Default Dragons

Patricia C. Wrede wrote The Enchanted Forest chronicles which I adored and read multiple times in my childhood. She has also written Wrede on Writing which is a collection of her thoughts on writing with a "none of this nonsense please" attitude.

One topic of hers struck me early on. Defaults.

What are your go-to actions?

I hadn't really considered the idea too deeply before but Wrede's comments have made me reflect. What do I choose most of the time when writing?

If you've read Island Whispers, you might think it's a third person close telling with multiple perspectives. In fact, it's first person and a limited time frame.

Time has always been my issue with writing. Logically it takes time to do things and calculating that or trying to represent that accurately has been my downfall. There is no need for a reader to suffer through every step in the forest or every moment from waking to sleep. Books are collections of events that are only moments of time - key moments to be exact. I just happen to exaggerate the minute and make the tying of shoes into a hypersensitive event.

Looking back now, I'm not sure what drew me to Island Whispers or the format that it took. I think I was just serving the story. The story needed multiple characters and for each to share their viewpoint - there was too much world to cover otherwise - and so I obliged with page after page of back and forth.

However, after I finished with Island Whispers and chose something new, I realized that first person seemed much simpler. It was easy to slip into a first person telling and I didn't have to worry about those bothersome tonal changes important for separating character voices.

Knowing your defaults is useful. If you want to grow, you must know the areas where you do well and then discern the areas where you need help. Challenging yourself to choose the POV, plots, genres that are not your norm is important so that you can continue to develop your skills. It's also important for storytelling. Some stories are not meant to be told in first person. Some stories need an omniscient perspective. As a writer, it is your job to serve your story and realize when the current path is not benefitting it.

One of my recent stories, the "fairy story" or Kira's story (I have no good title right now) was in first person, then I realized that it didn't fit. The characters rubbed against each other in the right way. The reader wouldn't be able to understand the natural knowledge that everyone in Faerie knew from birth. I needed a step back, more than that I needed a change of perspective.

What are your defaults? Why?


(You may or may not be wondering why this post is titled "Default Dragons." Partially because the Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Wrede is about dragons, but also because I believe that our defaults are those fierce-some beasts that we let dominate our writing. Unless we face them, we will continuously submit to them, believing them to be supernatural and difficult to conquer. It's easier to let the dragon be all powerful and dominating, but we need to look for the chinks in the armor if we're going to emerge unscathed.)