Larry Brooks's Blog, page 45
October 15, 2011
NaNoWriMo #16: Consider an "Arena" Story
I've written about "arena" stories before (click HERE to go there). Today's tip is to consider incorporating the power of a compelling "arena" within your story concept, or as the centerpiece of it.
In short, an "arena" story is one in which the setting — time, place or culture — is the heart and soul of the story. Apart from (or in addition to) the characters or the dramatic concept, the viarious experience you are offering your readers by taking them into your arena is, in and of itself, one of the story's most compelling elements.
Arena is the stage upon which the characters play, the landscape of the dramatic tension. Legal thrillers are arena stories, set in courtrooms. Historicals are arena stories, where the backdrop of an actual time and place becomes the most compelling aspect of the story.
All stories have a setting – time, place or culture — but when that time or place or culture is something unusual — when the reader gets a peek behind a curtain or a ride they'd never get to experience for real — it becomes, by definition, an arena story.
Patricia Cornwell's novels are arena stories — they take place in a morgue or autopsy room. Chances are your readers haven't hung out there, and in her novels they get a glimpse of that world.
Detective stories are a form of arena — we get to experience the world of private eyes and police investigators. Which is most likely quite different — and more thrilling – than yours and mine.
Spy stories? Pure arena.
Jackie Collins' novels… they were about what happens in old school Hollywood behind closed doors. Pure arena.
"The Help," by Katherine Stockett? Pure arena. Chances are those readers weren't there in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi. That cultural setting is the heart and soul of that novel, easily as big a draw as the characters or plot. In this case, the arena became the story's theme.
"Grey's Anatomy" on television? A soap opera set in a sure-thing arena. Ask yourself if those same character dynamics would be as compelling if set it, say, a downtown department store.
Remember "Top Gun?" A love story with fighter jets. Arena, pure and simple. You bought a ticket (or the DVD) for one of two reasons: you're into Tom Cruise, or it was those jets. It wasn't the compelling dramatic storyline, I can assure you.
Arena stories are everywhere.
Pay attention… there's a reason that's true. They work.
Of course, it helps if you know your arena from the inside out. It's that behind-the-curtain aspect of an effective arena story, perhaps the dark side that never gets talked about, that appeals to readers. If you have intimate knowledge of a little corner of modern life (or of historical life) not normally glimpsed, perhaps something glamorous, or dangerous, or frightening, or important, consider adding it to your story.
Of if you're looking for a story, ask yourself what vicarious experience you might deliver to your readers through setting.
A compelling arena can become the thing that makes an otherwise routine storyline work.
Bonus tip: give your hero an interesting, unusual profession, and then take us into that world. It may take a little research, but a lab coat or a space suit can do wonders for your protagonist.
NaNoWriMo #16: Consider an "Arena" Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 14, 2011
NaNoWriMo #15: Stuck? Try this and move forward.
At this point in the planning process the room divides into two main categories: those that take to this quickly, easily and with great relief… and those who don't.
Doesn't mean you're fighting it off or don't get it, it just means that you may be used to, or prefer, conducting your "search for story" by drafting, which with NaNoWriMo is usually a daunting process.
Either way, I highly recommend you plow ahead with your October story planning. It'll make the difference between a pile of 50,000 words perhaps leaning toward a viable story (or perhaps not)… and a story that may actually work at the first draft stage.
Here's a killer way to discover your story.
Quick reminder: an "idea" for a story isn't a story… until it is. Knowing the difference is THE essential quality you need to warp your head around to write publishable, effective stories. We must evolve our ideas into concepts, then marry them to five other non-negotiable core competencies.
Today's tip is most effective if you have an initial "idea" in your head that you're in the midst of evolving into a concept (often a sticking point), but it'll help anyone who is engaged in sequencing the 60-ish scenes that will comprise your completed draft. If that's what you're stuck on — you don't have an "idea" for a story yet — keep asking yourself what kind of story you'd like to read this weekend, then couple it with some combination of your deepest desire, your greatest fear, a burning issue or a compelling question… and let it simmer.
If you're otherwise stuck… rent a DVD tonight.
I'm dead serious. Browse Blockbuster or Netflix and find a film that comes close to the genre (and if possible, your idea), and bring it home. You can also do exercise this with a novel, but a film is a much quicker solution, and time is of the essence.
Carve out a few quiet hours to hunker down with the remote control and a notepad (or an open Word file or Excel spreadsheet).
Note the total running time of the film. Use the clock-timer on your DVD to help you keep track of the scenes, which can help you identify the plot p0ints. You're going to be charting the story… literally using the remote to PAUSE the film after each scene, then write down the mission/purpose of that scene.
Not what happens… but what it means to the story. A generic blueprint.
It might look like this (just the first five scenes, in this examples):
1. Meet main character at work, he's obviously unhappy.
2. We meet his spouse, who is hiding something, mean to him.
3. Hero with a good friend, is told his wife is cheating on him.
4. Hero comes home, finds wife dead (inciting incident). (Note: this isn't the First Plot Point… way too early.)
5. Police show up unexpectedly… he flees.
Later, somewhere around the 12th to 15th scene or so, somewhere around the 18th to 25th minute of the film, the First Plot Point will arrive. You'll recognize it when it give the hero something meaningful to pursue (note that the inciting incident above, while it may do that, doesn't ignite a journey with stakes and opposition… the FPP will do that).
And then you'll see how the entire Part 1 was sequenced, leading up to that point.
The more you understand about story architecture, the better this will work.
Do this for the whole film. You'll end up with roughly 60 scenes (give or take 20), each with an accompanying generic "mission statement," or the exposition it imparts.
Doing this will show you how a story is paced relative to the major milestones. What connects them. How the milestones are teed-up and then paid off, and each with a unique scene. You'll notice how each scene usually delivers a single piece of narrative information that propels the story forward, and yet, each scene also builds character, setting, time and place (especially in the first quartile).
Your planning is all about defining the mission for each scene (before you write it or envision how the scene unfolds), in context to the large parameters of 4-part, 3-milestone story structure.
A big part of being stuck is not knowing what to do next with what you've already got in your head.
So check out how someone else got it done, in a story similar to yours. This will reveal an essential behind-the-curtain infrastructure of exposition, one that you can use to build you own sequence of scenes. That infrastructure, in a generic sense, won't be one the author made up, but rather, one that guided them.
Which means, you can use it, or something close to it, yourself.
Will you change it up, make it your own? Of course. Will it look at lot like the one you've charted? It should. Because chances are the story on that DVD has been developed to the point at which it does, which at a professional level is known to be the point at which it works best.
Feel free to share your experience with this technique here, so that others (stuck, and otherwise) will be inclined to give it a shot. It's one of the most powerful learning tools – and creative inspirations — that you can access, regardless of your level of experience.
Stay tuned for more deconstruction of Bait and Switch… coming soon.
Please visit the Peer Review page for a recent submission awaiting your feedback.
NaNoWriMo #15: Stuck? Try this and move forward. is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 13, 2011
NaNoWriMo #14: Surrender to the Process
Got an email this morning from a regular (and wonderful) Storyfix reader. In essence her comment was, "slow down, cowboy…" in reference to my assumption in a recent post that you probably have your concept in place by now, or should.
Did I say that?
If you do have our concept up and running, you may not have noticed. If you don't, you may have felt like the train has left the station without you. And it's tough to chase that train if you feel the window of opportunity is closing.
It's not. Still wide open. Waiting for your to climb in, even if it happens at the eleventh hour. Which isn't too late, by the way.
Either way — as a means of cutting yourself some slack — allow me to remind of a handful of true statements about writing a novel, planning a novel, and applying both goals to NaNoWriMo.
Yep, this is a pep talk.
And a critical tip: hang in there. Keep being proactive and focused as you plan your story. Doesn't matter that you lack a Big Idea or haven't whipped it into an Effective Concept yet.
Surrender to the process. It'll work.
First, creating an effective, structurally-sound sequence for your story is hard.
Always has been, always will be. It's really hard if you don't even understand what the target structure (and its attendant parts and milestones) even are… and/or if you labor under the naive assumption can just write what you want and put it wherever you want and it'll still work well enough.
While orders of magnitude more accessible… it's still hard with these tools at the forefront of your awareness.
So relax. This may take a while. Half of October remains to plan your story.
NaNoWriMo applies an artificial pressure to it all.
Not just in the 30 days of writing, but also in these preliminary weeks of October planning. That pressure is what makes you feel like the train has left the station.
It hasn't.
But you do have apply proactive, attentive, informed effort toward the hatching of your central story idea, the resultant concept and the ensuing other five core competencies. You don't have time to wait for it to come to you… you have to call for it and set out the proper bait.
Keep playing "what if?" games with your ideas. Evolve them into dramatic threads to see where they lead. When it doesn't make enough sense, when it doesn't optimize the physics of storytelling (covered two posts ag0), go back and explore another option, another direction.
Very rare is the case when the idea expands itself without that effort.
Very mysterious, and somewhat reliable, is the case where you acknowledge that you're stuck but nonetheless hang in there with the "what ifs?" and the constant churning… and then one day it'll click. Almost as if from an external source (go ahead, think of it that way if you must; fact is, your solution is the inevitable product of creative, enlightened effort).
The Solution will arrive.
The Big Idea will morph into the Big Concept, and from there you'll experience similar breakthroughs as you search for your story — the plot points and character arc and Incredibly Satisfying Ending that will surprise even you with how it fits and feels.
Because you've made it fit and feel wonderful… by applying the principles of structure and the criteria for your story elements. Whatever your actual writing process.
Surrendering to the process doesn't mean sitting back and waiting for the muse to sing to you.
Rather, it's playing name that tune with the muse, forcing it, playing with it… and not sweating it or backing off when the pieces don't seem to fit.
And – this is important — not settling at that point.
They will fit. That's the seemingly magic power of understanding and applying these tools. Knowing what to shoot for and where it all goes, in combination with knowing the standards (criteria) for those creative decisions… that's the contextual power of your subconscious creative mind at work.
Which, once you nudge it in the right direction, is likely to chime in when least expected.
I'm betting you've already experienced this, either in a previous project or even this one. It's true, you can't rush the outcome – it'll come when it comes — but you can and should rush the process. That's your October planning month.
Keep at it and it'll all be there, ready to write, come November 1.
Fill each waking moment with "what ifs?" and your intimacy with the fundmantals (structure and criteria)… keep throwing those balls into the air… but don't sweat the outcome. It's already out there, waiting for you to find it… and you will.
NaNoWriMo #14: Surrender to the Process is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 12, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #13: Begin to Write It Down
Not to be confused with begin to write a draft.
That's a form of story planning, perhaps, but it's not one you can afford to try during this planning month. Besides, you can't really begin writing your draft until November 1st, anyhow, just to be clear.
Story planning isn't cheating (actually writing parts of your draft is), it's empowerment. It's working smart as well as hard.
So when I say write it down, I mean write down your plan… in the form of a beat sheet.
A beat sheet is a skeleton outline for a full treatment. It consists of short bullets that define a specific scene, either in terms of its generic purpose (mission), or what actually happens. A beat sheet bullet might look like this:
- First glimpse of antagonist (generic/mission)
Or…
- Old boyfriend calls out of the blue (specific).
From those bullets you will expand the thinking toward what is, in effect, a sort of mini treatment/summary for the scene itself. You are done with your planning when you have such a bullet-morphed-into-summary paragraph for each and every scene in your novel.
This approach forces you to do it right: one expositional mission per scene, delivered with characterization. When you try to stuff more than one primary story point into a scene you are risking pace and expositional power.
Flashback to an earlier post: you can't accomplish this without an overriding vision for the entire arc of the story.
Also, it's critical to realize — to accept and embrace — that this is an interative process, and while the end product will be linear in nature, the process may not be. You may actually — and actually should – have a clear vision for the final scenes of your story (how it ends) long before you have a clue what the expositional scenes along the way will be.
But you will get there. Piece by piece, scene by scene… all in context to your vision for the story… and in context to the architectural model that calls for four distinct parts separated by three game-changing story points (PP1, mid-point, PP2).
Now visualize it… literally. It's time to write it down.
Your beat sheet is your primary planning document. The time to begin it is now, after you've been working on the Big Picture of your story and you have specific scenes already burning holes in your head. You're now ready to write those ideas down and and put them in some semblance of story sequence (structure), in context to the whole.
In effect, you're about to create the blueprint for your story. Ideas always preceed and empower a blueprint, and the blueprint (even if it's just in your head) always preceeds the actual draft… at least, if it stands a legitimate shot at working.
You probably don't yet know how many scenes your story will need.
That's okay, you will. But for now, assume it'll take 60 scenes. Divide them into four piles of 15 scenes…each with a separate and critical contextual mission: set-up… response… attack… resolution. The final scene in each of those piles is, in fact, a major transitional story milestone… a plot point or the mid-point, depending on where it lands.
Piles of what? Consider 3 by 5 cards. Yellow sticky notes. Sheets of typing paper. An open MS Word document numbered 1 through 60. It all works, the specific form doesn't matter… as long as it enables you to see your story as a whole, and from a 10,000 foot level.
This is where you can and should change things, find mistakes, experiment. Much easier done here – and more effective – than during the drafting process itself.
At this point you're playing God with your story.
You're looking down on a string of 3 by 5 cards spread over your dining room table and seeing the whole story, watching it flow, identifying what's missing, what doesn't fit, what could be, what to move and where to move it.
Your story was always a puzzle… now you're actually working with it as one. Filling in blanks (scenes). Shifting things, discarding things, adding ideas, expanding and polishing flow, pacing, dramatic tension.
Once you know what a scene needs to accomplish, you are now free — and empowered — to write it with perfect timing and optimal energy. To blow it out of the water, rather than simply checking it off a list.
And it's all in context to a goal: four sequences of scenes in context to their respective parts… separated by the milestones.
Because you're now 12 days into your planning, chances are you know how your story will open, what your First Plot Point is, as well as the Mid-P0int, Second Plot Point and the ending. You should be close to knowing that by now.
And if you do know those moments, you also realize they need to be set-up and reacted to, which requires other scenes before and after. Which means that each of the milestone scenes has from three to five other scenes surrounding it, teeing it up, then paying it off.
Add that up… simply by nailing your major story points you can immediately identify a third to half of the 60 scenes you're shooting for (that's an adjustable total, by the way… just try to keep the parts proportional). And you'll be well down the road to creating the connective tissue (scenes) that bridge the story points naturally, organically, in in context to those physics I wrote about yesterday.
This is the most exciting, and important, part of the story planning process. Dive in and see how quickly you'll realize that your idea is doable and eciting… or not.
And then watch how the whole thing grows into a fully functional, architectually-effective story that works. One that, come November 1, will be screaming to be written… just as you've planned it.
At that point, because you've planned it, you'll be adding value rather than still searching for your story or fixing problems.
Want to review this entire series? Click HERE for the main menu of these NaNoWriMo planning posts.
Wanna workshop? Free on the weekend of October 29/30? Ever been to Portland? Click HERE for details. Love to have you, it's gonna be epic.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #13: Begin to Write It Down is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 11, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #12: May the 'Forces' Be With You
Let me open this one with a couple of very quick analogies.
Two singers. Both trained. Both carry a mean tune, and then some. Both great looking. Maybe even friends of Simon Cowell's. One makes it big, the other never gets past the karaoke bar. Why?
Because one sings with power. The other, try as she might, just sings. Better than you and me… but not good enough to get paid.
Two athletes. Both have mastered the fundamentals of their game. Both hustle and apply great intensity. One has a pro career. The other doesn't get beyond the annual local tryout. Why?
Power. Speed and quickness. Moves. All of this equals power. One has it, the other, not as much. Instinct isn't enough when there's a paycheck on the line.
Power is a function of physics. And physics are the application of natural law.
Even in writing.
These types of analogies are everywhere.
As is the lesson behind them: fundamentals are the ante-in, but power – the understanding and application of pure brute storytelling force – is what separates good from great. Published from unpublished.
Within these analogies, effort and knowledge and all the practice in the world cannot always make up for a lack of strength, speed or a natural gift. Sad but true. Few are born with the gift.
But that's where the analogy ends. Because in writing, a gift is not required. Our reality as writers isn't limited by "natural" talents. In fact, there may not be such a thing when it comes to writing.
Because this is a learned craft.
The power behind a great story… that can absolutely be learned. It's far more about knowing than it is talent. In fact, the degree to which you understand the forces that make a story work is the degree to which the world regards you as talented.
Your story really can be great right out of the starting gate — even within a 30 day writing window — if you truly understand and apply the forces - the physics - that make a story really sing.
There are five of them. They break down in many ways, and it could be successfully argued that there are many more than five. These aren't core competences as much as they are the physics behind them. Every successful story has some combination of these going for it.
Here they are.
A Compelling Premise
Taking nothing away from Dan Brown… but there are a few thousand writers who could have tackled that same idea and combination fo elements ("The Davinci Code") and written a smash bestseller. Because the concept, and the myriad themes were absolutely sizzling. This has nothing to do with talent, it has everything to do with recognizing the inherent power of an idea, and then how to harness them.
Dramatic Tension
This is simple, universal and eternal: your story has to have a hero (protagonist), you (the author) have to give that hero something to do that takes the form of a need, a challenge, a problem to solve, a goal to reach or a quest…
… and then… you need to put obstacles in their way. The collision of the hero's goal and those obstacles is dramatic tension.
Every single scene after your First Plot Point should have it to some variable degree. At least contextually.
What makes this work — the physics behind it — are the stakes you've established. The "why" behind it all. What could be won or lost, the consequences of success of failure. If you can harness these physics by making the reader care, based on those stakes, then your story will very likely work, and work well.
Hero Empathy
It's a myth that the reader must like your hero. Good, but not necessary. Antiheroes are everywhere in stories these days.
But the reader must empathize with the situation and the journey you've put before your hero. They must feel the dramatic tension, which is never a given, it's a skill-driven pursuit. And again, stakes are the means to creating this empathy. If the reader can feel it, in addition to merely understanding it, then you've hooked them.
Read a Michael Connelly novel and you'll see this at work. There's more going on than a whodunnit proposition to solve. This is why he owns his genre.
Vicariousness
Beyond empathy resides vicarious experience. Simply by taking the reader into a specific time and place and making it visceral and alive, by offering us a seat on a journey we might not otherwise experience (the key to the success of Avatar, by the way), if we can experience the journey through the eyes and ears and perceptions of the hero… then, when coupled with stakes, the reader is on board. They'll feel it.
Doesn't have to be a trip to another dimension or universe. In fact, this aspect literary phsyics is what makes a love story work, or a thriller or even a historical novel.
The Reading Experience
This one is "the X-Factor" of writing. hard to define, very much the product of experience. It's part writing voice, part wit, part pathos, part intangible.
Not all stories are high concept. They don't all deliver an experience you'd want to have. But there's something about them… you can't put it down. It's how the elements combine to become a sum in excess of their parts.
It's like the best plate of spagetti you've ever tasted. Nothing special or original about it… it just works. And it's no accident.
Getting there, though, depends on your understanding of the parts, and of the forces behind them. So don't short change your basic understanding as you begin to assemble the elements of your NaNoWriMo story. Make the parts sing, fuel them with all the force and physics you can… and then combine them with the grace and touch of your inner genius.
Keep these physics in mind as you plan your story. Don't settle on these counts, they're too easy to take for granted.
Don't. Instead, seek to blow them out of the water.
Now is the time. Because all of it can be planned.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #12: May the 'Forces' Be With You is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #11: May the 'Forces' Be With You
Let me open this one with a couple of very quick analogies.
Two singers. Both trained. Both carry a mean tune, and then some. Both great looking. Maybe even friends of Simon Cowell's. One makes it big, the other never gets past the karaoke bar. Why?
Because one sings with power. The other, try as she might, just sings. Better than you and me… but not good enough to get paid.
Two athletes. Both have mastered the fundamentals of their game. Both hustle and apply great intensity. One has a pro career. The other doesn't get beyond the annual local tryout. Why?
Power. Speed and quickness. Moves. All of this equals power. One has it, the other, not as much. Instinct isn't enough when there's a paycheck on the line.
Power is a function of physics. And physics are the application of natural law.
Even in writing.
These types of analogies are everywhere.
As is the lesson behind them: fundamentals are the ante-in, but power – the understanding and application of pure brute storytelling force – is what separates good from great. Published from unpublished.
Within these analogies, effort and knowledge and all the practice in the world cannot always make up for a lack of strength, speed or a natural gift. Sad but true. Few are born with the gift.
But that's where the analogy ends. Because in writing, a gift is not required. Our reality as writers isn't limited by "natural" talents. In fact, there may not be such a thing when it comes to writing.
Because this is a learned craft.
The power behind a great story… that can absolutely be learned. It's far more about knowing than it is talent. In fact, the degree to which you understand the forces that make a story work is the degree to which the world regards you as talented.
Your story really can be great right out of the starting gate — even within a 30 day writing window — if you truly understand and apply the forces - the physics - that make a story really sing.
There are five of them. They break down in many ways, and it could be successfully argued that there are many more than five. These aren't core competences as much as they are the physics behind them. Every successful story has some combination of these going for it.
Hee they are.
A Compelling Premise
Taking nothing away from Dan Brown… but there are a few thousand writers who could have tackled that same idea and combination fo elements ("The Davinci Code") and written a smash bestseller. Because the concept, and the myriad themes were absolutely sizzling. This has nothing to do with talent, it has everything to do with recognizing the inherent power of an idea, and then how to harness them.
Dramatic Tension
This is simple, universal and eternal: your story has to have a hero (protagonist), you (the author) have to give that hero something to do that takes the form of a need, a challenge, a problem to solve, a goal to reach or a quest…
… and then… you need to put obstacles in their way. The collision of the hero's goal and those obstacles is dramatic tension.
Every single scene after your First Plot Point should have it to some variable degree. At least contextually.
What makes this work — the physics behind it — are the stakes you've established. The "why" behind it all. What could be won or lost, the consequences of success of failure. If you can harness these physics by making the reader care, based on those stakes, then your story will very likely work, and work well.
Hero Empathy
It's a myth that the reader must like your hero. Good, but not necessary. Antiheroes are everywhere in stories these days.
But the reader must empathize with the situation and the journey you've put before your hero. They must feel the dramatic tension, which is never a given, it's a skill-driven pursuit. And again, stakes are the means to creating this empathy. If the reader can feel it, in addition to merely understanding it, then you've hooked them.
Read a Michael Connelly novel and you'll see this at work. There's more going on than a whodunnit proposition to solve. This is why he owns his genre.
Vicariousness
Beyond empathy resides vicarious experience. Simply by taking the reader into a specific time and place and making it visceral and alive, by offering us a seat on a journey we might not otherwise experience (the key to the success of Avatar, by the way), if we can experience the journey through the eyes and ears and perceptions of the hero… then, when coupled with stakes, the reader is on board. They'll feel it.
Doesn't have to be a trip to another dimension or universe. In fact, this aspect literary phsyics is what makes a love story work, or a thriller or even a historical novel.
The Reading Experience
This one is "the X-Factor" of writing. hard to define, very much the product of experience. It's part writing voice, part wit, part pathos, part intangible.
Not all stories are high concept. They don't all deliver an experience you'd want to have. But there's something about them… you can't put it down. It's how the elements combine to become a sum in excess of their parts.
It's like the best plate of spagetti you've ever tasted. Nothing special or original about it… it just works. And it's no accident.
Getting there, though, depends on your understanding of the parts, and of the forces behind them. So don't short change your basic understanding as you begin to assemble the elements of your NaNoWriMo story. Make the parts sing, fuel them with all the force and physics you can… and then combine them with the grace and touch of your inner genius.
Keep these physics in mind as you plan your story. Don't settle on these counts, they're too easy to take for granted.
Don't. Instead, seek to blow them out of the water.
Now is the time. Because all of it can be planned.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #11: May the 'Forces' Be With You is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 10, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #11: Cast Your Story With Familiar Faces
First… New Peer Review Submissions:
1. Brandon' Pilcher's fantasy short story, "Fighting For Food".
2. An new chapter (2) added to Frederick Fuller's romantic novel, "For the Heart's Treasure".
Please honor these writers with your feedback.
If you'd like to learn how to submit your own work for Peer Review, click HERE. Or HERE to see what else is available for your review and feedback.
*****
Cast Your Novel With Familiar Faces
Cut yourself some slack. You're trying to plan an entire novel in a month — a tall order — and then (an even taller order) you're going to write it in 30 days.
We need all the help we can get with both aspects of the experience.
For me, nailing the tonality and energy of my main characters is always challenging. While you can plan it, truth is they don't really come alive in a visceral way until you commit that plan to the manuscript.
Here's a little trick to help work-around any fuzziness or doubt when it comes to imprinting your character with edge and depth, and that add value to the many moments you are creating in your fiction.
Cast Someone You Know in These Roles
I recommend movie or television stars. The more established and inflexible their on-screen persona, the better. Cast your leading roles first, and if you like how this feels, go deeper into your cast of characters and do the same.
You can even use their names… until day 30, at which time you should do a search-and-replace to brand them with names of your own creation. You'll not only have a face in your mind as you write (doesn't hurt to paste a picture onto the edge of your monitor, either), but you'll have an acid test that will help you nail their dialogue and possibly even their decisions.
It's amazing how far, and how fast, this little technique will take you. Because…
If your placeholder/actor wouldn't say it, don't have your character say it.
Let's say you've cast a young Clint Eastwood as the lead in your thriller. He's under the gun, facing a critical decision, and you're not sure what should come out of his mouth. At this point you can ask… what would Clint say? And right away you have a notion about what to write.
Clint wouldn't say, "Well, I sure do hope this works."
But he would say, "I'll apologize later, if you're still alive."
One of the nice aspects of this little tip is that it doesn't influence the direction of a story, because you've cast the roles in context to what you're planning. Once operating from within that plan, and if you've cast it well (which might include people in your life who aren't famous… just don't forget to swap out their names), you'll have built-in personality and energy to help you quickly and effectively create dialogue and decisons that align with your plan, and are closer to the optimal "moment" than you might otherwise draft.
With NaNoWriNo, coming close the first time is critical. Your story plan is a means toward this end, and this tip is a sure-fire way to make it work.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #11: Cast Your Story With Familiar Faces is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 9, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #10: Specifics on How to Plan Your Story
Allow me to state the obvious: the key to story planning is knowing not only how to plan, but what to plan, and in what order. And the key to the latter is the former.
In other words, if you don't know how to cook, in general, then you may not have success with a specific recipe. You need to apply a generic understanding of the principles of story physics and architecture to the specific vision you are building for your story.
This is what separates the published from the unpublished, the pros from the wannabes, and the joy from the pain.
The story planning process can be broken down into three hierarchical realms, or levels.
They are sequential, meaning that you must immerse yourself in the first (highest) level before you can really get anywhere with the other (subsequent) levels. Doing this is the wrong order results in random creative assembly… perhaps a luxury and a comfort zone for those who prefer organic (pantsing) storytelling, but not something that fits within the time constraints of NaNoWriMo.
This is so basic that it can be easily overlooked or undervalued.
And yet, it explains why so many story planning efforts — and this includes the "pantsing" of a novel, which is nothing other than story planning under another name — come up short. Because if you skip the highest level of story visualization and dive into the other two in an effort to "find" your story… that's tough.
That's darn near impossible, especially in a month. And with NaNoWriMo, that's all you have.
All three realms are phases of "the search for your story."
Before you can build a palace, you must see that palace in your mind. You can't just make it up when you get to the construction site.
Before you can find your story, you need to know what you're looking for. In other words, the highest level of story planning, the most critial realm of your search for story, is the Big Picture, the result of which is a one or two long-winded sentence elevator pitch thatbecomes the context — the vision — from which you continue the rest of of your planning.
Read that sentence again. It's a whole sandwich full of juicy stuff, all of it essential to understand. This is the key to NaNoWriMo success.
The Highest Level of Story Planning — Your Vision
This is simply your story told in big broad strokes. It may or may not inherently have solutions or specific scenes, but it's your story summarized in terms of an elevator pitch. At this point, if someone were to ask you, "so how are you going to pull that off?", you may very well not know. Not yet, anyway.
Scenes come later. This is your story arc.
At this point in the process you seek to define the genre, to hone in on the the problem or journey your hero will take, and the opposition to it, and how it will end.
Example: A love story about a man whose wife dies and he must find the secret of her past to accept his future without her. From that vision you have context to get very specific about what happens. If you start with what happens without such context, you are driving blind in a storm of possibilities.
This high level story arc — the spine of your story – become the context that will empower the next two phases (discussed below).
You really can't successfully shortcut this. If you try to, you will find yourself circling back to address this contextual necessity. So do it now, before you spend time on scene and "moment" development that may or may not work.
You really shouldn't move into the next two realms of story planning until you know: who is your hero… what is she/he doing in their life prior to the First Plot Point (this is your set-up, or your first 12 to 15 scenes)… what is the problem or issue or opportunity you throw at them… what is the opposition to that need or quest… … what the stakes… how does the hero become the hero… and how is it resolved.
When you can tell your story to someone at this high level of generality, without needing to describe any specific moments or scenes, then you're ready to successfully move forward into the other two realms of your story planning.
And if you can't do it yet… you need to swim in this soup until you get there. If you begin writing your draft without knowing these fundamental story elements, you're likely to drown in the dull broth of your own undercooked stock.
The Architectural Level of Story Planning — Your Blueprint
With that Big Picture vision for your story in place, it's time to lay the foundation for it. This is where you will apply and optimize the physics of storytelling, or the pacing and twisting and sequential unraveling that will make your story work the best it can possibly work.
Remember, you are shooting for quality, for a future with a story that works, as much as you are striving to get 50,000 words down on paper. You really can accomplish both… and this is how.
This phase is the stuff you cannot make up, alter or reinvent. Stories unfold in a certain way — four parts, each with a mission, separated by specific milestones, each with a specific purpose and outcome. This centuries-old iconic structure becomes the vessel into which you pour the beautiful soup of your story, as conceived in the earlier, higher realm of visionary story planning.
Without the vessel, the soup just splatters all over the place.
First, you need to understand your First Plot Point Point (what it means in terms of functional mission, how it transitions your story from set-up mode into fully engaged conflict-driven exposition), and understand what type of scene is necessary (scene-specific mission) to make it happen.
You now have a tentpole to build around. A foundation sunk in into the narrative turf of your story. With this FPP milestone in place (it'll be at about the 20th to 25th percentile of your story's length), you can now — and not until — begin to get specific about what happens before this moment… and then, what happens after it.
What happens before the FPP is the set-up: you set a hook, you foreshadow, you intro your hero, you put forthcoming plot elements in place, you make us care for the hero and show us the stakes that will be in effect once the FPP hits.
What happens at the First Plot Point: the story really begins here. This is the first moment in which the reader is shown what this story is really all about from the hero's perspetive, what journey they are about to take, or what problem they must solve… and most importantly, a solid glimpse of what will stand in their way, as well as the stakes that will cause the reader to care. And, to keep reading.
If you don't get this, rent a stack of DVD movies and watch this structure unfold before your eyes. Every time.
This all-important FPP blueprinting becomes context to the blueprinting that remains. Because you know (if you've been following along here), that Part 2 of the story is the hero responding to the First Plot Point… and then comes the Mid-Point (a twist, a parting of the curtain) that plays a role in transitioning your hero from responder to attacker in Part 3… and then, your final Big Twist (Second Plot Point, at about the 75th percentile) that puts all elements in play and becomes the catalyst that will empower the hero to become the primary lynchpin in how the story ends.
You'll know you're done with this Level 2 planning when you know: how your story will open… how these first dozen or so scenes will set-up the story and the hero and the stakes, and at the same time give us reason to care and perhaps some preliminary inciting incidents to bring us closer to (set-up) the First Plot Point transition… what the mid-point context shift twist will be… what the Second Plot Point will be… and how the story will end.
That's not scene planning, it's milestone planning. There are only 5 major things that comprise this level — open, FPP, MP, SPP, ending — and thus comprise the arc of your story. You'll have a sense of what happens between — what connects – these milestones, and on two levels: you know the unique mission of each of the four parts (set-up… response… attack… resolution; or, from a character standpoint, orphan… wanderer… warrior… martyr).
And most importantly, you approach the development of all of these story moments in context to what you've already fallen in love with at the previous Highest Realm of your story planning, with is the Big Picture vision for it.
The Contruction Level of Story Planning — Your Beat Sheet
Now you're really ready to plan your scenes. To define the sequence and specific moments of your story.
If you know all of the above, at both of those levels, you'll already have scene ideas burning a hole in your head. You'll intuitively understand what your scenes need to be to live into the contextual mission you've already given them, which is defined in two ways: by which of the four story parts it appears within, and by the flow of the story (the narrative exposition) that precedes and follows it.
This is where your planning takes the form of a beat sheet: a series of quick bullets describing each scene in your novel.
It's really hard to do a functioning beat sheet as your first story planning volley, but if you've worked through these two higher realms of vision and planning, the beat sheet will flow out of your head with joy and urgency. Each bullet has two possible forms: a specific thing that the scene does to and for the story… and a generic mission for that scene. And then, perhaps, a great creative way to make it happen within the scene.
All of this is top-down mission-driven storytelling.
Each of the four parts has a mission, which becomes context for all of the scenes within it.
Each of the scenes within those four parts has a story-specific mission (the information it chips into the story's flow at this point), and each scene depends on the scenes that come before it and after it. Only with a Big Picture contextual view can you make this work.
Especially within a 30 day writing window. If you've found your story on Day 1, you'll write the hell out of it. If not, then your draft will simply be a continued search for story, the result of which becomes necessary context for the writing of a story that works.
Understand this: searching for you story, and writing it (well), are very different aspects of the writing process.
You'll naturally want to drift back and forth between these realms. Which can serve you… but only if you generally remain true to the three tiers of planning. Because each defines the context of what happens beneath it… and that context is the magic of successful storytelling.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #10: Specifics on How to Plan Your Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 8, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #9: Take a Hike
I mean, literally, take a hike. Or a walk.
Do it alone… or do it with someone to whom you can talk through your story.
Story planning is hard. Maybe not at first, but soon you'll have more elements than you bargained for competing for airtime, and for a while it'll sound like a small crowd screaming in your ear.
Stepping into this story planning challenge is the key to emerging from it.
The challenge is the reason so many writers abandon story planning right here and rationalize that, hell, I'll just write the dang thing and it'll all work out as I go, it'll come to me.
Doubtful. And if it does, then the real challenge appears, albiet silently and without immediate consequence: you'll have to rewrite the shifts-in-real-time story before it'll work… if, in fact, implementing huge new ideas and direction-changes is what happens to you mid-draft.
Like a shot of heroin, it'll feel good at first… right before it kills you.
The goal of story planning is to avoid game-changing, mid-draft direction changes or shifts that forget their story-bound roots. To optimize the best creative choices and direction beforehand, and to make sure they are in alignment with the underlying principles of storytelling that have driven the craft for as long as dramatic, character-centric stories have been appearing as books and movies.
So here's the tip: embrace the confusion.
Swim in it. And… take pause to consider where you are, what remains unaddressed… and then fix it.
I've found that talking through pauses in my progress — it's not writer's block because we're not writing yet, but it's similar, because writer's block is actually a symptom of a story that isn't working like you'd thought or hoped it would — and just plain allowing the natural cognitive processes of having thrown balls into the air to do their thing and begin to land in places that you hadn't considered before.
You'll be amazed at how many story problems and dead ends you can overcome simply by telling your story, in sequence, to someone who can keep quiet enough to allow you to encounter your own roadblock.
Come back to this tip as required. Chances are you'll need to hit the pause button more than once in your story planning process.
Here's a major BONUS TIP, in the form of a visual.
Many Storyfix readers say this is the most power thing they've ever encountered as they learned about storytelling, because it's all in one spot, in the form of… get ready for it… a circus tent.
Go to this link, and then be patient, as this file takes a while to load: http://storyfix.com/the-big-daddy-of-story-structure-visual-prompts.
This is the structure you are endeavoring to populate with your story ideas. Just make sure you don't leave half your tent empty, or don't stuff too many elements into any one corner to an extent the whole thing topples to the side. (Special thanks to Rachel Savage for creating this wonderful tool.)
Let the Big Show begin.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #9: Take a Hike is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
October 7, 2011
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #8: Why and How Your First 12 to 15 Scenes are Different
Today's tip springboard's from ', so if you've arrived here in the middle of this series, I highly recommend that you go back one square and study up on tip #7, which is about the all-important First Plot Point.
The First Plot Point is the reason your first 12-t0-15 scenes — which come before the First Plot Point – are different than the rest of the scenes in your novel. If they aren't, your novel is already broken.
You now know — by virtue of having a good understanding of the First Plot Point (if that's too assumptive, then stop here and play a little catch-up) — that your story doesn't really begin in earnest until that FPP moment. That everything that preceeds it is a set-up for it, and everything that comes after it is because of it.
It's like turning 21. Before that you're a kid, perhaps living in anticipation of that moment… and after that day, everything gets harder, though that realization remains as a surprise that awaits.
The First Plot Point is square one of your hero's journey. Sure, they may have been smack in the middle of a lfie-changing quest before the FPP, but it' s the FPP that defines THE CENTRAL STORY of this novel, by either kicking off the story-specific hero's quest or changing it dramatically.
Either way, the FPP is where things change. Where set-up, ignition and narrative sequencing collide.
It happens at about the 20th to 25th percentile mark (in terms of story length). Not before, not after. Both have risks attached.
The FPP assumes the reader knows, and cares about, your hero.
And therefore, when you've cracked your hero over the head with a new problem or challenge or opportunity at the FPP… when that changes thrusts them in a new and urgent direction… when there are suddenly clearer and heavier stakes attached to this newly minted hero's need… when we feel the pressure of those stakes because we (the reader) already empathize… when we (the reader) can feel this impending journey to our marrow… when there is now a full rendering of an antagonistic force on the scene, ready threaten and oppose the hero on this newly-defined or at least newly-shifted quest…
… then every scene that comes before the FPP moment has a purpose: to impart to the story precisely the elements described above.
Your first 12 to 15 scenes comprise the Part One quartile of your story. If you have your hero being heroic here, that's too soon and out of context. If you have your hero facing precisely the same set of issue and problems and challenges, with the same goals, that you will have them embracing after the FPP, then you're out of context with the necessary mission of your Part 1 scenes.
Read a novel. Better yet, rent a DVD… and notice how this almost ALWAYS unfolds in this manner. That's not an accident, but rather, its the subtle hand of a professional storytelling who already knows and practices what you are just now, perhaps, discovering.
This discovery can make or break your writing career. And you can begin to demonstrate your command of it with your NaNoWriMo story.
Click here to read more about the all-important context of your Part One scenes: http://storyfix.com/3-–-five-missions-for-the-set-up-part-1-of-your-story.
As a footnote… don't submit to the urge to feel overwhelmed. If you're clicking through to these posts, you may have discovered that all the rest of it is available within posts that are, for the most part, adjacent to the ones' I'm linking to here.
Or you could just read "Story Engineering" and get it all in one place.
Knowing the proper context of your scenes is critical to planning them effectively. There are four different contextual parts to your story… the set-up… the response… the attack… and the resolution. If the context of any given scene differs from the context of the part in which is appears… you're sticking a square post into a round hole. And your story will suffer for it.
Nail Your NaNoWriMo #8: Why and How Your First 12 to 15 Scenes are Different is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com
