writing rules | Myths of the Mirror

My guess is I don’t need to tell you what doesn’t work about this passage:

Mary rifled through the suitcase that John dropped on the bed. “John, have you seen my camera?” Mary’s hands flew to her hips and she scowled.

“I’m certain you packed it, Mary.” John scratched his head. It wouldn’t be the first time Mary had forgotten to pack something important. “I’ll check our carry-on. Mary, where did you leave it?”

“Other room, on the table, John.” Mary huffed and began stuffing shirts back into the bag.

John retreated to the sitting area of the luxury suite. The place had cost John a fortune, but Mary had insisted on a room with a sunset view, specifically for taking photos. John emptied the carry-on and sighed, certain Mary would have a fit and accuse the airline of stealing. “I checked and it’s not here, Mary.”

“Oh, crap, John!” Mary stomped into the room. “The airline must have stolen it.”

Did you notice all the Mary’s and John’s?

If you didn’t, trust me that after a few pages you’d be pretty tired of Mary and John. When I’d started writing, my publisher made me go through my manuscript and edit out first names whenever they weren’t needed. Here’s why…

1. Pronouns create a tighter POV.

Generally, we want a tight POV because it draws the reader deeper into a character’s experience.

Whether we’re writing in 1^st or 3^rd person (except omniscient), we’re sitting inside the POV character’s head, looking through her eyes, hearing what she hears, feeling her emotions, living out a scene from his/her perspective. Authors work hard to achieve the immediacy of a tight POV. When clarity isn’t at stake, POV character’s will always refer to themselves with pronouns.

This is easiest to see in 1^st person books where the POV character always refers to him/herself as “I.” Another way to think of this is in your daily life. When you’re hanging around the house you don’t refer to yourself by your name. I don’t say to my husband, “Diana’s going to make tea; do you want some?” That would be weird. I use a pronoun. “I’m going to make tea…”

3^rd Person is subtler, but the same reasoning applies. We’re still sitting inside a character’s head, viewing the world through their perspective. Though the pronoun in this convention is a “he” or “she,” it’s still a pronoun. POV characters wouldn’t naturally refer to themselves by their names.

2. We don’t talk that way.

Next time you’re in for the evening with one other person, pay attention to the conversation or record yourselves for a short time. If names are used at all, it’s with purpose – primarily to get someone’s attention (“Hey, Randy, have you seen my keys?”) or for emphasis (“Listen, Randy. You lost them, you better find them!”). Do the same with a group of people and you’ll notice more first names, but still surprisingly few.

When are names necessary?

The answer is pretty obvious – to avoid confusion. And it’s easy to identify those situations:

When starting a new scene
When there are more than two characters in a scene and the dialog and action is jumping around
When two characters are talking about another character(s).
When two characters are the same gender.

Now, like anything in writing, this “rule” is meant to be broken, and broken for all kinds of reasons: reminders to the reader, to get a break from all those pronouns, sentence pacing, etc. This is simply something to be aware of when crafting your prose.

Here’s that paragraph all cleaned up.

Mary rifled through the suitcase that John dropped on the bed. “Have you seen my camera?” Her hands flew to her hips and she scowled.

“I’m certain you packed it.” He scratched his head. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d forgotten to pack something important. “I’ll check our carry-on. Where did you leave it?”

“Other room, on the table.” She huffed and began stuffing shirts back into the bag.

He retreated to the sitting area of the luxury suite. The place had cost him a fortune, but she’d insisted on a room with a sunset view, specifically for taking photos. He emptied the carry-on and sighed, certain she would have a fit and accuse the airline of stealing. “I checked and it’s not here.”

“Oh, crap!” She stomped into the room. “The airline must have stolen it.”

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I get such a kick out of all the different types of writers and books and readers there are in the world. It’s just plain thrilling. The best part is it reinforces the notion that we can all focus on writing the stories we love, and if we write them well, there will be readers who’ll enjoy them.

And, of course, those who don’t, but that’s not the subject of this post and really, does it matter? If we’ve done the hard work and produced a quality book, it’s still not going to appeal to everyone anyway, so why stress about it?

I just finished reading The Goblin Emporer by Katherine Addison. I thoroughly enjoyed it even though nothing happens in the book. Yeah, nothing happens. There are probably 2 pages of action out of 447. I know some readers who would rather spend a night with the stomach flu, bowing to the bowl, than suffer through the lack of a riveting plot.

Yet to me the book was engaging. The pace was graceful, and the main character, a goblin named Maia, was exquisitely real, his emotional life written with meticulous care. I wanted to jump into the pages and hug him. It’s one of those books where you’re pulling and pulling and pulling for the main character. Even without a plot.

Maia is the youngest, half-goblin son of the Emperor of the Elflands and has lived his entire life in exile, lonely, uneducated, and missing his dead mother, the only person who ever treated him kindly. When his father and brothers are killed in an “accident,” he is heir to the throne and completely ill-equipped for the intrigue and subtleties of court politics. He’s a kind, sincere young goblin, whose gentle approach endears him to some and leaves him vulnerable to others. The entire book takes place during the first winter of his reign and covers the painful steps he takes coming into his own. Maia’s journey is far from over by the end of the book, but there’s a glimmer of good things ahead.

Yes, there is a character arc, a modest one. In The Goblin Emperor, it’s the only forward progress in the book, because, yup, nothing else happens.

Aside from those of us who live for character-driven books, how did Addison achieve such wide appeal with a book lacking any hustle and bustle? Partly, in my opinion, by making the extraordinarily clever choice to tell the tale with goblins. Goblins characters and their goblin world switched up the entire story into something unique. I wonder if I would have liked the book as much if Addison wrote about an average human boy. Hmmm, probably not.

Addison’s world-building was complex, a whole geography and history, customs and rituals, philosophies and religions backing up the narrative. I got a kick out of most of it, particularly the character descriptions, the precise style of speech, and elaborate clothing. I will mention one significant challenge: the names of most of the places and characters were confusing – unpronounceable and so similar to each other that, other than the main players, I didn’t know who was who. And yet I still loved the read.

For me, this book reinforced a few notions about writing:
1. Write what you love, that story bursting to be told
2. It isn’t necessary to conform to methods and rules
3. Bust the paradigms and be wildly creative
4. Write the absolute best book you can
5. There are readers who will enjoy your words.

Happy Writing!