Do you scratch your head when someone tells you that you need to “show, not tell”? It’s the key to writing compelling commercial fiction, but an often difficult concept to grasp in all its nuances. Today I’m going to share with you some simple ways to…

“Show” emotion without naming it

The trick is in word choice. Each scene in a piece of fiction should be from the point of view (POV) of one character. That character should have a goal, face obstacles to that goal within the scene, and ultimately end up at an impasse where a decision needs to be made.

What I want you to do is look at a scene or story you’ve written and define the mood of your POV character.

Stop reading this post, pull out some of your writing, and try it. Is your hero angry, irritated, frustrated? Is your heroine confused, excited, panicked?

Now, write down some strong nouns and verbs that convey that mood. I emphasize nouns and verbs, because strong writing doesn’t need many adjectives and adverbs.

For example: a character who is angry won’t walk across the room. He’ll storm across the room. He won’t glance at the person he’s talking to. He’ll glare at her. He’ll jab the numbers on his cell phone. He’ll slam the car door.

Next, look at your setting details. Word choice in setting descriptions is a subtle, but powerful way to enhance the emotion of the scene. If your hero is angry, thunderclouds may be piling up on the horizon. If your heroine is wary or confused, dark clouds may bruise the sky. See how the italicized words subconsciously convey a mood?

Here’s one of my favorite examples (from the opening of Deep Cover) of how I use scene description to convey the hero’s mood:

A lone backhoe loomed on the horizon, silhouetted against the steel gray sky, its tires caked in mud. Too bad the machine wasn’t big enough to dig him out of this mess.

Notice how the final sentence is backloaded with the word “mess”.

In the next lesson we’ll look at how to use metaphors and the five senses to empower your writing.

A Challenge

Learning a new writing technique won’t help you if you don’t apply it. So if you want to become a stronger writer try this exercise.

Exercise:

• Read through a page of your writing and underline all the nouns and verbs. Now, go back and try to replace the weakest ones with stronger words that also convey the mood of the POV character. If you have an adjective helping to describe the noun, or an adverb helping to describe the verb, strive to make it obsolete.
• Share your favorite before and after examples in the comment section.
• One more hint for extra power: Look for the strongest word in your sentence. See if you can rewrite the sentence with that word at the end for a stronger emotional punch.

Bio:

Author Sandra Orchard home educated her three children from kindergarten to grade twelve. Her youngest daughter has followed in her footsteps, writing award-winning short stories and articles for The Canadian Horse Journal and CinchMagazine.com, an Ezine which she also co-edits. Sandra took her first writing course after her first baby was born but for many years wrote only curriculum for her personal use and articles and book reviews for a local homeschooling newsletter. Then, as her children’s learning became increasingly independent and a back injury sidelined the home renovations that had usually filled her free time, she began writing novels. Sandra received news of her first book contract with Love Inspired Suspense (formerly Steeplehill) on her “home school graduation day”—her youngest daughter’s first day of college. What an exciting launch to this new phase of life!

Deep Cover, the debut novel in Sandra’s Undercover Cops series released in early September. Shades of Truth will follow in March 2012. Passionate about helping aspiring fiction writers strengthen their writing, Sandra judges writing contests and is active in several online writing groups such as ACFW and The Word Guild. Her website www.SandraOrchard.com features reviews on numerous topnotch books for writers, as well as inspiring stories of authors’ writing journeys that encourage aspiring writers to persevere in pursuing their writing dreams and to find joy in the journey.

Sometimes that means they’ve been put upon, taken advantage of, hurt, haunted, or chased after. But occasionally, when we write about their situations, we start to accidentally create such a passive character that we’re really the only ones who are excited about what is happening to them. Others might find them to be, um… well… boring. It’s simply too hard for a reader to establish a long-term, committed relationship with a character who is nothing but a victim.

The key to creating a non-passive character doesn’t mean doing away with the problems they’re faced with. It simply means giving them the power to act on what is happening.

When your main character faces The Big Trouble, whatever it is, that is not the time to have them go off and wallow in self-pity — not for more than a few moments anyway. That is the time to make them do something.  In fact, whenever possible, avoid things happening to the character. Instead, have the character act as the catalyst for what happens next. The character’s response to their crisis should come in some physical as well as emotional way whenever possible. Did they get bad news? Have them act out on it. Have them rage, cry, run, write a letter, plot revenge, spy — something.

Did one character just see his best friend wounded in battle? What is he going to do next because of that? Did another just overhear her parents speaking about a possible divorce? What is her reaction? What will these characters do that will cause their stories to spin forward and lead to even deeper conflict?

The point of creating non-passive characters is to intensify possibilities for conflict while causing readers to engage with their personalities — to care about them.

Exercise:

• Think about the latest dilemma your character has stumbled into. What can he or she do next to try to get themselves out of it, only to make matters worse?

Not that it’s bad to depict goodness in characters — but there has to be conflict — even among good people. Story is conflict. It can be simple and understated. You might introduce it through an underlying way that words are spoken over tea. Or perhaps it can be troubled thought, though all seems well on the outside. It can be the fun time that two characters are sharing which the reader senses will result in severe repercussions later on. (Think of Anne of Green Gables attempting to dye her hair.)

When you’ve written a scene, go through it and try to define the point of conflict. What is it? Is it clear? Is it compelling enough to move the story forward? Every scene should make the reader turn the page, not lay the book down.

Exercises:

• Go through one of your stories you haven’t looked at lately so that you have a fresh, unbiased eye. Examine each scene. Is it boring? Is something happening to move the story onward? If not, fix it by adding conflict or get rid of it.

• Take a book you’re currently reading and begin to make mental notes of what conflict is happening in each scene. What is causing you to turn the page? Make note if a scene is boring to you and why. Would the story have been better – stronger – if the author had gotten rid of that scene, or heightened it with stronger conflict?

Often as new or young writers, we want our heroes to be larger than life. We want them to come in and save the day like a knight on a white horse. But we have to remember that behind every hero is a story of trials, temptation, and perhaps suffering.

A too-perfect hero becomes a piece of cardboard to the reader.

Think of Spiderman. He is a great example of a flawed hero. He’s not really very confident. He’s kind of a weakling at the beginning. A geek. Not what you’d consider hero material. But that’s what brings his hero-self to life as the story progresses and what makes us really, really love this guy.

How about the Count of Monte Cristo, one of my faves? I root for this guy because of all that’s happened to him, all the pain and horrors he’s suffered. But he’s a bitter soul. He’s vengeful. Those are major flaws. He can’t have real victory over all that’s happened and regain the love and peace that once was his until he learns to forgive.

So what makes a hero? Is it that they put themselves in the way of risk or danger for the sake of someone else? Is it that they are leaders? Is it their intelligence and sophistication?

Or is it that they develop these attributes despite, or because of, their hang-ups, unresolved issues, suffering, temptations, and everything else that tends to hold people back?

Exercise:

• Pick your favorite book hero and examine what makes them flawed on the inside and out. In other words, what are their inner and outer obstacles? How do they overcome them to become heroic?

• Take a look at your own character hero. Is he as imperfect as he should be? What angst does he struggle with? What causes him to reel on the inside?

1. POV slips

Nothing bothers me quite so much as hopping from one person’s head to another in the same scene. Just when I think I’m in Jane’s head, seeing the world through her eyes—bam. The writer jumps to Billy’s head, and that changes everything. Billy thinks differently from Jane about the weather, the people, the emotions—everything really. It’s okay to have multiple points of view when writing in third person, but stick to one person per scene. In my opinion, head-hopping keeps the reader from getting emotionally involved in the scene.

2. Being verbs

When writers pile on the being verbs, they rob their prose of it’s most vibrant element. Let me clarify—just in case someone’s wondering—the verbs I’m talking about. (Am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been.) These static verbs don’t do anything. They just sit there. If you rework your sentences, most of the time you can replace these weak verbs with vivid action words. Simple example: There was an oak tree in the yard. (Weak.) An oak tree shaded the lawn. (Stronger.)

3. Too many adverbs

I remember one story I read that had an –ly adverb in almost every sentence. Everything went sweetly, quickly, softly, and nauseatingly along. Instead of walked swiftly, try rushed, hurried, or scrambled. Go on an –ly hunt and consider every one guilty until you rid your prose of these bland thieves. After you’ve learned to write without them, you may find a time to work one or two necessary ones back into your writing.

4. Labeling with adjectives instead of word painting

Sometimes we label the things we want to describe instead of taking the time to use an artist’s eye to paint them. We write about a “beautiful sunset” or “ugly frog”.  Instead of using the labels of “beautiful” and “ugly”, take the time to observe unique details—even if it’s in your imagination. Maybe the sunset isn’t so beautiful. On a day when everything’s gone wrong for your hero, maybe the sun bleeds it’s orange rays across the sky. Look for the flaw in something beautiful or a redeeming quality in something ugly. You just might come up with a sentence we all wish we’d written!

5. Filtering through the consciousness of a character

This concept might sound hard to understand, but a few examples will clear it up. Avoid phrases such as: he thought, noticed, wondered, realized, noted, considered, realized, etc. Here’s an example: “He noticed a mockingbird entertaining the neighborhood from its perch in a tree.” Remove the filter and move deeper into his point of view. “A mockingbird entertained the neighborhood from its perch in a tree.” If you’ve stayed true to No. 1 above, we’ll know that he noticed it, and we’ll feel more like we’re in his skin.

6. Lack of inner journey character arc

Some stories I’ve read have a great outer journey for the character with a tangible goal and a compelling motivation, but the inner journey of the character is lacking. Jeff Gerke, quthor of How To Find Your Story, goes so far as to say the story is really 75% about the inner journey. Also, know your character’s inner goal and motivation. If you think about it, even all the animated movies have an inner journey. Think about Shrek. We see what’s going on inside him, and that’s why we care about whether or not he succeeds.

7. Episodic writing

In episodic writing, lots of things happen to the hero, but he just goes through his day reacting to everything. Usually in these stories the character’s goal is weak so he doesn’t have anything that he must achieve, or maybe the stakes aren’t high enough. So what if he doesn’t get it? If the character has a strong goal and the stakes are high, he’ll take steps to reach the goal and won’t wait around for something to happen.

8. Lack of motivation for characters

Most of the time your heroes and heroines can do just about anything—as long as they have a strong motivation. If they don’t have a proper motivation for what they do, they will appear too stupid to live. Why does your hero want that? Why will he go to the extreme to get it?

9. Characters who are too perfect

Yuck. I don’t care to spend hours and hours reading about perfect people. As my friend Shelly Dippel says, “They’re too good for earth. Send ‘em on to heaven!” What flaws do your characters have? What lies do they believe? What mistakes do they make? What hot buttons do they have? Do they sometimes mouth-off when they should keep silent? And while we’re at it, give your villains depth by bestowing upon them a couple of good qualities.

10. Going overboard

Sometimes when I teach a new concept, I find that my students get so enthused about it that they go overboard. I teach about metaphors, and the next chapter has so many metaphors that the good ones are hidden among the mediocre ones. Or I teach about using vivid verbs, and the student writes a twisted sentence just to avoid a being verb. Use common sense, and don’t take any of these tips to the extreme!

Exercise:

Go over a scene that you’ve written and see if you can find any of these things that weaken your story. Rewrite!

But in truth, all stories are based on a few basic formulas that make very good sense. Here’s one I came across recently while trying to wrangle a synopsis into a few words…

Character (adjective + noun) + wants + but + so + because = AND

Let’s look at the variables:

• Character – This is your hero or heroine, and they have a problem. They’d better. If they have no conflict, you have no story. Pick an adjective and a noun that describe them succinctly. In my recent historical, I describe my heroine as a “grieving spinster”–two words that give you immediate clues about what her problems might be.
• Wants – What’s their problem? What do they want or need that they don’t have?
• But – Why can’t they get it? Who or what stands in their way? This is the obstacle they must overcome. It can be a human adversary–a villain, an environmental obstacle–a mountain to climb or a galaxy to traverse, or a spiritual challenge–cultural taboos or personal issues.
• So – What do they propose to do about it? How will they attempt to get what they need or want?
• Because - Tell us why they want it so badly that they just can’t quit, turn back, or give up.
• AND – Here’s where you tell us how it all ends and what we should learn from it.

Simple? Not always, but definitely a great way to boil your story down to its essentials.

Exercise:

• Apply this formula to your three favorite books or movies. (“An orphaned teenager is eager for adventure but finds himself embroiled in a struggle of galactic proportions, so he studied becomes a Jedi because only he can destroy the Death Star and save the Princess.”)
• Now apply this formula to a story you have in mind.

Thanks to  Linda Clare for her article and formula that inspired this post.

In my last post we explored Internal and External Goals. Each of us has things we value. It makes us ‘tick.’ We don’t always recognize, though, what our values or goals are. We roll on in life doing what we believe is right and never stop to ask why we act the way we do or if our actions are correct.

When you create characters, spice things up with conflict. Your story and the characters become more interesting when life isn’t normal. Giving your characters conflicting values is one way to do that.

Let’s say your hero places money above everything else in life. That may seem selfish, but it’s who he is. Money is his ‘core value’ or his ‘internal goal.’ Place him in a position to lose his money and you have a conflict. Give him a reason to spend his money on a worthy cause that he would normally ignore. You’ve created a deeper conflict. Now he’s in a position that requires a choice. It will challenge his core value and could bring about a change in the way he thinks and behaves.

Example: Mr. Rich loves his money. He meets a person who touches his heart. This person needs money and is in a desperate situation. Mr. Rich’s money would change their life. Nothing has ever tempted him to part with his money. He has a huge internal conflict. Will Mr. Rich keep his money and ignore this person? Will he follow the leading of his heart, change his core value, and share the wealth? What would it take to make him change his attitude? If he shares, will it cause a permanent change or will he go back to life as usual?

Did you recognize the story of Scrooge in the example? Tiny Tim created a conflict that forced Scrooge to make a choice. This “internal conflict” propelled the story. It forced Scrooge to make a choice and it uncovered a deeper value. He learned that people are more important than money. His core value changed. Scrooge learns some hard lessons before he lets go of his money. In his case, it’s a permanent change.

Writing lesson

Examine the internal goals of a character you’re creating. Insert something that will challenge their core value. Choose something that forces him or her to make a hard choice. Some people don’t change when the conflicts come. They remain the same and never grow. And there could be a time when their core value is correct and the conflicts they face confirm this.

Choose one of the following items for your writing lesson.

• Show by his or her actions how the conflict makes a positve change in their core value. Show how they fail to change when the conflict arises.
• Show how your character faces a conflict that proves their core values were correct. Show how they maintain that value when it’s challenged.