Cliffhangers

Cliff tires of the hangers.

What do you call a man with a seagull on his head?
Cliff.

I gotta exorcise this once and for all because it's been bugging me for years, like some ticking wristwatch left behind by a surgeon.

The mechanics of the cliff-hanger.

Here's one I've read several times in 'how to' books:

The elephant charges.

End of chapter.

Here, Michael Legat suggests that we might want to move elsewhere for a time before returning to the elephant peril. In this way, the reader is left hanging, with suspense sown into his soul.

If we lose the break (the chapter end, and the shift elsewhere), we get this:

The elephant charges and the protagonist rolls out of its path and goes off elsewhere and everything is fine again.

The peril is still there right? but it lasts only for a tiny measure of time.

So, mechanically, the chapter end is designed to distend the threat, and any time spent elsewhere in the narrative is also time spent dangling the reader.

This is, I presume, why many 'how to' books advise us 'what's going on? where am I?' authors to end a chapter with a cliffhanger.

And it looks to me as if there are two types of cliffhanger:

The MacGuffin, in which the threat is nullified;

Chekhov's Gun, in which the threat comes to fruition.

N.B. I'm using these terms, perhaps, in an uncommon sense. Suffice to say, though, that a MacGuffin is a plot device which serves a purpose but is ultimately insignificant, whereas Chekhov's Gun would have significant ramifications simply because it is fired. There are probably better ways to distinguish between these two types of cliffhangers, and I elaborate in a moment. *

Hold up! This is where the alarm on that wristwatch buried amongst my internal organs goes off.

We develop stuff and then provide a resolution, and then go off on some other development or resolution.

Question: Where's the best place to suspend the reader?

In the charging elephant example, given that the resolution culls the suspense, the best place to suspend the reader would naturally be at the point where the threat is at its peak.

Let's swap the MacGuffin for a CG and see what happens.

The elephant speaks to the protagonist:

'Hey, I'm an elephant and my name is Biggles and you have the ability to understand animal speak.'

Another good place to hang the reader. But now we have what is probably a major plot development which is going to spread its ripples through the entire novel (and sounds rather like an inciting incident to me!).

In this way, we can see how moot the charging is:

The elephant charges, but stops beside the protag to reveal that the protag has a special gift.

I'll 'fess up: The MacGuffin still troubles me. Tick tock, brrrrrring.

I think it's because I find more power in a CG than a MacGuffin; I think it's because a MacGuffin seems to me like a weak substitute for a CG.

If I have enough material, then I shouldn't need to resort to a MacGuffin right?

If my story is a tapestry of cunning sub-plots, each feeding into the hero's quest as and when I choose, I shouldn't have need for a charging elephant that misses? - a device tailored for suspense which has no punchline and leads into a hollow abyss.

I think the distinction I'm making is this *:

Development > Resolution

versus

Development > Bigger Development (multiplied by x) > Resolution

If we look at suspense as a development which is understood to have potentially serious ramifications, we can easily see the benefits of holding the reader at arm's length. And we know that the reader enjoys wallowing in suspense, and that we should be bathing him in suspense for a good proportion of the novel.

And, I acknowledge that these 'how to' books also suggest that we are careful to always have something open - to never close everything.

I also acknowledge that these 'how to' books don't explicitly suggest that the only place to create a cliffhanger is at the end of a chapter: The chapter end provides a natural break in the narrative and becomes an ideal place to present the reader with something to consider and to fret about, for sure, but we can create breaks at the drop of a hat, anywhere in the narrative we choose.

I just tire of charging elephants. They serve their purpose, but I think a clever author can find enough material to keep the reader engaged with a stream of open-ended developments and 'shocking revelations' (wikipedia) and the like. Maybe I'm making a distinction between pop-fic and lit-fic? Maybe I'm lost?

Moving Forwards

Happy April Fool's Day!

Things are going well!
Since my last blog post, I've been such a busy bee.

I have a suspicion that a very noodly post is in order ...

I've refined my plot (although I struggle to imagine how anyone could create a watertight plot from the outset without need or desire to amend it during that very revealing writing stage). My arcane eye of development reigned over the revisions.

I've filled some holes with lots of research.

If you're unfamiliar with the structure of sonata form, you might be interested to learn that sonata form is written in five parts: intro, exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda. And it's fascinating to examine how composers dealt with these parts in different ways!

Ah yes, development!

I've rewritten chapter four twice.

Trying to predict the questions in the reader's head helped me to decide what needed to be developed. But I also had so many set-ups in the chapter that I elected to shift many of them to other parts of the manuscript. I even decided that one set-up could/should wait until the second act. And, in order to unify those apparently disparate set-ups which remained, I found a word-palette - a theme which I discovered in the final chapter of the first act, and which I have woven into a good number of other chapters.
The chapter was also problematic because it required a series of flashbacks, and I'm not a huge fan of flashbacks because they take the reader out of 'the moment' and are liable to damage immersion. Plus, the frequent shifting between present day and the previous winter forced me to create a series of seamless links. However, in order to present information in the order which gives the best solution (that I could conjure), the flashbacks were necessary.

Above all, though, the distribution of set-ups still troubles me.

I was watching a tv programme last night in which Alan Davies learned about, amongst other things, the distribution of prime numbers, from Professor Marcus du Sautoy. If you missed it, check out this cool excerpt!

It struck me that the topography of the distribution of primes, which is a pattern found throughout nature (much like the golden ratio), resembled my idea of the distribution of set-ups. There's a bunch of them at the beginning, and then little clusters spread along the topography. Really, it kept me awake for hours! Yes it did.

And I got to thinking about my French chummy who argues, very eloquently, for the slow beginning.

If we go back to the concept of multiple games of Deal or No Deal, we can imagine that several games begin in quick succession, and then are developed in turn, and then more games are started ... What we find is that there's a certain down-time required at the start of each game, where the player is introduced and the viewer goes to make a cuppa. However, once set-up, the games are free to develop without loss of momentum. (Btw, it's the 1000th Deal or No Deal today! Guess it's still popular eh!)

I wrote the final chapter to Act I.

With so many sub-plots established, I had a joyous time writing the conclusion to Act I.

Question: Does a wonderful pay-off justify a slow opening?

I had a ball, tying up loose ends and splicing sub-plots into the protag's quest, spiralling through reveal after reveal, forging an emotional topography which never stays still and which swings across all manner of emotions. It came in at over 6000 words and is the longest chapter I have written, and I wrote it in two sittings. I think it's the best thing I have ever written too.

But I am a little concerned that, in order to create this chapter, I had to scatter a good few set-ups throughout the first act.

I'm being very careful about which books I'm reading: I don't want to ingest a style which is too different to mine. So I've been limiting myself to Hemingway, and now I'm half-way through Manuel Puig's Kiss of the Spider Woman.

Actually, this is my second attempt to read it. I'm finding it a very slow book. However, my interest has been rekindled with a brilliant reveal mid-way through the book. I have to wonder at this logic; I wonder how many people would bail out before reaching the wonderful twist.

Question: What keeps a reader reading?

Puig develops very little. His two protags, Molina and Valentin, share a prison cell. Want to know more about them? Well tough, because Puig elected to have Molina relive his favourite movies, much to Valentin's pleasure. So Puig develops a series of stories in quick succession, which he does well, but he chooses to develop the relationship between Molina and Valentin (which is the heart of the plot) in sporadic dribs and drabs. Moreover, I've taken to skipping all the psychoanalytical footnotes in order to retain any sort of pace. (I'll maybe read them later.)

Developing stuff isn't the only way to keep the reader interested, for sure. I'm guessing that literary minds far greater than mine have found pleasure in Puig's techniques, and I'm guessing that, for many people, the retelling of the movies is enjoyable. But what about the questions I want answered? What about developing the things that are important to me?: what about demonstrating that the story is moving towards a conclusion? which is something that a series of unconnected tales does not achieve.

Hey, I might eat my words once I've finished the novel. However, half-way through the novel, in my opinion Puig has moved too slowly because he has shown me little motivation and, as such, given me few developments towards a resolution.

I've written the opening to Act II.

It's very strange. So much has changed. So much has been developed.

And, I confess, I'm getting little guilt pangs knowing that I'm setting my poor protag up for a major fall. Gosh, he's been with me for ages now.

Act II picks up the story two months later. My first problem was how to bridge the gaps without employing flashbacks. I found several ways of doing so whilst remaining 'in the moment'; mainly, little hints threaded into pertinent dialogue works well.

I've employed a variation on McKee's charge switches. That's to say that, as I give something to my protag, I then choose to take something away. The pace of the switches in the final chapter of the first act is all but breakneck. But, considering a more holistic charge, I have attempted to end the first act on a positive, and I intend to end the second act on a negative, with an open-ended positive to conclude the ms.

I'm in love!

Mystery Genius blogged fairly recently about something with which we are all familiar: Falling in and out of love with our work. To be honest, if I stop to think about all the things that might prevent an agent from loving my ms, I would be most discouraged. I could probably make a very long list.

However, there's little use in thinking in such a way, and I'm attempting to finish this ms as I ride out my redundancy. It's comforting to think that, if I average 3000 words a day, I'll have the second act first-passed in ten days or so. Even if I only succeed in averaging 1500 words a day, and allowing for time spent in the real world, I'll have it first-passed in a month. Just have to keep the faith!

And so we keep moving forwards, learning and striving for something unseen, and I begin to wonder how I will feel when this ms is completed.

More is More

Sir Thomas More makes the world's worst origami swan.

Having decided that there are two distinct skills required to write a novel - the ability to plot and the ability to write in an engaging manner (which, I fear, is pretty much what Agent Cox told me several years ago) - I have been focusing my energy on reconstructing my plot to The Commuters. It wasn't very strong. But I didn't know that until I read it with an eye for developments. I like my new eye, for it has solved problems and answered questions. Well done eye, and thanks. Just need to work on the ears now so that they properly listen to other people. Naughty ears.

Okay, I still haven't quite fathomed the intricacies of plot, despite having twice read Michael Legat's nearly excellent Plotting the Novel. I'm uncertain precisely how plot affects emotional response, or how to fully control sub-plots. But the idea of constant development - an idea that I feel must be buried in that book because it must've come to me from somewhere - has gifted me with a different vision and has, I hope, allowed me to finally understand why my fourth chapter sucks and why my manuscript appears to noodle at times, despite the fact that I'm really not noodling at all, but am laying foundations for some hot revelations and reversals.

To minimise the noodle-effect, I've also built in more developments - that is to say that the big developments remain in place, and I've staggered smaller developments along the way. As such, the reader's understanding grows frequently and in small increments, rather than infrequently and in big increments.
To be honest, this feels a little unecessary in terms of the reader's understanding - after all, the same knowledge is gained by the same point in time. However, what has changed is the constant involvement of the reader through these frequent developments.

Perhaps more really is more?

Undoubtedly, there are more revelations afoot.
Good foot.

Development

Development of a Bottle in Space: Umberto Boccioni (1912).

My son and I have invented some fun games lately!

1) Describe a tv programme with a different description from the tv guide, e.g.:

7.45. Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway: A security guard is found dead inside an armoured car.

2) Mute a tv programme and play a song on the hi-fi. This worked very well the other day when elderly people showed their attic discoveries to the words of Hit Me With Your Rhythm Sticks. Occasionally, you'll get some near-perfect editing or lip-syncing :D

In these two games, the humour is derived from incongruities!

We've also been inventing card games.
Having spent two hours on his latest game, my son was disappointed that it didn't play very well.
The idea was to create a monster from three randomly-drawn cards such that each player has a unique monster comprising of a head, a body, and legs. Each card has it's own statistics, including attack, defend and agility. The completed monsters pick on each other until only one survives.

The idea was super! However, with the monsters created at the outset, it was immediately clear which monster would ultimately win the fight. As such, the by-rote battles became moot and devoid of excitement: the outcome was predictable, and the weakest player (determined by chance) had no way of turning the tide.
His mechanics were akin to those of Top Trumps, but he had removed the development mechanic - that of pitting new cards against each other every turn - and also the choice mechanic.

I suggested that one body part should be switched each turn, such that gameplay is routinely developed, and this made the game more enjoyable.
In this way, he also took the Top Trumps development mechanic one stage further: rather than an entirely new card each turn, his monsters developed more gradually.

The parallels between games and story-telling are countless!

Plotting can be imagined as an ordering of developments. Or, put another way, a progression of changes.
Each new development brings change. Each change infuses a freshness, and asks the reader to reassess his understanding, and with it his predicted outcome. And that surely helps to maintain a desire to turn those pages.

We can see this clearly in a game such as Deal or No Deal.
Every time a box is opened, the game is developed: that is to say that information is added and the state of the game is changed. This continues all the way to a resolution.

If we applied my son's dynamic to Deal or No Deal, Noel would open the player's chosen box at the outset, the Banker would not exist, the player would not be permitted to make a decision, and all further box-opening would be irrelevant. In short, the outcome would be known from the start, as nothing in the game is developed.
Development = Change.
And, as long as we expect things to continuously change, we are imbued with anticipation. This is often referred to as forward motion or forward momentum.

Taking this a step further, I've been looking at how I've been managing sub-plots.
Imagine that, mid-way through a game of Deal or No Deal, a second game is started.
We now have various methods of development at our disposal:
We could stay with one player through to a resolution, and then return to the other player;
We could leap-frog between players, developing their games one box at a time;
We could stagger these two games in other ways, developing a number of boxes per game at any one visit, and this could be done with or without a symmetry.

N.B. In order to function well as sub-plots, these two games would not be disparate - they would work together towards a single resolution. Perhaps the two players would win half of the total amount each.

So we have management decisions to make when controlling sub-plots: How long should we spend on one-strand before moving to another? How many developments should we create in one strand before moving to another? How many times should we flip between two strands? How does our development affect/create pace?
And this problem is only compounded when more sub-plots are introduced!

I've already been working towards a theory on how best to manage multiple sub-plots.
Most notably, in my post Wait For Me, I was interested in the lead up to a reveal (or a moment of development), and the downtime required immediately after a major change has been instigated; and in Lest We Forget, I wondered how long we could spend away from any one sub-plot - what are the effects of neglecting a sup-plot? In Ripples, I championed the notion of building the ramifications of change.
I've also decided that these moments of change harbour a great, if not the greatest, potential for emotional response.

More thoughts on the management of developments to come shortly ...