Some of you may have noticed that TG has been greatly remiss
in putting up any new entries here for the last several weeks. That’s because
Allen Appel was off at Art Camp (VCCA.com) working on his latest entry in the
Pastmaster series of novels that can be found here and purchased by anyone who is a historical or time travel fan, or who is just tired of waiting for the
next Game of Thrones novel to come out.
For our first digression of the day, TG would like to pass
along that George Martin, of Game
So while Appel was at art camp, he worked very hard on his
book, always keeping in mind TG’s excellent advice, Sit Down, Shut Up, Get to Work, and while he was there he cranked
out 210 new First Draft Pages. The manuscript is now complete, coming in at
103,000 words, around 410 pages. Note that TG said First Draft Pages. Anyone who has read this blog over the years
knows that these are not Finished Pages, or even Pretty Damn Good Pages. A
first draft is not designed to be good, it’s designed to be done. TG supposes
that there are writers out there who are able to turn out polished, finished, fiction
first drafts, but he’s never really met any of them. Mostly he thinks writers
who say that they routinely write great first drafts are full of shit and their
books are dull, lifeless things. But don’t get TG started, he’s raved about
this before.
So, while Appel was giving agonized birth to these
aforementioned pages…
Appel: Whoa, whoa,
whoa, TG, hold up a minute. “Agonized birth?”
TG: Yeah, it’s a metaphor. Or maybe a simile. TG can never
remember the difference. Look, do you want to take over here, smartass?”
Appel: Maybe that’s a
good idea. Ahem. (Sound of throat clearing.)
Appel here. We’ll just let TG go sulk for a while. While I
was producing my first draft, I was forcefully reminded of one of the biggest
problems that a fiction writer comes up against, especially when working in the
novel form: doling out exposition. Exposition is information which needs to be in
the story to explain something in the story, but which isn’t necessarily part
of the ongoing story. Writers go to incredible, often laughable, lengths to impart
information that a character already knows, but the reader doesn’t. This can be
done through interior monologue, flashbacks, flash-forwards, foreshadowing,
dialogue and straight narration, among other techniques. I laughed the other
day when I read someone define these exposition moments as the, “As you know,
Bob,” paragraphs. Writers, particularly beginning writers, are terrified of
these moments because they’ve had the rule, “Show, don’t tell,” drilled into
their heads almost as much as they’ve been told to always “Write what you
know.” These two pieces of advice have killed more novels and writers than
cholera or women and children have ever done, to paraphrase a famous quote.
TG: Enough with the
quotes. Can I have my blog back? I can explain this better than you’re doing.
Sure.
Thriller Guy here. Geez, that guy goes on and on, doesn’t
he? Here's the deal, when you’re writing, and you’re suddenly stuck on how to put in some
information that the reader needs, and you can’t come up with a clever method, just put in the goddamn information! You
can fix it later. Or not. Readers will not give a crap about this as long as
you keep it short. They’ll read it and move along if your story is compelling.
If it’s not, you’ve got more problems than a clunky paragraph or two. So go
ahead and put it in.
But never, ever, start out by saying, “As you know…”
