Jul 14 2008
Writing Tip of the Day: Avoid Looking Backwards
I'm a former assistant editor with advice about how to write novels, comic books and graphic novels. Most of my content applies to fiction-writing in general, but I also provide articles specifically about superhero stories.
Don’t have your characters spend too much time musing about events that have already happened in the story.
When characters are preoccupied with something that’s already happened, the author has probably lost track of where the story is going. You can give your story forward momentum by drawing our attention to what’s just around the corner. If someone tried to kill the protagonist yesterday, we will care more about what the assassins are planning for tomorrow than what the character thinks about the attack today.
If you are interested in building on what has already happened in the story, it will probably be more effective to try to have your characters investigate the mystery. But an investigation is very different than just musing with your friends and confidantes. An investigation will add evidence, either by looking for clues or trying to get witnesses to talk. Investigations are superior to musing because the search for information adds more to the story than just talking about what has already happened. (There’s also more potential for conflict, particularly if someone’s trying to sabotage the search).
Here are a few common scenarios that frequently lead to characters musing about the past.
- Musing about the death of a loved one, particularly one that sacrificed himself to save the protagonist.
- Romantic failures.
- “Why me!?!”
Can musing ever work? For example, I intended to have Alex at one point go into a depressive phase when he spends a great amount of time thinking about his failure with Amorelia. At the same time however, he’s constantly dealing with new threats. I’m not going to overdo it (I think Alex will never muse for more than a page at once, and never ever a full chapter), but I think his brooding says something about his psyche.
I hate to say never. Musing is sometimes dramatically or comedically effective. For example, one of Soon I Will Be Invincible’s best lines was a musing. The villain has pulled his first heist and he has a dilemma. He can either turn himself in and get out of prison after a year or two, or he can move forward as a supervillain and throw everything away that he’s ever known. He explains why he demurs with a few lines of musing. “If you’re different, you always know it, and you can’t fix it even if you want to.”
Effective musing tends to be very short. Readers won’t mind that the story isn’t progressing very quickly if the pause is brief. Unfortunately, musing tends to create pauses that are so long that readers get disconnected from the plot. So, how long is too long? I suspect that the reader’s attention span will be affected by several factors: readers will probably grant you more leeway if the scene is funny, if the story is marketed as deep or introspective rather than action-packed or exhilarating, if the characters are interesting, and/or if your observations are insightful. It’s hard to give a rule of thumb for an issue with so many variables, but I’d be very careful about going beyond 2-3 pages (500-750 words). At that point, the reader will probably notice if the scene is dragging. In contrast, readers will probably slip past a momentary pause without feeling that the story is moving too slowly.