Michelle Styles:

Most every writer has heard the exhortation -- show, don't tell. And some may heard -- Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE). But why. The basic reason is that as a writer you are trying to allow the reader to draw her own conclusions, rather than hitting her over the head with it.
Because I am at THAT stage of my latest ms, I am rereading writing craft books. There is so much to the craft side that skills can need a bit of polishing, and I find it helpful to remind myself of things. Depending on my mood, certain thing resonate with me more than others. Currently, I am rereading Creating Characters by Dwight V Swain.
The vast majority of the time I do not think about RUE, I just write. And I trust in my ability to get it right during the editing process. In other words, in the first draft, I allow myself the freedom to explain, to tell and to otherwise sketch out word pictures. It is as the ms takes shape that the word pictures also form. BUT if I send the ms in with lots of telling, and explanations, my editor will not be happy. And there are times that the word pictures are there in the first draft. (Daemons are funny creatures who like to give glimpses)
So ultimately, I am not trying to tell the reader the emotion or the motivation. but show it. Or to trust the reader to get the emotion through the context. It is done through being specific and adding little details.
Depending on the POV character's mind, what they notice changes. For example, the first snowfall of winter is magical, but when the character is confronted with 70th snowstorm of the winter and is struggling to get home, the snow piles up in sinister shapes and forms treacherous drifts that blow over the road.
What a character notices and how they notice it plays a part in forming character. The more specific the writer gets, the more vivid the picture in the reader's mind.
So what does that mean for me as a writer -- simply that at times I start with the general, vague and abstract and as I revise I move to the specific, precise and concrete. Everything in a story is present through the filter of a character's POV and therefore they are going to notice what is important to them. Vividness brings a story to life. Explanations and telling can slow the pace to a crawl.
But the point at which the writer moves away from telling to showing depends on the writer. In other words, it is okay to write bad pages when writing the first draft. Sometimes, the editing mind doesn't like it, but it works in the long run for me.

Today I am also blogging at Tote Bags and have given my recipe for Hot Cross Buns, in case anyone is interested.

When reading Swain's Creating Characters, I was so grateful that he explained the difference between dossier before and dossier after writers. There are reasons why I do love Swain's approach to writing.
Dossier before writers need to know everything about their characters BEFORE they begin writing. Some writers will go so far as to say that they need to know if the character will prefer apple pie or cherry pie. Everything is planned out and charted. Detail character sheets are filled in. Characters' histories are traced from cradle to that moment of beginning and some times beyond. A lot of time and effort goes into this.
I don't work that way. It sends my daemon running for cover and I sit staring a blank screen.
Like Swain, I am a dossier after writer. I discover things and get to know my characters as I write. This means that I will sometimes have to do back rationalisation, but it is the way I work. I start with a rough idea, a few character sketches, certain details, a rough outline of where I think the story should go and then I write. As I get further in, I put more details in as my choices get narrowed. Then later, in the editing , I go back and make sure the details are correct. It is one of the reasons why I love my editor as she does take the time to point out details. And because I know she does this, I do try to be more attentive and less slap dash.
Neither method is wrong. It is all in what works for you. BUT at the end of the first draft, the writer should know the characters really well, and should be able to fill out a dossier without having to ponder. The question of whether or not they actually do, is up to the individual.
Both methods have their pluses. And it is a smart writer who figures out the best method for their own work habits.
A dossier before writers is the sort of writer who is far better suited than I am to writing a continuity or contributing to a long running series or serial. Writers who write these types of books are given bibles which detail events that have happened previously. These bibles can run to many pages. Think beyond romance to Nancy Drew books or Star Wars novels. So before the writer begins her particular story, she knows that the hero once had a fight with a man down the street for example. Or went to a certain school etc etc. It can not be changed as it was in the previous book and the author has to deal with it.
And some authors are brilliant at it.
I can't or rather suspect that I would find it difficult to work with other people's characters. I have a very hard time colouring within the lines. I do not use this method for my own stories and so would find it hard to adapt.
Much of the filling out of a dossier seems to me to be make work. I would far rather be writing the story. It does mean I can change things more quickly than if my character is written in stone before I start. BUT it also means that I do have to be careful when I am editing that everything is rationalised and given a meaning -- in other words, the why has to be there.
Luckily with writing, it is possible to change and adapt. Logic can run backwards. Some parts of writing are unforeseen. Detailed planning will not necessarily save the writer from sudden flashes of inspiration and does the writer truly want to be saved? Trying to over guess can lead to the process taking longer. Anyway, my daemon works this way and so I just go with the flow.
Anyway, tomorrow, I will talk about plotted plants and why they are a necessity -- for both before and after dossier writers.

The cry went up yesterday morning -- Ducklings! Seven ducklings!
My heart sank. The same duck who had successfully reared the autumn ducklings managed to sit through the ice and the snow and emerge with seven ducklings. Sigh. They are very cute -- five brown ones and 2 yellow ones. And they were difficult to herd into the oldest duck house. Seven balls of fluff zooming everywhere.
Yesterday, I also had a package from Amazon. My TBR pile runneth over, but I now have the last two books in the Raintree trilogy and Anne McAllister's latest.
On the writing side, a book on character traits arrived -- The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda Edelstien Phd. It is basically a book of lists. For example, she lists all the traits of amnesia. From a brief look, the type you find in a romance novel tends to be physiological amnesia either dissociative, fugue or psychogenic. She also lists ways in which memories can be falsely implanted. There are also lists of traits of certain jobs, including for some reason -- kept woman.
Anyway it looks to be a useful book.
The second writing book -- Creating Character How to Build Story People is by Dwight V Swain. As it was written in 1990, the language is far more palatable than the earlier Techniques of the Selling Writer. It is also a thoroughly useful book. For example, he gives the 7 most common reasons for readers failing to suspend disbelief. Fiction as Swain points out is founded on the reader suspending disbelief. If they stop/are pulled out of the story, the writer has a problem. The seven main reasons are: failure to hold viewpoint, failure to do enough research, telling instead of showing, gaps in the motivation/reaction sequence, failure to plant or foreshadow things, giving your characters things to do that the reader finds distasteful, and making the main characters less than likable.
The book starts with Swain explaining the one key element every major character must have -- the ability to care.
Anyway, I have a lot of time for Swain and this book looks to be excellent. A master class not on the traits that go into making a character but on the hows and why. What works and doesn't. In many ways, it is more thorough than Debra Dixon's Goal, Motivation Conflict. Or perhaps I just like his style better.

Last evening, I briefly read Swain's Techniques of A Selling Writer and discovered a chapter on feelings and transmitting those feelings to the reader. It is one of the reasons why I do like going back over writing books. I know I have read the chapter before because some of the jokes irritated me. HOWEVER the substance of what he had to say was important. And for some reason this chapter resonated with me last night in a way it hadn't before.
The main way readers view events are how they affect the focal character. The focal character provides the emotional compass for the reader and the focal character is the character that draws a series of unrelated events together. In order to understand the events of the story, they need to be filtered through the emotional lens of a character. The character is the character that the reader identifies most with and there is generally just one in a story. The focal character does not have to be the viewpoint character, although it is easier if the majority of the POV is in his/her POV simply for identification purposes. Swain uses the example of Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is the focal character while Dr Watson is the viewpoint character. Personally I would argue some of Watson's emotional colouring and compass does effect the way of the reader views the story, but that may just be me.
With my books (and the vast majority of romances), the main focal character is the heroine. The reader needs to be able to identify with the heroine and her struggle. It is her interpretation of events that is the driving factor in the story. The hero is her hero. In Taken, the main focal character is Annis with Haakon being the second focal character.
It is all about creating emotions and feelings. Events that happen can either be good or bad depending on the emotional justification. The raid on Lindisfarne is an event. It is the reaction of the characters to that event that colours the novel. Without the emotion and the emotional compass of the main characters, readers can not interpret the events. To put in McKee terms, the events apply the pressure that force characters to make choices. It is through those choices that the deep character is revealed. And as McKee points out -- readers are always looking for a character to identify with.
Anyway, I thought it interesting.

I have been dipping in and out of Swain's book Techniques of the Selling Writer. It was a very influential book I believe and I am now as certain as I can be that I did read it way back when I first decided that I wanted to be a writer. I will admit to even back then being a craft book junkie.

Parts of it now speak more to me than others. Some of this is because I am very comfortable with how I write. When I was reading some of Swian's examples. I kept thinking -- yeah but I'd write this way and it would sound even better.

One of the last chapter is on planning, preparation and production. It starts with the immortal line -- everyone has the God given right to go to hell in his or her own way. In other words, what works for me won't necessarily work for you.
His main criteria for being a writer is the ability to feel and feel intensely. It is why fiction writers can be difficult to deal with. In feeling, you must be enthusiastic about your subject and you have to be sincere. If you aren't, it shows. And believe oh does it show. This is why people say that you need to write from the heart.
The other thing you have to be is self-disciplined. Basically it does not matter to anyone else if you don't make it as a writer. The only person it matters to is yourself. In other words, if you want to be a writer to please other people, forget it. There are easier ways.
Also, nobody pays for stories you don't write. You actually have to produce the stories. A contract is a contract and when you have a deadline, other people depend on you.
To succeed as a writer, you have to get up and work even when you want to sleep. It means working when you'd rather be off gardening or swimming or even occasionally cleaning the toilet. A writer writes. But ultimately it is your decision because no one can force you to be creative and write except you.
It is also the only craft that gets harder the more you do it. Skill brings awareness of weakness. It is part of the tantalizing mystery. You can never ever completely master writing. You can only work at it.
In writing there are two types of people -- those who want to be and those who to do. Successful writers tend to be those who do. Who do keep regular hours, who work to quotas, who do revise, who do strive to improve but also those who do remember why they were excited about writing in the first place.
Anyway, it was interesting to read his take on it. I found it very heartening. He also had some great ideas on dealing with writer's block and the various different fears that writers fall prey to.