Writer's Workshop: Chandler, Croshaw, and Priest · 3:03am Feb 11th, 2017
No, that's not the name of my new law firm. It's three different concepts to help you make every part of your story interesting.
First, Chandler's Law. Raymond Chandler was a pulp thriller writer who came up with this piece of advice: "Whenever you get stuck, have two guys with guns come pound through the front door." In Chandler's genre, this sort of thing happens pretty frequently. It has a lot going for it: it raises the stakes, it injects the scene with mystery, and it gets the characters out of the scene. Once the firefight ends, the characters can ask questions like, "Who were those guys? How were they related to the plot? Who sent them, and why did that person want us dead?" Those are a lot of different options to get you back on track.
Okay, but some of us aren't writing crime thrillers. Some of us are writing adventures, or comedies, or slice-of-life romances. How can we generalize Chandler's Law? Let's put it as, "When you're stuck, jump to something immediately actionable." Pick something appropriate to your genre: an emotional outburst, a home appliance catching on fire, a mysterious letter arriving in the mail, whatever. As a corollary to this, use this distraction to illuminate important details about your character. Is your character overcoming their stubbornness? Are they a beacon of reason and collectedness among flighty, irrational friends? Use your interruption as evidence for their arc. That way, it won't feel quite so out of nowhere.
Next, a piece of advice I've only recently begun to take to heart. Yahtzee Croshaw, the genius behind Zero Punctuation, has brought it up multiple times, though the idea isn't his. (Incidentally, if you aren't watching ZP, you're missing out on one of the funniest critics of our time.) This doesn't have a name, so I'm going to call it Croshaw's Rebuke: "Is this the most interesting part of your characters' lives; if not, why aren't you showing us that?" Considering Yahtzee's role as the caustic game critic, the Rebuke is pointed more at half-baked games with more interesting backstory than central narrative. However, it can still be useful as you plan your story. In essence, it's asking, "Why are you telling this story? If it doesn't have any meaning, what's the point?"
But let's generalize Croshaw's Rebuke further. When you begin a scene, you should imagine Yahtzee's avatar standing next to you, asking, "Is this scene you're about to write the most interesting thing that could happen right now? If not, why aren't you telling us about that instead?" Think about in medias res, and think about hooks. You could describe your character getting up, brushing their hair, going downstairs, eating breakfast... but if you do that, you'll get the Rebuke. Either skip that morning routine and get to the actually interesting stuff, or find a way to make it so interesting that you can't dare skip it. I mentioned hair brushing previously, so consider Twilight's hair brushing scene in "Bridle Gossip." Obviously an important shot, and key to developing the plot and Twilight's arc throughout the episode. But we can go even deeper! At every sentence, at every word, keep Croshaw's Rebuke in mind. If you're being boring, Yahtzee will sit there, tapping his feet impatiently until you get back to something interesting.
What's most interesting about Croshaw's Rebuke, I think, is that it forces you to consider alternatives to the way you write. I'm the kind of writer that puts down the first thing I think of and runs with that. I know I could do with a moment or two to stop and say, "Is this the most interesting thing I could say right now? If not, what is, and why aren't I doing that instead?" It's a tricky balance, make no mistake about it.
So last in the trio is me, Alicorn Priest. I'm not trying to compare myself to those two esteemed gentlemen, of course; I just want to tie it back to the Mantra I've brought up time and again--my replacement for show, don't tell, "write what's important." The hard part of that sentence is "important:" what is important, and what isn't? Well, I hope the other two writing tips I've offered shed some light on what's important and what's not. Chandler tells you to use action and urgency to drive the plot. Yahtzee tells you to pick things that will engage and intrigue the reader. If it's not interesting, go back to the drawing board and pick something else to happen in its place. Lastly, let me add this. Important is about what you're trying to achieve with your story. Use world descriptions and character thoughts and action and drama--all of that in the service of your message. In the end, that's what's important.
I've tried. If you've been following 'Drifting' you should see several sections where I skip ahead with just a few lines. It helps that the POV character is a painter who gets so 'in the zone' that he can say "Hey, why is it dark? I was just getting started."
Although I don't have anypony breaking in through the front door.
An important point to remember when writing is that you're crafting not only a world, but a bubble as a primary plot thread. Everything should flow along with the bubble. Keep those pins away. Subplot points that come up should relate to the main thread in some way, building onto the bubble instead of popping it.
Let me grab Buggie and the Beast here. The main plot thread is the interaction between the injured changeling and Beet Salad. Beets has a goal: Nurse the changeling back to health so she can go away. The changeling has a goal, but it *changes* from: Kill self, too injured to survive -- Figure out just what in heck is going on -- get torn between wanting to survive and fear of hurting Beets. At any time, having two guards break through the door is *expected* and a source of continuing tension, which is why I didn't do it. I don't spend any... um, much time on Beets walking the patrol at the docks at work because that's boring. I do spend time on his internal monologue during work and the ambush, which is interesting.
Your plot thread is a monster. Feed it well and keep it from branching off into weird sub-plots, so it can devour readers.
Greetings from the future! Love the coining of Croshaw's Rebuke. Yahtzee is as crass as he is brilliant, and more importantly, right. I'm deleting and rewriting an entire chapter right now by invoking the Rebuke. Writing this chapter been like swimming through frozen molasses, so it probably wasn't quite right to begin with.
Thanks for another great Workshop.