I’m reading a book by Francine Prose called, “Reading Like a Writer.” While her focus is large literary and academic, Prose caught my eye with many of the excerpts she chose from renown writers like Hemingway, Virginia Wolf and Rebecca West, among others. What stood out to me? Passive writing. Here’s a snippet from Rebecca West: He could not see her. She was sitting on the bottom of the step, and she was content that it should be so, as otherwise he would have told her either to sit up straight or not so straight. His criticism was not so urgent as other people’s was apt to be, but it was continuous. This short piece is from the middle of a longer paragraph with much of the same phrasing: it […]
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About Rachel Hauck
Author Archive | Rachel Hauck
Self Therapy: What’s Important To A Scene?
Back from 12 days on the road, visiting family and friends, I sat down to work on Love Starts With Elle, my work in progress. (WIP for those who are new to this game.) I started editing chapter one, a chapter I’d edited many times, but as I worked it yesterday, I didn’t like it. Before vacation I did, so what happened? Panic. I felt the stakes weren’t high enough. Was the opening hook strong? Did Elle seem too sanguine? I pondered these questions while walking my dog, Pal, later in the evening. I was going to revamp my whole story, take my “soft” opening and drive some hard core plot point into it. Yet, I realized, stakes are raised gradually. Since this is a love story, I needed to […]
Read the RestDoctor’s Notes: More on Secondary Characters
Monday, we answered Julie’s question about secondary characters – how many is too many? How to keep them from being boring or flat? I’ve been thinking about this issue today and wondering how we can get creative with secondary characters. Think of a painting. Many times the artist will outline images with black in order to make them stand out. Sometimes, an artist covers an canvas in blue or orange before beginning to paint. These are accents that help the over all painting though the eye of the observer many never really notice. On the television show, Samatha Who, Samatha has two friends. One acts as Samatha’s good conscious, Dina. The other, her devilish side. Angela. The premise of the show is Samatha has lost her memory. She can’t remember […]
Read the RestAsk The Doc: How to handle secondary characters
Julie writes: My biggest problem right now is how to handle secondary characters. How many are too many? How do I keep them from taking over or stealing the scene? How do I keep the reader from being confused by them or, even worse, bored by them! Mine always seem to go overboard, and I have to spend too much time editing them back to size. Great question. I ran into a similar problem while writing Diva NashVegas. In my effort to create a large, super star world, I created too many extras for my set. So, I paired it down to those who were essential: assistant, manager, house manager and a few others as the scene allowed. This in addition to her love interests. Here are some guidelines to […]
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