Don't say the Z word: pacing and exposition

It can be tricky to keep track of what your characters know, what the reader knows, and what information needs to be given to who by who at what point in the story.

I love a bit of dramatic irony. Any time I can show the reader that the character is going into a situation without all of the information they need, that makes me happy deep in my slightly evil writer's soul. One character witnesses a thing that means the other character's plans are doomed to fail unless the last minute message can get through? Sign. Me. Up.

She knows! But she doesn't know that he knows she knows! (c) NBC/Bryan Fuller

But it's hard to pull those moments off in prose. (It's a lot easier in visual media, where there's inevitably a certain amount going on in any given frame that the viewer knows and the characters don't.)

There's plenty of writerly advice about exposition and how not to do it - google 'infodump' and 'as you know bob' for some perennial favourites. But here are three examples that have been bugging me recently.

I can't tell you that. Why not? Er...
Jake knows that Terry loves yoghurt. Jake finds out that yoghurt is going to be banned in the state of New York, but doesn't tell Terry. Even when Terry mentions how happy he is that he'll always be able to buy yoghurt, Jake doesn't say anything.

How does that make the reader feel about Jake?

Pretty much like this (c) Brooklyn Nine Nine

If you want a character to withhold information, they had better have a really good reason for doing that, and most importantly, you had better communicate that to the reader somehow. They don't need to know all the details, but they have to be able to pick up on the subtext that's stopping Jake giving his friend the information that he needs.

Perhaps Terry says something like 'man, if anyone told me I couldn't have yoghurt any more, I'd break his neck' and Jake replies 'no doubt no doubt' and then runs out of the room - Jake is still a bad friend, but it's because he's a coward, which is understandable even if it's not likeable.

Whereas if you don't put in some kind of acknowledgement, it just seems like you either forgot that Jake had that information, or - which is worse - decided that he couldn't say anything because you want Terry not to know it until later, and hoped nobody would notice.

Yoghurt aside, this tends to apply especially to secondary characters who are supposed to be wise or in positions of power, your kings and wizards. If they have vital information about how to defeat the dark lord, you might want to consider having them tell somebody about it - perhaps this hero who has come riding by, asking for dark lord defeating tips? If they keep schtum and then rock up at the hero's darkest hour saying 'by the way, the dark lord's weakness is his little finger - I knew that all along, just needed to double check you were worthy before I told you', you might have a small plot problem.

I've just seen a unicorn, but never mind that - what's for lunch?
Whether it's urban, space, epic or nostalgic, pretty much all fantasy writers have to deal with how their character reacts when they come across something that doesn't fit into their understanding of the world.

Sometimes, there's no time to dwell - they're in the adventure now, and there's no turning back. Protagonists like Alice can take Wonderland in their stride, because they've crossed the threshold into another world, and no amount of logic will change the fact that you've eaten a cake and now you're huge and being poked with a stick by a toad in a waistcoat.

'Seriously, which part of this would you like me to question first?' (C) Carroll/Tenniel

But sometimes you want to present your hero with a little teaser of the weirdness to come, or you need your protagonist to go on living their normal life around the developing strangeness. When it's handled poorly, you can get situations where the character gets a mystical vision, or is briefly transported to another world, or sees a unicorn cantering down the high street... and goes on as if nothing strange has happened at all.

There are ways around it, and I've used some of them, and not always the particularly clever ones either. People are very good at disbelieving the evidence of their own eyes, you just have to make sure they're doing it for a reason that makes sense. Perhaps Will already has incredibly vivid dreams, or terrible insomnia (or is taking some kind of substance if it's not a children's book). Maybe Ruth knows that as a teenage girl in Salem, admitting to anyone that she did magic in the woods last night is not a good survival plan. Maybe Meg just doesn't have anyone in her life she would want to tell that she turned into a fox...

One book that I think handles this brilliantly is Paul Cornell's London Falling - four different characters have weirdness thrust upon them, and they each handle it differently, each one relating it to their specific character traits and experiences. Having a group of protagonists whose experiences illuminate their similarities and differences, who can confide and check in with each other about what's happening is a genius move.

Walkers, Walkers everywhere and not a brain to eat
This is where the Z word comes into it. There's a whole TV Tropes page about this one.

The problem with 'genre' fiction is that about 5 times out of 10, the reader knows roughly what to expect from the plot before the characters do.

Even if a zombie story manages to convince you that it's set in a world that's exactly like ours except that none of the characters know what a zombie is, you still know exactly what's going on. The heroes can't help it, but they will seem slow on the uptake if it takes them a long time to figure out that the strangely dead-looking people shuffling towards them with grasping hands and drooling lips are undead, hungry and not just looking for a hug.

A classic exception to the rule - Shaun of the Dead plays this trope for laughs and pulls it off magnificently. (C) Simon Pegg/Edgar Wright

Look at your book. It doesn't matter whether it's finished and sold to a publisher or not, think of it as a publishable object for a minute. Imagine your ideal cover. Now imagine your worst nightmare cover, because let's be honest, it's best to be prepared.

Is there a 98% chance your book is going to have a bloody great dragon on the cover? Is your blurb inevitably going to include a phrase like 'But when Sophia's uncle is kidnapped by fairies, she must...'? When readers pick up your book, do they already know that there's going to be magic going on inside, and do they have a pretty good idea of how that magic operates?

If they do, that's not necessarily a bad thing. After all, if you say there is a dragon, the reader might not know exactly how your dragons function in your world but they'll have an instant thumbnail idea of what you're talking about, which means you can either save on the expositional legwork or get your subversion on.

The first Triwizard task is a secret and a mystery! I wonder what it could possibly be! (c) JK Rowling, awesome cover art by Kazu Kibuishi, Jonny Duddle and Giles Greenfield respectively

But, it does mean there's not much point trying to go for the 'surprise' magic reveal late on in the book (which, to be fair, JK Rowling doesn't - it's not really a surprise that there are dragons, because there have been dragons in the series before, it's finding out when Harry's going to encounter one that is the fun part). There's pacing out your story so the character isn't given more than she can handle, and then there's dragging things out so much that the reader loses patience with the story.

Suspension of disbelief is for things, not people.

That's probably a debatable statement, but for me, a book can succeed or completely fail on whether I believe that the characters would act the way they do. You can throw as many plot twists and fantasy elements at them as you like, but if Jake doesn't mention the yoghurt ban, you're in real trouble!

Things and Stuff #8

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: no editing, much ado, fancy cannibals, incredible penthouses, and Skulk artwork

Thing 1: NO EDITING
Wow, has it really only been four days since Monday? It feels like a lifetime. I suppose that would explain why my house isn't magically spotlessly clean yet. 

Thing 2: Much Ado About Joss Whedon's Amazing Garden
I went to see Much Ado About Nothing yesterday - it was really good, and I'm very jealous of his garden (for those not up on their Joss Facts, he directed the whole thing in his own house in twelve days). The acting was particularly wonderful - Alexis Denisof and Amy Acker are completely brilliant and it was fabulous to see Sean Maher as Don John - just dripping with malice. 

Also, Nathan Fillion is a much much better Dogberry than Michael Keaton (C) Joss Whedon

There was some inevitable strain from the modern day setting. It raised questions about what the Prince and Benedick and co had been doing before they arrived back from 'the action' that the play couldn't answer (it was obviously not any kind of actual warfare). And no matter how much you try to show that Claudio is concerned that Hero's cheating on him, and not just that she's not a virgin... all the text is still virginity-focused. Claudio was definitely a bit wet, but then Claudio is a Great Big Wet Weed in the play and there's not much any actor can do about it. The whole wedding meltdown scene is frustrating at the best of times because Claudio lets it go on so damn long before he actually comes out with the point, and Hero herself has so few lines while she's being accused. 

Still: it's a great play and a great film adaptation. Alexis Denisof's sponteneous push-ups are basically worth the admission by themselves. It's not on in very many cinemas so you should catch it quickly if you're going to!

Thing 3: The Adventures of Empath and Fancy Cannibal
Also known as the NBC series Hannibal, based on the Hannibal Lecter books/movies. I haven't been watching the show, but I've been reading Cleolinda Jones' detailed recaps of the episodes. They are, just like Movies in Fifteen Minutes and most of the other things Cleolinda does, absolutely brilliant. It's not at all suitable for children or anyone with a particularly weak stomach - obviously, on account of the series is full of cannibalism and other horrible things. But they are also really funny and clever and full of general awesomeness. It's not easy to capture the appeal, but I highly highly recommend you give the recap of Episode One a go if you're up for Wendigo metaphors, puppies, mental breakdowns and murder wizardry.

Thing 4: these two incredible New York penthouses 
I needed to get a hang on the floorplans of fancy penthouses, for Skulk Reasons, and I came across these two. Yep, I'll take both. Just charge the rent to Working Partners and Strange Chemistry, if we share it between them I'm sure they won't mind...

15 Central Park West (C) the architects, presumably, from ny.curbed.com

The first floor of the City Spire Penthouse (C) ditto - click through for pictures of the inside, they are amazing.

Thing 5: I've seen some Skulk artwork
I KNOW! How dare I bury the lede down here at the end of a Things and Stuff? Well, because I can't show it to you yet. But you can take my word for it, it's 100% awesome and cool and gorgeous and so exciting and I'm so excited about it and I can't wait to share it. Watch this space...

Things and Stuff #7

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition I am too busy to blog, so instead: foxes, butterflies, ravens, rats, spiders. 

Warning for arachnophobics: Thing 5 is a close-up photo of a spider. I've picked the spider image that gave me the least creeping horrors, but your tastes may vary. 

Thing 1: a Skulk

Gorgeous (C) unfortunately I can't find the photo source for this one, please let me know if this is your photo, it is beautiful.

Thing 2: a Rabble

Also known as a flutter or a swarm, but rabble is so much cooler (C) National Geographic

Thing 3: a Conspiracy

Oh yeah, this is definitely a conspiracy (C) Wikipedia

Thing 4: a Horde

The cutest, laziest horde (C) photo source also unknown

Thing 5: a Cluster

This is not a Cluster, because it's only one spider, but it was hard to find a photo of several spiders that did not give me the creeping horrors, so I went with the one that made me smile (C) Uda Dennie

Things and Stuff #6

I'm late! I totally forgot to do my Friday post this week. 

In any case, Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: exposition, Once, ghosts, eyeballs and editing

Thing 1: Exposition

How much is too much? Too little? How long can someone realistically talk without being interrupted?

I've been editing like a demon this week. My brain has turned to mush. Here is a picture of a bunny.

Yep. (C) www.acuteaday.com

Thing 2: Once

I went to see Once on Wednesday, and it was really awesome. The sheer musical skills on stage were enough to keep me hypnotically glued to the stage - add to that some really lovely emotional moments and a couple of great laughs, and you have a very good night out.

The play itself didn't entirely live up to the flawless performances - I didn't care quite as much about the central relationship as I wanted to, and the girl definitely starts out as a straight down the line manic pixie dream girl and arguably stays that way even though very much does have her own stuff going on. But in the context of something that was otherwise so, so lovely, those are actually quite small problems.

Gold (C) the Broadway cast at the Tony Awards

Thing 3: Ghost stories

Two nights in a row this week I've dreamed complete ghost stories, with endings, and both made total sense at the time. I need to try to write them down. One was a slow burn creepy thing that started out normal and ended up with a mother and baby ghost and bugs everywhere, and the other was a huge haunted castle story with a group of tourists from the 30s, a million doors that looked exactly the same and a brilliant twist ending... that I just can't put my finger on in the light of day. There was some good stuff in there, though.  

Thing 4: Giant gelatin eyeballs

I helped make two of these this week. It was supposed to be a prop for Odyssey, but it didn't turn out quite as well as we'd hoped - the first one I threw away prematurely, and the second one worked better, but then I forgot to put it in the bag that J was taking onto the field. So now I have a slightly broken giant gelatin eyeball in my fridge.

Thing 5: I haven't got time to do a thing 5, I have to get back to editing. Here is a really nice picture of a fox having some thoughts.

Lovely (C) Philpen

7 Very Good Reasons You Should Pre-Order Skulk

I know, I said I was going to do a blog about obscure Tolkien characters next. But Luthien's going to have to wait, because on Friday I found out that SKULK IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER.

Every positive step along the publication trail feels like, to paraphrase Martin Lawrence, stuff just got real. When an agent asks to read the book, when you sign up with them, when a publisher makes happy noises to your agent about your story, when they take it to acquisitions, when they make an offer, when you sign a contract, when you get your edits...

But the biggest stuff just got really real jolt so far has definitely been discovering that right now this minute you can go along to your preferred seller of books and give them money in exchange for your very own actual copy of Skulk.

Why should you pre-order it, though? I mean, it'll still be there when October rolls around. Well, here are some very good reasons:

1: Pre-orders help me sell more books
When bookshops and libraries and internet book stockists see that people are pre-ordering a book, especially a debut, it makes them look at that book and that writer differently. It makes them think, 'hmm, I see people actually want to read this book. Is this the next Hunger Games? We'd better make sure we've got a couple of copies in stock.' That means more copies in shops, which means more people find out about it. I have no pretensions that Skulk is the next Hunger Games, but they don't have to know that. The more people who pre-order Skulk, or go into bookshops and ask where they can get a copy, the more we can trick bookshops into thinking maybe this is a book that could make us all rich.

2: Going into a bookshop to pre-order helps them sell other books too
Because let's be frank, you're not going to go in there and pre-order a book without looking around and maybe buying a little something for your summer holiday, are you? And even if you do somehow manage that, you'll be giving a bookshop money which makes them more successful which lets them buy more books which makes the whole industry better. Pre-order Skulk, become a benefactor for all literature forever.

3: Pre-orders help spread word of mouth which is basically the driving force of publishing nowadays and all that stands between Skulk and the NYT bestseller list
Especially if you take a second to tell someone else that you've ordered it! Perhaps on the internet...

4: You'll be the first to get a copy
And that's just awesome. If you love it, you can buy copies for everyone you know, and if you hate it you can start collecting dry wood for the bonfire. (Better buy up all the copies, that way you can make sure nobody ever reads it, and we want that fire to get nice and toasty).

5: If you order it in the next week, you'll be able to say you bought a copy of the book before it was finished
This freaks me out a little bit, but it's true. I'm writing this post as procrastination from editing the book! So really what you're buying if you order Skulk this week is a world of infinite possibility. By the time it gets to you it could be anything! (It's not going to be anything, it's going to be Skulk - but right now it could be anything. Oooooooooh.)

6: You'll probably forget
That is, if you're anything like me. You'll forget that you put 'totally go and buy a copy of Skulk when it comes out' on your mental to do list. If you pre-order it now, you'll get a handy reminder when it comes out in October, in the form of a copy of the book, which is the best kind of reminder.

7: You'll probably forget
The awesome flipside to forgetfulness? Surprise book! At the beginning of October you'll hear a thud on your doormat/open the door for the postie/get a 'you weren't here' slip through your letter box, and you'll think 'what's this? It's from my favourite book-selling operation. But I didn't order anything in the last 5-7 working days...' And then you'll open it and discover it's Skulk and hopefully not be too disappointed. It's like you're buying your future self a surprise present.

So go, go to Amazon or Foyles or Blackwells or Waterstones or your local indie bookshop or library and tell them you'd like a copy of Skulk.

Please?

Things and Stuff #3

Things and Stuff is a grab-bag of things that've been on my mind this week. In this edition: LARP, Karen, edits, belt, Trenzalore

Thing 1: Empire
Not the magazine, this time - the roleplaying game. Jessie is, right now, in a field pretending to be a lizard-person and I hope having a marvellous time. It's been on my mind this week because I've been making some props for her, part of which I wrote about on Tuesday.

My favourite one - also the most complicated one and the last one, which meant I finished it around 2am on Wednesday. I still feel sleep deprived. But kind of proud. (C) me

I love making props for LARP, and I enjoy talking about LARP and hearing other people talk about it and watching Jessie write plots for Odyssey. It all seems really fun. But when I actually think about carrying heavy rucksacks out into a muddy field, to put on complicated costumes that I then have to store somewhere in my house when it's already full of Jessie's kit, and then sleeping in a tent for the weekend in between attempting to stay in character and remembering the rules and actually talking to people... I feel a bit like this:

Neil Gaiman being truthy as usual, (C) Craig Ferguson and the internet

Thing 2: Karen from WP has her own Guardian fashion blog!
Karen's run an amazing sewing blog, Did You Make That, for ages, and now she's going to be giving out awesome stitching wisdom on the Guardian site as well. Hooray Karen!

Thing 3: Edits.
The edits are here. I am equal parts excited and scared out of my wits. As with most actual writing work there's not a lot else I can say about it right now but I'll keep you posted.

Me (C) the internet

Thing 4: my new white belt, although I mostly ended up talking about being fat - if you don't want to read about that, you can skip to thing 5, it's got a brilliant Doctor Who joke in it
As someone who's been fat for the majority of my life I am distinctly leery of ever talking about food or anything I may do with my body, up to and including things like going for a walk or buying clothes, because people feel entitled to judge people like me, no matter what we're doing. Eating a burger? Fatso. Eating a salad? Thank god she's on a diet, she's such a fatso. Lying on the sofa? You will die alone and have to be winched out of your house. Doing some exercise? Haha look at that delusional sweaty face, she thinks she's Jessica Ennis or something.

Nobody actually says those things to me - except me, all the time, every day forever. But nobody has to say them for me to want to minimise people's opportunity to think them. The culture I live in reinforces these things, and even if it didn't I learned it at school and it's stuck with me just like quadratic equations haven't. I wish I could say that in the decade since leaving school nobody has said mean things to me at all, but unfortunately that's not true - I still get mocked in the street, not regularly, but not never. And let's not forget this is the internet: for every body positive blog there are fifty Youtube comments and a hundred adverts for 'simple tricks' to turn your disgusting flabby body into something more socially acceptable.

I swear, if I could reach through the screen and punch the person who invented those adverts in the mouth, I absolutely would.

And I'd try to keep my wrist straight, push from my back foot so the power comes from my torso, and keep my elbow up. Because I've joined a local martial arts school. Because... I thought I would. They had to specially order me a uniform big enough, but I've got a belt. It's white. I love it. I've been to two classes and I really enjoyed them, so there.

Thing 5: We've gone to Trenzalore by mistake!

Perfect observation is perfect (C) ThetaSigma8

The Doctor Who finale was brilliant. I was so relieved.

Things and Stuff #1

Helloooooooo interwebs.

Well. This is certainly a blog.

I have to admit to a little bit of stage fright about actually writing more honest-to-god blog posts. But there's very little point in having a blog if I don't put things on it, and I do love lists! So every Friday I'm going to do a little post about the things and stuff that have been on my mind this week.

Sometimes it'll be writing, editing or publishing based. Sometimes it'll be about music, or nerd stuff. Sometimes I might have a really boring week and just list fruits or something. More often it'll be a mixture of all of the above.

For instance...

Thing 1: A painless edit is the greatest thing ever
This week I handed in ('handed in' sounds a bit primary school, doesn't it? Let's go with) delivered the second draft of a book I'm freelance ghosting for Working Partners.

Not what a WP edit looks like, but funny (C) Eve Corbel

Sometimes, even with the detailed and specific edits you get on a WP project, editing can be a pain, in terms of time and in terms of emotional input. I have found that I need to do one sweep of the comments all the way through and just allow my ego to go wild. 'Nope', I say, sometimes out loud. 'No', 'not doing that', 'yes well if you'd read it properly you'd know what I meant'. You have to get those out of your system, because I've very rarely met an edit that wasn't bang on 100% correct once I'd done the 'nope' pass and moved on to the 'how do I fix it?' pass.

On this one, the 'nope' pass was more of a 'yep' pass, and it was so wonderful. 'Yep', 'I see what I did wrong there', 'ooh that's a great idea', 'yes we can cut that', and also - because WP editors are the best - a bit of 'aww, thank you!'. I love it when an edit comes together, and I loved doing my editing this week.

Thing 2: Iron Man 3
OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN THIS BECAUSE YOU SHOULD.

I have to say I was slightly dreading this film because I loved Iron Man very much and found Iron Man 2 to be fluffily entertaining, but... 'The Mandarin', seriously? Of all Iron Man and Marvel villains you could've picked, you decided that The Mandarin was the one you wanted to give screen time to? And he's being played by Ben Kingsley of all people? I was braced for so much horrible Hollywood racism.

But something amazing happened. The racism did not appear! The film turned around and lampshaded and contextualised the racism and it was the best day ever. After that, it was basically all fun and games and snappy dialogue and explosions and Rhodey and Pepper and passing the Bechdel Test (barely, but brilliantly) and really well depicted anxiety attacks and the dodgy disability stuff is in some ways not as dodgy as it could be. And if you saw Avengers, stay for the post-credits sequence. I made this face:

Seriously, it was this exact face (C)  Disney/The Internet

Also there is a joke about Croydon, which got the biggest laugh of the entire film.

Thing 3: This blog
I started a blog. It was sort of an accident. So that has been on my mind somewhat this week.

Thing 4: Ally Pally's lottery money
Incredibly exciting, but possibly irrelevant to people who've never lived in North London: Alexandra Palace has been promised £16m from the National Lottery! This is huge. I grew up just around the corner from Ally Pally and it's incredibly important. It's a beautiful building, it's historically and culturally significant, it's the original home of the BBC, it has several massive halls and a lovely park with views across all of London and a theatre and an ice rink, and the Doctor climbed it in order to use the BBC to save Muswell Hill from Maureen Lipman which may be the most North London sentence ever written.

The BBC, (C) The BBC

Unfortunately, it's also been destroyed by fire, not once but twice, so it's this huge building with huge potential that's been sitting half-empty for thirty years. The idea that it might finally get the funding it needs to be properly regenerated makes me very, very happy.

Thing 5: Blogger's post-editor spellcheck does not recognise the following words - 
Blog
Blogger
Blogspot
Spellcheck