Today’s tour stop – you get to laugh at my writing mistakes! Come snark at my naked confessions to Hart at Confessions of a Watery Tart. Meanwhile, Hart will entertain you here! (I won’t be naked, but I make no promises regarding Hart.)
(Thanks again to those who commented at yesterday’s post at John Ottinger III's Grasping for the Wind!)
Take it away, Hart!
(Thanks again to those who commented at yesterday’s post at John Ottinger III's Grasping for the Wind!)
Take it away, Hart!
Lessons from TV for Writing
So first off, I want to congratulate Alex on KICKING BUTT with this book release thing! He's done an amazing job of being everywhere which HAS to be paying off. Alex—You're the DUDE! (And you only have to take that like the Big Labowski if that pleases you).
And NEXT, for your reading pleasure and/or mockery content... How Television Series Can Inform Our Writing Plan
The BIG PICTURE
Movies all have a large underlying plot or they lose us, yes? And it seems a no-brainer that a book would need the same. But when you start planning a SERIES, it is a little more like a television series... let's take a good one that BOTH has episodes that are self contained AND themes that continue week to week. A show like Castle is easiest to talk about, or maybe, because this is Alex's blog, and I still get to picture Nathan Fillion, we will talk Firefly...
Each episode introduces a new conflict that is URGENT. It needs to be resolved or... the evil guys will catch them, or Serenity will float off into a war zone with no way to breathe, or... you get the picture... URGENT. And that emergency is resolved through the cleverness and cooperation of the crew within the one hour epidsode, while still leaving loose ends... like say some sexual tension with a certain ESCORT! The characters are appealing enough that we come back every week, and those of us who DO have a better idea of some BROADER plot that does NOT get resolved within each hour... we know WHY the bad guys are the bad guys... we have a CLUE as to where the story has been and where it might ultimately go (to Nathan standing naked on a random planet! Or maybe that was just the ultimate moment for yours truly).
I really prefer shows that DO have those points of continuity over shows that it doesn't matter from episode to episode...
Why Does that Matter to Me?
IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!! Think emotions here, and how we tap into them... The deep feeling of EVIL and FEAR actually takes a while to develop. If the show (or BOOK) is to show us, instead of TELLING us how horrible some force is, then the moments of proof need to be sprinkled... I mean SURE, you can dive in and start with a bang... and get away—YAY! But the insidious evil that keeps coming back, ever worse... supported by something larger... How scary is THAT by comparison?! To realize you thought you'd won, but he was really just a minion compared to the force behind him?! Twin Peaks has some good examples here... you have the monster that is Shelly's husband in the immediate forefront... resolved relatively quickly... but the hints about the one-armed man.... those were dropped slowly... and while Shelly's husband was awful and scare... he doesn't pack NEARLY the fearful punch as that 'one hint a week' build...
RELATIONSHIPS!!! And I don't only mean romantic... Oh, sure... I love sexual tension (and BOTH Nathan's series have plenty of that... with PROMISE but the line is almost never crossed (I keep tweeting him that I'll scratch that itch, but he doesn't answer me *cough*) But also other kinds of relationships... I love complicated frenemy-type relationships... rivals or people who should be opposed, but grudgingly help each other now and then. There are a TON of these in the series Veronica Mars... My favorite relationship in the series is actually the once between Veronica and Weevil—he is a gangster... but she helps him, and then manages to have a 'friend in low places' when she needs one.
Veronica Mars, in fact, also does a great job getting at my NEXT important point...
CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT!!! How boring is a hero who never learns from his mistakes? (or worse, never MAKES ANY?) Life (and drama, both visual and literary) has some hard lessons... and any character who can't grow and CHANGE from those lessons is going to lose our interest eventually unless it's a sitcom.
Okay... so I didn't go into great detail on how we draw on that for books, but I guess my point is that in a book series, each should definitely be able to stand alone... you don't want a reader to pick up a random one of your books and not be able to follow... but how much more interesting is a series if there is some logical flow underneath? Isn't it nice to reward long-term readers with a little something extra?
Hart Johnson writes mostly suspense and is in process of cleaning up to query. She has two alter egos: Alyse Carlson has a Cozy Mystery contract with Berkeley Prime Crime, and The Watery Tart is trying to achieve Naked World Domination. All of them make appearances at
Confessions of a Watery Tart and would love to see you at the party.
