A Few Basic Definitions

When I was writing my first novel, I didn’t know any other writers (well, except for my mother). I’d also never read a how-to-write book. Consequently, there were a lot of things that I did without knowing there was a name for them; as far as I was concerned, they were just things I’d seen other people do. I imitated without knowing why.

Once I finally started meeting other writers, I learned very quickly that there were terms for all those things (and quite a few others, too), and that it was extremely useful to know those terms when talking about writing. There’s also a fair amount of specialized jargon and shorthand that just makes talking about writing faster and easier. For those who haven’t run across these yet, here are some brief definitions of a few basic terms that I think are useful:

 as-you-know-Bob – The SF version of “maid-and-butler dialog”; that is, two characters having a conversation in which they tell each other things they both already know, for no good reason except to let the reader overhear and get up to speed. See also “incluing” and “infodump.”

braided novel – A multiple-viewpoint novel that follows the separate-but-related storylines of three (or sometimes more) primary viewpoint characters, with equal emphasis on each storyline and scenes from each storyline intermingled.

deus ex machina – Literally “the god from the machine,” this refers to any improbable or totally unexpected event that hasn’t been foreshadowed but that conveniently solves all the characters’ problems at the end of the story (especially when the author has written him/herself into a corner)

fix-up novel – A book that has been assembled from a series of short stories (usually previously published) that have been strung together with extra transitional material.

flashback – A scene in which the narrative “flashes back” in time to dramatize something (often a viewpoint character’s memory of some crucial event) that took place in the past. Generally, flashbacks take the reader back to something that happened before the story opened, but sometimes an author will skip a scene and then do a flashback to it later in order to keep something from being revealed too soon. Readers often consider this “cheating.” Roger Zelazny’s Doorways in the Sand and Steven Brust’s Taltos and Dragon use regular flashbacks as part of the narrative structure.

foreshadowing – Anything (events, details, actions, comments) that prepares a reader for a future event in the story, especially if the event would otherwise seem unlikely, unexpected, or implausible.

hook – Any dramatic thing (an event, a mystery, a question, an image, even a turn of phrase) that is intended to catch the reader’s attention and “hook” them into reading the rest of the story. Although the most common usage seems to refer just to the opening sentence, a hook can be longer, up to several paragraphs, if the payoff is big enough.

in medias res – More Latin, this time meaning “in the middle of things.” Refers to the technique of opening a story in the middle of some exciting or emotional action and only later on explaining (usually in a flashback or infodump) how the characters got into such a mess.

incluing – Term for “getting the reader clued in” to important aspects of the characters, background, and/or setting that are likely to be unfamiliar. Incluing can be necessary in any type of story, but it is especially important in SF and fantasy stories, where much or all of the background, history, setting, etc. has been made up by the author and therefore can’t be known by the reader without some kind of explanation. Ideally, the incluing is done subtly, but sometimes an obvious infodump is necessary.

infodump – Also known as “expository lump.” A large chunk of exposition, usually intended to provide a summary of some vital aspect of the background or setting. While the term is generally considered pejorative, it’s possible to do infodumps well; see “The Artful Infodump”  for an excellent analysis.

McGuffin – The thing that everyone in a story is trying to get hold of or protect, which drives large parts of the plot. It can be anything; in a caper story, it’s the necklace or the painting that the protagonist is trying to steal; in a spy story, it’s usually the secret blueprints or the defecting scientist. In The Maltese Falcon, it’s the statue of the black bird. Not every story has a McGuffin, and some have more than one.

multiple viewpoint – Using different viewpoint characters in different scenes. There may be several equal primary viewpoint characters, as in a braided novel (see above), or there may be secondary viewpoint character who do not appear as often. Multiple viewpoint is not omniscient. Most (though not all) multiple viewpoint books use the same type of viewpoint (first, second, or third person) for all of the scenes, even though the viewpoint character varies from scene to scene.

narrator – The person or character who is presumed to be telling the story. In most third-person stories, the narrator is the invisible author, or at least, someone who is not part of the story; in first and second person, the narrator is usually the viewpoint character.

omniscient viewpoint – A type of third-person viewpoint in which the narrator knows everything and can therefore tell the reader anything at any time, including what several different characters are thinking in the same scene, the entire life history into the future of a minor character whom the reader will never see again, events that are happening simultaneously in different places, etc.

pacing – The reader’s perception of how fast the story is moving. Pace is affected by a lot of things: variation in the narrative; scene, sentence, and paragraph length; how often critical questions come along (and how soon thereafter their answers show up); the rhythm of the rise/fall in the character’s fortunes, etc.

plot coupon – One of a series of things that the protagonist has to do or collect before the plot can advance or end. If they are physical objects (the seven Ancient Amulets, the three pieces of the Sunkiller Bomb), they may also be multiple McGuffins, but a plot coupon can also be one or more things the protagonist is required to do before he/she can move on to the next stage of the plot.

plot skeleton – The basic bones of pretty much every plot there is: Protagonist has problem, protagonist tries to solve problem, protagonist’s attempt makes situation worse in some way (either by failing outright or by creating a new, worse problem), repeat with increasing intensity until final success/failure.

said-bookism – The habit of using any verb other than “said” as a dialog tag (with bonus points if the verb has nothing to do with speech at all, as in “Do it,” he shrugged or “Help,” she shivered). Again, this term is generally used as a pejorative, though compulsively using “said” and nothing else can easily be as difficult to read as compulsively using substitutes for “said” (growled, whispered, cried, exclaimed, shouted, mumbled…etc.).

scene – A sequence of actions or events that all take place in the same spot at the same time and which are dramatized for the reader, rather than summarized. In other words, the reader gets to watch “in real time” as things happen, instead of simply being told “George and Joe started arguing; George threw a punch and in seconds the whole bar was fighting.”

subplot – A secondary plot thread, usually found in longer works. A subplot may involve the protagonist but be of lesser importance to the main story (as with the romantic subplot in some mystery and adventure novels, or the adventure subplot in some romances), or it can be a completely separate storyline involving secondary characters. It is distinguished from the threads of a braided novel mainly by the fact that a subplot is of lesser importance, gets less time spent on it, and gets less emphasis than the central or main plot line.

subtext – A meaning or set of meaning that are implied by a text, rather than explicitly stated. Subtext can be deliberately and consciously manipulated by the author, or it can be inadvertent (in which case one is very likely to get into an argument with the author about it, if the author happens to be around when it is mentioned).

Tom Swifty – A word-play joke where the adverb in a speech tag relates in some way (often a pun) to the dialog spoken: “Turn off the lights,” Tom said darkly. The name comes from the Tom Swift series of the early 1900s, in which nearly every dialog tag contained an adverb; the term has therefore also been used for speech tags that contain an adverb, especially an adverb ending in -ly.

unreliable narrator – A narrator whose account is biased, ill-informed, mistaken, incomplete, untrustworthy, or misleading in some other way. An unreliable narrator isn’t necessarily morally suspect or deliberately misleading the reader; he/she may merely be naive, misinformed, etc.

viewpoint – 1) Short for “narrative point of view,” meaning whether the narrative is in first, second, or third person, and what sort of first, second, or third person it’s in (epistolary, stream-of-consciousness, omniscient, tight-third, camera eye, etc.) 2) Short for “viewpoint character,” see below.

viewpoint character – The character through whose eyes the reader is “seeing” a particular scene. A single-viewpoint story has one viewpoint character, and all the scenes are told from that character’s viewpoint, whether they are told in first-person, second-person, or third-person.

On November 10, 2010   /   Writing  

Tags: basic writing, tools