(NaNoWriMo Day 5): 5th Key Scene: The Lock-In

People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it. —Harlan Ellison

Today I’m going to talk about the Lock-In. Before I say more about this scene, though, I’d like to talk about something else.

A Clarification: What I Mean by “Key Scene”

What follows is my take on this, you might not agree with me and that’s fine. That’s great! How boring would it be if we all agreed?

I’ve been saying that the key scenes I’ve been blogging about are scenes that any narrative story will have either onstage or offstage.[3] Let me clarify what I mean by this.

Sometimes people write to me and say, “Karen, you’re wrong! One of my favorite authors, Jane Doe, has written a best selling novel and she’s never even heard of a story climax!”

Folks have been creating stories for millennia but many of the terms, the words, we use to describe elements of these stories are of recent invention. That’s okay. Things don’t come labeled with names. The Grand Canyon could have been called something else!

Just because a writer doesn’t know the term “story climax” doesn’t mean the stories they’ve written are devoid of a climax. If the book is selling well, I guarantee you it’s there!

Every well-formed narrative story has a climax, a moment, where the final conflict, the final confrontation, between the protagonist and the antagonistic force is played out and only one of them leaves victorious (or they could both lose). Maybe this scene isn’t written down on the page, maybe it is one of those stories I hate where the climax is gestured to offstage. But all narrative stories have one.

Similarly, at some point in any narrative story there will be a place where the protagonist is locked into her quest. She’s committed. There’s no going back.

This is true of all the narrative works I’ve read or watched. That said, there are non-narrative, non-representational works I’ve read/viewed that this isn’t true of. But what I’m talking about here are the kind of stories that have been told around campfires for millennia, the kind of stories children beg their parents to tell them before bed: stories told with the intention of entertaining an audience.

Plot Point One: The Lock-In: Breaking It Down

The idea of a plot point was introduced by Syd Field in his eminently readable book, Screenplay. It’s the idea of a significant event, a complication, that spins the action of the story around in a radically different direction.

According to Field there are only two plot points, one at the end of Act One (The Lock-In) and another at the end of Act Two (The All Hope is Lost Point[2]). Other folks like working with a system in which there are four plot points, four scenes that spin the action of the novel in a different direction: the Lock-In, the Midpoint Crisis, the All Hope is Lost point and the Climax. That’s fine too!

What is it?

This complication has the effect of locking the protagonist into her quest.

One of my favorite examples of a lock-in occurs in the Matrix when Morpheus gives Neo a choice: take the red pill and learn the truth he has been searching for all his life, the truth about the Matrix, or take the blue pill and continue life as before. Whichever choice Neo makes, there’s no going back.

In Star Wars IV: A New Hope when Luke finds his aunt and uncle dead, murdered by storm troopers, he understands there’s no going back. His ordinary world is gone.

Key points: 

• The Lock-In should be be a clear point of no return. That said, sometimes this transition is figurative. Sometimes one character says to another, “If you do this, there’s no going back.” Perhaps that is a bit on the nose, but it does the job.
• There needs be be a complication, a twist. The action of this scene needs to push the main plot in a different direction.

Where is it?

The Lock-In occurs at the end of Act One. In practice I’ve found that it can come anywhere from 25% to 30% of the way through a story.[4]

How is the Lock-In connected to the protagonist’s desires?

The protagonist's desires—internal and external—set the protagonist's goal. It is that goal that the protagonist is now committed to achieving.

Stepping Through an Example

I’m going to use Star Wars IV: A New Hope as my example.

Is this a point of no return? Yes. Luke’s aunt and uncle are dead. The farm has been destroyed. Luke cannot go back to his old life.

Is there a complication, a twist? Yes, and for the same reason. Because Luke’s aunt and uncle are dead his entire world has changed, his life has just gained a new direction. Luke doesn't even think about the academy anymore, his goal now is to aid the resistance.

How The Lock-In Is Implemented in Three Genres: Action, Romance & Mystery

I’ve found that during the Lock-In, regardless of genre, there is often some banter, a moment of bonding, between the protagonist and one of her companions (most likely a helper/sidekick).

Action Genre

We’ve just taken a look at Star Wars IV: A New Hope, so I won’t go over those points again here. One of my favorite Lock-In scenes is from Edge of Tomorrow where not only is Cage stripped of his rank as officer and made to join the cadets on the front line, but his fellow soldiers are told that he has been caught impersonating an officer!

Romance Genre

The central tension in a romance is whether the antagonist and protagonist (the lovers) will bond with each other. The exact form this bond takes depends on the sub-genre.

The Lock-In often coincides with the Confession of Love. Depending on how that goes the lovers may break up or possibly have their first kiss—or at least a significant kiss. It could be that their first kiss was more or less humdrum. If that’s the case then this kiss will blow their socks off!

See: 6 Scenes Any Love Story Must Have

Murder Mystery Genre

I’ve found—and here I’m drawing on my own personal experience as an avid consumer of mystery stories—that often a major clue is given at the Lock-In, something that transforms the second victim’s life and acts as a Point of No Return for that character.

Also, often, a second body is found at the Lock-In, something that spins the investigation off in a new direction. In this case, the second body is the clue.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

I know it looks a bit like a textbook, but don't be put off! This is a wonderful reference: Scene & Structure by Jack M. Bickham. I've read this book cover to cover and it helped me enormously, especially when it comes to understanding sequels and the logical order of story events. Cheers!

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That’s it for today! I’ll talk to you again tomorrow, but I might take a break from writing about key scenes.

How is NaNoWriMo going for you folks? Please share! :-)

Word count so far: 6,778
Word count for today: 1,500 non-fiction + 790 fiction = 2,290
Total words this month: 9,008

Notes:

1. I say every narrative story ever written because some stories are not representational.

2. Another name for this is the Major Setback.

3. If a scene occurs “onstage” then the narrator tells us about it. If a scene occurs “offstage” then we hear about it indirectly. Another character might talk about it or perhaps the viewpoint character will have a flashback.

4. Screenwriters will know exactly which page a key scene should fall on, but its position in a novel is less precise. That said, if you want your story to be easy to turn into a movie, it wouldn’t hurt to have the Lock-In at between 25% and 30%.

(NaNoWriMo Day 4): 4th Key Scene: The First Pinch Point

The work never matches the dream of perfection the artist has to start with. —William Faulkner

Welcome to the November madness that is NaNoWriMo! Every day this month I’m blogging about a key scene, one that any story will include. I take a close look at how this scene, this structure, is implemented in three popular genres: Action, Romance and Mystery. So far I've posted articles about the Inciting Incident, the Climax and the Midpoint Climax.

Today I'm going to talk about the first pinch point.

Pinch Point One: Breaking It Down

What is a pinch point? Sue Coletta writes: “A pinch point is a demonstration of the nature, power, and very essence of the antagonistic force.[1]”

Exactly!

I blogged about pinch points a little while ago (see: Story Structure: What Are Pinch Points?), but let’s go over them again. A pinch point reminds the reader of the nature of the antagonist, the extreme threat he poses to the protagonist and what is at stake. In other words, it brings us back to the main story arc.

Two different kinds of pinch points

As far as I can tell there are two different kinds of pinch points, depending on how developed the protagonist’s internal desire is; that is, how big of a role this desire plays in the overall story. (See: What Kind of Writer Are You? Dramatic Action versus Character Development.)

Outward facing pinch points.

For lack of a better term, I’m going to call these outward facing pinch points.

In an outward pinch point, the threat is mainly physical; the protagonist’s life is in danger. In these sorts of stories the protagonist usually doesn’t have a well-developed internal desire. Here the focus is on showing the audience the power of the antagonist and highlighting how very bad it will be for the protagonist if she fails to achieve her goal.

Raiders of the Lost Ark contains a great example of this. The first pinch point shows us the conflict between Indiana Jones and Dr. René Belloq. In this scene Indy believes Marion has been killed by Belloq’s minions. He gets drunk and goes to confront his nemesis. After a marvelous discussion about each man’s philosophy of life and relic hunting, the two men face-off—but it’s not a fair fight because Belloq is surrounded by his minions. Jones’ life is saved when a group of children surround him and escort him to safety.

Inward facing pinch points.

Second, there are inward facing pinch points. In an inward pinch point the threat doesn’t necessarily have to do with life and death (though it might), it has to do with the overall destruction of the life itself, of the one thing that makes it meaningful. It is a moment of truth leading to intense pain and radical change (perhaps not right away, but it puts events in motion).

For instance, in You’ve Got Mail, Kathleen Kelly loses the thing she loves most in the world, the bookstore she inherited from her mother. She loses it because a big chain bookstore, Fox Books, has moved into her neighborhood. In the first pinch point Kathleen Kelly and Joe Fox have a face-to-face confrontation and it is a barn burner. Kathleen is deep in denial and Joe, in the most brutal of ways, tells her the truth: You can’t complete with Fox Books, you are going to lose your business.

As a result Kathleen is wrenched out of the state of denial she has been stubbornly clinging to and the truth begins to filter through: she is going to lose her bookstore. This seems unkind, and it was, but it was true and it was something she needed to prepare for. Recognizing the truth of her impending loss broke her heart, but it also did her a service, it helped her prepare for the inevitable.

Where is it?

The first Pinch Point occurs about 37.5% of the way through a story, or half way through the middle of the first half of the second act. (If you’re using a four act structure, the first Pinch Point comes halfway through the second act.)

How is Pinch Point One connected to the protagonist’s desires?

In any kind of Pinch Point it is what the protagonist wants, what the protagonist is seeking, that brings her into conflict with the antagonist. Though the protagonist and antagonist have different ends, different ultimate goals, they both want/desire the same thing.

How Pinch Point One is Implemented in Three Genres: Action, Romance & Mystery

For the first pinch point there really isn’t a lot of variation across genre.

Action Genre

In an action story, this will be a scene that highlights the essential difference between the protagonist and antagonist, and how this difference is reflected in their actions. Also, there will be an element of violence or implied, perhaps impending, violence.

Romance Genre

In a romance, the first pinch point will be a menacing scene. For instance, perhaps there will be a misunderstanding and the antagonist will threaten, or appear to threaten, the protagonist. Or perhaps, as in You’ve Got Mail, the antagonist will harm the protagonist through wielding truth like a scalpel.

Murder Mystery Genre

In a murder mystery the first pinch point often takes the form of the detective receiving an anonymous note from the murderer, or perhaps something the murderer does puts the detective’s life in jeopardy.

This is a scene that showcases the essential difference between the sleuth and the killer, the difference in how they think of both the world in general and the value of human life in particular. If the killer threatens the sleuth this could be used to foreshadow events at the climax.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to K.M. Weiland’s marvelous book, Outlining Your Novel: Map Your Way to Success. Her book can help you choose the right type of outline for you, guide you in brainstorming plot ideas, aid you in discovering your characters and show you how to structure your scenes. What’s not to like?!

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That’s it! I’ll talk to you again tomorrow when I go over another key scene.

How are you doing with NaNoWriMo? Do you have any tips and/or tricks you’d like to share for achieving your word count?

Word count so far: 5,578
Word count for today: 1,200
Total words this month: 6,778

Notes:

1. “Pinch Points In Fiction Writing,” by Sue Coletta.

(NaNoWriMo Day 3): 3rd Key Scene: The Midpoint Crisis

“When I sit down to write a book, I do not say to myself, ‘I am going to produce a work of art.’ I write it because there is some lie that I want to expose, some fact to which I want to draw attention, and my initial concern is to get a hearing.” —George Orwell

Welcome to NaNoWriMo madness! Every day this month my plan is to blog about a key scene, one that pretty much any story of any genre has to include. Then I’ll take a closer look at how this scene, this structure, this general idea, is implemented in three popular genres: Action, Romance and Mystery. So far I've posted articles about the Inciting Incident and the Climax.

Today I'm going to talk about the Midpoint Crisis.

The Midpoint: Breaking It Down

I used to think that the Midpoint was primarily the place where the protagonist and antagonist confronted each other. I’ve changed my mind. It can be that, but it’s often more.

During the Midpoint the protagonist usually goes through what I’m going to call an enlightenment. She realizes that her understanding of the Special World of the Adventure is deeply flawed. She thought she knew what the Special World was like, what the capabilities of the antagonist are, but at the Midpoint she discovers she is oh-so-very wrong. As a result, the protagonist goes from being passive to active. She transitions from just reacting to the world to making plans and engaging with the antagonist.

What I just sketched in the above paragraph is generally true of most stories. Below, I go into specific variants. Note: Many of these points overlap. The difference, often, is one of emphasis.

What is it?

The protagonist goes from ignorance to knowledge. 

At the midpoint the protagonist discovers just how ignorant she has been about the Special World. Often the protagonist finds out how much she doesn’t know and, in that moment of revelation, is put at a disadvantage. The antagonist likes to do a bit of (justified!) gloating about how he has pulled the wool over her eyes. Then the protagonist uses this knowledge—and a bit of good luck—to escape.

Or, sometimes, the protagonist figures the truth out on her own. The antagonist doesn’t show up personally, he sends his minions to set a trap for the protagonist, one he hopes will prove fatal to her. But the protagonist is clever and figures out the antagonist’s scheme just in time to escape.

The pot of gold at the end of the Midpoint’s rainbow is that now the protagonist knows the true nature of the Special World. Sure, they know they’re in deep doodoo, but still. Understanding how little you know is the beginning of wisdom. Perhaps the protagonist has gotten a late start but at least now she’s in the game.

The protagonist goes from reacting to circumstances to shaping those circumstances. 

The protagonist goes from passive to active. Or perhaps that’s not the best way of putting it. It’s not as though the protagonist was a balloon drifting in the wind. When the antagonist makes a move on the protagonist she reacts, she resists, but that is the extent of her planning. The protagonist doesn’t initiate action. To be fair, perhaps she can’t because she doesn’t know the rules of the Special World yet and she keeps getting it wrong.

In any case, the rule of thumb is that before the midpoint the protagonist merely reacts to events. Something pushes her and she pushes back. She’s not thinking ahead, she’s not taking the fight to the enemy. She’s being swept along in a fast moving river, just keeping her head above water.

In the second half of the story, the protagonist makes a plan and does FINALLY take the fight to the enemy. She no longer merely reacts to the world around her, the crucible at the midpoint has transformed her into an active agent of change.

The protagonist goes through a point of no return. 

The Midpoint irrevocably changes the protagonist with the result being (among other things) that she cannot go back to the Ordinary World, at least not until she sees her quest to the end.

As we’ve seen, what the protagonist learns at the midpoint changes her, transforms her. There is no going back. This is a point of no return. What she learn at the midpoint transforms her from someone who reacts to circumstances, someone who is buffeted by external forces, into an agent who can form a plan and act on it. She is now an agent of change.

The protagonist chooses self-sacrifice because of something larger than themselves (e.g. love). 

Cage in Edge of Tomorrow is comfortable with his cowardice, his intimate, oh-so-reasonable concern for his own skin. But then he meets a girl, he falls in love, and at the Midpoint he puts her welfare before his own. It moves him from relying on her to save him to him taking the lead, to him trying to save her even if it means facing-off against the Big Bad all by his lonesome.

This all happens at the midpoint and it is this change, this internal transformation, that turns Cage from a passive, reactive, person to an active agent who makes plans and takes the fight to the enemy.

Discovery. 

The midpoint can simply be a moment of discovery, where the hero oh-so-briefly gains the thing he seeks only to have it snatched away from him. (After all, if it weren’t, the story would be over!) Sometimes this discovery is external (the protagonist briefly acquires his object of desire) and sometimes it is internal (the protagonist discovers who she really is). More on this below.

Where is it?

As the name suggests, this scene occurs smack dab in the center of the story. In practical terms, it usually occurs somewhere between 45% and 55% of the way through.

How is the Midpoint connected to the protagonist’s desires?

The midpoint confrontation is intimately connected to the protagonist’s desires (both internal and external) and the protagonist’s goal. For example, in Edge of Tomorrow, Cage’s weakness is an excessive concern for his own skin—he’s a coward. At the beginning of the movie his goal is to get as far away from the front lines as he can. His challenge is to love something more than he loves himself, more than he loves life. This begins at the midpoint.

The Midpoint: An Example

I’ve already given a number of examples. Ideally I would simply describe a scene in some detail and then go on to analyze it but today I’m running short of time so my description will have to be briefer than I would like.

In the movie Malice, Andy Safian, played by Bill Pullman, initially wants nothing more than to live in marital bliss with his wife, Tracy, and have reliable plumbing. After Tracy loses her unborn baby as well as her ability to have children (Andy gives the doctor permission to perform the surgery thinking he is saving her life), she lets Andy know she blames him for her loss and leaves him.

At this point Andy’s world is shattered and his goal becomes to find his wife and reconcile with her. At around the midpoint, or a little bit after[1], Andy begins to realize he never knew Tracy. Everything she told him about herself was a lie. But he doesn’t yet know why she did it. What did she want from him? Why did she do this? Why him? He needs to know.

This midpoint scene occurs a bit late, about 65% of the way through the movie, when Andy talks to Tracy’s mother, a woman he had thought dead, and finds out the whole ugly unvarnished truth about the woman he married. It is a dramatic scene. After Andy learns the truth he is able to come up with a plan that will even the scales of justice.

Andy’s journey is primarily one of ignorance to knowledge. Andy was happy. He was! Sure his life was based on illusion, but he was still happy as a drunken clam. But this was based on ignorance of who his wife really was and what she wanted from him.

Also, Andy’s journey is one of self-discovery. None of us really know what we’re capable of, what we will choose, until we are put through the crucible of life’s pinch points. Walking through the fire of his wife’s betrayal reveals who Andy really is. How? Through his choices. Everything is stripped away from him and in that rawness he is forced to act. These are primal choices, choices that reveal character, choices that reveal (both to themselves and the world) who someone really is.

How the Midpoint is Implemented in Three Genres: Action, Romance & Mystery

Action Genre

I know I’ve used this movie as an example a time or two, but let’s take a look at Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, since it is the quintessential action movie. At the midpoint Indiana Jones acquires his goal, he finds and (however briefly!) takes possession of the ark. This is a moment of (external) Discovery.

Romance Genre

The midpoint is where the two lovers come together. Whatever differences they have are temporarily resolved, their disputes are temporarily suspended. Depending on the spiciness of the romance, this could be anything from handholding to spending the night in a creatively equipped dungeon.

Murder Mystery Genre

I’ve read ... wow. A lot of murder mysteries, and they’re all a bit different. I don’t want to give anyone the impression that there’s only one thing to do at the midpoint. That said, there is often a false resolution at the midpoint. It seems as though the mystery is solved, that the murderer has been found. But, of course, he hasn't! If he had this would be the end of the story.

Often it only seems to the police as though the case is solved. The sleuth knows it isn’t but no one will believe her.

This is one of those places where the B-story can come in to lend a helping hand. The resolution to the B-story can expose the falseness of the A-story, expose that the person the police think is the killer really isn’t. For instance, the suspected killer can be murdered!

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I'd like to recommend a book that has meant a lot to me over the years, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Have you ever thought, “Who am I kidding, I’ll never be able to do this!” If so, read this book! Here’s what Robert McKee had to say about The War of Art: “As I closed The War of Art, I felt a surge of positive calm. I now know I can win this war. And if I can win, so can you.”

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That’s it for today! Tomorrow I’ll talk to you again about another key scene. Happy NaNo-ing!

Word count so far: 3,778 words.
Word count for today: 1,800 words.
Total words this month: 5,578 words.

Notes:

1. Or a little bit after the midpoint. There’s an important subplot that plays out in the first half of the movie that pushes the timing of the main arc back a bit.

Preparing For NaNoWriMo

Every day in November I’m going to lay out the structural bones of a crucial story scene.  I'll then break this scene down for three genres: Action, Romance, and Mystery. Then I'll talk about the different requirements of each. Today I'm kicking things off by talking about what we can do to prepare for the insanity that is NaNoWriMo.

At least, that’s the plan! This is going to be an adventure for me as well since, over the month of November, I’ll be blogging a book, only a non-fiction one. That’s something I’ve never done before!

My hope is that my daily blog posts will provide you with a seed, a start, something to hang your story ideas around—if you want it. Folks have been writing stories for millennia without all this explicit talk of story structure, so if you don’t feel you want or need it, that’s great! Go you!!

But, if you’d like to get an idea regarding what you might want to write on any particular day, or if you want to read something that might help get you started, then please drop by, pull up a seat and let’s write! :-)

Planning for NaNoWriMo

Here are a few things to consider as we head into the month of November (I expand on each of these, below):

1. What is your writing plan? How many words would you like to write a day?
2. What point of view will you write from? First, second or third?
3. What is the core of your story?
4. What is the essence of your protagonist and antagonist?
5. What genre, or genres, will you write in?
6. What is the setting?

1. Designing a Writing Plan.

How many days per week do you want to write?

For instance, you might want to plan on writing six days a week so you can have one day of wiggle room. Life has a way of derailing even the best laid plans, so giving yourself one day off a week isn’t a bad idea. That would give you 26 days to write 50,000 words which means your word count per writing day would be 1,924 words. This is what I did when I participated in NaNoWriMo and it worked out well.

On the other hand, if you plan on writing every day, your word count per day would only be 1667 words.

2. What Point of View Will You Write From? 

Will you write from the first, second or third person perspective? If you choose the first person perspective (which is my favorite!) then, although there are exceptions, you will likely have one viewpoint character throughout. Many of the first person perspective narratives I’ve read include short chapters written from a third person perspective featuring an important secondary character, but this is the sort of thing we’re not going to worry about on the zero draft.

If you choose to write from the third person perspective, then although one character will be the protagonist/hero, you will often have multiple viewpoint characters. For instance, many romance stories involve two viewpoint characters—the two lovers—and alternate their viewpoints every second chapter. Generally speaking, the point of view you open your story with will be that of your protagonist.

3. What is the Core of Your Story?

Generally speaking, a story is about a person (the protagonist) who wants something desperately but is repeatedly prevented from acquiring it by a person/force (the antagonist). Finally the matter comes to a head and the protagonist and antagonist face off in a final confrontation that will settle things once and for all.

If you would like to read more about story structure, here are a few articles:

A Story Structure In Three Acts
STORY STRUCTURE: 10 Simple Keys to Effective Plot Structure
Short Story Structures: Several Ways Of Structuring Short Fiction
Short Stories And Their Structure

4. Character Development

Let’s start thinking about our characters:

• Who is your protagonist?
• What does he/she do for a living? What would he/she like to do for a living?
• Is he/she romantically involved with anyone? Does he/she want to be romantically involved with anyone?
• Does he/she have children? If so, how many and what are their ages?
• What is his/her biggest fear?
• What is his/her darkest secret?
• Is he/she an optimist or a pessimist?
• Does he/she have a hobby?
• Is he/she obsessed with anything?
• What does he/she fear above all else? What does he/she love above all else?
• Is he/she religious? Superstitious?
• Does he/she own a vehicle? If so, what kind?
• What special skill or talent does he/she have?
• What could he/she NOT do, even if their life depended on it?

Here’s the most important question of all: What does this character want more than anything else? This is important because it determines the story question that everything else revolves around.

The character's main desire could be something your character doesn't know they want. For example, in the movie Titanic, Rose wanted freedom more than anything else, though I'm not sure she was aware of this at the beginning of the story. On the other hand, Frodo knew exactly what he wanted: to return the One Ring to Mordor.

After you’ve answered these questions with reference to the protagonist, try to answer them with reference to the antagonist.

Keep in mind that the goals of the protagonist and antagonist must be mutually exclusive: if the antagonist gets what he wants then the protagonist can't. Similarly, if the protagonist gets what he wants then the antagonist can't.

Here are additional questions that can help you get to know a character:

Character Question List
Character Checklist
Writer’s Digest: A Checklist for Developing Your Hero and Heroine

5. The Genre

Let's take a look at what Shawn Coyne has to say about genre:

"A Genre is a label that tells the reader/audience what to expect. Genres simply manage audience expectations. (The Story Grid)"

If you're writing a love story then your readers are going to expect a first meeting between the lovers, a confession of love, a first kiss, a break-up, and so on. (See: 6 Scenes Any Love Story Must Have)

In this sense a genre is a bit like a promise you give your readers. If your title is, "Murder at Whitemill" and the back blurb identifies it as a cosy then no matter how inspired your prose your readers are going to come for you with pitchforks if, say, no murder occurs or no one is brought to justice for the crime.

This is why it's important to know which genre, or genres, you are writing in and what the conventions of that genre are. That is, what readers of that genre will expect of your story.

6. The Setting

What is the setting? Where do the events of the story take place?

For instance, in The Matrix the Ordinary World is an illusion—an illusion of cities and office jobs and juicy steaks—and the Special World (reality) is one of human batteries and war between humans and machines. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone the Ordinary World is (roughly speaking) England and the Special World is Hogwarts.

The world of the adventure (this includes both the Ordinary and Special Worlds) is sculpted by the writer to provide a crucible for the protagonist. The setting is a cauldron, a crucible, designed to test the main character’s strengths and force him to face, and overcome, his weaknesses. Or, if it’s a tragedy, to fail and die.

Rather than go into this now, here's a post I wrote on this topic: Mind Worms and the Essence of Drama.

See also:
How To Give Your Character Meaningful Flaws
The Key To Making A Character Multidimensional: Pairs of Opposites

Just Breathe

If thinking about all this makes you hyperventilate, don’t worry about it! NaNoWriMo is about writing a zero draft, so it is about creativity and discovery.

I think the object of NaNoWriMo is to get as much of your story developed as possible in the month of November.

For some of us, that will involve writing 50,000+ words. For others, it will mean writing 40,000 or 30,000 or 20,000 or 10,000 or 5,000 or even just 1,000 words. And that’s okay!

If you develop a plan for your story, and begin implementing that plan, then you’ve won in the sense that you've pushed your story forward. If participating in NaNoWriMo gets you to write even one word more than you would have otherwise then, in my books, you’ve won!

For tomorrow: Try to figure out what it is your protagonist wants more than anything. Try to figure out the story goal.

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Every post I pick a book or audiobook I love and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes. I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

For a different perspective on NaNoWriMo here is the excellent, No Plot, No Problem!, by Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo. From the book blurb: "Chris Baty ... has completely revised and expanded his definitive handbook for extreme noveling. Chris pulls from over 15 years of results-oriented writing experience to pack this compendium with new tips and tricks, ranging from week-by-week quick reference guides to encouraging advice from authors, and much more."

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That's it! Enough preliminaries and preparation! Got your writer's cap on? Awesome! Know what your character wants above and beyond all else? Excellent! I'll talk to you tomorrow. :-)

2 Rules of Thumb for Character Creation

With NaNoWriMo around the corner I thought I'd go over two rules of thumb for character creation that have served me well.

Two Rules of Thumb for Character Creation

Readers need to be able to identify with your characters. You know that.

In order for a reader to identify with your character the reader needs to feel she understands them. In order for that to be the case characters need to make sense. People might not make sense, but characters need to. Even when their desires conflict, they need to make sense. If they don’t, readers will become bored and stop reading.

The First Rule of Character Creation

So, with that in mind, here’s what I think of as the first rule of character creation:

Characters, like people, are led by their emotions, by what they love and hate. 

If you don’t think you are led by your emotions that’s fine. Look at the people around you. Are most people led by their emotions or by their rationality?

Let me give you an example:

A friend offers me a piece of chocolate. I know I shouldn’t have that piece of chocolate because it will ruin my diet, but I still greedily devour every scrumptious calorie! Why? Because I love chocolate! I know how good it will taste. Even though it will mean I can’t fit into my new dress on my birthday I still eat the chocolate, and I really really want to fit into that dress. So why do I eat the chocolate? Because, despite what I tell myself and my friends, at that moment I love chocolate more than fitting into the dress. It’s all about emotion.

The Second Rule of Character Creation

Here’s the second rule of character creation:

Thought doesn’t rule emotion, it picks up after it. 

After I eat the chocolate I rationalize that even though I ate the chocolate I’ll be okay, I’ll still be able to achieve my goal of fitting into my new dress. All I have to do is exercise more. And then of course I don’t and it isn’t!

Cashing This Out

How can we cash this insight out in our story?

What do people care about? We care about our significant others and our friends, we care about food and comfort, we care about having fun new experiences, we care about the work we do. We care about beauty. We crave novelty.

My friend, Sue, wants to be rich. Why? Because then she can afford to go travelling and have a beautiful apartment. When I was a teenager my friend, I’ll call him Brian, wanted to own a Chevrolet Camaro with leather seats and a top notch sound system. Why? Because he loved driving fast, thought the car looked beautiful and liked girls.

Having a character who wants to rob a bank because then he’ll be rich is fine, but that needs to be grounded in the messy particularities of the character, what they love, what they hate.

If someone is going to risk it all, you’ve got to show why that character passionately loves that thing and the only way to do this is to break it down and show what they love and what the hate.

Get intimate with the character. Have them whisper their deepest, darkest, secrets to you and then, at the appropriate moment, splay them across the page.

You might be thinking, “That’s all well and good, but I’ve written stories that I liked and I didn’t do that.”

This kind of deep character development isn’t for the writer. These characters live inside us and so we know their intimate details. When I ask a writer, Would your character do X? They answer me right away, no hesitation. No, we make these things explicit for the reader. Because they don’t (yet) have the character living inside them.

Here’s another article I’ve written on character creation: Be Fearless: Make Your Characters Real.

Writing Exercise

What do you care about? You’ve got goals, perhaps you want to buy a home or earn a certain amount of money a year or spend next summer in Spain or lose ten pounds, but why?

Dive into the particular emotions behind your goals. Do you want to own a home because it would make you feel secure? Do you want to lose weight because you want to find someone to love, someone who will love you back?

After you’ve done this, take those emotions and give them to the main character of your current work in progress. You don’t have to incorporate them into the story, you can just do this as an exercise. Take your main character and give him a mini-adventure, write a piece of flash fiction, where you give him or her your own goals. Then show the reader the messy loves and hates these goals emerge from.

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I’ve decided that I’m going to try, every post, to pick a book or audiobook I personally have loved and recommend it to my readers. This serves two purposes, I want to share what I’ve loved with you, and, if you click the link and buy anything over at Amazon within the next 24 hours, Amazon puts a few cents in my tip jar, at no cost to you. So, if you click the link, thank you! If not, that’s okay too. I’m thrilled and honored that you’ve visited my blog and read my post. :-)

Today I would like to share a link to a book I have in my own digital library, The Emotion Thesaurus: A Writer's Guide to Character Expression, by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. Ackerman writes, "One of the biggest problem areas for writers is conveying a character's emotions to the reader in a unique, compelling way. This book comes to the rescue by highlighting 75 emotions and listing the possible body language cues, thoughts, and visceral responses for each." An excellent reference!

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That’s it! As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts on what I’ve said. I will admit to drawing a wee bit from Saint Augustine and his idea that we can only have one true great love and that this love will order everything else in our lives—or something like that, it’s been a long time since I took philosophy. (grin)

I'll talk to you again on Friday. Till then, good writing!

How To Coax Story Ideas Out Of Hiding

Ever been stuck for a plot? You wanted to write something but all your ideas fled, leaving you with what seemed like an infinite white field of nothing? I have! 

Here’s my theory: I think ideas tend to flee when we’re anxious or tense or feeling stressed. So something—anything—that helps us relax and not take our writing quite so seriously can be a gift from the gods. I’ve found idea generators can help me get into a playful mood and fill the idea-void.

NaNoWriMo & Idea Generators

In the early part of last century the only idea generators in existence were plot wheels; these days we click buttons rather than twirl disks, but it’s the same idea. (see: NaNoWriMo, Erle Stanley Gardner, Perry Mason and Plot Wheels)

Personally, I think random idea generators have their place. Though I practically never use their suggestions, idea generators can help coax out our own ideas, ones that have been hiding in our unconscious mind.

The FIG Idea Generator

The FIG Idea Generator is based on William Wallace Cook’s book, Plotto. Published in 1928, Plotto was billed as “The master book of all plots.” (Unfortunately, FIG is only available through the Apple Store, but there is a site, Writing Exercises (writingexercises.co.uk), that has basically the same functions.)

FIG: An Example

Let’s take FIG for a twirl and see what kind of story skeleton we can create. FIG’s main screen presents one with a choice between selecting a random Masterplot, Plot, Character, Word, 1st Sentence, Emotion, Item or Location. Let’s go through most of these.

Masterplot

Here’s what I got for the masterplot: “A person influenced by the occult and the mysterious, seeking to demonstrate the powers of love by a test of courage, faces a guilty plotter and defeats a subtle plot.”

I like that! I see many different possibilities. Let’s see what we get for the rest. 

Plot

Tense: Present

Narrator: Alternating person

Period: During the Gulf War

Situation: Enemy of kin

Protagonist: A male dance teacher who is languid.

Supporting character: A male geophysicist who is mature.

Their relationship: Broken.

I’m less enthusiastic about these choices. While I’ve always wanted to try writing a short story using the present tense I’m less thrilled about having a dance teacher for a protagonist. Mostly because I know nothing about dance and even less about dance teachers!

I decided to roll until I found something I wanted to work with (after all, the object here is to have fun and get our creative juices flowing).

Here’s what I came up with in the end:

Tense: Present

Narrator: Alternating person

Period: Three days ago.

Situation: Enemy of kin/Disputed inheritance

Protagonist: A glamorous male movie director.

Supporting character: A hostile, male, occupational therapist.

Their relationship: Broken.

We’re not done! Now we move on to character.

Character

I wasn’t sure how this fit into the other categories, or if it was supposed to, but here’s what I came up with:

“An enthusiastic, female, butcher who is Scottish and goes by the name of Kelsey Graham.”

I got this description on about the 5th try and love it! I can see her, my proper Scottish lass with a enormous cleaver in her hand and a bloody apron. She gives me a look that sends a chill through me and says, “Yea? Whad’ya want?”

But, what do do with her? We already have a protagonist and supporting character, so Kelsey could be our protagonist’s nemesis. Not a villain, simply someone working in opposition to the protagonist’s goal.

Which brings us to ...

The Goal

FIG doesn’t have a random goal generator, neither does Writing Exercises, so I went in search of a list of popular goals. I found this one, 100 popular goals, so all we have to do is head over to random.org and pick a number between 1 and 100 (or think of one) and we’re set!

My choice is number 15: To save money.

The Location

What will our setting be? It took a few tries but I liked the idea of a cliff. I take this to mean that one of the significant locations in the story should involve a cliff.

The Item

I chose: A mirror.

Story Summary

So, putting it all together, our story skeleton is as follows:

Write about a glamorous male movie director who is influenced by the occult and who seeks to demonstrate the power of love by a test of courage. As he does so, our brave director will defeat a subtle plot (perhaps one set in motion by his nemesis the Scottish butcher).

 The situation (see above) was that of a disputed inheritance so perhaps the butcher is his sister. They are normally close, but they each want a certain something, the same certain something, from their father’s estate. (Perhaps a mirror?)

Since this is about the occult, let’s say the director thinks this something, this artifact, holds the key to unlocking a mystery that has fascinated him, driven him, his entire life.

His sister, though, is much more pragmatic. She is going through a bad patch financially and wants to sell the mirror. The brother is incensed by this suggestion. “If you would allow me to use the artifact we would be wealthy.”

You can see that the goal has shifted a bit, from saving money to acquiring money, but I think the important thing is to be willing to ignore random choices and make the story one’s own.

That’s it! That was an example, if anyone feels inspired and would like to write this story, please do! I’d love to know how it all turns out. Is the director simply insane or is the mirror a portal to something more? How far will each character go to get what they want?

Writing prompt of the day: The Alphabet Soup Communiqué.

Photo credit: "Early morning sunshine" by Caroline under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating Vivid Characters For NaNoWriMo, Part Two

This continues my post from Friday on how to create vivid characters.

How does your hero fulfill his/her need? What's his/her solution

Dexter

Dexter's problem is that he wants to kill people. Anyone. Doesn't matter who they are or what they've done. His solution, his way of living with this urge and being a productive member of society, is to kill people that not only deserve to be killed but which, by their absence, make society a better, safer, place. (As I've mentioned, Chuck Wendig doesn't agree.)

Sherlock

Sherlock Holmes hates boredom. He needs problems and puzzles. Interesting ones. He provides himself with this needed stimulation by being a consulting detective.

Walter White

Walter is a brilliant chemist who is dying and wants to leave his family provided for. His solution is to make high quality meth and sell it.

Harry Potter

Harry's need, his deepest need, is to find, or create, a family. A home. I know what I said last week, but his deep internal need is to find or forge a connection with others.

Harry's solution is to reach out and find friends, and new family, at Hogwarts. This leads to a strong desire to protect the place.

Limitations

A limitation is anything INTERNAL to a character that gets in the way of them meeting their need.

Limitations have a way of tripping up a character when they least expect it.

Buffy

Chuck Wendig uses Buffy as an example:

"Limitations are traits of the character’s that get in her way — they might be flaws or frailties but they can just as easily be positive traits that make trouble for the character and the plot. You might say that Buffy’s limitations were her age, her immaturity, and her emotional entanglements with problematic boyfriends (seriously, Buffy, what’s with the choice in dudes?)."

Excellent point.

Dexter

CW argues that Dexter's moral code was a limitation placed on his serial killer nature. I can see it that way, but, for me (as I've said) his moral code is a part of the solution to his problem, his problem being the urge, the need, to kill. For me, that's what makes Dexter a tragic figure.

I would say that Dexter's limitations were the feeling of attachment he often developed for those he needed to kill. For instance, his AA mentor, stalker and occasional girlfriend Lila Tournay.

Sherlock

Sherlock's major limitation was his ego. 

In my opinion one of THE BEST episodes of Sherlock was A Scandal in Belgravia. He botches an important anti-terrorist plan of the British government because of his love of solving puzzles, because he wanted to show off.

Here's a quotation from the end of the show (SPOILER ALERT):

"Mycroft: The terrorist cells have been informed that we know about the bomb. We can't fool them now. We've lost everything. One fragment of one email. And months and years of planning. Finished.
Sherlock: Your MOD man.
Mycroft: That's all it takes. One lonely naive man, desperate to show off. And a woman clever enough to make him feel special.
Sherlock: You need to screen your defence people more carefully.
Mycroft: I'm not talking about the MOD man, Sherlock, I'm talking about you!"

Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Renolds

Although Mal can make hard calls--he is by no means a softie--he does have a heart of gold and a penchant for doing the right thing even when the result promises to be disastrous.

Harry Potter

In the muggle world Harry's magical abilities severely limit his ability to bond with the Dursleys.

In the magical world Harry's heritage, that he is the boy who lived, prevent him from just fitting in and having a normal school life. People either hate him or want him to save the world.

Greatest Fear

What does your character most fear? (This information will help you ramp up the stakes.)

Neo

Letting down those who depend on him. Not being what those he cares about think he is. Costing them their lives.

Dexter

Being outed as a serial killer. Having his sister find out.

Sherlock

Not being smart enough to figure a case out. The criminal besting him.

Having those he cares about come to harm.

Walter White

Dying without having lived.

Dying without leaving his family provided for.

Harry Potter

Living with the Dursley family forever. (Which would also be the Dursley family nightmare.)

Part of J.K. Rowling's genius was figuring out plausible ways to pack so much conflict in to the story early on.

Description

We're almost done!

Chuck Wendig wants us to do two more things. First, write a 100 word character description. He writes:

"Write a description. Keep it to 100 words. Less if you can manage ... Do not hit all the bases. Do not try to stat them up like a [...] baseball player. Listen, when you look at someone, you take away a visual thumbprint of that person — it’s pushed hard into the clay of your memory. You don’t remember every little detail or aspect."

For example: "... that woman shaped like a butternut squash with the frock that smelled like cigarettes and old terriers."

Also, here's Chuck's tip:

"... writers are best describing things that break the status quo, that violate our expectations. In other words, find the things that make the character visually unique, interesting, odd, curious – different. Cleave to those."

Describe things that violate your readers' expectations. Yes! That one's going on my wall.

Test Drive Your Character

Second, before you plunk them down into your story take your newly christened character for a test drive. Chuck Wendig writes:

"Take ‘em for a test drive. Said it before, will say it again: write a thousand-word piece of flash fiction with Your Brand New Shiny Character in the starring role. Drive him around. Ding him up. Challenge him! Force him to talk to other characters: an obstinate cab driver, a belligerent cop, a drunken orangutan. Give him a new problem or one related to the character explicitly.

"Let ‘em speak. Let ‘em act. See what they do when you get behind the wheel.

"Inhabit the character."

Wonderful advice.

Once again, here's the challenge:

- Give your character a problem to solve, something that can be wrapped up in 1,000 or so words. The problem can be one that's related to your character, or something completely different.
- Force your character to talk to other characters. I know these were only suggestions, but, well, why not? Get them to talk to an obstinant cap driver. How would your character handle that? Then throw in a beligerant cop. Or choose other characters entirely. It's up to you.

After you've written the story, your next and final step (yes, we're done!) will be to write, or rewrite, your character's logline.

Good writing!

NaNoWriMo

As I mentioned Friday, I'm doing #NaNoWriMo and, as part of that, accepted a challenge issued by a bunch of lovely lunatics to write 10,000 words over the weekend. 

Well ... I did it! 

It was close though. I've caught a bad cold and am squirting all sorts of fluids from all sorts of places.

Yes. It's gross. 

Now, thankfully, gleefully, I'm going back to 2,000 words a day. 

Photo credit: "Falknerei Schmidt" by Ben Fredericson under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

Creating Vivid Characters For NaNoWriMo

Chuck Wendig has outdone himself this time. 

I know I've said this before--often--but this is one of the best posts on character development I've read (adult language warning -->): Plot & Character.

I need to work on my characterizations, I need to make them more vivid. My goal--and I think most writers share this in common--is to create characters readers not only can picture and understand--characters that seem real--but to create characters readers empathize with.

So. I'm going to interrupt my series on Dan Wells' 7-Point System to talk about, first, what constitutes a well-defined character, a rounded character, a character that feels so real your readers cry when he almost dies and grin like kids at Christmas when he achieves his goal. In short, characters your readers can identify with. Second, I'll talk about how you can begin crafting such a character.

Let's get started!

The Character Logline

Chuck Wendig points out that, just like screenplays and novels (and pretty much any kind of story) characters can have loglines. That is, they can have a short--usually one sentence--summary/description.

Recall that a logline attempts to capture the essence of a story.

So, let's attempt to craft a logline that captures the essence of a character. Chuck Wendig gives us a fabulous example of the sort of thing he's looking for. He writes:

“Dexter Morgan is a serial killer with a code of honor hiding in plain sight among the officers of the Miami Police Department.”

Right there, bam! Look at all the contradictions, the conflict waiting to happen.

Dexter's a serial killer with a code of honor (right there I'm interested) and he's working in a police department! The bird is surrounded by cats, hiding in plain sight.

That's a heck of a character concept. Further, you can see immediately that the whole series, all the stories, naturally grow from the main character, who he is.

A Character IS Something

When I read Chuck Wendig's description of Dexter Morgan one thing struck me like a runaway Mack Truck: A character IS something.

Clear as mud? Let me throw out a few examples and you'll see what I mean.

Neo (The Matrix) is The One.
Dexter Morgan (Dexter) is a serial killer.
Walter White (Breaking Bad) is a drug manufacturer and dealer.
Sherlock Holmes is a detective.
Tony Soprano (The Sopranos) is a mob boss.
Captain Malcolm 'Mal' Reynolds (Firefly) is a captain.
Dr. House (House) is a diagnostician.
Orphan Black is a hustler and a clone.
Harry Potter is a wizard.

Each character contains within themselves--by their nature, their occupation, or both--the seeds of both their deep desire (/their goal/the story goal) and the opposition to that goal.

Neo
Neo is something. He is The One, the one who transcended the matrix and could manipulate it. It was like his very own holodeck! But he didn't start out knowing this. Neo's journey was from (among other things) ignorance to wisdom. Who Neo was set the endpoint and implied the challenges he would have to face.

Dexter
Dexter is the best example, or at least my favorite.

"Serial killer," that phrase, is packed with emotion. It is provocative. Thick. Shocking.

When I first saw the promo's for Dexter I thought, "Really? A hero who is a serial killer, they'll never pull it off." Ha! Good thing I'm not a producer.

One of the reasons the show worked--and I'll talk about this throughout the post--everything that happens in that show happens because of who Dexter is: a person compelled to kill. That, by itself, wouldn't have been very interesting--not to me at least--but this is a monster with a code of honor. That is unique. That is interesting. That's a concept you can build a novel around. (Dexter was based on a series of novels by Jeff Lindsay.) More on this later.

Now, let's don our white lab coat, pull the irritatingly bright examination light closer, clutch the rusty scalpel in our shaking hand, and take a closer look at a few well done characters most of you are familiar with. (I was going to go with a dissection metaphor but decided that, even for the day after halloween, it was a tad grizzly.)

1. What does your character want?

Dexter
Dexter wants to kill people. No, that's not right. Dexter needs to kill people. It is a drive, a craving, one that he's helpless to resist.

Dexter's need, his deep dark desire, is the engine that drove each episode of the show forward. Can you imagine what an episode of Dexter would have been like if the lead character woke up and realized, "Huh. I don't want to kill anymore."

I believe that Dexter's code of honor--basically, that he only kills those who deserve it; other murderers--is also a deep need, one not borne of compulsion. I believe it comes from his humanity and, really, is why the character is interesting. Without this balancing need Dexter (to my way of thinking) would just be a monster. His desire to be normal is what makes him a tragic figure.

Chuck Wendig, on the other hand, believes Dexter's code of honor is a limitation (we'll talk more about limitations later). That's a valid, perfectly fine, way of looking at it. Wouldn't the world be dull if we all agreed?

Walter White
Walter White IS a brilliant chemist with a terminal disease and a baby on the way.

Walter's need: To ensure his family is provided for.

How Walter chooses to meet this need: make high quality meth and sell it.

You see the pattern? What the character IS implies/contains the seed of their deep need and, thus, their problem: how to meet their need (/how to quench their desire, /how to achieve their goal). If a story can be compared to a car the main character's need, his goal, is the internal combustion engine.

Without Walter's need to provide for his family, without him being a brilliant, desperate, chemist, there would have been no story, no show.

This is what writers mean when they say that character is plot. Plot should flow naturally out of the main character.

Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock's need is to be amused. Interested. Not bored. "The game," as he so often says in the original stories, must "be afoot!"

He is a natural detective, compulsively unravelling mysteries.

Sherlock's need to stave off boredom drives him to put himself, as well as those he cares about, in harms way if a sufficiently interesting puzzle/mystery presents itself.

One more example:

Harry Potter
a. Harry Potter IS the boy who lived.

He is the boy who the evil wizard Voldemort could not kill.

Harry Potter wants Voldemort to go away and for him just to be a normal wizard. Harry Potter being the boy who lived--the boy who nearly killed the dark lord--makes him a symbol of hope for those allied against the dark lord. On a personal level, this works against him. It makes folks expect ridiculous things of him (saving them from he-who-must-not-be-named) and it makes Voldemort's followers loathe him.

Harry's need: when Harry's at Hogwarts he wants to be a normal, completely unexceptional, wizard.

b. Harry Potter IS a wizard.

When Harry's not at school he must stay with the magic-hating Dursleys. Put a boy who can't control his magic, a boy who doesn't even know he's magical, with relatives who have a fanatical hate of magic and you've got a tinderbox of conflict just begging for a match.

That's it for today! I thought I'd be able to get through all this material in one day, but I guess not.

Until next time, good writing!

NaNoWriMo 

I'm going through NaNoWriMo again this year.

I'm part of a great Google+ Community, the Writer's Discussion Group, and we're getting together using the hashtag #wdgnano. Come and hang out with us whenever you like. This weekend a bunch of us are doing a 10,000 word weekend. I'll let you know how it went. (grin)

My word count so far is zero for NaNo, though I did write about 2,600 words so far, but that's just been for this blog post (and the one on Monday). So, only 3,300 more words to go! lol

Photo credit: "hello." by 55Laney69 under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.

How To Write 50,000 Words In 30 Days: Write One Word After Another

Here's how to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days: write one word at a time, one after the other.

(Underwhelmed? Hang on, let me unpack it before you roll your eyes and exit stage left.)

That advice doesn't originate with me, the first time I heard it was from Neil Gaiman but since then I've heard gaggles of other talented writers say the same thing.

On one level the advice is so obvious as to be tautological. But what it means is that if you feel that your writing is off, that all your words are vying to be the most hideous ever written, then there's only one thing to do. Write the next word.

On the other hand, if you think your writing is awesome, if you feel that you're inspired and that the gods on Olympus smiled on you and gave you the gift of writing excellence ... Well, there's only one thing to do. You guessed it. Write the next word.

If you're feeling a bit off, if you haven't had enough coffee, if you didn't sleep well, if you've got mountains of work to do, if your head's fuzzy, if your cat woke you by drooling in your nose (happened to me, swear to God) then there's only one thing to do: go to your writing space, sit down, and write the next word.

The key to writing 2,000 words a day is simple. Whether you feel like doing it or not, put your butt in your writing chair and write the next word, and the one after that, and the one after that, until you've done your word count for the day. (At which point your miniature giant space hamster minions will feed you skinned grapes and chocolate, or whatever it is that you get your miniature giant space hamsters to do for you.)

Don't walk away from your computer, don't put it off till you're feeling more in the mood. Why? Because that's _self-doubt_ and (if you're anything like me) it will pop it's head up every single bloody time you sit down to write _anything_.

You might be thinking something along the lines of: that's easier said than done. If so, then you're right. So. Here are a few things I do that seem to help the process along.

First Drafts Don't Matter

That's what I tell myself and (* knock on wood*) it works. It takes the pressure off.

I love the idea of writing a zero draft. The name reinforces the notion that nothing remotely anxiety inducing is going on, you're not ripping your guts out and smearing them all over the page, you're just writing in your journal (or typing on your computer), nothing to be nervous about. No one will see this, no one will judge you.

A zero draft is a draft where, truly, anything goes. I write thoughts about my story--what I'm feeling about it, where I want to take it, possible endings, possible beginnings, character notes, possible tags and traits, I scribble out mind-maps, do Venn diagrams. Then, at some point, in the midst off all this messiness, this literary equivalent of a coughing up a hairball, I'll fall into the story.

I'm no longer sitting in my writing chair (or slumped on the couch or lying in bed or sipping coffee at my favorite caffeine dispensary). I'm in the story and I'll look around and see things, story things, and I write these down. I'll be with the characters in the scene, watching it play out around me. This might not last for long, perhaps I've just caught the tail of the story, or glimpsed an eyelash. Whatever. That's my 'in'. That's what I hold onto and follow, and see where it takes me.

Perhaps it'll take me to a dead end. It could. But that's okay. This is the planning processes. Zero draft. No pressure. I go back to writing down my thoughts and doodling and drawing connections and then, at some point, the characters will spring to life again and another scene will unfurl.

Usually this process lasts only a couple, maybe three, days. Long enough to do up an outline, a rough one, and write a few scenes.

Once I get an outline I've got my roadmap. I know where I'm going. (Kinda, sorta.) I'll still have to do character development and a lot of fleshing out, but I've got my starting point, my story.

I'm on my way.

Bootstrapping

I learnt this term in computer science eons ago but I think it also applies to writing.

Originally bootstrapping referred to an impossible task--pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps--but it has been adapted for various areas and undertakings.

The general idea is that one starts with a little something. Not much, but something. Then, through a process that's simple but not easy, you work your way through to a higher, more organized, more complex state.

Think of a lumberjack working his way up a tree. Lumberjacks can climb to dizzying heights by possessing the right tools (iron climbing hooks and rope) and following a certain process.

It's the same with writing. We can bootstrap our way into a finished novel, taking each step at a time, and steadfastly refusing to look down or dwell on how many words are still to be written or get discouraged at all the times we're going to have revise the draft. That's for later. Right now we're just writing this thing, this labour of love and sweat and fear, and we're doing it one word at a time.

In my next post I'll talk more about the process of bootstrapping. Specifically, how you break your novel into tiny, bite-sized, completely unintimidating, pieces.

Till then, good writing!

PS: Chuck Wendig has written a motivating blog post for NaNoWriMo bursting with advice that'll help you get ready for a writing marathon. He writes: "My oft-repeated refrain is that plot is Soylent Green — it’s made of people." True! The article is an educational and entertaining read.

Also, take a look at Chuck Wendig's article, 25 Ways To Plot, Plan and Prep Your Story, for a whirlwind overview of different ways to start writing and to organize what you've written.

Photo credit: "Raccoon Kids" by Ingrid Taylar under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0.