Chris Eboch's Blog, page 38

Chat with Fantasy Author Kris Yankee

Today I'm chatting with Kris Yankee, author of the middle grade fantasy novel Saving Redwind.

CE: Tell us a little about Saving Redwind.

KY: Saving Redwind is the story of a young boy who is called to do great things in a world that exists inside his bedroom wallpaper.
CE: Saving Redwind is subtitled "A Wallpaper Adventure." I never thought of wallpaper being particularly adventurous. How did you come up with this idea?
KY: The idea came to me while stripping ugly wallpaper from my oldest son's bedroom wallpaper. We had just moved in and I had never really lived in a house with wallpaper. I started to think about that old saying, "If walls could talk…" and the idea just came to me.

CE: How did you develop your fantasy world? Do you have any tips for readers who write fantasy?
KY: I drew a map of the Redwind so I could remember where things were located. I looked all over the internet for pictures of how I thought the land and the houses/castles would look like. I'm a visual person and not at all creative with drawing. I  love Robin Hood, and I sort of made the land the same, but different. World-building is a huge part of fantasy. I suggest that writers really take their time when creating their worlds. I know there are online world-building courses, perhaps take one of those.
CE: When Nick is in the normal world, he has to deal with everyday concerns such as an annoying little sister, a largely absent father, and hockey practice. Why did you choose to include these real-world challenges in your fantasy novel?
KY: Being a kid is busy and hard these days, and I wanted my main character to be a kid that others could identify with. Aren't all little sisters annoying? :-) Many parents work jobs that take them out of the home (or even state) for periods of time, and all of my books involve some sort of hockey element. I know all kids don't play hockey, but I believe that there are a lot of life lessons that can be learned from team sports.
CE: You also co-authored a children's picture book, Tommy Starts Something Big: Giving Cuddles with Kindness. What was it like working with somebody else on a picture book? Would you work with the co-author again?
KY: I loved working on Tommy. I was a lot of fun bouncing ideas around with someone else. Of course I'd work with Chuck again. He has a lot of great concepts and is just a wonderful human being!
CE: How long have you been writing? How did you develop your skills? How did you know you were ready for publication?
KY: I'm not one of those authors who says, "I've been writing my whole life." I can say that I've been reading that long. I've always been a reader. It took me a lot longer to realize that I was also a writer. I didn't take myself seriously until 2004. I realized, though, that I needed help – I couldn't remember much from any of my writing classes! I enrolled in a few online writing courses, became friends with Bonnie Hearn Hill (who became my mentor) and learned a great deal from her. After placing in a writing contest, I figured I was close to publication. It took me a long time to find an agent. I didn't sign with Christine Witthohn of Book Cents Literary Agency until Jan. 2008. I've been working hard to produce manuscripts that she can sell. Hopefully that will happen soon!
CE: Where can readers learn more about your books?
KY: To learn more about me and my books, please visit the Books tab of my website, or my blog.
Thanks so much for hosting me, Chris!
Kris Yankee is a freelance editor and writer. When she's not sitting at her desk creating stories or editing someone else's work, she can be found walking her dogs or perhaps sitting in the ice rink, cheering on her oldest son. Kris co-wrote the 2011 Eric Hoffer Honorable Mention for Children's Picture Books, Tommy Starts Something Big: Giving Cuddles for Kindness with TV Personality, Chuck Gaidica.

Use Powerful Cliffhangers in Quiet Times

Here's part three of my essay on cliffhangers. Get the whole essay, along with lots of other good stuff to make your manuscripts stronger, in Advanced Plotting .
Quiet Cliffhangers
If you don't have an action novel, you can still have dramatic chapter endings, whether or not the characters are in physical danger. In a young adult romance, for example, the drama may come from social humiliation at school and awkward or exciting moments with the love interest. Play up those moments for maximum effect.
Not every chapter has to end with a major cliffhanger. Sometimes it feels more natural to end the chapter at the end of the scene, especially if that scene is followed by a jump to a different time and place. You can end in a quieter moment, so long as you're still looking forward. Here's an example from The Amethyst Road, by Louise Spiegler. Serena has been searching for her mother for over 200 pages, believing that her mother will be able to put the family back together. But when she finds her, this happens:
     Mother's smile vanished. "But, Serena, how can I help? The Cruelty won't even let me care for my own children." She raised her face to mine. "Look at me. I can hardly help myself, daughter. How can I help you?
This works as a cliffhanger because the response is a challenge to Serena's expectations and hope. What will she do now? The reader will turn the page, wanting to know.
In this example from The Farwalker's Quest, by Joni Sensel, the two main characters have a quiet moment before setting out again on their journey:
     They worked out a plan. After Pres left them to sleep, Ariel and Zeke only lay back and gazed at the ceiling. His toes, warm against her calf, seemed to say all that was needed between them. This night in a real bed would be the last for a long time to come.
This looks towards the future, reminding the reader that their troubles are not over.
Cliffhangers are a powerful tool to build suspense. Choose a dramatic moment, expand the moment with sensory details for drama, and use short paragraphs and sentences for impact. You'll keep readers turning the page.
 Advanced Plotting is designed for the intermediate and advanced writer: you've finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work.
Advanced Plotting can help.
Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $2.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Character and Plot Work Together

My guest today is Andrea J. Wenger, who contributed an essay to my writing book, Advanced Plotting .
The Unity of Character and Plot
Several years ago, at the North Carolina Writers Network conference, I attended a session where the instructor claimed that character is plot. While I understand her point, I think she went too far. Many things happen in our lives that we can't control. In fiction, the response to external events demonstrates character and propels plot. But generally, by the end of the story, the protagonist becomes proactive instead of responsive, and the protagonist's positive action creates the climax.
Character and plot must work in harmony. For the story to be believable, the actions the character takes must be consistent with the character you've created. For instance, imagine if two of Shakespeare's great tragic figures, Hamlet and Othello, were the protagonist in each other's stories. How would those plays go?
Act I, Scene 1: The ghost of the old king tells Othello to avenge the old king's death by killing Claudius.
Act I, Scene 2: Othello kills Claudius.
The End
No story, right? And if Iago hinted to Hamlet that Desdemona were cheating on him, Hamlet would answer, "You cannot play upon me."
For the two plays to work, Othello's hero must be action-oriented, while Hamlet's hero must be introspective.
Keep in mind, though, that when under extreme stress, people (and characters) behave in ways they never would otherwise. In Writing the Breakout Novel , Donald Maass advises novelists to imagine something their character would never think, say, or do — then create a situation where the character thinks, says, or does exactly that. If it's critical to your story that your character behave in uncharacteristic ways, put that character in an environment of increasing stress, until the point that the character's "shadow" takes over.
Isabel Myers, co-author of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, defined the shadow function as the least developed part of our personality. Even in the best of times, we may have difficulty using this function in a rational and mature manner. When someone is under stress, and the shadow takes charge, the results can be disastrous.
In your own stories, do character and plot work in harmony? If a character behaves in an uncharacteristic way, be sure to show that the character is under enough stress to make the action believable.
Andrea J. Wenger is professional writer specializing in technical, freelance, and creative writing. Her short fiction has appeared in The Rambler. She is currently working on a women's fiction novel. She blogs and speaks on the subject of writing and personality. She is a regular contributor to Carolina Communiqué, a publication of the Carolina Chapter of the Society for Technical Communication. www.WriteWithPersonality.com.

Get more essay like this one in Advanced Plotting, along with a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Write Better with Powerful Paragraphing

Here's part two of my essay on cliffhangers from Advanced Plotting:
Powerful Paragraphing
Description can usually be kept together in one longer paragraph. Action reads better when broken into short paragraphs. Short paragraphs can actually make the story read faster, because the eye moves more quickly down the page. You can also emphasize an important sentence by starting a new paragraph or even putting that sentence into a paragraph by itself. For example, consider the following two action scenes:
Example 1:
     My car picked up speed as it rolled down the steep hill. The light at the bottom turned yellow so I stepped on the brakes. The car didn't slow down. The light turned red as I pressed harder, leaning back in my seat, using my whole leg to force the brake pedal toward the floor. My car sped toward the intersection while other cars entered from the sides. I sailed into the intersection, horns blaring and brakes squealing around me as I passed within inches of two cars coming from each side.
Example 2:
     My car picked up speed as it rolled down the steep hill. The light at the bottom turned yellow.     I stepped on the brakes. The car didn't slow down.      The light turned red.     I pressed harder, leaning back in my seat, using my whole leg to force the brake pedal toward the floor.      My car sped toward the intersection. Other cars entered from the sides.      I sailed into the intersection. Horns blared and brakes squealed around me.     I passed within inches of two cars coming from each side.
These use nearly the same words. The only differences are that in the second version I broke up some long sentences into short ones, and I use seven paragraphs instead of one. I think the second version captures more of the breathless panic that the narrator would be feeling.
Take another look at your drama scenes, especially those at the end of a chapter. Can you make them stronger by breaking long paragraphs up into shorter ones? Play around before you make a final decision. Maybe putting each sentence in its own paragraph is going too far, giving the scene a choppy feel. Maybe you want to alternate between longer and shorter paragraphs, with a single word in the last paragraph. Try some variations and see what has the most impact.
Next week: Quiet Cliffhangers
  Advanced Plotting is designed for the intermediate and advanced writer: you've finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work.
Advanced Plotting can help.
Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $2.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Surprise Your Readers

My guest today is Deby Fredericks, who contributed an essay to my writing book, Advanced Plotting .
Surprising Your Readers

I don't know about you, but I have some ornery first readers. They enjoy figuring things out before I reveal them. No matter how artful the red herrings and how obscure the clues, my husband and friends are constantly guessing the surprises.
Since I pride myself on creating original stories instead of rehashing best-sellers, this stings. Does it mean I should keep my day job because all my ideas are lame and predictable? On the contrary. I take it as a challenge.
If the first readers figure things out too quickly, that just means I need to bring more to the telling. Extra twists after the first one. Depth and meaning beyond the obvious. That way, even if they saw through my artifice, there was a reason for them to keep reading.
So my husband knew right away that a supporting character in The Necromancer's Bones was a ghost? That wasn't as important as how he died. And my best friend could tell which prince was hiring the assassins in Too Many Princes? Well, she didn't guess that the evil prince had been replaced by a doppelganger.
In both cases, having someone see the man behind the curtain pushed me to try harder on my plot. I added additional surprises and brought more depth to the characters, all to out-wit my first readers. Ultimately, I wrote a better book.
So as you work out your plot, remember there are readers out there who live for the thrill of guessing your surprises. Your job is to be sure there's more to the story.

Deby Fredericks has three fantasy novels published by Dragon Moon Press:  Too Many Princes,  The Magister's Mask, 
and its sequel,  The Necromancer's Bones.  www.debyfredericks.com



Get more essay like this one in Advanced Plotting, by Chris Eboch, along with a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $2.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Use Cliffhangers for Better Pacing

If you've been following this blog for a while, you'll know I love cliffhangers and think they're underused. I've written about them before, but it's time to revisit the topic. I have an essay on cliffhangers in my Advanced Plotting book, and I'm reprinting that here in three sections, for my regular Friday posts. I'll also be featuring guest authors from Advanced Plotting on Wednesdays. And of course, if you want the whole essay right now, you can get it in Advanced Plotting, along with lots of other good stuff to make your manuscripts stronger.
Hanging by the Fingernails: Cliffhangers
Several years ago I had the opportunity to ghostwrite a novel about a well-known girl sleuth. (You would recognize her name.) I knew the series used cliffhanger chapter endings. That seemed easy enough — find a dramatic moment and end the chapter.
Turns out writing strong cliffhangers is a little trickier than that. The editor responded to my effort with this comment: "I would like to see more of a slow build-up toward the intense action. In horror movies, it's always the ominous music and the main character slowly opening the closet door that scares us the most, not the moment right after she opens the door."
She's noting the difference between suspense and surprise.
When something happens suddenly and unexpectedly, that's a surprise. For example, if you are walking down the street debating where to have lunch and something falls off a window ledge onto your head, you'll be surprised (assuming you're still conscious). But since the surprise came out of nowhere, it wasn't suspenseful.
When writing we may be tempted to keep secrets and then let them out — bang! But suspense comes from suspecting that something will happen and worrying about it or anticipating it.
To build up truly dramatic cliffhanger chapter endings, give the reader clues that something bad — or excitingly good — is going to happen. Here's an example from Haunted: The Ghost on the Stairs, a novel for ages 8 to 12. The narrator, Jon, isn't sure he believes his little sister Tania when she says she can see ghosts, but goes with her to look for one as their stepfather films his ghost hunter TV show.
   At the top of the stairs, my stepfather stood in the glare of a spotlight, a few feet away from a camera. I took a step backward and tugged at Tania's arm.    No one had seen us yet, and we could still escape.   Tania turned to me. The look in her eyes made my stomach flip.
The moment isn't bad for a cliffhanger chapter ending, but it could use some more buildup. Here's how the chapter ended in the published book:
   At the top of the stairs, my stepfather stood in the glare of a spotlight, a few feet away from a camera. I took a step backward and tugged at Tania's arm.    No one had seen us yet, and we could still escape.   She didn't back up. She swayed.   I took a quick step forward and put my arm around her so she wouldn't fall. I looked down into her face. I'd never seen anyone so white. White as death. Or white as a ghost.    "Tania," I hissed. I gave her a shake. She took a quick breath and dragged her eyes away from the staircase and to my face. The look in them made my stomach flip.

The first thing you may notice is that the revised version is longer. To get the most out of dramatic moments, you actually slow the pace by using more detail. Focus on using sensory details with an emotional impact.
Next week: Powerful Paragraphing
Advanced Plotting is designed for the intermediate and advanced writer: you've finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work.
Advanced Plotting can help.
Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $2.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Keep Your Reader On the Edge of the Seat

In Advanced Plotting , you'll get two dozen essays like this one on the craft of writing, plus a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Here's an excerpt from an essay by guest author Sophie Masson:

On the Edge of Your Seat: Creating Suspense by Sophie Masson
Suspense is what keeps a reader reading — wanting to know what happens. The suspense can be of all kinds, from wanting to know who the baddie is in a thriller to wanting to know whether the heroine is going to choose Mr. A or Mr. B as her love interest, to — well, just about anything, really! Creating and maintaining suspense is important in any kind of story or novel; it is especially so in the kinds of genres that are built around suspense: mysteries, thrillers, spy stories, fantasy. Here are some of my tips, honed over years of writing in many of those genres!
First of all, to create suspense you need:
Some background information.But incomplete knowledge.
That is, from the beginning the author needs to already have something set up — to let the reader know something about a character and their situation, or the suspense won't happen — you have to care what happens for suspense to occur in the reader's mind.
You can build towards that or start immediately with a suspenseful mysterious beginning, but there must not be too many clues as to what might happen or the suspense will fizzle out before it's had a chance to happen. You need instead to build up the tension carefully, making the reader think that something is one way when it's another. But at the same time you can't play dirty tricks on them — you shouldn't for instance at the climax suddenly produce a character that wasn't there before — either in person or mentioned — as the villain, or the reader has a right to feel ripped off.
In my detective novel The Case of the Diamond Shadow, for instance, the true villain is hidden behind a smokescreen of red herrings — but is there all along. It's just that nobody even thinks of them in connection with the crime!
Character is very important in suspense. I think that plot itself, the driving machine of a story, is really at heart the unfolding of interaction between characters, good and bad. That is what creates situations and fuels tension. So you need to feel strongly for your characters especially the one or ones from whose point of view the action is viewed from, but also the others with whom they interact. If the characters feel real to your readers, then they will see when someone is acting out of character — and that will immediately set up suspense. Or say your main character trusts someone — really trusts them — and little by little they begin to change their minds, to suspect they're up to no good — excellent suspense too.


Sophie Masson has published more than 50 novels internationally since 1990, mainly for children and young adults. A bilingual French and English speaker, raised mostly in Australia, she has a master's degree in French and English literature. Her most recent novel to be published in the USA, The Madman of Venice (Random House), was written for middle school children, grades ~6-10 and her recent historical novel, The Hunt for Ned Kelly (Scholastic Australia) won the prestigious Patricia Wrightson Prize for Children's Literature in the 2011 NSW Premier's Literary Awards. www.sophiemasson.org
 
See the complete essay and two dozen more in Advanced Plotting , plus a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Open Strong: First Chapter Exercises

I've been talking about the promise a first chapter makes, and how to get off to a fast start. Now try these exercises to explore how openings make promises.

Pick up one of your favorite novels. Reread the first chapter. What promises does it make? From your knowledge of the book, does it fulfill those promises? Repeat this exercise with other books. Try it with short stories and articles, judging the promises made in the first few lines.
When you start reading a new novel, pause at the end of the first chapter. Could you identify the genre, main character, point of view, and setting? Is the main character facing a challenge? Make a note of these promises. At the end of the book, decide whether each promise was fulfilled. Try reading short stories and articles this way as well.
Think about your work in progress. What do you want to promise? Check your first chapter for each of the following: Does it clearly identify the genre?
Does it identify the setting, including time period, country, and urban/rural/suburban lifestyle? Does it suggest whether this is a school story, a family story, an epic interstellar journey, or whatever?
Does it introduce the main character and possibly one or more other important characters?
Does it clearly establish the point of view and the tone of the book (funny, lyrical, intellectual, or whatever)?
Is a problem introduced quickly? If it is not the primary plot problem, does the opening challenge at least relate to or lead to the main problem?
Few authors wind up using their original openings. Some authors write a novel, then throw away the first chapter and write a new first chapter — the one that belongs there. It seems like it's almost impossible to write a strong opening until you've finished the rest of the book. The final version of the opening may actually be the last thing we write!
Openings are a struggle for many of us, but don't worry about the beginning during the first draft. Chances are it will change completely anyway, so wait until you have a solid plot before you start fine-tuning your opening. You need to know the rest of your story in order to figure out what your opening should be.
Don't stress about the opening during your early drafts, but do make sure you fix it later. Keep in mind that fixing the beginning may involve throwing it out altogether and replacing it with something else or simply starting later in the story. In the end, you'll have the beginning you need.


In Advanced Plotting , you'll get two dozen essays like this one on the craft of writing. Advanced Plotting is designed for intermediate and advanced writers: you've finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work.
Advanced Plotting can help.

Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Hook 'Em Fast

Here's another excerpt from one of the guest author essays in Advanced Plotting:
Hook 'Em Fastby Lois Winston
As both a published author and a literary agent, I can clue you in on a dirty little secret: most editors and agents will toss a manuscript aside after a page or two if the voice/style/plot hasn't hooked them by that point.
I would like to distill this down further and suggest that an author needs to hook her readers with the opening sentence of her book. As someone who has read countless submissions, I've come across thousands of openings with what I can only describe as blah first sentences. The authors go on to compound the problem by adding several paragraphs, if not pages, of back-story and/or boring description. An author may have a fantastic story, but if she puts her readers to sleep before they get to that story, she's got a huge problem.
The first sentence of a book should make the reader want to read the second sentence. The hook doesn't have to be defined in the first sentence, but that first sentence should lead you into the next, and that one to the next, until you have a paragraph that becomes a hook that grabs the reader and won't let go. That first paragraph should do for the first page what the first sentence does for the first paragraph, and the first page should do for the subsequent pages what the first paragraph does for the first page.
Here's an example of a poorly written opening paragraph:
My name is Anastasia Pollack. I'm a forty-two year old, pear-shaped, more than slightly overweight brunette crafts editor at American Woman magazine. A week ago I was living a typical middleclass life. I had a loving husband, two great sons, a job I looked forward to going to each morning, and a yellow rancher with white trim and a picket fence in a New Jersey suburb known for its good schools and easy commute into Manhattan. All that changed when my husband, who used to answer to tall, dark, and handsome but had turned into bald, paunchy, and boring over the years, dropped dead at a roulette table in Las Vegas when he was supposed to be at a sales meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. That's when I learned of his secret gambling addiction and that he'd squandered away our life savings and left me up to my eyeballs in debt with a long line of bill collectors having my telephone number on speed dial. As if that wasn't bad enough, his loan shark is now demanding I pay back the fifty thousand dollars my husband borrowed from him. I don't have fifty thousand dollars. And last but not least, I'm stuck with my husband's mother, a card-carrying communist, living with me and my sons.
Now, here's the opening paragraph as it actually appeared in the published book:
I hate whiners. Always have. So I was doing my damnedest not to become one in spite of the lollapalooza of a quadruple whammy that had broadsided me last week. Not an easy task, given that one of those lollapalooza whammies had barged into my bedroom and was presently hammering her cane against my bathroom door. — Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, by Lois Winston
The opening of a book should be filled with interesting action and/or dialogue that intrigues the reader and makes her want to continue reading. The opening of a book is meant to suck the reader into the world the author has created. Back-story can come later, trickling in to tease the reader to continue reading more, not as information dumps that pull the reader from the story. A good opening will include only the barest minimum of back-story that is essential for that moment.
If you want your readers to get lost in your plot, make sure you grab them with a dynamic opening.
Award-winning author Lois Winston writes the Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mysteries featuring magazine crafts editor and reluctant amateur sleuth Anastasia Pollack. Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, the first book in the series, was a January 2011 release and received starred reviews from both Publishers Weekly and Booklist. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it, "North Jersey's more mature answer to Stephanie Plum." Lois is an award-winning crafts and needlework designer and an agent with the Ashley Grayson Literary Agency. http://www.loiswinston.com

  See the complete essay and two dozen more in Advanced Plotting, plus a detailed explanation of the Plot Outline Exercise, a powerful tool to identify and fix plot weaknesses in your manuscripts. Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon or as a $.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.

Start with a Bang: Strong First Chapters

Last week I talked about the promise a first chapter makes to the reader, and what you should include. This essay from Advanced Plotting continues with advice on getting off to a fast start.
The Fast Start
An opening introduces many elements of the story. Yet you can't take too long to set the scene, or your readers may lose interest. You want to start in a moment of action, where something is changing, and cut the background. But don't rush things — take a little time to set up the situation, so it makes sense and we care about the characters and what's happening to them.
Fast, but not too fast. How do you find the balance?
You can test your opening by seeing how much you can cut. What if you delete the first sentence, the first paragraph, the first page? Does the story still make sense? Does it get off to a faster start? For a novel, what if you cut the whole first chapter, or several chapters? If you can't cut, can you condense?
On the other hand, if your beginning feels confusing or rushed, you might want to try starting earlier in the story. Try setting up a small problem that grabs the reader's attention, luring them in until you can get to the main problem. In my novel The Well of Sacrifice , the Maya are dealing with famine, disease, and marauders in the early chapters, even before the king dies and an evil high priest tries to take over. That gives readers time to understand these characters and their unusual world.
My Egyptian mystery, The Eyes of Pharaoh , opens with the main character running — an active scene, even though she's merely running for pleasure. In the rest of that first chapter, Seshta, a young temple dancer, is focused on a dance contest she wants to win. This introduces a challenge and a goal, and the contest is a major subplot throughout the book, though not the primary plot line. By the end of the first chapter, Seshta's friend Reya, a young soldier, warns her that Egypt may be in danger. She doesn't believe him, but the reader has seen the seeds of the main plot, which will develop when Reya disappears and Seshta searches for him, uncovering a plot against the Pharaoh.
The inciting incident — the problem that gets the story going — should happen as soon as possible, but not until the moment is ripe. The reader must have enough understanding of the character and situation to make the incident meaningful. Too soon, and the reader is confused. Too late, and the reader gets bored first.

Options for Fast Starts:
·                     Start in the action, at a moment of change. Then work in the back story.·                     Start with two people on the page.·                     Start in the middle of a fight or other conflict.·                     Start with a cliffhanger — something powerful about to happen.·                     Start with a small problem that leads to the big problem, or is an example of the main problem.
Keeping Your Tone
With all the pressure to write a great opening, people often struggle to find an opening scene that is dramatic, powerful, and eye-catching! Something that will make the reader want to keep reading!!!
We may see our opening as something almost separate from the full manuscript — something we can submit to a first pages critique or send to an editor or agent who only wants to see a few pages as a sample. But treating the opening paragraphs as an ad may not be best for the rest of the manuscript. A clever, funny hook is great — but only if the rest of the book is also clever and funny.
Many readers will browse a book's opening pages in a library or bookstore to decide if they want to take the book home. If you offer the reader a fast-paced, action-packed opening, when your book is really a subtle emotional drama with lyrical descriptive writing, you're going to disappoint the readers who enjoyed the opening. Even worse, readers who would have enjoyed the whole book might never get past the opening page.
The same holds true for stories on a smaller scale. Even if your story only lasts a few pages, your readers are making judgments during your opening lines. Don't confuse them by starting one way and then turning the story into something else.
Next week: Opening Exercises

In Advanced Plotting, you'll get two dozen essays like this one on the craft of writing. Advanced Plotting is designed for intermediate and advanced writers: you've finished a few stories, read books and articles on writing, taken some classes, attended conferences. But you still struggle with plot, or suspect that your plotting needs work. 

Advanced Plotting can help.


Buy Advanced Plotting for $9.99 in paperback on Amazon. Through September 1, get Advanced Plotting as a $.99 e-book on Amazon or Smashwords.