A Fiction Rubric

Several months ago Roland was asked to judge some living history projects at our church’s school, and he was given a rubric to use. It got me wondering what makes good fiction and what type of rubric I would use if I had to come up with one. So for my own enjoyment—and hopefully yours—I am writing a series of blog posts to answer that question.

The word rubric is commonly understood among educators to mean a document or system for setting expectations and evaluating students’ work. In many cases the factors have points associated with them so that students understand how important each one is and to make grading or judging more uniform and objective.

No rubric is perfect, and each reflects the creator’s own biases to some extent. This is especially true for something as subjective as fiction. It is also impossible to cover everything in a general fiction rubric. For example, speculative fiction usually requires the author to create an imaginary world that is both believable and consistent within the framework of the story. Even contemporary fiction must have a believable and consistent setting, but world-building is easier when the setting is one we know personally or through research. Similarly, research is important for historical fiction but less so for a contemporary romance. My general fiction rubric does not have scores for these genre-related issues, but they would be considered as part of other elements.

To score the rubric, I looked at how much the various elements of fiction affect reading enjoyment or—more specifically—the desire to keep on reading and, conversely, those elements that make someone want to put the book down if they are done wrong. For example, point of view errors make me crazy, and yet I continue to read if the plot and characters are interesting. So plot and characterization should carry higher values than point of view does.

Ideally, a typical reader would select the elements and assign the scores for the rubric. Unfortunately, there is no such person, and reading tastes vary widely. So in creating this rubric I looked first at my own reading practices, but I tempered the result with comments I have heard from other readers over the years.

It’s impossible to take all the subjectivity out of creating and scoring a fiction rubric. Still, I’ve done the best I can. And after all, I’m doing this for fun rather than to judge an actual contest. But I’d like to think it would work for that, too.

The basic rubric goes like this:

                I.          The Art of Story—40 points

a.      Plot—20 points

b.     Characters—15 points

c.      Opening chapter—5 points

              II.          Point of View—10 points

a.      Identifiable?—5 points

b.     Consistent?—5 points

           III.          Creating a Movie with Words—20 points

a.      Show, don’t tell—10 points

b.     Action—5 points

c.      Description—5 points

           IV.          Dialogue—10 points

a.      Attribution—5 points

b.     Naturalness—5 points

              V.          Language Use—20 points

a.      Clarity and conciseness—15 points

b.     Grammar and proofreading—5 points

My May blog posts will fill in the objectives for each category. So join me next week for The Art of Story.

Weather as a Story Element

We’ve had some crazy weather lately, and it got me thinking about how writers use weather in their stories. Unfortunately, some writers throw it in as an afterthought or simply because they believe they should. The “rule” (although there are no real rules) is the same as the one for dialogue, where writers attempt to avoid the word “said” by using an action to identify the speaker. An action that conveys the character’s emotion or some other story element is a great substitute. But an action that is there merely to avoid a dialogue tag shouts “lazy attribution” and stands out much more than the simple word “said” does.

Weather is like that, too, even if it is only a bit player. It should be connected to the story. Don’t just put a storm in the story as background description. Make it the reason the protagonist seeks shelter in the store where she meets her true love. Or maybe you use weather to emphasize its opposite. It’s a sunny day outside but a dark day in the protagonist’s heart, so the protagonist feels as if the weather is laughing at her. But in that case its use isn’t obvious, so you need to have the protagonist note the connection for the reader.

Then there is the story where the weather is one of the characters. I’m currently working on a middle-grade novel about the Siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War. The Union forces weren’t the only enemy—the weather was, too. The sun was relentless, and one of my characters gets heat exhaustion. There was almost no rain, and the entire city was in danger of running out of water as well as food. (Yes, I know Vicksburg is on the Mississippi River, but you can’t use it if you can’t get to it.) And the one time that there was a significant rainfall, it made the caves they were living in almost uninhabitable. So I am using all of that in the story.

Don’t just throw weather into your story. Give it a reason to be there.

Or leave it out.

A Rose by Any Other Name

While it is true that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, names do matter. The wrong one can create all sorts of problems for a writer.

I am currently working on a story about the Civil War siege of Vicksburg, and I named my protagonist “Charlotte Warren.” I loved that last name. Unfortunately, she is now Charlotte Gibson. Why the change? Charlotte’s father is like mine, a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a professional man well-respected among his colleagues and within his geographical area but not generally known outside those circles, and one who is content to live a modest life. Unfortunately, as I was doing some research, I discovered that Vicksburg is in Warren County. That means anyone from that area might associate Charlotte’s father with whatever more influential, rich family the county is named after.

Actually, Shakespeare knew it, too, and Juliet’s famous speech from the balcony scene was wishful thinking. Here is her entire speech. [The following lines are spoken by Juliet in the balcony scene, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene I.

‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;—

Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.

What is a Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What’s in a name! that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title:—Romeo, doff thy name;

And for that name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself.

Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene I

Names had consequences for Romeo and Juliet, and they have consequences for writers, too.

And sometimes we get pricked by the thorns.

Journey into History

On March 14, 1958, I had the privilege of standing in Cave Four at Qumran, where most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. (The location is misspelled on the picture at the top of this post.) I was barely seven years old at the time, so I didn’t understand it’s significance then. And although the archeologists and Jewish and Biblical scholars of the time knew the Dead Sea Scrolls were an important discovery, most of the work on the scrolls came later, so even they probably didn’t know how big a find it was. If they had, would they have let a family with three children visit it?

Qumran was in Jordan at the time, and, according to a March 17, 1958 letter from my mother to her parents, “We had to go through an army camp to get there and had permission from the Jordanian Department of Antiquities for this purpose.” I don’t know how Daddy obtained permission, but I’m not surprised that he did. He taught at the Bishop’s School in Amman, Jordan in 1946 and 47 and was teaching there again during our sojourn in 1957–58. Many of the Bishop’s School’s students went on to hold influential governmental positions, so one of them may have secured the pass. In any event, Daddy was both shrewd and determined, and he knew how to get permission to visit the places he wanted to see.

Why am I thinking about this now? I just began listening to a series of Great Courses lectures on the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are taught by Dr. Gary Rendsburg. And it struck me again how much I owe Daddy for immersing me in history.

When I was a child, I didn’t realize how fortunate I was to be my father’s daughter. Daddy loved his family and could be very generous in the right circumstances, but he was also thrifty and strict and too much of a scholar for my tastes. Now, of course, I see things differently. We traveled the world because he loved traveling and learning, but he also because he wanted his children to have those experiences.

And I’m grateful.

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The picture at the top of this page is from a color slide taken by my father, Oliver S. Page, in 1958. The caption was added by my mother many years later when she had the slide turned into a print. Unfortunately, the digitized version looks better in black and white.

From Criminal to Conqueror

This post is reprinted from April 9, 2012.

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On Easter morning 1958, I attended the Easter service at the Garden Tomb. That’s when my father took this picture.

The service was in Arabic, so I didn’t understand any of it. Also, the tomb’s authenticity is questionable. Still, it was a great setting to celebrate a man who died as a criminal and rose as a conqueror.

To use Paul’s words from I Corinthians 15:54-57:

“Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In his rising, Jesus conquered death and sin.

That’s something I could never have done. I’m responsible for the sin, but not for the victory.

A victory he obtained for me and for you at great cost to himself.

And I’m grateful.

Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

Alleluia!