Fiction Plot

One of fiction’s five basic elements is plot and in coming weeks, writing tips will examine the seven parts of plot. For an overview, picture a diagram of plot’s parts with a triangle.

The first two points, exposition and inciting incident, are located at the triangle’s bottom left corner. Exposition is when the reader is introduced into the character and setting, and inciting incident is the event from which the story’s action flows. The left side of the triangle, usually the longest in page count, represents rising action, or series of events that occur between the inciting incident and the climax. The scenes in rising action often appear unrelated to the reader, and through them conflict builds.

Climax is the point of greatest conflict, when a turning point is reached for the protagonists, and the reader anticipates that which must be faced or accomplished. Climax is often confused with the big finish, or resolution. An anti-climax is when the tale’s great obstacle is overcome in an incidental scene, and only minor points remain unresolved.

The right side of the triangle represents falling action, or the series of events that occur because of the climax, and last until the resolution. Both resolution and denouement are located at the triangle’s bottom right corner. During resolution, the greatest obstacle is cleared, and in denouement, the plot, sub-plots and themes are wrapped-up.

All fiction follows this basic form. A manuscript’s imbalance in the form usually indicates a possible flaw or weakness. February’s posts will explore these.

How to Take Critique Advice

In one of last year’s tips I said that active critique group membership is the best way to strengthen one's own fiction. Anyone who's already used critique groups already knows it doesn't take long to wonder how, when, why and where to properly employ criticism in their work.

The old adage says consider the source. Don't make the mistake of accepting every tip. Be cautious about using advice. If you have a work critiqued by ten people, and seven give consistent advice about a particular item, you should consider making the suggested change. But if five give one type of advice, and the other five give contradictory advice, what does one do?

Consider my tip about purple prose. If the advice offered is about strengthening a verb, you still need to know if, and when, it's the right time and place to do so. Talking about your dilemma in your critique group is a good place to start, but contradicting advice means you've definitely stumbled upon something that you’ll need to research. Simply go to Google, or your favorite search engine, and enter parameters like strong verbs, language. Even if you can't find a concrete answer, remember writing is an art. Critique group members will all have different strengths and weaknesses, so learn who's mastered which types of criticism.

There’s a point to break every rule of writing. Even if one has more questions that when they began, the questions should be deeper. You'll come away with greater knowledge of language through the experience, and that is the path we all need to walk.

Realistic Dialog

Realistic characters are fiction's centerpiece. Characters should have many different tags including individual manners of speech.

I once heard of an author's claim that he'd written conversations with five different characters, and didn't need to tag any lines because they all spoke so distinctly. If your characters have dialects that would be easy, but if they are from the same city and socio-economic level, transliterating manners of speech still need attributions to help the reader.

Realistic characters must speak differently, just like people do. Some prefer that dialog read as grammatically perfect as narration, and an author just mention details like accent. Others say that's an example of telling, not showing.

Readers enjoy slang and dialect because it's how real people speak. The artistic touch is not overdoing a character’s speech. Dialog must still be readable—just alter a few words to communicate slanguage or dialect. A street person will use the word "ain't." Characters from the rural south echo Momma's colorful sayings, like "No bigger than a bar of soap."

There's more creative license in dialog than anywhere else in literature, so be creative and have fun.

Purple Prose

“Purple prose is a term of literary criticism used to describe passages, or sometimes entire literary works, written in prose so overly extravagant, ornate, or flowery as to break the flow and draw attention to itself. Purple prose is sensually evocative beyond the requirements of its context. It also refers to writing that employs certain rhetorical effects such as exaggerated sentiment or pathos in an attempt to manipulate a reader's response.”—Wikipedia.org

Purple prose can come from powerful verbs, gaudy descriptors, constantly too-wistful thoughts, or excessively intellectual vocabulary—or worse yet—all of them!

The following brilliant example was intentionally written by Brian Barrett, posted at The Brain Rummager:

Hermione gazed pensively across the moor, her bosom hanging low, like the menacing storm clouds above, while her tears mingled moistly with the miasmic mountain mist. The sound of distant thunder brought to her mind memories of the past, of a time when the world was young and she was blissfully carefree. She shrugged her shabbily shawled shoulders, and allowed a weary smile to loosen her lips as Sir Reginald apprehensively approached.

If readers trip over literary techniques that take their heads out of the story (like triple alliteration in Brian’s last sentence-ROFLOL!), you’ve got yerself some purple prose, and a lot of work to do.

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Use Stronger Verbs III

Once one recognizes weak verbs, one also needs to know that they are sometimes desirable.

Yes, using stronger verbs is sometimes wrong.

Confused yet? Sometimes an artist needs a pastel, rather than a florescent. Weak verbs can be used to soften a scene's tone.

• The lovers strode the wooded path to hunt down a leafy niche.
  
• The lovers strolled the wooded path, seeking a leafy niche.

The second example, though the verbs are weaker (strolled, seeking), is much more in keeping with the tone. The first has a feel of a platoon of soldiers.

At times, strong verbs can even make a character’s action unbelievable. Choosing the right word can make a difference.

Who is in greater danger:

• She bent toward me and hissed, "If they overhear us, we'll both be dead."
  
• She leaned and whispered in my ear, "If they overhear us, we’ll both be dead."

Considering the first verb, it’s more than the ed inding. Bend/ bent is more exaggerated than lean/ leaned.
Considering the second verb, hissing is more easily overheard than whisper.
Standing alone, the second sentence sounds like a love scene, but in the context of an action sequence, few would take it that way.

An entire manuscript of strong verbiage simply wears a reader out. Weak verbs can be tools to give your reader a break between points of conflict, and set proper pacing in a story.

An entire piece written with a stream of strongest-possible verbs is one way to write purple prose—next week’s writing tip.