By John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com/
People ask me at conferences and such if I believe that my writing is character-driven or plot-driven. It comes up often enough that you’d think I’d have developed a standard pithy comment by now. Truth is, the question stymies me, because in my mind, there is no plot without compelling characters, and without a compelling plot, the characters don’t matter. It’s like asking which is the roundest part of a circle, the top or the bottom?
I point this out because I’m doing another of our first-page critiques this week (see below), and the first thing that strikes me about the piece is that a very dramatic moment is largely squandered because the shocking event is witnessed by a character I don’t yet care about.
I think the key to writing good fiction lies not with the plot elements, but in how the plot elements affect characters. Think about the realities of our daily lives—particularly those of us who live in metropolitan areas. I read about murders every day and don’t give them a second thought. For those news stories to affect me emotionally, they need to resonate with my own life, my own priorities. The same is true of fictional characters.
So let’s take a look at this week’s submission, presented below in its entirety, and then my comments will follow after the line of asterisks.
Sunny reached for the suitcase in the pile of junk and almost dropped it from her sweat-slicked hand. It was small but heavy and the brown leather was worn and dusty. She sat on the floor of the attic, welcoming the break, and tried to open it but the old thumb latches were rusted shut. She decided this was a sign to call it a day and carried the case down the tight spiral staircase with her, closing the door on the mess. The last room to clean and renovate – the attic could wait.
In the kitchen she tried to pry the case open with a butter knife and when that didn’t work she resorted to a claw hammer, prying the locks off with a satisfying crunch.
The case was packed full of papers — old postcards, newspaper clippings and hand-written notebooks that looked like journals. She observed the childish scrawl on the covers and thought it was a little girl’s memory chest.
There was lumpy bundle of cloth to one side and Sunny picked it up to inspect it. It seemed to weigh only a couple of pounds. She unwrapped the bundle and gasped when she saw a little hand, a tiny arm. Then she laughed at herself.
“It’s just a doll, you idiot,” she said aloud. Then she pulled the cloth away and saw the sunken eyes, the withered umbilical cord. She dropped the body into the suitcase and almost made it to the sink before she vomited.
It was an hour before Sunny could bring herself to go back into the kitchen. The little body was still there, the empty eye sockets gazing back at her. She reached out with hesitant fingers and tugged the wrappings away from its body and saw a neatly sewn seam on its chest and extending down its belly. She saw that it was a girl child.
She considered calling the police, but the thought of people in uniforms, people like Ted, stalking through her house made her uneasy. She needed time to think. What would they ask her? Would they suspect her of foul play?
Sunny’s mother had never been one to trust a uniform. “They want you to think they’re on your side,” she’d told a young Sunny. “But what they really want to do is find some excuse — any excuse — to beat the ever-loving shit out of you. Don’t you forget that.”
Sunny shook off the sudden chill that had trickled down her back. Why hadn’t she listened to her mother?
She pulled the notebooks and a bundle of ephemera out from under the body and shut the lid of the suitcase, hiding the baby from sight. She went into the breakfast room and spread the papers out on the table.
The name on the cover of the first notebook shocked her. In careful script it read, “Diary of Virginia Ketch”. Sunny scanned the others and was astonished. Every single notebook bore her great grand Aunt Ginny’s name.
The other items — newspaper clippings, postcards, telegrams — all seemed to be of the same vintage. They all seemed to be sorted by date from the 1920s through the 1960s. Someone had taken their time in compiling this little collection. It was like a treasure trove of family history. But whose baby was it? And why was it in the attic?
********
Let’s take this paragraph by paragraph. My comments are in bold italics:
Sunny reached for the suitcase in the pile of junk and almost dropped it from her sweat-slicked hand. It [“it” here refers to her hand] was small but heavy and the brown leather was worn and dusty. She sat on the floor of the attic, welcoming the break [from what?], and tried to open it [“it” here refers to the floor of the attic] but the old thumb latches were rusted shut. She decided this was a sign to call it a day and carried the case down the tight spiral staircase with her [as opposed to without her?], closing the door on the mess. The last room to clean and renovate – the attic could wait. [I’m confused. If it could wait, why is she cleaning it?]
Note: As a reader, I’m not sharing Sunny’s desire to break into this chest. In my mind, it’s just one more bit of clutter in an attic that’s packed with clutter.
[. . .] There was lumpy bundle of cloth to one side and Sunny picked it up to inspect it. [This kind of sentence structure (There was . . .) always strikes me as lazy and unengaging. I would write something like, a lumpy bundle of cloth lay under the papers . . .] It seemed to weigh only a couple of pounds. She unwrapped the bundle and gasped when she saw a little hand, a tiny arm. Then she laughed at herself.
“It’s just a doll, you idiot,” she said aloud. Then she pulled the cloth away and saw the sunken eyes, the withered umbilical cord.
Stop the story! BS alarms are clanging. No one anywhere could possibly mistake a dead child for a doll. This is the kind of research fumble that, with all respect, is horribly unprofessional. That aside, how about a little more description. Why the vomiting in the next paragraph. For this imagery to pay off to the max, you need to make the readers feel a little ill, too.
She dropped the body into the suitcase and almost made it to the sink before she vomited.
It was an hour before Sunny could bring herself to go back into the kitchen. [Really? 3600 seconds? That’s a long time. What is she doing in the meantime? And why the change of heart in the next sentences?] The little body was still there, the empty eye sockets gazing back at her. She reached out with hesitant fingers and tugged the wrappings away from its body and saw a neatly sewn seam on its chest and extending down its belly. She saw that it was a girl child.
And then, after it all, she pulls out the papers and sits down to go through them? I don’t buy that she wouldn’t call the police; not because it couldn’t happen, but because you haven’t sold me on her emotional space.
It’s really, really important to keep your readers in mind as you write any story. We can’t read your mind, and we can’t know your heart. If you want to have our sympathy, you need to earn it on the page.
I’m with you in saying that plot and characters go together. For the most part, I don’t talk much about character-driven vs. plot-driven because I don’t see that it matters, but in my discussion of it I have used definitions that seem to work. My claim is that character-driven stories involve interesting characters in ordinary situations–think Superman living the life of a reporter. Plot-driven stories involve ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances–think Dorothy from Kansas in the land of Oz. I have never seen a well written story with ordinary characters in ordinary circumstances or extraordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances. And while we’re on the subject, I might as well say that it is often the case that ordinary lead characters are usually paired with extraordinary secondary characters and vice versa. So, even if what I say about character-driven vs. plot-driven stories is true, every story has elements that are character-driven and elements that are plot-driven.
Despite this being the longest first page in the history of writing, it still doesn’t grab my attention for all the reasons you stated, John. Sunny doesn’t come off as a real person because her actions and reactions aren’t realistic. When normal folks find a dead body in their attic, they call the police. Hesitating because “the thought of people in uniforms . . . stalking through her house made her uneasy.” doesn’t get it. You know what should make her uneasy? Finding a dead body in her house! Of course, we may discover later in the story that she stumbles across dead babies all the time so this is no big deal.
Timothy, you make good points, as always. I have difficulty answering the question for my own writing because, at least in my opinion, I write stories that have interesting characters AND compelling plots–a characteristic shared by the stories I like to read. THE DAY OF THE JACKAL: plot- or character-driven? Both, I would say.
Joe, I will certify that the story all fit on one page; but if we decide to do this first-page thing again, we do need to set limits on font, format, font size and spacing.
John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com
Getting a reader to care about a character is critical in the first few pages – it’s what keeps me reading on, that’s for sure – and I agree with John that this first page has too much ‘set up’ and not enough emotional ressonance (or dare I say it, believability). I could never buy that a person would hesitate to contact the police after discovering the body of a child unless they were overcome by shock that they simply couldn’t even think of anything for a few minutes (and a few minutes only).
A good character can carry a mediocre plot, but it doesn’t work (with rare exception) the other way. Good post.
Believability aside, if Sunny IS that dispassionate about finding dead babies, she is a completely unsympathetic character. Being afraid of the cops is the least of her worries.
Of course the temptation to fix something like this takes you in the other direction–too much backstory or making it melodramatic to draw the reader to the character. Those opening pages are tough when it comes to finding the right balance.
John,
In my way of thinking, I would probably classify The Day of the Jackal as character-driven because, though the actions of the characters may seem extraordinary to us normal folks, what they do is not particularly unexpected for the characters. The assassin is going about the business of an assassination; the authorities are going about the business of preventing it. The deviations from the “standard” assassin plot are driven by the nature of the characters. We could contrast that with a plot like Die Hard in which a relatively ordinary guy facing an ordinary problem finds an extraordinary way to deal with it because of the situation he is thrown into. But then, I could just be splitting hairs that don’t need to be split.
Dear Anonymous Author: Slow the pace down by adding details. No sooner do we discover what’s in the suitcase than Sunny is at the sink. Then it’s back to the suitcase and on to the table with its contents. This simply goes by too fast for the emotions to register in the reader. As a bonus, slowing this down by filling in sensory details (wouldn’t there be smells at the very least? The leather, the dust, the stale attic air, and of course the dried-out corpse after it’s decomposition in the suitcase) can help to flesh out Sunny’s character – and help us connect with her.
This post and the comments for it have gotten me thinking: I think the reason many aspiring authors think they must open their books with a bang is because hooking the reader from the first line has been overemphasized. This is in contrast to the first page critique from yesterday with the opposite problem – too much backstory before any meaningful action. What’s lacking is balance between the two. Writers must include both and include both well. To use a diabetic as an example: Action is like a sugary snack to our bodies – we get hyper but the experience is short-lived. Backstory is like eating a whole-grain cereal – it’s slowly digested so it releases energy over an extended period of time. To explain, action is a quick jolt to the reader but it doesn’t hook them. Whereas backstory provides the hooks necessary for the reader to stick with the book in the long term, it can’t hook them initially because few people would seek out a monotonous, boring meal of cereal given other alternatives. Again, the solution is a combination of the two, a balance.
Wow, Timothy! I love the insight – interesting characters in ordinary situations or ordinary characters in extraordinary circumstances. Brilliant! I’ll have to think more on this.
And John G, better to simply set a word count. Perhaps 700 words is a good amount? Whatever the TKZ writers would decide on. But it shouldn’t be a hard break; that would usually stop in mid-sentence. So if the break falls in the middle of a paragraph, the rest of it should be included.
I was curious on how many pages this was, so I copied and pasted it and realized it was 2 pages long.
I think asking for word count rather than pages, would help a lot. I know, I bet you all were expecting the usual requirements for ms formatting, Times New Roman 12 font, double-spaced.
But I guess some are a lil sneaky like Sunny 🙂 Can’t blame them for trying.
I also agree that by adding some sensory details and believable actions it could bring it more to life.
I seem to have weird taste in books compared to most people, so the following comment might not click with a lot of you, but I’ve read good books with extraordinary characters in extraordinary situations. What about, like, Spiderman? True, he starts out normal, but he isn’t thrust into extraordinary situations until he gets his extraordinary powers. And that’s just one example. There’s also Stephanie Edgely from “Skulduggery Pleasant.”
Also, I don’t need to care about a character before she’s thrust into the action. I’m not an author or anything; I just formed my opinion based on all the books I read, and it’s not that I don’t have patience for character backstory. I do. But the thing is, I almost never care about the character, whether I read backstory or action first. Just about every character in every book (and I’m of course talking about the published ones) is a cliche. It’s so very hard to find a character that surprises you, let alone in a good way. So, for me, it’s best that an author makes me care about the plot first because I’m much more likely to care about that (and a dead baby in a suitcase seems to introduce a fascinating plot here). THEN get me to care about the character later…if you can. In this story, I know I’d call the police, but who knows? Real people are different and surprising and irrational. Maybe what makes this character interesting is that she’s more afraid of cops than of finding a dead baby. This COULD make her interesting, but only if it’s done really well with a really deep and fascinating reason for the fear. Not just, you know, “her abusive ex was a cop.” It’s not that that wouldn’t be enough to make the poor woman afraid of cops. It’s just that that seems too predictable. Of course, I’m no expert, so if this just sounds like babble to you, just ignore me. =)