K.M. Weiland's Blog, page 49

3 Ways to Choose the Right Protagonist

Ever had a minor character steal the show and run away with your story? This scenario has its good points and its bad points (usually, it means a great minor character and a problematic plot), and it always leads writers right back to the all-important question of how to choose the right protagonist from the get-go.

The fundamental principle of figuring out how to choose the right protagonist always goes back to the question: Which character is the right choice for the plot? Your protagonist must line up with the main conflict. He must be the primary mover and shaker, the one present at all the major moments in the structure, and the one driving the action forward.

If he’s not that person, then he’s not your protagonist. That should go without saying.

But what if you created a plot for your chosen protagonist to drive—but still end up with a more interesting minor character running away with your story?

That’s a problem in itself. Even if everything is structurally sound, few stories can bear up under the weight of a boring protagonist—especially when there’s a more interesting minor character with whom readers would much rather spend their time.

Boring Protagonist = Boring Story

Ideally, your protagonist should be the most interesting person in your story. After all, you’ve chosen his story to tell, so there must be a reason why it’s the most interesting possible iteration of your plot events. He’s also, per force, the character with whom you’re asking readers to spend the most time, and that means he needs to keep their attention on every single page.

And yet, it’s surprising how often stories fail to choose their most interesting character. For example, consider the ill-fated Snow White & the Huntsman. It’s Snow White’s story, of course. In the original fairy tale, the Huntsman is a decidedly minor character and doesn’t even have a name.

So you’d think the decision to make Snow White the protagonist would be a no-brainer. And, evidently, it was—to the point that the film took her character completely for granted and did basically nothing to develop her.

That’s problematic in itself. But enter stage left a much more interesting and compelling character in the shape of the no-longer-nameless Huntsman Eric (played by Chris Hemsworth). Suddenly, all this time audiences are now being asked to spend with a much-less-entertaining protagonist is the kiss of death.

Not all stories will give you a choice for how to choose the right protagonist, but if yours does, be sure to consider the options carefully.

By ignoring a character who raised interesting questions about himself and the story world, the plot was forced instead to follow a protagonist who raised no questions and created no interesting subtext or conflict developments. The very fact that the wasted opportunities are so visible makes the problem that much more obvious to viewers.

How to Choose the Right Protagonist by Finding Your Most Interesting Character

Mirror, Mirror on the wall, who’s the most interesting of them all?

Although there are many factors to this answer (and although, ideally, every character should be interesting in his own right), here are three areas in which you want your protagonist to shine.

Which Character Has the Most Interesting Backstory?

Backstory is valuable for two particular reasons:

1. It creates motivation. 

Backstory is the cause to your main story’s effect. It gives your protagonist a fundamental underlying reason for his choices, goals, and actions in the main story.

2. It creates mystery.

Via subtext, the initially hidden or unexplained parts of your protagonist’s backstory have the ability to raise questions. Why is the character the way he is? What happened to him? What secrets is he hiding?

For Example: The Huntsman has an infinitely more interesting backstory than does Snow White. In part, this is because he’s a new character with a backstory we aren’t already intimately familiar with. But partly, too, it’s because his backstory isn’t shown (thus creating subtext) and is wielded much more emotionally (simultaneously developing character and creating stakes).

Choose the right protagonist by investigating all your characters for interesting backstories. Which one sounds like the most fun to explore?

Which Character Hast the Best Character Arc?

Although there’s certainly nothing wrong with choosing a Flat-Arc protagonist who can create Change Arcs in the characters around him, you’re always going to want to look for the character who is arcing most prominently.

Why?

Because strong arcs mean strong change, and that, in turn, creates dynamic characters and plots.

Whenever you have a choice between two characters, you’re almost always wise to choose the one with the most prominent arc.

For Example: The Huntsman shows a Positive-Change arc, as he grows out of his overwhelming grief and into new hope and purpose. Snow White? Blame it on Kristen Stewart’s acting if you want, but she barely twitches a facial muscle in response to the trials and traumas she’s asked to overcome.

Choose the right protagonist by determining which character arc is most dynamic.

Which Character Is Most Alive on the Page?

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, which character pops off the page? The character’s voice within the narrative, his ability to be unexpected within the plot, and the amount of fun you have writing him are all important indications of his worthiness to be protagonist.

There must be a reason you chose this person to be your protagonist. If the reason is “he fit a role”—i.e., he’s the president, or she’s the princess—that’s not good enough. That’s a job title, not a personality. Look deeper. If you stripped this person of whatever pomp has been provided him by his role in the story, would you still find him interesting?

Just as importantly, would readers still find him interesting?

For Example: Snow White’s character starts out hampered in a couple areas. Stewart didn’t bring much expression to the role, the consequences of the character’s traumatic backstory were never explored on a personal level, and the filmmakers’ apparently assumed audiences would love her just because she’s Snow White.

The Huntsman, on the other hand, was at least given a little complexity, wit, and emotional depth. This is why he would have been a better choice for protagonist. This is why he was the protagonist in the sequel (although any potential for true development was stunted there as well, thanks to a determined overemphasis on the antagonists).

Are you having fun writing your protagonist? If not, look elsewhere.

Choose the right protagonist by taking a step back from the needs of your plot (for just a minute anyway).

Which character draws your heart most—and why?


Does that character’s goal and arc align with your plot?


If not, can you tweak things so they do line up?

If not, consider whether you might be better off scrapping the existing plot and following this more interesting character down his own chosen roads.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! How did you choose the right protagonist for your story? Tell me in the comments!

The post 3 Ways to Choose the Right Protagonist appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

How to Benefit From the Biggest Reason for Storytelling

I have a theory. My theory is that a person’s ability to engage with art is directly proportional to that person’s willingness to explore the inner depth of their own lives.

Consider two different people who walk out of a movie theater together (or we could switch out the setting for an art gallery, a concert hall, a library, a playhouse).

They ask each other, “What’d you think?”

The first person is bubbling over with excitement, having glimpsed insights and gathered the beginnings of interesting revelations about life in general and her own life in particular.

Upon hearing all this from the first person, the second person just kinda shrugs and says, “Well, I liked it, but it was just a fun movie.”

Why Appreciating Art = Appreciating Life

This is a scenario I’ve witnessed countless times in my own life (with me admittedly playing the role of Person #1 to someone else’s unenthusiastic Person #2). It’s often made me wonder how two people can experience the same story (or song or painting, etc.), with one person carrying away untold riches and the other person coming away empty-handed.

Inevitably, I’ve chalked it up to the subjectivity of art. After all, what rings one person’s bell won’t always ring another person’s.

But I no longer believe that’s the sum total of the solution.

In recent years, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing someone close to me begin growing out of a shallow perception of the world and into a deeper understanding of himself and, even better, a deeper desire to search out the hidden mysteries of life.

The really interesting thing, however, is that his awakening into a deeper curiosity and passion about life has been directly proportionate to his ability to interact with stories. Where before he would have been Person #2, shrugging off a story with a casual “yeah, it was fun,” now he’s starting to look deeper, starting to see meanings and interpretations that apply to his own life.

Life is helping him experience art, and art is helping experience life.

And so it goes.

And how incredibly awesomesauce is that?

3 Reasons Storytelling Is Inherent to the Life Experience

As writers, we are artists—which means we already have an “in” to understanding the power of art. We’re daily training ourselves to look past the surface of stories, to see not only the technical workings behind them, but the deeper meanings.

It’s a gorgeous cycle: we use our art to interpret life, but, as artists ourselves, we also get to use our art to create and expand upon life. As Caryl Phillips wrote:

The reason art matters at all—the reason any one of us bothers to write a story at all—is because stories are life. They are the mirror through which we see the reflection of our own existences. They are the framework by which we organize a chaotic world. They are the metaphor that helps us make sense of the infinite.

The most important question in the world is Why? If we can understand and claim the reasons why art is important—the reasons why even Person #2 keeps coming back for more stories—the reasons why we write, then we will also be able to understand how to write better, more pertinent, and more powerful stories.

Here are three reasons why stories (and all of art) exist in the first place.

Reason #1: Stories Are About Asking Questions

As in writing itself, life is not about finding the right answers. Rather, it’s about asking the right questions (because if you discover the right question, the right answer will already be inherent within it).

Every story you experience is asking a question. It asks the big questions: Is life worthwhile? Is there a purpose? Does good really triumph over evil?

But it also asks smaller, instantly applicable questions: What makes a relationship work? Is it possible to find forgiveness? What makes evil people do evil things? What makes heroic people do heroic things?

Inherent in the very act of asking all these questions are their inevitable answers. But, as a writer, your job isn’t so much to dig up those answers with a triumphant “aha!” as it is to simply be willing to go into the unexplored corners where you don’t know what the answers will be. William Trevor offered what should be every writer’s mantra:

Reason #2: Stories Are About Growing

This is why stories are fundamentally about change. A story is about an arc—within the characters, within the plot, within the theme. What is found at the end of the story is not the same as what is presented in the beginning. Stories are never static, just as life is never static.

Although we read for comfort, entertainment, and even distraction, a good story should never be an entirely easy experience. If your story is asking those important questions we talked about above, then what it’s really doing is putting life under a microscope—both generally and for the individual reader and her personal experience in particular.

Here’s a worthwhile challenge from no less than Franz Kafka:

If readers are able to leave your story without at least feeling the prick of discomfort from the life questions being presented to them, then your story will never truly matter. If you want to write truly memorable fiction, you must be willing to challenge your readers to self-growth—by first challenging yourself in the writing.

Reason #3: Stories Are About Finding Patterns

I’m a pattern-seeker. It’s just how my brain works. I’m always looking for frameworks, organizational systems, similes, and metaphors (I have a probably unwelcome habit of looking at someone’s outfit and immediately turning it into a simile: “You look like an… avocado”).

I’m not alone in this. All of art is ultimately a categorization of life. As Jean Anouilh wrote:

The patterns we recreate in our fiction are all present in real life. The structure of plot and character arcs are everywhere around us. The difference is that, in life, we aren’t always aware of the story beats in the bigger picture. They’re there, certainly, but we often lack the perspective to grasp them in a way that lets us immediately make sense of our own lives.

And so we turn to art to translate our raw observations into smaller patterns we can get our heads around—and which, in turn, help us get our heads around the bigger picture.

I write to make sense of the world. I don’t doubt that, on at least some level, perhaps purposefully, perhaps subconsciously, you are doing the same. Barbara Tuchman said:

Stories are a metaphor for life. We read about Jean Valjean or Katniss Everdeen or Steve Rogers—and we see ourselves. Their crazy-dramatic adventures are really just metaphors for our own experiences. Through them, we gain perspective on our own lives. We begin to see the patterns. We catch a better glimpse of the big picture. We find some of the answers to our hard questions—which then, in turn, allow us to ask even better and harder questions in our lives and in our own stories.

What Art Demands From All of Us: Responsibility

As writers, we wield untold power to influence the lives of those around us. Whether you wield it wisely or carelessly is up to you. If you choose to forget that the very reason for art’s existence is its power to help humanity understand itself, your stories will still affect others. But not only will you be achieving, at best, a scattergun approach, you’ll also be missing out on your own opportunity to not just grow your art, but to grow yourself through your art.

Writers bear a great responsibility to be brave and honest in their fiction. But readers, too, must be responsible. John Locke famously wrote:

As both a reader and a writer, would you rather be Person #2—who refuses to look deeper into life by also refusing to look deeper into art—or Person #1—who rides art like it’s a thundering warhorse, ever upward and onward into the greater exploration of the only thing that can truly matter to any of us… life itself?

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion? What do you think art teaches us about life? And what do you think life teaches us about art? Tell me in the comments!

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How to Write Stories Your Readers Will Remember

Think back about the books you read and the movies you watched in the last year (heck, think about just the ones you experienced in the last month). Which do you still remember vividly? Which are already foggy in your memory?

Now: which type of story do you want to write?

No-brainer, of course. You want to write stories your readers will remember!

But how do you do that?

Although there are a number of factors (some of them entirely subjective to the readers themselves), one of the most important ways to get readers to first care about your stories and, as a result, remember them is to write a story about something.

Wha? Aren’t all stories about something? That’s the whole point of plot, isn’t it?

Yes and no.

Here’s what it boils down to: there are two types of stories. Stories that are about something, and stories that are about something.

What Is Your Story Really About? (Hint, It’s Not Your Plot)

Plot is an external, visual metaphor for what your story is really about—the story under the story. Theme is the most obvious manifestation of this “understory.” But you can take things even further by creating story subtext that is never brought to the fore, but which powerfully influences your readers’ experiences of the obvious plot.

Consider a couple contrasting examples. We want to look, first, at what these stories are about, and then what they’re about.

What’s Your Story About on Its Surface?

Wolf Children (directed by Mamoru Hosoda): On its surface, this beautiful Japanese animation seems to be about werewolves—specifically a human mother struggling to survive with her half-breed children in the wake of their werewolf father’s death.

Stand by Me (directed by Rob Reiner and based on Stephen King’s short story “The Body”): On its surface, this coming-of-age story is about a group of four adolescents striking out on a grand adventure in hopes of discovering the body of a missing boy and getting their pictures in the paper.

The Legend of Tarzan (directed by David Yates): On its surface, last year’s attempt at a blockbuster is about an English lord, orphaned and raised in the jungle, who is forced to return to his previous way of life Africa in order to confront old enemies and protect those he loves.

What’s Your Story Really About?

Wolf Children: By the time the final credits roll (to the tune of a lullaby about motherhood and a collection of snapshots from the characters’ childhood), viewers understand this is not a story about werewolves. This is a heartrending, life-affirming story about the sacrifices of parenthood, the anguishes of growing up, and the challenges of the parent-child relationship.

Stand by Me: As with many of Stephen King’s stories, the delightful nostalgia and sometimes over-the-top violence and grossness isn’t actually the point. The point is the character’s deeper inner journeys, in this case, particularly the protagonist Gordie’s exploration of life, death, friendship, and growing up.

The Legend of Tarzan: And now we come to the ringer of the group. What it’s about on the surface is all it’s about. Really, you could stick just about any recent blockbuster in here and find the same regrettable lack of substance. I’m picking on this particular film simply because it had the opportunity to be about more, thanks to the protagonist’s unique circumstances and (unrealized) inner conflict. It’s telling that, a couple months after seeing it, I honestly can’t remember hardly anything about it—in contrast to the previous two films.

3 Questions to Help You Find Your “Understory”

Your story’s “understory” is created from deep and meaningful subtext. You find this by examining your story’s plot and asking yourself what greater life questions these external events might logically evoke from your characters.

Ask yourself:

1. If you had to live through the events of your story, what questions of the soul do you think you’d be asking?

2. Then step back even further and look at your story’s big picture. Is the overall conflict a metaphor for something deeper—such as the rigors and blessings of parenthood or coming to grips with death?

3. Once you’ve identified the deeper questions and metaphors offered by your external plot, what can you do to make sure you’re making the most of them?

Don’t leave your story’s best possibilities languishing out of sight. Bring them forward. Use them to strengthen the foundation of your story, to reveal your theme, to get readers to identify with your characters’ struggles, and to write a story they’ll never forget.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! When you look past your plot, what is your story really about? Tell me in the comments!

The post How to Write Stories Your Readers Will Remember appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

2 Ways to Choose the Right Scene

Today, I’m guest posting over on Jerry Jenkins’s site, with the post “Does This Scene Deserve a Place in Your Story? 2 Ways to Find Out.” Here’s an excerpt:

“Cut this scene. It doesn’t move the plot.”

That is my most frequent comment on manuscripts I edit for others. It causes most writers to groan. Not only am I telling you to cut your beloved scenes (perhaps even your favorite), but you’re left to figure out why these scenes are extraneous—and then either fix or replace them.

Bill Buchanan emailed me:

Could you tell me how to evaluate the relative value of any scene in my novel?

Sol Stein’s book On Writing says:

“…I found it desirable to set a standard. If any scene falls below that standard, out it goes. The process stops when the remaining scenes all seem to contribute strongly to the work as a whole.”

Stein didn’t describe his scene evaluation standard, so don’t worry if you don’t have an answer for this. If it was easy, Sol Stein would’ve explained it!

Fortunately, I do have an answer. Once you understand the twofold essence of a powerful scene, you will instinctively reject sub-par scenes and replace them with memorable and powerful alternatives.

Keep Reading!

The post 2 Ways to Choose the Right Scene appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

Most Common Writing Mistakes, Pt. 58: Too Much Description

Sooner or later, most writers will get their hands slapped over description, whether it’s too much description or too little.

The bad news is that this is a big deal in narrative fiction. Get the balance of your description wrong, and it could throw off your entire story.

The good news is that once you understand how to examine and execute your descriptions, you will have taken your writing to the next level.

I’ve talked previously about the problems of too little (or, worse, no) description. Today, we’re going to examine what is perhaps the even more egregious side of this dilemma: too much description.

2 Reasons Readers Hate Too Much Description

While some authors may err too far on the other side and leave the entire visual world of their stories to their subtext, others among us might err too far in the opposite direction.

Not only do we give readers the descriptive details they need, we belabor the point by telling them every little last detail—about the way every cranny of a setting looks, and not only how it looks today, but how it looked in years past and maybe even how it’s going to look in the future.

The problem here is twofold:

1. Lengthy descriptions are almost inevitably boring.

2. They’re boring because they do not matter.

Readers are very trusting and obliging people. They will follow you anywhere and listen to anything you have to say as long as there’s a point. This is true of the story in general, each scene within that story, right on down to every word choice.

He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much.

This holds true in storytelling as well. If you’re reading a book and the author can’t prove himself in something so small as the word choices in his descriptions, then it’s highly unlikely he’s going to offer mastery in the bigger-picture areas of structure, arc, and theme.

Why Too Much Description Actually Pushes Readers Out of Your Story

The reason readers instinctively understand too much description is problematic is because it signals a deeper issue within the framework of the story. Namely, too much description saps the story of subtext.

Authors must find the perfect balance of telling readers just enough for the story to make sense and come to life, without sharing so much that readers are crowded right out of the story. Our goal as storytellers should be to create a partnership between our own imaginations and that of our readers’. If we’re describing every little detail—both pertinent and not—what we’re creating instead is an on-the-nose narrative that has literally been described to death.

Why You Might Be Accidentally Using Too Much Description

There are generally three reasons an author might slip into the trap of using too much description.

1. You Aren’t Trusting Readers to “Get” It

Authors often get nervous about their abilities. They aren’t sure they’ve chosen the right quantity or quality of “telling” details to bring the scene to life for readers. So they pile on more descriptors and still more.

Overwriting is just fine in the beginning. In fact, sometimes it’s helpful to purposefully overwrite to help you dig deep and find the best descriptors. But you must be wise enough and brave enough to pare back descriptions to their essence. When in doubt, pare it back as much as you dare, then bring in an objective reader to tell you if everything still makes sense.

2. You Love Your Story Details Too Much

Nobody is ever going to love your story more than you do. You love everything about it. You love the very specific pattern of wear on your protagonist’s bedroom carpet. You love your sidekick’s freckles so much you’ve counted every last one of them. You love your heroine’s opulent, gorgeous, and very expansive wardrobe. Naturally, you want to share every one of these awesomesauce details with readers, because of course they’re going to find them just as awesome and fascinating as you do.

Except… they don’t. As I may have mentioned above, readers only care about stuff that matters—stuff that advances the plot, stuff that helps them understand the story and characters, stuff that fires their own imaginations without bogging things down.

As Stephen King says in On Writing:

Write with the door closed; rewrite with the door open.

In other words, once you decide to send your story out into the world for the enjoyment of readers, it doesn’t belong to you anymore and you must optimize its presentation to benefit them, not to indulge your own obsessive passion about ultimately irrelevant details.

3. You’re Still Growing Your Story Sensibilities

As with all of narrative storytelling, learning to create the proper balance of description is a process of experience. Even with the best of intentions, none of us ace it the first (or thirtieth) time out of the gate.

The first step in learning to refine your descriptions is to be aware they probably do need a little refining. Pay attention to them as you’re writing them, and particularly as you’re revising. Listen to their rhythm within the overall flow of the story. Question your word and detail choices. And, when all that is done, bring in reinforcements and ask others to pay special attention to anywhere they might find your descriptions growing tedious.

The 2 Most Common Areas to Look for Too Much Description

Ready to slay your unnecessary description wherever you can find it? Good. Let’s go find it!

For the most part, all descriptions fall into two categories: character description and setting description.

Character Description
What Too Much Character Description Looks Like

I shook hands with the man. He had brown hair and brown eyes. He was six feet tall and skinny. He wore overalls and a brown suit coat. There were patches on the elbows and the knees. He also wore a hat with a hole in it. He had a mole beside his nose. His teeth were crooked. His sister stood beside him. She had red hair and blue eyes. She was five feet three and plump. She wore a dress and an apron, but no hat. Her teeth were also crooked.

What Just Enough Character Description Looks Like

Then Dawsey held out his hands. I had been expecting him to look like Charles Lamb, and he does, a little—he has the same even gaze. He presented me with a bouquet of carnations from Booker, who couldn’t be present; he had concussed himself during a rehearsal and was in hospital overnight for observation. Dawsey is dark and wiry, and his face has a quiet, watchful look about it—until he smiles. Saving a certain sister of yours, he has the sweetest smile I’ve ever seen, and I remembered Amelia writing that he has a rare gift for persuasion—I can believe it. Like Eben—like everyone here—he is too thin, though you can tell he was more substantial once. His hair is going grey, and he has deep-set brown eyes, so dark they look black. The lines around his eyes make him seem to be starting a smile even when he’s not, but I don’t think he’s over forty. He is only a little taller than I am and limps slightly, but he’s strong—hefted all my luggage, me, Amelia, and Kit into his wagon with no trouble. (From The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows)

Should You Describe Your Character’s…

Face?

In my early books, I had a serious bent for giving all my heroines a “Grecian nose.” Honestly, I still have no idea what that even is, much less what it looks like. In general, faces are just plain hard to describe. Going into the details of forehead, jaw, lips, and nose takes up a ton of space and doesn’t generally impart too much useful knowledge to readers. Much better to do as Anthony Ryan did in his fantasy Blood Song, when he had one character comment briefly but tellingly on the protagonist’s appearance:

“I’d heard you were handsome. You’re not. But your face is interesting.”

Hair Color?

Color is arguably the most useful of all descriptors. Hair color, for all that it is not generally an important characterizing detail, is a useful visual detail. But it’s also a very small detail that should be mentioned a briefly as possible and in a way that does not jar the narrative out of its POV (see below).

Eye Color?

Let me ask you this: Do you remember the eye color of your most recent checker at the grocery store? Me neither. In most instances, eye color is not an important visual detail. It is, however, an intimate detail. We start noticing someone’s eye color when we really start paying attention to them, seeing them as an individual rather than just another person. The eyes are the windows to the soul, which means eye color only becomes important when it aids in providing that window.

Body?

Readers rarely need to know your protagonist is 5’11.5″ inches, 170 lbs. They do, however, need have a sense of the person’s build. Tall, muscular, short, plump, attractive, average, whatever. The smallest of physical descriptors can help readers imagine the right silhouette for your character.

Clothes?

Sometimes clothes make the man, sometimes not. Early on in the story and in certain important scenes later on, a specific description of your characters’ clothing may be important to flesh out your world and set the stage. Otherwise, follow the rule John Dufresne offered succinctly in The Lie That Tells a Truth:

[D]ress is only important in a story when it is important to the character.

And by “important,” he doesn’t mean “the character’s favorite pair of Chucks ever,” but rather “plot-advancing.”

Scars/Special Features?

Do they matter to the story (e.g., the character has a bionic arm that let’s her defeat bad guys)? Do they define the character (e.g., the character is deeply ashamed of his disfiguring facial birthmark)? Do they establish the setting (e.g., tribal scars in a jungle setting, or green scales in an alien setting)? Then, by all means, describe them. Otherwise, what’s the point, right?

As Seen by Other Characters?

Perhaps the trickiest part of character description is figuring out how to describe POV characters. Your protagonist, in particular, is going to be the most important person in the story and you want to provide readers the right visual image. But you also don’t want to break POV by having the character launch into a lengthy description of herself (or, just as cringe-worthy, an observation of herself in a mirror).

The best rule of thumb is to describe only details that matter to the character and matter in the moment. However, you can also cheat just a little. When your character scratches his hand through his hair, is he really thinking about “scratching his hand through his black hair”? Nah. But he is aware that his hair is black, so you can almost always get away with sneaking that little descriptor in there. No harm, no foul—and readers have a useful detail to add to their mental image.

Setting Description
What Too Much Setting Description Looks Like

The man woke up. The room he was in was big, with rows and rows of beds for other patients. It was still dark, but he knew what he would see out the window: a road, then fields, then pine trees. There were a dozen windows in this room, tall ones from floor to ceiling. The curtains were white, as were the walls and the floor. Half a dozen fans dotted the ceiling. People tossed and turned in their beds. He knew all their names: Peter in the far corner, then Jim, Bob, Andrew, then him. Beyond the room was a desk for the nurse on duty, then long hallways and still more rooms, most just like this one.

What Just Enough Setting Description Looks Like

At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring. Inman’s eyes and the long wound at his neck drew them, and the sound of their wings and the touch of their feet were soon more potent than a yardful of roosters in rousing a man to wake. So he came to yet one more day in the hospital ward. He flapped flies away with his hands and looked across the foot of his bed to an open triple-hung window. Ordinarily, he could see to the red road and the oak tree and the low brick wall. And beyond them to a sweep of fields and flat piney woods that stretched to the western horizon. The view was a long one for the flatlands, the hospital having been built on the only swell within eyeshot. But it was too early yet for a vista. The window might as well have been painted gray. (From Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier)

Should You Describe Your Setting…

At the Beginning of the Book?

Half the trick of setting descriptions is finding the perfect place to put the details. As always, the descriptions only matter when they matter. So when do they matter? They matter when readers need to be able to envision the scene and when new details are pertinent to the events of the plot.

The former is a pretty broad umbrella, which will first come into play at the very beginning of the book. You will need to describe enough of your initial setting to orient readers within the scene and, just as important, to give them a sense of the overall story world—whether it’s Texas or Westeros.

This does not mean, however, that you need to describe every last bit of your overall setting right there at the beginning. Get readers oriented in that first scene, then start sowing additional details only as they become pertinent (for example, we have no idea what state or time Inman is in until further into the first chapter).

At the Beginning of a Scene?

What about when you begin a new scene? You definitely do need to orient readers afresh after every scene or chapter break. But should you begin with a full-on description of the setting every time? Well, ask yourself this: is the setting the most important part of this scene?

If, yes, definitely open with it. You may even be able to go ahead and describe it in full, depending on the scope of its importance.

If not, hold back a little. Introduce the scene hook, sketch a few setting details to help readers get their boots on the ground, then slowly dole out other pertinent descriptors as they become necessary (i.e., as characters begin to interact with them).

The Second or Third Time It’s Entered?

What about already familiar settings? Readers have already seen your teenage protagonist’s bedroom several times. Do you need to describe it afresh every time to reorient them? Nope. The only details you need for repeat scenes are the new ones. You’ve already given readers a mental image of this setting, which will remain fixed in their minds, unless and until you need to update it.

In Detail?

What if you’ve got a huge, gorgeous, very unique setting? A mechanized city like in Philip Reeves’s Mortal Engines or an antebellum cotton plantation like in Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind? Half the fun of reading about these places is getting to explore them. But that doesn’t mean you can get away with pages upon pages of detailed setting description. Do share all interesting and important details with readers, but do it artfully, by sowing it into the action of the plot and the development of the character, making all the details you share matter to the story, making them mean more than just words about brick and mortar.

Learning the art of avoiding too much description is ultimately the art of controlling your narrative. When you’re able to move past description as merely description and bring it into play as a technique for advancing plot, character, and theme, through the judicious choice of telling details, you will raise the entire tenor of your book.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! As a reader, have you ever encountered a story with too much description? How did it affect your experience of the book? Tell me in the comments!

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An Easy Way to Notch Up Your Scene Conflict

Scene conflict is what keeps your story running, chapter after chapter, page after page. Conflict is the heart of each scene, and each of those scenes is one of the dozens of tiny engines keeping your plot moving forward—and your readers glued to the page.

It’s helpful to think of scene conflict as not so much an altercation, but rather an obstacle. It’s something that gets in the way of your protagonist’s scene goal and either full-on prevents him from gaining that goal or pushes him sideways to create consequences. (All of which, of course, prompts another scene goal for the scene after that and the scene after that and the scene after that.)

That’s the essence of scene structure, and the essence of a good scene.

But it’s not enough.

To create truly compelling scenes that defy your readers’ expectations in all the right ways, you’ve got to take it up yet another notch by creating not just scene conflict, but complicated scene conflict.

What Successful Scene Conflict Complications Look Like

In order for your scene structure to work properly, the scene conflict must arise directly from the character’s scene goal to create an organic outcome. Goal, conflict, and outcome must be all be related.

The good news is this will help you create a beautiful sense of unity and cohesion within each scene.

The bad news is it can also result in predictable scene conflict.

Readers instinctively understand the character’s goal is what sets the stage for the conflict to come—which means, they will usually have a pretty good sense of what obstacles might arise to create any given scene’s conflict. While this isn’t always a negative, it does mean, at the least, that you have a fabulous opportunity for upping the stakes, pulling some plot twists, and surprising readers in all the best ways.

Consider, Anthony Ryan’s fantasy Blood Song, about a young boy who is apprenticed to a Templar-like order of religious warriors. In an early scene, he is sent out on a routine survival test, in which he is dropped off in the woods and forced to make his own way home.

In itself, this scenario presents conflict enough. The character’s goal is to get back home. The obstacle/conflict is the rigors of the wilderness, which might slow him down or even kill him at any point. Seems pretty straightforward, doesn’t it?

But Ryan did an excellent job of notching everything up. Instead of settling for his scene’s acceptable but predictable course, he added the unforeseen and decidedly more interesting complication of having previously-unknown assassins hunt his young protagonist for mysterious reasons.

Not only was his scene conflict complicated in an entertaining way, this new scenario neatly turned the plot and deepened the story’s subtextual undercurrents.

5 Steps to Help You Complicate Your Scene Conflict

Consider some of your recent scenes.

1. First off, make sure they do indeed possess scene conflict, and that this conflict is a logical and consistent obstruction of your character’s scene goal.

2. Take a step back and think about the progression of this conflict. Is it exactly what readers would expect to obstruct your characters’ goal? Is it the most likely and obvious obstruction?

3. If so, how can you change things up? Think about whether you can switch out the current conflict/obstacle entirely, in favor of something more original. Then ask yourself if you can add yet another unexpected element.

4. Make sure the complications are not random. They can’t be just more conflict for the sake of more conflict. They must be paid off at some point in your story, whether immediately or many chapters down the road.

5. You also don’t want to add so many complications you create chaos within your story. Creating a scene in which complexity and simplicity can live side by side requires attention and skill.

When you pull it off, you’ll delight readers and pull them ever deeper into the spell of your story.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What complications do you think you could add to your current scene conflict? Tell me in the comments!

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The 7 Stages of Being a Writer (How Many Have You Experienced?)

If life is a journey and writing is a lifestyle, then we know writing itself is not a destination but a discovery. Some of the stages of being a writer are momentous, life-changing, and unforgettable. (Outlines, story structure, and character arcs were like that for me.) Other discoveries blur past, lost in the hustle and grunt of our forward momentum. But they’re every bit as formative and important.

This spring, I find myself at what feels like a mountain peak within my writing journey. It isn’t the final peak by any means. I can see many a misty mountain looming in the distance. But it has provided one of those rare moments in the writing journey that allow the writer to turn back and look down upon the road so far—to realize I have grown, I am not the same writer I was when I started. Indeed, I’m not even close to being the same person.

That’s exciting. Even better, it’s encouraging, because it means the boulders we all trip over, the mosquitoes we all have to swat, the bears we sometimes have to run from—they don’t last forever.

7 Stages of Being a Writer You Must Overcome

Today, I want to take moment to look back over some of the stages of being a writer that can be the biggest obstacles in the first leg of the artistic journey—and show you how you too can navigate past them on your way up the mountain.

1. I Am a Writing Genius!

Some of us are wise enough to skip this gem altogether. But most of us (*raises hand*) start out writing with the blithe mindset that this is easy, this is fun, and my stories are really, really good. I believe this is actually an incredibly valuable starting mindset, since it prevents discouragement from setting in until after we are well and truly hooked by the addictive nature of creativity.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

As blissful as this particular bit of ignorance may be, remaining entrenched within it will take the wheels off your writing journey right here and now. You know you’ve taken your first step into the larger world of writing when you come to realize, first of all, that you don’t know anything, and, secondly, you then begin to know what it is you don’t know. You realize there is much to learn about the art and craft of writing a powerful story, and you begin your life’s pursuit of diligently seeking it—sometimes joyously, sometimes painfully, but always doggedly.

2. I Feel Guilty for Taking Time to Write (and Then I Feel Guilty for Not Taking Time to Write)

I still remember the agony of indecision in those early years when I started taking my writing seriously. I felt guilty for sitting at my desk instead of doing more “productive” work. I felt guilty for wanting to write rather than ride my horses. I felt guilty for telling people they had to leave me alone during writing time. Sometimes I even felt guilty just because it was a beautiful day outside and I was inside.

And then when I gave in to my guilt and didn’t write, oh boy, there was that whole other wave of guilt to deal with.

Last week, I received an email from reader Cassie Gustafson who perfectly summed up this plateau in the writing life:

I find myself feeling guilty because I’m not writing (which is the worst!), or feeling guilty because I am and have to ignore friends/cat/hubby/social engagements owing to a deadline, or feeling guilty because I didn’t start early enough in my day.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

This is where the rubber really meets the road, people. If you’re really going to be a writer—if you’re going to make this whole creative lifestyle thing work—this is where it either happens or it doesn’t.

For me, the turning point was a moment in which I found myself angry that family and friends weren’t taking my writing and my writing time seriously. But then it hit me: why should they take it seriously when I wasn’t? From that moment on, writing became a priority in my life. I set up the same daily writing schedule I’ve followed ever since: two hours a day, five days a week. With few meaningful exceptions, writing is first—come rain, shine, holidays, or illness.

Make this commitment and from that moment on, you are a writer.

3. Maybe Writing Really Isn’t Worth It and I Should Quit

Hey, just because you’re now a writer doesn’t mean this gig is suddenly easy! Some of us will face this conundrum many times in our writing journeys. For me (so far), it was an unforgettable one-time epoch.

The spring after I finished what would become my second published book Behold the Dawn, I faced down a quandary of the soul: Am I really meant to be a writer? Is it really a worthy lifetime’s pursuit? Is it what I’m meant to do? I stared into the black maw of this question and all its implications and came this close to giving it all up.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

Let’s be honest: maybe you won’t overcome this one. Maybe you’ll decide that no, writing isn’t worth it, and you’ll walk away. And that’s fine. As R.A. Salvatore says:

If you can quit, then quit. If you can’t quit, you’re a writer.

I believe this is an important question for every artist to ask themselves at some point in their journey. Creating is about sticking your fist down deep in your soul, ruthlessly clawing at whatever you can find, and then dragging out to be shared in the shocking light of day. If you’re going to spend the rest of your life doing that, then you really should spend some time contemplating the nature of your commitment.

Take a walk into the dark night of your soul. Whatever you find, you’ll be a different person when you come out, and if you decide to keep right on writing, then what you find will fuel your art for the rest of forever.

4. I Can’t Read Other Writers Because They’ll Influence My Voice

The struggle for authors to find their own unique “voices” can be an all-out, feathers-flying, banty-hen kind of a fight in the early years. Most of us don’t even know what a “voice” is, much less what our voice is, so we do a lot of flailing around, trying to find it. Sometimes, within that fight, we become fearful that reading other writers will somehow warp or contaminate our own fledgling voices.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

The problem here is that reading other writers is, in fact, the single most valuable way to find our voices, to absorb the rhythms of great storytelling, and to learn by example from the best of the best. John Dufresne says it eloquently in The Lie That Tells a Truth:

Don’t be afraid to be influenced by any writer whom you admire. We should be flattered if anyone notices a similarity between our little story and, say, a passage from Melville. If you aren’t influenced by the masters, then you may only be influenced by yourself.

5. I Must Religiously Follow All the Rules (Except That’s Too Hard, So, You Know What?, the Rules Are Obviously Formulaic Cockamamie Created by Talentless Hacks, So I’ll Just Ignore Them, Phew!)

Way back when we overcame Roadblock #1 and realized all the stuff we didn’t know, it actually seemed pretty exciting—comforting even—to discover there was a method to the madness of writing. But the “writing rules” can get overwhelming fast. Some of them don’t make sense right away. Some of them don’t work at all until we come to subsequent understandings about other storytelling principles.

As a result, many writers seesaw back and forth between obsessively observing all rules to the absolute letter of their perception—and then getting frustrated, deciding “art” isn’t supposed to governed by “rules” anyway, and chucking them all out the window.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

If you follow me on Facebook and Twitter, you’ve probably noticed that on Wednesdays I always share a post from the site’s archives. I started with the blog’s very first post and have been slowly working backwards, post by post, through what has become a very large backlist. I’m quite happy to say I no longer agree with everything I wrote back then (which is why a number of posts have been deleted or extensively rewritten).

One of the subjects I’ve decidedly changed my views on with time and experience is the value of “the rules”—which is to say, the foundation of established wisdom gleaned from centuries of humanity’s storytelling. I love the rules! Indeed, this entire site is dedicated to sharing those “rules.” But with time has also come the equanimity of approaching those rules from the larger understanding of where they apply, where they don’t, and where it’s okay to experiment.

In short, this isn’t actually a roadblock you “overcome.” Stick with those rules, keep digging away at your understanding of the bigger picture—and eventually, their importance, their (I might even call it) kindness, and their exciting possibilities will put to rest both the obsessiveness and the frustration.

6. Other Writers Are Getting All the Breaks—And It Makes Me Sad/Depressed/Jealous/Angry

The art of writing is uniquely suited to make us feel unworthy. Not only are we baring our souls on the page for everyone to gawk at, we are also working in a field in which monetary compensation is decidedly the primary yardstick for “success.”

What this means, of course, is that in the early days when we’re not making any money, getting any publishing deals, selling any books, or otherwise getting anyone to pay any attention to us whatsoever—we will almost inevitably fight the little green-eyed monster as we watch many, many other authors reach the milestones we aspire to.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

The first thing you must do is come to peace with your own priorities and your own explicit definitions of success and failure. Do not judge yourself by someone else’s yardstick. Understand what you want to achieve with your writing and, more importantly, why.

During the publication of my first two novels, I struggled mightily with feeling like a fraud because they were not traditionally published—until I came to peace with what I wanted from my writing career rather than what I felt others might expect from me.

The second thing you must do is this: Keep your head down and keep working. Success only comes to those who make it happen. I look back on my writing journey and I am incredibly aware of the opportunities I was blessed to be given. But I also worked incredibly hard so I’d be in a position to take advantage of those opportunities. Don’t worry about what others are doing. It truly has nothing to do with you or the possibilities for your future.

7. I’ll Never Be a Good Writer

This is often the most tenacious belief any of us ever has to face. Perhaps it never completely disappears. We could fill a book with beloved quotes from other writers (many of them acknowledged masters of the craft) about their own doubts about their abilities, about their struggles with the simple act of getting words onto the page, about their depression when the stories they produced inevitability failed to measure up to the magic in their heads.

We don’t need any help doubting ourselves—but we get plenty of help anyway. Brutally-honest critique partners and editors leave us sitting dazed and wounded, staring at the litter of Track Changes in our manuscripts. Then the book comes out and the reviews start coming in—some of them positive, but many of them candid, angry, even cruel (and you will remember these comments far more than the positive ones).

It all hurts. And what hurts most of all is the dark belief, down deep in your heart, that it’s all true.

How to Overcome This Roadblock:

Just keep writing. The reason it hurts is that is true, whether to a small or large measure. In the beginning, your writing probably is pretty bad. Certainly what you wrote last year is likely to be worse than what you’re writing this year.

What is absolutely true is that you’ll never be a perfect writer. But you’re getting better. With every word you write, you are getting better. And I can promise you this: as time goes by and you increase in your understanding of the craft as a whole and your own body of work in particular, the sting of harsh critiques and bad reviews will wear off.

I used to get the shakes and a sick feeling in my stomach whenever I found a negative review of one of my books on Amazon. What if it’s TRUE??? Now, I can glance at them, accept the person’s right to his opinion, perhaps even grin in amusement, and forget about it almost instantly. At this point in my writing journey, I am no longer dependent upon the good opinion of others for my validation as an author or a person. It was a long road to get here (and indeed the road continues on), but it was worth every difficult step along the way.

Keep walking, keep writing.

Perhaps you now find yourself high enough on the mountain to look back and smile at the memory of all of these stops along your path. Perhaps you’ve only passed a few them so far. Perhaps you recognize the current battleground where you find yourself struggling, bleeding, and moving forward step by step.

Wherever you are in the stages of being a writer, remember the path leads ever onward and upward. Every part of the adventure offers its own challenges, struggles, and doubts. But every one of these challenges will find an exciting and invaluable resolution. I look forward to seeing you on the mountain peak, so together we can journey on to still greater heights!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What are some of the major stages of being a writer that you’ve experienced so far? Tell me in the comments!

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Click the “Play” button to Listen to Audio Version (or subscribe to the Helping Writers Become Authors podcast in iTunes).

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Find Out When It’s a Good Idea to Use a Made-Up Setting

Too often, writers take the old adage “write what you know” to mean they should never do anything so rash as to, you know, make stuff up. At the very least, shouldn’t you adhere to reality whenever a corresponding reality exists, as, for example, when it comes to the choice between a real-life setting and a made-up setting?

The answer is: it depends.

But let’s get something out of the way right off. There is absolutely nothing amiss with creating a made-up setting for your story—and this holds true whether you’re writing fantasy set within an entirely imaginary world or very realistic fiction set within our world. It doesn’t even mean you can’t create made-up settings within real settings—or alter bits of your real setting to suit the needs of your story.

Writers will need to choose between specifying a real-life setting or slapping a name on a made-up one. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, all of which should be considered before making a decision.

6 Advantages and Disadvantages of a Real-Life Setting
1. A Real-Life Setting Is Instantly Recognizable

Even if readers have never visited Yorkshire, most will recognize the name and conjure up certain associations that will help them fill in the blanks and build the setting within their imaginations.

2. A Real-Life Setting Offers Built-In Verisimilitude

The very fact that your setting is a real place gives readers a firmer belief in it and all the story events that happen there.

3. A Real-Life Setting Requires Less Brainstorming

Because the facts are already there for you to draw upon, you won’t have to worry about creating a real-life setting from scratch. All you have to do is record what you see or learn.

4. Real-Life Settings Require More Research

If you choose to forego the creative demands of creating a brand-new setting, you will bear a greater responsibility for establishing an accurate portrayal.

5. A Real-Life Setting Demands Accuracy

Get something wrong, and some reader, somewhere, will notice.

6. A Real-Life Setting May Invite Criticism

You’ll also have to deal with the possibility that real-life people living in your real-life setting may not like how you’ve portrayed them or their home.

2 Advantages and Disadvantages of a Made-Up Setting
1. A Made-Up Setting Frees You From the Burden of the Facts

If you want to maintain the verisimilitude of a real-life town, but need to tweak a few minor details, all you have to do is rename it. If you want to get a little wilder (as you almost certainly will if you’re writing speculative fiction), a made-up setting gives you the power to alter whole swatches of reality. To some extent, all stories include made-up settings, even if it’s only a street or a house.

2. A Made-Up Setting Demands Active Creativity

With the power of total creation comes total accountability. Because even the most realistic of made-up settings will always lack the added punch of being real, your attention to detail must be even more obsessive than usual.

***

In most instances, the choice between a real-life setting and a made-up setting won’t significantly affect your plot (for example, Batman could just as easily have lived in New York City as its made-up doppelgänger Gotham). But, in application, the decision will affect every page of your story. Take time early on to consider if grounding your story in a real-life setting is worth the research. Or would the freedom of a made-up setting be worth the potential sacrifice of authenticity? The choice is up to you.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! Have you ever used a made-up setting in your story? Why did you choose it? Tell me in the comments!

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8 1/2 Tips for How to Write Opening and Closing Lines Readers Will Love to Quote

When I’m scanning an Amazon preview to decide if a book is going to be worth my time, the first test is always the opening line. A sloppy, casual, or plain-Jane opening line instantly makes me suspect I’m looking at the work of an author who is an outright amateur or, at the best, someone who lacks that special “it” factor that takes prose from “all right” to “awesome.”

Similarly, closing lines are every bit as important in their own right. Even though few people will read your closing line prior to finishing the book, it is still arguably the second most important line in the entire story, right after the first line. It brings your story full circle, leaves your readers with an indelible impression of your book, and, once again, proves whether or not you’re the master of your story.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on two little lines. But no worries! There’s actually a handy little checklist you can use when figuring out how to write opening and closing lines that will stick with readers long after their initial Amazon scan. Perhaps your opening and closing lines may even end up on most-quoted lists right alongside such luminaries as Austen, Melville, and Tolstoy!

4 (and 1/2) Tips for How to Write an Opening Line That Shows Readers You’re the Boss

I carp a lot about how tough beginnings are. One of the top reasons beginnings are hard is because the entry point—the opening line—is perhaps the hardest part of all. Occasionally, lightning will strike and the perfect line will zing from the ether to your brain to your Scrivener doc. (And all the angels sing!) But for all those times when you sit down in excitement to begin your amazing new story, only to spend the first hour staring at the blinking cursor, wondering how in tarnation to find an opening line that works, here are four tips to get your started.

1. Reveal Your Story

Whenever possible tell the whole story of the novel in the first sentence.—John Irving

John Irving is famous for writing his closing line first, and that perhaps is the secret to his opening lines. When you know where the story is going, you then have the ability to craft an opening line that asks all the right questions. Your opening must do more than hook readers, it must immediately fulfill the promise of your premise’s hook and thematic question.

Naturally, this doesn’t mean spelling out the entire plot (except for when it does). What it means is that the essence of your story’s questions, its angst, its focus, and its themes should all be swimming in the subtext of your opening line. Your opening line tells readers what your story is about. Your story can be amazing, but if you fail to share that in your opening line, how are readers ever going to know?

2. Ask a Question

Everybody knows the most important job of any opening line is that of hooking readers. But how to plant that hook is somewhat less clear. Actually, all four of the tips we’re looking at here are ways of hooking readers, getting them to sit up, take notice, and say, Yes, this is a book I want to read. However, this second tip is the one most blatantly about hook-planting.

Get readers to ask a question about your story. Pique their curiosity. Tell them something in that opening line that doesn’t quite make sense. Create a sense of dichotomy, two different ideas juxtaposed against one another, creating a sense of disharmony that can range from the blatant to the ever-so-subtle subtextual. Show readers right from the start that something is amiss in paradise.

3. Be Brilliant

Long ago, writing friend Melissa Ortega made a comment about opening lines that has made her an angel on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, with every opening line I write. She said something in the vein of:

The opening line should be brilliant. If it’s not, why bother reading the rest of the book?

In short, that opening line better sparkle. This isn’t just another sentence in your story. This is the sentence. This is the one sentence, out of all your sentences, people might actually remember after they close the book. This is your one chance to be brilliant in a way that is both memorable and useful (in that, if readers like this line, then, hey, they just might read the next one!).

Avoid bland openings. Don’t open with: “The sun rose” or “Sam opened his eyes” or even “The battle raged on.” Look for color, depth, power, and specificity.

4. Create a Voice

The most important element in a story opening is your protagonist. While it may not always be possible to introduce the protagonist by name (or even pronoun) in the very first line, you want, at the very least, to immediately introduce readers to this person via the narrative voice of the opening line.

Tone, in itself, can create the kind of hooking juxtaposition we talked about in #2—and, in turn, that skillful use of irony can add just the kind of brilliance mentioned in #3. Whether your character is so on-the-nose in observing a situation that she creates her own irony for more observant readers, or whether the character is ironic enough to prove her awareness of the drama about to unfold upon her—both can be shared subtextually with readers before the character herself is ever directly mentioned.

4 1/2. Leverage Your Title

Okay, so I lied. Your opening line isn’t actually the first thing readers will read. Your title is. That means you have an extra playing piece to work to your advantage. Your first line will be read in the context of your title. Your title will become a clue that helps readers interpret your first line. This means, if you use it right, your title can create one more layer of interesting irony, theme, and curiosity within your first line.

Example:

Note how all the above titles offer insight into their first lines. If you mismatched any of these titles and their opening lines, your first impression of all these stories would change drastically. Go ahead—try it!

4 Tips for How to Write a Closing Line Readers Will Never Forget

My closing lines usually find themselves, but not before I experience several small moments of panic, wondering how I’m going to wind everything down in the final chapter and find the one perfect line that will definitively tell readers “this is THE END.” More than that, good closing lines must sum up your story (without being on the nose) and leave readers with exactly the right flavor.

1. Choose Your Best Line

The last line is as important as the first, if for different reasons. End the story on your best, or second best, line. Don’t write past it. This is the line that echoes in our mind when the story’s over.—John Dufresne

If you do it right, people will want to stop and read your last line over one more time just to savor it—and the experience of your wonderful novel as a whole.

2. Watch Your Rhythm

Unlike your opening line, your closing line will be under certain structural restraints. Like the closing notes of a song, it must guide readers to a sense that the story is, indeed, over.

In some stories, a disorientingly abrupt ending may be appropriate. But in most, you will want to ease your readers to the finale, usually with a series of longer sentences leading up to a final short sentence that puts the period on the whole book.

Although you want to maintain a tone consistent with the rest of the book’s narrative, your final lines may be the most poetic in the entire story. Certainly, nowhere else are the poetic techniques of rhythm and meter more useful.

3. Look for Symbolism, Subtext, and Irony

Your closing line is arguably the most thematic of the entire story. Although you never want to come out with an on-the-nose “moral of the story” or “this is what the story was really about”—you do want to take the opportunity to underscore the story behind the story.

But if you can’t come right out and say, “And so twoo wuv twiumphed again!”—how do you accomplish this? This is where your most powerful authorial weapons become even more valuable: symbolism, subtext, and irony. Look for thematic motifs you can pluck from earlier in the story to reinforce here at the end. Look for ways to state your thematic premise without stating it—perhaps by stating the opposite, or having characters talk around it, letting the subtextual truth hang heavy amidst the irony.

4. Answer One Question, Raise Another

The finale of your story must answer your story’s most important questions—the Dramatic Question and the Thematic Question (about your plot and theme, respectively). It must tie off all the loose ends and satisfy your readers’ burning curiosity. It must present a sense of finality.

But you don’t want too much finality. You don’t want to completely slam the door on your readers’ experience of the story. Instead, you want to leave them the sense that the story and the characters will continue to live and breathe beyond the covers of the book. Just as in life, one saga ends only so another can begin. Even as you stamp “The End” on this story, leave readers with that sense that a new story is just beginning for your characters (whether you’re planning a sequel or not).

***

Excellent opening and closing lines are loving touches from masterful authorial hands. They’re a sure sign their authors are aware of their stories, in control of their prose, and—as a result—very likely to be able to spin a story readers can trust in from beginning to end. In learning how to write opening and closing lines that delight readers, keep these eight (and a half) tips in mind and have fun creating something special.

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! What do you find most challenging about how to write opening and closing lines for your story? Tell me in the comments!

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/kmweiland.com/podcast/9-tips-for-how-to-write-opening-and-closing-lines.mp3

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The post 8 1/2 Tips for How to Write Opening and Closing Lines Readers Will Love to Quote appeared first on Helping Writers Become Authors.

Help Me Finish the Creating Character Arcs Workbook

I need some help.

In light of the many requests I’ve received to offer a workbook companion to my latest writing book Creating Character Arcs, I’m doing just that! I’ve finished the workbook itself and am getting it ready to go to the typesetter and cover designer, with a tentative publication date in early October (just in time for NaNoWriMo!).

However, I have a dilemma.

The Creating Character Arcs Workbook has turned out to be quite a different animal from my previously published Outlining Your Novel Workbook and Structuring Your Novel Workbook.

The main difference is that the Creating Character Arcs Workbook will offer questions and exercises to help you work through all five different types of character arc. As a result, the workbook ended up quite a bit longer than my previous workbooks—more than twice the size, in fact.

Although you may find cause to apply all five arcs to different characters in the same story, you will likely only need to work through one particular type of character arc per book (for your protagonist).

And that brings me to my dilemma.

Do You Want One Workbook or Two?

Of course, I want the workbook to be as useful as possible to you. So I need you to tell me—would you rather I offer all five character arcs in one volume, or would you prefer the workbook come in two separate volumes (one for the positive arcs—Positive Change and Flat—and one for the negative arcs—Disillusionment, Fall, and Corruption)?

What You Need to Know

Basically, the decision comes down to two factors:

1. Although having all the arcs at your fingertips will certainly be useful, you may know right away which arc you want and not necessarily need all five.

2. Splitting the books into two volumes will affect the price.

If you do want all the arcs, you would end up paying more for two volumes than you would if they were all combined into one volume. However, if you only want either the positive arcs or the negative arcs, a single-volume version would give you arcs you don’t need at a slightly higher price point (as much as, but no more than, $5 more).

(E-books will be all be priced the same, which means if we split them and you want both types of arc, you’d have to pay twice as much to get both books).

What Do You Think?

So what do you think? Which would better suit your needs?

A) A single-volume workbook, containing all five arcs, but at a slightly higher paperback price.

B) A double-volume workbook set, one for the positive arcs and one for the negative arcs, at lower individual prices, but a higher combined price.

Thanks so much for your help!

Wordplayers, tell me your opinion! Do you want the Creating Character Arcs Workbook to be one or two volumes? Tell me in the comments!

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