Hugo and Campbell award nominations are in. Check out the categories and the nominees here.
Brandon Sanderson (Elantris, Mistborn) is putting up a series on his blog addressing bad storytelling techniques that almost every author uses. But are they so bad, and what other options are available to us?
Check out the introduction to the instructional series and his first two points:
Overuse of Emotion
Coincidental Meetings and Discoveries
It seems a common point to these first two is that sometimes using these techniques is unavoidable for the sake of the story and plot pacing. However, balance is key, and overusing a technique sends it into the realm of cliche and melodrama. Also using them too much will give the reader more chances to be pulled out of the story.
Can you look at your writing and see techniques that you tend to use more often than you should? What are those glaring plot holes or weak spots that you uncover when revising a first draft? For me, sometimes I realize I’ve gifted a character with knowledge they shouldn’t have, or learned way too easily for its importance, such as a bad guy’s weakness, or a secret entrance to an impenetrable fortress. I gotta make these people work harder for their resolution. If I flick open a back entrance anytime the road gets rough, that’s going to devalue any of their sacrifices or effort along the way to the reader.
What about you?
Oh, and because I know you’ve been dying to find out…here’s what Twinkies are made of. What can I say? I do my part to spread vital knowledge around, kinda like rancid butter.
I see that smile.
I’m talking about one of my stories at Speculative Faith, and I use “coincidence”, but, given the religious context, I’d call it “providence.” 🙂
Mir
I think another tactic people use to avoid the “coincidence” cliché is to make the character interactions of plot developments an aspect of fate or prophecy. How many times have you read a chapter where something unlikely happens, or someone shows up just in time…then one person says, “Wow, what a coincidence,” and another (perhaps a cynic or sage, or mysterious shadowy person) says some derivative of, “There’s no such thing as coincidence/I don’t believe in coincidence.” Well, there goes the reader’s chance to question the probability of it. However, the author might then be pressed to reveal just why this event wasn’t such a coincidence as it was first believed to be. Done right, maybe this approach could actually give the story some more depth, so long as it doesn’t start using destiny and fate as coin-flip solutions to every problem.