The face's role in conveying emotion

 
This morning I heard about a very interesting bit of research on NPR. You can read their report here.

Basically, a researcher showed subjects photos of victorious and defeated tennis players with extreme facial expressions. When the face was shown along with the body, people could easily tell which photos were of losers and which were of winners. But something interesting happened when they showed the photos with either faces or bodies missing. The subjects could readily identify winners and losers by looking at photos of bodies without faces. But faces with no bodies? Not so.

In essence, the research suggests that, to accurately perceive someone else’s emotions, we rely more on body language cues than facial expressions. Fascinating!

This got me thinking about writing. How often in literature do you see phrases like “His eyes were filled with sorrow,” or “Her face lit up with glee”? In fact, how much time is spent describing the face? Often, you’ll know the color of every character’s eyes. In daily life, do you really notice the eye color of every person you encounter?

I’m just as guilty of this as the next writer. In fact, my beta reader pointed out a scene in my unpublished novel in which a character observes the tawny eyes of her opponent in the midst of a swordfight. My beta reader summed up the problem for me succinctly: “Noticing hair during fighting: fine. Noticing eye color during fighting: dead.” After a chuckle, I took the advice and nixed the sentence.

Do we spend too much energy focusing on our characters’ faces in our writing? Is a shrug more evocative than a smile? How can we use this research to inform our writing and make it more realistic and subtle?

On setting

No matter the genre, setting is a critical component of any novel. I would argue that setting is as important as characters, plot, and dialogue. Indeed, in many great works of fiction, setting IS a character on its own. Consider The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Middle-earth is sometimes a friend to Bilbo Baggins, as in the salubrious Last Homely House in Rivendell where the adventurers are rejuvenated. Middle-earth is also a foe to Bilbo, as in Mirkwood, the fearsome dark forest that harbors man-eating spiders, enchanted rivers that cause forgetfulness, and nary a good thing to eat or drink for weeks on end. Bilbo’s tale is all the richer for the dangerous lands he passes, the terrible weather he overcomes, and the nostalgic serenity of the good places that bolster his courage and his waistline. How much better the story is, for example, that a terrible mountain “thunder battle” between two mighty thunderstorms drives the party to be captured by goblins, instead of mere bad luck or coincidence.

Can you tell I’m re-reading The Hobbit right now?

A book’s setting doesn’t have to be a completely fictional world (like mine is in my own novel) to stand out and propel the story. Suppose you want to write a tale of forbidden love. Suppose, even, that you decide to set it in New York City. How different would the story be depending on the part of New York that is revealed? It might take place under bridges in cardboard boxes, or in retail stores on 5th Avenue, or in a high-rise condo, or in Central Park… and on and on and on. Each setting calls forward a different love story, with different travails, different conflicts, and even different characters. Though each story’s bones may rooted in one theme (forbidden love), the various settings will, portrayed well anyway, demand different tellings.

Choose your setting with care, and let it live and breathe and walk like a character on its own feet, and watch your story come alive.

What novels come to your mind when you consider setting as a character?

The stages of writing

Image: Creative Commons: pixelperfectdigital.com

 

I read a post by author Veronica Roth in which she says, “I hate writing first drafts and love to revise. When I say I hate first drafts, I really mean it— I mean I dread starting them and grumble through every second of them and generally try to get them over with as quickly as humanly possible so that I can actually do the thing I like, which is to FIX THEM.”

That got me thinking. There are lots of stages of book-making and all writers love and hate different steps. I’m Ms. Roth’s opposite: I love the freedom of creating something new, especially in the beginning half of a manuscript. I struggle more with finishing fresh material, and I am pretty good at (but hate) the revision stage.

I’m currently in the submission stage, which is my own personal writing hell. Summarizing my fantasy novel in a paragraph or sometimes even a sentence is torture to me. The exercise is teaching me to be a better writer, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Ha.

To break the cycle of horrors, I’ve plans this weekend to give myself a break and work on the opening chapters of book two. Hopefully doing what I love best will reenergize me.

I'm not even mentioning the other stages I haven't experienced yet, like marketing and promotions. Book covers and artwork and trailers, oh my!

So, writers, which stages do you relish? Which stages do you dread?

What is NaNoWriMo?

Image: NaNoWriMo.org

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, located at http://www.nanowrimo.org) has been around for a while. It’s a movement to challenge writing newcomers and old hats alike to get serious work done on a new project in one month (November). Here’s a quote from their rules:

•Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
•Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
•Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!

I am a wimp. (Hey, at least I can admit it, right?) I am not participating this November, nor have I ever participated. I think it is super-cool and I admire people who participate. A friend of mine discovered writing by participating one year, and she is well on her way to publishing the novel that started out with NaNoWriMo. And she’s certainly not alone. The movement is powerful AND empowering.

So if it’s so great, why am I not participating?

I could offer all the lame excuses. My full-time day job, long commute, and busy home life prevent me from having the time to crank out that many words in a month. Or I’m scared of failure. But really? I suffer from an affliction that many writers struggle with: lack of self-confidence. Could I take a few days off work and focus on writing to get in the hours? Probably. Could I cancel all my other engagements? Yep. But could I convince myself that I have it in me to churn out 50,000 words in a month? Heck no.

I throw to the wind the advice I have often heard: don’t edit while writing. Just get the words down, get the scenes in place, and go back and fix everything later, they say. That makes my perfectionist’s brain fizzle and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies with Alka Seltzer added into the milk. So it takes me a little longer to write than many writing superstars.

My book is now beginning the arduous submission process. I am so close. But it took me a while to get here. Granted, I have not been working on it steadily, and indeed I put my manuscript on a shelf for a couple years, but you know when I wrote the first chapter? I was nineteen years old. I’m now on the high side of twenty-eight. We’re looking at a decade-long process. I’m not ashamed of that. It took perseverance to get to where I am, and I am confident.

As organized as I am in many other facets of life, I am a mess when it comes to writing. I am essentially a “pantser” (somebody who writes by the seat of his or her pants, writing organically with little pre-planning). That means I could write 300 words one day and 4,000 the next. It just depends on where the story takes me. Accomplishing 50,000 words in a month requires a lot of planning. I don’t think this means that, once I get published, I will struggle with meeting deadlines and getting my pages turned in on time. I’m good under pressure. Just not self-imposed pressure.

I keep telling myself that I will write book two in less than a year. That’s my personal goal. Based on past performance, it’s a lofty one. If I accomplish that, maybe the next book can be drafted in a month. Maybe.

BEST WISHES AND HAPPY WRITING to all the NaNo’ers out there. I hope you find inspiration and energy and success in your new projects. Kudos to you for being braver than I!