Grounding to Fly

Characters with moving parts and settings your reader can know

Photo by this life's illusions on Unsplash

NOTE: With a huge apology to those who are receiving this twice! Somehow I marked it as “workshop only” so it only went to 60 or so of you! And I’m having to re-send to all now…

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I’ve been reading more in the past year. The television’s off, and I’m reading for pleasure in ways I haven’t for decades. Almost every day ends in settling in “for a good read.”

Lately though, in the mix I’m picking up, I’m stumbling over a certain lack of grounding in some stories. Small bits and pieces altogether, yes, but worthy of discussion. Where I’m finding this is in the newest works—which leaves me wondering.

One thought that comes to mind is that publishers want to keep the word count and page number as low as possible. In works for younger readers—some of what I’m reading—this might be seen as encouraging for so-called “reluctant” readers. (As well as cost; there’s always that.)

But I’m observing certain types of cuts: descriptions, and something I’ll call “stage direction” or movement—bits that often serve to situate the reader, or ground them, contextual pieces, not necessarily directed to the progression of the plot or to “building character.”

Another thought on my part: shorter books for adult readers are a “thing” at the moment, said to be about diminishing attention spans, and time contraints.

But for a story to be fully and successfully shorter, it can’t be about cutting details, descriptions, settings. “Shorter” needs to be about scale, with simpler, clearer storylines, a more singular approach to idea, a clear and close focus on the character. Fewer characters and sub-plots.

Here, an archived post about novels and novellas, with further thoughts on this —

In this post, let’s examine this cutting of the stuff that grounds in a work of any length, starting with the physicality—the physicality of the setting, and the same of the character/s, as these seem to be the cuts-of-choice in the works I’m reading.

Physicality—or Mary Karr’s “Carnality”

I always think about Karr’s word for this—it’s a bit jarring for our puritan-past souls. But a bit of a wake up. Our written words, our black markings on paper or screen, have to work hard; we have no film, no colour, no stage in this art form. And we have to nurture and grow the reader/viewer/spectator-looking-for-spectacle into a believer. We do this with a rich box-set filled with props we can feel in our hands; dancers whose limbs we can see tell a story that may or may not be on the page; building the sense of inhabiting a body not our own… These are some of the things those black scratchings must do.

In one particular collection I was reading, I struggled to follow what the characters’ joints and bones are actually doing. The characters’ physicality. I couldn’t see it, and I wasn’t internalized enough by the work to know.

It was as if the writer was assuming understanding on my part, that I was following what they were trying to show me. But I was bogged down by words like this: “She rolled to her knees.” This, with a character who is in no position to “roll to her knees.” To do so, I might expect her to be lying down, and getting up slowly—perhaps. Or somehow sitting on the side of a hip on the floor… which would require some explaining and context. I know I’ve heard such words in a yoga class, but I wasn’t seeing the character as rag-dolling. I did feel as if I was in a first-time yoga class, with unfamiliar instruction, peering around under my arm at a neighbour to try to get it—the what next?

When the physicality of a character needs to be explained, when it’s feeling awkward or unnecessarily complicated, step outside of the writing process: read aloud and visualize (reenact?) or ask someone else to read. And ask yourself what is significant about this particular bit of movement on the character’s part? Why does it have to be?

It may be that this post is in the weeds of detail. And it may well be that we’re not aware when this is happening in our work… until we read it in someone else’s.

If it’s key to the plotting, then be simple and clear in directions and descriptions. Test the read with someone who will be honest in their yay or nay. Ideally, the reader should pick up on the positioning and movement of a character’s body, without second thought, no pause whatsoever. It’s the equivalent of the information you pick up while watching a film.

In fiction, the movements of character are often a matter of pacing more than anything, preparing your reader in a natural way for what is to come, with those beats of movement that we know by instinct: the hands preparing a cup of coffee stirring in two and a half teaspoons of sugar, before delivering some unwelcome news, for instance. Or the way one might hitch a chair closer to another’s, which can serve as a moment of absorption or connection… or whatever you feel the reader and the story needs.

What does that detail of the “half” a spoon of sugar add to the whole? Much can be slipped-in along with the physical.

What if you add the odd detail about how a particular character wraps their left ankle around one of the legs of the chair? What does that add? It might serve to develop a theme of vulnerability, and show how this person subconsciously roots herself into a place… even as it trips her up when she gets up quickly to leave… As always, each element in our work can work harder, or have a role.

Look through what you are reading and note all carnal details: how is each working? For what purpose? Look through your own work, and ask the same.

But if it’s not “working harder”—ah, the puritan thing again!—it doesn’t mean it needs to be tossed. It may be just enough.

And that’s enough about that —

Setting

This continues the idea of “physicality” with where the story is taking place, and the “props” of that place.

Again, in these works I’ve been reading, it feels as if assumptions are made. Perhaps the biggest is that the reader has somehow, by osmosis perhaps, picked up on the setting and what is included… In other times, readers were given descriptions pages long. We rarely do that now.

Ask those in your writing group: what they are experiencing in the read—how are they imagining the place, the room, the particulars of your story. No one will see it exactly as you do. But you want to know if you are creating adequate context for your story.

One book—no, I will not name—I’ve had to put aside. The characters are talking, with cleverness and wit, but I have no idea where they are, or what they are doing beyond their mouths moving. It’s a disembodied feeling. I found it difficult to settle in to the story for this reason.

At one point, I took time to review what I’d read, and found some bit of context much earlier. One quick, slip-by-me mention.

Do we go in fear of description? Of taking the reader’s time? Possibly boring them? Maybe I read too quickly, maybe I miss bits. There could be that.

It might be useful to think of this in layers: layers of sharing the nature of the setting or context, beginning with “big picture”—the street the house is on, or the colours of the evening sky—then moving on to details: word written into a dusty surface; a chipped mug. Or moving from details to big pixture. Which serves your story best?

Then too, there are also “layers” of placement for this information. Back in those days of long description, it was generally at the outset. This sets a certain tone. Old-school story-telling. If you don’t want that tone, consider instead context-information at the outset of a paragraph… even as the paragraph hones in on one character or thread.

What happens when you shift your inclusion of setting details to the end of a passage? Or does it get lost if it’s in the middle of a passage? An exchange of dialogue, for instance, which the reader might be caught up in, and a revealing detail about context is slipped in… and goes unnoticed. Check on the placement of your context bits. What will change if you begin a new sentence for the absorption of the information? Or a new paragraph?

How do you read? What are you more inclined to miss or see? And when and where? note.

What are your experiences of creating physicality in your black markings on paper? And your experience of reading?