I hope you’re following the new BBC Sherlock Holmes series. There is so much to learn from this marvelous mash-up of the Arthur Conan Doyle classic stories.

Today’s post is focused on what I believe is one of the two best things about the series. There are many other strengths of this TV series, but the two best are: The update to 21st century with the technology (smart, seamless and fun); and characterization. So off we go on the subject of this post: characters and cliche.

I know I will offend die hard Jeremy Brett fans when I say that in my opinion Sherlock Holmes’s portrayal has usually been fun, but cliched. (I didn’t see the Robert Downey film, though.) Who needs deep character when the superficial one grabs our attention? (Archie Bunker in All In the Family is another example of a weird protagonist delivering big entertainment.) But Archie cloys after awhile, and Sherlock Holmes is always the same, manic genius, not even slightly nuanced. Why did Sherlock Holmes endure? I think it was because the outrageous character of Sherlock was perfectly suited to the endlessly inventive mysteries he was called upon to solve. So great storytelling, despite a character who cannot surprise us.

You can agree or not, but I beg you to look at the Cumberbatch/Freeman duo, and the way these characters move beyond the old constraints.

What constraints? This one especially: Dr. Watson is usually the faithful sidekick without a believable agenda of his own. In other words, he isn’t a real person, or at least not a very interesting one. Sherlock Holmes is self-involved and deranged, without the ability to relate to others. Infuriating, fascinating for a couple hours… but I sometimes grew weary of the schtick.

However, now we have an adaptation that brilliantly moves beyond this charming conceit to bring some depth to the Holmes/Watson relationship. In other words, we actually get to have a little emotional involvement with the characters. I already liked Sherlock Holmes stories. With this BBC series, I love them.

Because they moved beyond cliche to character.

Now, instead of being merely a prop for the main character, Holmes, Watson clearly wants a friendship with him. He doesn’t get it, but he clearly desires it. When Holmes is being especially abrasive, Watson can get angry; alternatively, he gets back at Holmes with a dismissive impatience. Just the right dose of push-back, without watering down the essential sidekick role. (And season two, by the way, is much better than season one.)

As for the Holmes character, this portrayal has Cumberbatch occasionally aware of his emotions. And the brilliant part? When he notices these emotions he tries very hard to squelch them–but we aren’t sure he succeeds.  At these moments we see Holmes as someone hiding behind the demented genius. Like Dr. Gregory House, we start rooting for him to become just a little more human. We know it isn’t going to happen, but it’s fun to see Cumberbatch play with this.

It draws me in even further than the lovely plots do.

But I’m a sucker for a little ambiguity and emotion.

Take a close look at season two, beginning with A Scandal in Belgravia and last Sunday’s The Hound of Baskerville. Watch the interactions between Cumberbatch and Freeman.

A brilliant reinvention.

You still really need a writing conference.

I once asked an acquaintance why her husband, an avid and sporadically published author wasn’t attending our local conference. She said, in effect, “Oh, David doesn’t think writing can be taught.”

It was such a dumb comment, I didn’t know what to say; it was equal parts ignorance and snobbery.

I’m not going to argue about talent being nature or nurture. It’s obvious that if you have a leaden ear for language you will not go far in this business. But to say that therefore nothing can be taught is idiocy. You can and will learn from other writers. It is a craft. And in the ancient tradition of apprenticeship, we all do well to learn from the masters. Or at least from published writers. Since you’re already reading this post, I will now forgo the rant that was boiling up from below. You don’t need a lecture.

But maybe, in these lean economic times, you might need a bit of encouragement to lay out $155 for a weekend of workshops.

So, in a nutshell, here is why you need to sign up immediately for a writing conference. Maybe even spring for the travel costs to go to one a little further than you have before. (Nothing like a longish car trip home to set your mind free to come up with a great novel idea!)

So. You need a writing conference because:

That is pretty much the only place in the world where almost everyone around you shares the same dream: to write amazing stories and get them published.

Writing may be a solitary act, but you need people, my friend. Spend too much time in front of a computer screen alone in your den and you start to develop conspiracy theories, self-loathing and toe nail fungus. Get out in the world; clean up your act; meet people who actually think that writing is important instead of pretentious or weird. The writing conference is a place to draw deep renewal from the mere presence of other people who believe. Whether you talk to any of them or not.

And on that topic, please read my introversion posts. ‘Nuf said.

You will learn how different approaches to writing can hook your subconscious in undreamed of ways.

Yes, I’m saying that the best speakers aren’t teaching nuts and bolts, or at least not only that; they’re sharing doors to the inside. Paths to story. Because–and here’s what David didn’t get–finding your story is a deeply subconscious process that can be accessed sideways by surface lessons. You are apparently hearing about point of view choices, let’s say, but your subconscious is hearing about wearing the costume of another sentient being.

See, your subconscious is mysterious and quirky, but in the end it wants to be happy. That’s why it urges you to eat ice cream. But it also realizes that you are never going to be happy if you don’t write your stories, so it pays attention at these confabs. In its own way, to be sure. You’re making POV notes, and it’s thinking about channeling your next protagonist.

How do I know this? Because I’ve awakened in the middle of the night with a protagonist racing through my mind. Never saw her before. Don’t know anything about her. Except for the scene that just burbled up from below.

You may land an agent or sell directly to an editor.

You say you’ve tried that and didn’t get a bite? Hey, me too. I met with a very well known sf/f agent at a conference many years ago and he flat out said he wasn’t interested in my story. Felt like shit. But then, a few years later, I did find an agent at a conference. And as to editors, I am not the best at networking, but I have sold several short stories directly to editors who were combing the conference for material. Every time I do this–even after 10 published novels–I experience long moments of sappy happiness.

You can’t control what will happen to you at conferences, but you can put yourself in the way of success.

You will make writing friends. You will need them.

Not at every conference, maybe, but at most of them. It’s rather easy to start conversations at conferences. Try “What are you working on?” And go from there.

The people you meet at these things can very well end up being your closest friends. They will be people to turn to with triumphs to share and slumps to weather. It’ll be their turn next, and they will listen to you now. Your writing friends may ultimately end up being even more important than your writing career. I guess I really said that. I’ll just leave it there.

$155, are you kidding me? Register. Pay. Go.

And where, you may ask, can you actually get all this for a mere $155? (You got your mega-conferences–also lovely–but they will cost a good bit more.)

Write on the River, that’s where.

Whatcha going to get?

1. Awesome keynote speaker to start out the day: Jonathan Evison, author of All About Lulu and other things.

2. Chris Humphreys, an extremely popular teacher from Vancouver Island giving an intensive session on the novel.

3. The amazing Steven Barnes on The Hero’s Journey and also writing the thriller. He is one of the most inspirational teachers you will ever see.

4. Workshops on writing the nonfiction book, the memoir, YA lit, making money at freelancing, writing short stories and a bunch of stuff on the new world of publishing.

Maureen McQuerry, YA lit

I’m excited about this line-up. We’ve been planning it for months. It’s almost here.

Gordon Warnock, Andrea Hurst Literary Mngm't

Where the heck is Wenatchee? Two and a half hour drive over mountains from Seattle. The sunny side of the state. Nestled in the foothills on the banks of the Columbia River and the wine country. Spectacular.

But it’s the writing conference you really need.

Writing classes go on at length about characterization, and much of it is helpful, but doesn’t sink  the put. For example, we’re told to create a hero the reader can root for; to make clear the stakes for the hero; to make him/her fiercely desire or fear the thing at stake. The list of advice goes on endlessly. I was recently coached to lay bare my hero’s emotions. Let it all hang out. Don’t hold back.

But today I’m feeling stubborn. I’m gonna hold back, so there. I’m going to hang out this proposition:

Suppose the missing ingredient to make characters “work” is not how much we show or tell, but what is withheld?

Explaining away

I recently finished reading the acclaimed literary book, Jamrach’s Menagerie by Carol Birch. It’s a 19th century sailing adventure, but saying that doesn’t do justice to this fabulous story of survival and the wonder of life.

Much has been written about the major character (MC) young Jaffy. But I think the real reason people loved him was that it was his voice telling a fabulous tale. It was an eloquent voice–the author’s, we realize–but still integrated with young Jaffy. But the MC didn’t distinguish himself as a character. I loved him generically. And let me be clear, the story still worked incredibly well. But not because of who Jaffy was. I would say the reason the story sank the put was because what happened was so interesting and because of the writing style and profound thematic insights.

One of the primary characters rang especially true for me, though. And that was Jaffy’s best friend, Tim. This puzzled me. We don’t learn much about Tim. No backstory. We see his family, and Jaffy is in love with Tim’s sister who has some appearances. But Tim can be hurtful and at times manipulative. These little acts of spite are never explained away.

In our rush to complete the picture of our MC, we may be telling and showing too much. I make no distinction between implied psychology of showing and direct telling in the narrative. I’m saying that characters with everything hanging out many times don’t seem realistic to us. I believe this is because as human beings (readers, if you will) we suspect we don’t really know people very well. Nor do we know ourselves with deep insight.

You may be different. You may be sure of your friends, your adored neighbors and yourself. Then again, you may acknowledge that we never see truly deeply into people. The action, the comment, the tendency that doesn’t fit is swept aside with pop psychology answers, or simply ignored by us in the rush to cognitive consistency.

This is why, despite wounding back stories and burning desires hooked by story problems, we are still failing to get the person on the page. We are explaining it all away. Giving the power of character up by presenting a too-tidy package.

Are you as tired as I am of the generic protagonist who is very much like you or me? She has a big fault, of course, but it is justified by back story. We think this makes the character empathetic. I guess it does to some extent. But what good is generic admiration if we don’t believe in her?

Mystery

Therefore, let us present a few mysteries about our MC. Maybe, as with Tim, it is just a frequent tendency to exhibit small cruelties. We may conclude these are due to jealousy, though Jaffy and Tim become fast friends to the death. (The way Carol Birch does this is very early in the story and brilliantly restrained. Tim is sent to fetch the very young Jaffy to bring him to the big boss who will offer Jaffy a job. To secure Jaffy’s interest, the boss instructs Tim to buy Jaffy a big, goopy, sweet. Tim impassively watches Jaffy consume this rare treat.)

So, let us create discordance, the squeaky wheel, the part that doesn’t fit. (Of course it must fit, cosmically, but we never, never discuss it or show it unless it is as subtle as one boy getting ice cream and the other studiously not reacting.)

Aspiring writers might wish to take a light hand with this at first. It would be bold of us to try to create a protagonist like the Hugh Laurie character in TV’s House. I haven’t followed the series for some time, but at first House’s self-destructive behavior just was. We were left to imagine why, and House became an iconic, deeply believable character.

With these few examples, I’m seeing a lesson, but one still dimly perceived: That in presenting  character, we may do well to spice the earnest showing and telling with flashes of mystery. The mystery that is your spouse, your son, everyone’s favorite high school teacher, etc. The mystery that is yourself.

I am still trying to articulate this insight, and I may deny ever having written this blog, so right now all I’m suggesting is that you let your subconscious mind consider the mystery of character. Is there a way to use this in your MC? Or in another character who is flatter than you wish they were?

I hope I don’t get kicked out of writing teacher’s school for this one.

If you don’t have time to read this post, here is the short verson:

• Yes, it’s worth it.
• No, it’s not what it’s advertised as.
• There is no boat.

Now on to the details:

I’ve been hearing a lot from aspiring writers lately about fears and anxieties. If I really had answers, I’d be a rich therapist, of course. But from what I’ve seen over my fifteen year career, here are some of my truths about Discouragement.

1. Be realistic. Discouragement is like belly fat. You’ll fight it your whole life. Don’t beat yourself up over a little bit of muffin top. (You’re already discouraged, don’t add self-loathing.)

2. There is profound connection between discouragement and inflexibility. If you have to have what you expect, then you’re clearing a path for discouragement to find you.

3. Discouragement gets a toe-hold in you when you don’t have clear goals. How do you know if you’re failed if you didn’t have a goal? If you don’t meet a goal, what about your other goals?

4. Discouragement comes from a lack of faith and courage. I was shocked when I first realized this. But look at the root of the word: DIScourage. When we lack courage, we’re open to self-pity. Self-pity leads to the loss of friends. Loss of friends leads to being alone at Christmas… oh, wait, we’ve already seen that commercial.

5. You must battle discouragement directly. Have an attack plan. It’s not enough to say “I shouldn’t be discouraged.” That leads to being discouraged over not being able to overcome discouragement. Oh, you’re not that crazy? Good. (But you’re probably very young.)

Realism

The sooner you understand that the writing life is full of ups and downs, the sooner you can stop fretting. We all go through it (not much of a help, but still…) Your life as a published author is not going to look like your hero’s life. And even your hero is not as content as you might think. This is a tough, fascinating, rewarding, exasperating business. Welcome to the family reunion. But seriously, it will help so much for you to shed your idealism about writing and realize that it is a fine vocation, but it will not save you. What saves you is a good life, deeply lived.

Flexibility

Make a vow that you will always have one more project envisioned after the Work In Progress (WIP.) This keeps you from putting all your eggs in one basket. Perhaps you can have two projects going at once, such as a short story to spell you from the novel. The publishing world may or may not buy my WIP; but I can hardly wait to finish it so I can move on to another exciting project. Be driven by passion, not ambition. That is, don’t count on a “very nice” offer on the WIP, at least don’t count on it to the point where a non-sale is the source of Deep Discouragement. You write ‘em, take your knocks (or your money) and rush on to the next glorious chance to tell a story.

Set aside fifteen minutes a day to come up with a short story idea or the next novel idea. Can’t keep in mind two plots at once? Yes you can. Your own brain is the most under-utilized system on the planet (hey, mine too!) Few of us are working at a level of personal and creative mastery. Push yourself. But above all, be ready to punt if and when WIP falters.

Clear goals

In order to know if you’re heading in the right direction, you need your own personal, true goals. Not someone else’s goal. Yours. Write them down. You might think your goals are clear, but for most people, they are mushy. Write ‘em down. With deadlines. The goals can be things you can’t control and things you can (Publish WIP before my birthday in 2013. Sell short story to a magazine this year. Write 4 new pages every week.) If you don’t meet these goals, rewrite them. Look at them every day. A goal is not a must-have, it’s a want-to-have. Make a commitment to pursuing your goals with passion and integrity. This leads us to:

Faith and courage

I’m not a spiritual counselor, but I’m pretty sure if you don’t have a source of inspiration in your life, you are going to handicap yourself. Does your inspiration give you encouragement to dream and keep going? Does your inspiration, whether it is religion or humanism or core values, allow the power of the day to flow into you and show you joy? If not, start here. Find your meaning; assess what it’s all about. If you don’t know this, it will be about ego, and ego leads to discouragement.

Now, to courage. Don’t be the skinny kid on the block. Develop your mental muscles. Learn an attitude of courage. Act like it even when you don’t feel like it. Call on your courage during the day in whatever visualization works for you.

Hey, it’s a mind game. And one day, after years of practicing courage, you will face a really dread demon, and guess what, you’ve got the right stuff. You learned courage one day at a time.

For more help on this one, here is my post on the subject. Scroll down to the subhead Courage.

Attack plan

If you are feeling discouraged, get organized. Have a plan. Actually, you should have a plan whether or not you feel discouraged. Set goals for your career, your personal life and your mental health. List them. Follow up with integrity and energy. Put your list out where you can see it. Rewrite your list frequently, even if it doesn’t change. Become goal-oriented, and value oriented. Remember that if you aren’t following your list, you aren’t being true to yourself, or your list isn’t true. Keep tweaking it. This is not a pointless exercise, it is a process to go deeper into your life and spend your time wisely.

In the midst of all this, you will find Discouragement slinking away, waiting for you to forget what you’re all about. It is waiting in the corner and will inevitably watch for weakness and days when the baby has been up all night or another rejection letter shows up. Acknowledge the creature. Firmly suggest that he go feed on someone who is a push-over. He will respect you for it. And though he will never entirely go away, he will grow smaller.

Sailing on

And the boat? (As in missing the boat.) This one has to do with feeling like one is too old to aspire to the writing life. Talk about a discouraging premise! You aren’t as old as you will be next year or a decade from now. Did you start late? So what? If writing is your passion, you have the rest of your life to immerse yourself in a fascinating pursuit that no one can deny to you and that will immeasurably sweeten your life with stories and writing friends. The boat has not left the dock. There is no boat full of successful authors that has sailed without you. Every day has the same chances as any other day. There is no boat.

1) Authors with names at the beginning of the alphabet do better than any others.  The idea apparently started as the desperate theory that if your name starts with A or early Bs, people don’t have to stoop to find you in the bookstore.

2) It’s all who you know. If you’ve got the right agent, know the influential editors, get introduced to the in-crowd, you’ll have a hugely better chance at publication.

3. People will steal my ideas. Yes, I’ve seen that guy too, the one lurking by my recycle bin on Wednesdays. He’s a failed writer. He knows I’m working on a hot idea. Although I’ve torn my draft in half and mixed up the pages, he’s going to spend his weekend pasting them together. I know what you mean, man!

4. My work is rejected because it’s too good. Publishers want crap because it sells. (This superstition is particularly soul-killing, in my opinion.)

5. My cat is the source of my inspiration. Enough said.

6. You can’t be a real writer unless you have a cat. While cats sleep, they apparently contact the Great Story Source and channel stuff to you. So while they look like mooching, lazy, arrogant creatures, they are actually semi-devine.

7. A small advance will handicap your book. The publisher won’t “get behind it.” Corollary: A big advance, you’ve made it!

8. If your fingernails are different lengths, you will write drek. I happen to believe this one.

9. Reviews predict how a book will do. We should all place great store in these pronouncements.

10. One’s agent has an uncanny ability to predict how a book will do. The corollary: Rejection by agents means your novel sucks.

11. You are born with a certain amount of talent which dictates your success as a writer. (Another soul-killer.)

12. I am competing with other writers. It’s a dog eat dog world.

13. One must always have a little notebook to capture stray ideas. Come on, have you Ever forgotten a great story idea between the toilet paper aisle and home?

You know, that little shot of self-esteem that is so needed in our incessantly chatty, bloviating world of self-promotion and self-invention.

It’s a world in which introverts find themselves a distinct–and mistrusted–minority. But before we stake out our claim to respect, let’s define, once again, what an introvert is. There’s a lot of confusion about this topic.

Introvert stereotypes

This section is for introverts. I would love for extroverts to read this and understand–perhaps even change their attitudes toward us, but they won’t. Extroverts can’t fathom why introverts are as they are, and why they are content being as they are. But let’s us, at least, be clear about who we aren’t.

• Shy. You may be both shy and an introvert, but that’s like saying you may be an introvert and a redhead. Shyness and introversion are not related, but they present in a similar fashion, so are often confused. Introverts like to talk and meet people. It’s just that they don’t like to talk a lot and meet too many people at once.

• Lousy at parties. At a party, introverts are often the most interesting people. They’re willing to talk about something rather than just schmooze. It’s just that they’re done after about 35 minutes. After that, they quickly become bored. If they have a particularly stimulating conversation about something they care about, they become energized and may then have the emotional fuel to chit chat another say, 15 minutes. During these bursts of sociability, introverts can be energetic and charming. But then they’re ready to go home.

• Afraid of public speaking. Many introverts love the limelight. They are engaging public speakers (I am, as an example, available for lucrative keynote gigs!) It is wonderful to not have to fight extroverts for the floor. We love to control the microphone. For about 35 minutes. Then we’re bored hearing ourselves speak (something introverts wish extroverts felt.)

• Misanthropic. Of course we like people. It’s just that a small dose will do. This dose can indeed be stronger and longer if the conversation is actually about something rather than pointlessly batting the social ball back and forth. I have been known to huddle with a new acquaintance at a party for about an hour delving into a fascinating topic. And no, it doesn’t have to be about me.

Who introverts really are

Introverts are often intensely creative people who think deeply about things. They are fascinated by other people who have something interesting to say.  But schmoozing is excruciating for us, it’s true.

We find social situations draining, and after a respectable amount of socializing, would rather spend our energies on the things we’ve been thinking about. We are really into you for about a half hour. Why isn’t that enough?

We aren’t afraid of parties, but we do dread them because we’re going to get all the value out of them in the first hour, and then be bored to death. This is not because we grow tired of people in and of themselves, but because we are tired of expending energy to engage with them.

Introverts are capable of admiring the way extroverts engage in witty conversation. (This is a one-way street. Extroverts are incapable of admiring introverts.) It’s as though extroverts have minds that are faster than introverts. How do they know what to say about the latest celebrity clip on YouTube? That came up 30 seconds ago, and I still don’t know what to say. You all have moved on.

If you see a person at a party leaning against a wall with a wry smile on their face and watching people, chances are this is an introvert. If he is supremely self-confidant, he is content to observe people’s behavior. He doesn’t feel left out because he pities the social songbirds, and is intending to write about them when he gets home. I once saw a famously introverted writer at a very crowded party, and he was doing exactly that: smiling that tiny, enigmatic smile and watching people. I have since tried to replicate his stance without looking like a complete ass. Let me know how I’m doing next time you catch me leaning against a wall.

Now that I’m finished with my rant on how we introverts are misunderstood, let’s move on to how we can now fit in beyond our wildest dreams.

The internet and introverts

As the dog says in the New Yorker cartoon, on the internet no one knows you’re a dog.

In this fabulous cyberworld we can finally be our introvert selves, and thrive. When you really think about it, the internet is perfect for folks like us. We can pick the exact moment when we feel like interacting with people by blogging, FaceBooking or tweeting. We can spend our 35 minutes connecting with other people and then go read Remembrance of Things Past (or whatever highly introverted activity brings us back to normalcy after high socialability.)

Instead of book signings, we can get “face time” with potential readers on YouTube and Livewriters; instead of a book tour (shudder), we can do a blog tour. We can dip into FaceBook and Twitter conversations, and take 15 minutes to think of something to say, with no one the wiser.

On our websites we can actually pick our topics! We may have nothing to say about the latest contestant on American Idol, but we can talk about the latest Man-Booker prize winner, the fate of the Eurozone, or the hole in the ozone. Whatever interests you, you get to talk about. I love the internet.

If you, as an introvert, aren’t totally jazzed by social media and the internet you are tragically missing the boat. The boat is not a leaden craft that demands we bend to the oars. No! It is a sleek ocean liner of incredible flexibility and beauty. And we have a posh stateroom. Why us?

Because the internet, while ideally suited to introverts, does not exert a siren song, lulling us into hours of wasted internet time. No, indeed. We can easily limit the time we spend in this fantastic playground. Why? Because we’re done in 35 minutes. We have had our hit of connecting and chatting. And now we’re back writing again.

Hurray!

Unlike extroverts who constantly complain about what a time suck the internet is, we (you and I, fellow introvert) are not going to get sucked in to the great schmooze in the sky. Because our hair-trigger boredom reflex will save us every time.

So. I hope you introverts out there are feeling a rush of pride, relief and delicious revenge. The world is making room for us at last.

Not that we have to get all defensive or anything.

__________________

Previous INTROVERT posts:

Part one: What is an introvert and why you should blog

Part two: Surviving conventions

Part three: The doldrums

Part four: Building relationships

Part five: How to be sociable in a bar

Part six: Networking as an introvert

It’s a hard post to write because we have to admit we didn’t know these things when we needed to. Sometimes a post like this is written when we’re in a funk or, alternatively, in an exceptionally good mood, and our screw-ups don’t seem so damn dumb.

1. Don’t major in English. Don’t enroll in graduate writing courses. As an English major you will study a lot of fine older work, which you could in all honesty read by yourself. College writing courses are usually taught by people who haven’t published much, and inevitably, they will teach you how to write things like that. Sometimes a school lucks out and lands real working authors. But not often.

2. Set an ambitious weekly goal of new pages and stick to it. Rewriting and research–all necessary–shouldn’t count toward the new pages goal. This advice should really be #1. If you lavish too much time on related writing work you may never write swiftly enough to build and sustain a loyal readership.

3. Rigorously question your story premise. Before you get started on your next project ask whether this one is strong enough. Many books fail for lack of a memorable premise. Is your premise clear to you? Is it too complicated? Questions like these are legitimate and crucial.

4. Lighten up. Don’t let the novel take itself too seriously. Let us have a bit of fun in the story, moments of pure enjoyment. The world is full of sadness and worry. Why do we need more?

5. Learn to turn off the Voice in your head. The one that says “this is a piece of crap,”  “you’ll never sell a novel,” “Nobody loves me,” (I thought I’d throw that in) and “other writers get all the breaks.” This Voice is not really you. It is a strain of negativity that will undermine your writing life. Talk back. Make contrary statements. If you think you don’t have this Voice, that’s the Voice whispering below the level of detection. In this business, we all have the Voice.

6. Take feedback, but take control. Don’t rely on others for conclusions about your manuscript. Everyone has an opinion, but the author’s is the one that counts. Repeat this last sentence until memorized. Know what you want to write, how you want the reader to feel, and the type of reading experience you mean to convey. Then decide what and how to change things. You can’t give away this responsibility. I know. I’ve tried.

7. Learn from the marketplace. You have stories you must write, fine. Write them. Just understand they might not have a readership; they might not find a print publisher. Read widely. Know your competition. If you do want a wide readership, write what people want to read. Do so in your inimitable voice, with a distinctive twist. But do write stories that can survive and thrive in the marketplace.

8. Don’t shred. It takes a long time to tear up 400 page manuscripts. Dump them in their pristine white glory into the recycle and get back to the keyboard. No one will rummage and find your story. Promise!

Desire, love, intimacy, sex, completion. This is the territory you enter when you introduce a romance between two characters. This territory is deep and productive. If we are going to set aside this subject matter, we should have a compelling reason for doing so. At times, the story is not strengthened. For example, in some coming of age stories, wrenching war stories or tight psychological thrillers.

But we should think clearly about the uses of romance before bypassing them.

Aspiring writers cite a number of reasons for making a wide berth around sex and intimate relationships. Here are are a few I’ve heard that could use a second look.

It doesn’t fit with the genre.

I don’t know where this peculiar idea comes from. All genres are about people. People have total emotional lives that include pursuit of the object of desire, whether male or female… even while rushing to save the world.

Romantic elements are cliches.

OK, sometimes they are–as are spy plots, end-of-the-world scenarios, evil government conspiracies and dysfunctional families. We must make them fresh. The problem is not in the subject matter, it’s in the execution. My conviction is that romantic relationships are a testing ground for fear, grief, love and trust. If you don’t know your main character, ask her to be emotionally vulnerable to another human being–under duress–and see what happens.

There’s no room in the plot.

Maybe your plot is so complicated that you can’t explore the romantic angle deeply. Not every plot aspect needs 50 pages to come alive! While the characters are on their way to incredible destinies–to fracture Ray Bradbury’s famous line–they might hold hands. In other words, they could help each other, and along the way discover whether they might dare a deeper commitment.

I don’t believe in romance.

Fair enough. You should write about what you know and believe. But it’s hard to make a case that intimacy, sex and commitment are false urges. If the thrill of the chase and syrupy emotion turns you off, why not show love and attraction in some different light?  Dump the happy ending, for instance. Make the relationship fraught with complexity. Let’s make it tragic, or comi-tragic like the romance in the Cloony film, Up In the Air. The point is to convey your insights on the subject, not to deliver a predictable affair.

I’m uncomfortable writing about intimacy.

Lots of writers feel this way. It may help to remember that sex scenes are often less about mechanics than about emotional intensity and mood. If you are self-conscious about explicit descriptions, create the scene in a different way. Use great pillow dialogue. Learn to do this from Laurel K. Hamilton, Catherine Asaro, Guy Gavriel Kay. And for inspiration for the truly erotic, read Richard K. Morgan, Justina Robson, Ian McDonald, Kij Johnson (The Fox Woman, for example.)

No excuses.

Maybe your WIP really doesn’t want any love and sex. If you say so, I believe you. But first take a look at what you’re giving up–and what you may be afraid of. Then write what the story demands.

Where are the book-talk guys?

Most of us would love to have some Book Talk Guys. That is, a talk show where you can call in and describe the worrisome sounds coming from the third act, or the way the thing won’t budge on a cold day or how you’ve already spent 400 hours rewriting, and the story still does not engage.

Alas, there is little outside help for this.  You might pay a book doctor to help you, but listen: you gotta learn to do this yourself. Because stories-that-won’t are common. They stall, and you can’t throw money at them very often. So we are stuck doing our own diagnosis.

Recovering enthusiasm

Trying to write when you’re discouraged or tired might seem like a brave thing to do–and if you are often discouraged or tired, it is brave to keep on–but in most cases it’s a bad idea to flog yourself until you get back at the project.

Sometimes taking a few week’s break is not only good for your mental health, it can do wonders for your novel rewrite. Work on a short story or an essay. Pile up some reserve blog posts. Don’t be idle, but don’t work on the problem project.

There is an almost magical power you can tap into when you let your manuscript sit for two weeks or a month. It is called perspective. Perspective is what you lose when you’ve been too close to your novel, especially if you’ve read the draft a number of times either aimlessly fussing with style or remodeling the story arc. If this sounds like where you are right now, read my post on gaining insight on your story by doing nothing.

Get below the surface

If your story is not working from a structural standpoint, you should look there first. An excellent resource is Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering. It belongs on your bookshelf. But assuming that your novel has a good structure (that was for the early re-writes) you may still be left with a sluggish tale.

Here’s how I approach a much-revised novel that still won’t. Once I can come to the project with fresh eyes, I dive deep. You may not have a deeply character-driven story, but even if not, that’s where your best story improvements will likely come from.

I take a hard look at key questions having to do with character and concept. Of course, I have already worked on these  critical aspects of the novel during the planning stage. Now I step back and ask, are these really accurate? Has my story changed? And also: If my concept and characters are clear, have I brought them onto the page?

At this point you are looking at the story as both a whole creation and as the sum of its parts. You also look at it subjectively. You listen to the tiny voice in the back of your head, one that might be saying “that character is just not snapping to life.” Or whatever insights your subconscious is giving you that you’ve managed to deny.

Key emotional questions

I get insights about the emotional depth of my story and how much the reader will empathize, by pondering a few key issues:

• Theme. In one word or simple phrase, what is the meaningful theme of the story? At the deepest level, what is the story about? For example: loyalty. We should not hit too hard on this. It must, in fact, not be apparent to your reader at a conscious level. For more on this, see my post What’s It All About? But the author must know the theme and let it guide him or her deeper into the story.

• Premise. What does the story attempt to say about life or attempt to prove?  For example: Distrust leads to desperate proofs. (My hero wishes to be seen as loyal, but his goals are thwarted by the poison of mistrust.) Does the story deeply explore this premise?

• Emotional core. What emotional principal (largely conveyed through my main character) will resonate with my readers? Example: Everyone yearns to belong. (In my hypothetical story, the protagonist wishes to be thought loyal so that she can belong to the group.) Does this core emotion strikingly engage in several key scenes, and is it the subtext of many others?

These are the main diagnostics I look at with an otherwise excellent story. These are also good questions to ask when you are rewriting early on. But in the final analysis, and after all the rewrites, to have the strongest possible story, we should answer these questions regarding meaning and emotional experience and bring them clearly into the story.

And if understanding and empathy is a matter of degree–as so much is in writing–how far shall we go?

The commercial villain

Sometimes the choice is obvious, as when we are writing straightforward commercial fiction. Or is it?

I recently saw the New York production of Spiderman, Take Back the Dark. The first act spent a lot of minutes showing how the Green Goblin became evil . . . and this was a show based on a cartoon. We saw a genius scientist who commited the sin of hubris, but paid the price through the death of his wife. Not that this show was a nuanced piece of work, but: you can see how the choices are not obvious. The writer makes the decision.

Continuing in the theme of monsters, in Jennifer Rardon’s urban fantasy book, Once Bitten Twice Shy the author does not for a minute bother to justify the vampires. They are evil, period. We neither see them justify nor (thankfully) listen to them explain why their lifestyle is really A-okay.

Literary evil

Sometimes the story wants a deeper take on the antagonist. Perhaps the story is complex and the characters, layered. Presuming that we even have an antagonist (see my post on the Forces of Antagonism), then we may want to show how the villain sees himself as justified, or is seen by the reader as justified.

The torturer Glokta from Joe Abercrombie’s Before They are Hanged is an example of character doing great evil, yet who wins the reader’s empathy. This is accomplished through Glokta’s brilliant point of view. Perhaps Glokta is rather a very dark hero than a villain. But the point remains, how much do you justify evil? Showing Glokta’s constant physical pain and describing (with restraint) his horrendous backstory is an attempt to partially justify or lead the read to forgive, evil actions.

If we are not expert at characterization, though, this kind of emphasis on the villain can lead to dilution of the tension and pacing. Why should the reader  root for the hero against someone we also root for?

In literary stories, you may not wish to set up such a struggle. So, again, it’s all in the needs of the story.

No whiners, please

Lately–in character-based commercial fiction–I’ve been feeling as though the nuanced antagonist is being a bit over done. It is especially prevalent in stories where the antagonist has been given a point of view. The POV may mean that we will have an elaborate presentation of self-concept that may include:

• Everyone is like me; you’d all act like me if you were brave enough.
• I have a huge capacity for life and need a larger stage than you do to find fulfillment.
• I’m of my culture–and here are the decent underpinnings of it.  Your ways and mine can’t co-exist.
• I’ve suffered beyond what you could endure. Also: I’m suffering because you have what I desire.
• I can’t help myself, I’m mentally troubled.
• and so on, ad infinitum

Frankly, sometimes showing us the inside of these characters actually diminishes a good antagonist. All this navel-gazing. How can this character generate tension if they are crying in their beer or so eager to rationalize?

We all have our flaws and mine is being wicked

While justifications of evil add some interest, the strategy can  also slow the pace. When you think of all the pages you need to describe and show a major character (call it 50), how many complex characters can you afford to have? What gets short-shrift because we fear having a “cardboard villain”?

Think of the lovely examples of restraint, where the depth of the work doesn’t suffer: Circe in Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin. We have a character (many characters in that series) who are a great joy to hate. Making them more self-knowing would do damage to the story.

More examples: Mrs. Colter in Pullman’s His Dark Materials. Or the two bad guys in Gaiman’s Nevermore. The authors just allow us to hate them. Frankly, it’s a relief. And oh, how the heart soars when Milton has Satan say in Paradise Lost, “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven!” Here is a villain who is against God, for crying out loud, and almost every modern reader loves him.

Most of us, as readers, aren’t moral philosophers. We don’t want cookie-cutter villains, but we don’t need the villain’s complexity to include elaborate justifications.

A light touch will do.

And the line, “We all have our flaws and mine is being wicked?” –From James Thurber, The 13 Clocks.