Larry Brooks's Blog, page 28

A Case Study in Concept: A Story on the Brink

One of my favorite story coaching clients is a guy named Kalvin.  He’s prolific, he’s brought me a half dozen story ideas at various stages of development, each offering something tasty with significant upside.

In each case, the process has given him an expanded and illuminated platform to continue to grow his story.  That’s why he keeps coming back… it helps take the guesswork out of what is otherwise a very solitary and essential part of the process.

And it’s ridiculously cheap at any level, especially in context to what is at stake.

Kalvin has consented to the showcasing of one of his story coaching submissions.

In this case, it’s a $35 Kick Start Conceptual Analysis, which isolates his concept, contrasts it to premise, and offers a look at his planned First Plot Point story beat.  All essential and potentially fatal first steps in the journey from idea to finished draft.

In other words, it cuts to the heart of whether the story will work or not.

This one is about vampires.  Conceptual… unless it isn’t.

Kalvin’s Kick-Start Case Study submission– which provides a sneak peek at the $35 Kick-Start Questionnaire itself — is available here (free) for your review (just click the link), complete with my feedback (shown in red, only slightly enhanced for this venue).

You are welcome to look inside this process… AND to offer Kalvin your own feedback.

You don’t have to write a story to determine, to a great extent, how well it will work at its most basic and essential level. And you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to find out.

Even when you think you know, it’s good to really know.

Kalvin and I look forward to your thoughts.  I hope you find this to be of value in your own story development process. Much is clarified here, including the most common story trap I encounter in this work: the lack of a compelling concept underpinning the story’s premise.

Another set of eyes can save you from a year of writing without really knowing.

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In addition to this story concept level of analysis, I also offer what I call the $150 Story Coaching Adventure, which goes beyond concept and the FPP to look at all of the major story milestones in context to the premise itself, in effect becoming an “architectural analysis” of your story on multiple levels.  It is my most popular level of story coaching, resulting in a process that is as much a story development tool as it is an evaluative one.  

Because you can’t hide from these questions.  You either nail them, or you don’t.  The goal of the process isn’t just to expose what you don’t know – which is a story-saving opportunity – it’s there to help you better grasp the principles and come up with some ideas that do work, or at least work better.

In fact, this will expose and explore almost exactly the same issues that a review of an entire completed manuscript would uncover… even before you’re written it.  Or at a fraction of the investment if you have.

Check it out HERE.

A Case Study in Concept: A Story on the Brink is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Motivation for Writers… Wet or Dry

How hard are you working?  I mean, really working.

Not just working hard… but working smart?

“Welcome to the grind.”

Sometimes it’s tough to get up and write.  Or simply to square off with the keyboard at any time of day.

Athletes have coaches.  We, on the other hand, are quite alone with the task at hand.

And so I offer the following.  One of the reasons to watch it is the writing… it’s stellar.  Another is to see beyond the specificity of its target audience — competitive swimmers — and apply it to what YOU do.

These principles know no target audience.  They are universal, and unforgiving.  If you think writing is a gentle art… maybe.  But publishing, competing for readers, isn’t.

You are seeking excellence.  There are about 100,000 other writers out there seeking the same, and they are competing for YOUR publishing slot.

So the question becomes… what are YOU going to do about it?

Get motivated… HERE.

Welcome to the grind.

Rise and shine.

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Read a review of Story Physics HERE, on Mindy Halleck’s great site, “Literary Liaisons.”

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With thanks to my friend Wes Edwards, world class championship masters swimmer.  An inspiration.

 

 

Motivation for Writers… Wet or Dry is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The Absolute, Non-negotiable Truth About Writing and Selling Your Fiction

Imagine a room somewhere, a hotel conference center perhaps, full of 46 professional types who have flown in to commiserate with their esteemed peers.  They preen and sip coffee as they eyeball each other’s name tags, casually dropping names while waxing eloquent and wistful about the lack of great stories out there.

They are literary agents.  Professionals whose primary goal and purpose is to find and exploit (sell) publishable writing.  And this conversation is the same old blah blah blah that agents have been exchanging for decades.

Deep inside, much like the writers they represent, they pursue and nurse the fantasy that they alone, among everyone in the room, will find the Next Big Thing.

Just like us.  As writers, we aspire to Next Big Thing status, too.

But there is one thing they won’t readily admit.  On the contrary, often their brassy chutzpah smacks of the diametric opposite of this one unspeakable thing.  And that is…

Nobody knows anything.

Two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist William Goldman (All The President’s Men, Marathon Man, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and dozens of uncredited screenplay buff-ups at a hundred grand a week) said it most famously in his book, Adventures in the Screen Trade (highly recommended, by the way, even for novelists).

He was referring to the studio system inHollywood.  The in-your-face truth of that statement, as genius truisms do, quickly went viral to apply to novels and short stories and pretty much anything else in the writing realm.

Nobody knows anything.

Back to that gathering of agents. 

You can almost smell the hubris in the air competing with the scent of bourbon and Donald Maass’s cologne.  There are enough credits here, some of them bestsellers you’ve heard of, most of which you haven’t, to fill a wing at Borders.

Borders, by the way, didn’t know, either.

The number here – 46 – is telling, for our purposes.  Imagine now that each and every one of them was once offered the opportunity to represent a novel entitled The Help by a then unknown author named Kathryn Stockett.

And that all of them turned it down.

You don’t have to imagine it… it happened.  Forty-six professional agents said “no” to Kathryn Stockett and The Help.

Because, despite their own certainty that they did, they didn’t know.

Forty-six professionals who declared that they did know, at least where that particular book was concerned.  They were served the most significant home run dream shot of their career, and they passed.

As regrets go, this is another flavor of Home Run.  It would be interesting to hear how some of them rationalize this one away.  Hubris has a funny take on that sometimes.

Sure, a cynic could successfully argue that nobody bats a thousand. 

We writers already know that one.

In baseball you’re in the All-Star game if you fail only seven out of ten times at bat.  Not the point.

From Kathryn Stockett’s perspective, she believed she had failed, struck out swinging, 46 out of her first 46 at bats in this business.

Imagine if she had packed it in right there.  If she believed she knew, based on this evidence, that her novel wasn’t good enough.

It was that 47th swing that ended up counting for something.  And still counting, well beyond the many dozens of millions of copies sold.

Publishers, by the way, don’t know either.

They are out there swinging, too, just like us.

They are in the Home Run business, and they may likely throw anything that smacks of a single or a double under the bus.  Unless you know someone at the senior level (which is why you absolutely need one of those agents who doesn’t really know), your project lands on the desk of a newly-graduated MFA who is absolutely terrified of taking a up the elevator that might not cut it at that altitude, resulting in a black mark on their budding career scorecard.

Certainly, those first-reader MFAs know less than the people upstairs, who, by the way, still don’t really know.

This not knowing, by the way, is a fact to which they (readers, agents and editors) will, in a moment of transparency, admit to.  What they are less likely to own is the fact that, while perhaps not knowing a bestseller when they read one in manuscript form, they don’t really know if a manuscript won’t sell, either.

Though admittedly, they do often come a lot closer to knowing on that count.  Because, unlike upside potential, there are standards and benchmarks for failure.

Then again, they still don’t know.  Four words: Fifty Shades of Grey.

Millions of readers claim to know the writing in that novel is bad.  Statistics expose this belief as questionable, while proving that bad and good is always just an opinion.

The criteria for getting published is all over the place.  Everybody knows that.

Nobody knows when lightning will strike, and what we will make of it when it does.

So what are we, the writers who don’t know either, to do with this?

We should cling to hope, that’s what.  Hope that is directly proportionate to effort and perseverance.

And, we cling to the certainty that our first line of satisfaction and reward is our own bliss at the process of disappearing into the stories we write.  That is something we can know.

We can know this, too: we have tools and criteria and standards within reach – a bar to strive for – based on certain principles that, like gravity and death and taxes and Republicans hating our President, are almost always a sure thing.

You need to accept that you just don’t know.  And then get back to it.

Unless you aren’t out there with a finger pointing to the sky.  Then you know, absolutely, that lightning won’t strike you.

We all have the opportunity to submit our story for the 47th time.

And, to tweak it up between that 46th and 47th submission.

The goal isn’t to find someone out there who knows. 

It’ll never happen.

The closest you’ll come, on both the rejection and acceptance fronts, is someone who thinks they know.  Which is both curse and blessing.

The goal is to craft a work of fiction that you know, in your heart, aligns with principles and story physics, so that it has the best possible shot at knocking the right person at the right time off of their righteous chair.

You may not know it’s good enough, but like those agents and editors, you can come very close to knowing when it’s not.  And from there, hope is fortified by not quitting until you are peace with that certainty.

Then you can stand in the storm with your foil-wrapped finger pointing skyward, waiting for fate and the Laws of Literary Attraction to light you up.

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Do you think you know your story is good enough?   Or that it isn’t?

Would you like to find out?   Or at least get a professional second opinion on that verdict?  To add an understanding of WHY to your knowing?

Maybe you don’t know after all.

Check out my story evaluation and coaching services… HERE (the $150 level)… or HERE (the #35 level)… or HERE (the full meal deal level).

Because it’s what you don’t know that dictates your outcome.  And because, by definition, we can’t know that which we do not know, this process becomes an odds-improving step in the right direction.

I don’t know, either.  But where your story is concerned, I can tell you why someone out there might think they do.

The Absolute, Non-negotiable Truth About Writing and Selling Your Fiction is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Story Physics: The Interview

This is a bit of a mash-up between a guest post and an interview.  I’m not interviewing Randy Ingermanson, he’s interviewing   me   about my newly published writing book,   Story Physics .  

The guy’s a Ph.D., so the word “physics” had him at hello.

It’s an except from Randy’s monthly  Advanced Fiction Writing Ezine,   which is the most popular digital publication of its kind (he also writes a killer blog… see below to subscribe, something I highly recommend… he offers some nice spiff/incentives, too).  

Randy is the co-author of Writing   Fiction for Dummies , the bestselling writing book in this niche.

This is the story of the mission of the book and how it fits into the serious writer’s quiver of essential knowledge.  Randy doesn’t do fluff and isn’t about quid pro quo promotion… this is actually more a mini-clinic/workshop than anything else.

*****

by  Randy Ingermanson

I met Larry Brooks a few years ago at a writing conference. He was giving a workshop on story structure and I loved what he had to say.

After his talk, I introduced myself and we talked. We think along the same lines on a lot of things, although each of us comes at this fiction writing game from a different angle.

Larry’s just published a new book with a title guaranteed to catch my eye: STORY PHYSICS. Larry is also the author of STORY ENGINEERING, which sketches out what he calls the “Six Core Competencies.” (I call them the Five Pillars of Fiction. Yes, we count things differently, but we’re talking about the same things.)

What is “story physics?” Larry invented this term, and he means the forces that operate in fiction. They’re the basic forces in story that make your fiction fly. If you like, they’re the laws of the universe that tell us what makes fiction enticing to readers. Things like premise, tension, pacing, empathy, vicarious experience, and narrative strategy.

You can write a novel without studying these, in the same way that you can go out and high jump without knowing about force, momentum, mass, and gravity. But if you know about those things, you can optimize your performance. Which is why high jumpers now can jump 18 inches higher than they could 100 years ago.

Larry’s book just came out in the past month and he’s doing something nice exclusively for readers of my e-zine. If you buy a copy of his book (or if you already bought a copy), send Larry an email at storyfixer@gmail.com with the subject header “Randy sent me”. Tell him where you bought the book. If you bought the book online, you can also include the electronic receipt.

I recently interviewed Larry for this e-zine. Here’s how it went:

Randy: There are zillions of books on fiction writing already available.  What’s new in STORY PHYSICS?

Larry: Most writing books focus on conveying what the reader needs to know to write a book that competes in the marketplace. That is professionally competitive.  The fundamentals, equally valuable (and often misplayed) for both newbies and experienced writers.  My first book (“Story Engineering”) did just that, bringing a unique model and vocabulary to the process.

But like a clinic on “how to play golf,” there’s a huge difference between doing things right, by the numbers, and then executing those fundamentals at a level of excellence that takes you to a higher level. A professional level of effectiveness.  This is why so many fundamentally sound books are rejected, and/or don’t sell. They are technically fine, but they lack the “power” of what makes a story appealing.

This book focuses on those qualitative differentiators — the “forces” within a story (think of them as literary physics) that make one novel or screenplay better and more commercial than another.  Essentially, it goes beyond “how to get published” toward “how to write a bestseller or an award-winner,” by again creating a model and a fresh perspective and vocabulary about those story essences that makes them more accessible to writers at all levels.  My earlier book was about the tools.  This book is about putting electricity, muscle and intention behind those tools.

Randy: That sounds cool. People often talk about “taking it to the next level” but they don’t always tell you how to do that, which is frustrating.  In STORY PHYSICS, you describe six “story physics” elements that drive fiction.  The first on the list is “a compelling premise”.  What’s the difference between an “idea,” a “concept,” and a “premise?”

Larry: A great question, because this is an area where many writers stumble.  All three terms are nebulous, and to a great extent interchangeable within the imprecise nature of the writing conversation.  Was The Da Vinci Code an “idea?”  Well, certainly it was that … an idea on steroids.  When you break those terms down into three separate, sequential and hierarchical focuses, the writer suddenly has something to work with.  An “idea” is a seed, the genesis for something that will grow.  Could be anything.

“I want to write a story about time travel” is an idea. JUST an idea.  Not a concept, and not a premise.  A “concept” is a compelling and appealing source of energy springing from an idea (even if this concept is the starting point itself), something that creates a stage, a landscape, upon with any number of stories could be written.

Using that “time travel” idea example, you could leverage a concept from it like this: “What if, in a world in which time travel is a newly discovered science, a group of Big Thinkers sets out to retrieve genius minds and doers from the past — da Vinci, Einstein, Plato, Steve Jobs, Jesus Christ, etc. — and bring them to our time, in our world, to help solve our problems?”  That’s NOT a story … yet.  But it is a concept.

Of course, complications ensue … and when they do, that’s leaning into “premise.”  They are sequential.  From the arena, to the story platform, to the story’s dramatic framework — that’s idea-concept-premise.  Lots of wiggle room in those connections, too.  The deeper you go into this hierarchy, the more the forces of story physics come into play.

Randy: Thanks, that’s helpful. I actually used your idea-concept-premise terminology recently when I was trying to come up with the marketing blurb for my latest novel, which I just released. I had been having a terrible time finding a way to explain the premise. And right while I was reading your book, I had a breakthrough. So I went to my computer and typed up 40 words that really catch the spirit of my novel.

Talk to me about “subtext.”  In your book, it sounds a lot like what I call “storyworld.”  Are they the same?  And do some categories of fiction need more subtext than others?

Larry: I think they are very much the same.  Because a “storyworld” defines its own parameters and constraints and laws and possibilities (in the above concept example, time travel becomes part of the storyworld, creating a permissible context, and thus a “subtext” for the story itself).

Subtext isn’t limited to environment, time and place, though, meaning the inner (as well as external) “storyworld” for your characters exerts force on their beliefs and decisions.

A love story in a nunnery is different than a love story in a homosexual subculture or a community that tolerates bigamy or among grade school faculty members.  All are different contexts that exert force on everything in the story, and as such, they become part of that “storyworld.”

Subtext can also refer to unseen and unacknowledged forces between the players — a husband leading a dark secret life (in any “storyworld”) creates context for everything he says and does as a partner, parent and citizen, especially if/when he is hiding or planning something.

Context is one of the most powerful words in fiction. Subtext becomes context in a way that blurs the line between them.  One is thematic, the other translates theme into action.

Randy: In chapter 12 of your book, you talk about how theme can be the “silent story killer.”  Explain what you mean by that, because I see a lot of writers who want to change the world with their brilliant themes.

Larry: Challenging the world and its belief systems and laws is one of the highest callings of fiction. It’s like sex in a marriage … if it’s ONLY about that, things probably won’t work out.  Stories are very much the same relative to theme.  It (sex and/or your theme) can be hot, it can be great, it can be the centerpiece, but real life swirls all around it, and ultimately defines it.

My answer is found in this golden storytelling principle: “a great story isn’t just ABOUT something.  It is about something HAPPENING.”

Randy: That’s for sure. And I see this a lot with novice writers. They want so bad to preach a sermon or paint a picture that they forgot that the reader came to watch a movie.

Larry: Which means, if the writer creates a hero that is merely a window into a theme, “the adventures of X within this time and place,” primarily for the purpose of illuminating an issue, that can be a story killer.

Because it may be weak on dramatic tension and pace, and on character itself (notice how, despite her strong themes, Kathryn Stockett used a PLOT to drive “The Help” to its thematic place in history).

With conflict-driven drama in play, just “seeing” the world in which a character lives and moves will fall flat. In essence the theme kills the story … not because of what it IS, but because of HOW IT IS HANDLED by the writer.

A better story leverages dramatic CONFLICT within a particular and highly thematic time and place, allowing the thematic aspects to surface as — and here it is again — contextual in nature, and therefore, illuminated.

If the writer clearly cares more about theme than plot, then the story is at risk, on several levels.  That’s how theme becomes a “story killer” … it smothers or displaces dramatic exposition of a plot. Theme works best when it emerges as a CONSEQUENCE of the story, rather than the sole intention of the story.

Randy: I’ve seen plenty of novels where the theme just drives everything, and it feels like the story was concocted to perfectly illustrate the theme. It feels phony. And it’s boring.

The flip side of that is the fact that some of the biggest hits of all time had strong themes.  Uncle Tom’s Cabin is heavily theme-driven.  So is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.  So is The Da Vinci Code.  So is The Shack.

All of these books sold loads of copies.  And yet the themes of these novels contradict each other, so they can’t all be right.  What are your thoughts on that?

Larry: Themes don’t have to be “right” to be powerful. Mein Kampf by a guy named Adolf something-or-other did pretty well, and is still on shelves today. Propriety isn’t the point.

Yes, those stories do have strong themes.  But that’s not remotely what I mean by theme being a potential “story killer.”

In fact, those stories also all have strong protagonists and a PLOT, giving us a character who needs to DO something, experience something specific, a character with a problem and a goal and external opposition to it — in other words, a PLOT — rather than just a “tour” of the thematic issues.

The hero of “The Help” had to write a book about racism (the theme itself), but that didn’t just happen.  In fact, the whole story was about resistance to making it happen, and the consequences either way.

Nelson Demille’s bestseller Night Fall proposed a thematic truth — that TWA Flight 800 was the victim of a missile and then an FAA/government cover-up. That was his theme, and he was selling it hard.

Was that in contradiction to the “proven” truth?  Absolutely. But that didn’t dilute or invalidate his intended theme.  The litmus test isn’t truth, but rather, relevance and emotional resonance.

Theme is simply what a story is asking the reader to think about, consider and challenge. Perhaps to feel and experience.  That’s it.  Right or wrong isn’t the issue, even when the writer wants it to be.

A great story always grabs you on several levels.  One of those levels (The Da Vinci Code did this one really well), one of the options, is when it thoroughly pisses the reader off.

Randy: LOL, I read The Da Vinci Code as fiction, so it didn’t really bother me that Dan Brown (in my opinion) didn’t go a great job on his research. But yeah, he did make a lot of people angry.

One thing I try to teach my students is that nobody ever bought a novel because they wanted to change their religion or their politics or their basic worldview. But lots of people have bought a novel to be entertained and then ended up changing their religious or political beliefs or their worldview. Because story gets inside you and works on your emotions.

Which brings us to another topic. You talk a lot in your book about “vicarious experience.”  Why is that so important?  Can you give examples of stories where that’s the strongest element?

Larry: Every romance novel that works — within that specific genre, or within a story that simply has a love angle involved —  depends on “vicarious experience” to make it happen.

That reminiscent, perhaps regretful, perhaps hopeful, but vivid feeling of being in love. Same with thrillers, sci-fi and fantasy. They transport the reader into an alternate reality, yet one in which they can RELATE.

If the reader can travel to a time or place within your pages, if they can have experiences that are so vivid and frightening or exciting or enraging or otherwise provocative that it “feels as if they are right there,” that’s a force of storytelling. They can take the ride without the cost or the risk.

Randy: Tom Clancy does that really well. When you read The Hunt For Red October, you almost believe you could drive a submarine. When you read Patriot Games, you almost believe you could stop a machine-gun-bearing terrorist with your bare hands. Almost.

When you read The Hunger Games, you can almost believe you’re there in the arena. When you read Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game, you almost believe you’re a little kid inBattleSchool. So I agree with you that vicarious experience is a big part of story, and it’s something fiction teachers don’t talk about as much as I’d like. I call it the “powerful emotional experience” and my opinion has always been that this is the main purpose of fiction. It drives everything else.

Larry: This is a powerful piece of storytelling physics.  You may have never been on a space ship, but if the writer can make you feel as if you’re having that experience, living it, that aspect alone is compelling.

And if the other essences of physics are in play — a hero we’re rooting for and empathizing with, striving toward something we care about, with dramatic tension and pace, etc. — then the vicarious experience is all the more integral to the overall impact.

The point of “Story Physics” is to define each of these forces of storytelling as an intention for the writer, a benchmark, a box to consider and check off as they expand their idea into a concept and then into a premise, and from there into a manuscript, and to harness those forces to make it all work more vividly, more intimately, more urgently, and more provocatively.  Not as a random result of how you’ve assembled your story beats and scenes, but as an intention for them.

Without these forces of story physics in your quiver, you’re writing on autopilot. On instinct. Or as a reflection of something you know or have read. Or in the hope of getting lucky. All of which can work.

But your odds go up significantly when you know what WILL make your story work, and work better, more optimally, in the long run, and engineer these forces into your story plan, rather than retrofitting it later, which is always harder to pull off.

Randy: Some writers believe that instinct is all you need to write a story. Well, instinct is good. It’s essential. But it also needs to be guided by a trained mind. We’d never send a pilot off to fight the enemy with just instinct. We find pilots with great instincts and then we train the heck out of them.

Thanks for the interview, Larry! I appreciate your time.

*****

This article is reprinted by permission of the author.

Award-winning novelist Randy Ingermanson, “the Snowflake Guy,” publishes the free monthly Advanced Fiction Writing E-zine, with about 32,000 readers. If you want to learn the craft and marketing of fiction, AND make your writing more valuable to editors, AND have FUN doing it, visit www.AdvancedFictionWriting.com.

Download your free Special Report on Tiger Marketing and get a free 5-Day E-mail Course in How To Publish a Novel.

 

 

Story Physics: The Interview is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

It’s Not “What.” It’s “How.”

  Enriching the ‘Dramatic Question’

There is an entire banana boat full of stuff that, by the time you stamp “final” on your manuscript, you need to know all about.

My personal contention is that the more of these literary nuts and bolts you suspect you know before you actually begin writing it – otherwise known as story planning – the quicker you’ll reach that final draft.

And the more valid the word final will actually be.

The trick is to make “final” synonymous with “best.”  With optimized.

That very differential, when it exists, is often the unspoken explanation behind a rejection slip or a self-publishing dream that doesn’t come true.

You need to know the story’s concept. The premise. The backstory and arc of your protagonist.  The First Plot Point.  The Mid-point.  The Second Plot Point.  And, perhaps more than anything, the ending, one that’s on the table (in the writer’s mind as a context-creating destination) from Page 1 of that “final” draft.

These are the ABCs of storytelling at a professional level.  By any other name – and there is a boat-load of those, too – they are non-negotiable.

But there’s something else in play that makes it all work, the thing that connects all of these story elements and milestones into a cohesive whole.  Think of it as the fuel for your story’s fire, rendering all of these other things to the role of kindling.

In fact, this is the one story essence that separates the published from the unpublished. The viral from the lost-in-the-digital-crowd.  More so, in fact, than the writer’s linguistic chops. Because even if those elements and milestones lean to the vanilla side, this one, when you nail it can raise them up.

And yet, it appears for better or worse in virtually every story out there.  Which is the risk of it… it’s hiding right in front of you.  Easily taken for granted.  Easily dismissed as a consequence of those more basic elements… when in it fact, it drives them.

I’m talking about the DRAMATIC QUESTION your story poses.

And as the title says, it’s not the “what” of it that counts, but the “how” of it.

We’ve all heard the term whodunit, as it applies to mysteries (as I type that word, which is pure slang, a squiggly red line does not appear beneath it, evidence of its arrival in the lexicon of the genre).  In and of itself it is a dramatic question: who is the guilty bad guy in this story?  The story is always about the hero discovering – the means and route of that discovery – whodunit.

In romances, the dramatic question is this, in several forms: will they fall in love?  Will love endure?  Will love conquer all?

In both of these genres, two words universally apply: well duh!!!!!

How many times does a mystery not reveal whodunit?  How many romances show us a story without an HEA (that’s Happily Ever After for those who haven’t darkened the door of a romance writing conference lately)?

Every genre demands that a dramatic question be put into play. 

Regardless of genre, the story usually boils down to a simple and obvious question:  Will he escape?  Will he/she find justice/peace/vengeance/love/self-respect… whatever the hero needs to find in your story?

Of course he/she will.

But wait, screams the cynic… if it’s obvious, why is it so important?

Because right there, at the intersection of obviousness and creativity, is where opportunity awaits.  In the green room sitting right next to risk.

The dramatic question is at once a litmus test, and a gateway for your story’s inherent potential. 

If you can’t state your story’s dramatic question at all, that’s a sign of an episodic collection of story beats that have no connection and no destination.  An “adventures of…” story, perhaps based on a string of smaller dramatic questions (not a good idea).  If your answer is obvious and therefore less than compelling, then that’s a sign you may be undervaluing this most critical of all story physics.

Because even the most obvious of dramatic questions are begging for some sauce.

To gain access to the power of your dramatic question, no matter how obvious, you benefit from addressing each of these connected queries, relative to both your dramatic question and the answer to it:

So… how?  How does the hero reach the goal?

Why will anyone care?

What is compelling about the implied journey of how?

Will your reader vicariously embrace the quest with your hero?

What will the reader feel once the dramatic question has been answered?

Will satisfaction come from the journey, or the destination?

Many readers of The Davinci Code, for example, found the destination underwhelming, while the ride had them riveted.  Will your readers be saying “Yes!!!” or “OMG!!!”… or will they feel let down?

All of these questions spring directly from the rich well of available story physics, the forces that make a story compelling… when absent, not so much.

What seems obvious isn’t.  Even when it is.

By that I mean, when your story boils down to something as simple as whodunit, your success is hitched to something other than the answer.  The juice resides in the journey… the how of it all.  The means of discovery, with all the twists and thrills and emotions that come with it.

And yet, in a very risky bit of seeming contradiction (it’s not, be clear on that), a journey without a dramatic question is a tough sell.

How are you doing with those facets of your dramatic question?  Take a closer look and ask if it’s dripping with juice, or dry as a legal footnote?

Something to think about.

The validity and potential of the word “final,” whenever you choose to use it, depends on it.

****

For more on the forces that make a dramatic question compelling, check out my new book, “Story Physics: Harnessing the Underlying Forces of Storytelling.”

And if you’d like an assessment of your dramatic question, evaluated in context to your intended concept and premise, click HERE.

It’s Not “What.” It’s “How.” is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

An Interview With ‘The Sluts’

The Sun City Sluts, that is.

Three talented women who shared a dream, a few bottles of wine and a fantasy — revenge, and otherwise – that they needed to get out of their very pretty and slightly wicked heads.

So they wrote a novel.  Together.  Planned it, nailed it, lived to tell about it.

They did it working from a well-crafted story plan and… well, I’ll let them tell you.

The result is Murder at Cape Foulweather, a self-published novel with attitude, a twised sense of humor and some ironic twists.  All strategically sound, dramatically compelling and… did I say a little twisted?  I think I did.  That’s the part that sticks.

Here’s why you’re going to like it: it’s about writers and writing workshops and grouchy irascible writing teachers with an attitude and perhaps an agenda of their own.

They swear it’s not me, even though all of them have been in my workshops, where I tend to work myself into a dither.  I was secretly wishing it was, but hey, I’ll settle for a subtle and sweet nod in the interview that follows… right now.

Here’s what you’ll learn: what the process and challenges to self-publishing are, what is feels like, and now to not kill your writing partner(s). Or yourself. Give this a shot.  They’re good.  You’ll relate, too.

*****

The Sun City Sluts are: Marjorie Reynolds, Susan Clayton-Goldner and Martha Miller.

Larry: How did three experienced writers, each with your own projects and goals get together to write a collaborative story?

Marjie:  The five women who became the Sun City Sluts met at a workshop on the Oregon Coast about eighteen years ago and soon were friends. Each winter after that, we gathered at Jane Sutherland’s house near Palm Springs to write, talk writing and critique each other’s work. When we’re together, we can’t seem to stop laughing. That’s one of the best things about our group—that and the love and support we get from each other. We have our own creed. “Men come and go but girlfriends are forever.” I think our sisterhood is unique because we really believe in each other’s talent and we cheer when one of us has success. When Susan, Martha and I acquired agents, all five sluts were overjoyed.

Martha: It was during one of those get-togethers, which always brings out the party girl in us, when someone held up a wine glass and piped, “We should write a book about us.” We had already jokingly dubbed ourselves the Sun City Sluts, a name that both tickled and embarrassed. The idea stuck and it wasn’t long before we started the actual writing.  Once we got going, we couldn’t stop, because the words came without the usual writerly angst or the old editor-on-the-shoulder curse.

Susan: Two of the five women opted out of the actual writing due to the distance involved and the desire to work on their own projects. So, three of us, Martha Miller from Portland, Oregon, Marjorie (Marjie) Reynolds from Camano Island, Washington, and Susan Goldner from Grants Pass, Oregon, decided to write the book. We put together some character sketches. Susan Domingos from Lafayette, California and Jane Sutherland from Seattle and Palm Springs contributed their own character sketches for the Paige and Babs characters.

Larry: What did the process look like? Did you work from a story plan (and how did you get to THAT?) or was the story truly “pantsed” from the like-minds of three authors?

Martha: We definitely had a story plan. We came up first with the concept: What if five best friends went to a writing workshop in a remote area, got trapped by a destructive storm, witnessed a murder and had to find the killer or be killed themselves? From there, the story took shape. Hey, I didn’t take Larry’s class on story structure five times without having his structural paradigm burned into my brain. Marjie had long ago internalized story structure and Susan is a fabulous writer, so it all came together.

Susan: Martha, Marjie and I live a few hundred miles from each other but Martha’s house was equidistant for both of us so we tended to gather there. Why not? She’d already dubbed her house The Write Place. Set on the banks of the Columbia River, it is a peaceful and beautiful spot to put the creative forces to work. Once we’d developed a rough outline, we assigned writers for the individual scenes. We have all read books written by this incredibly handsome and very nice instructor (with a cameo in our novel, I might add), who has convinced us that writing by the seat of our pants rarely results in a cohesive book. Whenever possible, the three of us met for planning and writing sessions. We also used email and phone calls to work out problems. Marjie coordinated the project and edited the final manuscript.

One of the most important things we did was to write up a contract in which the proceeds of the book would be distributed according to the amount of effort each writer put into the process. At first it didn’t seem necessary because we were just having fun, but it turned out to be a very good idea. It’s the best way to avoid resentment, and we would recommend a contract for any group who wants to collaborate on a book.

Marjie: The conception was easier than the lengthy pregnancy (about a year and a half), and choosing the book’s name set off grueling labor pains. The delivery was also an ordeal, but Murder at Cape Foulweather has been born as a Kindle book and a paperback on Amazon and is doing well. Believe it or not, the three of us are preparing for another pregnancy as if we’ve forgotten all about the labor pains.

In Murder at Cape Foulweather, the Sun City Sluts attend the writing workshop on the pretense they want to learn more about the craft, but what really attracts them is Seamus O’Brien, a gorgeous hunk of a man who runs his classes like a drill sergeant. Several sluts try to seduce him but only one succeeds. We each took on one of the slut personas and wrote the scenes from our character’s point of view.

I’m Jamie, a shy, willowy brunette. Susan is Ruby Jean, a southern belle, and Martha is Roz, the wild one in the group. We took turns writing from the POV of the other characters: Paige, a wealthy socialite, and Babs, a mother hen who unsuccessfully tries to organize us and keep us in line. We have all grown as writers over the last eighteen years and some of us have published our work through traditional channels. We know the craft and agree on the same writing principles. Martha and Susan are natural comedians, so the wacky humor in the book comes from them.

Larry: Any war stories?

Susan: War stories? Not really. Over the past 20 years, the three of us have become close friends and know each other the way sisters often do. The writing process went smoothly until my knee surgery slowed me down and I was unable to make the trips to Portland. Martha and Marjie took up the slack and wrote the remainder of the scenes. I still did some editing when possible via email.

Martha: There was no warring between the three writers. And while uploading the manuscript to Kindle was easy, when the Sun City Sluts met CreateSpace, our choice for the print edition, it has been a little like war: laborious, frustrating, with a clear winner not yet in sight. Perhaps that’s because we did it ourselves. It was/is a real learning process. Thanks to Marjie being a whiz at Microsoft Word, we managed to publish it this time, but next time we might hire a formatter.

Marjie: When I researched indie publishing, I felt overwhelmed by the information available. I attended workshops and read books and blogs on the subject until my eyes crossed. Although I had once worked in a movie advertising agency, the prospect of marketing our novel seemed tremendously daunting. We had to learn how to use resources such as Amazon Kindle, CreateSpace, LinkedIn, Good Reads and Weebly. When would we have time to write? We’ve had to learn to compartmentalize. We’re making progress on the process day by day, handling the promotion in small bites, building an audience as we go. It’s nice to know the book won’t be pulled off the shelf in a few months so we have plenty of time. And, of course, we’ve started our new Sun City Slut mystery, tentatively titled Murder Aboard the S. S. Kevorkian.

Larry: You all have relationships with agents. Did you pursue any traditional publishing options before going the self-publishing route? What was your experience in getting the book out there? Is the conventional wisdom on this process accurate, or were there landmines along the way? Did you use a third-party formatter? How about cover art?

Martha: All three of us have agents but they passed on this project. We queried other agents and had some close calls, but no brass ring. We decided to go ahead and self-publish, because we continued to believe the book had merit and could make others laugh. As far as I’m concerned, that’s all I really wanted this book to do: to make people laugh. There’s plenty of dark stuff out there already.

Susan: One agent almost took on the manuscript, but at the last minute decided it wasn’t for her. We were disappointed but not deterred. After the usual licking of wounds, and a few glasses of bubbly, we decided to pursue the self-pub avenue.

Marjie: It took twelve drafts for us to get the formatting on CreateSpace accurate, but it will be easier for the next book. Martha’ s son, Keith Miller, generously created the cover art, using an image we purchased for $21 from Shutterstock. We tried to stick to the “make-it-eye-catching-but simple” philosophy we’d read about on some self-publishing blogs. Indie publishing is great but it unfortunately has a reputation for shoddy production values. Too many self-published books are filled with typos and awkward prose. We went over and over our book, trying to make the whole package as professional as possible.

Larry: Can you describe the emotional experience of this journey so far? Have you encountered the unexpected? Marjie: What I like most about self-publishing is the freedom I feel. It brings back the joy of writing and reminds me of those early days when I was so deep into my fictional dream that I lost track of time. It’s sheer creative flow and I love it. We don’t have to worry whether we’re pleasing an agent or an editor. We simply write the story that delights us and makes us laugh. It’s relaxed and unfettered, but we still keep our high standards. We want a book we can be proud of. We hope there are women out there who see life the way we do and who value their friendships as much as we do.

Martha: The positive response to this light-hearted little book is surprising and rewarding. We don’t expect to be laughing all the way to the bank (pardon the cliché), but when someone says our story is fun to read, I feel rich.

Susan: All of us will consider self-publishing for some of our own projects. It is important to have a professional editor before putting your project into print. Marjie acted in this capacity for us. Get input from others. And carefully proofread. Mistakes are embarrassing.

Larry: What have you learned from this, and what would you do differently next time, either with the next book in this series, or your own projects?

Marjie: What have I learned? Instant gratification. We don’t have to wait the years it takes to go through the New York publishing route. We can hold our novel in our hands within weeks after finishing the final draft. What a good feeling!

Martha: I feel a little bit like I’ve been let out of prison. I’m no longer bound by the need to snag and then satisfy an agent who then must snag and satisfy an editor for traditional publication. I now know here’s another way. But it requires accomplished craft, a cracking good story and a willingness to work at marketing.

Susan: I have to admit I had more fun writing this book than any of my others. I let go of the internal critic and just wrote for the pure joy of it, making myself and others laugh.

Larry: Feel free to add anything that you believe contextually contributes to this path.

Marjie: In one of the scenes, the sluts are discussing the killer’s motive. Here’s the passage:

Paige raised her hand. “I have an idea. Let’s brainstorm what Norman’s motive might be. We can do the ‘what if’ exercise we learned at the Portland workshop last summer from that fabulously handsome instructor named Larry.”

“Okay,” Roz said. “Let’s try it.”

Can you guess who the “fabulously handsome instructor” is? We swear we put that in months and months before we knew Larry was going to interview us.

Martha: Many people have commented that they think writing a novel collaboratively would be difficult, but in this case, it made the process easier. We apparently share a similar sense of humor; there’s no jealousy or rivalry between the three of us, and we all believe in the importance of good craft.

Susan:  I think Marjie and Martha covered my additional insights. But I do want to express my gratitude to Larry again for posting this interview.  One of the things I’m realizing as I move forward on the writing path:  Friends are important and we need to help our fellow writers in whatever ways we can.

You can score your copy of Murder at Cape Foulweather in Kindle HERE…. and in paperback HERE.

An Interview With ‘The Sluts’ is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

What to Do If You Hate Your Novel — A Guest Post

by Jessica Flory

It happens to everyone. You’re slogging away, page after page, filling the blank space. And then you start to wonder… Is this even worth it?

Finish, No Matter What

If you have published several times, you may have the right instincts

to know if the story is just not working. Then you can consider

putting it down before you’ve reached the end. If you’re still a new

writer, then do not stop writing.

The thing is, the middle of your novel is always going to be the worst part.

At the beginning, you’re really excited. You’re working on a new

project! At the end, you’re almost done. You can taste the success.

In the middle, though… You’re just chugging through a thick layer of

manuscript, and the end is nowhere in sight. You’re thinking that

every chapter you write sucks.

Here’s the good news – you’re probably wrong.

If you’ve planned according to story architecture, then everything is

probably just fine. Keep going. Finish that novel, no matter what.

Even if you never publish it, practicing writing a whole novel is

crucial. You need practice blending everything that makes a story into

a whole. If you give up in the middle that will never happen. You’ll

never get to practice writing an ending, and you’ll never get to see

what the complete story would’ve looked like.

So finish, no matter what.

Look at Characters and Plot

If your story isn’t working, you need to take a step back and evaluate

it. Go back to your outline. Are you following story structure? If you

can answer yes, just see the tip above.

If you can’t completely answer yes, it’s time to go back and look at

your outline again. If you’re bored with your plot, chances are that

readers will be, too.

Then take a look at your characters. No one wants to read about boring characters, let alone write about them. Look at your character’s development. How do they change over the course of the story? What are their wants, needs, thoughts? Just adding these things in can make them real and intriguing.

Take a Break

Creativity is like a well. You drain it, squeeze all the juice you can out of it, and then it’s just… dry. It takes time to refill. If you hate your novel, it could be because your creativity well is getting low.

Read a book. Eat a cookie. Do something other than write.

Try working on your novel for half an hour every day, just letting

yourself write, nonstop. Putting in half an hour every day will give

your well enough time in between writing sessions to refill.

Writing a novel is tough! Sometimes in the midst of endless pages is

easy to start wondering why you started it. These strategies can help

you remember.

How about you? What do you do to fall in love with your story again?

Jessica Flory helps authors fulfill their publishing dream with

story writing advice on her site, Storytips. She loves to

write YA SciFi and Fantasy (yep, she’s a nerd), and she took a

creative writing class from Brandon Sanderson. Be jealous.

What to Do If You Hate Your Novel — A Guest Post is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Are You the One-Out-of-Ten?

Please don’t get too excited by those odds.

I’m not implying that one-out-of-ten writers will one day publish a novel or sell a screenplay, or will write one what will become another of those unlikely self-published success stories.

Nor am I implying that one-out-of-ten manuscripts are even salable.  No, that particular statistic is more like one out of – and I’m spit-balling here – 500 or so.

The odds suck.  This isn’t a game for the feint of heart.  But it is a game with a set of principles and models that, if you let them in and embrace the struggle, will give you a fighting chance.

Which is why I sometimes come off like a hard-ass here, hammering home the importance of the principles of storycraft, as defined and packaged by what I call the Six Core Competencies, and empowered by the various realms of what I call Story Physics.

Contrary to one early (and confused) reviewer’s take, they are not remotely the same things.

All of which, by the way, is almost exactly what other writing teachers have been harping on, with a variety of approaches and vocabularies, for dozens of years now, at every writing conference you’ve ever been to.

Process is personal and negotiable.  Story architecture and all of its nuances… isn’t.

That 1-out-of-1o statistic?

That’s from my own experience in coaching stories.  I’ve read over 400 story plans (via my three levels of story coaching) in the past 15 months, and the numbers break down like this:

Only one out of ten stories sent to me for coaching are solid in the major areas of story architecture and physics.

Which is to say… the concept is compelling, the premise arising from it is sufficiently dramatic, the First Plot Point is functional and in the right place, the hero earns that title in the right way, and the story resolves in a fashion that will make readers glad they stuck around.

Basic stuff.  And yet, nine-out-of-ten of you get it wrong.

Proof positive that, even when you’ve been at this a while, this is a really hard craft to wrap your head around.  There’s absolutely no shame in working on a story that isn’t ready yet.  Or when it is, isn’t good enough.  Everybody who isn’t named Stephen King goes through that experience.

I’m not saying that the one-out-of-ten nail it.  Simply, that they haven’t swung and missed.  That their story plan reflects a solid grasp of these principles.  That they deserve a competitive place in the slush pile.

From there the question becomes, for those one-out-of-ten writers: are you hitting a single, a double, a triple, or a home run?

Or will you simply get into the game and still go 0-for-4?

My goal as a story coach is to improve your odds on all counts.  Here’s how.

A summary of those swings and misses.

Concept problems – concepts that aren’t conceptual at all, that are really a premise (which is NOT the same thing as a concept) without a source of compelling energy driving it.  In other words, a “story idea” that isn’t yet good enough… if “good” is measured by its ability to compel, by its freshness and the perceived ability to execute and compete at a professional level.

Notice how none of that connects, not even a little, to how well the writer writes.  Your sentences don’t matter.  Not in the least.  If, that is, your story isn’t working.

I see a lot of ideas, presented as stories, that aren’t yet a dramatic premise based on a concept. In other words, an under-cooked story plan.  Or a plan-in-progress.  In essence, a project that is still in the search for story phase.

Which is fine, by the way, if the submitting writer gets this and is seeking feedback on how to finish that search.  The more troubling — and prevalent — issue is when the writer believes the story is fully realized, and it’s just not.

About seven out of ten stories I see are guilty of this one.

Lane changes – stories that start out as one thing, the offspring of the union of concept and premise… and then become something else entirely (sometimes more than once) as the story unfolds.  The premise is abandoned, the First Plot Point is rendered moot, and a core story never really emerges.

This is both a conceptual issue (the lack thereof) and a structural issue.  I’ve seen stories that offer a First Plot Point that sets the hero down a certain path, sometimes promising… which turns out to have nothing at all to do with the story in the second half of the novel or screenplay.  A fatal error, that.

Your First Plot Point is a promise.  One you need to keep.

Four out of ten fall victim to this mistake.

Also, stories that confuse hook, inciting incident and First Plot Point… without nailing any of them.  That’s a handful of story killers before you are a hundred pages in.

Mangled or weak First Plot Points are a death sentence for your story.  About six out of ten take themselves out of the running on this count alone.

Episodic stories – without a core dramatic focus on a hero with a specific quest stemming from a specific problem or need or goal.  Something with stakes, with opposition ahead.

Basically, a character doing this and that, and then that and this, without a core source of purpose or conflict.  An “adventures of…” type of story.  Almost always a fatal flaw, as well.

Half of the stories I see jump off this cliff.

Hero growth stories – wherein character arc masquerades as dramatic tension.

In every story analysis I do, I ask the writer to define what the hero needs or wants in the story.  This leads to the story’s dramatic question, and thus, the primary source of dramatic tension.

No dramatic tension, no chance of publication.  Period.

Answers that are too soft and unclear, that simply drive toward a character’s sense of being and understanding and growth, without a core external need present as the catalyst that motivates character arc… this is the sign of a story that’s already in trouble.

Character is only ONE of the six core competencies required of a story that works.

I’d say that four out of ten of the stories I see fall into this particular abyss.

The Fix Is In

All of these story killers are fixable.

(And thus we transition into the pitch portion of this post.  I hope the above content has served you well.)

Because, in context to the Questionnaire that is the basis of my story coaching programs, they are almost always easily visible.

In fact, since I’m quoting percentages here, about half of the projects take the writer a month or more to get to the point where they even submit the Questionnaire.  Why?  Precisely because it IS so visible.

In this way, the Questionnaire becomes as much a story development tool as it is a story evaluation template.  By the time I get it, the writers who aren’t among those pronounced guilty of the story crimes defined above – the one out of ten – have already identified and addressed their own issues.

At least to a great extent.  My job in the process is clarity across these benchmarks, and usually some suggestions on how to improve the specific issues that are bleeding the story dry of its potential.

One out of ten get affirmation, often with some tips on how to make it even better.

Nine out of ten get the help they need.  Even when it hurts.

New Pricing Structure

I’ve recently raised my fee for the basic “Story Coaching Adventure” level of this service (from $1oo to $150).

Why?  Because I’ve been over-delivering in terms of the time it takes and the impact of the verdict.  And frankly, based on feedback, it’s worth a heckuva lot more than the former price.   In many cases it will save your story from a nose-dive.  In others, it will create a vision and path to help you take the story to a higher level, sometimes to the point of salability.

The new fee reflects an updated and more focused Questionnaire, and the program now offers a 7-day turnaround.  (A 24-hour RUSH option is offered for an additional fifty dollars, for midnight oil.

Click HERE for more on this $150 story coaching service.

For a quicker, cheaper hit… my “Kick-Start Conceptual Analysis” remains ridiculously priced at $35, focusing on what the name promises: the nature of your concept as it relates to premise, and how you launch that in your story at the First Plot Point.  These now come with a 48-hour turnaround.

It’s like running your story through an MRI machine.  You may or may not require surgery or therapy.  Usually some therapy.  Good to know before you spend a year of your life writing it.

Click HERE for more on this $35 level.

Of course, the executed manuscript itself is the final test.  I do those evaluations, too (my fee there is $1800, also a slight increase; please please please DO compare that to other story coaching services, which don’t include the contextual Questionnaire phase).

Is your story ready?  Are you among the one-out-of-ten?

Good to know.

Either before you write it, or before you submit it.

Are You the One-Out-of-Ten? is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

‘Story Physics’ Launched, Kindle and Paperback

As some of you are aware, Amazon.com released the paperback two weeks ago, a good thing.  But the Kindl version hasn’t been available until now, which confused and frustrated some readers.

One was so pissed off she posted a 3-star review (out of 5) on the book.  Without reading it.  My response to that: WTF?

Anyhow, here’s the Kindle link on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Physics-ebook/dp/B00DH40XQM/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1371660724&sr=1-1&keywords=story+physics

I assume the other digital venues have it now, as well.

Click on the book cover to the right to go to the Amazon.com paperback page.

As for bookstores… some already have it, some will get it, some will blow me off.  They can always get it via special order.

Thanks for caring about this, or tolerating this if you don’t.  More content soon.

‘Story Physics’ Launched, Kindle and Paperback is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

A Clearer Understanding of ‘Concept’

Idea… concept… premise… story… structure… theme… this is what writing guru James Frye means when he talks about writers bleeding profusely from the forehead.

“Man of Steel” opened this week, to good-but-not-particularly great reviews.

A technical marvel, absolutely.  It’s directed by the guy who did “300” (Zack Snyder), and you’ll see the same visual magic in this film.

I know another Superman won’t be this month’s cup of tea for a lot of you.  I’m not here to sell it to you.  I’m here today to alert you to what it can teach us.

“Man of Steel” religiously follows and clearly demonstrates basic 4-part story structure – the contextual quartiles and the plot points that separate them are screaming to be noticed, as they usually are in action/hero-driven stories – but even better, it presents yet another opportunity to clarify the continuing wrestling match with the notion CONCEPT.

And you thought we’d beaten that dead horse to death.  But the horse is still trying to get out of the stall and run.

A Concept is NOT a PREMISE. 

More accurately, it is a promise.

Easily eight out of ten of the projects I take in for story coaching, a process in which the writer is asked to define their concept, get this WRONG.

Eight out of ten deliver a PREMISE instead.

The problem with that, and it can be a story-killer, is that half of those don’t have even a hint of something conceptual behind the premise itself.

A premise without a concept is like a superhero story without… the superhero.

Because the superhero IS the concept.  The superhero is CONCEPTUAL.

So think of it that way, instead of beating your head against the keyboard trying to understand the difference between concept and premise, or wondering why you should care.

Ask yourself what about your story is CONCEPTUAL in nature.  It’s a small twist on a big word, which can open a massive door to clarity.

When you have the answer, then THAT is your concept.

It’s usually easy for high concept stories.  If you look closely, the premise without the concept is almost always a simple good vs. evil proposition.  But with a killer concept, you can end up with a franchise.

Ask  Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games).  Those three books… they are all about the concept.  There are dozens of other ways she could have spun a story around it, and they probably would have worked just as well.

Ever wonder how a series happens?  This is it… same concept, yet another story built upon it.

But not all stories are high concept.  But pretty much all good stories DO have something conceptual at their heart.  You can submit a perfectly fine story premise to an agent, and it’ll get fired right back at you if there isn’t something conceptual about it that differentiates it from the crowd.

“The Great Gatsby’ –  that concept is: “what if you believed you had to become rich to find love, because the love of your life is a gold digger?”

That’s not a premise, because there is no Gatsby or Daisy yet.  No plot yet.  Just a notion, and a universally compelling one.  It’s not a theme, either, because it doesn’t yet say anything.  It’s a dramatic proposition.

Thematic, yes… great concepts usually are.  The difference is noun vs. adjective.  Just as it is between concept and conceptual.

Think about it… The Great Gatsby is built entirely upon – not around – that concept.  Only with that conceptual proposition, that compelling energy, driving the premise does Gatsby work.

Which is where Superman comes back into this little lecture. 

Because Superman, the entire notion of that character, IS the concept.

The premise of that story is: bad guy chases a young planetary peer to earth to fetch the codex upon which he intends to rebuild his demolished world.

That’s essentially the plot, with a hero, a villain and something at stake.

A premise.

The concept upon which it depends – the thing that is CONCEPTUAL here, stated as a “what if?” proposition, is: “what if an infant from a dying planet is sent to earth, discovered and raised by humans, and ends up with vast strength and superpowers?

Not a story yet.  But very much a compelling notion.  Something conceptual.

Notice the two things, the premise and the concept, aren’t the same.

Notice this, too – ALL of the Superman movies have sprung forth from that concept.  Each of them with their own dramatic premise, their own story.  The same is true for all of the Batman stories, the Miss Marple stories (octogenarian detective… that’s conceptual), pretty much all of the recurring heroic characters in any genre.

It’s also true for the great less-than-high concept stories you can name.  They are great, they separate from the crowd, because of the concept, something conceptual, that is driving the premise.

A story without such a conceptual driving force behind it is… already handicapped.  It is, inherently, mediocre.

Can you write a story without a concept?  Certainly.  Will it work?  Very possibly.  But will it sell?

Take a close look at what does sell, and you’ll find that answer.

What is CONCEPTUAL about the story you are writing?

If it looks more like a premise, with a hero and a plot implied… it may or may not have a concept empowering for it.

Now go fix that.

Find a conceptual centerpiece, a source of driving, compelling energy behind the story, and watch your premise begin to soar… just like a certain caped superhero has for the last 70 years.

*****

Story Coaching update – my fee structure has changed, effective today.  Click the links above this post for details.  And yes, the program has been enhanced and focused accordingly, with a 7-day turnaround on all submissions, and a 1-day RUSH option.  

I’ve  been over-delivering, and while the price has gone up, that won’t change.

 

 

A Clearer Understanding of ‘Concept’ is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com