I'm So Getting a D on this. in General

My task here and now is to describe the author’s use of craft elements. My paired novels are Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
The most obvious craft of the two novels lay in point of view. Matheson tells his story almost entirely from the point of view of Robert Neville. His character is not terrifically sympathetic, but through his memories becomes more so. Shelley tells her story through three sets of eyes. If you blink it can become confusing. The transition from telling the story from Walton’s perspective to Frankenstein’s perspective, to the creations perspective (all the while as told by Walton) is a little confusing. There were times when I wasn’t sure who was talking.

Conflict in both novels are fairly obvious. In Frankenstein once Victor’s creature goes on his rampage killing off most of the people Frankenstein loves, he is destined to hunt down his creation. Unfortunately he dies before finishing his task. The conflicts in I Am Legend include the sole survivor against the world. But also his struggle to determine the cause of the world’s demise. (Ugly sentence. Sorry.) I first read I Am Legend at 9 or 10. I found myself amused by his former friend/antagonist being named “Cartman.” Generation X much?

Craft elements I will struggle to not use will be dumping excess information in through meaningless dialogue. If anything, I cut dialogue to the bone. I have found myself explaining everything through a series of arguments, only to cut them out. Telling myself “Just enough is right at the edge of too much.”

The Caretaker 4 story got a decent amount of feedback. It was Professor Stenson’s observation that the end could have switched to third person that I realized there might be more going on in that story. I might actually be able to stretch it out to novella length. Assuming I can keep the elements I started with

I have identified the following six craft elements that will be fundamental tools in my toolkit. They are derived from a variety of sources, but are fairly universal in nature. They are the craft elements that will allow me to create readable, enjoyable fiction.

1. Vocabulary / Grammar Stephen King described these as being in the top drawer of his tool kit. Coherent storytelling and writing cannot be accomplished without a decent vocabulary and knowledge of basic grammar.

I am lucky to have a decent vocabulary, but unfortunately I don’t tend to use much of it. I probably use about five hundred words total. This is the end result of technical writing where we had to write down to the lowest common denominator. I need to start using more of my available resources to give my writing a more robust feel. I have begun using the search function both in MS Word and in Kindle to see patterns, and am amazed what you can learn from your own tendency to repeat. In Kindle, I see patterns I was blind to while reading. The word “Legend” is used over a hundred times in “I Am Legend.” The only time I was aware was in the final sentence.

On the grammar front. I have a basic knowledge of grammar. Although I went through all the English classes in high school and my Freshman year of college, most of it didn’t stick. I know the basics, but more complex sentence structures when I am successful are due to a lot of reading. Sharpening my grammar chops would be a useful tool to have in my toolbox.

1. Characterization is the revealing of a character’s personality, directly or indirectly. By specifically spelling out a character’s traits, or inferring them through action. How he speaks, thinks and acts as well as his physical description, as physical attributes can sometimes telegraph personality. Characterization is important because it allows the reader to bond with the character, to become invested in their well being. In a vacuum, a universe where the reader doesn’t know anything about the character beyond their current actions, the reader finds themselves in a place where they do not care if the character lives or dies. That is not a good place for a work of fiction to find itself.

In both I Am Legend and Frankenstein the primary characters are not particularly likeable.

Robert Neville is a functional, surviving alcoholic who has survived when most didn’t. It is never explained why he is immune to the ravages of the virus. This device is used in a lot of post-apocalyptic fiction. Ignore, or don’t explain the larger problem, just stick to the repercussions. The TV version of The Walking Dead flouts its own premise. In the first season the CDC manager tells Rick “We are all infected” and yet year after year they trot out the “once bitten it is inevitable” trope.

Oddly, I found the creature in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to be the most sympathetic character in the novel. He didn’t ask to be created, and he certainly didn’t ask to be created a monster. His description of life as he learned to be as human as he would become clashed discordantly with his seeming lack of problem going full evil. By thw end of the novel he has murdered most of the cast. Almost like he was missing a part of his soul, and I suppose that would be Victor’s fault. He dabbled where humans shouldn’t.

In I Am Legend Robert Neville, the “I” character, is not particularly likeable. But by the end of the novel you realize all he has lost. His daily trips to the burn pit to dispose of the bodies of vampires he has either killed is a reminder that his daughter is somewhere in that pit. Matheson brings up Neville’s wife repeatedly, and the alluded to scene where he buries his wife and yet she comes home is stolen completely in the first episode of The Walking Dead, where Morgan’s wife comes back and yet he can’t put her down. It is such a heartbreaking, impossible concept. Having to kill someone who you love and yet is dead. It was a very humanizing, disturbing aspect of I Am Legend. It is where I found all of my sympathy for Robert Neville.

1. Point of View Point of view refers to the perspective from which a story is told. I, as I am sure many beginning writers do, tend to write in the first person. It is the easiest way for me to describe scenes, because I can imagine the scenario occurring to me, and ponder how I would react. Third person seems to be far more common in the fiction I read. That is because it allows the author to branch out and tell of events that the primary character is not aware. In first person, you are trapped in what the primary character knows. As I gain confidence, I will transition to third person.

In Frankenstein Mary Shelley does what is practically unthinkable to me. She writes from the perspective of Walton, first in letters to his sister. Then in describing Victor Frankenstein’s tale. Then from Victor’s perspective told to him by the creature. I confess, I was losing the “who/what/when” about two thirds through the novel. I had to keep backing up and re-reading. To think that this novel was written by a 19 year old girl.

1. Story structure/narrative technique. To me, these are just the tools with which I will tell the story. The overarching ‘how.” Overwhelming narrative detail compared to minimalism. Linear story telling or a series of flashbacks and flash forwards. I think the variety of this tool needs to be decided on early in the writing process. I find sudden shifts from lush scenes to antiseptic Spartan descriptions disconcerting. I can imagine how that type of device could be used effectively, but I am too early in my writing endeavors to know how that could be effectively done. In the short term I will stick to the linear.

2. Mood/Tone. Mood and tone are important tools in that they literally set the mood and tone. Deciding on a bright and happy mood as a start and transitioning to a darker mood and tone is almost cliché in that it is used so much.

Tone and mood can bet set with a few words. In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road he sets the mood for the novel within a few paragraphs. The colors are dark, the sun never shines. And there is no hope. The man and his son are just surviving day by day. Not a recommended Maine Winter coming off a divorce kind of read.

I struggle with how the ‘I” character in one of my works in work would handle the Maine summer. The weather is perfect, and yet as he arrives back in mid-coast Maine, an apocalyptic event has occurred. He doesn’t know where his friends and family have found themselves. He is alone, and barely surviving. How to reconcile the beautiful mid-coast weather with an incredibly stressful, potentially depressing time? As I ponder, I can only imagine a tick-tock of a clock pushing the character forward, so much that it is almost impossible to realize how beautiful the weather.

1. The Turkey City Lexicon. There is a lot of good advice for me in this short article .I plan to use it a checklist for second or third edits. I have noticed I make a lot of the mistakes warned about in this useful article. It is a good reminder of the clanging errors I make when writing.

Since my endeavor is to actually create a toolbox I will use, I am at cross purposes here. I have to write for the course, and write for myself. Long luxurious excerpts of prose from published, or great authors are a good reminder, but I am a technician. I need something that I can point to and say “this works” or “this doesn’t.” The final version of my toolbox will have no quotes of examples.

The TCL breaks down overused mistakes. From stereotypes, to overly technical jargon, to mixing tenses, to run on sentences (feel familiar, Tracy?) Excessive adverb and adjectives. It is a good reminder, and I will endeavor to boil it down to a checklist.
Integrate examples of the craft elements into samples of your own writing.
I randomly chose a paragraph from my writing example in module 3 to run my new toolbox over. I will post how the paragraph started, then how it was transitioned when I considered the tools in my toolbox:

Original:

“I found myself on the bridge. All of the panels are covered in plastic sheeting. It is still another three hundred years until the flight crew wakes up as we approach Ceti Alpha IV.
Sometime I wonder if three hundred years in cryo hibernation doesn’t leave you haunted by the ghost of who you would have been. That is an impossible question asked by an impossible ghost asked to someone who doesn’t exist anymore.”

1. Not much I can do with vocabulary and grammar here. Clean up some clunky sentences. Use a different word from the repeated “impossible.”

2. Characterization. I “knew” who Caretaker 4 was – he was me. So I didn’t spend a lot of time on characterization in this short story. I hung to the ideas of obsession over a lost love and a stubborn Scots-Irish Nordic idea that there is nothing that can’t be fixed. Those were the themes I was working on. I now realize any reader other than me would have to infer those things. His obsession with the woman he incorrectly believed to be his wife is obvious, I hope. The rest I hoped might be obvious. I will tinker with characterization now.

3. Point of View. Obviously, the short story is written in first person. I am a beginner at this story telling, and from telling from the “me” perspective is the most comfortable. Through feedback from my initial post and again in the last module I have started realizing I can keep the immediacy of the diary aspect of the story, and mix it with a semi-omniscient third person narrative and keep the emotions I was going for – loneliness, functionality, obsession, madness. The first person I let read my rough draft, and believe me it was rough, pointed out the madness aspect. I was trying to keep that slightly under wraps. All of the caretakers went insane, yet they all handled it in their own way. Caretaker 4 dealt with it with obsession.

4. Structure. In my example story, a caretaker on a ship taking the vestiges of humanity on a survival mission to a near-earth planet for the purpose of repopulation is simple enough. I sought to see it completely as a task, and a personal situation. Caretaker 4 doesn’t really care about any of the people he is entrusted to care for. Celia. He cares a lot about Celia. Caretaker 3 couldn’t handle the isolation. Caretaker 4 handled it with obsession. I wrote that short story fast, from a decades old outline. The ending is awful. I can make it better.

5. Mood/Tone. I purposely left a lot of details out. Initially I wrote a long, detailed exhibit of the caretaker coming out of cryo-sleep. Exhaustive descriptions of nausea and decreased mental acuity. A loss of color perception. I was trying to paint a grey world, where a glimmer of hope could peak through. I didn’t describe the ship, or the cluster of ships that were travelling on a similar path. I didn’t describe the mass, size or exact speed. Lessons learned: When unsure, leave it out. Worked for Clancy.

6. The Turkey City lexicon checklist is next. The only TCL failure I can find is “False Interiorization” often from a laziness in describing a scene. In this example I don’t see how more details about the bridge would add to the characters thought process.

“I found myself on the bridge. All of the panels are covered in plastic sheeting. You would appreciate that, Celia. I know how you hated dust getting into your tech. You made me hate it too. I think if I had come up here and all the darkened displays had been covered in dust I might have got a headache. I haven’t had a headache since I gave up drinking. I pulled the sheeting off the “approach to landing” display and ran the diagnostic. It came back with A799 – No Defect. When the screen went dark I could see my face in the reflection. I am shockingly thin. Monitor system runs my blood work every week and assures me I am healthy. I wonder if that is true, or if it is programmed to keep my spirits up for another year and a half before putting me to sleep, declaring me inviable so caretaker 5 can eject me out of the airlock. These are thoughts better left unthought. It is still another three hundred years until the flight crew wakes up as we approach Ceti Alpha IV.

I have too much time to think. Sometimes I wonder if three hundred years in cryo hibernation leaves you haunted by the ghost of who you would have been. It is an impractical question asked of a ghost about someone who stopped existing once they went to sleep on ARC IV.”

Strategies. On of the things I struggle with is how to keep a theme going through a story. As a storyteller, I am still 8 years old, telling ghost stories in the dark during sleepovers. There is no thought going on there, it is all story. We have to be taught that there has to be some deeper meaning, some grand plan. In actuality all that has to be there is the story. Mood and temper and subtext and bullshit piled on bullshit. That is all added by our modern concept. I miss that 8 year old me who knew the magic of a story.
That said. Everyone is not eight year old me. To reach the not eight year old me crowd, I have to adapt to the audience per se. (That sentence actually makes grammatical sense. Excuse me while I pat myself on the back.)

Finding myself in the literary landscape is a task. I love to read, but over the last few weeks I have come to realize that reading as a reader, and reading as a writer are two different things entirely. Unfortunately the latter deems to diminish the former. I have fifty years of reading as a departure from life, and now find myself analyzing ever sentence. Goods, bads and others I suppose.

On the subjects of tropes.
Let us just be honest here. I don’t understand the concept of tropes. I have read, and googled and read again. And tropes don’t stick out as anything worthy of my time. Themes, plots, subplots, and holy shit how did they do that’s. “Trope” just seems to be a de dure phrase, a catchall. Life doesn’t work in tropes. The idea of themes, I get. The idea of recurring themes I get. I read an article about Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in which a recurring theme was supposed to be “passive women.” I did not see that at all. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was 19 years old. It was 1818. Was she supposed to bow down to modern political correctness and make Elisabeth have some kind of “I am woman, hear me roar” moment?

Curteman, Nancy. 5 Elements of Writing Craft. Global Mysteries. 2015.
King, Stephen. On Writing. Scribner. 2000.
McCarthy, Cormac. The Road. Knopf. 2006.
Moon, Tracy. Caretaker 4. Unpublished. 2019
Sterling, Bruce. Turkey City Lexicon - A Primer for SF Workshops Edited by Lewis Shiner Second Edition. NOT COPYRIGHTED