Tuesday 26 November 2013

Writing in the Now


Writing in the Now

When I presented a workshop for the lovely Write Place Writing School at the beginning of November, I touched briefly on ‘writing in the now’ and wanted to explore that point further, because I didn't have much time in class to do so.

As it wouldn’t be fair to share my students’ ideas I have come up with a scenario to explain what I mean. This is a bit off the cuff, so may not be perfect, though I did find I kept adding bits to it as the story grew!

Annie and James meet in university when they join the same band, with Annie as the lead singer and James as the lead guitarist/singer. They are each other’s first love, but at the end of university life they go their separate ways because James decides to move to America to pursue his musical career. Ten years later they meet up again, and James is a huge star, whilst Annie is a backing singer, working to keep a roof over her and her young son’s head. Annie is still hurt that James left her and thought his career more important than their love and she is also angry that he stole the song that they wrote together and which became his biggest hit. She has been too proud to sue him for her rights and is certainly not going to ask him now! It is revealed that James left because he had reason to believe that Annie was cheating on him and he had taken the song as revenge. When he meets Annie’s son, he automatically assumes the child is the other guy’s, but Annie knows better. Not that she’s going to admit that to James after he cheated her out of millions of pounds…

If you were writing the novel to this short summary, where would you begin?

When one of the students came up with a scenario that charted all her hero and heroine’s romantic life, I suggested to her that she would be much better starting the story in the now; at the point where their conflict is about to come to a head. That adds immediacy to a story, and helps speed up the pace of reading.

A chronological story that begins with the hero and heroine falling in love, maybe getting married or living together for years before conflict rears its ugly head may be more realistic. After all, in real life, falling in love and getting married is generally the easy bit. It’s only afterwards when children and the resulting lack of money come along that conflict starts. But if you started at the very beginning, it would make the first chapters rather slow. Of course if your hero and heroine do meet and are immediately faced with a conflict, then it will speed up the pace. But if you’re describing a relationship that began then ended several years before for some reason, the time to start the story is when they meet again.

So if I were writing the story I’ve outlined above, I’d start where Annie and James meet up again, at a recording studio perhaps. I’d introduce the conflict from their past very quickly, avoiding flashbacks, which also slow down the pace of a story. Let the past come out in dialogue (whilst avoiding ‘information drop’).

There are some novels, particularly family sagas, in which you can start from the year dot – or when the heroine was born – but even they will hint at some conflict. Maybe the hero or heroine has displaced an elder sibling or cousin who was due to inherit. Or there is a question over their parentage that will inform the rest of their lives until such conflict is resolved. Even then the story will more than likely jump forward ten years or so at a time, missing out the boring bits.

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It doesn’t matter if you’re writing historical romance. The ‘now’ is the ‘present’ time in any era. So in my novel, Loving Protector, the story starts when the heroine and her family are saved from a highwayman by the dashing hero. So yes, it is the first time they meet and then goes on to chart their romance, but it very quickly sets up the conflict (the heroine’s nasty stepsister) and hints at further conflicts. Plus the romance happens over weeks, not years. I’ve heard criticism about romances that happen too quickly, but to me that’s what writing romantic fiction is about. It’s about falling in love at first sight, but being faced with a conflict that tests that notion.

If every romantic novel had the same pace as a real life romance, then it would be very boring for the reader. It can be done, however. The film Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade, starring Alan Alda and Ellen Burstyn, used the conceit of a couple meeting the same time every year to carry on an illicit romance, and it showed how they both changed over the years. But each ‘episode’ of the romance took place at the time they met – in the now - and missed out all the bits in between, simply feeding information to the audience through dialogue.

So try to write in the now, when the real conflict begins. That may well be at the beginning of a romance, but it may well be ten years down the line when the hero and heroine meet again and are forced to deal with the problems that parted them before.

16 comments:

  1. Thanks for this, Sally. It's often a bit of a puzzle as to where to start a story. Perhaps it depends whether it's a short story, novella or saga, but the reader wants to be enthralled not bogged down, so it's good advice to start in the 'now'.

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  2. Interesting points, Sally, about how to use 'the now' in different kinds of writing. I'd say that important advice - to avoid information drops - is a major cause of re-edits. :)

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  3. Thanks both. Yes, it is always a job where to start, isn't it? But that's where rewrites come in, because if you find the first three chapters only build up the premise, it's easy to get rid of them and feed in any necessary information later.

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  4. Sally, I think one of the big difficulties for a new writer is how to get from here to there (or from past to present) without detailing all the steps on the way. You almost need 'permission' to cut out the boring bits!

    I like the advice about not having to start at the very beginning, and about avoiding infodumps.


    As usual, lots of useful and thought-provoking points.

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    1. Thanks Jeannie. I know too well how hard it was to start a story where it needs to be started. I always remember the advice about starting at a point of change in the character's life.

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  5. I agree, Sally. Starting in the now also provides that necessary hook. The novel I have been working on for some time starts in the present moment outside a house.

    Cassandra Moon stood outside the house and wondered what was bothering her. The house looked beautiful, but something wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t the house itself. The new building gleamed white in the late afternoon sunshine, the freshly laid turf almost too green, the paths free from all the grime that normally accumulates on garden paths, the windows still factory clean – everything as near perfect as it was possible to get.
    So why the scary feeling?

    You still have to pick your moment, though. If I had started with the body floating in the new swimming pool it would have taken away the suspense.

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    1. And yet, Fay, that's how Sunset Boulevard begins. Then we get an extended flashback about how the body came to be there. So it can be done. Though Sunset Boulevard was hardly a 'romance' and the flashback was done in such a way, leading us right back up to the present moment, that it felt immediate.

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  6. We were talking about this very topic on my Arvon course! And about how to weave in background/backstory. It's an important subject as good beginnings are crucial. Good post.

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    1. Thanks Kate! Yes, I agree beginnings are crucial. They're what will help the reader (and editor!) decide whether to read on.

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  7. Really interesting, and I agree about starting at the point of most conflict. However if I were writing this novel (and I love the idea of it - you should go for it!) I would probably write it in two strands. One starting now with the conflict, and one telling the back story starting from them meeting at university. I would alternate the chapters (but would definitely start with a Now chapter).
    This is probably because I love novels with interwoven stories from different time periods, even if as in this case it would be the same characters just ten years apart.

    Just shows there are so many ways to tell the same story!

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  8. Thanks Womag! And that's a great idea. I like novels with flashbacks that reveal a little more of what really happened each time. Though I can't for the life of me think of one offhand.

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  9. Aargh! I didn't want to remove the comment, just add to it!
    What I wanted to say, Sally, was that I'd just finished reading Sue Grafton's 'U is for Undertow' where there are alternating strands of the present (actually the 1980s) and the past (the (1960s). It works well.

    It's not romantic fiction - it's her alphabetical detective series - but the structure is the same.

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    1. I like the sound of that series, Jeannie! I'll have to check it out.

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  10. Absolutely agree, Sally. We need to jump straight into the story and drip feed the background. That's why I'm a plotter and need to get all the bits and pieces of scenes and story planning done up front before I start to write. Even then he story will change as I write but the basics of what info needs to go in where would probably remain.
    I don't usually like flashbacks. I find them annoying and confusing unless done well but I've just finished reading THE PERFUME COLLECTOR by Kathleen Tessaro, a mainstream historical, that jumps between the 1920/30s and the 1950s when a young woman inherits from an older woman she doesn't know and the flashbacks tell the story of who and why. I found that held my interest although you still have to adjust your mindset each time you go back or forward to take up the story from a different era again.
    Great discussion you've generated, Sally. :)

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    1. Thanks Noelene. That sounds like a good book too. I can see my 'to be read' pile growing all the time.

      I'll very often write a prologue to get some of the back story in my own head, but then delete it when the novel is completed.

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