Looking for fresh and new

Agents and editors are always talking about how we're looking for something fresh and new. I know saying this frustrates authors, because rarely does anyone define what they mean. Recently I experienced a "eureka" moment (it helped that I was in Northern CA at the time) and here's hoping that my insights help to shed a bit of light on at least one aspect of what might be meant by the phrase "fresh and new."

So much of what I read in manuscripts these days is quite competently written. The characters are good, the story relatively strong, dialogue sharp, etc. But what the story lacks is freshness. What it has too much of is predictability. Once you understand the characters and their motivation and generally where the story is set, the rest of the plot falls sadly into a very predictable pattern. If A does this, then B, of course, is going to do that and as a result, C happens. Far too many stories (be they romances, mysteries, or general fiction) have the same A's, B',s and C's.

But recently I read two very different books where the ABC's were all mixed up and the results were delightful. One book was the much-acclaimed first novel by Gail Carriger, Soulless. There the author weaves both unpredictable characters and events throughout her story. Even her choice of words often sets one's head spinning. For example, instead of focusing on the usual powers of vampires and werewolves, the author has written a wonderful tale about a woman with no soul who actually touches those paranormal creatures and returns them to human form. Just imagine how that could twist a standard vampire plot! From the opening words of the first paragraph of the book, there's no question that the reader is about to embark on a most unpredictable tale.

The second book is Danar by Matthew MacNown. I came to know this book early in its life when the author's mother retained my legal services to help negotiate the publishing contract. Matthew (whom regrettably I have never met) must be a most remarkable young man; not only because at the age of twenty-two he can already say he's an author, but also because he has autism. I couldn't wait to read the book when it came out. It's a fantasy set in a far off land of dark and light where heroes do battle with wicked villains. But what delighted me most about the book was the fresh perspective Matthew brought to the story. There were inventive names and words throughout and a focus on what was happening in the story unlike any other I'd read in a long while. It was that unpredictable and fresh look at what could have otherwise been a very traditional story that resonated with me.

So the next time you sit down to write, think about how you can introduce the unpredictable and unexpected into your story -- think about your language and dialogue, your characters, your plot. See if you can't play off the predictable to come up with something new. Remember you still have to have believability. You don't want your unpredictable element to simply drop down from the sky. It has to emerge from your setting, plot and/or characters in a way that the reader can understand and accept, but try looking at the world you're writing in a different way and I'm confident you'll come up with something fresh and new.

Buzz Words: Tension

My Firefox homepage is set to Yahoo!, so in addition to the biggest of the real news headlines, I also see a variety of other headlines, such as: "10 Best Cities for the Young & Rich," "6 Ways to Know Your Man is Cheating," "Eat This Food to Lose 25 Pounds and Live Forever," etc. (Maybe these aren't exact titles, but close enough for you to get the picture.) I click through occasionally, most recently to an article about overused office buzz words. You know the ones--"synergy," "out of the box," "sea change." The words that defined a corporate culture for six months and then transferred to the rest of the world as business touchstones and shorthand for years after that. The point of the article was to advise readers to avoid these buzz words and to opt instead for phrases and words that delivered new meaning, because as we all know, when words get overused, they lose their impact (click here for a great send-up of Dan Brown's cliché usage). While the advice is relevant in the office and in your writing, I have to admit that office buzz words sometimes serve a purpose--or maybe I just have to admit that buzz words serve a purpose to me.

Right now, my buzz word is tension. In every manuscript that I read, I'm looking for tension, tension, tension. This encompasses a variety of elements. For starters, as a given, tension necessitates that the manuscript contains some sort of drama (this is as true for comic writing and light fiction as it is for thrillers and dramatic plots; conflict = drama).

Next, tension relies on well-paced exposition (you already know how I feel about pacing). This is as important in the meat of a story as it is in a story's prologue; even scene-setting should build tension by foreshadowing drama and conflict. Also, it requires a stern editing eye to pare down step-by-step mundanity of everyday life and foreground only the important plot elements. (E.g. Your protagonist botches things at work and loses the company's biggest client. That night, she comes home, cooks dinner, sets the table, eats, clears the dishes, watches TV, goes to bed, wakes up the next morning, gets dressed, goes to work, gets fired by her boss. Major plot drama exists in those two sentences, but the tension is totally diluted if all of that mundane filler is included.)

Finally, consider the stakes for your characters and their world. Tension exists (and can be executed beautifully and flawlessly) in the small scale of daily life, but it can also be vaulted beyond that if the conflict holds consequences beyond the scope of your protagonists. Bottom line? Synergize your plot elements out of the box to create a tension sea change in your manuscript. :)