Short and Snappy

pinterest: the white sail's shaking

There is something incredibly overwhelming about being asked, "So, what's your story about?" 

On the one hand, our egos just love to be tickled by the question (if the asker actually cares; when they're only being polite, it isn't any fun at all): I don't know about you, but for me there's always a giddy burst of adrenaline that makes me grin and look altogether idiotic.  Then I bumble around for a minute or so, trying to cram a 100,000+ word story into a respectable sentence, and in the end they put on their uncomprehending face and say, "Oh!  That sounds interesting!" Which is nice of them, but I'm pretty sure my performance wouldn't garner any enthusiasm from an agent in a similar circumstance.

That reaction is, I think, fairly universal - and understandable, since if you have a particularly intricate story, it's no easy matter to convey its plot succinctly.  But if you intend to sell your story, especially in a face-to-face setting, it becomes necessary to bring the bumbling up a notch or three.  You're no longer trying to explain to your aunt what you do with your time; you're addressing an agent or a publisher who you kinda-sorta-really would like to take on your book.  (Depending on your family, the latter might actually seem less daunting.)  You have to condense your story, preferably into a pithy one-sentence summary that in film-speak is called the logline and in novel-writing the elevator-pitch.

When I'm not called upon to use them, I find this sort of thing enjoyable, so I was most pleased to be asked to read a slim book on the subject called Finding the Core of Your Story.  It isn't a large treatise at all, and wonderfully to the point - and it has examples.  I love examples.  The author, Jordan Smith, is a filmmaker, but the subtitle of the book pretty well encapsulates its usefulness to all forms of story-telling: How to strengthen and sell your story in one essential sentence.

Smith coaches the reader through the ins and outs of logline-writing, starting with the basics of what a logline is and its importance, then moving on to the nuts and bolts.  A second skim-through of the chapters brings out the key points - things we already know, hopefully, but which are irritatingly difficult to squeeze into a single sentence.  Protagonist and goal; antagonist and goal; conflict; setting.  There is also the usefulness of irony in conflict.  His example here was a logline for Jurassic Park (which I've never watched), wherein a scientist who hates kids has to protect two children.  I think this tends to denote humor, though that is not the case across the board: sometimes it merely emphasizes the tension.

One of the book's most helpful points, I thought, was Smith's chapter on finding the main thread of a story.  Of all the hang-ups when it comes to explaining to a stranger what my story is about, this is the most common: trying to make sense out of the confounded thing.  I've got subplots, and I've got themes, and I've got a half-dozen characters "what need keeping track of" - and it can be deuced tricky deciding what to say and what to leave unsaid.  I haven't yet begun a synopsis or query for Tempus Regina, but I fought about six different versions of a logline for it after reading Finding the Core of Your Story and still don't like what I came up with. 

"Well, bother it!  There's a woman, and there's a watch, and there's Victorian England - and then there isn't Victorian England because there's time-traveling - and there's a dude and another dude and a third dude, but the third dude is less important than this other gal, and there's the White Demon (but you don't really need to know about him, so forget I said that), and there's alchemy and some STUFF and other STUFF and LEGENDS and the first woman's younger brother and then some DOOM and GLOOM and now you're going to represent me, right?"

All right, so that wasn't a serious attempt, but it's about how I feel.  Pulling out the main thread is a difficult business, but I did feel that the process of narrowing down the loglines helped to clarify my own vision of the story.  I don't know that I would try loglining a story before writing, as Smith suggests - my stories don't usually take on a proper scope until I've written three-fourths of the plot - but I have a feeling it will be helpful, not just in the querying process, but in the nearer work of editing.  You've got to know what your story is primarily about before you can bolster the weak bits.

Of course, after you do all that you still have to memorize the logline and practice delivering it.  I haven't worked up the courage for that last bit, though I did fiddle with a preliminary pitch for The White Sail's Shaking:

A bumbling young man's good intentions land him in the U.S. Navy, where his hopes of winning glory are turned inside out by the murder of a fellow officer - and the presence of the killer on board.

It is, at least, a start.  And once you have the basic structure in mind, and the tips to help you along, it's actually quite enjoyable.  You're inserting your monocle and peering at the story until you find its core (which helps with editing), then finding out how many ways you can succinctly express that core (which helps with pitching and marketing).  It is a little daunting, but also, in an egotistical way, rather fun.  And we are an egotistical bunch, aren't we?

I'll Remember That

pinterest

I've been scarce around here recently, partly in an effort to rest my eyes, partly in order to let my mind revamp and produce some more ideas.  On the former front, I wrote a chapter by hand this past week (Elisabeth would be proud if she weren't off resting her eyes, too) before deciding most of it wasn't necessary to the story after all.  Eh.  You win some, you lose some.

At any rate, I have been doing some specific research, some general research, and some reading that isn't technically research at all.  I don't typically write about this aspect of my writing, simply because what interests me in its nonfiction format isn't always what interests other folk.  But, on the other hand, sometimes it is enjoyable to hear what tidbits an author has dug up.  So rather than doing a great big post on the Age of Sail or the healing properties of comfrey, here is a snapshot of some of the things that have stood out to me in researching for Tempus Regina and writing in general.

what ho!

The Minoan civilization, which populated Crete and the islands of the Aegean some millennia before the birth of Christ, had running water and sewer systems.  And toilets!  That flushed!  (Sort of.)  If the culture hadn't been wiped out, plumbing might have been widespread much sooner in the history of the West.  I think that constitutes a tragedy.

Aristotelian theory posits that all forms of matter are simply combinations of the four elements (earth, water, fire, and air) in varying proportions, which means that if you were able to alter the proportions, you could change the matter entirely.  Which means that under Aristotelian theory, alchemy is not an unreasonable pursuit.

Chinese alchemy makes no sense, but they did manage to make chemistry sound pretty.

Common speedwell is also known as "Paul's Betony."  I'd like to know if that was the reason for the actor's name.  Probably not.

The walls at the Minoan palace at Knossos were inlaid with wooden frames for support against the frequent seismic activity.  In the final cataclysm it obviously wasn't one hundred percent effective.

Wood avens was once thought to drive away rabid dogs, evil spirits, and venomous snakes.  Good thing to have on hand, I suppose.

The original copper sheathing on the USS Constitution was most likely imported from Britain, not manufactured by Paul Revere; he only got to do the ship's detailing, since his copper company wasn't founded until 1801.  He may, however, have provided the sheathing for the USS Argus in 1803, which is the brig Tip ships out in. 

have you found out anything intriguing of late?