How to Weave a Message Without Pummeling Your Readers
By James Scott Bell | April 26, 2016 |
photo by Flickr’s Ben Smith
James Scott Bell is with us today! Jim is an award-winning thriller writer and the author of the #1 bestseller Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish. His latest release is Just Write: Creating Unforgettable Fiction and a Rewarding Writing Life (Writer’s Digest Books). Jim is also co-creator of the interactive writing app Knockout Novel. He has taught writing at Pepperdine University and at workshops in the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, though he always likes coming home to L.A. where he can enjoy an authentic street dog. You can keep up with his new books and deals here.
How to Weave a Message Without Pummeling Your Readers
Got an email the other day asking for advice on how to weave a “message” into a novel without sounding “preachy.” I immediately thought of the quote variously attributed to Samuel Goldwyn, Moss Hart, Ernest Hemingway and Frank Capra: “If you want to send a message, try Western Union.” (Note: It’s too cogent for Goldwyn. The best evidence gives it to Hart).
Translation, of course, is that audiences don’t want a sermon, they want a story. They’re not looking for a lecture, but a fictive dream. If they sense an author intruding, they’re liable to become a reader excluding … your next book.
Some writers ask, does my story need to have a message (or theme) at all?
Answer: It will have one whether you like it or not. Every story leaves the readers with an impression that the author has presented a view of the world, a slant on life. The only question is whether you want to be intentional about it.
Note, however, that you don’t have to know what your message is from the jump. You pantsers will love hearing that. You like to write, in part, to discover. Fine. But when you finish that first draft, start asking yourself what message is in there trying to get out. Then you can use the tools of craft to deliver it in a way that is natural, unobtrusive, organic.
In answer to my correspondent I found myself writing in aphorisms. I don’t know why. Maybe because I’d just been on Twitter. Or possibly because my favorite philosopher is Pascal. In any event, here’s what I wrote:
Don’t stress your message, stress your characters
The engine of a story is characters in crisis exercising strength of will. True character is revealed only in a high-stakes struggle. We don’t know anything deep about Scarlett O’Hara until the Civil War breaks out. Clarice Starling is a smart young FBI trainee, but it’s when she becomes the only person the creative chef Hannibal Lecter will talk to – with clues that can save another victim from the serial killer Buffalo Bill – that we begin to see the real Clarice.
And it is within the crucible of these struggles that a message takes shape.
Grit and selfishness will take you only so far before you pay a devastating personal price. (Gone With The Wind)
You must travel a dark road to silence the demons that haunt you. (The Silence of the Lambs)
So ramp up the conflict, threaten your character with impending death (physical, professional, or psychological) and let the outcome illuminate your theme.
Reach for the heart before you address the head
As a former trial lawyer, I know this to be true: Juries don’t coolly apply the law to the facts. They search for the most compelling story then seek a legal way to vindicate it. The best trial lawyers use “the will and the way” – they first make the jury willing through a convincing narrative construct, then show them the legal way to render a verdict consistent with it.
That was what Johnny Cochran did in the O. J. Simpson murder trial (I hope you got to see the superb FX series that brilliantly captured all aspects of that crazy time). The evidence of guilt – especially the blood evidence – was overwhelming. So Cochran changed the narrative. The case wasn’t about O.J. and domestic violence, but about a racist police department framing an innocent black celebrity. Cochran gave the jury the legal “way” to affirm the story – reasonable doubt. “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” And they did.
Now, this is not a place to discuss Cochran’s tactics or ethics, only to point out why they worked. Jurors don’t go to law school to learn how to deconstruct facts, re-arrange them and place them in obscure legal slots. They’re people asking, simply, “What happened to whom, and why?”
Your readers are like that, too. You must bond them to a character in crisis and make them want to find out what happens. Otherwise they won’t stick around for your message.
Ditch pontification in favor of confrontation
When it comes to the actual content of a message, my favorite technique is to place it within confrontational dialogue.
Let’s say you’re writing a novel about a college graduate in the early 1960s. He’s confused about his future. The theme of the book is the search for an authentic identity. The message might be phrased this way: The only way to find your true self is to reject and flee the expectations of your upbringing (stakes: psychological death). You have a scene early in your novel where the young graduate is mulling all this while back at home with his parents. You could write something like this:
Benjamin did not know exactly where he was going to go, just as long as it was on the road somewhere. He’d hitchhike, wouldn’t take anything with him, maybe ten dollars. No plan. Who knew how long he’d be gone? Five years, ten! His parents just didn’t understand his need to get away, to meet real people. Heck, what if he worked his way around the world? Whatever it was he was looking for, it wasn’t going to be what his parents had. He was through with big houses and swimming pools. He was going to spend the rest of his life with farmers and truck drivers! The hell with his education.
Or you could have Benjamin make a little speech about it.
“Mom, Dad, I do not want to be like you. I’m sorry to say it, I love you, but I just can’t see myself in a big house with a swimming pool hanging around with people I don’t like. I have to go out on the road. I have to find out what real life is like. I have to mix with farmers and truck drivers. I’ll be gone a long time, maybe even ten years. Who knows? I may try to go around the world. I’ve got this education, yes, but it means nothing to me. I need to go out and find something authentic. I don’t need any luggage or money, I’m just going to go, and I’ll make out all right.”
But I prefer the way Charles Webb did it in his novel, The Graduate. Ben is at the breakfast table in the kitchen, talking to his mother.
“I’m leaving home,” he said.
“What?”
“I said I’m leaving home,” he said, picking up his spoon. “I’m clearing out after breakfast.”
Mrs. Braddock reached up to wipe her hands on a towel beside the sink. “You’re going away?”
“That’s right.”
She frowned and walked across the room to sit down beside him at the table. “You’re taking a trip?”
“That is right,” Benjamin said. He dug into the grapefruit.
“Well where are you going,” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know where you’re going?”
“No.”
***
“How long will you be gone,” his mother said.
“I don’t know.”
“More than a day or two?”
“Yes.”
“But not more than a week.”
“Look,” Benjamin said. “Maybe five years, maybe ten, I don’t know.”
“What?”
Mr. Braddock came into the kitchen carrying the morning newspaper. “You’re up early,” he said.
“Ben, tell your father. Because I know he won’t let you do it.”
“What’s up,” Mr. Braddock said, sitting down at the table.
“I’m going on a trip.”
“He’s not taking the sports car. He’s not taking any clothes. He has ten dollars in his pocket and he’s–”
“Excuse me,” Benjamin said. He reached for the bowl of sugar in the center of the table.
“What’s this about?” Mr. Braddock said.
“I’m leaving after breakfast on a trip,” Benjamin said, sprinkling sugar on the grapefruit. “I have no idea where I’m going. Maybe just around the country or the continent. Maybe if I can get papers, I’ll work around the world. So that’s that.”
“Well what’s the point of it?”
“The point is I’m getting the hell out of here.”
Mr. Braddock frowned at him. “This doesn’t sound too well thought out,” he said.
***
“Do you know what I want?” Benjamin said, tapping his finger against the table.
“What.”
“Simple people. I want simple honest people that can’t even read or write their own name. I want to spend the rest of my life with these people.”
“Ben.”
“Farmers,” Benjamin said. “Truck drivers. Ordinary people who don’t have big houses. Who don’t have swimming pools.”
“Ben, You’re getting carried away.”
“I’m not.”
***
Benjamin stood. “Goodbye,” he said, holding out his hand.
His father shook it. “Call collect if you get into any kind of trouble.”
“Ben?” Mrs. Braddock said. “Do you think you might be back by Saturday?”
“Mother.”
“Because I invited the Robinsons over for dinner. It would be so much more fun if you were there.”
Not only do we get the gist of Ben’s quest in the dialogue, but also an indelible picture of why he needs to get out – his parents are frozen in their cluelessness.
So when in doubt about how to weave a message, start an argument!
We could talk about symbols and motifs in support of your message, but this post is already running long. So let me turn it over to you. Do you have a message or theme in mind before you start to write? Does it emerge over time? Or do you not think about it at all? Should you?
JAMES SCOTT BELL writes thrillers and books on the craft of fiction. A winner of the International Thriller Writers Award, he previously served as fiction columnist for Writer’s Digest magazine. He lives and writes in Los Angeles. Learn more about him on his website, and follow him on Twitter.
Lord above, brilliant.
Except at my age, never having seen or read The Graduate, I only want to follow the PARENTS now. The kid can go do what he wants, God go with him. But how do his folks get on? That’s the question I want to see answered.
And bet I don’t, from the book. Figures- mine’s in college now, so I guess I’ll just have to live the answer.
Will, that’s actually a great idea. What happened to the parents?
On that note, it’s interesting to do some research into the life of the author, Charles Webb, who appears to have lived out one trajectory that might have been Ben’s life.
I love this comment. “Live the answer.” Isn’t that what we all have to do?
Well, there usually is a message, just not what I think it is … I don’t discover it until I’ve written a first draft. To paraphrase one of my first writing instructors: The story is about X, but when you dig deeper, it’s really about Y. This is one of the reasons I love revising.
That’s a great approach, Vijaya. Again, stress your characters and put them through the crucible. When you resolve that you can look back and “listen” to the book. As Madeleine L’Engle once said, “If the book tells me to do something … I heed it; the book is usually right.”
Now I have to watch the graduate again! And the above conversation a wonderful example of your point on messages. We get it from the dialogue, and from choices our characters make when confronted with roadblocks and danger. I attended your seminar on building conflict and tension at a WD conference a few years back. You played the restaurant scene between Benjamin and Mrs. R. that had me on the edge of my seat. That was a game-changing hour for me. Thanks for that…and for this!
That clip from the film is such a great example of how the addition of some form of fear (which can range from worry to terror) energizes a scene.
Most of the film, BTW, uses Webb’s dialogue. It’s masterful.
Jim–
“Don’t stress your message, stress your characters.” There it is in seven words. Characters in action = “message.” That’s the whole point of fictions: they organize action through characters to equal more than the sum of the parts. That “value added” = message.
I’m a pantser, and I thought I understood the theme of my latest project: how something that can be defended in the age of high-tech medicine–assisted suicide–can also be easily corrupted by unconscious personal motives. But I was wrong. The true theme of this narrative is the power of remembered words and images to shape the way we make choices and see the future.
I came to this realization when Writer Unboxed editor Cathy Yardley put my feet to the fire: she required me to make two divergent narratives in my story into one. Through this process I was now able to see the theme that united both plot lines.
No one speaks with more clarity about the complexities facing writers. Thanks yet again.
Ah, the power of a good editor, Barry. Another set of eyes. My wife is my first editor, and she’s tough. Which I need. Though I can act like a Kodiak bear when she’s reading …
Well hello Mr. Bell! Nice to see you posting here. Though your comments are often as good as the posts.
I like to have a theme in mind. I even go so far as to ensure I have a “theme stated” line early in the novel. In the novel I’m working on now, my theme is that no one’s life is without meaning. I have an early scene between my hero, Corey, a high school football star who has recently lost a leg in a snowmobile accident, and his annoying neighbor, Halley, 4 years his junior. This is the rough version:
I’m really beginning to believe that Corey is actually a street kid. Does she plan on sleeping on my porch?
“Know my favorite thing about Cherry Hill?” she says, as if we’ve been engaged in conversation.
“Ten months of winter?” My stump itches, only reminding me once again that it is, indeed, a useless stump, the stepping off point for a ghost of a leg.
She’s leaning over the porch rail, her face upturned. “All the stars gather here.”
In Cherry Hill? Only tourists and people with no life skills gathered here. But I know what she’s talking about. “I avoid looking at them. I lead a meaningless existence already. No sense in reminding myself that the whole planet is small and meaningless. That makes me, like, some micro-organism on a flea on a dog.”
“Corey that’s stupid.” She turns toward me, now in full lecture-mode. If only I could run. “Does it occur to you that there may be something out there looking at us and thinking the same thing?”
“Some alien is wondering how to get his neighbor off his porch so he can grab a bowl of Frosted Flakes and go to bed?”
“Don’t be an ass. I mean that something out there may be thinking they’re insignificant. And they can see our sun, maybe even Earth.”
“I’m sure this is going somewhere.”
“It is. My point is that every one of us plays a part. What we do makes a difference for the people around us and everyone that comes after us.”
“Deep for a girl who saw started an Instagram profile called Potter Fangirls.”
“What happened to you sucks.” She waves a hand at my ghost-leg. “But it only changed your direction. It didn’t end your life.”
“I really have to get to bed.” I grab my crutches and hobble upright.
“Fine.” She tromps down the steps, probably knocking yet more paint off the old wood. “But I’m not giving up on you.”
Great. One girl in the world who still wants to hang out with me and she’s a fun-sized philosopher. I watch her slip through the hedgerow between our houses, and then lean out over the porch rail.
“Hey,” I say to the brightest star. “Wanna grab some Frosted Flakes?”
No answer, but I’m certain I hear the stomping away of some annoying alien neighbor.
Okay, I didn’t mean to put an entire scene in here, but I got carried away. But that’s how I like to slip in the theme. This takes place, like I said, within the first two chapters, the sooner the better.
Thanks for the post, Jim!
Nice scene though, Ron. :)
Thanks, Dana. This story will definitely stretch me. I go all Interstellar with it!
Ron, that’s a good move. When I teach Super Structure, I talk about a beat called “The argument against transformation.” That’s what you have here. The Lead argues against what he will become at the end (or not, if it’s a tragedy).
Thus, in Casablanca Rick argues that he is about sticking his neck out for nobody. Of course, at the end, he does exactly that.
It’s a great way to plant the thematic conflict into the mind of the reader. When it pays off at the end, it creates a resonance for the reader that is most satisfying.
“Do you have a message or theme in mind before you start to write?”
“No,” Ben said.
“You figure it out as you go, then,” Jim said.
“Figure out what?”
“Your message.”
“What’s to figure out? I just write.”
“That doesn’t sound very well thought out.”
Ben said, “When I start thinking about what I want to say, I wind up not saying anything worth a damn.”
“Is that an aphorism?” Jim asked.
“You tell me.”
“It sounds true but what does it mean?”
“It means that if you think too much, try to write in too much meaning, then your story skews to fit the meaning rather than the meaning fitting the story.”
“Definitely an aphorism.”
“It’s like a suit of clothes. Do the clothes wear you or do you wear the clothes?”
“If you’re Tom Wolfe, then you wear the white suit,” Jim said.
“Ooo, a literary reference,” Ben said. “But you’re right. You own the suit, the suit doesn’t own you,”
“Maybe it’s more of an analogy,” Jim said.
Ben held his head in his hands. “This is giving me a headache.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Where are you going?”
“To write.”
“About what?”
“That’s the point! I don’t know.”
“What does that mean?”
“Who cares? It’s an analogy. It’s an aphorism. Hell, I don’t know. I just know I’ve got to do it.”
“Will it mean something when you’re done?” Jim pressed.
Ben walked out.
And then Jim understood.
You certainly got your message across. And in dialogue, too. Nicely done.
Loved the little scene with you and Jim, Ben. This underscored what Jim did so well in the post.
Great dialog! Totally with you! And in the process, all will be revealed. Even something as simple as a pair of shorts can be everything to someone needing shorts.
This is fabulous, Jim. Interestingly enough, life tends to work in a process kind of way. Today, I asked a question about a story I completed, and a story I am writing. Yours and another piece much like it came to me. Good stuff! Thanks!
Also, I’m trying to reach you. Any thoughts on the best way to do so?
Thank you, Jim, for such a helpful post. Several of your tips were so spot on, I had to share them on Twitter. :-)
To answer your question, the only books I wrote with a clear message in mind was the Seasons Mystery series. Open Season, the first book, introduced the sub plot of racial tension in Dallas between citizens and the police. Efforts to appease the public after a black teen was shot included pairing a black detective with a white detective who had shot the kid in an undercover drug op that had gone bad. Sarah, the white detective was under fire by the Dallas Review Board, and the department PR folks thought it was a good idea to partner her with Angel.
All of that backstory was introduced in dialogue and confrontations, and as the story progressed, the two women dealt with their personal issues over the partnership through confrontation and dialogue.
I tried to keep myself out of the debate as much as possible and let the characters handle it. It was not always easy. :-)
This series started as a film project with Alan and Cynthia Mondell, who wanted to do a feature film that had a message of social importance and brought me on board to write the script. As we can see still today, this relationship between police and the public continues to be divisive and sometimes explosive.
All of my other stories have started out as a story first, with the theme coming to life in the writing. I am a panster.
Maryann, your comment suggest a writing exercise when a writer begins with “something to say.” Write out a scene in a dialogue, hash it out there. See how it feels. I like it. Thanks for the comment.
I have actually done that exercise with students when doing a writing workshop. I think because I have written a number of scripts for film and stage, I have finally mastered using dialogue to propel the story without being didactic. It took a while, but, hey, we are always learning, right?
Hi, James:
Sorry to be late to the party. My response: bingo. The way I say it with my students: Don’t ask “What’s my theme?” Ask: “What do people want in my story world and what are they willing to do to get it?”
And reveal through conflict. Three very important little words.
Great post. It’s lonesome around here without you.
Thanks David. Indeed, having the characters duke it out (truly) is a must. Sometimes a pre-formed theme can be like ankle weights. Have to watch out for that so the characters can run.
Great post. Thank you. It reminds me a little of what Stephen King says in On Writing about theme: (paraphrasing from memory) It will show up in your first draft, and then you can polish it until it shines.
I didn’t used to start writing with an idea of my theme. But after writing a few (unpublishable) novels, I realised that all my long-form fiction has basically the same theme. There are variants, of course, and the message is different from book to book, but the overall theme of pretty much everything I’ve ever written could be summed up by asking: “What is family, really, when you get right down to it?”
Nowdays, I tend to have this general question in mind when I start writing. I figure if it’s going to end up in my fiction anyway, I may as well add it consciously as subconsciously.
Thanks for the article!
Like you, Jo, I realized some time back that I had a recurring theme – the quest for justice. I know when I begin a project that’s going to come through in some form. I may not know the exact permutation up front, though I usually do. Then it’s a matter, as you note, of the polish. Thanks.
My theme is always: Our souls are on a journey that our bodies can’t complete. ie we live on our bodies die. I wrap it around romance novels or historic fiction, but its always there. I think its those messages inside us that push us to write.
Great blog. I posted a link to this on my twitter – Carol McClain Craver @PinkHouseSeries
I love that you’ve given me permission to figure out my theme as the story unfolds. What a great post. (No surprise there coming from you.) Thanks for sharing!
You are quite welcome, Jackie. Thanks for the good word.
The other key to Webb’s success is that he breaks the message up into short statements broken over a much longer passage. Readers don’t even notice they’re hearing a sermon.