Examining Styles – Plots and Characters

When we think of style, we think of prose, don’t we? We think about how we use certain words, or phrases to form a certain style. It’s in the state of mind, it’s in the description, it’s in the dialogue. Right?

What if… what if style was more than that? What if style encompassed every part of a book, from the words in it to the story it tells?

Today, I’m back to examine more styles. This time, however, I’d like to focus on two areas where style is usually never talked about: Plot and characters.

The Style of Plots

Who knew? Who knew that there could be style in plots? Aren’t plots just… things that happen because of a conflict? Where is the style in that? Sure, maybe the villain is classy and the protagonist has no style, but that isn’t exactly… stylistic choice. That’s just happenstance and the fact that words have various meanings.

The style of a plot is found in its archetype. As I’ll talk about in a minute, the same thing is found in characters. You see, there is always another plot similar to the one you want to write. Always. They’re probably not identical (unless plagiarism is involved, in which case someone needs a talking to about intellectual theft), but they are similar. They fit the same archetype.

Some archetypes include “the heroic quest”, “man who learned better”, and some other phrases I’m sure you’re familiar with. These archetypes are not clichés. They’re styles. The most interesting thing about the style of plots is this: your plot style is constantly changing. While all style choices you make are fluid, plot style is far more versatile and prone to erratic change than any other type of stylistic choice.

You see, plot style is dependent on the story. It’s an amorphous creature that is constantly changing. And that’s okay. In fact, it’s good that your plot style changes. If it didn’t, people would get tired of reading your books. Not because they’re boring, but because they’re all similar. Using various plot styles keeps away the doldrums of identical plots and stories.

So. How do you become aware of your plot style? And how do you use it to make your personal style stronger?

First, boil your plot(s) down to the simplest it (they) can be. One or two sentences. It doesn’t have to encompass all of the story, just the main plot. Ignore the subplots, or do them separately. The main plot. Then, go online somewhere, and find a list of plot archetypes. Match it up. Find yours.

Second, exploit the strengths of your archetype and shore up the weak spots. No plot archetype is perfect, but all of them have strengths. Use the strengths, and borrow from other archetypes to get rid of the weaknesses. Flip some cliché plot elements, stir in some good characters and ta-da!

Your plot style.

Stylish Characters

No, I’m not talking about a villain with class or a protagonist who wears only designer clothing.

Ew?

I’m talking about the archetypes you use in your writing. I’m sure you’ve noticed that you use similar characters in different stories over time. Sure, each individual is (or should) be different, but their overall type is similar to others you use.

It’s a trend I’ve noticed. Across all of their books, authors like to pull from the same pools of character types over and over.

That’s fine.

That’s… good, actually. It’s writing what you know. It’s using what you can write well to make a good story. Good. Go you. Well done, keep it up.

However, varying what type of character archetypes you use can vary the style you write. Try writing a character type you’ve never written before. I won’t list all the types here, because there are great lists out on the internet, but I encourage you to find a list you like. Use it as you create characters. Don’t make the straight out archetypes (they’re a little cliché done that way), but borrow parts from all of them. Make new archetypes, if you want.

The characters you use influence your style. After all, they’re the ones doing the things your words say, and sometimes they’re even the ones saying the words you write.

That’s power.

Examining Styles – Dialogue and Narration

If we had to divide prose into two categories, the two that make the most sense are these: dialogue or narration. If it’s not being spoken by a character, it’s narration.

These two parts are very, very important to the feel of your style. In particular, the way you write them and the ratio between the two. Let’s discuss them shall we?

The Importance of Dialogue

Without dialogue, your characters have no voices. They’re mute. Dialogue allows the readers to hear the story world play out. It provides a way for characters to pass information and gives the reader a break from reading the information of narration.

Without dialogue, prose can feel heavy handed, wordy, and cumbersome. Now, it is possible to write with very little dialogue. It’s done all the time, and quite well. However, dialogue is interesting. Readers like dialogue. They like the chance for imagination. Dialogue breaks from description to give us sounds and voices.

We have to maintain a mental image with our imagination while we also balance the voices of two or three or four or seventy people. It stretches the mind and creates a satisfied feeling in the reader’s exercised imagination.

In addition, dialogue provides white space. If your book is completely narration, the pages are filled with long paragraphs and chunks of text that go on and on without any space for the reader to fill. Dialogue, on the other hand, shortens paragraphs.

It breaks them up.

Sometimes, there are one-word

Lines.

These are followed by longer sentences with stronger vocabulary and feeling that soar with the reader to new heights of description before returning to

Shorter, choppier

Paragraphs

Which provide rest.

Do you see what I did there? I left some white space (well… black space, here). The spaces between the three longer paragraphs gives you space. It gives the reader space. That white space gives their eyes a break and allows them to breathe. More importantly, that is space the reader gets to fill. They become co-creators with you in creating the world.

The Narrative Experience

Narration, on the other hand, gives the reader a baseline for their imagination. It gives them action, motivation, thoughts, and emotions to build off of. If you wrote only dialogue, the reader has nothing to build off of. All they see is voices floating in a formless void. That’s a daunting place for a reader to have to fill.

Instead, you help direct their imagination to the right details. That’s why unexpected details are always superior to cliché ones. Unexpected details fill in the parts of the scene that the reader couldn’t have thought of themselves. Your job isn’t to describe everything, but to create a structure around which your reader can add their own input.

Narration is co-creation.

How does your narrative do this?

First, narrative provides emotion. Emotion is the fuel of story. It fuels conflict when there is conflict, and it carries interest when there is no conflict. Narration conveys the emotions of characters through thoughts, emotional tags, word choice, and character actions.

Secondly, narration provides action. Without action, your story is static. Nothing happens. No one moves, the scene never changes. Action creates a moving picture in your reader’s mind and creates tension, conflict, and consequences. Without action, your story is stuck in a rut of motionlessness.

Finally, narration provides description. Like I mentioned above, unexpected details are the best way to help your reader to build a scene. Another way to help in co-creation is sensory details. Giving your readers tangible senses beyond sight goes a long way in their construction of your story.

Finding the Balance

Now. If both narration and dialogue are important to the reader, how much of each do you put in your book? What ratio?

Is it fifty percent?

Something else?

Is there a magic number?

Here’s the deal: there is a magic number.

That number, however… changes.

In fact, it changes by writer and by book. It can even change by character in a book with multiple characters.

Let me explain:

The ratio of dialogue to narration is dependent on three factors: the last chapter, the current chapter, and the next chapter. If the last chapter was narration heavy, this chapter may need some dialogue to give the reader some white space. Or perhaps this chapter needs more narration to describe the scene so that the next scene can be primarily action and dialogue. Chapters with lots of character interaction require more dialogue than chapters with only one character.

The ratio can also depend on your personal style just as much as it shapes your style. Your use of descriptions to paint emotion in your reader may result in your using more narration than dialogue. Or perhaps you’re better at writing conversations and making voices sound real, such that your ratio is dialogue over narration.

It is important not that you have some arbitrary fraction, but that you find a balance which fits the style your current book is written in. Create the baseline for your reader’s imagination, fill it with vivid, emotional characters, and provide them with noise and action and white space. 

ANNOUNCEMENT: There will be no post on 7/21/17, because my older sister is getting married on the 22nd and I won't have time next week to write up a post for y'all. Any complaints can be taken up with her. ;)

Examining Styles - Symbols and Allegories

A few weeks ago, I talked about purple prose as a style. I also said I’d have a few more posts examining style. Well, here’s one of those so that’s fun. Today, I’m going to look at two very similar writing choices which can affect the style of your writing.

One of them, I write very often, one I’ve never written and never intend to (as a personal choice more than anything else).

Symbolism and allegory.

The Power of a Symbol

I’ve written a post before about symbols, but I wanted to take the time to address them here, since they’re a valuable stylistic choice. They can strongly affect the choices you make in your writing, and can produce very strong emotion in the readers who understand their meaning.

One of the most important parts of writing symbolism is this: not every reader will understand, and that’s okay. Symbolism is a background style. It’s almost subliminal. Not everyone will understand because not everyone pays attention to symbolism. Some symbols will pass over the heads of some people.

And that’s okay.

As a writer, you have to accept that not everyone is paying enough attention to catch all the nuances you write. Even you. I’ve had beta readers point out symbolism I didn’t intend to write, but they still found it. Once I knew it was there, I made sure that I was writing it well and that it came out in a way that fit the themes of my writing.

While symbolism can be powerful, presentation is everything. A forced symbol isn’t a symbol at all. If you write something purely as a symbol pointing to something else, then it has no meaning. It’s a cardboard cutout. That cardboard cutout of Ron Swanson isn’t actually Ron Swanson. It symbolizes him, but it’s not very good at being the real Ron Swanson.

In writing, it is always best to use symbols that come naturally to the story. For instance, in Lord of the Rings the ring itself symbolizes many things to many people. These things come from individual people and no two people have the exact feelings on the meaning of the ring.

It’s a natural consequence of how Tolkien wrote the story.

Personally, I don’t think he wrote the ring to intentionally inspire one or two specific themes. He wrote it as a ring of terrible power, and let every reader decide for themselves what that power meant to them.

That is a strong symbol.

All of the strongest symbols in literature are vague. They’re present just enough to make the reader think and draw their own conclusions. The weakest symbols are specific, overdramatized, and pointed out time and time again in the narrative until they lose all meaning and relatability.

Allegory: A Strong Weakness

Personally, I never write allegory. I don’t want to. It’s not that I hate allegory, I just find no draw to writing it myself. Writing an allegory well takes a lot of work, work I’m not particularly drawn to. If you are, great.

Go you.

Just… do it right, yeah?

Since I don’t personally write allegory, I don’t have a lot of tips for writing it well. As an avid reader, however, I do know many ways in which allegory does not work well from the eyes of the reader (and I’ve read many of them).

Most allegories are religious in nature (for instance, Chuck Black is a highly lauded Christian Allegory writer). They’re written to point toward a religious narrative, or some other narrative outside their own.

One of the strengths of allegory is this: theme plays a huge role. Readers of allegory are supposed to come away having learned about something outside of your own work. They’re anticipating it, if they know ahead of time that your work is allegory.

Allegory primes the reader to learn.

This is attractive to those who mainly want their story to teach. Allegory attempts to use entertainment as a medium for message-spreading. This can be both good and bad, depending on how it is done.

The weakness of allegory is this: agenda can quickly overcome story in the order of importance. Now, I realize “agenda” is a hyper-charged word in today’s world, but it’s the honest word for this situation. Allegory wants learning to occur, and a very specific sort of learning.

Any other message is unimportant to allegory.

One side has to be correct and the others wrong.

The reader must agree with the writer.

And there is the weakness. When allegory focuses too much on the message, the story is set aside. It’s secondary, which is never a good idea in books. The moment the reader disagrees with the message behind the allegory, the story no longer matters.

That’s the danger of allegory.

Using Symbols and Allegories

Am I saying you should never write allegory and just write symbolism?

No.

There is a time and place for allegory. It may be a limited time and place, but it does exist and allegory can be there to fill that time and place.

Much the same, there are times when symbolism can be distracting from the story, especially when it’s supposed to be the focal point of the story.

These stylistic choices can provide strength to your story, or weakness. The point is not to avoid them for fear of the weaknesses, but to write them in the hope that the strength comes through, and to work at them until that hope becomes a reality.