Stein on Writing Part 6

The reader is now concerned about the bank manager in the vault and even more about his wife. The third scene starts with a local roofer working on a building across the street from the bank. He's an observant fellow and has noticed people going into the bank, but no one coming out. It's none of his business, but his curiosity gets the better of him. He slings his hammer into the leather carryall around his waist, eases himself down from his perch on the roof, and trots over to the bank. He looks in and immediately realizes what is going on and is ready to back off and call the police when the lookout for the bank robbers spots him, and thinking the hammer at his belt is a gun, fires at the roofer, hitting him and alerting the robbers in the bank.

Whew! The reader is now concerned about three things, the bank manager in the vault, the bleeding wife pa.s.sed out in a distant neighbor's yard, and the roofer, lying shot in the street. All of these events are in the same town, but by starting each scene in a different location and focusing each on a different character, we now have three lines of suspense going at the same time.

It helps to jot down the location of each of the scenes in your book to see if they can be arranged in an order that will take each scene to a location different from the one at the end of the preceding scene. It isn't necessary to do this with every scene in a book. I find that if you change location or character in a majority of instances, you can also, where appropriate, continue the action of a suspenseful scene in the following chapter. The plan should be followed to achieve the purpose of suspense, not to follow a rigid pattern. Many writers also find this exercise useful in imagining different locations, which always increases reader interest.

Making a simple chart like the one that follows will be of help. On each line, note the location (different from the location of the preceding scene, if possible), the princ.i.p.al character in the scene, and, briefly, the action that takes place there. Be brief. (Keep in mind that if there is no action, you don't really have a scene.) One of the frequent failings of novelists is the inclusion of material between scenes. This usually takes the form of a narrative summary of offstage happenings. By using the simple outline above, the temptation to include material between the scenes may diminish. Remember that a reader's interest is in the scenes, not the interstices between the scenes. When I have a group onstage, each representing a locale where a chapter takes place, I have the writers first hold hands in a circle, then drop their hands to indicate visually that transitions between scenes aren't needed. Those transitions almost always const.i.tute the offstage parts that make a book sag. Today's reader is used to jump-cutting.

The next step requires discipline also. Look at your list of scenes and find the weakest one, where your own interest flags. If you eliminate your weakest scene, you will strengthen your book as a whole. It takes guts, but do it!

If you've eliminated the weakest scene, you now have another scene that is weakest. If you've got the guts of a writer, you may now be able to eliminate the second-weakest scene. It's an ideal way to strengthen a book. Remember, your intent is to build a publishable novel. You are not a scene preserver!

It will help to keep in mind the difference between a scene and a chapter. A scene is a unit of writing, usually an integral incident with a beginning and end that in itself is not isolatable as a story. It is visible to the reader or audience as an event that can be witnessed, almost always involving two or more characters, dialogue, and action in a single setting. A chapter is a part of a longer work that is set off with a number or a t.i.tle. A chapter may have several scenes or scenelets. When each chapter of a novel (except the last) ends, the reader's interest should be aroused anew, thrusting him forward in the novel. The key is not to take the reader where he wants to go.

To refresh our understanding, let's look at that ideal architecture of a suspenseful novel in terms of chapters.

Chapter 1. The chapter ends with a turn of events that leaves the reader in suspense. The reader wants to stay with the characters and action of that chapter.

Chapter 2. The reader finds himself in another place and/or with a different character. The reader still wants to know what happens in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 ends with a turn of events that leaves the reader in suspense. The reader wants to know how Chapter 2 turns out. Two lines of suspense are operating.

In Chapter 3, the reader finds himself in a continuation of the suspenseful events in Chapter 1. He is still in suspense about Chapter 2. By the end of Chapter 3, a new line of suspense has been created. Two lines of suspense are still operating.

If you keep doing this with successive chapters, the reader will be kept continuously in suspense and there will be no sag in the middle of the book or anywhere else.

If you think this kind of architecture is crafty, you're right. It is an important part of designing a novel to influence the emotions of the reader. And as we know, the emotions of the reader are affected by suspense more than by any other factor.

If you want to group your scenes into chapters, here are some guidelines: * Short chapters make a story seem to move faster.

* Normally avoid chapters of fewer than three printed pages. They may not be long enough to engage the reader's emotions.

* Ideally, each chapter might end the way the movies used to end their weekly serials: with the hero or heroine in unresolved trouble. If you're not familiar with those serials, use a soap opera as a guideline, with the end of each episode making you want to see what happens next.

One of the best ways of accustoming yourself to the idea of continuing suspense is to study novels that you have found difficult to put down. Pick up any well-known suspense or thriller writer's work and look at the chapter endings. You'll see how most of the time each chapter ends on a suspenseful note and throws the reader forward into the next chapter. The most experienced suspense writers start the next chapter somewhere else or with other characters.

In literary novels, of course, the suspense is often more subtle. All forms of fiction have one thing in common: the chapter endings arouse the reader's curiosity about what will happen next.

Your chapters are not cemented in place. You can reorganize them in any fashion that accelerates the suspense of the whole. Watch out for time shifts that would disturb the reader. Try to keep moving only forward in time until you've had a good deal of experience.

A word of caution. In reorganizing the chapters in a book it is crucial to avoid disimprovement. Whenever shifting locations, keep a copy of your present architecture, then play with rearranging the chapters in another order. You may find that what you will be putting into new places are parts of chapters or scenes within chapters. That's fine.

If you change the sequence of chapters or scenes, you may also have to do some st.i.tching at the seams. Obviously, this rewriting is much easier if you're in an early draft, and still easier if you're in the planning stage.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of architectural suspense. It has been a major factor in the success of writers I have worked with. Mastering this technique can in itself improve the chances of a book's acceptance for publication.

Writers are troublemakers. A psychotherapist tries to relieve stress, strain, and pressure. Writers are not psychotherapists. Their job is to give readers stress, strain, and pressure. The fact is that readers who hate those things in life love them in fiction. Until a writer a.s.similates that fact he will have difficulty in consciously creating sufficient moments in which the reader feels tension.

Tension is the most frequent cause of physiological changes in the reader. The sudden stress causes the adrenal medulla to release a hormone into the bloodstream that stimulates the heart and increases blood pressure, metabolic rate, and blood glucose concentration. The result is an adrenaline high that makes the reader feel excited. That excitement is what the reader l.u.s.ts for. Like all excitement, it is endurable for brief bursts, which is one of the factors that distinguishes tension from suspense. Suspense can last over a long period, sometimes for an entire book. Tension is felt in seconds or minutes. There are occasions in fiction when it lasts longer and begins to border on the unbearable. The best novels have respites in which the reader is allowed to relax so that the tension can ebb, but not for long.

The word "tension" is derived from the Latin tendere, meaning "to stretch." Tension is a stretching out. Think of stretching a rubber band more and more. If you stretch it too far it will break. We experience moments of tension as seeming longer because we want the tension to end. Tension produces instantaneous anxiety, and the reader finds it delicious.

The writer's job is to create tension consciously, and in my lectures I sometimes demonstrate how tension is created. Without warning, I will suddenly adopt a stern expression, point a finger at someone in the first row, and in a commanding voice demand, "You! Get up out of your chair!"

For a moment, the person I've singled out doesn't know what to do. The audience is hushed, watching. I order, "Stand up!" The person-face flushed-wonders why I am ordering him to stand. "Stand up!" I repeat. The tension in the room is great as long as he disobeys. When the person finally stands up, the tension in the audience is broken. I quickly point out that the way to create tension is to cause friction (ordering "Stand up!") and to have the recipient of the order not stand up; the tension will continue only as long as the disobedience.

Several times luck has been with me during this demonstration. I order a writer in the front row to stand up, and he remains frozen in his chair. Again I order him to stand up. By this time the rest of the audience is as tense as he is. I step off the stage and come physically closer to the writer. In the voice of a marine drill instructor, I bellow the order to get up. The writer starts to stand, and before the tension can break I shout, "Lie down on the floor!"

Telling someone to stand is not necessarily unreasonable. Asking someone to lie down on the floor of an auditorium full of people seems unreasonable. That's when the tension in the audience breaks. People laugh. Others t.i.tter. Finally, the victim in the front row joins in. He doesn't have to lie down. The tension is over.

Our instinct as human beings is to provide answers, to ease tension. As writers our job is the opposite, to create tension and not dispel it immediately. In examining the ma.n.u.scripts of hundreds of writers over the years, a common fault I've observed is that the writer creates a pressing problem for a character and then immediately relieves the pressure by resolving it. That's humane but not a writer's function. His mission is to manipulate the emotions of the audience, and when it comes to moments of tension, to stretch them out as long as possible.

A common way to create tension in a novel is to simply note a "fact" that is likely to chill any reader. The following is the opening sentence of a thriller I recommended earlier, The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth: It is cold at 6:40 in the morning of a March day in Paris, and seems even colder when a man is about to be executed by firing squad.

Does the precise time convince you of the reality of what's taking place? Do you want to know who is being executed by firing squad? Do you want to know why he's being executed? So did millions of readers.

That one sentence creates tension. I recounted the plot earlier. An a.s.sa.s.sin has been hired to kill General de Gaulle. The reader doesn't want de Gaulle to be killed. That creates negative suspense (wanting something not to happen) that lasts almost to the end of the novel. The tension of that first sentence is momentary. The main line of suspense is book-long.

The most important moment of tension in a novel is its first use, which should be as close to the beginning of the book as possible. It puts the writer in charge of the reader's emotions.

You might well say, "Wait a minute, Stein. Isn't my job in the first few pages to create a living breathing character that will interest the reader?" Yes, of course. The closer writing gets to literature, the more likely it is that what fastens us to the early pages is our interest in a character. And then, as soon as possible, the writer creates some moments of tension for that character. Here, in outline, are the kind of plot situations that provide opportunities to create tension: Dangerous work is involved: The place is postwar Bosnia. A likable demolitions specialist parks his five-year-old daughter with a neighbor watching from a distance and then, a prayer on his lips, goes about trying to dismantle an unexploded sh.e.l.l. The author describes what the man is doing in minute detail. The reader, aware of the man as a human being, aware also of the five-year-old watching from a distance, feels tension mount with every turn of the screw.

A deadline is nearing: Molly knows that at six o'clock the villain will return. At four o'clock the hero, Frank, has not yet arrived, and Molly, glancing at the time, is tense. So is the reader. At five o'clock Molly is beginning to panic. At two minutes to six, the reader's tension is extreme. At one minute to six, Frank arrives breathless.

An unfortunate meeting occurs: The heroine is in a department store elevator. She presses the b.u.t.ton for the sixth floor. The elevator stops on the fifth floor, and the dangerously neurotic man she jilted gets on. The reader becomes instantly tense.

An opponent is trapped in a closed environment: The protagonist, who in his youth hunted vermin on a farm, is now seventy years old. He owns the only rifle in the neighborhood, where the citizens are terrified by the rumor that a diseased mountain lion has come down into the town and chased a woman into the bas.e.m.e.nt of her house. The woman has locked herself in the boiler room, and the mountain lion is roaring outside its closed door. The elderly rifle owner is summoned to kill the lion. A younger man offers to take the rifle and go down the cellar stairs to the trapped lion. The old man gives his rifle to the younger man, but immediately sees that the younger man doesn't handle the firearm in an experienced way. He asks for it back, and enters the house. At the head of the cellar stairs, he hears the lion below, but can't see the animal clearly, except for its eyes. The older man has a flashlight, but how is he to hold the rifle with one hand and the flashlight with the other? As he puts the flashlight down, the crazed lion bounds up the cellar steps.

Well, we'll stop right there. What we've done is add one tense moment to another, piling up the degree of tension toward a climax. The temptation for the inexperienced writer is to have the older man go in and shoot the crazed animal right off. That makes short shrift of the tension. By adding the element of the younger volunteer and the flashlight, we add to the tension, stretching it out.

Tension can be as valuable in literary fiction as in thrillers. The opening story in Ethan Canin's collection of novellas, The Palace Thief, is called "The Accountant."

At the very beginning, the accountant-narrator tells the reader that his crime was small. We then hear him tell the circ.u.mstances and details of his crime. Far into the story, when we are witnessing the crime, we don't want the accountant-whom we've gotten to like as a human being despite his faults-to wreck his life by going forward with the crime. While he is in the process of committing it, the reader becomes extremely tense. As the accountant takes an object that doesn't belong to him, we want him to put it back. This isn't suspense because he told us at the outset that he committed the crime. But there are moments of high tension, stretched out. The reader keeps hoping that any second the accountant will stop the clock, change his mind, not go through with this stupid, unnecessary, trivial, bizarre crime, and yet he goes ahead with it, wrecking his life. "The Accountant" is a story worth reading for pleasure the first time, and worth studying the second time.

Relocating a sentence to increase tension is a valuable technique. The "she" in the following is a young woman who doesn't yet know that a boy she had made love to is dead. She meets several of his friends. Here's the original: "Before I got your message, I thought we were going to meet over at Urek's like usual. He in trouble again?"

A fog of silence descended. n.o.body looked at anybody else. Finally, Feeney said, "She doesn't know."

I transposed one sentence and created two new paragraphs. Note the increase in tension, though no words have been changed.

"Before I got your message, I thought we were going to meet over at Urek's like usual."

A fog of silence descended. n.o.body looked at anybody else.

"He in trouble again?"

Finally, Feeney said, "She doesn't know."

One of the easiest ways to create tension is by means of dialogue. The best dialogue sparks with friction, generating tension in the reader as it does in life. In the next chapter, we'll see how that's done.

Success in writing dialogue is one of the most rewarding aspects of the writer's craft. By the time you finish reading this chapter you should know more about dialogue than ninety percent of published writers. The fact is that the majority of writers write dialogue by instinct with little knowledge of the craft.

I was lucky. Plays consist entirely of dialogue. Before I was a novelist I was a playwright and had a chance to see my plays produced on and off Broadway in New York, at the National Theater in Washington, and in California. For many years I lived in a world in which the currency was dialogue.

In the autumn of 1989, I was invited to give a twelve-week course on "Dialogue for Writers" at the University of California at Irvine. In the cla.s.s, writers of fiction far outnumbered playwrights and screenwriters. When I returned east at the end of those three months, the Los Angeles Times reported that the students, some with many books to their credit but still learning, refused to let the course end. They met weekly, insisting that I come back. I did each winter, and many of those writers are still studying with me, perfecting their dialogue and other aspects of their fiction.

Readers enjoy dialogue in stories and novels. Those same readers would hate reading court transcripts, even of dramatic confrontations. What makes dialogue interesting and so much actual talk boring?

Talk is repet.i.tive, full of rambling, incomplete, or run-on sentences, and usually contains a lot of unnecessary words. Most answers contain echoes of the question. Our speech is full of such echoes. Dialogue, contrary to popular view, is not a recording of actual speech; it is a semblance of speech, an invented language of exchanges that build in tempo or content toward climaxes. Some people mistakenly believe that all a writer has to do is turn on a tape recorder to capture dialogue. What he'd be capturing is the same boring speech patterns the poor court reporter has to record verbatim. Learning the new language of dialogue is as complex as learning any new language. However, there are some shortcuts.

First, let's examine some of the advantages of dialogue. As you know from an earlier chapter, fiction consists of three elements: description, narrative summary, and immediate scene. The twentieth-century reader, influenced by a century of film and a half century of television, is used to seeing what's happening in front of his eyes, not hearing about events after the fact. That's why immediate scenes-onstage, visible to the eye- dominate today's fiction. Dialogue is always in immediate scene, which is one reason readers relish it.

When talk is tough, combative, or adversarial it can be as exciting as physical action.

Listen to this exchange from an early episode of the television series NYPD Blue. The central character is a detective named Kelly. In court he sees the murderer of an eight-year-old boy use legal technicalities to win a plea bargain. Kelly is enraged. The judge warns him, "We govern by law, not by your whim." Not bothering to conceal his contempt, Kelly counters: Don't tell me how you govern. I work your streets. I clean up after how you govern. The way you govern stinks.

Confrontational dialogue-whether in Shakespeare, a contemporary novel, or a policeman talking back to a judge in a TV drama-is immediate, creating a visual image of the speakers as it shoots adrenaline into our bloodstream.

As the writer of fiction masters dialogue, he will be able to deal with characterization and plot simultaneously. Let's prove that by taking a hard look at just four lines of dialogue and what we can accomplish with them. First, some actual overheard conversation: SHE: How are you?

HE: How am I? Oh, I'm fine, how are you?

SHE: And the family?

HE: The family is great. Everybody's well.

It doesn't take much of this to bore a reader out of his skull. Let's change those lines somewhat: SHE: How are you? HE: I suppose I'm okay. SHE: Why, what's the matter. HE: I guess you haven't heard.

Those simple changes introduce suspense. The second line, "I suppose I'm okay," doesn't sound like the character really is okay. The fourth line makes the reader want to know what happens next. Let's try another revision of those four lines: SHE: How are you?

HE: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you.

SHE: Is anything wrong?

HE: No, no, absolutely not. I just didn't see you.

With that exchange, we know something is wrong and that the man is lying. We're beginning to get a sense of character.

In life, speakers answer each other's questions. We compliment a speaker by saying he is direct. Dialogue, to the contrary, is indirect. The key word to understanding the nature of dialogue is that the best dialogue is oblique. Take another look at those first two lines: SHE: How are you?

HE: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see you.

He doesn't answer her question! He is not direct. His response is oblique. The writers I've coached who learn how to make their dialogue oblique have all taken a giant step toward improving their work. Let's try one more revision: SHE: How are you? I said how are you? HE: I heard you the first time. SHE: I only wanted to know how you were. HE: How the h.e.l.l do you think I am?

Characters don't need to make speeches at each other. From just four lines the reader learns that these two people have probably had a relationship in the past that is not resolved, and at least for one of them the relationship is filled with bitterness.

We're not only characterizing, we're building a story out of just four lines. A reader's emotions can be sparked with few words. That's the power of dialogue.

Tension can now be increased not only by the substance of their relationship but also by incidental matters. For instance: HE: It's beginning to rain. SHE: What do you suggest?

The conversation can now go in a number of directions. He can say, "Why don't we talk some other time." Or "Why don't we go in for a cup of coffee." Or "Come sit in my car for a few minutes." Each of these would take the plot in a different direction. We've come a long way from the original, boring four lines.

If you need proof that dialogue and spoken words are not the same, go to a supermarket. Eavesdrop. Much of what you'll hear in the aisles sounds like idiot talk. People won't buy your novel to hear idiot talk. They get that free from relatives, friends, and at the supermarket.

What is the most frequently used word in real speech? Uh. It's what people say to borrow time to think of what they want to say. "Uh" is totally useless to a writer. Dialogue is a lean language in which every word counts.

Count for what? To characterize, to move the story along, to have an impact on the reader's emotions.

Some writers make the mistake of thinking that dialogue is overheard. Wrong! Dialogue is invented and the writer is the inventor.

Elmore Leonard is considered a superb pract.i.tioner of dialogue, but does anyone in life talk the way his characters do? Elmore Leonard's dialogue is invented, it is a semblance of speech that has the effect of actual speech, which is what his readers prize.

If you're relatively new to dialogue, you might try an exercise I've developed that is used by screenwriters as well as novelists. Let's imagine two characters, Joe and Ed. Joe says, "Ed?"

What is Joe trying to accomplish by that one word? There are several possibilities: * Joe wants to get Ed's attention.

* Joe has heard somebody and wants to know if it is Ed.

Now imagine that Joe adds one word and says, "Now Ed." What is Joe's intention? If there were a comma between "Now" and "Ed," it might mean "The time is now, Ed." But there isn't a comma or pause. There are a couple of possibilities.

* "Now Ed" is a reproof.

* It's a warning.

We don't know which unless we know the context in which the two words are spoken. But what is clear is that those two words in context can mean a lot-an admonition or a warning.

Let's try one more. What does Joe mean by repeating Ed's name three times: "Ed, Ed, Ed"? If a dozen readers were to p.r.o.nounce those three recitations of Ed's name, you'd probably get a dozen different intonations but only one meaning: Joe's feeling of disappointment in Ed's conduct, derived from one word repeated three times: "Ed, Ed, Ed."

With this exercise we are learning to listen to what words mean. The reader can get all the words he needs from a dictionary. What the reader gets from your fiction is the meaning of words. And most important, the emotion that meaning generates.

We've learned that what counts is not what is said but the effect of what is meant. If you keep a journal, that's worth writing down.

When I worked with Elia Kazan on The Arrangement, we tested dialogue by reading lines aloud to each other. As I noted earlier, the best way to judge dialogue read aloud is to read it in a monotone without expression. The words have to do the job.

When I examine dialogue in chunks, mine or someone else's, I ask myself the following: * What is the purpose of this exchange? Does it begin or heighten an existing conflict?

* Does it stimulate the reader's curiosity?

* Does the exchange create tension?

* Does the dialogue build to a climax or a turn of events in the story or a change in relationship of the speakers?

The next step is to check if the lines spoken by each character are consistent with that character's background. Then I remove cliches that are out of character. I remove any echoes that slipped in.

Talk is full of echoes. Echoes don't belong in dialogue. Here's an example of echoing conversation from a c.o.c.ktail party scene: SHE: Boy, am I glad to see you. HE: I'm glad to see you, too.

It fails as dialogue. Here's how it was rewritten: SHE: Boy, am I glad to see you.

HE: You finally got your contacts in.

Let's imagine a c.o.c.ktail party at which a man is trying to come on to a woman he has just met. He might say: "You are the most beautiful woman in the world."