Larry Brooks's Blog, page 57

A Milestone on the Way to a Million Words

 A Guest Post by James Wilson

A few months ago, I decided to quit writing.  It wasn't the first time.  I hope it's the last.

While I wasn't writing I had a great time.  I worked on my boat, I took music lessons, and I read books for enjoyment.

 Then one day I went back to work.

I'd like to say my turnaround was due to a break in a long spell of no sales, but that wouldn't be true.  The sale that broke the drought was only my excuse.

It was, however, a marvelous excuse.

Years ago, I wrote a novel in which one of the characters makes up conversations.  One of them was between a father and a son about worm farming.

The riff turned into a short story.

One day, I noticed a market listing for an anthology on Ralan's Webstravaganza (http://www.ralan.com/).  I submitted the story.

The editors liked it, but they suggested a change to tie it in more tightly with their theme: the end of the world.

I gladly made the change – on spec.  This is important.

They accepted the story.

Time marched on, and the anthology came out in e-book and POD formats.  The story is "Pa's Worm Farm and the Greenie Scouts" by Jamie McNabb, in TERMINAL EARTH published by Pound Lit Press.

I am here to tell you that there is something very, very special about seeing a book you have a part in treated seriously.

I immediately sent thank-you notes to the people who had helped me develop my craft and who had put up with me over the past while.

The whole experience taught, or re-taught, me several things.  They begin with those legendary million words.

Established writers often tell wannabes that it takes finishing a million words to learn how to write commercial fiction.  Non-established writers, of which I am one, think of those million words as the apprenticeship needed to learn how to shape a story and get it onto the page.  That's true, but it's not the whole truth.

The whole truth begins with what it takes to finish a million words.

Using a few realistic assumptions about writing speed, it takes about nine or ten fulltime years to turn out a million words.  To allow for a job, a marriage, distractions, and/or raising children, you ought to double or triple the time.  That means as much as thirty calendar years, possibly more, may go into finishing those million words.

I am at the 500,000-word mark, and have published 30,000 of those words.  I can now say without too much fear of contradiction, that if you want to finish those million words, that is, to become a professional writer, then–Here comes the BIG secret!  Ready?  There'll be a test later!–you'll have to finish those million words.

There's no mystery here.  You have to learn how to put the words on the page, how to use rejection to support your work, how to guard your working time, and how to behave as though you are working against a tight deadline.

How much of this have I leaned?

Some, but not enough.

Here's another tip: rejection is your friend.

I don't believe it, either; but it's true.

Granted, it's not the bosom buddy that the right acceptance at the right time can be, but it remains a friend.  And over the long run, it's often a better friend than acceptance.

Here's why.

Regular rejection proves that you have established a submission/response cycle.  This cycle is the fundamental rhythm by which professional writers live.  It doesn't matter whether the pieces sell or not.  What matters is making the cycle an integral part of your working life.

Most rejections are form letters.  "Dear Author . . ."  However, some rejections are pure gold, like the one I initially received from the editors of TERMINAL EARTH.  These golden rejections contain specific suggestions for improvement.  Needs tightening.  The magical element should appear on the first page.  We laughed ourselves silly, but we aren't the right market.

If appropriate, act on what they've told you.  Above all, thank the editor for commenting.  When appropriate, ask if he/she would be willing to consider a rewrite based on his/her critique.

I haven't sold mountains of work, but most of what I have sold, I've sold because some very generous editors took the time to critique and reconsider.  Win or lose, thank them!

It's been said until we're sick of hearing it: now is a great time to be a writer.  It's true.  Now is also a great time to break in.

The personal computer and the Internet have changed the game.  There are more markets now than at any time in the recent past.  Electronic publishing is shoving aside the twin scourges of inventory-maintenance cost and inventory taxation, and with them, many of the live-or-die aspects of "shelf life".  Backlist books are becoming as available as frontlist books.

The midlist and the pulps, where fledgling writers used to learn the craft and build their followings, are roaring back in electronic form.

Coaching, critique groups, market lists, and references are available online.  Discovering the name of Julius Caesar's horse is a matter of seconds, rather than an entire afternoon.

So, if everything is so cockeyed rosy, why did I drop out of the scenario?

Ego.

I didn't like rejection, so I didn't send in my work.

I didn't like the grind of working, reworking, and reworking again, and of never, ever knowing for sure whether or not the piece was finally right, so I quit.

I got fed up with a market that apparently has no room for anything that doesn't feature teenage, horny, mutant, ninja vampires, or heroic women recovering from heroic traumas, or heroic men who never seem to come anywhere near posttraumatic stress or having something better to do than "save the world."

I got fed up with being told that there are "no rules," and then being expected to intuit what the rules are and how to obey them to the letter.

Fed up, I say.  So I quit.

Notice the pronoun: I.

In other words, I let my precious feelings get in the way.

Well, so there I was, fed up with writing and having a great time.

Why, then, did I go back to work?

Because my temper tantrum finally burned itself out.  Because by buying my story for their anthology–I did mention it, didn't I?–the editors at Pound Lit Press told me I was on the right track and to keep at it.  Because I couldn't endure the prospect of spending the rest of my life not writing.

Here's the close.

There's a truism in management circles: ninety percent of the work is done in the last ten percent of the time.  The way I figure it, at 500,000 words finished, I've learned between five and six percent of what I need to know to sort-of-kind-of enter the ranks of professional writers.

How far along are you?

Jim Wilson's work on Terminal Earth is available via Amazon.com HERE .  It's also available as an ebook on Smashwords HERE , or you can find in on Createspace HERE . 

Storyfix is an Amazon.com affiliate.

A Milestone on the Way to a Million Words is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Your Story… On Steroids

Steroids for writers.  Hmmm… what an interesting notion.

A magic pill that will make you stronger, faster, better and more successful, almost immediately.

I've got just the ticket for you.  And it's not even illegal, immoral or, once you let go of some old school brainwashing, controversial. 

In fact, it's not even debatable.

This is the dirty little secret of writing fiction.

You've been looking for something to take you to the next level.  To put you into the game.  Do this, and do it right, and your learning curve will go vertical, and your career will suddenly kick into a higher gear.

It won't give you talent.  But it will unleash the talent you have.

Here's a tough truth: if you don't go for this idea, you'll have to find another way to discover and inject into your brain the exact same things it'll do for  you… only it'll take you years, even decades to get there.

What same things?  If you have to ask… you need this steroid.

This steroid changes you almost immediately.  Overnight if you're a fast reader.  No, I'm not selling you my book or ebooks here.  I'm pointing you toward a strategy that just might be the most significant milestone in your fiction writing learning curve.

Guessed it yet?  I bet not.  That's because…

It's not what you signed up for. 

It might even offend your very expensive grad school aesthetic sensibilities.  You might consider this akin to learning how to whip up a perfect Pomodori Secchi e Basilia sauce (sundried tomato and basil, after a year of cooking school in Paris) by first learning how to bread chicken.

Or, you think that because you've taken all the workshops and written a rather significant pile of manuscripts, that your learning curve is moot and it's just a matter of time for you.

If that's you, I submit to you that it may be this very skewed sensibility that is holding you back.

It doesn't make you better if it takes you years to discover what's at the core of this craft.  It only makes you a slow learner.

Because you can discover it almost immediately.  If you know where to look.  (Yes, I know this reads like one of those red-ink splattered sales letters… that's by design, because I want you drooling for this by the time I reveal it.) 

Are you ready to let go of your critique group  promulgated, let-the–characters-speak-to-you mumbo jumbo approach to storytelling, and cut smack to the sweet spot of dramatic and narrative truth?  The physics of dramatic narrative?

Quick side note: characters don't talk to you.  Never have.  That voice of dissent and resistance is your inner intuitive storyteller telling you there's a better narrative path ahead.  That you're heading down the wrong road, or least not the best available road.

And by the way, this same phenomenon is every bit as available in a pre-story planning phase as it is mid-draft.  And in that case, the consequences of listening don't force you to trash dozens of pages or commit to a less than linear or logical path.

But I digress.  Back to your storytelling steroid shot.

Are you tired of trying to stuff a cloud into a sandwich bag, sweep a puddle into a colander or build a house made of pink ribbons and ice cream? 

Does your Big Idea flame out around page 90?

Has the muse been ignoring you lately? 

After this steroid shot, you can fire her fickle ass and get on with the business of furthering your writing career.

Here it is.

It can be defined in two words: study screenwriting.

Even if you not a movie person. 

I'm not talking about becoming a screenwriter here – that's a different drug altogether – I'm talking about knowing what screenwriters know.

It's the same stuff you need to know.  Identical.  Only in screenwriting, they start there.  They don't circle this wagon like they do in novel-focused learning, they use it as the basis of everything.

I'm talking about structure.  About pacing.  About setting things up to optimize reader involvement.  About sub-text, character arc and thematic resonance.

It isn't rocket science.  But it IS screenwriting.

This works.  Even if you believe that a novel is a five year commitment to drafting and sweating blood in context to nothing more than some mythical muse – the one you can now demote – speaking to you from deep within your subconscious.

The muse doesn't know what makes a story work any more than gasoline knows what makes an engine run.

No, you have to light it on fire before it produces energy.

The muse is just an idea that excites you.  Which are a dime a dozen and worthless without… well, knowing what screenwriters know.

Screenwriting basics are the match for that fire.  Screenwriting basics are, in essence, storytelling on steroids.

And they absolutely can and will make any novelist better.  Immediately.

Here's why.

No matter where you stand on the issue of storytelling structure, dramatic theory, the presence and criteria of six discreet yet interdependent core competencies and the complete and the utter unfairness of the wavering bar that comprises the publishing business, this is true:

All successful stories have the same set of fundamental essences and forces in common.  Identical literary physics residing beneath what appears to be – and should be – very unique and completely original outer layers of narrative content, context and voice.

There are no exceptions.

The next commercially successful story you encounter that you may consider to be outrageously original will, in fact, be built upon these very same fundamental essences and forces. 

Do you know what they are?  You may think you do, but… are you published?  If not, why not?  You know you can spin sentences and concoct ideas with the guys in the window at Barnes & Noble, so… why not?

It's not because the world isn't fair.  It is, perhaps, because you don't fully understand what screenwriters learn in Week One and published novelists who haven't studied screenwriting have managed to wrap their mind around, usually over many years.

Study screenwriting and you can wrap your head around it in just a few days.

It's almost literally the equivalent of steroids for your writing muscles.

Stories are just like people. 

Take away the clothing and the skin and disregard height and weight — all that exterior stuff — and we all pretty much look identical on the inside.  Because people and stories are built identically in the inside. 

Same organs, in the same place, for the same reasons.

When one of them breaks, we hurt, we limp and we die.

Same deal with the stories we write.

It is our hearts and souls and programmed socialization that makes us unique in an infinite number of ways, and that is analogous to what the writer brings to the inherent, commonly-held and commonly-bound physics of storytelling. 

It is why no two stories are every really the same.

Screenwriting will teach you this faster, quicker and better than any writing workshop you've ever attended.  Because…

Screenwriting is rooted in the fundamental physics of dramatic narrative.  The forces that make a story work.

Traditional novel-writing methodologies don't go anywhere near them without veiled, imprecise terminology often dripping with literary pretension. 

Right up there with: listen to your characters when they speak to you.

They don't have to speak to you if you know how and where to lead them.

Screenwriting is almost all narrative craft.  Read a script sometime, you may find the eloquence of a grocery list (or, you may find genius).  Either way, writing style is never the point.

Novel writing… the grocery list doesn't stand a chance.  And yet, too many new novelists have this exactly backwards.  They are obsessed with narrative skin and the exterior realm of an idea.  The one the muse fed them.

Novel writing aspires to art.   As if craft somehow manifests by the mere aspiration to art. 

But literary art is nothing more than craft taken to a level of excellence at which – like great architecture, sculpture and staying married for more than ten years – assumes a veneer of awe. 

Art is really just craft done better than pretty much anyone else at the writing seminar can do it. 

The muse left the room the moment the actual storytelling process began. 

At that point, you need to take over.

If your muse was a screenwriter, she'd stick around to make sure you do this right.

How to inject this steroid into your storytelling bloodstream. 

No needles are required.

Read the book Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting, by Syd Field.  A better title would have been: Screenplay: The Foundations of Storytelling, Period.

That's the only book you need to gain access to this steroid.  There are many others that cover the same ground, including my stuff, but none with the clarity of entry-level illumination quite like Field's.  He didn't invent it, he just gave it amazing and empowering access.

The initial resistance to the notion of this steroid at this point,at least for some writers, is the completely erroneous belief that storytelling for film is somehow different than storytelling for novelists.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  It's only different on the outside.  The guts of it are identical.  The fundamental physics – the forces and structure that make a story work – are the same.  And if you can't bring yourself to quite believe that, continue reading and then do it, and you'll discover this to be true.

You may never look at a film, or a novel, quite the same way again.  And hopefully, you'll never write one the same old unpublished way again.

You may want to get your hands on a few actual scripts to see this implemented with your own eyes.

Then, or in place of actually reading a script or two, start watching movies in context to what you've learned.  You'll be blown away by what you see. 

After that, start applying these very same physics to the novels you read.  You'll find them valid there, as well, hidden among all the eloquence and wit and poetic and/or snarky genius of the narrative.

Yep, everyone from Stephen King to Jonathan Franzen (I found Franzen's First Plot Point on precisely the exact page it is supposed to appear, according to basic dramatic theory, in his current #1 bestseller… I'll leave the cause and effect of that to you) to Janet Evanovich is already doing what you've just discovered.  Already implementing what screenwriters know at the most basic, elemental level of storytelling. 

Finally, apply those principles to the novels you write.

Quick note — do this discovery with modern commercial films and books.  Don't expect Bill Shakespeare or Leo Tolstoy to become your contrarian banner wavers.  You can't write like them or their immortalized peers, and nobody is publishing them, either, so how they wrote their stories is a moot point.

Trust me, you'll get a rush from this steroid. 

It'll be like the curtain rising on your writing future.  Like a massive light bulb the size of a stadium tower going off in your brain.

Precious few screenwriters know how to write a novel.  Frankly, they're too busy chasing real money in the movie business to sit down and bang out 400 pages, when for them, 120 pages might make them rich.  Only a few do both, because only a few can.

But you, the novelist, are already in possession of that which can't easily be taught: the sensibility of artfully combined thoughts and words.  When you add that to what the screenwriter knows – and what published novelists know, too, though perhaps without calling it what it is or giving credit where credit is due – your future suddenly looks much different.

Like an athlete on steroids.  Only you're not cheating.

Look in the mirror.  That suddenly buff, confident, beaming literary athlete staring back at you with a grin that says it's time to crush it out of the ballpark…

… that's you.  Because now you know.

Once you know, you'll never go back.  Or backwards.  You can't unlearn this.

And you won't ever be asked to testify before Congress, I guarantee.

Have you experienced the breakthrough realization taught by screenwriting, or perhaps through the applied six core competencies model presented here on Storyfix?  Please share your experience with writers who are holding on to their old school resistance.

They're out there.  It's up to us to save them from years of plotting and plodding in the dark.

Over at the wonderful ProcrastinatingWriters.com , Jennifer has written a killer review (insert blush here) of my latest ebook, "Get Your Bad Self Published."  Hope you'll check it out.

(Storyfix is an Amazon.com affiliate, but only when you buy something from a link here.  Otherwise they're on their own… and I hear they're doing fine.)

Your Story… On Steroids is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

8 "Moments" You Absolutely Need to Deliver to Your Readers… And One That You Should Hope For

There are two contextual ways to describe a story that really works.  That kills.  But at the end of the day, readers, while experiencing both, really only care about one. 

Writers, on the other hand, are obliged to care passionately about both sides of this storytelling coin, because one is the means to the other.  In both directions.

The first is the Big Picture of your story, that sense of building interest bordering on addiction as you read, and that feeling of loss when the book is done.  

This is the standard readers use to measure – and recommend – a story.  A bottom line, thumbs up or down perspective.

Translation: if the ending sucks, the book sucks.

But it isn't always just about the Big Picture. 

Little things count too.

If the little things are good enough, they can survive an ending that the reader finds less than completely satisfying. 

This happens all the time, in fact.  It's the bane of A-list authors… they can write killer narrative almost every time, but they can't deliver a stellar ending every time out. 

You and I don't have that luxury.  We need to knock both storytelling perspectives out of the park.

Storytelling is like first dates and job interviews. 

Despite a few laughs and surprises, sometimes there isn't a happy outcome.  Big Picture trumps "moments" almost every time.

And yet, moments are what contribute most to the Big Picture.  This isn't a contradiction, it's a paradox. 

Writers need to care desperately – and strategically – about a happy reader outcome.  But the enlightened writer knows that the other contextual way to describe a story (see next paragraph) is really the only way to make that happen. 

This second way to wrap your head around a story is to consider the reading experience as a series of moments.  Moments that grip, surprise, twist, sooth, frighten, titiallate and ultimately satisfy. 

When moments are artfully planned and rendered, their sum exceeds their parts.

And when this happens, it's like discovering that the blind date who knocked your socks off and impressed your mother is also filthy rich.

The publishable writer must consider both, at least in their final, submittable draft.  The Big Picture context is often the beginning of the process, but the story won't really work until you pump it full of moments.

1. The first moment occurs prior to the reader encountering the first page. 

You could argue that the author doesn't have a lot of control over this moment, but I beg to differ.

Unless you are a reviewer or script reader, we get to choose what we read.  Often the criteria for our choices consists of reviews, dust jacket copy and the recommendations of others.

And while we don't get to write our own dust jacket copy or reviews, we are in absolute and final control of both of the empowering perspectives that result in a hooky dust jacket, killer reviews and enthusiastic reader endorsements: that being a compelling Big Picture, rendered with a whole bunch of moments that make the read rewarding.

Readers are equally attracted to the journey and the destination.  And they love anticipation.

This before-the-read moment is the product of a whopper of a concept, a compelling hero and a thematic wake-up call, all three combined comprising half of the Six Core Competencies of Successful Storytelling.  Big Picture story elements that will make someone else want to rave, even if the writing itself leans to the vanilla side.

Vanilla is perfectly fine if the toppings are heaven.  Which means you can get halfway there before you write a word.

2. An addictive hook.

Think of your reader as someone who takes their books to bed.  You need to deliver an experience on that first night that is the opposite of buyer's remorse. 

Again, just like a first date.  Just sayin'.

You need to make them want to keep reading even though the Ambien is kicking in.

You need to make them think about your book at work the next day.

You need to make them choose your book over the next episode of Survivor.

Or sex. 

Yeah, the bar is that high.

3.  An early moment of vicarious empathy and recognition.

Somewhere in the first 30 to 50 pages your reader needs to realize they are as intrigued by the characters – often both the protagonist and the bad guy, though the latter may not have shown up yet – as they are by the conceptual "what if?' hook you've sunk into their skull.

The trick here is understanding that the two are interdependent.  Because while the character may be off-the-charts cool, they don't become empathetic until you've got them into a pickle that the reader recognizes, fears, dreams of or otherwise relates to.

I'm 100 pages into the latest Franzen (a deconstruction of this #1 bestseller is forthcoming on this site), and while the heroine is compelling, there's no hook yet.  So far this is work to read. 

The reader needs somebody – and something – to root for.

4.  An unexpected moment when everything changes.

Change can be subtle or it can be a train wreck. 

A great story always delivers a major change – think of it as the lighting of a fuse, or if the fuse has been lit earlier, the explosion of the bomb – at about the 20th to 25th percentile mark of the story's length.

This is called the First Plot Point, and it's the most important moment of the entire story.  It's when all of the character resonance and backstory collides in context to a plot-centric challenge.  At the First Plot Point, the hero is suddenly – or not suddenly; inevitably works just as well – faced with something to do.

This is the moment when the reader realizes they must find out how this will turn out.  They've already (or should have) realized that the character is interesting.  But that's not enough. 

Which is why this moment – the First Plot Point game-changer, or at least game-starter – is #1 within the hierarchy of moments you need to deliver.

5.  A moment of fear or stark reality.

After that all-important First Plot Point, when your story is now fully in gear and the reader is fully engaged, you have some pages in which the hero reacts to that sudden – or not – thrust into a new direction in their life.

That reaction is the mission of the chapters that comprise Part 2 (out of four mission/context-driven parts, each of roughly equal length) of your story's structure. 

However, like any good Machiavellian manipulator (synonymous with author),  you need to keep everyone – the  reader and the hero – on their toes.  You need to apply pressure, resurrect fear, dangle the bait, jack up the stakes.

This moment is called a pinch point, at which the antagonistic force of the story reappears on center stage.  The goal of the pinch is simple: to remind the reader of what stands in the hero's way at this juncture.

Actually, you need two of these.  The first occurs in the middle of the second quartile of your story, the next in the middle of the third quartile.  And because the story has developed significantly between these two points, the second pinch point can and should look quite different than the first.

It should be scarier, clearer, more threatening and ominous. 

6.  A moment when the curtain parts.

At any given moment there is a defined scope of awareness, both for the characters and for the reader.  You are in complete control of both.

At the mid-point of your story, no matter how often or to what degree you've surprised and unveiled and twisted your fictional world, you should deliver a whopper of a revelation… in the form of new information. 

Information that is new to you and/or the hero, but not necessarily new to the story.  This game-changer is about something that's been in play all along.  Think of this as a parting curtain, in which the hero, the reader, or both, are made aware of things that have been exerting force within the story beyond the reader's awareness.

You have many options in crafting this moment.

Say an unseen killer is stalking our hero.  At the mid-point, show who the killer is, but allow the hero to remain in the dark.  If the killer is someone who has been close to the hero all along, this is a great way to ratchet up the stakes.

Notice this changes nothing in the story.  It just reveals more of the dynamics.

Or, allow the hero to discover who is after them, which empowers and informs her/his actions from that moment forward.  Again, the stakes have been raised simply by revealing the heretofore unrevealed.

Sometimes when we discover that singular villains are acting on the behest of large Big Brother-type organizations, everything changes.  Remember the film Truman, when Jim Carey (and the audience) finds out his wife is really an actress playing a script in a reality television show?  Classic parting of the curtain that isn't a change in the dynamics of the story.

When such a revelation occurs at the mid-point, you can be sure that your timing of this important narrative shift is supported by the requisite emotional investment and expositional facts, with plenty of time left to continue to change things up.

You can part that curtain of awareness as often as you want, including at the end (provided you don't toss in a new character or deus ex machina).  Just make sure you have a game-changing revelation waiting when the reader reaches the mid-point.

7.  A moment when all seems lost.

Wait for it… if you do this to soon you'll take the air out of your narrative balloon.

Right before the second plot point – which divides the middle of the story from the final quartile that delivers the outcome (or, at about the 75th percentile mark) – there is a great place to pull the rug out.  It's called a lull, and because there are still 70 to 100 pages left, the reader won't abandon ship, they'll just stay up later to see what happens.

At this point your hero has tried everything, they've conquered their inner bullshit and the exterior foes, but the bad guy is very bad – and resourceful – indeed.  In fact, it looks like the bad buy might win the day.

This lull is the antagonist's moment in the sun, then the outcome isn't looking so rosy for our hero.

Remember in Tombstone, when Wyatt and his family are riding out of town as those pesky Clantons sit on the porch sipping beer and slinging zingers?  A classic lull moment.

Or in The DaVinci Code, when Langdon is staring down the barrel of a gun as the bad guy explains everything before pulling the trigger (a common lull moment). 

We know better, but we can't put the story down until we see the hero's return.  In fact, it is the visceral anticipation of that return that makes an ending juicy and satisfying.

Which renders the lull a strategic necessity.

8.  A moment of ultimate resolution, validation or victory.

While there are plenty of structural criteria available to take us to the sequence of scenes that comprise the ending of a story, there is no paradigm or format for the ending itself.

There are a couple of criteria for your ending, however: the hero must be the primary catalyst in the story's resolution (notice I'm not suggesting that your story end happily, that's your call), and it must deliver some sense of satisfaction, on some level, to the reader.

The key here is the genius of the machinations that have sucked the reader into an empathetic, supportive mode as they read the denouement, which means they are emotionally on the hook.  Putty in your hands.

Make the ending count.  This isn't about tying off loose ends, it's about delivering a punch to the gut – or a shot of the world's best narcotic – to the reader's sense of experience, world view and hope.  This is the golden ring of moments. 

But you have to earn it through the delivery of a series of powerful — and empowering — moments along the road that got you here.

9.  And finally – and this one is actually optional, but wonderful if you can pull it off…

– strive to create a moment when the reader puts their thumb on the page and turns to the back flap of the hard cover to look at your picture. 

And ask… damn, who the hell is this person?

Admit it, you've done this before.  And almost always it's because you've been completely sucked in, rather than completely disgusted.

Blow them away with something you've written.  A moment you've created.

Deliver a memorable, powerful sentence that lands in the wheelhouse of their awareness with weight and dumbstruck awe.  A turn of the narrative sequence that is so poetically stunning and unexpected and yet perfectly set-up and brilliantly, even diabolically delicious and confounding.

Every time Nelson Demille has his hero deliver an eviscerating wiseass comment, which he does frequently, I look at his picture and say… dude.

Every now and then in your story, expose yourself as a freaking genius. 

Deliver a moment when the reader feels as if you are writing about them. 

A moment when you've reached out through the pages and touched their heart and mind, and their soul.

A moment that reminds the reader why they love to read.

A tall mountain, that. 

But like any mountain, the journey is nothing other than a series of steps.

Or in a story, a series of moments.

What have been some of your favorite moments in the stories you've read?

Learn more about story architecture in Larry's ebook, Story Structure Demystified. 

His new book from Writers Digest Books, "Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing," comes out in February of 2011. 

Also, check out this post by writer Walter Dinjos, who has experienced the liberating possibilities of story architecture.  He's just launched his site, so let's show this writer our support.

8 "Moments" You Absolutely Need to Deliver to Your Readers… And One That You Should Hope For is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Perfect… For What It Is

What a nebulous, crappy title for a post.  But it's perfect for what it is. 

Because what I'm about to discuss is perfectly nebulous.

This will be part movie review – I prefer to think of these as story reviews – and part soap box ranting about a subtlety of the writing mindset that can keep you sane and focused.  And just possibly, push you to the next level.  If you aren't a screenwriter, I recommend you see this flick anyway… if nothing else than to see what I mean.

Because this movie – the one I'll name in a moment, right after I talk about another movie first – and what it teaches us about genre storytelling is perfectly nebulous.

In other words, it's a masterpiece in the genre in which it plays.  And yet, even though it's playing in theaters right now, chances are you've barely noticed.

Such is the unavoidable, frustrating yoke of genre-driven storytelling.

To set the stage, let me ask you a question.

Have you ever read a review of a romantic comedy that says anything nice?  That gave it an A, that awarded four or five stars?  I think not.  (Exceptions welcomed, this isn't a universal truth, just a general one.)

If it has Katherine Heigl in it, you can bet your second mortgage that the critics are gonna hate it.

These grind-em-out primetime sit-com type movies are universally slammed.  Or, in the case of books on the romance, science fiction, fantasy shelves – or, to a lesser extent, mystery – are universally ignored by mass media reviewers.

Trust me, I know.  Been there, been ignored there.

The only rom-com I can think of that even came close to a good review was The Proposal, the 2009 blockbuster from Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds (the absence of Ms. Heigl may or may not have played a role in its box office and critical success).

Even then, most critics gave it a solid B. 

Without that film, Reynolds doesn't score his Sexiest Man Alive tag from People Magazine.  Which proves absolutely nothing from a writing perspective, only that great abs and dry wit cut across all genres.

Otherwise, romantic comedies pretty much get a C grade (or two stars) across the board.  And those are the good ones.  D and F reviews abound. 

And yet they keep 'em coming.  Because THEY MAKE MONEY.  They work. 

They are perfect… for what they are.  In many cases, even when they suck.

The search for genre greatness is not unlike the quest to create a truly great cheap hamburger, at least from a food critic's point of view.  When it happens it'll never make the cover of Bon Appetit, but millions will lay down a few bucks for one with a side of fries. 

The quest for the perfect fast food hamburger is eternal (In-N-Out is as close as any, in my opinion)… as is the quest for the perfect genre story.

But The Proposal is not the film I'm here to talk about today. 

Even though it may very well be perfect… for what it is.

Rather, that's a film that helps me make my point: when you sign up for a genre, you have to understand – and live with – the contextual flak that surrounds it.

And then, armed with that understanding, and even though no critic will ever really like it, even though your very literary friends won't invite you and your story to their book club (they prefer the Oprah selections and the latest John Irving) and think your sexually suggestive stories are "beach trash" (been there, heard that, too)… even then…

… you need to strive to make your story perfect… for what it is.

Don't try to be John Irving or Jonathan Franzen.  They're playing a different game, with different expectations, standards and essences. 

Unless, of course, you are trying to join that particular group at a table at Elaine's, in which case you need to understand that literary fiction is nothing other than a genre in it's own right. 

Also in which case the same holds true: you need to know where the perfect bar resides for your chosen genre.  What standards and expectation comprise perfect.

If you write romances, strive to write the perfect romance. 

Unless your name is Nora Roberts it'll never make a bestseller list, but it may get you a two book deal and an invite to speak at a conference.

If you write thrillers or mysteries, strive to write the perfect thriller or mystery. 

It may never be the subject of a lecture at a major university (nor will you be invited to speak there unless your name is Michael Connelly or Dennis Lehane), but you may get a gig at Barnes & Noble and a movie deal from Jerry Bruckheimer.

If you write science fiction or fantasy, write the perfect escape from reality.

There are plenty of niche magazines and conferences and fan-boy websites out there waiting for your masterpiece.  And few, if anyone, at those conferences are reading Irving or Franzen, or even Connelly or Lehane.

Know your audience.  Own your niche.  Focus your aim.  And don't be seduced – or wounded – by the flak from neighboring genres.

Now for that film I mentioned.

Because it's perfect… for what it is.

My guess is that most of you wouldn't otherwise be attracted to this story, based on its marketing and the niche to which it clearly, with one glance at its poster or credits, is being targeted.  It's not remotely literary in nature, even though it's a clinic in story structure, character, theme and execution.

Which, in an ironic twist that is nothing if not nebulous, actually renders it literary.

It's a genre story.  It's an over-the-top, blood-soaked revenge flick… and it's perfect.

It's called Faster, starring Dwayne Johnson, otherwise known as The Rock.  And he can kick your ass and my ass and any collective group of otherwise hard asses that you can stuff into one row at the Cineplex.

And that very fact is, in fact, what makes it work.  Makes it perfect.

See the film to fully get this.  With another actor, even Bruce Willis, this story wouldn't work as well.  Without the special effects, music and its gritty look and feel, it would blend into an otherwise undistinguished crowd on a shelf at Blockbuster.

And yet, the movie is entirely theme driven. 

Watch the trailer, the theme will jump out at you.  What you thought was an action thriller is an emotional ride on the vicarious train.  It's a working example of everything I write about here on Storyfix.

The concept will surprise you, too, because it turns out to be something other than what you think it is, even though what you thought, a) brought you to the theater, and b) hooked you in the first three minutes.

And when you think about it, isn't that what you aspire to in your genre story?  I'm betting it is.

Bottom line: deliver the expectations of genre, and do it in a huge, gratuitous, satisfying way.  Lather on the romance.  Slather on the sex and violence.  Slap us into full attention with the physics of another world.

Take your genre to the limits it has set for itself. 

Genre is not synonymous with subtle.  Genre is in-your-face intense.

And then, when you have us hooked – because the only "us" reading your genre story will be fans of the genre–give us something more, something unexpected.

Only when you've sated our thirst for genre juice can you successfully become literary, however you define that, in your intentions.

Make us feel.  Make us think.  Take us on that vicarious ride.  Make us remember.

That's what Faster does.  That's what the finest in genre fiction does.

Once you get this, once you understand those genre-specific expectations and execute them in accordance to the higher principles of dramatic fiction (what I call the Six Core Competencies of Storytelling, which are universal to any genre, and that includes Mr. Franzen and Mr. Irving)…

… when you can knock it out of the park on both levels…

… then – and only then – you're in the game.  You're giving your story a chance to be perfect… for what it is.

Larry's new book, "Story Engineering: Mastering the Six Core Competencies of Successful Writing," comes out in February from Writers Digest Books.  Until then, you are invited to try his ebooks on structure, character, getting your bad self published and 101 Tips on how to do all of the above better and sooner.

Perfect… For What It Is is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

From Story Pantser to Story Planner: One Writer's Journey

A guest post from Jennifer Blanchard, of Procrastinating Writers

Since I was in middle school, I wanted to write a novel. A real novel. I wrote a 160-page novella when I was 13, but that didn't count. I wanted to write a full-fledged, 300-page novel.

I spent years of my life dreaming about writing this novel. I had story idea after story idea. I started and restarted and started all over again. Hundreds of times. Maybe even thousands.

But no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't write that novel. I couldn't make it happen. It always felt like I was missing something—some knowledge or information I didn't have at the current moment.

When I found StoryFix early last year, that's when I figured out what I'd been missing.

Story Structure

In order for a novel to be successful, it has to be structured. It has to contain certain plot milestones and they need to show up in specific places throughout the story. That was the information I was missing before I found StoryFix.

When I first learned about story structure, I was intimidated. There was so much I had to know about my story before I could even start to write it. And I didn't know any of those things about any of the stories I'd tried writing all those years.

For almost a year, I immersed myself in "StoryFix University," learning everything I possibly could about story structure, creating characters, story architecture…and anything else Larry decided to throw our way.

But still, a tug-of-war was going on in my head.

You Can't Plan Your Story Before You Write It…Can You?

Some people are more right-brained and others are more left-brained. Then there are those few who are balanced between right and left. I'm one of those people—I'm balanced almost equally between right and left brain.

So that's why I was having such a hard time fully adopting Larry's point-of-view on writing a story. I mean, it made sense — plot points have a specific location where they need to show up in a story and have a specific mission they must accomplish.

But still, the tugging went on.

The right, creative side of my brain was screaming for me to ignore Larry's theories and ideas. "Just sit down and write!" it would say to me. "Planning removes all the creativity from writing the story."

Then the left, planner/organizer side of my brain was screaming, "Have a plan. Know all about your story before you write it. It's genius!"

So two months before NaNoWriMo was set to begin, I thought I'd put everything I've learned from Larry to the test. My mission: Plan out every scene in the novel I was going to write during November.

The results converted me.

From Story Pantser to Story Planner

I always thought planning out a story from start to finish would be too challenging and make it hard to be creative and listen to what my characters wanted. But when I finally decided to sit down and give it a try, here's what I found: 

Clarity — The more I planned things out and the more I thought about the mission of each scene as I moved through the story, the clearer my story became.
Focus — With planning out each scene ahead of time, I was really able to focus on the information and details that mattered to the story. I was able to cleverly insert foreshadowing from the beginning. I knew what needed to happen in each scene in order to get to the next one.
Control — Before I attempted to plan my story out, I would let my characters "tell me" what they wanted to do. But what they wanted to do didn't always fit or move the story forward. Planning allowed for me to control the characters, by dropping them into places and challenges they'd be too chicken to enter into themselves.
Relief — As I started planning out my actual scenes, relief flooded over me. It finally felt like my story was real and not just a bunch of random ideas and lists in my notebook.
Reassurance — I now feel like the time I spent writing my NaNoWriMo novel will finally churn out a story that works. And a book that's a polish away from being publishable.

Since I pantsed my first novel, I spent months writing the draft and then rewrote it two more times before I quit. I felt overwhelmed and like the story was going nowhere.

I believe pantsing is the biggest problem procrastinating writers (and writers in general) have.

They don't plan enough or know enough about their stories, so they procrastinate on writing them.

I found that planning all the scenes in my novel got me jazzed to write it because I knew where the story was starting, how it was getting from one plot milestone to the next and how it would come to an end.

This experience was enough to convert me from pantser to planner. And I'm never looking back.

Where are you on your journey from pantser to planner?

About the Author: Jennifer Blanchard is the founder of Procrastinating Writers, a blog that offers guidance for writers who struggle to get started.

From Story Pantser to Story Planner: One Writer's Journey is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

The Case For – Okay, Against – Dual Protagonists

This one comes up a lot, in the form of a question seeking to validate its own intention.  Far more frequently, in fact, than the number of times I've ever seen it done in a published piece of work.

Dual protagonists… not a good idea.  In the category of jumping out of an airplane… butt naked.  Parachute highly recommended. 

Then again, maybe you'll land in a pool someone has filled with foam rubber for their kid's birthday. 

Doesn't mean it can't happen.  Buddy movies, for example, are everywhere, but they don't count because, a) it's a movie, usually silly, and b) your story isn't starring Butch and Sundance.   The guy who wrote that one – William Goldman – doesn't play by the same rules as you and me.

As for buddy novels… hardly ever happens.   If you think you've read one with two protagonists, look closely and you'll see that one hero eventually trumps the other when the chips are on the line.  Which, by definition, puts the thing back into traditional one-hero territory.

That's the ticket, you see – knowing the difference between a protagonist, or two, and your hero.  Of which there should only be one.

I'm sure – because the same people that ask this question sometimes don't buy the answer — that dual-protagonist/hero stories are written and submitted to agents and publishers all the time.

It's just that they almost never – to an extent you can almost delete "almost" – end up on a retail bookshelf.  Even for five minutes.  Which should be answer enough right there, especially for unpublished writers looking to get into print.

And if the exception you have in mind comes from an A-list author, ask yourself about the odds that a publisher will allow you to go there alongside John Grisham or Nora Roberts.  Or William Goldman, for that matter.

All of whom could novelize their local phone directories and get it into print.  Which is precisely what I mean when I say: different rules than you and me.

Or, if your example is on television.  Just remember, Cagney and Lacey got cancelled.  And in Turner and Hooch one of the heroes  had four legs.

Trying to break into the business with a dual-protagonist/hero story is like trying to argue a case before the Supreme Court in your first week out of law school.

It isn't that it's impossible to win.  Just that it's almost impossible to happen.

Write what you want.  Live with the consequences.

Once upon a time there as a boy who wanted to fly airplanes.  And so he read and read and read, and studied and studied and studied, until one fine day he took and passed his final exam after completing ground school. 

And then he took the requisite number of flying lessons with an instructor in the right seat, until the day arrived for his first solo.

But instead of climbing into a small Cessna like everyone else – the aircraft he had been trained to fly – he fired up the first neglected Gulfstream jet he could find and hit the gas.

And then he crashed and burned – and died – at the end of the runway.

Once upon a time there was a girl who wanted to be a doctor.  She wanted to save lives and live in a neighborhood that had big iron gates and lots of German cars.

And so she studied and studied and studied, until she was admitted to a fine medical school.  And then, upon passing her final exam, her training continued as a resident under the watchful eye of an experienced surgeon.

Until the day arrived when it was her turn to do her first unattended surgery.  But instead of taking out a feisty appendix – which is what she had been trained to do – she opted for a heart transplant when nobody was looking. 

The patient died.

Allow me to put the point in bold print for you:

Dual protagonist stories are really, really hard to pull off.

There is no training manual for this narrative strategy.  There are no models out for it out there.

Would you really throw your kid into the deep end of the pool to teach them to swim?  There are no lifeguards in publishing.  When, against all advice, you decide to step outside of expectations and common sense, you have to live with the odds.

Yeah, but it's art, right?  Anything goes.

Your kid's fingerpainting is art.  That doodling on the back of a church program is art.  The grotesque spray-painted images and creepy symbols on the walls of a freeway ramp are art, too.

But nobody's sending those guys a two book contract.

Recognize close calls in this regard when you see them. 

Often a story focuses as much on the bad guy as the hero.  Which might lead the green-behind-the-inciting-incident writer to believe there are two protagonists in play.

Nope.  It's just your everyday hero fighting off a bad guy who is getting extra face time with the reader.  Nelson Demille did this brilliantly in The Lion's Game, and for a while it seemed like a two-hero game.  Not so.  One hero.  One villain.

Or, maybe it's a first person narrator writing about someone else, who just happens to be the hero of the story.  Nowhere does it say that the narrator has to be the hero, so you actually do see this one once in a while.  Becuase it can work. 

But don't be fooled.  When you do, it's not two protagonists fighting for top billing, nor is it two heroes.  It is what it is – a narrator telling us someone else's story.

Also, a secondary character, even a primary one, can be heroic.  In that case you may have two heroes, but – key word here: secondary – only one protagonist.  Think Batman and Robin.  If you want two heroes in your story, I recommend you demote one to wingman.

So, in the look-deeply-in-the-mirror-and-ask-yourself-if-you-still-want-to-do-this proposition, the first step is to understand what this really means in context to what it seems like it means.

And then, if you really are trying to write a story with two protagonist/heroes (let's face it, you're going to try it anyway) – then this is what you need to know:

You get no special treatment. 

There are no unique, liberating rules for this.  The same basic laws and principles of dramatic literary physics still apply.  The plot points and pinch points and the mid-point don't budge in two-hero stories.

Your heroes – both of them – need a backstory.  They need a goal, a quest, and there must be opposition to that quest.  If they get in each other's way… well, you asked for this problem.

If the opposition is each other, then look again, chances are you have an antagonist in hero's clothing.  Or a wannabe hero heading for a stumble while the other one gets the job done.

An antagonist, no matter how prominent, is not the protagonist unless you are asking your reader to root for them.  In which case, you have an antagonist-her0, which makes that character – singular – your protagonist. 

Both of your protagonists need to demonstrate character arc through the conquering of their respective inner demons, which can and should be different shadows cast from different experiences.   Or at least different responses to similar backstories.

Twins from psychopathic parents… one becomes a sympathetic drug dealer and the other runs for Congress.  Go figure.  And who are we rooting for?  Sounds like two antagonists to me.

And most of all, your heroes need to become the primary catalyst for the story's resolution – both of them – and they need to exhibit courage in doing so.

If they do it the same way, with the same outcome… how come you need two heroes again?  Run that past us one more time.

Again… go figure.  As in, figure it out.

But hey, someone has to break the ice, so if your double-dose of hero still works for you after this cold shower of odds, give it a shot.

Maybe the plane won't crash.  Maybe the patient won't die afterall.

There's always a first time for everything.

The Case For – Okay, Against – Dual Protagonists is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Give Thanks… You Are A Writer

My wife is an artist.  She's also a really good writer, but even in her most self-aware moments she won't cop to it.  But the thing is, the same is true for her art. 

Writing gives her no pleasure.  It's work for her.  She thinks what I do is… cool and inaccessible. 

In contrast, her art is sweet morphine flowing through her gypsy soul.  It comes naturally, it is who she is.  And she is many things, many women, an enchantress of whimsy and a portal to the subtext of the world which finds expression through the images she creates.

She sees God in flowers and in the intricate mysteries of drying leaves.  She immortalizes moments and merges the whimsical with vivid truths.

Writers do that, too.

I believe it is nearly impossible to be an artist – or a writer, for that matter – and claim to believe in nothing.  My wife believes in a Creator and in life, and her art is her worship.

People look at her stuff and marvel.  And yet, when we talk about art and artists, she feels separate and unworthy.  Even though our walls attest to her gift, and her days are filled with the creation of beauty, expression and wonder.

She views life through the lens of an artist.  Because she is one.  Simply because she is immersed in the pursuit of its expression.

And she should be thankful.

Writers are similarly blessed.

I know many writers – they flock to workshops and conferences – who won't cop to the nametag.  As if there is some milestone, some mysterious criteria – like being published or having sat in front of agent pitching your humble stories – that puts space between those who tinker with writing and those who are unquestionably lost to it.

Screenwriter Larry Ferguson (The Hunt for Red October, Aliens, and other notable films) said it well, though I paraphrase here: A writer is someone who writes.  Period.  And if you are going to write, do it with passion and courage.  It is a noble thing, and in any case, at any level, it's always better than carrying a gun.

So give thanks today.  Because you are a writer.

I've often said that writers are different. 

Not better, certainly, as history and a good look around the writing conference room will attest.  The ghost of Sylvia Plath still lingers at the bar.

But writers experience the world and themselves in a unique way.  We look for meaning.  We see it even when we are not paying attention, which is seldom because, as writers, paying attention is what we do.  We are scribes to the ticking of the days, and we have a job to do.  We are not at peace unless we are doing it.

We recognize irony, we look the abyss in the eye, and we pause to honor beauty, while others are fighting to change lanes or raising a glass to… nothing at all.

We go on amazing adventures.  We encounter great heroes and disturbing villains.  We fall in love, over and over, and our broken hearts heal in our next story. 

We remember with a vividness that challenges the laws of time itself.

Along the way, we encounter and embrace our truth.

We have a free pass into darkness, and when we return, we celebrate the sunshine.

This is a wonder available to all, but known by few.  If you are reading this, then you are a writer, simply by paying attention.  You are already nodding.

Our burden – which in our weaker moments (of which we have many) is how we view it – this burning need to explore life in words is misunderstood and elusive, even to us.  And yet, who among us does not look upon someone who writes in a journal every night and not see someone special there, someone who is, at least in one aspect, alive like we are.

Writers get to embrace the double negative and skip the question mark when the inquiry is rhetorical.

Writers are blessed.  Not cursed as some would believe. 

And with great blessings come great responsibility (there's a beer commercial out there that leverages this same thought, an example we writers are always humbled by banal reality), and ours is to write it down, make sense of the noise, to reach out and provoke and probe, to ask questions and venture answers.

To embrace life, wrestle it to the mat, submit to it and conquer it.  To love it to death.  To stretch limits, consider the unthinkable and the impossible.  Allow fear and love and hope to ooze from our pores.

To hug the world.

All this, simply by applying butt to chair and allowing your mind to spill onto a blank screen or page, often with a drop of blood or two.  When writing calls our name, we must answer before we find peace.

So give thanks today.  You are a writer. 

The bearer of a quiet mantle that cannot be taken from you, even in the face of life's most challenging chapters.  Which, no matter how it slams you, will end up on your page, battled and bruised and broken down into sensibility, because you are a worthy foe.

And in doing so, you will have conquered it. 

You will spin it and apply meaning to it and then, no matter what happens to your work, bestow it upon the world.

You will throw it out there.  At the end of the day this is all any writer can do.

Even a story that resides in a drawer has been given life, and thus has been released from the prison of the writer's soul.

Writing is a great big shiny key that sets you free.

Writing is a worthy purpose.  What you write is a gift you are giving back to the universe.  If you don't feel that to be the case, keep working on it until you do.

God, or whatever word you use in that context, loves nothing more than to see his children seek to understand.

And that, dear writer friends, is the essence of being alive, and on a level that few attain. 

At least, until they pick up a pen.

Image credit: a painting by Laura Brooks.  Used without the artist's permission, because she's downstairs preparing a beautiful Thanksgiving dinner and feels unworthy of the nametag of "artist."  As you can see, she is avoiding the obvious.

Give Thanks… You Are A Writer is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

127 Hours… To A Better Story

Nothing says "I get it!" like seeing it done, and done well, at a professional level.

It's impossible to turn pro at anything – and make no mistake, writing stories for publication is at the top of this list – without watching and appreciating proven professionals at work.

Writers need to understand everything about every story we read or see.   About what makes them work, or not.  This is more important, in fact, than actually applying butt to chair and writing for ourselves.

Because practice is only productive when done in context to principles and physics.  When it comes to storytelling, growth is always informed, never inevitable.

Good stories are a collision of architecture and art, a collusion between sensibility and intention.

There's a new movie out that illustrates this brilliantly.  I recommend you see it, and soon.

Not so much because it illustrates the four-part story structure I write about here – it certainly does, but there are clearer structural models out there – but rather, because it's one of the best examples of how a writer leverages more subtle and evolved principles of storytelling to get this tale under your skin.

The movie is 127 Hours, the true story of hiker Aron Ralston's ordeal when he was trapped – his arm was pinned – by a falling rock while in the middle of nowhere.  Which is known as Utah.

He remained stuck, alone with his terror and confusion and the weighing of options – live or die – for 127 hours.

And then, with all other options exhausted, he cut off his own arm and walked away.

The story isn't about what happened.  Everybody in the theater already knows what happened.  

The story is about the journey he took during those 127 hours.

Watch and recognize.  Look for those subtle and evolved storytelling skills that make this otherwise linear story work.  The astute writer will see the empowering essences that will, when applied to virtually any story, turn it into something special.

And I'm about to tell you what they are. 

One is what I call the Six Core Competencies – concept, character, theme, structure, scene execution and writing voice.

Master these and you're in the game.  Be weak in any one of them – any one – and you'll be among the millions who can write like a poet but can't seem to ever sell anything.

But beyond those six core competencies, know this: you can't win the game – write something that stands a chance of being published – until you layer the other realm of writing physics, skillfully-rendered, on top of them.

And that's what this movie shows you, as well as any I've seen lately. 

But you have to know what to look for.  It's an essence, delivered only through skill and intention, broken down into two pieces that become a sum that vastly exceeds the parts themselves.

The Two Magic Pills of Storytelling

Observe a stand-up comic sometime.  Notice how the appeal, the laughs, rarely come from a punch line.  They come from the storytelling.  You've heard people at parties command the room simply by the way they hold court on a given topic without a punch line of any kind on the horizon.

When you combine that "journey experience" with character appeal, then you've got it. 

If the storyteller isn't appealing, if you're not engaged and rooting for them along the way, then even the best story falls on deaf ears.  Because those ears are paying more attention to another tape of their own creation.  Rather than buying in, they're fighting it off.

That's the twofold trick of storytelling:

-         take the reader/viewer on a vicarious ride, to somewhere or in some way that they've never experienced, or wouldn't dare experience, and make them feel every moment of it…

-         … and make us root for the person actually having that experience in your story.  Make us be them.  Envy them or empathize with them.  Make us feel what they feel.

This is why Aron Ralston didn't get to play himself, and why the screenplay, which he didn't write, is deeper and richer than the true story from the book, which he did write.  James Franco is no doubt more appealing and likeable than Aron Ralston, or at least a better actor by a mile, and the movie is more illuminating and dramatically poignant than the nightmare itself.

It's that simple.  Fiction and the tools and conventions it uses trump reality every time, even when the reality exceeds our capacity to comprehend.  Especially then.

This is why love stories almost always work on some level, and why they so often fail in real life.  Because we're all into falling in love.  And because it's so hard, we are drawn toward stories that deliver that experience on a level we seek, have lost, or can never attain. 

It's why crappy reality shows like The Bachelor and Survivor work.  Not because of any meaningful outcome hanging in the balance, but because of the vicarious experience – a journey – they deliver.

That's precisely what director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionare) and actor James Franco do for us in 127 Hours. 

And it's why both will almost certainly be up for Oscars.

The ending isn't the juice of this movie.  It's a payoff of a different sort. 

No, the juice of this story is about what it takes to make a man arrive at the moment at which he decides to do the unthinkable in order to survive.  It's about the human experience – vicarious as you've ever been through – of getting there with Franco over the course of those dark 127 hours of immobility and self-reflection.

It's about a character that we root for, relate to, and empathize with.  Not because he's perfect, but because he is, for two hours, us.

Sure, the first plot point jumps off the screen at you – the rock falls on the guy at about the 20 to 25 percentile mark, right on time.  Everything before that moment was a set-up for it – classic Part 1 structure for your learning pleasure.

Watch and learn on that level, too.

But after that you forget all about structure and get lost in those two other realms of effective storytelling: the vicarious ride, and your empathy and hope for the character.

We all wait on pins and needles for the moment when the arm comes off. 

Not because of some morbid fascination – which perhaps you began with when you bought your popcorn – but rather, because it is the emergence of the protagonist's heroism, the victory of courage over certain death, the weighing of cost against benefit.

It is a moment you feel more than you believed you could.  Not because of the pain and horror of it, but because of the freedom and victory of it.

You have to see it to feel it. 

You have to take Aron Ralston's journey with him for this to work.  Which is something the writers of this film (Boyle and Simon Beaufoy, based on Ralston's book), understand.

To tell the story sequentially and linearly wouldn't have worked.  That would have been an hour-long docudrama on the National Geographic cable channel.  No, to make this thing cinematic, to make it a story that is garnering five star reviews across the board, it required the artful storytelling sensibilities of a writer.

And as a writer yourself, someone who is in hot pursuit of your mastery over the six core competencies, this film will show you what comes next: the artful layering of vicarious experience in glorious context to an immersion and alignment with heroic, courageous character.

Six core competencies, frosted with two artful essences.  That's all it takes.  Even when everybody in the room knows how it will end.  Even when it's true.

It worked for Titanic, and it works even better in 127 Hours. 

And it'll work for you, too, once you know it… see it… understand it… practice it… master it… and then put it on the page.

If you'd like to learn more about the six core competencies, click here and here.

If you'd like to learn more about what publishers are looking for, over and above those core competencies, click here.

127 Hours… To A Better Story is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com

Know what "No" Really Means

"Nobody knows anything."
- William Goldman, Oscar-winning screenwriter and novelist

 

You are a writer.  Which means you will hear the word "no." 

Frequently.  Cruelly.  Usually without explanation.  Often without reason.

They will tell you no.  And it will suck.

You may not hear anything at all.  When that happens… it means no.

You are left to interpret the word "no."  To assign meaning.  And this is the great abyss of writing.  It has a slippery slope at its precipice.  Once you fall into it, everything gets harder.  You become part of the problem.  The bottom of the pit is littered with the dreams of genuinely talented writers who heard and believed the word "no."

But here's the thing.  When it comes to writing, "no" doesn't mean "no" at all.

It means, "I don't know."

Even if they tell you what's behind their "no," they still don't know.  The wise writer listens, filters, applies, and moves on.

"I don't know" is truer than "no."  It means more to you than "no."

No is a lie.  I don't know is the absolute, take-it-to-the-bank truth.

And that, dear writer friends, it what sustains us when the abyss calls our name.

Martha's Story

A friend of mine named Martha had a great concept for a provocative thriller, one that challenged religious paradigms and personalized our own response to the question of belief. 

Great theme.  Wonderful drama.  High tension suspense.  I loved it.  Martha loved it.

Her critique group didn't love it.  No matter how Martha spun it for them – it was just a concept at this point – they wouldn't gift her with an endorsement. 

They said no.

They didn't get it.  They couldn't see it.  And they wouldn't be swayed by Martha's enthusiasm for it.

And so they said no. 

Martha wrote it anyway.  Thus avoiding the abyss.

They still said no.  They didn't get.  They couldn't see it.  And they weren't swayed by Martha's execution of it.

But what they said really meant was this: they didn't know.  Either at the pitch stage, or the manuscript stage.  They just didn't know.

Martha recently pitched this story to a handful of agents at a writing conference.  None of them said no.  What they did say was: send us more.

Here's the irony.  The agents don't know, either.  The publishers they submit your work to won't know. 

Nobody knows anything.

Which is why, in this context, "no" means nothing other than I don't know. 

Because if what you're writing is solid, if it meets the criteria for solid story architecture and dramatic resonance leading to thematic impact, someone along the path will say something other than "no."

Getting them to do that is your job.  Recognizing it when they see it is their job.  And both jobs are as imprecise and subjective as any work on the planet.

You're working to find that one person who counts who says something other than no.

Larry's Story

Bef0re I sold my first novel I was a struggling screenwriter.  I'd had an agent for nine years, and we'd had a couple of options and some success in the Nicholl Screenwriting Fellowship competition, which hatches the occasional produced script (14 of them, in fact, like Mike Rich's Finding Forrester, and, less frequently, a handful of viable careers… especially Mike Rich's).

I wanted to turn one of my scripts into a novel.  My agent said no.

I started it anyway.  My agent said no again.

I finished the adaptation.  My agent said "hmmm."  Totally forgot that she'd said no, but that's fine, this isn't about that.

She submitted the draft to four publishers.   Three said no.

One said yes.

That publisher (Penguin-Putnam) threw some national advertising at it and propelled Darkness Bound onto the USA Today bestseller list for three weeks.  A couple of hundred thousand copies and an open door for more novels going forward. 

All leading toward a website called Storyfix and the book that it would become.

No meant I don't know.

Even the publisher who said yes didn't know.  That's the game we're stuck with, this isn't a sport in which an object either goes into the goal or it doesn't.

Yes means: I think I know. 

They're not always right.  But that's the best we'll get.  Because once we hear yes, we're pretty much done.  What comes next has almost nothing to do with us.

We've reached the goal.  The ball (or puck, your call) went into the net (or out of the park) this time.

Nobody knows anything when it comes to deciding which book is good, which will find a market, and which won't.  William Goldman said it first, and he's right. 

At least, at the level at which this game is played.  Some manuscripts scream "amateur" so loudly you might as well stamp it on your cover page.  That's what this site is all about – avoiding that particular abyss.

Once your story and your execution is at a certain level… nobody knows.

And most of the time, because it's their business, they say "no" instead of "I don't know."  Saying "I don't know" is career suicide for agents and editors.  And so they say "no" instead.

Even when they think they know, they are often wrong. 

Three of the editors who rejected Darkness Bound were wrong.  One — the one who published it – wasn't wrong.

Harry Potter was rejected nine times.  The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was rejected 104 times.  Stephen King's Carrie was rejected 30 times.  Frank Herbert's Dune was rejected 23 times.  Gone With the Wind was rejected 38 times.  Jonathan Livingston Seagull was rejected 18 times.  Watership Down was rejected 38 times.  M*A*S*H was rejected 17 times. 

Chicken Soup for the Soul, which inspired dozens of spin-offs and more money than the White House spends on Air Force One catering, was rejected 140 times.

Those authors didn't let no stop them. 

They understood that "no" means "I don't know."

But they knew.  In their heart.  In the deepest crevice of their gray matter.  These authors knew.

"Know" translates to "believe."

The Only Way to Know

Notice how most of the books mentioned above were risky, freshly-minted concepts.  A school for magic.  A society of rabbits.  Philosophical seagulls.  Shenanigans in a military field hospital.  Thinly masked pop psychology masquerading as commerical fiction.

Our stories are always delivered on two levels, from within two realms: the conceptual and the executional.  (Don't look that last word up, I take great liberties here… but you get my drift.)

The first can seduce you.  The second will never betray you.

If your belief in your story – if knowing – is based on the appeal of your idea, and little else, then you will hear "no" until you wake up and smell the embalming fluid.

What begets belief most is an understanding and practice of craft, of storytelling principles and criteria.

Your heart will tell you if the soul of your story is a winner.  But it's your mind that knows.  Because this is where craft resides.  In your inner story architect, your inner fiction engineer.

The heart and the mind can yield a product that exceeds the sum of the parts.  Make sure you employ both in your storytelling.

Will craft guarantee success?  No.

Ah, there it is again.

But in this context, no doesn't mean I don't know.  Because nothing guarantees anything in this business, unless your name is already on the A-list.

But it – craft – is your only shot.  That much is certain.

Craft is what turns no into I don't know when you hear it.  Once spoken, they are speaking the truth: they really don't know.

But you do know.  The author is always the first to know.  This is what keeps them from slipping into that dark abyss.

It is craft that allows you to know.  And knowing is the imperative magic bullet of getting published.

Don't submit your work until you know.

Learn more about story architecture here and here. 

My new book on the subject comes out February from Writers Digest Books, see more about it here.

 

Know what "No" Really Means is a post from: Larry Brooks at storyfix.com