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This week, Suzy reviews a page from an Adult Fantasy novel. She reviews strategies for making meaning using inner thoughts and close third person perspective.
Learn how adjusting pacing and revealing stakes can keep engagement high for your readers!
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Podcast Episode Transcript (unedited)
98. Sarah Fantasy Page Review Transcript
Suzy Vadori: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Show, don’t Tell Writing Podcast with me, Suzy Vadori, where I peel back the layers of how to wow your readers with your fiction, your nonfiction. Anybody can bang out a first draft, but it takes a little more work to make your book as amazing as it can be. Join me as I share the step by step writing techniques you could apply to your writing right away.
As I host successful writers who share a behind the scenes look at their own [00:00:30] writing lives, and as I live coach writers on their pages giving practical writing examples that will make your own writing stronger. Nobody is born knowing how to write an engaging book. There are real and important skills that you need to learn on this show.
I cut through the noise and get you all the info you need. I can’t wait to see how this information is going to
Sarah M: transform your writing.
Suzy Vadori: Welcome to the show today, Sarah Miller, who is coming on to [00:01:00] be live coached on her one page that she wanted help with for show Don’t Tell On the show. Don’t Tell Writing podcast.
I absolutely love doing these sessions because they are so much fun. I learn a ton. I think it’s really just fun to dive into a snapshot and to really geek out about it. So Sarah has been so much fun and her bio says, I spend my days solving problems or causing them, depending on who you ask, on my evenings being bossed around by my cats.
And while I published some poetry in [00:01:30] college and grad school after graduation, I spent more time joking about the novel I wasn’t writing. Than actually writing anything. And then one day I wrote a scene and another, and suddenly I was writing the novel. After all, I’m as surprised as anyone to be honest.
And the page that she sent today is from her novel that she’s working on. It’s an adult fantasy novel called The Turning In. And here’s the page that we’re about to discuss, where we’re gonna go through all kinds of ideas. So listen up and see what you think, and [00:02:00] then see how much of what you were thinking matches what we talk about.
While the Harold d Droned on Harold studied the margrave or the Margrave chair, rather, why no one had taken the carver’s chisel away before he choked the legs and leafy vines was a mystery. But the ruby eyed wolves that formed the armrest were quite, they were wolves, probably the suggestion of wolves.
The way the chair itself was the suggestion of a throne. The Harold staff wrapped twice echoing in the marble clad [00:02:30] hall. Captain Harrow, the moral mercenary Lord Boland drew out his words as if weighing the truth of them. His expression had none of the drunken haze. The Dukes men had told Harrow to expect Your reputation precedes you.
Harrow offered an easy smile, the one he reserved for nobles, the one that didn’t reach his eyes. My men have been known to teach a lesson or two, my Lord. Indeed Boland’s fingers drummed on the wolves. Gilded heads. Is that why you’re here, captain? To teach us a [00:03:00] lesson? Harold scratched the Roby scar that crossed his cheek.
I bear a message from the Duke Regent, my Lord. His callous fingers snagged the silk lining of his pocket. When he pulled the letter out fitting the Duke could have sent one of his flawless delegates, had ordered him instead, threatened him. Damn, the man, the oath maker would never have allowed it.
Wouldn’t have allowed any of this, but the Gods were dead. May their bones rot in the hells they made, and Harrow [00:03:30] was here. Welcome to the podcast, Sarah Miller.
Sarah M: I invited to be here.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, this is great. We just read out the one page sample question for you. Where does this actually fit in the book?
Sarah M: So it is early in the book, somewhere in the first chapter.
But where it fits keeps changing because I’m trying to figure out how to make it work.
Suzy Vadori: Okay. Excellent. And so that brings me to my next question. What’s not working about it for you? Why did you choose to send this? Because [00:04:00] we ask you to send something that you wanna brainstorm, not something that you’re hoping that’ll rubber snap and be like, yes, great.
Right?
Sarah M: So I’m trying to do a lot in this particular scene, right? Hero’s not happy to be there. He doesn’t like the guy he’s talking to, so he is unhappy with both people. There’s this hint of treason, right? That, that this treason may be happening. And so I’m trying one to draw the reader into all the conflict, but every time I rewrite and work the scene and send it out to readers, the feedback I [00:04:30] get is either there’s not enough information, or when I try to put it down, it slows down the dialogue and so it reads too slow and they want it to be snappier.
And so I’m struggling with that balance between a complicated interpersonal situation and making the moment engaging for the reader.
Suzy Vadori: Oh, okay. This is great. This makes a lot of sense given, given what I see in it. So we’re gonna talk about that in a second. But first, let’s talk about the fact that you’re sharing it with readers.
Congratulations. That’s really important. [00:05:00] And it can be confusing, though, to get their feedback because you’re like, some of them want more and some of them want less. Is that what you’re seeing? Yeah. Yeah. And so here’s what I wanna say about reader feedback. Thank you to Sarah’s readers who are listening.
Oftentimes they wanna jump right to, and I don’t know what their skillset is if they’re writers or if they’re editors, but oftentimes they wanna jump right to the solution and telling you what’s wrong, which can be great if they have that skillset. But also pay attention if you’re getting conflicting, [00:05:30] things like that.
Oftentimes it’s important to pay attention and that you are to pay attention to the fact that the page isn’t working and maybe, you know, they’re trying to solve it in different ways. Right, but pay attention to the fact that it’s not working, which you are. And then you can actually, you don’t have to listen to what readers say, sorry, readers.
You don’t have to listen to what your editor says either or what I say, but you can brainstorm different ways to solve that same problem. That makes sense. Within the context of your book and what we talk about today, I’m only reading one page, so [00:06:00] you’re gonna have to figure out does that make sense in the context of the book?
But I think we can solve the issue that you’ve got. Couple more questions before we get to it. Yeah. Or not a question, but just like, thank you. You were saying that you are writing this for readers who want protagonists over 35. Thank you. ’cause we’re not dead yet, right? We’re not. And I love, love, love that you have an older protagonist.
I think that’s gonna be a real selling feature and it’s something that not everybody realizes that they’re doing or calls out. Um, but publishing certainly needs, needs [00:06:30] that. So thank you.
Sarah M: Yeah, it’s been a discussion in a couple circles on end where everyone’s like, we want a protagonist over 35. I’m like, actually, so do I.
So, exactly right. I love it. I love it. Okay,
Suzy Vadori: and then what’s in the name is, is the name of the book the Turning in, or is that the working title for now?
Sarah M: That’s the working title. I think it’s gonna change. It’s just what’s been in my head.
Suzy Vadori: Oh, sometimes what’s in your head doesn’t change, just so you know you get married to it.
I’ve done that with a couple of my books.
Sarah M: So what does it mean? Where does it come from? So [00:07:00] eventually hero’s way of dealing with his conflict is he’s gonna run away and take a contract down to the south. They get ambushed and end up in this little town with this inn called the Turning Inn and everything happens there.
Suzy Vadori: Awesome. Amazing. Okay. It’s just such a cool pun. It actually, you know, I dunno if you end up keeping it or not, but it actually really just lends itself. It tells me that you have a sense of humor. That you have, you know, there’s probably some punny things in here, whether or not they end up in here. [00:07:30] I like it already.
And I like you as a literary person already because I can, I know that, uh, that you like to play on words. So it’s a really cool title. I don’t know if it fits the whole book, but I like it for
Sarah M: Thank you. Nobody has ever commented on it. I’m like, I felt so clever. And you’re the first one who’s like, yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Well, and that might be a good indication that I, you know, because I love things like that, and sometimes we try to be a little bit too clever and we’re not the only people in the room. Right. I’m, I’m literally an editor because I love words, so, yeah. So it’s, [00:08:00] it’s, it’s really cool. It might be a hard one because verbally we won’t know that in is spelled INN, so it might be hard to search on.
That would be the one. Thing that I would say. But yeah, as a working title, as long as you’re excited by it, you can work on it later. Okay,
Sarah M: let’s get to the pages. Are you ready?
Suzy Vadori: So first of all, let’s address the opening paragraph ’cause there’s great showing detail and it does a lot of work. So, excellent.
Let’s just read it out and then we’ll discuss it. So while the [00:08:30] Harold Droned on. Harold studied the man grave or the marre, sorry, or the Mars chair, rather. Why no one had taken the carver’s chisel away before he choked the legs in leafy vines was a mystery, but the ruby eyed wolves that formed the armrest were quite, well.
They were wolves, probably wolves. The suggestion of wolves, the way the chair itself was the suggestion of a throne. Okay, so great showing detail. It’s doing a lot of work. We’re really honing in on a [00:09:00] moment. So excellent job. It shows a lot of things in here. The reason I say it’s doing a lot of work, we want descriptions to do double, triple, quadruple duty, right?
Mm-hmm. It’s showing your point of view, character, sarcasm, and personality. It also shows that they have very little interest in the proceedings around them. So I’m curious, is that what you were going for and like this sort of nonchalance?
Sarah M: Yeah. He does not like nobles and he doesn’t like any of the trappings of nobility, and it’s part of him not wanting to be there at all.
This [00:09:30] isn’t. The type of job he would normally take. So he’s just trying to get through this, right. So he can then run away, basically.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Okay. And I love that he runs away. I mean, there’s only two stories in the world, right? Somebody new comes to town, or somebody takes the journey. So we know that he’s going on a journey.
He’s just not quite there
Sarah M: yet.
Suzy Vadori: But when we talked about this in the opening, you had mentioned that he was really angry about it or he was quite upset to be there, right? This doesn’t quite get me too upset. Um, so that’s a [00:10:00] consideration. It kind of reads as nonchalance or like disinterest. Okay.
Sarah M: Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: So yeah, so you can decide.
I mean, whether maybe upset wasn’t quite it. I also was curious, I mean, not to make this into the entire page. You’ve done a good job, I think then we, we move on. Can’t stay here forever. But I also wanna know what he actually thinks of wolves, right? So he is making these comments. So if we don’t already know what he thinks of wolves.
I would love a, like a snide remark or something here to splash [00:10:30] everything with his point of view, please. Because it’s sort of an observation, but he doesn’t put himself into it. So there’s an opportunity there.
Sarah M: Yeah. Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Without getting
Sarah M: too
Suzy Vadori: long. Okay. Then we go back to the moment Story, present moment, right.
The Harold Staff rap twice, bringing our attention back, echoing in the Marble Hall. Because it actually should get hero’s attention. I would call that out. We wanna keep in your point of view character’s body as much as possible so we can be them. Right? Right. So we’re focused on the [00:11:00] chair and then you need to actually tell us that it gets his attention.
It’s implied. But I would, I would stay in that, if you can a sentence here to show his reaction. Something like, and again, I love to brainstorm with you. You don’t have to take this at all and it’s gonna be wrong. ’cause I don’t know your story, but here we go. Harrow snapped to attention straightening his collar.
If he were caught daydreaming, it would be tough to convince them he could start alert enough to pull off this mission. I have no idea what he’s doing, but you can see I have no idea what he’s doing. Right? Because even in our [00:11:30] conversation this is wrong, but what does he want to do so that Here’s where you can put it.
You can show us what he wants. Okay. Again, what I put here doesn’t make sense ’cause he’s not about to, he’s not eager to show them what he can do on this mission. In fact, that’s the exact opposite. Correct.
Sarah M: But it makes sense to, his body language can then show that his frustration of being there and, and just wanting to get through the moment.
Suzy Vadori: Absolutely. And don’t be afraid to just use an inner thought to like dump it here. Right? Like, ’cause it [00:12:00] will be interesting. So when you’re saying like, people are saying, oh, there’s too much, there’s too little, and there’s this sort of, the thing is, is everything on your page has to do a lot of work. So if the moment here is to show his attitude toward it, then you gotta show it somehow, whether it’s through his, like you said, body language.
Yes. And his thoughts. What does he want? If he doesn’t want to participate, what does he want? It’s really hard for readers, and this might be part of the issue too, it’s really [00:12:30] hard for readers to imagine something negative or something that isn’t there. Right. So if he doesn’t want something, that’s cool.
You can say that. But what does he want instead? And that is way easier for readers to picture. And that might be part of why they’re kind of skimming. ’cause they’re like, well, he doesn’t want that. They’re watching for what does he want? Do you know what he wants?
Sarah M: Yes. But it gets very complicated and I think I would ramble try to explain it.
Suzy Vadori: Okay.
Sarah M: But he, he’s sort of like Robin Hood meets [00:13:00] Hamlet.
Suzy Vadori: I love that.
Sarah M: So he wants to protect the common people, and he knows that this conflict between Lord Durva and the Duke is going to end up with a bunch of common people being killed and injured, and he doesn’t see a way out of it. So that thing that he wants, he doesn’t know how to get it, which is
Suzy Vadori: why he runs.
Okay. Excellent. So yeah, it might be a mouthful of what with here, but even in his attitude, if you could show, I mean, especially because he has that sarcasm [00:13:30] already. I don’t know if that’s apparent throughout the entire book or whether it just kind of came out in this page, but he can easily say, you know, what he thinks is going to happen here if he hasn’t already
Sarah M: said that.
Suzy Vadori: Right. Maybe we already know, but this is important. Okay, so then Robinhood meets Hamlet. That’s kind of here captured in the next sentence where we say Captain Harrow, the moral mercenary. Right. And my comment here is, Ooh, I’m not sure what this means, but I’m excited to find out. And now I [00:14:00] think I know.
Sarah M: And is that, was that enough to keep your interest? Because every time I tried to then expand on what that meant in this scene. It seemed to just kill the momentum entirely, so I was hoping like it’s enough to know that other died later.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah, it is. I mean, I didn’t know, and like if you haven’t already explained it, maybe you could use Harold’s voice to explain it without explaining it to say he hated being called that, but I, he supposed it was true or something.
Or does he love it or is it what he titles [00:14:30] himself? I don’t, I don’t know the answer. And I would also suggest, and they, I mean I didn’t do line edits here, but I would almost put moral here in italics just because of what we’re talking about so that we don’t miss it. The moral mercenary, right? Like it’s almost like sarcastic or being drawn out.
Does that make sense? Like the intonation wise, because you say, then Lord Boland drew out the words as if weighing the truth of them. You could also show that right. In that by using [00:15:00] italics for moral, for the word moral. But yeah, I, I mean, I didn’t understand what it meant. I was willing to keep reading. I actually at first thought it might be, I think I read Royal quickly, right.
And then I was like Royal mercenary. Okay. ’cause that’s something I’m used to. So yeah, italic would fix that ’cause it would make me pause and make sure. I mean, I quickly corrected it in my brain, but um, I read fast. Okay, so as the expression had none of the drunken haze, the Dukes men had told Harrow to expect so good, right?
We’re [00:15:30] using inner thought. I was just looking for a little bit more this here again, I did a little bit of line edits. We had his thoughts combined and then I’m sure you know this, but just make it its own paragraph. So I move that there and I’ll send you all of this. Because you had, but this is more for the listeners because this is a difficult one, is people don’t always understand when to start new paragraphs.
And if you have a character speaking, you want to distance any actions or thoughts from a different character just ’cause it makes it easier. In adult [00:16:00] fiction, you’ve done this really well. Um, you’ve dropped the dialogue tag so we don’t say, Lord Boland said, drawing out the words. Right. We skipped that, which is perfect.
He drew out the words, um, which is a descriptor, but we know who’s talking. But then we need to be careful to make sure that we don’t combine things, ’cause that it gets a little bit muddy. And then again, new paragraph. Your reputation precedes you. ’cause it’s somebody else. Harrow offered an easy smile, right?
I love that. That he reserved for nobles, the one that didn’t reach his [00:16:30] eyes. Good. We’re starting to see him be deliberate. What we’re looking for, and what I’m looking for here is for Harrow to be directing himself through the scene and not be a passenger, even though he’s relatively passive because of the situation.
Sarah M: Right.
Suzy Vadori: Okay, so he says, my men have been known to teach a lesson, or to my Lord. Okay, here’s where you start to get a little bit lost, but I’m not sure. Is that why you’re here, captain? To teach us a lesson? I don’t know the [00:17:00] answer. So if this is clear on other pages, then maybe it’s fine. But here I don’t know the answer.
And they want to know the answer because is he there to teach them a lesson? He needs to answer it in his inner thoughts. Is he? Why is he there?
Sarah M: He got blackmailed into being there. Okay. And so because of how the mechanics of mercenaries work within that world, at that moment, he’s supposed to have more autonomy than he has, and he shouldn’t have been able to be blackmailed.
And the Duke is using his reputation or the Yeah, the [00:17:30] Duke is using the reputation to tell Bolen that he’s on the wrong side and Boland needs to stop what he’s doing. So Hero is being used. It’s not a lesson to the extent that like his company is gonna attack or anything like that, they’re not enough men to do that.
So I would agree that probably that, yeah, that subtlety and it’s actually not hero’s lesson, right? Right. He’s there at the
Suzy Vadori: behest of somebody else. And so yeah, I would, I would make that, and I’m gonna talk about the actions that are here ’cause they’re actually really good. [00:18:00] But yeah, I think when we talk about it’s not about, more or less, it’s about what’s here doing the work and being interesting.
Right. And so to me, what’s interesting is why is he here? What does he want? You know, all those things. And you have paragraphs of description that you could put here that don’t fit. You know that that’s not what you wanna do, but how much work could he do if he just responded to the question in his mind?
Then actually said something different because then we see that he’s [00:18:30] trapped. And some of that might be set up before, but it’d be cool if it was here because we wanna feel that conflict in anything sort of juxtaposition. So what what you don’t wanna do is pull back into a narrative like or a narration point of view.
But we wanna stay deep inside Harold’s brain, even though we’re in third person, we’re in third person clothes. Right. And that’s what’s popular. In writing today, and if you read, you know, if you go back to Hamlet or Robinhood, you’re gonna find that there is a lot more of that [00:19:00] narration. It just isn’t popular today in fairytales and in old timey feel fantasy.
We do still have some. Sort of omniscient or narrative with a third person narrator. But typically, I mean, 95% of what’s being sold right now are being read right now is in this third person close. It’s just more modern, and so you wanna stay as close as you can. So that might be part of it as well, is when you’re trying to give us the description, it feels heavy because you’re pulling [00:19:30] out of the point of view.
So if you can splash it all over in hero’s point of view, then you’re good. Right? We should be able to stay with it a little bit longer. Does that make sense?
Sarah M: It does. So, and one, I think one of the reasons why I haven’t gone as deep into that close third is the fear that even diving into hero’s thoughts would still break up the conversation too much.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Sarah M: But if he is, if the reactions are more to the conversation, I can see what you’re saying where it’s it’s a different feel than if I were just [00:20:00] putting in like external description.
Suzy Vadori: Exactly. It’s a, it’s a question of placement. Especially if you’ve edited this a few times, you probably have put that somewhere that you’ve taken out that backstory.
Right? Yeah. And hopefully you didn’t actually delete it. But yeah, if you’ve got that, then parse through it. It’s not a question of whether or not you put it back. You need to actually put it through his lens. Right. And that’s makes it interesting. It’s when you pull back and start saying, well, last week I had, you know, [00:20:30] and, and, and done that.
But you need that information to be able to solve this, right? You need this information, but you just have to. So don’t beat yourself up for having written it once ’cause you had to do that. ’cause now you know, and might I say Sarah, too? I’m super impressed because many times when I ask writers these questions, they don’t know the answers.
And that is not the case here. You’re like quick on it. You’re like, well here’s what the, here’s what’s happening. Here’s why you know your story cold. But we [00:21:00] don’t wanna put all of that in there, but you have to be judicious and, but these are the moments, right? Yeah. So just, just pepper it through and the choices that you have here are inner thoughts, actions, reactions, one of those three or all three.
It’s an important moment. And when we’re talking about show, don’t tell. You do have a, what you’re saying is you have a pacing issue with this, with this page. Right? Right. ’cause sometimes readers are saying, well, it’s, it’s too slow. And sometimes readers are saying there’s not enough information. That’s a pacing thing.[00:21:30]
So what you need to be doing is, you know, not every beat in the scene is equal. What’s important? Well, all I really care about is what he wants. Right. Like, honestly, I can’t root for him until I know. And if he hides that, then I can’t get excited. I can’t cry with him when he fails or killing him when he is 60.
So take your zoom lens and decide what are the moments. Zoom in, zoom out. And, and the important part is what, what is his reaction? Why is he there? Everything [00:22:00] else that happens, but all I really care about is connecting with your character, right? So, so take a few extra beats in that moment, not to describe what’s happening.
But to describe how he’s feeling and reacting in this moment and what he wants, right? Like he wants out of this. Right? So what would he, what would he be trying to plot so that I could cheer for him and try and get out of this? We can’t.
Sarah M: Yeah. That makes, I think thank you. Because even though I think I’ve heard that in bits and pieces from other people getting it all in, that like one thing is super [00:22:30] helpful.
Yeah. And I can finally see
Suzy Vadori: why every attempt I’ve made to Rebi this hasn’t worked because I haven’t addressed it in that way. Yeah, it’s, it’s about the emphasis, right? And not treating everything equal. We forget, and I don’t know if you’ve ever written screenplays, but I work with a lot of writers who’ve written screenplays and, and that’s something that’s really hard for them to learn in particular.
And we tend to consume a lot of information visually, like plays. And, you know, I actually went to see Les [00:23:00] Mis live yesterday and there’s. All of these things that we consume in that way, but we have so many other tools in writing and that one inner thought one is one that I can’t stress enough is so cool.
And I think it’s why writing will never die, even though Netflix can turn out, you know, series after series. And maybe when this becomes, let’s manifest it for you when this becomes a Netflix series, right? I wish you could see Sarah smile, yes, let’s do this. I think it’d be awesome. And then you’ll have different.
Things to play with, [00:23:30] like lighting and music and um Right. Imagery. But here you won’t have inner thoughts then, right? Unless you do a bunch of annoying voiceovers, but yeah, use it here ’cause that’s really cool. Okay. Then you do, you do so many things well in this Sarah Harrow scratch, the Roby scar that crossed his cheek is such great imagery.
It is really, really good. The thing I’ll point out here is we’ve got, and then so he scratches himself on the cheek and then his [00:24:00] callous fingers are also snagging the silk lining of his pocket. You’re doing two things right there that are both with his hands. So either he scratches his cheek and then does the thing, which is kind of weird.
Right. Or he’s doing one with each pocket and then I feel like I’m patting my head and rubbing my tummy up this few time. So don’t lose that. Um, but I would move it because it’s hard to, again. Just make sure that you’re varying. I talk about the five elements, so there’s setting, which you’ve done a good job of here.[00:24:30]
They’re setting actions, reactions, inner thoughts and dialogue. You’ve got the actions down. I would just, you’re missing a bit of inner thoughts and reactions, which are kind of, they overlap, but I like to say them that way because. We’re reacting to things and not just acting right. And this one, it, it just was tight together.
What was I gonna say here? But actually the callous finger, snagging the lining of his pocket. I love because it actually has lots of other things I’m gonna [00:25:00] just put here. I’d love to interpret and give it some room to breathe again. And I’m just playing with this to show you. It doesn’t all have to be on this page, but if you give it some room to breathe and staying in his point of view, I wanna know what does he give up to be here?
Because he is resentful. I can tell that he’s resentful. Right. And what would it have been at stake if he’d refused? If he’d refused to come? I guess we know now that he’s been blackmailed, but you can bring some of that back in. And what is the risk to him if he fails at his orders? So always keep those things in [00:25:30] mind.
Again, they may be somewhere else in the, in the book and I just don’t know. But if you were to deepen his point of view, and again, I know you’re resistant to this, so this is fun. I’ve brainstormed some things. It might be wrong. Um, so I gotta tell you, as an editor, I have to be very brave because I have to say I’m wrong, but it’s a little bit easier when I’m only seeing one page and you can say, SU, you’re out to lunch.
And my character would never do that. But sometimes that’s fine too because then you know what they would do. So something, if you were to deepen his point of view [00:26:00] and actually try to pull some of that in, it might look something like this, right? It’s not just that action, but also wrap it with other things and make it do more work.
So it was fitting that he’d ripped his pocket, which would cost him a pretty penny to fix, but fix it. He must, because he often carried valuables for his clients and it wouldn’t do to let them slip out,
Sarah M: right?
Suzy Vadori: I don’t know if that even makes sense, and now I don’t think it’s the right voice saying it out loud,
Sarah M: but what does it mean?
Suzy Vadori: Make meaning of everything? He’s our point of view. So you can interpret or. [00:26:30] The dude could have set one of his flawless manner delegates, but he’d ordered him instead without considering how ill matched he’d feel in this court. Right. Dunno, again, can you see? It’s not just
Sarah M: Yeah, yeah,
Suzy Vadori: yeah. It’s not just in the moment.
He’s making meaning and, and kind of making it. I’m just trying to show you how you can weave in, I don’t know what, now I have a better idea, but I didn’t know when I brainstormed this. How about Harrow had protested that the Duke threatened to. I don’t know what the threat is. Um, but, so here he was and if he came back without the answer, the Duke [00:27:00] wanted, he could kiss whatever he is being held over him.
Goodbye. Right. Again, probably not the right voice, but the rest is great here too. But your stakes and consequences should be spelled out right here. Okay. If they’re not already.
Sarah M: Yeah. And I am, I think I’m too slow right now on spilling out what those stakes and consequences are. Like I think I get a little caught up in the like fun things I can do here or there and I’m like, they’ll, they’ll come.
They’ll come. But you’re right, they need to be up closer for the reader, otherwise that engagement kind of just disappears. [00:27:30] Yeah, exactly. And that’s, you know,
Suzy Vadori: especially when you get all, like, I assume the fun things are the world building. Yes.
Sarah M: Yeah.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. And, and that’s what you know when you’re writing this kind of.
Huge world. And do you know like what time period is this based on like I’m imagining, ’cause you said Robinhood, so I’m like,
Sarah M: I have an idea what I think it is, but it’s sort of typical futile medieval fantasy, but it’s set in something that feels very much more like the American Southwest and so Okay. [00:28:00] A little bit of like just slightly pre-industrial
Suzy Vadori: food.
Amazing.
Sarah M: So like mid 17 hundreds. Okay.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Amazing. And yeah, the world building is the fun part. But you’re right. I mean, we think too, like sometimes, especially when you’re building the whole novel and you’re kind of, I think you said you were about halfway through, we wanna save something for the second half, but it’s almost never the answer to sort of hide [00:28:30] things from your reader.
Right. And even if you’re kind of just trying to feel your way through it, the quicker you decide those stakes like. What does he want? Basically, what is he trying to get and what are the stakes? If he fails, what are the consequences if he fails to himself? Not to the world, not altruistically, not just I’m a good person, right?
And therefore I want everything because it just isn’t enough to carry out an entire novel. It’s enough for a short story, um, enough for a novel. [00:29:00] And so, yeah, getting really personal about that, like what is his deeply personal reason? For wanting to go up, for being willing to go above and beyond what any regular human would do in order to get what he wants.
That’s your story. So rather than trying to do it later and setting everything up, you really need to introduce that as quickly as you can, especially if he’s in this situation where he’s going to have to choose. I need to know, because I’m the reader and I need to know if I care about the [00:29:30] story and if I’m gonna keep reading.
Sarah M: Yeah, super helpful. Can I ask one question?
Suzy Vadori: Of course you can.
Sarah M: So one of the things I’ve thought about doing, because I feel like I’m trying to do too much in the scene and that’s been causing the pacing issues
Suzy Vadori: Yeah.
Sarah M: Is I’ve thought about stepping back one scene and doing something like with his arrival at the town.
Yeah. Where the focus could be on the conflict between him and the Duke, so that by the time he gets into the audience chamber, that history is there and then that conflict [00:30:00] becomes
Suzy Vadori: absolutely. Absolutely. And there’s lots of things that you can do. I mean, I, I’m not sure whether you have an outline or whether your pants and your way through, um, your pants and, okay.
I kind of had a feeling, which is fine. But a lot of times when we think of a scene, I like to challenge writers to think about how it could be presented differently, especially if this isn’t working. So you’re trying to add something before so that this has more context and we leave them in this chamber less.
For less [00:30:30] time, right? Mm-hmm. Also, if it’s not working, feel free to like mix it up and make it outside or make it something else, or bring somebody else into, is the Duke actually in the scene? I’m not sure that he is. Yeah. No, but could, but could he be Right? There’s, there’s things that you can do that we kind of get bogged down in what we first imagine a scene could be.
And there’s actually an exercise that I do with writers when we’re first starting to make them stretch themselves to say, okay. [00:31:00] Write a quick draft, 20 minutes of your scene, and then stop and change something, right? And then write it again and change something else. And by change something, like start it five minutes earlier or five minutes later, start it.
And it only takes like an hour and a half this thing, but it can fix a scene and it can start to get you to think about how you could do it differently. So yes, you could wrap story around it or context around it in other scenes. Or you could challenge yourself to put it someplace different, right? And [00:31:30] have it do more work.
So that confrontation where he is reacting could happen in a courtyard. It could happen, you know, somewhere else, and it kind of sucks. ’cause then you’d lose the description of the chair or whatever. But at the same time, if you’re willing to step back, if you know that this is the one moment and it’s not.
It’s too formal, he’s too uncomfortable, and therefore you’re not able to share that internal conflict because he can’t, like, you just can’t make it work. Then put him somewhere else where he has a little bit more [00:32:00] power and the imbalance isn’t so big, and maybe that will be better. I don’t
Sarah M: know. Yeah, no, I, I think I will try that for sure, because that could be an even better than trying to put in another scene.
Suzy Vadori: Yeah. Yeah. And not to say that this can’t work. I mean, it’s cool. I wanna be inside the chamber and I wanna see the chair and I wanna see all the things. But you’ve got him at a real disadvantage here. And so unless he’s strong enough to be railing against it in his mind, and we can see exactly [00:32:30] what’s happening.
You need to put him somewhere where he has more to do. ’cause he has nothing to do here. Right. Like, he’s like literally being complacent. And that’s a tricky place to put your protagonist in. So that’s why, you know, I was kind of harping on inner thoughts and I wouldn’t do that except that here, that’s all he’s got.
Right? Like, ’cause he’s kind of warring with himself.
Sarah M: Mm-hmm.
Suzy Vadori: And so either you need to make that war interesting. You need to put him somewhere where the imbalance of power isn’t quite so big [00:33:00] so he can be a little bit snarkier or break the rules a little bit to, to get that same point across. Does that make sense?
Sarah M: It does, yeah. Okay.
Suzy Vadori: Well, I’m excited to see where you go with this. I hope this was super helpful.
Sarah M: Thank you.
Suzy Vadori: You’re, you’re doing so many things well here, Sarah, on the page that you’re showing, you’re doing all the things. I’m sure that the rest of the book is amazing, but this is an important transition for your character, so make sure that it’s doing.
As much work as humanly possible.
Sarah M: Yes. Thank you so much. [00:33:30] Like
Suzy Vadori: playing welcomes. Yay. Make sure you keep in touch and let us know how it goes. Yeah. Thank you. You’re welcome.
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