Complications of the Bechdel Test in Writing

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The Bechdel Test can best be described as a litmus test that is applied to movies to evaluate the role or presence of women in the film.  To pass the test, the movie must have two female, named characters, that speak to each other during the film about any subject other than men.  It is a striking simple test, and yet a vast majority of films fail to meet it.

In literature, you don't have screen time and the rules should be somewhat different.  In theory, with writing, it should be easier to have the Bechdel Test requirements met.  Yet, I've found that depending on the factors behind your story, this can be surprisingly difficult to pass, despite the fact that the number and significance of the female characters in the story exceed the number of males.

In Extrication, the story is told first person through the eyes of a thirteen year old boy.  He has several female characters that he interacts with, three of which are a significant part of his life.  He has his mother, the neighbor, Gail Rosenberg, and his long distance friend, Claire.  Also, being a thirteen year old boy, he is attending school during the day with countless kids his age of both genders.  So, with all of these female characters, it should be easy to have the Bechdel Test passed, right?  Wrong.

One of the problems with writing, is that every scene should carry with it a purpose.  Having an abundance of female characters in the story makes it possible to have two of them interact.  But, they need to interact in such a way to advance the story.  In the case of Extrication, the story is about a young boy finding that he has an extraordinary power.  This greatly limits the options available for two female characters talking to advance the story.

Fortunately, in my bag of tricks, I was able to find a way to work this out.  Part of telling a story is setting the scene of the world.  One way to learn about the world is with conversations between characters.  If the piece of information is important to the reader, but not something your character would necessarily talk about, you have a perfect opportunity.  You can have your character overhear two characters discuss this in front of your protagonist.

If you have a piece of writing that does not meet the Bechdel test, you should look closely and ask yourself why doesn't it.  Adding in a scene where two students talk about an important piece of world news isn't a major change.  You can also look at your existing scenes where a group of characters are holding a conversation and see if you can switch around who's talking to whom to make the story pass the Bechdel test.  This small bit of effort takes nothing away from the story and makes the book just that much more accessible in a world where Bechdel tests are needed.

Movie Ketchup Time (April)

I'm behind on my blog and I'm sorry for the two/three of you out there that check this blog on a regular basis.  I'm also currently dealing with the heaviest bout of depression I have ever experienced in my life.  Still, I feel that when dealing with depression, the best solution is to try and force yourself to do something anyway.  So, for now, while I have the energy, I'm going to start clearing out my projects I'm super behind on.  To start off, let's talk about the King of the Hill Movie Challenge.

For those who do not know, the 2012 King of the Hill Movie Challenge is my system for determining the best movie of year that I saw. One movie from each month will be selected and, at the end of the year, I will do a tournament style showdown where they will take each other on until the final movie has been selected. Bracket placement will be determined by the number of movies the monthly movie faced and won.

April was not a busy movie month.  I only watched two films during the month Titanic and The Little Princess.  If there was another movie I watched, it was not significant enough to implant itself in my mind.    So today, I have two movies to pit against each other.  Titanic, the extremely popular, massively grossing film by James Cameron.  And The Little Princess (1995 version), an underdog remake of a Shirley Temple film.  For me, the decision was easy, but I don't expect this decision to be quickly accepted by my readers.

Titanic is two movies rolled into one.  It is the disaster movie of the famous voyage of the RMS Titanic.  It is also a "romance" movie.  The romance story follows two characters Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose (Kate Winslet).  They are two people from different worlds on a voyage to America.  The two meet under the most unusual of circumstances and quickly fall in love with each other.  The disaster story follows the RMS Titanic (CGI) as it crashes into an ice berg (CGI) and begins to sink into the murky depths (either CGI or a giant kiddie pool).

It is the story of the sinking of the Titanic that made this movie great.  The romance had decent moments, but was more of a detraction than anything else.  For one thing, Titanic has some of the worst dialogue I have ever seen in a movie.  The most irritating is how often Jack and Kate use the other's name.  This is not natural dialogue and if you don't believe me, record yourself for a day and see how often you say someone else's name when talking to them.

The Little Princess is a movie directed by Alfonso Cuarón that follows Sara (Liesel Matthews) as she attends an American boarding school while her father, a British factory owner is fighting in World War I.  Her life is comfortable and filled with all of the amenities until her father is reported as having been killed and that the British government has seized his assets.  Suddenly, Sara is without a penny to her name and thrust into working as a servant girl along side Becky (Vanessa Lee Chester).

The Little Princess is clearly aimed for young girls, but the story is a whimsical tale that can entertain a wider audience.  It has moments that are over the top, such as a scene when the neighbor's aid, Ram (Errol Sitahal), fills the attic with exotic foods and fabric for Becky and Sara.  Despite these over the top moments, the movie gives a very realistic look into boarding schools during the early 1900's.  The dialogue makes Titanic look like a Saturday morning cartoon, and it was a better, overall period piece.

April King of the Hill Movie Winner:  The Little Princess

And if you case you were wondering, the March King of the Hill Movie Winner is The Hunger Games

Saying a Lot with Few Words (Part 1)

Today, my wife and I are doing a cross-post on the same subject just like we did back when we discussed descriptions from different perspectives.

When writing, you need to be able to say a lot with as few words as possible. This applies at the macro level and the micro level. My current work in progress is a Young Adult story. Depending on who you ask, the target word count for a YA is between 40,000 and 80,000 words. I'm personally aiming for 80,000 words or less. Lengthy scenes can be nice, but they add up quickly. There are two ways to cut down on length. You can cut scenes and you can learn to cut down on scene length by saying a lot in few words. Today, I'm going to talk about some of the macro tricks behind this. My wife will be talking about this from her perspective over on her blog today as well, so be sure to check out what she hasto say on the subject.

First of all, I should explain what I mean by saying a lot in as few words as possible.  On the macro level, what I'll be talking about today, this is making a scene as short as possible without cutting into the story.  On the micro level, this is stating something to the reader without needless exposition.  The best authors are experts at both of these tricks.  They can avoid the exposition or unnecessary dialogue and can keep scenes short, and to the point.

Photo Courtesy: http://www.normandie-wine.com/  

 In my current novel, my protagonist, Peter, is a fourteen year old who can teleport. For various reasons, he is trying to track down and catch an arsonist. In the story, he ends up in France where he meets a girl named Claire. Claire becomes the second person to discover his ability. In the scene when Claire and Peter meet and talk, there are several ways that I've cut the length of what I've needed to say to keep this event to part of a single chapter instead of two or three.  In order to achieve this, I replaced what would have been an entire chapter with a single, critical piece of dialogue between the two characters. I cut descriptions of the scene, leaving the less important descriptions for the reader to fill in. The scene involved Claire's angry father; he was minimized. I also used the ever important trick of not rehashing what the reader already knows. You'd be surprised how effective it is to write: “Peter told Claire what he knew about the fires.”

For a more specific example, I'll examine my choice not to spend much time describing Claire. I prescribe to the formula of cutting down descriptions of characters to a minimum and letting the reader fill in the rest of the details. I focus on what the character notices first, the details that stand out the most, and the unusual details. This might be long flowing black hair, bright green eyes, freckles, or, in the case of Claire, her unusual style of dress. I never spend time describing every last detail of the character and even when I'm describing something unusual, I keep it simple and focused on Peter's story.

Writing about tricks on how to say a lot in a little words isn't quite the same as showing the process. At this point in time, I'm describing a scene that takes place a few weeks after the chapter mentioned above. Peter is at home when his mother calls him out of his bedroom. Peter has just received a package from Claire and his mother is trying to find out what's going on.

NOTE: This is draft writing. I don't like sharing draft writing and it is all subject to change. Don't judge.

This was the last line I wrote:

“Why are you getting packages from England?”

To proceed, I need to figure out what needs to be covered in this scene. First off, Peter is entering the scene confused. I like to torture my characters and it's important that Peter find himself thrust, repeatedly into scenes where he needs to adapt quickly. He doesn't know what this package is, who it is from, or why he's getting it. So the first thing I need to have to do in this scene is have Peter go through the process of figuring out what is going on. The second element needed is to have Peter lie to his mother and feel guilty for having done so. Finally, I need to maintain a bit of dramatic tension. Peter's pursuit of the arsonist is getting intense.

I could respond to this question with extensive dialogue between Peter and his mom.  However, this adds a lot of information of the course of several paragraphs when I can handle this quickly, maintain Peter's character, and hit all three of the requirements I'm looking for above.

I froze. The arsonist had seen me at my father's work. He might know where I live. This could be the very means he used to start fires. My mom's life could be in danger. I bit my lip and walked over to where my mom stood with the package. I couldn't get a clear view of the package, but I did get a glimpse of the label. The writing on the front was too flowery to have been from someone trying to burn down homes. This had to have been from Claire. I had forgotten she had said something about attending a private school in England. She had asked for my addressed when we last spoke, but I hadn't expected her to mail me a package.

“It must be from my pen pal,” I lied. I felt a jab of pain in my heart, lying to my mom again like that. “I write to her as part of my make-up work for school. I don't know why she sent me a package from England.”

My mother looked at me with dubious eyes, but finally a smile appeared on her face. “You never told me you had a pen pal.”

She handed me her package and left the room with the rest of the mail in her hand, leaving me alone to find out what Claire had sent me.

This scene is 232 words in length and covers what could take over a thousand words to explain. Even still, it is longer than I'd like and will likely get shortened later when I go through and make further edits. It covers all three areas I wanted to touch upon, and leaves me satisfied.  I'd like to note that the main area I cut a lot was with his mom's reaction.  She could have probed to find out more.  She could have lingered to find out what was in the package.  Instead, she adds a bit of guilt by not responding immediately with believing Peter before wandering off.  It easily saved a thousand words.

Dialogue and Motivation

Let me start by saying I promise to never post a blog without first rereading it.  My last blog post was written while I was tired.  I posted it without so much as giving it a second's glance.  I had promised to edit it the following day, but only managed to get to it yesterday.  I was embarrassed by what I read.

When it comes to dialogue, I'm not an expert.  Dialogue is an area I frequently find myself struggling with.  My wife is the local expert.  One of her pieces of advice is to pay attention to conversations in television, real life, and literature.  It is most definitely a useful trick.

I'm going to compare two opposites: Alf and Dark Shadows.  The two television shows differ in every way, but one (two if you count the fact that both have a character named Willie).  The dialogue for both shows is terrible.  I've been watching through Dark Shadows slowly over the last several months.  Last night we reached the 111th episode available.  I also recently watched the pilot of the 80's sitcom, Alf.  One show is a soap opera drama with the supernatural.  The other is an episodic sitcom about an extraterrestrial.

Dialogue should be simple.  It is the choice of words characters use when speaking to each other.  We are exposed to dialogue every time we have a conversation.  Yet, with so much exposure, you'd think that writers would be able to piece together believable conversations onto a page.  Unfortunately, this doesn't happen.  There are a few reasons for this, but I think one of the most blatant sources for this poor writing is motivation.  This is part of the reason I find that Dark Shadow's dialogue is scores better than the dialogue used in Alf.

Everyone has motivation.  When we speak, we aren't just blurting something out at random.  We have our reasons for saying what we say.  This is just as important in writing as it is in the real world.  When writers forget this, the purpose of the dialogue becomes muddied.  Often times, writers will forget the overall character in exchange for the momentary motivation.  In the pilot of Alf, Willie has this wonderful line:

Willie:  "Alright, alright.  Just give me one day, okay.  If I can't get Alf going, we'll tell someone.  Just one day."

The dialogue makes me weep inside.  Not just because of how terrible it reads, but because of Willie's motivation.  This is the type of concern one would have with in-laws that won't leave.  However, Willie is talking about an alien from another planet.  After an earlier piece of dialogue, it is established the military would probably do experiments on Alf if they had him.  So, his argument is for a single day before they tell someone.  It's as if Willie completely forgotten about what will happen to Alf should the military find him.  This is a momentary motivation convenient for the single scene.  A more fitting piece of dialogue would have been, "Just give me one day.  If I can't get Alf going, we'll figure out something."  In the alternative piece of dialogue, it leaves a sense of uncertainty with Willie.  It might be tell someone, or it might be getting Alf to find somewhere else to go.

Meanwhile, over in Dark Shadows land, the characters have their motivations, they just have dialogue that isn't well written.  In Episode 321, Sam Evans, at the decision of Maggie Evans, has set a trap for Maggie's attacker.  A rumor has been spread to summon her attacker to the home where the sheriff's men are waiting.  This plan has been building for a couple of episodes now.  In one scene, Maggie is in her room when Sam comes in.

Sam:  "There are men all over the place.  Now if you hear anything, you just give a yell and they'll come running."

The motivation of Sam is present.  He is trying to comfort his daughter, Maggie.  The line doesn't even read that poorly out of context.  In context, this is clearly exposition.  They could have shown the men, or let the reader assume the Maggie knows.  Instead, we hear Sam say something to Maggie that the audience needs to know.  It is irritating (especially if you've watched all available 111 episodes up until this point), but it is within Sam's character.

The moral of the story is to make dialogue better, always make sure you know the motivation behind the speaker.