Again, I’m relatively new to the business end of writing. The website, blogging, twittering, etc. I have recently found Jane Friedman (who appeared to be quoting Kathleen Ortiz – but I might be wrong in my fledging interpretation) on Twitter, who caught my eye with a piece of advice in a tweet that rung especially true for me.
“Never say: ‘Let me start w/backstory.’ Your story doesn’t start in the right place if that’s necessary.” (@JaneFriedman/Twitter/July 29) My original story is somewhere in the middle now, or maybe even closer to the end, because I ran into the problem of having to explain.
While reading a profoundly successful author’s 12 book fantasy series, I found myself PAINFULLY trudging through PAGES of monologue, through which the main character would explain the whys and whatfors. This particular author’s first book was 848 pages in length. About half an inch through it in paperback, I put it down for an entire year before I picked it up again to finish. His writing style was wordy and long and drawn out and took waaaaay too long to get to a point. While very detailed in his world and characters, he was much too preachy, AND, after 12 ginournous volumes/episodes, the ending was lame. For me, it was the kind of letdown you expect from the silver screen ala True Lies when it started getting silly and unrealistic on the big screen adventure scale after a perfectly entertaining spy movie. (Sorry, I digressed there…) Personally, I think he could have subscribed to the “less is more” philosophy in his attempts to paint a visual picture. Maybe one or the other – monologue or wordy descriptions, but not both.
Have you ever actually read The Lord of the Rings? I haven’t. But I have attempted to listen to it on audiobook. IT…WAS…PAINFUL! I never even made it to the Prancing Pony! On the other hand, I own and have watched all three movies in the series multiple times. While I have the utmost respect for Tolkien as a master and for his artistry, I am eternally grateful that someone had the foresight to give us an abridged movie version that still turned out to be a series of three LONG chapters!
At any rate, I struggled with exactly how to give my readers the needed filler detail so that my story made sense without being longwinded. Flashbacks? Nah, could be confusing. Long first chapter and then flash forward? Nah…still possibly confusing and cumbersone to pull off. An opening to every chapter with some “other story?” Nope…
SO, after much blog crawling and internet scouring, my answer was NOT to prologue, and instead create a front end story which blossomed into a novella, quite possibly on its way to a novel. Hence, First Witch. My storyline had gotten so broad with the need for the reader to understand, that I was able to create a whole new episode, giving life to my backstory while providing my readers the whys and whatfors relevant to later storylines.
The need to explain, I believe, is the perfect fodder for more written material. Anytime you find yourself in a position where you need to explain, consider more substantial story instead of more monologue…
