Larry Brooks's Blog, page 4

The Four Pillars of Premise

You can build a house that satisfies the local codes but
doesn’t really stand out in a neighborhood full of identical floor plans. Or
you can build something that snags a cover shot on Architectural Digest.

The secret is knowing how to make your creation stand out in
a crowd. And do it in a way that speaks to the target audience with power,
passion, intrigue and delicious execution.

And yet, it isn’t solely about execution.

And so it goes with writing novels.

Your ability to write great sentences and give birth to interesting characters is, in fact, your ticket to participate in the tryout. To get an audition. It’s your buy-in to the higher proposition of getting published, or successfully publishing yourself. But among those, only a small percentage go the next level. And when they do, it will be more because of the combined intrigue and weight of emotional resonance of their stories.

Because everyone
at the audition can sing and dance. Song selectioncan be the thing that makes or breaks you.

Let’s shift analogies for moment.

The human body is an
amazing thing.

Barring the exception of tragic luck, we are all born with
the same tools. The same basic skeletal structure and organs and biochemical
processes. And yet we come in all sizes and shapes, with varying shades of color
and wattage, with a vast breadth of interests, beliefs and talents.

Since we’re taking (briefly) about human performance, consider the world of athletics. Take baseball, for example. Out of the tens of thousands of high school baseball players, only about 1000 have the skill and natural ability to play the game at the college level. Of those, less than ten percent can take those skills and abilities to the next level and blend in, which in this analogy is the minor leagues of professional baseball. And of those—and here we must apply intangibles such as work ethic, persistence, consistency (because on a given day any player can perform at a major league level), timing, and a dash of luck (a break comes their way)—only about four percent play a single inning in the major leagues. And of those, less than one percent have a career at that level.

Ironically, that’s close to the percentage of novels that
are rejected by agents in our business: over 96 percent.

Those kids are all strong and quick. They all understand the game. But the ones that make it have something special. In our case—given that solid writing is a given—that special thing is very often found at the premise level. Some writers have a keener nose—or if you prefer, ear—for stories that resonate.

A closer look at
premise.

Premise is the expansion of a story idea toward something that plays out dramatically. Not all ideas are inherently dramatic, which means if one simply writes an idea, it will likely come up short. A story that works requires a protagonist, with something she/he must respond to or do or achieve or defeat or survive. There must be something blocking the smooth pursuit of that goal, in the form of an antagonist, usually a villain or a force of nature or culture. And most importantly, the reader must engage with, root for, and emotionally resonate with that character’s journey within the playing field of whatever dramatic proposition has been put into place.

Many submitted novels fail to meet these basic requisites. An agent or editor can sniff out a story that falls short on these issues quickly within a proposal or pitch.

Perhaps scarier still, a writer can check off all those boxes and still come up short. Their premise could be perfectly mediocre. The story might be too familiar, too thin, too lacking in something special… something I like to think of as a bright shiny object lurking within, and lending energy to, those requisite premise elements.

A solid premise is more than a pitch, which can soar based on a singular facet of all those building blocks. But a fully functional premise is built upon eight specific criteria, introduced briefly (very) below:

Premise criteria #1: We meet the protagonist (hero), whom we will root for on a specific quest after being introduced to the reader within a forthcoming story framework.

Premise criteria #2: Something happens that changes everything. It could be argued that this is the most important moment in the novel—giving your hero a problem to solve along a path of response. I

Premise criteria #3: The hero is compelled to
react to and engage with
that problem or need—often running toward safety, or at least seeking more
information—thus fully launching the hero’s story journey, going deeper into
its darkness.

Premise criteria #4: There are stakes in play, put in place in the prior setup scenes, which pose an urgent win-or-lose pressure and threat.

Premise criteria #5: Something opposes the hero on this quest (a villain or force), creating conflict and dramatic tension.

Premise criteria #6: The story escalates and twists, as do the stakes and the level of intensity, frustration, need, threat, and urgency on both sides.

Premise criteria #7: The hero’s state of play elevates as contextually defined by structural flow.

Premise criteria #8: The story is resolved, primarily at the hero’s hands,moving the character back into her life, perhaps in an altered form.

There are four primary vehicles—opportunities—to inject your story with something that glows in the dark.

These are the qualitative ways to inject those eight
essential story facets with compelling energy.

These are opportunities to imbue your novel with something
special. A secret sauce. An eye-popping twist. Or a vicarious invitation into a
realm, culture or story world that is deliciously forbidden, impossible or
dripping with risk and reward for both the character and the reader.

A Dramatic PropositionA Character Imbued with Special QualitiesA Story World Thematic Richness

Let’s do a deeper
dive into each of these.

A dramatic
proposition is the stuff of bestsellers. The reason novels from new authors
get published, and the reason stories from previously unknown authors break out
to become widely known. These propositions often take the form of a “what if?”
scenario or framework in a way that makes the reader sit up and say, “Yes! This
is a novel I would want to read! Tell me more!”).

Genre often delivers the highest
level of opportunity in this context, and leads you toward something that is,
indeed, a bright shiny object within your premise. What if we can travel
through time? What if a detective must solve a murder committed by someone in
the police department, who are doing everything they can to protect their own
by obscuring the truth? What if two lovers face insurmountable odds against their
romance succeeding? What if Leonardo Davinci hid clues to the nature of a
secret society within his paintings, leading to a secret of unimaginable global
consequences? What if an undercover agent must stop a terrorist threat that
will probably require the sacrifice of his own life? What if the sister of a
murder victim realizes, when her sister’s body turns up after twenty years, that
she played a role in convicting the wrong man for her killing? What if a
cheating spouse is set up for a colossal fall by his bitter wife, only to find
that her own jilted lover was planning the same for her? What if a 14-year old
murder victim narrates and participates in solving her own murder, all from the
heaven she now occupies? What if a stolen painting taken from the site of a
terrorist bombing holds the key to redemption of its only survivor?

Some of these come from actual
bestsellers, others are mashups of several titles. But all of them have one
thing in common: the proposition itself, before we meet a single character,
before we read a word, leans into intriguing, compelling and/or fascinating,
while promising the reader something vicarious engaging and rewarding.

We should notice that when a novel
ends up front and center on the lists and in the bookstores, part of the reason
traces back to this facet of premise, proposing something that, if you will,
glows in the dark.

Characters
who are imbued with special qualities are irresistible, and the roster of
their names is long and enduring. Sherlock Holmes, Alex Cross, Superman/Clark
Kent, Richard Jewel, Jack Reacher, James Bond, John Corey, Stephanie Plum… all
of these are the precise reason these stories end up being successful series
novels. These are characters that fascinate, that deliver a heroic
vicariousness.

Which is not to say that you need
to lead with such a character. In fact, if you don’t give that hero something
compelling to do within the story, your odds go down. Life stories of fictional
characters are the long road to breaking into the business. Instead, consider the
story of Rachel Watson, better known as The Girl on a Train, the centerpiece of
a massive #1 bestseller and successful film. It’s the marriage of character and
plot that works here, either on its own would have turned this novel into
something we’d never have noticed. She’s a train wreck in her own right, but we
literally can’t look away. This attraction to a character is the mechanism to
achieve reader empathy and story engagement… versus, say, a story about an
Everyday Jack or Jill, with nothing for the reader to really root for, relate
to, or simply be fascinated by.

Story
world is the contextual framework for a story. When a story is set in the
here and now, in Anywhereville USA or elsewhere, with nothing about it that is
culturally, politically or historically notable, then you miss an opportunity to
hook the reader early, or even draw them to the book on this alone. This is the
key strength of fantasy and science fiction, because other worlds and
dimensions, perhaps worlds in which ghosts and aliens and clones and time
travels exist, are interesting in their own right, even before you offer up a
hero and a story, however juicy. Historical novels are imbued by the context of
their setting, which is nothing if not story world. The more dramatic the
history, the richer that time and place will be for the reader.

Part of the appeal of novels like The
Help, for example, which was set in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, was a
culture that is defined by its racial divide and pervasive belief system. The story
doesn’t work in any other time and place, at least to that degree. The same for
novels set in the depression, or in realms such as Westworld or Alien or The
Search for Private Ryan.

The appeal cuts both ways: give us a time and place where readers cannot
go, but would love to visit within the safety of the veil of fiction… or give
us a world that is forbidden (Fifty
Shades of Gray sold 95 million copies, just sayin’) or dangerous (war
stories, jungle adventures, spy novels, mysteries, thrillers) or leverages
disrupted cultures (inner city stories, gang stories, politically-charged environments,
which is the stuff of killer mysteries, and of course, high concept thrillers).
(click HERE
to read more about what “high concept” really means.)

The power
of Theme can draw readers simply by the arena within which the stories
unfold. The Help doesn’t work without
the exploration of racial tension, which combines with setting to deliver a
double-whammy concept. The Davinci Code
doesn’t work without poking at various aspects of the religious belief systems
that drive the characters, and the readers (some of whom read the novel simply
because they were outraged at what it put forward as its dramatic proposition)
into a frenzy of debate. Police corruption, political divide, alternative
history (which includes a huge helping of dramatic proposition when it works),
family dramas, love stories in general (what is romance without a thematic
layer of richness to it?)… when the theme resonates, the story comes alive.

As authors, we can
choose to bring any and even all of these into our story premises.

In my book I discuss the all-too-common phenomenon of author’s
getting married to their first ideas. This is especially true when their
fiction is inspired by something from their personal experience, they are
hesitant to depart from that experience to any degree that distances themselves
from reliving it. But a good novel is almost always written with the reader in mind, which is something professional
authors understand.

Take a look at your premise, in context to those eight criteria. What can you do to enrich the dramatic proposition? The answer is to look at the stakes of the story (the consequences of success or failure for your hero’s quest). What can you bring to your main character to make her immediately more fascinating, empathetic or root-able? Can you shift your setting, both in terms of time and place, to create a more compelling framework to tell the story sparked by your original idea for it? And ask yourself what the story might mean to a reader, what buttons it might push, how it might move them to greater emotional or intellectual engagement.

Look at the novels you’ve loved reading, and ask yourself
why. Often the reason will be the end-effect of the completed read, the way it
made you feel, the way it sticks in your memory, or even how it changed you.
But how did that happen? Can you, now that you know, recognize the power of any
of these four pillars of premise as part of the secret sauce of the story?

As I postulate in my latest writing craft book, new writers,
as well as frustrated writers, often don’t know what they don’t know. That’s a
loaded hypothesis, but when you unpack it you might just be confronted with
some explanation of not only where you are, but how to take your storytelling
to the next level. Within this narrow premise focus, these four story essences
await your exploitation, the results of which can alter the course of your
writing dream.

Check out my new
book, “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves: Criteria-Driven
Strategies for More Effective Fiction,” which includes a
Foreword by #1 New York Times bestseller author Robert Dugoni. (This link is
for the Kindle edition; a link to the paperback is shown to the right of the
cover image.)

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Resources, Motivation and a Preview – Three New Tools for Your Writing Quiver

Here are three quick ideas to get your writing blood flowing:

The 2020 “Book in a Year Planner“

… from Jason Brick. Jason is a writing savant, an endless source of energy and ideas, someone who applies his elevated martial arts training and writing expertise toward a life of helping other writers reach their goals.

This Planner, which delivers as a high-quality hardcover, is a more direct venue to capture your thinking than Scrivner, and is perhaps the most interactive, open-ended planner I’ve encountered in the writing sphere. It combines the elements of classic day planners with my Six Core Competencies model, as presented in Story Engineering.  It also offers tools to help build your audience and address other personal goals, as well. (Note: It’s not my product, but I’m honored to have my work serve as the core planning model employed by Jason.)

The price (regularly $49.95 plus shipping) for Storyfix readers will be $45 (plus S&H); this discount is already built into the LINK, also accessible via the title above. Shipping commences December 10 – 16, and should reach buyers by Christmas.

Click the link (title) above to order, and learn more.

Click HERE to subscribe to Jason’s email newsletter, HOKAIK, which is a treasure trove of writing tips and tools.

 

Jennifer Blanchard’s New Book – “Test Drive Your Dreams“

Speaking of savants… writing coach and personal performance guru Jennifer Blanchard sets the productivity bar really high, and has a portfolio, community and career to show how well she walks the talk.This book can take you to higher places, quicker and more effectively than you may know.

She offers a variety of programs, products and services for writers and anyone else looking to create their own life and ultimate fulfillment. You can meet Jennifer and check out these terrific resources HERE.

 

 

Read a huge sample of “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves“… free!

You’re familiar with Amazon.com’s “See Inside” feature for most of the books they sell through their site, accessible simply by clicking the cover image.

In the case of my new book, you can read:

The complete Foreword by Robert Dugoni.
The entire Introduction of the book.
The entire first chapter of the book, entitled “The Mission of the Novel and the Novelist.”
A huge chunk of the second chapter, “Developing A Criteria-Driven Nose for Story.”
A total of 30 published pages!

It’s the best promotional opportunity I can t think of… to have you experience how this book is different, and might even change your entire experience – and outcome – as a novelist.

(Click the cover… which takes you to the Amazon.com page. Then click on the cover again, which will take you to the 30 sample pages. Enjoy!)

 

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“Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves”… now available for Kindle (Amazon.com), Nook (bn.com) and other online bookstores.

There was a three week gap between release of the paperback and the ebook edition. Several of you have asked to be notified when the latter goes live… this is me doing that.

Below is the summary shown on the Amazon.com page.  I think they did a good job of capturing the essence and intention of the book, which is fresh and edgy within the writing craft niche. Many writing books, especially by successful novelists, tends to push process – theirs – instead of the criteria for the end product. The famous writing book “Bird by Bird,” for example, is almost exclusively about process. And Stephen King’s book “On Writing” suggests you write your novels the same way he writes his… even though you don’t know a fraction of what Stephen King knows about how a novel is conceived and built.

From the “Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves” page on Amazon.com:

Story is the exploration of something that has gone wrong, and a lot has to go right during the telling of that story to render it a success. Yet one of the most common questions new writers ask professional writers is about how the author wrote their book, what was their process for storytelling (and from this we get plotters and pantsers)? But really the question should be about the general principles and nature of story–does every part of a story have what it needs to keep readers turning the pages (regardless of how the author got there)? Does every scene, every part of the story support the strategic narrative objective of providing new information a scene will inject in the story (the key principle of writing fiction)?

In Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves, Larry Brooks has developed a series of detailed checklists backed by tutorial content for novelists of every level and genre to refer to as they write regardless of which writing method they prefer. Beginning with the broadest part of story, the early checklists help writers to ensure that their book is based on a premise (aka plot) rather than an idea, or how you can elevate your idea into an actual premise where other story elements can be developed. Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves gradually hones in on other story elements like hero empathy, dramatic tension, thematic richness, vicariousness of story, narrative strategy, scene construction, etc. each with their own checklists with specific, actionable items that ensure that key principle (providing information to move the story forward) occurs.

The bn.com link is HERE.

If you’d like a broader introduction to the approach this book takes, and what makes it unique and perhaps even life-changing, scroll down to the previous post, or click HERE.

 

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New Writing Book… Now in Bookstores!

Not that you’ll see it in the window at Barnes & Noble and other stores, or on the New Releases table just inside the door. Non-fiction reference books just don’t get that kind of positioning, unless your name is Stephen King. But you should find it in the Reference section. If you don’t, ask the bookseller to get it for you… who knows, it might have already sold out (because of the small stock orders for books in this category, they often do just that shortly after release).

The Nook and Kindle editions will be available November 12.

This Book Just Might Change Your Writing Life

That’s actually the intention. The stated goal: to write a paradigm-shifting, career-empowering, cynic-silencing writing book like non-other. Including my own.

Having written three previous books about writing fiction, this book is the fruition of a journey of coaching manuscripts, speaking at writing workshops and generally plumbing the depths of why the percentage of success in fiction writing is so depressingly low, why the apprenticeship takes so long, and why none of those truths end up changing the way we view the craft, study the craft, and then confront the blank page, with or without that enlightenment.

This book opens with an exploration of all of that.

What you read there may surprise you. It may, in fact, shock you. Either way, you will recognize, more or less, for better or worse, some of this going on in your own writing journey.

The context of writing books and workshops–especially keynote addresses at writing conferences–is particularly treacherous ground, because everything depends on what the presenter actually knows, versus what they believe to be true for them, framed as if it therefore must be true for all writers (which almost all of the time, it isn’t. Therein resides the key to understanding why this craft is so difficult to teach, and especially, to learn.

Because those who teach it, and talk about it, rarely touch upon the core truths that you need to understand. As if they are obvious–they are not–or that you already have your head wrapped around it all, which, based on the data regarding newly submitted manuscripts. is unlikely.

If you’re thinking: wait, Larry is one of those authors and presenters… so how is he, and this, any different? Fair question. Answer: this book is about the underlying forces and factors that make a story work, no matter what you believe or practice as a process. It’s about gravity. Not even the most wildly confused or egocentric physics professor on the planet argues the existence, nature and functional veracity of gravity.

Bottom line: most of what you hear about writing fiction relates to process. Which can be all over the map, from die-hard pantser to anal-retentive outliner. And yet, the criteria for what renders a story effective, or not, is no different for any one process than any other. The bar resides at the exact same height for all stories, and it is largely out of reach for the new author that doesn’t grasp the facets of the craft required to reach it. (Here’s a wake up call: if you are self-publishing your work, the bar is not lower, thinner or less relevant for you. In fact, the success-mediocrity-failure data is even more depressing in that realm.)

This book is all about the criteria for storytelling, both at a macro-level (the story idea, the premise, character and dramatic arcs), and the micro-level (the nuanced contextual flow of story structure, the different functions of different parts of the story, what makes a scene work, and conversely for all of it, what causes the wheels to come off).

There are approximately 70 different criteria culled out from the myriad parts, parcels, essences and contexts of a story that works, each of them introduced, framed, exemplified and rooted in the fiction writing reality, including graphics for visual learners. Once you have these internalized–at which point they tend to become instinctual, which is precisely why consistently successful authors are better than the rest of us–in effect you have over 70 different checklists that can be applied to your novel… at any point in the process, from the opening flash-fire of a story idea, through the outlining and/or drafting process, on through the revision and polish stage of development.

All of it is process and genre neutral.

Here’s the scary, irrefutable bottom-line truth about writing…

… and about writers. It frames the entire explanation for success versus failure and the sad percentages that underscore those outcomes. It applies to new writers especially, but to working writers as well: too often you don’t know what you don’t know. And yet it is the sum of what you know, compromised by what you don’t know, that dictates the state of your craft, as well as the direction and momentum of your growth as a writer.

And thus, the trajectory of your writing career.

The new book is focused on that. On shortening the gap between what you know and what you don’t know. And putting a framework around all of it in a way that allows you to access these truths as a tool chest for your storytelling, perhaps in a way that is more empowering than you’ve ever experienced before.

This is the stuff you wish you’ve have known earlier in your writing journey.  The stuff you wish had been made clearer, and framed more clearly, instead of what, for most writers, ends up being half true, half the time, for half the writers who hear it.

Bestselling author Robert Dugoni wrote the Foreword for the book.

His bestselling novel, My Sister’s Grave, serves as the recurring real-life model that displays how all of these principles work together within the arc of a story to become a sum in excess of their parts. Because always, while these principles do indeed define the sum, it is the writer’s deft and nuanced touches, the keen instinct applied to a given moment, that elevates that sum to something more.

This knowledge is what may get you published, as well as explain why that isn’t happening. Somewhere between the state of what you know about those 70-plus criteria, and the state of the instinct with which you apply them, resides your key to making your writing dream come true.

Look to the right of this post (click HERE to go to the Home page), under the shot of the cover, to read the blurb from the Editor at Writers Digest Books, who acquired and worked with the manuscript. You’ve probably never seen an editor blurb their own book before, but when you read what she says, you’ll understand.

Here are three previews– think of these at appetizers–that I hope will send you to the bookstore, online or otherwise, to pick up this book.

The very first reader review can be read HERE.

You can read the entire Introduction chapter, including a few Track Changes comments from the editors, HERE: 00A_Introduction 

And you can inspect the full Table of Contents HERE: TOC

Go to the Amazon page for Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves HERE, and the BN.com page HERE.

 

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A Full Online Video Writing Workshop… right here, right now.

I’m on the cusp of leaving for Pasadena, where I’ll be presenting three sessions (including an all-day Master Class) at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference. This is my sixth straight year there, and it’s always a first class event hosted by a first class organization.

I’ve been banging out Powerpoint decks for the last three days, and I finally have them where I want them.

Meanwhile, as I write this, and over the weekend, Amazon.com is completing fulfillment on delivery of pre-orders for my new writing book, GREAT STORIES DON’T WRITE THEMSELVES. I’ve heard from a few folks who got theirs today… mine is coming Wednesday (or so I’m told by Amazon), after I depart for five days (yes, I order a copy of my own books… though the publisher does send a box for promotional use). The first time I’ll lay eyes and  hands on my book — my baby — will be at the event as I walk past the event pop-up bookstore on my way into the conference room.

That moment when you first hold your book is something that never loses its thrill.

*****

On another note, last week I had the honor of being a guest of Lauren Moore and Kaleen Williams on their Youtube program, “The Writer’s Journey,” which is hosted by Keystroke Medium.

Here it is, all one hour and fourteen minutes, within which we go deep into issues of story development, part-specific criteria and how all this gets confused or even lost within the bigger context of the collective writing conversation.

Enjoy!

(If you are reading this via email and can’t see the video frame, click HERE to go to the site and watch. Thanks!)

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Attend my pre-event Master Class at the upcoming Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference

The 2019 annual Writers Digest Novel Writing Workshop will be held August 24-28, 2019, at the Pasadena (CA) Westin Hotel. 

I will be teaching an all-day interactive craft workshop on Thursday, August 23rd, at the Westin Hotel in Pasadena CA. It’s based on the unique content from my new writing book, which releases from Writers Digest Books almost concurrently with this event. This is an opportunity to kick your writing career into another gear, on a steeper trajectory.

Click HERE to go to the Master Class registration site.

This 1-day interactive workshop requires a separate fee from the main Novel Writing conference that follows over the weekend ($199, or $149 if you opt for both events).Keep reading, all will become clear. Two events at the same venue, with two different enrollment fees… with discounts available for both.

The full 3-day Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference ($399 if you pre-register) kicks off the next day, Friday October 24th through Sunday the 27th, at the same hotel (which is world-class, by the way). If you register for both events you’ll get a discount on the Thursday Master Class (see previous bullet)… and, in addition, as a Storyfix reader, you can get $50 off the 3-day conference fee by applying this code during registration: WDSPEAKER19 (Note: it is not necessary to take the Master Class to get this discount off the 3-day conference.)

In addition to the all-day Thursday Master Class, I will will also be presenting two separate 90-minute workshops during the regular conference agenda (Friday and Saturday mornings, respectively) that go deep into essential issues of the craft.

Click HERE to go to the full conference website, where you can preview speakers, keynotes and workshops, as well as access the registration pages for either event.

• Like most complex tasks, writing a novel that works—those two words being key, because anybody can cobble together 400 pages that don’t—comes with criteria that imbue efficacy and excellence, and there are dozens of them to consider. They are sometimes regarded as standards or best practices, rather than specific targets that enrich story development.


• This Master Class is all about those part-specific criteria.


• Professional novelists often understand these criteria in an instinctual way, while newer writers are left to discover for themselves the layered nuances that cause a novel to sizzle and soar. But even experienced authors realize that instinct alone may not be enough.


• This isn’t an issue of process, but rather, a means of empowering your preferred process, whatever that may look like.In this full-day workshop, Larry Brooks—author of Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves and three other bestselling books on writing craft—will examine element-specific criteria across the entire arc of a story, including:




How to vet the writing conversation and recognize what works for you.
How to make your writing process—any writing process—more efficient.
The rarely plumbed depths of the story conception stage, where story ideas must become viable, fully-wired premises.
The essential nature of scenes, and the criteria that make them work.
The truth about story structure, which is more an issue of flow and context than simply advancing plot.
Criteria that apply to SEVENTEEN SPECIFIC AREAS of developing and executing a novel will be explored… beginning with the story idea itself, and then through the vast complexities of assembling an emotionally-resonant dramatic arc.

Who this session is for:

Beginning novelists looking to advance their story intuition.
Professional novelists who’ve hit a wall or need a reboot.
Novelists in any genre seeking to up their game.
Writers seeking to better understand “the sum of the parts” of story.

This information empowers a higher level of narrative power and an earlier arrival at a “final” draft that leaves nothing untended on the table.

This is the stuff you wish you’d have know when you started out, and just possibly have yet to fully encounter. It is the stuff experienced professionals understand and execute, often as a matter of instinct, yet rarely talk about at this level of accessibility and clarity.

They want you to think that all you have to do is just write. But there is orders of magnitude more specificity to it than that.

Click here to REGISTER NOW. 

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Truth and Lies Within the Collective Writing Conversation

Today’s post is an excerpt of an early draft of my new writing book — Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves — which releases next week. It frames the opportunity at hand, as well as shining a light on why so many writers come up short.

It’s not process that is to blame, even though process consumes much of the focus within the writing conversation. When imbued with and informed by truth and knowledge, any process can be made to work. Rather, it is what a writer doesn’t know or fully understand — or misunderstands — about the craft of storytelling that may be holding them back.

Too seldom are we really talking about this perspective on writing our stories, straight up and clear. So here goes.

There are many great writing teachers out there, and I strive to be among them. James Scott Bell. Randy Ingermanson. Donald Maass. Art Holcomb. K.M. Weiland. Steven James. Robert Dugoni. Michael Hauge. Jordan Rosenfeld. David Corbett. Jane Cleland. Jennifer Blanchard. Jennifer Lauck. Eric Witchy. A bus full of screenwriting gurus. There are many more, some of whom I’ve never heard of, some of whom are dead and gone.

Others teach MFA programs (this is who you’ll see when you Google famous writing teachers), which is terrific, but I can’t speak to them, and to be honest I’ve never met a commercially-viable genre author who cites their MFA experience as a source of their success. Literary fiction, perhaps. But not so much on the romance, mystery and thriller shelves.

In addition to those who teach, there exists an abundance of conferences and books and blogs that claim to deliver what is true, all just a click or two away.

And finally, there are famous and quasi-famous authors who love to wax effusive about how to write, which too often boils down to this: “Just do it like I do it… I can’t really explain how or why it works, but if you just write you’ll get there, like I did.”

One of them (who puts the quasi in the quasi-famous label) claims that writing cannot be taught, right before he invites you to attend his next writing workshop.

And thus the noise continues, unabated.

At some level we who seek to teach you how to write are all singing the same tune, though with varying emphasis and stylings from different hymnals.

So how, then, with all this information floating around out there, can there be such a high density of writers who, for lack of a better way to frame it, have no functional clue what they are doing? I have an explanation to offer, though it may be only part of the complexity at hand.

I recall reading one blog in particular, by a guy who has never written or published a novel, instructing his readers on how to write one (to be fair, he did have a successful blog focused on positive thinking, but that’s not the same thing as writing a novel). And another guy, in a forum, who declared, “I don’t outline, it robs the process of creativity and fun.” Somewhere out there are writers who encounter this type of hubris-infused fake truth, and because it exists within the context of the online writing conversation, they decide that they believe this statement.

When in fact, it is only that guy’s opinion and experience, offered up as conventional wisdom.

The noise within the chorus is part of the problem. In fact, it may just be the problem. People who don’t know what they don’t know, framing what they think they know as universal truth.

One of the most confused facets of the discussion, right alongside process, is the critical element of story premise. Get this one wrong, and the road will be long and hard, indeed.

The definition of premise is consistent.

It doesn’t vary from genre to genre or process to process, though there are genre “tropes” (specific expectations, techniques and styles) that are expected of certain categorizations.

Premise is a universal principle. One that can be broken down into eight essential, non-negotiable parts. If you can’t recite them, then you’ve just demonstrated that you don’t know what don’t know. And in this case, what you don’t know can hold you back, sometimes for years, sometimes forever.

Premise, when broken down into its component parts—thus creating criteria—becomes the gravity-like essence of fiction. When you understand what they are, you can then access and apply criteria to whatever story you seek to tell.

Failed and less-than-ready stories almost always demonstrate a weak or a complete lack of one or more of those eight essential facets of premise. The story is broken or at least compromised right out of the gate.

I don’t believe writers are hearing enough about the most core and fundamental things that are available to them to understand how a story works at its very core. I don’t think they want to hear it. They’d rather sign up for the “Get an Agent” breakout session at the conference than the “Nail Your Premise” session.

I’m not claiming to be the only voice singing the right song. All those folks I just mentioned, and many others, are preaching the gospel of truth to writers. It’s that the noise, collectively, combines to create a dull roar that drowns out everything else. It’s so much simpler, and easier, however fraught with risk, to just write.

When you just write without having an awareness of how those eight criteria for premise will play within your story, then you are, by definition, imbuing your process (pansting, in this just write case) with the primary objective of unearthing them along the way.

That’s why what you don’t know will come back to bite you. Because in that case, the writer doesn’t even know what they are looking for along that path.

Too often, this is where a meltdown in the process, and the product, occur. The writer may possess no clue as to why their story isn’t working… and, indeed, may reject the notion that it isn’t.

Breaking Down Your Story

To understand premise at a deep and applicable level (beyond the “story is story” over-simplification that dominates the lunchroom chatter at most conferences), there needs to be a breakdown of narrative arc into its core elements, both in terms of parts (structural elements) and essences (the forces that make stories work). I’ve done that in my books, on my blog and in my workshop presentations, and with some success as well as becoming the target of some blasting negative feedback from writers who want to just write and not work that hard at it.

Writers get to decide what is true for them.

Given that 96 percent of stories submitted to, and from, agents experience rejection (according to a recent Huntington Post article), this leads us to conclude that too many writers don’t know what they don’t know.

Which means, as a statistical certainty, some will land on things that aren’t true at all. This is complicated by the fact that there are qualitative degrees of application, and thus, truth. What works for one may not work for all.

I submit that a core principle, however—like gravity, which unarguably does work for all—is a universal thing. Let’s recall what Picasso said:

Learn the rules (I prefer principles) like a pro so you can break them like an artist.

The real magic awaits in the degree to which a story resonates with readers, the acknowledgement of which validates the escalation of principle-based, mission-driven storyteller.

The core principles of story, and the criteria that frame them, are the means by which we access that level of efficacy.

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My new book, Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves (see top of the column to the right on the website), publishes October 8. The eight criteria for an effective premise are the focus of a third of the 25 chapters presented, with specific criteria for not only checking them off, but for landing on the best possible story beats that execute on those criteria.

Click here to preview the Table of Contents: TOC .

Look for Part 2 of this post in a few days.

*****

Conference/Workshop Update

I’ll be teaching again this year at the Writers Digest Novel Writing Conference, August 24-27 in Pasadena, CA. On Thursday the 24th I’ll be doing an all-day Master Class entitled “Elevate Your Novel Through Criteria-Driven Story Development,” which is a distillation of my new book, which rolls out at the Conference, as well. I’ll also be doing two regular conference workshops on Friday and Saturday.

It’s a great event at a first class venue (the Pasadena Westin), with a keynote by Alice Hoffman and a bunch of great presenters. Click HERE for the conference website… and HERE for the page describing my Master Class.

The post Truth and Lies Within the Collective Writing Conversation appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Must-Watch Video Interview with the Two Guys Who Wrote Avengers: “Infinity War” and “Endgame”

Every story development principle, and every dimension of the structural paradigm we talk about here on Storyfix–as it applies to novelists–is echoed, verified and presented within a real world context from the biggest stage of screenwriting there is.

These guys struggle with the same things we do.

Except they aren’t handicapped within that struggle by a lack of awareness of what goes where (structure) and the cause-and-effect of scenes and reader/viewer engagement (the various criteria that apply). In other words they aren’t struggling with the paradoxical notion of “not knowing what they don’t know” (the bane of newer writers) because it is the keen awareness of what they need to know to arrive at a story that works that serves them so well.

If anything, this is the modeling they provide us here. Everything they did on the journey of story development for the largest grossing film in history was driven by criteria. The same criteria that is available to us as novelists.

Running time is 19:30. All of it fascinating, illuminating and entertaining. Enjoy!

(With thanks to Todd Hudson and Kerry Boytzun)

If you can’t see the video within an email version of this post, go HERE to view it on the Storyfix website.

*****

If you want to know more about those criteria, my new book is less than a month out from the pub date, and is available for pre-order now (just click on the book cover image to the right of this column).

Here’s what my editor at Writers Digest Books–who has seen dozens of writing books come and go across her desk–says about this project, which owes much to her keen ear and sharp editorial eye:

“The minute I saw the Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves proposal in my inbox, I knew it needed to be part of the WD lineup. I grabbed a highlighter and started taking notes for my own writing then and there! While I always find it interesting to hear about a successful author’s writing process, those answers never seemed useful for getting to the heart of the matter, the real question being asked: What makes a story worth writing and reading? But that’s exactly what this book does. Read it. Internalize it. Your future writer-self will thank you.”

Amy Jones
Managing Content Editor
Writer’s Digest

The post Must-Watch Video Interview with the Two Guys Who Wrote Avengers: “Infinity War” and “Endgame” appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Must-Watch Video Interview with the Two Guys Who Wrote Avengers: Infinity War*

(*and other Avengers movies that precede it)

Every story development principle, and every dimension of the structural paradigm we talk about here on Storyfix–as it applies to novelists–is echoed, verified and presented within a real world context from the biggest stage of screenwriting there is.

These guys struggle with the same things we do.

Except they aren’t handicapped within that struggle by a lack of awareness of what goes where (structure) and the cause-and-effect of scenes and reader/viewer engagement (the various criteria that apply). In other words they aren’t struggling with the paradoxical notion of “not knowing what they don’t know” (the bane of newer writers) because it is the keen awareness of what they need to know to arrive at a story that works that serves them so well.

If anything, this is the modeling they provide us here. Everything they did on the journey of story development for the largest grossing film in history was driven by criteria. The same criteria that is available to us as novelists.

Running time is 19:30. All of it fascinating, illuminating and entertaining. Enjoy!

(With thanks to Todd Hudson and Kerry Boytzun)

If you can’t see the video within an email version of this post, go HERE to view it on the Storyfix website.

*****

If you want to know more about those criteria, my new book is less than a month out from the pub date, and is available for pre-order now (just click on the book cover image to the right of this column).

Here’s what my editor at Writers Digest Books–who has seen dozens of writing books come and go across her desk–says about this project, which owes much to her keen ear and sharp editorial eye:

“The minute I saw the Great Stories Don’t Write Themselves proposal in my inbox, I knew it needed to be part of the WD lineup. I grabbed a highlighter and started taking notes for my own writing then and there! While I always find it interesting to hear about a successful author’s writing process, those answers never seemed useful for getting to the heart of the matter, the real question being asked: What makes a story worth writing and reading? But that’s exactly what this book does. Read it. Internalize it. Your future writer-self will thank you.”

Amy Jones
Managing Content Editor
Writer’s Digest

The post Must-Watch Video Interview with the Two Guys Who Wrote Avengers: Infinity War* appeared first on Storyfix.com.

Five Ways the so-called “Conventional Wisdom” within the Writing Conversation Can Take You Down

If you set out to write the perfect writing book, with content that has never been seen or assembled quite this way before, that changes the game and finally delivers what hungry writers yearn to discover but can’t seem to land on…

… what might that look like?

(The following is a bit of a manifesto. Part writing lecture, part wake-up call, part strategy for introducing you to my new writing book, which comes out October 8 from Writers Digest Books. You can see the title and cover at the end of this article.

The goal of every Storyfix post is to deliver value that facilitates a forward step in your journey. Nothing here is ever purely and exclusively sales hype.

Whether you buy my new book or not, this post will move you forward if you let the information in. And if you do take a chance on the book… well, nobody can guarantee an outcome. But I can and will guarantee you this: you’ll encounter the foundational information you need, in a way you’ve never seen it framed before– the core, principle-driven knowledge about what makes fiction soar, in the form of part-specific criteria—to write a novel that works at a publishable level. You’ll still need to add voice to the proposition to get to that publishable level… the book will help you there, as well.

This is the stuff nobody is talking about, at least as a centerpiece for coaching you upward. While everyone else is debated process, you can at last take a deep dive into craft at a level that will change you as a writer, and inform your work as an author. As bestselling author Robert Dugoni says in the introduction: “This is the stuff you wished you’ve have learned earlier in your writing journey.”

Also… there’s a little bonus for you at the end of this: a download of the Table of Contents for the new book, in case you’d like to see specifics about the areas of focus alluded to here. Or heck, just go there and check it out and then come back here for the fireworks…)

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When it comes to the collective conversation about writing—workshops, books, blogs, articles, forums full of never-published know-it-alls setting you straight—chances are you’ve heard or read most of it. That’s where the cynicism comes from… you’ve heard it, but it never seems to make a meaningful difference for you. Because so much of what you read and/or hear contradicts something else you might hear. One bestselling author tells you to outline your story, another advises you to never do that, to just let the story come to you organically. One guru claims that story trumps structure, while another assures you that story is structure.

And then there’s everything in between.

Here’s the truth: an outsized proportion of what you hear is someone’s opinion framed as truth, because hey, it works for them. Some of it, within the whole, may indeed be valid. Some of what you hear is full of snark and hubris. And some of it is pure, unadulterated horseshit.

It’s all just noise. Seductive nonetheless, because it promises answers to your questions and a path toward achieving your goals. If only you could see the stones of that path, where those answers await beneath steaming piles of conflicting camouflage and cynicism and hubris that fog the lens.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone, finally, wrote a writing book that rises above all that conflicting, imprecise prattle, that leaps over the running river of opinion, and focuses on what has been proven to really work, on what really matters?

A writing book that focuses on the criteria for a great story?

I’ve done just that. I assure you, you’ve never read a writing book quite like the one I’m about to publish. It’s taken me three prior books over a ten year period to assemble the infrastructure for what this book delivers, and it was enough to cause the editors at Writers Digest Books to excitedly welcome me back to finish what I’ve started within this work.

Here’s the first of the five ways the conventional writing conversation can take you down.

The vast majority of what you hear about writing—in workshops, in keynote addresses, in blogs and articles and forums and during coffee breaks with your critique group—is focused on, or contextually infused with, one particular thing. And it’s the wrong thing, if what you are seeking is knowledge about the fundamentals of storytelling; i.e, the stuff that makes stories sizzle on the page, and sinks others that don’t.

Why is this thing you’ll hear instead the wrong thing? A thing that will fool you into believing you are learning something?

Answer: Almost everything you hear from writers talking about writing is about the writing process.

Go ahead, spend 90 bucks on James Patterson’s Master Class. You’ll get twenty modules telling you to do it just like he does it, which is to put your butt in a chair and let the story come to you. (How’s that working out for you?) There isn’t a shred of dramatic theory or liberating core knowledge anywhere in that or many other teaching venues you will encounter out there. Some of them have part of it right, but almost always it circles back to your process… when in fact, at the end of the day, your process isn’t what matters.

There’s never been a reader who gives two hoots about the author’s process.

(To be fair, there are a handful of writing gurus—James Scott Bell among them—who put out consistently valid and empowering stuff, almost all of it aligned with what I’m writing about.)

Everybody has an opinion about process. And you can find successful authors at every point along the process continuum—from anal-retentive outliners and planners to absolute blank-page pantsers who have no idea what their story is about until the third or fourth draft—who you could look to as proof of life for their approach. The thing is, like I said… it works for them, maybe not for you.

On that note, consider this: if you don’t know what Stephen King knows (he, the Master Pantser of all time), it may be a slippery slope leading to a coma if you try to write stories like he does, or as he advocates. And my sure-thing bet is, you don’t know what Stephen King knows.

There is ONLY ONE THING that’s universally true about the writing process, and it is this: what you hear is usually half true, for half the people hearing it, half of the time. Do that math and proceed accordingly.

Here is the #2 thing that toxifies the writing conversation:

It is this: You don’t know what you don’t know.

Which means, you may not recognize a career-changing epiphany when it slams into your frontal cortex, or you may perceive such an arrival when in fact the Big News is just another opinion.

Keep reading. I will give you a precise list of exactly what you need to know at some point along your writing journey, the earlier the better. In fact, every step of that journey is, at its core, an endeavor to discover and internalize these things… the things you need to know about how to land on and develop a story idea… and the things you need to know to execute that story over a viable story arc.

But here’s the fine print of that: you don’t get to say what is viable. The marketplace does. Historical precedent and validating evidence does. The marketplace is precisely the laboratory within which the core principles and the criteria that gives us access to them have been culled, polished and presented. Which means, if you’re not writing toward accepted best practices, you are by definition trying to reinvent your genre (a low-odds proposition)…

… or you are writing without knowing what you don’t know.

Either way, you’re pretty much screwed if that’s you.

Here is the #3 thing that confuses the writing conversation:

Much of what you hear about writing novels comes in the context of literary fiction. Which, while leveraging the same core dramatic principles, has somewhat different standards and market expectations. Such as the so-called conventional wisdom that it’s all about your characters. Or that plot, in the form of dramatic tension, doesn’t matter. That slice-of-life episodic fiction is viable. Never have a handful of flawed pieces of advice been so incomplete, limiting and downright toxified as those.  As much as the commonly heard and wildly misunderstood battle cry, “Just write!”

That’s the explanation behind many careers that don’t reach a publishable level for decades, if ever.

If you’re looking to cut a few years off your learning curve, I’m your guy and this is your writing book.

Here’s the #4 thing that messes up the writing conversation:

It is the belief that there are no bad story ideas. That any idea is worthy of a novel to be written from it, if the author believes in that idea enough.

And yet, bad ideas—weak, overly familiar, too thin, too flat—story ideas account for as much as half of the collective rejection new writers experience. When was the last time someone told you that your story idea wasn’t strong enough?

Didn’t think so.

What if there were criteria you could apply to your story idea, to help you understand its potential for all of the myriad categories of story essence and power that will result in a compelling reading experience?

That’s the core essence of my new writing book, and this particular focus—the story idea—becomes the first of seventeen fully-fleshed out, category specific lists of criteria that show you what is essential for success.

You won’t have to guess anymore. You’ll know, because the criteria will expose weakness and strength with equal opportunity.

This leads into the eight primary criteria for a story premise that will fuel a story that stands a chance. Do you know what they are? They are non-negotiable, and yet, nearly every rejected manuscript is explained, at least in part, by one or more of those criteria not being met.

If you don’t know what those eight criteria are, then truly you do not yet know what you don’t know. What you need to know. And what you don’t know will sink you even faster than mishandling what you do know. Because the latter can be fixed… once you know.

And finally, here’s the #5 thing that sours the writing conversation:

The form and function of a commercial novel is not something you get to make up to suit your story intentions. Or, your limitations (in the form of what you don’t know about story structure). Rather, like a game that takes place on a field with lines and boundaries, it unfolds in context to an expectation.

Well over half of those attending your next writing conference won’t have a clue what that means. They, too, don’t know what they don’t know. But you don’t have to be among them, wondering how you will know what to write and where to put it within the story.  And most of all… why.

No writer who has ever published a successful genre novel has defied this truth. They may claim they didn’t write toward the known criteria for story structure, but again, that is an issue and perception of process, not product (and as such, an example of how the writing conversation cost them a year or more of their life pounding out a draft that didn’t work for this very reason). And indeed, some have no clue about any of this other than via instinct… because this is what instinct looks like when it is fully informed. By some means, their early drafts written outside of those criteria have evolved back toward those lines on the playing field, often through outside feedback, sometimes through what amounts to a wake-up call.

My new writing book—GREAT STORIES DON’T WRITE THEMSELVES: Criteria-Driven Strategies for More Effective Fiction—may be the wake-up call you’ve been waiting for.

The information about story—the knowledge you seek—is out there.

It will turn your process, whatever it may be, into an efficient story-generating machine, working from a story idea and premise that has already passed muster at the critical level of macro-intention, touching all the right bases in the right way, with all of the essential ingredients for story-efficacy already framed and empowered.

Want to see more? I can help.

Click HERE to see the TABLE OF CONTENTS for this book. It identifies specific areas of coverage, including the various lists of criteria, in four parts:

Navigating the writing conversation, so that you recognize value and can separate truth from opinion, most especially when it comes to the differentiating contexts of process versus product;
The originating story idea and its requisite evolution into a story premise, including how and why so many authors come up short at this stage, effectively sabotaging or at least compromising their story before they’ve even written it;
Navigating the dramatic and character arcs, as we work through your developing story from first page to last, identifying the four essential contextual blocks of narrative flow and their critical milestone transitions.
An exploration of the criteria for effective scene writing and the criteria for narrative prose, with a send-off that positions this new body of knowledge within the realities of the writing experience and marketplace.

If you’ve enjoyed my previous writing books, this new one will deliver a finish in a way that renders the whole a greatly enhanced realization of the parts. There is so much here that is brand spanking new within the writing conversation, but that will ring true and familiar as a retrospective of the novels that you’ve read and loved.

And if you’re new to the world of writing mentoring, or me in particular, I invite you to walk with me on the wild side . Because this isn’t something you’ll find out there, at least framed this succinctly and applicably toward the goal of writing a book that readers will devour and talk about. Or at a more basic level, will have a shot at being published and/or viable as an independent project.

Your process is your process. But your product… you need that to be for everyone. The criteria for making it happen are already everyone’s to discover, absorb and begin to practice. I didn’t invent any of it. I’ve only given it voice and visibility within the unique context of the serious author.

Thanks for engaging with me. Let me know if you have questions or thoughts. (Email: storyfixer@gmail.com; I’m trying to get a fix for my Comments section here on the site, which seems to  have a mind of its own and has been on sabbatical of late.)

Larry

The post Five Ways the so-called “Conventional Wisdom” within the Writing Conversation Can Take You Down appeared first on Storyfix.com.