Immediate Fiction (19 page)

Authors: Jerry Cleaver

You should be doing
at least two things at all times.
If you have a character going to a cocktail party, he can't be neutral about it. He can't be going just because you're in the mood to create a cocktail party. The character has to have strong feelings about cocktail parties.

He needs to hate cocktail parties because he feels so out of it or because he's an alcoholic and afraid he'll take a drink. You need to be giving us cocktails and
revealing character
at the same time—
double duty.

But for the same effort you can be doing
triple duty.
The third thing you could, and should, be doing is
moving plot.
So, the character has to go to the cocktail party, which he hates, but he has to go to try to find his brother-in-law, who can't stand him, and beg him to loan him a thousand dollars so he can pay the bookie who's coming to collect his money or break the character's legs at eight o'clock. This way, he's on a mission. He has an objective. He's acting to overcome an obstacle. He has a
need
to be at the party. If he doesn't
need
to be there, he shouldn't be there.

So,
triple duty—
setting scene, revealing character, moving plot
—is what we work for. And note how this example contains the story elements—
want
(one thousand dollars),
obstacle
(brother-in-law),
action
(trying to convince him to loan the money)—as every scene must. It will have a scene
resolution
(he gets the money or is refused) before it's over.

BLOCKS OF . . . ANYTHING

Check your work for long, thick paragraphs of EXPOSITION. Exposition is information the reader needs to know to understand the story. Often it's information you only
think
the reader needs to know. The reader needs to know who's who and what's what so he can have the same experience the character does. He needs to know what the character knows that's
relevant to the immediate situation.
But he needs
only what's necessary.
For example, if a husband is accusing his wife of cheating on him, we need to know, before the scene begins,

why he believes she's cheating and that he himself is having an affair with his secretary if we're going to have the full experience. But we don't need to know that the husband has three brothers and once wanted to be a race car driver.

A common misconception is that giving the reader history and biography is a way of developing character. Your character is developed by the way he
acts
in the present, the way he deals with his problem.
Action is character.
We don't know where Ahab went to school, how many siblings he had, what his parents were like, etc. We know him by the way he behaves in the present.

If you have exposition (information you feel you need to deliver to the reader), first make sure it's absolutely necessary. If it is necessary, don't deliver it in one long stretch. Break it up and sprinkle it through the scene where it would naturally come up in the chain of events, thoughts, etc., and make it do double/triple duty.

FLASHBACKS

Avoid flashbacks if possible. If you need them, use them, but use them properly. Like exposition, a flashback should be broken up and sprinkled through a scene the way it might naturally come into a character's mind. Never launch into a long flashback midscene. For example, you wouldn't do this:

"Hey, punk, what you doin' 'round here?" the stocky, redheaded Chicano said as he strutted down the alley toward Harry. Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the switchblade he carried ever since his Uncle Louie gave it to him after he'd been jumped by three bikers in the alley behind his house when he was fourteen. He'd always known the time might come

when he'd have to use it. He was never much of a fighter, in fact rough stuff always made him queasy, especially since the time he saw his buddy blasted apart in a drive-by shooting.

This kind of long reverie should take place before this scene when the character has some leisure. In the heat of battle, no one drifts off into reverie. So, for the above, we would have Harry think about the switchblade earlier when he was under no pressure. Maybe as he gets dressed to go out that night and the switchblade is sitting on his dresser as he puts his wallet and keys in his pocket and thinks that maybe he should leave it home and how tired he is of carrying it around just to fulfill his promise to Uncle Louie. You will have time to go into it in the way Harry would think about it. Then, when the bad guy rushes him in the alley and Harry reaches into his pocket for the switchblade, "Thank God for Uncle Louie," is all we need to put us right there with Harry, having the full experience.

If it wouldn't happen in reality, it shouldn't happen in fiction. Reality is your guide, even though fiction is different from reality. Many things that happen in reality cannot happen in fiction (winning the lottery as a way of getting out of a gambling debt), but what's done in fiction should be possible in reality. All fiction could be real, but all reality can't be fiction. Even special cases such as fantasy and science fiction have to establish a believable reality and be internally consistent. So, don't launch into a long flashback in the middle of an intense scene.

If you need to do a long flashback, and you're sure it's needed, then go there and do it and do it all the way. That means your long flashback has to fulfill all the story demands—want, obstacle, action, etc. The reader will go anywhere you take him, gladly, and stay there as long as you want
if
you reward him with story.

You can often eliminate the need for flashback and make your story more immediate by simply starting your story earlier. Here's an example of an unnecessary flashback:

"You're a rotten bastard, Dave, and you've exploited me for the last time," Larry said. His boss, Dave, had been taking credit for Larry's work for the last three years, promising to get him a raise and a promotion as soon as he could. Now he'd taken Larry's portfolio and used it to get a big job with another agency.

Can you see what happens? You start with high emotion, but the reader doesn't know who's who and what's what exactly, so to make it clear you stop the action and make the reader backtrack into a quickie flashback in order to catch up on what's going on. Even with that, we don't have a full sense of what's transpired, because a lot of dramatic material has been skipped. The natural beginning of this story would be the first time Larry discovered his boss was taking credit for his work, since that is the first dramatic event in the chain of events that makes up the story. Also, even though you hook the reader on the first line with high emotion, the reader will not fully connect until he knows who's who and what's what. It's like seeing an argument erupt on the street—it gets your attention, and you react to it, but you can't identify fully unless you know what's going on (who's who, and what's what).

In general, observing chronology is the best approach, because it's the natural order. The story flows forward, and the reader goes with it without being jerked around from one place to another. A story should start with the first dramatic event, but
far enough before
it so that we know what triggered the event. That way, we go into the scene knowing what the character knows, with full knowledge of who's who and what's what. Only with that awareness can we participate and feel the full impact of what's happening.

Another disadvantage of flashback is that the reader knows the

character survived. If it was a life-threatening situation, you lose all the suspense of not knowing if the character will get through it or escape uninjured. If the situation is not life-threatening, the reader still knows that the character survived emotionally. Now, none of that may be important, and you may have a good reason for flashing back. If so, do it.

I've raised a lot of objections to flashbacks because beginning writers generally use them unnecessarily. But there are advantages. For example, if a dramatic or traumatic event takes place in a character's life and then nothing eventful happens for ten years, you don't want to ask the reader to skip ten years by saying, "Ten years later." You could do that, and I'm sure you've seen it done and seen it work. You might make it work also. But your story may be much better served if you start ten years later and get into some drama and then do the flashback at the appropriate time or times. What the right time is depends on your story and what
feels right
to you.

Again, it's art, not science. The rules are to make you aware of, to give you a
feel
for, how stories work. The rules are guides to keep you focused on the areas that will be the most productive. If you
feel
like going against them and it
feels
good, do it. The main thing is, if you take something away or leave something out, you have to give something back to make up for it. You can't just take something away and leave the reader with nothing. And I
feel I
must caution you again that it's not only a matter of doing what you feel, since sometimes you
don't know what you feel
or your
feelings turn against you.
That's why we have craft and technique.

DIALOGUE

Look out for blocks of dialogue. Some people are long-winded and go on a tirade and can't be stopped, and there are some wonderful long

speeches in literature, but we're always looking for opportunities to reveal character. To do that, the characters must express themselves— not only to reveal themselves but also to pressure the other characters into doing the same. Also, in a heated exchange, people interrupt and talk over each other rather than taking turns. Even three lines of dialogue in a row can be a block. You need to consider the possibility of each character responding after
every
line of the other character. Considering it doesn't mean you'll do it, but you're always looking to create every possible opportunity for the characters to express and reveal themselves, realizing that you're never going to find them all. And, always, going too far is good. The more you have to work with, the better. You can always cut back. Here's a dialogue sample:

"I don't want to be your boyfriend anymore. I want to be friends like we were before," he said.

"Friends? We can't be friends. I love you, and you love me. We just made love last night. What's the matter? How could everything change? Tell me," she said.

"Why make it harder than it already is?" he said.

"Because we were meant to be together. You need me. I'm the best thing that ever happened to you. You're going to wreck everything. If you do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

OK, there's something going on here, and we're getting some sense of the characters. I've seen dialogue in print that didn't give us as much as this. But how much more of the characters could we get if each responded after the other's line? A good exercise for you to do
right now,
before looking at the expanded version, would be to rewrite this little exchange and have each character respond after every line (sentence) of the other. This is a long chapter, and you haven't written for a while, so loosen up and give it a try.

Here's a rewritten version:

"I don't want to be your boyfriend anymore." "OK, let's get married." "I want to be friends like we were before." "Friends?"

"Not lovers—just friends."

"We can't be friends anymore."

"Why not? We used to be."

"Because now I love you, and you love me."

"But I don't."

"We made love last night."

"I know, and it was great."

"Then what's this all about?"

"That was sex, not love—for me at least."

"What's the matter?"