C. Aubrey Hall's Blog, page 3

Swamp Survival Strategy #2–Plot Progression (cont.)

In building story progression–especially in the middle of a book manuscript where the story typically loses momentum and sags–it’s important to increase conflict rather than let it slide.

Nothing moves forward plausibly in a story except through conflict. Anything else tends to be a writer contriving events by stringing them together, or stalling because inspiration is not coming, or simply telling readers about character activities through narrative summary. These tactics will sink your plot faster than anything else you can try.

As long as conflict engages the thoughts and emotions of readers, they remain involved with your characters. They will travel through hours of reading time unaware of anything except the unfolding story. They are enthralled.

Hurrah! That’s what we writers want.

When the conflict falters, fades, or disappears, the spell you’ve woven dissipates. Readers detach from the story with a sigh of disappointment. They skip ahead or put down the story.

Boo! That’s what we writers don’t want.

Therefore, in the midsection, make sure your antagonist is bringing more trouble. Keep your scenes strong through opposition to whatever the protagonist is trying to accomplish. End scenes with setbacks, not success. Make sure each scene is progressively tougher, more exciting, and lands the hero in bigger trouble than whatever came before it.

A book’s middle benefits hugely from a big spike of intensity and excitement. That’s supplied by means of a central plot twist that hits the protagonist unexpectedly and sends shock waves through character and readers alike.

Or there can be a big scene of confrontation positioned in the book’s center that’s been planned, plotted, and anticipated all the way from the book’s opening.

Either way, this so-called central event should have dynamite. If you examine, say, a half-dozen genre novels that are either your personal favorites or written by some of the most popular authors in recent years, you’ll find this big event is located pretty much right in the middle.

Example–the suspense novel, HOT MONEY, by Dick Francis revolves around death threats made to the protagonist’s father, a super-successful entrepreneur whose familial relationships have been rocky at best. A succession of dangerous near-misses against dear old dad builds progressively, heightening the anticipation of bigger and bigger trouble, yet the explosive plot twist in the book’s center is anything but what readers expect. It’s violent and shocking. It creates a definite turning point in the story, and it galvanizes the protagonist into taking more assertive action in finding/stopping the villain from committing more violence.

Another example–the book, HOMECOMING, by women’s fiction author LaVyrle Spencer–deals with a man who thinks he’s happily married with a loving wife and two fine teenage children. The Chapter-One arrival in his community of his pre-wedding one-night stand and a son he never knew he had shake this man’s world and threaten to break apart his family. Although his first instinct is to confess everything immediately to his wife, he loses his nerve and chickens out, procrastinating, worrying, and waffling until his best opportunities fade and he is forced to talk to her at a point where her trust is badly shaken. His delay generates considerable reader involvement and anticipation. It also guarantees that his wife will not believe anything he tells her.

By being aware of the need for such a big, exciting plot development as you initially plan and outline your story means you can build to it. You have a firm destination within the middle swamp. Knowing this–and the trouble awaiting your protagonist–helps you avoid that feeling of being lost while slogging endlessly along.

Plot Progression–Part 1

The second Swamp Survival Strategy is a lengthy one that will take more than one post to cover.

It deals with how to fill the central portion of a book manuscript by making things harder for the protagonist. Ending scenes always with setbacks/hooks is one way to tackle this, but a writer should have more methods than that to use.

When you complicate your story progressively, you should be generating increasing amounts of conflict for your protagonist through stronger and stronger forces of antagonism.

Each clash of conflict between the protagonist and antagonist should create points of no return.

For example, many novels open with a drastic change in the protagonist’s circumstances–some kind of change with consequences impossible to ignore. Although it’s human nature to resist change, fiction is all about forcing the protagonist to do exactly that.

Typically, your protagonist will take at first a conservative approach toward attempting to solve the story problem. That minimal action will, however, stir up opposition. They clash, and the protagonist’s cautious attempt fails. In effect, this is a point of no return because minimal effort will not work.

Realizing that minor actions must be abandoned, the protagonist gathers fresh determination and takes a new, somewhat more difficult course of action to solve the story problem.

This effort is met immediately with direct opposition and antagonism. It fails. Once more, we have a point of no return because neither minimal nor moderate effort has worked.

With risks increasing and circumstances worsening, the protagonist should be more desperate now and willing to take a bigger, more dangerous attempt–one that’s risky, dangerous, with more at stake, and harder to achieve. But once more, antagonism is there pushing back and thwarting this attempt also. Again, it’s a point of no return because extreme effort has not been successful.

These progressive, incremental attempts and setbacks show how plot progressively escalates. The harder the protagonist tries, the stronger the opposition becomes. That means the scene setbacks grow harsher, and the stakes go higher.

From the beginning to the ending, each story event should top the ones that occurred before it. Make sure you don’t lessen the problems besetting your protagonist. Find plausible ways to make the difficulties worse. The central antagonist wants to win at any cost and will not back off.

In the dismal swampy middle of a story, when it’s easy to bog down or lose your way, you may find that your story conflict is circling or stalling, rather than moving forward. If that’s happening, look at whether you’ve been building progressions or letting your story slow and falter.

Are you protecting your protagonist? Are you holding back this lead character from new or worsening trouble? It’s natural to want to safeguard your favorite story person, but you must not do it. Let the trouble roll forward. Imagine what your protagonist most fears or dreads. By the middle of the book, you should bring your protagonist face to face with that fear. It won’t be conquered in the mid-section of the story, but it should appear as a sort of preview. Doing so will raise the stakes higher also because readers know and expect this psychological issue to be dealt with fully at the climax.

Swamp Survival Strategy #1: Juggling Plates

Here in the Professional Writing curriculum at the University of Oklahoma, we call this particular writing technique juggling plates after the type of juggling act involving spinning plates. We define a “plate” as a tiny question designed to pique reader curiosity or make readers worry. Plates are small bits of trouble or potential trouble for the characters.

If you examine published copy–choosing, say, a book chapter or even a scene–and comb through the sentences, chances are you’ll find many tiny little hooks or questions thrown into the narrative and dialogue.

The whisper of furtive footsteps came from behind Polly Protagonist. Was someone following her? Why hadn’t she noticed before? Who was it?

If she looks over her shoulder and recognizes the individual coming up behind her, the plate is said to have been brought down–i.e. the question it raised is answered.

If she looks over her shoulder and doesn’t recognize the individual coming up behind her, she may stop and confront the person, thus discovering identity and bringing down the plate.

She may decide not to look back. She may decide to look back but evade a confrontation by abruptly running across the street and catching a bus.

When a plate is brought down, new ones should be raised to replace it. Liken it to sprinkling a trail of breadcrumbs along a low wall to entice a wild bird to land and peck at the treat. We spin plates to entice readers to keep turning pages while we introduce characters or set up scenes of confrontation or have our viewpoint character mull over the story problem.

Plates are spinning usually from the opening pages of a story. Chances are, even if you’ve never heard of this technique before, you’re probably using it instinctively to some extent. After all, we can’t plop a single major story question in front of readers and expect them to concentrate on that alone for the duration of the plot. Instead, we remind them of the big question from time to time and then spin plates between setting chapter-ending hooks and chapter-opening hooks and raising the stakes and escalating the conflict.

Besides the curiosity that plates provoke, they also serve to generate anticipation in readers. Like an actual juggling act, plates are raised and lowered, spun again just as they’re about to wobble off their pole, but in no particular pattern that could become predictable and monotonous. As a result, readers never know when they’re going to find out something or when new little issues to worry about will appear.

While it would be fun to just keep raising plates and plates and more plates, writers have the responsibility of playing fair with readers. That means we can’t spin infinite numbers of these tiny questions without answering them. Each and every one has to be brought down at some point and not all at once.

Some plates get repeated to keep readers guessing and hold them in suspense. If, after you complete the rough draft of your story, you find that some plates were forgotten or never answered, address that or delete them completely.

Now, I introduced this technique as a middle-of-the-book strategy to keep the story from slowing down and becoming a soggy mess. While plates start spinning from the beginning of the plot, it’s advisable to answer the longest-spinning ones in the book’s second act. Immediately raise new ones and add more. A book’s midsection should be filled with new information, new questions, new suspicions, new worries, and lots of suspense.

In my next post, I’ll continue with Swamp Survival Strategy #2.

(Notice I didn’t mention what it is in the above sentence. See how I just spun a plate to make you wonder?)

Swamp Strategies

I was driving recently atop a levee built to contain swamp land. It’s spring. The rains are falling in drizzles and torrents. The rivers and lakes are swelling, backing extra water into sludgy swampy places where varmints like snakes and alligators await the unwary who dare venture there.

Sounds fanciful, right? Well, the man who taught me most of the writing craft I know–Jack Bickham–had an apt term for what fancy book writers now tend to call the second act. Jack called it the “Great Swampy Middle.” In my books on writing craft, I refer to it as the “Dark Dismal Middle.” Neither term makes it sound appealing, but they are–I think–apt descriptors.

It’s the longest section of a book manuscript. It’s possibly the most challenging segment to write. It’s where a writer can become lost, flounder, and sometimes sink. It’s the perfect portion of a story to release plot twists that Jack used to call “alligators.”

Although ideally a novel should start in an intriguing or exciting way, escalate strategically through increasing trouble and conflict, and wind up the story problem in a smashing climax, all of that is easier said than done. Once the thrilling opening of your story loses momentum and you reach that section of your plot outline where everything becomes vague because you hoped you’d be inspired by the time you got there, it’s not uncommon to find yourself in a slump. The story’s not so fun anymore. It can seem bewildering and endless. It can become a flat, dull slog. Savvy writers equip themselves with multiple techniques of the writing craft to fend off such problems.

So in this blog series, I want to address what I call Seven Swamp Survival Strategies. They are as follows:

Juggle platesCheck plot progressionIntroduce subplotsUse multiple viewpointsExecute a large or pivotal central story eventHeighten plot suspenseReveal hidden and back story

They’re by no means all a writer can utilize to keep the middle from sagging or stalling, but in my career I have found them to be effective and useful. I’ll be explaining them one by one in the posts to come.

Contradictions

My official stance on editing as you write your rough draft is don’t do it. I always say, keep going and don’t second-guess yourself until you’ve completed the draft.

Yet, how do you follow that sweeping advice if you honestly don’t know what you’re doing? What if you’ve never written fiction before, or are tackling your first novel? It’s like being trapped in a fun-house, with dead ends, distorted mirrors, and wobbly floors. Just as you think you see the path ahead of you in whatever scene you’re going to write next, the dialogue falls apart, or it doesn’t go as planned, or you hate it. How are you supposed to keep going while the whole structure of your premise is crumbling around you?

It’s next to impossible.

However, if you began your story with an ending in mind, you should keep floundering forward. You may have to rewrite certain passages or redesign certain scenes because your first effort flopped and the artist inside you is howling with frustration. But rewrite that troublesome character conversation once or twice and then–if you still dislike it–flag it for later and move on.

WHY?

QUESTION: If you’re rewriting chapter one for the fifteenth time and still not getting anywhere with it, what are you accomplishing?

ANSWER: A big case of writer’s block.

Grinding a problematic section over and over and over and over without having a clue how to fix it is only creating frustration. Meanwhile, the story isn’t advancing. And you aren’t making progress toward anything except the death of your idea.

I’m sure you’ve read or heard the adage about the best way to learn how to write is to write, but while that’s glib and seems wise superficially, it can’t be your sole mantra.

If you perpetually write in error, violating story principles you don’t know, and you hit one dead end after another, grind your story to death, then abandon it–all you’re accomplishing is the reinforcement of error. You’re creating bad habits and training yourself never to bring any story you attempt to completion.

It’s been said that it takes 30 days of repeating a task or action to form a habit. If you start a story, get stuck, and toss it aside–how long until that variety of non-production becomes a habit?

Conversely, skipping over problems every time you hit one carries the danger of creating another bad habit–one of never solving plot holes. It’s entirely possible to blithely disregard a technical flaw in the cause of forcing a story forward no matter what. I did exactly that early in my writing career because I had a book deadline and I wanted to take a small vacation, so I hurried along by hammering out my daily page quota and paid no attention to a scene I goofed up. I took the trip, did not enjoy it because my story sense was screaming by then, and–once home again–had to work many long, hard hours to rewrite over 100 pages of material to correct my mistake and still meet deadline.

Now, here I’ve told you to keep going, but I’ve also told you not to skip/disregard problems. Is that contradictory? Yes, I think it qualifies, so I’ll explain:

Keep going, but when you stumble over a problem or find yourself facing a scene you don’t know how to write, pause and think it over. Is it an issue of changing viewpoint but you’ve never written multiple viewpoint before and you aren’t sure this is the right thing to do? Is it a difficulty in that your scene is long and complicated with six characters to juggle, and nothing is coming out where you want it to?

Pause and seek technical assistance. Look up scene construction in your books on writing technique. Consult the rules of changing viewpoint. Then think about what you’ve read and consider how your problematic passage is meeting those technique rules or falling short. Think about how you might approach your material differently and how the consequences of such change might affect your story outline.

In the viewpoint example, ask yourself why you want to change viewpoint at this point in the story. Is it to follow the story action? Has your protagonist suddenly become sidelined and is no longer central to the exciting story events? Why has this happened? Have you lost focus? Is another character becoming more intriguing to you than your dull protagonist? Why did you let your central, lead player become boring? What could you do to enliven your star again?

If you really want to show the villain making plans to ambush your protagonist and you think switching viewpoint will heighten the suspense, that’s a sound dramatic reason for doing so. However, do you plan to use the villain’s viewpoint more than once in the novel, and if so, have you plotted that? Before you make a decision, weigh the pros and cons of heightening suspense with the risk of giving too much away versus the advantage of an unexpected plot twist striking your hero without warning. It’s a judgment call of anticipatory suspense versus an unpredictable jolt of danger.

As for the complicated scene example, juggling six characters who are all upset, angry, or distraught is a difficult challenge for the most seasoned writer. Generally, scene conflict works most efficiently and dramatically when it’s narrowed down to two characters. Could you possibly divide your conflict into three smaller scenes, with your protagonist confronting one or two irate characters at a time? Or, could you push five characters into the background while the most vocal among them becomes the spokesperson?

After you’ve researched and thought, write a correction. It may wobble and still fall short, but chances are it will be on track enough for you to continue forward.

If it still doesn’t work, ask yourself if your story needs it at all. Experience has taught me that one or two futile attempts means I need to cut that section. There’s nothing to be gained by stubbornly beating your head against an immovable wall.

FICTION FORMULA FIX-IT IS LIVE.

It’s now available through Amazon’s services.

Here’s the link for the print version:

And here’s the link for the Kindle e-book:

Book Announcement

After a year filled with interruption after interruption (besides a world-wide pandemic, personal complications, loss, and an avalanche of new responsibilities), my little book on how to revise fiction is finally uploaded to Amazon. FICTION FORMULA FIX-IT–available in both Kindle and print versions–should be live by tomorrow or the next day.

It’s a step-by-step guide to approaching short or long fiction changes, from major rewrites to polishing.

Some writers I know embrace revision and can’t wait to generate a rough draft so they can rework their material. Others dread it and find it incredibly tedious. Either way, there’s no getting around the responsibility of correcting and polishing our manuscripts to their very best–especially in these days of independent publishing. Even traditional publishers now expect manuscripts to be delivered clean, requiring as little editing as possible.

If you know of anyone with a rough draft in hand and in need of help, please pass the word.

Go Big!

One piece of frequently given writing advice is to make your characters vivid. It’s a valid suggestion and has been proven consistently to be successful.

Why, then, do we fear to implement it?

What makes us conjure up a bright, vivacious character in our imagination, then draw back in the typing? Why do we limit our character to just lines of flat dialogue coming from her mouth? Why do we retreat to a few tepid details of description?

Are we afraid?

Of what? Creating a ridiculous character, one that readers will jeer at?

Are we oblivious?

Do we think that because our character is vivid in our imagination that readers can somehow telepathically envision that individual without our making further effort?

Are we unskilled?

Maybe we know what kind of character we want to present in our fiction, but we just don’t understand how to design or construct that story person.

Maybe any or all of those reasons lie behind our general timidity.

Fear of possible ridicule can be a huge barrier to any writer who feels unsure of an idea or premise. As writers, we tend to be introverted to a slight or massive degree. It’s hard enough for us to find the courage to begin a new story, let alone risk having someone criticize or sneer at it.

Gaining confidence in yourself, in your story sense, and in your abilities happens through practicing and mastering the writing craft. Acquiring writing skills and honing them constantly will help you tackle new methods and more complex stories. Understanding what you’re doing is the best way I know to push yourself to go bigger with your character designs.

Sometimes you have to try it until you can do it. Just as we form habits by performing an action repeatedly and regularly for many days until it becomes an ingrained part of our routine, so can we push ourselves beyond our writer’s cave to try whatever seems intimidating.

A vivid character needs to be large, bold, colorful, unrestrained, and active.

Let’s examine these separately, starting with the last adjective.

An active character is up and doing, not sitting on the sofa as an observer. An active character has opinions and isn’t afraid to express them. An active character enters confrontations, faces opposition, and attempts solutions even if they don’t work out as planned.

An unrestrained character does and says things that we may wish we dared in real life. An unrestrained character butts in. An unrestrained character gets involved. An unrestrained character may have few scruples, low ethics, and act impulsively. An unrestrained character will fall into trouble, but can probably climb right back out of it. An unrestrained character is daring, unpredictable, and jolly fun to write about.

A colorful character is so busy and uninhibited that he or she can’t help but jump off the page. A colorful character will be hard for readers to forget, whether it’s because she always wears purple socks and orange sneakers or because he drives a silver Lotus or because she dons a blue cape and can fly like the superhero she is.

A bold character is all of the above. A bold character refuses to be put in a corner. A bold character will see someone lurking in a corner and make him come out of there. A bold character takes the chances others won’t and seizes opportunities no one else has noticed. A bold character is the one that shows up, steps up, and stands up. A bold character may be a rebel or a natural leader. A bold character sweeps past while others hesitate.

A large character is exaggerated. A large character is every quality you want him or her to have–only bigger. A large character can be heard in the back row. A large character is unforgettable.

With this in mind, you must put these qualities on the page. Remember that readers can’t read your mind. They’ll never know what you don’t provide. And even if they decide your big, bold, colorful, unrestrained, active character is wild–chances are they’ll laugh or gasp first with amazement, and then fall in love with your vivid creation.

Making Progress

Just letting you know that I am pouring every spare moment right now into revising my book on revision. Fortunately this week–so far!–I haven’t suffered serious power outage like many of my friends. However, there are flickers and blinks.

Even as I just typed the above paragraph, the power cut off then back on. Yikes!

Needless to say, entering my corrections into the book’s document file is flirting with danger. My nerves today have suffered enough of that.

And, yes, if you’re wondering … I compose on the computer, then print out a paper version and proofread it with manual line editing with a red, green, or bright pink pen–whatever strikes my fancy. I stick with the same ink color through a single pass. As I go back through, I’ll change color to something else. That way, I know what draft I’m on. It mattered less in the past, when I could really concentrate on editing. These days, I’m so frequently interrupted that I need every device, method, and gimmick I can find to stay on track.

Once I’m done line editing, I then get back on the computer and enter my corrections. Laborious? Yes. Tedious? Sometimes. Necessary? I think so.

Why don’t I just edit off the computer screen and save myself all that work?

Because I do that, too. And because I comprehend better from paper. I work faster from paper.

A few years ago, the Smithsonian conducted a study that showed human comprehension is greater from reading paper than screen. Since their findings validated my already-formed opinion, I’m sticking with it.

We each have our own habits, our own methods.

October has been wild and crazy on the personal front. Sometimes I lift my head and ask myself, where did my favorite month go? Could I rewind, please, and have a chance to enjoy it?

Now I’m thinking, can November be put on pause so I can maybe, despite everything, finish this book? But instead I should just be satisfied to have power restored and operating smoothly. Then I at least have a chance to make deadline.

Explain the Game

The sibling genres of Fantasy and Science Fiction feature unknown worlds, unusual inhabitants, and extraordinary adventures. They carry readers into lands of enchantment or embed them into a matrix of the fantastic.

Although this holds tremendous appeal and draws readers like bees to honey, it presents writers with the challenge of how to make the unknown knowable without getting in the story’s way.

After all, description and exposition are the two slowest-paced modes of discourse in writing. If allowed to continue too long, they bog down the story or stop it altogether. Traditional fantasy is especially prone to the awful explanatory info-dump at a story’s opening, where the hapless but eager writer shoves page after page after page after page of background, mythology, history, and foretellings of the as-yet-unborn protagonist’s destiny at readers.

Writers can’t toss aside description altogether. That leaves readers disoriented, with next-to-no way of imagining the settings or characters.

Background–if pertinent–can’t be dodged either. There’s so much to learn if readers are to understand what’s happening and why.

Fortunately, there are solutions. Here are a few:

Take your time. You don’t have to explain everything in a single, twenty-page passage. Inject a paragraph here and there as you go, supplying the bare minimum of information to help readers understand ramifications or context of what’s happening in the story action.Explain immediately before or after an exciting scene. This will help position your characters for an upcoming conflict or, immediately following a scene, it will help your viewpoint character–and readers–process what just happened.Avoid long explanations during slow spots in your story. Are you becoming bogged down in the middle of your story, where your characters are slogging along on their quest to the fabled caverns of Mitharia and have nothing to do except choke on road dust and explain to each other why it’s so important to go there, defeat the demons now guarding the ancient treasure, and solve the riddles an oracle will ask before letting them inside? You might suppose, given that no action is happening, that this would be the perfect place to inject lots and lots of background information. WRONG! Do not place slow informational passages in a plot’s slowest spots. (Use Suggestion #2.)Dialogue of information is bad. No one is forbidding your characters from discussing their situation. Dialogue of information, however, is where two characters who already fully know and understand a story problem are discussing it solely to inform readers. It comes across as hokey and stilted and artificial.Let your characters USE their props and gadgets instead of marveling at them. No matter how fantastic such items might be to readers, the characters should treat them as part of everyday life without pausing the story for descriptive admiration. After all, do you admire the sleekness of your iPhone each time you pick it up to check your inbox, Instagram feed, or weather report? (Only if you just bought a new phone, perhaps.)Make description as vivid and specific as possible. This will not only strengthen your writing, but it will help you keep necessary description short and effective. Consider the following: The dagger was ornate and shiny. It was long with a curved point. It had obviously been designed for use in ceremonies since it was too fancy for any common purpose. The hilt seemed heavy, but that’s because it was ornamented with many jewels and probably made of solid gold. Now compare it with this: Johan picked up the heavy ceremonial dagger, glittering from its jeweled hilt down to the wickedly sharp point of its curved silver blade. “How many sacrificial throats have you sliced, my beauty?” he murmured.Improve your verbs. Avoiding the flabby weakness of to-be verbs not only strengthens writing but also serves a descriptive purpose. For example: The door dilated open. That conveys an immediate image in a reader’s mind of a round orifice spiraling open. It also shows readers a glimpse of the setting’s unique architecture.Put nomenclature to work. All of the places, plants, animals, geographical features, cities, etc. that writers invent will require names. While it’s fun to generate exotic ones, make them descriptive to help readers comprehend the object quickly. For example: stingfly instead of jornak.