Introduction

------------
I suppose the first thing to do is to talk about what these articles are, and
aren't, and why I'm writing them.
What I'm doing here is laying out what I know about writing a genre fiction
novel. Frankly, the principles here could be used to write any decent story, but
they are geared specifically to help train an aspiring writer to produce a
solid effort that an editor will recognize as a solid effort worth the gamble
of publishing.
Some of these methods and techniques may seem stiff, wooden, unyielding, boring
and stifling to work with. A lot of people may look at them and reject them with
much to say about "magic formulas" and "studying under a writing mystic" and
various similar comments. I've seen (and written) a whole bunch of them in my
time learning to write. There is always, always, always someone who will
complain that some of these techniques are inflexible and boring and that they
are incompatible with creativity.
To that person I say; stop being a petulant baby.
Writing a decent story is as much craft as art, and while some might be born
enormously gifted at art, the craft part of the writing only gets learned one
way: practice. Otherwise known as "work." Professional musicians don't just
suddenly pick up an instrument for the first time, walk into a recording studio,
and start to cut a CD. They practice. They start off playing scales and
practicing chords, move up to "House of the Rising Sun" or "The Sloop John B.,"
and some Christmas carols, and then, after a lot of effort, they finally get up
to speed and start playing music that people might actually want to pay for.
Aspiring writers, as a whole, tend to want to skip directly from playing scales
to the getting paid part. Most of them (myself included) never considered the
fact that it might take a considerable length of time and an even larger amount
of effort to get from A to Z.
These articles are intended to show you the craft techniques that will help you
write reliably interesting, coherent and well-paced stories, and solid
characters people want to read about. Learn to use these techniques, and you'll
manage B through Y with the minimum amount of frustration. That's their first
purpose.
The second reason to employ these techniques is that they give you a solid
foundation for writing stories even when you are under hideous time-pressures or
feeling utterly uninspired, artistically speaking. Writing craft is the heart
and soul of the mercenary component of being a genre fiction writer. It gives
you what you need to take care of business.
(I can tell you from first-hand experience that THEY WORK. I cannot begin to
imagine what I would have done under my most recent set of deadlines if I hadn't
had the tools I needed to write a solid story as quickly as possible.)
Keep in mind that learning these techniques only gives you a solid place to
begin. Once you've got them down, you'll begin to understand a lot more about
WHY they work. Once you see that, you'll know when you can alter or disregard
them entirely, and still have a great story. Every rule has its exceptions.
Oh, I should also mention what these articles are NOT.
They are NOT my creation. I learned virtually everything I know about writing
craft from Debbie Chester, herself a best-selling author with better than 40
published novels to her credit. She teaches in the Professional Writing
department at the University of Oklahoma's School of Journalism,
where she learned it from her teacher, Jack Bickham. Bickham has written several
well-regarded books on writing craft, and still publishes the occasional novel
himself. These people know what they are talking about.
I don't know as much as them. But on the other hand, I'm a lot closer to that
aspiring author-me, temporally speaking, than they are, so it might be fair to
say that I'm in a better position to pass this information clearly to the newbie
writers. I'll do my best to teach you what they taught me, only simplified and
clarified for the newbie author.
Oh, one other thing these articles are NOT. They are NOT the One True Path to
Writing. They're essentially MY path. They're a pretty darned GOOD path, even if
it's a little longer than I had expected. Maybe you'll hate this path so much
that you run off and find a shortcut that gets you there in a tenth of the
time. On the other hand, maybe you'll slip on a crumbling ledge and be devoured
by dyspeptic crocodiles. Who knows?
All I can say for sure is that if you are willing to work for it, THIS path will
get you there.
Eventually.
What Is This Craft You Speak Of?
--------------------------------
To talk about writing a story, first you have to ask, "What IS writing?"
Writing, in its most essential sense, is an artificial means for getting
thoughts and images which reside in YOUR brain over to the guy holding your book
in the most effective and accurate fashion possible, so that the reader will
successfully translate your thoughts into HIS brain.
The written word uses symbols to describe sights, sounds, and situations,
in order to let the reader create the story inside his own imagination as he
reads.
Writing is the original virtual reality.
If all goes well, the imaginary world you help the reader create in his head
becomes as believable, exciting, and interesting as the real world.
But that means you need to make everything go well.
In order to do THAT, you apply story craft.
Story? What story? 80
-------------------
To talk about story craft, first you have to answer the question,
"What is a story?"
Simply put, a story is a narrative description of a character
(the protagonist/hero) struggling to attain an important goal. In general, the
protagonist is opposed by another character (the antagonist/villain).
The protagonist sets out to achieve his goal and faces problems and opposition
to his intentions along the way. His risk of loss increases as the narrative
proceeds, and casts an element of doubt over whether or not the protagonist will
attain his goal. Then, in a final confrontation of some sort (the climax),
the protagonist either succeeds or fails, based upon his own choices and
actions. We'll talk more about protagonists and antagonists and climaxes
and conflict as we go along.
Story craft, writing technique, story structure. They're all different names
that mean the same thing (at least for the purposes of these articles). They
describe the practice of methodically approaching the writing of any given story
with a definite, specific goal, and a plan for making that narrative engaging
and entertaining as possible.
Get to the Story Craft Already!
-------------------------------
Story craft describes the practice of using every possible element at your
disposal to write a good story. It means that you have a plan for the book--you
know where you want it to go, and why. It means that you understand something
about how human psychology ticks, and you use it to your advantage.
It means that every piece of the story has a definite purpose, and that it
furthers your story in the most engaging way possible.
Simply put, story craft is nothing more and nothing less than manipulating the
emotions of your reader.
Sounds cynical and mercenary, don't it?
It isn't. And it is.
Stop and think about it for a minute. You've all read books. You've all paid
money for them in the expectation of being entertained. The books written well
enough to make you burst out laughing, break down in tears, tremble with fear,
snarl with anger or smolder with desire are probably the ones you like the most.
They're also the ones you are happiest to pay for and most enjoy talking about.
As a reader, you want to be entertained.
You WANT the author to manipulate you.
Authors are the other side of the coin. From an artistic perspective, you have
an obligation to manipulate the reader to the best of your ability--that's what
makes a good story. From a mercenary standpoint, successful manipulation is also
what gains the most readers and makes the most money through increased sales.
Long story short: The story craft I'll be describing here is a toolbox. Inside
it are time-proven techniques for exploiting human psychology in your favor.
Learn to use the tools.
Just remember to wear your safety glasses and try not to accidentally chop off
any of your fingers.

Conflict, Logical Response and Point of View
--------------------------------------------
This article addresses three basic concepts for a structured approach to
writing. While this one won't be specific enough to actually apply as yet, it's
important to understand the basic ideas on which a structured approach is
founded before we go tinkering with nuts and bolts.
Conflict--It's Not the Best Way. It's the Only Way.
----------------------------------------------------
First things first. This is the absolute core truth of telling a story, and is
as important to your writing as the laws of physics are to the real universe:
Stories are about conflict.
One more time, because something this important bears repeating.
STORIES ARE ABOUT CONFLICT!
If I wasn't in ASCII, I'd say it three times, the last time in giant animated
3-d letters that were on fire. That's just how important it is. Alas, I'll just
have to settle for saying it twice.
Conflict is the single most important facet of writing fiction. Conflict should
exist in one form or another in every scene. In a previous article I said that
stories are about following a character in pursuit of a goal, and who is opposed
by someone with an opposite or conflicting goal. That's the overall shape of a
story.
But that format of Goal-Conflict is also the basic model for any scene. ALL of
your characters need to have a goal. If they don't have a goal, then what the
hell are they doing wandering aimlessly around on stage? Not only that, but
you've also got to have someone who is trying to ruin your character's day by
one means or another. No one wants to read about Odysseus leaving the sack of
Troy, sailing home in moderate weather and settling down to focus on that urban
renewal project he's been putting off.
Conflict exists in infinite forms, and need not (necessarily) involve explosions
or blood. A mobster kicking down the door and spraying bullets is one kind of
conflict, sure. But a well-intentioned relative determined to sway your
character from his goal is, too. So is a boss who refuses to give your
character the day off to pick up his sick kid from school.
We'll get into specifics on conflict when we talk scene structure. For now, just
remember that stories are about conflict, and that they best way to create
conflict is to give your characters goals and strong motivation to pursue them.
(Oh, a quick word about crippling information you might need to unlearn.
Literature departments are real big on describing the "forms of conflict." Don't
try to deny it. Some of you know them, and you know it. Man versus man,
man versus nature, man versus himself. Let me give you a piece of advice.
The only one of any value to anyone who wants to learn to write commercial
fiction is the first one. Man versus nature stories and man versus himself
stories can work, but the writer has to work a lot harder to make it happen.
You're going to be more than busy enough without making your life more
difficult across the board.)
Dammit, Jim, I'm A Writer, Not A Logistician
--------------------------------------------
Another foundation stone of clear writing is a careful observence of logical
response.
Remember, one of your goals in telling a story is to make it come alive in your
readers' minds. To do that, it's important that you present things in a clear
and understandable fashion. You have to create clear mental pictures of
characters, objects and places for your reader.
(We'll get more into that when we talk about characters, later on.)
While it isn't too terribly hard to create vivid character-images, it is MUCH
more difficult to create those same mental pictures of actions. Nothing takes
your reader out of virtual headspace faster than reading a sentence and
description of action, then blinking and thinking, "What?" Once your reader is
stopping to go back and puzzle through confusing language, you've lost the game.
The best way to keep that flow going is to understand logical-response, or what
my teacher called "Stimulus-Response Transactions." (Which sounds fancy, but
they're working in a university there, and if you don't use lots of sixteen
penny words you don't get any R-E-S-P-E-C-T from the other faculty.)
It breaks down into something really simple, though. Something happens to your
character (stimulus). Your character reacts to it (response). Your character
takes an action (stimulus). Something happens (response).
You don't start mucking around with the order. It's confusing. You don't have
the response occur before the stimulus. For example:
"His fist lashed out at me [stimulus]. My jaw exploded in a flash of pain
[response-stimulus], and it drove me to the ground [response]."
See? There's a logical order to it, stimulus-response, stimulus-response. That's
what "stimulus-response transaction" means. Stimulus comes first, and for every
stimulus you have one response.
If you screw up the order, the same action-description gets a lot harder to
understand:
"I was driven to the ground when a flash of pain exploded in my jaw as his fist
lashed out at me."
Strictly speaking there's not any kind of grammar-based felony going on here,
but the sentence is clunky, and the reader has to mentally juggle it to get it
all in the right order. It isn't really DIFFICULT for them to juggle it around,
but it does take a little extra effort to sort it into a logical order.
That effort might seem trivial, but remember that the reader is gonna go through
hundreds or thousands of your sentences in fairly short order. As a result,
that kind of minor error could have two effects.


First, it could result in a mental speedbump in your story that jolts the
reader right out of their storyspace. Second, those many trivial shuffles will
accumulate. It isn't something that most readers are going to actually,
specifically notice in your work--they're just going to know that it isn't as
much fun to read as they would like it to be
"But but but," someone is surely saying by now, "Spielberg uses just the
thing all the time! He'll go through separate close-ups of eighty six people
staring at a dinosaur before the viewer ever gets to see the dinosaur that
stimulated them to stare!
Yes, well, Steve has an advantage. HE ISN'T USING THE WRITTEN WORD. You are. The
reversal of stimulus-response in a movie doesn't confuse anyone because they
don't have to read words and turn it into a movie in their head. The movie is
already THERE. Those shots in Jurassic Park work because they create suspense
instead of confusion, precisely BECAUSE the viewer knows that the response
they're seeing must have a stimulus, and they're wondering what it could be.
Besides. You aren't Spielberg. You're an aspiring writer who wants to learn the
craft. So if you want things to go smoothly for the reader and give you every
advantage you can get, observe stimulus-response transactions religiously.
It All Depends On Your Point of View
------------------------------------
Literally. In a very real sense, the success or failure of your story depends on
it. Strong, entertaining, believable characters are what make or break a story,
and a prime component for creating that kind of character is the effective use
of point of view.
What makes it so important, you may ask? (Someone go ahead and ask, or I'm gonna
look pretty silly up here.) Good, I'm glad you asked that. To answer the
question, let's go back to our goal as a storyteller--specifically, to create a
story so compelling that it takes on a life of its own in the reader's mind.
We want to create storyspace.
In order for the reader to have that kind of experience, they need a vehicle to
do it in--or put another way, we use point of view as a means of inserting the
reader into the story. We write from the point of view of our characters in
order to vicariously plug the reader in to the emotions, experiences, thoughts
and actions of a viewpoint character. Some genres are heavier into this aspect
of telling the story than others, but it is not at all unfair to say that we use
point of view to allow the reader to experience the story through one of our
characters' eyes (and ears, and mind, and possibly several other organs).
Get it now? The reader is going to experience your story world through the
thoughts, perceptions, emotions and actions of your viewpoint character or
characters. Do you see how freaking important it is that you select the best
characters to use? The perspective of the character viewing the story has a
profound effect on how it comes across to your readers.
Try to imagine watching Star Trek from the viewpoint of Nurse Chapel. I'm not
saying it would be a lame show, but it sure as hell wouldn't be the Star Trek we
know. Chapel was a decent character, but she wasn't exactly hips-deep in most
of the events on the Enterprise. The Lord of the Rings would be a rather
different story told from the viewpoint of Bill Ferny. I don't even want to
consider what Star Wars would look like through the eyes of Jabba the Hut . . .
well. Except maybe for Leia getting fit for that slavegirl outfit . . .
Anyway, the point being that it's absolutely critical that you select the best
characters for use as point-of-view (oh for goodness' sake, I'm going to commit
acronym and just call it POV) characters. And how do you do that, you may ask?
(Quick, someone ask bef--) Yes, I'm glad you asked that.
First, you decide what kind of point of view you want to use.
Once more, you may be burdened with an education in literature that can get in
the way of writing. I'm sure any lit people out there can rattle off half a
dozen different kinds of point of view that can be used in a story. I'll break
them down into the most familiar:
*******************************************************
First Person--Written from the interior perspective of one character. "I went to
the store and bought cookies. I ate them." The Dresden Files are first person
POV.
Second Person--Written as if being described to the reader as their own actions.
"You went to the store and bought cookies. You ate them."
Third Person--Written from an exterior perspective to one or more characters.
"He went to the store and bought cookies. He choked on them and died."
Omniscient Viewpoint--Told from the perspective of an outside, all-knowing
observer. "He went to the store, never knowing that the cookies were the
instrument of the Grim Reaper. If only he'd purchased milk to go with them,
he might have made it. But he didn't, and so sealed his fate with sweet,
corrupt chocolately goodness."
********************************************************
Let me give you some advice my own teacher gave me: write in First Person, or
Third Person. Omniscient viewpoint has been out of style for maybe a century.
Second person is best reserved for Choose Your Own Adventure books.
First and Third person are the most common and easy-to-read viewpoints, and no
editor will ever take you seriously if you wade into the publishing fray trying
to sell anything else.
So, next thing's next. How do you decide? First or Third? Let's take a look at
their pros and cons.
**********************************************
First person strengths: An immediate immersion into storyspace through the most
personally identifiable language. In the Dresden Files, the text might read
"I went here" or "I did that," in reference to Harry's activities--but on some
level in the reader's head, the reader is experiencing those things
vicariously. The language is subversive, and is possibly better suited to
creating that kind of storyspace than any other viewpoint. Bickham called
first-person viewpoint "perfect viewpoint" for that exact reason. It's also the
easiest viewpoint to learn to write in because, check it out--it's how we
xperience life.
First Person Weaknesses: The major problems with First Person viewpoint lie in
the difficulties it creates for story structure. Since you are locked into one
viewpoint, your story has to happen around your viewpoint character all the
time. You can't show the reader anything that the viewpoint character doesn't
see, and that can become an annoying obstacle, particularly when various
characters with conflicting goals are all pursuing them at once.
The only way around these problems is to be scrupulous about keeping track of
what characters are doing when they're "off stage." But that still leaves you
with figuring out ways to convey the plot-necessary things they do to your
reader. Typically, this is where you get villains who will drone on in an
endless summary of what the hero didn't see, or when characters will otherwise
break into a travelogue. It takes planning and creativity to get around the
limitations of first-person viewpoint, but it has the side effect of forcing you
to make your character extremely proactive and nosy, poking into everyone's
business--which is probably why the mystery genre is best known for
first-person viewpoint stories.
*************************************************
*************************************************
Third Person Strengths: Third person viewpoint is the compliment to First
Person, in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Third person viewpoint allows you
to introduce more than one POV character, which frees up a whole universe of new
options to you as a writer. Since you can hop around to whatever characters you
please, (though usually POV characters are of a fairly limited number) you can
play all kinds of wonderful head games with the reader which result in the
reader knowing things that the characters don't--that's when you get people
screaming at the book, "NO YOU IDIOT DON'T YOU KNOW THAT'S A VAMPIRE?" and
similar sentiments, because the reader's been handed more pieces than any
one viewpoint character.
Third Person Weaknesses: Because you have so many more options with third
person, you have at least as many more ways you can screw things up. Most
problematic in a third person viewpoints are problems with displaying enough
emotional depth in characters (compared to first person, anyway), and the risk
that a larger cast of characters will grow increasingly more difficult for the
reader to keep track of. (*kaffkaff*JORDAN*kaffkaff*) When you head into a third
person story, you have to be sure to be extra careful about establishing
characters and their goals, in order to help the reader keep the various POVs
straight in his head. Often writers also have trouble keeping the current
viewpoint clear to the reader--and some of them even jump back and forth to
various viewpoints within the same scene, chapter, or page, a guaranteed mental
speedbump for the reader as he tries to puzzle out whose head the story is in
right now.
***************************************************
To make matters even more complicated, writing in first or third person also
seems to be heavily influenced by the tempeSrament and skills of the writer in
question. Some people couldn't write third person to save their life. I wrote
SEVEN BOOKS in the third person and they were universally lame. When I finally
took Debbie's advice and wrote my first novel in the first person, I produced
Storm Front. I was better suited for first person writing, clearly. Since then,
I've continued to grind my teeth and practice third person, and I think I'm
finally getting somewhere, but it was a struggle for me. Other writers take to
writing third person like baby ducks to water. The freaks.
Okay, broken down to the simplest thoughts I can:
First person offers the novice writer an intuitive advantage in writing a
strong, emotional central character. It creates a few problems for your plot,
but nothing that can't be gotten around. It's best suited to a story focused
upon a single central character, and as such is most often found in mysteries
and thrillers, with occasional appearances in fantasy/sf.
Third person is far more flexible and offers you a wider range of options,
dramatically speaking, but it's also considerably more difficult to learn to
handle well--but if you learn to do it, you can really go to town,
creatively speaking. Third person is found in every genre, but is particularly
prominant in romance, on account of most of the romances like to present the
story from the perspective of the two principal characters at the very least.
So pick what kind of viewpoint you want to use based on the kind of story you
want to tell and on your own personal gifts and preferences.
Now. All you need to do is pick WHICH characters get to become POV characters.
And how do I do that, you might ask?
For first person it's easy. You pick the guy who keeps telling the reader
"I, me, I me." But when writing third person, the sheer flexibility of the
choices available to you can make it tough to pick who will be the POV character
in any given scene.
But there is a simple rule of thumb to help you decide that. Viewpoints belong
to the characters who are the most deeply, emotionally involved in whatever is
at stake in the scene. When you're wondering which character should have the
viewpoint in any given scene, all you have to do is to pick the character who
has the most to lose. THAT person is the one who is going to have the strongest
goal, and his pursuit of the goal will be fertile ground for the best conflict.
It is late and I have probably forgot a bit here and there, but if so I'll be
back to blow hot air all over until my ego is sure it has had its say. :) Next
article, I'll prattle on about laying out a plot skeleton before you start
pounding on the keys.
Jim
Fundamentals--Story Skeletons
Story Skeletons
---------------
Writing a structurally sound story is simple.
But it isn't easy.
"Huh?" you say. "What do you mean, simple not easy?"
A *lot* of things are really simple. Hauling an engine block out of your car is
simple--but it sure as hell isn't easy. There's a lot of work to be done, and
you have to go about it the right way or the simple task can go all to hell in a
hurry. Building a solid story as an aspiring writer is the same way. What I can
hand you here is not going to look very complicated--but for newbie novelists,
it's going to be difficult to handle. At least it was for me.
The story skeleton is a description of the main plot of your book, broken down
into its simplest elements. It's two sentences long. Neither sentence is
particularly long. Your plot needs to fit into that framework, or it's going to
be too complicated for the average newbie writer to handle well.
"Impossible," I said to myself when Debbie told us that in class.
"There's no way you can break down a story as epic as mine into two sentences.
You can't possibly do that." As it turned out, I could.
If I hadn't been able to do it, it would have been way too much story for me.
The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*.
But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
For instance, look at Storm Front.
(Yes, I'll use my own books as examples, because I'm just that way. ;)
Also, I'm more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.)
Storm Front's story question:
****************************
When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago,
wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer.
But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard,
a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police
Department?
****************************
See! It's oh-so-simple! Almost to the point of looking ridiculous--and I have no
doubt that some of the people reading this article will think that it *is*
ridiculous. They're wrong. :)

This is a fundamental description of the core conflict in your tale--and
stories are all about conflict.
Not only that, but by getting your story broken down into its basic elements,
you'll help yourself focus on the most important portion of the novel and avoid
dumping lots of extra words into it. Always write a story as lean as you
possibly can (and still be happy with it). Every scene and every sequel should
be planned to move your story forward--and you should have the purpose of the
scene in mind as you write it.
You want to write your story like a racehorse, not an elephant. It is SO much
easier to flesh out a story that's too lean than it is to trim down a story
that's too bulky.
This doesn't mean that you don't plan a book with subplots. Even newbie writers
like I was can usually handle a couple of them, and with enough planning usually
more. But the main plot is the skeleton that everything else builds upon.
Before you get rolling on your next novel, make yourself a little form and fill
it out. I know, I know, it seems corny as hell.
But trust me. It will help you in the long run.
Characters
So your story is all about conflict, right? And you can't have conflict without,
well, people. Maybe your people look like sentient renaissance mice, or maybe
they look like talking cats, but there are going to be beings running around
your story with a bunch of conflicting desires. Those are your characters.
Sticking with the purely craft-oriented standpoint, we'll start with a basic
question: what makes a good character?
FIRST AND FOREMOST, FICTION WRITERS, YOUR CHARACTERS MUST BE INTERESTING.
I mean, come on. Who is going to want to read about boring people? I can do that
in the newspaper, or in any history class. Increasingly, as our society moves
into the MTV-Information-broadband-instant-gratification age, reader tolerance
for the dull and the plain is going to go down.
Bottom line: without interesting characters, your book is already dead. You can
write something that flies in the face of this if you like, and people the
story town of Plainsville with John Smiths, and who knows, maybe you'll create
an immortal piece of literary art. But for poor slobs like me whose sons are
suddenly wearing larger shoes than them, and who are looking with mild panic at
the costs of a college degree, there are a couple of basic principles to think
about which could really help you in all kinds of ways.
Which leads us to the next logical question: What is (or what makes) an
interesting character?
While no one thing can really stake a sole claim, several things consistently
make a team contribution:
o Exaggeration.
o Exotic position.
o Introduction.
o Verisimilitude.
o Empathy.
We'll look at them one at a time.
1. EXAGGERATION
This can be almost any kind of exaggerated feature, be it physical, mental or
emotional. Virtually every character in popular fiction is an exaggerated figure
of one kind or another. Mister Monk is not merely fussy and unstable, he is
fussy and unstable to an insane degree. Jack O'Neill is not merely wiseass and
cavalier, but suicidally so. Sydney Bristow is not merely a spy, she's a CIA
SuperSpyGrrl who can look like anyone and outshoot, outfight and generally
outdo every other spy in the business. Paul Bunyan is not just tall, he's
sixty-three axe-handles high. Pamela Anderson is . . . say no more.
The purposes of exaggerating characters are twofold:
FIRST, it's inherently interesting. Reading a sentence about Joe Average walking
down the street is not nearly as interesting as reading a sentence about Joe
Two-Meters walking down the street and banging his head on swinging shop signs
as he goes.
SECOND, it's a device to create an acute mental awareness of your character for
the reader. Remember that the goal of this kind of story-craft is to create that
virtual world inside your reader's head. The reader is glad to help you along
with that. I mean, readers will provide a lot of the background sets and extras
and so on if you give them a chance--but one way to make it easier for them to
get into the story is to create a clear impression of a character on them, so
that they always have a clear image in their head of who that character is.
Exaggeration helps with that--it gives the reader something unusual and
memorable to associate with any given character.
(More tips and techniques on how to do even more with this will follow under
Verisimilitude.)
2. EXOTIC POSITION
While this is in actuality just another facet of exaggeration, there are enough
differences to make it worth its own heading. Locating your character in an
unusual location or situation is another way to help create immediate interest.
A sentence about a thirty-five year old man sitting in an office is fairly
simple and very boring. But it becomes something else entirely when it's the
OVAL office and the youngest president in the history of the nation has just
been advised that a nuclear terrorist is loose in DC. A sentence about a young
woman sitting in a chair is far more blah than a sentence about the first female
shuttle commander maneuvering in her EVA frame in high orbit.
(Naturally there's the inversion of this, too, where you take a very unusual
character and put him in an utterly mundane position, like Mister Incredible
working in Insurance Cubicle Purgatory.)
Whether it is a social, geographic, intellectual or moral position, choosing
something unusual enough to be memorable and interesting will provide you with a
significant advantage in grabbing reader interest.
3. INTRODUCTION
You never get a second chance to make a first impression. When your reader meets
any given character for the first time, it is critical to make sure you get the
bare bones of your character into his head immediately. By establishing your
character firmly, you'll make the whole process of virtual-story-world-creation
move more quickly and easily. There are multiple techniques for planning a
strong introduction, but I'm only going to hit on the strongest one:

CHARACTERISTIC ENTRY ACTION.
A solid CHARACTERISTIC ENTRY ACTION consists of introducing your character to
the reader by bringing him into the story in the course of an action which
clearly, sharply typifies who and what he is.
Lethal Weapon 2 starts off in the front seat of a stationwagon during a police
chase, with Mel Gibson howling in excitement and pounding on the ceiling while
Danny Glover fumbles for the siren, tries to talk on the radio, and tries to
convince Mel that they don't really need to be doing this. It strongly
establishes both characters as cops. It demonstrates Mel's love of wild action,
Danny's cautious approach to his work, and the relationship dynamic between the
two. (I liked it so much that I borrowed shamelessly from it to start off
Grave Peril.)
Every Bond Pic that opens on the "opening mission" template does the same thing:
it shows you Bond being a heroic spy and engaging in lots of danger and action.
Your character is a frustrated high school nerd? Then have him come on stage
late for his school bus, which promptly drives away even though the driver
obviously saw him coming. (IE, Spider-Man.) Your character is a titanic
lumberjack? Then start him off towering over the north woods and felling fifty
trees with each swing of his axe.
Make the introduction count. This is something you can't afford to screw up.
4. VERISIMILITUDE
(Which is a university word that means "they act believeably." It's easier for
me to type V-factor.)
V-factor is the second most important element in creating interesting
characters. The most exotic character in the world becomes nothing more than an
annoying cartoon figure if he doesn't behave in a consistant and believeable
manner. (*kaffkaff*JAR-JAR*kaffkaff*)
When you are writing your characters, it is absolutely critical that you convey
to the reader the sense that your character is a whole, full person with his own
life outside the purview of this particular story. This is a task that will
take a little bit of time, as your reader follows your character around and
sees what is in his world.
The single most important technique for doing that is through showing your
character's:
1. EMOTIONS
2. REACTIONS and
3. DECISIONS.
When something happens in your story, a character with a decent V-factor will
react to it. The reader will see his emotional reaction played out,
will gain a sense of the logic of a question or problem, and will recognize that
the character took a believeable, appropriate course of action in response.
The lion's share of this work gets done in the process of writing SEQUELS.
(Not like Rocky II. It's a writing-craft term.)
(SEQUELS are an indispensable portion of your story and will have their own arti
cle later.)
But forethought and preparation will play a role in this process, too.
Here's another cool craft-tool for you guys to use: TAGS and TRAITS
TAGS are words you hang upon your character when you describe them. When you're
putting things together, for each character, pick a word or two or three to use
in describing them. Then, every so often, hit on one of those words in reference
to them, and avoid using them elsewhere when possible. By doing this, you'll be
creating a psychological link between those words and that strong entry image
of your character.
For example; Thomas Raith's tag words are pale, beautiful, dark hair, grey eyes.
I use them when I introduce him for the first time in each book, and then
whenever he shows up on stage again, I remind the reader of who he is by using
one or more of those words.
This is a really subtle psychological device, and it is far more powerful than
it first seems. It's invaluable for both you as the writer, and for the
construction of the virtual story for the reader.
TRAITS are like tags, except that instead of picking specific words, you pick a
number of unique things ranging from a trademark prop to a specific mental
attitude. Harry's traits include his black duster, his staff, his blasting rod
and his pentacle amulet. These things are decorations hung onto the character
for the reader's benefit, so that it's easy to imagine Harry when the story pace
is really rolling.
Similarly, Bob the Skull's traits are the skull, its eyelights, his intelligence
, his role as a lab assistant, his obsession with sex and his wiseass dialog.
It works for the same reason.
Seriously. Before you introduce another character, write some tags and traits
down. You'll be surprised how much easier it makes your job.
4. EMPATHY
If you can manage to create a vivid character in a reader's mind, then establish
him as someone believable, you have a real shot at the Holy Grail of character
design. If you do your job, you will create a sense of empathy in your reader
for your characters. This is what makes people burst out laughing while reading
. It's what makes readers cry, or cheer, or run off to take a cold shower.
Like V-Factor, empathy takes time to build and it relies heavily upon the
skilled use of sequels. But if you can get the reader to this point,
as an author, then you WIN. Big time. This is the ENTIRE GOAL of all this
character work, because the reader's emotional involvement is the single most
important factor in how well your story is going to fly.
Or put another way, if you can make people love who you want them to love and
hate who you want them to hate, you're going to have readers coming back to you
over and over again.
comment:
How did Twain put it? Something like: Literature is a book everyone wants to
*have* read, but no one wants to *read*.
I'm talking genre fiction, here. I don't say this to offend your sensibilities,
but I've got a lit degree, I'm familiar with the field, and my opinion of the
vast majority of English literature is that it has little or no actual value to
society outside of the university-level English Lit community.
This stuff is all craft for writing fiction that people will actually want to
read. Let's face it: if Pride and Prejudice landed on an editor's desk today,
it would be on the floor and propping open a door about ten minutes after the
editor started looking at it and the rejection letter to its author would p
robably create a sonic boom on its way out.
Which is not to say that literature and popularity are incompatible--and neither
are literature and storytelling craft. Look at The Stand, for example, or the
Gunslinger. But I think there's an overwhelming tendancy in the lit-writing
community to automatically discard basic storytelling craft and (especially)
genre fiction as being somehow inferior because people in 8th grade can read
the results.
The whole point of using storytelling craft is to keep your readers' interest.
Most lit needs a university and a study program and a minimum GPA to convince
someone to read it.
This is a personal windmill that I occasionally tilt at, and it isn't supposed
to be a personal assault (and I remember talking to you at Worldcon! Wasn't it
in the vendors room?). There are people who would disagree with me with their
dying breath, and could take up a fantastic counter-argument about the
viability of literature in genre fiction--Patrick Neilsen-Hayden comes to mind.
But even he will admit that he has to publish someone like Terry Goodkind in
order to give more literary books a shot at the market.
If it helps, think of all of this stuff as a kind of literary form, like . . .
like sonnets. I mean now /that/ is a constrained format, but Bill Shakespear
did some great work with it. :)
Re: Special Snowflake
Hmmm. Without reading the book, I cannot of course offer you a truly informed
reply. I can, however, suggest the causes of your problems with the characters
in question.
First, look at their introductions. If all of them come into the story with
supercool action music in the background and awesomely awesome martial arts
moves, then I'd say it's possible that the writer either didn't distinguish
them well enough from one another to give you a clear picture in your head
beyond "hyper-competent."
Second, exaggeration. Is the writer just laying it on way too thick?
Do all the characters do something that saves the universe every twenty minutes
or so? Even worse, if /everyone/ is showing up with lots of badass powers,
then the author has actually watered down the exaggeration factor for all of the
characters. You can't exaggerate without having some significant contrasts
between characters.
Finally, verisimilitude. People aren't perfect and most characters probably
shouldn't be perfect either. If you're looking at a big crew of supercool
Special Snowflakes, there's an inherent uphill battle for the writer, to try to
get you to suspend your disbelief about the crowd of 99.9999999th percentile
people so that you can enjoy the story.
Not everyone in the Justice League has the same powers as Superman. If they did,
it would be boring as hell. :)
The Great Swampy Middle
THE GREAT SWAMPY MIDDLE
Every writer runs into this, generally in every single book. The middle. It
lurks between the beginning of your book and the exciting conclusion, and its
mission in life is to Atreyu you right down into the yucky, mucky mire in order
to prevent you from ever actually finishing.
The Great Swampy Middle (or GSM) knows no fear, no mercy, no regret. It doesn't
come after you. It darned well knows that you're going to come to it. It knows
that you're going to be charging along, sending up the spinning plates, ripping
out the strong character introductions, planting cool bits into your story for
the future, and generally feeling high on life. And just then, as you get all
that fun opening-story stuff done, it pounces. And suddenly, you're staring at a
blank word processor screen trying to figure out how to get your story through
the next paragraph.
And it laughs at you. It laughs and dances on the ashes of your enthusiasm. It
knows full well that you are going to be its bitch from now until you somehow
finish the book or else give up in despair and slit your wrists with the edge of
one of those index cards you're using to try to figure out the rest of the
plot. It rejoices and dances around a primal bonfire, howling its glee at the
uncaring stars.
The smug bastard.
Okay. Maybe I'm anthropomorphosizing it a little. But not by much.
The middle of books is HARD, especially for beginning writers. Why? Because the
middle of a book gives you the most flexibility in terms of telling your story.
The beginnings and ends of stories share many similar demands, craftwise, but
the MIDDLE is where your personal style has room to play. IE, there are a
berjillion-and-one different things you can do in the middle of a story, and
since you're a beginning writer, about a berjillion of them are probably the
wrong things to do.
It's like a swamp. There are apparent paths all around you--but sometimes the
ground that looks solid actually sucks you under and paralyzes you and strangles
you. Sometimes the water that looks deep and unpleasant is actually shallow and
safe. Sometimes apparent paths aren't paths at all--they just wander all over
and wind up at a dead end. Sometimes the safe-looking waters are teeming with
alligators and poisonous snakes just below the surface.
Man. The middle of a book is /dangerous/.
It's when an author starts getting lost that the book's middle becomes the Great
Swampy Middle. Once you've taken a wrong turn in the GSM, you've got to be
smart about which way you move, because if you just keep wandering around, you
(and by "you" I mean "your story") is just going to keep bumbling around in
circles and never get out of the GSM.
Those of you who have written this much of a book already know exactly what I'm
talking about. You hit that point where you're not sure what to do next--when
small details and points of logic start tripping you up. Where your story
begins to veer off from your outline, and feel fairly confident that it's
never, EVER going to veer back. You aren't sure where things went wrong,
exactly. Characters and situations start popping out of your fingers as if of
their own volition. They're often fun, even intriguing, but they're really a
form of denial, you poor deluded, benighted sap. You're lost. You just don't
want to admit it to anyone, least of all yourself.
News flash: the reader is going to get that, and it's going to kill their fun.
Readers are not stupid. They have a surprising amount of insight, even if they
don't always consciously work out why something seems to be wrong with the
story. Many readers, God bless every one of them, will plow ahead through the
swamp, trusting you to get your act together eventually.
But most won't have that kind of patience. You'll lose them.
(That's bad.)
But I say unto you, fear not. For though the GSM be all around you, there are
ways to escape its fearsome grasp. I'll share my own favorite methods with you,
and go over several other techniques and tips, and finish off with the WMD
(Weapon of Middle Destruction) which can snickersnack that GSM monster back into
the slivy toves with 100 percent reliability.
Here we go:
The problem with GSMs is that most writers don't have a very good idea of
exactly where they want to go. I mean sure, they want to get "to the other side
of the swamp," but that's sort of like saying "I want to get to the other side
of the continent." It's a good plan, as stated, but it lacks clarity,
specificity, definition. Instead of saying "the other side of the continent" it
might be more helpful to say something like "I'm taking I-70 out through the
midwest to Denver, then hopping on Highway Suchandsuch southwest through the
Rockies before taking Route Whatever across California to the Pacific."
Same thing applies in the story. If you have a good idea of your next landmark,
waypoint, stepping stone, what have you, it's a lot easier not to fall off the
path and get sucked down into the mud. SO. One way to help yourself do that is
to create something to help you keep on track--a structure specifically
designed to keep the pace of your book strong throughout the middle.
My favorite such construct is called THE BIG MIDDLE.
THE BIG MIDDLE:
Here's the nutshell concept: Plan a great big freaking event for the end of the
middle. You want it to be a big dramatic confrontation of whatever kind is
appropriate to your genre. The fallout from your big bad Big Middle event
should be what boots the book down the homestretch to reach the story's climax.
Really lay out the fireworks. Hit the reader with everything you can.
PLAN THE BIG MIDDLE EVENT. Then, as you work through the middle, WORK TO BUILD
UP TO IT. Drop in the little hints, establish the proper props and motivations
and such. Make sure that everything you do in the middle of the book is helping
you build up to the BIG MIDDLE.
(I've used the Big Middle concept in EVERY book I've ever published. It works.
It ain't broke. It ain't the only way to do the middle, either, but it's one
way.)
Example: The Dresden Files, Dead Beat. The Big Middle event in this book is the
zombie attack on Harry's apartment. Corpsetaker and Grevane show up in the same
place, at the same time, and kick off a full blown Necrobattle. There are
zombies and ghosts, tons of magic, Harry's wards frying everything in sight,
Butters gets captured, Harry and Thomas have to save him, plenty of special
effects and a narrow escape.
(That's the drama part.)
In the course of the Big Middle, Harry gets information he needs to continue his
pursuit, the bad guys blow out the city's power, Butters picks up a new mantra
about courage, and we segue into the next day, with Halloween and the
Darkhallow charging down from the horizon.
(that's the set things in motion part)
Big Middle is a good counter to the GSM. It helps you stay focused and gets you
through the chapters more smoothly.
MINI ARC:
Some authors get through the GSM by creating a whole little storyline of its own
and plopping it down smack in the middle. Normally, it's intertwined with the
main story in some fashion, but the focus of the characters shifts onto a new
track, one that is wholly contained in the middle. It is, essentially, a
smaller story, which interfaces with the overall story well enough to expose
ool character stuff that is relevant to the main plot, that kind of thing.
Example: The Two Towers. For the non-Frodo non-Sam characters, the main goal
(destroy the Ring and defeat Sauron) changes (to catch the orcs and rescue Merry
and Pippin, save Rohan from getting suckerpunched into the great beyond). They
haven't given up on the Ring or whacking Sauron--but they've been diverted into
a smaller story which still carries emotional weight. They'll get back to
antiMordor insurgency soon, you know. But for the time being, we're learning
more about their characters, establishing some of the best character
interaction in the whole of the story.
NEW SUBPLOT:
A watered down version of Mini-Arc, a new subplot is just that--a subplot that
suddenly develops and has to be dealt with, without actually becoming a big
overwhelming part of the story on its own. The new subplot begins and ends in
the middle, and generally introduces you to some cool characters or threats
native to that subplot.
Example: Trash Compactors and Tractor Beams. Luke's main goal (save the princess
and defeat the Empire!) gets altered (don't get squashed flat! Escape! Come in,
Threepio, where could he be!?). It doesn't change the overall goal--but it DOES
take the story into a new direction, and you get the cool periscope-tentacle
monster, a new setting, and a really suspenseful impending doom scene. Kenobi
gets an even tamer version of the same thing, because his presence would make
rescuing the princess way too easy. He gets sent off on the tractor beam
sabotage mission. Again, a small subplot bound to the main goal, but NOT the
main goal, and it creates tension by separating him from the others, letting
him smell Darth's BO coming steadily closer, and showing us cool Jedi tricks
that only seem to work on Stormtroopers.
NEW CHARACTER:
A new character tromps out onto the stage in a more flamboyent or memorable
fashion than most supporting characters would do. They aren't on stage long, but
they serve an important role in forwarding the story, and they entertain the
hell out of the audience while they do it.
Example: The Incredibles, Edna Mode. Edna shows up to make Bob a new suit, make
the whole family new suits, and to tip Helen off to the fact that Mister
Incredible is off on Fantasy Island with Storm's bolemia-stricken baby sister.
Edna is a freaking riot, but her total time on stage is a bare fraction of the
main cast, and she's there to keep the plot moving quickly.
There. THAT hatful of techniques should be able to help anybody sinking into the
quicksand. Be aware that using this stuff is simple--but not EASY. It takes
practice. Play with it and see what works best for you, but PRACTICE.
Which leads me up nicely to segue into the ultimate Vorpal Sword for slaying the
GSM:
Keep writing.
Here, let me repeat that.
KEEP WRITING.
One more time, only louder.
KEEEEEEEEEEEP!
WRRRRRIIIIIIIITTTTTIIIIIIIIINNNNNGGGGGG!
The ultimate way to get out of the GSM is to keep on plowing ahead. Sooner or
later, you're bound to pop out the other side or else stumble onto a
discernable path.
Note, I say that this is the ultimate way. It isn't the fast way. It isn't the
smart way. But, by God, if you sit down, grit your teeth and WRITE WRITE WRITE,
ONWARD ONWARD ONWARD, you're bound to get out eventually. You'll do ten times
the work and probably need to cut and slash your story with a whale flenser
before you move on to the next draft, but it WILL get you unstuck and out,
sooner or later.
Okay, I think I'm about metaphored out. So, one more, and then I'll shut up.
Finding your way through the middle of your novel is like finding any other
path. You're best off if you NEVER GET OFF IT. Solid outlines are the best way
to stay on it, but they aren't an easy way, either. That's just as well.
Devloping some skills you'll need to find your way when accidents happen and you
get off track is important and useful.
These techniques above are tools, stuff you can use to help stay focused on the
proper path (IE, your PLOT) so that you don't veer off on accident, slow the
pace of your story and kill the interest of your audience. If you get off track,
employing one of the tools (or about a million others I've forgotten about,
=never heard of, or can't quite remember just now) can help you get your story
back on track, charging for that big finish. They're best used in the planning
stages of a book, as preventatives, but you can use them after the fact with
just as much success.
The Great Swampy Middle doesn't love you. It wants you to never write a book,
ever. The GSM wants you to give up and go home.
So take my advice and take a few tools with you--mine or someone else's, you
won't hurt my feelings. If the GSM so much as looks at you crosseyed, go upside
its head with them.
That'll learn the smug bastard.
Jim
Don't suppose you have any advice on how to construct a good story synopsis for
Agents/publishers do you?
RJ
jimbutcher
July 16 2006, 04:27:42 UTC
link
See above re: STORY SKELETON, I think. The part about when BLANK happens,
PROTAGONIST sets out to STORY GOAL, etc.
The information in those two sentences is gonna tell an editor what they need to
know about the specifics of your book. The brevity, clarity, and
professionalism of the letter itself is what they're going to look at to judge
whether or not you come off like an actual writer.
SCENES
----------
Scenes are important. Scenes are where all the plot in your book happens. Any
time your character is actively pursuing his goal (as opposed to a character who
is pausing to reflect or react emotionally to the events of the story) he is
engaged in a SCENE.
The basic structure of a scene is simple. Your POINT OF VIEW character sets out
in pursuit of a SPECIFIC GOAL. Someone else (usually, but not always,
the antagonist) actively, knowingly tries to stop him. There is a CONFLICT. The
reader is left to wonder whether or not the POV character will succeed (which
can also be thought of as the SCENE QUESTION). The result of the conflict is
*always* a SETBACK of one kind or another (also thought of as the SCENE ANSWER)
--at least, until you get to the end of the book.
Let me break that into a simple format. This is the one I use every time I write
a scene. I fill it out, like a freaking class worksheet (which at one time it
was):
POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER:
GOAL:
CONFLICT (SCENE QUESTION):
SETBACK (SCENE ANSWER):
We'll look at each of them, one at a time.
POINT OF VIEW CHARACTER
------------------------------------
Sometimes, this is easy--for instance, when you're writing a first-person
viewpoint novel, like the Dresden Files. The point of view character is always
the same person.
Other times, though, you've got more lattitude (IE, a better chance to screw up)
. You've got multiple point of view characters in your book, and often more than
one of them is participating in the scene. (Romance writers, especially, run
into this issue a lot.) If you pick the wrong viewpoint character, you'll cheat
yourself out of making your scene as interesting and appealing as it could be.
Picking the optimal viewpoint character is VITAL.
Fortunately, there's a simple rule of thumb for people getting started. ALWAYS
pick the person with the MOST AT STAKE, emotionally, in the scene. If you do
that, you help build in additional tension, you get to show more emotion
(aka, create greater empathy in the reader), and you help ensure that the
conflict is real, that it matters.
You can break this rule--just like you can break all of these rules--once you
know what you're doing. But until you are CERTAIN that you understand why this
works, how it works, and what you can accomplish by NOT following the rule . . .
don't. Please, until you've worked enough to get it yourself, just take my word
for it that this rule of thumb is frickin' critical, and you will do well by
yourself to stick with it.
GOAL
-------
Once you've got your point of view character, the next thing you need is a GOAL
for them to pursue. This needs to be an ACTIVE, SPECIFIC goal, not just
something vague. Instead of your character setting out to "do something to save
the day" he needs to have a goal more like, "go pound Joe Blow for information
that might let me save the day." Instead of "make the girl like me" his goal
needs to be something more like "take the girl out for a wonderful night on the
town with lots of attention to detail and customized surprises for her."
(That's the great part about writing action scenes. You get really clear, simple
goals like "Get out of the room alive.")
Your goal doesn't always have to be life-shatteringly important. It can be as
simple as "I want breakfast." The most important thing about it is that it must
be clear, apparently attainable, specific, and important to your viewpoint
character.
CONFLICT
-------------
Ah, conflict. The heart of every story. If you screw up absolutely everything
else about a scene but GET THE CONFLICT RIGHT, you're gonna be way closer to
getting published than most people ever manage.
Conflict is what happens when someone, for some reason, up and decides that your
character needs to fail in his goal, or else is pursuing a goal which, if met,
will prevent your viewpoint character from reaching his goal.
CONFLICT IS ALL ABOUT CHARACTERS. IT HAPPENS BETWEEN CHARACTERS. Conflict is NOT
"there's a forest fire!" or "it's really cold outside!" Those things can be
used as dramatic elements, don't get me wrong--but they aren't CONFLICT. They
are referred to as "adversity" and they are inherently second-class citizens
when it comes to establishing interesting scenes.
(Most often, they serve best as a supporting role. It's one thing to be in a
knife fight with your most hated enemy. It's quite another to be in a knife
fight with your most hated enemy in the middle of a forest fire.)
CONFLICT, ideally, is two characters going head-to-head (on whatever level is
appropriate--social knife-fighting can make reading every bit as interesting as
literal knife-fighting), while both of them try to achieve conflicting goals.
All this really means is that you need an antagonist with the same specific,
attainable goal, the same kinds of emotional stakes, as your protagonist.
Once you've got the right kind of set up, the scene almost writes itself.
(Notice that I say "antagonist" and not "villain." It doesn't have to be a
villain. It can be a concerned friend, trying to talk your character out of
doing something. It can be a misguided heroic-type, who just happens to be
acting against your protagonist, like Murphy was in the first couple of Dresden
books. It can be an admirable and even likeable foe, like Marshal Sam Gerard in
The Fugitive. The choices are vast. The important thing, though, is that he's
working against your viewpoint character.)
And, done right, the conflict poses an implied SCENE QUESTION. Will your
character succeed? Or even better, WHICH character is going to succeed?
SETBACK
------------
The SETBACK is the result of the CONFLICT. Your character set out to accomplish
a certain goal--AND HE DOESN'T GET IT.
Eh, you say? What what?
He doesn't get it. Come on, if it was that simple--Goal, attained! Goal, attaine
d!--it really wouldn't be a terribly interesting story. Think . . . oh, the earl
y Superman cartoons. A dozen problems would start happening--bad guys, natural d
isasters, what have you. Then Supes would show up and, one by one, smash/burn/fr
eeze/throw/beat up the problems, mostly with very little apparent effort.
THAT GETS BORING FAST.
(In fact, I often don't even like to use the word "setback" to describe the resu
lts of the scene. I like referring to it as the DISASTER. But I'm melodramatic,
that way.)
In any case, the character doesn't attain his full goal, his total completion, u
ntil the END OF THE STORY. If he gets it early on, hey, why keep reading? The be
st stories keep the reader on edge (IE, not entirely satisfied) until the story'
s climax, at which point all questions are resolved, all goals met, and we can a
ll go have a cigarette or something.
There are a number of ways you can end a scene--or phrased another way, there ar
e a number of ANSWERS to the SCENE QUESTION. Let's go over them, beginning with
the least desirable, from the standpoint of a writer trying to keep a reader glu
ed to the story:
ANSWER 1: YES. Already told you, this one is a no-no. It's the simplest, leaves
you with the least drama and the fewest options. It's predictable, almost inhere
ntly comes with less conflict, and gives you the worst odds of keeping a reader'
s attention.
("Trapped in the pit of starving, diseased wolverines, our hero struggles to get
free! He leaps to safety unscathed, and continues his journey!" See what I
mean? Bor-ing.)
ANSWER 2: YES . . . BUT. This one is a lot better. In this scenario, your hero
accomplishes his scene goal all right--but there's a complication of some kind,
and one that might have consequences down the line. Generally, the more dire
and/or disastrous the potential consequence, the better.
("Trapped in the pit of starving, diseased wolverines, our hero struggles to get
free! He leaps up to climb to safety, the wolverines raging and foaming beneath

him--but just as he reaches the edge of the pit, and freedom, he is savagely
bitten on the leg! He is free! But it is only a matter of time before Mad
Wolverine Syndrome reduces him to a snarling, foaming monster!" See there?
Way more interesting than getting away without a mark to show for it.)
ANSWER 3: NO! Another solid scene resolution, from the writing standpoint. The
hero sets out to attain his goal, but is flatly denied. Maybe he gets shut down
by the antagonist. Maybe he makes a mistake and blows it completely. Either way,
he gives it his best shot and is slapped down. Now he'll have to back off,
re-evaluate the situation, and try something else. Use this scene answer with
some caution, because it can have the effect of bringing your story to a halt.
Too many of them can become frustrating for the reader, and can make your
character look foolish and/or impotent, thus reducing reader empathy and the
tension of your overall story.
("Trapped in the pit of starving, diseased wolverines, our hero struggles to get
free! He leaps up to climb to safety, but the crumbling edge of the pit gives
way, dropping him back down among the foaming monsters! He reaches for his
communicator and shouts, "Red! I may have a problem here!" See? This can be a
good way of getting other characters involved, dropping in some more character
interaction, what have you--but you're still stuck in the pit of wolverines.
Unless you are writing "Wolverine Pits of Madison County" or something,
you don't want to stay stuck in the wolverine pit forever, so use your NO
answers carefully.)
ANSWER 4: NO! AND FURTHERMORE! My personal favorite scene answer. Not only does
your hero NOT attain his goal, but he manages to make matters even WORSE along
the way. It's best if the worsening of the situation is your protagonist's
fault, because that's just FUN, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.
THIS answer is really the one that gives you the most interesting scenes,
provides the meat for the most interesting and endearing sequels, and is
generally the Big Gun you pull out when your plot is slowing down.
Warning: it does force you, as the writer, to get a little creative, because it
multiplies the problems your hero has to solve. But hey. If you weren't at
least a little creative, you wouldn't be here.
("Trapped in the pit of starving, diseased wolverines, our hero struggles to get
free! He leaps up to climb to safety, seizing onto the trailing end of a vine!
But the vine gives way, sending our hero sprawling back down among the
slavering beasts! He stares at them in horror, and only THEN realizes that the
"vine" he seized was no such thing! He is now holding the tail of a thirty-foot
long Peruvian Acid Cobra--and the incredibly deadly serpent is NOT happy to
have been suddenly seized in the middle of its siesta. It opens its deadly jaws

and lunges for our hero's throat!" Mmmmm. Now that's good fallout.)
Granted, these examples are pulp fictiony, but they're meant to serve as broad
illustrations. In one way or another, every scene in every story where a
character is pursuing a goal will fall into one of those four outcomes.
And you've done it! You've written a good scene!
Simple, right? It is. But it isn't EASY. Try it out, and PRACTICE it.
Shockingly, you get better with practice. These days, I don't even really
consciously think in terms of goal/conflict/setback. Those things are a part of
my thinking process, and they've become transparent to me, now. I just think
about the scene, forming it with a solid skeleton from the get-go, and it allow
s
me to focus more active effort on other aspects of the writing--pace,
character, mood, setting, description. Occasionally, I'll even have time to
spare for making the language pretty. But if I didn't have that solid skeleton
there, that other stuff wouldn't much matter. You've GOT to have the craft
elements solid before you can start adding in artistry.
To recap:
POINT OF VIEW
GOAL
CONFLICT
SETBACK
And that's all there is to writing a really good scene.
Of course, books aren't 100 percent full of scenes. Characters have to stop to
bind up their diseased wounds, be diagnosed with Mad Wolverine Syndrome, to
worry about their impending doom and steal kisses from sympathetic
nurse-heroines. Where's the conflict in that? How does that fit into your scene
paradigm, Jim?
It doesn't, of course.
That's a sequel. We'll talk about those next.
*comment*
Why is your conflict always character based? i.e. man vs. man?
What about man vs. nature ...vs. society ...vs. himself?
Why are they not appropriate conflicts in the scene structure?
jimbutcher
Mainly because this is a series of articles intended for aspiring professional
fiction writers, and the examples you use are /really/ hard to write well and
make interesting.
Doesn't mean it can't be done. But it's quite a bit of uphill work to pit man
versus gravity and make it an interesting scene. Man vs. nature is a lot easier
when nature is a hungry bear or a rabid wolverine. Man vs. himself? That can be
really cool, or really cheesy, or just yawningly boring--but it really isn't
for the novice to be playing with.
Generally speaking, conflict is a lot easier to write when there are two active
wills involved. It gives you the most options for scene outcomes, for unexpected
twists in the writing, and has a tendency to draw the reader into the story
more successfully in an emotional sense.
That last is really important. I mean, it's sort of hard for a reader to boo and
hiss at a fire. A fire is just a fire. It isn't anything hateworthy. Neither
are the icy conditions on the surface of Hoth, in Empire Strikes Back--but a
big old shaggy snow monster, now, THAT is scary. Antagonists give you a
double-whammy on the reader, allowing you to apply emotional leverage to the
scenes, making the villain more scary and despicable as you make the
protagonist more desperate and brave.
I'll tell you this much: I've got going on 20 published novels under my belt,
and I hesitate strongly before I write man vs. nature or man vs. some vague and
faceless society, and ESPECIALLY before man vs. himself. Those things might
sound intelligent and intriguing, but most of the time when they're written,
they come out flat and boring, and that's something novice authors can't afford
if they want to get published in genre fiction.
If you're trying to write literary stuff, now, more power to you--but this
livejournal just isn't going to be of much use to you.
Re: Conflict vs. adversity
I just wanted to ask you to clarify conflict vs. adversity. Conflict in its
basic form is one force vs. one force. But I actually think you're books

really interest me because they're so many things going on at once.
For example, at the end of Full Moon I guess strictly speaking its Harry

vs. Giant werewolf, but its also Harry vs. Werewolf vs. Murphy vs. Marco
ne
vs. Wolf pack where everyone has their own motivations. When you're maki
ng
your outline or skeleton, Do you just break it down to the most importan
t
or biggest conflict and file the rest under "adversity," or do you break
it
down more specifically.
Ah-HAH! But that's where the slight of hand comes in. Yes, all those forces are
playing against one another, but if you look at the structure of the book on a
scene-by-scene basis, there's generally only two sides in operation AT ANY ONE
TIME.
It's like, oh, a kung fu movie: Yeah, there's like a million guys fighting
Jackie Chan, but what you see in the movie is Jackie versus whoever is right in
front of him at the moment. They come in and out, they get support sometimes,
sometimes there are multiple sides to the battle--but if you look at the actual
frames of the movie, there are going to be only two or three people actually
exchanging fisticuffs, while the rest of them are basically backdrop scenery.
Oh, they'll change dance partners along the way, and done right it makes for
really beautiful havoc. But in the creation phase of that kind of situation
(which is what we're talking about) we have to build from the specific point of
conflict occurring there and then.
SEQUELS
And no, we're not talking about book 2. We're talking about the original meaning
of the word sequel--the part that comes after, the next in the sequence. In the
scenes of a book, you're getting all your plot-pursuing and action-taking and
choice-making done.
Now you get to the hard part.
Getting your reader to give a flying frack about it.
To do that, you've got to win them over to your character's point of view.
You've got to establish some kind of basic emotional connection, an empathy for
your character. It needn't be deep seated agreement with everything the
character says and does--but they DO need to be able to UNDERSTAND what your
character is thinking and feeling, and to understand WHY they are doing whatever
(probably outrageous) thing you've got them doing.
That gets done in sequels.
Pay attention. This is another one of those simple, difficult things.
Sequels are what happens as an aftermath to a scene. They do several specific
things:
1) Allow a character to react emotionally to a scene's outcome.
2) Allow a character to review facts and work through the logical options of his

situation.
3) They allow a character to ponder probable outcomes to various choices.
4) They allow a character to make a CHOICE--IE, to set themselves a new GOAL for
the next SCENE.
Do you see how neat that is? Do you see how simply that works out?
1) Scene--Denied!
2) Sequel--Damn it! Think about it! That's so crazy it just might work!--New Goa
l!
3) Next Scene!
Repeat until end of book.
See what I mean? Simple. And you can write a book EXACTLY that way.
Scene-sequel-scene-sequel-scene-sequel all the way to your story climax.
In fact, if you are a newbie, I RECOMMEND you write your book that way. You can
always chop and cut the extra scenes (or sequels) out later, and you will have a
solid bedrock structure for getting your book done. We'll talk a little about
balancing them in a minute.
First, let's outline exactly what happens in a sequel--and WHY the basic outline
I'm gonna show you works.
Here's the basic structure to a sequel. It's another little worksheet you can
fill out when you're thinking about it ahead of time:
1) EMOTIONAL REACTION:
2) REVIEW, LOGIC, & REASON:
3) ANTICIPATION:
4) CHOICE:
And it MUST happen in THAT ORDER. Why you ask me? Because we're all human beings
, and THAT is the order in which we respond, psychologically, to events that
happen around us. Especially to big nasty events that bring out a lot of emotion
.
Most of you have probably been in a car accident of some kind, and that's the
model I'm gonna use. Even if it was only a little accident and no one got hurt,
everybody reacts in pretty much the same way. Imagine it with me, if you will.
You're driving and all of a sudden, SQUEEEEEERRRCRUUUNCH! Car accident. What
happens next?
You react emotionally, on instinct. Maybe you sit there stunned and startled for
a second. Maybe you feel a moment of horror (if it was your fault), or else
seething outrage (if it wasn't). Maybe you yell and curse, or throw up on
yourself, or break out into hysterical laughter. There are a whole lot of
viable human emotional responses to that kind of stimulus--but the first ones
on the scene are ALWAYS the most basic, instinctive, emotional reactions.
Next, your brain kicks in. (This takes a variable amount of time, depending on
the person.) Your brain tells you things and you pay attention to it. Maybe it
says "this accident was your fault, and if they catch you, you'll go to jail.
Run!" Maybe it says, "Check to see if anyone is hurt! Call the police! Exchange
insurance information!" Maybe it says, "Call so-and-so to help," or "Oh my God,
I'm bleeding," or "Please God let me have my proof of insurance in the glove
compartment." You think about things like how the accident happened, and what
you could have done to avoid it, what's necessary to accomplish immediately--
and then you get to think about where you're suddenly not going to be.
(During your review, logic, and reasoning process, it is very human to realize
or rediscover facts that bring on an echo of your emotional response, or which
otherwise inspire an entirely new line of emotional response. If you realize
that the guy who just slammed into your car ran a stop sign to do it,
for example, it might inspire a radically different set of emotions than a
moment before, when you thought neither one of you had a clear right of way.)
You can get as upset as you want, for as long as you want, but sooner or later
you're going to have gone over all the facts of what happened a minute ago, and
you'll start thinking about what happens NEXT. You anticipate the immediate
future, based upon what you know and what your current options are. Maybe
you've got a buddy who can pick you up and get you to work, and you'll only be
a few minutes late. Or maybe you don't, and you've just lost your job. Maybe
you're going to have to find a phone to call an ambulance because someone is
hurt. There are a lot of things that could be pretty obviously a part of your
immediate future, based on your current circumstances.
And once those things have rolled through your mind, you've got to decide what
you're doing next. Maybe you're just trading insurance information and getting
back on the road. Maybe you're hiding the body. The point is, you've got a
choice to make, and that choice is going to determine your next action.
Voila.
You've just had a sequel, a broad, archetypical human reaction to a sudden
situation that goes radically out of your control.
YOUR CHARACTERS DO THE SAME THING.
At the conclusion of a scene, they've just had something go out of THEIR
control. You know how I know this? Because you didn't answer YES to your scene
question. Something went wrong, because you are a smart writer, and that's how
you did the scene. Now your characters go through the same set of reactions:
1) An immediate emotional response.
2) A review of what happened, applying logic and reason to the events and why
they turned out that way, and of what options are open to them.
3) Anticipation of what might follow the pursuit of those options.
(Highly important, this one. Never underestimate the effects of anticipation on
a reader.)
4) Your character makes up his mind and decides what to do next. IE, he makes a
CHOICE.
Now, it's possible to SKIP some of these steps, or to abbreviate some of them so
severely that you all but skip them. But you CAN'T CHANGE THE ORDER.
Emotion, Reason, Anticipation, Choice. That reaction is typical to people,
regardless of their sex, age, or background. It's psychologically hardwired into
us--so take advantage of it. By having your character react in this very
typically human way, you establish an immediate sense of empathy with the
reader. If you do it right, you get the reader nodding along with that
character going "Damn right, that's what I'd do." Or better yet, you get them
opening their mouth in horror as they read, seeing the character's thought
process, hating every step of where it's going while it remains undeniably
understandable and genuine to the way people behave.
Sequels, frankly, are what really make or break books. How you choose to show
your reader your character's reactions determines everything about the reader's
response to the events of the story.
Worse, sequels are very fluid, very flexible things to apply. You can do all
kinds of tricks with them. Some sequels are all internal monologue. Some are
conversations carried out with a character's best friend
(or his all-in-black-id). Sometimes a sequel LOOKS like a scene, in the
trappings anyway, but what's actually important is the character's internal
reaction.
(Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true. *I* am your father.
*NOOOOOO*. Yeah, that lightsabre fight looks like a scene, but at that point it
isn't. It's a sequel.)
This is where, frankly, I think writers have the greatest fluidity, the most
chance to apply their creative talents--which means, of course, we also have the
best chance of screwing things up here. You can approach sequels from an almost
unlimited number of directions. There are no limits to how you can lay out a
sequel, except for your own imagination. Just remember:
1) EMOTION
2) REASON
3) ANTICIPATION
4) CHOICE
Get those in there, in the right order, and you'll be fine.
Let's talk, for a moment, about how you want to weight the various parts of the
sequel, based upon your genre, what you want to accomplish, etc. The sequel is
where you can put a spin on almost any story to make it more suited to a given
genre. Each of the genres has its own bias towards a given part of a sequel.
Romance, for example, is VERY heavy on Emotion and only slightly less on
Anticipation. Mystery and SF lean very heavily on the Reason portion of the
sequel. Action novels go light on everything but Choice, and give you just
enough sequel to get you through to the next scene. Horror loves to linger on
Anticipation. Think about it for a while,and you'll start to see what I mean.
So, if you're writing a romance, you'll want to place extra emphasis on your
character's Emotional reaction and on his Anticipation of what could come next.
Mystery writers had better be able to produce clear lines of logic in the
Reasoning portion of their character's reaction. If you need the reader to be
cozy with a character, put extra emphasis on that character's sequels. If it
isn't necessary for another character, go light on the sequels, or skip them
entirely.
If that wasn't enough, Sequel-to-Scene ratio is the single largest factor for
controlling pace. Sequels have a unanimous tendancy to slow the pace of your
story, while scenes have the opposite effect. If you've ever read a book and
felt like it blurred by too fast and never seemed to touch on anything long
enough, go back and look at it. You WILL find that the book's scenes took up a
great deal more space than its sequels. If you've read a book that you thought
was too slow, too cerebral, or that wandered back and forth while droning on and
on, go back and look at it. You WILL find that sequels took up a hell of a lot
more page space than scenes.
It's a balancing act, and how you stack up scene-to-sequel is going to depend on
several factors, including your genre and your audience. Romance, for example,
is really nothing BUT sequels with occasional scenes to make them stick
together. Romance wallows in sequels, because that's what it's ABOUT--emotions,
feelings.
If you write an action book, those emotional passages--not so much. You'll want
to spend more time and effort on the scenes, and make sure that the sequels
don't start to outweigh them. If you're writing for a more cerebral, mature
audience, they have a much higher desire/tolerance for sequels than if you write
for, for example, young adults. The older audience might well be more
interested in the thought and emotion behind the plot, while the younger
audience might want you to stop moaning and dithering and get straight to the
point. You control that pace by balancing sequels with scenes.
Sequels also determine what I've always called the "warmth" of your novel. When
people talk about a "warm viewpoint" what they really mean is that you're
throwing in a lot of emotional reaction. Oftentimes, warm viewpoint novels
(like the Dresden Files) toss in micro-sequels as a part of scenes. Any time
you see Harry talking to someone, wanting to tear his hair out, forcing himself
to control his temper and get back to the task at hand, you've just ridden
through a micro-sequel with him.
"Cool" viewpoint novels, like the more classic hardboiled PI novel, downplay
their protagonist's Emotional reactions--often skipping them entirely during a
scene, and showing them only indirectly during sequels. They tend to emphasize
the Reason side of things.
My God, there are so many things you can do with this stuff. Brainy, intelligent
characters go heavy on reason--and then you cheat by going light on
Anticipation, and keeping his Choice half-veiled from the reader, so that when
he actually acts in the next scene he looks a lot smarter and more resourceful
than he might have if you went step by step through the whole thing.
("Of course! He animated the T-Rex! Brilliant!") Characters who are balancing
their loyalties up to some critical moment can get the whole sequel laid out,
extra heavy on Anticipation, and then you deny the reader any info on the
Choice until they're actually in action.
Get it? SEQUELS ARE WHERE YOU APPLY THE COLOR TO YOUR STORY. It's the best point
at which to manipulate your readers' emotions. I've been working within this
craft structure for ten years, and I feel like I'm only barely beginning to get
a handle on it. Seriously. You've got to give this some thought.
Knowledge of how sequels effect your book's impact on the reader is damned handy
in rewrites, too. If a character is coming off too flighty, all you have to do
is add in a bit more Reason to their sequels. Character too dry and boring?
Add in more Emotion to /his/ sequels. Someone comments that your character's
motivations aren't clear? Go give their sequels a tune-up, and make sure his
Emotion-Reason-Anticipation-Choice is in the correct order and consistent.
When you do it right, the reader knows exactly what is going through your
character's head, and why. The /reader/ starts being the one anticipating along
with your character, and when that happens, you pwn them. It creates forward
momentum for the next scene, and it helps the reader /want/ to read it.
This basic structure for sequels is pretty much the ENTIRE secret of my success.
I do it like this in every freaking book I write. I know it works because check
it out. People like my books. They like them for some of the special effects,
sure, and for some of the story ideas sometimes--but mostly it's because they
find themselves caring about what happens to the characters, and that happens
in sequels.
People don't love Harry for kicking down the monster's front door. They love him
because he's terrified out of his mind, he knows he's putting himself in danger
by doing it, he's probably letting himself in for a world of hurt even if he is
successful, but he chooses to do it anyway.
Emotion. Reason. Anticipation. Choice.
Special effects and swashbuckling are just the light show.
The heart of your character--and your reader--is in the sequel.
*comment*
Yet another helpful, fun and easy to understand crafty post.
I was just wondering if this structure (as easy and more or less nature-given
based on instincts it is) works different based on the viewpoint you write in.
I mean, with a novel written in first person like the Dresden Files you have a
of thoughts and emotions right there. I know there are chapters basically
taking a step back and recapturing what had just happened and what will happen
next, but at a lot of times we know what Harry's thinking/feeling right there.
Maybe I'm just not as careful a reader as I should but... long story short, does
it make a difference to you whether you write first or third person?
jim butcher:
Not in general terms. That format still works--it just means that you have to
adjust your approach based on your particular writing style. It's certainly
possible to write as warm or as cool as you like in third person, though.
Look at Lois Bujold's writing--always third person, gorgeously full of
personality and character, very warm.
But mechanics-wise, nah. I use the same format for Dresden (1st person) and
Furies (3rd person) alike. Third person tends to have me use more
"stage action" to convey some things, but that's just a stylistic choice. It's
perfectly possible to write internal monologue or whatever, too.
Jim
Climaxes
********
Caveat, on this article as on all the others: This is not the whole sum of
wisdom on writing craft, forever and ever amen. This is intended to be a place
for aspiring writers to /start/, a little bit of foundation with which you can
begin to develop your own style. If you work with this stuff here, it can be an
immense aid to you in developing your skills to a professional level. I know
it's true because this is exactly the stuff that I learned, and it worked out
all right for me. It's a pretty good beginning.
Right then!
I've talked a little about beginnings and middles. What's left? Oh, right,right.
Here we go.
CLIMAXES!
Stories are like sex: the buildup and the ride can be fantastic, but if there
isn't a climax before the end, you might come away from the experience feeling a
little frustrated.
So, let's talk about a story climax. What is a climax? Why is is important? How
do you build a good one? And will the reader still respect you in the morning?
WHAT IS A CLIMAX?
*****************
A story climax is, in structure terms the ANSWER to the STORY QUESTION that we
talked about earlier.
There, see how tidy that is? Simple! Again, not EASY, but simple!
For example, the overall Story Question of Lord of the Rings:
*************
When Frodo Baggins inherits the Ring of Power from his Uncle Bilbo, HE SETS OUT
TO DESTROY IT before its evil can wreak havoc upon Middle Earth. BUT WILL HE
SUCCEED when the Dark Lord Sauron and every scary evil thing on the planet set
forth to take the ring and use it to turn the entire world into the bad parts of
New Jersey?
*************
And the story climax of the Lord of the Rings:
******
Yep.
******
See? ANYBODY could have written Lord of the Rings!
Well. Okay. Maybe it's not THAT easy. But it is SIMPLE to write a good story
climax when you bear in mind that ultimately, the story climax is, on its most
basic level, the answer to a question. Will the Rebels overthrow the Empire?
Will the hero win the heart of the girl he loves? THAT is where you begin.
It is therefore kind of important that, before you begin writing said story
climax, that you know the answer to that question.
WHY IS A STORY CLIMAX IMPORTANT?
********************************
Catharsis.
As I understand it, catharsis is some sort of toxin which humanity has never
been able to remove from paperback book ink. It builds up in human fingers as
they keep flipping pages, and if they get all the way to the end of the story
and DON'T get a sufficiently satisfying climax, the catharsis toxins can drive
them into a psychotic state, and bad things happen. The surgeon general has
stated that catharsis is--
Oh. Oh, hang on. I just Googled it.
Huh.
Apparently, catharsis is actually only a regional threat. I guess it's only in
the ink in Greece and around the Aegean... oh. Oh. It isn't a toxin and . . . I
thought my wife was being /serious/ about that. I mean, she never smiled
or /anything/.
Gosh, is my face red.
(Thank you folks, I'll be here all week.)
Remember earlier, how we talked about ways to hook your readers and get them
emotionally involved in the story? Well, if we've done that right, then when you

reach story's end, they are INVESTED in its outcome. They want to SEE what
happens, preferably as vividly as they possibly can. By the time you've reached
the end of a story, a good writer has got their readers on the edge of their
seats, at 3:30 in the morning, and the pages are tearing every time they turn
because the reader is so excited.
You've made an implicit promise by getting your reader so bound up in the story.
You've /got/ to deliver on it, or that reader is going to freaking /hate/ you
for doing that to them. They are gonna go away from that ride all hot and
bothered and frustrated as hell. That's what catharsis is: the release of all
=that tension and sympathetic emotion that the reader has built up because of
the writer's skill at weaving the story. Done right, your readers will cheer
and cry and laugh out loud and dance around their living room.
EVERYTHING YOU DID IN YOUR BOOK LEADS UP TO THIS. Deliver on the climax or die
as a working writer. Simple as that.
HOW DO YOU BUILD A CLIMAX?
**************************
The same way you do everything else. You start at its beginning. A climax
officially begins where the Great Swampy Middle ends. To use an overly-simple
metaphor, the Beginning of your story dumps the dominoes of your story out of
your box onto the table. The Great Swampy Middle sets all the dominoes up into a
neat pattern.
And the climax knocks them down.
Guess which is the most fun. :) For the writer, as well as for the reader.
There's nothing quite as nice as flicking over that first metaphorical domino
after several months worth of setting them up, let me tell you. :)
The Great Swampy Middle ends at the first of the story events that starts the
dominos to toppling. In Dead Beat, for example, when Harry and Butters find the
little keychain drive inside Bony Tony with the GPS coordinates in it, it sets
off a chain of reactions that lead Dresden forward to the final confrontation.
That little drive is the last domino to get set up and the first one to topple,
and start the cascade.
The actual climax itself, the absolutely peak of it, though, is what I generally
refer to as the Showdown or the Throwdown or the Beatdown, depending on my mood
and testosterone levels at the moment. The most dramatic point is the actual
confrontation between your protagonist and antagonist, where they are
directly contending with one another, and where both of them know that the
story question is about to be answered.
For THAT confrontation, there several structural components that you can use to
organize it that will be really helpful, much like the components used in a
Sequel, like we talked about before:
ISOLATION
CONFRONTATION
DARK MOMENT
CHOICE
DRAMATIC REVERSAL
RESOLUTION
ISOLATION: At the end of the day, your protagonist stands alone. That's why that
character is the protagonist. Oh sure, there can be other people around, but
the one who really COUNTS is your protagonist. The more alone he is, the higher
the tension levels are going to be, and the more satisfying the climax is going
to be for the reader. Ellen Ripley lands on LV-426 with a whole squad of
marines and various others. After the first confrontation with the Aliens,
only eight others are left. During the second confrontation, THOSE companions
are whittled away, one by one, until Ripley is left to enter the lair of the
alien queen--a nuclear reactor about to blow up, no less--ENTIRELY alone.
Now THAT is tension and isolation.
CONFRONTATION: Your lone protagonist, determined to follow things through to the
end, confronts the antagonist. Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya.
You killed my father. Prepare to die.
DARK MOMENT: The confrontation Does Not Go Well. The odds are stacked against
your protagonist, or the situation swings out of his control, or he just plain
gets outclassed. Everything looks like it is in genuine jeopardy of going to
hell. It looks certain that the answer to the story question is going to be one
that the reader is NOT going to like. In the recent Narnia movie, that moment
was at the death of Aslan. The Great Lion is gone, the White Witch has made
fashion accessories out of his mane, the bad,guys have them outnumbered and
outgunned, and there's just no way to win the fight that's coming the next day
--but the folk of Narnia need Peter to lead them. Which brings us directly to:
CHOICE: It always comes back to choice. The climax of the story is the acid
test, the crucible, where the rubber meets the road and where the schisse hits
the fan. Your protagonist has to CHOOSE whether or not to stay true to his
purpose or to let himself be swayed by fear, by temptation, by weariness, or
by anything else. In that Dark Moment, he has to make the call that ultimately
reveals who your protagonist really is, deep down. And the choice has GOT to be
a BAD one. If it's an easy choice, there isn't any drama to it--no tension,
no release for the reader.
"Use the Force, Luke," urges ghost-Kenobi's voice. "Let go, Luke!" Luke visibly
makes a choice, turning off his targeting computer, putting his faith in the
Force to make the shot that the whole galaxy is literally riding on, the way a
Jedi should. He's alone, with the baddest guy in the movie hot on his tail, and
even his friends are telling him he's nuts. "His computer's off. Luke, you've
switched off your targeting computer! What's wrong?" "Nothing!"
says Luke. "I'm all right!" Not ONLY is he about to get blown out of the air by
Vader, but he might miss the shot, too. Luke is about to do something INSANE.
He's about to sacrifice his life to take a literal shot in the dark.
Which segues right into...
DRAMATIC REVERSAL: The intrinsic nature of the story or of the protagonist's
character influences or causes the events of the confrontation to be changed in
an unexpected way, causing an outcome that is in harmony with the principles of
poetic justice. Luke is an idealistic young kid, brave to a fault, dedicated to
a fault, and because of that he has made a choice that is Going To Ruin
Everything. But that very idealism and courage have also touched the heart of a
jaded smuggler, who, instead of running to protect his own life, has returned to
throw in his lot with the rebels, and who has entered the battle at the
absolutely critical moment of truth.
(A quick word on Choice and Reversal. Not all heroes MAKE the self-sacrificial
choice. Sometimes, the hero falters and makes the awful choice, to save his own
skin or indulge his own darker nature. In that situation, the reversal is still
there doing exactly the same thing--only this time, the justice that gets handed
out is BAD for the protagonist. There's a name for that kind of story: tragedy.
See King Lear. See also Hamlet, Othello, etc, etc, etc.
This outline works for both tragic and happy/heroic endings.
Those aren't the only ways to end stories, by any means. But they are popular
ways to end stories, and they are fairly simple ways to end stories, and this
article is aimed at beginners and aspiring writers. Trust me on this one.
If you're new, just go for a happy ending or a tragic ending. Work on
bittersweet open-ended thought provoking montage endings after you've
practiced on some of the simpler ones.
And, to be frank, if you're wanting to write professionally, work your happy
=ending skills. Real life is full of the other kind. There probably are some,
but I can't think of many full-time tragedy writers.)
Finally, we get to...
RESOLUTION: Time to hand out the medals, kiss the girl, go to the wedding, put
the star on the Christmas tree, raise the curtain on the rock concert, attend
the funeral, or otherwise demonstrate that with the conclusion of the story,
some kind of balance has been restored. The catharsis is complete, the tension
eased, and the reader can catch their breath now.
My advice to you on resolutions: Keep it short. Once you've gotten through the
Showdown, write as sparingly as possible to get to the end, and don't draw
anything out any more than you absolutely must. You've already kept your poor
reader up until 3:30, your heartless bastard. Let them get some sleep before
they have to rush off to their shift in two hours!
Then you get to type the most satisfying words in any book you'll ever write:
T H E
E N D
And there you have it! Story climaxes!
Was it good for you? :)
*comment*
Interestingly enough, this same concept works very well in RPG format. I should
know, I've been running a Campaign set in the Dresden Universe (with some minor
alterations), using the Mage system from white wolf, and have essentially
followed that formula for every session.
My players tell me that it's the best game they've every played in, and from the
way they show up each week without fail and demand we go on longer than the
alotted time, I believe them.
I have a question though, what if you have multiple climaxes? Kinda like
foreplay that lead up to the big one at the end? Any suggestions how to
interweave multiple climaxes such as character confrontation etc. through out
the story with out pissing off your readers?
Reply
jimbutcher
April 21 2008, 02:06:30 UTC
link
Re: Taking Notes!
Okay, I can give you some general guidelines (which I personally use) but this
gets into a matter of personal taste and style really quick.
I generally use multiple climaxes, myself--the whole concept of the Big Middle
is, in essence, a climax scene. The trick is to make sure that your /final/
kaboom is the biggest one of the book.
Basically, you've got to escalate the tension to your finale. If you've got
multiple storylines running, you've got to scale them up to the climax, as
opposed to having the climax, and then having a bunch of aftershocks which don't
give the reader nearly the same sense of catharsis and emotional satisfaction.
Escalation generally boils down to increasing the conflict in scale, or else in
reducing the resources of your hero (which is basically the same thing
backwards).
When you're talking about multiple storylines, the question gets a lot more
complicated, though. Romance, for example, typically has both an internal
conflict (which emotionally threatens the relationship between the principals)
and an external conflict, which presents a more material threat to the hero and
heroine. Which order you deal with them in depends on what you're writing.
In a romance, the external conflict is generally a secondary storyline to the
emotional issues of the hero and heroine--and so in general you can be pretty
secure in running the external storyline's climax first, and the more vital
emotional storyline's climax as your final kabang.
The *best* stories do it all at the same time, intertwining all the plot
elements into the final eruption. But it's *hard* to set up. Lois Bujold's
Vorkosigan books are brilliant at that kind of balance, as are
"The Curse of Chalion" and especially "Paladin of Souls."
Anyway, in general: if you can't schedule them all to happen together,
try to line them up as a series of increasing peaks, with the priority given to
various storylines based upon your genre (aka, target audience). Trust your
instincts when it comes to the dramatic finale, and if possible, give it to
someone whose judgment you gauge their reaction and see if you're hitting them
the way you want to.
Putting It All Together
How to Get Your Story Started
or
Organizing This Frickin' Mess
by Jim Butcher
**************************
So you've got a great idea for a story. You've got some good characters, some
good plot, maybe a great scene or two in mind. You're ready to plunge in!
If only you could figure out WHERE to plunge in.
Be wise and listen to me, young padawan writer: get a few things organized
first. It'll save you enormous headaches in the long run. I'm going to share
what I do before I start a novel with you guys. Hopefully, that'll give you
one idea of how to lay your groundwork.
This isn't the only way to do it, God knows. This isn't meant to be a "Thou
Shalt Do This" kind of article. But this is how *I* do it, and it seems to
work out most of the time.
****************
Page One--The Basics
STORY QUESTION
The first thing you need is your STORY QUESTION. See the article earlier in
this journal. Get your story question and write it down.
PROTAGONIST
I haven't done a full article on them yet, but I *have* done an article on
characters. Write down your protagonist, his tags and traits, and how you
intend to introduce him.
ANTAGONIST
Ditto, but for the main opposition. He's a character too, so all the same
rules apply.
Page Two--Story Arc(h) or PLOT
I'm never sure how to spell that.
Get a BIG piece of paper. Draw a big curving arch on it. At the LEFT side of
the arch, write a brief phrase about the opening scene. At the RIGHT side,
write a brief phrase describing the climax of the book. That's your pot of
gold at the end of the rainbow.
At the TOP of the arch, write down your BIG MIDDLE, or whatever event it is
that starts the dominoes to falling.
Then make a bunch of tick marks along the way and fill in any scenes that you
have in mind that you know you want to do. Once you've done that, add in some
more tick marks in between, and add in phrases describing scenes that lead
your character from one established tick mark to the next, in a logical
fashion.
Pages Three to Whatever--SUBPLOTS
Do Story Arches for all of your subplots. Make sure you know where they
begin, end, and what event causes them to be resolved.
MORE PAGES--CHARACTER PROFILES
You need to profile EVERY significant character on his own sheet, just like
you did your Protagonist and Antagonist. I like to go through creating
character profiles as I create the story arches, creating each one as needed
for the story, or attaching established characters to the main arch or to
subplots.
*******************
OUTLINE SCENES AND SEQUELS
RIGHT THEN. Now you've got a good skeleton. In fact, you've already created
a number of Scenes and Sequels without even knowing it.
Each of your tick marks and phrases should describe either a story event (a
SCENE) or a logical point that leads you to the next story event (a SEQUEL).
Starting from the beginning, outline your first SCENE on its own page, as
described in the article on SCENES. Then outline the SEQUEL that follows.
(A lot of writers put these on index cards and lay them out in a line in order
to work out which events go where. That works, but it takes up a LOT of floor
space, and if you have dogs or children, they tend to break your plot.)
Repeat until CLIMAX.
********************
CLIMAX
Sketch out the CLIMAX, as described in the article on CLIMAXES.
********************
Voila.
You now have a packet of pages that gives you a solid foundation to begin
from, as well as handy reference material to check when you forget what color
your character's eyes are in chapter 20. You've created signposts to help
guide you along the way, to boot.
Yeah, it really is that simple. But it damned sure ain't easy. Still, you've
got a good point to begin, and a path laid out for you to guide the way.
As you continue writing books, the process is going to change to suit you--
that's what it's supposed to do. You'll eventually come to understand your
strengths and weaknesses, and how to plan ahead for problems you've run into
before. But for now, that's not a bad way to get going.
So write already. :)
comment
Right and Left Brain
I'm a-gonna guess that if the characters are well-written, as Butcher's tend to
be, then deviation is a given. It's been my experience that if I can drive the
plot anywhere I want it to go with the characters I have developed, then I
probably haven't developed very tight characters, since there should be things
they simply won't allow me, as the writer, to do with them. So, arcs
notwithstanding, writing is a lot like driving with a guy at the wheel...he may
know where he wants to go, but how he gets there may defy all logic, and almost
certainly will NOT include a stop to ask for directions...
Re: Right and Left Brain
See, I have the exact opposite attitude: I am not my characters' bitch. :)
They work for me. They have to get with the program. If they start looking like
they might not WANT to get with the program, then I occasionally have to give
them a really good /reason/ to get with the program, but at the end of the
manuscript, they're going to do their jobs.
Or, more to the point, since I'm writing them all and they're all more or less
me playing an imaginary sock puppet, and not separate living beings in my
imagination, they tend to be cooperative.
(I don't refer to my genitals as a separate entity or give them their own name,
either, like a lot of guys do. Or blame them for my actions.)
Have you ever heard the saying "90 percent of life is about how you react to
what happens?" It works the same way for characters. Sufficient thought and
imagination can get just about any character to do just about anything,
IF YOU PROVIDE BELIEVABLE MOTIVATION.
I am a professional writer. Plots and characters do NOT go out of my control.
For me (and not necessarily for anyone else) that would just be a really lame
attempt to place blame upon an imaginary person instead of putting it where, oh
my God, it UNARGUABLY belongs. On me. I mean, my head is where EVERYTHING is
happening. It's LAUGHABLE to try to place blame elsewhere.
For me, I look at "writer's block" in exactly the same fashion. Everything in a
book happens in my head--and then I write it down. If there's some reason that
I'm not getting work done, it has nothing to do with any mysterious obstacle to
my imagination. It has to do with the fact that I'm NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH. I
decide when to use my brain. I decide when to make sure I have a good work
environment.
I don't believe in writer's block. I think that sometimes, I just would really,
really rather be playing City of Heroes than doing something hard like working.
I don't believe that my characters can hijack my book. Sometimes, it just seems
like it would really suck to go back and do a lot of extra work to get the story
back on track.
But being a professional writer means, well, a LOT of WORK. If you don't like
that idea, don't plan on making a living this way. I have literally deleted
forty percent of a manuscript, maybe two months of work, when I realized that an
innocuous character decision in, oh, chapter 3 or so had skewed the entire
story off track, and had to be realigned. It was a pain in the ass, but I did
it because that's the story I was writing.
Which is not to say that nothing ever surprises me when I'm working. Characters
meant as simple cameo appearances with a little color have come off the page
vibrantly enough to win themselves full-time jobs in the series. A lot of the
humor and much of the romance works that way, too. I don't specifically plot for
most of that. But I also don't let it derail my story. Not every writer works
that way. That's cool. But I work that way.
Being a professional dancer means being in control of your body. Being a
professional musician means being in control of your instrument.
Being a professional writer means being in control of your story.
Nuff said.
Short Stories
How does this apply to short stories? I can see that a lot would be the same,
but how would they differ, for say, a 6000 word story or something thereabouts?
Is there anything you would do differently?
Re: Short Stories
Short stories are the same thing as novels. Just, you know, shorter. Both of 'em
are stories. The main difference is that in a short story, there's just no room
for error.
I hate the damned things. It's like trying to box in a friggin' phone booth.
The main differences:
Fewer characters--there's just no time for them. You have to use abbreviated
versions of everything.
Scenes and sequels--everything depends upon your style, but for me personally,
can't get more than 3 or 4 scenes and /maybe/ one sequel into a short story
without it becoming obscenely long.
Climax--the whole climax structure doesn't get changed, but you can sometimes
skip an element or two of a basic climax build without it hurting you in a
short story.
*Descriptions* are a LOT shorter. That's the main thing. If you're setting a
scene or a mood, or describing a character, you've got to get the job done in a
sentence, max.
Dialog has to be shorter, too. Prune it mercilessly. Skip things like
introductions unless they're part of your story for some reason.
But basically, it's no different from a novel. It just takes a LOT more work for
the space involved. A short story of 20 pages or so (about 5k words) takes me
maybe three days to write. But when I'm working on a novel, I can rip out 5k
words per *day* without too much trouble.
Frankly, I'm still not very good at short pieces. :) I'm getting more practice,
but damn. They're hard.
lright, thats aswome but...
ok. i get it. and ive started to write up my story that i got going. but
something that one of my proof readers said to me caught my attention, and she
was write. what ive been writing is extremely dense. how do you fluff out the
pages so your readers don't have to take a break every five pages or so?
p.s. love the alera codex. anticipating and dreading the ending. :)
Re: alright, thats aswome but...
Make sure you vary the length of your paragraphs, so they don't all look like
big bricks. Work in more dialogue that sounds like real life dialogue (which
generally consists of sentences that average five words or less).
If you're running into big blocks of description or exposition and its boring
the crap out of your reader, you've got to find other ways to get them involved
in that while something interesting is going on. Also, slash out every bit of
exposition and description that you don't absolutely need.
(No, I don't think everyone should be a minimalist, but this is an aspiring
writer asking a question, so I'm giving the advice that will do the aspirants
the most good, generally speaking.)
The Most Important Thing an Aspiring Author Needs to Know
---------------------------------------------------------
I've been giving a lot of advice on technique in this journal, an introduction
to the craft and science aspects of writing a solid story. Now I'm going to
briefly venture off into new territory. I thought I'd start by telling you the
most important thing you need to know if you want to be a professional author:
TANFL.
There Ain't No Free Lunch.
Nothing worth doing is easy. Nothing worth having comes free. That's as true in
ife as it is in your prospective writing career, but I think it's important
enough that it needs to be said.
Writing is a LOT of work. Breaking into the industry is a torment worthy of the
fifth or sixth circle of Hell. Face that. Expect it. Deal with it. It's going to
be difficult.
It's difficult from the get go: you've got to work your tail off and give
yourself carpal tunnel just to make it to the front of the rope-line outside
Club Author. There's no guarantee that you'll ever get in.
There probably aren't going to be very many people who are actively supporting
your efforts. You'll probably have more than one person say or do something that
crushes your heart like an empty Coke can. You'll probably, at some point, want
to quit rather than keep facing that uncertainty
In fact, the vast majority of aspiring authors (somewhere over 99 percent)
self-terminate their dream. They quit. Think about this for a minute, because it
's important:
THEY KILL THEIR OWN DREAM.
And a lot of you who read this are going to do it too. Doesn't mean you're a bad
person. It's just human nature. It takes a lot of motivation to make yourself
keep going when it feels like no one wants to read your stuff, no one will ever
want to read your stuff, and you've wasted your time creating all this stuff.
That feeling of hopelessness is part of the process. Practically everyone gets
it at one time or another. Most can't handle it.
But here's the secret:
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD WHO CAN KILL YOUR DREAM. *NO ONE* can make you
quit. *NO ONE* can take your dream away.
No one but you.
If you want it, you have to get it. You. An author can't help you. An editor
can't help you. An agent can't help you. If you want to climb that hill, the
only way to do it is to make yourself do it, one foot in front of another, one
word after another. It will probably be the greatest challenge most of you have
ever faced.
And here's the kicker: THAT IS A VERY GOOD THING.
If you stay the course and break in, you are going to acquire a ton of a
bsolutely necessary skills. You have to learn to motivate yourself to write even
when you don't feel like it: Discipline. You're going to have to learn the
ropes of the business, and how to work with an editor: Professionalism. You're
going to face what might be years of adversity, facing a monumentally difficult
task and you're going to overcome it: Confidence. You're going to do it with
very little active support, and when you look back at this time in the future,
you're going to know that it was something YOU did all by yourself: Strength.
TANFL, guys.
Breaking into the business is a daunting challenge. But you aren't going to BEAT
that challenge. You're going to transcend it. The very nature of the adversity
is going to give you the strength and skill you need to overcome and succeed.
You want in? Here's what you do:
1) Make up your mind that you are going to protect your own dream. If you've got
its back, your dream is invincible.
2) Cultivate patience. Prepare for the long haul. Building your skills to a
level can take years. So can building your professional character.
3) Put your Butt In the Chair and start writing. Period. No excuses. There is no
substitute for BIC time. It's part of the price you pay.
4) When you get done with a word, write another word.
5) Repeat steps 4 and 5 until your dream comes true.
Secret number 2-- THE PAIN IS WORTH IT. If it had taken me TWENTY years instead
of nine, IT STILL WOULD BE WORTH IT.
Cause here's what you get: ding.
When it's all done and you're holding your first novel in your hand, you're
going to look back at your breaking-in period and wonder what all the drama was
about. All the things that wrenched you inside out during the torment will
suddenly seem small and unimportant. Know why? Because much like Scott Pilgrim,
you have leveled up. Ding.
You're going to look back at that time with pride, having overcome seemingly
impossible odds against succeeding. You're going to look at upcoming challenges
as if they were a bottle of champagne to be savored and then gleefully smashed.
The true reward of breaking into the industry against all the odds isn't money.
It isn't fame. It it isn't respect.
It's you.
It's confidence. It's satisfaction. It's well-deserved pride. Suddenly, the
other challenges in your life are going to dwindle as well, because you know
you'll be able to handle them.
TANFL.
Ding, baby. Ding.
Go write.