What Fiction Writers Can Learn from Others: Part Two
Victoria Grossack

In last month’s column we discussed the fact that stories can be found in many other media, and looked at epic poetry, religious writings, movies, and theatre. We reviewed them for how they can help us understand storytelling techniques.

In this column we’ll continue the subject, and review what we, as writers of fiction, can pick up from television, nonfiction and poetry – three very disparate media.

Television

Television plays a large – many would say, too large – role in the lives of many people. According to statistics of AC Nielsen, the average American watches more than 4 hours of television per day. That’s a lot! Moreover, other studies show that the more time that people spend watching TV, the less happy they tend to be. Now, the studies do not show that watching TV makes people unhappy. It may simply be that unhappy people have little to do but watch TV, and the relationship, to be technical, is a matter of correlation instead of causality.

Given the above, I’m certainly not going to recommend that you watch more TV. However, when you do – and most of you do – I’m going to suggest that you watch it for how it tells stories and conveys information.

TV shows have much in common with movies – in fact, the TV is often used for showing movies. There are several differences (generally true, not every case). One is the budget. Films tend to have much larger budgets than TV shows, on a minute-of-show to minute-of-show comparison. Another is time. Films also tend to have more time for production. Both these items should lead to films being better than TV, in general. Certainly there is more glamour in movies than in TV.

The difference – especially for the audience – is that TV has commercials. This interrupts the story-receiving experience. It also presents a challenge for the storytellers, in that there should be logical places for these commercials: preferably cliffhangers, so that the audience won’t change the channel. Novel writers often try to do something similar, with cliffhangers at the ends of their chapters. So the techniques used by TV shows may be worth studying.

TV is similar to other forms of storytelling in that there are many genres: soap operas, sit-coms, documentaries, crimes, even news. If you write in a particular genre you may want to do some of your research by watching the shows that correspond to your genre. For example, my novels are set in ancient Greece, and I spent a lot of time watching – and studying – HBO’s Rome. A later period, a different country, but some of the details were helpful.

If you do decide to watch TV, watch it deliberately. Choose something that you really want to watch, enjoy the show, notice what works from the storytelling perspective and what doesn’t. Then, when the show is finished, turn it off and do something else!

Nonfiction

What can fiction writers learn from reading nonfiction?

Well, first, we can learn plenty of facts. And facts are useful as background information even for our make-believe worlds. Readers appreciate it when their fiction is complemented by harder information – statistics about the pyramids of Egypt, accuracy in the battles of the Civil War, or how to take the tube in London. Yes, you can go too far – long descriptive paragraphs with irrelevant details will turn off some readers – but getting these details wrong can turn off readers, too. (For striking a balance in these different objectives you may want to take my class on Historical Fiction.)

Sometimes we can learn clarity. Often the main goal of nonfiction is to convey information clearly, and when it’s well done it’s worth studying. (Especially at the level of the paragraph; there are many fine nonfiction paragraphs.)

Of course, nonfiction has several advantages in conveying information. It doesn’t have to “beat around the bush” when making a point (the way that fiction sometimes does) but can lay its case or its information straight out. The author can bring in personal anecdotes and use the word “I.” You can write in first-person as a fiction writer too. You can even go so far as to directly address the reader by using the word “You”. Headlines/columns are full of “News You Can Use…” Even this column, about fiction, is actually nonfiction and I use the pronouns I and You when I need them.

People like to buy something if it’s true. Nonfiction sells more than fiction: so much so that films will point out that the movie was “based on a true story” even when they’ve changed practically every detail. Claiming that a book is true when it is not causes enormous problems. The most recent scandal concerns a book hyped by Oprah that turned out to be fiction instead of true: Angel at the Fence by Herman Rosenblat, withdrawn by Berkley Books, a division of Penguin. (I understand that the movie deal is still in place.)

Poetry

Poetry consists of words on a page, and has this in common with most fiction. However, there are differences in structure and content. Poetry is generally much shorter, occasionally just a few well-chosen phrases. The lack of story can make it difficult to access. The subject may focus on just one aspect of what a story usually covers, such as description or emotion or some clever twist. It is on a different level than what people usually read, so can take some training and patience.

Furthermore, poetry does not always try to be clear. The words can get in the way of the message. Note that this is the opposite, many times, of how nonfiction functions – which is trying to get the message across rather than the writing.

Sometimes the format is important. Haiku, limericks, sonnets, even iambic pentameter all have specific structures that partially define them. In all of these cases you have to step outside the meaning of the word and be concerned with either its syllables or its sounds or both. Many times the writer is concerned with these aspects of words and phrases anyway, but the emphasis becomes much greater when writing poetry. (For a lot more on this subject, the interaction of meaning and form, you may want to read Douglas R Hofstadter’s Le Ton Beau de Marot).

There are many types of poetry. There’s the doggerel of Ogden Nash and there are the haunting words of Emily Dickinson. They’re worth reading, as are Kipling and Tennyson – which you may want to quote if you are a governor being threatened with impeachment, for example (Blagojevich quoted Kipling and Tennyson).

It’s a good exercise, I believe, to write poems even when you don’t consider yourself a poet. As they’re generally short, you can finish them quickly, giving you the satisfaction of completion. They also hone your awareness of words and phrases. You may even find that you want to incorporate them in your fiction – many authors do – from Shakespeare to Tolkien to Graves.

By the way, if you want to try your hand at writing poetry, the tapestry of bronze is sponsoring a series of poetry contests called “Odes to Olympians.” The next one honors Poseidon / Neptune, and the closing date for entry is April 30, 2009.

Don’t forget to read fiction

Just a brief reminder – although I’m sure that most of you don’t need it – you should read fiction, too! Both in “your” genre and in others.

Conclusion

Many forms and even sub-forms of story-telling exist. The media are changing, too, what with the myriad and ever-changing forms of technology. We live in exciting times, but we should remember that storytelling techniques have changed in the past as well.

One important point: as the media change, so do the expectations of the audience. What worked in the past may not work in the present.

Questions? Comments? You want to use this article? Write to me at grossackva at yahoo dot com.

Post Script

Sometimes I take my own advice (even though I believe in it, I’m surprised how useful it is). So I’ve started writing poetry – just haiku – and have been chronicling some of the political and current events. It has been a great exercise. If you’re curious about it, please check out www.haikudiary.com.

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About the Writer:

Victoria Grossack is, with Alice Underwood, the internationally published author of Iokaste: The Novel of the Mother-Wife of Oedipus, and other books coming out in the series called the Tapestry of Bronze (Tapestry of Bronze.com). You can also read more of her articles on writing by ordering the e-book, Levels of Structure in Fiction from www.booklocker.com.

Odes to Olympians poetry contest, featuring Hera/Juno, at Ode Form Contest.