Larry Brooks's Blog, page 38

An Insightful Question from a Storyfix Reader

And hopefully, an answer that will empower you.

I make a lot of noise (both in my book and here) about “mission-driven” storytelling.  Especially “mission-driven” scene development.

The bottom line is this: every scene should have an expositional mission.  Meaning, it delivers one piece of story that propells the narrative forward.  Think of your story as a puzzle… that moment of exposition in a scene is a piece of that puzzle.

If you have too many expositional pieces in a scene — two is often too many — the scene isn’t optimized.

Storyfix reader Gary MacLoud wasn’t exactly confused about the concept… but he did ask a very reasonable and important question about how this mission-driven context relates to characterization… which also a goal of every scene.

A bit of a can of worms.  So let’s discuss.

Here’s how Gary positioned the question:

I have been reading your Story Engineering book, and I am finding it a fascinating read. It’s great to see you expand on things I have read on your site over the last few years. However, one thing I am having difficulty with is understanding mission-driven scene writing. I understand that you want to always just have one mission you are working towards with each particular scene, but when you brought characterization into the mix and started talking about primary and secondary missions of a scene, I began to get confused.

I think I understand that we should always have two things in mind when crafting a scene – advancing plot and advancing characterization. More often than not we are simply advancing plot and the particular piece of plot information that is uncovered during the scene is the thing we have been ‘driving towards’, but should we still ensure characterization is maintained or advanced alongside this? If we are showing the reader something about the character, such as in DeMille’s The Lion second scene, does that mean we can’t uncover a particularly important piece of plot information in the same scene?

If we have an important point to make about the character, and an important piece of plot information to uncover, we can’t have them in the same scene because we would be driving towards two missions for that scene. Is that correct?

Or is it always a case of there is a primary mission and a secondary mission, either one being plot related or character related, but sometimes the characterization is stronger than the plot and that is obvious to the reader, so character is primary, and sometimes plot is stronger than the characterization, therefore plot becomes primary. Therefore, it becomes a case of which mission, primary or secondary, we want to apply more weight to in a scene, but both are most definitely needed. If this is the case, could you provide a brief example of primary and secondary missions in this manner in a scene.

This was my response:

Hi Gary — great questions.  And your take in the final paragraph is very solid.  The fact that you even notice a sense of flexibility in these principles (which I admit were put out there, or could be perceived, as rather inflexible) is a great sign that your inner storyteller is flexing.

 

At a professional level of anything, fundamentals are largely inflexible.  We should teach beginners about principles with this as context.  Michael Jordan can shoot a free throw with his eyes closed, Josh Groban can “speak” a lyric without holding to the melody, a painter can throw in a secret message… but one must earn one’s stripes to make this work.  It’s not about ”having a right” to do something out of the box (because this is “art” after all), but rather, having the skill and sensiblity to allow it to work within the sequence of the narrative, without becoming  disruption, a break in the rhythm or otherwise taking one’s eye off the expositional ball.

In other words, there are “general fundamentals” that become default contexts.  In scene writing, they are: always be true to (or further) characterization, and deliver a piece of story exposition that moves the story forward.

 

If a moment of characterization does, in fact, move the story forward, then THAT becomes the scene’s mission.  If it simply illustrates characterization that is already in place, then without an expositional revelation the scene becomes moot.  You can get away with this once or twice in story, but a pattern of character-only scenes quickly becomes a deal killer.

 

These decisions are the art of it all.  Characterization is like interior decorating in a fine restauant… it only goes so far if the food isn’t right.  But it can also define and differentiate.  People come for both reasons, and you need to serve both.

 

Sorry my answer isn’t more precise, but the question is bigger than that.  Thanks for asking, hope this helps.

Feel free to chime in on this.

If you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter yet, here’s at peek at the April issue, which contains a little ‘insider discount” with only a few days left to opt-in.  The May edition is brewing as we speak.

 

An Insightful Question from a Storyfix Reader is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Staple This To Your Forehead

All writing tips are not created equal. 

Or, among us writers, equally.

Some are so huge, so obvious, that they don’t resonate.  This one is like that. 

Nobody is above it.  Which means, if you missed it, you’ve missed the point.

As someone who reads unpublished manuscripts for a living, and seen the results of this truth not being honored as it should be, I believe it should be a daily manta.  I recommend you write it backwards and staple it to your forehead, so that every time you look in the mirror you are reminded of this massively huge, diabolically subtle storytelling OMG truth.

I’ll settle for you pasting it right above your monitor.  Read this, notice this, every day you sit down to write.

You may recognize your own dance with this issue right off.  If you can’t see the wisdom in it, then you need to pay attention and discover what it means.  Because on the list of things that will tank a story, this one is right at the top.

It’s all in the italics.

If you don’t connect to the sub-text of the italics in the next three paragraphs, you’ll miss the point, And the point is career-changing.  Here it is, one of the most important writing tips you will ever hear, rendered in three parts:

The objective of storytelling, the point of it all, isn’t to write about something.

The idea isn’t even to write about something.

The highest goal of your storytelling is to write about something happening.

When you can execute the last one and still make your story about something… then and only then will you have elevated your story to the level of art.

At any given moment in your story… in each and every scene of your story… ask yourself: what is happening here?  Right now?  How does it connect to what’s come before… how does it relate to what will happen next, and thereafter?

You should begin with that last piece as your goal.  And then evolve your story to allow it to embrace the first two.

So rather than asking (or answering, when asked) “what’s the story about?”… ask and answer this instead: “what happens in your story?”

When you know the difference, you’ll have crossed a threshold that will empower your stories, and perhaps your writing career, to greatness.

Staple This To Your Forehead is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Genre Mash-Up — a Guest Post by Art Holcomb

NOTE: have a couple of quickie things for you (below) following another killer post from Art.

by Art Holcomb

I love a good mash up story . . .

You know the type, where the author has taken two or more genres or storylines and has crushed them together in a way that they, while still familiar, seem strangely unique. 

They are a blast to write, not only because the writer gets to go deep into different genres, but because this kind of writing always stretches the imagination to produce possibilities and directions that hadn’t thus far been considered.   While television and the movies have had a long love affair with mash-ups, there are a number of novels out in recent years that have sparked renewed interest in the approach.

Typically, mash-ups fall into one of a couple of categories:

CLASSIC MASH: This combines a pre-existing text, such as a classic work of fiction, with a certain popular genre.

Consider a few of the following recent efforts.

-          Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith)

-          Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (Grahame-Smith)

-          Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters (Austen and Winters)

-          The Eerie Adventure of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, Lovecraft and Peter Clines)

NEW MASH: Sometimes a mash-up uses a classic story, but it needn’t be that way.  It can be just two or more genres sent in counterpoint to each other. 

In my career I have created such stories as:

-          FINAL DOWN – an NFL / disaster film

-          4EVER – a religious afterlife / thriller set in a tech future

-          The AMBASSADOR – a Sci Fi / Mobster story 

-          FRANKI & JONNI – a Frankenstein myth / high school drama

-          Oliver and the Four-Piece Regency-Style Bedroom Set of Death  – a YA mystery/comedy

 . . . Although, I admit, that last one may have gone too far.

RE-IMAGININGS: Another fun approach to stretch your writing horizons is to reimagine an earlier story or set of characters in a completely new or updated way

-           The BBC recently did this with SHERLOCK, a re-telling of the classic Sherlock Holmes stories –but set in modern-day London.

-          In WICKED, it is the wholly recognizable story of THE WIZARD OF OZ, but told as a parallel novel from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West.  Old story – new viewpoint. 

New possibilities.

RETELLINGS: are all about drawing the inspiration and flavor of the source material and making it live again.

-          The movie, O BROTHER WHERE ART THOU is a retelling of the Odyssey myth.

-          Certainly, many of the Disney stories are, in fact, retellings of classic fairy tales.

 

PREQUELS, SEQUELS and the CONTINUUM OF STORY: A subset of re-imaginings really, this is the most available of all mash-up possibilities, and perhaps the most freeing.  Here, a writer will take a piece of work, character or setting and imagine it years previous to or years after the time of the originally piece. What was Captain Ahab like as a boy? What was Phillip Marlowe like as an old man?  What was Tom Sawyer’s world like at the turn of the century?

A good example of this was the television show The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles.

This type of story allows you to just find a character you like and trace them back to their suspected beginning and their possible ends to see what excites you.

Now, it’s your turn . . .

Why not try to make up some mash-ups of your own?

Here are a list of genres, tropes and categories to choose from.  Mix and match to your heart’s content using some of the exercises below.

LITERARY GENRES:

Action/Adventure, Advice,  Adult, Animal, Arts, Biographical, Children’s, Circus, Comedy, Contest, Crime/Gangster, Cultural, Dark, Death, Detective, Drama, Educational, Emotional, Entertainment, Environmental, Erotica, Experiential, Family, Fan fiction, Fantasy, Fashion, Finance, Folklore, Food/Cooking, Foreign, Friendship,  Gay/Lesbian, Genealogy, Ghost, Gossip, Gothic, Health, History, Hobby/Craft, Holiday, Home/Garden, Horror/Scary, How-To/Advice, Inspirational, Internet/Web, Legal, Magic, Medical, Melodrama, Men’s, Military, Music, Mystery, Mythology, Nature, News, Nonsense, Occult, Parenting, Personal, Pets, Philosophy, Political, Psychology, Regional, Relationship, Religious, Research,  Romance/Love, Satire, Sci-fi, Scientific, Self Help, Spiritual, Sports, Suburbia,  Supernatural, Technology, Teen, Thriller/Suspense, Tragedy, Transportation, Travel, Tribute, War, Western, Women’s, Writing Skills, Young Adult.

CLASSIC STORIES:

Don Quixote, Pilgrim’s Progress, Allan Quartermane, Gulliver’s Travels, Frankenstein,  The Count of Monte Cristo, David Copperfield, The Man in the Iron Mask,  The Three Musketeers, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Captain Nemo,  The Scarlet Letter, Moby-Dick, Alice in Wonderland, Doctor Moreau, Fu Manchu, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes,  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Great Gatsby, The Big Sleep,

TROPES (Genre Mainstays)

Horror

Vampires, Aliens, Werewolves, Ghosts, Monsters, Disaster, Psycho, Nightmare, Serial Killers, Torture, Satanism, Demons, Cannibals, Haunted Houses, Zombies.

Science Fictions

Alternate Universe, Aliens, ESP, Time travels, Spacecraft, Robots, Cyborgs, Space Travel, AI, Steampunk, Space Opera, Superheroes

Fantasy

Dark Lord, Magic, Quest, Medievalism, The Ancient World, Dragons, Witches, Other Races, Creatures, Barbarians, Damsels, Swords, Rings, Prophesy-

Oh .  . give it a try!

Exercises Number 1: “Name & Job”:    Pick a character and a genre / trope at random and see what this new combination stirs in your imagination. Possibilities could go something like:

-          “Ask Frankenstein, Advice columnist” (Frankenstein / Advice)

-          “Donkey Ote” Knight Burro (Don Quixote/ Medieval)

-          Captain Ahab, spokesman for PETA (Moby Dick / Animal)

-          “I was a Vampire for the FBI” (Vampire / Crime)

While such mash-ups often create comedic or farcical characters, I’m often surprised what people come up with.  There is a film columnist that I respect quite a lot who writes under the moniker FILM CRITIC HULK!

Exercise Number 2: “Fill in the Blanks”: This is a tool screenwriters use to create and pitch new ideas for shows.  Just take any two of the genres or tropes and plug them into the sentence below:

“________ meets __________”.

Television especially loves this one, as in:

-          Serial Killer meets Family = Dexter

-          Detective meets Magician = The Mentalist

-          Writing Skills meets Crime = Castle

-          Alternate Universe meets Scientific meets Detective = Fringe

-          Vampire meets Soap Opera = Dark Shadows

-          Vampires, werewolves and ghost meet Suburbia = BBC’s Being Human

-          Vampire Cop = Forever Knight

Just off the top of my head as I was writing this, the following possibilities came to mind:

(1)    Fantasy Detective

(2)    Alien Soap Opera

(3)    Gothic Time Travel

(4)    Haunted Circus

(5)    Zombie Fairy Tales

(6)    DIY Haunted House Repair

(7)    Questing Mobster

(8)    Lawyers for Aliens

 

Not all winners to be sure, but I took a shot at fleshing out a couple of them as illustrations of where you could go:

“Once Upon a Crime Spree” – Grendel Jones was born in the shadow of the great castle, rumored to be the son of a witch and an ensorcelled prince. He was raised on the hard streets of a fairy tale land content to help solve his neighbor’s little problems until the day he is asked to trade his magic and skills as a detective for a chance to learn the secrets of a past he never knew he had. (Fantasy Detective)

“Asta” – Harrison Quell, Esq.  is a bitter and disillusioned attorney who stumbles across the case of a thousand lifetimes: a chance to represent an alien who has been living among us for 100 years.  Can Quell keep the creature alive and safe – from the military, the press and a mysterious secret organization that has been hunting the visitor for generations –just  long enough for it to talk to the President of the United States before it’s too late? (Lawyers for Aliens)

“1-800-Got Creepy?” – Deke and “Big Tommy” Perez have a successful TV show built around their reputation as Haunted House Flippers – taking spooky wrecks and turning them into profitable rentals. The network has given them their biggest challenge yet for Sweeps Week: turn a two hundred year old terror around in a week.  But is this nightmare – with its eerie glow and forbidding past – more than they bargained for? (DIY Haunted House Repair)

Now it’s your turn!

Give it a shot yourself and share in the Comment section anything you find interesting (or feel free to keep it to yourself for future use). I’ll be monitoring the post for a couple of weeks to see what you come up with.

The more story notions you come up with, the more keepers you might find.  

I think you’ll find this to be a great way to keep your creativity and imagination in tune.

Art Holcomb is a successful screenwriter, comic book writer and frequent contributor to Storyfix.com.  A number of his recent posts appear in the Larry Brooks’ collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life.  He appears at San Diego Comic-Con and other writing and media conventions and begins teaching screenwriting and graphic novel writing classes at the University of California in Fall 2012. His most recent screenplay is FINAL DOWN (a NFL team disaster film) and is completing a workbook for writers.

*****

PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE… for the second year in a row Storyfix.com has been named to the Writers Digest “101 Best Websites for Writers” list (May/June) issue, the Big Daddy of writing site lists.  T hanks to you all for making this happen!

Next Up… the beginning of a deconstruction series on The Hunger Games both the book and the film.  If you haven’t read it yet, or seen the movie, I recommend you do soon within the next few days, as this is a clinic in all Six Core Competencies and the skillful optimization of underlying story physics. 

RECOMMENDED: my agent, Andrea Hurst, is giving another Writers Digest tutorial, this time on “story structures that sell” (see why we get along?).  Check it out HERE.

 

Genre Mash-Up — a Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

6 Ways Novelists Can Use Target Marketing — a Guest Post from Jan Bear

“Once upon a time, there was a little girl who always wore a red riding hood. . . .”

It’s a familiar story, and it’s been told a million ways. If you’ve got a group of writer friends, you could make a parlor game of it:

Tell it as a board book for a 3-year-old.

Now tell it as a spy thriller.

Now tell it as a historical romance.

Tell it as a deep-space science fiction.

You get the picture. Same story plus different audience equals different experience.

You probably already know about the importance of crafting your marketing materials to your novel’s target audience, but what I’m advocating here is that if you want to communicate your message — your story, theme, world — you need to start talking to your audience at “Once upon a time” and continue through “happily ever after.”

Which comes first, the target audience or the message? That’s a chicken-or-egg conundrum that I won’t attempt to answer for you. The important thing is to keep your audience in mind as you write and to understand that if your target audience changes — and it might — it means a root-level revision.

Here are some places where your target audience will influence your writing.

1. Genre

Most genres carry a target audience with them like a parade float. Children’s books? Kids and the adults who read to them. Literary fiction? College-educated, liberal arts degrees, mostly women. Romance? I don’t even need to tell you. Science fiction? This realm that was formerly a masculine domain has divided into more subgenres than I can count, but it’s also divided into “soft” SF and “hard” SF. Guess which has more women readers.

If you’re a reader, you know a lot about your genre’s readership just from what you’ve absorbed without thinking. It doesn’t mean that only women read romance or only men read hard science fiction. Nor does it mean that the same women read every subgenre of romance. What it does mean is that there’s an ambiance that readers expect when they enter that world. As a novelist, you violate that expectation at your own peril.

You like cross-genre? Me, too. The trick to cross-genre is to cross the genre but not the audience. You can blend hard SF and hardboiled detective or a cozy mystery and romance. But put a hard-boiled detective in a soft romance, and it had better be funny, because neither the hard-boiled nor soft romance fans will relate to it.

2. Theme

Chances are that you’ll choose the theme from deep within your own experience and worldview. If it’s not negotiable, that’s a credit to you. Still, you’ll be wise to recognize that a theme of “Life sucks and then you die” is going to resonate with one group of people and “Love conquers all” with another. Again, you cross your audience at your peril.

3. Knowledge of Milieu

If you’re writing in an arena with a specialized vocabulary — medicine, law, ancient Rome, the space program, a fantasy world — you can capture the flavor of the place with well-placed jargon. Part of the appeal for readers is what they can learn about the milieu you’re writing about, so everything you can do to convey a sense of what it’s really like is a plus. But remember that if your readers want to know about the milieu, it’s because they don’t already. Bolster the jargon by illustrating it with action — not infodumps — and make your reader feel like he or she has been there.

4. Reading Level

Be realistic about who is going to read your book.  If it’s a kids’ chapter book, it will be geared to a reading level a couple of years younger than your protagonist. If it’s literary fiction, you can use a more advanced vocabulary and more complex sentences, but I’ve known some smart people who couldn’t stand William Faulkner. I love Faulkner and his two-page sentences, so I’m not saying don’t ever do that. I am saying, be conscious of what you’re doing and how it’s going to affect your reader.

The second factor to keep in mind is an international readership. Most of the English-speakers in the world speak English as a second, third, fourth, or fifth language. Maybe your spy novel would be of interest to some of the hundreds of millions of Chinese English-speakers. If so, keep the language down-to-earth and everyday. If you use idiomatic expressions like “chew someone out” or “Elvis has left the building,” make sure it’s clear in context what they mean.

5. Literary Sophistication

By literary sophistication, I don’t mean intelligence or education, just an appreciation for unusual narrative techniques for their own sake. There’s a novel, Time Zone by Tom Lichtenberg, that shows time travel as a process that changes the traveler. The story is told in vignettes that only gradually reveal the relationships between the characters. The storytelling illustrates the concept of the book.

Not everybody’s cup of tea, I’m sure, but I love it.

If you need an unusual technique to tell your story, by all means, go for it.  Know, though, that not everybody is going to like it (not a bad thing in itself). But as you write and market the book,  be aware of who enjoys these techniques and watch for ways to communicate specifically to those people.

6. Character Identification

Who in your novel will your audience identify with? It might be your protagonist, but maybe not. It might be your Dr. Watson. Or maybe if your book is Winnie-the-Pooh, some of your readers will identify with Pooh, and some with Eeyore.

If one your characters belongs to a professional, social, or ethnic group, your readers might identify with that character, protagonist or not.

If a character suffers from a common condition or ailment — homelessness, schizophrenia, autism — you might be able to make a connection with people who have someone in their lives who shares the same affliction. You might also be able to get a nonprofit dedicated to that affliction to promote your book for you.

Target Audience and Your Fiction

The truth is, we use target marketing every time we try to communicate with anybody. If we talk about some topic to a friend, a small child and our mom, the conversation doesn’t come out the same. We adjust our words, our tone, our approach to reach the people we’re talking to. Your fiction is the same way.

Red Riding Hood is a classic story. But when you tell it to a specific audience, it takes on new resonances and new power. Keeping your audience in mind will give your story a deep unity and help you make the right decisions to connect with your audience, in both the writing and the selling.

About the Author

Jan Bear helps writers establish a web presence so that they can connect with their audience, build a following, and sell more books, even if they’re new to the web. She is the author of a new book, Target Marketing for Authors: How to Find and Captivate Your Book’s Target Audience.

(NOTE from Larry: I’ve known Jan for years, she’s one of the smartest and most analytical writers I know.  This is must-read stuff for writers who are looking to build an effective platform.  Which we must if we’re serious about seling what we write.)

6 Ways Novelists Can Use Target Marketing — a Guest Post from Jan Bear is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

3 Questions You Must Ask Your Characters — A Guest Post by C. S. Lakin

Do you talk to your characters? Should you?

If you're going to write a truly believable novel, then you need to know your characters to the core of their souls. And the best way to get to their core is to ask them three simple questions.

Leon Surmelian in his book (written forty years ago) Techniques of Fiction Writing, has this to say about creating characters in fiction:

"Characterization is a complex and elusive art and cannot be reduced to exact rules or to a comprehensive statement. The more we talk about it, the more we feel has been left out, and this is necessarily so because the human personality remains a mystery, subject to obscure forces; it is a universe it itself, and we are strangers even to ourselves. Characterization requires self-knowledge, insight into human nature . . . it is more than impersonation."

Getting Real Doesn't Happen on Its Own

That quote contains some terrific stuff. Too many characters are just that—impersonations of real people.

In order to create real characters, you have to become somewhat of a psychologist and learn about human nature. Suffice it to say, most of the novels I edit and critique fall way short on creating real characters. And I don't think it's only due to not spending enough time working on them. I sense that some of my clients spend a whole lot of time thinking about their characters, but their creations still come across flat and stereotyped.

It may have something to do with laziness and not wanting to work too hard to create each character. It may be that the writer doesn't think characters have to be all that developed—that as the plot unfolds, the character will just "come into his own" and become real. I'm thinking, though, the real reason is the writer hasn't gone deep into herself and examined why she is who she is.

I'm not suggesting we all go into therapy for a while or spend years psychoanalyzing ourselves (although some of us—writers especially—might benefit from that). But if we do some digging inside, we'll find there are certain truths about why we are the way we are. And the first idea I'd like to throw out at you is tied in with persona and true essence. Basically, we all present a face to the world—a face we feel will help us survive—which is not wholly who we are. Some people may really live in that place of "true essence" and that's great. But populating a novel with characters like that just give us "happy people in happy land." We're more interested in flawed characters, and I bet, if you're like me, there are some serious flaws lingering under the surface.

Getting to Know You

So, I'm going to share one technique I use when I sit down to create my characters.

I already at this point have my characters in mind. I know my plot and premise, and I either may already have a lot of the story worked out, or I might have only a germ of an idea. It doesn't matter. But at some point I will sit down (for numerous days) and spend time creating the characters that are going to be the heart and blood of my novel. This time spent is crucial to me, and I never begin writing a novel until my characters are so well fleshed out that I know pretty much everything I need to know about them. And I'm not talking about what they like to eat or what movies they watch. That stuff is inconsequential—trust me. Those little bits about character that come out in your novel are only flavoring, not meat.

Most of my novels have up to a dozen main POV characters, so every one of them must be totally real—to me. I don't let them run off and start behaving without getting to that place first. I can't stress enough how vital it is you do this in advance of writing your book. Some writers think it's fine to just start writing and let the characters run amok to see what they'll do. That's all well and good if writing to you is a crapshoot. On the other hand, if you want to write a very specific story and convey very specific themes, this just isn't going to work. You may be brilliant but you're not that brilliant, okay?

The Three Most Important Questions

I write down my list of main characters on a page. Or sometimes I'll do this on the first page of my character sketches. Then I spend some time asking my characters these three questions:

• What is your core need (and what you will do if you can't get that need met)?

• What is your greatest fear?

• What is the incident(s) that wounded you early in life that got you believing a lie? (And just what is that lie?)

These three questions are so helpful and powerful that it's just possible they are all you need to create each character. The last question is the most crucial and the one I spend the most time with. Each of us has been hurt in the past. Because of that hurt, two things resulted:

• One: We created a false persona to protect our heart. Like the girl who is abandoned by her father when she was young and now can't get close to men or stay in a relationship long. If you look at yourself, you will find something in there like this. Somewhere in your past you got hurt, and so you've formed a persona to survive in the world.

• Two: That hurt makes us believe a lie about ourselves and the world. In this example the lie this girl believes is that all men walk out and always will. That she can't trust men or give her heart to them. And that's why her whole life she's kept her distance. That's the outward lie. The other side to that lie turns inward (and you need to look at both parts—they are two sides of the same coin). That part says something about yourself. With this example, the girl believes a lie about herself—that she's not worthy of being loved.

Need = Fear = Lie (Repeat)

Ah, do you see that? That's rich, deep, and powerful.

Okay, that character type is used a lot, especially in chick flicks, but I hope you can see here how we're getting to the heart of motivation. Now, when you put this girl in various scenes, she is going to react certain ways based on the lies she's been telling herself her whole life and the lies she believes about other people. This then ties in with her greatest fear (fear of intimacy, fear of abandonment) and her core need, which is . . . have you guessed it? See the connection? Her core need is to get the very thing she believes is impossible because of the lies she believes. She wants more than anything to be loved, but she can't get there. She's blocking her own way.

Hopefully, these three questions will grow in you to where they are the first and foremost things you ask your characters. They speak to the core of motivation, and that's where you'll find the heart and believability in the characters you create. So talk to them, and let them reveal themselves. You'll find your characters will be compelling, complex, and most importantly—human.

C. S. Lakin is the author of twelve novels, including the seven-book fantasy series "The Gates of Heaven." She also writes contemporary psychological mysteries, including her Zondervan contest winner Someone to Blame. She works as a professional copyeditor and writing coach and loves to teach the craft of writing. Her websites are dedicated to critiquing fiction and building community to help survive and thrive in your writing life: www.LiveWriteThrive.com and www.CritiqueMyManuscript.com.

You can read more about her and her books at www.cslakin.com.

Follow @cslakin and @livewritethrive. Facebook: C. S. Lakin, Author, Editor.

3 Questions You Must Ask Your Characters — A Guest Post by C. S. Lakin is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Addendum to Newsletter

The April edition of my newsletter, "Writers on the Brink," went out yesterday.  It had a special free offer in it… you know the one.

Turns out E-Junkie only allows 100 "free" downloads per day.  That was quickly exceeded.  Another 100 become available each day… so hang in there, keep trying.

Hey, it's news to me, too.  Thanks for your patience.

If you aren't on that list, use the sign-up (that's free, too) to the right of this post.

Addendum to Newsletter is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

What I Just Learned from a Room Full of Romance Writers

 



 

Always wanted to write a headline like that.

Not everybody appreciates Romance novels.  Not everybody reads Romance novels.  That said, more people DO read Romance novels than any other single genre out there.  A genre that continues to grow.  A genre with more passionate readers and writers than any other.

Which means, we should all pay atention to what's going on there.

I just got back from giving an intensive "advanced" workshop to about 100 Romance authors, a bash thrown by the Rose City Romance Writers, a wing of the Romance Writers of America that flutters hearts out of Portland, Oregon.  When I was invited to speak a while ago, I was immediately slammed by two realizations: a) I needed a quick crash course on the genre, and b) I was more than a little intimidated.

It happened.  I survived.  Am licking a few wounds.  And I've fallen in love.

Here's what I learned.

I learned that from this point forward I will refer to the genre with a capital R.  The genre is Romance.

It deserves more respect than it gets outside of the club.  The novels are legitimately difficult to write.  They demand mastery of the most challenging of all the Six Core Competencies (characterization).  They have expectations and "rules" that are unique to the genre, and it's a crowded market.

I learned they have more sub-genres than anywhere else.  If someone can fall in love, in any way, in any combination, in any place, at any point in time, in any dimension or on any planet, there's a Romance sub-genre for it. 

My preparation not only included reading a few titles…

… but scouring the web for the conventional wisdom.  I was relieved to learn that the underlying fundamentals of story structure are no less valid in Romance than elsewhere… but they are somewhat complicated by the concurrent unfolding of two plotlines.  Not merely plot and sub-plot, but legitimately two story arcs that must eventually, if you excuse the term, marry.

I've learned that the genre has evolved — loosened up with the times in terms of archetypes – but those expectations remain cast in stone: a HEA ending (Happily Ever After), a quick connection between a female protagonist and a male love interest.

I learned that the female protagonist is referred t0 (in the club) as "the heroine," and that her male love interest is called "the hero."  I gave in on that one, some things change easily… the story still has a primary protagonist, and it's always the woman.  Which, in the larger vernacular of storytelling, makes her the hero… a word that is without genre in the writing world elsewhere.

No big deal, I can live with that.

I learned that scene execution is even more critical in the Romance genre.  These stories read like movies, there is very little expositional omnipotent connective narration, no musings about the state of things, just a tight focus on the moment.

I learned that these writers are smart.  Killer smart. 

On Day One, when I asked my usual warm-up question — how many of have been published? — well over half of the 30 available hands shot into the air.  I quickly learned that many of these writers had been extensively published, with 10 or more novels out there.  One had 23, another 24.  One had written over 40 — an admitted "pantser" who confessed that it took several dozen tries before the rhythms of structure became solid enough allow her pantsing ways to work… music to this Storyfixer's ears.  Now she's huge in the Romance game (see the cover shown above).

There was a sense that they had been there, heard that.  More than at any conference I've worked.  This tells me these writers are well-studied, that they haven't grown their craft merely out of a vicarious reading experience, that they are far down the road to a professional level of craft.  Good on them.

I learned that these writers care as much about the "outside" source of story conflict (the non-Romance plotline) as they do the love story.  In fact, when we were offering and debating story ideas, hardly anyone gave the Romance plot any airtime in the discussion.  I found that fascinating… it was as if the Romance plot (which occupies up to 75 percent of the contextual content of the story) was a given, an easy-deal, and it was the exterior plot that challenged.

I learned that these writers were hungry for insight, tips and pointers that would empower them to elevate their work.  At the pace at which these writers work — some have contracts for three or four or more novels a year — this is a good thing.

I learned that these writers like sexual content, and context.  I mean, really like it.

I learned there is sometimes a vernacular attached to the genre that is misinterpreted, similar to the hero-heroine point above.  A misinterpretation can lead a writer to the conclusion that the rules of Romance fiction are separate from, and above, those that underpin any and all genres, and that the structure of Romance is immune to the natural laws of what makes a story work.

They aren't.  My hope is that I convinced at least a few of these writers of this truth.

I left them with with two areas of emphasis. 

One: elevate your concepts.  Yes, Romance is driven by concept, too.  The stronger the better.  And Two: keep passion — you wouldn't think I'd need to hammer this one, but I felt as if I did — as the driving fuel of the story. Not only to write about passion, but to write with it.

Love Your Genre

That's critical, I think.  Consider writing in the genre you love to read.  To live in the world where your dreams, fantasies, experience and hopes reside.  Where your brain is challenged, your heart enriched and your hormones — whatever their flavor — are percolated.

And when you need a break, grab a romance and fall in love.

My personal bottom line — because I am a romantic by nature anyhow — I think I love this genre.  I think I might give it a go.  I even have a pen name in mind, one that would look totally hot on a book cover.

If you'd like to see what one of the attendees wrote on her website about this workshop, click HERE.  Still trying to figure out what she meant by not swooning… okay, sorry I don't (or no longer) look like the guys on your covers.

What I Just Learned from a Room Full of Romance Writers is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Six Core Storytelling Competencies: Good… Better… Best.

Ask anyone who writes fiction how many issues an author needs to think about, how much stuff there is to know and execute, and you may get an answer that amounts to dozens, even hundreds of things.

That's pretty accurate, actually. Few who have tried it are tempted to over-simplify.

You know my theory, my story development model:

All of those dozens of things, or hundreds of things, can be categorized into six discrete buckets of elements, nuances and requisite functions, each of which is essential to a successful story. I call them the Six Core Competencies of successful storytelling, and they really do cover the whole fiction enchilada.

Think of something you need to know, and it'll fall into one of those six buckets.

That said, each of them is a matter of degree. For each thing within any of the six buckets, you can cover the base, or you can hit it out of the park.

Or six parks, for that matter.

Toward that end, it's good to inventory your six buckets of storytelling strategy, and all their inherent nuts and bolts of content and technique… if nothing else to make sure you're not taking anything for granted. You want your story to be the best it can possibly be, and it's easy to settle in one category while pursuing excellence in another.

What follows is offered as a sort of checklist, organized as a good, better and best description under each of the Six Core Competencies. That's 18 opportunities to improve your story.

My hope is that you'll find something you can take to the next level.

Concept

Defined: the Big Idea of your story… the basic what if? proposition… the dramatic landscape… the window into plot… the source of conflict… the compelling question… the enticing situation… the promise of the story… the stage upon which character finds something to do.

Good: the reader is inherently drawn to the proposition through an attraction to the answer to the dramatic question posed.

Better: the reader can inherently experience the hero's journey in pursuit of that answer. They can live the hero's journey vicariously.

Best: the reader not only experiences the hero's journey, but empathetically feels what's at stake. The reader relates to the consequences of the resolution of the story.

Example: The Hunger Games. The concept alone is a home run. Then again, a novel like Jonathan Franzen's Freedom relies more on character than concept (yes, it has one).

Lesson: the deeper you are within a genre — any given genre – the more critical concept becomes. Concept is the stage upon which character is allowed to unfold.

Character

Defined: the protagonist of the story, presented with layers of backstory, inner psychology, outer dimensions and a journey that will allow her or him to become heroic as they evolve as necessary to eventually serve as the primary catalyst of the story's resolution (which is what heroes do).

Good: a protagonist we can root for.

Better: a protagonist we can relate to.

Best: a protagonist who feels what we feel, fears what we fear and steps into the hero's role as we would hope we would… in other words, a vicarious juxtaposition between hero and reader on an emotional level.

Example: Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye. He's us, at our most basic level of humanity.

Theme

Defined: the relevance and transparency of the human experience through the dynamics of the story, both in terms of character and conflict.

Good: a story that shows life as it really is. One that allows us to recognize the dynamics of being alive in whatever time the story reveals, while illuminating universal truths in any case.

Better: a story that shows the virtues of heroism as it plays out on a thematically rich and realistic stage.

Best: a story that pushes buttons, doesn't flinch, one that demands the reader see both sides and all the options that attach to the hero's choices, and teaches us truth and reality in the process.

Example: John Irving's The Cider House Rules, which exposes both sides of a polarizing issue on a level that defies politics and religion and doesn't flinch from consequences on either side.

And of course, Kathryn Stockett's The Help is a clinic on theme.

Structure

Defined: the expositional unfolding of the story in a sequence that deepens stakes, presents twists while defining the reading experience.

Good: a solid four-part sequential presentation of the story: set-up… response (to the first plot point)… a proactive attack on the problem… resolution.

Better: a sequence that allows the reader to get lost in the story in a vicarious way, which is the deepening of the effectiveness and compelling nature of the four parts that comprise it.

Best: a story that surprises, intrigues, captures, and then rewards the reader on both an emotional and intellectual level.

Example: Dan Brown's The Davinci Code. Love it or hate it, the story blends all six core competencies in a way that, literally, readers could not put down. All 80 million of them.

Scene Execution

Defined: blocks of narrative exposition that move the story forward in an optimal way, with equal attention to characterization and dramatic tension.

Good: scenes that are logical in order, that blend into subsequent scenes.

Better: scenes that play like little one-act dramas, each with a set-up, confrontation and resolution. Scenes that deliver one primary, salient point of plot exposition while contributing to characterization.

Best: scenes that cut quickly to the point of the scene, that resolve a moment while setting up a subsequent deepening of stakes, urgency, options and character arc.

Example: anything by Michael Connelly, Nelson Demille, or Jodi Picoult.

Writing Voice

Defined: the flavor of the writing itself (the prose), from the reader's point of view.

Good: exposition that is clear, direct and uses adjectives and description sparsely yet effectively. Prose that is not conscious of itself for the sole purpose of stylistic effort. Prose that readers don't really notice as they get lost in the story.

Better: prose that illuminates the sub-text of the moment, and of the characters involved.

Best: prose that goes down easy, with a hint of humor and spice, with nuance and subtletly where required, and the power of a blunt instrument when called for.

Example: John Updike was the modern master of voice.  Read Colin Harrison, too, who sets the bar here higher than anyone still breathing.

If you are drafter (pantser), you can discover these opportunities as you go, and revise and optimize as you do future drafts.

If you are planner, you can (and should) think of these at the both macro-story (plot and character exposition) and micro-story (sub-text and scenes), making sure they all seize their inherent potential to enrich your story.

Either way, all of these things will find a way onto the page by the time you're done. The real question is… will they just show up, or will they be the best they can be?

Go deeper. Harder. Be in command of every moment of your story.

Can you think of other examples of stories that are stellar in any of these core competencies?

If you'd like more on the Six Core Competencies, please consider my book, "Story Engineering."

See you this weekend at the Rose City Writers (Portland, OR) conference. Me and 200 romance-minded women talking story over four sessions totaling 10 classroom hours… doesn't get any better than that.

If you're looking for a workshop presenter for your next writing conference, let's talk. I describe my workshops as intense, surprising, entertaining and, sometimes, slightly disturbing. Experiences that change your life usually are. References available.

Six Core Storytelling Competencies: Good… Better… Best. is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Playing with The Neighbor Kid’s Toys

A Guest Post by Art Holcomb

This is about the craft of writing stories in another person’s universe .

For ten years – between 1994 and 2004 – in addition to my work in comics and screenwriting, I was among a number of writers asked to pitch story ideas to Paramount Studios in Hollywood for all four of the recent STAR TREK shows (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise). 

Now, writing for such a show came with a number of restrictions:

-           The STAR TREK characters are well-known to millions of viewers and readers;  who they are is set in stone, and could not be altered through the course of any one story; that is, their natures could not change;

-           As in any serialized story, the writer must start the characters off at “Point A”, run them through their paces, complicate the heck out of them, but always return them to that “Point A”, wiser but unchanged. It was like borrowing a friend’s car to go on a trip, but having to make sure that you refill the tank, have it washed and park it in the same place when you’re done.

-           Any story I might create could not interfere with any continuing plotlines and upcoming story arcs that the staff writers had already created for the main characters.

-           I was never going to sell anything that is too expensive in terms of elaborate sets, specific actors or costly special effects.

-           And, above all, I could not violate the internal logic of the show. (Think: phasers and time travel were possible – dragons, not so much)

So . . . Ten years.

Hundreds of story ideas.

Thousands of hours – many of which felt as though they were spent putting square pegs into round holes or trying to write a haiku with only eight words. Especially hard at first for someone who had been used to creating his own characters and storylines.

But the opportunity was exciting and the training invaluable because every month I wrote and pitched new ideas to working TV story editors or producers and got detailed and pointed feedback on my work. These experienced, working writers’ sole job during these meetings was to find and develop new ideas for a show.  The stories they liked were then sent “upstairs” for review by the Executive Story Editor.  Many stories were dismissed as not suiting their needs, but all were discussed and critiqued and I was often sent back to take another pass at some of them for further review.  What was always scheduled to be a quick meeting sometimes went on for hours and I was dedicated to learning as much as I could here – in the time I had – from the very people who had the kind of job I wanted.

And it paid off.  I got better at writing in another’s universe and went on to sell more comic books and an animation script in part because l better understood the form, but also because I had learned how to pitch a story and how to be comfortable talking to people in power (more about that in a future post).

I found it took a large number of ideas to come up with every viable story, and the process taught me how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Eventually, the harvest of ideas became more bountiful.

From the experience, I discovered some approaches that could help you develop new story ideas, for your own characters/universe or someone else’s:

(1)   UNIQUE COMBINATIONS AND CONNECTIONS: I started out by making a chart to look at all the possible character interactions for any possible points of conflict or interest.  Picard vs Riker, Picard vs Troi, Riker vs. Troi and so on.  This made me focus in turn on each interaction separately.  By concentrating on just two characters to exclusion of the others,  points in their backstory popped out – points that sometimes led to new insight and ideas;

(2)  FILLING HOLES.  Backstories are not airtight; some small facts casually mention in an episode could have excellent story possibility. That’s why reading the show bible and watching the episodes closely are part of a professional’s job. In addition, all characters have their own cast of backstory players: a stern parent, lost or wayward sibling, a favorite uncle/mentor/childhood friend. Like real life, these players float in and out of the character’s lives causing stress and conflict.  Make this new person unique and the problem compelling and you’ll find plenty of motivation there.

(3)  ASIMOV’S QUESTIONS: Isaac Asimov, the prolific author, said that all science fiction stories turn on three questions:

What if ____________ happened?
If only ___________ would happen?
If __________ goes on, then __________ must happen.

This approach worked well with both the technical and scientific aspect of this science fiction world, as well the natural extension of human beings and their lives together: characters fall in love (if even for just an episode) and they face death, longing and the failure of dreams like any of us. Not being a science-type guy, I tended to concentrate of the human stories, which worked out well for me later on, and these tools work just as well for alien attacks as unrequited love;

(4)  THE PROXIMATE FAILURE: “And when that fails, ___________ will happen.”  I like this one especially as it makes me think about consequences. Consider for a moment: a Hero fails most of the time in any given story. Those failure had better be the catalyst for the Hero’s next move, but each failure opens up the possibility for more innovative action by the Hero as well as the Writer.

(5)  SUBSTITUTION:  Sometimes changing one word of a log line can give you a great new idea.  For example, the Christmas story would have been quite different if “three wise GUYS came out of the East” rather than the traditional “wise MEN”.  Whole new set of images and possibilities.

I think that freedom in choices in a story can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. It makes for so many possibilities sometimes that you can become paralyzed from the variety of choice. Restrictions can be a good thing if it forces you to focus on structure and characterization.  These restrictions made me find better, tighter stories and develop new skills, because it increased the pressure to perform.

More pressure.  More heat.

That’s how diamonds are made. And stories, too.

Let me know what you think.

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel, and a comic book author, including Marvel’s X-MEN and Acclaim’s ETERNAL WARRIORS. A number of his recent posts appear in Larry Brooks’ collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life. He appears and teaches at San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions.  His most recent screenplay is 4EVER (a techno-thriller set in the Afterlife) and is completing a work book for writers entitled The Pass:  A Proven System for Getting Quickly from Notion to Finished Manuscript.

He lives inSouthern California.

 

Playing with The Neighbor Kid’s Toys is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Playing with The Neighbor Kid's Toys

A Guest Post by Art Holcomb

This is about the craft of writing stories in another person's universe .

For ten years – between 1994 and 2004 – in addition to my work in comics and screenwriting, I was among a number of writers asked to pitch story ideas to Paramount Studios in Hollywood for all four of the recent STAR TREK shows (The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise). 

Now, writing for such a show came with a number of restrictions:

-           The STAR TREK characters are well-known to millions of viewers and readers;  who they are is set in stone, and could not be altered through the course of any one story; that is, their natures could not change;

-           As in any serialized story, the writer must start the characters off at "Point A", run them through their paces, complicate the heck out of them, but always return them to that "Point A", wiser but unchanged. It was like borrowing a friend's car to go on a trip, but having to make sure that you refill the tank, have it washed and park it in the same place when you're done.

-           Any story I might create could not interfere with any continuing plotlines and upcoming story arcs that the staff writers had already created for the main characters.

-           I was never going to sell anything that is too expensive in terms of elaborate sets, specific actors or costly special effects.

-           And, above all, I could not violate the internal logic of the show. (Think: phasers and time travel were possible – dragons, not so much)

So . . . Ten years.

Hundreds of story ideas.

Thousands of hours – many of which felt as though they were spent putting square pegs into round holes or trying to write a haiku with only eight words. Especially hard at first for someone who had been used to creating his own characters and storylines.

But the opportunity was exciting and the training invaluable because every month I wrote and pitched new ideas to working TV story editors or producers and got detailed and pointed feedback on my work. These experienced, working writers' sole job during these meetings was to find and develop new ideas for a show.  The stories they liked were then sent "upstairs" for review by the Executive Story Editor.  Many stories were dismissed as not suiting their needs, but all were discussed and critiqued and I was often sent back to take another pass at some of them for further review.  What was always scheduled to be a quick meeting sometimes went on for hours and I was dedicated to learning as much as I could here – in the time I had – from the very people who had the kind of job I wanted.

And it paid off.  I got better at writing in another's universe and went on to sell more comic books and an animation script in part because l better understood the form, but also because I had learned how to pitch a story and how to be comfortable talking to people in power (more about that in a future post).

I found it took a large number of ideas to come up with every viable story, and the process taught me how to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Eventually, the harvest of ideas became more bountiful.

From the experience, I discovered some approaches that could help you develop new story ideas, for your own characters/universe or someone else's:

(1)   UNIQUE COMBINATIONS AND CONNECTIONS: I started out by making a chart to look at all the possible character interactions for any possible points of conflict or interest.  Picard vs Riker, Picard vs Troi, Riker vs. Troi and so on.  This made me focus in turn on each interaction separately.  By concentrating on just two characters to exclusion of the others,  points in their backstory popped out – points that sometimes led to new insight and ideas;

(2)  FILLING HOLES.  Backstories are not airtight; some small facts casually mention in an episode could have excellent story possibility. That's why reading the show bible and watching the episodes closely are part of a professional's job. In addition, all characters have their own cast of backstory players: a stern parent, lost or wayward sibling, a favorite uncle/mentor/childhood friend. Like real life, these players float in and out of the character's lives causing stress and conflict.  Make this new person unique and the problem compelling and you'll find plenty of motivation there.

(3)  ASIMOV'S QUESTIONS: Isaac Asimov, the prolific author, said that all science fiction stories turn on three questions:

What if ____________ happened?
If only ___________ would happen?
If __________ goes on, then __________ must happen.

This approach worked well with both the technical and scientific aspect of this science fiction world, as well the natural extension of human beings and their lives together: characters fall in love (if even for just an episode) and they face death, longing and the failure of dreams like any of us. Not being a science-type guy, I tended to concentrate of the human stories, which worked out well for me later on, and these tools work just as well for alien attacks as unrequited love;

(4)  THE PROXIMATE FAILURE: "And when that fails, ___________ will happen."  I like this one especially as it makes me think about consequences. Consider for a moment: a Hero fails most of the time in any given story. Those failure had better be the catalyst for the Hero's next move, but each failure opens up the possibility for more innovative action by the Hero as well as the Writer.

(5)  SUBSTITUTION:  Sometimes changing one word of a log line can give you a great new idea.  For example, the Christmas story would have been quite different if "three wise GUYS came out of the East" rather than the traditional "wise MEN".  Whole new set of images and possibilities.

I think that freedom in choices in a story can sometimes be more of a curse than a blessing. It makes for so many possibilities sometimes that you can become paralyzed from the variety of choice. Restrictions can be a good thing if it forces you to focus on structure and characterization.  These restrictions made me find better, tighter stories and develop new skills, because it increased the pressure to perform.

More pressure.  More heat.

That's how diamonds are made. And stories, too.

Let me know what you think.

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel, and a comic book author, including Marvel's X-MEN and Acclaim's ETERNAL WARRIORS. A number of his recent posts appear in Larry Brooks' collection: Warm Hugs for Writers: Comfort and Commiseration of The Writing Life. He appears and teaches at San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions.  His most recent screenplay is 4EVER (a techno-thriller set in the Afterlife) and is completing a work book for writers entitled The Pass:  A Proven System for Getting Quickly from Notion to Finished Manuscript.

He lives inSouthern California.

 

Playing with The Neighbor Kid's Toys is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com