Writing Notes #3

Exposition and action

Link to the actual piece:

Another Wrong to Right

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Exposition and Meaningful Action

The problem/situation

My writing is too restricted. I’m tethered too tightly to the action. For me, it’s an issue of confidence and skill. I’m scared to waste readers’ time. I believe the existence of my work puts people out, like leud bathroom graffiti at a funeral home, so best to keep it short and to the point (like a penis or pen-drawn threat).

Specifically, I try to centre my writing around the ‘meaningful action.’ In short fiction, unlike a film or novel, you often don't have the time to show the reader everything, to shoot for full emersion. So, if an important conversation needs to happen, you skip the character’s train ride, the climbing of the stairs, the entering the room. You go straight to them talking: ‘I killed your cat Maureen, and I loved it!’

But the more I think about this, the less I consider that conversation inherently ‘meaningful.’ It’s more like ‘pivotal’ action. That conversation would be a hinge on which the story… pivots. In Rush Hour 2, Carter’s decision to save the chicken from being beheaded is essential to him tracking the villain; however, I would not describe it as meaningful. Using meaningful in that sense would be a plot-centric view of meaning: what is meaningful becomes what progresses the plot. This is wrong.

Most action is meaningless without… its meaning (send me the Noblee Prize for Friction). And some actions are more obvious than others: a killing, infidelity, yelling in a law firm—often strong emotions and stakes can be understood inherently. But most—and even those actions sometimes—require contextualisation and nuance for the true meaning to be revealed. And if—like me—you stick to pure action, then it can be hard to get that nuance across. Your work then falls flat, like a 2d penis on a wall.

A second issue with this approach is one of weighting. Essentially, in your mind you’re thinking, I’ll isolate the meaningful action and focus on it. Your words become a spotlight that you shine on pertinent events. But there’s an assumption here. More words, more time (more weight), equals more significance, more meaning. Well, I’m not sure that’s true. All this does is play with the pacing.

So, to summarise my problem: Because I’m timid and lacking in skill, I tether my work tightly to, and spend most of my words on, the pertinent actions. However, I do not provide the appropriate context/nuance to make those pertinent moments meaningful.

Enter exposition.

A template for my solution.

Fortunately, there are heaps of great writers and stories out there to show the way. Featherweight, link below, is one such story by Sterling Holywhitemountain. I studied this paragraph-by-paragraph and took notes. There was so much for me to learn.

The author story spends a lot of time/words contextualising the character’s world. Unlike me, he’s not so timid that he has to make sure every paragraph progresses the plot-action, to avoid the few readers he has arriving at his house and attempting to bash him, only to fail, obviously, because the man these disgruntled readers tried to assault is strong, tall, aggressive and a highly trained fighter. He’s better than that.

My attempt

My piece is about Nina, a mother with a worldview centred around justice (not at all resembling women in my immediate and extended family, in no way!). This worldview shapes much of her life: she can overreact to small things but move mountains when it matters. This worldview is shaped, in part, by her own mother’s values, and Nina’s situation is made more stressful because she is raising her daughter alone.

I tried to show that context to make her decision to go get the dress more meaningful. Below, I’ve visualised what I did this time compared to what I might have done before.

Review

This attempt did two things for me:

• Previously, I would have put a lot more words into the breaking of the front door. This is when the action turns criminal and is the key decision, I suppose. This time, I gave it a paragraph. I think it works better. My idea of what is meaningful, my considerations of weighting, how to deliver an impact, it’s unsettled now.

• This exercise helped me to express myself a little more. The Harvey Norman example (I imply that she attacked the store clerk), the stuff around the energy source, her mother and the fridge—I feel this is me. I enjoy the zany explanations and titbits. I used to write more of this when I wrote just for myself. Hopefully from now I can start to combine the better story writing skills I’m developing (prose, structure, tension, etc…) with more of my own colour.

Favourite Line

My favourite line is the following:

Being banned from Harvey Norman was a worthy price to pay to protect her mother and all those alike.

This is my favourite line because it follows her threatening dialogue and implies that she attacked the store clerk at Harvey Norman.