Chris Eboch's Blog, page 39

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




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.

How to Write Vivid Scenes part 3

To celebrate the release of my new book, Advanced Plotting, I'm posting one of the essays spread out over a few weeks. Here's part three of How to Write Vivid Scenes.
Cause and Effect
One of the ironies of writing fiction is that fiction has to be more realistic than real life. In real life, things often seem to happen for no reason. In fiction, that comes across as unbelievable. We expect stories to follow a logical pattern, where a clear action causes a reasonable reaction. In other words, cause and effect.
The late Jack M. Bickham explored this pattern in Scene & Structure, from Writer's Digest Books. He noted that every cause should have an effect, and vice versa. This goes beyond the major plot action and includes a character's internal reaction. When action is followed by action with no internal reaction, we don't understand the character's motives. At best, the action starts to feel flat and unimportant, because we are simply watching a character go through the motions without emotion. At worst, the character's actions are unbelievable or confusing.
In Manuscript Makeover (Perigee Books), Elizabeth Lyon suggests using this pattern: stimulus — reaction/emotion — thoughts — action.
Something happens to your main character (the stimulus); You show his emotional reaction, perhaps through dialog, an exclamation, gesture, expression, or physical sensation; He thinks about the situation and makes a decision on what to do next; Finally, he acts on that decision.
This lets us see clearly how and why a character is reacting. The sequence may take one sentence or several pages, so long as we see the character's emotional and intellectual reaction, leading to a decision.




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.

Bickham offered these suggestions for building strong scenes showing proper cause and effect:
The stimulus must be external — something that affects one of the five senses, such as action or dialog that could be seen or heard.
The response should also be partly external. In other words, after the character's emotional response, she should say or do something. (Even deciding to say nothing leads to a reaction we can see, as the character turns away or stares at the stimulus or whatever.)
The response should immediately follow the stimulus. Wait too long and the reader will lose track of the original stimulus, or else wonder why the character waited five minutes before reacting.
Be sure you word things in the proper order. If you show the reaction before the action, it's confusing: "Lisa hurried toward the door, hearing pounding." For a second or two, we don't know why she's hurrying toward the door. In fact, we get the impression that Lisa started for the door before she heard the pounding. Instead, place the stimulus first: "Pounding rattled the door. Lisa hurried toward it."
If the response is not obviously logical, you must explain it, usually with the responding character's feelings/thoughts placed between the stimulus and the response. Here's an example where the response is not immediately logical:
Knocking rattled the door. (Stimulus)Lisa waited, staring at the door. (Action)
Why is she waiting? Does she expect someone to just walk in, even though they are knocking? Is she afraid? Is this not her house? To clarify, include the reaction:
Knocking rattled the door. (Stimulus)Lisa jumped. (Physical Reaction) It was after midnight and she wasn't expecting anyone. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe they'd go away. (Thoughts)She waited, staring at the door. (Responsive Action)
In some cases the response may be logical and obvious without including thoughts and emotions in between. For example, if character A throws a ball and character B raises a hand to catch it, we don't need to hear character B thinking, "There's a ball coming at me. I had better catch it." But don't assume your audience can always read between the lines. Often as authors we know why our characters behave the way they do, so we assume others will understand and we don't put the reaction and thoughts on the page. This can lead to confusion.
In one manuscript I critiqued, the character heard mysterious voices. I assumed they were ghosts, but the narrator never identified them that way. Did he think they were something else? Did he think he was going crazy? Had he not yet decided? I couldn't tell. The author may have assumed the cause of the voices was obvious, so she didn't need to explain the character's reaction. But it just left me wondering if I was missing something — or if the character was. Err on the side of showing your character's thoughts.
Link your scenes together with scene questions and make sure you're including all four parts of the scene — stimulus, reaction/emotion, thoughts, and action — and you'll have vivid, believable scenes building a dramatic story.

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

Plot: Not Just Another Word for a Hole in a Graveyard

To celebrate the release of my new book, Advanced Plotting, here's one of the guest author essays.

Plot: Not Just Another Word for a Hole in a Graveyard by Jenny Milchman
We can bat about terms like "literary" versus "genre" fiction till people cease to die, but the truth is every body needs a grave, and every story needs a plot.I can already hear the opposing cries. "No, no," they say. "What every book needs is great characters."(And anyway, how about cremation?)Well, yes. I agree with you. But what are great characters supposed to do?Therein lies your plot.But how exactly do you construct a plot?Here's one method, with much of the credit going to that great genius of story, Robert McKee. His book — "Story" — is worth more than a look. For now I'm going to piece together McKee's wisdom with some of what I've learned myself, then challenge each of you to create the bare bones of a terrific new plot.Each story has to have a start, of course. The inciting incident kicks things off, just as the first kick of a football game sets the players on a course to win or lose. If you come up with a toothsome inciting incident, your plot will be off to a great start.Think of scenarios that intrigue you. Did you ever get stopped in traffic so thick you couldn't see its source — then start wondering about that source? A terrible accident maybe? A broken down bus? (There's just something inherently dramatic about a bus….) Or possibly a driver so sick of things he left behind his car? Or perhaps your telephone just rang late at night. Before you pick it up to learn that your daughter got scared at her sleepover and wants to come home, let your imagination run a little bit wild, let your heart start pounding. You will have the makings of an inciting incident.After the inciting incident is set up, and the characters needed to fulfill it are introduced, with its ramification played out a bit, you come to plot point 1. This occurs at roughly 1/3 of the way through your story. Plot point 1 takes what you have begun to create and sends it careening off in a new direction. Maybe the driver did leave behind his car — but now he comes back. Or perhaps when you get to the sleepover…nobody's home.About another third of the way through your story comes, what else? Plot point 2. Again, your story is going to be turned somehow, sent off in another direction. If you think about the story as a steadily rising arc, the plot points are forks along it. The action continues to rise, but it's not a straight progression.All the scenes and moments you have created so far call for an awakening at this point in the story. You don't want things to be linear — you want to introduce the unexpected. Think about the least likely thing that could happen. Then think about the most likely thing. Something somewhere in-between will be a great plot point. If all else fails, you can have someone knock on the door. Even if this plot point doesn't stand in the final version, it will get you moving towards something new.Plot point 2 leads into the climax of your story. This is where all the scenes, threads, and characters you have arrayed come together in one knotted ball of action, only to be swiftly unraveled during the denouement so the reader can have a moment of quietude and rest — just before dashing to his or her computer.Why will he or she dash there? Because your now loyal reader wants to see if you have any other books — trusting you completely to deliver a well-constructed, seamless plot.
Jenny Milchman is a suspense writer from New Jersey. She is founder of the series Writing Matters, which draws authors and publishing professionals from both coasts to standing-room-only events at a local bookstore. In 2010 she created Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day, a holiday that went viral, enlisting booksellers in 30 states, two Canadian provinces, and England. Jenny is the author of the short story "The Very Old Man," an Amazon bestseller in mystery anthologies. Another short story will be published in 2012 in a book called Adirondack Mysteries II. Her novel, a literary thriller titled Cover of Snow, is forthcoming from Ballantine. http://www.jennymilchman.com



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

How to Write Vivid Scenes part 2

To celebrate the release of my new book, Advanced Plotting , I'm posting one of the essays spread out over a few weeks. Here's part two of How to Write Vivid Scenes.
Connecting Scenes
Each scene is a mini-story, with its own climax. Each scene should lead to the next and drive the story forward, so all scenes connect and ultimately drive toward the final story climax.
 A work of fiction has one big story question — essentially, will this main character achieve his or her goal? For example, in my children's historical fiction novel The Eyes of Pharaoh, the main character hunts for her missing friend. The story question is, "Will Seshta find Reya?" In The Well of Sacrifice, the story question is, "Will Eveningstar be able to save her city and herself from the evil high priest?"
In Rattled (written as Kris Bock), the big story question is, "Will Erin find the treasure before the bad guys do?" There may also be secondary questions, such as, "Will Erin find love with the sexy helicopter pilot?" but one main question drives the plot.
Throughout the work of fiction, the main character works toward that story goal during a series of scenes, each of which has a shorter-term scene goal. For example, in Erin's attempt to find the treasure, she and her best friend Camie must get out to the desert without the bad guys following; they must find a petroglyph map; and they must locate the cave.
You should be able to express each scene goal as a clear, specific question, such as, "Will Erin and Camie get out of town without being followed?" If you can't figure out your main character's goal in a scene, you may have an unnecessary scene or a character who is behaving in an unnatural way.






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.




Yes, No, Maybe
Scene questions can be answered in four ways: Yes, No, Yes but…, and No and furthermore…. 
If the answer is "Yes," then the character has achieved his or her scene goal and you have a happy character. That's fine if we already know that the character has more challenges ahead, but you should still end the chapter with the character looking toward the next goal, to maintain tension and reader interest. Truly happy scene endings usually don't have much conflict, so save that for the last scene.
If the answer to the scene question is "No," then the character has to try something else to achieve that goal. That provides conflict, but it's essentially the same conflict you already had. Too many examples of the character trying and failing to achieve the same goal, with no change, will get dull.
An answer of "Yes, but…" provides a twist to increase tension. Maybe a character can get what she wants, but with strings attached. This forces the character to choose between two things important to her or to make a moral choice, a great source of conflict. Or maybe she achieves her goal but it turns out to make things worse or add new complications. For example, in Rattled, the bad guys show up in the desert while Erin and Camie are looking for the lost treasure cave. The scene question becomes, "Will Erin escape?" This is answered with, "Yes, but they've captured Camie," which leads to a new set of problems.
"No, and furthermore…" is another strong option because it adds additional hurdles — time is running out or your character has a new obstacle. It makes the situation worse, which creates even greater conflict. In my current work in progress, tentatively titled Whispers in the Dark (written as Kris Bock), one scene question is, "Will Kylie be able to notify the police in time to stop the criminals from escaping?" When this is answered with, "No, and furthermore they come back and capture her," the stakes are increased dramatically.
One way or another, the scene should end with a clear answer to the original question. Ideally that answer makes things worse. The next scene should open with a new specific scene goal (or occasionally the same one repeated) and probably a review of the main story goal. Here's an example from The Eyes of Pharaoh:
     Scene question: "Will Seshta find Reya at the army barracks?"     Answer: "No, and furthermore, she thinks the general lied to her, so Reya may be in danger."     Next scene: "Can Seshta spy on the general to find out the truth, which may lead her to Reya?"
Over the course of a novel, each end-of-scene failure should get the main character into worse trouble, leading to a dramatic final struggle.
Next week: Using Cause and Effect
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.

Tips on Plotting Your Novel

To celebrate the release of my new book, Advanced Plotting , here's an excerpt from one of the guest author essays.
Tips on Plotting Your Novelby Janice Hardy
Story ideas can come from anywhere, and those are the easy part of writing. It's figuring out what to do past that glimmer of an idea where it can get tricky. How do you get your protagonist from that opening scene to the end? How do you know what problems to throw in their way? Let's look at some common places ideas start and look for ways to find a workable plot from those sparks.
Event or SituationSometimes the idea is a situation or event: a sun going supernova; a threat to a place or person, like a kidnapped child or a terrorist attack; discovery of something profound, either personal or for the world. Something is happening or about to happen, and someone is going to have to deal with it in some way. Questions you might ask here are:
1. Who has the most to lose in this situation?2. Who has the most to gain in this situation?3. Who has the freedom to act, but is also restricted in some way?4. Who can be hurt the most from this situation?5. What must be done to resolve this situation?
Situation plots usually need the most work on the character goals and stakes, because we know the what, but not the who or why. It's easy to find surface goals and stakes (to save the word, to stop the bad guy, save a life), but you often find that those aren't deep enough to help you create the plot. You run out of problems for the protagonist to tackle pretty quickly. The trick is to find the personal stakes and then work from there to determine the goals. People act when they want to (something to gain) or have to (something to lose).
Personal JourneyJourneys are common in character-driven and literary novels, and even in fantasies. A woman tries to find herself after a failed marriage. A man takes to the sea to live the last months of his life after being diagnosed with a terminal illness. A group of adventurers goes on quest for an item of importance. The journey is what matters most, not what's found on the other side. Some things to think about here are:
1. What are the inherent dangers of this journey?2. What are the inherent joys of this journey?3. What resistance would someone get from friends regarding this journey?4. What fears would keep someone from attempting this journey?
Character growth is key in a story like this, as the journey is almost always what allows them to find what they're looking for. To grow, the protagonist needs to overcome personal issues that were holding them back. They need to learn ways to better themselves and put them to use. Goals are just as important as in any other story, but they'll often be more personal and internal rather than external. The external obstacles are the ways in which the lesson is learned.
In her essay for Advanced Plotting, Janice also discusses how to build plots from Setting, Premise or Idea, and Characters.
Janice Hardy offers more tips about writing on her blog, "The Other Side of the Story." She's also the author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, where she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her books include The Shifter, Blue Fire, and the upcoming Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. www.janicehardy.com; http://blog.janicehardy.com/

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.

How to Write Vivid Scenes

In fiction writing, a scene is a single incident or event. However, a summary of the event is not a scene. Scenes are written out in detail, shown, not told, so we see, hear, and feel the action. They often have dialog, thoughts, feelings, and sensory description, as well as action.
A scene ends when that sequence of events is over. A story or novel is, almost always, built of multiple linked scenes. Usually the next scene jumps to a new time or place, and it may change the viewpoint character.
Think in terms of a play: The curtain rises on people in a specific situation. The action unfolds as characters move and speak. The curtain falls, usually at a dramatic moment. Repeat as necessary until you've told the whole story.
So how do you write a scene?
Place a character — usually your main character — in the scene. Give that character a problem.Add other characters to the scene as needed to create drama.Start when the action starts — don't warm up on the reader's time.What does your main character think, say, and do?What do the other characters do or say?How does your main character react?What happens next? Repeat the sequence of actions and reactions, escalating tension.Built to a dramatic climax.End the scene, ideally with conflict remaining. Give the reader some sense of what might happen next — the character's next goal or challenge — to drive the plot forward toward the next scene. Don't ramble on after the dramatic ending, and don't end in the middle of nothing happening.
Scene endings may or may not coincide with chapter endings. Some authors like to use cliffhanger chapter endings in the middle of a scene and finish the scene at the start of the next chapter. They then use written transitions (later that night, a few days later, when he had finished, etc.) or an extra blank line to indicate a break between scenes within a chapter.
A scene can do several things, among them:
Advance the plot.Advance subplots.Reveal characters (their personalities and/or their motives).Set the scene.Share important information.Explore the theme.



 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.


Ideally, a scene will do multiple things. It may not be able to do everything listed above, but it should do two or three of those things, if possible. It should always, always, advance the plot. Try to avoid having any scene that only reveals character, sets the scene, or explores the theme, unless it's a very short scene, less than a page. Find a way to do those things while also advancing the plot.
A scene often includes a range of emotions as a character works towards a goal, suffers setbacks, and ultimately succeeds or fails. But some scenes may have one mood predominate. In that case, try to follow with a scene that has a different mood. Follow an action scene with a romantic interlude, a happy scene with a sad or frightening one, a tense scene with a more relaxed one to give the reader a break.
Don't rush through a scene — use more description in scenes with the most drama, to increase tension by making the reader wait a bit to find out what happens. Important and dramatic events should be written out in detail, but occasionally you may want to briefly summarize in order to move the story forward. For example, if we already know what happened, we don't need to hear one character telling another what happened. Avoid that repetition by simply telling us that character A explained the situation to character B.
Avoid scenes that repeat previous scenes, showing another example of the same action or information. Your readers are smart enough to get things without being hit over the head with multiple examples. If you show one scene of a drunk threatening his wife, and you do it well, we'll get it. We don't need to see five examples of the same thing. Focus on writing one fantastic scene and trust your reader to understand the characters and their relationship. For every scene, ask: Is this vital for my plot or characters? How does it advance plot and reveal character? If I cut the scene, would I lose anything?
Next week: Connecting Scenes
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The Challenges of Doing Your Own Layout

I've been trying to get my new writing craft book, Advanced Plotting, on the market. Yesterday I received the proof copy from CreateSpace. Had it been fine, I could have officially published the book. Unfortunately, I discovered a problem with my line spacing. The bottoms of hanging letters such as g and p were getting cut off. You couldn't tell in the Word document, but you could in the PDF I'd sent to Amazon for printing.
This is one of the challenges of self-publishing -- you're responsible for all the details. I thought that since I'd previously done the layout on two books, I could manage this one. In fact, I used a previous book as a template. But I had accidentally used the font from my chapter headings (Adobe Caslon Pro) with the line spacing from the body text (Georgia). The Georgia font is fine with a standard 13.3 line spacing, but Adobe Caslon Pro needs a minimum of 14.2. After I realized my mistake, I remembered that I had changed the font to Georgia for The Eyes of Pharaoh's body text because Adobe Caslon Pro needed so much extra space. (I've now made a note of it for future reference.)
I spent several hours reformatting the manuscript. It wasn't a simple matter of just changing the line spacing. I had over 30 sections, each with a different font and line spacing for the heading. If I'd changed the whole document at once, it would have messed up all the headings, plus the title pages. I had to deal with each section separately. As an additional complication, the line spacing meant each paragraph took up more space. But I didn't want to change the page numbers, because not only did I have the page number set in the table of contents, but within the text I reference different essays by page number. I had to make adjustments to make sure each section started on the same page as before.
I'm sharing this as an example of some of the specific challenges you face when publishing on your own. Of course you, you can hire somebody to do your interior layout. You may want to do that if you have enough money and don't have a graphic design background. Otherwise, be sure to plan enough time to get the proof copy of your book and study it carefully.

Does a Book Need a Hook?

An orphan explores his magical powers at a school for wizards. Twins discover they are really genies. Death narrates a World War II story. The young descendants of Sherlock Holmes tackle one of his unsolved cases. A boy discovers a world of monsters, where he has superpowers. Twins deal with pirates, some of them vampires.

A hook—in this case the "high concept" idea—can grab the reader's attention and make a book stand out. Here are the books with the above hooks.
        Harry Potter series, by J. K Rowling        Children of the Lamp series, by P. B. Kerr        The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak.         The 100-Year-Old Secret, by Tracy Barrett        Billy Hooten, Owlboy, by Thomas E. Sniegoski        Vampirates, by Justin Somper 
Do you need a hook? Well, in today's competitive market, it sure doesn't hurt. It's a quick way to summarize your idea for an editor or agent, handy for writing conferences. So how do you figure out what yours is—or if you have one?
One option is comparisons—I So Don't Do Mysteries was described as Nancy Drew with a Devil Meets Prada makeover by the publisher sales team trying to sell the book to bookstores and libraries. After Die Hard, action movies were often described as "Die Hard on a plane" or "Die Hard on a boat."
On the jacket flap, books often used an "except" or "but" twist. The second part is the twist on a common plot. — A woman thinks her ex-husband is going to try to kill her, but he kidnaps her daughter instead.
If your book isn't trendy, don't despair. What hooks the reader is individual to that reader. Some may read any book set in a certain time or place, or love talking animals. Don't try to make your book sound like it fits some hot trend, if it doesn't. Instead try to hook your readers. Who are your target readers, and what will draw them to this book?
A good hook is simple and short—sometimes it's referred to as a one-sentence synopsis or an elevator pitch (from the idea that you might have 30 seconds in an elevator to grab an editor's attention). It's not long-winded, where you are trying to cram everything into one run-on sentence. The hook doesn't necessarily tell you the plot, but it gives you the flavor of the book and arouses interest. It may be simply the premise.
EXERCISE: For practice, name a favorite or recent book—how would you describe it to a friend? Would you pick it up if you heard that description?
EXCERCISE: Write a simple synopsis of your work. Don't worry about length or clarity. Jot down the who, what, when, where and why. Now you have some idea of the most interesting aspects of the work. Time to turn it into a one-sentence synopsis with your hook.
To start focusing on your hook, ask, What is the conflict, in terms of X versus Y?
        A girl in ancient Egypt battles a mysterious prince as she hunts for her missing friend (The Eyes of Pharaoh)        A Mayan girl challenges the high priest trying to take over her city (The Well of Sacrifice)        A shy historian races thieves for a long-lost treasure (Rattled)
Once you have your hook, you can expand upon that one-sentence synopsis for a query letter or longer conversation.