crispina kemp

The Unknown Unknowns…

…and how to discover them

With any craft there are bound to be skills at which we totally suck. But if we know what they are, then it’s down to us to practice, practice, practice until we’re perfect. Or at least until we’ve mastered them.

But what about those skills we totally suck at but don’t know what they are? Maybe you continually miss-spell a certain group of words without an inkling that you do it. Blind to the error. Or maybe grammar is your curse? Whatever is yours, you can guarantee in everything you write, you’ll make that same mistake, time and again.

These days, thanks to word-processors with built in spell and grammar checks these two examples seldom cause a serious stumble.

But what about story structure?

Or character arc?

Or pacing?

A satisfying ending?

An initial hook?

How do you learn to improve if you’re oblivious to the need?

I was once ignorant of all five of these requirements. A panzer (I didn’t know the word back then), I knitted my stories.

Ah-ha, I’d go, I’ve a brilliant idea for a story! And immediately I was writing it. But I’d no idea where the story was going, how it was going to end, and whether or not the protagonist would grow. Just write, write, write, write and… it’s amazing I actually finished some of those stories. But I did. And I submitted them. And I often got handwritten replies. That was way-way-way back in the ancient days.

None of those replies suggested I might try working on structure, or endings, or character arcs. Therefore, I remained oblivious to the need. They were my Unknown Unknowns, and not knowing them, I made no attempt to improve them.

When the gods intervene

Born with a Gemini sun in my 3rd house, where Gemini’s ruler, Mercury, also sits, might explain my drive to write. I’m not sure it explains what happened to set me on the road to improvement. But perhaps it does. Gemini and Mercury, all about words and thoughts.

I contracted a virus. A wily virus that, having given me meningitis then wheedled its way through the blood-brain barrier to give me encephalitis. Which wrecked my head. It particularly hit language ‘comprehension’. It’s difficult to explain, but while I knew what a cat was, and a mat, and what sitting was, I couldn’t parse that well-known phrase The Cat Sat On The Mat. That phrase was meaningless to me.

The plastic brain

I recovered. And I regained my language skills – mainly by doing crosswords. That was good, because I had a novel sitting on an agent’s desk at the time, and while the agent liked the story, it needed work done to it before she’d accept it.

At this point I figured if I had to recover my language skills, I might as well brush up my fiction writing skills as well.

That’s when I started buying craft books. How to write… how to plot… how to… how to… and over the next few years my Unknowns became my Knowns. And being Known I set about improving them.

Fast forward a decade or so

I’ve stopped buying craft books. Now I watch YouTube videos on ‘How to Improve…’ I watch them while I’m editing. As reminders. Always with my current wip open to check if I’m doing it right, or how I can improve it.

My favourite YouTuber is the writer Carl Duncan. His videos are seldom more than 10 mins long. And there’s nothing arch about him, as there is with some of the other YouTubers. Plus his voice doesn’t grate.

I have to acknowledge Carl’s influence since it was in one of his videos that I encountered the phrase Known Unknowns and Unknown Unknowns. (Thank you, Carl)

And thank you for reading this.

Please drop me a comment, it’ll encourage me to write more of these Words On Writing posts (totally unplotted, I’ve no idea where these posts are going!)

Show Don’t Tell

This writing advice has become a modern mantra for fiction writers. But before I say more, let’s clarify:

Showing is usually used for

• sensory details (hearing, seeing, tasting, smelling, balance & temperature)
• action (kissing, killing, kicking)
• dialogue (“Bang-bang, you’re dead.” “Clank-clank, I’m a tank.”)

Telling is usually used for

• exposition (world building)
• backstory (what happened to Henry that might explain what Henry’s doing now)
• naming emotions (Henry was happy when his cat came back)
• naming traits (Henry was easily riled)
• descriptions (Henry was a tall but frail fellow)

But not all writers accept the show don’t tell mantra

Hello, Future Me on YouTube calls it “the ungodly hammer with which new writers are bludgeoned.”

Writer Brandon McNulty calls it “a big bad lie.”

Writer Brandon Sanderson has called it “some of the worst advice he’s heard.”

Furthermore, the top pro-writers don’t stick to that mantra. In a survey of top selling books, it was found that over 60% of a chapter is ‘straight telling’.

What’s wrong with show don’t tell?

For a start, in following this mantra the writer produces prose that’s less immersive, not more. Which isn’t what the writer nor the reader wants. And it plays real havoc with pacing.

Why and how? Because to show requires a lot more words. And more words mean slower reading. There are places where it fits, but there are many more places where it doesn’t.

Moreover, to skip over or to omit the set-up for a scene (telling) and jump straight to the action and dialogue (showing)) is a fine way to leave the reader confused. Do movies do this? No. First there’s an establishing shot. Because the reader needs to know where the scene is and who’s here, and how much time has passed. Stuff like that. Otherwise… as I’ve discovered from my alpha and beta readers… the result is bewilderment.

In short, too much showing trammels the reader in excess verbiage.

Where is showing justified?

Beyond the obvious of relevant plot or character action and dialogue, mainly in showing emotions. Especially those that help develop the reader’s empathy for the character. To get the reader inside the character’s skin. All those moments of interiority (the industry’s buzzword of the day), with the character weighing a situation, reflecting… or even just daydreaming

“A deep breath of contentment, a closing of eyes, and off to a world where she’d rather be. Where she’s riding a horse despite she’s never seen one. Ahead, a thorn-hedged isle where she’ll deal for rich fabrics and pots of gleaming copper. A grin spreads over her lips.” Excerpt from Saramequai

But to show how it feels to be happy, in 99% of cases, is unnecessary. We know how it feels. Yet there might be a particular circumstance where the protagonist doesn’t know how it feels or hasn’t felt it for a very long time. Then it’s justified to show it, probably by using stream of consciousness.

Why has telling been demonised?

And why has this advice become a mantra when it doesn’t help the new writer, nor any author who’s trying to improve their craft and chances of publication?

I think the answer is because of movies and TV. These primarily are visual media where it’s all show with very little telling.

The majority of plots are now structured according to the movie industry. Save the Cat and all that. Joseph Campbell’s Hero of a Thousand Faces and his later work, The Hero’s Journey, has been held up as the originator of that. Yet Campbell’s work refers to myths, not to modern movies, and certainly not to modern works of fiction.

It seems everyone wants a template. No, let me rephrase that. It seems everyone wants to sell a template that we all can use. One size fits all.

Thankfully, there are some who won’t conform.

Strangely (or not) they’re the ones who are most successful.

I’ll leave you with that thought, for that’s all I’ve to say this week.

Thank you for reading. All comments gratefully received.