Friday, September 23, 2011

It's time to panic now

Last July, I sent my latest manuscript to a literary agent. She responded that she enjoyed the beginning of the book, but around the middle it started to fall apart. She suggested I send it to a professional editor to see what it would take to fix the manuscript. Then, after I fixed it, I could resubmit it to her.

I followed her advice. I sent my manuscript to Andy Meisenheimer at The Editorial Department, along with a bucket of cash, and waited the requisite four weeks. (Side note: I met Andy at an ACFW conference several years ago, where he read the opening pages of my fantasy novel, and he gave me excellent advice back then. So I trusted him completely with my new romantic suspense novel.)

Andy's response came last night, just as I was headed out to my son's baseball game. I was extremely surprised to find that it was only six pages long. I figured a bucket of cash ought to get me closer to 25 pages of notes. But seeing it was only six made me think the book wasn't so bad. Maybe he couldn't find that much to comment on. Maybe all it I needed was to clean up some lagging scenes, tighten a bit of description, and flesh out a major character a bit more.

Then I read what he wrote. He thought my ideas were good, my dialogue clever, my main character well-rounded. BUT. He found a major problem in the plot. Then he went on to describe what went wrong and how to fix it. I think I went into shock, because his words quit registering in my brain somewhere around page 2 of the comments. Instead of fighting my addled thought processes, I printed the file and took it with me to the ball game. 

I read Andy's comments. Twice. They weren't all sunshine and polish. My poor manuscript needs a TON of work. Not just cleaning up a few scenes. Not just removing pesky adverbs that managed to hide from the delete key during the first several read-throughs. I'm talking *major restructuring* to heighten tension, create uncertainty, and foster sympathy for the protagonist. I'm talking about altering the theme that inspired the novel in the first place. I'm talking about a fifty percent re-write. Or more.

Wow. Andy did an awesome job on his critique, but I'm thoroughly overwhelmed by the amount of work ahead of me. You know the five stages of writing: excitement, delusions of grandeur, panic, compulsive eating, and delivery. I'm deeply entrenched in panic mode. I get to have a half-hour chat with Andy as part of the services I paid for, so I need to make up a list of questions--intelligent, coherent questions--regarding his critique. I may need several days and copious amounts of chocolate and coffee before I fight my way out of panic mode. 

For what it's worth, I'd send another novel to Andy for critique. Only next time, I know to brace myself more firmly.

-Sonja

Monday, September 12, 2011

Finding Your Theme

Randy Ingermanson's book, Writing Fiction For Dummies, has an excellent chapter on Theme. My favorite part was the section of twenty examples. Seeing a theme statement in the book is much easier than trying to envision one myself. I offered some of those examples in my previous post. The next section I want to dwell on is called "Finding Your Theme."

If someone asks you what your book is about, and it's a romance, you could say, "My story is about the enduring power of love." If you're writing a thriller, say, "My story is about the power of ________________." Fill in the blank. Randy offers "fear" or "ambition." Or "ignorance," "knowledge," "the little guy," "multinational corporations," "religion," or "technology." Any word that's remotely related to your story will give you a quick and easy answer to that tough question. Fantasy and horror writers can say "it's the battle between good and evil." Mystery writers can say, "justice prevails." (I guess "it's the battle between good and evil" can also work for mysteries.)

Randy says it's okay if you never move past this vague platitude. "You aren't required to have a unique and dazzling theme for your story." Woo hoo! I can come up with vague platitudes and be satisfied with it. But Larry Brooks started this whole thing by saying that theme is necessary for Successful Writing. He said, "the more you value and cultivate the themes in your stories, the better those stories will be." So I can stick with a vague platitude, and hope a decent theme comes through my writing, or I can really delve into building a great theme and come up with a great book.

Randy offers hope to those, like me, who want to take it further. Once you've identified your theme, he says to read through the manuscript in one sitting, marking places where the theme could be highlighted a little. The key word is little. Subtlety reigns here. Resist the urge to explain. The reader is smart and will figure it out. "What you're looking for is places in your novel where the theme emerges naturally but it comes out fuzzy or distorted. Clarify those." 

Also look for places where the theme is too blatant and trim it back. Theme that shows up in large bits of narrative summary probably have too much author intrusion. Cut these back. If the theme emerges in the protagonist's dialogue or interior monologue, then it's probably okay, especially if it advances the story. If the theme emerges in the protagonist's actions, then that's a keeper.

Then look for places in the manuscript where the theme is contradicted. Resolve this by either removing the contradiction or by having the protagonist notice the paradox and work through it. This actually makes the story stronger, because the protagonist reinforces his or her belief system this way.

That concludes my study on theme. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. Please comment if you had an epiphany--that'll really make my day!

-Sonja

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Randy Ingermanson Knows Theme

I'm eight posts into my study on theme. I've grasped the concept of what theme is. I cannot, yet, identify theme easily in other's works (or my own), but I understand the concept. I've studied writing books by Larry Brooks, James Scott Bell, and Donald Maass. Now I'm studying Randy Ingermanson's book, Writing Fiction For Dummies.

All these books held something of value for my study, but Randy's is the easiest to understand. (Note: I always refer to other authors by their last name out of respect, but in this case, I think I can call Randy by his first name. We're Facebook friends. We've met in person several times, too.) 

As I said before I got off track, Randy's chapter on theme is easy to read, easy to understand, and easy to paraphrase in a short blog post. He says, "Theme is the deep meaning of your book. It's the central message you're trying to get across to your reader... the moral of the story." He then offers twenty examples of famous books and their themes. He reiterates (as Brooks did) that readers take away different things from novels, so there could be multiple themes identified for a single story. 

I'd like to offer a few of Randy's examples, as they helped me immensely.

Outlander, by Diana Gabaldon: "Love conquers all." 
The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold: "There is justice in this universe."
The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger: "There is a love that transcends time."
Contact, by Carl Sagan: "God is a mathematician."
Gorky Park, by Martin Cruz Smith: "No good deed goes unpunished."
Blink, by Ted Dekker: "God is in control, whether you think so or not."
The Firm, by John Grisham: "Be careful what you wish for."
The Hunt for Red October, by Tom Clancy: "The Evil Empire will destroy itself through its own incompetence."

The thing that struck me was how general these themes are. If I said, "Guess which book has the theme that love conquers all," nearly any romance title will be the right answer. "Justice prevails" works the same way. The theme of my latest book is, "There is great peril and price to seeking justice." (You probably already guessed, but my husband came up with that one. I'm no longer clueless about what theme IS, but identifying it and putting it into a sentence is still beyond my grasp. Maybe someday.)

In the next post, I'll offer you Randy's advice on finding your theme if you don't already know what it is.

-Sonja

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Theme Through Symbol

I'm examining the chapter on Theme from Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass. He starts the chapter with a definition of theme, then gives a quick overview of how to build theme into your story. Then he breaks off into a discussion on symbols.

When I saw this, I shuddered. I mostly understand symbols, but I don't consciously construct them in my stories. They just sort of happen. My critique partner usually writes a note in the text about "nice use of symbolism here" and I smile and accept the praise and have no clue what she's talking about. I don't know why I struggle with symbols, since they're much more tangible than Theme or Concept or Big Idea, but the fact is, they elude me. So when Maass launched into a discussion about how symbols can enhance theme, I had doubts that this section would enhance my understanding of theme. 

Maass stated, "The most effective pattern to follow is that of a single symbol that recurs." Like the ring in Lord of the Rings. It wasn't a ring, a sword, a comb, and a sack of flour. Just a ring. Then came the words that made me feel a bit better about myself. "They [symbols] are frequently present in a novel whether the author intended them to be or not... Evoking symbols is often a matter of making use of what is already there." 

Randy Ingermanson identified the theme from Lord of the Rings as this: "Good ultimately conquers evil, because evil defeats itself." (I got that out of his book Writing Fiction For Dummies, which I'll be delving into in the next post, so hold your horses.) 

I agree that this statement properly identifies the theme to Lord of the Rings. I agree that Frodo's ring is a symbol in the story. But I still don't understand how Frodo's ring symbolized this theme. The ring wasn't good. Nor did it defeat itself. What did it symbolize? I don't have a clue (again, understanding these things really isn't in my skills set). So I asked my husband. He said the ring symbolized universal power and the universal degradation of the soul. Oh, that's good. I agree. But, again, I don't see the connection between the symbol and the theme.

Maybe I'm doomed to never understand this concept. If you got it, please enlighten me. I'm feeling rather obtuse at the moment.

-Sonja

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Donald Maass Weighs In On Theme

I'm still studying theme. If you're bored, just remember that this is probably good for you. If you totally understand theme and can't figure out why I'm struggling, give me a call and straighten me out. But until the phone rings, I'm forging ahead. I've already examined the lessons from Larry Brooks and James Scott Bell. Today, I'm in Donald Maass's book Writing the Breakout Novel.

Maass starts out with a humorous analogy. You're at a party, trapped in a conversation with some who has nothing to say. You try to smoothly get away, but you can't escape. You are trapped. 

When readers pick up a boring book that says nothing, they don't worry about a smooth exit. They toss the book across the room and find something better to do. According to Maass, readers are opinionated. They seek out novels that hold closely to those opinions. Military guys read techno-thrillers. Scientists read sci-fi. Women read romance. (I know, that's stereotypical. I'm a non-scientific, non-military woman, and I read sci-fi and techno-thrillers but won't touch a romance. You get his meaning, though--stereotypes exist for a reason.)

"Readers want to have their values validated," Maass continues. "They may not want to be converted, but they do want to be stretched. They want to feel that at the end of the book their views were right but that they were arrived at after a struggle... When conflicting ideals, values or morals are set against each other in a novel, it grips our imaginations because we ache to resolve that higher conflict."

Maass and Bell agree: theme has to do with the character's values, morals, and worldview. They also agree that theme isn't "added to the story at the end, like cheese baked on top of a casserole in its final twenty minutes in the oven." Theme is intrinsic to the story. It emerges from the hero's actions, thoughts, and dialogue. Theme is the character's higher motivations: "the search for truth, a thirst for justice, a need to hope, a longing for love."

Giving your protagonist the inner fire of deep motivations results in powerful theme. Don't get preachy: moderation, restraint, and understatement are crucial. But when these powerful motivators flow through the protagonist's actions, thoughts, and dialogue, you will achieve Theme. 

Hallelujah! I understand! Give my heroine a strong worldview, set her up against someone with an opposite worldview, watch them interact, and a theme will emerge. I can do that. The hard part, for me, is identifying that theme. But I'm glad to know it's there. 

In the next post, I'm delving into something even stickier: using symbols to enhance theme. 

-Sonja