Author: nick

CHARACTERIZATION – The Writer’s Workshop

Strong characters are the heart and soul of every great story, whether fiction or nonfiction. To make your story compelling, you have to ensure that readers care about your characters.  Even a topic as seemingly dull and unpromising as Great Basin geology can enchant readers if the story comes through someone who cares deeply about it. This is exactly the strategy John McPhee employs in his book, Basin and Range. McPhee is a writer interested in everything: the Merchant Marine, Russian Art, the Swiss Army, the cultivation of oranges, the building of birch bark canoes, the collection and consumption of road kills. Yet he doesn’t assume a similar level of interest from his readers. Instead he courts them by seeking colorful individuals through whom he tells the story and so entices readers into the subject. In Basin and Range, he chose the geologist Kenneth Deffeyes.

          “Deffeyes is a big man with a tenured waistline. His hair flies behind him like Ludwig van Beethoven’s. He lectures in sneakers. His voice is syllabic, elocutionary, operatic. He has been described by a colleague as ‘an intellectual roving shortstop, with more ideas per square meter than anyone else in the department–they just tumble out.'”

          McPhee’s quick character sketch provides readers with a glimpse of the energetic, idiosyncratic geologist, the kind of man who should prove a worthy guide to the narrative. McPhee selected Deffeyes as the central character for his personality and familiarity with the Great Basin. The geologist serves as the entry point into the subject. Though him, general readers learn to care about such arcane subjects as continental drift, subduction zones and seafloor spreading. They might never crack the cover of a geology textbook, but once they get to know Deffeyes, chances are, they’ll be hooked.

          The use of characterization in Basin and Range is typical of narrative nonfiction or fiction. Deffeyes’ character is the lynchpin of the story, the engine of the narrative. In the course of the book, readers learn a lot about geology, but they do it through him. Knowledge is imparted through a person, not presented in a dry, abstract manner.

          Writers like McPhee adopt this strategy for a very simple reason: Readers identify with people. If writers find a sympathetic, interesting character, readers will follow them anywhere, even through the twisting explanations of synclines and anticlines. As Philip Gerard points out in Creative Nonfiction, “One way or another, the focus of every really good story is a person.”

For more on writing character sketches, consider signing up for my spring class, The Nature of Narrative.

Scenic writing is the basis for some of the most moving, satisfying, sophisticated works of literature. It is especially effective in bringing readers into the story because it helps them create a world, a world that you the writer have inhabited and can share with the reader through words. Scenes present a visual, sensual world the reader can inhabit, a kind of imaginary garden with real toads, whether that’s the world of the astronaut program of Tom Wolfe’s The Right Stuff, the vast landscapes of the Southwest in the work of Terry Tempest Williams, or the hard-bitten, humorous Irish Catholic childhood of memoirist Frank McCourt or the gripping nonfiction books of Pulitzer Prize winner Lawrence Wright, pictured below.

1) SETTING THE SCENE

1. a) OPENING SENTENCE: Find a sentence that creates suspense and foreshadows what will happen. This makes clear to the reader that information in summary lead is important and needs to be read. In William Stafford’s memoir Down in my Heart, he uses the opening line, “When are men dangerous?” which accomplishes this perfectly.
2. b) SETTING DETAILS: Provide details that suggest what will happen in scene. These should be chosen for their inherent interest, color and humor and also for what they illustrate about main point of story. For instance, in Down in My Heart, Stafford includes details like “loafing around in the Sabbath calm.” These details help set the scene, and also create suspense. Readers suspect that something will soon shatter this tranquility. The best scenic details do double duty, both painting a picture and creating suspense.
3. c) NUT GRAPH: After sketching in the scene and introducing the people, the writer makes a transition to the action. This transition is crucial, often spelling out the main point or alerting the reader that something important will happen in the scene. William Stafford’s repetition of the phrase “When are men dangerous?” clues in the reader that the tranquil atmosphere of rural Arkansas is about to end.

This transition usually leads to a nut graph, a paragraph that suggests or explains the larger point or goal of the scene and furnishes its larger context. It’s called a nut graph because it puts all of these things together in a nutshell. Who? What? When? Where? And most importantly, why? As in, why should the reader care? What will the scene accomplish?

For more on how to set a scene, please sign up for my winter narrative and Seattle writing class, The Arc of the Story.

First person point of view remains one of the most effective ways of telling a story, but it can also be one of the trickiest. How do you create a persona that resonates with readers? What makes a compelling first-person narrator such as Edward Abbey, Annie Dillard or Henry David Thoreau? What does point of view add to the story?

STRATEGIES FOR WRITING IN FIRST PERSON

STRATEGIES FOR WRITING IN FIRST PERSON

1) THINK OF YOURSELF AS A CHARACTER – The first person you assume in the story is a selection, not your whole personality, and you want to select carefully so that the aspect of yourself that you highlight works well within the entire narrative.

              The part of yourself that you emphasize will depend on the kind of story you’re planning to tell. In one story you may want to emphasize your competence at croquet, in another your incompetence at softball. But remember that you’re choosing a selection of yourself, not necessarily the whole person. In first person, you’re assuming an aspect of your personality, and turning that aspect into a persona, a character who fits within the larger story. The narrator is a part of you, not all of you.

2) EMPHASIZE THE UNIVERSAL – Though you can sometimes get away with prattling on about personal fetishes and pet peeves, you’re most likely to connect with the reader when you write about the parts of yourself that are similar to those of the reader. You want to become a kind of every man character. You want to make your experiences representative. Phillip Lopate’s wonderful essay, “Against Joie de Vivre,” contradicts this strategy, following the tradition of the contrarian essay, but this is a much more difficult path to follow.

3) MODESTY IS THE BEST POLICY – Generally speaking, be modest and self-deprecating or at least reserved about your talents and achievements. Excessive bragging is not a winning strategy. Always treat your accomplishments with a healthy dose of irony. Self-loathing gets old after a while, too, but gee-whiz-aren’t-I-great stories get old immediately.

4) BE ENGAGING – Remember that writing is a performance; make the words sing and jump. Try to be amusing, clever, witty, chatty, sensitive, honest, forthright, informative and pithy.

5) DEVELOP AS A CHARACTER – Start out in one state of mind and end up in another. This will help readers understand the story and change as a result of it. Remember, readers should emerge from your story transformed. Expand their minds. Enlighten them. Entertain them. It’s easier for readers to change if you demonstrate by example. Be their surrogate.

For more on writing in first person, enroll in my fall writing class, Tell Your Story!

Photos for Issue 19

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To make sure that your book reaches its audience, sells a large number of copies and makes you famous, and fodder for People magazine, you will need to devote time to promotion, a dirty word amongst many writers, but one that is essential to accomplishing all of the above.

Even if your publisher bankrolls most or part of the promotion, you should make sure to get involved in the process, because it’s very likely you know better than they do who is the audience for the book. And if your publisher puts few resources into promotion, then you will have to get involved to make sure to get the word out about your book.

I’d like to give you a brief overview from an author’s perspective of how best to use your precious time and money to launch your book.

COMING UP WITH A PLAN

–How much money can you and your publisher put into promotion? Do you have an advance for this? Don’t put yourself in debt to do this, but even $1000 can make a big difference.

–How much time can you spend on promotion? A month? Three months? A year? Three months is probably a good time line for most authors, as this is the window most magazines and newspapers use in deciding whether to review a book.

–Be realistic. It would be wonderful to generate as much buzz as possible, but it’s impossible to get all of it. Pick the low-hanging fruit, ie. Local media, niche media, friends and colleagues.

–Come up with a reasonable plan prior to the release of the book. Once it comes out, you may be overwhelmed with readings, interviews, emailing, etc., so you won’t have the time to look farther ahead. You can always modify along the way though, especially as you learn what are the best venues, the possibilities of getting paid for reading and speaking, and publications most interested in your work.

I’ll have more on organizing a book tour in future blog posts. It’s a wild ride!