Larry Brooks's Blog, page 17
March 16, 2015
Interview With a Breakout Romance Novelist
One Lavender Ribbon, by Heather Burch, as of this writing has 4,285 Amazon reader reviews, the vast majority bearing four or five stars. That alone is worthy of our attention, but in Heather’s case she represents everything that a breakout novelist should be. She earned her chops with a successful YA series (The Halfings and other titles), and she is a passionate student of craft and story architecture.
I met Heather last Fall when her writing group invited me to Florida for a weekend writing workshop (I’ve written about the one several times here), and we immediately recognized kindred spirits relative to the craft of storytelling. I read OLR in one sitting and used it the next day as a deconstruction model in the workshop, and have watched it continue to succeed (over 175,o00 Kindle downloads alone in the first several months, and now, with editions in several other languages).
LB: Let’s begin with the obvious – your home run with One Lavender Ribbon. It’s truly a “breakout” book… was it designed with that in mind, or were you surprised by the market response?
HB: When I started my writing journey, I took a class that stressed the importance of writing breakout fiction. At that moment, I said, “Okay, that’s what I want to do.” I’ve spent the last several years honing my ability to distinguish between a “breakout” idea and just a “good” idea. Yes, in answer, it was intentional. But one never knows how a novel will hit the readers. I’ve been very fortunate to have this level of success.
LB: In your view, how and why did this happen (other than the fact it’s a stellar novel on all fronts… is that all it takes?)? Were there elements of timing, luck, strategy or other unpredictable factors involved?
HB: Even a great novel can fall flat if it’s released at the wrong time. I’ve seen it happen. So, yes, there are always different pieces of the puzzle that fit together—often things the author has no control over. One Lavender Ribbon released at the time of the 70th anniversary of WWII. I think that played a part in its success. Across the nation, people were thinking about that generation.
LB: How has this success changed your career and your life?
HB: I’m busier now than I ever expected to be, that’s for sure. And I’m having to take a real strong look at things like hiring an assistant. Also, the monetary success has been nice and because of it, my husband gets to travel with me.
LB: You are a student of craft, in a way that makes guys like me smile. No muses whispering to you from the clouds, it’s pure concept-driven craft executed with a keen eye toward story architecture and story physics. How would you describe your awareness of these issues and essences as your career has progressed?
HB: I’m very comfortable with my process. In fact, way back I tried to alter it to be more productive and just messed myself up. Basically, I’m constantly on the hunt for a high concept idea. Once I have that, I begin generating “obstacles” that would keep that idea from being “too easy.” I think of high concept as a story where two worlds that should never meet do. (This is another workshop altogether!) It can also be a new twist on an old storyline. Hollywood is great at this!
As far as craft, I try to continually study writing books to help make my own craft stronger. I dissect novels to see why they did/didn’t work and ponder what would have made them work better. I think a student is a student 24/7. We don’t even think about it, we just choose to be sponges soaking up everything! (FYI- my area of study right now is micro-tension) But all of my process comes back to a book I read years ago titled SCREENPLAY by Sid Field. It broke down—in simplest terms—the idea of plot points, for many years I’ve built on that foundation. When I finally sit down to write, much of the plot happens organically. I don’t say, “What can my characters do now?” I say, “What can go wrong now?” There’s no story until things begin to go wrong.
LB: You broke in with success in YA/paranormal, with your Halflings series. Why did you move from that into the romance genre?
HB: I had never intended to write YA. I was writing books that were more on the order of One Lavender Ribbon, but this high concept idea hit me and it was all about teens who were half-human and half-angel and though they were outcasts on every level, they were sent to save the world. I couldn’t resist.
LB: This had to have been fun. What’s the emotional journey of a bestseller like?
HB: I’ve been around long enough to know that each book will have its own lifespan. You can’t compare…much like it’s dangerous to compare your children. I write for two publishers (I write YA for BLINK, HarperCollins and adult romance/fiction for Montlake.) Each publisher handles their titles differently. There is a completely unique experience with each. I will likely always write YA. I love having that connection with teen readers and giving them a little “hope” in a world that all too often offers them nothing but sorrow. But my heart also loves big, epic love stories. So, I will concentrate on the adult stories like OLR, but try to write at least one YA every year
LB: Your new book, Summer by Summer, releases in April. After a breakout hit like OLR, are you anxious about it?
HB: Summer by Summer – about two teens stranded on a deserted island in Belize – releases in April and targets a completely different market. It’s another YA from BLINK and those are largely sold to libraries and of course, and it will be in book stores as well as online venues. And yes, I’m anxious, I’m always anxious and hopeful when a new book releases.
I can’t expect the same “type” of response for Summer by Summer because it’s geared to a different audience. Many of my One Lavender Ribbon fans will read it, but I think the instant visceral response will be for a younger reader.
LB: You were at my workshop with 35 other romance writers last fall. Sometimes I felt like they were staring at me as if I were an alien speaking the language of invasion. Do you think that romance authors have a different take on craft as a group, and is that a legit rationale for viewing craft differently than any other genre?
HB: Largely due to the organization RWA, romance writers are one of the most educated groups of writers on the planet. RWA has incredible workshops on topics ranging from voice to craft and everything in between. But, because it can offer literally hundreds if not thousands of workshops in the course of a year, it’s fairly easy to find the ones that work for each individual process—always honing the skills we have.
What you offered was the bones of writing breakout fiction. And it was in a very solid package with solid walls—that’s the beauty of your classes. These are the MUST HAVES for great fiction. Instead of teaching how to “fix” what they already have, you took us back to the drawing board and said, “Is what you have a strong enough concept for a novel?” Those that were looking at you like an alien, I don’t think they’d ever considered their concept may not be good enough. And that is soooooo important! Especially in romance.
LB: “They’d never considered their concept may not be good enough.” That’s been a bit of a teaching mantra for me lately. (For all of you who are tired of me writing about it… notice that Heather mentioned it here. Your story idea, the core it, is every bit as critical as your ability to execute it.)
HB: Amen to that. The romance market is highly competitive. It also accounts for a large percentage of books sold, the largest, I believe. So, it’s a tough market (aren’t they all) to break into. Agents are looking for high concept ideas. Even in romance, there better be something “bigger” about your story or it won’t find a home in this competitive industry.
LB: I believe that romance is one of the most challenging genres to find “high concept.” Two people meet, they feel attracted, stuff happens, it isn’t easy, it almost fails, then it doesn’t, then HEA. And yet, all of that can be in context to a killer CONCEPTUAL CORE, as well, as you demonstrated in One Lavender Ribbon. That discovered WWII diary, leading to a parallel love story that connects two generations… that’s the very essence of high concept.
HB: I like to think so. Cross-generational romance is a trope of the genre to some extent, and yet, it endures because it works, readers are drawn in.
LB: The highest concepts – vampires, time travel, ghosts, terminal disease – always work. Because they’re conceptual and emotionally resonant at their core.
HB: Absolutely. They imbue the story with context that makes everything work better. Readers say they want love, but they really want to be touched at their core and their imagination. The whole genre is driven by vicariousness, one of your six realms of Story Physics.
LB: What’s your message to new writers these days, relative to storytelling craft, and then, relative to the business of publishing versus self-publishing and the branding that both require?
HB: Don’t give up. Don’t back down. If you write a book and it doesn’t sell, write another. And another. Very few authors sell their first book. Most sell book #5 or #6. If you stick it out for several books and continue to learn and grow, you will sell one day. Join a great organization that can help you along your journey. Read Storyfix and take notes! Find your voice and your process then dig, dig, dig to make it the best it can be.
Have social media, but don’t let it have you. Your #1 author job is to write amazing fiction. Never ever let anything (FB, twitter, blog) get in the way of that!
LB: What’s next for you, both near-term and down the writing road?
HB: OLR just released in Germany. It’s my first title to be translated, so that’s been exciting.
I’m writing a series for Montlake titled the Roads to River Rock. The books follow a military family after the combat death of their father. Book 1 is titled Along the Broken Road. It releases in June this year. Book two is titled Down the Hidden Path and releases in January/February 2016. There will be one or two more Roads to River Rock books after that.
I also have a new writing venture that will be taking me out of the country for some lovely “research” time. Unfortunately, I can’t share details yet. But am honored to have been offered this amazing opportunity. (Yes, I’m smiling as I write this.)
Thanks Larry, for having me stop by. I took so many great nuggets home from your Story Physics classes. I’d encourage anyone to dive in and take a class if they haven’t.
LB: Visual footnote… that’s me in the middle (duh) with my Florida romance author friends (what an amazingly passionate and skilled group of writers). That’s Heather, second from left.
Two words: Hog heaven. The hog, of course, being me.
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Breaking Story Coaching news… in a few days I will roll out a new focused tutorial-driven coaching product called “DRAMATIC ARC – An Analysis of your Core Story.”
More affordable (at $95) than the current Full Story Plan evaluation program, this one will pick up where the Quick Hit Concept/Premise Review service leaves off, isolating your core dramatic spine arising from premise, leading through the critical First Plot Point ignition of that arc within your story.
If you’d like to pre-order at a discount (pay now… submit any time during 2015), write me to request invoicing at $75, valid until launch (probably next week).
Interview With a Breakout Romance Novelist is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Interview With a Breakout Romance Novelist appeared first on Storyfix.com.
Useless Humor: Fun With Words…
Apparently Winston Churchill loved paraprosdokians (often mispelled as araprosdokians). These are figures of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, and frequently humorous. Here are 29 to get you giggling.
Where there’s a will, I want to be in it.
The last thing I want to do is hurt you, but it’s still on my list.
Since light travels faster than sound, some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
If I agreed with you, we’d both be wrong.
We never really grow up, we only learn how to act in public.
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
They begin the evening news with “Good Evening”, then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.
Buses stop in bus stations. Trains stop in train stations. On my desk is a work station.
I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
In filling out an application, where it says, ‘Emergency contact’, I put ‘doctor’.
I didn’t say it was your fault, I said I was blaming you.
Women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are sexy.
Behind every successful man is his woman. Behind the fall of a successful man is usually another woman.
A clear conscience is the sign of a fuzzy memory.
You do not need a parachute to skydive unless you want to do it again.
Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.
I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be.
Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.
Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.
Where there’s a will, there are relatives.
If you would like to have a million dollars then start with two million.
During WWII Sir Winston Churchill address to congress began with:
“It has often been said that Britain and America are two nations divided only by a common language”.
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Thanks to my friend Mike W. for this.
Coming tomorrow: an interview with breakout romance author Heather Burch, author of One Lavender Ribbon… which as of this writing has 4,285 Amazon.com reviews.
Useless Humor: Fun With Words… is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Useless Humor: Fun With Words… appeared first on Storyfix.com.
March 11, 2015
James Scott Bell on Writing Smarter
Jim is the author of the modern classic within the craft niche, Plot and Structure, a perennial bestseller that has influenced tens of thousands of writers. He has several other craft titles out, as well, including two recent books that he has independently published (something we cover in the first question of this interview).
The most recent of those is Super Structure: The Key to Unleashing the Power of Story,” and it’s terrific.
He’s also a stellar novelist of great acclaim… check out his titles HERE.
If you know anything about me and my work, you’ve already noticed the common ground. In fact, when I went to China last summer to support the release of Story Engineering there, one of the other three U.S. books being released was, in fact, Jim’s Plot and Structure (we share the same US publisher, as well).
Here are some of Jim’s views on craft, structure, story planning and the mental game we all play as storytellers.
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SF: My first question has to do with you, the A-list author of traditionally published writing craft books (in addition to being a successful novelist, first and foremost), a brother-in-arms in the structure wars (given that your breakout writing book was “Plot & Structure,” published in 2004 and still a major player in the niche)… with all that going for you, here you are publishing shorter-form ebooks that are tackling the major questions of craft and scratching out a living as a writer.
My question… why? Why the move away from traditional publishing in this niche toward your own independent brand?
JSB: With the writing books, I’m a hybrid. I’m working on a new book for Writer’s Digest, but because of publishing schedules that won’t be out until 2016. Meanwhile, I am always digging into the craft, and short-form books on particular issues are a tremendous way to tackle certain subjects. These types of books can’t be published traditionally because of the cost involved. They’re not big enough to sell at the kind of margin a traditional print run needs.
SF: “Super Structure” struck me as the quintessential “let’s end the planner-pantser” debate and really talk about what works and what doesn’t” guide. In my own work (which topically overlaps with yours on these issues… which is fine by me, I like to think of this is unanimity rather than competition), I say that the end-game, the things that need to be in play within a novel that work by empowering the story are EXACTLY the same whether you plan them or pants them.
SFB: Right. I always say in my workshops, if you’re a pantser, then pants away! Just know that at some point you’re going to have to think structurally, and if that’s at the end of a messy first draft, so be it. But if you want readers, if you want reach, if you want a successful fiction career, you can’t ignore what enables readers to connect to story, and that’s structure. I like to say that structure is translation software for your imagination. It takes all the heart and passion and creativity you have inside you, and puts it into a form that readers can relate to.
Structure is not something that will kill your creativity, as some argue. Indeed, it gives your creativity direction, and you can choose any number of directions for your story.
SF: What has been the pantser push-back experience for you (I get hate mail, but mostly I get thank you notes from former pantsers), and how does this new book address those who just can’t accept that structure is impartial in this regard, and that is isn’t remotely a creativity-killer?
JSB: Well, I make clear in the book that the issue is not pantsing v. plotting. It’s structure v. experimental. If a writer wants to go anti-structure, that’s fine. Go for it. Just know it will limit your audience.
What I think the real “anti-structure” people are rebelling against is the pre-novel outline. They don’t want to be told that you HAVE TO outline a book completely before you write it. I’m with them in that! As your earlier question indicated, you can go any way you want to with your drafting habits, free-form or planned. It’s just that no matter what your preference is, at some point you have to think structure.
SF: I love how you’ve taken three part structure and broken it down into 14 functional, mission-driven, sequence-specific milestone moments and sequences. I found this really accessible. But because it’s specific, what will you say to someone who accuses you of once again (meaning, me and you and those who agree with us) pushing a “formula” onto writers who want to do their own thing without feeling the need to line up with anyone’s notion of what needs to come next within a novel?
JSB: What I stress in the book is that these are “signposts.” They help you drive in the dark. They are there if you want them, but you can ignore them if you like. And if you drive off a cliff, they will come to you with a tow line, haul you back onto the road, and point you in the right direction.
So if you’re pantsing along and you don’t know what to write next, you can use my book as a road map. You can find a signpost, and write toward that.
If you’re a minimal planner, you can use the book to map out the main points you want to hit. Or the first half of the trip, and leave the rest of it to plan after you get to the halfway point.
Or you can use it to draft an entire novel, and that novel will be guaranteed to have the strongest foundation possible.
Again, it’s very flexible, but also offers guaranteed strength. I don’t advocate any one way of approach.
SF: We’re both aware there’s a book out there entitled “Story Trumps Structure,” by a pretty credible author. When I read that title I thought it must be an allegorical route to explain how a story should be built (my first thought was that he must be kidding, to be honest), but when I read the book I discovered two things: the author sticks to his guns, he treats three-act “structure” and all the micro-structures within those three acts like anathema… and then, approaching it through a completely different lens (the lens of “write it how you want to write it, just feel your way through it, pay no attention to the structure guys yelling at you from the sidelines”), he proceeds to lay out precisely how and why structure – the same structure you and I advocate – actually works, through the building of reader empathy, inserting stakes and drama and showing the hero reaction and attacking and confronting, leading to resolution… all of which IS structure. Thoughts on this?
JSB: Well, I haven’t read the book, but I know the author and read an article he wrote about it. And as you say, he really does believe in the three-act structure, just uses different terms and comes at it a different way. What this view is really railing against is “outline insistence.” As I stated earlier, I entirely agree with that. There’s no one way of getting the material out of your head and onto the page. However, I would caution that insisting that the only way to draft a story is the “free form” way is itself harmful. Because the signpost scenes, especially the one I call the “mirror moment,” help a writer come up with killer story ideas that otherwise might be missed.
The better approach, in my view, is to use a map for the journey, the signposts, and learn how to write freshly and creatively inside actual scenes. Your map does not have to be fully fleshed out, either. But it can be. And that’s okay, too. Many of the most successful writers of fiction outline their novels extensively.
But I’m not against a free-form, feel-your-way-through drafting process if that’s what makes you comfortable. A better title, therefore, would have been “Flow Trumps Outlining,” which is an argument you can make.
But story doesn’t “trump” structure. It never has. Structure actually unleashes story power. Structure is story’s best friend.
SF: Has writing all this craft material taken your mind and focus off of your fiction, or has it energized it?
Oh, it always energizes me. Some guys like to pop the hood on cars and tinker around and build hot rods. I like to pop the hood on fiction and tinker around and build hot reads.
The thing that really jazzes me of late is the “mirror moment” I mentioned earlier. I wrote another little book about it, called Write Your Novel From the Middle. That’s now one of the first places I go before I start writing.
SF: What’s next for James Scott Bell?
JSB: I just re-released my legal thriller series, the Ty Buchanan books. I’m now working on a new series of thrillers, two stand-alones, two novelettes, and a new craft book. I’m not lacking work.
Many thanks to Jim for joining us here, as he has in the past. I highly recommend his work… both his craft books and his fiction. There’s good reason he’s one of the most respected voices writing about writing today.
Coming up soon: an interview with breakout romance author Heather Burch, and a guest post from our friend Art Holcomb. If you haven’t signed up to receive Storyfix posts via email (it’s free, of course), use the Feedburner link in the right column (uppermost) so you won’t miss anything.
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Don’t miss out on the March discount for the Full Story Plan Analysis program.
To fill some open slots in my late March and April schedule, I am discounting my Full Story Plan Analysis by 25% if you enroll by the end of March. Once enrolled you can take all the time you want to apply the Questionnaire to help develop your story plan prior to submission (and it’s a killer criteria-driven story development tool).
This is a great way to save some money by acting now, while greatly empowering your story in the process.
The normal fee for this Questionnaire-driven process is $245. Opt-in by March 31 and the cost is only $183.75 (first quartile pages remain available at the normal $350 add-on fee).
Use the CONTACT tab to request an invoice at this discounted rate.
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Or, if you want to focus on your concept and premise for now, click HERE to learn about my Quick Hit Concept Analysis service, at only $49. Given the critical nature of concept and premise – the whole deal depends on you nailing this – this might be the best story coaching value in the history of the trade.
James Scott Bell on Writing Smarter is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post James Scott Bell on Writing Smarter appeared first on Storyfix.com.
March 9, 2015
Novelists and Screenwriters: Concept Equals “Situation”… and Then Some
Sometimes the context of a story is indeed situational. Sometimes, though, it is merely a contextual framework that could apply to any number of situations.
“Concept,” as a powerful storytelling tool, continues to befuddle and amaze.
I’ve heard from two readers on this recently.
One of them dismissed the whole conversation with an oversimplification: “Concept is setting. Nothing complicated about it.”
That’s true. Until it isn’t true. Because there are several other contexts that offer a story a compelling source of richness at the conceptual level.
The other reader, less sure and dismissive, suggested that concept is “a situation.” This is also often true… but sometimes a concept is less situation and more a description of focus and topical or issue-driven arena.
I’d like to share my response to the latter reader here. Hope it helps clarify.
Hey (reader) – I wanted to respond to your comment about concept equals “situation.” That’s certainly an accurate statement in many instances. But consider this, as well: concept can be something other than “situational.”
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The reason concept is tricky, hard to grasp, is that it can reside in several camps… each of them creating context before a plot or even a protagonist is added to the mix.
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The primary criteria for concept is this: the conceptual “idea” is something that causes someone to say, “now THAT has my interest… haven’t really seen that before, or if I have I want more… so I want to read whatever story arises from that.”
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Notice there is no story yet. Just the context for one.
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It can be a thematic concept, such as “The Help.” What if we set a story in the 1960s deep south, from various POVs of domestic employees? You could argue that this is a sort of situation, but really, it’s not situational yet. It’s more contextual.
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It can be a speculative proposition, such as “The Davinci Code” – what if the largest western religion on the planet is actually based on a historical lie? Again, not yet a situation, though richly contextual.
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It can be an “arena” – a love story among US troops stationed in Afghanistan. This is only loosely situational, yet completely contextual. This is setting plus context, yielding a concept that is rich with situational potential.
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Concept can strictly be a location or setting: a historical novel set amidst the chaos of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. The premise could be anything at all. There is no specific situation in this concept, as stated it is pure context derived from time and place.
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Concept can also be a character attribute: what if a rich kid adopts a superhero persona to fight crime in Gotham City? Again, more context than situation.
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While these are, technically, “situations” in the loosest sense, I suppose, most of these are more CONTEXTUAL than situational… they present a compelling context to a story… or many possible stories… that are set within that context.
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From this we can conclude that, as a truism, it is PREMISE that offers up a situation, because within premise there is a problem and a goal and an obstacle, which is the very essence of situation.
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A situational premise, when it works, emerges from within the CONTEXT of the concept itself.
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The risk is having nothing much at all that is conceptual, in any of these contexts. That handicaps a story right out of the starting gate. Just as true is a premise that isn’t situational, which means it is more or less void of dramatic tension, which almost always renders it DOA.
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Story Coaching Discount for March
To fill some open slots in my late March and April schedule, I am discounting my Full Story Plan Analysis by 25% if you enroll by the end of March. Once enrolled you can take all the time you want to apply the Questionnaire to help develop your story plan prior to submission (and it’s a killer criteria-driven story development tool).
This is a great way to save some money by acting now, while greatly empowering your story in the process.
The normal fee for this Questionnaire-driven process is $245. Opt-in by March 31 and the cost is only $183.75 (first quartile pages remain available at the normal $350 add-on fee).
Use the CONTACT tab to request an invoice at this discounted rate.
*****
Or, if you want to focus on your concept and premise for now, click HERE to learn about my Quick Hit Concept Analysis service, at only $49. Given the critical nature of concept and premise – the whole deal depends on you nailing this – this might be the best story coaching value in the history of the trade.
Novelists and Screenwriters: Concept Equals “Situation”… and Then Some is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Novelists and Screenwriters: Concept Equals “Situation”… and Then Some appeared first on Storyfix.com.
March 3, 2015
The Rules of Writing … or Not
The word is rhetorical. Contextual. Imprecise. Misunderstood. At least where writing fiction is concerned.
It is the wrong word to describe the essential criteria for what makes a story work, or causes one story to work better than another.
There are no “rules.”
But there certainly are principles. And there certainly are consequences borne of playing loose with them in your fiction.
I believe this to be true. I know this to be true. And yet, because I strongly advocate, teach and apply principles to the craft of storytelling – that’s a much better word for it, orders of magnitude more contextually accurate – I’ve been accused of being an mouthpiece for rules.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
If you’ve ever been in a position to teach others, you know that it is both amazing and frustrating how some people have selective hearing (I prefer to think of it as that, versus the thick-headed inability to comprehend), and how their old tapes kick in at such a high volume that it actually distorts the thing they should be understanding.
For example, in my recent post about 50 Shades of Grey, I heard from one huffy and embarrassingly confused writer who said that I should have never set out to defend that book and film based on (her words here) “it’s structure.” Read the post again, you’ll see that I never once even mentioned the word “structure,” I was illustrating the use of story physics (which I do mention by name) as an explanation as to why the story has proven so popular. No matter how you judge the art of it, you cannot misinterpret the commercial success of it.
Story physics, not structure. She reacted to something that wasn’t even on the page… because she obviously doesn’t understand the difference between story physics and story structure, which to the enlightened writer are as different as gasoline and a metal can.
I mention this because this is the same type of uninformed confusion when it comes to the difference between rules and principles.
Do you understand the difference? You should, because while there aren’t any rules, per se, when it comes to writing fiction… there certainly are principles and consequences involved that will dictate the quality and fate of what you are writing.
Here’s what Robert McKee says on this issue.
This morning I received a marketing email for an upcoming workshop featuring Robert McKee, who is the reigning and unquestioned Grand Wizard High Priest Puba of writing workshops. He leads his pitch with this:
Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules. Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules. Artists master the form — then innovate. Register for the upcoming Story Seminar and join the 1%.
Let’s break that down. I agree with this in terms of intention, but it’s not totally clear and accurate. It implies there are rules to either follow or break… so it seems that even this guy is confused.
And yet, when you swap out the word “principles” for “rules” in that lead, the meaning totally changes, actually becoming the exact opposite of what is true.
Anxious, inexperienced writers obey rules… unless they don’t. As stated, this is only half the problem out there among newer writers.
Just as often, inexperienced writers aren’t even aware of anything that might be perceived as “rules,” or even principles, for that matter. They don’t follow or obey anything except their instinct, which – because the complexities of writing effective fiction are vast and challenging – isn’t yet enlightened or developed to the degree required to succeed.
Anxious, inexperienced writers who do honor principles… experience a much shorter and efficient learning curve than those who don’t.
Which is why, when a “first novelist” publishes, you’ll almost always discover a drawer full of unpublished novels over years or decades of work. The road to a “first novel” is paved with the discovery of the principles that make a story effective.
One of the burdens of being inexperienced is that the writer may not even appreciate the purpose and application of what they perceive to be “rules”… or – again – even the promise and benefit of principles, for that matter.
The better insight here is to seek out and understand the truth about the principles of effective storytelling. They aren’t rules, they are proven guidelines, forces, structures and tools that lead the writer toward a story that ill actually work. They are malleable, multidimensional, presenting infinite creative choices and latitude.
Instinct, when it results in publication, is nothing other than the internalization of these principles.
That’s what I teach, here and elsewhere. These principles are the basis of my speaking and coaching, as well as my own work as an author.
I have never once, in nearly 1ooo Storyfix posts and five writing books, referred to them – or inferred from them – that the principles are “rules.”
And yet,it’s just as true that ignoring or short-changing them can kill your story. Which is why the word “rules” is at best rhetorically leaning into the ballpark. Yet the principles don’t care what you call them… they are as impersonal as gravity, taxes and death.
They are always there. And there are almost always consequences when you aren’t aware of that fact.
Rebellious, unschooled writers break rules… precisely because they are unschooled. McKee implies here that there are rules – there must be, if there is something to rebel against – when in fact the more accurate context here is that of principles being ignored, challenged or stretched. Certainly, newer writers do this out of ignorance, and rebellious writers need to learn for themselves that trying to reinvent the art of fiction is a fool’s folly.
The consequences of that ignorance will eventually cure this problem. They’ll either change their minds, or quit, or die trying.
Every single novel that works adheres, to some defensible extent, to the principles of what makes a story effective. Even the radically creative and unusual ones.
What McKee is really saying here is simply that some people don’t get it, or buy into it, or know the difference. They’re more like literary anarchists, they don’t want to adhere to any principles at all… which is why you’ve never heard of them. They never get published.
Artists master the form — then innovate.
“Mastering the form” isn’t the rejection of the principles, it is the complete, seamless and enthusiastic adoption of them.
Innovation, in this context, is creativity that is judged as artful.
And he’s right… only about one percent of writers who set out down this path actually get there.
But the good news is this: it is a choice. You can make it, you can choose it… or you can hope that, in your rebellious ignorance, you stumble upon the power of principle-driven fiction as you trudge along the path, eyes on your feet instead of the horizon.
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Story Coaching Discount for March
To fill some open slots in my late March and April schedule, I am discounting my Full Story Plan Analysis by 25% if you enroll by the end of March. Once enrolled you can take all the time you want to use the Questionnaire to help develop your story plan prior to submission. This is a great way to save some money by acting now, while greatly empowering your story in the process.
The normal fee for this Questionnaire-driven process is $245. Opt-in by March 31 and the cost is only $183.75 (first quartile pages remain available at the normal $350 add-on fee). Use the CONTACT tab to request billing at this discounted rate.
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Would you like a list of publishers who are a) paying advances, and b) accepting queries and submissions from unagented authors?
Click HERE for a great – and FREE – online resource providing this information. Publishers in the USA, Canada, UK and Ireland are listed, in addition to others globally.
The Rules of Writing … or Not is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post The Rules of Writing … or Not appeared first on Storyfix.com.
February 26, 2015
Two Video Tutorials on Nailing Your Concept
Some of us are visual learners. This is for you.
Some of us take more than a few passes at it before it sinks in. This is for you, as well.
I’m talking about CONCEPT within a story.
What it is. What is isn’t. How and why concept and premise are different things entirely, and why you need to wrap your head around this before your genre-based story will work.
That’s an absolute, by the way. In genre – including romance and mystery, which are the two most challenging stories relative to coming up with something conceptual within the story – concept is essential.
If you’re writing “literary fiction,” not so much.
Concept is always a matter of degree.
It can be so flat and obvious and completely lacking in compelling energy that it could be said that such a story has no concept at all.
But that’s never true. There is always a concept within a genre-centered or commercially-ambitious story. The question becomes, does it add value? Does it create a stage upon with a story will unfold… does it define a story landscape… does it pose a question or a proposition or a notion… does it show a unique or unusual character attribute…
… and then… is that stage, landscape, question, notion or character attribute compelling, and to what degree?
Perhaps a more accessible way to put it is like this: does the concept empower the premise that tells “a” story from a specific concept?
I put quotation marks around the “a” in that sentence to punch this point: a compelling concept often yields more than one story – any number of stories, in fact – from it.
Concept is the thing that makes a series work. But within genre, it is also the lifeblood of the stand-alone novel.
Examples: Superman. James Bond. Hunger Games. Harry Potter. Pretty much any series story. Or stand-alones like The Lovely Bones, The Davinci Code, The Help… just name a bestseller from a new writer, and you can be sure there’s a killer concept in play.
Concepts for these stories are all propositions that are not yet premises – they are completely void of plot, meaning the concept stands alone as compelling before a plot is defined - by virtue of the arena, setting, stage, landscape, notion, proposition or hero/villain attribute that resides at the heart of the concept…
… BEFORE it becomes a premise. Because to become premise, you need to add a PLOT. A hero’s quest, goal, problem or opportunity… with something at stake… with something blocking the hero’s path.
And THAT is premise, pure and simple.
Concept and premise are different things. Keep that in mind as you watch these two movie previews, both of which display their concepts front and center, but only one of which goes on to add (after the concept has been introduced) a premise (a plot).
Tomorrowland
This preview is nothing other than concept. There isn’t a plot, or anything close to a plot, even hinted at. But it’ll be there when you see the movie… but it’s not what will sell the story. The concept sells the story.
George Clooney sums it up in the final moments of this trailer: “You wanna go?” When the concept is rich and compelling, the answer will always be yes.
Click HERE to view it.
Jurassic World
This is a trailer for the new version of Spielberg’s classic, and the first half of it is nothing other than concept. Pure and simple.
But then, you actually get a preview of the story itself (which doesn’t happen in the Tomorrowland trailer), with a glimpse at the plot.
View the new Jurassic Park trailer HERE.
You wanna go? Of course you do.
Plot (which is premise) is a different realm of compulsion altogether. And yet, when a compelling concept becomes the raw grist for a compelling plot… yeah, you wanna go. Straight to the book store or theater.
The Learning
It is, pure and simple, this: within genre stories, concept is the reason the reader will come. Sure, they’ll appreciate your great characterization and your stellar prose (they are wonderful and essential, make no mistake), but don’t kid yourself. You’re not writing “literature.” You are writing in a genre, and genre can be considered to be synonymous with concept.
Concept is the presence of something conceptual at the heart of story that imbues everything – plot and character – with compelling energy.
Look at your story and ask if your reader, at a glance, will answer the question – “You wanna go?” – with an enthusiastic nod. Character needs to earn that response. Concept, however, elicits an immediate response.
If you’ve been confused by this, I hope these visual tutorials (in the form of movie trailers) will help you differentiate concept from premise, and moreover, understand how the former empowers the premise toward something that readers will engage with.
Two Video Tutorials on Nailing Your Concept is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Two Video Tutorials on Nailing Your Concept appeared first on Storyfix.com.
February 20, 2015
What You May be Missing about “50 Shades of Grey”
Maybe it is. But that’s not the right question… at least here.
Did you see the film Unbroken, which documents some of the most heinous human suffering and cruelty ever shown in a mainstream film? Is that porn?
But it’s a true story, you could truthfully say. But so is what happens, thematically, in “50 Shades of Grey.” It’s real, folks, deal with it. It happens. I will never understand the moral license to show human torture and death in heinous ways in comparison to showing the expression of human passion in ways that don’t happen to float your boat.
And it’s not domestic abuse, either, when both parties lock the door behind them and sign up for whatever happens.
Besides, if you didn’t like the book or movie, there are 100 million people who disagree with you, and another 1oo million who couldn’t care less. Which puts you in a very loud, rather inexplicable minority of people who don’t really know what they’re talking about.
Bad writing? Maybe. That’s why we have book and movie reviews. But morally reprehensible? It’s no more heinous than many of the tax returns and court records of half the people who are bitching about it.
Check your own closet before you proclaim yourself the voice of the so-called (and self-anointed) moral majority.
But that’s not really today’s question, either.
Learning from the novel itself… there’s no debate about the upside of that.
The novel, 50 Shades of Grey, and it’s two series successors, have sold 100 million copies, and now the movie version has added t0 the legend by grossing a quarter of a billion dollars in its opening week alone. Much like The Davinci Code – which sold 80 million hardcovers – it is widely dissed by writers who seem to believe they could do better.
That’s funny, actually. Or pitiful, not sure which. Because if you’re not paying attention to what is working out there, you’re not really engaging in the business of writing publishable fiction at a professional level.
You may be one of them. Read on, because there’s another way to look at it that might ignite a light bulb or two in your career.
Everyone who has access to an online venue seems to be dumping on this story, if not for the writing itself, then for the subject matter. “Outrage” is the theme of many reviews and op-eds, people who call it “domestic abuse” and downright perverse. The actors themselves are being quoted out of context to support this point of view.
I saw the movie with my wife, and as we left the theater a guy behind us said, “Can you believe there’s actually people who do that stuff, like, in real life?”
Welcome to the rock under which a great many people live their lives, with blinders on. Welcome to the seat of judgment, which holds that everyone should think as they do, spoken with the hubris-riddled security of knowing that your listener has no idea what you are doing in the shadows of your own domain.
There are orders of magnitude more instances of true non-consensual abuse, both physical and emotional (that has nothing at all to do with kinky sex) among domestic partners than there are homes with handcuffs and riding crops hidden in the back of a closet. And there are literally millions of those, some of them right in your neighborhood, and if you ask those people if they’re happy with their sex lives, odds are they’d look you in the eye and say, “Yes, and probably a lot happier than you are with yours.”
And in many cases, they’d be right. That’s why we have books about romance and intimacy, so we can have a vicarious experience that takes us out of our “normal” for a while.
So let’s clear the air. Let’s get outside the moral debate and create a context for writers to understand why this story works to the massive extent that it does.
And leave the non-literary judgment to the clueless and the naive, in the hope they’re not abusing their spouses in truly non-consensual ways.
As for the literary conversation… hey, I hear you. The writing was… fine. That’s not why it works. But it’s fine enough. Other aspects of the story, though, get better the closer you look at them.
First of all, E.L. James has proven, with statistical validity, that interest in this love story arena (BDSM) is not the sole province of the debauched and the twisted. Or of lonely romance novel aficionados who seem to populate the bell curve of the story’s target demographic.
People love this stuff. They fantasize about this stuff. A great many more than you might image either dabble in, or practice outright, this stuff.
Here’s how to shut up your stuffy, outraged, holier-than-though neighbor who thinks this is all just sick and wrong and outrageous.
You have two closing arguments on that front.
First, the story is not about how true BDSM relationships work. In the novel and the film, Christian Grey is into it, Anastasia Steele isn’t. She’s curious, perhaps, intrigued at first, and then realizes his tastes and preferences are not her own. Despite all those swooning orgasms that emerged while she was making up her mind. He doesn’t force it on her – that is the province of rape fantasies, which 50 Shades absolutely is not – nor does she push back until she clarifies her preferences.
In the story, Anastasia is far less outraged than these blushing bloggers are.
In the real world this flavor of sexual encounter is consensual. Which takes it off the table to either debate or judgment. It is no more sick and wrong than your righteous outraged neighbor’s habit of turning off the lights and hiding under the covers with her eyes clamped tightly closed until her grunting golfer husband finishes two minutes after he begins.
She consents to that form of abuse, far more than anyone in 5o Shades is consenting to something inherently more immoral by comparison.
Not for us to judge. Not for them to judge, either… when the relationship is trulyconsensual. Which in reality, it always is. And which, in that movie, it wasn’t, even though it certainly was at first.
What is was, actually, was an exact model of what happens in every intimate relationship. Two people get together, bringing a past with them along with certain tastes and preferences and hopes and fears and fantasies. And so they play, they experiment, they negotiate, and after a time they decide if they are compatible.
You did that. I did that. We all do that. And then we settle in for the long haul. The contract is there, it is verbal, if it is even spoken at all.
E.L. James wrote about that, and exactly that. It was never a story about the arena of S&M relationships in either a condoning or a judgmental context – which the high and mighty are judging from behind their pulpits of ignorance and fear – it is a story about two people trying to see if they work together.
In that sense, the story is classically romantic. No more so than a scullery maid being taken at night by the handsome king while his wife consorts with prisoners held in the castle dungeon.
That book is out there, by the way.
The other answer is to put this story alongside stories that have people murdering their lovers for pleasure and profit, or simply out of rage or insanity. That’s far more perverse as well as far more frequently the stuff of bestsellers, nobody is ringing the moral outrage bell at those stories. Occasionally there are even BDSM elements in play (click HERE for the Top 25 films in this regard, you’ve heard of and seen most of them), and yet, your opinionated neighbor (who probably owns some of those DVDs) is mum on the subject.
No, the non-literary judgment of this story stems from ignorance and fear as much as anything else. It’s classic bullying – I can’t have what you have (bliss, however you define it), so I’ll put it down as wrong. Review the movie as harshly as you please, but focus on the true issues at hand – its dramatic and artistic execution, rather than anymoral ambiguity of its themes, which pale in comparison to much of what fills the genre shelves and movie theaters today.
As for the actual literary reviews… well, just ask James Patterson and a host of other authors who are “writing down” to a pedestrian reading level, ask them about how strategic and effective this strategy is. Just as many people are quietly panning books from Jonathan Franzen and Charles Frazer and that Melville guy who wrote Moby Dick as virtually unreadable, so there you go.
Part of me says this to writers who put this short-sighted moral criticism in print: shut up and write. Who appointed you the arbiter of what works and what doesn’t, especially in the face of numbers that prove you thoroughly, irretrievably, embarrassingly in a minority?
You probably didn’t like The Davinci Code, either, for the shots it took at your belief system. Thematic controversy is a genius narrative strategy, live with it. Your outrage says nothing about the dramatic execution of that book, which is the largest selling commercial novel of all time.
It is the dramatic execution where we should look to find answers as to what works, what doesn’t, and why.
So what makes “50 Shades” work so well, based on results?
The answer is, pure and simple, story physics.
Story physics are the intellectual, emotional and instinctual forces and factors within a story that cause a reader to respond at a core level. To care. To fear. To wonder. To stick around to see what happens.
There are six basic realms of story physics:
1. A compelling dramatic premise with a conceptual core.
2. Dramatic tension arising from conflict facing a hero facing a quest.
3. Strategic pacing within the exposition that meters the degree of tension, clarity and hope.
4. Providing something for the reader to root for, and against (fear).
5. The delivery of a vivid vicarious experience.
6. A narrative strategy that lifts the story to a higher level of intimacy, accessibility and effectiveness.
Most writers do some this instinctually, even involuntarily. But when a story doesn’t work – you don’t read those, because they don’t get published or talked about… but I see them all the time in my story coaching work – it is because these factors of story physics are underplayed, misplayed or missing entirely.
The very essence of fiction – all fiction, in any genre – is conflict.
Conflict leads to dramatic tension. Which fuels the story’s forward motion through the solving and resolution of conflict, and stokes the reader’s emotional engagement, which stems from the stakes of the confrontation between the hero and whatever antagonistic force (usually a villain) blocks the path toward the goal.
In “50 Shades,” the BDSM itself is that antagonistic force. It is personified by Christian Grey, who is inflexible in his demands and his parameters, and perhaps inexplicable and indefensible (for some) in this preferences (just as any villain cannot truly justify some combination of their needs and their means). Anastasia must play by his rules, tolerate and accept what he desires and relishes… or it won’t work out between them.
That is conflict, pure and simple. The stakes being love itself. It is a story about love having to conquer obstacles, which is an eternal, universal theme.
Anastasia’s experience is not abuse, it is character arc.
The BDSM context is what is conceptual about the story, setting it apart from other romances and love stories by virtue of how it shows up in the premise. It polarizes, it frightens, for many it intrigues, it pushes deeply held secret buttons of desire and curiosity. It’s what you signed up for when you bought the book or a movie ticket, and you knew what you were getting before you laid your money down.
The story could have been about Christian’s love of mountain climbing, to which (in such a version) he devotes his life, and the need for Anastasia to strap on some climbing boots and head with him to the Himalayas to win his affection.
That comparison illustrates the genius in James’ conceptual choice. The premise is intriguing (that guy coming out the theater? He was there for a reason… either he or his partner/friend were, by virtue of having bought a ticket, intrigued). It makes a promise of something we haven’t seen a lot of, or even, something forbidden yet as old as massage oil within the sensual proposition.
Something you’ve already kicked around in your head, if you’re honest about it.
It is a genius concept. It is one of two explanations as to why this story works… because it is played against the themes of love overcoming obstacles, posing a universal core dramatic question: will they make it? Will he compromise. Will she accept and begin to enjoy what he’s asking of her?
The other reason it works… that’s easy. Once the reader/viewer is taken into that world, it all becomes astoundingly VICARIOUS. It takes us somewhere we haven’t been before, to which will (for some) never go, or (for some) you desire to go, and for others, are afraid to go yet curious about, and and when you get there it is a literal, visceral, passionate experience, as shown the story’s “red room of pain” scenes.
Cut those and the story doesn’t work. That’s a fact. The story soars because of the vicarious experience they deliver – one of the six realms of story physics – and the romantic context of it, as well.
Abuse? Isn’t any story about a lover who is cold and cruel a story about abuse and neglect? Isn’t a story about a cheating lover actually about abuse? Shouldn’t there be there more valid moral outrage in a story about a lover who rapes and mains and kills in a moment of passionate rage, and then tries to cover it up?
How many times has that story been told, without a single whimper of outrage?
If you’re writing a story about love in the face of obstacles, take a page from E.L. James and get outside yourself. Go to the deep well of concept and see what might make your story sizzle. Give us a vicarious experience with vivid, pulsating detail. Adopt a narrative strategy – in her case, creating multiple contexts of forbidden appeal, including the lifestyle of a billionaire and the promise of vast riches, which are also eternal themes – and you’ll have a provocative, perhaps controversial, richly contextualized story landscape on your hands.
Real life is never all that vicarious, at least in ways that sell books.
Or, you can write that story about mountain climbers in love, perhaps having sex in their muk-lucks, and take your chances.
I’m not suggesting you write the next S&M thriller (I’ve tried that myself – my USA Today bestseller, “Darkness Bound,” went deep into that dark little corner of seduction, and sold over 200,000 copies in the process… clearly, there are people out there who get it). I’m not suggesting you try it out for yourself, or even shed your disapproval, if not your judgment.
Just keep it to yourself. Ignorance is always embarrassing.
And while you’re keeping it yourself, be a professional and strive to notice what makes the story work, just as you notice what makes a great character like Hannibal Lector cause you to lose sleep and recommend Silence of the Lambs to all your friends.
Vests made of human flesh? You freaking loved that story. How sick and wrong is that?
Better that we notice what is happening in “5o Shades of Grey“… why it works, why it pushes buttons, why it is vividly vicarious, and how the forces behind it (the forces of story physics) are available to you, as well.
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Want more on Story Physics? Please consider my craft book from Writers Digest Books, “Story Physics: Harnessing the Underlying Forces of Storytelling.”
It explains why bestsellers are just that, and how you can apply those same forces to your own stories… by design, rather than backing into them by chance.
What You May be Missing about “50 Shades of Grey” is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post What You May be Missing about “50 Shades of Grey” appeared first on Storyfix.com.
February 14, 2015
How to Create a Story Premise that Works
With an extensive tutorial on why, and how to avoid this trap.
When asked how one moves from knowledge to execution… more accurately, the ability to apply storytelling principles to the writing of a draft… I always say this: look for and notice the principles at work in the stories that you read.
You’ll see them in virtually every published novel you read (traditionally published, certainly, and in a significant percentage of self-published work) . Non-writers don’t notice them, but a writer like you who has recently been immersed in the deep waters of craft, usually will.
That’s when the light bulb goes off. Sometimes it actually explodes into a supernova of understanding more accurately described as an Epiphany.
But there’s an even more effective way to truly test your understanding. And it’s not available to most… which is why I run these case studies here on Storyfix. This window into craft is even clearer… because we’re looking at unpublished (and even unwritten) stories, in which the principles show up in a written story plan (in this case, via my coaching Questionnaire) in ways that are easy to spot.
At least, when you know what to look for. Which is the point.
This, too, is an Epiphany. Professionals with editors to help them make it look easy. But when a newer writer tries the same things, what’s lacking can be obvious. Especially when the coach – me, in this instance – is standing there with a laser pointer and a freeze frame to dissect what went, and then model a better response.
This case study takes a very reasonable and promising story idea, and then, when asked to define the concept and premise, basically strips it of its potential. Not because the writer isn’t talented, but because the writer hadn’t yet grasped the real definitions of concept and premise, as reflected in these answers.
If you can’t describe it one sentence, how can you then nail it on the page from behind the contextual veil of the actual story? Answer: you almost certainly can’t.
This writer (who remains anonymous here) graciously volunteered his Questionnaire for your benefit. That benefit comes from seeing what he said, and then seeing an analysis of what works, what doesn’t, and why… and then, what to do with a better answer once a new understanding dawns.
Click here to read it: 2-12 case study .
Feel free to add your own thoughts and feedback in the Comments thread below, which will benefit the writer and other Storyfix readers.
How would you do if asked to define your concept and premise?
If you’d like to see, my Quick Hit Concept Review – which uses this exact Questionnaire – is only $49. I think it’s the best value in the entire story coaching universe, because if you get this wrong the story will almost certainly suffer for it, perhaps adding months or years of trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.
You can find out in a few days at the cost of a night at the movies.
Click HERE to read more about the program, or use the links in the left column (or on the linked page) to enroll.
How to Create a Story Premise that Works is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post How to Create a Story Premise that Works appeared first on Storyfix.com.
February 8, 2015
The Quintessential Paradoxical Pantser Conundrum
Sometimes the way we choose to do things is, pure and simple, fun.
Sometimes fun trumps everything else. For some, we choose easy rather than what doesn’t come naturally or is perceived as complex.
So choose wisely… not naively, not lazily.
Sadly, preference too often becomes process because the writer doesn’t know any better. Nobody has explained the consequences of, or the alternatives to, what they choose. Because at the end of the day, you may decide that fun wasn’t ever the highest reward available.
This isn’t a question of right or wrong. It’s a question of what works and what doesn’t. And that particular metric varies from writer to writer.
Writers send me questions all the time, which I welcome.
Some arrive by email, sometimes via other means, including posts on author websites. Today’s Storyfix post is a response to a reader concern that reached me from that avenue.
The writer with today’s question runs a cool blog called This Midlife Crisis Rocks, and her current post represents a pretty common and troubling aspect of the writing life for many. That author is, it seems, a pantser who loves to make it up as she goes along.
Sometimes (and I do pick my moments with this) I ask such writers this: so how’s that going for you?
You may relate to her question, and to my answer, which you can read by clicking over to her post. My response appears directly below it… and here, directly below this post (the one you’re reading now), as well.
I do not judge.
I have tried to clarify my position on pantsing, which I initially fumbled through my enthusiasm for craft, often misinterpreted as an indictment. The truth is – and I say this whenever I even mention pantsing as a writing process – it does work for some writers, and almost every writer uses it to some degree in the creation of a manuscript.
I pants scenes. I do know the mission and narrative context of the scene, but once that’s in place I use story instinct (honed by the principles of effective scene writing) to write the scene itself.
The trick then, for any writer who questions their process, is to understand if your chosen process is working for you. If your story sense makes you a functional pantser.
Or not.
Pantsing is the most difficult of all writing process. Even if it seems like the most fun while you’re doing it. The the outcome makes you question your choice… then this is for you.
My response to the post (which you’ll see that author actually asks for… feel free to chip in your response, as well, either here or on her site), is shown below. Swap out your own non-writer hobby or lost dream (cooking, golf, painting, acting, whatever) for the one I use here as an analogy and you’ll still be in the mix with this.
May it help you understand your options, as well as how to stop the pain.
*****
Thanks for the shout out. I think I can help.
Story planning – the antithesis of pantsing – is a matter of degree and scope, and a little is better than none. Most writers, even the most vocal of pantsers, engage in some form of planning, even if it manifests only within their head.
Let me offer an analogy. Do you like/watch D-1 or NBA basketball? They have diagrammed “plays,” certainly, but most of the time players are running a “pattern,” and within that pattern they are freelancing… reacting, seizing moments, moving on instinct. Making it up as they go along.
If they didn’t know the game intimately, and hadn’t practiced it at the level they actually play it, and more importantly if they didn’t know the pattern, then the freelancing wouldn’t work It would be chaos.
But they do know the game and the prescribed plays. That’s the key.
Same with writing a novel or screenplay.
Here’s the truth: most new writers don’t really “know the game.” They don’t understand how good stories are built in both a structural and expositional sense. They may have a “sensibility” of it after years of reading… but really, that’s like watching NBA basketball for years from your barcalounger and telling yourself that you are ready to step on the court and do what they do.
You can, actually. But on a playground, NOT at a professional level.
And that’s the most direct analogy of all here… if you are writing stories with the intention of publishing, then you ARE striving to be a professional. To play in the NBA (National Book-writers Association… sorry, couldn’t resist) in your game. Most writers just aren’t up to it, either relative to end product OR the process of getting to it.
By “not knowing the game (the structures and principles) of how to write an effective novel” at a professional level, I mean to say that writers don’t understand the lines within which they must play. And they don’t realize that to play outside of those lines is to lose.
As a story coach I see this all time… novels without a compelling concept… novels with thin and familiar premises… novels without a hero’s quest giving us something to root for… episodic novels that are entirely character-centric… novels without an antagonistic force in play (this is usually a “villain”)… slice of life novels that have zero dramatic tension… novels with no structural sensibility (for which there are expectations and principles – like lines on a court – that if you violate them, or ignore them, or are ignorant of them, your game tanks.)
Almost all of those stories have an interesting character in play. But for too many – and often, from pantsers – they fumble the other criteria.
So here’s the proposition.
Learn the principles. Learn the core competencies of writing a good story, and internalize the six realms of story physics (forces) that make them work. Apply that knowledge within the somewhat (but not completely) flexible shape of accepted story structure (pros know you absolutely cannot make up your own structure – also something struggling pantsers do, and successful pantsers don’t question – and professionals know there IS a structure you need to fit your story into, with certain things happening at certain points).
Successful pantsers write toward that structure. Frustrated pantsers try to find that structure – or any structure if they don’t understand the principles, which is the problem, because they can’t make one up by the seat of their pants and have it work.
This is something you can test. It is a principle that reinforces itself in nearly every published commercial novel written.
Even if the keynote speaker claims to have “just listened to my characters” (that’s B.S., by the way, but hey, it sounds great from behind a microphone), their story sense is vetting what they “hear” and applying it to the page WITHIN the parameters of story architecture.
So the question isn’t pants or plan. It’s this: what is the state of your story sensibility?
When you are in possession of the core knowledge, when you accept it and apply it as your vetting filter for ideas and the expositional roadmap for your narrative, then you are playing the game, the way the game works at a professional level.
Writing what you want, any way you want, without KNOWING all this stuff… it may be fun, but that’s for hobbyists, amateurs and people stuck in a limiting belief system. Or maybe they have no idea what writing an effective story really means.
So go ahead, make it up as you go along. And when it isn’t working, when it’s still fun but takes you nowhere… re-read this, and know that you choose your own fate in this regard. And that you can choose out of it.
If you write stories – pants them or plan them – with the principles of the game solidly in your head, it’ll work. and it’ll be oh-so-much more rewarding than how you’re pantsing it now.
Frustration with the principles isn’t the source of frustration. Not understanding and accepting them is… because that condemns you to chaos. Writers who get this love those principles, because they are precisely what makes successful pantsing possible.
When you revise a draft, what you’re really doing it moving it TOWARD what was there all along as a final requisite destination – the proven principles of storytelling via story architecture (which is, bottom line: structure plus character put in motion in context to a killer premise).
Become a professional. Learn the game.
Know what a First Plot Point is and where it goes (call it what you will, but even the most ardent “pantsers” who succeed ARE placing a textbook perfect FPP right where it is supposed to go… though sometimes it takes them multipel drafts to get it there). Know how and why dramatic tension drives everything, and how character emerges FROM it, rather than being the focus. Plot (a source of dramatic tension stemming from a motivated hero’s quest) is the KEY to character.
Once you really do know how a story is built – and believe me, pantsers who publish have indeed landed on those very same principles that you could apply to the first draft – you can plan or pants your way through a manuscript it, makes no difference. Just like Kobe can score off a diagrammed play, or he can isolate and go one-on-one against anyone. A score is a score. And it only works if it happens within the lines.
Just don’t try it if you’re not in his league.
Hope this helps. Larry
The Quintessential Paradoxical Pantser Conundrum is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post The Quintessential Paradoxical Pantser Conundrum appeared first on Storyfix.com.
February 3, 2015
Novelists: Two Empowering Little Mind-Models That Just Might Change Everything For You
Some things in life are not measurable.
Like, which tastes better, a fresh strawberry or a juicy fat beet. The answer doesn’t matter at all if the stakes are limited to you staring into your refrigerator, and while we can guess there is a vast majority leaning one way over the other in this preferential proposition, at the end of the day it means nothing to either side.
Until, perhaps, you seek to open an ice cream parlor and charge money for the dispensing of desserts that call for bright red toppings. Then you’d better understand not only the difference between a strawberry and a beet relative to flavor, but also the difference in how the immeasurable math bottoms out on consumer tastes.
Then again you can open a beet emporium – because you really like beets – and take your chances.
You make the call, and your future rides on how close you come to right versus wrong once you get over yourself. Even if you’re a big fan of beets.
As they say in the lottery business, adjust your dreams accordingly.
Writing a novel is much the same.
There are fuzzy little lines between a plethora of storytelling variables, making definition – if not outright measurement – an exercise in semantics and context. For example, in my experience as a story coach and workshop speaker I’d say that at least half of the working writers out there – including published authors and agents – don’t understand or even comprehend the difference between a concept and a premise.
And yet, the different is a career-maker/breaker.
Understanding isn’t the issue as much as the degree to which concept and premise, as separate story variables, ends up on the page as a contributing factor. And that can happen if the author has no idea whatsoever what either essence is, because a keen story sense (or a half dozen drafts after a lot of harsh critique) can get you there.
Does this license ignorance? I think not.
Today’s first of two little mental models addresses concept vs. premise.
Think of concept as a contextual framework – a notion, a setting, a special talent or gift or curse, a time and place, a “what if?” proposition, an arena, a landscape – within which your story will unfold.
Example: a love story set in the Vatican. The setting is conceptual, it draws you to the story even before the story itself is introduced.
Concept is NOT the story. It requires no hero and no plot. When you begin describing hero and plot you are, in fact, talking about premise (which is the summary description of what your hero wants and needs in the story, within the conceptual framework, and why, as well as what blocks that path. Which is a PLOT).
Here’s a quick way to know where you stand on this issue, by asking yourself this:
How COMPELLING is your concept? Or did you skip it altogether, jumping right into premise instead?
In a great pitch, concept should be the first thing out of your mouth.
This matters because readers, agents, editors and book reviewers are looking for something fresh… story landscapes and notions (known in the trade as “conceits“) that are new and exciting and scary and seductive and provocative, even when the premise is familiar.
Aren’t all “love stories” familiar, to a great extent? Sure they are, unless you’ve already rendered it fresh with something conceptual (like, a love story between enemy spies). And if so, how do you bring something fresh to your next love story? Answer: by having it emerge from a conceptual framework.
Here’s the mental model for concept:
An empowering concept, because it has no protagonist or plot yet, can become the landscape for any number of stories (because it is not, per se, a story in and of itself) that are rendered fresh and exciting… precisely because of the concept.
Need an example? A guy in a blue suit with a cape, named Superman.
Think about it. Clark Kent is the hero, not the concept. Superman, as a proposition and notion, is the concept. Hollywood has already made ten different stories (different premises) from this one concept, with more on the way.
Need another example: A murder mystery narrated by the 14-year victim, speaking to us from heaven (The Lovely Bones).
Did you wince when you read the word PLOT?
It may not be half, but a shocking number of serious writers (indeed, this seems to lean into writers who declare themselves as serious) don’t truly understand what the word “plot” means in the context of commercially-viable fiction.
Is there any other profession you can think of where the practitioners don’t even know the key principles of their craft? That get to make it up as they go along, or backed into it after a series of swings-and-misses? And yet, writers stumble into stories that work all the time, often after years and a great many drafts, sometimes without ever truly grasping what finally worked for them.
Any writer who explains their success by saying something like this – “Well, I just showed up and let the characters lead me to the next page” – is a case in point. They are talking about their process, and in that case it is a blind one.
You don’t have to do this work wearing blinders, folks.
Do you have years to invest in a story? Wouldn’t you rather know what works? And then write your story in context to those principles?
I’m thinking you would.
In commercial genre fiction, what works is called a “plot.”
If you’re truly writing literary fiction – Jonathan Franzen kind of novels – then plot may indeed be a ways down your list of narrative priorities. But most of the writers crowding into the conference room are writing romances and mysteries and fantasies and Young Adult and historicals (which absolutely DO require a plot)… and for all of those, you need a PLOT, pure and simple.
The notion of writing a “literary mystery” or a “literary YA” is an example of where so many writers shoot themselves in the foot, believing that their literary aspirations trump the need for an actual conflict[-driven plot. They are so character-focused that they unknowingly drift out of their genre lane to tell an episodic life story of a fictional hero… which pretty much never works in commercial genre fiction.
Think of plot and genre as being synonymous.
That will keep you in the right lane as you construct your narrative sequence. Backstory, episodic narrative, inner demons, and the ultimate story goal of “being happy” or “resolving their childhood”…
… that’s not the recipe for genre fiction. It’s a recipe for failure, because until you add conflict and confrontation leading to something – a plot – the story is incomplete.
It’s like a graduate with a nice suit with no job… nobody is getting paid.
Backstory is good, but it can be toxic in genre fiction when it is over-wrought at the expense of plot. Same with inner dimensions and demons.
But wait, I hear you saying. I read episodic “life story” novels all the time.
Yes you do. But when you look deeper – a process that doesn’t work until you know what to look for – you’ll likely find such stories building toward a resolution, giving the reader something to root for and the hero something to resolve.
If you don’t, you’re reading “literary fiction.” Many highly literary genre novels are indeed character driven… but if they’re published and successful, they will be something more than the life and times of a character. They’ll have a PLOT that gives that character something to do – which is the best way to demonstrate character in any genre – every time.
The dirtiest word in fiction is “episodic.” When you hear it about your story, that sound you hear is the drawing board calling you back to it, hoping you’ll find a plot that will save the thing.
Which leads to today’s second powerful mental model.
Plot is the creation of character and dramatic dynamics that lead to, point toward,that call for, that require… resolution.
A story in any genre (other than literary) that asks the reader simply to observe a character or his/her life… a story that episodically tells the life story of a fictional character without it leading to something that must be resolved… a story that exists to show us eras of a character’s life, novels that read like a collection of shorter stories, moving from one period in that life to to the next… if they are in any genre other than “literary fiction,” the project is at risk.
One of those just crossed my desk, from a graduation of an MFA program, where the word “plot” is likely never to uttered aloud. It was a YA, and it was nothing other than “the adventures of” the hero. Unconnected “stuff that happened” to this protagonist, peppered with backstory and inner landscape.
There are magic words found at the bottom line of this issue: genre fiction needs to give readers something to root for… rather than just something to observe.
Ask your reader to care about where it is all headed. To root for someone and/or something, to fear something or someone that is antagonistic blocking your hero’s path along the core story spine. To engage them emotionally, not just because they sympathize with the hero, but because feel and relate to the stakes of the story.
Genre fiction is the antithesis of “slice of life” storytelling.
Plots are driven by stakes. Even in YA and romance, where any and all of the available sub-genres are available fodder.
In closing, remember this:
Good stories are never simply ABOUT something. Rather, good stories are about SOMETHING HAPPENING. Because there are STAKES, because something must be RESOLVED.
These target contexts will be there when your story finally works. It may be an early draft – even your first draft – depending on how well you understand these principles. Or it may take years and many drafts before you evolve the story.
Criticism, other than voice, almost always touches on weakness relative to these issues: concept… premise… dramatic question posed… proactive action taken… pace… conflict… empathy… all leading to resolution of a singular plot proposition.
The sooner you truly understand this stuff,the sooner you will be the driver, rather than the passenger, of your own writing journey.
*****
Click HERE if you’d like to see if your concept, relative to your premise, is in the right storytelling lane.
Novelists: Two Empowering Little Mind-Models That Just Might Change Everything For You is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
The post Novelists: Two Empowering Little Mind-Models That Just Might Change Everything For You appeared first on Storyfix.com.
