Erica Vetsch here...I am so thrilled to host my friend Stephanie Morrill here at Seekerville today. Stephanie was one of my very first writing friends. We met...fourteen or fifteen years ago (How can that be when she still looks 22?) at the Florida Christian Writer's Conference. We made some great memories and have been friends ever since. Stephanie is the co-creator of the wildly successful website/blog Go Teen Writer and while she made her mark in Christian Fiction with contemporary YA fiction, she's recently made the leap to historical fiction (Welcome to the dark side, Stephanie!)
She's a terrific writer and excellent communicator. Please help me welcome Stephanie Morrill to Seekerville today!
2 Questions
To Ask To Be Sure Your Scene Matters
I’m the type of writer who typically loves the
editing process, even though it’s also the part that I find most challenging. No
longer can I say, “I don’t know what’s supposed to happen here, so I’ll just do
my best and fix it later.” Nor can I put off finding the answer to my most
elusive research questions. Basically, no more slacking off!
This is also when I have to be brutally honest
about individual scenes in the book and ask the probing questions: Is it
working? Is it not working? Does it move the story forward? Am I starting in
the right place? Did I end in a way that will make readers turn the page?
A few times when editing Within These Lines, my
recent WWII young adult release, I came across a scene that just wasn’t working
like it should. The book is a love story between an Italian American teenage
girl and a Japanese American teenage boy who are torn apart when the U.S.
government sends the Japanese to concentration camps. So I had no shortage of
good character and plot stuff to fill my scenes with, but even still sometimes
a scene would just feel . . . off.
Finally, I had a breakthrough when I noticed a
pattern about my character’s expectations and decisions. (Or, rather, their
lack thereof.)
I learned to ask myself two simple questions to
transform my Not Quite Right scenes into scenes that really mattered:
1.
What does my character expect?
2.
What decisions does my character make?
“What does my character expect to happen?”
This is the first question that I realized I
wasn’t asking, thanks to a post from K.M. Weiland about … something. I scrolled
back through her archives trying to figure out what lesson of hers prompted
this discovery, and I can’t find it. So the credit goes to K.M. Weiland of
Helping Writers Become Authors, but I can’t link to it. (Sorry, Katie!)
Her point
was that there should be a gap in what the character expects to happen and what actually
happens. Most of the time I do this instinctively, and you probably do too.
Your point of view character will think a conversation is going to go one way,
and it won’t. Or she will think it’s an ordinary day, and the unexpected
happens.
I realized on my scenes in Within These Lines that weren’t landing like I wanted them to,
often my character’s expectations were met. Evalina expected to have a tense
conversation with her mother, and that’s what happened. Taichi expected to be
treated poorly, and he was.
As I thought about this, I realized that this can work, and it certainly should
sometimes. If your characters’
expectations are always wrong, we’ll
stop trusting them and their judgment pretty quickly.
So it isn’t that your character needs to be wrong
all the time. Instead, you can try
applying the, “Yes, but” technique for creating an element of surprise.
Yes,
her mom is upset, but it isn’t for
the reason she thought it would be.
Yes,
her friend has been lying to her, but
the betrayal is even worse than she initially expected.
That can work if we want our character to be right
about something. Frequently, however, our characters should be surprised. Here
are a few examples from stories you are likely familiar with:
Lightning McQueen expects to win the race, but
instead it’s a three-way tie. (Cars)
Elizabeth Bennett expects to have an enjoyable
evening at the ball with Mr. Wickham, but Wickham doesn’t show up. (Pride and Prejudice)
Katniss expects Peeta to be on her side, but he’s
teamed up with the Careers. (The Hunger
Games)
In my scenes that didn’t work as well as they
ought, it happened for one of these three reasons:
1.
I hadn’t given myself time to show my
character’s expectations, so when they shattered, the impact wasn’t as strong.
2.
My character had no expectations.
3.
Things happened exactly as my character
anticipated, so there was no element of surprise.
So that’s the first question you can start with.
The next one I identified is this:
“What decision does my character make in
this scene?”
Andy Stanley says, “Decision by decision, you are
writing the story of your life.” Initially, I latched onto this as a tool for
making better decisions in my personal life, but as I worked on a problematic
scene, I realized, “In this scene, Evalina isn’t deciding anything that affects
her life story.”
Sometimes we choose to zoom in on little decisions
our character’s make. Like in the 2003 adaptation of Pride and Prejudice when Jane is delighted over her engagement to
Mr. Bingley, and she expresses a longing for her sister to find true love too.
Lizzy makes a small, beautiful decision to keep the focus on Jane and her
happiness. Instead of spilling about Mr. Darcy, she teases, “Maybe Mr. Collins
has a cousin.”
Purposefully making a small moment into something
big can be very effective, but unless we’re very intentionally choosing that,
then our character needs to make a noteworthy decision within each scene. Even
if it’s just a renewed commitment to “stay the course.”
And a lot
of times—I’m going to be so bold as to say almost
all the time—this noteworthy decision should be based on whatever shift
happened in their expectations.
Using the same examples from before, let’s take a
look at the decisions that resulted:
In Cars,
Lightning McQueen expected to win the race, but instead it’s a three-way tie.
And so he decides to get to California as fast as he can for the tie-breaking
race so he can rub shoulders with VIPs.
In Pride and
Prejudice, Lizzy expected to have a nice evening at the ball with Mr.
Wickham, but he doesn’t show up. And so when Mr. Darcy asks her to dance, she
says yes.
In The
Hunger Games, Katniss expects Peeta to be an ally, but instead he teams up
with the Careers. And so Katniss gives up on loyalty to him, too.
That
phrase, ”And so,” is the key to creating compelling character motivation.
It’s also the way you make sure each scene matters.
If you’re writing a first draft, take a look at
your next scene. What does your POV character expect to happen, and what will
actually happen? What decision will your character make as a result?
If you’re currently editing a manuscript, try
pulling out a random scene later in the novel (those early chapters tend to get
the bulk of our attention!) and ask the same questions.
Stephanie
Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their
unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young
adult series, as well as the 1920s mystery, The Lost Girl of Astor Street, and the WWII era romance, Within These Lines. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next
generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com. She lives in the
Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy
with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn
more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
About Within These Lines: Evalina Cassano’s life in an
Italian-American family living in San Francisco in 1941 is quiet and ordinary
until she falls in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants.
Despite the scandal it would cause and that inter-racial marriage is illegal in
California, Evalina and Taichi vow they will find a way to be together. But
anti-Japanese feelings erupt across the country after the attack on Pearl
Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and move to
an internment camp.
Degrading treatment makes life at Manzanar Relocation Center
difficult. Taichi’s only connection to the outside world is treasured letters
from Evalina. Feeling that the only action she can take to help Taichi is to
speak out against injustice, Evalina becomes increasingly vocal at school and
at home. Meanwhile, inside Manzanar, fighting between different
Japanese-American factions arises. Taichi begins to doubt he will ever leave
the camp alive.
With tensions running high and their freedom on the line, Evalina
and Taichi must hold true to their ideals and believe in their love to make a
way back to each other against unbelievable odds.
