Tag Archives: Depth

April 26, 2023 · 6:00 am

Layers of Depth – a pond filled with words #amwriting

We often talk about the story arc and its component parts and features. But I often think that while a story is shaped like an arc, it is also like a pond filled with words. It is something vast and deep, set in an enclosed space.

MyWritingLife2021B We know our story has a beginning, a middle, and an end. We sense something murky and mysterious in the middle. We instinctively know the pond is made up of layers, although we may not consciously be aware of it or be able to explain it.

Depth is a component of our story, and we will look at it over the next few posts. Depth can be a puzzle that eludes many authors, as conveying it by merely using words requires thought and a bit of extra work.

Layer one, the surface layer, is the most obvious when we look at our pond made of words. It’s what we see when we approach the shore. The surface might be calm when you look at a pond filled with water. Or, if a storm is brewing, it will be ruffled and moving.

The surface of the word pond is the literal layer. It is the what-you-see-is-what-you-get layer. This is where we find the setting, the action, and all visual/physical experiences as our characters go about their lives.

Readers choose to buy a book based on what they see when they crack it open for a brief look. They recognize what they think is there because the book is in their favorite genre, and the cover and blurb reflect that. The opening pages let them see how the author writes, and they choose to buy or move on.

Inside the book, the surface reflects the actions and events. A gun is drawn, and the weapon is fired—what happened is obvious.

We play with the surface layer by telling our story using realism, surrealism, or fantasy.

Realism is a depiction of what undisputedly is. Romance, contemporary novels, political thrillers—any narrative set in the real world without introducing fantasy elements—is realism.

Surrealism seeks to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, for example, by the irrational juxtaposition of images—think Alice in Wonderland. It takes what is real and warps it to convey a subtler meaning.

Fantasy takes realism and imagines it as a different reality and world. Sometimes surreal elements are added. But a fantasy world is usually portrayed as our reality, and the fantastical elements are depicted as commonplace and ordinary.

This will be a fun layer to explore, with lots of wonderful art to help us along the way.

Back to that pond filled with words. Beneath the surface is the wide layer of an unknown quantity: the inferential layer. This is the layer where inference and implication come into play.

Perhaps at the outset, we saw a character draw a gun. This is where we show why the gun is there. We offer hints that imply reasons for the weapon being included in that scene. We show how the shooter comes to the place in the story where they squeezed the trigger.

Infer_Meme_LIRF06292019 All the characters have reasons for their actions. The author offers implications and lets the reader come to their own conclusions. The reader sees the hints, allegations, and inferences, and the underlying story of each character takes shape in their mind.

In a good story, the path to the moment the trigger was pulled is complicated. Perhaps no one knows precisely what led to it, but some characters have bits of information. Your task is to fill the middle of the pond with clues, hints, and allegations. This is where INFER and IMPLY come into play.

An author implies. Readers want to solve puzzles, but they need clues. One meaning is displayed on the surface of the story. But deeper down, we enclose the true meaning, a secret folded within the narrative.

A reader infers. The reader deduces or catches the meaning of something that is not said directly by following the clues (inferences) we leave them. In reading the inferential layer of the story, they deduce the meaning of what is about to happen and receive a surge of endorphins.

They get another surge if they guessed wrong but see how it all makes sense.

No matter what genre we write, we want the reader to feel they have earned the information they are gaining. They must be able to deduce what you imply. As a listener (reader), you can only extrapolate knowledge from information someone or something has offered you.

Serious readers want this layer to mean something on a level that isn’t obvious. They want to experience that feeling of triumph for having caught the meaning. That surge of endorphins keeps them involved and makes them want more of your work.

powerwordsWordCloudLIRF06192021 This layer will be shallower in Romance novels because the book’s point isn’t a more profound meaning—it’s interpersonal relationships on a surface level. However, there will still be some areas of mystery that aren’t spelled out entirely because the interpersonal intrigues are the story.

Books for younger readers might also be less deep on this level because they don’t yet have the real-world experience to understand what is implied.

This middle layer is, in my opinion, the toughest layer for an author to get a grip on.

Below the middle Layer is Layer three, the bottom of our pond filled with words. Whatever passes from the surface travels through the middle and rests at the bottom.

plot is the frame upon which the themes of a story are supported This is the interpretive level:

Themes
Commentary
Messages
Symbolism
Archetypes

This layer is sometimes the easiest for me to discuss because it deals with finite concepts. Theme is one of my favorite subjects to write about, as is symbolism. Commentary is something I haven’t gone into in-depth, nor have I really discussed conveying messages. Archetype is another underpinning of a story.

My personal goal is to gain a better understanding of the subtler aspects of writing as I do the research for this series. Whenever I come across a book or website with good information on these subjects, I will share it.

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Tagged as adding depth to writing, Depth, writing

June 2, 2021 · 6:00 am

Fundamentals of Writing: Conveying Depth and Revealing Character through Conversations #amwriting

As I mentioned in my previous post, depth is a vast word, a sea of information created of layers. It is complex, intense, and profound. We use the arc of the opening scene to lure the reader, to hint at what lies hidden below. The scene opens, the first character(s) step onto the stage, the action rises and ebbs, and the reader wants to know more.

WritingCraftSeries_depth-through-conversation Some scenes have no dialogue, are comprised of the actions that propel the plot forward. But often, conversations are the core of the passage, propelling the story onward to the launching point for the next act.

Dialogue is an opportunity to reveal who your characters are and hint at what lies beneath the surface they present to the world. Conversations must have a purpose and follow an arc: they open, disseminate information, and move toward a conclusion of some sort.

Dialogue that doesn’t reveal character and advance the story in some vital way is a waste of the reader’s time.

We use dialogue to show the personalities of our characters.
We use it to reveal secrets and create empathy.
We use conversation to convey knowledge when the characters and the reader need it and reveal motivations.

First, we must identify what should be conveyed in our conversation. Who needs to know what? Why must they know it? How many words do you intend to devote to it? Be wary—conversations can get out of hand and become an info dump.

Info dumps don’t add depth. They add fluff.

Depth consists of many layers. It is a combination of story/plot information and character revelations. It is the underlying theme and the atmosphere of the world the characters inhabit. It is the mood created by the words you habitually use.

If you look in a thesaurus, you can see that most words in the English language have more than one shade of meaning depending on the context in which we use them. Your word choices are essential in showing a world of many shades of color.

Each word adds to or detracts from the feeling of atmosphere. Those choices are critical in conveying personality and creating a sense of empathy for our characters.

Conversations are opportunities to show depth as well as convey information. Your habits, how you form your phrases, and your choice of words establishes the tone.

This pertains to the thoughts of your characters too.

We have mental conversations with ourselves in real life. Sometimes we even speak our thoughts aloud.

Researchers say that most of the time, our inner monologue concerns how we see ourselves. These thoughts are often in whole sentences and phrased negatively. And most telling of all, we aren’t usually aware of our inner thoughts when we have them.

However, an interior monologue is useful for revealing motives. What they think but don’t speak aloud tells the reader a lot about the character.

It shows who they think they are as well as how they perceive others.

Conflict keeps the protagonists from achieving their goals. In real life, our internal conflicts create greater roadblocks to success than any antagonist might present.

These tiny inner voices of self-destruction are crucial to creating relatable characters. They reveal the inner layers that make the character who they really are beneath the surface they show the world.

Sometimes, revealing a critical bit of backstory can only be accomplished through the protagonist’s thought processes or those of a companion.

A loud contingent at any gathering of authors will say thoughts should not be italicized. While I disagree with that stance, I do see their point.

As a reader, I dislike it when long strings of private thoughts are italicized. This is an accepted practice in the genres of Sci-fi, Fantasy, and YA novels, so readers of those genres expect to see thoughts presented in italics. However, we need to be aware of how overwhelming it is for a reader to be faced with a wall of words written in a leaning font.

If the author makes it clear that the character is having the conversation with themselves, italics aren’t needed.

It was, he thought, one of those rare days, where the sun shone benevolently upon mankind, a day when the constant wind was gentle, benign. Aloud he said, “Enjoy the sun while you can, my friend. The rain is eternal here.”

Dialogue, both spoken and interior, sets the scene and unveils the theme. Your word choices reveal characters and their secrets, their personalities.

Your word choices reveal you, the author. Through those words, we hear your voice.

So, let’s consider that voice. Voice is a combination of word choices and grammar. It is distinct to each author.

From the reader’s perspective, grammar/punctuation is to writing what gravity is to the universe. It holds everything together.

We obey traffic signals when driving to avoid getting into wrecks. In the same way, our written work must abide by specific fundamental rules, or it will be unreadable—a wreck.

This is especially important when it comes to dialogue. What is spoken must be easily distinguished from the ordinary narrative.

Overall, most readers don’t see minor grammar glitches in the narrative, which is good because we all make them. Even editors write crap and need editors. But readers do notice unprofessional writing, especially when it comes to how dialogue is punctuated.

Readers notice amateurish writing.

If you are new to writing and are unsure of how to punctuate conversations so that readers can understand your work, see my post from July 29, 2020: Four Rules for Writing Conversations. The post details four simple, easy-to-remember rules of punctuation, rules for keeping the conversations flowing and understandable.

Epic Fails meme2 I have said this before, but it bears mentioning again: Never resort to writing foreign languages using Google Translate (or any other translation app). Also, please don’t go nuts writing out foreign accents. It’s frustrating for readers to try to untangle garbled dialogue. A word or two, used consistently, is all that is needed to convey foreignness.

Information dispensed gradually reveals the plot, unveils hidden layers. What your characters think and say are the reader’s window into them and their world.

Conversations pull the curtain back, revealing the characters’ innermost secrets and their story.

With every sentence, a prism of information illuminates who the characters believe they are and is passed from the author to the reader. It is a light, filtered through the characters, that colors the narrative with the shades and moods of the words you habitually choose.

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Tagged as #writetip, creating characters with depth, creating depth in writing, Depth, writing, writing with depth

September 2, 2019 · 6:00 am

Structure of the Word-Pond #amwriting

Today we’re winding down my summer blogpost series, The Word-Pond. We’ve explored the myriad aspects of ‘depth,’ the wide inferential layer of Story. Depth isn’t easy to categorize, nor can we point to one aspect and say, “Get this right, and you’ve got a story with depth.”

I’ve described Story as a pond filled with words and discussed the three layers:

Surface: The Literal Layer; the what-you-see-is-what-you-get layer. Characters live, and events happen. These are reflected in the surface of the story. The ways in which we play with the surface layer are by choosing either Realism or Surrealism, or a blend of the two.

Middle: The Inferential Layer, where Inference and Implication come into play. This is an area of unknown quantity filled with cause and effect: the reasons why these lives are portrayed, and why events happened. This is where emotions muddy the waters.

Bottom: The Interpretive Layer. This level is not only foundational; it contains and shapes the story:

Themes
Commentary
Messages
Symbolism
Archetypes

The words in this pond behave like the waters of a pond in nature. While close scrutiny reveals that the waters of a pond are separated into layers by temperature, salinity, microbial life, or by the sheer weight and pressure of the volume of water, the overall structure is one large, important thing: a hole filled with water.

Without water, a pond is a depression in the ground filled with possibilities only.

In our word pond, the one large thing containing our words is “story.” So now we want to form these layers into a coherent, meaningful story. We need a container for our words, the hole in the ground for the story to flow into.

This container is the story arc.

Many people say they have a book in them, one they’d love to write. They begin, get a chapter or so into it, and lose the thread. They can’t see how to get the story from the beginning, to the crisis, to the resolution.

This is where the skills I’ve developed through my years of participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has paid off. If you want to write a novel, it’s best to sit down and get that first draft out of you while the story is fresh in your mind. You’ll spend a year or more rewriting it, but if you don’t get the original ideas down while they’re fresh, you’ll lose them.

A story begins with an idea for a character. That character usually comes to me along with a problem. This is the seed from which the story grows.

I sit down and draft a story plan in four acts. First, I tell myself how I believe the story will go. This only takes half an hour and gives me finite plot points to write to. Once I have the four acts, I know where the turning points are, and what should happen at each. This ensures there is an arc to both the overall story and to the characters’ growth.

I’m going to use the original plot idea for a work in progress as my example. My WIP is a short story, 5000 words in length, but you can plot any length of story.

The story: Our Protagonist is a courier, transporting a valuable artifact. This artifact brings her to the attention of the Antagonist who intends to seize it, no matter the cost.

You must know what the surface of the Story looks like before you can explore the depths. A good way to discover what you are writing is to “think out loud.” Divide the story into four acts:

Act 1: the beginning: We show the setting, the protagonist, and the opening situation.

Setting: a village near a crossroads.
The weather is unseasonably cold.
The protagonist is carrying a jewel reputed to enable a mage to control the weather.
The protagonist must travel alone, as her partner was killed.
Unbeknownst to her, a traitor in her employer’s court has designs on the artifact. By possessing it, the Antagonist will have the power to usurp the throne.
She is wary, knowing the danger of traveling alone. She conceals the artifact by sewing it inside her shirt.

Act 2: First plot point: The inciting incident.

The Antagonist’s hired thugs capture her.
She is thrown into prison.
A fellow prisoner has overheard that her partner was murdered to ensure she would be traveling alone.
This fellow prisoner believes he has a plan to enable their escape.
The protagonist isn’t sure she should trust him but refuses to let the artifact fall into the Antagonist’s hands.

Act 3.: Mid-point: We show their dire condition and how they deal with it.

Seeing no other way, our Protagonist agrees to the Sidekick’s plan.
He is on the verge of managing an escape but needs help with one last thing.
By working together for several days, they manage to complete the escape route.
Timing the rotation of their guards is critical to the success of their plan.
Just as they are about to make their escape, the Antagonist makes a surprise visit to the dungeon and roughs up our Protagonist. He batters her physically and mentally, attempting to force her to tell him the whereabouts of the jewel, but she manages to keep her secret. When he leaves, her shirt is torn, but the jewel is still safe.

Act 4: Resolution:

They must wait for another rotation of the guards, giving the Protagonist a chance to rest. She is injured but can still do what she must.
The two make their escape but find themselves emerging near the kennels.
The Sidekick gives the watchdogs the food he had saved for their journey, distracting the dogs and allowing them to escape over the walls.
The Protagonist and the Sidekick manage to keep ahead of their pursuers and arrive back at court, where she delivers the artifact and reveals the identity of the traitor.
The Employer is grateful, and the Protagonist and her Sidekick are all set for another adventure—perhaps a novel.

You have an idea for a story. Take a moment to analyze and plan what needs to be said by what point in the story arc. This method works for me because I’m a linear thinker.

If you know the length of a book or story you intend to write, you know how many words each act should be. Once you have the map, you can get to the nitty-gritty of turning that far-fetched tale of woe into a good story.

As you write each event and connect the dots, the plot will evolve and change. You begin to explore the deeper aspects of the story. Emotions, both expressed and unexpressed, secrets withheld, truths discovered—all these details that emerge as you write will shape how the characters react to each other. In turn, these interactions will alter the shape of the larger story.

This is why we never really know how a story will go, even if we begin with a plan. The plan serves to keep us on track with length and to ensure the action doesn’t stall.

Draft a short plan for a 50,000 word manuscript. 50,000 words is the industry standard for a novel. Write 1,667 words a day that connect those events together, and in thirty days you will have written a 50,000 word first draft of your novel.

To see more of what National Novel Writing Month is all about, go to: www.nanowrimo.org

I am dragon_fangirl there. Look me up and become a writing buddy!