosie's talkative neighbor.

Rosie pretended not to hear.

Ms. Trumble came closer, pulling her coat tight around her. She could feel the icy wind against her neck and hoped she wouldn't catch a cold like Rosie had last month.

"Hey," Rosie said halfheartedly. She continued to scrape.

Yup, there it is. A line about what Ms. Trumble is thinking and feeling. If we are truly in Rosie's viewpoint, we shouldn't know exactly what Ms. Trumble is thinking and feeling, because Rosie doesn't. Everything should be from Rosie's point of view.

So the error?

Ms. Trumble came closer, pulling her coat tight around her. She could feel the icy wind against her neck and hoped she wouldn't catch a cold like Rosie had last month.

(Note: It is possible to have the viewpoint character interpret or guess at another character's feelings and thoughts based on body language and how well they know that person, which is slightly different than this example.)

Viewpoint errors can be sneakier than this. Remember how I talked about blocking a few weeks ago? If the viewpoint character can't see something visually from the angle he is standing and looking, it can't be on the page. So here is another error.

Mack sat in his cubicle. He hated working customer service, but he'd needed a quick job, so here he was, listening to stupid people day after day, phone call after phone call.

"Mack!" Stephanie popped her head around his cubicle wall.

Mack's heart skipped a beat.

Stephanie had worked adjacent to him for weeks, but they hardly talked.

Her phone went off. She looked back at her desk where her phone vibrated next to her mouse.

If Mack is sitting in his cubicle, and Stephanie's is right next to him, he can't see her desk to know that her phone is next to the mouse. It's a viewpoint error.

But perhaps the most common viewpoint error I see has to do with how the writer references the actual viewpoint character. For example:

When done scraping enough frost off, Rosie put her hands in her pockets. Her blue eyes looked into Ms. Trumble's brown ones.

Rosie can't see her own eyes. So using "blue" is considered a viewpoint error. You have to figure out how to get that information to the reader in a different way. At least weave it in a way where it would be natural that Rosie would have a passing thought about the color of her eyes.

But it can get even sneakier.

"That Michael fellow ask you to marry him yet?" Ms. Trumble asked.

Rosie reddened.

Rosie can't see herself blush. So that's a viewpoint error.

She can, however, feel herself flush.

"That Michael fellow ask you to marry him yet?" Ms. Trumble asked.

Rosie's cheeks went warm.

See? Because we are in the scene as if we are Rosie, we can feel what she feels, but we can't see our own face (Rosie's).

If you think this sounds too nit-picky, trust me, it's real, and professionals are aware of it.

Must you always write that consciously? Well, yes . . . if you want to write professionally. . . . and even if you want to break the rule, you need to be conscious enough to know where and why you are breaking it.

Minor viewpoint errors can be difficult to learn how to see, after all, nothing is grammatically wrong with the sentences. But once you learn them, you can't unsee them.

If you are new to this concept, you might be wondering what the point is and if it really matters that we said "Rosie reddened." The idea is that we want the audience to be fully immersed in the story, to feel as if they are the main character and that they identify with the main character. Viewpoint errors take away from that. Other than that, they are simply considered amateur.

I'm not as stingy about this stuff as some others are, but the reality is, if you aren't following this rule, I need to be able to see why. If you are serious about writing, this is something that needs to be mastered if you are writing in first-person or third-person.

If you are writing in straight-up omniscient, where the narrator is taking us into people's thoughts and minds left and right in a scene, that's different. But again, it's so unpopular in the modern day and age that many people will still chastise you for it. I'm not against omniscient, but just be aware that if you are going to write that way, it needs to be intentional, and you will probably get flack for it even when you do it right. If that's the way you feel you need to write a story, personally, I'm open to that.

But if you are writing in first-person or third-person, most of the time, you should be in one viewpoint at a time.

These days, many people argue that you can only switch viewpoint characters at the start of a new scene or chapter. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think it's possible to switch mid-scene and be fine, as long as you are smart about it, and remember to only be in one viewpoint at a time. Unless you really know what you are doing and have established it at the beginning of the story, 99% of the time you shouldn't be head-hopping--jumping from one viewpoint to another to another and back again. One viewpoint character at a time.

I hope this short post cleared some things up for you, if you've ever been criticized of viewpoint errors. Otherwise, I hope it was a nice refresher, or reference to send others to.

Read More

Maximizing or Minimizing Your Setting

As I touched on in my last post, setting is more important in some stories than in others. For example, if you are writing a wilderness survival story, setting might be an important component--a life-and-death component. In other stories, like many sitcoms for example, it's really not much of a key player. But whatever the case, it must (almost) always be present. After all, life doesn't happen in a void . . . unless of course you are writing a science fiction story.

Obviously in any story that has a strong "man vs. setting" conflict, setting is going to be important. This includes wilderness survival stories (think The Hatchet), but it may also include westerns, frontier stories, war eras, adventure stories (think Indiana Jones), journey stories (think The Hobbit), dystopian stories (Hunger Games) and plenty of others. As I mentioned before, back in the day, there was a whole genre called "local color" that was about capturing what a particular setting was like to live in and visit.

But the story doesn't have to be about the setting for it to play a significant role. Sometimes the role of setting is simply to transport the audience. Harry Potter isn't really "about" Hogwarts . . . but everyone who reads the books wants to go there. Once Twilight got big, Forks, Washington suddenly had plenty of tourism.

Setting can help with the tone of the story. A murder mystery set in Chicago is a lot different than one set behind-the-scenes at Disneyland.

But whatever setting you have, when it comes to writing, it's usually a good idea to expand your sense of setting in some way. It will make the story feel more authentic and the "world" feel bigger. It will transport your audience better, and help them experience the narrative.

David Farland teaches a great technique related to this. He says in the movie industry that with big budget films, they never want to use the same set piece twice if they can help it. For example, in a story about a king, one scene might take place in his bed chamber, another in the throne room, another in the dining hall, another in his personal hunting reserve, another in his courtyard. This expands or maximizes the setting. It let's the audience see different aspects of the "world" and keeps the film visually interesting.

The same can often be done with novels. Some stories naturally require that you maximize setting. In The Hobbit, we are following Bilbo travel through Middle-earth to face Smaug. We'll see the shire, but we'll also see forests, and mountains, and underground tunnels. Other stories may not necessarily require that, but almost beg for it because of their worldbuilding. The world is so interesting that the author really should find a way to have the character move about so the audience can behold it.

But even on a small scale, setting can be maximized to some degree. In The Office, almost the entire show takes place in the office (thus the title), but even that setting is somewhat expanded. We have the main room, but also Michael's office, the conference room, the break room, the warehouse, the parking lot, and some scenes take place in the elevator, on the stairs, or on the roof. Then we know Vance Refrigeration is nearby, they sometimes go to Poor Richard's, and elsewhere in Pennsylvania.

Look for ways to add "set pieces" to you story to make the world feel bigger.

Another way to make the setting feel bigger is to give it a sense of history or a strong backstory. Even if the story takes place in the wilderness, you can still bring in a sense of history. You may mention how a canyon was carved out by a river over time, or signs of the previous season (ex. winter snow still melting). If your story takes place in a city, you can mention the city's origin as Suzanne Collins does in The Hunger Games with District 12 and then the Capitol. Or, you may even mimic J. R. R. Tolkien who essentially wrote an origin story for Middle-earth.

On the other hand, in some cases that are probably fewer and further in between, you may need to minimize your setting. See, big budget films may be able to film on a different set for each scene, but low budget films can't afford to. Some sitcoms have essentially the same three or five sets for the whole show. Luckily we don't work off the same budgets as films as fiction writers. However, we do have budgets of a sort. Words. Every time you introduce a new set piece, you'll probably have to spend some words describing it. You may end up spending more words on setting than your story can afford. Stories like The Hobbit can afford to spend more words on setting since that's largely what the story is about. Others may not be like that, and spending too many words on setting might slow the pacing of the story.

If your story is very long or you need to write short, then repeating set pieces for scenes will help cut down on length. Also, repeating set pieces can give the setting a stronger feeling of familiarity and may even be cozy or homey. After all, who doesn't want to revisit the four poster beds in Gryffindor tower, wake to breakfast in the Great Hall, and stroll by the lake and pumpkin patch in the afternoon?

It might be helpful to keep in mind that historical fiction and speculative fiction usually require a good chunk of words on setting in particular because of worldbuilding, which might influence how much you would like to expand or condense for your story.

Whatever the case, it may be more helpful to be consciously aware of how to maximize and how to minimize.

Read More

5 Most Common Mistakes with Setting

A few weeks ago I was updating the Writing Tip Index, and was horrified when I realized I had nothing on setting. NOTHING! So I'll be slowly remedying that over time.

But today's post is rather straightforward and simple. I'm going to talk about some of the most common mistakes I see when it comes to handling setting.

Mistake #1

Perhaps the most common mistake I see with new writers is that there is essentially no setting.

The story opens up, usually with a conversation or a character thinking, and the writer literally does not tell the setting to the audience. This usually happens when the writer could care less about where the characters and plot are taking place, and may even argue that because it could take place anywhere, it doesn't matter where it is.

Other times the writer just assumes that the audience will assume by default that it's taking place in present day, in a home or office or school.

Sometimes the problem isn't that there is no setting whatsoever, but that the setting is vague--the writer doesn't give the audience enough of a setting or a clear picture of the setting.

Sure in some rare cases, you don't need a setting (excerpts from Ender's Game is often given as an example), but almost always, you need a setting--even when the scene isn't about the setting.

There should really be some sense of setting in every scene. Stories don't take place in a void. If it's not important to the story in that scene, find a way to squeeze it in.

Mistake #2

From there, sometimes writers overcompensate and put in too much setting.

Now, I think it's important to remember that some scenes are about setting. For example, in a wilderness survival story, you'll be dealing a lot with setting, because your character is trying to survive dehydration, freezing cold, and poisonous plants. Scenes where setting is a key player will naturally have more words spent on setting. In other scenes, setting is present but not as important.

It's sometimes helpful to look at the scene you are going to write and ask yourself what aspects are most important in it. That might help you keep it balanced.

But sometimes writers start learning about the importance of setting and imagery, and they get a little too carried away. They may describe everything, thinking that it will give the audience the most specific reading experience possible. Other times they describe parts of the setting in more detail than that part actually merits. Worse still is when they give a huge long history about the setting as an info-dump. Even if it's about the history, it's still an info-dump, folks.

I don't care how amazingly you can write setting, if you spend way more words on it than it deserves, it slows the pacing way down and it's a problem.

This may feel counter-intuitive to some people, particularly if you've mastered college creative writing, where much of the emphasis may be on imagery and trying to write beautifully. You need setting to write imagery, so sometimes what happens is people start overwriting setting.

Another aspect is that if you read "classics," they can often have a lot of setting. I once had a friend say that Tolkien could take pages describing a leaf in detail. So some writers today think that to be good means to be that descriptive.

But here's the thing, and listen up because it's important, back when the "classics" were written, most people didn't travel all around the world, most people didn't have access to volumes and volumes about other locations--many times readers literally did not know what something looked or sounded like, so the writer needed to spend more time describing it. Audience members literally did not know what the West looked like, or what X species of leaf looked like, or what the southern dialect sounded like. There is actually an old genre called "local color" that was simply about capturing what a region was like to live in. Kate Chopin was known for her local color short stories. And reading about these places was all new and strange and wondrous to people.

Fast forward to today, and more than ever we know what other parts of the world is like, and if we don't we can just use the internet to look it up. I've never seen the Great Wall of China in person, but I know what it looks like. I don't need a two-page description of it. I know what a Southern accent sounds like, and I don't need you to write the dialect out exactly how it may sound. Thanks to technology and special effects, I even know what a dinosaur or a real black hole would look like.

Those things still should be described if they are in your story, but the point I'm making is that today we need to describe way less. And if you are going to try to write beautifully by describing everything about setting in detail, the average person is going to get bored and skip ahead or put down the book--they already have an idea of what things sound and look like.

Mistake #3

Third on the list is poor blocking. I already did a whole post on blocking several weeks ago, because it's really a topic in and of itself. But in case you are new here, missed it, or need a refresher, here is a summation.

Blocking is how your characters interact with objects and setting.

The main issue that crops up is continuity errors. For example, I might be reading a dialogue scene where the characters are talking while doing the dishes in the kitchen. At the end of the conversation I might read a line about how they went inside the house. Huh? Weren't they already in the house?

That one sounds a little obvious, but it can happen in subtler ways. For example, in one scene I might read the Jan goes to her bedroom on the main floor. Then later in the book, I read that she went upstairs to her bedroom. So which is it? Is her bedroom on the main floor or upstairs? When writing a whole novel that can be difficult to keep track of along with everything else.

Spatial vagueness is the other problem with blocking--not being clear where the characters are in relation to their setting, how close they are standing in relation to a tree or ditch, etc.

Now with blocking, you don't want to overcompensate and get too detailed with it. You want to describe enough. It should be clear when particularly important, but not overbearing.

Mistake #4

Using the same "set piece" in multiple scenes and describing it in detail every time.

This one is tricky to explain, because it really depends on how its handled. I did this big fat blog post to explain how to render reoccurring descriptions and details so that they don't become stagnant and boring, so you can describe a set piece multiple times, but almost always, in order to be successful at that, you need to follow those techniques I explained in the post: expand, deepen, or create motion.

On the other hand, you can use the same details every time to "tag" or "anchor" the subject in the reader's mind, so doing that isn't necessarily a wrong thing either.

What is a problem is when you don't understand those things and you re-describe the entire set in detail every time a scene takes place there. A lot of stories have scenes in bars, pubs, clubs, or "inns." Imagine having multiple scenes take place there and every time you start a scene there, you take several paragraphs to describe the place in detail, again.

It gets boring right?

If it's the first time that set piece is on the page, and it's somewhat important, you can maybe take a few paragraphs to describe it (alternatively, you can weave it into the actual scene, and which you choose may depend on pacing needs), but every time after that, you just need to hit a few details--"tags" or "anchors," something that's in motion, something new, or a specific aspect in more detail. You don't need to go through and re-describe it as if the audience has never seen it before.

If you are going to spend a couple of paragraphs describing something we've already seen, it needs to be different in some way--at least in the way the character sees and perceives it.

Mistake #5

No interactions with setting.

As I already mentioned, in some scenes setting is more important than others. But there is a problem if there is often no interaction with setting.

See, I talked about imagery a couple of weeks ago, and in order to really appeal to the senses, you need some setting. You can't feel rain if there is none. You can't smell freshly cut grass if there is none. Sure, you can get some imagery in from other characters and objects, but often imagery relates directly to setting.

In real life, we interact with setting, or it interacts with us. In my room typing this, I've watched the sky get lighter outside, seen joggers on the road, I can hear the filter of my aquarium going and the fan, and I can feel the softness of my blanket. It's mainly in the background, but it's there, and from time to time, I might look out the window at the joggers.

The setting can affect the scene. Having an important conversation late at night at a friend's house is much different than trying to have one at a grad night party.

Whether setting is more in the background or a focal point of your scene, consider how it may emphasize points and contribute to tone. Does it frustrate or help a goal?

Setting is often required to pull the reader into your story, so that they feel as if they are in it. Usually, it should be more than just a backdrop.


Do you see any other mistakes writers make with setting? Let me know in the comments :)

***

Never miss a writing tip. Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Read More

Purple Prose: What it is, How it Works, How to Get Rid of it

What it is

"Purple Prose" is a term for melodramatic writing that's trying to be poetic. Often it's chock-full of adverbs and adjectives (that are also often unnecessary adverbs and adjectives) and modifying phrases, and often it's a bit wordy. There are a lot of aspects that can make something sound like purple prose--sentence length and type, amount of words used to describe something, what words are used to describe something, overusing multi-syllabic words, overusing abstracts . . .  Any of these things in and of themselves isn't innately bad or wrong. It's how they are used that creates purple prose.

But rather than trying to describe all of it, it's usually best to just let you read some examples to get a feel for purple prose.

Disclaimer: I've been crazy busy in the industry lately, so I'm grabbing examples from elsewhere on the internet to save time writing one. These examples come from here and here.


1. It was a dark and stormy night. I had just finished my second cup of outrageously expensive Starbucks Guatemala Casi Cielo that was a Christmas gift from by best friend, Tom. The vibrant, stimulating aroma hung in the air as if it were a dense fog suppressed by the thick foliage of ancient oaks. My eyes dilated as the soothing scent wafted by, enticing my senses. I was keenly aware that I could now prolong my evening with the assistance of the adrenaline-boosting beverage that still danced with my taste buds at each swallow. I gradually allowed my eyelids to droop as I pontificated the next scene in my novel. Within seconds they flashed open. My sixty-five-year-old bladder sent up a signal flare to my over-stimulated brain, and I dashed out the room hoping to reach my anticipated destination with time to spare.


2. The young, precocious child of elementary school age was commanded by his endearing and loving mother to put on a change of clothes. He lumbered up the crooked and creaking stairs to his massive wardrobe that could rival Narnia’s. It was very old and worn, made of a dark and foreboding walnut, reliefs of ancient Roman and Greek gods festooned its rough visage. He opened it gingerly and it creaked and groaned in ominous protest.


3. Nox's eyes, green as an emerald diamond found in a long forgotten, stony mine, peered into my own brown, luscious, chocolate colored eyes from her regal position on the seat next to me.

Her tail wriggled softly, like a long, slithering snake having some sort of terrible seizure....did snakes even have seizures? I pondered this strangely elusive and private thought as I stared, almost enamored, at my wise and all-knowing feline companion of four entire years now.

"How big d'you reckon the floods shall be, my pet?" I curiously asked, reaching one dainty, delicate, elegantly thin hand out to pat my closest and dearest friend on top of her soft, silky, round head.

My four-legged companion let out a rather peaceful meow that instantly seemed to bring my tried and tormented soul to peace. Her quiet, soft, and very musical meows always tended to elicit a calm feeling throughout the entirety of my body, even down to the very most microscopic cells teeming within my very body at this exact moment in time.

My silky companion stood and offered me quite a graceful stretch, her back arching as high as the waves in the ocean rose.


( 😱 Aaaah, my brain!!)

Characteristics

Notice these characteristics:

- Melodramatic--trying to make something way more than it is. Overreacting, over-emotional, overwrought, overwritten. Usually this happens when the writer is trying to make something more powerful and meaningful than it actually merits in concept.

"Nox's eyes, green as an emerald diamond found in a long forgotten, stony mine"--we are talking about a cat's eyes.

" . . . his massive wardrobe that could rival Narnia’s. It was very old and worn, made of a dark and foreboding walnut, reliefs of ancient Roman and Greek gods festooned its rough visage. He opened it gingerly and it creaked and groaned in ominous protest."--we are talking about an ordinary wardrobe that carries no significance to the story.

"My sixty-five-year-old bladder sent up a signal flare to my over-stimulated brain, and I dashed out the room hoping to reach my anticipated destination with time to spare."--we are talking about peeing!


- Overuse of adverbs and adjectives. For a full explanation on this problem, why it's a problem, and when to break the rules, see my post here. Remember, too, in purple prose, the adverbs and adjectives are often unnecessary.

"The young, precocious child of elementary school age was commanded by his endearing and loving mother to put on a change of clothes. He lumbered up the crooked and creaking stairs to his massive wardrobe that could rival Narnia’s"--almost no noun is left unmodified.

"I curiously asked, reaching one dainty, delicate, elegantly thin hand out to pat my closest and dearest friend on top of her soft, silky, round head."--at least 10 modifying words in one sentence.


- Unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.

"I pondered this strangely elusive and private thought."--unless you are writing a story about telepaths, all thoughts are private, so you don't need the adjective.


- Modifying phrases. Adjectives and adverbs are modifiers--they modify or describe something. In purple prose, often there is an overuse of modifying phrases.

"My silky companion stood and offered me quite a graceful stretch, her back arching as high as the waves in the ocean rose."


- Overuse of abstract concepts and words. I talked a bit about abstracts last week and why they are a problem. Abstracts are intangible, but the audience needs the concrete to sink into and experience your story. Throw in lots of abstracts and you lose a lot of power.

"The young, precocious child of elementary school age was commanded by his endearing and loving mother to put on a change of clothes"--precocious, endearing, and loving are all abstract.


- Wordy. Wordiness is another beast in and of itself, but it's most often saying things in more complicated ways than they actually need to be said. It uses more words than necessary and more multi-syllabic words than necessary.

"Her quiet, soft, and very musical meows always tended to elicit a calm feeling throughout the entirety of my body, even down to the very most microscopic cells teeming within my very body at this exact moment in time."--that's a lot of words, and a lot of fancy words to say, "My cat's meowing always calmed me."


- Sentence length. This is more of an issue that relates to the context of the passage, so it's hard to pin down and sum up here. Often purple prose overuses long, dramatic sentence structures. Other times though, short sentences and sentence fragments are used to try to bring more drama and impact to an otherwise average moment in a story.

Notice in the first example how many of the sentences follow about the same dramatic length.


- Overwrought word choice. Usually in purple prose, more complicated and seemingly poetic words are used in (or added to) places where the average, normal word would work fine.

"Nox's eyes, green as an emerald diamond found in a long forgotten, stony mine, peered into my own brown, luscious, chocolate colored eyes from her regal position on the seat next to me."--dude, Nox has green eyes, you have brown. We get it.

(Side note: your brown eye part is a viewpoint error anyway.)


- Overuse of comparisons and figurative language. Not everything in writing needs a fancy metaphor. And not everything even merits a metaphor. You don't need to doll up an average work night.

 "The vibrant, stimulating aroma hung in the air as if it were a dense fog suppressed by the thick foliage of ancient oaks." It's coffee.

How it Works and How to Get Rid of it

Why We Use Purple Prose

Everyone has written purple prose before, and if someone tells you they haven't, they are probably either lying or don't know how to discern it.

I'm convinced that writing purple prose is a learning phase that almost all writers go through.

So why do we write it in the first place?

Usually it comes from wanting to make something more dramatic, more poetic, or more meaningful. Sometimes it comes from wanting to give something more emphasis.

Look at the examples above. Each "writer" (these are people who intentionally wrote purple prose) wanted to capture something ordinary and make it more.

Coffee on a late night while writing a novel.

A boy obeying his mother and going to change his clothes.

The viewpoint character's relationship with a cat.

The idea of capturing something ordinary and making it significant is absolutely a poetic ambition. Wanting to write beautifully is a poetic ambition. Wanting to make something dramatic, meaningful, and more emphasized is a fine goal for any kind of creative writer.

But seasoned writers and schooled poets know that purple prose doesn't cut it.

Purple prose takes something and tries to make it all those things in the way it is written. It's adding fluff and ornamentation to an average idea, a so-so image, a cliche concept.

But masters understand it is the idea, image, and concept that makes something significant.

It's not floofing up something average so that it appears to be more than it is. Masters can see right through that stuff, and see that the idea, image, and concept are actually nothing.

Coffee on a late night while writing a novel.

A boy obeying his mother and going to change his clothes.

The viewpoint character's relationship with a cat.

Practiced writers know, content come first, description comes second.

If you take a poetry class you should (hopefully) learn that poetry is more than the chosen words.

It's the idea. It's the image. Or it's the concept.

That doesn't mean you can't take something average and make it into something significant. But it's the content of the subject or, it's the content of how it's rendered (that might sound like an oxymoron, but I'll explain in a second).

It's the Idea

The best writers have fresh ideas. It might be their worldviews. It might be unique observations they've picked up from life.

John Green is a great example of a writer who understand that it's the ideas that can make writing great. And it's one of the key reasons people fall in love with his work.

See, John Green isn't writing epic fantasy or detective stories or wilderness survival stories. He's writing "ordinary" stories. But what makes them great are the ideas, perspectives, or observations he infuses them with.

Take a look at these examples and notice that it's his unique ideas that make them beautiful, that make them significant, that make them feel like they could be poetry.

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .12 and .112 and an infinite collection of others. Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities. A writer we used to like taught us that. There are days, many of them, when I resent the size of my unbounded set. I want more numbers than I'm likely to get, and God, I want more numbers for Augustus Waters than he got. But, Gus, my love, I cannot tell you how thankful I am for our little infinity. I wouldn't trade it for the world. You gave me a forever within the numbered days, and I'm grateful.

When talking about someone who will no longer be in your life:

The pleasure of remembering had been taken from me, because there was no longer anyone to remember with. It felt like losing your co-rememberer meant losing the memory itself, as if the things we'd done were less real and important than they had been hours before.

The weird thing about houses is that they almost always look like nothing is happening inside of them, even though they contain most of our lives. I wondered if that was sort of the point of architecture.

The idea is poetic.

Notice how none of these are actually purple prose, and yet they all feel significant.

It's the Image 

The thing about purple prose is that it's taking something ordinary and trying to describe it in a way that sounds amazing.

You can do that sort of thing, but it's the image that counts.

Notice how the purple prose examples are taking average images and trying to turn them into something dramatic by stacking on modifiers, fancy words, and over indulging in descriptions and figurative language. This is often what new writers mistakenly think it means to be poetic.

But great poets know it's the image itself that makes a moment amazing, not stacking on a bunch of modifiers.

I love the image of fog that J. Alfred Prufrock includes in his poem "The Love Song."

(By the way, did you know when you read poetry you aren't actually supposed to pause at the end of each line? They teach us that when we are young so we can better hear and notice the beats and rhythm, but you are supposed to read poems sentence by sentence like you would prose. This stanza naturally pauses at the end of each line, so it's not a big difference, but many people don't know that.)

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

Prufrock is making a stanza sound poetic by rendering an interesting image: how yellow fog is like an animal. The content of how it is rendered.

It's a famous poem, and notice that he's not throwing in a million modifiers and fancy words. He took the content of how something will be rendered and used specific, concrete language, with strong verbs, to put it on the page.

Notice how he uses a metaphor, figurative language to capture that image, instead of simply taking fog and trying to attach a bunch of stuff to it to make it interesting.

Good poems usually do this sort of thing.

Here is another. Notice how Dorianne Laux takes something ordinary but makes it significant through the content of how it's rendered--the images she captures. Notice the specificity and how she doesn't load everything up like people do with purple prose.


Girl in the Doorway

She is twelve now, the door to her room
closed, telephone cord trailing the hallway
in tight curls. I stand at the dryer, listening
through the thin wall between us, her voice
rising and falling as she describes her new life.
Static flies in brief blue stars from her socks,
her hairbrush in the morning. Her silver braces
shine inside the velvet case of her mouth.
Her grades rise and fall, her friends call
or they don’t, her dog chews her new shoes
to a canvas pulp. Some days she opens her door
and musk rises from the long crease in her bed,
fills the dim hall. She grabs a denim coat
and drags the floor. Dust swirls in gold eddies
behind her. She walks through the house, a goddess,
each window pulsing with summer. Outside,
the boys wait for her teeth to straighten.
They have a vibrant patience.
When she steps onto the front porch, sun shimmies
through the tips of her hair, the V of her legs,
fans out like wings under her arms
as she raises them and waves. Goodbye, Goodbye.
Then she turns to go, folds up
all that light in her arms like a blanket
and takes it with her.


It's the Concept

Some things feel dramatic, significant, or meaningful because of the concept. What the writer thought of to put on the page.

You could say this is similar to ideas, but to me, the ideas are the worldviews and insights; concepts are the content of what is happening or exists. Ideas are more like introspection and commentary. Concepts are more like plot, setting, character, and worldbuilding.

BBC's Sherlock has great character concepts that are in and of themselves significant.

Molly: I can't say it because it's true. Sherlock. It's always been true.
Sherlock: Well if it's true then say it anyway.
Molly: You ba-----.
Sherlock: Say it anyway.
Molly: You say it first.
Sherlock: What?
Molly: Go on, say it like you mean it.
Sherlock: I - I love you.

Mycroft: Sherlock, however hard that was -
Sherlock: Euros, I won. I won. Come on, play fair, the girl on the plane, I need to talk to her. I won, I saved Molly Hooper.
Euros: Saved her? From what? Be sensible, there were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn't win, you lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself, all those complicated little emotions, I lost count. Emotional context, it destroys you, every time.

The concept of Sherlock having to get Molly Hooper to declare her love for him in order to save her life, is telling when it comes to these two characters. Molly Hooper trying to get Sherlock to say those words is even more telling.

To cap it all off, Euros argues that having emotions makes you destructive to those around you. Does having more emotion make you better or make you worse? Does Sherlock have powerful emotions? And if so, does that make him stronger or weaker? This is one of the main thematic arguments of season four. It is significant and meaningful in and of itself, but rather than get gaudy writing about the subject, the creators start with concept. They bring it forth through character and plot.

If you didn't start strong on those concepts, and you were trying to be powerful, dramatic, and meaningful about emotions, you'd probably end up fluffing stuff up.

It starts with concept.

When the concept is there, you don't need a million ornaments.

But something doesn't need to be weaved into the entire length of the story. You can have a single concept that is significant. Look at this line from The Hunger Games.

 District 12: Where you can starve to death in safety.

Isn't that a powerful, meaningful statement in and of itself? It started with setting.

In short, it's the content of that line, the concept, that's significant.

Not throwing in a bunch of modifiers and fancy words to something ordinary.

Great writing is bigger than itself, bigger than what's on the page. That one sentence about the setting tells the audience a whole slew of information.

To write powerfully, the story should be bigger. Purple prose on the other hand is about taking something and trying to make it big enough to take up the full page.

Obviously doing the former is harder.

So what do you do? Well, you start by brainstorming better ideas, images, and concepts. And then you write them in a pleasing way.

Easier said than done.

But begin practicing how to come up with them. Imagine something new. That might seem very hard for most, but it can be done.

Keep in mind too, that the more cliche something is, the more straightforward it needs to be. If you try to get fancy with something cliche, it can at worse turn into purple prose and at best be annoying. A level of originality is an important part of being powerful.

Finally, one last poem (because learning how to legitimately read and write poetry like the modern professionals is often a remedy for purple prose.) This one is a bit more lighthearted--or at least appears to be. Notice how Ronald Koertge incorporates ideas, images, and concepts in order to find significance.


I Went to the Movies Hoping Just Once the Monster Got the Girl

He was as hungry for love as I. He lay in his cave
or castle longing for the doctor's lovely nurse,
the archeologist's terrific assistant while I hid
in my bedroom, acne lighting up the gloom like
a stoplight, wondering if anybody anywhere would
ever marry me.

I war, hardly able to stay in my seat as the possibilities
were whittled away; her laughter at his clumsy gifts,
her terror at his dumbness and rage, his final realization
synapses lazy as fly balls connecting at last as he
stands in the rain peering through her bedroom window
she in chiffon and dainty slingbacks he looking at
his butcher shop hands knowing he could never unsnap
a bra

and in comes Jock Mahoney or Steve Cochran and takes
everything off in a wink and she kisses him over
and over, wants to kiss him has been waiting to kiss
him while the monster feels his own lips big as eels
or can't find them at all or finds four.

I almost shouted into the dark that life with Jock
or Steve was almost something to be feared. Couldn't
she see herself in a year or two dying at a barbecue,
another profile nobody with his tongue in her ear?
Wouldn't she regret that she had not chosen to stay
with someone whose adoration was as gigantic as
his feet?

I went to the movies hoping that just once somebody
would see beneath the scales and stitches to the huge
borrowed heart and choose it, but each time Blob
was dissolved, Ogre subdued, Ratman trapped, Giant
Leech dislodged forever and each time Sweater Girl
ran sobbing into those predictable rolled up sleeves
I started to cry too, afraid for myself, lonely as
a leftover thumb.

"What's the matter with him?" the cheerleaders asked
the high scorers as they filed out.

"Nothing. He's weird, that's all."

Read More