Free FtQ chapter—story as garden

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From the Technique section of section of my book, Flogging the Quill, Crafting a Novel that Sells: “Story as garden.”

While enjoying one of my favorite films, The Abyss, I was reminded of the need for effective “seeding” of character and action. The film does it well.

At one point a roughneck in the crew holds up his massive fist and tells a buddy that “they used to call this the hammer.” That nicely sets up a time later in the film when he knocks a bad guy head over keister with one mighty punch. Because of the setup, it was absolutely credible. (Well, the guy’s size was a part of that, too.)

Another fine setup had to do with the hero’s wedding ring as a life-saving device. After a spat between Bud and Lindsey, his about-to-be-divorced wife (and the heroine), he throws his wedding band in a toilet. He leaves. Comes back and fishes the ring out. Cut to extreme close-up of wedding band going back on his finger.

While at the time this seemed pointed at characterizing him and his feelings about her—and it was—that wasn’t everything it did. Later in the film the hold he is in is flooding. He dashes for an already-closing hatch door and manages to put a hand into the gap. Ordinarily his hand would have been crushed by the hydraulic door, but it’s not. Yep, his wedding ring stops the door from closing all the way. Rescuers come and the door is opened. But that must have been one helluva wedding ring.

Without the setup, the ring-stopping-the-door trick would have been a mini deus ex machine and a laughable coincidence. These “seedlings” in the film work so well because they don’t call attention to themselves and just seem like normal parts of what’s happening. Thank you, excellent screenwriter, for your good gardening.

A mystery writer must, of course, plant clues—interesting how even the language for doing this kind of thing is from gardening—but the rest of us need to pay attention to our seeding as well, for both action and characterization.

In a romance novel I recently edited, almost at the end of the book the heroine is groped from behind in a public place by a man whom she assumes to be her current love. She goes along with it because they’ve made love in risky places before. Unfortunately, it’s her old lover doing the groping. As bad luck would have it, her current guy bursts in on the scene. Despite her sincere explanations, he goes into a jealous snit and declares that the relationship won’t work. Goodbye.

All good grist for the romance mill…but for one thing. The current guy has been Mister Adoring Puppy the whole way. He has accepted her dalliance with a celebrity in the beginning of the relationship, including a hot sleepover. He has been accommodating in every way, constantly declaring his love with words and actions. That’s another thing I talked to the writer about—the guy is just too perfect. No flaws. No character arc. No contention between him and her except for the before-mentioned snit.

The problem with how he reacted to this incident was that the motivation for a strong jealous reaction had never been set up. To react strongly was out of character for this guy. Luckily, it didn’t have to be, and I was able to suggest to the writer how to fix it by drawing on other material already in the story. It seems that the protagonist’s first love was jealous and, whenever she even spoke to another man, he would put his arm around her and interfere. If the writer has Mr. Perfect do something similar (an action to which she can react, thereby inserting even more characterization for her) and exhibit a bit of jealousy, then his motive for the later scene will be established and it will be credible.

“Post-seeding”

Computers are wonderful in the way they give you the ability to go back and change things in the earlier pages of a novel quickly and easily when a late thought creates the need for seeding a development in your story. Here’s an example of “post-seeding.”

About a third of the way into a novel, the female protagonist needs to be pulled out of a suicidal dive caused by the tragic death of her once-in-a-lifetime love. She encounters a small boy who seems to suffer from autism. She is a healer, and is sympathetic, but his condition and innocence didn’t seem like motive enough to stir her from her depression.

So what would? How about if the child reminded her in a specific, powerful way of the man she had loved and lost? So the author went back to the scene leading to her love’s death and gave him a “little-boy-lost” look that had always melted her heart. Then the narrative showed her seeing that same look in the eyes of the boy. That stimulus started her on the path of helping the child, which ultimately brought her back to emotional life. The phrase “little-boy-lost” was seeded in three places that added up to powerful motivation for her when the right time came. By the way, the seed had to be distinctive enough to be easily recalled when the time came; in this case, little-boy-lost not only fit unobtrusively the first time it was used, i.e., didn’t call attention to itself, it was distinct enough to remember later.

So seed your novel with small things early on that grow to be significant. And don’t hesitate to go back and plow up early ground to plant the antecedents of characters and events that come into being in the process of discovering your story.

For what it’s worth

Ray

© 2011 Ray Rhamey

Comments

[susan]

Love the analogy of planting seeds in the garden. In "A Prayer for Owen Meany", John Irving did a superlative job of discreetly planting his seeds, and then when they burst into full bloom at the end of the book, it makes you want to stand up and cheer for the sheer genious of it. On the other hand, some writers have a tendency to overplant, sowing the same redundant seeds over and over again, as though the reader were too stupid to process the information the first or second time around. That leaves little room for surprise, and diminishes the overall reading enjoyment considerably.