Larry Brooks's Blog, page 15

One From the Heart

Some of you may be aware that I’m now also blogging on The Kill Zone, which for me is like being asked to do a regular TED talk (a goal that remains in my sites, by the way).  Nine published thriller/mystery authors post daily (rotating the hot seat) on cross-genre writing topics.

Today is my turn (every other Monday), and the post is perhaps the most personally resonant I’ve written anywhere, while leading directly into the heart of what makes one writing career more successful than another.  Sometimes it goes back to your Square One/Day One starting point on this journey, which can take years to unwind and reboot if you get that wrong.

I’d like to share it with you.

Click HERE to access.

It might end up being a personal experience for you, as well.

The post One From the Heart appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Case Study – The New Writer TRAP That Awaits The Unaware

As readers, we consume a lot of average content.

And sometimes average is perfectly fine, it fills thirty blank minutes of staring at a television or 90-plus minutes of munching popcorn in a dark theater with perfectly reasonable satisfaction, an ROI of our time that doesn’t feel like a ripoff.

Then again, if that’s the case our expectations may not have been all that high in the first place.  Turn on an episode of Broke Girls and you probably know exactly what you’re getting.

It can be like a good hamburger or a cold beer in that regard.  The worst you ever had was… just fine.

But where novels are concerned…

… as new writers we need to understand the nature of the line between average and professionally-competitive, as well as the expectations of established writers versus the rest of us.

It boils down to this: as a new writer, if you turn in an “average” manuscript, the overwhelming odds are you won’t publish it.  Or if you slap it up on Amazon as a self-published author, the odds are just as overwhelming that you will be underwhelmed by the results.

Then again, if your name is John Green or David Baldacci or Nelson Demille, things are quite different.  Because in the real world there will always be a certain percentage of people who consider a story average, even if critics and readers have elevated it to the level of a bestseller. Over a third of the people reviewing The Davinci Code (which sold over 80 million hardcovers) rated it three stars or fewer, which is as average as average gets.

If the goal is to be better than average, then you better understand what that really means.

Today’s case study is a case in point.  

No doubt this author thought his story idea exceeded average. We all do, at first. There’s no explanation for that… and therein resides the trap.

There isn’t a thing wrong with this story idea… other than the observation that there is far too little about it that is anything other than average. The bar it reaches for is somewhere between eye level and the top of one’s head, you don’t even need to reach to get there.

Of course, the author believed this — and thus, this particular level — was just fine.  Ready for submission fine.  Which is the trap we fall into as new authors: our gauge of average versus excellent versus professional isn’t yet ready for the real world of publishing.

This case study is from my Quick Hit Concept/Premise analysis service, which takes a snapshot of your story’s chances in the open market.  Agents, editors and readers look at concept and premise in the very first nanosecond of consideration, and their attention dwells there long enough to make a decision about your story.  A verdict.  Or at least, create context and expectation for everything that follows.

Get this wrong — or in this case, fail to get it right enough – and your chances are dead in the water before the agent or editor will read to the end of your query letter.

Read this case study — The Need for More — and see what average, the complete lack of anything exciting or stimulating, looks like.

Then consider your own story at the concept/premise level, and ask yourself how exciting those agents and editors — who have seen thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of stories in your genre, making them damn hard to surprise and impress — will think.

Is your story concept really fresh and exciting and compelling?

This is something you need to know before you write it, and certainly before you submit it.

Click here to read what I have dubbed: The Need for More.

Feel free to chip in your thoughts, that’s the least we can do for this writer, who was considerate and brave enough to share this with us, no doubt in the hope that someone will help unlock the potential in this idea, an idea he thought was strong enough to compete.

*****

If you’d like your story concept and premise evaluated, click HERE for more information.  It’s only 49 bucks (reading this case study is more than a preview of what you get, it’s the entire Questionnaire itself), and it can save you a year of drafting the wrong story… or at least a story that’s simply not right enough yet.

Case Study – The New Writer TRAP That Awaits The Unaware is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post Case Study – The New Writer TRAP That Awaits The Unaware appeared first on Storyfix.com.

The Irrefutable Algebra of Story

Don’t be scared off by the implication of forthcoming mathematics.  

I know, writers aren’t known for their affection for numbers, but I promise you this particular story problem will be right up your alley.

This post is inspired by a recent story coaching client who answered this question — What is the core dramatic arc of your story? — with this response: My story is about a woman seeking to discover her roots to find out who she really is.

This answer, almost to a word, is very common. It is also, as a story development metric, almost completely worthless.

That said… it may be fine (too often it isn’t) if the context is a cocktail party or passing an acquaintance on the street, or as the first line of a premise that goes on to offer more.  And it’ll look great on the back cover of a trade paperback.  But as a window into the story itself, its source of drama and action and character arc… as a test of the writer’s awareness of what a story actually requires… as something that really answers the question about dramatic arc… this all-too-familiar answer falls far short.

It is missing the dramatic heart and soul of the story itself.

But as a pitch — this being germane because an agent will almost certainly ask you this question in some form or another — this answer is a disaster, with a one hundred percent certainty that the agent or editor sitting across for you (or on the receiving end of your email) will ask you what the hell that even means… by asking you to describe what happens in the story.

Which you haven’t accomplished with the answer you’ve given.  Dramatic arc is what happens… which means you’ve just outed yourself as being new and uninformed.

Actually, that’s not accurate… make that less then 100 percent, because some agents will trash your pitch based on such an answer alone.

Because, you see, “finding out who she is” is an outcome.  

It is a goal, something the hero pursues.  It is a dependent consequence of what the hero actually does to reach that goal, but without telling us what that might be.  Drama doesn’t reside in the outcome, it is found on the path that leads to an outcome.

Such an answer is more an idea, an intention, than a workable story.  It’s like saying you want to be rich… worthless without a plan.  It is the kind of thing that occurs to a writer in the first minute of awareness of the story idea, rather than an outcome of weeks and months of cultivating what you might do with such an idea.

Too often it indicates that you don’t really know what to do with your idea.

When that agent asks for more detail, you better have a meaningful answer at the ready.  Which, if your original answer is any clue, you probably don’t.

Let’s look at this in algebraic terms.

This isn’t an equation, nor is it a formula.  Rather, is is a universal calculation and construct of fiction, a postulation that applies to and empowers any story in any genre.

Let’s call your hero X.  Then let’s call your story resolution, that outcome you are in love with, Z.   Which too often leads only to this: “In my story, X pursues Z.”

Again, that answer is a terrible, fatal way to pitch your story.  Because…

Do you notice something missing?

Let’s hope you do.  It’s not math, in this context, this is first grade English — we’re missing a Y component, because the fuller, better, more professional sequence is X, Y and then Z.

X deals with, encounters and confronts Y… to reach Z.   The math is that simple.

Let me say, before I go any further, that this broken hypothesis — X pursues Z — has caused more rejections than you can imagine, because when the attention turns from pitch to manuscript too often an author who would indeed pitch it without the Y element would also write it without a full and properly formed Y element.

Which is a deal killer each and every time.  X and Z are easy… it’s Y that separates the dreamers from the doers.

Because Y is what the story is all about.  

Y is the dramatic arc of a story.

Let me repeat that.  It’s not X, the hero… not Z, the outcome… the dramatic arc of the story is Y.

Y is the narrative itself.  Y is where the scenes are.  Y is where conflict comes in.  Y is action and decision leading to further action and decision.  Y is the stuff of story sequence and structure.  Y is the catalyst for character arc.  Y is the vessel for the conceptual essence of the story. Y is what the reader engages with, roots for, empathizes with and relates to.

Y is the path that leads to Z.

And yet, too many new writers leave it out completely when pitching their story.  

Which is a sure bet they don’t understand the value of the Y component in their story.  It’s like pitching The Hunger Games like this: My story is about a girl who must overcome a dystopian society ruled by a cruel President.

Tell me that doesn’t completely leave out the entire heart and soul of that story.  It’s not wrong, per se, merely incomplete in a way th at renders it ineffective.  But what is does do is demonstrate the lack of a nuanced understanding on the part of the author, who hasn’t demonstrated that they know what makes a story tick.

Agents and editors have an ear for that, just as much as they are listening for the story itself.

Here’s the real algebra of a story that works:  

The hero (X)… must engage with, confront, battle, navigate, outwit, outplay, overcome or defeat an antagonist (all this comprising Y)… in order for a specified outcome (Z), which is the hero’s goal, to manifest within the story.

It boils down to this.  Feel free to print this out and tape it to your monitor:

A story is not just about something.  Not just, or primarily, about a character, a setting, a theme, an issue, a piece of history, or an ending.

Rather, a story is about WHAT HAPPENS to reach whatever conclusion serves the natural outcome of scenes that depict conflict stemming from a hero with a goal and an antagonist that opposes that goal.

Some writers read those two sentences and can’t see the difference.  Those writers are in for a long haul, because the second sentence is where the gold is.  It is what professionals know and they don’t.

That second sentence is the key to everything.

Wrap your head around this at both the contextual and narrative level, and you will have, merely by doing so, risen into the top quartile of unpublished writers striving to lose that tag.

*****

Our friend Art Holcomb (check out his blog) has supplied us with an illuminating video and short article on “The Power of Storytelling,” where this math will be obvious.

*****

If you’re interested in seeing how you’d do – which means, seeing where you are on the story learning curve – with one of those Coaching Questionnaires, see the menu to the left, or click HERE for more information.

 

The Irrefutable Algebra of Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post The Irrefutable Algebra of Story appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Fiction Writing 101: Learning to Skate

Writers like to debate things that have absolutely no interest to the rest of the world. Like the difference between an analogy and a metaphor.

Looking it up can be as confusing as trying to convince your know-it-all English teacher – or a writer – one way or the other.  Because an analogy is defined as “A resemblance in some particulars between things otherwise unlike.”  While – on the same page – a metaphor is defined as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them.”

My simple take-away from that: a metaphor suggests an analogy.

This is yet another reason why so many writers drink to excess.

I mention this because, as a blogger and writer of books on the craft of fiction, I am guilty of two things: an affection for metaphors and analogies, and a default to repeating them within the same set of categories, one of which is the beloved (or dreaded, depending on which camp you belong to) sports analogy.

So fair warning, here comes another one, right at you.

And I hope you pay attention, because like so many metaphor/analogies aimed at writers, this one is immensely clarifying.

Maybe a little frightening, too.  But in a good way, it if delivers a wake-up call.

Part of what I do is coach writers – specifically, I coach a given project from a writer – through the use of an unflinching questionnaire that absolutely cannot be hidden from.  You either know your own story or you don’t (in terms of knowing it well enough to write it well enough to sell), … or you don’t even know that what means.

It is the sad preponderance of the latter that informs my post today.

This weekend I was working on a response to the longer version of one of my coaching Questionnaires, from a writer with an immense amount of passion for his story.  This, too, is common, but too often that passion becomes moot when the questions themselves ask the writer to define the parts and parcels of the story itself, in context to the function of those parts and parcels.

Passion, in fact, can be the very thing that derails your intentions . Because passion isn’t enough.  Passion without craft – much like dancing on the wing of an airplane or wrestling an alligator – can get you killed.

That’s the catch, you see.  You can’t just toss a bunch of scenes into a manuscript and hope to sell it under the guise of a novel.  Thinking that if you love it enough, that if you explore it every which way, that it will work.

Without craft this doesn’t work, any more than you can dump the contents of your closet into a garbage bag, take it to the flea market and call it a department store.

There I go, metaphors ablaze once again.

After nearly five hours with this project I emerged from my office weakened, exhausted, angry, frustrated and thoroughly convinced that the entire prospect of coaching writers is like preaching to a political constituency that there are two sides to every story.

See? I absolutely cannot help myself.

My wife asked why I was trembling, and why I was rooting through the bottom shelf of our panty looking for what was left of a fifth of scotch left over from our last Christmas party, when in fact I don’t even drink alcohol.

I just wish I drank alcohol after encountering projects like the one I’d just finished.

My search for an answer was getting me nowhere.

“Deep breath,” she said.  “I’m here for you.  Start from the beginning.”

“Okay,” I said,” closing my eyes to pretend I was in my happy place, which looks a lot like a beach with a buffet in a world in which Donald Trump is bald and gagged.

“This is driving me crazy,” I finally got out.  There was a less than colorful adjective in there somewhere, but it behooves neither of us here.

“Obviously,” she replied.

“I mean, this writer… God bless him… couldn’t answer a single question.  He doesn’t even know the difference between a concept and a premise, and when he got going, what he said was his premise totally disappeared into something else.”

“Nobody knows the difference between a concept and a premise,” she offered, thus defining my contribution to the entire writing world… because there is an immense and critical difference between those two story essences.

“He couldn’t answer a single question, not one in the entire questionnaire. And yet he treated it all as if this was the next Mockingbird.”

“Too late,” she said.  “That one releases this weekend.”

“He answered them all, but he understood none of them.  Not one.”

“That, too,” she offered, “is less than surprising.  Not everyone isn’t new at this.”

I nodded until the double negative sunk in, then plowed forward into what is, for us, familiar territory.

“This is the only profession in the world in which people can declare themselves a professional, by virtue of actually creating the product they intend to sell, without having any real sense of the baseline, 101, fundamental principles, architectures, elements and essences that define the very thing they are attempting to engage with.”

She smiled, holding up a hand to stop me from launching down the long list of analogies that clarify this point… doctors… lawyers… pilots… pro golfers… dancers… bridge builders…

… okay, you’re not her, so allow me an analogous expansion of my point…

… imagine someone trying to create a functional piece of software – a pursuit that, like writing a novel, has literally hundreds of variables, variances, elements, gradations of application, it is defined by expectations, precedent, professional standards – without having ever done it before, or worse, without having engaged with the academics and apprenticeship that separates the cans and can’ts without mercy, who can only used software in their job or on Facebook… in a craft and avocatioon that doesn’t hold workshops with a Kumbaya vibe in which everyone will succeed if they really really try hard and be good and just stick with it, a place where there are no bad ideas (pitch a bad idea in a meeting at Oracale and watch the wrath of Larry Ellison befall you), and where the results of failure aren’t death or destruction or bankruptcy – using only their experience as a consumer of doctoring and lawyering and flying in airplanes and sitting in the grandstands and auditoriums…

… as a reader of books who dreams one day of writing one…

… and thinking that, with only the leverage of that consumer experience, even if it is avid, they believe they can actually sit down and do what that legion of trained, tested, accomplished and knowledgeable professionals can do after their 10,000 hours of apprenticeship, even on their first day on the job?

My wife knew this entire list well. 

Because I had been in this verklempt place before after emerging from my office.

My books, my workshops, and the books and workshops of hundreds of others who do what I do, do it better than I do it, as well as the schools and organizations who exist for the sole purpose of preparing writers for this work… it’s all for the delivery of that contextual preparation that is inescapably required before the actual work can stand a chance.

This is why “just write” is perhaps the worst, most uninformed morsel of writing advice… ever.

Here’s what you need to know before your novel will work. 

You need to know what a concept is, what a premise is, and what the difference between them is.  You need to know, or at least subconsciously understand, how to leverage that difference.  You need to recognize both in the published books that are out there, and how and why they are essential.  Do that well enough and you will come to understand why some books are bestsellers and well-reviewed, and why some aren’t.

You need to understand the hero’s quest, the journey of your protagonist, the hero’s arc as it surfs the dramatic arc, how that differs from the memoir, diary, or an episodic wandering through a series of adventures and experiences that you think is a novel, but isn’t.  You need to know how and why these experiential musings are almost never work in a novel.

You need to understand dramatic theory, the role of conflict and tension in a story, the role of antagonism and a collision of agendas.  How and why this is the most powerful essence in all of fiction.

You need to know why practically every MFA graduate I’ve ever met has asked my why they didn’t teach any of this stuff in their school, and why their work remains anonymous when their true heart’s desire is to reach a wider audience that, like them, never really “got” Moby Dick at all.

You need to understand the physics of story structure, how it matters in every story even if it doesn’t matter what the labels are, how it is story, and how that well-intended guy who says “story trumps structure” has created the most misleading, untrue and confusing platitude in the entire history of fiction mentoring, an opinion echoed by every single last writing professional I’ve ever asked about it.

Thank God my book is outselling his.

You need to be able to describe the source and agenda of dramatic tension in your story, the dramatic question posed by your story, the difference between the hero’s goal relative to action and the desired outcome relative to the efficacy of those actions.

You need to know how your story will end before you can write the draft that finally, fully, functionally, works as best as it can, and how to get to that ending regardless of your process.

You need to know that the debate between story planning and story pantsing is a moot and ridiculous waste of time, that process by any name heads toward the exact same destination, and is measured by the exact same criteria and benchmarks.

You need to see through the “wisdom” of famous authors who tell you to do it one way, because it is their way, and… well, see the previous paragraph, then look up the word hubris as context.  The only reason to write 22 drafts of a novel is because you are incapable of nailing it in one or two (and have the wisdom to know this is true), or less than 22, like so many other famous, thoroughly competent and equally famous writers can.

You need to be able to answer the questions.

Which can only happen after you fully understand the questions.

And right there, in that one italicized word, is the difference between every newbie and unschooled and long-suffering failed writer, compared to any writer who still maintains a hope of success, no matter how new they are, because they are still chasing that understanding.

All of that, the entire rambling, slightly crazy, imprecise and irrefutable whole of it, transpired silently between my wife and me over the span of about three seconds of silence.

Because we had been in it together so many times, many of them after I’d emerged from my office with obvious high blood pressure and the urge to throw something heavy through the screen of my computer monitor.

And then, I finally said it.

The best and most concise encapsulation of all of this that had ever escaped my drooling lips… and to my delight, it emerged into the world as a sports metaphor.

“It’s like,” I said softly, reverently, on the cusp of an Epiphany, “like someone who intends to play hockey, who believes they are playing hockey, and doing it at a professional level… before they know how to skate.”

She was already smiling at me.

Nailed it.

They were playing the game, in their own minds, before they had learned to skate.

This, in an avocation in which you must know how to skate at an unthinkably astute and advanced level.  You can’t fake not knowing how to skate.

I was mentoring too many writers who had skipped or undervalued or not yet wrapped their heads around the 1o1 for the trappings of the casual conversation about writing a novel.

Writers who clung to “just write” as the key to the writing kingdom.

You can attend a thousand hockey games, you can memorize the vast canon of hockey history, but if you can’t skate – skate like a maniac on the verge of control, like the professionals can – then your dream of actually playing the game at that level is…

… well, it’s sadly deluded.

And so the simple question floats between us. 

Dare I ask it of you?

Of course I do.

As we leap from this analogy to the dream of writing novels and selling them for money… I ask you…

… can you skate?

Before you pick up a stick or put on a helmet… before you strap on the pads and pronounce words like about and process as if you’ve never set foot outside of Ottawa…

… if you can’t completely and with full assurance define and apply all of those terms and concepts and elements and essences of writing fiction as quoted earlier in that unspoken three second rant to my wife…

… if even a piece of that isn’t yet second nature to you…

… how, then, do you expect to stay upright next to the player who can skate… skate to the extent they completely forget about the ice in deference to the nuance and the bliss of the game itself?

There’s nothing wrong with being new at this, we all were at one point.

There’s nothing long with having things we still need to learn… we’re all in that boat, as well.

But sanity, and well as hope, resides in knowing with certainly where you are on the learning curve.  Because that defines the nature and scope of the work before you.

For the love of Stephen King (a metaphor for God?), at least learn the basics.  And at least use those first manuscripts as a vehicle toward that learning, rather than pounding out 400 pages of utter naive cluelessness that is destined to break your heart – because someone you’ve paid to tell you the truth will tell you the truth, even if it makes him crazy – because you really don’t know what a dramatic premise must say and do, you really don’t understand the role of confrontation and conflict in the beautiful arc of your characters, and you haven’t accepted the principles and criteria and essences that will define and measure all of it, for all of us, one way or another, once we stamp the word FINAL on the draft that we end up submitting.

With this, I will offer one more analogy for you…

… and it is as irrefutable as, well, as it’s own name, even for those who are offended by or sick of or seeking to diminish what is true for just those thin reasons.

Those principles, the ones you may discard or not yet know, are like gravity.

And nobody with a brain can deny, defy or mess with gravity.

Harness it, maybe.  But only if you understand it first.

And like gravity, the principles of writing effective fiction don’t care what you call them, or even if you believe in them. But they will kill or cripple you if you proceed without honoring them – just like gravity – just as they will elevate you to unfathomable heights, like a beautiful bird, once you understand how to harness their power.

Gravity and hockey.  That’s all you really need to understand.

Learn to skate.  Do that, and gravity will serve you as you begin to understand the game.

*****

If you still dare, consider tackling one my coaching Questionnaires (there are several levels and focuses available), as described in the column to the left of this post, and the Coaching page that explains them further. 

If there’s a weakness in your story it will be exposed, and if there’s an opportunity to take it to a higher level there’s a strategy for that, as well.

My objective is not to kill your writing dream.  Rather, it is to give it wings.

Or, if you prefer… skates.

Fiction Writing 101: Learning to Skate is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post Fiction Writing 101: Learning to Skate appeared first on Storyfix.com.

A Post for the New, Unsure, Intimidated First-time Novelist

If you’re considering writing a novel, if you’re serious about it but not certain where or how to start, or you’re simply intimidated by the sheer mystery of the process… I have some good news to share with you:

That’s a good thing. You should be intimidated.

But you shouldn’t be confused about where and how to start.

First time novelists who are not intimidated by the mountain of principles and criteria that inform this craft, who come to the process of writing a novel armed only with their experience as a reader (which translates to this: you’ve read a novel, or decades worth of novels, and you believe you can do as well, that it’s not that hard – beginning, middle and end, that’s all there is to it, right?), who think they’ve intuitively assimilated the necessary arc and flow of story and character…

… if that’s you…

… then you already stand apart from those other folks who are sheepishly standing outside the writing room, into which you’ve charged confidently.

Which group would you choose?

Again, if you’re looking at the prospect of writing a novel and you’re not sure how to start, you’re one of the lucky ones.  Because you are about to get that answer.

By enrolling in a process of learning the principles before you write your novel, rather than using the process of writing as the means of that learning, you’ll be years ahead and medically on safer ground than the confident, naive writer who thinks this is something you just sit down and do.

Because the weight of writing in ignorance will most certainly crush you, sooner or later.

A quick story.

Back in the day I wrote corporate media for a living, and had a few young writers working for me. One of them was from a small town in Washington, where his father was the town’s go-to physician. A man to whom everyone looked for help, for wisdom, and for information. The First Citizen of everything within a hundred miles.

Easy for such a social context to go to your head, I would think. That’s certainly what happened here.

My co-worker’s father had always wanted to write a novel. He was a big Tom Clancy fan, so that was the genre he chose – technically complex military intelligence novels dripping with testosterone. He’s read hundreds of ‘em. Knows that game inside and out.

So upon retiring, he announced that writing his novel would be his first order of business. He had a title, and was already sending letters to agents and telling his friends what a great movie will result from the novel he’s working on. Harrison Ford would star.

And he was dead serious.

I asked my friend if his father had taken in any learning, via writing conferences or how-to books. He said no, his expression dropping. He added that when he’d posed this question to his father, the response had something to do with having spent years healing disease and taking out rotting organs from sick patients, saving lives and healing disease, so how damn hard can writing a novel actually be?

Nobody within that hundred miles dared challenge that belief system.

Three weeks passed.

One day I asked my friend how his father was doing with the novel, if he had started yet. The answer made me choke back laughter. Because his father had finished his final draft, a week earlier.

All 112 pages of it.

That was 22 years ago. Since then I’ve occasionally looked for Dr. X’s name on Amazon.com, but it never pops up. Maybe he changed his mind. Maybe he wrote a dozen or so more 100-page spy novels without having a clue what he was doing wrong, no doubt complaining that the game is rigged, or at least unfair.

Life has a way of teaching us that which we refuse to acknowledge. And when it does, it’s usually not pretty.

Who knows. But I know one thing… he was in that writing room too soon, that’s for sure.

A Few Initial Goals for the New Novelist

1. You need to figure out what kind of novelist you want to be, process-wise.

Not in terms of what genre you’ll write within, but rather, how you’ll go about writing your novels.

There are two polar opposite means of writing a novel, with infinite gradations of middle ground that most writers end up engaging with to some degree. But to begin, you should attempt to understand if you are a…

- A Story planner (also known as a plotter)… one who seeks to discover as much as possible about the story before starting in on a draft, including the developed premise, the character and his/her backstory, the core dramatic question leading to a core dramatic arc, the opening hook… the first plot point… the midpoint… the exposition across the four contextual quartiles of the story… and most important of all, the ENDING.

That’s right, you need to know your ending before you can ever write a draft that works at a professional level.  Professionals know that.  New writers need to know that.

But there’s another way to cover all these bases, which is by adopting the approach of…

- A Pantser… or, someone who writes a draft by the seat of their pants. This is just as viable an approach as is story planning… but only if you understand that your early drafts are the means of discovering your story, and that a draft absolutely cannot and will not ever work until you fully discover the story, including how it ends.

And, it won’t work until you are in possession of the requisite knowledge that will empower your pantsed drafts toward effectiveness.

People who tell you to pants, that this is the best and only way to do it… they know. You don’t. So pick your process carefully.

Some writers are pantsers by default.

Because they have no idea how to plan a novel.

Others write that way because it brings the best out in them.  They’ve learned the ropes to the extent required to make this approach work.

Write this down: the criteria, benchmarks and content of story are not process-dependent.

A story doesn’t care how you wrote it, but it does care about the infrastructure and resonance within the narrative itself. All of which are principle-driven and not something you get to make up on your own, any more than you can hit a golf ball any direction you want and still be playing the game of golf.

The criteria for success are exactly the same for both of these approaches. Ignorance is an equal-opportunity dream killer, whether you plan or pants your stories.

You have to know what and how to plan or pants before either will work. 

Most new writers adopt the pantsing mode at first, sometimes on the advice of experienced and even famous writers. But consider this: how can you possibly know what those experienced and famous writers know, which is essential to their success as a novelist who uses drafts to find and develop your story?

You can’t. Neither can a story planner who doesn’t have all that in their head.

Which leads us to recommendation #2:

2. Discover the principles of craft…

… which are out there hiding in plain site, everywhere you look, but for the most part are foreign to readers who haven’t anointed themselves as authors. It’s like flying in an airplane in this regard – you’ve been sitting back there in coach for years, observing how a plane backs up from the gate, taxis to the runway, hits the gas, pulls up, retracts the gear, and then finds a heading toward the given destination.

Soft drinks and crackers ensue.

But I ask you… does that experience qualify you to sit up front in the cockpit and actually fly the damn thing? To do so safely?

Of course it doesn’t.

Become a student of craft.

Seek it out, immerse yourself in it. I have two writing books out (Story Engineering and Story Physics) that will help you, with a third coming out in October, and there are dozens of other good books on the topic. Read James Scott Bell and Randy Ingermanson for starters. The 101 is absolutely essential.

Know that there are surprises awaiting you. Common structural and narrative paradigms that show themselves in every publishable story, almost without exception. New writers don’t know them, any more than you’d know how to bring a patient out of anesthesia if you found yourself alone in an operating room.

Feel free to write as you go. Just know that the worst advice in the history of writing is “just write,” if that means you do so without also seeking and discovering the principles that every single published and publishable novelist relies on.

You may think you know them because you are an avid reader, but I promise you, you don’t. Not until they are shown to you in the context of story development. And then…

3. Study the principles in the real world of fiction, both books and films.

Once initiated, there are things about every single story you’ll read or watch that you didn’t notice before, things that are as essential to the story working as landing gear is to getting that airplane down safely.

Once introduced to this stuff, you can’t unsee it. You will suddenly see behind the curtain of what makes a story effective… when perhaps you didn’t even realize there is a curtain.

Go hunting for knowledge. At first the principles might just hang there in front of you, seemingly context free, and you might view them as formulaic. Fair enough, but you’ll soon learn that formulaic is the wrong word, any more than the presence of a beating heart in your chest being essential to your life is formulaic.

4. Play the long game.

Here’s a formula for you, one that never fails: knowledge plus affirmation plus application plus perseverance equals… not necessarily success as a certainty, but it ensures your membership to the club. It gets you into the writing room in a way that is authentic, surrounded by folks who know what you know.

In closing…

… since I’ve used this analogy twice now, let me share something a reader of this website said to me a few years ago. He, too, was a doctor… a brain surgeon, in fact.

He said that, like my friend’s father, he believed there was nothing he could not learn and do intuitively, because by necessity he was intuitive for a living, cracking into the skulls of patients not sure what he’d find, terrible black smears of death, using his intuitive base of knowledge to do what must be done to save that life.

He’d taken all the basic principles that got him to that place for granted, because he could.  They had become second nature.

And now, as he also sought to become a novelist, he realized something to be true, something that he’d never imagined or considered, or would have rejected had someone told him. And that is… the amount of core baseline knowledge that a successful writer of novels must have, must internalize to the point they become the stuff of intuition, the number of variables in play, is every bit as complex and voluminous as his work as a brain surgeon, because both are issues of nuance, variance, perception and irrefutable science, rendered with high art.

And both have lines on the playing field you cannot cross, because death is the outcome if you do.

Or you can hang out in that writing room, huddled in a corner with my friend’s father, looking for comfort as you realize, beginning with your first attempt, that this notion of writing a novel is two things:

It is bigger than you are, if you haven’t honored the level of craft required. It’s like so many professions and avocations in that regard, it looks easy from that seat in coach, but you’ll be dead or humbled within seconds if you don’t have the requisite knowledge backing your intentions.

And then, this being the good news, the great and astounding news, is that the journey can be blissful. Because it demands that you become one with the requisite craft.

Once joined, it will never fail you.

It’s all out there. Point your journey toward it, and write your novels in humble context to all you learn and all you observe.

Once you know, rather than find yourself guessing, write your story any way you choose.

All of us, published or not, are engaged in that dance.

*****

Check out my latest post over at The Kill Zone Blog, this one entitled: “The Secret Compartment in the Writers Tool Box.”

 

A Post for the New, Unsure, Intimidated First-time Novelist is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Story Structure, Take One – A Guest Post by Robert Arrington

One writer’s dance with the principles of structure, and an honest self-analysis of the result.

 

Well, it’s been a wild 18 months of effort for me, but I have finally succeeded in putting my first novel, The Wonderland Effect, to bed, and it is out there attempting to make its way in the world. If you haven’t heard about it yet (probably most of you are in this camp) it’s a YA fantasy story that fits into the superhero subgenre.

In the process of realizing my vision, I’ve learned a lot about a lot of things: maintaining a writing schedule, navigating the paths and pitfalls on the road to self-publishing and marketing, and, thanks to Storyfix.com, how to structure my story properly. I may not have managed everything perfectly on my first attempt, but Larry’s book, Story Engineering, was my guide in setting up the major events in my book, and I’m certain it’s a better work because of his advice.

Since you’re reading this guest blog entry on Larry’s site, I’ll just assume you are already familiar with the benefits of giving your story a proper structure (and if you’re not, there are dozens of posts here to that effect). So rather than covering a lot of old ground, I thought I’d just look back on the experience and see how well I did in spacing my plot points and transitions between the four acts of the narrative.

I prefer the “Hero as…” designations for the acts, so that’s what I’ll use here. If you need a quick refresher, the four acts are

1. Hero as Orphan (the setup quartile)

2. Hero as Wanderer (the response quartile)

3. Hero as Warrior (the attache quartile)

4. Hero as Martyr (the resolution quartile)

Here is a short synopsis to help clarify this analysis.

The protagonist, Alice Littleton, has powers that draw on Lewis Carroll’s writings for their inspiration. In the story she is hunted by a powerful paranormal for reasons of his own. During the course of her journey, she encounters a lot of empowered characters close to her own age at Prometheus Academy. Ultimately, when the school is threatened, she must choose between running away and taking a stand with her new friends.

Spoiler Alert: If you have not yet read The Wonderland Effect, and you don’t like having things ruined for you, stop here. Come back once you’re done with the book. Really, you’ve been warned.

Hero as Orphan

At the start of the story, the reader gets to see the hero in her “normal” life, for whatever value of normal works in the setting. During this portion of the story, the writer’s job is to establish audience empathy with the protagonist and show what’s going on in her life before the antagonist comes into her view. What trials or opportunities is she facing? What does she want from life? More importantly, what does she need, and how conscious is she of her need? The antagonist may appear during this portion of the story, although his motives should remain unclear, as should the circumstances that will inevitably draw him into conflict with the protagonist.

At the end of this section comes the inciting incident, which some writers call Plot Point One. Something new arrives in the hero’s life that changes the course of her life in some way, giving her something she must respond to, opening a new path that becomes the spine of the ensuring narrative. As a result, her normal life will be left behind due to the urgency she feels for responding to it. This will give the reader their first clear understanding of the antagonist’s goals and methods, and present the hero with challenges and obstacles she must overcome.

In the Part 1, “Hero as orphan” stage of The Wonderland Effect, Alice’s normal life consists of school and her friendship with Miranda. She needs to establish bonds with others in her peer group, but she uses her powers as an excuse to push people away. She is also starting to cast off her father’s restrictions on the use of her powers, which brings about a disaster by bringing her to Oglethorpe’s attention. The inciting incident comes when Oglethorpe comes to her home and attacks her, and is resolved in their confrontation in Wonderland. This confrontation occurs right on schedule, 25% of the way through the book. So far, so good. This brings us to…

Hero as Wanderer

In this section of the story, the hero has a new found sense of purpose due to the inciting incident, but lacks information. She needs to figure out who the antagonist is, what he wants, and what methods he is likely to employ to achieve his goal. The hero needs time to analyze what she knows, observe and collect additional information, and recruit allies. Her goal is to come up with a plan that will allow her to attack the antagonist, or at least begin to turn the tables on him. But in the meantime, the hero must run and hide. The time for the counter attack has not yet arrived.

This section of the story drives toward the mid-point milestone. New information or awareness will allow the hero to shift gears and the story will move in a new direction because of it. we’ll look at this in slightly more detail in the next section.

Once she returns from Wonderland, Alice is firmly in the “Hero as wanderer” stage in my story. She is uncertain who Oglethorpe’s confederates are or the extent of their reach. In this case, she and her father are literally running away from the situation, and they have no awareness of who their foes really are. They do not even know that Oglethorpe somehow survived his “unmaking” by the Boojum. Potential allies soon appear in the form of Houston, LaRonda, and Scott, which leads to an increased understanding of their situation.

The midpoint milestone arrives when Alice receives (actually, demands) a slot at Prometheus Academy, though at the 45th percentile, this section of the book wraps up a bit early.

Hero as Warrior

The mid-point milestone allows the hero to change her actions. She will stop running, and display a greater tendency to think creatively to address challenges. She will also begin to address her inner demons, those things that are preventing her from attaining the things she needs. In short, she will begin to act courageously and take the fight to her opponent. However, the antagonist’s plans are moving forward as well. Therefore, the hero will not yet be able to win the day.

This section of the story culminates in the second plot point.

The final pieces of the puzzle will fall into place. New information or the act of attaining a crucial resource will make it possible for the hero to achieve victory, which will lead the reader into the final act.

As Alice settles into life at Prometheus Academy, things start to change for the better. She no longer needs to hide who she is, and she finds a good friend in Sarah Thompson, and a romantic interest in her brother, Scott. In addition to reaching out to other students, she discovers she has a real flair for understanding others’ abilities and to note important details. Her campaign against Oglethorpe is derailed by her belief that her foe has died, though the possibility that he has left behind an organization that may want revenge keeps her wary. The pressure goes back up when Oglethorpe reappears and kidnaps her mother and half-sister.

But where is the second plot point? I want to say that it is when she discovers that Elaine is actually behind everything that has happened, at about the 79th percentile. The realization who her true enemy is will allow her to redirect her efforts in a focused manner.

The only problem is that, contrary to Larry’s excellent advice, it isn’t until about 83% of the way through the story that Kirdja assures Alice that she, and she alone, can end Elaine’s threat. Is that crucial? Does this knowledge actually change anything Alice does from that point on? I tend to think not, as I intended this prophecy only to explain why Kirdja and Hector are involved in the events surrounding Alice and Prometheus Academy (maybe Larry will weigh in on this point…hint, hint). At any rate, I’m not considering this “new information” in the sense that Larry discusses, but your opinion may differ. Either way, the plot point comes a bit late in the story, though not, I think, late enough to throw off the story’s balance too severely.

Hero as Martyr

Let’s face it, in most stories the hero does not die. That would limit the writer’s options for putting out the sequel, after all. The point here is not that the hero will die, but that she is fully committed to seeing the conflict through to the end, regardless of the consequences. This is where the stage is set for the final confrontation and a resolution to the conflict imposed by the antagonist and his goals.

There are just a couple of hard and fast rules for this section of the story.

First, the writer cannot introduce additional information in this section of the story. No new characters should be introduced, and the hero should not gain new resources needed to defeat her opponent. If the antagonist’s childhood trauma is key to his defeat, she must have learned about it before this section of the story commences. Violating this rule will weaken the story and give the conclusion a sense of having been forced. Second, the hero must be the primary mover in resolving the conflict with the antagonist. If that duty falls to someone else, the story has the wrong protagonist.

So how does Alice stack up as a warrior?

Her stated goal in returning to Prometheus Academy after her near disaster is not to defeat Elaine, but simply to free her friends of her influence. Still, in the face of overwhelming odds and the likelihood of her death if she comes face to face with Elaine again, Alice is determined to complete the task she has set for herself. Plus, she does not rule out confronting Elaine at some point in the future, once she has identified a weakness she can exploit. So I have no problem seeing Alice’s role at this stage as that of a warrior.

Of course, in the course of her mission, Alice is forced into a confrontation in which she must utterly defeat Elaine or die herself. In the extremis of the struggle, she finally realizes where Elaine’s weakness lies. Her body will regenerate any wound, but her resiliency does not extend to her mind, the spiritual essence that directs the body. The revelation allows Alice to give Elaine her desire, and then use it to destroy the threat Elaine represents forever.

So, to recap, we have a four-act structure with an elongated third act, with the second and fourth somewhat shortened. Plus, depending on how one views the prophecy, a possible violation of the rule against introducing new information in the final act. I’ll give myself a B+ on following Larry’s advice, and try to learn from the experience. I’ll try to do better with the sequel.

What has been your experience with pouring your narrative into the given parameters of the four part structural model, and have you paid a price (via rejection, or online critique relative to pace, character arc, or dramatic tension) for taking those liberties.

Robert Arrington is the author of The Wonderland Effect, available on Amazon.com and other digital venues.  This is his first novel.

Story Structure, Take One – A Guest Post by Robert Arrington is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post Story Structure, Take One – A Guest Post by Robert Arrington appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Pitch Perfect

A new coaching/evaluation service from Storyfix.

 

I’ve been a little scarce here lately, my apologies.

I’ve just returned from a wonderful writing conference in Denver, with the Historical Novel Society.  I taught two sessions amounting to an all day experience, and had a blast with 150 new friends and fellow writers who were as hungry for craft as any group I’ve seen.

With the decks cleared, I’m all set to move forward with more content here on Storyfix.  I hope you’ve enjoyed my guest posters while I’ve been away.

Read me on The Kill Zone blog.

Speaking of content… I have a new post up over at The Kill Zone, where I’m honored to be a new member of this team of esteemed thriller and mystery authors who post some of the best content on writing on the internet.  I’ll be posting every other Monday, with this latest entitled: Essential Answers the Mystery/Thriller Author Must Have.

My first post two weeks ago is available HERE.

Click on over and enjoy the read.

My New Coaching Service

This idea clarified for me this weekend as I worked with those historical authors on the pitches they were about to deliver to agents later in the weekend.

The message was clear: there’s a good, better and best way to deliver a pitch… and there’s an all-too-common way to have it go off the rails.

The solution is structuring the pitch with a solid intro that’s short and concise, defining some combination of concept and premise, with a summarized “this is why readers will love this story” positioning statement, usually highlighting what is unique and fresh about the story they – the agent or editor – is about to hear.  From there you launch into the story, but in a certain way that keeps the agent from nodding off.

The reason this works is the simple fact that agents who attend conferences aren’t usually at their first rodeo, they’ve heard hundreds if not thousands of pitches, and after a while – especially within a given genre – the stories begin to sound the same.

The thing they want to hear more than anything, the reason they came, is to find a story that is indeed fresh and unique, with a sense of craft-savvy oozing from the pores of the writer doing the pitching.

The new service I’m offering is simple.

I’ll read your pitch for $49.  Keep it to one page (I’ll send you a sample/model upon sign up), if for no other reason than this is what agents want to hear in a first pass, either written or face to face.  If they want more they’ll ask… and that’s the point, to give them a reason to want more.

My feedback will be straight-forward relative to the strategy and structure of the pitch, as well as the quality of the presentation (written as a query letter, which easily translates to live delivery for conferences and the occasional hotel elevator), as well as the chops of the story itself.

It’s so easy to tell too much, to go off topic even when you think you’re still telling the story, with certain hot buttons and structural points becoming essential elements.

Feedback will include solutions as well as critique, and includes my read and commentary of your revision based on the initial feedback.

If this sounds timely for you, just use Paypal to enlist, sending $49 to this email (or request billing from me).  I’ll put a Paypal button up on the Storyfix home page soon… for now, just contact me directly.

Wishing you a great writing week.

Larry

A few minutes before the first session in Denver, as the folks are still arriving.

Pitch Perfect is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post Pitch Perfect appeared first on Storyfix.com.

The Three Stages of the Novel-Writing Journey

One writer’s journey from dream to publication, with all the lessons and setbacks and turnarounds that dot the broken road we travel.

 

A guest post by Jennifer Blanchard

 

Let me guess, you dream of publishing a novel; of your book reaching bestseller status and having raving fans. You dream of being able to make a living from writing and publishing novels.

I get you, because I’ve had those same dreams since I was 13 years old. But getting there isn’t quite as easy as you dream it’s gonna be.

My journey to publishing my debut novel has taken 18-plus years—7 of those years actively working on it, 2 of those years spent on the story I published.

Over the course of my journey so far, I’ve found there are really three major “stages” that you go through:

• Stage 1: Oblivious Dream

• Stage 2: The Backtrack

• Stage 3: Now We’re Getting Somewhere

Sadly, most writers spend their lives in Stage 1, refusing to believe that storytelling has a process and principles that need to be in play. They just keep dreaming, keep writing, oblivious that they’re heading nowhere.

You’ll also find a good number of writers in Stage 2, where they spend most of their time learning what it takes to write a novel. But never actually writing. Or if they do write, they don’t finish. They don’t go all the way.

It’s Stage 3 everyone strives for, but few actually get to. Because it takes a lot of hard work, dedication, sacrifices, practice and letting go.

Here’s how my journey unfolded over the three stages:

Stage 1: Oblivious Dream

I spent a good 13 years of my life in this stage.

This is the stage where you’re enamored with the dream: being a bestseller, having a book signing, going on a book tour. The stage where you have no idea what you’re doing, but you either don’t know or don’t care. So you sit down and start writing, to see what comes out.

I did this hundreds of times over the 13 years. Starting, stopping, starting over again, starting something new, never getting anywhere.

Back in 2008, I wrote my first novel. Pantsed the whole thing. And then I spent another year writing and rewriting and rewriting. Still not getting anywhere.

I was frustrated. I was pissed off. I had a ton of stories bouncing around inside me, but I couldn’t figure out how to make any of them work on paper.

I so badly wanted to get my stories out there. So I decided it was time to learn what I was missing.

Stage 2: The Backtrack

I call this stage the Backtrack because this stage is really step one in the novel-writing process. But 99 percent of writers skip over it and think they just intuitively know how to write a novel.

This is the stage where you make it your mission to become a student of story. To go back and learn what it takes to write a novel you can publish.

I had taken every fiction writing class I could get my hands on. Read every book under the sun about writing novels. And yet I couldn’t make my stories work. So I knew there had to be some vital information I was missing.

At this point in my journey, around the beginning of 2010, I went on a hunt.

And that’s when I found an article by Larry Brooks on story structure. I swear I heard trumpets in my head. It was like all the gaps and holes left by my previous fiction education got filled in.

All stories must have structure, they must have specific plot points occur at certain times and places in the story. Boom.

A life-changing moment I will never forget.

For months I studied every article, every eBook, everything written by Larry Brooks that I could find. I immersed myself in story. I dedicated myself to it.

I watched movies every day, sometimes twice a day, breaking down the structure, the scene missions, and really trying to wrap my head around the whole storytelling thing. I read books, studying the structure.

And toward the end of the year I had a thought: I need to teach story structure to writers, so they didn’t waste years of their lives writing stories that go nowhere.

Even though I was still learning, I knew I was a step further than the writers who were coming to me for help. And I kept expanding my education, reading more books by Brooks and anyone else I could find who aligned with Larry’s teachings (Randy Ingermanson, Syd Field, etc).

I even hired Larry to analyze two of my story plans, to see if I had anything viable yet.

My first story needed a lot more development, but he said my second story could work and be interesting, if I fixed my Premise.

Stage 3: Now We’re Getting Somewhere

This is the stage where you’ve learned enough and absorbed enough storytelling information and had enough practice at writing, where you are now able to turn out stories with publishing potential.

I spent three years in Stage 2, before I was able to move into Stage 3 (and I’d add that you never really leave Stage 2, because storytelling is a life-long journey, and you have to be committed to always being a student of story). Larry’s analysis of my story is what allowed me to move to Stage 3.

Because now I was getting somewhere. Now I had an idea that was viable, if executed properly.

I spent the next two years working through how to properly execute this story. But for the first time, I didn’t write several drafts in order to find my story.

Instead, I used a specific story planning and development process that allowed me to work through all the details of my story, including structure and scene architecture.

Once I felt really good about my story roadmap, then and only then, did I sit down to write the draft. When I finished it two short months later, I knew I finally had something with potential.

Of course, there were still edits and tweaks that were needed, but I was close. Much closer than I’d been previously.

I worked through a specific revision process to make sure the story worked, beginning to end. And then I gathered a team of people to help me with the final polish: an editor and Beta Readers.

I did it, I made it to the end. I finished a story.

And the story was actually good.

On June 16, I released this story into the world. My debut novel, SoundCheck, is now available on Amazon.

 

I credit this achievement to my willingness to move out of Stage 1 and work through Stages 2 and 3, the ones that most writers never get to.

There’s a hell of a lot more to writing a publishable novel than you even realize. My entire process, from story plan to published novel, only took me about 7 months.

But I had 17 months (plus 16 years) of fear, doubt, Resistance, perfectionism, procrastination and distractions to contend with. All of this wrapped around the 7 months it actually took for me to finish this novel.

Is my debut novel perfect?

No. No such thing. There’s always something you can do to improve it. Always some way to make it better.  But it’s a novel from my heart, shaped with a keen understanding of craft, and my beta readers tell me its good.

Some say, really good.

At some point, you have to call it done.

You have to say, I’ve made it through all three Stages, this is my best work to date and I know my next one will be even better.

Some Super-Secret Tips No One Ever Talks About

As you’re working through these three stages of the novel-writing journey, here are some super-secret tips to help you out. These tips come directly from my journey to publishing my first novel.

These tips relate to things no one ever really talks about, but that are a huge part of the novel-writing process:

• Work On Your Mindset—writing a novel takes strengthening your mindset, because if you don’t believe in yourself or believe you can do this, no amount of effort will bring you success. You have to make your mindset match your goal, your desired outcome.

Writers tend to have a lot of negative, limiting beliefs about what’s possible, and you have to transcend all of that to get where you want to go.

• Set Intentional Ways of Being—when it comes to your writing goals, you have to be intentional. You have to know where you’re aiming to come even close. And you have to take consistent action every single day. Intention is a huge part of being successful.

• Commit to the Process—because it’s definitely a process. And you won’t get it right the first time, the second time, maybe not even the third time. But if you’re committed to the process, you’ll eventually get it right.

So many writers give up when things get hard, when all they have to do is take a step back, reevaluate and be willing to let go of what’s not working.

• Have Tools for Busting Through Fear—and distractions, and self-doubt, and perfectionism, and procrastination. All of these things are gonna come up while you’re working through your novel-writing journey, and if you don’t have tools to help you deal with them, you’ll get stopped in your tracks.

What stage are you at on your novel-writing journey?

About the Author: Jennifer Blanchard is an author, award-winning blogger, and story coach who helps serious emerging novelists write, revise and launch their books.

Her debut novel, SoundCheck, is now available. Read more about it HERE.

Want to know what it takes to go from Story Idea to Published in 7 Months? Contact Jennifer through her website to register for my upcoming webinar.

The Three Stages of the Novel-Writing Journey is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post The Three Stages of the Novel-Writing Journey appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Let’s Talk About Dialogue

A guest post by Art Holcomb.

 

Here is a truth about human beings . . .

Before there was writing, there was talking.

Dialogue is the most trusted and most human aspect of story. Sure, we love the action and the conflict, but what we seek in a story in order to make it real for us is what the characters actually say to each other. We often skip to that part in a novel because we find it the most relateable part of any story. It’s what we most naturally connect with.

Dialogue is the vital part of every narrative.

Without it, all you have is description.

As a writing instructor, I spend an extensive amount of time going over the dialogue in my student’s work. . . . Because dialogue IS tough.

Common questions are:

• “How do I make it sound less like writing and more like talking?”

• “How do I decide what need to be said and when?”

• “How do I manage the subtext?”

• “Is dialogue where I put in all the exposition?”

What’s important to note is that these are all issues which plague writers at every level. Getting the dialogue just right is the difference between a story that grips the reader and one that gives them a reason to lose interest and slip away.

But exactly what is dialogue’s role?

Let’s start with what I think is the single most important tool you can have on the subject:

The Purpose of Dialogue is not is to TELL the story.

Because dialogue is really the vehicle for character, theme, mood, plot conflict, mystery, and tension.

Instead of using dialogue to try to spin your tale, we talk about dialogue as the way to:

Deliver the character: We learn more about a character by what they say and how they say it than anything other aspect other than their ACTIONS. Dialogue fills in the sketch of whom these people are and why we should care about them in the first place. Perhaps the most important decision a writer makes is not just what the individual characters say, but also when they say it and whether they should say it at all.

Entertain: Think about the last book you read or movie you watched. I know I often skip past to the dialogue when I find myself losing interest in the writing. I think I intuitively think that dialogue offers me the best chance to RECONNECT with the story.

Dialogue is how we hear the humor and the angst, the way we access the emotions, the way we gauge tension, and understand the level of conflict at any point. All these things add to our enjoyment of the story. Dialogue is the equal partner to action; it is the way we fill in the blanks about the characters we long to understand and bond with.

Point to subtext: Dialogue hints and insinuates. It informs and enlightens. It persuades and sways. It whispers its little secrets to our willing ears. And it confirms or denies our judgments about what we’re reading in a more powerful way that action ever could.

Create anticipation: Dialogue is one way the audience is made to “work for their supper”. No story wants to give the reader everything. Mysteries, clues and innuendos are so often first offered through dialogue. And that keeps the audience guessing about what’s coming next.

And if they’re engaged, they’ll keep reading.

So, I have my students keep in mind the following:

1. Each bit of dialogue must have a mission and a goal within the scene. If it’s not doing one of the four points above, CUT IT!

2. Less is truly more. You need to learn how to make your words powerful. Chose just the right word at just the right moment and you’ve made that important character/audience connection that will keep your fans coming back time and time again.

3. Dialogue should seem easy and natural, but that’s not the same as simple. It takes much more workmanship and craft to write a short, potent passage than a long one. If more writers understood this, we’d probably have less mediocre trilogies and more powerful individual novels.

4. Always make it accessible: write “said” and “asked” most of the time, instead of using hissed, begged, stammered and the like, and use the accompanying action to reinforce your meaning. It will make a much greater impact.

5. Dialogue often controls the pace of the story. Just as shorter narrative sentences produce a sense of urgency, short dialogue moves the story along. Short dialogue also increases the tension in the same way that mystery and suspense can be produce by drawing out the conversation – it’s another way of making the audience work for the experience. Dialogue can be your story’s gas and brakes – use them to your best advantage.

6. Exposition is like cinnamon. In small amounts, cinnamon is a delightful little spice. But did you know that, in large doses, cinnamon is a deadly poison! Treat exposition in the same way. Don’t let one character carry the exposition ball. Toss it around and let it be truly conversational. Your characters should never be eager to give their precious information away in one speech. Remember: a little can go a long way.

7. “On-the-nose dialogue – where the character says exactly what he feels and exactly what he wants – is the antitheses of subtext and can ruin a story. Meaning should always exist just beneath the surface. Each time one of your characters speaks, there are always these twin questions:

• What did s/he mean to say?

• What did s/he really mean?

8. Good dialogue is almost always more about what’s not being said than what is. And the best use of character is revealed in what the character DOESN’T WANT TO SAY versus what he is willing to reveal – what vital tidbit is s/he keeping from us? Remember: what the reader really wants to know is EXACTLY what the character doesn’t want to discuss.

9. Character is also exposed to the reader by the manner in which one character talks to another. The relationship and the depth of characters should always be at stake within these individual exchanges.

10. You can always learn a great deal about the character being spoken to by the way s/he is being addressed by others. It tells you what the speaker thinks of the other person, and that informs you about their relationship.

11. Each line of dialogue contains the voice and personality of the speaker, just as in real life. The way the character speaks should give the reader some of the information that they crave on that vital subconscious level.

12. Make your characters carry the theme – since theme is always important to them in one way of another. Often, the writer doesn’t really understand the theme of his/her own work in the first or even subsequent drafts. When you’re lost about theme, go back and see what arguments your characters are making. Are they advocating for something, challenging a stance or just espousing a position outright? Each story is really an argument of a sort, and the different characters often represent different aspects of that argument. Let them talk– and learn from them.

13. While dialogue itself is not action, the act of speaking is. And all characters are undertaking some kind of action while they’re speaking. They’re kicking the dog, sharpening a knife, pointing a sword, looking shiftily at the floor or staring deep into the other character’s eyes! Use that to inform, punctuate, re-enforced or even deny the truth of what’s being said;

14. Remember: Each character, in his or her own way, demands to be heard – and everything voice contributes something to the story!

15. As the prolific writer and teacher Chuck Wendig reminds us, Story has its own secret laws. One of them is that dialogue needs to be authentic but not necessarily real. Dialogue must sound real – genuine, and convincing – but is never the same as the way that people actually talk – with their long pauses, hems and haws and “you know what I mean”s.

16. Regardless of whether you are a novelist, short story writer or a screenwriter, every work you create is essentially a conversation that YOU are having with one person – the reader! Write like you’re talking directly and honestly to that other person and your writing will never sound like . . . well, like writing.

17. Most important, know where to end it. Dialogue has a beginning, middle and end. Learn to know which is which.

I’ll be teaching more on dialogue as well as giving the Keynote Address at the Greater Los Angeles Writer’s Society Conference in Los Angeles on June 26-28, 2015.

Go HERE for more information.

Let’s Talk About Dialogue is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post Let’s Talk About Dialogue appeared first on Storyfix.com.

You Can Master Classic Story Structure… A Guest Post by Jerry B. Jenkins

Yes, THAT Jerry B. Jenkins. Author of 21 NY Times bestsellers. Over 70 million copies sold. C0-Author of the iconic Left Behind series.
This is as high on the A-list as it gets.

When a guy like Jerry B. Jenkins talks, we should sit up straight and listen. Take notes.  Memorize. 

This post was written by Jerry exclusively for Storyfix because we share a key writing value: the importance and nature of story structure. 

*****

A guest post by Jerry B. Jenkins

Whether they’re wannabes, newbies, or veterans, whether they’re outliners or pantsers (writing by the seat of their pants—putting interesting people in difficult situations and writing to find out what happens, as Stephen King puts it), most tend to ask the same question wherever I speak on fiction writing:

Is there a formula, a structure, for fiction writing?

You’ll be happy to know there is, and that though it has the word classic in it, it’s not all that complicated and can be easily mastered. That won’t in itself make you a better writer, but it can sure make your job easier and more fun.

For sure, you ignore it at your peril.

I discovered it decades ago in How to Write Bestselling Fiction by Dean Koontz, and at the risk of hyperbole, it changed my life. I wanted to write bestselling fiction, so what better book, right? (Unfortunately, the book is out of print and has not been reprinted, so only rare, very expensive copies still exist.)

Fast-forward to the present and I have written more than 185 books, over two-thirds of those novels, have seen 21 of my titles reach The New York Times bestseller list, and have sold 70 million copies.

You don’t need any more evidence that Koontz’s formula works.

With full credit to him, it goes like this:

1. Plunge your main character into terrible trouble as soon as possible.

2. Everything he does to make things better makes them worse.

3. Make sure the last worst thing looks insurmountable.

4. Then your hero succeeds by taking action, based on what he has learned about himself in the midst of all the challenges.

Notes on the Points Above

1. “Terrible trouble” means something different for every genre. For a pot-boiling detective thriller, your hero might have a gun to his head or a contract out on his life. For a British cozy, your heroine might find herself falling in love with a suitor so far beneath her station that she might lose her place within her family. Whatever terrible trouble you choose, be sure it appears overwhelming to your lead character from page one. And remember that readers won’t engage just because of the trouble unless they are made to care about the characters.

2. These self-generated complications must make sense. If your hero’s terrible trouble is that she is being pursued by an attacker, it makes sense that she might smack into someone on the street or even get hit by a car. It stretches credibility for her to run into an old flame, however.

3. Don’t shortchange your reader on the final, worst complication. Even you should be wondering as you’re writing that scene how you’re going to get your character out of it. The more you invest in the all-is-lost scene, the better the payoff when your character triumphs in the end.

4. One coincidence is plenty for a 400- to 500-page manuscript, and maybe even one is too many. So avoid them for pivotal scenes like number 2 above and certainly for the grand finale. You also want to avoid the dreaded deus ex machina, where God saves the day.

As a person of faith, I happen to believe God answers prayer and still acts in supernatural ways sometimes, but that’s the stuff for nonfiction books. In a novel, we want to see character arc, the hero growing from point A to point B, using what he’s learned from his trials and taking action to get himself out of trouble.

One of my students years ago interrupted my class on this subject and announced, “You just described the formula for I Love Lucy!”

I couldn’t argue. Every week, Lucy got herself into some crazy predicament, and everything she did to try to fix it made it worse until things looked so hopeless that she had “some ‘splainin’ to do” to Ricky. And then she figured it and took action, roll credits.

So Dean Koontz’s classic story structure worked even for 50s TV sitcoms.

The Most Common Error?

Failing to plunge your main character into terrible trouble as soon as possible.

So…

Get that character on stage, make me care, and plunge.

Jerry B. Jenkins shares advanced writing tips with aspiring authors at JerryJenkins.com. He is a 21-Time New York Times bestselling novelist (The Left Behind series) and biographer (Hank Aaron, Walter Payton, Billy Graham, and many others) with sales of over 70 million copies. Click HERE to discover his five most crucial tips for anyone who wants to write a book—free.

You Can Master Classic Story Structure… A Guest Post by Jerry B. Jenkins is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The post You Can Master Classic Story Structure… A Guest Post by Jerry B. Jenkins appeared first on Storyfix.com.