FOLLOWING THE ACTION

A few days ago, I listened to a volunteer story teller read my book, One Frog Sang, to a group of small children during story time. He read the final page: “One big frog leaped to the high garden wall and began to sing. Ka-blu-urp.” Closing the book, he said, “And it all started again.”

Yes! I thought. That’s exactly the reaction I wanted. A day earlier, I read the book to a different group of children in the same bookstore. At the end, I asked, “What do you think happened next?”

“They all started singing again,” one of the children said. Right. And why? Because all through the book, one action causes the next. It’s a counting book, so of course one is followed by two and so forth. But what about other books? Can you look at your story and see action logically followed by reaction? Does one event cause the next?

Recently, young finalists competing as producers in the TV talent search, On The Lot, were assigned to create a one-minute humorous short film with beginning, middle and end. I agreed with the judges. The best was by a young man named Zach whose film was a slow, single-shot 360-degree turn showing a domino effect in a chemical lab. As the camera panned, one accidental disaster caused another. Beakers fell, acids spilled, toxic gases escaped, fires erupted, explosions detonated, all the way around, each causing the next until we reached the start where the first scientist was just restoring his experiment. The final disaster sent it tumbling and we knew the entire thing was about to repeat.

Cause and effect. Action followed by reaction. If one of the scientists had stopped to rescue a caged rat, that rescue would have to have set off the next disaster. He might have rushed through a door into someone who then dropped a vial of acid which ignited a neighboring bunson burner and so on. Or for a bit of comedy, one accident might have sent a door into a young scientist working up nerve to kiss a co-worker, shoving him into her and resulting in her reaction setting off the next in the chain. Or the rescued rat’s cage might have caught on a beaker sending it into something else. Rescue or romance, the side action would not have stopped the story line but continued and contributed to it.

Awhile back, I accepted an editing job for a local publisher whose author refused to do any more revisions. When I received the manuscript, it felt static although the story was filled with action. I hesitated in changing another author’s words until the editor demonstrated by slashing, cutting and rewriting, bringing one page vibrantly to life. After that, I enjoyed the challenge.

A story must be visual. It must be alive. The producer in On The Lot didn’t pause for description—he had the camera for that. If we’d been writing the scene, we might have been tempted to say the next scientist’s hair blazed like a pitch-filled log thrown on a fire. Shadows skittered over the white lab walls. Smoke…and so forth, slowing the action. That would be wrong. In an action scene, even description needs to propel the story: …sent orange flames shooting from the scientist’s hair, startling his wide-eyed assistant into a row of bubbling beakers that…  You get the idea.

Think of standing dominoes set up in a pattern. There is your story’s backbone. When the story begins and you give that first domino a push, the story doesn’t stop until it reaches the end, which may be a full circle. If the dominoes do stop that forward motion, you must find out why and revise those errant side trips into proper line. The action may go over a little bridge or trigger a mouse trap, but that action is caused by the preceding and will in turn continue the greater action in the story or pattern.

The aspiring producer with the circular lab disasters commented that it took him forty-six takes to get the sequence to work.

Forty-six revisions. That took the will to keep trying, commitment to the project and Zach’s conviction that his inner vision could be produced. When it was not quite right, he knew that. And when it was right, he knew that, too.

I’m not saying that we should revise forty-six times. I am saying, listen to that inner voice. How often have you put a scene on paper only to feel that it didn’t shine as perfectly as when it appeared in your head? I’m sure we’ve all known people who protest, “This is the way it really happened,” which is no excuse for presenting a scene that doesn’t ring true. There are far too many writers who give up when their project is first criticized. And there are those who put their work away forever because, “It just isn’t working.”

Maybe those authors are still too close to the story. Too often, we want to rush our wonderful work to a reader. We need to wait until we can read it with an outsider’s eyes. Do the dominoes still fall smoothly? Does the story action proceed logically from beginning to end?

We’ve all received scenes that flow from our imaginations straight through our fingertips and onto the keyboard. Those scenes are absolute gifts. We read them later and wonder, Did I write that?

But there are so many of the other kind, the ones that resist going onto the paper as stubbornly as a two-year-old refusing a new food.

Don’t be afraid to revise those scenes. Completely. Our words are not chiseled into stone. If it doesn’t work, try another approach. A different angle. A new viewpoint. A change of setting. Combine too many characters into a few. Or add characters if you find your hero or heroine on stage alone with no one to react to or with him. Have you over-complicated the material? How can you simplify?

And yet, how much is too much? Is there a risk in revising until the work is no longer fresh?

Here’s a tip I’ve learned with some pain. Keep a copy of your raw first draft. With computers, it’s way too easy to save over earlier versions and lose them forever. And with revision, it is possible to polish the enthusiasm right out of the idea.

Believe me, it is not a happy experience to hear your trusted critique partner say, “I liked your first version better”—when a copy of that version no longer exists.

As difficult as it is to do, put your finished story away for a few days or weeks. Work on something else until you can read it again with a colder eye. Is there something about it that sounds faintly flat? Then look again at that first raw draft. Is the original freshness there? Can you see why? Can you revise again, this time bringing that first excitement into the polished material?

TV judges and book editors are all looking for distinctive personalities that shine  through appealing performances. In watching competing singers, film directors and even dancers, we can see this made to work. Or not. Sometimes, we learn from their success. Sometimes, we learn even more from their failures.

I would love to hear your feelings on this subject or on any other aspect of writing for children. Questions? Thoughts you’d care to share? Please email me at shirleyp@softcom.net. Don’t forget to visit my website: www.shirleyparenteau.com