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A Deep Dive into Backstory

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Note: The opinions in this post are mine. They do not necessarily reflect the views of other writers or even other members of the Orca staff. – JP

Sections:

What makes fiction work? What gives readers the feeling they are reading a great story and don’t want to stop? I’ve devoted a lot of time and research to this idea, reading the opinions of successful and well known writers, as well as critical articles from dozens of academics. I’ve come to believe there are some psychological factors that appeal to readers and make them want to read more. And I’ve discovered that using backstory in fiction, especially when it is ill-timed or off-topic, often works against those elements. In this post I’d like to point out why backstory does not work, and to offer a better way to write fiction.

Backstory is enormously prevalent in fiction. I’d estimate that more than 80% of the submissions we receive at Orca resort to backstory within the first page or two. Even many published works employ extensive, blatant, and often boring backstory right after the opening (not at Orca, of course). I’ve had other writers tell me they actually enjoy writing backstory.

I believe it may be helpful to take a deep dive into backstory to see if my opinion is justified. What’s involved when a writer uses backstory? What’s the motivation? What’s the result? Why do so many writers use backstory in the first place?

Some definition is in order. Often a story begins with a promising opening scene that contains good tension. As soon as that scene ends (or in some cases even before it is finished) the story switches to deliver background facts from a distant, authorial narrator. Something like this:

The assailant pulled out a gun and held it to Bob’s head. “If you don’t tell me what I want to know I’ll kill you right now,” he said. Bob’s knees began to shake uncontrollably.

A few years ago, when Bob had just graduated from college, he could not have anticipated a situation like this. He had been offered a job at a brokerage house. He was engaged to be married. All he could think about was the great things the future held in store for him.

That’s a little over the top, but hopefully you get the idea. The writer has switched from a tense and compelling scene to dry, factual background. The second paragraph is more like the writer’s notes than a part of the active story. This info may be of some use in understanding the character and his motivations, but it has nothing to do with the present action, which theoretically is the story you are trying to tell.

The Reader’s Perspective

Let’s look at this from a reader’s perspective. Almost every well-known writer or critic who has written a book about writing has identified the aspects of fiction that readers subconsciously hope to find in a story and that hold their attention. Some of the most important ones are creating sympathy for characters, rising action, creating mystery, and maintaining forward momentum. (As you can probably tell, these are related to each other.) Consider each in its relation to backstory.

Creating Sympathy: This is perhaps the only aspect of fiction in which backstory might seem helpful, but that is an illusion. Providing background details about a character makes the character more easily understandable to readers. It touches on character motivation, which is crucial to creating sympathy. I can see why so many writers want to employ that device. But that doesn’t condone it. Good writers know that they can better convey character motivation through the subtext of the present action. What characters do and say in the present are clues to what’s inside them and what has happened to them in the past, compelling them toward their desires. Doing it this way engages the reader to want to know more about the character. Readers want to learn through discovery, not through backstory. This is how we learn about people in real life—gradually, through the actions they take and the things they say.

Rising Action: Anyone who’s taken even a beginner course in fiction has seen the graph of rising action. I like to think of this as an illustration of increasing tension from the beginning of a story to its climax and resolution. As events move forward things get tougher for the main characters. The barriers to achieving goals get bigger and more consequential until the character is forced to make a crucial decision or achieve a revelation. Backstory reduces tension by explaining things, by simply laying out the facts like a lecture. If the goal of fiction is to create rising tension, then backstory, by reducing tension, is a self-defeating device. It does not contribute to rising action, but instead works against it.

Creating Mystery: Every good story is a mystery. Good fiction gets readers to want to know what happened next. This is initially done by establishing the stakes for the characters. What do the characters hope to gain, and more important, what do they stand to lose if things don’t work out? A huge part of successful fiction is knowing how to get readers to turn the page. Good writers provide just enough information to get them to do that. They leave out some to make readers want to discover the rest. In concert with character sympathy and rising action this creates reader engagement, the feeling that makes readers forget about what else is happening in their lives at that moment and immerses them in the world of the story. Backstory, by its nature, does exactly the opposite. It explains things for the reader. It makes things clear, and therefore defuses the mystery. If a story uses backstory to answer my questions, then why do I need to keep reading?

Forward Momentum: “The story is not in the news, it is in the moment.” That’s a favorite quote of mine from the editor Gordon Lish. He understood that good fiction is immersion and engagement in another world. And that world can only be conveyed well by allowing the reader to participate in it. There’s no chance for participation in a work of fiction when a writer stops the story as if to say, “But wait, let me explain…” Think about why people love movies and plays. It’s not just because they are more visual and auditory, although that does have much to do with it. But think also about how you can’t really stop a movie or play to offer backstory. How would that go? The action would cease and the spotlight would focus on the director or the writer, who would then just sit there and tell the audience the facts about the characters’ past lives. Pretty silly, isn’t it? Backgrounding in those disciplines is done in flashback, which is not the same as backstory because it’s still in scene and it still has the immediacy of a scene. It’s also usually engendered by something that happens in the present action. You don’t just drop into a flashback for no reason at all. It’s triggered by something that’s happening in the present. Backstory is something completely else. It is simply an explanation, the kind of thing that you got when you were in school: Here’s a fact that you must know, and here is why you must know it. Few people like that kind of lecture.

Why Backstory is so Prevalent

Education: That’s part of the problem, however, because from day one we’ve been schooled by parents and teachers to explain ourselves. The emphasis in the American educational system is on making ourselves factually logical and understandable to others (which these days means rote memorization, but that’s another subject). There is not much emphasis on creativity. It makes some sense, since most people will not go into the arts, but will enter careers in which communicating facts are important (obviously this no longer includes politics, which has leapfrogged creative writing and now dwells in the world of fantasy). A writer must realize, then, that those lessons from childhood do not serve good fiction because that discipline is based on the communication of characters’ emotional states more than the facts of their lives. That’s one of the things that gives fiction its impact.

Examples in published writing: They are everywhere, and, honestly, have always been everywhere. I was writing a critique of a client’s short story recently and was reminded of a story on a similar topic that I had read a couple of decades ago and that has stayed in the back of my mind. I looked it up, and found it on the web, and started reading. To my shock I saw that the story dropped into several paragraphs of boring background facts before the first page was completed. Obviously my understanding of the art of fiction has changed over the years. But it’s no wonder so many emerging writers think it’s okay to write this way, and worse, that there is no better way to convey a story.

Laziness: Creating character sympathy through subtext is not easy. It takes a deep understanding of each character by the writer. It also takes the ability to convey that character motivation through subtle, symbolic language. Communicating these through backstory is a cheat. It is lazy writing. It’s a lot easier to write backstory than it is to write present action. Backstory is almost always exposition and summary. It is generally the writer telling the reader about character motivation, rather than allowing the characters to have the spotlight and convey motivation through their actions and dialogue, like real human beings. But since when is writing fiction supposed to be easy? It is hard, very hard, for most writers to inhabit the minds of several characters at once, but if a writer can it results in realistic, compelling scenes. Plus, it gives readers the opportunity to discover these motivations for themselves, and those revelations make readers feel involved and satisfied, instead of feeling like a passive listener.

Low Expectations: I’ll admit, some readers like backstory. Readers who like backstory like things simple. They do not want to work to figure out character motivation. They are not interested in character depth. They would rather have things explained to them, than be challenged to figure them out for themselves. It’s hard not to talk about societal trends when discussing reader preferences, and I am not an expert in that area. But a look at popular culture indicates that many people prefer sentimentality and nostalgia over reality and intellectual challenge, and since the publishing business is more focused on appealing to the general public than ever before, backstory (not to mention editorializing) in fiction will remain popular. If those are the people you want to write for, then fine, load your work with simplistic, boring backstory. If you would rather challenge your readers and use your work to say something more interesting, then you will need to eliminate backstory.

Speaking of Nostalgia: I believe there is a correlation between backstory and nostalgia. Both are simplistic. Both ignore the nuance and complexity of reality and wish to replace them with easy answers to difficult questions. In that sense both exhibit a fear of reality. They avoid the challenge of the present. Until about a century ago nostalgia was considered a mental disease (see https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/08/when-nostalgia-was-a-disease/278648/). It indicated an unwillingness to face the current situation. Although nostalgia is no longer considered a mental defect, it is still a way of retreating from the present. Backstory is like that. In terms of writing it looks inward, avoiding engagement with the reader, while realistic character sympathy looks outward, welcoming it.

Tips for Eliminating Backstory

If you want to write intelligent, compelling fiction I believe there is a better way. I am hopeful these suggestions will help.

  • Stay in the moment and keep the story moving forward. Always remember that readers typically want to know what happened next, much more than what happened before. Forward momentum in fiction creates the rising action/tension that keeps readers engaged, and you can only maintain that forward momentum by staying in the moment. As much as possible keep the active scene going. Don’t cut it short by dropping into a long, boring explanation.
  • Envision your story as a play or a movie. Readers translate what you have written into visual images, so the better you are able to imagine what is happening, the more compelling the story. Background facts do not translate into images as well.
  • Instead of you saying it, let your characters say it. When you review the previous day’s writing (and this part of the revision process is a must if you are to become a successful writer) analyze how you have conveyed information. Is it coming from the narrator, or is it delivered through the characters? Keep in mind that character action and dialogue is much more effective at both engaging readers and conveying information. It’s important that you understand how subtext is used to convey meaning and character motivation in good fiction. There are many great books about using subtext. I recommend Charles Baxter’s The Art of Subtext: Beyond Plot.
  • Does your reader need to know this right now? Does your reader need to know this at all? The same is true for the information you wish to communicate. When you read what you have written, ask yourself if the information is important enough to include, and if so, whether it belongs at the place you have put it. A mentor of mine, Bruce Holland Rogers, said it best: Don’t offer background information unless and until the reader absolutely, positively can’t go on without knowing it.
  • Keep thinking about your readers—what do they want and expect from your fiction? Successful published fiction is a balance between what the writer wants to say and the readers’ expectations. Good fiction is not just about you. It’s about how you communicate with the people who will pay to read your work.

– Joe Ponepinto

Image by David Mark from Pixabay

100 Stories: Reflection

Conor Barnes

Orca editors’ note: To help bring in the new year we wanted our blog to offer something inspirational to writers. Conor Barnes’s recent post on his accomplishments over the past year seemed like a perfect fit.

This year I resolved to write 100 short stories, and over eleven months I achieved it. I am absolutely pleased that I achieved it. This is a post of general reflections on the process and the results.

This all came about because I wanted to push myself as a writer, enjoy writing short stories, and was inspired by Visakan Veerasamy’s do 100 things proposal. Doing 100 things is something I would strongly recommend for anybody trying to get good at something.

I went for breadth more than for depth. I wrote about lovers and war and fools and the anxious. I wrote happy stories and sad stories. I wrote fairy tales and science fiction and literary fiction and one Chrono Trigger fanfiction. I thought they would all be microfiction, but the average length was at the higher end of flash fiction. The first one snuck in on December 12, 2021 and is one of my favourites. The last one was written on November 30 and is also one of my favourites.

I reread them frequently. This might be abnormal—but because I wrote the kind of stories I like to read, I enjoy reading them quite a bit! Simultaneously, it helps surface issues, by noticing bits that chafe on every read.

I wrote in a variety of conditions. Often in bed, sometimes at a cafe, a few on my girlfriend’s armchair, a few on a couch beside some lovely writers, a few in a notebook at a beach. Whenever possible, I used Abricotine because I find it much more pleasant than word processors, but my longest were written on plane rides on Google Keep.

The Publication Process

I started the year by publishing pieces on my blog, then I mostly settled on submitting to online magazines. Both are documented here.

I submitted 342 pieces (places usually asked for three pieces, so this actually means a bit over 100 submissions). Rejection didn’t really bother me. Much gratitude to the editors at Orca, who supplied wonderful feedback at what I think is a steal of a price.

I am not sure what comes next with my short stories. In August I decided that I had been published enough online and now wanted to just submit very deliberately to magazines. Shortly after that I was hired at 80,000 Hours though, so that slowed down significantly. What I’d like most is to publish a chapbook, so that might be my next venture alongside editing.

Level

I strongly feel that I have leveled up as a writer. Funnily, I don’t think my last piece was stronger than my first piece—but at the beginning of the year I could do one kind of voice, and now I can do many.

I worry that I have the common poet problem of assuming that readers taste the profundity I do. More generally, I want to be sure that I am generating in readers the feelings and images I am feeling. When I imagine a serpent long enough to wrap around the world, I want the reader to picture it as mysteriously and horribly as I do. I know I have improved at this, and I know I still have a long way to improve.

I am not yet the writer I want to be. I think the next step is to go for depth instead of breadth—devotedly focus on leveling up a particular style. This could be by writing a novel (I’ve had an idea percolating for years!) or by working on a few, particular short stories.

Joys

I explored questions that would otherwise have been blog posts: Would a society that defeats aging become risk-averse? If we had a Marvel-style multiverse, what would regular people do with it? I created sentences I’m still proud of. I became more attuned to the quirks and ugliness and beauty of the world.

The greatest joy has been in sharing. My girlfriend has been a lovely listener minutes after I’m done writing a piece. Friends have graciously read pieces sent as Github gists or FB messages.

Thanks

Thanks to friends who responded to entire short stories in Facebook messages. Thanks to the magazines who published me (Blink Ink and the Parliament Literary Journal even published physically!) and the editors who gave feedback. Thanks goes to the wonderful writers with whom I got to share stories. My biggest thanks go to my girlfriend for being both endlessly supportive and an excellent editor.

Conor Barnes is a Canadian writer living in Halifax. His fiction has been published in the Apple Valley Review, White Wall Review, the Metaworker Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. His poetry has been published in Modern Haiku, Frogpond, and Puddles of Sky Press.

Image by tookapic from Pixabay

Can Writing Be Taught…Or Learned?

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As promised from last month’s blog post.

Approaching this subject is always a risky proposition. I’ve seen writing teachers cancelled from their positions when their frustration with emerging writers emboldens them to say that some people cannot be taught how to write. The issue is far more complicated than that.

In my writing and editing experience I’ve noticed that it’s not so much how you grew up or where you went to school that determines your writing talent and ability, but a set of qualities or personality traits that lend themselves to a writing frame of mind. It isn’t a question of publishing success either. The publishing industry, especially now that it is controlled by corporations fixated on profit rather than quality, is not a fair barometer of writing talent. I know hundreds of people who have the ability, but haven’t had the recognition.

All of the qualities I list below can be learned. It’s certainly easier for people who are born with them to employ them in their writing, but with commitment they can be achieved. In fact, these are all traits that I believe can help people in many different pursuits in life. I tend to think of them as part of a personal growth process.

These are in no particular order, with some brief explanations:

  • Attention to detail: The kind of person who is aware of what is going on around them, and, more importantly, recognizes which ones are connected to human desire and motivation.
  • A questioning attitude: Good writers rarely take information at face value. Like good journalists, they understand there is an agenda of self-interest behind almost every statement. This is also the ability, and the desire, to look at things from a variety of different perspectives.
  • Imagination: Instead of settling for tired conventions and predictable plots, good writers ask, “what if?” What if something different happened? What are the possibilities? Imagination is often the product of planning and spontaneity.
  • Memory: A powerful memory helps writers keep the details of their work in mind as they continue to write forward, leading to plot turns that surprise and yet make sense.
  • Risk: Good writers write what they believe needs to be said, whether or not it might be published or popular.
  • Focus: The ability to turn off email and social media, to basically shut out the real world and immerse in the world of the story.
  • An understanding of character psychology: Awareness of subconscious perceptions that their characters have, and the ability to connect those perceptions to meaning for the characters.
  • An understanding of reader psychology: What engages readers? What makes them want to turn the page?
  • Selflessness: The ability to take the author out of the story, to recognize that the story and its characters are the most important things, the reader is the next important thing, and the writer (and his ego) don’t matter at all. Someone once asked Laurence Olivier what makes a great actor. Olivier responded, “The humility to prepare and the confidence to pull it off.” I see plenty of writers who have the second half of that equation, but not the first.

Notice I didn’t say intelligence. Not that this doesn’t have anything to do with writing well, but without embracing the above qualities intelligence doesn’t translate into good creative writing.

Definitely writing instruction can make a difference to someone who is truly committed to learning the craft. An experienced writing mentor, someone who understands not only good writing practice, but also can accurately assess the abilities of students in order to build their strengths and address weaknesses, can be invaluable.

Those teachers who believe that some people cannot learn writing might consider their teaching technique, not to mention their sense of privilege and their own educational opportunities, before making a judgment about their students. Maybe they are more into their own ideal of writing than helping others; perhaps it shows an insecurity about their own talent, or an inflexibility regarding what is acceptable writing style.

For their part, emerging writers should remember that writing instruction can only take a person so far. Like any form of education it is done best when its goal is to get the student to think, rather than recite—to explore and connect apparently disparate ideas in order to create an understanding of how the world actually works. That creates a foundation for good writing. But students must realize that the education process continues long after they have stopped working with the mentor, and that writing is not so much an occupation, as it is a life.

– Joe Ponepinto

Image by StarzySpringer from Pixabay

On Reading to Learn Writing

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One of the more popular approaches to learning how to write well has long been to read, read, read. Some writing teachers even encourage their students to copy, word for word, passages or stories from their favorite writers as though, through osmosis, they will learn to write better.

How true is that?

It seems that by copying the words of an established writer one learns how to copy, not necessarily how to write. The same is true, maybe, about reading. The more you read, the better you become at… reading?

In an essay on the website psyche.co, titled, “How to Read Less and Think for Yourself More,” David Bather Woods, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick in Coventry, UK, quotes liberally from Arthur Schopenhauer and Marcel Proust to make the case that reading should be a means to an end, but not the end itself—that what you read and how you read it are more important than the quantity of reading material.

There are many writers, some famous, who claimed that they learned to write by reading copious amounts of work by the writers who inspired them. So many that this approach has become something of a standard in creative writing circles. But Woods’s essay is more inspiring to me, personally, than any of that. I’ve never been one to want to copy anyone else’s words. And I certainly wouldn’t call myself well-read, particularly in comparison to academics who can quote by heart passages from dozens of writers in the literary pantheon. Book knowledge only translates into effective writing if the concepts learned while reading are synthesized into the reader’s existing knowledge base (which, I suspect, is what those famous writers really meant to say). Reading, whether a lot or not a lot, is only one part of that equation. Woods, using Schopenhauer and Proust to back him up, claims that too many people substitute what they’ve read for their own opinions, and that just reading more doesn’t make them any smarter. Assume that’s true for a second and apply it to emerging writers, the ones who are most susceptible to the influences of other, established writers—are they learning to write well and develop their own style, or only to write better, or are they merely killing time? The answer seems to depend on the reader’s disposition, a variety of psychological, cultural, and situational factors the reader brings to a book, and that seems to support what Woods is saying.

Woods quotes from Schopenhauer: “Reading is a mere surrogate for one’s own thinking…erudition makes most people even more stupid and simple than they already are by nature.” And, “The only way reading shapes us for writing is that it teaches us the use we can make of our own natural gifts…” Apparently Schopenhauer didn’t have much faith in the average person, particularly those who didn’t have the educational advantages he had. (He’s another author I have not read well.) But I think what he’s saying that’s helpful here is that without thoughtful analysis reading is merely an exercise in memorization, not comprehension. The information gleaned from reading is often used only to support a pre-existing belief, not to challenge that belief. (He also seems to be broaching the subject of whether some people are born to be writers while others are not. Perhaps I’ll explore that one next time.)

Proust was more poetic about it: “The supreme effort of the writer as of the artist only succeeds in raising partially for us the veil of ugliness and insignificance that leaves us incurious before the universe.” The implication is that we must do the rest ourselves, and that if we are not already curious about the universe no amount of reading is going to make us change.

I can’t help wondering how many excellent writers bristled against the recommendations that they received to read until their eyes are ready to fall out, and copy passages, and now are afraid to admit it because of the stigma the creative writing world has applied to being less well read than your department chair. While in school I slogged through many books that I found tedious and unhelpful, and which I would quickly abandon now. Others, however, had me re-reading passages asking, “How did the writer do that? How did she provoke such an emotional reaction in me?” Those books encouraged me to develop a more interdisciplinary approach, to look beyond just the words on the page and into the structure of the work, how it carefully created a foundation that primed the reader to have that reaction. They helped me begin to see how closely tied good writing is to psychology, how certain structures and words can trigger responses. That depends a lot on the individual reader’s culture, education, etc., but that’s another blog as well.

The essay does, however, dovetail nicely with what Orca wants to see in the submission queue. We love thoughtful stories that come from a unique perspective. We’d rather see a story that shows how a writer has thought through a situation, than one that mimics a plot or a style from a better known writer. We want to see the influences of great writers applied to your own way of looking at the world, more than we want to see how well you can mirror someone else’s style or perceptions.

– Joe Ponepinto

Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Orca Blog for April 2022 – Fiction is NOT Real Life

Our new issue is published! See the Current Issue page for details and excerpts.

We receive many stories in which the writer apparently believes that presenting the normalcy of daily life constitutes good fiction: people going through daily routines, doing their jobs, spending time with family, driving around, grocery shopping… Most emerging writers understand fiction as a representation of real life. In their writing they try to convey the lives of their characters through the events and details of the life they are familiar with. But let’s face it, most of us lead terribly boring lives. Why would anyone want to read about them?

It’s time to redefine what fiction is.

Fiction is not real life. Fiction is the illusion of real life. The difference is that it dwells in the critical moments that create meaning for people.

If you look at fiction that way, then good fiction must focus on the points of potential change in characters’ lives—points of intrigue and conflict. Doing this will immediately increase the tension and momentum of a short story. Anyone with even a basic creative writing education will recognize that I’m not saying anything new here. Great writers have been exhorting this for centuries. So how is it that so many beginning writers weigh their stories down with page after page of boring routine?

The answer, I think, is twofold. First, the American educational system is obsessed with teaching children to not be creative. It’s not just approaches like standardized testing, it’s an emphasis on conformity and accountability, which translates into the societal requirement that we at all times explain ourselves. Children are taught to write essays, works that adhere to a specific form and which rely on factual evidence to support a thesis. I remember those days, coming back from summer vacation, and our first assignment was to write an essay on how we spent those days. No teacher ever instructed me to use my imagination and write a short story about that time. I’ll wager no teacher has ever instructed a student to do that. We carry those early lessons with us into adulthood, but we have to let go of them when we write creatively. The result is fiction that reads like those grade school essays—relying on explanation instead of subtext. It’s fiction that refuses to explore character and avoids taking chances.

Second, many writers have misinterpreted the creative writing maxim about establishing their characters’ “known world.” That doesn’t mean including details of their morning bathroom routine (and yeah, I’ve seen that). I can often tell when a writer is layering mundane detail in an effort to make their characters seem like regular, identifiable people. But this also postpones the story’s tension, and that price is too great when lit journal readers are looking for the story’s hook. It also says the writer does not trust the story to increase tension as it develops. It says the writer has one idea in mind, and that’s the climax of the story, and if they reveal that right away the story will be over in a couple of pages. And so they keep the tension low, expecting the reader will slog through until the “surprise” of the climax. From an editor’s standpoint I can tell you that never works. Start your tension high and trust yourself that you can make it go even higher. Give yourself that challenge and you may be surprised at what you’re able to create—a story not just with higher tension, but also with far greater character depth because the stakes for the character have increased.

And never forget, fiction is also entertainment, no matter how serious its subject. You have to get people to want to read it. What is it about presenting a scene in which characters butter their toast and have a cup of coffee, and then head off to work that makes some writers think it is interesting to other people? Live stream my morning routine to the world and 90% of the audience will move on to something else within thirty seconds—most of the rest will be asleep. (Yes, there’s that one percent who will be engrossed. I feel sorry for them.)

Break out of writing about the normal world. People read fiction to escape their daily reality. Focus on the abnormal, the points of tension and change, and your fiction will stand out.

– Joe Ponepinto

Image by Jo-B from Pixabay

Orca Blog for November 2021 – Breaking the Rules

Editors and teachers have a standard toolkit when advising writers what not to do in their stories. We Orcans do as well when we offer feedback for submitters—things like lots of exposition, dropping into backstory, etc. But in looking at the stories we’ve chosen for our new issue we were struck by what seemed to be the same errors we often advise writers not to make. For example, we have a story in this issue that begins with several pages of exposition before it gets to any interaction between the protagonist and another character, and even then it’s only in passing. It’s another few pages before there is a true conversation. (And no, we are not going to tell you which one it is; you’ll just have to read the issue.)

Did we goof? Did we somehow miss all that exposition? Or are we simply talking out of both sides of our mouths when we prepare feedback?

None of the above.

Sometimes stories break the rules and get away with it. Looking at the selections for issue 8, there are several that, at a casual glance, appear to do exactly what we tell writers not to in our critiques. Yet they transcend those apparent flaws, turning a good story into a great story. How? The short answer is they create a world in which the reader is immersed. “Good” stories may be technically structured according to literary convention, but the problem is that their elements (characters, theme, plot, etc.) are often easily discerned and separate from each other, as though the writer has prepared a mental checklist of requirements and is making sure to cover them: setting, background, stakes, etc. When you’re reading you still think of them as writing, which makes the story feel somewhat contrived. A reader can never shake the feeling that someone wrote it—the author is always present, delivering packets of information. The “great” stories blend the elements into a single, complete experience, allowing the reader to immerse as though into another world. The author vanishes; it’s as though she never existed and the story simply took place.*

That blending is done by creating connections among the various aspects of the story, as well as to the reader’s perception. Every sentence of a great story dives deep into character, connecting what is written to an aspect of character desire or motivation. The sentences are thoughtful, creating the world of the story through precise sensory detail. These are not descriptions of what happens to be visible in this world, which in lesser works are presented as though seen by a stranger. Good description (what the well-known critic James Wood calls “telling detail”) is focused on what matters to the story’s characters. In a great story the characters are, to a certain extent, avatars for the reader. They are the means through which the reader participates in the story. So by connecting every aspect of the story to the character, the writer makes a connection with readers, allowing them to become part of the story rather than passive listeners.

That, to us, is the difference. Reading these stories is a lot like watching a movie—it just happens, it doesn’t feel like reading. There is a wholeness to a great story—a sense that the world of the story is fully developed, that it is populated by people who are more than just characters, but are actual people you might meet. The illusion of reality is immersive and captivating.

* There is an analogy to this in the world of documentaries that some of you may have noticed. For decades the standard style for documentaries was to have voiceover narration, leading the viewer through the events of the story and often to a preconceived conclusion. In recent years, however, many documentaries have been made without a narrator. Instead, the historical or investigative information is presented through the perspectives of a variety of people who either participated in the events, or are experts on the subject. This allows viewers to form their own opinions about what happened, just as writers try to get them to do in fiction.

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

How to Listen to Workshop Criticism

If you ask people what’s wrong with a story, chances are they will find something. That’s the default in some critique groups, the subconscious premise that often drives the members’ comments: you have given us this work to analyze, therefore there must be something wrong with it.

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Orca Blog for June: Asking for Feedback, a Micro Guide

Have you ever shared a draft with friends and colleagues to see what they think and been disappointed with the feedback you received? Conversely, have you ever read a friend’s manuscript and been unsure of how to give them actionable critiques?

Feedback can be uncomfortable on both sides of the fence: we feel put on the spot, we aren’t sure how to articulate how we felt, or we aren’t even sure whether what we have managed to articulate is useful! I’d like to share a couple strategies to reduce this stress and optimize your results.

Gather volunteers

Hey! I was hoping you could read the attached story and let me know what you thought! Thanks so much! 🙂

Don’t send this email unless you already have an ongoing critical relationship with the recipient; surprises are for your stories. An email like this out of the blue can cause many people to panic. What if I don’t like it? What if I don’t give the kind of response they’re looking for? Your email may get a quick “Great job, this was a fun read!” or it may get relegated to the deep recesses of your friend’s unread pile. Instead, ask your friends and colleagues if they’d be willing and interested in reading and critiquing your work in advance of sending them your latest draft. This way they are prepared and have a chance to bow out gracefully if they haven’t the time or inclination.

Ask specific questions

Are you wondering whether the dialogue works? Whether the twist on page 20 is too out of the blue? Ask! It’s much easier for someone to give you useful feedback when it’s specific. Sending your story along with 1-3 specific questions you’re trying to answer will help your reader target their commentary in a way that they and you both feel is useful. “Did you like it??” doesn’t count —it may be what you want to know, but it’s not very useful as you head into your next draft.

A handful of our favorite questions:

  • What is your favorite part of the story? This is fun to talk about and usually gets people primed to give you honest responses. Readers will be more comfortable if they can give you some positive words off the bat.
  • What do you feel is missing or unclear? Were there parts you felt like skipping over? Is there anything you wished there were more of? These are good for identifying deficiencies—maybe a character or plot point needs further development. The implied reverse questions are also a fair ask.
  • Do the climax and resolution make sense? Sometimes we get so wrapped up in getting to the climax of a story that we forget that our readers have to buy into the plot that gets them there.
  • Is the main character sympathetic? Stories often fail because readers can’t identify with or sympathize with the main character. Asking them to consider this aspect can be very helpful.
  • Is the dialogue in this scene realistic? Sometimes we tend to make dialogue too explanatory in an effort to make things clear. But dialogue needs to sound natural, like people actually talking.

– Renee Jackson

Image by Dean Moriarty from Pixabay

Orca Blog for August: Under the Radar: Some (Other) Journals That Put Writing First

I did not submit my fiction to literary journals for a long time. Maybe a year. I used to, much to my present embarrassment, seek out those journals that might be good for the resume, put me on the literary map, boost my career, whatever you want to call it—all that egocentric bullshit on which such journals lean and which exact from sincere writers their hopes, their dreams, and quite often their cash.

Not so this time.

Lately in my submission travels I’ve begun to pay closer attention to the focus and quality of the journals where I send my work. I’ve discovered something interesting, a countertrend, a comment on the state of literary journals. There is, flying just beneath the journal world’s radar, a small group of publications that honor the writing over the writer, the opposite of what seems popular in the mainstream. It’s writing for writing’s sake, poetry in prose, a breathtaking use of language that takes a reader out of her existence for a while, and allows her to live another’s life, and honestly experience how people connect to other people.

Instead of groups, or tropes, or stereotypes, this writing deals with singular people, people more curious about what it is to be a person than a member of a culture or a political movement. Not that politically-motivated writing has no place in literature; it always has. But it has never before tried to drown out other good writing with accusations of privilege, as though its practitioners have lost respect for what has come before.

Never before has political writing abandoned its goals in favor of its deeds. (The same could be said of current politics—one problem with both populism and activism is that they tend to disregard the good in their obsessive search for the righteous.)

I resist that trend.

And so, it seems, do these small, obscure literary journals. I’ve begun to compile a list of venues whose editors’ values seem similar to mine, where the stories published make me wish I had written them. None of them pay. They don’t spend a lot of time online in self-promotion. Most likely none will get me or my writing noticed. Their editors are clearly publishing them for the other, more traditional joys of writing: great language, imagination, empathy…

Here are some journals I admire. You won’t find any of the usual suspects here. I hope to keep adding to the list.

I was fortunate, a few weeks ago, to have a story accepted by Bell Ombre—a story I originally wrote several years ago—one that was rejected many dozens of times by those other places, and of which I recall a gallery of confused faces and reactions when I presented it to a writers’ class. You’ve heard that kind of vague, patronizing commentary, I’m sure: “It’s well written, but I didn’t understand…the stakes/character’s choices/point of view/whatever.” (I’ve learned to tune out critiques that begin with, “It’s well written…” I know what comes next.)

Seeing that story accepted, knowing that some editors understood the language and the intent, is no small measure of vindication.

Discovering these new journals tells me there is another movement going on, separate from the ones that dominate the literary space. A quiet one, lest those Jacobins of popular culture get wind of what they’re doing and try to silence them. It’s an undercurrent keeping alive what writing can be, a pulse to let the literary world know that the sentence—the beautifully crafted sentence, the one that floors you with its intelligence—is not dead.

I hope to make Orca that kind of journal, too.

PS: I am my writing. My writing is not me. If you agree, please submit to us.

*PPS: I find The Buenos Aires Review so impressive that I cannot summon the courage to submit to them. And sadly, the staff at Skidrow Penthouse has decided to cease production.

– JP

Orca Blog for June: Avoiding Appropriation in Art

In literature, there are fewer falls from grace more precipitous than the stunning rebuke Kathryn Stockett’s The Help has experienced in this decade. It went from its two-year stranglehold on the bestseller list to being decried as a gross cultural appropriation, a white author, “writing in blackface,” whose handling of a delicate subject was clumsy at best, racist at its worst. This is not a blog to pile onto the criticisms this author has faced, but to address the debate it has brought to the forefront. History will determine how we view Stockett’s novel, but the floodgates that it opened still have the literary world treading in deep, murky water as it struggles to distinguish the line between fiction and appropriation.

With such a potent and dramatic backlash for works like The Help, you would assume that most writers have sought to distance themselves as fully as possible from the controversy. But, as anyone who reads submissions piles can tell you, that this is far from the case. We still have a long way to go to combat this naiveté, while at the same time making sure we preserve that which makes fiction so special

So how do you avoid appropriation in your own work? Just by asking that question you’re already taking a big step in the right direction. Those who are most guilty of using another’s culture, experience, or truth for their own fiction often do so carelessly without ever having asked the question of if they should. But before we go into how to avoid it, it is important to be on the same page about art’s place in this important 21st century debate.

The broadest definition of cultural appropriation being bandied about today is, itself, problematic. Under the widest definition, all art is appropriation and in the world of writing, only non-fiction is, potentially, shielded from such criticism. This is the other side of the sword, and we need to be careful not to swing it too carelessly. Art has always thrived on inspiration from other artists and indeed, other cultures. Without art, many stories and experiences throughout the world may never have seen the light of day. So, through its own progressive function in our society, art (and in particular literature) has opened up a worldwide perspective and as a result has placed itself on the firing lines.

By this logic, avoiding appropriation should be easy. Simply stick to the old adage “write what you know.” But if we all did that, the literary world would become a rather boring, one-dimensional place; because regardless of background, nearly every author would be forced to write stories about their struggles as a writer and nothing else. Would anyone find that engaging? Is that even fiction?

Accepting that writing about someone whose life and experience may be different from yours is an inescapable and necessary function of fiction, it is best to break the appropriation debate down to three key areas. And since the title of this blog has gotten me in the mood for alliteration, let’s stick with that trend. When considering whether not your current or future work may be appropriation, consider: Empathy, Education, and Exploration.

Empathy: Are you writing about a one-dimensional archetype meant to stand in for a culture that plays a key role in your plot? Or are you writing about a fully fleshed out human whose personality is baked-in with strengths and flaws like any real human? A male author writing from the perspective of a female narrator, who spends 75% of the story writing about the narrator’s boyfriend, is not someone writing from a place of empathy. No attempt was made to get inside the female narrator’s head, and instead the author has rested on his own gender norms as a crutch by putting the focus of the story on the boyfriend, despite who the story assumes its protagonist to be. In a similar vein, it is natural and indeed noble for an author writing about another race, religion, sexual orientation, etc. to want to avoid stereotypes or anything that may be perceived in a negative light. As a result, you sometimes get characters who are without flaws, who sit atop a pedestal, gleaming as a magical unicorn—a person who could not possibly exist in real life. An author who does his/her/their job well, will bring their characters to life on the page, not smother them with stereotypes or shield them from the truth.

Education: Have you taken the time to fully research the characters and culture in your story? Research implies something much more than a cursory Wikipedia glance, it demands a rigorous academic approach to ensure that the details you are including are authentic, nuanced, and truthful.

When Rebecca Makkai was writing a story about the AIDS epidemic in Chicago in the 1980s for her Pulitzer Prize shortlisted 2018 novel The Great Believers, she employed an academic and grueling study regimen to ensure that the world she portrayed was not only accurate, but full of authentic life. Makkai, who herself identifies as a white, cis-gendered, straight female, was certainly writing out of her element in portraying gay male characters dealing with the new realities of HIV/AIDS in their community, and yet her book received universal praise because it was apparent on every page that she had taken the time to interview the people who had lived through that era. She had mapped out all of the long defunct gay clubs throughout Chicago so that her geography was accurate, and she read all of the existing works about the crisis in Chicago so that even the minutia she included rang true. She had no need to hire “sensitivity readers,” because she was already friends and confidants with the people who had lived the story and they had given their blessing to the work.

Even if you are not someone who believes in sensitivity (if so, why are you a writer?) there is another benefit to educating yourself before you write, above and beyond making it politically correct: it will make your story better! I have seen this from personal experience. I’m fifth generation Appalachian on my father’s side and Irish on my mother’s. I can spot from a mile away an author who has not done his/her/their research on either of those cultures because I have lived them, and no amount of academic study can fully approximate an experience lived. Yet I’d be forgiving if minor details were missed, as long as the broad strokes felt true to my cultural experience, but the trend, particularly in writing about rural West Virginia, is to oversimplify its characters, to take the region’s lack of proper educational opportunities as a sign of lower intelligence, to glamorize and even fetishize poverty to the point where it becomes parody. When I read these stories, I know I am reading an author who doesn’t care enough to respect their characters or their audience. When I read someone like Breece D’J Pancake, a native Appalachian writer, I see my family in his words. I see he and my Dad sitting down with a few bottles of long neck Stroh’s and whiling away an afternoon speaking to one another in their quintessentially, lyrical, mountain manner. If you aren’t willing to put a majority of your work into research, then you aren’t ready to write about anything other than your own personal experience.

Exploration: In short, ask yourself if what you’re writing about has already been explored by others who may be closer to the situation than you. Makkai tackled the AIDS crisis in Chicago precisely because it hadn’t been written about much in mainstream media. If you are going to write about the Holocaust, specifically about the European Jewish experience, and you are not Jewish, and are not a direct descendant of a survivor of that dark era, then you are likely treading on ground that others with far more experience, education, and empathy than you have already explored. If, in your research of the Holocaust, you learn about the plight of the Romani people and discover that there have been precious few works of fiction written about their struggle, then perhaps, just perhaps, you’ve found a reason to write about another culture other than your own. To give voice to the previously voiceless had always been one of literature’s most important roles.

A final litmus test: if writing about another culture, identity, or experience that is not your own does not terrify you, you clearly don’t care enough to do the story or the characters justice. Art thrives when it is left uncensored and unfettered, but it is our responsibility as artists to ensure that we pay proper respect to that responsibility and that we always explore our fictional worlds with empathy and education.

– Zac Kellian