Authenticity in Action

Ever forget to practice what you preach? Raises hand. I swear it was an accident. Recently a lovely writer friend of mine graciously read Her Wicked Ways. She had great things to say (yay!) about the last two-thirds. What about the first third? She found the pacing off. Too much introspection and non-relevant action. Oh no, but I try to balance action/introspection/dialogue! Remember AID? Uh, yeah, I guess I forgot. Or wasn't paying attention, more likely.

Regarding the introspection, I think I was in a rut of inner dialogue to replace action. In a character's POV scene, it's cool to ground their external dialogue with inner dialogue. Fun technique, but easy to overdo. Same with tagging external dialogue with action. We all know the pitfalls of arching brows, shrugging shoulders, and flexing fingers.

But I had plenty of non-arching/shrugging/flexing action! Except the action still wasn't tied to the goals of the scene. Whaaaa, you say? I'll give an example. I had a scene in which the hero and his mentor/best friend type discussed his romantic progress with the heroine using the miserable summer and the failing crops as the backdrop. The cold weather and disastrous planting play hugely into the hero's GMC. So, here they are checking out the fledgling plants that are woefully behind schedule and musing about the potential for a freeze that night. Out comes the heroine and conversation turns to her and blah, blah, wake up!

After my friend gave me her comments, I reread the first several chapters and immediately saw her point. When I got to this point in the story, I sat back for a moment and pondered how best to make the action in this scene more relevant. I mean, standing around talking about the weather is nowhere near as exciting as doing something about the weather. So if a freeze could be imminent, why not dump snow on them? Now. As in, we need to get these plants covered before the snow accumulates and kills the tiny sprouts! (Yes, Maven Carrie's technique of "how can I ruin my characters today" mentality was incredibly helpful and I want to give credit where it's due.) Now my scene had real action that mattered to the story. And the conversation that was there still happens, but it's more authentic. Yes, that's it, authentic.

So thank you dear friend/CP (you know who you are) for reminding me that action should be authentic for the scene and contribute conflict as well as interest. And thank you Maven Carrie for helping me torture my characters.

What do you do if a scene just doesn't have "it?" Do your scenes have authentic action that moves the story forward, that contributes to the purpose of the scene? How do you keep track of all the myriad things we aim to achieve in our writing?

Congrats to our friends over at Riding With the Top Down on your second anniversary! Speaking of anniversaries, the Mavens have been blogging for a year this week. Crazy, huh? Stay tuned for exciting anniversary happenings...

The Absent Middle

Yesterday, Maven Darcy's post on character arcs got me thinking about my own love/hate relationship with C/A.

OK, as I write that I see the fallacy in my description. It's not that I hate C/As. I LOVE C/As. With the fire of a thousand Maven Darcy suns. What I hate -- hate, hate, hate -- is when the character changes through a process I can't see. So, for example, take the secondary character you love in Book Wonderful. You can't *wait* to read about him in the next book in the series, Book WonderfullER. But when you open BWII, the character you loved as a secondary character has (often) taken a tumble into a black pit of despair. The happy sidekick with the sexy grin (but not sexier than the hero's!) was beaten in a duel/spent the last year and a half of his life in an enemy prison camp/married and then lost some other wife you never saw/suddenly has pressing concerns never hinted at in the first book.

This seems to happen ALL THE TIME. Drives me crazy! I would guess that the author didn't have the character's full story in mind when she wrote book 1. He was a place holder, the friend or mentor the hero in book 1 needed. When she goes to write book 2, suddenly the character has no history, no depth to support a good GMC/conflict with the heroine. So she makes a Tragic Event occur in his past, and whammo, instant tortured hero.

KEEP THE CHARACTER THE SAME BETWEEN BOOKS!!! My thinking: if you want to make someone entirely new up, then make someone new up! Then I won't be disappointed the sidekick I loved isn't back to be the hero.

A variant on this is the hero who suddenly transforms by the end of the book for no reason. Most often, this is a function of the first time he sees the heroine at home and hearth. Suddenly, he recants his rakehell ways and determines to become a simple landowner. After all, she looked so hawt in her walking dress, sun-kissed cheeks and wind-blown hair! Nay, he shall never be a Society Sir again! It's corn and sheep from here on out!

Noooooooooooooo!!! Why do people have to change for True Love to exist? That's... well, it's a purely romantic thought. Obviously, I don't want my rakehell tossing up the skirts of anything in heels. But at the same time, why does his *character* have to change?

I believe working within the confines of the established character builds more conflict, not less. Take, for example, my rake-cum-landowner hero. It's ok for him to decide he wants to live in the country if there's a REASON. A good reason. Usually shown through some sort of conflict or problem he and the heroine work out together. Not because he had a houseparty, she showed up with her chaperone, and they got it on in the gazebo. Maybe because the rake secretly has a passion for roses, and the heroine can't stand large crowds. But just tossing off their old characterizations to embrace the family values of a quiet, private life wherein they shall boink like bunnies and make many generations of happy little dukes...I'd rather have them not change at all than make a mysterious leap in logic.

What about you? Do Epilogues often make you cringe? Have you ever hated a subcharacter you loved in one book the minute you found out he'd been beaten/imprisoned/impoverished/widowed just before his own story starts? What do you think is appropriate character growth? Do you prefer steep arcs or more gradual ones?

Cut to the Quick

Sorry I'm late. I think I say that a lot, actually, so maybe I don't really mean it. You know how you have so many options to prevent disaster, yet you usually don't? But our characters can't really be like that, can they? They need to think out all the paths before they pick the most logical one.

Or don't they? Let's take this subject my mom and I were discussing late last night: I feel my hero needs to tell the reader why on earth he would go visit a woman he knows he can't marry and then spend a lot of time with her in a compromising situation (historical, baby) when, you know, he knows he shouldn't marry her.

My mom says he's a man. She wants sex. What's there to motivate?

And so I said, "But he's a big boy. If he didn't want the consequences, he shouldn't have gone in there." You know, "Don't go in there! She's going to get you!" sort of thing. And then after she gets him, how much sympathy do we feel for him when sure enough, everything blows up in his face?

**Shrug** Maybe none. Maybe it's part of the writer's talent, though, that we CAN get our readers to identify with his stupid mistake. How many people here have done stupid things that seemed like a good idea at the time even though you knew they were stupid? Then again, how many wallbangers out there are there that use Stupid Mistakes as their main plot device?

Turned out, I was asking my mom the wrong question. She asked me a lot of good questions and eventually drilled down to the heart of my issue. It wasn't that I needed to motivate why he went into the room, or even why he stayed in the room. I didn't need to motivate why he let the heroine "get" him. I just needed to know why any of it mattered to him at all. I mean, I do stupid stuff all the time and I don't beat myself up for it. Unless...I care about the opportunity cost of the consequences.

Look at it this way: let's say you like to drive fast. You make scads and scads of money. Do you care if you get a ticket? Probably not. You'll just pay it. If you like to drive fast and you get a $300 ticket and it means you don't have beer for a month, you're probably going to keep driving fast. But if you're poor and your mom needs to go to the hospital a few times a week for very expensive chemo, maybe you'll lay off the gas every now and then. Maybe. I guess it depends on how much you love your mom.

Anyway, deeper seems to be better. If you can figure out what's *really* at the heart of your conflict, you may just build a believable, sympathetic character others can relate to. No matter how many times they go into that dark, scary house when the killer's on the loose.

Anyone been re-motivating since National? Conferences seem to have that effect on me. They always force out "more." Do share!