Larry Brooks's Blog, page 41

December 29, 2011

December 26, 2011

Clearing the Air On – and In – Your First 100 Pages

Before you can pay something off, you need to set it up.

Before you ask someone to invest, you must make a promise.

Before there is a story, there is conflict.

Before anyone cares, there must be stakes.

Getting all of that in motion in your story is the mission of your first 100 pages. Or, the first 20 to 25 percent of the story's length.

And if you do it right, you'll need all those pages.

The whole Part One Set-up leading to the First Plot Point enchilada can be confusing, and for some, sound like something a mad rogue screenwriter is trying to jam down your novelist throat. As someone who is all three – a screenwriter, a novelist and completely mad – I assure you, this is equally valid thinking for both page and screen.

Essential stuff.

I've written at length about the First Plot Point, and won't return to Square One here. Use the Search feature (top of third column) to go deep on this topic, then come back here for a new, clarifying and empowering perspective.

What's in that enchilada.

A story unfolds in four basic parts. Some say it's three, but because the middle part breaks down into two separate missions, four is more accurate.

The key word here is mission. Each of the parts has a different one. That's critical to understand, it's the difference between a writer who knows what they're doing and one who is faking it or imitating what they've read.

The order of the missions of the four parts is, by virtue of the nature of storytelling, ordained. You mess with that order at your own peril.

Don't do it.

Your story won't work until it lines up with this contextual sequence.

The first part is called "the set-up."

It contains a hook, one or more inciting incidents, an introduction of the hero, foreshadowing, the planting of narrative seeds (including sub-plot) and the establishment of context, arena, setting, time and voice.

The mission of this opening quartile is to invest the reader in the story, through empathy for the hero, both of which depend on the establishment of stakes and clearly defined dramatic question at the heart of the story.

Like… who did it? What will happen? How will it turn out? What will I experience if I (the reader) stick with this story?

It promises to answer another question: why will I care?

The last thing that happens in the Part One set-up is called "the First Plot Point." Its appearance is a milestone in the story signals the end of Part One and the beginning of Part Two.

Don't mess with that, either. Rather, learn what this all means, and discover the creative freedom that comes with knowing you are within the realm of what works.

Once you get this, you'll see a First Plot Point at work in every published story. No exceptions. It'll be like the parting of a curtain for you, and you're now invited to come backstage and hang out with the writer.

Why this can be confusing.

It's confusing because the terms can be confusing. Inciting incident versus hook. Inciting incident versus first plot point. Narrative exposition versus character development. Dramatic tension versus plot.

Back in the day, when the first storytellers were spinning tales over a fire and the carcass of a yak, the word rhetoric was pronounced blah blah blah. Which is what the unenlightened writer still hears.

Don't be that guy.

To add to the confusion… a hook can be an inciting incident, but it can never be the first plot point. An incident can be the First Plot Point, but one can also appear in the middle of the Part One set-up pages (in which case it still isn't a First Plot Point), or even at the beginning of it. In which case, it becomes a hook.

So let's clear this up.

By any other description or nametag, when something really compelling happens in the first scene of your story, or the first ten pages if it isn't in the first scene, that's a hook. Big or little. Yeah, it may indeed be an inciting incident (something happens that connects to the forthcoming storyline)… or not.

Your hook could be unconnected to plot and entirely connected to characterization, like the revelation on Page 1 that the narrator of this story is a ghost. That's a hook.

When it's not connected to plot, it's not an inciting incident.

Or, it could be huge, like someone murdering someone on page one, or leaving them, or hiring them, or painting them with stars and stripes, in which case it is an inciting incident and a hook.

If that happens on, say, page 45, that's not a hook at all, but it is an inciting incident. But it's still not the First Plot Point… unless it is.

Having fun yet? And you thought all these supposedly rigid paradigms and principles and structural guidelines would restrict you.

Fact is, you're lost without them. Because your story will fail without them.

The moment you realize that they set you free … you're empowered.

The key to understanding the First Plot Point.

Lots of stuff can and should happen in your Part One set-up. But not all of it connects to the hero in a meaningful and relevant way… to the forthcoming journey, quest or mission your story must give your hero.

Read that again. It's the key to everything.

Your story must impart a journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain to your hero. That's precisely what your story is. A vicarious sharing, an unveiling, of that journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

That said, the key to wrapping your head around this is understanding that this hero's journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain is, by intention and design, launched, fully rendered, put in motion and unquestionably underway…

… at the First Plot Point. At the end of your Part One set-up.

Not before.

Sure, as I just said, lots of thing happen prior to the First Plot Point moment. Some of them huge. Massively dramatic. Things that seem, at a glance to be the focal point of your story.

But being the focal point isn't the mission of the First Plot Point. Launching the dramatic tension, the movement toward answering the dramatic question it poses… is.

Here's a really nifty way to get this clear in your head:

The First Plot Point is the moment the hero becomes involved, subjected to, in quest of or otherwise impacted by, the hook and inciting incident(s) that you've put into the flow prior to it. To the whole of your Part One.

At the First Plot Point (that concludes Part One), the hero (and/or the reader) is suddenly aware of what all the stuff that happens in the Part One set-up means. How it relates And because of the stakes you (the writer) have put in place prior to this moment, it's also the point at which we (the reader) become fully invested in the story.

Prior to that, it's all just ingredients set out on a counter and/or simmering in a pot, emitting an enticing scent, drawing us in… but not yet a meal to be consumed.

Until you serve it up on a platter for the reader. Until you connect it all to the hero's forthcoming journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

Serve the potatoes before the gravy is warm, and your dinner will suck.

Examples, please.

In The DaVinci Code, a body is discovered in a museum. Hook? Yes. Inciting incident? Yes. But… it doesn't yet connect to the hero and his (here we go…) journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain the story puts before him. It doesn't mean anything yet, at least in context to the story to come. It's just stuff that comes into play later. This context alone – despite it happening too early – means it's not yet the First Plot Point.

We (the reader) see that the police are out to pin this on the hero, who has been innocently called in to help investigate. This adds tension. We can smell what's cooking. But is it the FPP?

Nope. Not yet. It's just a cool inciting incident. Because it doesn't yet connect to the hero (even though we see it coming), it doesn't ignite, or otherwise launch or define, the hero's journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain.

Begin noticing this in the stories you read.

The movies you see. You'll encounter dramatic moments early, you'll see twists soon, you'll get sucked in. The hero might actually begin a journey early on… but you can bet it isn't the primary storyline to come. You can bet it will change, it will evolve. It will take on deeper meaning and stakes.

It's all just part of the set-up.

Until it isn't. Until – based as much on location and timing and mission – it changes everything, until it launches something, until it imparts meaning and direction and thrust and stakes…

… by revealing the real hero's journey, need, quest, mission, problem to solve or goal to attain within the world this story creates.

Coming soon: the Top Ten Storyfix posts of 2011.

Still the #1 fiction writing website on the internet.

Clearing the Air On – and In – Your First 100 Pages is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 26, 2011 16:35

December 24, 2011

Mini-Workshop Part 2: The Great Seductive and Often Fatal Temptation of the New Writer

We all begin our storytelling experience as new writers. And thus, we all have a journey to take. Each journey is unique, with an infinite number of starting places and contextual baggage to either help us or weigh us down. Usually both.

Irrespective of those differences however, one thing is true: we all end up – or strive to end up – in the same place. To become writers of effective stories.

When we get there, the technical underpinnings of our stories – the physics of them, the forces that make them work – will be virtually the same.

Storytelling is like gravity – you can play with it all you want, but in the end you have to honor the underlying forces and create your vehicle in context to them, or what you create will never arrive safely at its destination.

The process of getting to that point is the subject of much debate.

In my view, seeking out the nature and limits of those storytelling physics (forces) is empowering. It gives us a framework and a roadmap along the way.

Some writers prefer to set out on foot, foregoing the road and climbing the mountains with a pick-ax. To learn the physics through the pain of failure and/or the deductive reasoning of a child learning to walk can work, or even simply trying to imitate other writers… it's all a certain ticket to frequent falls before you begin to walk with confidence.

In my view, the biggest and saddest mistake a new writer can make is to fail to recognize the physics that govern the effectiveness of what we put on the page. To believe that there are no rules, no physics, and/or that they reside in some magical, muse-governed realm that is accessible only through pain and decades of experience.

A lot of writers, and even writing teachers, like to say "there are no rules." That's semantics. That's rhetoric. Okay, there are no rules… but there are underlying physics at work… EVERY time. Violate them, compromise them, and your story will fail. Period.

That "no rules" thinking is just so wrong, at least if you don't recognize it as semantics. This is stuff you can learn, and quickly. Not easily – it's complicated, but eventually. When you do, storytelling physics become the context from which you write.

Those physics kick in on Page One.

Which means that if you use your draft as a means of discovery of your story, meandering in and out of character and dramatic exposition without a clear path… then suddenly you find that path and finish your story accordingly… that can work. Takes a while, but it'll get you there. But… if you don't go back and revise those wandering first pages in context to the newly-discovered chosen path of your story… it'll fail. Or at least, it won't work as well as it could.

And that's the Great Trap so many new writers fall into.

You really can plan your story… then write it, then play with it.

Or, you can begin writing drafts as a means of discovering your story, beginning at Square One.

But if, once discovered, you don't go back and revise your story in context to the newly discovered path of it, it'll fail. Every time. It's like a cook who begins with hamburger and decides she wants chicken enchiladas before her guests arrive… you have to start over. Even if the table was already set.

That's the most common mistake I see in my work as a story coach. Writers who don't write their stories in context to something… be they the principles of story architecture, or a story plan… something that becomes the very heart and soul of the story they are working on.

This trap is avoidable. And we all get to choose.

I'm not saying you must plan. That's not a rule, it's a recommendation… and once you begin to understand the underlying physics, a bit of an inevitability.

I am saying that, to write a successful story, the universal physics of dramatic theory must be honored and observed on the page, at some point, no matter what path you choose to get there.

I originally prepared these two mini-workshop posts for Lisa Miller, who ran them several months ago on her terrific site, which you can check out HERE.

Mini-Workshop Part 2: The Great Seductive and Often Fatal Temptation of the New Writer is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 24, 2011 08:00

December 22, 2011

A Little Holiday Gift for You: Part 1 of a 2-Part Mini-Workshop

(Refresher or Breaking News… this is essential, 101-level, can't-hear-it-enough story coaching.)

Part 1: The Make Or Break Moment in Your Story

It's not the ending.

And it's not the opening.

The entire realm of story architecture is complex, and therefore challenging to discuss without a Big Picture view. It's like talking to an engineer about weight-bearing stress points on a bridge… it's all in context to the Big Picture of building bridges that will never fall into the water. To someone new to bridge building – even if they've driven over a million bridges in their life – they can't really get it until they've gone through Bridge Building 101 and learned the physics of it all.

Storytelling has physics, too. Nearly every unpublished story ever submitted has been compromised, to some degree, by the author's less-than-full grasp of those physics. Many times those stories were simply winged, written from the author's intuitive, been-reading-novels-since-I-was-a-kid sensibility, which rarely is enough.

So, as I launch into a little rant about what I believe to be the most important moment in a story – any story – I realize that what I have to say is indeed in context to that Big Picture called story architecture. Or, a four-part, three milestone, six core competency-dependent framework peppered with dozens of lesser but nonetheless important features, all of which are weight-bearing stress points within a story.

When one cracks, the whole thing falls into the river.

That Most Important Moment is the First Plot Point.

It's sometimes called the Inciting Incident, but that's only valid when the FPP and the II occur at the same moment (which they can and often do, but don't have to; sometimes a killer II can occur as part of the set-up, prior to the FPP).

Confused yet? If you've already wrapped your head around the principles of story structure (which is a subset of story architecture), then probably not. If you haven't, then that's the most empowering, urgent and magical tip you can receive: go out and find that knowledge. It'll change everything about your storytelling experience.

Once you do – or if you have – then you know that the First Plot Point is the milestone that transitions a story from the opening (Part 1) "set-up" scenes, and thrusts it into the reactive (Part 2) scenes that are all in context to it.

The First Plot Point usually occurs — it should occur — between the 20 and 25 percent mark of the story. Prior to that moment, the scenes have introduced the players, shown us their world view, established stakes and reader empathy, and either planted or foreshadowed the elements that will come to bear on the dramatic tension.

The launching of that dramatic tension is the mission of the First Plot Point.

Not to say there can't be significant dramatic tension (the hero's goal in opposition to an antagonistic force with an opposing goal) prior to the FPP. Even so, the FPP needs to be there, because it changes the entire story by expanding it and/or shifting toward a new path: the hero suddenly has a problem or a quest or a need or a challenge… there are stakes already in place that hang in the balance… and there is opposition (either visible or implied) that stands between the hero and the achievement of that goal.

This is a universal structural principle. It applies to any story, every story, in any genre. It happens in a moment, within a scene, sometimes in a single sentence, at approximately the same place in every novel or movie you'll read or see these days.

If the FPP happens too late, you risk losing the reader and diluting the pace.

If it happens too early, you risk a low level of backstory, weak reader empathy, thin stakes and a flat middle. An opening "hook" (a very early moment that grabs and holds) isn't a First Plot Point, it's a powerful part of the set-up of that milestone.

If the story was a circus tent, held in place against the elements by strong poles, the FPP is the tallest and most important of those weight-bearing poles. Because everything that happens before it is a set-up for it, and everything that happens after occurs in context to it.

Next up: #2: The Great Seductive and Fatal Temptation of the New Writer

A Little Holiday Gift for You: Part 1 of a 2-Part Mini-Workshop is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 22, 2011 08:49

December 18, 2011

"Get Out of Your Own Way" – A Guest Post by Art Holcomb

(Art Holcomb knocked it out of the park for us with a guest post six weeks ago. He's back, another killer contribution. This guy is good. L.)

GET OUT OF YOUR OWN WAY

by Art Holcomb

"An exhaled breath must be cast away from you before you can take another."

Years ago, a friend of mine was writing a mystery about a famous abandoned house in Northern California. David had teased me with this book for a very long time and after much cajoling and nagging on my part, he agreed to let me read it.

He finally showed it to me at a party over the Christmas break from college. He sat me down in his spare bedroom, handed me this beautiful leather binder, thick with each chapter tabbed and labeled, and then quietly left.

I was in for a treat. I held my breath for a moment.

And I read . . .

And, as I read, I grew even more excited. The first chapter was good, opened well, excellent visuals, with pacing and language that was capable and accessible. And I loved the characters.

The first chapter had been 34 pages long and absolutely left me hungry for more.

I flipped the tab marked CHAPTER TWO over and . . .

Blank paper.

Twenty blank pieces of typing paper.

I went through the rest of the binder and it was the same thing: 18 more tabbed sections of blank white typing paper.

About which point, David couldn't wait any more. He came in and nonchalantly asked how I liked the story.

ME: I love it! Where's the rest?

DAVID: Well, that's all there is so far.

ME: I thought you'd been at this for a while.

DAVID (proudly)I have been. I've been rewriting the first chapter until I got it right.

ME: For how long?

DAVID: Eleven years this February.

I couldn't believe it. I was startled at first and then I experienced something that surprised me:

I started to get angry.

I wasn't upset that he had been working on a story for eleven years; I, in fact, had several ideas that I'd been working on since I was in high school that I was never able to get out of me. But eleven years on the same chapter, writing it over and over again, refining, polishing, rewriting, perfecting? This seemed less a labor of love and more like Sisyphus pushing that boulder uphill.

At this rate, David was scheduled to complete his Great American Novel 54 years after his death . . . assuming he got past the first chapter.

It was a great effort doomed to failure. The squandering of what I saw as a real and special talent and it upset me.

We talked about it, but I was never able to get him to see that this was less a novel and more a delicious sort of penitence. That unless he let that chapter go and move on, this wonderful story would be relegated to that binder forever. We discovered that there was a real fear that lie for him just beyond the tab marking CHAPTER TWO.

We grew apart in the years that followed and, in that time, I met a number of people like David, who were caught in a loop, unable to take a step out of their comfort zone.

I've often wondered what separates the Davids of the world from the writers who go on to have long careers and satisfying relationships with their talents?

In the end, I think it comes down the combination of FAITH and TRUST.

FAITH that you have more than one idea in you, that you don't have to be defined by a single effort, that your next chapter can be better than your last.

And TRUST in the breadth and width of your talent, and that not only can you see yourself completing that novel but that it will be just one part in a great body of work . . .

And, most of all, that you will have an audience out there .

In the end, regardless of how any single effort comes out, you have to be able to let it go when finished . . .

And take that next breath.

Success will always lie in the difference between what a person can do and what that person WILL DO!

And you can do it.

Make your talent count for something. Work hard. Dig deep.

And then . . . move on to the next challenge.

Art Holcomb is a screenwriter whose work has appeared on the SHOWTIME Channel and has written for such comics as Marvel's THE X-MEN and Acclaim's ETERNAL WARRIORS. He has appeared as a guest and taught at San Diego Comic-Con and other conventions. His most recent work is THE MEADOWS (with Mark L. Haynes), a science fiction police procedural.

****

An "It's About Time Larry…" Announcement Disguised as an Update

Just added a "Search" function (top right-hand column). As Storyfix nears 500 posts… well, duh.

"Get Out of Your Own Way" – A Guest Post by Art Holcomb is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 18, 2011 10:38

December 14, 2011

The Upside of 'Disturbing'

My current kick is power writing.

Infusing narrative with a differentiating, memorable visual, an iconic freeze frame, a punch to the gut, a soft unspeakable touch, the forbidden, the exquistely beautiful, the unthinkable, the twisted and the ironic, the delivery of relief and the rendering of justice, the impossible made real… access to what is universal…

…asking readers to flesh out the moment in their own minds, taking them to the precipe of that which cannot be leveraged with words and is therefore etched into the imagination as an outline , the internal texture of which becomes something both personal and permanent.

These things are dellivered as moments in our stories.

To try for them in our overall narrative voice risks the dreaded interpretation of purple. The most powerful writing skimps on adjectives and is long on sub-text, irony and the delivery of a poignant image in which our vicarious empathy for a character collides with the darker side of expectation.

The most powerful writing sprinkles such moments – sometimes only one or a few — into the exposition of the story.

These moments stick.

They may not be something you desire or will admit to, but long after you put down the book it's still there in your head. There's no rationalizing, no defending… you're reading a thriller, a mystery, you're reading something in which a hero is squaring off with darkness… all of which opens the door to the disturbing.

Let's be honest, this is precisely why we read these things.

As the creator of those moments, my advice to you is this: don't hold back.

Here are a few moments I can't shake.

The poster child of disturbing story moments comes from Sophie's Choice, William Styron's 1983 masterpiece of human angst set during the outbreak of WWII. You've read it, you've seen it: a mother is forced to choose one of her two children from the steps of a train heading off to certain death in a Nazi camp. She can only choose one. The other will die.

Just try to forget that one after you've read it or watched Meryl Streep bring it to life on the screen.

In Chelsea Cain's terrific novel Heartsick (the first of a series featuring The Beauty Killer, Gretchen Lowell), there is a moment when the hero (stud detective Archie Sheridan) is strapped to the table at the hands of the villainess, who brings her glistening lips close to his ear while holding a scalpal in one hand where he can see it, and whispers, "… however horrible you think this is going to be, I promise you it will be worse…"

I've read all of her books, all wonderful, but this moment defines them for me.

In one of Kyle Mills early novels his bad guy is doing something similar. What I can't shake is the fact that this bad guy knows medical things, and has the victim rigged to an I.V. feed that prolongs life much longer than Mother Nature would otherwise tolerate, given what's in store. Which we can only imagine.

And we do.

Phil Margolin did the same thing to a victim in the name of revenge: a widowed doctor deprives the guy who killed his wife of all senses and the ability to move, except, of course, the sense of experiencing pain. With the ability to keep him on the edge of consciousness for months, the doctor's revenge begins.

Disturbing as hell.

In an early Stephen King novel — I can't even recall which — he cuts away just as a vampire wraps his arms around a young girl in an isolated locatiion where, literally, no one can hear her scream. The word he used to desribe what happens next — the only word — was unthinkable.

But he was wrong. It was too thinkable.

In The Narrows, the oft-cited (here) novel by Michael Connelly, there is a moment in which Harry Bosch is told to shut down an investigation that might — and, Bosch already knows, inevitably will – lead back to the very highest levels of the LAPD. To be betrayed by the very people who manage what you do and are charged with protecting the people it is preying upon…

… it's disturbing. I can't shake that moment from that story.

In Hannibal, one of Thomas Harris' sequels to Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal Lector dispatches a character with the flick of a wrist in front of dozens of passersby, an efficient slicing of the femoral artery, the reality of which dawns on the victim as he watches Lector smoothly retreating into the crowd.

It doesn't have to be violent or even dark.

It can real… reality sometimes being the most distrubing thing of all.

The sound of a dream shattering barely registers, yet it can happen in a moment, with a word, a glance, an inflection within dialogue. Like the first plot point in the wonderful film, "500 Days of Summer," where the girl informs the guy, thus far led toward hope, that she doesn't believe in marriage. At least to him.

Maybe I remember that one because… well, many of us probably remember it for the same reason.

In the 1996 Oprah Bookclub hit (the first), The Deep End of the Ocean, author Jacquelin Mitchard gives us vicarious moments of hell on earth when her heroine realizes her child is gone. That moment returns again and again as the story unfolds, an unrelenting hammer to the head of the reader.

In her 2008 bestseller 19 Minutes, author Jodi Piccoult borrows a page from the true account of the Columbine (thus making the forthcoming moment all the more disturbing), with a scene that depicts a student-whackjob-gunman going wild in a high school shooting spree. The shooter puts the weapon to the head of a girl and asks her if she believes in God. Moments earlier he'd pulled the trigger on a kid who said he did, and now it was her turn. Her decision was her fate.

It happened just like that. The novel was a window into something all too real. It is a moment that is not easily forgotten. Nor is the novel.

Is there something wrong with me?

Or is there something incredibly, strategically brilliant on the part of these writers?

Bottom line: if such moments burn a hole into us as readers and film-goers, then they've already burned one into the minds of the agents and editors who, at some earlier point in the process, were weighing the merits of the story. No doubt these little islands of disturbing frozen moments played a role in the outcome.

What moments are seered into your brain as a reader?

Ask then yourself… have you delivered moments like this in your own work?

The Upside of 'Disturbing' is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

View more on Larry Brooks's website »

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Published on December 14, 2011 18:33

December 10, 2011

"Theme"… Simplified.

As deep thinking, well-intentioned storytellers, we tend to want to make theme – one of the Six Core Competencies of successful storytelling – something mysterious and complex. And therefore, challenging.

It certainly can be. But it doesn't have to be. The good news is… the latter (it doesn't have to be challenging) is as much the stuff of bestsellers as the former.

I get emails about this all the time, folks wanting a better definition of theme, clarifying the difference between theme and concept (which is huge, like, apples vs. apple pie kind of huge), or simply seeking to understand how to make their story themes more powerful.

Here's one answer: stop trying to do that.

Rather, simply by opening a thematic can of worms — by setting your story on a a thematically-rich landscape (and no, that's not a literal landscape, it's a metaphoric one, synomymous here with tapestry, field, culture, or place (if you set a story in Bosnia, for example, chances are you're already being thematic) — you may indeed have all the theme you can handle. And, it'll become an element of the story that grows out of the other things you're focusing on — dramatic exposition, character arc and scene composition — rather than the end-game of some mysterious and frustrating overt effort on your part.

Kinda wordy, I grant you. Allow me to simplify.

This is a bit counter-intuitive, but go with it for a moment and consider how often you've seen this in the novels and movies you love.

Separate your plot from your theme. Don't try to make them the same thing. Yes, it's good if they can connect, or at least don't get in each other's way, but in terms of your focus just worry about your conceptually-driven plot for a moment. And then…

… because that's a story… set it within a thematic microcosm. Or, back to the metaphor, stage it upon a landscape that is inherently thematic.

Stage a story on the Titanic, and by definition you're writing a story about facing impending death. Could be a love story (warning: it's been done), a crime story, a corruption story, a religious story… doesn't matter. If it takes place on The Titanic, you're already thematic.

Stage a story in prison, and by definition you're writing a story about right and wrong and corruption and human decency and even the death penalty. All of which are thematic. Love story? Blackmail? Violence? Corruption? Hope? Faith? It's all there… behind bars.

Stage a story on September 11, 2001, and you're being thematic whether you like it or not. (If your story doesn't tap into the wealth of thematic opportunity afforded by that date, I highly suggest you pick another one.)

Keep playing with this notion.

If your targeted theme — the issue you want to write about – is, say, police corruption… consider a plot that isn't about police corruption, but rather, one that takes place against a backdrop – the surrounding culture and setting of the story — rife with police corruption. A love story. A redemption story. A revenge story. Anything. No matter what it is… if it's set against a world in which police corruption touches the lives of your characters, then you're already exploring this theme.

You could place those stories — love, revenge, coming of age, faith, corruption, a murder myster – anywhere: in a convent, in the military, in college, in the suburbs… anywhere. But if you set any of those plots in motion within a world surrounded by your targeted theme — like, police corruption — you can't help but make it thematic in that direction. Make your hero an Assitant D.A.. Or a rookie cop. Or an investigative reporter. Or the spouse of a cop.

You can't avoid your target theme if this becomes your strategy. And yet, you don't need to solve the issue for humanity, or recruit anyone to a point of view… just explore it, allow your characters to navigate the core story from within this microcosm and all its nuances and influences.

Summary: even if the hero-specific plot isn't focused on your theme, you can make your story highly thematic by allowing it to unfold against a background defined by your thematic target.

This happens everywhere.

Has for years. Even in the most thematic stories you can name.

The DaVinici Code's plot is simply a mystery, with thriller elements. Old hidden McGuffins are outed and betrayed, and bad guys are out to silence good guys, with an innocent hero caught in the cross-fire. That's a generic plotting 101. It doesn't become thematic – and like it or hate it, you can't argue that Davinci was one of the most successfully-thematic bestsellers ever — until you plop into the culture and setting of the plot into the deepest dark corners of the Catholic Church.

Michael Connelly writes police whodunnits. Every time. Plots. Good guys and bad guys. The pursuit of justice. But also every time, the crime and chase elements of his stories — all generic (not a coincidence that the basis for the word "generic" is "genre") – are set against a background of something highly thematic, like racial tension (The Narrows) or police corruption or crooked politics, with sub-themes of personal values and redemption and middle age crisis.

Mysteries that aren't set up this way… that's what you see on nighttime television… yet another New York cop show.

Again: when plot, no matter how generic or conflict-driven, unfolds against (within) a setting that is full of complexity and darkness and risk, a place where opinions are divided and grey separates light and dark… suddenly you're being highly thematic.

And then, you don't really need to focus on theme to make it so.

This technique is the basis of the most frequent and safe and successful of thematic strategies: explore, don't sell. The more you lean to the latter (trying to sell the reader on a value or belief), the closer you come to propaganda.

In contrast, the deeper you explore a theme simply by locating there, the closer you may come to a publishing contract and an audience.

Can you name some stories that allowed setting (time, place and culture) to explore the theme, while a plot-driven story, otherwise generic, unfolded within it?

*****

If you're reading this on December 10th, today is the last day to vote for your favorite writing website. Click HERE, go to the end of the Comments thread (it's long, takes a while to load)… then add your vote via a Comment.

If you're one of the many who have already voted for Storyfix, you have my most sincere gratitude, and my commitment to make 2012 an even better year than these last two.

"Theme"… Simplified. is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 10, 2011 12:05

December 7, 2011

Cool Stuff to Read

I'm not a huge fan of interviews with "bestselling" authors, for the same reasons that some parents don't like their kids memorizing the lyrics to the Judas Priest catalog. That said, when I take off my writing-guru-guy hat I have to admit it can be fun, and vicarious, to see what the A-list is saying about all things literary. Or not.

Here are a few reading referrals and links for you.

The Sunday Arizona Republic did a great interview with Patricia Cornwell last Sunday, written by Randy Cordova (of all the places out there, right here is one place you'll see the writer acknowledged right up there with the subject). Cornwell is doing a signing at The Poisoned Pen bookstore in Scottsdale (where everybody comes for a signing; it's like being invited to tea with the Queen, probably the most prestigious bookstore for author appearances outside of New York) this week. She's a no B.S. person and writer, with an interesting journey to share. Enjoy it HERE.

Let's just say, she feels your pain.

Back in the day, by the way, I did a signing at The Poisoned Pen, sharing the podium and a few cookies with Linda Fairstein. I was funnier than her, and she was, and remains, orders of magnitude richer and more famous than me.

And so it goes.

Speaking of rich and famous… the January 2012 issue of Writers Digest offers up a profile of, and interview with, Diana Gabaldon (who only by coincidence lives in Scottsdale, and who will no doubt be signing for the umpteenth time at The Poisoned Pen before long, sharing the podium with absolutely nobody).

One thing of interest — and you may be wondering why I'd even mention this — is that her writing process is diametically-opposed, in smashing opposition to, what I advocate and teach about story planning and the writing process. Yes, she's a pantser… proudly proclaiming that she begins her books with a blank page one with absolutely no idea what the story will be, or how it will turn out once she gets something going.

First of all, I don't believe her, not for a minute.

Second of all, what I think she's going for is a description of an organic process that relies on her very steep and well-rewarded storytelling learning curve. In other words, she's very much like Stephen King — the flow, the structure, the sub-text and the underlying physics, are all second nature to them.

If you think you're in their league… have at it. Haven't met a writer yet who is, but I wish you well with that process. May you live long enough to find success that way.

Moving on. Backwards this time.

The September issue of Esquire Magazine had a killer interview with actor (and the shoulda-been People Magazine sexiest man of the year; Bradley Cooper agrees, by the way) Ryan Gosling. You may not know who he is, or even like him if you do (in which case you'll be in a dwindling minority), but if you're a writer who wants to see characterization (yes, non-fiction profiles are absolutely all about characterization) in full glorious genius form, taken to a visible level of craft that will inspire you in your fiction, then check it out. Here.

Dreaming of a book tour? Or even a signing?

Oh boy. It's not what you think it is. Believe me… my stories of book signing humiliations are the reason I'm funnier than Linda Fairstein.

With thanks to the esteemed Betty Webb (who posted this link on Facebook), click here to read about the flip side – also known as the dark side – of sitting in a bookstore facing 48 empty chairs and 2 filled with your spouse and some guy named Lester who wandered in to get warm.

The deadline for voting for your favorite writing website approacheth.

It's the 10th of December. Click HERE to cast your vote… be patient, this site takes longer to load (because of the 2000-something votes that comprise the Comment thread, which is precisely where you cast your vote) than it does for most agents to get back to you.

Cool Stuff to Read is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 07, 2011 18:56

December 4, 2011

NaNo Now: A Guest Post from Frederick Fuller

I did NaNo this year and won (50,664 words). It was a blast; enjoyed every moment. Got up at 6 a.m. everyday and wrote until I made my daily word count, usually going well over in around three hours.

Read Story Engineering and planned carefully during October. Wrote an outline, character study, backstory, theme, premise–everything. The idea for the story had rattled around my brain for at least 35 years, and I did attempt to write in once but quit because of circumstances beyond my control.

In October I created a concept and began planning, following your suggestions. It worked. I struggled very little with the writing because I was sure of where I was going.

Having said that, I know I did not plan enough. Could have spent more time planning scenes, refining plot, but overall the product I ended with was not bad. Now, about that product. I see it as a precise of my outline and plans. Thinking back, I recall your touching on that in Story Engineering, except you didn't refer to it as "précis" (a summary or abstract of a text or speech). With the précis I will do more planning, revise my outline, and refine my scenes. My characters will lie on the couch for analysis. What I hope I produce is a tighter novel with dazzling characters.

But, I do contend a first draft, planned well, is still a précis.

I found gems popping up all the time that I did not expect. Some of them had to be explored right then, so I "pantsed." Had to. I do believe, however, I stumbled upon to the gems because I HAD planned. They emerged kind of naturally from the grist of my mill, which I had developed via planning.

I've written two novels.

Both concepts came from ideas I had thought about for years, but I did not plan them carefully. I placed the seat of my pants on the seat of a chair and went to it. The first For the Heart's Treasure took me five years, a lot of that time in research. Actual writing took about six months to get a first draft. My rewrites were many, and now I know it was because I hadn't planned and was searching for the story in each draft. I think it's a good story, not best-seller quality, but alright for a rank beginner.

My second was planned a bit. It's called Children of Bast, and it is a memoir of a cat told by the cat. I was a year writing it, and I drafted twice after the first. I was lucky. I think it's a great story, interesting — I've been told so by members of the Cat Writers Association — and unusual. It is not a children's story or a YA; I aimed it at adults who love cats.

I will do NaNo next year for sure. And I will plan my pants off.

You can read the first two chapters of Frederick's novel, "For the Heart's Treasure," on the Storyfix Peer Review section HERE. Please enjoy offer feedback… that's the idea.

*****

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*****

Editor's note: the word précis is a new one on me. I challenged Frederick on it — I thought he was saying "premise," which sort of works as used here — but he explained. Have you encountered this cool word before? You almost can't say it without a nifty French accent.

NaNo Now: A Guest Post from Frederick Fuller is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 04, 2011 15:47

December 1, 2011

"NaNoWriMoReMo" – Make December Your NaNoWriMo Revision Month

Say it out loud, it's sorta fun – "na no wri mo re mo" – sounds like a cross between a playground jump rope rhyme and the latest from Jay Z.

Or your crazy uncle Buck after too many glasses of merlot.

A 9-Point Guide to Revising Your Novel

It's over. You may have "won" NaNoWriMo, maybe you just finished and didn't feel like you won anything. Maybe you didn't finish at all. Hopefully, though, you do feel as if you've started something, and that it's worth completing.

Whatever state your NaNoWriMo novel is in as of this morning (December 1), chances are you don't really believe, in the quiet pit of your most ambitious talented self, that it's quite ready to submit.

You know that work remains to be done, even if all that means is taking your story to an even higher level.

Here are a few thoughts to help you along that path.

Take a break from your story.

Set it aside. A few days might do, but I recommend a week. Or more.

Believe me, things will feel different when you return to the project. It'll be as if you've been elevated, a vertical ascent in a literary helicopter that lifts you high above the forest in which you've been navigating, and perhaps have been lost within.

Oh, you'll continue to think about it. Ghosts of mistakes and missed opportunities will whisper to you, sometimes in the dead of night. Thank them, jot down what they say ("Note to self…"), and then set that aside, too.

Then, when you can't stand it anymore, come back to your novel ready to be more objective about it than is humanly possible while you're writing it, or directly thereafter. This is especially true with a NaNoWriMo novel, which has held a ticking clock to your head for the last 30 days.

Understand what's fixable, and what isn't.

You can't turn a Chevrolet into a ski lift.

Insanity is trying to fix what can't be saved. This happens when you realize, at some point in the process, that the idea you started with isn't the idea you thought it was.

Depending on the nature of the difference between your original idea and the one you finished with, you may or may not be able to salvage it.

You may or may not have already tried to morph one idea into something completely different during the draft itself, which usually results in something that ends up being filed in the basement of the science lab as a freak accident in a jar of embalming fluid.

Having a better idea is always a blessing. But it comes with a price… you usually have to start over with it.

If that's the case, commit to one road, one novel. Either start a new one with the new and better idea, or try to fix the NaNoWriMo idea with better execution.

Just be clear on which is which. Don't try to blend these. Believe me, it's an exercise in insanity.

Acknowledge what you know now that you didn't know about your story on November 1st.

It is inevitable, no matter what your story planning process, that you'll end up with something richer, and different, than what you started with.

It's a good thing. It's the point of story planning.

It's also the consequence of not doing any story planning whatsoever.

Either way, it's a bet-your-life certainty that by going through your story with a keen understanding of your ending (which, on November 30th, let us hope you do), and of the road that got you there, that you'll find ways to make it better.

You may find that you have more work to do than you thought was necessary. More than you bargained for. At that point you have a decision to make, and one of the answers defines you as a real writer.

Turn your character-driven narrative into a dramatic narrative.

Perhaps the most common dangling appendage of a NaNoWriMo novel is the realization that the manuscript explores a character – indeed, that it was the means by which the writer discovered the character – to the detriment of giving that character a logical, compelling journey. Of giving your hero something to do.

Jonathan Franzen might get away with this – stories that just sit there, like a painting to be explored down to the most delicate brush stroke – but you and me, we need dramatic tension and forward motion. We need a movie that plays in the reader's head, all dressed up in your finest writing voice.

To make this happen, consider returning to the higher craft of storytelling, of which characterization is only one of six players on the field. (Keep reading, that's coming up.)

Make it fit into a professional linear structure.

Novels at the professional publishing level expected to unfold in a certain order, to achieve specific experiences, questions and outcomes for the reader. Experimental, I-just-invented-a-new-genre novels are fine… unless you want to sell them.

It's easy to get lost along this road, especially if, a) you don't know it, b) reject it, or c) weren't aware that you've departed from it as the dog days of November forged onward to the bleating tick of a clock.

The two steps to solving this problem involve a full grasp of basic story structure (four parts, residing between five specific milestones, all with different missions and contexts within the story)… and then determining how far off the mark you ended up.

What's not flexible in this equation is, in fact, that specific linear, layered model. Like any game you play, any music you perform, you need to stay within the lines and do things in a certain order, in a certain way.

What is flexible is your story – you can pound on it until it fits within those lines, and with the assurance that when it does, it will be better.

To reject that particular truth is a limiting belief, one that will always block your path.

Add layers that aren't there.

Does your novel have a sub-plot? Sub-text? Character arc? An opening hook? A viable first plot point? A context-shifting mid-point? A second plot point? A vicarious journey? A visceral empathy for the hero?

Or is it a one-note song, a one-trick pony?

Both can be saved. If you know your spine, you can now add what springs forth from it.

See how many of these questions you can answer. Satisfactorily.

Click HERE, read these questions (they appear after a few intro paragraphs). There's no getting around an awareness of what's missing when you do.

Do a post-mortem beat sheet.

Chart your novel, scene by scene, noting both what happens and the mission (contextual purpose) of what happens. You should be able to get this onto three pages, max. Speak in bullets. If you can't later comprehend your own bullet, that's a problem of a different kind.

This should tell you what within your story takes too long, what's missing altogether, what's over-killed or under-cooked, and when something is sitting on the wrong rock.

Return to the craft.

Each year every professional sports team on the planet has some sort of pre-season camp. Every professional musician rehearses, and warms up running scales that sound a lot like doe-ray-me (which, in turn, sounds a lot like na-no-wri-mo-re-mo).

Writers can benefit from the same annual return to the most fundamental of basics. Many of which, by the way, aren't learned at all, if ever, until the second or third decade of dabbling with storytelling.

There's no better time to go there than when you've got a manuscript on your screen that isn't playing nice.

Think of it as spring training for novelists. Boot camp for storytellers. A couples retreat for lovers in need of a tune-up.

I offer you two quick-hit resources for this, in case you don't want to wait for the next local workshop:

- my writing book, Story Engineering. This is where you and the Six Core Competencies of successful storytelling can get reacquainted.

- my NaNoWriMo planning book, "When Every Month is NaNoWriMo," which is specific to the artificial time constraints that this exercise imposes.

The ticking may have stopped, but your story is still sitting there, waiting to see if you'll bail or come back to finish the dance.

And of course, there are well over 400 posts here on Storyfix that drive toward the same thing: intimacy with the craft.

How to fall in love with it, and how to make it love you back.

*****

What pits has your NaNoWriMo fallen into?

*****

Vote HERE for your favorite writing website.

"NaNoWriMoReMo" – Make December Your NaNoWriMo Revision Month is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

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Published on December 01, 2011 14:09

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