Chris Eboch's Blog, page 38

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.

Plot Like a Screenwriter

To celebrate the release of my latest book, Advanced Plotting , here's an excerpt from one of the guest author essays.
Plotting Like a Screenwriterby Douglas J. Eboch
Now let's look at the components of three act structure. Probably the most important is the Dramatic Question. If you understand nothing else but the Dramatic Question and the Moment of Failure (which I'll get to in a bit) you'll probably end up with a fairly well structured story.
What the Dramatic Question Is
The Dramatic Question is the structural spine of your story. On some level all Dramatic Questions can be boiled down to "Will the character solve their dilemma?" Of course that's not very helpful to the writer trying to crack a particular story. You need to ask that question with the specifics of your character and dilemma.
So in Star Wars (written by George Lucas) the question is "Will Luke Skywalker defeat Darth Vadar?" In E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (written by Melissa Mathison) it's "Can Elliot save E.T.?" In Little Miss Sunshine (written by Michael Arndt) it's "Will Olive win the beauty pageant?"
Those sound simple, right? Simpler is better when it comes to the Dramatic Question. But it's not always easy to be simple. You have to know who your character is and what their dilemma is before you can craft a nice simple Dramatic Question. But then if you haven't figured out your character and their dilemma, you're not really ready to start writing yet anyway!
I also think it's good to phrase the Dramatic Question as a yes or no question. So it's not "Who will Susan marry?" it's "Will Susan marry Bill?" Keeping it yes/no helps you tightly focus your narrative.
What the Dramatic Question Is Not
The Dramatic Question is not the theme of your movie. It's not the hook. It's not necessarily the character arc (sometimes it is, but not usually.) It doesn't define whether your story is sophisticated or facile.
Do not think the Dramatic Question determines the quality of your story. It's simply the spine on which you're going to build your story. What you hang on that spine is going to determine how good your script is. Just because a person doesn't collapse under the weight of their own body doesn't mean they're beautiful, intelligent, interesting, or emotionally complex. However, if your spine isn't solid, none of the other stuff is going to work properly either.
How to use the Dramatic Question in your story
The Dramatic Question is an unspoken agreement with the audience. It tells them what the scope and shape of the story is going to be. They need to know what the question is fairly early in the proceedings or you will lose them. If too much time passes before they understand the Dramatic Question they're liable to walk out of the theater or turn the DVD off or put down your script. They'll say something like, "I couldn't figure out what the movie was about."
The moment when the Dramatic Question becomes clear is called the Catalyst. The Catalyst is where the audience understands who the main character is and what their basic dilemma is. They may not understand the entire dimension of the problem, but they have an idea what the story arc will be about.
So in E.T. the catalyst is when Elliot sees E.T. for the first time. We don't yet know that his mission will ultimately be to get E.T. home or even that first he'll have to hide E.T. And we don't know that E.T. will start dying from the Earth environment. But we know that this kid who nobody takes seriously just found a little lost alien — and that some scary men are looking for it. We have a character with a dilemma.
Similarly, when the audience knows the outcome of the Dramatic Question, your story is over. The audience will stick with you for a few minutes of wrap up, but if you go on too long after resolving the dramatic question, they're going to get restless. They'll say things like, "it was anti-climactic" or "it had too many endings."
Once E.T. takes off in his space ship, the movie ends. Credits roll. The story is over. Compare that to the Lord of the Rings trilogy (screenplay by Fran Walsh & Philippa Boyens & Peter Jackson). The Dramatic Question is "Can Frodo destroy the ring?" He does, but then the movie continues for another forty minutes or so. Kind of got tedious didn't it? The story was over. We wanted to go home.
The structural beat where you answer the Dramatic Question is called the Resolution.
Douglas J. Eboch wrote the original script for the movie Sweet Home Alabama. He teaches at Art Center College of Design and lectures internationally. He writes a blog about screenwriting at http://letsschmooze.blogspot.com/ where he shares techniques like the ones in this article.


See Doug's entire 4000-word essay covering all the dramatic story points of three-act structure, plus much more, in Advanced Plotting. 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.

Make a Promise with Your First Chapter

You'll hear it over and over again — opening lines are important. Your opening makes a promise about the rest of the story, article, or book. It tells readers what to expect, setting the stage for the rest of the story to unfold — and hopefully hooking their interest.
What You Promise
The first scene should identify your story's genre. This can be trickier than it sounds. Say it's a romance, but the main character doesn't meet the love interest until later. Can you at least suggest her loneliness or desire for romance? (And get that love interest in there as soon as possible!)
Maybe you're writing a story involving magic, time travel, ghosts, or a step into another dimension, but you want to show the normal world before you shift into fantasy. That's fine, but if we start reading about a realistic modern setting and then halfway through magic comes out of nowhere, you'll surprise your reader — and not in a good way. Your story will feel like two different stories clumsily stitched together.
If you're going to start "normal" and later introduce an element like magic or aliens, try to hint at what's to come. Maybe the main character is wishing that magic existed — that's enough to prepare the reader. In my novel The Ghost on the Stairs, we don't find out that the narrator's sister has seen a ghost until the end of chapter 2. But on the opening page, she comments that the hotel "looks haunted" and is "spooky." Those words suggest that a ghost story may be coming. That's enough to prep the reader. (The title doesn't hurt either.)
Your opening should also identify the story's setting. This includes when and where we are, if it's historical or set in another country or world. Once again, you don't want your reader to assume a modern story and then discover halfway through that it's actually a historical setting. They'll blame you for their confusion. In a contemporary story, you may not identify a specific city, but the reader should have a feel for whether this is inner-city, small-town, suburban, or whatever.
Who and What's Up
Your opening pages should focus on your main character. You may find exceptions to this rule, but your readers will assume that whoever is prominent in the opening pages is the main character. Switching can cause confusion. You should also establish your point of view early. If you'll be switching points of view, don't wait too long to make the first switch. In novels, typically you want to show your alternate point of view in the second chapter and then switch back and forth with some kind of regular rhythm.
And of course, you want some kind of challenge or conflict in your opening. This doesn't have to be the main plot problem — you may need additional set up before your main character takes on that challenge or even knows about it. But try to make sure that your opening problem relates to the main problem. It may even lead to it.
In The Ghost on the Stairs, Tania faints at the end of chapter 1. Jon does not yet know why, but this opening problem leads to the main problem — she'd seen a ghost. If I'd used an entirely different opening problem, say stress with their new stepfather, that would have suggested a family drama, not a paranormal adventure.
In a short story, you need to introduce your main conflict even more quickly. A story I sold to Highlights started like this:
Jaguar Paw watched the older Mayan boys play pok-a-tok. The ball skidded around the court as the players tried to keep it from touching the ground. They used their arms, knees, and hips, but never their hands or feet. The best pok-a-tok players were everybody's heroes. These boys were just practicing. But that meant Jaguar Paw could watch from the edge of the court.
That opening paragraph, 64 words, introduces the main character, identifies the foreign, historical setting, includes a specific location (the ball court), and hints at Jaguar Paw's desire to be a ballplayer. Genre, setting, main character, and conflict, all up front.
Next week: The Fast Start

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. 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.

Plotting by the Seat of Your Pants

To celebrate the release of my new book, Advanced Plotting , here's an excerpt from one of the guest author essays.
Plotting by the Seat of Your Pantsby Susanne Alleyn
They say there are two types of fiction writers: plotters and pantsers.
Plotters are blessed with the ability to create complex plots from beginning to end; they write down a complete outline, whether in a loose synopsis, a tightly structured timeline, a series of index cards, or whatever, before they write Word One of the actual novel. Pantsers, on the other hand, can't possibly think that far ahead, and take an idea, a situation, a setting, a character or two, with a rough idea of where the story is going, and just plunge onward, writing "by the seat of their pants."
There are advantages to both of these methods, and which method works for you depends on what kind of writer (and basic personality) you are. I, for one, am a pantser. I write mysteries, among other things, and I couldn't come up with the entire outline of a novel, particularly a mystery novel, even if you held a gun to my head. But if I begin with a basic idea, if I know how my story begins (who got murdered) and how it ends (whodunnit and why), then I trust my subconscious to come up with the dreaded middle of the story as I move... OK, feel my way blindly... forward.
By starting my novel at Point A, without much knowledge of how I'll get past Points B through Y before successfully arriving at the end (Point Z), somehow the plot manages to create itself without too much goading from me. The situation or character I might suddenly come up with for Point E in the story eventually creates an idea for Point J or K, which leads to Points L and M, and so on.
An example of how the sneaky old subconscious can work? Three years ago, I was writing the first draft of The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, a historical mystery set in prerevolutionary Paris. All I had, at the start, was an idea that the murder would be connected somehow to the famous (real-life) Diamond Necklace Affair of 1785-86, and to the (now two-century-old) conspiracy theory that the Freemasons were involved in the scandal, with the goal of bringing down the French monarchy.


While toiling my way through the first quarter of the novel (not yet knowing how the heck I was going to unmask my killer), I sent my sleuth, Aristide Ravel, with the dead man's waistcoat to a fashionable tailor, in hopes of identifying the corpse. The tailor gave him half a dozen names of customers who had had identical waistcoats made; the dead man was sure to be one of them. I already knew which one he was, and where he lived, and how the next scene would play out when, after a dead end or two, Ravel interviewed his family.
And at this point (perhaps I'd reached Point F or G), I still didn't have the faintest idea how the story was going to play itself out, or how I was going to keep the solution to the mystery from being ridiculously obvious, although I thought I knew who'd committed the murder. And I'd also begun to realize that, unless I wanted it to be a very short novel, something else (anything!) had to happen under mysterious circumstances to complicate things.
But (spoilers ahead) for some reason, one of the names on the tailor's list suddenly became a fully-fleshed character, a Freemason with fishy connections, and very quickly developed a personality. He walked into the story, took over, stole the corpse, and dragged the plot off in another direction entirely.
Where did he come from? I haven't the slightest idea, beyond "somewhere in the back of my subconscious mind." Then, because he existed, another character also had to appear, and he rapidly became one of the major characters in the novel. At last it became suddenly quite obvious to me that this second character was actually the murderer, and since he was a great improvement over my original choice of killer, I let him have the role. And when I went back to (minimally) revise all the chapters I'd already completed, in order to accommodate him, the clues I'd laid out worked much, much better for the new killer than for the old.
Wow.
[So] if someone has told you that you should outline, synopsize, or otherwise rigidly structure your novel before starting to write it, and you just don't feel comfortable or happy doing that (or if trying to come up with the next damn plot point in your synopsis feels like having all your teeth pulled out, one by one, without Novocain), then ignore the advice. You're probably a pantser.
Take your basic starter idea and run with it. Start at Point A, with an idea of Point B, go there, write a scene, create a new character, and discover to what sort of Point C your Point B may lead you. Throw in extra stuff in the course of dialogues or descriptions or minor characters (you can always edit out the excess — the padding and the bits that don't lead you anywhere — later). The smallest detail in a scene you write may suddenly, as your subconscious works, turn into something that drives your plot.
Susanne Alleyn is the author of the Aristide Ravel French Revolution mystery series (The Cavalier of the Apocalypse, Palace of Justice, Game of Patience, and A Treasury of Regrets), and of A Far Better Rest, a re-imagining of A Tale of Two Cities. She is the granddaughter of children's author Lillie V. Albrecht, who penned the classic Deborah Remembers (1959) and four other historical children's books, all soon to reappear as e-books. www.susannealleyn.com




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