Jean Wilson Murray

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Using the Iceberg Principle to Improve Your Fiction Writing

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

I came across the Iceberg Principle a while back, and found many references to it in connection with Ernest Hemingway. But there isn’t much about how to specifically apply it to your writing. So here goes:

First: the Iceberg Principle, as explained by Hemingway

If you’re read Hemingway, you know he writes in a very concise, even terse, style. See this NYTimes article (or below in this article) for a sample, and note the dialogue – short, almost brusque sentences, and an occasional short paragraph of narrative, with very little description.

Old_Wikisource_logo_used_until_2006
Wikimedia commons: original image by Uwe Kils, Wiska Bodo-Losslessly

As I understand what Hemingway said about the Iceberg Principle, you have to know what you are writing about, but you don’t need to write every word of what you know. “If the writer does his job,” Hemingway says, “the reader almost innately gets a sense of the underlying story, even without all the details.”

Here’s a scene from The Sun Also Rises, from the NY Times article I mentioned above:

“It’s cold.”

“Want to walk back?”

“Through the park.”

We climbed down. It was clouding over again. In the park it was dark under the trees.

“Do you still love me, Jake?”

“Yes,” I said

“Because I’m a goner,” Brett said.

“How?”

“I’m a goner. I’m mad about the Romero boy. I’m in love with him, I think.”

“I wouldn’t be if I were you.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a goner. It’s tearing me all up inside.”

“Don’t do it.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help anything.”

“You ought to stop it.”

“How can I stop it? I can’t stop things. Feel that?”

Her hand was trembling.

“I’m like that all through.”

“You oughtn’t to do it.”

“I can’t help it. I’m a goner now, anyway. Don’t you see the difference?”

“No.”

“I’ve got to do something. I’ve got to do something I really want to do. I’ve lost my self-respect.”

From this short scene, you can get a sense of:

  • the setting
  • how the characters feel about each other
  • their moods
  • the mood of the scene
  • the conflict between the two characters
  • a sense of foreboding
  • and an anticipation of what will happen next.

All in 156 words!

Hemingway had to know a lot about what was going on, he had to know the characters inside/out, and he had to have a strong sense of the setting and background. And, most important, he needed to know what was going to happen next in the story.

BUT, he didn’t need to tell you everything. He could show you in a subtle way, the tip of the fictional iceberg.

If you want another example of Hemingway’s style, to see the iceberg principle played out, read his short story Hills Like White Elephants.  

Then, the Iceberg Principle Applied

This principle works in all kinds of writing and business situations. For example, Chip Scanlon, writing for the Poynter Institute, discusses how reporters must interview many sources and do lots of research, before writing that article, which might contain only a small part of what the writer knows.

When I was writing business reports, I also gathered a great deal of information and had to distill it down to its essence, but I also had to be able to answer esoteric questions. Without a broad understanding of the issue, I wouldn’t have much credibility.

Finally, the Iceberg Principle Applied to Your Writing

How well you prepare to write your novel can make it sellable – or not. Using the Iceberg Principle when you are preparing to write and then writing, can make a difference. Some ways you can use the Iceberg Principle:

  • Build complex characters with lots of back story, not just the protagonist and antagonist.
  • Take time to create your setting completely, whether it’s a fictional world or a piece of the real world. Draw diagrams, maps, blueprints, whatever it takes to give you a sense of the setting. Write detailed descriptions of key places in the story.
  • If you want to create a fictional world, ask yourself all the questions that need to be answered about that world. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers have an article with a detailed list of questions you can work through to build your world.
  • Writing historical fiction? Be sure you know the details about the world in which your characters lived. Yes, this takes lots of time, but it will pay huge dividends in improving your writing.
  • Think about what is happening in the outside world while your story is going on. What events – local to global – might affect the characters and the story?
  • Create a specific timeline for your story – what happens when and what events happen in what order?

Following the iceberg principle in your fiction writing helps enrich your writing. It makes you an “expert” in the story you are writing, and helps your readers feel more involved with your story.

While your readers may not acknowledge your efforts in spending the time to gather the whole iceberg, they will be able to more quickly become immersed in your story and your characters.

As Hemingway said,

If a writer of prose knows enough of what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an ice-berg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water.

 

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: Story and Storytelling, The Writing Life Tagged With: fiction writing, Hemingway, iceberg principle, novel writing, writing fiction, writing style, writing tips

Two Ways to Jump-Start Your Novel – Or Procrastinate Creatively

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

It depends on how you look at it. I’ve found two ways to get started writing again on my novel. Unfortunately, neither actually involves writing the novel. They both involve getting deeper into the novel and working out structure. Both have helped me work out issues and settle questions I had in my mind, and both have given me a mental boost to start writing again.

I finished my first – really awful – draft, went to a writer’s workshop, read some books on writing, and I’m now taking a course on storytelling. In the process, I have re-started my novel, working on a second draft. But some suggestions in the writing course and the workshop got me working on my novel again. Although they took some time – several days on each – I have been able to use them to begin working more confidently on my novel, knowing where the story is going and where it will end up.

I made up both of these, but they might be out there somewhere, in a similar form and I know other people have different ways of doing this (note cards, posters, etc.). There’s nothing new under the sun, after all.

1. The Story table. I created a simple table in Word. My purpose was to see things in parallel – the outer journey (plot) of the book and the inner journey of the main character. After I started, I added the inner journey of what was going on with the antagonist and the descriptions and events for the other main characters, including character arcs for some of them. Then I added sub-plots, and “breadcrumbs” (those hints that will be needed at the end).

The headings for the columns in the table are:

Structure: The basic story diagram (from The Writer’s Compass: From Story Map to Finished Draft in 7 Stages) of rising action, plot points, to climax and falling action.

* Storyline: Next to the structure, what’s happening when, by days and times. The plot points on the first column are next to the events at those points.

* Timeline/history. What’s happening in the outside world each day of the story. The timeline/history has been created (see below).

* Protagonist – internal – character arc. What’s happening with the protagonist; what she is feeling, thinking, how her character is developing.

* Sub-plots. What’s going on with other characters who are important to the story.

* Antagonist. What’s going on at each point with the antagonist, relative to each point in the story.

* Breadcrumbs. Points at which I need to insert specific facts which will be needed later.

2. History/timeline. This document was developed from a suggestion at the writing workshop that I needed to set up the “rules” for the world I was creating. I want to write historical fiction, so it made sense to do this. It would work well for all types of fiction, though, as the author is creating a world that may differ in small or large dimensions from the world we actually live in. To think of it another way, the world appears differently to each of us, so the author can create the world in his or her own image.

This document is a detailed description of the world of the story, before the story starts and during the timeline of the story. No individuals are mentioned, but events are described in detail, along with situations and facts about the various areas of the city. For each day, the weather and other natural phenomena (eclipses, for example) are described.

For example,

Timeline/History

 Falls River, Iowa ,is a small city of about 100,000 people, with a county of about 150,000 people. People outside of the town, in the county, live in various small communities. The smaller communities are largely farming – corn and soybeans and some cattle and pigs. The city is on the Dover River.

 Day 1: September 19, 2018.
     The day was clear and sunny, an early fall day. The temperature was about 64 at 10 a.m. The high for the day was 71, falling to 55 at 10 p.m.

The electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) was detonated at 10,000 feet in the atmosphere at 10:20 a.m. on Wednesday, September 19, 2018, over Kansas. The blast immediately wiped out all electronic devices and the electrical grid of most of the U.S. (except California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii, and the western parts of Nevada.)  

No cars made after the 1970s were able to run because of their computer circuitry. Older cars would run, but it would be difficult to find gas for them because gas station pumps were not working and no gasoline trucks could deliver more gas.

Phones and cell phones, portable devices, tablets, and computers would not operate once they ran out of batteries. No satellite service was available and no Wi-Fi networks would work because routers running on electricity were inoperable…..

How my “writing tools” have helped me with my draft:

1. The story table helped me figure out where the plot points should occur, the character arcs of the protagonist and other major characters, how tension needs to build through the novel, how the sub-plots fit in, and how/when breadcrumbs might fit in. It sounds like a lot of work – and it was – but I’m moving ahead more confidently now, and having the outline in my head and on paper is immensely helpful in letting me be free to write instead of worrying about where I’m going.

2. The history/timeline made me spot inconsistencies in what was going on in the story and in the greater world. It also gave me some ways to bring in information to my characters, who were shut off from the world. It was fun to write the history, and I was finding some creative ways to add to the story. I might not use much of this, but it is important to know more than you put into a story.

With all this work, it’s taken me about a week, but I think it’s been helpful. Or have I just been procrastinating? What do you think?

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: character arc, historical fiction, novel writing, plot structure, writers outline, writing fiction, writing tips

5 Things ‘House of Cards’ Taught Me About Novel Writing

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

House of Cards Opening Sequence (LINK)
Image via Manybits – Flickr Creative Commons

I just finished watching all 13 episodes of House of Cards, the second season. Wow! I reserve my superlatives for only the best, and this is it.  I give it 10 stars! But as I was caught up in the drama, I reflected on what the writers were doing and I could see lots of value for my own novel writing efforts.

Netflix just released the entire 13 episodes of the second season of House of Cards. The story focuses on Congressman Frank Underwood and his wife Claire. At the beginning of the first season Frank was denied the Secretary of State post he wanted in the new administration, and he sets out to get revenge on the president he worked to elect. Claire helps him and they have trusted allies and enemies. While I don’t want to give away all the plot twists, I can give you some general idea of some of the learning moments I experienced.

What I learned from watching House of Cards:

1. Less is More. Subtle and understated is better. A few words go a long way. In one scene, a man is about to do something and he looks at his fiance and asks, “You think I’m weak, don’t you?” She says nothing. Very understated, but you get the message. It’s left to the viewer to decide. A few lines of dialogue with interruptions are enough to show us the tension between two of Frank’s staffers. We don’t need to be hit over the head with the message.

2. Breadcrumbs are teasers. Speaking of little hints, I love the breadcrumbs, little bits of scenes that give the reader an idea of something to come. Showing someone with a gun sets up tension in the reader’s mind. The reader wants to know, expects to know what is going to happen. House of Cards does this brilliantly.

Characters get texts or phone calls and you’re not sure what they were about, but they are explained later. Or someone is in a scene and someone else is watching them but we don’t know who or why.

These breadcrumbs keep us interested, as do asides in a novel or information we don’t know that we need. Just make sure the breadcrumbs amount to something later. This is the concept that, if you show a gun in the first scene, it must be used before the end of the book. Don’t tease readers without following through.

3. Characters are multifaceted. Frank and Claire Underwood are pretty bad people – or are they? We see them doing some bad things, but we also see them in some tender scenes together and we see them thinking about and doing some pretty touching things. That makes them human, and believable. Frank develops a new hobby based on his interest in the Civil War and his family’s history, and some of the pain in Claire’s past is revealed. This pain also shows us more about the relationship between Claire and Frank, which is complex and therefore interesting.

Ruth Rendell, mystery and psychological thriller author, says, “I try, and I think I succeed, in making my readers feel sorry for my psychopaths, because I do.” The House of Cards writers have this figured out too.

4. Symbolism shows. Instead of telling us how Frank feels about his Southern roots, we see a symbolic gesture in what he does with a ring. A pair of cufflinks provides a moment of humor, but also a way to understand the relationship between Frank and another character. A birthday cake and how both Frank and Claire react to it shows more about their relationship.

5. Leave ’em guessing. Every scene, every chapter, in House of Cards has some tension at the end, something shocking, something unanswered, or some thought that leaves the reader on the edge of her seat. In a novel, even works that are not mystery or suspense, you can end scenes and especially chapters with danglers.

The end of the season included a major plot resolution, but left lots of hanging questions that will – I hope – be resolved next season. I don’t like major cliffhangers at the end of a season or a novel because I think that’s unfair to readers, but a little mystery at the end of a novel is okay – it makes readers want to read the next one but doesn’t torture them for a year or more.

 

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: House of Cards, Kevin Spacey, Netflix, novel writing, writing fiction, writing tips

Write Less to Write Better

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

Goodreads Quote of the Day for today:

The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet black bough.

Ezra Pound

October 30, 1885: Though Ezra Pound wrote some epic poems, he is also well known for the two-line work, In a Station of the Metro. In its first incarnation, the poem was 30 lines. Later, he reduced it to 15. Finally, a year later, he boiled it down to these 14 words.

___

I love the idea of taking a work from 30 lines down to 14 words. It shows attention to detail and cutting out the extraneous and unnecessary.

I had heard of this poem many years ago and I think of it occasionally when I’m in some public place and there are lots of umbrellas (petals) in evidence. Another reason to appreciate this poem, because it calls up an image.

In The Elegant Art of Writing Less, Leo Babauta lists 4 steps to writing less. And Jeff Goins lists weak words that you should try to eliminate.

One of the most effective techniques: Kill your Adjectives (from Mark Twain). Don’t say “really smart,” just say “smart.” Or, better yet, SDT (show don’t tell) this person’s intelligence.

One of my favorite quotes, again from Mark Twain:

“I didn’t have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

As I worked on this post, I found myself paying attention to how much I was writing and how I could shorten. So I’ll just quit by saying, “Write less to write better.”

Related articles
  • Remembering Ezra Pound: October 30, 1885 to November 1, 1972 (therebel.org)
  • Pound and Joyce: It’s the Little Things (engl2523.wordpress.com)

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: Ezra Pound, Mark Twain, Writers Resources, Writing, writing fiction, writing tips

Why I’m Doing NaNoWriMo

by Jean Murray Leave a Comment

First, I should explain. NaNoWriMo is short for “National Novel Writing Month.” It’s a non-profit organization that has been around since 1999. They believe that stories matter and want to encourage writing. To date, over 250 NaNoWriMo authors have been traditionally published. (See the list of NaNoWriMo published authors here). Last year (2012), over 340,000 people all over the world participated. That’s a lot of potential novels!

Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month
Image courtesy of National Novel Writing Month

So, why am I joining NaNoWriMo for the first time?

1. I need a kick in the butt. I finished the first draft of my novel They Also Serve (more about that someday) in late August and went to Ireland in September. Before I went, I was very disciplined about writing first thing every day, at least 1500-2000 words. Since I returned I lost that discipline. I need a kick to get it back.

2. Habits take 21 days to solidify. I got into the habit of daily writing easily and quickly. I got up every morning about 6 a.m., got my coffee, and sat down to write. I need to get back into that habit and 30 days in November should do it. Then, when I am done with NaNoWriMo at the end of November, I should have a good habit formed.

3. I am looking forward to the pep talks. Each year, NaNoWriMo asks published authors to give pep talks to participants. Everyone needs a pep talk to keep going, and this year should be good, with James Patterson and others to keep us motivated.

4. I’m wondering if I should join a writer’s group. Haven’t decided yet, but NaNoWriMo has some local groups and online groups I might decide to join. I would be most interested in a group focused on historical fiction or mystery writing. I figure I’ll wait and see who finishes the month with a novel. I’d rather work with and discuss with people who are disciplined.

3. I also think stories matter. I want to support NaNoWriMo, in more ways than just writing. My current novel and future novels will all have a theme of storytelling. Not just books, but oral stories and other ways to share common feelings and ideas.

Interested in writing a novel? Are you willing to commit to commit to starting or working on a novel in November? NaNoWriMo might be a way to get started. And even if you don’t get a full novel done, at least you will have attained some level of discipline. Like me. I’m determined.

Related articles
  • The #NaNoWriMo Checklist (writingishardwork.com)
  • Countdown to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) | Accept the Writing Challenge and Turn Pro Now (veronicamariajarski.com)
  • Preparing for NaNoWriMo (whypaperbeatsrock.wordpress.com)

Filed Under: The Writing Life Tagged With: nanowrimo, National Novel Writing Month, Writers Resources, Writing, writing fiction

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