Large amounts of exposition leave readers weary and if not carefully positioned breaks the dream spell ideally evoked at the outset of a novel.
Mining your fiction enriches your protagonist’s journey for the reader. They also serve as markers serving as point of identification that allow readers to touch upon the protagonist’s struggle.
Attaching described objects to the internal experience of your protagonist provides an efficient way of reclaiming the internal experience of a character, or a memory. In the area of fiction we call these objects symbols.
Linking a symbol to the protagonist and her or his hopes, wishes and endeavors, not unlike a talisman, allows the writer to not only evoke or remind the reader of this emotion, thought or memory that lives within the character, but to amplify its intensity when certain events take place.
These events form turning points in the narrative of the novel signaling another change or reversal of fortune, and delivering one more opportunity to act and for grow.
The writer can also raise the symbol at the crest of crisis wherein the protagonist must choose what she or he will do when facing her or his greatest obstacle or most fearsome and dreaded antagonist.
And then there is the climax, at which time the central character, having selected between two terrible possibilities, or two equally appealing ideals, must now carry out the final act of slaying and/or embracing that which has for so long hunted or haunted her or him.
What is a highly valued object you possess?
Write for five minutes on why you treasure this object?
Please share.
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Please note:
www.anjuellefloyd.com will be on hiatus during December 2009 for site maintenance and upgrade.
We will return Monday, January 4, 2010.
Until then visit me at anjuelle floyd–the writing life
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