Mush in the Middle

Why do the middles of books, like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, tend to get so mushy, squished and icky?

I am trying to brush up my book and I think the beginning and ending are adequate, but Chapters 12 and 13 are simply undigestible. I honestly don’t know what to do with them.

Some of the problems are:

* too many truncated scenes giving a staccato feel to the chapters
* low tension sub-plots
* time bridges
* scenes which serve to set up later tension but are otherwise boring
* merely cutting or combining scenes results in illogical sequencing

Guest Post for LIterary Lab

Fiction is brain food.

Different parts of our brain crave different flavors of fiction. We label these flavors genre. It’s common to say that genres are the invention of Marketing, and perhaps this is true, but then the same could be said of the deli and the bakery sections of the supermarket. Different aisles are set aside for meats and breads because the differences between these kinds of foods are real; the same is true of brain food.

Some writers can’t stand genre restrictions. Fine — this is what goulash is for.

I like genres. I’m curious to know why there are certain flavors. I, for instance, write epic fantasy. But why is fantasy pleasing to some palettes (and not to others)? Why is it often dismissed as adolescent wish-fulfillment (and is there any truth to the allegation)? I think the key to finding out involves asking what part of the brain craves the nourishment of epic fantasy.

The roots of fantasy are in the fairytales, legends and epic sagas which are found in all cultures all over the world. On the surface, fairytales look much like religious stories, in that both involve strange, miraculous events, unusual people, sometimes even gods. But there is a difference. Religious beliefs are held to be true by the communities which propagate them (even if outsiders may call those same stories “myths” or “superstitions.”) Fairytales are not believed even by the people who tell them, no matter how “primitive” the people may be. In a sense, fantasy is THE oldest form of fiction.

Clearly, the appeal to the brain of ordinary objects doing impossible things (flying rugs, pumpkin coaches), people who shift shape (swan maidens, wolf men) and heroes who battle monsters is quite strong. Modern fantasy shares all of these tropes with ancient fairytales.

Perhaps the closest to modern fairytales is Paranormal/Urban Fantasy, which presents the “real” world, with the slight addition of a surreal element. The appeal of Twilight may be that it is a modern fairytale, pure and simple. (Sorry, no layers! But does Cinderella need them either?)

I would like to suggest, however, that epic fantasy goes beyond modern fairytales. There is another layer.

Epic fantasy draws on sagas and histories and even anthropologies of other cultures. Masters of the field, such as Tolkien and Lewis, were actually medievalists who had read many of these works (even in their original tongues). Tolkien, for instance, studied Beowulf, the Norse sagas Volsunga, Hervarar and Edda, the Finnish Kalevala, and of course, the German cycle of the Nibelungenlied (of Vognerian magic ring fame).

However, in creating an entire world with its own mythology (which, in this imagined world is not a fairytale but a history), the epic fantasy writer is actually demanding more of the reader than to imagine a single fantastic element in the otherwise ordinary world. The epic fantasy actually demands that the reader consent to becoming an anthropologist or historian of an imagined world. The reason so many epic fantasies portray quests is because the travel structure enables the reader to explore the world, just as a visitor to a new country would; likewise, the reason so many fantasies involve kings and knights fighting great wars is because this is precisely what tends to go down in the annals of real histories. Why do fantasies insist on polysyllabic names, which begin with “Xh-” and include apostrophes and umlauts? Because foreign and ancient tongues are strange and difficult to pronounce, yet exotic, beautiful and ultimately logical in their own way.

In a comment on a previous post, Lady Glamis wrote, “As much as I hate to admit it, I don’t like much fantasy writing at all. Something about imagining myself in another world that’s not MY world here just turns me off. I have no idea why.”

I think this discomfort is deliberate. For fantasy readers, it is — ironically — indispensable to the pleasure of the genre. One of the primary rewards of fantasy is the same reward we get when we travel to a new and totally strange culture. In other words, it’s a whole genre devoted to recreating Culture Shock.

There’s an old saying attributed to some Great One in The Field that “the Golden Age of Science Fiction is ten to twelve.”

Many more people read fantasy and science when they are young than latter in life. This has always puzzled (and annoyed) writers in the genre, who obviously represent the few social nimwits who didn’t outgrow the phase. My theory is that children and adolescents are naturally more adept at exploring new cultures. Adolescence is a time when new cultures, including new names, new vocabularies, are tried on and discarded again in quick succession. Most people will tire of this fairly quickly, and move on to other genres. The remainder will be cursed to read, and maybe write, fantasy.

This may also be the reason much fantasy is (considered) puerile. If the last time one read a fantasy, one was twelve, one will have only have taken from the story what a twelve year old would. (Those whose only experience of literary fiction is what they were forced to read in school have a similar problem). And, of course, much of the genre is written for twelve-year olds. There’s nothing wrong with this. I love to visit Narnia and Hogwarts. There is also such a thing as fantasy written for adults however, although even this is often mistakenly foisted on children. For instance, I read The Last Unicorn in Middle School, and didn’t much care for it, except I liked the cartoon version of the unicorn girl, because she was pretty and angsty. Not until many years later did I re-read the classic and realize it wasn’t a children’s story at all, nor a coming-of-age story as so many epic fantasies are, but a coming-of-middle-age story. I enjoyed it much more on the second reading.

When I write fantasy, my goal is to keep all the mind candy: the shape shifters, the absurd battles against outrageous monsters, the unbelievable coincidence that the hero is really the heir to the lost throne and the only one who can save the world. I also try to build a world with bizarre names, strange foods, customs, clothing and attitudes, to induce culture shock in my reader, followed… if I am ever successful… by the odd sense, known to any sojourner in a strange land, that the new culture has over time become the more familiar, and it is our world, mundania, which gives us culture shock when we close the book.

Torn

I have a major character who is going to make a decision which will turn him from a hero to a villian. (Or as my son would say, “a bad guy!”)

I’m torn.

I want him to bear responsibility for his own fall. He makes the choice unaware of the ultimate consequences — he doesn’t become a villain all at once. But he does make the choice.

At the same time, I also want the reader to retain sympathy for him as he descends into darkness, and even when he is called upon to do terrible things, understand why he is doing them (at least, how he justifies them).

Should I have him make his initial choice — which sends him down the “wrong” path — already be for selfish reaons, or for altruistic reasons?

Torn

Still revising.

Part of the problem/Heart of the problem: I keep bouncing between two reasons for my hero’s actions at the end of the book. Both he and the heroine make choices which will set up the conflict for the rest of the series, so I can’t move on until I square this away. The heroine’s position has never been an issue. I know what she chooses and why and what consequence it will have for her before the series is done. The hero, I’m not as sure about. I can’t really say more without spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

The music I’m listening to as a revise the ending is Happy Ending by Mika.

CashewElliot Quote: “As the professor said, gently, that first day, “The reason some people don’t allow genre fiction is because it tends to be more plot focused, neglecting heavy character development.”

This reminded me of why, as a writer, I refused to enter an MFA program, and am seeking a degree in History instead.

To equate all writing with Writing Deep Characters is flawed and unnecessarily narrows the purpose of prose. Certain genres do not ask what does it mean to be Mr. Joe Specific Brown, but rather, what does it mean to be human? This is no less deep a question, but it is tackled in a completely different form, disguised, perhaps as, wolf-men scaling cliffs, or hobbits destroying a magic ring.

Both methods of inquiry are beneficial, I think. I admit, it took me a long time to appreciate the value of literary fiction, perhaps because, as a lover of epic fantasies and sf, I was so defensive against attitudes like those in MFA programs, I adopted preemptive contempt.

This was my loss. There are, I now believe, certain themes, certain perspectives, which do require a literary approach. Deep character development may be one (although I believe not even all literary is focused only on Character stories).

Btw, I’m always curious to know if those who hate Tolkien also hate Beowulf or the Illiad or the Mahabharata, which, to me, would be the pre-modern equivalents — or perhaps those avoid reading Tolkien also don’t read such things. Personally, I love reading old legends and sagas and myths, and when I read a fantasy, the way I determine if it is successful is whether it gives me the same chill I get when I read old epic — an encounter with utter strangeness coupled eerily with recognition.

Lady Glamis: “Something about imagining myself in another world that’s not MY world here just turns me off. I have no idea why.”

I find this fascinating, actually, because it feeds a theory I’ve been nursing about that one of the primary rewards of fantasy is the same reward we get when we travel to a new and totally strange culture. In other words, it’s a whole genre devoted to Culture Shock.

There’s an old saying attributed to some Great One in The Field that “the Golden Age of Science Fiction is ten to twelve.”

Many more people read fantasy and science when they are young than latter in life. This has always puzzled (and annoyed) writers in the genre, who obviously represent the few social nimwits who didn’t outgrow the phase.

Bad Guys

My son recently discovered Bad Guys.

Previously, all the stories we read to him and the tv shows he watched had no villains: Goodnight Moon, Barnyard Dance, Go Dog Go, Maisy Mouse, My Friend Rabbit, Theodore Tugboat.

Now he’s suddenly the biggest fan of Superman, Batman and Spiderman; and his favorite book is The Lorax. All stories with Bad Guys. (And he interprets the themes quite literally. Hence, he suggested sending Spiderman to stop the neighbors’ tree trimmers.)

By coincidence or not, he now also has the concept of friends, both “for real” and “for pretend.” Superheroes help each other; bad guys “boom” each other. (“Boom” is always accompanied by an agitated finger gun motion.)

With the introduction of antagonists–and allies–into his story lines, his imaginative play is much more sophisticated.

It’s funny, because I’ve always considered a story with no real bad guys to be the more sophisticated kind of story, albeit very hard to achieve. But I think it’s fascinating to see how a child’s understanding of conflict matures, and I wonder if this is a necessary stage. Once I would have said no, it was simply a symptom of our binary, dualistic, Cartesian culture, or maybe the military industrial patriarchy or something like that. (The fault of the Bad Guys, in other words). Now I’m not so sure.

One could blame my son’s new obsession with Bad Guys on the content of the stories, but I think has as much to do with perception as content. Before, when he watched Cars, the main thing he took away from it was cars driving, and that was enough to thrill him. Now he notices the rivalry between Lightning McQueen and his friends and the Mean Green Car (and Frank, the Monster Harvester).

Meanwhile, my husband and I amuse ourselves during the 164th viewing of Cars by commenting on the deep philosophical meaning of the soul which has lost it’s being being like a car which must rebuild it’s own road. (Fun Fact: There’s a car with the Apple symbol on the hood in the first race.)

Yeah. We’ve seen that movie WAY too much.