Don’t trip over your imaginings: stagecraft in novels

In previous posts I’ve advocated slipping into a character’s skin and looking around to help you set a scene. There’s another benefit from doing this—avoiding impossible “staging.” Staging is how action unfolds, or how a character interacts with the setting. Often a writer is so focused on the result he/she wants she/he unwittingly bends possibility until it breaks.

Bad staging creates at least two problems that become especially damning if the reader is an agent or acquisition editor:

1. You lose credibility with the reader and/or

2. You confuse the reader, which can mean that she has to break out of the story to figure out what’s going on, or might just stop reading altogether.

Here are some examples I’ve adapted from edits I’ve done. Details have been changed to conceal origins. First I’ll give you the excerpt, and then the comment I gave in the edit.

An elderly man shuffled toward them. He wore a hospital johnnie that dangled open in the back.

Comment: If he’s coming toward the point-of-view character, the pov guy can’t see that it dangles open in the back—you need to either cut this or fix the staging so that it can be seen. For me, the detail is not needed.

Looking over at him , she could not remember if she had ever made love in the afternoon, in a room with the shades up. A time when it did not matter if the sun had set, or the blinds were drawn, or the door locked to ward off children. But now, watching the leaves come down, she could not remember such a time.

Comment: At this moment you have her looking at him, not at the leaves. Suggest you have her turn her gaze back to the leaves before her concluding thought.

(For this excerpt, the character cannot see and is in a place she has never been)

As the man who had been holding her walked away, she could hear his feet echoing down the hall.

Comment: You had written it as if she could know he went down a hall, but it has to be a question because she can’t see. (I edited the line to read this way: As the man who had been holding her walked away, she could hear his feet echoing--down a hall?)

(The character has picked up a basket that contains a baby from his front porch and taken it inside. Then this happens…)

Holding the basket in my lap, I pulled the blanket aside.

Comment: Is he sitting somewhere? The living room? Kitchen? You need to set the scene a little so the reader can picture the character in action. Also, readers need “staging” to show action. Another thought: a basket large enough to hold a baby would be pretty big to put in your lap. Suggest he either set it on the floor or on the kitchen table.

The Chevy glided over the bumps in the rutted road. Darkness had fallen as he slowed on the unfamiliar road looking for her house.

Comment: There’s something wacky about the sense of this staging of darkness coming and slowing the car. It means that darkness came in/during the time it took him to slow down. Either darkness falls far more quickly where he lives than it does on my part of the planet, or he took an awful long time to slow down. You need to adjust the “reality” of this darkening.

Once safely inside her flat on the fourth floor, she went to open her bedroom window. She recoiled behind the curtain when she saw a long shadow on the pavement below recede into darkness. She recognized him.

Comment: She saw only a shadow and yet she recognized him? Doesn’t seem possible, especially if she is four stories up and it is dark outside. Need to rethink what the staging is here if you want her to see the guy.

Moral of post: inhabit characters so you don’t trip over the scenery.

Second moral of post: find sharp “other eyes” to help spot goofs you can’t see.

Please let me hear from you. If I can help you with a question about your writing, email me and I’ll apply a beady eye to it. Tell me if I can share it in a post or if you want a “private consultation.”

All contents © Ray Rhamey 2004.

Comments

[Gary Glass]

Another thing about the examples that you gave is all the "gerunding" -- running two pieces of action together in one sentence by gerunding one of them, or otehrwise turning it into a sentence fragment. It's a common habit, and often leads to the kinds of confusing action sequences you talk about. From your examples:

"Looking over at him , she could not remember if she had ever made love in the afternoon, in a room with the shades up. A time when it did not matter if the sun had set, or the blinds were drawn, or the door locked to ward off children. But now, watching the leaves come down, she could not remember such a time."

She looked over at him. She could not remember if she had ever made love... In the window beyond him, the leaves were falling. She could not remember such a time.

"As the man who had been holding her walked away, she could hear his feet echoing down the hall."

He held her a while, then walked away. She listened to his steps.

"Holding the basket in my lap, I pulled the blanket aside."

I sat down with the basket in my lap and pulled the blanket aside.

"The Chevy glided over the bumps in the rutted road. Darkness had fallen as he slowed on the unfamiliar road looking for her house."

The Chevy glided over the bumps in the rutted road. It was getting dark now. He slowed on the unfamiliar road. Which house was hers?

"Once safely inside her flat on the fourth floor, she went to open her bedroom window. She recoiled behind the curtain when she saw a long shadow on the pavement below recede into darkness. She recognized him."

Her flat was on the fourth floor. She looked the door and went straight to the bedroom window. A long shadow on the pavement receded into the darkness.

"Gerunding" is an easy habit to get into.