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Character Flaws

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When I started Neil Rorke’s character blog I knew it would be difficult if not impossible to drive reader interest through plotting. Foreshadowing a big plot event, then delivering on that moment, could easily (if not necessarily) lead to a soap-opera/cliffhanger mentality. Not only would that kind of storytelling compel more of the same, it would reveal me as the author-orchestrator of those events and diminish any sense of character I might be able to create. And that would be the exact opposite of the effect I wanted to have on readers.

By sticking with aspects of character, and by sticking with the manner of posting inherent in real-world character blogs, I’m giving readers very little to hang on when they drop by. Whatever it is in plotting that drives a story, I’m not making that available.

That’s a conscious storytelling choice, of course, but it’s also consistent with Neil as a person and with what’s going on in Neil’s life at this moment. So instead of trying to drive Neil toward some particular plot event, or even some revelation of character, I’ve been trying to let Neil be Neil. He gets to post about things that interest him, and he gets to say whatever he wants to say, whenever he wants, as long as it’s in character.  [ Read more ]

Glimmers

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One of the things I’m still learning as a writer is how important it is to start writing so there’s something to react to and refine and revise. I’m not afflicted with perfectionism — at least not the paralyzing kind — and for that I’ll be eternally thankful. At times I do tend to think things through too much, past the point at which I should start implementing or prototyping or laying down a first draft.

In terms of blog fiction and writing a character blog, I had my own conception of what that would be like as a task, and how I could best implement that goal in terms of technique. And so far I can’t say that I’ve been too far off in a material way. What has transpired that I didn’t predict is that from time to time I’ll write something — maybe just a sentence — that suddenly springs to life for me. I can’t predict these moments, I can’t even harness them yet, but I sense them, and that’s making me want to continue the experiment.

If I can say anything useful to other authors it’s that a fiction blog is first and foremost still a fictional work, and there’s no reason not to push that aspect of the work as far as possible. I’m working with a character and a fictional world that relates closely to the real world, and in that there are some constraints. But I can also see now that I’m not pushing hard enough as an author. And that’s something I wouldn’t (and couldn’t) have predicted.

To be clear, I don’t mean that I should be throwing more drama or plot points at my characters or at the reader. I’m not trying to sucker an audience with cliffhanger antics, and I don’t want Neil’s blog to turn into a soap opera. I’m talking about authority and force: the imposition of authorial power on the text itself. I think I should be doing more of that, at least to see if it works or not.

Maintaining Voice on a Character Blog

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What is an author’s voice?* I think a lot of people see voice as synonymous with style, and I can understand why. Many authors one might point to as having a strong voice are also strong stylists. But I’m not a big fan of authors who are stylists, in large part because their manner of writing tends to overshadow whatever story they’re telling. That’s a generalization to be sure, but it’s founded on my belief that nouns and verbs matter more than adjectives and adverbs, that less is usually more, that all (or almost all) darlings should be killed, and that unless the author’s presence is critical to the story the author ought to get out of the way. But that’s just me.

Coming at the question from a direction both more illuminating and a great deal less cranky, think for a moment about any writer you love, and ask yourself what it is that is irreducibly distinct about the way that writer writes. What is it that makes Dickens different from Tolstoy or Jackie Collins, as well as readily identifiable in his own right? Whatever that is — however you might describe it with examples or rules — that’s what I think of as voice.

I don’t think any author’s voice is so distinct that it can be identified in every word or turn of phrase. When Tom Clancy or William Faulkner or Flannery O’Conner has a character say, “Hello!”, I don’t think you can conclude a whole lot about the author’s voice from that one-word sentence. Pull back far enough, however — taking into account the surrounding sentences and paragraphs, as well as the narrative context — and at some point you’ll be able to distinguish between the three authors. And I think that’s probably the most important point thing I can say about the subject of voice: it’s more easily identified by considering the whole of an author’s work rather than looking for specific markers.

One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that I myself do not think about my own voice at all, ever. To do so would be quantum authorship, in which identification of my voice would necessarily change it. I write the way I write, and I encourage other authors to adopt this same hands-off attitude. As far as I’m concerned, nothing good can come of attempts to manage your own authorial voice.

Which is why I’m now quite consternated by the fix I’m in.

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Current Events

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In several of his more recent posts, my eponymous character on NeilRorke.com has been talking about events in the news. The first post or two felt a little odd — almost like an out-of-body experience — but in retrospect the resistance I felt fell away quickly.

One big advantage I have with Neil is that he’s a contemporary character. He lives in the now, alongside events as they happen. I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about how a period character might integrate with the web, but obviously there are some issues. Not only can’t an 18th-century vampire hunter link to contemporary sites without some sort of narrative explanation (time travel?), but linking at all from a walled-off period site might be enough to shatter suspension of disbelief.

I don’t know where the line is with Neil or any contemporary character. Maybe there’s some subject matter that would blow readers out of the fictional world Neil lives in. Maybe he can’t comment on stories that are too real or visceral or traumatic. I can imagine him having something to say about 9/11 on that day, but the very idea of having a fictional character speak to something like that seems either trivializing or exploitative. Then again, if Neil was a well-known character — more like an old friend — that might not be the case.

So far, all I can tell you is that this is interesting stuff. At least to me. 🙂

Linking the Fiction Blog

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From a craft point of view, dealing with inbound and outbound links on a fiction blog is less problematic than allowing readers to post comments. While concerns about the fourth wall should be paramount in any storyteller’s mind, links are an indirect threat. Between the functionality of modern blog software and the limits of authorial control in an open medium such as the internet, there isn’t a lot of innovating that needs to be done.  [ Read more ]

Update: Blog Fiction and NeilRorke.com

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I’ve got a few posts up about blog fiction and on Neil’s site, and I wanted to follow up with a bit more explanation about what I’m doing. If you’re interested in character blogs or what fiction on the internet might become, check out NeilRorke.com. If you’re interested in how I’m approaching that site from a craft perspective, take a look here..

Neil Rorke is the main character in a novel I wrote, which I hope to publish in e-book and POD versions fairly soon. As such, presenting him in a character blog fits what I think is the evolving definition of transmedia: exploring different facets of a single storyworld through various (if not also appropriate) mediums. But it’s also the case that Neil himself fits the description of someone who would blog, and I think that’s critical. The overarching goal is for both works to explain more about Neil, and to work together to fill out his character.

The intent with Electric Fiction is to explore and document the move away from simply presenting traditional fiction for consumption on the web. A movie may be fiction, but it’s hand-crafted fiction that uses techniques specific to film. Most of the online fiction I’ve seen could also be a book, or a story in a magazine. Yes, they’re all text, but to omit the connectivity and pacing and structure of blogs or comments in internet fiction seems to me a mistake — in part because reading long works on a computer screen is difficult. (I’m not denying the utility of using the internet as a pipeline to deliver fiction to dedicated e-readers. I’m doing the same thing, and plan to do more.)

As I continue to grow Neil’s site I’ll comment on the craft problems I encounter. I’m conscious of the fact that talking about Neil’s site blows the fourth wall to smithereens, but I don’t see any way around that. My hope is that Neil’s site will be enjoyed by readers, while comments about Electric Fiction here will be of interest to writers.

— Mark Barrett

The Comment Question

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Because the internet delivers sound and imagine it can be used not only to distribute content, but to present it: video clips, streaming movies, novel-length text, music — virtually every kind of content imaginable can be experienced on a computer of any size. Turning the internet to the end of storytelling is something else entirely, even as the end product will also be communicated through sound and image.

Imagine a single story told through these mediums: stage, screen, novel. While the characters and plot would be the same in all instances, the techniques used to dramatize the story — to convey the narrative to an audience in a way that supports suspension of disbelief in each medium — would necessarily be different. It’s also possible, if not likely, that for any particular story one medium might be better than the others, because the strengths of that medium aid the cause of dramatization. Novels are excellent at putting you in the mind of a character, and lend themselves wonderfully to narrated tales. Movies excel at the visceral and the visual, at replicating reality, and now, through CGI, bringing fantasies to life. Theater excels at intimacy and at communicating the reality and complexity of human emotion.

The strength of the internet is communication and conversation. To approach the internet as a storytelling medium without acknowledging and embracing that aspect of the medium would be like using motion picture technology to film theater productions — which, oddly enough, is exactly what was done in the early days of film. The techniques that defined film as a medium came later, and only as a result of experimentation with the technology and form.

While many people have presented fiction on the web, and some people have tried writing dedicated character blogs, my survey over the past year suggests that many of these efforts replicate craft techniques from other mediums, rather than emphasizing techniques unique to the internet itself. In my own character blog at NeilRorke.com, I’m particularly interested in embracing and leveraging the strengths of the internet to the greatest possible extent.  [ Read more ]

Blog Fiction and the Fourth Wall

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If you’re not familiar with the fourth wall as a concept integral to storytelling, here’s the gist of it:

The fourth wall is the imaginary “wall” at the front of the stage in a traditional three-walled box set in a proscenium theatre, through which the audience sees the action in the world of the play.

The central idea of the fourth wall is that the characters inside the fictional world remain unaware of the audience, even as the audience sits only feet away. If the audience breaks into thunderous applause, or begins to throw rotting fruit, the actors continue to attempt to exist in their own fictional space, apart from the physical reality of the theater.  [ Read more ]

Transparency as a Critical Goal in Blog Fiction

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When you pick up a book you know you only have to turn a few pages in order to begin to enjoy the contents.  You don’t even have to engage the contents of those pages if you don’t want to: you can simply look for Chapter 1 and dig in.

If the contents are fiction, you know once you immerse yourself in the story that you will not be interrupted by authorial asides or editor’s footnotes.  You will be allowed to forget about the book as a mechanism and as you embrace the contents.

When you watch a movie you expect the movie to believe in itself — unless it’s an art film whose raison d’etre is disrupting the audience’s “easy relationship with the cinema”.*  Scenes play out without commentary from the director or actors, allowing the audience to believe in the world of the story.  Editing, a musical score — everything is aimed at supporting the audience’s suspension of disbelief while making the medium itself transparent.

Even bonus commentary on DVD’s can do damage to an audience’s ability to suspend disbelief.  While it’s interesting to hear how a movie is made — at least once — it’s also a bit of a letdown to learn that a gripping scene was the result of accident.  “We only had one copy of the Magna Carta on the shoot.  When the AD fell off the crane and split his head open, somebody grabbed it and used it to stanch the blood.  What you see the dying wife holding in this scene is actually a place mat from a diner down the street.”  [ Read more ]

Blog Fiction and NeilRorke.com

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I’ve been thinking about publishing and fiction and the internet for over a year now, in a dedicated way. I’ve been thinking about storytelling my entire life.

How do stories take hold in the mind of the audience? How is any story changed by the medium of expression? What are the necessary ingredients of a story? What is the craft knowledge any storyteller should have?

I don’t have all the answers. I can get fifty pages into a work and be as lost as anyone who ever wrote. But I also think I understand the basics, and after fifteen years of thinking about interactive storytelling I think I know where the limits are as well.

In time the internet will become a storytelling medium itself. It’s not there yet, but the potential is considerable. To further that goal I’ve put up a site that I hope to grow over time. It’s a storytelling experiment in low-tech transmedia, aimed at entertaining an audience while also discovering and advancing useful internet-based storytelling techniques.

I’ll be discussing NeilRorke.comin greater detail, but for now I wanted to let you know that it’s up and ask for feedback. What do you think?

— Mark Barrett