Category Archives: #writetip

Got Theme?

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Recently in my role as TKZ admin and self-appointed den mother, I noticed that we were getting a lot of traffic related to the topic of “developing a theme in fiction writing.” Since searches for that topic take people to an article I wrote back in 2009, I think it makes sense to revisit the subject of theme.


A story’s theme is the fundamental and universal idea behind its plot. If a plot could be compared to the body of a race car, the theme would be the engine turning its wheels. In King Lear, for example, one of its main themes is authority versus chaos.

Theme vs. Subject 
We should not confuse a story’s subject with its theme. The subject of a story would be a one-word descriptor of its main idea. “War”, for example, would be the subject of many stories. A theme would be an opinion related to that subject, such as “In War, everyone loses.” Joe Moore wrote an excellent post a while back about how to distinguish between a story’s subject and its theme.

Some writers approach theme almost as an afterthought. But having  a well-crafted theme adds dimension and depth to our stories.

Using a character-driven approach to develop a theme

I like to use minor characters to explore a story’s underlying theme. I call this method the “360-degree” approach to developing theme. In this approach, the secondary characters represent various aspects of the main theme, and they act as foils to the main character’s experiences. For example, the theme of A KILLER WORKOUT was “Mean Girls Suffer Last”. That theme was explored through the story arcs of several characters. One woman had been victimized by bullies in her youth; another was a bully. Another character was a protector of abused women.  Each of these characters explored different facets of the subject of bullying and  emotional abuse.

What’s your theme?

How do you explore theme? What’s the theme of your WIP? How are you working that theme into your narrative?

First Page Critique: THE CIRCLE

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Today we have a first page from a story called THE CIRCLE. My comments follow.

***

Leigh looked up from her mum’s casket, concentrating on the slatted, pitched ceiling of the church. The familiar voice of the chaplain droned on from the pulpit and she focused not his words, which would surely undo her, but to the soothing and steady cadence. She held the back of her forefinger to her nose, wincing as she touched the swollen, chapped skin.

Reaching in her handbag for a tissue, her searching fingers settled on the age-softened newspaper article her mum had given her just two days ago. A jolt fired through her stomach and she yanked her hand out and clenched her palms in her lap, her fingers twining together until her knuckles blanched.

What had they been like?

The unspoken question itself felt traitorous. A glance to her left confirmed that her dad—that is, the only man she’d ever known as a father—was sitting upright, only the sparkling reflection on his cheeks belied his stoic figure.

Leigh took a steadying breath. Today she would ask Uncle Pete about the article. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see if she could spot him in the pews but her attention was caught by a man near the door in plain green Barrack Dress, staring at her.

She turned around to face forward again, her brow puckered. The military uniform must mean he was a friend of her dad. But surely the man was too young? Her dad had retired from the service when she was a baby. And the man had rudely not looked away when she’d held his gaze.

She turned to look again, but now there was only empty space where he’d stood.

###

Leigh found Uncle Pete at the reception back at the house. He was loading a plate from the buffet of casseroles and cakes in the dining room. When he saw her, he set it down and held out a hand. As she hugged him, he tucked her head under his chin.

“Hey little bit,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Your mum was one of a kind.”

Leigh relaxed into his embrace, hitching in a stuttering sigh. Though they weren’t related, she’d called him uncle as long as she could remember. And now he might be the only one who could help her. “Can I talk to you alone?”

***

My comments: I like the premise the writer establishes in this first page. We immediately know that the narrator is going through multiple crises–her mother has just died, and she just learned that the parents she has always known are not her real parents. There’s also a hint of military intrigue to come. This is a good opening situation.

In general, the writing here is strong enough to keep me reading. I would suggest some tweaking to make it even stronger. I put my specific suggestions in bold red.



Leigh looked up from her mum’s casket, concentrating on the slatted, pitched ceiling of the church. The familiar voice of the chaplain 
(Perhaps mention the chaplain by name, if he’s familiar?) droned on from the pulpit. She  
(I think this sentence is stronger if broken up) focused not on 
(Missing preposition inserted here) his words, which would surely undo her, but to the soothing and steady cadence. 
(After inserting the missing ‘on’, the combination with ‘to’ doesn’t read well. Might need to rewrite this sentence)
 She held the back of her forefinger to her nose, wincing as she touched the  swollen, chapped skin. 

(This sounds stronger to me without the ‘the’. Also, the first sentence of the paragraph already has a gerund clause. Try to vary the structure of sentences in every paragraph as much as possible, to punch up the rhythm.)

Reaching in her handbag for a tissue, her searching fingers settled on the age-softened newspaper article her mum had given her just two days ago. 
(Another gerund clause, plus there are two “ing” words in the same sentence. As writers, we all tend to overuse one type of structure, punctuation, or phrasing in our first drafts. This writer might want to check for the overuse of ‘ing’ throughout the manuscript.)
A jolt fired through her stomach and she yanked her hand out and clenched her palms in her lap, her fingers twining together until her knuckles blanched.  
(Here, there are too many actions in one sentence: jolt, yank, clench, twine, and blanch. Consider breaking this sentence up to strengthen the flow.)

What had they been like?  
(I put this in italics to indicate inner thought. This sentence was a bit jarring to me as I read it. It might have worked better if we’d gotten some clue about what was in the newspaper. Perhaps the narrator could glance down and register a word from the headline, a picture, or something that would set up her internal question.)

The unspoken question itself felt traitorous.  
(This sentence felt slightly awkward to me.)   
A glance to her left confirmed that her dad—that is, the only man she’d ever known as a father—was sitting upright. Only the sparkling 
(ING Alert. Break up this sentence to make it stonger. Also, ‘sparkling” didn’t convey tears to me on the first read) reflection on his cheeks belied his stoic figure. 
(“Belied his stoic figure” seems stiff, somewhat Churchillian. It doesn’t match the tone of the rest of the piece.)

Leigh took a steadying breath. Today she would ask Uncle Pete about the article. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder to see if she could spot him in the pews but her attention was caught by a man near the door in plain green Barrack Dress, staring at her.  
(ING Alert. And again, there are too many actions in one sentence. Separate the man’s action to distinguish it from hers.)

She turned around to face forward again, her brow puckered.  
(This might just be me, but I don’t like the word ‘puckered’. I think it’s because I read so many manuscripts that overdo facial and hand tics.) 
The military uniform must mean he was a friend of her dad. But surely the man was too young? Her dad had retired from the service  when she was a baby. 
(It might be stronger to mention the name of the Service. Specific descriptions give the reader hints about your characters’ backgrounds, and adds authenticity to your writing) 
 And the man had rudely not looked away when she’d held his gaze.
(Why is this  rude? Wasn’t she staring at him as well? “Rudely not looked away” is slightly awkward, as well. )

She turned to look again, but now there was only empty space where he’d stood.

###

Leigh found Uncle Pete at the reception back at the house. He was loading a plate from the buffet of casseroles and cakes in the dining room. When he saw her, he set it down and held out a hand. As she hugged him, he tucked her head under his chin.

“Hey Little Bit,” he said. “I’m so sorry. Your mum was one of a kind.”

Leigh relaxed into his embrace, hitching in a stuttering sigh. 
(ING Alert) 
Though they weren’t related, she’d called him uncle as long as she could remember. And now he might be the only one who could help her. “Can I talk to you alone?” 
(The formatting of the paragraph detracts from the tension of the scene, and it’s slightly unclear who is asking the question.  It might be stronger if you show her voicing a muffled question into the wool of his jacket, or something like that.

***

Overall: I made a lot of suggestions for this page, but the fixes are all fairly minor, and easily made. This is a manuscript that seems very promising to me. It just needs a polish and some tweaking to get it to the next level. The writer should examine the rest of the manuscript for some of the issues we’ve discussed.

Thank you for submitting this page, Writer! Well done, and keep going with this story!

TKZ’ers, do you have any suggestions or anything you’d like to add?

Five online mistakes writers should never make

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Clare’s post yesterday about social media has inspired me to add my own two cents about social media. Specifically, I’d like to discuss some of the language errors I see online at many sites (Fortunately, I don’t notice these mistakes here at TKZ, which reinforces my already high regard for this community). 

Anyone can make a typo or a mistake when they fat-finger something in haste or after consuming too many Singapore Slings. But there are a few gooflaws which seem to reflect a lack of understanding about the use of language. 

Here, in no particular order, is a list of the five language mistakes that have been driving me absolutely bat poop crazy lately, especially when they’re made by people who claim to be writers:

  1.  Loose/Lose: Perhaps because my series deals with body image issues, I lurk at a few sites where people discuss their need to lose weight. Too often, someone will say she needs to “loose” weight. Whenever I encounter this error, I have to control my itchy typing finger to keep from replying with a snarky correction. Nobody likes snark.
  2. Its/It’s: This is the mistake I see the most. People often use “it’s” when the correct form should be “its”. “It’s” is used as a replacement for “it is”. “Its” is a possessive pronoun, as in, “This post has got its dander up.” When unsure, try replacing the word with “it is”, and see if it makes sense,
  3. Your/You’re: Sigh. I don’t think I even have to explain this one to our readers. This offense seems to be committed mostly by Millennials, including some who claim to be writers. These people make me despair of the current state of English teaching in America. On the other hand, I don’t have to wonder how their literary ambitions will pan out.
  4. Their/There/They’re: These words seem to get misused on news sites a lot, mostly by online bloviators who use anonymous IDs and savagely attack the opinions of other people, no matter how benign those comments are. So, to recap: “Their” is used when you are referring to more than one person and something they possess. “There” is the word that is most often misused in place of the other forms. “They’re” is a contraction for “they are.”
  5. Compliment/Complement: “Compliment” is something nice you say to someone. “Complement” is something that adds to, enhances, or completes something else. It can also be used as a verb with an object.

 So that’s my rant for today. Do you have a pet peeve about language you’d care to add to my list?

No book left behind? Sadly, no.

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Like Joe was moving homes a few weeks back, and Clare has done a couple of times in recent years, I’m in the process of moving. My family and I aren’t moving very far–just to the next town over, Manhattan Beach. This new town is closer to our tennis club and is known to be slightly tony. (Read: Old people live there). Our current home is in Hermosa Beach, which is famous for having a certain Animal House vibe. We’re about 30 years too old to fully appreciate the finer merits of Hermosa, like the fun of slinging beer bottles into shrubbery as one staggers home from a pub crawl at 2 a.m.

The main challenge in getting our current house prepared for sale is that we need to do a little decluttering. Make that a massive amount of decluttering. My husband and I are both pack rats–we’re the same species, just slightly different  breeds and scale. (Scale-wise, I’m like a Jack Russell Terrier and he’s more of a Great Dane. But I don’t want to get personal here.)

My husband doesn’t like to throw out paper, and I don’t like to part with books. Over 11 years of marriage our  combined traits have made our house a bit…how shall I say…full.

So we’re currently analyzing everything that’s been collecting here over the years, and making some hard choices.  My hardest choices involve books. How do you let them go? Where do you send them? I have a strange possessiveness about books. I can’t even part with ones I didn’t enjoy and may not have even finished. I have this weird suspicion that there’s a kernel of something useful hidden in each one of them, something that I shouldn’t let go of, just in case I ever need that kernel down the road. (It’s my version of hoarding. I totally empathize with the crazy people on Hoarders whose houses are filled to the ceiling with old plastic bags, bent forks, buttons, and the occasional cat carcass.) You just never know when you’ll need those things again. (Except for the cats. The poor things probably just lost their way in the jungle pile.)


Sadly, I’m having to downsize when it comes to my physical books. I’m convinced we could live in Versailles with every wall lined with bookshelves, and we still wouldn’t have enough space for all of these books. But what do you do with the ones you decide to let go of? Donate them to a library? Goodwill? 

I actually found a site called BookCrossing, where you can “release your book into the wild”. The idea is that you let other readers know where you left your book(s), and those people will come pick them up, and then pass them on. I guess the system even lets you track your book as it zigzags the globe, checking in from time to time like the Travelocity gnome. The whole thing sounds fun, kind of like the Readership of the Traveling Books.  But I’m not so sure the authorities would be thrilled if I released my entire stash into the wild. For example: Where do you dump 10 years’ worth of so-so mystery cozies? I guess I could leave the knitting mystery near a yarn shop.  Maybe I could park the restaurant reviewer mystery and an old Zagat guide near CPK. But I’m afraid I just have too many books to “set free” all at once. It might even violate some local dumping ordinance. I might run into a humorless merchant or constable who doesn’t appreciate my attempt to create my own episode of Lit Gone Wild.  

So, what would you do with a ginormous book pile that you must somehow unload? We are working with a professional organizer who will help us resell things, including books. But I would hate for my letting-go process to turn into a tawdry commercial transaction. Selling them would make me feel kind of unclean about the whole thing, like I’m turning into a Ferengi from Star Trek. But really, what other choices are there? Any ideas?

Writing in cold blood

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Like many people, I’m fascinated by sociopaths. In particular the violent, physically attractive ones–think Ted Bundy and Jodi Arias–make me wonder: What makes them tick? How did they become monsters? How do they behave when they’re flying under the radar, before revealing their violent natures?

As writers it’s our job to dissect what motivates our characters. Many writers fall into the trap of writing psychopaths (a term that is interchangeable with sociopaths) as cardboard, two-dimensional characters. Evil requires a special effort to make it believable. And even to make it, ugh, sympathetic. 

Science gives us some clues about ways that psychopaths reveal themselves in speech and mannerisms.  A computer analysis of interviews with 52 convicted murderers who tested positive for psychopathy showed that all the men spoke with little emotion, used cause-and-effect statements to describe their crimes, and emphasized basic needs such as food and money.

That finding poses a problem for writers: Unemotional characters who speak in cause-and-effect statements can be boring on the page. So when we’re creating a psychopath, we need to reach beyond the typical behavior. We might choose to make them charismatic and larger-than-life (Hannibal Lecter and the Batman villains, for example). Or we might decide to make them more human. After all, there are lots of murderers who aren’t psychopaths. They might be driven by revenge, a sense of mission, or even a warped value system (Dexter).


This topic has been on my mind because I’ve been reading The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry.The book offers a fascinating insight on psychopaths, as well as the psychiatric industry that treats and categorizes them. The book includes the standardized test, the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale, to analyze whether a person exhibits sociopathic traits. Here’s an online cheat sheet to the test. Let us know how you score, if you feel like sharing! Disclaimer: It takes a trained professional to administer the actual test and analyze it, so we won’t start shunning anyone in the grocery aisle who comes back with a high score!