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Drama Karma with Anna CampbellNovember 26, 2007 at 7:24 am | Category: blog
Actually in a lot of ways, I’m hoping this turns into a discussion rather than a formal workshop. I’d like you all to share your thoughts on the subject and perhaps our discussion might lead to some conclusions about the problem I want to talk about. Anyway, on with the workshop! Let the drama begin! I regularly judge writing contests and I also do some mentoring which means I read a lot of AYU work. Do you know that term? It’s a fantastic one my friend Ruth Kaufmann coined at the Atlanta RWA conference – it means ‘as yet unpublished’ which I love. It’s so hopeful and for a lot of people, it’s not soft soaping, it’s true! When you start out, you’re in the chrysalis stage. Transformation into a butterfly is on the way!!! A problem I consistently find with a lot of this AYU work isn’t the basic premise for the story. Often, the premise is fantastic, original, emotional, full of potential for conflict. AYU writers have wonderful imaginations and they come up with great characters and great situations. But having come up with this fantastic premise, many of these AYUs then spend the next 50 pages or so running as far and as fast away from the dramatic implications of that premise as they can. It’s like the great premise with all its dramatic possibilities scares them silly so they try as hard as they can to squash it down, make it bland, drain all the juice from it. So I’m saying BE DARING! When you come up with your premise, sit down and brainstorm. Doing this with another writer is a fun way to pass an afternoon. Start thinking about worst-case scenarios. Doesn’t matter if they’re silly. Anything you come up with will help you cross your ‘I’m scared of this’ barrier. Good books thrive on worst-case scenarios. Start thinking about how to make the stakes higher. Emotionally. Physically. Take everything to the limits! And don’t stop until you’ve got your heroine about to be eaten by a starving tiger as a train rushes down the tracks towards her. Well, whatever the equivalent of that is in your story.
There’s a few techniques you can use to lift the drama. 1. Keep the focus on your principal characters. If your heroine’s in danger, don’t have her sitting down and telling her best friend about it over a cup of coffee. In fact, any scenes in your book that involve the making or drinking of coffee need to GO! Have her running from the bad guys, preferably as the hero saves her skin! Or as she saves the hero’s skin. Think how you can you present your character’s dilemma as vividly as possible. Action and dialogue are always sure bets for this. Readers like to see your characters doing things. In a romance, they particularly like to see your hero and heroine doing things together (and not just THOSE sort of things either 2. Try to avoid scenes where the hero/heroine remembers something that happened in the recent past. To give you an example, if your characters have ridden all day to get away from the baddies, don’t have them sitting around the campfire reminiscing about escaping the stray arrow aimed in their direction around about lunchtime. Show me the scene of the arrow coming their way. Remember, characters in action = excitement. Characters remembering stuff = reader turning of the light and going to sleep and maybe not picking up your book again. The aim is for the reader not to be able to put your book down until she gets to that blissful ending on the last page! 3. Get your characters to make mistakes then face the consequences. This is really important. Don’t be afraid of hurting or upsetting your characters – although perhaps killing them outright might bring an early end to your story. If your hero tells a lie, make him suffer for it. If your heroine does something really stupid and puts the whole enterprise in danger, make her pay. Your reader has a very finely tuned ethical compass and if she feels you’re going easy on your characters when they don’t deserve it, she notices. I know you love your characters, that’s why you’re writing about them. But make them suffer! Happy people don’t make for a great story. Put your characters in jeopardy, emotional or physical or preferably both, and then take that scenario to its end. Don’t wimp out on the way because you hate to think of someone being nasty to your poor heroine. Wonderful Robyn Donald who writes for Harlequin Presents says the secret to a great romance is putting your heroine up a tree and throwing stones at her. Well, I’m saying make those stones great big boulders! Remember, fortune favors the brave! And may all your fortunes hold big fat publishing contracts! Happy writing. I’d love your thoughts on drama and how to build it in a romance novel. How do you build drama in your own work? Are there elements of the drama in your own work that you’d like help with? Can you think of writers who build drama so well that you’d sit in a burning house to find out what happens next? I can list a few examples! Let’s talk DRAMA!!! And don’t forget the copy of UNTOUCHED for some lucky commenter! |
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On November 26th, 2007 at 9:55 am, doglady said:
G’day, Anna!! Shame there is no Golden Rooster here! Fabulous ideas on drama. Gives me a lot to think about for my next WIP which will start with a murder and go mad from there. I think what I like best is the idea of making your hero/heroine suffer for their mistakes. In addition to adding to the drama, it makes them more relatable (is that a word?)We all make stupid decisions, lie because we think the truth will only make matters worse and we do suffer the consequences, why shouldn’t they. My question is “How much is too much?” Too much drama, too much mayhem? Now I have to go and read over Lost in Love to see if it is “quite” or “really” My hero and heroine do fall into an underground cave in the first chapter, while kissing. Is that “quite” or “really”? Off to work and I will be back for more!
On November 26th, 2007 at 2:00 pm, Anna Campbell said:
Ah, Pam! Always lovely to see you. And you get the Golden Rooster here (Romance Bandits joke!). Congratulations. So glad my random thoughts have helped you. Do you want to know something shocking? I suspect more books have been abandoned several chapters in because of not enough drama rather than too much. Of course you can go completely off the rails but honestly, I think that’s the sort of stuff you can fix up in an edit. When you’re doing that first draft, go for broke! Burn down that house! Wreck that train! Make the hero and heroine want to stab each other! Mind you, sounds like you’ve got plenty happening with a kiss and an underground sojourn in chapter one!
On November 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm, Jeanne (AKA The Duchesse) said:
Bwah-ha-ha! It’s a Bandit fest. Hi Sandra! Thanks for having our Anna over to play. Thought I’d come too. :>
I love your thoughts on Drama, Anna. I like action. Lots of it. I may write the “Sit around with coffee” scenes on the first draft, but it goes in edits right quick. :> I figure though, if it keeps me writing forward to get to the next bit of drama, I’ll do it, then edit it out.
That’s actually part of my process w/ editing. I always ask the question: Does this scene up the drama, increase the tension, or move the story forward in a meaningful way? If not, it goes.
Grins.
On November 26th, 2007 at 3:32 pm, Suzanne Brandyn said:
Hi Anna,
Love your talk on drama.
What I find is, if I ask the question what if, and keep doing this a number of times I come up with so many possiblities. (I guess it’s brainstorming) This puts the hero, heroine into a much tougher situation. It ups the stakes, increases conflict, and brings in drama which works fine for me.
I also try and give my characters a hard time, make them suffer making it harder for them to get to where they want to go.
Suz
On November 26th, 2007 at 3:40 pm, Anna Campbell said:
Jeanne, thanks for commenting! I imagine, seeing you’ve just picked up a two book deal for rip-roaring romantic suspense, that drama isn’t exactly a problem in your work! Do you have any specific hints that might help someone who’s trying to enlive work that is perhaps a little flat? We all love to learn from the masters
On November 26th, 2007 at 3:42 pm, Anna Campbell said:
Suzanne, brainstorming is such a great technique, isn’t it? Superficially so simple and yet so effective! And often the really silly stuff isn’t actually that silly either. Absolutely you have to make your characters suffer – if you’re reader’s not worried about your characters, they won’t read on. Sounds like you’ve got a great handle on this subject! Thanks for your comment.
On November 26th, 2007 at 4:48 pm, Christine Wells said:
Anna, you’re the Queen of Drama! Or should that be a Drama Queen;)
Congratulations on your new release, UNTOUCHED, hitting the shelves. I was lucky enough to read this in ms form and it is pure, dark brilliance. Wonderful stuff!
Donald Maass made a number of great suggestions in the workshop I attended a while back, but one he said that really stuck with me was: What would your character never do, not in a million years? Make her do it. That’s the kind of life-altering shift you need to produce great drama. Throw stones at her (or boulders) until she must do the unthinkable or perish.
On November 26th, 2007 at 5:06 pm, Authorness said:
Hi, Anna. (You must think I’m stalking you!)
Fantastic advice. Thank you!
I love playing the ‘what if?’ game. You’re so right about prodding characters into action. I think when you first start out as a writer, you want your characters to achieve their goals but you’re afraid of making the hero/heroine suffer in the process. That was my experience in the beginning, anyway. Now I still love my heroines but I’m not afraid to throw big obstacles in their way. Can’t make life too easy for them!
Great blog, Sandra!
Vanessa
On November 26th, 2007 at 5:37 pm, Sharon said:
Hi Anna
I’ve realised after reading your workshop that I’m *such* a wimp! And I’m very fond of making cups of coffee and tea and hot chocolate for my characters!
In fact, I do the flipside of *all* your techniques!
I love reading high stakes drama. And I can see that lots of drama means less likelihood of a sagging middle.
So I’m writing a memo to myself – BE FEARLESS – and I’m not going to take the edge off it by writing – “be ‘quite’ fearless”! LOL
Claiming the Courtesan epitomizes your pointers, especially the one about letting your characters face the consequences of their mistakes. I just love Kylemore and Verity’s story.
I’m so looking forward to Untouched hitting the shelves over here in Australia!
Great blog. Thanks for having Anna to visit, Sandra.
I’m off to throw rocks at my heroine!
Sharon
On November 26th, 2007 at 6:02 pm, Anna Campbell said:
Ooh, Christine, I love “pure dark brilliance” – can I have it?
Actually a lot of the stuff at that Donald Maass workshop was great, wasn’t it? I remember “make it worse.” Pick any scene from your book and then MAKE IT WORSE! I knew I was onto something with Claiming the Courtesan when actually, unless I killed my protagonists, I couldn’t make it worse!
Vanessa, thanks for popping over! You’re so right about beginner writers not wanting to make their characters suffer. I think it’s a stage we all go through – we fall in love with our creations and don’t want to give them too hard a time of it. It’s something we have to get over if we want to write a compelling story!
Sharon, so glad my ideas struck (and I mean that in the most violent sense – haha) a chord with you. And I’m delighted you loved Verity and Kylemore’s story. And banish words like ‘quite’ and ’seemed’ from your vocabulary, my friend! BE RUTHLESS!!! There shall be no Ruths in our stories! Ruth has been deported!
On November 26th, 2007 at 6:08 pm, Elisabeth Rose said:
Hello Anna. I’ve had an idea for a thriller in the brainial back rooms for ages now so this blog thingy is very timely. Maybe it was Donald Maas or someone else who talked about making characters face their worst fear–not just making them do something they’d never do but placing them in a situation where they face that fear head on. For example a claustrophobic has to crawl through a tight air shaft or an arachnophobe has to negotiate a space filled with spiders. Can of course be an emotional fear as well. Think Indiana Jones in that pit full of snakes, or was it rats?–whatever–he was terrified of them.
On November 26th, 2007 at 6:38 pm, ~ Paula Roe ~ said:
Hey Anna-banana!
Was just about to write something insightful and pithy but Christine beat me to it!
I looooove The Don’s suggestion of having your character do something they wouldn’t do in a million years. I seem to subconsciously do it anyway 
I also call it ‘backing them into a corner’ – you see it with marriage-of-convenience storylines, for eg. Another eg – a writer friend is writing a ST thriller-killer. Her anti-heroine hit-woman adores her best friend and would not, ever, hurt her. Needless to say, her black moment comes when she has to actually kill her. Brings chills to my skin just thinking about it!
On November 26th, 2007 at 6:40 pm, Eric said:
Drama coaching. Yes, the learning curve for writers developing characters is very much like raising a child.
At first we shield them from anything likely to cause an emotional response and yet as they grow we learn how important it is not to smother them in a protective cocoon world of our own making. If we don’t learn this, it’s impossible to visualize success away from the family home.
Anna I think you are the master, thank you.
(Thank you, Sandra)
Eric
On November 26th, 2007 at 7:35 pm, Sandra Barkevich said:
Anna Campbell! You are ALWAYS welcome here at Sandra’s Goings On.
And, I LOVE TORTURING MY CHARACTERS! ROFL! I’ve even blogged about it here and elsewhere. It’s evil. I know. But I find such satisfaction in placing my hero or heroine in situations that take them far from their comfort zone. I get positively gleeful watching them squirm…hmmm, wonder what that says about me? LOL!
Welcome, everyone that’s commented. I hope to see all you back now and again.
Sandy
Sandra Barkevich – Romance Author
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