The Mysteries of Outlining and Nesting MICE: Creating Killer Stories

Yesterday I talked about Mary Robinette Kowal's workshop The Mysteries of Outlining and promised to show how this could be used in conjunction with Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient to create killer stories.

Let's get started!

Nesting MICE Story Types

The power of structuring your story with MICE comes through when you start to nest story types. Let me give you an example. Let's say I'm writing a murder mystery. Usually murder mysteries are Idea Stories. They focus on the question: Who killed X and why? In an Idea Story the story is over when the problem--finding the murderer and explaining how the murder was done--is solved. But let's say I want to write my murder mystery as a Character Story rather than an Idea Story.

I can do this. How? By nesting story types.

In my main story I would focus on the widow and her changing role in society (a character structure) but since I want my story to also be a murder mystery I would have an Idea Story subplot where I ask the question: Who killed the widow's husband and why?

Close out subplots in the proper order

When you nest story types it's crucial to close them out in the proper order. I would need to close out the Idea Story subplot first and only then, at the very end of the book, close out the Character Story by showing that the widow had found a new role in society (or, if I was writing a tragedy, that she failed to do so).

If I had ended the story after the murderer was found and before the widow's fate was resolved my story would be incomplete and my readers dissatisfied.

Multiple subplots

Each subplot of your novel can have a different story structure. Just because your main story is, say, an Idea Story, or--as with Lord of the Rings--a Milieu Story, doesn't mean that you can't have subplots that incorporate other story types.

Using Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient to help outline a story

As I mentioned yesterday, Mary Robinette Kowal taught a workshop on The Mysteries of Outlining at SiWC. You don't need to read that post to understand this one, but it might help. In any case, to make things easier to follow I'll include the updated list of actions we developed for the story of Rapunzel:

List of actions:
1. Parents steal a Rapunzel plant
2. Baby born
3a. Witch/enchantress takes baby
3b. Rapunzel locked in tower
5. Grows hair
6a. Prince out hunting
6b.Rapunzel sees prince and calls to him
6. Prince climbs tower
7. Witch discovers Rapunzel has been seeing the prince
8. Rapunzel is tossed out of the tower and left to fend for herself in the wilderness
9. The witch strikes the prince blind
10. Rapunzel and the prince find each other
11. Rapunzel's tears give the prince back his sight
12. Rapunzel and the prince live happily ever after

The question: How are we going to tell this story? Which action will be start with? Where will we draw the line between backstory, story, and postscript? In the wikipedia version of Rapunzel there is no backstory or postscript, all the events from 1 to 12 are included.

So, again, how are we going to tell this story of Rapunzel? We can help decide this question by choosing a story structure. Let's try out each in turn.

Milieu

Let's say we want to tell Rapunzel's story as a Milieu Story. This means our story will begin when our main character, let's say that's Rapunzel, enters a strange new world and that the story will end when she leaves it.

The only way that fits is if we begin the story at (3b) when Rapunzel enters the tower and end it at (8) when she leaves it. We wouldn't throw out points 1, 2 and 3a, they would simply become backstory and we would work them in at the appropriate time. It would be a sadder story, though, because we would leave Rapunzel learning to be free, learning to feed and clothe herself, learning to stay alive in the great wild forest.

The prince's story could be a sub-plot, one we might decide to write as an Idea Story. In this case the question/problem would be: How can the prince free the princess from the tower? The story would end when the question is answered at (8). We would have to change the outline a bit so the prince's arc would end before the story ends at (8) so we would need to swap (8) and (9) in the outline.

Idea

If we were telling this story from Rapunzel's point of view we might be most interested how she'll get away from the witch (question/problem: How will Rapunzel get out of the tower and escape the witch's power?) in which case we'd begin at (3a) with the witch taking the baby and putting her in the unscalable tower. The story would end when Rapunzel left the witch at (8).

Character

If we wanted to write Rapunzel as a Character Story how we began would depend on who we wanted to be our main character. If Rapunzel, we could start when she entered the tower as a baby (3b) or when the prince came into her life (6b), most likely the latter, since it's difficult for a baby to be unbearably dissatisfied with their life! The story would end when Rapunzel found her new role in life as queen at (12).

If we wanted the prince to be our main character we'd start and end the story at roughly the same place, at (6b) and (12).

Event

The Event Story is about the world being out of whack and the main character has to restore order. For this kind of story it would seem easiest to take the prince as the main character. He's out hunting and he sees a beautiful maiden locked in a tower. Perhaps she doesn't call to him, perhaps he hides behind a tree and sees the witch climbing down Rapunzel's golden locks. He becomes outraged at the injustice of keeping a young maiden locked up in a dusty old tower and vows to set things right.

To tell the story this way we'd have to change our outline slightly. Instead of Rapunzel seeing the prince and calling out to him, the prince would see the witch leave the tower and would go and investigate, so we'd need to change (6b). This story would end when the prince had restored order to the world and had taken Rapunzel home to be his wife and queen at (12).

Alternatively we could have Rapunzel realize that being locked in a tower by a witch isn't normal. At the moment she realizes this, at the moment she realizes the woman she had thought of as her mother is actually her jailor, the story would begin--probably somewhere around the time Rapunzel has grown her hair (5). Everything before that would be worked in as backstory. The main story would end when Rapunzel's world was put right and she was part of a family (12).

Choosing a MICE type depending on who you use as a main character

Instead of choosing a story structure and then figuring who we want our main character to be and where the story should begin, we could choose a main character and ask which MICE type would suit that point of view the best.


Well, that's it for this section! Do you have any questions about Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient and how to use it in an outline? If so, please ask!

Tomorrow we'll look at the last of the tools Mary Robinette Kowal introduced in her workshop The Mysteries of Outlining: Yes, but ... / No, and ...

I was wondering, those of you participating in NaNoWriMo, how is your preparation coming along? Any tips or tricks you'd like to share?

Cheers!

This article is part of a series:
- Orson Scott Card & The MICE Quotient: How To Structure Your Story
- Mary Robinette Kowal and The Mysteries of Outlining
- The Mysteries of Outlining and Nesting MICE: Creating Killer Stories (Current article)
- Making A Scene: Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive

Other articles you might like:
- Dialogue: 7 Ways of Adding Variety

- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales

Dialogue: 7 Ways of Adding Variety

Photo by ajari, licensed through the creative commons

Dialogue is important. What would a novel be without dialogue? But dialogue needs to be interesting. Witty.

However, writers are mere mortals and inspiration does not come on tap. (If only!) Here are 7 tricks to help coax the muse out of hibernation.

Thanks go to Marcy Kennedy and her terrific blog post 7 Tricks to Add Variety to Your Dialogue. In deference to Marcy, I'll give her first three points and then let you visit her blog for the rest. Enjoy!

1. Answer a question with a question

"Dear, what did you think of Melinda's dress? I thought it looked stunning!"
"Don't you think dinner parties are an awful bore?"

Perhaps your character doesn't want to answer the question, or perhaps asking a question is a way of answering indirectly or being snide.

2. Put your characters in a jar and shake it: Interrupt 

Everyone has pet peeves, this is mine. I have a soft voice so I guess it's easy to do.

When one character cuts another off it sends the message that either the speaker is an impatient person, that they didn't think what the other person was saying is worth listening to, or both.

If one of your characters is a bit self-absorbed, this is a great way of showing that!

3. Silence
Have you ever asked someone a question and they don't reply? They just stand and look at you? Trust me, it's disconcerting.

Silence is the ultimate conversation stopper. There's nothing to rebut and you're given no clue as to what the other person is thinking or feeling. A door has slammed, cutting you off from one another.

Of course, this works both ways. Someone could fall silent hoping to provoke a reaction, but their silence might be appreciated! That would tell quite a bit about both characters.

To read the rest of Marcy's excellent article, click here: 7 Tricks to Add Variety to Your Dialogue.

The subversion of expectation

One thing I've noticed all 7 points have in common is the subversion of the reader's expectation.

"Subverting the readers expectations" sounds like a bad thing. 'Subversion' conjures up images of something dark and steamy, but it's really a good thing! It engages the reader and keeps them from getting bored.

For instance, when a person answers a question with a question they are doing something unexpected. People are supposed to answer questions when asked, not ignore them and ask their own!

Similarly, when one person interrupts another (grrrr!) they are doing something unexpected. That's good!

Other articles you might like:
- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales
- How to record an audiobook at home
- How To Build A Platform: Why Every Writer Needs A Website

Photo credit: ajari

Mary Robinette Kowal and The Mysteries of Outlining

This post is a continuation of Orson Scott Card & The MICE Quotient: How To Structure Your Story where I explain what Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient is and go through the various structures: Milieu, Idea, Character and Event.

My goal today is to show how MICE can be used when outlining but to get there we first need to be initiated into the mysteries.

How To Create An Outline

This material is based on Mary Robinette Kowal's workshop The Mysteries of Outlining I attended at SiWC this last weekend. Mary has a great website (love the black cat!) and an incredible selection of articles on how to read aloud.

I was going to use a different example from the one Mary used in class--Sleeping Beauty rather than Rapunzel--but she knows what she's talking about and I'm still learning, so I hope Mary won't mind if I use her example.

Please keep in mind I scribbled this in my notebook, there was no handout, so any mistakes are mine, not Mary's.

1) Write down all the events of the story

This is easier for us since we're working from a story, Rapunzel, that's already written. When you're outlining a story being created you'll write down all the events you know take place.

Mary stressed that outlines are fluid and meant to help you as a writer, not to lock you in, so just because something is in your outline doesn't mean you're committed. Mary compared an outline to a roadmap. If you have a roadmap you can see where you're going; it helps you stay on track and to reach your destination without unnecessary detours.

But perhaps you want to detour.

When you're on a roadtrip to Los Angeles from Seattle you can decide to take a detour and see the grand canyon, but it'll cost you. If you think the detour is worth it, then go for it! In fact, you may decide that instead of going to LA you'd much rather go to Vegas. You can do that too, but that's a very different road trip and there will be a cost. Your outline helps you see what that cost will be and evaluate whether it's worth it to you.

To sum up, an outline is a tool to help you reach your goal of finishing your book. It helps you keep track of both where you are and where you want to go. It can also help to reveal plot holes and help you get around them.

List of actions:
1. Parents steal a Rapunzel plant
2. Baby born
3. Witch takes baby
4. Grows hair
5. Prince out hunting
6. Prince climbs tower
7. Witch discovers prince
8. Loss
9. Blindness
10. True love

2) Look for plot holes and fill them in

Look at what you have so far and figure out where the plot holes are, then fill them in.

We need to insert "locked in tower" between (3) and (4) and between (5) and (6) should say something about Rapunzel seeing the prince and trying to attract his attention.

3) Look for duplication

Are any scenes serving the same function? Can you roll them into one?

For instance, we might show Rapunzel is lonely by writing a scene where the girl watches a nest of birds and tearfully waves goodbye to the chicks as they fly away. We could use this scene to show how lonely Rapunzel is, now isolated she feels. We wouldn't then also need a scene where Rapunzel brushes her hair and thinks how lonely it is in the tower. We've done that.

4) Flesh out the scenes

For each event--these will becomes scenes--write down:

a) What happens.
b) When it happens.
c) Where it is.
d) The character arc.
e) The time of day.
f) Who is the main character of the scene.

Outlining: Multiple Points of View

In part (1), above, we wrote down a list of actions. These actions are going to get us from the first event: the parents stealing the witch's plant to the last one, true love. (Mary did a great impression of The Impressive Clergyman in The Princess Bride. If you ever have a chance to take one of her workshops, do! It's a lot of fun. Moving on .... )

Balancing point of view (POV) scenes
For each scene decide which character has the most at stake, that's the POV of the scene. Now look at which characters have POVs and if you need to balance them. To balance things you may need to change what's at stake for a character within a scene.

For instance, lets look at the scene where the prince climbs the tower for the first time. It seems reasonable to write that scene from the prince's point of view because he seems to have the most at stake. He could fall, the witch/enchantress probably would do something nasty to him if she came back and caught him, and so on.

But if we needed for Rapunzel to have the point of view we could talk about how much it hurt to have someone climb your hair and how much she would be in trouble with the witch were the prince discovered.

When NOT to give a character a POV scene
One thing Mary stressed was that if a character has nothing at stake then you don't write a scene from their point of view.

POV and your main character
Keep in mind that, all things being equal, the character you start with will be the character your audience most identifies with and so that is the character you need to end with. For instance, if your first scene is told from Rapunzel's POV then you need to end with a scene from Rapunzel's POV.

Outlining and the MICE Quotient

Wow! This post is a lot longer than I thought it would be.

Although this section was what I had intended to get to, it's what I've been working up to, I think I'm going to leave off and come back tomorrow. My post yesterday was lengthy and contained a lot of information so I don't want to overload anyone.

Please do come back tomorrow and I'll (finally!) talk about how to use the MICE quotient with your outline to create a killer story. :-)

Cheers!


Here are all the articles in this series:
- Orson Scott Card & The MICE Quotient: How To Structure Your Story
- Mary Robinette Kowal And The Mysteries Of Outlining
- The Mysteries Of Outlining And Nesting MICE: Creating Killer Stories
- Making A Scene: Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive

Other articles you might like:

- Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn

Photo credit: Barnaby Kerr Photography

The MICE Quotient: How to Structure Your Story

As I mentioned yesterday, I attended the annual Surrey International Writers' Conference last weekend and am brimming with information from the various workshops I attended. There's so much I want to talk about! First up, let's look at Mary Robinette Kowal's workshop, The Mysteries of Outlining.

Orson Scott Card's MICE Quotient

I heard about Orson Scott Card's MICE quotient before, but I never used it. I'm not sure why. Obviously I hadn't realized how powerful it was, or how to apply MICE to my writing. If you don't immediately understand its relevance either, hang in there. I need to describe MICE before we get into the nitty-gritty of how to apply it to your stories.

This article is too big for one post, so here's how I'm going to break things up. Today I'll talk about MICE. I'm going to try to cover the whole thing, but I may just get half through, depending on how much time I spend on examples. Another post will talk about how to apply MICE to your writing; how to use it. The third, and last, post will discuss another tool Mary discussed: "Yes, but ..." & "No, and ...".

At least, that's the plan! :-)

What is a MICE Quotient? Will it bite?

In his book Characters and Viewpoint Orson Scott Card writes:

[W]hat are the different kinds of stories? Forget about publishing genres for a moment-there isn't one kind of characterization for academic/literary stories, another kind for science fiction, and still others for westerns, mysteries, thrillers, and historicals. Instead we'll look at four basic factors that are present in every story, with varying degrees of emphasis. It is the balance among these factors that determines what sort of characterization a story must have, should have, or can have.

The four factors are milieu, idea, character, and event:

Here's a summary:

MILIEU: A milieu story concerns the world surrounding the characters you create.

IDEA: An idea story concerns the information you intend the reader to uncover or learn as they read your story.

CHARACTER: A character story concerns the nature of at least one of the characters in your story. Specifically, what this character does and why they do it.

EVENT: An event story concerns what happens and why it happens.

Let's examine each of these in turn.

Milieu Story

Start: The story begins when the main character enters the strange new world.

End: The story ends when the main character comes back from the strange new world.

Characterization: less is more

Orson Scott Card writes:

Characterization is not a virtue, it is a technique; you use it when it will enhance your story, and when it won't, you don't.

Focus on the world/setting. If you draw the reader's attention to a character, even your main character, you are taking their attention away from the milieu. In a milieu story it's fine to describe the setting just for the sake of elucidating the world. In other kinds of stories this would be considered padding. Generally readers aren't primarily interested in the world you've created, they want to get to the solution of the puzzle or they want to understand why a certain character is acting a particular way. In a Milieu story, though, your readers are primarily interested in the world you've created, so go for it!

The main character, or characters, of a Milieu story should be 'normal'. That is, they should do what you think anyone would do given the same circumstances. You don't want them to stand out and draw your reader's attention away from the milieu and onto them. In a sense, your characters will be types rather than fully formed individuals because you want them to be typical of certain cultures or social roles that exist within your milieu.

Examples

A pure milieu story is rare. Usually a milieu story is mixed with one of the other three types of stories. For instance JRR Tolkien, in crafting Lord of the Rings, took great care in describing his fictional universe--in many ways that was the main focus--but it was also an idea story.

Frodo needs to get rid of the magical ring Bilbo gave him. He tries to give it to Gandalf but Gandalf adamantly refuses. First Frodo takes it to the elves in the hope they will take up the burden but even they cannot. In the end Frodo realizes he can't rely on anyone else to destroy the ring so he and Sam carry it to Mount Doom.

Orson Scott Card also gives Dune as an example of a Milieu story.

General types of stories that are milieu stories: travelogues, utopian fiction, natural science and westerns.

Idea Story

Start: The story begins when your main character meets an obstacle. They have a problem that must be solved. This gives rise to a question: how will they get around the obstacle?

End: The story ends when the character has answered the question and removed the obstacle.

Characterization: The eccentric problem solver

Since the focus is on a problem, or the idea of how to solve the problem, you don't want your characters to steal the focus. That said, you DO need your characters to be entertaining. Many authors give these kinds of characters eccentric characteristics to help differentiate them and make them more interesting as they go about the main job of the story: solving the problem.

Examples

- Bob needs $100,000 dollars to pay off a loan shark. He plans to rob a bank to get the money. He robs a bank. Bob learns some new skills during the course of the story and decides to blackmail the loan shark into forgiving his debt.

- Mr. Smith is found murdered in a locked room. Five people were near the room at the time of the murder and all five had motive but, apparently, no means. At the end of the story the sleuth discovers one of the five is a magician and able to create a locked room illusion. Case closed.

General types of stories that are idea stories: Allegories, locked room mysteries, bank heist stories, and so on. Anything where the idea is everything.

Character Story

Start: Your main character is unbearably dissatisfied with their role in society and sets about changing it.

End: Your main character either finds a new role, is content to return to their old role or despairs.

Characterization: God is in the details

As you can guess, for a Character Story well-rounded characters are a must. Orson Scott Card writes:

Needless to say, the character story is the one that requires the fullest characterization. No shortcuts are possible. Readers must understand the character in the original, impossible role, so that they comprehend and, usually, sympathize with the decision to change. Then the character's changes must be justified so that the reader never doubts that the change is possible; you can't just have a worn-out hooker suddenly go to college without showing us that the hunger for education and the intellectual ability to pursue it have always been part of her character.

That said, only the main character and any character involved with their decision to change their social role, must be fully characterized. As Orson Scott Card remarked, characterization is a technique. Use it if it will add to your story, otherwise don't.

Examples

- Maria is miserable. Her husband won't allow her to work but, when she needs money to go grocery shopping, he throws a fit. Maria hasn't bought new clothes for herself in ages.

Every day on her way home from the grocers Maria sees a beautiful red dress in the front window of a local boutique. She would love to buy the dress but it's completely out of her price range. One day she discovers the boutique is closing and the red dress has been marked down 90%. Ecstatic over her good fortune she buys the dress and wears it when her husband comes home from work.

Maria's husband throws a fit. Maria tries to tell him she paid next to nothing for the dress but he ignores her and, in a rage, rips the dress off her body, destroying it. Maria discovers she can't live like this anymore and leaves her husband. Maria works her way through school, finds a good job and, after a few disappointing dates, resigns herself to growing old alone and adopts ten cats.

- Danny is a hit man for Killers-Are-Us. One day his boss, Marty, tells him to kill a young girl, a task Danny finds repugnant. Danny has a choice: do his duty or leave his old life behind. Danny chooses the latter and Marty orders his top people to take Danny out.

After evading and dispatching his pursuers Danny realizes he'll be pursued until someone succeeds in killing him. Danny decides to return to his old life but instead of asking Marty for his job back he assassinates Marty and becomes head of Killers-Are-Us.

In this kind of story there needs to be a basic belief that some sort of order should exist in the world. Maria believes the way her husband treats her is wrong and that she'll be able to build a better life. Danny believes that killing children is just plain wrong. Full stop.

Note that Danny's story could also be an Idea Story. Instead of focusing on his changing role in life, we could focus on his idea to get away from his demented boss. In this case, though, the story might end after he'd dispatched the first wave of killers.

I see Danny lean nonchalantly against an alley wall, wipe the blood of his would-be killer from his hand and take a long pull from a cigarette. He exhales and looks down at the bloody bodies of his victims strewn at his feet. Danny then gazes into the distance, sees the next wave of killers coming his way, and smiles. The end.

That could work as an Idea Story, if that's how we'd set it up, but having set it up as a character story, I think the more satisfying ending is either Danny getting away clean and starting a new life, giving in and going back to the old one, or finding--as I've suggested in my example--a third way.

General types of stories that are Character Stories: Romances.

Event Story

Although events happen in every story, the world in an Event Story is out of whack. It is out of order; unbalanced. An Event Story is about the struggle to re-establish the old order or to create a new one.

Start: Your main character tries to restore order to the world.

End: Your main character either succeeds or fails.

Characterization: The level of detail is up to you

In this kind of story you can be as detailed as you like with your characterizations. Orson Scott Card writes:

It's possible to tell a powerful event story in which the characters are nothing more than what they do and why they do it-we can come out of such tales feeling as if we know the character because we have lived through so much with her, even though we've learned almost nothing about the other aspects of her character. (Although Lancelot, for instance, is a major actor in the Arthurian legends, he's seldom been depicted as a complex individual beyond the simple facts of his relationship to Arthur and to Guinevere.) Yet it is also possible to characterize several people in the story without at all interfering with the forward movement of the tale. In fact, the process of inventing characters often introduces more story possibilities, so that event and character both grow.

Examples

- The movie Trading Places is an event story. Here's the tag line: "A snobbish investor and a wily street con artist find their positions reversed as part of a bet by two callous millionaires". The end of the movie comes when the upper-class commodities broker (played by Dan Aykroyd) re-establishes order in his world by besting the bosses who were tormenting him.

Stories that are Event Stories: The Count of Monte Cristo, Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, The Prince and the Pauper, and so on. Orson Scott Card gives many examples in his book, Characters and Viewpoint.

Social Contracts And Your Readers

In every story you make an implicit contract with your reader. For instance, if a murder occurs at the beginning of your story and you focus on characters who have a reason to find out how, why and by whom the murder was committed then your readers will expect to discover how, why and by whom the murder was committed. (Simple, right?) If they don't, they won't be happy with you or the story you've written.

The general rule of thumb is this: Whatever kind of story you start out writing--be it Milieu, Idea, Character or Event--you have to finish writing that same kind of story. For instance, if you start out writing an Idea Story such as the murder mystery I mention, above, then you have to end it like an idea story and not, say, like a character story.

If you said, "Oh and the murderer was never found but the wife of the dead man used the fortune she inherited to transform herself into a world renown art collector," (a Character Story ending) then we would feel cheated because we started reading with the belief we'd find out who the murderer was and why he or she did it.

Nesting MICE

No, we don't need to call an exterminator! This is where we really start to see the power of Orson Scott Card's MICE quotient. Tomorrow I'm going to talk about something Mary Robinette Kowal showed us: how to 'nest' the various story types. I'll also talk about how any story can be retold as just about any of the story types. What varies is who the viewpoint character is, where in the story we start and where we finish.

If that's clear as mud, trust me it will make sense. I'll go into it in much more detail tomorrow.

Cheers! :-)



Here are all the articles in this series:
- Orson Scott Card & The MICE Quotient: How To Structure Your Story
- Mary Robinette Kowal And The Mysteries Of Outlining
- The Mysteries Of Outlining And Nesting MICE: Creating Killer Stories
- Making A Scene: Using Conflicts And Setbacks To Create Narrative Drive


Other articles you might like:
- Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work
- Surrey International Writers' Conference 2012
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn

Photo credit: cygnus921

Donald Maass: Your Writing Matters, Dig Deep And Change The World

Donald Maass gave the final keynote address at this year's Surrey International Writers' Conference. His theme: Your writing matters, dig deep and change the world!

It was the perfect way to end the conference and unleash all 800 of us upon an unsuspecting populace. (grin)

I'm exhausted, but I enjoyed myself immensely. I learnt a ton and had the thrill of recognizing many faces among the crowd and renewing those friendships as well as creating new ones.

I have SO MUCH to tell you! I took notes till my hand ached, but I'll start with that tomorrow.  Right now I'll just say that one of my posts will be about Orson Scott Card's MICE method. Mary Robinette Kowal talked about this in her class on The Mysteries of Outlining.

Let me just say: wow! MICE is going to change the way I write. Ever had trouble deciding how a story will begin? Where it will end? That's always been tricky for me. Often there are several points that could serve as an opening. I've also had trouble with endings. What kind of an ending should it be? WHERE should it be? I have the tendency to start a short story and finish a novel because it just kept going.

I have to stop writing now because I want to publish this before 5 pm pacific time. Talk to you tomorrow.

Cheers! :-)

Other articles you might like:
- Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work
- Surrey International Writers' Conference 2012
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn

Book Review Blogs That Accept Self-Published Work

Book reviews help sell books, but many book review blogs won't review independently published work.

For the past few months I've been thinking about putting together a directory of book review sites that accept indie/self-published books but I haven't been able to find many.

Well! Yesterday I found two database sites that only list blogs that will accept independently published work. These include sites that mainly review traditionally published novels but will evaluate self-published work on a case by case basis. Also, these database sites have a strict policy: no site they list charges for a review.

Book Review Databases That Accept Independently Published Work

The Indie Book Blog Database

Site owner Jennifer Hampton writes:

As an indie/self-published author, getting a book review can be very difficult. With ebook publishing on the rise, many companies are taking struggling independently published authors for granted to cash in on this.  You should never pay for book reviews! A false book review can tarnish your reputation. Having your amazon self published title flooded with reviews that aren’t honest and un-biased can ultimately ruin your writing career. I know how hard it is; I’m a self-published Author myself. Without reviews you can barely get noticed as an author. This is why I’ve developed the Indie Book Blog Database.

At the Indie Book Blog Database you can find hundreds of well-established book blogs that will read and review your books for free! That’s right for free! You may not get your books reviewed over night, many of the reviewers here get flooded with review requests. One thing you have to remember: This is a free service and many reviewers do this for a hobby. (The Indie Book Blog Database, About)

The Indie View

The Indie View "ranks within the Top Ten of Book Review sites on Google, globally". Nice!

To be on this list the Indie Reviewer has to be:

- Actively posting reviews
- Review eBooks
- Not charge for their reviews
- Not be affiliated to a publisher
- Have submission guidelines in place for an Indie author to submit an eBook
- Putting a link back to TheIndieView on their site

Read more here: The Indie Reviewers List.

Book Review Database That May Or May Not Take Indie Published Books

Fyrefly's Book Blog

This is a massive database containing all book blogs. There is no master list of blogs since it contains more than 1,800 book review sites, so you have to use the search function. This is from the "Book Blogs Search" page:

If you’re looking for book reviewers to whom you can pitch your latest book, using the search engine as a search is a more efficient way to go about it than clicking alphabetically down the big list. Just search for a few titles that you consider similar to your book, see which bloggers are coming up in the search results as having reviewed (and liked) them, et voila! A customized, targeted list of bloggers that are predisposed to enjoy your book!

Best of luck!

Other links you might like:
- What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn
- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales
- How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover

Photo credit: Trees for Cyprus - Friend us

Surrey International Writers' Conference 2012

I'm attending my third Surrey International Writers' Conference (#SiWC2012) today but will be back Monday. I'll still post articles Saturday and Sunday. They're already written and the system should (cross fingers) send them out automatically.

I'll try to send updates from the conference, but we'll have to see how that goes.

I haven't decided which workshops to attend, there are so many wonderful choices! Here's Friday's schedule.

Diana Gabaldon

To give you a sense of the conference, here's a link to one of my posts from last year based on Robert J. Wiersema's workshop, Don't Flinch: SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Two: Don't Flinch: Robert Wiersema.

Here is my account of two other workshops I attended last year:
- SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Three: The Psychology of Plotting, Michael Slade
- SiWC 2011 Day One, Part Four: The Inner Journey, Donald Maass

If you have the opportunity to attend a writing conference in your area I highly recommend it. It's wonderful to connect and learn from other writers.

Other articles you might be interested in:
- How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover
- The Best Way To Build A Writer's Platform Is To Write
- What Is Writing? Telepathy, Of Course!

What to do if your book isn't selling: Tips from Johanna Penn

I love Johanna Penn's website, The Creative Penn. Not only does Johanna write fabulous books, but she is the author of hundreds of articles on writing that you can read, for free, on her site. And I highly recommend her blog.

Recently Johanna wrote an article about what to do if your book isn't selling as well as you'd like. Since I've been asked this question too, I give my 2 cents as well as share what Johanna had to say.

1) Make your book available as an ebook

I think this is great advice. Johanna mentions that she doesn't make a print version of her books available anymore because she found it wasn't worth it, and that's perfectly valid, but most authors do try and make a paper version available to their readers since some folks strongly prefer to read a paper book, even if it costs significantly more.

Also, having print copies of your book available can come in handy since some review sites only accept print copies.

2) Have a professionally designed cover

Compare your cover with the covers of books that are selling well in your genre. You want yours to be in the same ballpark--as similar to each of them as they are to each other.

3) Have your book professionally edited

Ideally you would hire a professional line editor or copy editor but, minimally, I think you need to get at least two other people to read your manuscript for errors in logic (eg, calling the same character different names) and typos. Johanna also mentions putting your manuscript aside for a time so you can come back to it with fresh eyes.

I find using a text-to-speech program to read back what I've written helps me catch a multitude of errors, from typos to awkward constructions.

4) Make sure you've categorized your book correctly

It can be difficult to know how to categorize your story. Is it a horror? Scifi? Fantasy? Urban Fantasy? Young Adult? Romance? It's difficult when a book can fall under all these categories. Which should you choose?

My critique group has been enormously helpful in this regard. Your readers can help you categorize your work appropriately.

Johanna suggests finding three to five authors who write books similar to yours and then looking at how they categorize their books.

5) Optimize your Amazon sales page.

Johanna suggests using quotations from reviews and make sure that you give the book's 'hook'. What's a hook? Here's an example, it's the hook for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark:

Archeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the US government to find the Ark of the Covenant before the Nazis. (Raiders of the Lost Ark, IMDB)

I've also heard this called a tag line.

6) Experiment with price

Johanna writes:

Most ebooks are under $9.99, and a lot of fiction is under $7.99, with many indie books being under $5.

An entire book--books even!--could be written on this, but that's a great one paragraph summary.

7) Continually put out new work

Hands down, the best way to market a book is to write more books, especially if your book is part of a series. Johanna writes:

The more books you have available, the more virtual shelf space you have, the easier it is for people to discover you. Plus if a reader finds one they like, they may buy them all so you make more per customer.

8) Promote your book

This is one of the reasons writer's build a platform. If you have a Facebook page, blog, twitter account, newsletter or mailing list then you're halfway there. This is a HUGE topic and I don't want to dash off some glib advice.

Don't constantly bombard your community with news about your new book--that doesn't work and turns readers off--but definitely do announce that you have a new book coming out and perhaps run a promotion for the first few days or weeks. This will help get the word out about your book and will reward your loyal readers, the ones who read your blog and/or subscribe to your newsletter.

9) Submit your book to review sites

Johanna discusses this in great detail and gives wonderful suggestions how to get Amazon reviewers to review your work.

It can be difficult to find book blogs that will review an independently published book, but you can do it, just keep your eyes open for opportunities. Also, check out the Book Blog Directory.

10) Give it time

Johanna's title was: Are you working your butt off? (grin)

Dean Wesley Smith advocates putting your book out on the market and then forgetting about it. Yes, certainly, do the best job you can--which means doing a professional job--but then don't fuss over sales. Write another book. Learn more about the art and craft of writing and the business of writing.

Johanna writes:

I absolutely believe that you can be a great writer and make an income from writing.

I have to believe that for you because I believe it for me, and I have left a stable job and steady income to take a chance on being an author-entrepreneur. I’ve been on this path since 2007 when I decided to write my first non-fiction book, so I am 5 years into working my butt off to change my life.

Johanna goes on to say that this doesn't mean you'll get rich and success will likely only come with time, perhaps a LOT of time. And it won't be easy.

That said, I hope you enjoy the journey. :-)

I encourage you to read Johanna Penn's article: Help! My Book Isn’t Selling. 10 Questions You Need To Answer Honestly If You Want To Sell More Books. She includes copious links to helpful articles.

Other articles you might like:
- 7 Tips On How To Get Your Guest Post Accepted
- Want Help With Editing? Try Free Editing Programs
- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales

Photo credit: Dawn Ashley

Contour Screenwriting Software: Write By Number

A couple of weeks ago I joined John Ward's Google+ group for writers and since then have enjoyed his thought provoking articles and links as well as the fabulous community he's build up.

Today John talked about a writing program I'd never heard of before, and I thought I knew them all. It's called Contour. As John points out, the great thing about Contour isn't the program itself--although that's pretty good--it's the user's guide. The guide steps you through a certain way of structuring your story.

Contour builds story structure through plot points.

A plot point is a discreet, unique and essential chunk of story information. In the hierarchy of scriptwriting it falls out above beats and scenes and just below acts. A linear breakdown is supplied below.

Screenplay > Act > Plot Point > Scene > Beat

So, following a three act structure, here's how it breaks down:

The 4 basic questions behind character development:
1. Who is your main character?
2. What is he trying to accomplish?
3. Who is trying to stop him?
4. What happens if he fails?

Breaking down the 3 act structure:
Act 1:             12 plot points
Act 2, Part 1: 14 plot points
Act 2, Part 2: 14 plot points
Act 3:              4 plot points

Total: 44 plot points
 
Contour helps you step through these 44 plot points and in so doing develops the structure of your story. Let's go through a few.

Plot Point 1: "We need either the Hero, Victim/Stakes Character, or Antagonist"
Here we meet either the hero, the stakes character or the antagonist. The states character is "the face that represents all of the people that the bad guys are victimizing. It's usually someone the hero feels very deeply about." For instance, in Die Hard the states character was the hero's wife, in Star Wars it was the hero's romantic interest, Princess Leia.

Plot Point 2: "We see the Hero's flaw in relation to the Stakes Character"
The hero lacks something essential that he needs if he is to help the stakes character. For instance, in Star Wars, Luke is a poor farmer who doesn't know the first thing about fighting and has never had an adventure. Princess Leia needs someone to rescue her from the bad guy.

Plot Point 3: "Antagonist or someone or something symbolic of the Antagonist"
This is what I'd call: Antagonist onscreen. The antagonist or one of his/her minions enter the story. For instance, in Star Wars Leia is captured by stormtroopers who are the minions of Emperor Palpatine.

Plot Point 4: "The deflector slows the hero down. Pulls him off the path"
In Contour the minions of the antagonist are also known as "deflectors" because they deflect the hero from his goal.

In DIE HARD, Hans Gruber is the antagonist and the long-haired, high-kicking Karl is the main deflector. Almost everyone else are assistant deflectors including the other terrorists, the cops who want McClane to stop interfering, the FBI agents, and the smarmy Ellis.

Plot Point 5: "Inciting Event. Hero now gets emotionally involved"
In other systems this is known as the Call To Adventure. In Star Wars, Luke hears Princess Leia say, "Help me Obi Wan Kanobi, you're my only hope." In The Firm, Mitch McDeere accepts a job offer, in Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark, Indie accepts the job of finding the lost Ark of the Covenant.

The key is that there is emotion involved on the part of the hero. Either, like Indie and Mitch, the hero is excited about embarking on the adventure, or they do it more out of a sense of grudging obligation because it's what has to be done--like Bella in Twilight. Either way, the hero has to feel emotion.

If the hero feels nothing then neither with your readers and that's the point of storytelling!

Plot Point 6: "Hero's goal as it relates to the stakes character and/or love interest. The Hero's problem is made clear to the audience"
The hero has an external and internal problem. The external problem drives the story. For instance in The Firm Mitch's external problem is that he's poor and he wants to become rich through practicing law. His internal problem is that he's still running form the poverty of trailer park he grew up in and he doesn't realize that he already has everything he needs to be happy.

Plot point 6 is where someone, in The Firm it's Abby, turns to the hero and tells them what their internal problem is. This is the thing they'll have to in some way defeat/conquer before the end of the story. (Another good example is in Shrek when Donkey tells Shrek that he needs to let someone in, let someone get close to him.)

Plot Point 7: "Ally (either true or unintentional) aids Hero by propelling him out of the status quo"
For instance, in Titanic Jack Dawson wins his ticket from a someone in a game of cards. Even though they didn't intend to help Jack start his adventure, they have.

Plot Point 8: "The Hero seems ready to move forward toward his goal and/or states character, but can't"
In other systems this is called, Refusal of the Call to Adventure. The hero looks at the adventure laid out for them and says, "Thanks, but no thanks." In Star Wars Luke tells Obi-Wan that he can't help him because he has to help his uncle and aunt with their farm. He has duties, responsibilities, he can't shirk.

Summary
There are 36 more plot points! Don't worry, I won't go through them all. You can download the users guide and read the rest (I gave the link, above). I haven't covered the entire richness of how Contour helps sculpt your outline, but hopefully I've given you a taste. You can download a free trial copy of Contour. It's fully functional for a month and then you have to decide whether to buy it. Contour sells for $39.99 on Amazon.com.

My feeling is that the 44 plot points may be too fine grained and that not all of them are necessary for every story. That said, it does make interesting reading, especially if you're stuck at a certain point in your story. Let's say your hero needs to do something, something needs to happen, but you're not sure what. I find stepping through one of these schemes (see also Michael Hauge and Christopher Vogler), these formulas, gives me ideas and helps me get past the conceptual block.

Other articles you might like:
- Amazon Ranks Authors In Terms Of Their Book Sales
- How To Design A Great Looking Book Cover
- On The Art Of Creating Believable Characters: No Mr. Nice Guy

Query Letters: How To Write Them And Who To Send Them To

Query letters, summaries, tag lines, blurbs: sometimes I think this kind of writing is as hard as writing a novel!

Fortunately there are writers like Chuck Sambuchino willing to lend a helping hand. He writes:

When contacting agents, the query process isn’t as simple as “Just keep e-mailing until something good happens.” There are ins, outs, strange situations, unclear scenarios, and plenty of what-have-you that block the road to signing with a rep.

Chuck Sambuchino mentions agents, but query letters can be sent to editors too. Though there are fantastic agents there are also a bushel-load of not very good ones and these days it is possible to have a career as a writer without an agent. If you'd like to read more about this, here are a few great articles on the subject:

Dodging the Agent Bullet and Agents, by Laura Resnick
Deal Breakers 2012 by Kris Rusch,
Agent Fail by Joe Konrath
But Why Would You… Ever Need an Agent in this New World? and Agents by Dean Wesley Smith

Okay, on to the good stuff! Here are Mr. Sambuchino's first four questions and answers about query letters:

1. Can you query multiple agents at the same agency?

Generally, no. A rejection from one usually means a rejection from the entire agency. If you query one agent and she thinks the work isn’t right for her but still has promise, she will pass it on to fellow agents in the office who can review it themselves. Agents work together like that.

2. Can you re-query an agent after she rejects you?

You can, though I’d say you have about a 50/50 shot of getting your work read. Some agents seem to be more than open to reviewing a work if it’s been overhauled or undergone serious edits. Other agents, meanwhile, believe that a no is a no—period. So, in other words, you really don’t know, so you might as well just query away and hope for the best.

3. Do you need to query conservative agent for a conservative book? A liberal agent for a liberal book?

I asked a few agents this question and some said they were willing to take on any political slant if the book was well written and the author had platform. A few agents, on the other hand, said they needed to be on the same page politically with the author for a political/religious book, and would only take on books they agreed with. Bottom line: Some will be open-minded; some won’t. Look for reps who have taken on books similar to yours, and feel free to query other agents, too. The worst any agent can say is no.

4. Should you mention your age in a query? Do agents have a bias against older writers and teenagers?

I’m not sure any good can come from mentioning your age in a query. Usually the people who ask this question are younger than 20 or older than 70. Concerning an age bias, I would say some agents may be hesitant to sign older writers because reps are looking for career clients, not simply individuals with one memoir/book to sell. If you’re older, write multiple books to convince an agent that you have several projects in you … and don’t mention your age in the query to be safe.

Excellent advice! Read the rest of Chuck Sambuchino's article here: 9 Frequently Asked Questions About Query Letters. Thanks to Elizabeth S. Craig for tweeting a link to Chuck's article.

Another person with loads of marvelous information on how to write a query letter is former agent Nathan Bransford. Here are links to a few of his articles on the subject:
- How to Write a Query Letter
- How To Format a Query Letter
- Example of a Good Query Letter
- Example of a Good Query Letter II
- Example of a Good Query Letter III
- Holiday Cheer: Anatomy of a Really Bad Query Letter
- My Query Letter for JACOB WONDERBAR

If you don't read any other article about writing a query letter, read this one: Query Letter Mad Lib. In it Nathan gives a template for writing query letters. He writes:

Well, we're going to play query letter mad lib today. Here's how it works.

First I'm going to need these things:

[Agent name], [genre], [personalized tidbit about agent], [title], [word count], [protagonist name], [description of protagonist], [setting], [complicating incident], [verb], [villain], [protagonist's quest], [protagonist's goal], [author's credits (optional)], [your name]

Now, look how your query turns out:

Dear [Agent name],

I chose to submit to you because of your wonderful taste in [genre], and because you [personalized tidbit about agent].

[protagonist name] is a [description of protagonist] living in [setting]. But when [complicating incident], [protagonist name] must [protagonist's quest] and [verb] [villain] in order to [protagonist's goal].

[title] is a [word count] work of [genre]. I am the author of [author's credits (optional)], and this is my first novel.

Thank you for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes,
[your name]

Best of luck writing your query letter! :-)

Other articles you might like:
- Query Tracker: Keep Track Of Your Stories
- Indie vs. Traditional Publishing, Which Should You Choose?
- How To Sell 100 Books Per Day: 6 Things You Need To Do

Photo credit: davide vizzini