My characters are shy in that they only come out when other (real) people aren’t around. Then they get quite demanding.
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Love this thread between @DeAnna and yourself @rtcatling, and I think instigated by our new colleague @ReLane (welcome).
I guess it’s me who is the one who zones out for a while, not just during conversations as something occurs to my characters or in my plot, but for several weeks at a time when ‘real life’ gets in the way.
Inside-my-head-life can be so much more captivating at times. 
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When you read back a passage of dialog and find yourself remonstrating with the characters: “can you people try to express yourselves better!?”
That.
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I’m completely with you on this one! Sometimes I feel I haven’t heard a thing the non-fiction folk in my life have been saying for entire moon phases.
They notice that blank stare and they don’t like it, AND they feel the need to express that sentiment, too. It’s all very distracting.
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Right now I am 90 pages into my first novel. I am also trying to get more short story ideas going because I am working on an independent zine with a friend, but it’s been a challenge trying to juggle it all!
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@RiffRandall, I’m guessing you’ve just closed Act 1/written the inciting point and starting into the “messy middle”. Commiserations, difficult territory. Have you got a rough idea or detailed plan of where you’re heading? Try to work back from there to figure out how to make your story/protagonist get to the end and what’s going to make the road bumpy to get there. That helps me figure out the middle.
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Isn’t that the truth! The juggling of ideas, writing time and commitments. There are times when I’m certainly n and year circus music in the background of life in that 3 ring circus ( giggling at myself here). Do you ever feel like life’s moments need a theme song? What would yours be? Mine is definitely full of carnival tunes and words like menagerie, spectacle, 3-ring, and death-defying-feats! Hahahaha!
This is a great method, @Kas, Sometimes working back to front can be easier to put steps together.
If it’s ok to add to what @kas is saying, I find when I get stuck or just unsure where to go next in the story, I will write about a basic, daily human task for my character.
Like taking a shower, eating, doing laundry. What kind of shower for example, hot or cold depends on what else is happening.
Say the protagonist needs a cold shower due to intense chemistry with the wrong person, or the right person, but it is unrequited sexual attraction.
Maybe a hot steamy moment with the right person is FINALLY happening, but it was interrupted before it could come to fruition. (Of course that drags out the tension even more for the reader).
Maybe the character was up all night working a case and has to be in court in 30 mins with no time to sleep (or drinking all night and needs to sober up).
You can definitely get the idea here. The options are endless, motivation for action in the mundane daily chores of life, spurs on the next/previous scene. Propelled by the “why” of it all.
That type of prompt for my characters always gets the actively writing, ball rolling again.
(I have noticed that some of my favorite writers use a similar method to make characters feel real and relateable.)
Kathy Reich, for example does this with her Temperance Brennan (forensic anthropologist, tv show “Bones” was based on) novels.
She separates events in her books with, eat+shower+sleep/no sleep (love interest canoodling or difficult problem that’s keeping her up).
Now i don’t know if it’s simply filler, but she uses these moments to Segway into the next scene. By giving the character a place to receive the next, clue/instruction/revelation/achievement/setback or other inciting incident.
You get the idea.
Ok, I’m just rambling now (too much caffeine).
I do REALLY hope this formula gives inspiration for un-stuck-ness in the messy middle. (Courtesy of Kathy Reich’s fine example) like it did for me. It was a breakthrough “Ah-ha” moment in my writer’s journey that I’ve been meaning to share with the group.
Cheers!
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No, I haven’t seen it.
Oh, there’s nothing to see.
I just mentioned that they made a tv show loosely inspired by her books.
With the main character, Temperance Brennan forensic anthropologist at its core.
Just incase folks had not heard of the books Kathy Reich wrote. They might have heard of the show.
No worries.
Thank you again for being here.
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I haven’t read the Reich’s Books, but stayed with Bones through its’ TV comedy-mystery run.
One thing irritated me though; the writers made Brennan an uber-genius polymath with behavioral issues on an Autism/Aspergers spectrum, so she had no tact, no filter and little understanding of social norms. Her frequent gaffs were the source of half the comedy in the show. And yet… Brennan was supposedly this best-selling novelist. How!!! Nobody with that little insight into human behavior would sell a single book in the real world. Or was bestie Angela in fact ghost-writing all the non-forensics parts of her books?
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Oh yes! That was one of my favorite episodes was where folks were raving about her latest book release!
None of the hubbub of interest from fans, talk show host, journalist, etc was about the science or the case in the book.
To Bones’ great confusion and dismay.
It was all about the relationship between Dr Reich and Agent Andy and their escalating romance.
As you pointed out Angela was the major contributing factor on all aspects “human interaction” in the novels.
At the episodes conclusion, I loved that Bones presented Angela with a check and acknowledged a firm percentage of Angela’s contribution to the finished works.
Essentially conveyed that although she didn’t really get why that was of major interest, it was just meant to be filler between the actual science of the stories, she acknowledged it did matter to the readers and it’s what folks were following her stories for more of.
The fact that it did not sit right with Bones not to act upon this new understanding of her readers, that Angela deserved to be compensated for her work.
Cha-ching! Big payday Angela!
One of those misty eyed moments where “Pinocchio’s becoming a real boy” as Bones character broadens emotionally.
But you already knew about that episode.
Thank you for letting me re-live it here!!!
(Hunting for long lost remote. Now I can’t rest until I watch it again)
Just a thought for anyone wondering…
Kathy Reich’s books about Dr.Temperance Brennan are VERY different from the TV show.
The ONLY similarities are the name, the job and some bits of case file material. That’s it.
The books are so worth reading.
Everything from a study in well written genre books to being thoroughly entertaining.
She even has a few short stories that are perfect sample plate of craft well done.
One of my favorites was Bones in Her Pocket.
It was a wonderful listen on Audible.
(You can get a sneak peek with the sample button)
On the books own merit be ready for a completely down to earth, intelligent and funny Dr Brennan.
Hands down Agent Seeley Booth does not an Agent Andrew Ryan make.
Don’t even get me started on Detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell (Descriptions of/about him are worth the read alone!)
@rtcatling What other TV shows from books have you enjoyed?
I rarely watch TV, it’s more like a sighting than actual watching, but I think I would really enjoy the shows you’d recommend.
You have excellent taste!
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“When I was your age, television was called books.” (The Princess Bride)
There’s a classic movie from a book.
[Goes away to think of examples not rooted in Sci-Fi nerd-dom…]
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BTW, whose (paraphrased) quote: “the difference between books and TV? In books the pictures are better”?
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Some of my most favorite quotes come not from the movie, but the book! The movie was great, the book, even greater!
I’ve lost the thread of this conversation, but wanted to respond (possibly again?).
When I watch the TV, invariably it’s after reading the book/s, and usually one/s I’ve loved reading. I’m currently watching The Wheel of Time series (Robert Jordan) on Amazon Prime. I’m often quite irritated with the director who thinks they can improve on the story by changing aspects of it, often making subsequent events not make sense. Why do they do that?
The other notable difference between books and TV in my mind is that TV/films must be so cut back to fit in to an acceptable time frame; if you were to include everything from the book, the show would have to be anywhere between nine to thirty hours long (entirely arbitrary numbers, but I think I’m in the right ballpark). So even if you’re unfamiliar with the book, you’ve got to ask yourself “What’s been cut?”
But I do find that even when listening to audible books—always unabridged ones—the beauty of language is sometimes lost when you can’t see it written on the page. Some narrators are better than others, obviously, but small nuances of where a punctuation mark is placed can change the emphasis dramatically. This was seen in some of the Style & Voice summit sessions on the weekend when various samples of writing were shared with us.
So to summarise my opinion, yes, TV has it’s place for light entertainment occasionally, but there is nothing quite as compelling as a well-written book.
May I quote you on this Kathy?
It’s so beautiful I wish to hang it on my wall with quotes from other writers (some from this very group of ours).
How would you like your name to be spelled out and credited if I may have your permission?
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@Kas This too please?
This one reminds me of TV taking over as my children grew older (I allowed very little of it, but as teenagers it became more important to them and I conceded).
I was worried they would miss the real nuances and message of the stories if the recieve the TV hack version of classic stories.
So I put on a top shelf in the living room, (a room where only board games, books, conversation, and gatherings were allowed) and I took each child in turn and pointed out the shelf of FORBIDDEN TO READ BOOKS “they’re all rated R” (all the classics were there, along side some poetry, theology, history, the whole works).
Then I sat back and smiled as I noticed one by one went missing for a while then returned.
For exactly the reason you stated, “there is nothing quite as compelling as a well-written book”. I enjoyed knowing they got to live the experience, (no matter how defiantly <-- tears of laughter)
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Loved this. Reverse psychology – where would parents be without it.
Regarding your previous questions about quoting me - certainly, I’m flattered. I think you can pick up my name from hovering over my icon, but I’m not trying to hide. I’m Kathy (or Katherine) Swailes. I use both the full version and abbreviated versions of my name, so use whichever you prefer.
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